Priest of Bones

by Peter McLean

  Anne nodded. “Aye, Cutter then, in the corporal’s role.”

  That sounded good, to me. The right man for the right job.

  * * *

  • • •

  The wagons finally arrived on Queensday afternoon. There were two of them, with canvas covers over their cargos and ten men in all between them. Rosie was there to meet them, and although she was making a show of having come to see Anne on her afternoon off somehow we all ended up in the stable yard of the Tanner’s. We stood there watching these strange, hard-faced men unload crates and barrels and carry them into the storeroom.

  “Well, this is a to-do, Tomas,” Ailsa said. “I’m sure I don’t know where we’ll sleep all these fine lads, but then I doubt they’ll be staying long.”

  I didn’t get to keep them, then. That was what she was telling me. I supposed that shouldn’t have surprised me. These men were trained soldiers, professional career army by the look of the way they carried themselves, not just conscript veterans like us. This was a loan from the Queen’s Men, nothing more.

  “No,” I said. “They probably won’t.”

  Once the weapons were stowed, Ailsa distracted Anne with some chatter or other while the leader of the new men spoke to Rosie, and I saw a purse move from her hand to his. Then it was done, and she was back at Anne’s side.

  “Don’t you go making eyes at her,” Rosie teased Ailsa, and she and Anne set off arm in arm together for an afternoon stroll while the weather was still fine.

  I followed the leader of the soldiers into the storeroom, and a moment later Ailsa joined us.

  “My name is Tomas Piety,” I said, holding out a hand to him.

  He looked at it for a long moment, and he didn’t move.

  “So what?” he said.

  “So he’s the man you’re here to serve.”

  Ailsa’s voice cracked like a whip in the dim room. She took a step toward the soldier and opened her belt pouch. Her fingers dipped inside and came out holding a thick piece of folded leather. She opened it and showed the man what was inside, and he visibly paled.

  He saluted and clicked his heels, the great fool, right there in my storeroom.

  “Captain Larn, ma’am. Queen’s Own Third Regiment, sapper company,” he said.

  “You’re just Larn, here,” she said. “No ranks, and no saluting. And definitely no heel clicking. Take the broomstick out of your arse, Captain. You’re supposed to be a criminal.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “Ailsa,” she corrected him, and her voice changed all at once. “Just Ailsa, sir, a simple barmaid and Mr. Piety here’s fancy woman, begging your pardon.”

  Larn narrowed his eyes at me, and I showed him an emotionless smile. I was going to have to watch this one, I could tell.

  “Let’s try again,” I said. “My name is Tomas Piety.”

  I held out my hand once more, and I knew that if he didn’t take it this time I was going to stab him.

  Larn took my hand and gave it a brusque shake.

  “Larn, sir,” he said.

  I nodded. That was good. One step at a time.

  “Get your men settled in, Larn,” I said. “It’s cramped, but we’ll manage. It’s no worse accommodation than we had at Abingon, I promise you.”

  He looked at me then, and I saw something in his eyes that said I had made a start toward common ground between us. That was how it was done.

  “That’s good to know,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Aye,” I said. “You’ll have had a long journey, I know. There’s beer and brandy in the tavern, food in the kitchen, and no charge for my friends. Let your men rest. Tomorrow night, there’ll be work for you.”

  Larn gave me a short nod and stalked out of the room. He wasn’t quite marching, but it wasn’t far off it.

  I gave Ailsa a look.

  “Are they all going to be like him? Because if they are, it’ll be a fucking miracle if there isn’t a fight before sunset.”

  “No, I doubt it,” she said. “His men are sappers, tunnelers and demolition experts. They are most likely as, ah, earthy, shall we say, as your own men are. Captain Larn is a professional commissioned officer and the second son of a minor noble in the capital, with nothing to inherit, everything to prove, and no one to prove it to. He is what I believe you would call a pain in the arse.”

  I snorted laughter. Hearing Ailsa speak like a barmaid in her aristocrat’s voice struck me as funny, but I could see from the expression on her face that she wasn’t joining me in amusement.

  “Are you listening to me?” she went on. “These are demolition experts, not rangers. You want to send them on a knife job, to infiltrate this factory of yours? That’s not the right man for the right job, Tomas.”

  “It’s a job any soldier should be able to turn his hand to,” I argued. “These are just Gutcutter scum, not army sentries. If they can’t do this, then I won’t trust them with the explosives. Anyway, I’m putting Cutter in charge; he’ll see them right.”

  “Captain Larn will take that extremely ill,” she cautioned me.

  “Let him,” I said.

  I already disliked Larn, but if he was any sort of soldier at all, then to my mind he would respect the chain of command and do what he was fucking told.

  FORTY-THREE

  I sent them out the next night, as I had said. It seemed strange to send a raid off and not be with them, but then this wasn’t Abingon anymore. This was Ellinburg, and in Ellinburg I was a prince. Princes don’t lead raiding parties, and they don’t crawl under waterwheels in freezing temperatures to smash weaving looms with hammers.

  The Stables had been different. I had been lacking men, then, and that had been personal. This was just business, and I had good men to take care of business for me. Cutter had briefed his crew in short, hard sentences that left even Captain Larn in no doubt as to who was in charge. Larn might be a career officer but Cutter was a professional murderer, and this sort of work was his bread and beer.

  They headed out in a silent column, in leather but without their mail, wrapped in old cloaks that they could throw away before they went into the water. I saw Anne watching them leave from across the tavern, and once the door was closed behind them she came and sat with me.

  “Rather them than us, I have to say,” she admitted. “It’s fucking freezing out there.”

  It was, but sappers are hardy men and once they had done the job there would be no shortage of good cloth in the factory to dry themselves on and wrap around them until they got their warmth back. This late there would be no one there but Gutcutter guards, so their instructions were simple.

  Kill everyone, break everything.

  That would cripple the factory, enrage the guild of mercers, and turn the workers against the Gutcutters. That last was important, to my mind. From what Ailsa had told me, a large part of the Skanians’ plan involved gathering the street-level support of the workers of Ellinburg. Put them out of work, and where would that leave their loyalties? Not to the Gutcutters, that was for certain.

  I knew it would mean hardship for some in the Wheels, but if everything went to plan that would only be for a short while. Anything can be endured for a little while, every soldier knows that, and they weren’t my people. Not yet, anyway.

  “Aye,” I agreed. “It’s harsh work, but it wants doing.”

  “Does it?” Anne asked me. “I thought we’d be done, once you had the Stink back.”

  I didn’t need Anne starting on me the way that Enaid had, but just then Fat Luka joined us at the table and showed Anne a wide smile.

  “That’s a lovely coat, Anne,” he said, nodding to her latest purchase that hung draped around her shoulders.

  It was, at that.

  “What of it?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing, nothing. I’m just observi
ng that you’ve bought yourself a very nice coat. You’ll have bought that with money you earned in the Pious Men, I don’t doubt. I saw that Rosie had a new necklace around her throat too, a fine piece of goldwork. I’d be surprised if she bought that for herself, or accepted it as a gift from anyone but you.”

  Anne scowled and said nothing.

  “That money you’re spending comes from the business, and the more businesses we have, the more money we all make, isn’t that right, Tomas?”

  “It is,” I allowed.

  Luka was right, of course, but I was surprised all the same.

  If anyone starts disagreeing with me or questioning my orders, I want you to explain to them why they’re wrong.

  I had told Fat Luka that, back in the spring, but I’d never thought to see him argue the point with Bloody Anne. Luka was a good man, and he took his job very seriously. He could be persuasive too, I knew that. Very persuasive indeed.

  “I know,” Anne said, and swallowed her brandy. “It’s just . . . it’s more violence, Tomas. More killing. I thought once we had your old streets back we’d be more like a ruling garrison than a fighting force, that’s all.”

  The Pious Men are businessmen, but you’ve turned them into soldiers.

  “We will be,” I promised her. “We will be, once Aditi is done. I can’t share the city with her, Anne, not anymore. You’ve seen what sort of businesses she runs, and the sort of men her backers have brought against us. The foreign witches.”

  That was cheap of me, I knew. I hated having to manipulate Anne, of all people, but the crown’s will had to be served and if that meant doing things that I didn’t like, then so be it. That was the lighter of the two evils balanced in my hands. It was cheap of me, but it worked. Anne’s jaw tightened at the very word, and she gave me a sharp nod.

  When you lead, you have to know the levers that move a person.

  * * *

  • • •

  Cutter and his men came back an hour before sunrise. I was waiting up, with Ailsa and Black Billy for company, and we had kept the fire burning high. I had thought it would be welcome, later. The others had long since gone to their beds, save for Stefan, who had the watch out back.

  There was a soft rap on the door and Billy looked through the sliding hatch, then opened the lock and let them in. Cutter and his crew filed into the room, and I counted them all back safe. They were bedraggled and damp and frozen, and they smelled bad from the river water, but they were all back and that was the important thing. Captain Larn had a look on his face that told me he had done things that night that he had never done before.

  A professional officer he might have been, and a sapper too, but I’d have bet good silver that he had never met a man quite like Cutter before. I knew that I hadn’t. Sappers were brave men, and they had done some of the harshest work in Abingon. Undermining the walls to set charges, fighting in the stifling confines of narrow, crumbling tunnels, that was the stuff of nightmares.

  But so was Cutter, to my mind.

  The man seemed to have no emotions, no desires, no soul. I still had no idea what levers moved Cutter, but if you wanted someone killed quietly and without anyone seeing, then he was the right man for the job.

  Black Billy locked the door behind them and they started stripping off sodden leather and ruined wool in front of the fire. They huddled around the warmth in fresh, dry blankets, shivering.

  “It’s done,” Cutter said, and he spat on the floor to show me what he thought of that.

  “How many were they?” I asked.

  Cutter frowned.

  “Ten, twelve. Dunno. All dead. Smashed the looms like you said, broke the gears and spindles and threw the hammers in the river afterward. Place is fucked.”

  That was all he had to say, and he made that plain by walking away to warm himself in front of the fire with the other men. The sappers made room for him there, and I noticed they left a respectful distance around him that spoke of a quiet, underlying fear. When sappers fear a man, that man is to be feared indeed.

  I wondered again exactly where Cutter had come from, and how he had ended up in Jochan’s crew.

  Ailsa took my arm and ushered me through to the kitchen.

  “You did well not to go with them,” she told me, using her own voice now that we were alone. “You need to distance yourself now, Tomas, and you need to do it at once.”

  I frowned at her.

  “Distance myself? How do you mean that?”

  “This is a war fought on two fronts,” she said. “On the streets, yes, but also in the arena of politics. You have men enough to fight in the streets; you don’t need to join them anymore. What you don’t have is anyone you can put in front of the governor and the nobility. You’ll need to do that yourself.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” I asked. “I don’t move in their circles.”

  “Then start,” she said. “You’re a rich man now, Tomas. You need to enter society.”

  “Has Ellinburg got society?”

  “Not particularly, but it’s a place to begin. Governor Hauer is a bloated warthog of a creature who thinks he is thrice the man he is, but obviously his position has connections to Dannsburg. Attend a reception here, a ball there, at which I shall dazzle and you shall intrigue, and before you know it we will be in the capital and you will find the ears of more important men.”

  “I see,” I said. “And how would I go about that?”

  “The important thing is that you remove yourself from the immediate business of the Pious Men before things start exploding all over the Wheels,” she said. “There will be no coming back from that, if you or your family are implicated in the resulting carnage. We need to move fast. We will need a house, of course. Something grand, off Trader’s Row. And obviously we shall have to marry.”

  I stared at her in astonishment.

  “Marry?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “I am a lady of court, or at least I am when I choose to be. I can hardly be seen to entertain a provincial bachelor out of wedlock. If I were to produce a husband, though, with mysterious wealth and connections to industry, then yes. That would be entirely acceptable.”

  “I see,” I said again. Marry Ailsa? The idea wasn’t without its obvious charms, I had to admit, but I hadn’t expected this. “I need to think about this.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said. “You just need to do it. We’re already doing it, in fact. One of my representatives completed the lease of a suitable house yesterday. Servants are being hired, and furnishings purchased. The date of the wedding has been set.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I started to say, but she cut me off with a look.

  “I don’t have a minute,” she said. “I have the Queen’s Warrant, Tomas, and you will do what I tell you. I can’t keep those sappers forever, and we have to hit the Skanians soon. You cannot be implicated in that if you are to become a respectable member of society. Which you will.”

  There was a first time for everything, I supposed.

  Ailsa started to explain exactly what she meant about us getting married, about timing, and about how people needed to be able to prove they had been in a certain place at a certain time, and I felt a grim smile form on my face.

  Oh, yes, she was a Queen’s Man all right. If I had ever met anyone more dangerous than Cutter, I realized, it was Ailsa.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Three nights later all Hell broke loose.

  We had no warning. The first I knew of anything wrong was when a man charged into the Tanner’s Arms with his face bloodied and the coat on his back in scorched tatters.

  “Gutcutters!” he shouted, and never mind that the tavern was full of customers. “They’re attacking the Chains!”

  “Fuck!” I shouted, and rounded on Fat Luka. “Where was our intelligence?”

  Luka had gone pale in t
he face, and he had no answer to give me.

  Bloody Anne was already on her feet and shouting orders. Black Billy and Simple Sam were throwing customers out as fast as they could while men ran around getting into their leather and mail and fetching their weapons. Captain Larn and his men I tasked with holding the Tanner’s and guarding the precious weapons they had brought with them. I had Luka stay there too, and Black Billy. Everyone else was armed and ready in record time.

  “Jochan, you’ll lead the counterattack,” I said.

  He nodded, and I saw the savage gleam in his eye. He was the right man for the right job, I knew that. It was time to unleash the mad dog whether I liked it or not. Jochan picked eight men, Cutter included, and they charged out of the tavern and were on their way to the Chains no more than ten minutes after the alarm had been raised. I looked at Bloody Anne.

  “You’re with me, with young Billy and the rest,” I said. “Larn, hold here at all costs.”

  Ailsa grabbed my arm as I buckled the Weeping Women around my waist.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed at me. “Distance yourself, I said.”

  I gave her a hard look.

  “Fuck. That.”

  I wrenched my arm free and led my crew out into the biting cold.

  “Chandler’s Narrow?” Anne said, and the look on her face was almost pleading.

  I nodded.

  “Aye.”

  It was their obvious second target, and of course Anne knew that. Her Rosie was there, and all the other women, with only Will the Wencher and Sir Eland to protect them.

  We ran.

  As we came up the steps of the narrow I could see we were too late. The front door of the stew was hanging open on one hinge and there was a body sprawled in the courtyard outside the closed chandler’s shop, lying half in the light of the single lantern. He was no one we knew, so I simply stepped over him and went inside with Remorse and Mercy in my hands.