The butcher told us all of this when we met him—a polite enough man who spoke like he was cutting meat with his tongue and didn’t know the difference between Erin and Imam. He described Rachel as a pretty bird with weird clothes and the brother as just another street thug beating his life down to dead with bats hacked from paving stones. Such a pretty, strange thing hanging to him for nothing good but that’s how it always is around the Pens.
***
“Hey, Djoss, are you still here?”
“I’m here.”
“Good. I made rent. Don’t ask me how, okay?”
“You never ask me. How did you do it?”
“Just don’t ask.”
“Was it bad?”
“It was the best thing ever happened in my life, I think, and the worst. I’ll never see him again. And I feel awful about it. Anyway, you’re going to stay away from the hookah, okay? You can’t go anywhere near it anymore.”
“It’s everywhere.”
“Not for you. Did you get any clothes for me? I’m running threadbare, Djoss. I’m feeling the breeze where I don’t want to be feeling anything at all.”
“I’ll try, Rachel. I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s the best you can give me? That’s it?”
“I promise I’ll do my best.”
“Please, Djoss,” she said, “Please.”
“It’s hard,” he said. “You don’t know how bloody Elishta much I want it all the time. It’s so bloody hard.”
“Please,” she said. “We can leave any day, okay? We can leave right now. Please, can we just go?”
“I like it here,” he said. He rolled over. I think this was the last time he had the bed before he sold that. Maybe he had already sold it. Inside the shape of things, making the best gestures I can from what I can see and smell and remember and know. Had he sold the bed? Was he on the floor? Did any of this happen like it did?
I could ask the butcher if he had already sold the bed to smoke the hookahs. The butcher would know.
My husband can sense my indecision.
It doesn’t matter if it feels true to the Rachel he knew. Write it down, move on, and we will find her.
How far gone was her brother? Had he sold the bed?
It’s not important.
If he sold the bed, he was much farther than even Jona knew. How could he go north?
I don’t know. It’s not important. What Jona knows is what you know. What Erin wills for us to know from these things we learn, we know. And, what we think is true is close enough for the hunt. Trust your instincts. Write it down. What do you feel, beloved?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe that’s what I’m feeling about the bed.
None of it matters, for Rachel is gone. She and her brother ran north across the red valley when Jona died.
CHAPTER 5
Jona believed Rachel, but he had been doing the job too long to take any bird’s words at their face value. As soon as she left, he got dressed and left, too. It was something he could do. His chest felt like Geek was sitting on it, but he didn’t know what to do about that. He had to do something. He had to get out and be out and act. Checking her word was something to do. Checking her honesty seemed important, to him, as well, in a way he couldn’t describe. He had to know if she was just taking his money for its sake, or if she was really being honest to him. Jona did not have the experience in love to understand these things. He pulled his clothes on and stormed into the street. He scowled all the way to the abandoned brewery he thought she meant.
A light rain rolled through. Generations of fish had hatched from their eggs in the season of rainstorms, feeding on the filth and silt and trash that filled their seaweed sanctuary.
The fish grew up big on trash, until a fisherman’s net pulled them from the water, and a fisherman doused the fish in salty brine.
And Jona stopped a shopgirl with salted halibut in a bucket. He ate while he walked. He tossed the bones and tail into the street where it would be washed in the rain to sea, his demon-stained spittle seeping into the natural cycles of the city’s discarded things.
He arrived at the empty brewery, seeing nothing, and sat among the folks waiting for a ferry like he was supposed to keep an eye on them today. He yawned. He looked around like he was watching for droppers and cutters and pickpockets.
And where he stood he watched the corners of his eye for ragpickers. He listened for the clanging of a scrap forge.
When the crowds got bad, he ambled around like he was just keeping the order. He watched for anyone with a crown. He peeked into the alleys running beside the building to the water.
He saw the three copper crowns on the side of a metal tub. He saw the ashy lips where many scrap metals burned off their impurities.
If he set foot in the ruined brewery alone in his uniform, he probably wouldn’t get too far in the dark, where he didn’t know what trouble was inside except that it preferred not to be disturbed. He sat down within earshot. He waited to hear the clanging of the craftsman. That didn’t take too long.
Jona peeked around the corner. He saw the boys beside the giant man and the faint whiff of demon weed beneath a trash fire.
He saw the crowns being forged for demon weed, and handed out like treasure to boys that were not a gang anymore, just boys—wild mudskippers running through the streets and begging and stealing and eating anything they found like little wild dogs.
***
“Nic, we gotta talk.”
“Talk nothing,” said Calipari. He didn’t look up from his reports. “You’re on walkabout today, Jona.”
Jona sat down on the edge of a scrivener’s desk. The scrivener leaned back in his chair and cursed at Jona for sitting on the scrivening. Jona ignored the private. “I got a birdie singing a song on the Three Kings, Nic. I put together two and two. I paid ’em for their trouble on account of it being true, and I’ll need to be reimbursed for it. I found the scrap forge where they’re making crowns. Whatever they were, they’re nothing now. Their leaders are already dead. It’s just boys buying crowns. Nothing more.”
Calipari put down his quill. “Nevermind walkabouts,” he said. He stood up. “Call the boys back, Corporal. Hey, scriveners, go call the boys back!” Calipari looked Jona in the face. “This the center?”
Jona sighed. “Yeah, but like I said…”
Calipari clapped his hands. “So, we mousetrap it, and the king’s navy for all of them we catch,” he said. “Where is it?”
Jona wasn’t as happy as Calipari. Jona’s shoulders sagged. His face begged forgiveness. His voice was calm and slow. “Mousetrap won’t work,” he said.
“Mousetraps work,” said Calipari, “Show me, and I’ll set it and you’ll see. Every mousetrap’s a bit off.”
“I’ll show you, but the leaders are already gone. It’s just a bunch of kids with crowns and whistles. I don’t think they’re even running pinks anymore, on account of their source got rolled,” said Jona. “You know our boy Bially?”
“What about him?” said Calipari. He folded his arms.
“Bially was running his pinks to Turco,” said Jona. Jona moved a finger in the air like connecting all the dots. “Turco was running the pinks to all the mudskipper boys. The mudskippers call themselves Three Kings and they start marking turf because they’re dumb kids and they start blowing whistles and smacking folks around, acting tough.”
Calipari cocked his head. “You found Turco, then?”
“Turco’s rolled,” said Jona, “Turco’s been dead weeks. Heard it from my best, he’s dead and rolled, and I believe her. Turco was too pink to hide this good, and you know it. He’s rolled. The other fellow running is out, too, on account of the kids getting stupid. Anyway, he’s so pink he’s cheese-for-brains any day now if we just wait him out. The only one left is probably cheese-for-brains, too, but he’s still down with the ragpickers. He makes the scrap crowns for the kids and they keep his pipe full, and he’s nothing to nobody, and not a mudskipper
knows up from down anymore. This last king got no tongue, no ears, no nose. Everybody calls him Dog.”
“Dog?” said Calipari, “I know a fellow name of Dog. Heard about him, anyhow. Big fellow, and a real rowdy tough. Been working muscle at the red doors since before I was a scrivener.”
Jona lowered his voice. He leaned forward. “There’s nothing anymore, but a bunch of ragpickers, Nic,” he said, “We’re busting it trying for these kids and there’s nothing. We can mousetrap ’em, but the only ones that come back to the center want a crown. The ones that got crowns don’t come back to the center, so we can’t mousetrap anybody worth taking.”
Nicola hadn’t uncrossed his arms. “Show me,” he said.
Jona stood up. He brushed off the salt that had gotten on his uniform from the scrivener’s desk. “Tell your fellows that there’s nothing there,” he said, “Give ’em Dog. Maybe they ease off, and give the kids time to fade.”
Nicola reached behind his desk to put away his quill. He reached for weaponry. “Jona, show me,” he said, “Let’s go.” Calipari pointed at the scrivener whose desk Jona had been sitting on. “Hey new kid, you too. Grab a bat. You know how to swing a bat, new kid? They teach you that where you come from?”
***
Jona led Calipari around the side of the brewery to the scrap forge where one metal tub was marked with ash and flecks of bronze. Dirty smoke crept out of the tub into the skyline.
Nicola told the new kid to touch the side.
The new kid—Jona didn’t remember the kid’s name—had a thin black moustache and small eyes set deep in his skull. He probably couldn’t grow a full beard, yet. He looked foolish with the moustache. He reached out a glove to the side of the metal can.
He pulled his finger away, and shook it. “It’s hot, Sergeant,” he said.
Nicola laughed. “Of course it’s hot,” he said, “Didn’t you see the smoke? Don’t be an idiot. If I tell you to do something stupid, don’t do it. You’re no soldier anymore. I need all my boys to stay alive. There’s no medals in the Pens. There’s king’s work, there’s funerals, and there’s fun in between and there’s nothing else.”
Jona snorted. “He was a soldier?”
Nicola shrugged. “See how he ain’t answering your question because you directed it at me and we’re both higher rank? The kid’s got lots to learn about the Pens before he can walkabout with you tossers.”
Jona thumbed at the door. “Maybe the soldier’ll be rough with a bat like a rolling pin. Our boy Dog’s in there.”
“You ever talk to Dog?” said Nicola.
Jona squinted. “I don’t think so.”
“You think he’s dumb?”
Jona shrugged. “If he was smart, he wouldn’t have lost his tongue, and that was before he was a pinker. I don’t know how dumb he is now.”
Inside the brewery, Calipari and Jona and the new private looked in the slanting light that slipped through the cracks in the ruined walls. A boy cooked a rat over a small fire. Dog was asleep, like a pile of rotten meat and mud that breathed. He looked like death. He looked like misery. He looked like the trash and the boys huddled against the giant had all become one, stinking entity of filth. Dog’s face smiled in his sleep. He was dreaming of something that made his nightmare face smile.
A boy apart from the sleepers, cooking his supper, didn’t look up from his rat. “I ain’t sharing with you, king’s man,” he said, “I caught it. Catch your own rat.”
“We’re looking for the Three Kings,” said Calipari, “You running with the Three Kings?”
“You’re in the wrong place, king’s man.”
Jona leaned against the wall. “You don’t mind if we sit here,” said Jona, “and see who shows up?”
The boy looked at his rat like nothing else in the room was real. “Dog won’t like to wake up with you here unless you bring him something. I won’t share my rat.”
Nicola crossed his legs and sat down on the ground, next to that boy. “I ain’t here about rats,” said Nicola, “I’m looking for kings. Let’s say I wanted to get me a crown like you tough boys around the Pens.”
The boy chortled with a deep voice, like a man. “You want a crown, king’s man?” he said, a boy again, “You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying,” said Nicola, “this lady I been on with has herself a son. He’s growing up tough, like you mudskippers out here in the Pens. He wants a crown. How do I get one?”
“You’re a king’s man,” said the boy. “Take one. That’s what you king’s men do. If I could stop you, I wouldn’t have let you in.”
Calipari laughed. “How else?” he said.
The boy with the rat looked over at Dog. “He makes ’em if you bring him something.”
“What?”
“He won’t make anything unless you give him something. You rolling him for it?”
“No,” said Nicola.
The boy pulled his dead rat off the fire with two scraps of wood. He picked at it with his bare hands like a hairy chicken wing.
“Where you from, mudskipper?” said Nicola, to the boy.
He shrugged. “Ma said we were from a farm, once.”
“Where’s your ma?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Just you, then?”
“I got two brothers. I don’t know where they are, but they’re around.”
“You know a fellow name of Turco?”
The boy smiled. “I knew the fellow. He’s been gone a while.”
“We know,” said Nicola. “We were looking for him.”
The boy snorted. “You check the water, king’s man? You check the bay?”
Jona nodded at Calipari. Calipari got thoughtful. He looked at the sleeping heap of a man on the floor.
Nicola, deep in thought, snapped his hand at the soldier in the Pens.
“Sir?”
“Go get me some demon weed, soldier.”
“Sir?”
Jona rolled his eyes. “You heard the sergeant. You need me to come along and hold your little hand? If we’re going to be waking this Dog, we’re going to need to feed his appetites or we’re in for a tustle, and you ain’t ready for a tustle in this pit. You don’t even know what else is hiding around here in the dark, and neither do I, and I don’t want to find out.”
The new kid looked away from Jona with no hate in his eyes. “Why?” he said.
Nicola took a deep breath and spoke slowly, calmly. “We’re going to need him to make as many crowns as he can,” said Calipari, “This kid’s eating rats and talking about his missing ma, and if we don’t do something, kids like this roll into the river. So we need more crowns. As many as we can get.”
The kid swallowed a chunk of his rat. “What’re you talking about, king’s man? I don’t need a thing from a thing, and I don’t need a thing from you.”
“Never you mind, mudskipper,” said Calipari, “How’s that rat?”
“Good,” said the boy, “You bring me one I’ll cook it for you. Don’t charge for it, either, on account of us being friends.” He spit out a bone in the general direction of Calipari.
Nicola smiled at the kid. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
***
When Dog rolled awake and peeled the clumps of mud off his skin and gummed his pipe like it was full and lit, Sergeant Nicola Calipari was there, with the weed. Calipari said, “Just because you can’t speak, don’t mean you’re dumb. We got this problem, and we need to talk about it. You understand?”
Dog nodded.
Calipari told Dog that the smugglers were going to come down on the boys with crowns if the boys didn’t stop wearing them, or otherwise if the smugglers figured the boys weren’t really a gang at all and the crowns were just a thing everybody’s wearing these days.
Dog shrugged.
Calipari asked Dog if he could stop the boys from wearing crowns.
Dog shrugged, again.
Calipari asked Dog if he could make lots of crowns.
Dog held up his pipe.
“You’ll get paid for your time,” said Calipari, “But we need you clear enough in the head to make lots of crowns. Lots of them. I want you to show my boy here,” Calipari pointed up at the new private, “how you make them, so he can make them, too, when your head is all demon weed cheese.”
Dog shoved his pipe between his gums. He didn’t have any matches. He didn’t seem to notice that he didn’t have matches for his pipe. He grabbed a burnt-out husk of a splinter and flicked it like it was a new match. He held it up to the edge of his pipe. He breathed in like he was going to smoke weed that wasn’t burning, because it wasn’t a match, and he didn’t seem to notice or be in a pantomime. He really didn’t realize what he was doing. He looked at Calipari—straight at Calipari—like Dog was looking beyond Calipari, and beyond the old brewery and beyond the mess of buildings and ships. Dog was staring off into the sunset of his life in a windowless room.
Calipari held a new match out for Dog. Dog didn’t notice it.
The boy that had cooked the rat jumped up to snatch the match from the air. The boy pocketed it like a coin. Calipari tossed the boy a box of matches. Calipari snapped his fingers at Jona. Jona produced a fresh match for the blacksmith’s pipe.
***
Crowns rolled out into the Pens from the scrap forge. Jona peeled off his uniform and scrambled with the mudskippers for scrap metal in just his white undershirt. They brought it back to Dog and the new private at the forge. The new private had stripped to the waist. Dog started crowns, but he couldn’t finish them. He took a few whacks, then he took a few puffs of his pipe, and then he forgot why he was holding the hammer and the tongs.
Then, Dog sat with his feet in the river. He smoked until he ran out of weed in his pipe. He stood up long enough to start a new crown that he couldn’t finish, because new demon weed found its way into his pipe.
We Leave Together Page 6
