She Who Waits (Low Town 3)

by Daniel Polansky

  I pretended that was a compliment, and not a threat.

  A few blocks out I took a moment to open up the box I’d been given. Inside were a stack of tins siblings to the one I’d taken out of Reinhardt’s house. I closed the box back up, returned it to the safety of my satchel. The sun had come out while I’d been inside. It was shaping up to a nice day – for some of us at least.

  I whistled tunelessly and headed towards Low Town.

  9

  It was a good night at the Earl, the best we’d had in weeks. Customers stepped over each other to beg drinks, Adolphus kept the flow moving and the chatter pleasant. It’s a skill, running a good bar, and Adolphus had it. Next to killing men, it was probably the thing he did best.

  Course he had a pair of capable assistants. More than assistants really – tending bar is the glory gig, smiling and pouring drinks. The Staggering Earl ran on the back of Adeline, Adolphus’s wife, who, apart from cooking, cleaning, keeping the books and maintaining our stock, was also the sole reason we hadn’t gone out of business on the strength of Adolphus’s generosity. Between her and Wren the work that needed to get done got done, which left Adolphus free to take the credit.

  I’m more of a silent partner to the whole operation. When Adolphus and I had gone in on it together, I had made two conditions clear – first, I could drink all I wanted. And second, I was never, ever, to be expected to do work of any kind. So far we’d managed OK.

  It was late before things started to trail off, well after midnight. Wren had taken a seat with three of our less savory customers, and in a bar like the Earl there’s a fair amount of competition for that position. One-Thumb Alain supposedly did work for the Skinned Rabbits, a mid-sized crew of Tarasaighn, though he didn’t do it in Low Town. Dubois and Herrold were just run-of-the-mill freelancers, picking up jobs from whoever threw them their way, blowing their money on girls and liquor and holding on till the next one. Just the sort of company a growing boy needs.

  One-Thumb fancied himself a gambler, and if you judged by frequency rather than success, he’d fair claim to it. He had a cup and a pair of dice out, and he was displaying his preferred method of throwing. Wren took the advice with good humor, though like any neighborhood boy he was no stranger to the bones, and his sleight of hand was damn near professional.

  Midway through the evening I’d switched from ale to liquor, which meant I didn’t have to make the trip to the tap every time I wanted a refill. It also made it easier to slide from buzzed into inebriated without being entirely cognizant of it. Standing, I was surprised to find my legs loose and my steps uncertain, which is to say that I more rolled over to the table than walked. Alain had one hand curled conspiratorially over his dice cup, and rattled the four fingers of the other in an even tempo on the table next to it.

  ‘You holding clinic?’

  Alain knew I didn’t like him. I don’t like most people, but with Alain there had never been a reason to pretend. On my end, I mean – he knew enough to smile when he saw me.

  ‘The boy ought to learn how to roll the dice.’

  ‘And you’re the one to teach him?’

  Alain took a long, slow sip from his drink. Dubois and Herrold shifted uncomfortably in their seats, trying to make clear through posture that their sitting at Alain’s table ought in no way to indicate their being his friend, or having a stake in what came to him.

  ‘I’ve sat in on my fair share of games,’ Alain answered finally, trying to keep good humor.

  ‘If you had any idea how to cheat, Alain, you’d still have ten fingers.’

  Alain didn’t laugh, and he knocked off with his tapping. The stare-down that followed was just riveting, let me tell you. He broke contact, as of course I had known he would. ‘On your way, boy,’ he said.

  Wren was the only one sitting who seemed unfazed by the interaction, but then he was the only one who knew for dead certain he was going to walk away from it. ‘Maybe you could show me tomorrow, Alain.’

  But Alain didn’t answer. I suspected I’d ended Wren’s apprenticeship before it had gotten moving.

  Wren waited till we were back at my table before calling me out. ‘There’s no reason to go aggravating customers.’

  ‘They’re my customers. I can aggravate them if I want.’

  ‘They’re Adolphus’s customers.’

  That was a fair point. ‘You spend too much time with half-wits. It’ll stunt your development.’

  ‘One-Thumb’s not a half-wit.’

  ‘He’s in a dive bar at two in the morning, drinking hard liquor – I wouldn’t be too quick to follow in his footsteps.’

  ‘You’re in a dive bar at two in the morning, drinking hard liquor.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too quick to follow in mine neither.’

  This was pretty standard stuff, common any time I was in my cups, and Wren didn’t pay it much attention.

  ‘I ran into Knocker this evening.’

  ‘Next time you run into him tell him next time I run into him he’s going to give me eight argents or I’m going to put his head through a wall.’

  ‘He says he helped you corner a Step down in the warrens.’

  Little bastard must have had a set of ears planted somewhere in the scenery. ‘Knocker ought to learn to keep his mouth shut about things he’s not supposed to know.’

  ‘What do the Sons of Śakra want with you?’

  ‘I’m thinking of joining up. Get me one of those cute little hats they like so much.’

  ‘I’d figured you and the Sons might have something of a shine for each other. Enemy of my enemy, and all that.’

  ‘Enemies? What enemies? I’m universally loved.’

  ‘Last time I checked, you weren’t the biggest fan of Black House. And if this pamphlet I picked up is accurate, neither are the Sons.’ He set a piece of paper onto the table, a standard one-page broadsheet, the kind the Steps had been flooding the city with this last year or so.

  ‘Damn censors – standards have gone to shit. Back in my day a person couldn’t buy a book with a purse full of ochres, now they just hand out reading material on the street.’

  ‘I assumed you’d want to bone up on the specifics – they might make you take a test before they hand over the headgear.’ Wren picked the notice up and made an exaggerated show of reading it. ‘Enthralling stuff.’ He puffed out his chest and affected a proper speaking voice. ‘The King is beset on all sides by false friends and whisperers of lies. It’s the duty of every true born patriot to martial all resources in defense of the Crown, and against the forces that seek to betray his ancient line.’

  ‘And what prescriptions, dare I ask, do the Sons of Śakra suggest for our ailing Empire?’

  ‘Increased vigilance against the Dren threat.’

  ‘Saber-rattling – the remedy to all domestic misfortunes.’

  ‘Renewing ties with our ancient allies in Nestria and Miradin.’

  ‘Pig fuckers and zealots, and neither of them worth a damn in a fight.’

  ‘A halt to the unjust privileges for those yet to accept the blessings of the Firstborn.’

  ‘What unjust privileges do the Kiren hold exactly? The right not to be strung up to a lamppost by every drunken dockworker who takes the fancy?’

  ‘And finally,’ Wren continued over my objections. ‘A return to the virtue and dignity of our forefathers.’

  ‘I knew our forefathers – bunch of drunken, violent cretins, like their kids.’ I was getting hot. I’d like to say it was the liquor, and that certainly didn’t help, but primarily it was Wren. Most people I’ve learned the trick of not listening to, but he had a way of getting up under my skin. ‘Lay off it, boy. Today’s been long enough without you poking me.’

  He folded up the notice and put it into his pocket. ‘I’ll admit it doesn’t sound like much. But they’ve got the numbers – couple thousand in the city, growing every day.’

  ‘Popularity is no guarantee of value – more often it’s the opposite.’
/>   ‘Not just the lower classes, either. You see a lot of young nobles walking through the Old City with those pretty brown bonnets you’ve so taken to. You know their leader’s a Duke?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Charles Monck, the Honest Pater they call him. He’s a member of parliament, one of the good ones, supposedly. He even stood with the Veterans’ Association during their march.’

  ‘How’d that end?’

  Not so well, to judge by the fact that Wren decided to stare fixedly at the wall for a while.

  ‘It doesn’t exactly suggest much for his sagacity.’

  I suppose the boy realized he’d overplayed his hand, because he didn’t answer that either.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so quick to bet against the establishment. And even if there was to be a change of guard, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to me or you. There are people up top, and people at the bottom. Today it’s King Albert and the Old Man. Tomorrow, could be the Steps. It’s all the same – whatever you were on the climb is lost once you hit the summit. Call it altitude sickness.’

  Wren had heard this line often enough not to pay too much attention to it. Wasn’t like he was for the Sons of Śakra either, just for generally pissing me off as best he could. Still, he waited a solid moment before speaking again, to at least give the impression that my monologue held some weight. He was kind that way. ‘What did you and Mazzie have to say to each other?’

  ‘Words, mostly.’

  ‘I hope you aren’t mistaking that for wit.’

  ‘It’s awful late,’ I explained. ‘She says that it might not have been entirely a waste of her time training you these past three years.’

  ‘Not entirely,’ Wren agreed. ‘What else did she say?’

  ‘I guess if she’d wanted you to hear, she’d have told you herself.’

  Wren nodded, slow and serious, as if this last touch was worth holding on to. My tobacco pouch was on the table, and he reached over and started to roll up a cigarette. His movements were sharp and neat. ‘And what did Uriel say?’

  I was halfway to answering before I stopped myself.

  Wren winked, and handed over the smoke. ‘You’re not the only one keeping their eyes open.’

  I lit it, smoked it, and coughed for a while. ‘But I’m the only one who seems to stay quiet on what I see, which is half of everything.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem likely, the Unredeemed continuing to grow unchecked.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘The Gitts never struck me as the amicable sort.’

  ‘I see you’ve been giving some thought to this.’

  ‘So what are we going to do about it?’

  ‘I’m going to do nothing about it, and you’re going to do less.’

  ‘Glandon is pretty close to Low Town.’

  ‘Isn’t exactly Nestria.’

  ‘Can’t be good for business, dead men piling up on our borders.’

  ‘I don’t imagine it would make my life any easier.’

  I went to take a sip of my drink, and discovered that Wren had his hand on my wrist. ‘I’m not a child,’ he said, suddenly very serious.

  ‘That’s the kind of thing children say.’

  Wren rolled his eyes but didn’t get hot, an admirable equanimity which suggested he might not be lying about his new-found maturity. He was also kind enough to release his grip, and allow me to get back to my liquor.

  ‘What’s your point?’ I asked after I’d finished off most of my glass.

  ‘I’ve carried my share of water.’

  ‘You want a raise? I can double your current salary of zero.’

  ‘I want you to give me something real to do – I want a stake in the enterprise.’

  I waved at the assorted drunks. ‘You’re asking me to share all this?’

  ‘It’s time you let me in. I know Low Town as well as you do, I can handle a blade and I’ve got fast hands. Everyone likes me, even our competitors, which is more than anyone would ever say about you.’

  ‘Now you’re just being hurtful.’

  ‘And I’ve got other talents.’ It was about then I noticed his hand beneath the table, pulsing with a low blue light.

  ‘Stop that,’ I hissed.

  His eyes bored into mine, and it was a long second before the glow faded. ‘I’m just saying – I could be of more use than you’re allowing.’

  I finished my cigarette, ran some things over in my head.

  ‘You know Kitterin Mayfair, slings breath east of the docks?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He know you?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘No, or not really?’

  ‘No.’

  I pulled the wooden box out from my satchel and handed it over. ‘Run this out to him. Tell him it’s a gift from a new friend, hoping to become an old one.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a box you’re going to run over to Kitterin Mayfair, who slings breath east of the docks.’

  When I’d met the boy he’d run on savage pride – anything that smacked of insult was repaid twice over. It made having a conversation difficult, given my predilection for causing offense. But he’d run down a bit in the last six years, certain enough in himself to not need to be reminded every moment of the day. ‘I’m worth more to you than as an errand boy,’ he said. He kept his eyes on me for a tick, steady but not angry, then paced out into the night.

  I went back to drinking. It was something I’d had good practice at. After a couple of minutes Alain shook off, his pair of drinking buddies joining him. Wren was right, I’d lost the Earl a customer – but then the Earl isn’t really how I make my money anyway.

  The evening passed, and I followed along with it. Closing time rolled around, and Adolphus slipped out from behind the bar and started brushing out those patrons so deeply inebriated or desperately miserable that the thought of a walk home required encouragement. I stayed where I was – between his good humor and the size of his shoulders, Adolphus never had much trouble walking anyone out the door. And the real troublemakers don’t wait till the end of the night before causing violence.

  It was a while before I noticed that Adeline had crept up next to me. I’d been drinking for a solid six hours, not fiercely, but consistently, and my powers of perception were far from their height. Besides, I’m all but deaf in my left ear, casualty of lying down too close to a black powder bomb. Not that I’m complaining – I had been the one to set it off, after all.

  I assumed she hadn’t been waiting too long, though with Adeline you couldn’t be entirely sure.

  ‘Hey there,’ I said.

  ‘Hey yourself.’

  It had been more than fifteen years since Adolphus had brought her to meet me, blushing like he’d robbed a bank. I hadn’t seen the appeal – a tiny little Valaan, already running to plump, and so silent I’d near taken her for a mute. But she made him happy, damn happy, and this was right after the war, when we were watching comrades who’d survived years in the trenches drink themselves to death in six months, or drag a combat knife along an artery. I figured anything that kept his mind off his eye couldn’t do any harm.

  It didn’t take me long to realize my first impression was for shit. Adeline didn’t miss a leaf falling in autumn, and she was done adding the sums in her head before you’d gotten around to breaking out scrap paper. Youth is dew on the vine, beauty lipstick on a whore. I wouldn’t give a piss for either. Adeline was solid as a cornerstone, a sure port in a thunderstorm. And if she was quiet – well, time goes by you realize that’s no kind of vice either.

  ‘How was your day?’ she asked.

  ‘Twenty-four hours long.’

  ‘We need to talk.’ Adeline was not huge on pleasantries.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘It’s about Wren.’

  ‘Who?’

  The list of Adeline’s virtues would scroll down to your feet, but you’d be hard pressed to find a sense of humor
amongst them. She didn’t mind it exactly, so much as she just didn’t quite see the point. ‘I’m worried about him.’

  ‘I’m worried about all of us.’

  ‘He can’t go on like this, tending bar.’

  ‘It’s worked out fine for Adolphus.’

  Adeline had this look she’d give you, not quite contemptuous, she was too kind for that – more like she was disappointed in your refusal to live up to your potential. ‘You know as well as I do that Wren isn’t Adolphus.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘He isn’t.’

  ‘How long you think it’ll be before Alain or one of the others realizes how valuable he’d be to them?’

  ‘They know to stay away from him.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know to stay away from them.’

  ‘It’s not something I’m unaware of, all right? But there aren’t so many options for a street child.’

  ‘He’s clever.’

  ‘No one likes clever people, they make regular people feel stupid.’ I sighed and went to pour another shot. Discovered the bottle was empty. Sighed again. ‘He’s too old to join a trade, and anyhow I can’t quite see him cobbling shoes.’

  ‘He’s already got a trade.’

  I took a casual look around, making sure we were unobserved. ‘Not one he can practice.’ Since the end of the Great War, the Crown had gradually tightened control over the Empire’s practitioners. Anyone with the spark was required to register with the Crown, and actually working magic without a license was strictly forbidden and unpleasantly punished. I’d made Wren a criminal by keeping him off their rolls – a cruel decision, but the alternative was unacceptable.

  ‘What does Mazzie say?’

  ‘She says she’s taken him as far as he can go. She says we ought to find him another teacher – a proper Artist.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That both the Artists I knew are long dead.’ Though I could only claim one scalp between the pair. ‘Mazzie says we ought to look outside of the city. Maybe outside of the Empire.’

  ‘That might not be such a bad idea.’ Adeline was sharp, sharp enough that she didn’t feel compelled to show it off. But she saw what I did, had noticed the smell of smoke, had enough presence of mind to note the direction the city seemed to be running towards.