Beggar's Flip

by Benny Lawrence

  Down in the courtyard, new fires blazed. In the sudden hard light, I saw Darren’s face turn to steel.

  “Latoya,” she said. “Grab Lynn and run for the docks.”

  “Latoya, if you even think about grabbing me, I will end you here and now.” By now, my voice was shrill enough to cut glass. Serve Darren right if my shrieking made her ears bleed. “Darren, listen to me. No, listen. There is nothing you can accomplish here, you can’t take down a whole rebel army single-handed—”

  “But I can get a few people out.”

  “Who? Who here is worth the risk?”

  I said it without thinking, and realized my mistake a second too late. Darren nodded slowly.

  “So that’s it,” she said. “You don’t think they deserve to be saved.”

  Oh, fuck everything and everyone, twice, backwards, with a rusty spoon and a cantaloupe. “I don’t think they deserve you.”

  “Why not? Because they’re a bunch of sadists who torture the peasants just for shits and giggles? Because they have it coming?”

  “I didn’t say that.” I’d thought it, but I hadn’t said it. “Since you bring it up, though—this rebellion didn’t come out of nowhere. Your father spent his whole reign working out of the ‘How to Be a Really Shitty Leader’ playbook. Sooner or later, there was bound to be a reckoning. Torasan caused this. Let Torasan pay.”

  “Why shouldn’t I pay?”

  “Because you’re not one of them.”

  “Why? Because they banished me? You think that somehow makes me righteous? I would have stayed in my father’s service if I’d had the choice. And if I had stayed, do you think I would have gone against him? Fought the tide? Hell, no. I would have said yes-sir-no-sir just like always and I would have followed his orders. I’m no better than my siblings, Lynn, and if they deserve to die tonight—”

  “You are different, you stupid ass.” There was a pressure on my chest and in my throat that barely let me get the words out. “If you don’t understand why, I’d be happy to explain it in lots and lots of detail somewhere far away from here.”

  “Different or not, I’m not innocent! If anyone is blameless here, it’s—”

  “The children.”

  Ariadne had pulled herself together. She wobbled two steps forward, still clutching Latoya’s arm. “If the rebels take the Keep, will they kill the Torasan children?”

  Darren took a shaky breath. I doubt she’d thought of it until that second, but she knew the answer as well as I did.

  “Probably,” she said. “I think so, yes. That’s what happened when Kai of Jiras took the citadel at Yag Sin Tor. Same with the sack of Arraval. It’s one of those proud old wartime traditions. Don’t leave children alive who might grow up to avenge their parents.”

  Ariadne turned to me, squinting through her headache, and shrugged. “Well.”

  “Well what?” I snapped.

  As if I didn’t know what she meant. As if I didn’t know that I had just lost the argument.

  “Well, I suppose it’s high time that we all go to the kitchen and learn how to bake a peach flan—what do you think I mean? We’re not going to let these thugs butcher a bunch of babies, surely. Latoya, my love, are you up for a night of heroics?”

  Already, there was a rhythmic movement in the shadows, as Latoya, loop by loop, uncoiled her anchor chain. Behind her, Regon twirled an unsheathed knife between his fingers.

  I know when I am beaten. I can tell, because when I’m beaten, I get consumed by overwhelming fury that makes me want to go burn down a few mid-sized villages.

  “Fine,” I spat. “Who’s going to take Ariadne back to the ship while the rest of us are busy being unforgivably stupid? Regon?”

  Darren glanced into the dark of the hallway. “You should take her, Lynn. I don’t want to drag you into something that—”

  “With all due respect, Mistress, bite me.”

  Regon half-raised a hand. “I’ll take her.”

  “The hell you will,” Ariadne said. “Nobody will. I may not be much use tonight, but you can’t spare someone just to babysit me, and you know it. Let’s go.”

  Worse and worse. “Ariadne, you’re liquored to the eyeballs. You can’t possibly—”

  “Keep up? Yes I can. Because I have to. Simple as that.”

  “But—”

  “I promise I won’t get in your way.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “I’ll tell you what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to stand there and yip objections until the whole Keep is aflame. We don’t have time to debate, remember?”

  We did not, in fact, have time to debate. Each moment that we stood there bitching at each other, our chances of surviving the night grew fainter. For that reason, and that reason alone, I did not punch first Darren and then Ariadne in their respective faces and screech at them both for their heartbreaking naivety.

  Too furious to talk, I spun on my heel and led the way from the room, setting a fast pace through dim stone corridors. Darren must have sent Latoya after me, because she caught me up seconds later, her chain chinking softly as its loose end swung free.

  “You were no help at all,” I snapped at her. “In case you were wondering.”

  She shrugged, understanding but unapologetic. “It’s not like your sister’s wrong.”

  IT MADE LITTLE to no sense that I was leading the way, since I didn’t have a clue where we were headed. Darren figured this out after I’d stalked down two or three hallways. She called a halt, got her bearings, and turned us around. We set off in the opposite direction.

  Darren opened doors as we passed them by, checking bedrooms and cursing softly when she found them empty.

  “Nobody went to bed except for us,” she said. “Everyone else must be downstairs drinking.”

  “That’s why the rebels struck on a banquet night,” Regon said. “Have you ever known a noble who would leave a boozer before dawn?”

  Ariadne looked up through bleary eyes. “Hey.”

  “I mean real nobles. You and the captain don’t count.”

  “Well, my brothers picked a hell of a night to play to type.” Darren ran a hand through her hair, ruining someone’s valiant attempt to comb and style it, leaving it shaggy and windswept once more. “If they were all in the Great Hall when the rebels got through the gates—”

  I caught her arm to silence her, and for once, she shut up without demanding an explanation. Seconds later, she nodded, letting me know that she too had heard the approaching footsteps. We drew back into a shadowed alcove just before a small band of men reached the top of the stairs.

  They were armed with boat hooks and pikes, not swords. Other than that, they looked like any soldiers who had finished the killing part of a battle and settled down to the fun of looting. One was gnawing on a fat goose leg, grease dribbling down his beard and into his collar. Another was staring glumly into a wine bottle, looking upset and a little offended that it was empty. Their pockets bulged and jangled with coins, which was unfortunate because it caused the usual wardrobe problems. I don’t know why men never seem to realize that if they fill their trousers with metal, gravity will take revenge. I can’t be the only person in the world who’s uninterested in seeing all those hairy bellies and bleached-white buttock cracks.

  All their weapons were red-smeared, all their shirt cuffs stained with rust.

  “Know what the best part was?” said the man with the goose leg, around a mouthful. “That sound the last bitch made when you finished her. Let’s hear it again, Milt.”

  One of the men—Milt—imitated a girlish scream, followed by a long, drawn-out gurgle. He burst into hysterical giggles before he finished. Beside me, Darren’s whole body went rigid. I dug my nails hard into her arm.

  “You think we’ll find any more chickens up here?” said another voice. “More little squawkers ready for the chop?”

  “I think I don’t give a damn. We have a chance to work the rooms before the others make it ups
tairs—”

  Another voice, a harsh deep snarl. “I’m not done hunting tonight.”

  “We’ve done our share of the killing, Bowden. Now we hunt for treasure. Think of your son. You open the right drawer, he spends his life a rich man. Anyone think these are worth taking?”

  There was the sound of ripping cloth, which confused me until I remembered the tapestries that covered the walls.

  “It’s disgusting,” said the snarling man. “Look at them. Scarlet-dyed wool, gold thread. The price of one of these would keep a family in meat for a year.”

  Darren stirred. “Sumac-dyed wool and gilt paint, actually,” she muttered. “Worth about two silver apiece.”

  I tightened my grip on Darren’s arm, squeezing until my nails bit skin. She shut up.

  “Going to take one?” asked one of the deep voices.

  “No. Too heavy to carry. Coin, that’s the thing. We should start tossing the bedrooms. Milt, what in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Milt was giggling again. “Now that the tapestries are down, I want to make some artistic improvements.”

  A rustling sound. I closed my eyes briefly. The dick was untrussing his trousers.

  “You’re kidding me, you dizzy cockwomble,” another looter said. “We have a chance to make our fortunes here, and you want to waste time with this stupid shit?”

  “Don’t act like you’re too good for it,” Milt said, still giggling. “Don’t you want to wipe your ass on everything the Torasans ever touched?”

  “We’ve no time for this, gobshite. Catch up when you’re finished.”

  Heavy footsteps tramped away down the hall. I dared a peek around the corner. The looter called Milt—skinny, with deep pits in his face from acne scars—had taken a wide stance before a heap of torn-down tapestries, and was rummaging in his trousers. Now he opened the floodgates, swivelling so that his piss sprayed the embroidered cloth from one side to the other.

  Darren caught my shoulder and leaned close to whisper in my ear, the words so soft they barely stirred the air. “Can you take him down without being seen?”

  I didn’t bother to answer, because she should not have had to ask. I just unwound the garrotte from my wrist.

  Milt was running out of piss. The stream turned into a trickle, then a dribble, then stopped. He bounced a few times, rearranged his trousers, and ambled off down the hall, thumbs in pockets. As I crept out of the alcove to follow him, I matched my steps to his. Milt was wearing sabots—those heavy, wooden-soled shoes that chew your feet to ribbons the first few times you wear them. The wood clattered on the flagstones, drowning out the soft scuffing of my own bare feet.

  I got within two steps of him before he sensed something wrong. I’d been trying not to come between him and a window, but you can’t keep perfect control over that kind of thing and he must have seen a flicker of shadow where I blocked the moonlight. That could have been bad, but, like the rookie he was, he stopped short and goggled back over his shoulder instead of shouting out or dropping down. That gave me a whole half-second to get the cord around his neck, which was more than I needed.

  He was a flailer, and he kicked and he thrashed as soon as he realized what was happening to him. He managed to land one good punch on the side of my head—the garrotte slipped in my sweaty hands and for one panicky moment, I thought he might wrench himself free—but I got a knee against his back and rode him down hard. Another yank on the cord and he went limp.

  I sighed, maybe just a tiny bit relieved. Of course, that was when Darren raced around the corner and flung herself down on top of Milt. She grabbed a handful of greasy hair and began to bash his head against the floor. She’d done it three times, and the face was wet and sticky, by the time she realized I had things under control, and let it drop.

  “I am trying not to be offended,” I said, loosening the garrotte and pulling it free. There was a little blood. I stripped it away between two fingers. “I am trying hard.”

  Darren rolled off of the body. “I don’t care whether you’re offended. I care whether you stay alive.”

  “That’s very sweet, Mistress. But there’s no point sending me out to do a quiet take-down if you’re going to gallop noisily to the rescue as sson as I look like I’m in trouble. Oh hell, here they come.”

  Milt’s friends rounded the corner at a run. One of them caught sight of us, threw down his wine bottle, and bolted. Latoya took off after him, blue sparks igniting in the dark as the end of her chain recoiled and bounced from wall to wall.

  The others charged at Darren.

  There wasn’t much suspense about the outcome, not with Darren ablaze with rage, too fired up to doubt or hesitate. She whipped out her blades, the cutlass and the long knife, and used the momentum to spin, feinting past the first man, then lunging fast to the other. With one quick scything dagger-slash, she cut the hamstrings at the back of his thighs. He folded, shrieking, and she spun back to the other man, striking once, twice. Her cutlass hacked through his shoulder down to his rib cage; her dagger ripped a red gully through his throat. The hamstrung man struggled to rise from his knees, but Darren wheeled back on him, and there was a flash of metal, a gurgle and a sigh. We all got one good look at the kneeling looter impaled on Darren’s cutlass, the blade going in through the mouth and out through the back of the neck. She pulled it free—it made a long, rasping noise, snnnnck!—and the body slumped.

  Darren blew out a long breath, and stooped to wipe her blades on the dead man’s jacket. “I’m not going to feel good about that later.”

  “That’s a shame. I wonder if there’s any way you could have avoided it? Oh, wait.”

  “Lynn, let’s just—let’s put a pin in this argument and get back to it some other time.”

  “You mean, once you think of a way to win it?”

  She coughed uncomfortably and looked elsewhere. “Latoya. Did you catch up with him?”

  Latoya loped up to us, her breathing calm and even. She made the all clear sign, glanced at the bodies, and lifted her eyebrows appreciatively at Darren’s handiwork. Darren gave a modest shrug, and the two of them tapped their fists together, because they were, just occasionally, the same kind of idiot.

  I stooped to check Milt’s pulse before we left. It was thready, but it was there. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why I had checked at all. I suppose some people might have felt guilty because he was so young. Me, I just remembered him giggling to himself, and tried to guess the age of the women he’d killed.

  THE FIVE OF us fell into a loose formation: Darren and Regon in the lead, Latoya bringing up the rear, Ariadne and I in between.

  Ariadne seemed barely awake. She was still wearing her nightgown, although she had shoes on and—for no apparent reason—a silk scarf. She hadn’t bothered to put her hair in curlers before going to bed, so her ringlets had come loose into a messy blond frizz.

  I reared back and kicked her in the shin. Hard. She tripped, stumbled, almost fell, and tore herself out of her drunken daze. “What the hell was that for?”

  “You just had to do it, didn’t you?” Darren was getting too far ahead of us. I quickened my pace. “You just had to feed the beast.”

  “What do you mean, beast?”

  “I mean Darren! I mean Darren’s oversized, sabre-toothed guilt complex. You just had to feed it red meat. And wherever Darren leads, Regon follows. And Latoya is usually the sensible one, but she can’t say no to you. So here we all are, being heroes.”

  “What in the world are you trying to say? Are you—?” She blinked, and ground to a halt. “Lynn, are you mad at me?”

  “Look at that. The light dawns. Bleeding shite, what were you thinking? Did you think at all? Did you think for even five seconds before you decided we should all lay down our lives to save Darren’s godawful family?”

  She stuttered out a disbelieving laugh. “Children. We are talking about children. Babies. I couldn’t live with myself if—”

  “You couldn’t live with yourself. Well,
I guess we couldn’t have that.” I rounded on her, anger ticking in every vein. “You know what the difference is between you and Darren? Darren at least knows when she’s using people. You? I don’t think you even realize. For weeks, you’ve been holding Latoya at arm’s length, but now you want something from her, it’s all darling, sweetheart, would you bleed and fight and die for me? You know nothing about combat and less than nothing about tactics and you can’t tell the difference between a losing situation and a cheese sandwich, but what the hell, right? At least you’ll be able to live with yourself. Assuming you survive the night, which is not something I’d bet money on right now.”