Swift and Trapper both stared at Treechopper. ‘So why did you leave?’ Trapper asked.
‘I got sick of working for Kerwyn bastards with blood on their hands and no conscience,’ Treechopper replied. ‘I deserted.’
Forester patted him on the shoulder. ‘Right thing to do, my friend.’
‘We’ve got better things to talk about than politics,’ said Trackmarker, and the conversation shifted from the city events to plans for the coming change of season.
Swift relaxed with the change of topic, but she could not forgive Ella’s indiscretion and she stared at the girl sitting between Trackmarker and Fisher as the evening waned, wondering at her stupidity for not killing Ella just because she found her to be like her sister. Exhaustion and wine and a full stomach eventually soothed her mood and drove her to a pile of furs, and she slumped into them and promptly fell asleep.
She dreamed of her son, Runner. He ran through winding, narrow streets ahead of her, laughing at her clumsy, futile attempts to catch him as he skipped away each time she thought she could reach him. She had to catch him because he was in grave danger. Someone was coming to hurt him. He was going to die. Her son was going to die. She tried to call him back as he reached an opening into a main street, but her mouth was dry, her neck quivered with fear and her jaw hung slack. He was stepping out into the open and he was going to die.
Swift sat up, terrified, her heart racing. Sometimes she had dreams that seemed real. Sometimes her dreams became real, like when she dreamed that her friend, Flower Greenhill, was drowning in the harbour and two cycles later Flower’s body was found floating near the old docks. Since then, dreams of real people always scared her. She caught her breath.
The underground chamber was stiflingly warm. A soft red glow emanated from the dying hearth and the sounds of drunken sleeping men filled the close air, rough snoring and catching of breath in sleep. And she caught another sound—a soft, repeated cry—and when she turned her head she saw the shadows and crimson-hued flesh of two people locked in slow, rhythmic lovemaking. She watched the girl straddle Trackmarker, her back arching as her passion rose, and Trackmarker’s breathing grew deeper and faster. When the man groaned and Ella collapsed onto his chest, Swift sank back into her furs, angry because she saved the girl and never meant to bring her to a place like this. Lying awake, with the sounds of male sleep rattling around her, she made her decision. Ella would stay here. Swift couldn’t keep her, especially because she had to return to the city, and Ella was already attaching herself to the men with the best skill she had. When she was certain no one would notice her, she rose from her furs, crept out of the bushmen’s lair, and escaped into the cold night heading for Port of Joy.
She dug her fingers into the oozing mud, pulling at a hefty lump of concrete until the earth relinquished its grip with a squelching slurp to reveal a small hole. She thrust in her hand and pulled out a heavy black leather drawstring purse that clinked when she dropped it onto a dry slab of stone. With a wary glance around the ruined hut to ensure that she was alone, she opened the purse and extracted a handful of silver shillings before returning the purse to its muddy hideaway and replacing the concrete.
She emerged from the familiar farmhouse ruin cautiously, pausing under the derelict veranda out of the rain from where she watched a lone wood cart, driven by a hunch-shouldered man with raindrops dripping from the brim of his sodden broad-brimmed hat, and pulled by a saggy-backed nag, travel along the road into the city’s south-eastern quarter. A skinny brindle dog trotted in the cart’s wake, looking as miserable as the owner’s horse. No one else was out in the dismal weather. Bracing for the chill of the rain, Swift headed onto the road.
By the time she was weaving through the Foundry Quarter alleys, the rain had stopped and the late-afternoon sun’s brittle rays occasionally broke through the grey cloud, but did not succeed in warming the damp earth. She walked briskly, avoiding eye contact with people who crossed her path, until she reached a narrow street corner where a dangling sign marked a run-down cobbler’s shop. She turned into the street and knocked at the chipped and faded white door of the third building. ‘Who is it?’ a voice asked.
‘Me,’ Swift whispered.
The lock moved and the door edged open. A dark-haired young woman’s face appeared in the gap, her figure backlit by a small hearth fire. ‘Swift?’ she asked.
Swift pushed inside and closed the door. ‘Sorry, Buttermilk, but I need to stay somewhere.’
‘Sure,’ Buttermilk said. ‘You’re always welcome.’
Swift smiled briefly and surveyed the small room, focussing on two internal doors. ‘Anyone else here?’
‘No. Honey’s working tonight.’
‘Honey?’
‘She shares with me now,’ Buttermilk replied. ‘It’s okay. She’s one of us,’ she explained when she saw Swift’s distrustful expression.
‘What does she do?’
‘Same as me. Relieves people of purses they don’t need.’
Swift sighed and ran her hand across her cropped red hair, flicking off raindrops. ‘Got anything to eat?’ she asked as she moved to the small fire.
‘Bread. Smoked ham. Cheese. I’ll get you something.’
While Buttermilk organised food, Swift stripped off her wet clothes and warmed herself. ‘Got anything dry I can wear?’
Buttermilk put a hank of ham on the small wooden table near the window, pulled the red curtain across the solitary window for privacy, and reached for a cheese on a shelf. ‘Go in the first door. It’s my room. There’s an old green smock hanging on a hook. It’s not much, but you’ll have to make do.’
‘Thanks,’ Swift said, and headed for the bedroom to put on the smock. When she returned, Buttermilk was hanging her damp clothes on a chair before the fire.
‘I thought you’d want these dry. You could do with some new clothes.’
Swift helped herself to the food. ‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked between mouthfuls.
‘Your work on the prince is around the streets. Roughcut and Fist are looking for you. Have you been back to your place?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t, then. The city watch know where you live.’
‘Thanks,’ Swift muttered between mouthfuls. ‘Anything else?’
Buttermilk shook her head. ‘So what will you do for a place now?’ she asked.
‘Find somewhere else.’
‘You can bunk here for a few days.’
‘Just tonight. I’ll get a place where I won’t cause any trouble for anyone.’ She drank from a green water jug. ‘Have you seen Runner?’
‘No,’ Buttermilk replied. ‘Not for a couple of days.’
Swift ate in silence after that, and when she finished she stood before the fire, checking her clothes. ‘I’ll sleep on the floor, if that’s all right?’
‘I’ll get you a blanket,’ Buttermilk offered.
Swift stretched out on the floor before the glowing embers. After her journey from the bush, sleeping under the stars and huddled under a crumbling wall when the rain set in the previous night, she was grateful for the warmth, but she struggled to sleep. Runner and Jewel troubled her mind. Her daughter was safe with Sparkle in Littlecreek, as long as the king’s men didn’t find out about her. She hoped Nail kept his promise to watch over his daughter. Runner was at far greater risk. Questions in the right places, an informant lured by the king’s gold, and the authorities would quickly discover Runner’s existence. Maybe they already knew. Whatever the case, she had to warn him directly by going to her sister, Passion. Runner could disappear easily, but Passion might have to leave her home as well. If the king’s soldiers ever learned that Passion was her sister they would interrogate her to learn Swift’s whereabouts, and because Passion would know nothing of that it would go hard on her. She remembered the dream she had in the bushmen’s hideaway. Her son really was in danger. She had to save him to stop the dream becoming true.
With sleep finally closing in, she
decided to warn her sister of the potential danger to her now that she had assassinated a Kerwyn prince. For all the years that Passion had watched over Runner in Swift’s regular absence, it was the least she could do.
PART FOUR
‘I am the riddling purple haze
That makes reason what it needs to be
If laughter is the cure.
My amber mistress straight embraces
A single draught and I am she
And I am again pure.’
‘THE EUPHORIC RIDDLE’, A POPULAR DITTY SUNG BY EUPHORIA
ADDICTS; FROM RUSTIC RAMBLINGS, SONGS AND LYRICS OF THE
PEOPLE: A COLLECTED ANTHOLOGY, BY SCRIBER NIGHTWATCH FOR
KING HAWKEYE IRONFIST THE SECOND
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The man, a thin, hawkish-faced individual in his late forties with straggly greying hair, coughed and said, ‘You are certain the goods will reach the city before the next full moon?’
Crystal Merchant fixed the questioner with her emerald eyes and replied, ‘If I say the goods will be here by that time, they will be here.’
‘I was only checking the facts.’
‘The facts are, Hardwood, I keep my business promises.’ She lifted a playing card from the table and deliberately turned it over in front of Hardwood. It was a joker.
‘I don’t think anyone is doubting your word, Mrs Merchant,’ a round and shaven-faced man intervened hastily. ‘Hardwood, her word’s good.’
Hardwood turned his attention on the speaker, and said icily, ‘Thanks for that, Smoothhand. If her word’s good enough for an entrepreneur like you, it’s good enough for me.’ He stood from the negotiating table, picked up the joker, slipped it into his pocket and rubbed his hands as if satisfied to be leaving. ‘My porters will be waiting at the warehouse the night of thefull moon to collect my goods. It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mrs Merchant.’
Crystal smiled the habitually bittersweet business smile that she’d developed through the years working with her husband and waited patiently for the two men and their three brutish bodyguards to depart. When they were gone, she scooped the papers from the table and returned them to the filing shelf. She checked the blue rings on the taper-timer. They’d consumed almost two precious hours, negotiating the quality of product, the price, the delivery time. Despite her reputation, the new ones always queried her reliability to deliver, as if it was ritualistically required. Only last week, she refused a potential customer because she considered his cynicism insolent. Her husband, Will, nicknamed the Joker because he used joker cards as his trading identity, had established a solid name shipping various goods and, after his murder, she so efficiently maintained his business with a firm hand and an iron will that she increased the flow of trade and profit to the company. No one had the right to question the Joker’s integrity.
Crystal strode across the room and entered an adjoining chamber where four young men sat at a table, playing a silent round of dice. A small pile of shillings and pennies sat in front of one whose mop of unruly red hair desperately needed brushing. ‘You can go back to your quarters, gentlemen,’ Crystal announced. ‘There are no more meetings today. I’ll send Lin to fetch you tomorrow when I’m ready to go.’ She watched the red-haired man gather his winnings, and said, ‘Keep beating these fools at dice, Hunter, and I won’t have to pay you.’
Hunter grinned and pushed the coins into his breeches pocket, and as he turned to follow his companions he said quietly, ‘My plan, Mrs Merchant, is to make enough so I don’t have to work for anyone else but myself.’
‘A good plan, Hunter. You’ll get yourself a good wife if you stick to that plan.’
‘I don’t want a wife, Mrs Merchant,’ Hunter replied, grinning, as he bent to pass through the doorway. ‘I want to keep my money. A wife will only spend it for me.’
Crystal had a retort on the tip of her tongue, but the young man was already out of the room. He was a good young man, quick to the temper sometimes, but basically decent at heart. Will had hired him to labour in the warehouse when he was barely eleven. Eight years later, Hunter was a head taller than most men and his frame had bulked into solid muscle, and he’d learned how to fight the hard way, in the warehouse, taking to task others foolish enough to tease him about his mop of red hair and his freckled complexion. After Will’s murder, Crystal took the advice of Will’s trusted foreman, Flip Lockmaster, and employed four young men to act as her permanent bodyguards. Hunter was one. ‘Your husband was a good man, Mrs Merchant,’ Flip carefully explained after Will’s funeral, ‘but he was too confident about the intentions of his enemies. You need to be more careful, Mrs Merchant. You need to be vigilant.’ So she stayed vigilant. She kept her bodyguards, screened all of her prospective customers, kept spies employed to watch her husband’s established trade partners and trusted no one.
She opened the heavy wood-and-metal door separating the business area of her house from the living quarters, and as she entered the lounge a dark-haired girl rose from a squatting position before the fireplace. ‘I’ve almost finished cleaning the grate, Mrs Merchant,’ the girl announced. ‘Do you want another fire tonight?’
‘Yes, thank you, Apple,’ Crystal replied. ‘Can you also ask Cook to make something without meat tonight? Tell her I’m not overly hungry.’ She headed for the stairs leading to the upper bedchambers, but stopped at the foot with her hand resting on the antique wood banister and added, ‘Make sure you eat before you go home, too.’
The house was meant to have belonged to her grandfather, passed down to him by her great-grandfather, but that was before her grandfather changed his name and entered the order of the Jarudhan acolytes, and that was many years before the Kerwyn invasion. Her father, Cliff Market, inherited the house from her great-grandfather at age fifteen. Astute, he quickly learned his grandfather’s smuggling business, and after the war ended and Port of Joy was rebuilt he became so adept that he was able to establish a monopoly on the trade of narcotics into the city. To keep the old and the new kings happy, he ensured that unlimited supplies of whatever the king wanted reached the royal chambers, together with a generous tithe on the profits he generated from his sales. Although she was Cliff’s only child, Crystal’s husband, Will, inherited the business when Cliff was killed in a boating accident, and Will showed that he was equally capable of maintaining what was a thriving and lucrative trade. Now the house belonged to Crystal.
A sprawling mansion of twelve rooms on three levels, it was a living place that had grown out of proportion as each generation added new spaces. The house originally belonged to an infamous family whose ancestry was reputedly connected with piracy along the Western Shess coast and through the Fallen Star islands during the reign of the early Shessian kings, and beneath the old house there was a network of cleverly constructed tunnels leading to various points around the city and along the coast. Her grandfather showed them to her on one of his sabbaticals from the temple. He also warned her to stay out of the tunnels because they could be dangerous, but she explored them without her father’s permission, until she was discovered by a group of men who angrily marched her to him. ‘I don’t want you wandering the tunnels, Crystal,’ Cliff ordered. ‘Businessmen like their privacy.’ So she stayed out of the tunnels until her father died. Then, working with Will, they became her domain as she oversaw the trafficking of smuggled goods in and out of the city through the tunnel network.
At the top of the stairs, she walked along the landing to her bedroom door, opened it with the key she wore around her neck on a gold chain, and stepped in, closing the door behind her. The cobalt curtains were swaying gently in the cool evening breeze, framing the apricot, grey and indigo sunset glow over the ocean. She’d left the doors to the balcony open during the day, but the air was losing its comfortable temperature so she crossed the room and pushed the doors shut. Across the city, she heard the distant clang of the time tower bell, tolling the eighteenth hour. She hesitated, transfixed by the beauty o
f the colours fading in the wake of the sunken sun.
She was still staring westward at the dissolving vestiges of the sunset when she was disturbed by a knock at her bedroom door. ‘Yes?’ she called.
The door opened and a tall, elegant blonde woman stepped into the darkened room. ‘There is a stranger asking to speak with you.’
‘Who is it?’
‘A beggar. The boys are keeping him at the front door.’
‘Why would a beggar come to my door, Lin?’
The blonde woman hesitated before replying, ‘He claims he knew your grandfather.’
Crystal turned from the evening light to face her house companion. ‘Did he give his name?’
‘Chase.’ Lin drew a breath, and added, ‘He’s very young. Shall I send him away?’
‘You mean he couldn’t have known my grandfather, don’t you?’ Crystal pulled a hair tie from her ponytail to let her thick black locks drop past her shoulders, and shook them loose. ‘Did he say what he wanted?’
‘Only to see you. Shall I have him removed?’ Lin repeated.
‘No,’ Crystal replied, and walked past Lin onto the landing. ‘Let’s see what he’s got to say. Did you speak to him?’
‘No.’
‘Good. You can play me,’ she said, before descending the dark staircase with Lin in tow.
Apple had the lounge fire burning vigorously, and the heat had attracted the two household cats to the hearth. They looked up expectantly as the women crossed the room and passed through the oak-and-metal door into the business chambers. Hunter stood at the doorway into the hall where visitors were received, and two more young men, Shaft and Woodturner, awaited Crystal’s instructions. ‘Let our visitor in,’ Crystal ordered. ‘He can come into the meeting chamber.’ The outer door swung open and an unkempt figure with dank mousey hair hanging loosely about his face warily entered. Crystal’s bodyguards watched him closely as they pointed to the room where the two women waited. Crystal assessed the stranger and noted that under his grubby exterior there was a handsome, lithe physicality that would be attractive in the right clothes after an extensive application of soap. He had all the trappings, however, of a common thief.
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