The Broken Man

by Brandon Jones

  He arrived about the same time as the boat did. A pair of Ladies stood at the edge looking suspiciously up at him along with a thick-armed Regular—muscle some of the Ladies liked to hire out and carry with them—standing at the back of the small boat, preparing to tie the vessel to the dock. The Ladies were both tall and dark haired, similar enough to be sisters or cousins, though one wore her hair up in a tight bun, and the other’s bound in a tail at the base of her neck. The one with the bun held a lantern, mirrored on all but one side to give it a directional beam. No one was smiling.

  “Hello, dear Ladies,” Josen said, drifting into an accent something like the bargeman’s seaside cant. “What is it I can do for yourselves?” He leaned on the dock post, doing his best to affect a lazy, unworried attitude, as if he would rather be talking to them than doing whatever is was he was supposed to be doing.

  “What is your business here?” asked—practically yelled—the one holding the lantern, turning it to shine directly into his eyes. “Speak!”

  “Ow! Oh, hey now,” Josen protested, turning his face and shielding his eyes. “There’s no call for any of that. Can’t see a thing now. Will take me all night before I will see well enough to finish up Mr. Gennio’s window.”

  “Easy, Karris. We’re just asking questions,” said the other Lady. She put her hand on her Karris’ arm, prompting her to lower the lamp. “What is it you’re trying to finish?” she asked, her voice far more sedate as if trying to make up for her partner’s rudeness.

  “The window in Mr. Gennio’s shop there,” he said, pointing blindly. He could really barely see now, starving woman. His sudden change in direction made Karris jump. A stiletto appeared in her hand, and the mood changed. Three sets of eyes were glued to Karris, all three of the attached bodies tense in anticipation of sudden violence. Her sudden aggression didn’t make any sense to Josen, but he supposed it didn’t have to. The one with the knife pointed at him didn’t get to complain about silly things like sense. Josen took a half step back, hands raised.

  “Stay still,” Karris hissed, knife point bobbing up and down with the motion of the patrol boat—kidney to groin and back. “He looks dangerous,” she hissed to her partner, eyes never leaving Josen.

  “I’m sorry,” Josen said, frozen. “Apologies, I didn’t…” he trailed off, unsure of what even to apologize for.

  “Karris,” the other Lady said softly, trying to pull some of the tension out of her partner. “Ease down, love. The man’s not going to do anything rash. Right?” she asked with a significant look at Josen.

  Josen nodded as vigorously as he dared. God’s tears, this had taken a weird turn. “Absolutely. Nothing rash, not me.”

  “And he’s going to take a few, very slow, steps back to prove it.”

  Josen acquiesced, taking two long, deliberate steps away from the boat and its crazy occupant. Karris sheathed her knife but didn’t take her hand from the hilt or her mad gaze from Josen.

  “Now,” said the other Lady, “could you please explain to us what you are doing here in the middle of the night?”

  “The grate… The grate in the cellar window, in Mr. Gennio’s shop. It was starting to rust something awful, was coming loose. Mr. Gennio wants it fixed. As soon as is possible, he wants it.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “As soon as is possible, that’s what Mr. Gennio said. Said he didn’t want us bothering the customers or workers, said he wanted it done quick, done quiet, done well. Mostly, though, he just wanted it done.”

  “I don’t trust him, Maleah,” Karris said, caressing the hilt of her dagger. “He has shifty eyes.”

  Josen watched her nervously but didn’t say anything. Even two steps farther away as he was, Josen had no illusion about what would happen if Karris lunged up onto the dock. Maybe he could manage to keep her from poking bloody holes in him, but that would require a level of force Maleah and the musclebound bargeman would no doubt find provocative, no matter that Karris had done the attacking.

  “Please, Karris. We’re almost done for the night.” Maleah turned her attention back to Josen. “Any particular reason you were trying to climb into Mr. Gennio’s shop?” she asked.

  “Dropped a tool. The barrels are stacked high inside. Thought maybe I could reach it.”

  “Where’s his boat?” the Regular asked. Both Ladies turned their heads in surprise, as if they didn’t realize the man had the power of speech available to him. Noting the distinct lack of a watercraft besides their own, the Ladies turned their attention back to Josen. Karris licked her lips, her eyes just short of crazed, like she was looking for the smallest excuse to stick him with her knife and wiggle it around in his soft bits.

  Shit.

  “Mr. Gennio,” Josen said, his brain working furiously to come up with a satisfactory lie.

  “Mr. Gennio has your boat?” asked the sane Lady, eyes incredulous.

  “No,” Josen said quickly, mind spinning. This was taking too long. Not only did he look more and more suspicious the longer he took, but this encounter was eating away the time he and Akelle needed to finish the heist. “No, he let me in. Through the front side. Just before closing up for the day.”

  “And you’ve been here all night?”

  “It is hard work. I’m just now ready to start the rebuilding.”

  “And why are you wet?”

  Josen looked down at his soaking wet clothes and shrugged. “I fell in.” Josen did his best to smile nervously. The nervous part came easy.

  Both women looked at him dubiously, sensing something amiss. That was bad. But Josen could also tell he wasn’t the only variable at play here. Karris was making Maleah as nervous as she was making Josen. Maleah didn’t trust her partner to keep that knife in her belt if they were to take Josen into custody to follow up on her suspicion. Karris’ insanity was actually working in Josen’s favor—a thought Josen found only barely comforting.

  Karris could sense it too, could feel Maleah’s hesitance. She glanced from Josen to Maleah and back.

  “Galeo, check his hands,” Karris said, a last desperate hope.

  She could tell he was lying, and she wasn’t going to let it go. Not without doing everything in her power first. He could see it from the look in her eyes. Josen didn’t know what her story was, or what she would do if she caught him in his lies. He didn’t know if her more restrained partner would be able to hold her back if it came down to it. Josen hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

  But she thought he was a junky—a rub addict who had swam down the canal and stopped here to make some kind of mischief. That was easy to prove or disprove. Josen didn’t have the pink, raw scars on his hands of an addict. His fingertips might be raw from running them along the mortar, but that wouldn’t be enough to incriminate him. Hopefully.

  Galeo jumped up out of the boat, sending it rocking and heaving in the water. He seized Josen’s hands in his own, turning them over to look at his palms. Josen didn’t struggle, just let the man inspect his hands. They were unmarked. Surprisingly, even his fingertips were flawless, whole skin. Galeo looked from Josen’s hands to his eyes, then back at the Ladies still standing in the boat.

  “Don’t look much like bricklayer’s hands,” he said. “But he ain’t rubbed. Not ever, looks like.”

  Karris deflated angrily, grabbing the edge of the dock to climb up herself, but Maleah held her back, earning a yell of frustration from her partner. “Let’s go, Galeo,” Maleah said.

  “What? We just let him go?” Karris yelled, words echoing sharply off the calm water and brick buildings.

  “Calm down, Karris,” Maleah said as Galeo jumped back into the boat. “What’s he going to do, ride Gennio’s whiskey barrels down to the harbor? They’d hang him by his toes before he had time to wet himself.”

  Galeo untied them from the dock without being told to and pushed off, poling them quickly down the canal.

  “I’ll cut his lying tongue out!” Karris screamed back towards Josen.
“You know he’s lying. I’ll teach him a lesson! I’ll teach all of them a lesson!”

  Josen watched them disappear around a bend in the canal, Karris still screaming nonsense and obscenities back at him.

  “Well, that was weird,” Akelle said behind him.

  Josen nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning to face Akelle. Akelle was wasting no time, already opening the big double doors on silent hinges, revealing ten of Alfie Gennio’s famous white casks lying on their sides. Exactly what kind of wood those casks were made of was the source of endless debate among aficionados of fine whiskeys. They were the unmistakable mark of a Gennio whiskey, both secret ingredient and trademark. They were beautiful.

  “I know we said the boat can hold up to eighteen, but I figure this is all we have time for at this point,” Akelle said.

  Josen shook himself, trying to return mentally to the task at hand. “That’s fine,” he said, rushing to roll the casks out to the end of the dock while Akelle rolled the others outside the door so that he could close them before putting the wall back together. Their next boat—the one set to pick up the stolen barrels of whiskey—could be here at any moment, only a few moments ahead of the next patrol boat. Josen had six of the ten rolled to the end of the dock when Akelle called out in surprise. Josen looked up the canal, afraid he would see the next patrol boat come early. They should still have at least ten minutes, but…

  “Josen, the mortar reverted. I need you to come break it again.”

  Josen ran to the window where Akelle had nearly finished the inner layer of the window, but his trowel was stuck fast in the bucket of unyielding mortar. Josen pushed a finger to it, barely pausing long enough to make sure it broke back into soft workable paste before running back to the open double doors, rolling the next barrel down the dock as fast as he dared then slowing it down at the last moment so that it didn’t crash too heavily into the other barrels. Rush back to the doors and repeat.

  A glance up the canal confirmed what Josen thought he heard as he rolled the eighth cask to a stop at the end of the dock—their getaway barge, less than a hundred paces away. Two more trips up the dock and back, Josen running at full tilt now. He glanced up at Akelle as he ran the last cask down the dock. He was working fast—the iron grate was back in place and he only had a few bricks left to put in place. They were going to make it. Barely, and with less whiskey than they had counted on, but they were going to make it!

  Josen shoved the final cask too hard and lost control, chasing it down the dock. It was moving too fast, would crash into the others and…

  He put a hand on the opposite side of the barrel and leaned backward as he ran, trying to slow it down, but he was too close, and the line of casks was longer than he realized. The barrels met with a solid, dock-shivering thud and a crack. Pain shot through Josen’s hand and up his arm as he crashed over the top of the barrels, barely catching himself as they shifted and rolled. A single barrel rolled lazily off the end of the dock, splashing into the too-warm water of the canal. Nothing to be done now.

  “Akelle,” Josen said as loud as he dared. “I could use a hand over here.” Holding his smashed right hand gingerly, Josen pulled himself to his feet and inspected the barrels as best as he could in the dim light reflecting off the Efora. They all seemed to be whole and watertight. Unfortunately, that meant the crack had come from his hand. “Almost done?”

  “Almost,” Akelle said, his voice strained as he reached up, placing the last brick. “Done. How’s it coming over there?”

  “Barge is almost here,” Josen said, wincing as he walked back toward his young friend. “Fifteen, twenty paces. Go push them into the water? I’ll fix up our thank-you for Mr. Gennio.”

  Akelle pulled a mask out of his pack and handed it to Josen. It was heavy, made of polished iron, and had wide, open eyes, high cheekbones, and thick, grinning lips. It looked nothing like either Josen or Akelle, but that wasn’t the point. Etched across the bottom of the mask were three simple, beautiful words: The Broken Man. Josen and Akelle had worked long and hard to come up with some kind of way to put a signature of sorts on their heists. This mask was it.

  “What happened to your hand?”

  “Broke it, I think.”

  “Typical. Attention whore.”

  “Shut it, Gutter Lord,” Josen said with a grin. “Go make yourself useful. Hey, wait. Can you handle the drop on your own? I’m already going to be late for my meeting in the Basin.”

  “I guess,” Akelle said, obviously not happy, but there was nothing for it. Josen needed to get back.

  Despite the pain in his hand, despite the wet and the rush and the weird incident with the Ladies, it felt good to have a job come together, to be putting the finishing touches on it. He broke the mask into fine porcelain, using a trickle of power so it would revert quickly. He set it on the ground and stepped on it, applying pressure until the porcelain mask cracked and shattered into half a dozen large pieces. The pieces reverted back into silvery steel almost instantly. Josen smiled, the sound of more barrels splashing into the water, the grunts of men hauling them up onto the barge a satisfying postlude to a successful night.

  Chapter 20

  Josen set the note down and rubbed at his face, checking for any trace of the makeup he had spent the carriage ride trying to remove. Vale wanted to speak before Josen went to the Basin Council meeting, implying it was urgent, but Josen was already late. Vale would have to wait. He ran a bare hand over his face one last time, probing for anything he might have missed. He didn’t feel anything obvious, but it was hard to tell without a mirror. It would have to do.

  The carriage rattled and slowed as it approached Berden’s manor, and Josen had to restrain himself from jumping from the moving vehicle and running into the house like a schoolboy late for lessons. The temptation was far stronger than it should have been, though it was dampened by the throbbing pain in his right hand. Not knowing what else to do in the time available, he had only wrapped it. He wasn’t sure how much good that would do, but he wouldn’t have time to see Master Roetu until after the meeting—maybe not until the dinner date with his mother, if the meeting ran long.

  Regardless, Josen decided against jumping out of the moving carriage. Reverate Oak was expected to uphold the dignity and gravitas of the office, to be a proper representative of both the Church and the Faceless God. Breaking peoples’ expectations could be a lot of fun, but not today. Not on purpose, at least. Josen wasn’t doing this Reverate thing for his own amusement. He was doing it because, for the moment at least, his family needed him to do it. Faceless help them all.

  The sun bore down on Josen as he hurried up Berden’s long walkway—a stark contrast to the moonlit night he had just left in Chessay. Josen’s gaze was drawn east, towards a pair of great smoke clouds blooming in the distance—on Shepherd land, it looked like. Josen swore quietly so Berden’s garden staff wouldn’t overhear his profanity. He hoped it was a controlled burn, and not arson again. Clouds of smoke were far too common recently, along with sudden bouts of diarrhea sweeping through whole teams of workers, barns full of broken or dismantled equipment, barrels of drinking water ruined with bitter herbs, and more.

  All of the attacks, such as they were, seemed calculated to disrupt the farm work in one way or another. The cattle stampede two weeks ago had been particularly costly, though they still couldn’t prove it was started intentionally. Regardless, Josen was still feeling the impact. Over fifty work oxen dead from the stampede or hurt so badly they had to be put down. Four barracks and a dozen businesses as good as destroyed. Eight working men with severe injuries, dozens more minor, and three deaths, including a boy who several witnesses said had tried to calm the irritated beasts before they worked themselves into a frenzy.

  Josen heard his carriage rattle away behind him, moving to park next to several others, including two with the markings of Reverate Vasture and Reverate Shepherd already parked along the side of the manor. Starvation and starving hells. Those parke
d carriages meant he was the last one here. New as he was to the politics of the Basin, Josen was already at a huge disadvantage. Being late wouldn’t do him any favors.

  Josen remembered his father talking about these meetings, about obscure political maneuverings and subtle jockeying for position. Josen remembered being baffled at how such small decisions were so contentions—decisions like division of water rights in the Basin, contracts awarded to this or that merchant for the distribution of leather goods or highway maintenance. It was starting to make more sense.

  Josen no longer owned a working pocket watch, but best as he could tell the sun was more or less overhead. The meeting was supposed to start at noon, so he was reasonably sure he was mostly on time. He hoped.

  God’s tears, but optimism took a lot of hedging some days.

  Josen took a deep breath, straightened his jacket, and walked into Berden’s home in the Ceral Basin.

  “Look who has decided to grace us with his presence,” Berden said as a servant let Josen through the doors to the study. Josen ignored him, looking over the unfamiliar room instead as if he was intensely interested. It was a childish reaction, but Josen couldn’t stand the way Berden treated him—refused to acknowledge it.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a particularly interesting room. It was well lit and sparsely furnished, bookshelves lined the walls, and the smell of cedar and leather dominated the air. The room was warm but not uncomfortable. A large fan hung in the center of the room, spinning lazily, and several windows were open. Josen idly wondered how the fan was powered, but his eyes were drawn to the people seated at the center of the room, and the dominating table they sat around.

  Berden was seated facing the door, hands resting on a massive, elegantly carved cherry table. His gaze, locked on Josen, overflowed with loathing.

  So Josen continued to ignore him, shifting his gaze to the others in the room. Josen recognized the woman and three other men seated at the table. To Berden’s left were the other two Reverate Stewards—Reverate Shepherd and Reverate Vasture. They were good friends—had been for as long as Josen remembered—and typically voted together when it came to any major decision making.