Post by Sire Halfblack on Nov 23, 2014 19:00:52 GMT
Harvest IM 1013
He didn’t care. Perhaps he had become so deep-Deci that he was inured to it. Perhaps his earlier years, perhaps more recent years, perhaps even that his days away killing in the name of good were just that – an occasional pastime. Perhaps all of that was true or none of it, but whilst he had stepped in to stop the drunks that had been helping themselves to other drunks purses it had been with a sharp kick up the arse for their trouble. All for twelve rotten little grulls with which certain people in this city wouldn’t have wiped their arses. Even had they been scrubbed, and pressed, and blessed by some dark prince of the bottom fairies.
Crime was everywhere and crime was nowhere because crime was just what the people in charge said it was, and this was Deci, and robbery was just robbery when it wasn’t just the usual fiend-eat-fiend of the streets. But really now - twelve grulls?
“You,” said Selgard. This was the Invisible Quarter, which was the Mercantile Quarter to anyone that that didn’t know the city. It was prosperous place. The man Selgard pointed to turned about only to return with a fold of more notes. “No you fool, I’m not robbing you.”
“Of course you aren’t, Governor,” said Aragavorn. He was a Guildsman and so knew the forms only too well. He winked, and said, “I’m a bit short of the actual right now you’ll understand?”
Selgard didn’t but was beginning to. People hereabouts weren’t exactly poor but the folding stuff was perhaps getting a little short. The man he knew paid his taxes. People usually did. Deci was odd like that, or perhaps not so much? Robbery was robbery and they all understood that. Then again the council were always meticulous about such things themselves and in Deci the one thing the hated most was a hypocrite. Not that the Sleek told people to stop killing each other. Oh no. Oh, wait...
*
Not as powerful as Slice, nor as political as Anath, Sire Brass was nonetheless a Merchant Sire and in his own small way a successful one. Brass had been a trader, and a good one, that by some means or happenstance had been granted the Cerus Marque with the new Empire. He did not hold great stocks, he did not own a fine estate and he indeed employed few factors. But he was good at dealing with people, at ensuring where something was needed then he knew one who might be able to fulfil that need. Mostly he dealt directly with traders. They liked Sire Brass not because he was pleasant, which he was not, but because he did as he promised and dealing with Sire Brass meant that there was always a little profit for everyone.
It actually took Davian some time to find where Brass worked. The address in the Invisible Quarter was but a doorway without so much as a tin plaque. Yet here it was and here Davian entered to find himself up the stairs in a very small room with a very high ceiling where a single scribe totted away and Brass had dismissed a rogue with a wagon to be on his way.
“Baron is it?” asked Brass.
“You are well informed.”
“Traders talk to me.”
*
It had been raining a mile out and it was raining here, and the clouds showed no sign of moving. Under the great oilskin hat most carters possessed he shivered as he stood in a puddle and watched the water run into the arches as the artisans worked. They were widening and deepening the arches for him under the main drag and away into part of Forgetown; and they didn’t think much of the way that had been thought about. Whichever diviner Orion had gone to in order to have the tally scrolls made up had been having a bad sort of day, but as Orion had explained he wasn’t looking for thrills, just a secure wagon park.
He had barely been around Forgetown long enough for the lads and lasses of clever Sire Tin to even consider doing the work for him. This was a big job and only local people qualified. They weren’t a guild they were artisans, they worked with their hands and they knew what they were doing with every hammer, pick, prop and measure. And one of them added whilst taking a crafty smoke under his hood, “Ain’t going to get better, neither.”
“The weather?”
“This,” the artisan nodded at the work. Bigger job than this took them months to do and that was work for the founding fathers. It would need a nod from one of them to go the extra jump. The mayor, the preacher man, big Anath, goldenballs, any one of them. Orion didn’t move in such circles, he was just a carter.
“Not to worry,” Orion started to say, although in this he was exactly, wholly, and entirely in error. Because that was when a two foot brick having been heaved towards them smashed him in the face, dropping even the tough carter into the mud.
*
The chair was very high and the knife was very sharp. A half dozen people sat about the shop talking about not very much, apart from one fellow with sweeping grey hair that occupied himself with a very small book. Everyone was clearly comfortable and few of them seemed to be looking at all the blades that were for sale. He said, “You want me to raise my chin?”
The rat agreed that this was exactly what he wanted Aiden to do. To demonstrate their wares they offered their customers a very close shave.
“And you’re not going to cut my throat and make me into a pie?”
“Nossir,” then, “although, if sir is hungry then there is a decent pie shop just below?”
Troy had been very firm about this being the place to go and a Majius hadn’t had another quietly assassinated for some time now so Aiden against his best instincts let himself be shaved. It was indeed very close but without a single drop of blood shed, nor the slightest cut made to the skin. The rat inspected his work critically but seemed satisfied. He said, “Something for the weekend, sir?”
Aiden chuckled, “Ah, yes, funny you should mention that...”
“Don’t be embarrassed, sir. Nice experienced woman? Plump goblin? Information?”
“Two of those actually,” then after some consideration, “not the goblin though.”
“Oh he scrubs up something ‘triffic, sir. And he can suck lightning from an undine, or so I hear.”
“No, no, just the other things will be fine.”
*
No one was there to ring the bell. Chaos spread across Forgetown as fighting broken out in little patches. The rain fell harder, people slipped as they ran here and there and Orion rose unsteadily to see a number of the artisans advance with pick and wooden beam held ready. It was worse than the Cart & Hammer come festival time, and he swam through those nearest to where three men were kicking another and the closest of those Orion turned about on his heel and butted him hard. They both fell. The brawler from the force of Orion’s head; Orion having used a head only recently introduced to a large brick. He was kicked viciously in the side and rolled over, wishing he had the old sword from his wagon with him – and then thankful he hadn’t since that sort of thing only escalated.
The next kick got him in the head, and then the three were away and hands were helping him up. The fight grew and fell. Traders used to defending themselves had fetched their swords. Something was on fire further along the drag. A swarm of women went by with pastry pins and pig clubs. Not so far away half a dozen idiots waded into a pack of roustabouts and went right by fists to elbows and wheel spokes.
Then the bell rang. The crowd quietened a little and the fighting went further out. Orion angry now set off to chase the nearest of the troublemakers only to find himself pushed along with the crowd that parted for a tall man, broad at the shoulders and with his face shielded by the brim of his hat. And not only a tall man, but a man taller than any other man – certainly any there.
That man looked about the crowd and spat. He was the shire reeve of Forgetown. He even had a tin badge. He was just one man and then he was twenty, then a hundred as transients and the few residents formed up about him. Then more as at their head he walked the drag, and all about him the fighting died and the posse grew until everyone was posse and no one was fighting.
*
Sire Berry waited until Mattagan wished to speak with him more privately, and Trundleberry made sure that was regarding the princess. There were not so many of the rats to be seen now, most having hived off both to their labour and to see to rumours of goblins being seen again. He said, “I wanna persuade yer to let me takes the princess with me ter the city.”
“Unlikely, but go on?”
Sire Berry waited. Then, “Wot?”
“Persuade me then?”
That was pretty much it to Trundelberry’s mind. He hadn’t actually thought of anything persuasive to say. He had got as far as being persuasive but had got a bit distracted as to the details. “I got this white rat?” he eventually offered. Mattagan shook his head sadly. So Trundleberry kicked the rat in the nuts, snatched up the princess - and legged it.
*
A rustle of stiff skirts, the slight creak of metal and wire, a door opened and closed. Sneertwice now firmly brought to see his Sire bowed a little but otherwise said nothing. Anath Halfblack had adopted the face. The face was rarely seen. It meant that Anath Halfblack was feeling... tetchy. It was important not to refer to the Sire as being angry, because anger implied failure and failure had a special room when it came to visit. The room did not have a floor. The face firmly set to show no emotion Anath tapped his fingers together. He paused noticing his own action and with only a little relief (and that only perceived by Sneertwice, who knew the signs only too well) continued. Anath said, “I appear to have ashes?”
“Is the market liable to drop in combustibles, master?” Sneertwice might think of Anath as the Sire but well knew his employer preferred the lesser title. It implied so much more.
“These ashes,” said Anath, “Were grulls.”
“You were counting treasure, master?” but of course he was. If you didn’t count it then it would get up to no end of mischief. “Is it perhaps a ritual gone awry, master?”
“No Sneertwice, it is not a ritual that has gone awry. I do not dabble in ritual. Ritual incurs a cost both in fiscal and entropic terms. It acts as a drain upon faith resources. It is not a ritual that has gone awry. It is a ritual that has very much not gone awry. It is a ritual that has gone in the opposite direction to that village called awry, taking instead the fork to the fair city of success-on-purpose. I am...”
“Tetchy, master?”
“We might very nearly say displeased, Sneertwice,” and no one of course must know, which meant that many soon would. They might not believe it, but they would enjoy repeating it. One might not even exist at all and never had done in Deci, but if teased in such a manner it would still always get out. Deci liked a laugh, if only and always at someone’s expense. And ‘expense’ was a word Anath used with more precision.
*
Boot heels did not ring in Deci, they had bells for that and no one wore them on their shoes. The procession of King and members of the Spire Guard crossed a narrow bridge over an empty library, shelves not dusty but unused. They came to a door that they opened with a key taken from many. No one worried about anyone picking locks here. The Deci Nobility rarely stooped so low to steal from simple rooms. They always had larger designs – but more importantly that would have been considered rude. Bloody rebellion, politics and even assassins were one thing; rudeness something quite another. Rudeness came veiled like a bride and kept once again from his own King Troy the Faceless stepped lightly through the door whose lock clicked shut behind him. It was quite the noisiest sound in the corridors. The rooms were by nature, culture, and design not given to interrupting anyone with what went on within.
*
“Well there were the goblins?”
“The wolves killed them all,” said Selgard. Well, fought them he now decided, which had been enough, and especially since Deci already had a Maggot, and that Maggot was really, really tough. Everyone knew it. Even in the mountains they had heard it. But the goblins had had to have a go. You weren’t anyone till you had attacked one the big towns of the Empire. There weren’t any bodies of course since the honey had long since... dumped them in the river probably, but whilst there had been many Selgard decided, there hadn’t been a lot.
“Isn’t that enough?”
Selgard wasn’t sure. He was looking at things generally. That didn’t mean there was nothing specifically going on but it was the streets that were really his preserve – well, the people if he was honest. There was no secret plot to overthrow anything, or if it was then it remained a secret. The people had a king who wasn’t mad enough, but he was still the king (even if he was taking his own sweet time about being found in bits somewhere and a madder fecker rising to make everyone miss him). They had a governor to do all the actual work – and even Cheapside, for Cheapside, was peaceful. But. But it would never take much. If there was a problem it was that Deci was Deci. You didn’t turn your back on it. The gangs could erupt, things could collapse, and entirely with a good push in the right direction because people would react, and with their sharp, instant assumption and not-being-taken-for-a-ride way that given the almost cultural bunco that went on they certainly seemed to be used to. Even the markets were doing well. All the excess metal had been bought up and with some very sharp insight about pricing – and markets were there to be bought from weren’t they? And it meant the city needed less storehouses so all was probably well.
*
“With me!” Sire Berry shouted at the bemused Stepsons. They were as lethal a pack as anyone was ever likely to meet between the two mountains ranges of the Empire and it had been absolutely bloody ages since they had actually had to fight anyone. They were in truth getting a bit fat and old off it all but rats were rats and they were rats that followed a stepfather who was a goblin. “Run!” Trundleberry ordered as he went by another bunch of his beloved backstabbers. Centuries of running away came to the fore and rats were no less strengthened by a long heritage of stand up fighting either and so they too ran. Out the marshes they went, a good hundred of Deci’s meanest, more terrible, arguably most lethal killers and all waved their little hands in the air and shrieking like a girl being served up her pony for breakfast.
Not far behind them and a whole dozen wild rats pursued. Some had spears. They were also rats and they could count. They were very keen to pursue the miscreants that had turned on them. Not so keen on catching up. Out here that was a bit of a trial since they were feral creatures and this was their bailiwick. The city rats on the other hand were very fond of cake and the bakers worked for their chief.
It wasn’t long before the Stepsons, huffing and puffing and still mystified at not having found any alleyways had slowed to a waddle. Sire Berry himself no stranger to all the pies in the world had by now resorted to waving a knife at the princess so that she walked, with a sigh, and was in danger of outpacing them. He looked about himself. There was a rock. “Hide,” he ordered.
*
There was nothing half about them. If anything then between the two of them they were about three orcs. Both stood a good head taller than Aiden and that stooping. They had never, not ever followed Blackjack. They had been very clear on that the moment Aiden had approached them about moving to Scarlene. They were brothers, though they did not share a mother and had different fathers. Orcs could be funny about things like that. They were also clever in that way that meant they acted very stupid. Since Sire Berry had decided that things had to be a certain way they no longer broke ordinary people in exchange for breaking them worse, but they did stop other ordinary people from robbing or knifing yet more ordinary people if these last ordinary people paid them. And they were very well dressed. They were not exactly bodyguards, but they weren’t half bad at not taking chances at having to be. And yes, they’d work the door for Aiden.
As indeed would the half dozen women that traipsed along behind all three dressed in their Deci best and looking forward to a cart ride to Scarlene. Which was a long way away, and none of them liable to walk it - they would have had to work their way and that could take years. They were a cut above the common street walkers, in that it was not a profession exactly forced upon them. They knew what was what, and that for now would have to do for Aiden. He didn’t have the time for reluctance or the desperate. The women were happy to come because theirs was very much a cash business, and that wasn’t looking good right now. They weren’t wonderfully classy, but neither was his establishment – when it was then he could send word and a coach for the serpent girl in the Spire. He wondered where he would get a coach? But he had wanted class and if very odd, the serpent girl was it. Others of similar standing and reputation in the Spire had it too good to want to leave, no matter the strange things those that went there seemed to want.
The brothers Willin’ were already proving their worth as they parted the crowd for Aiden. It was an extremely busy day in the King’s Bazaar – lots of people were selling from what he could see. “Scrolls?” he said, “Apparently there’s a place called Snowdowns?”
There was, and it was small, cold, and smelled of decaying plants and even a small, dead tree. And there were scrolls, or two at least since Aiden had already sent word ahead in a focussed sort of fashion. And perhaps something more if the good and kind lord wished to put in for something Snowdown knew of, that he could acquire?
*
What helds had returned from Myron, if any had, then none of them had been from Deci. Deci it seemed had sent not one spearman to the war – not that it really had any. Deci’s idea of war was to keep the gates open (because they were expensive to replace) and absorb the invader until he became more Deci than Deci itself. But there was nonetheless a bustle to the bazaar. In truth there were not likely to be many strange ritual objects from Myron since others were picking at the place with their adventurers souls – but then Davian wasn’t a summoner, and his interests lied elsewhere.
Most of that here was junk or as much as that mattered, albeit curious junk and probably for many an heirloom that might or might not have come from an ancestor. He browsed, he picked but of shadow there was nothing.
Being Deci of darkness there were one or two. No one made scriven scrolls in these times of unguarded ritual and common ability, most were at least from the early days of the Empire but almost all from much earlier. But still it was Deci, and like a ghoul to liver was joyful darkness to the city. There was said to be a more particular place, Bezoars, but it came and went and was not to be seen for the moment – so Davian hunted through piles in the many curiosity shops before taking to the counter the two that had attracted his eye.
“Bezoars?” he said in passing.
“You don’t to go there, lord.”
But Davian did. In fact Davian insisted.
The shopkeeper blinked and nodded and decided that what the lord wanted was what the lord got. He said, “It’s not exactly normal there, lord. It’s not exactly just here. It goes where the market and the need are. And it doesn’t really care for Imperial currency. It trades, and it gives what people think they want.”
“And it is where?” Davian pressed.
“Always here at the ‘Dawn master, the final one. End of the year and all that. Pepperspeck square most often. But I wouldn’t if I were you, lord.”
“But you are not me,” said Davian with a sniff and asked as to the price of the two scrolls.
*
It was filthy and Berina did not like it at all. The sense of weight above them was immense. The old air cloyed about the chest. The heavy panels were streaked by the years and bent from Hightown above. It was too dark despite the lantern, and this darkness did not feel like an ally. “Why have you brought me to such a horrible place?”
“My wizard did not mention how disgusting it was,” admitted Troy. But then he supposed his wizard would hardly notice such things. Being his wizard meant that pretty much anything else at all was a picnic in a big bed in comparison. Twirl had done much that was good for the city and for Troy in particular – but he was still an awful little man. Thing, whatever he was.
*
A good hundred rats hid behind one insufficiently large rock. Creamy turned to Sire Berry and said, “Ain’t we gonna just kill ‘em?” then went back to trying not to be sick.
Sire Berry wasn’t sure. He would if he absolutely had to, though he would rather not. He looked at the skies, he sniffed the air. “’Ang on lads,” he said. “I think I gotta plan...”
The rats nodded. The stepfather always had a plan. He was known for his plans. Sometimes he even planned them; although not often. Most of them could see the twelve rats that were chasing them kicking at tussocks and prodding the occasional tuft of filthy marsh grass. Not looking in their direction at all. The stepsons were ready for the enemy to come close enough so that as one they could, all of them, circle the rock and have ‘em from behind. But then that was why stepfather made the plans. They hated the outdoors.
With a savage peeling and a fight against trousers not removed for several years but for the Ma Berry flaps at either side Trundleberry stripped naked. It was quite an effort as years of grandeur had just sort of layered up. He sought about for something, he said, “Anyone gotta bone?”
Creamy coughed. He said, “Chief, we loves yer, but...”
“No a bloody bone, a bone! Wot skeleeleletons is made of?” someone did. Trundelberry tried not to wonder why. Lunch probably. Or it had just been lying about at some point insufficiently nailed down. So, bone in hand Sire Berry started to dance. He danced about the rock. He danced upon the rock. He gyrated and waggled, he pointed the bone at the sky.
And it rained. Not much, but a bit.
No longer able to pretend to miss the raiders the wild rats shuffled together to discuss the changing face of their quest. One said, “That’s ritual isn’t it?” Another said, “Who knows what’s next?” so they backed off and then with a yelp fled, little hands waving in the air.
“Quick,” Trundelberry leapt down to join his stepsons as the rain stopped again, “Run away!”
*
“Hello Mr Tatt,” said Selgard. He had watched the horrible little man for almost ten minutes now. He had begun to wonder when the buildings got into such a state. Most hardly noticed it now but the soot and poison coated the city and people just scrawled in it. Or must have done, Selgard hadn’t seen anyone until now and that had taken some hunting.
“Oh, wotcha Mr Gard,” Tinker Tatt his hand sticky with tarry soot to the elbow made himself look innocent. Or at least like anyone else in Deci. Which meant sly, shifty and managing somehow to move his feet about to point in the opposite direction whilst not changing his facing at all.
“What’s that then,” Selgard nodded to where amongst all the other scrawls Tatt had actually added words, and priest runes at that, nice and straight forward. Most of the desecration was more graphic. Most people couldn’t read. “Down with the Empire and stuff?” Selgard picked it out.
“How did that get there?”
“I’m not the watch, Mr Tatt,” said Selgard. He wouldn’t kill anyone for that sort of treasure. “I’m just an interested passer-by.”
“Interested in what, Mr Gard?”
“Let’s just say that it would be in your best interest for me to find whatever it is you next say be just that?”
*
“I still live here!” Sir Praise huffed as he followed Anath about his house. Ordinary looking women and men continued to lift dusty trophies and keepsakes from the dying days of the wars to be placed in oil cloth and packed into tin trunks. Praise had been on the Long Ride, Praise had been knighted for his efforts. Praise owed quite a lot to many, many people and those many, many people had all it turned out been Anath. Or they had since that morning anyway.
The house was not so very close to the spire, but it was still in Hightown. The street above was a better address but there were many that were below it. Hightown was very literal in many ways. It was still a good address and had no ghosts, awful secrets, mysterious shadows, or even something terrible in the attic where it joined with the cellars of the street above. It was perhaps unique in that. Nineteen rooms and with the new furniture being made at that very moment, Anath offered Bella the key.
“But... my house!” whined Sir Praise.
“Not strictly true,” Anath corrected the tired old warhorse.
*
They wore the patch of Sire Slice, a dozen of them, but they looked like adventurers. Not local adventurers so much, for these were women and men for whom a knife was not the first choice of a weapon when faced with a sword. Some wore mail, most wore leather and all of them were old – in their late thirties at least. Just like adventurers. They stood by the gate and watched the long procession of wagons move out and along the road, but they did nothing about it. It was not their place, nor their instruction. An awful lot of metal had been bought up and not by their Sire, but he did not employ their like to stop his peers engaging in trade – though it was nice to know about it when they did.
There was one other and he chatted to them amiably enough. He didn’t wear a patch, but rather an old gold chain about his neck and the sort of hat a factor might wear when he didn’t mind being known as a factor. Or indeed, wanted it to be noticed. He said, “You could of course have been at another gate?”
Selaberen laughed. He shook his head. They couldn’t be bought. What was the use of a little more treasure for the lack of a lot they’d lose? They had a good life, and they worked well, and they didn’t want to piss off the Sire. The only ones in recent times to fail Sire Slice had been those that had failed to protect a particular caravan some three years before – and then only because they had died doing it. And one of them possessed of vitae had been restored to life at the Sire’s expense, and then given a bonus.
“Not scared of your merchant are you?”
“No,” said Selaberen, “and you know why?”
“I’m always keen to learn new things,” said gold chain.
“Because we don’t intend to do anything that would cause us to know that fear,” he patted the factor’s cheek. “Go on with you, and be sure to give our Sire’s love to your own.”
By Alan Morgan