“I haven’t told you to get up.”
Mama grunted. Her hand was still in her bag. “I reckon he barged in and came at ye, all fists and boots, is that it?”
“Knives and swords, Mama. Without so much as a good morning.”
Mama’s face darkened. “Knives, was it?” She spat. “Like I done said, these here Sprangs is dumber than the pigs they keep. What about them two?”
“We were never introduced. What about it, you? Those brothers, sons, or truly ugly daughters?”
“My boys. Gerlat. Polter. If they’ve been kilt, I swear, I’ll—”
“If they’ve been killed that’s your fault, turnip burglar. You, there. What’s your name?”
I spoke that to a kid who was watching from the sidewalk.
“Itchy. I ain’t with them.”
“I know. But if you want to earn a pair of coppers, go fetch the Watch. They’re probably two blocks north at that place that sells biscuits on the sidewalk.”
“Three coppers.”
“No coppers if you say another word. Scoot.”
He scooted. A crowd began to gather, and Piggy got red-faced and restless when the laughter started.
“You want to tell me why you and your brood pulled knives on me?”
“Go to Hell. Take that there witch-woman with ye.”
Mama cackled.
“Witch I ain’t, Gilgad Sprang. And that’s a bad piece of luck for you, and do you know why?” Mama leaned close and poked his bloody nose with her crooked forefinger. “A witch might be moved to show you some mercy. But not me. You is doomed, and all your kin, and ain’t no way past that now.”
And then she muttered a long string of nonsense words and shook a dried owl in Piggy’s face.
He shut up, something like fear showing in his piggy eyes. I watched a mob of street kids empty his sons’ pockets. Both seemed to be stirring and moaning a bit, and I let out a breath I’d been holding.
It was one thing to summon the Watch when you had three bloodied but breathing assailants to present. But even on Cambrit Street, corpses require a lot of explaining.
Whistles blew, and I heard the hurried clip-clop of Watch ponies and the rattle of a Watch wagon.
Mama gave the head of the Sprang household a good hard kick in the face before backing up a step.
“I’m leavin’. If’n you needs a witness, send ’em to my door.’
“Thanks, Mama. I’ll keep you out of it if I can.” Mama isn’t any more popular with the Watch than I am. Years ago she kneed a Watchman in the groin when he barged into her place looking for a street kid she was hiding in a barrel. Neither she nor the Watch was much on forgetting or forgiving.
“See me when you’re done, boy.”
The wagon rounded the corner. Mama trundled away, muttering.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said as four blue-capped Watchmen approached, wiping the remains of the breakfast I’d so rudely interrupted off of their thick wool shirts. “Let me tell you about the morning I’ve had.”
Chapter Two
I didn’t have to make the trip downtown to file an official complaint. Turns out half the neighborhood had seen the altercation, and in a rare display of civic mindedness, people had actually lined up to give their accounts to the Watch.
I attributed that more to Mama’s presence on the scene than to any affection for the neighborhood finder.
Even so, the evidence was clear—I had been the subject of an armed, unprovoked attack.
And so I was sitting in Mama’s tiny parlor, Buttercup at my feet, while the Sprangs were enjoying the dubious hospitality of Rannit’s least accommodating public house, the Old Ruth Gaol.
“And then the Watch left,” I said while Mama stirred that enormous black pot she always has on the boil in the back of the room. Today it stank of rotten eggs and burnt hair.
Mama sighed. “How long you reckon they’ll keep ’em locked up?”
“Hard to say. If they can pay the fine, maybe a couple of weeks. If they have to work it off, could be a couple of months.”
Mama grunted. “I was hopin’ it would be a mite longer than that.”
“Spill it, Mama. You knew that man. Bet you also know why he came looking for me.”
“He don’t care nothing for you, boy.”
“Gertriss, then?”
“I fears it.”
Damn. Gertriss had started to tell me once why she’d left Pot Lockney, the pastoral ancestral abode of Hog women since time began. We’d never finished that conversation. I’d never asked, assuming she’d finish the story when she was good and ready.
Now, though, I’d need to press for answers.
I started to speak, but Mama raised a bony finger to her lips and nodded toward Buttercup, who played with dolls at my feet.
I forget sometimes Buttercup is a centuries-old banshee who understands far more Kingdom than she chooses to speak.
“I need to know this, Mama.”
“Tried to tell you once, didn’t I? And as I recall you got all uppity about people needin’ their privacy.”
“That was before the Sprangs tried to carve out my kidneys.”
Mama stirred. “Well. From what I hears, and this is all third-hand mind ye, I reckon she kilt a man who—,” Mama hesitated, picking words carefully, “—who got determined with her. I ain’t got no use for a man what mistreats woman. No use at all.”
Whatever was in the pot threatened to come sloshing over the side. Mama cussed and slowed her stirring before continuing.
“Sounds to me like she did what she had to do.”
“There’s some what don’t see it that way.”
“These Sprangs. They his family?”
“That’s where it gets bothersome, boy. The man she kilt was a Suthom, from over Gobbler way. Ain’t no relation to the Sprangs.”
I frowned. Buttercup saw and handed me the doll she was cooing wordlessly to.
“Thanks, sweetie.” I took the doll by its hands and made it dance on my knee. “So why did these Sprangs come looking for Gertriss?”
“That Suthom boy she killed. Word is he had bought a big patch of farmland from the Sprangs. He was figurin’ on settin’ up with Gertriss there. Well, he paid them half, promised the rest. But she kilt him before he delivered. I reckon they figure she took the half of the money he was holdin’, and I reckon they wants it.”
I nearly forgot to keep the doll dancing.
“Whoa. They came all this way looking for Gertriss because they think she has half of the money a dead man promised them for a farm he’ll never live on?”
“You a city boy. Listen. That Suthom promised that there money to them Sprangs. In their way of thinking, Gertriss was his, and that means she promised it too. So he might be dead, but she ain’t, and by old law she still half-owns that patch of dirt and she owes them half that money.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“Them Sprangs look like they was jokin’, boy?”
“No. No, they didn’t.” I gave Buttercup’s dolly a big dance finish and handed it back to her. She clapped her hands and giggled and hugged me before scampering off to Mama’s back room.
“So if that’s all true, why jump me? They figure I owe them money too?”
Mama grumped and looked away, but I got a glimpse of her face before she turned, and I’ve been a resident of Cambrit Street long enough to recognize Mama’s many faces. I was seeing the rarest of all her faces—the guilty one.
“Mama.”
“Well, they must have got word Gertriss is workin’ for you now.”
“That isn’t reason to start carving on me, is it?”
Mama gave the contents of her pot a glare.
“I reckon word might have got around that she was a mite more than any ol’ employee.”
I groaned. I’d surmised that myself before she spoke the words.
I’d also surmised how the Sprangs, and everyone else in rural Pot Lockney, might have gotten those particular words.
“Why, Mama? Tell me that.”
“Boy, I didn’t think they’d come stomping to Rannit aimin’ to spill blood. I swears I didn’t. A man from the city? A man what knows city people, knows the Dark Houses by name?” She gave her potion a savage turn. “I reckoned them stump jumpers would stay put and let that damn land sit fallow for five seasons, and then it would be theirs and no trouble for us. You.”
“I hate to point out the obvious, Mama, but that isn’t the way things are turning out.”
“I knows it. I’m sorry, boy. But there’s something else a goin’ on here. Something I don’t know about.”
“Do tell.”
“But I aims to find it out. I aims to put it right.”
“I hope you aim to do that before the Watch cuts the Sprangs loose.” I shook my head and had a disturbing thought. “How many Sprangs are there, anyway, Mama? Are there are more of them out there, sharpening their knives and planning trips to Rannit?”
“I don’t know, boy. But I will be a findin’ out.”
“You know we’ll have to tell Gertriss.”
“I know. I’ll be the one.”
“I’ll come back around when I’m done with a bit of snooping. Don’t worry, Mama. She’ll be mad, but she’ll get over it.”
Mama shrugged, unconvinced. Her relations with her niece hadn’t been what Mama was hoping for. This incident wasn’t going to help, not one bit.
Kids. They grow up, whether anyone likes it or not.
I rose, waved goodbye to Buttercup, and headed for Mama’s door.
“Back before Curfew,” I said. “Better make sure you check the peephole before you open up.”
“I ain’t stupid, boy. And I ain’t likely to get bushwhacked by the likes of no Sprangs, neither.”
I bit back a retort and headed for the street.
My plan was to head downtown and pay Darla’s friend Tamar a visit. Darla would be hurt if I sent Gertriss instead, and even more hurt if I kept Tamar waiting all day.
That was my plan.
I had to change it when the Corpsemaster’s black carriage came rolling down my street.
People scattered. Doors and shutters slammed. Hell, the crows picking scraps off the street took to the air and flapped away, all business, without so much as a single harsh caw.
Fool me, the only one left standing when the horseless black carriage rolled to a buzzing halt.
The buzzing came from the cloud of flies that engulfed the accursed contrivance. The cabdriver was a dead man, who sat atop the carriage and grinned down at me from a face that was mostly skull. I wondered what small fault won him his place atop the black carriage.
He clacked his lipless teeth in greeting. I think he would have dismounted and opened the door for me had I not reached out and opened it myself.
There’s no point in denying Hisvin’s carriage.
Not unless you wish to wind up sitting atop it.
I clambered in.
Evis was there, wrapped in yards and yards of black silk and hiding his eyes behind the black lenses of those fancy spectacles the halfdead favor on their rare daytime excursions.
Seated across from him was a dead woman. She hadn’t been dead long. The undertaker’s rouge on her cheeks and the make-up on her hands lent her a nearly lifelike appearance.
“Good morning, Mr. Markhat,” she said. Her voice seemed natural, save for a slight slurring. Her gums behind her too-red lips were white. “I trust you won’t mind if I take up a portion of your day?”
I nodded a grim hello at Evis, unable to read his eyes behind the dark glasses.
“Always happy to be about the Regent’s business.”
The Corpsemaster laughed through the dead woman’s throat. “Well put, finder. I believe you know Mr. Prestley.”
“He’s in trouble too?”
She ignored me.
“There is a thing I wish to show both of you. I can, of course, count on your discretion afterward.”
She hadn’t spoken it as a question. The threat was clear enough.
I settled back into my seat. It was cushioned and it rode on springs to smooth out the potholes. Had it been any other seat in any other carriage I’d have been glad of the luxury.
“This thing—”
The dead woman raised a finger to her dry pursed lips.
“Nice seats in this carriage,” I finished.
The dead woman smiled. Evis rustled in his silks. I wasn’t sure he was awake. I hear the slumber of a halfdead is akin to a coma.
We rattled on. The dead cabman cracked his whip at horses that weren’t there, while a dead woman watched me through eyes gone flat and dry.
All in all, my day was off to a decidedly rocky start.
Evis began to snore.
I clasped my hands behind my head and leaned back into the Corpsemaster’s fancy carriage seat. If Evis was so unconcerned he could slumber, I wasn’t going to be seen fretting.
The Corpsemaster smiled.
“I should’ve brought a picnic basket,” she said. Her smile was so wide it cracked the thick undertaker’s rouge and let slivers of grey peek through at each dimple. “We’re going to have such
fun
.”
I didn’t ask. I didn’t dare.
I was getting sleepy. It was happening so quickly I almost didn’t notice it. My eyes drooped shut and I caught myself and opened them with a start, terrified at the prospect of dozing off across from Encorla Hisvin, sure that would be construed as a mortal insult to one who bore no insult, however slight.
My arms fell to my sides, heavy as wet sand, and suddenly just as useful.
“Sleep now,” whispered the dead woman. My vision was failing. She leaned forward toward me and stroked my cheek with fingers oh so cold. “Better if you sleep.”
I didn’t have words. Didn’t have the strength left to speak them.
“Sleep.”
I fought with everything I had. Lasted maybe another pair of heartbeats.
I hoped I wouldn’t dream.
Somebody had my right arm and was yanking on it.
“Wake up,” shouted a gruff voice, so close to my ear I could feel warm breath. “You’re too damned heavy to carry.”
The voice was male and unfamiliar. I managed to open my eyes about the time I went spilling out of Hisvin’s carriage and onto the cobblestones below.
An effort was made to catch me, but it was halfhearted and accompanied by a pair of loud guffaws.
I landed, rolled, stood. I would have punched someone in the gut had my eyes not been blinded by a sun that beamed down hot and bright.
“You’re awake. Good. Here’s some water. You’ll want it.”
A cold pitcher was pressed into my hand. I squinted about me, trying to arrange my most recent memories into some semblance of order so I’d know who to hit first.