Tomorrow, the Killing

35

I spent the evening in an apartment I own in Offbend. It’s an ugly apartment, in an ugly building, in an ugly borough in an ugly city. I could keep going. The neighbors do their best to live up to the surroundings, spiteful folk with bad skin and crossed eyes, but they didn’t know nobody and they never saw nothing. That was more or less the sole virtue of the dwelling, and it was worth the few coin a month I dropped on it.

Back at the Earl I changed clothes and undid the latch on the hidden shelf in my bureau, swapping a few vials from the professional stash into my personal. I noted sourly that it had been a lot more crowded a few days earlier.

A letter waited on my night table, a block ‘M’ sealed in wax on the back. I opened it and watched a leaf of paper flutter to the ground. The text was neat, ink pressed into muslin.

Lieutenant,

No doubt you’ve heard of my recent misfortune. Its arrival is to be laid at my feet, and mine alone – you owe me nothing. Indeed, it is I and my family who are in your debt, and while your refusal to accept payment does you credit, your services merit reward. Please take the enclosed as just recompense, and as a mark of esteem from an old man.

General Edwin Montgomery, (Ret.)

Recent misfortune. The general was a hard man, but then he’d have to be, having lost one already. And what could you expect? Tear stains in the margins, like a virgin’s love letter? I picked up the fallen slip of paper. It was a promissory note to be drawn at one of the city’s oldest banking establishments, the sort with ivy growing up stone walls, a sign too small to notice and a million ochres in the basement. It felt light in my palm. It had enough zeroes on it to weigh down a corpse. I tore it into slivers, then dropped the slivers into the trash.

The ball was already rolling; I’d be wise not to step in front of it. And besides, the general didn’t know what I owed him – if he did, he wouldn’t have been so quick to offer coin, or his esteem. I undid the cap on a vial of breath and let the pink vapor filter through a nostril. Rhaine Montgomery would get her due.

I folded the letter back up, then stopped and reopened it. The wax sigil had been reheated, ably, subtly, but noticeably, if you knew what to look for. I hadn’t been the first person to read the general’s missive, though I had a pretty good idea who was.

At some point while I was upstairs Wren had taken a spot at a front table. He was gouging out pieces of the wood with the tip of his dagger, and he didn’t react when I took the seat next to him.

‘I know the furnishings aren’t exactly in prime condition, but that’s not a reason to deteriorate them further.’

He didn’t answer, and he didn’t stop.

‘How’d your lesson go?’

He grunted.

‘I don’t speak surly adolescent. You’ll need to translate.’

‘It was fine,’ he said, sharp as the tip of his blade.

I put my hand on the hilt and settled it against the table. Then I put my face next to his, close enough to smell his breath. ‘You don’t feel like chatting, that’s fine, I’m in no mood for a confessional. But I’m going to see Mazzie later on today to start paying for the rest of your education, and I’d like to make sure I’m not getting cheated.’

I held him firmly in place for a long moment, then let go and reclined back into my seat. ‘She’s all right,’ he said after a while. ‘So far at least. We didn’t do much. She made tea, and we talked some. She told me I need to learn to make my mind hollow. It didn’t make much sense to me.’

That sounded about right. I didn’t suppose he’d be initiated into the higher mysteries on his first day. I picked up a splinter from Wren’s whittling and picked at my teeth. ‘It don’t need to make sense to you. She’s your teacher, it just needs to make sense to her. But like I said, you keep your head swiveling. Anything happens that don’t feel right to you, you let me know.’

He wasn’t in the mood to agree with me about anything, so in place of a nod he went back to picking out bits of the table. I left him to it long enough to get comfortable, then dropped the weight.

‘You aiming to take a spot with the ice?’

‘No,’ he said, confused.

‘Then why you been reading my mail?’

He left the knife sticking upright in the wood and opened his mouth to lie.

‘You drip a false syllable and I’m gonna beat you blue,’ I said, but my heart wasn’t in it, and it didn’t draw more from him than a shrug.

‘It seemed interesting.’

‘This what you learned beneath my roof? To gnaw at the hand that feeds you?’

A childhood spent picking pockets and running scams had mostly inured Wren to the effects of guilt. No doubt he’d earned a more physical manifestation of my displeasure, but it was awful hot to be getting hot.

‘What did you do for General Montgomery?’ Wren asked after it became clear there wouldn’t be immediate consequences for his misbehavior.

‘Very little of value, as it turned out.’

‘It have anything to do with that woman who came in here last week?’

By the Firstborn, he was smart. You had to sprint to keep ahead of him. ‘Yeah.’

‘How’d it turn out?’

‘Not particularly well.’

‘This General Montgomery,’ he began again, after a pause. ‘He Roland’s father?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Adolphus says Roland was a legend. Says he gave his life trying to better his men’s.’

‘Death makes a fellow popular.’ My headache wasn’t going anywhere. I thought about rolling a spliff, but it was gonna be a long day, and I’d do better if I kept my edge.

‘You knew him?’

‘Yeah, I knew him.’

‘What was he like?’

A man like any other. A Daeva, straight from Chinvat. A mad dog in the street, best put down, and fast. ‘Depends on where you sat.’

‘And where did you sit?’

‘He was my superior, for a while, back during the war. After . . .’ I flicked my toothpick onto the ground. ‘We were at cross-purposes.’

‘But you were a soldier, like Adolphus – Roland was fighting for you.’

My hopes of reaching mid-morning without losing my temper were starting to seem increasingly vain. Wren had perfected the ability to make me want to hurt him. ‘Let me explain to you how it is, boy – I wouldn’t think I’d need to, you growing up how you did. But you’re young, and still stupid, so I’ll tell you. There are men who walk in front, and men who stand behind them. The man behind, he’s always got a reason why he has to be where he is. Roland was better than most of them – at least he believed his line – but at the end of the day, it’s still the men up front catching the arrows.’

‘The veterans seem to think he was more than that.’

‘He had a good patter, like I said.’

‘That’s all there is?’

‘The Dren you hate so much – what do you think they marched for? You think their commanders told them they were the horde, make ready to swoop down on civilization and burn it to its embers? They got the same speech we did – glory, honor, justice. It comes down to where you’re sitting, like I said.’

‘None of it means anything?’

‘Not enough to die over.’

‘Then why are you doing this?’

‘Doing what?’

His eyes were hard and cold, harder and colder than a fourteen-year-old’s had any right to be. ‘You’ve got wheels spinning,’ he said. ‘You been spinning them all week.’

‘I spin wheels for a living.’

‘So you’ll see yellow out of what you got going with the veterans?’

Nothing like having the tables turned on you by a boy still holding his cherry. ‘It’s not all about coin.’

‘What’s it about then?’

I didn’t answer.

‘Glory? Honor?’ He smiled savagely. ‘Justice?’

I was saved by a knock from outside, a solid banging that seemed nearly an attempt to break the door down.

Wren went back to playing with his blade. ‘For a man who doesn’t stick his neck out for anything, you stick your neck out a lot.’

The thumping continued. ‘Warden, you in there?’

‘Yeah,’ I answered, but my eyes didn’t leave the boy.

‘It’s Hroudland. Commander needs to see you.’

‘One fucking second!’ I shouted back, then leaned my face against Wren’s. ‘Next time you touch my property you can expect the conversation to be a good deal less pleasant,’ I said, then rose and opened the door.

Hroudland and a couple of veterans stood outside, and they didn’t seem cheery. ‘Hello, boys – you miss me?’