Tomorrow, the Killing

40

By the time I made it to Low Town I was walking on a foot of cushioned air. Whatever the other merits of Mazzie’s concoction, it was the best anodyne I’d encountered in a long life of experimentation. I couldn’t feel anything. Not pain from my injuries, not fear at what was coming, not guilt at why I’d set it into motion. I was quits with the world. I could almost forgive the sun for shining.

My good humor scuffed some when I walked into the Earl and found Adeline at one of the tables, drinking a cup of tea and half-scowling. I figured I’d need something to buttress my well-being, and took it out the ale tap before sitting down across from her.

‘I’d hoped to avoid this conversation,’ I said.

‘We live in the same building. We were bound to run into each other sooner or later.’

‘The way things are going, I thought someone might off me before we had the chance.’

‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘That’s all right.’ I took a long draw off the ale.

‘Where you been?’

‘I paid a visit to Wren’s new governess, wanted to make sure she was still up to the task.’

‘Is she the reason your face looks like an open sore?’

‘Actually, Mazzie’s just about the only person I’ve met today that didn’t hit me.’

‘I haven’t hit you.’

My beer was nut brown, and sweet as lost youth. ‘But you’re making ready to.’

‘I’m not wasting any more time yelling – it just makes it easier for you to feel bad about yourself.’

Not quite the hardest shot I’d taken, but on a lot of other days, it would have been. ‘Damn noble of you,’ I said, because I had to say something.

‘I don’t need to know what you’re doing.’

‘That’s good. It would take too long to explain, and I only half understand it anyway.’

‘But maybe you could let me know why you’re doing it.’

‘Different reasons.’

‘She was pretty, that girl. And she seemed like she needed help.’

‘It’s not just the girl.’

‘No?’

‘I owe something to her father.’

‘To her brother, you mean?’

‘To all three of them, I suppose.’

‘So this scheme you’ve got going, it’s going to fix the things you made wrong?’

I didn’t answer.

‘Somehow I thought not.’ She shook a grimace side to side. ‘Do you so love corpses?’

‘What do you know about corpses, Adeline? I’ve seen more dead men than you’ve seen live ones. The plague, the war, what I done after.’ She’d overstepped, and I was happy to take her to task for it. Easier to be angry than it was to be anything else. ‘Made my fair share, too. A few more won’t tip the balance.’

‘You think you’re the only person who ever done anything they wish they hadn’t? It’s vanity, that’s all it is.’

‘We have to pay for the mistakes we’ve made.’

‘You can’t let yesterday poison tomorrow.’

At some point while I’d been busy talking, someone had run through and finished off all the ale in my tankard. I went and decanted a second. It seemed only fair, though Adeline’s hectoring look followed me as I came back to the table.

‘I wish you’d just figure out whether or not you’re going to kill yourself. These half measures are exhausting.’

‘Good to see you keep chilly, despite the heat.’

‘You want to wallow, you can do it without my help.’ But she was kinder than her words, and after a silent moment she offered just that. ‘We’re responsible for what comes to us. If you want things to go different, it’s on you to make sure they do.’

There was too much wisdom there to bear looking at. I was glad I didn’t have to. ‘You’re wasting your time. We’re past the midway point of this one – it’s too late to do anything.’

She threw her hands up, finally exasperated. ‘Of course it’s too late to do anything. You only get to thinking when it’s too late to do anything. Then you drink, and lament the world’s cruelty.’

Mazzie’s elixir, proof against fist, boot and chain, proved nothing against five minutes conversation with Adeline. Which is to say my headache had returned with something of a vengeance. I finished the rest of my beer in unhappy silence.

‘It’ll be done tomorrow,’ I said. ‘One way or the other.’

‘It won’t be done until you’re dead,’ she answered sadly, and to the wall, and I couldn’t think of a response.

I put my empty tankard on top of the counter, and grabbed a bottle from beneath it. The stairs to my room were more numerous than I’d remembered, but I managed them. The clothes went into the corner, the cork came out of the rotgut, sleep came deep and dreamless.