Tomorrow, the Killing

42

Back at the Earl I stepped right past our ale tap and pulled a bottle of liquor from below the counter, then found myself a spot in the corner and went to it. I knew what I was in for when I set things rolling, I told myself after the first shot. After about the third I even started to believe it. At some point I discovered the vial of breath in my pocket was empty, though I didn’t remember using it.

By the time Adolphus and Wren came in, thrilled with the progress of the evening, I was the sort of drunk no man should get. The sort of drunk where you don’t notice mistakes, where you get to enjoying making them.

‘If it isn’t the Hero of Aunis, and his faithful sidekick.’

They’d missed me in the dark, had already crossed to the bar. Adolphus stopped smiling, but Wren’s grin seemed slapped on, cheeks flushed red. Probably Adolphus had given him a nip or two in the bustle and the excitement, Adolphus or one of our ex-comrades.

I stood up from my seat, slow enough to keep my legs steady, then ambled over to meet them. ‘Late night, I see.’

Adolphus muttered something under his breath.

‘Me too, as it turns out. Noble service to the corps, the both of us. Though I imagine mine had a different tenor.’

‘Adolphus was a hit. He left everyone in tears,’ Wren piped in, happily drunk or actively trying to aggravate me.

‘Just like the Dren!’ The words swelled together incomprehensibly.

‘Best you go to bed now,’ Adolphus answered, his bad eye refusing to meet my gaze, and his good one.

‘Spare a few moments for a drink with an old veteran, down on his luck.’ I reached behind the counter and slopped some liquor into fresh cups. ‘You wouldn’t want to leave a man behind.’

Adolphus didn’t like where this was going, but he went along with it anyway. After a moment Wren took his cue as well, hands small and stiff around the mug.

‘What should we drink to?’

‘It’s your show,’ the giant grumbled.

‘Indeed it is.’ I angled my tumbler above my head. ‘To the men of the First Capital Infantry, as slippery a batch of motherfuckers as ever planted a knife in a man’s back.’ I rolled back the rim of the cup.

Wren downed his own, then raised a mocking hand to his forehead.

I cuffed it away. ‘Don’t ever fucking salute me,’ I said. ‘Don’t ever fucking salute anyone.’

‘Boy, bed,’ Adolphus ordered, and this time I didn’t contradict him. Wren slunk off to the back room, then put an ear to the door, if I know anything about anything.

‘You ought to be more careful with your words – you can only coast on that liquor but so long.’

I poured whiskey into my cup, then into my throat. ‘I’ll stand by them.’

‘You’re drunk.’

‘But right just the same.’

‘I won’t listen to you badmouth the men we died with. I’m proud to count myself a member of the Fightin’ First.’

‘You been telling Wren that?’

‘There are worse things than being a soldier.’

‘I will see that child in the ground before I see him in uniform.’ I took a long swig straight from the bottle, cutting out the middleman. ‘I’ll put him there myself.’

‘Because your current employment is so praiseworthy?’

‘Damn right. I kill a man now at least I know it’s in my interest, not ’cause he’s wearing different colored leather.’

‘Why do you insist upon pissing on everything we were?’

‘Because I remember it accurately – I’m not puffing myself up to impress a child.’

Adolphus wasn’t looking for a fight, but neither was he one to run from it. He finally took his drink, knocking it back in one smooth motion. Then he set his cup on the bar and turned towards me, his hands conspicuously unoccupied. ‘Watch yourself.’

I caught the bright sheen of metal pinned to his ill-fitting dress coat, and felt fury like bile well up from my throat. ‘What’d they strike that medal from? Platinum? Gold? Horseshit?’

‘I already warned you once.’

‘Hero of Aunis – that’s a hell of a title. What did you do to get a title like that?’

The look on his face would have made a wise man run. Even most stupid ones for that matter.

‘Funny thing is,’ I continued, ‘I was at Aunis, and I don’t remember no heroes. Just a turn-color coward who left his best friend to die.’

I won’t blame it on the drink, though I was drunk enough that I barely saw it coming – had I been sober as a churchman, it wouldn’t have mattered. Adolphus was just about the best man with his fists I’d ever seen, truly skilled, not just big. On the credit side of the account the booze meant that I barely felt the blow. I was standing and then I was lying down, but what came between was as abrupt as a thunderclap.

I lay there awhile, in no great hurry to stand. I’d have stayed there all night, really, if decorum had allowed it. My nose was broke, one more tic on a long tally. I didn’t suppose it would make me any uglier. ‘Big man,’ I said, pulling myself up finally. ‘Tough as a boot nail with an old drunk.’

He’d used all his anger up on my face, seemed more stung by the blow than I was. ‘I’m . . .’ He stuttered over this opening for a while, his mouth flapping in apology.

‘For the punch? Or because I was right about why you threw it?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Stay the fuck away from tomorrow’s march, unless you want to join Roland in martyrdom.’

I had the presence of mind to grab the bottle on my way out. I left it in a ditch off Pritt Street and kept walking, and given that I was a third full with liquor, making it all the way to Offbend displayed extraordinary fortitude. I didn’t suppose I’d get a medal for it, though.