The halfling child bobbed its head and scuttled away. Lugashaldim, half-buried in the flounces of his lace cravat, said in an amazed tone, “You’ve done this before, General?”
Ashnak made to draw off his gloves and thought better of it. “I know how to behave in polite society.”
Squat and wide-shouldered, Lugashaldim leaned out of the partitioned alcove, peering through the fug to the back rooms. Greasy playing-cards were being slapped down on a stained tabletop; whores in cotton lace took frock-coated Men and dwarves up the back stairs; and Mad Jack Montague had his head buried in the bosoms of Betsy Careless.
A voice said, “Mighty curious, ain’tcha—gents?”
Ashnak leaned back against the oak partition, removing his masked face from the direct lamplight. His wig wobbled precariously. The big orc looked up through the velvet mask’s slits at a broad, black-haired man in leather apron and bag-breeches.
“Mine host?”
“I be Jan Tompkyns, ay. Who might
you
be?”
White wig powder trickled down Ashnak’s forehead under the mask, irritating his wide nostrils. Under the table, he prized his cramped feet out of the court shoes, flexing taloned toes. Every muscle tense, about to spring—
“I
am the Lady Razit—Rasvinniah,” the orc marine Razitshakra said in a bored tone, taking the day’s broadsheet from the little halfling bar-girl, flicking it open, and peering over her spectacles. “Landlord, you will have heard of Rasvinniah, the famous blue-stocking, and her circle of Wits. We are come to view the Abbey Park and your fine establishment.”
Ashnak recovered his dropped jaw in time to nod, firmly, when Jan Tompkyns looked at him.
“Then your ladyship is perhaps composing a poem, dedicated to the Dancing Orc and its customers?” The Man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Which you will read, tonight, to yonder other Wits—I mean my journalist friends from the
Spectator
broadsheet.”
“Of course.” Razitshakra inclined her head. The feathers decorating her wig brushed cobwebs from the ceiling.
“Then I bid you good evening, and pray you enjoy my house.” The landlord stomped off.
“Poem?” Ashnak demanded.
“Poem?”
Razitshakra flourished the bar-girl’s pencil and began to scribble on the back of one of the roughly printed broadsheets. “I’ve been reading some good books lately. A marine should be fully trained in all skills, General.”
“Poetry! It should take
three
marines for a mission of that nature,” Ashnak grumbled. “One who can read, one who can write—and one to keep watch over those other two dangerous subversives.”
“I’ll allay the landlord’s suspicions, sir. Trust me.” Razitshakra thrust the pencil-point up her nose and sniffed. “Now let me think…”
“Dance wiv me, governor?” A female Man, her ears pointed enough to make Ashnak suspect that she was half-elven, leaned over the table and thrust her breasts into the big orc’s masked face. “Come on! Blind Dick’s about to play ’is fiddle. Dance with Poor Meg or be called a coward forever!”
The whore’s hand slipped beneath the table top and groped Ashnak’s groin. Her eyes widened.
“’Ere! You
are
a big boy, ain’tcha? Come upstairs with me, mister. Only two silver shillings. We’ll dance the dance you do on yer back.”
Ashnak placed her hand back up on the table. He pitched his voice high, with difficulty making his accent genteel. “Can’t you see I have drink and companions? I’ll call on you when I need you; for now, begone!”
The piping of a whistle and the sawing of a fiddle filled the air of the Dancing Orc. A raucous lavatorial song broke out in one corner, soon drowned out by the competition of a dozen Men singing of the skills of one Bet “Little-Infamy” Davies. Ashnak took a mouthful of the arrack, scowled, and turned his attention to the steaming pot of coffee. There was a silence at the table broken only by Razitshakra’s furious
scribbling and one of the other marines’ scratching through the thick cloth of his frock coat for fleas. Despite this attempt to blend in, there was, Ashnak felt, still something unmistakably military about the party.
His tilted eyes narrowed, searching the room. Plenty of patrons with the signs of the Thieves’ Guild on them, but which to approach?
“Are you done, my lady?” The black-haired landlord, Jan Tompkyns, loomed over the table. A gaggle of peruked Men in stained velvet coats hung at his elbows.
Razitshakra rustled the broadsheet, peered at her scribble, cleared her throat, and announced modestly: “An Ode to Jan Tompkyn’s Hostelry”:
Behold a House, both fair and Sweet,
Where all from High to Low do meet.
The High’s laid lowest, with a Whore;
The Low is rais’d—then
rais’d
once more.
The Bullys roar, their Cats do scratch,
Good Tompkyns bawls, “Beware the Watch!”
The roof rings with outrageous Noise,
And louder sing all Roaring Boys,
And there is drawn full many a Cork,
In merriment, at the Dancing Orc.
“Ode to a Coffee-House,” I proclaim this still,
Tho’ what I
ode
was commonly—the bill!
One periwigged Man clapped his hands and the rest began to applaud, more in relief than appreciation.
“‘Tis well done!”
“Ay, you cannot say it isn’t. We are indebted to you, my lady.”
“If you are inclined to publish,” an elderly, prune-faced Man hung back and addressed Razitshakra as the rest departed, “I can offer you reasonable terms, and the anonymity due to a Lady of Quality…”
“I—” Razitshakra brought her fan up to cover her masked face, wincing. Ashnak, who had clawed her under the table, nodded affably at the Man.
“It is her pastime only, sir.”
It was unnecessary to show the decorated hilt of his short-sword. At Ashnak’s bass-voiced comment, the Man bowed and hurriedly departed to his comrades on the far side of the
coffee-house. Ashnak drew breath, about to speak, and the landlord returned and leaned over and planted a jug of arrack and five mugs on the table. His black-browed face had cleared.
“Welcome, sirs and madam, welcome. I do apologise for my suspicions, but we have Justices come here in disguises searching out vice, and then it is myself and my wife who will be whipped at the cart-tail for keeping a bawdy-house, do you see, girl? Please drink this on the house.”
Ashnak, still leaning back out of the lamplight, said confidentially, “we are not Justices, sir, I warrant you. The very opposite, in fact. I hear the
Guild
knows this tavern, landlord. To tell the truth, we need to hire a servant or two—servants who shall know how to thieve, but not from their employers…”
Jan Tomkyns straightened, wiping his hands down his leather apron. Tall for a Man, he would have topped Ashnak only by half a head if they had both been standing; and Ashnak huddled into his cloak and coat so as not to have it noticed that he was himself four times as heavily built as the landlord.
“Ah, sir, now I appreciate…yes. The custom is for the house to recommend, and a small fee—why, thank you, sir. Very kind. Now let me think…Do you see her, yonder?”
Ashnak noticed one of his silk gloves had split, showing the granite-coloured skin and talon beneath. He tucked his large hands up into the cuffs of his frock coat. He peered through the smog. A female halfling sat alone in an opposite nook, her crimson cloak hood drawn up, shadowing her face.
“She is a thief?”
“What, Magda, sir? Lord, sir, no! But she’s the mother of two of the most ingenious thieves in the kingdom, and if you speak with her, I’m sure you can come to terms.”
Ashnak nodded to Razitshakra. “Write a note for the halfling Magda. Landlord, I would as soon leave this note with you to give to her. Here is silver.”
“Holloa! I’ve won!”
Captain Mad Jack Montague, Earl of Ruxminster, leaving the back gaming room riding on the shoulders of a stout whore, whipped at her with his crop. His boot swung round and caught the table, knocking arrack and lukewarm coffee into the laps of Ashnak and the orc marines.
“Faith, ye’re wet! Baptised ye, ye Lightless dogs!”
Lugashaldim stood, furious, wiping himself down, bandy-legged in silk breeches. Ashnak inclined his wigged head. “No harm done, sir.”
“Faith, a piss-britches coward!” The Earl Captain swung his sword above his head, knocking one of the lamps, and galloped his whore around the room, kicking at other tables and ducking the jugs and shoes flung piecemeal at his head.
Razitshakra finished writing. Ashnak took the letter. He did not read it, it not being a common thing in a Wit to have to spell prose out letter by letter, lips moving. Besides, the marine had her orders. He folded the paper and handed it to the landlord.
“You are to give this to the female halfling’s thieves. To the thieves themselves. Will you remember that?”
“To the thieves?” Jan Tompkyns looked puzzled. “But you may speak with Magda herself now, sir, at your pleasure.”
“No.” Ashnak stood up and moved out of the partition, not bothering to conceal his bulk or his quickness. A number of the patrons glanced over, and he saw how they took in five square-built, hunch-shouldered, supposed Men in frock coats and silk gown, features hidden behind domino-masks. At his back he heard the four other orcs scuffling out from the benches. He thrust the letter into the landlord’s hand. “You will remember, sir, I promise you. The thieves
must
have this letter. Do it.”
“Yes, sir. But sir—”
Ashnak casually backhanded the Man across the face, breaking his jaw and rendering him unconscious. The landlord fell across chairs and hit the floor. Ashnak caught Lugashaldim’s and Razitshakra’s eyes. He nodded.
“Now.”
Wading in swatches of silk, bow-legged and broad-shouldered, Razitshakra kicked over tables and chairs and coffee-drinkers on her way across the room. Lugashaldim shook his head, peruke and domino-mask flying off. Someone gasped and swore. In no more than fifteen seconds the two orcs ploughed across the room, snatched up the female halfling, bundled her in a cloak, and bashed their way out, demolishing one of the doorposts as they went.
A dozen or so of the less-drunk patrons drew sword. Ashnak clawed the cloak off his back and unholstered his concealed Uzi automatic submachine-gun. The two remaining
orc marines dropped cloaks and masks and shifted M16s into firing position. Ashnak cocked the gun, moved the fire-selector to automatic, and let off a series of three-shot bursts.
“Aaiiiiiieee!”
The M16s opened up. Noise shattered the coffee-house. Ashnak scythed down Captain Mad Jack and his whore, the flaxen-haired dwarf, the table of
Spectator
journalists and then emptied the magazine through the back door. Bodies jerked, staggered, caught half-rising. The halfling bar-girl, picked up by the force of the shots, splattered across the back wall as it collapsed.
The big orc hit the magazine-release catch, snicked a full magazine home, and—firing on semi-auto to conserve ammunition—slewed a burst of fire around the room and fell in behind the remaining two orc marines as they left the Dancing Orc by way of the demolished back wall. Human, dwarf, and halfling blood painted the walls, spattered the ceilings; Men clutched at guts spilling through burned and tattered frock coats and lace shirts; faces minced, limbs shattered, bone-fragments flying like shrapnel.
In less than thirty seconds, and always firing above waist-level so as to avoid hitting the unconscious body of Tomkyns, the orc marines cleared the building and disappeared into the alleyways around Abbey Park.
Jan Tompkyns, eventually conscious and in great pain, did not think to study the letter until he had had a surgeon to his jaw, fled two streets away before the Justices should investigate the room of bleeding, stinking corpses in the Dancing Orc, and wept hysterically for close onto four hours.
It was some time after midnight when Magda’s sons found him.
“Our mother—she’s not among the dead. Damn you,” the elder demanded, “what
happened?”
His jaw bound up, the landlord could not speak. He proffered the stained letter. The elder son took it. The younger read over his shoulder.
It was unsigned.
Thieves:
We have taken the halfling Magda, who is our hostage for your obedience. Do as is written below and no harm will come to her. Fail to obey and she will be very slowly killed.
Steal from the Visible College those talismans that prevent
the operation of magic, in as great a number as you can. Bring them in secrecy to the besieged fort of Nin-Edin. There collect your mother. If you cannot enter a besieged fort, or the Visible College, then you are not the thieves we have been told that you are.
We will be inconvenienced by this, but it is always possible to obtain more thieves. We believe it is less easy to obtain another mother.
Do this, at the very latest, before the moon passes out of its first quarter.
The war is over now.
Vultures wheel at heights from whicn the Demonfest Mountains are only rumpled white rock patching the curved earth. The birds’ centre-magnified vision sees all: