Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (6 page)

The bar blocked her view. She slowly walked around it and saw a small man eating at one of the tables, his back to her. He was surrounded by death. Blood and corpses and pieces of…of what, Vanora did not know.

It was a polder. Of the race of small people that could be found throughout the city, mostly as cooks and minstrels. She had seen them before, but only fleetingly. She’d led a sheltered life in the Rose.

She watched him. She’d been as quiet as she could be, certain the polder hadn’t heard her. She smelled duck. He’d gotten his own food from the larder behind the bar. There was ale in a mug. He reached out and drank some.

“Cole and his boys,” he said, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, “wouldn’t have been a problem for those little rat fuckers” he said, between bites of duck. “But that ghoul was…more than they bargained for.”

She slowly walked around, keeping a safe distance from him. He was wearing a brown jerkin and brown leather vest and pants. He had bare feet that dangled off the chair. His curly blonde hair hung down in locks over his eyes.

He turned to look at her, his round childlike face expressionless, betraying nothing while his big blue eyes danced. Then he winked at her and went back to his meal.

He saved the mousemen. They would not have left him up here unless they trusted him.

“Are you a friend of Heden’s?” she asked, trying not to sound like a 15 year old girl. Something she used to be good at but suddenly couldn’t remember how to do.

The polder looked up for a moment at nothing. “Nnno,” he said slowly. “Well, probably not. Maybe,” he said slowly with a shrug. “I’m here with a message.”

She didn’t trust him. She took a step back. Spoke slowly.

“A message.”

He picked up one of the five black scarves on the table next to him and, with a flourish, shook it out. A great cloud of soot billowed up. Vanora coughed.

The scarf was green underneath.

“He’ll know what this means,” the polder said. “They black the scarves with soot so you got no idea who you’re fighting. You got to kill them to find out.” He was still holding the green scarf out.

Vanora edged forward slightly and took it, darted back a step. The scarf was emerald green and had a pattern sewn into it she couldn’t make out. Were they letters? Symbols? Art?

“He’ll want to know about the ghoul. Wasn’t sure if the radenwights would bother to tell him.”

“Radenwights?” she looked up.

“The ratmen,” the polder explained. She was staring at him, fascinated, while he was by no means giving her his full attention. 

“Radenwights,” she repeated, whispering. She was in a dream world with mouse-warriors and little men. She relaxed a little, though fear never left her entirely.

His mouth full, the little man looked at her sideways, frowning. “They’re not important,” he said, swallowing. He saw her reaction to him and turned to face her, fixing her with a look. “Focus,” he said.

She breathed deep and her eyes went wide. She was a world away from the count and Miss Elowen and never wanted to leave. She’d thought of the Rose Petal as her home for years and never thought she’d want to be anywhere else. She remembered thinking she loved the count. Was that only a few days ago?

The polder looked at her suspiciously. He wiped his face with a cloth napkin and hopped off the chair. She noticed he was shorter than her.

He looked around the inn, as though for the first time. As though there weren’t several dead bodies and black ichorous vitriol spilled all over the floor.

"What did the Black want with this place?" It was a rhetorical question. The idea of the girl knowing the answer didn't occur to him. "What's so important the priest would have the radenwights guarding it?"

"Me," Vanora said, looking down at hands folded in front of her.

Aimsley Pinwhistle turned his attention to the girl.

"You," he said, looking her up and down. His eyes narrowed. He could smell the truth coming, like the faint wafting aroma of a distant building burning in the night.

She nodded. She didn't look at him.

He looked up, as though he could see the inn's guest rooms through the ceiling. "What," he began. "What did you do...where did you live, before you lived here?"

"The Rose," Vanora said plainly.

"The Rose Petal?" Aimsley asked. The girl nodded. "You worked for Miss Elowen?"

She nodded again.

Why send Cole? Why send green scarves to get a trull?

The thief pointed a small finger at the girl.

"You're the count's girl," he said. It sounded like a dare.

She nodded. The thief took a step back like he'd lost his balance.

"What...," he started, looking at the dead men, the blood, all over the floor and the tables. "Fuck," he concluded.

"Heden saved me," Vanora said, looking at the polder.

“I just helped him,” the polder said, his hand to his forehead. “I just helped him and saved you, and you’re the count’s personal whore.”

Vanora didn’t say anything. What, she thought, was there to say?

The polder stared at her. “Does the priest know who you are? That you’re the count’s, I mean.”

Vanora nodded slightly.

The polder whistled.

"He's going to dance with the count, huh? He's full of surprises. He lives long enough, he might piss of everyone in the city."

Vanora couldn’t stand there anymore, listening to this little man talking about Heden in his absence. She took a step toward the thief.

“Who are you? Why did you come here if not to help Heden? Is he alive?”

"Well," the polder said, idly flicking some sawdust off the top of one bare foot with the other, "if there's a list of the count's professional enemies, I'm on it. As to the priest...,” he threw her a look.

“Last I saw, he was at an inn few miles outside the Wode. Don’t know if he’s alive or not. Seems like he’d be hard to kill. Either way, probably not a good idea for you to sit around here waiting. That never got anybody anything.”

Like a dog hearing the distant sound of his owner’s boots, the thief looked up at the door suddenly.

“Not a good idea for me to sit around either,” he said. He started toward the front door, lightly leaping over the dead bodies in the room.

Halfway to the door he stopped and stared for a moment, then spun around and headed back to the stairway that led to the second floor, the way he came in.

Passing Vanora, he stopped, turned and pointed at her.

“Stay away from the count, little girl,” he said. “Grow up to be big girl.” He flashed a smile and then frowned at himself. Shook his head, and fled up the stairs.

As soon as he had disappeared into the dark above, Vanora heard the door behind her open.

“Sorry ‘bout that Violet,” Bann rumbled as he walked in from the night outside.

“We weren’t successful,” Teagan, the watchman said from behind the demiurq.

“Bad time of night to be beating the bushes, scaring up help for….” Bann stopped in his tracks. Teagan almost ran into him.

They looked around the room. At the blood in liquid pools, and several dead bodies including a decomposing ghoul corpse.

“Black gods,” Teagan said, his hand on his sword.

Bann looked at Vanora, small yellow eyes wide.

“Did you do this?!”

The old man had ploughed around the stone for years. After waking just before dawn, he decided today was the day to dig it up, though he had no idea how big it was, buried under the earth and all. Not many years left to enjoy a few more straight furrows, he reasoned. No point in putting it off.

He filled a barrow with the tools he needed, ignoring the ox that moved restlessly in the pen, waiting to be yoked. He’d come back for the ox once he’d dug out more of the boulder.

He pushed the barrow out into the field, the pale light of dawn his lifelong friend. By the time he reached the boulder, the sun was peaking over the far distant trees.

The long walk loosened his limbs so that, even at seventy one, unloading the barrow was no chore.

He heard, rather than saw, the horse approach. He surrendered no obvious reaction. This was his farm, his land. He feared no man while on it.

Shooting a glance out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man leading a riding horse. At first, not wanting to stare, he thought it was the reeve. A second glance dispelled that.

It was the boy.

The old man took a shovel and dug out a very little around the boulder just in front of him. Exposing it beneath the ground just a few inches to try and get a sense of the shape of it in the earth. Decide where to start with the pick.

When the boy had been standing there only a moment or two, and said nothing, the old man spoke first.

“Still carry your grandad’s sword,” the old man observed.

The boy, now in his forties and one of three brothers but always ‘the boy,’ shifted slightly. Suddenly conscious of the weight on his belt.

“Always,” he said.

The old man straightened and leaned against the shovel. He looked the boy up and down. He was a mess. Looked like he hadn’t slept in days, his breastplate had been split through and repaired, but only for wear. He carried a pack looked full to bursting and his linen pants and shirt sleeves poking out from under his armor were covered in what the old man concluded was blood. He looked like a ghost come walking off the Moss. Little life in him. Little life, the old man thought, for one so young.

“Must be better blades,” the old man said.

“Better in some ways,” the boy replied. “None as sharp.” He looked around the farm, taking it all in. Neither man spent much time looking at the other direct. Just stealing glances. Eyes taking in everything but each other.

“Never had much use for a sword,” the old man said, with a sniff.

When he was younger, the boy would have taken this as a sort of condemnation. As though his father were somehow superior for leading a life that never required use of a weapon. But now he knew better. Da was just trying to make conversation and in conversations there were times when you said things, and in those times his father said whatever came to mind.

The boy didn’t say anything. Felt comfortable in the silence between them. The growing silence was a kind of warmth. Strange to others, but not to them.

“Nice horse,” the old man said.

The boy looked behind him. The horse was snuffling the ground looking for grass. He’d find none, but occasionally munched on an upturned root or a vegetable leaf.

“Good horse,” the boy said. “Served me well.”

“Got a few good years left on it, looks like.”

“Looks like,” the boy agreed.

The old man stepped closer, and the boy did the same until they were only a few paces from each other. An unconscious ritual observed.

“What’cha call him?” The old man asked.

“Dunno. Never asked.”

“Should name it, gonna keep it. Tell it who it is.”

“Figured it knew who it was,” the boy said, looking at the horse. Its ears swiveled around, listening to the conversation.

“Nah,” the old man said. “Horses don’t know shit unless you tell ‘em. They’re dumb animals, boy. Happy to stay dumb. Not like a dog.”

“You never had a dog,” the boy said, turning back to his father.

“Had dogs afore you were born. Had a flock of sheep once. Sold ‘em. Dogs passed. Never got another.” He sniffed the morning air, nodded. “Like cats.”

The son nodded. “Me too.”

“Clean animals. Smart. Keep to themselves. Keep the rats down.”

“That’s important,” the boy agreed, and began idly inspecting the soil with his boot.

The old man kicked some small rocks out from around the hole he’d been digging, instinctively looking for the path that would bridge the gap of time. Then he found it.

“Your granddad loved you, you know,” the old man said, nodding at the sword on his son’s belt.

The son looked up sharply.

“Talked about you all the time. Knew you had a fierce conviction in you. Hated to know someone was done wrong. Hated it even when you was small. He saw it afore any of us. “

“He never said that,” the boy said, looking past his father at the infinite plain of farmland and hills.

“Not to you. Figured he didn’t need to say it to you. Was proud of you,” the old man said wistfully.

“Really,” the son said. He tried to imagine his father’s father feeling or showing pride. It wasn’t easy.

“He’d talk to the other men. Tell them about his grandson,” the old man said. “When the abbot took you, he felt he could die happy.”

“He followed Adun.”

“Well his da came from Ǽndrim,” the old man explained. “Think it gave him pride to know when it came time for one of his boys to follow Cavall, set root in this ground, he became a deacon.”

The boy smiled and ducked his head. “I became more than that, da. After many years service, I was made prelate.”

His father’s head whipped around at that. “You trying to stuff me, boy?”

“No sir,” the son said, smiling. “No sir that is something I would not do.”

“No, and I never knew you to lie.” His father smiled, beamed. It was something he wasn’t sure how many times he’d seen in his life. When his niece was born. 10 years ago. That was maybe the last time.

“You never said nothing about that last time you were out here.”

“Didn’t want to put on airs,” the boy said.

His father barked a laugh. Any doubt or fear of how life might have changed his son was dispelled.

“Well you sure as shit don’t look like no prelate to me. Thought you had to wear fancy clothes and live in the city.”

“The city part I do not dispute. Never had no use for fancy clothes,” the son said.

“You ah,” the old man said, trying to make the question sound casual, failing, “you get you a woman yet? City woman? Your ma would like to hear you got her some more little ones.”

“She has enough,” the boy said, then realized he hadn’t answered his father’s question, was being disrespectful.

“There was someone,” he said. “But…I wasn’t…she needed someone else.”

The old man nodded. “Church puts a lot of demands on you. Gives you a purpose. Can be a terrible thing, that.”

The boy shrugged. The old man was right, but that wasn’t why he wasn’t wed.

“There’s a girl,” the boy said, “a child. No parents. No one to look out for her. I helped her but…I don’t know what else to do.”

“Well you take an oath for the church,” the old man said, “that’s a burden for life. But you ask me…family’s the only thing that matters. Only thing that lasts.”

The boy looked at his father.

“Who needs you more,” the old man said, “the church or the girl?”

The boy didn’t answer. Hadn’t thought of it in those terms. Some weight was lifted from him. The possibility of a life without revenge, without death. At the end of a long road.

The father looked the son up and down, looked at his dented and tarnished breastplate, his ragged cloak, his unclean face and unkempt hair. Dried mud and maybe worse caked into folds of cloak and wrinkles of skin.

“You look to me like a man whose been chasing a villain seven times seven leagues, there to do fell judgment upon him.”

The son found the force of his father’s pride combined with his piercing insight hard to bear. “Reckon I am,” he said. “Got a ways to go yet and no sure path to follow.”

“Well I says,” the old man began, taking a deep breath. Being a father again for a son who needed it. “Any man earned your ire is a villain and no dispute. He should fear the judgment coming on him, or more fool him. You’ll find your way. Or make it,” his father said. “Never knew nothing could stop you, once you put your mind to it.”

The son’s eyes were watering, as though he’d been looking into the sun for too long. He took a deep breath, felt refreshed. Felt renewed. The air out here seemed clean, clear. Like the first day of the world.

This was the longest conversation he’d ever had with his father.

“Come on now,” his father said. He removed a pick from the barrow and shouldered it. With one huge swing, he stabbed it into the ground next to the boulder and levered a chunk of soil out. “Got this stone to dig out. Big as a house. Might as well be useful, you gonna stand around.”

“Got a pick in my bags,” the son said as he watched his father dig.

“Good lad. Always prepared. Fetch it then.”

His son went back to his horse. He returned with the pick, having stripped off his breastplate, discarded the cloak, the hard leather vest and linen undershirt and stood next to his father, pale skin and wisps of black hair on his hard muscled frame.

His father regarded him out of the corner of his eye.

“Sun’s barely hitched up yet. Time we’re done, you’ll be baked red and your back’ll be sore.”

The son nodded and dug the pick into the ground next to the top of the stone where his father had broken the sod. The father smiled to watch his son work.

"Sign of good living,” the old man said.