Day Boy (7 page)

Dain seems surprised, or angry, or both. He gestures at the others, palms open; the
table shudders, released. But the others just smile. Three faces of open mockery.
I can see he knows that he's been ambushed. ‘When there is an open threat the Council
of Teeth should know. This is council business.'

Egan laughs. ‘The council complicates everything. Besides,
we are its teeth, are
we not? Do you think it cares for us as long as we bite?'

‘It cares for the Imperatives. It cares that we don't capsize the peace we have,
or cast ourselves into the Outer Dark.'

Egan's got one of those cat-with-the-cream grins and I understand the poison of a
smile. ‘As do we all.' He turns his all-too-clever eyes to me. ‘Trouble comes from
within, in my experience, not without. Why were you at the river, boy?'

‘Wanted to cool my toes.' Not the whole truth, but I've no desire to point out previous
indiscretions.

‘Yes, but that place. You know the dangers of that place.'

‘Big old catfish there,' I say.

‘There are catfish in the turns and shadows of any river. That the Hunter found you
suggests you frequent that place forbidden. That he was expecting you.'

‘I—'

‘Don't lie to me, boy. I can see the workings of a lie like the pulse that beats
within the prey. You lie to a Master, and you will find a Master's sharp penalty.'

I lower my gaze to my hands, they've a bit of a shake in them.

‘Look up at me, boy.' Of course he would demand that.

His eyes are snarled with a cruel, cold grip and I can't look away. Everything is
a plummet, a background noise, a narrowing and falling away. Just those damn eyes.

‘You frequent that place?' I can't even tell if he's speaking, or if those eyes are
asking.

‘Yes.'

‘In fact you have been there since, have you not?'

‘This is not an interrogation,' Dain says, and I can hear the
anger in his voice.
‘We are not here to question the boy.'

‘Why not?' Egan's gaze slides to Dain, and my heart starts beating again. ‘
They
will
question the boy; the Council of Teeth will be much more demanding. All motives and
possibilities will be explored, they are the kings of snares and winding avenues,
and one does not rule with threadbare truths. They will grind it down then build
it back up. Boy, why would you seek out such a place? What does a boy do all alone?'

Twitcher sniggers. Dougie winks at me, from behind Sobel, and Grove turns away. Even
the Parson twins got big stupid smiles across their faces.

‘I was not!'

‘So you say.' I don't need those eyes directed at me to feel my cheeks burn. How
can such a sweet voice speak so sour? ‘But you are of age. Your time is nearly upon
you, such concerns are the concerns of boys. You seek solitude, the release of crude
urges. Perfectly normal isn't it? Is that what you were doing?'

‘I was not!' And I stare back at Egan long as I can, there's a heat to my gaze, and
I feel it returned, a flash and the false light of after, and Egan almost turns his
head, as though he's forgotten who's the Master. But he hasn't, and I'm the first
to break that stare. And I realise that he was just baiting the hook.

Egan raises his hand, all calming, almost gentle. ‘I was mocking you. You're a Day
Boy, you should recognise it. Mockery is a tool, is it not? So this Hunter came upon
you while you were alone?'

‘Yes.'

‘By the reeds he waited, unseen by you.'

‘Yes.'

Egan nods. ‘I could smell his fear there, and the drink he
had taken to blunt it.
That was the night after, and it was still strong.'

‘He were drunk, that's for sure.'

‘And yet you could not evade him? Didn't even notice until he was upon you?'

‘Drunk and persistent,' I say.

‘My boy's skills are not on trial here,' Dain says.

‘Of course not,' Egan says. ‘Nothing is on trial here. We are just talking. Enjoying
the cut and thrust of conversation. Surely Professor you are familiar with sophistry.
Deception can lead to truth, can it not?'

Dain's jaw juts, his hands press hard against the tabletop, wood groans, but he nods
his head.

‘Yes.'

‘Then I shall continue, shall I? If that is all right with you?'

‘Yes.'

Egan looks to me. ‘So he caught you, and then…?'

‘Said he was going to take me away, to his boat. He was taking me as an apprentice,
or something like.'

‘Which is not unheard of. The Hunters are unruly, their ways peculiar. His boat?
Did you see this boat? Either of you.'

‘It had been cut loose,' Dain says. ‘And not by me.'

‘I don't think he meant what he said. I think he meant to kill me.'

‘Would that he were still alive,' Egan says. ‘Oh, then we might have a surer hold
of his motives.'

‘I spoke to him,' Dain says.

‘Did he seek to kill your boy?'

‘He was…muddled. I don't—'

Egan rises to his full height. Rises up with all that easy
grace. ‘You don't know?
Could I submit that he wasn't a Hunter but rather a different sort of predator? The
sort that enjoys the death of boys. And that he was drunk, and his muddlement was
the muddlement of liquor and desires. Did you drink of him?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you eat?'

‘I was enraged.'

‘Could such rage have muddled you?'

‘No.'

‘Always the scholar. The most rigorous and thoughtful of us all. Except we know that
not to be true. We need not even look to your boy to see that. Here, in this mess,
is all the evidence we need of your shortcomings. The Hunter is dead. We have no
truth, only familiar mysteries. Small-town mysteries. Either there is a conspiracy
involving the murder of Day Boys and, by extension, us. Or there is not.'

‘Which is what we need to know. The answer lies in the city.'

‘But what other boy has been so threatened? Just yours, one near enough to his last
days to know better.' Egan smiles. ‘And you talk so fondly of those who cast us out.
As though they hold answers. Do you really trust our tormentors so? Did they not
ruin you, as they ruined us?'

Dain's lips grow ever so thin. ‘They were wise to send me here.'

And there we have the enmity between them. Egan never missing the chance to blame
Dain, to remind him that they could still be in the city. Dain reminding him it wasn't
as simple as that.

‘Always so reasonable. Always so respectful. Do not even begin to think that we share
your fondness for those in the city, for that Council of Teeth. Do not make that
mistake.'

‘I would never think such a thing of you.'

Egan frowns. ‘Michael, you overstep. The miles are long between here and the city,
and the Sun…well, you know about the Sun.'

Dain almost rises from his chair. The hall is a-creak with pressures manifest. A
window rattles in its pane, then stops. The air cools till it's stinging. ‘You'd
threaten me? Stephen?'

There's a gasp. Old names. Old names and so publicly spoken.

Egan ignores it, in fact he lifts a hand, all dismissive, but he keeps talking like
Dain isn't even there. ‘No, no! Nothing of the sort.' His gaze takes them all in.
‘And what do you think, my fellows? Yes or no to whimpering and begging for our overlords'
indulgence? Do we crawl on our bellies at the slightest trouble, like snakes to our
makers?'

‘Nay.' There is no need for a second vote.

Dain lowers his head.

‘This is for us to manage,' Egan says. ‘As the townfolk cull the deer, so we shall
cull those Hunters who dare approach this town. We will extend our territories a
little. The fate of our servants is ours to deal with, let these Hunters seek out
others, not little boys who should know better. Now, there are other matters to attend
to. The ridge is to be made off limits to all those of mortal blood. As is the river
east of the last turn, as it always was. Do I need to remind you that our word is
law, boys? Well, do I?'

‘No, Master,' we chorus.

He looks at me, belts away my breath again, and all I am is a bird, caught in fingers
that could crush it. ‘There's some I believe less than others. But we shall see.'

The meeting lasts another full hour before we're out, and deep in that summer night,
low clouds passing over. And the boys and their Masters heading to their homes. Just
me and Dain walking together in the dark.

‘Overindulgent,' Dain grumbles. ‘Overindulgent, says he, standing shoulder to shoulder
with the Master of Thuggery. I've long known he's no patience with Sobel, and yet
he hurls that at me. Bad blood's rising between us again, so be it. And the rest…Fools,
every single one of them. May the sea take them all. There's new webs in the making,
so you best look out for spiders.' He clenches his fists, looks east to Mount Pleasance,
and growls. ‘This isn't an ending boy, this is a beginning. To bed with you. There's
work in the morning.'

I take a step towards the house, and his hands fall upon my shoulders, and he turns
me to him, crouching low, like he did when I was younger, scarcely out of napkins.
When Dav was around, teaching me the tricks, keeping me on my toes.

‘You be careful now,' Dain says. ‘Eyes are watching, waiting for you to fail. You've
enemies. We've enemies here in this town.'

‘We ever had friends?'

Dain laughs. ‘No. But I feel I've grown complacent. Careful, you must tread as careful
as a fly on the web.'

‘I will,' I say.

Dain laughs again, and it is like the cold wind running before a summer storm, a
blessed relief and a threat too. ‘Oh, if I could believe it!'

The last of the clouds gives out and the sky is bright above us. We stand there awhile,
looking up.

‘You know, the stars were less bright once. We dulled them with our own bright works.
Light was a pollution, can you believe it?'

Then he is rising, and walking into the brilliance of the night (for there's hours
of it still ahead) and I'm stumbling back to my bed, where I know sleep has been
kicked clear to the next town away, and all that remains is a ragged thread of cruel,
dark-eyed dreams and a wind that blows to the west, hard and fast and gossipy.

People fear the Masters. Fear them more than the Imperatives they lay down for us
to follow.

Dain says that's how he knows my kind are weak. He'll ruffle my hair with those cold
hands of his as he says it; even say fondly: I was the same, Mark. I was just the
same. It's how we rule, through human weakness.

Of course, there's more to it than that.

There's three councils of law in the land. The Day Council, the Court of the Night,
and the Council of Teeth.

The Day is for roads, and civil laws; every community has one. There's always one
of us there, once a week, except in emergencies—and there are a few of those each
year, fires, plagues and whatnot.

The Court of the Night is the Masters; once a month it's run, and by a different
Master each time. It's a court of blood and promises, and those things which the
Day Council can't decide.

Then there's the Council of Teeth that rules from afar. It's the Sun and the moon.
It's the proclamations that appear, mysterious, on pillar and post. It's the Imperatives;
it's the voice of the wind, and the dark reason behind it.

And it's the auditors that are sent to pass on night's justice deep into the day.

Those Parson boys. They're always snapping at each other, brothers scratching and
chasing each other's tails. Dougie fights dirty, but those boys are nastier to each
other than you could imagine, a big tangle of cruelty and love in the way they'll
look out for the other, or finish a sentence, racing and rushing to make sure that
their twin doesn't fall. That's how those Parson boys are.

Gotta respect that, and fear it too. They could easily run this town, if it weren't
for Grove's strength and Dougie's guile.

And this is how they tell Kast's story.

It was a storm. Big one. One of those big ones. Maybe the biggest.

Definitely the biggest, worse even than that storm a year back. Worse even than that
fella.

Maybe.

Lightning thrown across the sky in sheets. Lightning
that lasted. No little flash, but a sky-bright burn.

I've never seen such a thing.

Me neither.

Course not!

It was a storm.

Kast had a home.

He had fought for it.