As he turned his wagon, he glimpsed a high chunk of wall that hadn't been there
last visit. A face stared out. It was the face of the man he and Raven had
brought in alive. Its eyes watched him.
JUNIPER: DURETILE
Whisper delivered us to a broken-down castle named Duretile. It overlooks
Juniper in general and the Enclosure in specific. For a week we had no contact
with our hosts. We had no language in common. Then we were graced with the
presence of a thug named Bullock who spoke the languages of the Jewel Cities.
Bullock was some kind of enforcer for the local religion. Which I could not
figure out at all. It looks like a death cult at first. Look again and you find
death or the dead not worshipped but revered, with bodies fanatically preserved
against some millennial revival. The whole character of Juniper is shaped by
this, except for the Buskin, where life has so many concerns more vital than the
welfare of the dead.
I took an instant dislike to Bullock. He struck me as violence-prone and
sadistic, a policeman who would solve his cases with a truncheon. He would
survive when the Lady annexed Juniper. Her military governors have a need for
his ilk.
I expected annexation to occur within days of the Captain's arrival. We'd have
it scoped out before he got here. One word from Charm would do it. I saw no
indication the Duke's people could stop it.
As soon as Feather and Whisper had all our people in, including translators,
Bullock, the Duke himself, and a man named Hargadon, who was senior Custodian of
the Dead, meaning he ran the Catacombs where bodies were stored- they led us
into the bitter cold atop Duretile's north wall. The Duke extended an arm. “That
fortress over there is why I asked for help.”
I looked at it and shuddered. There was something creepy about the place.
“We call it the black castle,” he said. “It's been there for centuries.” And
then he gave us a chunk almost too big to swallow. "It started out as a little
black rock lying beside a dead man. The man who found them tried to pick the
rock up. He died. And the rock started growing. It's been growing ever since.
Our ancestors experimented on it. They attacked it. Nothing harmed it. Anybody
who touched it died. For the sake of their sanity, they decided to ignore it."
I shaded my eyes, stared at the castle. Not that unusual, from Duretile, except
it was black and gave me the creeps.
The Duke continued, “For centuries it hardly grew. It's only a few generations
since it stopped looking like a rock.“ He got a haunted look. ”They say there
are things living inside there.”
I smiled. What did he expect? A fortress exists to surround something, whether
built or grown.
Hargadon assumed the narrative. He had been in his job too long. He'd developed
an official's pompous style. "For the last several years it's grown damned fast.
The Custodial Office became concerned when we heard rumors- out of the Buskin,
so unreliable to be sure-saying the creatures inside were buying cadavers. The
accuracy of those rumors remains a source of heated debate within the Office.
However, no one can deny that we're not getting enough corpses out of the Buskin
these days. Our street patrols collect fewer than they did ten years ago. Times
are leaner now. The street poor are more numerous. More should be expiring of
exposure.“ A real sweetheart, this Hargadon. He sounded like a manufacturer
whining because his profit margin was down. He continued, ”It's been
hypothesized that the castle may soon be beyond a need to purchase bodies-if it
is at all. I'm not convinced." Came down squarely on both sides of a question,
too. That's my boy. “Its occupants may become numerous enough to come take what
they want.”
Elmo asked, “You think people are selling bodies, why don't you grab them and
make them talk?”
Time for the policeman to enter his bit. Bullock said, “We can't catch them.” He
had a but-if-they'd-let-me-do-it-my-way tone. “It's happening down in the
Buskin, you see. It's another world down there. You don't find out much if
you're an outsider.”
Whisper and Feather stood a bit apart, examining the black castle. Their faces
were grim.
The Duke wanted something for nothing. In essence, he wanted to stop worrying
about that fortress. He said we could do whatever it took to eliminate his
worry. Only we'd have to do it his way. Like he wanted us to stay inside
Duretile while his men and Hargadon's acted as our eyes, ears and hands. He was
afraid of repercussions our presence could cause if known.
A few Rebel fugitives had come to Juniper after their defeat at Charm. The Lady
was known here, though little considered. The Duke feared the refugees would
incite trouble if he was suspected of collaborating.
In some ways he was an ideal overlord. All he wanted from his people was to be
left alone. He was willing to grant the same favor.
So, for a while, we stayed tucked away-till Whisper became irritated by the
quality of information we were given.
It was filtered. Sanitized, it was useless. She cornered the Duke and told him
her men would be going out with his.
He actually stood up to her for a few minutes. The battle was bitter. She
threatened to pull out, leaving him twisting in the wind. Pure bluff. She and
Feather were intensely interested in the black castle. Armed force could not
have levered them out of Juniper. The Duke subdued, she turned on the
Custodians. Bullock was stubbornly jealous of his prerogatives. I do not know
how she brought him around. He never was gracious about it.
I became his companion on investigative jaunts, mainly because I learned the
language quickly. Nobody down below paid me any mind. Him they did. He was a
walking terror. People crossed the street to avoid him. I guess he had a bad
reputation.
Then came news which miraculously cleared the obstacles the Duke and Custodians
had dumped in our path.
“You hear?” Elmo asked. “Somebody broke into their precious Catacombs. Bullock
is smoking. His boss is having a shit hemorrhage.” I tried to digest that, could
not. “More detail, if you please.” Elmo tends to abbreviate.
“During the winter they let poor people get away with sneaking into the
Enclosure. To collect deadwood for firewood. Somebody got in who decided to take
more. Found a way into the Catacombs. Three or four men.”
“I still don't get the whole picture, Elmo.” He enjoys being coaxed.
"All right. All right. They got inside and stole all the passage urns they could
lay hands on. Took them out, emptied them, and buried them in a pit. They also
lifted a bunch of old-time mummies. I never seen such moaning and carrying on.
You better back off your scheme, for getting into the Catacombs.“ I had
mentioned a desire to see what went on down there. The whole setup was so alien
I wanted a closer look. Preferably unchaperoned. ”Think they'd get overwrought,
eh?"
“Overwrought isn't the half. Bullock is talking bad. I'd hate to be those guys
and get caught by him.”
“Yeah? I'd better check this out.”
Bullock was in Duretile at the time, coordinating his work with that of the
Duke's incompetent secret police.
Those guys were a joke. They were practically celebrities, and not a one had the
guts to go down into the Buskin, where really interesting things happened. There
is a Buskin in every city, though the name varies. It is a slum so bad the
police dare go in only in force. Law there is haphazard at best, mostly enforced
by self-proclaimed magistrates supported by toughs they recruit themselves. It
is a very subjective justice they mete, likely to be swift, savage, unforgiving,
and directed by graft.
I caught up with Bullock, told him, “Till this latest business is cleaned up, I
stick like your leg.“ He scowled. His heavy cheeks reddened. ”Orders,” I lied,
faking an apologetic tone.
“Yeah? All right. Come on.”
“Where you headed?”
“The Buskin. Thing like this had to come out of the Buskin. I'm going to track
it down.” He had guts, for all his other failings. Nothing intimidated him.
I wanted to see the Buskin. He might be the best guide available. I'd heard he
went there often, without interference. His reputation was that nasty. A good
shadow to walk in.
“Now?” I asked.
“Now.” He led me out into the cold and down the hill. He did not ride. One of
his little affectations. He never rode. He set a brisk pace, as a man will who
is accustomed to getting things done afoot.
“What're we going to look for?” I asked.
“Old coins. The chamber they defiled goes back several centuries. If somebody
spent a lot of old money in the last couple days, we might get a line on our
men.”
I frowned. "I don't know spending patterns here. Places I've been, though,
people can hang on to a family horde for ages| then have one black sheep up and
spend it all. A few old coins might not mean anything."
“We're looking for a flood, not a few. For a man who spent a fistful. There were
three or four men involved. Odds are good one of them is a fool.” Bullock had a
good grasp of the stupid side of human nature. Maybe because he was close to it
himself.
“We'll be real nice doing the tracing,” he told me, as though he expected me to
hammer people in outrage. His values were the only ones he could imagine. “The
man we want will run when he hears me asking questions.”
“We chase him?”
“Just enough so he keeps moving. Maybe he'll lead us somewhere. I know several
bosses down there who could've engineered this. If one of them did, I want his
balls on a platter.”
He spoke in a fever, like a crusader. Did he have some special grievance against
the crime lords of the slum? I asked.
“Yeah. I came out of the Buskin. A tough kid who got lucky and got on with the
Custodians. My dad wasn't lucky. Tried to buck a protection gang. He paid, and
they didn't protect him from another gang in the same racket. He said he wasn't
going to put out good money for something he wasn't getting. They cut his
throat. I was one of the Custodians who picked him up. They stood around
laughing and cracking jokes. The ones responsible.“ ”Ever settle them up?” I
asked, certain of the answer. “Yeah. Brought them into the Catacombs, too.” He
glanced at the black castle, half obscured by mists drifting across the far
slope. “If I'd heard the rumors about that place, maybe I'd have. . . . No, I
wouldn't.”
I didn't think so myself. Bullock was a fanatic of sorts. He'd never break the
rules of the profession that had brought him out of the Buskin, unless he could
advance its cause by so doing.
“Think we'll start right at the waterfront,” he told me. “Work our way up the
hill. Tavern to tavern, whorehouse to whorehouse. Maybe hint that there's a
reward floating around.” He ground one fist into another, a man restraining
anger.
There was a lot of that bottled up inside him. Someday he would blow up good.
We'd gotten an early start. I saw more taverns, cathouses, and reeking dives
than I'd passed through in a dozen years. And in every one Bullock's advent
engendered a sudden, frightened hush and a promise of dutiful cooperation.
But promises were all we got. We could find no trace of any old money, except a
few coins that had been around too long to be the booty we sought. Bullock was
not discouraged. “Something will turn up,” he said. “Times are tough. Just take
a little patience.“ He looked thoughtful. ”Might just put some of your boys down
here. They aren't known, and they look tough enough to make it.”
“They are.” I smiled, mentally assembling a team including Elmo, Goblin,
Pawnbroker, Kingpin, and a few others. Be great if Raven were still with the
Company and could go in with them. They would be running the Buskin inside six
months. Which gave me an idea to take up with Whisper. If we wanted to know what
was happening, we should take charge of the Buskin. We could bring in One-Eye.
The little wizard was a gangster born. Stand out some, though. I hadn't seen
another black face since we'd crossed the Sea of Torments.
“Had an idea?” Bullock asked, about to enter a place called the Iron Lily. “You
look like your brain is smoking.”
“Maybe. On something down the line. If it gets tougher than we expect.”
The Iron Lily looked like every other place we'd been, only more so. The guy who
ran it cringed. He didn't know nothing, hadn't heard nothing, and promised to
scream for Bullock if anybody so much as spent a single gersh struck before the
accession of the present Duke. Every word bullshit. I was glad to get out of
there. I was afraid the place would collapse on me before he finished kissing
Bullock's ass. “Got an idea,” Bullock said. “Moneylenders.”
Took me a second to catch it and to see where the idea had come from. The guy in
the tavern, whining about his debts. “Good thinking.” A man in the snares of a
moneylender would do anything to wriggle away. “This is Krage's territory. He's
one of the nastiest. Let's drop in.” No fear in the man. His confidence in the
power of his office was so strong he dared walk into a den of cutthroats without
blinking an eye. I faked it good, but I was scared. The villain had his own
army, and it was jumpy.
We found out why in a moment. Our man had come up on the short end of somebody
in the last couple days. He was down on his back, mummified in bandages. Bullock
chuckled. "Customers getting frisky, Krage? Or did one of your boys try to
promote himself?“ Krage eyed us from a face of stone. ”I help you with
something, Inquisitor?“ ”Probably not. You'd lie to me if the truth would save
your soul, you bloodsucker.“ ”Flattery will get you nowhere. What do you want,
you parasite?"
Tough boy, this Krage. Struck from the same mold as Bullock, but he had drifted
into a socially less honored profession. Not much to choose between them, I
thought. Priest and moneylender. And that was what Krage was saying. "Cute. I'm
looking for a guy.“ ”No shit.“ ”He's got a lot of old money. Cajian period
coinage.“ ”Am I supposed to know him?“ Bullock shrugged. ”Maybe he owes
somebody.“ ”Money's got no provenance down here, Bullock.“ Bullock told me: ”A
proverb of the Buskin.“ He faced Krage. ”This money does. This money better,