His eyes were closed. I looked at One-Eye. His eye was sealed, too, and his face
was all pruned, wrinkles atop wrinkles, shadowed by the brim of his floppy hat.
The face in the fire took on detail.
“Eh!” It startled me for a moment. Staring my way, it looked like the Lady.
Well, like the face the Lady wore the one time I actually saw her. That was
during the battle at Charm. She called me in to dredge my mind for suspicions
about a conspiracy among the Ten Who Were Taken. ... A thrill of fear. I have
lived with it for years. If ever she questions me again, the Black Company will
be short its senior physician and Annalist. I now have knowledge for which she
would flatten kingdoms.
The face in the fire extended a tongue like that of a salamander. Goblin
squealed. He jumped up clutching a blistered nose.
One-Eye was draining another beer, back to his victim. Goblin scowled, rubbed
his nose, seated himself again. One-Eye turned just enough to place him at the
corner of his vision. He waited till Goblin began to nod.
This has been going on forever. Both were with the Company before I joined,
One-Eye for at least a century. He is old, but is as spry as men my age.
Maybe spryer. Lately I've felt the burden of time more and more, all too often
dwelling on everything I've missed. I can laugh at peasants and townies chained
all their lives to a tiny corner of the earth while I roam its face and see its
wonders, but when I go down, there will be no child to carry my name, no family
to mourn me save my comrades, no one to remember, no one to raise a marker over
my cold bit of ground. Though I have seen great events, I will leave no enduring
accomplishment save these Annals.
Such conceit. Writing my own epitaph disguised as Company history.
I am developing a morbid streak. Have to watch that.
One-Eye cupped his hands palms-down on the countertop, murmured, opened them. A
nasty spider of fist size stood revealed, wearing a bushy squirrel tail. Never
say One-Eye has no sense of humor. It scuttled down to the floor, skipped over
to me, grinned up with a One-Eye black face wearing no eye-patch, then zipped
toward Goblin.
The essence of sorcery, even for its nonfraudulent practitioners, is
misdirection. So with the bushy-tailed spider.
Goblin was not snoozing. He was lying in the weeds. When the spider got close,
he whirled and swung a stick of firewood. The spider dodged. Goblin hammered the
floor. In vain. His target darted around, chuckling in a One-Eye voice.
The face formed in the flames. Its tongue darted out. The seat of Goblin's
trousers began to smoulder.
“I'll be damned,” I said.
“What?” the Captain asked, not looking up. He and the Lieutenant had taken
opposite ends of an argument over whether Heart or Tome would be the better base
of operations.
Somehow, word gets out. Men streamed in for the latest round of the feud. I
observed, “I think One-Eye is going to win one.”
“Really?” For a moment old grey bear was interested. One-Eye hadn't bested
Goblin in years.
Goblin's frog mouth opened in a startled, angry howl. He slapped his bottom with
both hands, dancing. “You little snake!” he screamed. “I'll strangle you! I'll
cut your heart out and eat it! I'll. . . . I'll. . . .”
Amazing. Utterly amazing. Goblin never gets mad. He gets even. Then One-Eye will
put his twisted mind to work again. If Goblin is even, One-Eye figures he's
behind.
“Settle that down before it gets out of hand,” the Captain said.
Elmo and I got between the antagonists. This thing was disturbing. Goblin's
threats were serious. One-Eye had caught him in a bad temper, the first I'd ever
seen. “Ease up,” I told One-Eye.
He stopped. He, too, smelled trouble.
Several men growled. Some heavy bets were down. Usually, nobody will put a
copper on One-Eye. Goblin coming out on top is a sure thing, but this time he
looked feeble. Goblin did not want to quit. Did not want to play the usual
rules, either. He snatched a fallen sword and headed for One-Eye. I couldn't
help grinning. That sword was huge and broken, and Goblin was so small, yet so
ferocious, that he seemed a caricature. A bloodthirsty caricature. Elmo couldn't
handle him. I signaled for help. Some quick thinker splashed water on Goblin's
back. He whirled, cussing, started a deadly spell.
Trouble for sure. A dozen men jumped in. Somebody threw another bucket of water.
That cooled Goblin's temper. As we relieved him of the blade, he looked abashed.
Defiant, but abashed.
I led him back to the fire and settled beside him. “What's the matter? What
happened?” I glimpsed the Captain from the corner of my eye. One-Eye stood
before him, drained by a heavy-duty dressing down.
“I don't know, Croaker.” Goblin slumped, stared into the fire. “Suddenly
everything was too much. This ambush tonight. Same old thing. There's always
another province, always more Rebels. They breed like maggots in a cowpie. I'm
getting older and older, and I haven't done anything to make a better world. In
fact, if you backed off to look at it, we've all made it worse.” He shook his
head. “That isn't right. Not what I want to say. But I don't know how to say it
any better.”
“Must be an epidemic.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Thinking out loud.” Elmo. Myself. Goblin. A lot of the men, judging by
their tenor lately. Something was wrong in the Black Company. I had suspicions,
but wasn't ready to analyze. Too depressing.
“What we need is a challenge,” I suggested. “We haven't stretched ourselves
since Charm.” Which was a half-truth. An operation which compelled us to become
totally involved in staying alive might be a prescription for symptoms, but was
no remedy for causes. As a physician, I was not fond of treating symptoms alone.
They could recur indefinitely. The disease itself had to be attacked.
“What we need,” Goblin said in a voice so soft it almost vanished in the crackle
of the flames, “is a cause we can believe in.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That, too.”
From outside came the startled, outraged cries of prisoners discovering that
they were to fill the graves they had dug.
JUNIPER: DEATH PAYS
Shed grew increasingly frightened as the days passed. He had to get some money.
Krage was spreading the word. He was to be made an example.
He recognized the tactic. Krage wanted to scare him into signing the Lily over.
The place wasn't much, but it was damned sure worth more than he owed. Krage
would resell it for several times his investment. Or turn it into whore cribs.
And Marron Shed and his mother would be in the streets, with winter's deadly
laughter howling in their faces.
Kill somebody, Krage had said. Rob somebody. Shed considered both. He would do
anything to keep the Lily and protect his mother.
If he could just get real customers! He got nothing but one-night chiselers and
scroungers. He needed residential regulars. But he could not get those without
fixing the place up. And that he couldn't do without money.
Asa rolled through the doorway. Pale and frightened, he scuttled to the counter.
“Find a wood supply yet?” Shed asked.
The little man shook his head, slid two gersh across the counter. “Give me a
drink.”
Shed scooped the coins into his box. One did not question money's provenance. It
had no memory. He poured a full measure. Asa reached eagerly.
“Oh, no,” Shed said. “Tell me about it.”
“Come on, Shed. I paid you.”
“Sure. And I'll deliver when you tell me why you're so rocky.”
“Where's that Raven?”
“Upstairs. Sleeping.” Raven had been out all night.
Asa shook a little more. “Give me that, Shed.”
“Talk.”
“All right. Krage and Red grabbed me. They wanted to
know about Raven.”
So Shed knew how Asa had come by money. He had tried to sell Raven. “Tell me
more.”
“They just wanted to know about him.”
“What did they want to know?”
“If he ever goes out.”
“Why?”
Asa stalled. Shed pulled the mug away. “All right. They had two men watching
him. They disappeared. Nobody knows anything. Krage is furious.” Shed let him
have the wine. He drained it in a single gulp.
Shed glanced toward the stair, shuddered. Maybe he had underestimated Raven.
“What did Krage say about me?”
“Sure could use another mug, Shed.”
“I'll give you a mug. Over the noggin.”
“I don't need you, Shed. I made a connection. I can sleep over to Krage's any
time I want.”
Shed grunted, made a mask of his face. “You win.” He poured wine.
“He's going to put you out of business, Shed. Whatever it takes. He's decided
you're in it with Raven.“ Wicked little smile. ”Only he can't figure where you
got the guts to buck him.”
“I'm not. I don't have anything to do with Raven, Asa. You know that.”
Asa enjoyed his moment. "I tried to tell Krage, Shed.
He didn't want to hear it."
“Drink your wine and get out, Asa.”
“Shed?” The old whine filled Asa's voice.
“You heard me. Out. Back to your new friends. See how long they have a use for
you.”
“Shed! . . .”
“They'll throw you back into the street, Asa. Right beside me and Mom. Git, you
bloodsucker.”
Asa downed his wine and fled, shoulders tight against his neck. He had tasted
the truth of Shed's words. His association with Krage would be fragile and
brief.
Shed tried to warn Raven. Raven ignored him. Shed polished mugs, watched Raven
chatter with Darling in the utter silence of sign language, and tried to imagine
some way of making a hit in the upper city. Usually he spent these early hours
eying Darling and trying to imagine a way to gain access, but lately sheer
terror of the street had abolished his customary randiness.
A cry like that of a hog with a cut throat came from upstairs. “Mother!” Shed
took the stairs two steps at a time.
His mother stood in the doorway of the big bunkroom, panting. “Mom? What's
wrong?”
“There's a dead man in there.”
Shed's heart fluttered. He pushed into the room. An old man lay in the bottom
right bunk inside the door.
There had been only four bunkroom customers last night. Six gersh a head. The
room was six feet wide and twelve long, with twenty-four platforms stacked six
high. When the room was full, Shed charged two gersh to sleep leaning on a rope
stretched down the middle.
Shed touched the old-timer. His skin was cold. He had been gone for hours.
“Who was he?” old June asked.
“I don't know.” Shed probed his ragged clothing. He found four gersh and an iron
ring. “Damn!” He could not take that. The Custodians would be suspicious if they
found nothing. “We're jinxed. This is our fourth stiff this year.”
“It's the customers, son. They have one foot in the Catacombs already.”
Shed spat. “I'd better send for the Custodians.”
A voice said, “He's waited this long, let him wait a little longer.”
Shed whirled. Raven and Darling stood behind his mother.
“What?”
“He might be the answer to your problems,” Raven said. And immediately Darling
began flashing signs so fast Shed could not catch one in twenty. Evidently she
was telling Raven not to do something. Raven ignored her.
Old June snapped, “Shed!” Her voice was heavy with admonition.
“Don't worry, Mom. I'll handle it. Go ahead with your work.” June was blind, but
when her health permitted, she dumped the slops and handled what passed for maid
service- mainly dusting beds between guests to kill fleas and lice. When her
health confined her to bed, Shed brought in his cousin Wally, a ne'er-do-well
like Asa, but with a wife and kids. Shed used him out of pity for the wife.
He headed downstairs. Raven followed, still arguing with Darling. Momentarily,
Shed wondered if Raven was diddling her. Be a damned waste of fine womanflesh if
someone wasn't.
How could a dead man with four gersh get him out from under Krage? Answer: He
could not. Not legitimately.
Raven settled onto his usual stool. He scattered a handful of copper. “Wine. Buy
yourself a mug, too.”
Shed collected the coins, deposited them in his box. Us contents were pitiful.
He wasn't making expenses. He was doomed. His debt to Krage could miraculously
be discharged and still he'd be doomed.
He deposited a mug before Raven, seated himself on a stool. He felt old beyond
his years, and infinitely weary.
“Tell me.”
“The old man. Who was he? Who were his people?” Shed shrugged. “Just somebody
who wanted to get out of the cold. The Buskin is full of them.”
“So it is.”
Shed shuddered at Raven's tone. “Are you proposing
what I think?“ ”What's that?”
“I don't know. What use is a corpse? I mean, even the Custodians only stuff them
in the Catacombs.”
“Suppose there was a buyer?”
“I've been supposing that.”
“And?”
“What would I have to do?” His voice barely carried across the table. He could
imagine no more disgusting crime. Even the least of the city's dead were honored
above the living. A corpse was a holy object. The Enclosure was Juniper's
epicenter.
"Very little. Late tonight, have the body at the back door. You could do that?''
Shed nodded weakly.
“Good. Finish your wine.”
Shed downed it in a gulp. He drew another mug, polished his stoneware
industriously. It was a bad dream. It would go away.
The corpse seemed almost weightless, but Shed had difficulty negotiating the
stairs. He had drunk too much. He eased through the shadowed common, stepping
with exaggerated care. The people clustered near the fireplace looked demonic in
the sullen red of the last coals.
One of the old man's feet toppled a pot as Shed entered the kitchen. He froze.