The Beast of the North (3 page)

‘Alrik didn’t pay her or the bastard on a horse anything before the show, so she is making a point,’ Sand told me morosely. ‘Many unfortunates from this crowd are likely to be up there one day, and she makes some of her upkeep from the poor souls hoping for a quick end. He should have paid her. Anything but that.’

I nodded, swiping at a bothersome, dark, and fat fly. ‘He likely had nothing. And nobody brought him anything before this show. That much loyalty his gang has for him.’

‘Probably has enemies in his guild,’ Sand grumbled. Sand was right, of course. The Harlot was putting on a show for the benefit of the Bad Man’s Haunt, the gate district of Dagnar, the capital of the Red Midgard. We were all wastrels, thieves, highwaymen, whores, and smugglers. While we had a place to fill in the never-ceasing circle of life in the king’s city, it also meant some unfortunate fools had to be hung now and then. Or disemboweled in public. The Harlot did that expertly, and it was rumored she used her kitchen knife.

I took a deep breath.
Poor bastard,
I thought again and hesitated and waited until the two tall knights turned away to look at Alrik and to whisper to the Lord of the Harbor, who dismissed their pleas.

Then I made up my mind, flicked a thick piece of metal in my hand, and flipped a silver coin towards the Harlot. It flew in the air, twinkling in the oppressive heat of the morning and landed at her feet. She eyed it in surprise, and then looked around. Her eyes met mine. Uncannily she had guessed I had thrown the coin, but she was the Harlot, and they said she could smell money. She saw a man with a dark beard, deep brown eyes, and short hair. She grinned at me, but I made no movement, nor did I acknowledge her quizzical look. She nodded gratefully anyway and turned away to pick up the coin. The Master of Trade had turned for the crowd to try to catch the man who wanted to hasten the fun or perhaps to demand more coin, but I did not look at him or the knights, who seemed happy to have the torture cut as short as possible. I sensed the Lord of the Harbor was now staring enviously at the silver in the Harlot’s hand.

‘What in Hel’s name did you do?’ Sand asked me in morbid stupefaction as he stared at the woman ambling away, and the knights were staring at the crowd. ‘That was silver. It was. Wasn’t it? The piece we earned last week? Good, well deserved silver, gone. Eh? Alrik never knew us. You will never get out of here if you waste your fortune. And neither will I, as I cannot leave you alone to starve.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I grinned. ‘It was your coin, anyway.’

He grunted as a wounded animal would, his hands tapping his pouch. He found it open and looted, and I whistled softly as he balled his fists. ‘Look—’

I grinned at him disarmingly. ‘Relax, just wanted to test my fingers a bit. You’ll get mine,’ I told him. We had robbed a box of misplaced wine from the harbor, our favorite haunt for trouble. We sold it at some profit to a drunkard butler of some noble house at the gates, where such transactions often took place. The man had been out to find something to cover his thievery from his master. He paid a lot though not as much as the load was worth. We were good thieves but bad businessmen.

‘Don’t want yours. Want mine. Yours is yours. Mine is—’

‘Shh,’ I told him. ‘Look.’

The Harlot bowed to the sullen crowd, the tall, chain-mailed men of the Mad Watch stepped away from her, their spears rattling. She ambled for the piss sodden legs dancing in front of her. She grabbed them with no further ceremony. Then she jumped on him, pulling him down so hard, we all heard the nasty cracking sound as the neck broke.

He died. The Harlot struggled to her feet and bowed my way.

A meek servant adjusted the red tabard of the Lord of the Harbor and then the man moved forward to stare at the crowd, covered by a cordon of burly house guards and the two Brothers whose horses stepped in front of the Mad Watch.
Seventh House?
I thought. I could not remember where the Lord of the Harbor was from, and it bothered me. The man took off his helmet. ‘Ann thinks he looks like a thin version of you,’ Sand snickered, and I pushed him so hard, he nearly fell. We had seen him often enough in these events.

The man was a sleek noble with dark curly hair, thin face, and a cruel, grating voice as he stood up in his stirrups and addressed us over the shoulders of the two knights. ‘Let it be known, scum, that King Magor Danegell, the Beast of the North, will hang any thief and their family should the raids in the Silk Streets and Blue Doors Districts continue. Rob the poor and eat each other, vermin, but leave the better folk alone. You have no business beyond the Fourth Ring.’

‘What happened to Alrik’s family?’ someone yelled at him mockingly from the crowd.

‘He didn’t have any,’ the king’s man stated impatiently. ‘The records—’

There was a slow murmur of laughter rippling through the crowd. ‘We are all orphans, my lord! None of us are married nor carry children. Barren and forgotten we are, as a gravestone! We are but turds!’ another voice yelled, a blonde, teary woman I knew was the dead man’s wife. People cheered her bravery wildly as she wiped away tears. The Black Brother was pointing at her, speaking sibilantly to the White, who shook his head tiredly. She would live, I decided. No need to inflame the situation more.

‘Silence,’ a gorgeously armored Captain of the Watch yelled, his men were rattling their spears and pulling at glittering swords as the crowd cheered the woman. They had scarlet cloaks and black bronze shields but were citizen soldiers in truth. Their aggressive display didn’t help the situation, and none went quiet as ordered. The vocal threats rose in volume, and even the Brothers decided not to challenge the crowd and the soldiers began to withdraw from the scaffolds, slowly and with dignity, guards forming steel fisted ranks around the official and the Harlot. They would be back. The knights led them up the hill to the gates for the Fourth Ring and beyond all the way to the top, to the Tower of the Temple, the Sun Court and the barracks of the First Ring.

‘Shit snuffling, wart-ass toy soldiers,’ Sand whispered with barely controlled rage. He had a dangerous, violent streak in him, like his father did, who was a highwayman called the Bear. They often reacted very violently to setbacks, except when Ann talked sense to them. The Bear was also my mother’s boyfriend. Boyfriend, for mother was forty-five, and he was ten years younger than she was. It was strange, sometimes, but that strangeness had brought Sand and me together. We were like brothers. And his sister Ann?

She was dutiful
, I thought.
Beautiful, but severe.

She had a high, gentle forehead; silken, blonde locks that fell around her face in haphazard curls, and she had sweet, kissable lips. I know Sand tried to set up a romance between us, but for some reason I looked away when she passed, croaked when she spoke to me and blushed if she squeezed past me in the hallway. I was intrigued, but not … enough? Perhaps I was a coward, an idiot, and we all knew she was wise and eminent like the Elder Judges. In short, she made me feel like a log. She was family. Sand would be disappointed. He would pummel me, I would hurt him back, and we might wrestle. We fought often, and we loved each other like real brothers. I was far from a weakling myself, hard, dark, and wild.

‘Did Mir make anything from the shipwreck last week?’ Sand asked me gruffly as he was pulling me away through the dispersing crowd. He called Mother by her first name, something that was strangely irritating, though of course, he did, but it was weird anyway. I did not know our last name, which was strange as well, but I had been told not to ask. I was Maskan. That’s it.

I nodded. ‘Some bastards brought her a chest of moderately fine loot. There were satin and silken women’s clothing and nice noble’s shoes as well. Expensive red leather and silver. A box of strange trappings of rank, gold, and emeralds. Some were bloody. Freshly bloodied.’

‘Cutthroats,’ Sand agreed with mild disgust. ‘The guards should be faster when a ship gets wrecked down the coast, but then they usually get wrecked at night, anyway.’ He began to hum a grating song.

‘They were lured by the butchers and to the shoals they crash.

In the murderous lot goes, to rob the jewels and the cash.

The ships will be stripped, the goods snipped.

The guards at the gates, cannot change the victim’s fates.’

‘Shut up,’ I told him.

He looked hurt. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’

‘Yes, it was. Was it a Sand original? Let us keep it like that, unique. Possibly even a one-time performance.’

He cursed and said nothing more about that. ‘But she bought them?’

‘Yeah. Mother sold them to an Atenian trader. Made good coin,’ I told him as we were pushing our way through the irascible crowd. Alrik had been liked in the Laughing Lamb, the local tavern, known for the Trade, which meant anything illegal. He had been liked, even if he had connections to the major harbor gangs, which competed with the minor ones of the Bad Man’s Haunt. We had a cellar shop below the Lamb, where we outwardly sold crabs and oysters to noble kitchens. It was named “The Shifty Crab,” our business. Of course, I had never eaten a live oyster in my life and only seen some. I did see the barrels of empty shells that had been gathering dust in our haunt to make up for an acceptable facade. Nor had I caught even so much as a fish from the Arrow Straits. Mother paid her taxes and the inevitable extra for the criminal taxmen, who would never believe we were a near destitute provider of the crustacean wares. It was a shoddy cover for our business, but nobody cared to fight her claims as long as she paid up. So far.

‘I want my silver,’ he sulked.

‘Harbor?’ I asked him. He shrugged and nodded. He had neither talent for cutpursing nor the fingers for pocket picking, but I did. We would go there, mingle in the crowds, and pick someone to pickpocket, someone who was not paying attention. There were plenty of those around, but one had to be entirely preoccupied to qualify as a victim. That is why I nearly always picked off wealthy women’s purses. They rarely noticed anything, being enamored by the many stalls full of treasures of the fabulous Harbor Side Market, and the wares of the Horned Brewery, a famous den of debauchery. The noble families ventured out to sample the goods of both. They would especially enjoy the many exotic foods in the Old Outdoor Winery of the Brewery, and some would go inside to gamble with foreign sailors and merchants. And, of course, there were the girls who were pretty as our star the Lifegiver and the Three Sisters, our moons and willing to have some fun for a price. The nobles did this during the daytime. Never at night. Not if they were wise.

‘Sure, harbor,’ Sand said. ‘I’ve got my knife.’ He lifted his leather tunic. A white bone handle flickered in sight just for a second. Sand was there to make sure things settled down if any keener member of the many harbor gangs of criminals accosted us. Or if our victim noticed something. He had never killed, neither had I, but sometimes it could get interesting and dangerous when we found something worth stealing. Thievery in the harbor was risky, but not too if done right. If a rival saw you do it, it might be like feeding the fish. Throw a bit of bread in the water, see one grab it and the others try to tear it from his mouth. Sand made sure our pieces of bread mostly reached our bellies. I could fight well enough as well, but he was the fighter, I was the thief. ‘Mir wanted you to go home after the hanging, no? She will be frantic—’ Sand began, having just remembered this bit of instruction we had been given that morning.

‘Frantic with worry,’ I said and rolled my eyes. ‘She told me to stay near home to help her with some crates of stolen pewter mugs. Boring. Boring! I could do that, but I’ve got to make a living some other way than peddling shit. Can’t be supported by her forever. Don’t want to inherit the business either. Rifling through dead people’s clothing and jewelry, haggling like a southerner? No, thank you. No, thank you indeed.’

‘Shouldn’t throw our silver away then,’ Sand spat. ‘To imagine you could be living up there on the side of the Tower of the Temple with the nobles. Just imagine. Pampered, carrying a sword and a shield probably. Riding like a lazy lording, bullying the lesser folks.’

‘Shut up, you damned, stupid, dirt snuffling peasant,’ I told him brusquely, and he snickered. He was not a fool, not by far though his occasional inane and rough looks sometimes gave one that false impression. Few looked in his eyes. Blue and sharp, they were always on alert, always articulating dangers. He was his father’s son, and Bear was one tough to catch criminal. Some called him the Bear, others the Uncouth Lord, and none knew his name. He always left his victims tied up on trees, most on their knees, robbed and poor. But Sand was right. My father had been a nobleman. That much I had gathered from Mother, but not much more. He had been a famed soldier in the Hawk’s Talon brigade, the First Army of Red Midgard and even an artist in the Red Daub Guild. He had painted King Magor Danegell once; it was rumored.

Then, something terrible had happened. Two decades ago.

He died. A criminal. Mother escaped.

Later, I had been born in Bad Man’s Haunt, and my formerly noble mother was a fence of illegal substances and stolen items, not a high lady of wealth and riches and respect, and I had no horse nor a sword nor a chain mail and a band of warriors to lead around. I had no flag or a house, except for the Lamb and our Shifty Crab. Father had died before I was born, and the king had had him hung. I felt a sour taste in my mouth. Had I not just told Sand the king was trying to protect the land? He was mad, a criminal king, a murderer. And I spoke in his defense?
Mad.
If I wished it, on Odin’s Crest, the day of high summer celebration, I could hike from the First Ring to the Fifth, all the way up to the Tower of the Temple, the house of the Danegells, of the king. There, before the walls of the Tower of the Temple in the midst of the Sun Court, surrounded by a garden of colorful flowers was a special tree, old as time. It was rumored that it had been planted by the now absent gods. On the thick branches of that tree, countless painted skulls were hung from chains, all adorned with silver bells. These were those fools who had at some point opposed the king and his nobility. Red skulls for treason, yellow for cowardice, black for murder. These were the colors of the skulls. Father’s skull was red, Mother said. The dominant color on the tree, I might add, for the King Magor Danegell deemed many things treasonous, especially since the High King had begun to demand the universal, all-encompassing obedience, and worship.
The Singing Garden.
That was what it was called, and the dead inhabited it, and when the king held a speech at the Sun Court, everyone knew the price of not obeying the king and his laws. The chains sang with the wind, their bells jingling as if the dead were playing with them. There were hundreds of them.