Tomorrow, the Killing (24 page)

‘Good morning, Lieutenant,’ Joachim said. ‘What’s got you all the way out here?’

‘You’re gonna get hit,’ I answered.

His eyes were dark and sad. You could have dropped a live snake in his lap and they wouldn’t so much have flickered. ‘You live long enough and that’ll happen.’

‘You live a little longer, you learn to try and dodge it.’

He nodded vague agreement, then waved at a spot next to him. I slid into it. ‘Can I dodge this one?’

‘Maybe. If you’re quick.’

‘And who’s looking to add my scalp to their collection?’

‘A whole bunch of folk, I imagine, though the only party I can say with certainty works out of a restaurant in the Old City.’

‘The Giroies?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘I’m starting to feel like I’ve had this conversation already.’

‘Last time I was passing on a rumor. This time I’m tipping you tomorrow’s broadsheet.’

‘I didn’t realize you were a soothsayer.’

‘Nothing soothing about it.’

‘I’d think puns beneath you.’

‘There’s very little that’s beneath me, Commander.’

That didn’t seem to encourage him. ‘Look, Lieutenant,’ he began slowly, laying it out for me. ‘We went through this. The Giroies and the Association have been quits for ten years. Until I see proof otherwise, I’m not going to do anything to stir the waters.’

‘You think I enjoy these go-rounds so much that I’d come up here if I wasn’t sure what I was talking about?’

‘Nobody’s right all the time.’

I drew myself up from the chair. ‘Enjoy the speeches.’

‘Sit down,’ he said, a command.

I didn’t follow it, but I stopped moving.

‘Sit down,’ he repeated, softer, and this time I took the suggestion. Pretories drummed his fingers against the table, considering. A waiter came over, poured out some water, then left. The square below us was filling up rapidly, near packed, the dull roar steadily forcing our own conversation to be conducted at a volume inappropriate to its substance.

‘What’s your source on this?’ he asked finally.

‘A little bird alighted on my shoulder.’

‘That’s not good enough, not for this. I need specifics.’

‘You know everyone I know?’

‘Try me.’

‘Scratch is his street name. Half-Islander, freelance muscle.’ I knew three separate people who fit this general description, and I didn’t imagine any of them would be easy to find. ‘He tells me the Giroies have been adding men to the rolls, double quick.’

‘Why would he tell you that?’

‘Either because we’re best friends, or because I pay a premium for relevant gossip.’

‘And what does your man say is coming down the pike?’

‘You must have outposts apart from headquarters.’

‘Of course.’

‘Double their guard.’

He cracked one finger against another, then shook his head. ‘We’re stretched to capacity as it is, preparing for the march.’

I waved a hand at the crowd. ‘Five thousand men here, you telling me you can’t detail anyone to stand outside of your joints and look tough?’

‘There’s a difference between paying dues and strapping on steel. These men are my constituency. I work for them, not the other way around.’

It was nice to know Pretories was back on his heels. ‘Conscript someone then. It worked for the Crown, didn’t it?’

‘Volunteers are more reliable.’

‘Numbers matter, when you’re going to war.’

‘We’re at war now? I don’t remember receiving a declaration.’

‘I’ll make sure and register a complaint with the relevant authorities. You’ll be a corpse by then, but at least it’ll comfort your kin.’

He swiped his tongue across his teeth. I must really have been getting to him. ‘The Giroies,’ he began finally. ‘They’re serious?’

‘Well, they’re not the Dren,’ I responded. ‘But you don’t have to be to stick metal in meat.’

I stood up for a second time, and for a second time the commander stopped me. ‘Aren’t you sticking around?’

‘I was five years in the service. I don’t need a monologue to remind me of it.’

‘Just thought it might interest you, what with your friend being our first speaker.’

‘What?’

Pretories nodded to the stage. A half-dozen men sat behind a podium, awaiting their chance to speak. Stationed at the far left, notable by virtue of being twice the size of any of the others, Adolphus shuffled his feet nervously.

What I got for not paying Wren proper attention. I pointed myself back at Pretories for the parting shot. ‘I get it, Commander, you don’t quite trust me. That’s fine, I’m not quite a trustworthy person. But I’m right about this – the Giroies are coming. Prepare yourself today, or lament your lack of faith tomorrow.’

Pretories was a tough one to read, and I wasn’t sure which way he’d go. For my purposes it didn’t really matter. ‘I’ll take it under consideration,’ he said.

I padded off the verandah, past Roussel’s sneer and Rabbit’s corpse-grin, down into the sea of flesh surrounding us. Once engulfed it was hard to make out the stage. I angled myself as best I could and started toward it, brushing my way through the throng. The role of master of ceremonies was played by the same speaker I’d ignored the last time I’d been at headquarters, and his loquaciousness gave me time to elbow my way to the front. I had a pretty decent view of the podium by the time Adolphus stepped up to it.

He was sweating more than the heat strictly demanded, but other than that he looked good, for an ugly man deep into middle age. He uncreased a sheet of paper and set it against the podium, hands fumbling. His mouth opened and closed in a reasonable imitation of speech, but I couldn’t make anything out.

‘Talk louder!’ someone yelled from the audience.

‘Some of you know me,’ he began again, shouting.

Laughter rippled through the crowd. My best friend blushed uncomfortably, and I joined him.

‘Some of you know me,’ he said a third time, striking an appropriate middle ground.

‘The Hero of Aunis!’ a voice amended, most likely a plant.

He shook his head. ‘Sergeant Adolphus Gustav, of the First Capital Infantry – that’s good enough for me.’

A rumble of agreement from the audience.

‘Good enough for any man,’ he ad-libbed, and the mass cheered, and he was off.

I wouldn’t have thought Adolphus much of a public speaker, but he did all right. The wound helped, and his size – everyone looking up at him knew that this was a man who had fought for the Empire, fought hard and suffered for it.

But there was more than that. He believed what he was saying, and it came through. No paid herald mouthing another man’s words. He spoke slowly and simply, and after a few sentences he stopped looking at his notes. He knew the story well enough, after all. A boy from the provinces who’d never been ten miles from his village, who’d signed up to serve his country and found himself holding a pike in a foreign land. Who’d done his duty and been called a hero for it. Who didn’t resent his loss, who was just happy to have been able to come back home when so many others hadn’t. Who’d never asked for anything more than his due, but who owed it to the fallen to demand what was due to them.

It was a good speech. Most of it was even true.

‘Will we let them turn their backs on our brothers, dead in a foreign land? Their families, desperate for a few crusts of bread?’

The chorus answered in the negative.

‘Is it time to remind them of our sacrifice?’

Enthusiastic agreement.

‘The day after tomorrow, I’m going over the top – and I hope to the Firstborn you’ll all be coming with me!’

Five thousand men screamed their support, threw their fists in the air, climbed over each other in excitement. One kept silent, and in the tumult that followed, he forced himself out from the ranks and made his way home.

B
ack at the Earl I opened every window and propped the door. In the alley outside the corpse of a mule was starting to rot, and flies were trickling in with the stench. Apart from their fetid buzzing it was a quiet afternoon, languid even. Wren was at Mazzie’s, or damn well should have been. Adeline was running errands. I took a seat at the bar and set to rectify my sobriety with workmanlike diligence.

I’d more or less accomplished my task by the time Adolphus came through the door, chest out and whistling. He dropped himself at my table with a grunt, his uneven grin wide enough to swallow a calf. Half of me was happy to see him so, and half of me wanted to bust my glass against his melon.

I wasn’t shocked to find my lesser nature winning out. ‘That was quite a speech.’

‘You were there?’

‘Joachim . . .’ I corrected myself. ‘The commander and I had business.’

A glancing blow, insufficient to snuff out his good humor. Maybe there was some part of him hoping I’d changed my mind about the whole thing, decided to support the vets honestly. Adolphus always was a desperate optimist. ‘What did you think?’

‘The war sounds like lots of fun. I’m sorry I missed it.’

‘That wasn’t funny.’

‘Maybe I’m losing my touch.’ I pulled out a vial of breath and held it to my nose.

‘You been going at that awful hard lately.’

Fifteen seconds went by, then I brought it back to my side. ‘I’ve got a thing or two on my mind.’

‘That help?’

‘Doesn’t hurt.’

He chewed over his cud lips but didn’t say anything. ‘Too bad the boy couldn’t see it. Then again, I suppose it’s time he started his learning.’

It was an olive branch, but I wasn’t in the mood to take it. ‘That what we think now? Time to start his learning?’

‘I’ll bring him along next time,’ he said. An aside, but meant to be noticed.

‘What does that mean, next time?’

‘The commander asked me to speak again tomorrow. Wants me to help rally some of the other Low Town vets. Even asked me to take a spot in the front line for the march.’

I took a last snoot, then put the bottle back into my satchel. ‘Śakra’s cock, Adolphus, when are you gonna give this up?’

He squared his shoulders. ‘When the Crown holds to their obligations.’

‘When the Firstborn comes to claim us, you mean? I’d bring a book.’

‘We’re owed,’ he said, his voice gravel and not easily dismissed.

‘Come off it, Adolphus. A ten percent tax on your pension won’t break your back. This has nothing to do with money. It’s more fun for you to play hero than it is to tend bar.’

I’d struck a nerve. His eye narrowed. ‘You think so little of me?’

‘This isn’t a game. What’s the Crown going to do when they see the Association making trouble?’

‘We got the right to peaceful assembly.’

‘You got every right in the world, till they decide to start taking them from you.’

‘We’re not the sort to melt in the rain – the Dren discovered that. Black House wants trouble, they’ll learn the same.’

‘That was what Roland Montgomery thought,’ I said. ‘It’ll get you what it got him.’

‘General Montgomery was assassinated while fighting for the rights of his country and his men. I’d be proud to fall the same way.’ Hours spouting rhetoric were affecting his judgment. ‘There’s such a thing as right and wrong.’

‘No, Adolphus – there’s just alive and dead. The war should have taught you that.’

‘Maybe we learned different things.’

‘Maybe you don’t remember your lessons.’

‘Quit telling me what I believe!’ he bellowed suddenly, bull chest straining his shirt, face red. He gave himself a moment to deflate before continuing, but it didn’t seem to help. ‘You know what I think?’

‘Waiting to hear it.’

‘I think you don’t like to see me being cheered for. I think you got used to me being your lapdog, watching your back while you play the big man.’

‘That’s what you think? That your celebrity offends my ego?’

‘Fifteen years carrying your water. Fifteen years being your second. I guess it’s natural you’d get jealous, try and work your way in with the commander.’

It was strange to discover this vein of rancor amidst such well-trammeled territory, like finding a torture chamber hidden in the kitchen closet. How many other conversations had this echoed through, I wondered? ‘It’s not like that,’ I said feebly, knowing there was nothing I could say that would close a wound so long festered. ‘What I got going with Joachim . . . it ain’t about you.’

But he didn’t seem to be listening. ‘I strike out on my own, and you do everything you can to strangle it.’

‘Make sure your jaunt doesn’t carry you off a cliff.’

He shook his head, then fell into silence. Mulling over swallowed insults, arguments that I didn’t remember but that had taken purchase in my best friend’s soul. Strange, what a man carries with him, that you don’t see.

The breath buzzed around my skull, muting my semi-constant headache. I started rolling up a tab. ‘Bitterness is the prerogative of middle age – have at it. But you’ve got a family, a real one. You want to leave Adeline a widow? Wren half an orphan?’

‘What kind of father would I be to the boy if I didn’t stand up for myself? If I didn’t stand up for the memory of the fallen?’

‘You want to pretend piss is whiskey, that’s on you. But don’t go filling my glass. You’re doing this for yourself. Same with the war. It’s only after the killing’s done that anyone starts to think up a reason for it.’

‘You talk about the war like it was nothing, like we just wasted our time.’

‘Masturbation is a waste of time. The war was a cancer.’

‘We were defending our homeland.’

‘My homeland is Low Town, and no one who’s ever seen it would think it worth the corpse of a single infantryman. The Dren didn’t have anything to do with me, with us. We died so rich men could get richer.’

‘I’m not talking about the brass. I’m not talking about the nobles, or the Crown – I’m talking about
us
. Whatever poison you’ve got in your stomach, I won’t hear you badmouth the ranks.’

‘Take a boy out from his home, out from everything that makes him what he is. Give him a weapon, soak him in blood – that sound like a recipe for sainthood to you?’

‘That’s all you’ve got for the men you fought with? Who fought for you? Makes me sick to hear you talk like that, to think I got passed over for a man who doesn’t care about his brothers.’