Bullock looked me up next time he wanted to go downhill. Maybe
he just wanted company. He had no local friends.
“What’s up?” I asked when he barged into my
tiny office cum dispensary.
“Get your coat. Buskin time again.”
His eagerness excited me for no reason other than that I was
bored with Duretile. I pitied my comrades. They hadn’t yet
had a chance to get out. The place was a drudge.
So away we went, and going down the hill, past the Enclosure, I
asked, “Why all the excitement?”
He replied, “Not really excitement. Not even anything to
do with us, probably. Remember that sweetheart of a
moneylender?”
“In the bandages?”
“Yeah. Krage. He’s vanished. Him and half of his
boys. Seems he took a crack at the guy who cut him. And
hasn’t been seen since.”
I frowned. That did not seem remarkable. Gangsters are always
disappearing, then popping up again.
“Over there.” Bullock pointed to some brush along
the Enclosure wall. “That’s where our men got
inside.” He indicated a stand of trees across the way.
“Parked their wagons there. We’ve got a witness who saw
those. Filled with wood, he says. Come on. I’ll show you.” He pushed into the brush, dropped to
hands and knees. I followed, grumbling because I was getting wet.
The north wind did nothing to improve matters.
The interior of the Enclosure was seedier than its exterior.
Bullock showed me several dozen bundles of wood found in the brush
near the breach.
“Looks like they were moving a lot.”
“I figure they needed a lot to cover the bodies. Cut it up
there.” He indicated trees above us, back toward Duretile.
The castle stood limned against streamers of cloud, a grey stone
rockpile one earth tremor short of collapse.
I examined the bundles. Bullock’s associates had dragged
them out and stacked them, which may not have been smart detective
work. Looked to me like they had been cut and bundled over a period
of weeks. Some ends were more weathered than others. I mentioned
that to Bullock.
“I noticed. Way I figure, somebody was getting wood
regular. They found the Catacombs by accident. That’s when
they got greedy.”
“Uhm.” I considered the woodpile. “Figure they
were selling it?”
“No. That we know. Nobody has been selling Enclosure wood.
Probably a family or a group of neighbors using the wood
themselves.”
“You check on wagon rentals?”
“How stupid do you think people are? Rent a wagon for a
raid on the Catacombs?”
I shrugged. “We’re counting on one of them being
stupid, aren’t we?”
He admitted, “You’re right. It should be checked.
But it’s hard when I’m the only one who has guts enough
to do legwork in the Buskin. I’m hoping we get lucky
somewhere else. If I have to, I’ll cover it. When
there’s nothing more pressing.”
“I see the place where they got in?” I asked.
He wanted to tell me no. Instead, he said, “It’s a
fair hike. Use up an hour. I’d rather go sniff around this
Krage thing while it’s hot.”
I shrugged. “Some other time, then.”
We got down into Krage’s territory and started
rambling.
Bullock still had a few contacts left from his boyhood. Coaxed
properly, with a few gersh, they would talk. I was not allowed to
sit in. I spent the time sipping beer in a tavern where they
alternately fawned over my money and acted like I had the plague.
When asked, I did not deny being an Inquisitor.
Bullock joined me. “Maybe we don’t have anything
after all. There’s all kinds of rumors. One says his own men
did him in. One says it was his competition. He’s a little
pushy with his neighbors.” He accepted a mug of wine on the
house, something I hadn’t seen him do before. I put it down
to preoccupation.
“There’s one angle we can check. He was obsessed
about getting some foreigner who made a fool of him in public.
There’s some say the same foreigner was the man who cut him
up.” He took out a list and began to peruse it. “Not
going to be a lot there for us, I expect. The night Krage
disappeared there was a lot of whoop and holler. Not a single
eyewitness, of course.” He grinned. “Ear-witnesses say
it was a running battle. That makes me favor the palace revolution
theory.”
“What have you got there?”
“A list of people who were maybe getting wood out of the
Enclosure. Some might have seen each other. I was thinking I might
find something interesting if I compared their stories.” He
waved for more wine. This time he paid, and covered the first mug,
too, though the house would have forgiven him payment. I got the
impression Juniper’s people were used to giving Custodians
anything they wanted. Bullock simply had a sense of ethics, at
least where the people of the Buskin were concerned. He would not
make their lives harder than they already were.
I could not help liking him on some levels.
“You’re not going to pursue the Krage thing,
then?”
“Oh, yeah. Of course. The bodies are missing. But
that’s not unusual. Probably turn up across the river in a
couple days, if they’re dead. Or screaming for blood if
they’re not.” He tapped a name on his list. “This
guy hangs around the same place. Maybe I’ll talk to this guy Raven while I’m
there.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Who?”
He looked at me strangely. I forced myself to relax, to look
casual. His eyebrows dropped. “Guy named Raven. The foreigner who was supposed to be feuding with Krage. Hangs out the same place as this one guy on my
wood-gatherer’s list. Maybe I’ll ask him a few
questions.”
“Raven. Unusual name. What do you know about
him?”
“Just that he’s a foreigner and supposed to be bad
news. Been around a couple years. Typical drifter. Hangs out with the
Crater crowd.”
The Crater crowd were the Rebel refugees who had established
themselves in Juniper.
“Do me a favor? It’s a long shot, but this guy could
be the ghost I was talking about the other day. Stand off a ways.
Pretend you never heard the name. But get me a physical
description. And find out if he’s got anybody with
him.”
Bullock frowned. He didn’t like it. “Is it
important?”
“I don’t know. It could be.”
“All right.”
“Keep the whole thing under your hat if you
can.”
“This guy means something to you, eh?”
“If he’s the guy I knew, that I thought was dead,
yeah. Him and me got business.”
He smiled. “Personal?”
I nodded. I was feeling my way now. This was touchy. If this was
my Raven, I had to go careful. I didn’t dare let him get
caught in the coils of our operation. He knew too damned much. He
could get half the Company officers and noncoms put to the
question. And made dead.
I decided Bullock would respond best if I kept it mysterious,
with Raven an old enemy by implication. Somebody I would do most
anything to jump in the dark, but not somebody important in any
other way.
“I got you,” he said. He looked at me somewhat
differently, as though glad to discover I wasn’t different
after all.
Hell, I’m not. But I like to pretend I am, most of the
time. I told him, “I’m going back to Duretile. Got to
talk to a couple buddies.”
“Can you find your way?”
“I can. Let me know what you find out.”
“Will do.”
We separated. I went up the hill as fast as forty-year-old legs
would carry me.
I got Elmo and Goblin off where nobody could overhear us.
“We maybe got a problem, friends.”
“Like what?” Goblin wanted to know. He had been
aching for me to talk from the minute I rounded him up. I guess I
looked a little ragged around the fringes.
“There’s a guy named Raven operating down in the
Buskin. The other day, when I was down there with Bullock, I
thought I saw a guy who looked like our Raven from a distance, but
I shrugged it off then.”
They quick got as nervous as me. “You sure it’s
him?” Elmo asked.
“No. Not yet. I got the hell out of there the minute I
heard the name Raven. Let Bullock think he’s an old enemy I
want to stick a knife in. He’s going to ask around for me
while he’s doing his own business. Get me a description. See
if Darling is with him. I’m probably off in the wild blue
yonder, but I wanted you guys to know. In case.”
“What if it is him?” Elmo said. “What do we do
then?”
“I don’t know. It could be big trouble. If Whisper
had some reason to get interested, like because he hangs around
with the Rebel refugees here . . . Well, you
know.”
Goblin mused, “Seems Silent said Raven was going to run so
far nobody would ever find him again.”
“So maybe he thought he’d run far enough. This is
damned near the end of the world.” Which, in part, was why I
was so nervous. This was the kind of place I could picture Raven
having gone to ground. As far from the Lady as you could get
without learning to walk on water.
“Seems to me,” Elmo said, “we ought to make
sure before we panic. Then decide what to do. This might be the
time to put our guys into the Buskin.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I already got a plan in
front of Whisper, for something else. Let’s tell her
we’re going with that, and have the guys watch for
Raven.”
“Who?” Elmo asked. “Raven would recognize
anybody who knows him.”
“Not true. Use guys who joined up at Charm. Send
Pawnbroker just to make sure. He’s not likely to remember the
new guys. There were so many of them. If you want somebody reliable
to run the thing, and back them up, use Goblin. Park him where he
can stay out of sight but keep his hands on the reins.”
“What do you think, Goblin?” he asked.
Goblin smiled
nervously. “Give me something to do, anyway. I’m going
out of my skull up here. These people are weird.”
Elmo chuckled. “Missing One-Eye?”
“Almost.”
“All right,” I said. “You’ll need a
guide. That’ll have to be me. I don’t want Bullock
getting his nose any deeper into this. But they think I’m one
of his men down there. You’ll have to follow me from a
distance. And try not to look like what you are. Don’t make
it hard on yourselves.”
Elmo stretched. “I’ll get Kingpin and Pawnbroker
now. You take them down and show them a place. One can come back
for the others. Go ahead and scope it out with Goblin.” He
left.
And so it went. Goblin and the six soldiers took rooms not far
from the moneylender Krage’s headquarters. Up on the hill I
pretended it was all for the cause. I waited.
Bullock looked me up next time he wanted to go downhill. Maybe
he just wanted company. He had no local friends.
“What’s up?” I asked when he barged into my
tiny office cum dispensary.
“Get your coat. Buskin time again.”
His eagerness excited me for no reason other than that I was
bored with Duretile. I pitied my comrades. They hadn’t yet
had a chance to get out. The place was a drudge.
So away we went, and going down the hill, past the Enclosure, I
asked, “Why all the excitement?”
He replied, “Not really excitement. Not even anything to
do with us, probably. Remember that sweetheart of a
moneylender?”
“In the bandages?”
“Yeah. Krage. He’s vanished. Him and half of his
boys. Seems he took a crack at the guy who cut him. And
hasn’t been seen since.”
I frowned. That did not seem remarkable. Gangsters are always
disappearing, then popping up again.
“Over there.” Bullock pointed to some brush along
the Enclosure wall. “That’s where our men got
inside.” He indicated a stand of trees across the way.
“Parked their wagons there. We’ve got a witness who saw
those. Filled with wood, he says. Come on. I’ll show you.” He pushed into the brush, dropped to
hands and knees. I followed, grumbling because I was getting wet.
The north wind did nothing to improve matters.
The interior of the Enclosure was seedier than its exterior.
Bullock showed me several dozen bundles of wood found in the brush
near the breach.
“Looks like they were moving a lot.”
“I figure they needed a lot to cover the bodies. Cut it up
there.” He indicated trees above us, back toward Duretile.
The castle stood limned against streamers of cloud, a grey stone
rockpile one earth tremor short of collapse.
I examined the bundles. Bullock’s associates had dragged
them out and stacked them, which may not have been smart detective
work. Looked to me like they had been cut and bundled over a period
of weeks. Some ends were more weathered than others. I mentioned
that to Bullock.
“I noticed. Way I figure, somebody was getting wood
regular. They found the Catacombs by accident. That’s when
they got greedy.”
“Uhm.” I considered the woodpile. “Figure they
were selling it?”
“No. That we know. Nobody has been selling Enclosure wood.
Probably a family or a group of neighbors using the wood
themselves.”
“You check on wagon rentals?”
“How stupid do you think people are? Rent a wagon for a
raid on the Catacombs?”
I shrugged. “We’re counting on one of them being
stupid, aren’t we?”
He admitted, “You’re right. It should be checked.
But it’s hard when I’m the only one who has guts enough
to do legwork in the Buskin. I’m hoping we get lucky
somewhere else. If I have to, I’ll cover it. When
there’s nothing more pressing.”
“I see the place where they got in?” I asked.
He wanted to tell me no. Instead, he said, “It’s a
fair hike. Use up an hour. I’d rather go sniff around this
Krage thing while it’s hot.”
I shrugged. “Some other time, then.”
We got down into Krage’s territory and started
rambling.
Bullock still had a few contacts left from his boyhood. Coaxed
properly, with a few gersh, they would talk. I was not allowed to
sit in. I spent the time sipping beer in a tavern where they
alternately fawned over my money and acted like I had the plague.
When asked, I did not deny being an Inquisitor.
Bullock joined me. “Maybe we don’t have anything
after all. There’s all kinds of rumors. One says his own men
did him in. One says it was his competition. He’s a little
pushy with his neighbors.” He accepted a mug of wine on the
house, something I hadn’t seen him do before. I put it down
to preoccupation.
“There’s one angle we can check. He was obsessed
about getting some foreigner who made a fool of him in public.
There’s some say the same foreigner was the man who cut him
up.” He took out a list and began to peruse it. “Not
going to be a lot there for us, I expect. The night Krage
disappeared there was a lot of whoop and holler. Not a single
eyewitness, of course.” He grinned. “Ear-witnesses say
it was a running battle. That makes me favor the palace revolution
theory.”
“What have you got there?”
“A list of people who were maybe getting wood out of the
Enclosure. Some might have seen each other. I was thinking I might
find something interesting if I compared their stories.” He
waved for more wine. This time he paid, and covered the first mug,
too, though the house would have forgiven him payment. I got the
impression Juniper’s people were used to giving Custodians
anything they wanted. Bullock simply had a sense of ethics, at
least where the people of the Buskin were concerned. He would not
make their lives harder than they already were.
I could not help liking him on some levels.
“You’re not going to pursue the Krage thing,
then?”
“Oh, yeah. Of course. The bodies are missing. But
that’s not unusual. Probably turn up across the river in a
couple days, if they’re dead. Or screaming for blood if
they’re not.” He tapped a name on his list. “This
guy hangs around the same place. Maybe I’ll talk to this guy Raven while I’m
there.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Who?”
He looked at me strangely. I forced myself to relax, to look
casual. His eyebrows dropped. “Guy named Raven. The foreigner who was supposed to be feuding with Krage. Hangs out the same place as this one guy on my
wood-gatherer’s list. Maybe I’ll ask him a few
questions.”
“Raven. Unusual name. What do you know about
him?”
“Just that he’s a foreigner and supposed to be bad
news. Been around a couple years. Typical drifter. Hangs out with the
Crater crowd.”
The Crater crowd were the Rebel refugees who had established
themselves in Juniper.
“Do me a favor? It’s a long shot, but this guy could
be the ghost I was talking about the other day. Stand off a ways.
Pretend you never heard the name. But get me a physical
description. And find out if he’s got anybody with
him.”
Bullock frowned. He didn’t like it. “Is it
important?”
“I don’t know. It could be.”
“All right.”
“Keep the whole thing under your hat if you
can.”
“This guy means something to you, eh?”
“If he’s the guy I knew, that I thought was dead,
yeah. Him and me got business.”
He smiled. “Personal?”
I nodded. I was feeling my way now. This was touchy. If this was
my Raven, I had to go careful. I didn’t dare let him get
caught in the coils of our operation. He knew too damned much. He
could get half the Company officers and noncoms put to the
question. And made dead.
I decided Bullock would respond best if I kept it mysterious,
with Raven an old enemy by implication. Somebody I would do most
anything to jump in the dark, but not somebody important in any
other way.
“I got you,” he said. He looked at me somewhat
differently, as though glad to discover I wasn’t different
after all.
Hell, I’m not. But I like to pretend I am, most of the
time. I told him, “I’m going back to Duretile. Got to
talk to a couple buddies.”
“Can you find your way?”
“I can. Let me know what you find out.”
“Will do.”
We separated. I went up the hill as fast as forty-year-old legs
would carry me.
I got Elmo and Goblin off where nobody could overhear us.
“We maybe got a problem, friends.”
“Like what?” Goblin wanted to know. He had been
aching for me to talk from the minute I rounded him up. I guess I
looked a little ragged around the fringes.
“There’s a guy named Raven operating down in the
Buskin. The other day, when I was down there with Bullock, I
thought I saw a guy who looked like our Raven from a distance, but
I shrugged it off then.”
They quick got as nervous as me. “You sure it’s
him?” Elmo asked.
“No. Not yet. I got the hell out of there the minute I
heard the name Raven. Let Bullock think he’s an old enemy I
want to stick a knife in. He’s going to ask around for me
while he’s doing his own business. Get me a description. See
if Darling is with him. I’m probably off in the wild blue
yonder, but I wanted you guys to know. In case.”
“What if it is him?” Elmo said. “What do we do
then?”
“I don’t know. It could be big trouble. If Whisper
had some reason to get interested, like because he hangs around
with the Rebel refugees here . . . Well, you
know.”
Goblin mused, “Seems Silent said Raven was going to run so
far nobody would ever find him again.”
“So maybe he thought he’d run far enough. This is
damned near the end of the world.” Which, in part, was why I
was so nervous. This was the kind of place I could picture Raven
having gone to ground. As far from the Lady as you could get
without learning to walk on water.
“Seems to me,” Elmo said, “we ought to make
sure before we panic. Then decide what to do. This might be the
time to put our guys into the Buskin.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I already got a plan in
front of Whisper, for something else. Let’s tell her
we’re going with that, and have the guys watch for
Raven.”
“Who?” Elmo asked. “Raven would recognize
anybody who knows him.”
“Not true. Use guys who joined up at Charm. Send
Pawnbroker just to make sure. He’s not likely to remember the
new guys. There were so many of them. If you want somebody reliable
to run the thing, and back them up, use Goblin. Park him where he
can stay out of sight but keep his hands on the reins.”
“What do you think, Goblin?” he asked.
Goblin smiled
nervously. “Give me something to do, anyway. I’m going
out of my skull up here. These people are weird.”
Elmo chuckled. “Missing One-Eye?”
“Almost.”
“All right,” I said. “You’ll need a
guide. That’ll have to be me. I don’t want Bullock
getting his nose any deeper into this. But they think I’m one
of his men down there. You’ll have to follow me from a
distance. And try not to look like what you are. Don’t make
it hard on yourselves.”
Elmo stretched. “I’ll get Kingpin and Pawnbroker
now. You take them down and show them a place. One can come back
for the others. Go ahead and scope it out with Goblin.” He
left.
And so it went. Goblin and the six soldiers took rooms not far
from the moneylender Krage’s headquarters. Up on the hill I
pretended it was all for the cause. I waited.