Mother Ruin.
‘Aye, I gathered that,’ I said. ‘Why, though? What does that even mean?’
‘Oh, fucking fuck, not now,’ Iagin snapped. ‘Just take my bloody word for it, will you?’
He sighed, and pushed a hand back through his thinning grey hair. I didn’t know if hearing that monster of a cannon going off had affected him the same way it had me, but I didn’t discount the idea. He was of an age to have fought in the war before mine, in Aunt Enaid’s war, and they’d had cannon then too. Either way, he clearly wasn’t quite himself.
‘Sorry,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I just . . . well.’
‘Aye, it’s been a long day,’ I said.
‘Fucking right it has,’ he said. ‘I want a drink, and I’m not having it in there with those two. Anyway, I need to show my face to that fucking tit Grachyev. You want to come?’
I looked at him, and I realised how badly he wanted me to say yes.
‘Aye, why not?’
*
I had thought we might end up in some midden south of the river that night, but we didn’t. Grachyev owned nearly every tavern and inn in Dannsburg, of course, including the one I was staying at myself. Iagin led me to a place called the Horn of Plenty, which turned out to be something between an inn and the sort of brothel where you could spend the whole night if you paid your girl enough.
It was very fancy, to my eyes, almost respectable, and although the women there all wore the bawd’s knot, which meant they were licensed, they called themselves hostesses not whores. Apparently that was different, and it cost more. That put them somewhere between the sort of whores I ran back in Ellinburg and courtesans like Lady Reiter, so far as I could see, and that made sense. Part of me started wondering if it was something we could set up back home, before I remembered that I didn’t have time to do that sort of business any more. Maybe I’d send Rosie and Bloody Anne over there one night, though, and see what they thought of the idea.
‘Come through to the back,’ Iagin said.
I followed him across the common room and past a hulking doorman, who nodded respectfully to him as we passed. He led me into a plushly furnished suite of rooms that obviously weren’t open to the public.
Grachyev was in there, reclining on a red velvet couch with a fat sheaf of papers in his hands. He was a heavyset man with some fifty or so years to him, with dark hair and pockmarked cheeks and a large gold ring set with a black stone on the third finger of his right hand, and he was an utter tit.
He looked up from his papers as we came in, and Iagin gave him an insincere bow.
‘Boss,’ he said. ‘You remember Tomas Piety, from Ellinburg?’
‘Mr Piety,’ Grachyev said, raising himself from his padded velvet couch to shake my hand. ‘Good to see you again.’
‘Mr Grachyev, it’s an honour,’ I lied, and I returned his grip with a nod of respect that I didn’t feel.
He was no one, of course, not really. Iagin ran Grachyev’s organisation in Vogel’s name and no doubt funnelled most of the money into the coffers of the house of law. Grachyev himself was just a figurehead, and a completely ignorant one at that. He had no fucking idea, and for that I could almost feel sorry for him.
Almost, but not truly. Grachyev was a fool, and I have no time for fools.
Still, that night I drank with one, and we made merry like any group of friendly businessmen would. Iagin and I at least were drinking away the memory of what we had witnessed that night, and I think Grachyev was just pleased to be among what he thought of as the right sort of people. I was Iagin’s guest and I’d met Grachyev before, and those things meant that I didn’t have to spend a copper penny in the Horn of Plenty that night. There was no charge for a friend of Mr Grachyev’s, that was plain enough. I drank the very best brandy with them both that night, probably more of it than I should have done. I was offered the company of a hostess on the house too, but I declined. I’ll run whores, aye, but I can’t make myself want to lie down with one.
I mean no disrespect to the profession, of course, but to my mind closeness with a woman is a good deal more important than fucking is, and you can’t feel that with someone you don’t know. I thought of Ailsa then, and I wondered how close we still really were.
Not so close as I would like, I thought, as I swallowed my brandy and poured myself another.
Fool, I told myself. Drunken, fucking fool.
Chapter 25
It was very late when I returned to the Bountiful Harvest, beginning to get light in truth, but as I had expected, the lamp was still burning in Billy’s room. I paused outside for a long time, my fingers tracing the shape of the card in my pouch.
Should I truly do this? Should I give credence to a stupid superstition that probably meant nothing?
Mother Ruin.
She had got that name from somewhere, after all. Eventually I tapped on his door and went in. He was awake, as I had expected.
‘What is it, Papa?’ he asked me.
‘Do you know the witch cards, Billy?’ I asked him.
He shrugged, and he got that sulky way about him then that lads that age often get when they want to be good at a thing and aren’t.
‘Old Kurt taught me some,’ he said. ‘I don’t know them as well as Mina does. Mina’s better, but you didn’t let her come with us.’
‘Aye, well, no, I didn’t,’ I said. ‘All the same, Billy,
