‘I always took it to be the greed, laziness and ill-temper of others plus a fair share of bad luck, but I reckon you’ll have it your way.’
‘Everyone does.’ But the woman didn’t move.
Shy sighed. Given her knack for upsetting folk she thought she might give indulgence a try. ‘All right, then, deliver me from ignorance.’
The woman displayed the upmost bill and spoke with mighty selfimportance. ‘Rebels defeated at Mulkova— routed by Union troops under General Brint! How about that?’
‘Unless they been defeated there a second time, that happened before I even left the Near Country. Everyone knows it.’
‘The lady requires something fresher,’ muttered the old woman, rooting through her thumbed-over bundle. ‘Styrian conflict ends! Sipani opens gates to the Snake of Talins!’
‘That was at least two years before.’ Shy was starting to think this woman was touched in the head, if that even meant anything in a place where most were happy-mad, dismal-mad, or some other kind of mad that defied further description.
‘A challenge indeed.’ The woman licked a dirty finger to leaf through her wares and came up with one that looked a veritable antique. ‘Legate Sarmis menaces border of the Near Country? Fears of Imperial incursion?’
‘Sarmis has been menacing for decades. He’s the most menacing Legate you ever heard of.’
‘Then it’s true as it ever was!’
‘News spoils quick, friend, like milk.’
‘I say it gets better if carefully kept, like wine.’
‘I’m glad you like the vintage, but I ain’t buying yesterday’s news.’
The woman cradled her papers like a mother hiding an infant from bird attack, and as she leaned forward Shy saw the top was tore off her tall hat and got a view of the scabbiest scalp imaginable and a smell of rot almost knocked her over. ‘No worse than tomorrow’s, is it?’ And the woman swept her aside and strode on waving her old bills over her head. ‘News! I have news!’
Shy took a long, hard breath before she set off. Damn, but she was tired. Crease was no place to get less tired, far as she could tell.
‘I’m looking for a pair of children.’
The one in the middle treated her to something you’d have had to call a leer. ‘I’ll give you children, girl.’
The one on the left burst out laughing. The one on the right grinned, and a bit of chagga juice dribbled out of his mouth and ran down into his beard. From the look of his beard it wasn’t his first dribble either. They were an unpromising trio all right, but if Shy had stuck to the promising she’d have been done in Crease her first day there.
‘They were stolen from our farm.’
‘Probably nothing else there worth stealing.’
‘Being honest, I daresay you’re right. Man called Grega Cantliss stole ’em.’
The mood shifted right off. The one on the right stood up, frowning. The one on the left spat juice over the railing. Leery leered more’n ever. ‘You got some gall asking questions over here, girl. Some fucking gall.’
‘You ain’t the first to say so. Probably best I just take my gall away on down the street.’
She made to move on but he stepped down from the porch to block her way, pointed a waving finger towards her face. ‘You know what, you’ve got kind of a Ghosty look to you.’
‘Half-breed, maybe,’ grunted one of his friends.
Shy set her jaw. ‘Quarter, as it goes.’
Leery took his leer into realms of facial contortion. ‘Well, we don’t care for your kind over on this side o’ the street.’
‘Better quarter-Ghost than all arsehole, surely?’
There was that knack for upsetting folk. His brows drew in and he took a step at her. ‘Why, you bloody —’
Without thinking she put her right hand on the grip of her knife and said, ‘You’d best stop right there.’
His eyes narrowed. Annoyed. Like he hadn’t expected straight-up defiance but couldn’t back down with his friends watching. ‘You’d best not put your hand on that knife unless you’re going to use it, girl.’
‘Whether I use it or not depends on whether you stop there or not. My hopes ain’t high but maybe you’re cleverer than you look.’
‘Leave her be.’ A big man stood in the doorway. Big hardly did him justice. His fist up on the frame beside him looked about the size of Shy’s head.
‘You can stay out o’ this,’ said Leery.
‘I could, but I’m not. You say you’re looking for Cantliss?’ he asked, eyes moving over to Shy.
‘That’s right.’
‘Don’t tell her nothing!’ snapped Squinty.
The big man’s eyes drifted back. ‘You can shut up…’ He had to duck his head to get through the doorway. ‘Or I can shut you up.’ The other two men backed off to give him room—and he needed a lot. He looked bigger still as he stepped out of the shadows, taller’n Lamb, even, and maybe bigger in the chest and shoulder, too. A real monster, but he spoke soft, accent thick with the North. ‘Don’t pay these idiots no mind. They’ve got big bones for fights they’re sure of winning but otherwise not enough for a toothpick.’ He took the couple of steps down into the street, boards groaning under his great boots, and stood towering over Leery.
‘Cantliss is from the same cloth,’ he said. ‘A puffed-up fool with a lot of vicious in him.’ For all his size there was a sad sag to his face. A droop to his blond moustache, a sorry greying to the stubble about it. ‘More or less what I used to be, if it comes to that. He owes Papa Ring a lot of money, as I heard it. Ain’t been around for a while now, though. Not much more I can tell you.’
‘Well, thanks for that much.’
‘My pleasure.’ The big man turned his washed-out blue eyes on Leery. ‘Get out of her way.’
Leery gave Shy a particularly nasty leer, but Shy had been treated to a lot of harsh expressions in her time and after a while they lose their sting. He made to go back up the steps but the big man didn’t let him. ‘Get out of her way, that way.’ And he nodded over at the stream.
‘Stand in the sewer?’ said Leery.
‘Stand in the sewer. Or I’ll lay you out in it.’
Leery cursed to himself as he clambered down the slimy rocks and stood up to his knees in shitty water. The big man put one hand on his chest and with the other offered Shy the open way.
‘My thanks,’ she said as she stepped past. ‘Glad I found someone decent this side of the street.’
The man gave a sad snort. ‘Don’t let a small kindness fool you. Did you say you’re looking for children?’
‘My brother and sister. Why?’
‘Might be I can help.’
Shy had learned to treat offers of help, and for that matter everything else, with a healthy suspicion. ‘Why would you?’
‘Because I know how it feels to lose your family. Like losing a part of you, ain’t it?’ She thought about that for a moment, and reckoned he had it right. ‘Had to leave mine behind, in the North. I know it was the best thing for ’em. The only thing. But it still cuts at me now. Didn’t ever think it would. Can’t say I valued ’em much when I had ’em. But it cuts at me.’
He’d such a sorry sag to his great shoulders then that Shy had to take pity on him. ‘Well, you’re welcome to follow along, I guess. It’s been my observation that folk take me more serious when I’ve a great big bastard looking over my shoulder.’
‘That is a sadly universal truth,’ he said as he fell into step, two of his near enough to every three of hers. ‘You here alone?’
‘Came with my father. Kind of my father.’
‘How can someone be kind of your father?’
‘He’s managed it.’
‘He father to these other two you’re looking for?’
‘Kind of to them, too,’ said Shy.
‘Shouldn’t he be helping look?’
