Black Rose

(Norbert settles into his new role. Our thief from the last episode goes about her daily business.

And Freya and Five at last enter Memika, where they'll be for a while.

No sex in this, just some brief nudity. Some mild violence.)

***

Chapter 10

The Rules of the Cities

Part 1

Terrasse-des-Loups

The Coney came to, face down on a greasy mattress which whiffed of bodies and fish.

She raised her head and looked around. One of her eyelids was gummed shut.

She reached up and scratched at the crunge on it and it flaked off, and she opened the eye. It smarted. She closed her eyes again.

Then she opened them, feeling the bag chained to her wrist. She immediately got up on one elbow and unlocked it and opened it and peered inside.

... Nope. All looks good. All still there. Fine.

She locked the bag, lay down again and closed her eyes again.

Now. Quick recap.

We'd melted down the Torina gold, and then we'd got that gig, with that lot from Memika, who wanted a whole team, and they'd all very different tastes...

Mmm. All comin back to me now.

We all got glammed and went out to meet them, and they had so much money, but also iron stomachs, so there wassomuch drink...

And everybody got a gig. Allie got that head guy, he was gorgeous, and Hector got the guy who wanted a black guy, and Sam picked up two guys and a girl, and Derdriu took care of the two girls who wanted a girl, and...

And I took my usual share. The dregs. The boys who wanted to getnasty.

Shit. They really were kinda nasty. Every orifice still a bit sore.

Never mind. They paid up, and they went away happy. And we ended up here.

She breathed in, breathed out, and explored her sensations.

Ow.

Oooo.

Fuck.

Thirsty.

Over to the right. Wasn't there a flask of something.

She reached out blindly and grabbed it. She raised herself up on her elbows and brought it to her mouth, and just at the last moment she sniffed the rich warm smoky scent of the...

Fuck, no. Not that.Madarchod, got to be some plain cold water around somewhere. Her mouth felt like a place a prophet would go, in order to resist temptation. She ran her tongue around it, trying to get some moisture. Not a hope.

Blearily, she forced herself up onto her elbows and looked around for something to cover herself with.

But, awww. Look at them.

It had been worth it. All of us on the one gig. There was Morty tangled up under a blanket next to Hector, and Tommo was spooning Derdriu, and we were all together. It was worth doing even rough gigs like last night, when we could come home together and be in each other's arms.

Who knows how many more days like this we'll have.

She looked down. To one side of her was Allie, snoring quietly, half-covered by a blanket, and the other side of Allie was Sam, his naked bum tight as a pair of ostrich eggs, the effect spoiled only by how he was drooling out the corner of his mouth.

Oh, my little kittens. I love you all.

Now. Where are my togs.

She got to her feet and tiptoed between the sleeping bodies and found her clothes, scattered across the entire room. She took the bag off her wrist briefly and dressed herself, then re-chained the bag to her wrist, and was picking her way towards the door when a voice said softly, 'Hey. Coney.'

She looked over. Allie had lifted her head and was smiling sleepily at her through a curtain of her hair.

'You off?' Allie mouthed, looking as hungover as the Coney felt.

The Coney nodded.

Allie blew her a kiss and mouthed, 'Soon?'

The Coney nodded, and quickly made her way over to Allie and knelt by her, and stroked her face and smiled.

'Fucking great party,' Allie whispered.

'Thanks, chicken. Cuts as usual, this afternoon, okay? I've got it all.'

She slapped the bag, which contained the night's takings in it. She knew that Allie knew exactly how much money she'd earned the previous night, just as the rest of them all knew how much money they'd all earned, and the Coney prided herself on, among other things, her absolutely impeccable bookkeeping.

'Stay for breakfast,' Allie said, with a look of comical sorrow.

The Coney smiled, shrugged, did her look ofwhat-can-I-do.

If the Coney didn't keep things going, things would grind to a halt. They all knew that.

Allie nodded, reached up, pulled her down and gave her a big kiss.

'You're the best,' Allie whispered into her mouth.

'Nah,' she whispered back. 'You're the best. I'm just shinin a light at ya.'

And she reached under the blanket and stroked Allie's bare arse, sticking a finger between her bum cheeks and making her giggle. Then she pointed to Sam and nodded approvingly. Allie made a knowing face and smiled back.

The Coney stood up and took a deep breath and headed for the door again, and she looked over her shoulder to see Allie cuddling up to Sam and closing her eyes.

She found in the hall her cloak, and wrapped it round herself, and then went out into the courtyard.

There was the well. Oh yes, youbeauty. She went over to it and dunked her head in it and blew bubbles and then drank deeply.

Breathless and gasping and dripping water over herself, she ran her hands through her hair, filled her bottles and made for the gate. Just before she left the compound, she rooted around in her pockets and found the little vial of cloudy liquid. She bit off the top with her teeth and downed the contents.

The honey and mint couldn't mask the bitterness. But she stood for a moment, her eyes closed, breathing deeply, and in a little while she felt the turmoil of her stomach dying down. Then she hit the street.

There was only one way of shaking off the toxic aunt of all hangovers. She wrapped her cloak around herself and walked quietly and quickly, nipping in and out of the market guys. One or two of them said hello and she winked and smiled at them.

Then a large, sweaty youth in an expensive jacket fell into step with her.

'Hello, Coney,' he said.

'What up, Rafe,' she said evenly. 'How's your ma and da.'

'Oh, very good, very good,' he said, nodding rapidly. 'Looking forward to the election.'

'Think he'll get in again?'

'We're very confident, yes.'

'Tell him I took care of that thing he wanted.'

'Of course. Of course. How are you,' said Rafe.

'I'm good, Rafe, and you?'

'I'm very good, very good. Yes. Listen,' he went on, as she knew he would, 'can you, sort of, fix me up?'

'Rafe. It's the early morning. I'm on my way to take a run.'

'Yes, but, can you fix me up? Anything at all?'

'You're gonna have to manage. Give me a shout later, okay? See what I can do.'

'Oh come on, Coney,' he said, smiling with an effort. 'I'm a bit frazzled.'

'Rafe,' she said, 'I've been out all night. Meet me later, I'll sort ya.'

'Oh, Coney, really,' he said, 'come on. You've always got something.'

And with that, he grabbed her cloak.

She grabbed his wrist and hauled him into a doorway.

'Watch your fuckin step, Rafe,' she said, fixing him with a glare. 'Okay? I said later.'

Poor eejit, he looked knackered but.

'All right,' he muttered. 'All right. I'm just. I'm a bit, as you would say, fucked up.'

'I can see you're a bit fucked up,' she said. 'You shouldna let yourself get in such a state. I'm not the only cunt round here who carries. Why are you puttin it on me.'

'Because you've got the best stuff,' he said. 'Come on.'

'Don't make me slap you, Rafe,' she said, her glare making him curl up at the edges. 'I slap you, you'll stay slapped.'

He nodded. He looked out on his feet.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I'm just really, you know. I'm, I'm not feeling terribly good.'

'And don't be a fuckin moanyhole neither.'

With difficulty, he squared his shoulders and blinked his red-rimmed eyes and looked her in the face.

'Please, Coney,' he said, blinking, 'I'd be terribly grateful if you could sort me out.'

She stared at him for a moment.

'I assume you are in funds,' she said in her posh lady voice.

'Of course,' he said.

'Then go to someothergobshite,' she said, 'but don't bothermewhen I'm goin to take arun, all right? I'm not your fuckin appo.'

'All right,' he muttered. 'Sorry. But. Their stuff isn't as good.'

She stared up at him, till he was twisting over himself with his embarrassment at being taller and broader than her, and from a good family, and nonetheless afraid of a wiry, rabbit-faced, westerner street girl whose shoulders crawled with tattoos.

'What you need,' she said at last.

'Just a quarter ounce,' he said. 'I'm, I'm very sorry for bothering you, when you're about to have a run, Coney. I am, I promise.'

'Ten,' she said.

'Ten?!'

'Rafe. I've been very patient. Don't make me have words with your ma.'

He blinked at this, the ultimate threat.

'All right,' he said, and pulled out a handful of coins and counted ten into her palm.

She took them, examined them and put them in her pocket, then reached into her tunic pocket and handed him a screw of paper.

He snatched it off her and unfolded it and looked inside, and he grinned at her weakly.

'Thank you, Coney. I mean it. Thank you very much.'

'Gan en rud.Just try to be less of a cunt, Rafe. Okay?'

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes. Sorry.'

He backed away from her and disappeared into the crowd.

Oh, Rafe, yaplecka, she thought. I paid three for that. Why are you so shit at haggling.

She continued on her way.

***

An hour later, sweating and panting for breath, she slowed down and walked into the house. From inside came a shout.

'Where've you been?'

'Hello,' she shouted back and went into the kitchen.

There the old woman was, seated side on at the table, steadily shelling nuts and popping them into her mouth and dropping the shells underfoot. She stared at the Coney balefully, her wooden teeth crunching the nuts.

'Where've you been?' She was in a foul mood, so no change there. The Coney smiled pleasantly.

'I've been out,' the Coney said, 'enjoying my holiday. You should have a holiday.'

'I can't take a holiday. I haven't got time.'

'That's shite. You could easily take a holiday. What have you not got time to do? You've got people sweepin up around you, anythin you need it's brung to you, you've a roof over your head. What exactly do you do round here?'

The Coney sat down at the table and took her bag off, smiling at the old woman.

'Don't you talk to me like that, you shitehawk,' said the old woman. 'Where's my money?'

'We need to have a little chatteroo,' said the Coney, swivelling her bag in front of her, 'about nomenclature.'

'About what? What are these dogshite words you come out with?'

'The science of namin. This is a business. It's not your money. It's the business's money.'

'Do I have to tell you who's in charge round here? Do I have to put you over my lap and skelp you?'

'Nobody's going to be skelpin anyone,' said the Coney. She picked up the ledger from the table and sat opposite the old woman. 'Here.'

She disabled the locks on the bag and poured out the cash and let the old woman look at it for a moment.

It was lovely how a pile of money always had the power to shut her up. Then the Coney rapidly divided it up into stacks of different types of coin, and just as rapidly stacked them in heaps, entering them into the ledger as she went.

'Hey,' said the old woman, 'I haven't checked it.'

'There's a thing called a rubber,' said the Coney, scribbling with the stump of a pencil. 'If I've made a mistake, rub it out.'

The old woman was silent. Both of them knew that the Coney was not going to make a mistake.

'Why didn't you tell me that the pencil's gone down to this?' the Coney said. 'We need a new pencil but I only know that if you tell me.'

'How am I supposed to tell you,' said the old woman, annoyed, 'if you're out all night whorin?'

'How am I supposed to have fun,' said the Coney, 'if I'm not out all night whorin?'

'You vile little shite. I should fire you.'

'You can't fire me. Everyone knows this is my fuckin business. You're just the old bag that lends it respectability. So shut your hole.'

She finished entering the last pile into the ledgers and then turned it around and shoved it across the table and smirked.

'There. Want to check it?'

They stared at each other, unblinking

Don't try me, you poisonous old cow. I used to earn a living not blinking.

It took a long time, and by the end the Coney's eyes were burning, but the old woman blinked first and rubbed her streaming eyes.

'You little shite,' she muttered.

'Enough,' said the Coney. 'The lads'll be around later to get their share. What else's up for this afternoon?'

'Someone's been asking after them bags,' said the old woman.

The Coney paused.

'For real? Who?'

'Just some blokes.'

'Description.'

'I heard about it. I didn't see them. Somebody said some blokes were asking after bags.'

'What did they look like?'

'Didn't say.'

The Coney shot her an exasperated stare.

'Remind me again why you call yourself the boss,' she said.

'Because I remember everything,' said the old woman.

'Do you not realise that I need to know everythin? How else am I supposed to know what's worth knowin?'

'I can't remember everything,' the old woman snapped.

There was a silence.

'You wouldn't crack me a few nuts,' the old woman muttered. 'My hands are giving me terrible gyp.'

The Coney paused, then took a handful of nuts, cracked them one by one and shoved the kernels across the table.

'Oh, you're too good to me,' said the old woman. 'Just so kind. To do one simple thing.'

'I'm lovely, I am,' said the Coney. 'I'm a shinin fuckin star, and don't you forget it. Cause I've got friends and associates and people who rely on me. You've only got me, and whatever other cunt feels like doin you a favour.'

'Stick the knife in, why don't you,' said the old woman. 'Have a go at me.'

'I certainly will. I'll be delighted to.'

'You're only waiting for me to die anyway.'

'Yeah,' said the Coney, 'if you could get a bend on with that, that would be super.'

'You rotten little cunt. I'm away to my bed.'

'It's eight in the mornin.'

'I was up all night.'

'Doin what?'

'You just don't understand,' the old woman groaned, levering herself out of her chair and stomping over to the door. 'You have no notion.'

She went through the door and pulled it behind her. There was a chest bolted to the stone floor with iron hoops, by the wall near her door. The Coney went over to it, took a key off her belt and opened the chest, and put most of the money into it, keeping a portion behind which she stowed in her pouch. Then she tapped on the door.

'I'm away.'

'Don't hurry back.'

'Love you too, granny,' the Coney sang, and left the kitchen, chuckling at the torrent of vile words coming out from the old woman's room.

***

Part 2

Western edge of Pascone

'How many more of these things do we have to get?' Allon said.

Norbert straightened up and wiped his brow. He went over and looked in Allon's basket.

'More than that,' he said. 'We need at least a few dozen.'

'A few dozen? If I had known this was going to take so fucking long, I'd have cut your throat and left you with that pig of a knight of yours.'

'It's because you want so much,' Norbert said.

'Hm? What's that?'

'It's because you want so much. Normally I make just enough that I need, and for that you only need about half a dozen. But you want me to make a pint. Therefore, we need more.'

'Well, what's the point in having a little glass thimbleful? You're not going to kill anyone with that. Can't you think of a way to make as much as we want with just a few flowers?'

'We talked about this,' Norbert said. 'The active elixir is in the flowers. If I use a few flowers and lot of spirit, you have to drink more of the spirit for the flower to have any effect. Whereas what we want is for the spirit to be effective...'

'Yes, yes,' Allon said. 'God. Leave it. I understand.'

'Right.'

'I'm disappointed in you. I thought you were meant to be some kind of a genius.'

Most people don't know how to do this stuff, Norbert thought, as he crawled over the grass looking for the tiny little blue flowers. Most people think that to get a killing draught, you had to sacrifice a white cockerel to the Prince of Ants and all that guff.

You, though, A.M.

You had known that that was all a lie.

You saw through it all. You saw through everything. And it got us both expelled.Idiots! Panjandrums!You made me laugh so much, the way you got so angry. And then you'd catch yourself and look at me and sayI'm not really that angry, bottlerocket. I'm joking.And you'd look at me as if you were waiting to see that I understood that you were only pretending.

Were you? Or were you really so angry with them? I could never tell.

I wish we were still back there, staying back after class and going through all the potions and ingredients and finding out what they really did, and what they were really made of, instead of what the academy said they were made of. What would people say if they knew that of the academy, nine out of ten of their potions were just spirits, with a bit of flavouring? But no-one would believe me.

This is futile. Even if we gather dozens of stars-in-the-sky and we stay still long enough for me to decoct a pint, we will never use it all before it loses its potency. By the time we get to the end, all it will have the power to do is make a man's heart race. If you wanted to kill someone, it would be quicker and more efficient to merely push them down some stairs.

But no. I am their pet. And they want poison.

Norbert straightened up. He was dripping with sweat and his back was aching from bending over and combing through the thick spear-grass. He inspected his scarred hands, the fingertips a dull bluish-black, the skin cracked and painful from handling so many potions, all the boiling and steaming and spillages. His hands hurt so much he wanted to cry, but Allon would not have much patience with that.

'Have you found any more?' Allon called.

'No,' Norbert said, and then his eye was caught by a splash of blue over near a small bush. He went over and, like a gift from the gods, it was there: a whole cluster of stars-in-the-sky. He looked down at the tiny blue flowers with the minute, bright yellow dot in the centre.

I could put my bag down on it and pretend it's not there. Or pick them and shove them in my pocket and say that there's nothing.

No. You always said,Whatever you end up doing, bottlerocket, whoever you end up with, don't stint. Do your best. Throw yourself into it. Then at least you can hold up your head.

'Over here,' he called.

Allon came over.

'Finally,' he said. 'Let's get these up.'

Norbert knelt down and waited for Allon to as well, but he didn't.

Ah, Norbert thought, so we have taken to talking about me in the first person plural.

One by one, Norbert picked all the flowers and put them in his small canvas bag.

'Will that be enough for a pint?'

'I hope so.'

'You only hope? You'd better start helping us soon, pretty boy, or we'll take you to Memika and leave you in a sailor bar.'

Why would that be so awful, Norbert wondered. Sailors are interesting folk.

'If I can just have a week in a room, I can make what you want.'

'Rooms require money,' Allon said, 'and money is in short supply.'

'I can't make it out of doors. The equipment is too delicate and it has to be on a level surface.'

'God,' Allon exploded, 'there's always a problem with you! It's not the right kind of spirit! It has to be more flowers! If you used your fucking head for a change, we could have found a better way to make the stuff!