Page 6

T rue to his word, Cal arrived with the dawn. Viv had placed the tack crate out front and was sitting and watching the shadows take shape in the morning sun, contemplating how excellently a mug of coffee would suit her.

The hob hauled in his box of tools and placed it inside the big doorway.

“Morning,” she said.

“Hm,” he said, but he nodded genially enough. He removed his copy of the materials list from a pocket and unfolded it. “Lots to do. Some of this we’ll have directly, some will take time.”

Viv produced her purse. Her platinum and most of her sovereigns were in the lockbox, but she figured there were sufficient funds to cover what was needed. She tossed it to Cal. “I think I can trust you to place the orders, if you’re willing.”

Cal looked surprised. He sucked his teeth thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “I reckon you’ll not get the best prices if I’m the one dickering.”

“Think it’ll go better if it’s me?” Her smile was sardonic.

“Well. Maybe it’s a wash. And you want to trust me with all of this? Don’t fret I’ll stroll away with it?” He bounced the purse in his hand.

She gave him a long look, and her expression didn’t lapse.

“No…” he said, as he took in the size and the shape of her. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

Viv sighed. “I’ve lived a long time knowing I’m a threat walking. I’d rather that wasn’t the shape of it for you.”

He nodded and tucked the purse away. “I’ll need some hours.”

Viv stood and stretched, knuckling the ache in her lower back. It was always stiff in the cold. “I need to rent a cart, something to haul the junk with. And someplace to haul it.”

“The mill for the cart,” said Cal. “Figure you can find it. As for the rest, there’s a midden out west and off the main road. Cart track hooks south.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll be off, then.” Cal tipped his cap and ambled back down the street.

* * *

He was right. The mill was indeed willing to rent her a cart—less a pair of animals—for a full silver, which was certainly more than it was worth.

The miller grinned smugly after she paid, no doubt imagining the trouble an orc would face hitching up a horse, but she gripped the traces in both hands, lifted, and easily got the cart moving by herself.

The miller watched her roll it away, scratching the back of his bald head bemusedly.

Viv worked up a healthy sweat and loosened herself up on the trip back. Along the way, she haggled with a stonemason who had three or four ladders at a job site. He parted with one for ten coppers too many, and she tossed it in the back of the cart.

* * *

Laney was back on her porch, broom in hand, attacking what Viv had to imagine was the cleanest stoop in the entire Territory. She gave her a neighborly nod and began the hard work of clearing out the old building.

It quickly became apparent exactly how much junk had accrued in the place—rotten lumber, horseshoe iron, a set of rusted and bent pitchforks, a baled stack of grain sacks, crumbling tack, an assortment of saddle blankets thick with mold, and plenty of awkward, cumbersome, and decrepit miscellany.

The office had its own share of debris—moth-eaten ledgers, shattered inkwells, and an inexplicable set of winter underclothes gone gray with dust.

Viv snapped the broken ladder, threw it in the cart, set up the new one, and climbed to the loft.

Thankfully, there was only a little old hay, the pigeons’ nests, and a few scraps of this and that.

Blackblood lay there in the dust, already gathering some itself.

She picked it up, hefted it in her hands for a second, and then leaned it carefully against the slanted ceiling.

By noon, the cart was piled high.

Filth covered Viv from head to toe, and the livery’s interior looked like a sandstorm had passed through, with little dunes and drifts of dirt having resettled after the disturbance.

She thought with amusement that she should hire Laney to broom it out, but when she looked in that direction, the old woman was absent.

There was, however, someone else shadowing her own doorway.

Viv’s back prickled with a sense she trusted implicitly. It was the reason she was still moving around and breathing, after all.

“Help you with something?” she asked, dusting off her hands and thinking about Blackblood leaning up in the loft, out of reach.

He was dressed stylishly, with a ruffled shirt, a vest, and a broad-brimmed hat. But on closer inspection, his clothing was worse for wear, sweat-stained and a little frayed. His skin had the gray cast of one of the stone-fey, and his features were sharp.

“Oh, no help required,” he replied. “We like to welcome budding entrepreneurs to the city when we can, and I’m powerfully curious about what new business you’ll bring to the district.” His voice was smooth, almost cultured.

Viv didn’t miss the reference to a nebulous we .

“Oh, so you’re a city official?” Viv smiled, and this time she didn’t concern herself with how prominent her lower fangs were.

She approached him so that their difference in stature was even more apparent.

She was pretty sure she knew exactly what this man was, and until recently, she’d have had him by the throat and off the ground already.

He didn’t adjust his posture an iota, smiling back. “Not as such. I just consider it my civic duty to welcome new arrivals and to take an interest in their welfare.”

“I’ll consider myself welcomed, then.”

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“You didn’t. But fair exchange is no robbery. Didn’t catch yours, either.”

“Indeed. I don’t suppose you’d mind giving me a little preview of your new….” He looked around her at the cart and waved a gloved hand. “… venture?”

“Trade secret.”

“Oh, well, I wouldn’t want to pry.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Viv walked back, grabbed the traces, and lifted, her biceps bunching as she started hauling.

It was significantly heavier than it had been that morning.

Her lower back lit up in a bright knot of pain.

She didn’t slow as she approached the door, staring grimly past her visitor who, at the last second, had to depart the threshold less gracefully than he would have doubtless preferred.

“We’ll catch up later!” he called after her, as she rumbled the cart down the cobbles to the west, her face set, breathing hard through her nose.

Above, the clouds began to clot and thicken, threatening rain.

Everyone else on the street made certain they were clear of the coming storm.

* * *

When Cal reappeared that afternoon, the sky was even darker. Viv was seated out front on the tack box, the cart returned. Her sleeves were rolled up, and sweat striped the grime on her arms.

As the hob approached, Viv saw a bundle under his arm, and when he stopped, he flapped a corner of it at her. “Tarpaulin. Looks like rain. Best we keep the new lumber dry.” He tossed her purse to her, and she tucked it away without bothering to examine it.

Viv hauled out the ladder and gathered a few stones from an alley. They both climbed onto the roof and anchored the tarp with the stones over the hole, just as raindrops began to speckle the tile a dusty orange.

When they were back down and inside, listening to the drops clatter lightly overhead, Cal said, “Well, maybe no deliveries today, unless the rain slacks off.” He looked around the barren interior. “A good job of it, eh? Looks a fair bit bigger now.”

Viv smiled ruefully as she surveyed the place. The emptiness of it somehow made the work to come more daunting. “Think I’m a fool?”

“Hm.” Cal shrugged. “Not in the habit of offerin’ my less than positive thoughts to somebody like you.”

“Somebody like me?” She sighed. “You mean–?”

“I mean somebody who’s payin’.” He gave her one of his thin smiles.

“Well, as the one paying, I don’t see a reason for you to wait around here while–”

She was interrupted by the arrival of a cart with three small, sturdy crates in the back.

“That’s promptness for you,” said Cal.

Viv headed out into the rain. “That’s not the supplies,” she called over her shoulder. She had already caught the smell of it.

Signing for the delivery, Viv paid the driver and declined his help hauling the crates one by one into the livery. Each was tidily assembled, with the sides and base cleverly fitted and only the top nailed in place. Gnomish stencils ran along the panels at neat right angles.

Cal watched curiously as Viv gently set down the last one, then indicated Cal’s toolbox, giving him a questioning look.

“Have at it,” he said.

Hefting a pry bar, she levered up the lid, and there inside was a set of muslin sacks.

The scent was even stronger now, and Viv shivered in anticipation.

Untying one, she dug a hand into it, and let the roasted brown beans sift through her fingers.

She loved the quiet hiss they made as they fell back into the bag.

“Hm. You’re right. Not much like tea.”

Emerging from her reverie, Viv glanced up at him. “You can smell it though, can’t you? Like roasted nuts and fruit.”

Cal squinted at her. “Thought you said you drank it?”

Viv nibbled one experimentally, tasted the warm, bitter, dark flavor as it coated her tongue.

She felt she needed to explain. “They grind it into powder and then run hot water through it, but there’s more to it than that.

When the machine shows up, I’ll show you.

Gods, the smell of it, Cal. This is just a ghost of it. ”

She sat back on the flagstones and rolled the bean between her thumb and forefinger.

“I told you I came across it in Azimuth, and I remember following the smell to the shop. They called it a café . People just sat around drinking it from these little ceramic cups, and I had to try it, and… it was like drinking the feeling of being peaceful. Being peaceful in your mind. Well, not if you have too much, then it’s something else. ”

“A lot of folks allow you feel peaceful after a beer.”

“It’s different. I don’t know if I can tell you how it is.”

“Well, all right then.” His look was not unkind. “In the int’rest of your new business, I guess I’ll say I hope folks have the same experience you did.”

“So do I.” She retied the sack, took his mallet, and started nailing the crate lid back down.

When she looked up again, Cal was emerging from the office area. He stopped in front of her and stared at the floor ruminatively for a moment, and she was content to wait for what he had to say.

“Figure you might need a sort of kitchen back there. Stove. Maybe a water barrel and some copper pipe. Hooks for pots an’ pans.”

“The water barrel’s not a bad idea. I should’ve thought of that, since I’ll need the water. But a kitchen? What do I need that for?”

“Well,” he said, looking apologetic. “If you find nobody wants any of the beans and water, at least you can feed ’em.”

* * *

As the day drew down, the rain stopped, and the city smelled, if not clean, then at least refreshed.

It wasn’t quite dusk, but Viv took her lantern and her notes out to the tack box, which had cemented its role as her porch bench.

Before she could settle in to re-examine them, she spied Laney across the way, wrapped in a shawl and blowing on a mug of tea.

Viv set the lantern on the box, tucked away her notes, and stepped over the drying puddles to join the woman on her porch.

“Evening,” she said.

“It is.” Laney nodded at the livery. “Seems you’ve been mighty busy, miss .” She grinned slyly when she said it.

“Oh, yeah. I suppose so.”

“Sleepin’ in there, are you? Hope you’re lockin’ up at night, dear. It’s close to the High Street, but I wouldn’t like to see you runnin’ afoul of sommat unsavory after dark.”

Viv couldn’t mask her surprise. As a rule, folk spared little thought for her physical well-being, herself included. She was touched.

“Don’t worry. Locked up tight. But, speaking of anyone unsavory….” Viv tried to sort out what she wanted to ask. “Had a visitor today. Big hat,” she held her hands out wide from her head. “Fancy shirt. Stone-fey, I think. You know him?”

Laney snorted and slurped her tea. She said nothing for a long moment, then sighed. “One of the Madrigal’s, I reckon.”

“The Madrigal, huh? Some kind of local kingpin?”

“A bunch of stray dogs,” spat Laney. “The Madrigal’s got the leash.” Her wrinkles bunched tight around her mouth. “But the Madrigal ain’t to be ignored. When they ask ya to pay….” She gazed sharply at Viv. “…and they will ask. You’d best bank your coals and pay.”

“I’m not sure I can bring myself to do that,” she replied mildly.

Laney patted Viv’s considerable forearm. “I know you may’nt have thought to ’til now. But seems to me you ain’t here to do what you’ve always done. Am I wrong?”

The old woman had startled her again.

“Well. That’s true,” Viv said. “Still, for all that, not sure I can roll over for a little man in a big hat and a silly shirt.”

Laney chuckled darkly. “Never mind the man in the hat. The Madrigal’s what you want to worry about, and nothin’ silly about them.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Viv.

They stood in companionable silence for a few minutes.

Viv glanced sidelong at Laney’s mug of tea. “Say, you ever have coffee?” she asked.

Laney blinked at her and looked affronted. “Why, I never have. And the way I was brought up, a lady doesn’t talk about her maladies,” she said primly.

Viv barked a laugh, to the old woman’s great annoyance.

* * *

Viv moved her bedroll and lantern to the loft under the slope of the roof. The smell of coffee beans filtered up through the cracks in the boards, and she inhaled it deeply, like a warm, earthy memory. The tarpaulin thumped like a distant drum in the occasional gust of wind.

In the lantern’s light, Blackblood gleamed where it leaned against the wall. Viv stared at it for a long time and thought about the man in the hat and the Madrigal. She felt a sudden impulse to sleep next to the blade, as she had in a hundred campsites and bivouacs.

She deliberately turned away, extinguished the lantern, and filled her lungs with the dark smell from below.

On the roof, there was a solid thud, followed by a rhythmic heavy padding and a scratching clatter on the tiles, but she was already beginning to doze, and she lost it in the sound of the tarpaulin.

Then she was asleep.