The Thirty-third of Vortas 2719, Nineteen minutes past the twenty-second hour
The silent man behind the counter, drooping moustachios, spiral tattoos in blue across his knuckles, makes his coffee strong. Red-brown and verging on black, the top marked with a little cloud of frothed cream and just a whisper of nutmeg. He has not expected such a place here, in the narrow streets of the Painted Ladies. He is glad of it. A little space to gather his thoughts amid almost familiar surroundings.
Across from him, hands wrapped around a steaming mug serving more as a hand warmer than a drink, Bailey is slowly thawing out. His cheeks are red with the cold, his lips only now returning to a living color. A long afternoon in the cold. A long afternoon watching.
“Asked about, Mr Shrike, and Ms Weaver’s shop’s got a good reputation. Quality merchandise and quality prices. Takes all manner of clients. Human, wick, even a few gollies. Ma says she’s bought the odd fabric from her. Nothing fancy, mind, but good quality.” Bailey raises the huge mug with both hands curled under the great round bottom, and takes a long, long, drink. In one of the museums in Brunnhold, a little one that no one really bothered with, he’d seen a red and black vase with ancient personages drinking wine from a bowl. They had seemed so noble, stiff and formal. It could not have been so rigid in life. Not in the Thief’s movements were any judge. Spare, careful, yes, with those not-quite-manners of his. Not dignified, but done with dignity.
“I had no idea your mother would stoop to base commerce.”
“Scurrilous lies sir. We are in home streets here. A wise thief does not steal at home. A good thief is a good neighbor.” He speaks them like ancient proverbs, like axioms from some obscure ethical tradition. Perhaps they are. Custom and practice know no bounds.
He sips his coffee, watches the boy, the Thief, slowly return to warmth. It is a long process, quiet, companionable. This is a strange alliance, yet he thinks it solid. It is not his first. It will not be his last. It cannot be. One mind cannot process all the twisting conspiracies, cannot tease each thread apart. He cannot be in many places all at once. He cannot stretch himself so thin. And there are places he cannot go.
Let him be the mind then, the machine to tabulate and reason, to create new truths from disparate facts. Let the Thief be his eyes and ears, at least in this place. He should not be here, not amid these streets. Not wearing this face, this name, these clothes.
It is different in the Rookery, down on the river. There he has no name, no occupation. The boxing arena on Canby Lane is no place for names. A liminal place, neither quite legal nor quite illegal. Nothing sanctioned of course, nothing formal. They are all there for the same reasons. To test themselves, to purge their frustrations, to be surrounded by wordless shouts that drown out all words in the mind, to take blows and give them. To think of nothing but motion in space, to have no other cares. His is not dressed to go tonight. He is not ready. Tomorrow perhaps, or the night after. Too many thoughts dancing about in his head, too many in need of organization.
“So,”says the Thief, still drinking from his huge bowl of coffee, “where am I off to next?”
“Next?” He has been toying with that. Where should he send his eyes and ears? Back across the River, back south and south. Back to Ro Hill? The Incumbent is still at risk, he requires watching. The Weaver is at risk. The Weaver is the more reliable source, and sources need protecting. She still speaks tenderly of him. A closeness and immediacy he has not expected. A parting my lead to wistful remembrance or recrimination. Neither appeared in the Weaver’s voice, in her words. She still sees him. Under guise and perhaps not often. Her appearance at the Incumbent’s house is proof enough. And does he ever come here? To see his little bird now set free of her cage?
“Stay here for a while,” he says, and raises his own cup to his lips. Lips chapped and cracking from the cold. “Keep watch on the shop, on the lady. And keep and eye out for her visitors.”
“You think this mystery lady will pop by? Buy a bit of silk and exchange a few florid letters, professing scandalous love?” The Thief is smiling, wicked and flashing-sharp. “Or should I set off for some quiet villa? Yew hedges and moss-covered fountains? Always good for a lark, those places.”
“The lady is already within.” Again he turns the cup. There is little enough point in holding back. His agent will need the information if he is to carry out the next tasks. To not be distracted. “It is herself.”
Bailey’s eyebrows raise almost to his hairline, eyes grow as large as dinner-plates. A long, whistling exhalation escapes his lips, ripples the surface of his coffee. They sit for a while, saying nothing, staring into their drinks. It is Bailey who breaks the silence. “That’s a scandal and a half, and no mistake about it. We could make a fortune off knowledge like that. Say the word Mr Shrike, and I’ll arrange matters.” Bailey gazes again into his steaming coffee. “No, I suppose that angle’s already taken. And his Incumbentness ain’t the mark now is he.” The Thief gives an awkward smile. “Sorry Mr Shrike, old habits. Spot a decent pigeon and the plucking follows, natural as you please.”
The Thief could take the information, sell it through whatever shadowy network of information brokers he knows. No. Even if he did, the matter is too unbelievable, too much of a scandal. A scandal with no proof. The danger remains. It will have to be neutralized. Easy enough. “We’ve got a rather plumper pigeon to pluck. I cannot say it will be lucrative. I very much doubt it. But it will be, as you are so fond of saying, ‘a lark.’ There is the other lady.”
Bailey’s face scrunches up, confused for a moment, then it smooths over and the old wicked smile returns. “The madame? The unpleasant piece?”
“The same.”
“Tricky, very tricky.” Bailey leans in, bringing the coffee bowl close. He can smell the strong coffee, great quantities, diluted a bit with hot water. Black and black. How the Thief can consume such a quantity alludes him. Where in the boy’s skinny frame can he store such a quantity? “Madames are always close. Confidential like. Rather like lawyers, in that regard. Begging your pardon, sir.”
He dismisses the insult with a gesture, shoos it away like a moth on a summer night. An airy nothing. “For now, leave her to me.”
“You sir? Your pardons again, but what’re you going to do? Drown her in paperwork?”
“After a fashion, yes.” There will be records in the Archives, bills of sale and tax records. All cleverly doctored, but they will be there. And there are the other names. Prudhome, Megiro, d’Arthe, Verdier, Antonacchi, Azmus. Enough to start cross-referencing, pulling cases and documents, papers of incorporation, tax records and their charitable deductions. Charity. He thinks of human girls, some bought, perhaps some given, given to improve them. Charity is barbarism. A sign of decadence, decay. Even decay is recorded.
“As for you, I request and require that you stay here. Eyes open and ears to the ground. Tell me who comes and goes. At what times and for how long they stay. Should anything strange strike your fancy, you have my leave to follow it up as you see fit. I will require reports.”
“Begging your pardon yet again but I’ve only got one body, one set of eyes and ears. I can’t be skulking around here and watching out for the Incumbent. Ain’t possible sir, not for all the magic under the moons.”
And now it is his turn to smile. “Keep an eye on things here. Follow up on what leads you may find. And reports Bailey. Either by post or in person. Every week upon the Nines, or whenever something of moment arises.”
“Right you are sir.” Bailey raises the bowl one last time, drains it somehow. He rises, wraps his scarf around his neck, and gives and odd little salute. Thumb and forefingers pinched around the eye, the rest upright, held to the brow. He flicks his hand away. "Be seeing you."
He goes, back out into the cold. Back out into the Painted Ladies. Back to his work.
The light in the streets is growing fainter, the chill autumn evening setting in fast. He looks at his watch. Nineteen minutes past the twenty-second hour. He will have to depart. When the coffee is done.