Home > The Blacktongue Thief (Blacktongue #1)(3)

The Blacktongue Thief (Blacktongue #1)(3)
Author: Christopher Buehlman

Cadoth was as big as a town gets before someone decides it’s a city. A proper trade town at a proper crossroads, it had an Allgod church crowned with a bronze sun, a huge tower to Haros topped with wooden stag horns, plus temples to a dozen other divinities scattered here and there. Notably absent were Mithrenor, god of the sea—nobody much bothers inland—and the Forbidden God, for obvious reasons.

One thing a town this size will have is a proper Hanger’s House, as the Takers Guild Hall is called, and I would need to head there to discuss my debt to them. My adventures with Pagran and his cutty, stabby, punchy crew had gone well enough that summer, until we got our arses pulped and handed to us by the Spanth and her murder-bird. Now Nervous and Snowcheeks, the sibling archers who’d scampered when the bird joined the fray, had all but cleaned me out. I needed money—fast—and playing a few hands of Towers would be a good way to start.

I knew I’d find a game at the Bee and Coin because a Bee and a Coin were two of the cards in the Towers deck, besides the Towers, the Kings and Queens, Soldiers, Shovels, Archers, Death, the Traitor, and, of course, Thieves, signified in common decks by an illustration of a grasping hand.

Not everyone in the tavern would be a cards player. A few sheepherders and root farmers faithful to the gods of sour frowns held down edgeward tables, talking low about rain and weevils, their never-washed woolens insulated with decades of hand-wiped meat grease. Two younger bravos near the bar had short copper cups at their belts, used in Towers to collect coin. Despite their swords, these fellows seemed leery of a trio of hard-looking older women clink-clinking away at Towers around a worm-bitten table.

I was leery, too, but I wanted a game.

“Do you care for a fourth?” I said, mostly to the bald killer shuffling the deck. She looked at my tattoo. She had every right to slap me for it but didn’t seem keen on it. Neither of the other two playing cards wanted a beer more than they wanted a cordial start to the game, so neither of them claimed the prize either.

Baldy nodded at the empty chair, so I put my arse in it.

“Lamnur deck or Mouray?” I said.

“What’chye fuckin’ think?”

“Right. Lamnur.”

Nobles and such used the Mouray deck. Better art on that one. But folks with permanent dirt on their collars played the Lamnur deck, simpler images, two queens instead of three, no Doctor card to save you if you draw Death. For my part, I prefer the Mouray deck, but I’m partial to second chances.

“Now pay the price,” she said.

I dug sufficient coins out of my purse to ante.

Clink-clink!

She dealt me in.

I won two of the three Tourney rounds and folded the third so not to seem to be cheating, but the War round’s chest was too fat to pass up. The pale blondy woman with the scar like a fishhook bet heavy, thinking herself invincible with the last King in the deck, but I dropped the Traitor on her, archered off the Queen that would have caught the Traitor, took that King, and won. Again. A lot.

“The fuck’r ye doin’ that, ye slipper?” the bald one said, leaving out the how like a good Holtish street thug. Slipper wasn’t such a nice thing to be called, either, but then I had just bankrouted her.

“Just lucky,” I said, not lying.

More about luck later.

She hovered between stabbing me and slapping me, settling finally on exile.

“The fuck out th’table” she said, as in I should get, so I pouched my winnings up in my shirt, slid them into my belt-purse, and walked away smiling, followed after by several comments about my father, none of which I hoped were true. They all wanted to slap me, but were too enthralled by the game; they would stay nailed to the table until two of them were destitute, and then they’d likely fight. Little wonder preachers of so many gods rail against the game—it had killed more folk than the Murder Alphabet. I almost said it killed more than goblins had, but that would be too gross an exaggeration even for me.

I made my way toward the bar, and what should I see leaning on its rough wood, past a large fellow built for eclipse, but the Spanth from the road. We shared an awkward nod. The space at the bar next to her, the one I had been just moving to occupy, was suddenly taken by some rentboy with too much black makeup around the eyes. Those eyes inventoried the birder and found much to approve. She was a very handsome woman in her way, what with her black hair and seawater-blue eyes, but I hadn’t worked out if she would look better if she didn’t seem sleepy or if the heavy-lidded look gave her a certain charm. Men love a woman who doesn’t seem to give a damn, so long as she’s handsome. We also love a happy woman, so long as she’s fair, or a sad pretty one, or an angry girleen with a good face. You see how this works. So, yes, the Spanth was fair. But if she had to summon a smile to put out a fire, half the town would burn. She didn’t seem to notice the keen young pennycock next to her, rather occupying herself with her wine and staring into the middle distance. Troubled girl with good bones. The lads love that.

I found another place to stand.

A Galtish harper of some talent was singing “The Tattered Sea,” a song that had become popular after enough men had died to make calling humanity mankind sound a bit off. The word in vogue these last twenty years was kynd.

Her voice wasn’t half-bad, so nobody threw a bottle at her.

One day upon the Tattered Sea

I waded out upon the waves

A comely young man for to see

Who looked to me more knight than knave

Now swam he toward a maiden brave

Who treaded water in the brine

I should have left, my shame to save

But I swam after, close behind

For I was young and poorly bred

With much to learn of lechery

Beneath the waves I dunked my head

And what there should I hap to see?

I found a tail fin fairly twinned

Where I had sought four legs entwined

Said I, “O, brother, are you kynd?”

Said he, “No kynd, but surely kind

I’m kind enough to send you home

Though kynd above I seem to be

You’ll find no pleasure ’neath the foam

Nor husband in the Tattered Sea”

Then kindly did the mermaid speak

To teach a daughter of the kynd

“Go back to land and loam and seek

A legsome lad more fond than finned”

So turned I from the ocean cool

Much wiser than a maid might wish

For I swam out and found a school

Where lustily I sought a fish

 

She got a few coins in her hat and too few claps, even counting mine, so she gathered her harp and went on to the next tavern and hopefully a more grateful audience.

I saw that, in one corner, a spellseller of the Magickers Guild—her face powdered white, her thumb and first two fingers of her left hand pinched together to cant her Guild allegiance—had lit a beeswax candle with a braid of hair tied around it to advertise she was open for custom. It wasn’t a moment before a young woman in rough-spun wools slipped her a coin and started whispering her wants in the witch’s ear.

Just after I ordered and got my first taste of the decent red ale they served at the Bee and Coin, a nasty-looking little fellow in waxy, stained leathers came up to my other side at the bar, staring right at my tattoo. It was a tattoo of an open hand with certain runes on it, and it sat on my right cheek. You could only see it by firelight, and then it showed up as a light reddish-brown, not too prominent, a bit like old henna. You could miss it altogether. Unfortunately, this fellow didn’t.

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