The Broken Man Page 4
The rain started a couple minutes into Josen’s walk, a halfhearted almost-rain that was an early morning staple in Ludon. No wonder I don’t get up early anymore, Josen thought. Even after two years in the city, he still wasn’t used to this chronic drizzle.
He stopped once on his way to meet with Saul, just long enough to buy a warm breakfast of honeyed hot breakfast mash. The vendor only sold ceral, of course—no wheat or rice—but Josen hadn’t expected anything else, not on this side of town. He paid the murderous upcharge for half a handful of nuts—ugly, shriveled looking things he hoped might have been some kind of walnut in a past life—counting himself lucky the vendor had even those to sell. Josen would have to eat again soon, but the nuts would do him some good, and the ceral would at least fill his stomach.
The streets were almost empty as Josen made his way through the city towards the ocean-side part of town. Urchins and rub addicts huddled in alleys and at intersections—the tight-packed, crooked buildings that littered Josen’s route providing some minor amount of shelter from the rain. Most everyone else seemed to be waiting for the rain to stop before venturing outside today.
Saul stood waiting near the small bay where they had agreed to meet, despite Josen being twenty minutes early. Josen had the impression that it wouldn’t have mattered how early he was; Saul would have been waiting. He reminded Josen of Grandpa Markise that way—always one step ahead. Josen often wondered what Grandpa Markise would have thought of Saul if the two had met.
Saul stood alone, leaning on what looked like an overlong shepherd’s crook, no assistant or guards. Saul preferred a discreet, understated of authority to overt shows of power. Rain dripped through his wiry black and silver hair and beard, face impassive. His facial features belied some Pomish heritage, though his skin and eyes were too light. His pale green eyes in particular were a distinctively Seftish trait—like grass gone too long without rain. that wasn’t unusual. For people with even moderate means, the Passes made travel between the Passbound Cities a simple thing. Most everyone in the Passbound Union had intermarried for centuries, until only the wretchedly poor and the obscenely wealthy could perhaps claim any single ethnicity.
“Good morning,” Josen said as he approached, unsure of what else to say.
Saul said nothing but eyed Josen up and down, glancing at his bruised face. After a moment, he held out a bucket filled about two thirds with water. “Come with me,” he said.
Josen accepted the bucket and Saul turned, walking toward the bay. Josen followed along the beach, toward a set of cliffs that rose out of the bay. Saul picked a careful path to the base of the cliffs, then along their base, stepping from rock to rock, sometimes walking a narrow ledge along the cliff itself, using worn handholds cut into the rock long ago to help keep balance. The trip was, if not difficult, at least a little nerve wracking. One wrong step would send Josen into the cold ocean—not a fatal slip, but a miserable one.
If Saul was upset with Josen, this would be a fantastic place to kill him. Saul had yet to say a single word since handing him the bucket an hour ago, and Josen couldn’t keep his mind from racing, imagining his own gruesome demise at Saul’s hands. Maybe he should have been a little more circumspect last night. Maybe starting a bar fight wasn’t the most elegant of coverups. He didn’t think Saul would actually kill him, but still…
They arrived eventually onto a narrow, rocky ridge jutting out into the ocean, wet with the rising ocean water. The morning sky was grey and overcast, giving the ocean below a similarly sick grey pallor. Josen stepped carefully along the rocky ledge, bucket in hand, following close behind Saul as they made their way farther along the rough rock.
It didn’t turn out that Saul had any immediate plans to dump Josen’s lifeless body into the bay. Instead, he began hauling in crab traps. The saltwater in Josen’s bucket now held five soft shelled cerulean crabs, plucked out of traps that were, in turn, plucked out of the bay with the long hook-tipped pole Saul carried, all without a word.
Josen stopped suddenly to avoid running Saul off their rocky pier as he leaned out over the water, reaching his long hook-pole toward yet another buoy floating in the bay. Saul said nothing as he snared the rope that attached the floating buoy to the sunken crab trap and hauled it in to find the trap empty. This was the fourth trap they had checked, and the first empty one. Saul grunted, checked the bait, and hurled the whole contraption back into the bay.
“When I was young, a man made an interesting threat,” Saul said suddenly, without preamble. “We had a disagreement, over what I don’t even remember, but I remember what he said to me. He told me that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, that he would ‘feed me to the crabs.’” Saul paused, jumping over a small pool the tide had left in the rock.
“I learned three very valuable things from this man, or at least as a result of the encounter,” Saul continued. “First, the power of words. His threat, for all its dire potential, was weak because the man lacked imagination. With even the most miniscule application of imagination he could have come up with something more frightening. ‘I’ll cut out your eyes and feed them to the crabs,’ or even ‘I’ll drop your starving corpse in the bay and use it for crab bait.’ But he didn’t. He wasted an opportunity to intimidate me because he lacked imagination. Even silence would have served him better, as it often does.”
Saul stopped again to haul in another crab trap. This one had only one tiny crab in it. “Hm. Hardly worth the trouble to cook this one,” Saul said as he removed the little crab from the trap, examining it closely.
“The second thing I learned was about the crabs themselves. They’re scavengers. Scroungers.” Saul paused, bending over to set the crab upside-down on the stone, its legs waiving uselessly in the empty air. “They’ll eat almost anything,” he said as he placed his boot on the thrashing creature and applied slow pressure. Something gave way with an audible crack, and Saul let up. He stooped again and placed the lifeless remains of the little crab into the bait bag inside of the trap. “But, just like any other hungry thing, they have preferences—vicious little bastards.
“It’s a basic principle of investment, of sacrifice and gain that I was unfamiliar with at a young age. To catch crabs, you have to be willing to throw something away—literally cast it into the sea. Young and often hungry as I was, it was difficult to throw anything away. It was a risk.”
Josen stared at that little bag inside the trap, feeling a little sick. Saul heaved the trap and buoy back into the bay, and the bait bag disappeared beneath the ocean waves.
Saul walked to the end of the stone pier where the water lapped at the stone rising barely more than a foot out of the ocean water. The water was ebbing in, rising with the tide. Twelve or fifteen feet from the edge of the pier bobbed the last of the buoys marking the underwater traps—nearly out of reach at that distance. Saul stepped right up to the edge of the stone, his boot half hanging over the water, and leaned out as far as he could manage without losing his balance. The big man lifted one leg as a counterbalance and made the reach with smooth, practiced motion, hooking the rope with ease despite the distance. He glanced back at Josen and smiled as he began to haul the trap in, hand over hand along the pole, then the sodden rope. When the trap emerged, Josen saw four good-sized cerulean crabs entangled in the little netted frame—the best haul of any of the traps.
“The third thing I learned,” Saul said, placing the crabs in Josen’s bucket, “was that cerulean crab is one most delicious things the Faceless God put in the sea for me to eat.” Saul checked the bait bag it this trap as well and found that it had been emptied. Saul reached into the bucket Josen held and snatched out a small crab, placed it upside-down on the ground, and stepped on it.
“Delicious,” Saul repeated, “and entirely worth breaking a few for the chance at that many more.” He hurled the last trap back into the bay and strode back toward the beach, Josen following.
* * *
Saul got a large pot of crabs boiling over a
fire in front of some house that was certainly not his. He and Josen sat next to the fire, watching the rolling water, not speaking for a long time.
“I hope that…” Josen started eventually—to apologize, to explain, anything to break the silence, but Saul raised a finger, cutting him off.
“I understand that taking risks is part of your job. You leap into the dark and hope to hells and starvation you land in soft sand instead of on the rocks. It’s part of what makes you good at what you do, what makes you valuable. I can respect a leap like that.”
Josen took a short breath and nodded his head. He would have preferred to call it “deft improvisation” or “creative problem-solving,” but Saul rarely gave him the opportunity to say things the way he wanted to say them. Josen could talk his way out of a great many things—had talked his way out of a great many. Saul was too clever to give him the chance very often.
“Quite honestly,” Saul said, “your habit of falling face first into success borders on absurd at times.” Saul shook his head, and a small smile played across his face. The odd mixture of pride and embarrassment warring in Josen at Saul’s words must have manifested interestingly on his own face, because Saul’s smile turned into a chuckle.
“I, um… I try,” Josen said, unsure of what else to say. He didn’t ever plan to fall face first into anything but sometimes that was just the quickest path to whatever his goal was. Akelle’s plans were always good but they only ever got him so far. In every job, no matter how thorough and detailed the plan, there was always a moment when something went wrong, and Josen’s success depended on how well he could compensate. Improvisation. Creative thinking. As far as Josen was concerned, it was almost always better to take an unplanned shot than to watch your mark walk out the door with the take.
“You do try. No one could argue otherwise. And like I said, you seem to succeed over and over again, even when you do so in the most…” Saul paused, glancing at the great purple bruise that spread from Josen’s nose, across his left cheek and up around his eye. “The most spectacularly unorthodox ways,” Saul finished.
Josen grinned weakly—anything more enthusiastic would have been too painful a maneuver for his face at present.
Saul reached into a pocket and pulled out a few small pieces of paper. Josen recognized one of them as one he had stolen off the jacketed man. Tori had delivered them to Saul immediately. The papers were each coded, impossible for Josen to read.
“We’ve intercepted a few of these recently,” Saul said. “The one you… procured,” Saul said, as if searching for the right word, “last night, in conjunction with the information Tori managed to gather by tailing the man who made the handoff have given me an excellent idea of who I am dealing with—”
“Really?” Josen asked. He hadn’t even known Saul had anyone else gathering information on Aboran, but it made sense. “What do they say? Who is he? Someone we know, or a new player…” Josen trailed off at the look on Saul’s face. “I mean… Sorry. What do we do now?”
“That’s why I needed to talk to you,” Saul said, face serious.
Energy thrilled through Josen. This was his chance. Saul was going to ask him to do something big, maybe to infiltrate Aboran’s organization, to steal some vital and incriminating document, or organize a setup framing Aboran for some heinous crime that would get Aboran locked up in the Finger and out of the way—
“You’re done with the Aboran job,” Saul said.
Josen’s heart dropped. It landed somewhere between his feet and rolled away—right into the fire, by the feel of it.
“Your information was exactly what I needed, but after the scene you made at the Verolius…” Saul grimaced. “There’s just too much risk now. You did well, but you’re done on the Aboran job.”
Josen broke his gaze and looked at his feet. There was nothing revelatory there—just rocks and fish bones and bits of broken seashells. He fought the urge to just get up and walk away, to turn his back on Saul and Ludon and never look back. Run away, start fresh somewhere new.
Instead, he closed his eyes, took a pair of deep breaths and raised his head, meeting Saul’s serious, searching gaze again. “What do you want me to do?”
Saul’s face relaxed, tension easing into a gentle smile. “Good man,” he said. “I need you on another job.”
Josen nodded. That was good. At least he wouldn’t have sit and wait, occupying himself for days or weeks before Saul found him another job.
“With who?” Josen asked.
“Tori.”
“What about the Aboran job?” Josen assumed that Tori would be too important to pull away from the Aboran job.
Saul waved the question away. “I still have other people still looking into that. Besides, she was there at the Verolius too, and she said you sat with each other. Even if I hadn’t been planning to pull you and her both for this other job, I would have to pull her now for the same reasons you can’t work the Aboran job anymore. I can’t take the chance that she was noticed either.”
Josen winced. He should have realized this would affect her too. If she saw this as a demotion, then…
“Don’t worry about her,” Saul said, reading his face. “Tori’s a bright girl. She’ll understand. Besides, this new job is nothing to sniff at.”
That brought Josen’s head up. “What is it?”
Saul’s grin shifted with his attention, becoming wolfish—almost frightening—and his eyes glinted. “I think you’ll like it,” he said. “With as much trouble as this Aboran nonsense has been giving me, I nearly had to turn it down. But your little stunt at the Verolius has opened up an interesting solution. If everything works out as it should, it could prove quite lucrative.”
That piqued Josen’s interest.
Saul, enjoying the drama of the reveal, let the words sink in for a moment before asking his question. “Josen, are you familiar with Deferate Parose?”
Chapter 4
“Maybe this is a stupid question,” Akelle began as Josen ushered him into the Chapel. “But you do realize that this isn’t Jurdon, right?”
“Madame Junishu will have to wait. Saul has a new job for us.”
“It had better be good.”
Josen and Akelle took their seats near the back of the long, narrow chapel on ornately carved—and wildly uncomfortable—benches.
“There he is,” Josen whispered to Akelle as the line of clergy filed into Ludon’s Theradon Chapel, seated just behind the pulpit. “The short thin one, towards the back.”
“The bald guy?” he asked. “With the red nose?”
“No, that’s Reverate Olmastor. Just to his right. Parose is a Deferate, not a Reverate,” Josen said. Akelle gave him a blank look. “Deferates wear crimson sashes, Reverates’ robes have the gold trim.”
“Right,” Akelle said dryly.
“What?” Josen asked as Reverate Olmastor stood up to begin the meeting. “Oh, come on, Akelle, this is basic stuff.”
Akelle shook his head. “Do I look like the church going type? You’ve been with me for five years now. How many times have you seen me inside a church?”
“Excluding the times you were scamming, thieving, or generally screwing someone over?”
Reverate Olmastor cleared his throat and began speaking to the small gathering of supplicants scattered throughout in the enormous chapel—only twenty-five or thirty, though the enormous chapel could seat closer to five hundred.
“On this day,” boomed the Reverate. His voice, though old and tired sounding, filled the chapel expertly. “I feel the hand of the Faceless God guiding me toward a familiar passage—”
“None,” Akelle whispered, glancing nervously up towards Reverate Olmastor. “Not even to scam or thieve or screw anyone over.”
“Okay,” Josen said, ignoring the sermon. “You know the Orders, at least? Stewards to sow and reap the grain for man,” Josen chanted. “Carters to spread the ceral to all the needy hands, Solons to tend and teach us truth and right…”
“And the light was stricken from Josithane’s eyes, for the face of God is not for man to know,” Reverate Olmastor quoted, voice booming in the background. “And Josithane stood still, singing praises to his God.”
“Simple version then,” Josen said. He gestured, holding a hand level with his chest. “Arch Reverates are at the top. Then the Reverates, the High Deferates,” Josen said, moving his hand down with each successive office. “Deferates, then Acolytes. There’s some variance within each office, and it gets complicated when you start crossing between the Orders, but that’s the gist of it.”
“So Parose is, what, a Deferate Solon?”
“High Deferate Solon, technically. He’s the personal assistant to Reverate Olmastor, who is the Reverate in charge of this particular chapel.”
“And God did take pity on Josithane, saying, ‘For what purpose dost thou come before me, Josithane?’”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Josen?” Akelle glanced again up at the row of raised seats where Deferate Parose and his peers sat in various states of attention, ranging from rapt concentration to poorly feigned interest. “I mean, I’m all for big payouts, but there’s good reason why I don’t know much about the Clergy—I’ve never been stupid enough to think to steal from them. Steal from the Church, and the Protectors get involved…” Akelle trailed off with a shiver.
“And Josithane answered, saying, ‘To beg intervention, my God. To plead for thy people, who are many. The land has become scarce, and no longer yields in abundance, and our flesh is weak.’”
“It’s a simple job, Akelle. One little box, and our take is fifty lite gold marks.”