But Grenti loved to flap his mouth. Most thugs do, in the end. All that time spent doing nothing, maybe. ‘Lovely house, though, ain’t it, Kurrikan’s? What do you call those columns on the front of it?’
‘Pilasters,’ grunted one of the other thugs.
‘No, no, I know pilasters, no. I mean to say the name given to that particular style of architecture, with the vine-leaves about the head there?’
‘Rusticated?’
‘No, no, that’s the masonry work, all dimpled with the chisel, it’s the overall design I’m discussing- Hold up.’
For a moment, Fallow was mightily relieved at the interruption. Then he was concerned. A figure was occupying the fog just ahead. Occupying the hell out of it. The beggars and revellers and scum scattered around these parts had all slipped out of their way like soil around the plough ’til now. This one didn’t move. He was a tall bastard, tall as Fallow’s tallest guard, with a white coat on, hood up. Well, it weren’t white no more. Nothing stayed white long in Sipani. It was grey with damp and black-spattered about the hem.
‘Get him out of the way,’ he snapped.
‘Get out of the fucking way!’ roared Grenti.
‘You are Fallow?’ The man pulled his hood back.
‘It’s a woman,’ said Grenti. And indeed it was, for all her neck was thickly muscled, her jaw angular and her red hair clipped close to her skull.
‘I am Javre,’ she said, raising her chin and smiling at them. ‘Lioness of Hoskopp.’
‘Maybe she’s a mental,’ said Grenti.
‘Escaped from that madhouse up the way.’
‘I did once escape from a madhouse,’ said the woman. She had a weird accent, Fallow couldn’t place it. ‘Well … it was a prison for wizards. But some of them had gone mad. A fine distinction, most wizards are at least eccentric. That is beside the point, though. You have something I need.’
‘That so?’ said Fallow, starting to grin. He was less worried now. One, she was a woman, two, she obviously was a mental.
‘I know not how to convince you for I lack the sweet words – it is a long-standing deficiency. But it would be best for us all if you give it to me willingly.’
‘I’ll give you something willingly,’ said Fallow, to sniggers from the others.
The woman didn’t snigger. ‘It is a parcel, wrapped in leather, about …’ She held up one big hand, thumb and forefinger stretched out. ‘Five times the length of your cock.’
If she knew about the luggage, she was trouble. And Fallow had no sense of humour about his cock, to which none of the ointments had made the slightest difference. He stopped grinning. ‘Kill her.’
She struck Grenti somewhere around the chest, or maybe she did, it was all a blur. His eyes popped wide and he made a strange whooping sound and stood there frozen, quivering on his tiptoes, sword halfway drawn.
The second guard – a Union man big as a house – swung his mace at her but it just caught her flapping coat. An instant later there was a surprised yelp and he was flying across the street upside down and crashing into the wall, tumbling to the ground in a shower of dust, sheets of broken plaster dropping from the shattered brickwork on top of his limp body.
The third guard – a nimble-fingered Osprian – whipped out a throwing knife but before he could loose it, the mace twittered through the air and bounced from his head. He dropped soundlessly, arms outstretched.
‘They are called Anthiric columns.’ The woman put her forefinger against Grenti’s forehead and gently pushed him over. He toppled and lay there on his side in the muck, still stiff, still trembling, still with eyes bulgingly focused on nothing.
‘That was with one hand.’ She held up the other big fist, and had produced from somewhere a sheathed sword, gold glittering on the hilt. ‘Next I draw this sword, forged in the Old Time from the metal of a fallen star. Only six living people have seen the blade. You would find it extremely beautiful. Then I would kill you with it.’
The last of the guards exchanged a brief glance with Fallow, then tossed his axe away and sprinted off.
‘Huh,’ said the woman, with a slight wrinkling of disappointment about her red brows. ‘Just so you know, if you run I will catch you in …’ She narrowed her eyes and pushed out her lips, looking Fallow appraisingly up and down. The way he might have appraised the children. He found he didn’t like being looked at that way. ‘About four strides.’
He ran.
She caught him in three and he was suddenly on his face with a mouthful of dirty cobblestone and his arm twisted sharply behind his back.
‘You’ve no idea who you’re dealing with, you stupid bitch!’ He struggled but her grip was iron, and he squealed with pain as his arm was twisted even more sharply.
‘It is true I am no high-thinker.’ Her voice showed not the slightest strain. ‘I like simple things well done and have no time to philosophise. Would you like to tell me where the parcel is, or shall I beat you until it falls out?’
‘I work for Kurrikan!’ he gasped.
‘I am new in town. Names work no magic on me.’
‘We’ll find you!’
She laughed. ‘Of course. I am no hider. I am Javre, First of the Fifteen. Javre, Knight Templar of the Golden Order. Javre, Breaker of Chains, Breaker of Oaths, Breaker of Faces.’ And here she gave him a blinding blow on the back of the head which, he was pretty sure, broke his nose against the cobbles and filled the back of his mouth with the salt taste of blood. ‘To find me, you need only ask for Javre.’ She leaned over him, breath tickling at his ear. ‘It is once you find me that your difficulties begin. Now, where is that parcel?’
A pinching sensation began in Fallow’s hand. Mildly painful to begin with, then more, and more, a white-hot burning up his arm that made him whimper like a dog. ‘Ah, ah, ah, inside pocket, inside pocket!’
‘Very good.’ He felt hands rifling through his clothes but could only lie limp, moaning as the jangling of his nerves gradually subsided. He craned his neck around to look up at her and curled back his lips. ‘I swear on my fucking front teeth-’
‘Do you?’ As her fingers found the hidden pocket and slid the package free. ‘That’s rash.’
Javre pressed finger against thumb and flicked Fallow’s two front teeth out. A trick she had learned from an old man in Suljuk and, as with so many things in life, all in the wrist. She left him hunched in the road struggling to cough them up.
‘The next time we meet I will have to show you the sword!’ she called out as she strode away, wedging the package down behind her belt. Goddess, these Sipanese were weaklings. Was there no one to test her any more?
She shook her sore hand out. Probably her fingernail would turn black and drop off, but it would grow back. Unlike Fallow’s teeth. And it was scarcely the first fingernail she had lost. Including that memorable time she had lost the lot and toenails, too, in the tender care of the Prophet Khalul. Now there had been a test. For a moment, she almost felt nostalgic for her interrogators. Certainly she felt nostalgic for the pleasure of shoving their chief’s face into his own brazier when she escaped. What a sizzle he had made!
But perhaps this Kurrikan would be outraged enough to send a decent class of killer after her. Then she could go after him. Hardly the great battles of yesteryear, but something to wile away the evenings.
Until then Javre walked, swift and steady with her shoulders back. She loved to walk. With every stride she felt her own strength. Every muscle utterly relaxed yet ready to turn the next step in a split instant into mighty spring, sprightly roll, deadly strike. Without needing to look she felt each person about her, judged their threat, predicted their attack, imagined her response, the air around her alive with calculated possibilities, the surroundings mapped, the distances known, all things of use noted. The sternest tests are those you do not see coming, so Javre was the weapon always sharpened, the weapon never sheathed, the answer to every question.