I approached Feather next, only hours before our departure. She couldn’t tell me much more, except that Juniper is the demesne of a Duke Zimerlan, and he appealed to the Lady a year ago (just a while before the Captain’s courier letter would have left Charm) for help solving a local problem. That someone had approached the Lady, when the world’s desire is to keep her far away, argued that we faced interesting times, I wondered about the connection with the Barrowland,
The negative was that Juniper was so far away. I was pleased that I would be there when the Captain learned he was expected to head there after resting in Oar, though.
Could be I’d hear his howl of outrage even from that far. I knew he wouldn’t be happy.
Juniper: The Enclosure
Shed slept badly for weeks. He dreamt of black glass walls and a man who hadn’t been dead. Twice Raven asked him to join a night hunt. Twice he refused. Raven did not press, though they both knew Shed would jump if he insisted.
Shed prayed that Raven would get rich and disappear. He remained a constant irritant to the conscience.
Damnit, why didn’t Krage go after him?
Shed couldn’t figure why Raven remained unperturbed by Krage. The man was neither a fool nor stupid. The alternative, that he wasn’t scared, made no sense. Not to a Marron Shed.
Asa remained on Krage’s payroll, but visited regularly, bringing firewood. By the wagonload, sometimes. “What’re you up to?” Shed demanded one day.
“Trying to build credit,” Asa admitted. “Krage’s guys don’t like me much.”
“Hardly anybody does, Asa.”
“They might try something nasty. …”
“Want a place to hide when they turn on you, eh? What’re you doing for Krage? Why is he bothering with you?”
Asa hemmed and hawed. Shed pushed. Here was a man he could bully. “I watch Raven, Shed. I report what he does.”
Shed snorted. Krage was using Asa because he was expendable. He’d had two men disappear early on. Shed thought he knew where they were.
Sudden fear. Suppose Asa reported Raven’s night adventures? Suppose he’d seen Shed. …
Impossible. Asa couldn’t have kept quiet. Asa spent his life looking for leverage.
“You’ve been spending a lot lately, Asa. Where are you getting the money?”
Asa turned pale. He looked around, gobbled a few times. “The wood, Shed. Selling the wood.”
“You’re a liar, Asa. Where’re you getting it?”
“Shed, you don’t ask questions like that.”
“Maybe not. But I need money bad. I owe Krage. I almost had him paid off. Then he started buying my little debts from everybody else. That damned Gilbert!… I need to get ahead enough so I don’t have to borrow again.”
The black castle. Two hundred twenty pieces of silver. How he had been tempted to attack Raven. And Raven just smiled into the wind, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “Where’re you getting that money, Asa?”
“Where did you get the money you paid Krage? Huh? People are wondering, Shed. You don’t come up with that kind of money overnight. Not you. You tell me and I’ll tell you.”
Shed backed down. Asa beamed in triumph.
“You little snake. Get out before I lose my temper.”
Asa fled. He looked back once, face knotted thoughtfully. Damnit, Shed thought. Made him suspicious. He ground his rag into a tacky mug.
“What was that?”
Shed spun. Raven had come to the counter. His look brooked no crap. Shed gave him the gist.
“So Krage hasn’t quit.”
“You don’t know him or you wouldn’t ask. It’s you or him, Raven.”
“Then it has to be him, doesn’t it?”
Shed gaped.
“A suggestion, Shed. Follow your friend when he goes wood-gathering.” Raven returned to his seat. He spoke to Darling animatedly, in sign, which he blocked from Shed’s view. The set of the girl’s shoulders said she was against whatever it was he was proposing. Ten minutes later he left the Lily. Each afternoon he went out for a few hours. Shed suspected he was testing Krage’s watchers.
Darling leaned against the door frame, watching the street. Shed watched her, his gaze sliding up and down her frame. Raven’s, he thought. They’re thick. I don’t dare.
But she was such a fine looking thing, tall, lean of leg, ready for a man. … He was a fool. He did not need to get caught in that trap, too. He had troubles enough.
I think today would be good for it,” Raven said as Shed delivered his breakfast.
“Eh? Good for what?”
“For a hike up the hill to watch friend Asa.”
“Oh. No. I can’t. Got nobody to watch the place,” Back by the counter, Darling bent to pick something off the floor. Shed’s eyes widened and his heart fluttered. He had to do something. Visit a whore, or something. Or get hurt. But he couldn’t afford to pay for it. “Darling couldn’t handle it alone.”
“Your cousin Wally has stood in for you before.”
Caught off balance, Shed could not marshall his excuses quickly. And Darling was driving him to distraction. She had to start wearing something that concealed the shape of her behind better. “Uh. … He couldn’t deal with Darling, Doesn’t know the signs.”
Raven’s face darkened slightly. “Give her the day off. Get that girl Lisa you used when Darling was sick.”
Lisa, Shed thought. Another hot one. “I only use Lisa when I’m here to watch her.” A hot one not attached. “She’ll steal me blinder than my mother. …”
“Shed!”
“Eh?”
“Get Wally and Lisa here; then go keep an eye on Asa. I’ll make sure they don’t carry off the family silver.”
“But. …”
Raven slapped a palm on the tabletop. “I said go!”
The day was clear and bright and, for winter, warm. Shed picked up Asa’s trail outside Krage’s establishment.
Asa rented a wagon. Shed was amazed. In winter stablekeepers demanded huge deposits. Draft animals slaughtered and eaten had no provenance. He thought it a miracle anyone trusted Asa with a team.
Asa went directly to the Enclosure. Shed stalked along behind, keeping his head down, confident Asa would not suspect him even if he looked back. The streets were crowded.
Asa left the wagon in a public grove across a lane running alongside the wall which girdled the Enclosure. It was one of many similar groves where Juniper’s citizenry gathered for the Spring and Autumn Rites for the Dead. The wagon could not be seen from the lane.
Shed squatted in shadow and bush and watched Asa dash to the Enclosure wall. Somebody ought to clear that brush away, Shed thought. It made the wall look tacky. For that matter, the wall needed repairing. Shed crossed and found a gap through which a man could duck-walk. He crept through. Asa was crossing an open meadow, hurrying uphill toward a stand of pines.
The inner face of the wall was brush-masked, too. Scores of bundles of wood lay among the bushes. Asa had more industry than Shed had suspected. Hanging around Krage’s gang had changed him. They had him scared for sure.
Asa entered the pines. Shed puffed after him. Ahead, Asa sounded like a cow pushing through the underbrush.
The whole Enclosure was tacky. In Shed’s boyhood it had been park-like, a fit waiting place for those who had gone before. Now it had the threadbare look that characterized the rest of Juniper.
Shed crept toward hammering racket. What was Asa doing, making so much noise?
He was cutting wood from a fallen tree, stacking the pieces in neat bundles. Shed could not picture the little man orderly, either. What a difference terror made.
An hour later Shed was ready to give up. He was cold and hungry and stiff. He had wasted half a day. Asa was doing nothing remarkable. But he persevered. He had a time investment to recoup. And an irritable Raven awaiting his report.
Asa worked hard. When not chopping, he hustled bundles down to his wagon. Shed was impressed.
He stayed, watched, and told himself he was a fool. This was going nowhere.
Then Asa became furtive. He collected his tools and concealed them, looked around warily. This is it, Shed thought.
Asa took off uphill. Shed puffed after him. His stiff muscles protested every step. Asa traveled more than a mile through lengthening shadows. Shed almost lost him. A clinking brought him back to the track.
The little man was using flint and steel. He crouched over a supply of torches wrapped in an oilskin, taken from hiding. He got a brand burning, hastened into some brush. A moment later he clambered over some rocks beyond, disappeared. Shed gave it a minute, then followed. He slid round the boulder where he had seen Asa last. Beyond lay a crack in the earth just big enough to admit a man.
“My god,” Shed whispered. “He’s found a way into the Catacombs. He’s looting the dead.”
I came straight back,” Shed gasped. Raven was amused by his distress. “I knew Asa was foul, but I never dreamed he’d commit sacrilege.”
Raven smiled.
“Aren’t you disgusted?”
“No. Why are you? He didn’t steal any bodies.”
Shed came within a hair’s breadth of assaulting him. He was worse than Asa.
“He making out at it?”
“Not as well as you. The Custodians take all the burial gifts except passage urns.” Every corpse in the Catacombs was accompanied by a small, sealed urn, usually fixed on a chain around the body’s neck. The Custodians did not touch the few coins in those. When the Day of Passage came, the Boatmen would demand payment for passage to Paradise.
“All those souls stranded,” Shed murmured. He explained.
Raven looked baffled. “How can anybody with an ounce of brains believe that crap? Dead is dead. Be quiet, Shed. Just answer questions. How many bodies in the Catacombs?”
“Who knows? They’ve been putting them away since. … Hell, for a thousand years. Maybe there’s millions.”
“Must have them stacked like cordwood.”
Shed wondered about that. The Catacombs were vast, but a thousand years’ worth of cadavers from a city Juniper’s size would make a hell of a pile. He looked at Raven, Damn the man. “It’s Asa’s racket. Let’s not try.”
“Why not?”
“Too dangerous.”
“Your friend hasn’t suffered.”
“He’s smalltime. If he gets greedy, he’ll get killed. There are Guardians down there. Monsters.”
“Describe them.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t. All they tell you is that they’re there.”
“I see.” Raven rose. “This needs investigating. Don’t discuss it. Especially not with Asa.”
“Oh, no.” Panicked, Asa would do something stupid.
Word drifted in off the street. Krage had sent his two best men after Raven. They had disappeared. Three more had vanished since. Krage himself had been injured by an unknown assailant. He had survived only because of Count’s immense strength. Count wasn’t expected to live.
Shed was terrified. Krage was neither reasonable nor rational. He asked Raven to move out. Raven stared at him in contempt. “Look, I don’t want him killing you here,” Shed said.
“Bad for business?”
“For my health, maybe. He’s got to kill you now. People will stop being scared of him if he doesn’t.”
“He won’t learn, eh? A damned city of fools.”
Asa boiled through the doorway. “Shed, I got to talk to you.” He was scared. “Krage thinks I turned him over to Raven. He’s after me. You got to hide me, Shed.”
“Like hell.” The trap was closing. Two of them here. Krage would kill him for sure, would dump his mother into the street.
“Shed, I kept you in wood all winter. I kept Krage off your back.”
“Oh, sure. So I should get killed, too?”
“You owe me, Shed. I never told nobody how you go out at night with Raven. Maybe Krage would want to know that, huh?”
Shed grabbed Asa’s hands and yanked him forward, against the counter. As if cued, Raven stepped up behind the little man. Shed glimpsed a knife. Raven pricked Asa’s back, whispered, “Let’s go to my room.”
Asa went pallid. Shed forced a smile. “Yeah.” He released Asa, took a stoneware bottle from beneath the counter. “I want to talk to you, Asa.” He collected three mugs.
Shed went up last, intensely aware of his mother’s blind stare. How much had she heard? How much had she guessed? She had been cool lately. His shame had come between them. He no longer felt deserving of her respect.
He clouted his conscience. I did it for her!
Raven’s room had the only door left on the upper floors. Raven held it for Asa and Shed. “Sit,” he told Asa, indicating his cot. Asa sat. He looked scared enough to wet himself.
Raven’s room was as Spartan as his dress. It betrayed no hint of wealth.
“I invest it, Shed,” Raven said, wearing a mocking smile. “In shipping. Pour the wine.” He began cleaning his nails with a knife.
Asa downed his wine before Shed finished pouring the rest. “Fill him up,” Raven said. He sipped his own wine. “Shed, why have you been giving me that sour cat’s piss when you had this?”
“Nobody gets it without asking. It costs more.”
“I’ll take this from now on.” Raven locked gazes with Asa, tapped his own cheek with his knife blade.
No, Raven wouldn’t have to live frugally. The body business would be lucrative. He invested? In shipping? Odd the way he said that. Where the money went might be as interesting as whence it came.
“You threatened my friend,” Raven said. “Oh, Excuse me, Shed. A misstatement. It’s partner, not friend. Partners don’t have to like each other. Little man. You have something to say for yourself?”
Shed shuddered. Damn Raven. He’d said that so Asa would spread it around. Bastard was taking control of his life. Nibbling away at it like a mouse slowly destroying a head of cheese.
“Honest, Mr. Raven, I didn’t mean nothing. I was scared. Krage thinks I tipped you. I got to hide, and Shed’s scared to put me up. I was just trying to get him to. …”
“Shut up. Shed, I thought he was your friend.”
“I just did him some favors. I felt sorry for him.”
“You’d shelter him from weather, but not from enemies. You’re a real gutless wonder, Shed. Maybe I made a mistake. I was going to make you a full partner. Going to give you the whole business eventually. Thought I’d do you a favor. But you’re a yellow-dog creep. Without the guts to deny it.” He whirled. “Talk, little man. Tell me about Krage. Tell me about the Enclosure.”
Asa went white. He didn’t open up till Raven threatened to call the Custodians.
Shed’s knees racketed off one another. The hilt of his butcher knife was sweat-moist and slippery. He could not have used the blade, but Asa was too scared to see that. He just squeaked at his team and started rolling. Raven followed them in his own wagon. Shed glanced across the valley. The black castle brooded on the northern skyline, casting its dread shadow across Juniper.
Why was it there? Where had it come from? He rejected the questions. Best to ignore it.
How had he gotten into this? He feared the worst. Raven had no sensibilities.
They left the wagons in the grove, entered the Enclosure. Raven examined Asa’s wood stash. “Move these bundles to the wagons. Stack them alongside for now.”
“You can’t take my wood,” Asa protested.
“Shut up.” Raven pushed a bundle through the wall. “You first, Shed. Little man, I’ll hunt you down if you run off.”
They had moved a dozen bundles when Asa whispered, “Shed, one of Krage’s goons is watching us.” He was about to panic.
Raven was not displeased with the news, “You two go get bundles from the woods.”
Asa protested. Raven glared. Asa headed uphill. “How does he know?” he whined at Shed. “He
never followed me. I’m sure of that.”
Shed shrugged. “Maybe he’s a sorcerer. He always knows what I’m thinking.”
Raven was gone when they returned. Shed looked around, nervously decided, “Let’s get another load.”
Raven was waiting next trip. “Take those bundles to Asa’s wagon.”
“An object lesson,” Shed said, pointing into the wagon. Blood ran across the floorboards, seeping from under a pile of wood. “See what kind of man he is?”
“Up the hill now,” Raven ordered when they returned. “Lead off, Asa. Collect your tools and torches to start.”
Suspicion nagged Shed as he watched Raven build a litter. But no. Even Raven wouldn’t stoop that low. Would he?
They stood looking down into the dark mouth of the underworld. “You first, Asa,” Raven said. Reluctantly, Asa descended. “You’re next, Shed.”
“Have a heart, Raven.”
“Get moving.”
Shed moved. Raven came down behind him.
The Catacombs had a carnal smell, but weaker than Shed had anticipated. A draft stirred Asa’s torch.
“Stop,” Raven said. He took the brand, examined the gap through which they had entered, nodded, passed the torch back. “Lead on.”
The cavern widened and joined a larger cave. Asa halted halfway across. Shed stopped, too. He was surrounded by bones. Bones on the cave floor, bones on racks on the walls, skeletons hanging from hooks. Loose bones in tumbles and piles, all mixed together. Skeletons sleeping amidst the clutter. Bones still within shreds of burial raiment. Skulls leering from wooden pegs on the far wall, empty eyes sinister in the torchlight. A passage urn shared each peg.
There were mummified bodies, too, though only a few. Only the rich demanded mummification. Here riches meant nothing. They were heaped with all the rest.
Asa volunteered, “This is a real old place. The Custodians don’t come here anymore, unless maybe to get rid of loose bones. The whole cave is filled up up that way, like they just pushed them out of the way.”