A pair of rough-looking men glowered at a third, who was tied to a chair in the middle of the room with one of his eyes swollen shut. Blood ran down his face and stained his already filthy clothes. The room stank of sweat and urine.
The door opened, and a lanky man in a dark-colored coat entered, holding the door open for a jackalope that walked in behind him. The jackalope had been whistling a tune to himself, but he stopped when he caught sight of the man in the chair.
“As I live and breathe,” he said, disbelief evident in his voice, “that isn’t Holm, is it?”
“Yes sir,” answered one of the others, who had blood on his knuckles.
“That couldn’t be Holm!” proclaimed the jackalope, “I asked you to bring me the one who’s been sneaking messages off to Fulcher Goswin’s crew, and you bring me Holm? Why, his father and I fought together in the war! I saw to it that his mother got a widow’s pension after that same father didn’t make it back, and found her a clean apartment in a nice neighborhood to raise little Holm in! Now you’re telling me that Holm has been reporting on our activities to a rival organization?” The jackalope stepped forward, and the single light in the middle of the room revealed that his brown fur was turning gray with age. He was wearing an expensive outfit of green velvet with white trim, a silver chain around his neck. and one of his antlers had an engraved silver cap on its second tine.
“I’m afraid so, boss.”
“Well, that is disappointing,” Ribaud said, “very disappointing indeed.” He shook his head. “I suppose I should have found the young lad a role model as well.”
The man tied to the chair tried to spit on him, but he missed, the bloody saliva landing harmlessly on the floor. “Fuck... you...” he groaned.
Ribaud stepped forward with his head lowered, then tossed it to the side, raking Holm’s cheek with an antler and drawing blood. “No, fuck you Holm!” he shouted, dropping the pretense. “I looked out for you for years, gave you an easy job making great money, and didn’t make you beat any of your friends, even when they owed me money!” He lifted a foot and kicked the bound man in the chest, knocking him and the chair he was tied to over. “And after all that you turned on me! And for what?!“ The lanky man held out a small coin purse and Ribaud snatched it out of his hand and threw it at Holm, hitting him in the face. The purse came open, and a few heavy gold coins fell out. “A few fucking gold drachmas?! A year’s wages?! You don’t even spend everything I already pay you!”
“You...” Holm was having difficulty speaking, “working with Breakspear... sold us out.”
Ribaud stared at him, wide-eyed. “Are you really that dense? Any outfit with the name works with the local constabulary, it’s how organized crime stays organized! The watch looks the other way so long as bosses, that’s me, keep the idiots, that’s you, from causing enough trouble to disrupt the legitimate commerce that keeps a city running, or starting entirely avoidable gang wars! Fuck!” He kicked Holm again.
“Breakspear wanted our help to stop some fucking idiots from starting the war with Agathocles back up again! What an asshole I am, trying to stop you shitheads from getting conscripted, then stabbed and set on fire, hopefully in that order!
"I don't think that's why we're having this conversation, though. This is the sort of personal backstabbing that a person gloats about after the fact, when the person who trusted them is bleeding out on the floor. Sure, you made a little coin off it, but this was to fuck with me. Why are you fucking with me, Holm?" Ribaud kicked him again.
“Goswin said,” Holm choked the words out through his bruised and swelling lips, “...you let my father die.”
“Is that what this horseshit is about?! Is that what he told you?!” Ribaud grabbed Holm by his tunic and the bloody man nodded his head in the affirmative. “The fuck would he know about it?! His unit was guarding the fucking baggage train!”
Ribaud let go of Holm and paced back and forth in agitation. “Pick him up,” he told the two who had beaten the traitor. They grabbed the chair and set it upright again. The jackalope paced for a few moments before he spoke again.
“Your father,” he began, “like everybody else in his unit, was given a spear, a kettle helmet, a gambeson, and a week of training; then marched off to the front and told to charge a position held by a fucking pyromancer.” Holm’s eyes widened as Ribaud told him the story. The boss never talked about his time in the service.
“I don’t remember his name, but his standard was House Ignis. A thousand years of selective breeding to handle the elixir, and a lifetime of training, against a poorly-armed levy from Stanhope. Your father burned, and most of his company burned, and I nearly burned too.” The jackalope pulled up his left sleeve, revealing that a large portion of his arm was hairless and covered by burn scarring. “I didn’t let him die, I was just a smaller target. I knocked the legs out from underneath the Imperial bastard, and somebody got a spear between his armor plates before he could get back up.
“Our company marched onto that field with one hundred fifty soldiers. At the end of the day, there were eleven of us left alive, and two died from their injuries overnight.” Ribaud paused, remembering the worst day of his life. The four others in the room watched silently.
“The field commander came by the next morning to congratulate our captain on his ‘success’. One hundred forty-one slum rats to kill one of the Agathocletians’ vaunted pyromancers, what a bargain! They were so damn proud of themselves, hurray for the 3rd Army! They gave him a new command before the week was out, and some shiny medals besides, and they were too busy celebrating to bother showing up when we buried all the 26th Company’s dead in the same hole because we didn’t have the personnel to dig individual graves.
“You father was nothing to them, his comrades were nothing to them, and you’ll be nothing to them, too, if they get their damn war. To the rich and powerful, you and I aren’t people, we’re a resource to be spent in the pursuit of their goals; a little dearer than timber or wool, but certainly not so precious as gold.”
Holm was staring at Ribaud with his good eye, a look of despair growing on his face. Ribaud turned back to him and looked him in the eye.
“You’re... lying,” the prisoner rasped, “...you never... said anything before...”
“Since you know so gods-damned much then, what’s the right way to tell a boy his father died screaming on a field that smelled like charred meat, and his commanders didn’t give a shit?” the old jackalope snarled. ”I never did figure that one out. I hoped that telling him his father was brave would be enough.”
Holm began to sob. Ribaud shook his head, then walked over to the man he’d arrived with and looked over some papers the latter was carrying.
“Now,” Ribaud said when he was done, the anger in his voice mostly replaced by disappointment, “what did you tell Goswin?”
“I told him that Breakspear traced the gnome to a barge heading downstream, and that he put a crew together with two of ours and sent them after him,” Holm admitted. “I don’t know anything else.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Ribaud stared at him for a long moment. “If you live through this,” he said, looking Holm directly in the eye, “it’ll be as a favor to your mother. That woman has been through enough.” He turned around and stormed out, the man who’d arrived with him following close on his heels.
“What do you want to do with him?” the lanky man asked when they were out of earshot.
“Let him stew for a couple of hours, then clean him up and throw him in the basement. We can use him to pass false information to Goswin’s outfit.”
“And the gold?”
“Pay a bonus to whoever caught him, give the rest to the orphanage. I don’t fucking want it.” He spat. “Fucking Goswin.”
“If Holm causes any more problems?”
“His mother isn’t getting two favors. Don’t put him on anything important until we’re certain of his loyalties again.”
“This one’s here to see you, boss,” Aldegarde informed Fulcher Goswin, shoving a hooded figure into the office on the second story of The Soldier’s Arms. Goswin, dressed mostly in black, turned away from the window to regard the visitor.
“Ah,” he said, draining the last of the wine in his cup, “our friend from The Quarry. I’m glad you could make it! How are you? No trouble finding the place, I hope?” He set down the empty glass and strode over to meet the stranger, clasping his forearm in greeting. “What can I call you?”
“I go by Guy, and everyone knows where to find this place, sir. What’s all this about?” He glared at the ogre for the rough treatment, but neither of the brothers appeared concerned. His accent suggested an origin in Ostron, but Fulcher doubted that was the case.
“Short for ‘Gaius’, perhaps?” Fulcher asked good-naturedly. “I thought that was how your people named their children.”
The man in the cloak looked taken aback, “No sir, Mr. Goswin, I’m a loyal Ostrogothi citizen, born and bred!”
“Look Guy,” Fulcher said the name sarcastically, “either you can have this conversation with me, or I can have the boys here break your arms and legs, and throw you in that stinking pool at the bottom of your neighborhood, then I’ll have this conversation with your replacement. I know the place smells like shit, but do people down on the Quarryway still empty their chamberpots in the street, or has the city started sending the blackwagon around yet?” Guy scowled at the questions, his previous subservient manner disappearing.
“Oh, you thought I didn’t know who you were? Come now, there’s no harm meant, let’s not allow that to spoil your mood,” Goswin insisted, “Why don’t you have a seat over here and we can talk business. Can we get you some tea? Wine? Something stronger, perhaps?”
“There isn’t a decent bottle of wine in this entire city,” snapped Guy, “but I could probably stomach some tea.” He sat down in a padded chair near the fireplace. Goswin sat down in an identical chair across from him.
“Aldegarde, you and your brother go downstairs to the kitchen and get us a nice pot of tea,” the gangster ordered. The ogre nodded both heads and stepped out, closing the door behind him.
Guy turned back to Goswin after the door closed. “That’s a serious accusation to make. Do you have any evidence to support it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing so dramatic as all that. I control the flow of illicit goods into and out of Drumlummon, I know what they sell for, and I have bookkeepers to do the math. Your little crew has been profitable one month in ten, but you never have a problem paying your taxes to me. You haven’t borrowed money from anyone, so you have a backer subsidizing your operations. There’s a few possible explanations, but the idea that the Empire isn’t watching the garrison here is preposterous.
“No, Agathocles has spies here, and I say you’re one of them. I don’t have any proof, but I’m not a magistrate, and this isn’t a court of law.”
Guy glared daggers at him, but didn’t admit to anything. “Then what do you want?” he asked.
“Money, and a favor.”
“Blackmail? You brought me here to threaten me into a payoff?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m not a fool; I know that sort of arrangement falls through the moment it becomes cheaper to have me assassinated than to pay me. Frankly, assassins work too cheaply for that to be worth my time.”
Steps sounded outside the door, and the ogre brothers entered, stooping to avoid hitting their heads on the doorframe. They carried a tray with a steaming pot of tea, two ceramic cups, and a pair of cheese rolls. Guy and Fulcher watched as the ogre poured them each a cup.
Guy looked at his suspiciously until Fulcher rolled his eyes, reached over, and took a sip from it. Thus reassured, the accused spy took a small sip. His eyebrows rose, and he took a larger one.
“Are these the recipe you’ve been working on, Aldegarde?” asked Goswin as he picked up one of the rolls. The ogre nodded, and the tassel on his fez swung back and forth. The boss took a bite. “I see why they go so fast.”
“Cook still grumbles about us getting in her way in the kitchen.”
“She’s old and her joints hurt, she’ll always be grumbling about something,” Fulcher replied. “Why don’t you let Guy and I finish our conversation?”
Aldegarde and Agulf both nodded in acknowledgment and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind them again.
“What kind of hobby is cooking for a grown ogre?” Agulf demanded, his voice muffled by the door.
“There’s more to life than punching gits. If you’ve got such a problem with it, stop eating the food I make,” Aldegarde riposted. They continued bickering as they walked away.
“Now then, to business!” declared Goswin. “So your job is to gather information, specifically information related to troops and weapons development at the garrison and the university. I have some information you want, and you’re going to buy it from me.”
Guy narrowed his eyes. “What sort of information?”
“The sort that would likely be extremely useful to a military that relies on pyromancers.”
“The terms of the peace forbid further development of military pyromancy, and limited how many Agathocles could train.”
“Yes, and we’re all very good boys who never break the rules and do things we’re not supposed to do. How long would it take your organization to deliver a large amount of silver? Drachmas are difficult to pass off as legitimate earnings.”
Guy rubbed his chin for a moment. “How much silver?” he finally asked.
Goswin reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small card with a number written on it. He handed it to the spy, who raised an eyebrow at the amount.
“If I had this much to throw around, I wouldn’t be living in a slum over a pit full of garbage and human waste.”
“I’m sure you have a handler around somewhere. I can take payment in goods, provided they’re something we can move and sell easily, or even real estate if necessary. You don’t want to wait too long, or the opportunity to benefit from this will pass you by. That’s not me making a threat, that’s me advising you that some merchandise critical to the project could,” Goswin considered for a moment, “...expire, let’s say.”
“Would you be able to secure this merchandise?”
“I’d like to, but there are other players involved, and the item’s whereabouts are currently unknown. You’d do well to get your own resources involved in the search as soon as possible,” Fulcher tapped his index finger against his tea cup thoughtfully. “In the event that I manage to acquire the item first, I would be willing to part with it for an additional payment, and a guarantee that you’ll understand when you have all the information.” He took another bite of a cheese roll.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Guy stated, putting his cup down.
“I’m sure you can find your way out then,” Fulcher said. “Oh, and don’t think any of this excuses you from making your regular operating tax payments."
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Guy remarked dryly as he pull his hood back over his head.
Goswin smiled menacingly. “I look forward to doing business with you.”