Scar Night Page 0,8
smokers exhaled. “Where does he think he’s going with that?”
“It’s the big scrounger from up Dens way,” the man on the gangplank said, “with the cut-up girl.”
The cutpurse lowered his head and the shadows under his eyes darkened. He took a step toward Mr. Nettle, all brazen like he owned the road.
“Leave him to the temple guard,” the smoker said. “Man doesn’t know better. He’s drunk or stupid with grief.”
“Got no right to take that thing to the temple,” the cutpurse said.
Mr. Nettle tightened his grip on Abigail and shoved past him. The walkway lurched. The other man spun and gripped the street-rope to steady himself. “You think they’ll let that in?” he called. “Think they won’t know?”
“Might be someone tells them first,” the man on the gangplank said. “Best bury her in the Deadsands, save yourself the walk.”
Mr. Nettle kicked the plank from under him.
The man threw an elbow over one of the guide-ropes. The hemp stretched dangerously, groaned, but held, leaving him swinging over darkness. The smokers laughed.
Mr. Nettle grunted. Damn right he was drunk.
When the men were out of sight, he shifted Abigail’s corpse to a more comfortable place on his shoulder. His heart was beating painfully. For a long while he searched the ground, seeing nothing.
What would Abigail have made of his present mood? How many times had she brooded and sulked, fretted and cried and shaken him to break his silence over one of her worries? He’d never gotten angry; never raised a hand to her like some fathers might have done. He’d just sat there and watched her through his whisky, quiet like. The bottle felt cold in his hand. He took another slug.
After a while, the path brought him to the edge of the Workers’ Warrens. Here the sprawl of timber huts and walkways lapped the walls of stone-built tenements. Frost clung to the cobbles and flint in Coal Street, a wending fissure which led the scrounger into the district of Chapelfunnel. Fog smothered the ground and writhed amid the swish of his mourning robe. Wisps of it coiled around his knees.
Maybe four hours until dawn. He was running out of time. He drank deeply, savouring the burn in his throat. Mutilation was not the answer. Not for his child. Those that took knives to their dead were worse than blaggards, or thieves, or cutthroats. They were worse than the heathens. Yet what choice did he have? If he was to see her safe?
Under his robe, the cleaver hung heavy from his belt.
Coal Street narrowed as he went deeper into the Warrens, pressing the fog into a dank vein. He passed Boiler’s Inn, silent and shuttered, and followed the long curve round Fishmarket. Smoke drifted through the locked grates. He narrowed his eyes and pushed on through it, hoping the shroud would not retain the smell. Past Fishmarket the tenements grew taller and slouched inwards. In some places the upper storeys buttressed those opposite, like exhausted brawlers, and then Mr. Nettle’s footsteps echoed in utter darkness. Unseen tunnels burrowed into the walls here, gaping maws that leaked chill draughts, odours of damp straw and horses, hookah smoke and weed. Once, he sniffed the spice of the censers at Sinners’ Well: his stomach clenched at that.
Beyond the tunnels there was scarcely more light. With the brands here long out, moonlight fell in grey slabs that made the shadows all the darker. He trudged past bolted door after bolted door. Rusted bridges linked the districts of the Warrens, spanning narrow canals of empty space. He left Chapelfunnel and crossed into Merrygate, iron ringing under the hobnails of his boots.
He was deep in the Warrens, where Merrygate merged into Applecross and the road skirted the broken watchtower to follow Dolmen’s Chain, when he noticed a heap of blankets on the ground ahead stir. A voice chimed out: “Coin for a pilgrim, sir, a penny or a double? Look at the moon grin—one night before she’s dark. A double for a room to keep me safe.”
Blankets hid the boy’s face, but Mr. Nettle saw the cup outstretched.
“Hungry,” the beggar said, reaching for his own mouth. “No mother, no father.”
Mr. Nettle spat at him without breaking stride.
Fifty years a scrounger had taught him plenty. Expect nothing, ask for nothing. If you need a thing, you find it or you pay for it. If you can’t find it or you can’t afford it, you never needed it. A double would make no difference anyway. Didn’t matter what night it