The woman’s laugh was low. “But I am Mercy Blackpug. You must be referring to my sister, Mince. She takes my wares to market.”
“Your sister? That hag? Do you think me a fool?”
The woman began filling a hookah. Her long-fingered hands moving in the darkness made Guld think of seasnakes. “Different lifestyles,” she murmured, “alas. Mince eats no meat, no fish. Only vegetables. And herbs. She drinks no alcohol. She smokes no durhang, nor my own favourite, rust-leaf. She is celibate, an early riser, asleep with the sunset. She jogs the cliff-trail out to More-Pity Point and back every day, no matter the weather. She is but a year older than me. Thirty-six.”
Smoke plumed, billowed to fill the shack with its swirling haze. “I, on the other hand,” Mercy continued, “imbibe all manner of vices, much to her disgust. In any case, my dear, I take it you are not here to sample my… wares.”
I’ll have to think about that. Dammit, do not get distracted! “I want to know the nature of Mince’s interest in the murders. Where is she?”
“Probably down at the docks, haranguing the sailors.”
“About what?”
“They are an offense to wellness. Mince would reform them-”
“Hold on, she’s not the woman who petitions the king every week?”
“The very same. My sister would be pleased to see Lamentable Moll a bastion of pure, righteous behaviour. Offenses punishable by death, of course. This rust-leaf is flavoured with essence of mint, would you care to try?”
“No.” Not now. Maybe later. Yes, later — “No, I said!”
Her blue eyes widened. “Was I insisting?”
“Sorry. No, you weren’t.”
“My sister likely attends murder scenes in search of converts. She preys on fear, as you might imagine.”
“So why is it she tolerates you? Enough to try and sell your dolls at market?”
Mercy laughed. “You of all people should know that the king’s spikes are rarely… unadorned. Lamentable Moll breeds criminals faster than rats, faster even than the king can hang them up.”
Guld glanced at a doll hanging close to him. Not pigskin, then.
Mercy drew on her mouthpiece, then continued, “The skin of criminals. My sister finds the irony delicious.”
Sudden nausea threatened the sergeant. He stared down at the woman, aghast.
She gave him a broad, white smile that seemed to sizzle right through him. She said, “Mostly relatives of the dead, my customers. Mementos of the departed. Who can fathom the human mind?”
“I may be back,” Guld managed, stepping outside.
“Who indeed?” she laughed. “Until later, then, Sergeant.”
He staggered up the alley, struggling to calm his thoughts. A voice cackled from the shadows to his right. “ ’Ware my sister, young man!”
Guld wheeled.
Mince’s crunched-leather face grinned humourlessly at him from between two hanging dolls. She had few teeth left, worn down to stumpy pegs. “She will be the death of you!” the hag rasped. “She is a pit! A whirlpool of licentiousness! A temptress. A knower of Moll’s most secret and vice-ridden lairs-you would not believe the extent of her business interests!”
Guld’s eyes thinned. “Lairs, you said? Tell me, Mince, would she also know details of who frequents such places?”
“She knows all, does my evil sister! Except how to take care of herself! Ill health stalks her, as yet unseen, but as sure as Hood himself! Soon, you shall see! Soon, unless she mends her ways!”
The sergeant glanced back down the alley. No reason to delay, is there? Not at all. I need to question Mercy. In detail. May take hours, but there’s nothing to be done for it.
“Do not succumb!” Mince hissed.
Ignoring the hag, Guld began marching back down Doll Street.
Knoll Barrow was by far the largest and the only grassy barrow in Lamentable Moll. It had been riven through countless times, and had the unique quality of containing absolutely nothing. Boulders, gravel, and potsherds were all that the endless looters and antiquarians unearthed.
Guld found the city’s two preeminent rat-hunters picnicking atop the Knoll. They had built a small fire over which they roasted skinned rats. A dusty bottle of fine wine waited to one side, beside a clay jar with a sealed lid.
Birklas Punth and Blather Roe were not quite typical among Moll’s professional rat-hunters. Nevertheless, the sergeant had on occasion made use of their vast knowledge of every conceivable facet of the city’s underworld, and had found them of sufficient value to tolerate their peculiarities.
“Such a serious regard!” Birklas observed with a fluttering wave of greasy fingers as Guld ascended the barrow. “Why is it, I wonder, that the lowborn are so often seen maundering, nay, burdened unto buckling with the seriousness of their hapless lot? Is it then the sole task of the pure-blooded denizens of fair Moll to while away the days-and indeed the nights-with unfeigned slovenity?”
“And what’s so pure about your blood, Punth?” Guld growled as he reached the two men.
“Singular intent, poor sergeant, is the most cleansing of endeavours. Witness here before you amiable myself, and, at my side, himself. We two are most singular.”
Both men wore little more than rags, apart from large, floppy, leather hats-Birklas’ dyed a sun-faded magenta and Blather’s a mottled yellow. Countless rat-tails hung from their twine belts, and encircling their wrists and ankles were more rat-tails, these ones braided in ingenious patterns.
Blather Roe reached for the jar and pried open the lid with a bloodstained dagger. “You’ve come jutht in time, Thergeant. The ratth are almotht roathted and the pickled pinkeeth offer uth a perfect appetither. Pleath, theat yourthelf at our thides.”
“And I,” Birklas added, “shall pour the vintage, whilst my partner fishes out some of those pickled pinkies.”
The vinegar had made the baby hairless rats pinker than was natural, a detail strangely adding to his horror as Guld watched Blather drawing one forth and raising it to his mouth. The pinky vanished between his lips with a sucking sound. The man swallowed, then sighed.
“A fine beginning,” Birklas observed. “Shucked like an oyster, true evidence of cultured breeding.”
Guld scowled. “Cultured breeding? Do you mean Blather, or the rats?”
“Oh, tho very droll, Thergeant,” Blather Roe tittered. “Join uth, pleath!”
“No thanks, I’ve already eaten.”
Birklas turned to his partner. “Can you not discern, friend, that Sergeant Guld here is sorely disposed? Dreadful murders every night! The bells peal! The rats scurry hither and thither, and even Whitemane himself hides in his deepest cove. Aye, something foul stalks fair Moll, and here is its chief hunter, come to us in need of assistance.”
Blather drew back. “Motht thertainly I wath cognithant of the thergeant’th therious plight! I wath but being courteouth!”
“No more arguing about civility,” the sergeant growled. “I’ve heard you talk about Whitemane a hundred times and I want to know once and for all, does he really exist?”
“Thertainly!”
“Indisputably, Sergeant.”
Guld fixed his gaze on Birklas. “And he’s a Soletaken?”
“Aye, he is. An unprepossessing man, when in that shape. But once he’s veered, the most intimidating of rats. A clever and vicious tyrant, Ruler of the Furred Kingdom, Slayer of All Challengers, Fornicator of the Highest-”
“Yes yes, all that. And you’re saying he’s hiding from our murderer?”
“Burrowed deep, Sergeant. Quivering-”
“I see. Should I then assume Whitemane has met the killer?”
Birklas shrugged. “Perhaps he has. More likely his runners have, or his junction guards, or his rooftop peepers-”
“But not hith food tathters,” Blather cut in.
“No,” Birklas solemnly agreed. “Not his food tasters indeed. Blather, how are his food tasters doing?”
Blather Roe prodded the skewered rats. “Done, I would thay.”
“Excellent! Now, Sergeant, is there anything else we can do for you?”