She shook her head. ‘You’re mad,’ she told him. ‘Mind
you, I value that. Look, I’ve a man you can go to. Don’t tell him I sent you. It won’t help your case. I just happen to know he’s down at Scaggle’s tonight, after a job.’
There were even lower dives than the scorpion-fronted gambling den. Scaggle’s was one of them. It was further down the river, built under a bridge so that there were water marks halfway up the stone steps. Scaggle was a Beetle-kinden crone, burly and round shouldered. She was all the staff she needed, all the guards too. Even as Bello came up the steps he had to flit aside as she hurled a drunk down onto them, careless of whether he hit rock or water. She squinted at Bello, then hulked back inside.
It was very dark in there. The place was little more than a cave. Fly-kinden eyes were good, though, and Bello could pick out a dozen men sitting round five tables, lit only by wan candlelight. They were Beetles and half-breeds, save for one. That one was the man Bello had come here to find.
He was as outlandish as anyone Bello had seen: tall and straight and fair, with sharply pointed features and skin that was very pale. He wore an arming jacket secured with an elaborate pin. He looked as though he had stepped out of another world, from a story.
He eyed Bello narrowly, saying nothing as the boy approached him. When he raised his earthenware mug to drink, Bello saw the flexing spines of the Mantis-kinden jutting from his forearm.
He said nothing, neither invitation nor dismissal. It was left to Bello to say, ‘Excuse me, you are Master Tisamon?’
A nod only. Bello forced himself on before he dried up. ‘I need to hire you, Master.’
The man Tisamon’s mouth quirked at that and he put his mug down. ‘Do you know why I come here?’ he asked. His voice was as dry and sharp as the rest of him.
Bello shook his head.
‘I come here because people hiring men like me do not,’ Tisamon finished.
‘I need to hire you,’ Bello repeated.
‘Go away.’
‘I can’t. I won’t.’
Abruptly Tisamon was standing, and Bello felt as though he’d swallowed his heart. There had been no transition between ease and edge. The edge had always been there, just out of sight. On the man’s right hand was a metal gauntlet that ended in a two-foot blade jutting from the fingers.
‘Please…’ Bello said, through a throat gone dry.
‘Can I help you?’ Tisamon asked, and he was looking over Bello’s head. Not wanting to take his eyes off the man, Bello forced himself to crane back. There were three newcomers there, burly Beetle men squinting in the gloom.
‘Don’t want to disturb you, chief,’ said one of them. ‘Just need a word with the little fellow here.’
Bello choked, flinched back from them. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘We’re the fellows you’re walking out of here with,’ said their leader. ‘You’ll excuse us, chief, won’t you?’
‘Certainly,’ Tisamon said, relaxing back, only it was not really relaxing. Bello saw the edge still there, though the Beetles missed it. ‘When I’ve finished speaking with my client, that is.’
There was a pause while the Beetles exchanged glances, Tisamon smiling urbanely at them.
‘Now, listen, chief-’ their leader started, and one of the others snapped out, ‘Look, this ain’t nothing to do with you. We’re taking the Fly-boy.’
He grabbed Bello by the shoulder, surprisingly swift.
Tisamon moved. Bello saw nothing of it. As soon as he could, he dived beneath the table, and the fact that the hand came with him, and the man stayed where he was, made sense only later on.
There was a lot of noise, tables being kicked over, shouts of outrage from the other patrons. Then there was surprisingly little noise. Bello put his head over the table-top. Tisamon remained standing, a dark, narrow shape. The three thugs were down and still. There was remarkably little blood and already old Mother Scaggle was hunching forward, gnarled hands reaching for rings and purses. Tisamon nodded at her and, a swift moment later when she was done, he hauled the bodies out, one by one, turfing them into the river. Bello saw then another reason he chose his drinking haunts.
When he came back there was no blood on him, and the metal gauntlet had gone. He resumed his seat, resumed his drink. ‘Come out, boy,’ he said.
When Bello did so he found himself being scrutinized, as if doubtful goods. ‘You’re no rich man’s brat,’ Tisamon said. ‘So why do the Firecallers want you?’
‘Firecallers?’ Bello looked back at the river that had borne the dead men away without complaint. ‘I… was going to hire you to fight them…’
‘Is that so? I’m not your first choice, though. Who else have you tried?’ Tisamon asked. Seeing Bello’s expression he nodded. ‘Someone worked out that there was money in letting the Firecallers know about you.’ He was smiling now, although it was not a pleasant smile. ‘What have you got against the Firecallers?’
‘They want to throw my parents onto the street,’ Bello said. It was not quite true, but true enough.
Tisamon shrugged, the spines flexing on his arms. ‘You’re the second man to try to hire me against the Firecallers. I turned him down as well.’ As Bello sagged, Tisamon’s smile became sharper. ‘However, I appear to be involved now, so let’s go visit my other patron, shall we?’
Bello sat in a small cellar, watching Tisamon talk with a huge, fat Beetle. The fat man was robed in straining white like a scholar, sitting back in a big, stuffed chair. There was a man on either side of him. One had a crossbow and the other something Bello thought was a Waster, broad-barrelled and gaping. From what he’d heard from others about these new firepowder weapons, the blast of metal scrap would be quite enough to rip both him and Tisamon apart.
Tisamon was quite unconcerned, despite the fact that both weapons were now levelled at him. All he said was, ‘Is this what passes for your welcome?’
‘When a hired killer who’s turned you down suddenly wants to talk, you get suspicious,’ the fat man said. ‘Now what’s the deal, Mantis?’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Tisamon said easily, and the negotiations started. Bello sat in the corner, watching as the light of the single lantern above guttered on their features. The fat man displayed lordly unconcern but there was a tremor behind it. Bello had no idea who he was. Only when they had left did he realize that he was Maynard, of the House of Maynard, the fief whose borders the Firecallers were busy eroding.
‘What happens now?’ Bello asked.
‘Time passes,’ Tisamon told him. Outside, within what remained of the House of Maynard fief, there was a dawn edge to the eastern sky. He found it impossible to believe that this had all been just one night – or that it had happened at all.
‘Go home,’ Tisamon said.
Bello goggled at him. ‘But, Master Tisamon… they are looking for me…’
Tisamon shrugged. ‘We cannot change that.’
The fly battered against the glass, unable to believe it was not free. Bello thought, grasped for an idea, and caught it.
It was an awkward breakfast. Little was said. Had there been an alternative, or had Bello’s father been the man for it, he would have refused. Instead he shuffled aside, slope-shouldered, a curdled look on him, when Bello brought his new friend home.
‘Been people looking for you,’ he muttered. His father’s stare at Tisamon lumped the man in with those same ‘people’. ‘Been causing trouble?’
‘Some,’ Bello said, torn between showing Tisamon a happy family and showing off. The fighter stooped in, giving each parent a brisk nod. Bello thought his mother would protest. The Fly-kinden had their rules of hospitality, though, like everyone else. She went reluctantly to their forced guest, staring straight ahead at his belt, not up at his face.
‘Will you sit down, Master?’ she said. ‘Please, take your place.’
It would be a comic scene to any of the larger kinden: Tisamon crouched at one edge of that low table, all elbows and knees and lowered head, filling far too much of the room. For a Fly-kinden it was an intrusion, a threat. Even a lean man like Tisamon, even had he not been what he was, could have broken them, and taken what he wanted. He did not acknowledge it, nor did he find any humour in it. He took the meagre bread and cheese that Bello’s mother offered with quiet thanks, not refusing out of charity nor demanding more. It took Bello all the meal to work out what was so strange about him.