“How…?”
Again the laugh sounded out. Marius took another step forward, then another, until he stood in the centre of the hut. Slowly he turned in a complete circle, taking in his surroundings.
Captain Bomthe had complained, often enough that Marius could recite it verbatim as he lay on his cot listening to the man on the deck above, of the incessant thefts visited upon the Minerva by the natives. In the three days they had been at anchor, enough supplies were lost that they would barely be replaced by the gains made from their stopover. Proof of their losses crowded the space around Marius: countless items, small and large, worthless and valuable, piled one upon the other with no thought for order, fragility, or purpose. Marius completed his circle, cataloguing the contents with practiced, mathematical precision: urns; coats; bags of flour; boxes overflowing with beads, brooches, and rings; even three of the new arbalests being trialled by the King of Scorby’s personal guard; all lay heaped together like haphazard spoils of war, spreading out from the walls in an ankle-thick carpet. Whilst the new King paraded his gewgaws down upon the sand, a small fortune had bypassed his gaze on the way up to this hovel.
“It will all be gone by the time you return to your boat, dead man,” the voice cackled, as if reading his mind. “Do not bother yourself with such trifles. You have something for me?” A dark lump in the far corner stirred, and unfolded from between the piles of refuse. Two stick-like arms emerged from either side of a bundle of rags, dragging the mass into the centre of the room.
Disturbed air flowed over Marius, and despite the deadness of his sense of smell he gagged. The pile of rags scuttled forward like an angry insect, the sharpness of its movement making him stumble backwards until his shoulders hit the wall. The hut shook from the impact. Marius threw his arms out, absurdly afraid of burial underneath whatever constituted the outer surface of the roof. The creature reared up, gripping the material of his jacket, using the leverage to pull itself upwards until it stood on hind legs, pinning him against its dry, fetid body. Slowly, like some sort of predatory tortoise, a vague approximation of a head emerged. Marius tried to speak, to offer some protest, but his voice has deserted him – the beast was an old woman, old beyond belief. If the scarring of her wrinkled face could be counted an accurate witness, then there were rock formations at the base of fissures inside the Ageless Mountains that had fewer candles on their birthday cake. What Marius had taken to be an animal’s pelt was a thin blanket, which did nothing to lessen its filthy, bestial nature. A hand, more claw than flesh, waved about in short pecks, indicating a spot in the dirt by his feet.
Marius had never believed in witchcraft. Not really, at least, as much as an upbringing in a household with two Neopagan parents and an Old Godsman grandmother would allow. He had known too many wizards, and been a conjuror too many times himself, to count magic as anything more than a combination of herbalism, sleight of hand, and a need for money. But this was different, somehow. Marius was used to hungry conmen trying to ingratiate themselves with their chosen sucker. There was something wrong when a witch was properly creepy.
“Sit,” the old woman commanded. Marius lowered himself, imitating her cross-legged hunch. Halfway down he realised what he was doing and coughed. Great, he thought. Now I look and sound like her. The crone crooked a finger, beckoning him closer. Unable to choose between myriad misgivings, Marius complied.
“What does a dead man want with me?” she asked, her breath washing over Marius like the plague. Ignoring the burning sensation at the back of his eyes, Marius replied.
“Well, actually, I was following…”
The crone chuckled, and Marius stopped, aware of how ludicrous his unformed desire had been. Even alive, he’d have needed gold of some description to bed a woman such as the one he followed. In fact, only Keth had ever… he stopped that line of thought before it could progress.
“You have gold?” the witch asked, her voice suddenly sharp. Marius blinked in surprise.
“How did you know I…?”
“Ishga would not bring you unless you had something to trade. And I do not want your clothes.” She laughed again, a low, dirty sound that turned Marius’ lips downward in prudish disapproval. “Well? What have you got for me?”
Marius reached into his jerkin and removed the two wedding rings he had lifted in Borgho City. He held them out on his palm.
“Are these enough?”
She viewed them with a curt “tch”, and he lapsed into an embarrassed silence. This woman was nearly an animal. And here he was, a man of the world: sophisticated, educated – well, knowledgeable, at any rate – at home in any city in the civilized world, holding out trinkets like a child hoping for approval. He almost closed his hand and removed the offering. He couldn’t say why he didn’t.
“Well, what does she normally charge?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. The old woman tilted her head and glared out of the corners of her eyes at him, and he realised with sudden certainty that this transaction was no longer about buying the sex of an island stranger. There was something deeper being bargained for, and he was momentarily too afraid to continue the transaction. Before he could act on his fear, however, the old lady pointed an unreasonably long nail, and speared the rings, holding them up to her eye.
“What’s wrong with them?”
Marius stammered, and half-rose before finding his composure. Good God, he thought, what is wrong with me? This is simple market negotiation, nothing more. You’re acting like a naughty grandchild. The normal course, under these circumstances, was to imagine your adversary naked. It had the effect of removing the silver from their words, revealing them as the same sweaty, greedy lump of flesh as the rest of us. Imagining this woman naked was the last thing Marius wanted. He sniffed, and gathered his wits.
“Nothing,” he said, deepening his voice and speaking slower. An old trick: control the pace of the conversation, increase the gravitas of your words. “I inherited them from an aunt, a spinster who died before she had the chance to wear them in commitment to a man.”
“Hmm.” The crone lifted them from his hand, cupped them in her palm, and closed her eyes. “An interesting man, your aunt. The beard suits him. Not easy, affording a suit on a butcher’s wages.” She opened her eyes, look straight at Marius. “She turned him down, when he could not present her with a ring. A lonely, broken man, your poor aunt.”
The rings disappeared into her rags and she leaned forward, until their faces were separated by less than a foot. Her smoke-yellowed eyes captured his with a glare so piercing he glanced away in case she read something he didn’t want revealed.
“Why are you here, dead man?”
“I…” Marius peered around the hut and wondered why himself, just for a moment. “The girl, the one that brought me here…”