Cutter reeled back, then found Sulty in his arms, grasping him tight — tight with arms astonishingly strong after a dozen or so years of trays and pitchers — so light all the air was pushed from his lungs,
‘He’ll live,’ pronounced Meese from where she crouched over Rallick, who was lying on the floor behind the counter. ‘Once we stop the bleeding. He musta been lumped by three or four, by the looks.’ Straightening, she dropped the bloody dagger on the counter. A crowd was gathering, and heads now tilted in for a closer look at that foreign-made weapon.
‘Malazan!’ hissed someone.
Pulling himself from Sulty’s arms, Cutter pushed through. ‘Give me room! Don’t touch that knife! It’s mine.’
‘Yours?’ demanded Irilta. ‘What’s that supposed t’mean, Crokus?’
‘He came up on me from behind — all quiet — like a killer. I thought I was defending myself — it was all a mistake — you sure he’s going to be all right, Meese?’
‘You was that scrawny thief years back!’ said a man with a vaguely familiar face, his expression flitting between disbelief and accusation.
‘Crokus, Irilta said,’ added the man beside him. — ‘Did something the night the Moon came down, I heard. Knocked over a pillar or something. You remember, Scorch, don’t you?’
‘I make a point of remembering only what I need to, Leff. Though sometimes other stuff sticks, too. Anyway, he was a pickpocket, one of Kruppe’s lads.’
‘Well he ain’t any more, is he?’ Scorch said in a half-snarl. ‘Now he’s a Guild assassin!’
‘No I’m not!’ shouted Cutter — all at once feeling like the ungainly youth he had been years ago. Furious at his own burning face he swung to Meese. ‘Where’s everybody else? I mean-’
Meese held up a hand — on which there was some of Rallick’s blood — and said, ‘He’s waiting, Crokus. At his usual table — go on. Hey,’ she shouted to the crowd, ‘give him a way through! Go back t’your tables!’
Just like that, Cutter reflected, he had made things a shambles. His grand return. Everything. Reaching out as he passed, he retrieved his knife — not meeting Meese’s eyes as he did so. Then, as bodies pulled back, he saw-
There, at his usual table, the small round man with greasy hair and beaming, cherubic smile. Filthy frilly cuffs, a faded and stained red waistcoat. A glistening pitcher on the puddled tabletop, two tankards.
Just a thief. A pickpocket. A raider of girls’ bedrooms. Wasn’t I the breathless one? A wide-eyed fool. Oh, Kruppe, look at you. If anybody wasn’t going to change, it’s you.
Cutter found himself at the table, collapsing into the waiting chair, reaching for the tankard. ‘I gave up on my old name, Kruppe. It’s now Cutter. Better suited, don’t you think?’ Then why do I feel like weeping? ‘Especially after what I did to Rallick just now.’
Kruppe’s brows lifted. ‘Kruppe sympathizes, oh yes he does. Life stumbles on — although the exception is none other than Kruppe himself, for whom life dances. Extraordinary, how such truth rubs so many so wrongly; why, can one’s very existence prove sufficient for such inimical outrage? Seems it can, oh yes, most certainly. There are always those, dear friend, for whom a wink is an insult, a smile a taunt. For whom humour alone is cause for suspicion, as if laughter was sly contempt. Tell Kruppe, dear Cutter, do you believe that we are all equal?’
‘Equal? Well-’
‘A laudable notion, we can both agree, yes? Yet’ — and he raised one rather unclean finger-’is it not true that, from one year to the next, we each ourselves are capable of changes so fundamental that our present selves can in no reasonable way be considered equal to our past selves? If the rule does not apply even within our own individual lives, how can one dare hope to believe that it pertains collectively?’
‘Kruppe, what has all this-’
‘Years past, Cutter who was once named Crokus, we would not have a discussion such as this, yes? Kruppe sees and sees very well. He sees sorrow and wisdom both. Pain and still open wounds. Love found and love lost. A certain desperation that still spins like a coin — which way will it fall? Question as yet unanswered, a future as yet undecided. So, old friend now returned, let us drink, thus yielding the next few moments to companionable silence.’ And with that Kruppe collected his tankard and lifted it high.
Sighing, Cutter did the same.
‘The spinning coin!’
And he blanched. ‘Gods below, Kruppe!’
‘Drink, friend! Drink deep the unknown and unknowable future!’
And so he did.
The wheel had stopped spinning, milky water dripping down its sides to gather in the gutter surrounding it. The bright lanterns had been turned well down, sinking the room into soft light, and she now walked towards her bed, drying her hands with a towel.
In a day or two she would fire up the kiln.
It was late and this was no time to be thinking the heavy, turgid thoughts that now threatened to reach up and take hold of her weary mind. Regret has a flavour and it is stale, and all the cups of tea in the world could do nothing to wash it away.
The scratching at the door brought her round — some drunk at the wrong house, no doubt. She was in no mood to answer.
Now knuckles, tapping with muted urgency.
Tiserra tossed the towel down, rubbed absently at her aching wrist, then collected one of the heavier stirring sticks from the glaze table and approached the door. ‘Wrong house,’ she said loudly. ‘Go on, now!’
A fist thumped.
Raising the stick, Tiserra unlatched the door and swung it back.
The man stepping into the threshold was wearing a stupid grin.
One she knew well, had known for years, although it had been some time since she had last seen it. Lowering the stick, she sighed. ‘Torvald Nom. You’re late.’
‘Sorry, love,’ he replied. ‘I got waylaid. Slavers. Ocean voyages. Toblakai, dhenrabi, torture and crucifixion, a sinking ship.’
‘I had no idea going out for a loaf of bread could be so dangerous.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘the whole mess started with me hearing about a debt. One I didn’t know I had. That bastard Gareb set me up, said I owed him when I didn’t, but that’s not something one can argue, not without an advocate — which we couldn’t afford-’
‘I know all about Gareb,’ Tiserra replied. ‘His thugs visited here often enough once you disappeared, and yes, I did need an advocate — to get Gareb to back off.’
‘He was threatening you?’
‘He claimed that your debt was my debt, dear husband. Of course that’s nonsense. Even after I won that challenge, he had me followed around. For months. Suspected you were in hiding somewhere and I was delivering food and the like, I suppose. I can’t tell you how much fun that was. Why can’t I, Torvald? Because it wasn’t. Fun, that is. Not fun at all.’
‘I’m home now,’ Torvald said, trying the smile again. ‘Wealthy, too. No more debt — I’m clearing that in the morning, straight away. And no more low-grade temper for your clay either. And a complete replenishment of your herbs, tinctures and such — speaking of which, just to be safe we should probably put together a ritual or two-’
‘Oh, really? You’ve been stealing again, haven’t you? Tripped a few wards, did you? Got a bag of coins all glowing with magic, have you?’
‘And gems and diamonds. It was only proper, love, honest. A wrongful debt dealt with wrongfully, the two happily cancelling each other out, leaving everything rightful!’
She snorted, then stepped back and let him inside. ‘I don’t believe I’m buying all this.’
‘You know I never lie to you, Tis. Never.’
‘So who did you rob tonight?’
‘Why, Gareb, of course. Cleaned him out, in fact.’
Tiserra stared at him. ‘Oh, husband.’
‘I know, I’m a genius. Now, about those wards — as soon as he can, he’ll bring in some mages to sniff out the whereabouts of his loot.’
‘Yes, Torvald, I grasp the situation well enough. You know where the secret hole is — drop the bag in there, if you please, while I get started on the rest.’