Swimmer was in the middle of the crowd with a tankard in his hand when the exploding bottles started to fly. He didn’t see where the first one came from because he was staring at a girl who had ridden in on one of the harvest wagons. Whoever picked her had a good eye, he thought; some old lecher of a priest, probably, soothing the mother with talk of divine service while he ogled the daughter and plotted. He wasn’t sure how he became aware of the thing flying over his head; did someone look up and react, or did he just feel the danger in his bones? Anyway he looked up in time to see it fly straight at the Viscount’s wagon, then turn away and sail into the harbor as if pushed by a stiff wind nothing and nobody else could feel. That was quite a trick, he thought. Who on earth had done that?
There were always rumors about mages, but Swimmer was sure he had never met one so he had never believed the talk. So far as he was concerned the mages had all died in the most spectacular suicide in history. You could think they knew how to go out with style, tearing the earth apart and taking a whole island and a few million people with them. Or you could think they were the biggest fucking morons who ever lived to blow up themselves and everything they had built because of an argument over who got the dumbest title, or whatever mages fought about. Anyway they were dead and gone. But if there was any other way to explain bottles changing course in mid-flight, Swimmer didn’t know it. Come to think of it he had heard a drunk guard say the Viscount’s sister was a mage, but he had believed that even less than the rest of the stories. She was too haughty and perfectly dressed to spend time with old books. And her brother the Viscount was the most graceful and athletic idiot around the whole Middle Sea. Swimmer had started searching the crowd for someone who might have done it, but before he had found a good candidate more bottles started flying and exploding and all hell was breaking loose.
At the first explosion, the people around Swimmer froze for a second. Then, as if they had only one mind and that mind belonged to a mouse, they all started to scream and run. Most of them tried to run away from the harbor and back into the town, but some tried to run the other way, right into trouble. Neither actually got anywhere, since the place was packed with people, but that didn’t stop them from trying, and trying so hard they were knocking each other to the ground and making it even harder to move. Just a few feet from Swimmer a man in sailor’s garb shoved a short woman out of his way, only to have the woman’s husband land a big fist in his face. Swimmer decided to go with the flow and follow the crowd toward Sailmakers’ Street, trying to keep moving without shoving anybody too hard.
Maybe twenty feet away there was a burst of shouting and struggle, following by an explosion and a cloud of black smoke. Screams tore the air, followed by choking and retching. God of the Sea, thought Swimmer, what a fucking mess. Somebody must have tackled an assassin before he could throw his bomb. What was the good of that? Why not let him throw it first so it would explode somewhere else and kill some other lot of sorry bastards? If I see some crazy bastard about to throw a deadly missile in the other direction, I’m biding my time until it’s safely gone.
Covering his face with his sleeve, Swimmer tried to move away from the black cloud. It was no good; too many people, too little space. He coughed. Just then a voice shouted, “There’s another one!” Swimmer looked up and saw a man pointing wildly in his direction. He was tall and thin, with long arms that were waving around like branches in a storm. His cloak pin screamed money, and people seemed to be paying attention to him. Looking down, Swimmer saw the tankard in his hand. Shit, he thought. It was good wine, too. Well, nothing for it. He dashed the wooden mug to the paving stones, where it cracked and spilled its contents. “It’s wine!” he yelled. “Just wine!”
But the guy was still shouting. “Grab him! Grab him!”
Swimmer saw that a gap of sorts had opened through the crowd between him and his accuser, as people turned to get a better look at what was going on. He lunged through it. Right up to the tall guy. Swimmer got right into his face and said, quietly, “I’m just an ordinary sailor with a mug of wine, and if you say another word I’m going to kill you.”
The man stopped. He seemed about to speak but no words came. Other people were gathering around them, muttering pointing. Swimmer drew back his left hand punched the guy right below the ribs, as hard as he could. He gasped, out of breath. That, thought Swimmer, out to shut him up for a while. He slipped away into the crowd, fighting back the urge to cough. Gods, that smell.
The square was opening up as people were able to get out, and the worst of the smoke had cleared. Swimmer saw two dozen bodies on the ground, some writhing, some not moving at all. People were kneeling down next to some of them, trying to help. Some lay alone, probably beyond help. He saw a knot of people on the far side of the square, surrounded by guards, and among them he saw the Viscount and his sister.
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He wondered if there would be a war now, and if he should sign up. The Viscount had the style to be a war hero, if somebody else would do his thinking for him. Maybe there would be plunder, even a city to sack. Might be worth a shot. Then again maybe the thing was to wait for all the other men to leave town on campaign and have some fun with their wives. Or find a ship smuggling contraband through the fighting. Or – nah, this was all getting ahead. One step at a time. What he needed now was a drink. Seeing that the way to Sailmakers’ Street was nearly clear he started to head toward the Bucket. Then he stopped himself; he didn’t feel like getting in a fight or having to dodge out of the way of one, and he had silver from his last voyage. He turned toward Harbor Street instead and let the crowd lead him to the Underking.
He stepped through the door under the sign of the fat, crowned goblin sitting cross-legged in the air. The place was crowded and getting more crowded every minute as more people wandered in from the mass moving up the street. Nobody was ready to go home after what had happened at the harbor; no, everyone would be up all night, talking and drinking. The innkeep, a man everyone called Badger, was pouring wine into cups as fast as he could and just handing them around, coins stacking up on the tables faster than he could collect them. He saw mostly locals but also some grain merchants from up the valley, come down with keelboats full of grain from the harvest, and a few dark-skinned men from the south shore towns, probably trading hides for some of that valley grain. He saw some guys he knew and made his way toward them through the crowd. Everybody was talking but nobody was doing it very loudly. There was a lot of muttering, a lot of people looking around to see who might be listening before they spoke. Not a good sign, he thought. Then a girl came into the room and everybody turned to look. “Angel,” somebody called out. “We need a song. Sing us one!” Angel was the right name for that one, too, with her light curly hair and pale skin, and even the plain frumpy dress she wore couldn’t hide the curves of her just-becoming-a-woman’s body. She blushed and looked at Badger, her father. He nodded. She set down the basket of bread she had just brought from the baker’s up the street and stepped up onto a bench. Everyone went quiet.
She started quietly, with a series of light notes, like a soft sound from a little reed flute. The familiar words tripped out, “As I was walking to the fair. . .” Then her voice shifted as the highwayman appeared, becoming deeper, more resonant, the notes stretched out longer and sliding around a little rather than coming out pure. His sinister words lingered in the air like some of that black smoke. The girl’s answer was more light tripping notes, a perfect contrast. And then on the chorus Angel breathed in deeply and let go, her voice soaring and filling the room with sound. Oh, Angel, Swimmer thought, you are a treasure. Like everyone else on the waterfront Swimmer had watched her grow from a little child who loved silly ditties to a girl who could sing like few women ever have. He felt keenly then the crazy randomness of the day. Assassins had come for the Viscount, but instead they had killed a bunch of poor bastards in their way, and whatever happened there was bound to be more fighting and killing to come, most of the dying done by more poor bastards who happened to get in the way. And this moment of perfect beauty from an inkeep’s daughter. When the song finished people clapped and called for more, but Angel stepped down and went back to her chores. Reality came crashing back into the room.
Swimmer found his friends and they made room for him on a bench. The conversation went something like this:
“Well, fuck all.”
“Shit.”
“You got that right.”
“Fuck all.”
“Shit.”
“You got that right.”
“We’re all fucked. It’s gonna be war, and we’re all gonna be rowing galleys.”
“Rowing where?”
“Malovana, meat for brains. Those were the Capuchin’s men for sure.”
“Why would the Capuchin want to kill the Viscount? Hasn’t he got prayers to recite or some shit?”
“Who knows, but he’s got an army of creepy monks who all swear big oaths to die for the gods. I saw one die and she looked happy.”
“Nobody’s happy to die.”
“She was.”
“War with holy madmen?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, fuck all.”
“Shit.”
“We’re all fucked.”
Swimmer asked, “Who’s been to Malovana? What’s it like?”
“Like a big fucking monastery with crazy mean monks on every corner whipping anybody who talks too loud.”
“Nah, it’s not that bad. The monks are creepy as hell but around the harbor they’ve got bars and whores like any other shithole town.”
“I dunno, you remember the Bilge? Some monk tried to whip him for yelling ‘fuck the sea god’ and he fought back and then a whole company of them came down from the Temple, all in black robes, walking all in step in rows maybe five across, mumbling some prayer, and they just fucking took him apart. No swords or spears, just some curved knives. Hung his parts all along the waterfront. A hand here, a liver over there. Threw his head and heart in the water for the fish, begging Kadonnos to forgive them. Like he ain’t a god of sailors. They think nobody ever told him to fuck off before? They’re fucking crazy.”
Swimmer thought that over. It meshed with what he had heard, the people in the town by the water living under the shadow of the temple on the cliff, lowering their talk whenever one of the monks came by. Those monks were just the kind of people who would die to throw bombs at their enemies. Except why was the Viscount their enemy? What had he ever done to them? Nothing Swimmer could think of. On a holy day to boot, when even the harbor scum and the back-alley whores were keeping straight for a few hours and singing a few hymns before they got back to drinking and fucking.
But, he asked himself, when did the world ever make any sense?
