Episode Ten

Jakks Way – the district rather than the street – was a creature of indeterminate size. Only in two directions were its borders conclusively fixed. To the west it abruptly ended at The Tonelays, that grim and hermetically sealed enclave whose denizens worshipped a strange, savage god and tried to only ever speak to each other. Eastwards an equally vivid marker was provided by Dorlaf Avenue, the chaotic paradise for shopkeepers which sliced Jalkin neatly in half. Up and down though, matters were more ambiguous. Was one still in Jakks Way as far north as Yashin Close? If one ventured southwards to Kakran Crescent? Some would claim so. Others preferred to squash the neighbourhood into a tight rectangle, with Clock Street forming the southern frontier and the eponymous road the north. Jakks Way had an official existence, of course, the fiefdom of the local praetor, but over time that had proved no more solid. The boundaries squirmed from election to election, depending on who was deciding them and how it would benefit them.
If there were no definite edges then there was no centre either. Although Jakks Way did, in most people's perception, have a cultural heart at least. Mistletoe Square, where the markets were held, where the fairs sprung up, where folks gathered on every fine day to gossip and argue. Ses Netrasso was one of the few who held an alternate view. In certain ways, for certain people, the real heart of the district lay further west, on the corner of Jakks Way and Fountain Avenue. Where stood the Last Drop Inn, the pub which he owned.
Since inheriting the Last Drop five years ago he had been tempted to remove the ambiguity by relocating to Mistletoe Square itself. It would have been feasible. Property everywhere in Jakks Way was cheap but especially on that notoriously odiferous, rowdy square. After making a few tentative enquiries, however, he realised he wouldn't be allowed to get away with this. The Last Drop Inn was a neighbourhood pub and so was tightly encased with custom. It stood on the corner of Fountain Avenue. It always had, it always would. Likewise, young Ses was only allowed to own it in the moral as well as legal sense because the Netrasso family always had. Not always, he discovered, but for six generations and that was enough. Sufficient, certainly, for Ses to be accepted despite the consensus that he was a quarter the man his late father had been.
Part of this low-key but constant hostility came because of his regular attempts to make improvements. The feelings were reciprocated because of his customers' inability to accept that improvements did, in fact, improve things. Ses Netrasso tried introducing more entertainments on evenings. The regulars complained that all these bards singing lies at them interfered with them speaking lies to one another. He tried invigorating the drinks range. They stuck to their appalling local brews which either tasted of treacle or nothing at all. He made the interior a little more hygienic. They moaned that they had no rushes or sawdust to spit on anymore. So the Last Drop remained humble and mundane, totally overshadowed by the Black Dog, the Calderdale, the garish taverns of Cuelon Road, a hundred other establishments on the Cities' legendary pub scene. And Netrasso had spent five years almost but not quite selling up and going somewhere his talents might be appreciated.
Several factors had prevented him so far. One of the few which he would admit to was that the Last Drop was a fine building. It looked exactly right for a Cities tavern. Externally it was half timbered, with two great bay windows thrusting out impertinently. There was a single great lounge at the front, its gloom providing shade in the summer and its hearts heat in the cooler months. Behind this were a few private drinking rooms for business deals or certain entertainments which Netrasso might allow initially and then deliberately know nothing about. Netrasso and his burgeoning family had ample, comfortable quarters upstairs. They shared them with their servants but not any overnight guests, because the Last Drop was a tavern rather an inn. The pun had just proved too tempting. It looked the archetypal pub from its foundations to its chimney and even the fact that it wasn't built as a pub increased its perfection. No true establishment in the Cities carries out the function for which they were originally intended.
Another source of compensation for Ses Netrasso was a diluted version of one of his father's maxims: "Every man in here a friend." Mr Netrasso senior had in turn been an archetypal innkeeper, a Jakks Way man from birth to death, and almost meant what he said. He may not have actually liked all his customers but did love them with the possessive familiarity of family. Ses didn't yet have his father's ruddy complexion or barrel stomach, though both were arriving. He had a more cynical view of the world, which was expanding as quickly as his body. But he partly agreed with his father in this instance. Most nights everyone in the Last Drop was at least known. Sometimes that thought brought pleasure. At worst it was a comfort. He didn't have to cope with the transient scum who drank at the Cuelon Road pubs, the migrants and adventurers and refugees and out-and-out criminals. The Last Drop did attract scum, and at the end of a Saturday night they could cause trouble. But Netrasso knew most of their threats and brawling were just postures, and predictable ones at that. It helped.
Netrasso gazed around the saloon now, halfway through a Saturday evening, and felt the reassurance again. The nosiest group was probably composed of Stefan Amecco and his cronies, all let off the leash once a week by their wives on the understanding that it would be clipped back on just as tight the next morning. Roaring at each other, taunting each other, pretending that the last twenty years hadn't occurred and brought its distressing changes. Their role models, in a reversal of what was supposed to happen, were the gaggle of genuinely young men. Including Stefan's son Jerich, they were almost as loud and turned their semi-serious hostility outwards not inwards; notably in catcalls towards anyone of vaguely feminine appearance. The one woman spared was old Kalinka, supping port after port by the bar. Because Kalinka was old and because she was again enacting her inexplicable but convincing impersonation of a lunatic. The bar stools seemed to attract the old timers. Half a dozen veterans slumped on them, as they did almost every night, with the unapologetic airs of people who had survived a great deal and now deserved some sort of reward. The corners of the room, meanwhile, collected the dregs. Cepu Boldan, his cronies and their tarts were filling one with the aura of men who owned the place. Boldan sometimes gazed around with the expression of one who wished he did. Another of Netrasso's reasons for not abandoning the Last Drop – he would almost certainly be forced to sell it to Cepu Boldan.
The gang were the only ones who could not be comfortably handled by Hielach, the 'Noriscan' bouncer leaning beside the door with his cudgel. And they would not turn violent. Not Saturday night violent, aggression caused solely by drink and egotism. Boldan was a psychopath but despite – or maybe because of – that quality, he practised and enforced discipline. His men struck after careful planning and struck in dark alleys. And that was a good example of knowledge bringing comfort. Netrasso could survey a room containing some fairly menacing characters and be assured that none would threaten –
Then two people entered who shattered that protection. Strangers in every sense. Though one was a woman, both looked like they belonged in the Cuelon Road taverns. Guards for the big merchant caravans; or perhaps part of the reason why guards were employed. The din in the saloon only dipped for a second but the newcomers were being studied, assessed. Something about the way they moved, the manner in which they carried themselves, conveyed a warning. The woman was quite stunning, Netrasso noticed as she approached, in a masculine way. Yet not even the most inebriated of the young men called out an invitation as she limped past.
"Hey," she grinned at Netrasso as she sat on a stool. "I've heard that there's a beer in the Cities so watered down and foul that you're guaranteed to barf up before you can get drunk on it."
"Clarwater." The man rolled his eyes at the landlord. "She knows it's called clarwater an' all. She just likes doing the line."
"Whatever. Anyway, I fancy trying it again. Do you kind of do it here."
Netrasso nodded. "Finest clarwater in the Cities."
The woman raised her eyebrows. "A-a-a-and is that, you know, saying much?"
"Not really," he admitted, smiling. "Pint and a half then?"
"Let's go with two pints. I want to try the vomiting experience side by side with the husband. Though I've a bit of a bad leg so I might not make it to your toilets in time. Will it be a problem if I heave up all over your floor?"
"Won't be the first, won't be the last."
"Cool. And, you know, kind of gross too. I'm Yaxi Tanson, by the way, this is my husband Radav. We moved in a couple of weeks ago. We've been quiet as – what are guys as quiet as around here?" she asked Radav.
"Otters."
"Oh, yeah. Still not sure about that one but let it go. So we've been quiet as otters up till now. But we couldn't resist checking out the folk singing stroke multiple stabbing experience here at the Last Drop Inn. Hey, do both of those really go on?"
Netrasso shrugged. "This is a quiet enough place."
"Yeah?" Radav said. "Have to see what we can do about that."
"Now, hon," Yaxi chided playfully. "What was our first rule when we moved here?"
Radav sighed. "Don't wind up the locals."
"And what was our second rule?"
"Don't wind up the locals."
"And what was our third rule…"
Netrasso relaxed, though only slightly. The Tansons. He had heard of them, of course. All Jakks Way seemed to have been talking about them the last fortnight. All he actually knew, however, was the tiny amount of information gleaned by Mr Delpess and the other morsel extracted by Morran Heppac. The rest came from widening circles of guesswork and rumour which grew more unfeasible as the drifted away from their origin. One account did seem accurate. The discrepancy between the Tansons' fearsome appearance and their amiable conversation. But Netrasso knew that both could be façades concealing characters entirely different again.
His eyes wandered around the saloon again. Calli Horstice had stolen in at some point, he noticed. She was sat in her usual posture, hunched on a bench with a martyred expression while some tiresome drunk lectured her on politics. Calli never used to come within twenty yards of the Last Drop. She was one of the few Jakks Way residents to make real money – doing what, Netrasso had no idea – and not flee the neighbourhood immediately after making it. Instead she affected the manners of a local queen, the epitome of respectability and good manners. A year ago, though, she had used her riches to become the local praetor, a minor official who runs the day-to-day affairs of a district. Now she had to prove herself to be one of her people. To win their vote again she had to copy their customs and ways; and that included entering taverns to be lectured by tiresome drunks. Observing the same process engulfing a praetor of the previous generation, Netrasso's father once remarked, "Politics. Drives any man to drink."
The landlord's smile dissolved as his eyes turned back to Cepu Boldan's table. The gang leader had seen Yaxi and Radav too. He was studying them. He was muttering to his men and they joined the examination too. Not a hostile assessment, but one blatantly open and almost pleading for a challenge. The Tansons didn't notice at first. Finally Radav spotted Boldan. He said something to his wife and they both turned towards the table in the corner. They returned the gazes for perhaps ten seconds, no more; and Netrasso had never seen anybody so apparently unaffected by Boldan's attention. Then the couple swivelled back again.
"Yeah, that's kind of disgusting," Yaxi announced, pushing away her third-drunk pint of clarwater beer. "I think I'll just take it as read that I'd barf up on that pretty soon and switch. You got anything which is very strong, sold in teeny-weeny glasses and is pretty much transparent?"
"We sell Dragon's Breath," Netrasso said, hoping to shift one of the new drinks which his regulars refused to touch. "A rum distilled up in the Brown Hills, admired by many connoisseurs-"
"OK, sounds good. Dragon me. Hey," Yaxi added after taking her first sip and making an appreciative noise, "Who are those guys sat in the corner? You know, the ones who seem to be trying to work out what size clothes we take?"
Netrasso leant closer, a slight but significant movement which he had copied from his father. "Right, you see the middle aged woman on the bench at the far side of the room. Calli Horstice. Our local praetor. She thinks she runs Jakks Way. She doesn't. Sat in the corner are Cepu Boldan and his gang. They do."
Again the pair did a simultaneous swirl towards the corner. Boldan was still looking at them. The Tansons turned back even sooner, however, and their apparent lack of interest was just as absolute. Netrasso studied them himself for as long as he dared. He had seen false bravado before, false nonchalance, false almost everything. He didn't believe that the couple were faking anything. They just weren't frightened of Cepu Boldan. Netrasso could guess how much this would frustrate the gang leader.
"One of those deals, huh?" Yaxi said. "You know, I heard no single gang kind of ruled these streets with sword and mayhem."
"They don't have overall control, true," Netrasso replied, wishing that Yaxi would keep her voice down. "There's still some jostling for position. But Boldan's the strongest and he's getting stronger." He paused, then added, "What I'm saying is, don't be antagonising him and expect another gang to pull you out of trouble."
"Hey now, do we look like we want to antagonise anyone?"
"That'd break the first, second and third bloody rules of our bloody code of conduct," Radav said heavily.
Netrasso was glad that a customer pulled him away then. He felt he had risked quite enough trying to aid people who clearly wanted no assistance. His relief turned to pleasure upon seeing that the visitor to the bar was Calli Horstice. She was looking harassed. Netrasso had been trying to monitor the conversation at her bench amidst the cascade of voices in the saloon. It wasn't too difficult. The voice of Armace in particular, an opinionated boor among opinionated boor, kept clapping down as regularly and repetitively as a printing press.
"…now, no-one's blaming you, lass," he would say. "You needed yoursen a patron. Fair dos. One of the proper politicians. You're just an arse-feeder right now, ain't you? But now your bloke's been caught with his trousers down an' you're buggered. Might as well admit it."
The praetor would make some inaudible protest and Armace always answered with, "Now, you know it's true. He were caught with them fat fingers o his right in the till an' he can't say otherwise. So you're buggered 'less you can find another patron. Just admit it, lass."
Now Calli was saying, in a rather bemused tone, "This round seems to be on me." She rolled off an extensive list of drinks and added to Netrasso, "And one for yourself too."
"I'll get the girl to carry it across." He looked at her, took pity and said, "Stay here till it's ready if you want though."
Calli smiled. She glanced nervously at the Tansons, decided to ignore them as completely as they were her and told Netrasso, "I'm sure it's really not as bad as it looks. What we were talking about over there, the business with the Councillor."
Councillors are one step up from praetors, officials elected to collectively run Christoté's towns. Any praetors with ambitions, which Calli Horstice probably did have, attaches themselves to Councillors or to Emissaries, their rural equivalent. Any Councillor looking to build a power base welcomes them. Any especially corrupt Councillor accepts bribes from praetors to hurry through legislation relating to particular neighbourhoods – the crime which Calli's patron had just been accused of regarding the Westgate district. And any cynical electorate then starts wondering if the rest of the Councillor's clientele, even if apparently innocent so far, has been offering their own little presents. Netrasso had to remark, "It looks bad though."
"Well, of course at this stage it does. But nobody really knows anything yet. There will be an inquiry and I'm glad of that. Because I'm sure all it will show is that the Councillor made a few silly mistakes of presentation."
"That's not too good either, is it?" Netrasso replied, leisurely pulling tap handles and letting the beer surge into pint mugs.
"Oh well, if you're another one who thinks he should be strung up from a tree because he doesn't come across well, so be it," Calli snapped. "I don't think it will turn out half as bad as it seems now, that's all. And I can appreciate the Councillor's point of view as well."
Netrasso relented. "Always two sides to every story, ain't there?"
"And he's been in a difficult position for some time now. It's a terrible job, for one. He was only given it because he's the most junior member of Jalkin Council. Highways & Amenities… It's a dreadful department to run."
"One street cistern gets blocked, one drain backs up, and it's your head they want," Netrasso murmured with a smile.
He had relented, he was even sympathising now, because he had started musing about power. And he realised that he and Calli Horstice were in a similar position. In one sense, they were the most powerful people in the Jakks Way neighbourhood. The only residents to run successful businesses, after all – or legal successful business – and both occupying roles of considerable influence. They had sensed this and often competed for sole dominance. Especially before Calli's election, in the period when she shunned the Last Drop and tried presenting herself as the only legitimate pole which respectable people should cluster around. A claim he tried negating by wondering loudly just what her secret investments were funding.
Only from one angle, though, did they stand so high. Because there were different forms of power. Netrasso knew the greatest of all. The anonymous, secretive medium where words alone could wreak vast changes. Calli had acquired a tiny slice of it now. And if she gathered more and more she would leave him far behind. She wouldn't just control the neighbourhood. She could sit in a meeting, another meeting and another and finally transform Jakks Way utterly. Enrich it immensely or, conceivably, destroy it.
But another method of power couldn't be disregarded. If only because it made a landlord tell newcomers, "She doesn't rule this district. He does." The ability to impose your will directly on a situation. Calli had to endure being hectored by men whom she despised, had to listen to ill-disguised slanders directed against herself. She always would, in one forum or another, however high she scrambled. And so would Netrasso. He must endure the same bores and the same fatuous opinions night after night. In an inn which he supposedly owned yet couldn't change the way he wished.
Nobody told Cepu Boldan how to run his business, however. Nobody told him anything he didn't wish to hear. Netrasso glanced at the gang leader again, sat at the far side of his table. In the corner which he effectively owned for as long as he was there. He couldn't be approached without his permission. His sentinels would spring up if anyone came near; and unless they brought an apology and a reason which he cared for, they would be evicted rapidly. Netrasso noticed Calli looking towards the corner too. She knew who Boldan was. She knew a great deal about him. Everyone in Jakks Way did. Naïve and rarefied though she was, she knew and she wanted him destroyed. But until she achieved that, he held dominance whenever they met. If he ordered it, she would probably drop onto all fours and bark like a dog. There might be consequences eventually; she might one day acquire sufficient amounts of the greatest type of force. In this situation, though, Boldan controlled her. Netrasso knew that he himself would be on his hands and knees with one command; and so would everyone else in the pub.
Or perhaps not quite everyone. Perhaps not Yaxi and Radav Tanson. That was why Boldan seemed obsessed with them. They hadn't reacted in the right way. They hadn't shown fear or respect or, really, much interest. Stupidity maybe, or misguided arrogance. But also perhaps because they had power of their own, the same direct form which Boldan wielded. As much? Boldan didn't know yet and there was uncertainty, anger of course but also just a little fear emanating from the corner. He liked to be sure about everything, Boldan. He would always twist an arm to see how badly it was broken.
"I notice, Mr Netrasso, that the door to your back room is bolted again," Calli Horstice remarked abruptly. "I trust the reason isn't what I fear it is?"
"'Fraid so, Praetor Horstice," Netrasso smiled. "Drains backing up again something rotten. Whole room smells like a sewer pit. Thought of complaining about it to your Councillor friend as a matter of fact. If he's got any free time right now."
"So there are not, in fact, any people in there tonight?"
"Can't imagine who'd want to be in there with that stink."
"Perhaps men who enjoy partaking in games of chance?"
"Well now, I don't have a gambling licence, do I? So that would be illegal." Netrasso's smile broadened as he thought: don't try over-compensating on me. That won't work. Not until you come here with a lot of warrants, a lot of Guardsmen and a kick that break a bolted door down.
Calli had none. Neither did she have any excuses left to loiter by the bar. The barmaid was taking the last of her drinks back to the bench. So the praetor had to follow, her poise that of a noblewoman walking to the gallows. Back to the men who had just had five minutes to compose fresh hectoring and fresh slanders. Netrasso watched her wearily retake her place, turned and found himself staring into the face of Menoney. His smile crumbled instantly.
Menoney – perhaps the only one close to Boldan who seemed to have any sort of intelligence. Which didn't make him any less vicious and didn't really mean he was, in fact, intelligent. A lance of fear stabbed through Netrasso as the man glared back. Then it turned into confusion as Menoney started rapping out a drinks order. None of Boldan's men ever came to the bar. They bawled out on the frequent occasions they were thirsty and Netrasso sent a barmaid over. And the girl, after delivering the drinks, would have to endure her bottom being groped, her breasts being fondled, sometimes worst if the night was growing old. And she had to go back every time the gang called out again and never protest. That was the law and one major reason why the Last Drop Inn struggled to keep staff for long.
Here, though, was Menoney collecting the glasses himself. As Netrasso dexterously poured the ales and rakis, he realised why. Menoney was looking straight at Yaxi and Radav. Of course – if a puzzling new element appeared then a scout, one with a certain amount of acumen, would be sent to study it closer. That was the first step. Boldan wouldn't come personally, not yet. That belonged to a later stage, one of many in the surprisingly complex dance which Boldan could dictate. Netrasso assumed Menoney was simply there for reconnaissance. However, the man then nodded at the Tansons and said,
"Get them what they're having an' all."
Yaxi gave him her brilliant smile. "Hey, no shit? Thanks."
"Courtesy of Mr Boldan," Menoney told her gruffly.
"Mr..?"
"Boldan. Mr Cepu Boldan. He's over in the corner."
Again the slow, simultaneous swivel on their stools. They actually acknowledged Boldan this time. But the raising of the glasses and the cries of thanks seemed pure courtesies; and perhaps delivered a little facetiously. Boldan responded with a regal wave. Netrasso thought he detected the same uncertainty in it.
"See what I'm on about?" Radav said to his wife when they had turned back again. Then to Menoney: "She keeps reckoning we're all a bunch of tightwads up here."
"Yeah, yeah," Yaxi responded. "Look, the facts are in general terms-"
"You're wrong, woman. Just admit it."
"All I'm saying is, you know, a few ripe bananas don't make the whole crate sweet."
"A few…" Again Radav addressed Menoney. "I've been with this lass ten years. I still can't make hide nor hair of her bloody similes."
"That was actually a metaphor, hon. You so shouldn't throw in the big words if you don't know what they mean."
"Balls. You can use them two syn… syno-"
"Oh, please don't try and say 'synonymous' after three pints again. We'll kind of be sat here all night. Besides, you're talking right out of your ass. It's only a simile if you say something's 'like' something else."
"Well, that's what you were doing. Like a crate of bloody bananas or whatever."
"Ah, but I didn't, you know, actually say it was 'like' them."
"What, so just because you say 'like,' a metaphor becomes a simile."
"It's the magic word. Turns one thing into another like it was a sorcerer. See? Now that was a simile for you, right smack between your eyes."
"That's bloody stupid."
"I don't write the rules, hon. I'm just the gatekeeper." She turned to Menoney. The gangster was waiting for his order to be finished and listening to their babble with clear exasperation. "Back me up here, big guy," Yaxi smiled. "Can't go running around calling a simile a metaphor unless you put a 'like' in there, can you?"
The intellectual of Boldan's gang glared at her for a moment. Then he growled, "Fucking well call it whatever the fucking hell you fucking want." He grabbed the tray of drinks, sloshing them in the process – which would probably cost him when he got back to the table – and stalked away. Netrasso had to turn his back until he had conquered his urge to laugh.
"You know what we kind of just did, hon?" he heard Yaxi say in hushed tones.
"Aye. Pretty much knackered our first, second and third rules.""Seems that way. Ah well. When we get onto grammatical terms, strong men so have to hide beneath the tables till we're done."