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She nodded. But she dreaded the thought of that story coming back to haunt them.

‘I can’t believe I died for this,’ Hedge said, wanting to spit but there wasn’t enough in his mouth to do it, and of course he’d have to be mad to waste the water. He turned and glared at the three oxen pulling Bavedict’s carriage. ‘Got any more of that drink you gave ’em? They’re looking damned hale, Alchemist – we could all do with a sip or three.’Advertisement

‘Hardly, Commander,’ Bavedict said, one hand on the hawser. ‘They’ve been dead for three days now.’

Hedge squinted at the nearest beast. ‘Well now, I’m impressed. I admit it. Impressed, and that can’t be said often of old Hedge.’

‘In Letheras,’ Bavedict said, ‘there are dozens of people wandering around who are in fact dead and have been for some time. Necromantic alchemy is one of the most advanced of the Uneasy Arts among the Letherii. In fact, of all the curse elixirs I sold, the one achieving everlasting undeath was probably the most popular – as much as anything costing a chestful of gold can be popular.’

‘Could you do this for a whole army?’

Bavedict blanched. ‘C-commander, such things are, er, prohibitively difficult to achieve. Preparing a single curse-vial, for example, involves months of back-breaking effort. Denatured ootooloo spawn – the primary ingredient – well, you’d be lucky to get three drops a night, and harvesting is terribly risky, not to mention exhausting, even for a man reputedly as skilled as myself.’

‘Ulatoo spawn, huh? Never heard of it. Never mind, then. It was just a notion. But, you got any more of that stuff?’

‘No sir. I judged as greatest the need of the Bridgeburners for the munitions in this carriage—’

‘Shh! Don’t use that word, you fool!’

‘Sorry, sir. Perhaps, then, we should invent some other term – something innocuous, that we could use freely.’

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Hedge rubbed at his whiskered jaw. ‘Good idea. How about … kittens?’

‘Kittens, sir? Why not? Now then, our carriage full of kittens is not something that can be abandoned, is it, sir? And I should tell you, the entire company of Bridgeburners has not the strength to haul it.’

‘Really? Well, er, just how many kittens you got stuffed in there?’

‘It’s the raw ingredients, sir. Bottles and casks and vials and … er, tubing. Condensers, distillation apparatuses. Um, without two cats of opposite gender, sir, making kittens is not an easy venture.’

Hedge stared for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Oh, ah, of course, Alchemist. Just so.’ He glanced to his right, where a squad of marines had just come up alongside them, but their attention was on the wagon loaded with food and water that they were guarding, or so Hedge assumed since they were resting hands on hilts and looking belligerent. ‘Well, keep at it then, Bavedict. Never can have too many kittens, can we?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

Six paces behind the two men, Rumjugs leaned close to Sweetlard. ‘I had me some kittens once, you know.’

Sweetlard shot her an unsurprised look. ‘Errant knows, you’ll take coin from anybody, love.’

He had a swagger, I remember that much. And how I’d get sick, my stomach burning like I’d swallowed coals, every time he came into the house. Ma, she was a bird, really, the kind that flits about as if no branch gives comfort, no leaf makes perfect shade. And her eyes would leap to him and then away again. But in that one look she’d know if something bad was on the way .

If it was, she’d edge closer to me. The jay is in the tree, the chick is in danger. But there was nothing she could do. He weighed twice as much as she did. He once threw her through the shack’s flimsy wall. That time was something of a mistake for old Da, since it took outside what went on inside, so people saw the truth of it all. My little family .

There must’ve been a neighbour, someone on the street, who’d seen and decided he didn’t much like it. A day later Da was dragged back to the house beaten close to death, and there we were, Ma and her two boys – that was before my brother ran away – there we were, nursing him back .

How stupid was that? We should’ve finished what that right-thinking neighbour had started .

But we didn’t .

That swagger, and Ma darting about .

I remember the last day of all that. I was seven, almost eight. Quiet Ginanse, who lived up the street and worked as a knife-sharpener, had been found strangled in the alley behind his shop. People were upset. Ginanse had been solid, an old veteran of the Falar Wars, and though he had a weakness for drink he wasn’t a violent drunk. Not at all. Too much ale and he wanted to seduce every woman he saw. A sweet soul, then. That’s what Ma used to say, hands fluttering like wings . pqdm.com