The First 1636: The Mughal Mission Snippet

A bit of the work in progress:

                Caid Murad Reis returned the wolf-smiles of his crew with his own. 

And why not smile? Surely finding a fat merchant becalmed so close to Sallee is a sign that God favors our enterprise? 

As there wasn’t a good man among the crew, such signs were less wasteful than the usual methods he had to resort to in order to ensure his commands were followed. Always, the new men among the crew wanted to test him, wanted to see if the white Muslim was truly fit to lead the brotherhood. 

Such behavior had only become more common since he’d sent his son off to Grantville to plumb their secrets. The other Captains all believed he was trying to place his son beyond their reach, or worse, questioned his conversion to Islam. They campaigned, in whispers, against him. Their short-sighted bigotry would eventually prove their undoing, but for now Reis needed every cruise he undertook to result in easy profits and many slaves.

The rowers of Allah’s Mercy were drawing them steadily closer to the foreign fluyt, as they had since sighting the vessel some hours ago. By his reckoning, less than half an hour remained until the sharks were fed the blood of unbelievers. 

Murad Reis, born Janszoon, shaded blue eyes with one hand, staring hard at the slack banner hanging from the mast of the taller vessel. Several pale faces at the stern of the ship stood staring at their approaching doom.

“Hamburg?” he murmured. 

“Would explain why they are alone–no convoys like the Spaniards or English,” his first mate, Usem, said from beside him. ”Though it’s strange they should be this close in to shore.”

Murad shrugged, “Not after the storms of last week, then the calm and current to drag them close.”

Usem nodded, white turban sparkling with jewels.

“Raise our banner, let them know who comes for them.”

“Yes, Captain.” Usem gestured. 

Moments later a young sailor unfurled the banner of the Sallee Rovers, a gold man-in-the-moon on a red background, from the mast.

“Brothers, we will soon set upon the infidel and take his goods, his ship, and the lives of any who resist!”

A crashing, ululating cheer greeted his words.

“Man the guns and make ready, then!”

Murad and Usem joined the crews of the three cannon in the bow. The xebec, like a galley, had limited broadside armament because of the oars, and so mounted three of its thirteen guns in the bow. Because it lacked the banks of rowers of a true galley, it didn’t have the sheer speed of such a ship, either, allowing them to make only about four, perhaps five, knots. Still, they closed the distance, coming to within six hundred paces.

A meaty thump, like a mallet striking flesh, came from the gun-captain of the starboard bow gun.  

A sharp crack reached his ears just as Murad turned to look at his slowly slumping sailor.

“Wha-“ the man gurgled, crimson staining his lips.

Something whistled through the air above Murad. Another crack rolled across the water to him. 

Murad ducked instinctively, the men about him doing the same.

He saw it then, a tiny flash of light from one corner of the stern of the fluyt, like a gunshot, but no cottony cloud of gunsmoke. 

Shooting at us, from there? That’s–another of his cannoneers reeled back, arm dangling by a thread of meat–impossible! 

Again the sharp cracking noise rolled across the waves.

“Down!” Murad shouted, unnecessarily. His men were already pushing tight behind the cannon, fighting for space.

Another flash. 

Something rang off the cannon directly in front of him with a sound like hell’s own hammer, then went whistling through the air between he and Usem. 

Merciful Allah, how many guns does this man have?

That evil crack again.

The men were now leaning forward, close to the deck, as if bracing against a gale. 

Murad raised his head, gauging the distance. Almost five hundred yards still separated the ships.

“Faster!” he bellowed, “Row faster!”

Usem rose up to repeat the Captain’s order. He lost his life for it. The round took him in the jaw, sending teeth and bone rattling wetly across the deck behind his toppling corpse.

“Merciful Allah!” someone screamed.

“Faster!” Murad barked, the now-expected crack punctuating his order.

  The slaves responded at last, pulling harder at their oars. Slowly, the ship built speed. Several breaths passed without one of the horrible flashes, only the groan of wood on wood and the cries of the man who’d lost his arm. They were nearly four hundred yards out when the next flash appeared.

A dimly visible red-orange light appeared at the end of the flash. Barely visible, it crossed the space between the two ships and sailed by well above the deck. 

This time, the crack of the gun was nearly drowned in the cheering of his crew.

“Down, you fools!” 

A second dirty streak of light was sent their way, again appearing to have gone high. Another cheer from the men.

“Closer!” he shouted.

The crew shouted wordless aggression. Glad his men were less afraid of the strange weapon than he, Murad looked up to offer a silent prayer of thanksgiving. It was then that he saw a tiny curl of smoke rising from the furled mainsail.

As he stared, another of the burning things struck the furled sail along the spar just port of the mast. It went in, and didn’t exit. Colored smoke began seeping from the hole as the noise of the shot followed the results across the water.

“Water the sail!” Murad’s shouted order held more of an edge of panic to it than he wished.

Nearly all the crew looked up and saw the reason for the order. A collective groan went through them.

Hassan, youngest of the brotherhood and the quickest climber among them, stood to his duty and grabbed the bucket line. In moments he was straddling the spar. He dragged the first of the buckets up and started to pour it over the growing smokey stretch of sail.

The next red-orange streak ended in Hassan’s ribs. The boy shrieked, overbalanced, and fell. Even striking the deck from such a height did not end the pain for poor Hassan, who lay writhing, as if the thing that struck him continued to burn inside his flesh.

The crew moaned. Hassan was well-liked. 

Murad stepped across the boy, who lay twitching like a wounded scorpion, broken limbs flailing.

Murad’s sword hissed from its sheath. 

A small mercy.

A Full Chapter From A Friend To The Watch.

Because I want to show someone something, and you few are my only audience:

Qezzon went still as stone, barely daring to breathe. On clear, cold nights like this one, even the fog of a single breath could cast shadows in the light of all Three Sisters.

If ever I needed proof there’s a difference between what I do and a common street-robber, that’s it! Qezzon thought, watching a White Sash stalk a merchant who’d taken a wrong turn wearing too much of his wealth in plain sight.  

Here in Dockside, the business affairs of the various merchants and merchant-captains conducting trade on the River Ragoìn were sometimes on the streets a bit late for perfect safety. The smarter ones hired bodyguards. Smarter still were those that bought the protection of the White Sashes. The smartest were never out after dark in the first place. 

Regardless of whether the Three Sisters were showing their faces or not, it was still dark in the alley. This particular idiot hadn’t even had a servant with him, instead hiring a lamp-bearer off the street. 

Said lamp-bearer was currently legging it for the far end of the alley, arms pumping. The merchant picked up the lantern-pole the boy had left behind in his haste. “Where are you going, you shit!?” he shouted, unaware of the White Sash sneaking up behind him. 

The heavy thud of weighted leather striking bone under thin flesh reached Qezzon even on the roof. 

The merchant tumbled, senseless, sprawling like a string-cut puppet.

One handed, the robber caught the lamp-pole as it fell from nerveless fingers. A powerful jab drove the hardened metal spike at its base into the muck. The lamp swung from its chain, casting odd shadows as the robber waved back the way he’d come. 

Turning to the body with the contented sigh of a workman having done a job right, the robber tucked his sap into the front of his sash. Unhurried, he knelt and lifted the merchant’s purse, then stripped rings from hands, ears and nose.

A second White Sash arrived, keeping watch while the first continued a careful search of the unconscious man’s clothing.

“Foller was right again,” the first Sash said.

“So far! I’ll believe him when I see every coin the man said he’d have, not before,” the second man grumbled.   

The searcher grunted as his hands found something. Qezzon heard fabric tearing as the Sash pulled the inner lining of his victim’s cloak free of the outer layers. 

Coin glinted in the lamp-light as it fell from its cloth prison.

“Guess you’ll believe me next time, eh?” the first man said. Both Sashes laughed, squatting to pick their coin from the alley muck.

Waiting for them to leave, Qezzon filed the name away for future reference. He wouldn’t even have stopped if the robbery hadn’t happened right outside the back door to Annon’s place.

If the lamp-lighter had called the pumpkins he should hear a few whistles soon. Doubtless thinking the same thing, the robbers took their time, leaving only after they’d checked the body to their satisfaction. They took the lamp with them, the red glow allowing Qezzon to track their progress until even it was lost in the darkness.

Already late, Qezzon slowly and silently counted to one hundred, straining to hear whistles. Wouldn’t it just set Istar to laughing if the lamp-bearer returned with a bunch of pumpkins just as I’m standing over a dead man. Grinning behind his muffler at the idea, he looked around, assessing the risks. 

I’d go back the way I came, but the spot near the River Rose is too exposed, right across from Vallof’s brothel. Everything else is too far to walk without being seen by someone who might remark on it or choose to do to me what I just saw done to that poor fool.

Hearing no whistles through the entire count, Qezzon made up his mind. Best do as I planned in the first place.

Reasonably sure the pumpkins weren’t going to descend on the alley any time soon, Qezzon mouthed a brief prayer and slipped from his perch. Changing directions and killing his momentum with each touch on his way down, Qezzon’s feet and hands slapped from roof to gable to wall to shed roof to wall to rain barrel, the weight of which he used to kill the last of his momentum by striking it at an angle. The heavy vessel tipped but didn’t go over under his weight, absorbing the last of his speed. He let the energy of its desire to stand upright push him erect against the wall, using his thighs to ease it back into position at the same time. Coming to rest, Qezzon looked along the alley for anything he might have missed from the rooftops. 

Nothing having changed, the young thief shifted his weight forward and squatted on the rim of the barrel. He stuck out a foot to step down and stopped. The muck is a problem. Not enough traffic in the places I need it. Guess I’ll have to go around front instead of using the back. Defeats the purpose of using the High Way…Damn.

He leapt from the rain barrel to the middle of the alley where the muck was already well-disturbed. He slipped on landing, managed to catch himself by throwing his hands out and crouching low.

He was just standing up when the body groaned. 

Qezzon nearly soiled himself, leaping straight up and spinning in midair. The flight, much like a fall, wasn’t the problem; it was the coming to earth again that began another battle for balance he won only by dropping a knee into the cold, wet muck.

Heart galloping hard as horses’ hooves, Qezzon barely restrained the urge to kick the unconscious man for scaring him. Getting control of himself with effort, and frankly too fascinated not to, Qezzon leaned over for a closer look. 

The merchant, struck so hard a swollen knot the size of a baby’s fist was rising behind his ear, was still breathing. 

And they call me hard-headed! was his first thought. Closely followed by: Still alive! and, That’s right, he’s not some Pathless creature back from the dead, eager to tear your soul from your body for your sins!

Don’t recognize him, thank Istar… There was nothing to be done for the man that wouldn’t bring attention he neither needed nor wanted. Maybe Annon will have some idea what we can do that won’t give us both up.

Enough! Get a move on before someone sees you here. 

He stood and left. Keeping to the deeper shadows, Qezzon paused at the mouth of the alley. The street beyond was empty. He stepped out, making for the wagon ruts carved by centuries of iron-rimmed wheels bouncing along the ancient stone pavers. In all but the driest weather the ruts filled with the filth of the streets, becoming shallow gullies of sewage rushing toward the river every spring. Sticking to the wagon ruts was the surest way to both cover his tracks and ruin his boots.

As he’d more money than time to spare, it was an easy decision. Which is not to say he didn’t regret it. Despite the short distance he had to cover, the soft boots he used for walking the High Way were already beginning to soak through and numb his feet. 

 Burning down every few span of years, the wooden expanse of nets, rope, and other myriad tools of sailing that squatted by the river rarely stood long enough for wagons to wear ruts in its surface. 

Everything had its trade-offs though: something about the docks made the ice harden faster here, so there was little chance of leaving tracks.

Aware he was still dripping dirty slush, Qezzon walked a bit further than he had to, trying to make it seem he’d come from further down the docks before turning and hurrying to Annon’s door. Head down in the light of Three Sisters, he knocked once, paused, then six more times in a pattern known to all who walked the Crooked Path. He stood waiting, nervously glancing up and down the docks. 

A ten count of breaths passed before the door yawned open. “You’re late,” a voice said out of the darkness beyond the doorway.

“I know, something happened out back,” he explained. 

“Come back some other time,” the voice didn’t sound much like Annon.

“No heat on me.”

The door opened wider, “Well then, be welcome.”

He stepped forward, stopped in the doorway. “My boots are foul.”

A pause, then: “I’ve a pair of sandals somewhere.”

There was something in that pause that made every hair on Qezzon’s body stand up and begin to dance.

Thinking fast, he remained where he was. “How are your daughters?”

“They’re fine, come in.”

“On second thought, someone might have seen me. I’ll come bac-“

“Fuck this!” a new voice muttered. Something clicked, immediately followed by a TUNG sound he could not place.

Something ripped his hood off, spun him sideways and yanked the muffler tight around his throat. 

The bolt, barely slowed by the cloth wound around his throat and the leather hood, struck the wood upright of the crane across the dock with an evil sound he would never forget.

Crossbow! He realized too late, reeling from the doorway. He tried to turn the reel into a run but slipped and fell. Another bolt whistled past into darkness.

Istar’sfuckingsmokingballs! Shooting to his feet, Qezzon slipped and slid his way into a panicked run. Has to be more than one man, no one could load and fire that quick. 

Back muscles tensing in full expectation of a bolt bearing his death, Qezzon offered a silent, fervent prayer: Please don’t let it be more than two, Istar, and I’ll honor you with a great offering, I will.

“He must have it! Get him, fools!” Qezzon heard the first voice say.

At least three, then. A part of him realized as he caught his stride, each step pushing him faster. Finding breath hard come by, Qezzon reached up and pulled at thick wool of his muffler, trying to loosen it as he ran.

He heard someone pounding along in his wake. Rather than drive Qezzon to further panic, the sound brought hope: the one giving chase would surely block anyone else’s attempt to feather him. It wasn’t much to hang his hopes on, but it he didn’t require much. 

Trying to keep their man between himself and another bolt for as long as possible, Qezzon angled his run toward the water’s edge instead of heading into the first alley he came across.

From the sound of his breathing and footsteps, the pursuer was gaining. Qezzon drifted closer to the water’s edge, picked his moment, and jumped sideways. Grabbing the upright of one of the wooden structures net-makers used to frame out their work, Qezzon spun around the timber. 

His pursuer managed the turn, no mean feat on the ice, but slid into the bottom rail of the frame, tripping him to cartwheel into the icy dock with a heavy crunch that spoke of breaking things.

Approaching a right angle to his original direction of travel, the young thief released his grip on the frame. While his landing was less than graceful, cold feet barely able to compensate for the demands made of them, it served. 

Legs burning, he put on more speed. 

Ten paces to the alley.

Five.

A toe caught, tripping him. Arms windmilling, he bounced off the corner of the building jutting out from the alley. Spinning, sobbing for breath, he staggered forward. Safety lay just a few steps ahead.

Just as he made the mouth of the alley, a bolt sprouted from the wooden wall of the building on his right, quivering at waist height. Unable to avoid it, Qezzon’s hip slapped into the thick hardwood shaft, shearing the bolt where it met the wall. Sharp pain followed. 

Limping on, he refused to be stopped. The alley made a turn ahead, but there seemed a lot of ground between him and it. No alley had ever seemed so straight for so long a distance. Them that reach the alley while I’m in here will have a fine shot up my ass.

It was a thing of breaths, and paces, and Istar’s blessing, that he was staggering gracelessly around the corner when he heard the crossbowman loose again. 

The bolt sparked as it glanced off the opposite side of the alley and disappeared into darkness.

Qezzon kept moving, looking for an easy climb to the High Way. Nothing presented itself by the next intersection. He paused there, searching the moonlit skyline. His position relative to the familiar spire of Lunara’s Tower proved a useful landmark. There’s a climb I can manage about four streets over.

He heard running footsteps. 

Limping as fast as he could, Qezzon found himself doing something he’d never thought to do: hope he’d run across a pumpkin. 

As ever, none were in sight when needed. 

Several tortured breaths later he entered another intersection. Torchlight danced from around a corner about thirty paces down the left-hand street. No one but a complete idiot left an open flame unattended, so it had to be a carter or merchant with cargo. 

He turned, saw shadows moving back the way he’d come, and put everything he had left into a dash toward the light. 

He was still a good twenty paces from the corner when, over his gasping breaths and pounding heart, Qezzon distinctly heard the ominous creak of tension being put into a crossbow.

Not going to make it. 

Eyes lighting on a covered stair that climbed the side of a tenement just shy of the intersection, he altered course. Putting his head down, he took the stairs three and four at a time. 

He didn’t see the landing until he was soaring over it. Qezzon’s thighs struck the far hand rail, the rotted timber shattering and sending him head over heels into the air. Firelight alternated with darkness, did it again. 

Tempted to curse Istar, he drew breath for it but couldn’t didn’t have time. Knowing the fall would end his days or cripple him for life, Qezzon closed his eyes and tried to meet his fate like a man.

He was immediately rewarded for failing to blaspheme; landing in something far softer than cobblestones. Still the impact pounded the air from him. For a moment it felt as if he were floating, then everything stopped with a squeal of wood on iron; someone setting a handbrake. 

His eyes snapped open, only to be blinded by reddish torchlight.

An excited voice shouted, “What the Dark-Damned? Waller, what the hell is this shit? A body ain’t s’posed to fall outta the sky like that!?”

“That’s fer sure not right,” another man’s voice, presumably Waller, answered, “people fallin’ outta the sky inter our wares. Not right at all.”

Eyes adjusting to the torch light, Qezzon discovered the reason for his soft landing: shit. Lots of shit: a thick slurry of horse, oxen, and smaller pellets that might be pig shit filled the cart to nearly the top of the sidewalls. Qezzon wheezed, shit-laden air the sweetest thing his starved lungs had ever known.

Fuck! he thought, sitting bolt upright before it occurred that peeking might be safer. Qezzon twisted and turned, trying to see everywhere at once, each movement casting dung from his clothes and hair. Much as he tried, he couldn’t see beyond the torchlight. 

“What do you think you’re doing, boy?” the first asked from the driver’s bench. 

“I-“ Qezzon panted, sagging back into the shit to look up at the pale faces of his questioners.

“No excuse, falling out of the sky and interruptin’ our work,” the one called Waller said.

Qezzon swallowed. Above and beyond the faces of Waller and the man he shared the bench with, a shadow appeared at the broken railing, steel tip of a quarrel glinting in the torchlight. Realizing the crossbowman was hesitant to loose another bolt when so many might raise the alarm, Qezzon thought quickly. 

Pretending not to notice that death was but a trigger’s pull away, Qezzon mustered his courage and took a deep breath. 

He drew another and charged his voice with as much sincerity as he could muster, “I know, masters muckraker, that I shouldn’t interrupt your work, and I do apologize for doing so.” He drew another breath, “I ask if you’ll let me lie here a bit and catch my breath while you drive on to your next spot. I’ll even pay-”

It was the mention of coin that decided the muckrakers.  

“Prolly just doesn’t want to pay the landlord fer the damage he done,” Waller said, hiking a thumb up at the landing while looking at his partner.

The other man nodded slowly. “Could be.”

Qezzon glanced up again. No glint. No shadow. Good enough… Might still follow though, and with my muffler down, he’s had a good, long look at my face.

The tenement-dwellers were just getting a candle or lantern lit in response to all the ruckus, because light bloomed between the shutters. 

“A half-mark to split between you two fine tradesmen,” he said softly.

Waller flicked the reins. The cart began to roll.

It was nearly dawn by the time he saw what he’d been waiting for. A patrol of pumpkins was making their way back to the Hole from Sluicegate. Knowing any pursuer discouraged by witnesses would think again before doing anything that might bring them to the attention of the watch, Qezzon settled up with the muckrakers and climbed out of the shit right as the watchmen drew abreast of them.

The line of watchmen bowed out and away to avoid the filth and stench of him as they walked past. The man bringing up the rear looked straight at him, blue eyes flashing even as Qezzon recognized Sergeant of Watchmen Yarvis Kolp.

Other Shit To Do

Lots going on, very busy. Tide yourself with this, the premiere of which I shall be watching tonight:

Songs I Write Action Sequences To

Said action sequences must end up lining this bird's cage:

Action is easy. Emotion Ain't

A great part of my day job is describing the action. I need to be able to communicate what heppened in the moment that I or someone took action. When it comes to my fiction, I find these sections easy to write.

Emotion and dialogue aren't so easy. Not when you love the spoken word as I do. It is a challenge. One I enjoy, sometimes. Most of the time it pisses me off and irritates me no end, especially when I lose the voice of the character in the action...

The opening of Haldred The Hack, which handles some of those things pretty well, I think:


“Keep that cretin from bleeding all over mon floor,” Loud Luis ordered, his outrageous accent making the words difficult to understand.

“Last I checked, he wasn’t bleeding,” Krebs said, cracking thick knuckles of his fingers with his thumbs.

The subject of the Watchman and the innkeep’s conversation was standing atop one of the trestles of the Rake’s Rest. The drunkard, Ernst Korrmann, had been arguing with the innkeeper as civilly as any drunk could be expected to when Krebs and his partner, Pfenning arrived. When he recognized the orange uniforms and green sashes of the Watch, Korrmann decided with the drunk’s logic that he must have been the reason the Watch was called, and further, he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. He’d leapt to the table and loudly declared the Watch to be, “Full of bitches and witches.”

Pfenning made his way through the taproom, stopping in front of the door that led to the alley out back. He looked to make sure there was no other route out, turned back to face Korrmann while Krebs continued his conversation with Louie.

Krebs asked Loud Luis, who wasn’t among his favorite people, “So Korrmann did what, exactly?”

“He owes me half mark et three penny. He said he weren’t paying fer his boissons, his drinks.”

Krebs understood the man, despite the foreigner’s dropping into Gualainese every few words, “And yet you served him, knowing he was this type of drunk. Why?”

“’Cause he has the coin. It’s his- how you say? Name day. Everyone knows ‘e gets un peu d’coin from ‘is kin on ‘is name day.”

Krebs snorted, “So you feed the man’s demon and then call the Watch when it comes forth?”

Luis shrugged with the typical obstinate eloquence of his people.

‘Damn foreigners,’ Krebs thought as he turned to face Korrmann. He shook his head, a slight twinge of guilt at the thought. The man was within the law and his rights as the proprietor of a public house, whatever his origins and character.

Korrmann might be a royal pain in the ass, but he wasn’t normally violent unless someone challenged him or the Watch was called. One of the things Krebs had found surprising in his first years as a man of the Watch was how often things worked themselves out without the presence of the Watch. Those that didn’t were worthy of the Watch’s attention.

All Louie should have done was wait for Korrmann to pass out and take the coin he was owed, plus a tip for his trouble. The innkeeper liked to complain about the Watch, but he called on them more often than just about any other tavern in Southgate.

Pushing such thoughts aside, he said reasonably, “Korrmann, you know better than this. Come down from there and we’ll sort it out.”
Korrmann leered at Krebs, “Bite my ass, pumpkin!”

The crowd that had gathered to watch a beating tittered and guffawed. The Watchman could hear bets being placed.

Krebs hated them in that moment. Unwilling to do their part to maintain the Duke’s peace, they got in the way and incited those who might otherwise come quietly to act like idiots.

Pfenning’s reaction was more practical than his partner’s poisonous thoughts. Krebs saw his hand go to his side, silently sliding the cudgel he called ‘Love’ from his belt. Pfenning held the cubit of worn and nicked hickory down behind and parallel to his leg, concealing it.

Krebs gave a tiny shake of his head. “You need to pay your bill, Korrmann,” he insisted.

“Come and make me, pumpkin!” Korrmann shouted.

Krebs snorted, “Korrmann, I know you are quite the bare-knuckle fighter. You don’t have to prove it tonight.”

“Come ON!” Korrmann howled, spittle flying from his mouth and snot dripping from his oft-broken nose.

Krebs shook his head, keeping his voice level, “Twice you won the Boar’s Mantle.” Krebs tactfully refrained from adding, “then drank yourself into a stupor.” Instead he said, “There is no need to prove yourself tonight. Come. Pay your bill and we’ll all go home.”

Korrmann came from a good family that had invested his winnings well, which is why the man had a stipend paid him every year on his birthday and had a home to return to.

“You’ll have to make me, pumpkin! I ain’t goin’ anywhere wi’ you!” he yelled, kicking a tankard in Krebs’ direction. The crowd cheered Korrmann, egging the drunk on.

Krebs realized Korrmann wasn’t going to listen to reason. The big Watchman grunted and strode closer to the prize-fighter, raising his fists and bellowing, “Korrmann, you’ve broken the Duke’s peace, and will be brought before a magistrate!”

The distraction worked perfectly. Korrmann put his hands up in the classic guard, attention focused on Krebs. While Krebs made his display, Pfenning glided forward with his cudgel held at shoulder height.

Pfenning’s strike slammed across the backs of Korrmann’s legs, just above the knees, dropping the drunkard’s ten stone of weight to the table with a
pained grunt.

Krebs and Pfenning were on him in an instant, the experienced partners dragging the man from the table to the ground before the ex-prize fighter could recover. Krebs pulled a short length of rope from his belt-line. It was a complicated series of knots and loops, but the big Watchman had it on the man’s wrists in a flash.

Korrmann started crying, “I lost again. I lost again...Momma, I lost again.”

The taproom’s patrons booed and hissed, displeased with the quick and bloodless end to the fight. ‘To the Pathless Dark with them! I’m not paid enough to go toe to toe with the likes of Korrmann,’ Krebs thought. The most likely the cause for the grumbling was the great deal of coin changing hands, though a bit more blood would have probably pleased the rest.

Pfenning grinned at his partner over Korrmann’s back, “Damn, but that was fun.”

Krebs snorted and climbed to his feet, “You always like giving them some Love.”

Pfenning grinned and nodded emphatically, practiced hands patting the man down for weapons. He pulled a knife from the crying drunkard’s belt as well as his coin purse, which he passed to Krebs.

“Five penny fine for disturbing the Duke’s Peace and a five penny fine for challenging a member of the Watch to fight. Half-mark in total spot fines,” Krebs pronounced in a loud voice. He then took a mark from the purse and carefully split the silver in half along the line minted into the tiny silver bar for that purpose. He pocketed the half-mark and helped Pfenning stand the drunkard up. The Watchman found it always good policy to let witnesses know what he was doing when running his hands through the property of another of the Duke’s subjects.

Steadying the man absently, Krebs counted out three pennies. He slapped the half mark and copper coins on the bar as he and Pfenning escorted a still-tearful Korrmann from the premises.