More Of The Same

This section is both a re-post and continuation of yesterday's. I am hoping to get this chapter done today:

“And what does he want?”

“A word with his son.”

“Were it simple as that, you’d have it to give to me.”

A shrug of broad shoulders, “You would know better than I, Yarvis.”

“Carefully said, Novis.”

A toss of the head, getting iron-grey hair out of grey eyes. “I’ve had some experience treading the ground between you two.”

Yarvis pulled his hat from the peg by the door, pushing past the older man and out of his home. “Tell me, does it ever get muddy, that ground?”

His father’s oldest servant turned to follow. “Never more than it was when you denied him, Yar.” 

Yarvis snorted, “You mean when I, a grown man, decided I knew what was best for me?”

“Each has his place in the thing, I suppose.”

“What does that mean?”

Another shrug. “Your father thinks different.”

“Every man entitled to his thoughts, I suppose. Of course, my father would like to charge everyone for his, even while he’s ramming them down your throat.”

Novis stopped walking. “Will you see him?”

Yarvis turned to face him, “In due time.”

“And when can I tell him to expect you?”

It was Yarvis’ turn to shrug. “When I arrive at his door.”

Thin lips drew tight around the scar he’d earned turns ago, defending the old man’s money, not his family. “You know what he’ll say to that, Yar.”

“I do,” Yarvis said, “and aside from the shit he’ll likely toss your way for telling him, can’t say I much care.”

“Then just come with, start a fresh ledger. You know he won’t.”

“No, he won’t.” Shaking his head, Yarvis patted his father’s man on the shoulder, “I never understood why you stood by him all these turns, Novis. You’re too good for him, should have left him ages ago.”

Novis raised scarred hands: “I’m an old man, set in his ways. I’ll thank you for not starting in on me for doing as I have always done.”

Yarvis nodded, turned to go.

“It’s important, what your father wants to talk to you about.”

The man’s tone gave Yarvis pause, “But he didn’t–wouldn’t–tell you what it was?”

“No, just an old man’s instinct, earned in close to thirty turns of service.”

“But not important enough for him to come himself.”

“Your father does have many demands on his time.”

Yarvis sighed. “Alright, let’s go.”

After a few steps the pair was walking in lock-step, much as they used to when about Sadris’ business. 

They made it across Market and entered Mintside before Novis broke the companionable silence with a question: “How’s the wife?”

Yarvis smiled, “Ciorran’s well, thank you for asking.”

“Still working for her father?”

“Yes, the mill is doing quite well.” Despite Sadris pressuring the other moneylenders to deny them credit for the repairs last year. 

“Any grandsons on the way?”

Yarvis felt his smile thin, shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Plenty of time, plenty.”

“Yes.”

“I heard you were recently before the magistrate, some murderous gangster?” 

Of course you heard: I’m sure father gave the Lord Magistrate an earful on that. “Two, actually. One for trying to kill me and another for murdering the first gangster. Both hung for their crimes against Duke’s Law.”

Novis shook his head, whether in wonder or disapproval, Yarvis couldn’t say. 

“What?” he asked as they turned onto Mint, the spacious boulevard lined with the most prosperous of the counting and exchange houses of the city. Yarvis felt his guts clench. Kolp House was the last of the houses at the far end, at the corner of the small square fronting the imposing building of the Duke’s Mint. 

And inside it, your father.

“Always knew you for a hard one, Yar.”

Yarvis grinned despite the tension, “I had a good teacher in you, Nov.”

“And your father.”

Never one to take credit where it’s due, are you, Old Nov? “By the time I was old enough to learn, he wasn’t doing his own collections.”

“There’s hard in the heat of things and hard in the head and heart when things need to be done cool as you please and right the first time. Whatever talent I might have at the first, your father is the best I’ve ever known at all of it. You are two sides of the coin in that.”

Yarvis didn’t argue.

Still More Bridge of The Broken

Someone (Yes, I'm looking at you, K) asked that I stop the violence. Here is another piece, this one with more than a little dialogue. There's some anger, too. But no overt violence.

“He did what?” Baptiste asked with a yawn. The cortex had eaten more than half of Caron’s report last night, with the result he hadn’t got home before midnight. Myrna hadn’t yet come home when he’d gone to bed, something he had yet to talk to her about.

“Made a mess in my store, le con,” Gerard answered, looking Caron up and down with an appreciative eye.

“No,” Baptiste shook his head, “before that.”

“What?” Baptiste wasn’t sure if it was his words or his movement that dragged the man’s attention from Caron’s chest back to his face, but was certainly bone weary of Gerard. “Oh, He fell. I thought he was just trying to blackmail me, you know, trying to get a free drink, but then he broke the bottle too,” the clerk said, again looking sidelong at Caron’s chest.

“Then what?”

“He took off, like I told him to.”

“So, he didn’t steal anything?” Caron asked.

“No, but he was about to when I caught him.”

“Are you serious?” Baptiste grunted.

“What?” the clerk said.

“You want the guy we’ve both known for years arrested because he fell and broke a bottle in your store?”

Gerard’s face closed up like a stubborn fist, “Yes. He broke what he’d planned to steal.”

“Sorry, we aren’t the mind police,” Baptiste said.

“Don’t you go blowing me off, Jean-Hervé. I know your brother, and he s-“

Baptiste had enough, pushed his face into the clerk’s “He says what?”

Gerard blinked, stood up straight, trying to increase the distance between himself and Baptiste without retreating, “He listened to me, thought that arresting Mad Morgan might get him some help.”

“Oh, so now we can heal the Broken?” Baptiste snarled.

“Well, no.”

“That’s right. No, he can’t. Even he can’t, though that clearly isn’t enough to stop him meddling in police business.”

“Look, I didn’t mean anything by it, just wan-“

Baptiste thumped the counter with his fist, “If you’re so bent on saving Morgan, perhaps you should stop serving him and all the other drunks come through here looking to get liquored up!” he said, motioning at the ranks of bottles behind the counter as he turned to leave.

“So you aren’t going to take my report just because I mention your brother?” Gerard asked, his tone clear evidence of his inability to sense ground he shouldn’t tread.
Caron stepped forward into the space Baptiste had vacated.

Baptiste bit down on the desire to shoot his mouth off as Caron replied in his stead, “No sir, I will not take your report because you are not reporting a crime. What you have reported is not a crime, it is a civil dispute, with one party absent. We will now leave. Good day.”

“Who the fu-“

Baptiste whirled on the clerk, pointing a finger at him, “Don’t you fucking say it, G. She’s right, she said it more civilly than you deserve, and we are out of here.”

Baptiste turned and led the way out of the store.

Outside, he slowed to let Caron walk beside him to the squad car, “Well, done Caron. I blew my stack a bit and you covered nicely for me. I appreciate it. More to the point, it’s what partners do for one another.”

Caron hitched a thumb back in the direction of the store, “You aren’t worried he’ll complain?”

“Gerard can complain all he likes. I was civil ‘till he brought up my brother, and I didn’t get out of hand even when I did bark at him. Besides, my brother shouldn’t have been involved at all, and knows it.”

She popped the doors on the squad, “Can I ask who your brother is?”

‘A sanctimonious sack of shit,’ Baptiste thought but did not say. She might be religious, and he wasn’t about to open that can of worms, not while he was training the young woman.

He sat in the passenger seat, looking at her before answering aloud, “He’s a priest in the Church. Some call him The Penitent.”

She blinked, opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, “He’s your brother? I knew you came from old stock, and have a lot of family in the Department, but he’s not the kind of guy I would think was related to- well, anyone.”

Baptiste grunted as a placeholder while he moderated the first comment that came to mind, “He hasn’t been at the family table in years, but yes, he is my older brother.”

She looked away. Her adam’s apple bobbed as she swallowed something hard.

“What?” he asked.

“My brother… He’s not someone the family lays claim to easily either.”

“Oh?” Baptiste asked.

“Yes, he was sent up the well some time ago. Financial crimes.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard some trite shit like this before, but having been there, I can really say you can only choose your friends, not your family.”

She shrugged, started the car and put it in gear.

The rest of the day passed pretty quietly. Baptiste didn’t mind, and Caron’s daily progress report would reflect how well she’d handled him going off on the store owner.

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.