Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 8

‘When you leaving?’ Dava’s obsession with everyone else’s schedule used to annoy Argus, but now he just answered without thought or memory. ‘Seventh bell.’

‘Seventh!’ The little woman rattled out her usual outrage at the inequities of the work rota. They ambled towards the main holding block, the private scaffold at their back. Behind them Jame Lender dangled out of sight beneath the trapdoor, still twitching. Jame was the graveman’s problem now. Old Man Herber would be along soon enough with his cart and donkey for the day’s take. The short distance to Winscon Hill might prove a long trip for Old Herber, his five passengers, and the donkey, near as geriatric as its master. The fact that Jame had no meat on him to speak of would lighten the load. That, and the fact two of the other four were small girls.

Herber would wind his way through the Cutter Streets and up to the Academy first, selling off whatever body parts might have a value today. What he added to the grave-ditch up on the Hill would likely be much diminished – a collection of wet ruins if the day’s business had been good.

‘… sixth bell yesterday, fifth the day before.’ Dava paused the rant that had sustained her for years, an enduring sense of injustice that gave her the backbone to handle condemned men twice her size.

‘Who’s that?’ A tall figure was knocking at the door to the new arrivals’ block with a heavy cane.

‘Fellow from the Caltess? You know.’ Dava snapped her fingers before her face as if trying to surprise the answer out. ‘Runs fighters.’

‘Partnis Reeve!’ Argus called the name as he remembered it and the big man turned. ‘Been a while.’

Partnis visited the day-gaol often enough to get his fighters out of trouble. You don’t run a stable of angry and violent men without them breaking a few faces off the payroll from time to time, but generally they didn’t end up at Harriton. Professional fighters usually keep a calm enough head to stop short of killing during their bar fights. It’s the amateurs who lose their minds and keep stamping on a fallen opponent until there’s nothing left but mush.