A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

Eleven
others found and then escaped like the slippery eels they
no doubt were, being hunted by debt, ill luck and the
vagaries of a clearly malicious universe intent on delivering
misery and whatnot. But no matter such failure among the
thugs sent out to enforce collection or deliver punishment
– not the problem of these men, now, was it?
    Bereft of all burdens, blessed with exquisite freedom,
Scorch and Leff were here, in this soon-to-be-opulent
estate that was even now rising from the dust of neglect
and decay to enshroud like a cloak of jewels the mysterious
arrival of a nobleborn – a woman, it was rumoured, all
veiled, but see the eyes! Eyes of such beauty! Why, imagine
them widening as I reach down— Scorch and Leff, edging in nervously, barely emerging
from the shadow of the arched gate. Peering round, as if
lost, as if moments from running off with stolen chunks
of masonry or an armload of bricks or even a bag of iron
wedges—
    'Ho – you two! What do you want here?'
    Starting guiltily. Scorch staring wide-eyed at the grizzled
foreman walking up to them – a Gadrobi so bowlegged he
looked to be wading hip-deep through mud. Leff ducking
his head as if instinctively dodging an axe – which said a
lot about his life thus far, didn't it – and then stepping one
small pace forward and attempting a smile that fared so
poorly it could not even be described as a grimace.
    'Is there a castellan we could talk to?' Leff asked.
    'About what?'
    'Gate guards,' Leff said. 'We got lots of qualifications.'
    'Oh. Any of them relevant?'
    'What?'
    Leff looked at Scorch and saw the panic spreading like
a wildfire on his friend's face. A match to his own growing
dismay – madness, thinking they could just step up another
rung on the ladder. Madness! 'We . . . we could walk her
dogs, I mean?'
    'You could? I suppose you could, if the Mistress had
any.'
    'Does she?' Leff asked.
    'Does she what?'
    'Have any. Dogs we could walk.'
    'Not even ones you can't walk.'
    'We can guard the gate!' Scorch shouted. 'That's what
we're here for! To get hired on, you see, as estate guards.
And if you don't think we can swing a sword or use a crossbow,
why, you don't know us at all, do you?'
    'No, you're right,' the foreman replied. 'I don't.'
    Leff scowled. 'You don't what?'
    'Stay here,' the old man said, turning away, 'while I get
Castellan Studlock.'
    As the foreman waded away through the dust – watched
with longing by the ox beside the rubble heap – Leff turned
on Scorch. 'Studlock?'
    Scorch shrugged helplessly. 'I ain't never heard of him.
    Why, have you?'
    'No. Of course not. I'd have remembered.'
    'Why?'
    'Why? Are you a Hood-damned idiot?'
    'What are we doing here, Leff?'
    'Torvald said no, remember? To everything. He's too
good for us now. So we'll show him. We'll get hired on
this fancy estate. As guards. With uniforms and polished
buckles and those braided peace-straps for our swords. And
so he'll curse himself that he didn't want us no more, as
partners or anything. It's his wife, I bet – she never liked us
at all, especially you, Scorch, so that's what you've done to
us and I won't forget any time soon neither so don't even
think otherwise.'
    He shut his mouth then and stood at attention since
the foreman was returning and at his side pitter-pattered
a figure so wrapped up in swaddles of cotton it took three
steps for every pendulum pitch forward from the foreman.
    The feet beneath the ragged hem were small enough to be
cloven hoofs. A hood covered the castellan's head and in
the shadow of the hood's broad mouth there was something
that might have been a mask. Gloved hands were drawn up
in a way that reminded Leff – and, a moment later, Scorch
– of a praying mantis, and if this was the estate castellan
then someone had knocked the world askew in ways
unimaginable to either Leff or Scorch.
    The foreman said, 'Here they are, sir.'
    Were there eyes in the holes of that smooth mask? Who
could tell? But the head shifted and something told both
men – like spider legs dancing up their spines – that they
were under scrutiny.
    'So true,' Castellan Studlock said in a voice that made
Leff think of gravel under the fingernails while Scorch
thought about the way there was always one gull that
bullied all the rest and if the others just ganged up, why,
equality and freedom would belong to everyone! 'So true,'
said the swaddled, masked man (or woman, but then the
foreman had said 'sir', hadn't he), 'there is need for