56. Sharp Declines
Perhaps, Myria mused, the men hunting me have given up. Surely they would not pursue me forever? But how would I know? It is maddening!
She had these argument with herself daily. Every foray out into the world left her digestive system feeling as if it were coiling itself into a tangled ball, leaving her feeling excited and sick at the same time, which warred with the feelings of safety and confinement when she stayed in the residence. The pull between the two was becoming difficult to manage.
Going to the bakery helped at first, but after a while even that felt confining. And an excess of nothing continued to happen.
Which was the point, Roustam kept reminding her. As soon as something happened, that meant things had gone seriously wrong.
Roustam remained insistent. Only the bakery, for now, he said. And never the same route, and no fixed pattern.
Not only that, but sometimes they would send Jackstone out with an apparently full coach to the bakery, and then they would leave on foot from the servants' entrance. Myria enjoyed those days somewhat more, as she at least got to see more of the city. Those walks made Roustam quietly unhappy, unfortunately.
She also got to interact, in small ways, with other people on the street. Most of those were pleasant. "Good day, milady," or "Nice evening, miss," went a long way when it was days between them.
The third or fourth trip was a bit different. Myria, Jessica, and Roustam were making their way down a small side-street when a small cart, pulled by a tired-looking donkey with a middle-aged man walking beside it, attempted to exit an alley just as they were trying to cross. And of course, Roustam being what and who he was, he immediately blocked the path and put himself between Myria and the cart full of what appeared to be some sort of root. The donkey stopped as he appeared before it, waiting patiently for the obstacle to disappear, as obstacles did.
The man was less patient. "Oy, back off, you're scarin me animal." He frowned as he took in Roustam's darker skin. "Bloody towl'ead," he muttered.
"My apologies, offendi." Roustam stepped aside, deciding the only threat here was insult and not injury. He knew better than to take the man's insult to heart, especially when on the job.
His heart sunk when he heard Myria's query.
"Excuse me, sir, but did you refer to my employee as a "towelhead"?"
"Uh oh." Jessica muttered.
The man looked suddenly less sure. "Well he… it was me donkey, ma'am. They scares me donkey. 'cause you know…" He petered off, realizing that he might be getting into deep water and that, contrary to his statements, the donkey appeared to be taking a nap.
Myria looked at Roustam, then at Jessica who was frantically shaking her head and making what looked to be negative hand signals, then back at the donkey.
"I do not understand. Roustam is around our horses and other animals frequently, and they are not frightened by him. And yours does not appear to be overly bothered at the moment."
"Well…. maybe not by him. But them like him."
Jessica groaned and sat down on a nearby set of steps. Myria felt her brows furrow. "I still do not understand."
"Them!" He stuck a calloused thumb at Roustam. "Towl'eads!"
"He is not wearing any type of head covering."
"It's a spression, miss. The ones that don't wear it's worse than the ones that does."
Roustam was now turning several colors, then paled as he realized the amount of time they were spending here. The sooner they moved the better. "My lady, we should keep moving."
Myria raised a hand. "One moment." She was beginning to understand the situation somewhat now. "You are referring to his being from Klatch, then?"
The cart driver exhaled in a whoosh. "Right you are, miss. They ain't like us."
Myria's eyes flicked back and forth from the anxious bodyguard to the scowling cart driver.
"I am sorry, but I am unable to determine any differences of significance."
That caused a general hue and cry from both men.
"What'dya mean by that?"
"My lady!"
Jessica, on the other hand, was starting to laugh in a way that sounded like a mixture of mirth and pain.
"What's so funny, I'd like to know!"
"Myria just told you…" she smirked, "that all you people look alike to her."
"Why you insolent little…"
"Ah ah ah." Jessica wagged a finger. "I'm little miss understanding, me. But I don't think my friends would appreciate you calling me names."
"I'll call you whatever I want. And as for her…"
There was a soft sound, and the man found a rather sharp piece of metal pressing against his ribcage through his shirt, and a sudden dampness in the general trouser area.
"If you value your pulse, offendi, you will halt this conversation here, and allow us to move on." He nodded to Jessica. "Get moving."
Only after Myria and Jessica were clearly moving did he step back.
"I'll call the watch, I will!"
"As you say, offendi."
"Did someone say something about the Watch?"
Roustam cursed himself, not because of the presence of the watchman, but because he hadn't heard him arrive.
"Ah Captain Carrot. A pleasure to see you again."
"Mister Rhezah. Is there a problem here?"
Jessica, being Jessica, nominated herself spokesperson. "Nope. No problem here, officer! We were just having a discussion about stupidity. Isn't that right Myria?"
The cartman, seeing which way the wind was blowing, opted for muttering and waking up his donkey instead of further education.
"Indeed."
Carrot eyed them all carefully. "Lady, it's good to see you about, but please do be careful."
"Of course… Captain." Her desire to continue talking to him was tempered, heavily, by the surety that somewhere nearby was another officer, of the female variety, who would take great offense at it.
"C'mon Myria, let's go before Roustam has some sort of fit."
There are many things an auditor-become-human learns very quickly to recognize.
One of those is the feel of carbon and iron atoms, mixed in specific ratios and arranged ever-so-carefully into very thin and straight layers, as they are pressed against flesh.
Ah the frailties of the flesh.
Which leads us to another human frailty, that of "out of sight, out of mind". Give someone several days out and about in the city, and soon the brain starts paying less attention to things like "some human that may have been perhaps slightly angry with you" and starts instead paying attention to "oooo shiny trinket."
It's a pity, really.
Thus it was that this particular auditor, despite their best intentions, found that they had slipped out of sight of their bodyguard and were, at this moment, finding swallowing to be a risky proposition.
"Been waiting weeks. Weeks for this. And here you are, deliver yourself right into my hands."
Mister Sharps felt the knife blade shift ever so slightly, and managed to swallow ever so carefully without damaging anything important.
"So what you got to say for yerself, eh Trashman? Leaving me in the dirt and you livin' it up, looks like. Breaks my heart it does. Thought we had a deal, see."
"We could not return to you!" He croaked. "We could not get away from our guards! It is good that we meet now!"
Flasher's eyes narrowed, and the knife didn't move.
"That's it, is it? You was just waiting for the right time, is it?" Flasher's cheek worked as he chewed the inside of it. "Didn't seem to have any trouble comin' and goin' to her house, though, did ya?"
"We have made progress!"
"Progress?!" Somehow, Flasher managed to flail around with one hand without his knife hand moving an inch. It was one of the skills he'd cultivated. He was proud of his hands, how steady he could hold one while the other might be doing something very unpleasant somewhere else to bits you really cared about. "You were supposed to get her alone! Now she has a bodyguard!"
"It is still as planned! We'"
"Keep it down!" Flasher hissed.
"We said," Sharps continued earnestly, "that we were required to become trusted first. She was already guarded!"
"By the Sammies! Them gits!? I could have gotten past them![1]"
"It was unavoidable!"
Flasher reigned in his temper and was quiet for a few seconds. Suddenly the knife was gone from Sharps' throat, and tapping Flasher's tooth instead.
"So yer tellin' me…" taptaptap "that this was all part of your plan. You're in with the mark… and you can deliver her to me now."
"Yes! The LeJean trusts us!"
"Hmmm. Alright. Fine. Then let's do this." Flasher actually slumped. "Tell ya the truth, Trashman, I'm tired of all this." He shook his head, sadly. "S'bad enough dealing with all the Sammies running around. You hear, they got a werewolf? Now everybody's carryin' some kinda perfume bottle with 'em now. Perfume! And then I got this on toppa everything else, eatin' at me day after day." He cast a baleful look at Sharps. "It's enough to make a man question his c'reer."
Sharps nodded vigorously, wanting to change, he understood. He had wanted to change, and look at him now! And the things he had learned! One of those was the idea of negotiation.
Sharps cleared his throat. "We have been thinking. We can lure the LeJean away from the bodyguard, but we have requirements for our part in this."
Flasher went very still. "Oho. Re-quirements you got, do ya?"
"Yes. We request that you cease threatening us. You need our assistance, and we will give it. There is no need to resort to threats of violence."
"Huh." Flasher turned that around in his head, then smiled brightly. "Alright. Fair cop, guv. You got me. I'm all talk, ain't I? No more threats, just two blokes working together, innit?"
"Correct. And we have one additional condition." This, Sharps decided, would be the tricky one.
An hour later, Mister Sharps, feeling very pleased with how things had turned out, wandered back onto Cunning Artificers where he could be easily found by his own 'bodyguard'.
[1] Which was, of course, total bollocks, or he would have done already. It's easy to talk trash about Sam Vimes' boys (and girls) when you aren't immediately on the receiving end of Detritus's favorite siege weapon.