So, it's been about 3 years since
The Barrow and a brief snippit in came out in
Blackguards and I'm resigned to the fact that the series is probably dead in the water. (Blackguards is an anthology totally worth every penny, BTW. Not a flat story in it.)
Sigh.
But, just as a friend of mine keeps rewatching Hannibal in these times, The Barrow is calling me.
I swear it's like somebody wrote a novel to my exact specifications of what I want, and every time I read it, I find something new and I still marvel at the sheer craftsmanship of it all.
(Also I dream of getting a story of the Gilded Lady some year for Yuletide.)
The fire had thankfully not been hard to put out, and their luck had held; no fatalities, but plenty of bleeders and bruises that needed closing and bandaging. Casseyo had somehow come out of the melee at the top of the stairs without a scratch. He was helping bandage up Otalo when they turned and saw the Gilded Lady stepping out onto the walkway, several of her ladies-in-waiting behind her, armed with rapiers and bearing torches. Jonas stood respectfully behind them. The Gilded Lady wore a high-necked brocade dress with puffed sleeves that glinted lightly in the torchlight with some sort of dark metal studs and a chain of office, made from gold coins from dozens of different cities, nations, and centuries. Gold eyeshadow and thick black eyelashes were the only makeup on her pale skin, her black hair pulled up into a braided bun and pinned with a broach. Under the collar of the dress Otalo could see a black choker over her apple, and he thought back on all the times he’d heard Guizo talk about the good old days, back when she was a man named Cole the Killer, back before she called herself the Gilded Lady. He and Casseyo bowed deep.
“Master Galluessi. Is it her?” asked the Gilded Lady in her deep, instantly recognizable voice. “The last of Lady Siovan’s known acolytes?”
“Lady Allas Thorodur, if I am not mistaken,” said Otalo grimly, coming up from his bow. Bad Mowbray and his men had gotten to the High Priestess herself on the first night, when the butchery had been hardest and fiercest, and it had been all cleanup ever since, hunting the Nameless they had slowly and secretly identified over the preceding weeks and months as their quarry went to ground. “Ariadesma said she’d be a hard one, and sure enough she’d had time to organize a couple of ambushes for us.”
“Which you appear to have won through in your usual fashion,” said the Gilded Lady with a demure nod of her head. “Well done, sirrah. If the reports from the other crews are accurate, then we’ve gotten as many of them as we’re likely to get, and the rest will melt into the shadows. Your man Lodrigo will live, by the by; my Ladies are sucking the poison out.” A not so demure smirk flashed across her face.
“Thank you, my Lady.” Otalo nodded in relief, and then eyed the bodies with wroth and sadness. He shook his head as his gaze fell on the murdered Watchman, the man’s pale throat a livid gash in the torchlight. “Doesn’t it make you angry? I mean, we’re hunting the fucking Nameless for them in the night, and here’s the kind of man that would spit on us in the cold light of day.”
The Gilded Lady smiled. “It would make me angry if we were doing this for them. But we’re not. We’re doing this for us. For me and mine, for you and yours. No man or woman is safe from the Nameless, but they stalk the margins and the shadows more than most, the places where we live and walk. When they want a child to play with, it ain’t usually some nobleman’s son that goes missing; when they’re looking for fresh quim to work over, it ain’t usually some high-born lady that winds up pulped and bleeding out. No, we’re their natural prey: the peasant, the commoner, the dispossessed, the poor, the weak, the criminal, the dregs. And if we don’t protect our own, we know sure as the Six Hells that they fucking won’t,” she said, kicking the dead Watchman in the shins for emphasis.
She turned away, and then looked back over her shoulder. “Do not spend another moment mourning that man. Jonas told me what happened. He made a choice, and he paid for it. It’s no one’s fault but his own. Dispose of his body as you wish. And give my best to Guizo.”
She turned and disappeared back into the building as Jonas stepped out onto the walkway with the Tills in tow. “Right,” he said cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. “No point fucking around. The dead aren’t going to throw themselves away, and the night ain’t getting any younger.”