The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [84]
Burke drained his mug in a single long series of gulps, and smacked it down on to the table with a touch more force than was needed.
“Don’t care if it’s a hundred pound.” He leaned closer to Hare. “I’ll not bargain on things such as this with a man I don’t trust. And I don’t trust this bastard. Nor like him.”
Blegg looked away, evincing disinterest.
“Come away,” Burke urged his companion. “We’re not needing him. We’ve got all the arrangement we need with others.”
Hare looked doubtful, and Blegg abruptly turned back, and stared at him. When he spoke, it was to Burke, though his eyes remained fixed upon Hare.
“You’d best be away, right enough. I’m not needing you, that’s sure. But your friend here I’ll buy as much drink as he likes.”
“I’ll stay a bit,” Hare said softly.
“On your head be it, then,” Burke growled, angry. “He’s the stink of trouble, and I’ll not be sharing it with you.”
He pushed himself up from the table so firmly that the little stool toppled over backwards. He kicked it aside as he made for the door. Blegg looked after him with a sour expression.
“Have you cold hands or something, then?” Hare asked, eyeing the black gloves with which Blegg held his still full mug of flattening beer.
“Something,” Blegg grunted. “Listen, our mutual acquaintance, Mr. Paterson in Surgeon’s Square, tells me you’re the very man I need to talk to on the matter of… well, shall we call them certain goods that are not easily obtained? I pay him well enough to put some faith in his advice. Is he right?”
“Maybe so, maybe not.”
“Come, don’t be coy. I’ve no wish to intrude upon whatever trade you’re plying with Knox. My needs are modest, and you’ll be well recompensed if you can meet them.”
Hare eyed his new drinking companion, a touch reserved.
“Is it an anatomist you’re working for, then?” he asked. “Something like that?”
“Something like that. Something like that.”
Hare wrinkled his nose.
“It’s courting ill luck,” he said, “to be talking of such things in the very place they’ve hanged men for less.”
“Oh, they’ve not had gallows in the Grassmarket for a time now, William.” Blegg smiled. “They build them elsewhere these days. And it’s more fitting a place than you might think. Do you not know the meaning of the sign under which we meet?”
“The White Hart?”
“Herne the Hunter,” said Blegg. “The white hart is his beast. His totem. It was a white hart that wounded him, when he was a mortal man, wounded him unto death. But he was returned to life by a maker of magics, who bound the hart’s antlers to his head. Thus was he restored.”
“I’ve no interest in your folk tales,” Hare grunted.
“No? As you like. Let us talk of more practical matters, shall we?”
Quire still ached. His body was taking its time in forgetting his misadventure at Cold Burn Farm. It did not seem too great a burden, though, for he was warm, and well rested, and for now at least content.
He rolled and draped an arm across Cath Heron’s naked shoulder. The bedding was rough, and the mattress lumpy, but her skin was soft and her hair where it lay across the pillow between them put the scent of her in his nose. She stirred at his touch, almost awake, but not quite.
It was unaccustomedly quiet. Too early for the inhabitants of the Holy Land to be up and about, certainly, but too early as well for the rest of the Old Town to have come but a little way out of the night. The scavengers would be finishing their rounds, wheeling their barrows full of Edinburgh’s scraps off the streets. The forges and breweries down in the Canongate would be beginning to wake, but they were far enough distant that he could not hear the flexing of their iron and coal muscles. Seagulls, he could hear; always seagulls, called up from the coast by the riches of the city.
It had been many years since Quire had been easily able to sleep late. Wakefulness came, whether he wanted it or not. This night, at least, had been dreamless, the horrors