The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [129]
“Fuck your custom, Manuel, I’ve a business ta run!”
“And I don’t?” said Manuel, keenly aware that the sketch he was in the middle of copying was no longer receiving as much of his attention as it really ought to command—one of the corners he had secured with a nail had torn slightly and now the whole damn thing might be off-center. Worse still, his apprentice was gone for the day so he could not simply pass it over to the boy. “And I very much doubt a few years of brothel life has wholly removed her, her witchcraft, which proved more than a match for me or four stout mercenaries back in—”
“Don’t be callin her a witch, Niklaus,” said Monique. “Don’t want your precious studio havin an accident, do ya? Lots a powder in my purse, an’—”
“Don’t you fucking threaten me!” Manuel finally set his stylus down. “Our friend, Awa, is a witch. I’ve seen what she can do, I’ve felt what she can do, so don’t you act like you didn’t know! Did I say she was wicked, Mo? Did I? The fuck I did. But she’s a witch, a real fucking witch, and—”
“What the fuck is that?” Monique shoved past him, and he gave a little yelp as she knocked his arm into an easel. Steadying it and turning, he saw what she had pulled the rest of the way out from under a stack of planks and his stomach rolled. For a moment he considered calling for a servant but then he saw that her face was hurt, not angry. She looked up from the paper, and said in a voice far quieter than he had ever heard her use, “You knew.”
“That was ages ago,” said Manuel, glancing at the closed door over her shoulder. “Katharina told them she’d gone to Muscovy.”
“You fuckin knew an’ let me go on bout this.” The stupid confusion on her face was maddening, as if it were difficult to understand. How the illiterate had even recognized the bill for what it was he could not fathom, though he supposed the men who had come to her brothel must have delivered a similar poster. The sketch of Awa on it was pure amateur work, a black head with distinctly European features, and—
The clicking of his teeth as she punched him in the chin was somehow louder than the easels toppling, the planks clattering, the pots and glasses shattering, and then he landed on his back. She did not strike him again but went back to staring at the poster, perhaps puzzling over the different squiggles underneath the image. Hers would have been in the French vernacular if the author had any sense, and he must have a little if his men had found both artist and gunner, whereas the bill Monique now held was in German. Manuel winced as he flexed his jaw, then he saw the paint spreading across his floor, the scattered planks and tipped canvases, and he winced again. Monique crumpled the bill in her hand and looked down at Manuel with the expression of one who has just realized that the meal they were in the midst of enjoying was seasoned with rat droppings.
“I thought you was different, Manuel, an’ so did she. You’re just like’em, though, aye? Von Wine, them Lombardy mayors, all of’em. How much ya sell me one of your kids for, Manuel? How much ya sell me your wife for? How much’ll it cost me ta watch ya fuck a pig, you little shit?”
“Look,” said Manuel, his voice cracking as he looked up at her, “they came here when I was out with Margaretha and Lydie, two men came here. To my fucking house. Tomas, the servant, Tomas wasn’t going to let them in but they forced the door, and one held him and the other found Katharina with, with Hieronymus, with my little boy. He was on her tit and they just barged in. They didn’t talk long, just enough. Katharina was terrified—”
“An’ ya didn’t fuckin tell me.” Monique was shaking her head. “Ya didn’t tell me first thing when I come in the door. Ages ago, aye? An’ ya didn’t even send fuckin word?!” She slapped another canvas over, and that brought Manuel to his feet.
“Kat knew who they were fucking after, Mo, and she stalled and cried until she thought she sounded convincing, and then she told them Awa had stayed a night and then gone to Muscovy. Muscovy, Mo, how