A Remit of Execution

Death and Taxes: Part Two of Twelve.

Death and Taxes is the third in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the second chapter.

This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.

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A Remit of Execution

Large parts of the Petals were so built up, so tightly pressed, squeezed and packed, that the alleys and streets were better described as corridors or tunnels. Wilhemina Clark’s house was no exception. It may once have been an independent structure, but it was now entangled and entwined within a meshed warren of other buildings and dwellings; there were passages to each side, partly above, and, very likely below.

Crouched in a dark and stinking alley, Merie and the others watched the building. There was an open space in front of the main door, where seven narrow streets met, but the sides were hemmed in by leaning gables, buildings like too many paupers crammed in a communal grave, all jostling for the same earth.

‘Stay here.’

Merie made the others wait while she checked for entrances and exits. It took longer than she would have liked, and she counted only two, which made her nervous. Finding only this pair meant it likely others were hidden, invisible from the outside.

In a perfect world, she would have had longer to check. In a perfect world, she would have had a team she could rely on. But this was not a perfect world.

She returned to the others.

‘I only count two ways in, which probably means there are more. I think we go in stealthy right until we are spotted, then we go hard. I want you all to use as much force as will ensure we get out of there alive with the money. If that means execution, then it is within our remit.’

She herself had not killed since the night the man she loved had burnt alive, and the thought made her feel oddly calm.

‘Do we wait until we know Clark is in there, or do we go in now?’ Myka asked, drawing his knife and testing the edge with his dirty thumb.

‘We will wait for a while longer, then we will move whether we know she’s in there or not. If we don’t find her, then we find someone else who knows where she’ll be and ask them a few questions. Nice and friendly.’

‘That’s her,’ Merie whispered.

‘How do you know for sure?’ Imon asked, peering at the shadowy figure walking towards the house.

‘It’s my fucking job and I don’t like mistakes, that’s how,’ she replied, biting back an even angrier response. ‘You’ve known me more than two years, when have I ever made a mistake?’

‘There was that...’ he began, then stopped and altered his statement, ‘There was not as much at stake then.’

‘You mean money. There was always my life. And yours, for that matter.’ Merie was angry. She knew he had been going to mention that night four years ago, when her husband had died, along with all the others in their team. It had become a cautionary tale for other tax collectors, whispered behind her back in inns, fingers pointed and heads shaken.

She had been lucky, the Crimson had said: lucky she had been blown clear by the blast, lucky avoiding being trapped under collapsing beams, lucky she had not been burnt in the fierce blaze which followed, spreading and claiming the lives of forty-three not-so-lucky people.

She had not relished telling her children just how lucky she had been, cradling baby Hedda, who would grow up without knowing her father. She remembered the sense of utmost loss, sitting on the ground outside her home waiting until she could somehow tell her children, sobbing and sobbing, a pain unlike any other she had ever known coursing through her, feeling anything but lucky.

Clark stopped outside the door and looked around. The two tall, broad-backed figures following her paused, waited for a nod, then placed the chest they were carrying on the ground. They rubbed their arms, arched their backs, and stretched. It was clearly very heavy.

Another shadow resolved into a fourth person, another large man, this time carrying a large axe, who exchanged a few hushed words with Clark. One of the chest carriers bent down and pulled back the lid.

Even over the distance to where Merie’s team waited, the gold and jewels were visible, shining in the dim light.

The lid replaced, all four went into the house together.

‘This makes no sense,’ Merie said quietly, mostly to herself.

‘Why not?’ Imon asked, then added, ‘What doesn’t?’

‘Why did they open the chest there in the street? If they were all going in together, why not wait until they were inside?’

‘Maybe they had to show the gold to get in?’ Imon frowned, and Merie instantly knew he was not frowning for the same reason she was.

‘To get into her own house? Seems unlikely, don’t you think?’

She was worried.

All her life she had listened to that little voice warning her against certain actions, and all her life it had protected her. Twice she knew it had saved her life, but left her with pain and heartache. The bandits on the road south — leaving her with a limp and a small Roadguard pension. The explosion in which she had lost Luka — leaving her with four children and no husband.

Each time she had paused and listened to some extra sense — an extra sense that was quietly telling her something wasn’t quite right. Each time she had argued with herself and, each time, she had pushed on regardless. Each time, had she stopped there and then and walked away, she would be in a very different place now.

This time the voice was not quiet, it was screaming.

‘I don’t like it. It makes no sense,’ she repeated.

‘What makes no sense is stopping now. She’s there. The money’s there. Urell will not like to hear you bottled it at the last moment.’ Imon turned to her, squaring himself.

Merie was silent. It all fitted into place. She knew it had been too easy to find Clark, she knew the amount of money she had withheld from the tax collectors was too great. It was a trap — for her, certainly, and maybe for Pol and Little Pepper too. Despite following them, spying on them for months, she still had no evidence they were anything other than they seemed to be — hardworking and honest tax collectors.

But she knew, without a doubt, it was a trap.

‘Fine, we go ahead with the plan.’

She could almost feel Imon relax beside her and, strangely, she felt herself relax too.

Merie had surprises of her own, she would play the fool, spring the jaws, set off the trigger. It would not end well, but not for her. No — she had a different plan.

For the first time in a very long time, she felt calm, certain of the outcome. She would not break her leg, and her husband would not burn again. She would not leave her children orphans, never knowing what happened to their mother, why she never came home. She licked her lips and smiled.

‘Let’s do this.’

The thing about knowing you are walking into a trap, Merie knew, is that you can approach it on your own terms. You knew how to activate it without getting caught, or disarm it; pull the pin, make it safe.

She struggled with a snaking tendril of guilt to be sending Pol and Little Pepper in as planned. If they were not working with Imon then they were likely to meet their deaths. She told herself it was not her problem; she could not risk her family by warning them. She pushed the guilt away and walked slowly across the street. Besides, if they were as competent as she thought they were, they had every chance to escape.

The pair were supposed to take the front door, with Imon remaining on over-watch, short bow at the ready to cover them. Or shoot them in their backs.

Again, she almost paused and warned them, but instead she steeled herself and carried on.

Merie was supposed to take the back door at the same time as Pol and his niece took the front, with Bee and Myka following her from where they waited with Imon her after a slow count of one hundred. Imon himself was to remain on over-watch, provide any cover needed should any one of the other five need to run.

Instead, as soon as she was out of sight, she went up.

Even in Fea Little people rarely watched their roof. She slid her staff through the straps on her pack and made sure it was firmly attached. It would not do to have it clattering to the ground.

It was a simple climb for Merie. Going up was always easy, going down at a controlled rate less so. At some point in the past, the roof pitch had been altered, made less steep and, thankfully for her, easier to crawl and crouch upon. She slowly inched her way to the chimney and peered around the breast to see if she could see the rest of the team. Even as she had walked and climbed, she had counted, reaching seventy-six. It was unlikely that Bee and Myka would wait much longer — time discipline, like washing, never being their strong point. Not that they really had any strong point, unless you counted their smell.

Sure enough, they were already crossing the street towards the back of the house. Little Pepper gestured rudely at their departing backs and pulled Pol into a brief run to the front door. Merie heard it open below her.

There was no sound of conflict. Did this mean they were in league with the corrupt Urell too? Did it mean they had been silently shot as soon as the door was open? Maybe they had simply got in undetected. Or did it mean those in the house knew Merie would be entering through the back door?

She stopped asking herself questions she could not possibly answer, and was about to turn away when movement from the alley where Imon was stationed made her pause. Another man was standing in the pool of light; a large man with a large axe. He was talking to Imon, but the conversation was too far away and too hushed to be audible. Then another face appeared with them; Urell.

She smiled. She had been right.

Merie quickly began to pry up tiles, careful to hold on to each she removed, lest they fall and give away her position. It did not take long to create a gap large enough to fit through and drop into the attic space beneath the eaves, taking the tiles with her.

Time to kill, time to take what she was owed.

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