Chapter 6: Frankie’s

Frankie

The Gilded Stag had seen better days.

Probably several of them.

The sign hung crooked over the door, one of the stag’s antlers broken off and the gold paint faded to the color of old mustard. Three windows faced the street. One had glass. Another had boards. The third had apparently surrendered to the elements entirely and been covered with a piece of canvas. The roof sagged in the middle. I stopped in the road. Mara nearly walked into me.

“What are you doing?”

I looked at her.

“Thinkin’ about making a purchase.”

“No, you really don’t want to do that, my lord.”

“You’re lucky we’re in public.”

“Yes, sir.”

She smiled at me. It was the most sarcastic thing I’d seen her do. Still, it made her glow.

I liked that.

The tavern had front and alley entrances, and three floors if you counted the attic. Good visibility on the street. Slatted windows that could provide decent cover. Big enough cellar doors for deliveries and maybe something extra. Maybe a still. And judging by the building leaning slightly to the left, cheap.

“Who owns it?”

Mara sighed.

“Bennaro and Rosella Venti.”

“Bennaro?”

“Yes.”

“I like Benny better.”

“You can’t just change his name.”

“I’m not changing it. I’m improving it.”

Inside, the common room looked better. Not much. A dozen tables crowded the floor, no two made by the same carpenter. One had a wagon wheel for a leg. The bar had been split down the middle and repaired with iron bands. The walls were stranger. Old swords hung beside farming tools. A faded shield sat over the fireplace. There were religious pictures too, although I couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

One showed a woman in blue holding a baby. I stopped. She had pointed ears.

“What the hell?”

Mara looked over.

“The Blessed Mother.”

“The what?”

“The Blessed Mother.”

I stepped closer. I knew that pose.

“Why’s she an elf?”

Mara stared at me.

“What else would she be?”

I decided I had enough problems.

Beside it hung a wooden cross.

There was an elf nailed to that too.

I kept walking. Didn’t want to know. An old man emerged from behind the bar carrying a mug. He was short, gray-haired, and moved with the careful stiffness of somebody whose knees had filed for retirement before the rest of him.

“Can I help you?”

“You Bennaro?”

“I am.”

“I’m Frankie Moretti.”

He took his time looking me over, from my shoes to my hands and waist before he met my eyes. Interesting.

“Bennaro Venti.”

“Good to meet you, Benny.”

His face twitched. Just for a second.

“Benny?”

“Bennaro’s a mouthful.”

“I have been Bennaro for seventy-three years.”

“Time for something new.”

He stared at me. Then something almost like amusement moved behind his eyes.

“As you say.”

A woman appeared from the kitchen.

“Bennaro, who is your friend?”

She was round, gray-haired, and carrying a wooden spoon like she had legal authority to use it.

“Rosella,” Benny said, “this is Frankie Moretti. A friend of ours.”

He smiled pleasantly. Maybe that meant something different here. Maybe it didn’t.

“Sit,” Rosella ordered.

“I’m actually here to—”

“Sit.”

I sat.

Some instincts survived dimensional travel.

A bowl appeared in front of me. Something red steamed inside it. I took a bite. It wasn’t bad. Actually, it was pretty good. It just tasted like somebody had described tomato stew to a very talented cook who had never encountered a tomato. Rosella watched me.

“Well?”

“It’s good.”

“But?”

I looked down at the bowl.

“What’s in it?”

“Moonberries, onions, pepperroot, and summerleaf.”

Of course it was.

“This place is weird,” I said. “But this is good. Real good.”

Rosella smiled. You didn’t insult an old woman’s cooking, especially when she looked like somebody’s grandma. Mara took a little from the edge of my bowl with her spoon.

“Is it like the food at Mr. Bellafonte’s?”

I looked at her. She remembered.

“Almost. Something’s missing.”

“Describe it.”

I told her about tomatoes. Garlic softened in oil. Basil torn up just before the pot came off. The argument about whether the sauce needed more time, which generally ended when Mrs. Bellafonte chased Vincent out of the kitchen. Rosella nodded at that part.

“Sensible woman.”

Mara asked what kind of summerleaf she used.

“Dried.”

“The young leaves are sweeter. And if you peel the moonberries first, they lose that bitter taste.”

Rosella considered this. Then she went into the kitchen and returned with a handful of green leaves. Mara tore one and held it out.

“This?”

I smelled it. Close enough that I took it from her and tried again. Rosella took my bowl away to conduct experiments. Mara stayed beside me, asking about the bread, the cheese, what we drank with it. For once she wasn’t trying to keep me from paying three times what something cost. When the bowl came back, I ate without speaking. She waited until Rosella had gone.

“Better?”

“Yeah.”

“There are other things we can try.”

I looked around the room. Benny was finding us more bread. Rosella had begun telling him where to buy the leaves tomorrow.

“This’ll do fine.”

I took another bite.

“Place always this busy?”

Benny leaned against the bar.

“We are having a quiet afternoon.”

“There’s nobody here.”

“A very quiet afternoon.”

“I like him,” I told Mara.

“I was afraid you might.”

I gestured around.

“What happened?”

Benny’s humor faded.

“When Azrath came, people fled here. The Stag was stone and timber. Better than their cottages.”

Rosella set down the spoon.

“His soldiers tried to drag people out.”

Benny nodded toward the damaged wall.

“They were discouraged.”

I looked at the old shield over the fireplace. Then at Benny. He smiled again.

“Afterward there was little money for repairs. Then Lord Kilkenny raised tribute. Travelers stopped using the northern road.”

“And now?”

“Now we survive.”

I understood surviving.

“How much?”

Benny frowned.

“For the stew?”

“The building.”

Mara turned toward me.

“You cannot be serious.”

“I’m serious all the time.”

“You...” She threw up her hands. “Why would you possibly want this place?”

Lucky for me, I knew I was impossible. Benny studied me.

“You wish to buy the Gilded Stag?”

“Depends what you want for it.”

He named a number. I reached into Azrath’s pouch, still guessing what the coins were worth. Mara caught my wrist.

“No, my lord.”

“I haven’t even—”

“No.”

Benny raised an eyebrow. Mara pulled me aside.

“That would buy this building three times.”

“Good catch. What should I be paying?”

“Try putting a handful back.”

I did. She looked toward the old couple.

“More.”

I put some back.

“More.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“A little.”

We settled on something Mara considered generous without being insane. Benny stared at the coins. Rosella stared at Benny. Neither touched them.

“There is one condition,” I said.

Benny’s eyes sharpened. There it was again. Not an innkeeper’s look.

“Which is?”

“You stay.”

Benny and Rosella exchanged a glance.

“You know the customers,” I continued. “You know the town. I don’t know how to run a kitchen, and I got enough problems without learning. You keep working. I pay you.”

Rosella looked at Mara. Mara smiled. That had been her idea. And I liked rewarding good ideas. Benny slowly extended his hand.

“You have a deal, Mr. Moretti.”

I shook it.

“Frankie.”

“Frankie.”

I looked around my tavern. My tavern. I wasn’t used to being able to say that. I’d had booths and back rooms in Chicago where people knew to find me. Every one belonged to Vincent.

This was mine.

Benny was watching me from behind the bar. He had that strange little smile again.

“Feels different when it’s yours, doesn’t it?”

I looked at him.

“Yeah.”

“It always does.”

The feeling lasted fifteen seconds. Then the roof leaked into my stew.

“We gotta fix this dump.”

Rosella gasped. Benny nodded.

“Desperately.”

I spent the next hour walking through the building. Two of the six rooms upstairs were usable. There was a private dining room in back, a cellar beneath the kitchen, and an alley entrance beside the storage room. The kitchen chimney looked like it had survived a bombing. I stood in the back room. Mara watched me pace.

“What are you thinking?” Mara asked.

I pointed. “Desk there. Table here. New door.”

“Why?”

“Privacy.”

“For what?”

“Business.”

“This is a tavern.”

“Exactly. Hard to do business in a tavern without decent furniture. People will start saying I’m a bum.”

She frowned.

“What is a bum?”

“A bum. A beggar. A loser.”

I headed downstairs. I could feel her eyes still on me as we descended.

“People gamble here?”

Benny looked up from counting his new gold for the fourth time.

“Dice.”

“What kind?”

“Bone, mostly.”

“How much do people bet?”

Mara appeared behind me.

“Why?”

“No reason.”

“Forget about it,” Benny said.

Something wasn’t adding up.

Outside, three of the four skeletons I’d borrowed from the fortress were painting the sign. The fourth stood beside the paint pot, waiting its turn. I had discovered undead labor had advantages. They didn’t complain. They didn’t take breaks. They didn’t ask why.

They were, however, terrible painters.

One stood on another’s shoulders while a third held the ladder for reasons nobody understood. White paint covered the beautifully carved words THE GILDED STAG. Mostly.

FRAИKIE’S now occupied the middle.

Mara stared upward.

“You ruined it.”

“People know who owns it.”

“The N is backward.”

“Can they read it?”

“Yes.”

“Then it works.”

“It is hideous.”

“You’re right. Needs another coat.”

I handed the skeleton the brush.

It resumed vandalizing my property.

“Now,” I said, “who fixes things around here?”

Mara looked from the sign to me.

“How attached are you to your limbs?”

Brannik Voss lived outside town.

That was the first warning. The second was that nobody would tell me exactly where. The third was the sign. It stood beside a narrow path leading into the woods.

KEEP OUT.

Below that:

TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT WITH ARROWS.

Below that:

SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.

I liked him already.

“He is an artificer,” Mara explained.

“What’s that?”

“A craftsman who combines machinery with magic.”

“So a mechanic.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Same thing.”

“He is also a blacksmith.”

“Good. I need one.”

“He is wanted by Lord Kilkenny.”

“Even better.”

Mara stopped.

“How is that better?”

“Means he’s available for work.”

I stepped onto the path. She didn’t follow.

“What?”

“Lord Kilkenny sent men here.”

“And?”

“They died.”

“How many?”

“No one knows.”

“You said he’s a blacksmith.”

“He is.”

“How’d a blacksmith kill a bunch of soldiers?”

“He warned them not to enter.”

That didn’t answer my question. I took another step.

Something clicked.

I froze.

“Mara.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t move.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And Mara?”

“Yes?”

“We ain’t in public anymore.”

She blinked. Then smiled.

“Right. Frankie.”

“Better.”

A wire stretched across the path, so thin I’d almost missed it. I followed it into the bushes with my eyes. A big crossbow pointed directly at my chest. “Cute.” I motioned to one of the skeletons. “You. Walk.”

It walked. The wire snapped.

THUNK.

The bolt punched through its ribs and carried half the skeleton into a tree. Bones scattered everywhere. Mara stared. The skull rolled to my feet. Its jaw opened and closed. A hand began crawling toward it.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“They put themselves back together.”

“You didn’t know that?”

“Never broke one before.”

The bones slowly dragged themselves across the dirt. Useful. We continued. The pit got the second one. The skeleton vanished. There was a crash. Then another. Then another. Twenty feet below us, the skeleton lay impaled on spikes in several pieces. Its arms started crawling toward its torso.

“Still works.”

“You are experimenting on them.”

“They’re dead.”

“They are animated.”

“Fine. I’m experimenting on the animated dead.”

We went around the pit. The swinging log nearly got me. I saw the rope half a second before Mara stepped on it. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her backward. A tree trunk covered in iron studs swept across the path. WHOOSH. It missed my nose by inches. Mara was pressed against me. Neither of us moved.

“You can let go.”

“Making sure it ain’t coming back.”

“It is.”

I looked.

“Shit.”

We ducked. WHOOSH. The log passed overhead. I stared after it.

“That’s good.”

Mara looked at me like I’d gone insane.

“That almost killed us.”

“Exactly.”

One of the skeletons reached for the rope.

“Don’t break that.”

Mara stared.

“You want to preserve the device that almost killed us?”

“I wanna know how it works.”

The next trap used a pressure plate. I spotted it because the dirt was wrong. Fresh. Burglars noticed things like that. I sent another skeleton ahead. It stepped on the stone. Nothing happened.

“See?” Mara said.

Then the millstone fell.

The skeleton disappeared with a crunch. Dust rose. I waited. Nothing moved. I walked closer. The skull was powder. Most of the spine too.

“Huh.”

Mara joined me.

“That one isn’t repairing itself.”

“No.”

I crouched. So there were limits. Break a rib or take an arm, the bones crawled back. Crush the skull and most of the spine, the spell was done.

Good to know.

I stood.

“What did Kilkenny want from this guy?”

“Weapons.”

“Didn’t pay?”

“He claimed Voss’s tribute entitled him to the artificer’s labor.”

I looked toward the forge.

“And Voss disagreed.”

“Strongly.”

Another sign stood beside the path.

I WARNED YOU.

“I’m starting to understand the man.”

The last trap involved oil.

I don’t want to talk about the oil.

By the time we reached the forge, my jacket was torn, my shoes were muddy, and my collar was smoking. Mara had leaves in her hair. One skeleton remained intact. Another had one arm. A third was carrying its own head.

I was going to hire this son of a bitch if it was the last thing I did.

The forge stood in a clearing surrounded by scrap metal, lumber, gears, wagon wheels, chains, weapons, and several objects I couldn’t identify but assumed would explode if touched. The door opened. Brannik Voss stepped outside. He had a human face, or near enough, but he stood seven feet tall if he was an inch. His shoulders were like a freight yard, his arms covered in burns, his beard singed short in patches. Tiny spectacles sat on his nose.

He held a hammer large enough to settle theological disputes. He examined our surviving skeletons, then Mara and me. The hammer stayed at his side.

“You made it.”

I brushed ash from my sleeve.

“Yeah.”

His grip tightened around the hammer. I raised one hand.

“Before you do anything stupid, I wanna say I respect the operation and I want to commission some custom work.”