Fourteen: A Hard-Won Prize

The next day, Marcus Barkle was ready in the avenue with a gang of experienced nappers.

There was Horace Bug, a cannon swab in Sgt. Imple's contingent; another fellow who went by the name of Rigsby who worked in the galley; and Dr. Trimm, the ship's surgeon.

The three had absconded with any number of children during their nautical careers; and, in the case of Bug and Rigsby, they looked upon the activity as a kind of sport.

For the purpose Barkle had hired a small hearse-wagon from a livery near the warehouse where the Oriole was berthed.

She was pulled by two sturdy street ponies, specially chosen for the day.

Bug sat high in the driver's box, disguised in an undertaker's coat, with Rigsby hanging on in back wearing coachman's garb.

Dr. Trimm was inside with his flask of aether.

Barkle himself was positioned at the far end of the street, watching for their mark to come out of the doorway.

They had developed this particular snatch-and-run technique for impressing specially desirable shroudwalkers, usually stolen from circuses or gypsy camps or from the crews of other ships.

In theory, young Master Buddenbrooks would be insensible within moments and secreted aboard the hearse, which would quickly lose itself in the maze of Piketon's lesser wards.

"I still don't understand what we are doing plying our trade in such a fine neighborhood," grumbled Dr. Trimm.

He was a yellow-eyed man, much given to sampling the wares from his own laudunum chest. He went to blow his nose and very nearly stuck his face into the aether rag.

"This shan't end well," he muttered. Which was the same thing he always said before entering upon any complicated medical procedure.

Behind his back, the sailors of the Blue Oriole called him Doctor Pennymouth.

"The only useful thing he ever did," they complained, "was put the penny in his victims' mouths to pay the Ferryman."

The other members of the napper crew were more game. They quite liked the idea of stealing a high-collar, snoot-nosed kid.

"Might give him an extra thump in the gut, just to let him know who's boss," said Horace Bug.

"Just so as we don't kill him outright," Rigsby said. "Such a plum prize won't come half so easy a second time."

At last they saw Marcus Barkle give the prearranged sign.

A smallish boy with striking silver hair had emerged from a doorway and begun idling away in the opposite direction.

All according to plan. Quite unawares, Master Buddenbrooks was walking directly toward Barkle the Hunter and into the arms of their trap.

He was carrying a longish bundle wrapped in some kind of cloth and he seemed to be lost in thought.

As Barkle drew near, he said something to the boy. Asked for directions maybe or begged for a nib or two for his poor supper.

He made his boyish face look as naive and stupid as he could.

Meanwhile, the hearse was drawing up behind, its driver and footman watching avidly, and Doctor Trim's sallow face sweating like an appartion in the window.

The next events proceeded very quickly indeed.

First, Marcus Barkle gave the boy a sudden poke in the solar plexus. Master Buddenbrooks uttered a soft, pained gasp.

Meanwhile, Rigsby vaulted down and threw a bear-hug around his frail shoulders.

The Doctor was already stepping primly from the coach with the poisoned rag, ready to set it over the kid's face.

Then, all of a sudden, Rigsby found himself sprawled on the ground, his right wrist bent at a peculiar angle.

Little Master Buddenbrooks dropped onto the ground in way that looked half-clumsy, but his boot swept out and caught the legs out from under Dr. Trimm.

The man went down with an outraged cry and a smash of glass, the aether pouring out over the bib of his white frock. He began to shriek and snivel.

Marcus Barkle looked down, startled, and saw that the little boy's eyes were upon his own. They were startlingly calm and even eager.

"He's not frightened a bit," Marcus thought. "Now why would that be?"

Then he found himself tumbling ass-over-teakettle into the street, and not even sure how or why.

His left ear clonked meanly on the cobblestone and he felt a rush of hot blood.

Horace Bug had jumped into the fray with his ever-handy belying-pin, which he wielded before Master Buddenbrooks could regroup for another strike.

The child reeled back from the blow, which by all rights should have dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

But the canny kid had twisted in just such a way so that the lion's share of the impact had glanced away harmlessly.

Rigsby went at him again, kicking hard with his boot, but the boy dodged somehow and once again the canoneer went down, moaning in pain, the other wrist broken.

In the confusion, however, Barkle had snatched up Dr. Trimm's rag and just like that he was upon the boy, pressing the poison to his mouth and nose.

The effect was instantaneous. Master Buddenbrooks went limp and Barkle caught him and hoisted him into the open door of the hearse.

"Quick, you," he said to Rigsby. "Climb in before the blue-bellies get wise." And to Bug: "Help me with Trimm, then spark up them ponies."

Another heartbeat or two and they were away. The horses were already skittish after the melee and Horace Bug had the devil's time keeping them in check.

"Play it cool!" yelled Barkle. "Two blocks more, then to an easy trot, innocent as you please."

He threw open the windows of the hearse, to air out the stench of aether, which was making them all light-headed.

The scene in the odd-shaped, funereal coach was less than satisfactory.

Rigsby sat in a corner, moaning and staring at his paws. The boy and Dr. Trimm lay unconscious in a heap.

Barkle chewed his lip and said to himself, "A hard-won prize, that was. Who'd have guessed that a welp like this here would have any fight in him at all? There's a mystery to the business. I've bit off something that might not chew so easy."

An hour or so later, in the warehouse that held the Blue Oriole, he had a glimpse of just how hard to swallow the business might be.

He carried Master Buddenbrooks, still unconscious, into the room where young Ballko kept his tattooing gear, needles and ink.

With Ballko's help, he stripped the child to the waist. They found that he was surprisingly muscled for such a slight boy. Like a gymnast or an acrobat.

His skin was striped and lined with tiny scars and half-healed bruises.

"Almost looks like a little soldier, don't he?" said Ballko. "Do you reckon his folks liked to mash him about a bit? I've heard that some rich folk are queer like that, spoiling their brats in public like and making beasts of 'em behind closed doors."

Barkle shrugged and rolled their prey on his side, so that Ballko could set to drawing the oriole's wing on his arm.

But there on the shoulder-blade was already stamped a mark of ownership: A tiny curved dagger done in red ink.

Ballko let out a long, low whistle. "You know what that is, don't you?" he said.

Barkle nodded and spat on the floor.

"It's the brand of the Hemlock League," he said. "I'm damned if we haven't nabbed up a child of the most dangerous assassins in the Dream."

Next: Hard as Nail