Free He Lover of Death by Boris Akunin

niner is Vasya Ugreshsky. What good will it do to swing your mallet at him? You see?’
    The Bosun went all sad and started sniffing.
    ‘Now let’s take Sixer,’ said the boss, nodding at Sprat.
    ‘What about me?’ said Sprat, jerking his head up.
    ‘I tell you what. Their sixer is Cudgel. He can hammer a six-inch nail into a log of wood with that great big fist of his, and anyone can knock you down with a feather, Sprat. So where does that leave us, my brave gents? With this – at a meet, their deck will leave us for dead, as sure as God’s holy. And then they’ll say the Prince had his whole deck with him, they won’t bother working out who’s too small, who’s crippled and who wasn’t even there. That’s what they’ll say, oh yes they will,’ the Prince declared in response to their dull muttering.
    The room was suddenly quiet and downbeat.
    Senka was sitting in the corner farthest away, afraid they might throw him out. He wasn’t too upset about them not taking him to the meet, he didn’t much fancy fisticuffs, especially not against real fighters. They’d batter a youngster like him down and trample him into the ground.
    The Prince admired his nails, then bit off another hangnail and spat it out.
    ‘Call the grandfathers. I decide. And not a word! Keep your traps shut.’
    Sprat ran off to get the mediators. They came and stood just inside the door. The Prince stood up too.
    ‘Two of us should go to the meet, that’s my opinion.’ He looked at them merrily and shook his forelock. –The King and one other chosen by the King. Tell the Ghoul that.’
    Deadeye sighed and the others frowned but not a word was spoken. It clearly wasn’t on to haggle in front of outsiders, Senka thought.
    But even when the grandfathers left, there was no yapping. Once the Prince had decided, that was that.
    Sprat winked at Senka: come on outside. In the collidor he sniffed as he whispered: ‘I know that spot very well. There’s a little barn there, a good place to hide. We’ll wait and watch them from there.’
    ‘But what if they see us?’
    ‘Then we’re for it, no question,’ Sprat said with a careless wave of his hand. ‘They’re real strict about stuff like that. But don’t you get the wind up, they won’t see us. That barn’s a great spot, I tell you. We’ll burrow into the hay. No one will twig, and we’ll be able to see everything.’
    Senka suddenly felt afraid and he hesitated. But Sprat spat on the floor and said: ‘You can please yourself, Speedy. I’m running over there right now. While they’re dragging things out, I’ll get there ahead of them.’
    Of course, Senka went with him – what else could he do? He couldn’t act scared like some girl. And he really did want to watch: this was serious stuff, a proper bandit meet, to decide who would be Ace of Moscow. How many people had ever seen something like that?
    Naturally, they didn’t actually run there, that was just Sprat’s way of talking. The young bandit had a wad of cash in his pocket. They walked to Pokrovka Street, hired a cab and drove out of town to Luzhniki. Sprat promised the driver an extra rouble to drive like the wind. It took them twenty-three minutes – Sprat timed it with his silver watch.
    The Cows’ Meadow was just that, a meadow – all yellow grass and burdock. On one side, across the river, were the Sparrow Hills, and on the other side was the Novodevichy Convent, with its vegetable gardens.
    ‘This is where they’ll have the meet, there’s no other option,’ said Sprat, pointing to a trampled bald patch where four paths came together. ‘They won’t go into the grass, there’s cowpats all over the place, they’ll get their shoes filthy. And that’s the barn right there.’
    The barn was rotten – sneeze and it would collapse. It had been built once upon a time to store straw, but it wouldn’t stay standing much longer, that was clear. It was less than a stone’s throw from the bald patch, ten paces