“One of those there,” the tramp gestures upwards when they’re halfway down the line. “It’s a yard, yes?”

He squares up against the fence on tiptoe and peaks over.

What can he see of the two or three nearest yard sections?

The dividing sectionals mean he can only see one yard at a time.  If he makes the effort to peer sequentially into this yard, the previous one, and the next one, he’ll see:

• The first yard looks like a vegetable garden.  There are three rows of green roughage, and the remainder of the visible space contains a wide gravel path and a patchwork of grass and soil
• The second yard is covered in rough-looking grass about a foot tall.  A barrow without wheels extends an iron handle up at an angle.  There are two planters about the length and width of a man with a few large-leafed flowering plants.  Barely visible from his angle of viewing are a stack of flat paving stones and a pile of sand
• The third yard has several empty wood pallets.  The grass looks rough, but not as long as in the second.  This one is less level than the others, with one side of the yard slightly higher in elevation.  Vines grow along the fence pickets of the yard’s sectional wall

Certainly no bodies lying there, but that is to be expected, even if this is the right place.

He spends ten seconds scrutinizing each. Anything that suggests stains of blood or bodily fluids or other corruption?

No.

“I see,” he says. “There is a tobacco shop opposite one of these? Which one?”

The tramp nods.

“Don’t know.  Come see,” he says, and beckons with his arm trailing behind him as he continues up the path.

They round the corner of the townhome block and turn again immediately to approach it from the front, stepping into one of the wider avenues they’ve tread in Flint Court.  The building fronts are mercantile, with hanging signs and awnings.  There are a dozen or two pedestrians going about their business.

“Clear as day,” the tramp says, pointing at a hanging sign that depicts the image of a gentleman's smoking pipe done in shining dark wood.

He walks underneath the signboard and turns abruptly to face The Nameless One, spreading his short legs to span and block the threshold.

He holds out his palm, tilting his head upwards without making direct eye contact.  “Done my part,” he says.

He pays off his guide. Then he leans his axe against the outer wall. Holding that weapon does make him feel safer, but he’s coming to appreciate just how much of an inconvenience it is. He doesn't want to scare this shop's occupants and then be forced into greater violence.

He enters the tobacco shop.

Pulling the door outwards triggers the peel of a small bell hanging above the door.

Almost immediately, a voice calls out in sing-song, “Hearty afternoon, friend! Leaves, weeds and snuff.  And some pretty pipes, too.  Don’t mind the beast.  She'll only bite you if you get to thievin’.  I'll be out in a minute.”

The interior is small, with an L-shaped layout and packed floor to ceiling with jars, boxes,  and barrels.  Pouches and incense sticks hang in bundles from hooks, but the place of pride at waist height has been given almost entirely to the pipes, which come in seemingly dozens of shapes, from the simple tankard, to the bafflingly ornate.

Lying on a rug in one corner of the L is a large rottweiler hound with rheumy eyes.  She pants with her teeth showing, but, apart from raising her head to look at him, does nothing to cause alarm.

“Afternoon,” he says.

“I do not well know your city, but I heard your shop spoke of on the street.”

Are there other patrons inside? Where is the dog relative to the shop owner?

No humans are visible in the shop.

There is but one other entry point to the L-room, a doorway with a beaded curtain.  Judging from the width of the townhome, it must lead to a tiny room or a staircase.  It sits on the same side of the interior as the pooch.

He steps forward.

“I came here through the plaza, round the back. You have an admirable yard in these homes. Your dog must adore it.”

“Oh.  Certainly.  She nearly tunneled the whole lot up.  I don’t chain her inside but in that yard she’ll make no end of mischief.

“This damned latch though.  What's your hankering?”

“Wouldn’t mind a bit of a wake-up.” 

He positions himself such that the curtain door is between him and the dog. He declines to touch any of the wares, lest it rouse her.

“I was a seaman, in a past life.  Ran a shipment of uncured tobacco once...  Think it was Bytopian. Crew had three ounces of loose green leaves per man per day as part of the ration. We chewed it, boiled it, weighed it down on the deck under a pudding cloth to dry it enough to take a flame. Our hands shook with the spark of it. The coffee went undrank most days for fear we'd lose hold of the ladder."

“Something in the smell here brought me back to that. You must find the air of the place quite intoxicating. I imagine your nostrils get so full of it that it's the only thing you ever smell.”

There is a sound of something heavy being shifted, and then the sound of a laugh.

“More ‘n a little.  But better than-”

A man emerges through the curtain.  He stops cold. 

He has a head of thick gray hair, shooting off in a wild cowlick.  His whiskers flare outwards.  He wears an apron and trousers. 

In a hushed voice he says, “Lord of mercy.  I know you, berk.”

The dog emits a low rumble at her master's shift in tone.

“Then you have the advantage of me.”

"You were dead."

“Could be. I awoke in the Mortuary surrounded by corpses.

I've heard you're the one who found me.”

After squinting hard at The Nameless One for several seconds, he brings a hand to his forehead and wipes back his hair.   

“You’re not a vessel,” he says finally.

He shakes his head.  “Weren’t a breath of life in you neither.  Checked that while I was scrubbing at the blood.”