Blade of Dream, page 27
She leaned against him, her cheek against his shoulder, and looked down at the pages. He smelled like salt and musk. “All right,” she said. “Show me what I’m looking for.”
For the better part of an hour, he did. And then, for a time, they did other things.
Captain Senit stood at his desk in his full coat and a thick cap of knitted grey wool with sides long enough to cover his ears. Each breath was a little cloud of white. A nugget of incense still burned in the altar to the Three Mothers, and the smoke smelled cold. He ran a numbed finger down the pages of the incident book. Theft, theft, assault, tax evasion, fraud, murder, theft. The steady beat of Kithamar’s worst impulses, the same, he guessed, as anyplace that held enough humanity together inside a city’s walls. A ledger of its sins more accurate and complete than any accounting the priests and temples could give.
A butcher in Newmarket had found his wife’s brother contaminating his wares. A woman in Seepwater was afraid that her estranged husband meant her harm. A warehouse manager in Riverport was missing goods. Three corpses had been found under the northernmost bridge where they’d looked for shelter from the cold and didn’t find it. It was easy to look at this face of the city and forget that there were others. Kithamar wasn’t just crime and cruelty and violence, just the part of it that mattered to him. Senit paused for a moment, imagining some other incident book that kept track of all the good and kindness and charitable acts that took place within the city walls. It was a funny idea because it didn’t exist and never would. The beautiful part about things that went well was you didn’t have to do anything about them.
His stomach creaked. The morning sun was spilling itself over the training yard, and he hadn’t had his morning meal yet. The hunger was a dull ache, and he relished it a little. He wouldn’t be the man he was if some part of him didn’t enjoy discomfort. He’d finish catching up on the book, then maybe make an inspection of the barracks. When that was done, he’d let himself eat.
The knock at his door was solid, but not loud. He turned his hand, pressing down on the page like he was pinning the words in place, and called back over his shoulder. Marsen Wellis came in.
“You wanted to see me, Captain?”
“Did. You’ve been working with our three new puppies some, haven’t you?” Marsen crossed his arms and nodded. Senit went on, “What do you think of them?”
Marsen thought for a moment before he spoke. “I think Kannish has it in him to be a solid guard, but I would think that, wouldn’t I? Ask someone else if you want a clearer view on him. Maur’s smart. Sees things the others miss sometimes. Scrapping’s not in his blood.”
“Not every guard needs to be a pit dog.”
“True. If I wanted someone to think a problem through, Maur’s good enough. Not certain I’d want him at my back when the fight comes. That’s all I’m saying.”
“What about Left?”
Marsen’s pause was long enough to be interesting. When he shrugged, it was half an apology, and Senit didn’t think the apology was to him. “He’s good. It’s not that he isn’t good. He shows up when he’s called. Brave enough. Knows his way around a blade as well as anyone with his background and training would. It’s just sometimes it’s like he’s thinking of something else, you know?”
“Not keeping his eyes on the work.”
“It isn’t even that, really,” Marsen said. “He toes the mark. I’ve got no complaints on what he does. It’s just that how he does it feels half-distracted some of the time.”
Senit let that settle for a couple breaths. Then, “Time to snap his leash, maybe. Get his attention.”
“Could be,” Marsen said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Something in mind for him?”
“There’s trouble on the far side of the river. The plague has people anxious, and Pavvis asked if we had any men we could spare, what with the quarantine.”
Marsen’s face fell. “The quarantine?”
“Kint’s boys are walking the rope. Pavvis is looking for a few more patrols along his side of the river so he can free up some of his to send to Stonemarket. Show the rabble how we’re taking it seriously.”
Marsen was quiet. Senit knew all the things he wasn’t saying. That taking on the territory on the other bank of the Khahon even just temporarily made it more likely they’d have to take responsibility for it more later on, and they were stretched thin already. Running patrol for someone else was showing his belly too. It said that Pavvis had other concerns more important than the scut work, and Senit didn’t. And also that the fiasco around Aunt Thorn had embarrassed Pavvis along with him, and this was a way to ease that debt if not erase it. Sending the newest guards and not too many of those would salvage Senit’s barracks some of its dignity. And it wouldn’t alienate the senior guards any more than he already had. Garreth and Kannish and Maur might not even know enough to be humiliated.
Marsen scratched his ear, his lips twitching like he was having a conversation with himself. Senit leaned back against his table, his finger still fixed at the place where he’d stopped reading. Marsen glanced up at him, then down. “I don’t know, sir. I mean, I see we’ve got to eat the turd. But… I mean, maybe it’s better to get the big spoon and make the fuckers think we like it.”
“Say more.”
Marsen shifted his weight, his eyes hardening. “The plan didn’t work, but we had a plan. The other barracks have a quarter each. We’ve got half the city, and Longhill in the middle of our ground like a splinter that never festers out. We saw a chance, and we took the fight to the bitch, and yeah we got our nose bloodied for it. Doesn’t mean we were wrong to do it.”
“We’re talking about helping with the quarantine, Wellis. Don’t overthink it.”
“Give me the morning. I’ll build up a patrol rota that’ll make Pavvis think we’re looking to take the Smoke by force.”
Senit swallowed his smile, but there was a warmth that bloomed under his coat. “If you want to, I won’t stop you.”
Marsen braced, and Senit nodded his dismissal. When the door closed behind the man, Senit stood in the cold and quiet for a few seconds and let himself feel pleased. Not for long, and not deeply, but for a moment. The incense glowed orange as it reached its end, then faded to grey. The smoke thinned and stopped. Senit turned back to the place marked by his finger. A streetbound man had stolen a chicken and been caught starting a cookfire in an alleyway. A man had crawled too deep into his bottle, and the taproom needed help seeing him to the street. Half a dozen more little frailties and failures of judgment. He got to the end without finding anything that needed his attention, and he closed the book.
On sober reflection, maybe he’d get a bowl of eggs and mash before he made his inspections after all.
The brief, dark days of winter slowly grew longer, but the grinding cold didn’t break. The frozen river made bridge taxes go down, the deep water covered over by ice as solid as stones. The celebrations of Longest Night faded into memory. The promise of thaw remained only a promise. The city pulled into itself, retreating from the cold like a snail folding itself into its shell. Only not entirely. People skated on the river, sliding across the white expanse for the simple joy of the movement. Little stands set up in the squares with iron stoves like tiny forges made to warm cider and wine at three coppers for a mug.
In a different year, Garreth would have been sleeping later and waking in a room that didn’t smell of other men’s bodies. He would have eaten at his family table beside a fire that Serria or one of her staff had set before he’d come down the stairs. The work of the family would have taken him to their warehouses or meetings with their allies, or else left him to his own devices while Father and Mother and Uncle Robbson went to conferences with the magistrates and guild masters that youth and policy still kept him from. Vasch was living some version of that life now while Garreth dragged himself out on patrol before the sun had come up and afterward sat in the baths until the heat made its way back into his bones or trained with Beren or Nattan Torr or Kannish and Maur until he was sweating despite the cold. The comforts of his old life weren’t forgotten, but they also weren’t entirely remembered. It was like he could recall that he’d lived more softly once, but he couldn’t summon up the experiences themselves. He knew that he’d slept in a soft bed with three blankets, but the sleep he longed for at the end of his day wasn’t that. He’d eaten rich foods prepared by an experienced cook, but his hunger now was conquered by thick stews from old pots with more salt than savor, and the honest fullness of his belly now was more compelling than the best of memory’s echoes.
When he wasn’t thinking about the work before him, he was thinking of Elaine a Sal. Sometimes of the mystery and threat she was picking apart at the palace, sometimes of the simple, authentic fact of her, and always of how he could find his path back into her company, if only for a little while.
For a while, it seemed like it could go on that way. He’d found his place, and nothing would have to change.
Coming back from his morning’s patrol, Garreth knew that something was wrong by the way Kannish walked: long strides, arms swinging at the shoulders but solid at the elbow and wrist, hands in fists. His scowl could have cut glass. He marched across the training field toward Maur and Garreth, clearly coming to them. Something had upset him, and Garreth genuinely thought he was going to unburden himself and tell them what it was right up until the blow landed.
The world rang. Somehow, the training yard had swooped up behind him. The cold dirt pushed against his back like it was urging him forward, but there was nothing to stand on. His jaw hurt, and the sky swam above them. Maur was holding back a red-faced, raging Kannish who was shouting something about peppercorns.
A half dozen of the older guards were running toward them as Garreth found his feet. His balance was wrong. Kannish surged toward him again, fists ready. Tears of rage filled his eyes.
“You knew! You knew the whole time!” he shouted. “My sisters are ruined!”
Oh, Garreth thought. The caravan’s arrived.
Captain Senit stood. Garreth and Kannish sat. The little iron brazier gave off enough smoke to give Garreth a headache and enough heat to keep the room from feeling like it was carved from ice. The captain’s arms were crossed, and his mouth was a smear of impatience and disgust.
“My sisters have peppercorns coming from the Bronze Coast next summer,” Kannish said. “With the market already flooded, they’re going to lose on the trade. It’s money they were counting on.”
The captain passed a palm over his eyes. “Is there a law was broke here?”
“Yes,” Kannish said in the same moment Garreth said, “No.”
Kannish’s jaw jutted forward and he turned toward Garreth. “Winter caravans have to be licensed by the guilds, and their contents listed before they’re cleared. You cheated, and the magistrates are going to take every fucking coin you’ve got.”
“Trade is always permitted within a family,” Garreth said.
“So these Far Kethil fucks are your cousins now? They’re Inlisc. They aren’t even Kithamar Inlisc.”
“By marriage,” Garreth said.
Kannish’s face went pale. He understood now what Garreth had joined the guard to escape. It wasn’t a betrayal of their friendship, not really. He’d followed family policy the same as anyone of their class would. But it was true Kannish’s family was going to suffer, and Garreth couldn’t help feeling the shame of that.
The captain clapped his hands. “I apologize,” he snarled. “I phrased that poorly. Let me try again. Is there anything in this that we need to go haul someone down the streets in chains over?”
They were quiet.
“I didn’t think so,” the captain said. “So given that, what the fuck business is it for either of you? You’re not them anymore. You’re us. You know that. The guard doesn’t take sides, and if you do, maybe you aren’t guard.”
Kannish shot a glance at Garreth. The anger was gone, and only misery was in its place. Garreth lowered his head. The captain went on.
“We aren’t House Left or House Wellis or House fucking Senit for that matter. We’re city guard. Ours is to keep the thieves and the murderers and the rapists and the slavers from taking over the streets. If this isn’t that, it isn’t my problem, and if it isn’t my problem, it isn’t yours. The guilds are taking it to the magistrates, and I know that because it’s my job to, not because I care. You boys are green. You still think you’re both things, but you’re not. I expected you at least understood that, Wellis. Maybe your uncle didn’t teach as well as I’d hoped.”
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Kannish said. “I was… I was…”
“Damn right you were. Forget this rota’s duty line. You’re on the shit cart all day, every day until I say you aren’t.”
“Yes sir,” Kannish said.
“Now both of you get the—”
“Permission to join him, sir,” Garreth said.
Captain Senit stopped, fixed his gaze on Garreth, and hoisted an eyebrow. “You know he’s being punished for trying to crack you open, yeah?”
Garreth’s throat felt dry as dust. He swallowed twice before he spoke, but it didn’t feel like it helped much. “If the guard’s our family now, then the guard’s our family now. Permission to join him.”
“Some men come to like the shit cart,” the captain said. “They’re disgusting little perverts. Are you a disgusting little pervert, Left?”
“No sir. I hate it. But—”
“But,” the captain agreed, and he almost smiled. “Fine. You’re both off your regular rota. Be ready when the next cart comes back. You’re going out.”
They braced, and then walked out toward the barracks in silence. Maur, outside the door to their bunkroom, stopped pacing.
“I thought it was the prince,” Kannish said. “Everyone knows your family’s in trouble. Everyone figured they’d do something to try and dig out. After the prince’s daughter knew you on the bridge, I figured it was something to do with Palace Hill. But it wasn’t, was it?”
“No,” Garreth said. “It was always the caravan.”
They walked ahead in silence until Kannish muttered Fuck.
Maur went with them to change the duty roster. The most recent shit cart had gone out late that morning, delayed by a bad axle, and even if Frijjan and Ubrial Koke spent the whole shift whipping the prisoners on, it wouldn’t be back for another hour. It wasn’t enough time to get across the river to Stonemarket and back, even if Garreth could borrow a horse. But there was business he had closer in. He gave Maur a few coins from his wallet—enough to cover a plate of fish and cup of hot wine for him and Kannish both—before he started off to the east and the Temple with a message to pass up to Palace Hill.
There had been times—more as she grew older—when she could go days without seeing her father more than in passing. That had been when they only shared a family compound in Green Hill. Now they had a walled quarter filled with guards and servants, high functionaries and courtiers and all the human mechanisms of a city that he was meant to steer. It wasn’t strange any longer for a week to pass without setting eyes on her father, and they were rarely if ever alone. She found herself awake at night, worrying about him and the city and the world, but in the mornings when she sought him out, he’d be in a meeting with some official of the city or in private conference with Halev Karsen or asleep and not to be disturbed.
And so when she came to the little gallery she’d fallen into using for her morning meal and found him already sitting there, it was a surprise.
He was by the window that had first drawn her to the space. It radiated cold, but the light was soft and beautiful. Decades of wind-driven grit had blurred the glass. The courtyard it looked out over seemed unreal: underwater or half in dream. A fire burned in the grate, and the stone flesh of the room held the heat even when the logs had fallen to ash. Like everything in the palace, it was thick and dark and brooding, but of the places Elaine had found, it brooded the least.
Her father sat on a stool, looking out the frosted glass. He looked not ill, but older and spent. Even in the soft light, there were new wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. A vein traced its path through the skin at his temple, more pronounced than she remembered it. There was a greyness to him that seemed as much spiritual as physical. It hurt her heart to see him, but she covered it over with a smile.
At first he seemed almost not to see her. His gaze swept the room, only pausing at her before moving on. Then, as if realizing what he’d just seen, he found her again and raised his hand in greeting.
“Ah, my darling child,” he said, and the darkness in his tone might have been bitterness or anger.
“Is all well? I’ve hardly seen you these last weeks.”
“I’ve hardly been.” He looked back out the window, or maybe only at the glass itself. Is he drunk? she wondered. She looked around the gallery, found a footstool that she could pull to his side, and sat leaning against his leg like she was a little girl again and he was only her father. The sorrow thickening her throat was knowing that it wasn’t true. She was a woman grown, and her father was more than that.
“What is it?” she asked.
“What’s what?”
“What’s really going on?”
She felt him tense, and then slowly, as if it took effort, relax. “There’s a great deal going on. One thing floods into the next. That’s all. I’m very busy. I suppose I should have expected that, but it’ll get better with time.”
“Will it?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I love you. I loved your mother to the stars and back again. I thought I knew who we were. What the world was. How it worked. I didn’t understand anything.” He went quiet and still. When she looked up, his face was stony and his attention turned in on itself. She was afraid he wouldn’t speak again, but then he did. “This city is a monster.”
