Blade of Dream, page 33
“That’s not fair,” Garreth said.
“Right now, our whole barracks is out trying to find a girl when you know where she is. And all the effort they spend trying to find her, they’re not spending on something else. How many are going to have what’s theirs stolen because of you, eh? How many people are going to get beaten because the captain put this thing first? Will someone get killed for something that you could end right now if you trusted us? You may not think the guard’s work matters, but I do, yeah?”
“If the guard’s compromised—”
“Maybe the girl’s compromised. Have you thought of that? Maybe she’s the problem, and you’re the one with his head on backward.”
Kannish turned to Maur like he was looking for support, but the smaller man was deep in his own thoughts. Kannish slapped the water.
“You tell the captain because he’s the captain and we’re guard and that’s how it works,” Kannish said. “If you don’t, I will.”
Kannish rose from the basin, grabbed his towel, and stalked out, his face a mask of rage. Garreth turned to Maur, panic like a stone in his throat.
“It’s a puzzle, isn’t it?” Maur said. “The one you killed. They took a mask of him, yeah? We should find that.”
The face was cast in cheap plaster, and it didn’t look to Garreth much like the man he’d killed. Death or else the mask softened the mouth, the eyes. He’d heard from the older guards about the changes that water made on the bodies of the dead, the way the river slipped inside the flesh, widening faces and fingers, swelling feet and hands, deepening the sockets of the eyes until even someone’s nearest kin weren’t always perfectly sure that the corpse was one of theirs. This wasn’t quite that, but the gist seemed the same. The dead body had been translated by water or clay into something similar, something related, but not the same thing. Not the same person.
The Stonemarket barracks showed their history as a stable in the height of the walls and the arrangement of the rooms. Their common room was wide and tall, with great wooden beams that time and smoke had turned so black they looked burned. The southern wall was a single huge gate that could open to the wind and the faint, distant stink of a launderer’s yard or else pull closed. The floor was stone and still bore the ruts where decades of carriage wheels had worn it down. The fire grate had a vertical line of odd-colored stone at the back that marked where some long-forgotten wall had been taken out. Garreth and Maur sat at a low carved-oak table with the dead man’s face looking up from it like the wood was water and the man drowned.
The woman sitting with them was thick across the shoulders and jaw. She wore her blue cloak and badge of office like a butcher wearing a leather apron, the tools of a bloody trade. She picked up the mask between two red, callused fingers, shifting it one way and then another. Garreth pinched his wrist under the table to keep his impatience at bay.
“In Riverport, this was?” she asked.
“House Left,” Maur said.
“Don’t know ’em,” the woman said. “But… maybe. There’s one named Ullin who hasn’t been around for a while. He’s trouble, and sometimes he’s other people’s trouble for the right price. He stays at a bunk house when he’s between women.”
“He’s been missing, then?” Garreth asked.
The woman made a vast shrug. “I haven’t seen him, and that’s my patrol. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s had something pull him away for a few weeks and then he pops back up like a stray cat, but this one has the right kind of ears and the nose looks like his. Mouth’s wrong, but it’s hard to judge those. Skin is too soft. The plaster presses it out of shape. Noses and ears, that’s what you look for in a death mask.”
Maur nodded once, and Garreth could see his childhood friend folding the insight away in his mind for some later use.
“Is there anyone this Ullin worked for on a regular basis? Someone who might have sent him to Riverport? Maybe some connection to Green Hill?”
“Depends who you ask. There was a story that his father was an Abbasann and his mother was a servant girl who got kicked out when his wife found out about her, but that might have been bullshit. If you want to hire a knife, there’s a hundred of them. Decent people, for the most part, but short on coin, and work is work. Ullin wasn’t one for the little shit, not the kind that grabs and runs at the market. He always had money, though. If he had a regular source of coin, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. There was one time I heard him say something about a scarred man that made me think he’d been hired more than once.”
“A scarred man?” Garreth said.
“If this is Ullin.” She put down the mask with a click. “Like I said. Hard to know. You might try the Smoke barracks.”
“They sent us here,” Maur said. “To you, actually. They said if anyone had a full catalog of the quarter, it was you.”
The big woman smiled back, flattered despite herself. “I’ll keep an ear up. If I see him or else hear anyone lamenting their long-lost Ullin, I’ll send word. Maur Condol, you said?”
“If you need a favor from east of the river, I’ll owe you,” Maur said. The talk of favors owed made Garreth tense, but if Maur or the woman picked up on it, they didn’t let it show. She rose up and trundled away as Maur wrapped the plaster mask back in its cloth and tucked it into his satchel. Garreth stood up, paced for a moment, then leaned against the table, almost sitting on it.
“What do you think?”
“I think she thinks it’s this Ullin,” Maur said. “Which is interesting.”
“Is it?”
“It leans into the idea that they were hunting—” Maur broke off before the name escaped his mouth. “That they were hunting her. If someone hired a knife from the other side of the city, they didn’t want him recognized easily. That’s strategic thinking.”
“What about the Inlisc girl?”
“You didn’t know her. Even if she’s not from Stonemarket, I’d bet you a week’s wages she’s not Riverport.” Maur stifled a yawn. “We should start back. I’ve got patrol this afternoon.”
They had left the Newmarket barracks long enough before sunrise that the eastern horizon had still been as black as the west. They’d taken a small cart from the stables, the groom blinking away sleep and the pair of horses radiating an attitude of long-suffering patience. The nearly nighttime streets were touched only here and there by candles and lanterns and the laughter of girls and children carrying water from the cisterns and small fountains. The bridge that crossed from Seepwater to the Smoke had been empty in a way it almost never was, and the always-burning forges on the western side of the water only looked out onto pavement.
They had reached the little barracks at the Smoke with dawn broken and Palace Hill glowing gold before a vastly blue sky. Garreth had lived his life in Riverport. The Smoke and Stonemarket were, for the most part, names. Driving through the streets and squares with Palace Hill lower than it usually was, the slope of it gentler, and on the wrong side of the sky felt like being in a foreign city.
It was close to noon, and the streets were full now. Carts and pedestrians and dogs and carriages sometimes clogging the way until Maur and Garreth had to stop and wait or else stand on a driver’s bench and threaten fines if the way wasn’t cleared for the city guard. A warm wind was starting to kick up, raising little waves on the surface of the river that travelled across it from east to west, ignoring the deeper flow. The bridge back to Seepwater was full and slow. If it had been as empty as the night, they would have been back at their barracks in only a few hours. As it was, they both knew that Maur was going to be late for his patrol.
Garreth was certain that Maur’s quiet and thoughtful look masked irritation and dread at the consequences of his lateness until the smaller man spoke. “Would you say that you love her?”
Garreth leaned forward, his gaze fastened between the ears of the horse before him. “Yes. I would.”
“What’s that like?”
Garreth shrugged. “Being in love with a girl?”
“That.”
“You’ve been in love. What about that summer with Dannia Ferrish?”
“I liked her,” Maur allowed. “And I thought she was pretty. She seemed to like me, and the sex was pleasant in a messy kind of way. But when she broke things off I felt… fine? I acted like I was heartbroken and losing sleep because that’s what everyone else did when something like that ended, but the truth was I slept just fine.”
“But at the start of it?”
“It started that way too, really. What is it like for you? Is it just wanting or is it something different?”
Ahead of them, a carter started shouting at a carriage that was coming the other way. Garreth couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was angry enough. He could have dropped off their little carriage and run forward to break up the altercation, but it would only have been a way to avoid answering.
“Different. I mean, the wanting is there. It’s part of it. But it’s like when I’m with her, when we’re just the two of us in a room, the room becomes a different place. It’s like everything else is a play we’re acting in and the city’s the stage where we all say our lines, and when we shut the doors, we’re not our parts anymore. We’re just us. It’s a different city, and there’s only two people in it. And it’s a good place. I like it there.”
“Why? I mean, what makes it better than—” Maur gestured at the bridge, the water, the boats and quays and buildings stretching out to their left. He gestured to Kithamar.
The carriage driver had stopped now, and was stepping out on the yellow brick of the bridge, gesturing at his team. Other carts were going around the arguing pair, but slowly so that everyone had a moment to watch.
“It’s simpler. It’s purer. I like who I am when I’m there. And she’s… I don’t know how to describe this. She’s perfect? Not like she’s a paragon and what everyone should want to be or be with. She’s spiky. Sometimes she’s even a little mean, and sad. She’s sad in ways she doesn’t know about, but I can see them.”
“And you want to fix that,” Maur said.
“Yes,” Garreth said. And then, “No. She’s not broken. She’s just who she is, and it fits with who I am. Or I feel like it does. Or like it should. She feels… important.”
Maur lifted a hand that Garreth should wait. He leaned out and shouted, “City guard! Both of you get back to your work and clear the traffic or you’ll be lucky to get by with just fines. Don’t fucking look at me like that, you. I’ll crack your ass the other way.” He took his seat again and nodded like nothing had happened. On the bridge, the fighting men left off their battle and started their horses moving again. “That fitting with someone? I don’t think I’ve had that experience.”
“Never?”
“I don’t think so. I say that I’ve loved people. I love you and Kannish and my brothers and sisters. My parents. I said I loved Dannia Ferrish, but I don’t think now that I was using the word correctly.” A gust of wind pressed against them and was gone. “I understand that sense of being apart from the city, I think. But I can’t imagine being there with someone else. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I had an uncle who couldn’t tell green from blue. He said they were the same color, and I always wondered what he was seeing when he put a leaf against the sky. If it was all what I’d call green or all blue or something different altogether. It’s like that. I’m curious how the world’s different for you, but I am what I am.”
They reached the eastern shore and turned the horses north along the broad path through Seepwater. The midday traffic was thick on the roads and on the canals. Flatboats with tuns of beer from the brewers ready to cross the river or be hauled up to the port or float down past the bridge and south into the villages and towns. Carts bringing in sacks of barley and wheat and carrying out expended mash as food for pigs at the farms outside the city walls. A thick Inlisc girl at a cart sold fish and spiced rice in cones of waxed paper, and she looked away when she saw Garreth looking at her. It was only a little thing, a moment of fear from a stranger who saw his cloak and his badge before she saw him.
The wind pushed, ruffling his sleeve and pressing his cloak against his side. The noise of it made talking difficult. Maur kept the horses moving at a fair pace, but the streets only allowed so much speed. Garreth had the chance to look now, to notice the expressions of the people they passed, and it seemed to him that the girl wasn’t the only one who flinched away, though she might have been the worst at hiding it. A Hansch boy with maybe eight summers behind him chased a running cat into the street, then scuttled back when he saw Garreth. An old Inlisc woman stopped at a corner and looked down as they passed so that Garreth saw the red cloth that covered her hair more than he did her face.
A few smiled, but there was an unease in the smiles as well, and while their way was often blocked, the other carts and hand wagons and people walking on foot cleared the way for them as much as they could. He had the sudden, visceral memory of being on shit patrol and whipping a man for moving too slowly. Could be worse. You could be one of the men who enjoys it.
Maur reached the turn, and the horses took them into a narrower street with wooden buildings and a sinuousness that made him think of Longhill. A sinuous street built to defy the power and noise of the wind.
“Do you think Kannish turned me in?” Garreth asked.
“There’s a reason I wanted to leave early,” Maur said. “I don’t know if he will or if that was just the anger talking.”
“I didn’t mean to make him angry. I just… I wasn’t sure that she’d be safe with the guard. I trust you and I trust him, but there was someone—”
“Wait. You think that’s why he’s angry?”
“Isn’t it?”
Maur pulled the horses to a stop. The shoes clattered against paving stones, and the lighter of the two sighed in what sounded like frustration. Maur shifted on the bench, swinging a knee up and resting his arm against it. His voice was soft and calm, which made it worse. “We were new guards. Senit gave us a joke duty to put us in our place, and we could have turned it into a victory. If we’d caught the prince’s daughter in that boathouse, it would have been kept quiet, and we’d have been the ones with our lips shut as a favor to Palace Hill. Me, Kannish, and Tannen. And instead, we got a minor noble girl who no one really cared about and a dozen drunk idiots whose families didn’t thank us for the embarrassment. A take like that on one of our first patrols would have made us look better than good, and we lost it because you took it from us.”
“It was just that Tannen—”
“Tannen picked at me because he thought I was the weakest,” Maur said. “That’s the kind of man he is, and there are plenty like him in the guard. They fit here. And there are some like Kannish who make the guard their whole lives and selves because past that, they don’t have much else. They fit here too. He was so happy when you joined up because he thought it meant you’d be one of us and he’d still have you by him. You told him yesterday that you’d betrayed us, and you didn’t even know you were saying it.”
Garreth felt the words like they’d hit him below the ribs. Maur’s smile was soft and sorrowful.
“Fuck,” Garreth said.
“It’s all right,” Maur said. “Just understand Kannish is going to be mourning a bit. I don’t think he’ll really bring the captain in. I hope he doesn’t. He’ll feel bad about it later if he does, but that may not be enough to stop him in the moment, if you see what I mean.”
Maur started the horses moving again with a flick of the reins. The carriage lurched under them. The wind whistled and shrieked, but it didn’t reach them there in the valley of the streets. A bone-and-iron cart stopped before it crossed into their path, its grey nag looking weary and sullen. The man waved them forward, giving them the street in a voice like gravel and soot, and smiled like he could will their good opinion.
“What about us?” Garreth said. “Do we fit?”
“I don’t fit anywhere,” Maur said. “I’m odd.”
The horses didn’t need to be led to the stables. They knew quite well where they were going, and Maur gave them free rein to get there. The wind was stirring up bits of hay, twirling them through the air and dropping them again as they drew close. A groom with grey hair and a stoop came out, and the horses whickered in recognition and pleasure at the sight of him. Garreth clambered down off the bench as soon as the carriage stopped. Kannish was standing in the shadow of the feed stall, his arms crossed. Now that Garreth knew to look for it, he saw the hurt in the other man’s shoulders and the way he held his jaw.
Kannish lifted his chin to Maur as he walked forward. Maur came close, and the three of them stood almost shoulder to shoulder. Something about it felt melancholy.
“It wasn’t the guard that set them on you,” Kannish said.
“I know you believe in them,” Garreth said. “Us. I know you believe in us—”
Kannish made an impatient cutting gesture with one hand. “You’re not listening. It wasn’t the guard. These people, they didn’t know who you were. They were hunting her, and they knew your name, but they didn’t know who you were.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kannish smiled tightly. “You’re not the only ones who ask questions in their off hours.”
Serria sat in a cell where a prisoner would usually be. He recognized her shirt—thick linen with a bit of embroidery at the collar. The skirt and rope sandals told him that she’d been going to the market as clearly as if someone had spoken. The leather satchel she used to carry eggs and herbs and fresh meat wasn’t there, though. Garreth wondered what had become of it. Whether Kannish had let her drop the food off with the other servants before she came with him, or sent it along with some streetbound as likely to keep the food as see it delivered, or something else. His pang of guilt was unexpected, as was the nostalgia that followed. Once, he’d shared a house with this woman, and lived close enough beside her that he still knew her going-to-market clothes. It was like smelling a dish from his childhood and being transported for a moment back to the boy he’d been once and never would be again.
