Thick as Thieves

by Megan Whalen Turner

  He wasn’t fine. He rubbed his head as if it ached, and mindful of the rumors of plague in the city, I watched the people passing near us on the road to see if they noticed. I reached hesitantly to touch him, and his forehead was hot and dry. He brushed my hand away and stood a little straighter for a few steps but soon sank back again into silent plodding.

  “It’s just a sore throat,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ll be better tomorrow.”

  Better that he’s ill, said a small voice in the back of my head—it would make it easier to slip away after we reached the Attolian trade house.

  The day before, I had wandered without direction. This time I was looking for the fastest way to the center of the city, and I was hopelessly lost. Once we were among the buildings, the streets grew so narrow it was impossible to get any reliable guidance from the sun. All I could do was pick the widest street at every intersection, hoping to reach someplace where I could get my bearings. At last we reached a broad avenue and I could follow the vendors clearly headed for the market in the old city.

  Horses and mules pulled wagons, and the occasional camel was given a wide berth. There were a few chairs occupied by people rich enough to be carried but not so influential as to have the road cleared for them. As their attendants had sharp elbows, they were given a wide berth, too. Nonetheless, the crowd tightened around us as we approached the gates, and we were eventually at a standstill. I cursed the delay even before I saw the cause of it.

  Just ahead of where we waited, a group of armed men stood by the open gates to the old city, surrounding another man in an official-looking robe. My heart leapt to my mouth before I realized the man in the robe was a health official—they weren’t hunting me. Then it leapt to my mouth again. They were checking for signs of the plague, the tiny red dots that would grow into pustules. It was probably meant to reassure the population and calm the city, but if someone was pulled from the crowd, it was going to start a stampede. I had the Attolian close at hand and was holding him by the arm as if we were close friends traveling together. Head down, he was unaware of anything beyond the paving stones under his feet. He’d complained of a sore throat, so it wasn’t plague he suffered, I was sure, but that might mean nothing if he caught the inspector’s eye. I looked over my shoulder. Trying to force our way against the crowd would draw exactly the attention we wanted to avoid.

  I looked forward again and saw a camel not too far ahead of us. The vile nature of camels was such that even in the tight crowd there was space around it. Nudging the Attolian along, I pressed forward into that space, then maneuvered to put the camel between us and the official at the gate. We had just drawn even with the camel’s back end, and I was watching it closely because it was much too close for comfort, when I heard the man leading the camel say over his shoulder, “Lucky fellow!”

  It was the stranger, the gentleman from south of the Isthmus who had questioned me the day before. “You have found what you thought was lost, then?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, pushing the Attolian forward as discreetly as possible. The Attolian, who’d been hunched before, was suddenly standing straight up. I prayed he wouldn’t do anything to draw attention.

  “Ennikar!” he said, as if greeting an old friend.

  The southerner looked startled. He did look like Immakuk’s companion. Tall and dark skinned, with his carefully groomed beard trimmed straight across at the bottom, he was very like the actor who had represented Ennikar in the play back in Ianna-Ir. I was afraid the man might be offended, but he laughed.

  “You know those stories?” the southerner asked. He threw an arm around the shoulder of the Attolian and didn’t seem to notice the way the Attolian staggered. Anyone watching would have thought that we were together and that the Attolian’s stumble was no more than the result of a friendly embrace. Arm in arm, we proceeded into the old city.

  Once through the gate, we walked in a narrow midway between the stalls of the market. Only the central space was wide enough to allow the traffic to pass through to the rest of the city.

  The Attolian continued to be positively delighted by the stranger. I decided it would be best to make an exit before the Attolian said something rude and before the southerner realized how ill he was. I gestured to a space between two market stalls—the booths were constructed of interlocking panels with ceilings of striped fabric, a temporary city within the city, with even narrower roads.

  “Our way is through here,” I said. “Many felicities to you.”

  “And many to you, Kamet.”

  I turned away, only for a moment. No sooner had I stepped between the stalls than I looked back, but he was gone. Puzzled, I stepped out into the open again. The camel at least should have been easy to spot. How could he have known my name?

  “You saw him, too?” asked the Attolian.

  “What? Yes, of course.”

  “He’s gone now.”

  “I see that.” I was still looking, though.

  “We should go, too,” said the Attolian.

  Fevered and weak, he had more sense than I did. “Yes, yes,” I agreed, and pushed him along between the stalls, among the merchants selling scarves and robes and bolts of cloth, but still looking over my shoulder every few steps until the open part of the market was entirely out of sight.

  At a stall selling leather bags, I asked a woman for directions to the Attolian trade house. The answer came in a heavy accent, and I wasn’t sure I understood completely, but I nodded and thanked her and moved on. She’d pointed in the direction we were already going, so I thought I could follow my best guess at what she’d said, then ask someone else. We left the market and made our way along a fairly open street. The whole city sloped downhill to the waterfront. The higher part of it, where we’d entered the gates, was where the wealthier people lived and shopped. The stores along the street were for ink and paper and fine tailoring. The trade house would be down near the waterfront.

  I’d known that it would be difficult to get the Attolian to the harbor. When we passed a fountain with three stone dolphins, I was relieved that I’d followed the leather seller’s directions that far. She’d said there was a road marked with a crowned lion, and there was. We came to a flight of steps, but I wasn’t sure if she’d said to turn at the top or at the bottom. I’d hoped it would be obvious when we got to them, but it wasn’t.

  All I really needed to do was continue downhill—one way or another I would get to the waterfront—but I wanted, for the Attolian’s sake, to get there as soon as possible. I parked him against a wall and went quickly down the steps to investigate the street below.

  “Excuse me, kind sir,” I asked a passerby. “Can you tell me how best to get to the Attolian trade house?”

  The man pointed back to the top of the stairs. “Take Zam Street to the next set of stairs on the right, and go down from there to Sun Street, follow it to the first fountain and look for a cookshop called the Lady’s Grace, go to the right of the cookshop for a bit, and turn toward the water at the cobbler’s. There’s another court there, with a”—something I didn’t understand—“fountain, and the largest building is the trade house.”

  “Thank you, k—”

  “They’re closed, though.”

  Plague. They had heard rumors of the plague and cleared out, boarding up the doors and leaving the city for the time being. I thanked the man again, wishing he’d told me that first, and went back up the stairs to the Attolian. It was still morning and he could have been a drunk resting on his way home after a long night, but not for much longer. As the sun got higher, he was going to look more and more like a plague victim. I needed to get him out of sight.

  I looked around, assessing our options. I couldn’t take him to an inn. No innkeeper would give him a room. In the city of Ianna-Ir, I could have found a storage site, a warehouse, a stable, or some kind of shed, but Zaboar was a smaller city and inside its walls it was wealthiest. It would be hard to find a place where the Attolian could be tucked awa
y. Even if he had the strength to make it to the shabbier parts of town outside the walls of the old city, I didn’t dare take him past the health inspectors at the gates again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Need help?”

  I turned, almost expecting my southern gentleman, but this was an unfamiliar voice. The man before me was out of place in this fancy part of town—even more than the Attolian and I. He was extremely dirty and short to the point of being stunted, with the shoulders and beefy arms of a laborer. He wore a freedman’s cap and, judging by his leathery skin, had probably been a field slave for most of his life. He might have been well into middle age, but field workers have hard lives, and he could have been much younger.

  “Excuse me?” I said in tones both polite and a little haughty. I thought he might be a beggar and meant to drive him away if he was.

  “You need help,” he said again, and it wasn’t a question. He cut his eyes at the Attolian. “Best he go sleep it off,” he said. Thank the gods, he thought the Attolian drunk and not worse.

  “I’ve got no coin,” I said sharply, and before I could wave him away, he held up a hand to stop me.

  “Not a hennat? For a hennat I can give you a space for him to sleep it off. Quiet place. Out of sight. Celebrated a bit last night, didn’t you, thought you were free and clear?”

  I didn’t understand. I was tired and worried, and obviously already past my wit’s end. When the freedman said, “They’ll be along soon enough—saw them up in the market,” I still didn’t understand. I thought he meant health inspectors and then read his direct stare more carefully. Leaning closer, he said in a greasy undertone, “They’ll turn you over to slave catchers from the empire for a tidy reward.”

  Oh, gods, bounty hunters. Or worse, the Namreen, with the permission of the oligarch. I decided quickly. I had the money from selling my knife and whatever the Attolian had left in his purse. “A hennat?” I asked.

  “Hennat apiece,” he said, now that he had me on the line.

  “I’ve only got five,” I said, letting a little of my panic into my voice. I had more than that but wasn’t going to let him know.

  “Then you’ve got three,” he said. “The other two are mine.”

  I lifted the Attolian off the wall and propped him on my shoulder—his weight made me stagger—trying to guess if the man only meant to lead us into the nearest alley to knock me on the head. The Attolian blinked his eyes to focus on something that wasn’t there and said, “Immakuk?” Perhaps he was even sicker than I realized and this was delirium setting in.

  The freedman looked him over. “Not Immakuk,” he said. “Godekker.”

  Godekker—it’s a decorative cord that fastens a scroll closed. No one, no matter how lowborn, would name a child after something so trivial. His master must have given him the name using the first word that popped into his head. I wondered that Godekker didn’t change it now that he was a grown man and free.

  With a sharp jerk of his head, Godekker led us across the square. He went quickly, without looking to see if we were with him. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed. At every intersection I considered turning away but never did. The Attolian didn’t protest, maybe because he agreed with my decision, or maybe because he was beyond disagreeing. His lips were dry and cracking, and his breaths were short. With most of his weight against my side, I could feel the fever burning in him.

  So we went on, moving downhill through the streets until we were almost at the waterfront in a narrow space between two buildings. It was empty—and probably with good reason. The height of the building on one side was too great for its foundations. The stone walls had begun to buckle under the weight and belled out in swales that almost closed off the passage entirely. I had to turn sideways and pull the Attolian through behind me. When the passage widened again, a high barred gate, a remnant from a more prosperous time, blocked the way to a tiny courtyard. Our guide fumbled with a rusting chain and then shoved hard to force the gate open across the uneven paving stones.

  “You’re lucky I found you,” he said, making us welcome with a wave of his hand. “I don’t usually go up the hill. Got paid to deliver a barrel to the market.” As we passed through the gate, I saw that its lock was no more than a rusted lump connecting two ends of the chain together. A broken link farther along the chain allowed it to be unwrapped. Godekker wrapped it back again, carefully tucking the ends of the chain in so that it looked solid.

  Godekker caught me eyeing his work and shrugged. “The walls shifted in the last quake, so no one comes down here anymore. No one but me.” Indeed, I thought. Anyone here when the walls gave way wouldn’t be trapped in this tiny space, he’d be buried. “The chain just keeps out the stupid children,” he explained.

  For the first time, he caught sight of the sword the Attolian wore down his back and looked alarmed. “Can he use that?”

  “Of course,” I said, just in case he was planning to rob us and take all five of the hennat I had mentioned. It wasn’t the Attolian’s original sword and was hardly as valuable, but it wasn’t what an escaping slave would usually carry. “He stole it in a tavern,” I added hastily.

  Godekker approved. “Good for him,” he said.

  So I had fallen in with a criminal—I’d trafficked with them before, on my master’s behalf in Ianna-Ir. I looked around at our hiding place. The yard was smaller than my master’s rooms in the emperor’s palace, and filled with heaps of junk and garbage, broken pots and bowls. There was a shed made of scrap wood with a doorway partially covered by a blanket.

  “Few enough saw you come in,” Godekker said, “and none of them are friends of the guard. You will be safe here until he sobers up.”

  He pointed to the doorway, and I maneuvered the Attolian through the mess. Inside was a lightless tomb in which even I couldn’t stand up straight as the ceiling sloped down on one side. There was a bed—a mattress bag laid on ropes stretched across the low frame. As I lowered the Attolian onto it, he thrashed, struggling to get back up. “Ennikar?” he said clearly. I patted his arm, hoping he wasn’t going to start raving and spoil his disguise of drunkenness. “Yes,” I said. “Immakuk and Ennikar. I’ll tell you more of the stories later.” Thank the gods, he lay back down then and closed his eyes.

  Godekker was waiting. Once the Attolian was down and I left the shed, he put his hand out.

  “Four hennat,” he said.

  “You said two before.”

  “I’m a fool to risk this,” he said. “Damned stupid to risk my neck for runaways and you as obvious as a wart on a lady’s nose.”

  That was heartening—did I have a brand I didn’t know about, glowing on my forehead?

  “Four hennat,” said Godekker.

  I had little choice. I opened the Attolian’s wallet, keeping Godekker from seeing the contents, and pulled out two coins. “Two hennat now. Two more when we leave,” I said.

  He wanted four up front. I said no.

  “Then three more tomorrow,” he said, crossing his arms.

  “That’s all I have!” But I was already giving in. There was more in my purse, and I could see the indecision in Godekker’s eyes. I didn’t want him turning us in for a reward.

  “You can get more,” he said, his voice brimming with resentment. “You’ll be able to go anywhere in the city—and so will he.” He indicated the Attolian lying in the shed with a jut of his chin.

  Why couldn’t Godekker? That was when my sluggish mind finally put two and two together. He didn’t usually go uphill, where his shabbiness might lead to unwanted attention. He’d noticed the talk of bounty hunters in the market, and when he saw me, at my wit’s end, he’d known me for what I was. Not because I was so obviously an escaped slave, but because like knows like.

  “You aren’t a freedman,” I said.

  I frightened him. In an instant he had snatched up a club from a pile of junk, and all I could do was leap backward, my hands in the air. “Five hennat,” I said. “You can have all five henn
at.”

  He still looked as if he might swing at me.

  “I’ll give you all five of the hennat now. Right now. Can you—can you just give us something to eat?” I pleaded, and he calmed down. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry and I am very grateful to you for letting us stay here.”

  “Could have turned you over myself,” he reminded me.

  “Yes, you could have. Thank you for helping us,” I said.

  “Could still do it,” he said.

  That was what I feared most. I took a breath and let it out slowly. There was a fine line between frightening him and letting him think he had us entirely at his mercy. “No,” I said.

  I had directed my master’s household for most of my life. I had managed his free employees and his slaves, and each person and each situation required a particular approach. Sometimes I could swing my master’s authority like a club, but often I needed to persuade people to respect my position. I gave Godekker the look I used on slaves who resented me because I, too, was a slave and they didn’t think I had any business ordering them around. Gentle with them, I explained my authority, always making them see that we were on the same side, both slaves, both capable of treating the other with the respect we were denied by free men.

  “No,” I said again, quietly but quite firmly. “Godekker, you cannot. I will tell them you are also an escaped slave, and we will all three be doomed.”

  He shuffled his feet and made to lift the club.

  “We can work together, Godekker. My friend and I can pass more easily for free men. We can help you.”

  I lowered my hands and held them out to him, palms up. “Be my friend, Godekker,” I said. “Be my friend in need, and as Shesmegah is my witness, I will repay you someday.”