by Kim Fielding
Shrugging, I left the shadows and followed him inside.
Chapter Four
THE NARROW stairway rose steeply, each step creaking under our feet and taking us into increasing darkness. I smelled onions and fish—a bit strong, but better than my apartment’s odors—and blindly held on to the banister. It occurred to me that Pearce was in a good position to attack me, since I’d have trouble defending myself in the blackness of unfamiliar territory. But I wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe some of his enchantment lingered.
We climbed four flights to the top floor, where he unlocked another door. A few scattered spiritlights flared to life at once, but he lit two lanterns as well.
It wasn’t a large apartment, and the roof angled steeply on both sides so that he had to stoop a little when he hung his lute and midnight-colored cloak on a hook. Bright fabrics adorned the walls—silks and embroidered cottons—and a thick mat and pile of pillows were heaped in one corner. Rag rugs and pillows for seating covered the wide floorboards. The apartment held little else other than a dry sink, a few shelves, a little stand with a chamber pot, a painted wardrobe. But it was a cozy space, and two pottery vases of flowers squatted on the windowsill.
“Do you want some wine?” he asked.
It wasn’t what I expected, so I didn’t answer at once. “Uh, yes. Sure.”
He took a green glass bottle from the shelf, pulled the cork, and poured a red liquid into a pair of plain clay cups.
He was no longer wearing the gauzy silks he’d performed in, but his current outfit was hardly understated. Embroidered snakes—matching the bright blue of his chausses—trimmed a sunshine-hued tunic, and instead of sensible boots, he wore scarlet stockings and yellow slippers with curled, pointed toes. On another man, the clothing would have been gaudy, but it suited him well.
I remained near the closed door. With a tiny quirk to his lips, he prowled closer. He held out one cup of wine, which I took, and when I hesitated to drink, he took a dainty sip of his own. “It’s mediocre, I’m afraid.”
Not being able to distinguish good wine from bad, I swallowed a mouthful. It tasted fine to me.
“What shall I call you?” he purred, standing quite close. He was older than I’d thought, but the fine lines at the corners of his eyes didn’t make him any less beautiful.
“Daveth Blyd.”
“It’s a pleasure, Citizen Blyd.”
“I’m not a citizen.”
He tilted his head. “Oh?”
He wore a scent—something spicy and warm—that made my head swim. And his voice….
When I was newly signed on as a city guard, my duties had included carting my captain’s soiled uniforms to the laundry. It wasn’t one of my favored tasks. But she’d been a showy woman and had her capes trimmed not with dyed wool but with velvet. I’d rarely felt anything so soft, and I used to give the velvet surreptitious little pets as I carried her clothes.
Jory Pearce’s voice was like that velvet: soft and rich and plush. And, I reminded myself, expensive.
I took a step back, bumping up against the door, but he followed me, grinning, and trailed one soft fingertip down my cheek. “Are you shy, Daveth Blyd?”
Over the years, I’d been called a good many things—few of them flattering—but never shy. My bark of laughter broke the spell I was under. “No, I’m not.”
I gulped the rest of the wine, pushed him away gently, and strode past him. He watched silently as I set the empty cup in the dry sink and then poked around the apartment. I didn’t expect to find Lord Uren’s ring sitting out in the open, but I hoped to get a better sense of who Pearce was.
He liked pretty things: the fabrics on the walls, the flowers, the colorful rugs, the clothes he wore. He’d even arranged bottles, boxes, and jars on shelves with an eye to symmetry and flow. In contrast, I just kept things wherever they were handy.
But then I looked closer and noticed the flaws. His wall hangings were sun-faded or carefully patched. His dishes—painted with tiny flowers—had small chips. His few pieces of furniture were cheaply made and scarred from use. So he didn’t have as much money to throw around as his surroundings first suggested, and I saw no signs he’d gone on a spree funded by the stolen ring.
I also noticed that he kept his apartment clean. That wasn’t easy to do in these old buildings, where bits of plaster flaked from walls and dust accumulated in the corners. No signs of insects or rodents either, apart from a few dead flies at the window. His vermin-warding spell was better than mine.
“I’m out of food,” he finally said. “But there’s a good meat pasty stall not far from here. They’re open late.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“And you don’t want more wine. What are you looking for, then?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead I inspected the contents of a small tarnished box—which turned out to be empty.
He didn’t stop me from pawing through his things, not even when I opened the wardrobe. It contained a rainbow’s worth of bright silks, some gauzy like the ones he’d worn onstage and some more substantial. He favored blues and purples, but I thought the gold ones must have suited him best, bringing out the color of his eyes.
Shoved to one side of the wardrobe was a single mud-hued tunic and beige chausses, both of coarse material. I couldn’t imagine him wearing them.
“Are you a tailor?” he asked, voice lilting playfully. “Or a furniture-maker? Or maybe you’re just looking for ideas to make your attire more interesting.”
I closed the wardrobe and didn’t respond.
Something was missing from his apartment. I’d noticed it mainly because my own rooms showed the same lack. Almost everyone in the city possessed at least one portrait of a family member or loved one, an image spelled onto parchment by a wizard. Poor people might have only one or two of these—parents, a lover, children—the images rough but useful enough when a client needed to show me what a missing person looked like. Rich people, I’d been told, had dozens of portraits. The most skilled wizards could create images that moved. Not much. A smile or turn of the head perhaps. Enough to capture a bit of the subject’s personality.
Most people kept their portraits in a prominent place in their home, although some kept them tucked away in a special box or near a small altar. But I didn’t see any in Pearce’s apartment. Maybe he’d just hidden them, along with the ring. Still, their absence caused my heart to constrict in an unwelcome way.
“Where’s your family?” I asked.
For the first time, his face registered genuine emotion rather than artifice. Just a flash of surprise followed by anger. “What business is that of yours?”
“I’m wondering if the ring is with them.”
He didn’t flinch. “What are you talking about?”
“The ring you stole from Lord Uren.”
Pearce raised his eyebrows. “Pardon me?”
“Lord Uren has hired me to bring back his ring. And you with it.”
“Hired you? Who are you?”
“I told you. My name is Daveth Blyd. People pay me to… find things. Find people. Find information.”
“That is a very strange way to earn a living,” Pearce said coolly. He glided across the room and refilled his wine cup but didn’t offer any to me. His brow furrowed in thought as he sipped. “Why would Uren accuse me of stealing something?”
I crossed my arms and stared at him. He looked honestly perplexed. But he was an entertainer, after all. Perhaps his acting equaled his singing.
Finally Pearce sighed. “How much did he pay you to find me?”
“A lot.”
“Which is how you bought those nice clothes. You’re a Lowler through and through, aren’t you?”
Lowler. It was a strange term. People who lived elsewhere in the city used it as an insult. It meant a person was poor, dirty, brutish, ignorant. Untrustworthy. More than one member of the city guard had called me a Lowler—before, during, and after my time in uniform. They hadn’t meant it kin
dly. But many people who lived in the Low wore the name as a badge of honor. Sometimes a neighbor might accuse another of putting on airs, and the response was always the same: “Oi, I’m a Lowler all right. Born and bred.”
I wasn’t sure how Pearce intended it.
I grinned at him. “Born and bred.”
“And you’re trying to work your way up in the world? Get into the nobility’s good graces?”
“I’m comfortable with my place in the world. And the nobility and their good graces can take a giant leap off Seli Hill, for all I care. I just want to pay the rent and feed my belly. You know what that’s like.”
I’d expected to get a reaction from that last statement—a not-so-veiled accusation of being a whore—but he only gave me a small smile. “That I do.” He shrugged and then refilled his wine cup. “But I’ve no idea why Uren sent you after me.”
We’d reached an impasse. He refused to admit anything, which wasn’t a surprise. I couldn’t bribe the truth from him, as I had from Redigon, because all the remi in the world wouldn’t get a man to admit to a capital offense. I could beat it from him—or, more accurately, twist and tug the admission from him by making his body sing with pain. Thanks to my training, I knew how to do things that would make a person beg for the hanging tree. But I have no taste for torture, especially when the evidence is weak. All I had to go on was Lord Uren’s accusation, and while I had no reason to believe the lord was lying, I also had no good reason to trust him.
Belatedly I realized that I should have done more background work before confronting Pearce.
I try to be honest with myself. If Pearce had been less alluring, I might have just dragged him off to Lord Uren’s palace so I could be done with the whole matter. What happened to Pearce after that—undoubtedly something unpleasant, likely something fatal—would be none of my affair. But Pearce stood there in his bright apartment with his yellow curls and his doe eyes, and I couldn’t force myself to bring him in.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said brusquely as I marched to the door. “If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble, have the ring ready. Maybe I can persuade Lord Uren to simply take it back and forget all of this happened.” Fat chance.
Pearce came up close. “I don’t have the ring,” he said softly.
“I’ll be back tomorrow. And don’t try to hide—I’ll find you.” That much was true. Given enough time and incentive, I could find almost anyone. I was especially well acquainted with all the hiding spots in the Low.
He looked sad and exhausted. I was halfway through my fourth decade, and looking at him now, I suspected he wasn’t far behind. But then the corners of his mouth curled into a tiny smile and he again stroked my cheek. “You try to be a man of honor, don’t you?”
“No.”
Another slow pass of his finger made me tremble.
“People like Uren, they don’t care about people like us,” he said. “They use us, tangle us up in their affairs, and discard us. A good man like you deserves better than that.”
“I’m not a good man,” I rasped.
He only smiled.
I could have stripped off his clothing then and there, pulled off my own, and fucked him senseless. I wanted to. I ached to. And the shine in his too-old eyes told me he wouldn’t object.
Instead I fumbled behind myself for the latch, opened the door, and stepped into the tiny hall. It was dim and ugly compared to his apartment.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said for the third time. An irrevocable threat—or promise—because three times sets the charm.
He nodded slightly, and I fled down the dark stairs and into the night.
Chapter Five
I DID not go straight back to my place, even though I was tired. I also didn’t take any steps to investigate Pearce. Instead I went to the Weeping Wyvern and drank until I couldn’t see straight. It didn’t solve my problems. Didn’t make me feel any better. But it dimmed the world for a bit, and that was the most I could hope for.
When I got home, I took off my fine clothes and hung them on hooks, hoping the rats wouldn’t eat them while I slept. Then I collapsed naked onto my bed and didn’t particularly care whether I ever woke again.
But I did awake. With a pounding head, a foul-tasting mouth, a churning stomach, and a cockroach bigger than my thumb crawling up my thigh. And with somebody beating on my door.
I flicked away the insect, found my feet, and wrapped the blanket around my waist. I stumbled to the front room, grabbing a knife along the way because you never knew. When I opened the door, even Tangye’s smoky sunshine was enough to sear my eyes, and the gangly boy waiting there did little to block the light.
“Wha’?” I growled.
He took one look at my bleary face, my nearly naked state, and my poorly brandished blade and burst into braying laughter.
I would have slammed the door in his face, but I recognized him as the half-grown son of some river scavengers I occasionally did business with. My grogginess fled instantly, replaced with a sharp dread I didn’t understand. “A body?” I asked.
“Yeah. Fresh one too. Ma dragged him out of the water at first light—she says she figures he was still breathing last night at sundown.”
People die all the time in Tangye. A lot of them end up in the river. It could be anyone.
I took a deep breath. “I’ll be there shortly.”
“You mean you’re not going to walk down to the river dressed like that?”
“Not today.”
He laughed and hurried away, and I shut the door.
I lurched to the chamber pot and emptied my bladder. I managed not to vomit, which was a victory, and then drank some tepid water from the covered ewer I kept by the dry sink. I scrubbed my face and then, for good measure, ran a damp soapy rag over my body. As I did so, I wondered what Pearce would think if he saw me naked.
Ah, but I’m not vain, remember?
I owned two sets of clothing in addition to the new one. One set, of course, currently awaited me at a shop in the Silver Quarter. I put on the other, leaving my finery for the next occasion that called for it—which might be never. I didn’t want to wear good clothes to examine a corpse on the riverbank. A stray thought crossed my mind: what would become of my belongings when I died—when I was the one floating down the river? The owner of my building would undoubtedly scoop up anything of value, but I didn’t know what would happen to whatever money remained in my account at the bank. Would the bankers get to keep it? Did it revert to the Crown? What the many hells difference did it make to me anyway? I’d be dead.
Before setting out into the world, I buckled on my knives, as I always did. I’d sooner go out without tunic and chausses than without my blades. In a burst of frivolity, I put on the new cloak instead of my old one. It was a beautiful garment; I’d try not to get it dirty.
Although my stomach was sour and I wasn’t hungry, I knew I’d regret eating nothing at all. I stopped for a hunk of sawdust bread and some tiny dried fish, which I ate as I descended to the river.
A few paces from the Royal Bridge, a flight of stone steps ran down to the water. They were steep and perhaps as ancient as the city, each tread worn into a shallow dish by generations of feet. The steps were slippery, so a wise person took them slowly, unless he wanted to risk falling and breaking his neck on the big rocks at the bottom. I’m not that wise—I hurried. My boots gave me blessedly good traction, and I reached the bottom safely.
Most of the scavengers were busily at work, although they glanced my way and a few waved. My morning visitor stood on the beach with his mother and a few younger children who might have been his siblings, and at their feet lay a naked body, pale and still.
I’ve been acquainted with Lady Death ever since I could walk. I’ve seen her touch countless men, women, and children, sometimes soft as the winter fog, but more often hard, sharp, and bloody. I had been the one to discover my mother cold and stiff, her open eyes sightless. I called the Lady myself more than
once when I served in the guard, summoning her with the thrust of my blades into flesh. And I’ve felt her brush by me, leaving a promise that someday she’ll embrace me as well. But I’d never hesitated to approach a corpse the way I did now.
“He’s not getting any fresher, Blyd!” called the mother with a cackle. I never expected reverence from a scavenger.
He lay facedown in the muck, his legs splayed and his arms tucked under his body. He’d been tall and well made; the body of a dancer, not a laborer. His hair was too wet and muddy for me to discern the color.
I nodded at the scavengers. “Turn him over, please.” And I held my breath while they did.
I didn’t know him. Good gods and goddesses, I’d never laid eyes on him before. All the air left my lungs in a noisy whoosh.
He’d been young—early twenties, perhaps—and his brief stint in the river hadn’t robbed him of his beauty. But the gaping wound at his neck was ugly enough.
“He’s nobody I’m looking for,” I said. “He comes from money.”
The scavenger and her children peered at the body quizzically. “How can you tell?” she asked. “There’s no fine clothing.”
“Look at his teeth. Straight and white, and none of them missing. No scars or marks on his skin.” Well, other than the slash that had killed him, which would never form a scar. “I doubt he’s ever gone hungry. His fingernails are neat. His feet are in good shape, so he’s worn fine shoes.”
As I detailed the signs of his wealth, my little audience examined him closely, attentive students to my lesson. When I was done, the mother stood with hands on her narrow hips, frowning. “So you don’t want this one.”
A corpse’s only value to scavengers—other than what I might pay in order to reunite a missing loved one with family—is in clothing or other property they can strip from the body. In this case, it looked as if robbers had already taken care of that. The woman and her children would drag him back into the river when the tide came in, letting him be washed out to sea. It seemed a lonely end, especially when somewhere he might already be missed.