“See, I always thought you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for, farm boy.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I got to know some people who’ve been sleeping rough in Wildern, since I came here. I try to do what I can, offer medical help and things. That’s how I met Bargi.”
Bargi had dropped her hands to her lap, and her face was closed off.
“Bargi works harder than just about anyone I know,” he said. “And she always has a sense of humor. And… I wanted to get to know her better. So I thought of this, having some people over who I like to spend time with.”
“He comes and helps people every day,” Bargi said, barely loud enough to hear. “Every single day. Even the cranky assholes.”
“I don’t just do it for you. It’s… it’s selfish, in a way.”
Bargi’s voice sharpened. “Whatever, you’re still helping people. Most of those townies wouldn’t care if we got shoved into the canal.” She flexed her hands under the table; Keifon watched at an angle.
“A few people care,” he said. “Someday I hope there will be more. I’m sorry there aren’t more.”
“I know. …I know. Yeah.” She set her hands in loose fists on either side of her plate. “We have you, at least. You and that guy up at the camp, and the feathers.”
Keifon had gasped before he could lock down his reaction, and covered his mouth. “I’m sorry. …Kazi na Furujia? From the Yanweian army?”
“Yeah. Word gets out around the camp, translated, and everything. But they say he’s going to fight for us. For the common people. Did you know poor people can’t even vote in Yanwei?”
“Well, it’s not about money, exactly, you have to be born into a noble family—”
“—but he’s going to make it better for them, and they’ll fight for us in Kavera too.”
He breathed it out in Yanweian. “Kazi only fights for himself.” He knew it wasn’t true. To say Kazi only cared about himself was only a way to make it easier to take. He rubbed his temple, where the pain began to gather. “I, uh. Used to belong to the same unit in the Army as he did. And we were kind of…” Not “kind of.” Not remotely. “He was my partner, for a few years. Romantically.”
“No shit, seriously?”
“It was his idea to send me here. And we broke up in the process. It was—ugly. At the time.” It was still ugly. It was a part of what had made him, and he had slowly buried it in the process of building his new life. He’d wanted it to stay there. It had heaved up to the surface, like the rocks the earthbreakers cracked apart. “We don’t talk anymore. But if I seem…”
“Freaked out,” Nelle supplied.
“…Unsupportive. That’s why. Not because of his politics. I always stayed out of that.”
“You sure know know to pick them, don’t you,” Nelle said.
“Why’s that?” Bargi asked.
Keifon chose to turn back to his dinner rather than address that comment. Nelle went on cheerfully. “He dated one of the other caravan merchants for a while. Ice cold, that one.”
“Next time I’ll probably have an arranged marriage, so they’ll be vetted for me. All right?”
Nelle shrugged. “You can pick friends just fine. So your head is in the right place.” She flashed a smile.
Bargi finished the last bite of her salad. “Hey, uh, I don’t want to be rude, but can I have more of that egg and chicken stuff?”
Keifon looked up, his host’s responsibilities blotting out his dark thoughts about Kazi. “Oh — absolutely. Take as much as you want.” She’d just spent all day hauling rocks, and then walked across most of the city to get here. And this was one of the times when she was eating regularly; she didn’t always, even when she was working. Keifon nearly kicked himself for forgetting. Well, he’d make sure his guests didn’t go hungry, and he’d try to keep this evening from turning into a joyless slog through his failures as a person. “Would you like anything else, Nelle?”
“I’m fine. Still working on this. All good stuff, by the way. My compliments.”
“Yeah,” Bargi said, cutting another slice of tart. “Really good.”
“Thank you. I’ve tried to learn more about cooking since we came to Wildern.” For the first time since Eri left, he had money for food and a real stove to work on. After years of mess hall food and doing the best he could over a campfire, he’d started to make up for lost time. It was gratifying to watch his friends enjoy what he’d made. He’d worried for a while that his enjoyment of cooking for others was part of his over-attachment to Agna, but this warm feeling was the same.
“Practicing for being a house-husband,” Nelle said, grinning. Her tone was light enough that he took it as a jest.
“Hey, I’m still going to work at the hospital. Unless the matchmaker finds me someone rich,” he added, playing off her joke.
“Heh. Not as many of those around these days,” Bargi said.
Nelle refilled her cider. “Better you than me, anyway. Won’t get me in range of a church any time soon.”
Bargi raised her glass. “Got that right.”
Nelle grabbed hers and clinked it. Keifon sighed and took another bite of salad. He could choose friends who were smart and strong and dependable, and none of them believed in marriage. First Kazi, then Agna and Edann, now Nelle and Bargi. Not that any of them would have him anyway, specifically. It was the principle of the thing. It felt the same way to realize that he knew too many irreligious people — they might care about him, but they didn’t understand why certain things were important to him. Agna tried, and she respected what was important to him, but she didn’t fully understand it, deep down.
Stop borrowing trouble, he thought, remembering Father Tufari’s advice. You aren’t looking yet anyway, so don’t worry about it.
Easier said than done.
“So how’d you get started in the fall caravan?” Bargi asked, between forkfuls of egg tart.
“Oh, well, I was born there. Lived the life from day one.”
“Really!”
Keifon let them carry the conversation, content that Bargi had gotten over the awkwardness of admitting how they’d met. It was a relief to stop talking about his life for once. The scent of the baked apples and spices filled the air. He was already stuffed. Maybe cards first, then dessert. Cards, and some tea, and a nap he couldn’t actually take, and dessert. He should offer to walk Bargi back to the camp after they were done. She didn’t need any more protection than he did, but it would nice to offer company. He wanted a chance to tell her that he didn’t see her as any different from Nelle, in terms of inviting her to his home. He hadn’t invited her out of any sense of charity, and he didn’t want her to feel out of place.
They still had to take a look around the building. He couldn’t forget that. Though if he advertised for lodgers, he might end up with some of Kazi’s followers from the workers’ camp. The idea gave him pause. They weren’t dangerous, certainly. He just didn’t want any part of it. The last thing he needed was to get drawn back into Kazi’s influence.
His next appointment with Father Tufari was in four days. At least they’d have something to talk about.
Between the three of them, Keifon, Nelle and Bargi polished off the tart and nearly all of the salad. Bargi tipped her head back, folding her hands over her stomach. “Ughh. That was amazing, doc.”
“Yes, thanks for having me over, Kei. Need any help washing up?”
“I can take care of it later, don’t worry about it.”
“You sure? It’s no trouble.”
It would be enormously rude to ask a guest to help with housework. Though then, he hadn’t had a Kaveran over for dinner before. Maybe it was perfectly normal to them. And maybe it was just Nelle. “Fine… all right, I’d appreciate it. Would anyone like some tea afterward?”
Both agreed to tea. Keifon set a full kettle on the stove and checked on the apples. They might be ready in another twenty minutes — enough time to clean up and visit the ground floor. He delegated the fe
w tasks at hand. Bargi helped him wash the dishes, citing half a dozen jobs washing dishes in inns and restaurants. Nelle dried the dishes and found their places in the cupboard. With three people on the job, the dishes were finished quickly.
“Would either of you be opposed to a tour, while we wait for the water to boil?”
His guests were not opposed. Keifon picked up a lamp and his keys on the way to the door. “The back entrance is right next to ours. It’ll be chilly, but no need for coats, I think.”
The three of them headed down the stairs and retrieved their shoes. Keifon let them in through the back door of Agna’s future gallery. He led Nelle and Bargi down the hall to the front room to begin his summary of Agna’s plans. The front room and the two side rooms were empty, except for the old sales counter in the front room. The future office, between the side rooms and the kitchen, held nothing but a stack of unmounted display shelves and some dust. The kitchen, once used for employees, contained nothing but a work sink and some dishes Agna had used for an event, along with the trap door to the root cellar. Outside the circle of light from Keifon’s lamp, the room was dark.
“Here’s my thought,” he said. “There are a lot of rooms to rent in town, and most of them are probably furnished. But I wondered whether anyone might rent this place, or part of it. I wouldn’t charge much. Full indoor plumbing, and fireplaces in the side rooms. Agna’s used the kitchen to get ready for parties, it works well enough. We could have a locksmith in here to change the locks to different keys. It’s probably too much of a long shot, without furniture. I just thought… maybe.”
Bargi shrugged. “Beats a tent, in a couple of months, especially. How much’re you asking?”
He’d averaged the rates he’d seen posted in windows and on signs around town, and halved them to account for the lack of furniture. “Twenty unions a month, for a room?”
Bargi waved him a few steps down the hall to look through the doorway of one of the side rooms. “You could sleep six people in here if they camped out.”
“I’d say four.” Keifon raised the lamp to light the back wall. The side rooms were the same size as the rooms he and Agna had claimed for themselves.
Nelle walked up between them. “Been too long since you had to squeeze into a tent, fancy man.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want people to have to live… uncomfortably. On my watch.” He remembered the crowded halls of the Eytran churches. The priests kept a sort of order, but sickness swept easily through the cramped conditions, and the priests weren’t always watching. The first time someone had tried to steal his nanbur, he’d fled to sleep in an alleyway and never came back.
“Dunno if I could pay twenty,” Bargi said, “but I’d pay ten or five and split it, that’s for sure. It’s far from the site, but you’re trading that off for a fire and a roof. I’ll take that in the winter.”
“They’re working through the winter?” Nelle stood at the edge of the lamplight.
“Yeah. Earthbreakers can work fine in the cold, and once they crack up the rock it’s all the same to us. Working keeps you warm.”
Keifon pictured the work crews in their worn-out clothes in hip-deep mountain snow, and suppressed a shudder. “Just… be careful. Take care of yourself.”
“Well. If I’m gonna be living downstairs from the doc, I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Keifon dropped his gaze from Bargi’s grin, although it was hard to keep from smiling himself. “I’m not a doctor yet, you know.”
“Ha.” Bargi withdrew from the side room and walked backwards toward the kitchen. “Tell that to my leg. Or Aunt Wizie’s cough. Or Gaf’s stumps.”
“Your leg was Agna’s doing. Anyway, if you think somebody might rent this place after all, I’ll put up a sign. I’ll save you a place if you want.”
“Much obliged. I’ll get the word out around the camp.”
“Thanks, Bargi.”
“Heh. Listen to him.” Bargi’s hand flicked at him, though her comment was directed at Nelle.
“I know. He’s always been like this. Charms people by accident. Cards, then? Some of your tea? And that apple dish, unless you just intend to torment us with the smell of it all night?”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
His friends returned with him to the kitchen upstairs after he locked up the ground floor. Supplied with tea and cider and baked apples, they argued about which games everyone knew, and settled on one for a start that only Keifon didn’t know. He didn’t mind learning.
Agna: Sacrifices
Agna watched the servants, children, and shoppers meandering from one store to the next. So ruffians weren’t the only people who traipsed about on foot. She put aside her teeth-gritting census and looked at the buildings instead, marking which ones had changed hands since her last visit.
She had rolled her eyes at her father’s offer to have Raffaele bring the carriage around for them. The office was so close to her parents’ apartment that she could see the edge of its roof from the garden. Though as she walked, she recalled riding in the same carriage to shops and cafes that were not much further from home.
It didn’t matter what her father did or what he thought about her eccentricities. She could get some fresh air, feel the boards and cobbles under her feet, and look in the shop windows. She could take a few minutes to let the willow extract take hold of her headache, and gather her thoughts.
She had lain awake in her parents’ guest room, then lit a lamp on a graceful side table that had once stood in a guests’ lounge at home — in the old house, rather. She had sat down in her nightgown to write. Factors. Priorities. Stakes. Solutions. Getting her thoughts on paper had not kept them from rattling in her head, but it had allowed her to sleep for a while.
There could be more to her visit than arguing with her father. This could still be a constructive discussion. Agna spread a hand over the satchel on her hip as she walked. All the notes and figures in the world wouldn’t sway him; she was convinced more with every word he said that he wasn’t listening. She only had to figure out a legitimate means of escape, one that would leave her free to pursue her own dreams while satisfying his need to establish a chain of succession. She would not bankrupt her family or destroy their legacy. A plan was out there, if she could fight through her fatigue to find it.
The front stairs of the building that housed the Despana and Nocta Agencies were the same worn-smooth marble she remembered, and its brass handrails were still polished and bright. The two agency names were molded in gold-leafed stone over the entryway, mounted over the original carvings — the illusion of permanence, allowing for a future when Nocta and Despana would collapse back into the old Despana Agency. For now, Naire and Raniero Despana headed their armies of art brokers side by side.
“Good morning,” said the clerk at the front desk. His stylish clothes were nonetheless dwarfed by the jeweled tones of the Coronation of Queen Gioconda on the wall behind him. “Do you have an appointment?”
Agna squashed her reaction down to a strange, convulsive grin. “I’m Raniero and Alfia Despana’s daughter Agna. I’m meeting with my father. Have I beaten him here?”
“It appears that way. Please have a seat.”
“Sure.” Following the directive in spirit if not in letter, she studied the works lining the walls of the reception lounge, between the potted ferns and tables holding water pitchers and glittering glassware. Most of the paintings and sculptures she knew so well that she’d hardly seen them on her last visit, but a few were new. One of the new works, an expansive, deep-green portrait of the traveling party of Eytra, bore a very familiar name on its brass identification plate. Violetta Despana, Nocta Agency. Oil on canvas.
Agna studied her cousin’s painting. As always, Letta’s strength lay in the motion and life in her figures and in the nearly tangible drape and texture of her fabrics. Her work had continued to improve in the years since Agna had been away. The figures in the painting were half-fantastical, with bats’ wings
and fox tails, fangs and claws, but Agna spotted one of Letta’s other-side cousins in one of their faces, and Lina in another. Lina as a flower-wreathed wood spirit seemed somehow fitting. Her shy smile turned mysterious when veiled in leafy shadows. They must have had a grand time sitting for this. Letta would have a rollicking story to tell, and Lina would only blush and wave it off. It was too bad she hadn’t seen this yesterday, or she would have asked.
“Agna. Are you ready?”
She turned with a smile ready for her father. Without commenting on her early arrival, he accepted some papers from the front desk clerk and headed down the corridor. Agna kept her long list of irritations squashed into a corner as she followed, and waited for him to unlock his office.
Raniero Despana had moved into the first-floor suite while Agna was still at the Academy, when his mother, Agna’s grandmother, had retired to a cottage in the mountains with a forty-year career behind her. Watching her father sort through his correspondence on the polished oak desk, Agna realized that he was coming up on fifty years in the agency, if one counted his apprenticeship. Twice her lifetime and then some. He’d shepherded the agency through the schism with his sister and continued its growth as an independent entity, and yet he had worked out of the same building for half a century and had never lived outside Murio. That was what her family offered Agna as well: to be the ruler of the same small patch of ground forever.
Agna unshouldered her satchel next to one of the upholstered armchairs that faced the desk. As a child she had curled up reading on the couch at the edge of the room; the chairs were meant for clients and artists and agents, not eavesdropping children. She brushed out her skirts and took a seat in a chair.
“Now,” her father said, pulling out his own chair. “You have your own ideas about how things should go. Please fill me in, so that we can hear one another out as adults.”
Her fists clenched in her lap. How very generous. The full business plan of the gallery and museum lay in her satchel, but she left it there. She knew this speech in Kaveran, and she could give it in Nessinian, too.
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