The Adorned

by John Tristan

  I blinked, still half-awake. “I’m sorry?”

  They laughed. “Where are you from?” Lana asked me. “You’re not city-born, are you?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I’m from Lun, in the Lowlands.”

  “A village boy, really?”

  “I was born there,” I said, frowning at the disbelief in her tone.

  “Well,” she said. “I suppose we all fall on hard times. But when your lip deflated, boy, we thought you’d be a little merchant prince, pretty as you are.” She grinned. “If you wait until your bruises fade a little you’ll make heavy coin doing night work.”

  I looked at the floor, cheeks burning.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” the man said. “Shame on you.”

  “Yes, yes, shame on me,” Lana said, chuckling. “Don’t deny a withered old crone her fun, even if it’s at a poor youngster’s expense.”

  The man sat down beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. His grin was not comforting. “If I were Maxen, I’d sell this one to the Blooded. Think how many years they could suck from his veins!”

  “Trelan, really.” Lana clucked and shook her head. “Don’t tease. He’s a Lowlander. He might actually believe you.”

  Trelan shook me, only half-playful. “You don’t think they suck the vigor from tender youths, do you?”

  I shrugged off his hand, still staring at the floor. “No.”

  “No, indeed.” He stood up. “They just suck the life and work from every man, that’s all.”

  “Trelan,” Lana said sharply; he made a soft, disgusted sound in the back of his throat, but said nothing more.

  There was a sudden bustle of noise from the staircase, and the door to the bedroom opened. The housekeeper stood in the jamb, red-faced with her quick climb. “You all,” she said, flapping her hand at us. “Udred’s people. Go on downstairs, he’s waiting for you.”

  I followed them down into the common room, staying behind a little. Watching them.

  They had done this before, more than once. They stood side by side, their easy laughter silenced, faces gone grim and composed. They looked like soldiers, lined up to meet with the commander.

  And there stood Maxen Udred, in the same purple suit I’d last seen him in, or its very twin. Gren stood beside him, quiet and impassive. His green eyes flickered to me for a moment—only a moment.

  Maxen had his notebook out, flipping through the pages, flicking his eyes back and forth. When his eyes settled on me, he frowned. “Wait, who are you?”

  Gren leaned in to whisper in his ear, and recognition dawned in him. He smiled shortly. “Etan, was it?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I cleared my throat. It would do to be polite. “Yes, sir.”

  He tapped at his notebook. “Leave now—no, not you, Etan. I’d like to have a word. Sit down.”

  I did; he slid in beside me. Gren stood behind us, impassive, arms folded. Now and then, he glanced at me from under his heavy brow.

  “You must be looking for work,” Maxen said.

  I nodded, not quite trusting my voice.

  “What kind of work?”

  “I can read and write, and I cipher tolerably well.”

  He raised his round shoulders in an unimpressed shrug. “A clerkship requires apprenticing with a guild. That, I cannot help you with. What else have you done?”

  “I know a little music. The harp?” I swallowed. “I can read music.”

  “You’re a bit gently reared to be looking for work without an apprentice fee.” He made a sour face. “Have you done any real work?”

  I looked at my pale, narrow hands, gripping the arms of the chair; at the faded patterns on the carpet. I looked anywhere save his cold, clever eyes. “There was a whistling-plague in Lun, when I was young. I lived, but...”

  “But you’re frail,” he finished. “Well, that complicates things, doesn’t it? No mason or merchant is going to want a lad who can’t lift a stone, or who’ll faint in hot weather.”

  “Come now, Maxen.” It was Gren who had spoken, in his thick Gaelte accent. “You can find him something, can’t you?”

  “Do you mean indenture?” I looked at Gren, not at Maxen.

  His face was blank. “Yes. Do you have a better option?” He switched to Gaelte for a moment. “I don’t want to see you starve.”

  I looked back at Maxen. He clicked his tongue softly against his teeth. “I can always find something.” He stood up. His boots were the most polished I’d ever seen. “But I won’t sign him until I do. I’m not going to wed myself to a bad deal.”

  A bad deal—was that what I was, here in the Grey City? Just a boy without money or prospects, not strong enough to hew stone or pull a cart? I could read and write, yes, and that talent seemed rare enough...but without an apprentice fee, perhaps indenture was my best option. Gren, at least, seemed to think it my only option.

  I stood up, my eyes coming up to Maxen’s flaring nostrils. “Have you another client, Mr. Udred, who can do what I can?”

  He opened his mouth—to rebuke me, no doubt—but then his eyes narrowed. “I thought you were Gaelta,” he said, out of nowhere. “But you’re a half-breed, no?”

  “My father was Gaelta. My mother Keredy.” Which left me with a foot in either world, regardless of my father’s attempts to fit us into Keredy ways; still, it didn’t mean I had to like being called a “half-breed.”

  “I suppose that makes you something of a rarity.” He looked down at me, peered at me, as if seeing me for the first time. I didn’t know what he was looking for. He held my eyes for a long while, frowning. “Well,” he said at last. “If you wish to sign with me, then you may. But by law, I must ask you three times if you are sure.”

  I could have said no. I knew that Maxen would not long house me here if I did not look to make him money, but I could have walked away and found work emptying chamber pots or mending clothes, taking the scraps I could until I found something better.

  But in a contract with Maxen Udred there was a guarantee, of food and shelter at least. My father’s guarantees—the music he’d played for me, the roof he’d kept, his promise that any who could play, read and write would never starve—had been disassembled when he slid from robust health to his death in three short months.

  “How long would I be indentured for?” I asked Maxen.

  “Five years,” Maxen said. “That is the standard term. It can be for longer, but...” He left the last word dangling.

  I lapsed into silence. Five years. It seemed a long time—more than a quarter of my life—but I knew in truth it wasn’t. I would still be a young man when I was free of my bond. Until then, though, I’d never need worry where my next meal would come from.

  I looked up at Maxen. “I’ll sign.”

  Gren carried a leather case at his side; he opened it now, anticipating Maxen’s need. Maxen reached for a scroll and unrolled it upon the stained table. A candle was already burning; he took ink, pens, wax from the case as Gren held it open. I watched him lay out his tools like a surgeon. “I’ve asked you once. You are sure?”

  I hesitated. “I want to read it.”

  He laughed. “Were you apprenticed to a judge? It’s quite complex.”

  “I want to read it,” I repeated, edges of my mouth gone tight.

  “Let the boy read, Maxen,” Gren said.

  He raised his brows and slid the scroll my way. “Very well.”

  My eyes darted over the tightly packed lines of the contract. It was nothing I did not expect. The holder of my bond—Maxen Udred, his name neatly inked in—would profit from my services until it expired. I nodded quickly. “I’ll sign.”

  “Wait a moment, wait a moment. You haven’t even read it through!”

  “I’ve read it.” I raised my chin. “Do you have a pen for me?”

  He blinked at me, silent for a moment. I wondered if he truly believed I had read his contract. “Now the last time.” He dipped the steel nib of his pen in the inkpot, twice, and handed it to me.
A small black spatter landed on the tabletop; he didn’t seem to notice. “Are you sure? Break a contract like this, and you’ll be an outlaw, or a debt-slave if they catch you.”

  “I know.” I bent over the scroll and wrote my name and birth year on the blank lines that required them. “I’m sure.” Then I signed, the nib of the pen bending under the pressure of my hand.

  “There.” He smiled and rolled up the scroll again before the ink had even dried. “Now all you need to do is wait.”

  He said it as if it would be easy. I looked up at him, at Gren, and a bitter smile twisted my mouth. “I will be here.”

  Chapter Five

  When next Maxen Udred returned, there were already others in the house for him to dispose of; his turnaround in clients was swift. I wondered if it were always so, or if the war had swelled his coffers, with widows and old soldiers coming to his doorstep in a neat line.

  He wore a different suit this time, in dark blue, an almost martial color. The notebook had returned, and his pencil was swift in his hand as he assigned work. Gren stood behind him, a solid and somehow reassuring presence. I glanced at him and swore I saw the ghost of a smile.

  “You, Tiruv Jansser.” Maxen motioned to a thick-set Northerner with pockmarked cheeks. “There is guard duty for you at Ashen.”

  The man swallowed; the rest looked on him with something like pity. I understood why: Ashen was Peretim’s great prison, a sprawling dungeon beneath the palace, cave-dark and damp. I shuddered. Inmates were not expected to survive long, down in the darkness. How long the guards were expected to last, I did not know.

  “Yes, sir,” Tiruv finally said. He bowed his head.

  Maxen looked in his notebook. “Etan Dairan?”

  Heart hammering, I stepped forward, head slightly bowed.

  He checked the notebook once more, frowning. “You are Etan Dairan?”

  I do not know what he had marked down against my name. I had not changed much, in a bare week, though the last of my bruises had faded. I raised my head, meeting his eyes.

  He tapped at his notebook. “Well,” he said at last. “Never mind.” He turned away from me, to Trelan, who had lingered in the holding house alongside me. “Trelan Marrow? You have a place as well. A man named Waggen needs help in his warehouse. Do you know the place?”

  He nodded. “I do.” He made a face. “Sir.”

  Maxen narrowed his eyes. “You can report there yourself. He’ll be expecting you. That’s all I have for today.” He tucked his notebook away and clasped his hands together. “Thank you all.”

  Trelan went at once to gather his few things and leave, with perfunctory farewells. The others wandered away, some back to the sleeping room, some outside. I was about to follow them when I felt Maxen Udred’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Wait a moment, wait a moment,” he said. He was smiling. It did not sit well on his face. “A word with you?”

  I bowed my head. “Sir?”

  “You’ve cleaned up well. I have to say I was wrong about you, boy. Thought you were a bit of a fibber. Talking of books and music like that. Thought you were angling for a soft job.”

  I felt my nostrils flare with an angry breath. Maxen did not seem to notice. “You saw I could read.”

  He shrugged. “Like I’ve said: I misjudged. And like I said as well, there’s always something I can find for my people to do. For you, I might have something better.”

  “Such as what?” Suspicion darkened my voice.

  He drew himself up. “Something lawful, of course. What do you take me for?” He chuckled humorlessly and turned to Gren. “What does he take me for, Gren?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir,” he said, Gaelte accent thick as treacle.

  “Come on with me, Etan,” he said, steering me out of the boarding house with an arm around my shoulder. “There is someone that I want you to meet.”

  * * *

  Once again, I sat beside Maxen Udred in his rickshaw. Gren pulled it through the streets with practiced ease. We were leaving the southern part of the city, and climbing slowly upward. The streets were wider, of cloud-grey stone, and carefully swept; I saw a clutch of monks-penitent, singing as they brushed their brooms along. The windows were all glass. I felt I carried the stench of the tanneries with me, in my clothes and hair, into this cleaner world.

  “Where to, sir?” Gren called out. “Nightwell Street?”

  “No, not yet. The barber on Reed Street.”

  We turned, climbing even higher; now Gren was beginning to pant with effort. Maxen seemed not to notice, leaning back in his rickshaw with a faraway smile. “Etan,” he said, turning to me but not quite looking at me—looking past me, addressing the air beside my head, “there was no tattoo-master in your hometown, was there?”

  “No. Sir,” I added, remembering myself. “Lun was a quarrytown; we had none with the right to wear ink, let alone a master of art.”

  “Hmm. So you will not have seen inked men, before?”

  “Once, sir, a Sword-noble.” I had forgotten the name of the Sword-noble who owned the land around our village, but not his tattoos: a brilliant starburst of red in the hollow of his throat, and black swords, fading to grey, on his wrists, marks of some long-ago victory. “An Adorned passed through the town, once, but of course, we did not see her ink.”

  “Of course.” He smiled again. “Etan, the man we are going to see is a tattoo-master, so I will expect the greatest respect from you. Do you understand, boy?”

  I nodded, though I didn’t—not quite. Tattoo-masters had aspirants always fighting for their attentions—men and women who would pay their steep apprentice fees and do any tasks they might require; what use could they have for someone they had to pay for? If a tattoo-master needed his papers arranged, or his house scrubbed, or his clothes mended, there were any number who would crawl through a mountain of dung to do so, if it meant an apprenticeship. Given half a chance, I might have done the same.

  “Here we are, sir,” Gren said, taking a huffing breath. “Reed Street.”

  “Excellent.”

  We came to a halt outside a barber’s.

  I frowned and looked at Maxen. “What is this?”

  “I know you’ve bathed, at Alix’s house, but I want you to have a quick tidying. And a shave. Not,” he said, smirking and touching a thick finger to my chin, “that you need it.”

  I drew back. “Why?”

  “Because I am not about to present you in your current state. Now—” he pointed to the barber’s. “Get inside.”

  I did as he said—he owned my bond, after all. The barber fussed over me, trimming my hair and oiling it until it shone, lathering my chin, and shaving me clean of what little stubble I had with a gleaming razor. Half an hour later, he was done, and he turned me about to face Maxen.

  I had not been given a mirror. What I thought of it would not matter; it was Maxen who pressed the coins into his hand.

  “Very nice,” Maxen said, and there was a gleam in his eyes I did not like. “Come along, now.”

  Gren was waiting for us, leaning against the rickshaw. In one hand he held a massive cigar, now and then taking a draw and blowing smoke-rings into the cold air.

  Maxen narrowed his eyes. “Not on duty, Gren. What have I told you?’

  “Sorry, sir.” He ground it out against the paving stones and took up the handles of the rickshaw. “Where to?”

  “To Nightwell Street, now.” He settled back against the seat, shifting from side to side as if he could not quite find his comfort. “To Roberd Tallisk’s house.”

  Chapter Six

  After a few minutes, we came to a halt. The house by which we’d stopped was, at first glance, identical to the other houses on each side of the white, narrow lane: three stories, a hybrid of wood and stone, with a stone porch and a heavy wooden door. It was set apart from its neighbors, however, by an oriel window on the upper story, its glass clear and sparkling even in the clouded afternoon. I looked up at the window, searching for move
ment behind it, but saw nothing.

  Maxen shifted in his seat again; there was a sudden nervous air about him. He coughed and pulled at his suit. “Get out,” he told me, and I did. Gren took my hand to help me down.

  “Wait here, Gren,” Maxen told him, then seemed to change his mind. “No, come here.” He took some coins from his purse. “Go to Helene’s and buy some marzipan, and have yourself a drink, then return. This may take some time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gren said, then nodded to me before turning away. Without our weight, the rickshaw bounded down the street easily; I watched him vanish around the corner.

  Maxen was still nervously adjusting his suit and looking at the door from the corner of his eye, as if it was a problem he had to approach at an angle. I watched him, not saying a word. At last, he sidled up to it and took the door-knocker in his hand. Even then, he hesitated. He looked back at me, frowning, considering me. Then he rapped the knocker hard against the door. He let the metal ring fall from his hand and stepped off the porch, hands clasped behind his back.

  “Straighten your shirt,” he said to me.

  I did, and I stood as upright as I could.

  A few moments passed in a kind of eerie silence. Then the door opened, and a lean, suspicious face peered out—a Northern woman of maybe thirty, with close-cropped hair and slate-colored eyes. “Maxen Udred,” she said, lips pursed. “What brings you here?”

  He bowed; there was something mocking to it. “Yana Keel,” he said. “It has been some time since I saw you last. How is free employment suiting you?”

  “Better than yours. Who is the boy?”

  “Never you mind that. Is Tallisk about?”

  “Master Tallisk is in his atelier.” She grinned, and her smile was slightly askew. “Shall I disturb him?”

  Maxen held his ground. “Tell him I’ve something—someone—for him to see. Tell him to remember my...good eye.”

  She seemed to hesitate a moment, then opened the door further. “Come inside.”

  We shuffled into the entrance hall, and Yana ushered us into a well-appointed parlor. There was a white settee, and thick blue carpets covered the floor. Cases of books lined two of the walls; another held a huge, framed charcoal sketch of a seaside storm. “Please sit,” Yana said. “I’ll tell Master Tallisk you’re here. But I make no guarantees.”