by John Tristan
Meret ranted and sulked a day over my refusal, but then he asked Doiran to leave us scraps of skin from his slaughter, boiled and cleaned. They felt strange in my hand, dead and yielding, but they took the ink well.
Meret snorted over my designs. “New-fangled stuff, this. In my day we’d have you begin with swords and moons, the first marks, from when only warriors and priests were tattooed.”
I showed a grimace. “And now it’s only the pretty pets of noblemen.”
“Now? Now I’m not so sure.” Meret rubbed his beard, as if my bitter jest were a serious question. “There’s long been grumbling over the Blooded’s rules, who can wear this and that, who has to speak like this or that. Now they’ve run to ground, do you think the new Council will hand out fines to men who bare ink, or wear silks without permission?”
“You sound less than pleased.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care which way the wind blows, long as I’ve got my—my—” He looked away, into a sightless distance, then sighed. “That’s all for today,” he said, in a small voice. “I need my rest.”
“Master Meret...”
“At least I know, yes? At least I know she’s gone.” He heaved himself onto his bed. I stayed with him until he fell asleep murmuring first Selma’s name, then the name of his long-dead wife.
Slowly his snoring filled the room, and he pawed at his bedsheets like a dreaming dog. I pulled shut the curtains, but left him a single lamp, burning low—Meret did not like waking into darkness.
It was quiet downstairs. There was still light, and the children had been turfed out of the house by Doiran and Roisel.
Roisel had told me that while riots and fires raged through the city she had “kept them inside.” The huddling together, the unwashed clothes, the cries quickly muffled, the stifling boredom: all that I read between the lines of her face. The children were starting, already, to forget, but she never would.
We each had our scars.
Mine were healing, though they would never fade. I had used the last of the blessed salve weeks before; now I used a sweet-smelling ointment that Doiran had procured. The scars on my legs were the worst—deep and cracked. Sometimes, they stretched and pulled at the nerves below, and I could not walk for long. There was a strange white patch on my chest, where the color and texture of me had been sanded away by the fire. As for my face? The corner of one eye was pulled slightly askew, and my cheek looked almost as if it had been slapped by a hot gauntlet, though the angry red of it had cooled to pinkish-white. My eyebrow was gone as well, though my lashes had returned, paler and softer than before. I had come to recognize my new self; I didn’t flinch from mirrors anymore.
In any case, I had a deeper scar.
We had circled the city, gone to all the temples and poorhouses. Padrig had come with me; he knew Peretim’s every nook and cranny, every secret place. He’d call out in Gaelta and Keredy, or sometimes in smatters of Surammer, and people would come out of their shadows and listen while I described Roberd Tallisk. Then, invariably, they would shake their heads.
Most of the Adorned had left the city, fleeing for the calmer South when angry eyes settled on them; many of the tattoo-masters had followed the same roads. We found a few of Meret’s old apprentices, but none of them had heard any whisper of Tallisk, for good or ill.
Padrig took me aside one afternoon and told me he had passed Tallisk’s description to the corpse burners he knew. “They strip them of their clothes, you know,” he’d said. “They’d notice his ink. At least you would know, right?”
I had nodded, made all the right signals. I seemed to all eyes to have stopped hurting myself with hope. Yet the ache I felt wasn’t like mourning. I felt like a sailor gone overboard. I’d been washed ashore, into something like safety, but Tallisk was still adrift in a dark sea.
The thought did not bring me comfort. Meret was right: better to know.
* * *
The first man I tattooed was a soldier, a huge Southerner. He came in with Padrig one morning after a night’s drinking. I demurred at first, but the man leaned down and held me gently by the shoulders and asked if I’d ink his dead comrade’s name on his skin.
I could not say no. More, I did not wish to.
Meret was asleep, his tools packed away; I woke him carefully and asked permission as he blinked in the gloomy dawn. “Tell him to come back when he’s off the drink,” he grumbled, “and when the light’s better. Then you can use my needles.”
I’d half expected the soldier to cry off once the beer had worn away, but he came back with dark rings under sober eyes. He came to the attic, standing with shoulders hunched, and bowed to Meret. He knew a master when he saw one.
The design was simple, and he wanted no color: just stark black letters. Jaran was the name of his lost friend, and Kathor his own. He told me the story while the blood poured down his shoulder.
“There wasn’t a soul lost to the war in Suramm, in our company. We were luck-blessed. Boys used to come and beg drinks from our barrels, thinking we’d put some virtue in them. Then we come here; there’s no army, no great battle, just our own folk, scared and hungry. And they were the ones to take Jaran down.”
I listened, saying nothing, only driving the ink into his skin inch by inch. Meret was nearby, on the edge of his bed, rocking back and forth with hands resting on his cane. Sometimes he seemed to doze for a moment.
“I didn’t take the sword-oath to swing it at my own people, but by the gods, when they pulled Jaran off his horse I hated them more than any Surammer, rank sword-slinger or warlord. We killed maybe seven of them.”
He swallowed, glancing over at my work. I was half done, and I wiped off the blood with a clean cloth.
“The rest were thrown in Ashen. We took them there ourselves. We felt proper, with their friends’ blood still on us. We felt righteous. But later I went and threw up, and I thought how some of them were barely fifteen.”
Meret’s nodding head came up a moment, his eyes unfocused, sleepy. He looked at Kathor as if he could not place him, then at me.
“It’s all right,” I said. “He’s a friend.”
Kathor tried a smile. “A friend?”
I shrugged. “You’re a friend of Padrig, aren’t you?”
“You heard what I said.”
I hesitated, hammer and needle in hand. “It was a boy barely fifteen who did this to me.” I did not need to say what. “I saw a crowd cheer on a man who cut another Adorned to ribbons. From where I sit, yes, you are a friend.”
He looked down. “People blame the Blooded, now, say they were to blame for all of it, that they didn’t care for anything save their own hides. Each day someone comes to the Council saying ‘Oh, set free the poor people who were just under their thumb!’ Like the people who killed Jaran.” He made a harsh noise in the back of his throat. “I never worked for the Blooded. I’m a Sword man through and through.”
I looked sideways at him. “Haqan Loren’s man?”
He started. “How did you know?”
“I guessed.” I looked back at my work, clearing my throat. “How does he fare?”
“He’s a busy man. He’s not liked, but he’s trusted.”
I laughed. “That sounds like him.”
I finished the last curve on the last letter and leaned back, tilting my head critically. I could see small imperfections in the way it sat on his skin. I would not have chosen his shoulder for it. Perhaps the underside of his brawny arm. But it had not been my choice to make.
“Do you have a mirror?”
I showed him his ink. Warriors and priests, Meret had said. They had been the first to be inked, when the art was new. Well, Kathor was warrior enough to my eyes.
“Just what I wanted.” His voice was soft. He dug into his pocket and pressed five ral into my hand.
I looked at it, blinking, and almost handed it back—I had not expected to be paid—but Meret made a throat-clearing noise and fixed an eye on Kathor.
“Speci
al apprentice’s rate, I’d imagine. In my day a man paid at least fifty for the meanest ink.”
Kathor gave me a dubious look, and I smiled. “Apprentice’s rates are right. After all, you’ve been my skin to practice on.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
After that, they started coming in a slow trickle, fed by rumor and the boasts of the newly inked. At first, there would be a shy inquiry once every few days. Then, as the weeks passed, someone began to knock on the Teinnes’ door and ask to be put under the needle—under my needles—near every day.
Doiran had cordoned off part of his precious kitchen, which had the finest light, with an old wooden screen, and Padrig had found an old doctor’s chair. The rest came from Meret’s stores: the needles and hammers, the brushes and ink. “I still say it’s a damned strange way to practice,” he’d grumbled, “but who am I to argue? You are improving.”
Most of the first were soldiers, Southern men. They were from Kathor’s regiment, I guessed. They asked for crossed swords, or the names of their lovers. There was a hard-eyed defiance to them; they knew well enough the ancient laws of ink, but chose to break them. As did I. Meret was right. They were laws no one bothered to enforce any longer.
Soldiers were not the only ones, though. As word spread to the city that there was a tattooist inking common skin, a slow parade of others came. The first woman to sit in my chair was a retired butcher, brawny-shouldered and blonde with a Lowland accent; I inked a fanciful orchid on the back of her neck. Of course I could not claim to Adorn them—no blessed Blood was mixed with my ink. Still, they seemed pleased enough with the designs I tattooed on them.
At first, I let them pay what they wished to and what they could. Then Roisel took me aside and told me to set a price. “This is your livelihood now,” she said. “And once the novelty of it wears away, you won’t have so many clients. You should think of your future.”
I smiled at her. “And I should start to save for a room, so I can get out of your hair.”
She goggled. “Etan Dairan writ-Tallisk, what a thing to say. You are our little cousin now! If there’s not enough room for you to stretch just say so, but don’t ever leave because you feel in the way.”
She had used the Gaelte words for little cousin. I went quiet. Outside the kitchen window, there were children playing. It was midafternoon; the light was warm and clear.
I remembered the strange and foreign look of joy on Tallisk’s face in those stolen days between us. I wondered how foreign it would look on me now, with a face still unused to smiling. The scars on my cheek ached, but I did not mind.
It was an imperfect kind of happiness, but it was mine.
* * *
A year had passed since the riots had roared through the city; now autumn had come again, soft and sudden. Half the trees in Peretim still looked winter-bare, leaves stripped away by fire and the scorched, thirsty ground, but the others were wearing their usual displays of yellow and red. The light failed early; I would go up to the attic at sunrise to work on my designs.
Meret rose early as well, often before the rising sun, and with the slow-acquired knowledge of every corner of his attic made his way around in the dark. He had a small pantry and a cooking lantern, and each morning and night we brought him fresh water.
He was awake now, paging through an old book by lantern light. He had not opened the curtains yet. He raised his head to me. “Good, you’re here.”
I smiled and let the morning light in; Meret blinked and grumbled. One eye was now entirely blind; the other, still sharp, had grown sensitive, seeing best in twilight.
“What is it today, then?” He shuffled over to the small writing desk under the window. “Ah, yes. Large designs. Most of your...clients don’t want anything bigger than a handspan, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to learn it—the harmony of a large work, how it must fit together—”
I watched him; he smacked his lips, brows furrowing.
“Did I tell you this yesterday?”
“No, Master Meret.”
“Hmm. Could have sworn I did. In any case, I want you to work on a design to cover a woman’s back, from tailbone to neck.”
“Yes, sir.” I sat down and unrolled a ream of paper; Meret sat down on his bed, watching. I bent low over my work—a sketch of twisting rivers, winding down in a figure eight. It recalled Tristen’s waves and Arderi’s ribbons, but reconfigured by my own eye into a flowing geometry. An hour slipped by easily, and I sat back.
“I’ve completed the outline, sir.”
There was silence. I stood and turned around.
“Master Meret?”
He had turned on his side, and he was snoring a little as his chest rose and fell. I covered him with his blanket. More and more these days our lessons were like this: I worked on my designs as he slumbered or murmured to an audience decades removed. Still, sometimes his clarity stunned me. I would have given much to be his apprentice ten or twenty years before.
“Etan?” There was a soft knock at the attic door; it was Padrig. “You have a client.”
I frowned and closed the door gently, not stirring Master Meret from his slumber. Padrig was shuffling from foot to foot, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead; this wasn’t like him. “Who is it?”
“You’d better come and see.” He swallowed. “He’s in the kitchen.”
I absently straightened my hair, and smoothed the front of my work apron. Doiran had made it for me; it was soft leather, with straps and pockets for my most needful tools. I seemed every inch the professional. I even looked old enough to be an apprentice near his mastership. If it was a mask, it was at least a half-honest one. I’d put more ink to skin this month than most apprentices did in their first three years.
The kitchen was crowded with men in blue uniform. I looked at Padrig over my shoulder—he’d said there was a client. He shrugged and smiled a limp and nervous grin.
“Gentlemen,” I said. My voice rang out over them, and their chatter stilled. “How may I help you?”
Then the man in their center turned to me and I took a startled step backward.
He had changed. His hair had been shorn close, in a soldier’s style, and there was more grey than black at his temples. He had changed, yes, but not so much that I would not know him at a glance.
“Lord Loren.” I bowed to him, and was proud my voice did not shake.
“It is General Loren now, it would seem.” There was a thin lace of wry humor in his voice. He looked to his men. “Leave us. Wait outside.”
They saluted and followed his order, filing out with lockstep efficiency. Padrig stared at the floor as they filed past him, still grinning weakly, then threw me an unsure look. I nodded to him and closed the kitchen door.
“So.” Loren’s voice was falsely bright. “You have been inking my men, it seems.”
“Have you come to arrest me?”
He laughed. “For what? Those laws are obsolete now; they will be relics in less than a generation. In any case—” His smile was edged. “I wouldn’t come myself to make an arrest.”
“No.” I traced a finger along the top of the tattooing chair. “I suppose not.”
He shifted from one foot to the other, not meeting my eyes. “I came—” He took a breath and thinned his lips. “I came because I have wronged you, Etan, and I wish to make it up. As much as I can.”
I made a face. “I do not feel that you wronged me, my lord.”
“Perhaps not. But I did use you.”
A flicker of a smile passed across my face. “Perhaps. But that was what I was there for, wasn’t it?”
He winced and turned away. “When the fires began,” he said, looking out of the window, “I mobilized what men I had in the city to help. I did do that.”
“I did not expect you to save me, if that is what you’re saying.”
He cut me off with a sharp gesture. I hid a smile; whether he was called lord or general, it seemed that he was still used to authority.
“Still,” I said softly, “it seems to have worked in your favor.”
He made a face. “I have tried to make the best of the circumstance. For everyone.”
“Did you know Arderi Finn, General?” I drew myself up, turning my face so the light hit my scars. “A brother Adorned. I saw him stripped and carved to scars as a mob cheered it on.”
“We tried to stop the violence. Things got out of hand.”
I laughed. “That is true enough.”
He paced around the kitchen. It seemed too small for him. “I am trying to make amends, Etan. When I heard you were alive, I had to come and do what I could.”
I shook my head. “General, you mean well. I know this much. But there is nothing you can do for me. I earn enough for comfort, and I have friends—family—around me. I am luckier than many in the city. For one, I am alive.”
“Yet there is someone you have lost.”
I went cold. Suddenly everything around me seemed sharpened—the light, the birdsong outside, the sound of Loren’s breathing. They were sharp enough to cut. When I spoke again my voice was low, and shaking with anger. “There is nothing you can give me to make up for that, General. No death price. No apology.”
“If that was all I had, I would not have come.”
My hands were shaking. “Then tell me what you have.”
“Roberd Tallisk is alive.”
I slid down onto the kitchen floor, kneeling, nearly falling. He had spoken quickly, almost cruelly; his words had hit me sure as a fist. I looked up at Loren and the hardness drained from his face; he kneeled down before me and grabbed at my hands.
“Etan? Etan, say something.”