Trin turned her attention back to the boy. “What’s on your mind, Jem?”
Jem tilted his head to the side, motioning for her to follow. It was a short walk, past the courtesan’s glamorous tent village and toward the outer edge of camp, but the boy managed to make it grueling with his silence. By the time Jem stopped alongside the horse pickets near Derlin’s walls, his face had sunken back into that contemplative scowl that made her think he might hate the world.
He stopped her with a hand on her arm, then paced a short distance before opening his mouth. “I need to know why you hate Taehrn.” His hand fell to his coat pocket, his finger patting a corner of parchment that poked above the pocket’s frayed hem.
Trin stifled a laugh. The boy was certainly dramatic; here, another dire statement made without as much as a flinch. I suppose I can be just as bad at times, Trin ceded. I mean, what am I supposed to tell him here? Her inner voice took on a soft tone similar to that of her childhood maid. Well, Jem, death shadows me because I pissed off the god of Fate, and now, in return, she has cursed me. Oh, and by the way, that means I’m barren because the only thing I’m ever allowed to bring into this world is Death.
She hated to admit it, but Bell was right; the whole thing sounded blooding absurd. Too bad the bastard was wrong. She truly wished he weren’t.
Trin bit her lip. She felt close to the boy, but with his past, the truth seemed a bit much to impart on him. He had enough shit to deal with without adding all her magic and curses bullshit into the mix. Sucking air through her back teeth, Trin decided that if she couldn’t tell him all that, at the least, she could tell him the feelings behind the reason.
“You know the reason for courting, Jem?”
Jem’s forehead creased. “To make certain the two suitors can love each other?”
“Gods no,” Trin laughed. “There isn’t any love about it. That contract’s getting signed with or without love, shit it was signed when we were ten and for most people it’s about the same, and it’s not getting unsigned, because even without love you still get all the rewards. For Taehrn, that was a family with money, and for me, that was closer ties to the priesthood.
“No,” Trin continued. “The real reason for courting is so the two suitors can destroy each other’s expectations about what marriage should be.”
“What?”
“Well think about it. We’ve all got these perfect pictures built up in our heads about how everyone and everything else in the world is supposed to be, and more like than not, that picture includes how those things are supposed to cater to every desire and whim we got, because we’re all a bunch of selfish dicks who don’t care about anything except ourselves and those pretty pictures. But how often is it that all those things live up to those pictures, especially people? Almost never, right?”
The boy’s brow crinkled even farther. “I guess so.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Trin said. “You either say no or you agree with me, none of these wishy-washy replies. How many people do you know who lived up to your every expectation?”
“None,” Jem admitted.
“See? Now, an insane person would tell you that’s because they’re all assholes, but really, it’s because they’re all assholes and so are you, because who in Butcher’s name are you to expect everyone else to behave exactly how you want them to all the time? But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, when your parents find you a suitable match at ten years old, you start to build up this idea of that person you’re supposed to marry and what that marriage will be like, but then once you get older, you realize that picture is all shit, but of course, that picture is your godsdamned fantasy, it’s the dream you’ve wanted for eight or ten years, maybe longer, so what courting becomes is one big game.
“You’re too stubborn to give up everything you want, and that other blooder is too stubborn to give up all the expectations he’s got, so the only thing you can do is try and destroy that perfect picture they’ve got of you while trying to hold onto that perfect picture you’ve got of them. That way, they get to see you the way you truly are and you get the benefit of living the way you’ve always dreamt. Of course, the healthy thing to do is to just accept the other person’s flaws as you find ‘em, but who in Butcher’s name wants to do that?”
“What does this have to do with you and Taehrn?” Jem asked.
“Well, I had it in my head that Taehrn was an honest person who would do the right thing when it came down to it. I had this idea that he truly loved me, because we’d known each other for fifteen years or more, and had spent most of that time as friends. Trouble is, while I was seeing the world through my eyes, he was seeing the world through his. While I had my ideas, he had some of his own, and he expected that marriage meant I’d turn into his lovely little shill like my sister is for him, one that would champion his cause in every corner of Trel’s high society. But I wasn’t going to do that. I wasn’t going to give up my ambitions and realign them to his, and on the other side, he wasn’t willing to give up his ideal of what a family should be.”
“I don’t understand.”
Trin licked her bottom gums. “I’ll put it this way. All his life, Taehrn expected me to give him something that I couldn’t, and when he found out I couldn’t, he took to blaming me for it. And when he finally got over that, he took to blaming the circumstances, which he still does, but really, what he should have been doing all along is what I said before. He should have been accepting that what he wanted wasn’t an option the way he wanted it, and instead of bitching, he should have been looking for another way he could have it. I didn’t meet the expectation he required, and the way he reacted didn’t meet mine.”
“That’s a lot like what Bell said.”
“Well, that’s Bell’s problem for you. You share your brilliance with him and soon enough he’ll be passing it off as his own.”
Jem frowned at her. “Taehrn, then. It was his fault?”
“No,” Trin said. “Haven’t you been listening? It was both our faults. Neither of us would budge on our expectations, because neither of us wanted to give up what we thought the other should be. It’s stupid, but I guarantee that if you asked either one of us, both of us would still contend to this day that our expectations were reasonable.”
“I guess…” Jem paused. “I guess what I need to know is why you don’t trust him.”
Trin winced. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about what she had said in the boy’s presence. He was still young, and despite his serious manner, he didn’t quite understand the world yet. Taehrn was an ass, but that was for Jem to determine for himself, and the only effect her talk would have would be to sour the boy’s outlook even further.
“Are you wondering for my sake, Jem, or your own? If you want my opinion about whether or not he can be trusted then no, I wouldn’t trust him, but he’s not so bad as I’ve said either. He pissed me off, and I never got over it, and I’m sure that says more about me than it’ll ever say about him, because while some of what I’ve said is fair, a lot more of it isn’t, and neither is it fair to you. My whole life he’s treated Bell with love and admiration, and until I drove him off, he showed the same for me. He’s a snake, but he’s good to those he loves and you’re old enough to decide whether or not you want to be one of those people. It wasn’t fair of me to say things that might’ve turned you against him, so please, Jem, ignore what I’ve said and make your decision about him based on what’s best for yourself. I may not like that world Taehrn lives in, but I understand its charms. If it’s what you want, don’t let a few dumb words from me keep you from it.”
“But… but is he good to those he loves, or just those he needs?”
“I…” Well shit. Good question. “Honestly, boy, I’m not sure he knows the difference. Taehrn… Every decision Taehrn makes, will put Taehrn first. Always, no matter what. He does love people, and he does treat those people well… but you’re right. Aside from maybe Bell, I’ve never seen Taehrn love someone he hasn’t
needed. Not with me, not with my sister, gods, not even with his own damned family.”
Jem was silent for a moment. His stare seemed to drift past her before lowering to his coat. His hand found the parchment in his pocket, and for a moment, he stared at the neatly folded letter. His thumb itched a short length of his tattooed wrist as his thoughts mulled on his lips.
“All right,” he said, his voice resigned. “Thank you, Trin. I think that was what I needed.” He turned away then stopped, hesitant, as if his thoughts needed a moment of uncontested control. His lips wrinkled.
“Jem,” Trin said.
Jem turned his gaze to her.
“Just know that whatever you decide, I’ll still be your friend. Nothing you might do will invalidate that.”
Jem’s face eased. His lips straightened. “Thanks, Trin. I needed that.”
Trin forced herself to hold her smile until Jem was out of sight. She hoped the boy didn’t want that same world in which Taehrn thrived, because unfortunately, the boy would have to learn for himself that it wasn’t what it seemed.
Trin turned back toward Gin and her cart. Right now, she had her own battle to fight. It might be symbolic, but if she could beat the rot, then maybe she could still beat Fate. At the least, it was good to know that she could help these soldiers.
Trin’s words had not been what Jem had wanted, but they were probably what he needed. Jem hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. He had needed to speak with Trin to determine how much their friendship could take… No matter how he killed Taehrn, eventually Trin would ask questions and Jem wasn’t willing to lie forever. At some point, he would have to tell her everything, about the Well, about his father, about who he really was, but Jem was not willing to risk losing Trin’s friendship over killing Taehrn.
He had hoped that she would reveal some horrible crime, that she would give him a reason to think Trin wanted Taehrn dead as much as Jem did. She hadn’t given him that, but her words had emboldened him. Taehrn would continue to treat everyone around him as expendable. It was only a matter of time before he put Trin in danger as he had done with Bell.
There was a lot of truth in what she had said about expectation. Jem had built up pictures of what Taehrn should be, of how the Legion and its soldiers would behave. He had made the soldiers into villains, but again and again, the reality had fallen short of his imagination. The soldiers he had met were not the evil creatures he wanted them to be. They were ordinary people, and like most ordinary people, they were good. It was only Taehrn that needed to be punished. It was only because of him and those like him that the Legion did wrong. Trin had convinced him.
All this time, Jem had been attempting to force the reality to the image, because if the two didn’t match, it put the lie to Jem’s true character. He had pretended the Legion was evil to justify his need for revenge, but right now, even that need seemed false. If he had truly wanted to punish the Legion, then he would have done so by now. But he hadn’t wanted to, he had only wanted the hatred because the hatred had shielded him from the truth: that he was as guilty as the rest.
His father. The old man, Lu. He had killed them both, and those two deaths were far from the worst he’d done. Though intimidated by Taehrn, Jem had given up his uncle to save his father. He had obstructed justice, spat on the memories of the dead miners, and harbored a criminal simply because he had been too afraid to continue on without someone to care for him. Ten-year-old boys were stupid, given to flights of fancy and susceptible to grand stories of heroism and honor, but stupidity did not absolve guilt.
In a way, some small part of Jem had still loved his father, even until the end. He should not have, but he did. The only man with greater crimes than Taehrn Andren had been Deacon Indaht Trask, but not even those had been enough to erase ten years of a child’s love. Not even three days at the bottom of a bloody mineshaft had been enough.
Because fools were inclined to hero worship. And the pictures of expectation were near impossible to break. Even knowing that his father would never change, Jem had continued to believe he might.
Jem skirted the edge of camp until he reached the city’s northern gate. Running from north to south and adjacent to the keep’s western edge, a single road separated the city’s two districts, but it was the structures themselves which marked the two as separate. It was upon this road that Jem reentered the city, onto the perfect symbol of Trel’s trichotomy; peasants, priesthood, and merchants.
In the northeast corner, resided the keep, built within the rot’s grip in order to protect the precious waterway. Though known as Derlin Keep for the tall, fortified stone tower overlooking the river, the Legion fort was closer to a citadel. A thin wall separated the keep and its small array of barracks, stables, smithies, and levy grounds from the rest of the city.
A cramped fishing village resided to the keep’s south, along the same road and on the shores of the river. There was no dock here within the dark curse of the Fields, only tiny hovels, built of mud brick sundried from the dredges of the river.
It was the western edge of this street, overlooking the poorest of the poor, that was the most prosperous in the city. The keep was the city’s lifeblood, and it was little surprise that its wealth gathered at its feet. Luxurious shops, taverns, and inns, all of them catering to the Legion’s wealth, ran the short length of that lone sidewalk.
It was here that Jem found the Tan Inn. It was not tan as its name suggested, but of alabaster colored brick with an ochre trellis framing the entranceway, the wooden lattice snaked by a type of blooming ivy with star-shaped, yellow flowers.
As Jem entered, he paused, letting the door slide shut behind him. The Tan Inn was not what he expected. The exterior had been grand in scale, but the room he entered into was not the tavern he had thought to find. It was smaller than he’d thought, not cramped, but… different. There was no bar, no tables, no gambling drunks, just a lone porter behind a marble desk, and a single door behind the porter, cushioned with black silk and studded by rubies.
“Is this the Tan Inn?” Jem asked the porter. He knew it was, he had checked the sign, but this was not like any inn he had ever been to.
“It is, sir,” the porter said. “Will you be dining, sleeping, or taking to parlor today, sir?”
“I’m sorry?” Jem asked.
The porter squinted. “Our establishment offers liquors, wine, tea, and gambling in the parlors, fine dining in our private halls, and of course, lodging in the quarters above. Perhaps you would like to see the rooms before you decide?”
“Uhm…” Jem frowned. At a loss for words, he pointed to the black circle insignia at his breast.
The porter’s face brightened. “Ah,” he said. “You are the First Legionnaire’s man. I am truly sorry, sir, I did not notice your colors. The First has taken a parlor with the deacon in her eastern suite, but the deacon’s herald waits in the room adjacent. Shall I escort you to the adjoining servant’s lounge?”
“That would…” Jem paused. “Yes.”
The porter stepped out from behind his booth, opened the door, and bowed his head as if entreating Jem to proceed. Jem stifled a laugh. He had spent more years in the wealth of Liv than he had as the son of a scribe, but he had never seen anything like this before. Whether a facet of merchants or priests, this polite servility did not stem from the Legion. Regardless, it gave him new insight into what Trin’s childhood must have been like. If this was the world she had been raised in, it was little wonder that she had rebelled against it.
The porter led him through a lamp-lit hallway decorated by elegant paintings of various gods. In one, Just’s gaunt, chiseled face leaned against an arch holding an open book toward the viewer. In another, Farmer stood upon the high, shining tower of Derlin Keep, staring down at a field of mangled skeletons. A black mist curled from the field of the dead, creeping toward a burning ring of Vandu tents. Jem frowned at that one. He was certain it was meant to proclaim victory over a long-hated foe, but the vile murder in the scene
contradicted the inn’s otherwise idyllic setting.
They stopped outside a door as equally lavish as those leading to it. The porter placed his hand on the doorknob and then paused, his gaze falling on Jem. “It is said,” the porter began, “that the First Legionnaire has no sons. In which case, I might remind you of the aforementioned herald’s position.”
The look Jem gave the porter was not friendly. He knew exactly what the man implied. If Jem was not Taehrn’s son, then he must not be the son of a priest, and therefore, a simple servant unworthy of speaking to the deacon’s daughter.
The porter did not falter at Jem’s glare. Instead, he opened the door, stepped aside, and waited. The servant’s chamber was a closet with a padded booth, a small table, and a second door leading to the parlor. Deacon Lissahn’s daughter sat in the booth, her only company a single candle burning in a glass frame above her head. Her expression was surprise, or perhaps guilt, which became a coy smile as her gaze fell on Jem. The moment Jem entered, the porter closed the door behind him.
“You worried me,” the deacon’s herald said. “I had thought the porter might catch me.”
Jem furrowed his brow. “Catch you at what?”
The girl ignored him. “You know,” she said. “You look rather like someone I once knew, or rather was supposed to know. But of course, you’re not. If you were him, the First would not have taken you into his service. He doesn’t hire miscreants, Mother says. But it is a shame, Mother had a portrait of him brought to me, and I did cherish it so until the fire.” With two fingers and her thumb, the young woman squeezed her left wrist. Her mouth curled into a pout. “She says I can no longer have him, but then what was the purpose of threatening that logger’s girl if not to free him from her?”
The pores of Jem’s arms tingled. “I’m sorry?” he asked, hoping for clarification.
“Oh, do not be sorry,” she said. “It is not your fault, it is my mother’s. It was her decision to send the bard, when I would have done just as nicely. Surely the boy would have cast aside his harlot had he only seen me, but my mother thought it premature, and she trusts this fool Taehrn more than she trusts me, as if my own ideas are not valid.
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 92