Megan looked over to Aunt's wallbed where she was asleep, too. She'd drunk a wine jar empty, staggered around and slammed a few doors, threw up, then went to bed. Her tunic got vomit on it and she didn't even put it in the bucket with water. It stinks, she thought, and woke up with a jump from where she'd dozed.
The door clicked under Aunt Marte's snoring. The Haian stood by the table, leaning on it, looking tired. Mama had a whole bundle of bedclothes and there were dark splotches on the white sheets.
The smell wasn't as strong anymore, but it was mixed with another smell like rust or the smell of a skinned knee. Marte's snoring was muffled by the closed doors of the bed.
"I'm sorrie I could do no more," the Haian whispered, glancing over to where the two children were supposed to be sleeping. "He has hees life, and ay femily to care for heem. I weesh I could have done more."
"Thank you," Mama said. "You did the best you could."
"He needs quiet end weeth luck eet will heal up weethout eenfection. I will kip an eye on heem unteel the stump heals over."
Ness walked the Haian up the steps to the door. "Thank you. I'll walk you to the gate."
"He will be asleep for at leest enother hour. He might wake efter thet and go beck to ay more naturel sleep. The drug for pain is on the table. Eef he develops fever again, call me."
The door shut behind them, and Megan got up and went to see her papa. It was very hot and still in the back room, and he lay on his back, sweat shining on his skin in the candlelight. Megan's shadow flickered across her father, making it hard to see, and the edge of the wallbed made a dark shadow across his burned arm.
She felt better because she could see his chest rising and falling. He's alive. He looks better. He looks like he'll wake up and be fine. His left hand lay across his chest.
She put her hand over the wooden sill of the bed before she looked. His shoulder stuck out in a strange way and his chest seemed dented in. What happened? Then she saw that it wasn't a dent, it was her papa's shoulder, but his arm wasn't where it was supposed to be. It isn't there at all.
Her hand was on the mattress, smooth and cool under her fingers. His shoulder was bandaged white and smooth and round like the eyes in Koru's statues.
"Megan." Mama came up behind Megan and lifted her up, and she hid her face in her mother's neck.
"The Haian took his arm away, Mama. She took it away."
"Yes, Megan-mi. He would have died if she hadn't. She did it to save him."
"Did Papa say he wanted that?"
Mama sighed. "If he wakes up before you have to leave for school, you may sit with him. If not, you can talk to him after school."
"Yes, Mama." Megan yawned. Ness carried her daughter back to bed next to Rilla. Rilla's sucking her thumb. I'm not a baby to do that.
Megan hugged Brunsc until his sawdust squeaked, watching her mother's shadow bounce around the room as she tidied up. Ness took the candle back into the spare room, and when she blew the light out it was like a puff of dark.
Megan hugged Brunsc. He's got teeth. Hell keep me safe from Aunt Matte's house and from Haians who need to take people's arms away.
Papa's going to be all right. He smiled at me this morning. He'd eaten and sat up in bed and Ness cried happy tears. Those kinds of tears Megan liked. Marte stood in the door and looked at them all, hugging each other. The smile on her face had supposedly been for the family, but Megan suspected that Marte would rather Megan or Ness had been hurt instead of her brother, as if they could have taken his place.
Megan jumped over a puddle as she ran to school. She'd given Brunsc to Rilla because she needed him more. I'm a big girl with a nice mama and papa and I don't need bears with teeth. Rilla had cried a long time a couple of days ago, because Aunt Marte hit her again and yelled at her while Ness was at the market. Brunsc would help.
Yim, the Koa Alley baker's boy, had his stand open to sell breakfast; stacks of sticky buns with honey running down them, and loaves steaming in the cool morning. The market-drovers who came in every morning by dark stood between the baker's and the kahfe stall where there was a street lamp still lit—unless the weather was bad, when they stood under the counting-house overhang.
Their horses would pull back their lips from the cold water in the troughs, breath blowing steam in the air, like their masters slurping thick, hot kahfe out of Nanty's chipped mugs. The drovers would laugh loud and wipe honey-covered fingers on their baggy pants. Megan had been afraid of them at first.
Megan wiggled between people's legs, and ran past one of the Honey-Giver's Shrines, whose Bearcub statue looked like her Brunsc. Rilla's Brunsc. She wouldn't have time to stop at the Shrine and pet Him this morning. Her books bounced on her back as she ran. She'd started taking them home with her, because ink and sticky things had mysteriously kept getting spilled on them while they were in her box, or they would disappear. Sysbat didn't even try to do anything about it anymore, acting as if it were Megan's fault.
Megan tucked her jump rope more firmly in her belt so as not to lose it, looking forward to mealbreak when she and Ursella could skip. The Baba doll that Ursella had given her stood on the shelf over Megan's box, and no one dared touch her because then both Ursella and Megan would have been after them.
It was foggy this morning, long fingers trailing along The Stairs. Up the street the leathermaker's sign creaked in a slow breeze. Megan dawdled a bit along the Sneykh and poked in the mud along the banks with a stick. I don't ever walk up Szyzka Lane anymore. She had once, and saw the black place, a hole with bricks, and grass growing in it where their house had been, like a rotten tooth-hole in the ground. The trees were all dead too, though the Brewery had been rebuilt.
She heard the boom of the Garrison drum up the city and started to run again. That meant the morning guards were coming on duty to protect the Woyvode (long life to him) and if she didn't run, she'd be late.
Ursella wasn't waiting for her at the Student's Gate the way she usually was. At first Megan thought she was late, but everyone was still out in the children's hall when she panted downstairs. Maybe she's sick today. Maybe she's late. Maybe she had to help her papa sell bowls in the shop or unpack things.
Megan didn't partner with anyone when they were called to line up, waiting for Ursella, then saw her best friend and Danacia come out from under the ramp and line up together. Megan ended up next to fat Piatr, who nobody liked. Why didn't she wait for me?
Ursella was whispering in Danacia's ear and they giggled together. Sysbat Karlovna clapped and they filed into the classroom. I have a class, in a bit, with Sysbat Tenaru in the library. I'm glad I do. I'm glad.
At the mealbreak, Ursella sat down next to her. "I couldn't pair with you this morning, sorry."
"It's okay," Megan said munching on her piece of sausage. I don't want to talk to you.
"I wanted to give you this back." She held out Megan's marble bag and stylus. Megan stared at her, her throat closing thick and tight.
"You don't want to be my best best friend."
Ursella looked down at her boots, picking at the splinters on the bench. "I can't."
"You swore." Megan took a drink of water and dabbled in it with her fingers so she wouldn't have to look at Ursella, looking at the black specks in the bottom of the cup instead.
"Danacia asked me to be her best friend, and she's always with Rosziviy who's always fighting with you, and Danacia gave me the blue bead-rings I always liked so much."
Ursella held out her right hand, four blue beads on thin wire, one ring on each finger, with a blue ribbon looping between. Everybody had said they looked good, even if there were ribbons instead of chain, and everybody had wanted ones just like them.
"And I want my Baba doll back."
Megan got it and gave it to her. Papa would say that they bought her. Then she stood there holding her cup of water while Ursella looked at the floor and the doll and the rings. "I liked having you as a best best friend," she said at last.
Megan reac
hed out and dumped her water on Ursella's head, and she slapped Megan who hit her back…
Everybody else gathered around them in a ring, pushing them closer together, yelling, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" And Sysbat came and pulled them apart, trying to make herself heard. Megan could hear Rosziviy yelling that it was Megan's fault—"She's always the one fighting…"— as they got taken down to the K'mizar's office, where they both got three swats. When they left, carefully far apart, Megan put her chin up and clenched her teeth. She could feel Ursella's look and walked faster, not listening to Sysbat's lecture. I don't even want to cry. I don't care. Ursella's being dumb. She deserves it more than I do. She's not my friend. She swore. She promised.
Chapter Five
On the last day of school, Megan hugged Sysbat Tenara good-bye. There was no more money for schooling. Papa had talked Aunt Marte into letting them stay at her house until Megan's year was done, just after she turned five.
Ness had been doing a little lace-work, the land of thing the Guild wouldn't notice, pieces too small to care about. There wasn't enough of that kind of work to keep them, and Lixand had said that he couldn't rebuild the house because of the high building tax and because the land belonged to the Guild anyway. They had enough to rent some rooms in the River Quarter where other poor people were, and Megan was glad they didn't have to go all the way down to the Lake Quarter. Lixand had to find some work soon.
"You take care, child." Sysbat Tenara almost looked as of she were going to cry. She never does that, but her blue eyes do look more watery behind her spectacles. She brushed Megan's hair out of her eyes. "You have a good mind. Don't waste it."
"I won't." Megan looked around the library. It was pretty dark because the sun had gone down, but the kraumak still shone on Tenara's desk and the clock still tocked to itself in the back. She put her waxboard down on the desk with the slate because they weren't hers to borrow any longer.
"Megan, this is for you." Tenara handed her a parcel wrapped in brown paper. "Just a little something to remember us by."
Megan could tell that it was a book through the paper and realized that Tenara didn't want her to open it till later. She's looking at me as if she'd be mad if I said "No, it cost too much."
"Thank you, Sysbat." Megan looked at the parcel in her hands. "I don't have anything to give you.
"Shush!" Tenara straightened some papers on her desk, not looking at Megan. "I didn't give it to get something! As long as you promise not to forget what you've learned."
"All right." Megan scuffed her foot on the floor, embarrassed. "Bye.' She turned away and walked to the door, having left saying good-bye to Tenara till last. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't. They don't want me here either. I don't want to be here, truly. She could reach the glass knob easier, and the door wasn't as heavy as it used to be. She closed it carefully behind her.
Faintly, through the closed door, Megan heard Tenara say "Goodbye, Megan."
The hall was cold and the herons on the pillars stared down at her as always, but now it seemed like a friendly stare. At the end of the year Megan had always had to hang around with Fat Piatr and Elixiy, who nobody else in toe class liked. It happened. They were okay. They were just weird. Elixiy's one papa is a cutler, and he told me all sorts of things about knives. His other papa's a bone-carver. And Piatr wasn't really all that fat.
Rosziviy had passed into next year second highest in the class. That was okay, too, because Megan had been first. She patted the stuffed Ri as she went by, and trotted up the stairs to go out by the Student's Gate. At the front gate, someone had stolen the bellrope for a swing again. When it happened, just after snow-melt, K'mizar had just smiled and said it was almost a tradition. It was dark now so she couldn't see Student's Walk and the patterns in the tile.
She'd promised her Mama that she'd stop at the wood-carver's and ask if they liked the collars Ness had made. That was Ursella's place. They owe us for the lace-work, was all Megan thought.
She hugged the book Sysbat Tenara had given her and ran through the park. They would be moving at the end of the week, and there was a lot to do at Aunt Marte's.
"Ness, there has to be more I can do!" Lixand snapped. They only fight when Aunt Marte's not here. "Vyaroslaf isn't worried about us any longer. I have the Guild pension, but with your contracts and guild-tokens revoked, you can't work either."
"There's one guild that will take me, unsponsored, that we can afford," Ness said quietly.
"NO!" Lixand shouted. He stood up, rubbing his shoulder where his arm had been. "That's not an acceptable choice. We are respectable folk. You are not going to apprentice yourself to the Thieves."
"What are we to do then, Lixand?" Mama got up to face him. "The other skill you have is story-telling, and you'll be paying that Guild anyway. You already know they'll charge you for protection, and that we must! They control the Bedwarmers' Gu—"
"Ness! You wouldn't enjoy it. You'd be competing with people who do and have been training for a while. Damn Marte for suggesting it!"
I hate it when they argue. Megan ran upstairs and outside to play tag with Rilla, but she could still hear their raised voices. We have to be careful not to step on Aunt's herbs.
The gate banged and Varik stepped into the garden.
"Hi, short stuff. Your aunt around?" He was wearing plain brown clothes today.
"No, Teik. She'll be back soon though." Rilla acted shy and hid behind Megan.
"Mind if I wait?"
"You'd have to ask my papa. Paaapa!" Megan yelled, and Lixand came up to talk, so the children went down to the shrine to play instead, Megan carefully holding on to her cousin's hand so she wouldn't get lost, Rilla holding Brunsc in her other arm. Megan had told her all about his teeth and how he could help, and ever since he was never out of Rilla's reach.
"You help, Megan," she'd said, and hugged her older cousin and the bear at the same time. ' Mama's better now."
"Oh. That's good."
When they got to the shrine they played hide-and-seek around Koru's statue for a while, careful not to step on the offerings, then sat on the back of the bench, pretending they were riding horses. Rilla said, "Megan?
"Yes."
"You going far away?"
"Not that far."
"Gonna visit me?"
" 'Course I am!" Megan turned around, kicking her legs, pretending to make her horse stop. "It's only the River Quarter. It was a long way away, but Megan wasn't going to say that.
"That's all the way down the Stairs." Rilla cried. She hugged Brunsc hard, on the verge of tears. "I'm too little to visit. Mama won't let me come see you." She threw Brunsc on the ground, crying. "You're going way far away. You're all gonna leave me." She thumped down from the bench and kicked Brunsc. "He can't help. You can't help!"
"Rilla!' Megan cried out. Rilla had never gotten angry before, and it was as startling as having Brunsc bite. "You're kin." Megan got down and tried to hug Rilla, who pushed her away. Megan picked up Brunsc and hugged him instead, not knowing what to do or say. "Rilla. Mama and Papa and I aren't going that far. You'll be big enough to come down to visit by yourself soon. I can come up to get you. I'll look after you. I promise. If you need help, I will. I promise."
Rilla, her face all dirty and teary, stood, hugging herself. "You promise?"
Megan nodded firmly. "Yes. By the Lady, and the Lord's shadow." She swore the highest oath she knew.
Rilla finally hugged Megan and took Brunsc back, brushing at the dirt on his for. "Forever and ever?"
I don't swear that anymore. Ursella said forever and then went away because someone gave her better presents. "As long as I can."
"Okay." Rilla took Megan's hand and they went to the tap to wash their faces and hands because Marte always got angry if Rilla got the least bit dirty. Megan hated seeing Rilla get hit, so she made sure her face was clean. "I'm gonna miss you Megan," Rilla said.
"So in I. But I'll come back lots. And I promised."
They moved down
to a rooming house, called the Flats by the inhabitants, on Cooper's Lane. As they walked down the lane Megan stared, fascinated. At one end, where they made the wheels, it smelled like wood and scorching and sawdust and hot vinegar; the air full of clamor as the rims were hammered on. Ness had to pull Megan's hand because she'd wanted to stop and watch. At the other end, near the Flats, it just smelled bad and her mama explained that it was because it was a spring heat wave.
In the heat, people leaned out of the windows to catch a breeze. People were picking through the piles of garbage against the walls, scavenging for scraps to sell to the Ragman, Nomo, who lived across the street.
He stacked his wares in front of his door, leaving only enough room for carts to pass one way. When Megan's family came down the lane he was standing, yelling and shaking his fist because a cart had just driven over one of his rag heaps. There was a basket of glass bits by Nomo's door. In school Megan had learned that glass and paper were both expensive because they were imported.
The Flats had once been a manor house for a merchant family before the Middle Quarter shrank away from it. It was a large open square that had had a glassed-over courtyard with three floors below ground. Now it also had four above, the top three added after it was subdivided. The pillars, metal strapping to hold up the glass, and the glass itself had all been salvaged long ago and replaced with wood.
They had a garden below ground, in the center. Mama said it was a natrium. The galleries were all turned into closed hallways with pine boards nailed up for the winter and they hadn't all been taken down. In the gaps Megan could see the strung lines of washing. She peeked through one of the holes in the wall, down into the atrium where puddles of water stood between the turkey and chicken cages three stories down. Papa says there used to be ven-til-ation.
A flock of pigeons quarreled with the miniature gulls nesting on the outside of the building, and the inside was brighter than she thought it would be. She looked across the atrium where people had painted the winter walls, bright swirls of color somewhat faded. Someone had painted a blue-skinned face with winking green eyes. There was a sign of a naked woman someone had painted over; the covering paint was peeling. Megan tried to sound out the letters. "The Lussious… The Lukious… Mama, what does that sign say?"
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