She nodded finally and cried, sniffling and blowing her nose into his handkerchief, then had to go throw up, Lixand supporting her to the jakes down the hall. He came back long enough to tell Megan not to play with the fire, that he was going to walk Aunt home.
At night when Rilla was asleep and Megan was supposed to be, she could hear Mama and Papa talking in the wallbed. Ness and Lixand took time for each other at night, even though Ness fell asleep quickly because of the hard apprentice work. Lixand mostly did the housework, with Megan's help, because Ness was worked so hard.
Papa said, "Ness, what can I do? She's my sister. Rilla is such a good child. Marte… I just don't understand anymore. She used to be a better person."
"It'll be all right, love. She'll dry out and Rilla will be able to go home. Then the strain will be off."
Papa sighed. "We'll be in trouble once my pension runs out, and that's too soon. We'll have to put off getting some of the things we need, if we're to save for Megan's apprenticing. Yakob said he'd take her, even if Vyaroslaf didn't like it, but he'd have to charge full stranger-price."
"I'll be a journeyman soon enough, Lixand. We'll manage even if we don't have meat for the soup. Well make do with the bones."
Rilla turned over and hugged Megan with one arm and Brunsc with the other. Someone walked by outside. There was a mosquito-sized sound; music from across the atrium, from the Peach. I think I hear Papa crying. I know that mama's asleep because she snores, but why is Papa crying? Mama said we'd be all right.
Chapter Eight
Megan scratched at a rusty spot on her new knife with one fingernail, spat on the stone, and looked at the edge. She'd bought it from cutler Varclaf's rust-stock, offering to run errands for him for a week to make up the difference between the metal she had and what he wanted for it.
"Who's gonna walk me home?" Tantine said, leaning on one hand rolling the paste marbles with her other fingers. Serkai and Ivar both looked at each other like dogs bristling.
"'s my turn," they said at the same time. "Is not—is so!"
"I like both of you," Tantine said, curling a lock of her hair around her finger. Ivar and Serkai were always arguing over who was better, who had more zight, but this time it was worse because of Tantine's pushing. Megan listened with one ear, thinking about her knife.
Varclaf's rust-stock was piled at one side of his biggest grindstone, where he sharpened axe-heads and scythes, collected to sell as scrap to the smiths if they weren't too
rusty. Nobody could do anything with rust because it just wouldn't melt.
Megan, with Rilla by her, had looked through the pile while he kept an eye on them, haggling with another customer. The one she had picked was as long as her hand, with pimples of rust on it and the tip broken off, but it was the best there. If she could clean it and find enough scraps to leather the handle, it'd be okay. To pay for it she swept out his shop for him and gathered the sweepings for him to sift. Aage's father melted the sweepings so the dirt just burnt off.
Megan stopped sharpening to look over at Rilla, who was playing cniffta-ball with Maya, practicing so she wouldn't cut herself if they played real cniffta.
Rilla had a knife now, too. She'd prigged it while Megan wasn't looking, slipping the knife into her sleeve while Megan bargained with Varclaf. Megan wouldn't have minded if she'd gotten caught because it would have been Aunt Marte who'd get her hand mashed. But she decided that that wouldn't be a good idea because she'd be nastier if that happened.
Inside Rilla's sleeve, it got caught on the wool and made her arm dirty red, but it was worth it. It was sharp only on one side, like Mama's kitchen knife, and when they'd broken off all the crumbly bits it looked almost good as new. Varclaf's watchdog had barked at the metal smell on her, but the merchant called him off because he thought the dog was barking at Megan, a paying customer. Megan tried not to listen to Ivar and Serkai's continuing argument. Tantine said a couple more things. Why's she being even more of a pisser lately?
"Well, Iv walked you home last time and he only has one knife and I have two and—"
"Oh, yeah?" Ivar got up, staring down at Serkai. "I can catch my one better than you can your two!"
Megan wiped her rusty fingers off on her trousers, then started guiltily. They were new, just given for her seventh birthday, and they should stay clean as long as possible. They hadn't been going to Teik Sandar's baths much anymore, and it was getting hard to keep themselves clean. Last iron-cycle, lice had spread through the Flats.
Sandar had started saying that her bathhouse wasn't a charity, and she and Ness had fought about it. Mama and Papa's old friends don't ask us up-city much anymore. I think it's because they think we've lost zight. My papa hasn't. I'm proud of my papa and mama, and if they don't see that we haven't lost anything, then poop on them.
It was still hard to make ends meet, though Lixand was getting more money now that it was warm enough for him to take his place on Zidium. When the daylight lasted eighteen hours, in the summer white nights, he made much more.
Megan usually practiced cniffta with Serkai, hiding her cniffta cuts from her parents, though sometimes they would frown at her when checking to see if she'd washed her hands before dinner. Mama said I should be careful and she looked at Papa that way, that means she's afraid I'm learning all sorts of bad things. That was the reason Megan had brought Eula and little Noran home to meet her parents; Mama had liked them.
She usually played with Serkai because Ivar was being a snot, spending most of his time fighting with Jorge and Eula over who was the leader of the Cooper's Laners.
"I think you're just wonderful, Ivar," Tantine said, and offered him the back of her hand for him to escort her, their knuckles touching, just like a Zingas escorting the Woyvodaana to a court dance in the Nest. As she went, she looked over her shoulder and winked at Serkai. Tomorrow she's going to ignore both of them, I bet, and suck up to Jorge. Megan spat on her rock and kept sharpening.
"Hey! HEY! Everybody! HEY!" Onya scrambled through the hole in the fence her face covered with tears and dirt. "Where's my little brother? Shit. Shit. The Guard came and got my mom. My mom hasn't done anything. Where's Yuri? Where is he? Anybody seen him?"
No one had seen him since he and Lixa went to the Market to hear Chandro. Maya got Onya to stop yelling and wait for everyone to get to the Ground. Nikolai got Mann, and Arvi ran to fetch Aage from the smithy. "My mom hasn't done anything wrong. She hasn't, she hasn't. Why'd they… oh, shit. Fishguts. Oh, piss."
They gathered and went to the Market to try and find Yuri or what had happened to their mom. Ivar and Megan found Lixa hiding at the Card-painter's booth, scared green.
"They caught him trying to steal a button off this fat lady in a sling-litter, and her guard came when she squealed but she hung onto him," she said, shaking. "They took him away to the guard-post by the block, and then they went and got his mama."
The block-drum was being pounded to get people's attention, so Ivar and Megan took Lixa's hands and went out, though Megan didn't want to. I think I know what's going to happen. It's not fair. It's not fair. Yuri and Onya helped their mother pay the rent. They never ate well and Yuri's teeth were falling out. Their papa had been a guardsman who died in the north war against the Ice People. He'd gotten cashiered even though he was dead, so his wife didn't get pension.
Onya's mother stood on the block between two guards, who held her by the elbows. To one side another guard held onto Yuri who kicked and yelled, trying to get loose, but there was only the Guard's armor for him to vent his anger on, no exposed skin he could bite. The Guard captain stepped forward, holding up his hands.
"We call thee forth!" He's calling everybody out to see, formal, so we have to go. "We call thee forth! We call thee forth!"
Onya's mama had been crying but she wasn't now, her face white. In the crowd of people Megan could see Aage holding Onya back so she didn't run up to the block. Many people don't like this. They know the family.
They're
her friends. The guards held their two-fangs ready.
"Thievery of a lad under age— One silver button from Zingas Imla. Judged guilty—"
"By whom?" Someone shouted from the crowd but the Guard captain ignored it. "Where's the truth-teller? Did he steal it? Proof! Proof!" The crowd got noisier, shouting, drowning out the captain. The guard pushed people back away from the block, using the shafts of their two-fangs. The captain's voice rose over the noise.
"Punishment is the breaking of the hand of the one who misraised him, by our Serene DragonLord's will. So decreed by the Third of the title; so upheld by the Fifth." Somebody behind Megan said, "Upholding truth with no truth-teller. With more people around there'd be a riot."
The Guard captain held up the fate-coin to show that it was true: white on one side and black on the other. If the white side, Koru's side, showed after he tossed it, they'd crush the hand she used less often. Megan could feel the tension in the air, the crowd's manrauq, combined. They can't stop it, but they can make it better.
The captain tossed the coin and everyone watched it spin up in the sun, up, white, black, white, black; and down so it landed by his boot, bounced three times and clicked flat, white showing.
"Koru's mercy," he said. Yuri wasn't kicking anymore, just hanging in the guard's arm, but he watched them take his mama to the hand block where the K'gebar stood, holding the wooden mallet capped with black metal on each end. It depends how hard he hits, and if the hand is flat. Megan put an arm around Lixa, who was crying, and after a second so did Ivar.
"Koru show you all the mercy you show us," Onya's mama said and put her hand out, but the guards still held onto her and the K'gebar raised the hammer.
It came down almost gently, thump. Megan couldn't look away, blinking because it seemed so wrong that the arc of the hammer should end/where her hand lay. The second swing, thump. Megan felt her stomach lurch, tighten, and the taste of bile clutched the back of her throat. Onya's mother wasn't kneeling anymore. She didn't yell, but her head was rolling back and the guards had to hold her up. Thump. There were cracking noises mixed into the last. Megan's stomach knotted again a thickness rising up her throat. The guards let go, and Onya's mama slid down as if they'd broken all her bones.
When they let Yuri go he ran to her. Sour saliva gushed into Megan's mouth, and she turned and threw up. Around her the crowd was muttering.
"Rokatzk," someone said. "h'Rokatzk DragonLord's answer to thievery."—"Starve us all, that way."—The noise was rising as people got angrier again and started to shout.
"Calm. Everybody calm down. The last riot spawned a sweep through that hurt a lot of innocent folk, calm." One of the Sysbaet, a woman with brown hair, raised a pale, thin hand, holding people back. Nobody pushed against the soldiers anymore, but it wasn't because of the two-fangs but because of the Sysbat. They aren't supposed to help a criminal.
In the quiet the Guard marched back to their posts, holding their fangs ready. A man jumped up on the mock and picked up Onya's mama. Yuri sniveled, held onto her, and then him too.
"Sysbat, I can't pay hard metal for healing, but I'm willing to work in exchange," he said. I think he's sweet on Onya's mama.
"By law, we cannot help," the Sysbat answered him, leaning on the words "by law," and more people spoke up. "I have a Scale or two to spare."—"And I." Others said that they could give a little toward healing though nobody could spare much. The Sysbat looked after the guards, then to where Onya's mama lay in her friend's arms, around at the crowd; then she nodded. People stayed around the block after they took Onya's mama away for healing, whispering.
"Gettin' heavy-handed the old—man is; Dark Lord see him. Chases the Haians out. Raisin' tax on 'maranth and meat-beans. Black-rock's gettin' dear…" They stayed, talking until the guard, a whole squad, came through again to break up the gathering. The kidpack headed back to the Ground, except Aage who went with Onya to the Sysbat healing hall.
"Come on in, Megan!" Serkai yelled from where he was treading water. The other kids piled their clothes on an old stone block sticking out of the water. It was a hot summer day and the water was warm. She pulled her clothes off, slowly because she didn't know how to swim, but she couldn't sit while everyone else was in the lake. It looked deep, and cold.
She stuck her toe in. It was cold. Megan stood, wishing Rilla were there. Marte had come to take her home again, since Lixand said Marte had dried out. She didn't look wet. Then he explained that he meant she wasn't drinking. I miss Rilla. It was fun this winter when she was with me. She waded in, crossing her arms across her chest, yelling and jumping up and down, yelling some more.
"That's not the way to do it," Jorge yelled, running along the high stones, then jumped. "Yaaaaahhhhh!" He curled up like a ball and splashed thu-whu-swish into the lake.
Eula and Jorge had thought that the pack should go swimming because it was so hot. The water side wasn't anybody else's squat, so they wouldn't get into any fights as long as they didn't run off the Stairs between their squat and the lake. I don't want to swim. She bobbed and picked up pebbles with her toes.
"Megan's a scaredy mouse! Megan's a whimp-er!" Tantine yelled.
"I am not," Megan yelled back, and splashed her so she squealed. They splashed and shouted and ducked each other for a while. I'm going to learn how to swim like Jorge. I don't like to swim though. The lake's dark, and when I bob I can think of all sorts of things floating
up underneath me. I think of big big mouths full of lots of teeth. She decided to go sit on the stones.
The lake was bigger this year, with more water being let out of the mines, the catch basins, and temples, with the dam's fourth mark covered with water. The thunder of the waterfall was louder this year, falling a hundred pyash straight down.
"Psst. Hey, Megan!" Ivar hissed from the top of the fence. "Hey?"
"Yeah?" She wasn't paying attention to him, concentrating on trying to spin her knife twice and catch it on the back of her hand:.
"There are a whole pile of Sour Note kids coming."
"Here?" Megan caught the knife by clapping her hands together flat so it couldn't cut her. "We have to get everybody."
"Yeah. I'm just going to yell for Jorge, but Aage can't come, he's working."
"I'll get Marin if she isn't helping her mama."
"Okay."
Megan ran, and when she and Marin got back almost everyone else was there. Tantine, Eula, Jorge and Ivar were all there. Onya came running with Yuri behind. Their mama's all right, sort of Nikolai, Maya and Serkai sat on top of the fence watching for the Sour Note kids.
"Good, you're back," Jorge said. "Let's go. We don't know where Arvi is, but we can't wait." Serkai lent Jorge one of his knives and the pack ran down to the gap in the fence.
The Sour Note kids were already there, kicking up the dust where they'd promised not to come anymore. There were more of them than of Megan's kidpack, but the Cooper's Laner's had four knives—Serkai's two, Ivar's, and Marin because she'd borrowed her mama's knife without asking. The Sour Noter's leader, Moden, was the only one who had a knife as far as any of the Cooper's pack knew.
She walked out in front of the Sour Note kids and Jorge went out to stop her coming any further. She glared up at him and yelled, "This here's part of our squat, you bedbugs. Get lost! Take a walk in the Dark Lord's Temple!" She held her knife ready, bright, shining new as Serkai's. She prigged it, I bet. If she sticks Jorge, we'll get her.
"Your family's raised a liar, Liar!" Jorge shouted back. "It's our squat! We're the mesne of all this Ground, we're the pack!" He leaned toward her, almost nose-to-nose because she was nearly as tall as he was. She put her free hand on her hip, shoving her chin out belligerently.
"Leave my family out of it! Your father got you on a corpse handler!"
"You take that back!"
"You're all scum! And we don't want scum on our ground!"
Jorge lost his temper and slashed at her. She ducked but not fast enough, got cut across the side
of the head and cut back, then they both lost their knives.
She grabbed his hair with both hands, yanking down, and kneed him. Megan heaved a rock at the Sour Note pack who were rushing them, yelling, saw a boy fall holding his head.
For a moment it was all happening in a blur, then went slow and clear. A big boy swung a stick at her head, two-handed. She ducked and laughed as he hit the wall behind with a crack, dropping the stick. She brought her knife up, suddenly knowing she'd use it if he tried to hit her again.
He shook his fist and they yelled back and forth, and when Megan stamped her foot he grabbed at her. She tried to cut him but her knife caught on his sleeve, so she let go and the clarity went away in a cloud of dust as they rolled in the dirt. He held on but she wiggled around, and when he tried to stand up she sat on his head, beating on his back with her fists. She was yelling, "Go away. Go away. We don't want you." He had snot running down his face. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"
Everyone had gone quiet so Megan looked up, the wild feeling gone in an instant. The boy under her bucked. She got off him and he half-crawled, half-ran back toward the rest of his friends. They had retreated to the gap; Jorge had a long cut on his cheek and Eula had their leader's knife stuck into her arm. There was blood dripping all over her hand and on her face.
Megan, breathing hard, felt at the scrapes on her cheeks and hands, the soreness where her hair and ear had been pulled. The Cooper's Laner's threw a couple of cobbles but not hard. She picked up her knife and went to where Eula sat with Ivar and Serkai and Jorge all around her, and the Cooper's pack stared at the Sour Note kids. They stared back and the only one moving now was Tantine, who handed one of the knives to Jorge.
He stood up. "Go away and don't come back or I'll kill you." He started walking toward them, most of Cooper's Lane closing behind him. The other kidpack shuffled, backed up one step then two. Jorge had this strange look on his face, like a grownup; like Lixand when he went with Vyaroslaf so his family could get away. They backed up. Moden was limping and her one eye was swelling shut, blood from a cut trailing down her neck. They kept backing up until a couple of the littler kids started crying and ran, then they all ran. Moden spat on the ground by Jorge's foot and followed.
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