"Ivar, get Nikolai to help you close up the gap in the fence," Jorge said. "They aren't going to come back." He stuck his chin out. "I'm going to help Eula."
They knotted a handkerchief around the knife wound; Eula turning grey, shaking and cold. Then they made a chair of hands and carried her home where Jorge told her mama it was a bad throw in a cniffta game. Eula's mother looked him up and down, taking in the dirt and scratches and the cut on his face, but only said, "Go on. I'll look after her."
Outside Eula's house Megan started realizing how awful she felt. She hurt all over and had a hole in her pants and her braids were all undone.
Back in the Ground, Tantine and Megan redid each other's braids and they all washed their faces, so their mothers wouldn't scold too hard.
It was their squat now, though. We on.
Megan told Serkai that she hated swimming and he and Tantine talked to her about it, though Megan wished he hadn't mentioned it to her. The two of them took Megan down to the lake and showed her how to swim a little. By the end of the afternoon she could keep her face out, though she needed more practice.
Afterward they sat in the sun to get dry. Her hair was dribbling water down her chest and her stomach felt hollow; the funny kind of hollow you get if you stayed in the water too long. The roar of the waterfall was a thunder in the ground, more felt than heard.
Prafetatla or Middle Quarter kids had towels for swimming all to themselves and they didn't come down to the lake. They went to the bathhouses or had their own. Megan lay on her back on the long mats of grass. There had been houses at one time, but now there was long grass and thick trees in the space between two big old warehouses. I guess Tantine's not so bad; not when there's only one boy around. Across the lake the high ridge and the mountain beyond was full of splinters of shadows from the windows cut into it. Over the River's Road in the Lake Quarter, the shadows of the dragons lay, each a carved spout about five hundred paces apart. They were the openings of the catch basins dug into the mountain, holding enough water to flood the City twice over even without the springs that fed the lake. When the seals wore out, the statues rained a spatter of water down the side of the mountain as if they were drooling. Someone had climbed up and tied a red ribbon around one of the fangs of the spout over the lake shore, for a joke.
She shut her eyes, listening to the buzzing hum of flies and bees and locusts in the grass. I don't have to go home yet. Mama'll be working because her Gospozhyn keeps her late. She pulled a grass-stem to chew on and was tickling Tantine behind the ear with the fuzzy head when Marin came running, shouting, "Serkaüüi! Seeeerrrkaüü!"
"Here! What's happening?' They jumped up, brushing bits of straw off. Marin stopped to gulp air so she could talk.
"You… you should… get dressed." She swallowed and wiped her face. "Your mama sent me. We're all supposed to go home."
"Why? What's going on?"
"Your mama came back from the Market looking scared. There are riots happening because of the 'maranth tax, she says, and they might spread, so she told me to tell my mama and asked me to get you home. You, too, Megan, Tantine."
"Riots?"
"Yeah." They were already yanking their clothes on, dragging trousers over wet legs. Megan with the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, remembering the last time. "People are fighting the Guard with rocks and sticks and bricks and they can't close all the streets. If it gets bad the DragonLord might close the bottom door of the dam and let go one of the catch basins to flood out the bottom quarters, my brother says."
Megan looked over her shoulder at the dam, set between the two ridges. If he did that then the lake would rise to the spur, and everyone but the Prafetatla would drown. She imagined the dragons spitting water, each mouth wider than she was tall. Was there more water dripping already? Papa had told her once that the first Dragonlord closed the dam until the City proclaimed her Ruler, but he never said that where anyone but family could hear.
They ran up the Stairs and Megan tried not to think of the lake perhaps getting deeper behind them, following on their heels, going blurp, blurp up the Stairs. It sounds like there's another waterfall in front of us.
She yelled good-bye to the others and squeezed sideways into an alley shortcut they were too big for. When she got to Cooper's, the usually crowded street was empty though it was midday. The Ragman's door was shuttered and his piles of stuff were scraped back against the wall. The sound from the Middle Quarter echoed. What if somebody's locked the door, and I can't get in?
"Pssst, Megan?" Boryis looked through one of the panes of glass over the Flats front door. ' Get in, quick!" He opened the door a crack, then climbed back up the ladder to keep watch, the afternoon sun streaming in around the shadow of his head. Zazan stood just down the way, twisting one of her frizzy curls in her fingers.
"Are Mama and Papa were at work?" Megan asked, and Zazan said, "I think they came in…" in a whisper.
Megan ran downstairs and found the door open, her parents there. They hugged her and the three of them sat listening to the reports that Boryis passed through Zazan.
If the riots come here we should maybe try to run, or hide downstairs with the turkeys. I don't want this house to burn, too. I don't want Mama or Papa to get hurt.
"The Guard! The Guard!" The words whispered down the hall, passed from one open door to another, and everyone held their breath. Megan wiggled out of Papa's hand.
"I'll go look," she said, and ran though she heard him shout after her in a whisper:
"Megan!"
She ran up to two above, where Jerya's room was, and she sat on Jerya's lap with her boy Lavi, who was too little to run with the pack. They looked out the tall crack, as wide as Megan's finger, in her summer shutters.
The Guard trotted down the street, boots clack-clacking against the cobbles, filling the street between the walls, dart-throwers shoved in their belts and the dart-buckets thumping on their belts as they ran to secure the Lower Stairs. Their helmets were painted with dragons and phoenixes and some of them were bloody, but it was dim between the houses and Megan couldn't see for sure.
None of them seemed to be hurt, so the blood was likely from the rioters. Lixand had said once that people would be going hungry or starve outright if the tax were raised, but the DragonLord wouldn't listen to commoners, or care if some died. The riots also would give the Woyvode the excuse not to open the common law-courts.
I hope nobody's out. If they catch anyone in the River or Lake Quarter, the Guard can just take them to the dungeon, because they might be rioters or thieves or something. Sometimes it takes a lot of money and a lot of time to get people out once they're in, even if they are citizens.
The street outside was bare again, the Guard having poured through like a long shiny black snake, scouring things clean. There should have been carters and lots of people out this time of day, but there was only the wind and the gutter-mud splashed on the cobbles. A cat ran across.
It felt like the manrauq gone bad as sour milk, like Aunt Marte hitting Rilla. Megan squirmed out of Jerya's lap, blurted her good-bye and ran back down to Papa and Mama. We're safe. Like Papa's story. We pull our heads in and wait until the riots roll past. We don't have much that the Prafetatla want. She got hugged between Mama and Papa and they listened, though Boryis didn't pass down any more news. Megan could hear the turkeys downstairs, and Shen's cat meowing to be fed. The riots will go away again.
Chapter Nine
The worst of the riots did go away, with the rain and the fall cold coming on, the days so short, but there were little ones here and there once a Hand or so that were put down by the Guard. They either killed the rioters or cleared the street into the dungeons. Most of those prisoners were sent on "reparation" to the salt mines at Talitsa. Then something happened that cooled the whole mood of the City, despite the new tax. The Fifth DragonLord, Piatr III, Woyvode, Defender of the People, finally took the stroke that killed him. There were no contenders for Regency, so there was no fur
ther trouble and the Red faction, led by Mikail, stepped in.
The plateau above the city was a holy place, where the Goddess wind blew forever. When someone married they followed the road under the Nest to the plateau and came down in pairs or quads with music. When someone died their kin carried them up and laid them out for the Goddess's birds on the Proletarian, the field of bones. When they'd taken Onya's mama up there it had been summer still. Her hand had healed and she had planned to marry her friend, but took summer fever instead and died.
The bone-field was off to one side; the laying out platforms, open-spoked wheels were raised up on tall poles, set in holes or cairns, if raised in winter. The ravens wheeled there most of the time, but if a procession came up, they gathered in their hundreds.
Her children and Teik Svarch, her promised husband, laid her on the platform and undressed her. Megan was one of the witnesses.
Onya's mama looked so like herself, but also thin and empty, that Megan thought she would open her eyes and complain about them taking her clothes off in the wind, but she didn't. They laid her down as if she were sleeping and tied her body onto the platform, and then all the friends helped raise the pole.
Megan had tipped her head back and looked up the pole to where the platform rocked a little as it settled, and one of Onya's mama's hands waved back and forth as if she were going to say, "I'm not dead, let me down," but she hadn't done that either.
The other old platforms had bones around their bases and only the young birds waited for people to go away; the old ones were landing and squawking already, and Onya the Elder had a black feather cloak to cover her body, going to the Goddess.
Now, in the fall, the whole city turned out to the laying out of the Woyvode. Megan stood between her parents watching the birds fly around and around over the plateau, so far away that they were slate-pencil dots against the clouds.
The three of them wore the grey and red for mourning, in honor of the old DragonLord, as decreed by the Regent Mikail and the Zarizan. The Prafetatla wore the same color as the crowd, but they would not wear plain cloth and leather; they wore grey silk and red fur mantles. Mama had made the family new mourning clothes, though they weren't warm wool.
"Some people might say he was an evil old man," she'd said while sewing, touching the streak in Megan's hair that had grown out white. "But someone loved him once." Megan was helping her while Lixand read to them from a book he'd borrowed from the whorehouse library. There were some strange books in there, but good ones, too; the whores who wanted to teach themselves and their children spent money on books, and sometimes, once an iron-cycle or so, a teacher came. They didn't mind Megan's family borrowing because they were careful. Most of the rest of the Flats didn't bother.
"If Koru can love someone like that," Ness had continued, "we can at least mourn his passing." She made the avert sign that means "Dark Lord look away."
"Pray Koru that we won't need these for ourselves for many long years."
"Yes, Mama"—"Yes, my love," Megan and Lixand had answered. That had been three days ago. Papa had said most people had their kin lay them out, or if they had no kin then the corpse-handlers. Mama had said "That's why it's so bad to be a h'Rokatzk, you have to touch and lay out strangers: naZak."
Today the city smelled like smoky perfume, pine and cold and wet stone. It had rained all night, and the wind was cold. We might get first snow today. Everyone in the crowds held a pine twig, and Ness held Megan's hand so Papa could carry his.
The DragonLord was going in the last procession through the City, carried at the head, wrapped in his phoenix robe. The Zarizan wasn't of age yet and couldn't help carry his father, so he walked before, with the red stripe painted across his eyes. He had a Greathound puppy with him, a white one taller than he was. Mikail was first bearer.
The Guard were all around him, carrying banners, red and gold and silver, the Ruler's Dragon proceeding before him, upside down. The walking drummers came behind, drumming his passing, making Megan's chest under her ribs shiver with the sound.
There was no sound except the drums and the foot-steps of the walkers. Being quiet was hard, but they had respect for the dead, and when the procession had gone by the crowd closed in behind.
The DragonLord would go up to the Goddess with only his kin watching, alone, just as everyone else did. The Guard, and the crowd, stopped at the Iron Gate and watched the bier. It was shaped and painted like a metal bird, carried by four, up to where the birds waited.
There were two others to add their voices, calling the former Woyvode's name to the wind with Ranion: the Dark Lord's priest first, because she was the Year Kievir, then the Lady's priest. Megan remembered Onya, standing alone to call her mama's name to the wind.
She had called it long and loud into the wind, and Megan was sure the Goddess heard it, even if there were tears in it, even if she was alone, because only those who could gift the Temple or Temples enough would have a priest there to call as well.
Like then, the priests would go away and leave the Zarizan up there to watch, as Megan and the others left Onya. Yuri had wanted to stay, too, but couldn't; he was youngest and would watch the next year. There were no other kin, so the memorial would stop with his turn, though Teik Svarch might come up the year after Yuri, if he chose to.
Megan was glad she didn't have to do that for her parents, hugging Ness's hand in hers, then taking Lixand's, pine twig and all, as they walked home. The whole city would stay in grey until the Zarizan Ranion became DragonLord or until Regent Mikail said so. The Hammer and the Scythe-blade would sit on the empty Dragonthrone until Ranion picked them up. I wonder if anyone ever dusts them?
Megan was getting very big now. That's good because I can help Mama and Papa more, though I tell them I get lots scavenging, she thought. She was quickest at prigging buckles in the winter, when sliding was the way to get away from the Watch in First Quarter. You took a board, the way Ivar had, and bent it up on one end. Some kids rubbed the bottoms with wet sand to make the wood smooth. It was fun, and made it easy to get away from the Guard since most of the streets around the Market were steep enough so you could cut a shoe or boot buckle and be gone before anyone could even yell.
It wasn't so good that she was getting big because there was some trouble with her being apprenticed. Papa said she'd have to wait a bit longer. This was bad; she knew she could get too old. For Ness to be apprenticed as an adult had almost been a miracle from Koru.
She was balancing six parcels and a broken basket she'd found that maybe could be fixed and didn't want to drop anything as she tried to open the door. "Hello!" A voice she knew called down the hall. "Hello, Megan!" She couldn't tell who he was though, not through au the scarves and under the fur hat. What was somebody with a fur hat, made out of better fur than catskin, doing in the Flats?
"Here let me help, then." He tugged the hat off and she dropped everything and hugged him, snow and all. It was Teik Varik, gone so long, come home again. She tried to tell him everything all at once, and he laughed and swung her up as high as he had when she'd been a little kid. Her heels almost bumped the outside wall now, and he set her down, puffing. "You've grown some, little Meg." He poked her cheek with a finger, just like her papa did, over her scarf, and she smiled. Mama opened the door to see what the noise was, cried "Variki and hugged him, too.
Papa came, and when Mama let go, hugged him and pounded him on the back. "Come in! Come in!" He was smiling more than she'd seen him do in a while as he picked up Varik's ship-kit for him. "You've been gone since before the Esteemed Dragon died! Come in for a cup of chai, at least!"
"Hello! Yeah, 'course I'll come in." He laughed. "Why, did you think I'd come a'visiting to stand in cold hallways?"
"Varik," Mama said, "Lixand, enough teasing, get those wet things off and hung up!"
Megan gathered her parcels and the basket and hung up her things, while Mama and Papa and Varik settled down on the cushions. That was fun because they didn't have a visitor's cu
shion so Megan got to sit in the wallbed and be higher than everyone.
She went to get a glass of milk first, sniffed the jug by the door. "Mama, the milk's gone."
Ness sighed a little. It meant making more thick-milk to eat, but there was no milk for chai. "Run over to Jerya's and ask if we can borrow some then. I'll be going to market soon and pay her back."
"All right."
When she got back they were being serious. "Lixand, you mean your friend won't take her?' Varik was asking.
Lixand looked angry. "No, he's given me excuse after excuse and his price keeps going up." They're talking about my apprenticeship. Papa's friend had been going to take her on a long time before, and hadn't. Her parents had tried to get her in somewhere else, but the City was crowded with Zak coming away from the Thanish border disputes. Guilds were full; they could pick and choose, and Megan was on several waiting lists.
"Hmm." Varik looked at them and sipped his chai, then looked at Papa in that way that meant he'd talk to him later. "Little Meg, you look like a jar full of questions…"
"Yes! Where did you go? What did you see? Did you go all the way to Brahvniki? Were there pirates? Were mere storms? You're safe home so it can't have been bad. Did you make lots of money?—"
"Megan!" Ness snapped, irritated that her daughter had asked about money so bluntly. Megan put both hands over her mouth, but Teik Varik was laughing and didn't mind.
"Ness, it's all right. Yes, Megan, the trip was—to our advantage, you might say. There were pirates but we outran them—rather we ran them aground on a shoal. And as for the rest…"
He pulled his kit around and opened the top tie. "Look. He pulled out a purple scarf fine enough almost to see through, and a shell with spiny bits all over it in a yellow and black wood box that smelled like summer, and an arm ring that looked like red lace but was made out of stone.
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