There was a whole row of glass bottles, of wine, she thought, some wadiki, and a pouch full of silver. Silver. And a whole silver Dragonclaw.
I've got to show Papa, she thought. There's something wrong here. Eula had said the Blood-sibs, the "upstart assassins," were trying to get kids to apprentice. And they got paid silver for killing somebody. Eula said that her Gospozhyn had been "talked to," his Guild had him under protection. Mama wouldn't like it if she knew I was friends with an Other Guild member, somebody training to steal; but I learn all sorts of stuff. Silver. Was Aunt Marte a Blood-sib? Was she killing people?
Rilla was at the door with a bundle of her mam's things, tears on her face. "Megan." Then she gulped and threw the bundle on the floor and really started sobbing. "I did it. It's my fault. I did it."
Megan went and hugged her. "It's okay, Rilla. She'll be all right. It isn't your fault. It's the DragonLord's fault for a stupid, dumb rule."
"It is! It is! It's all my fault!" She was trying to hammer her hands on Megan's shoulders, and Megan had to hold on tight. "I did it on purpose!"
"What?" She stopped squirming, crying so hard Megan could hardly understand what she was saying.
"I… I got caught on purpose before I got too old." She grabbed on to Megan, buried her face in her neck. "I hate her. I hate her but she's my mam. She's my mam and it's bad to hate her but she hits me and… and… she hates me. She doesn't love me. Why did she have me? If she hates me why did she have me?"
Megan couldn't think of anything to say, wishing her mother were here to explain, but there was just her, and she didn't think Mama would want to hear Rilla say all those things. "We love you. Were your kin." Megan wiped Rilla's face with her sleeve. "Like when you got stuck in the hole, in the fence with the big dog chasing us and I came back and got you?"
"Yeah." Rilla sniffled. "You gonna tell?"
"Not if you don't want me to. I promise."
"I love you, fatrahm." That meant father's sister's beloved child. Megan had thought Rilla was too little to understand formal speech. Megan hugged her. "I love you too, patrischana. We'll stick together, won't we?"
They sat for a bit longer just hugging, then Megan said, "Rillan, what's your mama been doing?"
Rilla looked around the spare room, then at the still. "She's been selling to somebody who pays lots and always comes at night."
"You ever seen him?"
"It's a her and she mumbles, but mam always makes me go to bed early so I don't see her." Rilla twisted the end of her braid. "I don't think you ought to tell. I think it's poisons, or 'Dust. They were fighting about price and the lady said '… for that price we can ship Dust in!' but I think she paid and mam got drunk again after that."
"She promised not to."
Rilla twisted harder. "She makes sure your da doesn't find out."
"I gotta tell him about the bottles though."
"Okay." They got the bundles, and Megan took the bag with silver to show Papa and tell him some of what Rilla had told her, except the sworn secrets.
Papa's lips thinned and Mama held him. Then they sent Shen and Rilla and Megan out to Market with a silver bit to change into copper and get all the food and black-rock they needed so Aunt could get better.
When they came back with everything, it was like festival. There weren't enough cupboards for everything, and it smelled like home had before, with sausage and leaven bread and soup and an old hen boiling in the pot. Mama and Papa were angry but not at Megan, and Aunt wasn't saying anything, so when they ate it was hard to swallow, like swallowing the anger with the food. So after, Megan and Rilla went to the library, and Megan read to her cousin and started teaching her Enchian. Her mama wasn't spending money on school, so Megan would help.
***
It was almost spring and Megan enjoyed having Rilla living with them again, though Aunt Marte complained a lot. Marte couldn't afford to keep the house when her hand was broken, so she and Rilla had moved down to the Dogleg, an alley off Cooper's Lane, further south and across the Stairs. Rilla was part of the pack now. Aunt came around too much, but she was behaving and not drinking, and even trying to do business again. I guess Koru's smiling again, or the Bear swatted some of our bad luck away.
Mama had been doing well at Gospozhyn Yneltzyn's and she'd been getting quite a few gems to reset. Lixand had a space as an inside storyteller at the Wooden Plate because the owner had built another room on. Megan practiced sneaking around a lot. It was fun, and in the pack she and Tantine were the best at it.
Tantine had gotten to be a better kid lately, because the summer before some of the other kids, mostly Jorge and Moden—the Sour Noters and Victory Square had joined Cooper's Lane so they were one big mesne—had got tired of her being so snarky and causing all the trouble, and ducked her in the lake. She yelled a lot and got a lung full of water, almost drowned without them noticing, so Megan had to yell at them to let her go. They hadn't listened, and Megan had waded in and gotten a lung full of water, and they'd faced Jorge and Moden down together. Since then, Tantine had been Megan's best friend next to Serkai and Ivar.
She and Ivar were kissing sometimes now. She'd thought it was messy at first and they bumped noses a lot, but it got to be fun. Shivery feelings ran through her when they kissed and hugged, but she didn't want any more than that. I don't want to have sex yet. I'm not old. enough and Ivar isn't either, but it's still nice.
Jorge finally put his foot in it when he and Eula argued over who was leader of Cooper's Lane, and he said she was a half-Zak, Arkan bred. She got so angry that she hit him and they'd fought, seriously. He was stronger but she was quicker, and she'd put him in the midden behind the Deib's Den Inn. It had been good that it was mostly frozen or he could have drowned, but he had got stinking. They were friends again but she was leader.
They'd been playing sneak-on-each-other ever since Dagde Vroi. The game was to sneak up on someone else and touch them before they knew you were there, or take something of theirs without them knowing. If they caught you, you had to do a forfeit. Marin got caught with her hand in Aage's pouch and she had to go three landings up the Stairs yelling "I am a dead horse!' Megan hadn't been caught by anybody yet.
Today was a boring day so she tried to find a new hidey hole in the Flats, wiggling into the space between the inside wall and the outside. There were lots of places in the Flats where the division of the old rooms wasn't very good, so there were crawl spaces, and she was trying to find all of them. They were good for hide 'n seek, too.
She heard Mama and Papa talking. I think I'll wiggle close, she thought, then I'll yell boo and won't they be surprised!
"Lixand, I don't know what to do. I never thought… I can't stop. I'm a Journeyman, earning a real wage rather than just room and table's worth. I can't quit."
"Tell me, Ness, don't just jitter, tell me everything that happened." Megan put her eye to a knot-hole and looked. Papa was holding his arm out for Mama but she was pacing, too upset to keep still.
"A thief came in to sell Gospozhyn Yneltzyn a gem. I wasn't there at the first. Yneltzyn had sent me out to fetch a repaired mould from Evgniy, and when it wasn't ready I came back to the shop early. I went in through the back, instead of the front, because I had to stop at the privy."
She stopped to think. Her hands were shaking and she picked up the kitchen cloth to give them something to do. "I was just setting the piece for Teik Felekof when I heard them in the front of the shop. I thought it was a customer bargaining until the man all but said he'd stolen it from the Nest, and he had to sell it quickly because he might be followed."
She was wiping off the counter, and knocked over a jar of lentils that spilled. She just stood looking down at the mess. "Gospozhyn Yneltzyn bought the gem… he was familiar with the thief." She started sweeping up with too-vigorous swipes of her hands. "I sneaked out because the thief was going to sneak out the back right past my workbench. What else was I going to do? Call the watch, call the Guard and have them haul us off
to the dungeons because there's no courts?" The lentils made a slithery sound going back into the jar. Lixand was so quiet Megan could hear all of it. She held her breath.
"What was I to do? I came in front and told Gospozhyn Yneltzyn the mould wasn't ready. There were a couple of DragonGuard in the street, but I didn't think about it.
"They must have cut off the thief’s escape route because he was hiding in my tool cupboard. I didn't know that until later. I drew the half curtain at my bench and tried to work some, but the thief sneaked out and held a knife to me—"
"Ness!" Papa started to get up but Mama's shoulders twitched and she kept on, "—and had me call Yneltzyn into the back because he thought he'd been betrayed, and they argued a moment before Yneltzyn convinced him otherwise. He took the thief up the pulldown ladder and let him onto the roof." Papa put his hand on Mama's shoulder and she held onto it for a minute, then pulled away and started pacing again, stepping around Brunsc, whom Rilla had left behind when she visited last.
"Gospozhyn Yneltzyn came back and looked at me and at the piece I was doing and said, 'you've forgotten, haven't you?' " Ness finally sat down, but on the edge of the open wallbed instead of her cushion next to Lixand. "Of course I said, 'Forgotten what, Gospozhyn?' He nodded and left me to finish. What else was I supposed to do? Lixand, what was I to do?"
They were both quiet, apart in a way she hadn't seen them in a long time; not since the deep of winter when they hadn't had any money at all and Teik Erham's wife had tried to get them kicked out for not paying the rent. They'd managed then. Jerya had lent them some, but Mama and Papa had done a lot of fighting or holding each other.
If everything was all right it didn't matter how far apart they sat, they'd still be together. When they were like this it was as if they were strangers to each other.
Lixand sighed and got up, sat next to Ness, making the wallbed shake. "You did what you had to, love." He looked like he was carrying the Gate-rocks on his back, but still smiled at Ness and put his arm around her. "Hang on. Do the job. I'm sure he isn't trusting you to do anything illegal. When you're another step up, perhaps another jeweler will take you on or perhaps you can hang on till you're a Gospozhyn in your own right."
"That could take years, Lixand." Her voice was thin.
"The, ah, Re-Distribution Guild isn't all that bad. Not like the Blood-sibs. You've done nothing wrong, love." Ness smiled at him using the joking name for the Thieves. Megan agreed with him, though.
Ness leaned into his shoulder and he held her for a long time. They felt "together" again. Then he kissed her ear. She put her arm around him and kissed his neck. Megan wiggled backwards quietly because it wasn't polite to watch someone else making love, especially if" you weren't supposed to be there in the first place.
"Megan, put that cat down, wash at the tap and come home!" Ness called over the edge of the gallery. "We have to go talk to Varik."
"All right, Mama!" She was playing with Blue and Dimi's ferret, who ran in circles inside her shirt from front to back while Blue tried to catch him from the outside. Now she dug him out of the middle of her back, though he didn't want to come, and got Blue off her legs. Mama had said they were going to talk to Varik's Gospozhyn.
The Middle Quarter had more space than River, but the First Quarter had even more than that. There were manors as big as the Flats, all given over to one family, and they had lawns and walls and gates around them that could have held five or six more houses at least. They had gardens under glass that you could just catch glimpses of through the gates. They even kept horses.
In River where there were cobbles, they were loose and mud squished up between them and they wobbled and slid in the spring. Then there were some streets that just washed away, and couldn't be rebuilt until the rain stopped and the melt was done. On those streets you could sink all the way to your knees. Here there were granite blocks that fit together neatly and were even laid in patterns.
The gate to the River Guild offices had a ship carved on it and the corridors went into the mountain; the stone blocks and wood panels changed to smooth stone and wool tapestries. There was a strong warm breeze blowing in all the corridors against damp. The halls were full of things from foreign lands and there were a few naZak; a man with a towel wrapped around his head and face, making Megan wonder if he were cold even inside, so tall he had to duck his head under the ceilings. Sysbat Tenara hadn't been that tall and Megan had thought she was a giant.
The Gospozhyn's office reminded her of the Wizard's house, full of all sorts of neat things, but unlike the Wizard's house it was a mess. There were piles of papers mixed with books and ledgers, boxes and bags piled in the corners, parchments on the cushions; the samovar was almost buried. The cushions were red and black, the carpet white, and the hangings blue. An old yellow dog lay curled up on the cushions, snoring. Varik was already there waiting.
The Gospozhyn wasn't that old. He looked a little older than Lixand, but his hair was white and thick instead of thinning in the front, while Lixand's wrinkles had been going further and further up his forehead. Ness and Lixand stood nervously, dressed in their best clothes, trying to hide it.
"Yarishk Yakushevyovych, called Silverhand," Teik Varik said. "Lixand, Storyman, his wife Ness, Gemsetter and their daughter Megan."
"Ah, ah, yes. Do come in. A cup of chai?" Teik Yarishk dug a couple of cushions out from under the old dog and a pile of papers. "Here, do make yourselves comfortable."
They talked very politely about the weather, how things were going in the city and the rumors about the Zarizan and the Regent's fights and the wedding coming up. This reminded Megan of when she'd been put in school, only worse, but Teik Varik was here to speak for her. After they'd shared the salt, she stopped petting the dog and listened.
"Well, she is a bit old…" Yarishk said, and Journeyman Varik cleared his throat.
"I mentioned the alternative, Gospozhyn…"
"Ah, yes, you did indeed, but these good folk might not be interested."
"Excuse me, Teik Yarishk," Papa said. "Which alternative is this? I understood that my Megan would find a position in the River Guild."
Yarishk got up and paced, and Megan thought he looked like Dimi's ferret. She liked him, but wouldn't have wanted him angry with her. Ferrets bit.
The dog started awake and scrambled up, woofing at Varik, who stood up, putting one hand in his shirt.
"Owl Little ingrate!" He pulled his hand out and bowed to his Gospozhyn. "If you will excuse me—"
"Varik, how many times have I reminded you not to bring Tik-Tik in here with my Sashi?" He stopped pacing. "Not that I mind the little vermin, but it causes too many interruptions."
"Yes, Gospozhyn." Varik looked sheepish. "I forgot he was there."
"Well, get out, lad. Once you've stowed him, come back."
"Yes, sir." But Teik Varik's not a lad. He's old, Megan thought. Almost five and twenty.
"Well, please excuse the interruption. As I was going to say, the alternative is to induct your Megan into, well, not the River Guild directly. There is an affiliated Guild, very closely associated with us, that has no age limitations on apprenticeship."
Ness got this funny look on her face. "Teik Yarishk, you mean that Yneltzyn took me on at such a low 'prentice price because he's a Gospozhyn in this Other Guild? Because Varik recommended me?"
Yarishk smiled a little. "Well, in effect, yes. The Guild I'm speaking of has a policy of training 'Gospozhyn' under various other Guilds, mostly with the River Merchants, though we do need jewelers and so forth."
Mama looked down and sighed, and Papa put his arm around her. "I will admit, Teik," he said slowly, "that I don't like the idea of being directly affiliated with the Guild in question—" Mama bit her lip, looked at Papa.
"I can leave you a moment to discuss it," Yarishk said.
"Please," Papa answered. Why are they so nervous about it? It's just the Other Guild.
"One final thing," Yarishk said. "The Guild in q
uestion does not deal in addictives, unwilling sex, slaves, or contract murders." They just steal, then, and mostly from people who need to be stolen from. She already prigged stuff like knives or food. Of course, Mama and Papa didn't know that. They wouldn't like it, she thought. They still think Middle Quarter-like.
Teik Yarishk went out and Ness looked at her husband. "We're already paying them," she said. "And I'm, all unwitting, affiliated already."
"Ness, we could manag—"
"No, we couldn't." She was almost crying.
"Papa," Megan said, "if I'm good I can learn what I'm supposed to and what Koru wants me to. I'll make lots of money, and when stuff gets easier to get and sell, I can switch to just merchanting."
Papa looked at her sternly, then nodded. "I see I have the both of you against my tender sensibilities."
"Lixand, think of what we must—"
"Don't tell me 'must' again, love. I'm sick to death of having my nose rubbed in how little choice I have." He ran his hand over his face. "All right. I know. We have to. This is probably one of Megan's last chances in the City. I know."
Ness and Megan both hugged him. The dog thumped her tail on the papers behind her and Megan ran to call Gospozhyn Yarishk. Things were settled.
When Gospozhyn Yarishk came back, with the honey pot, as if he went to get it—Megan liked that, it was polite, pretending he'd left for another reason—Papa said, "Our Megan'll be trained as a th—"
"No," Gospozhyn Yarishk interrupted. "She’ll be trained as a merchant, Teik, I assure you. We are not what most people believe us to be."
Papa nodded. "She'll be trained as a merchant."
"My word on it. By the Lady's Name and the Lord's Shadow, I swear."
"Our pride isn't that great," Papa said. "If you will take her, Teik, we have the price."
Sashi snuffled over and dropped her head in Megan's lap for her ears to be scratched. I'm going to be a River Merchant, and a Thief, too, I guess, she thought. I don't know if I'm going to like being a thief, but that's better than being 'prenticed to the Red Brotherhood. I'd hate being a Blood-sib, like Aunt.
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