I shrugged. “He has this thing about killing people he doesn’t have to.”
Jeb shook his head. “Who said anything about killing?” He backtracked a couple of steps and opened the door, pointing at me. “Gentlemen, as chief reeve it’s my duty to inform you that Willet Dura intends to escape your oversight and go into the city.”
Four guards with shoulders the size of blacksmiths’ crowded into the room. Jeb gave me a wicked grin and proceeded to punch each man over the ear with his fist, the sound identical to a farmer rapping on a ripe melon. The men collapsed to the floor as if their bones had turned to water.
“There,” Jeb smiled at me. “Problem solved. If we hurry, we can be out and back before they wake up.”
“Are you insane?” I gaped. “Do you know what the Chief of Servants is going to do to me when she finds out I’ve escaped? I’ll end up behind bars in the Merum cathedral.”
I might as well have been talking to the unconscious guards for all the effect my words had.
“The damage is done, Dura,” Jeb said. “You can sit and wait for them to wake up and try to convince them you stayed here the whole time, or you can use the opportunity to find out what’s going on.”
I turned to Bolt for support, but he’d already risen from his chair, leaving his game to move past me. “‘If you’ve got no retreat, you might as well charge.’”
I shook my head. “That’s not really one of your best.”
He shrugged. “It’s all I could think of.”
We made our way to the lower merchants’ quarter at a brisk walk. I didn’t fancy riding out on horseback and making myself that much easier to spot. I took a moment to savor my freedom, taking in the smell of food from the marketplace, aromas that never drifted into the enforced hospitality of the tor, but every few minutes I checked over my shoulder for pursuit.
“Relax, Dura,” Jeb said. “Even if they wake up and find you missing, they won’t know where you’ve gone.”
I nodded. “And that, more than anything else, is likely to set their teeth on edge.”
We crossed over the bridge from the upper merchants’ section of the city into the sprawl of the marketplace. Hawkers vied for our attention, and wagons and carts competed for space as farmers and teamsters loaded or unloaded goods. Rory ranged out ahead of us, gazing into each of the shadows between buildings that leaned on each other for support like drunks.
“Before Bas-solas, it wouldn’t have taken me more than a couple of minutes to find an urchin,” he said. He cast a glance at Bolt and then me. “The bargain took about three-quarters of us off the streets.” He pointed. “This way.”
We took a right-hand turn into an alley cast in gloom from the lean of buildings overheard. I recognized it as one I’d made a point to avoid in the past. Bits of raw sewage ran beneath our feet. When Rory pulled his daggers, Jeb and Bolt drew swords.
Twenty paces in, a shadow separated from the wall on the left and a rangy youth nearly as tall as me with red hair and a puckered scar where one of his eyes should have been stepped toward Rory, his hands not quite visible at his sides.
“You bring growlers into the poor quarter to finish the last of us, Rory?”
Rory shook his head. “They aren’t what they look like, Clubber. No one’s trying to finish off the urchins, yah? We need to see Bounder.”
I’d seen older versions of Clubber before, cutpurses who made their living knocking people unconscious. Most of the time, their victims woke up after a couple of hours with a lump on their head and their purse missing. A few times the strike went hard and the watch was called in to investigate the death. That’s when Jeb’s fists came in handy.
Clubber was old enough and big enough that he wouldn’t be with the urchins much longer. He didn’t have a good end waiting for him.
When Clubber didn’t bother to move, Rory stepped forward, moving within reach of the taller boy’s arms, but I didn’t have any fear of Clubber doing any harm. If he tried to put one of his knockers upside Rory’s head, Bolt’s apprentice would turn him inside out before he could count to one. But that would scuttle any chance of getting to Jeb’s witness.
Clubber must have sensed something in Rory he didn’t want to see. He jerked his head in acquiescence and turned to lead the way to a building that looked a little more stable than the rest. We descended down a set of stone steps on the verge of rocking loose from their setting and into a large cellar that might have been used to store roots or even wine a couple of centuries ago.
A few urchins, nothing like the number before Bas-solas, slept in gloom alleviated by a pair of candles. Bounder stood waiting for us, his face anything but welcoming at the sight of Jeb.
“I need to see the girl again,” Jeb said.
Bounder’s smile could have frozen water. “I don’t know what trick you pulled to get her to talk to you, growler, but information has a price, and you didn’t pay it.”
This much I knew by heart from my dealings with Rory and Ilroy before him. “I’ll pay it,” I said.
Bounder laughed at me. “Well now, it’s going to cost you double, eh? Once for yourself and once for the growler there.”
I nodded. At that point I would have paid all the coin I had to get to Jeb’s witness. “Agreed.”
Bounder must have realized his mistake because his smile turned sick at the thought of the money he’d left in my purse. I needed his aid, but more importantly, I needed his goodwill. “I’ll pay you up front, Bounder, and if I find the information useful, I’ll throw in another half crown on top, but I don’t have a lot of time to waste here.”
He turned toward the exit. “We’ve got her in the lower merchants’ section today, just off the market street. We have to keep moving her. She keeps wandering into the shops and inns. The owners don’t mind her on the street, but they don’t want her begging inside.” He shook his head. “If you can call it that.”
We retraced our steps back out into the open air, and fifteen minutes later we stood in front of a girl who couldn’t have been more than six or seven. Something reached into my chest and stopped my heart at the sight of her.
I turned to Bounder, who shrugged. “We’ve never gotten a name out of her. One of the urchins called her Lytling and the name kind of stuck.”
The name meant unimportant. I couldn’t argue the interpretation, but my estimation of Bounder slipped a couple of notches. He would never be the leader Rory had been. “Disgusting,” I muttered softly, but Bounder heard me anyway.
“It’s not like she understands. She’s never answered to that or anything else.”
Lytling sat huddled on the market street, curled into a ball passersby wouldn’t notice unless they tripped over her. Dried sweat had plastered her blond hair against her skull, and her green eyes darted, her unfocused gaze landing on objects, animals, or people without finding purchase. Dirt and holes marred the simple linen shift she wore, and new cuts and old scars laced the soles of her bare feet. I’d never seen a child so utterly bereft of humanity.
Her blank gaze shifted from Bounder to survey the rest of us, sliding away as though we possessed all the animation of the buildings in the background—but when it landed on Jeb, the little girl stood. Without acknowledging she’d seen him, she rose and walked on her skinny legs to where he stood in the back of our group, staring at the ground as she tugged on his cloak.
In that instant, the barest moment it took for the chief reeve to bend down and lift the girl in his arms, I saw something blaze forth in Jeb’s face that was too bright to look at. When she nestled, squirming, into the crook of his arm, I hoped for a moment that she might speak, but she never blinked or gave any other sign of awareness.
“Greetings, little one,” he rumbled.
“This is your witness?” I asked.
He nodded. “I told you no magistrate would hear her testimony. She doesn’t speak.”
I wondered if the strain of two wars, being chief reeve, and the slaughter of Bas-solas had done so
mething to him. A lot of the veterans heard voices when they came back from the war. Sometimes they were able to ignore them until they faded, but sometimes the voices wore them down, growing louder until that’s all they heard. “What did you hear, Jeb?”
He must have caught something in my tone. “I’m not crazy, Dura. I have two witnesses who saw her being led away from the scene of the noblewoman’s murder just after it happened. She saw who did it.”
I shook my head. I’d dealt with any number of broken children and even more adults in a similar condition. Even Myle, Gael’s alchemist, as lucid as he was, would be difficult to question, and anything he told me would have to be confirmed. Lytling had retreated so far into herself, communication was impossible. I shrugged and started to peel the gloves from my hands, trying to make the motion as casual and inconspicuous as possible.
Bolt caught the movement and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Don’t bother. It’s been tried before. Children of trauma don’t store their memories the way normal people do. You won’t be able to piece anything together.”
“Is it dangerous?” I whispered back.
“No, but it’s disorienting for a while. Trust me.”
Hopeless or not, I needed to see into the child’s mind, but she recoiled from me when I took a step in her direction, and that settled the matter. I put my gloves back on. I straightened and turned back to Jeb. “I’m not saying she didn’t see it, Jeb, but how is she going to tell us about it if she won’t speak?”
A look usually reserved for proud parents dawned in Jeb’s eyes. “Watch.” He set Lytling on the ground and knelt, crouching, so that his head was on a level with hers. Reaching into his cloak, he pulled out two sheets of folded parchment and an artist’s charcoal stick. Speaking softly so that his voice sounded like the buzz of a giant bee, he put one sheet and the stick in the girl’s hands. “Little one, can you show me the person who died?”
She didn’t acknowledge Jeb in any way a normal person would, eschewing even the usual nod of the head, but after a moment she backed the parchment with the piece of wood and began a series of sweeping strokes across it in a steady hand.
Jeb straightened. “It took me a while to find the right questions—a whole week, actually. This will take a while.”
I checked the area for Servants and soldiers. “I hope we have it.”
Minutes passed as we stood just off the market street waiting for Jeb’s witness to finish her drawing. Twice I tried to sneak a peek at her parchment, but each time she would huddle over her work, blocking me.
“You’re only slowing her down, Dura,” Jeb said. “Be patient.”
After perhaps half an hour, she lifted the charcoal stick and held the parchment out to Jeb without looking at him. Jeb took it in his scarred hand, his movement as slow and gentle as any I’d ever seen. “Thank you, little one.”
The figure he showed me depicted a young woman, probably in her late teens, on the ground, her limbs splayed with her dying effort as she tried to crawl away from her own pool of blood. Lytling had shaded the eyes with the charcoal stick and I instinctively knew they had been a rich green, but they wore the horrified expression I’d seen in the war, the look of men or women who knew they were heartbeats from their last breath. Gaping cuts had sliced through the clothes, showing pale skin through the holes in the fabric. A long slice had parted the soft flesh of her throat and a trickle of blood collected into a small pool beneath on the ground. Everything from the cut of her clothes to her hair had been rendered in detail fine enough for me to recognize her if I saw her on the street.
“That’s exactly what I saw, Dura, even down to the cut of her hair,” Jeb said.
I nodded toward the girl by Jeb’s feet. “All right, she was there. How does that help us?”
Jeb knelt again as he gave Lytling the second sheet of parchment. “Little one, will you draw the person with the knife for me? The one who cut the girl?”
She paused, and I saw her eyes darting before she started drawing, her unfocused gaze appearing to stare through her makeshift canvas instead of at it. I settled myself to wait, but in half the time it took to produce the first drawing, Lytling finished, holding the second sheet out to Jeb.
“She did this for me before, Dura, but I thought you’d need to see it done,” he said, his gaze darting to Bolt then back again. “Viona was a noble’s daughter, but the castellan is out of his depth. I think this is more the kind of thing you deal with now.”
He held the sheet out for me. The likeness on the drawing wasn’t anybody I recognized, the face and hair such that he wouldn’t stand out in any kingdom of the north. But instead of drawing the entire figure, as she’d done with the victim, Lytling had sketched the barest outline of the man’s torso and left everything inside blank.
And the eyes were completely colorless, devoid of any shading at all.
I handed the drawing to Bolt. “Anyone you recognize?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Chapter 12
When we turned to leave, Lytling dropped her stick and clutched Jeb’s leg, her face still blank as the parchment she’d been given, but tremors ran up and down her arms. He snatched her up and held her close, murmuring comforts into her ear in his raspy voice.
Twice I saw him try to disengage, but each time Lytling clung to him until he relented. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been afraid of crying when I opened my mouth. The toughest man in Collum had just been completely and utterly conquered by a six-year-old orphan.
“I promise I’ll come back,” Jeb whispered into her hair. He reached up to pull one of her arms free of his neck. “I always come back.”
Lytling dove headfirst into his chest, as if she could become part of him, the charcoal stick and parchment falling to the ground.
“Why not take her with you?” Rory said.
Jeb looked at the thief, his expression filled with too many emotions to sort out, but he threw his answer at me, as if I’d laid a penance on him. “What kind of home would that be, Dura? Living with the chief reeve, a scarred soldier with a rasp for a voice?”
Rory’s question must have strengthened some resolve within him. In a single fluid motion, Jeb pulled her loose and set Lytling on the ground where she stood with her empty arms and vacant stare.
“Let’s go, Dura,” Jeb growled in time to the pops of his knuckles. “We’ve got a killer to catch. Reeve’s work is no place for a child.”
He turned away and headed back up the street, his back rigid against our condemnations or his own. Bounder took Lytling by the hand and led her back to her spot on the street, her begging bowl by her side. Before we left, Bolt put a silver half crown in it, but his motions didn’t look normal. Not quick or smooth or gifted, the way they usually looked. They looked brittle. I had no idea what memories of his son, Robin, must be going through his head. I didn’t want to know.
Bounder pocketed the coin and shook his head at Bolt’s dangerous expression. “She doesn’t really bring anything in.” He shrugged. “Whatever ends up in the bowl is gone by the time we come back for her.”
We caught up to Jeb a few seconds later, his long strides eating up the distance as if he couldn’t wait to get away, the sharp profile of his face set toward the keep like the rudder of a boat. “What kind of life would that be, eh, Dura?”
I assumed the question was rhetorical, but after another six strides Jeb turned and caught my arm in a grip that I’d feel the next day and thrust his hatchetlike face down toward mine. “Kreppa! I asked you a question. What kind of life would that be for her?”
I pulled my arm away. “Not much, Jeb.”
He gaped at me as if I’d punched him in the gut, but I didn’t stop there.
“What do you want me to say, Jeb? That you’d be the world’s best father? That a reeve with a voice like a saw going through wood could raise a little girl and love her like a real parent?” I swallowed against what I was about to say. “Do you really think someone who uses their
fists for a living could be gentle and kind enough to love a child who’s so broken she can’t even speak?” I yelled.
I saw Jeb clench his fist as my words punched a hole through the armor he wore and into his heart. Any second now, he’d take a swing that would put me down for half a day, if I was lucky. I took a breath, met the passion of his gaze with as much as I could muster of my own. “Well, I think so,” I said.
He spun away from me almost before I caught a glimpse of his face crumpling. We watched him sprint back to Lytling, his strides eating the ground, and scoop her into his arms. Even from here we could hear him uttering comforts to Lytling as he stroked her hair.
He didn’t make any move to rejoin us, and the clock in my head told me I’d run out of time. By now the men Jeb had put down would have woken up from their involuntary slumber and notified the Chief of Servants of my absence. She’d have me hauled in and questioned. Of course, she’d probably offer me a cup of tea before she made my life unpleasant. Servants were unfailingly polite, no matter the circumstances.
What I needed was my independence, and being escorted everywhere by a quartet of brown-robed guards who didn’t even bother to carry swords didn’t qualify. If I could get to Custos, I might be able to give the Chief of Servants enough information to convince her to let me keep my freedom.
We moved off the main thoroughfare and came back to the Merum cathedral using the side streets, sneaking into the library before the swarm of brown-robed priests across the way could see us. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they won’t think to look here,” I said.
“You don’t strike me as the lucky type,” Bolt said.
Given the events of the last few months, I was hardly in a position to argue.
“We have a saying in the urchins,” Rory said. “‘A man makes his luck.’”
“I like that one,” Bolt said. “We’ll probably have occasion to use it again.” He regarded his student with something more than just his usual professional interest. “Do you have any more sayings?”
The Shattered Vigil Page 11