Steelhands

by Danielle Bennett

  I shifted impatiently, like my girl when I’d told her we had a long night ahead of us, but I knew Luvander was right. I knew we were right, too, about th’Esar having something up his ermine sleeve, but moving without proof too soon might mean we’d never get another chance later.

  I just couldn’t stop thinking about Proudmouth and the others, or what Rook must’ve seen there in the desert. If th’Esar was thinking he could get someone else to fly my girl …

  “I’m not good at sitting around on my ass when there’s work to be done,” I said finally, the sound of my own voice drowning out too much heavy thinking. “I’ll be the first to admit it.”

  Balfour let out a chuckle, then promptly looked horrified when we both looked around at him at the same time, like he hadn’t realized we could hear him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, still smiling, “that wasn’t—I wasn’t laughing at you at all. I was just thinking that so much of diplomacy is sitting around and waiting to take action. I believe I’ve inadvertently been training for something like this all along.”

  “You’ll have to share your secrets,” I told him, just a little proud in the midst of being irritated as a mule in fly season.

  “I think I’ll write to Ghislain,” Luvander pitched in, tapping his index finger against the table. “I’d been meaning to do it anyway, and this seems like the sort of thing he’d want to be here for. Of course, I haven’t any idea where he is or how long it’d take him to haul up the anchor and sail home, but it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Who knows where the winds will take him.”

  “About putting all that stuff in a letter,” I started, being sensitive about that particular way of conveying information.

  Luvander scoffed, pushing his chair back from the table with a loud scrape. “If that was the only way I had of getting Ghislain to come back to Thremedon, do you think I’d ever see him at all? I have considerably more wiles in my arsenal than you give me credit for. I’m going to tell him that Balfour is taking regular meetings with the Esarina and I think that they’re carrying on an affair, but I need him to come back so we can squeeze the information out of him properly. Can’t do that without one man to hold and the other to tickle.”

  Balfour blanched, the smile wiped clean from his face. I’d caught the boys doing that to him once, though I’d put a stop to it by telling them they were acting like schoolboys in love. At least, that particular torture was ended, anyway.

  “Don’t you think that might also be considered … well, slightly provocative information, if someone else should open the letter?” Balfour finally asked.

  “You’re confusing gossip with treason,” Luvander said, tugging his scarf up again. “When people read about an affair, the first thing they do is tell their neighbor, not th’Esar. And who wants to be the one to tell th’Esar his wife’s been stepping out on him with a younger man? No, thank you! But, if it makes you feel better, I won’t use your name.”

  “Oh, much better,” Balfour said, with a hint of the brand-new edge he’d shown us earlier.

  “Ghislain or no,” I said, steering the conversation back around with as much difficulty as I’ve ever had with Proudmouth when the sky started getting fire-crazy, “we sit on this until th’Esar gives us reason to do otherwise. We keep our eyes open, Luvander rakes in all the gossip, and we don’t do anything stupid. At least not straightaway. Agreed?”

  “Of course,” Luvander agreed, as Balfour nodded beside him. “In strict confidence, I’m more concerned with what comes after that point.”

  To be honest, so was I.

  TOVERRE

  As much as I loathed the entire concept of a physician’s checkup—and I did, with both body and soul—I was beginning to feel that there was some personal slight in their choosing to overlook me. I’d had an initial appointment along with several other members of our dormitory floor, but they hadn’t even so much as drawn my blood! Rather I’d merely been asked about my medical history and summarily sent on my way. If that was to be the standard of care for those of us at the ’Versity, I was going to be sorely disappointed. It was practically no better than home.

  Gaeth had been to at least two by my count, and Laure had returned from her first last week, only to be summoned back almost immediately.

  “They probably just want to give me my blood back,” she’d told me, the image very nearly making me sick. “I’ll keep it in a little locket, like a lover’s trinket.”

  All these trips to the physician were leaving me on my own with nothing to do and no one to talk to. I’d given up my trips along the Rue to follow Hal—that affair, it seemed, was doomed before it ever began—and Gaeth was as elusive as marsh fog, which had always disappointed me as a child for its ability to disappear right when you thought you’d caught up to it. I’d stopped by his room on multiple occasions to try to return the gloves he’d given me—surely his “mam” was suffering from very cold hands indeed, by now—but every time I’d knocked, there had only been silence. I’d even had Laure try it once or twice, so I knew he wasn’t avoiding me.

  In the absence of her and Gaeth, there was no one in the first-year dormitory building who warranted any real or prolonged conversation, and not just because none of them seemed interested in talking to me.

  If Laure was sick, then I was going to have to write home to my mother for reinforcements just to make sure she was taking care of herself properly. My Laure was the kind of person who’d walk outside in a snowstorm when she was running a fever just to cool down a bit, and she’d end up winning a few snowball fights with the local farmhands in the meantime just because she didn’t like staying indoors.

  I looked out the window and cast my gaze onto the all-too-familiar and now-quite-dreary sight of the ’Versity Stretch in awful, never-ending winter. It was going to either snow or rain, because gray clouds had gathered above the buildings, casting everything in a miserable light. On the street below, men and women were hurrying to get their business over with before the storm began.

  I did hope Laure wasn’t caught in it on her way back.

  She never took an umbrella with her anywhere she went, much less a parasol, and her new coat would be absolutely soaked in a winter storm. My father and her father would both be very distressed indeed if I failed to protect my fiancée from the dangers of city life—even though I’d been doing my best with what little I could, and, though they didn’t know this, it was more often Laure who protected me than the other way around.

  Lost in my idle thoughts, I didn’t hear the knock on the door—at least, I assumed there must have been one I missed—as a moment later Laure burst into the room, hair frazzled and coat undone.

  “Don’t feel well,” she said.

  A moment after that, she was sick all over my floor.

  In the chaos that followed I managed, most bravely, to keep my wits about me. Nor did I panic, though I wanted to. I moved as in some kind of dream—or some kind of nightmare—guiding Laure from the doorway to my bed, avoiding the site of the mess completely.

  I knew, of course, that no one who worked in the building would come to help me clean any of this up because in this place no one ever saw fit to clean anything. It was a losing battle, one that would require constant work and round-the-clock vigilance, and we were only simple students. It was up to me to make this better, as quickly and as quietly as possible.

  I didn’t want to make Laure feel bad for having done it, now did I? Nor did I want any of it seeping into the floorboards.

  Laure curled up in my bed and I closed the door, leaning back against it to gather my strength. Then I put on my two oldest pairs of gloves, one on top of the other—one couldn’t be too careful when it came to this sort of thing—and began to clean the floor with a mop and bucket I’d bought from the local bits-and-bats shop on the corner, for exactly this kind of unforeseen tragedy.

  “Sorry ’bout the mess,” Laure moaned from the bed.

  I closed my eyes, resigning myself to opening a window—
for the smell, of course—which would let all the cold air in. And it was nearly impossible to build up any kind of warmth in my room, especially after the sun set.

  “Don’t think about it for a second longer,” I said, trying to sound soothing and instead sounding strained. “You aren’t feeling well. What did the physicians say? Please take my mind off this awful task.”

  “Didn’t say anything,” Laure replied. I heard her shifting in the bed, and when I looked back at her, she’d pulled the covers up over her head. The rest of her reply came out muffled, and I had to strain to hear it. “Didn’t tell me I was sick or anything, just sent me on my way and told me to come back next week.”

  “What incompetents,” I said, feeling extremely indignant. “I’ll … I’ll write to your father at once.”

  “Bastion, Toverre, don’t do that,” Laure replied. “I don’t want him worrying for nothing, or thinking I can’t take care of myself.”

  “Nonsense,” I said. “This is hardly nothing.”

  “Just felt a little dizzy, that’s all,” Laure insisted. “Bet I don’t even have a fever.”

  With great care, I peeled my gloves off my hands and dropped them into the bucket, along with the rest of the mess I’d managed to clean up. It was all garbage now; I could never look at them again, much less wear them, without being reminded of this awful event. I crossed the room to open the window by the bed just a bare inch, then sat down on the mattress beside Laure, hesitating before I peeled the blanket back.

  Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. She looked for all the world as though she’d caught whatever fever Gaeth had been suffering from when last we’d met him. Which, bastion help us all, meant I was bound to catch it next.

  I pressed the back of my hand against her brow the way my mother had when I was sick—and I’d been a sickly child, suffering every winter for months without fail. If I was to become ill with this disease, then I’d likely caught it already, and there was no further use in being careful. Besides which, Laure’s health was currently more important. She was the one who was suffering.

  “You most certainly do have a fever,” I told her. I managed to gentle myself, as I knew—sometimes—my attitude was what some might consider abrasive. “Is there anything I can get for you? A glass of water, perhaps?”

  “Sure,” Laure said. “But get that bucket of my stink out of here first. I know you’re dying to.”

  “Dying” being the operative word, I thought but didn’t say, as that would have been cruel. Laure was rarely ever sick—I could only remember her having a fever once, and we’d known each other practically since birth. It must have been very awful indeed if it managed to catch her unawares.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told her, patting her on the shoulder. I cleverly fashioned a mask for myself out of one of her scarves; I also took her gloves, so that I could permit myself to touch the handle of the bucket.

  It swayed sickeningly when I picked it up, and I kept my eyes fixed resolutely ahead of me, so that I would not be drawn in by morbid fascination and accidentally look down. This was the stuff of which nightmares were made. I had no desire to torture myself further than I was already being tortured.

  To my great relief, the hall in the first-year dormitory was blessedly empty of my raucous peers, each under the impression that his or her importance lay in direct correlation with how much noise they were able to make. While I was attempting to study, or while I was attempting to sleep, no one else’s comfort seemed to matter much to my fellow dorm mates. Not when they could organize a rousing indoor ball game, with the corridors as grounds, and kicking the ball up the staircases the ultimate goal. Laure thought it good fun, but the first time I’d opened my door to see what all the commotion was, I’d been hit in the head with the puffed-up leather balloon, which was generally how these games always ended—or apparently began—for someone like me.

  When all their fun was brought to an end by the inevitable broken neck, I could only hope that the ’Versity authorities would see an opportunity to take the matter in hand. Until then, I would have to suffer bravely through the noise of a leather ball smacking against the walls and sometimes even my door at all hours of the day and night.

  The temptation to find the bastion-blasted thing and puncture it with a knife was beginning to overwhelm me. I made it down the stairs and to the disposal unit around back without becoming ill, though I tossed the bucket into the garbage whole, choosing to forgo the more thrifty approach of dumping the contents out and keeping the apparatus itself for further use. There was another bucket in my room, which I used to store my cleaning supplies, and if Laure found herself in dire need, I would simply have to sacrifice it to the greater good.

  One could always buy another bucket.

  On my way to her room, I found myself walking by Gaeth’s door—he was two rooms away from mine, the one just above Laure’s. I moved past it, then stopped and retraced my steps, staring at the number by the knob.

  In addition to his curious elusiveness within the dormitory halls, I hadn’t seen him attending lectures alongside the rest of the crowd in at least two days. It was possible that, in certain lectures, my ill-advised infatuation with Hal had given me a kind of tunnel vision, blocking out all distractions for the purpose of my private study, but Gaeth wasn’t the easiest person to miss. In fact, he rather stuck out from the crowd though not always for reasons that were particularly flattering. As much as I’d tried to stop myself from noticing him, I’d found it to be a nearly insurmountable task. Since I’d never had such trouble with my focus before, I was forced to assume that it had something to do with him. Some stubborn flaw in his nature that was affecting me poorly, like a winter’s wind stripping the paint from a house.

  He’d had this fever—though mercifully, he’d never vomited in my presence—and as such, he might have some helpful information, perhaps as to what balms would soothe Laure’s symptoms and whether there was any medicine I needed to purchase for her at the apothecary to bring the fever down. I’d even have settled for a rough estimation of how much vomiting I could expect, if only because I was going to run out of buckets very shortly and would have to purchase more before the shops all closed for the night.

  If only another trash pail had been what was jammed into my chimney flue, I thought. It would have made life seem considerably less cruel and random, if only for a moment.

  Despite the rising sense of futility I was beginning to associate with dormitory life, I tugged Laure’s scarf down from my face and knocked sharply on Gaeth’s door. For added effect, I imagined I was rapping on his head. For all his good manners, he didn’t seem to understand how rude it was to make someone worry after you this way.

  Nothing but silence greeted me.

  I even leaned in, as close as I could manage without actually allowing the old door with its gray, flaking paint to touch my cheek. Something creaked, but it was only the stairwell behind me moaning from all its regular abuse. After I’d counted to ten—forward and backward—I decided I’d been quite generous enough with my time.

  “Ho, Laure’s friend,” someone called from behind me.

  It was a girl, coming up the stairs, and a boy behind her, both of them dark-haired and dressed for walking in the cold. They were carrying shopping bags and had—for reasons that I couldn’t possibly fathom—chosen to engage me instead of passing me by to reach their respective lodgings.

  “Are you looking for Gaeth?” the girl asked. It was she who’d called out to me, which was odd, since I hadn’t been aware Laure had been cultivating any female friendships. She usually had difficulties with that; they were so often jealous of her attributes.

  “Just thought I’d see if he was in,” I explained, experiencing a slight moment of panic. I had to fetch Laure’s water and give it to her, then head to the apothecary and write to Mother—and what was more, I was certain that I had nothing at all to say to these people, who clearly didn’t even know me by name. Idle conversation would be a
waste of time, and an awkward one.

  “He hasn’t been in for days,” the boy said, scratching his head underneath the wool cap he wore. His hair poked out from under the brim in stiff peaks. “Been looking for him to get a bit of a ball game going, but I haven’t been able to find him. Not in the morning or at night, which just seems rude, don’t it?”

  “Maybe he has a girlfriend in the city,” the girl said, tugging at the boy’s scarf. It seemed a very stupid suggestion to me, but I thought of Laure and their friendship and managed to keep my mouth firmly shut.

  “Not likely,” the boy snorted. He looked past me toward Gaeth’s door and shrugged. “Bet he went home or something. Couldn’t take the city. All those fevers, all the time. You wouldn’t think a guy with that many physicians’ appointments would end up sick, but there ya go. Thought he’d last a little longer, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “Oh, don’t talk about it. I’ve got mine next week,” the girl said, shivering dramatically for her companion’s sake. He stepped closer to her. If he hadn’t been carrying so many bags, I would have wagered he’d have put an arm around her, as well.

  “It’s just a little needle,” the boy said, shaking his head.

  “It is really very large,” I blurted out, because it seemed like the proper time for a contribution to the conversation.

  “It’s not that bad,” the boy said.

  “He says that, but he fainted clean away once he got back to the dorms,” the girl confided in me, lowering her voice, even though it was impossible to imagine he wouldn’t overhear her. “I couldn’t wake him up at all until dinner.”

  “Did he vomit?” I asked.

  The girl shook her head. “But he looked like he was going to.”

  “That’s enough outta you,” the boy said, scowling and starting off down the hall once again, dragging his friend along with him. “Lemme know if you see Gaeth, though. Tell him the sides are all uneven without him and Thib’s looking for him. Okay?”