Nate still felt a bit weak, but he invited her inside. She would not sit down. Unbending and severe, she held out her hand. In her outstretched palm he saw too-smooth skin left by a nasty burn, or many nasty burns. On top of it rested the coins he’d given Bindy. “Take them back,” she said without preamble. “You’ll not buy clothes for my child, magus or no.”
“I’m just an apprentice,” Nate said automatically. He made no move to take the coins.
“I know what you are.” Her tone was bristling and rigid. “Everyone says you’re a good man. They say, oh, Nora, Gate Magus wouldn’t do anything bad. Gate Magus goes all the way down. But I know people like you. I know how the world is. I do honest work. My two oldest girls do honest work and my son does, too inside. We don’t do it so Belinda can be bought dresses by the likes of you.”
Nate realized what she thought. He took a step back, lifting his hands up as if to show that there were no weapons in them; but he wasn’t being accused of hurting Bindy with a weapon. “You’ve got me wrong. She’s running errands for me, that’s all. Making deliveries. If she’s better dressed—”
“She’s dressed just fine for Marketside.” The woman—Nora—dropped the coins on the table. “Anywhere wants her dressed better is somewhere she doesn’t need to be.” She turned to leave.
“Then take her to work at the factory with you,” he said.
She stopped. All Nate could see of her was her back. The thin fabric of her dress was worn gray over her shoulder blades. One shoulder in particular; she probably wore something slung over it while she worked. A tool belt or a bag of supplies. He’d seen factory workers who walked with a permanent list from years spent that way. “You won’t,” he said, talking fast. “You wouldn’t. You sent your son inside, where you’ll never see him again, to keep him out of that factory. I’ve heard what they’re like. Working through the night, grabbing a few hours’ sleep before the foreman wakes you up—no breaks, no food, no clean water. You didn’t want that life for him.”
She didn’t answer.
“Is he smart, too?” Nate said. “Because Bindy is. And you know it.”
Then, finally, she swiveled. Her face was proud. “All of my children are smart.”
“Smart enough to know where they’re safe and where they’re not?”
“Smart enough to know who decides when they’re safe,” she snapped back.
“And who will that be, when she’s back and forth across Brakeside, running messages for anyone with a coin?” he said. “When I send her out on an errand, she’s under my protection. Which may not be much, but it’s better than nothing.”
Teeth clenched, she said, “And who protects her from you?”
“She doesn’t need protection from me,” he said. “I would never harm her.”
“You say that now. Then later it’ll be, ‘Well, now, that wasn’t harm, exactly.’ But it’s my Belinda who has to live with what you don’t call harm.” She spoke flatly, but with absolute conviction, and Nate knew that as far as she was concerned, every word she spoke was the unconditional truth. But it was not his truth, and in that moment, he determined that it would not be Bindy’s, either.
“I swear to you,” he said, “I intend her no harm and no ill, by anyone’s definition. Not yours and not my own.”
Nora’s eyes narrowed. “Swear it on your blood, magus. And I warn you, I may be poor, but I am not friendless.”
He understood the threat in the words. In all of the cities and towns and villages he’d visited, those who had no recourse to official justice made their own. “On my blood,” he said, which was a direr oath for him than it was for her, because blood was everything to the Slonimi, and they did not waste it.
Nora watched him, considering. “She comes home every night,” she said finally. “Even when I’m working, there’s those who’ll watch for her, and I’ll know.”
“Of course.”
“And you don’t feed her. She eats at home. Not here.” She looked pointedly at the shelves visible through the open lab door, with their jars of herbs and powders. Nate nodded. She said, “Where’s the old one, whose manor this is?”
“Upstairs. He’s ill.”
“That one wouldn’t notice Bindy long enough to kick her out of his way. What happens when he gets better?”
He won’t. But the words that came out of his mouth were Caterina’s. “Wood’ll burn when the match strikes.”
Her chest twitched in a silent laugh. “You’re no courtier, magus or no. Why waste your time here, with them?”
“It’s not the courtiers I care about,” he said truthfully.
“So I hear.” She gave him a long, measuring look. “You keep your word to me, Gate Magus. I lost one child to those people. I won’t lose another.”
The next day Bindy was back, in a dour black dress and a pair of reassuringly solid-looking boots. She also wore a happy grin, though, and for a moment he imagined Bindy as she might have been in the caravans, where life wasn’t perfect but at least there was sunshine most of the time. “Magus, you’re magic,” she said, and grinned with delight. “Magic Magus. That’s what we’ll call you from now on, won’t we, Canty?” She bounced her brother on her hip.
“What have I done that’s so magical?” he said.
She widened her eyes at him in mock awe. “Only crossed swords with Ma and won, that’s all. Ask around about Nora Dovetail, and see how many people can say the same!”
“She was just worried about her daughter,” Nate said. “I pointed out that the daughter in question was sharp as a tack and plenty smart enough to take care of herself.” Not that the conversation had been about Bindy’s intelligence, which would not necessarily have protected her from the harm Nora feared—but close enough.
“The daughter in question.” Bindy laughed. “Well, the daughter in question would like to know if the Magic Magus likes her dress?” She made a passable curtsy.
“Not especially. I think the courtiers will, though.”
“Only because it makes me look like I don’t ever have any fun at all, and they don’t think poor people have a right to any fun.” But the somber fabric was thick and well-woven, and Bindy’s eyes shone with satisfaction. “Won’t give them a thing to sneer at, though.”
“I’m sorry if people have been sneering at you,” Nate said softly. “I didn’t think.”
“They’re courtiers. Sneering is what they do. I’d rather they sneer than—anyway, I wouldn’t be one if I could, would you? Not for all their pretty clothes.”
“Not if you paid me. Bindy, how many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Four sisters, two brothers. Counting the one inside. I never met him, but he sends letters.”
“How many are—” He tried to think of a gentle way to say it, but then decided that kind of gentleness probably wasn’t needed, with Bindy. “How many are alive?”
“Those are the ones who are alive,” she said cheerfully. “All the others were just wee little babies. So where am I off to today, Magic Magus?”
* * *
Arkady was ill enough to die. One last, slightly larger dose of poison would push him over the edge. Nate even had the large dose prepared, in a vial in the lab, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to administer it. Which was illogical; it wasn’t any less murder if he drew it out. But somehow there was a difference between giving the old man small doses of poison that would kill him eventually and one large dose of poison that would kill him in an hour. Also, the dose was too large to hide in a cup of tea—there wouldn’t be enough volume to mask the taste—so it would have to go in the soup, and Bindy brought the soup. She bought it from a woman by Harteswell Gate who boiled it down thick. Nate paid for it (well, Arkady did) but it had been Bindy’s idea; the brothmaker was apparently legendary in Marketside, and Bindy’s faith in the restorative powers of the golden liquid was obvious.
She was proud that she’d thought to suggest the soup, and even prouder that Nate had taken her advice.
Nate couldn’t bring himself to use Bindy’s soup to kill Arkady. He also hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. The old man was fading fast. Each day, he spoke less and less. On a night when he was feeling talkative, he said, “I hear you downstairs. Treating rabble. And that girl. Courtiers are where the money is. Don’t neglect them. They need to be fussed over. Call on them, if they don’t call on you.” Then, plaintively, “Surely they ask after me.”
“Not really.” Nate shoved a spoonful of broth into Arkady’s mouth. “The old men, sometimes, but the young ones, almost never. And none of the women.” Another spoonful. “The women really seem to hate you.”
The old man made an unpleasant noise. Maybe it was supposed to be a laugh. “They need me. They know it. They resent it. Magus has power, boy. He can give help, or he can withhold it.”
Nate put the spoon down. “What do you mean, withhold help?”
“Little minxes want to play.” Arkady’s eyes glittered. “Don’t necessarily want the get that comes of it, though. So they come to me. Some, I help. Others, maybe not. Maybe it’s the Seneschal’s say-so. Make their life not so easy for a while. Stop a marriage, push a divorce. Or maybe he wants me to give them something different, so they’ll never catch—a family getting a little too powerful, say. Or maybe they’re just brats who deserve to be dropped down a peg.” Arkady drew in a long, wheezing breath. “They get desperate, you know. Desperate can be very interesting in a lady courtier. So they hate me. So what. Doesn’t stop them begging when they need my help. Good for them to beg. Keeps them in their places.”
Nate picked up the spoon again. “You’re a terrible person,” he said, and slid more broth into the old man’s mouth.
Arkady swallowed most of it. A dribble ran down his chin. “Disapprove all you like, but when the Seneschal comes, you do as he says. Lord Elban might choose the road, but it’s the Seneschal at the reins. When I’m up and well again—”
“You’re not going to be up and well again,” Nate said. “You’re dying.”
“Bah.”
Nate stood up. The bowl was still half-full but he was suddenly sick of the room, of the smells of medicine and piss and the labored sound of the old man’s breathing. “I don’t think the world will find it much of a loss.”
Downstairs, Vertus sat at the kitchen table. “How is he?” he said.
“Dying.”
Vertus didn’t say anything. Nate washed the bowl and spoon in the basin, conscious of the servingman’s eyes following him and hoping he wouldn’t notice the careful way Nate used his right hand, to keep the springknife dry. The room was filled with the kind of silence where every breath and movement felt magnified, momentous. He felt like he was onstage. It was always that way before trouble, in a field or a tavern or a kitchen off Limley Square. Caterina said it was a gift passed down from generations long dead, from ancestors who’d survived nights full of teeth.
He dried the bowl and put it back on the shelf. Not to let himself be knocked down: that was important. He put his back to the counter, bracing himself against it. He waited.
Finally, Vertus said, “How long?”
“A day or two. Maybe more. It’s hard to know.”
“Easier some times than others, I’d guess.”
“Well, yes,” Nate said dryly. Considering what Vertus might know. “I could predict his time of death with amazing accuracy if he had a knife in his throat.”
Vertus smiled. “Doesn’t he?”
“Not last time I saw him, no.”
Vertus stared at Nate, and Nate pretended not to be unnerved. “I just think it’s strange,” Vertus said. “He’s old as rocks, but he’s always been healthy, as long as I’ve known him. Until you show up. Then suddenly, he’s dying.”
“Old men die.”
“Guess so. Guess nobody’s safe. Not even the most successful magus in the city, with a manor in Porterfield and the trust of the Seneschal himself. Not even Elban’s House Magus, huh?”
“You die in the skin you wear when you’re born,” Nate said, shrugging.
Vertus nodded. “Must be tough, being a young magus just in from the provinces. Hard to make a name for yourself. You might have to treat street people, in secret, just to get your name out. And getting in with the courtiers—that’d be damn near impossible.” The teeth were showing, now. Vertus leaned forward, his huge bulk shifting toward Nate. “Guess that’s why you apprentice yourself out. Find an old man with a solid name. Let him introduce you to the courtiers, get you inside the Wall. Then—” he spread out his hands, either of which could cover Nate’s entire face with room left over “—who knows? Maybe he’ll get sick. Maybe he’ll die. Maybe you can step into his place. The courtiers, the Seneschal, the nice manor.”
Too late, Nate tried to remember when he’d last oiled the catch on his springknife. There’d been that blizzard in Butantown; they’d been trapped in the tavern for a week with nothing to do but go over and over their plan, over and over their supplies. Charles had oiled his knife then. Nate couldn’t remember if he’d done the same, or just watched.
Vertus stood up. “Think I’ll go check on him,” he said, and began to climb the stairs.
Nate flexed his wrist. The steel blade popped out smoothly, with a faint click. He slid it back into place and followed after Vertus.
Upstairs, in the sickroom, Arkady was as Nate had left him: motionless, breathing loudly. When the two men entered the room, he barely moved. In a thin, creaky voice, he said, “What?”
Vertus stood by the bed. Nate tried to read his face but there was nothing there. “You’re dying.”
Arkady’s lip curled. He said something obscene.
“I don’t believe in ghosts and such,” Vertus said. “I think dead’s dead. But you never know, do you?” He jerked his head toward Nate. “This one’s poisoning you. I fed some of your tea to a stray dog and, well, there you go.”
Arkady’s eyes went wide. He began struggling, futilely, to sit up.
Vertus picked up a pillow. “Never liked poison much myself. Cowardly. But I thought you should know, just in case dead’s not dead. He’s the murderer, not me. I’m the one doing you a kindness.” Then he pressed the pillow down over Arkady’s face.
Arkady kicked desperately at the bed, fighting for leverage. The old hands clawed at his wrist; the thin body bucked. But even healthy, Arkady could not have fought back against a man Vertus’s size. Vertus, holding him down, wasn’t even breathing hard. The air in Nate’s own lungs was suddenly as useless as if it were his face the pillow covered. Fists jammed tightly in the pockets of his coat, he stood and watched Vertus kill the old man, and was he glad? Was he relieved not to have the death completely on his own conscience? Was he, as Vertus had suggested, a coward?
He made himself watch every moment, every kick and every flail, until they slowed, and finally stopped.
Vertus stayed where he was, bent over the bed, his full weight on the pillow.
Nate leaned against the wall, his knees weak. “Is he gone?”
“Not yet. It takes longer than you’d think.”
They waited. This silence, too, was all-consuming; but it was companionable, shared between them.
Finally, Vertus stood up and tossed the pillow aside. “He’ll have fouled himself. They always do,” he said. Then he went downstairs. Arkady’s open eyes were fixed on the ceiling. His face was slack, as if he were asleep, except that he was very clearly dead. Nate drew down the eyelids and pushed the old man’s jaw up to close his mouth; it instantly fell open again. A moment later Vertus returned with a small prybar. Nate watched as the servingman—former servingman, he corrected—broke open the chest in the corner. Inside were half a dozen or so small bags, sewn out of thick dun-colored cloth. Nate knew each one was full of gold.
They vanished into Vertus’s pockets, one by one. The last one wouldn’t fit so Vertus tied it onto his belt.
“Would you have done it anyway?” Nate said.
Vertus shrugged. “I’m not a murderer, but I’m not a fool, either. I know an opportunity when it comes knocking. This way, I get my share.”
“I didn’t do it for the money.”
Vertus took Arkady’s watch from the nightstand and slipped it into his pocket. “Not my business what you did it for. I’m glad to have known you these past few months, magus.” There was an unpleasant stress on the title that Nate didn’t like. “Seems to me we’ll keep friendly in the future. A thing like this—it binds men together, doesn’t it?” He glanced at the dead man on the bed and left.
So that would be the way of it. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Nate left the dead man gaping at the ceiling and went downstairs to the parlor. Vertus had taken Arkady’s brandy, but left the goblets and the silver tray that sat underneath—valuable, doubtless, but also bulky. Nate brought the tray and his satchel out into the garden. He took a small knife out of the satchel; the springknife was for stabbing and slashing, not the delicate cuts of the Work. The night was clear and moonless. In the spectral light from the stars he could barely see the knife’s edge. He reopened the wound Derie had left on his arm by feel and collected the blood in a black pool on the tray. He didn’t need much, just enough to spread into a thin layer with the heel of his good hand. Quickly, before it got sticky, he drew Derie’s sigil; hesitated a moment, then added Charles’s.
The Work would have been easier in moonlight. Something about the moon and blood and the ocean: if a full moon shone on the blood, the Work was clearer, just as the rest of the world was. Everybody Nate had ever known described the Work in a different way—although these were uncomfortable conversations, never easy, like talking about sex; despite its communal nature the Work felt very private—and to Nate it felt like moving stacks of books to find the one he wanted. He even got a dull ache at the base of his spine sometimes, the way he had when he’d helped Caterina empty out their wagon for cleaning. He found Derie instantly; Charles came more slowly, as if he’d been asleep. Derie was rustling around in his head, as crude as Vertus in Arkady’s wardrobe. Bringing out Arkady’s graying face, his blueish lips.
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