She said nothing.
“I hid you when they burned ma,” he said, “I’ve escaped with you in every city. I can get us some money. I’ll go get us some money. Untie me, and let me get us some money. I always find a way to take care of us.”
“Please, Djoss…” she said. That’s all she said. It rained on and off all night. The mud was all over their cloaks and clothes. No one could tell Rachel was a Senta from her clothes because the red X she had sewn on Lady Joni’s cheap dress, getting leather over the cloth that would wear through, was smothered in thick, black mud. She was just another body sleeping in the street.
Before the sunlight returned, they both fell asleep in the mud. When they woke they felt the wet stink of it pressing into their skin through their clothes.
Rachel left Djoss there in the morning. When he woke up, bound and alone, he assumed that was going to be it for them, and he’d never see her again.
And, he was glad for her, even if he wanted to die because of it.
CHAPTER 10
As wolves we ran, and as wolves we slipped underground.
We are hunters.
We hunt.
We slid up from the sewers, and we stood upon the brink of our destination, where the sewers opened to the empty building of the street, at the edge of our destination.
Aggie knew the way in and out, and so did Jona following Salvatore and Aggie, and so, therefore, did we.
We slipped inside in the dark. We climb in silence past the rectory kitchen, up the stairs and into the darkness.
Wolves slipped into the rooms, sniffing through them all for the woman who is old enough to be in charge.
We peeled back the wolfskin. We looked at her sleeping. She snored gently. She was a thin woman with blue veins like rivers in her wet parchment map of skin. She looked up at us, and pulled the ragged sheets around her body, pulling back.
She reminded me of another woman.
“We are the Walkers of Erin,” I said. “We have been hunting the demon stain.”
“What are you doing here? This is not the proper channels!”
“The proper channels are too corrupted,” I said. “Do you remember Aggie?”
“Of course I do! It was one of the worst things that’s ever happened in my life, signing off on her! Where were you? Where was your huntress in the night?”
I placed the papers at the foot of her bed.
“We need your help,” I said. I bowed gracefully. “The children of Erin beseech your aid, madame Imamite, against our common enemy.”
“And… who is our enemy?”
“Elishta,” I said.
“Naturally, but who else? Who has brought you crawling here for my help saying proper channels are corrupted?”
“We need to see the king,” I said.
She picked up the papers and shook them. She flipped through them. “Do I even want to know the details?”
I shrugged. “Copies have been made. We want you to make copies, too. Everyone must know the truth. Spread them to every convent, every prayer hall and sanctuary. Tell anyone that listens. This is why we came to you, to be sure you receive the truth directly. Read it from every street corner. Send it to every library, every scholar, every speaker.”
She pushed the paper back to me. “Stay for breakfast. Stay here. No one will know if you remain among the Anchorites a day. There is no contact with the outside world in here. We receive shipments in silence and veiled from one gate. We do not let our girls wander the streets wagging tongues.”
I shook my head. “Aggie was not supposed to leave your gates, either.”
“She was a demon child. Who knows what evil magic she used to escape us.”
“You should read those,” said my husband. “Send your people to us when you’re ready to aid us. We need an audience with the king.”
She put them on the ground. “I should have you arrested. It is illegal for a man to invade our convent. We are allies in this world but not the next.”
“Elishta is our enemy in both,” said my husband. “Our faiths are practical enough when it comes to that.” He pulled the wolf skin back over his back, and stretched, menacingly flashing fangs. He was ready to leave. So was I.
The Anchorite nodded. She took a deep breath. She picked up the pages. “Go, then. I will make my own decisions about what you have brought to me.”
We bowed.
Our next destination was a nobleman whose son was murdered and thrown into the water. We were going to offer him the whole kingdom. All he had to do was be ready to act when the time came to stop Sabachthani.
He would help us. Of course he would help us. He was weeping about his son when we handed him the truth. We told him what happened, and what vengeance he could take. We told him that we had chosen his noble line to support when the king died, and our support came with knowledge of his enemies.
Imam’s priests would fall in line with us, and with him.
Everyone will know. Everything hidden comes to the light. This is the revolution: No one can pretend they do not know. The Sabachthani hold on this city will crumble at the word of truth. There are faithful in this city who would fight back. There are men and women who would relish the chance to pull the Sabachthani down.
We spread these words to every street corner, every one in the city. We got the idea from Calipari and the crowns. He did it to put out the fire. We did it to start one.
***
Jona leaned against the door. “You’ve been gone,” he said.
She pushed him hard. He didn’t expect that at all. He fell back, stumbled a little, and collapsed onto a small table against the foyer wall.
Rachel was smothered in black mud. Only her green eyes gleamed through to reveal her face. Rachel raised balls of ice in her hand like she was going to throw them. Fire popped in the air like exploding fireflies.
Jona smirked. “Rachel, I’ve been worried,” said Jona. “What in bloody Elishta are you doing?”
Rachel stopped. Her throat clenched with crying. The ice dropped. “I wanted to rob you.”
Jona snatched her wrists from the air. He pulled the filthy things to his lips. He kissed first the left wrist, then the right. He wiped his dirty lips off on his sleeve.
“I’m trying to rob you, Jona,” she said. She kicked at his shins.
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in close. “You could just ask for help,” he said.
“Please, Jona!” said Rachel. She was crying now. “I don’t want this!”
“Calmly, Rachel,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her. She collapsed into him. He held her up, and the mud everywhere was a gritty, hard thing to hold, worse than jagged scales.
She pushed him off. “Jona, please.”
She looked away from him. He pressed his lips into the mud across her cheek. “I won’t let him go. I won’t.”
“Djoss?” Jona tried to go for the other side.
She let him kiss her there, too, and kept looking away from him.
She was disgusted and impatient. “He’s my whole life. I won’t let him go, Jona.”
Jona leaned back. He tried to get eye contact. “Your brother fell into the pinks,” he said, “I told you about that.” He let his forehead fall into hers. She had no choice. She had to look into his eyes. “Come on, you can take a bath and get some food. My mother went to work already. She won’t be back until sunset.”
“Are you on duty today?”
“No. I’m off today. It’s Adventday soon. It’s off day today so I can work Adventday. I should be at temple, if I went to such things.”
“Jona…”
He pressed his lips into her. “I missed you,” he whispered, “Why’d you leave me? Where will you go? Why leave?”
Rachel pushed him off. She leaned against the door.
“Jona, I have nowhere else to go right now, and I don’t know what to do, so will you stop talking about it, please? I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I misse
d you. Your brother is full of something terrible.”
“I won’t give up on him. Why are you trying to force me to do something I can’t, Jona?”
“You did it to me, first,” he said.
They stood still there, in the entryway. They couldn’t look each other in the face. Jona’s eyes wandered from the muddy clothes, to his hand, to her boots. “You’re filthy,” he said, “Go take a bath.” He placed a hand on her muddy cheek. He looked up into her eyes. He kissed her gently. They looked in each other’s eyes. “Tell me where Djoss is, and I’ll go get him.”
Rachel’s face broke. Her lip trembled. Her eyes shut. She fell into Jona. He saw it coming in time to catch. He ran his hands over her hair. She lost three wracking sobs. Then, she swallowed her tears, and she stepped back, acid steaming off the mud at the corners of her eyes. She took a deep breath. She looked up with her face back. “Thank you, Jona,” she said. She took another deep breath. “Thank you.”
***
Djoss was awake when Jona arrived. Djoss squatted half-naked in the mud, tied up with his own shirt. He didn’t move. He didn’t look Jona in the face.
Djoss looked at Jona’s uniform. He nodded.
“You look like a tosser with lady troubles.”
Djoss shrugged. “I got no trouble with you, king’s man.”
“Me? I got trouble with you. I got lady troubles deep.” Jona laughed at Djoss’ hard eyes. “Your sister sent me.”
“What?” he said, “When I woke up alone…”
“She did and she didn’t. She left to get help.”
“Oh,” said Djoss. Djoss processed this statement in his head like a mathematical equation and deduced no solution. He squinted. He looked up at Jona. “I remember you.”
Jona scratched at his scalp. “Like I said, I got lady troubles.”
Djoss stood up slow. He walked slow, too. His eyes never left the ground at his feet. Jona walked beside him. In his mind, he was trying to figure how gone the pinker was.
Djoss’ hands began to shake. Jona wondered if the trembling hand was frustration, rage, or pinks. He decided it was pinks, because frustration and rage would only make Djoss want more false bliss.
At the house, Jona led Djoss in through the kitchen. There wasn’t anything worth stealing in the kitchen but old clay dishes. Jona handed Djoss some cheese and bread. Djoss ate as slowly as he had walked. He didn’t look up from the table.
Jona leaned against the cupboard. Jona watched Djoss nibbling. Djoss looked back, shifting in his seat.
“Where’s Rachel?” said Djoss.
“She’s upstairs, I think. I can hear someone moving about up there, taking a bath. You’ll be having one of those soon, too, so my mother won’t know you’re here. Mess like that everywhere, there’s no hiding a thing.”
Jona watched the stranger in his kitchen eating. Around the edges of the eyes, Jona saw the man beneath the shame: strong, proud, and dumb.
Djoss stared at his hands.
***
Rachel plucked out the darkest dress with the longest hem and the highest collar and tried to figure how to sew what was left of her Senta leathers over it to get a red X across the chest. She poured the bathwater down a drain in the floor, and she pumped for more water from the wall. Then, she scrubbed at the basin.
The Joni house was huge and larger in its sparse furnishing, full of bright white paint and dark woods. Her bare feet echoed in the upstairs hall. Her scales clicked quietly in the air. She walked naked, poking her head into the different rooms she found. Most of them were just naked walls, where furniture had been sold off and not even drapes covered the windows. When Rachel found Jona’s mother’s room, she dug through the drawers to find something that covered her scales and boots. She dressed. She wandered through the house again, searching for signs of life. She found her way to the kitchen.
Djoss looked up at her, in her ill-fitting new clothes too thin in the hips and too loose in the stomach.
Jona placed more cheese on the table.
Djoss stood up.
“Hello, Djoss,” she said. She sat down at the table and tried to act natural. She didn’t feel natural. She was clean and he was dirty. She was in Jona’s kitchen with nowhere else to go. And Jona watched them both, a scowl locked in his eyes.
“Djoss,” said Rachel, “you could use a bath.”
“I could,” he said, “have you eaten?”
“I have,” she said.
This was all that was said. Djoss ate more cheese and none of three people said a word. At first, Rachel felt like standing up and moving and walking around a little, but she didn’t want to be the first to move.
Jona pierced the veil of still. “What’s your plan?”
Rachel looked up. “We’ll leave together.” She pointed at her brother, then herself. “Him and me.”
Djoss nodded.
“How?” asked Jona.
“I don’t know,” answered Rachel.
Jona placed a hand on his chin, thinking deeply. “Right,” said Jona, “that is certainly a thing to think on. I figure you got no money or you wouldn’t come to me.” He scratched his head. He shook his head. He stood up, “Come with me, Djoss. I’ll get you in a bath and get you some clean clothes while we all think about this.”
Djoss followed Jona up the stairs and down the hall. He was careful not to tramp too much mud in his wake. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t have Rachel’s fires to burn it away on his boots.
Djoss said, well out of Rachel’s hearing, “What’s to think about?” said Djoss, “We have to steal it. Enough money, I mean.” He looked at his hands. “She can’t do it. Not with her blood like it is. I do what I have to for her, to keep her good. Only I can do it. I have to steal the money, somehow.”
“Never occurs to anyone to get a job, does it?” said Jona, “You know I’m a king’s man. I can arrest you just for saying it.”
“Arrest me, then,” said Djoss, “Set her free of me. I know you’re a child of a demon, like her. She told me.”
Jona took a deep breath. Instead, he led Djoss to the bathtub and gave him some of Jona’s old clothes. “Don’t rob anybody without warning me first,” he said, “And I will be counting the silver ’fore you leave. You got any teeth?”
“Me?” said Djoss, “No. Rachel ran off with my cutlery. We sold it all.”
“Right,” said Jona, darkly. “Tell me that again. Show me those teeth, like a rowdy dog.”
Djoss pulled a long dagger from his boot and tossed it at Jona’s feet.
Jona nodded. “I’ll give it to you when you leave. I’m no thief, and this is for your own good.”
Jona took everything sharp from the room. Djoss watched from the middle of the floor. The shaving razors and the toothpicks and the glass all got piled outside the door. Djoss watched the pile grow. He blushed, but he said nothing.
When the door closed, and the tub was pumped full of cold water, Djoss ducked underneath the surface and held his breath as long as he could. When he couldn’t breathe anymore he tried to stay down, beneath the surface. His lungs blossomed with burning. His heartbeat quickened.
He came up for air, and Jona was there. The door was open behind him.
“Trying to drown, huh?” he said.
“No,” said Djoss, “Just trying to get clean. You must have really been rich to get a fountain in all the rooms.”
“My dad lost it all in the war, with his neck. We’re lucky just to have the house,” said Jona. “There’s only a couple rooms where the pumps still work, anyhow. Rachel loves you and I don’t. I think you’re too far gone for anybody. Want me to just give you a few coins and leave you in a hookah den for a while? I would do that, if it was best for Rachel. Is that what’s best for Rachel?”
Djoss said nothing.
“What’s best for Rachel?” said Jona. “Me? I don’t care if you walk away and fade away into whatever burns you up.”
Djoss spoke softly. “She wants to stay with me not you,�
� he said. “I want to do better for her. I can stop if we get out of town, get away from the stuff for good.”
Jona squinted. “Is that what’s best for her?”
Djoss shrugged. “Only the Gods know, and they’d probably argue about it.”
“Right,” said Jona. “Erin, Imam, Senta koans like Rachel’s spells, and the Nameless dancing in the dark with demons. Not a one has anything to do with you or me or Rachel. We’re just doing our best. Sucking on a hookah is a dead man’s game, Djoss. Once you start, you’re a dead man walking bleeding out slowly. The water in the tub is stained pink from you bleeding out.”
Djoss creased his eyebrows. Then, after a deep breath, “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “May I please bathe in peace?”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Jona. “You’re a giant to her. The way she describes you it’s some kind of giant. Look at you, now.”
Jona shook his head and stepped out into the hall. He waited, and wondered if he shouldn’t just throw a bunch of money at him and kick him out into the street. He wondered if Rachel would stay if he did that.
He just wanted Rachel to stay.
***
When Djoss got out of the bath and dressed in his same, dirty clothes, Jona led Djoss downstairs, to the basement. Between the empty buckets and empty boxes and ruined remains of all the things that weren’t worth selling, two stone columns rose up from the floor. Chains with heavy iron clasps lay rusty on the floor. They seemed to be more rust than metal now, sitting in the mud.
“These used to be my da’s before he died,” said Jona. “You know how it is with some of us. It touches us all a little different. Night terrors. I don’t think Rachel has them. I’m lucky I don’t have to sleep, so I don’t really know what it’s like. We had to chain my da down, though. He’d sleepwalk sometimes.”
On the other side of the stone columns, ancient armor, a shield and a nobleman’s mace rested against clay bricks. With all the sweat and blood in the metal from Jona’s father, it could not be sold off safely.
Jona clapped his hands, and rubbed them together industriously. “You know what we gotta do,” he said.
We Leave Together Page 11