And perhaps his luck is turning, because the first carriage he finds on Market stops for him. “Can you take me out the Deradan road?” Colin asks.
The driver examines him, then squints at the angle of the sun. “How far you looking to go?”
“Not far. Just past Mockingbird Lane.” It’s never seemed like such a distance as it does today.
“Climb on, sir,” the driver says with a grin. “Had a bit of a rough night, have you? Seen a few too many of the city’s sights?”
Colin laughs ruefully, relief easing the tightness from his chest. “Quite a few,” he says, climbing up into the back of the carriage. It’s a light model, meant to carry no more than two or three passengers, and pulled by a single unremarkable bay. Despite the ache in his side as they rattle over the street, Colin’s never been so glad to take a carriage anywhere.
The driver steers them past slower carts and foot traffic, his eyes on the road. He leans back, though, so his voice will carry well enough as he ventures, “Bad night in the city, from what I’ve heard.”
Perhaps it was too soon to relax entirely. “Is that so? What happened?”
“Bloody murder.” The driver glances back for a moment to grin ghoulishly. “The guard found four bodies by the docks this morning, laid out end-to-end like they was a present for someone. Or a message.”
“A message,” Colin repeats weakly.
“Smugglers, maybe,” the driver suggests. “Someone trying to move in on routes they shouldn’t. Or payback for that bad business with the girls being taken out of the Scarlet Rose last month. Can’t say who done it without knowing who’s been done, though.”
Already it’s less like his memory and more like a tale, the very next day. “Gabriel,” Colin says, without really thinking about it. Surely he’ll be fine. He had that fight under—well, almost under control before Colin stepped in.
“Not likely.” The driver is practically leering. “You know how you can tell?”
“No.”
“The bodies still had all their parts,” the driver says triumphantly. “If it was Gabriel, he’d have taken some pieces with him.”
Right. Gabriel can take care of himself.
They leave the city by the western gate, and the driver flicks the reins to urge his horse into a quick trot. Colin winces, holding on to his wounded side, but he can’t very well ask the driver to go easy for the sake of the stitches he’s just had from an escaped barbarian slave after he got knifed in a street brawl and fled the city guard. He’ll live with the discomfort, as long as it gets him home.
“Nearly there?” the driver asks, after they pass the turn where Mockingbird Lane curves away into the indigo fields.
“Almost.” The road curves, coming up alongside the orchards, the peach trees half-bare for the winter already. Beyond that they’ll reach the main house, where—where a too-familiar dapple stallion is tied outside, decked in the guards’ burgundy.
“Keep driving,” Colin says hoarsely, “until we’re out of sight of that house.” He feels chilled, like he has a fever coming on, and he’s not sure if it’s better or worse to know he’s likely only sick with fear. The captain has come for him after all.
The driver doesn’t argue, moving on past the Harwood estate and over the next hill before he reins in his horse in the fading light. “Bit of an odd request, your lordship. You care to explain yourself?”
He can’t go back to the house now. Not with the captain there. His father would be angry, yes, but his parents would at least listen to him. They’d find him someone to stay with in Nothwn or Port Clair until this all blows over. But if Captain Westfall is already there, waiting to arrest him for this morning—which wasn’t even his fault! He hadn’t been the one looking for that fight—then he can’t very well come driving up to the house as though everything is fine. The captain shot at him this morning, knowing who he was.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Colin says. His voice shakes, and he feels pathetic. Where’s the dragon Gabriel was so impressed with? “I want to go back to town.”
The driver turns to look at him, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I think you might have to pay me now for the return trip. And I think you might have to pay me double.”
Gabriel would have a knife at the man’s throat for that, if Gabriel would ever get into a mess like this in the first place. But Colin doesn’t have any weapons, and he doesn’t think he has Gabriel’s nerve, either. “You’d have driven back to town either way, and now you want me to pay you twice?”
“It’s that or I take my time to let your friend in the guard catch up to us.”
You’d best hope I never see you again, Colin wants to say. But he holds his tongue, because it’ll only make things worse to make threats he can’t back up.
He fishes in his pockets and comes up with three loose shillings. “That’s all I have,” he lies, dropping them in the driver’s grubby, outstretched hand. “It’ll do, won’t it?”
The driver shakes the coins in his hand as if he could hear the difference between false silver and true. “It’ll do. I don’t suppose there’s much of a reward for you, anyway.”
“Your luck,” Colin says, and realizes with a cold shock that he might be capable of turning two murders into three, if he has to. “If there were, I’d likely be dangerous and desperate, willing to kill a man who tried to collect it.”
The driver laughs shortly, and wheels the carriage around toward the city. Colin sinks down in the seat, holding his breath when they pass his house as though that’ll keep him from catching the Lady’s attention. He doesn’t relax until they reach the city gate without having heard any hoofbeats pursuing.
“Where should I leave you, your lordship?” the driver asks when they’ve come back inside the city walls.
Colin grits his teeth at the mocking tone. “Front Street,” he says. If he were Gabriel, he’d—
He’s thinking too much on what Gabriel would do.
When they reach the docks and the driver says, “A good evening to you, sir,” Colin doesn’t bother to answer him, just jumps down from the bench to the cobbles. Pain washes outward from his stitches in a queasy wave, and he tries not to let it show. The driver’s laughing as he turns his carriage and heads north toward Kite.
“I’ll kill you next time,” Colin mutters, too low to carry, and tries to get his bearings. He’s not so far from where he started hunting for a tavern last night. This time he knows better than to go looking down the side streets; he’ll stay someplace along Front, noise or no, and perhaps tomorrow he’ll be able to see some way of fixing this awful mess he’s been dragged into.
The Mermaid is even rowdier than last night—it sounds like there may be an actual brawl happening inside—but the Flying Fish isn’t so bad, and nobody gives Colin any trouble as he shoulders his way through the crowd to the bar. “I’ll take a room for the night, if you have one free,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the noise. Somebody’s playing a fiddle in the corner by the fire, and a few of the sailors know the words that go with the tune.
“Two shillings a night for the room,” the innkeeper says, “or you can have it for the week for nine, if you’re ashore for a while.”
Nine for the week is plenty reasonable, and he’d have somewhere to stay while he gets his feet back under him. But he finds himself saying, “Just tonight, thanks. And some hot food, whatever’s on the stove, and lager if you have it.”
“If we have it, he says. There’s not a drink you could want that the Fish can’t provide.” The man turns away, rolling up his sleeves and producing a heavy mug. Colin’s tempted to ask for a glass of Dormier’s ten-year brandy just to be difficult, but that’d run him another shilling by itself, and he has a limited supply of those at the moment. “Your dinner will be right up,” the innkeeper says as he sets Colin’s pint on the scarred bar. “That’s another ten pence together for the food and drink.”
Colin comes up with three shillings out of his ever-lightening
purse, and drops them into the innkeeper’s hand. “There, dinner and the room. I’m a bit short on copper.”
“Can’t have come up from the south, then, can you?” the innkeeper asks, grinning. He pockets Colin’s silver and comes up with two copper pennies, so old and worn it’s hard to make out what city’s crest they bear. “Not that I’d have guessed south, to look at you.”
Colin takes a sip of his beer to cover his uncertainty about what to say. He’d rather not look memorable at all, even if the man’s taking him for a northern half-blood instead of a highborn Casmilan. Should anyone come looking for him, asking after a young man of his height and coloring—
His worry is interrupted by the kitchen boy bringing him a steaming bowl of stew with a thick slice of bread. The sauce is a warm gold, and it smells rich with cumin and allspice. Colin’s mouth waters. For once, it seems he’s gotten something better than he was expecting.
The stew is spicier than he’s used to, flavored with little pieces of red and orange peppers, but they’re a good balance for the flaking white fish, and he has the smooth northlands lager to sooth the burn on his tongue. He cleans his bowl, wiping up the sauce with the heel of the bread, and drains his mug to the last stray foam. He’s starting to feel properly human again with some decent food in him. It’s tempting to stay for another pint, but he’ll want to be clearheaded in the morning, and likely he’ll find a better use for the coin, so he beckons for the key to his room instead of for a second drink.
“Up the stairs, third door on your left,” the innkeeper tells him. “Maiden keep you.”
“Thank you.” Colin rises carefully from his barstool. The lager has softened the edges of his aches and pains somewhat, and he’s grateful for it; perhaps he’ll manage to sleep decently despite them. He threads his way through the crowd to the stairs, holding on to the rail and climbing by feel. There aren’t any gas lamps in the upstairs hallway, only a few hooded candles along the wall, and Colin pauses for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light before he counts off three doors and fits his key into the lock.
The room’s plain, but clean enough, and a low-banked fire in the fireplace has kept it warm. After a day like this, Colin thinks he can’t ask for much more luxury. He takes off his coat, kicks off his boots, and crawls under the blankets. They’re soft Deradan wool, far warmer than the threadbare one Gabriel had, and the mattress is much better stuffed. Colin stretches out gingerly, trying to keep from pulling his stitches, and closes his eyes.
And yet, despite the warmth and the comfortable bed, he sleeps badly. Once he wakes to the sound of shouting in the street below, men arguing in loud, slurred voices while others encourage them to fight. He listens, only half making sense of the dispute, until someone comes to drive the fighters away. Later, he wakes again to silence, his heart racing in his chest and his dreams dissolving reluctantly from his mind—wolves in ball gowns trading gossip behind their fans, the shingles of roofs turning to ravens under his feet and flying away.
When dawn comes, the sky turning from black to gray outside his window, Colin finds he’s ready to leave. He isn’t rested, but lying awake in the half dark isn’t helping. He pushes back the blankets and sits up to reach for his boots.
The Flying Fish is quiet at this hour, nobody moving in the upstairs rooms at all. Colin finds his way down to the public room, where a girl around his age is coaxing life back into the fire.
“Something you needed, sir?” she asks when she sees him, rising and brushing ash from her apron.
Colin shakes his head, holding out his room key. “I’m on my way. It seemed best to make an early start of it.”
The girl drifts close enough to take the key from his hand and offers him an awkward, unpracticed curtsey. “Anything else we can do for you before you go?” Her eyes are nervous, her mouth drawn just slightly too tight at the corners. Colin wonders for a moment what villainy she expects of him, and stops when he realizes he can think of too many possibilities.
“Nothing, thank you.” He nearly asks her not to tell anyone looking for him that he was here, but decides he’d only make himself more memorable if he did. He nods to the girl and lets himself out the front door onto the street.
Gulls wheel over the harbor, screeching, and among the moored ships a few merchant sailors and fishermen are bringing their vessels in to port. The eastern horizon is red with the rising sun, but clouds hang heavy over the shore, blanketing Casmile in an ashen gray. The water is as sluggish as Colin feels, and steel gray in answer to the clouds. He turns, following Bank Street into the city, watching the curl and drift of fallen leaves in the slow currents of the river. He stuffs his hands in his pockets to chase the aching chill from his knuckles. There are fewer signs of life here: smoke curling from chimneys, and the sweet, warm smell of baking bread.
At the second bridge, he crosses to the north bank and Market Street. He’s awake enough now to be hungry, and there should be bakeries nearby. The pennies he has left from the night before buy him two sweet rolls filled with peach jam, and a mug of warmed cider with cloves that he drinks too fast, scalding the roof of his mouth.
He’ll have to figure out what to do now, he thinks as he leaves the bakery behind. If the captain’s as clever as everyone says, he’ll be watching the Harwood estate, so it won’t be safe to go back there for a while. But staying in taverns isn’t a good solution, either—he’ll run out of money, and quickly, with as poor as his luck’s been lately.
His wandering takes him south again. He doesn’t remember crossing another bridge, wasn’t thinking about his path at all, but it seems unpleasantly appropriate. He turns down another crooked street and realizes he can see old scorch marks in the brick on some of the houses. He wonders what Gabriel thinks of Deirdre, if he believes she’s some kind of witch. An oracle, perhaps.
Time to see if her divination’s as good today as it was yesterday.
He makes slower progress once he knows where he wants to go. Half this route he’s only done in one direction, when the sun was going down and he was thinking more about avoiding people than remembering landmarks. He takes as many wrong turns as right ones, startles more mangy cats in alleys than he cares to count, but eventually Colin manages to find the house with the crooked shutters and the peeling blue door. The latest of the street cats—this one a dull orange—bolts from the stoop as he walks up to knock at the front window like Gabriel did.
“Still hungry, my lord?” Deirdre asks when she opens the door. “Shall I put the kettle on?”
Colin shakes his head. “I wouldn’t presume.” She’s sharper, talking to just him, than she was with Gabriel around. “I already owe you without imposing any further.”
Deirdre laughs, short and harsh. “I was just about to make some tea for myself, so I suppose you can have a cup, if you care to come in.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Colin follows her into the house. It’s almost comforting to be here, he realizes as they cross the front room toward the kitchen, where the stove keeps the room warm and the air smells of crushed herbs. Gabriel isn’t the only one who thinks she’ll have answers.
“How are your stitches?” Deirdre asks as she sets the kettle on the stove and feeds the fire a bit to wake it up.
Colin has to stop and take stock; he’s been trying to pay them as little attention as possible. “Tender,” he says, tracing the line carefully through his clothes. “Tight, I suppose. Like the skin doesn’t fit so well.”
Deirdre nods. “That’ll happen. He’s complained about it a time or two. Not much to be done but bear it, I’m afraid.”
“I figured as much.” Colin watches Deirdre measure out tea for the pot—white glazed earthenware, plain but probably decent enough before the end of the spout got chipped like that. He waits a bit, but she doesn’t ask his business, doesn’t prompt him to explain himself, and eventually he has to just come out with it. “You were right about Captain Westfall.”
“I was,” Deirdre says, as unsurpris
ed as if he’s just told her the sun rose this morning. “You’re here, though, instead of in prison waiting for the gallows, so you must have come to your senses at some point.”
“I must have.” Colin waits while Deirdre pours hot water into the teapot. “But I don’t know what to do now.”
“Hmm.” She cradles the pot in a towel and sets it down on the table between them. The steam rising from it is fragrant and soothing; Colin thinks there might be some blossoms mixed into the tea. “And you haven’t the money to get yourself safely out of town?”
Colin shakes his head. “Probably not.” He’s not sure what the coach fee is to Deradan, but he’s fairly certain it’s counted in guineas, not shillings. “Everything seems to cost more than it should, once it’s something you really need.”
Deirdre sets a pair of teacups on the table. The handle of hers is broken off. “That’s an important lesson to learn.” She sits down across the table from him to pour.
“Somehow my tutors must have skipped that one,” Colin says, and doesn’t sound nearly as casual as he’d like to.
“You were never meant to need it.” She wraps her hands around her teacup. They’re bony, the knuckles swollen; her hands look older than her face. “So you’ll be staying in Casmile, then, unless you want to go get hired on a ship.” She looks at him, eyes narrow and lips pursed, passing judgment that’s clearly not favorable. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t.”
“No,” Colin agrees. “I’d be a miserable sailor.” He’s only traveled by ship once, a trip to the islands of Jua’za when he was ten or eleven years old, and he still remembers how sick he was for all four days out and three days back.
“There’s that, too,” Deirdre says. “I meant you’re too pretty, and too soft, for that kind of use.” She doesn’t give him time to decide which part of that is most insulting, only goes on, “But you’re not skilled in any trades, are you?”
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