“I’m the boy’s father. You got a payoff, you give it to me.”
“No you ain’t,” the woman said.
“Lying wench, you mind your business.” He struggled to his knees.
Iliana put a hand on the pistol. “The boy’s father is dead. I don’t know who you are, but if you rise to your feet, I will put a ball in your forehead, so help me.”
The man stared at her blearily without rising. Drunk fool, did he think she didn’t mean it? If he got up, she wasn’t going to let him come anywhere close to her. She’d shoot him; that was no bluff.
Wisely, he settled back down. He picked up the jug and sloshed its contents as he took a pull.
Iliana gestured at the woman, who left her place by the cookfire and followed her into the hall and then onto the porch of the Red House and into the general din of the night. There was better light out here, and Iliana studied the woman’s face.
She looked younger than she had inside, crouching over the cook fire. Too young to be Santi’s mother, surely. And she had a rat-like face with a cunning expression that made Iliana squirm. Bad teeth and greasy hair.
“Tell me how your son injured himself.”
“Thought you said you was from the coal lord. How come you don’t know?”
“I need to be sure that you’re Santi’s mother, and not another grifter like that drunk fellow back there.”
“That man ain’t Santi’s father. The boy’s father was a good man, not a shiftless drunk. That one you saw wouldn’t lift a finger to help us, he’d just drink up that money if it came. Already took them black coins the foreman sent down. My boy . . . how could you have let it happen?”
Pain marred the woman’s face, twisting it into something small and vulnerable. Tears came to her eyes and streaked down her dirty, soot-stained face.
“I told Santi to lay off with the drawing,” she continued. “It weren’t gonna do him no good. He already got himself beat once for scribbling them birds and fishes. They knowed he stole the chalk to do it. Now look what it got him.”
Iliana didn’t need any more convincing. “It was a dark, lonely job,” she said. “A stale place for a young mind.”
“Then why don’t you do nothing about it? Why’d you put him down there in the dark with only his little coal lamp?”
“Someone needs to open and close the mine doors. A boy can do it as well as a man, and he’s cheaper.”
“Aye, that’s all you type think about. This one is cheaper than that. This one won’t cost us nothing if he falls into the breaker to be all broke up. This one can lose a hand and ’twill only cost us a few coins.”
The woman wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. Iliana felt the need to fill the silence, and spoke again before she could reconsider.
“You needed the boy’s wage, right? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have sent him. But you had to know the dangers after what happened to your other son.”
“Do you have something for me, or not?” The bitterness had returned to her voice.
Iliana untied the coin purse and handed it to the woman. “Three escudos, twenty brass pennies.”
The woman glanced around nervously, as if afraid to see who might be watching the transaction, even as she slipped the purse into her shift, where it clinked against her bosom.
“Three and twenty ain’t going to make up for the loss of that boy’s wages.”
“His whole hand was only worth twenty pennies,” Iliana protested.
“You think a hand is worth twenty of your little black coins? How about I get my worthless boyfriend out here? Tell him to bring his knife? Would you sell him one of yours for twenty? No? How about some silver? Gonna give up your hand for three and twenty?”
“I’m trying to help you, don’t you understand? A hand is only worth twenty brass pennies, and that’s Quintana code. You’ve now got three pieces of silver besides. Three and twenty is 170 brass pennies.”
“I know what it is,” she spat. “Only don’t expect me to be grateful for it. The coal lord’s mines took my Santi’s hand, and we’ll all be hungry for it. Not now, but soon enough. And that’s if that drunk back there don’t steal it from me. He’ll try, and we’ll starve all the quicker if he gets it.”
“Why do you stay with him?”
“You think I have a choice? A woman living alone with a son and two daughters in the Red House?” A bitter chuckle.
Iliana didn’t know exactly what that meant. Had her so-called boyfriend forced himself on her? Did she need his protection? Iliana was trying to be sympathetic, but the woman’s ingratitude was wearing at her, and she fought down her anger.
Her son just lost his hand. She lives in a filthy hovel with a drunk. What do you expect her to do?
“Listen, I can help.”
“Sure, of course you can.”
“No, really. Three and twenty is only the first part. Lord Carbón wants to give you another ten.”
The rat-like eyes narrowed. “Ten what?”
“Escudos.”
“Then hand ’em over.”
“Not here. When you get to the other side.”
“The other side of what?”
“You’re going out with the morning coal car. Riding up front, with the engineer. You, Santi, and your two daughters.”
“How am I gonna get to the cars? The train don’t run from the lower terraces, and they don’t let our sorts up to the Thousand.”
“That’s why I came tonight. Tonight anyone from the dumbre can go up, and nobody will stop them.”
“Don’t you call me dumbre. I’ll scratch your eyes out!”
The woman came toward her, but Iliana held her ground. She was taller and stronger, and she was armed, which the woman seemed to recognize too, as she dropped her hands.
“Stop worrying about trivialities,” Iliana said in a stern voice. “You need to get cleaned up, all of you. Then I’ll escort you, see you past any guards, if they’re there. My brother is a captain of the upper watch, and he’ll see it done. I’ll take you to the rail station, and tomorrow you’ll be on the other side of the Great Span.”
“I ain’t crossing the bridge. Where you taking us anyway?”
“The coast.”
“The coast!”
“Carbón has business dealings in Dalph, and Lord Puerto will ensure your safety down the river to the coast.”
“Why? That’s what I’m asking. What’s it to you and your coal lord? Why would he do it?”
“To keep you quiet,” Iliana said.
“You mean ’cause you’re paying too much for the boy’s hand?”
“In part. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You see, it’s all worked out. Ten silver escudos, plus what you’ve got there. And the chance to get away from that man of yours. He’s a drunk and a thief, and I’ll bet he beats you, too. I’ll even hold the three and twenty until you’ve got your children, so he won’t take it.”
The woman hesitated, expression thoughtful. The wheels must be turning in her mind. Thirteen escudos and twenty pennies total. That was more money than this woman had ever seen. And to get away from the Red House. There was no way she could turn down the opportunity being presented to her.
“Them people on the coast don’t even speak our tongue,” the woman said. “They’re all barbarians and such. And the ocean comes up and washes the towns away. That’s happened, you know.”
“Get your children. Hurry. You can worry about that later.”
“No, I won’t do it. You keep your ten silvers. We’re staying here.” She put her hands on her hips and stared defiantly up at Iliana. “You can give me the money, or you can get out of here.”
“For God’s sake. Be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable. I don’t want to go up to the Thousand—my type ain’t welcome there. I don’t have no intentions of crossing the Rift, and I sure as hell ain’t going down to the coast. Now get, before my boyfriend grabs his mates and drives you out of here.”
#
Iliana was still baffled by the refusal as she fought her way around the curve of the Wood Road once again. Frustrated and angry, too, some of it with herself. Maybe she should have spent more time building some sort of rapport before making the offer. She hadn’t learned the woman’s name, hadn’t spoken to Santi, hadn’t asked about the daughters.
Blast it, that shouldn’t have been necessary. What was the woman going to do when the money ran out or was stolen? Sell her daughters by the hour?
Lord Carbón had offered an opportunity. Not just money, but the chance to get out of the lower terraces. The woman’s life would hardly be easy moving to the coast and living among strange people, but surely it would be better than suffering among the dumbre.
And now Iliana had to explain to her master what had happened. He’d given her clear instructions to get Santi’s family out of the city. Not so much because he was afraid that word of his generosity would get out, but to hide what the boy had found in the mines. Too many people knew already, and a family from the dumbre was the weak link in a chain of secrets.
Iliana had planned to return to the upper terraces in much the same way she’d come down. If every staircase or rickety wooden bridge led to the Wood Road, then surely they would all take her back to the wall dividing the Thousand from the lower terraces.
This seemed to work for a while, but then she hit a dead end, a wooden stairway emptying into a tenement garden with no egress. She backtracked and found herself on a walkway that seemed to be going up, but ended in an orchard of tree tomatoes—a fruit that could only be grown down here, where warm air rose from the bottom of the Rift.
She peered through a rusty fence on the upper edge of the orchard, looking for a way out the other side and wondering if she could scale the gate. She rattled the hinges, and a dog exploded out of the underbrush on the other side, barking and snarling. Iliana backed away, heart pounding.
More dead ends. Iliana soon grew so frustrated trying to find her way up that she stopped twice to ask children how one reached the Thousand Terrace. They stared at her like she was asking if one could fly across the Rift by flapping one’s arms fast enough, then pointed vaguely up the hillside.
Rafael would be getting anxious by now. First, that her delay was costing him a night of revelry, but later, that something bad had happened. She hoped he didn’t do something stupid like try to come down and find her.
No, she thought with a smile. Her brother would wait all night if necessary, would still be there in the morning when long-faced, hungover people came creeping out of their houses wearing rags and smeared with coal ash, ready for three weeks of penance. Glum, but faithful until dawn.
At last she stumbled over a staircase that seemed familiar. Climbing it hopefully, she grew more sure of herself, although at some point she got sidetracked, and when she emerged next to the wall, it wasn’t in the alley containing the septic tanks where she’d entered, but below one of the main stone staircases. She trotted up them, feet following the grooves in the stone worn smooth by the passage of thousands of feet over the generations.
There were other people on the staircase, either going up or down, and she tried to blend in. Not that it mattered overly much anymore. She’d either been spotted going down or she hadn’t, but either way, her task was done. Or not done, rather.
A single guard stood behind the battlements with his musket propped against a merlon. The fireworks had started up again, shooting above the Great Span, and he paid more attention to the spectacle than the people breaching the wall’s defenses. On a normal night, he’d be threatening to bayonet anyone who couldn’t show a wax-sealed pass.
Once up top, Iliana followed the wall walk to the east, guided by the occasional flash of rockets and the celebratory glow shining down the hillside from above. She reached the upper entrance of the tower whose keys she still held in an inner pocket of her cloak and looked around for Rafael. He was doing a surprisingly good job of staying hidden.
“It’s me,” she said in a low voice. “Sorry for making you wait. It’s a maze down there and I got lost. Everything is fine, though.” Better not to mention her failure. “Where are you? Rafi?”
No answer. Only the sound of music and revelry. The cry of a street vendor from a couple of streets away, above her in the Thousand. A pair of dogs barking furiously. Another exploding rocket.
“Rafael?” Iliana raised her voice. “Captain Diamante?”
Still nothing. And a search along the wall walk confirmed it. Her brother was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Carbón had hoped to find solitude in Lady Mercado’s gardens, but with the warm night, amorous couples had taken almost every quiet corner, and even some not-so-quiet spots right off the footpath. Wherever the grass was both dry and thick, lovers lay on the ground kissing and caressing, and sometimes more.
He had decided to head back toward the house in the hopes that Iliana had returned with a report of her adventures in the lower terraces, when he stumbled into a young couple coming out of the bushes. The girl giggled, pulled her linen shirt up over her breasts, and hurried past him toward the manor.
A young man swaggered out of the bushes moments later. He drew up his trousers and tied them off, then spotted Carbón and grinned. It was the young man from the dumbre who’d managed to weasel in past Mercado’s skeptical chancellor.
“That girl was even better than the last,” he said. “What a night!”
“You’re not worn out yet?”
“What do you think? I blasted three times already.”
Carbón blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Shot my load, blew my top. You’re the coal lord, right? Like a gas explosion.” He grinned. “Better stand clear when that happens. Yeah, three times, and I’m tired out. But when am I gonna get this chance again?”
“Next year, presumably. If not here, then somewhere else. Assuming you haven’t infected yourself with the pox from too much careless behavior.”
“Oh, no,” the man said earnestly. “These upper terrace girls are real ladies. They’re all clean down there.”
Carbón chuckled at this. “If you say so.”
“And I take a good hard piss every time I finish, then go into the washroom inside and clean up. That Lady Mercado has hot water coming right out of a pipe! She’s a real classy woman. And friendly, too.”
“She’s friendly tonight,” Carbón reminded him. “Don’t push it past dawn.”
“Gonna drink some more wine and black apple while I rest up, then I’m going to find one more girl. What about that one you came in with? She’s real pretty.”
“I think she’s already occupied.”
“Well, who you got your eye on, coal lord?”
“It’s Lord Carbón, actually. Tonight you can call me Alan, if you’d like, but I’m not fond of ‘coal lord.’”
It sounded stiff when it came out. Probably should have had at least a glass or two of wine, or people would be telling stories about how he didn’t know how to enjoy himself.
The young man tapped his chest. “And I’m Rodi.”
“Is that a first name or a last name?”
“Both, I guess. I know what you’re thinking. What’s a dirty dumbre doing up here with the lords and the ladies?”
Carbón smiled. He hadn’t been thinking anything of the kind. He’d been trying to think how best to extricate himself from the conversation and get back to the house.
Rodi was altogether too wrapped up in himself. Not that this was a limiting factor in one’s social climb. Probably helped, in fact. A young man who had started the day in the lower terraces and had the ambition to come all the way to the top to bed the daughters of the Quinta and the Forty had ambition to spare.
“I ain’t staying down there forever. In fact, I got a plan. Gonna get all the way to the top someday. Bet you don’t think that’s possible, but it don’t matter what you believe—I’m gonna make it happen.”
“It could be possible . . . un
der the right circumstances. But I won’t pretend that it’s easy. Why don’t you tell me how you’re going to do it?”
Carbón stayed with Rodi as they made their way back to the manor, listening to the boy’s implausible scheme for how he was going to rise first to the Thousand, then to the Forty.
By the time Carbón slipped free from Rodi’s conversation, he knew where the young man worked and lived, and he had started to form an opinion of both his potential and his limitations. The boy’s ambitions may be fantastical, but an ambitious climber could be put to use up above, at the mines. If not that, the army was always a possibility.
Carbón was hungry, and stopped in one of the three feasting rooms while he continued his search for Iliana. He indulged in a small glass of wine to go along with a plate of shrimp. He worked his way through the ballroom, where he found Torre, limbered up from black apple, dancing with Lady Mercado.
It was well after midnight, and the celebrants grew more frantic by the hour. Dawn would arrive in a few short hours, and with it, not just a return to the drudgery of daily life, but the most miserable time of the year, the three weeks of penance known as “sack and ash.”
During sack and ash, the devout eschewed meat, alcohol, hash, and sweets, fasted one day a week, and donated coins to the Luminoso temple. They visited family shrines, putting flowers on the graves of their ancestors, praying to the Elders with gratitude for the gift of Quintana and the Great Span.
Even for those like Carbón, who did not follow the stricter path—unlike, say, Mercado and her household—it was considered bad form to flaunt one’s wealth. He would dress in somber browns and blacks, and have any household goods brought in discreetly through the back servant entrance.
Tonight was all revelry, and since he wasn’t reveling, it grew tedious. The party was too loud indoors, with the music and the drinking, and Carbón soon found himself on one of the upper balconies. It was still crowded there, but not ridiculously so.
“Lord Carbón!” a voice said breathlessly behind him.
It was Iliana. Her cheeks were flushed, and sweat beaded on her forehead. The wind had picked up off the plateau, and her braid was coming undone, sending strands of hair whipping about her face. She’d shed her cloak, and carried it draped over one arm.
Wandering Star (The Quintana Trilogy Book 1) Page 12