“How do you know that? You can’t have been born either.”
“It’s common knowledge in the morgues. Foundlings depend upon the business of the guildmaster’s family.”
“But Utlag is iosal. How could she bind herself to him?”
“Look around you at this city. Tell me you don’t see similar mismatches.”
“If he was her husband, he was Fenn and Rip’s father and likely my father as well. You do understand what that would mean. I would be unfit in every way—”
She was standing with her forehead on the flap. “Do you want to know who Margaret Thebes went to, when Utlag left her?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m not ready. Is there a chance that second man was my father? I am hoping for someone old and dull and thick and human. I want to be something worth seeing.”
“There is one way to know.”
He put his head back. “I have a feeling you already know.”
“I saw you in a mirror, when you were small. Fighting with Odd.”
“Then let’s have it,” he said, and opened his eyes and saw himself. He turned. There were his wounds. The soles of his feet. His own back. He opened his mouth. He pulled his eyelids away from his eyes. Ran his hands through his hair. Studied his nethers. His armpits. His fingers.
“I don’t look like anyone I know. But I am all here . . .” he said, his voice trailing off.
“While you’re at it, can you see now why everyone made you Beowulf all those years?”
“Insane in the eyes. Torn to pieces. Wounded in every quadrant. Aye, I look exactly like Beowulf.”
She said, so quietly he barely heard her, “You are beautiful.” He leaned against the flap from its other side. No one had ever said such a thing to him. Before he could reply, she said, “And to lead is in your blood.”
“I’m nearly out of blood, Jamila. And I can’t manage even to lead myself.”
As Errol dressed himself, he felt so tired he had to sit down. She went in and stood facing him. He said, “I am done in. I need to sleep somewhere and this is as good a place as any. I think no one will find me here. I won’t be angry if you go.” But she pulled his shirt on, over his head. And he laid his head on her shoulder and then on her lap and fell asleep. Once that night he stirred in his sleep and said, “I’m sure you know him, as you seem to know everything else. Tell him that I am relieved to be his son.”
Gallus
A JAB TO THE FACE WOKE ME. I put my arms over my head. “Stop it!” Something grabbed a piece of my hair and yanked. It spat at me. Up and down, its voice rolled. Hawwwww! while it pinched me. It smelled of closets full of must.
I found a flint to strike, lit my lamp, and lay on my back, too sore to roll over. The fylgia bent over my face and eyed me with a red eye, its pupil dilating and contracting. Hawwwwww.
I reached up to touch its bony white face, its warm beak, the flap of skin hanging from its chin. At least it was not a rat. There were wings involved. An eagle? A swan? I grabbed it swiftly by the legs and it fell over and hung upside down in my grip.
“No,” I said and groaned. I stuffed the chicken into the laundry sack of the runner whose tent I had occupied, and pulled the ties tight. The bird stormed in the bag, flinging itself at everything, finally collapsing in a heap.
I put my head out and found the tent surrounded by runners. I didn’t know the roof master at Corinth, but I felt sure she was the burly one with her face a finger’s length from mine.
“This is not your tent,” she said, jabbing at me. “Are you alone in there? If not, you know the rule. It’s dawn.”
“I am already bound. So I’m punished enough. Anyway, I’m alone.” I stuffed everything in my pack and hit the lines before anyone could see the mess I’d made of the bedroll.
I returned the spikes to the morgues. While I waited, I gave a name to the raging he-chicken. “Come on, Ovid,” I said. “If I’m going to turn on him, let’s get it over with.”
Burning
“WHAT IS IT?” Errol said, his voice full of interest. Jamila had brought him here, to the south edge of Marathon, and had carried a telescope from Al-Hazen. “I see ships,” he said. “Easily two hundred ships, by the light of a fire on the banks. What is the power of this lens?”
“They’re two miles downriver.”
He was silent a long while, his eye to the lens. Then he said, “Those are our ships.”
“Aye.”
“They are supposed to be long gone.”
“Look at the riverbanks.”
Errol moved the telescope slightly. It jerked widely across the range of mountains. He moved it back and found the banks. A bonfire blazed on the riverbanks, flames as high as the ships’ masts, sparks swirling in the sky overhead.
Jamila said, “They have been there, burning, since Ship.”
“What are they burning?”
“Look.”
“I can’t see anything. It’s an inferno. Certainly more than the heat to keep the crews warm. A furnace. Are they burning firewood?”
“Nay.”
Errol watched as the one of the men on the banks flung a giant blue bowl across the banks and onto the blaze. He cried out, “No! Why would they—?”
Errol thought of two thousand coracles, and the incense burners, the fletched arrows, the vihuelas, the thousands of knotting spikes his own guild made: a year’s work of a whole guild city, of thousands of men and women who thought the world was waiting for the things they had made. “Why on earth would they burn our work?”
“Think about it.”
“I don’t want to think about it. I want to stop them! Did thieves attack them? Are thieves burning the work? I don’t understand! Why would they keep us busy, sending us food and supplies, only to burn the exports and send the ships away with empty hulls?”
“The hulls will not be empty. Those ships are waiting for something.”
“What? What are they waiting for?”
“You know the guilds are taxed—”
“I know. In foundlings.”
“And you have the iron spikes. Which has halted a process.”
“What process?”
“They use the foundlings and those black-iron spikes to produce something the world wants, from the pits of gaol.”
“Beasts?” he said. “The beasts who fight in the arenas?” He looked again through the lens. “Are you suggesting that we export animals to a world that already has beasts of its own?”
“No. Not exactly. I realized it when you described the pits and that arena. They put foundlings and beasts into those shafts. They let them hear one another be killed. Most are victims. But a few go mad with fear. In the arena they win, and win again. And again. Monstrous. Like that one you told me about.”
“Jago.”
“Ready to kill anyone for any reason. Or for no reason at all. Where are those winners? There would be hundreds of them. Maybe thousands, from a year’s worth of production. Some human. Some beasts. The ships are waiting for this year’s shipment of Jagos.”
“What would the world want with Jago?” And then he remembered the abbot’s quarters in the scriptorium and the display of brute power, of armor and weapons, and an irrelevant obsession with war.
“They use the spikes to make monsters.”
“Aye.”
“We are a war machine.”
Farewell
I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I had been asleep in someone’s little bed in the morgues but the chicken woke me in time to watch Errol untie his tellensac and re-tie it to the loop of Jamila’s belt. I watched his ease with her hips. She put her arms up to make it easier for him. He held his breath, no doubt feeling the quarantine of her foundling beauty. He unbuttoned her tunic and put his hands on her ribs. “I live here,” he said. “When everyone forgets me, I live here in this banhus.”
I was seething with anger at him for taking her from me, and for writing the contract to take, officially, everything else I wanted. Soon that would all be reversed. He would be gone and she would be mine.
But I had to hand it to him: He had memorized the hero’s script. He lived in her banhus. He gave her that tellensac, which was everything.
What are we, really, but a sackful of our own tales?
Mearc-Stapa
THE CHICKEN CAREENED BEHIND ME, pecking and clawing at my ankles, trying, I think, to stop me. I was running, frantic, searching for my cousin where I had watched him disappear into the morgue tunnels. Backtracking, turning into dead ends, until I smelled a bucket fire.
“—and the fear is insurmountable,” Errol said. I backed away fast, thinking he was talking to me, that he had heard me sneak up on him.
There was no bucket. No bucket fire. The tunnel rustled with the petals of a thousand yellow flowers blooming on the walls. I squinted, for they were moving. Not flowers but winged insects clinging to the stone and iron. Pyrallis? Glow worms? My mind raced through the pages of Pliny. Silk moths? The slow beating of their wings fanned a thousand tiny flames on their backs.
“Ond se sy a?” A voice rustled among the wings, in the ancient tongue of our mothers. “And so you will give up? You’ll die here, in the morgues.”
“Why not?” said Errol. “What use am I on the streets?”
“Why not?” The voice mocked Errol. “Let’s start with Arthur.”
“Irrelevant,” said Errol. “Arthur is a tale from outside our wall. Achilles. Arthur. Beowulf. The Robbing Hood. That sort of heroism is extinct in this city.”
“Not King Arthur. That was a different book. I’m speaking of the kelp you left behind. You told him you would come for him. You promised the same thing to a girl dying in gaol. No doubt your brother Rip is also waiting for you.”
“The kelp is certainly dead of the ague,” Errol said, his voice barely audible. “Utlag will have put an end to Rip. A public drowning makes monsters of everyone who watches.” Something alarmed the insects and there was a panic of fluttering that moved through the tunnel.
“Don’t presume to know who’s been fetched. Otherwise I would have to hand over my office keys. Here.”
“What’s this?” Errol reached out.
“Kahve. You have a great deal to do tonight. This will help.”
A red cup appeared. Errol took it out of the air and drank from it. “How did you make kahve in a tunnel of the morgues? And I taste butter in it.”
“Not butter. Fresh cream. From roan shorthorns.”
“There are no cows grazing in this city anywhere.”
“Ah. Well then. You must be right.”
“Who are you?” Errol said. Even in the wing-light I could see no one in the tunnel but Errol, who said, “Anyway, if I bring beads to the kelp Arthur, he will only die of some other malady next week. Everyone is sick, in the streets.”
“True enough. Consumption could get them,” said the other. “I put my money on leprosy.”
“Is this sarcasm?”
“I thought I was helping you come up with excuses.”
“I’m nothing. That’s the best excuse of all. I am a runner thrown from his own roofs. How could I even begin to fight against the forces of the abbot, the regnat, and Utlag? Even one of them alone would be too much.”
“I thought your advice to the regnat was sound. Even if you do not prevail, you can be a symbol of hope.”
“That sounds absurd now.” Errol brooded for a long while, drinking the kahve. Then he said, “How would it end?”
“That depends. How good are you in a street fight?”
“Insufficient,” Errol snorted. “As you already know. And terrified.”
“Really? Terrified of what?”
“Of what?” Errol laughed. Again there was no levity in it. “Where to start? I am afraid they will drown me. Or starve me into subjugation. Or some beast will eat me alive or the stag in that arena. I fear my own blade, that it will kill again. I fear being eaten alive—”
“You said that twice, being eaten alive.”
“I fear it twice.” Errol paused, took a long swig from his cup. “And I fear bad kahve, if I return to the streets.”
“Was that humor?”
I was bitten with a new jealousy, of the camaraderie Errol had with that voice.
“I’ll tell you the surprise. I hadn’t anticipated falling in love. Now I do not want to die.”
“Aye. That was one of our better ideas. Here’s a thought. Has it occurred to you that strength of combat is only one of your strengths?”
“Skills of the mind are of use only in the guilds.”
“I see. Well. You would know. What with thousands of years of experience on the streets.”
“Why do you say things like that? Who are you?” Errol said, impatient now. “I demand to know.”
“It’s better for us all if you don’t know my name.”
“No. Think about it. I could fight in your name, as armies do in the library scrolls.”
“Men haven’t done all that well by my names, outside the wall. And they find plenty of names for one another as well. Zwerver, paria, satan. Any excuse to make a foundling, or an enemy.”
“I’m different from the others. I’m better.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what they say, right before they hunt one another down. No, let’s see what you do with your own name first.”
The insects were silent, their flames low.
“Here, you’ll need another cup of this kahve.”
“If you won’t admit a name, that’s what I will call you. The Kahve Maker. No matter what tunnel I find you in, or what street or pit or roof, I’ll know it’s you.” The other was laughing. “Or, no.” Errol was serious now. “You’re mearc-stapa. Haunter of the borderlands.”
I still could see only Errol. The smell of the kahve made my stomach churn.
“What was that sound?” said Errol.
Sonhos
A FORCE THREW ME AGAINST THE WALL of the tunnel and I was gasping for air. A head lamp went on.
“Who were you talking to?” I demanded. The insects were gone. Errol threw me down to the stone floor and bound my hands and feet with the rope I myself had brought. I struggled but his knots were certain. “Who was that?” I demanded, my face pressed into the floor. “Is it Zeus? I’m not joking. Did you see those butterflies on fire?”
“I don’t know,” Errol said, panting from the exertion. “I haven’t seen whatever it is.” He fell back against the wall and we sat facing each other. “Why are you stalking me?”
“Heimdall is working for the regnat. He made me come.”
“Since when did you do anything Heimdall says?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I came to warn you.”
“Why did you bring the rope, then?”
“So Heimdall would take me seriously. I said I would bind you.”
“Really. And he believed you could do that?” We were both breathing hard. I hoped my red-faced panting would cover the red-faced lies I was telling. “Is that bird your fetch?” he said. Ovid looked up at me, as though to see what I would say.
“Who knows? It follows me everywhere.”
“You’re an idiot. It’s a chicken. It’s your fetch. So you stole the needles from Jamila?”
“‘Stole’ is such a complicated word.”
“Well. You’re lucky he can go everywhere with you. Eikthyrnir can’t be with me inside this guild tower without thrashing everything.”
“That sounds about right,” I said. “What are you going to do next?”
“It would save me a fair bit of trouble to go with you to the roofs and turn myself in to Heimdall. A quick drop for me and it would all be done. And I bet it would be w
orth a few uurs to you.”
I hadn’t expected him to come so close to truth. I looked down at the ropes cutting into my wrists. “I’m bound, did you hear? I have a bound-wife.”
“Woody told me. And how is it, to have a wife? To be wed?”
“Like drowning and a fall from a great height all at once.”
He laughed. “What, are we out of arsenic?” And I had to laugh, too.
“Don’t you love her?” Errol said.
“No! No, I don’t love her. Yes. I do. I don’t know. She was kissing me and taking all her clothes off. I didn’t have a chance. Do you have any idea what it is like?”
“I need details,” he said, grinning.
“Shut up.” I kicked him with my bound feet. “I was naive about the possibilities.”
“Tell me everything.” This was jovial.
“Get your own wife!”
“I’ll take yours!” Errol said. I shuddered and was sober again. “And what about this rooster?” When had the bird climbed into his arms? “Harbinger of the dawn. Why didn’t he warn you the sun was rising when you were in that tent with the muse? You would be a free runner still.”
“Do the math, Errol Thebes. I didn’t have the rooster yet.”
“Still, from inside your ribs, you felt the warning.” He was right about that.
The chicken murmured while Errol scratched its neck absentmindedly, and it eyed me while it drank from Errol’s kahve cup.
“Even my own espiritu prefers Errol,” I said under my breath.
The tunnel filled with another wave of the thick smell of kahve, and Errol reached into shadows and said, “This must be for you.” I stared at the wall in astonishment. From it tumbled a white linen baker’s sack. “It’s sonhos,” he said, as if the delivery of pastries through a stone wall in the morgues were a common event. “Will you attack me if I untie your hands?”
We ate in kelp-happiness, the sonhos filling our mouths with clouds of fruit and powdered sugar.
He was licking his fingers. “Odd Thebes,” he said. “You have to find some way to love your bound-wife.”
City of the Uncommon Thief Page 31