Crucible

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Not ’til we get that smell outta here, anyway,” Hydd agreed. “If we ever do.”

  “First things first,” Hektor replied. “Get ’em fed, get ’em cleaned up, then find out what all that ruckus was about.”

  • • •

  “Orrin—”

  “I dint do naught’, an’ I baint talkin’ to no strange beaks, whatever’n it be aboot! An’ ye kin keep that wadder way from me, by haff! Catch me death wan I leave here, I will!”

  Even after feeding, every attempt to get a straight answer from any of the children had failed. Finally, Hektor had turned the interrogation over to someone closer to their own age. Now, standing outside the central cell, Kassie gave one of its new occupants a stern look.

  “I’m no strange beak, Orrin Whitawer!” she scolded. “You know me. You see me every week at the pigeon coops.”

  “Don’ know ’im!” The boy pointed accusingly at Hektor who stood, arms folded, beside her. “An’ ’e’s a right beak! Got stripes on ’is sleeve an’ all! An’ I jus’ know me work’s bein’ pilfered by those butt-burnin’ Tawyers right now while I’m stuck in ’ere!” the boy continued in an outraged tone that elicited an renewed series of shouting and cursing from the right-hand cell.

  “Jus’ tell me what started all this,” Kassie said in a reasonable voice. “An’ you can get back to work.”

  “Jus’ you!” Orrin scowled at Hektor. “’M ony talkin’ ta you!”

  Hektor shook his head. “Come find me when you’re finished, Kassie,” he said, heading for the stairs.

  • • •

  “Orin Whitawer collects the dung from the watchhouse pigeon coops,” Kassie explained to both Hektor and Aiden half an hour later. “An’ any dog droppings he can find out back. His sister, Nell, sees to the kitchen scraps, an’ their cousins, Welin an’ Brandil, handle the night buckets from the cells an’ the watchhouse privy. They’ve been doin’ it together for maybe two years now. ’Afore that it was their older brothers’ and sisters’ jobs. Their family works Iron Street an’ all the surroundin’s.”

  “What about the other littles?” Hektor asked.

  “They’re part of the Tawyer family. They do all the collectin’ ’round Exile’s Gate, but Galv, that’s the boy who was fightin’ Orrin, the one that hit Hydd with that rotten potato, says the Whitawer contract’s done. Hundred years an’ a day, his pa, Kaiden Tawyer, say’s it was, an’ so all the streets above are up for grabs now, supposedly.”

  Beside her, Paddy nodded. “Talked to the Night Sergeant when I came in this mornin’,” he added. “An’ he said Rae Whitawer an’ Kaiden Tawyer got into a scrap about dung rights last night at the Waterman’s Arms. Got thrown out, but they kept at it in the street an’ wound up in the Water Street nick for their troubles.”

  “I remember Rae collecting the soil buckets from my time as a Runner,” Aiden noted. “He had a temper on ’im even then. Likes his drink a little too much now. He’s ambitious, though. Took over a tannery that was in some kinda money trouble last year.”

  “’Twas a Tawyer tannery,” Kassie added gravely. “Run by Galv’s cousin Rori.”

  “Are Rae an’ Kaiden still at the Water Street Watchhouse?” Hektor asked Paddy.

  The boy shook his head. “Talked to one of their runners—he was watchin’ the barney out front—an’ he said they got released early this mornin’. Went their separate ways, ’parently.”

  “But not before they passed their beef on to the younger generation,” Aiden noted.

  “Are there a lot of these younglings about the city?” Hektor asked Kassie.

  “Right on up to the Collegia,” she answered. “The littles do the small haulin’: pigeon an’ dog mostly, sometimes chicken, plus the soil buckets an’ the piss pots. Apprentice soilmen, the junior ones our age,” she gestured at Paddy and herself, “haul the heavier loads, horse, donkey an’ the like, then the senior apprentices carry it all down to where the wagons are waitin’ jus’ outside the city.”

  “They carry the buckets all the way to the lower gates?” Aiden asked.

  Paddy nodded. “Can’t have a honey wagon lumberin’ around the homes of the highborns, now can you?” he answered.

  “An’ the streets are too narrow farther down,” Kassie added. “The adults bring the younglings to the gates first thing, then pick ’em up with their loads ’round noon once they’ve got the privy cleanin’ an’ other work of their own done.”

  “If even half of ’em take up this fight, Hek, Haven’s gonna smell like an open cesspit by the end of the summer,” Aiden warned. “Best to see it sorted now if we can.”

  “How?” Hektor demanded. “We don’t have jurisdiction down by Exile’s Gate. An’ anyway, it sounds like they need new contracts. Who’s in charge of that sort of thing?”

  “No idea.”

  “Someone up the Collegium way, maybe,” Kassie offered.

  “Likely,” Aiden agreed. “So, someone needs to run up there and find out. An’ not Paddy,” he added as the boy turned for the door at once. “Someone with more authority behind ’im than a watchhouse runner, or we’ll get laughed out of the room.”

  “Me,” Hektor said, eyeing his discarded tunic with a glum expression.

  “’Less you wanna wait for the Captain to come back an’ have him assign you to it anyway,” Aiden said.

  “No, I’m goin’.” As he picked up the tunic, Hektor returned his attention to the younger Danns.

  “Find out who’s in charge of the younglings while they’re in the city; there must be someone keepin’ an eye on ’em.” He headed for the door. “An’ Aiden, once they give you those names, get ’em in here.”

  “My pleasure, Sergeant.”

  • • •

  The walk to the Collegium took most of the morning, and, by the time Hektor got back, he was hot, sweaty, and disgruntled. Aiden met him inside the front door.

  “Well?” the older Dann demanded.

  “They say they’re gonna send some clerk down here to get it sorted,” Hektor answered. “But ’tween the gate guard an’ me, we shouldn’t get our hopes up too high for it happenin’ any time soon. No one up there’s in any hurry to come down here in this heat.”

  Aiden pulled his lips up off his teeth in a snarl, but said nothing. Instead, he jerked his head toward two figures, a boy and girl of around sixteen, studiously not looking at each other, waiting in the inner foyer.

  Hektor turned. “Whitawer and Tawyer?” he demanded.

  As one, they nodded.

  “In here.”

  Once they’d followed him and Aiden into his office, he turned.

  “Names?”

  He could almost see them working out their differences in the face of their mutual enemy and, after a moment, the girl straightened. “Sevi Whitawer,” she said.

  “Jacca Tawyer,” the boy said a second later.

  “You’re in charge of the younglings?”

  As one, they nodded again.

  “They’ve made a fearful mess outside an’ in,” Hektor pointed out. “Their families are responsible for cleanin’ up the street. I was wantin’ to speak to adults; parents or whoever’s in charge of their duties.”

  The two youths glanced at each other.

  “We’ll see ta clean up,” Jacca said. “Haff of it, anyway.”

  “We’ll see ta udder haff,” Sevi said.

  “And the adults?”

  Both squirmed slightly. “Da took Uncle Kaiden wi’ wagon fer ta buy oak bark in coun’ryside first thin’ affer ’e sprung ’im from nick this marnin’,” the boy said. “Be haff way ta Traderest by now. Udder uncles tendin’ tannery vats an’ can’t leave ’em.”

  “And yours?” Hektor asked Sevi.

  “Granther be in charge by home way, but ’is legs don’ work so good now, so ’e can’t make much o�
�� a journey no more.”

  “That’d be Donnal Whitawer?” Aiden asked.

  “’Es. Uncle Rae runs town work now,” she admitted. “’E came in ta Butcher’s Row yes’erday fer ta buy hides an horn.”

  “Is he still here?”

  She nodded reluctantly. “But ’e don’t like beaks,” she warned. “An’ affer last night . . .” She trailed off. “Best if ’e were kept outta it,” she advised. “’E’d likely cause a ruckus if ’e were brought in fer this. We kin handle it.”

  “What about their mothers?” Hektor persisted.

  “Can’t come. Tendin’ babies an’ alum vats,” Sevi said flatly, her tone brooking no argument. Jacca nodded in silent agreement.

  Hektor studied them both for a moment, reading what they weren’t saying in their closed expressions and strained postures, then nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “You can have the littles, but I don’t want to see this again, or there’ll be fines, and for that I will want adults, understand?”

  They nodded.

  “See to them, Corporal.”

  • • •

  The two youths collected their share of children and, with the help of a few other apprentices their age, put them to work cleaning up the street, carefully keeping them a good distance apart from each other. But the smell still lingered in the cloying heat. Dusk brought little relief and, as he trudged home after his shift, Hektor wondered if he was ever going to get the smell out of his clothes.

  His mother met him at the stairs with a cloth and a clean shirt. “Paddy told me what was goin’ on today,” she said. “An’ even if he didn’t, I could smell you from here. Get yourself cleaned up under the street pump. You bring that smell in here, an’ Ismy’ll be sick.”

  Hektor felt his chest tighten in sudden panic. “She all right?”

  “She’s fine, she’s just feelin’ a bit under the weather, It’s normal for her condition; any little smell can set off her stomach at this stage, an’ you’re not carryin’ just a little smell. Go.”

  Hektor went, joined by his deeply unimpressed older brother a few moments later.

  “Dung rats runnin’ rampant in the streets,” Aiden spat as Hektor worked the pump for him first. “In this blasted heat. That’s all we needed.”

  “Well, it should be over now,” Hektor said.

  “It’d better be.”

  • • •

  Their middle brothers, Jakon and Raik, who worked the night shift, met them when they arrived the next morning. Hektor frowned at their scuffed and dirty tunics.

  “There was a right punch up at the Waterman’s Arms again last night,” Jakon explained, his eyes bright with the memory. “Watchmen from all over got called in. T’was a couple hours ’afor it all got sorted.”

  “Let me guess, Whitawers an’ Tawyers again?”

  “At first,” Raik answered. “But a buncha others got pulled in mighty quick. Rae’s related to half the tanners and skinners in Haven, an’ those that aren’t his kin are Kaiden’s.”

  “As long as it don’t spill back up here, they’re welcome to blacken each others’ eyes at the Water Street nick all they want,” Aiden growled. “Maybe it’ll teach ’em to get along.”

  “I doubt that,” Raik said cheerfully. “Capt’n Sorrin had ’em all tossed out the gate long afore dawn.”

  “Then it’s not our problem any more. Get home an’ get some sleep. Looks like you could use it.”

  “But you’d better get yourselves cleaned up first,” Hektor warned. “If Ma spots you lookin’ like that, she’ll teach you a few things about rollin’ around in the street. I thought you knew how to take a man down better’n that.”

  The two younger Danns just shrugged. “They’re are a slippery lot,” Jakon replied with an easy grin.

  “An’ so are you right now. Use the watchhouse pump.”

  The two younger brothers saluted smartly then, still grinning, made for the back. Shaking his head, Aiden headed out on patrol while Hektor turned reluctantly for his office and the mountain of reports inside.

  • • •

  “They’re at it again, Hek!”

  Paddy’s breathless interruption less than an hour later caused him to slap the papers down on his desk with a curse.

  “The same littles?”

  “Mostly, but lots of others this time! Locals an’ all!”

  “Where?”

  “Anvil’s Close!”

  “Oh, hellfires!” As he left his office at a run, Hektor caught his younger brother by the arm. “Where’s Aiden?” he demanded.

  “Came back with me! He’s assemblin’ the watch now!”

  “Find Sevi and Jacca, Paddy, find ’em an get ’em in here now.”

  “Yes, Sarge!”

  • • •

  This time there were split lips and bloody noses as well as the layers of dung and slops to contend with, and the mood of the returning watchmen was grim. Their charges were equally subdued, either from the fight or from the air of barely contained wrath simmering around them.

  Pausing from an unusually gentle ministration to a cut above Galv’s left eye, Hydd glanced over at Aiden, whose face had gone dangerously still. The oldest Dann brother had a legendary temper, and it had only been the birth of his now four-year-old son that had finally brought it under control.

  “Thinkin’ about your Egan?” he asked.

  “Some. An’ little Leila.” Aiden turned to Hektor. “This can’t wait for some clerk to wander down here in his own sweet time,” he growled. “This has got to get sorted now.”

  “And it will,” Hektor promised, his own eyes narrowed. “Take as many of the biggest watchmen you need and bring me some adults—Rae, Kaiden, whoever you can find. Bring Donnel himself if you have to, and arrest anyone else that even thinks about arguing with you.”

  “My pleasure, Sergeant.”

  • • •

  They returned by midafternoon, pushing through another newly gathered crowd of townsfolk with a half-dozen adults in tow and several dozen more following behind, all muttering angrily.

  Hektor met them outside the watchhouse door. He had the children eating buns and apples in a roped-off area by the front steps, with Hydd standing guard and Nessa moving between them, offering more buns and mugs of sweet water, her lips compressed tightly at the state of them. Off to one side, Sevi and Jacca stood together in a crowd of youths, watching the approach of their elders nervously.

  “I won’t have this,” Hektor said in a dark tone once the adults were herded to just in front of him. “I won’t have littles sortin’ out beefs that should be sorted out by their parents, an’ I won’t have apprentices tryin’ to keep a peace that should be kept by their masters. I don’t care who’s got a contract or who doesn’t. You’ll sort this out today or I’ll arrest every last one of you.”

  As the adults began to all talk at once, Aiden glanced over at his younger brother. “Maybe not the most tactful way to proceed,” he pointed out quietly.

  “Yeah? I had Edzel Smith up here shoutin’ at me about the state of his street all mornin’,” Hektor replied.

  Aiden snorted. “Yer father-in-law was a mite unhappy, was he?”

  “Unhappy don’t even begin to cover it. An’ he weren’t the only one, neither. I’ve had a dozen angry mothers up here, too. I’m in no mood for tact.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Aiden paused, his expression suddenly questioning. “What the . . . ?”

  Hektor cocked his head to one side. “Sounds like . . . bells?” he hazarded. He raised one hand to shield his eyes from the sun as the crowd hushed, then parted to reveal a shining white figure making its way toward them at a leisurely pace.

  Hektor gawked with the rest. Like most of the denizens of Iron Street, he had seen precious few horses in his twenty-five years and had neve
r even laid eyes on an actual Companion. Even from a distance, the creature looked like something out of a Bardic tale: both dainty and powerful at the same time, with a thick, silken mane that whispered across its neck as it moved, and delicate, silver hooves that cracked smartly against the cobblestones. It . . . she, he amended, wove her way through the gathered townsfolk and soilmen like a dancer, and when she stopped before the watchhouse steps, he suddenly realized that she had a rider on her back. He looked up to see not the expected Herald but a small boy of maybe eight or nine, with shaggy, caramel-brown hair falling into eyes nearly as blue as those of his Companion’s. He was barefoot and bare armed, wearing nothing but a vest and short trews made from scraps of leather and cloth. His face was dusty and his limbs thin in the way a boy’s can be before he begins the climb to maturity, but he looked otherwise healthy and reasonably well fed. He glanced around at the scene before him with great interest, then his eyes riveted on Hektor, who stepped forward.

  “Youngling,” Hektor said, trying to keep the stiff formality in his tone to a minimum.

  The boy smiled and, for a moment, it seemed brighter than the sun, and then the moment passed as he put a hand to his chest. “’M Tayn,” he said. “Outta Waymeet.”

  “I’m Sergeant Dann of the Haven City Watch. You’re a long way from home, Tayn.”

  The boy nodded. “’Tis be Aislin. She came fer me mebbe two weeks past now.”

  Hektor bowed awkwardly to the Companion, who tossed her head up and down, her sapphire eyes sparkling with humor.

  “You’re making for the Herald’s Collegium?”

  “’Es.”

  “Do you need . . . um . . . can we get you both some . . .” Hektor racked his mind for something that might be suitable for a Companion and a new Herald. “. . . food and um . . . drink?” he finally settled on.

  Tayn nodded again, then cocked his head to one side as if listening to something. “Thankee,” he said after a moment, then stood up in the saddle to focus his bright gaze the group of apprentices standing protectively around Sevi and Jacca. His smile lit up the surroundings again, and Hektor heard the crowd sigh before the Companion moved smoothly forward. Tayn slid from the saddle and greeted the two youths with the same hand to his chest, then began to earnestly speaking with them in a quiet voice.