The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  In a little time she was back with fat Jochen in her wake, and Jochen mightily scowling.

  "You're in trouble?" Jochen said. "Get out if you are."

  "Want you to keep Jensy for me."

  "Pay," Jochen said. "You got it?"

  "How much?"

  "How bad the trouble?"

  "For her, none at all. Just keep her." Gillian turned her back—prudence, not modesty—to fish up the silver from her blouse, not revealing the purse. She held up one coin. "Two days' board and close room."

  "You are in trouble."

  "I want Nessim. Is he here?"

  He always was by dark. Jochen snorted. "A cut of what's going."

  "A cut if there's profit; a clear name if there's not; get Nessim."

  Jochen went. "I don't want to be left," Jensy started to say, but Gillian rapped her ear and scowled so that Jensy swallowed it and looked frightened. Finally a muddled old man came muttering their way and Gillian snagged his sleeve. The reek of wine was strong; it was perpetual about Nessim Hath, excommunicate priest and minor dabbler in magics. He read, when he was sober enough to see the letters; that and occasionally effective magics—wards against rats, for one—made him a livelihood and kept his throat uncut.

  "Upstairs," Gillian said, guiding sot and child up the well-worn boards to the loft and the private cells at the alleyside wall. Jensy snatched the taper at the head of the stairs and they went into that room, which had a window.

  Nessim tottered to the cot and sat down while Jensy lit the stub of a candle. Gillian fished out her coppers, held them before Nessim's red-rimmed eyes and pressed them into the old priest's shaking hand.

  "Read something?" Nessim asked.

  Gillian pulled out the purse and knelt by the bedside while Jensy prudently closed the door. She produced the leaden cylinder and the parchment. "Old man," she said, "tell me what I've got here."

  He gathered up the cylinder and brought his eyes closely to focus on it, frowning. His mouth trembled as did his hands, and he thrust it back at her. "I don't know this seal. Lose this thing in the canal. Be rid of it."

  "You know it, old man."

  "I don't." She did not take it from him, and he held it, trembling. "A false seal, a mask seal. Some thing some would know—and not outsiders. It's no good, Gillian."

  "And if some would hunt a thief for it? It's good to someone."

  Nessim stared at her. She valued Nessim, gave him coppers when he was on one of his lower periods: he drank the money and was grateful. She cultivated him, one gentle rogue among the ungentle, who would not have failed at priesthood and at magics if he did not drink and love comforts; now he simply had the drink.

  "Run," he said. "Get out of Korianth. Tonight."

  "Penniless? This should be worth something, old man."

  "Powerful men would use such a seal to mask what they do, who they are. Games of more than small stakes."

  Gillian swallowed heavily. "You've played with seals before, old man; read me the parchment."

  He took it in hand, laid the leaden cylinder in his lap, turned the parchment to all sides. Long and long he stared at it, finally opened his purse with much trembling of his hands, took out a tiny knife and cut the red threads wrapped round, pulled them from the wax and loosed it carefully with the blade.

  "Huh," Jensy pouted. "Anyone could cut it." Gillian rapped her ear gently as Nessim canted the tiny parchment to the scant light. His lips mumbled, steadied, a thin line. When he opened his mouth they trembled again, and very carefully he drew out more red thread from his pouch, red wax such as scribes used. Gillian held her peace and kept Jensy's, not to disturb him in the ticklish process that saw new cords seated, the seal prepared—he motioned for the candle and she held it herself while he heated and replaced the seal most gingerly.

  "No magics," he said then, handing it back. "No magics of mine near this thing. Or the other. Take them. Throw them both in the River."

  "Answers, old man."

  "Triptis. Promising—without naming names— twenty thousand in gold to the shrine of Triptis."

  Gillian wrinkled her nose and took back parchment and cylinder. "Abhizite god," she said. "A dark one." The sum ran cold fingers over her skin. "Twenty thousand. That's—gold—twenty thousand. How much do rich men have to spend on temples, old thief?"

  "Rich men's lives are bought for less."

  The fingers went cold about the lead. Gillian swallowed, wishing Jensy had stayed downstairs in the pantry. She held up the lead cylinder. "Can you breach that seal, old man?"

  "Wouldn't."

  "You tell me why."

  "It's more than a lead seal on that. Adepts more than the likes of me; I know my level, woman; I know what not to touch, and you can take my advice. Get out of here. You've stolen something you can't trade in. They don't need to see you, do you understand me? This thing can be traced."

  The hairs stirred to her nape. She sat staring at him. "Then throwing it in the river won't do it, either."

  "They might give up then. Might. Gillian, you've put your head in the jaws this time."

  "Rich men's lives," she muttered, clutching the objects in her hand. She slid them back into the purse and thrust it within her blouse. "I'll get rid of it. I'll find some way. I've paid Jochen to keep Jensy. See he does, or sour his beer."

  "Gillian—"

  "You don't want to know," she said. "I don't want either of you to know."

  There was the window, the slanting ledge outside; she hugged Jensy, and old Nessim, and used it.

  3

  Alone. she traveled quickly, by warehouse roofs for the first part of her journey, where the riggings and masts of dockside webbed the night sky, by remembered ways across the canal. One monstrous old warehouse squatted athwart the canal like a misshapen dowager, a convenient crossing that avoided the bridges. Skirts hampered; she whipped off the wrap, leaving the knee breeches and woolen hose she wore beneath, the skirt rolled and bound to her waist with her belt. She had her dagger, her razor and the cant to mark her as trouble for ruffians—a lie: the nebulous brotherhood would hardly back her now, in her trouble. They disliked long looks from moneyed men, hired bullies and noise on dockside. If the noise continued about her, she might foreseeably meet with accident, to be found floating in a canal—to quiet the uproar and stop further attentions.

  But such as she met did not know it and kept from her path or, sauntering and mocking, still shied from brotherhood cant. Some passwords were a cut throat to use without approval, and thieves out of the Sink taught interlopers bitter lessons.

  She paused to rest at the Serpentine of midtown, crouched in the shadows, sweating and hard-breathing, dizzy with want of sleep and food. Her belly had passed the point of hurting. She thought .of a side excursion—a bakery's back door, perhaps—but she did not dare the possible hue and cry added to what notoriety she already had. She gathered what strength she had and set out a second time, the way that led to the tinsel shrine and one house that would see its busiest hours in the dark.

  Throw it in the canal: she dared not. Once it was gone from her, she had no more bargains left, nothing. As it was she had a secret valuable and fearful to someone. There comes a time, Genat had told her often enough, when chances have to be taken—and taken wide.

  It was not Sophonisba's way.

  Panting, she reached the red window, rapped at it; there was dim light inside and long delay—a male voice, a curse, some drunken converse. Gillian leaned against the wall outside and slowed her breathing, wishing by all the gods of Korianth (save one) that Sophonisba would make some haste. She rapped again finally, heart racing as her rashness raised a complaint within—male voice again. She pressed herself to the wall, heard the drunken voice diminish— Sophonisba's now, shrill, bidding someone out. A door opened and closed.

  In a moment steps crossed the room and the shutter opened. Gillian showed herself cautiously, stared up into Sophonisba's white face. "Come on out here," Gillian said.

&n
bsp; "Get out of here," Sophonisba hissed, with fear stark in her eyes. "Out, or I call the watch. There's money looking for you."

  She would have closed the shutters, but Gillian had both hands on the ledge and vaulted up to perch on it; Gillian snatched and caught a loose handful of Sophonisba's unlaced shift. "Don't do that, Sophie. If you bring the watch, we'll both be sorry. You know me. I've got something I've got to get rid of. Get dressed."

  "And lose a night's—"

  "Yes. Lose your nose if you don't hurry about it." She brought out the razor, that small and wicked knife of which Sophonisba was most afraid. She sat polishing it on her knee while Sophonisba sorted into a flurry of skirts. Sophonisba paused once to look; she let the light catch the knife and Sophonisba made greater haste. "Fix your hair," Gillian said.

  "Someone's going to come back here to check on me if I don't take my last fee front—"

  "Then fix it on the way." Steps were headed toward the door. "Haste! Or there'll be bloodletting."

  "Get down," Sophonisba groaned. "I'll get rid of her."

  Gillian slipped within the room and closed the shutters, stood in the dark against the wall while Sophonisba cracked the door and handed the fee out, heard a gutter dialogue and Sophonisba pleading indisposition. She handed out more money finally, as if she were parting with her life's blood, and closed the door. She looked about with a pained expression. "You owe me, you owe me—"

  "I'm carrying something dangerous," Gillian said.

  "It's being tracked, do you understand? Nessim doesn't like the smell of it."

  "O gods."

  "Just so. It's trouble, old friend. Priest trouble."

  "Then take it to priests."

  "Priests expect donations. I've the scent of gold, dear friend. It's rich men pass such things back and forth, about things they don't want authority to know about."

  "Then throw it in a canal."

  "Nessim's advice. But it doesn't take the smell off my hands or answer questions when the trackers catch me up—or you, now, old friend."

  "What do you want?" Sophonisba moaned. "Gillian, please—"

  "Do you know," she said softly, reasonably, "if we take this thing—we, dear friend—to the wrong party, to someone who isn't disposed to reward us, or someone who isn't powerful enough to protect us so effortlessly that protection costs him nothing—who would spend effort protecting a whore and a thief, eh, Sophie? But some there are in this city who shed gold like gods shed hair, whose neighborhoods are so well protected others hesitate to meddle in them. Men of birth, Sophie. Men who might like to know who's paying vast sums of gold for favors in this city."

  "Don't tell me these things."

  "I'll warrant a whore hears a lot of things, Sophie. I'll warrant a whore knows a lot of ways and doors and windows in Korianth, who's where, who has secrets—"

  "A whore is told a lot of lies. I can't help you."

  "But you can, pretty Sophonisba." She held up the razor. "I daresay you know names and such—even in the king's own hall."

  "No!"

  "But the king's mad, they say; and who knows what a madman might do? What other names do you know?"

  "I don't know anyone, I swear I don't."

  "Don't swear; we've gods enough here. We improvise, then, you and I." She flung the shutter open. "Out, out with you."

  Sophonisba was not adept at ledges. She settled herself on it and hesitated. Gillian thought of pushing her; then, fearing noise, took her hands and lei her down gently, followed after with a soft thud. Sophonisba stood shivering and tying her laces, the latter unsuccessfully.

  "Come on," Gillian said.

  "I don't walk the alleys," Sophonisba protested in dread; Gillian pulled her along nonetheless, the back ways of the Grand Serpentine.

  They met trouble. It was inevitable. More than once gangs of youths spotted Sophonisba, like dogs a stray cat, and came too close for comfort. Once the cant was not password enough, and they wanted more proof: Gillian showed that she carried, knife-carved in her shoulder, the brotherhood's initiation, and drunk as they were, they had sense to give way for that. It ruffled her pride. She jerked Sophonisba along and said nothing, seething with anger and reckoning she should have cut one. She could have done it and gotten away; but not with Sophonisba.

  Sophonisba snuffled quietly, her hand cold as ice.

  They took to the main canalside at last, when they must, which was at this hour decently deserted. It was not a place Gillian had been often; she found her way mostly by sense, knowing where the tall, domed buildings should lie. She had seen them most days of her life from the rooftops of the Sink.

  The palaces of the great of Korianth were walled, with gardens, and men to watch them. She saw seals now and then that she knew, mythic beasts and demon beasts snarling from the arches over such places.

  But one palace there was on the leftside hill, opposed to the great gold dome of the King's Palace, a lonely abode well walled and guarded.

  There were guards, gilt-armed guards, with plumes and cloaks and more flash than ever the rufflers of midtown dared sport. Gillian grinned to herself and felt Sophonisba's hand in hers cold and limp from dread of such a place.

  She marked with her eye where the guards stood, how they came and went and where the walls and accesses lay, where trees and bushes topped the walls inside and how the wall went to the very edge of the white marble building. The place was defended against armed men, against that sort of threat; against—the thought cooled her grin and her enthusiasm—guilded Assassins and free-lancers; a prince must worry for such things.

  No. It was far from easy as it looked. Those easy ways could be set with traps; those places too unguarded could become deadly. She looked for the ways less easy, traced again that too-close wall.

  "Walk down the street," she told Sophonisba. "Now. Just walk down the street."

  "You're mad."

  "Go."

  Sophonisba started off, pale figure in blue silks, a disheveled and unlaced figure of ample curves and confused mien. She walked quickly as her fear would urge her, beyond the corner and before the eyes of the guards at the gate.

  Gillian stayed long enough to see the sentries' attention wander, then pelted to the wall and carefully, with delicate fingers and the balance Genat had taught, spidered her way up the brickwork.

  Dogs barked the moment she flung an arm over. She cursed, ran the crest of the thin wall like a trained ape, made the building itself and crept along the masonry—too much of ornament, my lord!—as far as the upper terrace.

  Over the rim and onto solid ground, panting. Whatever had become of Sophonisba, she had served her purpose.

  Gillian darted for a further terrace. Doors at the far end swung open suddenly; guards ran out in consternation. Gillian grinned at them, arms wide, like a player asking tribute; bowed.

  They were not amused, thinking of their hides, surely. She looked up at a ring of pikes, cocked her head to one side and drew a conscious deep breath, making obvious what they should see; that it was no male intruder they had caught.

  "Courier," she said, "for Prince Osric."

  4

  He was not, either, amused.

  She stood with a very superfluous pair of men-at-arms gripping her wrists so tightly that the blood left her hands and the bones were about to snap, and the king's bastard—and sole surviving son—fingered the pouch they had found in their search of her.

  "Courier," he said.

  They were not alone with the guards, he and she. A brocaded troop of courtiers and dandies loitered near, amongst the porphyry columns and on the steps of the higher floor. He dismissed them with a wave of his hand; several seemed to feel privileged and stayed.

  "For whom," the prince asked, "are you a courier?"

  "Couriers bring messages," she said. "I decided on my own to bring you this one. I thought you should have it."

  "Who are you?"

  "A free-lance assassin," she said, promoting herself, and setting Prince
Osric back a pace. The guards nearly crushed her wrists; they went beyond pain.

  "Jisan," Osric said.

  One of the three who had stayed walked forward, and Gillian's spine crawled; she knew the look of trouble, suspected the touch of another brotherhood, more disciplined than her own. "I was ambitious," she said at once. "I exaggerate."

  "She is none of ours," said the Assassin. A dark man he was, unlike Osric, who was white-blond and thin; this Jisan was from southern climes and not at all flash, a drab shadow in brown and black beside Osric's glitter.

  "Your name," said Osric.

  "Gillian," she said; and recalling better manners and where she was: "—majesty."

  "And how come by this?"

  "A cutpurse. . . found this worthless. It fell in the street. But it's some lord's seal."

  "No lord's seal. Do you read, guttersnipe?"

  "Read, I?" The name rankled; she kept her face calm. "No, lord."

  He whisked out a dagger and cut the cords, unfurled the parchment. A frown came at once to his face, deepened, and his pale eyes came suddenly up to hers. "Suppose that someone read it to you."

  She sucked a thoughtful breath, weighed her life, and Jensy's. "A drunk clerk read it—for a kiss; said it was something he didn't want to know; and I think then—some great lord might want to know it; but which lord, think I? One lord might make good use and another bad, one be grateful and another not— might make rightest use of something dangerous— might be glad it came here in good loyal hands, and not where it was supposed to go; might take notice of a stir in the lowtown, bully boys looking for that cutpurse to cut throats, armed men and some of them not belonging hereabouts. King's wall's too high, majesty, so I came here."

  "Whose bravos?" Jisan asked.

  She blinked. "Wish I knew that; I'd like to know."

  "You're that cutpurse," he said.

  "If I were, would I say yes, and if I weren't, would I say yes? But I know that thing's better not in my hands and maybe better here than in the River. A trifle of reward, majesty, and there's no one closer mouthed than I am; a trifle more, majesty, and you've all my talents at hire: no one can outbid a prince, not for the likes of me; I know I'm safest to be bribed once and never again."