William’s smile faded and he moved back toward me. “It’s not much farther,” he said.
He reached out as if to take my arm again, but I drew back, my eyes hardening.
“Go on,” I said, and nodded down the street.
He continued, but not before giving me a confused frown.
He halted a few streets farther on at a door beneath a sign with a ship carved into the wood, its sails torn and ragged, the central mast broken. When he opened the door and gestured me inside, laughter and the sounds of a dozen voices rolled out into the street.
I stepped back, glanced toward William. I knew it was a tavern, had heard the raucous noises through opened doors before, knew the smells. But always from the street, from the Dredge. I’d never actually been inside one.
William’s brow furrowed as he waited. He didn’t understand my hesitation.
Before he could say anything, before the frown began to touch his eyes with real concern, I straightened and stepped past him into the inner room.
The sudden influx of sensation was overwhelming, the sound and motion and scents too intense. A dozen conversations, twenty voices or more, rushed out of the background noise, roaring forward like a gale, somehow trapped inside the little room, confined. A thousand scents struck like a blow—fire, ale, sweat, tallow, rot, cooked meat, bread, heat—all mixed and compacted, enough to gag. And through the sound, through the smells, in the dulled transition from sunlight to candlelight, people were moving: clapping each other on the back, stumbling up from tables, wandering toward the fire, reaching for food, coughing, carrying mugs of ale, drinking, eating, choking.
It was too much. The river began to close in, the water closing up and over my head, smothering me. My breath caught in my chest with a sharp pain and held there. My shoulders tensed. My hand closed in a death grip on my dagger. The room rushed in to crush me.
Then, with effort, I forced the darkening gray of the world to focus. I felt the river push back, resist, struggle—
Then the noise bled into the background. The scents slid away. And the giddy rush of motion pulled back, stabilized.
I gasped as the river gave way and began to balance, coughed as if water were caught in my throat, in my lungs—like when I’d surfaced from the water of Cobbler ’s Fountain at age six.
William stepped up behind me and I felt the light fade as the door closed. His hand moved as if to touch me, his eyes concerned, but he stopped himself at something he saw in my face.
“Over here,” he said, and led me through the mass of people toward a table in the corner, where the man in the red coat sat. I felt confined by the low roof, the people, but when I saw the red-coated man, all of that sensation fled.
The scent of oranges grew so strong it dampened out everything in the room, so sharp my eyes began to water.
I slid from the river, and the noise of the tavern rushed back, the scents. But in the real world they were not as overwhelming. In the real world, they were no worse than the crowds on the Dredge.
William moved behind the table, to where the red-coated man sat. He leaned down to murmur something in the red-coated man’s ear, but the red-coated man’s eyes never left mine. He watched me intently from behind the wires on his face. When William finished, he only nodded, and William stepped back to stand behind his shoulder, arms behind his back.
The red-coated man motioned to the only other chair at the table. “Would you like to sit?” he asked. His voice was soft and hard at the same time, careful and wary.
I glanced toward the chair, felt the motion of the room at my back, the steady stream of people, and shook my head.
He nodded, as if he’d expected that response. Then, in a deeper voice, one much more dangerous than before, he asked, “And do you know who I am?”
I shook my head again.
He watched me for the space of two breaths . . . and then his gaze shifted out into the crowd behind me. “Moll, could you bring a plate of the pork and some ale. And bread with butter, of course. Enough for three.”
I turned and watched a woman nod in our direction and hustle off toward a door.
When I turned back, the red-coated man was watching me again, this time with a frown.
“We saw you kill that boy the other night.”
It was a statement, and when he reached beneath the table I tensed, a cold sensation rushing up from my stomach. But not the warning Fire. This was simple panic. My hand went for my dagger—
But then the red-coated man drew forth a section of black cloth, finely made—too fine for what I’d seen on the common people of the wharf. It was stained with mud, with blood.
It was the cloak Cristoph had dropped, the one he’d left behind.
The red-coated man pushed the cloak back down beneath the table.
“I sent William back for the body. He tossed it into the harbor, but he brought the cloak and the book to me. If the body is found, the boy’s family will think he was roughing it in the wharf region for fun, that he got involved in something he shouldn’t have—dice, too much drink, the wrong crowd—and that he was killed for his money.”
“What about the other one, the one who ran away?” I asked.
Borund grimaced. “I don’t think he’ll cause a problem. He’d have to admit he was on the wharf in the first place, attempting . . . whatever he was attempting. I find that unlikely.”
I shifted uneasily. “Who were they?”
“Does it matter?” When I didn’t answer, he shook his head. “Merchants’ sons. They shouldn’t have been messing around on the wharf. They certainly shouldn’t have been down here preying on the likes of you. Don’t you agree?”
William snorted. The red-coated man frowned but didn’t turn around.
“In any case,” the red-coated man continued, “William has convinced me that you could be . . . useful.”
I glanced toward William, but his face was blank, his eyes focused inward.
“How?”
The red-coated man drew breath, but suddenly Moll appeared with a tray heavy with shredded pork smothered in some kind of sauce. The meat steamed, the scent of heat and smoke and juice powerful, drawing a rumble from my stomach. She set the tray down with a grunt as a second, younger woman arrived with a huge pitcher of ale and three wooden cups—except they were larger than any cups I’d ever seen; deeper and with large handles. Yet another woman arrived with a flat board with bread already sliced and a bowl with butter in it. A small knife, as long as my finger and strangely flattened, was half-buried in the butter.
My stomach clenched.
“Will that be all, Merchant Borund?”
“For now, yes, Moll.”
The three women nodded and wove back into the crowd behind me, but not before considering me with curious frowns. Moll nodded to me as she passed, with a tentative smile.
After they left, Borund sighed and relaxed back into his chair. Motioning toward the food, he said, “Please, have something to eat. You as well, William.”
I hesitated, too shocked to move. There was more meat on the tray than I’d eat in a week, and the bread. . . .
William shifted forward, used the small knife to spread the butter over a slice of bread, then used something else with three small prongs to stab a chunk of the meat. He placed the meat on the bread and then stepped back to eat.
I watched a moment, still stunned, then stepped forward. I resisted the urge to grab the entire loaf of bread and run. Instead, I picked up a single slice and when no one reacted, stepped back. I half expected Borund or William to shout, or reach out and grab my arm as the hawker had done when he’d caught me trying to steal from his stall.
Instead, Borund leaned forward and said, “Here. Try some butter on that.”
I held out the slice of bread I’d taken. Borund took it and slathered it liberally, then handed it back.
The bread was warm, and the butter had already begun to soak into the slice. It smelled sweet, tasted sweeter, soft and warm and s
mooth against my tongue. The flavor flooded my mouth, and a trail of it trickled down my chin like drool.
It was the best thing I’d ever tasted, sent tremors through my arms.
I stuffed the rest of the bread in my mouth, wiped the trail of butter away with the back of my hand while still chewing the last of it.
Borund leaned forward with a smile. “Now have some with the meat.”
He waited until I’d gotten another slice, with plenty of butter, more than Borund had used, and some meat, then sat back while William poured three cups of ale.
“Amenkor is dangerous, Varis,” he began, then hesitated. “May I call you Varis?”
I nodded around my third helping of butter, bread, and meat.
“Not just here on the wharf. It’s dangerous in the upper city as well. Perhaps more so. Especially since the White Fire.” He paused, grimaced to himself, then focused again on me. “I did not think it was that serious—not as serious as William claimed—until . . . until we saw you being attacked in that alley by those boys. I was willing to dismiss how bad things had become in Amenkor until then. But now. . . .” He shook his head, shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his gaze moving toward the crowd behind me.
I stopped for a moment, suddenly uneasy. Inside, I felt a tendril of the Fire flicker upward, there and then gone. But the motions of the room behind me began to filter into my awareness, no longer part of the background.
Borund’s gaze moved from person to person.
“Now,” he said, “I no longer feel safe. Even here, where I’ve come since my father first brought me to the wharf.” He smiled, the gesture bittersweet and brief, and returned his attention to me. “And that’s where you come in, Varis. I need someone to guard over me, protect me.”
I stopped chewing. Through a mouthful of bread and gravy, I sputtered, “What?”
Borund leaned forward. “I want you to accompany me to the wharf, to the city or palace, wherever I go, and make certain no one harms me. I know you can handle a weapon. I’ve seen it. I know you can defend yourself. That boy you killed . . . he was trained, Varis. He knew how to use a knife. And yet you bested him without any effort at all.”
I swallowed painfully, the lump of bread too large and tasteless. “He was stupid.”
“Perhaps. But in the end you walked away, not him. I’m willing to bet you can best almost anyone. Especially anyone that may be hired to kill me.”
“Who would want you dead?”
William snorted again and took a long pull on his ale. William had drunk plenty of ale. I hadn’t touched mine. Neither had Borund.
“Other merchants. Perhaps others from the upper city with power. People here on the wharf who have become . . . desperate.” Now Borund reached for his ale. “There are plenty who might try.” He drank, watching me carefully over the top of the cup, then set the cup aside. “See this jacket? The red signifies my merchant house, the color chosen typically as an indicator of the product I traded in when my house was first certified as a member of the guild. Mine is red because at the time I dealt mainly in imported wines.
“But my house has grown since then,” he said. “I deal in many commodities now—spices, grain, cloth. The gold embroidery on the sleeves of the jacket and around the neck indicate all of the wares that my house has dealt in before.” He pointed to his cuff. “These three lines cinched tight in the middle mean that I’ve traded in flax, that perhaps I have a source if someone is interested. This elongated circle indicates I’ve dealt in silks from the eastern city of Korvallo, across the mountains. The more embroidery, the more powerful the house. The jacket and the embroidery are a necessary part of the work of the guild, are in fact essential if my house is to remain influential in the guild and in the palace. But it has a drawback. It announces to the world exactly how powerful I am. And it attracts . . . undue attention.”
“It makes you a target,” I said.
Borund did not respond, turned his attention toward the ring of spilled ale the cup had left on the table instead, began spreading the ale around with one finger in small circular motions.
“You would no longer live on the wharf, of course, in your little pile of traps. If you came to work for me.”
My eyes narrowed, a pulse of anger uncoiling deep within.
He glanced up briefly, then continued playing with the ring of ale. “Yes. I had you watched. I had to make certain you were trustworthy. That you weren’t sent by one of the other merchants, as a spy perhaps.” He sighed. “If you are interested, you would have to live in my house in the inner city. Sleep there, eat there. My schedule is not fixed, so I’d need you close, in case I had to leave quickly. I would provide everything you needed, within reason.” The small circular motions stopped and he lifted his finger from the ale, lifted his eyes to me. “It would be a much better life than stealing what you can from the wharf.”
I hesitated. The anger that he had followed me, had watched me—that he had done so without me noticing—felt raw and hot inside me. I should have seen them, should have noticed whoever had been sent to stalk me.
And that’s exactly how I felt. As if I’d been stalked.
Suddenly, the bread and meat and butter felt heavy and sour in my stomach. I felt sick, the air inside the tavern too close, stifling. The noise and motion of the people began to push forward again, overpowering, like when I’d first stepped into the room.
Feeling feverish, I stepped away from the table. “I don’t know.” I took another step, the urge to run creeping up slowly from inside, tingling through my arms, even though there was no warning from the Fire inside me, no hint of danger.
Borund stood as well, sharply, frowning, one hand slightly outstretched as if to catch me before I fled. He seemed about to protest, but then he stopped, let his hand fall back to the table.
“Perhaps this was a mistake,” he said.
And then the pressure of the room became too great, the noise and scents too harsh.
I turned, hesitated. . . . But in the end I slid through the crowd to the door and out into the new-fallen night.
Once outside the stifling tavern in the night air, I moved swiftly toward my niche, past people I barely saw before swerving around them. My mind was blank, empty. There was nothing to feel except the heavy weight of food in my stomach, nothing to taste but a strange fear tinged with a sickening excitement, all flavored like butter, smooth and slick inside my mouth. . . .
I stumbled over a trailing length of rope attached to a crab trap, caught myself against a wall. My heart thundered in my chest, so hard it hurt just beneath my breastbone. I coughed roughly, then straightened.
Drawing in another deep breath, I leaned my head back against the stone of the wall behind me.
I could still smell oranges.
I drew in a few more deep breaths, coughed half- heartedly, and sank down into a crouch, weight on my heels. On the street before me, a few people moved. Some slowed, watched me warily. No one came close.
I closed my eyes. Against the darkness, I thought about William grabbing my arm, felt the instant surge of fear, of desperation, of dread that this was another rapist like the first man I’d killed . . . or another Bloodmark.
But William wasn’t one of those men. I could see it in his eyes, in his confused expression, in his mussed, clean hair. I could see it in the way he’d held out his hand to stop me from attacking a second time. And it was in his smile.
I shifted uneasily, feeling again that trembling sensation deep inside, somehow warm and tense at the same time, and strangely guilty.
I turned away from the sensation, thought about Borund instead, about how he’d offered the food, about his eyes. He’d been wary, reluctant at first, the wrinkles near his eyes tight. But then he’d relaxed, smiled, put the butter on that first slice of bread. Not the slow smile of Garrell Cart before he’d taken the girl on the Dredge, before he’d killed her. No. Borund’s smile had been amused as he watched me take that first uncertain bite, as he watched
me slather the butter onto the second slice myself.
But he’d also had me followed, watched, stalked. Like I imagined that ex-guardsman I’d killed had stalked me, or like Garrell Cart had watched the girl with the green cloth. Predatory.
Wariness twisted my stomach, made worse by William’s confused eyes, by Borund’s smile.
And by the oranges.
Erick had given me oranges. I’d trusted him. I trusted him still, even though I felt that I’d betrayed him in some way by killing Bloodmark. Even though that last image of him, at the edge of Cobbler’s Fountain, before we’d found Mari, had been gray mixed with red. I didn’t know what the red mixed with gray meant exactly, but I still trusted him.
I squeezed my eyes tighter, felt tears near the edges, felt them burn.
I suddenly wanted Erick back, wanted him there, at the edge of Cobbler’s Fountain, waiting. I wanted to see his hard expression, his dark eyes, his scars. Even if it meant that the moment he saw me, the moment he laid eyes on me, he denounced me. Even if all he did was cast me out.
But I couldn’t get Erick back. Not now. I’d made my choice.
I opened my eyes, wiped at them forcefully, then glared at a man who’d paused on the far side of the street.
He turned quickly and moved on.
I glanced around, dipped beneath the river briefly but saw no red, then stood and began moving toward my niche.
Sunlight glared off the rolling waves of the harbor in flashes, forcing me to squint and raise a hand to shade my eyes. At the end of the dock, a ship with three masts creaked against its lines as workers—Zorelli and Amenkor natives alike—hauled boxes and barrels down the ramp to the dock itself. It was the usual chaos that normally kept me enthralled with a strange tingling excitement deep down inside my stomach, but today I wasn’t interested. Today, only William and Borund held my attention.
Both stood at the end of the plank that led to the deck of the ship, Borund dressed again in the red coat. William stood back and to one side, in a white shirt with ruffles down the front and brown breeches tucked into boots. Both were frowning in thought as the captain of the ship talked. I could only catch a few phrases of the conversation at this distance, and none of those phrases made sense. But I couldn’t get any closer without revealing myself. I wasn’t well hidden as it was.
The Skewed Throne Page 16
