He nodded, and she sighed again.
‘Did they ever catch the person who murdered your father?’ he asked her softly, suddenly curious. Suddenly wanting to know if justice was ever done. But she shook her head.
‘No. The murderer died before he could be made to pay for what he did. Sometimes I wish …’ She hesitated, then said in a rush, ‘Sometimes I wish he was still alive, so I could kill him myself.’
‘You think you could do it?’
She shrugged. ‘It would be just like killing a monster.’
Killing a monster. Penn frowned. He couldn’t see it in quite such stark terms, despite what his father would have him believe. People who did bad things were still people. Yet he knew what she meant. Once you thought of a man in terms of a single unforgiveable act, instead of a bundle of human complexity, he became flat. Two-dimensional. Like the thin wooden figures the recruits sometimes used for target practice. And a target could be knocked down without even hesitating, because morality was no longer an issue.
‘What about you, Penn?’ Saydi asked. ‘Did they catch whoever killed your cousin?’
‘Catch?’ It was a bitter echo. ‘He was rewarded for it.’
He looked down at the top of her head again, wondering if he could trust her. But he longed to talk to someone, and she’d understand. After what had happened to her, she’d understand.
‘That’s why I came here,’ he said softly. ‘To make it right.’
For an instant, she froze. Then she lifted her head, gazing intently into his face. ‘Tell me about it.’
The man Sorrow knew as Don Pieter Callero, and whom she had now identified as Number Fourteen in the Kardise Brotherhood, lived in a house very similar to the one he’d asked her to burgle. So similar, in fact, that he’d been able to give her detailed descriptions of the layout of the other house, despite never having set foot in it. Perhaps all the Brotherhood lived in them: tall, thin houses with steps climbing from the street to each front door – a strange conceit, that – and long, narrow gardens at the back. In Arkannen, where space was at a premium, they would have been terraced; here, narrow alleys separated each building from its neighbours. As far as Sorrow could see, those alleys served no other purpose than to provide concealment for miscreants like her.
As she neared the house, she felt someone’s gaze on her and glanced across the street to find a woman watching her from the opposite window. People were far more suspicious in Kardissak than they were in Arkannen. No, that wasn’t quite true: the citizens of Arkannen were as big a bunch of bloody suspicious bastards as could be found anywhere else in the world, but they suspected everyone indiscriminately. Whereas here, not looking Kardise drew a disproportionate amount of attention. Not that Sorrow looked anything else, either. Though she was Mirrorvalese by birth, she was a little bit of everything by blood. Literally: her mother was half Ingalese and half Kardise, while her father – himself born and bred in Mirrorvale – had possessed more than one Parovian ancestor. A mongrel, then, and proud of the fact. It gave her a unique position in any setting: not quite part of it, but not so different as to be out of place, either. She’d always found it worked to her advantage, but this was one of the rare occasions when she wished she had a more forgettable face.
Turning her back on the prying neighbour, she climbed the steps to the front door. Most of the houses were painted white, here, which was another oddity. Any white building in Arkannen would have become grey very quickly. But in Kardissak, the centre of industry was on the other side of the river from the residential quarters, and downwind. More than once, Sorrow had been forced to stifle a laugh when she heard a wealthy Kardise complain that the prevailing wind had shifted and the smell of factory smoke was getting into his house. In Arkannen, factory smoke was everywhere. Only the sixth and seventh rings escaped it, and that only by virtue of their height above the factories.
Sorrow hadn’t realised, before, quite how much she compared other places to Arkannen.
Inside the building, a servant took her weapons without any reaction whatsoever – which spoke volumes for either the excellent training of the staff or the kind of people Don Callero usually welcomed to his house. Sorrow kept a knife up her sleeve, though. This was dangerous territory, and she wasn’t certain of her welcome. Thus armed, she followed another servant down the hall and into Callero’s study, where she was announced with restrained dignity. The man himself was sitting behind his desk, working on something or other; he gestured her to a chair, but didn’t speak until the servant had left and they were alone in the room.
‘Well, Naeve?’
They all called her by her first name, here. It was irritating, but she’d had to let it slide. She reached into the inside pocket of her coat. ‘I have your document.’
He took it from her and scanned it – unhurriedly, but his grip on the paper was taut and pale. When he looked up, there was genuine surprise in his face, and possibly grudging respect as well. He hadn’t expected her to succeed, then.
‘I’m impressed,’ he said, and Sorrow nodded as if that were no more than her due.
‘I hope this is a satisfactory enough outcome that you’ll consider employing me again. Though first, we need to discuss the matter of my pay.’
‘Oh?’
‘There were some … unforeseen complications,’ Sorrow said. ‘And given their nature, I’d argue that triple pay would be a fairer recompense than double.’
‘Oh?’ Callero said again. He wasn’t giving anything away – but then, even that gave something away. She pressed on.
‘For a start, the house wasn’t empty.’
‘Really?’ This time, though he sounded surprised, she could tell he wasn’t. She’d seen the real thing just a few moments earlier, after all.
‘The owner was meeting with a woman there.’ Sorrow watched him from under her lashes as she added, ‘They called you Fourteen.’
Concealed behind the desk, she slid the knife from her sleeve. If he reacted badly, she’d at least have a chance of defending herself – but he was smiling.
‘And you knew what that meant?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I could hazard a guess.’
‘Yet you came back,’ Callero said thoughtfully. ‘Why did you do that, I wonder?’
‘It seemed the safer option.’
‘Completing the original job was the safer option,’ he agreed. ‘That doesn’t explain why you came back for more.’
He was sharp. He would be, of course. But Sorrow was ready for him.
‘I came back,’ she said evenly, ‘because as long as I’m useful to you, you have no reason to kill me.’
He nodded. ‘True. But the more you do for me, the more of my secrets you will hold in your grasp. And one day, I will have no further use for you.’ One finger tapped a quick staccato rhythm on the arm of his chair. ‘It might have been wiser to return to Mirrorvale while you still had the chance.’
He knows where I’m from, said a small, nervous part of Sorrow that she usually did her best to ignore.
Of course he does, she told it with a mental eye-roll. Everyone does.
Yes, but now Sol Kardis is officially at war with Mirrorvale –
Sol Kardis is secretly at war with Mirrorvale. Callero doesn’t know I know that. Given the state of mistrust between the members of the Brotherhood, I’m not even sure Callero knows that.
‘I had my reasons for leaving Mirrorvale, Don Callero,’ she said calmly. ‘And they were such that I have no desire to return there. It’s entirely likely that returning to Mirrorvale would be even more hazardous for me than remaining in your employ.’
‘So to you, I am the lesser of two evils,’ he said, and she shrugged.
‘More like the least of many. I can’t go back to Mirrorvale. Now that I’ve stolen from … the people I’ve stolen from, I’d rather not stay in Sol Kardis without protection. And besides – as I said, now that I’ve proven my capabilities, I hoped you might have more work for me.’
<
br /> He regarded her in silence. Sorrow gripped the knife and presented him with an impassive expression. But when he finally spoke, it wasn’t what she had expected.
‘Tell me why you left Mirrorvale.’
‘What?’
‘If you are to carry my secrets, Naeve Sorrow, I must also carry yours. Tell me why you left Mirrorvale.’
She thought about it – but only for a heartbeat, because hesitation at this point would be fatal.
‘I took something from Darkhaven,’ she said. ‘And they want it back.’
‘Valuable?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well hidden?’
Apparently not, given that Tomas bloody Caraway knows the address. ‘Well enough.’
She braced herself for more questions – What is it? Where is it? Most difficult to evade of all, Can we use it against Mirrorvale? – but none came. Whatever he’d been trying to get out of her, it seemed he’d got it already.
That made Sorrow uneasy, though she didn’t show it.
‘All right,’ Callero said. ‘I have another job that may suit you, given that you are aware of the … situation between me and certain of my colleagues. The man whose house you broke into last, Eight –’ he gave Sorrow a quick, knowing glance – ‘he tried to take the document that was rightfully mine. I need to know what he planned to do with it. I want you to pay a visit to his warehouse, down by the docks, and steal his shipping ledger.’
So she was going to be caught between two factions of the Brotherhood again. Well, she’d expected it. And since he was giving her a job, he probably wasn’t going to dispose of her on the spot – so she slipped her knife back into its hiding place.
‘I think I can manage that, Don Callero.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ he said. ‘But Naeve, please bear in mind that whilst I appreciate you using your initiative in the previous case, this is a different matter. It’s important that you do as I’ve asked without deviation. If the ledger isn’t where we expect it to be, or you stand even the smallest chance of being caught by Eight, you need to come away with the job incomplete. Do you understand?’
Sorrow nodded. She understood perfectly. The stakes were higher, this time round; if she got caught, she’d land Callero in it as well as herself. And if there was one thing she really didn’t want to do in her lifetime, it was piss off a member of the Brotherhood.
‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you down.’
She began to rise from her chair, but he raised a hand to stop her.
‘We aren’t finished yet,’ he said. Sorrow’s pulse accelerated despite all her efforts to remain calm.
‘We’re not?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I assumed you’d want to discuss your pay.’
Of course. How had she forgotten something so important? Another slip as big as that, they’d be sending her home to Mirrorvale in a box. Naeve Sorrow never forgot what she was worth in coin.
‘I thought that went without saying,’ she said coolly. ‘We’ve established you’ll be paying me triple for the last job. I’ll want the same again.’
‘No more?’
‘I’m not greedy, Don Callero.’
‘Then triple pay it is.’ He smiled at her again – quite kindly, but for some reason she shivered. ‘I look forward to learning of the result.’
THIRTEEN
A few weeks into training, Ree had become disillusioned. She’d expected to have to fight for acceptance every step of the way; that was how it had been all her life, so there’d been no reason to believe the fifth ring would be any different. And in fact, on the whole, her teachers were better than she could have hoped for in that respect. A couple of the weaponmasters had looked askance at her – a couple had laughed at her outright – but with Captain Caraway and Weaponmaster Bryan showing no sign of turning her away, the attitude had largely been one of bemused willingness. So they have girls training for the Helm, now, she’d overheard one of them saying to another. No idea if they’re up to it, but that’s Captain Caraway’s problem.
The boys she was training with were a different matter.
To be fair, some of them were all right. A few, like Zander, were as welcoming of her as they were of anybody else. And a few more didn’t appear to have the imagination to realise she was anything unusual. But to the rest, even after several weeks in their company, she was exactly what she’d called Saydi: a sideshow. An aberration. The punchline to a joke. She spent every available moment practising. She did everything she could to convince them to take her seriously. And yet no matter how well she fought, some of them still mocked her. It was as if the more she did to prove herself physically their equal, the more they tried to take her down with words.
Every morning, she told herself not to let it get to her. That she’d been facing the same problem since she was old enough to pick up a sword. That their words were only words. And every evening, she returned to her barracks a little more drained. Somehow, although she’d known how it would be, some small part of her had secretly hoped that Arkannen would be different. That anyone who came to the fifth ring – a place that prided itself on training the best warriors, not just the best men – would have far less difficulty accepting the idea of a girl in the Helm than anyone back home.
Turned out, even people in elite places were still people.
She tried very hard to keep her temper, or at least channel most of that anger into the official training sessions. She was well aware that she’d been lucky not to get into trouble along with Zander and Penn, after the night they’d fought; she knew Weaponmaster Bryan had put them on some kind of punishment detail, and she also knew – since she wasn’t polishing blades alongside them – that Penn hadn’t let on where half the bruises on his face had come from. Perhaps he simply hadn’t wanted to admit he’d been knocked down by a girl, but she was inclined to give him more credit than that. Most of the boys wouldn’t hesitate to drop her in it, which was why she was doing her best not to get in any more fights.
Unfortunately, they didn’t always make it easy for her to stay calm.
By now, as part of their hand-to-hand training, they had moved on to fully unarmed combat – which only made things more difficult. Fighting at close range with batons and knives had been intense, but no worse than swordfighting when it came to the other trainees’ reactions to sparring with a girl. But wrestling and martial arts … the intimate physicality of it had increased some of the boys’ suggestive and disparaging remarks a thousandfold. Maybe they were trying to drive her out, make her uncomfortable enough that she’d quit of her own accord. Maybe they were trying to prove to her that she was in the wrong place. Maybe they simply thought it was funny. Whatever the reason, it was gradually working.
This time she was paired with Timo, which was close to her idea of utter misery. As one of the most vocal critics of the fact that she and Saydi had been allowed onto the Helm assessment programme at all, he never missed an opportunity to tell her exactly why it was impossible for a woman to do a Helmsman’s job – and today was no exception.
‘Look, Ree,’ he said with mock kindness, as they stood waiting for the signal to begin. ‘Thing is, you’re not exactly big. Yeah, weapons can close the gap a bit, but when it comes to close-quarter fighting like this, a man’ll beat you every time.’
Ree gritted her teeth, said nothing, and wondered how she could ever have thought Zander was patronising.
‘I know it,’ Timo went on. ‘The others know it. Even Weaponmaster Bryan and Captain Caraway know it. You’re just wasting everyone’s time, trying to turn yourself into something you’re not.’
‘I passed the first week, didn’t I?’ This time she couldn’t help retorting, although – with a massive effort – she kept her temper in check. ‘So that means I have as much chance as anyone else.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘They went soft on you, ’cos you’re a girl. Everyone knows that. Doesn’t mean you’ll end up in the Helm.’
They di
dn’t. Did they? Sudden fear prickling at the back of her neck, Ree wrapped her arms around herself. ‘No-one went soft on me,’ she insisted, trying to convince herself as much as Timo. ‘What would be the point? They need people who can do the job properly, so –’
‘Exactly!’ He grinned triumphantly. ‘They let you and Saydi through to make it look fair. But when it comes to it, any new positions in the Helm’ll be filled by men. You’ll see.’
The sparring started at that point, and Timo got her in a headlock while she was still trying to come up with a decisive rebuttal.
‘It’s like fighting my little sister,’ he laughed in her ear. She drove an elbow back into his solar plexus, as hard as she could, and had the satisfaction of hearing a groan as his grip loosened. Pulling away and spinning to face him, she lifted her hands into the defensive position.
‘Fuck your sister,’ she spat. ‘And fuck you.’
He shook his head, pulling a face of mock regret. ‘Sorry, Ree. You’re not my type, and you’re certainly not hers.’
They closed with each other – and though Ree hated to admit it, he was stronger than her. Not a huge amount. Not as much as he might have thought. But enough to make the difference.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe Captain Caraway will never really let women into the Helm, and he’s just being kind to me –
The thought made her falter slightly, and Timo seized the advantage. Before she knew what was happening, he’d gone in for the throw. She landed hard on her back, the breath knocked out of her lungs. He landed on top of her. Temporarily forgetting all her training, she thrashed wildly, and managed to land one good kick before he succeeded in restraining her.
‘This is why women can’t be Helmsmen,’ he sneered, breath hot on her face. ‘You’re just not strong enough. Nothing to do with fairness, simply a fact of life.’
Ree could hear some of the others laughing and cheering above them. She wasn’t sure whether they could hear what Timo was saying, but it only made her more determined to win.
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