by Gwen Perkins
But Quentin tried. And trying was enough for Asahel. It was enough for him to brave a trembling hand to the door of the Carnicus estate, rapping three times. Tat. Tat. Tat. The brass ring rattled back against the wood as he dropped it.
It was a long silence. Asahel could feel his stomach drop, making him queasy as he stared down. His boots were caked in mud from his run out of the Thana and to the leaf-choked gutters of the Underbelly. He rubbed his toe against the stone, trying to wipe it off as he realized how badly it looked.
Then the rain began to fall.
Asahel turned, feeling the drops splatter against his nose. He sputtered, rubbing at the water dripping from his nostrils with a dirt-smudged hand. He’d taken four good steps into the rain when he heard a door open behind him.
“Asahel Soames?” The words were mingled surprise and awe.
“Aye.” He turned. Dark eyes reflected their own surprise as Asahel saw that Felix himself had answered the door.
Three years wasn’t a long time but it was long enough for a man to change. There was little about Felix Carnicus that had. He was leaning against the doorframe, his palm splayed against it to give his scrawny frame the attempted appearance of barricading the entrance. The man looked as if he’d just stumbled from a badly made bed. Every inch of him seemed in slight disarray—from the short, spiky brown hair pointing in all directions to the unevenly trimmed stubble that seemed to do the same. The look in his gray eyes was sharp despite the rest of him, already analyzing Asahel before he’d had a chance to say more.
“I can’t have you standing outside my front door,” Felix said. “People will talk.”
“Oh. Right.” The color flooded Asahel’s nose and cheeks as he moved back, ducking his head. He was caught by a hard grip on his upper arm, knuckles digging into the skin.
“No, you ninny. Come inside.” The grip was too strong for Asahel to refuse. He allowed Felix to drag him inside, slamming the door behind. His head was still downcast, dark curls damp with the rain and dripping.
“I’m sorry,” Asahel stuttered. “I’d not meant to wake—”
“No, you didn’t wake me. I never sleep. I was known for that in the colleges, don’t you remember?” He hesitated, apparently realizing that Asahel might not remember. “No matter. My manservant’s getting on and doesn’t hear the door most times. Especially when the knock’s timid.” Felix smiled a little, his eyes still fogged with sleep despite his contrary statements.
Asahel stood there, his fingers wrestling with the edge of his left sleeve. The water squeezed out, dripping down on his boot and spattering the brown leather black.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Felix asked, as gracefully as if Asahel had come by in the afternoon, rather than the middle of the night. He seemed all knees and elbows suddenly as he looked at Asahel, leading him into a smaller sitting room. A table rocked as Felix’s hip bumped it, its surface jerking slightly. Asahel reached out, catching it with his hand unconsciously to hold it steady.
“I’ve not—” he began to say, still not meeting Felix’s eyes. “It’s not—not a social call.”
“If it was a social call, it’s half past midnight,” the other man’s eyebrow quirked. “I don’t think we’d be in the sitting room.” Asahel’s cheeks flamed at the remark as he pulled his hand away from the table, wishing away his blush and failing.
“I shouldn’t’ve come.”
“Don’t say that. We haven’t talked since the colleges.” Felix grimaced slightly. “Not that I blame you. I was abominable to you, we all were, but I hardly think you’re looking for an apology for that now.” He walked over to a second table with a decanter and pair of glasses on it, pouring himself a drink. Asahel noticed that he didn’t take a sip nor offer it, however, simply held it like a prop. Felix’s grip had gone pale.
“But it’s not money,” Felix continued, studying Asahel’s face. “You’re too proud for that—you always were, and besides, I’ve always thought you’d a strong head on your shoulders. And it’d be no good coming to me about women.” He tilted his head slightly, looking down into Asahel’s brown eyes. “’Who falls in water doesn’t drown but who falls in badly will.’ Shasrow. Bad writer, decent advice.” Felix cleared his throat. “Tell me.”
There had to be a reason that he’d come, Asahel thought. Magic was three-parts fate, he’d been told by a professor once, and here he was, standing in front of a magician that he’d never believed he’d speak to again. Swallowing his fear, he answered, “It’s… Quent.”
“Quent? Quentin?” The other man’s features wrinkled. “Quentin Mathar? Excuse me, Gredara.” Felix took a step back, setting the untouched glass down. “I didn’t realize the two of you were thick. Quiet earth, does Catharine know?”
The words were well-intentioned but they stung.
“No. We don’t talk socially much. Quentin and I, I mean.” Anyone could guess that Asahel didn’t speak to Catharine at all. So few people did.
Asahel scratched the back of his neck, his shoulders slumping down as his voice pinched. “Aye, it’s been more… more talking of things from university really than anything.” He didn’t quite dare tell Felix more than that—the man had just proven again to him that the old divides would never be crossed.
“You don’t see Quentin publically,” Felix commented, unaware of Asahel’s thoughts. “And you haven’t seen me in years, yet you’re coming to me on his behalf. Whatever this is, Asahel, it’s a bad business.” His hand stretched towards the glass, then clenched again.
“It’s not how it looks.”
“I don’t think you know how it looks or how I want it to look.” The taller man was eying him, his thumb rubbing the stubble on his chin slowly. The gaze was so intense that Asahel couldn’t tell if Felix was considering a laugh or a scream.
“I shouldn’t have come.” He turned his head.
“No, what you shouldn’t have done was to come and then make an attempt at running away.” Felix neatly stepped in front of him, blocking the exit. “You know I’ve no love for Quentin or him for me and I should say there’s less there now than there was at school.” He hesitated. “But I can’t chide you for running when it’s all I did in the colleges. Give me a chance to prove I’ve grown.”
“Why would you want that?” Asahel asked, his voice a hoarse whisper. He bit his lip, worrying it between his teeth. “Aye, no, I’ve spent too much time worrying over this when we’ve not that time to waste.”
“What is it then? What’s happened?”
“Quent’s been taken.” The words were sour in his mouth, coming out in short bursts as if he was spitting out a bad taste.
“Taken? By what?” Felix looked as if he was struggling to appear concerned.
Asahel respected the effort in spite of himself. He fumbled with the explanation, not knowing how he’d fool the other man. He decided on the truth, however unbelievable he knew the truth to seem. “Grave robbers. I think. They’re some sort of gang, any road—we ran into them by the Thana.” The use of “we” was a false note, the lie clearly not unnoticed by the way that Felix’s eyes had slanted.
“The Thana? Well, that’s not one I’ve heard before,” was all he said, a strangely bitter note in his voice.
“Believe me,” Asahel said, desperate.
“You’re a man of many depths, Asahel, but they don’t include lying. A liar wouldn’t spin something like that.” He frowned, fingers giving his glass one last brush before stepping away from it. “I ought to ask why me but you’ve got your reasons, I assume.”
Felix’s mouth twisted as he added, “And I’ve met Catharine, even if you haven’t. I’m a better bet if you want Quentin back alive. I, at least, don’t hate the man.” Amused at something Asahel couldn’t determine, he laughed to himself. “Hate’s a strong word.”
“I just need to get him out. I’ll not try to ransom him alone. I reason they’d just hold me as well.” Asahel ducked his head to avoid Felix’s gaze, glancing down at h
is feet, too heavy and clumsy to carry him swiftly from anywhere.
“They might, at that,” Felix smiled. “Unless you’ve gotten better with a sword.” Asahel shook his head. “Fortunate I kept up with it then.”
Asahel watched as Felix walked towards the hall that led out of the room, pausing at its entrance.
“You’ll give me a moment to get dressed?” Felix asked. Asahel nodded wordlessly as the other man disappeared.
Felix was right—it was an odd request for him to have brought to an acquaintance’s door, much less one who disliked Quentin and who hadn’t involved himself in any of Asahel’s unchosen battles. But even then, Asahel had believed that there was something decent about his fellow student, a kindness Felix was too fearful to express. And for good reason.
And maybe I was right, Asahel thought. At least… he opened that door. He tried not to think about the ease with which Felix had done so, an ease never mirrored by the man who was his best friend. Quentin had never invited him into his home—it was, in fact, an unspoken compact that Asahel would never ask to be let into it.
He crossed his arms over his chest, curious eyes examining the sitting room. It had an aura of cold considering that it was a place where most men would receive visitors. There was no sense of care or decoration within the walls that surrounded him. While the furniture was richer than anything Asahel could afford, the chairs were stripped bare down to the heartwood. There were no elegant embroideries or lush curtains as he would have expected.
The entire room had the sense of being very little used, something at odds with Felix’s easy demeanor and the culture of Cercia’s upper class. There was little else to do with their time, Quentin had once told him, beyond place social call after call. His friend had often bemoaned the fact that he spent more time at other houses than his own. This house, however, was not equipped for that.
Perhaps, Asahel said silently to himself as he walked over to a shelf, eyes now scanning dust, He’s alone. Most men of fortune their age had wives—Asahel himself might have managed it had it not been for the ill tides that had lost the Serenissma.
“It doesn’t matter how long you look, Soames. No books are magically going to appear on an empty shelf.” Felix’s voice entered the room before he himself came into view. “Unless you’ve learned magic we weren’t taught at school.”
“None at all. I was just pacing. I reasoned it better than just sitting about.” He noticed that Felix’s “dressing” had consisted mostly of buckling on a broadsword and hesitated. “Your sword’s a bit…”
“Large?” Felix supplied, laughing at the look on Asahel’s face. “Well, it’s the smallest one I have.” Holding up his hands in mock dismay, he added, “Seriously! And you can’t expect me to go armed only with the cutlery at a time like this.”
“Aye, but I’d not want to be attacked because you’ve that much steel waving about.” He was answered only by a laugh. Asahel simply sighed in response. “It’ll be what it’ll be then.” Following Felix to the street, he hoped that his old schoolmate remembered how to run as well as fight.
Chapter 6
“Over the ocean—is where you will—fiiiind me—”A woman’s voice, high and flat, was what brought Quentin to his senses. He lay still, not opening his eyes. Instead, he concentrated on the sensations coursing through his body—the slow, heavy throbbing in his head and the pulsing red behind his eyelids. His wrists felt chapped and swollen, the rope that bound them over his head coarse. But not, Quentin could feel as he tensed against it, thick.
He wasn’t close enough to the earth to pull the magic from it. There was at least a mattress separating him from the ground beneath. The pressure in his head made concentrating difficult. Still, there was hope.
“Over the ocean and over the sea—”The cracking notes shattered his concentration still further.
“It’s ‘over the lea’,” he corrected, still not opening his eyes.
“Lea?” The woman had stopped singing at least. Her voice was slightly familiar but he couldn’t place it. “That don’t make a bit of sense.”
“Lea. It’s an old word for meadow.” A tutor had drilled that into him once. Odd, that he should remember that when he couldn’t think of the man’s name.
“Lea,” she repeated. He could tell she didn’t believe him.
Quentin cracked one eye open, peering at her through the slit of eyelid. Meg. The memory of the night was beginning to come back to him now. He hadn’t taken a good look at her in the Thana and his eye focused on her now to correct that fault. Her hand lifted up, shielding her face from the look. Both of Quentin’s eyes snapped open, blinking in surprise.
“Don’t stare. It’s not proper.” Her fingers tugged at her dress, faded brown fabric yanking up higher with her grip. There was little else about Meg to distinguish her—she was nothing more to Quentin than brown hair and brown eyes set into a humble face. Were she not one of his captors, Quent would have simply blurred her in with the women he saw begging coin in the street.
“Excuse me,” he said, although to apologize felt unnatural.
“You’re dazed,” Meg said, distracted. “Embr knocked your head hard, he did.”
“Is that what that was? I don’t remember much beyond the blackness.” The redhead flashed her a grin. “I’ve got an incredible headache, at least. Do you mind if I sit up?” He was used to his smile making the argument for him that he took her consent for granted. It seemed, as she leaned over him, that he’d been right.
Her warm fingers brushed the inside of his wrist, then she stopped, pulling away. “No. I’d best not.”
“You don’t have to untie me.” His smile was plastered on now, tight on his skin. “Just… let me sit up straight, get my feet back on the ground.”
She shook her head.
“No. Pig said not to. You’ve a trick or two about you. I’ll not do it.” She moved further away from him, returning to the other side of the small room. He noticed a basket of laundry at her feet.
“I’ll fold those clothes for you,” he said teasingly, gambling again on a smile.
“You? Fold clothes?” Meg snorted. “What would one like yourself do with them? No.” She leaned down, skirts swishing against her ankles as she tugged another shirt free of the basket and hung it up on the line. He noticed a small pool of mud forming beneath it as water dripped down from the sleeve and into the peat floor.
“That’s a lot of laundry you have there,” he tried again, trying to find some sort of ground for a conversation. He needed to find a way to convince her that he was harmless. Quentin swallowed, feeling the dry rattle in his throat as he saw her lips fight a smile. Meg leaned down, picking up another shirt, and he saw that, beneath the dirt and exhaustion that wrinkled her face, she was actually much younger than he.
“Well.” He expected her to follow it with a flirtatious remark and tilted his face a little with a smile. She glanced over at him, her expression now firm and said, “There are a lot of dead men in this city.”
What do you mean by that? He stopped, not quite daring to ask.
The smile returned to her mouth, this time knowing. Meg continued with her work, as steady and silent as any of his servants. He knew little of domestic duties—her casual movements took on new meaning with her comment about the dead. He watched as she lifted and sorted through the pile of clothing, noticing now that it was of finer quality than most of the apparel that he’d seen worn by the poor.
She resumed singing, this time under her breath so that he couldn’t quite make out the words. He turned his head, staring at the wall on his right side. The bed was shoved up against the peeling paint—he could feel a draft through the cracks in the wood.
“Whose clothes are those?” Quentin asked, no teasing now in his voice.
“They’re not mine,” she said. She’d finished hanging them now, wiping her palms against the coarse linen of her skirt. “Nor Pig’s, nor Embr’s.”
Quentin wondered why she was so fre
e with the men’s names. Then he understood.
“Those are dead men’s clothes.” And you intend mine to join them.
“Sure, and they’ve got no need of them.” Meg spat the words, too young of face for the tone in her voice. She wrenched at her hair as she spoke, fingers twisting it as if she was coiling rope. “Why’s the best dress you ever wore in your life the one you get to bury in? There’s no life after this. It don’t matter none to them.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed cautiously.
“Waste not, want not.” Meg’s brown eyes hesitated as they surveyed his body, still tethered to the bed. “Figure someone like you don’t know much about want.”
I hope that’s not a threat, Quentin thought, but he knew that it was. He stretched, trying to ease the ache in his joints. It was money that she needed. Killing him wouldn’t get her—or her companions—much of that but he doubted that they realized that ransoming might not be any better.
“Maybe I don’t know about want,” he agreed. “But I’ve got some idea of how I can help you.” This time, Quentin didn’t ask for release. Another idea was forming in his head, uncertain though he was that what he guessed about their midnight digging was correct.
Meg didn’t look at him as if he’d said anything worth consideration. She was thin under her layers of clothing, Quentin realized as she sat on the edge of the bed, barely making an imprint in the mattress. Her hands clasped together in her lap, fingers locking around one another. A stray curl had slipped from the nape of her neck and he noticed a flea clinging to one of the hairs.
“I said I could help you,” he repeated, trying to pull himself up. The throb in his head made it impossible to fight the rope. He sank back down, head flopping back against the lumpy mattress.
“You’ll need to talk to Da for that,” Meg replied. “I’m not the one makes decisions here.” She stood, but slowly—the movement of a woman who’d spent the entire day on her feet. “I’ll ask for him.”
