City of Night

by Michelle West

  It was true that she hadn’t had cause to enter many shops in the Common. The guards that often stood outside the doors would have put her off, even if she’d wanted to. But the owner of this particular store—which sold bolts of fine cloth and custom dresses—wouldn’t call the guards.

  He barely looked up at the sound of the bells, and she walked over to the counter at which he did much of his work in the front of the store. The back room, in which the rest of the work was done was a study in clutter and mess; it wasn’t dirty, but there wasn’t a square inch of visible tabletop or chairback in sight.

  He was not, however, in the back room at the moment. Instead, he was perched on a stool, his lap covered in a fine purple cloth that seemed blue and green as it caught the light at different angles. His lips were pursed around pins, which jutted out of his mouth in a fan, and the counter was occupied by glass beads and small pearls. In his hands, needle and thread moved slowly and completely steadily.

  Jewel had always liked to watch Haval work, and she watched him for at least five minutes before he looked up, moving only his eyes. He looked down to his work again, and finished the stitching before removing the pins from his mouth; these, he wove into the seams of what looked a very fine skirt.

  “Jewel,” he said, and nodded.

  She had given up telling him to call her Jay.

  He was a fastidious little man, although he wasn’t actually that small. She knew it was partly an act, a presentation meant to either ease or comfort, but she liked it enough to accept it.

  “Excellent timing. It’s almost lunch,” he told her, as he eased himself off of his stool. “Will you join me in the back room?” Before she could answer, he raised his voice. He didn’t actually shout, but he had the ability to project that voice across the distance of a few rooms. “Hannerle, young Jewel Markess will be joining me for lunch.”

  She slid her backpack off her shoulders, and dropped it behind the counter in the front of the store. This was practical; anything she dropped in the back of the store was likely to get buried by bolts of cloth, lace or beading, and it would take some time to find it again.

  She was the one who was going to be moving most of those bolts. Haval directed her, often by the simple expedient of lifting something and dumping it, without warning or ceremony, into her arms. This happened any time Jewel visited Haval’s back room, because space for visitors had to be cleared. In Jewel’s opinion, space for Haval also had to be cleared, but since Haval owned everything here, he was unlikely to be furious at himself for any damage he caused while he moved things.

  “You’re alone today,” Haval said, while he carefully gathered stray beads and dropped them into a round, leather container.

  “Yes. I’m meeting Rath,” she added. She didn’t look up from her chosen task, because she was picking up pins.

  “Why?”

  She hesitated.

  “Come sit, Jewel. Here. There’s room—no, wait, just move that carding to the desk. The desk by the wall.”

  Since the desk by the wall had been buried in bolts and colorful debris, Jewel didn’t feel particularly stupid for not having recognized it.

  But there was now room on a real chair, and there was space—on a small round table that looked so spindly anything would knock it over—for whatever lunch Haval’s wife had prepared. Jewel took the chair. It was at a slight angle to Haval’s, and the table formed the third point of a lopsided triangle.

  Haval sat. “Why are you meeting Rath?” he asked again.

  Jewel grimaced. “I’ve something to deliver to him.” She knew he’d marked the first hesitation, because he missed nothing. She half-suspected he knew about the undercity, but if he miraculously didn’t, she wasn’t about to betray the confidence.

  “So this visit is simply killing time? I’m hurt.”

  “You know Rath doesn’t like it when I visit.”

  He chuckled, at that. “I should say that Hannerle doesn’t like it when Rath visits.”

  “Why are you talking about Rath?” Hannerle had entered the room, carrying a heavy tray. A wide, well-worn apron covered her not insubstantial girth.

  “To tease you,” Jewel replied. “Haval is teasing you,” she added hastily. “I wouldn’t have mentioned Rath.”

  Hannerle snorted. It was one of the few mannerisms that she and Duster had in common. “We’ve seen enough of Rath in the last little while to last a lifetime,” Haval’s wife added as she set the tray down. “But, to be fair, he hasn’t asked for much.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Haval said smoothly. “He is aware that it’s Emperal. It’s a busy month for us. And no, Jewel, that was not a hint. Even when it’s busy, I still have to eat.”

  “You think you’d remember that first thing in the morning, when breakfast is congealing,” Hannerle replied sharply. She wiped her hands in her apron, and offered Jewel a tired smile. “He likes company,” she said. “I’d have more over if there was any place to put it.” She looked around Haval’s workspace as if it were a particularly dirty kitchen she’d been both ordered to work in and forbidden to clean.

  Haval, accustomed to this, lifted the teapot with great care, and poured two cups. He offered one to Jewel. He offered one to his wife, who declined to join them because it would, in her words, take until dinner to find another chair. To be fair, Jewel thought she was underestimating.

  But she touched Jewel briefly on the shoulder, telling her to make sure Haval ate well, before she retreated.

  Haval said, “She’s a good wife, for me.”

  Jewel nodded, because she agreed. Her Oma would have liked Haval’s wife, and Jewel had no doubt that Hannerle would have thoroughly approved of her Oma—although neither of the two would have been comfortable living under the same roof.

  “You’ve grown again,” Haval said, when Jewel had put the small sandwiches Hannerle liked to make on his plate.

  “Have I?”

  “At least three inches, although it’s difficult to tell when you slouch.” The last was said with slight reproach.

  “There’s no reason not to slouch, and the backpack is heavy.”

  “And you’re not to tell me what’s in it?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, well. I did have to ask.”

  “You could ask Rath.”

  “There is no chance whatsoever that he would answer.”

  “There’s no chance I will either, if he won’t.”

  “True. But the way you refuse to answer tells me much,” Haval replied, this time with a smile. It was an old smile, but it was friendly enough—just—that Jewel didn’t bridle. “And if you did not come to regale me with information, you must have come seeking it.”

  Jewel started to say, quite truthfully, that she had come for no such thing, but she stopped herself. “What information would I be seeking?”

  He chuckled. “Very good, Jewel. Very good. We will make a politician of you yet.”

  “You’d have to make me rich first. And powerful, if they aren’t the same thing.”

  “They are not, as you know, the same thing. A man, or woman, can be rich and never leverage wealth to gain power. A man, or woman, can be titled, and never leverage title to gain wealth. Power comes in many forms. Some power extends itself as far as a sword can swing. Some power is more subtle, but it extends further.”

  “One of these days, you’ll tell me how you met Rath.”

  “I hope not,” Haval said, in mock horror. “Hannerle would kill me.”

  Jewel was silent then. “Haval—”

  He lifted a slender hand. The humor left his face, and his eyes were dark and clear as he studied her in the workshop’s light. It was good light, bright enough to do fine work in, but it cast sharper shadows.

  “Do not tell me anything that Rath would not tell me,” he said softly. A warning.

  “Why not? You’re the best liar I’ve ever met. If you know it, and you don’t want him to know you do, it won’t even occur to him to as
k.”

  Haval simply watched her.

  She said, “Can I talk about myself, instead?”

  “It is not for yourself that you’re concerned,” he replied. He took a loud sip of tea, but his eyes didn’t leave her face.

  “I’m always worried about myself.”

  He raised a brow. “Because I’m the best liar you’ve ever met,” he told her, “I take a professional interest in the lies of others. Yours are so far beneath rank amateur that I suggest you not bother. Lies are not, and will never be, a part of your armory.” He took another sip of tea, and watched her through the rising steam. “Why did you come?”

  “To visit. To kill time.”

  “Ah. And you are just now bothered by something?”

  She picked up her tea and put it down again. She disliked his cups, because they had so little handle and the surfaces were always hot. “Rath listens to you,” she said. She looked at the little sandwiches on her plate, and began to eat one. Because she was with Haval, she ate slowly. He disliked it when she shoved the whole thing into her mouth, even though each one was only two bites’ worth of food.

  “He listens when it serves his purpose. If you mean he obeys me, you have failed entirely to understand the nature of our relationship. If you want me to tell him not to do something,” he added, his eyes narrowing slightly as Jewel’s widened, “I will have to refuse.”

  “Haval—”

  “I understand some small part of his purpose,” Haval told her gently. He, too, ate, and he ate with exquisite care; no hint of a crumb escaped either his plate or his mouth. “And while I am merely a designer and purveyor of fine clothing, it is not, in the end, a purpose of which I disapprove.”

  “He’s told you what he’s doing?” She leaned forward in her chair, food almost forgotten.

  “Ah. No, of course not. But I am a man—one of many—from whom he obtains information. He uses—and you must pay attention to this—several different sources. It is not, as it might at first appear, because there is no overlap in the information these sources might provide. Tell me why you think he does this,” Haval added.

  With Haval, everything was a lesson. Jewel was not of a mind to be lectured, but he was feeding her, and he never did anything without reason. She chewed, swallowed, and thought. “Rath is serious about his privacy.”

  “Very good. How is that pertinent?”

  “He can’t ask for information without giving information first. Even if it’s insignificant. He’ll have to give you a name—or names—unless it’s a general request, but even if it’s general, he has to tell you what he needs.” She hesitated, and then added, “He could ask you for information he doesn’t need, as well, to muddy the waters.”

  Haval’s grin was as good as applause. “He could, indeed. And that would serve what purpose?”

  “Well, if he asked you for information about three things, and he already had decent information about two of them, he could figure out how good your own information is. He could also figure out if you were lying.”

  Haval did clap, then, which bought Jewel time to eat two more sandwiches, and check her tea. It was still hot.

  “And?”

  “And in any case, you wouldn’t know which of the three things he already knew, and you would take note of all three things, in an attempt to discern some sort of pattern. If he wanted the pattern to be less obvious, he would choose things that were both interesting—because he says you’re a notorious gossip—and unrelated.”

  “All these years, I thought you weren’t paying attention,” Haval replied. “Tell me why I might know some part of his purpose, given that he would be this careful.”

  “Because you also talk to most of the City, and you know both rumors and the truth behind those rumors. You probably know—or at least suspect—the identity of anyone else he talks to, so you can filter out anything he doesn’t really need or want to know. Not all of it,” she added, “but enough. You can pick out a bit of a pattern, and you can enlarge it by making your own inquiries.”

  “Indeed. You have earned a better lunch than I am giving you. Let us agree that I owe you a much better lunch, in a future month that does not include The Gathering.” He paused, and then said softly, “He knows what he does, and I believe he understands the risks. He is called Old Rath for a reason.”

  “He won’t survive,” she replied. Just that, but starkly.

  “And you wish me to convince him that his survival should be his only imperative.”

  “Yes.”

  “You cannot know that he won’t survive, Jewel. And even if you did, and I was certain of it, he wouldn’t listen.” He lifted both hands, after setting the cup down; it was a type of surrender. “I will be frank with you, although you will have to judge for yourself whether or not my earnest words are truthful. I have given him just such advice, and with varying degrees of seriousness. You credit me with too much influence,” he added, picking up his cup again. “Or perhaps it is just hope speaking.”

  “If I’ve earned lunch, have I earned information?”

  “Perhaps. What information? I will not tell you of Rath’s doings,” he added, as if it needed to be said.

  “In the last couple of months,” she told him, “people have gone missing in the lower holdings. Not many, and a lot of them are people who wouldn’t be noticed by anyone who would care—I don’t think they have family, and they live wherever they can find a roof that hasn’t collapsed.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know where. I don’t know which holdings, but—it’s rumor. At the wells, and in the Common. I’ve heard it in the twenty-fifth,” she continued, “and some of the people speak of the thirty-second, the thirty-fifth, as well.”

  He listened. “That’s not a question,” he told her.

  “No. Let me try that again. Have you heard anything about people disappearing or bodies being found? There aren’t more bodies,” she added, because there were often one or two in the hot, dry months, dredged out of the river as it receded from its banks.

  “I haven’t heard about bodies being found,” he said. He picked up a sandwich, paused, and said, “And your den are not among that number?”

  “My den has me. And each other. If one of us disappeared, we’d make a lot of noise.”

  He nodded again. “Understand, Jewel, that most of my information involves parts of the City that your den does not normally see. But this is not always the case, and I will keep an ear out. Have you moved?”

  “No.”

  “I will send word, if any word of interest reaches me.”

  Chapter Six

  7th of Emperal, 410 AA The Common, Averalaan

  RATH MET JEWEL BY THE FOUNTAIN in the southwest of the Common. It had a couple of advantages as a meeting place, the most important one being that it was used by everyone as a meeting place. Standing around the fountain, or sitting on its edge, or even removing your shoes and dipping your feet in the water, were all commonplace, because inevitably some of the people gathered here were going to have to wait a while.

  Because it was hot, Jewel was one of the people who did remove her shoes and dip her toes in the water, and because she was Jewel, Rath showed up the minute her feet were actually wet.

  He didn’t look amused.

  She apologized, retrieved her feet, and dried them with her socks.

  “You came alone?” he asked, when she shrugged her shoulders out of the backpack’s cumbersome straps and handed it to Rath.

  She nodded.

  He looked, if it were possible, less pleased. He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t ask her what route she’d taken to get here, and she didn’t tell him. But they knew each other well enough to fill in the words. Instead, he offered her lunch. Since she’d already eaten with Haval, she was tempted to say no, but Rath had never liked discussions in public spaces, so she nodded instead, and followed him.

  The Common boasted a number of restaurants without inns attached to them, and Rath chose the
Bough, which was pricey enough that Jewel fretted in the entrance. Rath, however, was dressed decently, and if the owner cared about the condition of his dining companion, he didn’t so much as frown. Instead, he led them to a booth in the back corner of the room, where Jewel’s attire was less likely to be spotted.

  When they were seated and the owner had gone away, Rath untied the strings that kept the backpack closed. He glanced at what it contained, frowned, and then tied the strings again. He hadn’t taken the candleholder out, but Jewel hadn’t expected that.

  She had, however, expected the look that now settled into his familiar features.

  “Where,” he said quietly, “did you find this?”

  She hesitated. Thought about lying. Thought about how well it was likely to work. “I didn’t. Duster and Carver did.”

  “You let them go to the maze without you.”

  “It’s hard to stop them, Rath. Without being able to tell them why, it’s hard. We’ve been doing it for years. We’re careful, and we almost never go down alone. I know that you’ve said it’s dangerous. Duster was with me when—when part of the labyrinth started to collapse, and damn it, she’s not afraid to go back.

  “They don’t listen if I don’t feel it. And they know the difference.”

  He said nothing for a long moment. And then he relaxed. Or seemed to; his expression was still remote. “I will sell this,” he told her. “But after this piece, Jewel, it will become more difficult for me. You know better than to ask why.”

  She did. It almost didn’t stop her. Of all the things she had dreaded hearing, this was the worst.

  “Have you finished the books I left with you?”

  “Almost. Teller and Finch have been helping me.”

  “With?”

  “The lists. The memorization. Teller’s better at it,” Jewel added.

  “Because he’s interested in the content, no doubt. I’ll bring a few others by in the next couple of weeks, but I will be absent for much of those. If you need to reach me, leave me a message. Do not take the tunnels to my apartment. Come in whatever numbers you feel wise, but take the street.”