by D. K. Fields
Cora drew her knuckledusters and told Ruth and Nullan to find the knives each carried, but they seemed slow about it. Too slow, the speed this man was coming for them.
‘Nullan, watch the other entrance!’ Cora barked. ‘Get yourself against the wall, Ruth.’ Try to close down the space. Protect your back. Keep all entrance points in sight. These were the words from her constable training, as loud in her head now as if the sergeant in charge was standing beside her, shouting in her ear.
But Ruth wasn’t against the alley wall. She was running to meet the man, head on. Except Cora couldn’t see Ruth’s knife, and couldn’t move. Then there was a hand on Cora’s arm.
‘He’s one of us,’ Nullan said.
‘Are you sure?’
By now the man was close enough for Cora to see the stiff cape he wore, and the bandiness of his gait. A Wayward. A Wayward out of breath and with marks on his face. Soot, Cora realised, as the smell of smoke reached her.
He all but collapsed into Ruth’s arms. Cora and Nullan rushed to them. Cora recognised him, just. There were so many faces in Ruth’s web: people came and went, and few shared their names with Cora. It was better not to know.
‘Thank the Audience I found you,’ he said, and sucked a deep lungful of air. ‘You can’t go back. It’s too dangerous. They found us.’
‘What happened?’ Ruth said.
‘The distillers – it’s gone.’ He let Ruth ease him to the ground. His cloak was marked with scorches and one knee of his trousers had been burnt away. On the flesh beneath, blood. ‘The flames tore through the place, and when they reached the upper floors. . .’
‘How did it start?’ Cora said grimly.
‘I don’t know. I was in the attic. Sinnla and Jeyn were there.’ His voice was hoarse, cracked with smoke, Cora guessed. Whatever he was about to tell them, it wasn’t going to be good. As she listened, she kept checking both ends of the alley. ‘We were looking at the maps and then smoke was coming up through the floorboards,’ the Wayward said. ‘By the time we got to the stairs, they were burnt away. I had to climb out a window, onto the next roof. I made it down to the street. Thought Sinnla and Jeyn were just behind me. I waited. I waited for them to follow me.’ He covered his face with his hands.
‘How many of our people are dead?’ Ruth asked, her voice hard.
He drew himself from his sobbing and said, ‘They were still pulling them out when I came to find you.’
Ruth grasped his shoulder and held it for a long moment, then she stepped away, turning her back on him. It was a cold thing to do, no doubt about it, but that was what these times called for. There were many more people living in squalor beyond the city walls, walking the long roads up from the south, who needed Ruth to keep her head. To keep her life.
‘Looks like we’re moving again,’ Cora said. She thought about lighting a bindleleaf then decided against it. The smell of smoke in the alley was thick enough already.
‘Seems so,’ Ruth said.
‘That’s, what, the fifth time in as many days?’
‘I gave up counting safe houses when Nicholas was killed. I’d suggest you do the same, Cora. It’s not a good use of your time.’
Cora turned to look at the Wayward slumped against the alley wall and thought of the dead man she had been called to find, back at the start of the election. Only a few weeks ago, but it felt like so much longer.
‘We both know the odds on that fire being an accident,’ Cora said. ‘These attacks are getting worse, Ruth. You have to be careful. Going to the woods today—’
‘And if I’d stayed at the distillers, Cora, I’d have been one of the bodies dragged from the burning ruins. We have to keep moving.’
‘I won’t argue with you about that. But this talk of Nullan’s friend, the barge. That sounds like travelling to me, and that sounds pretty risky. Unless your next safe house is on the city’s docks.’
‘Not quite…’
Nullan was helping the Wayward man to stand. ‘We wish you well in the days and weeks to come, friend.’ From somewhere amid the baggy trousers she wore – Casker fashions seemed always to involve folds of dyed cloth – Nullan drew out a small purse. ‘This should help.’
‘Thank you for your service,’ Ruth said.
‘I’m not going with you?’ the Wayward man said, the disappointment in his voice loud.
Nullan met his eye, which Cora had to admire. There was no flinching with this former storyteller.
‘We can’t risk you being followed,’ Nullan said. ‘Take the others, those who got out of the distillers, and get out of the city.’
‘That’s it?’ he said.
‘That’s it.’ Nullan held his gaze. ‘Good riding, friend.’
He bent his head and made his slow way back up the alley.
Cora decided to light that bindleleaf after all. ‘Where’s next on the list?’ she said.
She offered Ruth her smoke, but her sister’s eyes looked glassy. She was staring at the spot where the Wayward man had lain.
‘The Bird House,’ Nullan said. ‘It’s in Murbick. The head herders will know to meet us there.’
Murbick: the poorest part of Fenest, and the place where the recent outbreak of Black Jefferey was thought to have started.
‘You take me to all the best places, Ruth.’ Cora dropped the end of her bindle into a puddle. ‘Well, if we’re going, we’d best be on our way. Ready?’
Ruth gave no answer. Didn’t lift her gaze. Cora and Nullan exchanged a glance. It was Nullan who reached out to Ruth, taking her elbow. It was Nullan who held Ruth all the way down the alley, and Cora who followed and kept watch.
Three
From the outside, everything about the Bird House was small. It was wide enough just for the door and a narrow window next to it, and the second floor looked to only be a half-storey – surely no one would be able to stand upright once they’d risked the stairs. If there were stairs. The building was squashed between two much taller places: on the one side a cooper’s with two floors of whores above, and what looked to be a tailor’s shop on the other. Everything about the Bird House was dirty too, from the glass in the window to the sign that was just about still attached to the wall, proclaiming the place ‘Wingéd Wonders’. As she headed for the front door, Cora stepped over what looked like the remains of a pigeon smeared across the cobbles. It was too grim an irony, even for the Drunkard.
‘Round the back,’ Nullan said, and led the way down a narrow cut-through between the Bird House and the tailor’s.
Ruth hadn’t spoken since they’d set off, so Cora had little hope of any answers about all this talk of barges. But she could be patient when she had to be.
Cora caught the faint sound of cheeping, and then came the smell: birds’ mess, ripe and sour. She counted four rats in the cut-through, none of them bothered by the presence of people. Waiting to get their claws into the birds, she guessed, and tried not to think about Lowlander Chambers Morton wanting to do the same to Ruth.
They reached a door in the back of the building. The remains of red paint were being overtaken by mould, and the wood itself was almost gleaming with damp. Nullan used the handle of her cutlass to knock: twice slow, three times quick. That was today’s agreed signal. Tomorrow there would be another, and another after that. Across the city there was a web of people from the southern realms, loyal to Ruth and to the Wayward cause, passing messages, sending word, readying new safe houses. And now, dragging charred bodies from burnt-out ruins.
The door opened wide enough to show an eye which flashed its gaze across the three of them before they were quickly ushered inside, into darkness and the stink of the birds. The only light came from a lantern held by a tall woman. Cora caught a glimpse of unclothed arms and the dark patterns swirling up them: a Casker. Some friend of Nullan’s, no doubt. The woman had a band of cloth across her mouth and nose – to protect her from the smell of the birds, or to hide her identity? Both seemed likely. Without a word, she turned and led t
hem down a passage. Something shifted behind her; in the poor light, Cora made out a shadow moving to stand across the door they’d just come through. Another part of Ruth’s protection.
The lantern revealed glimpses of cages and the scruffy scraps of things inside them. Gleaming eyes and scratching, and the calls – it was enough to make Cora’s ears bleed.
‘You’re not selling them for their songs,’ she said to the Casker’s broad back.
‘Not their meat, neither,’ came the muffled reply.
That didn’t leave much, but Cora suspected this place wasn’t really about trade. Murbick had more fronts than it did legitimate businesses. As a detective, that had been of some interest when she’d been after thieves. Now it was someone else’s problem; having lost her badge, Murbick’s problems had become its charms.
Those charms didn’t excuse the smell of bird’s mess, though. It was so bad, Cora had to tuck her nose in her elbow. The air was thick with dust as well as the stench. Feathers drifted from the cages and lay in a soft layer on the floor. As she and the others made their way along the passage, the feathers swirled around their feet like a strange kind of snow. A storyteller could make that sound beautiful, but for Cora there were too many stories already featuring feathers: Morton’s hired hands had left them as warnings. The fact Cora was here in the Bird House, tramping after her sister, the new Wayward storyteller who Morton wanted to kill, showed just what Cora had made of those warnings.
The passage sloped suddenly, and then they came to another door. The tall, masked Casker opened it, and it was as if they stepped into someone else’s story entirely.
They were in a wide, high-ceilinged room. No windows, but there were candles and lamps everywhere. A vent somewhere too, because the air wasn’t smoky. The bare wooden boards of the passage had given way to a rich blue carpet. Padded chairs were dotted around, and tall leafy plants in shining silver pots. On the far side stood a table piled with bread and cheese, platters of meat, towers of fruit.
The room was full: Wayward, of course, as well as some Caskers and a pair of Rustans, even a Torn sitting quietly by himself, his mouthpiece flaring as he read a pennysheet. Everyone seemed busy at something, or they had been until Ruth arrived. There was a brief pause as people registered her, then it was back to murmured talk, sorting papers, oiling saddles. But the atmosphere felt brittle. No one’s gaze seemed to rest easily. A dropped stirrup glancing against a table leg made a number of folks jump.
The edges of the room, now Cora had time to take it all in, were full of Wayward horse gear. It was a strange sight, all that leather and rope alongside the good furnishings. It was as if they thought they’d have to leap onto their horses and gallop away at a moment’s notice. And maybe they did.
Cora recognised some of the faces from the other safe houses: people who supported the plan to tell the Union about the Tear widening, tell the news calmly, openly, and then work together to safeguard everyone in the fiery future which awaited. The supporters didn’t include all in the southern realms though. There were rumours of a faction within the Torn who favoured Chambers Morton’s ideas of walls. Cora let her gaze pass over the room.
‘This a council?’ she asked Nullan, her voice low.
‘Something like that. Losing the distillers, the fire… the head herders will be worried.’
‘Them and me both.’
She and Nullan stayed near the doorway, but Ruth had gone straight to a Rustan woman. Cora recognised her, but was sure the woman had had more hair last time she’d seen her. The soot marks across her forehead told a story of burning. This was one of the survivors.
‘Your sister will need your support,’ Nullan said.
‘More than she does already?’ Cora said.
‘Not the kind that involves a knife.’
What else was there, when all was said and done?
Nullan’s eyes never left a pair of Wayward across the room: two men, one much older than the other. The older was a head herder – the small group of senior Wayward, those who rode at the front of the herd, so Ruth had explained. Cora recognised the younger one from previous places Ruth had stayed. Tannir, his name was. He was perhaps twenty, twenty-five, though it was always hard to judge a Wayward’s age, given how their time in the sun lined their faces more quickly than the other realms. Oddly, his hair was clipped almost to nothing – more like the hairless Torn than the usual Wayward fashion of wearing their hair long and braided.
Tannir hadn’t been around all the time, but Cora had noticed him coming and going. Partly, it was his unusual hair, partly his fancy for fine gloves – which wasn’t much of a Wayward thing either. But mostly, Cora had noticed Tannir because of the way he watched Ruth while he whispered with the head herders.
‘Tannir won’t be able to stop himself,’ Nullan muttered. ‘As if today hasn’t been bad enough already.’
‘He looks like he’s got a tale for the Dandy though,’ Cora said.
‘What?’
Cora nodded in the direction of Tannir. ‘His gloves are gone. Those green leather ones with the red stitching. I’ve never seen Tannir without them.’
‘So?’
Cora shrugged. ‘I just noticed, that’s all. Nullan, look at his hands – they’re so much paler than the rest of him. Hidden from the sun for so long and yet now he takes them off. Why might that be, do you—’
‘You need to get a grip on what’s important, Cora. You’re not after cutpurses now.’ And with that, Nullan stalked away to where Ruth was now sitting with a group of Caskers.
But that was what Cora did. What detectives did. They noticed things that other people didn’t, and they asked questions. Anything could be important. Hard to turn off that part of herself after all these years. On this day and from this day forwards, you, Detective Cora Gorderheim, no longer bear this rank.
Cora took the chance to head for the table, hunting for a coffee pot. The Wayward seemed to only drink tea, and strange flowery tea at that. Cora had tried it once and once only. The Torn man was seated nearby – all but hairless, and scarred. He looked up from his pennysheet as Cora approached.
‘It say here,’ the Torn said, ‘that the people of the south, they come for Fenest’s money.’
‘Let me guess – that would be the Daily Tales you’re reading.’
The Torn gave a low laugh and his mouthpiece emitted a gentle puff of smoke. At once, the air around Cora smelt of sulphur. A pair of Caskers nearby stepped away. Not many wanted to get too close to the lump of burning tornstone that sat inside the glass mouthpiece strapped to the Torn’s face. It kept him alive, kept his lungs working in Fenest’s air, which was so different to that of the Tear. The reason so few Torn left their homeland. But now, Cora found herself thinking, that homeland was coming closer to Fenest.
‘Is ridiculous,’ the Torn said. ‘What is said in pennysheets. Ridiculous!’
Cora grunted her agreement then crowed as she spotted a coffee pot among the plates and cups. She positioned herself so she could keep Ruth in sight: a reflex action these days.
‘The Daily Tales is the most ridiculous of the pennysheets,’ she said to the Torn, ‘which is saying something. It’s a crowded field.’
‘No – is ridiculous people not question why southerners come to their doorstep. Why they live on ground outside city walls. To believe that people would suffer like that only for Fenest’s coins. Why no one ask, is there something else at root, something all should fear?’
Cora took a swig of coffee. It wasn’t hot, but it wasn’t Wayward tea, which was something. ‘People would rather believe southerners want to rob them than face the truth.’
The Torn shook his head, and his scars seemed to jump in the lamplight. ‘Weak people, Fenest people. Yourself excluded, Detective.’
Her old life had preceded her. She thought about asking the Torn how he knew who she was but then decided there wasn’t any point finding the start of that story.
‘I’m not a detective any—’<
br />
‘Ruth Gorderheim,’ came a loud, male voice from the other side of the room. ‘I would speak with you.’
All other conversation fell away. The room was suddenly so quiet, Cora thought she could hear the sputtering of the candles, and then a squawk – just for a second, a sound from the Bird House beyond made it into the hidden room.
‘Him,’ said the Torn under his breath. ‘All talk, this one. Before you come, Tannir talk much against your sister.’
Ruth stood to face the young man, and stood tall. Her back was straight, her chin out. The shakiness Cora had seen in the alley when news of the fire had reached them – that was gone.
‘And what, Tannir, would you say to me?’ Ruth’s voice carried across the room.
‘That as storyteller you must give way to someone else. With the loss of life today – surely, even you must now admit that the risks of you continuing as the storyteller for the Wayward realm are too great.’
‘So for once you’re prepared to speak openly,’ Ruth said, ‘rather than just whispering behind my back.’ She glared at the man flanking Tannir’s side, the head herder. ‘I know what’s been said, the talk against me and against my son’s story.’
‘You make this too personal, Ruth.’ Tannir fussed at his wrists. As if he were pulling down his missing gloves. As if he hadn’t wanted to be without them. ‘The whole realm was devastated by the loss of Nicholas Ento.’
‘You aren’t fit to say my son’s name, you who seek to take away his story!’
‘We must do what’s right for the Wayward realm,’ said the head herder.
‘Telling Nicholas’s story is the right thing for the realm,’ Ruth shouted, ‘for the whole Union. This was agreed by the Council of Riders on the Steppes. You were there, Herder Hyam. I heard you support the story myself.’
Hyam turned away, couldn’t meet Ruth’s eye. ‘That was before the violence, before poor Nicholas…’
‘Save your tears,’ Ruth snapped. ‘This is about giving way to Morton. What has she offered you? Any of you?’ She spun on her heel, turning to face each part of the room, her eyes wild. ‘Did she tell you she’d save a place for you behind her wall, that she would keep you safe from the horrors to come? How could you believe such—’
