Jamila put the rag to her lip, where she had bitten it. “Read to me, Odd,” she said. “Or let’s play a game.”
“Picket?” I said, reaching for my deck of cards.
Jamila wiggled the fingers of the arm she couldn’t otherwise move. “Can’t play cards,” she said.
“Another game, then,” I said.
We went quiet, brooding. Errol stared at the sheath in Jamila’s lap—surely, I thought, annoyed. But then he said, “What was that game you made me play all the time, Odd? Rats or Boils. When we were kelps. Remember?”
“You made me, too, Odd Thebes,” said Jamila. “You used to say I had to play ‘in the language of the people who put the tongue in kiss.’”
Errol looked at her, amused, and said to me, “Does it even know what that means?”
“How do I know? But the game is not Rats or Boils. It is Préférerais tu. It means, ‘Would you rather.’”
“Whatever the name was, it wants to play,” said Errol, pointing at Jamila.
* * *
—
I dug through my pack for a package of waxed parchment. “Préférerais tu—”
“Cut it out, Odd. Play in the common tongue,” said Errol. “Is that peen tong? Did you get that from Ping?”
“Naturellement. Tres bien.” I unwrapped a slab of brown sugar candy and took the first bite. “Would you rather, let’s see, pluck out your left eyeball or lose your right thumb to frostbite?” I knew Errol was watching me, wanting that sweet.
Jamila closed her eyes and made two fists to make her thumbs disappear. “My eyes,” she said.
“It’s either the left eye or the right thumb,” said Errol, sighing. “This promises to be a dull game.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Jamila.
“Yes it matters. Close one eye. The correct one,” he said.
“I still say my eye.”
“It will regret that,” said Errol to me. “It needs both eyes if it’s getting that tatu to run the flies.”
“I’d lose both eyes before I gave up even one thumb,” said Jamila.
“You’ll fall, then.”
“I live in the morgues in a constant night. You’ll fall, without a thumb.”
“Aye, well. Then I shall meet you on the streets.”
“I look forward to it,” said Jamila.
I threw up my hands. “Excellent. Fine start! Here’s another. Who would you be—Sisyphus or Theseus?”
Errol groaned. “Are you going to drag out all the old questions?”
“Of course. They’re the best.”
The tufuga lifted his head. “Where would we come in, in the two tales?”
I was surprised he had been listening at all. But I humored him and said it would be the standard entries. Sisyphus is rolling the boulder up the mountain for the first time, for all infinity; Theseus has just entered the labyrinth. He can smell the rotting bits of virgins stuck between the minotaur’s teeth.
“I’m Theseus,” called Errol.
“It was the virgins, persuaded him,” said the tufuga. He winked at Jamila.
“Not at all,” protested Errol. “I’ve always wanted to have a look at that minotaur. Scratch him behind the ears as men outside the wall do with horses. Tame him. I’m fond of beasts.”
“How would you know anything of horses or minotaurs?” said Jamila.
“I just know. Anyway, like the tufuga said, Theseus had a girl. Great, big—” Errol hesitated in the middle of a two-handed gesture on the very edge of lewd.
The tufuga looked over and raised his eyebrows.
“A great, big ball of string. Remember?” Errol said, reforming his hands around an innocent, imaginary ball.
“Mais oui,” said the tufuga. “The string led Theseus out of the labyrinth.”
“I’m Sisyphus,” said Jamila. “I’ll outlast the rock. Grind it down to sand and be free of it.”
Errol snorted. “Somewhere out there, Sisyphus is still rolling a rock up an infinite mountain. Whereas Theseus already escaped.” He reached for the slab of peen tong, and I handed it to him. He bit off half of it and sucked on it for a moment, thinking. “Saved everybody.”
“Thanks to his girlfriend,” I said. “And the big—”
“String,” said Jamila, in a husky whisper. Errol sat back and nodded his head in appreciation. Jamila reached to him for the sweet. To my surprise he gave it to her.
* * *
—
Curse at your roof master or run the lines naked. Shave yourself bald or be chained for a week on a plank. On we went in this cheerful repartee, while a crow took shape on Jamila’s arm. The game relaxed the tufuga. Here and there he asked to see the crows on my arm and Errol’s, to compare ours with the mark he was making. Once or twice he looked up and seemed to be considering what his own answers would be to my examination questions.
After a while, when I paused too long to think, he offered a question of his own. “Préférerais tu,” he said, “to give up talking, or dancing?” I doubted whether the tufuga did much of either of those things anymore. I imagined dull nights and a frumpy bound-wife waiting in his bedchamber.
Errol said, “I’d like Odd to give up dancing.”
I laughed, faking offense. “I am an excellent dancer.” I raised my hands high, snapped my fingers, and rolled my hips against Jamila. “Me voulez-vous, bébé?” I took the stub of the brown-sugar slab from her and put it in my mouth, knowing Errol would never have done such a thing. Foundlings are contagious.
“I prefer you to stop,” she said, pushing me away with her free hand. Errol laughed.
“But I must have you,” I said to her.
“I’d like Odd to give up talking,” Jamila said and shivered. Errol laughed again. She had surprised him.
The tufuga stepped out. He returned with a bucket fire and set it next to Jamila. “And would you prefer to live in silence, or darkness?” he said.
We all three closed our eyes and sank into the warmth of the new fire. We could hear Samoa’s runners returning to their roof, calling in for dinner. Marius, safe in! Remy, in! Someone was laughing and we heard a roof master explaining the knotting of a chain sennit to a pelt outside the wall of our tent. Grill fires snapped and a tuber popped softly on one of them. Above those sounds came the perpetual essing of rags on silk fly-lines, the pounding of runners’ sharps on the planks, the steady rain. The city pulsed, through the guild towers, through our bodies. Who could ever give that up?
On the other hand, who could give up the sight of the high roofs? Every morning I came out of my tent, excited to know what the sky would bring. There was nothing inside the guilds that could compare to that glorious horizon. That web of flies, glistening over the city in whatever colors the sun offered that morning. I longed for that sight every day, and dreaded the morning the roofs were done with me and I would be called down into a guild.
On all our behalf, I called “muet”—silenced—in the tradition of the game. “The tufuga wins all.”
“But I am only half done with this crow,” the tufuga said. Jamila flexed her fingers and looked at me cross-eyed. She shivered again.
Errol took off his overcoat and tossed it on the floor. He sat back down, stretched out his legs, and crossed his arms. The tufuga studied him for a moment and I wondered what the man would do if he recognized the fugitive. There was that insanely huge reward. And a punishment for not—
“Would you rather be trapped inside a guild forever with all your friends,” said the tufuga, “or escape from this city tomorrow but never see anyone you know again?”
“Trapped,” I said, and then regretted having laid down my cards so fast. “Well, I would have books.”
“And gossip,” said Errol, grinning. “Odd’s two essentials.”
Jamila laughed. I made a face at her.
“And you?” said the tufuga.
“I’d be gone before you could say my name.”
The tufuga threw him a skeptical glance. “In truth, Errol Thebes? And what would your mother say to that?”
I looked fast at Errol but he registered no concern. “My mother would say, ‘Here’s your hat, whatever your name is.’”
Jamila chewed on her lip. “I don’t think so,” she said.
Errol studied her. “Really. And what do you know of my mother?”
“Brilliant guildmaster. Foolish in love. Married a monster—”
“Don’t, Jamila,” I said.
“Three sons, any of whom could have run Thebes with their little finger, but two are gone and the third, I think, will drop as well—”
“Stop,” I said, motioning her down with my hand. “Stop it, Jamila.”
“She had one other man but he left her, too—”
Errol rubbed his face, a fugitive again.
“Foundling, stop,” I whispered.
“Actually that’s about right,” said Errol. “Except there was no other man. My mother is faithful, if nothing else. And I am better than my brothers. One would hope.”
The tufuga was watching the two of them, his hands still. “But what is your answer?” he said. “Trapped or free?”
“Trapped,” Jamila said. “With the other foundlings.”
“Sisyphus pushing the rock,” said Errol.
“Grinding the rock to sand,” she said. “I stay, out of love.”
“Whatever you want to believe,” said Errol. “Fine. Here’s one, speaking of love: With which poet would you rather spend the night—Ovid or Hesiod? What is your name again?”
“Naught,” she said, pointing to the sign on her neck. “Nothing. Nil. Zero.”
“Her name is Jamila,” I said.
“For clarity,” said the tufuga, “do you mean spend the night? Or”—he lowered his voice—“spend the night?”
“There is no distinction,” said Errol. “From the time the sun goes down over the west wall of this city until dawn rises over the east—this is a binding contract between two runners on the roofs, encompassing all or nothing that happens in a tent through the night.”
“A ridiculous law,” I said.
Errol ignored my opinion. It never bothered him that the city’s ancient rule stated that if you overnighted in a tent with anyone, you were bound to them for life. He gestured to Jamila. “Does it even know who Ovid is? Can it read?”
Jamila snorted and said, “Quae dant, quaeque negant, gaudent tamen esse rogatae.”
I grinned and translated for Errol: “Whether they say yes or no, women like to be asked.”
She had bested him. “Ovid?” she said. “He’s obsessed with getting anyone into the sack. Whereas Hesiod just wants to get his work done before he dies. I can read. I can also fart, same as you.”
Errol put his hands up as though to ward her off. “You offended me. I’ve returned the favor.”
“Offended? I told you the truth. Which no one dares to do. Speaking of which, I choose Hesiod.”
“Hesiod?” I said, coming for her. “Hesiod?! What about Ovid? Plenty-of-time-for-rest-when-you’re-in-the-grave Ovid? I-clinged-her-naked-body-down-she-fell Ovid?” I was grasping for any quote I could remember. “Hesiod?! Hesiod is a hack! What would you want with Hesiod? He was born old!”
“He’s lonely. You can smell it in every word,” said Jamila.
“See? She would take Hesiod because she pities him,” said Errol. “Hesiod knows that. He is . . . strategic.”
“No,” said Jamila. “I would take Hesiod because Ovid is insubstantial.” Had she said Ovid, or Odd?
I realized, at that moment, that no one in the tent was talking anymore about Ovid and Hesiod, and I wondered how long we had not been talking about what we were talking about. I stood up. “Fine, then, let’s have it. Who would you choose, Jamila? Who, in this tent?”
The tufuga wrinkled his nose as if my question smelled foul. Errol had a grin on his face, a grin I had seen a thousand times on him when we were kelps. Want to race?
“I’d take him,” Jamila said, lifting her chin.
“I’m honored,” said the tufuga. “You’re a great beauty, but I’m already bound.”
“So, not a choice.” I pressed my finger into her shoulder. Errol watched me touch her. He never had touched a foundling, for all he knew. I pressed hard. “Which of the two of us, then, Jamila?”
Errol shifted, pretending to be bored. “This is more than you should ask of it,” he said, his eyes on her. “It will never have this choice in life.”
“Who do you think you are?” said Jamila. Errol stood now. No one talked to him that way.
“I’m the one sparing you the embarrassment of having laid out your hopes in a game. Or, how did you put it? I’m telling the truth.”
“You’re only sparing yourself,” said Jamila. “There is air in this tent. I may choose the air if I find nothing else suitable.”
“Nothing suitable?” Errol laughed. “You think you can do better than Errol Thebes? Or even Odd Thebes?”
“That will depend on what you become.”
“You’re bold, for someone who can hope for nothing.”
“And who has nothing to lose,” she said, and that silenced him for a moment.
I was still waiting for her to speak my name, to choose me. Odd Thebes. I mouthed my name at her.
But Errol was in her face now and something beyond mischief played in his eyes. “If you insist on choosing, then will it be the rising third son of a powerful guildmaster? Or the chatty ne’er-do-well behind me, whose idea of heofon is any girl or any card game? Is that so difficult a choice?” She was trapped in the tufuga’s chair. A piece of her hair slipped out of its knot and hung in her face. Errol pulled it away and held it between his fingers, pressed his hand to the back of her neck. He bent down so that he was a breath from her, his eyes on her mouth. My heart pounded in my chest.
The tufuga protested, “I cannot work like this. I must insist—”
“Shut up,” said Errol. Then, to Jamila: “Which of us is it?”
Jamila touched the rag to her lip, nonchalant. “Neither of you is fearless,” she said.
“I fear nothing.”
“Not even a bogle?”
Errol recoiled as if she had spit on him. “What do you know? Let’s have it.”
“And you don’t know what love is,” she said.
“What could you possibly know about me?” I may as well have been invisible.
“I know you sat there while I froze tonight. You threw your coat on the floor. You didn’t hear a single thing I said.”
In an exact replication of the tufuga’s voice, he said, “We have beads for the pain.” And then, affecting Jamila’s own voice, he replied, “I do not require them.”
Oh yes, he had heard her.
Errol touched the tip of his tongue to his bottom lip and she saw that. I was sure everyone could hear my own heart flailing like a hammer. She was mine. He grinned now, not the child at all but the warmonger. But when his thumb played on her chin, Jamila turned her head away.
“Muet,” she called. “I cannot choose.”
But he whispered in her ear, “The choice is not yours; it is mine. Get all thousand tatus, you still won’t belong in high places. A foundling belongs nowhere.” He took her rag and wiped his hands. He removed a thick wad of uurs from his tunic and threw it at the tufuga. “For the crow,” he said. And then he looked at Jamila and said, “Anyway, Odd can’t dance.”
He turned and strode to the tent flap, grabbing his coat as he went. He turned and threw the thing to me. “Wrap the foundling in that,” he said. “I don’t want it.” He disappeared into the driving rain.
Jamila stared at the do
or, her fingers tight on the sheath in her lap.
“Et voilà,” said the tufuga, spreading his hands wide over Jamila’s forearm. “The crow flies.”
An Odd Assignment
MAREK THEBES CALLED FOR ME at crustum. Three in the morning.
“Did I wake you?” he said. It was the seventh of Boreal, three weeks since the tufuga. Winter was full upon us. He sat at a new table in the new yurt on Thebes’s roof, a stack of paperwork towering at his elbow, and an untouched tart steaming on a dish on top of that. Rug-beating north winds buffeted the yurt and twitched the flame on his lamp.
“Wake me? Are you jesting?” I said, pulling wools over my leggings. “I was polishing the silver.” I slumped on a stool in front of him. “May I?” He nodded and I reached for the tart.
“So, Odd Thebes. You know what Ship is,” he said.
“Of course. It’s a party,” I said, my mouth full. “Is this dried plum?”
He cleared his throat. “Ship—that is, Winter Shipment—is the arrival of the fleet. The river gates open on the north wall, the gate used just once every year. And then a fleet of ships sails in with a year’s worth of raw materials, food, and fuel from the north. Later that same day a year’s worth of our work leaves through the southern gate. So, in short, every export and import, all on one day.”
“Aye,” I said, swallowing. “And then a party. Huge one.”
“Our lives depend upon Ship,” he pressed on. “It is the high point of our year, our only connection to the world outside that wall.”
“And a party,” I said with a grin.
He stared at the table. “It is the work I am interested in discussing with you this morning, Odd Thebes.”
“Fine. I concede the party is secondary. Chronologically.”
He sighed, as if he’d regretted knowing me. Then he continued to carry on about how we never even know the day the ships will arrive. How the fleet never rises over the horizon earlier than the middle of Boreal, and yet it must come soon after that, for the river freezes at the beginning of Rhagfyr. How, knowing it is coming, but not when, we prepare early and remain prepared. How we must do vast amounts of paperwork—shipping forms, banking forms, cataloging the whereabouts of every item that leaves the city and every one that enters—and then must run everything where it needs to be, all on that day—
City of the Uncommon Thief Page 5
