Above His Proper Station (3 page)

When Anrel tried to speak to his old history professor he found a notice on the study door saying that Master Telsis was available by appointment only, and only to enrolled students. A quick look around found similar notices on several other doors. The proctor at the school entry was watching him warily, so he did not stay to investigate further.

By the time Anrel had learned this much the sun was sinking low in the west, and he saw that the watchmen on the arches, like the proctor, were taking far too much interest in him—his increasingly desperate search had been observed. He realized he was not going to find a haven anywhere in the courts district.

He waved jauntily to the nearest watchman, then ducked under one of the arches, out of sight of the patrolling guards, to count his remaining money and make new plans.

He had been hoarding his funds as best he could since leaving his uncle's house, but he had paid his share of expenses during his season with the Lirs, and a goodly sum was now lying on the bottom of the Galdin River where his coat had torn when he dove off the Beynos bridge. His pockets held four guilders and a few pence, and the lining of his coat concealed another thirty-five guilders.

Almost forty guilders—at the prices typical of Lume he would be able to live comfortably at a decent inn on that for at least half a season, but that time would pass, and what would he do then? He had left most of his possessions behind—first at Uncle Dorias's home in Alzur, and then again at the Boar's Head in Beynos. He owned the clothes he wore, these stacks of coins, the dagger in his boot, and nothing more. Even his hat was gone, last seen floating down the Galdin. Spending his limited funds on lodging indefinitely at an inn did not seem wise.

Besides, if Lord Allutar or Lord Diosin were sufficiently aggravated to send men after him, the city's inns would be the first place they would look.

He had already restored most of the money to its hiding places in the coat's lining when he heard boots on stone, and quickly stuffed the remaining coins into his pockets. He looked up as a watchman marched around the corner of the arch.

“Is everything all right, sir?” the watchman asked, in that tone Anrel had so often heard as a student, the tone that meant everything had
better
be all right if Anrel didn't want to be hauled off to see a magistrate.

“Fine, thank you,” Anrel replied cheerily.

“Might I ask where you are bound?” Again, the tone made it plain that only certain answers were acceptable.

Anrel smiled crookedly. “Well, I didn't want to do this, but I do believe I must resort to visiting my aunt in Old Altar Street.”

That was not the answer the watchman had expected. “Old Altar Street?”

“Yes, behind the temple of the Cult of the Ancients.” Anrel waved in the right general direction. “Over that way.”

“Ah.” The watchman nodded. The answer, though unexpected, would do. “Very good. Undoubtedly a better idea than staying here.” He gestured at the nearest tenement, at the entrance to the Court of Ancient Snow.

“Yes, well, if my friend had bothered to write and let me know he was leaving the city …” Anrel shrugged. “Aunt Alisette it is, then.”

“Have a good evening, sir,” the watchman said with a slight bow.

“And may your own be as pleasant,” Anrel replied with a gesture that would have been tipping his hat if he still
had
a hat. Then he ambled off in the direction of Old Altar Street, hoping the watchman would not follow.

He did not.

Anrel had no Aunt Alisette; so far as he knew the Murau family was extinct save for himself and a few distant cousins he had never met, and neither of his aunts on the Adirane side was still alive. His actual intention was to take a bed at an inn tonight—as unlikely an inn as he could find, just in case someone was pursuing him—and then to see about renting an inexpensive furnished room in the morning.

Anrel did not want an officer of the Emperor's Watch making suggestions for lodging, though, and perhaps accompanying him to make sure the advice was followed. He had created a fictitious aunt as the best way to avoid further discussion.

Where he would rent a room on the morrow he had not yet decided—Catseye, perhaps? Or overlooking the Galdin Steps, where the smell from the fish markets kept rents low? Or in one of the ancient alleys of Old Heart? Almost anywhere in the city that he could find inexpensive lodging would serve—anywhere but the courts, where he might be recognized.

Then, once he had a home, he would need to find employment. He could not risk the sort of clerical career he had once assumed he would pursue, but he was young and healthy, he could read and write in more than one language, he had some modest facility with numbers—surely there was some way to earn an honest living in Lume. Perhaps one of the banks, or the mercantile firms, could find a use for him. He was not particularly big or strong, but if all else failed he could probably manage to work at the docks, loading and unloading the barges that plied the Galdin.

First, though, he needed to find an inn before the curfew.

There were any number of establishments scattered through the capital, of course, though they tended to cluster around the gates, the coach stations, the docks, and the magistrates' offices. Those clusters were the first places that anyone looking for him would inquire, and were therefore eliminated from consideration.

He glanced back, and saw the watchman climbing the stairs that led back up to the top of the nearest arch. Anrel picked up his pace; he wanted to be around a corner and out of sight by the time the guardian of the imperial peace regained his elevated vantage point. Anrel hurried toward the Ancients Temple and under the Green Arcade, which took him safely out of the watchman's sight.

He promptly turned sharp right and cut through the Scholars' Market, ignoring the crowd there, then doubled back along Dazarin Avenue. At the ancient and mysterious statue the students called the White Pig he veered onto the sparsely populated Guev Way, and a hundred yards farther brought him to Executioner's Court, which was blessedly deserted. He hurried through the arcade there, on the far side from watch headquarters, and out of the courts.

From there he made his way quickly past a few streets of expensive homes, across Jeweler Street, up and over Zudil Hill, and into the Catseye district, where he began looking for a signboard indicating an inn.

Catseye was a district of shopkeepers and workmen, and not one students or travelers were likely to visit. That meant any pursuers seeking him were unlikely to look there—but it also meant there were few inns. The sun was well down and the twilight fading by the time the glow of a torch finally guided him to an establishment with the unlikely name of the Emperor's Elbow. Anrel was sure there must be a story behind such a name, but he was in no mood to hear it; he was exhausted and ravenously hungry, and once he was certain that the Elbow was indeed an inn he wanted nothing more than a chair and a meal. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

He stopped just inside the door as the sight, sound, and smell of the inn's interior registered.

This was not the sort of welcoming traveler's rest he was familiar with from previous journeys to and from Lume, nor was it the sort of cheerfully shabby tavern frequented by the students in the courts. The Emperor's Elbow did not bother with beeswax candles or oil lamps; what dim illumination there was came from a few scattered rushlights, and the place reeked of burning fat. The casual chatter and friendly laughter Anrel associated with inns was not to be heard here; instead what little conversation there was seemed to be conducted entirely in angry whispers. The few tables were crude and heavy, slabs of rough wood atop crossed-beam trestles, and the seating was an assortment of mismatched stools, with no proper chairs to be found. Dirty straw covered much of the floor, but those portions where the straw had been kicked aside revealed hard-packed black earth, rather than flags or planking. The low-beamed ceiling was so black with soot that Anrel was not sure whether it was wood or something else entirely.

He had some difficulty in believing what he was seeing; how could so crude a place as this exist in Lume? In the outlying provinces people made do with what they had, and Anrel would not have been terribly surprised, but the capital had always had higher standards than the farther reaches of the empire. An inn like this could only have been established during the chaotic years that immediately followed the Old Empire's fall, and for it to have survived the subsequent centuries unimproved was astonishing.

But then, it was in Catseye, where no one had had a reason to build or improve an inn for hundreds of years.

Under other circumstances Anrel would want nothing to do with such a place, but he was here, it was warm, and at least it was unlikely to be expensive. He shuddered one last time, then trudged to the nearest empty stool and sat down, glad to be off his feet—all the more so because he had thought he could feel something moving in the earthen floor.

That might, he told himself, just be the natural flow of magic through the ground. Most magic drew power from either earth or sky, and here there was nothing separating him from the earth but the soles of his boots. Still, he was glad to be able to tuck his feet under the stool, off that strangely lively floor.

He had been sitting for a minute or two when a man in a wine-stained leather apron appeared out of the shadows to stand beside him. “What do you want?” he asked, glaring down at Anrel.

“A meal and a bed,” Anrel replied.

“Sixpence.”

Anrel grimaced. “Fine,” he said. He could easily have paid twice that in a decent inn, but he suspected it was more than the Elbow's offerings were worth. If the accommodations were too unpleasant, perhaps he could dicker it down in the morning.

“In advance.”

So much for dickering. He had agreed to the price; he could hardly balk at the timing. He fished a coin from his pocket and handed it over.

The innkeeper, if that's what he was, held the coin up to the nearest light and studied it before nodding and tucking it out of sight. “Wine's another penny,” he said, still standing over Anrel.

Anrel stared up at him, openmouthed with astonishment. “And if I don't pay it?” he said.

“You get water.”

Whatever passed for water here would probably give him the flux, and a decent glass of wine would cost a penny or two anywhere. “What sort of wine do you have?”

“Red.”

Anrel suppressed a shudder that had nothing to do with the winter's chill. The possibility that this wine was decent looked very slim. “Fine,” he said. He produced a penny, which was inspected as the sixpence had been, and accepted. The man in the apron then turned and marched away.

Anrel watched as he vanished through a door at the back that presumably led to the kitchens, then looked around at the other customers.

There weren't very many. Three men were arguing quietly in the back corner; two other men were facing each other across a table, discussing something intently. A man sat by the hearth with a girl on his lap, and even in the half-lit gloom Anrel could see enough of her painted face and low-cut bodice to guess her occupation.

Then he realized that her skirts were tucked up behind her, and she was moving rhythmically on the man's lap, practicing her trade right there. Anrel blushed and looked away. None of the whores around the courts had been quite so blatant.

He let his gaze wander back to the two men facing each other, and then to the three in the corner. They all had a certain similarity to their appearance, he thought. They were all lean, for one thing—very lean, the sort of thin appearance that came from not having enough to eat. There was a faint air of desperation about them.

A thought struck him. He glanced over toward the door, and saw no pegs or hooks, yet none of the customers here wore winter cloaks.

These people were poor, Anrel realized—not the sort of genteel poverty common to many of the students at the court schools, but
really
poor. He wondered how they could afford to patronize even so low an establishment as the Emperor's Elbow.

Then he noticed that none of them had plates before them, or any other sign of food. In each party a single wine cup stood on the table—just enough to convince the landlord to let them stay and talk.

He risked a quick look at the couple by the hearth, where the girl was now adjusting her skirts. She and her customer were both smiling; presumably the transaction had been completed to the satisfaction of all concerned.

She was as thin and hungry in appearance as the men at the tables; her patron, on the other hand, was somewhat better fed and better dressed. He patted her hip, and pushed her off his lap.

Anrel was beginning to develop a theory about the nature of the Emperor's Elbow. This place did not stay in business by providing food and lodging, he supposed, but by providing a relatively safe meeting place for illicit transactions. That was why everyone whispered; those other customers were probably involved in criminal enterprises of one sort or another. It was a place where no one would intrude—certainly, no one but the innkeeper had shown any interest in Anrel. A penny's worth of wine bought light, warmth, and a semblance of privacy.

Such a business would never be profitable enough to pay for improvements, but apparently it managed to survive.

He frowned. Were the authorities more likely, or less, to look for an escaped traitor in such a place? Would they seek it out as a known haunt of criminals, or would they assume Anrel had better sense than to come here?

Did his pursuers even know it existed? It was well inside the city, nowhere near any of the gates.

It was, he realized as he thought over his route, not far from the Pensioners' Quarter, and rumor had it that even the Emperor's Watch did not venture into the streets of the Pensioners' Quarter except in parties of three or more.