The Hidden City (10 page)

“You locked it,” she said.

He cursed.

“You locked it for me,” she added, her voice dropping.

It was true; he had. He'd been thinking of her. “If you apologize,” he said, through gritted teeth, as he unlocked the bolts, “I swear I'll hit you.”

“You swear a lot.”

“Not until I met you.”

She snorted. Choked. But she was drinking, and that was enough.

She was the last thing he carried down to the waiting carriage. That the carriage
had
waited spoke more of the expense of its hire than it did of the driver; the man was clearly nervous this deep into the holdings.

His nerves didn't get any better when he saw what Rath carried; Rath had bundled Jewel up in the counterpane, but her bare feet dangled free of its edges; it had been done in haste.

“I didn't pay you to gawk,” Rath snapped. “And I certainly didn't pay you to ask questions.”

The driver did neither, or attempted to do neither; he managed not to ask questions.

Rath carried Jewel into the coach and slammed the door, juggling her negligible weight in his lap. She was barely conscious, but she frowned as the carriage started its creaking, bumpy motion through the streets.

“I always wanted to ride in one of these,” she said. “But it's not very comfortable.”

“You will find, with time, that very little that you want is comfortable. At least, not when you've achieved it. Now hush.”

“Why?”

“Because I can barely hear you over the wheels.”

She nodded and settled against his chest. It was almost dark; the magelights above were beginning to shed brilliant light in a hazy glow. The streets were misted; they tasted of the sea.

“We're going to live in the dark,” Jewel told him.

He didn't ask her how she knew this. He brushed the hair from her eyes instead, so that she could see him nod.

 

Some items of furniture could not be conveyed by carriage; he had left bed and mattress in the now empty rooms that had, a day ago, been home. But he had brought bedrolls and sleeping bags, one of which had seen some use in the North. He ceded that one to Jewel, and laid her out against the floor of the smallest, and emptiest, room. The landlord hadn't lied; there were window wells just below the height of the ceiling, and they fronted the building's east side. The bars—he had had the gall to call them bars—were a simple, rusted net, something meant to keep garbage out. Where garbage was not a determined thief.

Rath would fix that over the next few days.

The waterskin was almost empty. “Drink this,” he told the child. When she didn't answer, he opened the skin and dripped water into her mouth, watching as she swallowed. At night, her fever was at its height, burning its way through flesh.

He thought she was asleep. She caught his hand, dispelling that comfortable illusion. “Rath,” she whispered, the word dry and almost silent. “Will you go out tonight?”

“Not tonight.”

She nodded, and did not speak again.

He did, but the words were soft and foreign, and interlaced with their cadence was the beginning and end of an old song his nanny had favored.

 

The next three days were—in the usual rhythm of Rath's hectic life—quite boring. Ordinary. Things that he had, in a foolish, distant youth, disdained.

He left Jewel sleeping on the first day—when she would sleep—and saw to the fitting of new locks and new bars. The man responsible for the work was an old friend.

“Don't like the look of the neighborhood,” he said, as he worked.

Rath shrugged. “It suits me.”

“It suits you, yes.” The bars were thick, but they were harder to place than normal, given where they were situated.

Rath rolled his eyes. “What is it, Taybor?”

“Last I heard, you had sworn off women.”

“Sworn at them, as I recall. So?”

“And I've never heard it said that you had much interest in children.”

Ah. “You think so little of me?” he said softly.

“I'm here, aren't I?” Taybor grunted as he worked a bolt into the outer brick. Rath would not live in a building that had no brick; the bars were too easy to dislodge, otherwise.

“Yes. As always. Not that you're doing the work for free.”

“The wife wouldn't like it.”

“She wouldn't like being used as an excuse much either, unless you've got a new wife I haven't met.”

Taybor's laugh was a short burst of sound, just shy of a snort. But there was genuine affection in it. “Same old wife,” he said, with the hint of a smile. “Same old shop.

“But I'll tell you, Rath, if she were here helping out, she'd tan your hide.”

“I am
not
involved with a
child
.”

“No. But she's here, isn't she?” And he nodded to the window beneath the bars he was erecting.

“She's here.”

“Why?”

“Do I ask you about your business?”

“Frequently.”

“That would be considered making polite small talk in other parts of town,” Rath replied. “It's not as if I actually care.”

Taybor laughed again. He was a short man, almost as wide around the chest as he was tall, with a shock of hair that would be called red in anyone's estimate. None of the girth could be called fat, although his wife, Marjorie, often did. She was, on the other hand, the only person who could without suffering for it.

“Marjorie would probably approve,” Rath added.

“Oh?”

“The girl's ill. No, I don't know with what. It's not the usual Summer diseases—at least not the ones I've seen.”

“You've not caught anything?”

“Not yet.” He would have coughed, but he didn't trust Taybor's humor to extend that far. In the Summer, the crippling disease was not a joking matter, and many healthy men were suspicious of anything that could lead to it.

“So . . . you're being a nursemaid, now?”

“Business is slow,” Rath said, with a shrug. “Good work,” he added, as he made show of examining Taybor's bars.

Taybor snorted. The sound was not unlike Jewel's snort, except for the nose that emitted it. The older nose had been broken at least once that Rath personally knew of. “That slow?”

Rath shrugged. “I found her by the river. She was living under a bridge.” He paused. “She'd stolen some money.”

“Yours?”

“Would I care if it were anyone else's?”

“Not usually, no. Then again, you wouldn't usually bring a thief home and put her to bed either.”

“I should have blackened both her eyes.”

“Marjorie wouldn't have complained much, if you explained why.”

“Hah. You've forgotten your wife's temper.”

“She does have a bit of a soft spot for starving children. Comes from all that work in the Mother's temple, I imagine. You want me to take the kid?”

Yes. Yes, Rath wanted that. But the word that came out was No.

“You're going soft, Rath,” Taybor said, as he stretched his shoulders and stepped back to examine his work. He stood on the bars; they took his weight. “Door, too?”

“Same as usual.”

It was too much to hope that the conversation had ended, although Rath did try to steer it in a dozen other directions. Taybor was a good locksmith, and a passably good blacksmith as well—but he was ferociously focused; once he'd glommed onto something, he let go when he was good and ready. Rath had seen bulldogs with less of a grip.

“If you're going soft,” Taybor said, as he examined the single lock on the door, “you should be about ready for another line of work.”

“That is getting dangerously close to the thin line,” Rath replied.

The lock being examined was beneath Taybor's contempt. He spared it a cursory, damning glance, and then set about disassembling it; Rath held the magelight. There wasn't enough to work by otherwise.

“Thin or no, Rath, I mean it. If you've taken this girl in, you're changing. If you're about to tell me you're not, I'll believe you—but in that case, it's no life for a girl.”

“And life under a bridge, starving slowly, is?”

Taybor's friendly face folded a moment in what passed for a thoughtful expression. “No,” he said at last. “I assume she's got no kin?”

“None that are living.”

“She told you?”

“More or less.”

“No siblings?”

“None that she mentioned.” He paused and then added, “She
is
feverish, Taybor.”

“Meaning you haven't asked.”

“As a rule, I don't ask more than I need to. Information is—”

“I know, I know. The Mother's temple—”

Rath shook his head.

“Look, I know you don't hold much with the gods. I'm fine with that. But the people there do good work. Marjorie—”

“Let it go.” Rath leaned up against a wall. “It's not as if I intend to keep her.”

“You don't?”

“Do I look like an orphanage?”

“Not much.” The lock disassembled—along with the doorknob—Taybor looked up. “What do you intend to do?” Friendliness had ebbed from the tone; what remained was steel. Taybor was good at working with that.

“I intend to see her healthy,” Rath replied, choosing his words with care. “I want her out—but I'm not going to turn her into the streets of the thirty-fifth when she can't even walk.”

Taybor's gaze was unflinching and unwavering. He stared at Rath until the silence was long past uncomfortable, and then shrugged his broad shoulders. “Be careful, Rath. Children grow on you.”

“So does fungus.”

Taybor chuckled and began to reassemble the door with a different locking mechanism. The bolts would follow. “Never thought I'd see the day,” he said.

Rath didn't deign to reply. If the only bad to come of Jewel was laughter at his expense, he could live with it.

But he heard her cry out, and tried to look casual as he leaped past Taybor and into the hall beyond his bent back.

“Jewel,” he said, throwing the door wide.

She was sitting, her eyes wild.

He caught her as she struggled out of the sleeping bag and stumbled blindly toward the door, as if he were invisible. She didn't struggle; as her feet left the floor, she stilled instead. She was hot.

“What is it, what's happened? Are you in pain? Do you need to throw up?”

“They told me you were dead,” she whispered, as her arms crept up around his neck.

He knew that she was delirious. But he didn't tell her that she was wrong. Instead, he cradled her, his eyes closed, his hearing attuned to her ragged breath. When she slept again, he put her down, loosening her grip.

Taybor was standing in the door's frame. He shook his head. “I tell you, Rath—”

“Shut up, Taybor. Just—shut up.”

The locks finished, Rath sat by Jewel. He had taken the time to visit the well—actually, he'd taken more than enough time, because he'd had to
find
it first—and had come back with water of dubious quality. He fed it to her, sitting on cramped knees by her side. He needed to find a bed, but that could wait.

She woke seldom, and when she did, she was listless. The defiance and the caution that had defined her had been swallowed; she had become entirely fever. He knew that the fever would either break or consume her, and he was unwilling to leave until one or the other had happened.

Taybor came by later in the day. He had two large baskets, one in either hand, when Rath opened the door for him, and he handed them both to Rath without comment.

“I don't think she'll eat,” Rath said.

“Idiot. They're for you.”

Rath was momentarily nonplussed, but it didn't last. He paid Taybor for the food. Taybor took the money; long years of friendship had made clear the danger of offering Rath anything that resembled charity.

In this, Rath and Jewel had much in common.

But before he left, Taybor offered to take Jewel to the Mother's temple again.

Rath said, “You win. She is not going to the Mother's temple, now, tomorrow, or the day after. If you hear that I died in the next week, you can come and fetch her.”

Taybor's smile was slight. “It's not a contest,” he said, but he was grinning.

“You're keeping score.”

“Happens I am. Don't tell Marjorie.”

“You don't tell her I'm living in the basement of a hovel in the thirty-fifth holding with a sick ten-year-old, and I won't tell her anything.”

“Done. Rath?”

“What now?”

“If you weren't such a damn ornery cuss, I'd tell you I was proud of you.”

“But I am. Don't.”

“You fix to move again, give me a bit more warning next time.”

Rath's smile was genuine. Taybor was one of the few men living that he trusted.

Two days later, the fever broke. Jewel had lost pounds—how many, Rath didn't care to guess—and her skin was pale and tight over bones that were far too prominent. Her eyes were ringed black, her cheeks hollow. But she would live.

Rath left the magelight with her. Given his own lack of familiarity with the new rooms, it made navigating more hazardous; he kept his boots on to protect his toes. His wooden chest was still closed, and the creep of mess and debris that characterized home had had no chance to start; the rooms were as neat and tidy as they would ever be.