The Hidden City (35 page)

Thus defeated, the woman retreated, and returned about fifteen minutes later with food. It was warm, and it smelled good. Which was enough for Jewel.

Rath watched her eat. “Remember,” he told her, as she ate, “to go past the kitchen quickly. It's likely that you'll be noticed, but you'll also be followed, and Taverson's not as bad as he looks; he'll try to stop your pursuers, or at least question them. It won't buy you much time,” he added. “But the time it does buy will have to be enough.”

She looked at him, forgetting to chew. The food was hot, but not hot enough to burn her tongue. It lost flavor, however, as the import of his words sunk in. She suddenly understood why he had brought her here. Taverson's.

She knew that the unknown girl would run by Taverson's. At night. Moon near full. And she had told Rath that she intended to wait for her someplace, thinking that he wasn't really listening.

A lesson, for Jewel. Rath always listened.

“If the girl is lucky,” he told her quietly, “she won't be pursued by three men. If she is unlucky enough to be pursued by three, leave her be.”

But as he said it, she watched his expression; his eyes were only slightly narrowed, and they were unblinking; his lips were neither compressed nor turned down in a slight frown; they were utterly neutral. It wasn't a request. But it wasn't an order either. He knew that if she were here, she would act.

Had brought her here because he knew it.

“Eat,” he told her, with a genial smile that never touched that appraising gaze. “And eat well. I need to drop coin here, and I'm not particularly hungry.”

“Why do you need to spend money?”

“Because, in case you hadn't noticed, greed overcomes suspicion in almost all walks of life. If I am here, and I spend money and tip well, nothing more will be said of my presence.”

“And a lot about your absence?”

That caught him unawares, and evoked a smile. She was surprised at how much it changed his face, and because she hadn't his ability to hide behind her own, he saw this at once, and the smile was gone. “Could we take some of this home?”

He started to say no, and his eyes narrowed. “What you don't finish,” he said at last. A concession to Lefty and Arann. “I don't want her thinking I run an orphanage, and I
certainly
don't want to give her the impression that I'm starting a less charitable form of business. Even greed has its limits.”

 

Over the next two days, Jewel woke early in the morning; she went to the well, came back; went to the Common, came back. Made certain that Lefty and Arann were fed.

And then she and Rath went into the storeroom and vanished from sight for hours.

Rath wasn't kind. He was just short of openly derisive, which made the work harder. But it was work that needed to be done. The first run, from the apartment storeroom to Taverson's, was first; they would eat there, speak a bit with the owner's wife, and then, instead of leaving by the front doors, would leave by the storeroom there. This made Jewel less nervous than it would have otherwise, because Rath was
there
. He could make excuses, lie if necessary, and do both so perfectly that his presence in off-limits places seemed natural.

But he never had to.

She learned quickly. She watched the gray of endless rainy sky, and for the first time in recent memory, blessed rain; it meant she had time.

On the morning of the third day, Rath took her on both runs, and then, when they had made their way out of the storeroom, he returned to his room in silence, motioning Jewel to follow.

“Here,” he told her quietly. “This is yours. Lose it, and you replace it; it was costly.” He handed her a small, white stone, fire its heart. She was speechless as the cool surface touched her palm. “I trust you know how to use it?”

She nodded. A magestone. Her own. “I'll pay you—”

“Not now, Jay. Maybe later, when I'm in a merchant mood.” At first, enthralled with this gift, she failed to notice that he was in the process of laying out clothing. He did this every morning, and the clothing varied greatly in quality.

But when he began to lay out his weapons, the magelight lost some of its shine; glinting steel did that. There was enough of it. And she didn't recognize some of the dagger sheaths, they seemed so like clothing.

“Rath—”

He shook his head. Opened the curtain that hid the window well, and its scant light, from view. She saw a dim hint of blue, and after a moment, realized what this meant. “What if it's the wrong day?” she asked him.

“Is it?”

“I—I don't know.”

“Then we'll have to make educated guesses,” he replied, turning back to the bed on which so much was laid out. “The sky is clear. The moon is not yet full.”

She nodded. Drew breath. “Where are you going?”

“What did I tell you, Jay?”

“That I'm not allowed to ask that question.”

“Good. Why are you asking?”

Her gaze lit on the daggers, and didn't move.

He donned them, wrapping them around his thighs, as if they were pants, or part of his pants. She wanted to touch them, and wanted to avoid looking at them. She managed the latter, and that took effort.

“Throwing daggers,” he said, without looking at her face. “There is a moderate chance that I will not come home this eve.”

She swallowed, and he turned to face her. “If I don't come home tomorrow, however, you're free to leave. Take your money, and take mine; if I'm not back, I probably won't have use for it.”

She wanted to tell him not to go. The words almost left her lips. She
knew
he would be in danger. That the dagger sheaths would be at least partially empty; that he might be injured or killed.

She could say none of this.

But he saw it in her face, as he often did. He shook his head. “Never play cards,” he told her.

“Not for money.”

“Not for anything.” He picked up his jacket and his satchel. The latter, he glanced at with some regret, as if he were certain he would lose it.

Finch.

A stranger. What was her Oma's rule? Family came
first
. And Rath? Was he family? She struggled a bit with the question. Not, certainly, by her Oma's blood definition.

“You don't have to leave yet,” she said at last.

“I do,” he replied. “I want to be in the Common for a few hours before I make my appointment; I want nothing at all to be traced here.”

“You'll be followed when you try to leave the Common,” she told him, her voice low. And certain.

“Will I?” His smile was odd. It was utterly unlike the unguarded amusement that had changed the whole cast of his features in the tavern; it was, however, genuine. In spite of this, she took a step back. This was a Rath that she seldom saw, and in truth, she didn't like it.

“Jay,” he told her quietly, as he walked toward his door, “Have I forgotten to mention that I am not, at heart, a
nice
man?”

She shook her head. “Not forgotten,” she managed to say.

“Good. I'm not. It is because—entirely because—of this fact that I may be home on the morrow.”

And she realized, then, the significance of their first conversation in Taverson's. “You're going to draw them away.”

“I? I am merely going to present something to the man I believe employs them. If they are, as you so quaintly put it, drawn away from a young orphan—if she is that—it will have little to do with my orders.

“If you don't remember by now how to follow the tunnels between Taverson's and here, you won't be back either.”

She swallowed, nodded, and opened his door for him. Tried not to look at his back as he left, because she knew it was all of Rath she would see. Rath wasn't one for good-byes.

But after he left, she looked for a long time at the maps she had drawn with such determination. They were crude, and Rath had criticized them sixteen different ways, but they felt important enough that she simply curled them into a roll and stuck them on the edge of his desk.

 

Everything was sharper in the light of the open sun, this reprieve from the rains of the winter season. Even the smell of the streets was changed, the damp, heavy scent of moldy, wilting leaves giving way to a dry breeze. The streets were crowded with the old and the young, children and those who minded them; games were being played with sticks, stones, crude leather balls. Shouting and laughing punctuated the turn of those games, and Rath allowed himself the luxury of observation, seeing beyond the running, slender bodies of the underfed, the buildings that housed them, the open windows, the clothing that could be safely set out to dry.

Rath set out for the Common, moving slowly and without any obvious concern down the streets of the twenty-fifth. He had, of course, chosen to take the tunnels to arrive there; once there, in a territory that was in no way home, although it was familiar as all the poor holdings were, he lingered, letting himself be seen. He was neither dressed too richly nor too poorly, although he was on the edge of the former, and he did catch attention, stares, and the very youthful pointing that was instantly cut off where there was someone older and more experienced to notice.

The question of Jim's disappearance still disturbed him, and he had briefly considered spending the morning doing research into just that—but after consideration, he decided that it might trigger the type of interest he could not afford on this particular day. Later, he thought.

Later was a different country.

He did not go to the usual merchants that punctuated Jewel's daily routine. He desired no questions, and they would ask them; he desired no evidence of the life he actually lived. He could be almost certain that he was unobserved by anyone in a position to harm him, but almost was a far cry from certainty. And if he was called Old Rath in some quarters, there was reason for it. None of them were in evidence today. Were he in the right frame of mind, he would not be here.

Jewel's existence changed all frames of reference. He had not thought to accept this when he had first found her so unusual. He barely accepted it now. But he had, and he did, because he was here. Radell had been informed; Radell had set up the meeting—and although Rath had made it clear that he waited upon the whim of Radell's important client, he was completely certain that the meeting would take place. He was less certain that Radell's lovely shop would not be overrun by magisterial guards by the meeting's end, however that end played out.

Part of the way it played would be determined in the Common. Rath made his sauntering way to one of the few inns that were of note at the edge of the Common; it was near the Merchant Authority, and as such, was often frequented by men who had money and power. For the most part, their choice was a matter of convenience, and the more ostentatious of the new merchants chose to adopt rooms upon the Isle; the address itself was worth the doubling in cost.

He entered one of the four sitting rooms that the inn—dubbed the speckled egg, for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with its actual name—possessed. It was the most informal of the four, the most formal being a ladies parlor, with appropriate chairs, tables, and service.

Still, informal was relative; it wasn't Taverson's. He was met at the door, and after he introduced himself by yet another name, was led into the room, with its low seats, its mock homey environment. The tables and chairs were old, but they were designed for comfort and a long stay. He took one, and waited.

He almost rose to leave when he saw the man who entered the room; it was not the man he was expecting. Patris Hectore, his godfather, was noted and noteworthy, but the man who had come in his place—and no other could have sent him—was both more and less so. Less, in that he had no official position, no title, and no obvious wealth; more, in that he was deadly.

Rath had once seen him kill, and it was Rath's opinion that the man would have been at home among the Astari, the almost legendary body of men and women upon whom the Kings depended for their safety. They were the bane and the fear of the Empire's patriciate; they were despised and watched by even The Ten. He was not, however, Astari. Or if he was, he had not claimed the association publicly.

He did not rise. Instead, he forced himself to look as relaxed and comfortable as any man who found himself in the speckled egg.

“Andrei,” he said, as the dark-haired man joined him. “You look well.”

Andrei was not, in seeming, a man who enjoyed small talk. But he was more than capable of it, and he smiled politely, and with an efficient sort of friendliness that could put hardened merchants at their ease. Rath, hardened by different things, was instantly on his guard.

Then again, around Andrei, he always was.

“The Patris sends his regrets,” Andrei said, after asking after Rath in the politest of ways. “He finds himself unexpectedly detained in a meeting of some import to his House, and he begs your understanding and your patience. Matters of the House, of course, are his primary concern.

“But you are his godson, and he did not wish you to be left waiting for any period of time; he asked that I join you for the day.”

Too much in those words to assimilate at once. While Rath digested them, Andrei ordered wine. It came quickly; the service was both efficient and unobtrusive. Rath couldn't name the vintage, and didn't care enough to try; the wine tasted like bitter water as he swallowed.

“Did he ask you to convey a message?” Rath asked at last, noting Andrei's clothing. It was workmanlike, but it was not the clothing he usually wore; it bore no obvious hallmarks of wealth, nothing to indicate that it was expensive. Andrei wore no sword, of course; as a servant to the Patris, and not a bodyguard, a sword was not only not required, but could be viewed as an active insult.