Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(26)

“Including the name of Berrit’s grandmother?” I prompted.

“Minel,” he said proudly. “Minel Samar. Didn’t think I’d know that, did ya?”

*

AS I MADE MY way to the Drowning, I considered what I would say to Florihn and Rahvey. I could not take the child now. That was clear, blood oath or no blood oath. Things had changed in ways I could not have foreseen, and to take the baby would only put it in grave danger.

Surely they will see that?

I wasn’t so sure, and the prospect of another confrontation with Florihn and the Lani world she stood for drained all conviction from me. But there was something else I had to do in the Drowning, and I would tackle that first.

Minel Samar was one of those Lani women who was probably only about sixty but looked at least a hundred. She was so hunched over that her toothless, wrinkled face was below her shoulders, but Deveril’s assessment of her as a tough old bird was absolutely right. She looked like one of the ancient, scrawny chickens she was feeding with refuse as I arrived, bobbing around the fenceless yard, head twitching on her fleshless neck. I told her who I was and expressed my condolences for the loss of her grandson, but she kept on clucking at the chickens, scattering kernels of grain from the top of her viselike fist so that I began to wonder if she was deaf.

I tried to move into her field of vision, but she turned abruptly. I put a hand on her shoulder and she spun round, not with surprise, but with a baleful stare that made me take a step back, even though she was half my height.

“What?” she snapped. “You got money for me? Whatever Berrit earned is rightly mine now.”

“No,” I said, taken aback. My hand was in my pocket, fingers closed around the sun-disk pendant, but something stopped me from producing it. “I’m just trying to find out more about—”

“I’ve got nothing to say,” she spat. Her dialect was thick and old-fashioned even for the Drowning. “Useless boy. Always was. Even dead, he’s nothing but trouble.”

“Trouble?” I said, doing my best to ignore the outrage I felt swelling inside me. “What kind of trouble?”

“People like you,” she said, prodding me hard in the chest with a bony finger. “Coming around here, asking questions. Not the first, you know. Bothering me.”

“Someone else came to talk to you about Berrit?” I asked. “Who?”

“The chalker with the watch,” she said. “Gave me a lousy penny.”

“For what?”

“Nothing. Didn’t tell him anything, did I?”

“What was his name?”

“Never said. Fancy, though. Old feller. Suit. Gold watch. Came in a rickshaw till they ran out of road. Got his shoes all muddy coming down here, I can tell you.” She grinned malevolently, and I had to fight an impulse to get away from her. She was poisonous.

If her visitor had come by rickshaw, I might be able to find whoever brought him.

“What time did he come?” I asked.

“Time? What’s it worth to you?”

I fiddled with my purse and produced a sixpence, watching as her eyes got greedy. I held it up, hand closed tight around it. “When?”

“Afternoon,” she said, giving it up as if it pained her to part with something she had not yet been paid for.

“When?” I pressed.

She shrugged. “An hour before sundown,” she said, palm out for the coin. I gave it to her, catching myself only when she had snatched it away.

“Yesterday?” I said.

“No,” she said, her wicked grin returning, her hand reaching out for more money.

I sighed. “What day, then?” I demanded, offering her a single penny.

“Days are bigger than hours,” the old woman returned. “You should pay more for them.”

I checked my purse reluctantly and produced another sixpence. “That’s all I can spare,” I said.

She snatched it before I could change my mind.

“Plainsday,” she said, already returning to her chickens.

Plainsday?

But that was three days ago. The day before Berrit died.

I looked up thoughtfully, my eyes drifting over the tent peaks and tar-papered hut roofs, and I saw up on the rise toward the old monkey temple a young black man with a spear, wearing the plain robes of the Unassimilated Tribes. He was an unusual sight in the Drowning, and my eyes lingered on him.

“He’s been around here too,” said Berrit’s grandmother, spitting another racial slur. “Ought to be a law.”

*

ANGER AT BERRIT’S GRANDMOTHER drove me through the shanty to Rahvey’s hut. There was no sign of Sinchon, but then, there almost never was. I knocked once and stepped in, finding Florihn sitting by Rahvey’s bedside, the infant slumbering on my sister’s breast.

They were surprised to see me. I saw it in their faces. They had talked about me, how I would let them down, break my word, violate the heart of the Lani way. All my reasoned arguments fell away in the need to prove them wrong.

It was the wrong time. The worst time. But I would no longer be judged by these people. I would leave the Drowning with Rahvey’s baby and figure out the rest later.

“Is she ready?” I asked.

The two women exchanged looks; then Florihn began fussing with towels and a basket.