Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(39)

He crumpled, but I had bought myself only a few seconds. He was bigger than me, stronger. Stay a moment longer, and he would kill me. There would be no talk. Just the blade of his knife.

I had one advantage, and that was speed. I stooped to the satchel, snatched it up, and was running before I had it slung safely over my head.

Astonishingly, the baby never truly woke. I ran, taking a thoughtlessly direct route along the dirty side streets between Pancaris and the north wall to Morgessa and eventually out through the West Gate to the Drowning, and as the wind turned, I caught the familiar stench of filth and refuse on the air. Watching me as I approached the edge of the shanty was a huddle of heavyset baboons, so I doubled my pace and arrived at Rahvey’s hut breathless and trembling. Baboons are strong, fearless creatures with almost human cleverness, and they bite. I had always been more comfortable in the city than in the wilder places at its edges, but now it seemed that nowhere was safe.

My sister answered my knock with drowsy irritation, anxiously glancing back to where her husband lay snoring. She took the child from me without a word, seeming not to notice my mood and closing the door in my face.

I looked around for the baboons and then curled up on the porch. I did not, could not, sleep.

*

I WAS UP AT first light for my Kathahry exercises as soon as I had washed and changed, Rahvey watching, bleary eyed, as the child nursed.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her face skeptical, even contemptuous. “Not the exercises. Your life. Job. Are you still working for Morlak?”

I hesitated. “No,” I said. “I have a new position. I was going to talk to you about it. I was wondering…”

I faltered, and she framed a brittle smile.

“If I could keep the baby here,” she said.

“Well, yes,” I said. “Just for today. I can pay.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How much?”

Reluctantly, I showed her the last of Vestris’s silver coins. It was a week’s wages for anyone in the Drowning.

Rahvey took it, sensing what it cost me to give it up. “Trying to make a good impression?” she said, and this time the smile was less bitter, more knowing. “At work, I mean. Yes, all right. But don’t tell Sinchon, and be sure to get back here tomorrow.”

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks.”

“This changes nothing,” she said, in case I might get ideas. “You took the oath. The child is still your responsibility.”

“I know.”

She considered the baby at her breast, and her smile—a tiny pocket of joy glimpsed through the crack in a wall—betrayed her. She looked at me and closed the crack, but at the same moment, the door of the hut juddered open and Jadary, her youngest, shuffled out and gave me a sleepy wave. She drifted to her mother’s side, all eyes on the baby.

“You can help me with her today,” said Rahvey.

“We’re keeping her?” exclaimed the girl, her face lighting up.

“Just today,” said Rahvey sternly.

The girl crumpled but recovered quickly. “I’ll wash my hands,” she said, knowing that completing this tedious duty would get her to the baby faster.

Rahvey watched her go and the crack reopened, though this time the joy was mixed with sadness and regret, so that for a moment, and for the first time in many years, I almost threw my arms around her. She was afraid of Florihn and did not know how to be anything other than a Lani of the Drowning, but giving up the child was, I realized with shock, tearing her quietly apart.

She caught me looking and fought to get her face under control. When she spoke, it was to change the subject, and her voice had to shrug off a tremor. “You seem … different,” she said. “These last two days. Worried, but more confident. Why? What kind of work are you doing?” When I didn’t answer right away, she considered the coin and said, “How can you afford to give me this?”

“Let’s just say I have friends in high places,” I said.

I was almost out of the Drowning when it struck me that Berrit had used the exact same phrase mere hours before he died.





CHAPTER

15

I BOUGHT A PAPER from the Mahweni girl because I could, and then made my way to Crommerty Street, where the luxorite shops had not yet opened for the day. There was no sign of Billy, but that didn’t matter. I walked past Ansveld’s place twice, moving quickly, as if intent on getting somewhere else, not pausing to look into the barred windows. I noted the position of number 23, the Macinnes place, then crossed the street, took a left at the corner of Sufferance Avenue, and looked for a way down the backs of the shops.

The Macinnes store was across the street from Ansveld’s. If a Lani boy had visited the dead trader, there was a good chance someone inside would have seen him.

The buildings formed an imposing terrace, all three-story structures of rich sandstone. They had gated backyards—locked—with outhouses and storage sheds, all surrounded by high walls topped with wrought iron spikes, fair deterrents against casual thieving but no obstacle to serious burglars.

Or steeplejacks.

I chose a point in the shade of a sisal currant tree, startling a pink roller from its perch, and climbed up, over, and in.

One flight of stone steps went up to the back door of the shop and main residence while another led down to the servants’ quarters below ground level. There was a hand pump and trough beside the outhouse, but neither looked well used.