The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)(18)

More heads turned. Hadrian saw the face of the man she had been speaking to and another woman looking back—all Calians. Ahead of them stood a pair of dwarves in traveling clothes holding satchels over their shoulders.

“She’s right, you don’t belong here,” one of the dwarves said. “You should be in the Merchant District or Old Town. This place—” the dwarf hooked a thumb at the Dirty Tankard—“is awful.”

“We tried,” Hadrian replied. “They’re all full.”

“There’s a room on Mill Street.” The person who said this wasn’t in line. She sat on the side of the road, her back up against the wall, wrapped in a sheet of worn sail canvas. She looked young, and Hadrian might have considered her a girl except that in her lap lay a bundled child. Hadrian hadn’t even noticed her until she spoke.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you in line?” Hadrian apologized.

“No,” she replied. “I’m not in line.” She said the words hesitantly, as if unsure whether he had been making a joke.

“Where is that room?” Royce pressed.

She pointed. “An old woman lets it out. There’s no sign, but it’s available. Down there. The one with blue shutters and matching door, just up the hill from the bookbindery, back toward the Merchant District.”

Royce looked the way she gestured. “If you know about this place, why are you sitting in the rain?” He glanced at the child. “Why don’t you take it? Is it expensive?”

This made several people in line laugh.

“Where you two from?” the Calian ahead of them asked.

“Not from here,” Royce said pointedly.

“Of course not. Wouldn’t be talking to her if you were. Or me, I suppose.”

“Wouldn’t be waiting to get into the Tankard, either,” one of the dwarves said.

“The lady who lets out the room on Mill Street is from here,” the mother with the baby said, as if this explained everything. When she saw it didn’t, she added, “I could knock on her door all day, and she’d never open for the likes of me.”

“Why not?” Hadrian asked.

The woman pulled back the sail canvas she’d used as a hood, revealing a pair of ears that narrowed dramatically at the top. “No place in this city would rent me a room.” She put a hand on the back of her sleeping child. “Not even the Dirty Tankard. Their bedbugs are too good for us.” She said this last part as a joke; she even laughed a little.

A man came out of the shack waving his arms over his head to get everyone’s attention. “We’re full!” he shouted. “Go look someplace else.”

The line let out a communal groan as they broke formation.

“And it’s gonna be a wet one tonight,” the dwarf grumbled.

“And cold,” said the Calian woman.

Royce looked at Hadrian, who shrugged. “What’s this woman’s name on Mill Street?”

“Dunno,” the mother said, pulling her sailcloth back over her head, covering her ears. “Husband used to be a tax collector, which didn’t make her popular. He died a few years back. Now she lets out the room. Not a friendly sort.”

“That makes two of us,” Royce said.





Mill Street was a narrow paved track with a series of brick-and-stone buildings so closely butted together that they formed an irregular pair of walls. Narrow balconies cast shadows on cobblestone where rainwater had been trained to hug the curb. No trees, bushes, or grass broke the uniformity. This was a serious street; a proper humorless precinct that didn’t simply frown, it scowled. Even in that crowded city, Mill Street was vacant, an empty stretch of blinds and closed doors. Only one building had blue shutters. Near the center of the block, it stood three stories high and had a pair of narrow framed windows marking three floors, each endowed with a barren flower box, painted blue. An old-fashioned black iron candle-lantern illuminated the front door, which had also been painted the same sapphire hue. A brass knocker in the shape of a woodpecker perched in the center above a large grated window, its beak pressed against a plate.

Just as the mother had mentioned, there was no indication of a room for rent.

“You should let me do the talking,” Hadrian said as he grasped the woodpecker. It made a surprisingly loud clack! clack! clack!

“You? You’re an awful negotiator,” Royce replied, using the stoop to scrape mud off the edge of his boots. “And far too generous. You’ll let this old hag fleece us out of every copper.”

“See, that’s just the sort of thing I think we ought to avoid. ‘Old hag’ isn’t the best way to approach a woman who might be willing to share her home with us.”

Royce frowned. “I wasn’t going to say it to her face.”

“But that’s what you’re thinking.”

“She can’t hear my thoughts.”

“Actually, it’s sorta in your tone.”

“I don’t have a tone.” Royce directed his attention to the woodpecker. His hood was still up, and rain beaded on the surface, glistening with the lamplight. “Besides, I’m a professional thief. I make a living by lying convincingly.”

“You scare people,” Hadrian said. “This old widow lives alone. She’s not going to take chances renting to anyone who frightens her. She—”