House War - The Hidden City Part 41

The skies had lost their clarity; the open face of the sun once again obscured itself with clouds. But the air was distinctly chillier than it had been, and it hadn't been all that warm to start.

Finch, in thin s.h.i.+ft, was almost shuddering when they reached the outer door and threw it open. Jewel had offered her clothing, and Finch had-much to her surprise-mutely refused to take it. She was here, and she obviously trusted Jewel at least enough to stay-but the rest might take time, and Jewel wasn't certain how much of it they had.

"Finch," she said, her voice inflected with an echo of her Oma, "I'm already minding one sick person. I do not need another. Is that clear? Put this on. It doesn't fit, and yes, it's ugly, but it's not exactly warm outside." She held out one of Rath's many jackets, aware of how small it would make Finch look. How much smaller. Rath's training was good for something; she could hold her arm out in that position for a long d.a.m.n time.

She had to prove it, and the silence as she did was d.a.m.n awkward.

Finch eventually gave way, without once breaking it.

"Why was that man after you?" Jewel was breaking the one cardinal rule about the past, and she knew it. The past, as she had told Carver, wasn't her concern. And it shouldn't have been. But in the clear light of sun, it was.

Finch shook her head.

"You were alone?"

And nodded. The nod was wrong. Everything about it.

Carver said nothing. His visible eye was narrowed, and he turned to glance at Arann, who said more nothing. Lefty shoved his hand further into his armpit. If they'd been walking slowly enough, he would have shuffled, his shoulders stooped and his head down.

Jewel inexplicably wanted to hit them all. Not hard, and not to cause damage-more to get their attention. Well, maybe not Finch. Her Oma had had that habit for all of Jewel's waking memory. But, she reminded herself, she wasn't her Oma. And hitting them wouldn't do much good.

"Why are you wearing a dress?"

More silence. But this time, Jewel wanted to hit herself. She did not ask Finch where her parents were. Or who. In fact, given that Finch now looked like a prettier, skinnier version of Lefty, she thought it might be best if she never asked another question again. In her life.

Carver gave her a look.

Arann deliberately didn't.

But Finch said nothing at all, and that was worse; it was in her eyes, and her face, her unbruised face.

Given how she felt, Jewel surprised herself, and not in a good way. "Where were you, when you met that man?"

Silence.

"Could you get back there?"

Carver's eye widened and he shook his head; his hair slid across his face, and beneath it, his skin was both pale and unblemished. He really was almost handsome; his face was like the face of a storybook patriarch's son. But his feet were bare.

Finch had stopped walking entirely, which caused them all to stop, stillness radiating outward slowly, like the opposite of ripples in still water when a stone falls.

It was Arann who said, and very gently, "She doesn't mean to take you back there."

Finch looked at him-looked up at him-her neck stiff, her eyes slightly rounded.

"She went to get you," he added, in his reasonable Arann voice. More of his voice, Jewel thought, than either Finch or Carver had yet heard. "It sounds like she risked her life, even. You think she did all that to take you back?"

In a low voice, Finch replied, "They'll pay."

"Oh, they'll pay," Jewel said, her voice bright as new steel.

"She meant money," Carver told her curtly.

Jewel shrugged.

"Why do you want to know?" Carver's hand had fallen away from his dagger. Jewel wasn't certain when it had started to reach, and Rath would have been really annoyed at the lack of awareness.

"I think-I think it's important," she said at last, and lamely.

"Why?"

"They-he," she corrected herself, "came from that place, somehow. It's a connection."

"I saw him. You saw him. You want to ever see him again?" Carver's gaze was intent, intense.

"Not that way, no."

"Then leave it alone."

But she couldn't. Not yet. The Common trees were drawing closer as they resumed their walk. "Were there others, where you were?" Pressing, pus.h.i.+ng the point, when she knew better.

Finch closed her eyes, which was answer enough.

"See?" Jewel said to Carver, or to Arann, or to no one in particular.

Carver looked at Arann. "Is she crazy?"

Arann shrugged. "Good crazy, maybe."

"Look," Carver began. "How exactly did you know where she'd be?"

And Lefty spoke his first words to the strangers; he said, "She had a nightmare."

Jewel closed her eyes.

In the market, they were good children. Which meant silent children, hands out where everyone could see them. The guards at the gate stared at Carver's feet long before he'd actually reached their disapproving glares, and Jewel was tense for a moment because she was preparing an argument.

It wasn't necessary. At this time of day, the guards were harried enough that they were willing to let the merchants fend for themselves, and although they issued a curt warning to the group, they let them go, crushed in a press of moving people who didn't have the time or inclination to stop for the simple suspicion of a couple of armed and armored men.

"We're going to the cobbler's?" Lefty surprised them all by asking.

Jewel nodded. "That, and Helen. She'll want to see Arann. She said so. And it can't hurt to bring Finch and Carver, too." But the words came out on their own, and without much thought; Jewel was occupied with other concerns.

The cold. The food.

The place Finch had managed to escape from. Oh, h.e.l.ls, almost entirely that place. She couldn't see it, and she didn't fancy more nightmares. But she also didn't want to ask Finch any more questions; the ones she had asked were intrusive enough that the girl was pale.

The cobbler looked up when they entered; his door was actually narrower than Jewel had first thought it, although she noticed this only because Arann and Carver collided in the frame, and stopped there.

While they did their quiet juggle for position, she approached the merchant. "I need shoes," she told him. "Winter shoes."

"You don't," he said, with a grimace. "I'm surprised you got that one past the market guards." He nodded at Carver, who had managed to turn sideways and slide in past Arann, without dislodging the older boy. "And the girl?"

"Her, too. Unless you think you can repair what's already on her feet."

Merchants were famous for their mendacity, but this one was one of Rath's. He looked at Finch for a moment, and shook his head. Seeing more than her feet. Maybe too much more. "I can repair those," he said at last, "but I don't think they'll last the Winter if she grows much."

"Then we'll need new ones for her as well. Oh, and Arann."

The biggest of her charges stepped up at the mention of his name. He was quiet, as he always was, and utterly still; his gaze, unlike Carver's, didn't flit from edge to edge, taking in everything in the room that might not be nailed down. Jewel knew the look well, but struggled to ignore it. No point in alerting the already alert cobbler.

He dealt first with Arann, and worked in silence. Finch was next, but he handled her differently; he didn't touch her feet, not even her ankles; didn't do more than tell her where to stand, and on what. He was careful not to meet her eyes too often, and when he did, Jewel saw why: he couldn't keep the pity off his face.

She liked him.

She told herself that she liked him. She had to.

"How long will this take?" she asked, more gruffly than she'd intended.

"About five days for the three of them."

She nodded, but it was a curt nod. "You can't do 'em sooner?"

"Not at a decent rate, no."

"It's going to get cold. Carver, at least-" she pointed.

"I know. But I've got only one apprentice worth anything, and I've other customers as well."

"Then I'll pay the indecent rate."

He gave her an odd look, and she met it, her own gaze defiant. After a few minutes, he shook his head and said, "All right, girl."

Clothing was next. Finch and Arann were examined and measured by Helen, and if the cobbler had taken care not to touch Finch, Helen felt no compunction whatsoever. She was firm; the unlit pipe clinging to the corner of her mouth made her words difficult to understand, but she made do with pointed gestures and a lot of m.u.f.fled cursing.

Where the cobbler had demanded five days, Helen demanded the opposite; she refused to let Finch leave her ragged stall without clothing-warm clothing-on her back. As she put it.

Finch was embarra.s.sed and grateful by turns, but said nothing. Arann, however, was less of an emergency in the eyes of the old woman. Although she had clothing she considered suitable for someone his size, she wanted a day to adjust things, and Jewel nodded.

"Jay?"

"Hmmm?"

"Pay attention."

"Yes, Helen." But it was hard to pay that attention. Something about Finch, something about the way she hadn't answered the question, the last one, made Jewel uneasy in a p.r.i.c.kly way.

She couldn't figure out what it was.

But she knew who would.

Rath was waiting for them when they made their way home, carrying a basket heavy with food from Farmer Hanson's stall. The farmer was by far the friendliest of the three merchants; he asked the names of the newcomers as if Jewel was one of his children, and she answered in a like fas.h.i.+on. "The boy's too skinny," he told her, leaning over his produce as if he were the epitome of largesse. "And the girl as well."

"So's Lefty."

"Lefty has Arann."

"They have me."

The farmer's smile was a warm one. "Things must be getting crowded at your place," he told her.

"Not that crowded. I've lived in smaller rooms."

"Good." He handed her apples, and potatoes, and the bread that should have been gone by this time in the day. She took them all, paying for them. He failed to take the extra money she habitually offered. "You'll need it," he told her, glancing at Carver's feet.

Carver's feet were of interest to everyone.

She shook her head, her snort coming out in a brief, pale cloud. "Let's go," she said, to everyone at large. And like a small, unruly ma.s.s, they followed where she led, and she led them to the apartment; Rath entered the hall at the same time they did, but from the opposite end.

He looked only at Jewel.

"Room," she told everyone else. Arann had the basket, and she paused. "Lefty? Can you help feed everyone?"

"What about you?"

"I'll take care of me."

He nodded. Without even looking at Arann.

Jewel closed the door and leaned against it, staring at Rath. He had retreated into his room, had taken the seat he favored, and sat looking up at her as if he expected her to say something Really Stupid.

This was oddly comforting, because it was a very familiar expression. She almost hated to disappoint him, and since she was half certain she wouldn't, she took a deep breath and met his eyes.

"If," he said quietly, "you are about to tell me that another child is in need of rescue, let me tell you to keep your nightmares to yourself."

She shook her head. "No nightmares," she told him gravely.

His expression indicated that he was not comforted.

"But I talked to Finch. On the way to the Common."

"And?"

"She had to come from somewhere, Rath."

"So did you."

She shook her head fiercely. "Not the same. She was someplace. She escaped. They-he-chased her."