House War - The Hidden City Part 7

"This is the only set of rooms I have available," the wiry man said over his shoulder. He carried a lamp, rather than a magelight, and the flicker of fire contained in gla.s.s made all shadows dance and quiver. Even Rath's.

"These halls," Rath said quietly, "are they wood?"

"They are now."

"And before?"

"Dirt. Stone. I don't know. I bought the building from someone who had a few gambling debts he couldn't pay down fast enough."

Rath didn't ask. The man offered no more about the former owner, but he did continue to speak in his grating rasp of a voice. "There are only these rooms, in the bas.e.m.e.nt. There are windows," the man added, as he stopped in front of a solid door and pulled out an ostentatious ring of keys. "But they're not good for much. I've had them barred," he added.

Rath doubted that the bars would be any good. He'd have to examine them from the outside. "No neighbors?"

"The ones above you."

Better. "How much do you want for the place?"

"I get paid by the week," the man said. "Five silver crowns."

"Four."

The man shrugged. "Four and a half."

Rath said nothing; the door slid open. It didn't creak; it was in good enough repair. "These rooms-they don't have an exit of their own?"

"They do. We don't use it much," the man added, his eyes s.h.i.+fting to the side. "The frame's warped, and the door needs to be leveled. It takes an ox to pull it open. Or two."

Rath nodded. He walked through the open door and into a small hall. The hall-in repair that was only slightly better than the one that led from the stairs-contained four doors, two to the left, one to the right, and one at the end. "Four rooms?"

The man shrugged. "The fourth's not much. It's storage."

"You use it?"

Again the man's eyes s.h.i.+fted sideways. "No."

Rath liked men whose expressions gave almost everything away; it made them easy to read, and easy to predict.

The air in this place was cool. And Summer was hot enough that this appealed to Rath. "What's in the storage room now?"

"Old furniture," the man said, just a shade too quickly. His voice had gone slick and oily in the scant syllables. "Look, use the three rooms, and I'll give them to you for four crowns. The storage room's unfinished."

"You could have-"

"There are floors there, flooring, but it's old and rotted. My nephew broke his leg falling through them. I wouldn't suggest you try."

"What's beneath the floor?"

"Dirt." Again, the man spoke too quickly.

Rath kept his smile to himself. He tried to make a mental map of the building, tried to gauge the depth of the bas.e.m.e.nt. "Four crowns," he said quietly. "When do the rooms become available?"

"They're available now."

"Good." He pulled his satchel off his shoulder and made a show of fumbling with its buckle. The man drew closer, the ring of keys rippling in the lamplight. He seemed eager, which was generally a bad sign.

"Two weeks up front," Rath said.

"Fair enough."

"Do you have a curfew?"

"What, do I look like your mother? Don't make a lot of noise, don't bring your business here, and don't cause problems with the magisterians. That's all I ask."

Rath put eight coins in the man's key hand. "Don't bother," he said, as the man looked for some place to set the lamp down. "Leave the door unlocked; I'll want to change the locks myself."

"You leave me copies of the keys."

Rath stared the landlord down. "I'll pay a month up front," he countered. "And I'll pay per month ahead of time."

All men were merchants if you dug deep enough; some required only the barest of surface scratching. The landlord bickered and whined, but his heart wasn't in it; he went through the motions because to do otherwise was to imply that the rooms were empty for a reason.

Which, clearly, they were. Rath didn't ask, largely because he didn't expect an answer that would be either truthful or useful.

When the landlord collected his money, he gave Rath what would pa.s.s for a friendly nod in a bar brawl, and retreated. "Don't change the lock to the building's front door," he said, "or I'll call the magisterians."

Rath nodded absently; he doubted that the locks of the front door were even in pa.s.sable working condition.

He'd left Jewel alone for most of the day; had to. He stopped at the Common farmers' market, and then forced himself to go to the well and wait in line, avoiding bored boys with buckets. He filled two waterskins, spoke pleasant, empty words to one of the two grandmothers who minded children far younger than Jewel, and then departed.

Jewel was waiting for him when he opened the door.

Her eyes were sleep-crusted and heavy; she rubbed them as he slid bolts back into place and looked at the neat and empty rooms. "I've called for a carriage," he told her quietly.

"You called a carriage here?"

It was a reasonable question. He approached and touched her forehead; she grimaced. It was not a wince; it was a child's complaint. "You're still running a fever."

"Why do they say that?"

"What?"

"Running. A fever."

He shrugged. "I don't know. Possibly because people get hotter when they run for too long. You're still hot. Is that better? Here." He handed her a waterskin. "I've brought food as well, and I expect you to eat it. I'll be moving things into the carriage while you eat."

"No one calls a carriage to the thirty-second holding," she mumbled.

It was true.

"Is it because of me?"

She would always surprise him. This was the first time he realized it, or perhaps accepted it. But because she wouldn't believe him if he lied, and because the only reason to lie was to put her at ease, he nodded.

She looked pained. Was, he realized, in pain. Fever pain; her skin was probably p.r.i.c.kling at every touch, every contact. Her stare was slightly gla.s.sy. Rath looked out at the sun, and down at the shadows it cast. Evening was coming. He'd waited too long.

"Forget the food," he told her roughly. "But drink the water. Drink both of these," he added, handing her the second skin. "Now."

She lifted her arms; they were shaking. He could not bear to watch her fumble with the stopper, and opened the skin himself. Water dribbled down the corners of her mouth, and from there, down the front of her rumpled s.h.i.+rt. He almost shouted at her, then. To be careful. To drink carefully.

But the cloth of her s.h.i.+rt darkened, and he saw the way it clung to her ribs. He hated poverty.

"Jewel," he said, his jaw stiff, "I won't be in your debt."

"What?"

"You'd better survive this."

She said, "If I don't, do you think my father will be waiting for me?"

"He's dead."

"I know that. I mean, in Mandaros' Hall. In the long hall." Her dark eyes were a little too wide.

"I don't know, never having been dead," he said curtly. He did not speak of G.o.ds, and of his general contempt for people who relied on them; if she took comfort in their undeniable existence, he was unwilling to part her from it. "And I don't intend for you to find out. You can die on someone else." He started to say something, thought better of it, and lifted the heaviest of his chests. This one was the oldest, and it was also the finest, although the humidity of the years had caused it to bow slightly with age. Grunting, he made his way to the door.

"You locked it," she said.

He cursed.

"You locked it for me," she added, her voice dropping.

It was true; he had. He'd been thinking of her. "If you apologize," he said, through gritted teeth, as he unlocked the bolts, "I swear I'll hit you."

"You swear a lot."

"Not until I met you."

She snorted. Choked. But she was drinking, and that was enough.

She was the last thing he carried down to the waiting carriage. That the carriage had waited spoke more of the expense of its hire than it did of the driver; the man was clearly nervous this deep into the holdings.

His nerves didn't get any better when he saw what Rath carried; Rath had bundled Jewel up in the counterpane, but her bare feet dangled free of its edges; it had been done in haste.

"I didn't pay you to gawk," Rath snapped. "And I certainly didn't pay you to ask questions."

The driver did neither, or attempted to do neither; he managed not to ask questions.

Rath carried Jewel into the coach and slammed the door, juggling her negligible weight in his lap. She was barely conscious, but she frowned as the carriage started its creaking, b.u.mpy motion through the streets.

"I always wanted to ride in one of these," she said. "But it's not very comfortable."

"You will find, with time, that very little that you want is comfortable. At least, not when you've achieved it. Now hush."

"Why?"

"Because I can barely hear you over the wheels."

She nodded and settled against his chest. It was almost dark; the magelights above were beginning to shed brilliant light in a hazy glow. The streets were misted; they tasted of the sea.

"We're going to live in the dark," Jewel told him.

He didn't ask her how she knew this. He brushed the hair from her eyes instead, so that she could see him nod.

Some items of furniture could not be conveyed by carriage; he had left bed and mattress in the now empty rooms that had, a day ago, been home. But he had brought bedrolls and sleeping bags, one of which had seen some use in the North. He ceded that one to Jewel, and laid her out against the floor of the smallest, and emptiest, room. The landlord hadn't lied; there were window wells just below the height of the ceiling, and they fronted the building's east side. The bars-he had had the gall to call them bars-were a simple, rusted net, something meant to keep garbage out. Where garbage was not a determined thief.

Rath would fix that over the next few days.

The waterskin was almost empty. "Drink this," he told the child. When she didn't answer, he opened the skin and dripped water into her mouth, watching as she swallowed. At night, her fever was at its height, burning its way through flesh.

He thought she was asleep. She caught his hand, dispelling that comfortable illusion. "Rath," she whispered, the word dry and almost silent. "Will you go out tonight?"

"Not tonight."

She nodded, and did not speak again.

He did, but the words were soft and foreign, and interlaced with their cadence was the beginning and end of an old song his nanny had favored.

The next three days were-in the usual rhythm of Rath's hectic life-quite boring. Ordinary. Things that he had, in a foolish, distant youth, disdained.

He left Jewel sleeping on the first day-when she would sleep-and saw to the fitting of new locks and new bars. The man responsible for the work was an old friend.

"Don't like the look of the neighborhood," he said, as he worked.

Rath shrugged. "It suits me."

"It suits you, yes." The bars were thick, but they were harder to place than normal, given where they were situated.

Rath rolled his eyes. "What is it, Taybor?"

"Last I heard, you had sworn off women."

"Sworn at them, as I recall. So?"

"And I've never heard it said that you had much interest in children."

Ah. "You think so little of me?" he said softly.

"I'm here, aren't I?" Taybor grunted as he worked a bolt into the outer brick. Rath would not live in a building that had no brick; the bars were too easy to dislodge, otherwise.