The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 14

  So much unregimented life. It made Cob nervous. He spotted city guards in their bilious-green uniforms, standing about chitchatting or browsing stalls as if ignorant of the traffic and the scuffles. If regulating such things was not their duty—

  “Young man, you shouldn’t loiter,” said a voice from above. Cob looked up to see a dark-haired woman on the narrow balcony to the right—an Illanite, her patterned shawl demurely covering the front of an unusually curve-hugging dress. The side-slit bared her leg nearly to the thigh, and Cob flushed instantly. The woman tipped her head, then smiled and said, “You can come up here if you need shelter. If the recruiters catch you idle, you’ll be off to the army in a blink.”

  It took a moment for Cob to find his voice. “I don’t-- I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure? They don’t take boys out from under their masters’ noses, but as soon as they’re gone…”

  “He’s not my master.”

  “He’d best be. If he’s your grandfather he’ll be no help.”

  Cob looked from the woman to the crowd. The guards did not seem to be paying him any more attention than anyone else, but he knew that the Crimson Army had its own recruiters in the large cities, often plain-clothed. Here, though, ‘plain-clothed’ meant brightly patterned, and all the Illanites looked the same to him, their attire more eye-catching than their features.

  “They’re that active?” he called up.

  “Look around, do you see any boys your age?”

  He already knew the answer—had realized it the moment he saw the stablegirls—but he scanned the crowd anyway. Almost every man on the street had grey in his hair. The few who did not were foreign or uniformed or visibly supervised, like the three burly young men unloading barrels in the tavern alley opposite the inn, under the eye of a stocky matron. There were women and girls aplenty—even more when he looked closely to realize that many of the people in breeches, doing men’s work, were not—along with small children, but there were no young toughs, no lads running errands or minding the street-stalls or chatting up the girls at the water pump.

  “Not many, miss,” he mumbled.

  “And do you know why that is?”

  Cob sighed.

  They were all in the army. The Crimson Army camps besieging Kanrodi were like small cities themselves, with a massive workforce of conscripts and slaves to augment the freesoldiers. The Illanites who had volunteered for the army had mostly been stationed at the fringes of Crimson territory lest they conspire with their own people, but the slaves had all been taken south.

  Maevor was a Bahlaeran, Cob remembered. No doubt he had worked with others uprooted from here.

  It would be a bitter joke to be caught by recruiters now.

  “I’ll be careful,” he called up. The woman made a dubious sound.

  A hand clapped his shoulder and he nearly leapt from his skin, but it was only Jasper, with the ragged dog at his side. The old man grinned under the brim of his reclaimed hat, then tipped it back to peer up at the woman on the balcony. “Morina,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “Always on the lookout for a fellow in need, eh?”

  “You know me too well,” the woman laughed, and fluttered a hand at them. “Be safe now, you old fool.”

  Jasper chuckled, then looked to Cob. “You want to stow your gear anywhere, lad?”

  Cob tightened his grip on the stick and bundle. “’M fine.”

  “Aye, well then. Oh!” The old man patted at his tunic, then at the leather satchel he had slung over his shoulder, and pulled out a bronze band. He tossed it to Cob. “Put that on, it’s good luck.”

  Cob caught it reflexively and examined it, frowning: a worn old armcuff with a faint insignia stamped on its broadest part, like a six-armed snowflake. “I can’t take this—“ he said, but Jasper was already walking off, the dog at his heels.

  “Hoi!” he called, and hustled to catch up. Jasper glanced at him mildly, but pressed on into the crowd. “Hoi, I don’t need luck,” Cob argued as he ducked into the old man’s wake. “This’s one of those heretic things, isn’t it?”

  A passerby snapped him a sharp look and he almost bit his tongue, remembering where he was. Jasper reached back and grabbed him by the arm. For an instant he wanted to fight—fight the old man, fight all of them, these tainted Darkfollowers and their chaotic city—then Jasper yanked him forward to walk at his side.

  “You know better than that, lad,” the old man said easily. Cob was not sure if he meant the heresy or the yelling about it in a busy street. His grip stayed like a vise on Cob’s elbow.

  “Sorry. But—“

  “You do need luck. A lot of it. Morina, she’s one of the few evening ladies who don’t report free men to the army. They pay well for conscription-dodgers. So that’s a bit of luck already, but we all need it in this day and age.” He steered Cob onward, around street-vendors and away from wagons and through the constant mill of cityfolk. Occasionally a stray hand tugged at Cob’s bundle, but he held it tight against his side and no one yanked.

  “Maybe jus’ to keep all m’stuff,” Cob muttered after the fifth abortive theft.

  Jasper chuckled.

  They walked for a while toward no destination that Cob could tell, and the crowd thinned from a river to a slow stream. The buildings changed as well, with taverns replaced by residences and small shops, their upper floors accessed by rope ladders or rarely by steps built into the walls. Unlike the unpainted brick or tan stucco of the buildings by the gate, many were bright peach or yellow or olive, pink or deep earth-red, and paintings outlined doorways and spanned from wall to wall in profusion: abstracts, stylized animals, glaring faces, eyes, flames. Craftsmen’s banners hung from windows and balustrades.

  Fewer wagons intruded here and more children roamed the street, kicking rag-balls and trailed by dogs and pet hogs. Women watched from doorsteps and balconies, some knitting, some hanging laundry on lines strung across the alleyways, and paused in their gossip to greet Jasper and give Cob measuring looks. Jasper tipped his hat to them, but though the constant press of the crowd had thinned, the foot-traffic was still steady enough to urge the two men onward.

  “Where we goin’?” Cob said finally, puzzled by this stroll. Cooking scents drifted out of ground-floor doors and upstairs windows, penetrating through his bashed nose enough to make his stomach grumble. A day and a half of being fed had taken the ravenous edge off, but he was still ready for a stop. Ammala had packed him some snacks.

  “Here and there.”

  As if in response to Cob’s scowl, Jasper abruptly veered toward a building and went up the brick steps without a holler, then hauled himself onto a balcony and disappeared inside. The dog watched him go, then lay down like a rug on the sunny sidewalk and closed its eyes.

  “Uh…hoi?” Cob called up uncertainly.

  The old man peered out, brows raised under the brim of his hat. “Well, come along, lad.”

  Cob sighed, then regarded the armcuff in his hand. The urge to leave it on the doorstep and walk away, just disappear into the city and fend for himself, came and went. With a sigh, he wiggled it onto his wrist and pushed it under his sleeve. It was loose on his forearm, maybe made for a mightier man.

  A flicker of movement made him look up as a bird alit on the rail of the opposite balcony. It stared back at him--some kind of small raptor, brownish in the building’s shade—and after a moment of awe, he realized that a vermin-riddled city must be a decent place for a hunting bird to live. They never came into the Army camp, unfortunately; the wards kept them out, despite being incapable of excluding the scavenging lizards or the grigs.

  It cocked its head, then took wing again, and he watched until it vanished above the roofs. Then up the stairs and onto the balcony he went.

  Behind the curtain that covered the archway he found a low-ceilinged room crowded with Bahlaerans: old women in black, younger ones in the traditional multicolored woven dresses, several men in smocks and work-clothes, and a few children thread
ing through the group with teacups and plates. He stood blinking in the archway until one of the children nudged him to a cushion in the corner and placed a teacup in his hands.

  All the adults had gathered around Jasper, jabbering for his attention. Cob sniffed the tea and watched, bewildered, as the supposed tinker confidently quieted them, urged them onto the other cushions that filled the square room, and began to hold court.

  It was a strange experience. Surrounded by what he was sure were witchfolk but thoroughly ignored, Cob watched in bafflement as Jasper mediated disputes and discussed news of the outside world. Wild goblins were active again on the Rift Climb, according to him; Jernizan raids had ceased due to continuing grassfires, which had spread as far as the road to the Pinch; the harvest in the Army-controlled farmlands had been mediocre, so no extra goods were likely to trickle northward this year. Fellen was partially rebuilt, with sufficient shelter for the winter; the populace had decided to stay.

  Cob sipped the bitter tea and watched their expressions shift as they bickered and laughed. A small child came by with a bowl of dumplings and Cob accepted one warily, found it full of sweet fruit jam, and took a whole handful. The child giggled and he flushed but put none back.

  By the time goodbyes were bid and the dregs of the tea drunk, the light from outside had dimmed. Cob popped up at Jasper’s beckon, dislodging the housecat that had taken up determined residence in his lap despite his many discrete attempts to shoo it away. It stared after him, tail bristled, then huffily stalked off among the cushions.

  “So you’re not a tinker at all,” Cob said as he climbed down the steps to the street. A dusty little boy looked up from feeding bits of sausage to the dog, which waved its ragged tail and clambered up, stretching broadly.

  “I tinker quite a bit, lad. Not so much with pots and pans.”

  “Jus’ with people.”

  Jasper chuckled and hitched his satchel across his shoulder. The little boy rushed over to hug his leg, then fled inside without a word. “Not with people, no. Only the space between them. Tinkering with people, that’s bad business. There’s enough folks who do that.”

  Cob opened his mouth to protest, then sighed. The old man had not said it directly, but Cob knew the jab was aimed at the Army. Like all slaves, he had been conditioned for obedience by the Inquisition, and even the freesoldiers were inspected and mindwashed periodically. It was meant to keep the Army free of Dark or heretic taint, but from his treatments Cob remembered only a sense of claustrophobic terror.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well, what now?”

  Jasper regarded him sadly, not quite pitying, then shrugged. “I’m here for these gatherings, lad. If they’re too dull for you, I can walk you back to Whitemane’s, or perhaps find you swifter transport from the city. But I can’t let you wander around on your own.”

  I can handle myself, Cob thought, but gave a sullen nod. At least there was food at the gatherings, and no one had done anything too weird. “Why d’you do this?”

  “I was asked to. The folk don’t much trust the government since it bowed to the Empire, so I come by a few times a year, stay a few days, deal with what must be done.”

  “Well, but why you?”

  Jasper cocked a brow, then flashed a cheesy grin. “Because I’m dreadfully handsome.”

  Cob snorted.

  “Come on then, lad, we’ve more visits to make!”

  And so it went, with Cob tagging along at Jasper’s heels and the dog always beside them. Most stops were brief—a word or two at a shop or a home, time enough for a snack but not for tea—and Cob learned that Illanites were willing to put almost anything inside a dumpling. The first time he bit into one and found a pickled vegetable filling, he almost spat it across the room.

  The longer stops wore on him, though. He had no patience for other people’s problems; his own kept nagging at him any time he had a moment to think. Though following Jasper was not the worst punishment he could imagine, it made him restless, like a child trapped at a grown-up party.

  As another group assembled into what promised to be a long meeting, Cob refused the day’s fifth cup of tea and sat on the narrow balcony instead, swinging his legs through the rails. The further they had penetrated into the city, the fewer people they had seen, as if all the life was clustered desperately around the gates and the center left to decay. In the distance, the taller roofs of government buildings and noble compounds gleamed white in the lowering light, but directly around them the city slouched toward abandonment. The street below was empty of traffic, but not of weeds, and despite the stretching shadows, few lights shone through the boarded and shuttered windows.

  There were no children in the room behind him, no young women asking for advice or mourning conscripted husbands. Only older folk stubbornly clinging to their homes.

  Did we do this? Cob wondered. Could we really have taken so many men that the place is just…empty?

  He did not want to dwell on it. And the street below was clear. Jasper couldn’t scold him for a walk if there was absolutely no one around to see.

  Keeping a grip on his stuff, he clambered back down to street-level. The dog lifted its head from its comfortable curl, mangled ear perking, then got up to pace along with him. He did not try to dissuade it. A little silent company might be nice.

  The homes and shops here had once been upscale, serving the nearby city-center. Mosaics covered the low walls of gardens run riot; painted tiles surrounded doorways and windows, many missing. The dry weather had staved off much decay but shutters hung awry in dark windows, and the breeze rattled and coughed through the alleyways with the sound of old debris. A lonely place, sepulchral in its fading colors.

  Cob eyed the mosaics as he passed: the great scaly fish and humanoid shapes, the sunbursts, the dragons and hares and entwined snakes. All brightly colored but with black eyes, like twin holes into nothingness. Eerie.

  No sound but the quiet shuffle of his feet, the trot of Toivo’s paws. The wind sketched patterns in the sand that covered the cobbled street.

  Then, down an alleyway, a burst of laughter.

  Cob halted, wary, but it had been distant like an echo. He squinted down that way.

  Like most of the alleys he had seen before, this one was roofed by the walkways that went between the upper floors, leaving a few gaps to the sky. On the far end he glimpsed movement, people—another flutter of laughter.

  Shouldn’t, he told himself, but his feet were already moving. He was tired and gloomy, and even at a distance the sounds of amusement drew him. Toivo kept at his side, and he reached down to ruffle the old dog’s ears for reassurance.

  The alley opened onto a new street not so different from the old. Less residential, more business, but equally boarded-up except for a few well-kept spots: a pawnbroker with a big coin-and-ring sign, a dry-goods shop, two buildings heavy with blue and red banners and guarded by burly men in chainmail, and the tavern Cob had come out alongside. On the street in front of the tavern’s porch, a frizzle-haired old lady sat cross-legged on a rolled-out rug, dealing cards for a drunk man while his friends stood about snickering.

  Cob approached cautiously, interested despite himself. The old lady had set them out in a pattern like a compass rose, with two crossed in the center, four at the cardinal points and four more in the gaps between. He recognized the deck; Maevor had one just like it, and occasionally lent it out for games of cutthroat or black-and-white. Witches were supposed to use it for divining but Cob had never seen it done before.

  The old lady had already turned over most of the cards, leaving only the northeast face-down. She was tapping the northwest card—the Ten of Clouds, with white birds flying in formation.

  “A transition, but a common one. Through this passage you approach your future,” she said matter-of-factly. Her bony fingers moved to indicate the northern card, the Herald of Swords with its image of a messenger at a corner, hiding from thugs. “Swords speak of order and governance—“

  �
��Lookit that, you’re gonna be an Imperial spy,” said a drunk observer, and his companions roared with laughter. The man at the reading waved them off absently. They were all older, huskier, dressed like workmen. Not so different from the men Cob had left with Jasper.

  “If he’s going Imperial, he ain’t got a future,” said another one.

  The old woman scowled and jabbed a finger at the commentator. “The picture is not the story!” she declared. “The cards require interpretation. There is more than one order, and the pendulum shall swing back to us in time. Now be silent and let me finish!”

  Chuckles rippled through the gathered men, but weakly, and then faded as she flipped the northeast card. Face-up, it showed the Crown of Blades reversed—a grim man bleeding from where his heavy, angular metal crown cut into his forehead. “When upright, this means resolve,” she said, tapping the card with one long nail. “Like this, it is weakness of will. Perhaps for all your jackal-friends cackling around you! It stands between your soul and your future, an obstacle. If you wish to return order to your life, you must face that which weakens you within yourself.”

  His companions jeered, but the man on the rug nodded slowly, appearing to absorb the message. He tossed a few coins down and staggered to his feet, and the woman swept the cards together swiftly.

  “Right, my turn,” said one of the jeerful observers.

  The old woman raised a hand to stop him, eyes narrow. “You do not respect the cards.”

  “Respect the cards? They’re bits of board, you old hag.”

  “You may laugh at them, but they will never speak for you.”

  “You want coin, yeah? We ain’t going anywhere ‘til sundown,” he said, nodding toward the building with the blue and red banners. Cob glanced that way, wondering what evening business they had in a place with armed guards. “So you can make up another tall tale for coin, or you can rent us the deck and we’ll entertain ourselves. Anyone wanna play shiv?”