House War - The Hidden City Part 24

Arann said, "I can't get up by then."

And Jewel nodded grimly. But she said, "It was only a nightmare."

The room, silent, was answer enough. They'd seen the cart. They knew what that "only" might mean to someone like Jewel. And, to her surprise, they cared. Lefty, terrified. Arann, injured.

She wanted to ask them how long they'd been living alone. Alone without adults. Alone without Oma. Alone without Rath. Because she knew that they shouldn't care. Not about a girl they'd never heard of; not about a simple nightmare.

She wanted to keep them. She wanted them here.

And she knew Rath would be fit to kill if she brought anyone else to his home.

"It was nothing," she told them both, forcing her voice to sound sleepy. "It was just a dream. Forget about it."

In the morning-and it was later than normal when Jewel finally crept out of the room-she went straight to the kitchen. Lefty was dozing in the corner, the knife at his feet. Arann was snoring loudly, and the sound of his breath was a rattle that made her wince every time she heard it. Not a snore-her Oma had been the queen of all snorers-but something worse.

She cut bread and cheese, and pulled out strips of dried meat; she cut apples, and added those to the mix. Gathering them all on the bare tablecloth, its red hatch lines faded to pink, its white a uniform gray, she bunched them together and carried them back to the room, leaving them by Arann's side.

She took the two plates, and made breakfast for herself and Rath. These, she carried silently down the hall, pausing at his door. As her hands were full, she kicked it.

He answered it instantly, which was unusual. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked as if he might bite her head off and toss the plates down the hall-but that was the morning face she was most accustomed to, and she waited.

He pulled the door open and let her in. His room was a mess, but it always was when he worked, and he had expressly forbidden her entry to clean it. Her tidying, he said, made everything impossible to find; the mess was its own geography, and he hated any change in terrain.

But he watched her as she set his food on the table.

"You had a nightmare," he said, as she put her plate down beside his. It wasn't a question.

She nodded, pulled the only other chair in the room to the table, and leaned against the soft back. This chair had arm rests; it was Rath's smoking chair. When he bothered to sit in one. Tobacco smoke lingered in the cloth; pipe smoke. A comfort.

She could see the bottle of ink, the quills, the paper that contained the runic writing of Old Weston-Ancient Weston-that he was attempting to decipher. She almost asked him about it, but his expression forbid intrusion.

"I had a nightmare," she said at last. She was hungry. She began to eat.

Rath waited. When it became clear that she would eat rather than talk, in itself something she seldom did, he sighed and joined her. Fifteen minutes pa.s.sed, the sound of chewing the only sound in the room.

"What was it about?"

Her hesitation was marked. Everything she did was, by Rath; there was nothing he didn't notice. "A girl," she said at last.

"A . . . girl."

She nodded.

"Someone you know?"

"No. But . . ."

"But?"

"I know her name."

He closed his eyes. "How old is this girl?"

"Lefty's age, I'd guess. Maybe younger. It's hard to tell. She's not very big."

"Pretty?"

Jewel considered the question for a while, dried meat softening between her teeth. "Maybe. I don't know."

"What was her name?"

"Her name is Finch."

"She didn't die?"

"Not in my dream."

He said nothing. A lot of it.

"It was a dream," she said, faint hope guiding the words.

"I heard you scream," he replied, with stronger accusation.

She nodded. "I don't know why," she told him, although he hadn't asked. "She was being chased by men. Or boys. Older than us," she added, aware that it wasn't a useful distinction to Rath.

"Why this girl?"

"Rath, I don't know."

"And the boys chasing her?"

"I didn't see them clearly."

"You often see them clearly."

This was, she realized, what had been bothering her. He was right. She did. "I know. I heard their voices-"

And stopped, and met his eyes.

They were open, and staring. "What did they sound like?" he asked casually. Always a bad sign.

She was ahead of him, now. "Yes," she whispered.

"Like the man who ordered the tail."

"Like that. But louder."

"Jewel, need I remind you that I require privacy to work at all?"

"No."

"Good."

They finished eating in silence, both aware that they had resolved nothing.

Chapter Eight.

RATH WAS FINISHED for the day.

Had, in fact, been finished before breakfast. Although he hadn't looked it to Jewel's inexpert eye, he'd also been awake. Her screams usually had that effect. Had the boys not been with her, he would have joined her, because he knew her well enough to know she'd be awake.

He had chosen not to, because he didn't wish to panic her guests. And, yes, he was aware that "guest" was fast becoming an inaccurate word, but he clung to faint hope.

The only neat pile of papers in the room was on his desk; beside them, once again carefully wrapped in cloth, were the two bowls he'd taken from the maze. He was aware that he should wait at least a week or two before he attempted to unload them. He almost considered bypa.s.sing Radell-Avram's Society of Averalaan Historians had caused him some small trouble, and he expected that both it and he would be watched should he enter it again.

But he had a fondness for the stout, mendacious man with the fake beard, and a certain fondness for the money. The fact that the last two items had been sold for so good a price gave him the luxury of time, and he briefly considered crossing the bridge to the High City to seek out the Order of Knowledge.

The money would not be as good; the information, however, would be better. He had not yet ascertained the use of the bowls themselves, but he was almost certain they were magical in nature. And handing something magical to Radell's new clientele made Rath decidedly uneasy.

So, too, had Jewel's dream.

Since she had recovered from her fevered state, she had had only dreams and the instinct that guided her daily life; she had offered Rath no waking vision, no clear guidance. Until this morning, he'd allowed himself to believe that she'd forgotten everything she'd said while the fever burned high.

But while Rath was an accomplished liar, he liked to lie only when it suited a purpose. The man who had tailed him had been so competent, serving ignorance did not serve Rath's sense of self-preservation.

Finch, he thought. He wondered how literal the dream vision was. Wondered if there were, in fact, a girl smaller than Lefty who bore that name. On another day, it wouldn't have mattered.

But it did now.

Because in her dream, the men who were chasing this child were also akin to the man who had tailed Rath. He had no illusions. If Jewel was unwilling to speak of the death of a child, he allowed her that comfort; he allowed himself none, because none was needed.

If she were indeed being followed-and at speed-by three such men, she had no hope of eluding them.

In and of itself, this was not his concern.

But Jewel now knew it, too. And he had been G.o.ds-cursed foolish; he had not only gone to the rescue of one endangered boy, but had then summoned a doctor, at some personal cost that had nothing to do with coin, and had even allowed the boy-and his shadow-to stay.

She was not going to leave the nightmare alone. He had asked a single question, and she had instantly understood the whole of its import.

Grinding his teeth, he rose from his squat on the floor, and reached for his leather satchel. He carefully placed the bowls within it, cushioning them further with the thick weight of a shirt, and then topped them with his frustrating writings. Only when this was done did he change.

Velvet, he thought, with a mild sneer. A hat. New pants, new boots. He paused by the mirror, winced, and made ready to shave with cold water; the morning was pa.s.sing him by. He was a perfect, elegant fop in shades of deep blue when he at last finished.

Good enough for the High City, if he chose that route; certainly good enough for Radell if he chose otherwise. He kept his options open because, in the end, the disposition of his artifacts were not his chief concern.

The Patris was.

What were the odds that men such as the one who had followed him-missing success by the expedient of an unpredictable patrol-served anyone else in the hundred holdings? And why, if they served that Patris, were they hunting an urchin in the poorer streets of the city?

Questions, and Rath hated questions. Mostly because he'd discovered with time that they had answers, and the answers were almost always worse.

Farmer Hanson had not heard of Finch, at least not by name. That much wasn't a surprise to Jewel. But he also couldn't identify her by description. Granted, a terrified, tiny girl wasn't the easiest to comfortably describe, but the farmer had always had keen eyes.

Like, say, now, as he helped her with her basket. "Arann's fine?" he asked her.

She shrugged. She'd left Lefty at home with Arann, which was strictly against Rath's orders, and had come down to the Common, ostensibly to shop.

"You said she's smaller than Lefty?"

Jewel nodded.

"You're certain she's on her own, that she has no family?"

And nodded again. Because she knew. "Her hair's longer than mine, and I think it's lighter. It's hard to tell. I only saw her at night. Her skin's pale, though, and she's all bone."

Farmer Hanson raised a brow. "This would be the pot calling the kettle black, hmmm?"

Jewel shrugged. "She's shorter. Than me."

"What was she wearing?"

Good question, given what the street orphans usually owned: what they wore, and nothing else. Jewel started to answer, and then frowned. "You know," she said quietly, "that's a d.a.m.n good question."

"Language, Jay."

"Good question, I mean," she corrected herself. "I think she was . . . I think she was wearing a dress."

"Here?"

She nodded again. "It was gray, I think. I mean, it wasn't fancy. Maybe it was a-what do you call it?"

"A shift."

"Or a nightshirt."