House War - The Hidden City Part 83

No one asked who "they" might be.

"We will proceed to the Common from here," he told the den. "The Common is poorly patrolled at this time of year; it is, however, patrolled. We will leave the Common and head toward the upper holdings, but our destination is not far from there."

He glanced at Jewel.

She stopped, then, and before Rath could rearrange her dress, she hugged them each in turn, holding them a little too tightly. She had nothing else to say to them, nothing that she could put into words. They didn't ask, and they held her, briefly, just as tightly-all save Lander, who retreated again into silence when they breached the invisible barrier between what lay hidden by the streets, and what lay upon them.

To Lander, then, she made a few gestures, visible in the bright moon, and after a moment, he offered a tentative response, his hands rising, his palms turning, his fingers twisting-all with a grace that surprised her.

This might be good-bye, and this was all she allowed herself. Then she turned, as Rath waited, and followed where he led, taking Duster with her, and leaving the rest behind in the cold of the growing night.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

THE COMMON AT NIGHT was not Jewel's favorite place. One chance meeting with would-be a.s.sa.s.sins had changed it, as events often changed the meaning of a place. It was linked, now, with a terrified run through the undercity, two strangers by her side-one that she had set out to rescue, and one that had come to her by the grace of Kalliaris' smile, and had stayed. She looked back once at Carver and Finch, and smiled; her smile was lost to shadow, but it lingered a moment.

They had not quailed or argued; they had not doubted for a moment that wherever she was going was someplace she had to be.

And they didn't doubt her now.

She doubted, but kept it to herself; there was no point in sharing. Rath would hear her, or Duster would, and either of these would be bad.

But as she emerged from the scattered wagons, some sitting like the cavernous bodies of beached ships on the drifts of Winter's bitter white snow, she shook herself, straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. No, she thought, changing posture again, that was wrong. She lowered her chin slightly, and she let her nervousness show-and knew that that was better. She could almost hear Haval's voice guiding her movements.

But she had always heard absent voices. They were often clearer than the voices of those who walked with her; they became some part of her thought, some part of her way of looking at the world. Crowded head, hers. Her Oma's voice was mercifully silent. She didn't try to call it back. She had been a grim woman, in her way, and her sense of justice was acute and profound; she would no more allow a man like this lord to live than she would a c.o.c.kroach found crawling near the food.

Jewel clung to that belief, and no argumentative voice came back to pry it from her.

She could breathe, here, and the air was sharp and cold; it was also so clear it felt as if she'd stepped into a different country. The night was piercing, almost beautiful, as it hovered above the city; the magelights were glowing softly. No missing stones here, and no long gaps between the poles; this was a place where people who had no fear of starvation lived.

They weren't lords, she thought, looking at the houses on their small parcels of land. Whether or not the lawns were bright and well tended she couldn't say; the snow covered all in one forgiving blanket. But the snow on those lawns was clean; no wheels cut into it, and very few footprints muddied or sullied it.

But they owned no horses, no great carriages, the people who claimed these houses as their own. They had fences, but they were short, and not the grand fences that had all but fallen over in some parts of the old holdings, where legend said great men-and women-had once chosen to live.

Not even their ghosts remained. And here? No hint of ghosts at all. The houses rested upon the earth and above the snow, unaware of the history that lay beneath them in silence and darkness.

But it was not to these houses that Rath led them; he walked the road, pausing here and there beneath the magelights. Patrols were not infrequent, but Rath merely waved as they pa.s.sed, and was rewarded with a curt nod-or sometimes a friendly one-as he did. Duster kept her head down when they pa.s.sed, but this, too, was appropriate. Jewel thought Haval would be pleased with her, but didn't say as much. No telling what Duster would say in response, and they didn't really need a fight here.

But Jewel found the patrols unnerving.

"They are here for our protection," Rath told her grimly. "And only that. You have nothing to fear from them unless you bolt."

Jewel nodded. She understood every word, but some part of her didn't believe it, and she had to squelch all the noise it made. With effort.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked at length.

Jewel shook her head. Duster was mute, which was pretty much a No. That was just her way.

"This," he said quietly, "is where the foreign merchants have housing when they are forced to Winter here. The houses are often owned, not by the merchants, but rather by the companies they work for, or through; they are sometimes owned by the owners of the Kings' charter." He waved briefly to one side. "This is the Northern quarter. The Southern quarter is just beyond this."

"Is that where we're going?"

Rath shook his head, but not with impatience. "Some merchants do not work with larger companies; they own little land here. But they find homes or rooms in some of the inns built for that purpose."

"We're going there?"

He nodded. "To one of them, yes. It is quite large, and during the height of the trade season, it is full. At this time of year, it is almost empty." He paused. "And therefore houses men who are perhaps less reputable. But innkeepers require some sustenance, and as long as the occupants break no laws, they are vastly less strict in the stormy season." He led them down blocks of Winter street, until they were pulling their heavy cloaks around their shoulders and hunching their bodies against the inevitable cold.

"Here," he said quietly, and stopped. He handed Jewel a letter. "Do not open it. It is for Lord Waverly," he told her, although her hands were now shaking enough that opening it would have been a challenge. Dresses of the kind she now wore were not designed for warmth, or rather, they were designed for people who didn't have to contend with the d.a.m.n cold. And she told herself it was only the cold.

"I must go. I may not see you, but I will be there."

"Rath-"

He waited. She knew that she could, even now, turn back, and part of her wanted to. But only part.

"You will arrive," he told her softly, "and you will wait for Lord Waverly."

She nodded. Nodding was easier than speech.

She entered the inn, Duster at her heels, Rath nowhere in sight. Haval's lessons were firmly entrenched in her bearing, but they hadn't prepared her for what she would see: The floors were made of marble that gleamed in the evening lights. Magelights, adorned by gla.s.s sculptures, in pale hues that made light their heart. She was still a moment, tilting her head up, and up again, toward the tall and rounded ceilings. They were pale, and the shadows diffuse that lay against their surface.

Her whole den could have made a s.p.a.cious home of the room that lay empty beyond the desk-and the desk itself might occupy three kitchens' worth of s.p.a.ce. But the wood here, gleaming as if it were a dark reflection of stone, was unmarked, unscored, utterly untouched.

She had never expected so much money could feel so . . . empty.

The warmth melted snow; she stood dripping in the glare, and tried not to feel self-conscious. A man appeared behind the desk. It was not so late that he looked tired or grouchy with lack of sleep-but given his expression, and the perfect drape of his stiff, pale clothing, she doubted that he ever slept. He nodded politely in her direction, and this, too, came as a little shock. But the clothing she wore spoke of affluence, not poverty; she was not out of place here. Or she didn't look out of place.

Drawing her chin up, she walked slowly toward the man behind his fortress of a desk. "I'm here," she said quietly, "to meet a friend."

"Your name?"

Her name. She hesitated for a moment. "Amber," she said at last. "Amber Hartold."

He paused, and then opened a drawer to his right; he pulled out a long piece of paper, and studied it. It neither annoyed him nor amused him; his expression was like the stone she walked across. Since her parents had died, she had learned that being unnoticed was good; therefore it didn't bother her much.

The wait did; she had never been patient. Even when awaiting punishment, the wait was a torment, the punishment almost a relief. She didn't glance at Duster; she studied her boots instead.

"Yes," he said at last, and this time he did look at her, and a brief expression, flickering by too quickly to be pinned down, touched his face. "You are expected." He clapped his hands, and a man appeared from the other side of a small door she hadn't noticed. His perfect clothing was almost exactly like that of the man behind the desk, but he was younger, and a bit less stern. He even smiled-when the older man's back was turned.

"The Arboretum dining hall," the older man said.

This stilled the smile. "But that's-"

"Now. Ask no questions," the older man added severely. "And do not trouble our guests."

At least one of the guests didn't like his tone, but Jewel was now, as Haval would say, in character. She pretended not to notice. And it was hard.

Rath had said the inn would be almost deserted.

He was right. And wrong. Inn was a poor word for a building this fine and grand; it could almost be a cathedral, with its high ceilings, its perfect floors, its visible stone and hanging tapestries; a cathedral, she thought bitterly, for the G.o.ds of money, whoever they were. Wealth was supposed to be hers, and this display of wealth should therefore be beneath her notice.

But it was almost impossible to just walk past unmoved; it was certainly impossible to move quickly in any case; her feet were now sore with their unfamiliar confinement, and the height of her heels made the back of her calves ache. It took effort not to wobble.

Duster caught her when she almost tripped; her grip was like steel, and Jewel was certain her fingers left bruises. She met Duster's eyes, and saw that they glittered in the opulence of the light; glittered, and yet, were as dark as Jewel had ever seen them. There was, about her expression, something that made avarice seem chaste and tame, a hunger that made starvation seem paltry.

What did you expect to see? Fear?

No answer, there. Duster had never been a mirror.

And yet . . . she shook herself, smiled weakly, banished that smile, and continued to walk.

The air smelled oddly sweet and musty; incense was burning in the halls, fine, slender sticks that were dense and fragrant. Fires burned in hollows made for wood, and chimneys drew the smoke up, and up again; she was not cold in this place. And at this time of year, cold was always an issue.

Better cold, she realized, better hunger, than this.

She had come to kill a man.

No, some part of her said, Duster's come to kill a man. It's not murder. It's execution.

But another part of her answered, bleakly, She would never have come this far without me. If she's the knife, I'm the hand that's holding it.

Then turn back. Turn back while you can; run. Give it up. What do you have to lose?

And behind her, steps soft and firm, walked a shadow, some vague accusation whose name was Duster.

But the next question, she had no answer for: Why are you afraid to lose her? And she asked it, because there was no way to still that voice.

Rath watched from the shadows; they were some part of him now, as was the Winter. He waited until Jewel and Duster, two incongruous steps behind, cleared the decorative guards at the grand front doors of the inn before he began to move. He felt uneasy, in the clean open light of the Winter moon. She was gone; he could not watch her or hear her.

He was an accomplished liar; he could not tell himself that he thought she'd be safe. He had made his plans, but plans seldom survived first contact with the enemy-and first contact would be hers in its entirety. Not for the first time, he wondered why he had agreed to this, and not for the first time, he accepted the answer: This was her test.

And had he tested Amarais? Younger and smarter than Rath, smaller and more steely, had he tested her? He had thought, in his youth, that she had failed them all, betrayed them all. Perhaps, he thought bitterly, she had tested Rath-and Rath had failed.

He was determined not to fail now.

He checked the one pouch he carried, leather thick and Winter-cold to his touch. At some cost, he had procured large quant.i.ties of a medicinal herb-the only one with a subtle flavor that would be easily masked by wine. He made his way to the servants entrance, and there, handed the guard on duty a small sum of money. It bought, for a few seconds, a very necessary blindness.

The Arboretum was the biggest shock. Jewel was vaguely aware of what the word meant-Rath was not a kind teacher, and certainly not a lenient one-but vague knowledge and reality were in no way the same. There was green here. It was the type of green that even the streets didn't see during the height of Summer; the leaves seemed to glow with magelight, as if they absorbed it. And the leaves themselves were as wide in places as her thighs, as narrow in others as her smallest finger; they were long and short, emerald and magenta, and among them, nestled at times in the heart of those leaves, and at others, upon leaves that seemed to bear them like a crown, were flowers that were so brilliant her clothing's expensive dyes seemed dull and flat by comparison.

This was life, she thought, and forgetting herself, bent to touch a leaf with a shaking hand, to stroke the thin membrane of red and violet. She could remember sensation clearly when other things escaped her: words to describe it, visual memories to fasten it. She could, if she wanted, think of bark, and know exactly what it felt like to bite it or suck on it, although she had no memory of ever doing so. And there was ivory bark here, thin trees with slender, rising branches, that almost invited her to make that memory. But she had enough dignity to pull back and rise.

Duster waited by her back in perfect, subservient silence. It was . . . unsettling. Jewel had never thought to miss her cutting words, her cruel curses-but she missed them now. There was nothing of Duster in the servant; the servant had become her. Then again, Duster had always said she was a d.a.m.n good liar. Lying, to Jewel, was like a foreign language; she struggled with its consonants and the shape of its vowels.

And tonight, she had to sound like a native.

She was, of course, afraid, and she remembered clearly what Haval had said about fear. Coming here, in the cold that was so familiar it was almost like kin, it had been easy to believe that she could channel fear; in this bright room, this beautiful, impossible place, belief faltered.

But the boy who was leading her-and he was a boy, although older than she by a few years if she was any judge-now offered her a pained smile, a hesitant one. "Lady," he said formally, "your host is waiting." And in his tone she heard the words he wanted to say, and didn't: that this host did not like to be kept waiting.

"Of course," she said, in a pale, thin voice. "It's-I'm sorry to keep you." But hadn't Rath said she would wait for him? He was early. Lord Waverly was early. Jewel was well aware of how their plan could go wrong-but all of the disasters she'd imagined, and she'd done little else, did not include this.

He shook his head. "In the Summer, hardly anyone notices the Arboretum. But in the Winter, it's different. It's almost like a harbor."

"Do you come here often?"

"Me?" He laughed. Caught himself and folded laughter into awkward silence. "No. The Master Gardener would kill me if I so much as dribbled water across his precious flowers."

She laughed, and her laughter sounded almost natural. "I can almost understand why," she told him. "I'm not very good with plants."

"He doesn't call them plants. He has names for all of them," the boy added.

"Flowers have names."

"He calls that one Fossie."

"Oh."

"But if he saw you touch them, he couldn't say a word. You were careful," he added, "and you-appreciate them."

"We don't have flowers like this."

"No, not unless you sleep in a flower bed." He began to walk, and then slowed. Turned to look at Jewel. And to look away. It was painful and awkward, and she wanted to tell him, "It's okay." But her own words wouldn't come, maybe because she just didn't trust them to be the right words.

That was the problem with lying, she thought; you had to have the knack of using the right d.a.m.n words at the right d.a.m.n time. She had the knack of using the wrong words at the right time on a good day.

"If you-" he smiled, but it was the ghost of a smile-something that might once have known life, but now knew only cold and fear. "There are bells-" He stopped again. "Do you-have you met your host before?"

"He's a business a.s.sociate of my father's," she replied smoothly. "I haven't met him yet, but I'm told I'll like him."

He said nothing at that. But the smile was gone, and he was pale and cold, like the Winter outside. Even the pa.s.sing garden-and it still existed all around them-leeched color from his face.

"The dining room here is part of the Arboretum," he said formally and stiffly. "The walls are made of special gla.s.s. Your host has-the Arboretum is his for the evening. There will be attendants to serve dinner," he added, "but they will leave when the lord commands them."

She nodded.