The Magicians And Mrs. Quent Part 38

O F ALL THE large and influential trading companies in the Grand City of Invarel, there was none so hulking in its largeness, so overwhelming in its influencing effects, as Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. Just as all water in the city flowed into the River Anbyrn before it was allowed to pa.s.s down to the sea, there was not a segment of commerce in Altania, from the least business to the most lucrative investments, that did not flow at least in part through the halls of Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. However, it was not upon a tide of water that this commerce was carried, like ships upon the river, but rather on a steady and ceaseless flow of ink.

On any given day inside the main hall of the trading company, the sound of pens scratching against paper far exceeded the buzzing in any hive of bees, and while it was not honey being extracted by their activity, it was something even more sweet to the tastes of men.

Two long tables stretched the entire length of the hall, a row of clerks seated on stools on each side. So closely were the clerks arranged that the slightest movement to the right or left might cause one's arm to come in contact with his neighbor's. This would elicit a complaint from the one jostled, especially if by the action his pen had been made to jump or skitter.

At Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle, clerks were paid by the page, and mistakes were not tolerated. If one smudged the last row of figures at the bottom of the sheet, it must be thrown away and a fresh one started, and the clerk's pay would be docked for the cost of the wasted paper and ink. Thus they worked with shoulders hunched in, spines curved, and heads bent, pens scratching as they recorded transactions, doc.u.mented trades, and tallied rows of figures that, if placed end to end, would stretch longer than the River Anbyrn itself.

As the clerks around him labored, Eldyn Garritt set down his pen and flexed his stiff fingers. Holding the quill for hours on end had formed them into a permanent curl, and the tips were stained black-just as they had been that night at the village of Hayrick Cross, when he broke the message tube he had been carrying for Westen and threw it in the blacksmith's face.

Eldyn grimaced at the memory. Sometimes, as he worked, he wished there was a way that mistakes could be blotted from his life, like the way the ink from the broken vial had blotted out the treasonous missive inside the tube. However, while a mistake might be crossed out, it could never really be removed. Even if the parchment was scoured with sand, traces of incriminating pigment would remain. The sheet could only be thrown away-and Eldyn had no wish to be disposed of just yet.

Besides, perhaps time could do what ink could not. I am not finished with you, Westen had said that night when Eldyn told him he would carry no more messages for him. However, in the half year since, Eldyn had not seen the highwayman. He had come to collect neither his hundred regals nor Eldyn himself. It was as if he had faded from the world, like words on a sheet of paper left too long in the sun, which became more ghostly with each pa.s.sing day, until all trace of them was gone.

Then again, tincture of gall might be applied to faded ink to darken it, and Eldyn could not help but wonder if turning a page might bring some new, unpleasant chapter into view. Sighing, he rubbed his aching right hand with his left, trying to force the blood back into it.

"What are you doing, Garritt?" said the clerk who sat across the table from him. He was about Eldyn's age, and his name was Tems Chumsferd, though everyone called him Chubbs for his thick neck and thick fingers.

"I have a cramp in my hand," Eldyn said. His fingers were tingling now with a thousand pinp.r.i.c.ks as blood seeped back into them.

"Well, you'll have a cramp in your head soon if you don't get back to work. Whackskuller's coming this way."

Eldyn winced. Mr. Waxler was the head clerk at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. He spent the days patrolling up and down the tables, examining the work of each clerk over their shoulders. He carried a wooden baton-about two feet long, slender but st.u.r.dy-with which he would reach and tap against a page to point out an error or smudge. However, if a clerk made too many errors, it was not the paper that would receive a tap but rather the back of the clerk's head-and none too gently. Eldyn had received such correction more than once in his first weeks on the job.

"Here he comes," Chubbs muttered. He dipped his pen in the inkwell the two shared between them and bent back over his sheet of figures.

Eldyn picked up his own pen and continued his work, forming precise columns of numbers. The sound of Mr. Waxler's footsteps approached; these were distinguished by a case of dropfoot on the right side. The footsteps drew closer: clump-CLOMP, clump-CLOMP. Eldyn dipped his pen and wrote as swiftly as he could, not lifting his eyes from the paper before him.

The footsteps ceased.

"Mr. Garritt," said a thin voice behind him, "were you not working on this very same page the last time I pa.s.sed by?"

Eldyn craned his head to look at the hawk-nosed man standing behind him. The clerks around him scribbled furiously.

"I believe I had just started it, sir," he said. "And I am now very near to the end. Nor are there any mistakes."

Mr. Waxler's eyes narrowed as he made an examination of the paper. His face was flat and dotted with moles, like a piece of gray paper speckled with ink. "No, I see no mistakes, and your writing is very pretty, Mr. Garritt. However, I would prefer that it were swifter and more economical. Why the long ascender here, or the needless flourish there?" The tip of his baton rapped against the page. "Ink is the lifeblood of Altania, Mr. Garritt. It should not be squandered. I am docking your wages ten pennies today for waste. Now continue your work."

The head clerk moved on-clump-CLOMP-and Eldyn bent his head back over the page, letting out a sigh as he did.

"Be glad, Garritt," Chubbs whispered. "You got off easy."

"So you say," Garritt whispered back. "It does not seem so easy to me." Ten pennies was a fifth of his daily wages. He had hoped to go home at a decent hour today, but he would have to work an extra half shift to make up for the lost pay. A normal shift was ten hours, but those who wished for it could work an additional five. However, not many clerks chose to do so, for as one grew tired, one made more mistakes, and an unlucky clerk could end up owing more in docked wages for spoiled paper and wasted ink than he earned in the second shift. However, these days Eldyn rarely made mistakes, and he usually took the extra work to earn another twenty-five pennies-though he hated to leave Sashie alone for so long.

Chubbs tapped his pen against the edge of the well, then started a new sheet. "Well, just be glad you still have a job."

Eldyn did not reply. Despite its size, the hall was stuffy and rank with the fumes of ink and of clerks who did not bathe as regularly as they should. Only a dim light leaked from the oil lamps above, but if one wanted more illumination, one had to purchase a candle from the head clerk at an exorbitant price. Eldyn always made do with what light there was, even though his eyes often ached and by the end of a second shift were so blurred and sore he could hardly see. Sometimes, if the day was very dark, Chubbs bought a candle; at such times, Eldyn was grateful for what little extra light fell upon his own page.

Despite all this, Eldyn was glad for the job. After weeks of going to every trading and banking house in the city in search of a clerking position, he had found nothing. Everywhere he went, the tables were already filled. As the last of his funds dwindled, he had feared he would have to take work as a common laborer. Even then, how would he earn enough to sustain him and Sashie?

Desperate, he had gone again to Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle, which he had visited twice before. His luck would have been no better than on those first two tries; however, just as Mr. Waxler was telling him there were no open positions, a small gray-haired clerk nearby let out a moan and toppled backward from his stool. By the time they picked him up off the floor, he was stone dead.

Mr. Waxler had said nothing, only nodding to the empty stool. The pen was prized from the dead clerk's hand and given to Eldyn. Eldyn sat in the empty place at the table, dipped the pen, and set it against the page, continuing exactly where the old clerk had left off. And that was how he gained his position at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle.

At last the primary shift ended. Most of the clerks rose and shuffled toward the doors to collect their wages from the paymaster. Eldyn dipped his pen again and kept writing.

"Staying for the second shift again, are you?" Chubbs said, his round face puckering in a frown. "I don't know how you do it, Garritt. My hand is numb as stone, and my eyes feel like they've been bathed in ink and jabbed with a quill. Take care you don't ruin yourself. If you lose your hands or your eyes, Whackskuller will give your place to someone else."

"I'm fine," Eldyn said. "Good night, Chubbs."

The other man sighed. "Good night, Garritt. Next lumenal, then." He went with the large portion of the clerks out the door while Eldyn, along with a few others, remained at the tables.

For a moment Eldyn paused. He was tempted to rise and follow Chubbs outside; his hand hurt, and he wanted to leave this dismal place. However, he had already been docked part of his pay today, and his salary barely covered his expenses as it was. He needed the extra work if he wanted to save anything for his and Sashie's future.

Eldyn dipped his pen again, tapping it carefully to remove the excess ink, then continued working as the sky turned to gray outside the high windows.

B Y THE TIME he left the trading house, the brief twilight had given way to the start of an umbral that, according to the table printed on the front page of The Fox, was to be thirteen hours. The day had failed more quickly than he had expected, and toward the end of the shift he had been forced to buy a candle for five pennies. He rued the expense, but it was worth it to finish the half shift.

At this hour, the streets of the Old City were still well populated, and he walked without fear to the tiny apartment he had rented for Sashie and himself. The apartment was not far past Duskfellow's graveyard, down a drab lane, tucked in the rafters above a shoemaker's shop. It was the third place they had dwelled since the night they had fled from Westen.

He still could not recall that terrible umbral without a shudder. After discovering that Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing were swindlers and had made off with his money, he had run all the way from Inslip Lane back to the Golden Loom. There he stuffed their few possessions in a sack, tossed a few coins on the table to cover the last week of rent, then-without stopping to offer a word of explanation to Mr. Walpert or a farewell to his daughter-he dragged his sister into the night. Sashie had protested, complaining she did not want to go. However, he promised her he was taking her somewhere better, somewhere with softer beds and finer chairs-somewhere more fitting her station-and at last she acquiesced.

Having made such a promise, he had no choice but to take her to an establishment in Gauldren's Heights, and perhaps it was just as well. Being a respectable inn, it had a man always on duty at the door, and as long as they did not go outside he was fairly certain Westen could not molest them there.

All the same, soft as the beds were, he found little sleep at that inn and spent many wakeful hours gazing out through a gap in the curtains, watching the street below, dreading to see a tall, golden-maned form prowling up to the inn. That Westen meant to collect his hundred regals, Eldyn was certain. Just as he was certain that money alone would not be enough to satisfy him.

Despite Eldyn's fears, he saw nothing. Still, after only three days he had no choice but to move them again, or else the exorbitant rent would quickly make paupers of them. They spent the next three weeks at a boardinghouse in a dilapidated corner of the Old City. By then he had been down to his last regals, and it was all he could afford.

The place was frightening. Their room was a dank cell with no glazing over the window, only iron bars and a rotted shutter. There was a bed, but the thing was so infested with vermin that they leaned it in a corner and slept on a pair of wooden benches instead. He used one of the tattered blankets he had scrounged as a curtain to close off half of the room for Sashie's privacy, but it was hardly needed; they slept in their clothes, for the place was damp and cold.

The only advantage of the boardinghouse was that there was little chance of Sashie venturing out while he was gone and encountering Westen; she was terrified to leave the room. Especially at night, the boardinghouse was filled with moans, hard laughter, and often the distant sound of screaming. They kept the door bolted at all times, and Sashie would admit him only upon seeing his face through a crack in the door.

The other advantage was that he doubted Westen would think to look for them in such a wretched place. Whether that was the case or not, he saw no sign of the highwayman during the three awful weeks they spent there. At last, when they were down to their final pennies, Eldyn had obtained the position at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. He had removed Sashie from the boardinghouse at once and had let the small apartment over the shoemaker's shop.

Nor was it a moment too soon. The next week, in one of the broadsheets, he read how a fire had swept through that very same boardinghouse, killing more than a dozen of its residents who could not escape their rooms. He had not told Sashie.

In the months since, he had sometimes wondered if he should move them again. Westen might find them if they remained in one place for too long. However, as the weeks went by and he saw no sign of the highwayman, his dread lessened. He began to think it likely that Westen was no longer in the city. Perhaps he had even been shot and killed by soldiers or one of his would-be victims, though Eldyn was fairly certain he would have read about such an incident in the broadsheets.

Besides, Eldyn did not want to make Sashie move again. Nor did he think he could find them a better place given his current salary. As the weeks became months, he had even begun to think Westen had forgotten about them. Surely the highwayman had other schemes and concerns to occupy his attention. And what was a hundred regals to him? He had only to rob another coach to earn thrice that.

Leaving the busier thoroughfares behind, Eldyn walked among the shadows of Cowper's Lane, climbed the back stairs to their apartment, and unlocked the door.

"There you are!" Sashie gasped as he entered, rising from her seat by the little window that looked out over the street. "I didn't see you come up the street. Though I don't know how I didn't see you. I've sat here for hours and hours staring out."

He grimaced. Out of habit, he must have unwittingly woven the shadows around himself as he walked along the lane.

"I expected you hours ago," she said, without giving him a moment to speak. "I was on the verge of going out to look for you."

Alarm filled him. "You know you aren't to go out alone. Not in this part of the city. It isn't-"

"I don't care what it is. You can't keep me shut up in here. The sound of hammering comes right through the floor. You don't hear it-the shop is closed by the time you come home-but I hear it all day, every day, for hours and hours. They pound on the shoes, pound, pound." She lifted her hands to her temples. "It's driving me mad."

He moved to her. "I'm sorry, dearest. I know it's hard to be here alone. But my free day is soon; I'll take you out. We can go for a walk along the Promenade. Or I'll take you to Gauldren's Heights. We'll go to one of the shops Uphill and buy you a new dress."

"I don't need another dress," she said, pawing at the pale blue frock she wore, which he had bought her with a full three days' wages. She looked very pretty in it despite her anguish. "What need have I of dresses in here where no one can see me?"

He winced as she flung these words at him. It had distressed him at the Golden Loom when she refused to speak to him, but he was not certain her new manner was an improvement. For a time, after they moved here, she had been so grateful to leave the boardinghouse that she had been a meek, even docile thing, showering him with kisses each time he returned home. However, that appreciation had not lasted, and over the last months her tongue had grown increasingly sharp.

"I need to go out," she cried, then her anger became pleading. "Please, dear brother, please take me out. I'm so lonely here, I cannot bear it!"

Sobbing, she flung herself into his arms, and he could not say this did not please him. He held her close, petted her, and murmured little things to soothe her: how one day soon she would put on her prettiest dress, and he would take her out to the grandest street for all the world to see, and they would sit in the window of the most fashionable shop and have cakes and tea.

"Why can I not go out tomorrow?" she sobbed against his gray coat. He tried not to worry that her tears might ruin it, for he had only recently bought it.

"You know it is not proper for a young lady of worth to go out alone," he said, gently chiding.

Yet it was more than that, for how could she be trusted? Sashie was a sweet and impressionable creature. Despite all of Eldyn's admonitions, what would happen if she were to encounter him on the street? A few pretty words from him, and all Eldyn's warnings might be forgotten in an instant.

"Soon," he promised her again. "I will take you out soon."

She nodded but said nothing, and pushed away from him. He noted that her face was not at all wet with tears, and his coat was unspoiled. She returned again to her seat by the window, listless now that her outburst had subsided, and gazed out into the night.

Eldyn went to the nook behind a curtain that served for his bedchamber and carefully hung his new coat on a chair. He poured water into a bowl, splashed some on his face, then regarded himself in the sc.r.a.p of mirror. He had gotten very pale for lack of sun, and these days his shoulders, like his fingers, were habitually curled. He made an effort to force them back, then stepped around the curtain.

"Is there anything to eat?" he asked softly.

Her eyes still on the window, Sashie made a vague gesture toward the table. There, beneath a cloth, he found a cold pork pie and a plate of stewed apples. A woman came in regularly to do the cooking and cleaning, for Sashie could not be compelled to do anything. While Eldyn sometimes fretted at the cost, he did not regret it at that moment, for he was fiercely hungry. He sat, poured himself a cup of thin red wine, then ate until there was not a speck of food left. Belatedly, he wondered if Sashie had supped.

"You have already eaten, haven't you, dearest?"

"I have no appet.i.te," she replied. "I am going to bed."

She rose, crossed to him, and brushed her cool lips across his cheek; then she went to the door of the little antechamber that served for her private room.

"Would you mind, then?" Eldyn said, swallowing. "That is, if you are retiring, would you be disappointed if I went out?"

His sister shrugged, then went into her room. The sound of the latch being drawn was loud amid the silence.

Eldyn winced, but if she was going to shut herself in her room, what use was there in staying here? He retrieved his coat, made certain his hair was arranged, then left the apartment, locking the door behind him.

E LDYN HAD NOT meant to come here.

He had thought to go to the old church of St. Adaris, to gaze at the statue of the martyr St. Andelthy, and then perhaps venture to the Sword and Leaf. If the sight of an angel did not lift his spirits, perhaps a cup of the devil's brew would. However, the route from Cowper's Lane to the corner of the Old City where St. Adaris stood took him across Durrow Street. The theaters were just opening for the night, and light and chiming music filled the air.

Eldyn meant to cross the street and continue on. Only then he pa.s.sed a young man in a powdered wig and a red coat standing on a corner. Tiny birds the color of jewels flitted about the other's head and alighted on his hands. Sometimes they vanished in a flash, then reappeared moments later, opening their throats to emit a sweet trilling music.

"Do you want to come in?" the young man said, his lips, as red as his coat, parting in a smile. One of the birds flew from his hand and into the open door of the theater. Eldyn realized he had been staring. "It's only a quarter regal to enter."

Eldyn shook his head. "I don't have that much money with me." He had brought ten pennies-just enough to buy a pot of punch. A quarter regal was half a day's wages! He started to move away.

"Are you certain you don't have enough?" the young man said. "Why don't you check your pockets?"

Eldyn gaped, not understanding.

The other laughed. "Would you like me to check them for you?"

Now Eldyn did understand, and he blushed. He reached into his coat pockets, thinking to turn them out so the young man would leave him alone.

His left hand came out with a silver coin.

Eldyn turned the coin over in his fingers. The two sides caught the shimmering light in alternation: first the sun, then the moon, then the sun again. He had forgotten about the coin; he must have put it in his pocket when he traded the old coat for this new and had not thought of it since. Now he recalled that night at the Sword and Leaf and how the pretty young woman had given it to him. Only she hadn't been a woman at all.

Eldyn looked up at the other, startled. The young illusionist smiled.

"You need no other token than that," he said, taking the coin from Eldyn's hand. "Why did you not show it to me sooner? You are an honored guest here at the Theater of the Doves! Come inside, come inside."

And before Eldyn could think to resist, the young man led him through the doors of the theater, into the dimness beyond.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

I T WAS EARLY, and the gates were not yet open.

Ivy paced on the street, pausing every few moments to look through the iron bars to see if anyone was coming. The narrow yard was empty, the building beyond silent.

She had left Whitward Street in the dark, but the lumenal was to be brief, and the air had already gone gray by the time the hack cab dropped her off at the end of a shabby lane in Lowpark. Elsewhere in the city, the buildings crowded against one another, jostling and vying to occupy a sliver of the high ground above the river. However, here the various structures shrank away from the gray edifice at the end of the lane, leaving a void around its walls.

Again Ivy peered through the bars, but she saw no one. It had been five days since her return to the city, and waiting this long to see her father had been unbearable. However, she had been given no choice; these gates opened to visitors only once each quarter month. All the same, she would wait not a moment longer than she had to and so had come early, to be here as the gates were unlocked.

Not far beyond the city's edge, a rooster called out. A ray of sunlight sidled down the lane, and though it seemed to shun the colorless stones, it set ablaze a bronze plaque on the wall. In contrast to the rust-specked bars, the plaque was polished to a sheen. The words inscribed on it read: THE MADDERLYSTONEWORTH HOSTEL FOR THE DERANGED. Not that anyone in Invarel called the building by that name. If one ever had the misfortune to come to this place, it was said of them only, "They're up at Madstone's now."

A groan of metal startled Ivy. Dazzled by the sunlight off the plaque, she had not seen as a man approached the gate. Or perhaps she had not seen him because he wore a suit the same color (or, rather, similarly lacking in color) as the walls of the building. The man withdrew a large key from the lock, then pushed the gate partway open.

Ivy managed to draw a breath. "I'm here to see my-"

"I can deduce who you're here to see."

She shook her head, too puzzled to reply.

"Only the newest ones get visitors," he said, fitting the large key back onto the ring at his belt. "That's how I knew. Come this way, Miss...?"

"Mrs. Quent," she said, and followed him through the gate.

Ivy did not discover the man's name, but as they entered the building she learned that he was the day warden at the hostel and that he had been in the position for twenty years. His face was neither cheerful nor sorrowful, weary nor curious; indeed, it bore little expression at all.