The Adorned (2 page)

“It is a very nice clock,” he said.

I looked at him, silent.

“Have you a place to go? Friends in the village?”

I shook my head.

“Family?”

“None I know of.” My mother had been an only child, like me; a child of her parents’ middle years. Her parents—my grandparents—were long gone. My father had left his family behind to marry a Keredy woman. I did not even know their names.

“An apprenticeship secured?”

“No.” He knew this, I thought.

“Where do you intend to go?”

“I don’t know. There is the inn.”

He leaned in close, glancing behind him to make sure we were unobserved. “I’ll give you twenty ral for it.”

“The clock?” I drew back from him and his narrow, listing form. “The brass alone’s worth that much. It was my grandfather’s masterpiece.”

“So?” He shrugged. “How much do you have? Enough for a night at the inn? Two nights? Where will you go when that runs out? The winter has been mild so far, but, well...”

I swallowed. “Twenty ral won’t get me far. I can barter—find work—”

“As what?” He closed a hand around my arm, easily encompassing the span of it between thumb and forefinger. His palms were slick and warm. “A farmer? A quarryman?” With a laugh, he shook my arm a little, and I wrenched myself away. “Twenty will get you to Peretim. There’s work there, for a boy who can read and write.”

I almost laughed. “With no apprentice fee? With no references?”

“Well, have it your way. At least I’m offering you something. When you’re on the street, after your last money runs dry, people won’t care how you cling to that old thing. They’ll just take it.” He sniffed. “Your family was not well liked around here. We had no problems, hiring men to take your things away. An orphan’s things.”

“I could appeal—”

“To
whom?
The Council of Blood, maybe?” He laughed. “How long do you think they’ll wait, these men, to rob a little half-breed like you? These men, with debts of their own? Thirty for the clock and the papers of ownership. And that’s the last offer I’ll make you.”

For half the thirty ral, he gave me coin in a small leather purse heavy as a stone; for the other, a letter of credit with a bank in Peretim, the capital city. My last night in my birthplace I spent not in my emptied house, nor in the inn, which bustled with my father’s creditors. I slept in the temple stables, where the priest let me stay without charge.

It had been kind of him, I thought, giving my father a Gaelta burial. The village of Lun had once been Gaelta land; my father’s ancestors had quarried and farmed there.

But it had been Keredy land for generations, now. Long-ago battles had soaked the Lowlands in Gaelta blood; those who still remained preferred the empty hills. My father had come here to marry my mother, not to return to his homeland. Whatever heritage he had here in the Lowlands was long forgotten, and, save for the new stone raised with his burial, all the markers in the old grave-meadow were pitted with untold years of rain and neglect.

My father had lived by my mother’s ways, Keredy ways, but as he had lain in the throes of his last fever, he’d spoken of the Gaelta gods and their green heaven. At the last, he spent all he had left to sleep beneath the earth and stone, sent to rest by the half-forgotten prayers of his childhood.

Half-asleep in the scratchy straw, I hated him for the first time.

Chapter Two

The war had ended a month or so before my father did. It had wound down to nothing in the last light of the fall, more ceasefire than peace. Now I was never alone on the roads. Soldiers given their leave and their last salary, camp-followers whose business had dried up: all were going home, or just going elsewhere.

Not a few had drifted toward Peretim. It was the capital of Kered; they called it the Grey City. It was circled with walls of high grey stone, a sprawling place that had swallowed villages whole. I had been once, as a child, before my mother died; I didn’t remember, but my father had spoken of it sometimes. He liked the old stone of the walls, the cobbled streets swept clean by monks-penitent, the high towers of the palace that stood at its center. He had not liked the noise of a million voices, or to be too far from the green country where his bones had now been laid.

For the last leg of my journey, I sat in the back of a corn seller’s cart. When we reached the city gates, carts and coaches gathered around us like bees crowding a flower. The corn seller turned to me as he slowed his horse. “Might be a bit of a wait.”

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“Well, they don’t want beggars or thieves or false-witches in the city, do they?” He fell silent, watching the carts and coaches before him filter into the city one by one. As we drew closer, I saw the guards at the gate in crimson uniforms, swords and pistols at their belts. They seemed bored, I thought, faces slack and uncaring, no matter if they waved people through or turned them away.

Closer we crept, and behind us a ragged line was forming. The fine coaches were herded toward other gates: the great Eastern Gate, with its slate arches and statuary, or the small, ornate gates near the Western Gardens. This gate received the hay bales, the carts full of barrels, the shepherds on foot with keen-eyed dogs at their heels, the youths whose soldier-shorn hair was now growing out in awkward tufts. I ran my hand through my own hair, trying to smooth away the muss of travel. I looked too much like those turned away, too ragged and stained. My chest ached, as if I’d been running. I had three ral left in the purse and the letter of credit for fifteen more.

When near to an hour had passed, we reached the gate at last. There was a single cart ahead of us, on mismatched, wobbling wheels. A tarp covered its wares; one of the guards lifted it and cocked his head.

“What kind of furs are these?”

The driver lifted a hand to his windburned face; two of his fingers were missing, the wounds still half-raw. “Lion.”

“Surammer?”

He squared his chin. “That’s right.”

“You know you can’t sell these.” The guard gestured to his companions; they grabbed at the tawny skins, stripping the cart bare.

“I
earned
those.” The man’s maimed hand made a fist. “I damned well skinned the beasts myself, when I was down in Suramm.”

“And ’til a treaty’s signed, all Surammer goods are war booty,” the guard said. “They belong to the Council of Blood.”

“War booty.” The man laughed and shook his head. “Then they can pay their soldiers, can’t they? Or does it all go to
your
pay, bloodguard?”

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Dislike it all you want; you still have to obey.”

The man raised his fist—a guard ahead raised his pistol. The man nodded, almost to himself. He lowered his fist and took his cart through, empty now save a tarp and some dented armor. I watched him vanish into the crowd.

After that it was our turn. The corn seller’s wares came under cursory inspection; then the guard’s eyes rested on me. “This one with you?”

He shook his head. “Only catching a ride.”

“Fine.” He pointed at me. “Boy, what’s your name?”

I swallowed and met his eyes; they were dark and incurious. “Etan Dairan.”

“You’re Gaelta?”

“Half,” I said. “My mother was Keredy.”

He nodded; my features told that tale clearly enough. “Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for work.”

“Have you any money?”

I nodded and showed him my letter of credit. He snorted a half laugh. “Fifteen ral? That won’t last you long.”

“I’m here to find work,” I repeated, a sour clench in my belly.

“All the luck to you, then. You can go.”

We rolled into the narrow streets. They were a bewildering tangle, crisscrossing every which way. There was a smell to the city, a perfume that I’d caught only a hint of outside its thick walls: stone and sewage, the smoke thrown up by chimneys and temples, the broiling of a hundred cook-pots, acres of sweating skin. A soft hammer was beating on the inside of my skull, and sparkling stars danced on the edges of my vision.

“You all right, boy?” the corn seller asked over his shoulder.

I nodded and grew dizzier for a moment. I breathed deep, not caring about the scent; I needed air. My vision cleared and again I nodded. “I’m fine. Can you tell me where the banks are?”

After I’d cashed my letter of credit, I wandered the streets, purse heavy at my side. Soon enough I was lost; there were streets in the Grey City wider than Lun’s quarry, wider than the river that fed its wells. I tried to keep an eye on the turns and corners, but the crowd around me kept snaring my attention.

In Lun all had the Lowlander look, save those Gaelta who came to do a summer’s stonework. Here there were dark Southerners, Lowland folk, Northerners, a few pale-haired islanders in their heavy grey robes, and more Gaelta than I had ever seen in Lun. When Kered had swallowed up their lands, two centuries back, they’d followed their stolen stones. The Grey City was half built from their quarries, and by their hands.

A man passed, tall as I’d ever seen, with hair like gold. He was head to toe in sumptuous robes, with heavy rings worn over silk gloves. Not an inch of his skin could be seen, save on his face and where his high collar rose against an elegant neck. His eyes flickered to me for a moment. At the edge of his collar there was a curl of color on his skin; he tugged at the fabric so once again it lay hidden.

An Adorned, I thought, a tattooed courtier. Save the nobles of Blood and Sword, they were the only ones allowed to wear tattoos, though they hid them in public. One of them had visited Lun, once, merely passing through; her veils and jewels had drawn everyone’s eyes—including mine. I’d hidden myself in the loft of the inn, trying to catch a glimpse of her ink, but she had been too careful for a boy’s curious eyes. Only the Blooded and their favored few had the privilege of seeing her unclothed; the Adorned were made for them alone.

The man passed by—I watched him for a moment, unable to stop myself from it. The crowd passed around me as if I were a ghost; then there was a lull in it, and I could see the edges of the buildings once again. They loomed around me like giants.

“Greeneyes, hey!”

I turned toward the voice, swift as if whipped. A tall, bony man in a ragged soldier’s uniform half ran up the street to meet me. He grinned, crooked as the scar across his cheek. “Welcome to the Grey City. How about a bit of charity for a veteran, eh?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, ‘How about some
charity?
’”

He wasn’t begging, not exactly. I tightened my grip on my bag. Two others, in the same ragged blue, strolled up. There was a woman with them, almost a girl. Her smile was hollowed out; she was missing most of her teeth.

“These young men deserve some consideration,” she said. “After keeping you safe from the dogeaters.”

I fished a half ral out of my pocket and held it out to him. “I’m—I’m sorry, I don’t have much.”

He seized my wrist and wrenched it sideways. I cried out. The crowd around us kept moving.

“Perhaps you don’t understand me, greeneyes. There’s plenty of us looking for work in the Grey City. Since you come here country-fresh, you must have something already set aside for you. So you can spare some
real
charity, can’t you?”

The woman wove behind me. Her hands were quick and hard on me, squeezing at my waist. “Look at him! He’s skinny as a girl.”

“Well, his purse better be fat,” the soldier said. He brought up his fist hard against my stomach. I doubled over. I heard the woman laugh behind me. Her foot planted against my back, and I fell face down, hard against the stones. Blood gushed out from my nose. I tasted it salt-slick at the back of my throat.

Someone kneeled on my back, bony fingers against my ribs, feeling up and down until they reached the purse of coins at my belt. “Now
that’s
a proper tribute to your heroes, greeneyes.”

A foot lashed out against the side of my head. Sparks flashed behind my eyes and I gasped, breathing in a mouthful of gutter water. I heard shouts, weirdly distorted. For a moment I thought they were echoing in my own skull.

Suddenly I could breathe again. The knees pressing me down, the hands grabbing my ribs were gone. I rolled onto my side, breathing slowly. Blood trickled onto the stones.

Two guardsmen in red had unslung their rifles. The barrels were leveled at the men in blue and the broken-toothed woman.

“You will move along,” one of them said, in clipped tones.

The woman spat at their feet. “They’re worth a dozen of you!”

“Bloodguard scum,” a soldier hissed; his lip was split, and his teeth were stained red. “You should be grateful. I was facing dogeater swords while you were playing soldiers here behind the walls.”

The guardsman motioned to me with the tip of his bayonet. “Yes, he looks like he put up a real fight. A true Surammer menace, this one. Now
get off
, before I’m tempted to fire.”

With a last curse spit out, they did.

“Boy.” He jabbed his rifle at me. “Can you stand?”

Slowly, I struggled to my feet. The guards offered no help. I swayed; I felt near-drunk. Worse, though, was the look on their faces.
Looks like he put up a real fight
—I bit my throbbing lip. The pain redoubled, and my shoulders shook.

“Can you walk?” the guard asked; this time his voice was gentler.

“They took my purse.” My voice came out thick and nasal. My nose felt three times its size. “That was all I had.”

“You can make a report if you want,” he said, “but I don’t see it doing good. They’re gone, now.”

“That was all I had,” I repeated, and I sank back down onto the stones. The guards looked at each other, shrugged and left me there.

The crowds still moved around me, as if I were a pebble in a river. Slowly, the blood stopped flowing. I touched my nose softly. Was it broken? I could not tell.

My lip was split along the same line that the soldier’s had been. He’d taken a hit from a rifle’s stock; I’d been kicked against the ground. I clenched my hands into useless fists. They were counting my money out, now. Laughing about the skinny greeneye Lowland boy.