The Adorned (36 page)

Was it spring, now? Had I passed more than an entire season insensible in the temple? Surely not. This, I thought, was the last tail of a mild, deceptive winter—like the one that had brought me to the Grey City a year ago.

I remembered, with the sudden force of a dream, the road to Peretim, the long way there from Lun—sitting on the grassy fields or under an awning when a rainstorm came, eating whatever crabbed fruits were cheapest. And before that, back to Lun itself, when the apple trees ripened and their scent hung on the autumn wind.

Half dying in the temple, I would have had my twentieth feast day.

I hugged my own shoulders, watching people walk by on the streets. There weren’t many of them, and they had the lean, ragged look of survivors. Their eyes passed over me. There were enough people, scarred and dirty and huddling on doorsteps, that I did not draw much comment.

When I began to walk again, I went slower, more careful. I felt as if half a century’s age had been dropped on my body without warning. The sky was shading toward twilight when I reached Nightwell Street. I had known what I would find there. The monks and Brother Iyan had prepared me for that much. I had steeled myself against it.

Still, I could not stop a sob when I stood before it. The ruins of it.

The house had been reduced, rendered down to nothing. There was barely anything left, save a soot stain. What had not been burned had been taken. Even the wine cellar had been laid open, burrowed into like a maggoty corpse.

The houses next to number nineteen had not fared much better, but at least there were pieces left of them. I covered my mouth with my hand, biting it against a cry. If Tallisk had been caught in the house, there might be bones there. Nothing else.

But he could not have been. I refused to believe it. Somehow, I had survived the long fall into fire and darkness and been saved. He had to have been as well. Somehow, he had to.

I turned away from the rotten cavity that had once been my house—my home. I turned away from Nightwell Street. Go to Deino Meret’s house, Tallisk had said. Meret would shelter us. Would shelter
me
, if he still lived. And if Tallisk lived as well, it was the first place he would have gone. That, I had to believe.

I had been to Meret’s house only twice before, and the pathways had become newly unfamiliar to me. Where once there had been the proud manors of the Blooded there were tents and fields and scorched ground. Where last I had seen an ornamental lake there was now a scrape of empty, muddy ground.

There were more people on the streets now, larger crowds. I was small and unseen among them. The coat that the monks had given me was a little too large, but that suited me well. I disappeared into it.

Following the crowd I crossed into an open square, where Doiran had once taken me to a fruit seller’s market. The streets seemed to pour into it like rivers; a press of bodies like a current carried me with them toward the center. They were screaming profanities and jeers and dark jests, and raising their hands like weapons toward the center of the square.

It seemed like there was going to be an execution. There was a wooden platform, hastily built by the looks of it, and the crowd had clustered around it. They were calling for blood, fists pumping in the air. I wondered if their chosen victim was one of the Blooded, caught in the city, caught in their wrath. I half turned away from the platform, but then I saw who they held. Whose blood they were calling for.

It was Arderi Finn.

His hair was still half in braids, tied with fraying white ribbons. They were vivid against his black hair. He wore fine clothes in shades of red, and his face was bruised, lip split and eyes swollen. A man with close-shorn hair and a soldier’s coat held him by the neck, shaking him in time to the cadences of his speech.

“—corrupt and useless, just like his masters!”

The crowd roared and spat; they were like a single beast. I felt the press of bodies against me, shifting and heaving. I wanted to leave. I searched for an exit. But I looked up first, and I saw Arderi’s tired eyes.

He had caught my gaze—he had known me. One word from him and the crowd would be on me. Another victim might save him, might deflect their ire, but he said nothing. He only held my gaze, as if asking me to watch.

“Shall we see this tiger’s stripes?”

The crowd howled when his Adornments were revealed. His clothes went on a heap. Greedy hands grabbed and tore at them, the fabric ripping. The ribbons were torn from his hair. A dagger flashed in the soldier’s hand. He forced Arderi to his knees. Locks of his hair were caught by the wind, black as ink in water.

“Shall we show this Blood-pet how we’ve suffered, while he was swathed in silk?”

Another howl ripped through the crowd like an earthquake. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out. There was no pity here.

Arderi kept very still as the soldier began to cut him. Shallow cuts, they were, and long, crisscrossed over chest and back. He had closed his eyes. Blood poured down and dripped onto the wooden platform. The soldier took a handful of ash and dirt and rubbed it in Arderi’s wounds. A cheer rose from the crowd. He had meant not to kill, but to scar—to ruin.

I touched my ragged cheek.
That
work had already been done on me.

Tears stung my eyes; I willed them away before they could be seen. They had finished with Arderi now, and had thrown him off the wooden dais. I caught a glimpse of him, of his clumsy-shaven head, and then he was gone, vanished in the crowd.

I never saw him again.

They dragged on a merchant from Yr next, one of the isle-folk, pale and terror-struck. I never heard what accusations were laid against him; I could not stay another moment. I turned away and pressed my way through, eyes fixed on the ground. Bare feet and boots and foot wraps mixed in the stamping crush. I elbowed my way out of the square, and I could breathe again.

Six men—all Southerners, in immaculate uniform—marched down the street. I pressed myself up against a wall to let them pass. They carried long rifles and short, curved swords. The swords stayed in their scabbards, but they fired their rifles above the crowd. “Move along!” the commander shouted. “Move along, now! Clear the square! Or I swear, you’ll be in Ashen or with Madame Death before the day’s out.”

These were Loren’s soldiers, I was sure of it—one or two might have once ridden in his carriage with me, on the journey back from Fevrewood. So the city was not given over entirely to men with loud voices and sharp notions of justice; it was good to know, but I did not stay to watch them at their business. I turned into a narrow street, away from the noise. I fit in better in the shadows.

Chapter Fifty-Six

It was nightfall when I reached Deino Meret’s house. It was whole, untouched by fire, but it lay in darkness. Not a line of lamplight showed behind the windows or under the door. I sidled up to it with slow care, as if it were a slumbering beast. My hope was draining away with each step closer. There was no one here. The house stood empty.

When I came closer, I saw the door had been hammered shut. Wooden planks were crisscrossed over it, and over most of the windows as well. On one window, the planks had been pulled away clumsily, leaving enough of a gap for me to squeeze through. I clambered inside, wincing as the wood dug splinters into tender skin.

It was warm inside, or warmer than the street at least. I walked carefully through the darkness of the house, my eyes slowly adjusting. What furniture still remained was in disarray. There had been looters here, taking what they could. A bottle lay broken on the floor of the kitchen. There was a stain on one of the walls.

Still, there was a familiar smell, a familiar warmth to the place, even gutted like this. I could have gone back to the temple, I supposed, or slept under an unoccupied eave, but here in the dark of Meret’s house I felt sheltered. I made my way down to the apprentices’ quarters. The beds were still there, though the sheets had been ripped off of them. I settled down onto the mattress, not taking off my heavy coat.

Sleep came like a wave, dark and immediate. The monks had given me their blessed salve, but none of the valerian tincture, and without it, I dreamed for the first time in weeks. They were slow nightmares of falling, of pale twisted faces.

I woke up before dawn, with dusty blue twilight creeping in through slits in the boarded-up windows. Diagonal lines of shadow and light played across the wall. I drew the coat closer around me and crossed my arms gently over my chest, holding myself. I thought of the single apple and handful of bread left in my pack. Some of the temples had daily meals to feed the hungry; the monks-penitent had told me of them.

They had fed me well, the monks, but my ravenous body had used up all it could in healing itself. I had gone from slim to bony, scars taut over my hips, knees knobbly as a yearling colt’s. I felt hunger, but only at a remove. My thin and ragged frame seemed to belong to someone else, along with all its urges. Still, I forced myself to eat at least a little and was glad I did: I felt better for it.

I knew I couldn’t stay here, not for long. I wasn’t the only one left without a home after the fires; even now, I thought, there would be others looking for warmth and dark places to hide. I had been small enough to slip through a gap in the boards, but the boards would not keep others out forever.

I stayed a little longer, though, until the sun had risen. The new light through the cracks made the empty room seem homely and ancient, like an old attic.

In Lun, we had kept my grandfather’s clocks in the attic. My father had put them there after my mother died, not wanting to hear them tick. I hadn’t understood it, then. Now, it seemed the only thing he could have done.

I had never missed my mother, not truly. I had been so young, and always my father’s child. I stood in the half light and tried to remember her face; I couldn’t. I only saw my father, like me and unlike me with his green eyes and heavy brow, and the way he had looked putting the clocks away.

Now that everything else was gone—my home, my Adornment, my master—there was sudden room to mourn him. It came quiet and unexpected, less a burden than a whispering presence. I accepted it, let it lie on my skin like my scars, and carefully shouldered my rucksack.

Meret’s house had been empty, but there were other places I could go, other hopes still to exhaust. Not far from here was the Rose and Crescent, Amere writ-Meret’s tavern. If anyone knew where Meret and the other tattoo-masters had gone to, it would be her.

If the tavern had been empty and shut up as Meret’s house had been, I do not know what I would have done. I found it open, though, the door ajar and the windows tilted to let in the light. There were no lights lit within, though, and the sun only had partial entry. It seemed empty and dim as I toed my way inside.

“Hello?” I sounded hoarse and small in the dark hollow of the tavern.

“Can I help you?” A burly man with a black beard stood up and peered at me with no small measure of suspicion.

“Is Amere—” I did not know if she still went by her writ-name. “Is the mistress of the house here?”

He grunted, shaking his head. “Amere’s gone. I’m Ared, her brother. I’m watching this place ’til she gets back.”

“When is she coming back?”

He grunted again. I realized it was a kind of laugh. “When I send word it’s safe again. Maybe once the spring comes.” He shook his head. “Famine! Fire! Riots and assassinations! Seems to me the world’s gone mad for a season.”

I sagged into a chair. I felt a low ache down in my tendons and bones. “I’m looking for someone.” I swallowed. “Roberd Tallisk.”

“The name rings a bell,” he said, “but not a recent one. We’ve not had many customers lately.”

I dug out one of the coins Brother Iyan had given me and put it on the counter. “Do you have any almond milk?”

He did; he served me a tall glass of it, white and sweet. His face worked as thoughts passed over it. “Tallisk, Tallisk—isn’t he one of those needleslingers? Meret’s boys?”

I looked up, startled into hope. “Yes, that’s him.”

“Well, I can’t tell you where he is, but I can tell you where Meret is.”

I cleared my throat; it was clenched with nerves. “Can you please?”

“Of course.” He bent down over the counter, peering at my scarred face. “If you tell me why you’re looking.”

“Tallisk—Meret’s old apprentice. He was my master. I am Etan writ-Tallisk.”

He drew back in surprise. “Ah, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “No need to say sorry.”

“He is staying with friends of his in Tarry-Here Street. It’s in Gressey, not far from here, near the storm-temple. The house is on the corner, with a red roof. You can’t miss it.”

I finished my almond milk. “Thank you.”

“No need for that.” He slid my coin back to me across the bar. The pity in his eyes was hard to take; I turned away from him. “If you cannot find your friends, you come back here. Amere always had time for fellow Adorned.”

I nodded to him, not quite trusting my voice. There was a stone in my throat, hard and hot. I left the Rose and Crescent, blinking into the daylight, and started making my way toward Gressey.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Gressey was one of the oldest parts of the city, where the alleyways followed the ancient logic of cattle runs or dried stream beds. As Ared had said, there was a storm-temple, hung with black banners for the gods of thunder and lightning. A priest lingered on the doorstep in ancient armor, his eyes tracking my movements until I turned the corner.

Then, Tarry-Here Street, a narrow lane of pounded earth. There was a sharp, familiar smell in the air, not quite unpleasant: it was the loamy, mineralic scent of the springs below Peretim. Somewhere here they had an outlet, maybe a well sunk into the warm waters.

Here, the fires had not reached, and there were the remnants of a barricade still standing. This street had been defended, I saw, from the chaos of the riots—this street was
loved.
The houses were old stone and well kept, whitewashed clean and bright in the sunlight. For the first time since going out into the city, I heard children laugh. They ran past me, trailing fraying ribbons and wooden toys.