The Hidden City (77 page)

“It is, as you well know,” Rath answered.

“It's been a while since you've come visiting. And in the Winter, too.” The man hopped down from the stool upon which he'd perched. “Don't touch anything,” he said to the woman on the other side of the counter.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Haval.”

“What is that you're wearing?” Haval asked, looking Rath up and down—and failing entirely to notice his companions. “It's not this season, Ararath.”

“No, Haval; I've never been one to follow fashion.”

“No, nor common sense, from what I hear. But come, come, enough pleasantries. I've work to do; you can keep me company in the back while I tend to it. It's damn cold in here and I want my tea.”

Tea, as far as Jewel could tell, was mostly alcohol. She and Duster exchanged a single look, but Duster was carefully not casing the place. It made Jewel realize just how aware she was of Duster's constant probing. Duster was uncomfortable, but then again, so was Jewel; they stood side by side for a moment in genuine companionship.

“Well,” Haval said, indicating not one chair but three—his first acknowledgment of either girl—“you might as well sit and have a drink, Rath. Business hasn't been bad,” he added, “so we can afford it.”

“Given the quality of what you drink, business had better be booming,” Rath replied, with a smile. He nodded to Jewel and Duster and they sat, Duster fidgeting slightly with her skirts.

The older man noticed, his eyes narrowing slightly over the rim of his cup. “I won't ask you your business,” he told Duster, “or yours,” he added to Jewel. “But I'll tell you both that you've taken up with a rather odd patron.”

“Enough, Haval.”

“Better they know.”

“You think they don't?”

“I've known you for half of my life, and I'd lay odds that
I
don't.”

Rath laughed. It was a clear sound, free for a moment of either edge or worry. “I wouldn't take any odds you were willing to bet on,” he said at last. “These two are friends, my charges if you will.”

“And you brought them to me because they have no fashion sense?”

“That, too.”

Jewel could not stop herself from grimacing. She didn't even bother to try; there was something about this man that set her at ease.

“Girl,” Haval said, “don't sneer. Fashion is a statement that people listen to whether or not they know they're paying attention. They have that luxury, most of the time; if Rath brought you here, you don't.”

He was now serious, although he still perched over his cup as if it were three sizes larger than it actually was. “I don't like it,” he said at last, to Rath. “Did I mention business has been good?”

“At least once.”

“I'm out, Rath. I've set up a decent shop here, and I don't have to blackmail more than a third of my customers to keep them coming back.”

Rath laughed. Jewel, however, wasn't entirely certain Haval was joking. “You can relax,” he said, when his mirth had diminished. “It is merely your knowledge we wish to tax, not your actual ability.”

“I never betray a confidence.”

“Not if it won't get you somewhere, no,” Rath replied. “And we're not here for that type of information. I can't afford it,” he added. “Tell me a bit about the two girls here.”

Haval shrugged almost genially. “That one—what did you say her name was?”

“I didn't.”

“Ah. Well, the one with the nest of hair.”

Jewel grimaced.

“Torra, I'd guess, by descent. Probably speaks it. Lives in the hundred, probably between the twenty-fifth and the thirty-fifth. She can read some, which suggests she might be able to write. She pays attention. She never wears dresses. Enough?”

“Scratching the surface of enough, but it will do. The other?”

Haval's frown deepened. “Steals for a meager living when she can. She's trying too hard not to notice what she could take if she thought I wasn't paying attention. She's a beauty,” he added, “but so are some of the running hounds that will rip your throat out for sheer pleasure. Her hands are scarred,” he added, which caused Jewel to turn to Duster in some surprise, “and I wouldn't be surprised if she has other scars as well; knows how to survive a fight, if not unscathed. She doesn't know how to read,” he added. “She also doesn't wear dresses.”

“And her station?”

“Worse than the other's. Poorer, leaner. I'd say thirty-second if I had to pin it down, but I'd guess she's made a habit of moving around a bit.”

“Tell them how you know this.”

Haval set his cup down for the first time. “I owe Ararath a great deal,” he told both girls, “or we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. Very well. Neither of you are comfortable in your clothing; you fidget, you play with your skirts, you chafe at your sleeves. You, curly, you've been reading the signage all over the store, not that there's much of it. You're curious about why you're here, and who I am, and it shows.

“But you, raven, you wouldn't be here at all if you didn't think it would gain you something. You want whatever it is Rath has promised you badly enough to try to be something you're not—you just haven't figured out what that something is yet. I'd say you're hunting,” he added. “But again, you aren't reading anything here; you're paying attention to where the money is, to where the small textiles—the lace, the beads, the crystals—are, you've taken note of entrances and exits, and how many of us there are.

“You probably think we're unarmed.”

Duster relaxed, crossing her legs and pulling them up off the ground so she could rest her elbows on her knees. “You're good,” she said, not grudging the words. There was genuine respect in them.

“Either of you could clean up well; either of you could pass as the daughters of struggling merchants in the Middle City. But not as you are now.” He turned to Rath. “Is that enough?”

“It's a fair assessment, but I expected no less.”

“What do you want of me, Ararath?”

“I want you to teach them what you once taught me.”

Haval's gray brows rose into his receding hairline, changing the shape of his narrow face until he looked almost clownlike. “Impossible.”

“We don't have a lot of time,” Rath added, without pausing to acknowledge the single refusal. “We have a meeting in less than ten days with a Patris of some import in the city. And no, Haval, I will not bore you with the details; if you need them, you'll figure them out on your own.”

“What is the purpose of the meeting?” Haval asked. Everything about his voice had changed, and his posture had altered significantly as well; there was steel in his spine, and he'd found it.

Rath said a very loud nothing.

“You will, of course, give me the name.”

“You don't want it.”

“Probably not. But want and need are two different creatures, as you and I well know by now. Who, Rath? The answer you give me, and the answer I give you, are now linked.”

Rath was silent for a long, long time. Jewel was wise enough to know that she didn't know him well, but had she been asked, she would have said he would have walked before answering. His answer, when it came, surrendered little. “I wish to involve you very little in this affair,” he told Haval. “Were it not for necessity, I would not trouble you at all.”

“That bad?”

“It is bad, Haval. Bad, as you might say, for business.”

“Then it's not your business you're here on. And which of these two hold your strings?”

Jewel was almost shocked.

“School your face, girl,” Haval told her. But he spoke gently. “It gives away much that Rath wishes to hold secret. Very well; he is here because of you. I hope you're worth it. I will now assume, from Rath's reticence and your open shock that the Patris in question is not aware of your existence at this time.”

She said nothing, and tried, very hard, to school her expression. Haval winced.

“Rath, is this wise? They are not—”

“It is not wise.”

“Very well. You know your own business.” Haval rose. “But I will have the name.”

“The name will tell you too much.”

“The name,” he said quietly, “will tell me whether we have business here at all.”

And Rath surrendered. “Patris Waverly.”

Haval's face did not change at all; he seemed the same pleasant and oddly stern man who had led them to the room. But Jewel
knew
he recognized the name, and more, the unspoken history that surrounded it.

“Not that Patris, Rath.”

“We have little choice, Haval. Either you will aid us, or we will go without your aid. There is no one else I care to ask.”

“Two weeks, you said? There's no one else you
could
ask.”

“That's more or less what I said.”

“He doesn't play games,” Haval continued, staring now at Jewel and Duster, before once again giving Rath his full attention. His expression had become utterly impassive. “Ararath, I have long held some affection for you, but affection is like any other coin once spent; it is gone. If you intend to use these girls as bait—”

Duster rose, shoving her chair back so quickly it toppled. Jewel rose almost as swiftly, catching her den-kin by the arm in a grip that could have broken bone. There was a moment in which silence was strained almost to breaking, but it eased. Jewel was relieved to see that Duster did not draw her dagger.

“I see,” Haval said, and Jewel thought he just might. “Forgive me, Ararath. I felt I had to speak plainly, and if insult was about to be offered, your friends have spared our friendship that.

“If you do not play this carefully, you'll be dead,” Haval continued, looking at the two girls and testing their resolve. But he said it absently, in a tone of voice better suited to discussing the variants in shades of blue fabric. “What role, then, will the two of you play?”

And Duster said, “I'm going to kill him.”

Haval did not laugh. He met Duster's gaze and held it for a long moment. “You've met him, I see,” he said at last, his tone completely without inflection. Without pity.

She nodded her defiance, her trembling anger.

“Very well. I will help you as I can, because I am fond of Rath. I do not consider this wise,” he added. “And I will need two full days of preparatory time before I can be of use to you.

“But I would suggest, if you have any other recourse, that you consider it carefully.”

Rath's smile was thin, but it was there. “Believe that we have considered it carefully, and believe that,” he added, as he bent down and righted Duster's fallen chair, “all other options were gently refused.”

Haval nodded. “They'd almost have to be, with the current state of the magisterial guards in the lower holdings.”

Rath frowned. “What news, Haval?”

“It is not appropriate to discuss it here,” Haval replied. Jewel silently added
in front of the children,
and clenched her teeth to stop herself from speaking.

“Perhaps not, but it bears discussion and study. You are not the only friend I've visited in the past few days.”

“Then I will trade information for information,” Haval replied serenely. “I will do what I can to help your young friends to adopt suitable roles, and you will share what you deem wise when the information is in your possession.”

“Wisdom plays little part in this,” Rath replied.

“It seldom does. But if you were wise, we would never have met. And I? I would be elsewhere, I think. In the Kings' service.”

None of the words made sense to Jewel.

“Come back in two days,” Haval said to them, rising. “I have work to do in the meantime; House Havani has commissioned three very fine dresses, and Lady Havani has specifically requested that I see to their details myself. We all have to eat,” he added.

Rath laughed. It was not a kind laugh. “And Lady Havani is well?”

“She is, of course, as hale as a horse. On a rampage.”

 

Duster and Jewel walked back to the apartment in lock-step. Rath walked ahead in silence. The cold made itself felt in every step, every breath; the streets were as empty as they were when the moon was at nadir in the rains. Rath was angry, of course. Jewel knew it, and knew as well that there was nothing she could offer to ease his anger.

“You shouldn't have said anything,” she told Duster quietly.

Duster was sullen, her shoulders bunched together, her skin red with either cold or embarrassment. “I had to,” she said, through clenched teeth.

“Why?”

“He—” She shook her head. “I'm not
bait
. I'm not—” She stopped walking, and Jewel stopped two steps ahead of her, and went back. Rath, however, kept walking, dwindling into the distant, crushed white of Winter. “I don't understand you,” Duster said softly. Or as softly as she ever spoke. “And I don't understand your Rath either.

“He cares about you. He wouldn't help me if I asked; he wouldn't lift a finger to help me.”

“He's not like that—”

“He's
exactly
like that,” Duster snapped, but without scorn. “He doesn't like people much, and he sure as Hells doesn't trust them. But you?” She shook her head. “He likes you well enough. I thought maybe the two of you . . .” She shook her head. “But that's not it. I don't understand it.”