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“I like you, Ikrum,” the lady had said on that vital night. “You are no dirt-person. You have ambition, courage, pride. I will help you.” She had left with orders for him to report to her house the next day around sunset.
He had gone, because no one could refuse her. He had expected that she had lied about her address, or that she had been drunk and had forgotten all about him. Neither was true. The mute had taken him to the garden after checking him for weapons. The lady waited for him there, with plans to make the Vipers great.
“I’m bored,” she told Ikrum. “My children are grown, my husbands dead. I wish no other husbands or lovers. My grandchildren are tedious. It suits me to help the Vipers to greatness, if they can make the journey. If they can accept discipline. If you cannot —“The lady shrugged. “I will find another way to amuse myself. We begin by giving your people a better sign of fellowship than that rag.” She pointed to Ikrum’s gray armband. “And we shall make the new token one it requires courage to get.”
Ikrum was about to protest. He had killed the last Viper tesku for this armband, gray with yellow beads stitched to it. The words were in his mouth when a giant arm circled his neck; a slablike hand pulled his head back. Arm and hand belonged to the mute, who held Ikrum as easily as Ikrum might a kitten.
“Stand still,” the lady had remarked sharply. “Will you disappoint me already?”
Ikrum obeyed. The lady’s healer moved in to pierce his left nostril and thread the brass ring with its garnet pendant into the opening. Only Ikrum got his piercing and nose ring from a healer. The other Vipers got theirs from Ikrum, who added the ring supplied by the lady and a dab of ointment that both cleaned the hole and stopped its ache.
The lady did not end her interest in the Vipers with presents of jewelry. Time after time the mute came to their den with her gifts: tunics, clean and in good condition, trousers or leggings, skirts, slippers, knives, food, coins for the hammam. Clean, wearing better clothes, the Vipers could enter the Grand Bazaar and Golden House in ones and twos, spying out targets for theft and taking them as they left the souks at night. Looking more prosperous, they were hired to deliver more messages and packages, which let them scout homes and shops to rob once the residents had forgotten the messenger boy or girl with the nose ring.
He’d thought for weeks she would tire of them eventually, until he realized the opposite was happening. The more reports he brought to her of successful thefts and robberies, of the small enlargements to their territory just south of Golden House, of fights they’d won, the greater her fascination. Her reactions to their setbacks grew more heated, as if disrespect of the Vipers was disrespect of her.
Ikrum sighed now, and scuffed the courtyard tiles with his foot. He was never sure if he was glad the lady had taken them up. The sister of the Gate Lords’ tesku was still forbidden to him. Viper life was more dangerous. Sometimes the lady frightened him.
And weren’t the tiles blue yesterday? Today they were red. Uneasy, he spat on his hand to rid himself of unpleasant ideas, then carefully wiped his palm inside his trouser pockets. The lady did not like it when Vipers spat.
“Ikrum, you are early,” she said, walking out into the sun. “I hope you have no disasters to report.” She sat on her couch gracefully, veils floating cloudlike around her. Her skirts, sari, and head veil were dull gold today, her short blouse a pale orange. Ikrum went to his knees, then lowered his forehead until he was a hair above the red tiles. For some reason he didn’t want them touching his face.
From here he could see that gilt designs were pressed into the leather of her slippers. A heavy gold ring cupped one of her ankles. She wore bracelets, too, heavy earrings, and a chain hung with canary diamonds between her nose and left ear. Why did she care about their thefts, when she wore more jewels than they might ever steal?
She reminded him of a goddess’s golden statue — not Lailan of the Rivers and Rain, who was draped in blue and green and whose kindness shone form her face, but some eknub goddess, some distant queen of the skies. How could he worship and hate her at the same time? Ikrum wondered feverishly. Was it possible to feel two different emotions for someone? Fear and hate he knew, or he’d thought he’d known them before meeting her. But worship, admiration … Orlana accused him of being in love with the lady, but the thought made his skin creep. He wondered if her husbands — she’d had two — had died of natural causes. His private nightmare was that she had bitten their heads off while embracing them.
She left him with his forehead to the ground, waiting for her maid to arrange the cushions at her back and to pour her a cup of wine. Once the maid had crossed the garden to a point where she could see if her mistress wanted her but could not hear, the lady ordered, “Report.”
“The Camelguts have accepted our offer to join us,” Ikrum said without looking up. “There are twenty-four of them altogether.”
“You told me they had twenty-six.” The lady put a slippered toe against his chin as a signal for him to look up.
“One died last night and one this morning, lady,” Ikrum replied, meeting her gaze. Thick lines of kohl accented her eyes, making them deeper and more mysterious than ever. Through her sheer veil he saw her mouth curl with derision.
“Would you agree to join a gang that had killed one of your people?” she asked, after a sip of wine.
Ikrum knew what he would do, but he also knew what she wanted to hear. She would not be pleased if he told her he would run hard and fast. “I would never join such a gang, Lady,” he lied.
“Yours is a warrior’s heart, Ikrum Fazhal,” she told him, setting her cup down. “We will accept these people, of course. We did make the offer. But they must earn our respect.” She raised her hand. The mute walked out of the shadows by the house with a small leather pouch. He placed it before the lady and backed away again.
Ikrum’s heart raced the moment the mute’s huge body entered his vision. He had not even known the huge man was there until he saw him: he was that soundless in his movements. If the mute ever intended to hurt him, in all likelihood Ikrum would not even know until he was dead.
The lady dug in the pouch until she could tease something out. She held it up on a hennaed fingertip: the nose ring was silver wire, the pendant garnet. “For your new members.” She thrust it into the pouch and fished out a second nose ring. “For the original Vipers.” It looked nearly the same as Ikrum’s. The metal was a little more yellow. “You have proved your characters to be gold,” the lady said with a smile.
She offered the gold ring with its garnet to Ikrum. He accepted it, but knew better than to change rings in her presence. Yoru had gotten three lashes from the armsmaster for blowing his nose in front of the lady.
“To further show generosity, I will send my healer to tend those new Vipers who are hurt,” the lady said. “They will see there are advantages to their new allegiance.”
Ikrum cleared his throat. “Actually, um, Lady, they’re seen to. The eknub pahan, the one we talked to at Golden House — he brought medicine and cared for the ones that are hurt. Seems the Camel —” Her dark eyes flashed, and Ikrum backed up. “The new Vipers, they know him. He lives beside the eknub Earth temple, down the street in their territory.”
“Now your territory,” she reminded him.
Ikrum, who wasn’t sure how to protect one territory near Golden House and one east of the Karang Gate, only said, “Yes, Lady.”
“Well!” she said after a moment’s thought. “If they chose to summon an eknub apothecary to muddle their wounded about, they don’t deserve my healer.” In a lesser woman her tone would have sounded peeved. “What of the girl, the one who gave three of you that unpleasant surprise yesterday? Have your Vipers found her again?”
Ikrum actually backed up an inch before he made himself stop. “She was with him,” he said. “With the eknub pahan, helping him. She warmed stones to put in the beds of those that were hurt, and she did this. They left it behind.” He fished a small, egg-shaped stone
from his sash and offered it to her. Its cool white light silvered his brown palm and the lady’s features as she leaned forward to give it a closer look.
“Well, well.” She touched the stone lamp with a fingernail, then picked it up. “For one who had no magic two days ago, she learns quickly.”
“The Ca — the new Vipers said she wants him to teach her,” Ikrum explained. “And she said she wouldn’t learn from Pahan Stoneslicer up to the amir’s palace.”
“Two days ago she fled him. Now she helps him to dab potions on our former enemies, and does magic for him, and argues familiarly with him.” The lady hummed tonelessly to herself, as she often did when she thought. At last she regarded Ikrum once more. “Very well. Watch her carefully, but watch only for now.” She drummed her fingers on her couch. “Since our numbers have grown, I would like to make plans for the Gate Lords. Our new members may prove their loyalty in battle.”
“Lady, taking on the Gate Lords would be —” He started to say “foolish,” and remembered who he spoke to just in time. “We can’t trust the Camel —”
“The new Vipers,” the lady interrupted. “I did not say to take the Gate Lords on immediately. I will hear your plan for it, however, in three days’ time. You may go, Ikrum. Don’t forget the badges for our Vipers.”
Ikrum tucked the pouch full of nose rings into his sash. He was taking a chance, he knew, but he had to ask. “Lady — Sajiv never returned to the den last night.”
She rolled the light-stone around the hollow of her palm. “The world is full of lesser people, Ikrum. By their errors and follies they drag the better ones, the true-hearted ones, down. When you find someone who is small in that way, it is needful to set him aside, before his taint of failure spreads. I do not like failure, Ikrum.” She raised her dark eyes from the stone until they caught and held his.
He bowed low, his mouth paper-dry. She had as good as told him Sajiv was dead. “Yes, Lady.”
“Here.” She offered him a large silver coin. “Your Vipers reduced those others to negotiation for their lives in a day’s time. They have earned a feast.”
Ikrum took the coin, and kissed the ugly tiles next to her foot in thanks. Deciding he had used up his luck for the day, he left swiftly and quietly.
6
After leaving the Camelgut den, Briar wondered what to do next. It was nearly midday. They were filthy, smeared with dirt, blood, and less pleasant things. If they presented themselves at the palace — if Briar could even talk Evvy out of her refusal to go there, which he now doubted — the guards would laugh them off Fortress Rock.
“We need the hammam,” he told Evvy. “More clothes for you, since we don’t have decent clean things for you to put on while those are washed —”
He was talking to the air. Evvy had come to a full stop some yards back. She glared at him, thin arms crossed defensively over her chest.
“Now what?” cried Briar in desperation. “Can’t we get through so much as a whole hour without an argument from you?”
“I’m not stealing for you and I’m not laying on my back for you, so don’t think for a moment because you’re spending money on me —”
“I like them prettier, fatter, and older,” snapped Briar. He was privately ashamed that he hadn’t guessed she might think this. In her world, his old world, nobody gave anything for free. “And I used to be a better thief than you, too. Jebilu will pay me back.”
“I told you, I’m not —”
“Going to the palace,” Briar said, overriding her. “I didn’t forget. We’ll try to find a place where he’ll come to meet you. Then arrange whatever you like with him. All right? Are you happy? Can we finish this and get baths?”
Evvy glared at him, but she caught up and stayed in step with him all the way to the nearby souk. Luckily he’d brought extra cash in case he had to bribe the amir’s guards. When Evvy couldn’t decide between an orange tunic and a lavender one, Briar took both — they were secondhand, after all, and cheap. She ought to have more than one set of good clothes. They also found a black pair of loose trousers and a brown skirt that would fit her. Briar paid for everything, then held the clean and dirty clothes while Evvy slipped behind a curtain to change.
“She ought to have another headcloth or two,” the woman who sold the clothes said idly, as if she didn’t care if she earned a few davs more. “And a petticoat. She doesn’t have loincloths, either. I couldn’t help but notice.”
Briar looked at her, his mouth curled wryly. “And you just happen to have them.”
“Special price,” the woman assured him. “Since you’re getting several items.”
She did finally sell the extra clothes for a lower price than she’d first asked. That was because Briar had learned to dicker from Tris, who knew how to turn a bargain. Even Daja, who was born a Trader, let Tris handle the money when they shopped.
Homesickness. Back in the spring, when Rosethorn had suggested a trip east, with new plants and new uses for them, he had jumped at it. Living in a cottage with three girls and two women, closer to the girls than even a normal boy because they were all in each other’s minds, he couldn’t wait to get away. The idea of months without Sandry drafting him as a dressmaker’s dummy, or Daja going on at table over a new way to work metal, or Tris’s swings between lost-in-a-book oblivion and maturing-crosspatch, brought him out of Winding Circle in a flash. He hadn’t even minded saying goodbye to Lark. Sometimes Lark was a little too understanding, not to mention indecently aware of the thoughts that went through a growing boy’s mind when a pretty novice smiled at him. Rosethorn was uninterested in Briar’s changing view of girls who were not his housemates, and her own temper made it impossible for her to be too understanding, ever.
It was only after they’d been gone a week that Briar realized he was listening for the girls’ voices, and wondering what they were up to. It was harder to find good books without Tris, harder to get a good round of quarterstaff practice without Daja, and pouring his troubles into Rosethorn’s ears wasn’t as soothing as it was with Sandry. Sandry would listen solemnly, and sympathize, and tell him how wonderful he was. Briar knew better than to even suggest that Rosethorn treat him that way. He liked his nose — girls admired it. He didn’t want to give Rosethorn an excuse to bite it off.
The merchant woman took a loincloth and a headcloth behind the curtain. Soon afterward she emerged with Evvy. The girl was neatly dressed in the orange tunic and black trousers; a brown and orange headcloth covering her ragged hair. “I don’t see why you bother,” she grumbled.
“Because someone did it for me, four years ago. He’s always got more clothes than he needs, so he said I’d waste my time giving him more. He told me just do the same for someone else,” Briar said. He thrust the hemp bag with the other new clothes at her. “You get to carry ‘em, though.” He bundled the dirty things under one arm and marched out of the stall before she asked other uncomfortable questions. He wasn’t really sure why he was doing so much for her, though what he’d said about Niko, the mage who had clothed him and brought him to Winding Circle, was true. It certainly wasn’t as if he liked this rude, impudent brat.
High overhead they could hear the toll of the Karang Gate clock. It was the third hour after noon. “Time and past to eat something,” he said as his stomach rumbled. Evvy’s eyes brightened at the prospect of a meal.
He followed his nose to a food vendor, where they bought steamed lamb and baked mushroom-onion dumplings. Steamed quinces with walnut and honey stuffing were next. Both of them were pleasantly full when they washed their hands at a fountain and headed back to Briar’s.
“How long have you been on the street?” Briar asked.
Evvy yawned. “I was six when we left Yanjing. That was the Year of the Crow,” she said. “And this is the year of the Turtle.” She calculated on her fingers. “Four years. Maybe nearer three. They sold me when we got here, and I escaped two moons before the Year of the Cat began.”
“Who sold you?” Br
iar asked, before he thought he might not like the answer.
“My parents,” Evvy said. “It cost plenty to come west. I was only a girl and the youngest. I ate food my brothers and parents needed. I took up space in the cart, and I couldn’t do anything to bring in money.” She rattled off the reasons, as if she could recite them in her sleep. “Girls are pretty worthless, even here. They only got two silver davs for me. I saw a boy my age get sold for twice that.”
Briar looked down. Despite her matter-of-fact answer, he felt as if he should apologize — not for the question, perhaps, but because that had been her life. Kids came to the street for many reasons, as he knew too well, but at least his mother had kept him, fed him, and loved him until she was killed on a dark street for her cheap jewelry.
Evvy suddenly laughed. “I’ll find them someday and show them what slipped through their fingers!” she told Briar. “Even a girl is worth something if she’s a pahan!”
He’d grinned, too, until the second part of her argument sunk in. “Girl mages are worth every bit as much as boy mages,” he informed her. “Believe me — I’ve been surrounded by them for four long years, and never for a moment did they let me forget it.”
“How did you get to be a pahan?” she asked, curious. “Did you always know?”
Briar shook his head. “I was on the street after my ma was killed. I was four,” he explained. “If she’d had magic, we’d have lived better than we did. She wouldn’t have been out late the night she got killed, for certain. Anyway, the landlord tossed me. I was on my own a while, till the Thief-Lord picked me up and brought me into the Lightnings. That was our gang.” Evvy nodded. “First I learned to pick pockets, because I had the good hands for it. Then they taught me climbing, and thieving inside. The third time we were caught, I was maybe ten. You know the law.”
Evvy made a face. “Third arrest, hard labor for life.”
