CHAPTER FIVE
DealingClean
Minkja isn’t so much a city as a hostile architectural takeover. It once was little more than a sleepy monastery and a handful of farmers who traded wool and wheat for mead and cheese among themselves, and everyone was satisfied with the arrangement.
At some point in the forging of the Blessed Empire, the Reigenbach family looked at the long arm of the shoal-thorny Yssar River and saw an opportunity in its few safe crossings. That was how the city within the High Wall came to be, with its crowded rows of milky stucco walls, scrolls of trim, and frost- silvered timbers. The buildings fan out from busy plazas the way fungus shelves sprout on stumps, stripes within stripes of brown and white climbing as high as they can. The skyline is capped off with dark ruffles of shingled roofs so crowded they almost threaten to spill over the High Wall.
And as a matter of fact, Minkja did just that a century or two ago. Houses and inns and muddy lanes began congealing beyond the wall until the Reigenbachs were forced to fence off the city yet again. On a clear day, from Castle Reigenbach you can see old Minkja within the High Wall, young Minkja within the Low Wall, then the farmlands beyond that, and finally the blue snow-capped wall of the Alderbirgs to the south.
Tonight, though, there is only fog and shadow beyond the High Wall.
I hurry through the dark, down the crest of the hill Castle Reigenbach perches on, and over the High Bridge that straddles the Yssar, pulling my cloak tighter against the frigid spray of the churning waterfall below. The High Bridge continues on as the eastern Hoenstratz viaduct, a kind of stone land bridge built to let traders march right over Minkja’s winding alleys and straight to the markets they need.
I, however, need to get on Minkja’s level. I cut down a brick staircase and skirt the Göttermarkt, where candles burn in the windows of mismatched temples ringing the broad plaza. A fewsakretwarenstalls are still open to peddle votives, offerings, and assorted charms to anyone seeking divine assistance at this decidedly ungodly hour. Many also sell witch-ash to those seeking to take matters into their own hands.
Magic is a deadly thing, though, and even deadlier for the desperate. Witches take their power by the dose. They collect bones, fur, and anything else shed by Low Gods, spirits, orgrimlingen, burn it to ash, and add a pinch to their tea when poultices and rituals won’t suffice. (It also doesn’t have to be tea. There’s a streetwitch in the Obarmarkt infamous for her witch-ash pastries.)
But it’s not the domain of humans, and too much witch-ash poisons the mind and body both. Powerful enchantments, like the one on the pearls, require the workings of a warlock. Instead of witch-ash, warlocks draw on the power of a spirit bound to them, usually with some nasty caveats. Back in Castle Falbirg, the resident bard, Joniza, always spoke of them with equal parts pity and mistrust.
“My mother has a saying,” she would tell me. “Terrible power, terrible price.”
At least thesakretwarenstalls don’t deal in warlock bonds. I’m not sure Minkja could afford to pay the cost.
A handful of evergreen garlands are strung over doorways and windows in the Göttermarkt, but the real Winterfast decorations won’t start going up until next week. The temples, offerings, and souvenirs of the market are primarily for Almanic gods, whether it be shrines to different Low Gods, or the House of the High, which worships them all as manifestations of an unnameable High God. Still, more than a few venues cater to deities from outside the empire. Traders frequently get stuck in Minkja while Ungra or Östr heckle the empire over the more profitable border crossings; sometimes the merchants decide, for whatever reason, that they like it here, and settle down.
The vendors of the Göttermarkt don’t so much as blink at me hurrying past. Heavy mist is rolling off the Yssar, and between the cold and the damp, we’ve all made a tacit agreement to mind our own business.
Unfortunately, I have to go even deeper into the fog. Yannec’s tavern is right on the docks of the Untrmarkt, which deals in more mundane goods like livestock and produce. The taverns along the docks tend to fill with boatmen swilling one moresjoppenof beer before they pole back down the Yssar to their villages; this late, I suspect only the meanest and drunkest of the lot will be left.
Yannec’s tavern squats in the mist ahead, a brute plaster-and-timber affair making no attempts to convince anyone otherwise. Matchingloreleynhave been painted on either side of the door, their coiling, scaled tails faded to mildew green. The wall’s gray plaster shows through their chests, where drunkards have run sweaty hands over their exaggerated bosoms so
many times the paint has worn off. Any port in a storm, I suppose.
I pull off the Reigenbach servant badge and stow it in my satchel.
The sour smell of cheap beer and cheaper men slaps me in the face when I walk into the tavern, but at least it’s warm. Sure enough, the handful of people in the tavern are about as drunk as I imagineKomtessinEzbeta to be right now, huddled over woodensjoppensbecause they’re no longer trusted with ceramic.
Two in the corner are in a bleary, heated debate, and from the sound of it, they’re agreeing, just too angry and beer soaked to know it. Ragne chitters with displeasure, likely at the pungent air, but she falls silent when I jab at the hood.
Yannec isn’t working the kegs, but I hear his off-key singing back in the kitchen. The barkeep is mopping up spilled beer and waves me on. I don’t know what lie Yannec told her, that I’m a daughter or a lover or a friend. I am none of those, but she doesn’t ask questions, and in the interest of keeping it that way, neither do I.
Behind us, wooden stools clatter to the floor, and grunts and swearing tell me the not-a-debate has erupted into violent agreement. The barkeep tosses her sodden rag at the men, then shakes her head and ducks around the bar to deal with the fight hands-on.
I slip past and head toward Yannec, a great salt ham of a man with the thick arms of someone who spends their days wrestling stew. He’s greasing a heavy iron pan in the dank, too-small kitchen. A thin kerchief covers his crown, where I know his bald spot has to be spreading beyond containment. His eyebrows quirk up when I slip through the doorway and clear my throat.
“Rohtpfenni,” he grunts.
“Marthe,” I snap back. I’m too tired for this. I have plenty of names he could use, but he insists on using the one I hate. Probably because he knows why.
Yannec jerks his head at the door. “Just finishing up here. Come on, let’s talk in the back.” He sets the pan down and picks up a colander and a tin pail full of dishwater, then slouches through the door. I follow.
“He stinks,” Ragne whispers. I just poke the hood again. She smacks the back of my neck with her squirrel tail, and I choke on my own startled curse.
We hole up in the back office, where Yannec keeps books for the tavern owner. It’s a cramped room, no windows and only one other door to the alley, with a heavy bar keeping unwelcome visitors out.
Yannec sets the pail down and gestures to it. I didn’t bother packing away the jewelry into individual jars again after Eiswald’s mess, just bundled it all in the servant uniform hidden in the satchel. I pull it out and shake the jewelry into the colander, then submerge it in the dishwater. The oils and pastes float and coagulate into a skin of scum that’s easily scraped off.
I pass the dripping colander to Yannec, who runs his fingers over each ring and bracelet, mouthing sums to himself.
