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‘They’ll kill you.’
‘They tried that already. It didn’t work.’
She let him take her weight and when he felt it there was a stab of dull pain from the sword-scar. They tottered for a moment, and then hobbled out of the alley.
As they turned to make their way up the street, one of the men in front of the tavern called out, ‘You’re wasting your time, son. All you’ll get is a lot of blood.’
The others laughed.
Wreneck swung round. ‘You grown-ups make me ashamed!’
They were silent then, as he and Jinia slowly walked up the main street. She leaned hard against him, but he was still big, still strong, and where the soldier had stabbed him it only hurt a little bit now, not like the first time, when he thought that maybe something had ripped.
Everyone was broken inside. It was just that some were more broken than others, and when they were broken bad inside, it was all they could do to keep the outside looking normal. That took all the work and that’s what living was – work. He had years of practice.
‘You’re sweating,’ Jinia said when at last they reached the outskirts of town and looked up to the hill and its summit where huddled the scorched ruins of the monastery, showing them a gap-toothed wall and a gateway with no gate.
‘It’s hot.’
‘No, it’s cold, Wreneck.’
‘I’m just working hard, Jinia. I’m used to that, and it’s good and you know why?’
‘Why?’
He thought about how he would say what he felt, and then nodded. ‘It reminds me that I’m alive.’
‘I’m sorry, Wreneck,?
?? she said. ‘For your burns, from when you carried me through the burning rooms. I should have said that before. But I was mad at you.’
‘Mad at me? But I saved your life!’
‘That’s why, Wreneck.’
‘They weren’t much,’ he said after a moment. ‘Those rooms, I mean. There was hardly anything in them. So the places where rich people live, why, they’re still just rooms.’
They had begun the ascent, much slower now. At his words, Jinia snorted. ‘They would tell you otherwise.’
‘I saw them. Those rooms. They can try telling me anything they like. I saw them.’
‘You were friends with Orfantal.’
Wreneck shook his head. ‘I was a bad friend. He hates me now. Anyway, I won’t be that again. The nobleborn grown-ups don’t scare me any more. Orfantal wasn’t like them, but I’m sorry that he hates me.’
‘Nobleborn,’ she mused, and he smelled her sweet breath. ‘It seems I’ve found one of my own.’
He didn’t understand what she meant. She was still a little drunk.
Then they ran out of breath with which to talk, as the hill was steep and the track slippery under its thin coat of snow. The monks were all dead for sure, since they would have swept this clear. There was nothing living in sight. Even the crows had long gone.
At last, they reached the summit, and Jinia stepped away from him, to stand on her own, but she reached across and took his hand.
Suddenly cowed by her gesture, and the feel of her thin fingers and her pinched palm, so easily swallowed up by his too-big hand, Wreneck said nothing. But he felt very grown up.
‘I’m not so cold any more,’ she said. ‘Not so drunk, either. But the pain’s back.’
He nodded. Yes, it was back, and not just where the soldier had stabbed him. It was back in other places, too, all through his insides. Aches. Deep, deep aches. When he could stand them no longer and he had to move, he stepped forward, and she fell in at his side, and they walked towards the shell of the tumbled wall’s gate.
