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Evemer obeyed him, and didn’t ask questions. By the time the sun’s edge touched the horizon, the carriage was pulling out through the Copper Gate. The rattle of the wheels over the cobblestones began bringing him back to himself, cutting through the fog.
He was alone in the carriage, he noticed with some pleasure, still unmoored and drifting. It gave him a little more time to plan, at least. When the carriage had traversed the seven switchbacks of the road and reached the bottom of the cliff, he knocked on the roof. As soon as they’d pulled to a stop, he climbed out.
He’d been drifting too hard to notice how many kahyalar he’d pulled along in his wake—Evemer sat up with the driver, a kahya of the fringe-guard, and there was a cadet at the back, and no fewer than four kahyalar of the core-guard, fully armed, walking along behind.
“Highness,” Evemer said, with just an edge of inquiry.
“I just want to go for a short walk. Stretch my legs.” He wouldn’t be able to shake all of them, but . . . he could probably get rid of all of them but Evemer. “Come down. Everyone else can wait here. We won’t be long.”
Evemer’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he obeyed. “Highness,” he said, more pointedly.
Kadou wasn’t going to be able to get away with this sort of thing a second time. Best to make the most of it now, while everyone was all unawares. He forced a smile onto his face. “Don’t worry,” he said to the others. “Wait right here.”
Kadou grinned at the man across the table from him and drank straight from the wine bottle, tossing a pair of coins into the center of the table with his other hand. “I’ll match your wager.” He hadn’t the foggiest idea whether he had paid a fair price for the wine. Probably not, considering that it was swill, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t drinking for enjoyment.
It had taken walking halfway down the Lifeblood, the main thoroughfare of the city, before Evemer had seemed to realize that Kadou wasn’t just looking to stretch his legs. Kadou had been able to feel him growing tenser, and had almost laughed with nervous, manic hysteria when Evemer had finally cracked and said, “Highness.”
Kadou had ignored him. It had taken another two blocks before Evemer said, “Highness, we should turn back,” and one more after that before Evemer had dared to catch his sleeve.
After that, Kadou mostly had gotten his way through sheer momentum and the element of surprise. He had bets with himself now about how long it would take—and how obnoxious he would have to be—before Evemer threw propriety to the winds, slung Kadou bodily over his shoulder, and hauled him back to the carriage and the Palace Road zigzagging up the side of the cliff face.
He’d tried to mutter something about the safety of the streets, but really, Kadou was safer with one guard than he was even with two. One made him look like a wealthy merchant’s son, but two would have been rather suspect. Three would have immediately given him away as a noble of some variety. At the bars where he planned to drink, that could be taken in entirely the wrong way: The back alleys and shadows had their own princes. They, too, might go out with three or more guards. It would not do to provoke anyone. At least, not unintentionally.
You also couldn’t disguise three kahyalar in a group, not like you could disguise one—Kadou had swerved into the first pawnshop they’d passed, bought Evemer another kaftan, and ordered him to put it on over the top of his uniform. It was too narrow for Evemer’s ridiculous shoulders, but at least it wasn’t terribly stained. That shade of dark pine green was rather good on him, too, though it didn’t come close to what the cobalt of the uniform did for him.
Kadou took another drink. The man across the table scowled at him.
He whooped when he won that hand, pulling the man’s money into a pile in front of him, feeling the sparkle of the copper kürler in his fingertips: the flickering light of a candle flame, the crack of a log split by an axe, the bitter taste of medicine. There were a few foreign coins mixed in too—unsurprising, this close to the docks. The Oissic asprons were billon, an alloy of silver with copper. The signature of the silver—the crunch of snow under his riding boots high in the mountains of the Northern Marches near the manor house there, the stillness of the temple of Sannesi early in the morning, and the scent of white tea—was muddled up with that of the copper, resulting in a confusing yet quaint impression of cold, still mornings with a crackling fire in the distance that was overlaid with the tang of scalded, oversteeped green tea.
“Again, let’s go again,” he said. He felt Evemer shift uncomfortably just at his shoulder and ignored it.
He dealt them both another hand of cards and didn’t bother to hide his feverish giggle of delight when he fanned his own between his fingers. The man immediately threw down his cards. “Pass.”
“Oh, come on,” Kadou cried. “Come now, don’t be like that. It’s just a game, isn’t it?”
“Some of us don’t like throwing our money away,” the man spat. Like his coins, his accent had Oissic mixed in with the Arasük. “Not everyone can be a wine-soddenkyrioswith more coin than sense.”
Kadou considered this for a moment. “Yes, that’s true. Both things. The ‘not all of us can be’ part, and also me having more coin than sense.” He leaned in and said, “I’ve got only as much sense as any ordinary person, but I’ve got alotof money.” No point in trying to hide it. Although he wasn’t wearing any visible jewelry and his long hair, the primary mark of the upper classes, was wrapped up under the turban, the quality of the fabric and tailoring of these, his plainest clothes, singled him out.
“Sir,” said Evemer. He’d stopped sayingHighnesswhen Kadou had dragged them into the less-respectable parts of town and dived into the first filthy tavern he’d set eyes on. “Perhaps you’d like to speak a little more softly.”
“I was whispering,” Kadou said.
“As you say, sir,” said Evemer.
Kadou grumbled at him and drank again from the bottle, or tried to. He held it up to the light—empty. Again. “Get me another of these,” he said, and turned back to the man across the table. “And you. Play another round with me. Look, I’ll—I’ll pay you to play another round.” Kadou poked a single billon aspron over to him. The man gave him a filthy look, and Kadou ignored this too.
He dealt a hand.
The game paused when Evemer returned with a fresh bottle of wine for Kadou and very deliberately placed a cup next to it, which Kadou equally deliberately ignored as he wrestled the cork out of the bottle and drank.
Kadou won the hand.
The man was not happy. “I think you’d better leave,” he said, as cold as murder.
“Why? I’m doing so well.”
The man stood and leaned forward on the table with both fists. Kadou watched him, feeling a strange hunger. Maybe he could get himself punched. Maybe that’d knock the helpless grief out of him, the surging seas of fear that threatened to swamp his boat.
