Bind my hands and free my arms,
Please my sir, yes my sir.
Take my clothes and leave my hat,
Please my sir, yes my sir.
Shave my head and pass the comb,
Please my sir, yes my sir.
Break my feet and tend my shoes,
Please my sir, yes my sir.
They went through several more verses of the song by the time they passed out of her earshot, and they would probably go through many more before they restarted the tune or found a different song to keep pace with. It was one of dozens of such songs the workers learned to make their work more bearable and more efficient. Haman had explained it to her once.
“Songs cheer the heart,” he’d said as they’d passed a trio of singing Keepers helping to clean up after a nasty wagon spill near the docks. “A cheered heart makes a better worker. Plus, for anything that requires repetitive motions, it helps to have a rhythm going that everyone can hear. It speeds things along, and it keeps everyone on one pace. It’s why the sailors know so many songs; much of their job requires working as a team and doing things the same way, at the same speed, as everyone around them. Soldiers, too.”
“Who came up with that?”
“No idea,” he’d said, dropping a copper blade into a nearby beggar’s bag. “I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing that one person could even be credited for finding out. Some things just get discovered all at once by many people in different places. It’s gone on for centuries, though; I’m sure of that.”
Skate hadn’t thought about it since then. The road she traveled had already been scraped by the Keepers, but would not stay clear for long; even now, as Guards went about their patrols and wagon wheels bumped and creaked along the stones, the snow was reasserting its command, forming another thin sheet of white that would, within the hour, hide the stones beneath.
It didn’t matter much; Skate would be out this way again well before that. Already, the colossal housing manor purported alternately to be owned by the Baron or a relative towered at the end of the avenue, where the road intersected with another and simply stopped.
Skate passed by shops selling decorative luxuries, fresh bread, candlesticks, fine household tools, sweet foreign delicacies, fine clothes, etched silverware, intricate clockwork timepieces, hot bowls of soup, highest-caliber wine, steaming mugs of coffee, and even extravagances like chocolate and jewelry. In the windows of such shops, pedestrians could see haughty eyes roving hungrily over offered goods, and the deferential salesmen, shopkeepers, and clerks bowing and joking and demonstrating, selling the goods to those who had no needs and every desire to buy nonetheless.
Of course, it wasn’t only shops and stores. People here lived near the Baron’s Palace, where only the wealthiest could afford to build or buy. Through these decorated windows, white and yellow lights from magic and candles mingled to create a golden glow that shimmered like twinkling waves on the white-and-gray palette provided by the half-cleaned streets. Within, the lords and ladies entertained their guests with drinks and food served on platters of silver, all dressed in clothes bought from the smiling and bowing salesmen down the street. By contrast, the servants carrying the platters dressed in plain, sturdy blacks and grays. They worked around the masters and mistresses with deft movements honed by years of practice, never missing a beat, never spilling a drink.
“Nobility,” Ossertine had said of the lords and ladies.
Skate snorted, sending a burst of cloud in front of her as she neared the doors of the great manse she’d burgled a few short weeks ago. I don’t see any of that. Just money. Money and connections and closed doors. That’s all.
Skate stopped short of opening the door and retrieved the letter she’d been charged with delivering. She traced the letters written on the front of the envelope in a flowing, flourishing hand, and confirmed that it bore its recipient’s name: Jack Gherun. Then she walked inside, letter in hand.
The room looked almost exactly as it had before: imposing to people like her, while welcoming to people like Gherun. The main differences were the fact that there were people sitting in the poofy chairs, sharing cups of something warm and steamy that smelled something like apples, and that the manager behind the dark wood counter was the one she’d had pinned as the more competent one. She steeled herself and approached the desk, turning her nose up only the slightest bit as she gingerly placed the letter on the counter.
The manager looked up from the ledger he had been studying. “How can I help you, miss?” His voice was polite and soft, as if he were making an effort not to disturb any of the conversations of the tenants in the main hall.
“I’ve come to deliver a message to Jack—excuse me,” she said, smirking and bringing a hand to her neck in an imitation of embarrassment, “Mr. Gherun. It should be delivered as soon as possible, please.”
He picked up the letter between thumb and forefinger. “Who is the sender?”
“I’m sure I have no idea. I was stopped on the street by a gentleman who asked if I knew Mr. Gherun. I responded that I did, and he gave this letter, with instructions to deliver it.”
“I see.” He tapped the letter lightly on the counter. “And you know Mr. Gherun.”
“Oh, yes. He’s some relation to my mother, distantly. We just call him Uncle Jack.”
He set the note down and arched an eyebrow. “Mr. Gherun does not usually receive…visitors.”
“Oh, I know. And I’m not here to visit. Just to deliver a message and step out of the cold for a moment.”
He drummed his fingers lightly on the counter, a set of finicky, rolling taps at a time before lifting the letter again and setting it somewhere underneath the counter. Skate frowned and did her best to sound arrogant and annoyed, which wasn’t hard; the man’s apparent wordless refusal to deliver the letter had put her in a bad mood. “You’re not going to deliver it?”
“I will, young miss, as soon as Mr. Gherun returns. He is out.”
“He’s never out.” This was an unexpected wrinkle. There had been no reason to assume Gherun would be anywhere other than his own quarters when she’d made her way toward the manse. Realizing her outburst was not a normal thing to have said, she improvised. “Mother says he’s a shut-in.”
The manager’s eyebrows ruffled a bit at that. “Mr. Gherun is a private individual, it’s true. But he had a social call earlier this morning. He is not a ‘shut-in,’ young miss.”
“Of course.” She offered a most insincere smile before turning away, making sure her boots clicked just loudly enough to irritate some nearby residents who had been shooting her suspicious glances throughout the whole conversation from one of the small tables in the hall.
Skate returned once more to falling snow and bitter cold. She threw her hood over her head, the fur-lined coif offering some relief. The cobblestones were almost hidden again. She took a moment to think about Jack Gherun under the shelter of the awning draped over the doorway.
He’ll get the message, one way or the other. Either the manager would do as she’d asked and deliver it to him, or he’d read it himself and deliver the message afterward. The worst-case scenario, she figured, involved the manager involving the Guard, but even in that case, Gherun would get the message. The Boss—the Big Boss, she reminded herself—wouldn’t like the Guard’s involvement, but these things happened. Besides, she’d bet her last helm on BB having included a line about not getting the Guard involved. Clients who squealed to the Guard usually got a warning visit from one of Shade’s crew. The next day, the clients’d show up in front of the Guard taking back everything they’d said. “I was mistaken,” was the oft-repeated line, followed by apologies for wasting everyone’s time and regular hefty payments to the Ink.