It would have been a fine place for a pull, except that no one here carried a fat wallet. The rich merchants and skilled artisans were all in their courtyards and houses, playing at contracts and law. The silver and bronze remnants of Alys’s one broken gold coin were probably the most wealth in the street. At the end of the second dock from the bridge, Sammish touched her arm. Alys let herself be led away from the river and toward the warehouses.
The Camnit family was well enough known that Alys had heard of it. They were Hansch merchants with family ties outside of Kithamar, but roots in the city that went back generations. They weren’t nobility. Noble blood didn’t live east of the water. They were wealth, though, and had the power that came with gold. Their warehouse was large, well maintained, and close to the water. Sammish put her head down as they walked past tall, wide doors painted the blue of a midsummer sky. Alys felt the urge to stare into the warehouse, searching through the shadows for a familiar face. Darro’s voice came back to her. Fifty steps. She put her eyes to the street and counted fifty like it was a kind of magic. When they reached an intersection with smaller, less dignified warehouses and guild halls, she looked back.
A cart was coming up from the river, moving toward the Camnit doors. Two thick-shouldered men drove a pair of mules. The cart was piled precariously high with barrels of salt.
“The one at the back,” Sammish said.
Following the cart, a younger man walked, his shirt off. He looked fresh, pale, and doughy compared to the older carters, and he used a long pole to steady the load. Each of those barrels was worth more than his season’s pay. If one fell and broke while he was on the stick, he’d be working for less than free.
All the way over, Alys had worried that she wouldn’t be sure. She wasn’t worried now.
She remembered his voice as he threatened to cut her throat, and also his embarrassment and outrage when the shit and piss started raining down on him. He’d been humiliated. He’d lost his position in the guard. Would that have been enough to make him kill Darro? She imagined those pale hands holding a knife and the chagrin in Darro’s eyes as he bled out at those thick-ankled feet.
“Well?” Sammish said. “Was I right?”
“Yes,” she said, her heart feeling something like life for the first time since Grey Linnet had told her the news. “That’s him.”
“We have a start, then. I’m not sure what we do with him next. We can’t exactly go ask him whether he’s the one that killed your brother.”
The cart rolled into the shadow of the warehouse. The once-bluecloak stepped in after it, the steadying pole in his trembling hands.
“Oh, I think we can,” Alys said.
Tannen Gehart, once a city guardsman and now a junior laborer, ached. Every part of him from the soles of his feet to the place where his spine met his skull found some way to complain. His eyes were sweat-stung, his arms fly-bitten, and every muscle had been worked to the edge of collapse. The sun was gone, and the warehouse lit by moth-swarmed lanterns. His day still wasn’t done.
“Not bad for a tadpole,” the overseer said. He was a fat man named Hawls whose jiggling belly hid a terrible strength and boundless endurance. Tannen was well on his way to hating him. “A few more seasons like this, and you’ll be a real man, eh?”
“Just doing my bit,” Tannen said. He heard the others in the street, laughing at something. They’d all been paid out for the day’s work. Tannen was the last, and Hawls hadn’t taken his coins out of the paybox yet. He kept stalling.
“Your bit,” Hawls said, chuckling. “Yeah, that. Thing is, there’s always the sweeping up after. Used to be that was Darrit’s to do, but with you coming on the crew, well, you’re the newest, and it’s the new man’s duty…”
Despair deepened Tannen’s weariness. All he wanted was his day’s pay, a bowl of something with meat in it, and his cot. He knew when he took the job that it would be like this, for a while at least. Any whining he did now, he’d carry for years.
“Right,” he said. “Tell me what needs doing so I don’t miss anything.”
Hawls handed him a broom, gestured at the warehouse piled high with barrels of salt and stacks of cut lumber, and laughed. “We’ll be down at the porters’ hall long enough to drink a little. Find me there for your pay. If you take too long, there’s always morning.”
Tannen tried to think of something manly and smart to say, but he was too tired and a quick wit had never been his strength. He marched himself back into the shadows and started sweeping. Hawls shared a couple jokes with the night guards and walked off into the darkness, smoking a clay pipe and humming to himself.
The temptation was to go fast, do just enough, and be done. He made himself be slow and thorough. Every time he found his attention had wandered, he went back over the last stretch he’d done. More times than not, it wasn’t clean. True, they’d just be tracking in new dirt come dawn, but before that, Hawls would see what kind of job he’d made of it. If it was clean, he’d know Tannen was there to work. Suffering a little now to suffer less later was the smart way to go.
The night guards kept their watch. The city bluecloaks passed by once; a team of four that had Kannish and Maur in it. Tannen worked with his back to the street while they passed to keep from being recognized, or at least not to know that he’d been seen. Insects beat their bodies against the clear glass lanterns or found paths inside them and burned. The warehouse stank of their bodies and the cheap oil. Time lost itself. When he brought the last pile of dirt out to the street, he didn’t know if he’d gone quickly or slow. One of the night guards took the broom from him as he blew out the lanterns, and they closed and barred the doors behind him as he left.
He turned toward the night and the porters’ hall. His feet seemed farther away from him than usual, and harder to move. If Hawls were there, he’d get his pay and eat. If not, he’d go back to the bunks and sleep. Either one sounded wonderful.
The night was dark. What there was of the moon ducked behind high clouds, the shadows passing over the streets. He tried taking a few steps with his eyes closed to see if it mattered, but it felt too comfortable. He forced himself to open them to keep from falling asleep on his feet and stumbling into the river.
Oldgate rose on the far side of the water, a few torches and lanterns glittering on the switchback that rose up its face. The palace glowered at its crown, looking like the ancient war keep that it had once been. They were probably sleeping fine up there, curled in soft sheets on mattresses of quilted silk or something. He’d be lucky if the rushes on the bunkroom floor were fresh.
He noticed the girl stepping out from the gap between two ivy-choked walls, but she didn’t alarm him until she stood in his way, her hands clasped in front of her. His first thought was that she was an unclean spirit thrown up by the river. His second was that she was a whore looking for work he couldn’t afford to give her. He paused. The moon shadow passed, giving a little pale light. He saw an unremarkable, round face, neither pretty nor ugly. Her expression was something like chagrin.
“For what it carries?” she said. “I am sorry.”
Through his weariness, a little thread of alarm came too late. Something hit his back, and he stumbled forward, hands out to catch himself. He skinned his palms against the pavement. If he cried out, he didn’t notice it. A hand knotted itself in his hair and hauled his head up. A blade pressed against his neck.