Once she’d explained her situation to the closed door, Alys pushed one of Darro’s silver coins under it with a twig she found in the street, then stood waiting. For a long moment, she thought nothing would happen. She was trying to think where she could go to stay safe until Aunt Thorn’s men came to find her when a deep scraping sound came, and the door swung open.
The man who waved her in was almost shorter than she was, but broad as a horse across the shoulders. A scar snaked across his neck and vanished under his collar.
“Come with me,” he said. Alys looked down the street, not sure what she was hoping to see, then followed him. The stairs were dark, the steps old stone worn smooth by use. With Longhill above them, they passed through a maze of brick halls. Twice, the small man greeted others—empty-faced men who Alys would have turned back from if she’d seen them in the streets. Here, she nodded at them. It seemed wise to be polite.
The short man came to a hall with an iron chain strung across its mouth. He took down the chain, motioned Alys through, and put it back up behind them. There were voices ahead—women’s voices in conversation. The short man scooted past Alys, opened a door she hadn’t seen, and led her into a long, low room. Half a dozen girls only a few years older than her and three women considerably older sat or lay on wooden bunks. Three candles in tin holders were the only light.
The short man put a hand on Alys’s shoulder.
“She’s a guest, not a worker,” he said. “Treat her like one of yours, but no clients.”
One of the older women nodded. The short man patted Alys like she was a friendly enough dog.
“You’ll be safe here,” he said to her. “Safer than outside, yeah? There are gods in the streets these days.”
Somewhere between her second night and her third day in the secret maze under the city, the bloodied man came. She’d lost track of sunset and sunrise, much less the more changeable aspects of the weather—rain or wind or the haze that sometimes rose from the river. The other girls and women talked and slept, coming and going on a schedule that Alys couldn’t fathom and didn’t inquire about. They didn’t call each other by name, not even the pet names that anyone would have for the people they spent time with. Alys had to think it was because she was there, and petty intimacies like that weren’t something that belonged in front of strangers. She respected the message they were giving her and kept herself to herself. No one asked about her, and she learned nothing about them until he came in.
She was on a bunk, braiding and unbraiding a length of her hair for something to do, when his voice came. It was low and masculine and raw with distress. At first, she couldn’t make out what he was saying, and she assumed that whatever was going on was Aunt Thorn’s business and none of her own. But he kept getting louder and closer. He was shouting something like Arja or Erja, and one of the other younger girls spat out an obscenity and ran out of the room. Alys sat up.
He was a stone wall of a man, broad across the shoulders and thick with muscle. His hair was black and greasy, and his shirt and trousers were dark with blood. He fumbled with the chain until it dropped and he staggered in, a wineskin in one meaty fist, and looked around. When his gaze landed on her, Alys realized she was the only other person in the room.
“Erja,” he said. “Where’s Erja?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
A look of vast annoyance narrowed his mouth just as the younger girl came back, one of the older women close behind her.
“Fuck’s sake, Gosling,” the older woman said, and the man smiled.
“Erja!” he said. “I knew you’d be here.”
“Lie back,” the older woman—Erja, apparently—said, then gestured to the girl. Together, they stripped the man of his shirt and cut his trousers free with a small knife. Alys sat, stunned by the vision of this vast, utterly naked man, sitting on the floor and drinking like it was all perfectly normal. There was a long cut along his chest and two more deep in his left arm. Every breath seemed to push a fresh stream of blood out. His gaze never left Erja.
The younger girl brought a green lacquered box from someplace deep in the brick halls and set it by Erja’s knees.
“What were you thinking?” the older woman said as she pulled a spool of black thread and a hooked bone needle from the box. “You should have gone to the hospital. Not brought this here.”
“They’d look for me there,” the bloodied man said with a grin. “It’s bad luck going outside the city walls anyway. You know that.”
“It’s bad luck bleeding on my fucking floor,” she said, but a hint of friendliness had crept into her voice. She took out a stone bowl filled with a thick grey paste. “This is going to sting.”
“You’d never hurt me,” the man said. Still, he hissed when she rubbed it into his wounds and cried out when she took the bone needle and started sewing him closed.
“Tell me what happened,” she said. “It’ll take your mind off the pain.”
“Was getting the load from Witter, only he was holding out. Had the cart right there on the bridge and said he wouldn’t let it go unless we paid him double. Mirril was backing him too.”
Erja made a little encouraging sound in the back of her throat. Alys shifted forward on her bunk to get a better look. The gaping cut was almost half closed already, the older woman’s hands weaving thread and skin with the speed of long practice. The grey paste, whatever it was, had stopped the bleeding. The man grinned and closed his eyes. Alys had never seen a man so clearly fashioned for violence and also so utterly vulnerable. He was magnificent in a frightening way.
“So,” he said, “I told him ‘Here’s a counter-offer. I throw it in the river, everyone starts killing everyone else, and nobody gets paid for any of it.’”
Erja laughed, and Alys found herself smiling too. The young woman came back with a bucket of water and a clean rag. Alys hadn’t noticed her leaving.
“Oh, Gosling.”
“It’s what my mother did when my brothers started fighting over something. Take it away from all of us, yeah?”
“So Mirril and Witter did this?”
“Them? No. But we were shouting, and the bluecloaks noticed us.”
“The guard cut you?” The bloodied man nodded, and the older woman shook her head. “Maybe it’s best you didn’t go to the hospital after all.”
“I knew you’d see to me. I just need a little rest,” the bloodied man said, and squeezed the dregs out from his wineskin. The younger woman cleaned the blood off him as his gaze moved back to Alys.
“Who’s this one?” he asked with a leer.
“Guest of the house,” Erja said, and the big man scowled, disappointed. When he was clean, he stood and walked, still naked, back out into the brick tunnels. The younger woman put the iron chain up behind him after he left. When Alys looked up, the older woman locked eyes with her.
“You didn’t see any of that, now, did you?”
“Nothing,” Alys said.
Erja closed her lacquered box with a snap. “Good choice.”
The broken woman came to the river at night.