The water started boiling, and the steam from it smelled of old apple and salt. The man started to stir it, and she stopped him. You’ll make it gummy. Just let it boil. He took her advice, and she liked him better for taking it.
The sun rose and burned off what little fog there was on the river. The apple rice cooked through, and the bearded man took a little bowl of it off for Saffa while Sammish ate her share slowly. That was one of the tricks to being hungry. Wolf it all at once, and her body forgot it had been fed. Go slowly, notice the taste of it, and even too little food left her close to sated.
When she was done, she lay back, stretching out in the heat of the sun and the humidity of the river, and listened to the buzz of the insects, the distant call of boats working the river, and the soft murmur of the Khahon.
Good enough, she thought on the edge of sleep. It wasn’t the life she’d dreamed of. It wasn’t a place at the brewer’s window. It wasn’t a room in Seepwater. It wasn’t Alys, or the girl she’d dreamed Alys to be.
But it was enough.
Alys woke in the morning to the sound of the baker singing to himself as he tended the oven fire and put his day’s buns and loaves in. Alys shifted as she woke, and the cat at her knees got up petulantly, walked to the door, scratched it, and looked back at her with an expression of unmasked disappointment. Alys had assumed the animal was dead, but then it had appeared a week after she’d taken Sammish’s room with a new notch in its ear and no apparent notice that the girl sleeping in its bed had changed to someone else.
It was five weeks now since the brotherhood had burned and Byrn a Sal had died. For the first week, Alys had kept to the deepest shadows of Longhill that didn’t belong to Aunt Thorn. She’d even sent her mother to the taprooms to listen for word of Andomaka Chaalat, and whether anyone from Green Hill had been asking after someone who looked like her. No word came, and day by slow day, Alys came to believe she’d escaped. The Alys that Andomaka had called wolf girl was dead in the rubble of Green Hill, and there was a sense in which that was true. Still, she’d cut her hair short and sold all her old clothes and the wooden club too. Just in case.
She washed with a cloth and water that she’d taken in with her the night before, then dressed in a simple tunic and workman’s leggings of canvas. They’d be warm for the weather, but she expected the day’s work to be rough, and she preferred heat to skinning her knees and ankles.
When she opened her door, the east sides of the rooftops were glowing gold, like the sun was sitting on the top of the Temple and looking out over the city. The smell of molasses bread and baked raisins came from the oven, and Nimal was sitting by the door, a smile on his lips.
“No,” Alys said as she walked south.
“You haven’t even heard it,” Nimal said, skipping along to catch up with her. “It’s safer than washing clothes. Practically legal.”
“Would the bluecloaks say that too?”
“Since when do they need us to be guilty of something to crack our heads?” Nimal said.
“No. If it’s a pull and it goes wrong, it could come to violence, and I’m done with that if I can be. I’m not good at it.”
“Come on, Alys. Please. I’ve got most of the crew together. I just need one more who I trust. You can’t be out of the life. Not really. Can you?” His wheedling sounded like a little boy begging his mother.
Alys stopped and turned to face him. She wasn’t angry. She was barely annoyed. Nimal lifted his eyebrows and pulled a face he thought was charming. “Have you ever killed someone?” she asked.
“I’ve been in my fair share of fights. I carry myself fine.”
“No, I mean have you killed someone. Looked at them, known you meant to do it, and then done it? You have or you haven’t. Which?”
His smile faded. “I get safe. I’m too slippery for that kind of thing.”
“I’m not. I’ve been there, and I’m not going back. That’s the end of the talk, yeah?”
He looked sober now. “Shit, Alys. Did you kill somebody?”
“Good to see you,” she said. “Best of luck with the pull.”
She walked away, and this time he didn’t follow. She made her way along the route she had before, passing her houses in turn. Black Nel’s uncle was hauling shit off the streets for the magistrates, and so she had his daughter, her cousin, Ullya. Big Salla and Little Salla who lived across the street from each other. Gibby, Tall Janna’s son, was almost too young to be useful, but keeping him out of the house for the day was a kindness to his mother since it let her do her sewing work uninterrupted. That was worth a bronze in itself, when Tall Janna had it to spare, and a favor for later when she didn’t. She passed her mother’s house, but didn’t stop there. Nicayl, who’d been an apprentice at the Seepwater butcher until the bluecloaks took the butcher away for hiding his tax money and passing off dogmeat for pork. Pale Elbrith, as thin as ever, but half a head taller than he’d been in winter. All Linnet’s old crew, less Dark Aman, who’d decided she was too old and dignified for the work.
Alys gathered them and marched them along the streets, leaving Longhill, but leaving it together. They sang the same songs that Grey Linnet had taught them. That she’d taught Alys, when Alys had been young. And while Alys pretended to enjoy the song about the tiny shiny eel and the big black toad, there was actually a part of her that did. The children gave her an excuse to dance along the street and caper, and even if she rolled her eyes when she caught an older person’s gaze, not all of her pleasure was feigned.
It wasn’t even midmorning when they reached the southernmost bridge with its yellow stone and black mortar, and when they walked along it, she had to pull Elbrith off from the stone rail. He wanted to walk along it with nothing between him and the fast, dark water but air. She had the sense he was showing off for Little Salla.
At the far end of the bridge, they clambered down the stones and onto the thin, bare strip of the Silt nearest the water where the land was too new for trees to have grown. The children all walked together, hand in hand, along the side of the river. The Khahon slid past them, seeming to go faster now that they moved against the flow. At the edge of the trees, an old man sat on a white wooden stool. He had filthy grey hair and hooded eyes, but he hadn’t approached her or the children yet. Alys kept an eye on him all the same. No one who actually lived on the Silt could be trusted.
She also watched the water—where it broke against the sand and where it lapped over it, where it pooled and where it leapt, how it had changed the shape of the land from the day before and where it had left it alone. When they came to a likely-looking stretch, she stopped and lifted her arms to the sky. The children of Longhill all circled her and lifted their own hands too.
“Now,” she said, and paused, letting the little ones fill with anticipation, except for Big Salla, who was getting a little old for the game. “Get a digging stick!”
They scattered like puppies, pulling branches off of saplings or hauling driftwood from the water’s edge. She watched them, aware as a mother wolf. When she whistled, they circled back. Elbrith was talking to Little Salla and wouldn’t be quiet until Alys made them sit apart. Then he sulked, but at least he sulked quietly.