Sworn in Steel (19 page)

“You have history in el-Qaddice, don’t you?” I said.

“I’m a degan: I have history many places.”

“Yes, but this place is special, isn’t it?” I said. “You said ‘attempt’; that you’d attempt the city. That tells me you think you may not be able to get
in, that you may not be of any use to me in there.”

“I will gain entry,” he said. “Do not doubt that, Kin. But it’ll take some arranging, and it’s better for me—and you—if I enter the city after you and
your tribe of squabbling children are already inside. The less attention you draw to me, or I to you, the better.”

My eyes narrowed. “What kind of attention?”

“The kind that might keep us out of the city. Or make the padishah shy away from offering his patronage. Or attract the eyes or ears of the man we’re hunting.” Wolf corked the
wine skin. “It’s the last I worry about the most: If he sees me before you find him, he may get the wrong idea. I don’t need him vanishing again. I don’t have the
time.”

“Have you considered Degan may get the wrong idea when he sees me, too?” I said.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“You’re not a degan; he won’t assume you’re there to kill him. And even if he did, you’re not a threat.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Wolf stood and showed me his teeth. “I expect you to be in the Old City of el-Qaddice within a week,” he said. “Two at the most.”

“And if it takes longer? From what I hear, it’s not as if the padishah is sitting outside the gates, waiting for the next troupe to roll in from Ildrecca.”

“You’re the Gray Prince,” he said. “Figure it out. Besides, the longer we take here, the longer you’re away from—and the greater the threat becomes
to—your people back in Ildrecca.” Wolf gestured at the sinking sun. “Time is a friend to neither of us in this.”

I didn’t move as Wolf sketched a brief bow and returned to camp; rather, I turned my eyes back to el-Qaddice. The pilgrims were gone from the road now, and the Lower City was already in
the long shadows of evening. I sat there on the ground, watching the darkness creep up from the valley and wash over the walls and domes of the Old City, and wondered, again, just what exactly Wolf
was up to.

“A
adi el-Amah?” said the Djanese bravo feigning ignorance as he looked down at me. He stroked the twin braids of his beard. Neither had
a brass ring at its end, which told me he was for hire, should I be so inclined. I wasn’t.

We were standing off to the side of a busy side street in the Lower City, traffic jostling and passing us by in the dusty heat. I wiped at the sweat gathering below my kaffiyeh and waited for
him to tell me if he knew the
Zakur
I was looking for. I suspected I already knew the answer I was going to get.

“I know an Aadi,” said the mercenary slowly, “but his tribe name is Marud. Could that be who you mean?”

“No,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “It’s Amah.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He nodded, then lifted his head and looked about the street. After a moment, he perked up. Then he yelled, “Hai, Daud!”

Across the street and several yards down, an even larger man, clothed in the short linen vest, loose breeches, yellow stockings, and low red boots of a street mercenary turned his head our
way—as did half the passing traffic. I winced.

“Hai, Gilan!” Daud stopped but didn’t come over.

“This little Imperial is looking for someone named Aadi el-Amah,” shouted my bravo, pointing at me. “Do you know him?”

Numerous heads on the street pivoted to wait for Daud’s reply.

“I know a Aadi el-Murad,” shouted Daud. “Is that who he means?”

The heads pivoted back toward us.

My man, Gilan, looked down at me. “You’re sure it’s not Murad?”

I glared.

“It’s not Murad,” yelled Gilan.

“Have you tried asking Yusef ben—”

I cursed and stormed away. Roars of deep, coarse laughter followed after me.

A block later, I turned onto a twisting side street. Halfway down, I came to a teahouse. I stopped under the awning to catch my breath. And to smile.

We’d been in the Lower City for six days now, and I’d been working the streets for five of them. It had been hard. I’d forgotten how slow, frustrating, and time-consuming it
could be to step into a new town without any kind of connections or weight. The last time I’d been in a remotely similar situation was when I’d first come to Ildrecca with Christiana in
tow. Back then, I’d been too naive, not to mention too busy trying to survive, to know when I was doing poorly: missing a cue, getting the brush-off, being fed a line of shit. Now, though, I
was able to recognize when it was happening—the only problem was, I didn’t have the influence or reputation to do anything about it.

As it was, I only had Aadi’s name because of my time spent with the caravan master and his drivers on the trail. Turned out that two of them were from el-Qaddice. After a week or so of
sharing their fire, I’d started to learn something about the Lower City; after another several days, I’d begun to get hints and clues about its darker workings as well. I hadn’t
known whether I would need them or not—the goal, after all, was to pass the audition so I could have full access to the entire city and look for Degan—but I’ve found that learning
as much as you can about how the shadows of a place work before you get there is never a bad thing.

That was the case now, especially since it looked as though we weren’t going to be getting our audition anytime soon. As it turned out, auditions for the padishah only happened once a
month. The next set of auditions were in three days. Our place in line meant we wouldn’t be up for two months.

I didn’t have the ready, or the time, to wait two months. Which was why I was working the street, looking for the one
Zakur
whose name kept coming up again and again whenever I
talked to people about making arrangements to adjust our place in line. Aadi el-Amah was the man to talk to if you wanted the fix put in.

He was also damn hard to find.

I didn’t exactly think that was an accident. Local reticence aside, I was not only an Imperial in the middle of the Despotate; I was also a Kin among the
Zakur
. Just as we kept
what passed for the Djanese underworld at arm’s length back home, so they did the same to us here. Only, in el-Qaddice, my job was that much harder due to the lack of any kind of true Kin
presence in the city. Oh, there were a few Imperial Prigs here and there, and even a couple of patchwork gangs in the Lower City, but none of them worked under any kind of higher authority. There
was no one with status here, no one with any connections back home I could leverage. Here, among the Imperials, it was every cove for himself, which meant I didn’t have anyone to fall back on
except myself.

Naturally, Tobin and company had offered to fill in. The troupe master had suggested they play the streets or, if that failed, maybe try to pass themselves off as merchants or pilgrims or
smugglers. Anything, he said, his eyebrows waggling conspiratorially, in hopes of catching a whisper or two for me.

It was all I’d been able to do to convince them to stay in the caravansary and work on their audition piece. The last thing I needed was half my ticket in to the Old City either dead or
locked away for some infraction or another.

As for Fowler, she’d simply wanted to watch my blinders. And while I appreciated the offer, the idea of a tiny, angry blond woman following along in my wake in a city of dark-haired,
deep-complexioned Djanese hadn’t exactly shouted subtlety to me. Better, I’d persuaded her, she stay behind and keep an eye on our Boardsmen. She hadn’t been pleased, but
she’d agreed.

Still, even with no one on my blinders, it felt good to be out. To stalk new streets for the first time; to puzzle out how rumors flowed in a different city; to not be weighed down by history or
expectations or reputation. I’d long ago learned to read the tapestries of information that made up the street in Ildrecca, but here? Here, each pattern was fresh, each rumor a new test. Was
it truth? Lies? Part of a greater piece, or something that could be cast aside? And was I paying a fair price for it?

It was, in a word, exhilarating, and I ate it up.

I glanced back the way I’d come to make sure the bravos hadn’t decided to follow, then took a seat at one of the low communal tables outside the tea shop. The three men who had been
sitting there—two Djanese and a Rissuli horse priest—gave me an irate look, then pointedly picked up their tea bowls and moved to the next table, even though there were already two
other men there. When one of the Djanese realized he’d left his plate of sweet wafers behind, he turned back, only to discover I’d already helped myself.

“Mmm, almond,” I said in Djanese, holding one up before taking a bite.

He eyed the sword at my hip, then Degan’s at my back, scowled some more, and turned back to his companions.

“The wafers cost six
supp
,” said an uncertain voice behind me. I turned to find a nervous-looking girl at my back, her eyes purposely fixed on the table. She wore a simple
shirt with embroidery fraying at both neck and sleeves, and a long underdress. Her feet were bare. She was maybe thirteen summers.

“Really?” I said.

She hesitated and glanced back over her shoulder. A dour, rotund, bearded face ducked back behind the curtain that hung across the door to the interior of the shop.

“No, not really,” she admitted. Her eyes returned to the table. “My uncle said to tell you that.”

“Why?”

“I think he’s afraid to tell you to leave.”

“Smart man. How much do you usually charge for the sweets?”

“Two.”

“Did the three who were just here already pay for them?”

Pause. “Yes.”

I sent a cool glance at the wavering curtain.

I reached into my pocket and drew out a silver
dharm
, along with five copper
supp
. “The silver’s for you, for being brave,” I said, leaning forward so I could
drop the square coins into her hand without it being visible from the shop’s doorway. She gasped, her eyes wide. “Hide it, then give your uncle the copper and tell him I want another
plate of sweets and two pots of tea with honey. Tell him that if he tries to cheat me again, I’ll show him exactly why he should be afraid of me.”

The girl put her hands on her waist, bobbed an enthusiastic thanks, and hurried back into the shop.

I picked up another wafer.

“That’s not a very good way to ingratiate yourself with the local
Zakur
,” said a voice off to my left.

“I’m Imperial, and I’m Kin,” I said, pointedly keeping my eyes on the street. “I’m not exactly popular with your people as it is.”

“Yes, but there’s unpopular, and then there’s stupid.” The man’s voice sounded as if it might have once been a mellow tenor; now it rattled like a dry riverbed.
“A woman called ‘Act of Kindness’ runs this neighborhood. She doesn’t like people threatening the merchants under her protection.”

I gave in and looked up at him. “‘Act of Kindness’?” I said. “You’ve got to be joking.”

The gray-haired man standing beside my table shrugged. “She’s of the Sharkai,” he said, naming her tribe as if that were explanation enough. “What can you do?” He
sat.

Aside from his voice, he was unremarkable: shallow cheeks, sun-dark skin, a week’s worth of beard that could either be left to grow or shaved off, depending on whether or not he needed to
change his appearance. The small green cap he wore atop his head did little to hide his vanishing hairline, while an ankle-length thobe concealed everything else.

I pushed the plate with the last wafer over. He eyed it a moment, then nodded once and picked it up. A Djanese sharing my hospitality: No one was going to be killing anyone at the moment.

“What you did with the Red Boots back there?” he said as he took a bite. “Getting them to start yelling my name across the street? Not bad.”

“You liked that, did you?”

“Like it?” said Aadi el-Amah. “I’ll have every street urchin within three districts knocking at my door, telling me there’s an Imperial hunting me and hoping for a
coin for the trouble. If I’m lucky, the
Zakur
sheikhs won’t call me in to ask why someone was shouting my—and therefore, potentially their—business up and down the
street. Any criminal of standing will be avoiding me for days, worried I’m becoming either too old to keep my business private or too well known to keep theirs secret. You’ve cost me at
least a week’s worth of work, maybe more.”

“Still, it got your attention.”

“Pshh!” he said, a fine spray of wafer crumbs flying over the table. He wiped his mouth and took another bite. “Boy, you’ve had my attention ever since you started asking
about me four days ago—”

“Five.”

“Only as of sundown today, and the sun’s still up. Don’t interrupt. I’ve known you’ve been after me since you started.”

“And you let me linger on the street because . . . ?”

“I don’t know you. And you’re Kin. And those actors you travel with give you too much room for you to be a simple Soft Palm or Winder. You don’t carry yourself like a
typical footpad or highwayman, even when you’re working the streets in the Lower City.” He pushed the empty plate away. “Until you got those two fools braying like mules, I was
inclined to ignore you; now, though, I’m curious. And more than a bit annoyed. Were it only one or the other, I could walk away, but together?” He shrugged. “I’m the kind of
man who has to scratch his itches. And you, Imperial—you itch.”

I regarded him as the tea arrived. The girl filled my bowl first, then Aadi’s, and proceeded to linger until I sampled it. It was good: deep and floral, with the faintest undertone of
honey. Her hand might be light, but it was also deft. I nodded my approval and she fluttered away.

Aadi sipped his own tea, added more honey, and sipped again. He nodded.

“You know what I do?” he said.

“You’re a Fixer,” I said.

He smiled without looking up from his bowl. “An imperial term. What is one who is a Fixer?”