The Hidden City (20 page)

The kitchen was cramped, narrow, cut by cupboards and one measly counter. But she had the idea that these two were used to small spaces, besides which, her room had daggers and other mess that she didn't want strangers to see.

She pushed the second chair toward the table, and told Arann to sit. Arann hesitated for a fraction of a minute, and then he joined Lefty. But he was still and watchful, where Lefty seemed almost frenetic.

She began to cut apples, cheese, and bread. There were plates, but again, only two; Rath didn't believe in owning more than was necessary. And Rath never brought friends home. If he had any.

Her mother's upbringing took hold. They were
guests
. Jewel didn't need to eat, not yet, and they were obviously hungry. Hungry and wet. She was wet, too, and dry clothing was in easy reach—but she wasn't an idiot; even if Farmer Hanson
did
like these two, she wasn't about to leave them alone in Rath's place.

But she had a sense, watching them, listening to their silence between slicing, that had she
had
her own place, she could have. There was something about Arann that she instantly trusted. Instinct, not feeling, but her instincts were usually pretty good. Good enough to trust.

So she dripped, as they did, standing while they sat. When she was finished, she brought two plates to the table and put them down, one in front of either boy. “We have water,” she added.

“Seen enough water today,” Arann replied, with just the hint of a smile.

Lefty looked at her, and Jewel waited. When she realized he wasn't going to ask, she went and fetched him a cup of water and put that on the table as well.

“What's that?” Lefty asked Arann, as if Jewel weren't really there. He pointed to the wood stove.

“For burning things,” Arann replied. “It's warm in the rainy season.”

Jewel nodded. They'd always had a stove, but they hadn't always had firewood for it. Rath wouldn't have that problem.

Arann looked at Jewel when he was halfway done. He chewed, swallowed, and straightened up slightly. His expression was friendly. “You went to market for something?” he asked her.

Had she actually
bought
anything, she would have lied. But there didn't seem to be much point; she'd already exposed the only thing she could do worth lying about. “Yeah,” she said. “Farmer Hanson asked me to stop by.”

“You know the farmer?”

“Same as you,” she replied. “He didn't catch me stealing food. But he did let me know he knew.”

“You work for him, too?”

She shook her head. “I'm not big enough. Like Lefty.”

“What did he want you to stop by for?”

“To see you two.”

Arann was quiet. After a moment, he said, “Why?”

She shrugged and went back to the counter; it was easier to answer this question when he wasn't looking at her face. “I have some money now. Don't know how long it will last. I buy everything from him,” she added, “and I still have some money left over. I told him to keep it. He wouldn't until I told him it was for other kids. Like me.”

“He wanted you to help us?”

She shrugged again. “Maybe.” And turned. “Look, you're wearing clothing that didn't fit you a year ago. And it's the rainy season. And it's going to snow this year. It's going to be a damn cold Winter. I gave him enough money the other day that he thought about buying clothing for you.”

“Jay,” Arann said quietly, “how long have you been in the streets?”

“My father died this year. In the shipyard.”

Arann nodded, as if that explained anything. Maybe it did. She looked at them, started to ask them the same question, and stopped, seeing the way Lefty tried—always—to hide his right hand. Seeing the start of a pale, slender scar on Arann's forearm, where the sleeve was just too damn short to cover it all. Seeing the hunger in them, the lankiness, the darkness of skin that spoke of too many different kinds of exposure.

There were stories in all of it, and none of them stories she could ask for. They lay across skin and beneath it, hidden and private.

“I know you've had it harder than I have,” she said quietly. “I know that
so many
of us have it harder than I did.” She hadn't, truly, until this moment. It was something she knew, the way one knew a boat existed, but not the way a sailor knew the truth of its wood and its sloping motion across the water.

“It doesn't matter to me, what you've done. In the streets,” she added, “we all do what we have to. I've done things I'm not proud of. And I'm certain I'll do more of them, if there's no way out.” She wiped her hands on her tunic, and looked at them both.

“You can't live here,” she said quietly. “But if you need help, come here, and I'll do what I can to help you.”

Arann met her gaze and held it. There was something in the set of his tight mouth that reminded her, inexplicably, of her Oma. But he didn't say what her Oma would have said. He swallowed it.

Jewel wondered if the streets could have forced that bitter swallow out of her Oma; she doubted it.

Lefty rose and looked at Arann, and only at Arann. But when he spoke, he offered an almost inaudible thank you.

Funny, how manners did matter. Even here, in the thirty-fifth holding, between children whose parents no longer existed to care about them.

She saw them out, letting Arann unbolt the high lock because it meant she wouldn't have to drag the chair from the kitchen to do it herself; there wasn't much room for a chair, herself and Arann; Lefty was so slight he hardly made a difference.

When they left, she leaned against the door, listening for their footsteps. She listened there a long time, and silence returned again to the home she shared with Rath.

Those two boys were strangers. And they didn't talk much. But by presence alone they alleviated the silence she hated, and although she knew them only as boys that Farmer Hanson trusted, she found herself missing them.

Chapter Six

RATH PAUSED AT the door. It was late; dawn had not yet wedged itself across the horizon, but it would, and light—what there was of it, in these cursed and interminable rains—would make itself felt. Had, in fact, already begun to make itself felt. He was exhausted, bruised, and hungry.

But he was also instantly wary.

Although he had left strict instructions with Jewel, his absence had been long enough that he expected her ability to obey them to flag. Bending, he touched a slender wire; the door had certainly been opened.

It was not, however, open now. He unlocked the bolts and felt them resist the key in his hand; humidity had thickened the door slightly. The lock, however, turned smoothly and he let himself in. He carried only a magestone for light, and the light it cast was low. A single word brightened it, revealing the long stretch of empty hall, and the closed doors on either side.

He was aware of movement to his left before he turned to lock the door behind him; Jewel was awake. He wondered if she'd slept at all, and waited, as the sounds of rustling cloth drifted into the creak of floorboards. Not even a mouse could wander here without evidence of its weight.

Jewel's door opened. Her hair was more of a mess than usual; clearly, she'd tried to sleep while it was wet, and had achieved a flattened wedge composed of dark curls that still trailed the edge of her eyes.

“Rath?”

Tired, he nodded.

She trudged past him before he could speak—not that he intended to—and went into the kitchen. Paused, came back, and pulled the magestone from his palm. When she had first come to live with him, she had chattered constantly. It had taken a week or more before she finally realized that the chatter set his teeth on edge. He had survived this long by living alone, and knew it in a way that he could not easily dislodge.

She said nothing. He walked past the kitchen to his room; the satchel he carried was heavy, and he wished to deposit it someplace that wasn't his shoulders or his back. By the time he finished, she had also finished; he heard the knock at his door and he grunted.

She pushed it open with one hand, carrying a plate with another. “I went to the market,” she said quietly. “You must be hungry.”

As he was, he nodded almost curtly. He spoke a word and the light dimmed; she would see the bruises in the morning, and even if she was too wise to ask what had caused them, the worry would shadow her eyes. Her concern was more than he wanted to deal with now.

But she stood in the door, having put the plate on the flat of his desk, and she watched him for a long time.

Long enough that he realized she was waiting for attention. “What?”

She started to speak, stopped, and shook her head, retreating. He wanted her to retreat, and did nothing to stop her.

Morning came quickly, and Rath was inclined to ignore it. Jewel, on the other hand, did not; he could hear her steps, the clattering of things in the kitchen, the movement of the bucket as it hit the lower left leg of the table. He had to remind himself that she was ten; she was so determined, it was easy to forget. Or perhaps, if he were being truthful, he wanted to forget it. Living with a child had been no part of his life's plan, and it caused him a distinct unease every time he saw her when she was quiet, or sleeping, or pensive—because at those times, she looked her age.

At those times, she reminded him of a past that he loathed, and he could feel that old anger spill over. A bit of a bind, that; he hated the chatter and the noise of animation, but the lack of it had other costs.

He watched her disappear with her buckets, the brace slack against her slender shoulders. He'd taken the time to follow her three days running, and had seen for himself how she interfered in the lives of strangers, making them, by the odd kindness of her actions, less strange. Less threatening. She helped the elderly, she chided the young, she paused to play at sticks and hoops with some of them while she waited her turn in line. She talked. A lot.

Her flyaway hair in her eyes, her skin pale, her lips turned up in a smile, he regretted almost everything about her life, although he knew little enough about it. What she had said, and what she had not said, made little difference; watching her, it was clear to Rath that she'd been wanted, she'd been loved, and she'd been protected. The protection had not been gentle, clearly, but it had planted the seed of a similar instinct, and he watched its slow flowering with a kind of dread fascination.

Seeing, again, another girl.

Another life.

After the third day, he didn't bother to trail after her. “Jewel.”

“Yes?” Her voice drifted in from the hall. He heard the scrape of the chair as she dragged it to the door, and wondered if she would live long enough in his shadow that she would one day be able to leave without standing on it.

“Wear the oiled shirt. It's raining.”

He knew she wouldn't. She hated the smell and the feel of it, and it was far too large for her. Anything that made her look younger was instantly despised. The door opened, and the door closed. Rath waited until she was gone, and then began to eat. The rain fell against the window as wind caught it; the patter of its fall shifted as the same wind did.

He felt certain that she was going to do something stupid one day.

But he had, and he knew better. He'd invited her into his home.

 

When Jewel returned, an hour and a half had passed. The well was almost flooded, but it was also almost deserted. Only people who had no money or space for rain barrels stood in the diminished line, hair hanging about their faces, buckets slipping in wet palms. She'd carried water for a spindly older woman before she'd filled her own bucket—had, in fact, paused to empty her buckets in order to ease their weight while she carried the bucket of a stranger. The old woman was familiar, but not enough that she chose to tell Jewel her name; Jewel was polite enough not to ask for what wasn't offered. Street polite.

Jewel was determined that the old woman would one day offer her at least a name, and she was persistent. Today, although there was little cause for it, the woman had actually smiled, her slack lips rising on the left, and only the left, side of her face. She spoke about her daughter, a woman that Jewel had never seen. Given how old the woman was, the daughter was either ancient or dead.

Which was why Jewel never asked. Street polite: never ask. Just accept.

After she returned with the day's water, she left for the Common with a handful of coin and an empty basket. Rath was in his room, and the door was closed. She stood in front of it, dripping, her hand an inch from its hard surface. But in the end, she chose not to knock. Rath was busy.