She cocked her head. “So say something.”

  He laughed. “I never know what to say.”

  “Don’t just sit there like a snapping turtle,” she said. “It’s uncomfortable.”

  “I’m trying to think of the right thing to say. I think I got it. Your eyes are like two bright shiny coins. You dance like a silk ribbon.” He bought her a fresh drink. Her mug was gone to the dishwater behind the bar, and she thought maybe her soup bowl would be all right there.

  “I do not. Be careful what you wish for…”

  “I just might get it?”

  “No,” said Rachel, “Let me finish. Be careful what you wish for when a woman’s involved, because she’ll probably get what she wishes for instead and you won’t like it.”

  “What is it that you wish for?”

  “Better company.” Rachel pulled her chair away from him. “I’m leaving.” She stood up, and walked to the front where Djoss stood glowering at everyone. She handed her glass to him.

  “Hm? Oh, thanks.” He tossed the glass back.

  She walked out the door, and waved over her shoulder to her brother.

  “You just got here!” he called out to her.

  “Be safe,” she shouted.

  Alone, Rachel walked carefully along the way her brother had shown her. The odd merchant was still open, shouting at a man nearby. Rachel went to the back side of his cart and slipped a jar of pickled eggs from the display, holding it to her side while she walked away.

  She turned down the road to the bakery, cradling the eggs. She couldn’t remember if she liked pickled eggs or not. If she didn’t like them, she could give them to Djoss. He ate anything. They’d both gone hungry too many times to care much about liking the food they had.

  Inside her room, with the door locked, she listened to the sounds of the night. A voice cried out a woman’s name, and someone pounded on a building wall. Then it was quiet again.

  In the morning, she decided she was going to find Turco. She needed to get out, get working, like her brother did. The fear remained, always, but it couldn’t be the only emotion she allowed herself to feel.

  ***

  Jona had seen it all that night. He never told her about that. He had watched her, with Salvatore, not knowing who or what she was—who she was going to be. Jona thought a Senta ought to know better when a demon child was touching her hand.

  Salvatore was a fool for pursuing someone that might see through him, but Salvatore was lost in his own habits and loving a woman who didn’t quite fit among the people in the room around her, in the taverns of the night, or the secret temple.

  Jona followed Salvatore out of the tavern, into the street. He watched the thief walk up the same road after her. Watching this, disdain swelled up like an acrid belch from Jona’s heart. Salvatore had already forgotten Aggie.

  Salvatore was at the baker’s door. He was reaching for the handle. Jona shouted Salvatore’s name. Salvatore turned, startled, and Jona shook his head.

  The thief slammed the wall with his blackjack —then took off, running.

  ***

  The second time Jona saw Rachel, she was walking through the Pens, stopping at every servant’s door and asking for work. She looked familiar, and he couldn’t place her right away, in the daylight and a crowded street. How much love begins with déjà vu?

  Jona waved off Tripoli, and said he’d be back in a minute, he thought he recognized someone. Jona ran a little farther down the road. He saw her walking up to a man with a long moustache loitering at a red door. That red door wasn’t the kind of place Jona would go without a whole crew behind him, ringing bells and enough solid evidence to arrest everyone inside.

  The red-dressed man in the red door smiled like he knew her, but that’s always how these things were. Jona had seen these sorts of greetings. In a city street, anything could happen. A man could stand with a giant slab of meat on his leg on a street corner for hours. People could be running from nothing and everything. Tiny sparrows could be walking around among the legs of people as sure of step as if they were six feet tall. Jona saw a beautiful woman he thought he recognized in Senta leathers talking to some street gang’s watch-out man. It was so normal, but it was so strange. She didn’t like him, but she talked to him. He wouldn’t leave his place casually, because he was the watch-out man, but he got up for her and walked her down the street.

  Tripoli saw it, too, and took up step after Jona even though he’d been waved off. The two king’s men nodded at each other. Watch-out man walking anywhere got their attention, and he wasn’t leading another troublemaker. The crowd parted for them, but the two they followed didn’t seem to notice. Jona and Tripoli walked along behind the pair a while, watching from a distance.

  The watch-out man wore nothing but red. He was easy to spot in a crowd of so much dirt browns and burlaps. He walked her to a door. It was a brothel door. Sentas didn’t work brothels, and if she was a working girl, she was overdressed and not wearing any rouge or powder.

  Tripoli shook his head. “What do you think that’s about?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t like seeing watch-out men walking around like that. Don’t he care for what his people think?”

  “Probably nothing. His sister or something.”

  “Don’t see Sentas here much,” said Jona. “Never seen one with a watch-out man.”

  Jona felt the tickling of memory in the back of his mind. The tavern had been dark. The street had been dark. He had been too busy watching Salvatore to get more than a passing glance. Come daylight, she could have been anyone to him. She didn’t have to be anyone.

  If he had gone further, he’d have seen the Senta in a broom closet, going through the brushes and the rags. Then, he’d see her pulling sheets from a line. Turco took a cut of her first few weeks’ pay.

  That’s the story of her day, when she tells him about it. She worked a few nights, then moved on to a new brothel. Then another, when she thought the hallways were too bright during the day, and wanted to work at night. Her shadow was harder to miss at night. She stayed at that one a while, but Turco found out and he was taking a cut of her pay because he got her the job in the first place.

  Everybody needed another maid. Anyone who could would get more coin working in the bed than cleaning it, and it wasn’t so hard to lie back and encourage a man.

  By the time Jona remembered who she was, she had long since drifted into new jobs, and there was no finding her without raising people’s attention about it. She wasn’t with Salvatore, Jona knew. She was just a woman in the street, with a life as mysterious as anyone’s.

  CHAPTER XI

  Sergeant Calipari had his feet up on his desk, and a page torn out of an accounting book in his hands. He didn’t look up when Jona drifted in from the street. “Corporal Jona Lord Joni,” said Calipari, “You’re late.”

  Jona grunted and snatched the page from Calipari. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing, if the fellow I took it from is honest. A few missing digits, though.” Calipari leaned back in his chair. He shook his head at his Corporal. “You need to get more sleep. You look like you were out all night.”

  “Got drunk,” said Jona. “Threw rocks at ships. What’d you do?”

  “Franka’s boy came in town working for a fellow with some new horses. I took him to the dog fights. Kid lost big. I lost less,” Calipari said with a smile.

  “What’s going down today?” Jona gestured at the empty desks. “I don’t see the scriveners.”

  “They weren’t late. Got them on the rounds like anybody. Get the privates some experience for when they rank up to corporal. Sunshine’s good for their health.”

  Jona scoffed. “That’s a bad idea, Sergeant. You think they all come back in one piece?”

  “Maybe. Lieutenant wants us to head to Lord Sabachthani’s place. Trouble with some noble. You’re a noble, he says, so send you. Small stuff. Ain’t worth his time.”

  “You’d think he’d be falling head over heels to help her.”

  “You’d think,” said Calipari. “I heard she requested you personally. You making friends, Lord Joni?”

  Jona sat down. He didn’t like anything about being requested by Sabachthani. “I had tea with her once or twice.”

  “Big favor,” said Calipari. “She collects.”

  “I may be a lord, but I’m just a corporal. Can we at least get the Lieutenant?”

  “Huh, right, let me just ask him real nice…” said Calipari. “Nobody wants to get closer to Sabachthani than they have to. I’m coming with you. Nobody’s ordered me on it, but you can’t handle this by yourself.”

  Jona believed this was a set-up, but he couldn’t prove anything. The carpenter would think nothing of throwing Jona to the wolves. Sabachthani was more dangerous than wolves. Perhaps it was an accident of his time with Lady Sabachthani, but that was even worse. He didn’t want her attention. Either way, Calipari’s presence should have been a relief, but under the circumstances it worried Jona more than any conspiracy against him by man or bad luck.

  ***

  The doorman bowed and spoke into a tube that sank into the ground at his feet. He pressed his ear against the tube until vague sounds emerged from the tube that sounded almost human. The doorman bowed, and waved the two city guards up the main door.

  Jona tossed the fellow a coin. The doorman winked, and slipped the coins into a hidden pocket. Bribing the doorman was how Jona snuck into the parties during the dry season.

  Calipari hadn’t even seen it happen. He was busy trying to sneak a peak at the monsters hidden in the willow grove. They were barely visible behind the trees. A trail of mud was trampled down in the grass where the heavy things walked back and forth

  to the gate.

  In the yard, there was a conspicuous absence of birdsong.

  Calipari looked up at the house. “Do you think it was a servant?”

  “Maybe,” said Jona, “We’ll see. Do you know what got stolen?”

  Calipari shrugged. “Nope,” he said. “Bet it was a servant.” He gestured with his thumb at the willow grove. “Bet it was those things.”

  “You want to handle that hanging?”

  Calipari chuckled.

  Jona stretched his neck straight. He twisted his natural scowl into a big, fake smile. “You ready to introduce yourself?”

  Calipari smiled, too. He and Jona pulled little cards from pockets, printed with name, rank, and station house. Jona’s was grimy, and bent in the corner. Calipari’s was clean and white. Jona reached up to the main door and grabbed the knocker. The knocker was carved like whale’s open jaw and Jona pounded its heavy tongue.

  The doors swung inward. A butler bowed. “Guardsmen?” he said. “From the king?”

  “Sergeant Nicola Calipari, by your request.” The sergeant held out his card in one hand, offering the other for a shake. The butler took the card, and ignored the hand.

  “Lord Joni,” said Jona, his own card out and hand extended. The butler shunned even his card.

  The butler turned to Sergeant Calipari.“My Lord Sabachthani is indisposed. Perhaps the Captain could come calling tomorrow.”

  Jona snatched the butler’s hand and forced a quick shake. He shoved his card into the man’s lapel. “I was requested by Lord Sabachthani himself, and I’m here.” said Jona. He’d explain this to Calipari later. You can’t let the help push you around—they’re only the help. If you’re worth anything it’s your right to push.

  The butler turned to Jona. “I was addressing the commander.”

  Calipari barely hid his laugh behind a frown. “I’m no commander,” he said, “I’m just a sergeant. The estate asked for some king’s men, and we came. Can we help you, or not?”

  The butler gestured into the entryway. Jona and Calipari stepped inside.

  The butler left the two in the drawing room and disappeared. Calipari made to sit down on a giant leather divan, but Jona stopped him, pointing to the window. From here, the insect leg of one of a guardians could be seen jutting out from the willow grove.

  The seneschal entered from a door behind a bookshelf. To Jona, he looked no different from the butler: an older man, with the sniveling air of the courts about him, and no title or wealth to justify his behavior. When the talking started, Jona ignored it. Seneschals were nothing worth talking to. Calipari didn’t know that, nor did he realize he was being patronized by the proud seneschal.

  Jona looked out the window at the yard, waiting for anything.

  A pack of dogs ran across the grass like a yellow cloak blowing away in the winds.

  Jona shivered. Not one of them had made a sound.

  The seneschal could be stalling, hoping to get rid of them. Lady Ela, Sabachthani’s daughter, might come down at any moment. The house staff had their own political maneuverings.

  Jona and Lady Ela had last danced together when Jona sneaked into her last ball. Ela had heavy feet, and she tended to get lost in her own dress. She didn’t like to talk when she was dancing. She let Jona call her just Ela when no one was looking. If they ever found themselves alone in a crowded room, she liked to ask him about the people outside the walls of the Sabachthani estate, where the rest of Dogsland lived.

  He told her about the criminals he met, and the criminals he let walk away. He told her about the love affairs of men and women who do not have palaces.

  If Jona were richer, he might have gone so far as to call her a friend. As things stood, they only spoke when Jona had crashed a party to which he wasn’t invited. Sometimes, she invited him to tea at someone else’s house to show off how merciful she was to the less fortunate noblemen. This was the first time he had ever been in her home with her permission.

  The seneschal and Calipari were still talking and none of it mattered. The seneschal was trying to stall them until the masters of the house were truly unavailable. It was his job to get rid of people, even if they were requested. Lots of people were requested. If anyone else was visiting and they were more important, it didn’t matter what was stolen or what was wanted from the king’s man. Calipari didn’t even realize it. Jona could linger, and let this problem fester, face it another day. He could let the seneschal push them both into the street in an hour. Or, he could face this problem directly. The carpenter had liked Jona better when he had a hard touch.

  Jona coughed loudly, and snapped his finger at the seneschal. “Stop wasting our time. In criminal investigations, every minute counts. How exactly can the king’s men help Lord Sabachthani?”

  The seneschal held his breath. He paled. “No need to be rude, Lord Joni,” he said. “My Lord Sabachthani requests your assistance with the theft of a dog.”

  “His what?” said Calipari.

  The seneschal told them about the dog that was found in an Anchorite convent.

  Jona scoffed. “So the dog ran away,” he said, “and some nuns took it off the street. So what?”

  The seneschal nodded. “Yes, perhaps. However, the dog’s basket turned up in the convent as well,” he said, “and this basket wound up in the Mother Superior’s room.”

  Jona looked out the window. “Imam’s flock was never much for your fellow after that valley in the war,” he said.

  “How do they know it’s Lord Sabachthani’s basket?” said Calipari, “Can it be proven that the basket found in the convent is the one that went missing?”

  “Of course,” said the seneschal. “I’m afraid I know nothing else.”

  Jona stood up from the divan. He walked slowly over to the window. He turned, and stared down at the seneschal. He was tired of all the posturing. “So your master asks the assistance of the King, but cannot even bothered to send anybody down that knows anything?”

  “Corporal Lord Joni, my Lord Sabachthani is indisposed.”

  “What about the Lady of the house? Any noble asking king’s men to do their dirty work for them ought to do it face-to-face. Ain’t that the law as it is written?”

  “No need to be rude…”

  Jona dragged the old man to his feet by his lapels. Then Jona smashed his knee into the old man’s groin and threw him onto the floor.

  Jona turned to Sergeant Calipari. “Just the help,” he said. “He’s useless to us.”

  The seneschal gasped for air, his face twisted and red.

  Calipari stood up from the divan. “Lord Joni, I hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t think that was called for.”

  “Well, I think it was, and I’m the one they asked for. They demand I show my face, then refuse to look me in the eye? That’s rude. I’m still a nobleman, and they know it. If Lord Sabachthani doesn’t like us questioning his staff to our satisfaction, then he had better speak to us directly,” he said. “My throat is parched. Let’s go find the kitchen and see if we can’t get some tea. If our host was treating us with respect worthy of the king’s finest men, we’d have been offered tea ages ago.”

  “Jona, I hope you know what you’re doing…”

  “Don’t mind about the help. They’re pushing us around because they think they can. No way to let them treat you.

  I can’t remember where the kitchen is, but it’s around here somewhere.”

  The seneschal had crawled on his hands and knees to the door, in too much pain to stand. He got his hand on the door knob, but struggled to open it.

  The two soldiers walked off in no particular direction, away from the injured servant. Calipari stopped the first maid they saw and asked her for the way to the kitchen. Apparently, it was on the other side of the house. They moved in that direction.

  Calipari whistled. “Your place anything like this?”

  “No,” said Jona. “We sold all this furniture and stuff.”

  In the kitchen at last, the two men drank very expensive tea sweetened with golden sugar a soft, warm brown like expensive molasses. It was the first time Calipari had ever had sugar like that. He reached his hand into the huge bag of sugar and cupped out a handful, then licked it from his palm, amazed.

  Jona watched, curiously. It was the kind of thing a child would do. He didn’t get any sugar around his house, but he knew enough not to do that.

 

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