I limped up to them, using the wall as a crutch. They didn’t notice me until I was nearly on top of them. The younger one looked up at me and gasped.
I took a step closer. “Could one of you bring me food and a blanket? I can pay.” I held out my hand and was frightened by how much it shook. It was smeared with blood from when I had touched the side of my face. The inside of my mouth felt raw. It hurt to talk. “Please?”
They looked at me for a moment in stunned silence. Then they looked at each other and the older of the two motioned the other inside. The young girl disappeared through the door without a word. The older girl, who might have been sixteen, came closer to me and held out her hand.
I gave her the coin and let my arm fall heavily to my side. She looked at it and disappeared inside after a second long glance at me.
Through the open doorway I heard the warm, bustling sounds of a busy inn: the low murmur of conversation, punctuated with laughter, the bright clink of bottle glass, and the dull thump of wooden tankards on tabletops.
And, threading gently through it all, a lute played in the background. It was faint, almost drowned by the other noise, but I heard it the same way a mother can mark her child crying from a dozen rooms away. The music was like a memory of family, of friendship and warm belonging. It made my gut twist and my teeth ache. For a moment my hands stopped aching from the cold, and instead longed for the familiar feel of music running through them.
I took a slow, shuffling step. Slowly, sliding along the wall, I moved back away from the doorway until I couldn’t hear the music anymore. Then I took another step, until my hands hurt with the cold again and the ache in my chest came from nothing more than broken ribs. They were simpler pains, easier to endure.
I don’t know how long it was before the two girls came back. The younger one held out a blanket wrapped around something. I hugged it to my aching chest. It seemed disproportionately heavy for its size, but my arms were trembling slightly under their own weight, so it was hard to tell. The older girl held out a small, solid purse. I took it as well, clutching it so tightly my frostburned fingers ached.
She looked at me. “You can have a corner by the fire in here if you want it.”
The younger girl nodded quickly. “Nattie won’t mind.” She took a step and reached out to take my arm.
I jerked away from her, almost falling. “No!” I meant to shout but it came out as a weak croak, “Don’t touch me.” My voice was shaking, though I couldn’t tell if I was angry or afraid. I staggered away against the wall. My voice was blurry in my ears. “I’ll be fine.”
The younger girl started to cry, her hands hanging useless at her sides.
“I’ve got somewhere to go.” My voice cracked and I turned away. I hurried off as fast as I could. I wasn’t sure what I was running from, unless it was people. That was another lesson I had learned perhaps too well: people meant pain. I heard a few muffled sobs behind me. It seemed a long while before I made it to the corner.
I made it to my hidden place, where the roofs of two buildings met underneath the overhang of a third. I don’t know how I managed to climb up there.
Inside the blanket was a whole flask of spiced wine and a loaf of fresh bread nestled next to a turkey breast bigger than both my balled fists. I wrapped myself in the blanket and moved out of the wind as the snow turned to sleet. The brick of the chimney behind me was warm and wonderful.
The first swallow of wine burned my mouth like fire where it was cut. But the second didn’t sting nearly so much. The bread was soft and the turkey was still warm.
I woke at midnight when all the bells in the city started ringing. People ran and shouted in the streets. The seven days of High Mourning were behind us. Midwinter was past. A new year had begun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Burning Wheel
I STAYED TUCKED INTO my secret place all that night and woke late the next day to find my body had stiffened into a tight knot of pain. Since I still had food and a little wine I stayed where I was rather than risk falling when I tried to climb down to the street.
It was a sunless day with a damp wind that never seemed to stop. Sleet gusted under the protection of the overhanging roof. The chimney was warm behind me, but it wasn’t enough to actually dry out my blanket or drive away the chilly damp that soaked my clothes.
I finished the wine and the bread early on, and after that I spent most of my time gnawing at the turkey bones and trying to warm up snow in the empty wine flask so I could drink it. Neither proved very productive, and I ended up eating mouthfuls of slushy snow that left me shivering with the taste of tar in my mouth.
Despite my injuries I dropped off to sleep in the afternoon and woke late at night filled with the most wonderful warmth. I pushed away my blanket and rolled away from the now too-hot chimney only to wake near dawn, shivering and soaked through to the skin. I felt strange, dizzy and fuddled. I huddled back against the chimney and spent the rest of the day drifting in and out of a restless, fevered sleep.
I have no memory of how I made it off the rooftop, delirious with fever and nearly crippled. I don’t remember making my way the three-quarters of a mile through Tallows and the Crates. I only remember falling down the stairs that led to Trapis’ basement, my purse of money clutched tight in my hand. As I lay there shivering and sweating I heard the faint slapping of his bare feet on the stone.
“What what,” he said gently as he picked me up. “Hush hush.”
Trapis nursed me through the long days of my fever. He wrapped me in blankets, fed me, and when my fever showed no signs of breaking on its own, he used the money I’d brought to buy a bittersweet medicine. He kept my face and hands wet and cool while murmuring his patient, gentle, “What what. Hush hush,” while I cried out from endless fever dreams of my dead parents, the Chandrian, and a man with empty eyes.
I woke clear-headed and cool.
“Oooohreeee,” Tanee said loudly from where he was tied to his cot.
“What what. Hush hush, Tanee.” Trapis said as he put down one of the babies and picked up the other. It looked around owlishly with wide, dark eyes, but seemed unable to support its own head. It was quiet in the room.
“Ooooooohreeee,” Tanee said again.
I coughed, trying to clear my throat.
“There’s a cup on the floor next to you,” Trapis said, brushing a hand along the head of the baby he held.