“Possibly, but it sounds like it isn’t only food they offer. As for the trades, if it was just hair, that would make necromancy more likely, or even alchemy, but there doesn’t sound like there’s any pattern to the trades. Or it could all just be coincidence.”
Alec grinned. “Are the fish biting well enough for you now?”
“I think they just might be. Let’s start with that little girl in Yellow Eel Street.”
Braving the storm, they rode to the Sea Market and entered the temple. A drysian met them and led them through his small shrine to a smaller room beyond it.
A haggard, fair-haired woman knelt beside the pallet, watching as another drysian let some liquid drip between a little girl’s lips. The child was no more than seven, a golden-haired, blue-eyed little thing. She’d been bathed and put into a clean nightgown, Seregil noted. Too late again. The woman, presumably the mother, was in worn clothing, but remarkably clean for a Ring dweller. She glared fiercely up at the two well-dressed nobles approaching her girl.
“What do you want?” she demanded, her accent marking her as southern-born.
“We have an interest in this affliction,” Seregil told her. He went down on one knee on the other side of the pallet and took two silver sesters from his purse. “I’d just like to look her over a bit, and ask you a few questions.”
The woman hesitated, then snatched the coins “Go on, then.”
“How long has she been like this?”
“She fell ill yesterday morning.”
“Did you see her talking to any strangers?”
“An old woman give her a treat the other day.”
“Was the old woman one of what they call the raven people?” asked Alec, trying to mask his excitement.
“Never heard of any raven people. But she had the look of a beggar.”
“Did she make an odd trade?”
The woman gave him a surprised look. “She give Lissa the sweets for her broken doll.”
“Can you describe it?” asked Seregil.
“What, the doll? What you want to know that for?”
He held up another silver coin. “I have my reasons. Please, tell me.”
She accepted the coin. “The usual sort: flat baked red clay, with some lines scratched in for a face and hair.”
“And the old woman traded her a sweet for it?”
“Aye, that’s what Lissa said.” She looked sorrowfully down at her daughter. “Was it poison, sir? Why would anyone do a child so?”
“I wish I could tell you.”
Alec gently lifted the child’s head. “Her hair hasn’t been cut.”
“Are there any marks on her body?” Seregil asked the drysian.
“No,” the woman told him.
“What about the old woman?” Seregil asked the mother. “What did she look like?”
“I hardly noticed. I was scrubbing laundry-that’s my trade-and saw Lissa talking to her. She didn’t look evil, sir, just old and bent, in ragged clothes needing washing. She had on a kerchief, blue I think, pulled forward so I couldn’t make out all of her face. She did have a drinker’s nose, though, all red at the tip. She leaned on a knobby stick- Oh, and she had a few oddments hung from her girdle.”
“Like what?” asked Alec.
“I don’t know! What’s that to do with my girl?”
“It might help,” Alec replied.
The woman thought a moment. “A cat’s skull for one; I do
remember that, since it was so odd. The rest of it I couldn’t say, but there were more.”
“Did she hang the broken doll from her girdle, once she had it?” asked Seregil.
“I didn’t see. Like I said, I was at my washing. She just went off.”
Seregil took out another coin and gave it to her. “How long ago was all this?”
“Just two days, my lord.”
“Thank you. That’s most helpful. I’m very sorry about your little girl.”
“And I,” said Alec. “Maker’s Mercy on you both.”
“Thank you, sir, for not calling on the Old Sailor,” she said softly, stroking her daughter’s hair.
Astellus the Sailor-in addition to being the patron of those who fished and sailed-also ferried the dead to Bilairy’s gate. Seregil guessed Alec had invoked Dalna instead out of kindness.
Seregil left her there and drew the drysian out of the room. “Have you seen any others like this?”
“No, my lord, this is the first one that’s been brought to me. It’s the Lower City plague, isn’t it? The sleeping death?”
“Most likely. Please, Brother, will you send word to me when she dies?”
“Of course, my lord.”
Seregil gave him their address and they took their leave.
“Do you think it’s poison?” Alec asked as they headed back to Wheel Street. “She did give the girl something to eat.”
“But from what Kepi said, it wasn’t usually something to eat. I wish the mother could have told us what else the woman had hanging from her belt. You’d think if there had been hanks of hair she’d have noticed.”
“We have to go look, Seregil! It’s been two days already for Myrhichia. I think it’s time we considered magic again, too. And if it is magic, then how long before it spreads to the rest of the city?”
“I know. But in daylight.”
The villa in Wheel Street was closer to the Sea Market than the Stag and Otter, but they never worked out of there in disguise. Instead they returned to their rooms at the inn and spent the night there.
By morning the rain had turned to a muggy drizzle. Dressed in ragged clothes-Alec in his one-eyed beggar gear, Seregil in his broken-brimmed traveler’s hat held on with a ragged scarf and a rag wrapped around his left hand to cover the lissik-dyed dragon bite there-and patched oilskin capes, they made their way through the morning bustle to the great marketplace, managing to catch a ride in the back of a fishmonger’s cart most of the way. Once there, they talked their way past the guards; it was far easier getting into that part of the Ring than getting back out again.
Once through, they began a leisurely stroll up and down the winding, muddy paths that passed for streets here between the pitiful hovels.
The Upper City was surrounded by not one but two tall curtain walls, spaced several hundred yards apart. The area between, known as the Ring, was divided up into sections around its circumference, accessible by gates and put to various uses. The royal regiments kept horses in the long western corridor behind the Palace. The eastern section was given over to grazing, kept ready in case of siege. The poor populated the wards east of the Sea Market, and the poorest of the poor were pushed out into the southernmost section of the Ring, where they slapped up shacks or whatever paltry shelter they could manage.
It was also a refuge for blackguards of every stripe, making it more dangerous by far than the quarantined area below. Even the drysians were looked upon with suspicion here, and soldiers passed at their own peril.
The sturdiest-looking structure in view was a large lean-to that appeared to serve as the local tavern. There weren’t even any brothels here; the bawds practiced their trade in the open air or under whatever shelter they could find. There was stinking garbage everywhere, rooted through by hogs, dogs, and filthy children. Even in their plain, dirty garb, Seregil and Alec attracted beggar children.
“Get off, all of you!” Seregil growled, scooping up a stone and throwing it carefully to only graze the largest boy. “We got nothin’ for the likes of you!”
Used to such a reception, the children picked up rocks of their own and threw them with less compassion at Alec and Seregil, who had no choice but to run for cover at the tumbledown tavern. It wasn’t a very good showing for the ne’er-do-wells lounging on old crates and empty barrels in front under the eaves.
“You’re a fine pair of rogues,” a bald man with a scabrous scalp cackled as Seregil and Alec came to a halt in front of them. “Run off by the little ’uns.” He and his four compatriots stood up and started toward them. “Maybe you’d like to show us what you got in your purses, eh?”