She began working her way west again, drifting in and out of taverns as the afternoon latened, ignoring shouted offers from traders, shipmasters, sailors, and others who mistook her purpose, ignoring caustic comments from several tavernkeepers who objected to her presence or the presence of Yaril in their taprooms. As shadows crept across the streets and out onto the river, she came to a quiet rather shabby structure near the western wall. Her feet were starting to give out, her knees were tired of bending and she was about ready to quit. How easy once she was out of sight and touch for Sam mang to change his mind, call himself a fool, head for pleasanter waters.
Without much hope she pushed through the door, stood looking around, squinting against the gloom, trying to make out the faces of the dark forms seated at tables about the room. The man behind the bar came round it and crossed the room, a little rotund man without much force to him.
“We don’t want children in here. You should be ashamed of yourself, woman, using a baby like that in the business. Go on, get out of here, go on, go go go.” He waved pudgy hands at her like a farmwife shooing chickens out of the kitchengarden.
She glared down at him, her patience pushed beyond its limit. “You calling me a whore, little man?”
He winced. “No need for hard words, what do I care what you do? Just don’t do it here.”
“What I’m going to do here is sit myself down and have a bowl of wine and my young friend is going to do likewise.” She pushed past him and went to one of the stools at the bar, swung up on it and sat massaging her knees. Yaril climbed up beside her, sat with her small chin propped on her palms, her elbows braced against the aged dark wood.
A chuckle came from one of the darker corners. Brann’s stomach turned over and she felt breathless as she recognized the voice. Sammang came into the light, stopped beside her. “I greet you, witch. So you made it.”
The little man started, opened his eyes wide, set a winebowl in front of her, one in front of Yaril, shoved the jug at her and backed hastily away without waiting for payment. She slanted a glance at Sammang, filled the bowls and sipped at the wine, sighing with pleasure as the warmth spread though her. “So I did.”
He reached round her, caught the jug by its neck, went back to the table. Yaril giggled. Brann scowled at her. “Finish that and go stand guard, if you don’t mind.”
Yaril nodded, gulped down the rest of the wine. Ignoring the goggling eyes of the barman, she wriggled off the stool and trotted out.
Brann squared her shoulders, slipped off the stool and marched with her bowl to the table in the corner where Sammang sat waiting for her. She set the bowl down with a loud click, pulled out a chair, dropped into it and scraped it close enough to the table so she could lean on crossed arms and look past him or at him as she chose. “Who’s with you?”
“All of ‘em; said they’d swim the whole damn river if I tried leaving them behind.” He filled the bowl, pushed it toward her. “Relax, Bramble, I’m not going to jump your bones out here.”
“Hunk! What about the Girl?” She sipped at the wine, her elbows braced on the wood to keep her hands from shaking, avoiding his eyes except for quick glances.
“I circled round by Perando, picked up a cousin of mine and his crew. He’s got her tucked away up the coast a bit. When did you get in?”
“Yesterday. You?”
“A week ago; been doing some trading, lucked into a few things that should pay expenses. Yesterday, mmm. Haven’t located your folk yet?”
“The children are going out again tonight. Tell Jimm to knock his totoom for me and stir up some luck; sooner this is done, the easier I’ll be.” She rubbed at the nape of her neck, frowned at the tabletop. There was a stirring in her that had nothing to do with the way Sammang made her feel, a sense of tidal forces moving that frightened her for herself, for her kin, for Sammang and the troupe, for everyone and everything she valued. She reached for the bowl, gulped more of the wine down and forced herself to ignore that fear.
“We’re ready to go when you are.”
She glanced at him, looked away. “I could know more tomorrow. Maybe we could meet here to make plans?” She had to fight to keep her voice steady. “If you’re staying here?”
He reached out, closed his hand around hers. “Finish your wine and come upstairs.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve decided face value’s good value. I missed you.”
“I… I hoped…” She emptied the bowl and stood, swaying as the rush of the wine made her dizzy. Sammang reached out to steady her. His touch was fire, more disrupting than the wine. The first time they’d come together in the cabin of his ship, it’d been easy and natural as breathing, this was more deliberate, colder… no not cold, far from cold… but planned, not a sweet happening, but a deliberate step taken in full understanding of what she was doing. She was nervous and uncertain, afraid she couldn’t please him this time. “The barman?” Her voice was a silly squeak; she flushed with embarrassment.
“None of his business, Bramble-without-thorns.” Sammang touched her cheek. “Relax, little witch, we’ve plenty of time.”
FED UP TO FULL strength from the rats and snakes of the Quarter (Brann didn’t want angry ghosts shouting her presence to the night winds and maybe Temueng-ears), Yaril and Jaril flew out her window and swept on wide owl wings across the lake to the great pile resting on the roots of fire-hearted Cynamacamal. Brann hitched a hip on the windowsill and watched them vanish among the cloud shreds, staying where she was a while longer, enjoying the damp cool wind blowing up from the river. A long day. It was full dark before she could wrench herself from Sammang’s side, getting back to the inn just in time to celebrate Taguiloa’s success. Then she had to go out again on the feeding hunt. Now she sat in the window, her thin silk robe open to the nudge of the soft wind, remembering the feel of the solid powerful body next to hers, the smell of him, the hard smoothness of his skin, the spring of his hair. She watched the Wounded Moon rise over the Wall, up thin and late, dawn only a few hours away, feeling within herself a deep-down purring that was not a part of her, a little angry at it, unhappy that it was there, hoping Sammang wasn’t aware that he’d pleasured Slya perhaps as much as he’d pleasured her. She stretched and yawned, slid off the windowsill, padded across to the bed, dropping the robe to the floor as she moved, sinking into the flock mattress, sinking deep deep into a dreamless sleep.
Yaril and Jaril circled over the main pile of the palace, wheeled away as something wary and malevolent down there smelled them out and reached for them, long invisible fingers combing the air. They spiraled higher and stopped thinking, only-owls for a while, until they felt the fingers coil back down, felt the palace folding in on itself like a blood lily come the dawn. They drifted a while longer through the clouds, then went back to their swoops over the grounds, locating the guard barracks, the crowded warrens where the servants lived, the far more spacious and luxurious quarters of the Imperial dapples and the carefully tended fields where those monsters ran, the workshops and greenhouses, the foundry, the glass-making furnaces, the kitchen gardens, working their way out and out until they came to a new structure tucked into the folds of the mountain, an isolated compound still stinking of green cement and raw lumber. High walls, a guard tower overlooking a heavy barred gate. Torches burning low to light the space about the gate, lamps inside the tower, guards drowsing there but ready enough to come awake at a sound. The owls sailed across the wall and fluttered down onto a rooftree, then melted into light shimmers and slipped inside through the rooftiles.
Workshops. Spacious. Well-equipped, though there were no steel tools about. Locked up or carried away for the night, or for times when the tool users were sufficiently tamed that the tools wouldn’t be a danger to them or the guards. The light smears zipped through the shops and passed into the living quarters. Room after empty room, then a sleeper, another, then more empty rooms. In all that vast place there were only twelve, of the twoscore gone to the Fair there was only a bare dozen left. Despite what the pimush had said-perhaps had said to escape a drawn-out dying-the Temueng soldiers had not been tender with the Arth Slya slaves. The changechildren wondered briefly if the Emperor still expected his double-hundred slaves from the Valley, wondered if the sribush in charge of the invasion forces had gotten tired of waiting and sent Noses prowling to find out what happened to the pimush and his captives.