'You're blushing,' came a voice nearby.
It was Lena, standing right behind him in the crowd, her eyes narrowed against the sunlight. She looked pretty like that, without the usual frown cooling her Pathian features.
'It's hot,' he told her, and Lena's thin lips curled at the corners. With a tone of suspicion in his voice, he continued: 'I didn't notice you standing there.'
'I was following you,' she admitted, matter-of-factly. 'To make sure… you know… that you were all right.'
He did not believe that. So far, Lena had not shown herself overly concerned with the welfare of others. He wondered what she was after.
'Listen,' she continued, 'I'm sorry about your dog. Really. But we need to do something, Nico. We need to eat soon.'
He shrugged. 'They won't be handing out any more keesh until tomorrow. Anyway, I'm thinking it might be time for me to go home.'
'You don't really want to do that, do you?'
'Hardly.'
'Good, because I have a much better idea, if you're interested. A way for us to make some money.'
Ah, he thought. Here it comes.
She was standing close enough for one breast to brush across his front. That shocked him, physically, even more so because he suspected it was no accident. Nico studied her from beneath the brim of his hat, wondering, not for the first time, what it might be like to kiss her.
'Why do I have a feeling I won't like this?' he asked, his voice sounding coarse.
Lena swiped a lock of dark hair aside from her face, and spoke softly, intimately. 'Because you won't. But we don't have many choices left to us, do we?'
*
The asago rasped across the rooftops of Bar-Khos, bearing with it the fine grains of the Alhazii desert six hundred laqs to the east. The dust stung Nico's eyes and he squinted, grimacing, wanting to be down from here. He was not comfortable with heights.
Nico could clearly see the Shield from his rooftop vantage, and the Mount of Truth topped with its scalp of parkland, amid which rose the tall, many-windowed bulk of the Ministry of War. For a few welcome moments the breeze dropped, giving the sensation of an oven door closing. From the distance, he heard the regular percussion of cannon fire, followed by a scream, barely audible.
'This is crazy. What if we get caught?'
'Look,' she snapped from behind him, 'it's either this or I go down to the docks and lift my skirt for whoever will pay me. You'd rather I did that instead?'
'You don't even own a skirt.'
'Maybe after a few hand shanks I'd be able to afford one. You could become my pimp then. I'm starting to think you'd even like that – standing back, doing nothing.'
He sighed, and kept moving.
Nico had taken his shoes off, to carry in his hands, as suggested by Lena for better footing on the roof tiles. It worked, for sure, but the tiles were blisteringly hot against the bare soles of his feet. He was almost dancing across them. 'My feet,' he complained, 'they're burning.'
'You want to fall and crack your skull?'
'I want to get off this roof, Lena. That's what I want.'
She didn't respond.
They were working their way across the sloping roof of a taverna, three storeys above the streets of the city. The taverna encompassed two buildings, one taller than the other, and the remaining two storeys of the second rose up ahead, a wall of crumbling whitewash punctuated occasionally by narrow windows. Some of those were shuttered tight; others were open, flowing with curtains of fine gala lace.
Around Nico's feet, lizards sprawled across the hot tiles, casting ancient, baleful stares as Lena took the lead, her own eyes quick and nervous. She peered through one of the open windows, ducked away at the sound of voices inside. Crouching, she padded up to another, checked inside and rejected it, padded on to yet another.
Nico hopped from one foot to the other, the pain too much to bear. He slipped his shoes back on, wondering what in Ers he was doing here with this girl, wondering too if she had done this somewhere before. They were risking a public flogging if they were caught.
'This one,' she whispered, as Nico approached the window she had finally selected. 'Inside with you, and search the bag for a purse.'
Me? mouthed Nico.
'Yes, you. You haven't done anything yet but complain.'
'Lena, I mean it, let's go before it's too late.'
The scowl on her face tightened. 'You want to eat today or not?' she demanded.
'Not if it means going through with this business. Do as you wish. I'm leaving.'
She caught him in her grip as he turned to go.
'I mean it,' she hissed. 'If we don't do this, then I'm heading for the docks. Whatever it takes, I don't care. I won't starve to death like your dog did.'
Her words and grip seemed to hold him in a sudden spell. His stomach rattled, urging him on. He nodded dumbly.
She released him, offered him a foot-lift. He barely knew what he was doing as he gritted his teeth and scrambled upwards.
Awkwardly, he passed through the swaying lace curtains, trying to keep as silent as he could. His body trembled, and the whitewashed sill was warm against his palms. Inside, he lowered his feet towards the stone floor. His soles settled quietly, he straightened – then froze.
On the bed lay a figure clad in a dark robe.
Nico's throat made a good attempt at choking itself. His heart seemed to be causing such a racket, he was sure it could be heard by anyone within earshot. The figure was asleep, though, his chest rising and falling in a regular, shallow rhythm.
The man's skin was pure black. A farlander, decided Nico – an old farlander with a bald head and a tough, lean face etched with lines. And something else there, on the cheeks, glistening bright in a ray of sunlight that slanted through the swaying lace.
He's crying in his sleep, realized Nico.
Lena glared at him from the window. There was no way of getting past that face. Nico swallowed his fears and a sudden rising sense of guilt. He squeezed his sweating fists and stole across the room to where a chair sat. Carved from twisted driftwood, it was laden with a leather backpack. He reached it without causing noise. From the window Lena bared her teeth, her hand flapping in a signal to hurry.
It was a fumbling, sweaty business searching through the leather pack, and Nico's hands moved clumsily as the sweat stung his eyes. For a moment he heard voices outside the room, and floorboards creaking as someone walked past outside the door. That only made him work faster, till at last he found a purse, fat and heavy with coinage.
Lena flapped her hands again. The old man slept on.
Nico was just about to leave, when he noticed something hanging from the same chair. It was a necklace of some kind, though not a pretty thing fashioned with jewels or silver. This was distinctly ugly, with the appearance of a large leathery nut, and it was coated in something that looked like dried blood.
A seal, realized Nico. That old man wears a seal.
Almost of its own accord, his hand reached towards the pendant. Behind him, the old man groaned suddenly in the bed. Nico stopped himself in time, pulled his hand away. What was he thinking of?
He turned to go, and almost dropped the purse in alarm. The old farlander was sitting upright, blinking at him with strange folded eyes.
Nico felt his bowels loosen. He could not move. He looked to the door, to the window, and licked his dry lips.
The old man turned his head, looking from one side of the room to the other. It was as though he could barely see.
'Who's there?' he croaked.
Nico was past containing himself any longer. With six quick strides he was across the room, and clambering out through the window.
'He's awake!' he hissed as they scuttled back across the sloping rooftop, the lizards regarding them as they hurried from the scene.