By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she felt more nearly human. She stepped out into the street for a moment, then back in through the bank’s front door.
“Roach,” she said, and the little Timzinae jumped to attention.
“Magistra Cithrin,” he said. “Captain Wester and Yardem just left to collect payment from the brewer just north of the wall and the two butchers in the salt quarter. Barth and Corisen Mout went with them. Enen’s asleep in the back because she drew night watch, and Ahariel is going to get some sausages and come back.”
“I need you to run an errand for me,” Cithrin said. “Go to the café and let the man from the tanner’s guild know I won’t be there. Tell him I’m unwell.”
The boy’s nictatating membranes clicked over his eyes nervously.
“Captain Wester said I should stay here,” Roach said. “Enen’s asleep, and he wanted someone awake in case—”
“I’ll stay down here until someone gets back,” Cithrin said. “I may feel like slow death, but I can still raise a shout if it’s called for.”
Roach still looked uncertain. Cithrin felt a stab of annoyance.
“I pay Wester,” she said. “I pay you too, for that. Now go.”
“Y-yes, Magistra.”
The boy darted out to the street. Cithrin stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching the dark legs scissor and stretch as he ran. Far down the street, he dodged a cart loaded with fresh-caught fish, turned the corner, and vanished. Cithrin counted slowly to twelve, giving him time to reappear. When he didn’t, she walked out into the street and pulled the door shut behind her. The wind was against her and kicking up bits of dust and straw, but she squinted her way to the taproom.
“Good morning, Magistra,” the keeper said as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. “Back already?”
“Seems I am,” she said, fishing the silver coins back out of her pocket. “I’ll take what this buys.”
The keeper took the coins, lifting and dropping his hand as he estimated their weight.
“Your boys know how to go through wine,” he said.
“They don’t drink it,” she said, grinning. “It’s all for me.”
The man laughed. It was a new kind of lie she’d only just discovered, telling the bleak truth lightly and letting everyone around her mistake it for a joke. They don’t drink it; it’s all for me. Come winter, I’m as likely to be in the stocks as free. Nothing I do matters.
He came back with two dark bottles of wine and a small tun of beer. Cithrin tucked the tun under her arm, took a bottle in either hand, and waited as he opened he door for her. Now the wind was at her back, pushing her on like it wanted her to get back home. The sky was blue above her with a skin of white clouds high in the air, but it smelled like rain. Porte Oliva autumns had a reputation for rough weather, and summer was in its last days now. A little cloudburst now and again hardly seemed worth complaining about.
She didn’t go back into the main rooms, heading for her own door instead. Maneuvering up the stairs was hard with the tun still under her arm. She hit the corner of the wall at the top with her elbow. The impact was enough to leave her fingers tingling, but she didn’t drop the bottle.
She’d forgotten about the puddle of piss, but she was feeling well enough now to open her window and pour the night pot’s contents into the alley. She swabbed up the rest with a dirty shift, then threw that out the window too. She’d eaten a link of gristly sausage and a heel of black bread the day before. She knew she ought to be hungry, but she wasn’t. She pulled off her carter’s boots, pulled open the first of the wine bottles, and lay back on her bed, her back against the little headboard.
The wine was sweeter than she was used to, but she could feel the bite of it. Her stomach rebelled for a moment, twisting like a fish on a fire, and she slowed down to sips until it calmed. Her head throbbed once, the beginning of an ache. The wind paused, leaving her in silence. She heard the voices of the two Kurtadam guards rising from below her.
The woman—Enen—laughed. Warmth and calm slid into Cithrin’s blood. She took one last, long drink straight from the bottle’s neck, turned, and set the wine on the floor. The darkness behind her eyes was comfortable and deep. The roar of the wind kicking back up seemed to come from a great distance, and her mind, such as it was, sparked and slipped. Connections came together in unlikely, unrepeatable ways.
She had the sense that Magister Imaniel had left her something for Captain Wester. She thought that it had to do with the canal traffic in Vanai connecting to the docks in Porte Oliva, and also with herbs and spices packed in snow. Without drawing a line between awake and dozing or dozing and asleep, Cithrin’s consciousness faded to darkness. Time stopped, started when she became vaguely aware of angry voices, very far away, and stopped again.
“Get up.”
Cithrin forced her eyes open. Captain Wester stood in the doorway, his arms crossed. The light was dim, the city in twilight and cloud.
“Get out of bed,” he said. “Do it now.”
“Go away,” she said.
“I told you to get out of that God damned bed!”
Cithrin pushed up on one arm. The room shifted, unsteady.
“And do what?” she said.
“You’ve missed five meetings,” Marcus said. “People are going to start talking, and when they do, you’re done. So stand up and do what needs doing.”
Cithrin stared at him, her mouth slack with disbelief and a rising anger.
“Nothing needs doing,” she said. “It’s done. I’m done. I had my chance, and I lost it.”
“I met Qahuar Em. He’s not worth pouting over. Now you—”
“Qahuar? Who cares about Qahuar?” Cithrin said, sitting up. She didn’t remember spilling wine on her tunic, but it tugged where dried wine had adhered to her skin. “It was the contract. I tried for it, and I lost. I had the world by the hair, and I lost. I failed.”
“You failed?”
Cithrin spread her arms, gesturing at the rooms, the city, the world. Pointing out the obvious. Wester stepped closer. In the dim light, his eyes seemed bright as river stones, his mouth as hard as iron.
“Did you watch your wife and daughter burn to death in front of you? Because of you?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he nodded. “So it could have been worse. You aren’t dead. There’s work that needs doing. Get up and do it.”
“I’m not permitted. I had a letter from Komme Medean that I’m not allowed to trade in his name.”
“So instead you curled up in a mewling ball in his name? I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Get out of bed.”
Cithrin lay down, pulling her pillow to her chest. It smelled foul, but she held it anyway.
“I don’t take orders from you, Captain,” she said, making the last word an insult. “You take money from me, so you do what I tell you. Now go away.”
“I won’t let you throw away everything you’ve worked for.”
“I worked to keep the bank’s money safe, and I’ve done it. So you’re right. I win. Now go away.”
“You want to keep it.”
“Stones want to fly,” she said. “They don’t have wings.”
“Find a way,” he said, almost gently.
It was too much. Cithrin shouted wordless rage, sat up, and threw the pillow at him as hard as she could. She didn’t want to cry anymore, and here she was, crying.