'There was one near,' Haught said. 'Then - there were three of them. All at once.'
'Fine,' said Moria in steely patience. "That's fine. You're not half good. My brother and I -'
But that was not a thing Moria spoke of often. She took another drink, sat down at the table in the only chair.
'We got the money,' Haught protested, trying to cheer her.
'And we're counting,' said Mradhon. 'You go ahead and keep that silver, bitch. I'm not going after it. But that's all you get, 'til you're worth something again.'
'Don't you tell me who's worth something. You'll get our throats cut, rolling the wrong man.'
'Then you by-the-gods do something. You want to lose this place? You want us on the street? Is that what you want?'
'Who's dead over by the bridge?'
'Don't know.'
'But beggars sent you running. Didn't they?'
Mradhon shrugged.
'What more do we heed?' she asked. 'Stepsons. Now Becho's vermin. Thieves. Beggars, for Shipri's sake, beggars sniffing round here.'
'Jubal,' Mradhon said. 'Jubal's what we need. Until you come through with Jubal's money -'
'He's going to send for us again.' Her lip set hard. 'Sooner or later. We just go on checking the drops. It's slow, that's alclass="underline" it's a new kind of business, this setting up again. But he won't touch us if you get the heat on us; if you go off making your own deals. You stay out of trouble. Hear me? You're not cut out for thieves. It's not in you. You want to go through life left-handed?'
'Stay sober enough to do it yourself, why don't you?' Mradhon said.
The cup came down on the tabletop. Moria stood up; the wine spilled over the scarred surface, dripping off the edge.
But Haught thrust himself into Mradhon's way in his own temper. Something seized up in him when he did; his gut knotted. Ex-slave that he was, his nerves did not forget. Old reflexes. 'Don't talk to her that way.'
Mradhon stared at him, northron like himself, broad-shouldered, sullen. Friend, sometimes. A moment ago, if not now. More, he suspected Mradhon Vis of pity, the way Mradhon stared at him, and that was harder than the blow.
Mradhon Vis turned his shoulder and walked away across the room, leaving him nothing.
He put his hand on Moria's then, but she snatched it away, out of humour. So he stood there.
'Don't be scattering that mud about,' Moria said to Mradhon's back. 'You do it, you clean it up.'
Mradhon sat down on the single bed, on the blankets, began pulling off his boots, heedless of puddles forming, of their bed soaking and blanket muddied.
'Get up from there,' Haught said, pushing it further.
But Mradhon only fixed him with a stare. Come and do something, it said, and Haught stood still.
'You listen to me,' Mradhon said. 'It takes money keeping her in wine. And until she comes across with some cash out of Jubal, what better have we got? Or maybe -' a second boot joined the other on the floor. 'Maybe we ought to go looking for Jubal on our own. Or the Stepsons. They're running short of men.'
'Nof Moria yelled.
'They pay. Jubal dealt with them,.for the gods' sake.'
'Well, he's not dealing now. You don't make deals on your own. No: 'So when are you going out again? When are you going to make that contact, eh? Or maybe Jubal's dead. Or not interested in you. Maybe he's broke as we are, hey?'
'I'll find him.'
'You know what I begin to think? Jubal's done. The beggars seem to think so. They don't think it's enough to take on hawk-masks. Now they take on Stepsons. Nothing they can't handle. They're loose. You understand that? This Jubal - I'll believe he's something if he can take them on. The day he nails a beggar to that bridge, I'll believe Jubal's worth something. Meanwhile - mean while, there's a roof over our heads. A bar on the door. And we've got money. We're out of Becho's territory. And keeping out takes money.'
'We're never out,' Haught said, remembering the beggars, the ragged shapes rising out of the shadows like spiders from their webs, small moving humps in the lightning-flash that might have showed their faces to these beggar witnesses.
The chill had seeped inward from Haught's wet clothes. He felt cold, beyond shivering. He sneezed, wiped his nose on his sleeve, went over to the fire to sit disconsolate. Quietly he tried a small scrying, to see something. Once he had had the means, but it had left him, with his luck; with his freedom. 'I'll go out tomorrow,' Moria said, walking over near the fire. 'Don't,' said Haught. There was a small premonition on him. It might be the scrying. It might be nothing, but he felt a deep unease, the same panic that he had felt seeing the beggars moving through the dark. 'Don't let him talk you into it. It's not safe. We've got enough for a little while. Let him find us, this Jubal.'
'I'll find him,' she said. 'I'll get money.' But she said that often. She went and picked up the cup again, wiped the spilled wine with a rag. Sniffed loudly. Haught turned his back to her, staring at the fire, the leaping shapes. The heat burned, almost to the point of pain, but it took that, to reach the cold inside his bones, in his marrow; easier to watch the future than to dwell on the past, to remember Wizardwall, or Carronne, or slavery.
This Jubal the slaver who was their hope had sold him once. But he chose to forget that too. He had nerved himself to walk the streets, at least by dark, to look free men in the eye, to do a hundred things any free man took for granted. Mradhon Vis gave him that; Moria did. If they looked to Jubal, so must he. But in the fire he saw things, twisted shapes in the coals. A face started back at him, and its eyes -
Mradhon came over and dumped the boots by him, spread his clothes on the stones, himself wrapped in a blanket. 'What do you learn?' Mradhon asked. He shrugged. 'I'm blind to the future. You know that.' A hand came down on his shoulder, pressed it, in the way of an apology.
'You shouldn't talk to her that way,' Haught said again.
The hand pressed his shoulder a second time. He shivered, despite the heat.
'Scared?' Mradhon said. Haught took it for challenge, and the cold stayed in his heart. Scared he was. He had not had a friend, but Mradhon Vis. Distrust gnawed at him, not bitter, but only the habit of weighing his value - to anyone. He had learned that he was for using and when he stopped being useful he could not see what there was in him that anyone would want. Moria needed him; no woman ever had, not really. This man did, sometimes; for a while; but a shout from him - a harsh word - made him flinch, and reminded him what he was even when he had a paper that said otherwise. Challenged, he might fight from fear. Nothing else. And never Mradhon Vis.
'I talk to her like that,' Mradhon said, not whispering, 'when it does her good. Brooding over that brother others -'
'Shut up,' Moria said from behind them.
'Mor-am's dead,' Mradhon said. 'Or good as dead. Forget your brother, hear? It's your good I'm thinking of.'
'My good.' Came a soft, hateful laugh. 'So I can steal again, that's the thing. Because Jubal knows me, not you.' A chair scraped. Haught looked round as two slim-booted feet came beside them, as Moria squatted down and put a hand on Mradhon's arm. 'You hate me. Hate me, don't you? Hate women. Who did that, Vis? You born that way?'
'Don't,' Haught said, to both of them. He gripped Mradhon's arm, which had gone to iron. 'Moria, let him be.'
'No,' Mradhon said. And for some reason Moria drew back her hand and had a sobered look. .
'Go to bed,' said Haught. 'Now.' He-sensed the violence beside him, sensed it worse than other times. He could calm this violence, draw it to himself, if there was nothing else to do. He was not afraid of that, viewed it with fatalistic patience. But Moria was so small, and Mradhon's hate so much.