“We’ve got sacks of dried lentils out back,” she reminded Dace, “and a barrel of pickled congers for emergencies—” Not anyone’s idea of an appetizing meal, but better than starvation … or overheated prices. “We can live off that for a few weeks.”
“No way! I’ll find the bargains.” Dace put the two fish in a bowl and emptied a ewer of water over them. “That’ll hold ’em until I get back.”
“You’re going out again?”
Dace shrank and didn’t reply.
“That girl again.”
“Geddie,” he corrected and started toward the door. “I’ll be back in time to fix the froggin’ supper.”
Chersey raised her hand to her face and sighted across the moonstone ring. A dark shadow fell across Dace’s back. He was hiding something, lying—maybe worse. She waited until he’d left then found Ammen and Jopze dozing over a dice game.
“Will one of you keep an eye on Dace?”
“What needs knowing?” Ammen, the taller, brawnier, and balder of the two inquired. “The bint’s gotten her claws into him … for now. She’ll get bored and cast him off. Her kind’s not interested in a boy like our Dace, not for long.”
“I don’t want him to get hurt.”
“Too late for that,” Jopze added. “He’s shite-faced. Best to let it die natural-like.”
Chersey couldn’t argue with the soldiers’ wisdom, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that sex was only part of the boy’s problem.
Dace had adapted to the stairs leading to Geddie’s room. He bounded up them, knocked once, and lifted the latch before he heard her voice. He embraced her without preamble. To Dace’s surprise, Geddie wriggled free.
“You got it?”
Dace let his breath out in a hot sigh. “Yeah, I’ve froggin’ got it. Twelve padpols. More than enough for an opah rag and the wine to soak it in.”
Geddie frowned. “Not today. Today, I gotta square my debts downstairs. I needed twelve just to cover what we did since Ilsday. I need a whole shaboozh—sixteen padpols—if we’re gonna dip today.”
“What!?”
“I told you: I don’t get opah for nothing! I can’t afford to share anymore. You gotta pay for your share.”
Dace dug the jagged black coins out of his purse and threw them on the cot. “There, I’ve paid. It’s not worth a shaboozh.” He headed for the door.
“Wait!” Geddie seized Dace’s arm. “You can get opah the way I get it. You can do things … things for Makker. Downstairs. I told him you’d be coming. He wants to meet you. If he likes you, you can buy direct from him. It’s half the price.”
“What kind of things?”
“Nothing much. Run messages—like you already do for Perrez. Maybe sell a book of rags somewhere. Nothing hard. Opah’s easy to sell.”
Dace tucked the crutch under his right armpit. If he heeded half the wits that got him out of the swamp, he should walk away now. He liked the bitter powder altogether too much. By the time he got over here every day, his skin had started to crawl with want and need.
He’d asked Perrez about opah—because Perrez knew the answers to questions Dace could never ask Chersey or Bezul. Frog all, Dace had lied and sworn he’d never touch opah himself, only overheard conversations about it in the marketplace.
Opah? That’s nothing but krrf, boy, diluted down then made pure again. Don’t ask me how it’s done, or who, or where, but when it’s done, it’s cheap as sin and the deadliest poison you can swallow A sure path to hell, but the hit, now that’s Paradise. How’s a man supposed to see past Paradise?
From which statement, Dace had concluded that Perrez sucked a little opah himself. And, building on that conclusion, Dace asked himself—why not meet with this Makker fellow? Shite for sure, if Perrez was using opah, he would appreciate a cheaper source and—maybe … hopefully—consider Dace for tasks more demanding than simply running a message to some under-house door.
By all the gods, Dace wanted to be a man who wore fine clothes, who turned heads when he walked into a crowded room—and not because of a gimpy leg or noisy crutch.
“All right, I’ll meet Makker.”
Dace had never seen Maksandrus, called Makker, before, but he recognized the type. Was there a gods’ law that said all bullies had necks wider than their skulls, squinty eyes, and forearms that could double as pork hams? Dace had a cousin who could have been Makker’s twin, save Balor was swamp bred and Makker was a foreigner from Mrsevada—wherever in the seven hells that was.
Geddie approached Makker alone. When she whispered in his ear, Makker scowled so deep that Dace expected to be sent packing. Then, Makker said something and Geddie motioned Dace over.
Fear gripped Dace’s gut the moment his rump hit the chair. Makker had serpent’s eyes: cold and hard as jet It was all Dace could do to meet them and, once he had, impossible to look away. He vowed that he’d do the bully’s business once and once only—and not for any promise or threat of opah.
But Makker didn’t ask about opah; he asked about the changing house. Early on, Bezul had warned Dace not to answer questions about the business. Dace tried to heed Bezul’s warnings and did well, he thought, until Makker started asking about fishermen, shipwrecks, and whatever salvage the fishermen had brought for changing. Dace knew that no fishermen had brought wreck salvage into the shop and said so, but every word had to get past the memory of Perrez’s dragon rod.
No way Dace was going to mention that rod to the likes of Maksandrus and he didn’t—not directly. Makker’s questions were friendly, and lulled by them, Dace let slip that Perrez, not Bezul, handled the exotic trades and that he was running messages to the Processional about an artifact that had, indeed, come from the fishermen’s wreck.
“What manner of artifact?”
Dace’s blood froze. He realized how much he’d given away. “I don’t know,” he lied. “Perrez keeps it locked tight. I just run his messages.”
“To who?”
Oh, would that the ground would swallow him up! A messenger had to know where to deliver the message, Dace couldn’t lie his way around that. “I can’t tell,” he mumbled. “I’m sworn.”
“You hear that, Kiff? An honest messenger!” Makker crowed and Kiff—an enormous man with skin the color of midnight—laughed, revealing a yellow gem winking in a front tooth. “I like doing business with honest men.” He slapped the table; everything bounced. “Geddie says you want to work for me.”
“Want” was the last word Dace would have chosen, but he didn’t have the fortitude to argue. In short order, he found himself agreeing to sell a book of opah rags.
“Kiff—” Makker called.
Kiff opened a fist and an opah book fell onto the table.
“Seeing as you’re an honest man,” Makker said with a grin, “here’s how it’s going down. I give you ten rags, you owe me eight padpols for each—that’s five shaboozh, total. Say you sell a rag for more, you keep the difference. Understand?”
Dace nodded but made no move toward the dusty, tied-together book.
“I give you until next Shiprisday, but if you need more before men—more opah, not time—you know where to find me.”