‘It’s exactly like the other one,’ she said. Then she reached over and felt in the left pocket of my coat.
‘It’s not there,’ I said. ‘It must’ve fallen out in the fight with Lorenzo. That’s why we “suddenly” appeared for you, wasn’t it, Radger?’
He nodded grimly, biting back pain. ‘They gave us all these copper things,’ he said, ‘but nothing was happening and we just wandered around, looking through the district. But then all of a sudden there it was, a light on the surface and the lines of the streets.’
‘They must not work if we’ve got one on our person or too close to us,’ I explained to Aline. ‘If we hadn’t lost it, they never would have—’
Shit. If I hadn’t been such a damned fool and picked a fight that could have waited, then I wouldn’t have lost the damned thing.
‘They just gave you one?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘They gave each of us one.’
‘Each of you …’ Aline whispered.
‘You don’t understand, you stupid girl,’ Laetha screamed. ‘They came to all of us! Everyone who ever knew you or your damned family: “find them and be rich, fail and be dead.” That’s the choice we were given.’
She looked pleadingly at the girl, and then at me. ‘What else could we have done?’
‘But Mattea – she wouldn’t …’ she whispered. ‘I know she wouldn’t. Where is she? Tell me where she is!’
Laetha looked furious, but her glance flickered for a moment.
Aline ran to the cellar door. ‘You … What did you do to her? Mattea! Mattea!’ Aline screamed as she ran to the door and pried it open. I heard her thumping down the stairs into the darkness.
Radger slumped to the ground and Laetha knelt beside him, crying and staunching his wound with the edge of her long skirt.
I wanted to sit back down myself, but it was best to stay on my feet, stay moving. The combination of the paralytic they’d slipped me along with the hard candy was a dangerous mixture for the heart, and the more I moved about, the quicker both would get out of my system.
Radger looked up at me and I could see the guilt breaking through. He wanted someone to tell him it was all right, that anyone would have done the same – or at least to scream at him, to beat him to within an inch of his life.
I chose to do neither. For once in my life I didn’t feel vengeful. I just felt tired. Damn this loathsome city.
A moment later I heard Aline’s footsteps, and another’s, climbing the stairs from the cellar. She emerged with an old woman. Grey, tightly curled hair framed a face that might’ve been a map of the world, if the world had been made up only of mountains and valleys. Her hands were still bound and her mouth gagged. Aline ran and pulled the knife out of the wall where she’d thrown it earlier and made quick work of both ropes and gag.
The old woman coughed and cleared her throat, and straightened as much as she could. She was still bent over and wizened, but I could see strength in those old bones, and there was iron in her eyes. She opened her mouth and gave a sneer that promised foul language and a brutal temperament – and that’s when I finally recognised her.
‘Tailor!’
She looked me up and down – not my face, mind you, nor my hands or feet. Just my coat.
‘I see you’ve done your level best to ruin my greatcoat, Falcio val Mond.’
I felt unnaturally self-conscious. ‘I—’
‘Shut it. I’ve got more important things to deal with right now.’
The Tailor turned to Radger and Laetha. ‘Well now, children. What unwise things have you been up to while you had me roped in the cellar?’
Neither replied, and she kicked Radger, who groaned.
‘You have children?’ I was incredulous.
‘Bah. Certainly not Radger and Laetha. No, I paid these two fools for a place to stay and a story people would believe.’
She kicked Laetha, hard. ‘But it turns out they were even stupider than I’d believed, eh, Laetha? Thought you’d tie up an old woman and make some easy money?’
‘And “Mattea”?’ I asked.
She smiled her evil smile again. ‘Would’ve thought you’d’ve picked up on that, Falcio. It’s an old Pertine word, after all.’
Mattea. Thread.
‘So you make your living as a nanny to noble houses, spreading stories of the Greatcoats?’
‘Does more good than livin’ out in the pissing rain huntin’ for scraps, don’t it?’
Aline suddenly gripped the Tailor around the waste and started sobbing.
The Tailor returned the child’s furious embrace. ‘Oh, my sweet,’ she said. ‘Oh, my sweetest of girls. I’m sorry if my little lie hurt you any. You keep callin’ me Mattea if you like. And I promise, there are only nine hundred and ninety-nine more lies that I told you – but never, never, never would I have thought my foolishness could bring you into such peril. Never, never.’
‘… Not your fault,’ Aline said between sobs.
The Tailor sighed. ‘No dearie, I suppose you’re right. Not my fault, but my responsibility, yes. My responsibility now.’ She squeezed the girl tight one more time before gently pushing her arms aside.
‘You have to go,’ she said to me, rising. ‘Radger and Laetha didn’t lie entirely: near everyone on these streets is lookin’ for you and the reward you mean to ’em.’
She reached over to the table and took the amulet and put it around Aline’s neck.
‘Filthy magic,’ she said, ‘but cheap too, thanks to the laziness of men. Easy enough for a master mage to make, but they don’t work too well together. Keep this on and the others won’t work, at least ’til they think of something else.’
She turned back to me. ‘Fly now, Falcio val Mond, you great bloody fool. You’ve made a good mess of things now.’
‘How is this my fault, exactly?’ I asked. I felt like she was scolding me.
‘Rijou and the Blood Week: so how many d’you think you can trust for a hundred miles in any direction?’ she asked.
‘No one,’ I said. ‘Not one soul.’
She gave a mean smile. ‘Soul? Some arse-kissing God must’ve made you an optimist, boy.’
The Tailor kissed Aline on the top of the head one final time. ‘Now, get yourselves out of here. Find a place to hide until the Blood Week ends.’ The Tailor turned to me, and all the fires of every hell were in her gaze. ‘It’s on you now, Falcio. Get her to the Teyar Rijou and make sure her name is called. You owe him that.’
I didn’t see how I owed Lord Tiarren any more than I had already given in trying to keep his daughter alive, but I wasn’t about to challenge whatever it was that was driving the Tailor.
‘What about them?’ I asked, pointing at Radger and Laetha in the corner.
‘Them? You don’t need to worry about them.’
‘What about – what about the Duke’s men?’ Laetha asked, tears streaming down her face.
‘Ah, now, sweet little Laetha, you don’t have to worry even a little bit about those nasty big men. Not one little bit.’ She took the knife from Aline’s hand and weighed its balance. ‘Nice little knife this. Think I’ll keep it, if it’s a’right with you.’
I nodded – what else could I do? – and she pointed us towards the back door before turning her attention to her ‘son’ and ‘daughter-in-law’. ‘Now go, like I said. What comes next is not right for her tender eyes nor your foolish conscience.’
We left the Tailor to her responsibility.
I took Aline’s hand and pulled her out through the hidden door in the bedroom into the back alley. It was only later that I realised that, when she had given me the hard candy from my coat, she’d also pocketed the soft candy for herself.