“You can’t,” said the young one cheerfully. “We only take orders from the regent. And Captain, of course.”
“We were assigned to this place,” said the older guard, and Josetta heard hunti finality in his voice. “And we’ll stay till we’re assigned someplace else.”
She stood there a moment, feeling helpless and more than a little indignant, before she spread her hands in resignation. “Callie can generally speak for me,” she said at last. “If she asks you to do something, please do it. As long as it doesn’t interfere with your assignment, of course. And I’ll take the matter up with Darien the next time I see him.”
She turned to go, surprised to see a grin on Foley’s face. “I would have thought you’d be as annoyed as I am,” she said once they were in the hallway, out of earshot of the guards. “Or insulted. Darien clearly thinks you’re not skilled enough to keep me safe.”
“The regent’s right. One man is never enough to keep anyone safe.”
“Oh, so you think it’s a good idea for him to set up an armed outpost here?”
“I wish he’d done it a year ago.”
Josetta shook her head in exasperation, and then laughed. “I bet they didn’t count on the manual labor, though. Callie will have them scrubbing floors and changing linens, just like all of us do.”
“Won’t hurt them,” Foley said. “And it will make for lighter work for the rest of us.”
Indeed, over the next three days, Darien’s guards proved to be welcome additions to the small staff at the shelter, though Josetta did her best to resist liking them. They spent most of their time patrolling the neighborhood, but when they were actually at the building, they willingly pitched in. The younger one, Caze, was handy with carpentry tools; he rehung a sagging door and made repairs to the stairwell to the women’s wing. The older one, Sorbin, proved to be a competent cook who could take over the whole kitchen if need be. Both of the guards used their free time to show self-defense skills to Bo and the other two workers—rather fierce young women with painful personal histories. And even Josetta had to admit it was handy to have them around when a brawl broke out during dinner one night. Foley and Bo probably could have subdued the two men who suddenly started going at it over an insult no one else heard, but Caze and Sorbin broke up the fight and ejected the combatants with a professional ease that prevented the event from escalating into a frightening scenario.
Josetta didn’t need the extra guards. But it turned out she didn’t mind having them.
Caze and Sorbin quickly fell into the habit of making their last patrol of the day somewhere around midnight. Josetta generally spent those final hours working in her tiny office, answering correspondence, checking inventory, and balancing accounts. Foley usually prowled around the main room, folding blankets, straightening chairs, and otherwise putting things to rights. When Josetta was finished for the night, they would lock most of the interior and exterior doors before going upstairs.
The big door that led from the street to the central room was always left open so that the shelter could serve as a haven to anyone who was desperate enough to need one in the middle of the night. More than once Josetta or Callie had gone downstairs in the morning to find someone sleeping under a dining table, a half-eaten loaf of bread in his hand. Josetta had warned Caze and Sorbin that they needed to return by midnight or be stuck sleeping on the main room floor with any other lost souls who wandered in.
She left the temple unlocked, too. But then, she didn’t think there was a temple in the city that ever barred its doors.
Josetta was just tallying her last accounts when she heard men’s voices raised in the main room, accompanied by clattering sounds as if someone had stumbled into a piece of furniture. She grabbed her lamp and headed into the main hall.
Caze and Sorbin were back from their rounds, but with an interesting addition: Sorbin carried the limp form of an unconscious man over his shoulder, and he was bracing himself against the weight as Foley hurriedly unlocked the door to the infirmary. Caze strode over to Josetta.
“We heard the sounds of a fight, and we investigated,” he said. “Three men attacking this one fellow, so we chased them off. Can’t tell how bad he is—he’s unconscious, and he’s bleeding pretty hard on one side. He’s still alive, though.”
“Don’t think he would be if we hadn’t shown up,” Sorbin added. “They looked serious enough to be planning murder.”
“Go wake up Callie,” Josetta told Foley, and he disappeared. She followed Sorbin and Caze into the infirmary and waved a hand at one of the empty alcoves. “Put him here. Can you fetch hot water? Thank you.”
They nodded and marched down the hall, but Josetta was already focused on the injured man. She didn’t bother glancing at his face, because her more immediate concern was the blood welling up from his left side. She lifted his shirt to reveal a long gash that ran across his rib cage and plunged deeper just above his hip. The attacker had probably aimed at his heart, but the man had managed to deflect the blade or turn out of its direct path. The wound was still bad enough—and still bleeding.
She grabbed a clean rag from a pile of folded scraps and held it over the wound, bearing down with steady pressure. She could feel his chest rhythmically rise and fall with his breathing; she thought he was in pain, but not enough to indicate an injury to a lung. While she kept her hands in place, she made a quick visual survey of the rest of his body. His trousers were torn and muddy, as if he’d been knocked to the ground and kicked hard, and his right arm, which was missing a sleeve, was bruised and scratched. But there were no other major wounds immediately visible. He might have a concussion, but there wasn’t much she could do about it at the moment.
Now she glanced at his face, but it was hard to make out his features because the skin was so reddened and bruised and because his head was turned to one side. Oh, but that angle showed her something very interesting indeed—his exposed right ear, half cut or torn from his head, and circled with a dried rivulet of blood. She was so surprised that for a moment she slackened her pressure on his ribs. That ear was curiously deformed or decorated—the outer ridge had a serrated edge, as if someone had cut tiny triangles out of the cartilage, and each of the five remaining points had been pierced with a delicate hoop earring that looked like real gold. Josetta couldn’t remember ever seeing such an affectation before, and it looked like his attackers hadn’t, either. Judging by the blood left behind, one of them had tried to hack off his ear as a souvenir.
There were voices in the main room and then Callie burst in, wearing a tattered robe over a cotton nightdress. “So how is he?” Callie demanded, winding her gray-black hair up into a bun. “Bad?”
“The chest wound seems to be the worst of it,” Josetta said. “But I think he’s unconscious, so he’s probably had a blow to the head, too.”
Callie nodded and began gathering up cloths and medicines. Caze brought in a couple of buckets of steaming water but instantly left again, because the small space was just too crowded. Josetta stepped away from the narrow bed to let Callie work, and spent the next thirty minutes as the other woman’s assistant, washing, holding, handing instruments over, while Callie cleaned and bound the injury.
“Well, I don’t think he’ll die,” was her assessment at the end. “But I don’t like that he hasn’t woken up. And what’s this? His ear?”
“It’s strange, isn’t it?”
“Guess someone thought it was pretty enough to cut off and take home. Give me some of that ointment and a couple of long strips of cloth, and I’ll bind it back up. I think we can save it, if it doesn’t get infected.”
Josetta moved behind the man to tie back his dark shoulder-length hair, then supported his head while Callie wrapped it with gauze. Finally the older woman said, “Not much else we can do for him tonight. His heartbeat is strong, that’s good, and his breathing. I guess we’ll see. Here, let’s get this bl
oody shirt off of him.”
The shirt was ruined anyway, so it was easier to cut it off than help him out of it. His bare chest showed more contusions and a dozen shallow scrapes through a thin covering of dark hair.
“More jewelry,” Callie commented, flicking her finger at a fine silver chain hung with several charms. “Maybe the thieves were after this as well. You can’t wear real gold in the slums.”
Josetta was staring at the necklace and its three pendants—actually, three rings—one copper, one silver, one gold. She knew those rings and the glyphs carved out of them. These were blessings. Corene’s blessings.
She bent down to peer into the man’s battered face, recognizing it now even through the puffiness and bruising. Rafe Adova, her sister’s rescuer. Someone wanted him dead.
SIX
I’m still alive was Rafe’s first thought when he fought to open his eyes. It was a moment before he could recall all the details of the last few hours, but he distinctly remembered the flood of adrenaline as he suddenly realized he was under attack and sorely outnumbered. His mind played back disjointed images, shadowy strikes, an arm lifted, a face snarling, everything backlit by the insufficient light of a chilly half moon.
His second thought was that he hurt so much, he’d almost rather be dead. His head was throbbing and his left side felt as if it had been set on fire and splashed with vinegar. Assorted aches in every other part of his body set up their own whimpers of distress, but it was his head and his rib cage that really made him long for oblivion.
He concentrated on taking a few shallow breaths to accustom himself to the patterns of pain, and then he tried shifting position to see if he could do it. It was like being flayed with white-hot knives. Panting, he lay still a moment and considered.
Where was he? He would have sworn his attackers—whoever they were—were trying to kill him, though he had no idea why. Had they left him for dead? Had some kind soul found him, battered but still breathing, and brought him to a place of safety? He could hardly believe such a haven existed anywhere in the southside, but he could feel the bandages wrapped around his head and torso. He could smell the sharp odors of medicinal scents. He could only see out of one eye—he hoped it was because the other one was bandaged—but he could make out a small, sunny room stocked with baskets of medical supplies. He was clearly in an infirmary of some kind and he assumed it was the morning after his beating.
Oh, if his gambler’s luck had held true, he was at the shelter that Princess Josetta ran down by the canal. He had certainly been in its vicinity the night before. He had made it his business to locate the place the very day after the royals had vanished from his life. Not that he was spying on the princess. Not that he intended to walk through that heavy door one day and greet her, ask if Corene had recovered from her adventure, invite Josetta to play another hand of penta. He was curious, that was all. He just wanted to see the sort of place a dispossessed princess might design once she hatched some crazy scheme about caring for the poor.
In the past nineday, he’d strolled by it a couple of times—well, maybe four or five times. He hadn’t caught a glimpse of Josetta during any of those casual viewings, but recently he’d seen a man he took to be her guard, so he knew they were back on the premises even though they’d been gone for a few days. He’d been only a block or two away last night when the three men jumped out of the shadows and proceeded to pummel him senseless.
What had they wanted?
Rafe struggled again to shift positions and accidentally kicked over a metal bowl that sat on a table nearby. It hit the floor with a metallic clamor. Well, that would fetch someone to check on him, no doubt. Grimacing against the pain, he pushed against the bed again and finally managed to sit upright.
He was still trying to use his one good eye to get his bearings when someone swept back the rough curtain that seemed to serve as a door. Disappointment stabbed through him when he didn’t recognize the woman who stepped in.
“So you’re awake,” she said briskly, coming close enough to put a hand against his cheek. Her skin was a lot cooler than his, so he probably had a fever. “I’m Callie. How do you feel?”
“Miserable,” he said. “Where am I? What happened to me?”
She peeled back an edge of the bandage over his face so she could examine both of his eyes. He immediately felt more alert when he had all of his sight back. “Some men attacked you in a back alley, but a couple of the folks who work here chased them off,” she said. “You’re in a shelter that takes care of the hurt and sick and poor. How’s your head? Where’s the pain? Do you feel like you’re going to throw up?”
“My ear hurts,” he said. “And the back of my skull. But, no, I’m not going to throw up. I’m not dizzy. I don’t think I have a brain injury. How bad is the wound on my side?”
“Bad enough,” she said. “You won’t be walking too far for the next few days. But the fact that you’re moving and talking now makes me think you’ll be all right.”
“Well, that’s good news,” he said. “Thank you for your care.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.” She turned to go and briefly turned back. “In the corner—a chamber pot if you need it. If you can’t stand on your own, I can help you. And there on the table is a pitcher of water if you want to wash up.”
“If I can’t stand up on my own, I’d rather be dead,” he responded in a polite voice. Callie looked faintly amused as she ducked out through the curtain.
It was an ordeal to climb off the bed, try to catch his balance, then take a few unsteady steps through the small space to conduct his sketchy ablutions. But his head felt distinctly clearer when he dropped back onto the mattress, stretched out his legs before him, and supported his back against the wall. He could piss without help and he could damn well feed himself. And before a day was out, he was going to walk out of this place under his own power.
The curtain swished open again, and Princess Josetta walked in, bearing a tray of food. Rafe instantly changed his mind about wanting to leave the shelter in the near future.
“Majesty,” he said. “I hadn’t expected to see you again so soon. Or quite like this.”
She laid the tray carefully across his lap. “Wait just a moment,” she said, disappearing briefly and returning with a somewhat battered wooden chair, which she pulled up next to the bed. “What happened to you?” she demanded.
He shook his head and spoke around a mouthful of bread. It was at least as good as what Samson provided; someone at the shelter was an excellent cook. “I don’t know. I was going home last night and three men jumped me. I thought they were going to kill me, to tell you the truth.”
“That’s what Sorbin said.”
“Who?”
“One of the two men who apparently saved your life.”
“I need to thank them profusely. Maybe give them a reward.”
“Not necessary. They’re men Darien Serlast has sent to watch over me.”
He finished another big bite of food and grinned at her. “The regent has put you under guard? You don’t sound too happy about it.”
“Happier now that they’ve proved their worth by saving your life. Do you have any idea why those men would have come after you?”
“None.”
“They weren’t people you’d played cards with—people who didn’t like losing, maybe?”
“I didn’t get a really close look at them, but no, I didn’t recognize them. And I didn’t recognize their language.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Language?”
It was the first time this morning his memory had supplied that detail. He concentrated, trying to reconstruct the unintelligible shouts. “They weren’t speaking Welchin,” he said. “So maybe they were telling me why they wanted to kill me, but I couldn’t understand them.”
>
“And they weren’t speaking Coziquela, either?”
He shook his head. In the past ten years, as trade with other nations had become a bigger part of the Welchin economy, there had been a huge push to ensure that most schoolchildren studied the language of Cozique, the country that dominated international commerce. Rafe hadn’t learned it when he was growing up in the country, but in the years since he’d lived in the polyglot slums, he’d become fairly fluent.
“So you have no idea what your attackers wanted?”
He shook his head again. “I didn’t even win much at cards last night, so they wouldn’t have any reason to kill me just for the money I had on me.”
“Would they have had any reason to cut off your ear?”
Automatically, his hand went to his right ear—or, rather to the bandage around it. “Is that what happened? Someone tried to chop it off? No wonder it hurts.”
“That’s what it looks like.” She waited a moment, and when he didn’t speculate, she said, “It would certainly make an unusual trophy. If someone liked to carve people up for that reason.”
Now he couldn’t help laughing. “It certainly would.”
She tilted her head again and waited. He thought he could outlast her, could match her gravity with calm silence of his own, but it turned out he couldn’t. He chuckled and shook his head.
“My ear’s been like that since I was still a baby,” he said. “My mother said she came home one day and found that my father had taken me to some crazy woman who would—would brand your baby in some fashion so that you would never get him mixed up with somebody else’s kid. She said it was one of the reasons she left him.”
“It seems like this single reason would be sufficient,” Josetta murmured. “That’s barbaric.”
“Yeah. I’ve gotten tired of the comments and the funny looks, so mostly I wear my hair long to cover it, but sometimes I’m careless.” He shrugged. “So somebody may have seen it and decided to keep it for his own. Though that’s a pretty thin excuse for murder.”