Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

“Not,” Opal said between gasps. “Not what it looks like. You have to believe me.”

“No,” Marcus said. “I don’t.”

I didn’t know,” Master Kit said. “I should have, but I didn’t.”

Marcus’s former cunning man was still in a striped wool sleeping shift and a close-fit nightcap. That and the fact that he’d been dead asleep in the back of the troupe’s wagon when Marcus reached him argued for his innocence. Master Kitap rol Keshmet wasn’t the picture of a man preparing to escape with his stolen gold. It was what Marcus had bet on.

The rooms they sat in now had been rented from a brewer. Most of the year, they warehoused the oats and malt of that trade, and the air was still thick with the smell of them. The table was three lengths of plank set across two piles of old brick, and the stools Marcus, Kit, and the disgraced Opal sat on were less than a milkmaid might use. In the flickering light of Master Kit’s single candle, Opal’s eyes had disappeared in pools of shadow. Her argument that it was all a misunderstanding, that she’d been there to protect Cithrin, vanished like the morning dew as soon as Master Kit had come into the room, and all that was left was her sullen silence.

“You mean to say she came to this herself and no one else in the company had a suspicion,” Marcus said.

Master Kit sighed.

“I’ve traveled with Opal as long as I have with… well, anyone. I think she knows me, and I would guess well enough to know how to deceive me. Captain, if she had even lied about this, I’d have known.”

“Leave him be, Wester,” Opal said. “This wasn’t his. It was mine.”

It was the first confession she’d made. Marcus took no pleasure in it.

“But I don’t understand why,” Master Kit said. He wasn’t talking to Marcus any longer. “I’d thought Cithrin was a favorite of yours.”

“How many more years do I have?” Opal asked. Her voice was sharp as aged cheese. “You’re already thinking of Cary for Lady Kaunitar roles. Another five years, and I’ll be strictly witch-and-grandmother, and then the day will come when you and the others leave some shit-stinking village in Elassae and I don’t.”

“Opal,” Master Kit began, but the woman raised a palm to stop him.

“I know how this goes. I’ve been a player since I was younger than Sandr is now. I’ve seen it happen. Made a kind of peace with it, really. But then the banker’s girl appeared out of the air, and…” Opal shrugged, and it was an actor’s movement made of weariness and resignation.

Weariness and resignation, Marcus thought, but not regret.

“All right,” Marcus said. “Next problem.”

Master Kit turned back toward him. There were tears in the man’s eyes, but otherwise his expression was calm.

“I have five corpses,” Marcus said. “Maybe three hours to first light. If I go to the queensmen, I have to explain what happened, and what we’ve got in those boxes that’s worth killing over. Any hope of keeping quiet’s gone then. Add to that, we’ll have to move just in case any of Opal’s friends have friends of their own. We’ve sold the cart. You still have one.”

The cut in his shoulder had gone an uncomfortable sort of numb, but the scratch across his ribs tore open each time he took a deep breath. He knew that this was the point at which Master Kit might balk. Marcus had hoped he could avoid a long negotiation. He watched Master Kit’s dark eyes as the man weighed his unpleasant options.

“I feel the company owes you something, Captain Wester,” he said at last. “What would you have me do?”

An hour later, they were back in the small rooms of the salt quarter. The dead man had been pulled from the grate, and a new fire stoked. Hornet and Smit were somberly pasting lengths of cloth over the rips in the parchment while Cary, Sandr, and Mikel looked at the bodies piled like cordwood against the wall. Master Kit sat on an overturned handcart, his expression grim. Cithrin sat on the cot, her legs drawn up to her chest, her eyes empty. She didn’t look at Opal, and Opal didn’t look back. The room, small to begin with, felt dangerously crowded.

“There’s an opening in the eastern seawall, not far from baker’s row,” Master Kit said, thoughtfully. “I don’t remember much cover, nor any way to explain being there, but I think I could find it again.”

“Even in the dark?” Marcus asked.

“Yes. And if there’s no reason for us to be there, I think there’s little reason for anyone else either.”

“They look peaceful,” Mikel said. “I didn’t think they’d look peaceful.”

“All dead men are at peace,” Marcus said. “That’s what makes them dead. We’ve got five of these bastards to get rid of. We don’t have much time. How far is this place?”

“We’ll be seen,” Cithrin said. “They’ll find us. Ten people carrying five bodies? How does that…?”

The girl shook her head and looked down. Her face was paler even than usual. The others were quiet. If things had gone otherwise, there would only have been three bodies, and hers among them. Marcus could see the knowledge etching the girl’s soul, but he didn’t have time now to fix that, or any idea how he would have.

“Master Kit?” Cary said thoughtfully. “What about the festival scene in Andricore’s Folly?”

“You can’t be serious,” he said.

“I think I am,” Cary said. She turned to Yardem. “Can you carry one by yourself? Over your shoulder?”

The Tralgu crossed his arms, frowning deeply, but nodded. Master Kit’s face was still pale, but he rose and turned the handcart back onto its wheels, considering it. By contrast, Cary’s face was flushing rose.

“Yardem takes one,” she said. “Smit and Hornet can take the small one there. Sandr and Cithrin, the poor fellow with the beard. That puts two on the handcart. Mikel can steady them, and you and the captain haul. Then Opal and I take torches and—”

“Not Opal,” Master Kit said. “She stays with us.”

“I’ll take Cithrin, then,” Cary said, hardly missing a breath. “Opal can help Sandr.”

“You’ll take Cithrin where, exactly?” Marcus said, his voice low.

“To make sure no one is looking at you, ” Cary said, and she stepped over to the cot, lowering herself beside Cithrin’s slight frame. The dark-haired woman put an arm across Cithrin’s shoulders and smiled at her gently. “Come on, sister mine. Are you ready to be brave?”

Cithrin blinked back tears.

“Kit?” Marcus said.

“Andricore’s Folly. It’s a comedy from a poet in Cabral,” Master Kit said. “The city prince dies in a brothel, and they have to smuggle his body back into his wife’s bed before she wakes.”

“And they manage it how?”

“It’s a comedy,” Master Kit said, shrugging. “Help me with this cart, won’t you?”

There were no torches, but two small tin lanterns in the back room came near enough. With a few pins and Cary’s direction, their dresses had grown short in the skirt, and half undone at the neck and back. Their hair hung in loose curls, threatening to fall at any moment, like the ruins of some more respectable arrangement. Cary rouged Cithrin’s lips and cheeks and the swell of her breast, and in the darkness of the night the pair seemed carved out of sunlight and the promise of sex.

“Count three hundred,” Master Kit said to Cary. “Then follow. If I give the sign…”

“We’ll start singing,” Cary said, and then, to Cithrin, “Shoulders back, sister mine. We’re here to be seen.”

“Yardem?” Marcus said as the Tralgu hefted a dead man.

“Sir?”

“The day you throw me in a ditch and take the company?”

“I am the company, sir.”