Michael Sullivan - The Crown Tower

Was it too soon? Or too late?

It hardly mattered; the coins were gone. She could replace them. She hadn’t lied to the assessor about the kind of money the House was making, but she didn’t think it worked that way. That was the problem. She had no idea how it worked. All she ever knew were bits and pieces, like her skirt sewn from random bits of cloth. Both formed a pattern of no discernible sense. This is how people feel when they have their fortunes told , she realized. Her mother had left everything behind and died trying to get Gwen to Medford, but she had never said why. Maybe she didn’t know. Only the man with the coins had really known. For the first time in her life, she had succeeded at something great, and yet never before had she felt like such a failure.

She stared down the length of the street. The man she was supposed to help would come this way. Dressed in his own blood . She knew it-felt it in her bones like an approaching storm. Who might he be to attract the attention of the man who had given her the coins? Someone great certainly, a king perhaps, or a priest. Maybe even-

“What are you doing out here?” Dixon asked. Rose had finished her bardic tale and the big man hovered in the doorway, blocking the light. “Isn’t it cold?”

“Not too bad.”

“That Rose tells a great story.”

“It gets longer each time.”

Dixon stepped out beside her, reaching up to steady himself with the rafters. “Wind is picking up. Storm is coming.”

She nodded. “Good thing we got the roof finished.”

“It will be nice to just watch the rain for a change.” He placed a big hand gently on her shoulder. “You did a good thing here.”

She smiled and nodded, again wondering at the sympathetic tone of his voice. Do I look that sad?

“I never did thank you for taking me in.”

“I didn’t take you in . I desperately needed your help. I still do.” She placed her hand on his.

He moved closer and his arm reached across her back. She felt his body drift up alongside like a boat moving to meet a dock. His warmth circled her. It was a good, safe feeling. Dixon never availed himself of the obvious benefits of being the protector of a brothel. This was the first time he’d ever touched her. His arms and fingers rested lightly. She could sense the hesitancy, the self-conscious fear, and she loved him for it.

She put her arm around his waist as best she could and squeezed. “You’re a good man.”

“You’re a good woman. You know this business looks like it might be a real success. You most likely won’t need to do any of the day-to-day activities the way the other girls do. You’d be better off handling other affairs and such.”

“I’m already too busy.”

“See, that’s what I’m saying. And that being the case, well … someone might consider making a proper woman of you.”

“Someone like you?”

“Unless Roy the Sewer has made his intentions known. And if he has, there’ll be a fight.” He grinned and then let it fade before saying, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. This took the wind out of him, and it made her feel terrible. She felt him diminish, his arm drooping along her shoulders, his sight shifting to the street. “I think the world of you. I’m just not sure-”

“How’d you do it?” he said.

She didn’t understand.

“How did you discover what the inspector was planning?” His arm was off her shoulders and he had moved a breath farther away, his eyes continuing to look down the street.

“Oh, that.”

“Yeah, how did you know-about Grue and Lampwick?”

“I … ah…” She hesitated. “It’s kind of a secret.”

Dixon looked at her, surprised. “Really? You can’t tell me?”

She could see the hurt look on his face deepen. “It’s just that … I’m afraid you’ll … Most people would be disturbed. I don’t want you to dislike me.”

The hurt turned to concern. “It’s not possible for me to dislike you.” He offered her a little smile. “So how’d you do it?”

“I read his palm.”

Dixon looked at her. “You did what?”

“It’s very common back in Calis. Lots of people do readings and none of them are witches. They have shops like cobblers and are respected members of the community.”

Dixon held up his hands. “I wasn’t going to call you a witch.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I was going to ask how you learned to do it.”

“Oh.” Gwen felt embarrassed. “My mother taught me the practice years ago. Like I said, a lot of people in Calis tell fortunes. Some are better than others and there are a few my mother used to call swindlers. But my mother was very good at it.”

“How does it work?”

“I see patterns in the lines, like scholars do when they read books. I get impressions, images of the future or the past. Some are vague. Most don’t make any sense at all-until later. Everything always makes sense afterward. But some can be very clear, very precise, like his. I got lucky. I really don’t exactly know how it works myself. How do your eyes work? You don’t know-you just see, right? It’s like that. Just something I can do. I also have dreams sometimes that show the future, and sometimes I can see things just by looking in a person’s eyes but that’s rare.”

Frightening, too, but she didn’t say that, not wanting him asking too many questions that she didn’t want to answer.

“So you really can see the future? It isn’t a trick?”

“No trick.”

Dixon held out his hands to her.

She looked at them and smiled gently. “What I see isn’t always nice. Most often I see bad things, which is why I don’t do it often.”

“I’d like to know. But you have to agree to tell me the truth.”

She knew what he wanted to know. She smiled and nodded. Then, taking his hands, she led him over to the lantern and looked at his palms. The dominant hand was usually the best to read, and while she was deciding which that was, she noticed something strange.

She looked up, puzzled.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“That’s never happened before.”

“What?”

“The story on your right hand is shorter than the story on your left. This is so odd.”

“Are you messing with me?”

“Huh? No, of course not.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know yet. I have to read.”

His hand was so large, the lines so clear it was an easy read even in the dim light.

A small boy in a little farmhouse between two pretty maple trees. His father is a strong man who works a plow like it’s part of his body . She can’t see his mother and guesses she died giving birth. So much of the skill was in the guessing, working from the clues available to complete the picture.

The farm burns; there is cracked earth where crops should have been; there are floods and storms . Gwen had no idea of the order; scenes were often out of sequence. There is Dixon as a young man, standing in the rain outside of a pleasant house. It isn’t his; it belongs to a girl with red hair. He’s in love, but her father is giving her to another, a richer, older man. Dixon stands in the downpour watching the wedding from the far side of the stone wall. No one can tell he’s crying. Heavy rain always reminds him of that day. Gwen is sitting next to Dixon, next to the cart in the downpour on Wayward Street-the day she hires him. He’s thinking of the redheaded girl.

Dixon’s horse goes lame, and he has to kill her. He cries that day too. He pulls the cart himself then. He trudges along country roads. Then the cart gets away from him on a hill, smashes against a rock, and the axle breaks. He doesn’t have the money to repair it. In another rainstorm, he stands on the edge of the Gateway Bridge above the Galewyr, staring into the current. He comes very close to jumping . She couldn’t tell if it was because of the cart, the redheaded girl, or something else. She couldn’t even be sure if it was in his past or future.