Daniel Abraham - THE

the firekeeper. And now, she needed them now. The Emperor's daughter got

what she wanted, and she got it quickly. She and the boy were on the

streets in less than half a hand, the litter jouncing uncomfortably as

they were carried through the drizzle. The runner tried not to seem awed

at the palace servants' fear of Eiah. Eiah tried not to bite her

fingernails from anxiety. The streets slid by outside their shelter as

Eiah willed the litter bearers to go faster. When they reached Parit's

house, she strode through the courtyard gardens like a general going to war.

Without speaking, Parit ushered her to the back. It was the same room in

which she'd seen the last woman. Parit sent the runner away. There were

no servants. There was no one besides the two physicians and a body on

the wide slate table, covered by a thick canvas cloth soaked through

with blood.

"They brought her to me this morning," Parit said. "I called for you

immediately."

"Let me see," Eiah said.

Parit pulled back the cloth.

The woman was perhaps five summers older than Eiah herself, darkhaired

and thickly built. She was naked, and Eiah saw the wounds that covered

her body: belly, breasts, arms, legs. A hundred stab wounds. The woman's

skin was unnaturally pale. She'd bled to death. Eiah felt no revulsion,

no outrage. Her mind fell into the patterns she had cultivated all her

life. This was only death, only violence. This was where she was most at

home.

"Someone wasn't happy with her," Eiah said. "Was she a soft-quarter whore?"

Parit startled, his hands almost taking a pose of query. Eiah shrugged.

"That many knife wounds," she said, "aren't meant only to kill. Three or

four would suffice. And the spacing of them isn't what I've seen when

the killer had simply lost control. Someone was sending a message."

"She wasn't stabbed," Parit said. He took a cloth from his sleeve and

tossed it to her. Eiah turned back to the corpse, wiping the blood away

from a wound in the dead woman's side. The smear of gore thinned. The

nature of the wound became clear.

It was a mouth. Tiny rosebud lips, slack as sleep. Eiah told her hand to

move, but for a long moment her flesh refused her. Then, her breath

shallow, she cleaned another. And then another.

The woman was covered with babies' mouths. Eiah's fingertips traced the

tiny lips that had spilled the woman's lifeblood. It was a death as

grotesque as any Eiah had heard in the tales of poets who had tried to

bind the andat and fallen short.

Tears filled her eyes. Something like love or pity or gratitude filled

her heart to bursting. She looked at the woman's face for the first

time. The woman hadn't been pretty. A thick jaw, a heavy brow, acne

pocks. Eiah held back from kissing her cheek. Parit was confused enough

as it stood. Instead, Eiah wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took the

dead woman's hand.

"What happened?" she asked.

"The watch saw a cart going west out of the soft quarter," Parit said.

"The captain said there were three people, and they were acting nervous.

When he hailed them, they tried to run."

"Did he catch them?"

Parit was staring at Eiah's hand clasping the dead woman's fingers.

"Parit," she said. "Did he catch them?"

"What? No. No, all three slipped away. But they had to abandon the cart.

She was in it," Parit said, nodding at the corpse. "I'd asked anything

unusual to be brought to me. I offered a length of silver."

"They earned it," Eiah said. "Thank you, Parit-kya. I can't tell you how

much this means."

"What should we do?" Parit asked, sitting on his stool like a fresh

apprentice before his master. He'd always done that when he felt himself

at sea. Eiah found there was warmth in her heart for him even now

"Burn her," Eiah said. "Burn her with honors and treat her ashes with

respect."

"Shouldn't we ... shouldn't we tell someone? The utkhaiem? The Emperor?"

"You already have," Eiah said. "You've told me."

There was a moment's pause. Parit took a pose that asked clarification.

It wasn't quite the appropriate one, but he was flustered.

"This is it, then," he said. "This is what you were looking for."

"Yes," Eiah said.

"You know what happened to her."

"Yes."

"Would you..." Parit coughed, looked down. His brow was knotted. Eiah

was half-tempted to go to him, to smooth his forehead with her palm.

"Could you explain this to me?"

"No," she said.

AFTER THAT, IT WAS SIMPLE. THEY WOULDN'T REMAIN IN SARAYKEHT, NOT WHEN

they'd so nearly been discovered. The Emperor's daughter asked favors of

the port master, of the customs men on the roads, of the armsmen paid by

the city to patrol and keep the violence in the low towns to an

acceptable level. Her quarry weren't smugglers or thieves. They weren't

expert in covering their tracks. In two days, she knew where they were.

Eiah quietly packed what things she needed from her apartments in the

palace, took a horse from the stables, and rode out of the city as if

she were only going to visit an herb woman in one of the low towns.

As if she were coming back.

She found them at a wayhouse on the road to Shosheyn-Tan. The winter sun

had set, but the gates to the wayhouse courtyard were still open. The

carriage Eiah had heard described was at the side of the house, its

horses unhitched. The two women, she knew, were presenting themselves as

travelers. The man-old, fat, unpleasant to speak withwas posing as their

slave. Eiah let the servant take her horse to be cared for, but instead

of going up the steps to the main house, she followed him back to the

stables. A small shack stood away at an angle. Quarters for servants and

slaves. Eiah felt her lips press thin at the thought. Rough straw

ticking, thin blankets, whatever was left to eat after the paying guests

were done.

"How many servants are here now?" Eiah asked of the young maneighteen

summers, so four years old when it had happened-brushing down her horse.

He looked at her as if she'd asked what color ducks laid the eggs they

served at table. She smiled.

"Three," the servant said.

"Tell me about them," she said.

He shrugged.

"There's an old woman came in two days ago. Her master's laid up sick.

Then a boy from the Westlands works for a merchant staying on the ground

floor. And an old bastard just came in with two women from Chaburi-Tan."

"Chaburi-Tan?"

"What they said," the servant replied.

Eiah took two lengths of silver from her sleeve and held them out in her

palm. The servant promptly forgot about her horse.

"When you're done," she said, "take the woman and the Westlander to the

back of the house. Buy them some wine. Don't mention me. Leave the old man."

The servant took a pose of acceptance so total it was just short of an

open pledge. Eiah smiled, dropped the silver in his palm, and pulled up

a shoeing stool to sit on while she waited. The night was cool, but

still not near as cold as her home in the north. An owl hooted deep and

low. Eiah pulled her arms up into her sleeves to keep her fingers warm.

The scent of roasting pork wafted from the wayhouse, and the sounds of a

flute and a voice lifted together.

The servant finished his work and with a deferential nod to Eiah, made

his way to the servants' house. It was less than half a hand before he

emerged with a thin woman and a sandy-haired Westlands boy trailing him.

Eiah pushed her hands back through her sleeves and made her way to the