City of Night (17 page)

She wasn’t Rath; she couldn’t easily find a doctor. Even if she knew where one worked or lived—and she did, at least in the twenty-fifth holding—finding one that would let her across the threshold when she wasn’t actively threatening to die in the door by, say, something as obvious as bleeding, was next to impossible. That, coupled with Rath’s almost legendary dislike of strangers—of anyone—knowing precisely where he lived meant food and water were
all
she could safely do.

She was Jewel Markess; she did what she could.

But it was hard, to open his door, to close it, to pick up the bucket and march it into the kitchen; it was hard to empty the food she’d managed to negotiate from Farmer Hanson out of the second bucket. It had been years—
years
—since she’d lived with Rath, but sometimes this place, this empty quiet space, still felt like home.

She was not, now, the girl she had been then. She was not as frightened, not as uncertain. She could read, and even Rath grudgingly admitted she read
reasonably well;
she could handle enough of numbers to budget, and living on her own, with an iron box of constantly diminishing coin, had made clear to her that budgeting was not optional. Rath had taught her that, picking up the strands of her father’s earlier lessons; he had taught her how to read, how to write. He was—when he saw her at all—teaching her how to speak, and given that she knew damn well how to speak, this said something. Teller and Finch often accompanied her for these lessons, although neither of them appeared to enjoy the constant outburst and argument that some of his instructions provoked in Jewel.

Rath, on the other hand, liked Teller and Finch. He was quiet with them in a way that he was not quiet with the other members of her den; it was a silence of appraisal, but with no edge, no cutting judgment. Where, with Jewel, he was curt and sometimes heated, and with the others, dismissive, with Teller or Finch he was more measured in his reply, and he often took a few minutes to consider the questions they asked as if the questions themselves were inherently worthy of thought.

Jewel, on bad days, envied this horribly.

But, she thought, as she began to put wood from a noticeably tiny pile into the stove, that was a different type of bad day. Because on one of
these
bad days, she would have been sitting in her room, in silence, listening and waiting and wondering. Would he stay in bed? Would he recover? Would he go back to wherever it is he’d come from so injured? Would he never come home at all?

And as she thought it, she looked down the hall. Stupid, to waste the time. She found a pot, started water boiling, found some rags that did not look conspicuously dirty, and headed toward his room, trailing water from the bucket she had cursed so roundly at the wellside.

 

Angel jumped slightly when she opened the door. Whatever he saw in her face didn’t instantly make him relax, and she grimaced, trying to school her expression. “I’m only here for a couple of minutes while the water boils.” She saw his pale, raised brow and added, “Soup. He didn’t open his mouth enough that I could see that he had all his teeth.” She kept the words light, on purpose.

But he nodded gravely, and instead of returning to the chair over which he’d draped himself with a characteristic floppy grace, he walked over to the wall above the mantel, and stretching to his full height, he pulled a jar down.

She grimaced as she saw it; she couldn’t quite help herself.

“Bad?” he asked, as he handed it to her.

“It’s the smell,” she replied, as she struggled to remove the lid. “And the texture.”

He didn’t even wrinkle his nose.

“You can’t get this stuff off for weeks, I swear.” She paused and turned to Rath, who lay still across the bed. “Look, Angel, do you want to cook?”

He shrugged, his lips quirking in an odd smile. “Thankful you brought me instead of Carver?”

“Not really. If I’d brought Carver,
he’d
be using this . . . stuff, and
I’d
be cooking.” But she smiled as she said it, and he lifted the surprisingly heavy chair and put it down, quietly, by the side of the bed, taking care not to catch anything on the floor under its stout, round legs.

“Get me a cup,” she told him, and Angel disappeared.

She sat, heavily, and then touched Rath’s forehead with the inside of her wrist.

He opened his eyes. Just his eyes, but they were ringed and dark. Not bruises. Care, she thought. Or age. Rath looked old. And tired.

“Rath,” she said, very quietly.

He smiled, but it was slight, and it left creases at the corners of his mouth that spoke of pain, not amusement.

“Your arm?”

“Fractured. It looks worse than it is.”

“Your hand . . .”

“That looks about as bad as it is,” was the wry reply. Rath’s voice was low, and his eyelids drifted down.

Jewel, inspecting his face, drew a sharp breath which Rath didn’t choose to acknowledge. But she pulled a rag from the bucket, and very gently began to sponge his forehead clean. The cut an inch above his hairline wasn’t deep, but it hadn’t yet closed completely. This, she began to dress with the unguent. It was familiar and almost soothing, even given the smell.

He knew. He must have known; he lifted his hand—his uninjured hand—and placed it almost gently over hers. Hers stilled. “You’ve seen worse, Jewel.”

It was true. She’d even seen Rath worse. But the only time that had happened? It was the night she knew he would send her—send them all—away. She’d lived in fear of it for months and months.

It was gone, that fear; he could only do it once. But he had. And truthfully? The hurt had been buried so deep beneath the fear and panic of having to feed, clothe, and house her entire den, she hadn’t had much time to dwell on it.

But . . . she hadn’t done it on her own. Rath had been there, while she looked for a place—any place—that would take their money and not toss them out the minute Rath’s back was turned. Rath had answered her questions, prodding her to ask more, and to ask them herself, first. He had helped her forage in the undercity for the first of the things he could try to sell, and he had given her the money he had made when he had completed the transaction; he would not take her with him to negotiate, nor tell her where he was going.

And he’d made her promise, again, that she would bring things to him to sell—and only to him. He’d been there for her. He just hadn’t been willing to have her in his space, and his life, in the same way he had when he’d first found her.

She hadn’t understood
why
.

Seeing him, hand broken, arm fractured, forehead bleeding beneath the welt of sticky, smelly unguent, she suddenly did. Like the previous injuries, these weren’t the result of an accident. But the last time? She’d believed that those injuries had finally reminded him of what he was called: Old Rath. He’d lived by wits and cunning and caution for his entire life in the holdings—and probably outside of them as well—and he
knew
when to cut his losses and back away.

She saw, clearly now, that he
hadn’t
backed away. Whatever it was he’d been doing before he’d thrown her out of his apartments, he was
still doing
. He’d never meant to stop.

And if he wasn’t going to stop, he put them all at risk
if they lived with him
. Hand still sticky with unguent, she looked away from his bruised face, his closed eyes. She could feel the slow unknotting of pain.

It stopped before she could let it go. Because she felt a sudden certainty as she gazed at his face, at his skin, at the lines around his mouth and eyes. He would go wherever he went, and he would not come back. That’s the way she thought it:
not come back
. The other word, she shied away from, although it was there in its stark and empty simplicity.

But he must have felt it, or seen it; his hand was still on hers, and his eyes were still watching her face.

She worked for the words, for the breath to
say
the damn words. These words, she had
never
been good at.

His hand tightened. “Jewel,” he told her softly, “I know.”

He did.

The knowledge didn’t comfort her; it absolved her of
nothing
.

“You
don’t
know,” she began. She broke off, met his gaze, and held it. Then she pulled her hand away, rocking the chair backward as she stood. She caught it as it teetered; slammed it down hard. He was injured. He was hurt. She shouldn’t be angry—shouldn’t be shouting—but she couldn’t, damn it, stop.

He closed his eyes. “No,” he replied, letting his uninjured arm fall to his side. “But what you tell me will not give me
knowledge,
either. You see what you see, Jewel. But I see what I see.”

“What do you see?” Her voice was low, almost wild. She had to curb it, had to hold it in.

He shook his head.

“Rath!”

“Jewel, leave it be.” He paused, and then added, “I am not your father. What your father would not hear, he would not hear because he did not believe. The failure you fear is not, in the end, your failure. What you say to me now—if you even know
what
to say—will be true. I’ll understand it, little urchin, because I have
always
understood it. I did not come to this life by accident, nor do I pursue my curent goals by accident. I am not driven by the need for money; I’ve always had enough to eat, I’ve always had a place to live.”

“Liar.”

He frowned, and this time, it was not a frown of pain. “Your manners are somewhat lacking of late.”

It was not what she’d expected to hear, and her laugh was, like her voice, wild, unexpected.

“I told you, Jewel: You cannot save everyone. Learn to accept this.”

“I’m not trying to save everyone. I’m trying to—”

“Very well,” he told her, lifting a hand. “You cannot save
me
. If that is why you came, I apologize for wasting your time. I do what I do because I can. I even tell myself it’s because I
must
. I believe it,” he added softly. “And because I believe it, I do not require you to do the same.”

“It’s not why I came.”

“Ah. If you came for lessons, I fear that I must disappoint.”

She shook her head.

His eyes, as he gazed at her face, were clear, and the pain left them. “Angel,” he said, although he didn’t look at Angel. “Help me stand.”

Bad, Jewel thought numbly. She hadn’t even heard Angel reenter the damn room.

Angel came up behind Jewel, and then hesitated for a moment before sidestepping her. He handed her the cup that was dangling from two fingers, and she took it automatically while he waited. And he waited, Jewel thought, for her order, or rather, her countermand. She had no words to spare. All of her words were on the inside of her mouth, her throat; they were a messy jumble of anger and fear. She wanted to believe that if she untangled them, if she chose the
right
words, Rath would understand. Rath would
listen
.

Wanted to, and couldn’t.

Angel took Rath’s good arm, put a hand behind his shoulder, and pulled him to his feet; he let Rath lean against him as Rath moved to the head of his bed. He gripped the rounded wooden end, but didn’t let go of Angel, and Jewel watched him as he twisted the head of the post off. “Come here, Jewel.”

She did. He handed her the knob, and pointed at the post. It was hollow. She had seen it before, of course. She’d even taken pleasure in it; it was a secret, a way of communicating with Rath if she needed to do so.

“If anything happens to me—”

“When?”

“If you prefer. When I die, and you are certain I am dead, come here. What I can leave, I will leave.”

She said nothing.

“Jewel—”

“It’s not a game, Rath.”

“No. I merely display a sense of humor. I do not, however, require that you develop one. If I need information to reach you, and only you, I will leave it here.” He held out his hand, and she handed him the top of post. He replaced it, and then shuffled, with Angel’s help, back to bed.

“Angel,” she said gruffly. “You finished in the kitchen?”

Angel said nothing, but he did retreat.

She listened for the sound of the door. When she heard it, she came back to the bed, and the chair she had vacated. She picked up the rag, picked up the unguent jar—the latter from the folds of a cape which lay over jackets and shirts—and began to tend him again. She worked in a silence that was part mutinous. The other part? Didn’t matter.

“You do what you can,” he told her. “You’ve always done what you can. You’re blameless here.”

“Does it matter? I’m not trying to lay blame.”

He grimaced. “Your point,” he told her, as if they were keeping score. And maybe, she thought, one of them was.

Fifteen minutes went by. Maybe more. Rath had a clock that a mage had given him, and Jewel had learned to read it. And to watch it.

Rath.

“I don’t want you to die.” When the words left her mouth, they surprised her. And embarrassed her, a little.

He reached out again, placed his hand on one of hers. “I don’t particularly want to die. If I thought what you would tell me would preserve my life, I would listen—but you’ll tell me to stop, to quit, to retreat.”

“Only for now,” she began.

His hand tightened. “Only for now, Jewel?”

“For now.” But her gaze slid off his face, slid away.

“What are my rules for visitors?”

“Never lie to you.”

“Very good. Jewel?”

“Why is it so important? What’s worth dying for?”

He chuckled. It was not a happy sound. “You sound,” he told her, “like a younger version of me.” His hand tightened again. “Never become that. There are things in your life that you would die for.”

She heard the door, this time. But she had to ask. “What do you think I’d die for?”