The Burning City (26 page)

“You learn fast,” Pelzed said. “All right. We'll protect your cart on Mother's Day and I'll get the word out that anyone gathering at the Place-hold will have to answer to me. And I'll speak to the Lord's clerks in the Square. You'll be all right.”

“Thank you, Lord.”

“You'll have to control the Placehold. Don't make any new enemies. I can't fight new enemies,” Pelzed said. “You remember that.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“How many boys do you have at Placehold?”

“Eleven, Lord, not including Shastern.”

“They'll all join Serpent's Walk,” Pelzed said. “Join knowing they owe us.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Good.” Pelzed sipped more tea. A crafty smile came to his lips. “Don't you want to know what happened?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, Lord,” Whandall said. “I saw you going toward the Lordshills.”

“So did the Bull Pizzles,” Pelzed said. “They were following us. We couldn't shake them and there were too many to fight, so there we were, going out gathering with a bunch of Pizzles following right behind. I had a good plan—wear forester leathers. Wear leathers and make sure we didn't leave any dead behind. They'd never know it was us. But when we got
closer we saw Lordsmen. Twenty, maybe more. They had armor, swords, spears, big shields, and we weren't about to get past them. Kraemar and Roupend were feeling Yangin-Atep's power. They wanted to run in and gather. I couldn't control them much longer.”

“Is that where you got all that?” Whandall asked. “Lord's Town?”

“No, what I did was let the Bull Pizzles get past me, then go back to the Pizzle streets,” Pelzed said. “With our leathers on. Struck a bargain with the kinless there. Kraemar and Roupend got to burn some old houses and stores, the rest of us gathered all this, and the Bull Pizzles never came back. I may even have a new street for Serpent's Walk.”

“Lord—was Chief Wulltid killed, then, Lord?”

“No, you know what he's like; he didn't go with his men. He stayed to take his pleasures in his own houses.” Pelzed laughed. “I hope he enjoyed himself. He won't like my new arrangements.” The grin was wider. “But the Lords will. Bull Pizzle isn't very popular with the Lords right now.”

Whandall sipped tea and listened. He tried to imagine himself as Lord Whandall of Serpent's Walk. It was a good picture, and the more he thought about it, the more he liked it. It was a big job and he didn't know how to do it, but he could watch Pelzed and learn.

Wess had moved all his things into the big northeast room. Resalet's clothes were gone. His other things, bronze mirror, drinking cup, were laid out for Whandall's approval.

Wess was wearing a short wool skirt and a thin blouse that opened down to her navel.

Where did you get that?
He knew he shouldn't ask.
From Vinspel?
His hands were on her shoulders. “Nice,” he said, and repeated himself: “Nice. Wess, you're beautiful.” She must have used the mirror, he thought, and he reached out for the magical thing and looked into it.

There was no trace, now, of that ring-shaped scar. The serpent tattoo was magnificent… alien.

“What did I look like?” he asked. “I stayed clear of you while I was healing.” He'd let her see him once. The look in her eyes.

“That scar. I never thought it would heal.”

“I found magic,” he said. “Wess, I've got to talk to the rest of the house, but first, what have you got done?”

The children were being taken care of.

There was food. This evening's dinner would be huge: they were cooking everything that wouldn't keep. They'd eat as much as they could. Tomorrow, who knew?

Stashes of rocks were on the roof, and children on guard. Invaders
would expect rocks. There should be something else too, something to startle a gathering band. Boiling water? Too complicated; too much work, and where would they get water?
Think
of something. Fire would burn
on
a roof.

The Placehold was nearly empty. Was there some way the place could look busier? All that showed from the street was a blank wall and a wide gate. What men he had, he could move them through that gate more often.

“And I couldn't think of anything else,” she said. “You?”

“I've got Pelzed's protection. The only idea I had. Dark Man's Cup will do us some good, I think. Pelzed killed some friends for not keeping his promises there.”

Whandall was busier than he had ever been in his life.

He'd forgotten that everyone went hungry following the Burning. There wasn't enough food outside: too many gatherers and not enough to gather. Hunger, then feasts when anyone could gather food. They fought over the dishes, and everything tasted so good, he remembered that. Now he knew why: they were starving.

Whandall's elder half sister Sharlatta came home with Chapoka. Chapoka was an adult male, and there was no more to be said for him. He never gathered except from a friend, he complained about everything, and he never shut up. Whandall knew him well enough to throw him out.

Chapoka wouldn't be thrown, and Whandall was harassed and hungry. He decided his household of children could use entertainment. The fight in the courtyard left Chapoka with scars he would have to explain for the rest of his life. The gaudiest were on his back.

Afterward the Placehold's survivors treated Whandall like a Lord. During this time, lack of respect was one complaint he never had.

He hadn't realized—he had to leaf back through his memories to understand that
everyone always complained to a Lord all the time
.

Even Wess. Loving Wess was wonderful, and she held the Placehold together as much as anyone. But… living with a woman took new skills at accommodation and ate time he didn't have. It wasn't like living with a roomful of brothers, and he hadn't
liked
that very much.

He saw his former life as a long dream of idleness. He came to understand
why fathers disappeared. Maybe he wouldn't have stayed with it. But he knew….

He
knew where the men had gone. Whatever befell the Placehold now was his doing.

Whandall's mother brought Freethspat home four weeks after the Burning. Everyone was astonished. He was a heavily scarred man around thirty years old, from so far across town that nobody knew anything of his clan. “Sea Cliffs,” he said, and he showed a finely tattooed sea gull in flight.

When Whandall came home that afternoon, Freethspat and Mother had the northeast room. Whandall's things were in the north room that Shastern had taken because no one wanted to move Elriss from the southeast room she had shared with Wanshig.

Wess moved in with Elriss. She was avoiding him again. Once they met on the stair, and Wess spoke rapidly, before he could open his mouth.

“You could have
asked
me to stay.”

“What if I asked now?”

“Stay where? Whandall, I would have followed you. You never said anything. It's like I came with the northeast room, or with your being the oldest man!”

“I wasn't sure,” Whandall said. She'd left him once before. She had come to him when his status changed, and it might change again. For those reasons and one other, he'd dithered.

That other reason… “Wess, if I had you
and
the Placehold to take care of, that would be my life. Guard you and the rest of them until I am dead. I know how to do that. Be Pelzed's right hand. When Pelzed wants to slack off a little, years from now, I'd
be
Lord Pelzed. Lord Whandall,” he tasted the name, “except when Lords or Lordsmen can hear me. I…”

She waited for him to go on, but he didn't know how to say it. He hadn't even tried until now.
I don't want to be Pelzed! Pelzed bows and scrapes and flatters, and sets his people against each other, and lies, and kills, and tells other people to kill friends. And with all that lives not a half as well as the real Lords in Lord's Town. What I want, it isn't here—

Wess brushed past him and was gone.

Coals still burned.

The killing of firefighters had got up the kinless's noses. Now they wanted to carry knives.

For months after the Burning, the talk was of little else. There was no fundamental disagreement among the Lordkin. How could a conquered people be permitted weapons? Of course the firefighters shouldn't have
been killed… not
killed
. But fire was Yangin-Atep's. Wait, now, Yangin-Atep suppressed fire too! So it wasn't blasphemy. Yes it was, but they could have been driven off… taught an unforgettable lesson, scarred or maimed,
then
driven off… but they'd
soaked
those blankets to smother the fires—that was
drinking
water….

In the street-corner gatherings, Whandall tried to stay out of the arguments. They could get you killed. A teller from Begridseth was beaten for asking the wrong questions, and again Whandall didn't participate.

At home the women were in quiet mourning, but Mother's Mother left no doubt about how she felt. The Lordkin had become no better than animals.

The kinless couldn't see reason. They had been attacked while rescuing horses—yes, and fighting a fire too. Attacked and murdered. The kinless wanted the killers' heads. Hah! No hope of that, of course, even without the protection of their street-brothers. You'd have thought half the city had watched the firefighters die; they were willing to describe what they thought had happened in minute detail, but nobody could remember a face.

But the kinless wanted to carry knives or clubs, to fight back next time!

Many Lordkin would have offered them the chance, for amusement. A bad precedent, though, a reversal of ancient law.

But nothing was being built.

Lords and kinless were holding talks; Lordkin spoke at every intersection; and every mouth was dry. The Deerpiss carried water an uncertain distance and then stopped, because smashed aqueducts were still smashed.

Garbage wasn't moving. The Lordkin began to see that it would not move itself. Rats and other scavengers were growing numerous. Ash pits that had been stores and restaurants now began to serve the Lordkin as garbage dumps.

Mother's Day came and went. Nothing was distributed in Peacegiven Square because there was nothing to distribute. Scant food was coming into the city; too much was disappearing on the way. Great fire, would the Lordkin have to take up driving wagons them
selves?

That, Whandall decided, was an interesting notion.

Now Freethspat and Whandall and Shastern were the only men in the Placehold. Freethspat fit in well enough. He didn't often beat the younger children and never seemed to beat the women at all. He was respectful to Pelzed and spoke well of Serpent's Walk. Mother never yelled at him, which was unusual.

A week after his arrival, Freethspat was gone all night. Whandall wondered
if he'd disappeared. Mother had no doubts, and in the morning he brought home a pushcart full of food, some of it fresh. There was enough food to last a week and no one mentioned the blood on the cart.

Freethspat was a provider.

Freethspat might have had a little Lords' blood in him too. Over the next three weeks, rooms nobody would walk in barefoot became jarringly clean, and the Placehold girls smiled proudly when Freethspat praised them. Six Placehold boys who had been old enough to gather in the Burning, but too young for anything so serious as robbing a wizard, now brought home gold rings and wallets from looker pockets and produce from kinless markets. And Whandall—

“Now it's your turn,” Freethspat said.

They were in the courtyard, gathered for dinner. Heads turned as Freethspat spoke. They'd heard this conversation before.

Whandall asked, “Mean what?”

“Mean it's time you earned your keep, Whandall,” Freethspat said. “Sure, I can get more to eat, but what happens to your mother if they get me? And your sisters? Your turn.”

“I don't know where to get food.”

“I can show you, but your mother says you know a lot,” Freethspat said. “You've been to Lordshills. Take me there.”

Whandall shook his head. “The Lordsmen will kill us both. Me for sure. Lord Samorty told them last time I was there. Here, look at my arm—it grew back crooked.” Whandall pulled off his shirt. “Here—”

“Then somewhere else. You know the forest, but there's nothing to be had there, is there? No. Then somewhere you went with your brother—what was his name?”

“Wanshig,” Elriss said, glaring. She was nursing Wanshig's son.

“Wanshig,” Freethspat said. “They tell me you hung around with him a lot, Whandall. He must have showed you something. They say Wanshig was smart.”

“He was,” Elriss said.

“So show me.”

Whandall could have liked Freethspat. But the man was just an inch taller and just an inch wider than Whandall, just a little too obtrusive in his strength. He called him
Whandall
, as a brother would. He lived in Whandall's room.