The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (20 page)

She smacked her lips again and dragged her parched tongue around the desert-dry inside of her mouth.

“We’re going to need water.”

Bieta went to the table and eyed the bowl they’d been using to clean the prince. The water—cloudy before they brought him here—was a sickly brownish-gray. Particles of dirt floated on the top of the mixture of water, blood, and sweat. The water was so dirty, Bieta doubted even Stirk’d drink it.

“How you going to get us water?”

“By sneaking into the tanner’s through the cellar, see if he’s got any.”

Stirk’s eyebrows met above the bridge of his nose. “You said we should never steal from old Flenge. Said it’s like biting his hand.”

“Biting the hand that feeds us,” she corrected. “But this ain’t a usual happening, Stirk. I don’t know how long it’ll be before Enin comes back. If we don’t get water, we ain’t going to be around to enjoy no gold.”

Bieta went to the open trap door in the corner and peered into the dark. Beside her, Stirk looked over her shoulder.

“You didn’t piss on the ladder, did you?” she asked.

“Naw. Careful of your step at the bottom, though. Had to shit before you woke up.”

She rolled her eye. “Get me the taper,” she said, holding out her hand.

Stirk hesitated. Bieta fixed her gaze on him.

“But it’ll be dark in here if you take it,” he said, a vague whimper hidden beneath his tone.

“I got to see my way through the cellar, Stirk. Plunk your ass down while I’m gone and stay in one place.”

His lip quivered. “But it’ll be dark.”

Bieta’s tongue darted back and forth across her gum, her teeth clenched tight. She glared at him and he diverted his gaze.

“Get me the taper.”

Head hung, Stirk slouched across the room to the shelf and pried the candle holder out of the pool of melted tallow. The flame bounced and faltered but remained alight as he moved it away; he held it out for Bieta to take, the light reflecting on the shiny surface of the cauterized skin pulled tight across the end of his shortened left arm.

The tension in Bieta’s jaw eased at the sight of the scar, her heart softened. She took the candle holder from her son and put her hand on his forearm.

“Does it hurt?”

He shook his head. “Not in my arm.”

His gaze fell on the prince, hatred burning in his eyes. The muscles in his arm tensed. Bieta gripped it hard, jarred his attention away from the lad and back to her.

“Sit your arse right here and don’t move.”

His bottom lip protruded in the pout to which Bieta had become so accustomed. His eyes smoldered, but he nodded.

“Right, then. I’ll be back quick as I can, with water and hopefully food, too.” Her gaze flickered to the prince, back. “Don’t move.”

Stirk nodded once more and sank to the floor, his thick legs crossed awkwardly, elbows leaning on his knees. Once he settled, Bieta knew he’d do as she said—his fear of the dark outweighed his hatred of their captive.

The woman set the candle holder on the floor beside the open trap door and gathered her skirts so her feet might find the ladder’s rungs without catching in her dress. After descending the first three steps, her knees quivering with nerves until she’d gone far enough to grip the top rung, she paused and peered back at Stirk.

“You going to be all right?”

He nodded but refused to meet her gaze.

Not exactly satisfied, but realizing it was the best she’d get out of him, Bieta picked up the taper and resumed her descent. She counted the steps silently, having traversed the ladder enough times to know it took twenty-two to reach the bottom. With each new moon, she descended the ladder and made her way to the tannery to pay Flenge the rent due for allowing them to live in his storeroom. Sometimes she worried about him getting too old to receive the kind of rent she paid, and that he might start looking for coin instead. If so, they’d need to find a new place to live.

Bieta reached the bottom rung and paused, craning her neck and holding the taper out to ensure she didn’t step in her son’s excrement. A rat squeaked and scurried away from the light. A drop of saliva squeezed into her mouth at the thought of it, but she wasn’t willing to chase it around in the dark—that’d be a job for Stirk for later.

She stepped off the ladder into the tannery’s worst stench. In the cellar, Flenge kept the urine and dung used for making cow hides into leather, along with the oak bark, stale beer, and lye—the raw materials needed for removing hair and softening the pelt. Bieta had watched Flenge work more than once, disgusted by the proceedings as she awaited the opportunity to make good on the turn of the moon’s rent.

Bieta stepped away from the ladder, careful of her footing, and made her way along the narrow cellar. The scrape of vermin feet on the dirt floor scurried ahead of the taper’s light, but she paid it no attention, fixing her gaze ahead without looking at the rows of clay jars lining the shelves on either side. As she approached the ladder leading into the tanner’s, the vessels gave way to folded leathers, finished and waiting to be sold to an armorer or shoemaker, perhaps. In this section of the cellar, the tannery’s stink relented, allowing the sweet scent of the leather in. Bieta inhaled deeply, enjoying the aroma. Her stomach rumbled.

Upon reaching the steps to the tanner’s, she stopped at the foot of the ladder and gazed up at the bottom side of a closed trap door. Since a few sunrises yet remained before the new moon when rent was due, Flenge wouldn’t be expecting her today. She hoped he hadn’t set anything heavy atop the door in the floor. After setting the taper on top of a pile of folded leathers and gripping a rung above head level, she stepped up onto the ladder.

Up she climbed, the aroma of leather dissipating with each step, replaced by the mixed scents of the tannery itself. When the top of her head brushed the underside of the door, Bieta stopped. She stared at the boards. Normally, she’d have knocked and Flenge, who’d be expecting her, would open the door, happy to let her in and receive rent.

But she wasn’t here to use the space between her teeth to pay the tab this time, and she didn’t want the tanner to know of her presence since she planned on robbing him. She didn’t expect to find any food, but Flenge used water in the tanning process, so it’d be plentiful in his shop, and that was her first priority. She needed it as badly as did their captive, and her throat ached at the thought.

Tongue massaging the space left by her missing teeth, Bieta released the rung held in her right hand and reached up until her fingers touched the underside of the door. Her fingertips brushed the rough wood and a droplet of sweat rolled along her temple. She murmured to herself, saying an unfamiliar prayer for nothing to be set upon the trap door, that no latch locked it in place, and in hoping Flenge wasn’t nearby where he’d see her climb out. Bieta pushed lightly on the door and it shifted upward.

Thank the one God.

Bieta paused, lips pressed tight together waiting for Flenge to call out, asking what she needed, but he didn’t. The tallow of the taper popped and sizzled, coming near to its end as she hesitated. The droplet of sweat from her temple caught at the corner of her mouth. She swiped it away with her tongue, its salty flavor making her throat burn with thirst.

The sensation encouraged her to continue despite her nerves. A firmer push raised the trap door a full handspan—enough to stretch her neck and peer through the crack.

Bieta looked along the surface of the dusty floor, at the bottom of shelves and the mouse droppings caught beneath them. Her eye flickered one way, then the other, but she caught no sight of Flenge.

Maybe it’s closer to sunset than I thought. Or he might’ve left to pick up more hides or supplies.

With a deep breath tasting of dust and leather, Bieta stepped up another rung on the ladder and pushed the trap door the rest of the way open. She knew a set of shelves stood close behind it, so didn’t worry it might fall open and slam against the floor. Her foot moved up again, her head protruding through the floor.

The back of the tannery lay in darkness. Flenge kept the front of his workshop well lit during the day, with the door and shutters at the front of the building thrown open both for illumination and ventilation, but he refused to leave a lamp burning at the back, claiming it a waste of oil. Today, Bieta gave thanks for his miserly nature.

Hiking her skirts up high, she climbed the last few steps until she put her knees on the floor and pulled herself out through the trap door. When she did, she paused again, waiting for any indication she’d been heard. The sound of a voice stopped her.

Not Flenge’s, she could tell, but a man’s, and she couldn’t make out what he said. Likely a leather worker negotiating the purchase of materials to make belts and scabbards, vests and cuffs. All the better for Bieta that Flenge be distracted while she liberated fresh water to sustain Stirk, herself, and their captive.

Bieta stood and let the hem of her dress drop back to the floor, then took one step before pausing. She searched her memory, recalling where Flenge kept the water. Most often when she visited, she paid little attention to the tanner’s business as she wanted to get hers out of the way as quickly as possible.

A barrel by the wall.

Flenge collected rain water in barrels, preferring to use it for tanning rather than river water. Bieta licked her lips at the thought of it, imagining its sweet flavor on her tongue, soothing her throat.

But she’d be unable to take a barrel down the ladder and through the cellar. She’d need a container in which to carry it.

The woman moved furtively amongst the shelves, her gaze flickering between the tools and supplies set upon them, then toward the shop with its voices floating to her ears. Whenever she came to a clay pot, she tested its weight but found most of them full or close to. Finally, near the edge of the shelves and a few paces away from the water barrel, she found one with only a few scraps of bark left in the bottom. She crouched to empty the rest of its contents but stopped when she saw a flash of movement between the shelves.

A man in armor.

Bieta leaned closer to the shelves, the pot in her hands momentarily forgotten as she concentrated on the goings-on at the front of the tanner’s workshop.

“…haven’t seen nothing,” Flenge’s croaking voice said. “Nothing unordinary, at least. Who you looking for again?”

Bieta’s heart jumped in her chest.

“A young man of twenty turns,” the other man said. “He may have been dressed in a merchant’s garb.”

“Nope. Ain’t been no one of that description ‘round here. No one I don’t already do business with.”

Bieta squinted her eye, staring hard through the space between a clay pot and a pile of hides, bits of flesh clinging to the pelts stinking of rot. She ignored the odor, concentrating on the man, instead. After a moment, he turned and Bieta saw he possessed only one arm.

The man from the tavern.

The one-armed man nodded toward the back of the workshop and the shelves where Bieta hid.

“What’s back there?” he asked.

“Storage,” Flenge said. “And there’s a storeroom out back, too. I rent it out to a woman and her son.”

Bieta didn’t wait to hear more. She scrambled back toward the trap door, leaving the clay pot and its scattering of oak bark sitting on the floor. With her skirts held up from her feet, she scurried through the shelves toward the dim glow of the taper shining out of the cellar, hoping for their conversation to continue and give her time to get away.

What will we do?

Her mind raced. If the one-armed man found the prince in their room, she had no doubt of their bodies being relieved of their traitorous heads. She needed to get back to Stirk fast. They needed to figure a way to get the prince out of the room.

We could hide him in the cellar.

Bieta bent over and stuck her legs through the open trap door, located the third rung down with her foot and began to descend. Two steps farther, her sandal caught and she slipped, scraping her shin. She caught herself on the edge of the floor, saw the movement of feet in the space under the shelves, and reached up to grasp the trap door. Breath held, she swung the door shut, closing it quietly in a puff of dust.

The woman reached the cellar floor and retrieved the sputtering taper off the shelf, cold sweat trickling between her breasts. She spun and hurried back toward the storeroom, her mind considering options as she went.

We can’t put him here; Flenge’ll show him the cellar. And if he sees the cellar, he might come to our room through the trap door.

The possibility of telling Stirk to lay in wait for the one-armed man occurred to her. When the soldier poked his head through the trap door, Stirk could hit him, but she doubted the man was here alone. Enin mentioned two men visiting him at his shop, and maybe more. He couldn’t stay where he was and they couldn’t put him in the cellar. What, then?

“Stirk’ll have to break down the door,” she muttered as she reached the ladder leading to the storeroom.

She grabbed a rung as her foot slipped in something she suspected might be her son’s shit and hurried up, the taper gripped precariously as she climbed. It sputtered and flickered, the wick burned near its end.

Bieta stuck her head through the trap door and pulled the candle holder through after her, heart beating hard in her chest. To her relief, Stirk remained exactly where she’d left him, legs crossed, elbows on his knees, leaning toward the door in the floor. As the taper’s light washed across his face, his strained expression eased.

“Ma—,” he began, but Bieta didn’t let him finish.

“We have to get him out of here,” she cried, pulling herself into the room and slamming the trap door shut. “They’re going to find us.”

Stirk leaned back, his eyes going wide. He opened his mouth to speak when the taper fizzled and went out, throwing the room into darkness.

***

Stirk froze, lips parted, a breath half-drawn. The dark fell on him like a blanket thrown over his head, suppressing the ability of his lungs as surely as it took his sight. His muscles—already aching from the strain of waiting for his mother’s return in the dark—tensed again, clenching his joints and bones into an inert state.