The False Martyr (58 page)

Teth shook her head, tried
to hold back her tears. Dasen could only join her.

“
Then ya can be on yir
way.” The soldier pointed them toward the dock. Dasen stood and
helped Teth up. She leaned heavily on him. He tried to breathe
through his mouth, tried not to think about the bugs that were
making their way into his clothes and hair.

As they stepped from the
boat, the soldier caught Dasen’s shoulder. “I almost forgot. Give
this chit to the man in the duty office. He’ll record it so ya can
use it to reclaim yir boat when all this is over.” He pulled a
piece of chalk from his pocket and wrote a number on the front of
the boat. “You’re number two-two-seven,” he said. “Remember that,
or he can’t complete the papers. An’ tell him that Sergeant Kellos
told him to give ya a meal.” The soldier looked at them a last time
then turned back to the boat. “Best o’ luck to ya. Remember what I
said, find work. Avoid the camp.”

Dasen watched him until he
disappeared into the hold then turned around and started the long
walk down the planks of the dock to the ramshackle buildings of
Gorin West.

Chapter 34

The
32
^nd
Day of Summer

Dasen stared at the
sign.

“
By the Order,” Teth
whispered from beside him. “Can it possibly get any worse?” She
sighed long and deep. Her breath shook, but she kept herself from
crying. Dasen was glad at least for that. Her latest bout as they
walked off the docks had only drawn more attention.

“
We’ve got to get away
from here,” Dasen mumbled. He pulled the hat down to cover his face
and turned away from his likeness, the script that offered his and
Teth’s weight in silver, the signature of his father, the seal that
marked him as Chancellor. He turned his eyes and saw the same sign
hanging every ten paces along the full expanse of the docks that
were the heart of Gorin West.

They were in a dead space
around the docks, but only a dozen paces away, a constant stream of
men carried bags and barrels from a warehouse to the boats on the
first of the docks. It would only take one of them recognizing him
to bring the whole city down on them. Obviously, their dirt and
clothes and Dasen’s scraggly beard had served as a good disguises,
but that luck was sure to run out.

“
Now what?” Teth asked,
her voice inches from cracking.

“
We find some food,
someplace to sleep.”

“
How? We don’t have any
money. We don’t know anyone. And now this.” She choked back a sob
and dropped her face into her hands.

“
The Order will provide,”
Dasen grumbled, knowing that Teth had not heard him over her
building dejection. He read the sign one last time – at least they
had to be delivered alive for the bounty to be collected. That was
something. If they got desperate, he supposed they could turn
themselves in.
And end up in the hands of
that old man from the inn.
Dasen shuddered
at the memory of his greedy, malevolent eyes.

He looked up to find a man
staring at them. His heart leapt until he realized the man’s eyes
were on Teth. “Our boat’s just been taken,” he explained. “He’s
upset, that’s all.”

The man, a burly
middle-aged dock worker, reached in his pocket and handed Dasen a
slim disk of copper. “Bad happenings these,” he growled. “Wish I
could do more.”

“
Thank you,” Dasen replied
in shock. Had he just begged for a coin? The thought was so distant
that he nearly returned the shim of metal. He looked up at the man,
who was walking away. “Excuse me. We were told to find a work crew.
Do you know where we go to do that?”

The man’s face fell. He
rubbed it with his huge, hairy hand and sighed. “Ain’t no jobs
left. Too many fleein’ the fightin’ and you’s the last. And now
they’ve ordered everything taken up north fir the invaders,
there’ll be even less.” He sighed again. “I’m ‘fraid that coins
just ‘bout worthless. Ration papers ‘r the only thing’ll get ya
anything. Ya can try comin’ back in the mornin’, but the line ta
join a crew stretches three hundred men with not a job fir any of
‘em.” He looked at Dasen and Teth again. “Even those who’s ready
fir hard work. Best I can tell ya is ta go ta the temple. They’s
lettin’ folks sleep in there an’ offerin’ some soup. I’m sorry. I
really am.” The man spat on the ground and cursed silently under
his breath as he walked away. Dasen would have sworn that his
father’s name was included in the curse.

Dasen felt his insides
shake to match the constrained sobs coming from his side. Teth was
absolutely right. They had no money. They knew no one. They were
not fit to work if there were jobs available. They were trapped in
a city with too many mouths to feed and not anywhere near enough
food to feed them. And to make matters worse, they were wanted.
Dasen’s picture was posted every ten paces. His name was anathema.
Even if his father had an office in the city, he could not seek
help there without telling them who he was, without getting
arrested in his own father’s name.

“
Come on. Let’s find the
temple.” Dasen barely managed the words for the lump that had
formed in his throat. He took a deep breath, looked at Teth, dirty,
stinking, snuffling, and whimpering, and felt resentment. He wanted
to shake her, to tell her to get herself together, to stop crying,
to help him. He felt his teeth clench, his face harden. Teth did
not see him. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. It looked like she
might crumble there. Dasen wanted to leave her, to just walk away
and be done with her, but then she looked up at him, and his heart
broke. She was still Teth, and he could not help but see the same
girl he had held in the night, had kissed in the grass.
I told her I would protect her when we got to the
city,
he heard himself
say
. Now, we’re here and that’s what I
have to do. She was strong in the forest. Now, it’s my turn.
He adjusted the boatman’s hat he still wore,
ensured that it was shading his face and started down the first
street he saw.

“
Don’t cry,” he said to
Teth with all the compassion he could muster. “We’ll figure
something out. Maybe the chit they gave us for the boat will have
some value, or we can stay at the temple. But crying only draws
more attention and that’s the one thing we don’t want.” He fingered
the wooden chit in his pocket. The old man at the duty office had
burnt the number ‘227’ on it and told them to keep it safe. He had
said that it would be the only way to reclaim the boat when all
this was over. Dasen wondered if he could sell it. Was the
possibility of claiming a riverboat after the war worth anything?
In a desperate, starving city, he doubted it.

Teth nodded and wiped her
nose on her caked sleeve. She took a long shaking breath and
straightened. “So I’m Reth?” she asked, voice husky and barely
audible.

“
Yeah. You’re my bother,
and I’m Jason. It’s close to our real names but believable. We’re
from Thoren, but just let me do the talking. “I don’t trust you to
lie.” He looked at Teth as he said the last, expecting a smile at
having turned her insult around. He got one, but it lacked any
warmth, was such a shadow of a smile that it was more heartbreaking
than her tears.

“
Have you ever been
here?”

“
No. Only to Gorin East,
and we obviously can’t use my father’s name.” He looked up at the
sun nearly falling to the rooftops. “I guess we should try the
temple. It’s got to be better than standing around
here.”

Teth nodded. “I’m so
tired,” she whined. “I just want to go to sleep. Let’s find
something soon.”

You slept all
morning,
Dasen wanted to yell.
And maybe if you’d eat something, you’d have more
energy
. Even sitting outside the duty
office, not knowing when their next meal would come, Teth had
simply pushed the fish stew around with her bread, had not eaten
more than a few bites. Again, he forced his anger down. It wouldn’t
do him any good now. He turned them toward the barren street that
led from the docks and started to walk. Teth followed close
behind.

The first several blocks
were warehouses, big wooden structures closely spaced with heavy
doors, heavier locks, or even guards. Outside one, a line of wagons
were parked as workers unloaded them into the waiting gloom. With
nothing to lose, Dasen approached them hoping to beg a job. A
scowling guard waved him off before he was even able to ask. It was
the same at every other warehouse. Guards eyed them warily,
discouraging any approach.

Finally, the warehouses
gave way to something even less inviting. When they passed the
final storeroom, the road turned from stone to dirt. The buildings
changed from uniform blocks to a ramshackle amalgam that leaned on
each other like the drunks falling from their doors. The people
went from rugged guards and porters to the drunk, dirty, and
deprived. Dust rose to cloud the air where it was not dampened by
the filth that littered the street where it had been cast from a
window or expelled directly to the ground. Though no two of them
matched in materials or style, every building was a tavern with a
boarding house above. These were the places that housed the river
men and dock workers when their days were through. They were rough,
seedy bars, dark and dirty, with even more signs of their
depravation waiting outside, the only colors to be seen beyond the
peeling paint of their signs.

Gambling and prostitution
were illegal throughout the Kingdoms and condemned by the Church,
but that, by no means, meant that they didn’t exist. Typically,
such activities were well hidden, isolated to the back rooms of
taverns or brought directly to their customers. Here, Dasen could
see the women standing in the alleys in the middle of the day. The
boldest stood right outside the doors, showed their legs, plumped
their breasts, or motioned with their fingers, but not all of them
were eager. Most wore dresses that clearly denoted their profession
and would be suited for nothing further, but others stood in the
background in the simple dresses of peasants, or workers, or
shopkeepers, or tradespeople. The veterans teased the newcomers,
pushed them toward potential customers, and laughed whether they
were accepted or rejected. To Dasen’s relief, he was not even worth
their propositions, but that did not stop him from feeling sick as
he watched them wipe their tears and force their smiles.

And those women were just
the beginning. The alleys, streets, and sides of buildings were
littered with people. Small clumps gathered every few paces. Ragged
looking women held crying children or whispered in the ears of
older ones. Men gathered in grumbling packs and eyed the sporadic
carts that were the streets’ only traffic. Porters walked in
downcast columns between the carts with soldiers tramping
alongside, seeming only slightly more enthusiastic for the part
they played in the city’s pillage.

“
Spare a coin, sir,” a
hand, more dirt than skin, blocked Dasen as he watched a line of
wagons pass. He could not imagine how desperate a person would have
to be to beg from the likes of him. He looked down and saw a boy of
no more than eight. His brown eyes were huge in his sunken face.
His hair was a muddy nest. His too-big front teeth were brown with
dust. His clothes were rags.

Pity nearly overtook
Dasen. He reached to his pocket, felt the single shim of a coin
that he had, himself, begged, and nearly gave it to the boy. Then
he remembered where he was, remembered what was around him, and
turned his face away. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he pushed
past.

He was scanning an
intersection a few minutes later, trying to decide which road to
take, when another boy ran into him. He fell into Teth and nearly
tumbled to the ground. “’Cuse me,” the perpetrator mumbled as he
brushed past. Dasen saw the boy dash past then duck into an alley
before he could even focus. A second later, another boy hit Teth
from behind. She crashed into Dasen with a grunt as a third boy
brushed him from the front.

“
By the Order,” Dasen
cursed as he gathered his bearings. The streets were crowded, but
almost no one was moving, leaving plenty of room around them. Then
he realized that something was missing. He felt his head. His hat
was gone. His hand went to his pocket. The coin had disappeared
along with the chit that would let them reclaim the
boat.

“
My knife,” Teth moaned.
“I got it off the boat without the soldiers seeing. How’d they even
know it was there?” She seemed on the verge of a new set of tears.
Dasen cringed reflexively, wishing he could be away from her. He
wrapped his arm around her instead, tried to hide her and his face
from the attention that she was drawing.

Then he thought about what
Teth had said.
The
begger
, he realized. He remembered
reaching to feel his coin. At the same time, Teth’s hand had gone
to where the knife was tucked behind her shirt. But more than
anything, Dasen missed his hat. Without it, he felt like a
spotlight was shining on his face, as if every person on the street
were staring at him then to the ubiquitous signs.

He looked behind them,
thought about chasing the boys down the alley where they’d
disappeared, but he knew that he was far more likely to lose his
shoes down that alley than he was to regain his hat. If Thorold
were here, he thought, then nearly choked at the image of his
father’s bodyguard lying in the Randor’s Pass green with a
half-dozen arrows jutting from his chest. He forced himself to
breathe. It was hard, it came in a shake that seemed to extend to
his entire body. “Let’s find the temple,” he said, trying to sound
strong.