The Orphan (3 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Z
AKITI'S
M
IRACLE
P
OTION
Purveyors was a poor excuse for a wine shop, which sold a worse excuse for wine. The old lady who owned it had no access to vineyards, and thus no grapes. To earn our shelter, Nico, Frada, and I had to gather weeds and discarded fruit, which Zakiti somehow fermented into a potion so foul and stinking that it was a wonder anyone could stand it. But people did. At least enough to keep the small shop going.

We had no windows, only a few oil lamps to light the shop. Our beds were rarely twice in the same place. We moved them as needed, finding space among the barrels and equipment in the crowded room.

Nico leaned against a dusty brick wall to my left. His eyes were deep and nearly black—always shifting, always calculating, always knowing something before you knew it. He wore a tunic made from a coarse brown sack that had once held lentils, and cinched with a rope. “Shirath told them you had sneaked to the northern quadrant,” he said. “She saved your life.”

“You knew?” I asked, astonished.

“Of course,” he said. “And there had to be a reason the guards were after you, yes? So I also know what you must have in your pouch. Assuming this is true—because I have the best instincts in the city—I bow to you in awe.”

Honestly, Nico could wear me out telling me how good, smart, and talented he is. “How is she?” I asked, moving toward a pallet of old sacks and blankets in one corner of the room.

Frada lay there limply. Her eyes were shut, her face skeletal, her mouse-brown hair a damp mess around her face

“Sleeping,” Nico replied, “but hot to the touch.”

I knelt closer to my good friend. Frada the Wise, Frada the Artist. She was unconscious but held a shard of charcoal in one hand. On the floor beside her was the side of a wooden crate, long ago broken off, which she liked to use as a drawing surface. On it was a half-finished drawing of three figures. Nico, Frada, Daria.

Frada liked to call us siblings. And who knew, maybe we were related. We knew nothing of where we came from. Ten years ago, someone had found us on the edge of Sippar, the black, roiling, moving wall of death that had come to surround the city.
Foundlings
, they called us. There was no place for us. Half the citizens of the city wouldn't even touch us, because we'd been so close to the deadly borders, as if that closeness were some kind of disease. And they were scared by the strange, white, angled mark on the back of my head.

So we got by on our own. And we would stick by one another always.

“Here, Frada,” I said, eagerly pulling the pomegranate from my pouch. “Your troubles will be over.”

Nico's eyes went wide at the sight of the fruit. “It's true! Frada, wake up! Look! The pomegranate!”

“Shsshhh, you want the entire neighborhood to know what I've got?” I said. “I've been chased by idiot guards through half the city. Find us a bowl and a knife so I can get this fruit open.”

As Nico scurried off, Frada's head turned. She let out a stream of coughs. I held the pomegranate up to the light so she could see it. Her hazel eyes grew wide, glistening in the lamplight.

“
What's going on back here
?” shouted a voice like a scraping of a knife against stone. “I swear, if you've knocked over another cask I'll throw you into the street this time!”

Zakiti could have been anywhere from thirty to a hundred. Her head was patched with matted clumps of brownish-gray hair, like a sun-scorched field. One of her eyes was dead, a milky sheen that stared into space. Years ago Zakiti had had a home, a good business, and fine looks. But on a visit to the Royal Garden she had been attacked by an escaped vizzeet, one of the monkey-like creatures whose foul spit can burn through skin. Banished into the street by a king who does not tolerate unsightliness, she came to be among those forced to keep their faces hidden in darkness.

Selling wine that was not really wine, Zakiti had grown used to a life of half-truths and outright lies. She could be kind or cruel. As long as we were quiet and did our work, we knew we had a roof over our heads.

I hid the pomegranate behind me. If Zakiti got mad, we'd be back on the streets.

“What do you have there, Daria?” The old lady hobbled into the storeroom, staring at us suspiciously with her one good eye. As she walked, tiny metal baubles jingled in her hair. Her clothes were threadbare and colorless.

I eyed Nico, who was skulking in the shadows, still looking for the bowl and knife. “Food,” I said, head down. “For Frada.”

Zakiti whipped her arm toward me, pulling at my elbow. “A pomegranate?” she whispered, her eye widening in astonishment. “Not from the King's Grove?”

“I—I can explain,” I stammered.

She snatched the fruit away from me. As I looked on in horror, she pressed her fingers into the peel ever so slightly. “Why did you steal it?” Zakiti demanded. “Do you think this will bring you riches and status? Make you nobles? Take you away from me and make my life even more miserable?”

Frada let out a round of wracking coughs. A small trail of blood trickled down her cheek. She was dying before our eyes!

“It's not for us, Zakiti!” Nico said.

“
Lady
Zakiti!” the old crone spat.

“Lady Zakiti,” I repeated. “Please. I took this for Frada. To bring her back to life. The pomegranate is said to cure ills.”

“Oh . . . ?” Zakiti eyed me suspiciously.

“So you see—if she is well, you will again have three healthy workers,” Nico added quickly, “not two!”

Zakiti scowled at Nico and me, then looked at Frada. “Do you think that is all I care about—workers? I can always get workers. Do you think me cold and inhuman? Pah!”

The old lady turned her back and walked away. Nico got ready to follow her, but I held him back.

She had left the pomegranate on a slanted, dusty table.

“You'll leave no trace of it here,” she called out over her shoulder. “Not even its scent. If I find so much as a single seed, I'll turn you in to the king's guard. Oh, and when you're finished with Frada, go out and fetch me fruit from the market.”

“Thank you”—Nico's voice was hushed with utter astonishment—“my lady.”

“You will pay me back someday, I assure you,” Zakiti said. “Now I must attend Serug the hunchback, who waits for his weekly purchase at the front door. I will endure his foul odor and rotten teeth today, out of respect for Frada. But this is the last time I do your work for you.”

As she headed out of the room, I whispered to Nico, “She has a heart, after all.”

“Encased deeply in rock,” he replied. “But I am happy to see it.”

Quickly he handed me the bowl. I placed the pomegranate inside and opened its skin with the knife. A sweet smell drifted up as I peeled back its rind, revealing plump, red seeds. Juice pilled out from the sides, making my mouth water. I was starving. But Frada came first. “Take these,” I urged her. “Eat.”

She turned, staring into the bowl with confusion. “Is it . . . really magic?” she said, her voice a raspy whisper.

“Yes,” I said with a confidence I didn't have.

I forced one seed into her mouth. It was so full of juice it practically vibrated. As she bit down, juice trickled out between her teeth and down her cheeks.

Nico and I stared hopefully. I didn't know what to expect. Would she instantly get up and dance? Would it take days or weeks before the seeds took effect? Or would they ever? Perhaps their magic was a rumor, a figment of the king's twisted imagination.

Nothing changed in Frada's face. Her eyes remained unfocused, her voice slurred. “. . . ing,” she said to me.

“What?” I replied.

She swallowed and tried again. “Sing, Daria.”

I smiled. Frada loved my singing.

Nico, however, did not. He always made funny faces when I sang.

I ignored his taunting grin as I sang “Hope Is a Seed, Love Is a Garden.” It is a tune about peace and prosperity, and it had become quite popular with the rebels. I brushed Frada's hair as I sang, keeping my voice low so Zakiti wouldn't hear.

Nico fed Frada pomegranate seeds slowly, one by one. “With a voice like yours, Daria,” he said, “you should perform for the king.”

I kicked him. “Do you ever stop insulting me?”

“That was meant to be a compliment!” he insisted. “You have no idea how difficult that was for me to do.”

“I would sooner scream bloody murder in Nabu-na'id's ear,” I said.

Soon Frada was full. She turned her head away and fell back to sleep. Her breathing seemed less labored than it had been in the nights before. I touched her forehead. It was cooler. The fever was breaking.

“Nico . . .” I murmured. “It's . . . it's working!”

But Nico had drifted to sleep.

I thought about waking him to announce the good news, but I didn't have the heart. He looked so peaceful, and he had been working hard.

I felt shot through with energy. I figured I would run out to gather the fruit and weeds for Zakiti, while Nico stayed at Frada's side. I owed Zakiti. She had allowed us to save our friend's life.

Quietly, I gathered up the pomegranate skins. I would have to dispose of the evidence of my theft.

Night had fallen. The slums were lit by moonlight as I walked outside.

CHAPTER SIX

T
HE STINK GUIDED
me.

I knew it well—rotten fruit, moldy leaves, half-digested vegetables. The ingredients that made Zakiti's Miracle Garden Wine. I followed my nose to a dark alleyway beside the ramshackle house of Taso the Great. He ran a food shop in the front of his house, where Babylonians rich and poor could find all manner of provisions. The “Great” part of his name referred to his generous belly, which had been known to get stuck in doorways.

At the end of the alleyway, I peeked around carefully, toward the rear of Taso's house. All the buildings here were perched at the top of a long, moat-like hole known as the Trough of Tears. In the times before Nabu-Kudurri-Usur, public enemies were tortured and thrown to their deaths here. Their cries were said to echo upward through the night, so that only the poor or hardhearted lived here now. I heard a door open and flattened myself to the wall.

Taso the Great emerged from his rear door, holding an enormous bucket nearly the size of his legendary belly. He lumbered to the edge of the cliff, and with a grunt tossed out the bucket's foul contents.

I waited until he was back inside, then tiptoed to the edge. What extraordinary luck—an old wooden ladder led downward into the pile of refuse. I could climb down and scoop the freshest layer off the top.

I lowered myself, guided by moonlight. I could see movement within the scraps, so I hissed, causing a team of rats to scurry away. They scolded me with angry squeaks as I climbed as far down as I could, holding my breath. I gripped the ladder tightly with one hand, and with the other I leaned down to scoop up a few handfuls of fruit peels and vegetable scraps. Stuffing them into my pouch, I scrambled back to the top.

A clopping of leather sandals rang out from the alleyway between buildings—a guard on patrol. Instead of returning on that path, I made my way across the ridge, skirting the backs of the houses. Most of them were empty and in disrepair, their occupants put to death by Nabu-na'id. It didn't take much to anger the king. Sometimes a poor appearance was enough to earn a guard's spear in your back.

With a voice like yours, Daria, you should be performing for the king.
Nico's words infuriated me. The thought of entertaining the king made my stomach clench. It was a wonder that tyrant had not torched the slums. Given the choice of being kept by the king and living my wretched life, I'd take the wine shop and the streets. With Sippar surrounding us, the city was already prison enough. Who needed to live in a trap within a trap?

At the last house, I peered around carefully. I could hear the low murmur of conversation in the street. More guards? I couldn't be sure. I hid in the doorway of a mud-brick house.

A warm desert wind brought a fresh whiff of rot from below. In the distance I could see flickering light from some of the houses and from the palace ziggurat, spiraling upward. Past that, just beyond the bend of the horizon, was Sippar. The moving boundary that encircled Babylon. The black veil had descended many years ago. Sippar, which most thought of as certain death.

It was whispered around the city that I had actually come from Sippar, not just been found near it. I didn't believe that.

I didn't believe any of the myths about Sippar. A ring of death, past which nothing existed—it seemed the sort of thing you'd tell a child to keep her from playing in the woods. There was a world beyond the boundaries of the city, of that I was sure. Something more than this. A place that was truly our home.

The wind was unusually strong, and I feared a sandstorm. I curled my knees up to my chin as it became louder, until it sounded like the wailing of the dead.