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  The blockades were slowly choking the life from the Free Ports and, as a consequence, many survived now on nothing more than the free keesh handed out by the city council, or what they grew on their rooftops or in small vegetable plots, or by resorting to crime and prostitution, or by masquerading as monks of the Dao, the only ones still legally allowed to beg in the streets. Or else they starved, like Nico.

  At least back home he would have some food in his belly, a roof over his head. Besides, knowing his mother, by now she had likely thrown Los out of the cottage after finally opening her eyes to him; or, if not, then Los would have run out on her, no doubt taking everything valuable she owned, and either way some new man would now be occupying the place of his absent father.

  Still, he loathed the thought of returning to his mother as a failure, having to admit he was unable to stand on his own two feet.

  But you are a failure. You couldn't even take care of Boon. You just let him die.

  He wasn't ready for that thought. He swallowed it down, blinking hard.

  It was now almost noon, and the asago had begun to lift the canopies with its hot breath. It came always at that time of year, and especially at that hour. Soon enough the rising heat was driving many people into the cooler environment of the surrounding chee houses, where they might sit out the siesta in moderate peace and comfort, and compare business or play games of ylang while they sipped from tiny cups of thick chee. Nico barely noticed the heat, as he made the most of the dwindling crowds and struck out unimpeded for the south-west corner of the vast square where, like a great exhalation of relief, it opened out on to the wide expanse of the harbour.

  It was there that Nico found the street performers set up for the day. They stood or sat in whatever spaces they had found between the steady flow of longshoremen that passed from harbour to bazaar. Many were packing up for the siesta, though the hardier – perhaps the more needy – were opting to stay on in spite of the heat. Nico scanned the jugglers and the tongue readers, and the begging monks seated before their bowls – fake monks, his mother had always claimed – until at last he came to a group of per formers barely visible for the surrounding crowd. He pushed closer for a better view of them.

  They were a troupe of actors, two men and a woman he had never seen before. Without further thought, he squeezed through the crowd until he stood at the fore.

  The play was a simple affair, the story of a poor seaweed farmer and his love for a beautiful witch of the sea. It was The Tales of the Fish, and narrated by the younger of the two men, himself no older than Nico, in that simple style of prose that was increasing in popularity these days over the long-winded sagas of old.

  In a shaky, high-pitched voice the young man was recounting the story, while the woman and the older man played their parts in mime. It was obvious why they had attracted such a large audience. The woman, tall and lithe and wonderfully bronzed, played the sea-witch in appropriate costume, which meant she was naked, save for her straight golden hair and the strips of seaweed wrapped around a few select parts of her body. They were distracting, those delicate flashes of thigh and nipple, and kept snagging Nico's eyes as he tried to focus on the performance itself.

  Nico liked to watch performers wherever he could find them, and he judged this woman a fine actress, whose subtle skills contrasted noticeably with her partner's lesser talents, which seemed few. The man was too pronounced and swaggering in his role, and few of the audience seemed to be paying him much heed. They were all ogling her flesh, like he was.

  Nico was still gazing enraptured when a round of applause heralded the tragic end to the story – the seaweed farmer having swum to his death while pursuing his beloved out to sea. As the young narrator moved round the crowd with an empty hat, in search of donations, Nico found that his mouth was hanging open, and closed it with a snap. The actress meanwhile slipped a thin robe over her shoulders, and shucked the seaweed off from underneath it into a wooden pail. As she swept her hair back, she glanced around the crowd and caught his eye. Her gaze lingered.

  A year ago Nico would have lowered his gaze straight to his feet in embarrassment. This past year, though, living in the city, he had gained more practice in meeting such glances, for he had received his fair share of them. He did not know why. Nico did not consider himself particularly handsome; even properly fed he had always been thin. And his face, whenever he had studied it in his mother's tarnished vanity mirror, had always looked strange to him: his nose turned up slightly at the end, he had lips too wide and full, his skin was freckled like a girl's, and, if he looked closely enough between his eyebrows, where once he had scratched at the childpox, he would see not one circular scar, but two.

  In truth he did not understand why the actress's long-lashed eyes stayed fixed on his for so long. At least he was able to meet her calm appraisal for a while, sufficient time at least to be counted in seconds, before her confident gaze wore down his own and, his courage breaking, he looked away.

  'You're blushing,' came a voice nearby.

  It was Lena, standing right behind him in the crowd, her eyes narrowed against the sunlight. She looked pretty like that, without the usual frown cooling her Pathian features.

  'It's hot,' he told her, and Lena's thin lips curled at the corners. With a tone of suspicion in his voice, he continued: 'I didn't notice you standing there.'

  'I was following you,' she admitted, matter-of-factly. 'To make sure… you know… that you were all right.'

  He did not believe that. So far, Lena had not shown herself overly concerned with the welfare of others. He wondered what she was after.

  'Listen,' she continued, 'I'm sorry about your dog. Really. But we need to do something, Nico. We need to eat soon.'

  He shrugged. 'They won't be handing out any more keesh until tomorrow. Anyway, I'm thinking it might be time for me to go home.'

  'You don't really want to do that, do you?'

  'Hardly.'

  'Good, because I have a much better idea, if you're interested. A way for us to make some money.'

  Ah, he thought. Here it comes.

  She was standing close enough for one breast to brush across his front. That shocked him, physically, even more so because he suspected it was no accident. Nico studied her from beneath the brim of his hat, wondering, not for the first time, what it might be like to kiss her.

  'Why do I have a feeling I won't like this?' he asked, his voice sounding coarse.

  Lena swiped a lock of dark hair aside from her face, and spoke softly, intimately. 'Because you won't. But we don't have many choices left to us, do we?'

  *

  The asago rasped across the rooftops of Bar-Khos, bearing with it the fine grains of the Alhazii desert six hundred laqs to the east. The dust stung Nico's eyes and he squinted, grimacing, wanting to be down from here. He was not comfortable with heights.

  Nico could clearly see the Shield from his rooftop vantage, and the Mount of Truth topped with its scalp of parkland, amid which rose the tall, many-windowed bulk of the Ministry of War. For a few welcome moments the breeze dropped, giving the sensation of an oven door closing. From the distance, he heard the regular percussion of cannon fire, followed by a scream, barely audible.

  'This is crazy. What if we get caught?'

  'Look,' she snapped from behind him, 'it's either this or I go down to the docks and lift my skirt for whoever will pay me. You'd rather I did that instead?'

  'You don't even own a skirt.'

  'Maybe after a few hand shanks I'd be able to afford one. You could become my pimp then. I'm starting to think you'd even like that – standing back, doing nothing.'

  He sighed, and kept moving.

  Nico had taken his shoes off, to carry in his hands, as suggested by Lena for better footing on the roof tiles. It worked, for sure, but the tiles were blisteringly hot against the bare soles of his feet. He was almost dancing across them. 'My feet,' he complained, 'they're burning.'

  'You want to fall and crack yo
ur skull?'

  'I want to get off this roof, Lena. That's what I want.'

  She didn't respond.

  They were working their way across the sloping roof of a taverna, three storeys above the streets of the city. The taverna encompassed two buildings, one taller than the other, and the remaining two storeys of the second rose up ahead, a wall of crumbling whitewash punctuated occasionally by narrow windows. Some of those were shuttered tight; others were open, flowing with curtains of fine gala lace.

  Around Nico's feet, lizards sprawled across the hot tiles, casting ancient, baleful stares as Lena took the lead, her own eyes quick and nervous. She peered through one of the open windows, ducked away at the sound of voices inside. Crouching, she padded up to another, checked inside and rejected it, padded on to yet another.

  Nico hopped from one foot to the other, the pain too much to bear. He slipped his shoes back on, wondering what in Ers he was doing here with this girl, wondering too if she had done this somewhere before. They were risking a public flogging if they were caught.

  'This one,' she whispered, as Nico approached the window she had finally selected. 'Inside with you, and search the bag for a purse.'

  Me? mouthed Nico.

  'Yes, you. You haven't done anything yet but complain.'

  'Lena, I mean it, let's go before it's too late.'

  The scowl on her face tightened. 'You want to eat today or not?' she demanded.

  'Not if it means going through with this business. Do as you wish. I'm leaving.'

  She caught him in her grip as he turned to go.

  'I mean it,' she hissed. 'If we don't do this, then I'm heading for the docks. Whatever it takes, I don't care. I won't starve to death like your dog did.'

  Her words and grip seemed to hold him in a sudden spell. His stomach rattled, urging him on. He nodded dumbly.

  She released him, offered him a foot-lift. He barely knew what he was doing as he gritted his teeth and scrambled upwards.

  Awkwardly, he passed through the swaying lace curtains, trying to keep as silent as he could. His body trembled, and the whitewashed sill was warm against his palms. Inside, he lowered his feet towards the stone floor. His soles settled quietly, he straightened – then froze.

  On the bed lay a figure clad in a dark robe.

  Nico's throat made a good attempt at choking itself. His heart seemed to be causing such a racket, he was sure it could be heard by anyone within earshot. The figure was asleep, though, his chest rising and falling in a regular, shallow rhythm.

  The man's skin was pure black. A farlander, decided Nico – an old farlander with a bald head and a tough, lean face etched with lines. And something else there, on the cheeks, glistening bright in a ray of sunlight that slanted through the swaying lace.

  He's crying in his sleep, realized Nico.

  Lena glared at him from the window. There was no way of getting past that face. Nico swallowed his fears and a sudden rising sense of guilt. He squeezed his sweating fists and stole across the room to where a chair sat. Carved from twisted driftwood, it was laden with a leather backpack. He reached it without causing noise. From the window Lena bared her teeth, her hand flapping in a signal to hurry.

  It was a fumbling, sweaty business searching through the leather pack, and Nico's hands moved clumsily as the sweat stung his eyes. For a moment he heard voices outside the room, and floorboards creaking as someone walked past outside the door. That only made him work faster, till at last he found a purse, fat and heavy with coinage.

  Lena flapped her hands again. The old man slept on.

  Nico was just about to leave, when he noticed something hanging from the same chair. It was a necklace of some kind, though not a pretty thing fashioned with jewels or silver. This was distinctly ugly, with the appearance of a large leathery nut, and it was coated in something that looked like dried blood.

  A seal, realized Nico. That old man wears a seal.

  Almost of its own accord, his hand reached towards the pendant. Behind him, the old man groaned suddenly in the bed. Nico stopped himself in time, pulled his hand away. What was he thinking of?

  He turned to go, and almost dropped the purse in alarm. The old farlander was sitting upright, blinking at him with strange folded eyes.

  Nico felt his bowels loosen. He could not move. He looked to the door, to the window, and licked his dry lips.

  The old man turned his head, looking from one side of the room to the other. It was as though he could barely see.

  'Who's there?' he croaked.

  Nico was past containing himself any longer. With six quick strides he was across the room, and clambering out through the window.

  'He's awake!' he hissed as they scuttled back across the sloping rooftop, the lizards regarding them as they hurried from the scene.

  'And half-blind by the sound of it,' Lena replied, moving onwards. 'Hurry up!'

  Nico followed more slowly, focused on negotiating the tiles without slipping.

  They reached the end of the rooftop, where it dropped a few feet on to that of another building.

  'Here,' said Lena, turning back to him. 'Give it here,' she demanded, eying the purse in Nico's hand. He pulled up short, the purse clutched to his chest.

  Nico did not want this money. Somehow, though, he did not want Lena to have it either.

  She made a snatch for the purse, but Nico jerked backwards.

  It was then that his left foot slipped out from under him.

  He fell sideways, catching a glimpse of Lena's hands grabbing desperately towards him – for the purse, no doubt – before he slammed against the tiles in a scattering of lizards and expelled breath, and that was that – he was rolling and clattering down the side of the roof, all the way to its edge, where his legs swung out high over the cobbled street, a gasp in his throat and his fingers scrabbling for a hold that never came.

  He fell off.

  Nico screamed with all the remaining force of his lungs. His shoulder glanced the sign of the taverna, and his entire flopping body spun once before he continued plummeting face-down towards a canvas awning, hollering as he crashed through it, still screaming as the hard cobbled street lurched upwards, his arms throwing themselves over his face for protection as he smashed through one of the tables positioned outside the taverna.

  Winded, Nico lay amidst the debris of awning and table, as chip-pings of wood and paint and fabric fell like snow all around him. After a pause, a fat old lady moved forwards to help him; other folk sat in shock with cups of chee still half-raised to their lips. Nico was stunned, unable to draw a breath. He could see his straw hat resting in front of him. He could barely believe he was still alive.

  Of all the luck, though: the purse full of money must have fallen from his grasp as he slid down the rooftop, and it must have since been making its own slower, more complicated, though just as inevitable progress off the edge. As the old women bent to give aid the purse exploded on the cobbles right in front of Nico's face, its silver and gold coins scattering across the street in a horrifying riot of noise and sunlit reflections. The old woman clamped a hand to her mouth. Passers-by turned to stare at the scene. Eyes took in this boy, this fortune in money, this fall from the roof of a taverna, and within moments the cry was raised.

  'Thief!' they shouted, with Nico still too winded to even move. 'Thief!' they shouted in chorus, as he flopped on to his back and stared up at the roof he had just pitched from, to see that Lena was gone, and only the sun remained to glare down at his ill fate.

  In his daze, Nico was hoping that this was all a dream, a nightmare dream that he would soon awaken from. But a pair of rough hands were soon shaking that fantasy out of him. And, as he was dragged to his feet, reality impacted with a greater force than even the ground itself. Oh sweet Ers… his mind yelled at him… this is real… this is actually happening!

  And then he passed out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Visitations He had never seen a gaol before, let alone spent
the night in one.

  The place was an open affair, and most of its inmates could wander freely within its walls. There was even a taverna of sorts for those with the money to frequent it, and a cantina that sold better food than the gruel slopped out in the yard. On the whole the guards – mostly prisoners themselves – kept out of the way and left the other inmates to themselves.

  Nico settled in the corner of a cell, one of many to be found in the labyrinth deep beneath the main yard. He sat on a layer of mouldy, lice-infested straw, a single oil lamp hanging above the doorway for light. The straw reeked of stale urine, and he could see cockroaches scurrying within it.

  The same was occupied by other thieves and debtors of various ages, some of them as young as Nico or even younger. His fellow inmates paid him little notice; mostly they came and went and rarely stopped there for long. Nico was grateful for that as he sat in his corner, nursing his bruised and aching body, his thoughts circling like dark flapping birds intent on tormenting him. Try as he might, he could not help but think of home and his mother.

  She would be distraught if she ever heard of what he had become: a common thief caught in the act. She would be angry with him beyond words.

  But then, his mother was hardly without fault herself. After all, if he traced his present predicament back a whole year or more, then she was as much to blame for it as he. She was the one who had needed to fill her empty life with a string of ill-suited lovers. She was the one who had chosen to ignore the antagonism between Los and her son, causing Nico to be driven out as a consequence; then driven to this.

  Los had been yet another in a long line of his mother's poor choices. On the first night she had brought him home from the crossroads taverna, dressed in fine clothing that was much too loose on him – clearly stolen – the man had eyed the contents of the cottage as if to assess what they were worth, including his mother. It was obvious he had set about catching her that night; the couple had made so much noise in the bedroom that Nico was forced to drag his bedding out to the stable and bed down with their old horse, Happy.