Inside, the taproom was almost as desolate as the streets had been. There were a couple more of Mounteban’s heavies in there, and a small cluster of men near the fire dressed in Altapasaedan uniform. They looked up as we entered and then, seeing our wounded, hurried to help. One of them swept a table clear — sending day-old plates and half empty tankards to the floor with a clatter that cut briefly through the murk in my head — and together they laid Alvantes there. He didn’t stir; I’d have taken him for dead if it weren’t for the faint moan that trickled from his closed lips.
Our other wounded lowered themselves or were helped onto benches. To one of the group who’d been there when we arrived, Estrada said, “Will you heat some water and bring it in here? There should be fresh bandages and ointments in my room upstairs… it’s the second on the left.”
Once she was satisfied that her orders would be followed, she hurried to Alvantes’s side. Two of the men had successfully removed his brigandine and one of them was now trying to hack through the shirt beneath with a stubby knife.
“Let me,” Estrada said, holding her hand out.
The man looked at her curiously, took in her expression. He flipped the knife and placed it hilt first in her palm. “Of course, ma’am,” he said.
“If you want to be useful,” she told him, “find a surgeon. Make certain they understand who their patient is.”
The man snapped a salute, was out of the door in a flash. I heard his running feet thrashing the cobbles outside.
Estrada finished cutting Alvantes’s blood-stiffened shirt free, working with a speed and deftness that the soldier had entirely lacked. In moments, she’d pared a patch of the wine-dark cloth. She peeled it away and let it drop with a moist smack to the floor.
I only caught a glimpse of Alvantes’s wound — but it was enough. I threw out a hand to hold myself against the wall and let out a strangled gasp. Perhaps it was strange after all I’d witnessed that day, perhaps it was just one horror piled upon too many others, but it took all my strength of will not to vomit.
When I managed to straighten, I realised Estrada was standing beside me, her hand on my shoulder. “Get out of here, Easie,” she told me. “Go rest. You can use my room for a while if you like.”
I looked at her uncertainly. “I should rest?” Her face was waxen; her clothes were spattered with blood, some of it surely hers. “Estrada…”
“I’m all right,” she said. “With Mounteban…” She paused, breathed deep. “With Mounteban gone and Alvantes hurt, I’m needed more than ever. I’ll sleep when I can.”
“You should at least have a bath,” I mumbled. “You smell like a week-old corpse.”
Estrada managed the faint ghost of a smile. “Thank you, Easie,” she said, “I’ll bear that in mind.”
I nodded, tried to return the smile, realised my face had contorted into some sort of painful grimace and gave up. Hunting for something sympathetic to say, I tried, “Good luck with Alvantes. I hope… well, you know…”
“I know. Go, Easie.”
There was an edge to her voice that time, and I realised that from her point of view, I was wasting both time and space. I turned away without another word, tramped up the stairs, pushed open Estrada’s door — and was a little impressed with myself that I managed to make it all the way to the bed before I fell over.
I would probably have slept until a Pasaedan came to drag me from my bed. In so much as I’d had a plan as I passed out, that had been it.
It wasn’t to be. Somewhere far away, someone was calling my name. Distant though the sound was, it was insistent, and try as I might I couldn’t ignore it. Bit by bit, it was hauling me back to wakefulness.
I understood then what it must be like for the fish that’s hooked and dragged out of its native element. But no watery depths could have been as comforting as the fathomless gulf of my sleep, no fisherman’s basket as terrible as opening my eyes to the dim afternoon sun that seeped around the shutters.
Estrada was standing beside my bed — or rather, I remembered, her bed. It occurred to me that she probably wanted it back, and I tried to ask her, but the words came out in an incomprehensible slur.
“Damasco?” Estrada asked.
“All right,” I managed. “I’m awake. What is it?”
“It’s Saltlick, Easie. He wants to talk to you. It’s important, and I think you need to be there to hear it.”
“Can’t he come here?” I mumbled. Then, realising how unreasonable that was, I began again. “Alright. Just let me get dressed.”
“You’re already dressed,” Estrada pointed out. “You didn’t even take your boots off.”
I looked down at myself. She was right, and a goodly portion of the sheets were now black with filth. “Oh. Sorry.”
I rolled to the edge of the bed, plunged more than climbed off it. Estrada was already halfway out the door by the time I’d righted myself, and so I hurried after. She was in the street before I managed to catch up. “How’s Alvantes?” I asked.
“Alive,” she said. “He’s sleeping.”
The faint chill in the air was going some way to bringing me back to my senses. “That’s good news,” I said, and meant it. “Now will you tell me what this is about? You obviously know more than you’re letting on.”
Estrada slowed a fraction. “I’ll tell you what I can,” she said. “Before we set out this morning, Mounteban told me about a deal he’d made with the giants… with Saltlick. He told me how he’d had smiths and carpenters working for days to ready that armour they wore this morning, back when he thought they might be convinced to join our side.”
“Then Saltlick came back and threw that plan right out the window,” I put in.
“Exactly. There was no way Saltlick could be talked into letting the giants fight. So Mounteban made him a proposition. Only, Mounteban’s gone now, and it falls to me to honour his promise.”
“I can’t believe Mounteban had anything to offer that would make Saltlick take the kind of risk he took out there today,” I told her. “If it had only been his own life on the line than maybe…”
“Free passage,” interrupted Estrada. “A way out of the city. That’s what Mounteban offered. He would remove the barricades from one of the southern gates and let the giants leave.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I cried. “They should have been allowed to go days ago. Why didn’t they just tear down the barricades and make their own way out?”
Estrada didn’t bother to answer, merely waited for my brain to catch up with my mouth.
“Oh. Right,” I said. “Giants.”
It would never have occurred to Saltlick to force his way out of the city. His mind simply didn’t allow for solutions that relied on force of any kind. For that same reason, Mounteban had had to think of another way of using the giants; a way that would fit with their rigid morality. They couldn’t be made into a weapon, but a rescue party was different — especially when there were people Saltlick cared for amongst those in need of rescuing. Though Mounteban couldn’t have known at the time that such a situation would arise, it was at least a probability — and anyway, the deal had cost him nothing.
If only I’d helped Saltlick when he’d asked. If only I hadn’t been so damned selfish. If I could have persuaded the giants to make their own way out of the city then… well, then I’d be dead, Estrada too, and Altapasaeda would surely be in the hands of Ludovoco and Panchessa by now. But a giant wouldn’t have died, and Saltlick wouldn’t be bearing that death on his conscience, as I knew he must be.
“So now you’re letting them leave?” I said. “At least that’s something.”
“The thing is, Easie,” Estrada said, “there’s more to it than that. But I think Saltlick needs to tell you the rest himself.”
We passed the rest of our journey in silence; Estrada seemed no more interested in further conversation than I was. Minutes had passed before I recognised the former tannery that now served as home for Altapasaeda’s giant population. Just as when I’d last been there, a giant stood guard to either side of the entrance.