“Yes.” Those Skimmer men testing the blades of their fishgutting knives as they watched him pass was a picture he wouldn’t soon forget. The Black Wrack in his stomach seemed to sour and bubble. He hesitated for a moment before carefully putting the little flask into his sleeve pocket.
“Grandsire’s sake, boy, wrap it in something,” she said, disgusted. “Here, take this bit of kelp leaf, that’s thick enough. If you fall down and break the jar while it’s sitting in your shirt like that, you’ll never get up again.”
When he was finished Tinwright was feeling ill indeed. He stared at Aislin for a moment, swaying, then swiveled toward the door.
“Didn’t you forget something?”
“Pardon?” He turned back. “Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“No, you daft herring, my money. That’s a gull and two coppers you owe me.” She smirked. “And I’m giving you the lovesick poet’s rate.”
“Of course.” He fumbled out the money, handed it to her. After a moment’s assessment, which seemed mostly to consist of running her thumb around the circumference of each coin, she whisked them down the gap in her shiny, wrinkled bosom, an expanse which looked like nothing so much as a well-worn saddle. “Now be on your way. And remember what I said. Better you drink that whole jar right now than breathe a word to anyone of where you got it.”
Feeling as though some poison had already taken away his powers of thought and speech, Tinwright nodded and staggered toward the door, then out into the cold gray day, or what was left of it.
When he reached Silverhook Row he turned to look back down the alley. Aislin the tanglewife stood in her doorway beneath the great length of pale horn, staring at him. She lifted a hand as if to wave him farewell, but her strange, pop-eyed face had gone cold and remote. She turned and went back inside.
Matt Tinwright hurried out of the lagoon district as fast as he could, acutely conscious of both the fast fading afternoon light and the tiny jar full of treason and murder concealed in his shirt.
Opal came back from market with her sack mostly empty and her face full of worry.
“You look terrible, my old darling,” Chert told her. “I’ll only be gone up to the castle for the day. I’m sure there’s nothing to fear.”
“I’m not worrying about you,” she growled, then shook her head angrily. “No, of course I’m worried about you, all caught up in this big-folk madness again. But that’s not what’s bothering me. There’s nothing to eat in this house and scarcely anything to be had even at the market.”
“Why is that?”
She snorted. “You are a dunderhead, Chert! Why do you think? The castle is surrounded by fairy folk, half the merchants won’t send their ships here to Southmarch, and there’s no work for the Funderlings. Surely in your time loitering around the guildhall you must have heard something of that?”
“Of course.” He scratched his head. She was right: it wasn’t as though there were no ordinary problems. “But Berkan Hood, the new lord constable, promised that he’d put two hundred of ours to work repairing the castle walls, so Cinnabar and the rest are saying not to worry.”
“And what are they going to pay them with?” She had her shawl off now and was washing her hands vigorously in a bowl of water. “The Tollys are already spending money hand over fist trying to lure merchants to bring in food and drink for Southmarch, not to mention the ships they’ve had to buy and mercenary seamen they’ve had to hire, all to protect the harbor.”
“You heard all this at the market?”
“Do you think we spend all day talking about vegetables and sewing?” She dried her hands off on her shapeless, oft-mended old dress and Chert felt a pang that his wife had nothing nicer to wear. “Honestly, you menfolk. You think you do it all yourselves, don’t you?”
“Not for years, my good old woman.” He laughed ruefully.
“Not since I’ve had you around to keep me straightened out.”
“Well, just go and talk to the boy before you disappear for the day. He’s had a bad night and I have a hundred things to do if I’m going to make a meal out of these sad leavings.”
Flint was sitting on the bed, his white-gold hair disarranged, his face distant and mournful.
“How are you, lad?”
“Well.” But he didn’t meet Chert’s eye.
“I wonder if that’s really true. Your mo...Opal says you had a bad night.” He sat down beside the boy and patted his knee. “Did you not sleep well?”
“Didn’t sleep.”
“Why not?” He peered at the pale, almost translucent face. Flint looked as though he needed sun. It was a strange thought—he certainly couldn’t remember ever thinking it about anyone else. Of course, most of the people he knew never even saw the sun if they could help it.
“Too noisy,” the boy said. “Too many voices.”
“Last night?” It was true that in the early part of the evening Cinnabar and some of the other Guildsmen had stopped by to talk about where Chert was going today, but they had been gone by the time the darklights came on. “Really? Well, we’ll try to keep it more quiet.”
“It’s too crowded,” Flint said. Before Chert could ask him to explain, he added: “I have bad dreams. Very bad.”
“Like what?”
Flint shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. Eyes, bright eyes, and someone holding me down.” His chest heaved with a sob. “It hurts!”
“Come on, lad. Don’t be feared. Things will get better, you’ve just had a rough time.” Helplessly, Chert put his arm around him and felt the child’s entire body shudder.
“But I want to go back to sleep! Nobody understands. They won’t let me sleep! They keep calling me!”
“Lie down, then.” He did his best, half helping, half forcing the child back into the bed. He pulled the blanket up to his chin. “Ssshhh. Go to sleep, now. Opal’s just in the other room. I have to go out to work, but I’ll be back later.”
Flint miserably allowed himself to be stroked and soothed into a thin, restless slumber. Chert got up as quietly as he could, desperate not to wake him.
What have we done to that boy? he wondered. What’s wrong with him? Odd as he was before, he was always alert, lively. He seems only half alive since I found him down in the Mysteries.
He didn’t even have the heart to talk about it to Opal, who felt the boy’s distraction and strangeness even more than he did: he only waved to her as he passed, tying on his tool belt.
“Vermilion Cinnabar had a message for you from her husband,” Opal called.
Chert stopped in the doorway. “What’s that?”
“She said to tell you that Chaven wants to see you again before you go upground.”
He sighed. “Why not?”
The physician was waiting in the middle of the mirrored floor of the Guild’s great hall. Several Funderlings were preparing the hall for the next meeting, politely avoiding him as he stood staring down, like children circling an absentminded father. For the first time Chert’s own people looked small to him in their own great hall.
The physician didn’t look up even after Chert coughed politely. “Chaven?” he said at last. “You wanted to speak to me?”
Startled, Chaven turned. “Oh, it’s you! Sorry, so sorry, it’s just...this place. I find it strangely...restful is not the right word, not quite. But it is one of the few places where my cares, they just...slip away...”