Skif read the gesture for the demand that it was, and slowly undid his clothing to pull out the jewelry he'd taken last night. He laid it out on the pallet. Jarmin squatted down beside him and examined it piece by piece, grunting a little, but otherwise saying nothing.
Now he's gonna kill me. Skif could form the thought, but couldn't muster anything beyond the grief to care what happened to him. Care? No, that wasn't true. He cared. He deserved death. If he'd gotten back sooner, if he hadn't been so determined to bring back every damned piece that couldn't be traced —
I'd have been there. I'd have noticed in time. I'd have gotten them out.
Gone. All gone.
He just sat where he was, staring at his own hands, while Jarmin turned the jewelry over and over in his hands.
Finally the fence pulled the kerchief off his own neck and bundled it all up. He shoved the ends under his belt and knotted them, got up slowly and painfully, then descended the staircase. It looked from where Skif sat as if he was sinking into the floor…
Tears began again, burning his eyes and his raw cheeks, and Skif didn't even bother to wipe them away. His nose closed up, his gut spasmed, and his thoughts ran around and around in a tight little spiral, like a mouse in a trap. Gone. My fault. I should have been there.
A moment later Jarmin was back again, a bundle of cloth under one arm, a jug in his hand.
“Here,” he said gruffly. “These ought to fit you.” He dropped the clothing down next to Skif, who stared at it without comprehension. “Even swap; the swag for these, food, and this room for three moons. After that, you get another place or start paying.” As Skif stared at him as if he was speaking in a foreign tongue, he glanced at the jug in his hand as if he was surprised by its presence. “Oh, aye. And you get this.”
He shoved it at Skif until Skif took it from him perforce.
“Go on. Pop the cork and drink it,” Jarmin said fiercely.
Numbly, Skif obeyed. The cork came out with difficulty; the liquid inside tasted of cherries and burned like fire, burned him from his tongue to his gut, all the way down.
He knew as soon as he tasted it what it was, though he had never done more than sip a bit before this, the dregs left in some rich man's glass; spirits-of-wine, and worth its weight in silver. He gasped at the fire in it, but didn't spill a drop; it would bring blessed oblivion, which now he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything. It went to the head quickly; in a few swallows, he was dizzy. A few swallows more, and he had trouble holding the jug. Jarmin, his eyes gleaming fiercely in the half light, steadied it for him and helped him lift it to his mouth.
“Keep drinking, boy,” he heard, as from a far distant land. “ ‘Twon't take the hurt away, but it'll numb it for a while.”
Numb… Numb was good. Maybe if he was numb, he wouldn't keep seeing Bazie and the boys… and the flames.
He swallowed again, the stuff burning its way down into his belly. Now he was more than dizzy; the room swam around him and tilted disconcertingly. Jarmin took the jug, corked it, and set it aside as he sagged down onto the pallet.
The room was definitely moving, but he didn't care. He just didn't want to have to watch it, so he closed his eyes. “Best thing for you, boy,” he heard, then footsteps on the stair.
He didn't actually pass out; he hadn't drunk quite enough for that. But every time the numbness and the dizziness started to wear off, he heaved himself up onto his elbow and took another long pull at the jug until it came back again. Now and again he tired of simply feeling the room circling him and opened his eyes to watch the ceiling rotate. When the light started to fade, Jarmin appeared again with a lantern and bread and sops, a chamberpot, and a big jug of water. He made Skif eat and drink all of the water before he took the lantern and the plates away. Skif took some more pulls on the jug, then, and as shrill voices and the cajolery of the girls drifted in through the window, he let the liquor take him away to a place where nothing mattered anymore.
* * * * * * * * * *
Jarmin told him later that he'd stayed drunk for a week. Sometimes he cried, but only when he was alone. Sometimes he heard someone moaning, and dimly realized that it was himself. All he knew was that the jug was, temporarily, his best friend. Jarmin kept it full, but insisted on his eating and drinking water, an annoyance he put up with because it meant that Jarmin would top off the jug.
He retained enough of sense and the cleanliness Bazie had drummed into him to make proper use of the chamberpot. It never seemed to stink, so Jarmin must have kept it clean as well.
Jarmin also came up to talk to him now and again. For a while, he ignored the words and the man because he didn't want to go to the place where words meant something. For a while, that is, until something Jarmin said jarred him back into thinking.
“Word is,” Jarmin said, into Skif's rosy fog, “That fire was set.”;
Set? Skif opened his eyes with an effort. “Wha?” he managed, mouth tasting of old leather and liquor.
Jarmin didn't look at him, and his tone was casual. “Word is that the landlord got a surprise inspection, and was going to have to fix the place. Or get fined. Going to cost him dearly, either way. So he burned it instead, and is calling it a terrible accident.”
Understanding — and anger — stirred sluggishly. “He — burned it?”
Jarmin shrugged, as if it all mattered not a whit to him. “Word is, that's the case. Don't who the landlord is — was,” he corrected. “You know how it is. Probably some high-necked merchant, or even highborn. Couldn't possibly be connected with us, nor where we live. Couldn't soil himself by openly owning the place, but takes our copper right enough. So long as no one knows where he got it. But he wouldn't want to have to spend good coin either, not when burning it costs him less and allows him to sell the lot afterward.”
Anger burned away the fumes of the liquor — hot as the flames that had destroyed his only family. “He burned it?” Skif repeated, sitting up, fists clenching.
“Word is that. Whoever he is.” Jarmin shrugged, then with a sly look, pushed the jug toward Skif.
Skif pushed it back, still dizzy, but head getting clearer by the moment.
He burned it. Or ordered it burned, whoever he is.
“No warning, of course,” Jarmin continued casually. “Because that would tip off the inspectors that he didn't mean to fix it. And the highborn don't care how many of us burn, so long as an inconvenient building is gotten rid of. That is how it is.”
There was light in the window and relative quiet on the street. It must be day, and the girls were asleep. Skif was still drunk, and he knew it, but he was getting sober, more so with every breath, as his anger rose and rose, burning like the flames that had taken his family. He looked down at himself, and saw that he was still wearing the filthy clothing he'd been brought here in. The pile of clean stuff still lay at the foot of the pallet. “Wanta bath, Jarmin.”