‘Then I’ll teach you what I know about flirting. To begin with, if you ever want to kiss a girl, you’ll need to brush your teeth.’ She smiled to take a little of the sting out, and he looked away.
‘You have money?’ she asked. ‘Please note that I didn’t take your purse and run.’
‘Why not?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘I like Derkensun. But he is gone, and I am hungry. Every hour, I thought of your purse. Is that too honest of me to say?’
Mortirmir was learning about the world hand over fist.
They went down the stairs of the taverna where Derkensun had rooms. The innkeeper’s wife met them at the entrance to the common room. She was a handsome woman of forty, in dark clothes which were almost black; but the coral beads of her long rosary, the gold crucifix that hung from it, and the black work on her shift showed her to be a woman of property. She put up a hand, barring their entrance to the common room. She inclined her head politely at Mortirmir.
‘And who might you be, kyrios?’ she asked.
Mortirmir had a moment of confusion. But he realised that this wasn’t his inn; he was coming from one of the landlady’s rooms with a whore, however well spoken she was.
He bowed. ‘Despoina, my friend Derkensun the Nordikan rescued me, and this fine young woman has been my nurse. Three days I have rested on one of your bolsters. Far from trying to evade my bill, I was on my way to take a meal with my nurse.’
The landlady inclined her head. She looked at Anna, sniffed, and said, ‘I can well imagine what kind of nursing you have received.’
‘Can you really?’ asked Anna.
Mortirmir’s hand went into his purse and emerged with a silver crown – an Alban coin, but one with value everywhere in Nova Terra. ‘Might I know your name, despoina?’
The lady inclined her head a little more. ‘You may call me Stella, fair sir,’ she said in passable Alban. ‘Come with me. I do not ordinarily allow women and men to dine together unless they are married – this is a proper inn, and we observe the laws. But as there is no one in the common room, I’ll allow you to sit together.’
Anna sat in a high-backed chair and made a face. ‘Now I will have to go back to climbing her gutter to get into his room,’ she said. ‘I hate women like that. A tavern keeper’s wife? Likely she spread her legs for clients in her day – but now she pays for masses and is more virtuous than a saint.’
Mortirmir shrugged. ‘I don’t know any tavern keepers,’ he said.
‘Or whores!’ she added. But she fell silent as the hostess came up.
Stella came with a pitcher of wine and another of lemon and water. ‘I can make sausages and I have a good bread.’
Mortirmir realised that he was ravenous. ‘Splendid.’
Anna tore through the bread, drank the wine, devoured six sausages and then tried to pretend to be dainty with a dish of figs. Mortirmir felt less ill at ease as the meal progressed; among other things, her appalling lack of table manners made him feel more confident. Eventually he leaned over and cut her sausages with his eating knife, and she watched him use his pricker to feed himself.
She ate with her fingers.
‘I had a knife,’ she said. ‘Harald gave it to me. I had to sell it.’
‘How many days did I miss? What’s happened?’ Mortirmir was young, and inexperienced, but a taverna with an empty common room at mid-day was an oddity anywhere, and the landlady’s attentiveness spoke volumes for her desire for money.
Anna looked at him, her mouth full of figs. She chewed, and chewed, and finally they both giggled.
‘You aren’t any older than I am,’ he said.
‘That’s crap,’ she said. ‘I’m almost seventeen.’ She sighed. ‘My looks will go soon.’ She leaned back. ‘So – here’s what I know. Three days ago – the morning you went to sleep in Harald’s bed – he went on duty at one of the gates. And the Emperor was taken prisoner by the Duke of Thrake. You know who he is?’
Mortirmir shrugged. ‘His son was at the Academy one day. An arrogant pup.’ He smiled. ‘Even worse than me.’
‘There was a fight inside the palace. That is all anyone knows. Rumour says Harald survived and that the Princess Irene has taken the purple and is Imperatrix.’
Without any warning, she burst into tears. ‘It has been three days!’ she said. ‘Where is he?’
Mortirmir felt well out of his depth. ‘You love him?’ he asked.
She bawled for as long as a man might say ten pater nosters. It embarrassed Mortirmir, who didn’t know how to deal with it, and it embarrassed the landlady who overcame her aversion to whores for long enough to bring the young woman a handkerchief.
‘I don’t want to be a whore!’ she said. ‘I want to marry him and have babies! What if he’s dead? Oh, by my sweet and gentle Christ-’
‘I could take you to the palace,’ Mortirmir heard himself say. He swallowed, and reviewed his words. Yes, he really had said that.
Anna looked at him. ‘Really? We might be killed.’ She got to her feet. ‘I will teach you everything about flirting if you will take me to the palace. And let us take wine and bread.’
The landlady, listening in, put a hand on the cross on her ample bosom. ‘Take wine to the palace? Surely they have the finest wine-’
Anna used the handkerchief to wipe her face. ‘They may not have received any deliveries in three days. The Mayor of the Palace is dead – everyone was saying so yesterday. Eh?’
The landlady nodded hesitantly. ‘It is true. And they say that the Grand Chamberlain has left the city with his leman, abandoning his wife.’ She looked fiercely at Anna. ‘The markets are closed. There has been looting. And no woman is safe.’ She spoke more softly. ‘Not even a whore.’
Mortirmir shook his head. ‘No – listen. I’ll go. Stella, will you let my nurse stay here? I will take no wine. I will find Derkensun, and I will return.’ In fact, he found the prospect daunting. And yet exciting, despite his throbbing temples and the ache in his gut and across his back – the long tally of bruises, abrasions, and not-quite sprains from wrestling with a giant.
Anna shook her head. ‘Do you know the way from here to the palace?’
Mortirmir shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am a scholar at the University. I know how to reach the palace.’
The landlady shrugged. ‘He’s a barbarian,’ she said. ‘They will never let him in.’
Mortirmir shrugged. ‘Neither of you would change that. But you’d make the risks greater.’
What has come over me?
The women agreed – too readily, Mortirmir thought. He paid for the meal and fetched his sword and went out into the empty, damp streets of the city. The inn was close enough to his own that he thought of going for his horse, but the palace was less than a mile away; the sun was high in the sky, somewhere beyond the rain clouds, and the streets were empty.
He had to cross the square of the jewellers, one of his favourite places in the city, where the craftsman sat and hawked their wares, from cheap knock-offs of court jewellery, through magnificent reproductions of such stuff, all the way up the scale to the real thing, with a sapphire ring costing more than a thousand ducats.
Not today. Today the square was empty and some broken men were gathered under the booths, hiding from the rain. Many of the booths had been smashed. There was a body lying on the cobbles.
Mortirmir edged around the square, but they saw him.
He froze in indecision. It was a foolish situation – he could kill a dozen broken men with his sword, but the cobbles were wet and he hadn’t actually ever fought anyone to the death. It seemed easier to run. Except that everything hurt.
They were spreading out as they came, and hooting to one another. He had the presence of mind to look behind him, and there was another pair, their skin the unhealthy, ruddy colour that he associated with life on the streets. He ran a few steps, his boots just a little uncertain on the rain-slick cobbles, and those few steps made his head pound. He turned to put his back against a tiny stone church with brickwork decoration and an external mosaic.