Pyk was pacing the room. Sweat beaded on her wide fore-head, but rain had cooled the room to the point that she could at least move. Yardem sat on a tall stool smelling like wet dog and looking at least as drenched as Marcus. No one else was present.
“Bird came this morning,” Pyk said without preamble. “Sent from the holding company.”
“Good it didn’t wait for afternoon,” Marcus said, wringing out his cuffs. “Did they decide to send a fresh auditor?”
“Other people are going to start getting word of this in the next day or two, so we’re going to have to move quickly. There’s trouble in Antea. According to our man in Camnipol, someone tried to stick the Lord Regent full of knife-sized holes. They’ve closed the gates, and there’s been fighting in the streets ever since. Odds-on bet is civil war.”
The words took a moment to resolve. Yardem’s wide brown eyes were on him, watching him understand.
“I have a list of the contracts I want placed,” Pyk said, “but it has to be done today. Once the word goes out, the prices on grain and metalwork are going to head toward the sky. We may only have hours to do this, and so of course, this is the day we can wash all the ink off a piece of paper just by walking it down to the corner. God hates me, but we’ll do what we can.”
“What about Cithrin?” Marcus said.
Pyk scowled. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“The note doesn’t say. The chop is Paerin Clark’s, so he’s the one making report. She’s not mentioned.”
“But she’s in Camnipol,” Marcus said, his voice growing hard. “She’s with him.”
“She went there, but I don’t know how she stands. Safe, dead, or missing, he wouldn’t have spent space on the page for word of her. This isn’t gossip. It’s what will make us coin. He sent us what we need to help the bank, and now it’s ours to follow his lead.”
“I’m going for her,” Marcus said. “You can work the contracts yourself.”
“God’s sake, Wester,” Pyk said, “it’s Camnipol. It’s weeks from here on a fast boat and more over land. By the time you got there, it would all be done. Even the bird’s not going to tell us what’s happening there now. Maybe it’s resolved. Maybe the whole place is burned flat. Either way, our work’s here.”
“I don’t accept that,” Marcus said.
“I don’t accept being the only good-looking woman in a city full of bendy little twig men,” Pyk said, “but it doesn’t change the situation. The magistra’s in Camnipol and we’re here. If you want to take care of her, take care of the things that matter to her. And while you’re at it, do what you’re paid for.”
Pyk lifted a handful of papers. Contracts. Letters of enquiry and agreement. Yardem cleared his throat and Marcus forced himself to take his hand off the pommel of his sword. For a moment, the only sounds were the rush of water and the howl of wind. Pyk walked across the room and held out the papers. Slowly, half against his will, Marcus took them.
“This is dangerous work,” Pyk said. “No one sees these except you and Ears.”
“Ears?”
“She means me, sir.”
“Ah.”
“Nothing else you’re doing matters compared to this,” Pyk said. “Manage it well, and we’ll have enough profit to keep this place afloat the rest of the year. All of the contracts have the names of the people I want them going to. Don’t put them in anyone else’s hands. And get it done now.”
Marcus paged through the contracts. He nodded.
“We have something dry to carry them in?” he asked.
Yardem stood. He held a leather satchel in one hand and a broad oilskin envelope in the other. Marcus took them, folding contracts into envelope and envelope into satchel. Pyk folded her arms, her eyes black and narrow and satisfied.
“Don’t cock this up,” she said.
“We’ll do what needs doing,” Marcus said. “Yardem?”
“Coming, sir.”
Marcus stepped into the storm. The raindrops cut at his face and stung his eyes. Yardem padded along beside him.
“Ears?”
“I think she’s taking a liking to me, sir.”
“Well, you’re a charming man. I have to stop by the barracks. Come with me.”
“Yes, sir.”
The city was blurred, as if the water could wash away not only objects but lines and color themselves. As if the idea of Porte Oliva was dissolving. In the barracks, a dozen guardsmen were sitting in a rough circle playing at dice. Marcus considered them. He’d hired every person in his company except Yardem. They were good people. Solid men and women, loyal to the bank and to him personally.
Part of him would miss them.
“Ahariel.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Marcus tossed the satchel across the room. The Kurtadam caught it out of the air.
“There’s some contracts in there need delivering. Do what you can, eh?”
“Yes, Captain,” the guardsman said, undoing the satchel’s buckles.
Marcus turned back toward the door. Yardem stood there, his face blank but his ears standing tall and forward.
“Waiting for something?” Marcus asked.
“No, sir.”
“Let’s go, then.”
The inns and taprooms by the port were thick with bodies huddling out of the weather. Gossip and news and unconfirmed speculations came as cheap as a bowl of barley soup or a bottle of cider. Marcus hadn’t considered that one virtue of living in a single place for more than a year was that it gave a sense of which faces and voices didn’t belong. Those were the ones he followed, because those were the ones who had come from places where the petty wars were being started or fought or guarded against.
Merrisen Koke and his men were in Lyoneia, fighting for a local lordling against a pod of tribal Southlings. Karol Dannien, on the other hand, had taken garrison work on the border between Elassae and the Keshet. Tiyatra Egencil, smaller and more recently formed than Koke’s company or Dannien’s, was in Maccia enforcing the law for a prince whose guard had turned. Another company Marcus hadn’t heard of calling themselves Black Hounds was supposed to be doing something in Herez, but the details on that were vague.
The storm blew itself out to sea. When the sunset came late in the day, it turned the high clouds in the south gaudy red and gold. The grey veil beneath them looked almost gentle at this distance. The streets were wet and clean, even the mud washed away. The puppeteers and musicians came out, plying their trades at the street corners and taproom yards. Marcus bought a waxpaper cone of cooked beef for himself and another of eggs and fish for Yardem, and they walked down the wide streets.
“I like Koke best, but I don’t see going to Lyoneia. Maccia’s close, but Egencil’s new at this, and I don’t know that I trust her yet.”
“And she’s working for a prince,” Yardem said.
Marcus shrugged and popped a chip of beef into his mouth. “Why’s that a problem?” he asked around the food.
“I thought we didn’t work for kings, and that princes were just little kings,” Yardem said.
“I’m not looking for someone to work for. I have someone to work for. I need someone to hire.”
Yardem flicked a jingling ear.
“For what, sir?”
“I’m going to get Cithrin,” Marcus said. “Thought that was clear enough.”
“That’s a large favor to ask,” Yardem said. “Even if it was someone from the old days.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“We don’t have anything like the gold to hire a company.”
“I know where there’s a bank’s strongbox.”