The second pole was the Fish Market, hard against the river. People who worked in the Fish Market were easily distinguishable by scent, and mostly lived in their own section of the district known as Stench Row. Every morning before dawn the fishermen laid out the day’s catch, and representatives from kitchens all over the city, from the noble estates to the lowliest slop houses, came to browse. Thriving if whiffy businesses at the edges of the square processed the rotten rejects and unwanted organs into various forms of fertilizer or pig slop.
On the southern side of the Docks was the Flesh Market, which Winter had learned was not nearly as vile as it sounded. It was simply a large square where farmers from downcountry could come to hire extra hands, and as such waxed and waned with the seasons. Right now, at midsummer, business was booming as the planters hired help in advance of the autumn harvest. Farmhands were traditionally paid their first week’s wages in advance, and the presence of large numbers of young men with money in their pockets had encouraged the growth of a complex network of brothels, wine shops, and feuding gangs of thieves.
All of this Winter had been able to discover in the first couple of days, just by wandering around and observing who went where. That there were discontent and revolutionary activity going on, too, was beyond a doubt, because everywhere she looked there were posters and painted graffiti inveighing against the king, the Last Duke, the Borelgai, the Sworn Church, the tax farmers, the bankers, and any other group that could conceivably hold any power. One intense-looking young man had given her a pamphlet claiming that there was a conspiracy among the greengrocers to take over the city, which even as an outsider Winter had to say sounded a little unlikely.
What she hadn’t been able to find was any evidence that the Leatherbacks existed outside of popular fantasy. The broadsheets sold at street corners for a penny were full of their doings, how they’d robbed this shop or beaten up that Armsman, but details were suspiciously few. There were certainly no Leatherbacks chapter houses, no signs saying “Revolutionary Conspiracy This Way!” and by the third day Winter had started to wonder what Janus had been thinking to give her this assignment. She’d spent a lot of time and quite a bit of his money in wine shops and taverns, buying rounds all through the evenings and pumping her new best friends for information, but no one had been able to tell her anything beyond vague rumors.
Nevertheless, focusing on the task at hand had calmed her down a bit, as had the reflection that it could have been much worse. Since that horrible night in the ancient temple in Khandar, she’d played host to a thing-a demon, the Church would have it, though the Khandarai word was naath or “reading”-that Janus had named Infernivore. A demon that ate other demons, that had torn the power right out of the body of the Concordat agent Jen Alhundt. Winter could feel it, deep in her mind, waiting like a river crocodile, placidly but with the coiled-spring potential for sudden violence.
She’d been certain, when Janus insisted she accompany him on the breakneck voyage home, that it was Infernivore he really wanted. Winter had expected him to be sent into battle against Black Priests and supernatural horrors; her current task, while it went against the grain, was certainly better than that.
Now she was sitting in a tavern that fronted on the River Road, which was as close as the Docks came to an upscale area. It was a big establishment, built to serve the evening rush of workers coming off their loading shifts, and at midday there were only a scattering of patrons. The plank floor was covered in sawdust (easier to sweep up spilled beer, not to mention blood and vomit) and the round tables were big, heavy things on wide, solid bases, unlikely to get smashed in the event of roughhousing. The mugs and flatware were of the cheapest clay kind, the sort that would start to flake and fall apart after a few washes, but Winter suspected they rarely survived that long. Clearly, the tavern-keeper knew his clientele.
Winter had one of the tables to herself. Most of the rest of the customers were women, sitting in pairs or small groups and talking quietly. A few older men or odd-shift workers congregated near the fire, where a desultory dice game was in progress. A bored-looking serving girl brought Winter a plate of something she claimed was beef, boiled into unrecognizability and floating in its own juices inside a rampart of mashed potatoes. She attacked it voraciously. Two years eating either army food or Khandarai cuisine had given her a longing for good old-fashioned Vordanai fare, and she’d discovered the tavern meals here in the Docks were exactly the sort of bland, brick-heavy stuff she’d eaten as a girl at Mrs. Wilmore’s. The beer was good, too. The Khandarai made good wine and liquor, but what they called beer was, at best, an acquired taste.
She hadn’t intended this to be an intelligence-gathering stop. That usually came later in the day, as chairs filled up and the drink started to flow freely. She barely looked up at a nearby rustle, and nearly choked on a mouthful of beef when a woman flopped into the chair beside her with a flounce of colorful skirts.
“Hi,” the woman said. “You’re Winter, right?”
Winter sputtered, grabbed for her beer, and gulped frantically. The woman waited patiently while she swallowed, and Winter used the opportunity to look her over. She was a girl of eighteen or a little older, with a broad, heavily freckled face and brown hair in a tightly pinned bun that exuded a halo of frizzy, escaping strands. She wore a long skirt with a red-and-blue pattern and a sleeveless vest, exposing pale-skinned arms and shoulders already showing a hint of red from the summer sun. Her button nose was peeling, and she scratched it absently.
“I’m Winter Bailey,” Winter said, when she’d recovered. That was the name she’d given in the course of her investigations, and she didn’t see any point in denying it. “May I ask who you are?”
“I’m Abigail,” the girl said. “You can call me Abby. Everyone does. Do you mind if I have a drink?”
“I don’t think you need my permission for that,” Winter said, buying time.
“A drink here, I mean. I’d like to talk to you.” Before Winter could answer, Abby waved at one of the serving girls and pointed to the mug in Winter’s hand, then held up two fingers. “I hope you’ll join me.”
“Much obliged,” Winter said. She looked down at the remains of her meal and decided she wasn’t hungry anymore. “Would it be fair of me to ask how you know my name?”
“Perfectly reasonable, under the circumstances,” Abby said. She gave a smile so sunny Winter could almost feel the warmth on her face. “You’ve been asking questions about the Leatherbacks, haven’t you?”
Winter froze. But, again, she could hardly deny it. She reached for her mug, took a sip, and nodded cautiously.
“And you’re obviously not from around here,” Abby said.
“Neither are you.” Abby lacked the characteristic Docks accent.
“True! I suppose that makes us strangers together.” The serving girl arrived with two more mugs, and Abby took them and set one in front of Winter. “Now, either you’re a Northside girl who has gone chasing the wrong rumors-”
Winter was about to speak up, since that was exactly what she was claiming to be, but Abby went on quickly.
“-or you’re a spy. Armsmen, Concordat, something like that. Although, no offense, if you were Concordat I would expect you to do a better job of blending in.”