We Leave Together, стр. 16
“We are. He’s a Dunnlander and he’s dressed like it. I heard he was doing something pink with the ragmen, but we don’t know exactly what. What do you know?”
“Turco’s dead. He started the Three Kings. It was just a bunch of ragpickers with whistles. Turco’s been dead a while. He was friends with my brother, and he’s the one who got Djoss on that awful stuff. My brother’s been out of the work since Turco died. This other fellow named Dog is probably running things now, in his way. Dog’s hiding out in the empty brewery at the edge of the Pens. You know the one, right?”
“I know it.”
“Dog has no tongue, and no ears. Anyway, that’s probably it, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell Sergeant Calipari. Why didn’t you tell me right away about it when I asked you?”
“I want you to help me because you love me. I don’t want to tell you about Turco and Dog, Jona. I hate what you do.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ve been hiding from city guards my whole life. No matter what there’s going to be street gangs and people getting killed, and the king doesn’t care and the nobles don’t care and the good citizens don’t care, so why don’t they just leave the rest of us alone? We can take care of ourselves. It’s the only thing we know how to do, because it’s all we do our whole lives.”
Jona pulled away from her. He pulled his feet around and planted them on the floor like he thought about standing up and getting dressed and talking to her with his uniform on.
“If we don’t stop these kids now,” said Jona, naked, and on the edge of the bed, “not a one will take care of themselves because the real power in the Pens is going to wake up and roll them hard and all at once. If we don’t get those kids off the trouble they’re in, the big smugglers are going to take them out. I think Calipari’s been working his contacts and begging for time.”
“How come you go after the kids instead of the smugglers?”
“We go after them, too. I’m working on that one hard, but I can’t move, yet. They’re better so they’re harder to catch.”
“They’re probably just richer and stronger.”
“That, too, and they buy their share of king’s men. Bought me for a while, too, but I’m past that now. We ain’t all good, but we ain’t all bad either. And you can hate me for what I do, but I’ve been better since we met. I mean, I’m not as bad as I was before, and I can’t really explain that, but I promise I’m better than I was. And it’s because I love you.”
“You know that thing about the patterns, and how there’s no escaping them?”
“What patterns you mean this time?”
“I mean nothing. I think I’m in love with you, too. And I’m too angry to tell you the right way about how I love you. So, we’re going to have to do this later. And, I have to get my brother out of the city before he… You know. I can’t stay here. I’ve been telling you that. Djoss and I could never stay forever. We have to move on.”
“Can I see you again tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. We have to go. Aren’t you listening to me? We… have… to… leave.”
“I love you, Rachel Nolander.”
“Not tomorrow. Not ever again. I’m sorry.”
“Please.”
She got dressed. He watched her getting dressed. He held still. He held his breath. He felt a pain in his chest like his heart was winding up in a coil, like a spring breaking. He watched her, and she pretended she wasn’t being watched. She bent over and kissed his cheek.
“Please, don’t go,” he whispered.
She shook her head, and she left Jona there, with his money in her hand.
***
Rachel paid the butcher the rent in his shop between two customers. The butcher didn’t deal in fine meats. He sold sawdust sausage, and lots of it. He sold cuts of meat that nobles wouldn’t feed their dogs. He made most of his money renting the rooms over his head, and ran the shop so he could feel like a butcher instead of a slumlord.
The butcher asked Rachel if she needed any meat. She shook her head. “You got all my money in your hand,” she said.
The butcher nodded. He wrapped two handfuls of scraps in cheap paper and gave them to her. She thanked him, and asked him how much it cost.
He told her they were dog scraps, and he didn’t want anything for them, but they’d do her fine in a little rice.
She probably considered putting the scraps back on the counter—everyone has their pride—but instead, she nodded at him. She got this sad look in her eyes like she had become a beggar again out of nowhere. Then, she thanked the man, and went back to her room.
The butcher told us all of this when we met him—a polite enough man who spoke like he was cutting meat with his tongue and didn’t know the difference between Erin and Imam. He described Rachel as a pretty bird with weird clothes and the brother as just another street thug beating his life down to dead with bats hacked from paving stones. Such a pretty, strange thing hanging to him for nothing good but that’s how it always is around the Pens.
***
“Hey, Djoss, are you still here?”
“I’m here.”
“Good. I made rent. Don’t ask me how, okay?”
“You never ask me. How did you do it?”
“Just don’t ask.”
“Was it bad?”
“It was the best thing ever happened in my life, I think, and the worst. I’ll never see him again. And I feel awful about it. Anyway, you’re going to stay away from the hookah, okay? You can’t go anywhere near it anymore.”
“It’s everywhere.”
“Not for you. Did you get any clothes for me?