We Leave Together, стр. 56
Because the guard towers were built by the king, city guards manage the towers, not the army.
And every year, Northland gave some soldiers the clothes of raiders, to wear in Dogsland’s hillsides. They hassles merchants until the army chases them back north of the valley. Dogsland did the same in return, out on the waters, blockading and stealing and sinking ships under no city’s flag or port of call as if it is not done by Dogsland.
And my husband and I watched these raiders from the shadows. We cleaned up the broken camp to help the wild places thrive again where they’ve been trampled and burned. We bury the dead. We planted new trees.
***
Nicola Calipari’s apartment hall was cramped with destitute beggars. Jona crawled over the stink and the human waste with his hands on his pant legs. He pulled the cuffs up out of the worst of the stink. Beggars saw his uniform and pulled away from him. Jona could have arrested the lot of them for trespassing.
Jona reached the door where Nicola Calipari was still sleeping. He knocked politely. He knocked again, a little louder.
A muffled voice from behind the door muttered something unclean. Jona jiggled the doorknob, and recognized the kind of lock. Jona slipped a dagger in the gap between the door and the wall. He wiggled the blade back and forth to coax the bolt out of the wall. Less then a minute, and Jona had the door open.
There wasn’t any sunlight in the cheap flat. The only light came from the hallway beyond the gaps between door and wall. Jona flipped a match from his pocket. He lit it, and held it up while his eyes adjusted.
Two full chamber pots sat at the foot of the bed, covered in black flies. Clothes were strewn across the furniture. A single candle sat on a nightstand next to the bed. Jona carefully picked his way across the floor to the nightstand. He lit the candle with his match.
“Sergeant Calipari?” he said.
The man in the bed snored, lightly.
Jona pushed at his arm. “Sergeant Calipari?”
Nicola rolled over and moaned. “Mm… You got the wrong room.”
“I have the right room, Nic. You awake?”
“Oh,” he said.
“You were late for muster. Captain sent me here. It’s mid-morning. We’ve got to hit the road.”
“That’s nice. I’m almost through with all this pomp and circumstance. Bloody Elishta but I’m done with all that.”
“You get your supplies together?”
“My what?”
“We’ll be on the road for three weeks. Did you get food, Corporal?”
“Was I supposed to?.”
“I figured you wouldn’t. A little hunger is good for you.”
“You ever leave the city before, Lord Joni?”
“Who would do a fool thing like that?”
“Place is a pit. I’m glad to be rid of it.”
“You still drunk?” Jona leaned over and sniffed. Calipari stank of piss gin.
“It’s nice out past the wall, Corporal. Gets your head clean when there isn’t anything but fresh air and the sun and the birds. These days I wake up in the Pens, I feel like my bones are put together wrong.”
Sergeant Calipari stepped up from bed, and he was already in his uniform. He had slept in it. He pulled his boots on over bare feet and grabbed his cloak and belt from the night table, which was almost the only furniture here. “You hungry?”
“I ate. I thought we’d be at the wall by now.”
“I’m starving. Let’s go get something to eat before we go. “You’re acting like you already quit. You going to make me do all the work?”
“That’s the idea, Lord Joni. You’re still the king’s man. I’m just biding one last trip. I’ll get something on the way. We’ll be at the Owl and the Ass by midnight, if we leave right away. The other sergeants hate it, but I like it. I met Franka on this detail. It gets me out of the Pens.”
“How long will it take? It’s already mid-morning.”
“It’s going to take a week to make the first post. An hour now and then won’t bother the king’s biscuits.”
“It’s your call Sergeant.”
“Are you still drunk, too, Jona?”
“No,” he said. It was mostly a lie.
Calipari was up and ready, and leading the way out the door. He locked it behind him.
“Because the one thing about this detail is I don’t want you puking on my stuff. Get your head cleaned out, you know?”
“Are you going to talk this much on the road? Because I’ll be drinking more if I have to put up with that.”
“Bloody Elishta, Corporal, but life kicks you in the teeth.”
***
Sergeant Calipari stopped at a fruit vendor and bought seventeen apples. The vendor piled them into a cloth sack. Jona carried sixteen, and Calipari chewed on one slowly while they walked to the main station for the cart.
Calipari didn’t talk. He just ate. Jona carried the apples.
When they arrived at the station, Calipari tossed his apple core at the man at the door.
“Hey,” said Calipari, “spread the word to the towers for my girl Franka, at the Owl and the Ass. I’ll be by and by come midnight easy.”
The guard nodded, and tossed the apple core back at Sergeant Calipari, who let it fall at his feet. “Don’t forget your apple, Sergeant.”
Inside, the captain didn’t look up from the desk.
“When are you retiring, Nic?” he said.
“Soon, sir.”
“You won’t if you keep showing up late. I’ll give you so many demerits, you’ll spend the rest of your life scrubbing pots in the bowels of the training ground and your city land will be assigned to some crazy buck private who won’t last twenty years to claim it.”
“Sorry, Captain. I was getting supplies for the trip for us both. Didn’t Corporal Lord Joni tell you?”
“Is that true, Corporal?”
“My fault for not saying anything, sir.”
“Corporal, you’re a disgrace to