We Leave Together, стр. 59
He looked up into a white face. Both men froze, hands on hilts.
“Are you my new boy?” said Jona.
Salvatore whispered, “Only if you’re the blood monkey I’m following.”
“Aye,” said Jona, “How’ve you been, Salvatore?”
“Fine, I guess,” he said. He folded his arms in the dark. Jona suspected he was fingering his blackjack inside his sleeve.
“Do you know me? Do you know my name?”
“It’ll come to me,” said Salvatore.
“I’m Corporal Jona Lord Joni,” replied Jona, “You got a message for me?”
“I do,” said Salvatore. He handed a small sheet of paper over to Jona. Jona pocketed it. “How’s your girl Mishaela?”
“She’s gone,” he said. “I think her husband found out.”
“They’re just gone?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Listen, I don’t remember so good. I mean, I’m not good for remembering things. So, don’t get mad if you have to tell me twice.”
“What do you remember?”
“I think… That’s all I really want to say about that.”
“Aggie. Do you remember that?”
“It sounds familiar.”
Jona didn’t allow himself to draw back his fist. He just threw it up hard and fast, right into Salvatore’s neck. Jona punched him in the throat hard enough to knock Salvatore over. Salvatore looked up, furious.
“Every time you forget something important, I’m going to hit you like that. Can you remember that?”
Salvatore had his blackjack out and took a swing, but Jona was ready for it, and dodged it. He grabbed Salvatore’s shirt with his free hand and threw him hard into the hay. The match burned up to his thumb and singed him. Jona pinched it out and tossed the dead match into the mud in the yard.
The animals were restless; Salvatore held still. Salvatore had to breathe hard with the wind struck out of him like that.
“Don’t think it’s personal when it’s not,” said Jona. “You’re going to remember things. I don’t have time for people who forget important things.”
“I’ll have you killed if you touch me again.”
“No, you won’t,” said Jona. “You don’t know anything about this, and you’d forget even if you knew. You stay close, Salvatore. You stay close and wait for me to make the move. Have you got the uniform already?”
“Fellow brings it for me in the morning.”
“If he doesn’t show up, you can always win one in a card game. The kids in these towers got nothing but cards to pass the time. They love a new challenger now and then. They don’t know when to stop.”
“Fellow’ll come,” said Salvatore.
Jona bedded down his mule. He lingered in the dark with Salvatore, fingering the mule’s ratty mane. “Hey, Salvatore,” said Jona.
“I got nothing to say to you, king’s man.”
“Right,” said Jona. He walked out from the stables. He looked over his shoulder at the shadow in the dark. He touched the note in his pocket, and wondered if he’d get the chance to kill Salvatore before the tasks were through.
Jona resolved to kill Salvatore as soon as he was done with him. He wondered if that wasn’t the reason Lady Ela Sabachthani had sent Salvatore along. That, or she was trying to help him forget his girl, too. It was easier for Salvatore.
There was a hole in Jona’s stomach that knotted up like a black hand holding him hard.
Even now, his skull cries out her name into the dark.
***
The sleepers slept. The night was clean. Jona crept in through the main hall and into a different hall up the stairs. He followed his ears to Franka’s room, where the two betrothed rustled in the darkness. He slipped open the door a crack, silently. He looked down on the two of them together, their bodies moving in unison.
Jona heard footsteps in the hall.
He looked, turning his blade in the night. He saw a child in a shadow.
“Go to sleep,” said Jona, “It’s too late for you to be up.”
The kid’s shadow backed into a room.
Jona found an empty room. He played cards until the maid came with soft feet to clear chamber pots before morning light. He threw a few coins at the girl’s feet. “Sometimes night maids like to earn a little extra,” he said.
The girl nodded. She picked up the coins. She peeled off her dress like a dirty washcloth. Her bones protruded at odd angles from her papery skin. Her eyes were black in the darkness of morning twilight.
He looked over the body in the moonlight. “Keep it,” he said. “That’s enough.”
She seemed offended and confused, but she didn’t say anything.
“Wait,” said Jona. “Franka ever do this?”
She shook her head, no. Then, without touching anything or cleaning in the room, she was gone with her clothes into the hall. Afterwards, Jona sprawled naked in an empty bed. He closed his eyes as if he could sleep. He thought to himself that Rachel was sleeping somewhere, surrounded by men who would kill her if they saw her real skin. He stood up and started to pace.
In the city, he could do something to fill his mind. He could find a game of cards and bully the men into handing over all they had. He could find another woman, prettier, and he wouldn’t make her sick, but maybe he’d talk to her in a bustling room for a while or have tea with a phony and let everyone lie to each other. He could dance. He could drink. He could find some gangers and knock some teeth.
Out here, all he could do was wait in the darkness and hope it wouldn’t rain. When it rained, on the road, he and Nicola crawled under the cart, and waited it out. If the wheels got stuck in mud, they used the worthless weapons to dig and wedge the wheel free. It rained a little every day. When it wasn’t raining, there was a haze of damp and bugs that bit at them.
“You want to live out here?” said Jona.
“You