THE APOTHECARIES
I had promised myself I would give her the choice, not try to stop her from taking the soft candy. It was a cold, callous calculation born from my own sense of weakness, but if I couldn’t keep her safe, and if capture would mean torture and a slower death, then surely it was her right to make her own decision. It’s the choice I would have made in her position – and the choice I would have made years ago, looking down at the destroyed body of my dead wife, if someone had given it to me. If I’d held in my hand a tiny package, a berry-flavoured sweet that would end my pain instantly, I would have taken it without a thought – and then what? No long journey into and out of madness, no climbing the foetid passageway of Castle Aramor to commit regicide, no discovery of a young, weak, but brilliant King. No Greatcoats. No royal library, no nights poring over ancient texts on swordplay and strategy. No chess with the King or riding into every village and hamlet in the country with Kest and Brasti and the others to bring some small measure of decency and justice to the world. No Greatcoats. No Greatcoats.
‘Please.’ The small word shattered the spell.
I looked over and my hand was on Aline’s wrist. I’d no recollection of putting it there. My grip was tight and I could see it was hurting her, but I couldn’t seem to let go. The look on her face was frightened, desperate, and I could see that she thought that I had lied, that I wouldn’t let her choose her own death. It’s her death, I told myself, not yours, and my fingers released just enough for her to pull her hand away. She stepped back several paces and rubbed her wrist. She looked hurt and confused.
She stopped backing away and brought the soft candy back towards her mouth.
‘Aline!’
The shout had come from behind me, so I pulled my right-hand rapier from its sheath and crouched low into a forward guard. A man and a woman were running towards us, no weapons in hand, nor at their sides that I could see. The man was heavyset but not so muscled as to be a soldier or blacksmith – so someone who worked for a living, worked with his hands but not in hard labour. His clothes told me he wasn’t destitute, but his rough beard and dark hair made it clear he wasn’t a merchant either. The woman beside him was much the same in clothes and bearing, though slimmer and prettier. I guessed both to be in their middle thirties.
‘Aline!’ they called again, and I rose up a little. I kept the point at the man’s gut.
‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said, his voice thick with concern.
‘Hurt whom?’ I asked.
‘Aline, come here,’ he said, keeping his eyes on me and his right arm protectively in front of his wife.
‘Radger?’ Aline said from behind me. ‘Laetha? What are you doing here?’
‘We’re looking for you, silly girl. We heard what happened and Mattea sent us to find you!’
‘Who is Mattea?’ I asked, my sword not moving an inch.
Aline tried to push past me, but I barred her with my arm.
‘Mattea was my nanny,’ she said impatiently. ‘Radger is her son and Laetha is his wife. They’re apothecaries – they’re my friends. Now let me past, Falcio.’
‘Put up your arms,’ I told them.
‘What foolishness is driving you, man?’ Laetha said. ‘We’re here to help Aline to safety. We thought you were one of the Duke’s men taking her away.’
‘All the same, put your arms up and turn around.’
‘Falcio, stop this.’
‘In a moment. First, I want them to put their arms up and turn around.’
Radger eyed me carefully. ‘Aline, get ready to run,’ he said urgently. ‘If he attacks us, just run and don’t look back.’
‘Hells! You’re all fools!’ Aline said.
‘Everyone shut up,’ I ordered. ‘Now, if you’re truly friends, you’ll do as I say. If you’re not, let’s get this over with. I haven’t killed anyone for several hours and I’m getting a cramp.’
The man looked scared; the woman’s eyes went from Aline to me and looked furious. But they both complied. They raised their arms as I’d ordered, which pulled their clothes tighter against their bodies, as I had intended: this makes it much easier to see if someone is wearing weapons on their person. As they turned, I looked for bulges in their clothes or places where the cloth was tighter than it should be – signs of things concealed – but there were none. I don’t know why people try to pat their opponents down; you’re more than likely to miss something that way, and you’ve made yourself vulnerable by getting in so close, even if you’ve got a partner with you.
‘All right,’ I said, looking around one last time. As I resheathed my sword, Aline shoved me aside and ran to the couple, who hugged her tightly. Radger said something in her ear, but I couldn’t hear what it was.
‘Where is Mattea?’ Aline asked. ‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine,’ Radger said. ‘Out of her wits searching for you, of course, as is the rest of the damned city, it seems.’
‘Thank Saint Birgid we found you first,’ Laetha said. She put an arm around Aline’s shoulders. ‘Is this the man – the tatter-cloak – who took you?’
‘You probably don’t want to say that again,’ I said calmly.
‘Forgive us, stranger,’ Radger said. ‘We don’t know your ways. Do you prefer “Trattari”?’ He was either the best actor in the world or he really was clueless, so I decided to let it go.
‘I prefer Falcio,’ I said.
‘Falcio, then. I don’t mean to offend you, but why did you take Aline?’
‘Her family is murdered,’ I said, ‘and she’s being hunted by the Duke’s less-than-courteous lackeys, not to mention every guardsman and bully boy in Rijou. There was no one else to take her.’
‘You could have brought her to us,’ Laetha said angrily. She looked down at Aline. ‘Sweetheart, you could have come to us.’
‘I didn’t want to bring more pain to your house,’ Aline said. ‘After Mother had to let Mattea go … We didn’t have money – the Duke took—’
‘Silly girl,’ Laetha said, embracing her once more. ‘Do you honestly think Mattea would ever hold that against you? Do you think we would ever turn you away from our door?’
‘And how well would you fight off the men trying to capture her?’ I asked. ‘How would you cross blades with the thugs and gangs looking to reap from Shiballe’s generous harvest?’
‘How well have you been protecting her?’ Laetha demanded.
‘Not especially well,’ I admitted.
‘Stranger – Falcio –’ Radger put a hand on my shoulder, as tentatively as if he were touching a dead eel – ‘No man can fight off the entire city. It’s beyond belief that you’ve kept her alive until now. But we can help. We can move her from family to family, quiet as a shadow, and keep her from the Duke’s men until this damnable Blood Week is over. Then … then she can live with us. We’ll care for her, I promise you.’
‘We can hide you,’ Laetha said confidently to Aline.
‘But Laetha, I don’t want you or the others harmed when they realise you’ve been hiding me,’ Aline said. ‘Or worse—’
‘Pish!’ Laetha said comically, like an old grandmother, and I guessed this was something Mattea the nanny might say. ‘They’ll never know. The common folk of Rijou have been hiding bigger things than you for years, sweetheart.’
I strongly doubted that was true; more likely whatever petty smuggling or black marketeering that went on simply wasn’t very important to the Duke. But Aline, for some reason, was.
‘I don’t think it’ll be so easy,’ I said.
‘Do you honestly believe she has better odds with you?’ Radger asked gently.
The answer was no, of course, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit that.
‘Falcio,’ Aline said softly, putting her hand on mine, ‘I think … I think this is worth trying. I don’t know what else to do, and I have only one other course available to me.’
I realised she’d pressed something into my hand. It was the soft candy. ‘All right,’ I said, putting the tiny package back in my pocket. ‘But I’m coming.’
Radger started to protest, but I put my hand up to stop him. ‘You might still encounter Shiballe’s men between here and your home. Once we’re there and Aline’s settled, I’ll take my leave of you and make my way out of the city.’
They looked mollified by this, and Radger turned to point the way. ‘It’s half a mile straight down Broadwine Road,’ he said, ‘but we’ll want to take the alleys, to lessen our chances of running into trouble.’
‘Lead on,’ I said. A half-mile journey, and then I would be free of this – free to wriggle my way out of this city like a worm and make my way back to the caravan, to Kest and Brasti. And then what? Help assassinate a childish Princess before she could do more harm? Or fight Kest and lose in a hopeless effort to stop him?
*
Radger and Laetha’s home looked like just about every other apothecary’s shop I’d ever seen. One wall was made up of dark wooden glass-fronted cabinets filled with scores of tiny pots and jars. Dried herbs and flowers were suspended from hooks all over the place. A long oak countertop served both for handling money and packaging and mixing formulas. In the back, behind the shop, was one large room with two smaller ones adjoining, and a thick oak door leading to what was most likely the cellar. Behind a curtain hanging in one of the two bedrooms was a hidden door.
‘If someone comes in through the front of the shop we can sneak her out the back here to the alley,’ Radger said, holding the hanging back.
‘They’ll be likely to have someone in the alley,’ I started, but he smiled and pushed open the door. There was a tall wall just to the right of it.
‘See that alley wall right there? It looks like a dead end from the street, but actually this segment behind the wall joins up with a notary’s office and Heb the carpenter’s workshop. They could stand all day in that alley waiting for us and not notice that we’d already left.’
I smiled. It was as good as she could hope for.
‘Where’s Mattea?’ Aline said.
It was clear to me that the old woman had been an important and positive force in the girl’s life, and the family were more like cousins than servants to her. That was good.
‘She’s still out looking for you,’ Laetha said. ‘Here, let’s get both of you something to eat. You look as though you haven’t had anything in ages.’
Laetha motioned for us to take a seat at the large table in the centre of the main room. The wooden chairs were hard, but it felt like sinking into a cloud for me. I was exhausted, but sleep was miles away yet. I had to make sure the girl was safe, then I would take that back alley route and make for the rooftops as fast as possible. I would go through the most crowded parts of the city on my way to the outer wall, and then … Well, then I’d just have to figure out how to haul my exhausted body up a twenty-foot stone surface. Maybe the trees … I’d noticed people had stopped trimming the trees near the outer wall. Foolish, that. Makes it easier for people to sneak in and out. If not, maybe one of the broken sections … maybe …
‘Falcio, food!’ Aline said, lifting me out of my somnolence.
‘How long …?’ I asked wearily.
‘Almost an hour. I thought it best to let you sleep. You looked comfortable, like you might not try to kill the next person that comes through the door. For a moment I didn’t recognise you.’
‘Funny.’
‘Enough talking, you two,’ Laetha said. ‘Eat.’
I’d expected to see simple fare in front of me but this was hardly Cheapside food. There were roasted potatoes and greens, fresh bread, and the dark-reddish butter they favoured in Rijou. There was gravy and salt for dipping. Finally, Laetha brought in an entire roast duck. I could smell the fat dripping from the bird and, tired though I was, I very nearly grabbed the whole thing with my hand.
‘Saints, man,’ Radger said with a laugh. ‘You look like you’re going to pass out in Laetha’s lovely roast dinner! Here, drink this.’ He picked up a glass from the sideboard and poured a clear but yellowish liquid into it.
I took the glass from him as he watched me expectantly. I hesitated.
Laetha noticed, and put down the knife she was using to carve the duck. ‘Oh, for the love of my ancestors!’ She picked up another glass from the sideboard and filled it from the same flask. She took a drink. ‘See? Not dead. It’s just lemon juice with zinroot – it helps you stay awake.’
I let my breath out and drank gratefully. ‘To your health, then,’ I said.
‘All right, enough foolishness now,’ Laetha said firmly. ‘Let’s eat.’
As she heaped food onto our plates I realised the zinroot was indeed waking me up. Saints, but my arms were stiff – in fact, all of me was stiff, really. I wasn’t relishing the thought of what the next few hours would bring once I left the apothecary’s home.
‘Will Mattea be back soon?’ Aline asked between mouthfuls.
‘Oh, I imagine she’ll be a few more hours,’ Laetha answered.
I barely paid attention to the conversation, so enamoured of the roast duck on my plate was I. ‘The food is wonderful,’ I said, and Aline nodded, grinning, bits of duck dribbling from her mouth. Hardly the portrait of a young noblewoman, I thought, and far away from the despairing creature who had been moments from taking her own life.
Saint Caveil, what value does my blade have if it brings so little good to the world?
‘Well, I’m just glad we found you,’ Laetha said. ‘We’d had no luck at all, and then poof, there you were, right on the—’
‘Laetha,’ Radger interrupted, ‘let’s not make them relive the experience. It was grand luck that brought us together, and with a little more we’ll be able to take good care of our Aline here.’
‘I’ve learned not to believe too much in luck,’ I said, and speared a potato, only to drop my fork on the table. ‘Sorry.’
The meal wasn’t making the stiffness in my joints go away. Not one bit. I looked over at Radger and his wife.
‘Where’s Mattea again?’
‘As we said, out looking for Aline with some of the others.’
Laetha started picking up the now empty plates. We had practically obliterated the bountiful meal, and in less time than you could butter a bread roll.
‘And yet you haven’t gone out to let any of your friends know that you’ve found us.’
‘Well, they’re – they’re all out. There’s no one to tell yet. No one expected to find you so soon.’
‘But find us you did,’ I said.
‘Grand luck, bountiful luck of the Saints,’ Radger said piously.
Aline was looking back and forth between us, not sure what this was all about.
‘This is certainly the finest meal I’ve had in an age,’ I said, placing both hands on the table. They wanted to shake, but they didn’t: they were stiff and achy and not responding much at all. Everyone else looked fine, including Laetha, who took her seat once again to the right of me. Aline was to my left and Radger sat across the table.
‘Well, I’m just glad you’re well fed,’ she said, smiling. Nervous. Still nervous.
She knows, but isn’t sure how far gone I am.
‘Well fed, ready for bed, soon to be dead,’ I sang with a laugh.
Aline giggled at the old children’s rhyme, but the others did not.
‘One problem, though,’ I said with a smile.
‘What—?’ Laetha began.
‘Now I need dessert!’
They laughed with me, but looked a bit confused. ‘We didn’t have time to prepare … I suppose I could toss some sugar cakes and jam together,’ Laetha said.
‘Falcio, don’t be rude.’
I shook my head. ‘No need, I always bring my own. Aline, dear, could you do a tired, old, worn-out and beat-up man a favour? Reach into my pocket and pass me one of my sweets, won’t you?’
She looked at me, clearly confused.
‘Come now, I’m all settled and comfortable here; I just want one of my candies. The hard one.’
She rose, and for a brief instant I saw Radger start to reach for her, but then he stopped, catching my eye. I smiled back at him. I could barely move, so I had to do my best to make him think I was still functional. I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention that my very worst night terrors involve being paralysed.
Aline reached awkwardly into the inside pocket of my coat and pulled out one of the tiny packages. ‘No dear, the hard candy. The soft candy tastes too much like strawberries and it won’t settle with the duck.’
She reached into the other pocket. Her hand was shaking now, but she was trying to mask it, either because she understood what was happening or because she thought I was losing my mind.
‘There now,’ I said. ‘That’s the one.’
Without further instruction she unwrapped it and popped it in my mouth and I tasted the harsh, almost metallic flavour of the hard candy. A sniff of the stuff will wake you up from a deep sleep. A small bite will let you go for two days and nights on the move without sleep. The amount I swallowed at that moment could prevent a paralytic from stopping my heart – if it didn’t make it burst. I made the sounds I imagined one might make when tasting the tits of Saint Laina-who-whores-for-Gods.
‘You certainly seem enamoured of your confectionary,’ Laetha said drily.
‘I am indeed, mistress. I am indeed. I would offer you some, but that was the very last piece. Perhaps you’d like to try some of the other candy I have with me? It’s soft, and tastes of summer strawberries.’
‘Thank you, no,’ she said. ‘As you say, strawberries go ill with duck.’
Aline sat in her chair, inching closer to me each time she fidgeted, looking back and forth between us all and clearly terrified. Radger looked at me from across the table with eyes that betrayed nothing, simply waiting.
Well, fine: I was waiting too. But I still couldn’t move my arms.
‘Where did you say the old woman was again?’ I asked.
‘We’ve told you three times now, she’s out with the others, searching for Aline.’ Laetha’s voice held only irritation, but her shoulders betrayed fear. Radger rose and headed to one of the cabinets in the corner.
‘Right, right – forgive me. And how did you find us again?’ I asked.
‘We told you, it was luck. Just luck.’
‘Of course. What’s wrong with me?’
‘Falcio …’ Aline said.
‘And that drink you gave me – delicious! What was it again? Zinroot?’
‘Yes.’ Laetha looked over to at her husband, unsure of what to do.
‘It was the glass,’ Radger said casually. In his hand he held a thick iron rod, a bit under two feet in length. Each end was wrapped in tanned leather. This was a weapon for disabling a man, perhaps crippling him, but not killing him. ‘In case you’ve been wondering, the poison was in the glass already, not in the drink.’
‘Ah. The glass,’ I said as the paralytic began to assert itself on my limbs and organs. ‘I should’ve realised.’
‘Few would,’ Radger said. ‘It’s how we sometimes get children to take their medicine when they’re being obstinate: put it on the rim of the glass and fill it with plain water, then drink some yourself from a clean glass to make them feel safe.’
‘Radger! What are you doing?’ Aline asked.
‘Shush, girl. You come with me now,’ Laetha said, rising from the table.
Aline jumped from her seat and came behind me. She took the bracer of knives from the inside of my coat and pulled one free, holding it out in front of her.
‘Don’t be foolish, child,’ Laetha shouted.
Radger took a step forward and Aline threw the knife at him. She missed him by a city block, but the knife did give a satisfying thunk as it stuck into the wall. She quickly pulled another one out before Laetha could grab her arm and swung it in an arc in front of us.
‘Where is Mattea?’ Aline demanded.
‘Let’s all settle down now, my sweetheart,’ Radger said.
‘Where is she? You can’t tell me she would do this to me – you can’t!’ With her left hand she started shaking my shoulders, trying to get me to move, but I held, stiff as stone.
‘Aline,’ Radger said, taking another step towards us, ‘it’s time for you to be grown-up now. There’s enough limerot in that man’s blood to stop a pack of dogs in their tracks. So just you go with Laetha and leave me to do what I’ve got to do. I’ve got no call to hurt you, but I will if you don’t stop misbehaving now.’
‘Damn you!’ Aline screamed, waving the knife as Radger took another half-step towards us and Laetha started reaching out, looking for an opportunity to catch Aline’s wrist. ‘Damn you all! You were supposed to be my friends!’ She started reaching back inside my pocket for something and it took me a second to realise she was reaching for the soft candy again.
‘No,’ I said to her, ‘that won’t be necessary. Leave be and step back a few paces, Aline.’
The girl paused a moment and then complied, but she kept the knife in hand.
Radger and Laetha looked relieved. ‘See now, you listen to your man there,’ Radger said. ‘He knows when it’s done. No need to make a fuss.’
‘In case you’re wondering later on,’ I said, ‘it was the candy.’
‘The what?’
‘The candy. You’re an apothecary,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you heard stories of the King’s Hard Candy?’
‘That’s – that’s a myth,’ Radger said. ‘No one’s ever been able to make that recipe.’
‘Fool,’ I said. ‘You stupid. Fucking. Fool. Did you think you were the first person to ever come up with the idea of poisoning a Greatcoat? Did you really think that the King, with all his money and all his apothecaries, the finest in the country, and all his books from the most ancient libraries in the country – did you really think he never thought we’d have to deal with a fucking poisoner? Did you really think we wouldn’t have a way to deal with that?’
‘You’re bluffing,’ he said. ‘You’re trying to bide your time, hoping your stupid little candy will work, but it takes longer than this, doesn’t it?’
‘Take a step forward,’ I said. ‘Just one more step, and find out.’
Radger hesitated.
‘Come on! I’m right here – I’m sitting down! My sword’s in its sheath. On the best day of my life do you think I could get up, draw my blade and stab you before you can take one step and thrash me across the head with that iron bar? So what are you waiting for?’
He looked at Laetha for a moment, then back at me, and with a roar he stepped forward and swung the iron bar.
In my own defence, I did actually manage to push the chair back, get up and draw my sword faster than I would’ve thought possible, but the hard candy moves through the body from the inside out. The first thing to work, thankfully, are the internal organs, then the chest, shoulders and thighs. The hands and fingers are the last to come out of the paralysis, which in this case meant my aim was off and the blade went to the side, and the result was that instead of smashing my brains in, Radger hit the side of my ribs with less impact.
He pushed me hard, and I fell back onto my chair, the rapier dropping from my hand, and he pulled back for a final swing, only then noticing the small knife buried into his side.
‘Aline?’ he said, disbelievingly.
She had snuck in under his blow when I’d stood up and jammed the blade into his side. A big man like that, he could’ve shrugged it off for long enough to finish the job on me. But if you’ve never been stabbed before, it’s bloody painful, and shock takes you quickly.
Radger stumbled back a few feet. Laetha raced to his side. I leaned over and picked up my sword before pulling myself to my feet.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘why don’t you give me the amulet?’
‘What?’ Aline said.
I held my sword point very close to Radger’s bleeding wound. Laetha reached into a pocket in her skirts and pulled it out. She tossed it on the table and Aline ran over and picked it up.
‘It’s exactly like the other one,’ she said. Then she reached over and felt in the left pocket of my coat.
‘It’s not there,’ I said. ‘It must’ve fallen out in the fight with Lorenzo. That’s why we “suddenly” appeared for you, wasn’t it, Radger?’
He nodded grimly, biting back pain. ‘They gave us all these copper things,’ he said, ‘but nothing was happening and we just wandered around, looking through the district. But then all of a sudden there it was, a light on the surface and the lines of the streets.’
‘They must not work if we’ve got one on our person or too close to us,’ I explained to Aline. ‘If we hadn’t lost it, they never would have—’
Shit. If I hadn’t been such a damned fool and picked a fight that could have waited, then I wouldn’t have lost the damned thing.
‘They just gave you one?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘They gave each of us one.’
‘Each of you …’ Aline whispered.
‘You don’t understand, you stupid girl,’ Laetha screamed. ‘They came to all of us! Everyone who ever knew you or your damned family: “find them and be rich, fail and be dead.” That’s the choice we were given.’
She looked pleadingly at the girl, and then at me. ‘What else could we have done?’
‘But Mattea – she wouldn’t …’ she whispered. ‘I know she wouldn’t. Where is she? Tell me where she is!’
Laetha looked furious, but her glance flickered for a moment.
Aline ran to the cellar door. ‘You … What did you do to her? Mattea! Mattea!’ Aline screamed as she ran to the door and pried it open. I heard her thumping down the stairs into the darkness.
Radger slumped to the ground and Laetha knelt beside him, crying and staunching his wound with the edge of her long skirt.
I wanted to sit back down myself, but it was best to stay on my feet, stay moving. The combination of the paralytic they’d slipped me along with the hard candy was a dangerous mixture for the heart, and the more I moved about, the quicker both would get out of my system.
Radger looked up at me and I could see the guilt breaking through. He wanted someone to tell him it was all right, that anyone would have done the same – or at least to scream at him, to beat him to within an inch of his life.
I chose to do neither. For once in my life I didn’t feel vengeful. I just felt tired. Damn this loathsome city.
A moment later I heard Aline’s footsteps, and another’s, climbing the stairs from the cellar. She emerged with an old woman. Grey, tightly curled hair framed a face that might’ve been a map of the world, if the world had been made up only of mountains and valleys. Her hands were still bound and her mouth gagged. Aline ran and pulled the knife out of the wall where she’d thrown it earlier and made quick work of both ropes and gag.
The old woman coughed and cleared her throat, and straightened as much as she could. She was still bent over and wizened, but I could see strength in those old bones, and there was iron in her eyes. She opened her mouth and gave a sneer that promised foul language and a brutal temperament – and that’s when I finally recognised her.
‘Tailor!’
She looked me up and down – not my face, mind you, nor my hands or feet. Just my coat.
‘I see you’ve done your level best to ruin my greatcoat, Falcio val Mond.’
I felt unnaturally self-conscious. ‘I—’
‘Shut it. I’ve got more important things to deal with right now.’
The Tailor turned to Radger and Laetha. ‘Well now, children. What unwise things have you been up to while you had me roped in the cellar?’
Neither replied, and she kicked Radger, who groaned.
‘You have children?’ I was incredulous.
‘Bah. Certainly not Radger and Laetha. No, I paid these two fools for a place to stay and a story people would believe.’
She kicked Laetha, hard. ‘But it turns out they were even stupider than I’d believed, eh, Laetha? Thought you’d tie up an old woman and make some easy money?’
‘And “Mattea”?’ I asked.
She smiled her evil smile again. ‘Would’ve thought you’d’ve picked up on that, Falcio. It’s an old Pertine word, after all.’
Mattea. Thread.
‘So you make your living as a nanny to noble houses, spreading stories of the Greatcoats?’
‘Does more good than livin’ out in the pissing rain huntin’ for scraps, don’t it?’
Aline suddenly gripped the Tailor around the waste and started sobbing.
The Tailor returned the child’s furious embrace. ‘Oh, my sweet,’ she said. ‘Oh, my sweetest of girls. I’m sorry if my little lie hurt you any. You keep callin’ me Mattea if you like. And I promise, there are only nine hundred and ninety-nine more lies that I told you – but never, never, never would I have thought my foolishness could bring you into such peril. Never, never.’
‘… Not your fault,’ Aline said between sobs.
The Tailor sighed. ‘No dearie, I suppose you’re right. Not my fault, but my responsibility, yes. My responsibility now.’ She squeezed the girl tight one more time before gently pushing her arms aside.
‘You have to go,’ she said to me, rising. ‘Radger and Laetha didn’t lie entirely: near everyone on these streets is lookin’ for you and the reward you mean to ’em.’
She reached over to the table and took the amulet and put it around Aline’s neck.
‘Filthy magic,’ she said, ‘but cheap too, thanks to the laziness of men. Easy enough for a master mage to make, but they don’t work too well together. Keep this on and the others won’t work, at least ’til they think of something else.’
She turned back to me. ‘Fly now, Falcio val Mond, you great bloody fool. You’ve made a good mess of things now.’
‘How is this my fault, exactly?’ I asked. I felt like she was scolding me.
‘Rijou and the Blood Week: so how many d’you think you can trust for a hundred miles in any direction?’ she asked.
‘No one,’ I said. ‘Not one soul.’
She gave a mean smile. ‘Soul? Some arse-kissing God must’ve made you an optimist, boy.’
The Tailor kissed Aline on the top of the head one final time. ‘Now, get yourselves out of here. Find a place to hide until the Blood Week ends.’ The Tailor turned to me, and all the fires of every hell were in her gaze. ‘It’s on you now, Falcio. Get her to the Teyar Rijou and make sure her name is called. You owe him that.’
I didn’t see how I owed Lord Tiarren any more than I had already given in trying to keep his daughter alive, but I wasn’t about to challenge whatever it was that was driving the Tailor.
‘What about them?’ I asked, pointing at Radger and Laetha in the corner.
‘Them? You don’t need to worry about them.’
‘What about – what about the Duke’s men?’ Laetha asked, tears streaming down her face.
‘Ah, now, sweet little Laetha, you don’t have to worry even a little bit about those nasty big men. Not one little bit.’ She took the knife from Aline’s hand and weighed its balance. ‘Nice little knife this. Think I’ll keep it, if it’s a’right with you.’
I nodded – what else could I do? – and she pointed us towards the back door before turning her attention to her ‘son’ and ‘daughter-in-law’. ‘Now go, like I said. What comes next is not right for her tender eyes nor your foolish conscience.’
We left the Tailor to her responsibility.
I took Aline’s hand and pulled her out through the hidden door in the bedroom into the back alley. It was only later that I realised that, when she had given me the hard candy from my coat, she’d also pocketed the soft candy for herself.