Sworn in Steel

Chapter Twelve

“Aadi el-Amah?” said the Djanese bravo feigning ignorance as he looked down at me. He stroked the twin braids of his beard. Neither had a brass ring at its end, which told me he was for hire, should I be so inclined. I wasn’t.

We were standing off to the side of a busy side street in the Lower City, traffic jostling and passing us by in the dusty heat. I wiped at the sweat gathering below my kaffiyeh and waited for him to tell me if he knew the Zakur I was looking for. I suspected I already knew the answer I was going to get.

“I know an Aadi,” said the mercenary slowly, “but his tribe name is Marud. Could that be who you mean?”

“No,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “It’s Amah.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He nodded, then lifted his head and looked about the street. After a moment, he perked up. Then he yelled, “Hai, Daud!”

Across the street and several yards down, an even larger man, clothed in the short linen vest, loose breeches, yellow stockings, and low red boots of a street mercenary turned his head our way-as did half the passing traffic. I winced.

“Hai, Gilan!” Daud stopped but didn’t come over.

“This little Imperial is looking for someone named Aadi el-Amah,” shouted my bravo, pointing at me. “Do you know him?”

Numerous heads on the street pivoted to wait for Daud’s reply.

“I know a Aadi el-Murad,” shouted Daud. “Is that who he means?”

The heads pivoted back toward us.

My man, Gilan, looked down at me. “You’re sure it’s not Murad?”

I glared.

“It’s not Murad,” yelled Gilan.

“Have you tried asking Yusef ben-”

I cursed and stormed away. Roars of deep, coarse laughter followed after me.

A block later, I turned onto a twisting side street. Halfway down, I came to a teahouse. I stopped under the awning to catch my breath. And to smile.

We’d been in the Lower City for six days now, and I’d been working the streets for five of them. It had been hard. I’d forgotten how slow, frustrating, and time-consuming it could be to step into a new town without any kind of connections or weight. The last time I’d been in a remotely similar situation was when I’d first come to Ildrecca with Christiana in tow. Back then, I’d been too naive, not to mention too busy trying to survive, to know when I was doing poorly: missing a cue, getting the brush-off, being fed a line of shit. Now, though, I was able to recognize when it was happening-the only problem was, I didn’t have the influence or reputation to do anything about it.

As it was, I only had Aadi’s name because of my time spent with the caravan master and his drivers on the trail. Turned out that two of them were from el-Qaddice. After a week or so of sharing their fire, I’d started to learn something about the Lower City; after another several days, I’d begun to get hints and clues about its darker workings as well. I hadn’t known whether I would need them or not-the goal, after all, was to pass the audition so I could have full access to the entire city and look for Degan-but I’ve found that learning as much as you can about how the shadows of a place work before you get there is never a bad thing.

That was the case now, especially since it looked as though we weren’t going to be getting our audition anytime soon. As it turned out, auditions for the padishah only happened once a month. The next set of auditions were in three days. Our place in line meant we wouldn’t be up for two months.

I didn’t have the ready, or the time, to wait two months. Which was why I was working the street, looking for the one Zakur whose name kept coming up again and again whenever I talked to people about making arrangements to adjust our place in line. Aadi el-Amah was the man to talk to if you wanted the fix put in.

He was also damn hard to find.

I didn’t exactly think that was an accident. Local reticence aside, I was not only an Imperial in the middle of the Despotate; I was also a Kin among the Zakur. Just as we kept what passed for the Djanese underworld at arm’s length back home, so they did the same to us here. Only, in el-Qaddice, my job was that much harder due to the lack of any kind of true Kin presence in the city. Oh, there were a few Imperial Prigs here and there, and even a couple of patchwork gangs in the Lower City, but none of them worked under any kind of higher authority. There was no one with status here, no one with any connections back home I could leverage. Here, among the Imperials, it was every cove for himself, which meant I didn’t have anyone to fall back on except myself.

Naturally, Tobin and company had offered to fill in. The troupe master had suggested they play the streets or, if that failed, maybe try to pass themselves off as merchants or pilgrims or smugglers. Anything, he said, his eyebrows waggling conspiratorially, in hopes of catching a whisper or two for me.

It was all I’d been able to do to convince them to stay in the caravansary and work on their audition piece. The last thing I needed was half my ticket in to the Old City either dead or locked away for some infraction or another.

As for Fowler, she’d simply wanted to watch my blinders. And while I appreciated the offer, the idea of a tiny, angry blond woman following along in my wake in a city of dark-haired, deep-complexioned Djanese hadn’t exactly shouted subtlety to me. Better, I’d persuaded her, she stay behind and keep an eye on our Boardsmen. She hadn’t been pleased, but she’d agreed.

Still, even with no one on my blinders, it felt good to be out. To stalk new streets for the first time; to puzzle out how rumors flowed in a different city; to not be weighed down by history or expectations or reputation. I’d long ago learned to read the tapestries of information that made up the street in Ildrecca, but here? Here, each pattern was fresh, each rumor a new test. Was it truth? Lies? Part of a greater piece, or something that could be cast aside? And was I paying a fair price for it?

It was, in a word, exhilarating, and I ate it up.

I glanced back the way I’d come to make sure the bravos hadn’t decided to follow, then took a seat at one of the low communal tables outside the tea shop. The three men who had been sitting there-two Djanese and a Rissuli horse priest-gave me an irate look, then pointedly picked up their tea bowls and moved to the next table, even though there were already two other men there. When one of the Djanese realized he’d left his plate of sweet wafers behind, he turned back, only to discover I’d already helped myself.

“Mmm, almond,” I said in Djanese, holding one up before taking a bite.

He eyed the sword at my hip, then Degan’s at my back, scowled some more, and turned back to his companions.

“The wafers cost six supp,” said an uncertain voice behind me. I turned to find a nervous-looking girl at my back, her eyes purposely fixed on the table. She wore a simple shirt with embroidery fraying at both neck and sleeves, and a long underdress. Her feet were bare. She was maybe thirteen summers.

“Really?” I said.

She hesitated and glanced back over her shoulder. A dour, rotund, bearded face ducked back behind the curtain that hung across the door to the interior of the shop.

“No, not really,” she admitted. Her eyes returned to the table. “My uncle said to tell you that.”

“Why?”

“I think he’s afraid to tell you to leave.”

“Smart man. How much do you usually charge for the sweets?”

“Two.”

“Did the three who were just here already pay for them?”

Pause. “Yes.”

I sent a cool glance at the wavering curtain.

I reached into my pocket and drew out a silver dharm, along with five copper supp. “The silver’s for you, for being brave,” I said, leaning forward so I could drop the square coins into her hand without it being visible from the shop’s doorway. She gasped, her eyes wide. “Hide it, then give your uncle the copper and tell him I want another plate of sweets and two pots of tea with honey. Tell him that if he tries to cheat me again, I’ll show him exactly why he should be afraid of me.”

The girl put her hands on her waist, bobbed an enthusiastic thanks, and hurried back into the shop.

I picked up another wafer.

“That’s not a very good way to ingratiate yourself with the local Zakur,” said a voice off to my left.

“I’m Imperial, and I’m Kin,” I said, pointedly keeping my eyes on the street. “I’m not exactly popular with your people as it is.”

“Yes, but there’s unpopular, and then there’s stupid.” The man’s voice sounded as if it might have once been a mellow tenor; now it rattled like a dry riverbed. “A woman called ‘Act of Kindness’ runs this neighborhood. She doesn’t like people threatening the merchants under her protection.”

I gave in and looked up at him. “‘Act of Kindness’?” I said. “You’ve got to be joking.”

The gray-haired man standing beside my table shrugged. “She’s of the Sharkai,” he said, naming her tribe as if that were explanation enough. “What can you do?” He sat.

Aside from his voice, he was unremarkable: shallow cheeks, sun-dark skin, a week’s worth of beard that could either be left to grow or shaved off, depending on whether or not he needed to change his appearance. The small green cap he wore atop his head did little to hide his vanishing hairline, while an ankle-length thobe concealed everything else.

I pushed the plate with the last wafer over. He eyed it a moment, then nodded once and picked it up. A Djanese sharing my hospitality: No one was going to be killing anyone at the moment.

“What you did with the Red Boots back there?” he said as he took a bite. “Getting them to start yelling my name across the street? Not bad.”

“You liked that, did you?”

“Like it?” said Aadi el-Amah. “I’ll have every street urchin within three districts knocking at my door, telling me there’s an Imperial hunting me and hoping for a coin for the trouble. If I’m lucky, the Zakur sheikhs won’t call me in to ask why someone was shouting my-and therefore, potentially their-business up and down the street. Any criminal of standing will be avoiding me for days, worried I’m becoming either too old to keep my business private or too well known to keep theirs secret. You’ve cost me at least a week’s worth of work, maybe more.”

“Still, it got your attention.”

“Pshh!” he said, a fine spray of wafer crumbs flying over the table. He wiped his mouth and took another bite. “Boy, you’ve had my attention ever since you started asking about me four days ago-”

“Five.”

“Only as of sundown today, and the sun’s still up. Don’t interrupt. I’ve known you’ve been after me since you started.”

“And you let me linger on the street because. .?”

“I don’t know you. And you’re Kin. And those actors you travel with give you too much room for you to be a simple Soft Palm or Winder. You don’t carry yourself like a typical footpad or highwayman, even when you’re working the streets in the Lower City.” He pushed the empty plate away. “Until you got those two fools braying like mules, I was inclined to ignore you; now, though, I’m curious. And more than a bit annoyed. Were it only one or the other, I could walk away, but together?” He shrugged. “I’m the kind of man who has to scratch his itches. And you, Imperial-you itch.”

I regarded him as the tea arrived. The girl filled my bowl first, then Aadi’s, and proceeded to linger until I sampled it. It was good: deep and floral, with the faintest undertone of honey. Her hand might be light, but it was also deft. I nodded my approval and she fluttered away.

Aadi sipped his own tea, added more honey, and sipped again. He nodded.

“You know what I do?” he said.

“You’re a Fixer,” I said.

He smiled without looking up from his bowl. “An imperial term. What is one who is a Fixer?”

“You put coves. . criminals in touch with one another,” I said. “When someone’s putting a dodge or a con together, and they need, say, a Talker or a Fisherman, they come to you.”

“And I bring them together?”

“For a price,” I said. “Or a cut. But only if you think both parties are on the straight. A good Fixer doesn’t let the people he fixes cross him-or one another.”

Aadi took a sip of tea and smiled. “A Fixer. Yes. Very good. So, what would you have from me? Besides information on that big Imperial you’ve been asking about, of course.”

I’d been expecting this at some point. Just as I’d been asking about after Aadi, I had also been quietly searching for leads on Degan. Nothing as obvious as dropping his name, of course-I had no idea what he might be calling himself now that he’d walked away from the Order-but enough to see if I could develop some early leads on a tall, fair-haired, pale-skinned Imperial who was more than handy with a sword. So far, Aadi’s comment was the only lead I’d had, if you wanted to even call it that. More likely, he was just repeating what he’d heard about me on the street.

Still, if he actually knew something. .

“Do you-?” I began.

“I know nothing about him; I just wanted to see how important he is to you. ‘Very’ would seem to be the answer.”

“I have an interest.”

“Pah. My third son has an ‘interest’ in the baker’s daughter at the end of my street. You want to find this man, maybe need to find him-it’s writ in your shoulders and across your face.” He set his tea bowl aside as more wafers arrived, took two at once. “Is he why you came looking for me?”

It was tempting to say yes, to tap in to the network this man had spread across the Lower City, to put him on Degan’s trail. I knew firsthand what someone like Aadi could do in his hometown, who he could find, and how. But I also knew the price would be high: for Degan, or more likely, for me. I had too many marks against me to expect a fair offer, and even if it was, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t lead me to a dead end, of several kinds.

I looked in Aadi’s eyes. No, not today. Not from this one. Not about Degan.

“I’m looking for something else right now,” I said. “Information, and maybe a favor.”

He nodded. “That’s easier, then. Information doesn’t run away and doesn’t fight back. As for favors?” He shrugged. “Tell me what you have in mind, and I’ll tell you if it’s worth my time to help an Imperial.”

“I want to know what I can do about this,” I said as I pulled out the clay chit Tobin had collected when he’d put our troupe on the padishah’s list of hopefuls. “About changing our place in line and maybe looking into putting in a fix.”

Aadi look from the chit to me. Then he began to laugh. I ground my teeth and waited until he was done.

“Well?” I said.

“Thank you for the tea,” he said. “And for these.” He took the last three wafers and slipped them into his sleeve as he prepared to stand.

“Wait,” I said. I reached out but stopped short of grabbing his arm. This was still his city, and I needed him.

“No,” he said, returning to his knees and leaning toward me. “No ‘wait.’” He pointed at the round of fired clay in my fingers. “You don’t fix the auditions for the Sixth Son of the Most High. Ever. The last Zakur who tried was a sheikh with three-three! — belts of merit to his name. They say on a quiet night you can still hear his screams coming from the cells beneath the palace. I may arrange many things, but my own death isn’t one of them.”

“I’d heard anything was possible in Djan, among the Zakur.”

“Anything is, but fixing the result of one of the padishah’s auditions isn’t something either of us can afford.”

“Fine,” I said. I leaned forward slightly myself, using the illusion of intimacy to keep Aadi from walking away. “Then how about just adjusting our order in line? Moving the audition up a bit?”

Aadi’s eyes narrowed. “That I can do.”

I began to smile.

“But not for you.”

The smile died. “What? Why not?”

“Because you are Kin, because you have inconvenienced me, and because, even were I inclined, I don’t want to risk getting on the bad side of the factors at this time. They are the ones you should be talking to.”

I grunted. The factors were the local trade monopoly that operated in the district of the Lower City known as the Coop. All aspiring acts were required to lodge there and charged accordingly, with a corresponding percentage going to the padishah’s ministers. I’d put us up in a caravansary at a price that made blackmail look cheap. “I tried,” I said.

“And?”

“They’re not interested.”

“Ah. So you already knew this was futile.”

“I knew they said no to me. That doesn’t mean they’d say no to someone who approaches them on my behalf. Someone with local weight.”

The flicker of a smile crossed his lips. He inclined his head. “I appreciate your confidence in me, but the answer is still no.”

“There has to be a way-”

“There isn’t.” Aadi sat back on his heels. “Not for you. Better to wait your turn and use the time to rehearse. The padishah’s wazir had high standards, and while His Excellency may be inclined to favor players this season, the wazir is not. The extra time could end up being a boon for you.”

I muttered and looked away.

Aadi grunted as he rose to his feet. “I’ll ask you to refrain from seeking me out again.”

“Can’t promise that. Yours is the only name I have in el-Qaddice.”

“Then I suggest you either learn more or forget the one you know.” He salaamed a formal farewell, thanked me for my hospitality, and left.

Well, shit.

I tilted my head back and looked up at the carved cliffs and white walls of the Old City. They were visible from almost every street down here, sitting on the western skyline like a promise of splendor that would never be fulfilled, or, in my case, like a failure I couldn’t afford.

Two weeks, Wolf had said. I didn’t know what he would do if I didn’t make it into the Old City by then, but considering what he’d done to get my attention in Ildrecca, I wasn’t anxious to find out. Visions of myself being led into the Old City in chains, only to be broken out by the degan and let loose on foreign streets as a fugitive, flitted through my head. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

The thing was, I did have another name, and not just the name of a Zakur or a factor or some other street runner in the Lower City. I had the name of a yazani up in the Old City that Jelem had given me when he handed over his packet of letters. A name that, once I was inside, I could hopefully use to open doors and hunt for Degan-assuming people were willing and the price wasn’t too high. But to contact that yazani, I needed to get into the Old City first.

“More tea or wafers?” said the girl, coming up beside me.

I blinked and looked over at her. “No, thank you.”

She nodded, then looked up to where my gaze had been lingering. “Have you been?”

“No.”

“You should. There’s an old woman in a market in the third ring that has the most wonderful candied fruits. Lemons and apricots and, sometimes, mangoes. They’re wonderful.”

“They sound it.”

“They are,” she affirmed solemnly. “Sweet and sour and delightful. They’re costly, though, and I rarely get to have them. But now. .” She glanced at me shyly and touched her tunic where she’d secreted my dharm. “Well, I think I’ll be saying a prayer of thanks for you the next time I go up.”

“I’m glad I could. . wait.” I sat up straight. “You’ve been to the Old City?”

“Of course.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “You mean you have patronage?”

“Patronage?” she said, her mouth twisting in puzzlement. “No. Why would I need-ooh!” She raised a hand to her lips and blushed furiously. “Oh, that’s right: You’re not of Djan. You need it to get in. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel-”

“No,” I said quickly, throwing a smile on my lips. I could feel the beginnings of an idea, and more important, an opportunity, tugging at me. “No, it’s all right: I just forgot that you don’t have to have a patron to get up there. It’s a holy place for Djanese, after all.”

“Um, yes, it is.” She tugged her tunic straight, telling me exactly how often she went to the Old City for religious reasons.

“And it has wonderful candied fruit,” I added.

A quick smile. “That, too.”

“Tell me,” I said as I took a last drink of tea and set the bowl aside. When my hand moved away, three silver dharm glinted among the dregs. “Do you think you could get some of that fruit for me? Talking about it has made me hungry.”

Her eyes flicked from the coins to the curtained doorway. “I don’t. .”

“I could come back tomorrow if it would be easier.”

She swallowed, nodded. “Tomorrow would be easier, yes.”

“And even more so if I left a few supp for your uncle as well?”

A long, relieved breath out. “Yes.”

“Good.” I moved to stand, then paused, my hand at my purse. “Oh, one more thing. As long as you’re up there, I was wondering if you could deliver a message for me? Just a word to a friend, really.”

She shied away a bit, a willow bending in the breeze. “A friend?”

“Not to worry,” I said. “He’s a scholar.” All right, he was a yazani-the one Jelem had mentioned to me-but I didn’t want to scare her off. “I’d simply need to deliver a note for me. You can just take it to his door.”

She looked down at the silver rectangles in the cup and pushed at the carpet with her toes. “Just a note?”

“Just a note.”

More pushing, more looking. She bit her lower lip, then nodded. “All right.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Now, all I need is to find a scribe’s stall. Is there one nearby. .?”