The Widow's House

Marcus

Most days, from the seawall to the piers was the walk of minutes. A brief turn through the salt quarter with its narrow, dark streets, and then out into the broad ways built for carts and the traffic of trade. Most days, there had been puppeteers at the corners, playing out their dramas for coin. A large audience might slow things down a bit if they spilled too far into the street.

Now it was a meat grinder.

Even where there were no soldiers, there were people in the streets. Half-built barricades jutted out over the cobbles without plan or strategy. In the north, a great column of smoke might have been the Antean siege engines or the Governor’s Palace or the beginning of a conflagration that would turn the city to ash. Marcus didn’t know, and no answer changed what he had to do in the next hour.

Marcus and Yardem led the way, their blades clearing the way before them for the most part. The press of fear and humanity made the passage slow, and Marcus didn’t want to kill anyone he didn’t have to. Some of the citizens of Porte Oliva would likely survive the sack, and the ones that didn’t, he preferred that the enemy killed. His arms and back ached already, and the day wasn’t near done. Cithrin’s arm was around Enen’s shoulder. The thinness of frame that came with her Cinnae blood left her light enough that any of them but Halvill could throw her over a shoulder and run if the need came. Any of them but Halvill and himself. He tried to ignore the weakness in his arm and shoulder, the burning in his muscles that he hadn’t felt wielding a blade since before his voice had cracked. He told himself it was age and indolence, but it was the venom of the blade taking its toll.

It didn’t matter what it was. The job was getting Cithrin through a brief turn through the salt quarter, then the broader ways by the piers. That was all that mattered.

“She’s not looking good, sir,” Yardem said.

“She’ll keep.”

“Not sure she will.”

“She’ll have to.”

Marcus looked over his shoulder. Blood marked Cithrin’s neck and arm. He told himself it was her own, that she’d only been beaten and cut in the violence. It was a bleak thought to find comfort in, but the red hadn’t been from the priest. He’d gotten there in time to keep the spiders from getting into her, at least. Still, she seemed dazed, her eyes flat and empty. She was hurt, no question. And they were a long run from safe.

A wave of bodies spewed into the intersection before them, shouting, shrieking, moving singly and together like a flock of birds. At least three of them were bleeding. Marcus and Yardem closed ranks without speaking and marched forward into the throng. A Kurtadam man, his dark, glossy pelt adorned with silver and glass beads, stopped before them, his hands out in a commanding pose.

“You! All of you! In the name of Nerris Alcion, I command you to the defense of my warehouse!”

“You should move,” Marcus said, not breaking stride.

Snarling, the man put his hand against Marcus’s chest. Yardem kicked the side of the Kurtadam’s knee, folding it the wrong way, and tossed him into the gutter. The mewling sounds of pain were drowned out quickly. All around Marcus, the guards of the bank drew together, their blades at the ready. Down the length of the street, Marcus caught a glimpse of open space. It wasn’t a good sign. The only thing that opened a crowd like this was violence. He pushed ahead. In the clear space, the green and gold of queensmen dithered, caught between formation and free battle.

“Hey!” Marcus shouted. “Guardsmen! To us!”

“They can’t hear you, sir.”

“You try, then,” Marcus said, leaning forward into the unyielding bodies of the crowd. “People might make way for men in uniforms.”

“They can’t hear anyone,” Yardem said. “Wax plugs in the ears. Against the priests.”

With a roar, a dozen or so Antean soldiers as thin as reeds rushed at the milling queensmen. Marcus spat on the ground between his feet. “Well, God smiled,” he said, then turned again toward the port. “Make way! Move, damn it, or we’ll spit you before they can! Make a fucking path!”

The buildings of the salt quarter loomed, high and dark. The smell of smoke was growing thicker. Voices all around them were wailing, and the crowd in the street was nearly at a standstill. In front of him, a Firstblood woman stood with tears in her eyes. The press of humanity behind her gave her no way to get out of Marcus’s path, and her gaze was fixed on the thin, green-patinaed blade between them. She mouthed the words I can’t, I can’t, shaking her head, and began to sink down to her knees.

“Stand up!” Marcus shouted. “If you fall down now, you’re dead. Stand up!”

The woman blinked, stood. He had the sense he could have told her anything and she’d have done it. Whoever she was, whoever she had been until now, the trauma of the day had transformed her into another kind of puppet, ready to do what she was told because the part of her that could make decisions had already surrendered. Marcus sheathed the poisoned sword and took the woman by the shoulder. He pulled her into the center of the little knot of guards, and Halvill took her from there, shoving her out behind them. One by one, Marcus ate away at the crowd in front of them, moving the guards—moving Cithrin—forward another step, and then another, and then another. It was like chipping down a mountain with a hammer, but it was all he could do, so he did it.

The crowd before them broke, the blocking bodies streaming away, diving into doorways and shifting away. Seven men in light scale armor bearing blades whipped at them, cutting the people down like grass. They might have been Antean or some group of local thugs driven mad by panic. All that Marcus cared was that they were between him and the docks and that they’d already started fighting so he didn’t have to feel bad about killing them. They didn’t exchange words. There was no banter. He drew his sword, Corisen Mout came to his right side, Yardem to his left. The first blow almost wrenched the blade from Marcus’s hand, but then long habit flowed into him.

Yardem’s longer reach drove the attackers slightly toward Corisen Mout, crowding them against the wall. Marcus’s world narrowed to a few impressions, gone as soon as they arrived. The angles of the blades, the motion of shoulders. He blocked the attacks and pressed his own. The enemy weren’t very good, aiming for his face instead of his body, going for the quick kill. One left his foot too far forward, and Marcus drew off the man’s blade with a feint while Yardem sank his sword’s point into the enemy ankle. One less. Corisen Mout fell back under a rush, and Marcus slapped the enemy’s arm with the edge of his blade. The man’s elbow began dripping blood at once, and the venom doubled him over screaming not five breaths later. Corisen Mout finished him, and together they slid forward. The crowd was gone now, and they were moving in another of the little clearings of violence. At least there was room.

When the enemy broke and ran, Marcus trotted after them, not so quickly as to catch up, but enough to keep that little bubble in the greater crowd open for as long as he could. They reached the broader, more open streets. Bodies lay on the cobblestones, and blood trickled in the gutters. Smoke and the smell of death thickened the air. The masts of the ships stood to the south, pointing at the sky like the leafless trunks of a winter forest. Marcus looked back. Cithrin’s eyes were glazed, but still open. Her jaw set. That was as much as he had time for.

At the piers, the fighting was worse. The ships that hadn’t cast off were in danger of being overrun, and their crews were locked in battle with the men and women fleeing from the city. Hours ago, they had all been allies against Antea. Now they were beating each other with bricks and fists, kicking and shrieking. Many of the boats had untied from the piers and were floating off in the water, where the brave and crazed swam toward them without any way to climb up into them. Outside the harbor, the remains of three Antean roundships burned and smoked. In the chaos, it was as if their destruction was another blow against Porte Oliva, the earlier victories turned to loss by the overwhelming collapse of the city.

At the edge of one pier, Ahariel Akkabrian, Pyk, Smit, and Hornet stood, blades drawn, before a wall of panicking citizens. One guard, one notary, and two actors against the throng. A pair of ship’s boats bobbed on the water behind them, sailors ready at the oars. Magistra Isadau stood in one boat as steady as a mast, her hands clasped at her chest like a statue of abstract grief.

“Come on!” Marcus shouted, for himself as much as the others. “Just a little bit more. Push, you bastards!”

The crowd around the boats seemed dense and unyielding as stone. Marcus shoved, and they shoved back. Several of the men in the group had blades and cudgels. If it came to an open fight, the bank and her allies would win, but not without losses, and Cithrin was on the wrong side of the water for that. He sheathed his blade and nodded at Yardem. The Tralgu flicked his ears and put his own back in the scabbard, then back to back they pressed into the group, saying reassuring nonsense about there being room for everyone and the queensmen having the enemy on the run. It was like carving a groove into a wall. Creating a weak spot. When they pressed out and let Enen and Halvill and Cithrin stumble through, the crowd sensed that they’d been tricked. The roar of voices was like a storm wind, wordless and full of threat. Marcus stood on the water’s edge, his heels on the last board, while Enen and Cithrin tumbled into the ship’s boat with Magistra Isadau.

“Best get out now,” Marcus shouted.

Smit and Pyk dropped into the second boat. Then Corisen Mout and Ahariel Akkabrian. Yardem was preparing to drop Halvill down to safety when the crowd surged, pushed from behind like a wave. A thick, solid shoulder fixed against Marcus’s chest, and when he stepped back to steady himself, he was falling. Cold water forced itself up his nose, into his mouth. The padding under his armor swelled instantly, and the weight of the steel links pulled him down. His first thought was that he was drowning. The second was that his hands were empty. Above the water, people were shouting. Others had fallen in with him. Cithrin’s screams were like rips in the air. Marcus filled his lungs and dove.

In the green beneath the surface, the world was quiet. Even calm. He pushed down, ears and eyes aching. There, below him, the sword turned as it fell. He kicked his legs, willing his armor to help him sink faster. Something splashed high above him. The light began to fade. He came nearer the blade. Nearer. And then he had it, his hand around the hilt. He turned. The surface of the water danced above him, the blue of the sky made green by the water and distance. The bottoms of the two boats stood solid as black clouds. A half dozen flailing bodies surrounded the nearest one. Oars dipped down toward him and then vanished as the other pulled away. Marcus aimed himself toward the second one.

His chest burned as he clawed his way up the thick water, fighting for every inch toward the dancing air. The boat nearest the shore shuddered, and a new body fell into the water, trailing an arc of bubbles and blood. It was too big to be Cithrin. He fought. The urge to breathe grew to a shriek, and he was still too far from the surface. He wasn’t trying to reach the boats anymore. Not any of them. Up was all there was. His mouth opened without his willing it and a great bubble of air gouted out. Don’t breathe in, he thought. If you breathe the water in, that’s drowning. Don’t drown.

The silver mirror of the surface shivered and teased. Five feet above him. Four. Three. The world began to grey and spin at the edges. He bared his teeth and willed his legs to kick, his arms to move. His body had been remade from clay and stone. It wouldn’t move. Two feet. He lifted the sword, and its tip rose out of the water. Two feet. His sluggish body patted at the water. Two feet. Two feet.

Three feet, and sinking.

He barked out his despair, and seawater flowed into his mouth, his lungs. The pain seared him, and then there was something around him, solid and ropy. The root of a great tree. Or no. An arm. Marcus’s head was in air, and he was vomiting, coughing. He was aware, distantly, of screaming voices. Anything farther than his own skin seemed to belong to some different nation. Something hard dug into his ribs like a blow. It was the edge of a boat, and he was being tipped into it. He rolled forward onto the boards. The sword was still in his hand.

“Don’t… don’t touch the blade,” he managed.

“Clear on that, sir,” Yardem said and let go his grip around Marcus’s chest.

Slowly, the world expanded. The sailors working the oars were Barriath Kalliam’s pirates and also Hornet working manfully alongside them with tears streaming down his cheeks. Cithrin and Magistra Isadau were huddled together at the stern, their arms around each other, their eyes wide and lost and horror-filled. Yardem, soaking and stinking of wet dog, sat beside him. Enen and Halvill were at the stern, looking back at the riot on the seafront. They were already halfway to the roundship. Marcus pulled himself to the edge of the boat and retched up another mouthful of fouled seawater.

“The other boat,” he said.

“Swamped, sir. A dozen or so people fell into the water. They panicked.”

“Pyk?”

“In that boat, sir.”

“The guards?”

“They didn’t make it out, sir.”

“Go back for them, Captain,” Hornet said through a sob. “Please go back for them. Smit’s out there.”

Marcus pushed himself up. The pier was fifty feet away. It could as well have been a thousand.

“He’s gone, Hornet. If we go back into that, we’ll be gone too. We have to get to the ship.”

The heartbroken gasp came not from the actor, but from Cithrin. Carefully, Marcus put his blade back in his scabbard. I hope you were worth it, he thought to the sword. The cost of having you keeps getting higher.

At the roundship, ropes and swings were waiting to haul them up. Master Kit helped Marcus onto the swaying deck, his eyes dark. He’d seen what had happened to the other boat and been as unable to stop it as Marcus had. Mikel and Sandr and Charlit Soon grabbed Hornet as soon as the swing he rode came near, and they all collapsed together on the deck, weeping and calling Smit’s name. Across the deck, Halvill and his new wife, Maha, stood, their baby between them, their foreheads touching. Only Cary stood apart, her chin lifted and her eyes dry. Marcus thought he saw hatred there, but he couldn’t say for whom. Magistra Isadau and Enen came up the ropes and were lifted over the railing.

Cithrin came on board last. Her skin, always pale, was white. Even her lips were colorless.

“You knew,” she said.

“I had a feeling. It was enough that I made some plans for the worst case. May have underestimated how bad it would get.”

Cithrin turned to look across the deck. It was wide as a building. The boards were scrubbed, but there was still a hint of green to the old wood. The timbers creaked, and by being so near, almost matched the screams from shore. The ship’s boat was being hauled back into place and the vast sails were being pulled up. When they caught the wind, they bellied out with a crack like breaking stone and the ship lurched a little.

“We’ve lost it all,” Cithrin said.

“We have the books and ledgers,” Marcus said. “The immediate wealth of the bank. The gold and jewels and spices. A couple dozen bolts of silk, I think. Hold’s full of it. It’s not the first time we’ve made this experiment. Lose a couple more cities and I’ll have it down to an art. Also took the liberty of putting Lord Skestinin on the other ship over there. Figured Barriath would be in the best position to keep him.”

“We’ve lost Porte Oliva.”

“That, yes. We lost the city.”

“We were supposed to win,” Cithrin said. The words were almost calm.

“We didn’t.”

“Oh,” she said, and then didn’t speak again. He put a hand on her shoulder. She was trembling.

The ship’s captain, a Kurtadam with a moth-eaten pelt and a missing eyetooth, strode over and nodded to Cithrin before turning to Marcus. “Himself’s signaled the ready. Unless you’ve got more coming.”

“Himself?” Cithrin asked abstractedly.

“Barriath,” Marcus said, and then to the captain, “No. We’re ready.”

“Asked where it was you wanted to head,” the captain said.

“Wherever’s fastest,” Marcus said. “Anyplace but here.”

The Kurtadam spat over the railing and turned back, shouting orders to the sailors that Marcus didn’t understand and didn’t care to. His clothes were starting to dry, the salt making his skin itch. Weariness bore down on him. Cithrin looked at the city as it grew slowly more distant, the seawall becoming small enough to cover with an outstretched hand. And then a thumb. Soon the only real marks of Porte Oliva were the columns of smoke. He stood by her silently until she spoke.

“This is my fault,” Cithrin said.

“It’s not a matter of fault,” Marcus said. “It’s war. People have been doing this since—”

“Marcus!” Kit shouted.

The old actor stood at the rail. His hair was pulled back from his face, and the gauntness of age and hard living made him seem more a pirate than the pirates. Marcus stepped forward. The motion of the waves made his steps uncertain.

“I’m sorry about Smit,” Marcus said.

“As am I, but I think that isn’t our immediate problem.”

“We have an immediate problem?”

Kit gestured out over the water, and Marcus’s gaze followed the gesture. There, almost at the horizon, a black dash marked the sky. As they watched, the darkness grew larger, clearer, closer. Inys flapped twice, hauling himself above the water. His head sank low before him, like a horse on the verge of exhausted collapse. Long ropes streamed down from his body to trail behind him in the sea. His scales shone red with fresh blood.

“Well, God smiled,” Marcus said sourly. “Where in hell are we supposed to put him.”