City of Night (25 page)

But the daughter liked Finch, and they often chatted while Jewel was talking with Farmer Hanson. Today, however, the chatter was sparse. He was worried about something.

She finally asked, “Is something wrong?”

The smile that came up in response to the question looked like something dredged out of one of the Common’s less savory puddles. Like, say, the ones near the butchers’ stalls. “Wrong? Why do you ask that, Jay?”

She looked at him, and raised a brow.

He lifted both of his hands in mock defense, but he dropped them slowly. “You aren’t the only kids I keep an eye on,” he said, as if it needed saying.

Jewel nodded, because clearly it did.

“There’s a young girl and her brother,” he said.

“How young?”

“About your age. Maybe a year younger.”

“The brother?”

“Two years younger. They’re not doing as well as you are,” he added quietly. “But they manage.”

She didn’t ask how. He probably didn’t ask them either. Just fed them when he could, or more likely ignored their thefts when he could.

“Her name’s Marion, and his is Mouse.”

“Mouse?”

“Mouse.”

“Seriously?”

Farmer Hanson shrugged. “You’ve got Lefty, Teller, Carver, and Duster,” he pointed out.

Fair enough. “What about these two?”

“I haven’t seen them in the Common for the last three weeks.”

“Do you know which holding they live in?”

The farmer shrugged. Which meant no. “They don’t talk much,” he added, “and I get the impression they’re like Lefty and Arann were—they find a place they can hunker down for a while, and they move when they have to move.”

Arann was listening with half an ear. Which really meant the farmer had the whole of his attention. The mention of Lefty’s name often had that effect.

“You think they’ve been co-opted by a den?”

“I don’t know. It’s just not like them to be gone quite so long.”

“They can’t freeze to death at this time of year.”

“No,” the farmer replied, scanning the crowd as he often did when he talked. “Marion’s about your height, but thinner. Her hair’s a brown-black, and it’s straight, but straggly. Mouse is shorter than you are, hair’s the same color. It’s too long,” he added, which was just like Farmer Hanson, “but he mostly keeps it off his face.”

“I’ll keep an ear out,” Jewel told him. “If they’re running in the twenty-fifth at all, we might be able to find them.”

The farmer nodded. It was clear that he didn’t think Jay would find them, and if she were being honest, he was right.

“Just keep an eye on your den,” he told her quietly.

“None of my den is likely to get lost any time soon.”

Later, Jewel would remember the longest day in the year of 410. The longest day, the eighth day of the fourth month, when sunset took its time, and the sky was a clear azure that only slowly tinged purple, and even pink, before the stars could be seen. She would remember, as well, the longest night, because the former marked the beginning of the end, and the latter marked the end. The end was easier to mark and easier to remember, because endings were.

But not so, the former. The beginning of the end, the point at which things started to unravel—after so much effort, so much hope and planning—was harder to pinpoint.

The eighth day of Lattan was always a busy day in the Common, because it started at the regular painful predawn hour, and continued well into the night. There were candles, and charity was such on the longest day that even the beggars had them; there were the special pastries that, adorned with melted butter and dusted with sugar, also found their way through the milling summer crowd. There was sweet water, sweet wine, and apple beer, although it was true that even the charitable had their limits, and apple beer, while it could be scented upon any moving breeze, remained in the hands of the few with enough coin to spare.

The bards, taught and housed in the famous Senniel College upon
Averalaan Aramarelas
, crossed the bridge, carrying small harps, lutes, and pipes, and they traveled toward the Common, where they came to rest, for minutes at a time, in the crowd. They offered their songs, when asked; they played for copper and silver, although they were accustomed to commanding purses of gold. They started at dawn, and they continued until the moons were high, as if their voices alone could cajole another hour or two of daylight.

Here, in the Common and at its edges, the Priests and Priestesses of the Mother also came, often at the head of small groups of the orphans they fed, housed, and clothed.

The great trees of the Common were decorated, from the lowest to the highest branches; the mages, of course, oversaw much of this part of the festivities, and it was always interesting to watch them work.

Jewel loved the longest day. She always had.

On the longest day, even her dour grandmother would gird herself with something that passed for a smile and enter the Common to stay a few hours. Her father, her mother, and their friends, children in hand, would also leave the safety and certainty of their small apartments. They would sometimes—Jewel remembered this clearly—walk toward the sea, and they would stand on the seawall, gazing for a few moments out at the Isle, where the poor did not go.

Jewel remembered the first time they had done this, because the Isle, with its towering cathedrals and the palace that was home to the Twin Kings, looked like something very much out of story.
There,
her father would say,
live the sons and daughters of gods
. And he would point.

There was no work to be had on the longest day, unless you were a merchant or a magisterial guard, in which case the day must have been long indeed. Jewel wondered, as she grew older, if the children of those merchants and guards hated the longest day as much as she loved it.

But after a glimpse of the Isle, the home to the scion of gods, they would go to the Common, walking slowly, chatting and playing as they moved.

It was a good day for thieves and beggars, as well. This year, the den didn’t have to be thieves, but it was close, and the temptation to turn someone else’s holiday into a lesson about caution and attention was stronger than it had been in years. But it wasn’t an overwhelming temptation, for Jewel, and she made it clear that they were to leave be. Only Duster complained.

She didn’t lead her den to the seawall. She didn’t lead them anywhere; she was content to let them wander.

For herself, she chose to watch the mages work at the base of the great trees, because they could—with effort—gain the heights. When they did, she could see, if she watched carefully, the sudden burst of color that surrounded them. She could see the orange or the gray, and gray was a color she seldom saw. They would not so much fly as float, and they would place, upon the higher branches, light. Not candles, of course; no fire. They would also argue. A lot. It made them seem human.

Finch and Teller chose to accompany her, and to watch, although they didn’t see as much as she did. They could, however, hear the raised voices and the bickering, and they found it as amusing as Jewel. Lefty and Arann had gone to talk to Farmer Hanson, and Duster and Carver had taken Lander in search of gods only knew what. Fisher and Jester, Angel in tow, had gone in search of food.

It was peaceful in the Common. Loud, of course, but it was the type of noise that put one at ease. There were children here, and grandparents, parents, uncles; there were small dogs and large dogs, the latter tightly leashed. There were horses, but these horses, taller by far than anyone else in the crowd, were accustomed to people, and the men and women who rode them, in their very fine uniforms, served the Kings.

The flags of the Common flew all night, hoisted on poles at the top of buildings, or in the Common itself. The flagpoles were further decorated by streamers and ribbons, and sometimes garlanded, although the mules and goats often took care of that. There were games and dances around those poles, erupting and ending in shrieks and laughter, and sometimes, where the younger children were involved, in tears; there were prizes given and received, and sometimes, as the sun began to wend its way toward the horizon, kisses.

Somewhere close by, a bard began to sing. Bardic voices stilled chatter, but even wordless there was a hum in the crowd that listened. Poor or rich, the longest day was a day of contentment in the Common. Oh, there were more guards, and the guards could be testy by the time the Common finally emptied, but on the longest day, they turned a blind eye to the shoeless, and the often shirtless.

Finch passed Jewel a pastry, and Jewel took it as the mages began their descent. They wouldn’t leave, though. It was the mages who would, when the evening finally fell, turn their hands and their talent to the serious business of light. Their light, their foreign, brilliant light, would speak to the passing day, and brighten the sky in a flurry of color.

And then, when the last of that light faded, the longest day would be over, leaving a pleasant ghost in its wake.
Make memories,
her mother had said.
In the end, they’re all we have. Make good memories. The bad ones will come on their own. Choose, as you can, what you remember.

She couldn’t clearly remember her mother’s face on most days, although she could remember the feel of her arms, the warmth of her smile, the slight thunder of her anger and her worry. She could remember facial expression, but couldn’t hold it long enough to examine chin, or cheek, or shape of forehead.

Mostly, she could remember her mother’s voice, the texture of her words. But her mother and her father returned seldom; her Oma, often.

Enjoy what you have now,
her Oma said.
Because now is all you have.

This longest day, this now, was Jewel’s answer, to both of the women who had raised her. Her father’s voice was silent. She bit into pastry, left white sugar on her cheeks—it had been an overly ambitious bite—and raised her hand to sky; Finch and Teller followed her wordless direction. Light, blue and green and red, exploded above even the highest of the great trees.

Voices came in a rush, a roar of sound that seldom surrendered distinct syllables. Small children rode shoulders, grabbing hat and hair at the unexpected vantage of height. For a moment, magic was spectacle, miracle, and benison. For Jewel, it was also memory. If she couldn’t see the ghosts of her dead, she could feel them, here. This was how she introduced her den to her family, how she built a bridge of the present that would reach backward and extend forward for as long as they lived.

 

When they at last gathered and returned to the apartment, they spilled in, their voices still street- loud. Because of this, it was clearer than usual when all talk suddenly trailed into silence. Jewel was at the back of pack, but she pushed her way through to the front—and in the very small space near the door, that took both time and effort.

Seated on the sill of a window they hadn’t bothered to shut because in the humidity of summer, the shutters were too warped to stay closed, was Rath. His arms were folded loosely across his chest, and his eyes were shut; his chin was tilted down as well. He might have been sleeping; Rath had once said he could sleep standing up.

But as they spread out, hesitant to disturb him, he opened one lid.

Jewel crossed the room. There was no uncertainty here; this was her place. “Rath?”

He nodded. He looked old and tired, but he hadn’t sustained any new injuries. Or at least not any obvious ones. “Jay,” he said, deferring to her preferred name while the den was present. He eased himself off the sill, and stretched.

“We were out in the Common,” she told him, signing to her den while she talked. They were curious, of course, but they drifted as far away as the small space allowed. “It’s the longest day,” she added, by way of explanation.

“It is, indeed,” Rath replied gravely. “And there are rites and observances that were ancient before the Empire which are also apparently kept.” He grimaced. “I would have been earlier, otherwise.”

She thought for a moment, and then brightened. “The stone?”

He nodded. “Come,” he told her. “Walk with me.”

She’d been on her feet since just before dawn, but the look on his face forbid mention of the fact. She exhaled, and signed to Finch, who, lingering by the bedroom door, nodded.

They left her home and headed down the hall to the stairs, and from the stairs, into the hall that led to the street. Rath walked slowly, because it was hard to walk quickly in these streets. Although the Common had begun to empty, the taverns had opened their doors, and the streets would not be clear until morning, if that.

Because he walked slowly, Jewel kept pace. She didn’t speak, waiting for Rath; Rath didn’t speak until they had crossed a large stretch of the City, wandering from the poor holdings into holdings in which the respectable might choose to live. It was a far cry from the expensive buildings near the Merchant Authority, but the buildings here were not in poor repair, and the streets were both cleaner and emptier.

Rath didn’t seem to worry about being followed, so Jewel relaxed enough to ask him where they were going.

“To the sea,” he said quietly.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I spent most of today in a cloister, waiting. I need to stretch my legs.”

Jewel didn’t. She wisely said nothing, holding her peace. But she faltered when she saw what he approached: the Sanctum of Moorelas. “Yes,” he said, although he did not look down to see her reaction. “I haven’t seen Moorelas since I was . . . younger.” He stopped walking when he reached the foot of the statue, and looked up. Even in the moonlight, Moorelas was intimidating. “The hope of the world,” Rath said.

“I wonder if he wanted that.”