Catling's Bane (The Rose Shield Book 1) Page 6

  “This here’s Gannon and Farrow,” Scuff said. “This is Wenna and that there is Zadie with the baby.”

  “My respects,” Wenna said with a slight bow of her head. Zadie echoed the words and gesture.

  “No need for formalities,” Gannon said. “We’re from the warrens, not the tiers. We aren’t here to trouble your family.”

  Wenna’s shoulders scarcely relaxed. “Please sit. We can spare a bit of supper.” She offered the seats by the hearth.

  “A cup of water suits us fine,” Gannon said, and Farrow smiled her agreement. Rather than taking the proffered seats, Gannon stepped over the bench and sat at the table across from Catling and Whitt. “Do you remember me from the market?”

  Catling nodded.

  “What’s this about?” Wenna handed a cup of water to the redheaded woman and set one on the table before Gannon.

  The young man swiveled to Wenna. Scuff mumbled and scratched his jaw. “Wants to know why we left the hangings when no one else did?”

  Wenna’s eyes narrowed on the stranger. “They were our friends. Despite the high ward’s hatred of Farlanders, they were decent people. He hung children.”

  Gannon met her steady gaze. “High Ward Algar hangs men, women, and children every time Clio’s full. Most of them he collects from the warrens with a few travelers, twitchers, and Farlanders sprinkled between. Only the most despicable have no one to mourn them. And yet, no one within the influencers’ view ever feels sad or angry. Women smile while they watch their children hang and then kill themselves in the warrens’ darkness. Men fight or drink themselves to death.”

  Gannon’s hand trembled as he swallowed a sip of water. “On hanging day, the influencers lay it on as thick as Fangwold snow.” His eyes returned to Wenna, and he angled his head toward Catling, Whitt, and Scuff. “Of everyone in that crowd, only these three weren’t smiling. They felt something real, and I want to know why.”

  “Told him I don’t know why.” Scuff crossed his arms above his belly. “But we won’t be traveling back there on another hanging day.”

  “Why do you want to know?” Wenna asked.

  “Because I can’t abide Algar’s justice,” Gannon replied. “If there’s a means to stop his influencers, I want them stopped. They control the warrens by manipulating our hearts. The tier wards do as they please because their influencers deceive us with our own emotions. If they hang me, I don’t want to adore them and play the fool while they do it.”

  Wenna hauled in a breath and sighed. “Ask your questions.”

  “Thank you, mistress.” He turned to Catling and Whitt. “Do you know anything about what happened?”

  Whitt’s shoulders rose to his ears, and he shook his head.

  The man shifted his attention to Catling. Her heart pounded so loudly she swore they all heard it. Unable to meet his gray eyes, she focused on his cup. “The high ward hung our friends.”

  Gannon raised the cup to his lips, her eyes following. “And…”

  Beneath the table, Catling squeezed her fingers until they hurt. She held back the tears fighting for release and mirrored Whitt’s shrug, her lips pressed shut.

  Gannon studied her as she stared at the pocks and scars on the tabletop, the silence smothering. Finally, he stood and offered a slight bow to Wenna and Scuff, and to Zadie who nursed Gussy by the hearth. “It seems I was wrong. My regrets for intruding.”

  “I’m sorry you didn’t find your answers,” Wenna said.

  “Unfortunately, the hangings will continue.” Gannon looked down at Catling while he spoke. “More of my friends and more of yours will see their lives stolen before this ends.”

  Her face turned away, Catling shuddered. In the next room’s darkness, Shafter surely understood her dread. Would he forgive her silence? Could she?

  Gannon sighed. “Thank you for your kindness. Farrow and I will leave you in peace.” He started for the door, his slow stride pulling the answer from Catling’s throat as if attached to a string.

  She touched her marked eye, and murmured, “I cut the threads.”

  Wenna inhaled, a hand flying to her chest. “Catling?”

  Gannon spun on his heel and returned to the table. His palms on the surface, he leaned in. The others stepped toward her, the room collapsing around her. Whitt frowned, his lip trembling as Gannon raised a hand to stall the questions on every tongue.

  “What are your intentions?” Wenna demanded, ignoring his gesture. “I won’t have any of these children endangered. You might as well mount up and leave this moment.”

  Tears welled in Catling’s eyes, Wenna’s ferocity frightening her. She wished she could reclaim the words she’d spilled into every ear.

  “We will tell no one.” Gannon set his jaw. “I swear it. If Catling can do as she says, no one outside this home must know.”

  “She’s a child,” Wenna said. “Perhaps it’s merely her fancy.” She moved to stand behind Catling, a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Would you describe it to me?” Gannon eased to the bench with a quiet smile.

  Catling looked over her shoulder at Wenna who returned a wary nod. “I can see it, in a way, in my mind.” Catling pointed to her rose-rimmed eye. “Through this eye. I see threads that I unravel and cut.”

  “How many can you cut?” he asked. “Or, let’s say, how many people can you shield at a time?”

  “Two,” Catling replied. “No, three. I shielded Wister, Whitt, and Scuff. I can shield myself but not at the same time.”

  “Wister was a Farlander?”

  “And Bromel before him but not with Scuff and Whitt at the same time.”

  “So you can shield at a distance.” He rubbed his jaw. “But not yourself when you shield others.” She nodded. “How do you stay focused?”

  A vision of Bromel hanging with Brid and Tum squeezed her heart and tears wet her eyes. “I remember what I felt when I was shielded. Then when I feel the influence, I know it doesn’t fit. I know it’s evil.”

  “I do the same,” Gannon told her. “I can’t do what you do, so I stay in the tier’s shadow. When I’m out there, I close my eyes and bring the whole scene back. My head battles with what my heart feels, and you’re not wrong that it’s evil.”

  He rested an elbow on the table, chin on a fist. “Would you be willing to help me end the hangings, Catling?”

  “No!” Wenna’s clutch on Catling’s shoulder tightened. “What you ask is dangerous, and she’s too young. She belongs here.”

  “I’ll pay for her services,” Gannon said. “A whole gold piece a season.”

  Scuff’s eyebrows shot up, but Wenna’s grip turned to steel. “No.”

  “I’ll deliver her home when I can. She’ll be in Farrow’s care.”

  Farrow smiled. “I would keep her safe, Wenna.”

  “In the warrens? In Mur-Vallis?” Wenna’s skepticism cut. “You just finished telling me that they hang children.”

  “Might we try it?” Gannon pressed. “And if she or you change your mind, it’s over; no question or argument.”

  “No.” Wenna wasn’t having it, and Catling agreed. The last thing she wanted was to lose the one place she finally belonged.

  “We can stop the hangings,” Gannon persisted. “In the end, we might bring respect, dignity, and justice to those in the warrens.” He looked between Scuff and Wenna. Then his eyes narrowed on the bedroom door. “No more Farlanders slain, Catling. No more friends killed for simply being who they are.”

  Catling twisted to follow his gaze. Scuff glanced in the same direction as Wenna shifted behind her. The door stood ajar, no more than a hand’s width of light illuminating Shafter’s face as he listened, motionless. He said nothing, but the pain in his ice-green eyes pierced Catling like a knife.

  She turned to Whitt, sharing the misery streaking his face. Her forehead rested on his. “I have to help, Whitt. I have to go.”

  Chapter Eight

  Brightest Night glided by, the three moons swimming thro
ugh silver-laced clouds. Catling slept in the loft with Whitt and Mouser, the three of them weeping into the warm hay. Rabbit and Bruiser hid in their burrow, bereft of the giggles that commonly tickled the nighttime air.

  With a warrior’s resolve, Wenna had wrenched promises from the strangers, and though Scuff pocketed his gold coin with a grin, Catling knew he would have tossed it back had Wenna changed her mind. They’d given her the choice, and how could she deny the torment in Shafter’s eyes. In truth, Wenna or Scuff could have refused. They hadn’t, a realization leaving her adrift once again.

  An early morning departure landed Catling, Gannon, and Farrow in Mur-Vallis well before the sun peaked. The warrens’ markets bustled but far less festive than on hanging day. Catling glanced up at the tier’s vacant rim. No death or influence stood poised to stir the crowd.

  “How old are you?” Farrow asked.

  “Nine summers.” Catling walked beside the woman, leaving Gannon to return the horses. In the sunlight, Farrow’s hair shone like liquid flame, glittered with gray at her temples. Older than Catling had originally thought, fine creases etched the corners of her eyes and smile lines marked her cheeks. She was pretty, though, with a pert nose and red lips. Ribbons and black lace fringed the sleeves and neckline of her long green jacket. Keela had never worn anything so fanciful or costly.

  “A Summertide child. Gannon too.” She veered into the warrens’ shadow, Catling on her heels. “I remember the Darkest Night when Keela scraped your eye.”

  At the mention of Farrow’s acquaintance with her mother, Catling halted, fingers rising to the copper ring in her earlobe.

  Farrow looked over her shoulder. “Don’t trouble about Keela, sweet. Gannon told her to stay away. She’s a temper but knows better than to stir up the underlords.”

  With a beckoning hand, Farrow resumed her pace. “It was a terror that night, Keela trying to scour that mark off you like you was a sooty pot. And then the riverman rises like a wraith from the fog and tries to drown you. An enforcer sliced him in the eye, and if not for the luminescence lighting the water, the river and fog would have claimed you.”

  The story echoed through Catling’s head, a tale she’d heard before though Keela had softened her own role in the event. She remembered little beyond the luminescence in her eye. And the wooden waterdragon.

  The woman rounded a corner, and Catling hurried to keep up, her attention riveted on every twist and turn in an attempt to memorize her way out. Not until deep in the warrens did Farrow stop. Before them, lodged between two alleyways, a low-ceilinged tipple house backed up to one of the tier city’s monstrous pylons. Catling recognized the carved figurehead from a Cull Tarr shipwreck. It reared in the room’s center—the Founders, the coupling gods in a holy embrace.

  “The Ship’s Fate,” Farrow said. “You stay clear of there, Catling, or some tippled toad will cork you, and Gannon will have to dump his dead body in the Blackwater. We live up there.” Her hand swept toward a steep stair leading up to second and third floors wedged under the tier. “It’s a gaggle of whores and kept women, nicer than most of the quarters down here. You and Keela lived pit-side, didn’t you?”

  At Catling’s nod, Farrow canted her head toward the steps and started up. “We’re going to have to share the bed. So long as you don’t squirm and kick in your sleep, we’ll do fine. Gannon palms me a little silver to see you happy and fed. Suits me.” Down a dusky hallway, on the second level, she pushed open a door. “You don’t talk much do you?”

  “No, Farrow.” Catling stepped into the room. Double the size of Keela’s, it sported a fluffy bed, wooden chair, and clothes chest. Windowless, like all other rooms in the warrens’ interior, its light was limited to the dim pall of fading luminescence. She held her breath as a swell of longing for the stead flushed her face.

  “Ah, child.” Taking her hand, Farrow pulled her to the bed where she sat them both down. “I can see how lonesome this is for you missing your home. We sometimes have wishes that don’t fit with the lives we’re given. Don’t think Keela was the only woman here who wouldn’t climb the tiers if she had a chance. Gannon cracks heads for the underlords when he’d rather be raising us up to his fair-minded notions of justice. We do the best we can in this heaphole, huh?”

  Smile lines creased Farrow’s cheeks, and she poked a finger at Catling’s chest. “I used to dream of being an influencer, you know. Not to hang people or rob them. If I could bring pleasure or love with a mere thought, imagine that power. I’d be living a life of riches up there with the high ward and his stringed puppets. But I don’t, do I?”

  Catling shook her head, uncertain of the woman’s point.

  “Now you, Catling.” The fire in Farrow’s eyes flared. “You have a gift. You have power beyond your imagination, and it’s going to lay a claim on your life. People will pull you apart if they can. They’ll all want to use you, even Gannon. I got extra silver in my pocket, don’t I? So you can drop me in there with the lot. Now, here’s my advice as a woman who knows how the world works. Don’t trust anyone. We’re all influencers one way or another, aren’t we? Make up your own mind, Catling, and mind yourself.”

  With a satisfied smile, Farrow blew out a breath. “There. I said my piece.”

  Catling’s head spun, the woman’s words rattling in her skull like secret seeds in Shafter’s gourd. It all lay beyond her comprehension. Farrow praised her immense power, but Catling trembled with helplessness, buffeted by the will of those stronger than she. None of it laid a paved path she could tread. Only the barbed warning stuck, a burr she couldn’t shake loose. Don’t trust.

  ***

  “Put this on first.” Farrow handed Catling the ivory underslip. Gannon had delivered an armful of clothing to Farrow’s door shortly after their arrival, and he waited in the hallway. Her farm-clothes in a discarded pile, Catling accepted the garment, the fabric soft to her fingers. She wriggled it over her head while Farrow yanked on the hem.

  “Next, the leggings,” the woman said. Though similar to men’s trousers, the leggings were fashioned for women, lighter and snugger.

  Farrow handed her the underdress and helped with the ties and buttons. In style for children her age, it fell two fingers below her knees. Like almost every other item of her new clothing, it was a shade of common brown. Only the flared jacket bore the faintest hint of color, a faded, dusty red. She shrugged it on, covering the underdress except for the front slit. A wide belt buckled around her waist, cinching her ribs. Last of all, she dug her feet into a pair of slippers that pinched her toes. She felt beautiful and stuffed into a pig’s innards like Zadie’s sausage.

  With a huff, Farrow replaced a loose pin in the braided coil at the back of Catling’s head. “Well, let’s take a look.” She stepped back to appraise her work. “I suppose Gannon achieved his goal. Neither too rich for the warrens nor too poor for the tiers. You’ll blend into the scenery of Mur-Vallis like a mouse. Should we let him in?”

  Catling nodded.

  “Do away with the head bobbing, sweet,” Farrow instructed. “You’re not a pigeon.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Farrow,” Catling said, cracking a smile.

  When the door opened, Gannon peered in and winked at Farrow. “Better than I’d hoped. That will do nicely.” He set a knee down before Catling and slung a loose belt on her hips with a small curved knife in a leather sheath. Catling stared at it, afraid to touch it, and he laughed. “Everyone wears knives where we’re going. There’s a high chance you’ll never have to use it.”

  His words failed to reassure her of anything.

  “Let’s find us a bite, and then we’ll explore.”

  The meal focused on table manners, which Gannon explained were “good enough for the lower tiers.” Fingers were for fruit, biscuits, bread, cheese, and anything offered as a “morsel.” The rest required tableware, a prospect filling Catling with jitters.

  “Hold your spoon like this,” Gannon said, demonstrating for her. “Forks are held this
way.” He positioned the utensil in her fingers and forced her to eat without stabbing her food. Then he and Farrow ate with their fingers and shared mugs of tippled cider.

  “The other thing you need to remember is greetings,” Gannon said. “Don’t worry about names or who is who. Treat them all as if they’re the high ward himself until you know better. Step here.”

  Catling rose from her stool and stood before him. He scraped his black curls from his eyes. “You don’t say or do anything unless spoken to. Got it?”

  After nodding, she added, “Yes.”

  “Now, if someone greets you with a word, you bend slightly forward like this.” He bent her head down with a modest slope to her shoulders. “And you say, ‘My respects.’ Easy enough. If you’re ignored, you’re invisible, so there’s no need to do a thing. If you earn a glance or nod, but no word, you bend but skip the greeting. Got it?”

  “For the love, Gan, you’re a sodding basher.” Farrow laughed. “The poor thing’s been here but a few bells.”

  With a smirk, Gannon leaned back in his chair. “Fine.” His hands behind his head, he yawned. “Come with me. I have something to show you.” He threw a handful of random coppers to the table and sauntered into the alleyway.

  When Farrow waved them off, Catling hurried after him. Gannon led her deeper into the warrens than she’d ever ventured, far into the underlords’ territories. Her new clothes, once bulky and hot, scarcely touched the chill creeping through her bones.

  The rickety wooden walls that turned most of the shadowed underworld into a twisting maze gradually morphed into sturdier structures, smooth and clean. Lanterns of fresh luminescence brightened hallways, the light bestowing a sense of elegance and warmth. Tapestries hung from the high ceiling and colorful pictures of seas and alien cities, birds and strangely dressed women snared Catling’s eyes.

  “Paintings,” Gannon said. “Some are quite old, others from the Artisans’ Guild. Most are here through less than lawful means.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ve entered my father’s den. If anyone asks, you’re Farrow’s charge.”