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got a surprise inspection, and was going to have to fix the place. Or get
fined.
Going to cost him dearly, either way. So he burned it instead, and is calling
it
a terrible accident.
Understanding and anger stirred sluggishly. He burned it?
Jarmin shrugged, as if it all mattered not a whit to him. Word is, that's the
case. Don't who the landlord is was, he corrected. You know how it is.
Probably some high-necked merchant, or even highborn. Couldn't possibly be
connected with us, nor where we live. Couldn't soil himself by openly owning
the
place, but takes our copper right enough. So long as no one knows where he got
it. But he wouldn't want to have to spend good coin either, not when burning
it
costs him less and allows him to sell the lot afterward.
Anger burned away the fumes of the liquor hot as the flames that had destroyed
his only family. He burned it? Skif repeated, sitting up, fists clenching.
Word is that. Whoever he is. Jarmin shrugged, then with a sly look, pushed
the
jug toward Skif.
Skif pushed it back, still dizzy, but head getting clearer by the moment.
He burned it. Or ordered it burned, whoever he is.
No warning, of course, Jarmin continued casually. Because that would tip
off
the inspectors that he didn't mean to fix it. And the highborn don't care how
many of us burn, so long as an inconvenient building is gotten rid of. That is
how it is.
There was light in the window and relative quiet on the street. It must be
day,
and the girls were asleep. Skif was still drunk, and he knew it, but he was
getting sober, more so with every breath, as his anger rose and rose, burning
like the flames that had taken his family. He looked down at himself, and saw
that he was still wearing the filthy clothing he'd been brought here in. The
pile of clean stuff still lay at the foot of the pallet. Wanta bath, Jarmin.
Comes with the room, Jarmin said indifferently. I'll tell madam. Get
yourself
downstairs when you can.
He descended the stairs, and Skif waited until he could stand without too much
wavering. Then he picked up a shirt, trews, and socks, and followed.
Jarmin was behind the counter tending to a customer, but waved him out the
door.
Skif tottered out, blinking owlishly at the daylight, and the door of the
brothel next to Jarmin's shop opened. An oily-looking fellow beckoned to him,
and Skif went in.
He wasn't given any time to look around the shabby-luxurious parlor where
customers came to choose from the girls if they hadn't already picked one. The
oily fellow hustled him into the back where there was
A laundry.
Only the remains of the liquor and the firmest of controls kept Skif from
breaking down right there and then. The urge to wail was so great he
practically
choked.
There were several tubs, two of which had girls in them, three of which had
laundry. Before he could lose his head and bawl, a burly woman with
work-reddened hands and a tight, angry mouth stripped him before he could open
his mouth and shoved him into the last of the tubs. She didn't give him a
chance
to wash himself either; she used the same brush and lye soap that she used on
the linen on his hide, with the same lack of gentleness.
The bristles lacerated his skin, his scalp. He didn't let out a single sound
as
she scrubbed as if she intended to take his skin off, then made him stand,
rinsed him with a bucket of water cold enough to make him gasp, and bundled
him
in a sheet. His own clothing went into one of the tubs with laundry in it, and
she handed him the plain trews, socks, and shirt he brought with him, leaving
him to clothe himself as she turned back to her work. He noticed that the
girls
didn't get the same ungentle treatment. They were allowed to bathe themselves
and did so lazily, completely ignoring his presence.
Well, that was all right. He didn't want any stupid whores fussing over him
like
he was some sort of animate doll. He didn't want their sympathy. He didn't
want
anyone's pity.
Hard. I gotta be hard. That's what I gotta do.
He dried himself off the laundress snatched the sheet away from him before he
could lay it down and popped it back into a tub and got the clothing on. It
was
rather too big, but that hardly mattered. All he had left now were his own
boots, which he pulled on, and left without a backward glance.
His head was clear enough now, and while the laundress had scrubbed him, his
grief had somehow changed, shrunk, condensed down into a hard, cold little gem
that formed the core of a terrible anger that seemed almost too large to
contain
in so small a compass as his heart.
Revenge. That was what he wanted, more than anything in the world. And he
wasn't
going to rest until he got it.
He walked into Jarmin's shop, and the old man gave him a sharp glance, then a
nod of satisfaction. You'll do, was all he said, and tossed him a pouch.
It clinked. Skif opened it and found a little money; mostly copper, a bit of
silver. He tucked it inside his shirt. It was little enough. Jarmin was
cheating
him, of course. The room, the food, the clothing, the baths none of that was
worth a fraction of what he'd stolen. Jarmin wasn't giving him anything.
And Skif didn't want anything but this the expected cheating, the usual
grifting. No more kindness. No more generosity. He could move on from here
without looking back or regretting anything. This was a business transaction
for
Jarmin. Save one of the best thieves he knew and ensure a steady supply of
goods
for his shop as simple as that.
So he didn't thank the man for the money; he just nodded curtly and went back
out into the street. He knew what the money was for tongues weren't loose
without money. And Skif was going to have to find a lot of tongues to loosen.
It
was going to take a long time, he already knew that. That was fine, too. When
revenge came, it would come out of nowhere. The enemy would never know who it
was that hit him, or why.
Just as disaster had come upon him, and with equal destruction in its claws.
When he was finished, whoever had killed Bazie would be left with nothing,
contemplating the wreckage of what had been his life, with everything he
valued
and loved gone in an instant.
Just like Skif.
Skif smiled at the thought. It was the last smile he would wear for a very
long
time.
SMOKE drifted over the heads of the customers; it wasn't from the fireplace,
but
from the tallow dips set in crude clay holders on the tables and wedged into
spaces between the bricks around the room. Skif sat as far from the door as it
was possible to be, in the odd corner of The Broken Arms, a kind of
rectangular alcove just before the walls met, into which someone had wedged a
broken-legged stool, making a seat hemmed in on three sides with brick. The
brick was newer here, so this might be an old entrance; gone now, since the
next
building over was built right up against this one. Or maybe it had been a
window
slit; you couldn't have used it as a door, not really. It was too short and
too
narrow. Maybe a former fireplace, before the big one was put in, before this
room became a tavern. No, it wasn't big enough for a man to be comfortable
sitting here, but it was perfect for him. Here he could spend hours unnoticed,
the wenches had gotten so used to it being empty.
Before things got so crowded, he'd bought himself a jack of small beer and a
piece of bread and dripping, so his stomach was full but not full enough to
make
him drowsy. Meanwhile the number of customers rose, and the place got warmer.
This nook was a good place to tuck himself into when he wanted to eavesdrop on
conversations. Eavesdropping was almost as good as paying for information, and
it cost nothing. He'd become adept at being able to sort one set of voices
from
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