Marcus

Marcus leaned low, arms to his sides. The pommel of the blackwood sword in his hand was slick with sweat. The Firstblood boy shifting on the far side of the pit wore a pair of fighter's trousers and a serious expression. Marcus waited. The boy licked his lips and hefted his sword.

"No hurry," Marcus said.

The air of the gymnasium was hot, close, and damp. The grunts and shouts of the other fighters struggled over the rush of water in the pipes that fed baths. At least a dozen men stood around the edges of the pit. Most were Kurtadam or Firstblood, though a pair of Timzinae held themselves a little apart. And Yardem Hane, panting and sweat-soaked. No Cinnae had come.

Marcus saw the boy's weight shift, committing to the attack. The boy held his sword to the side, eastern-style, so he had some training. Marcus blocked, chalk dust rising from the blackwood blade, and moved to the boy's left. The boy turned, and Marcus brought his sword down overhand. The boy blocked so aggressively that both swords bounced back. Marcus shifted the blade to his left hand and struck again, low this time, watching the boy's stance.

Avoiding both of Marcus's blows emboldened him. The boy took a firmer grip, feinted clumsily to the right, and darted left. Marcus blocked the attack casually, pulling his blade through the thick air to slap hard across the boy's chest. Marcus watched his opponent stumble back. The chalked practice sword left a line from the boy's lowest rib up to his collarbone.

"Who's next?" he called.

"That's the last, sir," Yardem said.

"Thank you, Captain Wester, sir," the boy said. The skin where Marcus had struck was red and rising. He felt a passing chagrin. He hadn't meant to hurt him.

"Thank you, son. You did well," Marcus said, and the boy grinned.

Marcus put his hands on the side of the pit and pulled himself up. He ached from shoulder to foot, and the pain felt good. Yardem tossed him a wad of the threadbare cloth, and Marcus wiped the sweat off his face and neck. This was the third collection of men they'd tried as new additions to the company. As with the others, it had been a mixed lot. Some had come because they were desperate and had no skills apart from a willingness to cause pain. Others because, by doing it, they could say they'd been in the pit against Marcus Wester. And a few - no more than a handful - because it was the work they knew and they happened to be at loose ends when Marcus had put out his call.

One of the latter was a stout Kurtadam with a gray-gold pelt and a Cabral acent. Marcus met Yardem's gaze and pointed his chin toward the candidate. Yardem nodded once.

"You," Marcus said. "What was your name again, friend?"

"Ahariel," the Kurtadam said. "Ahariel Akkabrian."

"You know how to fight. What put you in Porte Oliva?"

"Took contract with a company out of Narinisle. Mostly garrison work, but the commander started bunking with the footmen. Got to be about gossip and hurt feelings, I had to get out. I was thinking of the Free Cities. Figure they'll be jumpy for years with what happened to Vanai and all. But I heard you were looking."

"It won't be garrison work," Marcus said.

The Kurtadam shrugged.

"I figured you have your pick of work. Wodford and Gradis and all. If it was good enough to hold you, it'd be enough for a sword-and-bow like me."

"You're an optimist," Marcus said. "But we'd be pleased to have you if the terms suffice."

"Wouldn't waste your time if they didn't," Ahariel said.

"Report in the morning, then. We'll put you on the duty roster."

Ahariel saluted, turned, and walked away.

"I like him," Marcus said. "Doesn't talk much."

"Fit right in, sir," Yardem said.

"Feels good, having a real company again."

"Does."

Marcus dropped the scrap of cloth onto the edge of the pit.

"Is it time?" he asked.

"We should go soon," Yardem said.

The early summer streets of Porte Oliva were hot and crowded. Beggars haunted the corners, and the press of bodies in the streets seemed to add as much heat as the wide, golden coastal sun. The air smelled of the ocean, of honey and hot oil and cumin. The clothes also changed. No jackets, no cloaks. Cinnae men and women strode through the street in diaphanous robes that made their thin bodies seem to shift and bend like shadows or spirits. The Kurtadam shaved themselves until there was hardly enough fur to tie beads onto and wore loincloths and halters barely sufficient to protect the most basic modesty. It was the Firstblood, though, that kept Marcus's attention. Men and women split out of their winter cocoons into bright colors, green and yellow and pink. Tunics were cut down the sides to let air and covert glances skid across bare skin. Every day had the feeling of festival about it.

Marcus didn't like it.

It reminded him too much of a time when he'd been young and unable to distinguish lust from affection, and memories of that time always led to the times that came after. Meeting a blue-eyed girl named Alys, wooing her with brave tales and pale flowers. The nights of longing, and then one moonlit night at the end of springtime, a shared apple, a kiss beside a waterfall, and the end of longing. His perfect woman. In a just world, she'd be with him still.

Meriam would have been old enough now to suffer the same stirrings and confusions of the flesh, and he would have been as powerless to force wisdom upon her as his father had been with him. But no. By now she'd have been old enough to have married young and imprudently. Another season, and Marcus might have been tickling a grandson under the chin. Being reminded of all those unlived moments was what he disliked about the city. But it was also what he disliked about the world. So long as there was work that needed doing, he could put it all aside.

The question of where to put the permanent home of the new bank had been easily solved when Cithrin spoke to the daughter of the gambler whose stall they slept above. She'd been hoping to talk her father into leaving the trade for years, and had very nearly succeeded. The lower floor was wide enough to support a small barracks, and the basement had an iron strongbox set in stone and countersunk deep into the earth. And so now, where the gambler's stall had once been, the Medean bank of Porte Oliva now lived in modest elegance. The day that the old gambler had signed the contracts, Cithrin announced the change by having the walls repainted in the brightest white she could find. Where the caller had stood, chanting his litany of wagers and odds, a wide tin pot filled with black soil had the thin green stalks and broad sloping leaves of half a dozen tulips still only threatening to bloom.

"Straight to her?" Yardem asked, gesturing at the private stair that led to the rooms that were now exclusively Cithrin's. Marcus shook his head.

"When we're ready to go," he said.

Once, the thick wooden door had opened onto a common area with a high counter on one end. The counter was gone now, and the chalk marks on the slate weren't offered odds, but the names of Marcus's new guards and their duty rotations. All four were waiting now where the gambler's clients had been, looking out the narrow, barred windows and making crude jokes about the people passing by on the street. When Marcus entered, the laughter stopped, and the new guards - two Firstblood men, a Kurtadam woman, and a Timzinae boy Marcus had taken on a hunch - stood to attention. He'd need more. Overhead, the boards creaked where Cithrin was pacing.

"Bag ready?"

"Yes, Captain Wester, sir," the Kurtadam woman said.

Marcus nodded at her, his mind suddenly an embarrassing blank. She had broad shoulders and hips, and arms as thick as her legs. Her pelt was a glossy black, darker even than the Timzinae boy's scales. And her name was... Edir? Edem?

"Enen," Yardem said. "You carry the coin. Barth and Corisen Mout take forward and back. Captain and I will take flanks."

"And me?" the Timzinae boy asked. The nictatating membranes of his eyes opened and closed in a fast nervous tic. He was easy enough. Whatever his name was, everyone called him Roach.

"You'll stay here and wake the others if anything interesting happens," Marcus said. Roach deflated a bit, so Marcus went on. "If anyone's going to make a play for the strongbox, they'll do it when most of us are away. Keep the door barred, and your ears sharp. You're going to be in more danger than we are."

Roach saluted sharply. Enen stifled a smile. The two Firstblood men went to the weapons chest and started arraying the most vicious weapons that the queensmen would let them carry through the streets. Marcus turned and went back out toward the private stairway, Yardem at his side.

"I'm never going to remember all these names," Marcus said.

"You always say that, sir."

"I do?"

"Yes."

"Hm. Good to know."

The rooms that had seemed so small and cramped when it had been just him, Yardem, Cithrin, and the piled wealth of Vanai had become a respectable private residence for the new head of the Medean bank. It was little more than a room in the back with her bed and desk and a meeting room at the front with a small privacy closet to the side, but Cithrin had put together a hundred small touches that transformed it: fine strips of cloth that hung over the windows, a small religious icon nestled in a corner, the short lacquered table presently covered with old shipping records and copied bills of lading. Taken together, they gave the impression of the home of a woman twice her age. It was as much a costume as anything Master Kit and his players sported, and one that Cithrin wore well.

"I need someone from the Port Registry who'll talk to me," Cithrin said instead of hello. "The trade ships from Narinisle should be coming, and I need to know better how that works. It looks like half the trade in the city happens when those ships come in."

"I'll see what I can find," Yardem said.

"Where to today?" Marcus asked.

"A brewer's just outside the wall," Cithrin said. "I met her at the taproom. Her guild's letting her replace her vats, but she doesn't have the coin to afford it."

"So we're loaning it to her."

"Actually, she's not permitted to accept loans at interest," Cithrin said, pulling a light beaded shawl across her shoulders and arranging it the way Master Kit had taught her. "Guild rules. But she is permitted to take money from business partners. So we're buying part of her business."

"Ah," Marcus said.

"If she comes short, we're in a position to take her shop in hand. If I cultivate a relationship with a cooper and a few taphouses, I can arrange the kind of mutual support that makes everyone very happy for a very long time."

"Long time," Marcus said, tasting the words.

"And anyway, breweries are always good investments," Cithrin said. "Magister Imaniel always said so. There's never going to be an off market for ale."

Cithrin looked around the room, pursed her lips, and nodded more to herself than to them. Together, they walked back down the stairway, Cithrin stopping to secure the door behind them. In the street, a half dozen children were playing a game that involved kicking an old wineskin and screaming. Cithrin turned toward the entrance, almost bumping against a Kurtadam man. Marcus silently added the construction of an interior door to his list of things that ought to be done. Having to walk outside to go from one set of rooms to the other had been pleasant enough when they were hiding. Now it was just an unnecessary risk.

The Firstblood men, Corisen Mout and Barth, were laughing with each other but sobered as the three of them came in. Enen was ready, a small leather bag strapped across her shoulders, her hands free and ready. She wore a curved dagger and a weighted baton on her hips. When they walked out to the street, the six of them fell into an easy formation. Despite the close, crowded streets, their path was always clear, the citizens of Porte Oliva standing aside to let them pass. Curious gazes followed them, but only a few especially bold beggars attempted the approach, and they tried for Cithrin. No one came near Enen and her burden of coin. They moved north, through the great wall, and to the spillover buildings of the city beyond it. The press of bodies was more than Marcus liked. The smells of sewer and sweat were thicker here, the streets both more crowded and wider than behind the wall in Porte Oliva's center.

The brewer's, when they reached it, was a two-story shop built around a narrow courtyard with its own well. Wide doors stood open to the yard, the vats and barrels squatting in the yeast-stinking shadows. The brewer, a Cinnae woman so thick about the body and face she could almost have passed for Firstblood, came out to meet them, grinning like they were family.

"Magistra Cithrin! Come in, come in!"

Marcus watched as Cithrin and the brewer kissed one another's cheeks. He nodded to Enen, and she shrugged off the bag of coins and presented it to the girl as if Cithrin were what she appeared to be. None of the new guards thought the bank was anything different than it claimed. There was no reason that they should.

Cithrin took the bag and gestured to Marcus that he and the others should stay in the yard. He nodded once, and Cithrin and the brewer took one another by the hand and walked into the dim recesses of the brewery, talking like old friends. A Cinnae boy no older than Roach came out wearing a thin leather apron and bearing mugs of fresh ale. It was sweeter than Marcus liked, but with an almost bready aftertaste that he could learn to enjoy. Marcus let the three new guards settle themselves on the stone wall of the well before he met Yardem's eyes and glanced across the yard. The Tralgu drank down his ale, belched, and ambled along at Marcus's side.

"Decent ale," Marcus said.

"Is."

"What do you think of this scheme of hers?"

Yardem's ears flicked back, then forward again, considering. Marcus knew that just by asking he'd changed the Tralgu's answer. What Yardem thought about a scheme that Marcus hadn't questioned was a different thing.

"Seems to be working," Yardem said. "Still more jewelry than I'd like in the basement, but we've got enough swords to scare off stray knives. I don't know much about it, but it seems she's likely to earn back the money she's spending or near to it."

"So that when the big men from Carse swoop down here, they'll find it all more or less intact," Marcus said. "She can hand it over to them, wash her hands, and there's no harm done."

"That's the plan," Yardem said carefully.

"Do you see her handing it back to them?"

Yardem stretched his long, thick arms, turning to look at the open brewery as if he were bored and it was in the way. Marcus waited in silence, hoping that the Tralgu would disagree and expecting that he wouldn't.

"She's going to try to keep it," Yardem said.

"She doesn't know she's thinking about it, but yes," Marcus said. "She's good at this. Maybe very good. And she's not the kind of girl who stops when she likes something too much."

Yardem nodded slowly.

"How's she going to do it?" he asked.

Marcus sipped his ale, washing his mouth with it, then spat it onto the courtyard stones. A dozen pigeons lifted off from the rooftop, spinning across the wide blue overhead.

"I don't understand half of what she's doing now," he said. "Do you?"

"No."

"I don't know what she'll try. Likely she doesn't either. But when she sees it, she's going to reach for it. Whether it's a good idea or not."