The man pointed back to the top of the stairs. “Take Zam Street to the next set of stairs on the right, and go down from there to Sun Street, follow it to the first fountain and look for a cookshop called the Lady’s Grace, go to the right of the cookshop for a bit, and turn toward the water at the cobbler’s. There’s another court there, with a”—something I didn’t understand—“fountain, and the largest building is the trade house.”

“Thank you, k—”

“They’re closed, though.”

Plague. They had heard rumors of the plague and cleared out, boarding up the doors and leaving the city for the time being. I thanked the man again, wishing he’d told me that first, and went back up the stairs to the Attolian. It was still morning and he could have been a drunk resting on his way home after a long night, but not for much longer. As the sun got higher, he was going to look more and more like a plague victim. I needed to get him out of sight.

I looked around, assessing our options. I couldn’t take him to an inn. No innkeeper would give him a room. In the city of Ianna-Ir, I could have found a storage site, a warehouse, a stable, or some kind of shed, but Zaboar was a smaller city and inside its walls it was wealthiest. It would be hard to find a place where the Attolian could be tucked away. Even if he had the strength to make it to the shabbier parts of town outside the walls of the old city, I didn’t dare take him past the health inspectors at the gates again.

CHAPTER TEN

“Need help?”

I turned, almost expecting my southern gentleman, but this was an unfamiliar voice. The man before me was out of place in this fancy part of town—even more than the Attolian and I. He was extremely dirty and short to the point of being stunted, with the shoulders and beefy arms of a laborer. He wore a freedman’s cap and, judging by his leathery skin, had probably been a field slave for most of his life. He might have been well into middle age, but field workers have hard lives, and he could have been much younger.

“Excuse me?” I said in tones both polite and a little haughty. I thought he might be a beggar and meant to drive him away if he was.

“You need help,” he said again, and it wasn’t a question. He cut his eyes at the Attolian. “Best he go sleep it off,” he said. Thank the gods, he thought the Attolian drunk and not worse.

“I’ve got no coin,” I said sharply, and before I could wave him away, he held up a hand to stop me.

“Not a hennat? For a hennat I can give you a space for him to sleep it off. Quiet place. Out of sight. Celebrated a bit last night, didn’t you, thought you were free and clear?”

I didn’t understand. I was tired and worried, and obviously already past my wit’s end. When the freedman said, “They’ll be along soon enough—saw them up in the market,” I still didn’t understand. I thought he meant health inspectors and then read his direct stare more carefully. Leaning closer, he said in a greasy undertone, “They’ll turn you over to slave catchers from the empire for a tidy reward.”

Oh, gods, bounty hunters. Or worse, the Namreen, with the permission of the oligarch. I decided quickly. I had the money from selling my knife and whatever the Attolian had left in his purse. “A hennat?” I asked.

“Hennat apiece,” he said, now that he had me on the line.

“I’ve only got five,” I said, letting a little of my panic into my voice. I had more than that but wasn’t going to let him know.

“Then you’ve got three,” he said. “The other two are mine.”

I lifted the Attolian off the wall and propped him on my shoulder—his weight made me stagger—trying to guess if the man only meant to lead us into the nearest alley to knock me on the head. The Attolian blinked his eyes to focus on something that wasn’t there and said, “Immakuk?” Perhaps he was even sicker than I realized and this was delirium setting in.

The freedman looked him over. “Not Immakuk,” he said. “Godekker.”

Godekker—it’s a decorative cord that fastens a scroll closed. No one, no matter how lowborn, would name a child after something so trivial. His master must have given him the name using the first word that popped into his head. I wondered that Godekker didn’t change it now that he was a grown man and free.

With a sharp jerk of his head, Godekker led us across the square. He went quickly, without looking to see if we were with him. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed. At every intersection I considered turning away but never did. The Attolian didn’t protest, maybe because he agreed with my decision, or maybe because he was beyond disagreeing. His lips were dry and cracking, and his breaths were short. With most of his weight against my side, I could feel the fever burning in him.

So we went on, moving downhill through the streets until we were almost at the waterfront in a narrow space between two buildings. It was empty—and probably with good reason. The height of the building on one side was too great for its foundations. The stone walls had begun to buckle under the weight and belled out in swales that almost closed off the passage entirely. I had to turn sideways and pull the Attolian through behind me. When the passage widened again, a high barred gate, a remnant from a more prosperous time, blocked the way to a tiny courtyard. Our guide fumbled with a rusting chain and then shoved hard to force the gate open across the uneven paving stones.

“You’re lucky I found you,” he said, making us welcome with a wave of his hand. “I don’t usually go up the hill. Got paid to deliver a barrel to the market.” As we passed through the gate, I saw that its lock was no more than a rusted lump connecting two ends of the chain together. A broken link farther along the chain allowed it to be unwrapped. Godekker wrapped it back again, carefully tucking the ends of the chain in so that it looked solid.

Godekker caught me eyeing his work and shrugged. “The walls shifted in the last quake, so no one comes down here anymore. No one but me.” Indeed, I thought. Anyone here when the walls gave way wouldn’t be trapped in this tiny space, he’d be buried. “The chain just keeps out the stupid children,” he explained.

For the first time, he caught sight of the sword the Attolian wore down his back and looked alarmed. “Can he use that?”

“Of course,” I said, just in case he was planning to rob us and take all five of the hennat I had mentioned. It wasn’t the Attolian’s original sword and was hardly as valuable, but it wasn’t what an escaping slave would usually carry. “He stole it in a tavern,” I added hastily.

Godekker approved. “Good for him,” he said.

So I had fallen in with a criminal—I’d trafficked with them before, on my master’s behalf in Ianna-Ir. I looked around at our hiding place. The yard was smaller than my master’s rooms in the emperor’s palace, and filled with heaps of junk and garbage, broken pots and bowls. There was a shed made of scrap wood with a doorway partially covered by a blanket.

“Few enough saw you come in,” Godekker said, “and none of them are friends of the guard. You will be safe here until he sobers up.”

He pointed to the doorway, and I maneuvered the Attolian through the mess. Inside was a lightless tomb in which even I couldn’t stand up straight as the ceiling sloped down on one side. There was a bed—a mattress bag laid on ropes stretched across the low frame. As I lowered the Attolian onto it, he thrashed, struggling to get back up. “Ennikar?” he said clearly. I patted his arm, hoping he wasn’t going to start raving and spoil his disguise of drunkenness. “Yes,” I said. “Immakuk and Ennikar. I’ll tell you more of the stories later.” Thank the gods, he lay back down then and closed his eyes.