The Grandmaster's Gambit

19. Hands, Friend

[Day-14 (17:30)]

(Weaver's Lane, outside Chandler Court, Sector 9, Alexandria)

"Sorry. I'm sorry to stop you. Is this Chandler Court? It is, it says so on the arch. Sorry."

The young man on the step held his satchel in both arms and said all of it before Kai reached the bottom stair. Kai had come straight off the rubble gang. He was dusty to the elbows and had one wet sock, and he had been thinking about that sock for half a mile.

The visitor wore a mustard tabard with ink on the cuff. A red wax wafer was pinned at his collar like a flower.

*Mustard, with a wafer. That's post. The Registry sends two men and a stick of chalk, and this one's got a satchel and a face like he's about to be sick. So a letter. Who writes to Aeron? Nobody I've met.*

"Aeron Cross? Third floor? I've a letter for you, and it's registered, so I have to put it in your hand and you have to sign for it. I know it's late. I'm sorry. I'd like to be through the Ironmongers' end before the grilles come down."

"That's me."

The satchel gave up three things at once: a thin book, a stick of ink and a letter. The letter slid off the top and landed in the gutter, face down, in something brown. The courier said "Oh, no" to it. Then he said sorry to the cobbles.

Kai picked it up. He wiped the wet off on his trousers, which only moved it around, and held it out.

"There. It's fine. It's dry on the inside, I think."

"Thank you. You're very kind." The courier's voice wobbled a bit on *kind*. "You wouldn't believe the day I've had. You're the first person who hasn't shouted."

"Don't worry about it," Kai said, and put out his hand.

It was the most natural thing in the world. At the club in Peckham you shook hands after every game. You shook with the boy who had just taken your rook and your afternoon, and you said *good game* through your teeth. You did it on blue plastic chairs, with an urn of stewed tea going cold behind you. You did it when you wanted to eat the board. Kai had shaken ten thousand hands that way, and none of them had ever cost him anything.

The courier looked at the hand as if it were a dish he hadn't ordered. His face went the colour of the letter's paper. Then, because he was a polite person, he took it.

Kai shook it twice, up and down. The courier's palm was damp and cold.

"No," said a voice from the mouth of the lane.

It was Oren, with his pocket coat over one shoulder and a coil of rope across the other. He hadn't shouted. He'd said it flat, the way you say it to a dog about to eat something, and it carried the whole length of the lane. The courier's hand came out of Kai's like it was hot.

On the far side of the lane, a man in mustard cuffs had stopped walking. He had a narrow book open in one hand.

*That's not good. Why's he stopped? Nobody stops in a lane unless they've seen something. What've I done? I've said thank you.*

"What?" said Kai.

Oren covered the cobbles in a half run and got an arm round Kai's shoulders and his mouth by Kai's ear, all in one movement. He did the talking-low-and-fast that he did when he was frightened.

"You clasped him. Light. You *clasped* him. I told you at the stove. Open palm, never the clasp."

"You said it was rude."

"It is rude! It's also a vow. I thought the rude part would be enough." He breathed. "A clasp means I take your obligation. I vouch for you. You do it to bind a debt, you never do it to say thanks, no one does it to say thanks."

"Ah," Kai said.

*Oh, you idiot. I keep forgetting how different things are in this world. All those Saturdays at the club and it never cost me a thing. Of course it's a vow here. Of course it is. Everything here's a contract with a nicer face on.*

"I didn't mean to," the courier said, to no one in particular. "He offered. You can't turn down a hand. It's an insult, and the Guild would have my tabard, I only..." He stopped. He had gone from white to a sort of green.

The man in mustard cuffs crossed the lane without hurry. He was grey and neat and somewhere past fifty, and the book in his hand was the size of a prayer card. He did not look at any of them. He looked at his page, and he wrote it all down.

"Clasp, lane side, Weaver's. Seen at the half past five." The pen scratched. "Surety taken by Aeron Cross for the courier Fenn. The bond stands at ninety."

"Ninety?" said Kai.

"Ninety tokens," the clerk said, as if Kai had asked what colour. "If the courier defaults on his bond, the party who clasped pays it. Most don't ask until it's written. You've asked a moment early. That's something." He blew on the page, shut the book and went on up the lane the way he'd been going.

*Ninety. That's nearly half of what's behind the brick, and I haven't earned a single token of it. And what if I can't pay? "The party who clasped pays it", fine, but then what? Don't ask him. He'll only write that down as well.*

"I've never defaulted," said Fenn. He said it fast, and in the middle of it a small bone die appeared between his fingers and began to roll over his knuckles. "Never once. I've never missed a payment on the bond, not in four years. I don't even, I'm not the sort, I..."

Oren looked at the die. Fenn looked at the die and put it away.

*Four years, said like he's been practising it in a mirror. And the die was out before he knew it was in his hand. Gambler. Brilliant. I've vouched for a gambler.*

"Fine," said Kai. "It's fine. You'll be all right, then. Where do I sign?"

He signed in the book with his left hand, in Aeron's signature, which he had practised twice in the dust on the windowsill. It came out tidier than he'd have done it on purpose. Fenn put the letter into his right hand with both of his own.

The wafer on it was dark red, with a small neat pattern pressed in. Oren took it from him before he could turn it over.

"That's Dace's wax."

"Oren."

"You can't read a Dace letter on a step, it's not right, you open it upstairs with the door shut, I'm just going to look at..." His thumb was already under the fold. The wafer cracked. "Oh. Right. It's one page."

"Oren, give me that."

But Oren had begun to read, in the voice he used for the notices on the Row, and there was no stopping it.

> To Aeron Cross, of Chandler Court, third floor.

> Three commissions stand unfulfilled in my book. I do not write to remind a client of his obligations. I write because the arrangement has lapsed without notice, and I would like to know why.

> You will attend my premises ten days from receipt of this letter, at the tenth bell. Bring the key.

> Dace.

A cart went by at the end of the lane and rattled the shutters.

*Registered, with wax, so he wants it proved that I got it. "Unfulfilled" and "in my book", like it's the book's fault. Hang on. Unfulfilled by who? If Aeron had paid and Dace hadn't delivered, he'd be sitting quiet on the money, not writing. So Aeron was supposed to do something. Or collect something. "Lapsed without notice." That's the bit that bothers him, the notice. The money's nothing.*

*And "bring the key". I've got one key, on a string, and it opens the door. You don't tell a man to bring his own front door key. So it's a different key. Or it's the same and I'm missing what it does.*

"Ten days," Oren said. "That's... what's he want the key for?"

"I don't know."

That was true, and Kai found he was glad of it. Oren folded the letter along its old creases and did not give it back.

"What do you owe him?"

*Say I've no idea and he'll ask how I can't remember. Say it's the head and he'll fuss and ask again tomorrow. Something old and boring. Something he'd never ask about twice.*

"A scavenger debt." Kai took the letter, gently, out of his hand. "An old one."

It came out whole, with the right weight on *old*. He hadn't had to go looking for it. Oren studied him a moment longer than the answer needed, and Kai kept his face where it was and let him look.

*That was smooth. Bit too smooth. Leave it.*

"Old," Oren said. "Right."

He went back to the rope on his shoulder and began to settle it, though it hadn't moved.

Fenn had been edging down the step the whole time, an inch at a time. He stopped at the bottom and came back one stair.

"Mr. Cross." He kept his voice under Oren's hearing. "I should say. It's my mother's rent. It's due Sundial. If I lost the round I'd have... and when you put your hand out, I just wanted to do the right thing for once. I didn't ask who you were or what it was for." His mouth worked. "I'm good for it. I'm always good for it. I'm sorry."

"Go on," Kai said. "Go. It's all right."

Fenn bowed, nearly. He went down the lane at a quick walk that wanted to be a run. The die clicked once in his pocket and was quiet.

*"Good for it", twice in one breath. People who are good for it don't say it twice.*

Kai watched him go. Up and down the lane the shopkeepers had begun to drop their grilles, one after another, the iron rattling off the cobbles. Fenn rounded the pump and was gone.

"Come on," Oren said. "Upstairs."

Kai followed him up two steps and stopped with his hand on the rail.

*Where does he live? I don't know where he sleeps, who he owes, which end of the Guild he works out of. I've got his name and a number. If he runs, I couldn't find him with a lamp.*

"Aeron?" Oren called from the landing. "You coming?"

"Yes," Kai said, and went up.