The Grandmaster's Gambit

25. Undercity Rates

[Day-28 (15:30)]

(The stores cellar behind the Copper Kettle, Ashen Quarter, Sector 7, Alexandria)

The cellar floor was bare stone, and the cold came up through the soles of his boots. Rope lay on it in grey coils as wide as cartwheels. One heap soaked in a brine barrel at the far end and the rest dried in a ring round it. The room smelled of salt and wet rope, with old lamp oil underneath.

Marcus knelt by the barrel, drawing a length through his hands a hand's width at a time. He did not turn round. A kitchen lad had pointed Kai down with a spoon and gone back to his onions.

"You're early," said Marcus.

"By two days." Kai stayed on the bottom step. "You said the second rule would wait for the day. I'd rather know it before something's coming at me."

"That isn't how it works."

"Then teach me the first one properly."

Marcus let the rope drop. He looked at Kai's boots, and then at his sleeves. "Push those up. Sort that heap by the wall."

It was a heap of cut ends, none longer than his arm. Kai ran each one through his fingers the way Marcus had. "Flat spot means a strand's gone," Marcus said, still not looking. "Hard spot means it got wet and dried wrong. Sound ones go left. The rest go right."

*He didn't say go home. From him that's practically a handshake.*

After a while Marcus tossed him the end of a long coil. "Tie in."

Kai passed it round his chest and made the knot he had tied fifty times in Hollis's yard, the kind that pulled tighter the harder anything pulled on it. It was a good knot. It had held crates to a cart through a night of potholes.

Marcus gave the rope one hard yank. The knot bit into the sore rib and stayed put.

"Crate," said Marcus.

*A crate knot. I've spent a fortnight lashing crates, and now every rope in the world's a crate.*

Marcus undid it and passed the end round again in three quick moves that Kai could not follow. A loop sat on his chest that would never close any tighter than it was. "Again," he said. Kai did it six times. On the fifth it was right, and Marcus said nothing, which was the answer.

"Who's it tied to?" Marcus asked.

"Me."

"Right. And the rest of us tie on to you. The rope goes on the weakest first, then up the line, and I'm the end of it."

"Why the end?"

"Because the end is the one who pulls."

"So I'm the first knot," said Kai.

"You're the first knot."

"And I come up last."

"And you come up last."

He set lamps in a row on the shelf. Each was a lump of grey husk in a wire cage, inside a glass. He wiped all but one and trimmed them. The last he wrapped in a rag and tied the rag shut, and then he held it out.

"Yours. You light it last."

"Last as in after the others?"

"After the others have gone out, or when I say. Before that, never. Even if you're frightened. Even if you can't see your hand."

"Why would the others go out?"

"That's why it's last."

*Cheerful.* Kai took it. It weighed more than it looked, and he felt the cage through the rag. *Something puts them out. So this is the one they keep back from it. Fine. I'll carry the dark in my pack and be grateful.*

By the steps hung a pair of iron tongs as long as his arm. The jaws were black, and the black was not soot. It was glassy, and in one place it had run and set.

*Soot rubs off. That doesn't. Something hot did that, or something that held on. And you wouldn't lift a lamp with those. You'd lift something you couldn't hold in your hand.*

"What are the tongs for?"

Marcus glanced at them and away. "Anything that shines."

"Shines how?"

"Any way. A coin, a bit of glass, a wet stone with a lamp on it. If it shines and you didn't bring it, you leave it where it is."

"And the tongs?"

"The tongs are for when someone already has."

Kai looked at the black jaws a moment longer, and then he put the rag-wrapped lamp in his pack.

"Out by lamp-lighting," said Marcus. "It's Deepnight, and I won't have a rune lit in this yard after dark. Come back tomorrow, second bell before noon. Cass wants to burn the rope."

"Burn it?"

"You'll see."

[Day-29 (10:20)]

(The yard behind the Copper Kettle, Ashen Quarter, Sector 7, Alexandria)

The yard was a square of beaten earth with a drain in the middle and the backs of kitchens on three sides. Someone's washing hung from a window and dripped on a barrel. Cass had tied a rope to an iron post at the far end and pulled it chest high and tight as a fiddle string. Kai held the other end in both hands.

"Don't let it slacken," she said. "It runs wrong if it sags."

She stood beside him with her sleeves pushed back. A stride from his hands she touched her left thumb to the rope, and a thread of white fire ran out of it, no thicker than a bootlace. It slid along a finger above the strands and made no sound. She walked beside it with her right hand held out to guide it.

Kai's mouth went dry. He had not asked it to. His hands stayed where they were, which pleased him a little, and the dryness was his own business.

*Don't watch the fire. Watch the hand.*

The thread went down the rope like a bead on a string. At the far post her right hand closed on it and it was gone, and the rope was unmarked. Cass shook out her fingers and went back for the next one.

On the second rope the thread spat halfway along. There was a small hard pop and a bright worm of flame that ate a hand's width of strand and died. Cass chalked a cross on the spot. "That's your flat spot," she said. "It looked fine. You'd have said fine."

*Left thumb to start it. Right hand to finish. That's twice. And her right hand, the way it goes out, hang on, there's a finger away from the rest. The ring finger. It stays clear of the thread like she's holding a cup. Was that on the first rope too? I wasn't watching the first rope. I was watching the fire.*

On the third rope he looked for it, and it was there. Left thumb. Right hand. The one finger held back.

"You always start on the left," said Kai. "And you finish on the right."

Cass did not turn round. She chalked a cross and capped the chalk.

"And the ring finger on your right hand never touches the rope. Never once. It's out of the way every time."

"Say that again."

"I'd rather not. It sounds like I'm accusing you."

She turned then, and looked at him for longer than the remark needed. "Who told you?"

"Nobody. It's in how you do it." He eased the rope in his hands. "I used to watch people play across a board. A good player has a few openings and plays them the same way every game. After three moves you know what comes next, and he doesn't know he's showing you."

"Well this isn't a game."

"No. But a first move is a first move."

Her mouth did something it had not done in the Kettle, and then stopped. "Years," she said. "I've done that for years. Marcus has stood next to me the whole time and never once said."

"Maybe he knows and doesn't say."

"Maybe he does." She looked at her right hand and then flexed it, ring finger and all. "It's a spare. You always keep one thing back that you haven't used. If the first goes wrong, the second's still clean."

*So it isn't a habit. It's insurance, and she's made it into one. And an enemy who watched her long enough would know exactly where the spare is.*

"That's how a contractor dies," Cass said, as if she had heard it. "Someone learns the opening. Don't say it where anyone can hear."

"Who would I tell?"

She looked at him again. Then she took the chalk out of her pocket and went to the next rope.

[Day-29 (21:00)]

(Aeron's room, Chandler Court, Sector 9, Alexandria)

The stair was dark, and the pipes in the wall knocked as he climbed. On the table a bowl waited under a plate with EAT chalked on the board beside it. The stove was lit and ticking. Oren sat on his blanket roll under the window with his boots on and his face to the door.

"You smell like a fish shed," said Oren.

"It's brine."

"Brine." Oren's thumb began to tick against his fingers. "On a Restmark."

"Yes."

"Both hands, as well." He nodded at Kai's palms, where the rope had run across them and left two red stripes. "That's wet rope. I've had that stripe. It goes yellow on the third day."

"I know."

"So you're not going to say."

*Dye shop. Day work at a ropewalk. He'd have me out of that in a minute. And I've done "scavenger debt" and "dust" and "swearing at it" already, and every time he's put it somewhere and said Sure.*

"I'm going down with Marcus and Cass tomorrow," said Kai. "After the bell. Dace set it up."

The ticking stopped. "Marcus and Cass," said Oren. "The Kettle two," said Oren, as if checking a price.

"Yes."

"And Dace."

"And Dace."

"Tomorrow." He said it like a price. "Since when?"

"Draftday."

"Draftday. And it's Restmark, so you've told me on the night before." Oren's voice stayed level, and Kai found he would have liked it to shake. "Where?"

"Under Sector 7. The old waterworks. Dace has a cache in there."

"Nobody goes in the waterworks. We don't. There's not a thing left in it you can haul out, that's what they say, and they say it quick." He stood up. The pocket coat made all its noises at once. "I'm coming."

"No."

"They need a commons. I'm a commons. I'm bigger than you, I carry, and I count everything twice, ask anyone."

"They've got the commons they asked for."

"Then ask for two."

"No."

"Did you ask?"

Kai opened his mouth, and shut it.

"You didn't ask," Oren said quietly.

"It isn't Marcus's say. It's mine. I'm saying no."

"It's not yours either." Oren dragged a hand down his face. "I'm sure they're paying you alot. D'you know why that is? That's undercity rates. That's what they pay when they've put a funeral in the sum."

"I know what it is."

"Then why's it you?"

"Because it's the money."

"I need money. My mum needs a room." He nearly laughed. "Why isn't it me?"

"Because you've got no training, Oren. You've got no rune and no training."

"Neither have you," Oren said simply. "Since your head."

It landed, and Kai felt it land. "That's different," he said. His voice came out sharper than he wanted.

"How?"

"I don't know what's down there. That's how. It's a place the Registry shut and nobody's been in for years, and I don't know what's in it, and I'm not taking you into it to find out."

"So you go into a place you know nothing about and I stay home with the stove."

"Yes."

Oren looked at him for a long moment. When he spoke again there was nothing in it to argue with. "You didn't used to ask me to stay home," he said. "You used to ask me to carry the rope."

"I don't remember that."

"No," said Oren. "You don't."

He took his blanket roll and rolled it, and his hands were quick and careful about it. "I'm going to my mum's. She likes the bread." He picked up the loaf from the shelf, and the coat made its seven noises, one after the other, and each stopped as he passed it. At the door he held the latch down with his thumb until the door was shut, so that it would not click.

His boots went down the stair. They paused at the loose board on the landing, and then there was the court door, and then the court.

*It's better this way - I'm fine with risking my life, but I'm not dragging you along with me Oren.*

Kai crossed to the door. The bolt hung on its staple, black and heavy. He laid it back against the wood and did not shoot it. Then he took the bowl from the table, sat on the floor with his back to the wall and the door in front of him, and ate the barley cold.