eyes. “Best thing for you, boy,” he heard, then footsteps on the stair.
He didn't actually pass out; he hadn't drunk quite enough for that. But every time the numbness and the dizziness started to wear off, he heaved himself up onto his elbow and took another long pull at the jug until it came back again. Now and again he tired of simply feeling the room circling him and opened his eyes to watch the ceiling rotate. When the light started to fade, Jarmin appeared again with a lantern and bread and sops, a chamberpot, and a big jug of water. He made Skif eat and drink all of the water before he took the lantern and the plates away. Skif took some more pulls on the jug, then, and as shrill voices and the cajolery of the girls drifted in through the window, he let the liquor take him away to a place where nothing mattered anymore.
* * * * * * * * * *
Jarmin told him later that he'd stayed drunk for a week. Sometimes he cried, but only when he was alone. Sometimes he heard someone moaning, and dimly realized that it was himself. All he knew was that the jug was, temporarily, his best friend. Jarmin kept it full, but insisted on his eating and drinking water, an annoyance he put up with because it meant that Jarmin would top off the jug.
He retained enough of sense and the cleanliness Bazie had drummed into him to make proper use of the chamberpot. It never seemed to stink, so Jarmin must have kept it clean as well.
Jarmin also came up to talk to him now and again. For a while, he ignored the words and the man because he didn't want to go to the place where words meant something. For a while, that is, until something Jarmin said jarred him back into thinking.
“Word is,” Jarmin said, into Skif's rosy fog, “That fire was set.”;
Set? Skif opened his eyes with an effort. “Wha?” he managed, mouth tasting of old leather and liquor.
Jarmin didn't look at him, and his tone was casual. “Word is that the landlord 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.
