There were several tubs, two of which had girls in them, three of which had laundry. Before he could lose his head and bawl, a burly woman with work-reddened hands and a tight, angry mouth stripped him before he could open his mouth and shoved him into the last of the tubs. She didn't give him a chance to wash himself either; she used the same brush and lye soap that she used on the linen on his hide, with the same lack of gentleness.
The bristles lacerated his skin, his scalp. He didn't let out a single sound as she scrubbed as if she intended to take his skin off, then made him stand, rinsed him with a bucket of water cold enough to make him gasp, and bundled him in a sheet. His own clothing went into one of the tubs with laundry in it, and she handed him the plain trews, socks, and shirt he brought with him, leaving him to clothe himself as she turned back to her work. He noticed that the girls didn't get the same ungentle treatment. They were allowed to bathe themselves and did so lazily, completely ignoring his presence.
Well, that was all right. He didn't want any stupid whores fussing over him like he was some sort of animate doll. He didn't want their sympathy. He didn't want anyone's pity.
Hard. I gotta be hard. That's what I gotta do.
He dried himself off — the laundress snatched the sheet away from him before he could lay it down and popped it back into a tub — and got the clothing on. It was rather too big, but that hardly mattered. All he had left now were his own boots, which he pulled on, and left without a backward glance.
His head was clear enough now, and while the laundress had scrubbed him, his grief had somehow changed, shrunk, condensed down into a hard, cold little gem that formed the core of a terrible anger that seemed almost too large to contain in so small a compass as his heart.
Revenge. That was what he wanted, more than anything in the world. And he wasn't going to rest until he got it.
He walked into Jarmin's shop, and the old man gave him a sharp glance, then a nod of satisfaction. “You'll do,” was all he said, and tossed him a pouch.
It clinked. Skif opened it and found a little money; mostly copper, a bit of silver. He tucked it inside his shirt. It was little enough. Jarmin was cheating him, of course. The room, the food, the clothing, the baths — none of that was worth a fraction of what he'd stolen. Jarmin wasn't giving him anything.
And Skif didn't want anything but this — the expected cheating, the usual grifting. No more kindness. No more generosity. He could move on from here without looking back or regretting anything. This was a business transaction for Jarmin. Save one of the best thieves he knew and ensure a steady supply of goods for his shop — as simple as that.
So he didn't thank the man for the money; he just nodded curtly and went back out into the street. He knew what the money was for — tongues weren't loose without money. And Skif was going to have to find a lot of tongues to loosen. It was going to take a long time, he already knew that. That was fine, too. When revenge came, it would come out of nowhere. The enemy would never know who it was that hit him, or why.
Just as disaster had come upon him, and with equal destruction in its claws. When he was finished, whoever had killed Bazie would be left with nothing, contemplating the wreckage of what had been his life, with everything he valued and loved gone in an instant.
Just like Skif.
Skif smiled at the thought. It was the last smile he would wear for a very long time.
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SMOKE drifted over the heads of the customers; it wasn't from the fireplace, but from the tallow dips set in crude clay holders on the tables and wedged into spaces between the bricks around the room. Skif sat as far from the door as it was possible to be, in the “odd” corner of The Broken Arms, a kind of rectangular alcove just before the walls met, into which someone had wedged a broken-legged stool, making a seat hemmed in on three sides with brick. The brick was newer here, so this might be an old entrance; gone now, since the next building over was built right up against this one. Or maybe it had been a window slit; you couldn't have used it as a door, not really. It was too short and too narrow. Maybe a former fireplace, before the big one was put in, before this room became a tavern. No, it wasn't big enough for a man to be comfortable sitting here, but it was perfect for him. Here he could spend hours unnoticed, the wenches had gotten so used to it being empty.
Before things got so crowded, he'd bought himself a jack of small beer and a piece of bread and dripping, so his stomach was full but not full enough to make him drowsy. Meanwhile the number of customers rose, and the place got warmer. This nook was a good place to tuck himself into when he wanted to eavesdrop on conversations. Eavesdropping was almost as good as paying for information, and it cost nothing. He'd become adept at being able to sort one set of voices from all of the babble and concentrate on them. Once in a while one of the wenches would notice that he was there, and like this afternoon, he'd buy a mugful of small beer and a piece of bread so that they'd leave him alone, but that was only when the place was less than half full. When it was crammed tight, as it was now, he'd be overlooked all night.
He'd already wedged himself up onto the seat, knees just under his chin and his arms wrapped around them, so not even his feet were in anyone's way. Every bench and stool at every table was full; not a surprise with rain coming down in barrel loads outside. Not a good night for “business,” except within walls.
