I had walked right into his trap. A crash sounded from upstairs.
I bolted out the door and slammed into Bee.
“We’ve got to run!” I steadied her before she stumbled down the steps. Rory waited on the street, looking alarmed. “The law offices have been abandoned. Someone has set a djeli to watch the premises with magic. I’m afraid it’s the mansa’s djeli, Bakary.”
In such circumstances Bee never argued or questioned. “Where do we go?”
“We need to find out what happened to the law offices.”
At the corner of Enterprise Road and Fox Close, the loitering man had reappeared. He looked our way as he deliberately took off his hat and replaced it with the cap worn by the radicals. He’d seen us, so there was no harm in asking, since he already knew we were there. I strode back to the corner. He touched two fingers to his forehead in a welcoming salute.
I smiled saucily, for I had discovered at the boardinghouse that a flirting smile was likely to get a tip, and right now we needed a tip badly. “May the day bring you peace, Maester. How is it with you and your family? Well, I hope.”
The man measured me with a grin. “Better now you’ve come, lass!”
“Cat, really!” muttered Bee.
“Have you news of what happened to the law office?” I asked.
A pair of mounted men appeared far down Enterprise Road.
The man doffed the cap, tucking it inside his coat. His dusty blond hair hung to his shoulders. “Those with feathers must flee the nest when predators disturb the tree.”
“Were the lawyers arrested?”
“Birds cry a warning each to the other.”
His cryptic utterances annoyed me. “By which I take it that the prince’s militia raided them, but they escaped. How long ago did this happen, Maester?”
“If you want to know more, come in off the street.”
We followed him through the public room of a coffeehouse where shabbily dressed men sipped at their brew. They watched us go into a private room furnished with a table and chairs.
“Sit. Will you have food or drink? It’s already paid for.” The young man had the freckled face of a pale man who has spent a good deal of time in the sun, and a bone-deep weariness made his features melancholy. A woman walked in with a tray of bread and cheese and a pot of hot coffee with four cups. She set it down and went out.
The coffee smelled delicious, and I hadn’t eaten decent cheese for months.
“I suppose it can’t hurt,” said Bee, seating herself next to Rory.
I plopped down next to our new companion and cut off a hunk of cheese to go with my bread. The coffee was rich and sharp.
“To answer your question, the attack on the law offices happened right after the Solstice riots three months ago. A march was held on the first anniversary of the Northgate poet’s hunger strike. Why do you want to know, lass?”
“Why would I tell my business to the likes of you, a man loitering on the street like any sort of scoundrel?”
“Whsst! You’re a fiery beast, lass. It will take a strong man to harness you.”
“It would take a strong man to not speak of harnesses!”
Perhaps I gestured aggressively with the knife, for his laughter ceased. His mouth settled into a grin that twitched with both bravado and an emotion like anger. Men didn’t ever like to look as if women frightened them.
“If you want information, lass, you might think a moment about whether you want to antagonize a man who’s willing to tell you things. And to feed you most generously, in a city where plenty of folk go to bed hungry and wake up hungry with no hope of even a scrap of bread.”
I sighed gustily. “My apologies. We’re looking for the troll lawyers.”
“Not so difficult, was that? But I’m thinking you don’t recognize me. For I surely recognize you two lasses, and the man with you, too. That’s why you’re in here and not out there.”
He had two fingers missing on his right hand. Abruptly, I did recognize him.
“You were the one with the coal cart, Brennan Du’s man. You challenged Lord Marius, to catch his attention so he wouldn’t find us. He had you arrested. Your name is Eurig.”
“That is me in truth, lass.” He flashed a more flirtatious smile, perhaps thinking that a woman who remembered him so keenly had been struck by his looks and presence, when in fact I had been trained in a household of spies and messengers to have a good memory. “I remember the day as bright as yesterday even though it was over a year ago.”
“We were never able to thank you for the sacrifice you made for us. What happened after you were arrested?”
He glanced at his mutilated hand. “A lot of folk were arrested after the prince got news that General Camjiata had walked into Adurnam and then escaped over the sea. Black-haired Brennan and the professora barely escaped.”
“I was with them!” said Rory. “That was fun!”
He rounded on Rory. “
“I didn’t see that,” said Rory indignantly. “We were already gone. I would never call executions and arrests fun! I meant that the skulking and running were fun, and Brennan Du taught me how to properly drink whiskey. Did you think I meant I am the kind of person who laughs when people suffer?”
He looked suddenly about twice his normal size, with his chest puffed up and his lips curled back. His braid, like a whip, seemed ready to snap.
Eurig scooted his chair back so fast that it squeaked against the floorboards.
Rory leaned forward. “A person can enjoy fun and be serious at the same time.”
“Gracious Melqart, Rory! You’re sounding more and more like Cat every day!” Bee pushed him back into his chair and turned her most coaxing smile on Eurig. “What happened to the Northgate poet?”
Eurig’s anger broke free. “Why, the Northgate poet died, lass. And our hopes with him. The prince let the poet starve himself to death on the steps of the palace.”
I was too shocked to speak, for when we had fallen into the well, the Northgate poet had still been alive.
“Died!” Bee set down her mug. “What of the shame that stained the prince’s honor?”
“Tyrants have no honor and therefore no shame. The prince will make merry at his daughter’s wedding feast. He serves flesh to a princely Roman legate in exchange for the Invictus Legion to guard his restless lands. Roman boots will walk the roads the empire built in the days of our ancestors, back when we were free men. Every day we wake to see our master the prince of Tarrant walk arm in arm like a brother with the cursed magister who is the mansa of Four Moons House, although they were bitter rivals all the long days before. We live under the law of the sword. They crush us under their boot-heels like the vermin they name us, and so death makes cowards of us all. The prince ordered that every troll must leave the city, and no person raised a voice in protest.”
“Every troll?” demanded Bee.
“That’s what was strange,” I murmured. “There are no feathered people anywhere.”
“Every one. And every man in a radical’s cap was arrested and his family threatened. Hundreds have been transported to the north. There they must labor with their sweat and their blood in the mines of the Barrens. The salt they haul up in buckets flavors the prince’s food while his subjects go hungry. The iron they dig out of the rock forges the swords that kill us.”
His poem of grievances so stunned me that I could not help but think of the promises General Camjiata had made. The music of revolution had a more urgent melody when heard in a city where so many voices had been so recently silenced. I wanted to give him hope. “I heard a rumor that the general is returning to Europa. He’ll proclaim a legal code that abolishes the ancient privileges of princes and mage Houses.”
“Rumor is like a woman’s promise that she’ll kiss you. Have you a kiss for me, lass?”
“I don’t kiss just any man I see! Only the ones I want to kiss! Did I give you reason to think otherwise?”
