The Corpse-Rat King

“I know that. But why go to all this trouble? Surely when you move on–”

“No.” Marius heard Keth climb into bed, and risked turning round. Only her face was in view, her long hair brushed out of its braids and spread out over the blankets. If Marius could have cried, the lack of stirring in his groin would have driven him to it. “You’re not listening. It’s mine. I own this room.”

“But…”

“I bought it from the Waldens six months ago. They’re the managers. Everything in here.” A long white arm emerged from the beneath the sheet and waved at their surroundings. Marius stared at the arm, and waited for a sign from below. Nothing. God damn it. “I own it.”

“What? You mean forever?”

Keth giggled. “Maybe. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”

“But why…?” Marius looked around at the dismal collection of furniture, the sad little decorations, the desperate attempts to add dignity to what looked like nothing more than a collection of cast offs.

“Because I can.” Keth sat up, a flush of anger spreading across her skin. The blanket fell away, exposing her body down to the waist, but Keth was too angry to notice. Marius did, and almost smiled. Not so dead after all. But Keth was biting out words, and he realised there was nothing to smile about at all. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to get all this? To convince someone to sell me even this lot, never mind this fucking room? Because I’m a woman, in this city? Do you have any concept how precious it is to know I can finish my shift and come home, safely, to somewhere that belongs to me? A woman, in this city, owning anything? Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked for this? Don’t you dare look down on what I have, Marius dos Hellespont.”

“Helles.”

“Don’t you Helles me, merchant’s son. You don’t have to scrabble for what you want. You’ve always had a choice.”

“But… you could have–”

“Could have what?” Keth glanced down at how she was sitting, and gathered the blankets about her. “What, Marius? Waited for you? Been kept by you? How was that ever going to work?”

“But I…” Marius turned away from her in confusion, saw the tankard and picked it up. “I could have given you better than this.”

“God damn it, you don’t understand a thing. It’s not the having, Marius. It’s not even the money. Look at all this. Look at it.” She gathered up a handful of blanket and shook it at him. “I own this. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, or that it’s not made of velvet or smells of lavender. It’s mine. I have it, and nobody can take it away from me. Everything in this room. This room. Do you know how many women own even a room in this city, for themselves? It’s not about money, Marius. It never was. I can work, and own things, and have my own life.”

Marius stared at her, saw the pride in her eyes, and the anger. And the words came before he had time to regret them, and realise what he was placing between them.

“How much of it did you earn on your back?”

She stared at him for longer than he could bear. When she spoke, she did so quietly, and her voice was the deadest thing in the room.

“Get out, Marius. Get out of my home.”

There was nothing he could say. Marius walked to the door, opened it, and made sure to shut it behind him. He stood a moment, waiting. She hadn’t even cried. Marius hung his head and walked back down the hallway, away from Keth. He was at the top of the stairs before he remembered to pull his hood back over his head. It was only when it struck him on the face that he discovered he was still holding the tankard.

“Ow.” He rubbed the spot where the tankard had hit, looked at it, and then took a long, deep draught. There was no taste at all. Marius stared at it, then let it drop to the floor. “Fuck.”

He was halfway down the steps before he doubled over and threw up.

NINE

Marius left the tavern at a flat run, burst out onto the street past startled onlookers, and just as suddenly as he had appeared, stopped, looking about himself in panic. The mouth of an alleyway stood between the corner of the tavern and the next building over. Marius couldn’t go back inside, not after the reception his vomiting episode had received from the patrons. Besides, what would be the point? Keth had already ignored his entreaties from outside her door. Knocking would hardly change her mind. But her window had been open. Could she ignore his voice through it? At the very least, she would have to leave her bed to close it, and then… Marius wasn’t sure what would happen then. But something had happened in that room, something that had opened a gulf between them and left him vomiting in an undeniably alive way after half a tankard of Krehmlager. He could still taste his bile, even though he knew the dead could neither taste nor regurgitate. He raced for the corner, turned into the alley, and sloshed through ankle-deep mud until he stood below the window of Keth’s room, staring up at the gap between the open shutters.

“Keth.” He waited, but no response came. He looked about, back towards the busy street. Nobody had stopped to see what the solitary figure was doing, standing alone in an alley, shouting. “Keth.” Louder now, a little more insistent, just a little panicked. “Keth, please!”

Again he waited, and again there was nothing. Marius began to worry. What if Keth held the solution to his dilemma? What if she was the key to everything, and he had thrown her away in his fit of pique? What if his only chance at life had lain in that room, and now, with a few words, he had placed it forever beyond his reach?

“Keth!” This time, the only sound that emerged was panic.

Then, behind the thin gauze curtains, something moved. Marius stiffened, thoughts frozen in hope. The curtains parted and Keth appeared, a bed sheet wrapped around her so that she stood above Marius like some ancient pagan deity, albeit one with ice in her eyes and her face an impassive mask. Marius held his arms out at waist height, palms upturned, offering penitence to his cold goddess.

“Keth…”

Slowly, eyes fixed upon Marius, Keth leaned out of the window. She opened her arms, and grasped the edges of the shutters. As Marius gazed on in despair she leaned back into the room, disappearing once more behind the curtains. The shutters banged closed, cutting in half the world between her and Marius.

A scene had been painted on the outside surface of the shutters. A field of yellow flowers, viewed through a framed window. A blue sky hung above, empty of clouds. A fat, tortoiseshell cat lay on the windowsill, staring down at Marius with the same impersonal disdain he had seen on Keth’s features. Marius knew the cat’s name. He was Alno, and he was the cat that Marius had promised to buy for Keth one day, when the grime and desperation of their lives grew too much to bear, and he had sequestered enough money to take them both away to an estate somewhere in the untroubled countryside. Nothing too big, he heard himself telling her as they lay cuddled together for warmth under the lodging house’s thin blankets. Nothing too fancy. But a place just for us, with fields of yellow flowers for picking, and an uninterrupted view all the way to the horizon. Marius closed his eyes. It was not the sudden knowledge of what he had lost that defeated him. It was the fact of the picture itself, that it was painted on the outside of the shutters, not the inside, that Keth had known his fantasy for what it was, had known this rift between them would open up, and had been so much more prepared for it than him.

Slowly, he raised one hand and laid it upon the opposite arm. He clenched, digging his nails deep into bicep. He felt nothing. And now, he could not even taste his bile. Marius nodded, head bowed, then turned away and walked slowly back into the street.

Keth had found him a ship, at least. With nowhere else to go, he turned towards the docks and began the slow walk down the thoroughfare. The Minerva, she had said, and if the size she mentioned was anything close to the truth it was more than large enough to take him to the end of any ocean he cared to name. Marius hunched deeper into his cape, thoughts tumbling around the image of Keth’s face, and the frozen, dead look she had given him as they parted. The crowds slid past him as he walked, oblivious to the myriad nudges and touches of close contact. His coins were well hidden, and should he have chosen to, he could have ignored the fluttering touch as a well-placed hand sought out his pocket, swiftly flitting in and out in the hope of