Chapter Five #3
“I need to see it first,” I said, a little shakily. My Hair had never been cut. It wriggled now against my shoulder, and I patted it down. “It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s only a little bit.”
Mieka appeared and slapped the scissors out of the woman’s hand. “All right, Grizel,” she said. “You can leave this one alone, thanks very much.”
The woman bared her teeth. “I’ll thank you not to interfere in my business, Mieka.”
“This one’s mine,” she said briefly. “And she’s keeping all her hair, thanks very much.” She took my arm. “Come on. She’s a charlatan. Her oils are nothing but cloves and dye.”
“Ladran’s little lapdog,” Grizel called after us as we retreated. “Take your politics out of the Undermarket and leave us in peace.”
Mieka spun round. “My politics, as you call them, are the reason you’re able to keep hawking your colored water in the Undermarket.
Without anyone standing up for unregulated magic, the Temple owns us.
They’ll harness every mage to their will and become more powerful than the king at last. Is that what you want? ”
“You bring attention to us,” hissed Grizel. “You and your friends. We are content enough, down here, beneath their notice, and you want to force us into the light.”
“I want everyone to live as equals, Grizel,” said Mieka. “Mages, those with affinities, and those with nothing at all. Is that so terrible?”
“Do what you please,” Grizel growled. “But leave the rest of us out of it.”
“What was all that about?” I whispered. “And what did she mean, Ladran’s lapdog?”
“Nothing to worry about,” said Mieka brightly. “Look, you go this way and I’ll go that. We’re sure to find something between us.”
I asked several more people, but all seemed reluctant to talk to me about spellbooks at all, let alone the Book Man. Strands of the Hair reached out to several stalls we passed, as if to touch the wares, and I had to keep stuffing them beneath the cap.
“Stop it!” I hissed. “You’re as bad as Baldbeak.”
Just as I was starting to lose hope, I came across a solid, red-faced man selling finely embroidered cloths, the exquisite little pieces looking out of place in his hard-knuckled hands. He seemed like a good prospect to trade information for more of the wares he sold.
“Excuse me,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time. “I’m looking for someone called the Book Man.”
He stared at me with open hostility.
“I can pay you for the information,” I said, gesturing at his table of wares. “I have some embroidered pieces. To exchange for it.”
I wondered how I looked to him—a tall, gangly woman just barely into adulthood, freckled and sunburned from my journey with the Followers, the ungainly bulk of my Hair stuffed unevenly into the ugly knit cap (now made uglier by the fretting and fraying down one side, thanks to Baldbeak’s ministrations).
It certainly wouldn’t inspire confidence in my producing the kind of refined, elegant work that he clearly valued.
I was right.
“I’m not in need of any new suppliers, thank you,” he said, the “thank you” carrying a note of condescension.
“Just look,” I insisted, scrabbling in the pockets of the over-sized coat Mieka had given me.
A look of distaste spread across his fleshy features.
“Look, girl,” he said, “I’ve been politer than you deserve. I told you, I’m not looking for …”
I shoved one of the handkerchiefs under his nose, and his voice died away. He took it, seemingly without conscious thought, his eyes following the curve and flourish of the intricate design.
“This is very fine work.” His lips pressed together as he ran the fabric through his fingers, observing every stitch. “Very fine. Where did you say you worked?”
“In a … workroom. A communal workroom. There are many of us.”
“But this is your own work?”
“Uh … yes.”
He looked over my shoulder and made a gesture I didn’t understand. I turned my head to follow his gaze, but yelped when my arms were seized from behind.
“Walk ahead and don’t say nothing,” a voice said, breathing hot and hard against my ear and smelling strongly of onions, “or it will go the worse for you.”
I barely dared breathe. I could feel my Hair wanting to lash out, but I willed it to keep still for now, until I found out exactly what was going on.
The stranger frog-marched me through the market, his formidable chest pressed against my back.
No one in the Undermarket stopped to help, or even to look at us with curiosity—it wasn’t that kind of place.
We reached a covered wagon, and a brown hand darted out to yank the curtain at the back of the wagon aside, and the man at my back shoved me in.
As I fell on my hands and knees, I felt a splinter from the floorboards immediately wedge itself under one of my nails.
My Hair writhed under the cap. I covered my head with both arms to keep it subdued.
The man from the market stall climbed into the wagon, meaning I was now sandwiched between three of them: him, the dark-skinned guard, and the immense man who had pushed me in, whom I mentally named Onion Breath.
The wagon was dark and stank of strong incense.
Crates stacked high on the edges had candles melted to their tops and dried wax dribbling down their sides.
“I don’t have any money,” I managed to say through the tightness in my throat. “Take the silks if you want. Just let me go.”
“I just want to have a little chat,” said the fleshy stall owner, his thick lips spread in a humorless smile. He still held my handkerchief in his hand.
“I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“This is Temple work,” said Fleshy Man, stabbing his finger into the center of the design. “And you tried to pass this off in the Undermarket? I almost admire the effrontery.”
“What? No, it’s got nothing to do with the Temple, it’s all my—”
“Then why in Plague’s name are you embroidering Temple stitches?
Temple motifs? You expect me to believe that you just came up with these on your own?
The Lovers’ Knot, the Hands Raised in Prayer, the Broken Bone, the Pointing Finger …
No one dares use these stitches outside of altar cloths and ceremonial robes. ”
“I didn’t know …”
“If you’ve run away from a nunnery, have enough sense to conceal yourself better.”
“I didn’t know!” I shouted. “I just … did them!”
“You copied them?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was easier than trying to explain. “Yes. Yes, I … I saw the stitches. I taught myself. I didn’t know it was forbidden.”
Fleshy Man grabbed my chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced it up, looking into my eyes. “You’d better be telling the truth. If you’re a Temple spy, all I have to do is shout it out and you’ll be—”
“It is my own work!” I interrupted. “I’m not stupid enough to try to sell—”
“Just stupid enough to copy forbidden designs,” he finished for me. He leaned back, exaggeratedly tapping a finger against his lips as he pretended to think. “Well, if you’re not a Temple spy yourself … then the Temple would like to hear of this, I’m sure.”
I felt my eyes grow wide. I stayed very still, willing my Hair to follow suit. I didn’t need him believing I was a mage, on top of it all.
“Please,” I said, trying to show my sincerity in my face. “I didn’t even want to sell them, just trade. I don’t need money. I really do just need information. And I’m not a spy.”
Fleshy Man raised his eyebrows at Guard and Onion Breath, who chuckled obligingly.
“Information? All right, young lady. And what’s this information that you seek?”
“I need to find a spellbook.”
He looked me over. “No one sells them here. Take your silks and be off with you.”
“No! It’s a particular book. I have to find it. It’s important. I’m looking for someone called the Book Man. Here.” I scrabbled in my pockets. “I have more. Collars, handkerchiefs …”
He watched the silks spill out. They seemed to glow in the dim light.
“You made all of these?” He made a seemingly involuntary movement, reaching for them.
“Yes. You can have them all. I just have to talk to him.”
Fleshy Man chewed his lip as he stared at me. His gaze kept darting to the embroidered cloths, seemingly despite himself.
“What do you know about the Book Man?” he said at last.
“Nothing! I was just told that he was the one to help me.”
“He deals in rare books and apparently in extremely rare books also, if you get my meaning. The kind of rare that the Temple knows nothing about. People say he can find any book, anywhere in Virelith, and perhaps even beyond our borders. I’ll tell you where he is, but how—and whether—you get in is up to you. In exchange for these.”
“That’s fine. Tell me where to go, and I will do the rest myself.”
“Wait. You’ll need a letter of introduction.”
Fleshy Man gave the nod to the other two, who slipped out through the back curtain, then opened one of the boxes and got out a sheet of parchment, a quill, a little pot of wax, and a seal.
Striking a match, he lit one of the stubs of candles, cursing and shaking his fingers as they touched the flame, and then swiftly wrote a note. Before he sealed it, he hesitated.
“Can you read?”
I considered lying, but knew the falsehood could easily be discovered. “No. But I know someone who can read it to me.”
“All right, then.” He signed with a flourish, folded it, then heated the wax, dropped a generous dollop of it onto the letter, and pressed in the seal. “I wrote the address on the front, but I’ll draw a map on the back. For all the good it will do you.”
“Thank you.”
Fleshy Man drew some lines and arrows.
“Now clear off,” he said. “And don’t come back here trying to sell that shit again, understand? If I see your face a second time, my men will make you wish the Temple had gotten hold of you.”
I emerged wobbly-legged and blinking into the glim-light, feeling like I’d had a narrow escape. The chaos of the Undermarket roiled around me as I pulled my cap down, silently thanking my Hair for behaving itself, and scuttled through the market to where I had agreed to meet Mieka.