Chapter Three. Gin
CHAPTER THREE
GIN
I navigate the dingy streets of the Sleeve, slipping into dark, muddy alleyways when necessary to avoid being seen.
But you can’t always hide. I hold my head high and shoulders straight when I pass some brute, twice my weight but half my fighting skill, letting him know I won’t hand over a single coin without a fight.
It’s a dance and despite my earlier trepidation, I find I still know it well.
Half the folk in the Sleeve are thieves.
I bluff when I think it’ll work, and hide from sight when I know it won’t.
Drunks are the worst since they’re unpredictable.
As likely to throw a punch as they are to throw up the contents of their stomach.
For the most part, I give them a wide berth.
When I come upon a stumbling tavern brawler, his hands and face bloody from a fight, I pray he doesn’t turn his rage on me.
For an instant, he looks me up and down and I tremble.
But he’s too far gone to notice my fear and moves on, staggering into a wall where he loosens his britches and relieves himself.
I swallow my fear and move onward. My instincts return, despite the months of relative safety spent at House Eternal.
I’m able to melt back into the shadows to avoid being seen.
I time my footsteps to coincide with the pounding of some distant horse’s hooves to mask my approach.
My skin is too clean and freshly perfumed, so I rub mud on my face and dab it with my sleeve, making it seem as if I haven’t bathed in weeks.
Only an hour out of the estates and I’m back to the thief I had once been, clever, quick, and covered in filth, always looking over my shoulder, startling at the smallest sound.
Rollo’s words echo in my brain. Head to the Lashing. You’ll be safe there.… Find Bahram at the market, he sells kitchen pots and smokes a cigar. He has one blue eye and one black one. Tell him I sent you. Give him this, and he’ll take care of it.
The marketplace is nearly empty as it’s past sundown.
The earlier rainstorms have chased away any stragglers, aside from a few local merchants who stay open later, hoping to catch workers on the way home, or those who deal in more unsavory goods than their public-facing tables might suggest. I know the signs.
The vendor with the brightly painted pots, the ones with multicolored stripes that shimmer like the bands on a snake’s back, sells poison if you know how to ask.
The toothless man with the graying hair and deep-set eyes stands over baskets of tobacco and spice, but if you have the coin, he’ll sell you something that’ll make the world spin before your eyes, a drug that’ll make you forget your name …
for a time. In the Sleeve, everyone’s looking for some escape.
And if they can’t find it at the bottom of a tankard, there are other ways, through flesh peddlers and their ilk.
Then I see him. A merchant selling dented kitchen pots.
He sits beneath an oiled tent alongside his wares that are beaded with damp from the rain, spread out on a makeshift wooden table in front of him.
In one hand, he holds a fat cigar, and in the other, a folded gazette.
His legs are crossed; his feet are bare, revealing skinny gnarled toes and yellowed toenails long past needing a trim.
“Excuse me,” I say.
The man looks up at me and lifts one wiry eyebrow. One eye is blue and one eye is black. It’s got to be Bahram.
“Rollo sent me.”
The man looks around to make sure I’m alone before answering. “Did he now?”
I clear my throat. “Yes. He said you can take me to the Lashing.”
“The Lashing? Why would anyone want to go there?” the man says, snapping the papers he’s holding back into shape. He returns to reading.
“Rollo of House Eternal said you could help me,” I insist.
He puts the scroll down slowly, then takes a long puff of his cigar, eyebrow still raised. His pale blue eye and dark black eye are disconcerting. Smoke billows around him. “Rollo of House Eternal, huh?”
I nod and hold my head higher, though inside, I’m shaking. Then I remember. “He said to give you this.” I hand over the velvet pouch of coins.
Bahram picks up the pouch and weighs it in his hand. Then he shrugs and takes another quick puff of his cigar. “I can provide a boat, but that’s all. Good luck with getting there, most likely you’ll just find yourself at the bottom of the sea, especially after another Lacon raid on that place.”
I bristle even though it’s exactly why I was confused that Rollo would send me there. But it’s said the Ophir of the Lashing believe that Ophir can be avenged, that one day our kingdom will recover its former glory. “You don’t believe in the return of the Floating City?”
“I believe that it sank and will never rise again,” he sighs. “This is all we have. The Sleeve. All they’ll ever let us have. The more we want, the more we lose.”
“I can’t believe that,” I whisper. “I’m going to the Lashing.”
“Believe what you want. The boat will be docked at the south pier by tomorrow eve. Look for Panglaban.”
“Tomorrow? But where will I go tonight?”
“Not my problem,” Bahram says, with a puff of his cigar.
I have no money and no options, except for the faint promise that tomorrow I’ll be able to take a boat that will get me out of here.
But for now, I need to find a roof over my head and a way out of the streets.
I find myself on the road to a familiar place.
The only one I can think of to find shelter.
Dim yellow light radiates from oil lamps set in all the windows.
There’s a cacophony of voices and instruments inside.
Someone shuts an upstairs window, and the light in the room goes out.
A high-pitched squeal escapes the thin wood-paneled walls.
Old, cracked flowerpots are scattered around the front porch, filled with half-dead, neglected plants.
The white paint is chipped and peeling, and a piece of the rail is missing.
Almost unfathomable that I once believed this a luxurious place.
Yet here I am, back again, begging. A rush of shame spreads through me.
I knock quickly, before I can give in to my fear and leave. Footsteps approach. The door flies open. “Welcome to Madame Vero—oh!”
“Charlie, it’s me,” I say.
“Gin!” Charlie says, pulling me in for a hug.
Charlie was one of my friends at the brothel.
Ten years older than me, with a sardonic sense of humor and a practical way about her.
She’s wearing a huge curly wig with a large white bow, and very little else, aside from the white satin robe hanging off her shoulders to the ground.
That’s one of the perks of the job—clean clothes.
Though by Lady Ariadne’s standards, the robe is filthy.
There are tiny snags in the fabric, and the bottom, though washed, is slightly stained from being swept across the dusty floor all day long.
Everything, even the most coveted items in the Sleeve, is always subpar.
“What are you doing here?” she asks. “The girls said last time they saw you, you were getting into a fancy carriage heading up to the hills. Word around here is that you scored a big fish.”
I shrug. “He let me off the hook.”
Charlie gives me a rueful smile. “Don’t they all? Hope it was worth it for a while?”
I don’t answer, it’s too painful. “I just need a place to stay for tonight,” I say. “Please. I can sleep in the kitchen like last time. Just one night.”
Charlie looks behind her, then sticks her head out while closing the door a little bit. “I’m sorry, Gin, but we’re not supposed to talk to you,” she whispers. “Madame said if we ever see you around, we should let her know where you are, so she can send Ham after you.”
Ham is Madame’s head thug. “But today’s Sunnanday, isn’t it? Madame is out in the country, she doesn’t have to know.” I just need a safe place to lay my head tonight.
Charlie doesn’t say anything, she just looks back over her shoulder again.
“I have nowhere else to go,” I add. “I’ll be gone by dawn. Please, Charlie.”
“Oh, Gin,” Charlie says. “I wish I could, I really do, but things have been different around here.”
It’s then that I notice the bruises on Charlie’s upper arms and, when she turns and her robe slips, the welt of scars on her back.
“That’s not because of me, is it?” I ask, horrified. Charlie was the one who came to my aid when a patron tried to have his way with me after finding me alone in the kitchen. She knocked him on the head with a candlestick while I scrambled away.
She doesn’t need to answer because I already know I’m right and I’m flooded with guilt and shame. I shouldn’t be here, I can’t get my friend into more trouble because of me. “I’m sorry I asked—I’ll go, be safe.”
Charlie reaches her hand through the open doorway and grabs mine. “You too, Gin. I’m sorry, too.” Then the door shuts and the locks click into place, one by one.
My heart heavy, I turn and step slowly down the wide porch steps.
I suppose I could survive a night on the streets of the Sleeve by myself—find a dry corner, and hope no one notices me, and stay awake all night. But I know myself, I’ll nod off—and once you let your guard down around here, you wake up to a nightmare.
There’s one last place I could be safe.
At least for the night. Better than sleeping out in the open, among predators and animals. Going back to Aris is the last thing I want to do. Yet that’s exactly what I must do.