Chapter Two The Financial State of Two Slumdogs #2
“But our contract states we have until sunrise!” she could now hear Desil saying through gritted teeth.
“If you don’t have the coin already, what difference will a few hours make?” Tucoras replied. “I thought you learned your lesson the last time, but it seems a reminder of what happens when you neglect a payment is due.”
“Wait!” Lythlet shouted, burning her fingers on the rope ladder as she scrambled up the last few rungs. She pulled herself over the wooden ledge of her flat and held out her hands, pleading for time as she caught her breath.
The loan shark turned and bared a toothy smile. “Miss Tairel, what a pleasure to have you join us tonight.”
Tucoras was a wisp of a man, tall, but hopelessly skinny.
He wasn’t much of a threat alone, but behind him were three of his lackeys, ridiculously oversized men with thick barrel chests, each pinning Desil down with a boot—one crushing Desil’s brown curls to his cheek, another foisting its weight on his broad back, the last restraining his wrists to his bottom, the rosary Desil wore on his right arm peeping out beneath the muddy sole.
Beneath the first boot, Desil’s face was half-hidden. He was as still as stone, and Lythlet feared he’d been harmed. She glanced at his fingers; they remained unbroken for the time being, at least. But his eyes flashed open then, meeting hers in grim humiliation.
“Let him go, Master Tucoras. I have this month’s payment.” She rifled through her pocket and held out a fistful of coins.
Tucoras grabbed them.
“That’s not all,” she said, digging deeper into her pockets. She remained crouched on the ground, knowing from experience the loan shark didn’t like it when she stood eye-level with him. “We can pay off more of our debt this time.”
The loan shark gave an impressed look as he took the extra coins from her. “Look what we have here. A few years of this and you just might repay your debt in full.”
Relieved, she started to crawl over to Desil.
Tucoras tut-tutted and slammed his boot down on her fingers.
“I didn’t say you could move yet,” he said coldly as she shrieked in pain. “Have some manners and wait until I’ve finished counting, little bookkeeper.” He took his time to thumb through the coins, humming under his breath.
Lythlet remained crouched on the ledge, staring at the flecks of dirt Tucoras’s boot had left imprinted on her fingers, simmering in humiliation.
At last, Tucoras nodded. With a flick of his hand, his lackeys pulled their boots off Desil, who groaned as he sat up and rubbed his wrists.
“I always admire those who try to pay off their debts faster,” said Tucoras, smiling noxiously in Lythlet’s direction.
“I shouldn’t expect less from someone trained in matters of the coin.
You know what it means to let the interest compound, after all.
How fortunate for Desil to have a friend like you. ”
She did not respond, afraid of encouraging him. She rubbed her sore fingers instead, brushing away the dirt he’d left.
He frowned. “You needn’t be so frightened, Miss Tairel.
I’m nothing but a plain and simple merchant trying to recoup his investment.
Haven’t I been very generous with my payback schedule?
Other usurers would demand the sum and interest back all at once, but I’ve allowed Desil to drag out his payments for so long. ”
“And we’re grateful for it, Master Tucoras,” said Desil quickly. “Very grateful for your generosity.”
Tucoras nodded, appeased. “I’ll be off now. I look forward to seeing you again next month.”
He left their ledge, his bulky lackeys trailing after him like obedient hounds.
Once alone, Lythlet crawled to Desil. “Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” he said, grimacing as he swiped away the mud from his cheek. “I’d just returned from the teahouse when they ambushed me. How’s your hand?”
“Fine,” she assured him, flexing her fingers. “I’ll count my blessings he chose not to kick me in the head like the last time. Shall we continue this inside before we give our neighbors more fodder for this week’s gossip?”
Denizens of the kataka copse were staring at them from their flats, one drinking from a steaming teacup silently. At least this time, Lythlet and Desil wouldn’t have to spend hours cleaning off threats painted over their walls.
With the door swinging shut behind them, Desil pulled a tiffin carrier and a bound teapot out from his satchel, checking them over. “Lucky for us, those brutes didn’t damage our supper. I brought back some leftovers from The Steam Dragon. You haven’t eaten, have you?”
She shook her head. Her stomach had given up growling hours ago, resigning itself to emptiness. “Not since morning.”
He gave her a look of concern as he fetched their hive-lantern and two wooden cups from a corner.
They had little by way of furniture, save for a rice-paper partition that split their flat into two rooms, one for him and one for her, two sleeping pallets, and a singular jumbled pile of their possessions from which Desil had fetched the goods.
Lythlet slid down by his side on the floor, unbinding the teapot’s spout and pouring out the tea.
The smell of lukewarm lavender vinigri tea filled the air.
A smile stretched across her tired face as she watched him unlock the tiffin carrier and spread out the small tin canisters on the floor. “Did you bring back any—”
“Roast duck skins? Of course. One can hardly offer you a meal without their presence.” He grinned at her, relishing this chance at normalcy. Pretending nothing had happened was always the best way to forget abject humiliation.
“What about—”
“The pickled vegetables? Brought back a serving and extra. The kitchens had plenty to spare.”
“And—”
“There were no rice cakes left but look at what I have here.” He lifted a shining lid with a dramatic flourish.
“ Muna-muna !” She lowered her head to breathe in the aroma of the lemongrass-seasoned fish, then unwrapped the banana leaves tied around it.
“We so happened to have two parcels left, and Madame Millidin said I could bring both back. What luck!” He passed her a fork, and they dug into their meal.
Although meager in portion and completely cold by now, she shoveled everything into her mouth with the fervor of a prisoner savoring their last meal.
“So, what happened tonight?” Desil asked after a moment, the tines of his fork ringing against a tin canister as he meticulously scraped it clean, pushing the remaining droplets of spicy, sour red pepper sauce into his mouth before swapping for another tin.
She knew what he was actually asking: how did you get the money? But she didn’t want to answer that, not yet. “I met Finneas just now,” she said instead.
For a second, Desil looked uncomfortable, and she regretted bringing it up. It had been a year since he left the brawlers’ square, yet even the slightest mention of it now would unsettle him.
But he brushed his discomfort away glibly. “I haven’t seen him in ages. How is he?”
“Chatty as ever, that fellow. Look at what he gave me.” She retrieved the handbill from her pocket and unfolded it for him.
“Conquessors,” Desil read aloud with surprise. He leaned in to get a better look at the text. “Haven’t thought about them in a long time.”
He was midway through the handbill when her stomach interrupted him with a nasty growl.
“Sorry,” she said, blushing. She set down her now empty tin, every inch of it licked and scraped clean, her gnawing hunger only half sated.
“Here,” he said, holding out his own tin of muna-muna . “You can finish mine.”
She shook her head, but smiled weakly, pushing it back toward him. “Eat your share.”
“Nonsense. You haven’t eaten all day. I snacked some at the teahouse, so don’t worry about me. Besides, you took care of the debt, so the least I could do is take care of your belly. How did you get so much coin, anyway? Did you convince Valanti to pay you your fortnight’s wages?”
There was no escaping the matter now. “No,” she answered heavily, eyes astray.
“Have you found new employment already? Did they give you an advance on your pay?”
“No.”
His smile slipped. “Did you borrow it?” he asked, a tinge of nerves to his query.
“You know I’m not foolish enough to pay off debt by going into even more debt.”
He didn’t persist, but his gaze was pinned to her face, and she flushed with the burning flame of Ezrinara.
“I don’t like keeping secrets from you, Desil,” she said at last. “But I know you won’t be pleased to hear that I stole it.”
Wordlessly, he set down the tin.
“I did not steal from anyone who did not deserve it,” she continued, a harshness to her words.
“Who?”
“The first, a pickpocket I caught red-handed on the streets. The second, a man who had beaten and broken me until yesterday. And the last, his wife.”
Judgment crossed Desil’s eyes. “You stole from Valanti’s wife, a woman who has never wronged you?”
“A woman whose silence cut deep, who I heard with my own ears tonight saying I ought to have been beaten harder.”
Her voice choked, and she looked away to blink back sudden tears. Immediately, Desil embraced her. He stroked her arm, and she brushed at his calloused fingers.
“I am fine,” she lied, a colorlessness shielding her words.
He was wise enough to ignore it, continuing to embrace her. “Tell me everything that happened tonight.”
Reluctantly, she recounted her night, which had begun with a coin flip and ended with a hive of lightning-bees.
Throughout the telling, her gaze would dip uneasily to the rosaries of the Twelve Prayers he wore on his wrist, thinking of all the virtues she must have offended.
Indeed, there was conflict scrawled across his mien, and she ended her account in tense apprehension of what he’d say.
“In a way, it’s my fault,” he said at length, surprising her. “The debt is mine, after all.”
“It’s debt you took on for my sake,” she reminded him.