Chapter 24
Being a city of startling prospect and prosperity, proceeding from a stark elevation through a number of close-hung districts, suitable for the lower sorts.
He takes the usual route, off the main canal and into the smaller streets that twitch their way between the regular grids of waterway and plaza.
Ropecharmer looks up as he walks. Hesper is a strange city.
From the grey towers high on the hill, past the porticos and pillars of the old merchant homes, and down to the sprawl of waterways that pulls commerce into the heart of the port.
The canals themselves are broad. Sometimes he crosses them on sculpted bridges, the carved faces of their benefactors slowly sifting into the water below. Sometime he hops, from barge to barge, wobbling the cargo and collecting curses. Not too hard. He’s a light lad, a thin thing.
Between the canals, Hesper stretches upwards.
Apartments and galleries of fine facade nestled against lean-tos and add-upons.
Little penthouses fit only for rats, and the spark-eyed kids who run errands, glimming the streets.
That could have been him once, without the luck he’d had, the friends he’d made.
Into another snarl of streets. Cats sloping the gutters watch him with affront. The smell of life clings to the walls, kitchen windows spitting grease, and café porters swapping slander over a smoke.
Ropecharmer looks up. If you have a good eye, you can see the scars, the spots on a building where there used to be a shrine, or the rough stone where the mascarons of gods were ripped from the plaster. They are shiny and strangely healed, like a burn.
The gaze of the gods wasn’t welcome in Hesper anymore. Not since the south, since Fallon’s wife had fallen.
Rope had adored Arissa Fallon once. He’d seen her at the parades, always on the biggest horse, bucking beneath banners that snapped like a ship at sail, tossing sweets and favours to the crowd, and always to the little sprats like Rope who crowded the edges of the processional.
There had been nights where those little favours had made the difference between sleeping hungry and sleeping full, and he had been grateful.
He had sketched her face and her horse in his books, when he was supposed to be outlining rigging and knots.
Now, Crowkisser had put paid to Arissa, and Ropecharmer was done begging for scraps.
He walks onwards, to the streets where laundry spans the skyline, where little ladders and passthroughs were dropped between windows. Everyone knows each other here. Everyone knows if you don’t belong. Rope belongs.
He collects smiles and nods as he goes. For wasn’t he a good lad? And hadn’t he dealt with a lot, with his parents and all? And hadn’t he done well to sign on with the Shipwright? Running the rigging on a great ship, not the sorry scows and scuttlers that clogged the canals round here.
The door he wants is at the end of the alley, nestled under a little turret that used to be part of the old draper’s shop here.
Coglifter had cannibalised the house much as she cannibalised any old bits and bobs, keeping what was useful, and grafting on where it was needed.
The latest addition was a little belvedere squatting on the roof, windows enough for delicate work, and air to let the fumes out, he suspects.
The door itself is unassuming, a little split-hinge thing, some of that red eastern wood that shines almost brassy. She takes good care of it, keeps a little hatch in it, so she can scry whoever comes knocking, and a little bell above it to announce their presence.
There’s more to it than that, but nothing Rope needs to fuss about. He’s welcome. He’s expected.
He doesn’t even need to knock today. The door opens as he approaches. Another guest is leaving. He sees a familiar face in a heavy cowl, arms tight around one of Cog’s deliveries. Rope gets a nod, a little muttered assurance, which he returns in kind.
Cog’s stood behind him in the doorway, sleeves rolled up and apron on. The cloth one, which means she’s cooking, which is the best news Rope’s had all day. His stomach says hello before she does and she grins.
‘You hungry sprat? Never enough meat on those bones.’
She stretches out an arm to welcome him in, a length of lean muscle sprinkled with wiry grey hair, and the ghost of old burns.
It’s as scarred as the buildings round here.
She lays it heavy over his shoulders, her strong fingers pulling him into the hall and towards the kitchen where already the smell of toasting spice calls to him.
She busses his cheek lightly. ‘Course you’re hungry.’
Cog never takes no for an answer, so he doesn’t argue. She smells as she always does, of her powders and acids, of onion and butter.
The kitchen is small and the table smaller. He takes his usual seat, folding himself on a stool half his size. Coglifter shifts to the stove and agitates a skillet which hisses with salt and sugar, coaxing those onions down into something sweeter.
She sucks her thumb and shoots him a look.
‘Saints, does the wind whip it off you when you’re shimmying up the rigging? Thinner than I’ve ever seen you.’
She cracks the oven, and little waves of heat lap at his ankles.
‘Here. Start with this. No time to lose.’
A little loaf of bread, light and crisp. Cog’s hands are delicate, when they need to be.
She slaps it in front of him with little ceremony. Pointedly nudges a crock of butter over too. ‘Dig in, you limpet.’
Rope does, and forgets how to speak, his mouth flooded with warmth and salt.
She tuts as he eats. ‘Skin and bone lad, and the skin’s giving up the ghost.’
She turns back to the range, and a board laid with legs of poultry. She splits the skin and shanks the bones with quick, economical movements. The flesh is impaled on a skewer and set over a low flame. The bones are put to broth, with some onion and dark roots.
She cracks a bottle open on the edge of the counter and eyes him thoughtfully as she slowly turns the skewers, fat hissing into fire.
‘How are you finding it Rope? Walking that line?’
He shrugs, sucks butter off a thumb. ‘Can’t say as I love it, but I know it’s necessary.’
Cog nods, scrapes at her chin. ‘Practical boy. Keep that head and we’ll come out of this just fine.’
She crosses to the table and sets a second bottle down for him. ‘Drink. These brewed up well.’
He does. She’s not wrong. A thick slick of sour, syrupy ale, tinged with sweetness and fizz. Something sparky on the edge of it. ‘New botanicals?’ he says.
She grins. ‘New chemicals. One of the stone-melters from the last dig. Just a drop or two and you get the zing.’
He frowns. ‘That safe?’
Cog pats his hand companionably. Her palm is callus over callus. ‘Course it is sprat, I still need you.’
She flips the birds, shakes the shit out the skillet and sits next to him for a spell.
‘So, this is a joy, but I know it ain’t just a social. Handsome lad like you has better places to be.’ She elbows him. ‘You seeing anyone? Charming more than ropes? Raising more than sails?’
He snorts.
‘That’s not all I’ve got lad. Plumbed any depths? Found any new harbours?’
‘Gods above, Cog, that’s enough.’
She clinks his bottle. ‘Gods are gone, sprat, they can’t save you from me.’
Ropecharmer says nothing, just stares at the grain on the table while Cog busies herself setting plates and cutlery, lighting a few candles against the coming night.
The table is smooth. It has been sanded and varnished over, and over again to remove the marks of Coglifter’s work, to banish stubborn stains. Yet still the grain persists, something deep in the wood that can’t be scrubbed out. He runs a finger over it, trying to shape the question in his head.
At the stove, Cog doesn’t turn her head, but she sets down the skewers and sighs. ‘Just spit it out lad, I can see it hanging on your shoulders like a tick on a dog.’
Rope coughs and takes another swig. ‘I’ve been hearing things, Cog. Seeing bits of things I don’t rightly understand. I’ve been buying drinks for people in the Towers instead of plumbing depths, as you put it, and the folk I buy drinks for are telling me stuff I can’t square away.’
Cog shutters the flames and leaves the birds to crackle. Turning from the stove, she fixes him with those sharp eyes, like a blackbird running over a hedgerow. ‘What sort of stuff, lad? Out with it.’
Rope picks at the bread. ‘About the Shipwright. And the Shroudweaver.’
Coglifter sucks her teeth. ‘More about him though, I bet.’
He nods. She stirs the bones in their broth and waits.
‘Something went down with Fallon. The scullions and stable hands are too skittish to say much but there’s a couple that like me.’
Cog waggles her eyebrows.
‘Salt and spit, Cog. Relax. We’ve done each other a few favours. They need stuff brought in, medicines, kit. I pick it up when we’re out with Ship and charge it to Fallon’s tab.’
‘Proper accounting lad, s’good. He pays the bills, even the ones we don’t tell him about.’
She rests the ladle in the crook of the pot. ‘So, what happened?’ She already knows, of course, but it’s a good little habit to see if Rope’s staying true, like running your thumb along the edge of a knife.
Rope scrapes at the table with his nail. ‘Some kind of assassination attempt. Crowkisser’s dog, most folk think. The one that crawls through shadows.’ He straightens, rubs a finger over the scar on his neck, ‘The weaver foiled it apparently, with gold magic – god magic.’
This much she knows, but he’s not done.
‘One of the girls that works the ropes on the Cattongue canal says she saw bodies hanging over the water. Says she woke up choking like someone was pouring scalded syrup down her mouth, and there were bodies there, lit up like morning, burning to ash and gold.’
Cog nods as she agitates the broth. It’s catching a little where the meat hits the metal. ‘There’ll be some folk glad to see the last of the evidence gone, I bet. Lot of sins swimming around down there.’