He took Pavek’s silver piece in exchange for a Ral’s Bream packet that was dingy with dust In the day’s second unexpected burst of charity, Nekkinrod offered water from his own cistern for the paste and, figuring that he was as safe in the middle of the elven market as he’d be anywhere else in the city, Pavek accepted.
He tasted a few grains of the bright yellow powder. They were breathtakingly bitter and numbed his tongue to its root. Slathering the paste over his elbow was every bit as painful as he’d feared, but the joint deadened almost at once.
“It works! It’s going to be all right,” he sighed and allowed himself a glimmer of hope.
“One won’t be enough. Not for that. Three more,” the drunken elf insisted, holding up four ringers.
Pavek’s heart sank. With the messenger’s charity and every ceramic chip left in Sassel’s purse, he couldn’t buy another packet. “Credit? I’ll pay you when I can work again.”
The elf doubled with laughter, reeling and staggering through his stock in the process. A roof board collapsed, revealing rust-colored sky. Between Josa and Nekkinrod, Pavek had lost the entire afternoon in the elven market. The palace bell would ring soon, signalling the moment when the gates closed. He hadn’t eaten yet and the breadth of Urik lay between him and the squatters’ quarter where his moonlit silhouette was no longer so intimidating.
“If I come back tomorrow with silver, do you have four packets of Ral’s Breath? Old packets like the one I just bought.”
Nekkinrod caught his breath with a rheumy cough. “Four times four, and all as old as you,” he said before succumbing to another gale of laughter.
Pavek didn’t wait for a more coherent answer. He bought a loaf of bread before leaving the elven market. It was slaves’ bread, more sand than flour, and crunched loudly as he chewed; no wonder slaves were toothless by the time they were thirty—if they lived that long.
If he lived that long.
His elbow tingled as the astringent Ral’s Breath did its work, leaching the poisons from his blood. It was a start, but not a healing, and the poultice would only make the infection worse if he didn’t scrounge up four silver pieces. Scrounge.
Pavek shook his head ruefully. There was no way he’d scrounge four silver pieces; he’d have to steal them—one-armed and seedy with fever. His chances were nil and none, but he blended into the foot traffic milling toward the gates, hoping to target a prosperous, careless farmer returning home after a successful market day.
But mekillots would fly before prosperity and carelessness were linked on the streets of Urik. He reached the southern gate as poor as he’d been in the market.
At least the regulators and inspectors on duty at the gate didn’t recognize him.
There was a red-lettered sign on the side of gatehouse. His name was written in hand-high letters along with his general description and the promise of twenty, not ten, gold pieces for the templar who handed him over to the High Bureau. Escrissar roust know he was still alive and must want him in the worst way. And watching the inspectors harass every tall, black-haired human trying to leave the city, he realized Josa was right: he wasn’t going to leave Urik.
That was almost a relief. Aside from a few routine messenger assignments to the market villages, he’d never been out of the city and had never experienced an urge to travel. Whenever he thought of the druids he hoped to join, Pavek imagined them dwelling in the customhouse. He simply couldn’t imagine living in a place without walls.
But the close scrutiny meant Pavek couldn’t linger around the gates until they shut. He worked his way through the artisan quarters instead.
* * *
Prudent citizens lived soberly above their shops and provided nothing for a desperate opportunist, but not every citizen was prudent. Pavek took note of several raucous taverns whose patrons would eventually have to depart for home, with, one hoped, a few coins left in their purses.
But only a few. The men and women who walked the streets after midnight with four silver pieces in their purses dwelt in the better quarters of the city, where they were protected by bodyguards and magic. Pavek resigned himself to committing a dozen crimes before sunrise, before me benefits of his one dose of real Ral’s Breath wore off.
He made himself scarce in the borderland between the squatters’ quarter and the customhouse, not far from Joat’s Place. The