Chapter 145: First of the Month

On the first of the month the line for Brother Coin’s tea went up the cistern stairs, out through the door and halfway down the street, and nobody in it complained.

Everyone in that line had swallowed Debt Candy when they signed with the House. The Candy did nothing for a month. Then it killed you, unless you drank Coin’s tea.

Aren stood in it with the tea money in one pocket and the widow’s gold in the other, behind a porter with a bad leg. Down in the Kitchen, between the white pillars, stood a copper urn as big as a well head, and beside it Coin in a clean apron.

"Drink up, drink up!" His voice filled the whole cistern. "Brown tea, the first of every month, and nobody dies. That’s the best bargain in Aurem."

Each debtor paid, drank in front of him and opened their mouth, and Coin looked into every one.

The porter’s tongue was black. By the far stairs it had faded to grey.

’The tea finds the Candy and turns it black as it goes down. Mine has nothing to find. The Scar ate it in Port Myrrh. I still pay, because a man who stops paying gets looked at. Soot on the tongue would fool a porter. Coin has looked into ten thousand mouths.’

"The one-crown man!" Coin beamed and poured. "A loan at the House rate, and the tea on top. You are making me rich, my friend. Drink."

Aren drank. It was bitter, with honey on top to hide it. He opened his mouth, as everyone did.

Coin’s eyes rested on his pink tongue for one breath. Then they came up again, still smiling.

’He saw it, and he won’t say a word. He’ll sell it back to me one day, at the House rate.’

In the Deep Purse, the frost hand on Nil’s back plate still hadn’t melted. ’Something down there touched me, and I felt nothing. That one goes in the book with no price on it.’

Benedek’s price on Rook still hung at the Seven Bells, and Aren still wanted Rook on his roof at dawn for a while yet.

He put the widow’s gold on the lid of the urn. "Benedek’s note. One good core, you said."

Coin weighed the purse in one huge palm and dropped it into his apron. "Business on tea day! And I’d planned to be lazy."

He drew Aren round behind the urn, where the steam hid them both. From under it he pulled Lucan’s ledger, open at a page written all in green.

"Three seasons of dice at the Seven Bells. He signs every note in green ink, like a gentleman, and he loses like one too."

He tore the page out, leaving a narrow green stub in the binding.

"The page is yours. The stub stays with me. It says whose purse the money came out of." He folded the page twice and held it out. "Benedek plays late, at the third table from the stairs. He thinks it’s the lucky one."

’He sold me the paper and kept the hold.’ Aren put the page away. ’Fine. Tonight I only need the paper.’

The workshop was hot. Seren had the middle furnace roaring and her sleeves pushed up, and she was swearing at a pot of marrow root that refused to boil clear. The two side furnaces stood cold.

Under the window stood the morning’s lily in one jar, one pot’s worth, labeled in his big printed capitals. LILY. COLD. DON’T TOUCH.

He filled a cup from the cold jug by the door and put it on the bench beside her.

She took one swallow without looking and held it out at arm’s length in disgust.

"Warm! Every single time, damn it."

"You could drink it faster."

"I could ask the furnace to stop being hot." She went back to her pot. "Are you deaf? Grind, goose."

He did not grind. He sat on the stool and waited until she looked round.

’She knows my lily is clean. If we both keep pretending, two of her furnaces stay cold and we lose money.’

"You put my lily on your glass in the Cellar. You saw the number."

Seren’s hand stopped over the pot.

"New crop." Her voice was perfectly flat. "The south had a wet spring."

"The south had the same spring for the four boys before me. Their lily went into False Glass."

She turned around with the spoon dripping. "You’re a really terrible spy, goose."

"I’m not Auntie’s."

"Everybody in this House is Auntie’s, or Coin’s, or Teeth’s."

"I’m my own. I won’t tell you why my lily comes out clean. I’ll tell you what it’s for."

She said nothing, and she did not throw the spoon at him.

"False Glass eats any lily. Coin wants Marrow, and Marrow wants it clean. I grind clean lily for one pot a night, so one Seren works and two sit in the fire." He nodded at the cold furnaces. "Put one copy at each side furnace. They boil, you press. Three Marrows a night instead of one, and three fees against your debt. I grind for all three. If two hands aren’t enough, I’ll find more. You’re free of Coin in a third of the time."

Her eyes went to the two cold furnaces. "And you?"

"A cut for the lily. I have a loan to pay Coin by spring, at the House rate." He shrugged. "I’d like to still have my hands in the summer."

Seren came and stood over him, close, looking at his hands on his knees. Ordinary hands, a little rough, with lily dust in the creases. Heat came off her like a stove.

"Four years." Her voice had gone quiet. "Four years of lily, and four boys this year alone, and none of them ever gave me a clean ounce. You walked into my cellar and gave me a whole crate." She looked up into his face. "What are you, goose?"

He picked up the pestle and began to grind.

[Seren Veil. Hostility: 81% → 72%.]

’She’d hate me more if I answered.’

Seren lit both side furnaces with a fistful of E-rank cores each and put a hand into each fire to the wrist. Two more Serens stepped out, and the real one went pale.

"Every breath they stand there comes out of me," she said. "When their fire dies, they’re ash. You’d better be fast."

Soon all three furnaces were roaring, and three women with the same face worked side by side.

Aren ground cold and fine, as she liked it, one pinch at a time.

The left copy finished her first boil and held out her hand for lily. He gave her the whole bowl. Then the right copy held out her hand too, and he had nothing left.

The copy stood waiting, and Seren went a shade paler with every breath.

She looked at the empty hand, then at the one small bowl.

"Goose," she said. "You’d need two of you."

"I’m working on it."

The Seven Bells stood on the Fourth Ring, three floors of white stone where the sons of good houses lost their allowances in comfort. Aren went in after dark, in his cheapest coat, with the rag over his face. Half the young men on the Fourth Ring wore cloth against the Well dust. The doorman let him in after one glance, because the coat said he would lose quickly.

[False Face: Concealment active.]

Along the back wall hung the prices, sealed papers on a board of black wood. Only the hand that had sealed a price could take it down. Near the top, under a fresh green seal:

The fence called Rook. Paid on proof. B.

Benedek sat at the third table from the stairs, short and soft in a grey coat, rolling dice with his gloves on. He had a small pile of chips. Everyone else at the table had a big one.

Aren took the empty chair at his left and laid the green page face up among the dice.

[Benedek. Rank C. Hostility: 0%.]

Benedek looked down at three seasons of his own signature, and the color went out of his soft face. Then he smiled pleasantly, which was well done.

"Gentlemen," he announced, "my friend wants a private word."

The silk coats knew whose steward he was. They took their chips and went.

"Coin sold you that. He sells everybody. What do you want for it?"

"Your paper on the wall, about the fence."

Benedek didn’t look at the board. "The fence kept my money and took two of my men."

"And now he’s taking your note." Aren pushed it an inch toward him. "Prince Lucan buys the bride’s curtains through you. I wonder how long you’d keep your keys if he read which steward owes the House."

[Benedek. Hostility: 0% → 38%.]

Benedek looked at the note. Then he took off one glove, finger by finger, and walked to the back wall. He pressed his bare thumb to the green seal, and it let go of the wood with a small dry sound. He came back and laid the price down beside the note.

Aren held one corner of it in the lamp, let it burn down to his fingers, and dropped the last of it in the dice cup.

Then he slid the note across.

Benedek stared at it. "You’re giving it back?"

’If I keep the note, I’m the one man in Aurem he has to find. If he has it back, the danger sits in Coin’s stub, and nobody’s knives reach Coin.’

’He wanted Rook quiet about that book on the key. Now a dead Rook costs him a prince.’

"Coin kept a stub of that page. The day the fence dies, I buy it, and I’ll have the money." Aren stood up. "If the fence dies of anything, a fall, a fever, a bad fish, Prince Lucan reads it. Try to buy it first, and Coin sells me that too. Keep the note. You’ll lose again before spring."

Benedek put the note inside his coat and looked up at the rag. Aren watched him try to fix the face behind it, and watched his eyes slide off it every time.

"I won’t remember you," the steward said slowly.

"No."

Rook was already on the roof, coat on, which he never wore before the second bell.

"You smell of the Bells’ lamp oil, stone-seller. Walk down with me. I like to look at my price in the morning. It tells me where I stand."

At the Seven Bells a boy was dusting the board with a broom. Near the top there was a pale square where a paper had hung.

The boy came over, because Rook tipped well. The steward had taken it down himself last night, and then sat at the table until morning without rolling once. A young man in a rag had sat with him, and the boy couldn’t remember anything else about him. It bothered him.

Aren shrugged. "Aurem’s full of men in rags."

"That’s what I told him." Outside, Rook looked at Aren with his tired eyes. "That was the widow’s gold, stone-seller. All of it. It cost more than my price was worth."

"It was cheaper than a funeral."

"Not for you." Rook looked away down the street. "I’ll remember it. That’s all."

[Rook. Hostility: 57% → 49%.]

He took his coat off and folded it over his arm.

"I put this on to run," he said. "Now I’ll be hot all day."