CHAPTER X

When’s the last time you did any… you know, Senta stuff? Yesterday, I managed some dreamcasting. It’s how we see the truth beneath people’s lives, like the way dreams are true with what they say, but never in how they say it. Sorry, I guess you don’t know about that. It’s like dreaming. We’re wide awake. It’s real, but it’s not real. It’s hard to explain without a koan.

Which one is that?

What were your hands before you were born?

I don’t get it.

Hands are the thing that make you a man, Jona. Without them, what are you?

I don’t know. What is that supposed to mean?

It’s dreamcasting. It’s one of the koans that reveals the truths of the world. I was meditating on it, then I went walking around, looking for signs it might be working, and I went into this butcher shop, and I asked him for the best sausage he had. He handed me the closest sausage to his hand. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it.

I asked the butcher how he knew which sausage was the best.

He told me that every sausage was his best.

Then, I saw him having the same conversation with his sons about which one of his sons was the best, and then I saw his sons having this same conversation with their sons, forward and backward in time a thousand generations.

Are you meditating on me right now?

Oh, I can never concentrate naked.

***

Fear becomes normal, like walking with a limp. You have to walk. I went out with my brother. Rachel double-checked her clothes for holes. She re-tied the lashes at her sleeves. It would be too easy to leave the edge of a scale out, black and shining like a dark coin. She wouldn’t even feel it.

Sentas, strict adherents of a disciplined faith, cover themselves up all the time, no matter where they are. They wear long, flowing pants or dresses, and always rugged boots. They wear two long leather strips, stained red, that cross over their chest. This is supposed to symbolize the Unity. Rachel’s leather strips fanned out, ragged and frayed, from her belt to her boots.

In these clothes, Rachel could hide everything but her face, her hands, and her hair. Seeing her on the street, no one would bother her. She kept away from the kinds of places a good Senta might go for coin: rich houses, opera halls. She kept away from temples and the men of law. Her clothes had a shadow.

People didn’t seem to bother looking closely at her behind the Senta leathers. They just saw her clothes. Uniforms were like that.

Djoss stretched, and flipped the dust off his cloak. “Ready?”

“Check me,” she replied, “can you see anything?”

“No,” he said. He wasn’t looking at her. “Let’s go.”

“Djoss!” she said, “Check me!”

He sighed. “Nobody will look at you out there.”

“Just check me out, okay?” She pulled her hair up over her head so she could see her whole back. Djoss found a place on the collar where her cloak had pulled it down. No scales were showing, but he flipped it up just the same.

“See,” she said.

“Nothing was showing,” Djoss huffed.

“This time. We need to think about replacing my clothes soon. It’s been a while.”

“I’ll ask around,” he said. “Turco knows people.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“He’s been honest with me so far. He’s not a bad fellow if you gave him half a chance.”

“Be careful,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. If you get arrested, or killed…”

Rachel’s sweat ate through the cloth eventually, and she wore one layer of rags to take the brunt of it. In the heat of Dogsland, sweat leaked out like tears from her scales day and night. She had gone through the rags beneath, replacing them again and again with Djoss’ help. Replacing her Senta leathers, unlike just rags, would be hard if Djoss wasn’t around. Sometimes, a good Senta might dreamcast too much of the truth of her life. They’d know.

Rachel hadn’t been outside the building in weeks. She was hiding out, sweating out the fear of all that time spent sleeping in alleys, with the sound of boots stomping through the street late at night, and men with bats chasing her and her brother away if they weren’t hiding enough, looking hard at them, after anything that could be used against them—a tongue or a glittering scale, for instance.

The streets smelled worse than the muddy basement room. Households emptied their chamber pots in the alleys between the houses, sending waste flowing through the mud in a vast delta of silt and filth towards the sewer drains. Somewhere, below the mud, there used to be cobblestones. Mud and piss and rain crawled to the salt flats south of the city, where land melted into the ocean like wet, frayed silk.

On the streets, men wrapped their boots in full spats. Women wore their skirts to their knees to keep the fringes from the mud, and long boots with cloth bindings covered their legs.

The wealthy all carried parasols because it would rain soon, and when it wasn’t raining, the sun was hot, hot.

Djoss’ shirt reeked of sweat. Rachel kept close to him, and the acrid stench of his body drowned out the rest of the city smells.

Djoss waved at a vendor with a huge conical hat. “That guy’s totally off,” he said to Rachel. “Talk with him a minute and he starts babbling about how the king’s coins are reading his mind. He won’t accept local coins. Only foreign ones.”

Further down the road, Djoss took a left. “It’s easy to get to the pub,” he said, “You just hang a left right there at the crazy guy, and straight to the river. When I’m not out with Turco’s crew, I’m there.”

“How do you hide what you carry for him?”

“Meat,” said Djoss. “Heavy, but it makes you move faster on account of the weight. Sell of chunks of meat if I can. Sew it up and keep walking. Gets lighter as I go.”

A left into emptiness, a vacant street where the only sign of life was a lamp-lighter’s cart. Rachel and Djoss walked up an empty hill for two blocks. At the top of the hill, a few cobblestones poked up through the mud that wept down the rest of the road along the sides of the hill. River sailors passed the night in a string of inns and pubs and cheap brothels at the bottom of the hill. The hot baths were more popular than the girls.

Djoss led Rachel down the other side of the hill to a pub that squatted on a high wall over the river dike’s edge. Disheveled men slumped in sleep along the benches lining the river’s edge, pissing off the piers when they woke up.

He was working tonight, and needed to stay near the door. She walked in alone. She pushed for room between two drunk women, and raised her hand for service.

She turned around to see where Djoss was, but couldn’t see the door past the swarming crowd. When she turned back to the bar, the harried barmaid was in her face, impatiently waiting. Rachel ordered a single drink and looked around the bar for a place to sit. She wanted her back to a wall, so she could watch everything.

A bartender pounded a bell three times. A cheer went up, but there didn’t seem to be a reason why. Rachel sat down where she could. She raised her hand at the tavern boy when he came by lugging bowls of soup, and paid him quickly.

Rachel searched for some kind of silverware. She saw none. She looked over her shoulder. A man nearby was slurping from the bowl in his hands. He managed to do it without spilling a drop on his shirt.

Everyone was shouting over the music, so the musicians played louder, and it all escalated. Rachel had to shout to get the barmaid back. She gestured at her bowl of soup for silverware.

The barmaid shouted. “No more spoons!”

Rachel didn’t want to spill it all on her clothes. She picked up the bowl carefully. She tried to figure out how to maneuver the soup into her mouth slowly and carefully. The brim of the bowl flattened out at the edge, and it made drinking it precarious.

People stopped talking to watch two fighters bounced. Djoss pushed through the crowd to bounce them. He got them both in his arms, a giant next to these brawlers who stilled in Djoss’ shadow. He got his arms around their necks and dragged them into the street. He looked like he was half horse, dragging those two smaller men.

Rachel leaned to the man on her right without looking at him. It felt daring to talk to anyone after so much time hiding. “What do you think they’re fighting about?” The man wasn’t paying attention to her. He was talking to a woman on his other side. She touched his arm. “Hey,” she said.

The man turned her way, frowning. “What is it?”

“Hey, what do you think those men were fighting about?”

“I don’t know,” he grunted, turning from her. The woman he’d been talking to had disappeared. He turned back to Rachel. The way he moved, he must have plenty to drink already.

“This your soup?”

She picked up the bowl gently. “I guess so.”

“I’ve got a spoon, if you want.” He reached back into his pockets and pulled it out, holding it up to her. She shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t want your spoon,” she said. He’d probably want it back. He probably wouldn’t wash it. He might use it right there, where it might make him sick right there.

“How about a handkerchief?”

“No, thank you.”

“You’re going to need it.”

“Am I?” she said. She decided that she didn’t like this man very much. She looked around for her brother. She didn’t see him. She leaned closer to the stranger anyway. “I’m here with someone,” she said. “I don’t see him, but I’ll use his handkerchief if I need it.”

“That fellow, is he here where you need him?”

She laughed. “He works here.”

“Good for a man to work where you can keep an eye on him.”

“I’ve never been here before.”

“My name’s Salvatore.”

“I’m not telling you my name.”

“You should,” he said. “It’s polite.”

“It isn’t polite to push your name on someone who doesn’t want it,” she said.

With a recklessness she didn’t feel, she picked up the soup bowl and threw it back like medicine. Soup spilled on her face and a little on her collar. He held up the handkerchief for her with a smile. She accepted it, unsmiling. The handkerchief smelled like soap. This wasn’t the place for those kinds of handkerchiefs.

Rachel did a mental check for her money. She didn’t have much, and she still felt it in the crease of her clothes. She put the handkerchief into the pocket where she kept her coins.

“I’m keeping this.”

She slipped the coins out from underneath the handkerchief, and hid them in her palm. Then she reached down to adjust her boot, dropping the coins down inside, where she’d feel them against her heel all night. Her scales and claws wouldn’t chafe.

Salvatore smiled lazily. “Want to dance?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I can’t. I don’t know how.”

He laughed at her. He pulled her arm, and she let him drag her up from the bar to the center of the crowd. He was a drunk enough that he kept laughing too long even if it wasn’t so funny.

Rachel let him spin her around the room. He had a stiff back, but he was light enough on his feet to keep her from falling back into anyone. She clenched at the feeling of his hand against the small of her back. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the strange clicking of scales beneath the cloth. She hoped he wouldn’t step on her toes, either, and then she might have to explain the bumps where her talons hid in her boots.

Salvatore spun her around, and threw her backwards in a deep dip.

He was handsome enough for one dance, and he hadn’t stepped on her foot, yet. Rachel kept one hand on his back, and the other trapped in his palm. His skin reeked of smoke and soap, and his hands were too clean. The song ended. She gestured with her head to tell him to stop.

He led her back to their seats. Her soup bowl had disappeared before she could drop it on the floor to try and break it. He bought her a new drink. She thought about leaving.

“Why?” she said.

He grinned. “No reason.”

She was thirsty enough from dancing to want it. She didn’t want to make a scene with this man, whom she would be leaving as soon as she was done with the drink. She wanted to be polite, so she could leave without a scene. He stared at her. She drank fast.

She cocked her head. “So say something.”

He laughed. “I never know what to say.”

“Don’t just sit there like a snapping turtle,” she said. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“I’m trying to think of the right thing to say. I think I got it. Your eyes are like two bright shiny coins. You dance like a silk ribbon.” He bought her a fresh drink. Her mug was gone to the dishwater behind the bar, and she thought maybe her soup bowl would be all right there.

“I do not. Be careful what you wish for…”

“I just might get it?”

“No,” said Rachel, “Let me finish. Be careful what you wish for when a woman’s involved, because she’ll probably get what she wishes for instead and you won’t like it.”

“What is it that you wish for?”

“Better company.” Rachel pulled her chair away from him. “I’m leaving.” She stood up, and walked to the front where Djoss stood glowering at everyone. She handed her glass to him.

“Hm? Oh, thanks.” He tossed the glass back.

She walked out the door, and waved over her shoulder to her brother.

“You just got here!” he called out to her.

“Be safe,” she shouted.

Alone, Rachel walked carefully along the way her brother had shown her. The odd merchant was still open, shouting at a man nearby. Rachel went to the back side of his cart and slipped a jar of pickled eggs from the display, holding it to her side while she walked away.

She turned down the road to the bakery, cradling the eggs. She couldn’t remember if she liked pickled eggs or not. If she didn’t like them, she could give them to Djoss. He ate anything. They’d both gone hungry too many times to care much about liking the food they had.

Inside her room, with the door locked, she listened to the sounds of the night. A voice cried out a woman’s name, and someone pounded on a building wall. Then it was quiet again.

In the morning, she decided she was going to find Turco. She needed to get out, get working, like her brother did. The fear remained, always, but it couldn’t be the only emotion she allowed herself to feel.

***

Jona had seen it all that night. He never told her about that. He had watched her, with Salvatore, not knowing who or what she was—who she was going to be. Jona thought a Senta ought to know better when a demon child was touching her hand.

Salvatore was a fool for pursuing someone that might see through him, but Salvatore was lost in his own habits and loving a woman who didn’t quite fit among the people in the room around her, in the taverns of the night, or the secret temple.

Jona followed Salvatore out of the tavern, into the street. He watched the thief walk up the same road after her. Watching this, disdain swelled up like an acrid belch from Jona’s heart. Salvatore had already forgotten Aggie.

Salvatore was at the baker’s door. He was reaching for the handle. Jona shouted Salvatore’s name. Salvatore turned, startled, and Jona shook his head.

The thief slammed the wall with his blackjack —then took off, running.

***

The second time Jona saw Rachel, she was walking through the Pens, stopping at every servant’s door and asking for work. She looked familiar, and he couldn’t place her right away, in the daylight and a crowded street. How much love begins with déjà vu?

Jona waved off Tripoli, and said he’d be back in a minute, he thought he recognized someone. Jona ran a little farther down the road. He saw her walking up to a man with a long moustache loitering at a red door. That red door wasn’t the kind of place Jona would go without a whole crew behind him, ringing bells and enough solid evidence to arrest everyone inside.

The red-dressed man in the red door smiled like he knew her, but that’s always how these things were. Jona had seen these sorts of greetings. In a city street, anything could happen. A man could stand with a giant slab of meat on his leg on a street corner for hours. People could be running from nothing and everything. Tiny sparrows could be walking around among the legs of people as sure of step as if they were six feet tall. Jona saw a beautiful woman he thought he recognized in Senta leathers talking to some street gang’s watch-out man. It was so normal, but it was so strange. She didn’t like him, but she talked to him. He wouldn’t leave his place casually, because he was the watch-out man, but he got up for her and walked her down the street.

Tripoli saw it, too, and took up step after Jona even though he’d been waved off. The two king’s men nodded at each other. Watch-out man walking anywhere got their attention, and he wasn’t leading another troublemaker. The crowd parted for them, but the two they followed didn’t seem to notice. Jona and Tripoli walked along behind the pair a while, watching from a distance.

The watch-out man wore nothing but red. He was easy to spot in a crowd of so much dirt browns and burlaps. He walked her to a door. It was a brothel door. Sentas didn’t work brothels, and if she was a working girl, she was overdressed and not wearing any rouge or powder.

Tripoli shook his head. “What do you think that’s about?”

“Don’t know. Don’t like seeing watch-out men walking around like that. Don’t he care for what his people think?”

“Probably nothing. His sister or something.”

“Don’t see Sentas here much,” said Jona. “Never seen one with a watch-out man.”

Jona felt the tickling of memory in the back of his mind. The tavern had been dark. The street had been dark. He had been too busy watching Salvatore to get more than a passing glance. Come daylight, she could have been anyone to him. She didn’t have to be anyone.

If he had gone further, he’d have seen the Senta in a broom closet, going through the brushes and the rags. Then, he’d see her pulling sheets from a line. Turco took a cut of her first few weeks’ pay.

That’s the story of her day, when she tells him about it. She worked a few nights, then moved on to a new brothel. Then another, when she thought the hallways were too bright during the day, and wanted to work at night. Her shadow was harder to miss at night. She stayed at that one a while, but Turco found out and he was taking a cut of her pay because he got her the job in the first place.

Everybody needed another maid. Anyone who could would get more coin working in the bed than cleaning it, and it wasn’t so hard to lie back and encourage a man.

By the time Jona remembered who she was, she had long since drifted into new jobs, and there was no finding her without raising people’s attention about it. She wasn’t with Salvatore, Jona knew. She was just a woman in the street, with a life as mysterious as anyone’s.