The Dragon's Path

Wester said, nodding politely.
    “How long was I asleep?” she asked.
    “Half the morning. It’s not midday yet.”
    “Is there any food?”
    “Some sausage from last night,” he said, nodding toward the small door of warped wood that led to the only other room.
    Cithrin rose. For years in her life, half a morning’s sleep would have been barely enough to see her through to evening. Now it felt like a luxury. The back room had neither door nor window, so Cithrin lit a thumb-sized stub of candle and carried it back with her. The books, soul and memory of the Vanai bank, hunkered on a wooden palette. A rough oak table supported a carafe of water and a length of greyish sausage. The overwhelming stink came from a tin chamberpot in the corner. Cithrin relieved herself, throwing a double handful of ashes in before putting the lid back in place. She cut a length of sausage and leaned against the table, chewing it. Apple and garlic seasoned the meat. It wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d expected.
    For almost two weeks, her life had been this. Marcuswatched the day, Yardem the night. They ventured outside as little as possible. The only privacy was in the smaller room, and the only light came from the dim window, the fire grate, and a few candles. The supplies were bought with the captain’s money. What he’d earned selling the wool, cart, and mules was in a small leather purse by the door to the street. They’d taken less money for the mules than they could have gotten, but Cithrin thought the Firstblood woman who’d taken them in the end would treat them best.
    She missed the mules.
    Her hair felt greasy and lank. Her only clothes were the ones she’d been given when she became Tag the Carter. She finished the sausage and walked back out.
    “I need clothes,” she said. “I’m not wearing this until spring.”
    “All right,” the captain said. “Only don’t go far until you know the streets. And don’t call attention to yourself. The fewer people realize we’re here, the safer we are.”
    It was what he said every time, as if she would have forgotten since the day before. The Tralgu shifted in his sleep and sighed. She took the purse, tucked it in her pocket, and opened the door. The daylight was like a flood.
    “Cithrin!”
    She turned back. The captain was squatting by the fire, stirring the ashes with a blade, but his eyes were on her and full of concern.
    “Be careful out there,” he said.
    “I know the stakes,” she said, and stepped into the street.
    The salt district was a maze. Buildings two stories high leaned over streets so narrow people couldn’t pass without touching. The curve of the land shaped everything, making it impossible to see very far in any direction, and intersections that seemed to promise a wider path were as likely toend blind. Voices of men and women, Kurtadam, Cinnae, and Firstblood, filled the air. If a man shouted at his wife in this district, the echoes would carry the melody of his anger even as it washed away his individual words.
    Children lurked in the windows and doorways, feral as cats. A few days’ warm weather had melted the filthy snow and left black puddles lurking in the corners, covered with thin skins of ice. There might have been a thousand paths in and out, but Cithrin knew one, and she kept to it. A few minutes’ walk and there was a five-way intersection with one pathway leading northeast. A wider swath of white-hazed sky glowed above it, and Cithrin followed it toward the market, the docks, and the flow of money that kept Porte Oliva alive.
    The Grand Market wasn’t an open square, but a network of covered walks. The rough cobbles of the street gave way to pale tiles. The archways sloped up like hands in folded prayer, great pale windows spilling light down between the stone and iron fingers. Men and women sang and played flutes. Pupeteers played through their little dramas, changed slightly to include a local merchant or political figure in the story. Servants from the great houses and palaces pushed along, enormous wicker baskets on their heads, to supply the dinners of the powerful. The small independent moneylenders—small fish compared to the leviathan of the Medean bank—set up their green felt boards and beam balances. Travelers and sailors came up from the docks to admire the chaos. Merchants called out their wares: bread and fish and meat, cloth and spice and spiritual guidance and never two days in the same configuration.
    Every