Colour Beneath the Skin

The cover caught on the gate’s lower hinge. Eiran tugged at it before he could think. Pain shot through his shoulder and beneath his shoulder blade.

He stood in the narrow passage, pressing the panels against his stomach. The rusted iron held a fold of canvas. He had to step back, lift the cloth off the hook and turn the bundle sideways. Only then could he get through.

Beyond the gate, it smelled of wet lime.

He eased it back to where it had been and stood against the wall. Through the gap he could see part of the alley, a drain and the legs of people walking towards the canal. Two pairs of boots passed the entrance. Then a handcart went by; one wheel knocked with every turn.

He waited until the sound faded.

He had last seen the man in the coat fastened to the throat before dawn, across the canal. Or at least he thought it was the same man. During the night he had learnt to suspect anyone who stopped when he did. He had circled the same bakery twice, waited out a change of patrol beneath a flight of steps and doubled back along a street he had just come from. He did not want to lead anyone here.

Now he stood on the packed earth of the old dyehouse and did not know whether to wait any longer.

He laid the cover on the stone rim of the well. From beneath his arm he took two pieces of waxed cloth, bought on the way at a stall already open by the landing. He had chosen a piece with a damaged edge, cheaper than the others. The seller had cut it in half without asking what he needed it for. Eiran had taken his change and left before he began to count it.

The wax had hardened along the creases. He held the cloth to the light. One half had a few small holes left by a seam. He would have to double it over.

The bases of the vats remained in the yard, with shallow channels where the water had drained away. A nettle grew from one. Where the barrels had once stood, dark semicircles marked the wall. Higher up, the plaster was coming away.

A bucket still hung in the well. Eiran drew it up, hauling in the rope a little at a time. He drank from his hand. The water tasted of stone and old wood, but he swallowed some more. Then he set the bucket beside the stairs and went back for the panels.

The door to the stairs had swollen with damp. He held the bundle in place with his knee, pressed the latch and pushed. The lower edge scraped so loudly across the floor that he looked back at the gate.

No one came through it.

On the stairs he immediately found the place to avoid. The fourth step from the bottom sagged beside the wall. As a boy, he had taken it at a run and jumped over it. Now he stepped closer to the handrail and shifted his weight carefully, feeling the panels against his aching shoulder.

His mother used to change her shoes on the second step from the top.

He remembered her bare heels beside the pot he brought her food in. She put her wet shoes on a lower step so they would not drip onto the dry ones. One day she had told him to undo the laces because she could not straighten her fingers. She had grown angry when he pulled the wrong end.

He stopped on that very step. Thousands of feet had worn a hollow in the wood. He ran his sole over it.

It was dry upstairs.

Long gaps beneath the eaves let in air. Ends of cord hung between the beams, and two empty racks for hanging cloth lay beside the wall. One had fallen on its side. Light passed through its crossbars, laying narrow stripes across the floor.

Eiran propped the cover against a post, fetched the bucket from the stairs and left it on the threshold.

Beneath the window he found a gap between the floorboards. The ordinary key to the studio went halfway in. He used it to lever up the edge, slipped his fingers beneath it and lifted the short board. The second came out more easily.

A coil of string and scraps of paper lay in the shallow space between the joists. Expensive dyes had once been kept here, away from the wet ground floor. Eiran remembered open packets and being told to keep his hands out. He felt the bottom and corners of the hiding place. The wood was dry. He took out the paper.

Both panels should fit.

He spread out the waxed cloth and slid the first painting from the cover. The Gate lay across his knees. Near one corner, the ground had an old crack. He examined it closely. He could see no fresh chip.

In the painting, the woman still carried her basket. The donkey walked towards the well; the child pulled a toy. As Eiran shifted the panel, the light on the floor moved across the painted cobbles. He tilted it back.

Nothing had changed.

He examined the back and edges. He wrapped the painting loosely, leaving folds of waxed cloth at the corners. The stitch holes lay beneath a second layer.

The Study of Meran was smaller.

For a moment he held it in both hands before laying it on the cloth. In the morning light, the unfinished face looked less distinct than it had in the studio. The clothing, though, retained its weight and sheen. Saeron had given so much attention to the folds beneath the arm that Eiran instinctively studied the place where paint mimicked a seam pressing into flesh.

Then he looked beneath the left ear.

The red line was still there.

He lifted the panel to tuck the folded edge of the cloth beneath it. The chipped corner slid across his hand.

He felt a brief tug at his skin.

He set down the painting and spread his thumb and forefinger. A drop of blood gathered on the web of skin between them. He tilted his hand before it could fall. It ran along his thumb and stopped beside the nail.

“Damn.”

He pressed the underside of his sleeve to the cut. He held it there for a moment, looking at the study. There was no blood on the cloth beneath the panel.

He got up to fetch the bucket. As he bent down, dried mud inside his boot scraped his ankle. Only now did he feel how swollen his feet were.

He sat by the threshold and scooped up water in his left hand. He poured it over the cut. The blood spread in a thin streak along his wrist. Again. On the third rinse he saw a red-brown thread, shorter than a fingernail.

He rubbed it with the wet thumb of his other hand.

It did not come off.

There were flecks of dark paint on his skin as well. One crumbled beneath his nail; another came away on his sleeve. He knew those stains. As he worked, pigment would lodge in cracks he had not even felt before; sometimes it stayed on his hands for days.

He stretched the skin between his fingers.

The thread stretched with it.

The fine lines of his skin were visible above the colour. Where the corner of the panel had cut his hand, the split was paler and beginning to grow wet again. Eiran wiped it carefully. The red beneath remained distinct.

He tilted his hand towards the light. From this angle the mark looked darker. He turned his wrist and for a moment could scarcely see it.

He might have rubbed the paint deeper when his fingers clenched by reflex.

He scooped up more water. This time he rubbed longer, until the skin around the cut turned pink. The pain built slowly, burning. He stopped when another drop of blood welled from the wound.

Something struck the wall below.

Eiran jerked his head up. He held his sleeve against his hand and listened. Through the gate came the squeak of wheels, then someone’s brief curse. The handcart rolled on.

Only then did he notice the ordinary key on the floor beside the open hiding place.

He stood and slipped it into his coat pocket. Through the fabric of his jacket he checked that the silver one was still there. The Study of Meran still lay uncovered. He turned to it, carefully taking hold of the undamaged edges. His hand stung when he opened it, but with his fingers closed he could barely feel the wound.

At the bottom of the hiding place he laid two dry slats taken from the rack. He placed the separately wrapped paintings on them, leaving space between the bundles. The folded cover went beside them.

The floorboards would only fit back into place after he turned one of them round. Eiran pressed it down with his knee.

He rubbed dust from beneath the rack into the pale line along the edge, then backed away towards the stairs. From there, the floor looked almost as it had before.

He leaned against a post. Without the weight of the paintings, his shoulder throbbed harder. The drying loft was quiet, and a dry, acrid smell was beginning to return as the wood warmed. He could sit for a moment. Rest his head, close his eyes.

He looked at the empty patch of floor where the cover had just been.

Perhaps Lira had found a corner like this too.

All night he had imagined her still by that wall, or wandering somewhere near the studio, angry that he was taking so long to come back. He had no reason to believe she was still there. He knew only where to begin.

He picked up the bucket.

In the yard he tipped the remaining water into the drain and lowered the bucket into the well. Before going through the gate, he checked the street. It was brighter and busier than when he had come in. Someone opened a shutter above the passage; a wet rag dropped onto the sill.

Eiran adjusted his coat, covering the inner pocket with the key. He kept his right hand loose so the edges of the cut would not pull with every step.

At the junction he turned towards the market by Saeron’s studio.

At the market, the first thing he saw was the empty space where a cart had stood.

A rectangle of dry dust remained on the cobbles, broken by wet footprints. Farther on, women were setting out baskets; someone drove a wooden wedge beneath a table leg. An upstairs shutter at the studio had been opened. Eiran walked along the opposite wall, well away from the yard. He saw Saeron’s door for only a moment, between a passer-by’s shoulder and the canvas over a stall. It was closed.

He stopped beside a basket of onions.

“I won’t pick them out for you,” the stallholder said.

He had not touched the goods. Only after a moment did he realise that he was standing so close he blocked them from the view of people coming from the well.

He stepped back.

“I’m looking for a girl.”

The woman shook dry skins from her apron. The skin on her fingers was cracked, and a pale burn scar showed below a sleeve that was too short.

“I don’t sell girls.”

“Lira.”

She did not look at him at once. She picked a soft onion from the basket, pressed it with her thumb and put it beneath the table. Only then did she study his face.

“They were looking for her yesterday too.”

Behind him, Eiran heard a basket thump down on the stones. He turned his head too quickly. Two men were arguing over a place by the well; one held a broken stave and was showing it to the other.

“Who?”

“They weren’t asking for you.”

The woman pushed the basket of onions aside and drew a sack of small broad beans towards her. She spread a piece of cloth on the table. Eiran slipped his uninjured hand into his pocket. Sweat had stuck the coins together; he prised one loose with his nail and laid it beside her hand.

She covered it with the cloth.

“How much?” she asked more loudly.

“A handful.”

“You can have more for that.”

“The rest later.”

She did not return the coin. She poured out the beans, tied the corners of the cloth and slid the bundle across the table. When Eiran reached for it, she held it down with two fingers.

“You’re with the painter.”

He nodded.

“I saw you together. Her face was already battered then.”

“A guard pinned her against a wall.”

“And then she went with you.”

The stone wall warmed the space behind the stall. Beneath the smell of onions he could detect the sourness of something rotten, hidden at the bottom of the basket. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“She stayed outside the studio. When I came out, she was gone.”

“I’d go too, if they told me to wait outside a door like that.”

“Do you know her?”

“She carries baskets for me. Doesn’t always bring them all back.”

She let go of the bundle. Eiran slipped it into his outer pocket, away from the keys.

“Those men. How many were there?”

The woman scooped beans into a measure and poured them back into the sack.

“Two stood here. I wasn’t counting the whole street.”

“Were they wearing colours?”

“Coats. One kept his gloves on, though he touched everything. Pushed the goods about as if he expected to find her under the onions.”

Eiran looked towards the studio. The stall’s canvas hid the door.

“What did they ask?”

“Where children sleep when it rains. Under which steps. Whether the sheds by the river can be locked from inside.”

“Did they say what they wanted with her?”

“That she’d taken something.”

The woman tilted the sack. The beans shifted with a dry rustle. Among the whole ones were others, black and gnawed; she picked them out without looking at her hands.

“And you?” she asked. “Lost something too?”

The silver key pressed against him through the lining. Eiran moved his elbow away from his side.

“I have what I was looking for.”

The stallholder waited.

“I want to find her.”

“That’s what they all say at first.”

A woman with a pot came to the stall. The stallholder measured out beans for her, took her money and waited with her hand out until the woman added another small coin. Eiran moved to the end of the table. He could leave now, go back to the wall where he had left Lira and look into the same empty passage once more.

When the customer moved on, the stallholder looked up at him.

“If they come back, what am I to say?”

“That you haven’t seen me.”

She looked at the place where the woman with the pot had just stood.

Eiran pressed his lips together.

“That I asked, and you didn’t know.”

“They saw you with her too. They might want to check whether we tell the same story.”

For a moment he could not answer.

“I won’t come back with men,” he said at last.

The stallholder moved the sack to the other side of the bench, leaving a space between it and the wall. Eiran stepped out of the middle of the passage. Now she did not have to raise her voice for him to hear.

A thin arm slipped beneath the table. The boy who had brought the basket picked two beans out of the mud and dropped them into his pocket. The stallholder tapped the measure on the tabletop.

“Not those. They’ve been lying in water.”

The boy looked at Eiran and went still. His trouser legs were unevenly rolled, one dark as far as the knee. Fibres from a split sack clung round his ankle.

“He’s asking about Lira,” the woman said.

“Didn’t see her.”

“You told me she got into the ropeworks.”

“Didn’t see her come out.”

Eiran crouched by the end of the bench. He rested his right hand on his thigh so he would not put weight on the cut.

“Did you go in after her?”

The boy shook his head.

“I left the basket. She took it to stand on under the window. She was meant to give it back.”

“When?”

“In the night. It was raining.”

“Was she alone?”

The boy glanced at the stallholder.

“She took the basket on her own.”

“She went through the window?”

“Looked behind her first. Then climbed in. Didn’t want me standing in the street.”

The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve, leaving a wet streak on his skin.

“Did you tell anyone else?”

He glanced at the stallholder, then lowered his eyes. The woman moved the measure closer to the edge of the table.

“You’ve told him now. Before that, me.”

“What about those men?”

“I spoke to them myself.”

Eiran looked towards the ways out of the market. They need not have heard about the ropeworks here. They had asked about shelter, and there were few places by the river. Even so, the boy tucked his hands beneath his arms as though he had been caught giving the girl away.

“She’ll bring your basket back,” Eiran said.

It sounded more certain than he had intended. The stallholder said nothing.

Eiran straightened slowly. He could keep asking about the hour, the weather, every word the girl had said. The child was already backing behind the bench. The boy had given him a place to look.

“Which window?”

“On the side by the net shed. Downstairs. There’s no glass.”

The boy took the wet beans from his pocket. The stallholder held out the empty measure for them, took some others from the sack and poured them into his hand. Eiran turned towards the river.

“Don’t take him with you,” she said behind him.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“And don’t tell anyone there who told you.”

He nodded. He moved slowly through the crowd, aware of the added weight of the beans at his hip. He had spent more on them than he had meant to spend on food all day. He could go back and ask for the change. Instead, he broke a stalk off his coat with his nail and dropped it into the drain.

The way to the ropeworks ran along a row of low sheds. Some had their doors wide open; others were fastened from outside with wooden bolts. A man standing ankle-deep in water was hanging a net between posts. Eiran waited while he pulled the weighted edge across the passage.

He remembered how long the ropeworks was. As a child, he had taken a shortcut along its wall, where a strip of ground stayed dry even in the rain. Now the gutter had broken away above the middle, and water had cut a deep groove in the earth. A locked hasp hung at the main entrance. Someone had also tied it with a leather thong whose ends had blackened with damp.

He found the broken window on the side facing the shed.

An overturned basket lay beneath it. The bottom was dented, and one hoop had come loose from the weave. A broad streak had been wiped through the wet film on the stone sill. Eiran touched it with a fingertip. He could not have said who had last passed through, or how many times. He saw a dark hair beside the frame, but when he tried to pick it up, it came apart into short rope fibres.

He left them.

Through the window he could see the empty ground-floor room, scraps of hemp in the hollows of the floor and a motionless wheel on a wooden axle. Light seeped in from the other side of the room. A side door had been left ajar; the bolt had been pulled from its bracket, which now hung by a single nail.

He went round the corner. The soft earth by the threshold was trampled. Two clearer impressions remained beneath the small roof, out of the direct rain. One belonged to a broad boot; the other overlapped its toe. Beyond them the cobbles began, and all traces vanished.

He went in sideways, keeping clear of the loose door.

The smell of wet hemp filled his throat. Short lengths of cord lay by the wall, some covered in a whitish growth. Someone had left a bowl with a little hardened fat on the long bench. Dust coated its inside. Eiran passed it without touching it.

The stairs began at the far end of the room.

He stopped at the first step. Above him, something stirred a piece of canvas. Then a draught came, cold from the river, and shifted a dry stalk beneath his boot.

“Lira?”

She did not answer.

He put his left hand on the rail. The wood bent under the pressure but held. On the fourth step he saw mud pressed between the board and the wall. More lay farther up, scattered in small clumps. The loft could have sheltered anyone who knew about the broken window. Eiran looked at the marks without yet trying to make a single route out of them.

A sheet of canvas lay beside the wall. Beneath a folded corner, something round had left an impression in the dust on the dry wood: an elbow or a knee. A broken workbench stood nearby, coils of rope farther on. A length of old canvas hanging against the opposite wall had torn from the bottom almost to the beam. Its ends moved separately.

Eiran went over to the sheet on the floor. He lifted it carefully, trying not to shake anything from the folds. Only dry hemp and a dead beetle fell out. He pulled the cloth farther aside. Beneath it there was neither a body nor the stain he was afraid to look for.

He let the canvas fall.

The opening in the wall was too high to see from the street. Two boards were missing. Along their former edges, the wood was grey and weathered; in one place, a paler splinter jutted out, freshly bent back. Something had caught on it.

Eiran held the hanging canvas aside with his left forearm. With his other hand he tried to take hold of the scrap.

The skin between his thumb and forefinger split under the strain. He snatched his hand back so sharply that his elbow struck the boards. Dust sifted from the wood.

The scrap still hung there.

He held the canvas with his shoulder and pulled the fibres free with his left hand. They were darker than the hemp, twisted together, with a little dirt caught in a bend. He spread them on his nail. He remembered Lira’s doublet, worn beneath the elbow and at the waist, where she carried everything she could cram into her pockets. This was the colour of the places not covered in dried mud.

He could be wrong. The cloth was common enough.

He tucked the fibres into a fold of his sleeve before the wind could take them, then bent his head towards the opening. Beyond the wall, the roof of the next building sloped away. One tile had slipped out of line; on the next he saw a pale scratch through the green growth. It was a long way to the gutter, much farther than it had seemed from inside.

Lira could have squeezed through without difficulty. He would have to take off his coat and put his injured shoulder through. Someone larger, following her, would need time.

He looked back at the stairs. From the top to the sheet of canvas was only a few steps. Then open space, the broken workbench and a gap no one could have known about from below.

Eiran closed his fingers round the edge of his sleeve with the fibres inside.

She had not simply walked away.

He leaned his head farther out. He saw a low wall, a wooden awning over a yard and a passage between roofs, beyond which stood the large buildings by the river. At the edge of the awning, one board sagged under its own weight. Beneath it, a narrow gap shone with light.

From below came a knock of wood. Eiran drew back from the opening and went still. The man with the net was moving an empty crate beside the wall. He put it down, spat into the water and went back to work.

Eiran waited until the footsteps moved away from the side door. He could call to him from up here. Then he would have to explain what he was doing in the closed ropeworks, and leave the man with the sight of his face framed in the opening he had just been examining.

He returned to the stairs.

Beside the sheet of canvas he stopped again. Lira might have been lying here while he circled the bakery and waited for the patrol to change. He did not know how long she had waited, or whether she had hoped he would come this way. He lifted the trailing corner and laid it as he had found it.

He went down, choosing the dry parts of the steps. The bolt bracket hung loose above the threshold of the side entrance. He passed it, shielding the cut with his sleeve, and turned towards the yard beneath the awning.

The watcher drank his water before beginning his account.

Rhaevan waited until he lowered the cup from his mouth. The man stood beside the closed study door, in the same coat fastened to the throat that Averan had described in his morning report. Mud had hardened into a thick crust along its lower edge. When the man shifted his weight, a piece broke off onto the floor.

“Where shall I begin, my lord?”

“With the apprentice’s arrival.”

Rhaevan pushed aside the papers before him. Averan laid a sheet on the cleared tabletop and held its corners down with two small weights.

The watcher said that Eiran had come with a girl. They had parted outside the studio. The apprentice went inside; she stayed in the street. Later, two men appeared in the yard.

“Together?” Rhaevan asked.

“The second a few paces behind the first. Both went to the door.”

“Did they stop beside you?”

“No, my lord.”

Averan dipped his quill but did not begin to write. There was only a little water left at the bottom of the cup.

“Were they armed?”

“Weapons at their belts. They didn’t draw them in the yard. One stood sideways while the other worked on the lock.”

“Colours?”

The watcher shook his head. He added that he had not seen the second man’s face long enough to promise he could recognise him. He could point out the first. He had seen him when the man briefly turned his head from the door.

Rhaevan looked at the man’s hands. He held the cup very carefully, as people held things belonging to others that they could not afford to replace.

“None of yours?” he asked Averan.

“I left no one at the entrance. As ordered.”

The watcher tightened his grip on the cup.

“That’s why I didn’t approach them. I was to wait.”

“Go on.”

The door did not give at once. Meanwhile, Eiran opened a low hatch in the back wall. He pushed a canvas cover through it, then climbed out himself. He struck his shoulder against the frame. For a short time he hid beneath the window, then moved off along the wall.

“What was in the cover?” Averan asked.

“A painting.”

Rhaevan looked up.

“Did he unwrap it?”

“No.”

The watcher glanced towards the secretary, but Averan waited with his quill above the paper.

“It was flat,” he added. “Rigid. Didn’t bend when he put it under his arm. He carried it edge down.”

Rhaevan pointed to the sheet. Only then did the quill begin to move.

“How large?”

The man spread his hands. Then he brought one a little closer to the other.

“About that. The canvas stuck out.”

Several different things would have fitted inside something that size. Rhaevan studied the empty space between the watcher’s hands and told him to lower them.

When Eiran started towards the exit, the man by the opposite wall had to wait until he could leave without passing in front of the door. The strangers looked out into the yard. One glanced his way but said nothing. Beyond the gate, the watcher heard the apprentice calling for the girl and found him by a wall. Eiran looked behind a barrel, then into a narrow passage.

“The girl was gone?”

“I didn’t see her. No one answered.”

Rhaevan rested his hands on the arms of his chair. The unknown men could have taken the child. She could also have run when she heard the door being forced. They had the account of a man whose attention, throughout, had been mostly on the apprentice and the bundle he was carrying away.

“Did you return to the studio afterwards?”

“No, my lord. I followed him.”

Averan slid forward a second sheet, which had lain separately beside the inkwell.

“This inspection was made in the morning, after he returned. My men found the studio empty. The door damaged around the lock, the hatch at the back not fully closed. Papers on the table and beneath it.”

On the back of the sheet was a sketch of the tabletop. Two rectangles were drawn more heavily than the rest; dimensions had been added beside one.

“Two panels missing,” Averan said. “Probably painted. They left clean spaces in the dust. The size fits what could be carried in a cover like that.”

“Did you see them?” Rhaevan asked the watcher.

“No.”

The king laid the inspection report beside the account being written. The corners of the sheets touched without obscuring the text.

“They could have gone before the apprentice entered,” he said.

“They could. Or the men who went in after him could have taken them. We found no one who saw what was inside the bundle.”

“The cabinet?”

“Locked. No new damage to the lock.”

Averan turned the sheet over. On the other side were notes about shifted chests and loose papers. No one could establish which things Eiran had touched and which the men who came later. The marks overlapped.

Rhaevan did not begin by questioning the thoroughness of the inspection. He himself had ordered that the apprentice be allowed into the studio. Once others had gone inside, they no longer had a sealed room and a single man whose visit could be accounted for by putting things back and counting the changes.

“Keep the two accounts separate,” he said. “I want to know the source of everything we ask him about later.”

Averan added a note at the bottom of the page.

“If we detain him now, we can ask at once.”

“About the place where he stopped carrying the bundle during the night?”

“We don’t yet know that he did.”

Rhaevan turned to the watcher.

“When did he realise you were following him?”

The man shifted the empty cup in his hands. He set it on a small table by the wall before answering.

By the wall, Eiran had looked straight at him. Later he changed direction, doubled back along the same street and circled a bakery twice. He waited a long time in places from which he could see the approaches. He let a patrol pass. When the watcher moved, the apprentice moved too.

“Did he stop at any doors?”

“Many. He didn’t go inside. At least, not while I could see him.”

“The last place?”

“A passage towards the Lower Canals. It was already light above the roofs. He turned behind a cart, and I had to go round the team. Beyond it, three alleys branched off.”

The watcher named them by the shops and workshops at their corners. Averan wrote down the directions. They gave no address, only a broad stretch of the city with a succession of yards linked by gates.

“He reached the palace at dawn,” the secretary said. “I told him to wait until the men returned from the studio.”

Rhaevan nodded. He looked again at the man’s coat. All night, Eiran had seen the same figure behind him. Every turn back had taught him how far he could go before the man moved.

“You will not go back to his street today.”

The watcher opened his mouth.

“You will eat and sleep. Then you will show Averan’s man the routes you remember.”

He bowed, lower than when he had entered. Rhaevan waited while the secretary opened the door for him and closed it again. The empty cup remained by the wall.

“Two,” the king said. “One follows him. The other waits farther on. They change over before the place where the apprentice usually looks behind him.”

Averan drew a clean sheet towards him.

“Men who know him?”

“Men he does not know. They will get a description from the other man. Have them start at the market by the studio and the approaches to the canals. He checked once whether the girl had returned. He may check again.”

“We could close the crossings.”

“Watch them. The bridges, the landings, the roads out. No round-up in the Lower Canals.”

The king picked up the sketch of the table. The panels were small. Without the cover, they would fit beneath an ordinary sheet of canvas at the bottom of a cart, between crates, in a basket carried by someone no one associated with the painter.

“Have them check who has been buying material for wrapping paintings too. Waxed cloth, paper, slats. Without taking the sellers away or posting guards at their tables.”

“That could lead us to half the workshops.”

“Which is why we need more than a purchase.”

“When should a report reach me?”

Rhaevan looked at the two men the secretary had sketched in the margin. One short line marked a street, two more the places where they would change over.

“After the handover. One returns with word, the other stays with the apprentice. I do not want both of them in the palace when he opens the next door.”

“They cannot keep that up all day.”

“Arrange relief. The man arriving must first identify Eiran for himself. Only then does the previous man leave.”

Averan crossed out one of the lines and drew another farther from the rest.

“And if the apprentice approaches them and asks?”

The king recalled the account of the two circuits of the bakery.

“Let him lose the one he has noticed. The other must already be waiting farther on.”

The secretary put down his quill. There was no more room for the plan at the bottom of the sheet; he took another and copied just the orders onto it.

Then he looked back at the first sheet.

“Both men could have known the guard would be withdrawn.”

“They could also have seen an empty entrance.”

“I will check who heard the order.”

Rhaevan put down the sketch of the table.

“Do so. But do not assume they came from the palace.”

Muffled sounds from the yard came through the closed window. Horses were being led about; their hooves struck the stones unevenly, with pauses as the team was brought to a halt. The king thought of Saeron and a route already known to too many people.

“The order concerning the cells beneath the north pavilion no longer stands. Change the destination. The transfer is to be completed before noon.”

Averan stopped writing.

“Eiran was given the previous time.”

“So was the guard. And everyone standing close enough.”

Rhaevan drew a small sheet towards him. He wrote an instruction meant only for the secretary and folded the paper before passing it across the table.

“The previous location must look occupied. The guards stay. Record who comes and what they ask.”

“And the apprentice?”

“He is still not to be detained.”

Averan slipped the folded sheet beneath the others, but Rhaevan held a finger on its edge.

“Do not have that copied.”

The secretary took out the sheet and tucked it away. He gathered the remaining papers into an even stack. On the floor by the door lay the crust of mud that had broken from the watcher’s coat.

Eiran found the pieces of the bowl beneath the crates.

One shard lay embedded in the mud, its curved outer side uppermost. Someone had swept the others against the wall with a foot. Above them was the wooden awning he had seen from the ropeworks loft. It was easier to judge the height from below. Someone lowering themselves from the roof could reach it with their feet, if they first hung from the edge.

A freshly broken splinter lay beside the post. Eiran looked at the board above his head. Its end had slipped out from beneath the nail. Beyond it were crates, a low wall and a gate to the street.

The man with the net was drawing cord through the mesh. He noticed Eiran and stopped pulling.

“No way through there.”

“There was last night.”

The man glanced at the ropeworks. He held the cord between his teeth and only took it out after a moment.

“Not my door.”

“Who ran through the yard?”

“Don’t know.”

Eiran pointed to the broken bowl.

“Did you hear that?”

“Half the street heard it.”

Someone called to the man from the direction of the river. He lifted the spread net and, without a word, carried it to the other end of the yard. Eiran followed, but the wide mesh barred his way. He stayed by the post.

The man looped the top cord over a hook. The bottom still lay in the mud.

“If you’re standing there, hold this.”

Eiran slid his left forearm beneath the wooden crosspiece. The man untangled the weights one by one and adjusted them before allowing him to lower the net. It took a long time. Twice he broke off to answer someone by the landing. Eiran shifted his feet, feeling the weight of the crosspiece closer and closer to his elbow.

By the time he set it down, a dark band of damp marked his sleeve. The man looked at the right hand Eiran held against his chest, but did not ask about the wound. He pointed with his chin to a spot by the gate.

The man crouched beside the net. Eiran went back to the gate so he would not block his way out.

“I’m looking for a girl. Did she come to you?”

“A girl ran through. Men after her. That’s all I saw.”

“Which way?”

The man pointed with the cord towards the street leading to the river. A few baskets stood there beneath folded tables. The first bend disappeared behind a warehouse wall.

“Was she shouting?”

“They were.”

He lifted the net and stretched it between his knees. To keep talking, Eiran would have to get in his way again.

“Did you see whether they caught her?”

“I didn’t run after them.”

Eiran opened his mouth, then closed it. The man gave him a brief look, as though expecting the very question he had not heard. He went back to the cord. He pulled one loop too tight and had to loosen it with his nail.

Beyond the gate, Eiran lost sight of the ropeworks roof. The street sloped gently down; rainwater ran along a shallow channel in the middle, carrying scraps of paper. On the corner, a man in a short brown coat stood beside a basket of fish. A grey scarf was tucked beneath his collar. He let Eiran pass without moving his boot away from the basket’s edge.

Eiran turned at the warehouse.

The cobbles on the other side of the channel were paler. More people walked there, keeping clear of the water. Lira might have run that way, but anyone who wanted dry boots would have made the same choice. Eiran went to the end of the alley and looked at both junctions. One led along the warehouses; the other went down to the landing.

Carts loaded with sacks came up from the river. Empty ones returned with rolled canvas sheets on their floors. Every few moments someone shouted for people to get out of the way. By the landing steps sat a porter with a broad leather pad over his shoulder. He had taken off one boot and was shaking small stones out of it.

Eiran stopped beside him. The wet imprint of a sack darkened the leather pad. The rest of his clothing had had time to dry.

“Have you been working here long?”

“Today, or since I started here?”

“Since last night?”

The porter turned the boot over and struck it against the step. Another piece of grit fell out.

“Since last night. Waiting for them to settle up. Somehow they never manage to count what I’ve carried any sooner.”

Eiran sat two steps above him. Only then did he feel how tight his calves were. He stretched his toes inside his boots; his right ankle hurt beneath the dried mud.

“Did you see people running from the ropeworks?”

The porter went still, his boot beside his knee.

“What people?”

“Men. Chasing a girl.”

“Had she stolen something?”

“I don’t know.”

The porter looked him over from his dirty boots to his collar. He put his foot back into the boot but did not begin to tie it.

“Everyone’s got something they don’t know at that hour.”

Eiran looked at the labourers passing behind the man. Two were carrying a crate. A third walked ahead, moving empty wheelbarrows out of the narrow passage.

“You could have said you hadn’t seen anything.”

“Could have.”

“But you didn’t.”

The porter worked the end of his lace into a hole. It was frayed and would not go through. He wet it in his mouth, twisted it and tried again.

“Got anything to eat?”

Eiran took out the bundle from the stallholder. The man untied one corner, looked inside and grimaced.

“Can’t chew those.”

He handed the beans back. Eiran found a small coin in his pocket and laid it beside the man’s boot.

“For something hot.”

The porter moved his foot, hiding the money from passers-by.

“They were taking her over there.”

He pointed to a low passage between two warehouses, a street’s width from the steps. Eiran could see only its mouth and a patch of wall with an iron ring for tethering horses.

“When?”

“Still working by lamplight. The first cart was here; we were waiting for the next. I heard someone yelling.”

“The girl?”

“A man. Holding his hand close to his body. I think she’d bitten him till he bled, because the other couldn’t get her off.”

Eiran pressed the bundle against his knee.

“Did you see her face?”

“When they lifted her. One side swollen. Dark under her eye, and spit coming from her mouth. Or blood. Couldn’t tell from that far off.”

“What was she wearing?”

The porter looked at him.

“Dark doublet. Torn at the back. Collar hanging off one shoulder. Small, thin. When one of them lifted her, she tried to reach his belt.”

Eiran remembered Lira’s fingers at someone else’s pocket. Now he saw them against wet stone, though he had never been in that passage before dawn.

He looked away.

“How many?”

“Saw three. Don’t know who was driving the cart.”

“Soldiers?”

“Didn’t see any colours. They had knives. One told another to let her go, but they didn’t.”

Another crate was being carried up from the landing. Eiran moved his leg to let the men pass. The wood hid the alley for a moment, then he could see the wet wall and the ring again.

“Did you hear what they called each other?”

“Didn’t hear every word. Carts on the platforms, men throwing planks about. The shouting came through all that. The rest didn’t.”

“Where did they take her?”

The porter tied his boot and rested his elbow on his knee.

“Into a covered cart. Put something over her head first. A sack, from the look of it. Then lifted her. She braced her feet against the side; one of them had to pull them off with his hand.”

Eiran felt saliva gathering in his mouth. He swallowed and waited a moment for his stomach to stop clenching.

“Why didn’t anyone stop them?”

The porter looked at the street. The men carrying the crate were already leaving the platform; the others waited for the barge and kept watch over the empty wheelbarrows.

“Did they say they’d taken her for stealing?” Eiran asked before the porter could answer.

“We didn’t ask.”

The porter rubbed the graze on his heel. The skin beneath his finger was red; moisture shone deeper in.

“Were you alone?”

“Not by the sacks. I wasn’t standing by her.”

Eiran remembered the patrol the evening before. Then, too, people had found something to do with their hands. He had kept Lira away from the street where they were beating a stranger, and had not stepped in front of the soldiers.

He loosened his fingers from the bundle.

“Was she alive?”

“I told you. She was bracing her feet.”

The man said it more quietly than he had spoken before. He reached beneath his boot for the coin, turned it between his fingers for a moment, then put it away.

“Which way did they go?”

He pointed to a bridge. Not the nearest one, broad and made of stone, where people with baskets were crossing now, but a narrower wooden crossing visible between the roofs.

“There. Didn’t watch after that. Went down for the next load.”

“Would you recognise the cart?”

“Canvas over it. Two high sides.”

“Like that one?”

Eiran pointed to an approaching cart. The porter looked round at it, narrowed his eyes and shook his head.

“The one I saw had a pale board at the back. Right at the bottom. Rest of the tailboard was dark; that bit looked newly nailed on. You could see it when they turned.”

Someone called to the porter from the top of the steps. He stood at once and slung the pad over his shoulder.

“Don’t say you heard it from me.”

Eiran rose too. He had trouble straightening his knees.

“I won’t.”

The porter went over to a man holding a tablet. Before the man began to count, the labourer pointed to his shoulder and twice showed the same number on his fingers. Eiran did not hear the reply.

He had a description of the girl, the wound, the torn doublet and the hands still reaching for someone else’s weapon. Any one detail could have belonged to someone else. Together they led to Lira.

She had been alive when the cart left.

Eiran put away the beans. Through the fabric of his sleeve he could feel the small fibres from the ropeworks. He no longer needed to bring them into the light to compare the colour.

Across the street stood the man in the brown coat.

The grey scarf was still tucked beneath his collar. Eiran saw no fish or basket beside him. Here he was watching the unloading from behind a row of stakes, where his view was worse than it would have been from the steps.

Eiran turned his head towards the bridge. He set off in the opposite direction.

He did not hurry. He passed a stall serving hot porridge and stopped beside a bucket for washing bowls. A greasy skin floated on the water. He did not drink. He adjusted the cord on his coat, giving people time to pass him.

The brown coat appeared among the labourers.

Eiran moved on. At the corner he had to get out of the way of a cart loaded with empty barrels. He stepped back onto the cobbles only after the rear wheel had passed the drain, and used the noise to turn into a narrow gap between a warehouse and a wall.

He knew this passage. It led to a yard with an old horse trough. Beyond it, low steps brought you out onto the parallel street. Once, you could have run the whole way without stopping.

Now barrels stood against the wall.

The first hid only half the steps, but the second blocked the way beyond. Eiran slid his arm between them. A hoop caught his coat. He remembered the gate hinge at the dyehouse and did not tug. He drew back, freed the cloth, braced his uninjured hand against the wall and squeezed through sideways.

He could already hear footsteps behind him.

At the top of the steps, an overturned basket lay exactly where he needed to put his foot. He stepped over it, striking his hip against the plaster. The passage opened beneath an arcade. People waited there with empty bowls and jugs; at the far end, a woman was ladling something from a large pot.

Eiran stepped in among them, stood behind a man with an earthenware jug, then left at the other end with two labourers carrying a single plank. For a moment he walked so close that he had to duck beneath its end.

At the next junction he turned towards the river again.

He stopped only when he reached a closed window. In the dark glass he could see a strip of the street behind him, cut off by the reflection of his own shoulder. He waited for a man with an empty tray to pass. Then two women with buckets.

The man in the grey scarf did not appear.

A gate opened at the end of the street. Eiran shifted so that he could see that entrance in the glass as well. A woman came out, pulling an empty handcart behind her. When the rear wheel stuck on the threshold, he went over and held the gate for her. The woman thanked him without looking at his face.

Beyond the gate he saw another way out of the yard. There were more passages here than he remembered. Some had been closed when a workshop was pulled down; others had been made when neighbours took a few boards out of a shared fence. If he waited until he was sure of them all, he would be standing by the window until evening.

He crossed the street. At the next corner he looked back and saw only the woman with the handcart, now struggling with the drain.

Eiran let out his breath. He stopped pressing his elbow against his side; the pressure on the pocket with the key was hurting him. He did not know whether the man had given up or was waiting at the wrong exit. He headed for the crossing without waiting any longer.

At the wooden bridge, the smell of cooked porridge faded. The river brought the smell of silt, damp grain and tar from the pilings. The boards beneath his feet flexed as a cart crossed. Eiran stood aside to let it pass and looked at the sides. Both were equally dark.

Beyond the crossing stretched the warehouses. One bore the Crown’s mark, another a board with numbers faded by rain. Farther on, a guard and a man holding a rolled list waited at a gate. From this distance it was impossible to tell where the Reserves ended and the merchants’ warehouses began. The same sacks passed from one cart to another; the same muddy boots vanished into one entrance after the next.

The cart carrying Lira could have turned behind the first building. It could have gone on as far as the road out of the city. The porter had given him a direction, not the end of the journey.

Eiran looked back at the current beneath the bridge. A bell sounded in the distance. In the upper city, Saeron might already be sitting beneath the north pavilion, in the place Eiran had been forbidden to visit the morning before. He was not even sure the guard had kept to the time he had given.

If he went back to the dyehouse, he could still move the paintings. Take them out of the city before the gates closed, find a dry room, sleep for a few hours. On the opposite bank, the man in the brown coat was still nowhere to be seen.

Eiran opened his right hand. His sleeve had dried against the cut and stuck to his skin; he pulled it away slowly. The red-brown thread was still short, beneath the fine lines of his skin. He lowered his hand before fresh moisture touched the cloth.

A cart was being unloaded outside the nearest warehouse. Two men were lifting a sack; a third held the gate open. Behind him, Eiran saw steps leading down, hidden a moment later by the next load.

He stepped off the bridge and went over to the man at the gate.

“What time did you start letting carts in today?”