Ne, Tom thought a moment later. Not enough Low Tide in the fucking harbor for this. It surprised him how hard it was, this time, pulling her to her feet, bracing all his meager weight on his own shaking legs. It wasn’t three years ago that he’d scooped her up in his arms – her and then Uzoji, waters rest him, only a little heavier – and carried her back into the abandoned warehouse, out of the quickly-falling snow. He was still taller than her, but only, it seemed, by the breadth of a hair. Even nauseated and taxed and drunk, he felt an iron in her that he’d lost.
He’d thought she might refuse his arm; he didn’t know what he’d’ve done. Mung, he thought. Soft. But he didn’t think he could leave her here, sitting on her haunches in the lovely perfume of her own vomit.
It was natural: he sought the streets he knew. They’d been held up once, and the safety of Cantile’s bright, laughing thoroughfares, even now chattering with life, called to him. Again, he thought, he didn’t know what he’d do – looking askance at the narrow grin of every alleyway they passed, spilling out shadows like whispers; tracing every subtle movement, every little chittering of a rat rooting through a pile of scrap, darting to and fro in the filth. He and his escort were both out of commission, and he didn’t think he’d get lucky again with Anatole’s scholarly fists.
So all that was left to him was to put one clumsy foot in front of the other. To stay quiet as possible, to watch the weight he put on Niccolette’s arm, to pull her back on course whenever they wove to port. To trust her to do the same, whenever the boat started to keel starboard.
The quiet streets of Cantile gave way to the quiet streets of the Fords.
Tom had avoided them on his way to Voedale, but there was no avoiding them now. King’s Court was too loud, and the idea of cutting through Sharkswell wasn’t any more appealing. He kept his lips pressed together tightly, and he didn’t hesitate. They meandered down streets he knew like the lines on hama’s palms, familiar houses squatting together with their shutters closed tight like sleeping eyes. Laundry hung out to dry, buffeted by the warm updrafts of early Roalis.
If their path ever took them in the direction of the street, Tom redirected it, gently, casually – firmly, then. Soft, mung, he thought, when he could think at all. Thinking put him in danger of picturing the garden gate, the sage leaves rustling in the night wind, the smell of incense and fresh-baked bread drifting out of a cracked window. The rambling notes of a…
It wasn’t much further to Lossey. He thought about leaving Niccolette at the house in Quarter Fords; it wasn’t too far off his path, and he thought he’d still be able to find his way. Still, he didn’t know if the house was still hers. There were enough ghosts between them, he thought, to fill a phasmonia. More to the point, the incumbent would’ve never known where they had lived, and he didn’t think letting on was a good idea.
Lossey was quiet, even quieter than the Fords. The streets broadened, but not by much; the Fords’d got cleaner, scattered with trees and shrubbery, as they’d gone along, and Lossey, at first, was an extension of the wealthier side. More merchants’ houses, well-appointed inns, stables with quiet, whickering horses. The broad, starry sky overhead.
“I was going to have you leave me here,” Tom said softly, tiredly, indicating a pleasant-looking, two-story inn, “but it’s not where I’m staying, and I don’t know if I can –” He waved his free hand. “Just a little farther.”
He guided their steps southwest, toward Sharkswell, where the buildings shrank and began, again, to lean. His shuffling slowed, and finally stuttered to a halt. He sighed, indicating a rickety-looking set of stairs up the side of an old brick house. He shot a glance up at a third storey window, unlit, the blinds drawn – good. Old Miss Marlowe’d be asleep, if he was lucky.
He finally disentangled his arm from Niccolette’s, but carefully, keeping a covert eye on her balance. “You, ah – thank you.” A clipped two words, a little slurry. Thank Hawke, maybe, he thought dryly, and not very gratefully. But then he glanced at her ear, swallowing thickly. He put one hand on the railing, holding on tight.
He paused, wishing he’d left her at the Fords after all. Wishing he’d figured out some way to bring it up, some way he’d know. He didn’t see as he could leave it there, though. He might not’ve been thankful to be rescued from Kendrick’s like a distressed damsel, but he was thankful for something else, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He felt the weight of a debt he couldn’t pay.
“You don’t have far to walk?” It was as inelegant as his thank you, but he was too tired and drunk to think. He shouldn’t’ve said anything, being as it wasn’t his business, and he shouldn’t’ve cared. He kept telling himself that.