Chapter 3: Fifteen Slick, Part 3

He rapped on the high gate, and a few minutes later it swung open. A wrinkled, harried-looking face peered at him through rheumy blue eyes. "You already?"

"Me already," Rath agreed. "She about?"

"Make it quick. We're a bit too busy for your nonsense." The man slammed the door in his face.

Rath leaned against the stone wall that wrapped around the small courtyard behind the house and lit a cigarette. Sadly, he was down to his last two, and in light of recent circumstances, would not be buying more anytime soon. Unless the purses he'd snitched proved promising.

Pick-pocketing wasn't something he favored. It was often not worth the trouble, and these days, the punishment was a hundred times worse than the crime. He also just plain didn't like stealing, though it was too often necessary for people just trying to survive another day.

He pulled the purses out and tipped the contents into his hands. One held a shilling and two pennies. The second held two shillings and five pennies. All told, three shillings and seven pennies. That was enough money to keep him well for some time. But it was fourteen slick and twenty-two shillings short of what he needed to pay off Friar.

The gate creaked open, and he shoved it all away, mustering a smile he didn't feel as his mother, Alia Jakobson, stepped out into the alleyway, clutching a faded shawl about her shoulders, some of her dark, graying hair peeking out from the cap she wore.

Rath got all his looks from his mother—her gold-toned brown skin; loose, tumbling brown-black hair; pale brown eyes; and her height and bulk. When he'd been a boy, they'd lived closer to and worked at the docks, moving cargo with all the other day workers for a total of two pennies a day. He'd been so proud he'd been able to contribute half a penny extra to the family.

That his father was always quick to steal or bleed away on one foolish thing after another, until his mother finally threw him out and they moved to Butcher Street to live with his aunt and her husband. Then his aunt had died in a tavern brawl and his uncle had thrown them out. After that, they'd never lived anywhere very long, and often on the streets, until his mother found work in the teashop and Rath was old enough to work in the brothels.

Where he still worked from time to time when money was especially needed, though he preferred working at the docks, even if that had its own trials.

He finished his cigarette and dropped the stub to the ground, stamping it out as he asked, "Have you seen our least favorite piece of shit lately?"

Alia sighed. "He hasn't come by here for nearly a month, which I was enjoying. Do I want to know how bad it is?"

"Fifteen slick to Friar."

She swore as only ten years working the docks could teach a person. "I can't 'borrow' that kind of money from the shop, and even if I could, we'd never replace it before it was missed."

"I didn't come here to get the funds from you, just to figure out where that goat-faced spawn of a leech is hiding."

"I don't know, fortunately or unfortunately," she replied. "If I had to guess, I'd say the Old Gates. Nobody goes there unless getting their throat slit is the best option they've got."

Rath made a face, but mostly of resignation, because she was probably right. "Well, that will be fun." He leaned in to kiss her cheek, dug out two of the shillings from the purses he'd stolen. "Here, you may as well have these. It's not enough to make a difference to me, and Fates know what will happen to it if I keep it. Be well."

"Be careful," she said, patting his cheek and fussing with a strand of hair. "Give him a sound clocking from me."

"The first hit is always yours." He kissed her fingers, then lit a new cigarette and left as quickly as he'd come. Getting back across the city and the bridge was even more difficult than it had been the first time. As the day wore on the crowds would just get worse, with people coming from all over Dennarm on the futile hope they'd be one of the lucky few to marry into a wealthy family and make all their problems go away.

By the time he finally reached Low City again, Rath was hungry, cranky, and just waiting for an excuse to punch somebody. Except getting into a fight would make him too beat up and ugly to get any clients, and if he was going to come up with any slick at all, it was going to be pulling a few nights for Trinira.

But even that, if he was damned lucky, would only bring in about three marks. That was a long way from fifteen, but his best hope was that if he could scrape together at least a third, then Friar would give him time to earn the rest.

Of course, that hope rested entirely on the reason Friar was demanding fifteen slick right now, and Rath had yet to hear that reason.

He bought bread and pickles from another vendor, then started working his way back through Low City. Fates, his legs were going to be falling off by the end of the day.

The Low City was divided into four rough, unevenly-sized districts: docks, shops, propers, and guards. The docks and shops were the largest districts, where most everyone worked and lived. The propers were those merchants and a few others wealthy enough to live close to the bridges, so near to being on the other side of them that reaching that goal was a constant torment. The last section, the guards, was comprised of the city guard, some of the royal military who stayed there for the sake of convenience, and various mercenary bands as they came and went. They were the only ones permitted use of the guard bridge.

Rath walked steadily through the mazelike warrens of the shop district until he reached Honey Street, where all the brothels were located. Colorful, often garish signs hung from most of the buildings on the road, the colors indicating the flavors of the establishment.

He stopped in front of one that was painted with seven vertical bands of different colors crossed along the bottom by white, black, and gray bands. It signaled the house was willing to do pretty much anything and everything. There were other, informal indicators that it wouldn't do anything illegal—children, unwilling people, to name two. Houses that catered to such despicable clientele usually didn't last long, and the ones determined to stick around were extremely discreet and usually operated elsewhere in the city. But usually didn't mean always, so brothels were constantly forced to make it clear some lines would not be crossed.