Chapter 4: Fifteen Slick, Part 4

His rap on the door was quickly answered, and by the lady of the house herself. By night, Mistress Trinira was beautiful enough to rival the Fates themselves, but by day, she preferred to keep to plain and simple, more interested in the bookkeeping and the cleaning than in looking decadent enough to make people loose with their coin.

She wore plain brown breeches and a blue tunic over a linen shirt, her long, long hair loosely piled atop her head, and spectacles perched on her nose. Her dark skin was smattered with freckles she'd never tolerate a customer seeing, and she had a cigarillo clenched in her teeth. "Good morning there, love. Didn't expect you to be coming around today. Thought you'd be picking up extra work at the docks." She leaned again the door frame and crossed her arms over her flat chest. "What are you doing all the way over here?"

"My plans for today were changed." Rath made a face.

She quirked one delicate, brown-red brow. "By who?"

"You don't want to know."

"You should dump your father's body in the harbor, or sell it to those cadaver lovers on Tanning Row. You'd make enough money to cover his debts with plenty to spare to spoil yourself. It's not like anyone would miss him."

"One of these days I might just, but right now it's still not worth the risk of being hauled to jail. I hate to bother you—"

She cut him off with a flap of her hand. "There's always work for a man of your skills, Rath. Especially with all these out-of-towners. Can you start early?"

"That shouldn't be a problem. I've got to track down my father and beat some answers out of him, but after that, my day is wide open. Anything special I should prepare for?"

"You up for group work?" she asked.

Rath shrugged. "Why not? Though don't they usually prefer the younger ones for that? I'm a bit long in the tooth to be the toy of a half-drunk group of horny nobles."

"No, this is a bit more refined group, and they want someone who knows what they're doing. I had Stripling in mind, but I haven't seen him in three days. Probably floating in cloud powder and bad gin by now, the stupid fool. Come around about four. We'll get you warmed up and then off to the noble lot around eight. Even taking the house percentage, that should square you away."

"Let's hope," Rath muttered, then leaned down to kiss her cheek. "Thanks, Trin. I'd be lost without you."

"Get along, then," she said, but smiled before sticking the cigarillo back in her mouth and closing the door.

Rath was already exhausted thinking about the night in front of him. At least three hours of letting a group of people fuck him. He hadn't done that in at least four years. The last adventurous night he'd had was a pair of twins who'd paid him well both for his talents and his ability to keep his mouth shut.

Anything was better than dead. And speaking of dead, it was time to go find his damned father.

It took another hour and a half of walking and asking questions, but he did finally locate the worthless pisspot, holed up in a moldy, rank-smelling tavern at the ass end of the docks known as the Old Gates, since it was once where all people entering from ships passed into the city. The sea gates had long ago been moved to the north end of the harbor district, and over the decades, the old location had turned into the sort of place even rats were loath to go.

He stepped into the tavern, grimacing at the smell, and skimmed the dingy, smoky place for a familiar face. He and his father saw each other at just the same time. His father stood, tried to bolt, and Rath stormed across the room and lunged at him.

"You scum-licking bastard!" Rath snarled, grabbing him by the back of his tunic. He yanked him close and then slammed the bastard's face into the bar. Leaving a penny to cover the tab, not bothering to give a damn about adding scratches and dents to a pub that was already covered in them, Rath hauled his father outside and threw him to the ground.

Planting a boot on his chest and pressing firmly, Rath said, "Tell me why the fuck I owe Friar fifteen slick, or I swear to the Fates, I will earn the money by selling your corpse."

"Get your boot—"

"Talk and I won't break your ribs."

Face turning red, his father snarled, "I'm your father. This isn't how you treat—"

"Do you really want to have this discussion, you putrid pile of dog puke?" Rath asked. "Because I bet my list about how people should treat their spouses and children is a lot longer than yours on how a child should treat their parents. Now tell me, or I will kick you in your balls and leave you wailing in the street like a drunk heretic." He pressed his boot down harder when it looked like a protest was forthcoming.

When his father started flapping his arms to signal a need to breathe, Rath finally eased some of the pressure. "Talk."

"I accidentally killed his best griffon."

"Fates—" Rath drew his boot back before he gave in to an urge to break the damned fool's ribs after all. "How in the names of the Fates do you accidentally kill a griffon?"

"It looked like it could use a drink," his father mumbled. "I gave it some gin."

"Spirits are poison to griffons, you hole-ridden sack of spoiled grain!" Rath wanted to scream. The dirty pit fights were where Friar made a goodly amount of his money, mostly from the brat nobles who liked nothing better than to slink into Low City and act like they were living dangerously by betting on which animal would kill the other first while gorging themselves on liquor and food that everyone in Low City could only dream about.

And his idiot fucking father had killed one of Friar's most lucrative assets, and no matter how much time passed, everybody still expected Rath to clean up his father's messes. "If I wind up floating in the harbor because of this, I swear to the Fates you'll fall first."

Spinning away, he made his way quickly back to the shop district and through the busy streets all the way to Butcher Street, where he rented a little attic room from Robert and Anta, a married couple who made and sold sausages. He waved to Anta as he passed by the yard and up the backstairs into the house, climbing the creaky old steps up to his hovel of a room.

It wasn't much, but he'd gotten it after twenty years of living in other people's spaces and occasionally on the street. No leaking roof, no other people he had to share with. All he had to deal with was the noise and the smell, and who cared about that?

Not him, not really.

He closed up the only window in the place to muffle some of the din, pulled off his boots and set them by the door, and hid his money in a secret cubby in the wall. Then, stripping off his clothes and hanging them up on hooks in the far corner, he crawled into his little bed to get some rest before he faced the long night ahead.