The First Binding, page 28
She lunges.
The man sees her, his eyes widening like a hare spotting a wolf, and there is no time for him to find his voice before she is on him, tooth to throat.
Eloine presses him against the stone wall. The blade rests just along the side of his neck, close enough that she can almost feel the beat of his heart against its edge, but not so hard-held that she breaks his skin.
He is not so old that he could be someone’s grandfather, but well enough along to be the father to a young woman much like the one at his side. Clean shaven and carrying all the sun-kissed looks of the Etaynians. A brush has taken some of the dark at his temples, turning them a shade of gray earlier in his life than they should have. He has a figure lean and better suited to a fox, all the features of which hang in his face as well. The pinched look, sharp of jaw and cheek, and a light in his eyes that has nothing to do with pleasantness or warmth. And with the light of the lamp he holds more yellow-gold in his stare than a man should.
She leans closer, taking care to not let the knife sink so far that she makes a mistake she cannot afford. “Leave.” Eloine keeps her voice hard and sharp as her blade, but not so loud to let it trail down the alley.
He bristles but says nothing.
“Did he hurt you?” Eloine keeps her eyes on the man as she waits for the woman’s answer.
The lady is somewhere in the beginning of her third decade of life. Young. Fresh-faced and fairer than most of her people. Her dark hair is half-tied into a neat braid, the rest loose as if raked free by fingers. She is a girl anyone would think pretty, even with her face flushed with fear. The woman shakes her head, lips trembling but unable to give voice to any answer. Her fingers clutch at the folds of her dress—its color a shade close to blood washed lighter to carry more pink.
“The pattena suffered nothing from me.” The man’s lips pull so thin that she likely will not be able to slip her blade between them.
Eloine’s eyes narrow and she thinks to try the thing and part his mouth. But she does not. “Do not call her that.” She trails the knife down his throat, turning it to rest the point just above his heart. Push, twist, and a little lean.
It doesn’t break through the layers of his coat, but she knows its weight is felt against his skin, and so is the promise behind the point.
He doesn’t stiffen. He doesn’t even breathe. He holds still and shoots the woman a silent look as if asking for help.
The lady doesn’t meet the stare and looks everywhere but back at him.
“She’s no one special. What’s she to you?” Each word leaves him low and soft, without the barest bit of effort behind them. His chest holds still after he speaks. And his eyes never meet Eloine’s—they flick to every place but her face and come to rest on the edge of the knife.
“A person doesn’t have to be anything or anyone special to be treated at least like something, and nobody is just nothing. Sieta?” Eloine leans, putting more pressure on the tip of the blade. Its point now drills through some of the man’s coat but falls short of breaking flesh.
The man nods once. “Sieta. But … I’ve paid for her.”
Her eyes narrow and, for a moment, she forgets all the coolness needed in her actions. She finds instead the storyteller’s fire and the knife trails farther down the man’s body until it comes to rest below his waist. “Then I suggest you forget about what you’ve lost in coin, and consider what more you have to lose that cannot be accounted for once gone for good.” She smiles and gives him a look better fit for a wolf than a woman. A thing of all gleaming teeth—silver white despite the brass lamp’s oil light.
He pales more than a man of his color should be able to, but nods again. “I swear it by Solus’ grace.” Though he says the words, they ring hollow. She knows he has no love for his god above and less still for his people. Eloine’s seen the look before of a desperate man willing to tell any lie to ease his way from trouble.
She casts a long look to the woman he tried to force himself on.
The lady moves a hand to her stomach, grasping at the fabric there as she recoils a few steps. She clearly wishes to be away from them both.
Eloine sighs and pulls the knife away from him. She’s supposed to be buying herself out of trouble, not bringing herself any more. “Leave. If I see you again…” She trails off and holds the blade up for him to see.
He swallows what little saliva must be in his throat. The man trades no words with her as he leaves, hands in pocket—never casting one last look back at either woman.
And the blade remains in Eloine’s grip until the man passes out of sight. She watches the mouth of the alley for just a breath longer, more from long-earned and well-trusted wariness than anything else. Content she is free of him, she sheathes the blade and turns to the young lady. “What did he want with you?”
The woman shies away from Eloine’s stare and mutters under her breath.
Eloine sighs and puts one hand on the woman’s shoulder, another under her chin, raising it. They lock eyes. “You can speak freely now. Quietness helps no one, especially yourself. What did he want?”
A short breath leaves her nose and she looks around as if someone else will round the corner on them. “He wanted me, sengera…?”
Eloine ignores the question after her name and pursues the heart of what she asked. “I know that much. Why was he grabbing at you like that? Why here? Why not wait till he’d gotten you back to a room?”
The woman fidgets with her dress and looks away from Eloine. “He didn’t like what his money bought him. Only pewter bits. It’s not enough for a full roll.”
“But he wanted one anyways?” Eloine already knows the answer but asks regardless.
The young lady says nothing, but her look is enough to prove Eloine right.
“What’s your name?” Eloine places an arm around the woman’s shoulders and begins leading her down the alley.
“M-Marania.”
Eloine smiles, one of many from an old box of tools. Something meant more for Marania, and nothing to be looked deeply into, for it is a hollow practiced thing. “It’s a beautiful name. Do you have somewhere I can take you now? Somewhere you’ll be safe?”
Marania scoffs and spits to one side of the alley. “I’m never safe. None of us are. It’s not in our work. I’m a whore. Dantonyio says it’s not for us, and it’s more than we deserve. I think he’s right some days.”
Eloine stops, grabbing the woman by the shoulders and shaking her twice. “I abhor that word, more than many others when it’s used like that. Listen to me.” Her tone is sharp and hard as the steel she flashed just moments earlier. “Deserve is a terribly dangerous word. Most people don’t deserve the things they get, good or ill, so be doubly careful when you use it, most especially in regard to yourself. Sieta?”
Marania adopts the silence that had lingered in the alley before Eloine entered it.
“Sieta?” she asks again.
Marania’s lips tremble, but she repeats the word, acknowledging it with a quick bow of her head.
“Good. Then one more lesson for you, sweet. Be just as careful when considering whose words are right, certainly so if and when they stand to profit from you—whether through effort or through your body.” This time Eloine does not ask if Marania understands. She knows her point has been made. “I’m looking for a place. It’s a small tavern where people trade talk that is better left unheard by the ears of others, and a place where secrets are sold. Would you know of it?”
Marania’s shoulders round and she shrinks as if wanting to hide herself in the folds of her own clothes. “Y-yes. The Black Tap. It’s run by Dantonyio. He does what you say and works other things as well.”
“You mean running women for the simple pleasures.” Eloine is not looking for an answer, but Marania gives her one regardless.
“Yes.”
“And is Dantonyio the man I’ll be wanting to speak with, then?”
Marania shrugs. “For some things. But it is his place, everyone speaks to him at least once. If he’s not the one you need, one of his men will be. Unless you’re looking for Magael. He rents space in the Black Tap for his business. No one bothers him. You do not speak to him unless invited to.”
Eloine ushers Marania to follow along as she thinks on this. “And what is Magael’s business?”
Marania shakes her head. “I don’t know. We’re not allowed to speak to him. We barely speak to the men in the tavern unless…” She trails off.
“Unless Dantonyio asks you to provide them with more than talk, sieta?”
“Sieta.”
“Then I suppose I’ll need to speak to both these men. Take me to them.” Eloine doesn’t make this a question—it is a command.
“Sieta, sengera.” Marania takes Eloine’s hand and leads the way.
* * *
The Black Tap Tavern is in every way like the Three Tales in that they are nothing alike at all apart from their function. Whatever noise had filled the place before her entry now deadens to a quiet that works to convince her it has always been there. It’s a sullen silence, deep-darkly held in the black of the old countertop—closer to charcoal than wood in look. The walls and support beams hold the same color, something so dark it brings with it both a story and a silence of its own.
This place has known the touch of fire, maybe several times, and yet it stands. And not a one has taken to clean it. Which says more about the men inside than the place itself.
Half a dozen sit around a table so small that they must join nearly at the elbows. They wear the hard-canvas and leather motley of men used to rough work, and harder lives. Their faces tell the rest of their stories.
Scars, now faded against the bronze of their skins to look like fishing line run across them. Their eyes track her and Marania as the pair of women cross farther into the tavern. Low mutterings are traded, and they are the sort men make when weighing coin in purchase for a thing.
Eloine bristles and, for a moment, she finds her hand slipping back toward her thigh. Five points of pressure bloom within the meat of her shoulder. Marania squeezes again, giving Eloine a wide-eyed look that needs no translation. The singer stops herself and smooths her dress.
Another look around and she knows all there is to know about the Black Tap Tavern.
A row of women, dressed like Marania, wait along an exposed balcony on the second floor. Nearly as many men ogle them from below.
And one man hangs before the bar counter, watching everything with practiced disinterest, but a clear eye for all things happening within the place.
His face belongs more to a hawk, with the pronounced and hooked nose and the sharp cheeks. His clothes are loose and comfortable and a shade of gray that seems bright in this dark place. One hand rests visibly on a knife whose edge looks sharper than bottle glass and sings a song to her that it has cut many things short in life.
This is not a place where stories are told and traded—a place for them to begin or come true. This is where many stories come to end.
Marania leans close enough that her breath blows hot against Eloine’s throat and ear. “That’s Dantonyio…” She breaks off and mutters something quieter to herself, but the shape of it catches Eloine. “Rahome diavello, Solus.” Marania crosses a hand over her breasts, resting it over her heart before bringing it to her lips, then overhead as if gesturing to the sun.
Spare me the devil, oh God. Eloine translates the quick prayer to herself, but doesn’t have the heart to tell the other woman that this is not a place in which she’ll find any sort of god. Only those who’ve walked away from them. “Thank you, Marania, you’ve done wonderfully.” She leans to one side and places a kiss on the woman’s cheek. “I can handle things from here. You should find a place to rest.”
The woman opens her mouth to protest, but one look at the set of Eloine’s jaw and she reconsiders. A curtsy, a furtive look to the owner of the Black Tap, and then she is gone as quickly as if she was never there.
Eloine steals a breath and walks with the quiet comfortable grace belonging to a dancer, and just as much the confidence of the men who frequent this place and have nothing to fear under its eaves.
Dantonyio stirs but does not quite look her way. Eloine knows he has been aware of all things within his tavern and her approach does not take him by surprise. He moves with the fluidity and surety of large cats—strong, and all too quick to pounce on the unsuspecting.
She is closer now—a few strides and she’ll be just within his arms’ reach. Just a hand’s breadth outside that space then. Eloine covers the distance between them and stops just short of where he can reach. She grabs the edges of her skirt and pulls them out as she curtsies, an act she knows is as foreign as she is here. This is no place for formality and the customs of the civilized. Still, small manners go a great distance at times. “Sengero Dantonyio?”
He straightens, letting the right side of his long coat float open, revealing a lean abdomen crossed with scars that can only come from one thing: knives.
No stranger to fights. And he’s taken cuts to the softer parts of him. No stranger to pain then, either.
“That I am, sengera…” He trails off, leaving the obvious question in the air.
She smiles and rises. “Evania. Just Evania.”
Dantonyio matches her expression, but his eyes hold none of the sincerity that should be there. They take her in much like a man gauging a horse for purchase. “Sengera Just Evania, then. You’re new here.”
Eloine inclines her head and says nothing else.
“What brings you to my tavern? People seldom wander in here by accident. And those who come with purpose are better known to me before they step through my doors.” His gaze flickers to Marania. “Especially if they come in with one of my pieces.”
Her eyes narrow when he says the last word, but she readopts the neutrality the storyteller wore so perfectly at times. A man who sees nothing as it is and only how things are in relation to him. Pieces, places, and prizes. These are the three things he can see the world through and in. And he will always be the poorer for it. For he’ll never learn until the end he cannot bring any of those with him. She keeps the thoughts to herself and turns her attention to Marania as well. “She ran into trouble out in the streets.”
Dantonyio’s brows rise, betraying the first hint of honest surprise. “Did she really now? I wonder what that may have been. It’s not good for my pieces to cause trouble. It makes clients nervous, and too much of it may bring the clergos on them.”
Eloine shakes her head. “Nothing of her own doing. A man whose taste and reach exceeded the contents of his purse.”
Dantonyio clicks a tongue against his teeth, the hollow sound echoing in the space around her. “Ah. That is terrible business. I do not like someone trying to take liberties with my investments. And is this man still alive?”
“He is. Though I believe I made my point in a manner he won’t soon forget.”
Dantonyio purses his lips but doesn’t pry, choosing to lean back against the counter behind him. “Then it seems I’m owing you a small thanks.” He turns his head and barks short and sharp. “Marania!”
The woman snaps straight and hurries over to him. Her stare falls to the ground and she says nothing.
“This woman”—Dantonyio gestures to Eloine—“says she helped you out of a bothersome spot. In that, I caught that you seem to have been paid for a service that didn’t end up occurring. I’ll count that as a little blessing, and I’m sure you feel the same, sieta?”
Marania nods.
He holds out his hand and she fidgets, pulling free the coin she’d received earlier, placing it into his grip. “Thank you.” His words hold none of the honesty needed for that gratitude. He motions her away with a simple wave. Before Marania has even left their earshot, Dantonyio offers the coin to Eloine.
She refuses. “No.” Before he can ask why, Eloine pulls free a purse. “I haven’t come here to take coin, but to offer it.”
He lets out another bark—this time rolling and carrying just a note of true amusement in it. “Oh-ho. Someone bringing me money? This will be good.” Dantonyio gestures to a stool at his side. “Sit-sit. Take a drink.” He snaps his fingers and a plank-thin man shuffles toward them from behind the counter.
The bartender has the years in him she’d expect out of a tree close to falling from time, and just as many lines in his face. There is no color left in his hair and little light in his eyes. He is little else but bone and knotted tired flesh.
“No, but thank you. I’m certain you’ve made this offer to many young and beautiful women and…” Eloine lets her gaze fall on the women inside the tavern before speaking again, “those that take you on it seldom leave, yes?”
He grins, but it is as cold and sharp as the edge of his knife. “Just so. Clever. I’ll remember that. So, then, to business. What is it that brings you to me, purse in hand?”
“Information. The obscure kind. The sort overlooked and little cared for by many except the peculiar, the collectors, and sometimes both.”
Dantonyio’s eyes lose their focus for a moment as if he is lost in thought. “And which are you?”
“The clever kind. The kind who can pay. Isn’t that enough?”
He shrugs. “It depends what you’re looking for. But you’ve come to the right place. Just not the right person.” He gestures to a shut door past the end of the counter. “There is a man who rents the space back there from me. His trade is secrets—some kept even from me, but for what he pays, I don’t ever need to ask. And for leaving me a coin in hand already, consider that bit of knowledge payment enough.”
“Thank you.” She wastes no time, turning and taking a few steps toward the door.
“Oh and, sengera?”
Eloine stops and regards him.
