Shadow Gate by Kate Elliott

everyone and no surprise . . .
    She dropped her gaze. He took a step away, as from someone who stank.
    â€œMight be anyone,” he said, backed up against the closed door, “ospreys diving for a quick snatch, criminals wandering down from the north, folk wanting to drive a wedge into the carters’ guild and make trouble for them.” His tone picked up confidence. “So there it is. Someone has to go. The other hirelings are, eh, well, it’s your—ah—northern way of speaking. Makes them uncomfortable. I’ve had them on hire for years now, so that makes you lowest roll.”
    â€œFirst to go,” she agreed with a twisted smile. She had replaced the old sandals she’d taken from the shepherd’s hut with better ones, but after weeks in the city keeping her gaze down she had memorized every stain and nick in the worn leather. Her feet were dirty again, toenails black with grime from stable work. “My thanks. You were a fair employer, I’ll give you that.” She took the veyfrom his hand, trying not to notice how quickly he pulled his hand back, hoping not to touch her. As if she was a demon walking abroad in human skin.
    Who was to say she wasn’t?
    Keeping her head down, she walked through the lower city of Olossi toward the baths she favored. Mud slopped over her feet. At the trailing end of the season of Flood Rains, every surface was layered in muck. The clouds hung low and dark, threatening to spill again.
    She paused at the edge of Crow’s Gate Field. In the dry season, commerce through the gate would be brisk, and the guards and clerks busy. Today, Sapanasu’s clerks lounged under the shelter of a colonnade, seated in sling-back chairs, sipping at musty bitter-fern tea. They laughed and talked, teeth flashing, voices bright. One slapped another on the arm teasingly. A trio had their heads bent close, sharing secrets. One dozed, head back and mouth open, and the others were careful not to jostle her. Their easy camaraderie reminded her of her days at Copper Hall among her fellow reeves. Those had been good days. She’d been happy there. She’d had friends, colleagues, a lover.
    Some things, once lost, can never be restored.
    Bear this grief, and move on.
    She walked toward the river along the wide avenue that paralleled the lower city’s wall, such as it was, more a livestock fence than a wall to halt the advance of an army. Her sandals shed dribs and drabs with each step. Aui! Everything stank. Everything dripped. Rich folk hurrying home before dusk made their way through town in palanquins carried by laborers whose brown legs were spattered with mud. The streets in the upper city were paved with stone, so presumably there was less Flood Rains filth there, but the one time she’d ventured past the inner gates she had felt too conspicuous. The lower city hosted all kinds: laborers, criminals, touts and peddlers, country lads and lasses come to make their fortunes in a trade, outlander merchants come to sell and buy, slaves andhirelings and shopkeepers and craftsmen and folk who would sell anything, even their own bodies, as long as they could grab a few vey from the doing. She might make folk uncomfortable, but in the lower city the watch would not drive her out unless she actually broke the law.
    On a street on the river side of Harrier’s Gate stood two ranks of bright green pipe-brush, ruthlessly cut back, which flanked an ordinary pedestrian gate set into a compound wall. A bell hung from a hook on the wall. She rang it, keeping her gaze on her dirty feet.
    The door was opened from inside. “You again. It’s extra for a bucket and stool carried to your tub.”
    â€œI know.”
    He held out a hand, and she pressed vey worth a week’s labor into his very clean palm. He led her along a covered walkway raised above muddy ground and lined with troughs of red and pink good-fortune trimmed into mushroom caps.