The Steel Remains

“I still keep the place over on Replete Cargo, if it makes you feel any better. And in case you’ve forgotten, I am from a Brotherhood family.” There was a slight edge in Grace-of-Heaven’s voice now. “My father was a pathfinder captain before the war.”

“Yeah, and your great-great, great-great, great-and-so-on grandfather founded the whole fucking city of Trel-a-lahayn. I heard it coming in, Grace. And the truth is still, fifteen years ago you wouldn’t have given civil house room to that prick with the dueling cutlery on his hip tonight. And you wouldn’t have been living upriver like this, either.”

He felt the stomach muscles beneath his head tense a little.

“Do I disappoint you?” Milacar asked him softly.

Ringil went on staring up at the ceiling. He shrugged. “It all turned to shit after ’55, we all had to ride it out somehow. Why should you be any different?”

“You’re too kind.”

“Yeah.” Ringil hauled himself up into a sitting position, swiveled a little to face Grace-of-Heaven’s sprawl. He got cross-legged, put his hands together in his lap. Shook his hair back off his face. “So. You want to help me find this cousin of mine?”

Milacar made a no-big-deal face. “Sure. What kind of trouble she in?”

“The chained-up kind. She went to the auction blocks at Etterkal about four weeks ago as far as I can work out.”

“Etterkal?” The no-big-deal expression slid right off Milacar’s face. “Was she sold legally?”

“Yeah, payment for a bad debt. Chancellery clearinghouse auction, the Salt Warren buyers took a shine to her, chain-ganged her out there the same day apparently. But the paperwork’s scrambled, or lost, or I just didn’t bribe the right officials. Got this charcoal sketch I’m showing around that no one wants to recognize, and I can’t get anyone to talk to me about the Etterkal end. And I’m getting tired of being polite.”

“Yes, I did notice that.” Grace of Heaven shook his head bemusedly. “How the blue fuck did a daughter of clan Eskiath end up getting as far as the Warren anyway?”

“Well, she’s not actually an Eskiath. Like I said, she’s a cousin. Family name’s Herlirig.”

“Oho. Marsh blood, then.”

“Yeah, and she married in the wrong direction, too, from an Eskiath point of view.” Ringil heard the angry disgust trickling into his voice, but he couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. “To a merchant. Clan Eskiath didn’t know what was going on at the time, but really, I don’t think they’d have lifted a finger to stop it even if they had.”

“Hmm.” Milacar looked at his hands. “Etterkal.”

“That’s right. Your old pals Snarl and Findrich, among others.”

“Hmm.”

Ringil cocked his head. “You got a problem with this all of a sudden?”

More quiet. Somewhere in the lower levels of the house, someone was pouring water into a large vessel. Milacar seemed to be listening to it.

“Grace?”

Grace-of-Heaven met his eye, flexed a suddenly hesitant smile. It wasn’t a look Ringil recognized.

“Lot of things have changed since you went away, Gil.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“That includes Etterkal. Salt Warren’s a whole different neighborhood these days, you wouldn’t recognize the place since Liberalization. I mean, everyone knew slaving was going to take off, it was obvious. Poppy used to talk about it all the time, Findrich, too, when you could get him to talk at all.” The words coming out of Milacar’s mouth seemed oddly hurried now, as if he was scared he’d be interrupted. “But you wouldn’t believe how big it’s grown, Gil. I mean, really big money. Bigger than flandrijn or krinzanz ever was.”

“You sound jealous.”

The smile flickered back to life a moment, then guttered out. “That kind of money buys protection, Gil. You can’t just wander into Etterkal and thug it like we used to when it was all whore masters and street.”

“Now, there you go, disappointing me all over again.” Ringil kept his tone light, mask to a creeping disquiet. “Time was, there wasn’t a street anywhere in Trelayne you wouldn’t walk down.”

“Yes, well, as I said, things have changed.”

“That time they tried to keep us out of the Glades balloon regatta. My people built this fucking city, they aren’t going to keep me penned up in the dreg end of it with their fucking silk-slash uniformed bully boys.” The levity sliding out of his tone now as he echoed the Milacar of then-ago. “Remember that?”

“Look—”

“Of course, now you live in the Glades.”

“Gil, I told you—”

“Things have changed, yeah. Heard you the first time.”