The true conversations of power, she no longer had the means to reach. Even those among the noble classes who still took her company were at their holdings or with the hunt. When the first thaw came, it would certainly be different. She would surely be able to discover which direction Palliako meant to send his blades. And also by then, it would all be too far gone to prevent. Walking across the bridges and through the narrow streets, she felt as if she were balancing on a landslide. It was all so much larger than she was that it might as well have been the weather. She had as much ability to stop this as to turn aside a storm.
But Jorey would come back, and Vicarian. Perhaps, one day, Barriath would return from his exile or at least write from it. Her boys. Help from Elisia seemed unlikely, but Clara would send letters to her all the same. The worst her daughter could do was burn them unread. In the meantime, she walked through the city, Vincen Coe at her side, seeking what information she could and putting it together as best she might.
Even when it took her to places that she would have been wiser to avoid.
Stay behind me, my lady,” Vincen said.
“M’lady, is it?” the smallest of the three men said, his grin gap-toothed and unpleasant. “’Strue, then is it? That’s Treacher Kalliam’s widow.”
“What was it like, sleeping with a traitor?” the largest of them asked.
Clara held her chin up. Rage and humiliation fought against copper-tasting fear, but she didn’t let it show. The street was narrow enough that passing him would be difficult without risking the huntsman’s blade. She didn’t know what would happen if they tried to walk past without showing more steel or making their threats explicit.
“You have no business with us,” she said. “Let us pass.”
The smallest one drew a battered knife and began to clean his thumbnail with it, ignoring her words. “Long way you’ve come from there to here.”
Vincen kept himself between her and the three men. She couldn’t imagine Vincen would allow himself to be surrounded, but neither would he wish to make the first blow. It would be a choice of tragedies. Like so many things.
“We don’t want trouble,” Vincen said.
“Who does?” the largest man said, mock-philosophically, and he strode forward.
Vincen’s blade flicked out, cutting the air. The larger man growled and drew a short, curved blade. Its edge shone in the dim light. It was hardly longer than a child’s forearm, and well suited for violence in the confines of the narrow way. Vincen stepped back, using the reach of his own blade to keep the man at distance and set himself for the coming blow.
“We’ve come to see Ammit No-Thumb,” Clara said. “Perhaps you gentlemen could point the way.”
The middle one, silent until now, spoke. His voice was slow, but with a depth of intelligence that gave Clara something like hope.
“What business would you have with our Ammit?”
“I met his daughter on the Prisoner’s Span last week, and she mentioned that she had had some distress. I have a tea that might be of some use to her, and so I’ve brought it. Or will, if you’ll let us past.”
“Ammit’s no friend of mine,” the smallest said. He had taken a firmer grip on his blade. The largest took a step forward, and Vincen slid to block his progress.
“What sort of distress?” the middle one asked.
Clara hoisted her eyebrow and didn’t speak. In truth, she had nothing more than a few pinches of tobacco and a pocketful of dried apples, but she’d spoken to the girl long enough to know Ammit was a kind soul and that she lived nearby. That she would be known and thought of kindly was a gamble. The silence stretched. The smallest man glanced over his shoulder, then back.
“You’re in the wrong street,” the middle one said. “Go back to the turning and go three more toward the wall. There’s a red house with a half dozen barrels along the side. Turn there.”
“My thanks,” Clara said with a nod, then turned and walked briskly back along the narrow street. Her throat felt thin as a straw and her heart beat like a sparrow. A moment later, Vincen was behind her.
“Not so quickly,” he murmured. “Nothing like running to call the chase.”
Clara forced herself to walk more slowly, as if she belonged there. As if she were safe.
“Has it always been like this?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Ma’am?”
“The knives and the violence. The inability to walk through the city without fear of being bled. Has Camnipol always been like this, and I didn’t know it, or is this a change?”
“Change,” Vincen said without even a pause for thought. “There’s always rough places. A taproom with a bad reputation. A street where men gather when they’re unwelcome anyplace else. But since the summer … no, it’s worse.”