Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

The other towers repeated it, tolling the warning around the city’s perimeter. The royal tower was last, sounding out a deeper note than the other bells. Then all was silent for a moment. Aaron kept quiet and still as all around him people checked their weapons and hushed their conversations. The citizen’s militia at the ready: it had always been a terrifying thing from a distance, and sitting in the center failed to be a comfort.

Seven strikes came, long minutes later.

A collective tension left the crowd. Conversations restarted, a bit louder as if to make up for the interruption.

He didn’t realize he’d laughed until he caught Mabel staring at him, that earlier suspicion back in her eyes. He waved her off. It was just… funny. He’d had a bell rung for him, like a properly murdered citizen. It was fancier than he’d expected. Not that he’d thought that far ahead, to what would happen after he was dead.

It wasn’t long until the rat catchers crawled out of their nest. The militia would be poking at Markus already, but those were the folks that had jobs to go back to when their shifts were up. It was the royal guard that got paid to stick their noses in on things that didn’t concern them. Two redcoats came out through the gates, followed by a third man in black robes. It was this last fellow that planted his feet and drew in a breath like he was ready to blow down the world.

“Scribes!” he bellowed. “What are our duties?”

Along the line, people stared at each other. A few hesitantly stepped out. “Copying,” called back one, and “writing,” another. “Illuminating,” “transcribing”—

Mabel shot to her feet, her hand raised. It put her well above the rest of the crowd, even if she hadn’t already been near the front.

“Sir! Books and bodies, sir!” Which was followed promptly by a flush of red bright enough to make a firebird wince. “I said that. I did,” she said under her breath, as she slowly lowered her hand.

The scribe master arched a thin eyebrow. “Crass but succinct. You,” the man pointed at her, before moving his knobby finger on to the others who had spoken. “You, you, you. With me. We’ve a dead man to sketch.”

He lifted his chin and raised his voice again. “Everyone else who came for scribe: you fail. Go home and grow a tongue.”

The man kept walking. Mabel scrambled to re-roll the supplies she’d taken out for John’s letter. Failing that, she grabbed the whole mess in her arms and started running after the robed man. A few steps in she spun back towards them.

“Good luck!”

“You, too!” John returned.

“Don’t drop anything.” Aaron grinned. He kept it up just long enough for her to turn back around, then he ran a hand through his hair. He’d forgotten they did that for human murders. Sketched the faces, so that they could identify the victim even after the body was burned. He sincerely hoped Markus looked different enough from him in the daylight. The last thing he needed was to really get accused as a doppelgänger.

“It’ll be our turn soon.” John’s eyes were on the gate. It had gotten closer, step by step, like a cat sneaking up on prey.

This was a terrible idea. But it was what his Death had put him up to, so in he went.

The courtyard was just as packed as the street. More so: here the single line was broken up into a dozen and the job seekers jammed side-by-side like rabbits in a cage. There were banners hung above each line, though Aaron couldn’t read a word of them. That was the problem with not being able to read.

“Do you see the kitchen interviews?” Even standing on his toes, John was still one of the shorter heads in the crowd.

“I think they’re over there.” Aaron pointed. “I see a spoon.”

Fortunately, he wasn’t the only illiterate one in the city, and most of the signs had a picture painted on them as well. The ones that didn’t probably weren’t for his sort.

“Thank you.” The boy flashed a grin. “You’re a bit sketchy, but I like you. If we both make it, you’ll come to the kitchens? I’ll sneak you some bread.”

“Thanks,” Aaron replied, bemused. The boy ran off—literally ran off—his white cloak snapping behind him. Which left Aaron alone, staring at the pictures.

Spoon. Except what did he know of cooking? He could make a decent enough mushroom stew, but these uptowners ate meat, like they didn’t care it might have talked before it went in the pot. He’d probably retch just from the smell of it.

Another sign had a horse drawn on it. Because horses were so very useful in the caves, and he was such an expert in equines.

Find employment, his Death had said. But what employment? Aaron hadn’t gotten a chance to ask Markus’ Death, and now the man was apparently off at the Fair border, distracting Prince Orin’s Death. Aaron had to get a job. Markus wouldn’t have screwed this up. But what would a noble disguised in peasant clothes have been here for? For one thing, the dead boy would have been able to read his options.

Someone bumped him from behind, then another. He was blocking the way in.

There was a dog on the sign over there. The kennels, probably. He was good with animals, even if the ones he’d known were better at taking care of themselves than what they had here. It gave him somewhere to be, at least. He joined the line like a good citizen, and waited, and was rejected before he even opened his mouth. He could see it in the man’s eyes, the moment it was Aaron’s turn at the interview table. He looked Aaron up and down and that was that.

“We can’t take you. Sorry, boy.”

Aaron had just stood in line for the past half hour. Stood, when he’d very much rather be tucked in some corner, sleeping. “Can’t even give me a try? I bet your dog will like me.”

The dog already did. She sat next to the man’s leg, thumping her tail. She was some kind of wire-coated wolfhound with ears like a tattered cloak, punched through and torn by some beastie’s teeth. The kennel master pressed his lips into a line, but he didn’t tell Aaron to leave again.

That was all the encouragement he needed. “You don’t have her sitting the line with you because she’s the friendliest face in your kennel. I learn fast, sir. I don’t mind getting dirty, or doing my share.”

The man scratched her behind the ear, met Aaron’s eyes, and turned him down again.

“The last Face we gave a chance to went for a fox tail’s worth of revenge and poisoned the ratters. Don’t get me wrong, boy. It’s good you’re getting out. But I can’t let a dog off leash if I don’t trust it; I can’t keep an eye on you all day.”

Aaron knelt down and gave the wolfhound a good scratching around her tattered ears, mostly out of spite. He left without another glance at the man. He returned to the back of the crowd, leaned against the castle wall, and looked at his options.

Hawk—he could already picture that going about as well as the kennels. Shoe—if he could make shoes, he’d have shoes. Shirt—he knew his way around a needle, but he was no tailor. Anvil—what was it that Mabel had said? He was skinnier than she was?

Washboard and bucket. Well, why not? He got in line.

The woman took one look at him.

“Never mind,” Aaron said, at the same time she was saying no. “I do know how to wash clothes, though. Mine might be old, but they’re clean, thank you. Doesn’t take a noble to figure out a bar of soap.”

“Do I need to call a redcoat, boy?”

He held up both hands, palms out, and showed himself off. Again.

There was a reason he’d never gone to one of these things before. It was all well and good letting folks climb the social ladder, but it didn’t do him any good when the ladder was set ten feet in the air and everyone else already had a foot on it.

I’ll see you soon. That was what his Death had said. With the shadow of the royal tower over him, it wasn’t hard to picture just how soon that might be. This wasn’t a place for him. It never had been. But he needed a job. Needed one, or the last thing he’d see would be a condescending smile on the lips of Markus’ Death as he fixed things.

He just needed to get a little breathing room. Get out of these lines for a bit and look at his options again. Keep trying. Aaron turned around.

That was when he caught sight of black robes coming through the gates, with mousy hair behind. Even in the crowd, Mabel was as easy to spot as an aspen in a wheat field. She was with the scribe master and the others from earlier, the want-to-be apprentices and the redcoats. They were coming through the open gates, blocking off the exit by chance or by choice. Her eyes met his, her mouth set in a grim line.

She raised an arm and pointed straight at him.

Aaron had a finely honed sense for when he should be running.