Ugh. Lin rolled Petrov’s stone into her palm. The firelight caught it at strange angles, picking out shapes in the depth of the rock, like shadowy figures concealed by a screen.
Of course she had buckled to Chana’s pressure, agreed to attend the Festival and help with the preparations. So much for her stubbornness. Chana knew how to bend her will like a broken branch.
Something seemed to rise to the surface of the stone as she turned it and Lin stared. It almost looked like a letter, or a number, some kind of legible shape—
A loud pounding on her front door sent her scrambling to her feet. It was late; she’d heard the Windtower Clock chime midnight some time ago. Only if a patient was in desperate need would someone trouble her at this hour.
Mariam? Heart pounding, she threw her front door open to find her neighbor Oren Kandel standing on her doorstep. “You’re needed at the gate,” he said. “There’s a carriage waiting.”
Lin bit back a sharp comment. Oren had never forgiven her for the fact that he’d offered to marry her, and she’d said no. He was one of the Shomrim now, a gate guard. She saw him often when she came in and out of the Sault, and always greeted him politely. He always glared back with a look that said he wished he could take her medical satchel and toss it over the wall.
He had asked her to dance once, at the Goddess Festival two years past. She’d said no, claiming she was tired. The truth was that there was something about Oren that frightened her. A pinpoint spark of hatred always burning in the depth of his dark-brown eyes. It had only flamed brighter since she’d turned him down that night.
“A carriage?” she echoed. “Is it one of my patients from the city?”
His thin fingers played with the thick metal chain around his neck; it bore the Lady’s Prayer on it in fancifully engraved words. “I can’t say. I was just told to escort you. And that you should bring your satchel.”
“It would help if I knew what the problem was—”
He regarded her sourly. “Don’t know.”
He was enjoying not telling her what she wanted to know, that much was clear. “Wait here,” Lin said, and closed the door in his face. She hurried into her room, where she unfolded her physician’s clothes and dressed carefully in the blue linen tunic and trousers, tucking Petrov’s stone into her pocket. She bound her hair into a single braid, and fastened the chain of her mother’s necklace around her neck. The familiar gold circle felt comforting as it settled into the hollow of her throat. Lastly, she dragged her satchel—always packed and at the ready—out from under her bed.
The moon was high in the sky when she joined Oren outside. He spit a thin stream of brown patoun at the ground when he saw her, before setting off without another glance. His pace was long and quick, making no allowance for her shorter stride; Lin was tempted to tell him she didn’t need an escort and could make her way to the gates on her own. But he would protest, which would only cost her time getting to her patient.
Whoever they might be. Lin pondered the possibilities—Zofia? Larissa, the retired courtesan whose hypochondria meant she thought every slight sneeze heralded a case of plague?—as she traversed the Sault some yards behind Oren, following the curve of the eastern wall.
Night in the Sault was divided into four Watches. The first one began at sunset, the last ending at dawn, when the aubade, the morning bell, rang out from the Windtower Clock, signaling the beginning of the workday. The Ashkar were forbidden to leave the Sault itself during the night hours, save for those physicians whose skills were urgently needed to save a life. Even then, they were required to wear their Ashkari blue or gray, and were often stopped by Vigilants, demanding to know what they were doing outside their walls. Saving the lives of people like you, Lin always wanted to snap, but so far she’d managed to hold her tongue.
Then there was Mayesh. An exception to all rules, as usual, he was allowed to come and go freely in the night hours; the Palace needed him, and that superseded all other Laws. But when royal business was done, no matter the lateness of the hour, Mayesh could not remain at Marivent, nor make use of its lavish guest rooms. He was still Ashkar. He would be returned to the Sault like an unwanted package, to seek the solitude of his small house on the Kathot. It would make even a good man angry, and Lin did not think her grandfather was a good man.
She and Oren had reached the city gates, which had been propped open. Mez Gorin, the second gate guard, waited there, his polished wooden staff in his hands. （Staffs had been chosen as the weapons of the Shomrim long ago, since they looked harmless to the malbushim, but were deadly in well-trained hands.） Mez, always kind, had a tangle of brown hair and caterpillar-thick eyebrows. He smiled when he saw Lin, and gestured that she should pass through the gates.
She approached, leaving Oren behind to sulk. Lin could glimpse the bustle of the Ruta Magna through the stone arch, which was etched with a line of a prayer in Ashkar: DALI KOL TASI-QEOT OSLOH DAYN LESEX TSIA. Grant us pardon in this hour, as Thy gates are closed this night. The lines referred to the gates of Haran, the great city of Aram, but gates, Lin supposed, were gates, all the world round. Through these particular gates, Lin could see a scarlet carriage waiting in the road, its doors blazoned with golden lions.
A Palace carriage. Just like the one that had fetched her and Mariam from the square a few days past, but why on earth was it here now? She stared at Mez, puzzled and incredulous, but he only shrugged and nodded, making a shooing gesture, as if to say: Go on, then, get in.
At night, when the city was dark, Marivent glowed upon the Hill like a second moon. In its light, Lin made her way to the carriage—she could see a driver in red livery, perched high on the seat in front—and opened the door, clambering a little awkwardly inside. She was glad for her comfortable tunic and trousers. How noble ladies in all their layers of skirts and petticoats managed these things, she had no idea.
The inside of the carriage was red and gold velvet. Candles in bronze holders were bolted to the inside walls, but only one was lit. And sitting across from Lin, beetle-browed and scowling, was her grandfather Mayesh.
“Zai?” Lin cursed inwardly; she had not meant to use the old nickname. “What on earth—？”
The carriage lurched forward, swerving into the traffic on the Ruta Magna. The Broken Market was in full swing, the glare of naphtha torches turning the stalls to indistinct shadows.
“There is a patient who needs your help,” Mayesh said mildly. “At the Palace.”
“So that’s why all . . . this was necessary?” Lin waved her hand as if to encompass the whole of the last fifteen minutes. “Why you had to send Oren, instead of coming to my door yourself? You knew I wouldn’t want to treat anyone at Marivent?”
“No,” he said. “I assume your Oath of Asaph means something to you. For a Physician should mind not rank, wealth, or age; neither should he question whether a patient is enemy or friend, a native or a foreigner, or what Gods he worships. To heal is as the Goddess commands.”
His tone made her bristle. “I know the words,” she said. “Had you bothered to attend my Oath-Taking ceremony—”
She broke off at the scratch of a lucifer. It flared up with a small flame, which Mayesh used to light another of the tapers inside the carriage. The new light illuminated Mayesh, and the dark red-brown stains smeared across the chest and sleeves of his usually immaculate robes.