A Novel by A. J. Hartley Read Free Book Online Page A

now, you will have a child to take care of.…
    Beyond a dull dread, the thought meant almost nothing to me, an idea spoken in a foreign tongue.
    Well, I thought unhelpfully, you’ll find out.
    We walked another half hour, feeling the city grow up around us till the sky became crowded with offices and shops and the world seemed to constrict. I would take the anonymity of the city over the provincial watchfulness of the Drowning any day, or the savagery of the wilderness beyond it, but its hardness and gloom were undeniable.
    â€œI’m going to go and get my tools,” I said. “Maybe get an hour in before it’s too dark.”
    â€œMorlak will be at the shed,” said Tanish warningly. “You might not want to see him today. He was in a bad mood this morning to begin with.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œOut all night drinking, I think. Didn’t make it back till after we got up, so he probably slept rough. You know what that does to his mood. And since then, he lost his new apprentice.” He looked down as he said it, caught between shame and sadness that this was how Berrit’s death would be seen: like misplacing a hammer or a chisel.
    I ruffled his hair again. “I can handle Morlak,” I said.
    He smiled wanly, almost able to believe it, and I pressed a couple of coins into his hand.
    â€œGo get yourself something to eat,” I said. “Don’t go back to the shed for an hour or two. It will be better when everyone else is coming off shift.”
    Better meant safer. Morlak was more than capable of punishing my apprentice to spite me for my defiance.
    â€œWhat did you say to the police?” he asked. The words burst out of him as if he had been saving them up.
    â€œAbout what?” I asked.
    â€œBerrit,” he answered. “You seemed upset. With the police, I mean.”
    â€œI just don’t think…,” I began, but hesitated. Tanish’s eyes were wide and apprehensive. “They weren’t respectful. To the body.”
    It was a half truth at best, but I didn’t want to worry him further.
    He considered me, deciding to accept what I had said at face value, and then he was walking away down Ream Street toward the old flag market, where the remaining fruit would be on sale.
    *   *   *
    MORLAK WAS A POWERFULLY built man turning to fat around the middle but still strong, and when he lowered his head, he looked like a buffalo. He wore his greasy hair long, tied back into a glossy rattail. I had hoped I could grab my satchel of tools and my water flask, then get back to the chimney unseen, but he was waiting for me.
    He was sitting at his desk at the far end of the empty weaving shed so he had a good view of the door, and I caught the ghost of a grin on his face as I slid in and made for the gallery of rooms where the gang slept. Normally he would be upstairs. He had a chamber above the shed, inside the old elevator tower, which doubled as his strong room. Anyone caught on the stairs to the tower was, he liked to remind them, dead meat. There was no reason to think he didn’t mean that literally. The fact that he was down here at all at this time should have made me wary, but I didn’t think it through, and by the time I was coming out of my room with my satchel, it was too late.
    He strode slowly toward me, a swagger in his gait, his bulk blocking the narrow corridor. I was used to his temper, his complaints about my work, his petulance and casual violence, but this was something different. It felt calculated, as if he had been planning it.
    â€œWell, well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t little Anglet, our stray steeplejack.”
    I said nothing, but I had my weight carefully distributed, my knees slightly bent, ready to run. Not that there was anywhere to go.
    â€œWhat time do you call this?” asked Morlak, advancing, pretending to be offended. He grasped my face with one hand and tilted