Babylon Steel by Gaie Sebold Read Free Book Online Page B

me and disappeared.
    The boy left the poem for her, of course, but he did it very gracefully. He took off one of his own rings – no gaudy trinket, either, but a delicate band of plaited gold – folded it into the paper, and wrote her name on the outside.
    There are worse things than a boy having his first taste of puppy love. I would have to remind Essie to be kind, though, and help her think of some tactful things to say about the poem. It was almost certain to be terrible. Especially as he was writing in Lithan, rather than his own tongue. Lithan is the main language of the Perindi Empire, which controls large portions of a couple of our neighbouring planes. It’s also the language of the majority of passing traders, and is what we mostly speak at home; though Scalentine has its own pidgin. We have people from so many places, some with languages that bear little resemblance to either Lithan or anything else. Scalentine pidgin is a mishmash of many of them. It’s easy enough once you get the hang of it, and surprisingly flexible.
    Antheran left a more than generous tip and a promise to drop in before he returned home.
    It turned out to be a busy night. We had a slight misunderstanding with a large furry gentleman from Nederan (a country through Throat portal, all ice and sagas) who, due to language difficulties, thought he was getting a girl, got a boy, and believed for a few interesting and quite loud moments that we’d impugned his manhood. We bundled the helplessly giggling young man in question (Jivrais, of course) out of sight, and managed to calm the client down before anything very expensive got broken. Laney, wearing a fragile concoction of sea-foam green and looking far too tiny for such a bulky client, pounced on him like a kitten discovering the best ball of wool ever, and whisked him away into her room in a whirlwind of chatter and adept little hands.
    I was passing back through the hall when I caught a glimpse of someone and stopped. It was a lad of about ten, strolling through with his eyes wide, looking as if he owned the place. “Oi!” I said. “What are you doing in here?”
    “Delivery?” he said, brazen, but he’d already glanced behind him.
    “Of what? And from who?”
    “Er... buns. Fresh... buns.”
    “Come here.”
    But he had already turned and scooted for the front door. Previous, taken by surprise, made a grab, but he evaded her.
    “You want me to chase him?” she said, strapping on her dented helmet as we watched the skinny little devil disappear down the street.
    “Nah. Didn’t seem like a thief, just curious. Hoping to see something naughty. How the hells they get in, though...”
    “I’ll have a look round later,” Previous said. “There’s got to be a loose window or something somewhere.”
    The Twins were very busy, too; I had to go down there and tell them to keep the noise down.
    The Basement... the Basement makes me uncomfortable. The Twins specialise in pain, and don’t get me wrong, they’re an asset to the business. But all those chains and straps give me the grue. I’m always glad to get out of there.
    Their current client looked up from where he was tied and got a hopeful look in his eyes when he saw me, but it isn’t my style. If I feel like causing someone pain it usually isn’t because they want me to. “The yells are getting through upstairs,” I said.
    Cruel put down the thing she was holding (it looked as though it was made of three parts leather to one of steel, but I didn’t examine it too closely) and wiped her forehead. “Sorry, Babylon.” She gave the client one of her more disturbing smiles. “We’re just going to have to make sure someone can’t make any more noise...”
    He whimpered happily. I left them to it.
    Dawn was streaking the sky with chilly orange as the last client left, the ghosts of both moons hanging low and plump over the rooftops. The nights were getting colder. Bad weather for the street whores. Glinchen’s probably