Tallow by Karen Brooks Read Free Book Online

they could from others, but to raise me as if I were one of them?
    No matter what their reasons were, I'd betrayed those efforts – not by design, but simply because of what I was. Before I could begin to formulate any notions, a dull pounding on the outside of the vat made me jump.
    'Stupid boy!' It was Quinn. She hit the sides again. 'How could you do this to us? Your protectors, your saviours – and after everything we've done, all we've sacrificed. You'll pay, boy. Mark my words, you'll pay.' She slammed the wood again for good measure.
    She stomped back into the shop, banging the door behind her. I heard her tramp up the stairs, each deliberate step a warning of what was to come. The argument between Pillar and her raged for a long while.
    From the time I'd left the house that afternoon and stepped onto the street, I knew something wasn't right. It wasn't just that a storm was brewing in the west; it was something intangible – my scalp crawling across my head, a prickling at the tips of my fingers. It was as if I was being watched. This had happened to me throughout my life. For many years, I'd put it down to my imagination and Quinn and Pillar's constant warnings to stay out of sight. Lately, however, the sensation, subtle but dogged, accompanied me every time I ventured into the sestiere. Sometimes it even partnered my sleep.
    I couldn't see a soul. All the doors were closed and the windows shuttered to keep out the cool autumn breezes. The few gondolas gliding along the canal had no passengers, only boatmen who were concentrating too hard on their cargo to notice me. I chided myself for my foolishness. Who would be watching me?
    But try as I would to shake off my fancy, the sensation did not leave. In fact, as I turned away from the canal and towards the centre of the island, towards the quartiere's campo, the worse it became. I found myself looking over my shoulder, cautiously, as I had been taught.
    There was nothing there.
    And yet ... a flash of grey in the shadows, a fleeting movement out of the corner of my eye told me otherwise.
    My mouth dried and my pace quickened.
    There were people milling in the square. Vendors, hoping to sell the last of their fare before making their way home; aristocrats, promenading before taking their gondolas to dine with friends or attend a performance in the Opera Quartiere down in the Celestia Sestiere. Their talk was of the unusual cold and the approaching storm. Crossing the campo, I passed the Candlemakers Scuola, the place where one day I'd hoped to be formally admitted as a journeyman in the craft, before heading towards the taverna.
    For a few days, without Pillar's knowledge, I had been making a second venture from the house and coming to the taverna on Quinn's behalf. It was our secret – the one thing that bonded us in the way that secrets, even those between sworn enemies, could.
    The one small thing that made my present life tolerable was fetching Quinn's vino when her supply dried. It was a balancing act that I was learning to perfect. Sober, Quinn was increasingly nasty and looking to find fault. Inebriated, she was the same. But when she drank just a few vinos and moved into that threshold space between, she was almost pleasant.
    Keeping my eyes lowered, I entered the taverna and made my way to the corner of the bar. It was full tonight and it wasn't until I reached the bar and glanced around that I saw why. I had walked into a viper's nest.
    Dozens of soldiers were lounging on chairs or resting against stools. Most bore insignias that were unfamiliar to me, although I could see some were high-ranking officers from our sestiere, the Dorsoduro. The others I studied surreptitiously. Their uniforms were grand, bordering on decadent even: velvet frockcoats adorned by gold epaulettes, leather breeches, hose whiter than the snows that topped the Dolomites. Their conversation was loud, and it did not take me long to work out that these were men from the Doge's own