She saw Niel nod, though his back was to her at the stove.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll… keep looking. There must be something here I’m good at.”
“Iknowthere is,” Ayla said fiercely, and when he turned over his shoulder to look at her, she smiled at him. “Wewillmake this work, Niel. I know it. Just don’t lose hope.”
“How can I?” he murmured. “You’ve given me enough luck for a lifetime. I just wish I could take care of you properly.” He opened the oven door and pulled the bread out with a dish rag. The smell of it wafted through the air. Ayla breathed in deep.
“You are,” she said, and meant it, and wished he could believe her.
Friend Northman
In the marketplace, someone roasted meat and fruit over an open flame. Niel’s mouth watered, but he ignored the smell, working his way down the street. Up ahead, two men unloaded barrels from a cart, moving slowly with their muscles straining as they lowered each one to the ground. Niel wove through the crowd and jogged up to the cart.
“I work?” he asked in Ciranci, gesturing to the barrels. He put a hand on the cart’s bed to jump up, but the men waved him off quickly. One abandoned the barrel he’d started rolling to lunge at Niel, all aggressive bluster, as if he’d rather fight than give the job away.
Thatwouldn’t turn out well for either of them. He didn’t know what the Cirancians would do if he killed someone in a street fight, or even just broke the man’s arm, but neither prison nor a hanging would serve Ayla well.
Not that he was proving much use, as it was. Niel backed away from the cart, hands raised, and turned to keep going downthe street. In their time in Laticillio, he’d had more luck in the marketplace than anywhere else in the city. There were so many people here, all on the move, and some of them were willing to toss him one of the small, parchment-thin copper coins they had in Cirancia for a few minute’s work.
He’d already earned two that morning. Not that two was any achievement. A full day’s work at this rate would get him what? A single handful of grain?
The money he’d won in the pit would buy them some time, but it wouldn’t last, and he didn’t see how Ayla would let him fight again. Without that, he was no closer to figuring out a real solution. Itoughtto have been simple. But he wasn’t good enough with the language to figure out how to become a guardsman, or to find some wealthy merchant who wanted a trained sword as bodyguard. He’d tried going to the lake, but the fishermen there had made it clear he wasn’t allowed to catch anything without one of the little medallions they wore, and that they'd fight him if he tried, and when he asked where to get one, he couldn’t understand their answers. Without anybody to talk to apart from conversations in the market with people who were trying to get Niel to leave, his skill at the language wasn’t getting much better. Or at least, the phrases he was learning—phrases that seemed to mean things likefuck offandget out of here—weren’t exactly things he could say to find employment.
He rubbed his forehead. He’d reached a part of the market where the stalls were only arrayed on the right side of the street for a stretch. On the left was a stone wall so tall even Niel couldn’t see over it, surrounding a large house and trees that rose even taller. He eyed the market stalls as he passed, looking for opportunity and finding none.
There was one more thing he could try, but the thought of it made him sick. He wasn’t sure how to tell Ayla.
There was no point in any of this, without her. But he was certainshecould still live in Enar. And after everything that happened, Niel figured Corin probablywouldtake care of her and the babe, or at least make sure they were safe. If his brother were still alive, at least.
They could use the gladiator money to put Ayla on a ship north. He wouldn’t see her again, but someone would take care of her. She didn’t need to live like this. It was his fault that she was struggling alongside him in the first place. But if he sent her away, he… Niel paused to press the heels of his palms to his eyes, feeling cold all over.
If he loved her any less, he’d never consider it. But he loved her enough that he’d rather lose her than make her keep suffering. He didn’t want his child to grow up like this, either. The problem was, he doubted she’d agree to it. The situation felt hopeless.
“Northman! Northman!” someone called behind him, in the Enarian tongue. Niel whipped around. His hand went to his beltknife; the sword wasn’t allowed in the market. Two men ran towards him. The gate in the tall wall he’d walked past swung shut behind them.
“I work?” Niel asked in Cirani, as they drew close.
The man on the right was short and stocky, with a black beard trimmed into a thin line, and a red silk shirt. He wore rings on his fingers and had a keen look in his eye. This man opened his mouth and spoke rapidly at Niel, gesturing. Even focusing, Niel couldn’t pick out more than a few sounds.
“Work?” he repeated carefully.
The man on the left was taller, with dark gray clothing and an empty scabbard on his hip that marked him as a swordsman. Niel had seen plenty of those in the market, young men swaggering about with a boisterous attitude and an empty scabbard on their hip, as if their entire reputation dependedon Laticillo knowing they were swordsmen, despite the market place’s rules.
“You speak the north tongue, yes?” the taller man said, in accented words that Niel could understand perfectly.
Niel hesitated for a moment. It flashed through his head that these could be assassins, trying to determine he was their target before they put a knife between his ribs. But the shorter man in the silk was too ostentatious.
“Yes,” Niel said, in his native tongue.
The tall swordsman gestured to his companion in red.
“DoanPaolo speaks that you made war well in the arena. He wished to speak, but you have left before he can leave his seats.” The words were awkwardly phrased, but the tall man had far better command over Niel’s language than Niel did of his.
“Ah,” Niel said. Did they want him to fight again? Worse odds for a better prize? He couldn’t do it. “Sorry, but I’m not going in again. Only once.”
The swordsman translated this. The shorter man said something else, gesturing. Niel blinked at him.
“He does not want you in the arena, northman.DoanPaolo says fortune favors that he saw you walk by here. You see, my friend, he runs a very distinct school, where the children of the bag-men—” Niel frowned. He did not know what abag-manwas— “learn the art of the sword, and this northman style, it is very distinct, and he says you are quite good at it, the best, perhaps,DoanPaolo has seen, and my friend,DoanPaolo has seen many men fight. Please, you will come,” the swordsman finished, and gestured back towards the door in the wall the men had emerged from.
