“From Bachria, buffalo leather-skin. Very endure. Very light. Your good benefit!”
He held up a thumb.
Cain knew some Bachrians living and working in the market square. They held feasts for the entire neighborhood at least once a year, per their custom. Cain made it a point to attend them all bearing gifts. He remembered them complaining that it was impossible to get good buffalo meat in the Capital, a situation he had helped rectify by introducing them to a trader who dealt in Tanvalian bison.
He held the sack up and pretended to be astonished by its excellence, adjusting his spectacles. It was indeed light, and soft as well. It was the right size for Arienne, enough for her to carry what she needed in what was certain to be a long journey ahead for her. He gave the clerk a nod of approval and proceeded to pick out other supplies for Arienne. He reminded himself that whoever was pursuing her would be looking for a girl with neck tattoos. She could use a scarf to cover her clan markings.
At the same store, he bought a coat for himself, the tan onehe had on being completely unfit for wearing to a funeral, not to mention stained with blood from the night he was attacked, as well as from when he’d met Devadas in the alleyway. There were other, fainter stains, each reminding him of a job turned violent. The new coat was black, hopefully preventing the problem of such obvious stains in the future. It had a hood attached, convenient for covering his face from both the cold weather and recognition by others. After some haggling, he sold his bloody coat for store credit, then stuffed the things he had bought for Arienne in the leather bag.
He paid. The pouch he had received from Septima showed no signs of getting lighter. Putting a few extra coins in the shop clerk’s palm, he asked for a delivery to be made to Lucretia’s place.
“Before the sun sets.”
“Gaita z’bak,” said the clerk, his smile widening even further.
If the goods arrived early, Arienne might just leave before dark against his advice, without saying goodbye. Come to think of it, he hadn’t asked her where she was going. He wondered if she even had a destination. She was a sorcerer after all and could probably take care of herself, but seeing as she’d been shivering from cold in a dress more suited to be wornunderproper clothing thanasproper clothing, maybe she couldn’t.
Now in his somber new coat, Cain headed for Fienna’s funeral. The capital of the Empire was surrounded by no walls or gates. It had grown so fast that the old city walls ran in a circle only around the heart of the city. As he walked on, the buildings started decreasing in number until he was out in the fields. Fienna was to be buried in a cemetery east of the city, the place where most of the people from his neighborhood were buried.
Arlanders cremated their dead. In their homeland, family andfriends would bring fire from the volcano to light the death pyre where their loved ones lay. But here in the Imperial heartland, where almost every acre of its flat and fertile land had been cultivated long before the Empire came to be, using wood to light a body on fire was far too costly.
It took a long time to get to the cemetery, but Cain still arrived early. Snow flurries fell silently from a moody gray sky. Tombstones of all sizes stood in neat rows. The cemetery keeper pointed Cain to where an old gravedigger sat resting on the edge of Fienna’s coffin, a freshly dug grave beside it. As Cain approached, the digger rose quickly from the coffin and sat on the ground next to it. The coffin was inexpensive but still made of good material. The dye shop owner, when he had dropped by, mentioned she had paid for the funeral costs. She wasn’t going to be present today, however. Perhaps because her only worker had turned up dead. She had seemed very busy when he’d passed her storefront on the way here.
Cain had not had the chance to go to his parents’ funeral. He had no idea if there had been a funeral at all. Even as they were being pursued for treason, they made sure their son at least could escape the clutches of the prefect. Cain didn’t know what to think of such parents. He could resent them or feel grateful, but either way, they weren’t coming back. And Cain could never return to Arland.
At Fienna’s gravesite, there were still only Cain and the gravedigger. From somewhere across the cemetery came the strains of a funeral dirge, in a language he didn’t know.
“You family?” The gravedigger seemed unable to stand the awkward silence.
“I am not.”
“The plot and the coffin, they were bought by the shopkeeper this girl used to work for. Doesn’t look like anyone is going to show up, does it? We can start if this is it…”
Cain didn’t answer. For the first time since her death, he was remembering what Fienna was like in life, rather than trying to solve her murder. Her hands were always this improbable color or that, depending on the day’s work at the dye shop, sometimes the dyes staining the knots on her braids, or the corner of her smile. She had always been tired when they met, but she always spared the time to listen to Cain. The rare times Fienna asked for favors, he was more than eager to grant them. But all the things he had done for her, all the stories he had told her, seemed like they were for naught, as they were useless in preventing this outcome.
He should’ve given her more of his time. He should’ve been more concerned with what was going on with her. He was too busy trying to make her laugh with trivial stories of his daily life, rather than asking what troubled hers. There had been so many more important things, but he had wasted their precious time together talking about old Agatha or olive oil or new infatuations. He should’ve thanked her more. Listened to her more.
As he stood there, the folds of his new coat accumulating a white dusting of snow, he noticed people in small groups approaching the grave from the cemetery entrance.
Cain wiped his spectacles with his sleeve and looked again. Scores of people, it looked like, murmuring as they approached.
“You there! The young man! Are you family of Fienna?”
This was shouted at him by an old gentleman walking with a cane. Not answering, Cain took a closer look at the people coming toward them.
Some were wiping away tears, others looked angry. Some kept clearing their throats, and still others were consoling one another. Cain recognized none of their faces.
Soon, they were surrounding the grave and Fienna’s coffin. The mourners did not seem to know one another very well.
“She was a healthy young girl, how could she all of a sudden…”
“And her family? Where can they be, did she have no one…”
Some leaned on the coffin and burst into tears. Cain was unsure of what was going on. The mourners kept arriving, and soon the crowd was several concentric circles deep, with Cain finding himself in the very middle, along with the gravedigger, who looked confused. Cain surmised that he was regretting how he had sat down on the coffin.
The old man who had arrived first hooked his cane on his wrist. He gripped Cain’s hand.
“Three years ago, when my family first arrived here, we didn’t have anything to get started with our new lives. But Fienna was very generous to us. I had hoped our business would succeed and I would repay her, but then this sudden tragedy…”
