EIGHTEEN
Cato, when Jonas went to ask him about clothes, was unusually short.
“Of course I don’t keep Marek formal around the place. Why the hell would you think I did? And why do you want to borrow Marek formalwear.”
“It’s not for me. It’s for Asa,” Jonas hesitated, then said, reluctantly, “My mother invited us to dinner at the embassy.”
“Your mother… ?” Cato waved an impatient hand. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this. Why don’t you try a hire shop instead of hassling me, hmm?”
On his way out, Jonas noticed that one of the other doors on Cato’s corridor stood ajar. Had someone risked moving in next to the sorcerer? Jonas doubted they would last long, whoever they were.
He hadn’t known that there was such a thing as a shop which hired out fancy clothes – he’d never had occasion to bring a message to one – but once he found one, on the far side of Marek Square, in the district full of home garment-makers and lacemakers and all those who didn’t quite have Guild skills but who catered for the locals, the shopkeeper produced an aubergine tunic with adjustable side-fastenings, that would come to mid-thigh on Asa, and fitted trousers. It came with an over-vest, longer than the tunic, with a Marek lacework edging. Jonas, brought up on a trading ship, could see that it wasn’t up to the standards that the Lacemakers Guild shipped off to Exuria and the Crescent, but it was nice enough, and perfectly suitable.
It looked good when Asa had it on, too. Jonas dressed in Salinas formal, the heavily-embroidered tunic and loose Salinas trousers that he’d brought with him when he came to Marek, and tried not to feel tremendously conspicuous as they left the squats together. The last time he’d dressed this way, he’d changed up on a roof, but he could hardly expect Asa to do that.
“None of that facepaint stuff?” he asked Asa.
“That’s for Marekhill,” Asa said, with only a tiny eyeroll. “House stuff. Not for the likes of me, thanks all the same.”
He should probably have known that already.
The streets of the squats were dark, as usual; folk here didn’t have spare money for torches. Old Bridge was lit, and Marek Square itself had a pair of torches over every door, including the embassy. Jonas squared his shoulders and marched up to the front door.
Xera was polite enough when she opened the door, although she still glared suspiciously at Jonas when she thought he wasn’t looking.
“She doesn’t like you much,” Asa observed, quietly, as Xera led them along the corridor to the dining room.
She also had excellent hearing, Jonas was aware, as her back tensed.
“Mid-Year,” he said, with a shrug, and Asa pulled a face.
Shit, he hadn’t told Asa not to mention that in front of his mother. Surely they wouldn’t anyway. It was hardly suitable for polite conversation, was it? Oh, by the way, Kia let a bunch of idiots use the embassy to try to destabilise Marek, and Jonas helped them, or maybe the other thing, and I hit one of them with a chair. No. It was fine. It would all be fine.
In the dining room, Kia and his mother were already seated, sipping deep blue berith from tumblers.
“Ah, welcome,” Kia said. “Please do be seated.”
“Mother, Kia,” Jonas said, bowing slightly to both of them, before pulling out a chair for Asa. “This is Asa. Asa, this is Kia t’Riseri, ambassador to Marek, and this is my mother, Captain t’Riseri.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Asa said, sitting down a little awkwardly. “I hope we’re not late?”
“Not at all,” Kia said.
“Glass of berith? Xera will bring the food in shortly.”
“It’s quite strong,” Captain t’Riseri warned, with a smile that wasn’t reaching her eyes.
Asa smiled back, but their smile was forced too. “I’d be delighted to try it. Thank you.”
“Berith isn’t drunk here?” Jonas’ mother asked, watching Asa sip at the tumbler Kia poured. Jonas turned it down; he didn’t want to drink more alcohol than he had to.
“Only in the dock bars,” Jonas said. And not that often there, either; it was expensive. But he couldn’t draw attention to the expense of Kia’s own hospitality by saying as much.
“Marekers are missing out,” his mother said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Asa?”
“It’s nice to get the opportunity to try it,” Asa said, with admirable diplomacy. Jonas suspected they didn’t particularly want to finish their glass, and wished that he could take it from them without being impolite.
Xera appeared with a tray of a dozen or so dishes, set them on the table, and vanished to fetch more. Salinas meals consisted of a small amount each of a variety of things, most of them cold, although on dry land you could lay them out more tidily than at sea, where large deep dishes served everyone and you didn’t bother with a plate.
Asa, paying attention, followed Kia, Jonas, and Jonas’ mother in serving themself with the tongs left in every dish, then eating most things with their fingers.
“You’re Mareker-born, then, Asa?” Captain t’Riseri asked.
“From the swamp villages,” Asa said, their chin going up slightly. “Came into town a few years ago to be a messenger.”
“That’s the job you’re doing, too, Jonas?”
Jonas nodded. He wanted to believe that his mother was just making conversation, but there was an edge to her tone that he didn’t like.
“How does it compare, Jonas, to sailing your own ship?”
“Well, I never sailed my own ship,” Jonas said.
His mother made an impatient noise. “You were crew, Jonas, it was your ship. It’s hardly your own city, here, either.”
“Marek’s interesting,” Jonas said. “I get to wander round it and be paid for it.”
“He’s good, too,” Asa said. “One of the fastest messengers. Pretty good for not being Marek-born.”
“That’s an important distinction, then? Marek-born or not?”
Asa floundered slightly. “I mean, only that he’s had less time to know the city than the rest of us.”
“Are there any other messengers who aren’t Marek-born?” Captain t’Riseri asked.
Jonas really wished he could say yes. “No,” he admitted.
“The Teren folks who come in tend to be craftsfolk,” Kia put in.
“And the Salinas?”
“Not so many of them in Marek at all,” Kia said cheerfully. Which his mother knew well enough.
“Around the docks there are,” Jonas objected, then realised he’d said the wrong thing.
“Sailors,” Kia said. “Not so many folk who stay.”
He glared at her. This might not be talking about magic, but it was still not helping. Kia bared her teeth at him; she obviously didn’t see this as a betrayal of their agreement. His mother, thankfully, missed the interchange; or at least, she didn’t give any sign of having seen it, which wasn’t quite the same thing.
“Mm,” she said instead, tearing a pastry apart and popping half of it into her mouth. Once she’d swallowed it, she said, apparently lightly. “It’s interesting, that Salinas don’t choose to stay here. Other than you, of course, Kia.”
Choice wasn’t quite the right word there. Kia smiled tightly.
“Your people don’t tend to stay anywhere, much, do they?” Asa said. Which was true; Salinas rarely settled off the islands. Asa sounded slightly defensive, as though they thought Jonas’ mother was getting at Marek rather than, as Jonas glumly suspected, Jonas himself.
“I suppose the sea is a strong pull,” Captain t’Riseri agreed. “Don’t you think, Jonas?”
“The sea’s right there just outside the river mouth,” Jonas said stubbornly.
“Mm,” Captain t’Riseri said again.
Jonas took a bite of one of the wraps. He couldn’t taste it.
“So,” his mother turned to Asa. “You grew up in the swamp villages. Did you sail, then?”
“Helped my dad with the fishing,” Asa said. “He wanted me to take the boat after him, but I wanted to go to Marek proper. It’s a hard life, fishing.”
“Hard everywhere,” Captain t’Riseri agreed. “You don’t feel the lure of the sea, then?”
Asa shrugged. “I suppose I didn’t feel the lure of the fish, let’s put it that way.”
“Mm, yes. It’s true, one can always tell when one is near a fishing village.”
Jonas winced. The Salinas didn’t think much of fishers, or any sailors other than themselves. By the tight smile on their face, Asa too had recognised the insult.
“Yes, it is very noticeable,” his mother said, as if to herself.
Jonas just stared miserably at his plate. This was worse than he’d expected. And they still had at least an hour before they could leave. He huddled into himself, and prepared to wait it out.
k k
Asa stomped across Marek Square; Jonas had to lengthen his stride to keep up with them. Marek Square was busy at this time of the evening, with people passing through on their way to or from their evening’s entertainment, and some of them turned to look curiously at Jonas and Asa.
“Well, that was a total clusterfuck, wasn’t it?” Asa said grimly.
“It wasn’t… that bad?” Jonas tried, knowing as he did that it was a lost cause.
“Jonas. Your mother clearly doesn’t think that you should be going anywhere near some Mareker from the squats. And she was hardly subtle about it. The smell of fish villages? Really? Did she already have someone lined up for you at home?”
“No!” Jonas denied, then honesty insisted that he add, “Not to my knowledge. I wouldn’t put it past her, I suppose. But she’s never said anything, truly.”
“Still,” Asa said. They’d reached the foot of Old Bridge now. Asa in a hurry could move damn fast. “She made it pretty clear what her opinion is.”
“Kia was fine,” Jonas said, unable to counter Asa’s assessment of his mother but unwilling to concur with it out loud.
“Kia did her best to cover things over to make for a smoother evening, yes, I will give you that. Kia was perfectly polite to me.”
“Kia was a bit pissed off that Mother was making things difficult,” Jonas said.
“But you didn’t say word one,” Asa said.
“I did!” Jonas protested, then stopped. “Didn’t I?”
“No, Jonas,” Asa said. “You didn’t. You let her make all those snide little comments, and you contradicted her maybe once. And leaving aside all the business about curious Mareker customs, and the importance of the sea, and all the questions about the squats, leaving all of that aside – she quite clearly thinks she’s here to take you home. Doesn’t she.”
Jonas winced. “Look. How about we stop at the pub, on the way home? Nice soothing beer. Kind of thing.”
Possibly Asa would be a little less pissed off if they were in public.
“In this kit?” Asa gestured down at themself, and then at Jonas. “You must be having me on. Quite apart from the attention we’d draw, haven’t you to return this tomorrow? Clean?”
“Uh. Do you want to come to my room?”
“Right now what I want is to tell you to fuck right off,” Asa said, bluntly. “However. I don’t really want to have this discussion in the street, either, and I doubt we’ll do better by putting it off. You can come to mine. I have whisky. Right now I really need a whisky.”
Jonas wasn’t certain that was a great idea, after the tumbler of berith, and the Exurian wine with the meal, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to contradict Asa right now either, and it wasn’t like they were showing signs of being drunk. Annoyed, yes. Drunk, no.
Meekly, he followed Asa up to their room, where they immediately changed out of the formalwear, putting their customary shirt and trousers back on with a sigh of relief. Jonas supposed that it wouldn’t go down well to suggest that they left the whole lot off.
They poured off a wooden tumbler of whisky, and gestured at Jonas with the bottle. Jonas mutely shook his head. Asa didn’t have a chair in here; in the absence of other options, Jonas sat on the floor facing the bed, back against the wall. He doubted Asa would welcome him on the bed next to them right now. The floorboards were smooth underneath his fingers.
Asa took a healthy slug of the whisky, sat down on the edge of the bed, and then sighed, running a hand over their face.
“Right. I’m calmer now. So. Your mother doesn’t like me; fine. She wants you to come home, and she doesn’t want some Mareker encouraging you to stay here, nor, I suppose, does she want you thinking with your dick. I can understand that. But – couldn’t you have said something?” They sounded hurt, now, rather than cross, and Jonas felt it like a kick in the stomach.
“I,” he started off helplessly, then stopped, not knowing what to say. “I’m not very good at that,” he said, eventually, knowing how weak it was as he said it.
“At what? Standing up to your mother? Contradicting her at all?” Asa asked.
“That, basically. Yes. Look, she’s not just my mother. She was my captain, for years. And Kia’s too.”
“I noticed that,” Asa said, drily. “And yet Kia still managed the occasional deflection.”
“Kia’s a diplomat,” Jonas said. “I’m not. I know she’s being unreasonable, but the way she says things – I can’t think of how to contradict her, and if I do she’ll ask why, and I can never think of anything to say in time.”
Asa was halfway through their whisky already. They set it down, thoughtfully. “I guess I forget how young you are,” they said.
“Oh, come on,” Jonas said. “There’s no need to be like that. I’m only a couple of years younger than you.” With Asa looking at him like that, he felt small.
Asa shrugged. “In years, sure. But you were on a ship, with your ma and the rest of the crew looking out for you, until, what, six months ago? I’ve been making my own living since I was fifteen. Living on my own since a little after that. I’m not meaning anything by it, Jonas, it’s just – you’ve not had long to work out how to stand on your own.”
Jonas hunched a shoulder.
“So, fine. You aren’t any good at arguing with your ma. Mine can run rings round me, too, it’s true, though I’d like to think that if she started on at me about going with a Salinas lad, I’d have something to say.”
“If she’d said it like that, so would I!” Jonas said. “But she didn’t, did she? It was all about the interest of different cultures, and – she was like you, just now, treating me like a kid.”
“Well,” Asa said. “I want to say, don’t act like a kid. But that’s cos I’m pissed off. So. Moving on. She thinks you’re going back, and you didn’t contradict her. But that’s not what you’ve been saying to me.” Their tone was hard, challenging. “Let’s be clear about this, Jonas. It’s not that I mind. I mean, sure, I’d miss you if you went back. But we’ve been friends barely six months, and lovers just a few weeks. I like you, but I’d cope, you know? What I mind is if you’re lying to me, straight out.”
“I’m not,” Jonas said, miserably. “I…” He stopped. The problem was, he didn’t know what he wanted. Not enough to say it out loud. He wasn’t lying to anyone, he just needed… time. Time to work out what he was doing. Time to work out whether he wanted magic, and those accursed flickers, whether he would ever be able to control it. He opened his mouth, and shut it again. He couldn’t find any of the words he needed.
“So it’s your ma you’re lying to, instead?” Asa said. “Look at me, Jonas. What’s going on?”
“I’m not lying to her, either. I’m not agreeing with her. But you saw her, tonight. She’s not going to listen to me, if I tell her otherwise, is she?”
“Well, she’s certainly not if you never tell her, no,” Asa said.
Jonas looked down at the floor between his knees. “She never listened to me before. I don’t see her starting now.”
Asa took another slug of whisky. “You’re a grown man, Jonas. You’ve moved out, to another country, even. How about you start acting like it?”
Jonas buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know what I want to do. I wasn’t supposed to stay here. I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to become a bloody sorcerer, and angels alone know what Mother would say if she found out anything about that. But how long can I hide it from her?”
Asa sighed. “How long’s she staying?”
Jonas shook his head. “It’s not that. She can’t stay long. She’s got cargo to shift. But she’ll be back, and if I don’t come this time it’ll be next time, and she’ll want to know whether…” His voice trailed off.
“Whether what?” Asa asked. Jonas didn’t reply. His flickers. He didn’t want to talk about his flickers.
The silence stretched out.
“Why did you come here, Jonas?” Asa asked.
He heard the bed creak as they sat back a little. He swallowed, and took his hands away from his face. Could he tell Asa now? He glanced hesitantly across at them. They were looking consideringly at him.
“I mean. I know there’s something you’re not telling me. Known it for a while. And now it seems like there’s something your mother thinks you should have done here.”
Jonas looked back down at the floor. “I…” Could he tell Asa? Surely he could, if he’d told Cato. And, angels help him, Urso. Asa knew magic. Asa wasn’t freaked out by it. And he wanted, so badly, to be able to talk about it.
The moment stretched out. He could feel Asa about to give up. He could say something. He could.
“I see the future,” he blurted out, and immediately felt his shoulders go up, waiting for… Asa’s reaction.
“You what?”
But they didn’t sound angry, or disbelieving, just… surprised?
He was committed now. He might as well go on. “I have these… flickers. Little snippets of the future. Had them since I was a kid. I told my mother, once, and she told me to keep it to myself, ignore it, and it would go away.”
“Salinas and magic,” Asa said, sounding resigned. “I see.”
“But it’s not magic, not exactly,” Jonas said. “That’s the thing. I came here to get rid of it. I hoped, Mother hoped, I’d grow out of it, but when I didn’t… I can’t join a crew this way.”
“Does she think you’ve gotten rid of it?” Asa asked, then, “Have you?”
“I don’t know what she thinks. I haven’t, though. No one seemed to know anything about it. And then…” He swallowed. “Urso said he could help. If I helped him.”
Asa grimaced. “Right. I see. Well, that explains a lot.” Asa had never asked how he’d gotten wound up with Urso and Daril. Asa had just come and helped him. Asa had been on his side.
“But Cato said it was too late. He’s tried to help, but… He says, it’s not magic but it’s related to magic. He said, learn to be a sorcerer and then I can control it, maybe. Except he doesn’t bloody know either.” Jonas could feel his frustration leaking out. “He keeps asking me about it, he’s nosy, but then he’s telling me I can do magic as well and…”
“And can you?”
“Sometimes. I…” He stopped. He couldn’t quite bring himself, even now, to talk about the link between the flickers and magic. “I don’t know.”
Asa sighed, and got down off the bed to kneel in front of him. “So you don’t know if you want rid of your flickers, and you don’t know if you want to go back to the sea, and you don’t know if you want to be a sorcerer. And your ma’s telling you one thing and Cato’s telling you another. Am I right?”
“Pretty much,” Jonas said. He felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
“So. I guess what you need is to tell Cato and your ma, and me, come to that, to fuck off while you sort it all out.”
“I don’t want you to fuck off,” Jonas said, immediately and honestly. He grabbed at Asa’s hands. “Honestly. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to talk about it before.” He took a shaky breath. “But if you don’t want to… I mean, the flickers, they’re weird, right…”
Asa shrugged. “Lots of things are weird. It’s kind of interesting, to be honest, but I won’t be hassling you about it, don’t worry.”
“I can’t tell Cato to fuck off,” Jonas said. “He’s right. I need to learn to control this thing, if I have it. The sorcery.”
“And you can’t tell your ma to fuck off, that’s clear enough,” Asa said. “At least I understand now why you’re avoiding her. Look. You have to think this through properly, Jonas. You’re too young to commit to anything, but you need to work out what the hell you’re doing, and then maybe you need to find the nerve to tell your mother to back off.”
Jonas winced.
“Yeah, right enough, but maybe once you’ve made some decisions it’ll be easier. But right now,” Asa stood up, still holding his hands, and pulled him upwards, “have a damn brandy, get out of that posh clobber, and come lie down with me.”
Their smile had tilted upwards at the side, and Jonas let himself be tugged towards the bed, awash with relief and gratitude that Asa, at least, seemed to understand. Maybe, here, he really was safe.