THEBES’S RUNNERS MILLED ABOUT in the yurt, stunned by what we had just witnessed. They spoke of irrelevancies: where Sa’id had stacked the kindling from the ships; whether Seppo had left his hoofs at Al-Razi; whether the snow on the streets could cushion a runner from a fall of more than a mile. I was sure they were making small talk so I would go mad and blurt out the one relevant fact: that it was my advice to the guard that had killed their prince.
Marek blew into the yurt and set Errol’s pack on the table. He had retrieved it from the iron crow.
“Settle in. We’ll be here till dawn,” he said.
We fell into restless heaps around the yurt fire. Grid, next to me, was wiping her face on the sleeve of her lightning suit. She looked away when she caught me staring. How could I stop from staring? I had never before seen her cry.
Marek set a kettle on the flames and steeped a remedy of strong herbs he’d make for us when we were sick.
“Stay high.” He raised his cup.
“High,” we said.
His eyes found mine across the fire. “I have never understood how it happened that you were called to the roofs, Odd Thebes.” I felt the blood drain from my face. “Tonight, I believe I will come to know.”
He poured out Errol’s pack in front of us: a water sack; three ma’amouls wrapped in parchment; a brake clip; a pair of heartwood knotting spikes; a copy of Pliny’s Natural History; a heavy copy of the laws of the city; three balled-up errand slips; and a small linen bag, embroidered plainly with Errol’s initials and with the crow and crossed spikes. Errol’s tellensac. Marek passed it to me across the fire.
“No.” I put my hands up. But he waved away my objection.
I spread my rag on the roof, put the tellensac on it, and reached to loosen the cord. With my fingers on the knot I met Errol’s her-ongean for the first time—his gone-presence.
How to explain? It was an old habit of Errol Thebes’s to tie a kitchen knot in this cord. He got the idea from the footnotes of a ship’s cook in a book we read once. To detect the work of a common thief in the galley, she would tie her own knot—a kitchen knot—instead of a standard reef knot. Any sailor thieving from the rations would miss the ruse and tie a reef knot to close the bag. They looked alike unless you paid attention. An alarm of sorts. Like that cook, Errol had possessions to guard.
I loosened the cord and spilled out the handful of relics: a three of spades; a sliver of glass; a charred twig; a black-stained wad of muslin; and a baidaq piece from a shatranj set.
“I can’t believe he kept that iosal thumb,” I murmured to myself.
“So you know his stories,” Marek said.
“Of course. Our stories run together—” I put my head back. “Don’t ask me to do this.”
“Odd Thebes.” In my name was the command.
“Talwyn knows him well. Grid. Ping. They all grew up with him.”
“He was your cousin,” said Grid.
“He was your best friend,” said Talwyn.
“I hate you all.” My eyes watered. I was sure they only wanted me to use those relic tales to spin a line and entangle myself in it. And yet I didn’t want to listen to some other fool tell my cousin’s stories. I knew him better than any of them did, and I am the bard of this tower.
Fine.
Fine, then.
“We sitton on thone hrofe usseran huses ond onginnon tha gangende-yeddu Errol Thebes, se the is—” I began, in the ancient tongue of Thebes House. “We sit on the roof of our home and begin the going-stories of Errol Thebes, who is—” My voice broke as I searched in vain for an end to that sentence.
Grid moved to sit behind me and wrapped her long lightning-flash arms and legs around me. “Bewrecen,” she whispered in my ear.
“Bewrecen,” I said gratefully. Exiled. It was better than any other word I had conjured: crushed, dead, devoured. “Listen, Errol, as you rise up—” My voice cracked. “One by one your tales will lift you from us.”
This was the way runners wanted their going-stories: around a fire, from a bard, and with no end in sight. I leaned back against Grid. The runners lay, too, with their hands resting on one another. They drank of Marek’s remedy as they drank of mine. They wanted the irfelaf. The remainder. Whatever I still had of Errol Thebes.