ERROL CLIMBED OUT of the foundlings’ wall through a hole under the stairs at the thirty-fourth strata. He stood at the shadow of the arch to the Great Hall, smelling root stews in the midday kitchens. He had not expected to hear the workaday chatter of the first lunch shift. Some kelps ran past him on the stone stairs, charging into battle with their wooden swords.
“I em Beowulf! Heer me RAAAAR!”
“And I em Grendel, so ye should watch your hind parts!”
A voice behind Errol made him jump. “That game was my son’s favorite.”
Errol said nothing.
“Are ye deaf, foundling?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hand up to his neck, to cover the lack of a mark. “Wil ye wesh my to mak the kelpies te halt spillen pain on ye?”
“Nay. If I wanted the game banned, banned it would be already. Do you know who I am?”
“Aye. Mam. Margaret Thebes, guildmaster of this very tower.” He kept his back to her still. He saw her move in the corner of his eye. “I am sure that son misses you,” he said.
“Are ye besting me? In what square inch of your foundling head did you find that idea?”
“I miss my own mam, is all, and she had nearly as many concerns as you do.”
“I pity her. Let me guess. A man is the cause of the trouble?”
“Aye.”
“‘Oft hath even a whole city reaped the evil fruit of a bad man.’”
Errol nearly turned to her. “Are ye quoting from Hesiod?” He had never known his mam to read.
“Aye. And how would you know that? Apparently I’ve met another scholar taught to read by Jamila Foundling.”
“Aye, Mam. I’m sorry to be so well-informed. If it relieves you, I cannot read the crisis in this city.”
“What do you mean by that?” Margaret said, drawing nearer to him.
“Which one is the bad man in this city: the fiend who lived here once, or the regnat who cannot exist apart from bright light?”
“Who are you?” she said. “How do you know that?”
“No one. But rumors spread in the morgues. How far does the evil spread, Mam?”
“The whole city pays taxes in foundlings. That cannot be stopped. And the streets are foul. But this hardly concerns you, foundling. I’ll not pay the tax in foundlings till my body is cold. When the regnat came last week and did not find the particular knotting spikes he wanted, I gave him gold. He cannot take his eyes off gold.”
“I would prefer to fight the regnat.”
“Too many of the guilds would take the side of Fremantle. To keep the regnat in office, to keep the guild exports leaving the city. Guilders fear even good change.”
“Why did you let a creature so foul as Utlag into the guild in the first place, Mam?”
She raised her fist, as if to strike him, but withdrew it and wiped at her eyes. “Remember who you are, and who I am.”
“I remember,” he said.
“I had no idea he would turn the city upside down, seeking something he digs from our ribs. Feasting on us. A predator.”
“Could you not tell from looking at him that he was foul?”
“He was far from foul when he was young. He was uncommon.”
“As hel is uncommon.”
She stiffened. “You are too bold, foundling. Show me your face.”
Errol turned slowly. She eyed him as she would a sack of wool she was considering for purchase.
“Well, my son was a far better-looking thing than you are. Beowulf, as I told you, they made him every time, and not just because he was mine. There was the noble in him, and something else as well. A rare thing. Not anymore, but he was.”
“He misses you, Mam. I am sure of it.”
They were quiet for a long while, and Errol realized how often he had seen Margaret in the company of foundlings. Her secrets were safe with them. She shook her head as if to shake off all they had just said to each other.
“Flattery will not free you from rubbing the stairs, foundling.” She pulled herself up to her full height, and still looked up at him. “Didn’t you have something to do?”
“I lack a rag,” he said.
“We hide them in that bin over there, says rags. You might be done now and onto some more useful chore if ye didn’t waste my time carrying on about things that’ll not change.”