On the way back toward Fishfoot Yard, Oliver asked Tobin, “Would you come with us? I've Kellan as my pupil, but I could use someone to help with the carriage and the ordinary jobs.”
“I can't drive a carriage.”
“You can learn.”
The boy hesitated for a long time.
“May I think about it, scholar?”
“Of course. Tell me tomorrow.”
“I will.”
Two days had shown Oliver a clever, brave child who hadn't yet learned to answer every kindness with suspicion. He remembered a story about a young street trader who had joined a gang to escape being bullied. The boy in that story had worked his way into power and lost his freedom in the process. Oliver wanted something else for Tobin. More than that, he feared the child might never even survive long enough to make such a choice.
Back at the inn, Kellan reported another unsuccessful day at the harbor.
“We'll go by road if we have to,” Oliver said. “Cerran should still be here. We'll fetch the carriage back. Three of us taking turns ought to make the driving easier for you.”
“Three?”
“Oh. I didn't tell you. I've offered Tobin work. You've been doing too many chores when you should be training.”
“That's all right. But he's so young. He won't be much use yet.”
“Everything's some use, Kellan. Surely a person deserves at least as much consideration as a scrap of paper.”
The following morning, somebody else waited at the meeting place.
* * *
He was about Tobin's age and looked more practiced at pleasing strangers. He bowed deeply.
“Scholar Oliver?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Alben. Tobin's younger brother. He's ill, so he asked me to show you the way.”
A brother? Oliver raised an eyebrow.
“Did he tell you where we're going?”
“Deller's. The silversmith.”
That was the right shop. Oliver knew the way already, but the mention of illness disturbed him.
“What is it? What's wrong with him?”
“A cough. I gave him herbs. He's resting. He'll be well in a day or two.” Alben smiled and set off. “This way.”
They followed through streets and narrower passages until Oliver stopped in a quiet alley.
“This isn't the way.”
Alben turned, stuck out his tongue, and ran.
Men came out at both ends of the alley with knives and axes. Oliver recognized the two who had overturned the oyster cart. A heavily built, dark-skinned man approached with a nail-studded club.
“Scholar. Unless all that parchment's replaced your brains, hand over the gold. Perhaps we'll leave your tongue. You can tell stories for your supper.” He grinned. “All those years studying in Oldtown, and you die in a hole like this. Shame, isn't it?”
Oliver stumbled back against Kellan.
“What are you doing?” His voice shook. “This is White Harbor. Lord Manderly's city. You can't rob people in daylight.”
“Manderly?” The man's laugh filled the alley. “Long life to his lordship. He's a giant. We're ants. He could tread on us, certainly. But why would he look inside this little nest? Nobody patrols here. We chose it.”
Sweat ran down Oliver's temples. Behind him, Kellan clutched his clothes with his head lowered, shoulders shaking.
“They'll find us,” Oliver said hoarsely. “They'll find the bodies.”
“Empty houses on both sides. We'll put you inside. You can rot there till only bones are left.”
“Raddan,” the thinner man interrupted, “stop talking. He said not to leave them alive.”
“And he didn't say I couldn't enjoy myself first.”
“One last thing,” Oliver said. “How did you know I had gold?”
“You asked the price of it in every shop yesterday, you—”
Big Raddan stopped. Something had changed in the voice asking the question.
Oliver looked at him steadily.
“Very thorough. I'd have found the bodies awkward otherwise. I hope you thought of your own needs when you chose the place.” He spoke over his shoulder. “Three behind you, Kellan. Can you manage?”
“Yes, Master.”
Oliver drew his sword.
“Thought he was a scholar,” Raddan said to the others.
“Tobin said—”
The heavier thug never finished.
A few dozen heartbeats later, seven armed men lay dead in the alley.
Oliver nudged one with his foot.
“You could have reminded me to keep one alive. How do we find Tobin now?”
Kellan wiped his blade on a dead man's clothes.
“You didn't say to. I thought you had a plan.” He looked up at his teacher. “And you were overdoing it. I could barely stop laughing.”
Oliver rubbed his head. “Well. Now what?”
In a recess nearby, Alben pressed a hand over his mouth. He had meant to wait until the men were finished and see whether anything worth taking was left. It had ended quickly enough, but the wrong people were standing. His trousers were wet, and he couldn't stop trembling.
“You. Come here.”
He ran at Oliver's voice. Before he had gone two steps, a blade passed close by his head and struck the ground in front of him. He saw the blood on the steel, and the world went dark.
When he woke, the bodies were gone. He sat in a corner with Oliver and Kellan crouching before him. He tried to rise. Oliver put a warm, sweaty hand against his forehead and held him still.
“Careful. I'm not always good at judging my strength.”
Alben stopped moving.
“Do you know where Tobin lives?”
He shook his head, then nodded desperately. “Yes. I know. We grew up together. He's my friend. Please let me go.”
“Your friend?”
“He told me you wanted him for a servant. He said I could have the oyster cart.”
“Did you tell them where we were meeting?”
“No. They heard from people in the silversmiths' street. That he'd found somebody with gold. They came last night.”
Oliver fell silent. His money. His offer. He had given the men a reason to notice Tobin.
“What happened?”
“They told him to bring you here. He wouldn't. They beat him. I was there, playing with him, and they said I'd have to do it instead. Or they'd kill us both.”
“Take me to him.” Oliver's voice had changed again. “If that's true, I swear by the Seven you'll go home.”
Alben didn't ask whether he meant it. There was a chance now, and he had seen enough to know he couldn't escape Oliver.
* * *
Children played in the mud along the next alley. Adults went on with their work, looking at the strangers without curiosity or welcome. At its far end stood a low timber shed.
Alben opened the door gently.
“Tobin?”
“Where did you go?” The answer was faint.
Blackened thatch covered the little room. Oysters waited in a water tank in the corner. Garlic lay near the bed among worn clothes, everything crowded into the space where the child lived and worked.
Oliver went to the bed and sat carefully on its edge.
“It's me. Your scholar.”
“Scholar Oliver?”
Tobin tried to lift his head. One eye was closed, the other almost hidden by swelling. Blood had dried and been rubbed across his face. For a moment he sounded pleased; then fear took over.
“I didn't tell them. They offered money, and they hit me, but I didn't tell them.”
He struggled to sit up and couldn't. A little wooden duck slipped from his hand. Oliver picked it up, put it back against his chest, and eased him down.
“I know. Alben told me. I know you didn't.”
He lifted the dirty blanket. Bruises covered the boy's body. An arm and a lower leg lay at unnatural angles, the injuries swollen tight beneath his skin.
Oliver closed his eyes for a moment. When he spoke again, he kept his voice low.
“Have you thought about what I asked? Coming with us?”
Tobin's face brightened.
“Yes. Grandfather said if I could serve a good man, that would be my best chance. He said...”
His eyes lost their focus. His head settled back, and he stopped speaking.
Oliver tried to reach whatever power might still be inside him. Anything. The Light he had known how to use, the power that ought to have answered when he called. He forced himself to try again, and pain came through him in waves.
Nothing else happened.
His hand shook as he felt for a pulse in the child's neck. There was none.
Was that all he had wanted? A decent man to serve?
Oliver lowered the blanket over Tobin's face.
“What do people do for the dead here?” he asked Alben.
The other boy was crying. “The Silent Sisters. At a sept. If you pay, they'll look after him.”
“Kellan. Fetch my breastplate and saber from the inn.”
Kellan left without asking why.
Oliver carried Tobin to the nearest sept, following Alben through the streets. He gave a silver moon and entrusted the body to a Silent Sister in a black robe.
“Take care of him, please. He was a good, honest boy.”
She nodded, wrapped him in a mat, and carried him into the shadow of the sept.
The little duck had fallen to the ground. Oliver picked it up and looked at it properly. Roughly carved pine, a cheap toy. He didn't know who had made it, father or grandfather. It might not have been worth a penny, but handling had worn the wood smooth. Tobin had held it through everything.
Oliver put it inside his clothes.
Back at the shed, he crouched before Alben.
“You were his friend.”
The boy nodded, frightened again.
“I'll pay you a silver deer to do something for him.”
Alben's eyes brightened. “Anything, my lord.”
“The Eelmen. You know where they gather? Take me there after dark. Once I know the place, you can go home with your money.”
Alben hesitated.
“Will you take me as your servant? I'm cleverer than Tobin. Stronger.”
For a moment Oliver couldn't answer. The tears on the child's face had not dried.
“If you do well tonight,” he said, “I'll consider it.”
Alben nodded eagerly.