Chapter 87: Captain Odrin Kass (2)
"Say it."
Encrid said, fully prepared for anything Kass could ask.
The captain was silent for a moment before he continued
"If it happens..."
He stopped.
For the first time since Encrid had entered the room, the old captain seemed reluctant to continue.
"Gods forbid it happens."
His voice became quieter.
"But if the Wall ever goes down and this fortress has to run..."
He looked directly at Encrid.
"The Far-Watch leaves first."
Encrid was silent.
"Not the watches."
Kass continued.
"Not the Works. Not the stone-cutters. Not the drain crews. Not the Lampwrights."
His hand tightened around the boot.
"Not the people from the Shambles."
Encrid’s expression changed slightly.
"My people go in the first wagons."
"Captain-"
"I know what I’m asking."
Kass’s voice remained calm.
"I’ve been thinking about it for days."
He placed the boot down.
"There are ninety-one people in the Far-Watch."
He looked at Encrid.
"Ninety-one out of eleven thousand."
"We go beyond those stakes for weeks at a time."
He paused.
"And we come back with the things that keep those eleven thousand alive."
Kass’s expression hardened.
"Do you know that we lose four or five every month doing it."
Another pause.
"We’ve been doing it for two hundred years."
He looked toward the door.
"There isn’t a family in the Shambles that hasn’t buried one of mine."
His voice was quiet.
"We’ve bled enough for this Wall."
Encrid understood.
"If it ends," Kass said, "I want my people out."
Encrid thought about it.
He could already see the problem.
Three thousand civilians lived in the Shambles.
And Vess had already asked him for something that would make this promise difficult to keep.
But there was another problem.
If Encrid refused, Kass would not give him his votes.
And without those votes, he would not get the seat.
And if he did not get the seat, none of them would have a chance to prepare for the fall Kass was afraid of.
Encrid looked at the old captain.
"Agreed."
Kass watched him.
"I thought you would argue."
"No."
"Most men would have."
Kass picked up the boot again.
"You’ll find that a promise like this costs much more when you have to keep it than when you make it."
"I know."
"Well."
Kass resumed cleaning the boot.
"That is six votes."
Encrid stopped halfway to standing.
"I never told you how many votes I had."
"No."
A small smile appeared on Odrin Kass’s face.
"But my ears reach far, my Lord."
✦ ✦ ✦
Rael came down the arch an hour after dark with four cores in a wrap and his left arm strapped across his chest.
The braziers had been banked. Most of them were asleep already, in the rough half-circle they always made without anybody telling them to, small ones at the middle where the heat was.
Wren was still up.
She was sitting against the wall with a scrap of slate on her knees and the striker on its cord around her neck, and she looked at his arm before she looked at his face.
"Sit down," she said.
"I am fine."
"Sit down. You are dripping on the floor and I have just swept it."
Rael sat down.
She got the water and the cloth without being asked, and she did it quietly. She had done this before. In fact, she had done it so many times that she was now better at it than the man in the Shambles who charged him four coppers.
"Nine tonight," she said, while she worked. "Two came in from the fourth quarter this afternoon. Brother and sister."
"How old?"
"Six and nine. It seems like their mother went last week."
"Then it is sixty-three."
"Sixty-three." She wrote it on the slate.
He let her finish the arm before he said anything else.
"The Clerk Lord of the third office made me an offer."
She glanced at him.
"The Duke’s son?"
Rael nodded.
"Then why didn’t you take it?"
Rael was quiet for a moment.
Then he looked toward her.
"Wren."
"What?"
"I know men like him."
She frowned.
"Lords?"
"Yes, Lords."
Rael looked down at his bandaged arm.
"They use people when they need them."
His voice was flat.
"Then they throw them away when they don’t."
Wren didn’t answer.
Rael leaned back slightly.
"Besides, I’m earning enough hunting roamers."
"Enough?"
"Enough to keep us fed."
He said it as though that settled everything.
Wren’s eyes drifted toward his arm again. The bandages were already beginning to stain.
"You have a lot of talent."
"Wren-"
"Everybody says it. The men in the tally line say it. The salvage officer at the sixth said it to another man, and I heard him." She was talking faster now. "They say there is nobody on this Wall your age who can do what you do. They say you would been a knight if you were not on this Wall."
"People say a great many things."
"So take it. Or do not take it, and go south instead." She had gone red, and she went on anyway. "Take the cores and sell them properly, and get off this Wall, and go somewhere they have not got a forest. You could be something out there. Be a mercenary or join some house and become a knight. If it’s you - I know you could do it."
He did not answer.
"You are twenty-two," Wren said. "And you came in tonight with your arm open again. That is the third time this year."
"It is the second."
"It is the third, and you know it."
The brazier ticked. Somewhere in the dark behind her, one of the small ones turned over in its sleep and settled again.
Rael sat with his back against the cold stone and looked at the half-circle of them.
"And what would I do with it?" he said.
"With what?"
"With the talent. Or the money, or the going south, or any of it." He turned his head and looked at her. "What would any of it be worth to me, if I cannot even feed my brothers and sisters?"
Wren opened her mouth.
But Rael was already standing.
The conversation was over.
At least, for him, it was.
✦ ✦ ✦