CHis pounding head woke him. He tried to open his eyes, found them too crusted with sleep, rubbed them, and tried again. They peeled back to reveal cracked, screaming light bleeding in from around the camel hair curtains. Even in the twilight of the basement, fire burned through his eyes to the back of his head. He groaned and sat up. Hammers into his skull.
He closed his eyes, and after a few minutes, tried again. Better this time. His room was blurry, but less washed out than it had been before.
Gessa was gone. He swallowed his disappointment in that. The one other time she’d spent the night, she’d pulled the same thing. He realized he’d been hoping that it would be different, now, after he’d opened up like that. Still, what did he expect? He was an old man with missing teeth, and a damn grave robber to boot. Should be glad she spent the night in the first place.
And she’d come through on her side of the bargain, he saw as rose unsteadily to his feet. On the stool where she’d sat the night before was a scrap of paper. She’d drawn on the back on one of his letters–a page from a twelve-year-old shipping manifest from a boat called the Immortal, he noted with a scowl. A scratched-out map of the part of Fom around Wise Hall, the cathedral itself marked with a lopsided sun-and-crescent moon sketch, and a spot on a block to the north marked with a little ‘x’ that he could only presume was the location of the hawker she’d told him about. Well, he’d see her again when she came around to get paid, anyway.
Ranat sighed. Even with Wise Hall marked for reference it was going to take forever to find the guy he was looking for. He grimaced at the chicken scratches of the map. He didn’t even know the hawker’s name. He could only hope his would be the only merchant on the block. He didn’t savor the consequences of asking the wrong person to buy a belt looted from a dead man.
He rummaged through the room, looking for clothes that didn’t stink of sweat and booze, and, failing that, donned the same ragged linen shirt and worn pants he’d worn the night before. At least his coat was nice, except for the stains.
The hawker’s was easier to find than Ranat had expected. Gessa’s map had been faithful to the twist of Fom’s streets, and the hawker’s place was indeed the only store of its kind, squeezed amidst a row of accounting offices and law firms.
The clouds had been high when Ranat finally left his home late that morning, and he’d almost dared hope for a rare glimpse of the sun to boil off the remainder of his hangover, but as he walked the overcast had lowered again, until now the sky seemed to almost brush the tops of the copper domes that marked the neighborhoods around Wise Hall. Rain pattered on the streets, which were well-groomed here, clean of mud. The simple, copper vents that blasted steam in other parts of Fom were here stylized into the faces of cherubs and demons, the mist blasting from their mouths and noses before vanishing in the chill, foggy air. The citizens here were uniformly clean-cut, and gave sidelong looks at Ranat as he half-staggered through his hangover. The ink on Gessa’s map had begun to run in the rain, and he’d needed to stop in more than one doorway to peer at it, trying to make out the shape of the streets.
But this must be the place. A broad, worn stairway made from the same slowly melting limestone most of the city was built from led up three shallow steps to a wide door. Both steps and door were half-clogged with clothes on hangers and shelves crammed with pottery. Within was more of the same, and behind the long counter the wall was lined with thick logs with bronze and ceramic swords, axes, and knives lodged into it without apparent organization.
Ranat studied the map again, telling himself he was just stalling, and approached the counter.
The man that greeted him with a nod was young despite his bald head, which he’d attempted to disguise with a few long wisps of hair tugged over from the side. He wasn’t quite fat, but “portly” didn’t quite do him justice, either.
Ranat had never done business with a merchant who actually remained bound by the laws of the Church before, and he wasn’t sure of the proper etiquette, if there was any. He glanced around, but there were no other customers. He cleared his throat.
The hawker scowled. “Out with it. Or if you’re just gonna stand there, tell me now so I can get back to work.”
Ranat cleared his throat again. “I’m a friend of Gessa’s,” he said.
“And?”
“She said you might be interested…” Ranat trailed off and simply reached into his sack to pull out the belt. Gessa had scraped off most of the mud the night before, and it glittered in the muted light wafting from the door.
The hawker arched his eyebrows, and after hesitating a second, picked it up. “This looks like Veshari’s work. Where’d you get it?”
“Found it,” Ranat said. “And that’s the truth, too, so don’t look at me like that. I don’t know who Veshari is.”
The hawker eyed Ranat a moment more, then nodded. “Alright, alright. Veshari was an Artisan… that’s Artisan with a capital ‘A’… one of the lords of Valez’Mui, before he converted to the Church. Now he does custom stuff for the high-ups over in Tyrsh. They all love their personal emblems over there, you know.”
Ranat grunted. “Here, too.”
The hawker grinned. “Ain’t that the truth. Anyway, don’t know who this used to belong to, but definitely someone high ranking.”
“So,” Ranat said. “How much will you give me for it?”
The merchant looked at the buckle again, frowning in thought. For a while, the only sounds were the murmur of passers-by and the soft dribble of the rain drifting in from the open doorway.
“Problem is,” the hawker mused with a sideways look at Ranat. “It’s more valuable intact. A lot more. Priceless work of art and all that. But of course I could never sell it as is. Not something unique like this. Type of thing can come back and haunt. And damn, would it be heart breaking to take it apart. Like taking a prize camel and turning it into meat.” Another sideways look. “I could give you thirty Three-Sides for it, I suppose. For the raw materials.”
Ranat reached over, plucked the belt from the man’s hands. “The iron alone is worth twice that, at least, and you know it. Gessa didn’t tell me you were a schemer.”
“Alright, alright. You know what you’re doing. Fair enough. Can’t blame me for trying. Sixty, then.”
“A hundred.” Ranat’s voice was flat.
“Eighty, then.”
“Ninety.”
The hawker chewed his lip, eyeing the belt dangling in Ranat’s hand. “Fine,” he said after a minute. “Ninety. Anything else?”
Ranat turned to look out the cluttered doorway, into the rain and the bustling street. “Yeah. Where’s an alehouse near here?”
The hawker paused where he’d begun counting out the coins. “There’s a wine bar a block over.” He gestured with his head.
“Anywhere else?”
The hawker shrugged and went back to counting. “I don’t know. Probably. People like their wine over here.” Ranat made a face, and clutched at his hand, where it had begun to tremble. “Never mind. Can’t abide wine. I’d rather just walk back to the Lip.”