Never Knew Another by J. M. McDermott Page B

informant was free to go, until an informant was needed again, or unless his crimes were too serious for that. Had Calipari told him he could go? Calipari went out to see the scriveners, and Jona was alone with the weeping candle maker.
    He looked in terror at Jona.
Jona lifted the mallet. “What?”
“Please…” the candle maker was crying.
    “Get out of here. Don’t look back at me, or I’ll crack your face, too.”
    The candle maker bolted for the door.
    Jona went back among the cells. He wasn’t sure if Calipari wanted the candle maker arrested or not, but Calipari wouldn’t let the candle maker leave the station if he was supposed to be arrested. Jona, still unsure, left the empty room. He went back in the cells to check and see if the candle maker was there. Jona found Tripoli in one of the empty cells, and no sign of the candle maker. Tripoli was drinking. Together the two corporals traded a flask of cheap whiskey until it was empty. Tripoli fell asleep on a pallet.
    For a moment, Jona thought about locking Tripoli in, on a lark. Instead, he returned to the main room with the scriveners to ask about what happened to the candle maker. Calipari wrinkled his nose at Jona’s whiskeyed breath and ordered him home. Before he left, though, Jona showed Calipari where Tripoli lay asleep. Cursing, the sergeant locked the cell and kicked the bars. Tripoli didn’t even stir.
    Stumbling home, a chill of dread hit Jona. He shouldn’t have shared the flask. He told himself it was all right, just this once, to share a flask. Tripoli’d be feeling ill a few days. When it had happened before, no one had died. No one would put two and two together as long as it didn’t happen that much. It would be all right. Tripoli would be all right.
    It was so easy to forget that he wasn’t like these men who were his friends. He had to be more careful.

    ***

    Jona snuck into most of the better dry season parties because it’s what his mother had done to meet his father. It’s how people met when they couldn’t officially meet. His official meeting seemed like she was biding her time until she needed a king’s man owing her favors.
    How little he understood. Lady Sabachthani already owned the king’s men. She already owned him, and he didn’t even know it.
    Jona’s mother had bragged about the invitation to tea among the dressmakers, and had fluttered about the house to get him ready for this. His uniform was clean and starched. His hair was cut close and combed into place with lard to hold it down. If she could have personally, she would have walked with him all the way to the door of the parlor room of the third or fourth cousin, twice removed, that was chaperoning. The distant cousin had just been engaged to marry Ela’s distant cousin, and Ela was visiting, nominally to celebrate the engagement. It was a ruse, and explicitly described as one on the invitation. Ela wouldn’t meet nobles like Lord Joni in her own house, no matter what Jona’s mother said to the other dressmakers. Lord Joni was unmarried, and so was she. Decorum still applied. But Lady Ela Sabachthani had tea at least once a year with every noble in the city, even Jona. She made up excuses about important issues, and found an excuse that merited a meeting in someone’s house, for tea.
    Jona wasn’t one to get called Lord Joni much at all, unless he was getting mocked for it. He never understood what Lady Sabachthani might have wanted from him, and he was too afraid to ask her straight out.
    This time, Ela had brought a basket, which she coyly set beside her unexplained. When the conversation slowed, she opened the basket to produce a tiny black terrier.
    She put the little dog at her feet and told the dog to follow her as she walked around the room. It obeyed. She winked at them, and ordered the dog to climb on the wall. To the politely delighted gasps of her audience, masking the fear of Sabachthani magic, the dog walked up the side of the wall, stopping