question, gentlemen, is this,” said the man with the burnt stick: “What is the total length of the lines bisecting the triangles—Bisecting, as you will remember, Master Smith,” he said pointedly to the student who had come in late with Micah, and was clearly wrong about Doctor Padstow not being one to bite, “being the act of dividing in half . . .”
Bisecting, Micah murmured to herself. What a wonderful word for it!
“. . . then: What is their total length, expressed in terms of a and b?”
The young men all scribbled furiously on their slates. “Doctor Padstow?” One raised his hand. “If we were to connect the eight outside points to create a circle . . .”
“It would create a very pretty picture, Master Elphinstone; but unfortunately, would not get you any nearer the answer.” A bell started tolling, a huge, heavy sound on the air outside. “And so I’m afraid I will have to leave you to ponder the question until our next lesson.”
Micah felt jumpy, as if she had to pee. She couldn’t stop wriggling inside. She had to tell them, if they couldn’t see. “Squares,” she said loudly.
Doctor Padstow looked up sharply. “Who said that?”
“I think it was the kid.”
“Because you’ve made the inside ones squares, and they’re all the same, so to find out, you just add them all up!”
Everyone was staring at her. She really hated being stared at.
“Are you a geometer, boy?”
“No,” Micah said. “I have to go!”
She turned and ran.
Now the streets were full of people; men of all ages in black robes, scurrying about as though they were rats set free from a trap. The big bell must have released them. They didn’t see anything wrong with pushing to get where they were going, either. Micah really, really hated being pushed, or even being brushed, by strangers.
She tried going back the way she’d come, but the black-clad rats wouldn’t let her. She was scared, now. She counted backwards from two hundred and fifteen by numbers divisible by three. That usually helped. But people kept bumping into her. She couldn’t see where the street ended so she couldn’t tell where to turn. She was losing her numbers. She was losing her maps—
• • •
“You all right, kid?”
Micah looked up from where she was crouched in a doorway, her hands over her head. She didn’t remember getting there.
“Don’t touch me!” she said hoarsely.
It was a young scholar, almost as young as she was, maybe. “I won’t.” He drew back his hand. “Did somebody hurt you? Did your master beat you?”
“No.” Micah felt in her pocket for the turnip cook’s coins. They were all still there. “Nobody beat me. I just got lost.”
The young scholar smiled. “I did, too, my first month here. You’re from the country, aren’t you? I am, too. Can I help you find your way?”
“The Ink Pot?” Micah said without hope.
“I know it. Come on.”
This boy did want to talk. But mostly he was telling her about himself. It didn’t matter, anyway. The streets were a giant tangle of yarn, like when the cat got into Aunt Judith’s basket. It would take her all night to untangle them. Eventually, Micah told herself, she’d find a street she knew, and she could start again. But she’d probably have to wait ’til dawn to find her way, unless she spent money to hire a torch to walk her through the night streets, and Cousin Reuben would be mad. She definitely had to have a hot drink, first.
• • •
Riverside felt dangerous to an experienced hand like Ixkaab Balam. There were a million hiding places amidst the close-together, leaning old houses of stone, where anyone could be lurking.
But before she’d left her father’s house, Kaab had taken a little memento from the wall of his accounting room. It was one of the curiosities her kinsfolk had sent back from foreign parts. Since his duties left him no chance to travel overseas, her father liked to line his workroom with exotica.
Her father might be annoyed to find the Xanamwiinik dueling sword gone, but surely he’d understand why she had carried it with her across the sea.
The blade was long and heavy and bright. The Wasp’s sailmaker had shown her how to keep it from rusting during those months at sea.
And he’d shown her how to use it, as well. His legs being as they were, he could no longer enact the moves, but by Ahkin, he could make Ixkaab dance! Up and down the deck, ’til the strange grip felt normal in her hand and the weight of the sword on her arm. And then its silver tip up and down the mast-that-was-her-enemy, until Kaab was sure her enemy stood no chance. But when the sailmaker lifted a marlinespike, and showed her what a clever blade could do to dance around her like a dragonfly in heat—Kaab smiled at the memory. It wasn’t a toy, after all.
She was glad the Local sword hung at her hip now. There were very few people on the street, although it was nearly midday. But they had to be somewhere. Indoors, maybe? Few of the cunning, twisted chimneys gave forth smoke.
The Riverside stone still exuded coldness from the night; and judging by how the houses nearly met across the narrow, filthy streets, the sun probably never reached between them long enough to warm them. On one street Kaab went down, most of the houses looked abandoned: wooden doors rotted, shutters and glass gone from the windows. Ancient staircases up to nowhere.
Kaab headed for a street where she could see wash lines hung across the road between houses. The sheets on them were yellowed, the underwear torn—but between them were bursts of color, like parrots roosting in a tree: a bright scarf, a frilled skirt, a stripy stocking . . . Poor people. But ones who liked some flash and dazzle.
Ixkaab counted dozens of mangy cats on the streets, the roofs, the doorways, cats of all sizes and colors—some new to her—all of them scrawny, many of them patchy and bitten; but she didn’t see a lot of rats. Good for you, kitties! she thought.
I know my love by his way of walking
And I know my love by his way of talking
And I know my love by his steel so true
And if one love leaves me, I’ll seek a new!
A woman was singing vigorously to herself, loud enough to be heard around the corner. Kaab slowed and took the side of a house, to see before she was seen.
The woman was leaning against a wall, catching a bit of sun on her pale, pale face. But her hair was aglow already. Kaab blinked. It was no trick of the light: the woman’s hair was the color of clouds at sunset, of a good ripe mango, of a hunter’s fire. If not for her face, she would be a creature of fire—but no: The woman heaved a long sigh, and her bosom rose like Ixel’s pale twin moons from the top of her gown.
Kaab let her breath out slowly. Was this a Riverside prostitute, waiting for customers? Was her song some kind of
