Chapter 9: The Open Mouth

At dusk we lit two braziers on the top step of the Mouth and sat down between them.

The market emptied around us.

Shutters banged closed all the way around the square, and then the only light was ours.

The old porter had brought a sack of coal and a short axe.

The youngest healer had brought a blanket and her nerves.

"What if something comes up?" she asked, for the fourth time.

"Then Daan stabs it," said the old porter. "And Raes takes it apart. And you and I scream."

"I can scream," the girl said. "I'm very good at screaming."

Daan sat on the top step with his lance across his knees, grinning.

A little after dark, three people came across the empty square with a lantern.

The one in front was the floor-five healer, bald as an egg, carrying a pot of soup in both arms.

Behind him came two more healers in grey coats, a man and a woman I knew from the House.

None of them had a cord on their shoulder.

"The House took our cords this afternoon," the floor-five healer said. "These two came to the infirmary to see me."

"That was all?" I said.

"That was all. Apparently it counts as following you."

He set the pot down by the brazier.

"So we thought we'd come and follow you properly."

"I have no idea what I'm doing," I told them.

"Nobody does," he said. "Do you have bowls?"

We didn't have bowls.

We passed the pot around and drank out of it, all seven of us.

The porter told a story about a Steel who had once lost his trousers on floor four.

The youngest healer laughed so hard she cried.