XLIII

Smeds was amazed. That bastard Fish sure could stir some shit.

There was a rumor got started that this silversmith down on Sedar Row—where all the silversmiths and goldsmiths and such were located—had had a guy bring in a giant silver nail and pay him a hundred obols to turn it into a chalice and keep his mouth shut about it. Only this smith had got to celebrating his good fortune last night and had had too much to drink and had bragged to some of his cronies after swearing them to secrecy.

Today a man’s life was worthless if he had anything to do with the metalworking or jewelry trades. Those who were out after the spike were getting desperate. They were stumbling over each other and causing a lot of damage in the process. Mostly to one another.

The grays were late getting into the game but when they did they did not fool around, they came with a vengeance, sweeping through the city confiscating every piece of silver they found on the assumption the spike could have been turned into anything by now. They tried giving claim chits but people were having none of that. They had been robbed by the military before.

There was resistance. There was localized rioting. People and soldiers were hurt and killed. But there were too many soldiers and even now most people were not angry enough to rebel.

“Pretty sneaky, Fish,” Smeds told the old man, walking down a street where he felt safe talking. “Mean sneaky.”

“It worked. That don’t mean I’m proud of it.”

“It worked all right. But for how long?”

“I figure three, four days. Maybe five if I feed the rumor a couple of new angles. Plus however long it takes Gossamer and Spidersilk to decided the spike isn’t in any of the silver the soldiers are collecting up. So we’ll be all right for maybe a week. Unless one of the free-lancers stumbles onto us somehow. But in the long run we’re still had. They’ll get us one way or another. Unless this backward siege breaks. Let even ten people get out of this city and get away and you’ve opened the whole world up to the search. Because if there’s a successful breakout the man who has the spike is sure to be one of the first people gone.”

“He is?”

“Wouldn’t you figure that if you were in the place of the twins?”

“I guess.”

“Every day they send more men to guard the walls. I don’t know, but I think they’re maybe working against a deadline. If they are, we might use that against them.”

“A deadline? How’s that?”

“Those two aren’t anywhere near top dogs in the empire. Sooner or later their bosses have got to get suspicious about what they’re up to. Or one of them might decide to come up here and grab off the spike for himself.”

“We should have left the sucker where it was and settled.”

“We should have. But we didn’t. We have to live and maybe die with that. And make no mistake, Smeds. We’re in a fight for our lives. You, me, Timmy, Tully, we’re all dead if they ever get close to us.”

“If you’re trying to scare the shit out of me, Fish, you’re doing a damned good job.”

“I’m trying to scare you because I’m petrified myself and you’re the only one I think is steady enough to help me. Tully doesn’t have any backbone at all and Timmy has been living in kind of a daze ever since he lost his hand.”

“I got a feeling I’m not going to like whatever you’re going to say. What’re you thinking?”

“One of us needs to steal some white paint. Not buy it but steal it, because a seller might remember who he sold it to.”

“I can handle that. I know where to get it. If the grays aren’t sitting on it. What’re we going to do with it?”

“Try to change the focus of this whole mess. Try to politicize it.”

There he went getting mysterious again. Smeds did not understand but decided he did not have to as long as Fish knew what he was doing.

That evening was the first time Tully asked to borrow money. It was a trivial amount and he paid it back next morning, so Smeds thought nothing of it.

That night was the first night Smeds fell asleep thinking about Old Man Fish and how he seemed to have no conscience at all once you got to know him. It was like Fish had decided he was going to get through this mess and get his share from the spike even if he had to sacrifice everybody in Oar. That didn’t seem like the Fish he’d always known. But the Fish he’d always known hadn’t ever had anything at stake.

He could not be sure where he stood himself. He was neither a thinker nor a doer. He had spend his life drifting, doing what he had to do to get by and not much more.

He did know that he did not want to die young or even to answer questions on the imperial rack. He knew he did not want to be poor again. He had done that and having money was better. Having a lot of money, like from selling the spike, would be even better.

He could arrive at no alternative to Fish’s methods of achieving salvation, so he would go on going along. But with an abiding disquietude.