Chapter Forty-Three: Humans
The house he found was a fragment of raw time: wooden walls mixed with mud, a roof patched with weathered planks, and a small vent where a window should have been. The main room held room for a single bed and a small table; the intended toilet was a corner curtained off by a sagging drape and a simple channel that sometimes clogged, and the kitchenware amounted to a metal basin, an old scorch-marked griddle, and a ragged pot used for cooking when the chance arose. The air inside was damp and smelled of burned wood and repeated cooking over meager fare.
The woman who owned the place said the cost was ten copper coins for three days. Daniel looked her over. She was terribly thin; her clothes were a patchwork of colors, her eyes shadowed with dark rings. The infant in her arms clutched at her cloth, while the small child gripped a hem with a dirty little hand, his eyes following every movement of the mother with a mixture of reverence and bewilderment.
Beside the part Daniel would occupy there was a small room that had once been connected to his, but a wall now sealed it off. It was clear that this tiny chamber had been part of the same little house, and the woman had partitioned it so she could live in the smaller space and rent out the remainder to raise money. She had even offered the deal at a low rate for the poor district, though she did not mention that the minimum rental should have been a single day — she said three days because she was desperate for money.
The wall she had built was rough earthwork, temporary in look and feel, as if intended only to divide one home into two. Behind it lay a room no more than two meters across, used for sleeping and for storage. She had not placed that partition carelessly; she had redistributed the house's footprint to let the larger portion be rented while she and the children remained cramped and close.
After Daniel had taken this in, he asked her, "Where is your husband?" The woman's face tightened, the mask slipping to reveal sorrow. "He died outside the kingdom on a mission," she said. Daniel understood how he had died without commenting further. One word hung in the air. No explanation was needed; "died outside the kingdom on a mission" carried multiple implications: betrayal, combat, or an occupational mistake in a distant land. Daniel did not press for more; noticing danger now was more important than prying into the particulars of other people's lives.
"I want to rent for a month," he said, "that means a hundred copper coins, right?" Joy lit the woman's face at once; she brightened and quickly handed him the house keys, thanking him with a tremor in her voice as she looked into his eyes. "Here," she said. "These are the keys… and thank you for this. Don't worry, my little one won't cry much to bother you."
Her relief was fleeting but genuine; a hundred copper coins might buy her some days of temporary security. She passed the keys with a shaking hand, then looked at Daniel with eyes that hid a thousand fears. Her words tried to reassure him despite the worry: "Don't worry, my child is small; he won't make much noise." She was trying to hint that there was a flaw—now and then the infant's cries would pierce the quiet.
Daniel smiled. "Don't be bothered by the crying. No problem."
The woman folded herself in gratitude and thanked him again, "Thank you… thank you." She said the words over and over; each "thank you" a veiled relief.
Then Daniel said, "I don't want to go out every day to buy food. Could you bring me meals and I'll pay you for that? What do you think of an extra copper coin per day?"
The idea was practical: avoiding daily outings reduced the chance of being noticed. Offering an extra coin a day was a lifeline to a woman gnawing at the last of her dignity; it was a dignity without a market in times of need.
Her face lit up considerably and she answered, "Yes, yes, I can do that easily. I'll go and buy for you whenever you want."
"No problem," Daniel said. "I want three meals a day. Get them from the public districts; each meal should include two slices of meat and rice, and the spices."
The woman was taken aback—fear pricking her inwardly. Living in the poor quarter did not make her foolish. (He has that much money and came to rent a place like this; he must be fleeing justice or another gang, or maybe the nobility. Should I cancel the deal? But… the money—I need it. We haven't tasted proper food for two days.) Fear fluttered inside her, but necessity pushed her forward: every scant coin cut a small slot of hope. Her thoughts turned to probabilities: escape from the law, hiding from a gang, betrayal from within—each dangerous scenario was translated into practical calculations about safety. Daily needs outweighed speculative theories.
She lowered her head, her features tightening as she said, "Okay, I can do that."
Daniel did not know why her tone had changed in that moment. He handed her three silver coins as payment for the food. The woman took the three coins and then took a hundred and one copper coins for the rent and for delivery.
The silver pieces in her hand bore a heavy meaning: three coins for a single meal, and one hundred and one coppers for rent and work. She gripped them with a slightly trembling hand, then took the money quickly, as if afraid the giver might regret it or change his mind.
Daniel understood that food in the poor districts was very cheap for most people, but unreliable for human consumption; yes, that was the best phrase he could find for it. The woman took the money and went on her way. Daniel watched her go once more, then closed the door and hurried into his modest lodging.
(Curse this world. So that nobles and the wealthy may secure food for years to come, they have forced many lives into a state between life and death, leaving them without enough to eat. A single noble could, if he wished, buy enough to feed every person in the poor districts, but if he did so every day the kingdom's food stores would shrink and the wealthy would be negatively affected later. So, even though food costs next to nothing for someone who uses force like I do, if one tried to secretly help many of the poor, prices would spike enormously and remain high until the stores recovered, then fall again. This has happened before and many people in the poor quarters died during the rise. I read about this in some books; I don't know whether it was made that way on purpose to dissuade people from helping.)
A sound of bitter anger escaped Daniel in a low hum that only released his muffled fury at a merciless logic. He stood leaning against his wooden wall, turning the harsh philosophy over in his mind like a grain sifter searching for a pure kernel untouched by the curse of greed. His thoughts came fast—images of gaunt children, empty plates, faces stripped of safety.
Then he shut himself inside the house. He began to look over what Rozia had given him and the things he had, deciding what he must do next.