We walked aimlessly for a few hours, going from place to place, trying to find lodgings. Ferdinand refused to talk about what happened at his parent's house, throwing himself so feverishly into his task of asking after a place to rent that it became impossible to talk to him beyond a few words. At any rate, we had no luck. Every door we knocked on either never was answered, or the landlord quickly told us there was no room before shutting the door again and leaving us with the sound of bolts being drawn.
It wasn't until the afternoon that I finally worked up the courage to suggest the one place I knew that might be willing to house two suspiciously homeless young people.
At the bottom of Rumonin there ran the wide and deep Garrond River, cutting off the slums from the working poor. It was not at all the sort of place that anyone would choose to visit, but a few of the corps girls who hadn't had the pleasure of a home before joining the company, had told me of the boarding houses run by criminals that were cheap and open to anyone with the coin.
Ferdinand looked skeptical at first, but we were already running out of time. The sun sank lower in the sky with each passing minute, and the temperature dropped with it. I wore his coat, and he'd been shivering non-stop since our retreat from his parent's home. He wouldn't last very long once night fell, which meant we needed somewhere, anywhere, to shelter in.
Luckily, our wandering left us near enough to the river, and we had only a half-hour's walk to reach the section where the boarding houses crowded the water like rats coming to drink.
We chose the building that looked least likely to collapse. It still didn't look promising. Half of the roof sunk haphazardly, and the walls were made of gray and splitting planks of wood. The grimy windows were riddled with holes that had been stopped up with rags until there was more cloth than glass. Only one door entered into the building, and above it there was a long sign fastened to the wall. It was too faded to read until we drew close, and I could see the black lettering. 'Wellington Lodging House'. The building bore some resemblance to the temporary inns that were set up when the city was first booming one hundred years ago. They weren't meant to last for very long, and most were torn down a few years later. This however, still stood, standing testimony to the ability of man's unbreakable knack for mending things to get more out of something than it could stand.
When we tried the door, it was locked. The places were all run by criminals of one sort or another, so it was safe to assume their cliental ran in the same circles. With the boarding houses pressed so close upon each other, it probably was wise to keep all doors locked and guarded.
Ferdinand knocked on the door and then rubbed his knuckles on his jacket. "Splinters everywhere," he muttered.
We only waited a few seconds before an old man opened the door. Before even hearing our greeting, he held out his hand and snarled at us with a deeply wrinkled face. "Twelve Ruma for a room," he said. "Another if you want your laundry done."
"Twelve? That's steep even for a hotel in the center of the city," Ferdinand said.
The old man's lip curled and he began to slam the door. Ferdinand, quick as lightning, jammed his foot in the way.
"We'll pay nine. It's all we have," Ferdinand said.
The old man must have believed him, for after a brief growl he opened the door and stepped out of the way. We walked into the lodging house, which was darker than night. The putrid scent of the river pervaded even inside, and added to the stale smell of used breath and stagnant bodies. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, a tiny room with a counter at one end swam into view. The old man saddled up behind it, sitting on a stool and scrabbling around with some yellowed papers in front of him.
The floorboards groaned as we approached the counter and Ferdinand dug out a small pouch from his belongings in his satchel. He emptied it into the old man's hand, the copper coins clinking together as they dropped. The old man took each, looking through the square cutout in the middle, and running his finger along the ridges on the side. He placed each one that was deemed authentic into a metal box with a large lock on it. Afterward, he scribbled something in a ledger and reached behind him to unhook a key from a row behind him. He handed it over to Ferdinand and began to rub his old knee that poked out from underneath a pair of ripped sailor's pants.
"Top floor, second room on the side facing the river," the old man said, cracking the bones in his neck and busying himself with the crinkling papers.
Not bothering to thank him, we headed to the narrow staircase that led to the first floor, and then crossed the hall to the identical staircase on the other side leading to the second floor. There were only ten rooms on each floor, five on each side. Ours was nearly right at the point where the stairs erupted through the floor. Ferdinand fit the key in the lock, and the door swung open with a loud groan onto our new home.
It was miniscule. Smaller than even the old flat that Mr. Lennox and I used to live in. One small room, divided by a ratty sheet, sat in the gloom. On one side only dust and dead bugs decorated the floorboards. On the other, a small stove barely big enough to reach the height of my shin sat in the center like an angry troll. The stove-pipes went into the ceiling, though the hole hadn't been properly cut, and a cold breeze and water wafted through every few seconds. There was one window, though a wall had been built in the middle of it, so that we only had a sliver of a view of the river. Through the dirty and warped glass, I could just barely make out the brown sludge of the water.
Ferdinand dropped the satchels onto the ground, causing a cloud of dust to fill the air. I waved my hand in front of my face, coughing slightly.
"It smells like rotten eggs stuffed in a dead dog that's been rotting in the sewers," he said, slumping toward the window and looking down at the source of the smell with a wrinkled nose.
"I think he gave it to us because of the nine Ruma," I said.
"If we want to eat, it had to be nine," he said, stepping away from the window and placing his hands on his hips. Even on the other end of the room, I'd only need to reach out my arm to touch him. I wondered if a bed would even fit in the small space.
"We could patch the window better, and maybe buy a candle to burn the smell," I said. "It won't be completely gone, but it might get weak enough that we can grow used to it."
"I have a hard time believing anyone can grow use to this stench."
"The landlord seemed perfectly content," I said.
"The landlord," Ferdinand said, "is more like something you'd find floating around in the river than he is a human being. He's probably used to it because he was born in the slimy water to some fish."
"That's mean," I said, but laughed anyway.
My stomach took that moment to growl, and I quickly pressed a hand against it to try and hide the noise. I couldn't remember the last time we'd eaten anything, and my limbs suddenly felt leaden.
Ferdinand leapt into action as soon as he heard the rumble. He dug through the crate, coming up with a pair of socks which he shook over his hand. Four Ruma fell into his hand and he held them up triumphantly. "Dinner," he said, tapping them together.
"Get something cheap so we can use the rest on meals for tomorrow and the next day," I said, thinking of the energy we would need to wander the streets looking for jobs. If anyone was even hiring, we might be walking miles each morning to carry out physical work in whatever companies the Vigilant Men had left running. We were used to pushing our bodies to the limit, but there had always been a meal waiting on the other side. Now, our next meal depended on how wisely we spent the four Ruma we had to our name.
"All right," he said. He moved to go past me, but I put out a hand to arrest him.
"You'll want your coat. It's freezing." I shrugged out of the fur and released his arm to hand it over. He slid into it with a grin and then turned.
For a moment... I thought he might give me a kiss goodbye. He'd taken a step forward, his hand going toward my waist as if to hold me steady. But then he retreated without touching me.
As he turned to open the door, his overcoat brushed my skirts and one of the buttons caught against my shawl. He kept walking, not noticing until a sharp tug pulled him up short. He looked back, spotting the tangled button, and I laughed as I crouched to unwind myself. He knelt down as well, sitting on his haunches and tried helping me with the button. Our fingers got caught as much as the button did, and I had to smack his away playfully so that I could free us.
"Do you secretly want to stay here? Your buttons are giving you away," I teased.
"You've caught me," he said. His smile faded as he watched my face, and suddenly he surged to his feet and grabbed the doorhandle.
I followed him out to the hallway, but loitered behind as he took the stairs
"I'll be back in a few minutes, once I find something that's open," he said over his shoulder as he jogged down the flight. I stayed a moment at the top of the stairs, but then finally went back to the room and locked the door. Ferdinand had left the key on the rotted window sill, and I tucked it into one of my pockets.
The feeling of being alone pressed down on me, and before it could become overwhelming, I quickly made up my mind to make our new lodgings as comfortable as I could.