The Adorned Read Online Free PDF

That’s all I have for today.” He tucked his notebook away and clasped his hands together. “Thank you all.”
    Trelan went at once to gather his few things and leave, with perfunctory farewells. The others wandered away, some back to the sleeping room, some outside. I was about to follow them when I felt Maxen Udred’s hand on my shoulder.
    “Wait a moment, wait a moment,” he said. He was smiling. It did not sit well on his face. “A word with you?”
    I bowed my head. “Sir?”
    “You’ve cleaned up well. I have to say I was wrong about you, boy. Thought you were a bit of a fibber. Talking of books and music like that. Thought you were angling for a soft job.”
    I felt my nostrils flare with an angry breath. Maxen did not seem to notice. “You saw I could read.”
    He shrugged. “Like I’ve said: I misjudged. And like I said as well, there’s always something I can find for my people to do. For you, I might have something better.”
    “Such as what?” Suspicion darkened my voice.
    He drew himself up. “Something lawful , of course. What do you take me for?” He chuckled humorlessly and turned to Gren. “What does he take me for, Gren?”
    “I wouldn’t know, sir,” he said, Gaelte accent thick as treacle.
    “Come on with me, Etan,” he said, steering me out of the boarding house with an arm around my shoulder. “There is someone that I want you to meet.”
    * * *
    Once again, I sat beside Maxen Udred in his rickshaw. Gren pulled it through the streets with practiced ease. We were leaving the southern part of the city, and climbing slowly upward. The streets were wider, of cloud-grey stone, and carefully swept; I saw a clutch of monks-penitent, singing as they brushed their brooms along. The windows were all glass. I felt I carried the stench of the tanneries with me, in my clothes and hair, into this cleaner world.
    “Where to, sir?” Gren called out. “Nightwell Street?”
    “No, not yet. The barber on Reed Street.”
    We turned, climbing even higher; now Gren was beginning to pant with effort. Maxen seemed not to notice, leaning back in his rickshaw with a faraway smile. “Etan,” he said, turning to me but not quite looking at me—looking past me, addressing the air beside my head, “there was no tattoo-master in your hometown, was there?”
    “No. Sir,” I added, remembering myself. “Lun was a quarrytown; we had none with the right to wear ink, let alone a master of art.”
    “Hmm. So you will not have seen inked men, before?”
    “Once, sir, a Sword-noble.” I had forgotten the name of the Sword-noble who owned the land around our village, but not his tattoos: a brilliant starburst of red in the hollow of his throat, and black swords, fading to grey, on his wrists, marks of some long-ago victory. “An Adorned passed through the town, once, but of course, we did not see her ink.”
    “Of course.” He smiled again. “Etan, the man we are going to see is a tattoo-master, so I will expect the greatest respect from you. Do you understand, boy?”
    I nodded, though I didn’t—not quite. Tattoo-masters had aspirants always fighting for their attentions—men and women who would pay their steep apprentice fees and do any tasks they might require; what use could they have for someone they had to pay for? If a tattoo-master needed his papers arranged, or his house scrubbed, or his clothes mended, there were any number who would crawl through a mountain of dung to do so, if it meant an apprenticeship. Given half a chance, I might have done the same.
    “Here we are, sir,” Gren said, taking a huffing breath. “Reed Street.”
    “Excellent.”
    We came to a halt outside a barber’s.
    I frowned and looked at Maxen. “What is this?”
    “I know you’ve bathed, at Alix’s house, but I want you to have a quick tidying. And a shave. Not,” he said, smirking and touching a thick finger to my chin, “that you need it.”
    I drew back. “Why?”
    “Because I am not about to