Free The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

deliveries; occasionally chased by the Watch when someone got caught and squealed, the odd scuffle in a darkened alley or a safe house, the odd few moments of forced swordplay or a knifing somewhere, but all of it, the fights included, too highly colored, too much fucking
fun
at the time to really seem like the danger it was.
    “So tell me why you're really here,” Grace said gently.
    Ringil rolled over, rested his head and neck on the other man's belly. The muscle was still there, firm beneath a modest layer of middle- aged spread. It barely quivered when it took the weight of his sweat- soaked head. Ringil gazed up idly at the painted scenes of debauchery on Milacar's ceiling. Two stable lads and a serving wench doing something improbable with a centaur. Ringil blew a dispirited breath up at them in their perfect little pastoral world.
    “Got to help out the family,” he said drearily. “Got to find someone. Cousin of mine, got herself into some trouble.”
    “And you think I've started moving in the same circles as the Eskiath clan.” The belly Ringil was pillowed on juddered with Milacar's laughter. “Gil, you have seriously overestimated my place in the scheme of things these days. I'm a criminal, remember.”
    “Yeah, I noticed how you were sticking to your roots. Big fuck- offhouse in the Glades, dinner with the Marsh Brotherhood and associated worthies.”
    “I still keep the place over on Replete Cargo, if it makes you feel any better. And in case you've forgotten, I am from a Brotherhood family.” There was a slight edge in Grace- of- Heaven's voice now. “My father was a pathfinder captain before the war.”
    “Yeah, and your great- great, great- great, great- and- so- on grandfather founded the whole fucking city of Trel- a- lahayn. I heard it coming in, Grace. And the truth is still, fifteen years ago you wouldn't have given civil house room to that prick with the dueling cutlery on his hip tonight. And you wouldn't have been living upriver like this, either.”
    He felt the stomach muscles beneath his head tense a little.
    “Do I disappoint you?” Milacar asked him softly.
    Ringil went on staring up at the ceiling. He shrugged. “It all turned to shit after ‘55, we all had to ride it out somehow. Why should you be any different?”
    “You're too kind.”
    “Yeah.” Ringil hauled himself up into a sitting position, swiveled a little to face Grace- of- Heaven's sprawl. He got cross- legged, put his hands together in his lap. Shook his hair back off his face. “So. You want to help me find this cousin of mine?”
    Milacar made a no- big- deal face. “Sure. What kind of trouble she in?”
    “The chained- up kind. She went to the auction blocks at Etterkal about four weeks ago as far as I can work out.”
    “Etterkal?” The no- big- deal expression slid right off Milacar's face. “Was she sold legally?”
    “Yeah, payment for a bad debt. Chancellery clearinghouse auction, the Salt Warren buyers took a shine to her, chain- ganged her out there the same day apparently. But the paperwork's scrambled, or lost, or I just didn't bribe the right officials. Got this charcoal sketch I'm showing around that no one wants to recognize, and I can't get anyone to talk to me about the Etterkal end. And I'm getting tired of being polite.”
    “Yes, I did notice that.” Grace of Heaven shook his head bemusedly “How the blue fuck did a daughter of clan Eskiath end up getting as far as the Warren anyway?”
    “Well, she's not actually an Eskiath. Like I said, she's a cousin. Family name's Herlirig.”
    “Oho. Marsh blood, then.”
    “Yeah, and she married in the wrong direction, too, from an Eskiath point of view.” Ringil heard the angry disgust trickling into his voice, but he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. “To a merchant. Clan Eskiath didn't know what was going on at the time, but really, I don't think they'd have lifted a finger to stop it even if they had.”
    “Hmm.” Milacar