Grease in the Keyway

Master Eldon’s hacking cough bought them just enough time to slip out through the tailor’s coal hatch, but the low alleys behind the East Gate offered little comfort. Jory leaned hard against the damp stonework of the rear lane, his chest wheezing in rhythm with his cracking knees.

"My legs are done for, Captain," Jory muttered, shoving his wire spectacles back onto the bridge of his crooked nose with a trembling, ink-stained wrist. "I know paper, and I know hems, but I cannot outrun Corin's cudgel down another flight of wet masonry. I’ll keep the lane. If the watch doubles back from the counter, I'll tip the empty dye-casks."

"Keep your head down and don't sneeze," Bramblefoot told him, adjusting the damp lapels of his coat. "If you see a lantern, don't whistle. Just knock twice on the drainpipe."

Leaving the elderly stitcher crouched in the shadow of the draper’s lintel, Bramblefoot waved Pip forward into the fog. The East Gate district smelled ferociously of dog-dung, stale urine, and caustic bark liquor, but tonight those familiar tannery odors were overwhelmed by something far more suffocating. A careless apprentice tending the municipal grease-vats had over-fed his hearth with pine scrap, and the boiling tallow had surged over the iron rim with a hiss like an angry serpent.

A foul, yellowish haze of rendered mutton fat and scorched suet billowed out across the cobblestones, drifting low and heavy between the timber facades.

"Sweet mercy above," Pip choked, dragging the sleeve of his coat over his nose and mouth. He was still wearing his oversized, sodden fishing waders, which made a wet, sucking sound against the slick cobbles. "It tastes like scorched mutton gristle and chimney soot."

"Breathe through your teeth," Bramblefoot grunted, his own eyes watering furiously. "And stop scuffing your boots. You sound like a stranded bullfrog."

Ahead in the alley, iron lanterns swung in frantic arcs. Through the greasy fog, Sergeant Corin’s patrolmen shouted curses, coughing until their ribs cracked.

"Damp down the furnace, you idiot!" a watchman roared into the smoke toward the boil-house. "The whole street’s blinded! My wick is choked with lard!"

"Get back toward the gatehouse!" another wheezed, iron boots clattering as the pair beat a hasty retreat from the stinging yellow plume. "We can't watch the depot yard if we can't draw breath!"

The watchmen stumbled past the corner without ever glancing down the cellar stairs, their sputtering lanterns swallowed by the yellow vapor. Bramblefoot grabbed Pip’s shoulder and pulled him toward the mouth of the lower stairway.

The steps were cut from limestone, slick with decades of condensed tallow and river grime. Bramblefoot took them two at a time, catching himself on the slimy handrail, while Pip slid down the last four treads on his backside with an undignified squelch of wet leather.

"I am fine," Pip wheezed, picking himself up and brushing damp grease from his shins. "The boots broke the fall."