The amazing smell of the place briefly drove everything, even his annoyance at the dustmonger, out of his head. Farmers came from all over to get at its muckheap, and barbers and surgeons came here for corpses to practice on. Harran had other reasons. He choked his way through the long low building and prayed for his nose to turn itself off quickly.
Close to the end of the building, by the big pickling vats where innards were thrown until they could be buried, he found Grian. Grian had worked with
Siveni’s priests in the old days, supplying corpses for their anatomy classes, and he knew the last of Siveni’s priests in Sanctuary rather better than Harran wanted to admit. He looked Harran up and down, noted the winepot under one arm and the chicken under the other, and a look of dull delight came into his eye.
He tossed the paunching knife he was using to the slab where his present project lay, and said, “Lad, where you been this month and more? Thought you’d died.
Again.”
Harran had to laugh. “Not sure I could.”
Grian moved his big red-headed bulk over to a bench where jars with secondhand stomachs and intestines were waiting for the sausagemakers. He pushed the jars off to the side, and Harran sat down next to him and offered him the winepot.
The chicken, released, fell to scratching with great interest in the straw on the floor.
They spent a little while just drinking in companionable silence. Finally: “Home life keeping you busy?” Grian said.
“Not home so much. Work. There are too many sick people in this town, and only one of me.” He took another drink. “Same as usual. You?”