The afternoon was cooling rapidly when Walden Addenfarrow paid a call to an estate blooming with roses in the fashionable Ruvenal Park district. Though his position afforded him the services of a coachman, he chose to dismiss the fellow and drive the team himself. He had developed his eye for horseflesh in the stables of the late Duke as a youth, during his years as a ward. Although much of his memory of the casual cruelty and spite of those period had now gone, he retained the simple joy he felt for all things equestrian. His duties now allowed him so little time to indulge his passion that he was like to grab at every opportunity.
His destination was some five miles from the civic centre, through a bustling inner city of narrow lanes, inattentive pedestrians and occasionally treacherous overhanging eaves and out amongst the wide and leafy avenues and scented gardens of the wealthy districts. On most days he would be disappointed to have his outing end so soon, but his anticipation of the forthcoming meeting quite overcame his enthusiasm for driving.
He turned the reins over to a waiting footman and hopped briskly up a set of marble stairs. The head servant met him at the door and escorted him to the waiting room. He idled, not at all uncomfortable, his eye running over the collection of bound monographs on display in a rose crystal cabinet. He guessed that the collection, which included several items of extreme rarity and value, were an inheritance rather than the work of the house's present occupant, who had likely never read them, or anything else if she could help it.
“Milady will see you now, my lord,” announced the servant, and led him through a hall decorated with ornamental weapons and tapestries depicting famous battles of the previous century and into a parlour.
A man who wore a white painting frock and drooping satin hat to keep his flopping strands of copper hair out of his eyes did not look up from his easel at the sound of Addenfarrow's arrival. He dabbed a collection of oily red spots on his canvas, which depicted a nude elderly woman reclining on the incomplete skeleton of a comfortable chaise lounge. His subject wore an expression of beatific serenity, one finger lightly brushing the side of her face in thoughtful contemplation.
Dame Jasmin Colliford waved a greeting, the twisted golden band jangling at her wrist her only accoutrement of any kind, as Addenfarrow entered and eased himself into a splay-backed and heavily upholstered lounge chair behind the painter. The painter resolutely ignored the interruption, made a small pleading gesture for Dame Jasmin to resume her position, and then after a few additional moments indicated his satisfaction to her and suggested that they might resume the sitting on the following morning.
“Thank you, Irm, darling, of course that will be perfect. Caldrow will show you out. Walden, my dear, thank you so much for coming. You're a little early.” With this admonition she stood, utterly oblivious to her state of undress, holding out her hand to receive a kiss. This Addenfarrow delivered before gallantly sweeping off his riding cloak and wrapping it about her shoulders. “So chivalrous,” she smiled, allowing it to drop to the floor and pool at her feet. “But it reeks most dreadfully of horse. Have you been using it as a blanket?”
She gathered a silk robe slung carelessly over a large ivory harp and draped it about herself, smiling at his dismay. She tied it loosely with a black tasseled cord and smoothed its wrinkles carefully. “No clever retort, Walden? I had been led to understand that the Seneschal of Fellport was quite the courtly wit.”
“Alas, my lady, it is my sense of duty that on occasion compels the application of a disarming comment here or there. This purely social and altogether delightful encounter cannot possibly inspire my tongue to sharpness.”
“Would that it were so, dear Walden, but I wish to talk business, not pleasure.” She pinched a pair of thin copper-rimmed lenses onto her nose and squinted at him expectantly. “Speak.”
Addenfarrow dropped back into his chair with casual insolence. “Entirely as we discussed. Trigosi was fuming behind those piggy black eyes. I gave him quite the meaningful glance upon my exit. If he had hair anywhere on that sweating mass of a body, he would be tearing it out now trying to understand what is happening.”
“You underestimate Berber Trigosi, Walden,” she admonished. “He will seek answers, yes, but he will also seek his revenge.”
Addenfarrow clucked a note of mocking unconcern. “Let him do as he may. I have my precautions in place. It would amuse me to humiliate him a second time.”
“Don't be arrogant, Walden. There is only so much I or anyone else can do. He need only be lucky once and if you intend to walk about town with your cock on display he will take the opportunity.” She regarded him sternly. “You have played the part assigned to you for now. Take some measure of satisfaction in your work and be content with that. In time there will be more demanding tests of your skills.”
“I am yours to command, Dame Jasmin,” he declared. “Your every whim is a bond of service to me.” There was as much self-mockery as sincerity in his pledge.
She smiled, confident and charming, and slipped one arm around him. The other ranged down his chest and stomach and came to a stop at his crotch. “In that case, I want you to walk with me to the ponds. The new gardener has a ripe young daughter. It would please me to watch you couple with her under the willows.”
***
“'Today in Fact'! Saltday edition of the 'Fact'! 'Today in Fact!'”
Polcott waved the boy with an armload of broadsheets over and paid him with a coin and an apple. “Thanks, master. Big story in this edition. Ill doings at the Vine and Berry.” Polcott doubted that the boy had read – or could read – the article in question but thanked him all the same. He had been raised to believe that good manners bought more than they cost.
The lead article presented a breathless account of an incident which it claimed had taken place in the Vine and Berry the previous evening. The scandalised author of the story, writing under a dubious pseudonym, recounted various sordid and inconsistent details of the event, which it claimed involved the “despoilment of a maiden's Virtue” and was perpetrated by “a figure of Social Prominence”. It added several editorial observations, striking an outraged note in favour of a “return to Decent Values” and denouncing the failure of “certain Persons charged with maintaining the Peace”. The only precise detail included in the entire article was the name of the owner of the saloon where the “Malicious Violation” had taken place, one Berber Trigosi.
“Boss Blubber won't take well to this,” he predicted, after a surreptitious scan of the vicinity to ensure that no eavesdropping ears would catch the forbidden sobriquet. He allowed himself a chuckle, but there was a gloomy side to this news. “He'll want someone to take it out on. Best make sure the boys gets off nice and early with the monthly.”
The remaining articles were thinly disguised advertisements for a variety of personal services, cures for common ailments and pleas for information about relatives gone missing. He crumpled the broadsheet up with a sigh. “Don't know why I bother,” he exclaimed. “Never anything in it.”
***
“Success, my precious girl,” beamed Casimir, ruffling her hair and tossing her a small sack of dried fruit. “I have arranged everything. You'll audition at a club called the Moistened Cardinal at dusk this evening. I hear reliable word that they're desperate for new signings. Had a sudden change of owners just of late, new backers have deep pockets, perfect time to make a mark.” He made his report around mouthfuls of a pastry that oozed of honey and cream.
“Rumour has it the new owner's a bachelor noble with serious connections. Wear something appealing.” He smacked his fingers clean and passed her a piece of sticky paper. “Here's the address. I'll meet you there. Don't say anything until I get there.”
Lynnis cried “Where are you going? Don't you want – I mean, I thought we might celebrate.” She perched her hands on her hips and pouted unhappily. Casimir ran his eyes up and down her body with appreciative affection.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, sweet one,” he soothed, and that was the truth. He was already stiffening in idle expectation. When Lynnis was as eager as he for a tumble, well, that was as precious as a gemstone. If things went well at the saloon, she'd be as moist as a mudslide. But in the meantime, alas, business must come first. “We must not get ahead of ourselves, child. We still need you to shine your brightest this evening.”
He grabbed his buckled hat from its hook and straightened the feathers. “Why don't you practice something energetic on the harp? Stand over it, show a bit of teat, eh?”
She hooked a finger in her bodice and yanked it down. “Like this, you mean?” Saucy vixen, she was hungry for it all right. He was already running late for his appointment. There was no time for even a quick dip.
Jamming the hat down tight he said with great regret “I promised a man I'd have a word about some playbills, lovely. I'm just there to talk rates, nothing committed yet, but you do want to see your lovely face plastered about the town, don't you? Must dash, don't lose the address, meet you there at sundown.”
Without waiting for her reply, which would no doubt be a short-lived tantrum or a glare and stamp of the foot, he dashed out the door and down the stairs.
***
Bey hired a buggy to take him to his late lunch with Herok at a Leph cook house south of the docks. They chatted inconsequentially while they tucked into a steaming basket of fried fish, mussels and finger crabs. Then, nursing sipping tumblers of some bubbling spirit, they talked business.
“My new employees can't seem to contain either their jealousy or disbelief,” observed Bey. “I gather this is somewhat more unprecedented than you had led me to believe.”
Herok returned the rebuke with a mild shrug. “I pulled a few strings that oft go untugged, it's true,” he admitted. “I was able to convince certain persons of authority that there might be destabilising consequences to an open sale of so sound a venture. Once they were discouraged from releasing the Cardinal into the waiting jaws of her hungry rivals, they were quick to recognise the possibilities inherent in my proposal.”
“I see you found an inventive solution to the hurdle of my foreign origins.”
“Foreign? Why, Sir Beyda, I know the stewardship of Deremar is the subject of long and sore dispute with our Gomsakan neighbours, but I know I speak for every Murb in claiming her noble sons as bosom kin.”
“You're not a Murb,” laughed Bey, to which Herok conceded with a cock of his head. “And my newfound pedigree will never be open to question?”
“Oh, never say never, Sir Beyda.”
Ah ha, thought Bey, he's showing me my leash. Well, let's feel the weight of my shackles, then. “I assume my hidden benefactors will appreciate a consideration of some kind?”
Herok waved airily. “It would not seem ungrateful of you to ensure that fifteen percent of the monthly profits were overlooked in the balance sheets. Over and above the service of the outstanding debt to His Grace the Duke, of course.”
Bey grimaced. It was a crippling rate, but he was not well positioned to bargain. “I think that can be arranged,” he agreed. “And do you anticipate that there will be further opportunities to display my gratitude in the future?” Once their claws were in, even at arm's length through an agent, Bey might never be free of this arrangement.
“Once in a while, I've no doubt,” replied Herok, “but nothing too onerous. Their chief concern, like yours and mine, is for a sound return on their investment of faith in you.”
Bey said, “Then I had better be going. I have a prospective new talent to review in a short while, and a dozen other matters to attend to as well.” He drained his drink, which had become bitter as it cooled. “Good day, Herok.”
***
Felmore Chapel tended to treat his title as Baron of Galford as his most valuable inheritance, though in fact he had managed to profit far more from both his modest family estate, a small plantation of plums and melons, and his voting rights in the now largely ceremonial Ducal court. A spoiled only child, he had made precisely enough of himself to satisfy the resigned expectations of his parents, who had died in despair of ever becoming grandparents or proud of their son. The young Baron Galford had mourned their passing with a three-day card game on a houseboat with some college chums.
Chapel's passion was for Packs, a card game that had evolved and was played almost exclusively in Southern Murbaran. While the trump-based rules were simple enough, the difficulty came in mastering a complex interaction of side bets, bluffs, challenges, negotiations and card exchanges that constituted the real action of the game. Accomplished Packjacks, as they were known, were capable diplomats, peerless liars and in absolute command of their facial expressions. A table of Packs, which required a minimum of four players and accommodated up to eight, could sit for many hours without a smile cracked or the truth uttered even once.
Felmore Chapel won more often than he lost and was therefore counted a Packjack to be contended with. He was well known about town as an enthusiast, and those in the proper circles knew him to be a reliable fourth. That proved an unfortunate reputation.
He had taken his customary Saltday seat – snifter of cherry brandy to his left, bowl of dried fish strips to his right, kissel bowl close to that – at a table in the sunroom of the private club of the August Brothers of Charity (his membership another profitable inheritance). The company was not his usual crowd, consisting of two merchants, a consulting physician and a professor from the University, but Felmore Chapel considered himself quite egalitarian where it came to gambling, so long as the simoleans were plentiful.
As the game wound its way through the afternoon, fortunes had ebbed this way and that. The physician was summoned away to tend a patient and the professor was drained dry and replaced by another well-dressed noble with whom Chapel had a passing acquaintance. Now and then a few interested bystanders would watch the game, though commentary was strictly forbidden on pain of ejection from the club (and possibly attracting the ire of a player in the throes of a losing streak). Chapel made no more than the most perfunctory greeting to his acquaintance and completely ignored the game's small audience. The Packs table was no place for pleasantries.
So caught up with the game was he, then, that he failed altogether to notice the particular interest of two of the silent witnesses. It was by no means likely that, had he paid them the slightest attention, Chapel would even have recognised either Sellton or Kramus, or recalled their occupations, despite their local notoriety. Had he done so, he might have ended his day in rather less unpleasant circumstances.
They waited until he left the game to relieve himself. When he dropped his breeches and took his aim, Kramus stepped behind him and punched him once, precisely over the kidneys.
Even with the wind beaten out of him, Chapel was strong and fit and might have fought his way past Kramus, but Sellton was on him in a trice, dropping a silk bag over his head and yanking its drawstring tight.
Chapel instinctively clutched at his throat, unwittingly leaving his lower body exposed. Kramus drove punch after kick after punch into his ribs, stomach and balls, until his knees gave out and he collapsed in a brutalised faint at his assailants' feet.
Sellton swore. “He's pissed himself. Look, it's got on my boots.”
Kramus shrugged. “It's probably good for them. My brother's a tanner, reckons they use it to treat the hides. Help me up to the window with him, will you?”
***
That settled the matter. In their eight months together, which had developed into a personal relationship in addition to the contractual aspect less than four hours after their first meeting, Casimir had never rebuffed a proposition of sex. Until now Lynnis had not believed him physically capable. Whatever business he was involved with was certainly illegal, probably immoral and likely dangerous. Any of those possibilities could potentially spell disaster for her mission. She cursed with frustration as she debated what to do about him.
Killing him herself would be counter-productive. While hers was hardly a household name in Fellport, they had been seen about town together frequently enough for their association to be apparent. Questions would be asked of her if he were to be found dead, and she lacked sufficient local knowledge to dispose of a body where it could not be discovered. Any level of official scrutiny would make her task all the more difficult.
What other options were there, though. She couldn't afford to waste the chances for planning and surveillance that his little forays provided - even now she was affixing false whiskers to her face to disguise herself as a man in preparation for another excursion of her own - but the longer she went ignorant of his secret purpose the greater the threat to her own.
There seemed to be no other choice. She needed more information. The next time he excused himself she would follow him and find out who he was meeting and why.
She shucked off her stage dress and pulled on labourer's overalls and a shirt of thick calico. The dress and her soft dancing slippers would make useful padding to complete the effect of her appearance as a burly farmhand. She would need to come back for her instruments and compositions, though. They were too bulky for the task before her.
She had just cracked open the flat pine box containing her makeup kit, planning to reshape her small nose and add some sun spots and wrinkles to her smooth skin, when she heard a voice at the front door, below the street-side window of the apartment.
"Casimir Meldaran resides here, yes? Announce me. I'm here on the Duke's business."
Lynnis didn't spare a second to wonder who was calling. Realising that the housekeeper would have heard Casimir leave without her, she overcame her initial instinct to escape via the window. Instead she quickly peeled off her clothes and facial hair, bundling them in a ball with the makeup and kicking them under the bed.
The housekeeper's footsteps on the stair were slightly quicker than normal. She was nervous. Lynnis swept under the bedclothes and arranged them with haste, ensuring that they would conceal the discarded farmhand costume. She wrenched the pins from her hair and tousled it into an unmanageable mess, rubbed her eyes until they reddened and slackened her face into an expression of dreamy blissfulness. She threw her head back against the mattress just as the housekeeper tapped a timorous beat on the door.
Too quiet, thought Lynnis. I'm still asleep. Try again.
As she waited for the knock to come again, louder this time, there was a growl of impatience from below. "I've not got all fucking day down here!" The front door banged open and heavy boots beat an angry stomp on the stairs.
"Mistress, wake up, please," cried the scandalised housekeeper. "You have a - a guest. Please wake up." It was not clear whether the cause of her distress was the profane language, the presence of men on the Duke's business in her proper, law-abiding home or the fear that her house guest might blame her for not properly announcing an unwanted caller.
Good enough, thought Lynnis. She clambered out of bed, wrapping the bedcovers loosely around herself. She affected a sleepy stumble to the door and fumbled with the latches. "Mistress Cessade?" she mumbled dozily. "Is that you? What is all the hubbub?"
She peered past the stricken housekeeper, whose face was painting an expressive depiction of horror at Lynnis' unsuitable presentation, at the scowling figure emerging behind her on the landing. He was older and slighter than his rich, domineering baritone had suggested, but she perceived at once in the tense posture and quick eyes that this man was given to decisive action and most likely violence. "Fuck off out of the way!" he barked. With a look of startled apology, the housekeeper fled downstairs, pushing past a young man dressed like the elder, in a black woolen greatcoat and black boots. The young man's face looked embarrassed and apologetic, but he did not interfere in the housekeeper's flight.
"Well now," said the older man, pushing at the door to widen his view. She allowed her hand to resist his effort momentarily, then clutched frantically to wrest up the slipping bedclothes. The helpless gesture evoked an appreciative laugh. "You're not Casimir Meldaran."
"Who are you?" she demanded, flushing scarlet. Like the blush, the question was purely for effect. She had seen the small silver recognised the insignia of a Magistrate of the Ducal Sentry. There were only two such persons and it was reputed that the aristocratic Magistrate Broden was never seen below the upper stratospheres of polite society. This, then, was Magistrate Ductio. Not a good sign.
“All you need to know is what I want,” he said. Over his shoulder he snapped, “Check with that pervert peeking through his door on the next floor. Find out if Meldaran's hiding upstairs.”
The younger Sentry hurried to do his bidding, leaving the Magistrate looming over her, licking his teeth. “Now, my lovely, some questions, eh? Where's Casimir Meldaran?”
Lynnis quivered a lip, saying, “He left a few minutes ago. You might have passed him in the street.”
Ductio swore at the news but he didn't take the bait and run off in hot pursuit. Not an idiot, she decided. Pity. “In that case, I'll have a word with him later and tarry here for now. Can't complain about the company, can I?”
“Why do you want Cas?”
“You his wife or his trollop?”
Lynnis showed him a burst of petulant affront, the routine stolen directly from Casimir's recent performances. “How dare you? I am an artist! I'm a performer! I have a license!”
“You're on his contract then?” She confirmed this. “Looking for work?”
“Yes. He negotiates my engagements, handles the business side of things. He understands those things.”
“Not too well from what I hear. From where I'm standing, a dolly who looks like you could get an opener even if your voice cracked glass.”
“Casimir's very particular about who we sign with.”
“You called him Cas a second ago. Are you fucking him?”
He is blunt, I'll give him that. Lynnis retorted in a heated voice, “If I was it wouldn't be anything to do with you!” What was the Magistrate driving at?
“Your teats go red when you're angry,” he observed. “I want to talk to him, little scarlet teats. I want to talk about a murder two nights ago that he knows more about than he'd tell you.” Ductio grinned, a wicked crescent of malice. “He'll fucking tell me, mind. That I promise you.”
“I don't know where he is. I told you that.”
“So you did. I even believe it. I figure there's a lot you don't know about who's holding your leash, my lovely.” He reached forward and cupped her chin with fingers that felt like solid callous. “Maybe when I know some of his secrets I'll be nice and tell you. Depends.”
“On what?” She flinched as he slowly leaned in and took her lower lip between sharp, uneven teeth. He released her only when she replied with timid pressure from her free lip.
“On that.” He stepped back. “Tell Meldaran I called. Tell him if he wants to leave our meeting with his balls intact, he'll return the visit and he'll be in a talkative fucking mood. If I have to come and find him, he'll sore regret it.” With one last greedy gaze and a sudden annoyed “Jedlow!”, he turned and stomped down the stairs. The youthful guardsman followed close behind with the muttered apology “Sorry we interrupted your sleep, Mistress” and raced after the Magistrate.
When they were safely in the street and the sounds of Ductio's frustrated ranting was disappearing, she relaxed with a sigh and relatched the door. Every nerve was clamouring for action, to fight or flee or burst with tension. She drew a hiss of breath between pursed lips, the beginning of a calming exercise. Even once she massaged herself back to equilibrium, she could not now follow her scouting plans and still make an impression at her dusk appointment.
The Sentry. And not just a street-walking guardsman. A Magistrate, of all people. Casimir, what have you done? Murder?
Maybe there was something to killing him, after all.
***
Fellport's docks stretched for nearly two miles along its placid coastline. Since its founding nine centuries earlier, they had played the central part in its existence. Virtually all Murburan's maritime trade passed through Fellport, which had thrived on its rich vein of excises, duties and less formal streams of revenue. The dock district had burned or collapsed and been rebuilt three times over the years. It was now a mishmash of architectural styles from across its lifetime, with stone skybridges passing between great domed warehouses which overlooked basalt-walled canals. From the hemisphere of cobbled mortar walls that enveloped its length, ancient stone piers mingled alongside out-thrust pontoons and sturdy planked wharfs.
At about the midpoint of the docks was the Martello, a vast tower looming up out of a ring of Lephali ziggurats. Build around three hundred years earlier, when the area was a protectorate of the Empire under the Leph emir Lazare, it was originally intended as a watch tower, which scanned the coastline for raiding Woleji long ships and directed the fire of the trebuchet batteries that were positioned on the hills above. In more peaceful times since, it had been converted into a bell tower, though it still served as a medium for signaling passing traffic.
The buildings about its base no longer served their original purpose as barracks for the vast Leph army. Now they bustled in the service of Fellport's trade industry, a warren of shopfronts, warehouses, taverns and factories. Nearly everything that could be bought or sold anywhere passed beneath the Martello's watchful gaze.
It was here, where the heart of Fellport pumped its lifeblood, that Casimir finally found what he sought.
“This is not so hard to obtain where I come from,” he told the sailor who carefully counted the contents of the bulging leather coin bag he had given him. After some minutes, during which Casimir affably described how the sweeping hills of his homeland would blaze with saffron and apricot flowers, the sailor grudgingly nodded to his companion, who carried a naked dirk in one hand and a roll of burlap in the other. The companion knelt and rolled his package out for Casimir's inspection.
Despite a long sea voyage – the sailors claimed Cenautic heritage, which claim Casimir saw no grounds to dispute – the long-stalked flowers within still retained an oily golden shine. He carefully plucked one petal and squeezed it gently between thumb and forefinger. A slimy trickle oozed out and when his fingers parted they glistened with colour. He didn't dare risk a taste, but cautiously swiped his fingers beneath his nostrils. They were instantly assailed with a sweet scent like burnt cinnamon. Perfect.
“There is more?” The sailors exchanged a cautious glance. One moved to the door and pried it open, peered out and spoke a few quiet words to the glass-blower who had rented them the use of his rooms. The other sailor waited momentarily and said, “We know ship. It arrives three days. Is carry more petals.”
“I have more money,” Casimir ventured. “I will purchase whatever they carry.”
“No, no. Have buyers already,” said the sailor, shaking a hand in regret.
Casimir persisted. “I will pay more,” he insisted. “Much more.”
“No, no. They will not like disappoint buyers.” “Convince them. I will meet you here in four days. Bring your friends.”
In broken Phalish and with a continued show of reluctance, the sailors eventually agreed. Their thoughts were an open book to Casimir. He knew they would be sizing him up for a long bath four days hence, lighter one purse but the heavier for a garland of lead.
I'll need another hand or two with knives, he decided.
***
Ductio had grabbed Jedlow by the collar and shoved him into the recessed doorway of a house. “Get your coat off, boy,” he had commanded, and for one fearful moment Jedlow supposed that Ductio intended to ease his ardour after the meeting with the barely-dressed woman at the boarding house.
“Master?” he said, unbuttoning his coat with shaking fingers.
“Don't flatter yourself, you buffoon,” Ductio snarled. “You're too conspicuous in that uniform. You're going to follow Meldaran's little songbird. If she's not meeting him, I'm feeding the bone to the Duke's prize mare.”
Jedlow was wearing a plain cotton shirt underneath the greatcoat. He shivered as the long afternoon shadows seemed to lay frost on his bones. “Can't do anything about the boots. Take this, buy a cloak. Not a fucking coat, mind, else you'll look just like you did. Then you keep an eye on that door and you dog her heels wherever she goes. Don't let her see you and don't come back until you have something useful to say.” Ductio gave him some coins. “I'll be at the bath house off Lantern Street. You know it? Good. Get moving.”
He had needed to wait only a few minutes after he returned to his post with a new woolen cloak, dyed pale aquamarine, with a royal purple trim. Ductio had rolled his eyes at the colour but gruffly admitted that it would radically alter his appearance from the curt style of his guardsman's coat. He left muttering deprecations.
A very short time later, the woman had emerged, a bundle of cloth and scrolls under one arm and a mandolin under the other. She was clad in a layered white linen dress, with a flowing green cloak of her own that rippled about her ankles and covered her loops of brown curling hair. Jedlow gawked. When he'd glimpsed her half-naked at the door of her room, he hadn't noticed she was beautiful. As lean and muscular as the farm-born girls he had grown up with, but elegant like she was from the city.
She looked quickly around, and might have seen Jedlow but that he was lurking in a convenient doorway and the street was busy with passersby. She set off down the street, a hurry in her pace. Jedlow counted to fifteen as he had been instructed, then followed her.
He didn't see a man across the street fold up the broadsheet he was reading and discard it, rise and match Jedlow's pace and direction.
***
The first thing Chapel heard was the roar, a gushing, crashing thunder like a waterfall he once saw in the mountains in Shalad. It took a moment to realise the sound was his own blood, a furious torrent racing ineffectually to his head. He was suspended upside down. His weight dragged on the metal chains around his ankles and knees. His chest laboured as he tried to force air past the cloth pulled tight across his mouth and tied behind his head, the desperate expansion of his ribs constrained by ropes pinning his arms to his bruised and battered torso. He ached everywhere.
He forced one swollen eye open a crack. The other would not obey him. It was dark, but the slivers of light that forced their way between narrow gaps in what might have been a log wall told him it was still day. A day, at any rate. As he struggled for focus, he saw that he was swinging gently. A human pendulum, ticking away the seconds.
His attempt to shout his alarm came out as a muffled gargle. He twisted and wriggled, but his bonds would not give. The movement caused him to spin a little. As he turned and rocked, he saw two men. They were sitting comfortably on a stack of barrels, sharing a block of cheese.
“Muh muuh!” he demanded, adding a frustrated “Muh muh! Muhhh!”
The men did not react at first. One sliced a chunk of cheese from the brick and popped it into his mouth. He was narrow and tall, with an untidy brush of straight black hair bursting from his head, nostrils and chin. Chapel suddenly realised that he knew him.
That guardsman, the one that had been presented to his Grace the Duke. It was a few years ago. Chapel had been at the ceremony, right before Lady Zeleya's spring ball. Tiresome official function, but it wouldn't have done to duck it. He'd been given a medal, hadn't he? For doing something brave?
Yes, I remember that. A week later they threw him out of the Sentry. Delicious scandal. Red faces all around. He couldn't remember what that had been about either. Damn this headache! I can't concentrate. What was his name?
“Honitt Sellton,” said the man. Ah, yes, that was it! He'd caught a child-stealer, hadn't he? Caught him and killed him, yes? That was it!
“I can see I am still an enduring topic of conversation in high society,” the man observed dryly. He put the block of cheese down on his barrel as he rose. The knife he held. It was crusty with dried cheese. “So nice to be immortalised in popular memory. You would do well to emulate my example, Master Kramus. Conceive of an act of monument and execute it in an appropriately public venue. Be sure to have a broadsheet writer on hand to inform those unlucky few who could not be there to witness it in person. With careful cultivation, you too could have a reputation – no, a notoriety that will burn on when the miserable flame of your lifetime has guttered and darkened.”
The man's companion laughed. He was broader of face and body, like he had been flattened with a giant fireplace spade. His hair seemed to have been flattened against his scalp with a hot iron. His face was square and scarred. His ears were as ragged as a fighting dog's, and like a dog's his lips curled back to show his teeth. “I knew you to be a miserable cuss, Master Sellton. I didn't know you to be poet.”
“There's no shortage of surprises in my past, Master Kramus,” replied Sellton amiably.
Sellton and Kramus? The names went together in some intangible respect. Where had he heard them before? They -. Oh. Oh no.
“Looks like our guest has had a revelation, Master Kramus. Should we seek enlightenment of our own?”
“Oh yes, Master Sellton. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.”
Sellton grabbed the rope lashed around his ribs and drew Chapel towards him. He tugged at the gag until it came free, then with an abrupt push set him to swinging and spinning again.
“Let me go at once!” he bellowed. “You can tell that jumped-up porker Trigosi I will not be intimidated!”
“Why, your lordship, what possible motivation could an honest man like Master Trigosi have to make threats to a member of the social elite such as yourself?”
Kramus agreed with an energetic nod. “It's simply not done, now is it?”
“Cut me down, you wretched peasant scum! If you value your worthless shit lives you'll cut me down right now!” The roaring was getting louder. He could barely hear himself.
“Oh, that's right, Master Kramus. His lordship holds the view that a peasant life is of no particular value or consequence. Clearly he's a man who stands by his convictions. A man prepared to demonstrate his beliefs in deed as well as word.”
Chapel was livid. “That islander slut? Is that what this is about? You cowardly shits, you've fucked your lives away for that filthy harlot? A fucking woman? You stupid shits, that's what she's for!”
Sellton tapped the knife thoughtfully against one cheek. Little fragments of cheese dotted his chin whiskers. “Why, your lordship, what would your mother think if she heard you say that?” he reproached. “I think this is something we need to discuss, don't you?”
Kramus was still nodding. “Yes. I reckon we should get right to the heart of it.”
***
Three silk sashes drifted lazily to the ground at her feet as the final chord faded.
There was a beat of silence, then Nana squealed in delight and began pummeling her table with both hands. Two waiters and one of the kitchen hands joined the applause with whistles and catcalls that suddenly threatened to carry through into the dining rooms. Bey shushed them with a gesture, wondering how they had contrived to excuse themselves from their duties. A matter of discipline to be investigated later. Right now it suited him that they should have seen the audition and would soon report it to their comrades.
“Breathtaking,” he told the Corphenite artisan. “What do you call it?”
She relaxed, lowering her arms and the mandolin like a flower folding its petals away at night. He was staring, he knew, but he couldn't take his eyes off her. “The song is called 'The Novice's Instruction', Sir Beyda,” she smiled, the words a sultry hum, as the song had been. “The dance is in the style of the natiris of Vaillancesse. Each phase represents one of their three Great Principles; Love, Honour and Sacrifice.”
“Your own arrangement?” She nodded in modesty.
Beside her, the manager wore a grin of pride and admiration so sincere it was infectious. Lovers? wondered Bey, who was alarmed to suddenly feel a pang of jealousy. He was a dandy rake, with a full golden moustache and sideburns trimmed to a dagger point. His doublet was a stylish collision of green, grey and black triangular patches, his hat was impressively endowed with feathers, his soft leather boots were polished to a gleam that reflected the dancing lantern flames. He was precisely the kind of man for whom Bey felt instant affection or immediate dislike. In this case, it was the latter.
Not that that would stop him from treating him like a long lost brother. “Master Meldaran, I would consider it an honour to engage your lovely client for as long a term as you might propose.”
The Corphenite smirked with knowing arrogance. “Of course I knew you would, Sir Beyda,” he said with an urbane shrug. “Naturally, I have conditions to satisfy before we can come to an arrangement.”
Circumstances had made the decision for Bey before he had ever laid eyes on Lynnis Chalcer. He needed a headline act, and not even one performer in ten claimed to possess the range of talents that Meldaran's letter of introduction had boasted. He would have settled for a bawdy puppeteer or a blindfolded knife-thrower, but instead here was one of the most astounding entertainer Bey had ever heard of. “I think you will find me an accommodating host, Master Meldaran.”
Casimir Meldaran beamed with gracious triumph. “To begin with, we prefer to reside on the premises. I will require two rooms.”
***
Just as the night bell sounded an hour past midnight, a trapdoor opened. With a rattle of chains and a whimper of broken remorse, Felmore Chapel, the fifth and final Baron Galford, dipped through the open hatch and into the placid ocean below. A ripple and a spreading stain marked for a second his passing, almost invisible beneath the warehouse pier on this cloudy night.
Kramus let the chain out until he felt the resistance subside and saw it slacken beneath the block and tackle. Sellton, who lay with his head overhanging the hatch, counted softly to one hundred, sometimes to the tune of a popular ballad about a ghost ship that never found its port. A few bubbles rose, but the chain did not so much as twitch.
When they felt they had waited long enough, they hauled the remaining chain off the pulley and dropped it into the water. Then they closed the hatch.