Stars peeked through a crack in the clouds as Magistrate Broden laid a small cushion on the gazebo seat and settled himself into place. The carbuncles on his arse were playing havoc with him again. He had tried every cream, poultice and unguent available to modern medicine, but none of them came close to the relief afforded by a soft down cushion. Broden was used to having the best in life. It rankled him that his own body conspired against his comfort.
He flicked idly through a sheaf of crime reports, squinting in the inadequate lantern light. There was nothing of particular interest amongst them. Indeed they were considerably lighter today than usual. The most comprehensive of them he had already consumed with an alert eye. Staff Sergeant Kilritch had assembled every iota of detail on the assassination attempt, including a rather self-serving account of its disruption. Broden devoured it and considered all the questions not asked, let alone answered. His review of the day's normal reportage was as much to take his mind off its preoccupation as it was a matter of routine and discipline, principles to which Broden held himself as much as any in the Sentry.
Except Vernal Ductio. His counterpart had been reported as drunk and disoriented – Kilritch had made a point of enumerating Ductio's erratic behaviours in fine detail, in his reliably ingratiating style – but from their brief encounter, Broden knew better. Ductio had been intoxicated, certainly, but the narcotic of choice on this occasion was not alcohol. Broden had a shrewd idea he knew what had affected Ductio, though he had no particular interest in confirming his theory. Let Ductio conduct himself as he pleased, so long as there was no breach of their unspoken compact.
One item caught his attention. One guardsman had signed out on the morning shift and had not signed back at his expected hour in the afternoon. That was unusual enough to warrant investigation. Since the shift logs provided a basis for the determination of each man's salary, it was very uncommon for even the most work shy guardsman to fail to place his mark at the end of his day's duty. Broden scratched a note to Kilritch, instructing that the following morning's assignments include an enquiry. A shirker was one thing, but Broden did not discount the possibility of a more sinister explanation. It was in his nature to suspect malign intent in all happenstance.
“You work too hard, Magistrate. You should consider your health.”
Broden did not look up. It was his custom to avoid making direct eye contact with any of his agents, nor to touch any of them. He supposed it must seem almost superstitious, though of course they would not question him. He regarded his little rituals as a form of self-protection, an arrangement that permitted later denials if necessary, but he inwardly allowed that perhaps they were just as much an attempt to cultivate good luck. It didn't hurt to cover all the possibilities.
“There are things of greater concern to me than my health,” he replied. “I assume you are aware of the events of the day?”
“I can hardly have missed it. The talk in the streets is of nothing else.”
“The assassin very nearly succeeded in her attempt. There are a number of questions which must be answered.”
“'Who did it?' is obviously the first.”
“I disagree,” replied Broden. “The most important question is 'Why?' rather than 'Who?'. Any number of perfectly capable killers can be had with sufficient enticement. The precise identity of this particular instrument of death is, of course, to be determined as a matter of great priority. Her capture and execution will provide a salutary lesson to others with historical ambitions. But that is a task that can safely be left to the Ductios of this world. I am far more concerned with ascertaining which of His Grace's vast assortment of personal, commercial and political enmities is pertinent. That alone may tell us whether to expect further attempts.”
“We should count on it, surely?”
“Yes. His Grace will be sequestered temporarily, provided he remains convinced of the danger and can be supplied with appropriate occupations to keep him from becoming adventurous. In the meantime we must consider whether this affects our plans.”
“I don't see how. Our objectives are achievable irrespective of whether the Duke is killed or survives to be a hundred. Certainly wholesale chaos and a succession dispute would be disruptive, but probably not fatal. It's conceivable that things would be easier for us, though I wouldn't want to count on it.”
“I came to the same conclusion. Very well then. We will proceed. Do you have anything else to bring to my attention.”
“Battis Fenchrow's print factory has burned to the ground under equivocal circumstances. It is believed that he was trapped inside, though it may be some hours before the fire can be sufficiently contained to certify it.”
“Fenchrow? 'Today in Fact'?” Broden felt a twinge of genuine dismay. “Oh, ill news. I always enjoyed reading his diatribes. Some of the conclusions he would draw from entirely solid evidence was quite extraordinary. I shall miss his tawdry little rabble rousing.”
“I had occasional dealings with him. He was reprehensible weasel of a human being, but I am at least slightly indebted to him. I intend to satisfy myself that it was an accident or get to the truth of it otherwise.”
“I am sure Master Fenchrow would approve of such a crusade. Very well, I have no objections, provided you are discreet.”
“As always, Magistrate. Will there be anything else?” A light misting rain began to fall. Broden looked up. The opening in the clouds has sealed over again. “I don't think so. It has been a trying day. I believe I will get an early night.”
“You should get out of this cold weather before you catch a chill. Good night, Magistrate.” Broden waited until his agent's footsteps has receded across the damp lawn before rising, collecting his guttering lantern and his cushion, and shuffled back to the western wing of the manor.
***
“About time you fucking woke up, boy.”
Jedlow supposed this meant that he was not dead. His parents had raised him as a good atheist and he had no deluded expectations of an afterlife like the godly, but he imagined that if his beliefs had turned out to be wrong, surely no decent afterlife worthy of the name would have included Magistrate Ductio. Nothing he had ever done in life had warranted that kind of punishment.
“Where am I?” he said. He regretted it at once. Shards of icy pain stabbed through both temples and settled behind his eyes. He blinked tears from his eyes and reached out with probing fingers to stroke his forehead. It was firmly ensconced in a thick layer of bandages. This room was surprisingly warm and brightly lit, though he could not see the source of that light.
“Infirmary at headquarters. Don't tell me you don't recognise the fucking place?”
“I don't get sick much, Magistrate.” It was true. Injuries aside, he rarely succumbed to ill health, and never since his induction into the Sentry. He wasn't too sure what he was supposed to do exactly. He hoped that right at the moment it would not involve too much movement.
“You bloody wouldn't.” Jedlow stared at the ceiling for a while, tracing the cracks with slow precision until the pounding in his head eased. When he thought it was safe, he turned his eyes carefully to the right until Ductio filled his field of vision.
The Magistrate was not a pretty sight, even by his usual standards. His grey eyes were bloodshot and his eyelids were slightly puffed and slightly dark. The creases of his skin seemed deeper and more pronounced. A thick trickle of dried blood stained a path from his left nostril, following the grooves that circumvented his tight lips to gather on his wiry, unshaven chin. Jedlow felt dazed, like a bystander watching his own thoughts from a distance. That was the only way to account for the fact that he said, “You look horrible, Magistrate.”
“Cheeky little fuck.” Ductio rubbed his eyes and coughed. He rolled the contents of his throat around and spat a viscous green lump out the side of his mouth. “Side effects of the dose of 'petals. It's bad enough normally, but I've a fucking allergy, haven't I? Ten times worse for me. Filthy fucking shit.”
Jedlow remembered watching Ductio's eyes cross and roll like two tumbling acrobats. The image amused him. He laughed, a short sharp bray, like a donkey. Ductio just spat again.
After that, memories returned like rain, a few at first, then a downpour. They burned a scorching hole in his brain. “Oh!” he said in pain and epiphany. “Magistrate. I saw murder done!”
“Yes, it's been a big fucking day for you, hasn't it? Right, since it looks like the candle's lit again, you'd better tell me what the fuck happened to you.”
As he recounted his adventure, Jedlow found that while his impressions of the scene at Fenchrow's house remained intact, the precise details now evaded him. He could not recall what the man with the sack had looked like, for example. “He might have been bearded, or wore a moustache.” How many men had been occupied in the destruction of the presses, he could not say. “I was watching,” he said, “through a window. Fenchrow was speaking to a woman or – no, it was man. He had sideburns.”
“Tell me what else he had,” said Ductio, and after a few minutes they teased out the identity of Fenchrow's murderer. Meldaran. Now that he says it out loud, thought Jedlow, it seems obvious. Funny that I couldn't remember that by myself.
“Are we going to arrest him?” Duty called. Jedlow tried to answer the summons, but couldn't seem to lift himself up out of his cot.
“When I find him, I'm going to do more than arrest the little Corphy bastard. I'm going to string him up by his balls and see if his little minstrel can't get a fucking tune from his scrotum.” Ductio stood.
“Magistrate?”
Ductio stepped out of his sight. “You're staying here, boy,” he said. “Your neck is fucked. Bones are chipped or something. Happened when you got hit. Doctor says he won't know whether you can walk again for a couple of days.”
Jedlow didn't hear him leave.
***
“Do you know I find your presumption quite insufferable?” Herronvale's face became redder as his indignation rose. He stood, towering over Casimir like a giant in the cramped, spartan office. Apart from their seats and the small teapoy between them, the only furnishings were a well-stocked liquor cabinet and a threadbare rug, expensive once but treated poorly in recent decades. “Kindly leave, master, or must I invite my doormen to escort you out?”
Casimir smirked indulgently. His provocations had met with unexpected success. Clearly this Herronvale was a man of strictly temporary forbearance and volcanic temper. Both were deplorable traits to bring to bear in a battle of wits. For a moment he almost felt sympathy.
“I pray you, Sir Udo, do not become so excitable,” he soothed. “I do not tally your various misfortunes to raise your ire, but merely to illuminate that with which I can be of service to you. I mean to deliver you no more than is rightly yours.” Properly timed deference worked wonders with these backwater gentry types. Men like Herronvale were solely concerned with their social position. Acknowledgment of their elevated status was a lever by which they could be exploited with ease.
He pressed on before Herronvale could raise further protest. “Sir Udo, you and I both know all too well that the traditions so long held dear in Fellport are eroding day by day. It is all too clear. You have seen it yourself. The saloons of Fellport are a treasured institution, a mainstay of life at every social tier. Yet what have we seen lately? Criminals buying their way into positions of respectability and social prominence. Foreigners allowed to establish themselves in competition with clubs with long and proud histories, owned by reputable families of good breeding. Foreigners, Sir Udo!”
Herronvale was in complete agreement despite his bafflement. “But, smoke it all, you're foreign yourself, man!”
“Only by accident of birth, Sir Udo,” he protested. “In my heart I am faithful to my adoptive home of Murburan. Oh, please do not misunderstand, I believe there is a place even for those without a trace of Murb blood – waiters, actors, servants and doxies must all come from somewhere. But surely you agree, Sir Udo, that they do not have a place at the top? To see interlopers presuming to take their place alongside their betters? To see them demand the respect and deference reserved for the highest classes? Why it is an insult to every Murb with a shred of pride!”
“Insult it may be,” agreed Herronvale with heat, “but there's nothing to be done. It is the Duke's law, and I bend the knee to His Grace like anyone else.” His voice left no doubt that, were it in his power, he would not make such a concession to tradition. If there was anything Casimir liked better than a hot-tempered fool, it was a hot-tempered fool with no sense of his place in the world. “He even gave Piety Korsolten's business away to some damned bumpkin from bloody Shackleford, of all places. Why, her late husband was my mother's cousin's oldest boy. We grew up together. Poor old Warnell's ghost won't rest seeing what's become of his beloved Cardinal, you mark my words!”
“His Grace the Duke is no doubt ill-served by his advisors to have permitted such a situation to come about unchecked,” Casimir hypothesized, steering the subject in a more fruitful direction than the late Mistress Korsolten. “Bureaucrats can hide the greatest injustices in a column of figures or a well-crafted report, and I've not known one in my life that would not accept a coin in return for looking the other way.” Casimir did not imagine that he was overplaying his hand in appealing to a few assumed prejudices at once. He was not disappointed.
“Damned upstart bean counters, every one of them,” said Herronvale. He had obviously completely forgotten that moments before he had been on the verge of having Casimir beaten. “But still, that's how it is. Vormura's hardly likely to mend his laws while their simoleans fill his treasury, is he?”
Casimir smacked a fist into his cupped hand for emphasis, saying “But there you have the answer, Sir Udo! There is only one way to set in his place any man who respects money before tradition, and that is to succeed where he does not. Prevail financially and, better still, do so at his expense. Teach him in his place by taking away that which he has wrongfully assumed!”
Herronvale opened the cabinet and drew a glass and a bottle from it, then remembered himself and drew a second glass, which he set before Casimir. He was willing to be persuaded, that was plain. “If, as you declare, my saloon is balanced on the edge of failure, how am I to perform this miraculous transformation? It's custom I need, not the moral high ground.”
“You must exploit your natural advantages. Men like Berber Trigosi do not command willing loyalty in the hearts of decent Murbish folk, Sir Udo. He succeeds only because he gives people what they desire, and that is a game I happen to play with great aptitude. Take me into your service, Sir Udo, and I guarantee his customers will soon be flocking to your door. Given a choice, they will happily show you their loyalty and spurn his tawdry attractions.”
“You're confident, I'll give you that,” grumbled Herronvale, a man unused to paying compliments, especially to his inferiors. “You have a plan, then, I take it.”
“Indeed, Sir Udo, I have many. But let's begin with one that I think will meet with your ready approval. It catches two fish with a single cast, so to speak. I perceive your outrage at the most irregular appointment of Sir Beyda Chur. Well, then, perhaps you will delight in the news that one of his most recent pieces of good fortune can be immediately reversed.”
“Reversed, eh?” Herronvale poured two miserly measures of whiskey and nudged a glass toward Casimir with the tip of the bottle. “You think you can arrange for the Moistened Cardinal to be sold after all?”
“Not at all, Sir Udo, and if it were in my power I would still not,” Casimir replied sternly. He took his glass and sipped, privately enjoying the brief return of Herronvale's indignant splutter. “That would play into the hands of Trigosi or one of the foreigners with the resources to purchase it outright.”
Herronvale snapped peevishly, “Then what is it you think you can do, eh?”
Casimir smiled with a self-assurance calculated to irritate. “I can take away from him the one thing that currently guarantees his success.”
“Which is?”
“His headline act.”
***
It had taken two fire cart loads of water to finally extinguish the fire on Icewater Lane. The flames had whipped from Battis Fenchrow's home like summer weeds, reaching about until they found purchase. The bakery next door resisted their advances until the printery was well ablaze, throwing up sparks and glowing embers. These crept under the bakery's eaves and settled on her awnings, and before long it too was doomed. The fire had spread through both buildings but then it had nowhere to go. A gentle breeze would not permit it to turn back, so it turned on itself and consumed only what it had already claimed. And so the neighbourhood in Icewater Lane was saved.
The fire men in their smart woolen coats and metal helmets turned up too late to do anything to prevent the buildings' destruction. Likewise the occupants of the bakery, Master Dorrypock and his wife and young son, who lived on the floor above the mixing tubs and ovens, had more than enough warning to collect a few treasured possessions and make their way to the street. They stood there now, shock-eyed and teary, to the general indifference of the fire men and the unhelpful sympathy of their neighbours. Fellport did not incline hospitably towards the unfortunate.
Of Master Fenchrow there had been yet no sign. Several witnesses – gossips, really, eager to impart what little they knew, edited and embroidered with each telling – came forward to report that several men had escaped the building shortly before it had succumbed to the flames. None of them could swear that Master Fenchrow was amongst them. Many of them, his neighbours of several decades, were not perfectly certain they would recognise him in any case. He was quite widely read, but little seen by those without business upon which to visit his premises. It was agreed that he conducted his affairs strangely, and thus began the speculation that he had started the fire himself, that his machines had overheated, that his stockpile of misprinted pages had spontaneously combusted. As the speculations grew stranger, so they became more widely held to be the simple incontrovertible truth. Battis Fenchrow would have been smugly pleased at so vivid a demonstration of the power of words.
“Or the credulity of the average person,” the Ballad Dog said to himself. He watched as two fire men took turns to haul their half of a levered arm that worked the pump attached to the great wheeled barrel on the fire cart. The water was pumped through a hose which a third fire man had turned upon the embers of what had been Fenchrow's office. The pitiful trickle of water had little effect on the great outpouring of heat still radiating from the embers. It might be hours until it had cooled sufficiently for safe examination, although the closing clouds suggested a rain intervention might accelerate that schedule.
Most of the crowd had been kept back from the fire, less for their safety than to ensure that they would not interfere with the work of the fire men. A cadre of Sentry officers were huddled in close quarters, no doubt discussing the strange discovery of an abandoned Sentry cab – Magistrate Ductio's no less – followed by the alarming discovery of the injured guardsman. That had set off a new round of speculation, but to him it was obvious that the boy had merely interrupted something that he was not meant to see and had been eliminated for it. He was exceptionally fortunate still to have his life. That was neither here nor there. What interested the Dog was the question which of a number of distinctly plausible candidates had murdered Fenchrow and destroyed his home.
He scanned the rubble as closely as he dared for clues. Battis had a small sitting room off his reception antechamber, but he tended to spend the majority of his time in the small dingy room at the heart of his home, with it bed with a stained mattress and sour odour, a writing desk stuffed to bursting with his broadsheet articles of rumours, lies and conspiracy-exposing guesses, his wood stove used exclusively for heating his brews and fed exclusively by letters of complaint at his latest libelous outrage.
It did not take long for him to spot the bodily remains of what had once been a human, there at the centre of the building. He paused in silence for a brief moment before alerting a bored and shivering guardsman. He supposed he owed Fenchrow at least that much acknowledgment.
The discovery lent a new life to the hubbub of the scene. Guardsmen reversed the creeping advances of the crowd, who craned for a better view and demanded to be told what was happening and complained when they were blithely ignored. A fire man in a thick canvas suit was assigned to recover the body. He was drenched with water from the hoses and a path was laid with a smothering stratum of wet sand. Steaming furiously, he marched into the simmering wreckage with a dripping burlap sack. He emerged a few minutes later, tossing the sack carelessly to safety as he hurriedly peeled away the smoking protections.
The Ballad Dog pulled rank, dismissing all but the most senior Sentry, a sergeant whose name appeared on his short list of trustworthy guardsmen. Together they donned thick leather fire gauntlets and cut the smouldering burlap apart, exposing a jumble of charred bones held together by blackened strands of unrecognisable sinew.
He tried to ignore the stench's resemblance to smoked summer lamb. There was little about this collection of over-roasted meat that could identify its human ancestor. He was convinced nevertheless that this was indeed Battis Fenchrow, if for no other reason than the man had always seemed bound to come to an end of miserable disappointment. A lucky escape would be uncharacteristic.
It was a great misfortune. Not so much for the loss of the man, who had squandered his wealth on trivialities and fantasies and a lifetime of passionate but misplaced anger. The Ballad Dog mourned rather the loss of a useful tool, an effective, reliable instrument that was likely irreplaceable. He realised with sudden regret that he would never again use that pseudonym. Its purpose had died with Battis Fenchrow.
Instructing the sergeant not to enter any name in his record of the incident, he knelt and poked at the corpse with the tip of the guardsman's knife. It resisted with grim coherence, a sticky mass greater than the sum of its parts. The skull regarded him with dark empty crevices, crisped flakes of flesh rimming the sockets like dried wine staining a goblet. This close, the smell was insidious, insinuating. He could taste Fenchrow in every breath, he could smell- What was that? There was something there, something he had not noticed until he began to become accustomed to the gruesome odour. A sweetness, like a fragrant spice. One that he identified more by reputation than familiarity.
Yellowpetal. Fenchrow reeked of the stuff.
He had observed Fenchrow for quite some time before initiating their unusual association. He had never known the man to imbibe anything other than a singularly unpleasant and unaccountably expensive Foqua Valley rose brandy. A habitual consumption of yellowpetals seemed most implausible, though a cynic might have suggested that it accounted for Fenchrow's notoriously paranoid beliefs. He knew better. Fenchrow was just desperately lonely and more alienated than the most uncomprehending foreigner. He didn't need anything more to sustain his personal demons.
So what had happened? Had some sexual partner proposed it as a game? Fenchrow's resistance in to the wiles of a willing bed mate had cost him money, dignity and his good health on occasions, why not his sensibility as well? Or had someone forced him to take it? He had heard that it was administered to suspected spies to make them more susceptible to questioning, though how much of that was fact and how much fanciful exaggeration he had no way of knowing. His experience of yellowpetal was almost exclusively confined to hearsay. He had never encountered it on the streets of Fellport before, and in fact had only known of its existence from a foray into Corphena the previous year. He was working from a basis of ignorance. But he knew where to find some answers.
When in doubt, ask the local experts.
***
Lynnis shone outwardly and hid her darkness away. As she prepared, her emotions were locked in a fierce hold, too constricted to reach out to her. She permitted others to catch hints of trembling bravery and fearful relief, but these were constructions to support the explanation she had offered for her injuries, nothing more. The horror of culpability, the stricken denial, the desperate remorse: these she hid even from herself.
Under Sir Beyda's watchful eye and with Nana's capable – and occasionally overly familiar – assistance, she had spent a painful afternoon in preparation. She was unable to dance, that was out of the question. Her wounded leg had stiffened almost to the point where she could not walk at all, though with some practice she had developed a slow meander with a reasonably natural appearance. Instead they rigged a swing in the centre of the stage, decorated with garlands of winter lilies and grape vines, evoking the pastoral passion spirits of Murb folk tradition. She wore her long green trailing dress with shoulder length fingerless gloves to hide her bodily injuries. Her face was made up in blue and white splashes of frosty seasonal colour. The entirety of her staging was a mask.
Sir Beyda had occupied himself with drumming up an audience. He had dispatched messengers to several exclusive clubs with news of her premiere, accompanied by hefty bribes to ensure that the head waiters would spread the word. He had tyrannised the kitchens, tasting everything and insisting on small adjustments, arguing furiously against the chefs' conservatism. He had ordered a complete restock of the liquor supplies, overriding arguments from the bar chief that their accounts with more than one purveyor were already stretched. He had conducted inspections of every table setting, every flower arrangement, every polished surface, demanding that fresh attention be paid to anything that appeared less than spectacular. And he had been at Lynnis' shoulder constantly, listening as she conferred with Nana on local politics, adjusting her lyrics accordingly, offering his own suggestions.
He had, in short, made an utter nuisance of himself. Lynnis had to admit, though, that he appeared obsessed with learning everything he could. He soaked every word like a sponge as she tried to drive him off with explanations and assurances, until eventually she banished him outright with the threat that if she did not rehearse, the evening would be a disaster.
These distractions she overcome with a single-minded focus on the programme of her act. It must of necessity be a spectacle, spontaneous and provocative, delightful and intriguing. She rehearsed several numbers with the quartet of players, reviewing their strengths and revising her own arrangements to accommodate. She wrote and rewrote her list, working through each piece, weighing it against its neighbours, scrapping it all and beginning again at least three times. Finally the hour arrived and she was still reconsidering her most recent draft when Bey stepped in front of a packed floor.
“Oh, goo' luck,” Nana squealed in a furtive whisper. She grabbed Lynnis and branded her with a lusty kiss, then reviewed her hair and fussed a few curls into place. “There you are. Perfect!” She trotted offstage, leaving Lynnis to hurriedly recompose herself.
“Masters, mistresses, welcome!” Sir Beyda's voice was rich, warm, solicitous. “Welcome to the first night of a new beginning here at the Moistened Cardinal. My name is Beyda Aldus Chur, late of Deremar, and I am most humbly grateful for your patronage of this fine establishment. As you may know, we have been visited by tragedy in these recent days. The esteemed hostess of this saloon, my much-admired predecessor, Mistress Piety Korsolten, was cruelly taken into the arms of the Saints just a few nights past. And though we whom she has left behind grieve for her passing, life continues and we must walk forward. Therefore tonight's entertainments are dedicated to her memory, in the hopes that her spirit may be stilled by the surety that that which she loved most, her treasured Cardinal and those of us in her care, will continue to flourish, as she would have wanted it.”
Lynnis admired his gall, to so closely associate himself with the departed Korsolten, whom she understood he had never met. She would have to rearrange her lineup again. With Sir Beyda playing for the crowd's sympathy, it would not do to open with a jaunty popular singalong number. She signaled for Nana, instructing her in low tones to pass new instructions on to the house players.
“My waiters are bringing around a complimentary glass of chilled wine from the Cardinal's reserved collection. I would ask you all to pleased stand and raise a glass in salute both to Mistress Korsolten, and to his Grace Duke Vormura, by whose magnanimity we are all blessed.”
There was a shuffle of chairs from beyond the stage curtain and a round of muttered toasts.
“And now, my good friends, please join me in welcoming to the Moistened Cardinal a beautiful traveler from a distant land, on a journey of discovery and revelation. A songbird to rival the nightingale, a troubadour of excellent wit and dramatic countenance, a player whose grace might shame the courts of kings. Masters, mistresses, appearing for the first time ever in the Kingdom of Murburan, I give you Mistress Lynnis Chalcer.”
The curtains rose to polite applause that grew steadily as the tinted lantern light rose, illuminating her in a green glow. She plucked three subdued chords and began to sing “Call for Me”, a lowing ballad about a shepherdess recalling a lost love as wolves stalk her flock. It was a sombre lament, full of regret and unease. Lynnis laid it like a blanket of sorrow on her audience, who responded with conscientious silence. As she drew the number towards its conclusion, she plucked a musical signal to the house players, who took up the melody and carried it forward, raising the tempo and the spirit. Without giving the room space to applaud, she launched into her next song, a traditional Corphenite harvest song she had adapted.
As she played and sang, she scanned the room for signs of its mood. As expected, they seemed to respond when she slipped a reference here and there to recent local history – the overthrow of the previous Duke, the trade dispute with the Yendarric League of Keer, others. She broke from her song abruptly to tell with cheerful intimacy a ridiculous tale about how a misplaced fruit basket led to a rancorous rivalry between two Furilyssan noble houses. With each implausible new plot twist, the crowd grew more delighted and involved, shouting suggestions which Lynnis would instantly incorporate in her narrative. There were vociferous arguments for one house or the other to prevail at the story's end, so she turned the division into a singalong duel, cajoling each side in turn to sing the other into submission. By the time she wrapped the whole affair up with a bawdy ditty pitting the son of one house against the daughter of the other in an exchange of swords in a barn full of soft warm hay, the crowd belonged to her.
She held the stage for another hour, delivering recitations of famous speeches (with the occasional invention of a new passage to keep the tone light), witty commentary on the state of international relations, and of course more songs. When the curtains finally closed, the congratulatory applause had become frantic.
Sir Beyda was thanking his guests and exhorting them to partake of the fine libations available as she departed the stage. Nana was wrapped around her, as much for her own entertainment as for Lynnis' support, and together they stumbled for the small dressing chamber to remove her makeup before it could cake on her skin.
He was waiting for her there. “Ah, my precious doll, what a show!”
“Casimir! Where have you been?” She had been in such a constant state of willful preoccupation for so many hours that his sudden reappearance came as a complete shock. She was abruptly choked with bleak dismay as an irrational fear took hold that he somehow suspected what she had done. Her defenses crumpled all at once. She could not stop the tears from filling her eyes and blazing trails through her makeup.
He mistook her, of course. “No, no, little kite, no tears,” he soothed, drawing her head to his breast with both hands and stroking her hair. “You were wonderful, magnificent. The best this town has seen in an age. Listen! Listen to that applause! It's for you, my little Ly!” His fingers stroked down her back, sweeping across the row of fine stitches that Nana had traced from her side halfway to her spine. She gasped. He seemed not to notice, his hand continuing its journey to her buttocks and caressing them in avid possession.
The sting was like an alarm, snapping her control back into place. She let the tears continue to bubble and said “Cas! Oh, Cas, I thought I would never see you again!” She locked her arms around his waist and returned his frown of concern with eyes blinking in fright.
“What? Why? I've only been gone since this morning!” He seemed completely taken aback. “I'm out and about most days, you know that! I always come back to you, my precious!”
Nana interrupted, irked that she had been forgotten, “No, no, silly manager, not you! She means she! Mistress Lynnis, she were attacked!”
Casimir's jaw dropped, though whether from outrage or disbelief she could not tell. “What?” he demanded. “Is this true?”
Weeping openly, she told him her story, elaborating with small additional details for the benefit of her lover – or more precisely, for the benefit of Nana, who would expect her to be more open with him than she had with Sir Beyda. With an affection of unconscious intimacy, she raised her dress to show him her wounds, turning about so that he could see the cuts and punctures from every angle. She was not especially surprised to notice his arousal but had no intention of indulging his interest.
When she was finished with her increasingly harrowing tale, she looked at him with frightened expectation. In many respects she did not particularly care how he would react. She had already made the decision, upon deciding that morning to commence with her mission, that he was of no further use to her. But she was still mildly interested to see what he made of such a test of character.
His response was unexpected. “Oh my precious, precious jongleur,” he cried with concern, “you can't possibly move in your condition. We can leave our packing until the morning.”
What? Move? “Casimir, what are you talking about?” For once she was not at all concerned with engineering the soft submissive tone she took with Casimir. Her voice had a hard edge of incredulity and suspicion.
“My dear sweet one, I mean we're leaving. Immediately. Your contract with this wretched hovel is broken! I have received a much better offer from a competing saloon. You begin there tomorrow.” He spoke with easy confidence, but the words spilled out rather like an embarrassed confession.
It was Lynnis' turn to be astonished. “Casimir Meldaran, that is the most ridiculous, scandalous, most unprofessional thing I've ever heard. Sir Beyda has spent a fortune promoting my show! It would be unthinkable!”
Casimir bristled at this show of defiance but the arrogance she had sometimes mistaken for self-confidence was still prevalent. “Sir Beyda? That ghoul? He may have performed some legal trickery to wrest a deed from a dead woman's grip, but that won't save this place from sinking out of sight within the month! If we stay on, Lynnis, we'll sink with Chur. I won't have it!”
Nana's hands enclosed the gaping 'O' of her mouth. “You cannot talk 'bout Bey like that!” she gasped. “'e is gentrified! Stupid man! You should be 'anged!”
Casimir's patience boiled over. “Who the fuck do you think you are, woman, to tell me what to say?” He slapped her across the cheek, leaving a red mark. Nana's angry reproaches ceased in surprise and she fled the room with wide eyes.
“Cas!” She was dumbfounded. What had come over him? “Lynnis, don't be an idiot. Don't trifle with this Beyda fool. It'll be the ruination of your career!”
Time to end this, she decided. “Casimir Meldaran, it's my career to ruin, and I say I am staying right here at the Moistened Cardinal. If you don't like it, that's unfortunate. But it won't change my mind. I don't understand what's become of you but you've been a different man since we came to Fellport. One that I don't think I like!”
Casimir reeled as if she had just bitten off the end of his nose. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying that I have given my word and my contract to play for Sir Beyda and that's what I am going to do.”
“Fuck Sir Beyda!” screeched Casimir with brutal disdain. “Fuck this second rate dung pit! I have your contract , you treacherous bitch! You'll do what I say, when I say it!” He slapped her face as well, and meant to follow it through with another, but she grabbed his wrist and rolled it in her grip.
“If you are unhappy with our contractual relationship, Cas,” she said, a reasonable and businesslike calm to her voice as she twisted his hand with malicious intent, “then we should end it at once. I'll buy out your marker.”
“B-bitch,” he gasped. She felt muscles tearing under her fingers as she tightened her grip.
“Send me your price in the morning. No need to show up in person. You won't be able to write it down anyway.” With a final twist she steered him at the door and released him.
“Don't come back, Cas,” she warned. “We are finished.”
Sir Beyda arrived with Nana and two of the burlier kitchen hands following. “Master Meldaran! I will not have ill words spoken under this roof,” he said through gritted teeth. It was clear he was restraining some more forceful sentiment. “You are no longer welcome in the Moistened Cardinal!”
Casimir staggered toward the door, his wrist bundled protectively into his body and eyes glistening with tears. “Oh, we're not finished, you filthy little whore. We are very much not done.” Rubbing furiously at his eyes, he scurried out ahead of the doormen.
Sir Beyda ignored his burbling imprecations, regarding her sympathetically. “I'm very sorry,” he said. “Are you all right?” He took a half-step forward and raised a hand as though to comfort her, then seemed to remember himself and rescinded the awkward gesture.
Lynnis nodded, trying not to feel anything of the distraught horror she projected. A little while longer, she commanded herself. I can feel when I am dreaming.
She said “It has been a long day. I believe I should get some rest.”