Death's Avenger

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘As am I. If you are under the impression that Nanda is in the habit of confiding in me, I must relieve you of it at once. A confidence from Nanda tends to arrive with the sudden impact of a hurricane, and approximately as often.’

  Nuritov accepted this with his usual placid equanimity, an attitude which Konrad sometimes envied. ‘No doubt we will soon find out.’

  No doubt. Nanda at her most mysterious tended to make Konrad just a trifle nervous, so he hoped he would not have to wait long.

  Nor did he, in the end.

  Konrad and Nuritov were not suffered long to linger above-stairs alone, for tea was served in the drawing-room. Upon presenting themselves, they discovered that the rest of the company was already collected, and a motley assortment of folk they did make. Konrad observed Holt’s guests with keen interest as Nanda took it upon herself to ply him with tea, together with far more in the way of cakes and pastries than he could possibly expect to eat. He had noticed that she appeared to enjoy feeding him, and did not choose to interrupt her solicitude.

  ‘Are you trying to fatten me?’ The plate she handed to him towered with delicacies; they actually teetered, and threatened to topple onto the floor.

  ‘Perhaps I have overdone it,’ she conceded, fixing the offending plate with a swift, narrow-eyed look. She snatched it back, unloaded half of its contents and returned it to him with a dazzling smile. ‘Better?’

  Konrad still failed to catch a glimpse of any of the plate’s fine porcelain beneath its burden of eatables, but at least the stack of pastries no longer leaned, unpromisingly, to the left. He watched surreptitiously as Nanda selected an array of sweets for herself, pleased to observe that she took plenty. ‘Do you know everybody here?’ he asked.

  Nanda surveyed the sumptuous, velvet-furnished drawing-room and its complement of overdressed people. ‘Nearly enough.’

  Her tone did not suggest that she was thrilled to find herself in their company, which struck Konrad as odd considering that she had insisted upon attending the party. Perhaps he had imagined her distaste; after all, she had spoken of some of these same guests with enthusiasm, in the carriage.

  Then again, perhaps he had not imagined it. Nanda began to speak, and perhaps she intended to tell him more about the people crowded into the drawing-room. The youngish woman curled up in an oversized brocade arm chair, for one, her skin and hair as pale as Nanda’s. She was dressed in faded rose-pink satin, her gown covered in cheap lace ruffles: clearly trying to make a fair show on a small budget. Konrad might have sympathised with her apparent situation, had it not been for the expression of marked sourness that twisted her handsome features into a dark scowl. Or what about the man behind her, small and trim and neat in an emerald-green velvet coat, his pale hair worn rather longer than prevailing fashions recommended? He certainly did not lack for money, or for status either, if his air of arrogance was anything to judge by. He had his back slightly turned to the rest of the room, and he supped tea from a delicate porcelain cup with the kind of greedy satisfaction that led Konrad to suspect that the contents were not tea at all.

  But Nanda only proceeded as far as to say, in a low, confidential tone, ‘Truly, they are such—’ before she was interrupted. A woman stepped smartly up, her posture both commanding and demanding attention. She was tiny, the top of her head only reaching as high as Nanda’s shoulder, and so ancient that Konrad could only marvel at the energy with which she moved. Her hair was a mass of thin, thready white wisps, and he could not imagine she had taken a comb to it for at least a decade. She was clad in a voluminous coat of thin, faded-blue cotton velvet, tightly buttoned up to the neck, and a pair of shabby, scuffed shoes after a fashion that had vanished about twenty years before. Not a trace of warmth did she display as she stared, hard, at Nanda.

  ‘You are a prize fool, girl,’ she said, so softly that Konrad almost failed to discern her words.

  Konrad expected a display of wrath from Nanda in response to so rude a speech. But Nan sighed, took a long swallow of tea and said with rueful resignation: ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you never listen?’

  ‘Not often, no.’

  The old lady dismissed Nanda with a contemptuous flick of her cold grey eyes, and fixed her attention upon Konrad instead. She looked him over slowly, and she was utterly unimpressed. ‘This is him, is it?’

  ‘It is,’ said Nanda coolly.

  The woman actually rolled her eyes. Then she turned her back on them both and strode away, giving Konrad opportunity to observe that the hem of her ancient and too-long coat was a mess of rags and dirt.

  ‘Charming,’ Konrad murmured.

  ‘Kati Vinter.’

  ‘The lively old lady? You made her sound more… congenial, when you spoke of her before.’

  ‘Sometimes she is.’

  ‘What has displeased her today?’

  ‘Why, I have.’

  ‘I gathered that, but—’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ The booming voice could only belong to the giant, Eino Holt. It cut across the low murmur of chatter in the drawing-room with such spectacular volume that Konrad jumped, and spilled a little of the tea he had still hardly touched.

  Nanda sighed, and took it off him. ‘You will get used to that.’

  ‘It is time!’ continued Holt. ‘We will make our way to the little theatre I have prepared for our humble theatrical, and disport ourselves among the many fine costumes I have provided for the event. They are quite wonderful! Come, I implore you, and enjoy yourselves!’

  Konrad regarded him with interest. With his pale skin and black hair and eyes, the man looked Assevan. His name, though, was not of that province, and he spoke with a faint accent of a quality Konrad had not often heard before.

  ‘Tell me about him,’ Konrad whispered to Nanda, as they joined the train of people obediently drifting after Eino.

  Nanda did not reply.

  ‘Nan?’

  She was staring at Eino’s back, her eyes narrowed. ‘I will explain later,’ she muttered.

  Puzzling, for there were several other, chattering people in between Nanda and Eino; the likelihood of his overhearing her remarks was slim.

  Nuritov came up beside Konrad and nodded a greeting. He had his pipe in his hand, but it was not lit. ‘Odd place,’ he murmured.

  The inspector looked as composed as ever, but Konrad was beginning to suspect that his serenity was, sometimes, an act. When the pipe emerged but remained unlit, Alexander Nuritov was not at his ease. He clutched it a little too tightly, and did not seem to recall that its purpose was to be smoked; having it in his hand was the important part, as though it served as a kind of talisman.

  ‘Most peculiar,’ Konrad agreed. ‘Where’s Tasha? I have not seen her since we arrived.’

  ‘Somewhere about the place,’ Nuritov said, in so casual a tone that Konrad immediately felt suspicious.

  ‘You know exactly where she is, do you not?’

  Nuritov, surprisingly, grinned. ‘Those suspicious instincts of yours have been well-honed.’

  Which was not a denial. ‘What is she up to?’

  ‘Oh, just looking around.’

  Konrad lowered his voice. ‘Is she responsible for the disappearance of my serpents as well, by any chance?’

  ‘I would not be surprised if the three of them should prove to be employed upon the same errand.’

  ‘That being?’

  ‘Reconnaissance.’

  Which proved Konrad’s point about the pipe: the inspector was definitely not comfortable. ‘Why?’ said Konrad, for discomfort did not seem to constitute reason enough to order a semi-official search of the castle.

  Nuritov glanced past Konrad at Nanda. She had drifted a little away and seemed so absorbed in her scrutiny of Holt that she was clearly oblivious to their conversation.

  ‘Suspicious you are by nature,’ he said, lowering his voice still further. ‘But the only person you never suspect of duplicity is that lady.’

  That lady?
He could not mean Nanda, surely. ‘What do you mean, duplicity?’

  ‘I mean that I remain unable to account for her most pressing invitation to myself and Tasha. Therefore, something must be afoot.’

  ‘She is kind-hearted and sociable.’

  ‘Insufficient. She has many friends. Why choose me? Why Tasha, with whom she is even less acquainted?’

  Salient points, both. ‘You are friends of mine,’ Konrad tried. ‘She has said lately that I should get out of the house more.’ For normal reasons, she had added. Apparently, leaving the house in order to slay the latest murderers was not a "normal" reason.

  ‘So we are invited on your account? That is vaguely plausible, but I still do not find it explanation enough.’

  Not for nothing did one work as a police inspector, year in and year out. Konrad had to accept the justice of Nuritov’s questions, and he watched Nanda with a newly troubled mind. Just what was going on here?

  He sighed, for Nanda’s habitual secrecy not only rivalled his own, it bordered upon the obsessive. Why could she not simply tell him what was in her mind? Was it that she still did not trust him? That thought wounded him, but he was not persuaded by it. Rather, he had sometimes felt that she enjoyed the secrecy, the mystery, the mind games. If it amused her and enlivened her life, far be it from him to condemn her for it. But sometimes, he did find it so terribly tiring.

  An hour later, Konrad stood arrayed in velvet from head to toe and struggling valiantly to conceal his disgust. He had been given a kind of doublet all in crimson, hose to match, pointed leather shoes and a vast, floppy hat topped with an elegant (and sadly oversized) plume. Some hopeful, helpful soul had put a bound sheaf of paper into his hand — the script. Whoever it was had even marked his lines for him in ink as crimson as his costume.

  He studied it with the bleak despair of a man learning the details of his own execution.

  Around him, the theatre was all a-bustle with similar activity as the rest of Eino Holt’s guests got into their own costumes, familiarised themselves with their parts and talked incessantly. The theatre was not at all humble: it was at least as bedecked in velvet as Konrad was himself, with sumptuous green drapes set up either side of a low stage. Someone had painted a jaunty scene of a prosperous Assevan town, depicted a few hundred years before, which was set up as a backdrop. There were even chairs enough set up in front for a sizeable audience, though since all of the present inhabitants of the house were expected to participate in the production, Konrad did not know who might be found to watch it. The identically-attired maids, perhaps?

  Nanda came swooping up in a voluminous gown of ebony silk and a colourful woven shawl. Her hair was arranged in soft curls and covered in jewels (probably the cheap glass variety), and she wore her chin very high, notably much more pleased with her costume than Konrad was with his.

  ‘Diederik Nylund,’ Konrad intoned as she approached.

  ‘That is to be your part, yes,’ Nan agreed.

  ‘A humble baker.’

  ‘Most humble.’

  Konrad looked down at the magnificent absurdity of his attire. ‘Why,’ said he with awful calm, ‘am I to swagger about in this ridiculous concoction when I am but a humble baker? A tradesman!’

  Nanda smiled in high delight. ‘I believe it is a mark of respect to your rank. It would not do to put so wealthy and fashionable a gentleman in sackcloth, would it?’

  ‘Tradesmen do not wear sackcloth.’

  ‘I exaggerate for effect.’

  ‘I am too high and mighty to wear, say, a simple cotton shirt?’

  ‘Far too high, and definitely too mighty.’

  Konrad tore off his hat, which, weighed down by its gigantic feather, threatened once again to topple to the ground. ‘And you, I suppose, are the seamstress’s apprentice, or perhaps a housemaid.’

  Nanda swayed a little, setting the skirt of her fine silken gown a-twirl. ‘No, no! I am a mere nobody, and would not merit such luxury were I not to play a high-and-mighty part. I am Greta Pajari, noblewoman.’

  ‘You do look nice,’ Konrad said grudgingly.

  Nanda beamed like the sun. ‘Nowhere near as lovely as you, however.’

  Konrad had no answer to return save for a withering look. ‘I only hope that we are to be playing minor roles, and will not be too much importuned.’

  ‘You haven’t looked at the script, have you?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Liar. We are the stars of the stage, and I hope you mean to shine very brightly, for I know I do.’

  ‘What—’

  ‘And what’s more I expect you to be very passionate.’

  Konrad blinked.

  ‘You are my admirer, after all. Have you truly no idea which play we are doing? It is called A Daubery Drama and in it—’

  ‘Daubery?’

  ‘An outdated word meaning trickery. Diederik has only to set eyes upon Greta to fall madly in love with her, and sets out to pass himself off as an aristocrat so that he may win her affection.’

  ‘Well, that’s familiar,’ Konrad muttered.

  One of Nanda’s elegant, pale brows shot up.

  Konrad coughed. ‘I meant the part about passing…’ He paused abruptly, and glanced about. Nobody too near. ‘Er, passing oneself off as an aristocrat.’

  ‘See, the role is perfect for you.’

  ‘And you will have a fine time swanning about in silks with your chin in the air.’

  ‘The best fun,’ Nanda assured him, her smile roguish. ‘Are you any good at serenading?’

  ‘Seren… no! Not remotely!’

  The smile became a frown. ‘Perhaps not quite perfect.’

  A small figure marched into Konrad’s line of vision, her face a picture of utter betrayal. ‘Konrad,’ hissed Tasha. ‘Look at this.’

  By "this" Konrad supposed she meant her own costume, and he could well understand her dismay.

  ‘You are wearing a sheet,’ he observed, at his most helpful.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Nanda disagreed, looking Tasha over with clear appreciation. She fingered the draping fabric in which the little lamaeni was enswathed. ‘Cross-dyed silk of the finest quality, and all over embroidered? No mere bedsheet was ever so fine.’

  Konrad opened his mouth to remark that he had seen plenty such, but decided at the last instant that he did not especially wish to be questioned as to where.

  ‘It is a sheet,’ Tasha said, folding her arms. Her ever-present black cap was nowhere to be seen, and someone had coaxed her short-cut dark hair into a vaguely fetching arrangement. And covered it with sparkling things, to boot.

  ‘It is a lovely sheet,’ Nanda said consolingly. ‘The gods never do subscribe to mortal fashions.’

  Konrad almost choked. ‘She’s a god?’

  Tasha consulted the script that she held and quoted flatly: ‘Synnove, a divine avatar.’

  ‘Your job is to get the humble Diederik wedded to the lofty Greta,’ said Nanda. ‘It is True Love.’

  Tasha’s young face settled into an expression of such perfect incredulity that Konrad could not help laughing.

  Being such a large man, Eino Holt ought not to have been able to sneak up on Konrad so undetectably as he did. His loud, deep voice spoke from directly behind, and absolutely without warning. ‘She looks made for a noblewoman, does she not?’

  And Nanda really did. She had the perfect posture, the gracious manner, the air of mild superiority, everything. She even had the beauty, which every noblewoman ought by duty to develop if it was at all within the bounds of possibility. But Eino Holt looked made to be an axe murderer, so what did appearances have to say about anything?

  Konrad paused to reflect upon whether or not he himself looked like an axe murderer, which was more or less the truth of him (only axes had never been his weapon of choice). These disturbing and unproductive musings were interrupted, not much to his regret, by an icy whisper chiming inside his head.

  Master?

  Ootapi spoke so softly, Konr
ad almost missed his utterance altogether in the noisy theatre.

  Yes, dear serpent?

  There followed a short silence.

  Then Ootapi said: Dear?

  Wretched shade? Is that more to your liking?

  Yes.

  I spoke sarcastically, if that makes you feel better.

  A great deal. Thank you, Master.

  You are most welcome.

  Silence again.

  Was there something? Konrad prompted.

  Yes, Master.

  And? What was it?

  Of all things the loveliest.

  Specifically…?

  A corpse, Master, fresh and fair.

  A… oh.

  He was surprised, briefly, into silence.

  It is… a murdered corpse, I suppose?

  Oh, yes! Quite murdered, and carefully hidden.

  Murders did not typically follow the Malykant around. It was his job to follow them.

  Konrad looked hard at Nanda. What a coincidence, that she should happen to drag the Malykant, a police inspector and his assistant along to the very house in which somebody was cheerfully doing away with somebody else…

  Where is it? he enquired of Ootapi.

  The pantry! The words were more sung than uttered, with an air of high glee, and Konrad sighed.

  You are extraordinarily depressing to be around.

  Thank you, Master!

  Konrad did not find it easy to extricate himself from the theatrical proceedings. Eino Holt was bursting with an enthusiasm he seemed to expect to find reflected in every one of his guests, and was urgent to begin rehearsing scenes instantly, and without a moment’s delay. Nanda appeared to be having a fine time swanning about in her gown, and was more than willing to go along with this plan. Even Nuritov, who emerged looking (to Konrad’s mild irritation) every inch an aristocrat himself in his silken attire, was mildly urgent with Konrad to remain, and look over his part.

  Konrad was finally obliged to be somewhat blunt, bordering even upon rude. If Nanda had brought him here because she somehow expected trouble (as he strongly suspected), she would have to leave him in peace so that he could go and deal with it.