The Poison Prince

by S. C. Emmett

  House Traementis might be neck-deep in debt and sinking, but they still had the rights granted by their ennoblement charter. And Donaia wasn’t such a fool that she would bite a hook before examining it from all sides first.

  Bending her head, Donaia began penning a letter to Commander Cercel of the Vigil.

  Upper and Lower Bank: Suilun 1

  Renata expected Leato Traementis to see her out the front door, but he escorted her all the way to the bottom of the steps, and kept her hand even when they stopped. “I hope you’re not too offended by Mother’s reserve,” he said. A breeze ruffled his burnished hair and carried the scent of caramel and almonds to her nose. A rich scent, matching his clothes and his carriage, and the thin lines of gold paint limning his eyelashes. “A lot of dead branches have been pruned from the Traementis register since my father— and your mother— were children. Now there’s only Mother, Giuna, and myself. She gets protective.”

  “I take no offense at all,” Renata said, smiling up at him. “I’m not so much of a fool that I expect to be welcomed with open arms. And I’m willing to be patient.”

  The breeze sharpened, and she shivered. Leato stepped between her and the wind. “You’d think Nadežra would be warmer than Seteris, wouldn’t you?” he said with a sympathetic grimace. “It’s all the water. We almost never get snow here, but the winters are so damp, the cold cuts right to your bones.”

  “I should have thought to wear a cloak. But since I can’t pluck one from thin air, I hope you won’t take offense if I hurry home.”

  “Of course not. Let me get you a sedan chair.” Leato raised a hand to catch the eye of some men idling on the far side of the square and paid the bearers before Renata could even reach for her purse. “To soothe any lingering sting,” he said with a smile.

  She thanked him with another curtsy. “I hope I’ll see you soon.”

  “As do I.” Leato helped her into the sedan chair and closed the door once her skirts were safely out of the way.

  As the bearers headed for the narrow exit from the square, Renata drew the curtains shut. Traementis Manor was in the Pearls, a cluster of islets strung along the Upper Bank of the River Dežera. The river here ran pure and clear thanks to the numinat that protected the East Channel, and the narrow streets and bridges were clean; whichever families held the charters to keep the streets clear of refuse wouldn’t dream of letting it accumulate near the houses of the rich and powerful.

  But the rocky wedge that broke the Dežera into east and west channels was a different matter. For all that it held two of Nadežra’s major institutions— the Charterhouse in Dawngate, which was the seat of government, and the Aerie in Duskgate, home to the Vigil, which maintained order— the Old Island was also crowded with the poor and the shabby-genteel. Anyone riding in a sedan chair was just asking for beggars to crowd at their windows.

  Which still made it better than half of the Lower Bank, where a sedan chair risked being knocked to the ground and the passenger robbed.

  Luckily, her rented house was on Isla Prišta in Westbridge— technically on the Lower Bank, and far from a fashionable district, but it was a respectable neighborhood on the rise. In fact, the buildings on the Via Brelkoja were so newly renovated the mortar hadn’t had time to moss over in the damp air. The freshly painted door to number four opened just as Renata’s foot touched the first step.

  Tess made a severe-looking sight in the crisp grey-and-white surcoat and underskirt of a Nadežran housemaid, but her copper Ganllechyn curls and freckles were a warm beacon welcoming Renata home. She bobbed a curtsy and murmured a lilting “alta” as Renata passed across the threshold, accepting the gloves and purse Renata held out.

  “Downstairs,” Ren murmured as the door snicked shut, sinking them into the dimness of the front hall.

  Tess nodded, swallowing her question before she could speak it. Together they headed into the half-sunken chambers of the cellar, which held the service rooms. Only once they were safely in the kitchen did Tess say, “Well? How did it go?”

  Ren let her posture drop and her voice relax into the throaty tones of her natural accent. “For me, as well as I could hope. Donaia refused reconciliation out of hand—”

  “Thank the Mother,” Tess breathed. If Donaia contacted Letilia, their entire plan would fall apart before it started.

  Ren nodded. “Faced with the prospect of talking to her former sister-in-law, she barely even noticed me getting my foot in the door.”

  “That’s a start, then. Here, off with this, and wrap up before you take a chill.” Tess passed Ren a thick cloak of rough-spun wool lined with raw fleece, then turned her around like a dressmaker’s doll so she could remove the beautifully embroidered surcoat.

  “I saw the sedan chair,” Tess said as she tugged at the side ties. “You didn’t take that all the way from Isla Traementis, did you? If you’re going to be riding about in chairs, I’ll have to revise the budget. And here I’d had my eye on a lovely bit of lace at the remnants stall.” Tess sighed mournfully, like she was saying farewell to a sweetheart. “I’ll just have to tat some myself.”

  “In your endless spare time?” Ren said sardonically. The surcoat came loose, and she swung the cloak around her shoulders in its place. “Anyway, the son paid for the chair.” She dropped onto the kitchen bench and eased her shoes off with a silent curse. Fashionable shoes were not comfortable. The hardest part of this con was going to be pretending her feet didn’t hurt all day long.

  Although choking down coffee ran a close second.

  “Did he, now?” Tess settled on the bench next to Ren, close enough that they could share warmth beneath the cloak. Apart from the kitchen and the front salon, protective sheets still covered the furniture in every other room. The hearths were cold, their meals were simple, and they slept together on a kitchen floor pallet so they would only have to heat one room of the house.

  Because she was not Alta Renata Viraudax, daughter of Letilia Traementis. She was Arenza Lenskaya, half-Vraszenian river rat, and even with a forged letter of credit to help, pretending to be a Seterin noblewoman wasn’t cheap.

  Pulling out a thumbnail blade, Tess began ripping the seams of Ren’s beautiful surcoat, preparatory to alteration. “Was it just idle flirtation?”

  The speculative uptick in Tess’s question said she didn’t believe any flirtation Ren encountered was idle. But whether Leato’s flirtation had been idle or not, Ren had lines she would not cross, and whoring herself out was one of them.

  It would have been the easier route. Dress herself up fine enough to catch the eye of some delta gentry son, or even a noble, and marry her way into money. She wouldn’t be the first person in Nadežra to do it.

  But she’d spent five years in Ganllech— five years as a maid under Letilia’s thumb, listening to her complain about her dreadful family and how much she dreamed of life in Seteris, the promised land she’d never managed to reach. So when Ren and Tess found themselves back in Nadežra, Ren had been resolved. No whoring, and no killing. Instead she set her sights on a higher target: use what she’d learned to gain acceptance into House Traementis as their long-lost kin…with all the wealth and social benefit that brought.

  “Leato is friendly,” she allowed, picking up the far end of the dress and starting on the seam with her own knife. Tess didn’t trust her to sew anything more complicated than a hem, but ripping stitches? That, she was qualified for. “And he helped shame Donaia into agreeing to see me again. But she is every bit as bad as Letilia claimed. You should have seen what she wore. Ratty old clothes, covered in dog hair. Like it’s a moral flaw to let a single centira slip through her fingers.”

  “But the son isn’t so bad?” Tess rocked on the bench, nudging Ren’s hip with her own. “Maybe he’s a bastard.”

  Ren snorted. “Not likely. Donaia would give him the moon if he asked, and he looks as Traementis as I.” Only he didn’t need makeup to achieve the effect.

  Her hands trembled as she worked. Th
ose five years in Ganllech were also five years out of practice. And all her previous cons had been short touches— never anything on this scale. When she got caught before, the hawks slung her in jail for a few days.

  If she got caught now, impersonating a noblewoman…

  Tess laid a hand over Ren’s, stopping her before she could nick herself with the knife. “It’s never too late to do something else.”

  Ren managed a smile. “Buy piles of fabric, then run away and set up as dressmakers? You, anyway. I would be your tailor’s dummy.”

  “You’d model and sell them,” Tess said stoutly. “If you want.”

  Tess would be happy in that life. But Ren wanted more.

  This city owed her more. It had taken everything: her mother, her childhood, Sedge. The rich cuffs of Nadežra got whatever they wanted, then squabbled over what their rivals had, grinding everyone else underfoot. In all her days among the Fingers, Ren had never been able to take more than the smallest shreds from the hems of their cloaks.

  But now, thanks to Letilia, she was in a position to take more.

  The Traementis made the perfect target. Small enough these days that only Donaia stood any chance of spotting Renata as an imposter, and isolated enough that they would be grateful for any addition to their register. In the glory days of their power and graft, they’d been notorious for their insular ways, refusing to aid their fellow nobles in times of need. Since they lost their seat in the Cinquerat, everyone else had gladly returned the favor.

  Ren put down the knife and squeezed Tess’s hand. “No. It is nerves only, and they will pass. We go forward.”

  “Forward it is.” Tess squeezed back, then returned to work. “Next we’re to make a splash somewhere public, yes? I’ll need to know where and when if I’m to outfit you proper.” The sides of the surcoat parted, and she started on the bandeau at the top of the bodice. “The sleeves are the key, have you noticed? Everyone is so on about their sleeves. But I’ve a thought for that…if you’re ready for Alta Renata to set fashion instead of following.”

  Ren glanced sideways, her wariness only half-feigned. “What have you in mind?”

  “Hmm. Stand up, and off with the rest of it.” Once she had Ren stripped to her chemise, Tess played with different gathers and drapes until Ren’s arms started to ache from being held out for so long. But she didn’t complain. Tess’s eye for fashion, her knack for imbuing, and her ability to rework the pieces of three outfits into nine were as vital to this con as Ren’s skill at manipulation.

  She closed her eyes and cast her thoughts over what she knew about the city. Where could she go, what could she do, to attract the kind of admiration that would help her gain the foothold she needed?

  A slow smile spread across her face.

  “Tess,” she said, “I have the perfect idea. And you will love it.”

  The Aerie and Isla Traementis: Suilun 1

  “Serrado! Get in here. I have a job for you.”

  Commander Cercel’s voice cut sharply through the din of the Aerie. Waving at his constables to take their prisoner to the stockade, Captain Grey Serrado turned and threaded his way through the chaos to his commander’s office. He ignored the sidelong smirks and snide whispers of his fellow officers: Unlike them, he didn’t have the luxury of lounging about drinking coffee, managing his constables from the comfort of the Aerie.

  “Commander Cercel?” He snapped the heels of his boots together and gave her his crispest salute— a salute he’d perfected during hours of standing at attention in the sun, the rain, the wind, while other lieutenants were at mess or in the barracks. Cercel wasn’t the stickler for discipline his previous superiors had been, but she was the reason he wore a captain’s double-lined hexagram pin, and he didn’t want to reflect badly on her.

  She was studying a letter, but when she brought her head up to reply, her eyes widened. “What does the other guy look like?”

  Taking the casual question as permission to drop into rest, Grey spared a glance for his uniform. His patrol slops were spattered with muck from heel to shoulder, and blood was drying on the knuckles of his leather gloves. Some of the canal mud on his boots had flaked off when he saluted, powdering Cercel’s carpet with the filth of the Kingfisher slums.

  “Dazed but breathing. Ranieri’s taking him to the stockade now.” Her question invited banter, but the door to her office was open, and it wouldn’t do him any good to be marked as a smart-ass.

  She responded to his businesslike answer with an equally brisk nod. “Well, get cleaned up. I’ve received a letter from one of the noble houses, requesting Vigil assistance. I’m sending you.”

  Grey’s jaw tensed as he waited for several gut responses to subside. It was possible the request was a legitimate call for aid. “What crime has been committed?”

  Cercel’s level gaze said, You know better than that. “One of the noble houses has requested Vigil assistance,” she repeated, enunciating each word with cut-glass clarity. “I’m sure they wouldn’t do that without good cause.”

  No doubt whoever sent the letter thought the cause was good. People from the great houses always did.

  But Grey had a desk full of real problems. “More children have gone missing. That’s eleven verified this month.”

  They’d had this conversation several times over the past few weeks. Cercel sighed. “We haven’t had any reports—”

  “Because they’re all river rats so far. Who’s going to care enough to report that? But the man I just brought in might know something about it; he’s been promising Kingfisher kids good pay for an unspecified job. I got him on defacing public property, but he’ll be free again by tonight.” Pissing in public wasn’t an offense the Vigil usually cracked down on, unless it suited them. “Am I to assume this noble’s ‘good cause’ takes precedence over finding out what’s happening to those kids?”

  Cercel breathed out hard through her nose, and he tensed. Had he pushed her patience too far?

  No. “Your man is on his way to the stockade,” she said. “Have Kaineto process him— you’re always complaining he’s as slow as river mud. By the time you get back, he’ll be ready to talk. Meanwhile, send Ranieri to ask questions around Kingfisher, see if he can find any of the man’s associates.” She set the letter aside and drew another from her stack, a clear prelude to dismissing him. “You know the deal, Serrado.”

  The first few times, he’d played dense to make her spell it out in unambiguous terms. The last thing he could afford back then was to mistake a senior officer’s meaning.

  But they were past those games now. As long as he knuckled under and did whatever this noble wanted of him, Cercel wouldn’t question him using Vigil time and resources for his own investigations.

  “Yes, Commander.” He saluted and heel-knocked another layer of delta silt onto her carpet. “Which house has called for aid?”

  “Traementis.”

  If he’d been less careful of his manners, he would have thrown her a dirty look. She could have led with that. But Cercel wanted him to understand that answering these calls was part of his duty, and made him bend his neck before she revealed the silver lining. “Understood. I’ll head to the Pearls at once.”

  Her final command followed him out of the office. “Don’t you dare show up at Era Traementis’s door looking like that!”

  Groaning, Grey changed his path. He snagged a pitcher of water and a messenger, sending the latter to Ranieri with the new orders.

  There was a bathing room in the Aerie, but he didn’t want to waste time on that. A sniff test sent every piece of his patrol uniform into the laundry bag; aside from the coffee, that was one of the few perks of his rank he didn’t mind taking shameless advantage of. If he was wading through canals for the job, the least the Vigil could do was ensure he didn’t smell like one. A quick pitcher bath in his tiny office took care of the scents still clinging to his skin and hair before he shrugged into his dress vigils.

  He had to admit the force’s tai
lors were good. The tan breeches were Liganti-cut, snug as they could be around his thighs and hips without impeding movement. Both the brocade waistcoat and the coat of sapphire wool were tailored like a second skin, before the latter flared to full skirts that kissed the tops of his polished, knee-high boots. On his patrol slops, the diving hawk across the back of his shoulders was mere patchwork; here it was embroidered in golds and browns.

  Grey didn’t have much use for vanity, but he did love his dress vigils. They were an inarguable reminder that he’d climbed to a place few Vraszenians could even imagine reaching. His brother, Kolya, had been so proud the day Grey came home in them.

  The sudden trembling of his hands stabbed his collar pin into his thumb. Grey swallowed a curse and sucked the blood from the puncture, using a tiny hand mirror to make sure he hadn’t gotten any on his collar. Luckily, it was clean, and he managed to finish dressing himself without further injury.

  Once outside, he set off east from Duskgate with long, ground-eating strides. He could have taken a sedan chair and told the bearers to bill the Vigil; other officers did, knowing all the while that no such bill would ever be paid. But along with stiffing the bearers, that meant they didn’t see the city around them the way Grey did.

  Not that most of them would. They were Liganti, or mixed enough in ancestry that they could claim the name; to them, Nadežra was an outpost of Seste Ligante, half tamed by the Liganti general Kaius Sifigno, who restyled himself Kaius Rex after conquering Vraszan two centuries past. Others called him the Tyrant, and when he died, the Vraszenian clans took back the rest of their conquered land. But every push to reclaim their holy city failed, until exhaustion on both sides led to the signing of the Accords. Those established Nadežra as an independent city-state— under the rule of its Liganti elite.

  It was an uneasy balance at best, made less easy still by Vraszenian radical groups like the Stadnem Anduske, who wouldn’t settle for anything less than the city back in Vraszenian hands. And every time they pushed, the Cinquerat pushed back even harder.