by Grace Draven
“Yes, my Lady,” Aishen replied.
Lady Vanth left with a pointed swirl of skirts and could be heard discussing the shocking state of the weather with Barnardis as she was ushered from the house.
“Would you like some tea?” Alair said.
Aishen hesitated. “I… yes, please.”
Alair made the tea with great ceremony, offering the tea blend to Aishen to smell, tasting the newly made brew before pouring a cup, and then passing it to her with a flourish.
Aishen took a first cautious sip, then another larger swallow. “It’s good.”
“It is,” Alair said. “We never sell it, though we could make a fortune from it.”
“I’m honoured you should share it with me,” she replied, sounding uneasy.
“No you’re not, you’re worried what I am about to ask you. But as I am addressing that point rather than letting you stew on the issue for hours, you should feel relieved that I am being honest and direct.” Alair poured himself another cup of tea, and pointedly drank from it. “We could circle round each other in a game of bluff and double bluff, or we could try a little constructive honesty.”
Aishen sighed. “I suppose.”
“All I want to know is what the gathering will be like,” Alair said.
Aishen drank some more tea, gathering her thoughts, sifting through what she could say and what she should say. “Everyone will be on edge, both eager to please and keen not to appear so.”
“Will Dovestone be there?” Martis asked.
“Probably. He’s close enough to the Council to be invited anyway, but my Lady expects the Master to want to keep a watch on him, and to signal that he is in—or out—of favour.” Aishen took a bread roll and broke it into pieces, dipping a portion in butter before eating it.
“And how does that work? How is that signalled?” Alair asked.
Aishen swallowed. “Masks. Masks mark everything in the City; you should know that much by now.”
Alair leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“You make a statement as to your own worth by what mask you wear—full mask, half mask, how richly ornamented, all sorts of signs as to your position. And if the Master concurs with your assessment, you keep your mask. If not, he will ask you to remove it.”
“Ask?” said Alair. “Not compel?”
“He asks—you have a choice. If you remove your mask, you submit to his authority, and you will have another chance to improve your standing. If you don’t, well, you’re denying the Master’s right to rule you. That’s a challenge you have to make good on, or you pay with your life—you have a day and a night to leave the City.”
“So a big, expensive mask means someone is powerful or trying to be?” Martis said. “That seems easy enough to master. Just add glitter and baubles—not that different to how things are at home.”
“Close enough,” Aishen said. “Though bear in mind the Master wears no mask at these gatherings. That’s a different sign.”
“That he’s so powerful he doesn’t need to wear a mask,” Alair said. “He doesn’t need to hide his face because there is no one to tell him yea or nay.”
“His face is as much a mask as anything he could wear,” Aishen said. “And that is all I will say—you will have to wait until you see him before you can understand.”
Martis felt like a young woman preparing for the first feast of her betrothal, worrying about what he should wear, whether to choose rich clothes or to feign modesty. He remembered laughing at his sister as she fretted about the line of her robes and which colour suited her, though his sister had never had to wonder whether a red tunic would signal blood feud and whether pearls had some obscure meaning that would insult the wrong guest.
He was happy to insult the right guest but didn’t have much patience for doing it at a distance and in code. A fist in the face seemed less likely to be open to misinterpretation.
Alair was doubtless concocting a costume that insulted fifteen different people on three different levels, threatened revenge on Dovestone, paraded his sensibility as a poet to all comers, and offered gratuitous temptation to any susceptible young lady with a taste for the artistic.
Martis would settle for something that didn’t make him look like an idiot.
He tugged his tunic into place, smoothed down the sash, and headed in search of his cousin and some tea. He wanted wine but he couldn’t risk muddying his mind or dirtying his clothes.
Alair looked like he’d been dipped in honey and pushed into a treasure hoard—the underlying robes were red, bringing his pale skin and dark hair into a stark contrast, ornamented with gold and rubies set into swirling dragon embroideries that bedazzled the eyes. It took Martis a second look to realise the dragons moved, that what he had first taken to be nothing more than a trick of the eye brought on by too much toomuchness was a full Illusion wrought at vast expense by some Magic worker to do nothing more than show the wearer could afford to spend that much on a set of clothes.
“Where on earth did you get those?” Martis asked.
“Ah, the Great Cham of Idlis had them made for me. He has a taste for poetry.” Alair smoothed down the sleeve of his robe, petting the nose of one of the dragons which breathed smoke from its nose in response.
“Not the really long one about the chrysanthemums? He was probably paying you so you would go away.”
Alair gave him a sharp grin. “Yes, do keep up the pose of country bumpkin. It suits you so well.”
Martis bit back hot words with a snap of his teeth. Alair was a condescending little snot at the best of times, but crossed over to downright rude when nervous, and he had to be nervous. Trinity knew that Martis’ stomach was clenched in a knot and a trickle of cold sweat was running down his back, and he was just along for the ride and not driving the carriage. “Is that the role you want me to play? Should I change into something else?”
He wasn’t sure that his brother’s brown velvet suit and pearl sash didn’t make him look foolish, but it fitted more or less and, as far as he knew, announced that he was a well-off merchant. If it announced more than that, well, he rather supposed that Dovestone knew what they were there for and wouldn’t need that highlighting by wearing a peacock feather at just the right angle, whatever angle that might be.
Alair took a deep breath, still tickling the dragon under its chin. “You’ll do—you look prosperous, worthy, upstanding and incorruptible which will be entertaining for the novelty if nothing else. It will drive them wild trying to work out what lies underneath that surface and take them far too long to realise that what they see is what you truly are.”
Martis grinned. “Bait, then?”
Alair shook his head. “Oh, no, little cousin—not bait. You are the fulcrum on which I will move the world.”
Martis wasn’t sure he would understand the answer, but he had to ask: “How?”
“They will think that they understand me, that they can buy me or at least anticipate my next move in this game we are playing, but you? There is nothing in the world that can buy you, you are implacable, and gradually they will realise that there are only two choices—Dovestone’s head on a spike….”
“Or?”
“Or we burn down the City, drown it in water and return it to the mermaids, and still get Dovestone’s head on a spike.”
Martis let the truth of that settle in his bones. He’d been feeling useless in this endeavour, puzzling his way through all the layers of shifting alliances and hoping that there was something he could do that would be useful. But now he had a role and a task, and the chance to make a difference.
“Lady Vanth does not understand,” he said eventually, working his way through the position they were in. “She thinks to use us.”
“She does. She used your brother in some scheme to undermine Dovestone and it failed. He paid the price. She aims to use us to the same end, but always with the thought that she can abandon us if Dovestone offers a better deal.”
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nbsp; Alair twitched his sleeves into place and moved towards the table to pick up his mask. It was black, like the Master’s mask had been, with three red tears on the left cheek and a golden flower on the right cheek: three tears for vengeance, a flower for remembrance, and a very unsubtle call for blood.
“She should be rather more concerned that I might decide to resent her previous abandonment of Calford,” Alair added.
“I think she liked him,” Martis said. They exchanged a long look, recognising that Calford had a gift for being liked, and just how little that weighed in the balance in the City: a bit, a lot sometimes, but not enough.
“I agree. She gets to keep her head.” Alair placed the mask over his face, tying the ribbon behind his ears with great care, and arranging his hair to flow artfully down one shoulder.
Martis did not smile at the thought of Alair taking on the Lady Vanth. He would have done it, if required.
“Your mask is there,” Alair said, once his mask was settled to his satisfaction, his voice sounding distant from behind the façade.
Martis’ mask was white and plain with only a band of pearls round the forehead to match his sash. At first sight he was a little disappointed that he was not to be as bold and dramatic as Alair, but then who was? A closer look revealed that each pearl was worth a small fortune in itself, but as a matched string of perfect colour and shape they were worth a large fortune. It was a different sort of threat—I can buy you, your friends, or your destruction.
“Have at them,” Martis said, and slipped his mask on.
Alair had decided to travel using the family boat rather than hiring a passing boatman. It was black, like most of the boats in the City, with a covering at one end to shelter passengers from rain and hostile watchers, though the large sigil painted on the side in gold did mean that anyone could tell who owned the boat if not who rode in her.
It was typical of the City that you should both skulk around and be seen doing it so that people knew you were skulking but not why.
They slipped through the shadows of night, oars making splashes that sounded like thunder claps in Martis’ ears. They stopped by the central square that dominated the centre of the City, which was surrounded by the Master’s palace on three sides and the canal on the fourth. Usually lit by hundreds of small lamps, tonight there was only a line of faintly flickering torches leading from the pier to the main door into the Master’s palace. It was flanked by two large stone lions with emeralds for eyes, with a stone arch surmounted by a bacchanal of rioting angels.
“His idea of a joke, I suspect,” Alair murmured. “Just to annoy the Trinitarians.”
“I didn’t know that was possible,” Martis replied, just as quietly.
“It probably isn’t, if you’re human,” Alair replied, eyeing the angelic orgy clinically. “Perhaps if you’re double jointed, and very supple.”
Martis snorted. “From what I hear, there will be somewhere in the City where you can purchase the opportunity to try this.”
“I can find out, if you’d like to try it?”
“No, thanks, all the same—I can’t put my shoes on without my back complaining these days.”
The arch led through to a courtyard, again dimly lit with no concession to human eyes and their need for light. In the shadows there were tall, blocky shapes with glowing eyes that could be either statues or guards. Martis felt no inclination to investigate further, and even Alair’s wild curiosity seemed stilled in the face of whatever lurked in the dark. Another door stood ajar at the right hand side of the space, and the sound of laughter and chatter came from within.
“Is that the way, do you think?” Martis asked. He was unnerved by the lack of servants and normal people scurrying around about their business. There should be someone to determine whether they should be there, someone to take their cloaks, and someone to offer them a drink. At the very least, there should be someone to announce their arrival to the other guests. There was none of that.
If you had to be announced, Martis supposed, then you shouldn’t be there.
They moved to the door and peered into the room, assessing the lie of the land before venturing onto enemy ground. This room was more brightly lit, whether in deference to human eyes or to blind them after the gloom outside, but there were still fewer candles than would be expected at a human gathering. The light of a hundred candles flickered bravely against the devouring darkness, but there was a sense that they could lose the battle at any moment and the room would be lost to the night.
“We’d best go in,” Alair said. “Watch yourself.”
Martis went first. No one turned to look at them, but the crowd’s random movement made a path for them to cross the room. Martis allowed himself to be forced towards a low dais that had the only chair in the room: elongated, with space for more than one to sit, ornately carved and about as inviting as a dose of the pox.
He caught glimpses of themselves in the mirrors surrounding the room, his cousin following him in stately fashion occasionally dipping his head in greeting to some stranger. Only very rarely did someone recognize the gesture with a nod in return, and he was sure that Alair was marking the identity of each of the nodders.
In the depths of the crowd Martis recognised the golden sun mask of the Lady Vanth and assumed that the shape next to her, dressed all in purple, was her shadow Aishen.
They reached the throne.
“Talk amongst yourselves,” murmured Alair. “Nothing to see. Nothing to hear.”
Martis turned and nodded at someone at random, hoping it would cause consternation amongst the gathered audience as alliances shifted.
The crowd stilled and turned to face a tall man at the side of the room who leaned against the wall with an over-studied casual pose. He propelled himself upright with a push of his shoulder and moved towards them with the abnormally smooth gait that Lady Vanth used whenever she forgot to pass as human.
He wore no mask.
As he passed through the guests, they dipped in low bows and courtesies, which he accepted as his due without acknowledgement.
“Good night,” the Master said, and it was not clear whether that was welcome or dismissal.
Alair dipped his head in greeting, and Martis hurriedly followed suit, taking his cue from his cousin as to the required depth.
The Master took his throne with liquid grace. “What do you want?”
“That’s starting a little bluntly,” Alair replied. “Shouldn’t we discuss the weather for a while first? Or trade conditions, or the news out of Idlis?”
“The weather is good, trade is good and the news out of Idlis is dull, as are you. The Lady Vanth does not care for impertinence she assures me—regularly.”
The crowd hissed in laughter as if this was a great witticism.
“I do not care to be bored,” the Master continued.
Martis had traded with people who ate their dead and were sometimes not that fussy about waiting for death, he’d traded for ivory with people who thought that brothers and sisters should marry to keep wealth in the family, he’d traded for rubies with people who didn’t let their menfolk out unless they were accompanied by their mother or wife and who had looked at him with contemptuous eyes for being out without a keeper, and he’d met merchants who probably would render family members into glue if there was a profit in it.
He’d never met anything as inimical as the Master.
It wasn’t that the Master was a predator. He’d met plenty of those. People who thought they could always take and never give, and who you couldn’t trust to keep their word and would always look for another cut on the deal. It was just the way he looked at you, as if he recognised no commonality. He was on one side of the world, and they were on another, and there was no point of contact. His was an appetite that could not be sated and he would eat the world if he wanted, and he wanted. It was only the slightest act of his will that kept them all alive, with the blood on the inside and not sprayed up the wall.
Mart
is shivered.
The Master noticed and smiled.
“I know why you are here,” the Master said. “And I shall say no. But I have some other business to deal with first. Someone has asked for mercy and mercy he shall have.”
A hissing sigh went up from the assembled throng.
“Fetch him.”
The Master crooked a finger, and two things—Martis could no longer think of them as people—less gaudily dressed than the others pushed a shivering wretch to his knees before them.
“I cry mercy, Master,” the creature said through strangled sobs. “Mercy for my sins.”
“We know your mind, we know your heart, we know your guilt,” said the Master, leaning forwards and scenting the air. “You know the bargain?”
The man raised his face to the Master and shuddered. “I do.”
“You have the count of a hundred as a start, and if you reach the sea by dawn, you live.”
Martis took a long breath. He recognised the man now, the same one that had cried mercy in the High Court. A guilty man, but one who had elected to take a chance that looked like no chance at all. He’d seen the speed these things could move at. A day’s head start wouldn’t be enough to beat them to daylight.
The man rose to his feet. “Thank you, Master.”
The man said no more and simply bolted. Martis admired his optimism and hoped he had devised a route in advance.
No one else moved.
The Master turned his attention back to Martis and Alair. “I have nothing to say to you. Your cousin’s death was investigated and there was nothing to link Dovestone to it—therefore, you must leave it alone.”
“And if I chose not to,” Alair replied.
“Then there will be punishment—there must be order,” the Master said. “And there must be rules, and they cannot be bent merely because someone pleads prettily.”
“I have not pleaded,” Alair replied. “Nor begged, nor bribed, nor suborned. I merely ask for our rights.”
“And you have had your rights—and if that has not brought you what you wished then that is no fault of the City.” And certainly no fault of the Master, that message was clear.
