by Grace Draven
The people in the room were drifting purposively towards the door, half their attention on the coming hunt and little to spare for the Master’s discussion. There was a pause, and then some signal passed through the hunters and they sped out into the night in search of their prey.
Martis felt his gorge rise, and felt a new fellowship with the doe and the rabbit he’d hunted for the pot.
“Indeed.” Alair stared into the dark where the sounds of the hunt could be heard. “And yet, there must also be hope.”
The Master fixed Alair and Martis with a stare that felt like it drilled through Martis’ skull, and saw to the depths of his thoughts and plans. The Master smiled, a mirthless stretching of lips that showed his elongated teeth to full extent. “And what form should this hope take?”
“Dovestone chose to imperil the City’s peace because he could not best a young man of little talent and of high worth only to his family. It was facile. It was obvious. It was dull,” Alair’s voice dripped with contempt and suppressed anger. “I cry mercy for our family, but I cry justice for the City as a whole.”
The Master ran a finger along his lips, as if wiping away blood, his long tongue lapping at his nail. “Go on.”
“If his death can be encompassed without breaking the laws…”
The Master considered. “Dovestone was an irritant this morning.”
“He is likely to be so again,” Alair said.
The Master shrugged. “Very well. I will not oppose you—after all, if it is, there can be no complaint if it is perfectly within the law.”
From the dark there came a short, sharp cry, and then a longer, prolonged wail that ended in a high pitched scream.
“That will be your penalty if you step outside of the law by so much as an inch.” The Master leaned back on his throne and scented the air again like a hunting lion smelling blood. “Some choose this ritual because they think it will bring them pleasure unlike the sharp strike of the axe.
“They’re wrong.”
Martis slept like a log.
He’d barely managed to make it halfway home before putting his head over the side of the boat and bringing up his dinner, and had expected to spend the night tossing and turning, reliving the events of the night. Instead, he’d taken a couple of glasses of brandy to settle his stomach, stripped out of his fancy costume and been fast asleep before the mask had hit the floor.
There was only a certain amount of terror the body could take before it overruled the mind and insisted on sleep and a large breakfast.
Alair was waiting at the breakfast table, dissecting a plate of curried pigeon with every sign of enjoyment, though Martis supposed that Alair would behave like that if the house were on fire around them. They were not fated to have much respite from the pressure to do things, and breakfast was interrupted by Barnardis bringing the second pot of tea and the news that Aishen wanted to speak to them.
“I think we should simply declare open house and lay the table for twenty,” Alair said. “I shall have to get a new dressing gown if I am going to entertain young ladies in a state of undress. See if one can be found, Barnardis—something flashy but not vulgar, with lots of velvet and embroidery and a hint of gold—perhaps in the buttons.”
“And do you intend to entertain young ladies in a state of undress, sir?” Barnardis asked, slightly disapproving.
“Only your daughter—she is your daughter isn’t she?” Alair said brightly.
“My niece.”
“Ah, my mistake. I knew you were family of some sort: there’s a resemblance round the eyes,” Alair said.
“I don’t see why you need a dressing gown,” Martis put in. “You’re already dressed.”
“It’s the principle of the thing. It is breakfast, therefore I should wear a dressing gown when entertaining guests, otherwise they might think that I serve some useful purpose.” Alair frowned. “And the problem with being useful is that people expect you to do things for them.”
“Not if they’ve met you,” Martis replied, and was thanked by way of a bread roll being thrown at his head.
Barnardis took that as a signal to allow Aishen into the room and set another place for her with plate, cup and saucer.
“Lady Vanth sends her greetings,” she said, looking at the bacon as if she had not been fed for several hours.
Martis pushed the hot dish towards her without comment, and she took three rashers and the last poached egg.
“Is she pleased then?” Alair said blandly. “I’m so relieved to hear that.”
“Yeah,” said Martis, keen to make some contribution. “Relieved.”
Aishen looked at him as if he’d spat in front of her. He thought that was harsh seeing that he’d allowed her to take the last egg without complaint.
“Lady Vanth feels that getting the Master’s approval was a useful first move, but wonders… What next?”
“And she feels we are on such terms that I will share that?” Alair raised an eyebrow.
Aishen reached into her robes and brought out a small phial. “She hopes that this could be so.”
“Ah,” Alair said. He made no move towards the bottle. “Well now.”
“What’s that? Poison?” Martis asked.
“On the contrary, my dear cousin.”
It took Martis a moment to work that out. “She tried to poison you?”
“Rather more than tried,” Aishen said, sounding more smug than embarrassed.
“I let you.” Alair smiled. “I recognised the taste immediately. It ruined the otherwise pleasant glass of wine you served us, making it far too bitter. Next time, I would suggest serving it in coffee—a much better disguise.”
Aishen’s eyes narrowed. “Are you critiquing my abilities?”
Alair waved the suggestion away with a flutter of his hand. “I am a mere amateur compared to you.”
“So why did you drink it?” Martis asked.
“The Lady Vanth needed to believe she was in the ascendancy before she would be useful to us,” Alair replied.
“So why didn’t you allow me to drink the wine?” Martis glanced between Alair and Aishen who were staring at each other as if he didn’t exist.
“Because that way she would have the ascendancy,” Alair replied. “And we couldn’t have that.”
Aishen made a sound, half laugh, half protest. “Apparently not—and so we find ourselves here, with the antidote, and new terms of alliance.”
Alair turned to his cousin. “Did you know that in the language of the City itself there are several terms to describe ally, all with different shades of meaning—ally to be discarded at the first opportunity, ally of the moment, ally until some better deal comes along, ally for a specific purpose and ally till death?”
“I don’t suppose she’s offering ally till death.” Martis snorted.
“No.” Aishen shook her head. “Confedere.”
“Ally for a specific purpose,” Alair said, responding to Martis’ unanswered question. “That will do.”
Aishen pushed the phial again, and Alair’s hand closed round the glass. He flicked the cork from the top, sniffed it cautiously, then took it down with one swallow.
“That is worse tasting than the poison,” he said, and shuddered. “Now, in the spirit of our newfound trust and understanding—what was the Lady Vanth up to with Calford, and what does it have to do with roast pigeon?”
Aishen laughed. “Like everything in this City, in the end it comes back to the mermaids: mermaids with a taste for something, anything other than fish.”
Alair flicked a glance at Martis, who had returned to eating his bacon with gusto. “Ah, I see.”
“What?” he asked round his mouthful of piggy goodness.
“Mermaids have developed a taste for curried pigeon, and Calford was using this to trade with them.” Alair’s lips formed a twisted smile, balanced between fondness and grief. “What good is gold to a mermaid compared to a taste of plump pigeon?”
“We could try
bacon,” Martis said, his merchant’s instincts raised by the prospect of a good deal. “That special bacon we have from Idlis with the herbed crust.”
Aishen coughed.
“You’re quite right. We should not allow ourselves to be distracted,” Alair said. “I wonder….”
“How did he find out?” Martis asked. “It’s not as if you can walk up to a mermaid and just ask, is it?”
“That is precisely what he did,” Aishen said. “He went to the docks and sat on the pier and talked to the mermaids. He spent hours there every day. It wasn’t much of a conversation—he would offer them something pretty to look at or something tasty to eat, and they would bring him something in return. If they didn’t like what he offered, they would bring him seaweed or a stone, but if they liked it they would bring him a big fat pearl.”
“You saw this?” Alair asked.
“He told us,” Aishen replied. “He came to Lady Vanth to make a deal for a share of the oyster trade, said he had a way to reduce the trade price of the biggest pearls for a short period of time, and that he’d tell us the secret for a share of the profits.”
“I bet she took that well when she found out what she had dealt for,” Martis said.
“She thought she had been cheated, but Calford persuaded her that the information was worth the price paid. It was an advantage she would not have known of and would never have known of, because no one talks to the mermaids to find out what they want rather than what they need. In the end, she let him take another three points on the trade because he was entertaining. She said she hadn’t laughed that much for years.”
“And then Dovestone found out?” Martis asked.
“He realised that we were undercutting his prices in the market by a full ten points and still making a good profit. He didn’t know how we were doing it, but he knew that we were doing it. And he decided to stop it—he couldn’t reach my Lady, so he moved against your cousin.”
“Poison?” Alair asked.
“I do not think so –there were no signs, and I would probably recognise most of the poisons you can find in the City. It looked as if he’d been hit on the head and pushed into the canal, nothing more complicated than that.” Aishen shrugged, her eyes shadowed with a memory of grief.
“They said he’d been drinking,” Martis said, and shook his head sadly. “It was bad enough he was dead without shaming him on top of it. Bastards.”
“Typical Calford, always talking to people, finding things out, being interested in the world.” Alair let out a long sighing breath.
“I miss him.” Martis swallowed hard. He stood up and walked to the fire, taking up a poker and stirring up the fire so that no one could see his face.
“My Lady liked him too,” Aishen said.
“He had the gift of being liked.” Alair raised his teacup in a salute. “I envy him that.”
Martis turned back to examine his cousin. He tended to view Alair as a piece of furniture. Not something useful like a chair or a table, but an ornate writing desk, gilded and ornamented, with dolphin legs and strange creatures as handles. He was always there in the corner of the room when you turned round but only useful once a year.
He was looking pale, the fine lines round his eyes were deeper than Martis remembered, and his hands were unsteady as he coaxed some jam out of the pot to spread across his toast. He looked like a man who had been on a six-week drinking binge, had finally run out of money, and was contemplating sobriety from the wrong side of a spirit glass.
“People like you,” Martis said, and threw his napkin across the room to hit his cousin on the side of the head. “Most of the time.”
“I suppose that is the best that anyone can expect.” Alair shrugged but still looked tired, his usual verve dampened. “And we should put that to the test by having a party… No, no, Lady Vanth should have a party. Dovestone would never come to this house but he couldn’t resist her Ladyship, could he?”
Aishen shook her head, eyes glittering. “No, he couldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t that look like she was going behind our back to strike a deal?” Martis asked.
“Exactly.” Alair brightened. “So he has to attend, and that is our chance.”
“And what will you do?” Aishen said.
“I need to see a mermaid about some pigeons,” Alair replied, his smile widening. “They must be desperate for some fresh meat by now, and it is up to us to continue the supply.”
Once Aishen had gone about her business, Martis and Alair dressed in cheap but respectable clothes and took a waterboat to the docks. Barnardis had packed a large hamper with a selection of choice meats: curried pigeon, herbed bacon, a fine sliced ham, and a leg of roasted peacock.
“I hope they don’t get a taste for peacock,” Martis said as they settled down on the pier edge, feet dangling close to the water. “It’s expensive.”
“Have you ever had it?” Alair replied. “It’s good looking, I grant you, when they present it with the tail and all, but it tastes like very dry pheasant. You need a good sauce with peacock, and if you have a good sauce you don’t need peacock. You may as well shove some feathers into a chicken and have done.”
“I’ve not travelled in such refined circles as you.” Martis shrugged. “Never had peacock, with sauce or without.”
“You can have some of this, if you want.”
Martis peered at it. Whether peacock was nice in the first place was rather moot when the leg had languished unwanted in the back of the coldhouse for months and was clearly past its best. “Better not, and better not risk feeding it to the mermaids either. They might take offence. I would.”
“It might be just the thing to tickle a mermaid’s jaded palate.” Alair prodded the meat, and it gave way under his finger, not snapping back as a prime fresh cut would. “Or not.”
Martis took out the herbed bacon, looking at it longingly. It was his favourite, and hard to replace—he hoped its salty taste would be too close to the taste of fish to be a treat. “Is fish salty?” he said suddenly. “It swims in the sea, and the sea is salty, but is the fish itself? Does it pick it up from the water?”
Alair turned to him, brow furrowed in thought. “You mean raw fish? Do the mermaids think fish is salty?”
“Mmm,” Martis said. “If they do, perhaps that’s why they like the curried pigeon. The curry blend is sharp and spicy, but heavy on the lemon and coriander. Perhaps that cuts through the salt.”
Their culinary exploration was cut short by a splash to their right.
“I think we have visitors,” Alair said softly. “Let’s start with the pigeon. We know they like it.”
He pushed a piece of pigeon towards the edge of the pier, not quite overhanging the water but within easy reach of grasping hands. There was another splash, and then a head appeared in the water directly in front of them.
“With our compliments,” Alair said, and pushed the meat further forwards. “There’s no reason to be afraid.”
The mermaid yawned, showing off an impressive set of serrated teeth that made Martis think of the Master. She rose up in the water, showing more of her breasts, then moved towards them. She put out her hand for Alair to pass her the pigeon.
“I wonder who is in charge,” Alair said. “Do we bargain with each of them one by one, or is there some leader that we can deal with?”
The mermaid gurgled, a throaty sound that came from deep within her.
“You can understand us?” Martis asked.
The mermaid nodded, and held out her hand for more meat.
“Ah, but we can’t understand her,” Martis said, flicking another piece of pigeon towards her, careful not to get in reach of the grasping hands. He remembered their arrival in the City, and the eagerness with which the mermaids had devoured their meal.
The mermaid stuffed the bird in her mouth. She looked at them as if they were simple, and then her hands moved in the complex shapes of Trade Signs. What do you want? Where is the other man that brought us
nice food?
“The other man is dead,” Martis said, swallowing down the sudden rush of grief those words brought on. Saying it made it more real, more finite and unchangeable.
How?
Alair shaped an answer. He was killed-as-prey by bull-challenging-for-territory.
She tilted her head; something was lost in translation.
“I think they’re matriarchal,” said Martis, adding for the mermaid: Killed-as-prey by challenging-bitch.
Sadness, she signed. Nice man. Liked.
Alair let out a crack of laughter. “What did I say? Gift of being liked.”
The mermaid had startled at Alair’s laugh, balanced on the edge of leaving but eyes fixed on the herbed bacon.
Sorry, Alair signed. I was happy that you liked him. He proffered some bacon in apology, which was grabbed, then chewed on thoughtfully. It was found pleasing and bought them some more conversation.
Brought nice foods. Talked to us. Not look at bubbies. Offered trade.
“Don’t you like it when men look at your bubbies?” Martis asked, drawn to ask the question though it had little to do with the matter at hand.
The mermaid shrugged, an elaborate movement that shifted her upper torso in interesting ways, and made her bubbies dance. Both he and Alair kept their gaze fixed on her eyes.
Bubbies are bubbies. Not like tails. Tails are private-secret-sexy.
“I’m sure your tail is very nice,” Alair said, and the mermaid blushed.
What want? Want see tail? Want swim?
“Thank you, no,” Alair replied. “Perhaps another time.”
The mermaid smirked, and Martis resolved never to swim in mermaid infested waters. He wondered, idly, why there were no mermen and if mermaids followed the traditions of the Ghassulian who ate their menfolk after mating. And then, because he was a merchant, if there was something you could sell to mermaids to make their tails look different, like waterproof paint to add patterns, or maybe something to cover bubbies.
Want revenge, signed Alair. Kill-as-prey challenging bitch. Chew on flesh. Spit out bones. Dung on final resting place. Want help
