by Martha Wells
“I have an offer for you.” Devereux took a step forward. “You could benefit from an alliance with me.”
“Benefit?” She rolled her eyes. “I repeat, what did you ever do for me?”
“It’s what I can do for you. I can give you revenge.”
This was new. No one had ever offered that before. Kade watched his calm face carefully, intrigued. “Revenge on whom?”
“The court, the king. The tricks you play on them, however deadly, aren’t worthy of you. With my help, and the help of others that I know--”
“You want to use me against my royal relatives.” Kade shook her head, disappointed, and added honestly, “It’s an audacious plan, I’ll willingly give you that much. No man’s had the courage to suggest such a thing to me before.”
His face had hardened and she knew it had been a long time since anyone had refused him anything. “But it is not to your taste, I take it.”
Kade shrugged. “If I really wanted to kill my mortal brother I could have done it before now. What I want to do is make him and his mother suffer, and I don’t think you or your supporters would agree to that. And as soon as I wasn’t useful to you anymore, one of you would try to kill me, then I’d have to kill one or more of you, and the whole mess would fall apart.” She hesitated, and for some reason, perhaps because he was so comely, said, “If you had approached me as a friend, it could have been different. Perhaps we could have worked something out to serve your end.”
But from his angry expression he didn’t recognize it as the offer it was, or he felt it was a lie or a trap. Maybe it was, Kade admitted to herself. Maybe what she really wanted was something else entirely, something Devereux simply hadn’t the character to offer her.
“I suggest you reconsider,” Devereux said, his voice harsh.
She said dryly, “I suggest you stick to sorcery and leave politics to those with the talent for it.”
He stepped back, giving her a thin-lipped smile. “You can’t leave. This room is warded with a curse. If you break the barrier, the creature that loves you most in the world will die.”
Relieved, Kade laughed at him as she slipped out the door. Fay didn’t love each other, and there was no mortal left from her childhood who didn’t want to see her dead. He had chosen this spell badly. “Curse away. I’ve nothing to lose.”
“I think you have!” Kade heard him call after her as she ran through the tall grass. As she came around the side of the house, there was a shout. Ahead in the darkness she saw moving figures and the glow from the slow match of a musket. She swore and ducked.
The musket thundered and there was a sharp crack as the ball struck the stone wall behind her. If they hit me with that thing, Kade thought desperately, we’re all going to find out just how human I am. The musket balls were cold iron, and her fay magic could do nothing to them.
But that protection didn’t extend to the gunpowder inside the musket. She covered her head with her arms and muttered the spell she had considered using on Warrender in the inn.
There was an explosion and a scream as someone’s wheellock pistol went off, then a dozen little popping sounds as the scattered grains of powder from the musket’s blast ignited.
Kade scrambled to her feet. The grass near the gate had caught fire and she was forgotten in the face of that immediate threat. She ran to the back wall with its loose bricks and crumbling mortar and climbed it easily. At the top she paused and looked back. In the glow of the grass fire she could see Devereux walking back and forth, shouting at the servants in angry frustration. Revenge against her royal relatives would have been sweet. But it would never have worked, not with him, anyway, she thought with a grimace. Too bad.
* * *
It was barely dawn when she reached the inn, and through the windows she could see that candles had been lit in the common room. From just outside the door she thought there was more noise than seemed normal at this hour, especially after last night’s drinking bout.
When she stepped inside, she heard a woman say, “Must have died in his sleep, poor thing.”
* * *
The morning was well advanced when Kade waited for the glaistig beneath a bent aging willow in a stretch of forest near the river.
It dropped a lock of golden hair into Kade’s palm.
“Did he notice?” Kade asked, looking up at the creature.
The glaistig’s eyes were limpid, innocent. “I did it while he slept.”
“Very good.” She should have treated Devereux’ curse with more caution, she had said that to herself a hundred times over the rest of the long night. And you should have known. All those brave stories Giles had told of her, his audacity in coming here to find her, should have said it plainly enough. She had also said that she didn’t care, but no amount of repetition could make a lie the truth. Giles knew I was dangerous company to keep. Yes, he knew, but he had kept it anyway. And that made it all the worse.
She added the hair to a small leather pouch prepared with apricot stones and the puss from a plague sore, then sat down on a fallen log to sew it up with the small neat stitches she had learned as a child.
“The sorcerer was lovely,” the glaistig said regretfully, watching her.
“He was lovely,” Kade agreed. “And cunning, like me. And I would trade a hundred of both of us to know that one unlovely ballad-singer was still alive somewhere in the world.”
* * *
Kade left Riversee after that. She had thought to stay to see the result of her handiwork, but she had discovered that knowing was enough.
Gray clouds were building for a storm, and she might have summoned one of the many flighted creatures of fayre and ridden the wind with it, but she had also discovered that she preferred to walk the dusty road. Some things had lost their pleasure.
Night at the Opera
This story takes place before the novel The Death of the Necromancer, shortly before Nicholas met Madeline
Reynard Morane was at his usual table in the Cafe Baudy, a somewhat risqué establishment built on a barge in the Deval Forest pleasure garden’s lake, when a beautiful man approached his table. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence, especially in this cafe, but this beautiful man was a stranger. He said, “Captain Morane?”
From his features and dark skin, the man was Parscian, a little younger than Reynard but not by much, tall and well-built, and dressed in an elegant but understated way which suggested some level of the upper class. The coat was too expensive for the man to be from a university. For some reason, Reynard attracted a high percentage of men of academic persuasions. “Yes.” Reynard smiled warmly. “Please join me.”
The man hesitated, then drew out the opposite chair. “A friend told me about you.”
“And which friend is this?” Reynard caught the waiter’s attention and lifted his brows. The waiter sized up the situation professionally, then went to the bar for a fresh bottle of wine and glasses.
“A man named Biendare.” The man lowered his voice. “I believe he is known in some circles as ‘Binny.’“
“Binny?” Reynard frowned. This was not encouraging. Binny was not someone who would have recommended Reynard for an assignation. At least not the kind of assignation Reynard had hoped for. Just to make certain, he said, “At the roasted nut kiosk on the Street of Flowers?”
“No, it was in March Street, at a wine bar that also sells fried fish.”
“Right.” Reynard sat up, adjusting his attitude from invitingly indolent to business-like and alert.
The waiter arrived at the table with the bottle and glasses. Reynard sighed and told him, “No.”
“No?” The waiter looked startled, then disappointed. “Oh. Coffee, perhaps?”
“Coffee,” Reynard agreed.
The man cast a puzzled look at the retreating waiter’s back, and Reynard admitted, “I was hoping it was an assignation.” He waved a hand. “It’s the Cafe Baudy, you know. There are often assignations.”
“Oh, yes, I...” The
man obviously decided to drop that subject and pursue his objective. “My name is Amadel. I am the confidential secretary for the Lady Shankir-Clare. She needs assistance of a...particular sort.”
Reynard held up a hand for silence as the waiter approached. He waited until the coffee service had been arranged and the waiter departed, then said, “She’s being troubled by someone but feels unable to confide the details to the Prefecture?”
“Yes, exactly.” Amadel added cream to his cup with the relief of a man who had been searching everywhere for help and was finally in the right place.
This was odd. The Shankir-Clares were a family of rather famous diplomats, wealthy and well-respected in both Parscia and Ile-Rien, where the different branches of the family had originated. Reynard had never met any of them because they were the sort of people who were invited to the palace, not the sort who traveled in demi monde circles. No wonder Amadel hadn’t been familiar with the Cafe Baudy. “How did you ever run across Binny?”
“Lady Shankir-Clare’s hairdresser knew him,” Amadel said. “She said he was the best way to contact people who could help with...sensitive problems.”
“Is it blackmail?” Reynard asked. If one of the Shankir-Clare ladies had trusted her affections to the wrong man, and it wasn’t someone associated with the infamous Count Montesq, Reynard could probably have it taken care of before dinner. “I quite like dealing with blackmailers. I have some experience at it.”
“It isn’t an ordinary blackmailer. It’s a sorcerer.” Amadel’s brow furrowed as if he was trying to control a wince of anticipation. He thought Reynard would refuse the commission now. Most of the people who did this sort of thing wouldn’t tangle with a sorcerer.
Reynard smiled. “Then Binny sent you to the right place.” He signaled the waiter to bring the bill.
* * *
An hour later, having exchanged cards with Amadel and made an appointment for a meeting at the Shankir-Clare townhouse, Reynard ran Nicholas down in the southern river docks, in a cafe that was normally used by shipping and warehouse workers.
Nicholas was in his disguise as Donatien, and so was dressed in the work clothing of a minor clerk. The disguise changed the shape of his mustache and short beard, and made him look distinctly older. He was not currently working on following anyone or spying on anyone or waiting to meet someone to spy or follow at some point in the future. Reynard knew this because Nicholas was reading a book in the binding of the lending library up on Crossriver Street, which did not mesh with his persona of Donatien, but wasn’t out of bounds for the clerk costume he was currently wearing. Also, Cusard had directed him here and said Nicholas had just stepped out for coffee.
Reynard took a seat at the table and Nicholas frowned at him in affront, as if he had been joined by a stranger. Having worked with Nicholas for some time now, Reynard found nothing unusual in this. Nicholas maintained two major personas: Donatien, the criminal mastermind of Vienne, hunted by the Prefecture, and Nicholas Valiarde, art importer and gentleman of minor note. There were dozens of others, but Reynard didn’t usually bother to sort them out. He said, “I have an appointment this afternoon.” He placed Amadel’s card on the table.
Nicholas hesitated, possibly shedding whatever persona he had found necessary to employ to sit here in the quiet cafe and read. He picked up the card and examined it front and back, then tucked it away in his coat. “I can’t give you much time. I have to go to the theater tonight.”
There was an actress that Nicholas had been watching. One would call it “courting” except for the fact that Nicholas had made no attempt to contact her or draw her attention to himself in any way. Reynard considered it a step in the right direction that Nicholas was admitting that he was looking at her. Whether he would at some point actually speak to her was anyone’s guess. Reynard said, “From what I understand it’s a sorcerer involved in blackmail.”
Nicholas lifted his brows. “Someone is blackmailing the Shankir-Clares? And is still alive? That’s intriguing.”
Reynard heard the undercurrent in those words, though he doubted anyone else would have detected it. Nicholas hated blackmailers, with a passion that made Reynard’s feelings toward them pale. Count Montesg, the man who had caused Nicholas’ foster father’s death, made much of his living by blackmail. “Yes, for some reason they can’t go to the magistrates or just have tea with the queen and ask her to tell the court sorcerer to go and crush the idiot,” Reynard said. Criminal acts of sorcery toward the nobility fell under the court sorcerer’s purview, and would be reported to him even if the Shankir-Clares took it to the Prefecture. “His name is Antoine Idilane. Have you heard of him?”
Nicholas concentrated for a moment, obviously consulting a mental file of names. “No. He’s not known in my circles.”
Criminal circles, Nicholas meant. That didn’t mean Idilane wasn’t a criminal, it just meant he wasn’t one who Nicholas had ever encountered. “He’s a student at Lodun.”
Nicholas said, “If he’s a student at Lodun, why is he in Vienne in the middle of term?”
“That’s an interesting question,” Reynard agreed. “He might be traveling back and forth; it’s not that long by express train.”
Nicholas frowned. “It’s not very convenient. He might not be attending lectures. Or the university might have requested that he make himself scarce.”
Reynard nodded. “Will you ask around for me this afternoon?”
“Of course.” Nicholas eyed him. “If you find you need assistance, you know you can call on me.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Reynard smiled. “I’ll even give you half the fee.”
Nicholas gestured that away. “Unnecessary.” Despite having spent his early life in great poverty, Nicholas was indifferent to money. He had enough for his purposes and greed was never his motivation for doing anything.
For Reynard, interfering with a blackmailer was payment enough. He had lost a young lover to suicide because of one, and the blame had been all his since Reynard had not taken better care to keep the young man’s letters safe. Reynard had had many lovers, both before and after the incident. But since then he put a great deal of effort into making sure none of them suffered from their association with him, no matter how brief. He also eliminated blackmailers, sometimes by frightening them off, sometimes by hiding what was left of the bodies. “People, especially people like the Shankir-Clares, like to pay for services rendered. It’s difficult for them to understand that we do it for amusement.”
Nicholas’ expression was annoyed. “We don’t do it for amusement.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Reynard said, and took his leave.
* * *
Shankir-Clare House was on Ducal Court Street, a four-story edifice that still managed to look elegant and reserved despite the massive classical columns lining the pediment. When a footman opened the door, Reynard handed over his visiting card.
The servants must have been told to expect him because he was whisked into the large foyer and up the stairs, past the public second floor and up to the third, where the family would have their private rooms. The parlor he was taken to was occupied by Amadel, who looked as if he had been pacing the entire time, and two ladies, one of whom Reynard recognized immediately.
Lady Shankir-Clare was a lovely woman in her early 50s, with the dark skin and the hawkish features of the Parscian side of the family. She wore an elegant blue afternoon visiting gown, with a Parscian-style silk patterned scarf wrapped around her hair. The young girl who sat beside her on the lounge was not so elegant or so lovely, but then she didn’t look as if she was old enough to be introduced into formal society. There was a suggestion of lanky knees and elbows under her perfectly acceptable gown, and she wore a pair of spectacles. They made her look bookish, but then she probably was bookish. Reynard thought she might be a young relative, brought to the city for a visit. Surely Lady Shankir-Clare would send her away before they got down to business.
Amadel sa
id, “My lady, this is Captain Reynard Morane. Captain Morane, this is the Lady Shankir-Clare and her daughter, Miss Belina Shankir-Clare.”
Reynard bowed. He would never have taken that young girl as the daughter of this elegant house. And if she was here, she had to be involved in the blackmail, if not the principal victim. It almost shocked him; this girl was still a child, surely.
“Please sit down.” Lady Shankir-Clare gestured to a chair. “Amadel has told you a little of our problem.”
Reynard took a seat, as did Amadel. Reynard said, “Yes, he said that you’re having difficulty with a certain sorcerer.”
“Yes.” She glanced at Belina. “My daughter has fallen victim to a...” Her jaw tightened and she clearly considered and discarded several terms. “A predator.” Belina looked glum.
Reynard nodded. “I also know that you feel you can’t go to the Prefecture or the palace for help. I was curious as to why. This seems like something that could be put before the court sorcerer.”
“It seems like it.” Lady Shankir-Clare’s voice was dry. “But we would prefer to keep it away from the court.”
“Tell him,” Belina said, flatly. “If you’re asking him to help, then you have to trust him.”
Reynard decided he liked Belina a good deal. He waited, and after a moment, Lady Shankir-Clare said, “The court sorcerer is not our friend.”
“I’ve heard he isn’t a friendly man, in general.” Reynard had heard he was a right bastard, actually.
Lady Shankir-Clare explained reluctantly, “Members of my family have doubted his loyalty to the queen and suggested to her that she might replace him. Word of this was carried to him.”
“Ah.” Yes, that meshed with the rumors circulating among the demi monde. “And you don’t trust him to deal with your daughter’s situation with the delicacy it requires.”
“I’m not in a delicate situation,” Belina said, with some heat. “I may be a fool, but I didn’t sleep with him.”
