The Mirador

by Sarah Monette

  She was profoundly unfaithful to him, the ghost observed dispassionately, as one who has noticed that this provokes rage in others. Laurence and Charles were far from her only conquests. And he saw his way to power through Charles’s advisors. Amaryllis would never listen to him. If she controlled Charles, there would be nothing in that for Wilfrid. He had good reasons, my lords and lady, I assure you.

  Felix said, “Why did you care whether Amaryllis was forgotten or not?”

  The ghost shrugged; even Felix seemed a bit taken aback at how that maneuver looked with no head above the rising shoulders. She deserved better than to die at the behest of her paunchy toad of a husband. She was beautiful and vibrant. I wanted her remembered, and I see that I have succeeded.

  “Did you kill Laurence for her?”

  Me? the ghost said, her eyebrows going up. No, that wasn’t me. I think—

  Suddenly, Vincent reached up, jerking Felix’s hands free of his head even as his knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the floor. Grendille Moran vanished like a popped soap bubble, and the thought that she might still be there, observing, sent a cold shudder the entire length of my spine.

  “Vincent?” Felix said. He went down on one knee. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Too much,” Vincent said in a thin, strained voice, not moving. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll be in the hall,” I said and escaped.

  The corridor was blessedly uninteresting. I stood and thought and composed about half a letter to Antony in my head—knowing he wouldn’t believe any of it, knowing I’d probably never send it—before Felix and Vincent came out.

  Felix said preemptively: “Wilfrid!” He was supporting Vincent with a hand under the elbow, and Vincent was leaning into him, shivering a little.

  “Which will teach us never to judge a man by his name,” I said, following his lead.

  “Yes, indeed. Here we were thinking he was a poor, put-upon rabbit, when all the while he was the mastermind.”

  “And a paunchy toad into the bargain.”

  “Lock that door again, Tabby, would you? My mental picture of Wilfrid Emarthius never quite included him beheading Grendille Moran.”

  “I imagine hers didn’t either. She looked to me like a woman it would be difficult to catch off-guard.”

  “Oh, very,” Felix said, and we started back toward my suite. He was still supporting Vincent, and Vincent obeyed his guidance like a blind man.

  “She must have found her head, though.”

  “Her head?”

  “Stephen said it turned up somewhere unlikely several days later.”

  “How fittingly grotesque. And who do you suppose did murder Laurence?”

  “What’s to say it wasn’t Amaryllis herself?”

  Felix considered that. “Well, nothing, I suppose.”

  “Do you think Grendille Moran would admire anyone not smart enough and tough enough to do her own dirty work?”

  “A very cogent point.”

  Vincent said, his voice rather shaky, “What a profoundly unpleasant woman.”

  “She was a court poisoner,” I said.

  “Grendille Moran would have been nasty as a nun,” Vincent said. “Powers and saints. Well, at least now I can imagine how Ivo could be worse.”

  That killed the conversation, and we were silent the rest of the way back. I opened my door, calling to Lenore to bring the brandy from the sideboard, and made Vincent sit in the chair nearest the fire. He was still shivering. I took the opposite chair, to act as a buffer between Vincent and Felix—and if I’d been asked who I was protecting from whom, I wouldn’t have been able to say.

  We were still silent. Lenore poured brandy. Felix brought a glass to Vincent before taking one for himself; I knew it for an apology, and wondered if Vincent could read Felix well enough to see that.

  Vincent knocked the brandy back, shuddered profoundly, and shut his eyes. He stayed that way for some time, and finally, I asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  And I didn’t want to know, but I was asking all the same, “What happened?”

  Vincent hesitated, looking at Felix. But Felix was staring into the depths of his brandy. Vincent said, “It was—I know this sounds mad, but it was being able to share it—not being the only one, not seeing things other people don’t see, hearing voices other people don’t hear. It was too much. I . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Felix said. “It was hardly your fault.” Another almost apology.

  “Are you never free of them?” I said.

  “They don’t hold together well outside—although I go to graveyards only when forced. Most buildings have them. Arborstell was unpleasant, but the Mirador must have more ghosts than rats.” He paused and said in a smaller voice, looking at his hands, “It amuses Ivo to have a mad catamite.”

  Almost before Felix and I had time to realize we didn’t know what to say, his expression became wide-eyed with horror. He pulled out a pocket watch, flipped it open. “Powers! Ivo will kill me!” And he fled, like a child whose cruel schoolmaster will cane him for being late.

  Felix said, “I had better go, too.”

  “Stephen will be waiting for me,” I said.

  “Give him my best,” Felix said flippantly, as smoothly and reflexively as a master swordsman parries a thrust, and was gone.

  I knocked back the last of my brandy and went dutifully to present myself for Stephen’s pleasure.

  Chapter 15

  Mildmay

  It felt weird being back in Felix’s suite. I mean, everything was the same—Gideon hadn’t even gotten his books off the shelves—but nothing seemed like it was quite in the right place. I poked around the sitting room for a while, just looking at things and trying to decide why I thought the table belonged about half an inch to the right and Felix’s favorite chair a cat’s-whisker closer to the wall. But finally I sat down, in the other chair by the fire, and just sort of waited for Felix. I didn’t want to go to bed without seeing him. That felt even weirder.

  It was the fifth hour of the night when Maurice came in, and he just about had a spasm when he saw me.

  “Where have you been? Me and Rollo had a bet on that his lordship had killed you and stuffed the body up the chimney.”

  “I been around,” I said. “Felix ain’t killed nobody.”

  “Well, thank the powers for that. You coming back for good?”

  “Less’n he throws me out again. It’s the binding-by-forms, Maurice. I go where he tells me. What’re you here for, anyway? ”

  “Taffy begged me, on bended knees with tears in her eyes, to come get his laundry tonight. She says if he looks through her like that one more time, she’s going to break down in hysterics. And she says she’ll probably die of them, because he won’t notice. ”

  “He ain’t here,” I said, “so go on and do Taffy’s job for her.”

  He made a face at me in a friendly sort of way, then ducked back in the hall and got the little wheeled cart the laundry maids used.

  “I didn’t know Taffy was scared of Felix,” I said.

  “Oh, we all are,” Maurice said over his shoulder, going into Felix’s bedroom. “Except for the ones like Rollo who have a crush on him.”

  “Oh.” Poor Rollo, I thought. I knew for a fact Felix couldn’t tell him and Maurice apart.

  When Maurice came back out, he said, all at once, no lead up or nothing, “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I think so, I thought. “It’s just rough on him, Gideon leaving, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Maurice said. “Love’s a bitch.” He sighed and stretched. I could hear his spine popping. “Gotta get on. But I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Thanks, Maurice.” He shut the door behind him. I hoped I was glad, too.

  Felix came in a little later. His stride kind of hitched when he saw me, like he hadn’t really expected me to be there, but then he came on over to his chair like it was what he’d meant all along. />
  We didn’t say nothing for a while. Felix just sat there, staring into the fire, and I was about to give up and go to bed when he said, “Were you really friends with Zephyr Wolsey?”

  “Yeah.”

  Another long silence, only now I was scared to move. Then he said, “Do you hate me?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you hate me?” He was still staring at the fire.

  “No.”

  “That’s it?” He glanced at me and then away again.

  “What more d’you want? I don’t hate you.”

  “Nothing, I suppose. Go to bed, Mildmay. I’m not fit company. ”

  I went. I got up enough nerve to say, “Good night,” at the door to my room.

  “Good night,” he said without looking round. He was staring into the fire again.

  I dreamed about the labyrinth in Klepsydra that night, cold stone and water dripping everywhere. There were voices calling me from all directions: Ginevra, Kolkhis, Strych, Mehitabel, Simon, Maurice, Josiah, Septimus. I even heard somebody I knew in the dream was Gideon, although I couldn’t remember what his voice had sounded like anymore. I was listening for Felix, trying to hear him through all the noise, but his voice was really faint, like he was really far away or hurt or something, and I didn’t find him before I woke up.

  Mehitabel

  After the official proceedings of court were over, and the three Teverii had disappeared, I went in search of Vincent and found him, standing by himself against the bust of King Cyprian, just as a page trotted up and said, “Lord Shannon says he’ll see you, madame. In his suite.”

  “Thank you,” I said; the boy darted off again. “It’s all right,” I said to Vincent’s suddenly ashen face. “I sent him a note. He knows I’m bringing someone.”

  “You think of everything,” Vincent said.

  “It’s a knack. Come on. I don’t have much time.”

  “I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble,” Vincent said when we were free of the Hall of the Chimeras.

  “It’s not trouble, just tight scheduling.”

  “You are very kind, Madame Parr.”

  “Oh for God’s sake. Mehitabel. Please. Or Tabby if you like it better.”

  “I . . .” He went rather pink.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said hastily, and although I was sure that wasn’t true, I really didn’t have time to pry it out of him. We were already at Shannon’s door, and I needed to get to the Empyrean.

  I knocked. Shannon’s dark, handsome servant—whose name, I’d learned, was Jean-Arpent, a Lower City boy for sure— opened the door promptly and bowed us in, saying, “His lordship is expecting you.”

  I thought for a moment that Vincent was going to bolt, but he didn’t, following me staunchly into Shannon’s sitting room.

  Shannon rose to greet us, exquisite as always. “Mehitabel,” he said, bending over my hand. “Who is your friend?”

  “My lord, may I present Vincent Demabrien?”

  “Charmed,” Shannon said and extended his hand.

  I could see the grimness behind Vincent’s polite façade as he extended his own. Those long lacquered nails were a badge that everyone in the Mirador knew how to read. But if Shannon noticed—and I was sure he did—he didn’t show it. “Any friend of Mehitabel’s I know to be a person worth meeting,” he said, with a smile that would have charmed a slab of granite. Its effect on Vincent was almost literally staggering; he still looked a little dazed as he accepted Shannon’s offer of a chair.

  “Won’t you join us, Mehitabel?” Shannon said.

  “I have to go. We open tomorrow. Are you coming?”

  He smiled at me warmly. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “I’ll send you a ticket,” I said to Vincent, and then to Shannon, “Vincent is very fond of the theater.” Because I might have been raised, as I’d told Mildmay once, to think bear-baiting a fine sport, but I didn’t have to play by those rules. I certainly didn’t have to give Ivo Polydorius what he wanted.

  And then, with a sweeping curtsy, I left, not quite running on my way to Chevalgate.

  Mildmay

  After court, I told Felix I had something I had to do. He was still worried about me hating him or something, because he didn’t so much as ask me what I was doing, just let me go. I was glad of it, even though it was worrisome, because if he’d asked, I would have had to tell him I was going to the Kennel with Gideon, and either one—I mean, either the Kennel or Gideon— would probably have given him a screaming fit.

  But he didn’t ask, and I got away clean, got back to Simon and Rinaldo’s suite, where Simon and Gideon were waiting for me.

  Simon said, “I admit, I’m learning more about Mélusine than I ever expected to.”

  “It pays to have a native guide,” Rinaldo rumbled sleepily from his enormous chair. “You must tell me all about it when you return.”

  “Yes, yes, but now you wish we’d leave because we’re postponing your nap.”

  “I shall not rise to that or any other bait of your casting,” Rinaldo said, without opening his eyes, and Simon was grinning as we went out the door.

  We didn’t make this cabbie happy, neither. Simon said as he climbed in, “I’m also getting a wonderful education in arguing with fiacre drivers. Tell me, is there anywhere in the city they will go without argument?”

  “Most anywhere north of the Mirador,” I said. “It’s the Lower City they don’t like.”

  “Is there anything north of the Mirador worth seeing?”

  “Prob’ly not.”

  Simon laughed. “I shan’t bother, then.”

  We got to the Kennel, and Simon bribed the cabbie, and I said to the Dog on duty at the door, “I want to talk to Sergeant Morny.”

  His eyes just about bugged out of his skull—I don’t guess I did look like the sort of person who’d be wanting to talk to Morny instead of Morny wanting in the worst way to talk to me—but he got himself pulled together and said, “Who should I say is asking?”

  And just for the pure poison joy of it, I said, “Mildmay the Fox.”

  “Gracious, what an effect you have,” Simon said when the Dog had bailed in a hurry.

  “I’m the guy who killed Cornell Teverius,” I said. “Ain’t you heard?”

  Stupid, nasty thing to say, I know. But there were so many things I was pretending hadn’t happened by not ever talking about ’em. It was like that old story about the boy and the dam, how he can stop one hole with his finger, and another with his foot, but then there’s a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and finally he just gets washed away. That’s what happened with me and that crack about Cornell Teverius. I hadn’t meant to say it. It just burst out.

  Simon said, “Mildmay, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said it. It was stupid.”

  “Gideon says that you are allowed the occasional outburst.”

  As much as I could tell, they both just looked worried—like they were worried about me. “It . . . I mean, it really don’t matter to you, does it?”

  “What?”

  “That I . . . I mean, I did murder him. It ain’t a lie.”

  “I didn’t think it was. I had grasped the idea that you were an assassin.”

  "But ...”

  Simon shrugged. “I might feel differently, I suppose, if the victim had been one of my dearest friends, but Cornell was not a nice man. And when you sit in the Bastion for seven years, waiting and waiting for someone in the Mirador to remember you’re alive and care enough to try to get you out . . . it changes the way you look at some things.”

  “I guess it would, at that.” So I’d been wrong. There were people in the Mirador who didn’t care what I’d done. They were willing to let me get past it. All at once, I felt less like somebody with big hobnailed boots was jumping up and down on me.

  “You got me out,” Simon said. “That makes it difficult for me to pass judgment on you.”

/>   “Fuck, Simon, I ain’t no saint. I didn’t do it . . . I mean, it wasn’t for you, or nothing.”

  “I know that.” His smile was sad and gentle. “But you did it all the same.”

  “Right,” I said, and the Dog came panting back to say as how Sergeant Morny would be happy to see us. We followed him into the Kennel, up a staircase that had been wedged into the thickness of the outer wall, and then into a rabbit warren of passages, the sort of thing that people do when they realize one big room ain’t no good, but a bunch of little rooms would be just dandy. Sergeant Morny was in one of those little rooms, cheap boards on three sides and the stone of the outer wall on the fourth.

  “Mr. Foxe,” he said, polite and surprised and a little worried all at once, “what brings you here? And, um, who’re your friends?”

  I elbowed Simon to make him get his hands out of his pockets. “You remember Mr. Thraxios. And this is Lord Simon Barrister. I want to talk to Jenny Dawnlight. You still got her?”