The Mirador

by Sarah Monette

  “You don’t need to have him wait,” I said as we got out, and Simon paid him off. There ain’t no lack of fiacres and hansoms in that part of the Lower City in the evening, and it’d even be okay to walk if we had to. In Dragonteeth, leastways most of it, if you yelled for help, the Dogs would come.

  The Lapdog was about like I remembered it. It was Ginevra’s sort of bar, all gaudy paint and watered wine, and it was full of flashies wearing what they thought they should wear to go slumming and Lower City kids wearing what they thought they should wear to catch flashies. There was a table free in the corner, and we sat down.

  “Do we want anything to drink?” Simon said.

  “No,” I said, “but we’d better get something or they’ll try and bounce us.”

  "I like your use of the word ’try,’ ” Simon said and flagged down a serving girl. He ordered wine for him and Gideon, and I asked for bourbon, like I had in the Stag and Candles, to remind me of Felix. Thinking of him did more for my nerves than the alcohol would.

  The Vigor Street Clock hit the first quarter of the first hour of the night, and Jenny came in with Augusta Fenris.

  I could see right away what Jenny’d meant by “shy.” And she really did mean it, not just that Mrs. Fenris was scared of the Mirador like any sane hocus would be. She was tallish and skinny and stooped, with straw-colored hair and light-blue eyes, like the Brunhilde me and Septimus had bounced off of down in Scaffelgreen. She was probably around her sixth septad. And she looked scared to death.

  Jenny towed her over to our table, and they sat down, and we said names all around. Jenny ordered gin for her and the necromancer, but I noticed when it came that Mrs. Fenris didn’t drink it, just sat and blinked at it with her pale-lashed eyes. Simon and Jenny did a kind of hard-cased small-talk act while Mrs. Fenris sat and looked at her gin, but finally she sort of shook her head, like there wasn’t no point in waiting no longer, and said, “What did you wish to speak to me about?”

  I’d worked out an answer for that. I said, “I want to know why you want to talk to Luther Littleman.”

  She blinked at me, but I could see her brains working behind her harmless-looking eyes. She was silent until she’d figured out what she wanted to say, and then she said, “The patterns of power in Mélusine shifted in the first indiction of the reign of Narcissus. I am trying to ascertain why, and therefore I am interested in the doings of Mr. Littleman’s quondam master.”

  Since she hadn’t hurried, I didn’t either. I looked at it from a couple sides, and then said, “Did Mr. Littleman used to work in Dassament?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Fenris.

  “Then I think maybe I’m interested in what he has to say, too. Is that okay?”

  She looked at me, and looked down at the gin she wasn’t drinking, and then looked back at me. She knew who I was, all right. She thought about it for a good long while, and then she said, “I suppose so. Will you come now?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Simon said, “I think it would be better if Gideon and I did not come.”

  “What?” I said. I could tell by the look on Gideon’s face that him and Simon had already had this out, and he didn’t like it.

  Simon had been keeping his hands pretty much out of sight, but he put them on the table now. He said, “I have neither love nor respect for the Mirador’s policies, but I have sworn oaths. Up until now, I have heard nothing but hearsay about Mrs. Fenris’s habits and activities, and nothing in my oaths compels me to take notice of hearsay. Were I to witness an act of, say, necromancy, that would cast things in a rather different light.”

  “I appreciate the distinction,” said Mrs. Fenris, “and I would not wish to cause a crisis of conscience. Let hearsay remain hearsay.”

  “Where is it we’re going?” I said. “Am I likely to get set on before I can find a hansom?”

  “Ah,” said the necromancer. “Do not worry. I have no desire to see you come to a sticky end, and I will pledge myself to see that you get back to the Mirador safely.”

  “Thanks,” I said. She might not be able to spell, but she sure did talk like a book.

  “I don’t want to get anybody burned,” Simon said to me, like an apology.

  “No, you’re right. Y’all go on. I’ll come find you when I get back and you can have the rest of the ‘hearsay.’ ”

  Simon made a rueful face. “Gideon thinks I am a coward.”

  “You can come if you want,” I said to Gideon. “You ain’t sworn no oaths.”

  He smiled and shook his head, with a kind of shrug. If he said anything, Simon didn’t tell me what it was. They left together, and me and Jenny and Mrs. Fenris looked at each other.

  “What now?” I said. “I mean, if you got something nasty planned, you might as well spring it.”

  “I ain’t no double-crosser,” Jenny said.

  “Your actions in Dassament were to me personally a great source of relief,” Mrs. Fenris said, which I thought was a neat way of getting around saying she’d been praying for indictions Vey Coruscant would choke on a fishbone and die.

  “All right, then,” I said. “If I’m gonna act like a half-wit dog, I might as well do it. Wherever you need to go, let’s go.”

  “Very well, then.” She stood up, and Jenny and me followed her out of the Lady’s Lapdog and down the block to a livery stable, where there was an ugly old black coach and two brown horses waiting. Mrs. Fenris held the door for Jenny, and then took the coachman’s seat like she was used to it.

  She looked down at me. “You may take your pick. I am sure both Miss Dawnlight and I will be equally glad of your company. ”

  I wasn’t so sure of that, but I also wasn’t sure my leg would get me up there with her. “I got a thing or two I need to say to Jenny,” I said and climbed in after her. Mrs. Fenris handled the horses like she knew what she was doing, and we rattled off.

  Jenny and I sat across from each other in the dark. Mrs. Fenris drove west, toward the Road of Chalcedony. After a little while, Jenny said, “What did you want to say to me?”

  I hadn’t particularly wanted to say anything to her, but fair was fair. “Just thanks,” I said. “And I’m sorry you had to stay in the Kennel so long.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” she said. “If you ain’t pretty they mostly leave you alone.”

  “Was it smallpox?” I hadn’t meant to ask—hadn’t meant to say anything about her face at all. Don’t know how the words got out.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Last summer. Miss Gussie found me when I was most of the way to dead, laying out on the street like last year’s rubbish. She saved my life.”

  “Powers, Jenny, I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m better off. You were right.”

  “I was . . . sorry, what?”

  “You probably don’t remember,” she said, with an uncomfortable little laugh. “We had this big fight—I guess it’s a septad ago now, and you said as how I shouldn’t waste my time with the packs, that if I wanted to be a whore I should just go to Pharaohlight and sign a contract.”

  “Fuck. I didn’t say that, did I?”

  “Something like. I was mad at you for indictions, and the more I saw that you were right, the madder I got. Sometimes I’m really stupid, you know? And if it hadn’t been for the pox, I’d still be over there in Candlewick Mews, pretending that what I was doing wasn’t turning tricks.”

  “Jenny, I’m really sorry. I didn’t have no right to say that kind of stuff.”

  “It don’t matter now. It’s all an old story. And you get what you pay for, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said and touched my scar. It was dark. She wouldn’t be able to see me do it.

  “So where are we going?” I said after a minute.

  “Dunno. The box is under your seat, so probably wherever Miss Gussie thinks she can get what she wants out of it.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Mr. Littleman sure can’t hurt you now.”

  “Yea
h, but did I want to know I was sitting on top of a dead guy?”

  “Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t sound it.

  “What kind of stuff does Mrs. Fenris have you do?” I asked. I was wondering what kind of a job it was, being a necromancer’s assistant. “I mean, aside from digging people up.”

  “She’s only had me do that the once. And seeing as how I fucked it up, she probably won’t have me do it again. Mostly I keep track of things for her, like where all her books are and when she needs to go buy more stuff. And I run her household.”

  “Is it just the two of you?” I knew it wasn’t, and it was mean of me to ask like that, but I really did want to see if she’d lie.

  And I was surprised when she didn’t. “Nah. She’s got a widowed sister, and her and her little boy live with us.”

  “And Mrs. Fenris is supporting them just on necromancy?”

  “Nah. Anna Medora takes in washing and does fancy embroidery and stuff like that. So we get by.”

  “That’s good,” I said and kept to myself my idea that what Jenny really meant by “running” Mrs. Fenris’s household was doing whatever errands and chores the Brunhilde, meaning Anna Medora, wanted her to. Jenny never could keep from making up stories about herself, and I was even kind of glad to see the smallpox hadn’t beat that out of her.

  “Yeah,” Jenny said.

  We were quiet for a while, until it struck me how long we’d been driving.

  “She ain’t planning on going out of the city, is she?” I said.

  “Maybe,” Jenny said. “I don’t ask her questions about what ain’t my business.”

  There was more to Mrs. Fenris than met the eye if she could teach Jenny that and make it stick, but my problem was the obligation d’âme. It said I wasn’t supposed to go no farther from Felix than from the Mirador to Carnelian Gate, and it started pulling at me if I did. I could stand it—I’d stood worse—but I was worried that Felix would be able to tell somehow. And I knew he wouldn’t like me going out of Mélusine without telling him. But I couldn’t shout at Mrs. Fenris to turn around now, especially not for a reason like that, so I just sat and watched the storefronts and banks and townhouses going past us along the Road of Chalcedony.

  A little later, Jenny said, “Why’re you so interested in Luther Littleman?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “Just a hunch.”

  “You’re sure going to a lot of trouble over a hunch.”

  “That’s what made me a great assassin, darlin’.”

  I’d meant to offend her, and it worked. She snorted and didn’t say nothing more. That was good, because I thought we were about to the limit of where me and Jenny could talk without getting in a fight, and if we really were driving all the way out of the city, I didn’t want to spend the time fighting with Jenny. Silence was better.

  They don’t close the city gates no more, along of how nobody’s dumb enough to attack with the Mirador standing up like a sore tooth. The Dogs don’t even bother people much unless they think they got a reason, and about the only reason they care for these days is smuggling. They didn’t bother us at all.

  We didn’t go far outside Mélusine, although I started to feel it, that place inside me where the obligation d’âme had hooked on. But we were barely past the end of the St. Grandin Causeway before the coach stopped.

  Jenny and I got out as Mrs. Fenris was coming down from the coachman’s seat. She said, like she was continuing some conversation, “The strongest places for necromancy are cemeteries, but they are also the most dangerous, and I will not practice my arts in the Boneprince. Second strongest are crossroads.” She waved an arm around.

  I recognized where we were. I’d been here before on business for Kolkhis. The Road of Chalcedony was starting to dwindle down into an ordinary sort of road on its way south to Verith and St. Millefleur and—I guess if you followed it far enough—down to the sea. This was where it crossed with the Gracile-Wraith road. From here, you could just barely see the lamplight at Chalcedony Gate, and so it was a good place to do stuff you didn’t want an audience for.

  “Get the box, Jenny,” Mrs. Fenris said. “Mr. Foxe, my best advice to you is to stay back a bit.”

  “I won’t get in your way,” I said.

  “Good.” Jenny came back with the box and a lantern. She gave Mrs. Fenris the box. Jenny lit the lantern and stood holding it while Mrs. Fenris went looking for the edges of the roads and paced off the space where they crossed. Mrs. Fenris didn’t put the box down until she’d figured out the exact center of the crossroads, and she spent a good five minutes aligning the box, although I couldn’t tell with what. I took a reading from the stars for my own satisfaction, but she sure wasn’t aiming for true north. I held to my promise and stood back. Truth is, I didn’t want to get near what she was doing.

  When she was satisfied, she opened the box. Luther Littleman’s skull gleamed in the lanternlight. Calmly, matter-of-factly, like she did it every day—and for all I know, she did—Mrs. Fenris pulled out a knife and cut an X across the base of her thumb. It wasn’t no big gash or nothing, just enough to drip a little blood into the box with Mr. Littleman. Then Mrs. Fenris said, “Luther Littleman. Speak to me.”

  What do you want?

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. Not that I hadn’t believed Mrs. Fenris was a necromancer and not that I hadn’t been expecting her to call up Luther Littleman’s spirit—but she did it so damn casually, the same way she’d told Jenny to get the box. I’d been expecting her at least to do stuff with chalk the way Felix did. But she didn’t seem to need to.

  “Cycles, Luther Littleman. Cycles in Vey Coruscant’s workings. The first indiction of the reign of Narcissus, the last indiction of the reign of Narcissus.” 20.1.7 was the indiction I’d killed Cornell Teverius, so you’ll understand if I twitched a little. And 20.1.1 . . . It took me a moment to place it, and when I did I twitched again, so it was good nobody was looking at me. 20.1.1 was the indiction Gloria Aestia had been burned for treason.

  The ghost said to Mrs. Fenris, I don’t remember. I am cold and tired. Let me rest.

  “You can remember if you try,” Mrs. Fenris said severely. “You were her servant. You witnessed her actions. You kept her house. What was she doing?”

  Why should I tell you? What will you give me?

  Carefully, Mrs. Fenris squeezed another drop of blood from her hand. This one fell on Luther Littleman’s skull, making a dark, wicked stain just over the left eye socket.

  Blood, said the ghost. I was beginning to be able to see it, a kind of misty lump just over the box. Blood is hot. Will you give me more?

  “Answer my questions.”

  What do you want to know?

  “The first indiction of the reign of Narcissus. What was Vey Coruscant doing?”

  Many things, said the ghost, and the eye sockets of its skull seemed almost sly. She was a busy woman, my master.

  “What magics did she work?”

  I wouldn’t know, the ghost whined. I was only her manservant. She did not tell me things.

  “Luther Littleman, do not lie to me. I know what you were and why she had you killed.”

  You are hard. I want to rest.

  Mrs. Fenris gave the ghost another drop of blood. Now I could see its outline, a nondescript sort of guy, the kind you’d pass on the street and not even notice.

  “I’ve seen the pattern. The first indiction, the last indiction, a fallow septad. Now we’re in the first indiction again. So tell me about her magics.”

  My master is dead.

  Mrs. Fenris made a huffing noise that was almost a laugh. “So are you, Luther Littleman. And you will tell me what I want to know.”

  First indiction, last indiction. The Rabbit and the Snake. The Snake came late at night. She was cold and beautiful and she clawed my face open when I tried to kiss her. The Rabbit came in the day, and he couldn’t sit still, he was so frightened.

  “What was your master doing with these people?”

 
; Plotting for power, of course. She wanted power, my master, more than love or riches. She wanted to rule the city, and she thought she could.

  “Through the Rabbit and the Snake?”

  And her own magic. She worked many great magics. First indiction, last indiction. And yet they came to nothing.

  “Why?”

  The ghost was clear enough that I could see him shrug. Who can say? The stars were against her, perhaps. And she could never control the living as she could the dead.

  “Who couldn’t she control?”

  The Golden Bitch, said the ghost, and all three of us—the living people, I mean—startled back.

  “Gloria Aestia?” Mrs. Fenris said in something that was nearly a squeak. “Your master was plotting with Gloria Aestia? ”

  The Rabbit came from the Bitch, the Bitch and her dog-pack, and not all the dogs died with the Bitch. First indiction, last indiction.

  “Who did the Snake come from?”

  Oh, the Snake didn’t come from, for all her airs. The Snake came to, and she came when called.

  “What did she do for your master?”

  She arranged things. She could make people appear and disappear.

  “Such as who?”

  Oh I name no names. First indiction, last indiction. People appeared and disappeared, in and out of the mouth of the Snake.

  I hate people, even dead ones, who go out of their way to show you that they know something and ain’t telling. Luther Littleman had clearly been a first-class prick when he was alive, and I could see why Vey Coruscant had liked him.

  Mrs. Fenris knelt there and thought for a while. The ghost’s eyes were fixed on her hand and the blood starting to clot there. Finally, she said, “What magic was she working, that she thought would bring her power?”

  Blood, said the ghost. She was seeking to turn the power of the Mirador from the bloodline of the Teverii. First the Golden Bitch and the Golden Whelp, and then the Other Child. Her magic could do much. But it could not do everything. Thus the Rabbit. And the Snake.