‘Yes, allow me to show you out.’
When she returned to the room the tea was cold. Mazhd stepped out of the hidden alcove and began to clear the table.
‘You,’ she said to him. ‘Must stay away from him for the time being. But at least he thinks you’re less than competent now. He thinks you are my stooge in Huntingore’s arena. Don’t waste that, will you?’
Mazhd smiled. ‘I don’t think he’s the one, do you?’
‘Conspiring against the Empress? No. It threatens the city and he can’t do that, he doesn’t have it in him. But he knows the person who is. You must go do your duty by that lawyer now since her wishes coincide so neatly with our own.’ She watched him as he prepared to leave. ‘If your loyalties are tested, Mazhd, don’t make me regret all I’ve given you.’
He looked at her carefully. ‘Of course not.’
‘The city before everything,’ she said. ‘Everything.’
He nodded, and left.
TRALANE
Tralane sat at the workbench and watched Minna disassemble and reassemble the gun. Her own piece of the Flit’s engine hadn’t changed in the last forty minutes. She was mesmerised by the speed and accuracy of her daughter’s hands on the piece, as if she had worked on these objects for years. The expertise was in itself pleasing to watch, but the implications of it stretched into her worried mind.
‘Is there more of this kind of stuff up in the attics?’ Minna asked, so absorbed in her task that she didn’t bother looking up. Her fingers picked up and put down tools automatically.
‘I don’t really know,’ Tralane said. ‘But you’re welcome to go search. I only found this because… It was an accident. I just tripped over it.’ She waited nervously to see if Minna would catch her cover-up but Minna just kept on working.
‘Uh huh, well where was it?’
‘In the Long Gallery, among the older stuff. It’s very dusty in there. You’ll need a mask.’ Tralane sighed at the state of the house. Her daughters would inherit a crumbling heap and be lucky not to end up in a pile of rubble if she wasn’t careful. Maybe she should cultivate a builder… And then she looked at the time and the blood all drained to her feet. She swore and then Minna looked up, fully attentive.
‘Mom!’
‘I invited Mazhd for ikasen. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. I haven’t done ANYTHING.’ Tralane pushed the cylinder head aside and looked at her hands – an oily, black disaster. She rushed to the sink and began to scrub at them with a brush and the hard, blue soap.
‘That’s today?’
She glanced over and felt a twinge of sweetness as she saw the same distracted surprise on Minnabar’s face as she knew often covered hers. ‘Today. Right now. Special dinner. Do we even have food in the house? Did Best bake?’ She stared at the slick of grey foam on her fingers, wondering how she was going to get through this. Clothes. Baths. Table-laying. Cleaning the good dining room. What a farce.
She rinsed her hands. Black lines under her nails, grey on her palms. Ten minutes. It was hopeless. A wash of pre-shame flooded over her with the unpleasant warmth of unexpectedly wetting one’s pants. She stood with her hands in the sink and looked through the grimy window across the spires and roofs to the palace.
The ball.
Tomorrow. Dresses. Grandeur. Talking up your work for money. Everyone to impress. She had nothing to wear. Literally. Nothing. Too late to order it. Possibly not to hire it.
‘Minky,’ she said, still staring out the window, feeling the precious seconds wash past her with effortless force. ‘I need your help. I need a dress or a suit and shoes for tomorrow. You’re good at that kind of thing.’
‘Never mind tomorrow, what are you going to wear now? Not those rags? You look like you were just exhumed.’
Tralane found her vision refocusing on the glass panes in which she could just make out her own reflection. Exhumed was an understatement.
‘I think the moment has come to redefine ikasen politically and reclaim it for the working classes,’ she said. ‘Its flamboyant efforts and outmoded expectations belong to a bygone age of gentility. Nowadays we should really be much more honest and less like a shop window.’
‘Nice try. Go take a shower. I’ll find you something to put on.’ Minna hopped off her chair and yelled as she went, ‘Issa can delay him. She’s good at that.’
Tralane almost smiled and then thought about Isabeau – no, not a good idea. Mazhd was a tricky bastard and Issa said whatever was in her head. No. She ran after Minnabar as fast as she could.
Nine minutes later she made it to the kitchen. Isabeau was standing at the oddly immaculate stove, stirring a pot of stew, her finger in her mouth and a frown on her face.
She turned to Tralane and looked her over with a cool eye. The finger popped out of her mouth, ‘Not enough thyme. Or savoury. That hair can’t be deliberate?’
Tralane looked at her, at the stew. ‘Who’s that for?’ She pulled the combs out of her hastily pulled back hair and shoved them into the pocket of her trousers.
‘It’s for you,’ Isabeau said, adding minute pinches of herbs to the pot. ‘I knew you’d forget. Bestie made bread – that’s in the small oven so it looks like you made it. Dessert is in the pantry under the yellow cloth. If you eat it all I’ll be cross. I want some later. I put wine in the cooler. The only bad news is that you’ll have to eat in the kitchen. The dining room smells like mouse pee. I think they’re in the seats. Oh, and you’re wearing that shirt inside out.’
Tralane stared at her for a moment and then went to hug her. Isabeau was like a little rigid totem pole but she patted Tralane’s back.
‘I love you, thank you,’ Tralane said.
‘Yup,’ Isabeau said, smiling as the door bells sounded. ‘I’m going out now. See you later.’
‘Later, smelligator,’ Minna murmured, passing Isabeau in the doorway. Issa did not respond.
Minna grinned as Tralane wrestled the shirt around. ‘I’ll get that shall I? Oh no, wait. Issa has him.’
They both froze to listen, Tralane fumbling buttons, eyes wide, as if this helped her to hear better. From along the halls they heard Isabeau’s cool cordial greeting and then Mazhd’s black velvet voice replying. Issa said not to trip on the carpet hole. Mazhd assured her he wouldn’t. Tralane snatched her hand out of her waistband at the last moment, hoping she had tucked all the way around.
Issa appeared, sliding sideways with an offhand gesture that suggested a hint of discomfort. It distracted Tralane so that as Isabeau said, ‘Your guest.’ Tralane was looking at her with some amazement and didn’t alter her expression as she turned it automatically to the man following her through the door.
Mazhd as a guest looked different to Mazhd the spying invader, she thought. What she dismissed before as of no consequence – because all she had felt was fear and resentment of what he represented – now she saw with surprise was beauty. It wasn’t simply some physical happenstance collection of features that fitted that word but a combination of natural looks that had been taken care of a little, not too much, clothing that was elegant and perfect, but not too much – everything about him from his hair to his shoes revealed an intelligence at work that had seen and understood her and kept her in mind as it created this image. He was less than the supremely groomed man who had been here before, full of his role. He was simply there, himself, slightly unshaven, loose haired, unadorned. She saw it only because Isabeau had thrown her out of her own awkward effort to become The Woman That Invited Mazhd with all the implications of that onerous task, and she was just looking at a man in her kitchen offering himself for her approval.
She found that her jaw was slightly open and there was an expression on her face she didn’t recognise but it made him smile and behind his shoulder it made Minna stare at her with widening eyes. Mazhd was holding a gift-wrapped box out to her. She found herself walking forward, smiling. She took the box – surprisingly heavy – and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, ‘Thank you so m
uch.’ She glanced at her daughters, ‘You know my girls, I think – Minnabar, and Isabeau?’
‘We have met,’ he said, smiling but he turned and greeted them again, hesitating in order to offer them the opportunity to decide what meeting it would be. Minnabar smiled, grabbed his forearm and kissed his cheek. Isabeau did the same but with far greater detachment. Her eyes slid their gaze away at the last moment and Tralane’s heart hitched with that same momentary pause of curiosity. Something…
The sisters left on their cue, silently, and then she was alone with Mazhd. She gestured at the table and chairs. ‘Please do sit down.’
The table was bare wood. The chairs were hard, plain. The kitchen was warm though, and thanks to Issa’s presence, tidy. Mazhd did not seem to look at any of it, only at her. He sat as indicated and put his arms on the table, leaning there comfortably.
Tralane looked down at the gift in its sash of formal coloured papers, ‘May I?’
‘Please,’ he said.
His gaze followed her hands. She tried to prise the glued edges carefully but shredded the hand-dyed softness of the weave nearly instantly and then ripped it off as if she’d meant to do that all along. A simple box opened to reveal a satin padded lining with a bulky, brass and silver metal object cushioned inside it. It had been polished up to shine. She picked it out and turned it about, spirits rising as she recognised bits, pieces, then realised its nature. ‘A solar collector. How… where did you get this?’ She’d seen them in books, heard of them, never seen one for real. They were extremely rare and, as with all the others that had been painstakingly illustrated in the scrolls, always found broken.
‘From a curiosities trader,’ he said, still watching her handle it as her fingers prised and turned various small protruding clockworks.
She chewed on her lower lip as she had a quick peek at the casing. When recovery crews who had no aptitude took salvage they often dismantled objects incorrectly. All the workings were inside the egg-shaped casing that lay beneath the folded silver petals, of which two were whole though the rest were made lacework with holes and tears. Parts of whatever it had been attached to crusted this, making it impossible to open on the spot and she looked around quickly for her small screwdriver set before realising she was being rude. Her heart was racing with the thrill of it and she made herself put it back in the opened box, making it their centrepiece. ‘Do you know what it is?’
He shook his head. ‘I assumed by the pricetag it must have some value.’
‘It’s a device for taking the energy from sunlight and making it into aetheric charge that can be used or stored… the storage part is missing but I think I have one that could fit it.’ She lost her thoughts, looking at the connectors and imagining how she would wire things together.
‘Does it have a name?’
‘Sunflower,’ she said, snapping out of it and smiling. She opened up one petal, draping the flimsy foil over her hand to show it off. ‘They also say they had ones that could work from moonslight. They’re extremely rare. Kamatek – the technology of the first makers,’ she said, too used to talking to Bestie and downgrading her explanations as fast as she could on the fly.
‘So… not Sircene?’
‘No, not particularly, all the aetheric power devices are universally appreciated by any engineering line mage.’
‘I thought the power all came by… well, I… magic,’ he said, frowning so that she smiled, seeing that expression that she wore when forced to think of something she had no clue about.
‘Glimshard power is all Kamatek, but not this kind. We don’t actually understand how it works to be honest. Only how the devices that manage it operate. So, yes. Magic.’ She sighed. ‘One of the things we are always hoping to find is a text or a technicum that would explain these things. I understand from reports that there may be some of this at that dig. The one that caused the war.’ She looked at him, wondering if she had said too much. ‘It’s a very lovely gift. Thank you.’ It was significant and when she met his gaze she saw they both knew it and were calculating how significant it might be. ‘Why did you ask me here tonight?’ he said. ‘I know for the dinner but… Was there another reason?’
‘I thought spies were meant to be subtle,’ she said, feeling the sudden rise of all her problems towards the surface. She’d been an idiot to think that she had the skill to socially charm anyone. He hadn’t even been here five minutes.
‘I’m not here to spy on you,’ he said, smiling softly. He had perfect teeth. Abruptly she realised how many far better woman had surely been here before her. This had been a terrible idea.
‘But you thought I must be wanting information from you.’ She turned and went to check the stew, copying Issa’s tasting test in order to buy time.
‘Everyone does, so don’t feel badly about it.’
‘I don’t. I mean feel bad. Or… I suppose the information thing is inevitable. Why did you say yes?’ She turned with her finger in her mouth still from tasting the gravy, wondering if she should add salt or not.
He stared at her and she knew why they said Steppe people had inscrutable eyes. His expression was unreadable, like a cat intent on something. Then he gave that ready smile again, warmer now. ‘I wanted to. For myself. In case it really was dinner and not fishing.’
‘What if it’s both fishing and dinner?’ She took her finger out slowly, wondering what the hell she was playing at, but his playfulness invited the same in return and suddenly she found she was a sucker for it.
‘At least I get dinner,’ he said, shrugging lightly, smile in place.
Tralane thought she detected a hint of weariness in his look, as if he was preparing for a minor blow. She picked up the salt pot and put it on the table instead, before opening the drawer and locating sufficiently clean utensils to set out. ‘Yes. You will get that.’
‘That olive colour really suits you. With the amber necklace. It’s very lovely,’ he said.
Compliments. She fumbled around in her social reticule. One said thank you and acted normally. She glanced up, trying to place the cutlery properly, ‘Thank you. You…’ Damn, now she had moved to repay it with another compliment and had no idea what was appropriate. She looked at him. ‘You have very nice teeth.’ He chuckled at her awkwardness as she froze for a moment, mortified. ‘Thank you.’
She leant on the table, glanced down at her blouse, realised how low it was, sighed gently and looked at him. ‘I’m not good at this. My daughter made the dinner. My student made the bread. Oh gods the bread!’ She turned and grabbed for a cloth, went to open the small oven and discovered she was in time. It had not burned or dried to a rock, mercifully. She yanked the tin out, pleased her fingers were toughened from years of metalwork so the heat didn’t really burn her. It was agonisingly hot even so. With a curse she dropped it on the hob and then with a few prods and shakes managed to get it out and on to a rack with minimal loss of crust. She put the cloth down, sighed. Wondered if he was already heading for the door.
He looked at her with a gentle smile.
‘So, like I said. Not good.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Mazhd said and grinned.
Shit, she thought. He actually likes me. For some reason this hadn’t figured in her plans. She’d felt at the time that it would be a good idea to cultivate him but that was a fantasy in which she possessed all the acumen he actually had instead. ‘I guess we can’t help our employers,’ she said, finally realising that she was missing wine at this point. ‘Do you have a preference for wine?’
‘Expensive wine,’ he said. ‘Soldiers’ beer. Cognac only if the Empress drinks it.’
‘She doesn’t drink it here,’ Tralane informed him and went into the pantry to the cold cupboard to find one she liked. White, sour, with a sharp mineral bite, yes, probably anathema to the stew, she really had no idea. At least the speed of her uncorking and serving it was suitably impressive. ‘To an interesting evening.’ She offered a toast to him.
‘It’s a
lready that.’ He raised his glass and took a mouthful.
She was pleased. His hair hung across his face for a moment in curved blades as he put the glass down, hand on the stem and contemplated something. She wondered if she was foolish, if he would tell anyone anything for any money. She had no idea how infomancy worked, only what she had heard from others; they knew each other’s minds, could rifle them like looking through drawers in someone else’s house. Even against his will he could betray her. But how, to whom? Why?
‘Did you see the Karoo?’
He looked up, tilting his head so the blades slid easily aside, became a waterfall. ‘Not close up. But I hear he’s really very much like one of us, just looks superficially like an animal. I’d not bet on that being true though.’
Tralane nodded, her mind’s eye filled for a second by orange and blue tiger stripes. ‘You were Night’s student. Was she… very different? I only met her twice, in passing.’
‘She’s different, but not so much in form to look at if that’s what you mean. It’s all inside, with her.’ He rubbed his forearm with the other hand in a quick brushing gesture that could have been a stroke or wiping something off and then smiled and composed his hands again.
‘Karoo are such a mystery,’ Tralane said, to cover for him, and turned to dish out the food and cut the bread. Who said things like that anyway? Her own self-consciousness and the sensation of stepping on eggshells was driving her crazy. She longed to be reboring the old engine cylinder and glanced at the Sunflower with envy. You knew where you were with objects. She arranged the food and sat down.
‘Not as much as people like to think, but they are better left alone,’ he said, waiting for her to begin eating.
Tralane tore up her bread. ‘I’m in the shit, Mazhd, but you know that. You probably know more about it than I do. As you can see, the house is falling to bits. I don’t have anything to offer you but difficulties. But my friend has already been sent to this digsite and that leaves nobody in the city with any power to look after my girls and my household when they send me. I need someone to watch my back but I’ve got nothing to offer in return right now except goodwill. That’s why you’re here.’ She looked up, any effort at pleasant formal socialising gone. Guilt bit her but this was better. For reasons she didn’t understand she trusted him. All it came down to in the end was that.
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