The Sisters Mederos

by Patrice Sarath

  “Was it dreadful?” Tesara asked.

  “Not at all. The girls are good girls.”

  “Rest, then. I’ll tell Mama and Papa you went straight to bed and not to disturb you. I’m going out tonight – I’ve been invited to another salon, and I don’t want them checking on us. We were damned lucky the other night.”

  Drat and blast. Yvienne struggled to sit up, the cloth falling into her lap. She peered in the dimness at her sister. She saw the dress hanging in the half-opened wardrobe, cleaned and pressed and ready to go.

  “Which House?” she asked.

  “Fleurenze.”

  Fleurenze. They were shopkeepers when House Mederos had its downfall. Alinesse would not have deigned to nod to Mrs Fleurenze in the street six years ago. They had no cause to be welcoming to the daughter of House Mederos. On the other hand, even though the Fleurenzes were too newly risen in status to draw the best families, another plan was forming. “Keep an eye on who attends. It’ll be good to know who the second-tier merchants are and how powerful they’re becoming.” It was entirely possible the Guild was becoming complacent. If enough rising Houses grew disgruntled at being thrown only the scraps of money, prestige, and power, it may be a rift House Mederos could exploit.

  “Agreed,” Tesara said. “Now, into your nightgown and get some sleep. You looked ready to fall over at the table tonight.”

  As wearied as Yvienne was, she was now too keyed up to sleep right away and the more she tried, the more she failed. She had to sleep now – she was going out again tonight after all. She couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. When she did manage to doze, her sleep was flitting and light, and her dreams half-waking.

  It was only when she woke with a start, and saw that it was full dark and Tesara and the dress were both gone, that she knew she had slept at all.

  It was time for the other Yvienne to make her move.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  One good thing about the Fleurenze ball, Tesara thought, was that there was hardly a chance that Guildmaster Trune or his cronies would attend. She stood in the darkness outside the colonnaded edifice the Fleurenzes called home. The mansion took up an entire city block along Torchier Row. The family must have bought up all the houses along the block when they made their money. The house stretched the entire length of the street, different facades all melded together, and all of them lit up with sweet-smelling camphene oil.

  It was not hard to identify the entrance – it took up the entire face of one townhouse. Torches and lamplight blazed out from the door, and hacks drew up and disgorged passengers, all in full voice, laughing and excited. Many a young person was already a few sheets to the wind, she noted; one young lady was extracted from a cab and carried up the stairs over the shoulder of a gentleman. The flood of people never stopped coming. Tesara was getting a bit chilled in her rose silk with only her shawl, when she saw the familiar silhouettes of Mirandine and Jone step out of a well-sprung coach. Even in the faint light she could make out the Saint Frey crest on the back. She bounded forward and caught up to them.

  “Hullo,” she said, and then faltered, because for an instant she wasn’t sure that she had accosted the right pair.

  “Good. You’re here,” Mirandine’s voice emanated from the tall, magnificent stranger. She wore a long white domino over her gown and a mask made of feathers and paste jewels, towering over her head. Jone was more simply attired in his gray coat and trousers, and his mask was to suit – a simple black scarf with eyeholes.

  “Quick, put on your mask.” Mirandine drew out the green mask and with deft fingers tied the ribbons in back. “Perfect. Follow me.”

  They paraded up to the front door. There was no one to greet them in a receiving line. Instead, the place was jammed with people. If the Fleurenzes liked a crowd, they got what they wanted. Men and women, even children, some masked, all merry, milled around, shouting and calling to each other. A dance band on a raised platform played rowdy music, and the dancing was to suit. Tesara was immediately pressed into Jone and Mirandine as they struggled to get through the throng. She felt her mask slipping and clutched it with alarm. She would have to find a quiet space and re-tie everything or she would be exposed to the world in five minutes.

  “Ermie!” Mirandine squealed. A man in a fashionable suit swam upstream through the crowd toward them. His black suit was of a fashionable cut, he had alarming whiskers over a round face and a thinning pate, though he was young. His mask hung around his neck like an extra cravat. He grabbed Mirandine and gave her a big smacking kiss on both cheeks, then grabbed her waist in a very forward way.

  “Mira! What are you doing here? You naughty girl! You must be punished, you bad girl you. Crashing old mam’s party.” Every word he spoke was exhaled on a cloud of spirits and tobacco, and another herb she could not identify.

  Tesara and Jone glanced at each other. Jone rolled his eyes behind his mask while Tesara’s misgivings deepened.

  “Ermie, darling, you don’t mean that. Look, I brought you a present.” She waved a hand at Jone. Ermie, however, fixated on Tesara. He wobbled and bowed over-elaborately, taking her hand though she had not offered it, and began planting kisses up her long, old-fashioned glove. Tesara yanked her hand back before he could start nibbling at the buttons.

  “Any friend of Mira’s, etc, etc,” he said, pronouncing it ect. “Let me introduce you to Mam.”

  He pulled Mirandine, who pulled Tesara, who pulled Jone, through the crowd. The din grew louder. Tesara threaded her way sideways, and soon gave up begging pardon for the toes stepped on, or the inadvertent elbow. When they finally made it through to the center of the ballroom, there was the Fleurenze clan. All of the Fleurenzes were round-faced, dark-haired, very loud, and very drunk. Tesara was surrounded by a jolly group of young people. One young man handed her a glass of very strong punch, a forthright young woman invited her to arm wrestle, and an undetermined personage wearing a long domino of purple silk and a black and purple mask, only stared at her and said not a word.

  “Mam!” Ermie hollered, as if he had a hope of being heard in the tumult. “Mam, you blasted creature!”

  “Ermie!” came a call from the depths, and they struck out again, leaving the outer rings of the family behind, weaving through the throng. Finally, breathless, Tesara clutching at her drooping mask after she freed her hand from Ermie’s determined grip, they fetched up at the feet of Mam, around whom the world revolved.

  Tesara hadn’t known what to expect. The woman, who had the same round face and red nose as her son, neither looked monstrous nor common, as Tesara’s upbringing had expected. She sat in a very ordinary chair, surrounded by empty space that she protected with a well-wielded stick and three snapping dogs, of the breed Tesara recognized as Quin dragon dogs.

  “Mam!” Ermie panted. “Mira is here.”

  “Madam Fleurenze,” Mira said. She stepped forward, hand outstretched. The dogs barked furiously and Mira deftly swept them aside with one slippered foot.

  Unexpectedly, Mrs Fleurenze laughed and reached up for Mirandine’s hand and gave it a hearty shake. “That’s right, just kick my dogs,” she said with apparently no rancor at all. “I do, often enough. They make a terrible clatter, and I can’t housebreak ’em at all. Don’t know why I bought them, but the man said they were all the thing. Want one?”

  “Not at all,” Mirandine said. “I can’t abide dogs. May I present my friends? Jone Saint Frey and Tesara Mederos.”

  Jone bowed correctly over Mrs Fleurenze’s hand. He knelt and held out his hand to one of the dogs. It growled suspiciously, but he stayed still, and soon the dog deigned to have his ears ruffled.

  “Making up to me, boy?” Mrs Fleurenze said.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am,” he said. “I find dogs like me.”

  She fixed her eye on Tesara, who curtseyed. “How do you do, Mrs Fleurenze?” she said politely.

  “Well enough. Don’t like quality, but you ain’t that, are you?”


  “Not for a very long time,” Tesara agreed. Mrs Fleurenze snorted a laugh.

  “Well, don’t think you’ll get any shine from us. Ermie will marry for the family, not a snoot.”

  That stung, Tesara thought, as well it was meant to. Even a family such as the Fleurenze’s would not like to be allied to House Mederos.

  “I have no designs on your son, Mrs Fleurenze,” Tesara said, but at that point Mrs Fleurenze had banged her stick on the floor, setting the dogs to barking anew. She began clamoring for someone else, and with that, the party withdrew, released from their audience.

  “Now we shall dance!” Ermie said. He grabbed them all and they plunged back into the crowd.

  I am going to kill Mirandine for this, Tesara thought.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The crowd that spilled out of the Fleurenze mansion was lively, drunk, young, and rowdy. Yvienne watched from across the street in the shadows. She could easily slip in among them. She was masked, after all, and though she didn’t wear finery, in a crowd that disordered she doubted anyone would notice. She could cut a few purses and be gone before anyone even noticed her. But Tesara was in there. If her sister saw her, even masked, she knew she might not go unrecognized. Instead, Yvienne turned toward the Maiden of Dawn public house a block away.

  She had seen the carriages disgorging passengers as she watched. They were young too, but of a quality she recognized. These revelers were her peers. She watched as many of them turned to look at the wild party across the street, and was too far away to hear their conversation, but in twos and threes, they all ventured inside the pub.

  The wealthy were slumming.

  Yvienne felt a surge of excitement, a bolt of lightning from her brain to her belly. Forget the Fleurenzes and their guests. Her prey was right here.

  She drew down her cap and pulled up her kerchief so only her eyes showed, and she moved in.

  The party was in full swing. The band played frenetically, adding to the din until Tesara couldn’t even detect anything resembling music – it was all discordant cacophony. She had lost Mirandine and Jone what felt like hours earlier, and was on the verge of walking out in disgust and going home when a familiar person caught her eye.

  “Mathilde?” Tesara said out loud. If it were her, the housemaid wore a simple dress and domino, and her mask covered only her eyes and nose. What Tesara recognized was the curve of her shapely mouth and her chin. That and her height bore a strong resemblance to the formidable housemaid.

  Tesara felt a twinge of discomfort. She didn’t want to be at a party with her housemaid. Even if the family no longer occupied the same station as they had once before, even if none of that mattered anymore, she felt uneasy about Mathilde knowing that much about the family. She already knows I go out, Tesara thought. I don’t want her to know I’m here. Mathilde would be obligated to tell her parents if they asked.

  The maybe-Mathilde scanned the crowd as if she were looking for someone. Tesara shrank back behind a large, ornate pillar, wishing she wore a domino over her pink gown, which Mathilde had brushed and pressed that very morning. Now she could see the woman completely, and she knew it was the housemaid. Mathilde turned to talk to someone, a stocky man in a laughably loud mask.

  A wild mask loomed at her, all glaring eyes and teeth. “Boo!” the young man screamed. Tesara jumped and shrieked. A flash of light blinded her, and when she could see again, blinking away the afterimage, the young man was still there, wobbling uncertainly. The residual tingling in Tesara’s fingers revealed what had happened. The boy’s prank had caused her to go off.

  “Are… are you all right?” she asked the boy. He just stared as if he had not heard her, and then pushed away. Tesara watched him weave through the press at an odd angle, bumping into revelers, then scanned for witnesses. Had Mathilde noticed? There was no sign of the housemaid. People were looking around, but she didn’t see or hear any general alarm.

  Right, she thought. Time to go. She would send a note to Mirandine and Jone explaining what had happened. She kept her hands demurely clasped, the better to control any other wayward releases, and began to make her way to the door.

  The party at the Maiden of Dawn was very exclusive and very private. From her perch on the wall overlooking the garden at the back of pub, Yvienne could hear the chatter of the young people in the garden, laughing and flirting, and abusing most abominably their counterparts at the Fleurenzes. She was nestled up against the side of the public house, under the eaves, and waited patiently, a dark figure in the shadows.

  “Can you imagine?” she heard one girl say in languid tones. “A masked ball? They’re just copying us. We had a masque last season, but at least we know how to behave. The constables must come soon. I am sure of it.”

  “That would be a good prank, to call for the constables!” one of the boys laughed. “Serve them right, annoying their betters. Fleurenze wanted to go into business with my House. Turned them down flat. Papa said they’re putting on airs. Next thing they’ll be wanting in the Guild. Upstarts need to be put in their place.”

  Yvienne could smell the tobacco, and a girl said with annoyance, “Must you? Mama will be furious if she smells smoke on my gown.”

  The squabbling continued. Yvienne slid down off the wall and found the gate. It was locked, but it was short work to find the key under the rock between the stone wall and the gate. She calculated her escape route. She knew she had to move fast. If the constables were to come to close down the Fleurenze romp, they would be all over the neighborhood. The last thing she needed was to run into a copper tonight.

  She stepped into the garden, and raised her pistol.

  Chapter Forty

  “Was that a pistol shot?” A girl near Tesara turned to her, puzzled. Tesara had heard it too, a sharp report discernable over the general din.

  “I think it was,” Tesara said. Their eyes met – the girl did not seem as drunk as the rest of the guests.

  “Constables,” the girl said with a knowing air. “They must be on their way. Well, I’m off.”

  Suiting action to words, the girl shrugged her way through the crowd.

  “Tesara!” She turned. It was Mirandine, laughing, and hanging on to Ermunde’s arm. “There you are! What a romp!” She was entirely disheveled, her hair a complete mess. Her mask hung from her hand, the magnificent feathers sadly bent and broken. Mirandine came up to Tesara. “I’ve had the best time. Ermie is so sweet. He’s so respectful. Such a gentleman.”

  She and Ermunde roared with laughter.

  “Mirandine, there was a gunshot. Someone said the constables are coming. We should go,” Tesara tried. Mirandine stopped laughing and tried to focus on her, then screamed with laughter again.

  “Constables! Another success!” Ermunde exclaimed. “Mam will be pleased.”

  “Do you know where Jone is?” Tesara tried again.

  “Oh, how sweet and touching, Tesara. Jone is a big boy. He’ll be all right. The constables can’t touch him.”

  “Not a hair on the head of the son of Saint Frey,” Ermunde agreed with solemnity. He then took shocking familiarities with Mirandine’s person, kissing her like a limpet, which she returned eagerly, and Tesara lost her patience. She stormed off, and Mirandine turned her attention just long enough to shout,

  “He’s upstairs! Go right up the grand staircase!”

  With the crowd all pouring in the other direction toward the exits, it took several minutes before Tesara achieved her objective – the staircase. It was easier to breathe here, and she stood on the first steps, looking down. The main salon of the great house was in wreckage. Smashed glass, spilled spirits, trampled masks and dominos – the floor was littered with the flotsam of a mad romp. She gave a considering glance at the upstairs. It would be rude to venture about the private areas of her host’s house, but if Jone were upstairs, then that’s where she would find him. She could imagine him quickly tired of the riot and finding a quiet place to wait out the party. She hurried up the
stairs, ripping off her mask to make it easier to see.

  The upstairs was unlit except for a few lamps here and there. Tesara grabbed one small lamp sitting on a table and carried it with her. Some of the rooms were occupied and she could hear muffled sounds. No doubt more of the same liberties occupying Mirandine and Ermunde were happening behind the doors. Tesara began to feel uneasy. If Jone were up here with a girl, it would embarrass all of them to be found. She hesitated, uncertain, then walked to the window at the end of the hall to look out.

  There was nothing but chaos outside the Fleurenze mansion. Constables, guests, a fire wagon, alarms and shouting. People were fighting and shoving. Mam – Mrs Fleurenze – was a foreshortened presence right up against the very tall Chief Constable, and she was shaking her stick at him while her three dogs barked and barked.

  Tesara didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “This is madness,” she muttered, and turned away. At that moment, another shot rang out. She startled, and everyone in the street screamed. The constables began shouting for order, and the crowd stampeded.

  A few doors opened behind her, and several people poked their heads out. “What’s going on?” a man demanded, tucking his shirt into his trousers.

  “The constables have come. Someone’s shooting. And all is chaos on the street,” Tesara reported.

  “Damme!” the man swore. He drew his head back in and said to whoever was in the room, “You’re on your own, Petunia. I can’t be seen in this mess.” Petunia, presumably, cursed at him with a vocabulary that would have embarrassed a sailor, and they began rowing vociferously.

  The sound of running footsteps caught Tesara’s attention. Someone came pelting up the stairs, stopped when he saw her, and then jinked down the other way. She got nothing more than an impression of a skinny boy in a mask, wearing a newsie cap, trousers, coat, and satchel before he had disappeared in the darkness down the hall to the back of the house.