"We're going to the Crimson Lady to have a talk with Silkie."
"I'd talk to Ellie Remus also. Ever since Cullen died, she's had a lot of money to spend."
Eideard gave Kynyr an 'I told you so' glance. Kynyr shrugged at him.
Ramsey sauntered over and claimed his glass of whiskey. "If we don't come back from the Crimson Lady, let Claw know about it."
Amos turned from Ramsey to Kynyr. "I don't like getting involved with the Clan. I'm a city wolf; you know how most of the clan regards us."
Kynyr scratched at his sideburns, looked away, and then back. "Amos, you're involved just because we always stay here. If we don't come back and you don't send word, Claw will have fifty soldiers pounding on your door even if brings the Sharani garrison down on him."
"Sounds like the old bastard. Okay, I'll do it."
"Anything else you want to tell us?"
"Nah. Just be careful."
"We will, Amos. Don't you worry about that."
* * * *
The Crimson Lady Brothel stood on Corbie Way, six blocks south of Main Street. The elegant old mansion, with its fluted columns and wide portico, had been built by the sa'necari family that established the town ten centuries ago to trade with and keep an eye upon the eastern lycan clans, such as Red Wolf and Silverpaw. The Sharani had wiped out the family twenty years ago, at which point the manor had been abandoned until Silkie bought it over a decade past.
Corby Way was a jewel in a dark hole. Any thing and everything illicit could be found on the streets around it: from prostitution to gambling to street drugs and opium dens. However, Corbie Way belonged to Silkie Faggini and she reigned over it like a queen or at least, that was what Kynyr had always been told. He doubted that was true any longer, suspecting that Silkie had become a bird in a gilded cage as soon as the sa'necari moved into the neighborhood.
The Crimson Lady had thirty prostitutes in residence at all times, more or less since there was always some turnover, and new girls frequently showed up. A mon had to go as far south as Skeleton Creek or west as far as Dragonton and Torment Lake to find a larger whorehouse. Although most people avoided discussing it, the Crimson Lady was the largest employer in Hell's Widow with a restaurant and a well-stocked bar on the premises.
The lycans had no outright nudity taboos, only situational ones. When they ran as wolves, the shift back to human or hybrid forms required a tolerance for the naked human form long enough to grab a robe or activate a charm of changing that produced the illusion of clothing. None of them paraded nude down the streets of their villages and towns.
No matter how often Kynyr had come to the Crimson Lady during the four years he had lived at Wolffgard, the provocative attire of the girls who earned their living on their backs caused his body to react in ways that the casual wolfskin nudity of his people did not. His bone hardened the moment he walked into the foyer with Finn, Ramsey, and Eideard at his back.
The greeters, two of the working girls, rose from a plush sofa wearing the sheerest of linen fabric through which the dark circles of their nipples could be seen and the thatch on their loins. The thin fabric served only to heighten the sense of titillating obscenity.
Cullen had once claimed that he had done one of them right there in the foyer with people passing around them. Cullen Blackwood had been a bone-happy little bastard, sticking it into every female that he could coax into opening her legs to him, talking incessantly about whores and horses as if those were the only things of importance that existed in the world. He had also been a staunch friend who had backed Kynyr in several confrontations. Standing there, in the foyer of Cullen's favorite brothel, Kynyr found that he could not stop thinking about him.
"Kynyr Maguire!" One of the greeters strutted up to him, tilting her breasts in a manner that demanded to be squeezed. "Don't you remember me? Ellie? Ellie Remus."
Ellie . His stomach clenched and he lost his arousal. She had been Cullen's favorite. Kynyr had bedded her several times back when he still came regularly to the Crimson Lady. Her hair, as pale as fresh cream, hung loose to her waist. Kynyr stood five foot eleven, and Ellie's head came to the tip of his nose.
He stiffened as she brushed against him. "Cullen wanted to marry you."
The lycan whore flinched away from him. "Cullen? I haven't seen him in months."
"He's dead."
All the color fled from Ellie's face and she seemed to fold in on herself as she withdrew toward the hallway leading to the Main Hall, then broke, and ran. Kynyr watched her go, seeing signs of guilt in her excessive reaction. He wondered if Eideard's guess concerning Ellie's involvement could be right. There was no way that she could not have known that Cullen was dead. According to Amos, the entire lycan community of Hell's Widow had been talking of little else for over a month.
Erotic tapestries and paintings dominated the walls of the foyer to the Crimson Lady. A huge desk of polished dark wood stood guard at the far end with a matchstick of a clerk sitting there with an appointment book open in front of him. A stack of other books rose like multicolored soldiers in a long, low wooden box to his left hand.
A long padded bench lay to the left hand of the desk with two young boys who worked as runners sitting there. Kynyr glanced at them as he strode up to the desk.
"I want to talk to Silkie."
"She's not taking customers." The clerk, who called himself Flavio Ricci, frowned at Kynyr.
"I'm not a customer. You go tell her Kynyr Maguire is here."
"I'm not supposed to"
"Either you tell her, or my friends and I go looking for her."
"Guardsmon?" Flavio's eyes went to the sword riding at Kynyr's shoulder.
Kynyr could see where matters were headed. He decided to keep things as open and above board as seemed safe, so as not to be misunderstood. If the clerk wished to play push and shove games, then it seemed best to bring Claw's influence into play. "We're on a clan matter."
"Something important?"
"Rather."
A shrewd look entered Flavio's eyes. "Wouldn't have to do with the murder everyone has been talking about for months? Ever since that visiting priest found the body."
"Maybe."
Flavio gestured at one of the boys, who sprang from his seat in answer. The clerk whispered in his ear, and sent him running. "Have a seat in the Main Hall. I'll have Silkie's answer in a moment."
Kynyr and his companions headed through the doorway to their right.
Flavio took a sheet of paper from the drawer, dipped his pen in the ink well, and scribbled a quick note. He blew on it to dry the ink, folded it three times, and waved it at the remaining boy. "Take this to Master Traxton at the Green Sheaf."
The boy put the note in his pouch and ran out.
* * * *
The office that the boy showed Kynyr to had a heavy door designed as much for defense as style, and Kynyr guessed it would take a lycan in hybrid form several whacks with a great axe to even begin to break it down. The boy opened the door, gestured for Kynyr to enter, and then closed it again when Kynyr passed.
The mon behind the desk looked to be in her early forties, Kynyr decided, although he sometimes found it difficult to judge the age of humans whose lifespans were so much shorter than lycans. Her coppery skin and black hair marked her as Waejontori and the aristocratic angles of her face retained the traces of a fading beauty. She wore her make-up tastefully done, rather than blatant like the other prostitutes; and the tight bodice of her dress thrust her ample breasts into a youthful illusion with the edge of the upper curve showing at the neck.
Silkie rose to greet Kynyr, extending her hand.
The folds of her skirt fell askew across the slight puffiness of her belly that seemed contradictory on her slender frame. Something about it niggled at Kynyr as he lifted Silkie's hand to his lips, and kissed it.
"I've never seen such manners from a lycan." Silkie gestured at a chair. "Did you come here about Cullen or Cooley?"
Kynyr settled i
nto a chair. "Both."
"How is my son?" She flicked back a loose strand of hair. "I hated giving him up but if he'd remained with me" Silkie heaved a sigh. "They would've killed him."
"I told him that. He was feeling abandoned."
Kynyr assessed Silkie for a moment. She could not have been young when she had Cooley. Her looks had held up well. Her puffy stomach drew his gaze again and, having grown up in a female dominated household, Kynyr realized what he was seeing: Silkie was pregnant and early enough along that most would have failed to notice it.
"Tell him I love him. That I did it because I love him."
"I have. He's got Cullen written all over him."
"I know. Has anyone noticed?"
Kynyr shook his head, his eyes narrowing as a guarded edge entered his voice. "Not yet. So you're a Waejonan."
Silkie closed her eyes and ran a hand over her face. Her shoulders drooped. "I'm human. Do you know what the sa'necari-born do when they produce a freak like me?"
"I know very little about your people, beyond what they do to mine."
"My people? They're not my people. I ran away. I whored for my bread from the time I was twelve. I tell people I was fourteen, but that's a lie. To save face. Since you don't know, I'll tell you what they do with the human children that are born to them. They sacrifice them."
Kynyr's insides tightened. "Mortgiefan?"
"No. For the girl children it is called 'marrying Bellocar.' They dress her as if for a wedding. A divinator dressed as the god has sex with her. Then he puts a blade through her heart, opens her belly, and reads her entrails for omens. I'd rather be a whore than dead."
"I'd have to agree with that."
"I expected you sooner. Cullen's been dead for months."
"Someone shoved a blade in me."
"Oh, gods." Silkie tilted her head back and to the side, sucking in deep breaths in an effort to steady herself.
"Who killed him?"
Her eyes went distant, troubled, as she returned her gaze to Kynyr. "I loved Cullen. I never told him so, but I did. Otherwise I would never have borne Cooley. I've aborted before taken tansy. I wanted Cooley."
"Who killed his father?"
"Please be patient with me. I've had no one to talk to since that day. I'm certain they have spies in the Crimson Lady. I don't know who they are, but I know they're here."
"Okay." Kynyr licked his lips, crossed his arms, and settled back in his chair. "Tell it."
"One of them came and tried to buy the Crimson Lady. I refused. I didn't know he was sa'necari. Usually I can spot them, but this one I couldn't. He blended in like a viper on a branch. Some how, he subverted one of my girls and she betrayed Cullen drugged him. He never had a chance."
"Shit." Kynyr sat forward in the chair, all his instincts rising to attention. "It was Ellie, wasn't it?"
"It was Ellie. She seemed genuinely shaken when we were forced to watch them kill Cullen. For a time, I thought she was as much as victim as I was. Since then, I've changed my mind about her. I think she was horrified not because it was Cullen but because she had never seen anyone tortured before."
"And you have?"
"Yes."
Silkie pulled a drawer out and laid it on the desk, and then she bent around and felt in the vacant shelf. A moment later, the madam produced an ornately carved box which she laid on the desk and returned the drawer to the shelf. A tap on the lid and a word of command opened it.
Kynyr gave a low whistle. "Mage locked."
"You know about these things?"
"My Gram's a mage."
"A lycan mage?"
"Yeah."
Silkie favored him with a brittle smile. "How rare. Are you?"
"No." Kynyr shook his head. "None of us inherited the gift. She's got twenty-six grandchildren and none of us have it."
"But you grew up around magic. I sense it on you."
"More or less." Kynyr caught himself before his hand could go to the amulet he wore against his skin. "Go on about Cullen."
"First you must see what's in the box. Not everything. Just one or two." Silkie took out an ivory round hanging from a long golden chain. "You know what this is?"
"Can I touch it?"
Silkie extended it to him.
Kynyr took the ivory, closed his fingers over it, and let his eyes go heavy-lidded. He sensed the energy in the stone. It left a metallic taste on his tongue and an itch in the back of his throat. "Modified memory stone. Gram calls them truth stones."
"Very good. I used this on Ellie one night while she slept. There are no coercions, no triggers, no sways, no arcane influences in her mind. She's clean. She betrayed Cullen for money and gifts."
"Shit. Shit. Shit."
A smile that contained a wealth of sorrow spread across Silkie's face. "Cullen used to say it that way. Always three times."
"I guess that's where I picked it up."
"They broke Cullen's arms and legs crushed his fingers and toes nailed him into a chair" Silkie's smile tightened into a grimace as she rushed through the description to get it over with. "They shoved a silver blade into his belly, gave it a twist, and then locked us in with Cullen to watch him die."
"Did he suffer long?" Kynyr repressed a shiver at the thought of a belly wound. He doubted that even his Gram's gifts could mend one.
"Four days. It wasn't the belly wound that killed him. A mon in a serpent mask put a blade through his heart four days after they locked us in with him. They caught a second courier one who was more forthcoming than Cullen had been."
"The Butchering Serpent?"
"Yes. What's more I'm pregnant."
"Cullen?"
"The Serpent. He manipulated my body somehow." Tears burst from Silkie's eyes. "He filled" Silkie made a choking sound, mastered herself, and forced the next words out. "Filled my belly the same day he murdered the only mon I ever truly loved. Cullen wasn't even cold yet. The Serpent took me on the floor beside his dead body, triggered my ovaries and oh gahds."
Kynyr's brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed, and he glanced away, unable for a moment to look how the toughness he had always associated with Silkie seemed to have been leeched out of her. "You could lose it."
"They'd kill me if I did. They check me every week make certain that monster's abomination is growing. I'm at the edge of the change a lot of women die trying to birth one at my age."
"Who are they?"
"I've only seen one of their faces. They were masked. I don't know where they took me."
"Who is he?"
"If I tell you his name and you go after him, they'll know I told you. They'll kill me. Or worse."
"If you don't tell me his name now, I'll come back. And I'll keep coming back until you do."
"Get me out of here. Get me out of Hell's Widow and I'll tell you his name. I'm watched constantly. I can't seem to go anywhere that he doesn't know about it. He flaunts his knowledge to frighten me."
"I might know a way to get you out, but it's risky. I'll be back in three or four weeks. That's the usual pattern for Claw sending me here on errands."
"I'll be waiting."
CHAPTER SIX
BAD NEWS
Pandeena dismounted from her horse, a blunt faced yellow dun of sturdy Silverpaw breeding. She had a pack animal tied to a rope that connected it to her saddle, as did her companion, Caimbeul. They walked together toward the stout wooden bridge.
Seven lycan guards in gigantic wolf form emerged from the thick stand of fragrant white pine and cedars three spear lengths beyond the bridge where a heavy barrier of brush and briars offered them concealment.
Odhran, a slender lycan in his hybrid form, accompanied them, wearing a loose robe over trousers.
"Welcome back, Pandeena," Odhran said. "We've missed our priest."
"I've brought you a lawgiver, as I promised," she replied, thumbing at Caimbeul.
Odhran eyed the grizzled lycan walking beside her. "Who is he?"
A large smile of anticipation
spread across Pandeena's features. "Caimbeul of Running Horse. He has come to serve Clan Red Wolf in their time of need."
All seven of the wolves changed to myn to greet Caimbeul as Odhran stared open-mouthed at the newcomer. He recovered quickly and rushed to greet the legendary lawgiver. "I'm honored to meet you. Honored."
Caimbeul gripped Odhran's hand and sniffed his fingers. "You'll do."
Odhran returned the gesture, and then glanced at Pandeena to explain what the lawgiver meant by that, but Pandeena just shrugged.
"Let's go see the chieftain, Caimbeul," Pandeena said. "You'll need to introduce yourself and establish your presence."
"Of course," Caimbeul responded. "I've not seen young Claw in decades."
Several of the bridge guards glanced away and repressed chuckles that emerged instead as snickers.
"Well, he's not young any more." Pandeena cast a disapproving eye in the direction of the guards and the snickering subsided.
Caimbeul shrugged. "None of us are."
Odhran goggled at the easy way their young priest handled the legend walking at her side.
They approached the tremendous manor house; three stories high and built of blue-veined yellow stone. Elaborate gardens surrounded the back and east side. A stand of oak thickets started across a cobblestoned walk from the gardens and spread across the road with a mixture of elms and hawthorn copses. A large, smooth boulder rested placidly beneath a spreading elm close to where the thickets began. High, dense hawthorn hedges enclosed the rear and easternmost side of the gardens with short, carefully manicured hedges dividing the rest into sections interrupted by ivy-covered arbors.
A large barn and stables swept out to the west side, with pasturage behind it divided by a combination of tall split rail fences and hawthorn hedgerows that rose from stone reinforced embankments. The simple practicality of water troughs and hitching posts in the courtyard contrasted sharply with elegance behind it.
Janrae Frank - [Lycan Blood 02] - Fireborn Law Page 8
