Living With Ghosts

by Kari Sperring

  “I don’t want . . .” he began.

  She shook her head at him. “Thiercelin duLaurier of Sannazar and the Far Blays has been seen looking for you. Has he found you?” She leaned toward him, and her hair brushed his face.

  “It wasn’t important,” Gracielis said. He was trembling.

  “You have seen him, then. What did he want?” She leaned even closer, sky-blue eyes looking straight into his.

  “It was nothing. A mistake.”

  She kissed him. He groaned, resentful, as his arms slid round her. Her hands explored him, unbuttoning his doublet. He pulled free and buried his face in her hair. She pushed the doublet aside and began to undo his shirt. “You’re sure of that?”

  He closed his eyes, inhaling her perfume. Her skin was smooth beneath his touch. She finished with his shirt and moved onto his breeches. Hands clenching, he said,

  “I’m sure.”

  She pushed him away. “Don’t waste my time. What did he want?”

  He rubbed a hand across his face. “Nothing useful. Truly.”

  “What did he want?”

  Thiercelin’s face, curiously bereft . . . An old memory of cold and gunshot and blood. An older one, from the days before his exile, when she had loved him. Her hands caressed his chest, gentle, tormenting. “Nothing I could give him.” He bit down on his lip, hard. Her hands strayed lower and he gasped in unwilling pleasure. “A ghostseer. He wanted a ghostseer.” Shame was a dark flood within him. Thiercelin’s image eddied and faded.

  Quenfrida took his face in her hands. Fighting her perfume, her presence, he said, “I can do nothing. You know that.”

  “Bonds may be loosened for certain purposes.”

  “I can’t.” His breathing was quick and shallow, his skin slick with sweat. “It’s a private matter to him.”

  “I’m not asking you to hurt him.” She recommenced her caresses. “I’m only asking you to do what you’re trained to do. What you’ve vowed to do. Help him. Renew your acquaintance with his wife. Serve Tarnaroq.” She pushed him back against the thin pillows, curled herself against him. His hands somehow found their way to the lacing on her shift.

  She was pliant, making no resistance. He let himself be drawn closer, then kissed her as though it could hurt. She smiled as she pulled free. “Well?” Her tone suggested that all things were possible. Her hands reinforced the suggestion.

  He shivered. Her perfume was a cloud around him. “Go to him,” she said, “Go, and tell him you’ve changed your mind. Help him a little.”

  “Why?” Her arms twined about him. He was forgetting to breathe.

  Her smile became languid. “We’ll see.” Her hands ceased teasing and grew urgent. He rolled over, trapping them.

  There was no choice. Nevertheless, “I hate you,” he said, as he succumbed to her.

  She spoke the word that caused the candle to go out, and then, “I know.”

  He woke alone. His clothing had been folded and placed on the chest. The memory of Quenfrida’s perfume clung to his skin and hair. The lieutenant’s ghost watched him from the end of the bed. Rising, Gracielis washed and dressed mechanically. The water in the jug was warm and herb-scented. The small wall-mounted mirror showed clear eyes, fresh skin. Recollections of pleasure still shivered through his veins. He felt wonderful.

  He hated himself.

  Quenfrida had left a small purse atop the pile of his clothing. His pride wanted desperately to leave it. He owed his landlord a half-month’s rent. He had to eat, to clothe himself, to buy the necessities of his life. He counted the coins out onto the chest, took enough for his immediate needs. The remainder he left lying, whore’s price, on the rumpled bed.

  He was alone in the house. He shut the main door behind him and made his way out into the street. It was perhaps an hour after dawn. The rain had stopped some time in the night, though the air was still damp. A faint mist, child of the river, hung over Merafi, deepest in the harbor quarter and the old city island, light as a veil over the aristocratic houses on the high eastern edge.

  The cobbled streets were already full. Shop wares obstructed the dry places beneath the houses, and carts made a chaos of the wider thoroughfares. Dodging across the gallows-square, he took a sharp side turn under the Farriers’ Guildhall and emerged from the concealed passageway, the traboule opposite the Dancing Bridge. From there, he climbed the lesser stairs to the side of the Island Temple and paid the two sous to use the Priests’ Bridge over the river’s northern arm. On the opposite bank, he could see the thick walls and low towers of the Old Palace. The toll keeper smiled at him knowingly. “You’re early. Client lost interest, Gracieux?”

  Gracielis shrugged, graceful as his street name. “She’s exhausted.”

  The toll keeper laughed. “Well, your lies are pretty enough, anyway.”

  The lieutenant’s ghost grinned in sour agreement. Gracielis bowed and passed on over the bridge and out into the wider streets of northwest Merafi. Day came later here, amidst the half-timbered houses of this residential quarter. It was only on the quayside that there was much activity. Walking upriver toward the Gran’ Théâtre, his pace slowed somewhat. Almost, he frowned.

  A few of his fellow professionals were still working along Silk Street. As he crossed, one of them hailed him, waving her yellow scarf. He smiled at her on reflex and bowed without halting. The lieutenant’s ghost leered. She hesitated, then raised her voice and called after him. “Gracieux!”

  He stopped and looked back. “Sylvine?” She was young, but her figure tended to the plump. She panted a little as she caught up with him. She looked faintly harassed. Hovering, the ghost leaned toward her, face unkind. “Is something wrong?”

  It seemed unlikely. His fellow professionals did not turn to him in need. His reputation for polite disinterest discouraged this. And then, he was not native. He considered her. She returned his gaze with some irritation. She said, “It’s too sticky for running. Why didn’t you wait?”

  “Forgive me. I’m remiss.”

  “Evidently.” She did not sound mollified. He sighed, and looked away with a pretty air of contrition. She added, “Oh, don’t play off on me. I know how much you mean it. You’re in trouble.”

  He looked up. “What?”

  “There’s someone looking for you.”

  He relaxed. “Indeed. Thiercelin of Sannazar and the Far Blays. I met him yesterday.”

  “Oh.” She pouted, put out.

  “But it’s good of you to tell me.”

  “I suppose.”

  He bowed to her and began to walk away. He had barely taken two steps before she ran after him and shoved him, hard, against the wall. From a window above, someone emptied the contents of a chamber pot into the street below.

  Gracielis swallowed. Then he said, “Thank you.”

  “Wouldn’t want to to spoil that finery, would we?”

  He kissed her fingers, and she pulled her hand away. She added, “You owe me. See you remember it.”

  He said, “I will.” Her only reply was a shrug. He bowed a second time and turned. His lodgings lay a few streets away, across the Chandlers’ Square and into the merchants’ quarter. As he reached the corner of Silk Street, Sylvine started to wave, thought better of it. The lieutenant’s ghost made a valedictory, obscene gesture in her direction.

  Gracielis shook his head at it. “No manners,” he said, gentle, reproving. It sneered.

  Not all women were Quenfrida. Perhaps.

  Across the city, the mist was starting to lift.

  Thiercelin of Sannazar woke late, with a hangover, and found his household proceeding quite comfortably without him. He felt too ill to ride or practice fencing, but left to his own devices could find nothing else to do. His sister-in-law was entertaining a particularly rowdy group of friends in the green salon. His wife was deep in governmental paperwork in her study. There were bags under his eyes, and, dressing, he had found three gray strands in his untidy hair.

  It was not a satisf
actory start to the day.

  He prowled the corridors, glowering at passing servants and chewing the ends of his mustache. His wife, encountering him in the long gallery, smiled and asked, “When does the ax fall, Thierry?”

  He turned the glower on her. “Yesterday. At least my head thinks so.”

  Yvelliane d’Illandre of the Far Blays gave his cheek an affectionate pat. “Poor love. Take a powder and consult me in the morning.”

  He snarled. She reached up to kiss his cheek and made to pass on. He caught her arm. “Yviane, wait.”

  “Yes?” Her face was quizzical. He slid his hand down to take hers. He wished he knew what she was thinking. He wished he knew what to say to her. I saw Valdin. I saw your brother, who is dead.He had no idea at all how she might react to such a statement. Perhaps she would be angry. Perhaps she would think he had taken to deep drinking. Perhaps, if he was lucky, she would worry about him.

  Beside him, she was restless. Her hand wriggled within his. “What is it? I have work.”

  There was always work. He looked down at her hem. “It’s just . . . You look nice.”

  She snorted. “In this dress? You’re tired. Go back to bed.” And pulling her hand free, she kissed him and went on down the hall. He watched her go with a wistful expression. She was right, of course. Her medium-gray dress drained the color from her skin and did no favors for her dark hair and eyes. He was, as ever, a fool.

  Their marriage had been a court wonder, coming as it had only a handful of weeks after Valdarrien’s death. Confused by grief, said the gossips, for why else would the Queen’s First Councillor marry a penniless younger son whose only claim to status was his friendship with her late brother? Thiercelin himself had never been sure if that was true: he had taken care not to ask. He knew only that he had loved Yvelliane for all his adult life, and he would accept whatever fragments of her attention she could spare for him.

  The portraits in the gallery regarded him with inscrutable gazes. He resumed pacing. At the gallery end, he stopped, and looked back.

  Gray eyes met his. A figure stood partway up the main stair, posed before a mirror . . . ghosts can’t possibly have reflections . . . Thiercelin, held in the reflected gaze, took a step forward, put a hand out in greeting . . . Valdin was always vain,I never saw him pass that way without looking in that mirror . . . Another step. Gray eyes flickered, and were gone.

  There was a settle close to where Thiercelin stood. Breathing hard, he sank down upon it, put his head in his hands. Valdin, his ten-year friend and ally, rakehell, troublemaker, and duelist. Living perpetually on the edge of exile and disgrace, his very name a byword for scandal, much feared, much loved, and dead at the age of twenty-five. Six years dead. Memories chased one another. Two youths, still almost boys, racing, fighting, playing. Older, promenading arm in arm, courting the same ladies, espousing the same violent causes. Older yet, and play grown serious, Valdin stocking-footed in the chill dawn, infuriating his cautious sister Yvelliane, and smiling as he killed . . . Valdin, Valdin, Valdin . . .

  The family pictures included one of the late Valdarrien d’Illandre of the Far Blays—Valdin to his family and intimates. Raising his head, Thiercelin stared at it, and sighed. Dark hair and cynical gray eyes, smile polite in boredom—Valdin, caught by some fashionable artist a year or two before his death. Before a stranger broke his heart and left him to find his cheap death in an inn yard. Thiercelin’s throat contracted. He swallowed. “You fool,” he said to the portrait, “you thrice-damned bloody fool.”

  There was no reply, now as ever. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. They were brown, perhaps two shades darker than his collar-length hair. He was a slender man and tall with it, and not quite handsome. He was not given to superstition. Yet he could not come to terms with the impossible evidence of his eyes. “I saw him die,” he whispered, now, into his hands. A trick of the light, Gracielis had said, and part of Thiercelin wanted to believe him. A trick of the light, or a trick of the tongue . . . Perhaps he could have believed that explanation, if it were not for that sudden discomfort in the man whose aid he had sought. Gracielis de Varnaq saw ghosts. Yvelliane would think Thiercelin mad, if he told her that, suddenly, he also saw them. Yvelliane could not be told. She was far too busy. He could not disturb her with something as unlikely as this. It would, in all probability, only make her think less of him.

  Gracielis had known that Thiercelin spoke the truth and refused him aid. Thiercelin looked again at Valdarrien’s picture, and this time his fist slammed into his opposite hand.

  “Thierry?” The touch on his shoulder made him jump.

  His sister-in-law Miraude stood at his elbow, regarding him quizzically. “Is something wrong?”

  Briefly, he considered confiding in her, Valdarrien’s widow who had never been a wife. Instead, he smiled and said, “I was counting my blessings. It always depresses me.”

  “I’m not surprised.” She pulled a face and sat down beside him. “It always makes me feel small.”

  “I think it’s supposed to be character-building.”

  “Hmm. Well, my character must be unusually flimsy.” She looked down at herself, half-mocking, half-admiring. “I’d stop, if I were you.”

  “I think I will.” He considered her, not without some amusement. Yvelliane had once remarked that it was a good thing that Miraude had independent means, for otherwise it was unlikely that even the Far Blays’ revenues could support her. Her present gown was an exotic confection of embroidery and pearl-strewn lace. She intercepted his gaze and smiled.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Very smart. New?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s charming.”

  “It’s for the masquerade in the Winter Gardens, the queen of the peacocks.” Her eyes laughed, acknowledging his amusement at her choice of costume.

  “Very appropriate.” Thiercelin sobered. “You’re going to that? I’d have thought it would be rather rowdy.”

  She favored him with a sardonic gaze. “You, of course, would never have done such a thing in your youth.”

  He was thirty-three. Controlling a smile, he said, “In my youth, I committed all sorts of follies. Of, course, I’m too incapacitated by age now to do anything at all.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “I know.” He let the smile escape. “And I wasn’t criticizing. I was just worrying.”

  “You could come with me if you like. I’m due to meet up with friends, but they won’t mind.”

  “Wouldn’t I be in the way?”

  “I don’t see why. And anyway, you look like you need cheering up. Masquerades are much more cheering than blessings.”

  “Valdin would’ve agreed with you.” His eyes flickered again to Valdarrien’s portrait.

  She followed the look. Her expression was curious. She said, “You still miss him.” It was not a question.

  “He was my best friend.”

  “Yes.” There was a dryness to her voice. “I wonder about him, sometimes. I suppose I didn’t know him very well.”

  Into Thiercelin’s mind came again the memory of a narrow, cobbled yard, strewn with straw and blood. Miraude had been barely sixteen. He said, “He was fond of you, I think.”

  “Yes. But fonder of you.”

  There was no answer to that.

  The lieutenant’s ghost sprawled on the daybed, occluding the brocade covers with misty distaste, eyes enviously on a crystal decanter. Drinking water, Gracielis raised his glass to it and turned to look in the mirror. Meeting his gaze, Amalie Viron said, “I shall look ridiculous. I’m too old for masquerades, love.”

  She was forty-six. Of all his patrons, she was the only one to have told him her true age at once, as if expecting it to be a cause of rejection. It had not been. Her business provided her with funds enough to afford most things she wanted, and he had known it. That in itself was reason enough to become her lover, but her honesty had touched and surprised him. He did not expect to be trusted by his p
atrons, only paid.

  He had been her lover for five years, and of all those who bought and sold his body, she was the only one for whom he felt anything, at least that he admitted to himself. He tried to acknowledge nothing of his feelings where Quenfrida was concerned. Now, he put down his glass and rose. “That’s heresy, Ladyheart. I won’t hear it.”

  “Oh, won’t you?” She laughed, and, unexpectedly, the ghost laughed with her.

  “Indeed not.” Coming to stand behind her, he dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. “And more. I won’t let you say it, or feel you have reason to.”

  “If only. I can give you twenty years.”

  “The twenty fairest years in Merafi.” He took the comb from her, lace cuff trailing across her skin. “Let me do this.”

  “Not even you can make me young again.” She sounded sad. He lifted her hand and kissed it. She squeezed his fingers.

  “I wouldn’t want to,” he said. “For if you were, I’d have to go in fear of your husband. I’d have to duel him for you, and I have the most lowering suspicion that I’d lose.”

  “Poor love.” She turned his hand over and kissed the palm. “Well, then, I’ll guard my years.” She drew a finger along the vein in his wrist, pushing back the cuff. Beneath the lace was a bruise. Touching it, she said, “You don’t look after yourself.”

  Sometimes, Quenfrida liked to mark her property. He said, “Forgive me.”

  “I worry about you.”

  He took his hand away and began to brush her hair. The lieutenant’s ghost had moved to stand in the window, back turned. “Do not, I beg you. You mustn’t worry.”

  “Oh, mustn’t I?”

  “Indeed.” He smiled at her in the mirror. “For two reasons.” She looked inquiring. “Firstly, because I’m telling you the truth. And secondly, because anxiety makes you frown, and destroys your peace; and if I find myself a cause of distress to you, I’ll weep.”

  “Oh, well, we can’t have that,” said Amalie. Reflected palely in the glass, the lieutenant’s ghost demurred. Even with his hands safe upon Amalie’s vital flesh, Gracielis was still chill with this knowledge of his own ill-marked boundaries.