The Ruling Mask

by Neil McGarry

  Duchess opened her mouth to object when something occurred to her. Last summer, Ferroc had offered valuable intelligence on the guildmaster, long before she had any reason to do so. Had that been some subtle attempt to set her against Tremaine? At the time Ferroc had not known that the Atropi and Duchess would one day be at odds. But then Duchess had her suspicions that Minette was working with and funding Ferroc; was Minette behind that particular bout of helpfulness? And why? Duchess was feeling nearly as paranoid as the guildmaster, but with a master player like Minette, paranoia was often just good sense.

  “Yes, it’s very clever,” Tremaine went on. “I can see the teeth of the trap you’ve set. I could of course retaliate by making your pet Domae’s life very difficult. As guildmaster I’ve various and sundry ways to punish those who move against me. After all, I control the opportunities available to the guild’s members.” She sighed theatrically. “But then I’d be moving against Ferroc’s faction, wouldn’t I, since your agreement obviously puts you in alliance. And in doing so, I would face a fight on two fronts—Ferroc to one side, the Atropi to the other.” She frowned. “Or is that the trap? To bait me into helping my two enemies find common cause?” She barked out a laugh that was more like a cough. “This is not my first time on the battlefield, of that you may be sure, and I know a feint when I see one.”

  “Guildmaster, this is not a feint,” Duchess muttered, feeling suddenly weary. She rubbed her tired eyes. “It’s just business, whatever you may think.”

  “What I think,” Tremaine said coldly, “is that, for the moment, I must bide my time. In these sorts of battles, patience is often a better weapon than the sword." She turned hard eyes on Duchess. "I salute your cunning, my dear, but for this victory you shall pay dearly. Not today, not tomorrow, but one day you will learn that a battle is not a war, and on that day I will happily be your teacher. You will not relish the lesson, I assure you." She indicated the door. "You know the way out, I believe.”

  Chapter Twenty: A low road to the Highway

  Finding Darley on her doorstep was not the way Duchess wanted to end her day. Yet there she was, flanked by a pair of lightboys and accosting Nigel, of all people.

  “—not leaving until you tell me where she is!” Darley growled. The lightboys grinned, enjoying the show, but from his expression, Duchess could see that Nigel was not amused. He was Grey and Darley most definitely was not, which meant he could cause her some serious trouble if provoked.

  Duchess hurried to intervene. “What seems to be the problem?”

  Darley rounded on her. “Oh, like you don’t know?” Her eyes flashed fire.

  “Perhaps we can discuss whatever has you so upset somewhere other than the middle of the street?” she suggested, indicating the stairs to her apartment. “Wait here, if you would,” she said to the lightboys, handing over a few pennies. She imagined Darley would want company on the way back to Scholars District when this was over, and she had no interest in being the girl’s guide. Duchess led Darley up the stairs and Nigel, with a palpable air of relief, scuttled back into his shop.

  Duchess closed the door and turned on her visitor. “For someone who wants to be on the Grey,” she began before the girl could start, “you have a lot to learn about subtlety. Standing on my doorstep berating my landlord is hardly impressive.”

  Darley tossed her hair. “Is that one of the lessons you gave the Burned Woman?”

  Duchess blinked. “The Burned—what on earth are you talking about?”

  Darley nearly spit. “Oh, you’re going to play ignorant, is that it? As if you don’t know what your protege is up to.”

  Duchess took a deep breath and moved to light a fire, to take the chill from the room and give Darley a chance to calm down. She took a seat at the table and gestured for Darley to do the same. “Clearly I’m coming into this little drama in the middle of the second act,” she said. “Can we start from the beginning?”

  Darley took the offered seat, anger and suspicion clear on her face. “So we’re going to keep pretending you don’t know?”

  Duchess rolled her eyes. “If that’s what it takes to get the story out of you more quickly.”

  “Fine. I’m here because I know you’re stringing me along.”

  “How so?” Before Darley could start, she held up a hand. “Slowly, please. It’s been a long day.”

  Darley glared at Duchess, but followed her instructions. “I found out you’ve been handing out cloaks—after you promised to give me one.”

  Duchess leaned forward. “First of all, I didn’t promise to give you anything. I promised you the chance to earn a cloak.” She treated Darley to a Marcus Kell stare, and the girl subsided—a bit. “Second, I’ve not cloaked anyone, ever, and certainly not this ‘Burned Woman’ you’re going on about.” She left the reason unsaid; the status of a member of the Highway derived in part from the standing of her mentor. With Duchess’ reputation so damaged, any cloak she handed out wouldn’t be worth the cloth.

  “You really don’t know, do you?” Darley shook her head. “The Burned Woman is the fortuneteller who goes around with Doctor Domae. She’s claiming you cloaked her.”

  Duchess sat back, stunned. She hadn’t been on the Grey very long, true, but long enough to know that those who wore the color did not take well to meddling. Outsiders might pry at the edges of the Highway, hoping for an invitation, but to pretend...well, she couldn’t imagine the punishment the Grey might levy. “How do you know this?”

  Darley sighed. “I was at a party Father made me attend, and the Burned Woman was there, reading fortunes. Doctor Domae was with her, the man who sells elixirs and curealls to fools. The Woman’s supposedly Domae as well, but she wanders about swathed in bandages, so she could be Ulari for all I know. Fortunetelling’s all the rage, so at the party everyone was lining up to see the Burned Woman.” She glanced at Duchess. “I know a liar when I see one and she was one of the first order. After she was done, I took her aside and told her that if the Grey found out she was running a scam they’d have her head.” She smiled. “And I might have implied that I’d keep my mouth shut if she handed over some of the money she’d made that night.”

  Duchess was surprised that Darley knew that much about the Grey, but then she was a scholar’s daughter. “What did she say?”

  “She laughed and said she was Grey. I told her she was lying. Then she said you’d given her a cloak just last month. I figured the only way she’d know you were Grey at all was if you actually did give her a cloak.” She shook her head in disgust. “But it seems you’re ignorant of the whole thing. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Duchess ignored the insult. She knew why she’d heard this from Darley and not from the Highway—given her current reputation, she’d be lucky to hear anything from the Grey. It was quite possible that no one was surprised to hear she’d cloaked some nobody, which, of course, would make her stock drop even lower. Damn P and his rumors.

  Darley was watching her. “What are you going to do?”

  Duchess rose, signaling an end to the meeting. “I think I need to learn a bit more about this Burned Woman before I do anything.” She escorted Darley back down to the street where the lightboys were waiting. While still out of earshot, she added, “One more thing. Call it a free lesson, but you’re impressing no one on the Grey, least of all me, by ranting at people in the middle of the Shallows. A whisper carries farther than a shout.”

  Darley rolled her eyes. “Just remember our bargain,” she whispered fiercely. “I did you a favor.”

  Duchess smiled tightly. “You did, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to get a cloak. You don’t even want to know what I had to do to earn mine.” She gestured to the waiting lightboys. “Good night, Darley.” She watched the girl move off, surrounded by lamp-bearing and stick-wielding boys, and shook her head. Darley was clever enough—she’d recognized a scam artist at first glance—but, great Mayu, she could be unpleasant.

  Duchess glanced a
t Nigel’s door. Given how bad things were going, she’d best see to the collateral damage the girl had done.

  Nigel glanced up when she entered his shop, his face as expressionless as her own. As he came around the counter, she glanced at the rosewood puzzle table that still sat near the front window.

  “Good evening, Nigel.”

  “Evening,” he replied coolly, fetching a cloth from his back pocket and beginning to dust the statue of a rampant wolf. “Anything I can do for you?”

  “I just wanted to apologize for the...incident earlier.”

  He nodded. “Think nothing of it. That girl’s not from around here and probably doesn’t know better.” He kept dusting.

  “She’s learning.” She paused. “Nigel, I was wondering if perhaps you’d heard anything about my taking on a student, recently.”

  Nigel glanced up from his work. “You hear all sorts of things...well, some of us do, anyway.” The sly reference to her status was not lost on her, nor was his refusal to confirm or deny what she had asked. He’d been friendlier when he came seeking her help, but back then she’d had a mark that was worth a damn.

  Nigel sighed. “Unless there is something else, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m very busy.”

  She shook her head. “No, thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” She let herself out and headed back upstairs. She hadn’t realized how dangerous being disconnected from the Grey could be. The whole Highway must be alight with news that Duchess of the Shallows was now cloaking strangers, even with everything else that had happened to her. She could imagine the remaining mark in Minette’s desk losing value by the day.

  Her reputation could not stand the damage this Burned Woman was inflicting. She didn’t know why anyone would claim to be her apprentice, of all people, but one thing was clear: the woman’s lies had to end, and they had to end now.

  * * *

  It was just her luck: the evening Duchess intended to investigate Doctor Domae was the same one that Dorian Eusbius chose to risk his reputation by coming to see her.

  “You’re certain I’m not taking you away from anything?” he asked as she locked the shop’s door behind her. He looked as lovely as she remembered, in a deep blue doublet with the sigil of his house prominently displayed over his heart. From under his hood spilled the cascade of gold hair she couldn’t help thinking looked so much like Lysander’s.

  Duchess’ smile was genuine, even if she felt a bit uneasy. “Not at all. I was just headed out for a constitutional along the Godswalk. Perhaps you’d like to join me?” Even with her limited connections, she’d managed to learn that Doctor Domae performed almost nightly on the Godswalk, and if they left now they stood a good chance of catching the show. She hadn’t planned to watch it with Dorian, but the company of such an interesting young man was hardly a hardship. A more cynical part of her whispered that it would be easier to move around Temple District with a noble in tow, and when her heart and her head agreed, her course was clear.

  The evening deepened and the fog rolled in as they walked up Dock Street towards Bell Plaza and the city began shifting to the wonders of its nighttime routine. Market Gate was full of traffic as the businesses closed down and merchants returned to their homes in the Shallows. The lightboys were out in full force, crying their services to any nobility that dared to explore the lower districts. The light above the Vermillion was lit, although none of the ladies were outside flaunting their wares; Minette considered such shows distasteful. Those who frequented the Vermillion either knew what they’d find inside or they did not enter.

  Duchess stepped aside as a gaggle of lightboys charged past. “A shame the market’s closing or I’d have given you the penny tour,” she replied, making sure her purse was still in place. She was not so enchanted by Dorian’s company that she’d forgotten how notoriously light-fingered those boys were.

  Dorian nodded as well. “That would have been lovely. I’m afraid I haven’t seen much of it.” He grinned sheepishly. “I must sound quite the snob, but Ahmed usually sees to that sort of thing.”

  Ahmed was once her father’s master of horse, and she marveled at how small the world was. What would Ahmed think if he knew that his current lord’s son had befriended Marina Kell? Had she remained Marina, she realized, interactions with Dorian’s kind would have been commonplace, but the War of the Quills had changed all that. “Your life is so different from mine,” she remarked, more seriously than she intended. “Half my childhood was spent in a place you’ve scarcely visited.” She could not say the reverse was true.

  Beggar’s Way was clear, the beggars having returned to the Deeps at sunset, and they passed through Beggar’s Gate without question thanks to the sigil on Dorian’s doublet. The blackarms on duty nodded politely as they walked through. “You said you worked for a baker? Was he your father?”

  “Noam? No...he was the man who took me in after my father died.” She almost started to tell the lie about being the daughter of a candlemaker who’d died in a fire, but something within her rebelled. She was tired of lying to people who were being kind to her. “I was eight or so, then.”

  “So young, to lose a father.” He paused. “I know what that’s like,” he said, his voice full of feeling. Of course; the baroness had been a widow for some time before circumstance had forced her to remarry. They walked without further conversation for a while, but it was a comfortable silence. “Did your mother marry this Noam?”

  She shook her head. “My mother died soon after I was born.” She was growing increasingly uncomfortable with this line of questioning, but she did not want to seem rude by refusing to answer. The Godswalk was becoming visible, lit by a ring of torches posted around its circumference, the statues towering shadows in the last light of day. “You’ve seen the chains, I presume?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

  He nodded. “Such a strange series of events, but then of course you were there at the Fall, when all of this began.” This was getting worse by the moment. “Such a shame that the faiths can’t work together.” She was struck by the casual nonchalance in his voice; to Dorian Eusbius, the upheaval of the Evangelism was purely abstract, not a harsh intrusion on existence, as it was for the beggars. Just what was he doing here, with her? What was it Gloria Tremaine had said? When a man with two names speaks that way to a woman with just one, he’s not looking for stimulating conversation.

  “—see them often?”

  She realized while she’d been thinking, he’d been speaking. “Sorry?”

  He smiled indulgently. “Your foster family.”

  Speaking of the baker, while uncomfortable, seemed safer than discussing the Fall and what had occurred there. “No, not really. Noam is a good, trustworthy man who did his duty by me, but...” She trailed off, uncertain how to finish.

  Dorian nodded. “An eight-year old needs more than a foster-father who simply does his duty. It must have been a hard time for you, losing your family and having to fit into a new one.”

  With the example of Far before her, she’d thought often about those hard, lonely days. Of not knowing what had happened to her father, or her siblings, or why Nurse Gelda had deposited her there. Noam had never abused or mistreated her, but she could never forget that he hadn’t taken her in out of kindness.

  “You’ve had some changes in your own family recently,” she deflected, bringing the conversation back to more comfortable territory. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  They were approaching the Walk itself and Duchess noted the sheer number of people that seemed to be about this late in the evening. The beggars were gone by sunset, moving empty-handed down the hill to meet the evening fog rising from the bay. Even in their absence, the Godswalk seemed unusually crowded.

  Dorian laughed as they passed through the crowds. “You mean the baron? I barely see him, if truth be told. It seems to work out well for us both. My mother...well, she’s less pleased with the situation, but then, she got what she bargained for.” He said this flatly, b
ut Duchess sensed more there. “Ivan Gallius saved her House in exchange for her hand in marriage, and that’s where the bargain ended.” Duchess herself had brought dinner to Agalia the night she’d stolen the baron’s dagger, but had only ever once seen her, right here on the Godswalk, in fact. “I don’t think she sees much of her husband either.” He glanced away. “The new baron prefers other company, if you take my meaning.”

  She frowned, wondering if this casual remark indicated a deeper hostility. Noblemen freely used the services of those like the ganymedes, but were often just as quick to denigrate them. Better to know now. “You remember Lysander, from the party at Banncroft? He’s one of those who provides the company your stepfather prefers.”

  He nodded. “He was with Stephan, yes? I assumed as much—Stephan shares my stepfather’s tastes.” Dorian seemed to consider for a moment. “He means something to you?”

  “Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “If it weren’t for him I’d still be the bread girl of the Shallows. There was a time when—” She hesitated.

  “—when you thought you might love him?” Dorian finished softly. There was no challenge or jealousy in his voice.

  She nodded, surprised at either his insight or how obvious her feelings were. “Once, but I know that he’s...well, it’s not meant to be. He’s my best friend and my brother in one. But no more.” The gods only knew where her real brother might be, but as she said it she knew in her heart that Lysander was the brother she should have had, and the one she would always love best.

  Dorian looked at her, and in his lovely eyes she saw no condemnation. “Then he must be a good man,” he said simply, “and I’d be honored to know him.”