“I’m sure he won’t,” Amaranthe said. “And if he does, then it’s better to know that now than six months further into the journey, isn’t it?”
“There aren’t any journeys happening there.”
“Hm.” Amaranthe stood. “I guess that’s everything. Shall we have something to eat before our adventure?”
“That’s all the planning we’re doing? Why’d you send your assassin away?”
“Because all the protective looming he’s been doing this week has left me feeling smothered like an egg under a chicken’s bu—, er, behind.”
Evrial almost snorted and asked which of her men she’d gotten that phrase from.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Amaranthe said. “I certainly appreciate his solicitude, but I’m concerned he’s seeing me as some frail, broken being not capable of taking care of herself anymore.”
“Solicitude?” Evrial asked, her mind snagging on that word. “From... Sicarius?”
Amaranthe hesitated, as if she held some secret she wasn’t sure she should be sharing. “Not so most people would notice it, but yes.”
That was hard to believe. “Was that an example of it?” Evrial waved toward the door to indicate the stiff order tossing the assassin had done before stalking out.
“No, that was the protective looming.”
“All right...”
Amaranthe cleared her throat. “Enough girl talk. There are enemy cabins full of dastardly old ladies that we must infiltrate.”
“Unbelievable,” Evrial murmured.
“What is?”
“That you can say things like that and still get those men to rally behind you.”
“Sometimes I also have to gaze into their eyes with youthful exuberance that they find impossible to resist.”
Evrial could imagine that working on Maldynado, but Sicarius? “Unbelievable,” she repeated.
* * * * *
There were times when Evrial’s height came in handy; being squished into a dark cleaning-supply closet with another woman wasn’t one of those times. A laundry cart was digging into her ribcage, her foot was in a bucket of mop water, and the overpowering scent wafting from stacks of lye soap tempted a sneeze. She dared not rearrange herself, not with people talking on the other side of the door, so she suffered in stillness.
“Surely, there’s no rush, my lovely ladies,” Maldynado was saying, his smooth baritone floating through the door. With luck, he was leaning against it so the “lovely ladies” couldn’t enter.
“Please, my lord,” came a young woman’s voice, “if we’re tardy, we’ll be punished.”
“Again,” another woman said. Neither sounded older than twenty, twenty-five.
“There are things in life worth risking punishment for,” Maldynado said.
Evrial imagined a suggestive smile on his face, and he was doubtlessly touching his chest. Knowing him, he’d found a way to unbutton his shirt to display the swell of pronounced pectoral muscles.
“Are you changing clothes?” Amaranthe whispered.
“Er, what?” Evrial blushed, glad for the darkness. It wasn’t like her to let her mind wander when it should be focused on work. “I mean, there’s no room. I couldn’t change without making noise.”
Amaranthe pushed a stack of clothing into her hands. “Try anyway. They won’t hear anything over the sound of how beautiful Maldynado is.”
Evrial held back a snort, barely. She unfolded the clothing and, by touch, soon realized she was holding a dress. She grimaced. “I hate dresses. They always snag on something.” She remembered running through the briar patches behind the smithy as a girl, trying to keep up with her brothers. “I haven’t had to wear one since...” She realized she was complaining—whining, she’d say if Maldynado were doing it—and clamped her lips shut. The situation was what it was.
“Since when?” Amaranthe’s voice came from the floor—she must already be changing shoes.
“Nothing.”
The voices continued outside, but an expectant silence came from Amaranthe’s side of the closet. Or maybe it was only in Evrial’s imagination that it was expectant. Either way, she felt compelled to explain. “My mother used to make me wear them as a girl and later on, too, when we visited grandmother and grandfather’s ash cairn.”
“She stopped doing it?” Amaranthe asked. “Or...?”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh. How’d it happen?”
“Are you always this nosy, Lokdon?”
“Always.” Amaranthe’s voice held a smile.
“She was murdered when she was in the city trying to sell the family’s wares. It’s why my brother and I became enforcers. My father never approved of the career, not for me, but I think he understands it.” Evrial extricated her foot from the bucket, propped it against a shelf, and unbuttoned her utility belt and trousers. She wriggled out of the clothes, wincing when her elbow clunked against a shelf. Wood bars fell into her—mops. She growled and tried to straighten them without making more noise.
“—hear something?” one of the girls outside asked.
“Bloody balls,” Evrial whispered and almost crouched to grab her knife. She caught herself. What was she going to do? Stab some twenty-year-old girl?
“Nah,” came Maldynado’s voice, followed by a response too low to hear through the door. Whatever it was, it caused the girls to giggle.
“It’s good that you still have your father,” Amaranthe whispered. “I lost both parents before I was eighteen. I was too young to remember Mother much, but Father... He was sick, and the disease ate at him over the months. It was hard.”
“Oh,” Evrial said, for lack of a better response. Somehow she hadn’t pictured Amaranthe as someone who’d ever lost anyone. She was too... optimistic. And spunky. Evrial had imagined her as a spoiled city girl, having a mother and father who were still alive and living in some upper-middle class brownstone near the University.
“I think they’ve left,” Amaranthe said.
Evrial almost said, “Who?” but realized the corridor outside had grown quiet. “Right.” She wrestled with her clothing, nearly tearing her sweater in the removal process, and banging more elbows. One bang resulted in bars of soap tumbling off the shelf around her. “Can we risk a candle now?”
Before she’d finished the sentence, the door opened, allowing in light from a lamp mounted across the corridor. The soft illumination didn’t do much more than cast shadows into the cleaning closet, but Amaranthe was visible, unbelievably neat and trim—given the limited space for changing—in a white fitted dress and apron. After checking the corridor, she pulled the rolling laundry-and-cleaning-supply cart out of the closet, leaving more room. Evrial rushed into her own dress and a pair of white slippers designed to mash five toes into the space for three. She much preferred enforcer boots.
Evrial picked up her utility belt. “Where do I put my knife?” She’d left her short sword in the cabin, but to wander about without a single blade was asking for trouble. Of course, so was masquerading as a maid.
“You need a thigh holster with a dress. That’s what I’ve used when Maldynado has picked out... disguises for me.” Amaranthe made a disapproving clucking sound and stepped back into the closet to pick up the soap bars and mops littering the floor. “If you don’t mind a bit of advice, never let that man shop for you.”
“I figured that out already.”
Evrial picked up a soap bar and set it on the shelf with the others—she had made quite a mess changing in the dark—but Amaranthe plucked it from the chosen spot and put it on another shelf, lining it up just so with others. Evrial shrugged and figured out a way to loop her belt twice around her thigh to ensure the knife was at hand.
“Are you sure there’s time for all this?” Evrial whispered when the tidying continued for more than a few seconds. “It wasn’t this clean when we came in here.”
“I’m sure Maldynado will keep those ladies busy.”
Evrial didn’t want Maldy
nado keeping any ladies busy, but Amaranthe brushed off her hands, smoothed her dress, and returned to the corridor. When they stood by the wall lamp, she paused to wave at her dress. “Is everything tucked in and proper looking?”
“It’s fine.” A twinge of jealousy rose within Evrial at the fact that Amaranthe, despite all the training she did, managed to look feminine in a dress. Evrial always felt... hulking in such attire, when she could find clothing to fit at all. “Mine?”
Amaranthe gave her a toe-to-head perusal. “Well, you’re the most intimidating maid I’ve ever seen.”
Evrial scowled.
“Sorry, you look fine. Just keep your face down and try to appear servile.”
Pushing the cart ahead of her, Amaranthe headed for the corner and the dead end Evrial had seen earlier in the day.
“In regard to faces,” Evrial said, “aren’t you worried someone will recognize yours?”
“I doubt any of the Forge people spend much time looking at the faces of their servants, but I’ll keep my eyes down too.” Amaranthe knocked on the first door.
“They might have a special place in their memories for the person who blew up their secret meeting place.”
“I didn’t blow it up. I flooded it.” When nobody answered, Amaranthe tried the knob. It was locked. “And I didn’t show my face before I did it.”
“I don’t suppose that cart comes with a universal key?”
“Not that I noticed. That’s why we stopped in the laundry room.” Amaranthe produced a rectangular palm-sized punch card dotted with holes. “I borrowed this from one of the automated machines.” She slipped the card into the door crack next to the knob. She tilted it toward her, pushed it in further, then bent it the other way as she turned the knob and leaned into the door. It popped open. “A handy trick,” she said and slipped the punch card back into a pocket.
“One I do not recall learning at the enforcer academy.” Evrial supposed Amaranthe had been an outlaw long enough to become proficient in numerous means of illegally entering premises. Yet another sign that she should rethink her association with these people.
“Oh?” Amaranthe peeked into the dark cabin, then slipped inside. “Perhaps you were absent that day.”
“I was never absent.”
When she didn’t find anyone sleeping inside, Amaranthe pulled a lantern off the cart and lit it. The twin bunks were side-by-side instead of stacked against the wall, and the cabin offered a desk, table, chairs, sofa, and water closet.
“A little more luxurious than our accommodations,” Evrial noted.
“I didn’t think we should waste Sespian’s money on fancy rooms. Unless I think of something terribly clever during the next week, we’ll likely need it for buying weapons and troops to oppose Ravido.” Amaranthe turned down the beds, handed Evrial a wastebasket to empty, then poked through the desk drawers.
“You believe it’s appropriate for Sespian to head an army to take back the throne when he’s not the true heir?” Evrial looked at the wastebasket. Did Amaranthe actually expect them to service all the cabins?
“Nobody’s the true heir, and he’s got as good a claim as anyone else. We don’t want some power-grubbing relative of Maldynado’s to simply take the throne.”
“But is it up to us to decide?”
Amaranthe slid a desk drawer shut. “Empty that, will you? If anyone wanders past, we want to look authentic.”
Evrial dumped the contents of the wastebasket into a larger refuse bin on the bottom of the cart. A man and woman, arms linked, turned the corner and walked toward her. Ducking her head—and attempting to appear servile, or at least not intimidating—Evrial pulled the cart to the side. The pair walked by without glancing at her.
Inside the cabin, Amaranthe closed the last drawer and rose. “As to who’s responsible for deciding… if everybody leaves it up to someone else, only those who seek the power of the position will be involved in the decision making, and those are probably the last people we want controlling our destinies, don’t you think?”
While mulling that over, Evrial followed Amaranthe into three more cabins. She watched in bemusement as her fastidious companion turned down all the beds, tidied the areas, and removed rubbish. Perhaps Ms. Lokdon should have opened a cleaning business instead of pursuing an enforcer career.
In the fourth cabin, Evrial stumbled to a stop on the threshold. A familiar gray cloak hung on a peg. She caught Amaranthe’s arm and nodded toward it. “The woman was wearing that.”
“Excellent.”
Amaranthe waved Evrial toward the closet while she dove into the desk drawers. Evrial searched through dresses and robes, patting down pockets. The closet was divided in half with different person’s garments occupying each side, both belonging to women. She wondered if both wardrobes represented Forge people. How many of them might have lost their underwater vehicles and stowed away on the steamer? Not stowed away, she corrected herself. These people had purchased passage and in the nicest cabins too. So why was one of them sneaking about, pilfering food and wine?
She didn’t find any answers in the closet. “Do you have anything?”
“Maybe.” Amaranthe leaned against the desk, a large book open in her hands, columns of ink handwriting scrawled down the pages. “It looks like... someone’s business expenses for the year.” She flipped a few pages. “Or maybe just the current quarter. There are at least three businesses being tracked in here. I don’t recognize these two, but this information is for the Traveling Ice Show and Circus.”
“The same people somersaulting and juggling all over the boat?” Evrial asked.
“The same. They’re—”
Voices sounded in the corridor, and Evrial threw up a warning hand. The doorknob rattled as someone applied a key. Amaranthe shoved the book back into a drawer, and Evrial closed the closet doors, careful not to slam them. Amaranthe lunged for the beds and started turning down the covers. Evrial grabbed a wastebasket a heartbeat before the door opened.
“—didn’t know they were on this boat,” a woman, one of four standing around the entrance, was saying.
“Sssh, someone’s in there.”
Surprised by the number of people coming in, Evrial stared for a moment before she remembered she was supposed to be keeping her face down. Not before the gray-haired woman who’d been sneaking about met her eyes. Evrial dumped the wastebasket into the bin on the bottom of the cart. She didn’t think the woman had seen her following before.
“It’s just the maids.” Gray-hair walked in first, grunting when her arm caught the corner of the cart. “Get this garbage out of my way.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Evrial said.
“Ma’am?” one of the other women asked. “That’s ‘my lady,’ to you.”
“Yes, my lady.” Evrial hated debasing herself before anyone, but she’d had to suffer through worse as a low-ranking enforcer.
“Not me, you dolt. Her.”
Amaranthe, who was doing a better job keeping her head down and staying unnoticed, shot Evrial a stop-talking look. She took her time creasing the sheets and fluffing the pillows. Evrial just wanted to get out of there. She tried to pull the cart to the side so the women could pass, but even the more luxurious cabins were small.
“Out of the way, you hulking behemoth.” A woman tried to brush past Evrial, but bumped into her thigh instead.
The poorly-fastened knife fell to the floor with a noticeable clunk. Evrial dove down to pick it up, trying to hide it before anyone saw what it was. It didn’t work.
“Uhm, the maid’s got a dagger the size of a broadsword.” The woman who had knocked it free hustled backward, almost tripping over her feet in her haste to find the corridor.
Evrial didn’t know whether to deny that her dagger was that big or claim she’d found it somewhere or—
“Well, of course she does,” Amaranthe said. She kept her face down as she stepped up beside Evrial, but she was clearly addressing the women. “Have you seen the womanizing l
eers of some of the men working in the kitchens? A girl has to defend herself.”
Judging from the way the rest of the group was backing toward the corridor, the women weren’t believing the story. “Those aren’t the usual maids, are they? That one has muscles like a wrestler in the Imperial Games.”
“We’re from the second deck,” Amaranthe said. “Your regular maids didn’t show up for work, so we had to take over.”
That much was true at least. The women kept backing away though. Only one of the four was still in the cabin, the rest having slipped into the corridor. Nobody had bolted off to find security yet, but they were exchanging a lot significant glances with each other.
Evrial crouched, thinking to spring after them, but Amaranthe stopped her with a hand on the arm.
The last woman hustled into the corridor. “You stay here. We’ll just check out that story.”
The door slammed shut, trapping Evrial and Amaranthe in the cabin.
Evrial spun on her comrade. “Why did you stop me? We could have dragged them in here, tied them up, and locked them inside.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Amaranthe said, “but then what? Unless we wanted to kill them, they’d be found eventually, at which point they’d identify us and cause a search. We’d have to grab the entire team, jump overboard, hike to the next port, and wait for another steamer to come. We need to get to the capital as soon as possible.”
Evrial propped her hands on her hips. She wanted to point out that this scheme had been Amaranthe’s idea, and it’d be her fault if that happened, but she lowered her hands again. Her knife had been the one to fall. “Can your card open it again?” she asked.
“Not from this side.” Amaranthe jogged to the door and tried the knob. “Hm, I didn’t know you could be locked in from the outside. Not very safe in the case of a fire.”
“We won’t stay locked in. Move.” Evrial flexed her shoulders. She’d had to ram down more than a few doors in her years as an enforcer.
“I don’t think that’ll work,” Amaranthe said, but she evacuated the threshold.
Beneath the Surface Page 3
