“Far away.”
“Yes, yes, far away. We’ve established that.”
Kittins realized Lord Darley was about to bid him farewell. In the moment before that happened, he calculated the odds of getting his hands on any of the weapons before him and successfully killing His Lordship and as many of the other men present as necessary to allow an escape. Vykers might pull it off, he decided, but not himself.
“So,” Darley said, “Best of luck, Janks. Make those bastards bleed.” With that, His Lordship was gone.
Kittins looked around at the men surrounding him. Wonder which one of you fuckers is the Shaper? “Can I get a little something to eat before I get into this armor?” he asked.
“After,” two or three said in unison.
Kittens rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck. “After it is, then.”
*****
Rem, House Hawsey
Rem’s plan was so creative, he thought, he ought to have been spymaster to the Queen, herself. Except that he enjoyed being seen, recognized and publically applauded for his work. Apart from those little details, though…
Wratch & Company announced its intention to stage a special play for the coming Fiersday, which turned out to be a holiday of some sort, obliquely related to female fertility. The irony, of course, was not lost on Rem.
So, an unexpected celebration! Another play from Lord Hawsey’s resident company! Needless to say, the estate bustled and bubbled with excitement and anticipation. And, in order to ensure maximum turn-out, Rem had chosen the bawdiest comedy in the company’s repertoire, Lady Twickenam’s Tasty Tarts! The piece had the special added feature of relying heavily upon the use of masks, a fact Rem intended to exploit most cunningly.
When the big day arrived, House Hawsey was practically exploding with anticipation. Various Hawseys interrupted Rem’s work throughout the day, begging for a preview or even the barest detail that might put them one-up on the other members of the family once the play began. Rem responded with a million lies. What does it matter? He asked himself. If I’m not outside the gates by the time the applause dies down, I’ll be the next thing that dies, down or otherwise.
One who would not be so easily shuffled off was Her Ladyship. She cornered him in the kitchen and barked at him, “When will you do it?”
“You have my most solemn oath it will be done within the next two sunsets!” Rem exclaimed with great joviality, as if he’d just been commissioned to recite a poem in the market square.
Her Ladyship’s face pulled into the most melodramatic pout the actor had ever seen. “Why so long?” She whined.
“Because, my sweet,” Rem smiled, making sure that no one else was within earshot, “my declaration of love for you requires a masterpiece, and a masterpiece I shall deliver.” He really had no idea what he’d just said, but, damn, it sounded fantastic.
Her Ladyship obviously liked it, too, for all she said in response was, “I can hardly wait!”
Standing backstage, Rem peered through a crack in the scenery and was stunned at the turnout. He’d been expecting a crowd, but every last member of House Hawsey must’ve been in attendance, up to and including the servants and guards. Well, he reflected, that’s what happens when you play to the rabble.
While Rem and his colleagues made their final preparations, two of the company’s more-talented boys went onstage in drag and played a rather lascivious number on a pair of out-size and oddly-shaped flutes, to the unbridled laughter of the audience.
Rem pulled one of his actors aside, an actor who was dressed identically to his boss. “You’re sure you can handle this?” he asked Keez.
“Please, Remuel, you wound me!” Keez protested. “Everyone in the company says my Remuel Wratch is even better than the original.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Rem laughed and clapped the other man on the shoulder. “So, we let them see me take my mask off a few times in Act One, and then you’re me ‘til I get back from my errand.”
Keez nodded. “Yes, got it.”
In no time, the lads onstage had finished their japery and the company fiddler began the play’s introduction, which was greeted with boisterous applause. On his cue, Rem strode from the wings, did a somersault and ended with his head in lap of a fat woman in the front row…as planned. Rem doffed his mask, allowing one and all to see him, and hastily put it back on for the next bit of foolishness. So it went for the first three scenes of Act One. When Act Two began, Rem escaped out a servants’ entrance and was replaced onstage by Keez, who, as promised, offered a most excellent if somewhat effete performance of Remuel Wratch playing the comical Lord Bollocks.
Rem could actually hear the laughter receding behind him as he hired a coach and made for the Fretful Porpentine. Inside the coach, he pulled a small bag from his belt and began altering his appearance with the help of a hand mirror and some stage make-up. He also removed his costume, revealing a completely different set of clothes underneath. With great care, he folded his outer costume into a small bundle, which he slid into an equally small bag fashioned of black muslin. He then set about making a few adjustments to his facial hair. When he stepped from the coach a quarter hour later, he was another man entirely. Stashing the black bag behind some refuse in the closest alley, he was at last ready to begin the next phase of his plan.
For better or worse, he was unable to locate any of his mission members – no sign of Long, Yendor, Kittins or that fool young man. But improvisation did not threaten him. Assuming a Westies dialect and an awkward demeanor, he approached a card game in progress at a table close-by. Three of the four players looked up at him with varying degrees of haughtiness; the fourth was too preoccupied with his hand to bother.
“Room for another?” Rem asked.
Now, the fourth player did look up and then quickly shot a look to his companions: bumpkin! “Always!” the man said in thoroughly unconvincing magnanimity. “Grab yerself a chair. Ante’s a Merchant per hand.”
“A whole Merchant?” Rem remarked, taking a seat. “You’re some serious gamblers, then!”
“We’re men,” one of the others groused. “Goes without sayin’, don’t it?”
Within another quarter hour, Rem had lost a week’s wages and appeared to have gotten quite drunk. Appeared. A large pile of money sat on the table, the pot for the current hand, and Rem stared at it with wistful yearning.
“Well?” the loudest of the other men growled. “You in, or ain’tcha?”
Rem put on his best pleading look. “I don’t have the coin, exactly…”
“Then you’re out,” one of the others asserted.
“But I do have this fine ring, here.” He held up the ring he’d stolen from Her Ladyship and watched it glitter in the light. He noticed it did the same in the eyes of every man at the table.
“Here, now. ‘Ow’d someone the likes o’ you come by something like that?” said a man Rem had come to think of as Bluffer.
“I just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time,” Rem drawled drunkenly. “Came across a couple o’ nobles knocking boots -- only, o’ course, they was barefoot – and as the man in question was unarmed, he couldn’t kill me to keep his secret, so he paid me. With this.”
Rem’s audience didn’t know whether to scoff, leer or ask for more details. Finally, the Player broke the silence. “And where was this?”
“Durin’ the big festivities on Midsummer’s Night. You remember: fireworks was going off, everyone was drinkin’ and screwin’ in the bushes. I’d had a bit too much, meself, and was lookin’ for a private patch o’ green to be sick in, and I come across these two in Fishers’ Park, down by the river.”
If the tale was hard to believe, the ring was not. And Rem gave every indication of being too stupid to have been able to steal it.
“I don’t s’pose these nobles had names, did they?” Drinker asked.
“Don’t be an idjit,” Bluffer scolded. “They got caught makin’ the beast wi’ two backs. They ain
’t likely to name themselves, are they?”
“I, uh, did overhear the lady in her passion callin’ her lover ‘Gelter,” Rem added.
Stinky spat beer all over the cards, the table and the mound of coin at its center. “Gelter fuckin’ Radcliffe?”
“No: Gelter fuckin’ somebody!” Player joked, to raucous laughter from his mates. “All right, then,” he said to Rem. “I want that ring, so you’re in. You lose, though, and this is yer last hand.”
Of course, Rem lost. “Finish my beer at least?”
“Go ahead,” Player replied absentmindedly, as he scrutinized the ring. “I know a fence in town can tell me more about this ring.”
That was all Rem needed to hear. He drained his beer, looked longingly at the ring one last time and bid his table mates goodbye. “Man’s gotta know when to quit!” he said ruefully.
“Ya mean, like, when he’s broke?” Bluffer sneered.
“Just like,” Rem agreed and headed for the door.
Once outside again, he retrieved his bundled costume, hired another carriage and rushed back to House Hawsey, where he changed into his costume and hid in shadows near the front gate, waiting for the curtain call and ensuing celebrations that would allow him enough cover to sneak back inside. If the guards chanced to question him, he’d claim he’d just left the stage for a little night air and then upbraid them for their inattention whilst on duty.
Soon, very soon, the town’s gossip-mongers would begin spreading rumors of an affair between Her Ladyship and Gelter Radcliffe. Gelter would either then attempt to flee, which would only serve to make him look guiltier, or stay put and fiercely deny everything, which wouldn’t do anything to mollify Lord Hawsey. And when Her Ladyship began to show…
Rem had only one task left to perform.
As he’d predicted, the post-play party spilled through the main gates and out into the street beyond. In Lunessfor, there was no better status symbol than conspicuous evidence of wildly successful “private” festivities. All the neighbors would now wonder what the occasion of such celebration had been, why they hadn’t been invited, and what the secret to such unabashed merriment might be. In this atmosphere of rowdy joviality, Rem had no difficulty regaining the Hawsey courtyard, where, rather fortuitously, he ran into His Lordship.
“Your betht work ever!” a drunken Lord Hawsey proclaimed upon seeing the actor.
Best ever? Rem was of two minds about this: on the one hand, such a response boded well for the next phase of his plan; on the other, it pained him personally that he’d been so easily replaced in such an obvious triumph. “Your lordship is most gracious, as ever.”
Henton giggled in delight. “Not at all, thir. I thwear thith ithz your betht. I adored the part where Lord Mowbray ithz caught with the piglet!”
Ah, yes. Nothing like lowbrow bestiality jokes to win the day! “Is it the kind of play, do you think, that might bring cheer to Her Majesty, the Queen?” There, the seed had been planted.
His Lordship considered the question briefly, before an evil smile came to his lips. “I like it!” he declared. “They’ll have to admit you, or rithk the pertheption that her Majethty ith too ill even to lie in bed and enjoy a play. And if they do admit you, you thyould be able to relay the truth of it to me. I like it!” he said again, clearly thinking aloud. “Thith move will help either to curry favor with Her Majethty or, in cathe of the wortht, thpeed her death! We might even be able to thtage a coup from the inthide!” Henton had gotten himself so wound up in his fantasies, he began dancing from toe to toe in excitement. “Make you ready! Prepare your men to depart for the Queenthz cathle.”
“At once!” Rem replied, knowing his company had already packed and exulting in the fact that Henton himself had unwittingly agreed to send Wratch & Company out of harm’s way before House Hawsey erupted.
*****
Yendor, House Fyne
There was uproar and tumult in House Fyne. One of the guards, a certain ‘Moult’ by name, had been found dead, face-down on the pavers in His Lordship’s garden, having unquestionably fallen from one of the garden’s many trees. The assumption was that he’d been attempting to spy on His Lordship and/or other, higher ranking members of the family. But he’d done so in such a bungling manner, it seemed unlikely that spying had been his actual profession. For one thing, he’d been drunk, as evidenced by his odor and by the broken bottle whose fragments the guards had found embedded in his chest. For another, hiding in a tree didn’t strike His Lordship as particularly crafty. No, this Moult had to have been a disgruntled employee, seeking redress of some petty grievance by selling Fyne secrets to the other seven Houses. Or, he may have gotten himself into debt, and betraying House Fyne was his only means of earning the gold to extricate himself. Whatever the case, His Lordship and his spymaster would carry out due diligence and question every member of the household, from the mucker to Her Ladyship and everyone in between.
At least this is what Yendor had heard from the other guards, shortly after he’d learned of Moult’s death. Yendor had upheld his end of the plan; he’d gotten up at first light with every intention of pissing off the roof. By that time, however, Moult had already gone to it, and Yendor was left wondering how in Mahnus’ name he was going to escape before he was questioned and inevitably cracked under pressure, revealing his whole team’s mission and condemning himself to torture or worse.
One by one, he saw the other guards summoned to His Lordship’s study. One by one, they returned, looking shaken. And they’d been innocent, or innocent of this particular crime, at any rate.
Yendor prayed to the god of lying, in the vain hope there was such an entity and that he or she was disposed to help an old drunk. If not…
*****
Spirk, House D’Escurzy
The feast was, as promised, lavish and spectacular. It was held in a vast room, much brighter and more welcoming than any Spirk had previously seen in House D’Escurzy. The ceiling was so high, it soared above a second floor balcony that ringed the whole room. Great, tall windows ran along the length of the balcony’s southern and western sides, allowing evening sun to flood into the chamber, and although the first floor had many festive torches blazing in decorative sconces, their light was feeble by comparison.
In one corner, a handful of musicians played a lively tune in muted volume, as if they’d been commanded to energize the guests without calling attention to themselves. Across the way, a series of long tables had been set up along the walls in preparation for the banquet. Scores of servants bustled to and fro, placing and filling goblets, setting flatware and otherwise making ready. Around the room itself roamed more D’Escurzys than Spirk had ever imagined, and every last one of them glared at him with angry eyes and happy smiles. He suspected this was not a good sign.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I think we’re fucked,” Ron told Spirk out of the side of his mouth.
The new Lord D’Escurzy frowned at his bodyguard.
“What?” Ron asked. “Was it what I said or the way I said it?”
Spirk didn’t answer, couldn’t. It was all of that, and more. If this group meant him and his companion harm, he doubted there was anything he could do to prevent it. He scanned the crowd, hoping, but found no sign of the constable, the mayor or anyone else whose presence might prevent bloodshed. Spirk’s anxiety became so powerful a force that he briefly shrieked in terror when the dinner bell was rung, causing everyone in the room to look in his direction with mocking smiles.
Again, the bell rang. This time, a voice came with it. “If your Lordship would care to take your seat, the rest of us can finally attack…this glorious supper!” It was the big-shouldered man Spirk had met a few days earlier, Lord Briedach D’Escurzy. Everyone in the room laughed at his jest – if it was a jest – and began a slow stampede towards the tables. Gods, there were a lot of D’Escurzys and their kin. “Here is your seat, your Lordship,” Lord Briedach advised, gesturing to a chair next to his own.
Spirk
noticed there was no seat for Ron, as the one that might naturally have gone to his friend was already occupied by…Faenia. “What about my man, here?” Spirk asked.
Briedach offered his most condescending smile. “Servants don’t generally dine with their masters. But he can man one of the doorways, if you like.”
“But…but…” Spirk protested.
“It’s alright,” Ron sighed. “I’ll put meself in plain sight, your Lordship. You’ll be able to see me the whole time.”
“But…but…”
“A toast!” Briedach called out. “A toast to our new Head of Family!”
Up and down the tables, goblets were raised in half-hearted salute.
Spirk stared at his own, wondering whether or not it had been poisoned. Briedach, it seemed, could read his mind.
As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2) Page 32
