by Damien Lake
Ilona ignored all that. “An assassin placed inside our house is our business! I am perfectly capable of dealing with my problems, and I need no help from you!”
“The assassin might by your business, but the assassin’s employer is mine!”
Vashti followed the remarks back and forth, her head swiveling as though she watched children tossing a ball. She also noticed how Marik’s eyes kept darting from Ilona’s face to other regions on her person. Smiling slightly, she interrupted the argument. “Ilona, in light of Mr. Railson’s concerns, I think it might be appropriate if he accompany you to Daniel’s.”
Ilona whirled. “What? Mother, I don’t need anyone’s help!”
Mother? Amazed, Marik studied the two. Identical hair, certainly, as was their beauty, but the skin…Ilona’s was nearly light as his own. How could that have happened?
“I am not asking he assist you. I am only asking he accompany you. He has legitimate interests which coincide with our own.”
“Our own? Our reputation is on the line! What has he to do with that?”
Vashti frowned. “Our reputation is imperiled, yes. Helping those wronged by the thorn amidst our flowers will go a long distance toward recovery. Being seen to do so will help minimize the initial damage before rumor grows upon itself.”
A look passed between the two. Full understand of the meanings it contained eluded Marik. Obviously this was a continuing issue outside his involvement.
Without a word, though with a stormy countenance, Ilona whirled and stalked back the way she had come. Vashti addressed him. “If you will wait a short while, Ilona will escort you to Daniel’s dwelling.”
“Uh…”
A quirky smile reshaped the madam’s sensuous lips. “Have no worries concerning her. She has been in a foul mood all morning. The cityguard left not half a mark before you arrived, questioning us regarding the woman assassin. I am afraid Ilona has had little rest since returning last night.”
“Her and me both. Did you tell the cityguard about this Daniel?”
“No. The reputation of the Standing Spell is strong. Revealing our clients’ secrets would mean the end of that.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Ilona was already on her way to Daniel’s when she stopped to speak with you. As I said, this matter brings shame on our house. Ilona wanted answers, and meant to get them.”
Marik thought he read the deeper meaning this time in both her words and her expression. Might his very presence as a witness stop Ilona from crossing some line with the noble? A line Vashti wished to remain inviolate? “Well, thank you for letting me tag along. And she’s probably right. I might not get inside on my own.” He stepped to the doorway and peered down the hall in hopes of seeing her.
Vashti still wore that peculiar smile. “Well then, I must go see Rosa. She has a matter she needs to discuss with me. Ilona will be along shortly, I imagine.”
The madam left him to see Rosa in the reception area. Probably to talk about me. Ilona reappeared in short order.
She had donned a type of cloak Marik had only seen a few times before. It looked like an overlarge circle with a hole in the center for the wearer’s head. Wasn’t that called a…serape? Why did she choose to retrieve it when she had already been on her way out the door minutes ago without it? While the possibility of rain still lingered, it could easily be hot enough she would regret wearing it. Besides, the baggy garment also covered most of her figure, he noticed with disappointment.
Only an unladylike grunt graced him before she walked down the hall, never once checking to ensure he followed. In the reception area, Vashti nodded at them, the queer grin reemerging as she noticed Ilona’s serape.
Outside, she headed deeper into the Inner Circle. He followed close on her heels.
Despite her harsh words, he could not tell if she was angry at him personally, or if the entire situation had fouled her temper. He hoped the latter would prove true, and so spent the journey to Lord Daniel’s residence working on a smooth statement that might lighten her spirits. Marik abandoned most of the possibilities since half of them centered on her hair, the sight of which he was unable to tear his eyes from for long.
The wavy mass had been worked into lengths composed of twenty or thirty strands each. Or perhaps it naturally grew that way. Hundreds of these thick lengths streamed across her shoulders and down her upper back. In the light breeze, every step she took caused them to tumble around each other. Always in constant motion, her hair never knotted together in a fisherman’s nightmare, as he would have expected.
Truly a fascinating spectacle. Too bad it lent itself to no opening lines for a conversation that would not make him sound a greater fool than she already considered him. The only other topics he could think of that might breach the wall of her irritability were ones unlikely to endear him to her. Any questions about her relationship to the Standing Spell would undoubtedly be interpreted as an attempt to discover how he might purchase her services. Given her statements from before, he could already guess how she would react to another perceived implication that he saw her as a courtesan.
Which she seemed clearly not to be. None of this made any sense.
She halted in front of a large house little different from the Sestion abode. Additional space lay between the outer fence and the house, and there were trees beyond a few decorative shaders. Trees enough that Marik thought the sky must be a rare sight to any residents who spent all their time in the mansion.
No servant manned the gate. Marik reached for the gate handle when Ilona turned on him. “Do me a favor, and keep your mouth shut while we’re inside.”
He tried to renew the anger that earlier allowed him to stand against her, except she met him eye-to-eye. Her eyes were more than glassy orbs like everyone else’s. They were perfect globes. Peering into them, he could almost feel the back curves, could sense the distance between iris and the interior space. And the irises alone! Space enough to be lost forever in, though quite unlike the transparent void of the sky above. The very essence of brown, where everything existed solely to be dark brown and perfection was dark brown and all manner of things were dark brown. No other color in the universe held meaning. Never before had he experienced endless infinity…as he saw in Ilona’s gaze.
Those eyes narrowed. “Did you hear me? I’ve come on business and I will not have you tarnishing the reputation mother has worked so hard for because you want to act smarter than you are!”
Annoyance stirred, but not enough to pull the anger to the fore. “I only want to ask about the assassin. Not ruin your social standings.”
“Then keep quite. You can stand there looking tough or important if that suits you. Men never handle delicate situations right anyway, so don’t interfere.”
He started to ask what she meant by that when she walked through the gate, leaving him behind before he could form the right words. Marik followed her in with a sigh. A forgotten voice had once told him that a man never stood a chance against a woman who’d made up her mind, especially if it was a decision to gallop a horse over a cliff. The advice felt old, so perhaps his father had said that. Whoever it might have been, he agreed. While he watched Ilona crash the heavy knockers loudly against the doors as though she would much rather chew through them, he questioned why he’d ever started assuming men were the ones in charge of the world.
* * * * *
In the end, the interview was a waste of time for all they received from it. Daniel Dennilor, an earl at King Raymond’s court for his entire life, fast approached his end. Wispy gray strands were plastered to his head, as though he had accidentally walked through a spider’s web. His deteriorated hearing forced them, or rather Ilona, to speak loudly, so people passing on the street probably heard her. Twice the old man’s mind wandered from the present. She needed to reiterate substantial portions of what had been said until he remembered what they spoke of.
As for his involvement with the female assassin, they got nearly nothing.
She was the daughter of an old lady friend of his who needed to escape from a terrible fate or…perhaps it was that fate…or no, maybe it was this...
If nothing else, Marik did learn about Ilona. To say that she was angry about an assassin working her way into their employ, using them as cover to advance her own schemes, would understate Ilona’s wrath. It encouraged Marik to know her ire, or at least its majority, was rooted elsewhere than in him.
Back on the street, the festering boil of her foul mood seemed to have been lanced. Which was not to say she warmed to him. “That’s that.” She adjusted the serape which had tightened around her neck. “Sorry you didn’t learn anything.”
Her tone held no sympathy in the least, and Marik realized she meant to leave him standing there. “What about this friend of the earl’s?” He could think of nothing else that might delay her departure. “If the assassin is her daughter, then she would know about her.”
Ilona burned him with scorn. “Use your head! If she was the mother, she wouldn’t be likely to tell us anything, would she? But it’s obvious she’s not. The whole story is a load of horse feathers put together to trick Daniel into asking us to hire her!”
“But she was the earl’s friend,” Marik continued stubbornly. “She must know the details.”
“So you want to fly off and question her, then? Fine. Exactly where will you find her?”
“Oh, uh…”
“And what is her name? Tell me that because I must have nodded off if he mentioned it.”
Daniel had not, and she was just being spiteful. “There must be options to try! And don’t tell me you’re satisfied with this! You haven’t found proof your mother wasn’t involved with the attack!”
“Don’t be a bigger idiot than you are. Proof is one thing I’ll never find. I only wanted the explanation behind this so we know where we stand. I have what I want, and so I’ll be on my way.”
She started walking. Desperate, Marik jogged to draw abreast of her, catching a fresh glare for his trouble. “But what about your reputation? I mean, your mother’s reputation? Won’t your business decline if people think you make contracts with your men? I mean put contracts on your clients!” He had started thinking about her and it tripped up his mouth.
“Our regular clients know us better than that. When the cityguard hangs the bitch from the city walls, everyone else will too.”
Marik frantically cast his mental nets for a new argument. If he kept from talking about her or himself personally, his mind could stay in control of his words. “What about the cityguard? They were already at the b…uh, at the Standing Spell earlier today, weren’t they? I bet they don’t turn their backs on your doors anytime soon.”
That irritated Ilona. “What the cityguard does is none of my concern. They can’t disrupt our business much by sitting across the street and glaring at the door!”
He thought he saw an opening, so he quickly leapt at it. “But you can bet they won’t! They’ll probably storm through the place every other day looking for assassins targeting aristocrats, or searching the place for dangerous magical artifacts!”
She faced him sharply, stopping in the street. Hah! That one got her attention! “And what exactly is that supposed to mean? Dangerous magical artifacts?”
Bloody shit! Now I completely stepped in it! He played it coolly. “Hadn’t you heard about that?”
“About what?” she demanded through clenched teeth, watching him avidly as a bird of prey.
His spine became a grape shriveling in the sun under her stare. “She had a magic assassin’s charm she meant to use on Hilliard. To kill him. As I understand it, those things are supposed to be closely regulated under the king’s law.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Well…”
“The guards never asked us about it this morning.” Ilona noticed him shift his weight uncomfortably. “Come to think of it, how did you know your lord was in danger last night? You were so intent on undressing me in your mind that I thought a Devil had possessed you when you suddenly shouted.”
“I wasn’t…I wasn’t undressing you!” Marik felt his face flaming fiercely for what must be the ninth or tenth time in the last day.
Ilona stamped one foot and poked his chest with a slender finger hard as iron. “Don’t dodge the question! Tell me how you knew about it!”
Bravo, Marik! You always find a way to make a bad situation worse. Here goes any chance you might have had. Now she will hate you, and for good reason! “Well, I…sort of…felt it.”
“Felt what?” She refused to allow him a graceful escape.
“Felt…when she used the magic.”
She studied him strangely. Cautiously. He could feel the repulsion building inside her. “Felt the magic,” she repeated. “Meaning you’re a magician?”
“No. A mage. But not by choice!”
Ilona pointed at the sword. “Then why are you carrying that? Hoping to fool people?”
“No! I’m a swordsman!”
Her lip curled slightly. “How much sense does that make? Either you’re a mage or blade swinger. Can’t you do anything with your magic?”
“Not…really.” Why was she looking at him that way? It differed from the way she had disdained him before, though it was still clearly scorn.
Ilona’s contemplations focused inward. “Magic, eh? And coming out of the Spell?” She laughed once, pure contempt. “Not too damned likely, but it might cause trouble. Trouble for mother.”
Marik, desperate to regain a foothold in the conversation, blurted out, “Why is it called the Standing Spell?”
She glared at him with the edged expression that had quickly become her usual when regarding him. “That’s a private joke of mother’s, and none of your concern.”
“But with a name like that, and a magical artifact associated with it…it will make people wonder, won’t it?”
Ilona resumed walking while cursing under her breath. It amazed him how she could be the image of female perfection one moment, yet swear like a mercenary the next.
Her mutters, mostly unintelligible, shredded on the breeze before he could catch them. The few phrases he heard revealed her reexamining her facts. Marik, still hopeful, said, “If you could find out where the bracelet came from, you could clear your name. It would prove your…uh, house has nothing to do with magical objects.”
She snorted. It sounded like, “Men!” Walking sideways to see him, she lashed out, “Do you have any idea what you’re talking about? Of course you don’t! Then let me tell you. There are over fifty known places in Thoenar you could put your hands on black market items, if you decided you wanted them. If you know what you’re doing, you might be able to find the other twenty who are clever enough to disguise their natures from the cityguard. With no idea what you’re about, you could wander around the city for the rest of your life!”
A connection clicked inside Marik. “Do you think an alchemy shop might sell an illegal magical artifact?”
Ilona sensed he knew something. “Certain ones might. What do you know?”
Wishing she would stop seeing through him as if he were glass, he recounted the attack at the chapter house and Dietrik’s subsequent visit to the Alchemists’ Academy. He left out the part where he drew on his mage talent since it would only deepen her revulsion. Ilona was hardly rapt with his descriptions, yet she took it all in. After he finished, she considered her thoughts without inviting him to share in them.
“And you think this gang after your lord is using an alchemy shop to hide in?”
“That’s the going theory. They might have a connection to a shop because of the phosphorus we found on them. And you say the shops are likely black market fronts for such magical items, which are pretty rare in the first place. It seems increasingly likely that the thieves are hiding in a shop.”
She shook her head. “There must be a hundred things wrong with that premise. Just because you have horse manure on your shoes, does that mean you li
ve in a stable?”
Embarrassed, Marik quickly glanced down while lifting a boot from the ground. They were clean. When he looked up he found Ilona rolling her eyes.
“Still, there’s no hope for it, I suppose,” she said, which struck him as a strange statement. “You have to start somewhere. I am going to discuss this with mother and see what she has to say. Do you have this list?”
“No. Dietrik has it back at our inn. Are you going to look into them to search for the gang?”
“Don’t be a fool,” she snapped, “although I understand it’s hard for your gender. The cityguard can deal with these thieves of yours, but I think I need to find out where this bracelet came from, and soon. This could set the fox among the chickens, and mother doesn’t deserve that. Not after everything she’s been through.”
“I can get the list of the shops the academy head gave us.”
Ilona sighed. He could nearly hear her teeth grind together. “Fine. So be it. Be at the Spell by noon. I can see you have every intention of investigating the shops, so you may as well come with me. I can keep you from sending it all to hells if the right shop is on your list. If it is an alchemy shop in the first place!”
She left him to return to her mother’s business while he returned to the Swan’s Down. The entire way there, his feet walked on a cushion of air.
Chapter 17
“Hey! Are you paying attention, mate?”
Marik glanced at Dietrik walking beside him. “Sorry?”
Dietrik scowled. “This illustrates my point to a perfect tee,” he muttered. “You need to take hold of your head, Marik. Women can be a far spate more dangerous than any fighter you’ve ever faced on a battlefield.”
“I’m fine!” Marik insisted forcefully.
A laugh was his friend’s reply. “Look at you! I keep expecting you to skip over to the nearest park and braid a garland of pretty flowers.”
