“Very satisfactory, Vadim: I believe blue may be your colour. May one ask where Keenan is, or would it be unwise to enquire?”
“He’s under the bed,” Vadim said, with a scowl over her shoulder. “He says he’s making something for you. Keenan! The lady wants to see you! Come out, or I’ll drag you out!”
I laughingly declined any need to see Keenan, ignoring his mutinous muttering, and said: “I believe I shall go out, Vadim. You will accompany me- no, you may continue to wear what you have on; now is as good a time to start with your new things as any other.”
Vadim left Keenan to secrecy and dust without a backward glance, and dashed to help me dress.
“Where are we going, lady?”
“To see the horselords, I rather think,” I said thoughtfully. If Lord Pecus was not sharing information I certainly wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of going over old ground in an attempt to keep up. The Earl of Horn and Charles Black were old ground, and now beyond my power to explore. No, I must branch into new line of investigation, one that Lord Pecus had either not considered, or not seen as important. As an afterthought to Vadim, who was attempting to perch the wrong hat on my head, I added: “But to Raoul’s chambers first. Vadim, are you determined to make me a laughingstock?”
My lips twitched at the consternation on her face. “Wide-brimmed hats are only for mornings, child. As the day wanes, so do hat brims; and as it is now approaching late afternoon, any brim in sight must be a small curled one.”
Vadim held up another hat tentatively, this time a small, curved confection that dipped toward one eye and displayed a charming curl of sapphire blue feather. I nodded my approval and allowed her to place it while I changed my overdress to something more nearly matching. By now, Raoul’s room ought to be unguarded: the Watch had finished their inspection yesterday, and I should be able to walk in without attracting notice.
Vadim, for once conscious of her duties, opened all doors for me. I would have been more favourably impressed if I had not had a strong suspicion that she was merely eager to break and enter, but it made a nice change. I found myself suddenly thankful that Keenan was not with us, and wondered briefly if I was setting a bad example for impressionable children. However, a moment’s reflection was sufficient to remind me that Keenan’s criminal tendencies were already fully formed by the time our paths crossed, and that Vadim was very nearly as bad. Much to my amusement, she showed herself proficient in the art of the search, lifting and replacing each item just as it had been before she touched it; and displaying a talent for hidden niches and drawers. Nevertheless, adept though she was, not even Vadim could produce useful information out of thin air- or perhaps she could, for all I knew, with those ever-useful magical abilities of hers. At any rate, there was nothing to be gained from poking about a room that had already been divested of any relevant clues, so I signalled to Vadim, and we left as carefully as we had arrived.
“Why are we going to see the horselords?” she asked, when we were safely out of the house and strolling along the streets.
Curbing the tongues of one’s servants may be dignified and lofty, but it is rarely useful, so I merely said: “I want to know if Lord Pecus has found out about Katrina yet,” and allowed her to chatter.
I left her at one of the tables in the messhall, where she was fussed over by four huge guardsmen who should have known better. They teased her and provided her with far more sweets than she could possibly eat, and treated her, in short, like a younger sister; leaving me free to wander in search of Katrina, whom I found in one of the recreational booths. She was hunched over a chessboard and fiddling with the pieces while Curran, a lazy smile on his face, sprawled back into the padded seat with his arms spread on the seat top each side. This, I knew as well as Curran himself did, would see him with his arm around Katrina when she sat back from her turn.
How interesting! So Curran was courting in earnest, was he? For all his talk, Curran was not in the habit of putting an arm around his ladyfriends unless he was dancing with them.
It was Katrina who looked up and saw me first, her dark face lightening with a rare smile. Curran, drawing his eyes away from her, winked at me and said: “Isabella, my darling! I hear you’ve been obstructing the Watch.”
I flicked a pointed look at the arm around Katrina’s shoulders, but forbore to remark, since his eyes held as much warning as his smile did audacity. So Katrina didn’t yet know she was being courted.
Also interesting.
“No: corrupting it, apparently,” I told them. “Or so Lord Pecus informs me.”
“I think Lord Pecus is fond of you, Isabella,” said Katrina unexpectedly, gazing up at me with quietly curious eyes. “He told us not to encourage you.”
“I dare say he did!” I remarked, with feeling. I was conscious of disappointment. “Lord Pecus already spoke to you, then?”
Curran looked at me with a faintly mocking smile. “He spoke to all of us, yesterday. But if you mean to Katrina in particular, no. None of us felt that her business was pertinent.”
I chuckled with a touch of malice. “Lord Pecus will most likely beg to differ when he finds out. And he will find out, Katrina.”
“I know,” she said, smiling faintly. “I didn’t want it gone over just yet, that’s all. Have you come to question me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, and unconsciously leaned back into the circle of Curran’s arm. “Don’t be. I want the swine who did this caught and executed as much as any Civetan could, but I don’t know how much use I can be.”
“Neither do I,” I said ruefully. “Perhaps I’m clutching at straws. I wondered if Raoul ever said anything to you about Charles Black, or perhaps Black Velvet; or if there was a single place you used to meet in more than any other place.”
“When we didn’t meet here in the mess hall, we’d go to a small eatery in Rooker’s Square- the Pig’s Squeal,” Katrina said, turning a queen over and over between long fingers. She didn’t look up. “It’s the only place we went to. The king-consort thinks Raoul was a traitor, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said regretfully. “Raoul was carrying sensitive papers.”
This time Katrina did look at me. “Lady, he was no traitor. It carries no weight from me, I know, but I knew him. He was troubled – something to do with papers, like you said – but Civet was always first in his thoughts. Look for any other motive but treason.”
“It gives me no pleasure to think of Raoul as a traitor,” I said sombrely, sighing a little. “I won’t close my mind to the possibility, but it has never sat well with me.”
“He said you grew up together,” said Katrina, inclining her head in a nod. “There’s another motive somewhere: find it, Isabella.”
“And so I shall!” I said, infusing a cheerfulness that I didn’t quite feel into my voice. “The Pig’s Squeal, you say?”
I left as Curran was showing Katrina sleight of hand with the chess piece – no doubt because this entailed playing with her fingers – and couldn’t help but smile. Katrina, so strong and independent, had stood shoulder to shoulder with Raoul: it was intriguing to see her leaning on anyone, let alone on so precarious a support as Curran. I stifled a chuckle as I crooked a finger for Vadim. Garrulous Curran and silent Katrina! They would make an odd pair.
When Vadim rejoined me, we took to the open street again. Dusk was drawing near, but fortunately Vadim knew Rooker’s Square well, and it was barely a ten minute walk to find the Pig’s Squeal eatery; where, if its signs were to be believed, one could enjoy the best bacon in the city. I raised a sceptical brow at this, but since the same sign informed customers that strongboxes could be obtained for their varied (and possibly illegal) possessions, I subdued my misgivings, and entered. Declining to seat myself at any of the tables, I approached the counter and showed the tender my Civetan chit.
“I believe a countryman of mine had a lockbox here,” I said pleasantly, as he examined it. “His name was Raoul.”
“He’s dead,” I told him bluntly, because I was moderately sure that he knew already. “I need to open the locker.”
The tender eyed me for a brief, ruminative moment, no doubt debating between the dual possibilities of successfully shaking me down for a bribe and starting an international incident, and went with the safer option.
“I’m not supposed to let anyone but the renter in, lady.” He rubbed unnecessarily at the already clean counter, and shot another look at me. “He hasn’t paid the last lot of rent, you know.”
I slid a coin from my cuff and flashed it at him. “Open the locker: I’ll settle the rent.”
He left me with the key, and I left him with the coin. Vadim, bouncing with barely contained excitement, hung onto the wooden, magic-grained door, and peered in.
“Huh!” she said in disgust. “It’s only a card, lady! I thought it would be secret papers.”
I reached in and plucked out the oblong of stiff cardboard, but it was blank. “Vadim?”
She took it, and her eyes brightened.
“Oh! Clever! Watch, lady.” She passed her hand over the face of it, then tapped it sharply on the side of the lockbox. “It’s a carnival trick. Look!”
Ink trickled into being like sand through a timer, forming the words: Today at dusk. Order tea for two.
“Very well!” I said sharply, flicking the card back into the strongbox. “Now we achieve something! We have arrived just in time, I think. Vadim, wait for me at another table.”
Vadim, her eyes very big, took the coin I passed her. “Lady, perhaps you’ll be kidnapped!”
“Nonsense!” I said cheerfully, though her fear had not fallen too far from my own rueful presentiments of danger. “You will sit at another table, and watch carefully. If we leave the table you will stay, but I’ll take a sip of tea before we leave and you will know all is well. If I drop my teacup instead of sipping, run for the nearest watchman. Do you understand?”
She repeated it back to me, and I left her to take a table while I harassed the counter tender once more.
“When was the message left?” This time I prefaced my question with the sight of another coin, and the tender didn’t hesitate.
“This morning. A message boy poked it through the slots. Can I take your order, lady?”
“Tea for two,” I said, and sat down.
Chapter Nine
I sipped my tea with a tranquillity that was only slightly more than skin deep, and reflected with an inward sigh that the day was becoming another long one. Well, it was all in a good cause, after all. One couldn’t let someone like Lord Pecus get the better of one, and Raoul’s murderer certainly must be brought to justice.
There was a flash of red to my right mid thought, and someone sat down opposite me in a slither of satin. Female, my periphery told me, with a jolt of surprise.
“You’re not what I expected,” said the woman, crossing her legs. Her scarlet Lacunan cheongsam pulled tight across her shapely legs in a way that would not have been permissible in a Glausian or Civetan woman, displaying one ankle and a good deal of calf shamelessly.
“From the message I expected a man.”
I shrugged a little and sipped my tea. “Assumptions are dangerous things. Will you take tea?”
“I prefer to deal with business first. Did you bring it with you?”
I thought of Raoul, with a folded paper sewn into his sash. I had no papers with me, treasonous or otherwise.
“It’s somewhere safe. I’ll tell you where it is after we’ve settled accounts.”
One eyebrow rose, rousing my admiration with its exquisite arrogance. I would have liked to have raised my own in reply, but it has never been one of my talents, and I had to be content merely to give her look for look.
“Do we have an accord, lady?”
She hesitated only a moment. “Not here. Upstairs.”
She rose as languorously as she had seated herself, and moved gracefully past me to the back of the café. I took a sip of my tea, my eyes dwelling thoughtfully on a potted plant just to the left of Vadim, who had stiffened, and rose to follow her.
The shadowed staircase was narrow and dusty, no difficulty for the Lacunan lady in her close-cut cheongsam, but distinctly troublesome to me. I found myself in a losing battle for clean skirts and began to feel that I had been somewhat hasty. It was all for Raoul, of course – not to mention discomfiting Lord Pecus – but I did not feel that I should have to sacrifice my skirts to the cause. There is no reason people cannot have clean stairwells, if only they will take the trouble to sweep.
The room above stairs was not much tidier, but at least it was of sufficient size to allow me to stand in the centre and thus avoid the rampant dust bunnies that freely populated the corners. I heard the door click shut behind me with ominous loudness as the Lacunan lady sat down elegantly on one dusty table corner and lit a cigarillo.
“Who are you working for, lady?”
“Myself,” I said pleasantly, watching the curl of greenish smoke. I wondered where I had slipped: for slip I certainly had. Unless I was very much mistaken, the herby smoke quickly drifting through the room was hash, commonly thought of as a potent truth drug, and I was now in no small amount of danger.
“You are not my contact,” remarked the woman, issuing a thin stream of smoke from scarlet lips. Her eyes ran over me calculatingly, but I remained calm by reflecting that at least she was not a magic user: no one would use hash if they had the choice between it and a truth spell.
“Who are you? Who are you working for?”
Firmly, I said: “I work for myself.”
I was familiar with the green form of hash: it was not so much a truth drug as it was an intoxicant. The green smoke produced a bubbly confusion that gave issue to an unconsidered and unceasing chatter of anything uppermost in the victim’s mind. While the drug was usually effective, however, it was also unfortunately undiscriminating. An unwary questioner could find himself thoughtlessly answering more questions than he asked, if faced with a clever opponent; and there were ways of cheating it outright if one had enough determination of mind.
I was nothing if not determined. Nevertheless, she was smoking the drug, and it would, paradoxically, take longer to affect her: I would have to be more than determined. I wished I had had foresight enough to sweep my teacup off the table instead of taking a sip like a silly little sheep.
“I have all day, you know,” said the Lacunan woman. I took a small, light step backwards toward the door, and she slid off the table. “It’s locked. A friend of mine followed us up.”
It was no less than I had expected. “What gave me away?”
“Payment was made some days ago,” the woman said, circling me. Another thin stream of smoke drifted toward me, and I couldn’t tell if she had answered willingly or under the influence of the hash. “We get requests for more money often, but not for an original payment already made. Who are you?”
“‘Poet, philosopher, queen’,” I told her, with a sparkling smile. The quote was meant to be spoken straight-faced, but the smoke was beginning to make me dizzy and a little happy, and I couldn’t quite manage it. The trick with hash is to fill one’s mind with so many pent-in, separate thoughts, that when an interrogator begins questioning one, the only reply they gain is nonsense.
I allowed my thoughts to sharpen for a moment while the Lacunan woman frowned.
“I’m not your first Civetan contact, am I? Who else do you have?”
“We began with the Harper family,” she said, without thinking. “Then six months ago another operative took over.”
“Raoul?”
“Yes. But his information wasn’t as useful as we had hoped.”
“Did you kill him?” My voice was too sharp, and the woman blinked.
“You’re familiar with hash, I see,” she said, more watchfully. She blew a meditative stream of smoke into the ceil
ing. “What a pity I have no magic: I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this. I’m afraid I will have to hurt you, lady. Claude!”
Claude was a small, wiry man with well-trimmed mutton-chops and a face that was almost waxen in its quiet stillness. I allowed him to tie me to a dirty chair without demur because I had met his kind before: he would take pleasure in hurting me if I resisted. While he tied me, the Lacunan woman put out her cigarillo and opened a window to let in air of a dubious freshness. I heard the rattle as the window rose in its frame behind me, and though the breeze was warm and muggy, I felt a cold chill. I was very much regretting that I had not given Vadim the signal to call the Watch.
“This is Claude,” the Lacunan woman said, stalking into my line of sight once more. The introduction was unnecessary, but my respect for her went up: she knew how to build tension. She slid one of the decorative sticks from the inky black upsweep of her hair, disclosing a sharp poniard at its further end, and tapped it lightly against the back of my hand. It was sharp enough to draw a painless drop of blood.
“You can call me Chi. You won’t get the chance to talk about us to anyone, so we may as well be informal.”
Ah. A little clumsier. Death threats give no incentive to talk.
“Isabella,” I said coolly, nodding. “You’ve begun wrongways, lady. Talking becomes less attractive when I’ve only death to look forward to.”
“Would you believe me if I told you I would let you go?”
I laughed. “No, lady; I would not.”
“Then lying would be pointless,” she said, shrugging. “And I can make you wish you were dead. If you talk, I’ll make sure death is quick and painless; if not, I’ll leave you to Claude’s tender care.”
“I think you underestimate the desire of the living to keep on living,” I said. Was that a footstep in the other room? “Are you familiar with Lord Pecus, lady?”
Chi’s eyes had gone to the door, but at this they snapped back to me. “All of Glause is familiar with Lord Pecus.”
Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence) Page 14
