Wicked Women

by Gaie Sebold

  ‘His loss, your gain,’ I shrugged.

  ‘I’ll take all the luck I can this evening,’ Tirian perched her rump on the edge of our table. ‘It’s cursed quiet, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is that,’ I agreed.

  ‘Not for long.’ Halice nodded towards the taproom’s outer door.

  Two men entered, evidently brothers from their colouring and features but distinct in dress and manner. The first was stocky rather than tall and with flaxen hair that would be the envy of every girl lounging around the room. He was dressed with a style to catch the eye, boots well polished, breeches of dark green broadcloth, silver studs on the belt that circled his waist and his shirt of crisp new linen clasped at the throat with an emerald brooch. He scanned the room with sapphire eyes, well aware of the effect of his appearance.

  ‘Doesn’t he ever feel the cold?’ I asked Halice. According to whichever Almanac you used, the season had turned from Aft-Spring to For-Summer three or four days ago but I still didn’t find it warm enough to go around in shirtsleeves once the sun had set.

  Halice shrugged. ‘No, neither of them do.’

  The second man was slighter in build than his brother and nowhere near as dapper in his dress. His boots were scuffed, his old leather belt was stretched, the brass tag from the end long since lost and his shirt was open at the neck. All the same, he was attracting just as much attention from the lasses around the room with his air of raffish charm, eyes as blue as his brother’s and twinkling with impudence.

  They came over and sat at our table. Tirian swiftly appeared with a fresh flagon of ale, two earthenware cups and a coquettish smile even shared between the two of them. ‘Master Sorgrad,’ she dimpled, setting a drink down before the taller of the pair. ‘Sorgren.’

  The rumpled brother slid a wiry arm around her waist and pulled her onto his knee. ‘Good day to you, sweetness.’ He used his free hand to brush the ringlets back over her shoulder and kissed her just below her ear. She blushed vividly.

  ‘Give us a moment please, Tirian,’ Halice asked. ‘We’ve some business to discuss.’

  ‘Gren caught up her hand and kissed it before releasing her. ‘Later, sweetness?’

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’ Tirian smiled at him with happy anticipation before returning to her position at the counter, more than one envious female gaze following her.

  Sorgrad held out his hand and I dropped the rune bones into it. ‘So, are we playing decoy pigeon for you?’ It’s a fact that men who’ll baulk at proposing a hand of runes with a woman can be tempted when a table’s already in play.

  Halice shook her head. ‘The evening breeze brought us the whisper of a richer game.’

  ‘Runes? White Raven?’ Sorgrad hazarded.

  Halice lifted her drink to mask her mouth from curious eyes. ‘Gems.’

  Sorgren’s eyes brightened. ‘This sounds like fun already.’ He leaned forward, elbows on the table, lacing his fingers together.

  ‘This isn’t a good city to fall foul of the Watch in.’ Sorgrad sounded wary, unobtrusively checking to be certain no one was close enough to eavesdrop on this conversation.

  ‘We’ve got a man on the inside,’ Halice offered. ‘Charoleia put him on to us.’

  ‘Did she?’ mused Sorgrad.

  I hadn’t known these brothers for long but I already knew he could count the people he trusted absolutely on the fingers of both hands with a couple to spare. Charoleia merited the first forefinger when he made that count.

  ‘What kind of gems?’ asked ‘Gren, persistent as always.

  ‘Diamonds,’ Halice answered simply. ‘Aldabreshin. Of the first water and set in white gold.’

  Sorgrad raised his golden brows. ‘That’s from your man on the inside?’

  Halice nodded. ‘House steward to the head of the Tailor’s Guild.’

  ‘Who sits and pretends to drink but leaves more than half his wine untested,’ I chipped in.

  ‘You don’t trust him?’ Sorgrad looked at me, azure eyes piercing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘And I don’t know him.’

  And I was still getting the measure of these two. While I will have various thefts to answer for when I finally face Saedrin at the door of judgement, at least I’ll be able to plead I’d only even stolen when the alternative was starvation. Well, mostly. But Sorgrad, Sorgren and Halice had quite a different attitude, having served together in various mercenary bands in the interminable Lescari civil wars. They wouldn’t plunder peasants, not least because ‘Gren said they never had anything worth taking, but if they came across someone rich enough to stand a loss without harm, they were never averse to weighting their purses at his expense.

  Halice was telling the two of them about Cordainer. ‘So he’s trusting us to shift the gems for him,’ she concluded. ‘That should keep him honest.’

  Sorgrad nodded slowly. ‘Col, that would be the best place to take them. Each piece to a different merchant.’

  I noted Sorgren frowning. ‘You don’t like the idea?’

  ‘What?’ He looked at me, brow clearing. ‘No, it sounds like a fun game. I’ve been trying to think where I heard this man’s name before.’

  ‘Cordainer?’ I queried.

  ‘No, Barazon.’ He looked at me exasperated before scowling again, eyes distant. ‘He’s more than head of the tailors’ guild. He runs more sheep on the uplands than any other man in the city.’

  ‘Does he now?’ Sorgrad’s otherwise handsome face turned ugly for a moment. ‘Then he’s got plenty to pay for.’

  I thought about asking if they would be handing over their share of the loot to those uplanders dispossessed by the wealthy of Selerima eager to profit from the burgeoning wool trade. I decided against it. Their appearance marked them out as Mountain Men clearly enough but I’d never heard anything to suggest they ever looked back at whatever home they’d fled any more than I did.

  ‘So we’re agreed?’ Halice looked round the table. ‘We’ll talk to this Cordainer when he’s done with Mynna?’

  Sorgrad and Sorgren nodded and I held my tongue. There was no point in finding myself outvoted three to one.

  Guild Master Barazon lived in a part of the city where even the back alleys were paved and clean. Fortunately they were also deserted. Halice and I kept to the shadows as we approached the back wall of his sizeable dwelling, belligerently spiked against unwelcome intruders. There was the big main gate, wide enough to accommodate the biggest wagons laden with barrels and sacks of provender to keep his household fed and his guests impressed. Set into it was the narrow wicket door grudgingly opened to let the servants out to whatever hard-won leisure they spent their drudgery dreaming of. A slight shadow detached itself from a recess opposite.

  ‘Are they all gone out?’ Halice asked softly.

  ‘Gren nodded, a hood hiding his fair head from the inquisitive moonlight. ‘Every last one of them. Cordainer locked up himself.’

  Halice nodded at me. ‘Let’s see what kind of lock Barazon spends his coin on.’

  ‘Aren’t we waiting for ‘Grad?’ I rubbed my hands down the sides of my dark grey jerkin to rid them of sweat.

  ‘Here he comes.’ Sorgren turned to watch his brother lope down the alley.

  ‘All gone off in their carriages to enjoy,’ he confirmed under his breath.

  ‘Let’s be about it then,’ Halice said tersely.

  I slipped across the alley to press myself in the scant shadow afforded by the arch of the gate. My hands shook slightly as I sorted the lock picks Sorgrad had given me for a Winter Solstice gift. I took a deep breath and my hands stilled, my fingers deft as I felt my way through the unseen workings of the lock. It was a good one. Barazon might scorn the Mountain Men as he sent his shepherds and their bully boys to drive them from their pastures but he was still prepared to pay for their unequalled metalwork. Fortunately, Sorgrad had been picking Mountain made locks since his curiosity first outstripped what few scruples Maewelin has blessed his birth with. Better
yet, he was an excellent teacher and I was an apt pupil.

  With a last snick of well greased brass, I had the lock open. Even before I’d turned to wave the others across from their hiding place, ‘Gren was at my side.

  ‘Have you got it?’ I demanded under my breath.

  ‘Just watch this.’ Moonlight caught his mischievous grin.

  I stepped back to let him slip through the gate, Sorgrad hard on his heels with a naked dagger in his hand. Halice stood at my back, glancing up and down the alleyway, hands seemingly casual in her pockets.

  ‘Cordainer will get a flogging for this,’ I said, not for the first time. ‘For letting the porter go to the shrine dedication along with all the other servants. I don’t suppose Barazon will think much of such piety when he sees he’s been robbed.’

  ‘There are the dogs. Who’d have imagined thieves would feed them meat doused in some apothecary’s draught?’ Halice shrugged, unconcerned. ‘And if he does get flogged, his cut of the proceeds should pay for plenty of salve.’

  Sorgrad reached through the wicket gate to tug at my sleeve. ‘Come on.’

  I slipped through and Halice ducked after me. ‘Lock it,’ she ordered before following ‘Gren across the clean swept cobbles of the yard.

  I glanced at the motionless heaps that were the hapless watchdogs, dark against the moonlit ground. At least Sorgrad’s blade had still been clean. ‘Gren’s friend the apothecary had unwittingly supplied something potent enough to save the poor hounds from a throat slitting to silence them.

  The yard was ringed by single storied workshops and storehouses. By the time I had the wicket gate locked, Sorgrad and ‘Gren were up on the stone slates of the roof closest to the windows of the main house. ‘Gren was keeping an eye outwards while Sorgrad worked to foil the shutters’ catches from the outside.

  ‘Up you go.’ Halice gave me a boost and I crept carefully across the treacherous slates towards the concealing shadow cast by the house. With surprising stealth for a woman of her size Halice swung herself up to join us.

  Sorgrad eased the shutter open and now concentrated on the window within. I looked out across the yard, the roofs and out to the back alley beyond. There were more back yards, some butted up close to their neighbour, some separated by a narrow run giving access to the high road flanked by these expensive houses. A few windows in the garrets opposite were golden with candle light but they were too far away for anyone to pick us out of the shadows. Besides, the maids behind those meagre muslin curtains would hardly be staring idly out over the city. All they’d be thinking of was getting as much sleep as possible before the relentless sun called them to another day of tedious labours.

  ‘In we go,’ ordered Sorgrad, shoving the shutter back. ‘Gren was in first, me next and then Halice. Sorgrad jumped lithely down from the sill and immediately turned to pull up the shutter.

  Halice lit a small shuttered lantern to show we were in a neat sitting room furnished with a well polished table that didn’t match its chairs and an upholstered daybed whose silk was faded and worn at the foot. ‘Housekeeper’s domain,’ she confirmed with a grin.

  Sorgrad was lighting his own lantern. ‘Let’s find the stairs.’

  The housekeeper kept her preserve guarded with a locked door but it was the work of a moment to undo that. Beyond was a corridor carpeted with a strip of drugget to muffle servants’ hurrying feet. I pictured the map Cordainer had drawn for us in my mind’s eye. The house steward’s room was off to that side, where our friend held court among similar cast-off furniture. That door on our other hand would lead to the servant’s dining hall.

  ‘Gren wrinkled his nose.

  ‘What?’ I demanded.

  He looked down at his hands. ‘I must have got some blood on my cuffs from that offal I fed the dogs.’

  ‘Never mind that.’ Sorgrad was already half way up the first flight of the back stairs ahead of us. A short corridor with an expensive Dalasorian carpet led towards the front of the house and the expansive salons where Barazon would entertain his fellow guild masters and Selerima’s richest merchants. We carried on up the back stairs, soft soled boots silent on the coarse carpet.

  Sorgrad halted at the next floor. ‘We’ll take his study. You take her parlour. Then we’ll hit the bedchambers.’

  Halice and I turned to the double doors of Barazon’s wife’s personal sanctum. She was either too idle to lock them, or too confident in her servants’ loyalty or in their fear of her wrath.

  ‘Nothing too identifiable,’ Halice reminded me as she set her muted lantern on a round table inlaid with florid marquetry. ‘Silver for preference.’ She was already breaking the beeswax fingers out of a delicate candle branch.

  I tugged a soft cloth bag out of one pocket and began emptying the herbs from an array of silver canisters before dropping them inside it. Mistress Barazon would find her tisanes already blended for her when the maid brought hot water for her morning drink tomorrow. The herb canisters were fine work, modern but Tormalin made all the same. It was a shame to think of them getting scratched and dented as they jostled in the bag. Still, they were going to be melted down anyway. We weren’t going to waste time trying to get a fair price for them, not when their theft was merely a feint to cover the fact we’d been after the diamonds all along.

  ‘That’ll do.’ Halice caught up the lantern and headed for the door.

  I followed, stifling a sneeze from the heady dust of the herbs.

  Outside, ‘Gren slipped like a shadow out of Barazon’s study. ‘I’ll see you upstairs.’ In sharp contradiction to his words, he ran lightly down to the floor below.

  Sorgrad appeared at the study door, his own cloth bag bulky with their spoils. ‘Let’s get these gems.’

  ‘Where’s ‘Gren going?’ Halice demanded curtly.

  ‘Thought he heard something,’ Sorgrad shrugged. ‘Let’s get this done and get clear of here.’

  I followed him and Halice up the stairs. My heart was pounding like a festival drum and my breath came fast and shallow. I rubbed one hand on my thigh to rid it of sweat and swapped the bag of tisane canisters over, so I could do the same to the other.

  ‘I’ll take the boudoir.’ Sorgrad turned to me when we reached the floor where the master bedrooms were. ‘I imagine the lady will have the best lock she can on her treasures. You go and see what the guild master might have to lose.’

  ‘I’ll wait for ‘Gren.’ Halice waited at the top of the stairs, frowning as she looked back down.

  I took her lantern and hurried into Barazon’s bedroom. His bed stood four square against the far wall, dark brocade curtains caught back with silken cords, linen pale where the sheet had been turned back for him by some dutiful chambermaid. The air was still and heavy with the scent of a sickly pomade just undercut by a sharp suggestion of the artemisia and the orris root that hid powdered in linen sachets to protect his clothes from vermin. There was a table by the window littered with oddments of parchment, a book with gold on the binding catching the moonlight cutting through a crack in the heavy drapes hiding the window. Somewhat unexpectedly, a glass fronted case of books stood against one wall.

  There would be precious little in here worth taking. I cut across the caressing thickness of the carpet to the door of the dressing room. Ignoring the tall clothes presses set into the wall, and the marble topped washstand with its ewer and basin, I headed straight for the heavy painted coffer under the window. That would be where he kept his jewels; chains to add lustre to a chest already puffed with importance, brooches to adorn his hat and cloak, buckles for his shoes and breeches.

  Unsurprisingly, the coffer was locked. I fished out my lock picks and bending over it, I set to work. There had to be a few things in here a man this wealthy could stand to lose without too much pain.

  ‘Livak!’ Halice startled me. I jerked upright and caught her reflection in the tall looking glass where Barazon admired himself. ‘Come on?’

  I abandoned the chest and ran. Halice was a
lready out of the bedchamber and on the stairs. ‘Did ‘Gren hear something?’ I asked, abruptly breathless.

  ‘He found something,’ Halice replied grimly.

  I followed her down the stairs, Sorgrad appearing at my elbow.

  ‘Did you find the diamonds?’ I demanded.

  ‘I found the coffer,’ he answered, voice tight with fury. ‘Just where Cordainer said we would. Double locked, just like he said. I got it open and the cursed thing was empty.’

  I was too astounded by that piece of news to say anything as we hurried down the stairs.

  ‘Gren was waiting for us. ‘In here,’ he said tersely.

  In there was the house steward’s sitting room. In there was an acrid smell of blood compounded with voided bowels and the scorched polished wood of a side table where a candlestick had toppled over. The main table was thrown on its side, a chair splintered beside it. A body lay sprawled across a daybed the twin of the one in the house keeper’s room. There’d be no saving the upholstery on this one and the whole room would have to be repainted besides. The walls were spattered with blood.

  ‘So who do you suppose that is?’ rasped ‘Gren. ‘Because it’s not Cordainer. Look at those hands.’

  One showed the unmistakeable indentation of a scholar’s ring and there was the raised ridge of a pen callous on the middle finger of the other. The corpse was wearing the clothes we’d last seen Cordainer in, down to the last detail. That fine linen shirt wasn’t crisp and white any more. It was ruddy with clotted gore. Whether or not the dead man was Cordainer was anybody’s guess. His face was a nauseating pulp of torn flesh and smashed bone puddled with blood still wet enough to shine in the dim light of Halice’s lanterns. Another glint showed up the poker used to do the murder tossed back into the hearth.

  ‘Cordainer must be long gone, with the gems in his pocket,’ Sorgrad breathed with ominous calm. ‘We’ve been set up to swing for this.’

  ‘Not if we get clear,’ said ‘Gren fervently.

  ‘Drop the loot,’ Halice’s bag dropped to the floor with a clatter.