They say she has no servants, only slaves, their souls ripped from their hearts and set in glittering gemstones for her pleasure. They say she is older than this city, older than the Republic, older than the very hills themselves. They say she commands magics not seen in Tressia since the time of Sidara. They have much to say, and a great deal of it is wrong. I know the truth. Or at least a portion. It’s the only real leverage I have. One last throw of the dice.
The emissary halts a pace from Selloni. “My Mistress asks very little. Just a seat at the table. As an equal. All will profit handsomely.” There’s a curiously soothing note to the voice. It longs for agreement. It entices acceptance.
Selloni’s cheek twitches. Not much, but enough, if you’re looking for it. He knows something’s off-key. I’m impressed, after a fashion. I wouldn’t have credited him with the intelligence. “Your mistress has no place here. I’m not impressed—we are not impressed—by the theatrics of a Thrakkian bog-witch.”
“I concur.” Lithel Andri steps forward, her thin face hardening into resolve for the first time since my arrival. “The Crowmarket will never embrace Mistress Arlia. If she comes as a friend, she should have presented herself as such from the first, not contested our territories.”
“Agreed.” Natilya makes her pronouncement with all the finality of an empress disposing execution—a tone I’ve been unlucky enough to hear first-hand in a different game altogether.
Niarr holds his tongue. I doubt he cares either way, so long as coin flows into his pockets.
Selloni cracks a smile. I’ll never know if he’d have had the courage to follow through on the decision alone, but with his newfound colleagues at his back? Well, now he can’t back down. “You have our decision.”
A murmur ripples through the crowd. Quintus’s expression may as well have been carved from granite. Were I a betting man, I’d wager he wasn’t expecting this, but you”d never know it from his face.
The emissary cocks its head. “But you’ve not yet heard her terms.”
Before Selloni can interrupt, the soothing voice recounts a list of concessions and trades that Mistress Arlia is prepared to make. It’s a generous offer, from what I hear of it, but I’m not really listening.
My attention’s given over to the woman standing at the side of the stage, her arms folded across her chest and her back propped against the rough stone of the cavern wall. She meets my gaze and holds it for a moment, her perfect lips hitching into a lopsided smile. Like Natilya, she looks young. Like Natilya, her appearance is a lie. No one else spares her a glance. It’s as if she and I exist in a world apart. Only when the colour fades from my surroundings, do I realise that’s precisely true.
The woman pushes away from the wall and advances in a swirl of crimson skirts and black hair. Rubies glint at her pale throat and silk-sleeved wrists. Her footsteps are the only true sound. Everything else is muffled, as distant and weary as my surroundings. Everything but the soft chuckle of her laughter.
Enough with the sideshow, with the distractions. This is where the real game begins.
She halts in front of Niarr, green eyes glinting at me. “I received your invitation.”
I nod towards Selloni, now gesticulating wildly in reply to the emissary’s terms. If nothing else, I’m grateful to be spared another round of verbal posturing. “He’ll never agree.”
“I know. But you’ll forgive me my foibles?” Her smile broadens, then vanishes as she crosses the remaining distance between us. “What do you offer?”
“A truce. A year to consolidate your new territory, unhindered by me…or by the Council.”
A slender eyebrow arches. She curls her lip in disgust. “Have I come all this way for that?”
“No. You came because I guaranteed all your rivals would be in one place. Because I guaranteed you an audience. And, I think, because you were bored.”
She shrugs. “Perhaps that’s true. But I didn’t ask you for anything. You have no hold over me unless I allow it. You’re my rival as much as they. Why should I spare you?”
The threat hangs on the air. I don’t doubt she means it. This is the moment where the course of the game turns. Defeat or victory rests on my next words. I start with a name. “Fitzwalter.”
She stiffens. Just a little, but enough. “And what do you think that buys you?”
She could kill me at any moment. That she hasn’t yet means I’m still in the game. “By itself, nothing. It’s a warning. I know who you are, even if these fools do not.”
Her beauty turns cold. I have her full attention now. In truth, I don’t know the importance of the name—not in any great detail, anyway. It’s not a Tressian name, and if my sources speak truly it hails from very far afield indeed. Much like Arlia herself. Beyond that, my information is sketchy at best. Fitzwalter could be male or female, living or dead, a beloved ally or a hated enemy. That’s not the point. What matters is that it means something to her. Knowledge is rarely as complete as we might wish. Facts float upon a sea of conjecture and guesswork. The trick in these circumstances is to present what you know in such a way that your opponent believes the knowledge left unsaid is the most powerful of all.
She shakes her head in dismissal, but the accompanying laughter is hollow. “You know nothing of me.”
Just like that, the balance of power between us shifts. If she truly believed that, I’d already be dead. She can’t kill me until she’s certain.
“Then let me prove you wrong.”
The words come with a confidence I don’t yet feel. But I’m an old hand. Old enough to know that appearance is everything. I may deride Selloni for his theatrics, but I’m as guilty of them as any. A firm jaw, a level stare and you can fool them all. Because deep down, people want to believe. They want their secrets laid bare. It validates them, gives meaning to who they are and what they’ve done. I couldn’t do my work otherwise.
“Selloni thinks you’re a Thrakkian, but the realm you hail from is more distant by far. You’re certainly not here by choice. And impressive as this little display is, I know you’re but a shadow of who you once were.”
It’s guesswork, all guesswork, no more validated than the wharfside diviners promising to reveal the future through a deck of scuffed pentassa cards. But like I said, people want to believe. Even people who aren’t really people at all.
She steps closer, eyes blazing. “I think I’ll kill you now.”
But she makes no move to follow through. This time, the threat’s empty. I may not know much about Mistress Arlia, but she knows me. Or at least she knows my legend. Ask anyone in the Republic, or a hundred leagues beyond in any direction. They’ll all tell you the same stories. Solomon knows. Solomon always knows. Oh, she’s too canny to take every tale at face value. Given time and experience, she might even come to split truth from fable. But not yet. Not before this particular game has ended. For all the uproar she’s caused these last few years, the Red Lady is a stranger here, while I’ve worked hard to become a constant in an inconstant land.
I savour the moment. In many ways, I wish she hadn’t moved us into this grey world, beyond the sight of Selloni, Quintus and the others. I shouldn’t crave an audience, but I do. How else do legends grow? I swallow the impulse. It’s unworthy of me. What I do, it’s not about personal ambition.
“I know about the temple buried beneath the Hayadra Grove. I know what you’ve hidden there. I know it’s what gives you the power to perform these little—tricks of yours.” With that my gambit’s revealed. She has to know what’s coming now, but that doesn’t diminish the pleasure. “If I don’t walk out of here, my operatives will act. She’ll be gone. You’ll be gone. Or we can have that truce.”
She goes rigid as a board, fists clenched so tightly that red rivulets appear where lacquered fingernails gouge her palms. I’m not guessing. Not this time. Always save the best for last—It lends verisimilitude to the half-truths that come before. If I’m honest, I’m not certai
n my operatives can do as I say. There’s still so much I don’t know about her reach. As for the rest? I no longer have to join the dots—Mistress Arlia’s doing that for me. Behind her eyes, she’s weaving together the pieces in a way I never could. I don’t have to convince her. I never did. I just needed her to convince herself.
“A seven year truce.”
She spits the words. It’s the sound of concession, of pieces toppled to the board. I restrain a smile. Whatever tale I tell of this moment in years to come, this was no foregone conclusion. It’s important to remember that. An acquaintance of mine had a saying: Arrogance is more dangerous than a sword. Words to live by.
“Five.”
She nods, swallowing her displeasure. “We have a bargain.”
A bargain. I’ve heard no sweeter words all day. If Arlia’s what I think she is, then she’s incapable of breaking our accord. Gods can’t go back on their words, nor can their shadows. Nor can I, for what it’s worth. Another part of my legend—the carrot to the stick.
She turns away, looks over her shoulder, as if the next words don’t matter. “And these others?”
“Enjoy yourself.”
She smiles, confirming my words as sentence of death, and drifts away into the crowd.
Colour bleeds back into the world. The sound of the crowd rushes into my ears, like I’ve broken a river’s surface after too long underwater. They’re chanting again, the words lost in a dizzying swell of emotion, but it’s different now. They’re no longer forming words. It’s a primal sound, all pulsing rhythm and hate. Those eyes I can see are wild as beasts. I’ve seen that look before. Demons have that fury, at their core, but mortals sometimes harness it without thought. After a siege, when slaughter beneath the walls is repaid by a massacre within. When a parent returns to a house naught but ashes, the charred remains of their children yet inside. It’s a hatred that goes beyond reason, beyond words.
Then I see Arlia. She’s sitting astride the caravel’s bowsprit, her crimson skirts draped across Lumestra’s just visage. The metaphor doesn’t escape me. Reason drowned in red. That’s when I know it’s Arlia’s doing. She’s wide-eyed with anticipation. With hunger. More than ever I’m glad I struck that bargain.
Selloni knows something’s wrong. Like the rest of us on the stage, the madness hasn’t touched him. But where Selloni’s peers—even Niarr—stare aghast at the baying mob, he’s still speaking with the emissary. The roar of the crowd swallows his words long before they reach me, and his eyes flick nervously across the chanting throng. He knows this sight better than I. He’s brought madness and slaughter to many a harbourside.
A clever man would flee at this moment, but as I’ve said before, Selloni’s a fool. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He doesn’t know the game he and I played was but a prelude to the main event. All he knows is that the crowd wants blood.
“Don’t do it, Selloni.” Again, Quintus reads the situation more clearly than I’d expect. Perhaps it’s the worried gleam in Selloni’s eye. More likely it’s the mood of the crowd—the expectation in the air. Madness is so often self-sustaining. I’m sure Quintus saw enough of that on the border. I wonder how he feels about it loose in the city.
Selloni crooks a warning finger, a snarl upon his lips. “Your turn comes soon enough, captain.”
Steel glints in the firelight. The dagger that so lately graced my throat slides into the emissary’s chest.
The emissary goes limp in Selloni’s arms, but there’s no blood to mark the strike. There’s no body, just shapeless, empty cloth. Selloni’s triumphant cry dies on his tongue. The roar of the crowd redoubles. Selloni spins on his heel, scattering the robes to the ground. He sweeps his hand towards Quintus and me. “Kill them both. Now!”
He’s an age too late. The rabble surges up the stage’s timbers, trampling one another in their desperation to reach the crest. They reach Selloni before he has time to turn. No weapon is drawn—they’re too lost to Arlia’s madness. Hands tear at his limbs, bearing him backwards. A heartbeat more, and he’s lost amongst them. His screams gurgle away almost as soon as they begin, drowned out by wet, meaty thuds.
The pressure on my arms vanishes. My escort knows the score, certainly better than his late, unlamented master. Stumbling footsteps rush away behind me. I don’t even watch him go. He doesn’t matter now.
Niarr rushes forward, weapon drawn, to defend an ally already dead. The Thrakkian was never quick on the uptake. Or maybe it’s his complicated honour at work again. His axe bites deep. The leading edge of the feral tide crumples in a bloody spray. But those following behind are beyond fear. Two bodies fall beneath the bite of Niarr’s blurring axe. Then he too is dragged into the vengeful mass.
“What have you done, Solomon?” Lithel Andri spins me around with strength I hadn’t expected. The feathered veil can’t hide her desperate eyes any more than it can block her spittle. She glances to where Arlia sits serene upon her perch. Apparently I’m not the only one who can see the Red Lady now. “What have you done, Solomon?”
I’m not surprised Andri put everything together. Most of what I know concerning Mistress Arlia came from the Crowmarket. It’s just possible there’s a deeper connection I haven’t made. Not that Andri seeks to share that knowledge. I barely see the stiletto move. It’s a glint in the firelight, nothing more.
The greasy crack is barely audible above the howling of the mob. Andri drops, her neck lolling at a decidedly awkward angle. Balgan snatches the stiletto from her falling hand, severs my bonds and stares mutely at me for approval. I think he’s worried he overstepped our agreement.
I pat the hulking youth on the shoulder. “No, that was exactly right.”
The truth about his father’s death was all it took. Balgan doesn’t need to know that he’s just killed his mother. It’s a poor parent who disowns a child out of loathing for their imperfections. Or perhaps it was the other half of the parentage that severed the maternal bond. Not that it matters now. I’m actually rather pleased about the symbolic justice. Perhaps Lumestra and I have something in common, after all.
If Niarr’s defiant roars are anything to go by, he dies harder than Selloni, but he dies all the same. The mob cheers. Hungry eyes glance in my direction.
Arlia has abandoned her perch to walk in the mob’s wake. She doesn’t meet my gaze. She’s lost in ecstasy. She may have stoked these fires, but now she’s feeding on them. I had no idea she had such power. She’s anarchy in a silk dress. She’s everything I despise. It’s no consolation that her star was in ascendance long before today. A year, at most, and she’d have subsumed her rivals without my aid. All I’ve done is provoke events in exchange for personal advantage and a period of stability for my beloved city. It’s not going to be enough. Five years isn’t going to be enough. I’m going to need help. Someone who understands what’s at stake.
It won’t be Natilya. She’s disappeared as surely as if she was never here. The self-preservation instincts of the ageless on display once again.
That leaves Quintus. Quintus, who’s watching me the way a hawk watches a rabbit—when he’s not watching the mob, anyway, or flicking his gaze longingly to an exit he knows he’ll never reach. There’s a sword in his hand and a crumpled minder at his feet. The other minder is still at his side, trying and failing to replicate the captain’s imperturbable expression in the face of imminent death. It doesn’t exactly tax me to put the pieces together—his man on the inside, just as Balgan was mine.
I was correct before, when I said Quintus and I were equally in the dark—which is to say nowhere near as much as Selloni and his peers believed. Despite appearances, neither of us came to this place unwillingly. Both playing the same game, if for different reasons.
I sought to stabilise the city’s underworld. Even with my guidance, it’s been too fractured of late, too unpredictable. Uniting it under a guiding hand, one I could predict, that was the goal.
Quintus wanted the same,
in his way. Selloni, Niarr, Andri and Natilya all in the same place, ripe for the taking? A lawman’s dream. Net the big fish, leaving the others easy pickings. It wouldn’t have worked, of course. Remove the big fish, and the lesser will fight like demons for the scraps. But the goal? I can’t fault that.
“I’ve a hundred constables within a bell’s toll of this place, my lord,” Quintus growls, “but I reckon we’ll be dead long before they get here, don’t you?”
The mob gives no warning. The howls come in the same moment as the screams. But this time, their fury is directed inward, upon one another. If anything, it’s worse than before. It’s something about the scale of the frenzy—a hundred desperate souls rending and tearing in ensorcelled madness. It’s the welter of wet, ripping sounds and the stench of spilt blood. I’ve seen worse, but never so close. My stomach churns at the coppery tang. There’s no art to this, no necessity. This is slaughter for its own sake. But even now I barely consider the consequences for myself. This is what Arlia will make of my city, if she’s given the chance.
It’s too much for Quintus’s inside man. He doubles over, something wet and unspeakable slithering from his throat. For his part, the captain looks on unflinchingly, as does Balgan—though I suspect for different reasons.
The thrashing slows. Half the mob are lifeless upon the bloody stage. Others are twitching fitfully as the life leaves them. I have eyes only for Arlia. She’s still atop her perch, lost in rapture at the slaughter she has wrought.
Arlia only opens her eyes when the last body hits the bloody stage. She glides serenely through the fresh carnage, not sparing a glance for the ruin at her feet. The trailing ends of her skirts ripple as they touch the gore. I occurs to me they may not be cloth at all.
She flashes a mocking smile. “Our truce begins now.”
She doesn’t have to say anything else. She’s made her point. She sweeps the mildewed curtains aside and is gone. Not a one of us moves to stop her. Even Balgan knows better.
Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists Page 35
