“Dannire mostly work for themselves.” She sipped from a glass of wine. “But it’s true enough that on principle we share more with them than any others.”
“You’re talking about values. Morality,” Jenn said with sharp condescension.
Audra gave her employer a careful stare before replying simply, “Decency.”
“I’m indecent, you’re saying.” Jenn quaffed her glass of red.
“You’re ambitious,” Audra clarified.
“Which you find indecent,” Jenn replied. She’d fallen into the role of counselor, examining with indelicate precision.
And that worked fine for Audra, giving her the perfect opportunity to relate an important visit. She took a slow pull from her wine, dragging out time. Arguers hate opponents who don’t succumb to their cadence of back-and-forth verbal barbs. There’s a rhythm to debate and justice. Audra kept her own clock about it. A long one. Patient.
But she eventually placed her glass back on the table, and drew a deep breath. “One more story.”
* * *
I sat in the shadows of the First Counsel’s bedroom, where he and a lower court judicature counselor rolled and rutted in the bed like sweating pigs.
This was part of it. Being present to gather information. Wherever and whenever that may be. Tonight, it was while two people consummated a mutually beneficial arrangement. I didn’t have any particular aversion to watching two people have sex. I wasn’t a prude. And to be honest, it has its appeal—watching, I mean. As much, anyway, as I could see through the heavy shadows.
Eventually, the rolling and rutting ceased. There were heavy gasps and quiet sighs and the ceasing of bedsheet rustle.
Through the dark, the First Counsel spoke with a hint of regret. “Improvement, to be sure. But not enough to warrant a promotion into the higher courts. Thank you, Angela. We’ll try it again another time.”
The woman—an eighth year defender of the strong law in the most strenuous lower court—aspired to defend law in her country’s high court, where the First Counsel presided. She’d learned that ability wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to do some bedwork. Aggressive bedwork, as it turned out.
The woman slipped into a robe and exited the room as discreetly as she could. The protuberant First Counsel—Wilem was his name—sat up on the edge of the bed, cutting a vague silhouette in the darkness.
“Not to your satisfaction. Again,” I said, quietly interrupting the mellow after-sex mood.
Wilem didn’t startle, but turned his head in my direction. “I don’t cave to extortion. And a simple shout will bring eight city guards. You should leave while you still can.”
“Two on the roof,” I said. “Another in the room to the north, and another in the room to the south—each side of this cozy philanderer’s nest.”
He shifted to face me, squinting through the dim light.
“One in the room below,” I continued. “One in the room above. One at the stair. The last in the lobby. You protect your infidelity quite thoroughly.”
“A clever extortionist,” Wilem said with a laugh of genuine delight. “What will it be? Money? Pardon for a family member?”
“You’re not quite understanding the nature of my visit.” I stood, taking a step into the weak fall of moonlight from the nearest window.
He looked me up and down, his appraising eye following the lines of my body—easy to assess in the tight-fitting pliable cloth I wore by trade. A lecherous smile tugged at his lips. “Do tell.”
Only a man of law is so self-assured that he assumes an intruding woman would rather have his cock than anything else he possesses. Even his life.
I crossed the room and sat beside him on the edge of the bed, like a pal might. In the moonlight, his puckered bulging flesh looked like that of a dead bloated fish. He made no effort to cover his shriveled member.
“The woman,” I said, speaking as though it were perfectly normal for me to sit next to strange naked men, “she’s a colleague. You lie about promoting her to get her to give up her box to you. Why does she believe you?”
I knew the answer. But as usual, I liked to lead them down a path. Helped them realize their culpability in the inevitable.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Wilem answered with a warm chuckle. “I advance one or two from time to time. Capable law counselors, mind you, but truly professional in bed.”
“And these few serve as examples of the possibility,” I clarified for him.
“Exactly.” He patted my knee rather softly with his meaty hand.
“And along the way, you steer them toward your most recent obsession.” I’d witnessed enough of his rendezvous to have seen more than one inclination. “Of late, you tend to like it...rough.”
The smile came more in his eyes, glinting in the moonlight, than his lips. Desperate need. Reckless. “Nothing is indecent between two people who consent to giving each other a bit of pleasure.”
“And this one—” I nodded toward the door where Angela had just departed, “—she gave you those?” I pointed to a pair of bites on his neck.
He raised a hand and rubbed the marks, which had broken the skin. “Some women do struggle with control. But then, I’m hardly innocent of that myself.” His hand crept up my thigh.
I put a hand over his to stop the advance. “And the claw marks on your back?”
“Oh, you saw that did you?” He laughed again. “I’ll confess. I enjoy that quite a lot.”
“No,” I said, answering his casual question. “I didn’t see it.”
His expression turned puzzled. “Then—”
“She did that for me,” I said smiling.
The look on his face became a twisted snarl of desire. He thought he was hearing some strange fantasy. And the oddity of it excited him. But there was more to it to than that. And it had been on Angela’s fingernails.
“Yes, let me ask you, did you happen to notice Angela’s hands tonight?”
“Red nails,” he answered immediately. “Very provocative. I made her use them—”
“And later, she raked your back with them,” I cut in, ready to get to my purpose.
His eyes glazed. His manhood began to thicken. He was reliving the moment. Probably taking the fantasy further in his mind. “Oh, yes,” he said with a flutter in his voice.
“Broke the skin, those nails.” I examined my own fingernails as a visual counterpoint—mine were kept trim for a different kind of night work.
Wilem’s eyes focused now. “I’m sure they did. A little anyway.” He glanced at my knives, and again at my tightly wrapped body. I knew he was seeing the utility of my dress now, and not the body beneath.
“You’re a cutter. A dimwit knife-and-alley gal.” He shook his head the way one does to clear it when six whiskeys deep. “And you’ve not plunged your knife into me...because Angela delivered your poison for you.”
“That’s quite good,” I told him. “What else?”
Fury began to burn in his eyes, keeping the drug in his system at bay. For now. “Angela would never do this willingly. Oh, she hates me. But she also still believes in the strong law. She’d never break it for personal gain.”
“Right again.”
He was now fully aroused. Anger did that to some men, but I knew this wasn’t anger.
“There’d be some risk to her,” Wilem added. “She could get whatever you put on her nails into her own blood.” He shook his head again, like a dog shaking water from its mangy fur. “You think this is all rather poetic, don’t you? Delivering your poison by means of my personal appetites.”
“I don’t find it un-poetic,” I answered.
“Unimaginative,” he added, slurring now. “It smacks of the spurned lover. Like a wagging finger. Must make you feel... Wait—” he blurted, his eyes lighting with hope. “There’s always an antidote. Yes. You’re here with your casual way to ask a price. Tell me. What will it take? Hurry!”
“But it’
s not the poetry of the delivery that I’m particularly fond of...” I paused, making him wait. “It’s the substance itself that I find...appropriate.”
“Certainly doesn’t feel...bad,” Wilem offered. The sweat now running down his cheeks and neck might have been part panic. But there was more to it than that.
“There’s a seed that grows in the hill climbs of Daria,” I explained. “Comes from a ground plant known as Cypress Stiltoe. It can be brewed with alcohol to produce an aphrodisiac that helps young courtesans get through those first nights with demanding kings and queens.”
Wilem began to tremble. His skin rose with chill bumps. His arousal now looked painful.
“Sounds lovely,” he remarked, his words slurring badly now. He licked his lips a bit slower than a woman likes to see a man do.
I eased him back onto the bed. “Through successive distillations, a large pot of the aphrodisiac can be condensed to a few drops. A few drops may be stirred into the paint a woman uses for her nails.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“The condensation makes the aphrodisiac potent to the point of death.” I patted his slowly rising chest.
Caught in the rapture rushing through his veins, Wilem hadn’t made the connection until I gave it to him. The sobering fact dimmed his rush a bit. “Death! This feels nothing like that. This feels...nice.”
“You’ve felt death before, then?” I quipped, knowing he was all but unaware of me now. “I’m not sure it’s really a poison,” I remarked, affecting the air of a sophist. “I mean, can one really die of too much sex? Seems incredible, don’t you think?”
“What’s happening to me?” he asked with the voice of an addict—enraptured, already anticipating the next time.
I loved this part. “The body has normal functions to govern how excited it allows itself to become. Some of this is in your mind.” I laughed. “A good deal of it is in your heart.”
“Heart?” he slurred.
“Not the metaphoric heart,” I said. “The blood-pumping kind. You see, my dear First Counsel, your stimulation is galloping away from you just now. It’s broken down every barrier you thought you might still have for personal gratification. And your heart is accelerating to keep pace. At some point, it will be unable to keep up. It will tire. Catastrophically tire.”
The First Counsel began to thrash atop his bedsheets now. He looked a bit like a beached carp.
I took my leave. No one questioned another woman making her way from his bedroom.
* * *
“You killed the First Counsel?” Jenn asked, incredulous but also glaring hard at Audra.
“Just before our wine trip.” Audra sat back. All the careful preparation. The hours. Months. Years. To bring it to this moment, taken in the sanctimonious garden of the upper-crust, merchants and lawmakers come to play at civility.
“Dead gods,” Jenn whispered.
“Indeed,” Audra sympathized with thin regard. “How’s it go again? When a member of the High Court dies, the appointment is passed first to a member of his family, if anyone in the family is lettered, trained in the strong law.”
Jenn looked across at her, her stunned look stiffening with violent intent. “You would already know his wife is lettered.”
Audra gave a satisfied smile. “Just as I know that you rose to your seat as Second Counsel in the High Court of Judicature by satisfying Wilem, and that his wife knows it, too.”
For maybe the first time since Audra had known her, Jenn was speechless.
Audra nodded at the obvious conclusion. “She’s removed you from your appointment. You’re now just another lettered woman needing a client.”
“So, I’m the end of your story, then?” Jenn leaned back, gathering herself, forcing calm. “I’ll make my way back.”
Audra reclined, too. She waited a good long moment before finishing it all. “When I defended the pedophile at the public court, you’ll remember I did so in disguise.”
Jenn eyed her closely.
“I was disguised as you, my dear former counselor.” Audra gave it a moment to sink in. “Public opinion of you, while not something you would know or care about—since you spend all your time in the rarified air of the high courts—well, let’s just say the people hold you in rather low regard.”
“That so?” Jenn said with more smugness than Audra had thought she’d have left.
“That’s so,” she affirmed. “I wouldn’t give a thin plug for you in the streets after dark. Defending a child-rapist and killing that child have ruined any reputation you thought you had. Or ever could have. And the story of it has made its way into every city across the Eastlands.”
Jenn was seething. “You whore. You said the child was sick anyways.”
“She was.” Audra shot her a look of easy contempt. “Would have died soon, to be sure. I saved her some pain.”
“Well then—“
“But all that the people know is you’re a heartless bitch.” Audra didn’t deliver this news with any vindictiveness, but as a piece of information like any other. Evenness to bring one low, the Dannire saying went.
And as far as the young girl, Sarah, she’d known what her death would also bring. This moment. And it had given her some purpose, and courage. Audra was sure of that.
Jenn raised her chin, her assured smile returning. “Cunning. But reputation is the lesser part of authority. Especially where the courts are concerned.” She leaned forward so that Audra might not miss what she said, or how she said it—condescension and victory bright in her expression. “I will buy my way back to a seat at court. Might find a cutter like you to help make that path an easy one, too. Maybe start with you.”
This threat always came. As predictable as sunrise. It disappointed Audra, particularly coming from Jenn, who usually found such creative solutions to her problems.
“You’re welcome to try,” Audra said, “but you may need to find someone to back your play. You see, the ministry banker I told you about? Her name was Jan. Your personal banker.”
Jenn began to shake her head in denial. “I was told she’d traveled to Nallan on bank matters. What did you do?”
“All your accounts have been liquidated,” said Audra, dealing this piece of the kill. “All the foreign accounts you’ve seized. All your government kickbacks and grafts. The percentages you collect from those you’ve granted legal favors. And the businesses you own, besides. All of it. Gone. Redistributed to counselors who defend those who cannot pay for service. And to orphanages. And to porridge lines. I had Jan see to this before she tasted the metal’s edge. And it was all carried out the day we set out for this winery.”
Jenn’s brow furrowed deeply. She clenched her teeth. Her chest heaved with the force of her angry breathing. “I will kill you myself.”
Another empty threat. And predictable. Disappointing. After all her might and time in the high court, Jenn was the same as all the rest—those Audra visited, anyway. She thought more of herself than was healthy. The problem of arrogance is that it makes you believe you condescend from a higher, better place than those you belittle and treat poorly. Truth was, arrogant folk stand the same height as the all the others. Bleed the same. And they tend to feel pain more intensely, because it’s always a surprise to them.
Like the surprise that began to dawn in Jenn’s face when Audra said, “And the young girl, from the Society of Ruin? The little leader...her name wasn’t Ann. It was Cate.”
Jenn’s mouth fell slightly agape. “The one you set all her friends against...”
Audra let the realization set in, then confirmed it. “Your daughter. A lot like you she was. Crafty. Mean-spirited. And it got away from her much younger than it did from you.”
“Lies!” Jenn slammed a fist down on the table. “I would have known of this Society of Ruin. It’s all lies. She was a good girl.” The words sounded like a defense and eulogy all in one.
“No, Jenn, she wasn’t. She was g
ood at keeping secrets. And she was good at destroying lives. Not in the same way as you. But often with the same lasting result.” Audra paused, making sure Jenn was hearing her behind her distant stare. “Several took their own lives once their reputations were shattered. That’s the legacy of your little girl.”
Jenn looked up, a broken expression in her face. A hint of genuine contrition, maybe. “She could have changed.”
“You loved her,” Audra observed, leading Jenn the final mile. “The way you love your son. And husband.”
New dread bloomed in Jenn’s face. “Dead gods, not them, too.”
Audra nodded toward Bur and Kaleb, who’d approached from behind her, and came to stand near the table. But not too near.
Jenn was visibly relieved, and held out her arms for Kaleb to run into.
Bur gave Audra a concerned look, searching for confidence to do a hard thing. She showed him a simple smile. He’d make the right woman a good husband some day.
“We’re leaving, Jenn,” he announced. He did it with a quiet tone, trying not to draw too much attention.
“Speak up,” Jenn chastened, wagging her arms a bit to encourage Kaleb to come.
Bur let go his son’s hand, and the boy stayed put. “We’re leaving,” Kaleb repeated.
“Nonsense,” Jenn said without real conviction. She turned to Audra. “What is this?”
“A man isn’t there to be trodden on, even if you have the means and will to do so.” Audra spoke in a soothing tone, so as not to frighten the boy. “And sometimes all it takes is a reminder that he is better than his worst moment. Though you would have him live forever in its failure. To maintain control.”
“So you plotted with my husband to take my child from me?” Jenn’s eyes carried a threat.
Audra readied to answer, but Bur held a hand up toward her. She happily yielded to him. “No plot, Jenn,” he said. “If you need a reason, it’s because I won’t let Kaleb turn out like Ann. And he would. If I do nothing, he would. Because he’d see you, everyday, doing it to others. I can’t let that happen. I won’t.”
“You can go,” Jenn snapped. “My son is staying here.”
Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists Page 45
