by Rob J. Hayes
“It isn’t your first time, is it?” the Lady Ermine asked
“With a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” The smile disappeared from Ermine’s face. “I’m sorry. I thought…”
Isabel took a deep breath and steeled her will, knowing what had to be done. She took a step forward, keeping her eyes locked on the Lady Valette’s. “That is not to say I did not enjoy it.”
Isabel stepped up close to the Lady Ermine and kissed her. The kiss was returned with passion. Slowly Isabel guided Ermine towards the bed and pushed her down onto it. A wicked smile full of lust lit the Lady’s face as Isabel climbed onto the bed after her. She made a show of hitching up her dress and took the opportunity to rip the stitching and free one of the sachets of Sleep. Then she straddled the Lady Ermine and bent down to kiss her again.
The Lady Ermine closed her eyes, expecting the touch of Isabel’s lips but instead she got a face full of dust. Her eyes shot open and she pushed Isabel away using her larger body as a pivot. Isabel flew from the bed and hit the floor with a startled yelp and a crash. A moment later the Lady Ermine lurched to her feet, sneezing and coughing.
“What did you… do?” she asked in a hazy voice before collapsing back onto the bed face first.
Tentatively Isabel stood up rubbing at her shoulder and knowing full well she’d have a bruise there by the morning. She crept over to the bed and put her ear close to the Lady Ermine’s face. She could hear a soft snoring. The Lady would wake with a pounding headache in a few hours but she wouldn’t remember half the night.
With a weary sigh Isabel walked over to the window and threw it open. A chilly winter wind greeted her and in the clear sky thousands of tiny stars twinkled to prove their existence. Isabel looked down and found Jacques waiting underneath the wrong window, looking anywhere but up.
“Jacques,” she hissed.
He looked up towards her voice and in the bright night Isabel could see him frowning. He moved closer, keeping flat against the wall of the mansion. “Are you in the wrong room or was I under the wrong window?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Later,” she insisted. “Throw me the tools.”
“Anything the lady wishes,” Jacques said and opened up the pack he was carrying.
Isabel glanced back into the room; the Lady Ermine was still snoring quietly on the bed. With a face full of Sleep she should be out all night but Isabel wanted to get the job done quickly all the same. When stealing from the rich and powerful it was best to take as few risks as possible. Some, however, were always necessary.
She looked out the window to find Jacques waiting with a cloth in hand. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Isabel replied quickly.
“Fire oil,” he said and hefted the cloth-wrapped vial straight up. Isabel leaned a little out of the window and snatched the cloth from the air. She retreated inside the room for a second to place the vial on the mirrored desk and then was back at the window.
“Picks,” Jacques said and again threw the object into the air. Again she snatched it easily and tucked the picks into a fold in her dress.
“Neutraliser.”
Once Isabel had hold of the cloth she disappeared back into the room and un-wrapped it. She uncorked the small glass vial and dabbed the liquid inside on her wrists, under her arms, and on both her chest and neck. It took only a few moments for both the alcohol strips and her perfume to become inert. She moved back to the window and dropped the neutraliser back down to Jacques. He caught the vial with practised ease and pocketed it in a flash. He had a grave look on his face when he held up the next cloth-wrapped object.
“Ice-Fire,” he said. “Careful with this one.”
She nodded once and Jacques hefted the cloth into the air. His throw was off. Isabel watched as it reached a height with the window and all but launched herself out into the air to grab for it but the cloth was bare inches from her fingers. It hung for a moment and began its plummet back towards the ground. She squeaked in alarm; if the Ice-Fire was lost the job was over but, worse than that, if it smashed near Jacques it could easily kill him.
Jacques had looked away but at her squeak he looked back just in time to see the cloth-wrapped vial of liquid Ice-Fire fall towards him. He snatched the cloth from the air and fell backwards onto his arse to absorb the momentum. He clutched at the vial with an expression one part terror to two parts relief and shakily regained his feet.
“I said ‘be careful’!” he hissed.
“Your throw was off,” she protested.
“My throw is never off. I used to juggle flaming knives for tips. Flaming knives!”
Isabel rolled her eyes at him knowing full well he couldn’t see the gesture. “Throw it again then.”
This time he lined up the throw carefully before hefting it back into the air. The vial hovered for a moment just outside the window and Isabel caught it with ease. She disappeared back inside the room and shut the window.
“The dress itself is the copy,” Jacques said with obvious excitement. Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Look, the dress tears off just below the knee. The seam is almost invisible but it is there.”
Isabel pulled the bottom half of her new dress close and squinted at it. Sure enough there was the slightest hint of seam.
“Now while it may look like just another ordinary silk dress,” Jacques continued.
“The last thing it looks is ordinary. It’s wonderful,” Isabel interrupted.
“Don’t get too attached, Bel,” he said. “The dress may look ordinary but it has been specially made.”
He pulled out a small square of cloth made from the same fabric as Isabel’s dress. He laid the square over the top of a list of alchemical ingredients and pulled out a vial of something clear.
“Ordinary Fire Oil,” he said and uncorked the vial then poured it over the square of fabric.
Isabel waited. Nothing happened. Jacques cleared his throat nervously. “It can take a couple of minutes.”
Isabel was about to pull into question the entire plan when the colour of the square started to change. It began to fade, the colour seeming to drain from the cloth and within just a couple of minutes it had turned from the same deep blue of her dress to the white of the paper underneath it with the list of ingredients in Jacques’ exact handwriting.
With a proud smile Jacques picked up both the square of fabric and the paper underneath and held them up for her closer scrutiny.
“They’re almost exact copies,” Isabel said. “Except that this one is clearly not written on paper.”
“Ah,” Jacques started. “True. But without close scrutiny they do appear to be exactly the same, do they not?”
“Well, yes,” she conceded. “Certainly from a distance.”
“Certainly from a distance, for enough time for us to get out of the Valette mansion, sell the damned thing and make sure we’re never seen around Çavine ever again.”
“So I’m going to have to destroy my dress then…” Isabel said sadly, sticking her bottom lip out.
“Only from below the knee.”
“Oh, only below the knee. I’m certain I’ll be able to wear a dress cut off just below the knee again. It’s not like showing that much of my legs wouldn’t be considered scandalous at the very least and dangerously provocative.”
Jacques winced. “But, um, I will… buy you a new dress?”
Isabel grinned at him. “Yes, you will.”
Isabel crept to the door, cracked it open and peered out. The corridor beyond was empty. She closed the door again and focused on remembering the floor plan they had purchased of the mansion. She knew the way to the study from Bruno Valette’s room but she wasn’t in Bruno Valette’s room. She was, at least, on the correct floor. With a little mental route planning she decided on ‘straight down the corridor, second turning on the left, first door on the right’. Again she cracked open the door. Still clear. She slipped out and was away.
Th
e floor was polished stone but Isabel had chosen slippers for just that reason. Some women preferred to wear insane raised-heel shoes but thankfully Isabel considered herself neither overly tall nor overly small, and was more than happy wearing flat shoes. She slipped down the corridor as silent as a ghost right up to the second turning on the left. Just as she was about to turn the corner she heard a curse and the sound of something metal bouncing on the stone floor. She froze. Another curse.
Slowly, Isabel peeked around the corner. Her hand going to the one remaining sachet of Sleep sewn into her dress. There, fiddling with a key in the first door on the right was Duc Valette himself. The elderly Duc had a thinning head of grey hair, a jaw like an old anvil and the merry red cheeks of the thoroughly intoxicated.
“Merde,” cursed the Duc again as he fumbled with the key in the lock of the door that Isabel needed to enter. Then the key turned and the lock clicked.
Isabel pulled back around the corner and glanced about in a panic. There was nowhere to run to. The Duc would need to pass her in order to get to the stairs and she didn’t have time to get back to the Lady Ermine’s room. With false hope she pressed herself into the alcove of the closest door, it was barely even a hiding spot and she was obscured by nothing but a shadow. Her hand searched desperately for the seam that held in the sachet of Sleep and she froze as the sound of the Duc’s footsteps rang on the stone floor coming closer and closer.
“Buggering thing,” the Duc said as he came around the corner. “Get Lars to see to it in the morning.”
Isabel held her breath as the Duc passed without so much as glancing her way, he was so intent on getting to the stairs, and just like that he was gone. Isabel thanked her foresight on insisting they purchase some of the neutraliser. There was no way he could have passed that close without smelling her perfume otherwise.
She slipped out of the alcove and peered around the corner again. The connecting corridor was empty. Moving quickly up to the study door Isabel hiked up her dress, knelt down on the stone floor and pulled free her set of picks.
Isabel selected a torsion wrench and pushed it into the lock and picked up a pick. Straight away she knew it was the wrong shape and size and quickly selected another, threading it in beside the wrench and tickling the pins. Within a minute she heard the click and turned the lock. She pulled out the pick and the wrench and twisted the handle. The door slid silently open.
Once inside the study Isabel shut the door behind her and looked around. It was an austere affair with a desk, three bookshelves, a rug made out of the fur of some giant striped cat, a cupboard with glass doors and a host of alcohols all in bottles (one of the bottles was sitting on the desk, the lid long since forgotten), a small hearth with a gaudy painting of man upon a horse above it and, as she knew from studying the plans of the building, a safe behind the painting. The only light in the room came from the moon and stars shining in through the window, it was barely enough light to work by but it would serve. Years of working in poorly lit conditions had given Isabel passable night eyes.
She found what she was looking for right away, it was after all hanging on the wall to her right and mounted in a frame of solid gold. Not a painting, nothing as obvious as that, but a schematic. A schematic of the first airship ever built, the Fall of Elements. Not exactly the most fitting name given that the giant flying battleship was destroyed by Elementals, but that was neither here nor there so far as Isabel was concerned. What did concern her was just how much that original schematic was worth. The biggest score she and Jacques had ever pulled in, even after the fence’s cut. But the job was far from over. First she had to remove the schematic from the frame.
Just lifting the frame from the wall took all the strength Isabel had, she nearly dropped it lowering it to the floor, but somehow managed to hold on. She lay it face down and looked at the back of the frame. The back plate wasn’t just locked or screwed in, it was welded. Just as she had suspected.
Isabel pulled the vial of liquid Ice-Fire from her dress and gave it a shake to mix the two liquids within before carefully removing the stopper. She knew one wrong move would end the job, and possibly more than that, so a steady hand was required but it was always at these times when she got most nervous and started to shake.
With exaggerated care she trailed a thin line of the volatile substance all along the welded line of gold holding the back plate in place. First the gold melted and bubbled turning close to molten before freezing again and taking on a murky shine to its colour. Isabel placed the stopper back in the vial and waited, counting out the seconds in her head. When she reached ninety she stood the frame back up and gave the back plate a hard kick with the side of her foot, resisting the urge to yelp at the pain. The line of welded gold she had applied the Ice-Fire to shattered, and the back plate fell away. Isabel barely caught the plate in time before it clattered to the floor. She lowered it down carefully and looked at her prize.
The schematic was old parchment but still serviceable. It was stretched across a wooden mounting and, though it showed the signs of age, the detail was still a wondrous thing to behold. This old drawing was the catalyst that turned the Kingdom of Sassaille from a poor series of semi-independent states, to one of the known world’s most powerful countries.
Isabel shook herself from admiring the overpriced relic and quickly set about tearing the bottom strip of her dress away. It barely made a sound as the purpose built seam came away. She laid the strip of fabric flat over the schematic, smoothed it out as best she could and carefully poured the Fire Oil over the entire thing. Then she waited. Just as it had with the alchemy list the transformation took its time but when it was finished she had an almost perfect replica of the schematic.
She took the parchment from its mount and replaced it with the dress fabric, sliding it as best she could into the correct position. Then she stood the frame back up and struggled to get the back plate back into position. Without the welded gold to keep it in place it was loose, but against the wall no one would notice for some time. With great effort Isabel lifted the frame up and struggled to hang it back on the wall. Afterwards she retreated a few steps to look at her handiwork and quickly straightened the frame. Then she picked up her prize, very carefully rolled it up and made for the door, relocking it behind her.
Back in the Lady Ermine’s room, the eldest Valette daughter was still lying face down on the bed snoring softly. She would neither remember how she got there, nor the woman she had brought to her room with the intention of bedding, and certainly not that said woman had knocked her out and then stolen the most valuable item in the entire mansion.
Isabel opened the window and looked out. Jacques was still there, staying close to the wall and keeping to the shadows. He looked up at his whispered name and his face brightened.
“Good?” he asked.
“Good,” she replied and held the rolled up schematic out the window. Jacques held out his hands and with a quick readjustment to her aim Isabel dropped the near priceless artefact.
Jacques caught the parchment with ease. Pulled a telescopic tube from the bag and placed the rolled up schematic inside of it then shoved the tube down his trousers. He grinned up at her. “I’ll meet you on the stairs.”
“Getting out once the job is done is going to be tricky,” Isabel said. “I can’t just walk back down the stairs without a Valette escort. The guards will detain me.”
“What are you thinking, Bel?” he asked.
“I’m thinking I need a Jacques Revou distraction.”
“There will be at least two guards there,” he complained. “It could be dangerous and I’ll be carrying the schematic.”
“Do you have a better plan for getting me out?” Isabel asked.
He thought about it. “Distraction it is.”
Jacques spotted movement at the top of the stairs and caught the signal from Isabel. It was time. He limped up to the guards standing at the bottom of the stairs (it wasn’t that he was hurt but more he was finding
it hard to walk properly with a tube stuffed down his trousers).
“Anybody care for a game?” Jacques asked as he approached the two guards complete with their short sabres and flintlock pistols and pristine red doublets over dark black breeches. They glanced at him once and then away, as was proper.
“How dare you ignore me,” he demanded. “Don’t you know who I am?”
The first guardsman looked confused. “I’m sorry, my Lord,” he said in a deep voice. “We’re ordered not to talk to the guests.”
“Well you’ve already broken that rule, let’s see to another,” Jacques took up position to the right side of the stairs. If he could get the furthest guard to move a little away from his post Isabel could slip by.
“We can’t…”
“Of course you can,” Jacques insisted. “This party is terribly dull and I intend to liven it up a little. How much do you boys earn?”
The first guard, clearly the elder and more experienced of the two, looked suspiciously at Jacques. The younger guard was not so wary. “Not enough,” he said with a grin.
“Quite,” Jacques said and took a heavy gold coin from his pocket. It was a single gold ducat. A currency not often seen in Sassaille, at least not by the common class, and was probably about six months wages for them. Certainly the mere sight of the coin had both guards wide eyed. To make his point Jacques threw the coin at the floor; it hit the stone with a metal ring and bounced straight back up where he caught it and rolled it across his knuckles. The younger guard took a step forward; just one more step and Isabel could slip past.
“So the game is easy,” Jacques said. “Come closer.” Both guards obliged and Isabel darted down the stairs on silent feet. “I have two cards,” he continued, a blind triple and a sun quartet appearing in his hands. He showed them both the cards then whipped them behind his back and out in front again with the faces turned away from them.
He held the cards in front of him for a moment, making a show of eyeing each one and making an even bigger show of eyeing the quartet. “Which of the cards is higher?”
