The Northern Sunrise

by Rob J. Hayes

  Neither guard hesitated. They both picked the quartet. “Damn it,” Jacques said flipping both cards around. “Well I suppose it was good money well spent and going to men far more deserving than I.” He flicked the coin to the elder guard. “Make certain you share it.”

  “I will, my Lord. Thank you.”

  Jacques limped away grinning.

  He found Isabel waiting for him just inside the ballroom. She was showing a scandalous amount of leg and as such was attracting quite a few stares. “I think we should leave,” she said quietly as he stepped up next to her.

  “Why, Lady Duval. It would be my honour to escort you back to my bed,” Jacques said with a grin.

  Isabel played into the act and tittered into her hand allowing him to take her by the arm and lead her away.

  They had entered separately through subversive means but they left together through the main entrance to the ‘good evenings’ of the guards and servants alike. More importantly, they left with a fortune stuffed down Jacques’ trousers.

  As they passed through the main gates into the dark, cobbled streets beyond, Jacques glanced at Isabel and smiled. “There’s one thing I don’t understand, Bel.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why were you in the Lady Ermine’s room?”

  Chapter 2 – Retirement

  Isabel reached out with her hand and clasped Jacques’ as the first fire rocket shot into the sky leaving a trail of searing red, sizzling light in its wake and a hissing scream in all the revellers’ ears. An explosion of colour lit the night sky followed, only a moment later, by a deafening bang as the first rocket detonated sending sparkling colours from red to blue to green to purple to yellow to gold, all fading into the dark as they drifted down towards the ground. The cheers that went up from the people in the city not only rivalled the sound of the exploding rocket but eclipsed it, rising to almost painful levels, but Isabel joined in all the same. It was the first time she had experienced Rares’ annual festival and she intended to enjoy it.

  Rares by night was a spectacle to behold. The city wasn’t just large, it was ostentatiously so; it was formed in a ring around the centre piece that was lac d’Allumer. The lake served, not only to accentuate the city’s beauty, but also as a thousand different landing ports for a thousand different airships and the alchemical lights that were installed beneath the clear blue waters to guide the ships down into their liquid berths, shone forth in a dazzling array of colours that truly took Isabel’s breath away.

  The city’s districts were not clearly defined and never had been. The Imperial district bled into the Noble district; which in turn bled into both the Merchant and Guildsman’s districts; which in turn bled into the Market district; and so on; in what seemed to be a never ending mishmash of architectural styles and fads each one outdated before it was even finished. The airship port was the only constant, changing only with scientific advancements.

  Isabel did not truly understand the science, despite having recently had in her possession the stolen schematic for the original airship, from which all current designs had evolved, but that did not stop her having a profound appreciation for the technological wizardry that the engineers concocted on a regular basis. Rarely a year went by without her hearing about a new, more economical, sleeker design from Jacques who, it had to be said, had an even more profound appreciation for all things airship related despite never having had the occasion to actually passenger on one.

  On most nights the sky of Rares would be dotted by the occasional hulking form of an airship slowly drifting its way to or from its port on lac d’Allumer but there wasn’t a single ship in sight tonight because Rares was about to begin its first day of festival in celebration of the birth of Sassaille’s current king, King Félix Gustave Horace Sassaille.

  As more rockets shot into the night sky Isabel could just about hear Jacques guessing on the alchemical formulation needed to produce each fantastical colour, and it brought a smile to her face in the way that only he could. They walked through the Harbour district hand in hand and all around them revellers cheered and whooped and danced and threw brightly coloured confetti, all in joyous celebration. Another couple, younger than Isabel and Jacques by quite some way, rushed past them laughing, the man chasing the woman. As Isabel watched, the man caught the woman around the waist and they both fell into the rippling pool of a fountain lit red and purple. The woman surfaced, her dress soaking and heavy and pushed at the man but he pulled her close and they kissed despite the water of the fountain and the crowd laughing along with them. Only during the annual Rares festival could such frivolity be forgiven so easily.

  Isabel gave Jacques’ hand a slight squeeze and nodded towards the couple in the fountain.

  “Ahh, the vigour and passion of youth. I don’t remember ever being quite that young,” Jacques said with a beneficent smile.

  “Are you implying you were never that passionate about me?” Isabel retorted, turning her head away just enough to hide her grin.

  “I certainly don’t remember ever throwing you into a gaudily lit fountain, Bel, but I do distinctly remember some very vigorous times.”

  Isabel turned back to Jacques with a raised eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Of course. You must remember the Verso job, one of our first and as I remember we both had to execute a very vigorous run over half the rooftops of Lenon, whilst being chased by Baron Verso’s most elite of guard.”

  “Yes, I remember they carried rifles…”

  “Barbaric.”

  “And they were not afraid to use them.”

  “It did add a certain level of danger to the whole affair. Not our most profitable of endeavours.”

  Isabel stepped in front of Jacques and levelled a stare at him, he was ever just a few inches taller than her, but she liked the way she had to stand on the tip of her toes to kiss him. “It would have been profitable had you not dropped half the loot.”

  “Ahh. Too true, my dear, but then I did catch you, did I not?”

  Isabel pouted at Jacques. Jacques pouted right back.

  “I suppose,” she said, “given the timely prolonging of my life during that particular incident, allowances can be made for your losses.”

  “Good.” Jacques stepped forward, placing his hands on her hips and lifted Isabel into the air, spinning her around with ease and placing her back down on the ground just as another firerocket exploded in the sky sending flashes of greens and yellows in all directions. Another mighty cheer went up as the gathered masses stared into the sky and watched for another salvo, but neither Isabel nor Jacques had eyes for anything but each other.

  “You know, Bel,” Jacques whispered in her ear, “tonight would be the perfect time to pull a job. There must be something we can find in this city worth stealing.”

  She let out a dramatic sigh. “But we needn’t steal anything ever again.”

  Jacques grinned. “You are incorrect there. We don’t need the money, that doesn’t mean we don’t need to steal.”

  Isabel grinned at him. Jacques’ insatiable need for the thrill of theft, even when they didn’t need the money, was one of the things she loved most about him. Their lives were certainly anything but boring. “It isn’t worth the risk, Jacques.”

  “What risk? No one cares tonight, Bel. Even the constables are busy enjoying themselves. No one would notice anything was missing until it was too late.”

  “And what would you have us steal?” she whispered to him as the revellers moved around them, their conversation private despite being surrounded by a crowd of partying Rares citizens.

  Jacques plucked a floating scrap of purple confetti from the air and held it up to her. “Something beautiful.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “How about something overtly large yet indescribably graceful?” he asked waving in the direction of lac d’Allumer.

  “You want to steal an airship?”

  “Yes.”

&nbs
p; “No.”

  “You’re probably right about that one. I would have no notion of how one could pilot such a thing anyway. How about…”

  “No,” Isabel said for a final time and punctuated the statement with a smile and shake of her head.

  Jacques smiled back. “It’s a good job I love you, Bel. Truly sometimes your rigidity can be stifling.”

  “Stifling?” Isabel detached herself from Jacques. “You describe me as stifling?”

  Another firerocket squealed its way into the sky before exploding somewhere above and behind Isabel, she didn’t look its way but continued staring at Jacques as he floundered for a way to correct his mistake. The first few notes of a song drifted their way, some ambitious soul had picked up a flute and was attempting to play The Glory of Sassaille without the required accompanying string instruments; they would no doubt fail and soon choose a much less devious piece to entertain the masses, but for now the setting would serve her purpose. She turned and walked away from Jacques already knowing he would come running after her. She was not wrong.

  “Now when I said stifling what I actually meant…”

  Two men cut across their path laughing, joking and stumbling as they supported each other, the odour of alcohol wafted after them so strongly Isabel wrinkled her nose. She started off again quickly and again Jacques had to hurry to catch her up.

  “If you’ll just stop a moment, Bel, I’m trying to tell you that I’m sorry.”

  Isabel did not stop, instead she changed direction, sweeping towards the music and towards the entertainer she had spotted nearby.

  “Oh wonderful,” she heard Jacques mutter but paid him no mind. She knew full well how much he would hate her talking to the entertainer.

  Another couple, alike to Isabel and Jacques, only the woman far prettier and the man far uglier, deposited a couple of coins in the entertainer’s hat and walked away arm in arm. Isabel took their place and Jacques strolled nonchalantly up to join her, shot the entertainer a withering look then busied himself staring out towards lac d’Allumer.

  The entertainer was dressed in humble clothing, a robe of brown and orange tied around his waist by a black sash, and wore his hair loose and affected into brown curls. His features were strong and sharp and he was undoubtedly handsome in a definitely foreign way. He sketched a deep bow as Isabel met his eyes and the living flame at his feet mimicked him perfectly.

  The entertainer was an Elemental from Great Turlain and it was passing rare to see his kind in Sassaille, it was in fact only the second time in Isabel’s life that she had seen an Elemental, the first being the famous Water Dancers. Jacques had taken her to see the Water Dancers as a gift and, though he himself and sulked the entire time, Isabel had thoroughly enjoyed herself and remembered even now how beautiful the show had been.

  “Monsieur, Madame,” the elemental said in a voice as foreign as his looks. “You honour me with your audience.”

  “Not at all…” Isabel began before Jacques interrupted with a particularly loud and poignant yawn. Rude only began to describe his manners, and Isabel found herself flushing red with embarrassment, and it was most decidedly not easy to make a woman of Isabel’s profession embarrassed.

  “Please,” Isabel started again, “allow me to apologise for my husband. He sometimes believes himself to be more cultured than he truly is.” In truth they were not married, nor would they ever be, but Isabel had found some lies made life simpler and, as both of them dealt and traded in lies for a living, they came easy to her lips.

  “I understand,” the entertainer said with a gracious smile. “There are still many in Sassaille who resent those of us with such gifts.”

  The living flame at the man’s feet took to a knee and raised up one of its arm-like limbs and began to burn brighter. For all the world it looked as though it was serenading her. Isabel couldn’t keep the grin from her face. Jacques steadfastly refused to pay either the Elemental or his living flame even the slightest modicum of attention.

  “It truly is a marvel,” Isabel continued, as the living flame crackled back to its feet and began a twirling dance across the ground leaving trails of fire fading into the darkness behind it. She reached into her purse, located a single silver ducat and deposited it in the entertainer’s hat. The living flame paused in its dance, raised both arms to its head and blew a kiss of flame at Isabel that quickly dissipated before it reached her skirts.

  “Your donation is beyond gracious. Thank you, Madame.”

  Jacques glanced back at the Elemental. “You gave him money? For what? Being born?” He went back to staring at the berthed air ship floating in the water just a few hundred meters away.

  Isabel smiled at the Elemental who quickly looked away, while the living flame began to dance around Jacques’ feet.

  “I gave him money for being entertaining.”

  “He’s yet to entertain me.”

  The Elemental cleared his throat. “I wish no ill will,” he said in his Great Turlain accent. “If there is an issue please feel free to retrieve your donation. Clearly your husband does not appreciate my art.”

  “There is no issue…” Isabel began.

  “Art?” Jacques interrupted. “If it was an art, such as science or alchemy, I would most definitely appreciate your particular brand of trickery, but what you do, monsieur, is nothing but magic, pure and simple.

  “How is it I should appreciate your art, when you have never earned the skill needed to wield it correctly? Men,” he paused and gestured to Isabel, “and women spend their entire lives, devote their entire lives, to the study of alchemy and eventually they might find themselves able to perform veritable miracles with the knowledge they have garnered and the skill of application. In comparison, you were simply born with the ability to control fire. This exercise comes as second nature to you requiring little to no effort, yet you have the gall to expect me to be impressed.”

  Throughout his speech Jacques had been pointing and waving his arms and behind him the little living flame mimicked his actions perfectly. A few of the festival’s revellers had gathered nearby to watch and laugh. Isabel quickly decided it was time to distance themselves from the entire situation. She took Jacques by the arm and began to pull him away. He allowed himself to be led, his piece now said and the Elemental appearing chastised.

  “Was that entirely necessary?” Isabel asked as they walked away from the Elemental and his gathering crowd.

  “Of course not,” Jacques responded, grinning to himself. “It was, however, a lot of fun.”

  Jacques had never been the type to be taken by the idea of drinking to excess, but that certainly did not mean that he didn’t occasionally like a tipple, or a number of tipples, when the mood took him and the mood had definitely taken both he and Isabel tonight. They were both a little intoxicated by the time they reached their recently purchased house on the Rue d’Arés. The hustle and bustle of the Rares festival would continue long into the morning but the firerocket display, both beautiful and ostentatious in largesse, had finished and Jacques had other ideas on how he would like to spend the remainder of the night and he was fairly certain he could not entertain those ideas in public. Judging by the way Isabel had pressed herself up against him and the feel of her lips on his own, Jacques quickly came to the conclusion she had similar designs.

  He fumbled the key out of his pocket, slipped it into the lock without looking and the door swung open. Both Isabel and Jacques fell through the open portal but quick, nimble and surprisingly strong, Jacques caught the door frame in one hand and Isabel in the other and turned what could have been an embarrassing, and painful, fall into a dip reminiscent of something one might find in a dance and, by the way Isabel’s skirts billowed around her, quite an informal dance.

  “That was a little close, dear,” Isabel said smiling up at Jacques as he held her in the dip.

  “Nonsense,” he said determined not to let the strain show in either his face or voice. “I had you the entire time.” It
was not so much a lie, Jacques decided, as boast that lacked honesty.

  He pulled her up out of the dip into a kiss then twirled her and stepped away, walking into the opening corridor of their little house. As rich as they might be, being thieves by trade they knew not to advertise such wealth. Isabel finished her twirl with a giggle and a curtsy and closed the door to the street behind her, locking it as deftly as Jacques had unlocked it.

  The house was dark, no lamps had been lit and the only light was that streaming in from the street lamps outside. The lounging area was painted in deep, grey shadows and despite the general hubbub still audible outside from the festival everything seemed quiet. Isabel stepped past the doorway to the lounge and into Jacques’ arms, the stairway behind him leading up to their bed chambers seemed as inviting as it was ever likely to get.

  “I don’t mean to alarm you, my love,” Jacques said staring down into Isabel’s oceanic eyes, “but there appear to be three men in your lounging area.”

  Chapter 3 – An Offer Too Bad to Refuse

  Isabel’s features crumpled in confusion and she stepped backwards away from Jacques and peered into the darkness of the lounge. “I swear, darling, I’ve never seen them before and I’ve no idea how they ended up in my area.”

  “Well that ruins the surprise, I suppose,” came a harsh, weathered voice from inside the lounge. “Amaury, light a lamp. I would prefer if you two didn’t run.”

  “Run?” Isabel said, taking the first cautious step into the lounge and waiting for Jacques to join her. “I do believe, monsieur, you are trespassing in our home and, far from running, we are well within our rights to call the city constables.”

  The harsh voice laughed. “Yes I suppose that would be the right of it. Call them then and we shall see which of us they arrest.”

  The oil lamp on the far wall guttered into life and cast the room into dull orange hues. The man by the lamp was tall and bulky with long hair tied into a tail and a square jaw set in such a way to suggest it was no stranger to the business end of a fist. He wore a simple suit of brown suede and both pistol and long-sabre hung from his belt. Despite his thuggish appearance there was, without a doubt, the suggestion of intelligence about the man’s eyes and even more in the way that he held himself.