by Rob J. Hayes
Isabel had no answer to the question so gave none.
“We will be needing some supplies,” Jacques said his voice unusually devoid of accent. Isabel looked up to find her partner staring off into space, a blank look on his face. She knew it well, he was formulating a plan or scheme of some sort. She waited a few seconds, content just to watch him and wonder at how his mind worked. “Supplies for what?” she asked eventually.
“I don’t trust our new employer one bit to give us back our loot once we’re done,” Jacques stated.
“Neither do I,” she agreed.
“Well we may not be able to steal back our old fortune but I’ll be damned by the Ruiner if we can’t steal a new one.”
Chapter 6 - The Arrival of the Bonvillains
The carriage slowed to a stop, the driver pulling on the reins and the horse neighing in resigned protest. There were many in the capital who travelled by alchemically powered automobiles these days but only the extravagantly rich. The automobiles were both more expensive and slower than the traditional horse-drawn carriage and the Bonvillains were certainly not so well off as to afford such a luxury.
The door to the coach opened long before the driver could dismount to see to it and Baron Bastien Bonvillain leapt the two feet to the ground with the nimble grace of one used to exercise and plenty of it. Many eyes watched his departure from the coach, to be sure none of them were the favoured nobility that lived on the estate, they were after all far too important to pay witness to the arrival of two country duellists turned peers by grace of their benefactors good nature and their own hard work, but that did not stop many a servant from watching, no doubt with the strict orders to report back to their masters’ all they would see.
Baron Bonvillain put thumb and forefinger to his thick brown horseshoe moustache and smoothed it down while giving every man, woman and child nearby a steely gaze from his cold grey eyes. None returned the challenge. The Baron half turned and stepped aside, holding up his hand to the carriage door.
Baroness Adeline Bonvillain placed her hand lightly on top of her husband’s and stepped down onto the paved street. Her dress was light, of mottled greens and ruffled from the lengthy voyage in the carriage but her blue eyes were no less sharp than her husband’s greys. Her hair was longer than the current fashion in Rares but then both the Baron and Baroness were from the Arkland borders, nearly the other side of the empire, where fashions were a little more far reaching.
With his back as straight as a mast Baron Bonvillain rested his right hand on the hilt of his cavalier sabre and proffered the left to his wife. The Baroness gave her husband a brief tug on the corner of her lip, the closest the Baron ever got to a smile in public, and put her arm through his where upon he led her to their new home in the capital city of Sassaille.
The head of staff, a small balding man by the name of Karl Trim, was waiting for them by the front door. He gave a bow of the head and held out the clockwork key for the door. A Lindle lock and not a cheap one at that; its mere presence would be enough to turn many an eye but its belonging to an abode that in turn belonged to new nobility such as the Bonvillains was approaching scandal.
The Baron detached himself from the Baroness, took the small clockwork key from Monsieur Trim and regarded it closely; no bigger than a silver ducat it would fit easily into a pocket but when inserted into the edifice on the door, as the Baron did now, it granted entry to one of the most secure doors ever designed (Madame Lindle’s locks graced almost every safe in the city and were renowned for being impossible to break into).
With a quick turn of the key first to the right and then a fraction to the left the clockwork door whirred into life as gears began to turn and the marvel that was a Lindle lock began to open. A thin sheet of alchemically hardened glass prevented access but allowed one to look upon the inner workings of the lock (many of the cheaper, and more secure, locks did not have the glass but instead chose to hide the inner workings behind a metal plate but this lock was designed to be an ostentatious spectacle). As the gears turned, metal bars pulled back onto either side of the door exposing a thin line where the two sides of the door pulled together. The bars locked into their places on either side of the door and the gears that intersected the centre of the door slid back into their own respective sides. A moment later and the door opened outwards, allowing entrance into the Bonvillains’ new home. The Baron retrieved the key from the lock, allowing the smallest of smiles at the marvel of his new door, and pocketed it before escorting his wife across the threshold.
To say the staff had arrived a day earlier it was somewhat perplexing that they had yet to finish arranging the mansion. Ten staff the Bonvillains had hired to look after their new residence; one head (the previously mentioned Karl Trim), three man servants and four maids, and two chefs and to say the place was not yet in order would have been something of an understatement. Boxes appeared to be the order of the day and plenty of them.
“Monsieur Trim,” the Baron said in a tone that was some way short of approving.
“Most of the boxes are empty, Baron,” Trim said in a deeply apologetic tone. “The staff are working hard to get everything squared away and all the storage apparatus will be removed short with.”
“I can already see the locations of the furnishings are going to need proper instruction of placement,” the Baroness said giving the entrance foyer critical scrutiny.
“Would you like to take charge of the decor now, Baroness?”
“No, Monsieur Trim. Carry on as before. I will consider the details later. I do, however, require a bath drawing immediately.”
“Yes, Baroness.” Trim waved at one of the maids and ordered her to draw a bath for the Baroness before turning back to his employers.
“I think I would like a tour of the grounds including a complete inventory. I am very particular, Monsieur Trim and I am eager to be assured that all of our belongings have arrived safely.”
“Of course, Baron. I shall lead the tour myself. Baroness, if it would please you to follow Susan,” Trim waved at another passing maid, “she will show you to the room we have prepared for you. If the room is not to your liking please inform Susan and we’ll have you moved to a more suitable area right away.”
Trim waited for the Baroness to nod her approval and follow Susan towards the stairs before turning to the Baron. “If you’ll please, Baron, we’ll start with the garden and move inwards and upwards.”
“You need no list for the inventory?” the Baron asked.
“No, Sir,” Trim answered with a slight bow. “I have what they call a perfect memory.”
“You remember everything?”
“Everything, Baron.”
“Interesting.”
The grounds were extensive, the tour was exhaustive and the inventory was informative but the Baron had a head for details and made certain to remember all of the practically important items. By the time Monsieur Trim had finished reviewing the entire estate and every item located within its grounds, the Baroness had finished her bath, artfully arranged her hair in a style that was both elegant and practical, changed into a hardy, brown dress that was suited more to labour than to a dinner table and was busy redesigning the foyer, directing the man servants and maids alike to move the decorations into positions that better suited her own particular choice of fashion. That the Baroness was most definitely not above getting involved with the labour herself brought a small smile to Baron Bonvillain’s mouth.
The Baroness spotted her husband and put down the small statue she was wielding, making sure to instruct the manservant next to her, Alfonze was his name if Trim had been correct and the Baron expected he was never not, and swept over to him. Now they were in private, or as private as life ever truly got for those surrounded by servants, she graced him with the full smile she usually hid and it fair near lit up the room.
“How was the tour, my love?” Baroness Bonvillain asked, her face positively beaming from the exertion of rearranging the entire m
ansion.
“Quite interesting. Were you aware we purchased sixteen miniature garden ornaments all of small bearded men in a variety of poses, some bordering on the scandalous?”
“Gnomes, dear.”
“Gnomes?”
“Yes. They’re all the fashion in Great Turlain, or so I hear, and we are nothing if not progressive.”
“Do we really need sixteen of them?”
“Any less and they might get lonely.”
“I see,” the Baron agreed though he in truth he did not. “Is everything approaching some semblance of order?”
“Oh, far from it,” the Baroness replied with a frown that crinkled her brows and only served to make her more beautiful. She had a smudge of dust on her left cheek but the Baron refused to clean it off, he rather liked it on her. “I’m afraid I’ll have to personally see to every room in the house and I doubt any of them will be a small job. We really should have put more thought into our purchases, my love. Many of the decorations simply do not suit each other. You see that painting?” She gestured to a six foot monstrosity depicting the launch of the Fall of Elements, the very first airship, in water colours. It was, the Baron had to admit, one of the ugliest paintings he had ever seen but, judging by its composition, he would wager it had the name Lenardo Rolshtagg signed on the bottom right corner and that made it both rare and expensive and fitting for the likes of the Bonvillains. “They had it hanging in the dining room.”
The Baron nodded extensively. “A terrible place for it.”
“It’s clearly an entrance piece,” the Baroness explained.
“It is?”
“Yes.”
The Baron let out a glimmer of a smile. “Well you certainly learned a thing or two from the Marquise.”
The Baroness simpered. “Any dullard could tell an original copy of Rolshtagg’s the Launch should be gracing the walls of the entrance foyer and not the dining room.”
“She is, of course, correct, Baron,” Trim put in.
Baron Bastien Bonvillain rounded on the little man. “Are you inferring that I am a dullard, Monsieur Trim?” He took a step forward and Karl Trim shrank away from the angry Baron. “I am not paying you for the privilege of your opinion and will not continue to pay you unless you learn when you are to speak and when you are to be spoken to. Do you understand, Monsieur Trim?”
The man bowed his head subserviently and nodded.
“Excellent. When the Baroness is finished with the staff you will make sure they are each one paid an extra day’s wages for their good work and make certain they understand I do not wish to see them again until the morning,” he said this in a voice loud enough for all nearby to hear and very much hoped they would take the hint to spend their bonuses on activities that took them away from the house. “You, on the other hand, Monsieur Trim, will receive no such extra pay and are to remain here to wait upon myself and the Baroness.
“In the mean time, my dear,” he continued turning to his wife, lowering his voice lest he acquire her displeasure. “You will find me in my study reading over the day’s events in the local papers. I have an itch to learn all I can about Rares and its many attractions.”
Baroness Bonvillain, who had been waiting patiently while her husband admonished Monsieur Trim, smiled, kissed her husband on the cheek and then turned back to the arranging of the foyer to make certain the staff earned their extra pay.
Jacques drummed his fingers on the desk, slowly at first put picking up speed with each repetition. Faster and faster he drummed, each finger hitting the desk in turn in perfect rhythm. It was one of many exercises he performed in order to keep his fingers nimble and his mind sharp. Along with a regular exercise routine, one designed for endurance mostly, using the muscles associated with running, climbing and jumping (everything a good sneak-thief needed), Jacques’ constant little exercises kept him in prime physical and mental condition.
It was not the same study he and Isabel had occupied awaiting the arrival of Seigneur Daron; there were in fact three studies in the house and this one occupied the room next to the Baron’s bedroom. Jacques had to admit it was a strange curiosity that husbands and wives often slept in separate rooms but it was a trend he and Isabel would have to follow for now, though he desperately hated being apart from her at night. The study was decorated with a moleskin rug (no doubt made from hundreds of the poor creatures), a mahogany desk polished to a near lethal shine, a grand portrait of Baron Bastien Bonvillain’s benefactor (the Marquis van Elmer), and a traditional fireplace merrily crackling away to itself. In truth Jacques would have much preferred an alchemical fireplace but, as progressive as Baron Bonvillain was, he had not a head for alchemy himself and fireplaces required regular attention as the alchemical fire tended to lose consistency over time and that could lead to smells that bordered on the toxic. It would, of course, be possible to hire a city alchemist on retainer to see to the many fires, lanterns and curios but it was not within the Baron’s character to hire a person he didn’t trust and, as the Baron was new to Rares, he trusted nobody. For now they would exist with the more traditional log fires and oil lanterns and Jacques would continue to practice alchemy only as a private hobby.
There was a soft knock at the door and Jacques drew his brow into a frown and assumed the voice of the Baron. “Come,” he ordered in a brisk tone.
Karl Trim opened the door and swept a low bow as the Baroness strode into the study and regarded her husband with a faintly curious look. Jacques had to admit the persona suited Isabel like a glove; she was, perhaps, born to act the part.
“The rest of the staff have left for the day, Baron. If you need anything…”
“Excellent news, Trim,” Jacques said dropping Baron Bonvillain in an instant and leaning back in the leather chair. He considered placing his feet on the desk but decided any scuff marks left might be a terror to explain. “Come, take a seat.”
“Bastien,” the Baroness said in a quiet voice that screamed reprimand. “That is no way to speak to an employee.”
“And if he were truly our employee I would quite agree, my dear, but Monsieur Trim here works for our own quite enigmatic employer, Seigneur Daron.”
“Really?” Isabel asked turning her gaze on the head of staff.
Jacques had rarely seen a man want to deny anything quite so much but Trim clearly understood that denial would serve him no good. With a resigned sigh the man wandered over to the drinks cabinet, a beautiful mahogany piece that quite matched the desk Jacques was sat behind, pulled down a bottle from the top shelf and retrieved a glass from the bottom shelf. He proceeded to poor a single measure, place the bottle on Jacques’ mahogany desk, and seat himself opposite the fake Baron.
“How did you know?” Trim asked his voice still that of the subservient house staff but his demeanour very much changed.
Jacques smiled. “A man of your particular talent?” He looked towards Isabel. “He has a perfect memory, dear.”
“I could imagine a whole nest of uses for such a thing,” Isabel said managing to hide what must have been surprise.
“Now it seems to me,” Jacques continued, “that a man with such a rare and wonderful ability would be very much wasted in a role as mundane as head of staff for the Baron and Baroness Bonvillain. It also strikes me that our dear employer, Seigneur Daron, is not the type of man to leave anything to the whims of chance. Yes, a perfect memory would be wasted in the role of servant, unless that servant was also employed to spy on those he served for.”
“Anyone would think the Seigneur doesn’t trust us,” Isabel said. Having moved over to the fireplace she was gently stoking the embers.
Trim took a sip of the alcohol he had poured and regarded Jacques over the rim of the glass. “What do you want?”
“I want us to work with each other, not against,” Jacques said with a charming smile. “Or, more aptly, I want you to work with us, not against us.”
Trim looked interested. “To what end?”
Isabe
l let out a merry laugh from over by the fireplace. “What other end could there be? Money.”
Chapter 7 – You Never Forget Your First Time
“You secured the invite then?” Roache asked opening a padded wooden box and staring down at the contents much in the way a man might stare at a naked woman, if he was in fact so inclined and Isabel had seen no evidence to the contrary.
“It was an easy thing,” Isabel said stepping up beside Roache and looking down into the box. “The Baron gave the head of staff a dressing down then gave the others a bonus with the express orders of making merry.” She smiled at Roache. The big man blushed and glued his eyes back to the box.
“Very clever, explains why the whole city is talking about you. Beautiful, aren’t they?”
“They look… very… dangerous,” Isabel said hesitantly.
Roache tore his eyes from the box and fixed Isabel with a disapproving stare. “They’re pistols, not tigers. They’re no more dangerous than a knife. The danger is in the person holding onto the other end.”
Isabel could think of no reply so said nothing at all. In truth Roache’s sentiment made perfect sense though it made her feel no more comfortable looking down upon the two pistols.
“Now, you two are to become as comfortable carrying these as you are carrying that haughty attitude you parade around,” Roache said with a grin. “They’re to remain loaded and holstered at all times, Creator forbid you ever find the need to use them.”
“Creator forbid indeed,” Jacques said from very near the doorway.
“You know the best way to get comfortable with a new piece?”
“I have a feeling I know what you’re about to say,” Jacques replied.
“Use it,” Roache said with a wide grin. “So we’re here,” he gestured down the indoor firing range, “for you two to use these beautiful new pistols until you’re both comfortable.”
Isabel reached into the box and pulled out the smaller of the two weapons. It was polished steel with black-gold filigree and an ebony grip and just light enough to wear attached to a belt or a sturdy leather garter.
