Masquerade in Lodi

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The alleys grew quieter as people with duties tomorrow, religious or otherwise, drew in for the night. Though Lodi’s prostitutes did not seem to be taking their holiday off; they passed a few such squeezed into dark niches actively pursuing their trade. Pen shifted Chio to his other side, but she seemed neither shocked nor afraid.

  “Of course not,” she murmured at his anxious query. “Those boys are too busy jumping their ladies to jump us. It’s the unattached bravos you have to watch out for.”

  Shrewd girl, Des approved.

  Chio glanced over her shoulder at the lewd noises fading in the shadows, and remarked, “Those poor street whores are not so valued by the city. They’re harder to squeeze taxes out of than their sisterhoods in the brothels and bordellos. It’s said that the levies paid by the ladies of Lodi fund the building of a state galley every year. I think those ships should be named for famous courtesans, but they keep naming them after boring old men instead.”

  Pen was surprised into a bark of laughter, imagining an imposing warship named Mira of Lodi gliding over the waves.

  It would overawe all rivals, Des assured him smugly.

  He sobered, considering Chio’s insights. The denizens of the Bastard’s orphanages must have a rough view of the backside of the colorful tapestry that was Lodi. Chio might play a sheltered maiden most convincingly, when it suited her, but she was not one. Even without that hidden portal on infinite space she had tucked secretly about her.

  They came to a halt at an alley mouth that gave onto another market, illuminated by what table lanterns hadn’t run out of oil and the dancing flames of a cresset, its iron basket held up on a post beside the canal landing. Sinuous yellow-orange lines reflecting in the dark water danced back.

  The party hosted here had reached the latest stage of devolution: families gone, young and unattached older men getting drunk, drunker, or drunkest, throwing up or pissing into the canal, loud verbal fights with each other edging toward brawls. Those women yet present, some of them as drunk as their partners, were either plying their trade or else just being very bawdy.

  Pen would have been content to edge around this mob, but Chio raised her chin and sniffed the lack of breeze. “Ooh. That fellow still has meat sticks for sale. Let’s get some. We can eat them as we walk on, and not need to stop.”

  One of the last remaining vendors apart from the wine booth supervised an iron basin of coals on a tripod, topped with a grille where he turned sizzling skewers. Their smoke might be the only appetizing smell left curling through the damp midnight air. Pen’s suddenly watering mouth reminded him that they hadn’t eaten for hours, and they would both need their strength if—when—they caught up with Madboy. Feed the saint was certainly part of his Temple duties tonight, eh?

  He waved an amiable assent to Chio and threaded his way toward the enticing tripod, where he had to wait for the preceding customers.

  ’Ware cutpurse, murmured Des.

  This square being demon-free, Pen had gratefully eased Des’s extended senses, but he flared them a little now. The back of his neck crawled in expectation of a very sharp knife slicing the cord of his purse, in preparation for some drunken-seeming collision later where he would be relieved of it. But to his astonishment, the hand rose to his shoulder braids. A butterfly landing upon him would have had no more weight.

  Pen was so boggled, he almost gave the man another few seconds just to see if he would succeed in his delicate unpinning operation. He was fairly certain the answer was yes.

  Sadly, no. Pen reached up, seized the pickpocket’s wrist, and turned in one smooth motion, yanking the man forward. A reach, a sorcerer-physician’s precise twist to the axillary nerve—not hard enough to snap it, but enough to leave the whole arm limp and stinging.

  “Was this a dare or a death-wish?” Pen breathed in the man’s ear.

  “Dare!” he squeaked. “Pardon, pardon, learned sir! Just a prank! Forgiveness on our god’s day!”

  No question that this was no prank, but the man’s trade—he’d been far too adept for an amateur thief. From the corner of his eye, Pen spotted a couple of his probably-colleagues, who had been watching the show and grinning, retreat hastily into the shadows at this abrupt reversal of fortune. Pen could imagine the conversation that had led up to this—I wager I can lift the braids right off that skinny sorcerer’s shoulder! If Pen had been any other sort of Temple divine, he likely could have.

  Servile, grinning, and terrified, an unsavory combination. Pen took a deep breath to calm himself, and continued his sermon at a whisper’s range. “Your hand will be useless for a day. If I chose to take you to a city constable, it would be removed altogether. Consider this foretaste a god-given chance to pray and reflect on your poor choice of callings. Some craft where your fifth mistake won’t result in your hand being amputated would be good. You have skill. Use it for better ends.”

  Pen released his assailant-turned-victim, who backed away bobbing bows and babbling apologies until he could turn and scamper.

  Pen sighed. Do you think my homily will take, Des?

  Hard to say. Impressive try, though. Demonic amusement. On both your parts.

  Pen wondered if Don’t drink and rob! would have been more pointed advice. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have two spare sets of braids in his clothes chest.

  He fished his purse from under his coat and shirt, thankful to find it still there, and settled up for three skewers of meat. Aromatic with garlic, otherwise not very identifiable; browned sufficed tonight. A stop at the wine booth for something red and redolent to wash it down would delay them, but it was tempting. Toasted sticks in hand, he looked around for Chio and Merin.

  They were gone.

  * * *

  He was puzzled. Not alarmed, Pen told himself and his leaping pulse as he swept the square with his gaze. Chio’s showy striped dress should stand out even in flickering shadows. No luck. He flashed Des’s demonic sense to its fullest range. By now, he could recognize those souls at a distance much as one would recognize the form of a friend seen down the street. Nothing.

  He wheeled, checking the square again. The cutpurse and his cronies were gone, naturally enough. He didn’t see how they could have taken Chio and Merin with them by force without his or Des’s notice in the few moments he’d spent collecting the meat. Nor why, actually.

  No, agreed Des. But when a demon sounded worried…

  The canal here had no footpath, lapping right up to the buildings on either side. The sole access was by oarboat at the market landing. Water traffic had thinned out, only a few hardy boatmen still circulating to ferry inebriated customers home.

  This market had three dry entries, the alley they’d come in by, and the other two leading who-knew-where—just because they started off in one direction didn’t mean they’d continue that way.

  Pen picked the wider, cobbled one and trotted down it, frugally munching his meat skewer. The snack didn’t settle well in his newly nervous stomach, despite his peckishness. After a hundred paces, the street narrowed and ended in a close-built ring of houses. A Lodi rat could have escaped between them, but not a girl in a party dress and whoever she’d left with. Merin must be accompanying her, Pen reasoned with himself, his pulse, and his digestion. Chio could not be completely unprotected.

  I’ve lost the saint! Envisioning himself explaining this to Learned Riesta, Pen fought panic. She was only temporarily mislaid, surely.

  Back to the market. Taxing a few bleary men and the less bleary vendors for witness bore no fruit; the first had been too drunk and the second too busy keeping them so. Pen scowled at the time he’d lost and headed into the final street. In a minute, the first crossing presented him with the usual three-way dilemma.

  Pen halted, thinking of his late father’s description of a dog trying to chase two rabbits. Doomed to catch neither, in the paternal parable. Increasingly frantic circling was not the answer. He’d been doing that all night.

  If the pair hadn’t been kidnapped
, one must have persuaded the other away. But which? He wouldn’t put some impulsive start past Chio, certainly. Earlier in the evening, he might have imagined her growing bored with her stodgy Temple protector and haring off to find a better party, but not since their sobering encounter with the distraught Iserne. So she must have had a reason. A god-inspired reason? Attempting to picture what, or how, made him want to gibber.

  The notion of Merin luring her away from Penric also left him at a loss. Not slyly divesting a romantic rival of his prize; he’d shown no hint of being interested in Chio that way, although it would take a brave man to approach a saint.

  Or the penniless orphan part accounts for his lack of ardor, Des put in.

  Would Iserne concur with her? But no, Merin had been as intent on their pursuit as the rest of them. Pen had not misread that.

  “Des, what do you make of Merin?”

  The impression of a doubtful Hmm. I see souls. I don’t hear their thoughts as you and I hear each other’s, you know that. Handy as that god-like gift would be. He’s upset, but then he would be. More determination than malice, and more fear than either. Much more fear. For Ree, and unease at his dangerous situation, I’d thought.

  Thus Merin, regardless of the details of his motivation, would still be set on finding Ree. So… maybe Pen wasn’t chasing two rabbits. Maybe there was only one, or in any case two going in the same direction. Where haven’t I searched yet?

  He reviewed his routes around a mental map of Lodi. The city was ten times the size of Martensbridge, itself ten times the size of Pen’s mountain home of Greenwell Town, but he’d chewed through most of it by now. He hadn’t covered any of the outlying islands except the Isle of Gulls, though how a penniless madman could contrive to get across the lagoon defeated even Pen’s imagination.

  I really don’t think he’d have tried to swim, said Des. Dolphin-haunted or not.

  Agreed.

  Oh. There was one place Pen hadn’t examined; the harbor shore near the hospice, apart from the bits along the route between the hospice and Iserne’s house. Because it had already been searched in that first hour by Linatas and Tebi—looking for a madman and a fuss. Could the bedemoned Ree instead have hidden himself from their view in the marine clutter? Easily. Pen would have spotted him regardless, but ordinary eyes might not.

  Pen swore aloud in Wealdean at this potential miss.

  Though if Merin had been seized by some late inspiration of a new place to look for his lost cabinmate, why hadn’t he brought the thought to Penric? Pen was liking this less and less. He walked on into the darkness that wasn’t dark to him, somewhat vengefully consuming Merin’s meat stick. And, in the twenty minutes it took him to backtrack through the stone and water maze to the harbor, Chio’s as well, though mainly to free his hand. Her penalty for running off without telling him.

  Trying to be systematic, always a challenge in Lodi, Pen angled through to the shoreline on the far side of the hospice and worked his way back up toward the state shipyard. There were a surprising number of souls about in the after-midnight darkness, and not just celebrants staggering home. Sailors slept out on their moored ships. Others denned up in various cubbies and shacks. Pen passed a pair of night watchmen, more looking for fires than criminals though prepared to sound an alarm for either.

  One lifted his lantern and frowned at Pen, glimmering gold-white in the pool of light. Seeing a divine’s coat and braids, and of the fifth god’s Order on His night, he bobbed his head in nervous respect. “Learned sir. You’re out late.”

  “Unfortunately yes. I’m looking for a, uh, sick man who might have come through here. Also for a young couple…” Pen described his missing trio, leaving out the lengthy explanation. Which made it all rather mysterious; the watchmen regarded him with misgiving. But they had not seen any of the people Pen was looking for since they’d come on duty at nightfall. Pen left them with a parting blessing anyway, which they accepted with scarcely less worry.

  He searched as far as the mouth of the Wealdmen’s Canal without luck, then had to circle up it for the bridge. This brought him back down Iserne’s street and past her steps. He did not stop in; Des’s Sight told him that Ree had not returned here. Lamplight leaked through third-story shutters from the wakeful woman waiting.

  Needless delay would be cruelty… He would run, if he’d known what way.

  Back to the harborside. The next stretch was mainly devoted to the use of Lodi fishermen like the ones who’d first trawled up Madboy. Tackle, festoons of nets drying, crates, fish-traps, and boats small enough to be pulled ashore for the night made a maddening obstacle course through damp sand. A few craft were upside down, waiting repairs or maintenance on their hulls. If Pen hadn’t been looking with Des’s Sight, he would never have spotted the man tucked beneath one. Not Madboy, not Merin. Fisherman? Vagabond? No… What’s wrong with him?

  Quite a lot, said Des uneasily, but not our affair, surely…?

  Pen knelt and peered into what would be black shadow to anyone else. The fellow breathing in stertorous gasps was neither sleeping nor drunk. He’d taken a plank to the head. Crawled under there himself, or been rolled in? Robbed?

  Comprehensively, murmured Des.

  He was wearing nothing but his drawers. He might be in his twenties, sailor or merchant or anything, but he didn’t look starveling so probably not a street beggar. Pen didn’t wonder Who would rob a beggar? since the answer was Anyone with fewer possessions and more desperation. Wanting clothes, in this case. And a purse? Pen set his teeth, got a grip on clammy ankles, and dragged the fellow out from under the downturned oarboat.

  His dark hair was clotted with blood, mostly dry. So, the injury suffered about two hours ago? The profusely bleeding scalp wound had been superficial, the concussion less so. His skull was not fractured, though, and the bleeding seemed to be confined to the outside, fortunately.

  Pen could afford a strong dose of general uphill magic against the shock, brain bruising, and blood loss at no more cost than the life of one of the harbor rats, which were ready to hand, skulking in the shadows. It was a wonder none had taken a nibble of the fellow so far. Pen drew breath and called up this most-practiced basic healing skill, trying hard not to think of all the grievous times it had failed him. He wasn’t doing this anymore, so why was he doing this…?

  Des made her silence a dry-enough comment.

  Pen quelled the shiver of raw mortal memories as order passed out through his hands into the hurting body, trading for slightly greater disorder flowing up into him.

  His… patient, foundling, emitted a groan. Pen searched around for a splinter of wood, stuck it upright in the sand, and set it alight with a touch. This makeshift candle wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t need to. When the fellow pried open his sticky eyelids, he would be able to see more than a threatening silhouette looming over him.

  He stretched his jaw, raised a hand to his head; a gleam of dark eyes at last shone up. They widened at Pen. “Am I dead?” the man croaked.

  He might have been by morning, if the rats had found him. “Happily not.”

  “…thought you might be the white god come to collect me. Wondered what I’d done wrong.”

  “No, just his errand boy.”

  “Good. M’ mother wouldn’t have liked that…” Fingers poked gingerly through matted, crusty hair.

  “You took a bad knock, though,” said Pen. “Any idea who gave it to you?” He was getting an unsettling notion about that.

  The fellow was momentarily distracted as his wandering hands discovered his near-naked state. He swore. “My good doublet!” Bony feet felt each other. “My good boots! You ’spect to lose your purse, but who steals a man’s breeches?” A moment later: “Gods, I feel sick…” He spasmed; Pen helped him roll over to vomit. There had been a wine party earlier, evidently. “Ohh, Mother of Summer help me…”

  “I’ll bring you to the Gift of the Sea hospice shortly,” Pen promised. “As soon as you think you can walk.”


  A whuff, possibly grateful.

  “Did you see who robbed you?” Pen asked again.

  “Only f’ a moment. ’S coming home up the harbor street about an hour before midnight—what time s’it now?”

  “About an hour after, I make it.” Not the worst swoon, though such were never good.

  “Barefoot young man by himself. Mumbling. Thought he was too drunk to be a danger, didn’t pay much mind at he went by. Then I saw stars. The next thing, you.” He pushed himself up on one elbow and looked around, wincing and blinking, then sank back with another groan. “Not far from here.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “About my height and size, I guess. A bit younger? Pretty ragged, so it was hard to tell. Not much light.”

  “Hair?”

  “Dark, tangled.”

  Pen repeated the somewhat useless physical description of Ree Richelon.

  The stripped fellow shook his head, then clutched it. “Ow. I… maybe?”

  Not obviously Not, then. Pen passed his hand over the victim. No signs of demonic disruption—he didn’t think Madboy understood the theological hazards of magical violence, but perhaps the plank or chunk of spar or whatever had seemed weapon enough.

  But if it had been Madboy, that meant he’d still been here in the area not two hours ago. Though also that he had amended his purseless and unclothed state, and gained more ability to move about or escape.

  Not over the causeway till it opens again at dawn, though, Des put in. He’s trapped in Lodi tonight unless he goes by boat.

  The stolen money would aid that, although not many boats were still moving at this hour, Bastard’s Eve or not. Not that he couldn’t just seize a small boat, if he was strong enough drag it to the water by himself. Or simply untie it from a dock, though their owners usually took in their oars for the night to thwart such thefts.