She no longer hesitated. The dagger’s tip sank into the girl’s small, naked throat. For a dreadful moment, breath heaved through Diane’s body in a sick gurgle, and then Louisa bore down on the blade with all her strength, biting through the resistance of the girl’s windpipe. Blood ran hot down Diane’s neck and puddled onto the ground near Louisa’s knees. Louisa cut deeper just to be sure, sawing through muscle and vein, her fingers becoming coated with her mistress’s blood. Louisa did not notice that she was sobbing while she cut. She did not notice that her heart was pounding faster and faster, as if it could pump her own life into the other girl’s body. She did not notice a thing until the dagger struck bone and could cut no more.
Diane never woke up.
The Present Day
The Duchess Tremontaine met Ixkaab Balam’s steady gaze over the tray of untouched chocolate. She still held the letter in her hands, the letter that would condemn her in the eyes of every noble in the land. If they so much as suspected any part of the truth, the duchess would be ruined.
Ruined utterly.
The nobles’ obsession with bloodlines was a moat around them, separating them from the low-born commoners who toiled in their service. No one was allowed to cross that moat. There were no bridges of merit or marriage or even of wealth. A merchant might be wealthier than all the dukes combined, but he would still never be one of them.
Louisa had been a lady’s maid, born to parents she had never known, orphaned as a baby, put into service at the whim of a spoiled heiress. Louisa, as far as the Duchess Tremontaine was concerned, was dead. She had died on that road in the forest at the same moment as the real Diane Roehaven. Afterward, the one who lived changed into the dead girl’s bloodied blue silk gown so that there would be no mistaking who she was. She had trudged on shaking legs for the better part of a day to the next village, where a farmer had taken pity on her and offered her space in the back of his turnip wagon going to market in the morning. Once they arrived in the City, she walked up to the Hill on her own. Her first sight of Tremontaine House nearly overwhelmed her; she had never seen a mansion so grand, and the idea that it could be hers galvanized her.
Louisa could not be allowed to be born again. She must remain buried deep beneath the duchess’s skin, so deep that no one would know she had ever existed.
The duchess asked, “What do you want for your silence?”
Kaab’s smile did not reach her mouth, but the duchess saw it in her eyes, a bright flash of triumph. She recognized now, in Kaab’s eyes, the mark of an equal.
“An exchange,” Kaab proposed. “Rafe Fenton, your husband’s secretary, has been investigating certain aspects of navigation in his studies at the University. Rafe has been working with a young mathematician named Micah, and your husband has promised to help them. Their work needs to stop, and none of their discoveries can be revealed. If you stop them—and prevent the results of their work from being used—then I will not share the true story of your origins.”
Diane had not forgotten about her husband’s enthusiastic support for Rafe’s scholarship, and she immediately understood Kaab’s position. If Rafe’s theories were put into action, they would be as threatening to the Balams as Kaab’s knowledge of Louisa was to Diane.
“You’re proposing silence for silence,” Diane said.
“Yes.”
“What would you have me do to stop my husband and his . . . secretary?”
“That is up to you,” Kaab said. “As long as you succeed in silencing them, that is all that matters to me. All knowledge and evidence of their work must be suppressed. If you promise to do this, then I too will remain silent.”
Diane smoothed her fingers over the letter that could destroy everything she had worked for her entire life. Taking care of William was no problem, given his sudden illness, but the rest of Kaab’s demands required some additional thought.
“That is my offer,” Kaab said. “Do you agree?”
Episode Thirteen:
Departures
Ellen Kushner
Kaab considered the woman before her. Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, stood pale and composed in her silk-and-damask drawing room. Only her hands, nervously clutching the damning letter Kaab had just given her, betrayed her.
“Let me be sure I understand your proposal,” Diane said. “You and your people—for I am not fool enough to think that you alone possess the secret of my origins; I’m sure your formidable aunt, at least, does too—you will bury that knowledge, never to see the light of day. You will swear by your gods to do this. And I in turn will swear by mine that all knowledge of navigation that would enable my people to cross the seas to your land will be equally buried.”
Kaab nodded. She could be patient while the duchess played for time to think. The matter would be decided now; there was no way this woman would let Kaab leave Tremontaine House without her pledge of secrecy. Diane’s need was immediate; what Kaab demanded was trivial to the duchess by comparison. The Xanamwiinik had not been able to navigate yesterday; with Diane’s promise, they would not be able to navigate twenty years from now either—whereas if Kaab released the duchess’s secret in the morning, by nightfall Duchess Tremontaine would be out on the street.
All Kaab had to do was wait for the duchess to accept the facts and then make sure she herself got out of Tremontaine House alive. Diane was already poisoning her husband with a merciless hallucinogen to make sure he stayed out of her way. Of course, Diane did not know that Ixkaab knew this, so it did not surprise her when the duchess attempted one last dodge: “And what makes you think that I can influence the Duke Tremontaine in these matters?”
Kaab said, “It is not the duke I am concerned with. Nobody listens to him, as well you know. In fact, his own wife makes secret pledges with the Balam Traders to share profits in chocolate to pay off her debts, and he does not know it. She uses her influence with the Council of Lords to change the import tax laws, and he does not even care. Such a woman, I think, will have no trouble making sure that some raggedy students are not heeded by the Council—and if they take their knowledge to the merchants, well, the Council is the law of the land, and can surely make it very difficult for them to implement such knowledge.”
Was that a blush of pride on the pale duchess’s waxen face? Did she like hearing, just once, just here, in private and alone, that another woman recognized and admired what she had done? It must be tiresome, Kaab thought, to live a life where all your strength came from making sure no one knew that you had any.
Kaab continued: “The Kinwiinik would accept this woman’s pledge, and value it. They would feel safe and secure in partnership with her, and would never find it in their interests to do anything to risk removing her from her present status.”
The duchess lifted her head, as if already smelling victory. She really was a magnificent creature. Kaab had to admit that she found powerful women intoxicating. What was to prevent her, here and now, from taking this bright, pale woman in her arms to seal their bargain with one deep kiss? The duchess had flirted with her at the Swan Ball; perhaps she would be ardent, like the Tullan nobleman’s wife, Citlali—
“Are you distressed, Mistress Balam?”
Too late to hide it. “I am, my lady.” But not too late for riposte. “I was thinking of what happens when lovers betray one another, and covenants are not honored. It can be terrible.”
“I understand.” The Duchess Tremontaine held up the incriminating letter. “Then let us come to an agreement. I shall burn this letter”—quickly she threw it on the embers in the hearth—“and all memory of what it contains will go up in smoke along with it. And your people, in turn, may be assured that any discoveries in mathematics or astronomy that would enable us to navigate the curves of the earth at any great distance—for you see, Mistress Balam, my husband did indeed tell me of the new research—will be mocked, discredited, scoffed at . . . outside the University. For even you cannot credit me with any influence within those walls!”
 
; The letter was curling at the edges, smoldering, about to break into flame. It didn’t matter; Tess could always make another one, should the duchess be playing with this talk of University. Diane had read the forged letter carefully and suspected nothing. Kaab’s lover, Tess, too, was in her way a woman of power.
The duchess turned from the hearth with a smile.
“And now, my dear, will you take chocolate?”
Tess the Hand paced her rooms in a small house in Riverside.
The swordsman Vincent Applethorpe, who shared them with her, looked up from the letter he was trying to write to his sister in the country. People in Riverside feared Applethorpe’s sword, but Vincent Applethorpe feared only the pen. Still, if she didn’t hear from him regularly, dear Clem was likely to kick up a fuss. And so he dutifully wrote to her once a month, no matter what it cost him.
The large red-haired woman, clad only in a loose gown, her hair flowing out behind her like a comet’s tail as she paced from desk to window and back again, picking up random things and putting them down without looking at them, only made it worse.
The ink dripped as Vincent waved his pen in the air. “In the name of all, Tess, if you don’t stop that and keep still, I swear I’ll—”
Tess whirled. “You swear you’ll what? You’re my official protector, Vincent Applethorpe. Lay just one hand on me and you’ll be out of a job, which means out of a roof to lay your scabrous head—”
“Te-e-e-esssss.” He drew the word out gently. If this is what True Love did to her, he wasn’t at all sure he liked it. “All I’m saying is—distract yourself. Find something to do, will you?”
“What are you writing?” Tess asked. Gods, she was inquisitive. She had the demon in her, nervous about her girlfriend on the Hill. She needed distracting. And so he opened his guard, just a little.
“Letter to my sister. She worries.”
Tess craned her head to see the page. “‘. . . ten measures of good Helmsleigh wool,’” Tess read aloud. “‘Nobles . . . pay their bills . . . a good year . . .’ Vincent,” she said.
He shook his head, silent.
“You’re one of the best swords in Riverside. And your sister thinks you own a draper’s shop?”
“She worries,” he repeated doggedly.
“So,” Tess said. He braced himself for whatever bitchiness her nerves would squeeze out of her. “So,” she said again. “Want me to run you up some receipts to show her?”
Vincent Applethorpe laughed. She was Tess the Hand: forger of documents great and small. It had never occurred to him to ask. “Sure,” he said.
They spent a merry hour squabbling about whether “Applethorpe’s Fine Woolens” was better than “Vincent’s Notions”—he let her win, relieved to have distracted her from thinking about Kaab. The Kinwiinik woman was even now confronting the Duchess Tremontaine about some shady business involving the death of Tess’s previous protector at the hands of Reynald, the Tremontaine swordsman. Applethorpe had been ridiculously pleased when Kaab reported that she’d killed him, using the sword craft that he himself had taught her. Of course, if he’d known she’d be fighting Reynald, he could have given her a few tips. . . .
Tess was pacing again. She went to the window, looked out, craned her neck to see down the street, pushed the casement open farther, craned some more. Drew in her head, twisted her hair in one hand, pinned it up by skewering it with a paper knife, and knocked over a cracked mug full of pens.
“Look,” he said, “she’ll be here any minute. She’s a big girl; she can take care of herself.”
“You’re a fool, Vincent,” Tess said sharply. “It’s not me she’s loyal to—it’s her family. That Balam trading clan. It’s them she’ll go to first with the news. I could be waiting all night.” She sank to the floor beside him, sharing the patch of sunlight he was trying to write in. “Tell me about Tremontaine House. I want to be able to picture where she is. And how she can get out, if there’s trouble.”
Applethorpe nodded slowly, capped the inkpot, and put the letter aside. “Yes. All right. I can do that.” Like a village storyteller, he began: “Imagine way up at the top of the Hill, on the side overlooking the river. The gates are black iron, but curly, like lace or something. When they swing open, you’re in a courtyard, neatly cobbled, with the great house waiting across it. In front of the house is a set of steps—two, really, stairs on each side, and a landing with a balcony, a stone one, in the middle.”
“Do their guests go up one set and down the other?”
“I have no idea. Maybe they just like to have a choice.”
“And then?”
“A great wide door. A double door. Fine-grained oak, strong as iron. Carved with swans, which is the Tremontaine crest.”
Tess nodded, smiling. “Don’t I know it.” That’s right, he thought. She’d faked a letter for them recently.
“And if you can get through those doors, you’re in a great open hall, two stories high or more. Let’s see, there’s checkerboard flooring, and all sorts of crazy paintings on the wall and even the ceiling. . . .”
“What of?” Tess leaned her head against his knee, like a cat. Or a sleepy child.
“I dunno . . . gods and goddesses, I guess. The sky. But the best part is this grand stairway that leads out of it, curling up into the clouds. . . .”
He looked down. Tess was asleep in that awkward position, cheek on his knee. But her nervous hands were still at last, and her breathing was regular.
With the perfect control that made him one of the great swords of Riverside, Vincent Applethorpe reached for his pen, his ink, and his paper, and recommenced writing badly spelled lies to his sister Clem, all without disturbing the woman at his side.
* * *
No, Kaab would not take chocolate with the Duchess Tremontaine today. Or ever, knowing what she did about Diane’s proclivity for eliminating those who stood in her way—although at this point, her trading partners the Balam were surely exempt. Maybe.
Instead, Kaab departed by the same great doors she had entered. She stood on the steps of Tremontaine House for a moment, at the apex of the Hill, taking in the vista from the courtyard, breathing deeply, enjoying her moment of triumph.
There would be complications. People could be hurt. If he ever learned what she had done, her dear friend Rafe would never forgive her for hiding the duke’s true condition from him, let alone blocking his research. But for now, for just this one perfect moment, she allowed herself to look back on the last three months since she had first arrived in this city and taken on its problems as her own.
Ixkaab Balam, first daughter of a first daughter of the Kinwiinik, had said that she would do a thing, and she had done it. The stain of her botched mission was past, and her exile would surely be recalled. She could go home across the sea where she belonged.
A carriage clattered into the yard. Kaab slipped down one side of the marble steps, crouched, and peered through the balustrade. A man got out of the carriage. His cloak bore a dragon worked in gold. A Chancellor of the Council of Lords, then. The dragon meant the exchequer, so this was— Ah! Kaab smiled. This was the man the duchess had persuaded to put through the relief on the Kinwiinik Traders’ chocolate tax!
For a moment, Kaab considered running back up the stairs, as if newly arrived herself, to greet him and have a little fun. But then she thought that she’d probably had enough fun for one day, all things considered. The duchess was surely storming about her boudoir, tearing up tapestries with her teeth and smashing china.
The Dragon Chancellor returned to his waiting carriage. The Duchess Tremontaine was receiving no one.
From a room high in Tremontaine House, William, Duke Tremontaine, looked out on the stone courtyard.
He was used to knowing things, now. It had frightened him, at first. But he was coming to understand what he saw.
Below him, a dragon stamped and snorted in the courtyard before the house. The dragon desired his wife. William was going to have to
save her, for she could not save herself.
“Diane!” he shouted, to warn her. “Diane!” He ran to the door, but it would not open. “Diane!” He pounded on it, so she could hear him. “Diane, beware the dragon!”
His steady pounding was like a heartbeat, pounding fit to burst while he cried her name: “Diane! Diane!”
“Should we open it?” he heard someone out there say.
“No. He just gets like this sometimes.”
William dashed back to the window. And, lo! The dragon was retreating, pulling out of the courtyard with a clatter like horses’ hooves on stone. A bright yellow bee buzzed around the corner of the house, but that did not concern him. His wife was safe for now.
“Diane!” he called again, gladly.
She did not answer. Far away in the house, he heard her weeping stormily, weeping with abandon, weeping and weeping as though her heart would break.
Kaab felt free as a bird let loose on the Feast of Xamanek after weeks in darkness. To celebrate, she left the grounds the same way she had come in the other night—was it only four days ago?—hoisting herself over the back wall. It wasn’t easy in skirts, but she knotted them up with her sash. First, though, she made sure to loosen her horrible stays. And if the skirts got a little torn on the way over, well, hadn’t the Duchess Tremontaine, supreme arbiter of fashion, declared that they were two seasons out of date?
She tidied herself up before she stepped out onto the broad and quiet street—but she couldn’t possibly look like the well-heeled Trader who had presented herself at Tremontaine House only an hour ago. No matter. She wanted to run all the way down the Hill, speed through town like a quetzal on fire, fly over the Bridge, and hasten to the arms of her love, her ripe maize flower, the loveliest woman in the world—
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