Scars and Swindlers

by Val Saintcrowe

“I want a dance with Lia,” said Haid. Lia was the nickname sometimes given the drug. They spoke of it as though she were a woman, a lover, even though the drug was the most demeaning and unforgiving lover anyone could ever have.

  “I knew you’d be back,” said Nicx. He turned to Keirla. “Didn’t I say he’d be back?”

  Keirla’s eyes were glassy. “Hello, Haid.”

  He nodded at her. “Hello, Keirla.”

  “I hear you steal with a team, now, and that you’re sober,” said Nicx. “But, then, you’re here, so are you sober?”

  Haid shrugged. “Every once in a while, I should be allowed to celebrate, shouldn’t I?”

  Nicx chuckled. He sauntered over to the side of the room and went to a chest of drawers. He opened one of them and removed a small fabric pouch. He opened it and dipped a finger inside.

  Haid looked at the brown bits of powder clinging to Nicx’s finger, and his mouth went dry with need. His heart skipped a beat and he couldn’t breathe.

  “Taste?” said Nicx.

  Haid swallowed. “I trust you.” His voice was tight.

  Nicx laughed, a sort of wild giggle. He fixed Haid with a glare as he crossed the room to him.

  Haid’s nostrils flared.

  Nicx lifted his finger and held it up between the two of them.

  “I trust you,” Haid said again, his voice lower. “I know you sell pure product. I’m sure it’s not cut with—”

  Nicx smeared his finger over Haid’s upper lip.

  Haid convulsed.

  Nicx raised his eyebrows.

  Haid’s tongue darted out and he lapped up the powder. The sharp, acrid taste exploded on his tongue. He hissed.

  Nicx laughed again, another of those giggles. “Pure as living flame, Your Grace. Which is why I’ll be asking top price for it.”

  Haid’s heart was pounding. He squared his shoulders. “Of course. That’s fine.”

  “We used to be friends, Your Grace. I used to give you a discount because we were friends, but we’re not friends anymore, so you can’t expect that now.”

  “I don’t.” Haid didn’t feel any effect of the iubilia, not from such a small taste, but it had been a long time since he’d had any at all, and any tolerance he’d built up was long gone. He would feel it, probably within the next half hour or so.

  He drew in a breath, closing his eyes.

  He wanted to feel it.

  Nicx cocked his head to one side and named a price. It was ridiculously high.

  Haid narrowed his eyes. “Come now, that’s preposterous, Nicx. I’ll give you twenty for that bag.”

  Nicx insisted on his price. “It’s been a long time, Your Grace. The market has changed since you were buying.”

  “We could give him some for free if he stays,” spoke up Keirla. “If he sucks your cock?”

  “He’s not desperate enough for that, Keirla,” said Nicx disapprovingly. He turned back to Haid. “Apologies. She’s confused and out of her head most of the time.”

  Haid hadn’t been aware that Nicx liked men in his bed as well as women, but now that he thought about it, it explained a lot about some of their interactions. If Haid hadn’t been out of his mind on the drug, maybe he would have realized.

  Nicx was still talking. “The deux can pay. He has the gold.”

  “I do,” said Haid. He counted it out and handed it over.

  Nicx gave him the bag. “Be careful, there. If it’s been a while, you can’t start at the same amount you used to take.”

  “I know,” growled Haid, who wanted out of this dirty, stained place now. He couldn’t look at Keirla’s glassy eyes or Nicx’s leer any longer. He thought of what Pairce had said about it being a bad world. There really was so much badness.

  “Just be careful,” said Nicx. “I’d hate it if anything happened to you.” He weighed the gold in his hand.

  “I appreciate your concern,” Haid muttered, tucking the iubilia away inside his clothes.

  The walk home was difficult.

  He wanted it. He could feel it in his pocket, against his skin, calling to him, begging for him to indulge.

  But it wasn’t safe to do such a thing on these streets, even as the Lord of the Dead. Someone would take advantage of him, take his iubilia, take his remaining gold, likely take the buttons on his jacket and take his boots. He didn’t stop. Instead, he rushed towards his home as quickly as he could.

  HAID RUBBED HIS forehead. “Sit down, Tristanne,” he said, because she had just knocked something else over in the darkness. He wanted to have this meeting amongst all of them, and so they were in the dark room beneath the Sticx where Cadon was kept. He’d brought down chairs for all of them, but Tristanne couldn’t stay still, and she kept running into things in the darkness.

  “Ouch,” said Tristanne in response. “Blazes! My knee.”

  “Sit down,” he repeated.

  “Really, I don’t see why you’re wandering around,” said Mairli in a withering voice. “It’s dark down here.”

  “I’m not wandering,” protested Tristanne.

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door. “Hello?”

  “Oh, good,” said Haid. “Sefoni’s here, finally. We can get started.” He went to the door and opened it.

  “It’s so dark,” said Sefoni. “I mean, of course it’s dark, but I just… I didn’t realize… Sorry I’m late.”

  “It’s all right,” said Haid. “There’s a chair for you. It’s over here.” But then he collided with it. “Flames take it,” he grunted.

  “Sit down, Haid,” mocked Tristanne.

  “I will,” said Haid. “Actually, I’m going to go over here, and sit down, and we’ll get started.”

  “What did you find out?” came Pairce’s voice. “Can we undo Cadon’s curse yet?”

  Haid settled into his chair. “We need the Cowntess, apparently. She cast the spell, so she has to undo it.”

  “What?” said Pairce.

  “She’ll never do it,” said Cadon.

  “We’re not going to give her a choice,” said Haid. “We’re going to capture her.”

  “She’ll get free,” said Tristanne. “She pays off so many musqueteers that she’s practically got her own army, and they’ll come to your townhouse and shoot out the windows—”

  “We’re not going to keep her in the townhouse,” said Haid. “We’re not going to keep her in town at all. I have an estate in the country, as you know, and it has a dungeon. I think that will be a perfect place for the likes of her.”

  “Oh,” said Tristanne.

  “So, we’re going to the country?” said Mairli.

  “Blazes, I don’t want to go to the country,” said Tristanne.

  “You don’t have to come along,” said Haid. “However, I think it’ll be better there for Cadon. He can run about all night in the moonlight with nary a worry about any street lamps.”

  “True,” said Pairce. “So, I can come too?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Haid. “And Sefoni, if you’re going to be permanently the Duecess of Darain, you might as well become the mistress of the family holdings.”

  “Oh,” said Sefoni in a different voice.

  “So, she’s with child, then?” said Tristanne. “Is that definite?”

  “Likely,” said Haid. “Not that it’s really your business, Tristanne. Anyway, Sefoni, Pairce, Cadon, and I will go, along with the Cowntess, and we’ll torture her until she does our bidding. Tristanne and Mairli can stay in the city if they please.”

  “I do please,” said Tristanne.

  “Yes, that’s all right with me,” said Mairli.

  “But I do need both of you to help with capturing the Cowntess,” said Haid.

  “Oh, yes,” said Tristanne. “How are we going to do that?”

  “Well,” said Haid, “she lives in a fortress surrounded by a spiked wall, as we spoke about when we were attempting to infiltrate her study to find the dates Cadon would be transported. And that place is heavily
guarded. So, I think it would be better if we take her when she goes out somewhere. She takes guards with her, of course, but she often leaves them outside when she visits an event at court, and we’ll have an easier chance of subduing them.”

  “What about the Cowntess herself?” said Tristanne. “We can’t simply take her at knife point.”

  “No, I think we’ll incapacitate her,” said Haid.

  “Knock her out?” said Mairli. “With that ale you gave me before?”

  “Then you have to drag her body out,” said Cadon. “From an event? Someone will see.”

  “We will need the ale,” said Haid. “But not for the Cowntess. We need her compliant but capable of moving on her own two feet. We have to trick her, make her come willingly.”

  “She’d never do that,” said Sefoni. “She’s too smart.”

  “That’s why we’re incapacitating her,” said Haid. “I got the idea from your mother, in fact. We’re going to put iubilia in her drink.”

  It was quiet.

  And then a crash and Tristanne yelled. “Blazes!” She’d knocked something else over. “How many blazing things are in this room? Why aren’t you covered in bruises, Cadon?”

  “I’m used to navigating now,” said Cadon. “I know where everything is.”

  “Sit down, Tristanne,” said Haid softly.

  “No,” she said. “I’m coming to throttle you, because we talked about this already.”

  “We didn’t,” said Haid. “The Cowntess herself never indulges in iubilia. She uses it, gets people hooked on it, and then withholds it to manipulate them. So, dosing her with it, it’s a bit poetic.”

  Sefoni spoke up. “So, then only the Cowntess is taking it?”

  “Well,” said Haid, “the Cowntess will never accept a drink from me unless I also drink from the same bottle, so I don’t think so.”

  “No.” Tristanne was next to him, taking him by the shoulders. She shook him.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Haid. “We’re going to the country. There’s no iubilia in the country. Even if I relapse and want it again, I can’t have it. I can’t think that I’ll become dependent after one night on it, anyway. I imagine the next day will be rough, but it won’t be… torture, not like getting off it the first time, with the pain and the chills and the vomiting and the—”

  “No,” said Sefoni quietly. “I don’t want you to.”

  “I know you don’t,” he said. “But it’s really better—”

  “Let someone else get dosed with the Cowntess,” said Tristanne. “I can do it.”

  “She doesn’t know you,” said Haid.

  “She knows me,” said Sefoni.

  “You’re pregnant,” said Haid. “Let’s not expose our unborn child to iubilia, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m not pregnant,” Sefoni protested. “Well,” she added quickly, “we don’t know that I’m not, anyway.”

  “We don’t, but I’m not interested in risking it,” he said.

  “Sometimes women are given it when they are injured and pregnant,” she said. “I’ve heard of women taking it during labor. I don’t think it’s dangerous, not in small doses.”

  “Sefoni,” he said. “No.”

  “You’re going to have to… debase yourself, then?” There were shards in her voice.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t need to get her to give me the drug.”

  “But you need to convince her to have a drink with you,” said Sefoni quietly. “So, what’s that mean you’re going to do?”

  Haid sighed. “Listen, it’s common for me to do things like this on jobs. Tristanne, tell her of our gambit when I show up half-dressed in a woman’s room and make noise until her husband shows up and then—”

  “I don’t want you to do it,” said Sefoni. “I don’t care how common it was before—”

  “Last time, I listened to you all,” said Haid, “and then we had to kill musqueteers, because the Cowntess figured out we were going to strike. If we’d done it my way—”

  “Haid, flames take you!” snapped Sefoni. “What are you going to do with the Cowntess? A-are you going to touch her, or kiss her, or—”

  “Can we do this later on our own, Sefoni?” His voice was wry. “No one else needs to hear us do this.”

  “Haid,” protested Tristanne. “Dove, if you want me to hurt him, say the word. I’m here to protect you, you know.”

  “Don’t call my wife dove,” said Haid, annoyed. “Let’s just move on. Now, the only other thing we need to do is drug her guards, and I think that if Pairce handles that and is a little bit seductive, she can get them to drink the ale—”

  “What?” came the rumble of Cadon’s voice.

  Haid sighed. “Are you two a thing, then? I really can’t keep up.”

  “I’ll seduce the guards,” said Sefoni in a tight voice.

  Haid was robbed of speech for two seconds, his chest tightening.

  “It’s been said that I have an exquisite bosom,” Sefoni continued with a cutting lilt in her tone. “I don’t imagine I’ll have to do anything except show it off. Pairce, do you think you could make me an appropriate dress?”

  “I could,” said Pairce.

  “She is gorgeous, Haid,” said Tristanne.

  There was a long pause.

  “All right, well played,” Haid said to her, and he hated that there was a little hitch in his voice. “Fine. I suppose I have no room to complain.”

  “You don’t,” said Tristanne.

  He sighed heavily. “Pairce, I still might need your knives.”

  “All right,” said Pairce. “But maybe you could stop assuming that my body is yours to flaunt however you like?”

  He swallowed. “My apologies. Duly noted.”

  “I suppose I’m just going to be sitting down here in the dark during all this?” said Cadon.

  “Actually, you’re going to be in a carriage in that coffin, because we’re leaving immediately for the country with the Cowntess,” said Haid. “Two carriages. Pairce, you can travel with Cadon, and Sefoni and the Cowntess with me.”

  “I want to see her when we arrive,” said Cadon.

  “I was hoping you’d help me torture her,” said Haid. “Would you be at all interested in that?”

  Cadon laughed a throaty laugh. “I could be convinced.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “HAVE A DRINK with you?” The Cowntess eyed Haid, letting out a long, musical laugh. “You must think I’m incredibly stupid, Haid.”

  They were standing in an alcove at a ball held by the Deux of Llood, and there were twirling couples whisking around the room just a few feet away. Haid held a bottle of spiked wine out to the Cowntess, gesturing to her empty glass.

  “That would be foolish of me,” he said.

  “You must know that I’m not at all stupid,” said the Cowntess. “I know that you have my Orc, and I know that you’re a tricky man. I would never trust you.”

  “I miss you,” he said.

  She scoffed.

  “Not all the time,” he said in a low voice. “But some of the time. There’s that line between pain and pleasure, you know? No one else finds it quite like you, Yvain.”

  Her lips curved up at the sound of her first name, an intimacy she had granted him once like throwing treats to a dog. Call me Yvain when you’re in my bed, Haid. “You can’t truly think this will be enough to sway me.”

  “You think I’m lying?” he said. “You know I’ve been gone a month, don’t you?”

  “I do know,” she said. “Of course I know. I know everything.”

  “Did you wonder where I was?”

  “I know you were seen going into Nicx’s house the other night.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I’ve had… a bit of a struggle lately, Yvain. It’s the strain of married life, you see. I have a wife who wants things from me, and I find I can’t… perform in the way I’d like.” Suddenly, he reached out and seized her hand. He guided it to his chest, and he undid one o
f his buttons, and then put her fingers inside, against his flesh.

  She sucked in a breath, her eyes going a little cloudy. Her fingers moved inside his shirt, marking him, possessing him.

  He was shot through with dark currents of revulsion. No one ever touched him here. No one. And when she had done it before—

  She interpreted his reaction as pleasure.

  Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she enjoyed his pain more than she enjoyed his pleasure.

  “Oh… Oh, Haid,” she purred.

  He poured the wine into her glass.

  “You drink too,” she urged him, her hand still on his skin.

  “Of course,” he gasped, filling his own drink as well.

  Her hand strayed lower, out of his shirt and over his stomach.

  Oh, flames take him, she was going to want him to be hard.

  Her hand stilled. She waited, eyeing his glass. She wanted him to drink before she did.

  He took a drink, thankful of the pause.

  She smiled.

  She took a drink, too, and then her hand began to move again.

  He called up Sefoni’s desperate, throaty voice. Don’t you dare stop, Haid Vortinen. I need you. And when the Cowntess’s hand closed around him, he was stiff as all blazes.

  He felt vaguely like vomiting, however, and he gulped at the glass of wine, holding her gaze as she clutched him and drank too.

  “This is what you need to perform?” she murmured.

  “Yes,” he panted. “Thank you.”

  She chuckled knowingly. “Happy to be of service.” She drained her glass. “Thanks for the drink.” She let go of him.

  He let out a noisy sigh of relief.

  She turned her back on him and wandered out amongst the twirling couples.

  Haid backed into a wall. He was covered in cold, clammy sweat.

  “Haid?” Tristanne’s voice.

  Haid grunted in response.

  She was behind one of the curtains at the window. He could see the tips of her shoes, but only because he knew where to look. “I guess you don’t want me to tell Sefoni you let the Cowntess grope you?”

  “Shut up,” he breathed, but truthfully, he was glad of her teasing, because it made him feel a bit more balanced.

  “You say it takes a half an hour or so for the effects to set in?” she said.