The Fall of Ventaris (15 page)

“I know you know. Now let me do your lips.” She closed her eyes again to keep out any ash. “I’ve told you this is crazy, right? If Takkis doesn’t catch you, that keeper who thinks you’re working for someone at court will have you poisoned. I hope this Pollux is worth it.” She hoped the same, but even if she had dared imperil Lysander’s work by moving her lips, she would not worry him by saying so. She wanted nothing more than to beg him to come along with her — who better than Lysander to talk his way into a sheriff’s hold? — but she’d already gotten him into enough trouble.

The brush finally stopped and she opened her eyes to see his smirking face, half-hidden behind the small beaten-metal mirror he held before her. On its warped surface she admired his handiwork: the three diamonds – one across each eye, the third overlaying her lips – looked as straight and sharp as any Feaster could boast. As usual, Lysander’s hand at makeup was unmatched. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection. “Funny,” she said.

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Face the fire,” he said, turning her towards the hearth. “You and the tarts can finish baking at the same time.” She lay on her side, closing her eyes and listening to the crackling of the flame. She’d been in the garret so many times that she could tell exactly what he was doing by the sound of the creaking floorboards. He rummaged nearby, most likely storing the brush in the small wooden box he kept near his bed. Then he crossed to the flagon of wine they’d laid in, and finally settled on the windowsill overlooking the plaza. She lay for a long time, feeling the ash-clay mixture harden on her face. No wonder the followers of Naru were silent. They were afraid of their makeup cracking off.

She’d almost fallen asleep when Lysander muttered. “I sometimes wonder.”

“About what?” she asked, moving her lips as little as possible.

“It’s one thing to fool about with the nobility — I do it all the time — or even to cross swords with the Red and the Grey...”
 

She risked a glance. “But?”

He turned from his seat at the window. “At the baron’s party, you talked with a facet, not just some noblewoman in costume, and now you’re dressing up as a Feaster and making shady deals with a keeper. I’ve never been religious, but this feels like tempting fate, or something.”

She sat up, mindful of both her face and the tarts. “What’s this about?” she said at last.

He looked back out the window for a long moment. “We went to the Gardens yesterday.”

For a moment, she thought he meant the Common Gardens, but then she understood. “For Pete.”

He nodded, not looking back. “I’m not one for faith. Never been. I gave up on the gods a long time ago. Either they were just made up, or if they were real each and every one of them was a bastard.” He didn’t often speak like this, so she drew up her legs and said nothing. “When Gabe brought up the idea of having Pete remembered in the Gardens of Mayu I just laughed. The keepers had already carted his body out to the potter’s field, what good would it do him? He was gone. But Gabe said that when the body was lost you could bury a personal item, that it was the same. The girls had an old shirt of his, and they’d gotten some coin together for a prayer from a keeper, so I threw my sou in the pot. I couldn’t be the only one out, now could I?”

Duchess wished she could go to him, but she dared not risk smudging her makeup. “Did you have to cut yourself before a tree?”

He shook his head. “There was a keeper with a silver spade, and he buried the shirt while he said some prayer — ‘Let him not be lost along the way’ — that nonsense.” He was silent a moment. “I didn’t even like Pete all that much, you know. He always thought he was better than the rest of us, which is why I gave him the nickname.” He laughed softly. “’Manly Pete’. He hated being called one of the girls.” He fiddled with the cuff of his shirt. “So I’m standing there with this keeper going on and on about Mayu and her lamp, and I got angry at Pete. I told him Whitehall had a bad reputation, but like all his kind, he thought he was untouchable.” Lysander shrugged. “They don’t know how ganymedes live.”

“Or women.” Duchess added quietly. “I saw Adam Whitehall the other day, in the Halls of Dawn. He’s become a radiant.”

Lyander chuckled without humor. “I heard they’d found a place to put him.”

“They?”

“His father, or the council, or both. Apparently he opened up one too many boys for comfort.” He glanced at her. “That day we saw him, I never told you what he was up to, did I?”

She shook her head. “I found out on my own.” And was sorry she had. Zachary had taken a little too much pleasure in telling the tale — of Whitehall’s games with the boys he found in the Shallows, far from his father’s estate up the hill. Of his ropes and his knives. Of the sou the family dispensed to keep things quiet. “Sliced up like fish in the market, they were,” the lightboy had gleefully informed her. “Opened belly to throat, everything inside on the out. Their livers and their lights. And the worst part” — he had paused dramatically — “he did it all while they were
alive
. He only let them die at the end.”

“Did you find out why they packed him off to the radiants?” Lysander asked. “Not for justice, that’s for sure. He’d become an embarrassment, you see, and Lord Whitehall couldn’t have that.” He lauged bitterly. “And of course House Whitehall has a seat on the council, and it just wouldn’t do to have a madman sitting amongst the other good rulers of the city. It was all just fucking politics.”

Duchess thought about what Jana had said about
edunae
. “So they got rid of him by putting him in a radiant’s whites.” She hadn’t heard this part, but it made a certain bloodless sense. It was neither unheard of nor dishonorable for a nobleman to join a cult, although that option was usually reserved for younger sons or, in the case of the faith of Anassa, girls with no prospects for a good marriage. Imperial law held that those who did so gave up all claim on their inheritances, lest the cults become even more powerful than they already were. Adam had been neatly removed from the line of succession without disgrace or undue attention. Still, something wasn’t quite right. “But Pete just died, and if Whitehall’s been a radiant for longer than that...”

“Then the other radiants know he’s still up to his old tricks.” Lysander closed a fist. “Damn them
and
their gods.”

What had Preceptor Amabilis said to her on the Godswalk?
We all have our uses.
Duchess’ heart felt as crusted and immobile as her face, and she didn’t know whether to rage or to cry. Instead, she joined Lysander at the window and they looked out into the Shallows for a long time, watching men and women as they went about their errands.

After a long moment, she said, “Lysander, Minette once told me something about the gods.”

His eyes twinkled with sudden mischief. “I’m sure I’ll have heard it before.” He pulled himself up and crossed his hands in front of himself in such an accurate imitation of Minette that Duchess could almost see the gloves. Lysander was especially good at imitating Minette, although he never performed that particular trick for anyone but Duchess. You never knew what Minette might hear. “So,” he asked, Lysander again, “what did she say?”

She turned and hugged him close, feeling the humor go out of him. “In Rodaas,” she whispered in his ear, “some find the gods equally false, some find them equally true.” She hugged him harder, so he could not see the expression on her painted face. “But all find them equally useful.”

Chapter Nine: A bitter sweet

She hadn’t taken such a walk through the city...well, ever, and it promised to be a welcome distraction from her worries. Before she’d left Lysander’s garrett she’d covered up with the threadbare brown cloak and hood he’d lent her, but they both knew it wasn’t enough. Burrell was too familiar with Duchess not to recognize her even under makeup, and he’d want to know what she was doing dressed up like a feaster. Even if he decided to let her pass, by nightfall the tale would be on every tongue from the harbor to the Godswalk. She’d have to find another way into Temple District, and that, as Lysander had pointed out, meant the long way.

She headed north from the garret, across Bell Plaza and through Market Gate, as far from Burrell’s watchful eye as possible. The traffic between Shallows and Market was thick and constant at that time of day, and none of the blackarms there spared her a second glance.

She avoided Market Square itself, where she was almost certain to run into someone she knew. She could just imagine Midwife Marna asking her why she’d taken up with the followers of Naru. The only direct way from Market to Temple was through Garden, and no disguise would ever get her past that kind of scrutiny. Instead, she planned a long loop around the hill, through Trades and Scholars, and finally to Temple. That was a long walk under a cloak too heavy for the season, and she hoped that sweat would not ruin her makeup.

She handed out her treats as she went, just as a real feaster might, careful to keep the poisoned tart hidden under a fold of cloth at the bottom of her basket. She handed one pastry to a lightboy runner, a second to a woman hauling laundry, and a third to a harried shopkeeper, who thanked her with an almost comic effusiveness. She said nothing during these transactions, but as Lysander had instructed waited for the recipient to take a bite of the pastry before moving on. And smiled.

The hardest going was in Trades, the hilliest area of the city, crisscrossed by man-made canals that carried the water so necessary to the smiths, woodworkers, and other craftsmen who made the district their home. As she passed, she gave two more of her treats to a pair of blacksmiths resting near a fountain, who eyed her breasts as they dug in. She smiled nevertheless, although with a mental wish for them to choke.

Scholars District seemed almost a paradise, with neatly cobblestoned streets clear of the trash and dirty-faced children one found everywhere in the Shallows. The houses were attractive, some with small gardens filled with grass, blooming flowers, and here and there even a small, blossoming tree. There were shops and alehouses here as well, but more elegant than their low-district counterparts, catering to much more sophisticated and wealthy customers. Had things been different, this district would have been her home, and those shops her haunts. Had her father’s city estate been rebuilt since that dreadful night of the fire? Was some other scholar living peacefully within its refurbished walls?
 

She thought then of Savant Terence, who no doubt lived now as her father had then. After her conversation with Ahmed, a bit of
fruning
had confirmed that Terence’s position had indeed improved since the War of the Quills. He was now an imperial cartographer, with a notable position at court and a house in Scholars. She’d learned the location of that house, and part of her wanted to look for it now. So much for her certainty of leaving the past in the past.

The folk who walked the streets were clean and well dressed, and they chatted amiably as they moved about on business or pleasure. A woman in livery herded a group of small children. A nanny for some worthy or another, Duchess guessed. A pair of blue-robed scholars ambled along, deep in conversation, and to her surprise Duchess saw that one of them was a young woman, red-haired, green-eyed, with a pug nose. Her companion was a stout middle-aged man who spoke to her in the condescending way men often spoke to women. Duchess did not know the scholars admitted females into their ranks, but there she was. The woman seemed to notice her scrutiny and tipped a wink as she passed, and Duchess hurried on.
 

It was late afternoon by the time she crossed into Temple, trying to remain inconspicuous without
looking
as if she were trying. She avoided the Godswalk, where there were too many religious sorts who might notice any minor deviation from the normal pattern of a feaster. The long walk had worn on her, but her ash-and-clay make-up had not run or smeared. As usual, Lysander had known what he was about. By then the tarts were nearly gone. Next time she impersonated a devotee of Naru, she’d have to make more.

Takkis’ hold was, ironically, located not far from Beggar’s Gate, so if she had dared pass Burrell’s leaguer she might have gotten there in a few minutes instead of a few hours. The place was a square, two-story structure set against the wall that divided Temple from Shallows. No gargoyles leered from corners or ledges, and the windows were little more than arrow slits, each protected by steel bars. Although the city had not known invasion for hundreds of years, she imagined that a number of determined defenders could hold this building even against a small army. They were certainly capable of defending it against a former bread girl from the Shallows.

As she approached she tried to settle her stomach by reminding herself that the higher the risk, the greater the reward. She’d never dealt with Sheriff Takkis — her dealings were primarily with the Shallows blackarms who worked for Ophion — but by all reports he was stern and morally uncompromising. If she were to get in trouble here, neither bribes nor a clever tongue would save her. It was not a comfortable notion.

She had two tarts left by the time she reached the hold’s entrance, and she handed the first to the tall black-haired guard at the door, careful to keep the other hidden beneath the cloth in her basket. “Another one, eh? If I had a penny for every feaster who’s come around...” He accepted the offered pastry readily enough, but surprised her by placing it in his pocket. She blinked, uncertain of the protocol. She was supposed to witness the eating, but she could hardly say so without breaking silence. She hesitated long enough for the guard to glower at her. “In with you then. Though good luck getting him to eat anything at all. Fool’s bound and determined to starve himself, not that it’s any skin of my arse.”

She chanced a cough, smiled, and looked meaningfully at the pocket in which he had stored the tart. He scowled, crammed a hand into his pocket, lifted out the pastry and deliberately took a small bite, giving her a look that warned. Duchess smiled broadly, stepped past him and through the door as he slipped the remainder of the tart back in his pocket with a growl. A risky move, but one that, she hoped, would lend credence to her disguise.