The Virtu (39 page)

We’d been doing better with each other since Aiaia. Since she’d kissed me. And it wasn’t nothing as simple as what that sounds like, neither. It was just… well, I don’t know what it was, and that’s the truth. But I’d started to like her a little, and I thought maybe she was sort of starting to like me back.

And I also thought, because she hadn’t told nobody about her kissing me—not even Felix, who was way more her friend than me and would’ve thought it was the world’s best fucking joke—she hadn’t breathed a word, and I thought I could maybe trust her to keep her mouth shut about this, too.

At least, I hoped so.

Money was tight, but between Mavortian telling fortunes with his Sibylline cards—which apparently he’d managed to hang on to by telling fortunes for all the Aiaian guards, and, no, don’t ask me to explain it either, cause I can’t—and the Long Tiffany players who thought they were something special, we were doing good enough so as Miss Parr could have her own hotel room. Then Mavortian and Bernard shared one, and me and Felix and Gideon shared one, along of Gideon not wanting to be alone with Mavortian and Bernard, and me not wanting to be alone with Felix—not that either of us ever came right out and said so. And, I mean, not a great arrangement, but at least I knew I could talk to Miss Parr in private.

I knocked on her door.

“Who is it?”

“Me. Um, Mildmay.”

She opened the door. Her braids were hanging down her back, and the top buttons of her dress were undone.

“Oh, powers. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“You aren’t. What is it?”

“I wanted to ask… I mean, I need a favor.”

“Of course,” she said, like it was obvious. “Come in.”

I was starting to feel really stupid, but I went into her room, and then stood there like a half-wit dog while she closed the door and sat down on the bed and looked at me. Then she smiled a little, I guess ‘cause she’d figured out I wasn’t going nowhere without a push, and said, “What can I do for you?”

“I… it…” I knew exactly what Felix would’ve said and
bow
he would’ve said it, too, the smug fuck. My Kekropian’s a little rusty, and smile at her and hand it over. But I couldn’t do none of that. Couldn’t lie and couldn’t act like it was no big deal and especially couldn’t smile.

“I won’t bite you,” she said, “unless you ask me nicely. What do you need?”

“I… I got this letter.” I pulled it out of my pocket and kind of shoved it at her. “I can’t…”

She took it, opened it. “Read Kekropian,” she finished for me, and I nodded.

She smoothed the letter out. “Gracious. I didn’t think there was a force in this world that could drive Florian Gauthy to write a letter more than two lines long. You have hidden depths, Messire Foxe.”

“Mildmay,” I said.

She looked up, and I felt like a bug pinned to a card. “Only if you call me Mehitabel.”

“What?”

“My name. Mehitabel. Or if you find that too cumbersome, I also answer to Tabby.”

“I, um… okay. Mehitabel.”

“Much better. Mildmay.” And she smiled at me, bright as sunshine.

She fished her spectacles out of her skirt pocket, settled them on her nose, and started reading:

To Ker Mildmay Foxe, greetings. I am writing to you to acknowledge that I am in your debt. You saved my life, and although I don’t think I will ever see you again, I had to write and tell you that I am fully sensible of the debt I owe you.

“I see Jeremias taught the boy nothing about prose style,” she said, and continued:

I wish there were something I could do for you in return, but Delila cannot think of anything
.

Mehitabel looked at me over the tops of her spectacles. “That isn’t as limp an excuse as it sounds. Delila is the only one in that family with any sense at all.”

“Powers! I didn’t think… I ain’t… Florian don’t owe me nothing.”

“No? You did, as he points out, save his life.”

“Yeah, but—Kethe. That ain’t why I did it, so he’d
owe
me or nothing.”

“I know that,” she said, “and I would wager Florian does, as well. Shall we continue?”

“Yeah,” and fuck me sideways if I wasn’t blushing again. “Please.”

She cleared her throat and read:

I also want to thank you for trying to save Ker Tantony. My mother says that Ker Tantony deserved his death, and I ought not to be sorry for him, but he was my tutor, and I liked him, and I know you would have saved him if you could
.

“Kethe,” I muttered. I figured my face was probably as red as my hair by now.

“Florian is an idealist,” Mehitabel said.

“A what?” I said and then winced.

But she took it in stride. “Someone who always thinks the best of people. I fear in this case Keria Gauthy comes nearer the truth.”

“Sounds like you didn’t much care for Ker Tantony,” I said, half-expecting to get my head snapped off for it.

But she just made a face. “No, I didn’t. But he was very good in bed.”

“Oh,” and Kethe, Milly-Fox, can’t you say nothing better than that?

She gave me a wicked grin. “You don’t think governesses should fornicate, Messire Foxe?”

“Mildmay,” I said, mostly on reflex. “And you ain’t really a governess anyway, are you?”

“What makes you say that?” she said, all light and good-humored but also just a little bit watchful.

“Dunno.” I did know, but I didn’t want to say it. There was the way she moved and the way she looked at people and the way she’d turned herself into Nobbie Wainwright on the way to Aiaia. She’d been playing a governess when we met her, but that wasn’t what she was.

She looked like she wasn’t real happy with my answer, so I said quick, “Was the fucking worth the not liking him?”

“It was better than not fucking at all. And there were advantages to having Jeremias Tantony as one’s ally in the Gauthy household. He was the sort of man who knew how to get what he wanted. I suppose you could call us kindred spirits.” And her smile got thin and kind of bitter.

“You wouldn’t‘ve taken Florian down into that maze,” I said, because it was true, and she blinked but didn’t say nothing, and then she just went back to the letter:

Ker Vilker says the Antiquarian Society is very excited about the labyrinth and are trying to convince Father to endow a lecture in Ker Tantony’s memory.

“Keria Gauthy will never agree to that,” Mehitabel said, mostly to herself, then looked up and skewered me before I was ready. “What was there between Ingvard and Felix?”

“Nothing,” I said, and after all it was mostly the truth. But I said it too late and not quite casual enough. And she just gave me this look said as how she wasn’t buying it, not even with a free pound of tea.

“I don’t know,” I said, which was also mostly true. “Felix won’t talk about it.” And that part at least was true all the way down.

Mehitabel just said, “Indeed,” in a way I didn’t much care for, and read:

I am very well and do not want you to worry about me. I hope that you are well, too. I am sad that I will probably never get to see you again
.

“And he’s signed it,
Your friend, Florian Gauthy
,” Mehitabel finished and handed me back the letter. She watched me fold it and put it in my pocket. “Were you expecting bad news?”

“Um, no. Why?”

“You seemed anxious. I thought maybe…” She shrugged.

“Just embarrassed,” I said before my mind could catch my mouth and get it to shut up.

“Embarrassed? Because you don’t read Kekropian?”

“Can’t really read Marathine either,” I said, only it was a mumble, and I don’t know how she understood me. It was nice of her not to pretend it was any big surprise. She just sort of nodded and said, “Well, I’m happy I could help.” And then she gave me another one of her looks like a skewer. “Does Felix tease you about that?”

“Only a little.” Keeper’d been way worse. She’d quit trying to teach me when it got obvious I was too stupid to learn, but she
never
quit bitching about it.

“God, he can be insufferable. Why do you put up with it? You don’t have to, you know.”

“Don’t hurt me none.”

“Are you sure?” she said, and before I could find an answer to that, she followed it up with an even worse poser: “He did something to you that night in Farflung. What was it?”

Powers and saints, I fucking near swallowed my tongue. She said, “I’ve traveled with the pair of you all the way across the Empire. I know something’s changed, and I don’t think it’s for the better.”

I didn’t say nothing—Kethe, couldn’t‘ve said nothing if she’d offered me a septagorgon—and she leaned forward to touch my arm, almost the way you’d pat a skittish horse. “You don’t have to tell me anything, but if I can help…”

“It ain’t the sort of thing you can help with.”

She frowned at me, a stern, teachery sort of look, and said, “Did he hurt you?”

Well, how the fuck was I supposed to answer that? Yes, but I asked him to? I said, lame as a three-legged cat, “No, he… he didn’t do nothing to me.”

You know, I wouldn’t‘ve bothered giving that an answer either. She just looked at me and next thing I knew, I was saying, “It’s called the obligation d’âme, but it’s okay. Really. It was my idea.”

“I’m sorry.
What
was your idea?”

“The obligation d‘âme.” I said it slower that time, and she understood me.

“That doesn’t sound like anything terribly pleasant.”

“It ain’t so bad, and it was the only thing we could do, anyway.”

“The only thing you could do. Why?”

“I can’t explain it.”

“Then you had no business doing it.”

“It’s a spell, okay? And it binds us together. He protects me, and I… serve him.” I almost couldn’t get it out, but there was no sense trying to dress it up pretty. There’s a reason the old word for the guy on my side of the bargain is
esclavin
. Slave.

“
Protect
you? From
what
?”

“Consequences,” I said.

Gideon and I were discussing divination again when Mehitabel found us, her expression not merely stormy, but wrathful enough that I half expected to be hit by a bolt of lightning.

“Keria Parr,” I said, not best pleased to be interrupted. “What may we do for you?”

“Tell me,” she said, “about the obligation d‘âme.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I asked Mildmay what you’d done to him, and he told me.” She folded her arms and gave me an openly implacable glare.

“Oh,” I said uselessly.

“So ‘fess up, sunshine. What is it exactly that you
did
?”

“Nothing he didn’t ask me to,” I said and hated the sullenness I heard in my own voice.

“That’s what
he
said, and I believe him. But just because he asked you to do it doesn’t mean it was a good idea.”

“I know that! But he didn’t leave me much choice.”

“No?”

Damn her for sounding so skeptical. Damn her for knowing me so well, so quickly.

“He said it was either that or watch him die.”

“A stringent ultimatum, to be sure.” And I damned her again for saying it exactly the way I would have if our positions had been reversed.

“He wouldn’t leave!” And I realized only after I’d said it that I was on my feet and shouting.

Mehitabel Parr didn’t even blink. “And what does that mean?”

I sat down, folded my hands stiffly. “I can’t tell you Mildmay’s secrets. But he said he would not leave me, and this is the only way he can stay with me without the risk—the near certainty of death.”

“God, he just handed himself to you on a platter, didn’t he?” Her tone was exhausted, disgusted, deeply cynical. “You’re going to eat him alive and never even notice.”

“I—”

“Isn’t that what this ‘obligation’ does? Because that’s certainly what it sounded like to me.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Yes, you would.”

“
I’m doing the best I can
,” I said and forced my hands to unclench from around each other.

“Then we will have to hope your best is good enough.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Good night, gentlemen,” and she was gone before I could muster a counterattack, leaving me alone with Gideon.

He regarded me thoughtfully for some moments before saying, :Isn’t the obligation d‘âme gross heresy?:

“Yes.”

:Then how—:

“At the moment,” I said and gave him a mirthless smile, “I am not a wizard of the Mirador. They stripped me of my rank and privileges directly after the Virtu was broken. Thus I am not bound to follow their laws, and, moreover, we are not in their jurisdiction. The act of casting the obligation d‘âme is heresy, but they can’t prosecute me for it. And if they want the Virtu mended—and I can guarantee that they do—they’ll have to accept the fact of it.”

:You seem awfully certain.:

“I was a member of the Curia for five years. I
am
certain.”

:Is that why you did it?:

“What?” I said, although we both knew I’d understood him perfectly.

:You have every right to be… angry at what they did to you. And this seems to me a very cunning piece of blackmail. He did murder the Witchfinder Extraordinary, after all.:

I was assailed by a sudden burst of memory, like the punishing cacophony of a fireworks explosion. Mildmay, his eyes wide and his face white with pain, surrounded by a roiling, writhing cloud of black briars. The Mirador’s curse. The curse that had lamed him. “Yes, I know,” I said, and Gideon looked up sharply, hearing the waver in my voice.

:Felix?:

“I’m all right,” I said although my voice was no steadier.

:What’s wrong?: He leaned across the table to touch my hand. I looked at the delicate bones of his fingers, the sallowness of his skin, the contrast against my own pallor and the brightness of my tattoos.

He jerked back as if I’d burned him just with my gaze. :I’m sorry. I didn’t think…:

I looked at him and discovered in his face something that, in retrospect, I knew I should have expected to find.

“Gideon?” I said.