'The Beysa Shupansea listens to the old men, but now, with the murders of their own people, she is becoming nervous herself. The clamour for a stronger hand is rising ...'
Molin was interrupted by the sound of someone banging on the outer door. 'The palace is a sponge,' he complained, and he was in a position to know the truth. 'Wait here and stay quiet, for god's sake.'
Walegrin and Cythen pressed back into the shadows and listened to a loud, unintelligible conversation between Molin and one of the Beysib lords. They did not need to understand the words; the shouts told them enough. The Beysib was angry and upset. Molin was having small success at calming him down. Then the Beysib stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and Molin rushed back into the alcove.
'They want results.' He rubbed his hands together nervously, releasing the scent of the oils he used on his skin. 'Turghurt's out there calling for vengeance and his people are listening. After all, no Beysib would kill another Beysib in such a crude manner!' Molin's voice spewed sarcasm. 'I've got no great love for the natives of this town but one thing they are not, to a man, woman or child of them - stupid enough to taunt the Beysib like this!'
Walegrin frowned. 'So they believe it's a Sanctuary man, or woman, behind it. But at least one of the bodies was found on the rooftops, right here, in the palace compound. This place is guarded, Molin. We guard it; they guard it. We'd have seen him, at least.'
'Exactly what I've told them. Exactly why I'm sure it isn't one of us. But no; they've been frightened. They're convinced the town is smouldering against them - they don't intend to be pushed any further and they're not about to listen to me.
'I figure it works this way: there are malcontents in this court just like anywhere else. I knew the bulk of the hotheads congregated at the Aphrodisia. I didn't think there was danger to it; I just meant to keep those young men watched. Their leader is the eldest son of Terrai Burek, the Beysa's prime minister. And a child more unlike the father you can't imagine. It's no secret the boy hates his father and would do anything to spite the old man - though I expect bullying the townspeople would come naturally to him anyway. Yet, the father protects his son and the common laws of Sanctuary can't reach him.'
'You're talking about Turghurt, aren't you?' Walegrin asked, obviously recognizing the name, though Cythen didn't recall having heard it before. 'Still, Cythen's sister was killed by venom - and the Harka Bey are all women.'
'True enough, but if the Harka Bey is real then it's likely a number of other things are - like the rings with reservoirs for venom and razor-sharp blades to simulate the fangs. They've told me the venom can't be isolated, but I don't believe them now -'
'Who is this Terket Buger?' Cythen inquired, her thoughts warming to the idea of a name and face she could blame and take vengeance upon. 'Would I recognize him?'
'Turghurt Burek,' Walegrin corrected. 'Yeah, you've probably seen him. He's a big man, a troublemaker. Taller than most of the Beysib men here by a head or more. He's a coward, I'm sure, because we can never find him alone. He's always got a handful of cronies around. We can't lay a hand on him anyway - though this time we're talking about killing.' He looked hopefully to the priest.
'Not this time, either.'
They were once again interrupted by a hammering on the outside door and the sounds of masculine voices shouting in the Beysib language. Molin left the alcove to deal with the intrusion and fared worse this time than before. He was roundly berated by two men who, it appeared, had made up their minds about something. The priest returned to the alcove, visibly shaken.
'It fits together now,' he said slowly. 'The boy has boxed us all. Another Beysib woman has been found dead - and mutilated, I might add - down by the wharf. Young Burek has played his hand masterfully. That was him, and his father, to tell me that the populace must be controlled or wholesale slaughter of the townsfolk will be on my conscience. The men of Bey will not see their women defiled.'
'Turghurt Burek was here?' Cythen asked, her hands moving instinctively to her hip, where she usually wore her sword. She cursed herself for not having dared to lift the tapestry a fraction to see his face.
'The same, and he's convinced his father now as well. Walegrin, I don't know how you'll do it, but you've got to keep the peace until I can get the old man to see reason - or catch the murderers bloody-handed.' The priest paused, as if an idea had just occurred to him. He looked hard at Cythen and she fairly cringed from the plotting she saw in his face. 'Catch them bloody-handed! You - Cythen; how much do you want your revenge? What will you sacrifice to get it? Turghurt is full of himself, and he'll likely go back to the Aphrodisia to celebrate this victory. He hasn't been back since your sister died, but I doubt he'll wait much longer. If not tonight, then tomorrow night. He'll go back because he has to gloat - and because his kind get no satisfaction from these high-handed Beysib women.
'Now, somehow your sister learned something she shouldn't have and died for it. Could you lure him into the same mistake and survive to let me know of it? I'll need proof absolute if I'm going to confront his father. Not a corpse, you understand; that will only fan the flames. What I'll need is Turghurt and the proof. Can you get it for me?'
Cythen found herself nodding, promising the Rankan priest that she would get her vengeance as she got him his proof; as she spoke another hidden part of herself froze into numb paralysis. The meeting had become a dream from which she could not seem to awaken: a continuation of all the nightmares that made her past so unpleasant to remember. Bekin was dead - but not gone.
She stood mute while the priest and Walegrin made their plans. Her silence was taken for attentiveness, though she heard nothing above the screaming other own thoughts. The priest patted her on the shoulder as she left his rooms, following Walegrin into the forecourt again. Knots of Beysibs had gathered there, talking among themselves with their backs to the Sanctuary pair as they walked back to the garrison. One of the men did turn to stare at her. He wasn't tall so he wasn't Turghurt, but all the same. the feel of the cold fish-eyes regarding her finally loosened her tongue.
'Sabellia preserve me! I know nothing of Bekin's trade. I'm still a virgin!' It was as much of a prayer as she had muttered since her father went down with an arrow in his throat.
Walegrin stopped short, appraising her in surprise. 'You told me you'd worked on the Street of Red Lanterns?'
'I told you that I'd tried to work on the Street of Red Lanterns and that I couldn't. Don't look at me like that; it's not that unreasonable. Don't I have my own quarters now, and no one who'd dare to bother me there? A woman who lives with the garrison is safe from all other men, and a woman who is part of that garrison is safe from her cohorts as well.'
'Then you've got more courage than I thought,' he replied, shaking his head, 'or you're an utter fool. You'd better let Myrtis know when you get there; she'll know how to turn it to our advantage.'
Cythen grimaced and tried not to think of that evening, or the next evening. She left her sword in Walegrin's care and made her way to the Street. It was nearing dusk by the time she got there and some of the poorer, more worn women, who did not dwell in any of the major establishments, were already on the prowl, though the Aphrodisia was not yet open for business. One of them jeered at her as she climbed the steps to the carved doors: 'They won't take your type there, soldier-girl.'
She stood there uncomfortably, ignoring the comments from the street below and remembering why she always came in the morning. The doorman recognized her, however, and at length the doors swung open to her. The downstairs was beginning to come to life with music and women dressed in brilliant, flower-coloured dresses. Cythen watched them as the doorman guided her to the little room where Myrtis was getting ready for the evening herself.
'I had not expected to see you again,' Myrtis said softly, rising from her dressing table and discreetly closing the account book, which crowded out the cosmetic bottles. 'Your note said your meeting did not go well. You had not mentioned retu
rning here.'
'The meeting didn't go well.' Cythen eyed Myrtis's smooth, clenched white hands as she spoke. There was a barely perceptible nervousness in the madam's voice and a barely perceptible rippling to the edge of the table rug beneath the account books. Both could have any number of benign explanations, but Cythen had brought Bekin here expecting, and paying for, her sister's safety. Myrtis had not provided the services she had been paid for and Cythen's vengeance could be expected in several different ways.
'I've seen the priest, Molin Torchholder, and he's made a plan; a way to snare the one he suspects. I thought he would have sent you a message by now,' Cythen said quickly.
Myrtis shrugged, but without unclenching her fists. 'Since Bekin there have been other deaths: gruesome murders, many of them Beysib women. All the reliable couriers have been kept busy. There isn't time for the death of a Sanctuary girl. Perhaps you can tell me who Molin Torchholder suspects of using beynit venom when the Harka Bey denies all knowledge of it?'
'He suspects a man, a Beysib man. He suspects that the death of my sister is not so different from the Beysib deaths.'
'Has he given you a name?'
'Yes, Turghurt Burek.'
'The son of the prime minister?'
'Yes, but the Torch suspects him anyway. He comes here, doesn't he?'
'That man has spies everywhere!' Myrtis grimaced as she relaxed and raised her fist towards the smouldering hearth. Cythen heard a small click; then watched as the flames leapt high and crimson. 'Once primed, it must be shot,' Myrtis explained, while Cythen shuddered. 'We called him Voyce here; and he was always a gentleman - for all that he's fish-folk. Bekin was special to him; such childlike innocence is not at all common among their women. He grieved over her death and hasn't been back since she died.
'But he was also the second person to suggest the Harka Bey to us.' Myrtis paused, and just when Cythen despaired of being believed at all, the starkly beautiful woman continued: 'I like him very much; he reminds me of a love I once had. I was blinded. I have hiot been blinded for ... for a long time. The signs were there; my suspicions should have been roused. Does Molin Torchholder have some notion of how we're to bring the son of the Beysib prime minister to justice before there is war in the town and we turn to Ranke for help?'
'Molin believes that since Bekin was the only Sanctuary woman who has been slain, she must have learned something dangerous to him. Molin thinks that Turghurt will make the same mistake again, now that he's convinced his father to see everything his way. But I will be less easy to kill than she was, and snare him instead.'
'You play a dangerous game between the priest and this Beysib, Cythen. Molin is no less ruthless than the fish-folk. And, here Burek is Voyce; none of my women knows the true names of the men here, and if you value your life you'll remember that. The Aphrodisia is a place apart; a man need not be himself here - and they expect me to protect them. '
'Now Voyce is clever, strong and cruel, yet it would be a simple matter to be rid of him, if that would serve our purposes. The Harka Bey are not the only women who understand killing. But he must be exposed, not slain, and that will be all the more dangerous.'
'I've come for my vengeance,' Cythen warned.
'He will not expose himself to a garrison soldier, my dear, neither figuratively nor literally.' Myrtis gave Cythen a slightly condescending smile. 'His tastes do not run towards strong-willed women, such as he was raised with and his father serves. You do not have the yielding nature that madness gave your sister.'
'I'll become whatever I must be to trap him.'
As she spoke, Cythen yanked loose the cord that bound her hair, shaking her head until the brown strands rose like an untidy aura around her face.
'Good intentions will not deceive him, either.' Myrtis had become kind-voiced again. 'Your need for vengeance will not make you a courtesan. There are others here who can bell our cat.'
'No,' Cythen protested. 'He'll come here again and make his mistake again, and he might kill another of your courtesans. Isn't it to your advantage to let me risk my life rather than sacrificing one of those who belong to you?'
'Of course it would be to my advantage, child, if I owned anyone. But just because I keep account books on love a.nd pleasure, do not think I am completely without conscience. If Voyce is all he is suspected of being, I would be as guilty of your death, or anyone's death, as he would be.'
Cythen shook her head and took a step closer to Myrtis, resting her fists on the table. 'Don't lecture me about death or guilt. For five years since those bandits swept down and attacked us, I travelled with Bekin, protecting her, bringing her men, and killing them if I had to. It would have been better if she had died that first night. I'm not sorry she's dead, only sorry that she was murdered by a man she trusted, as she trusted all men. I don't blame you, or me, but I can't get her out of my memory until I've avenged her. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I must close the circle completely, myself, if I'm to have peace, if I'm to be free of her?'
Myrtis met Cythen's rabid stare and, whether she understood the dark emotions and memories that drove the younger woman or not, she finally nodded. 'Still, if you are to have a chance at all, you must abide by what I tell you to do, Cythen. If he does not find you attractive, he will search elsewhere. I will give you her chambers and her clothes; that will give you an advantage. I will send Ambutta to bathe you, to help you dress and to arrange your hair.
'When he returns again, if he returns again, he will be yours. You may stay as long as you please, but he is not to be harmed in this house! Now then, you must also seem to belong here, and it will rouse suspicion if you take no others while you wait. I will set aside your portion -'
'I'm a virgin,' Cythen interrupted in a far from steady voice. When her mind was focused on the fish-eyed murderer other sister, she could manage to ignore the implications of the plan she had agreed to; but faced with the pragmatic logic of the madam, she began to realize that vengeance and determination might not be enough.
Myrtis nodded, 'I had suspected as much. You would not want your sister's slayer, then, to be the first -'
'It won't matter. Just tell everyone that I'm being saved for just the right man. That's often the way of it anyway, isn't it? A special prize for a special customer?'
Myrtis hardened. 'In those places where courtesan and slave are the same that may be so. But my women are here because they wish to be here; I do not own them. Many leave for other lives after they've grown tired of a life of love and earned a healthy portion of gold. But pleasure is not your talent, Cythen; you wouldn't understand. Men have nothing you desire and you have nothing to give them in return.'
'I have a talent for deceit, Myrtis, or neither Bekin nor I would have survived at all. Honour your promise. Give him to me for one night.'
With a gesture of worried resignation, Myrtis consented to the arrangement. She summoned Ambutta, who some said was her daughter, and had Cythen led into the private sections of the house where, for a night and a day she was fussed over and transformed. Before sundown of the next day she was ensconced in the plush seraglio where Bekin had lived, and died. Her garrison clothes and knife had been hidden in the dark panelled walls and she herself was now draped in lengths of diaphanous rose-coloured silk - a gift to Bekin from the man who had slain her.
Staring into the mirror as the sun set, Cythen saw a woman she had never known before: the self she might have become if tragedy had not intervened. She was beautiful, as Bekin had been, and she preferred the feel of silk to the chafing of the linen and wools she normally wore. Ambutta had skilfully wound beads through Cythen's hair, binding it into a fanciful shape that left Cythen afraid to turn quickly, lest the whole affair come tumbling down into her face.
'There was a message for you earlier,' Ambutta, a disturbingly wise woman no older than thirteen, said as she daubed a line of kohl under Cythen's eyes.
'What?' Cythen jerked away in anger, her stance becoming that of a fight
er, despite the silk.
'You were bathing,' the child-woman explained, twirling the brush in the inky powder, 'and men do not come upstairs by day.'
'All right, then, give it to me now.' She held out her hand.
'It was spoken only, from your friend Walegrin. He says two more fish-folk have been found murdered: Actually it's three -another was found at low tide - but the message came before that. One of them was a cousin to the Beysa herself. The garrison is ordered to produce the culprit, or any culprit, by dawn or the executions will begin. They will kill as many each noon as fish-folk who have already died. Tomorrow they'll kill thirteen - by venom.'
Though the room was warm and draughtless, Cythen felt a chill. 'Was that all?'
'No, Walegrin said Turghurt is horny.'
The chill became a finger of ice along her spine. She did not resist as Ambutta moved closer to finish applying the kohl. She saw her face in the mirror and recognized herself as the frightened girl beside the wise Ambutta.
The hours wore on after Ambutta left her. Two knobs had burnt off the hour candle and none had come to her door. The music and laughter that were the normal sounds of an evening at the Aphrodisia House grated on her ears as she listened for the telltale accent that would betray the presence of the fish folk, whatever common Ilsigi or Rankan name Myrtis gave them.
Couples walked noisily past her closed door; women already settled for the night. The smells of love-incense grew strong enough to make her head ache. She stood on a pile of pillows to open the room's only window and to look out on the jumble of the Bazaar stalls and the dark roofs of the Maze beyond them. Absorbed by the panorama of the town, she did not hear the latch lift nor the door open, but she felt someone staring at her.
'They told me that they had given you her room.'
She knew, before she turned, that he had finally come. He spoke the local dialect well, but without any attempt to conceal his heavy accent. Her heart was fluttering against her ribs as she turned to face him.
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