Hath No Fury

by Melanie R. Meadors

  Her opponent followed her lead, stepping over the damaged beam.

  Except it wasn’t the damaged beam that he had stepped over; Jenna had stepped onto that one in the hope of tricking the Maru, and he had fallen for the ruse admirably. It had been a gamble, of course. Jenna weighed less than her foe, but that hadn’t guaranteed that the beam would support her. The assassin’s steps, though, were as light as they were sure, allowing her to skip over the timber and onto the one beyond.

  The Maru was not so fortunate. When he trod on the damaged beam it snapped with a noise like a breaking bone. His lower half disappeared through the floor. He released his shield and curled his arms over the next beam to halt his descent.

  Oh no you don’t.

  Jenna stepped forward to kick him in the face.

  The Maru surrendered his hold and dropped into the room below. There was a crash of furniture, a screech of metal. The Maru turned the air blue with a string of curses.

  No time for Jenna to toast her victory. If the shrieks in the hall were any indication, the battle between the Maru’s warriors and Erekus’s bodyguards was nearing its end. She scurried to a broken window on the east-facing wall of the room. Her pack lay on the floor beside it, and from the pack Jenna withdrew a grappling hook to which a length of rope had been tied. The need for haste put a tremble in her hands. She leaned out of the window, taking care not to cut herself on the glass shards protruding from the frame. The roof was several armspans above. Drawing back her arm, she cast the hook into the air. It caught on the eaves, and Jenna tugged on the rope to ensure it was secure.

  Then she left the rope hanging there and darted back to the fireplace. Her enemies, after all, would now expect her to escape to the roof, and the thing someone expected her to do was always her last consideration.

  The flue of the chimney was large enough to accommodate a person. There were no convenient handholds Jenna could use to climb, so she put a foot against one wall and slid her back up the opposite one. A push up with one leg, a shuffle, then she was high enough that someone arriving in the chamber wouldn’t be able to see her. She braced her legs to stop herself slipping down. A stone dug into her back, but she could put up with a little discomfort. Better a stone than a sword.

  From the hall came a final scream, then a figure clomped into the room and over to the window. One of the Maru’s warriors or one of Erekus’s? It hardly mattered, since neither would have come to enquire after Jenna’s health.

  She held her breath.

  Twenty of the most disagreeable heartbeats of Jenna’s life followed—and there had been some pretty stiff competition on that score. The soot in the chimney tickled her throat. She felt a cough coming but held it in.

  Then a man’s voice yelled, “She’s on the roof!” There was a grunt and a scratch of boots on the wall outside.

  Jenna allowed herself a smile. The man was climbing the rope.

  She lowered herself into the fireplace. It was tempting to stay put in the chimney until the dust settled on tonight’s events, but she suspected it wouldn’t be long would before someone realized they’d been duped. She crossed to the window and looked out. Above, the climber had vanished. Below was a flower bed, and beyond that a lawn bounded by a low wall. The auditorium was to her right. In the street a crowd had gathered, but no one appeared to be looking her way. Jenna climbed through the window and sat on the sill. Twisting around, she took her weight on her elbows before dropping to the ground. She landed in the flower bed, her boots sinking into mud. There were no shouts of alarm, no orders to halt.

  She dashed to the southeast corner of the garden and vaulted over the wall.

  JENNA WAITED IN THE DOORWAY of the Tasian Countinghouse. The breeze had picked up off the Sullen Sea, and on it the assassin heard the fretting of waves against the coast. Overhead, tattered clouds ghosted through the blackness. The commotion outside the auditorium had finally died away. Something about an assassination, she had heard. What was the city coming to? Jenna still had no idea whether the Maru’s troops or Erekus’s bodyguards had triumphed in the abandoned house, or if the Maru himself had escaped. If he was still alive, though, Jenna vowed that the next time they met, it would be she who did the surprising.

  Over this part of the city—the Market District—an unnatural stillness hung. No lights showed in the buildings about the assassin, for the shopkeepers had long since fled with the coming of night. The silence weighed heavily on Jenna. The adrenaline from her exertions had worn off, and her thoughts were spiraling downwards. It was always the same after a mission. At times like this she would usually find a table in a tavern and watch the world continue to spin on its crooked axis. She needed people close—strangers, inevitably, since she wasn’t going to inflict her mood on people she knew. The burden she carried was one of her own making; it was only fair she bore it alone.

  Ahead, the road opened out onto a deserted marketplace with a statue of the Matron in the centre, while behind her—

  Jenna stiffened.

  Footsteps, approaching swiftly.

  Jenna leaned farther back into darkness.

  Teren passed her position. This was the route he always took to get home. When Jenna first hired him, she had made it her business to find this out in case a contingency such as tonight’s ever arose. A hitch in the agent’s stride suggested he had sensed her presence. She stepped into the street behind him.

  He stopped and turned.

  Jenna’s face remained concealed behind her scarf, but Teren must have recognized her all the same. His look changed from curiosity to concern to confusion. Never before had she sought him out after a contract; never before had there been the need. In her right hand she held a small crossbow, pointing at the ground. Teren glanced at it before meeting her gaze. He looked nervous. Too nervous, perhaps? Then again, was there such a thing as too nervous when you were accosted by an assassin in the street?

  Jenna looked at his half ear. Not for the first time, she found herself wondering how he had sustained the bite. She knew as little about him as he did her, and yet he was the closest thing she had to a friend in Arkarbour. She was like the shadows she dwelled in—always drifting across the surface of things, never leaving a mark. But that was what she needed to be to survive in this game.

  “What’s wrong?” Teren said.

  “The job went bad,” Jenna replied. “It was a trap. I’m guessing the Maru works for someone who knew one of my old victims. That someone came looking for revenge.” Jenna couldn’t blame him, either. In his position, she would have done exactly the same—though with greater success, she liked to think.

  “Who?”

  Jenna shrugged. The Maru had given her a few clues to follow up on. He said he served a man, so at least she knew she wasn’t up against a female. The rest would have to wait.

  “So you came to warn me?” Teren asked.

  “Naturally.” Most people didn’t hold an assassin responsible for a victim’s death. Most people knew the difference between a weapon and the person wielding it. But not the Maru’s employer, evidently. “If someone is after me, they’ll probably come for you, too.” Jenna paused, then pointed her crossbow at him. “Unless, of course, you were in on this from the start.”

  The muscles of Teren’s neck stood out as he swallowed. “I knew nothing about this.”

  “Didn’t you? Someone has to have told the Maru’s employer that I was the one who killed his friend.”

  “Then it must have been our client from that job.”

  “Perhaps,” Jenna conceded. “Unfortunately it is difficult to confirm that when we don’t even know who that client was.”

  Teren did not respond.

  Jenna watched the agent, trying to get a read on him. She studied his expression, the involuntary movements of his eyes. If this was an act, it was a good one. But then the man would be an accomplished liar; he lived a lie every day, since he wouldn’t have told his family or friends about his work. If he was capable of deceiving
them, wouldn’t he be capable of deceiving Jenna, too? She didn’t know. But what she did know was that Teren had become her one point of weakness in Arkarbour. The events of tonight had proved what a threat he was. It was time to end that.

  Teren apparently disagreed. “You haven’t thought this through,” he said. “There was no reason for the Maru’s employer to approach me, and every reason for him not to. If he’d told me what he was planning, I might have warned you.”

  “But think of what he stood to gain. For all he knew, you might have been able to lead him straight to me. And even if you couldn’t, you could still have given him information about my other jobs. He could have studied my routines, my methods.”

  “If I’d betrayed you, do you really think I’d be walking home alone like this? Unarmed?” Teren shook his head. “I’d have gone to ground until I knew you were dead. Better still, I’d have left town by the fastest road possible.”

  “Maybe I tracked you down before you could. Maybe you underestimated my chances of surviving tonight’s trap.”

  Teren’s voice showed irritation. “Maybe, maybe. You can’t kill me on a suspicion.”

  Jenna’s smile was rueful. “I’ve killed people for a lot less, I’m afraid.”

  To that, Teren had no good answer. He opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again when he realized his cause was hopeless. Jenna’s mind was made up. It had been, she realized, from the moment she’d started speaking to him. True, she couldn’t be sure whether he had betrayed her, but sometimes you had to trust your instincts. Plus if she didn’t act now, she wouldn’t get another chance later.

  Teren held her gaze without flinching. Jenna couldn’t deny she was impressed at his composure. There was no greater test of a person’s character than being forced to look the Lord of the Dead in the eye. Most of Jenna’s targets begged, or sobbed, or attempted to run, but her agent was forged from a superior metal. This probably wasn’t the first time he had been threatened with death. For all his good humor, he was still an assassin’s associate, and that meant she couldn’t afford to take him lightly. What could he do, though? He was too far from Jenna to close with her, and there was no way he could outrun a crossbow bolt.

  No more putting this off. A witness might come this way at any time.

  Jenna pulled her crossbow’s trigger. The quarrel took Teren in the chest and punched him from his feet. He sprawled to the ground.

  The assassin crouched beside him. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky. His skin was pale, his eyes glassy with shock, as if he hadn’t really expected her to shoot him. Jenna’s quarrel had sunk into his flesh to the feathers. Around it his shirt was dark with blood, the cloth sticking to his skin. His breath came quickly. He tried to shift position, only to grunt with pain.

  “Quit whining,” Jenna murmured. “You’ll live.” One of the benefits to being a practiced killer was that you knew where to strike if you didn’t want your target to die. Her bolt had taken Teren high in the shoulder, safely away from his internal organs.

  “You shot me,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily.

  “Better me than one of the Maru’s thugs watching us right now.”

  Teren blinked. “What? Where?”

  “Two in the doorway to the Petty Court—no, don’t look!—another two behind the statue in the marketplace.” Jenna had spotted them when she arrived earlier to wait for Teren. Rough types they were, with tattoos for armor, and not a crossbow between them. But then it made sense that the Maru would have saved his best troops for ambushing Jenna at the house. At the distance they were from the assassin, they would have caught snatches of her conversation with Teren, but they wouldn’t be able to hear their whispers now.

  “Then shouldn’t you be shooting them instead?” Teren grumbled. “Just thinking aloud here.”

  “Shooting you is more fun,” Jenna said. “Besides, when I send the thugs running now, they will report to their boss that you’re dead. You’ll have a chance to leave Arkarbour before this gets any messier.” Which it would do, Jenna knew. The Maru’s employer was sure to have devised a plan B in case Jenna escaped the trap at the house. A plan B that might involve Teren.

  She felt the eyes of the Maru’s men upon her. She needed some excuse to continue crouching over Teren, so she ran her left hand over his body as if she were searching for something.

  Teren said, “If this was just about you getting your hands on me, there were simpler ways.”

  Jenna sighed, then gestured to the quarrel sticking out of him. “Careful,” she said. “I have plenty more bolts where that came from.”

  She took one from a pocket now and placed it in her crossbow’s slot.

  Teren caught her gaze and held it. “Why?” he asked. “Why are you doing this?”

  Jenna ignored the question. She made to rise, but Teren grabbed her wrist, and she couldn’t pull free without drawing her watchers’ attention. She silently cursed. This was madness! The success of her scheme depended on the enemy thinking Teren was dead or at least dying. The fool was going to ruin everything.

  “Why?” Teren said again. “You didn’t have to come here. You could have left me for the Maru’s thugs.”

  “If I’d done that, they might have captured you and found out what you know about me. Or used you to try to lure me into the open.”

  “Then you could have played safe and aimed your bolt at somewhere more sensitive. I wouldn’t be any use to the Maru’s employer dead.”

  Jenna did not reply. She wasn’t certain if she knew the answer herself. Maybe she liked the idea of saving someone for once. Maybe she wanted to know how that felt. And she had to say it made a … not unpleasant change. She only hoped she didn’t come to regret her decision. Killing Teren would have been the more prudent course. It was still possible, after all, that he had betrayed her. Just because the thugs were waiting for him didn’t mean he was innocent. The Maru’s employer might have chosen to eliminate him because he had outlived his usefulness.

  Jenna wanted to believe he was innocent, though. And perhaps this once that was enough.

  She wasn’t going to explain that to Teren, though. There were times when a woman simply shouldn’t have to account for her actions.

  She freed her hand from his grasp and rose. “Wait here,” she said.

  Teren grimaced. “I’ll try not to go anywhere. What about you, though? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to introduce myself to the Maru’s friends.” Odds of four to one shouldn’t trouble Jenna against cut-throats like these. The hardest part would not be defeating them, but leaving one alive to report to their master.

  “And afterwards?” Teren asked. Then, “You should come with me. Put Arkarbour behind you.”

  Jenna didn’t even have to think about it. “That’s what the enemy will expect me to do,” she said. And the assassin always chose her own path rather than letting someone else dictate it to her. She would stay and fight. It was what she did best. And if life had taught her anything, it was that the faster she ran away from one problem, the sooner she ran into the next.

  A last look at Teren, then she rose and started along the street.

  Ahead, the shadows came to life and rushed at her.

  FIERCE WOMEN IN HISTORY BY

  MELANIE R. MEADORS

  ADA LOVELACE

  IT MIGHT SEEM ODD TO include someone like Ada Lovelace in this anthology. The only daughter of poet Lord Byron, born into British nobility…what could she have had to rise above? What could she possibly have had to fight for?

  Well, Ada was Lord Byron’s only legitimate child. He did, however, have a reputation for having many affairs on his travels abroad and sowed some wild oats along the way. Lady Byron separated from her husband only weeks after Ada was born, and when Byron left to go abroad a few months later, it marked the last time he would be in her life—physically, anyway.

  Lord Byron’s behavior, however, left its mark on Ada’s life all the same. Convinced Byron was a bit
insane, Lady Byron was determined her daughter would not follow in his footsteps. She engaged tutors for her daughter from an early age to instruct her in mathematics and science, subjects not in the standard curriculum for women of the early nineteenth century. Lady Byron also insisted her daughter lie completely still for long stretches at a time, believing this would instill a sense of self-control in the girl and surpass any tendency the girl might have toward her father’s unpredictable nature and moodiness. Thankfully, rather than being oppressed by this seemingly overbearing treatment, Ada Lovelace seemed to thrive under it. Gifted in the subjects of math and languages, she learned from some of the top people in England, and at age seventeen befriended inventor Charles Babbage, who became her mentor.

  Ada was fascinated by Babbage’s work, and when asked to translate an article about his analytical engine from French into English, she added her own notes to the piece, which were three times the length of the article itself. These notes outlined how codes could make it possible for Babbage’s machine to handle letters and symbols along with numbers, and suggested ways the engine could repeat a series of instructions, something we know today as looping. Sadly, Ada Lovelace’s work didn’t become well known until the 1950s, but since then, she has become recognized as a pioneer in the field of computer science.

  How ironic it is that the tool so many people now use as a vehicle to harass women and put them down was actually made possible via the work of this progressive and ingenious woman.

  Further Reading:

  Ada’s Algorithm: How Lord Byron’s Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age by James Essinger

  The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron’s Daughter by Benjamin Woolley

  PAX EGYPTICA

  DANA CAMERON

  LIGHT DANCED ACROSS THE WATERS of the Middle Sea, producing a blinding glare against the pale stone of the lighthouse and government buildings. The princess ran along the quay, her sandals slapping against the sun-heated stones. Lesson in navigation over, her destination now was the great Library. Egypt was the center of the world, and this sliver of bustling, cosmopolitan Alexandria was the beating heart of Egypt, creating the world’s history and wealth. As fascinating as she found her royal father’s court, to the princess, the Library was the key, the source of all knowledge and learning.