“Perhaps nothing,” Miryum said uneasily. “But I’m surprised Lord Pecus let you touch a body riddled with dark magic. A lot of the worst killing magic has an inherent tracking clause in the residue that leads the murderer to anyone who might come across the body. Touch the body too soon after the murder, and you’re marked. If you catch it in time, it can be worked backwards.”
Oho! And he hadn’t told me! I wondered briefly if Melchior had known, but dismissed the idea: Melchior might hide any number of things from me, but this was not one of them. Besides, although he had certainly fought a great deal of black magic in his time with Annabel, he had not made a study of it as Lord Pecus must have done.
“That gives me something to go on with, at least,” I said pensively. “Thank you, Miryum. Oh, and if any of you so much as suggests that I told you about this, I will categorically and absolutely truthfully insist that I did not do any such thing.”
I left them smiling with as much of an air of normality as was possible, and rejoined Daubney with great thoughtfulness. He was standing where I had left him, of course, as though made of stone.
“Come, Daubney,” I said grandly, sweeping through the gate ahead of him and narrowly avoiding a disgraceful incident with an inconveniently placed pile of horse droppings. “I have an errand in town.”
*
I walked the uncomplaining Daubney through busy intersections and a dizzying array of back allies at a good brisk pace. By the time I had completed an unusually circuitous route to my favourite teashop (that could be conveniently attributed to the fact that I was not a native of Glause) I was satisfied that I was indeed being followed. One of Lord Pecus’s watchmen, no doubt. I was not at all surprised: if what Miryum said was true, he certainly wouldn’t have allowed me to touch Raoul without the precaution of having me followed. It was a comfort to know that if I found myself in any trouble, help would not be far away. It was less satisfying to know that I would have a great deal of difficulty losing the watchman if I were minded to do so.
I sipped my orange tea pensively at a lacy outdoor table and watched my shadow strike up a conversation with the stallholder opposite in my peripheral vision. I briefly toyed with the idea of escaping here and now, but the teashop was a haven and a sanctuary to me, and I refused to select my tea with the amount of haste requisite to gain a good distance before the watchman realised I was gone. Tea is the only thing I like as well as clothes, and I had no intention of allowing Lord Pecus’ importunity to interfere in the selection of a new variety. Instead, I finished my tea and selected a paper bag of Lacunan whole leaf rose-tea to sample, then took to the streets again.
I didn’t trouble myself to watch for my follower again. Time was running short before the afternoon conference, and I had a great deal that I wished to do. For all the good it would do him, the watchman could follow me all day. It was not where I was going that was important: it was who I was with.
“The magic quarter, Daubney,” I said briskly, deciding it was high time that he and I had a talk. “Which direction?”
“Due north, my lady. Is there a particular shop you wanted?”
“Something ostentatious and bright, I think,” I said. “A shop that deals in improbable love potions and enchanted swords.”
Daubney’s lips twitched, but he controlled them. “Perhaps my lady is aware she is being followed?”
“Yes, Daubney, I am indeed. Very perspicacious of you. Do you think we could lose him?”
“No, my lady.”
“Just what I thought,” I agreed. “Is it a long walk to this shop?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Oh, good. I think our fine, upstanding watchman would enjoy a stroll through the magic quarter. Now, Daubney, I want you to tell me exactly what you may or may not have seen last night, particularly in relation to Sir Raoul.”
Daubney was a concise and accurate narrator, and a more than usually acute observer. The streets were really no place for such a conversation, but he overcame the difficulties with the sublimity that belongs to the best of footmen, and added to my scanty store of knowledge such information that members of rebel factions had been present at the ball. It really was unfortunate that everyone had been masked, else I believe Daubney could have named everyone present without difficulty.
The streets passed almost unnoticed but for a nasty moment when I spotted Lord Topher wandering by a street stall and expeditiously stepped down a sidestreet to avoid him. This took us down an interestingly unsavoury walkway that made Daubney unconsciously flex his shoulders in a rather warlike manner, imparting enough wariness into the seedier populace lurking in the shadows, to cause them to let us be.
We had almost reached civilisation again when a small boy was propelled from a shadowed doorway and collided painfully with me. I was just in time to grasp the skinny paw as it removed itself from my reticule, clutching a small silver coin.
The urchin looked at me with wide eyes, then down at his hand, and gulped. “Beg puddin’, miss! Force of ’abit, miss!”
An older girl, who had been scrubbing with some determination at a hopelessly stained doorstep, looked up quickly. Sister? No, the boy was too dark: Lacunan blood without a doubt. But there was a relationship, nevertheless; his eyes flickered to her with a little desperation.
“It’s no good pinching that, anyway,” I said calmly, warning Daubney off with a slight shake of my head. He stood back, and I let go of the urchin. “See?”
The child looked down at the coin, and found himself bemusedly holding a leaf.
“My brother made that for me,” I told him pleasantly. “You’ve no idea how amusing it’s been. If you wanted money, you should have gone for my cuff.”
I slipped a coin from my left cuff and displayed it.
“Just so, you see? My own invention.” I tossed him the coin, and said to Daubney: “Come along, Daubney. I believe you had got to the part where I came and asked you as to Sir Raoul’s whereabouts.”
“Yes, my lady,” Daubney said, managing with an effort not to grin. The urchin dashed to the girl with the scrubbing brush and watched us continue with wide eyes. “I was thinking about it this morning, and it seems to me that there was something strange about it.”
“Strange in what way?” I inquired.
Daubney didn’t reply. Instead, there was a soft slap behind me: my paper bag of tea hitting the cobbles, I realized, frowning. When I turned, Daubney had a finger in his cravat and was tugging ineffectually at it, his breathing laboured. His eyes were worryingly glassy.
“Daubney?”
I took a step toward him, but a dirty hand caught my arm.
“Don’t touch him, my lady!”
It was the scrubbing girl, her hands still slick with suds that soaked quickly into my sleeve. Daubney sank to his knees, coughing, and I said crisply: “There’s a man just beyond the end of the street; fetch him now.”
She nodded, and jerked a thumb over her shoulder for the urchin’s benefit. He took off at a run, skinny legs almost blurring, and she knelt beside Daubney, who looked up at me with glazed horror in his brown eyes.
“My . . . lady . . . help!”
I dropped to my knees beside them both, and the girl said again, sharply: “Don’t touch him! Have you got wood, my lady?”
I snapped the beads from my reticule strings without a pang, and the girl made a quick motion with her hand that set them spinning in the air within a complicated web of blue glittery stuff. They revolved once, twice; and then exploded, stinging us with splinters.
The girl hissed between her teeth in surprise or fear, I wasn’t sure which, and spat: “Get away! Now!”
She was quicker to her feet than me, dashing up and away across the cobbles. I was still forcing myself up when Daubney’s eyes flooded red.
“Oh no!” I said, swallowing a horrible lump in my throat; because I knew what was coming. “Oh no, no, no!”
And then Daubney’s head exploded.
Chapter Four
I closed my eyes again, swallowing, and heard the scrubbing girl say matter-of-factly: “That was a watchman, following you: if you need to scarper, best go now.”
A faint smile touched my lips. Perhaps I really did look like a desperate character. “What’s your name, child?”
“Vadim, my lady,” said the voice, still cheerfully. The girl must have a stomach of cast iron.
“Vadim, there is a handkerchief in my reticule. Please remove it.”
There was a gentle tug on my left arm, where my reticule, beadless, still hung.
“Got it, m’lady.”
“Do you think you could clean away the worst of it from my face, Vadim? I believe I can do the rest for myself.”
Vadim didn’t answer, but a gentle dabbing began almost immediately on my face, and after a moment my hat was carefully rather than expertly removed. When I felt deft fingers going through my hair I ventured to open my eyes, and was just in time to see the little Lacunan pickpocket dashing ahead of my sturdy watchman follower.
“Here!” expostulated the watchman, panting slightly and pointing an accusing finger and myself and Vadim. “You’re destroying evidence! Stop that, you little baggage!”
I drew myself up to the most dignified height I could, putting myself eye to eye with the man, and froze him with a look.
“I beg your pardon?”
The unfortunate watchman grew ruddy while Vadim grinned. She didn’t stop dabbing.
“Begging pardon, my lady, but I didn’t mean you. I meant the young thing snabbling the bits and pieces out of your hair. Lord Pecus will want you processed, and she’s destroying evidence!”
“What Lord Pecus wants is a matter of indifference to me,” I said. “I will not tread the length and breadth of the Imperial City with little pieces of Daubney all over me. I will not, in fact, spend a moment longer than I have to in such a state. I believe you will find quite enough evidence splattered all over the street.”
The watchman expostulated at some length, and before long I ceased to listen to him, instead turning my attention to Vadim, who had moved onto my sleeves. A length of clean blue cuff greeted my startled gaze when I looked down, innocent of both blood and miniscule scraps of flesh.
“Vadim,” I said quietly, interrupting the watchman; “Are you using magic on me?”
“Yes, m’lady,” Vadim said serenely, going on to the other sleeve. “It comes up ever so much nicer when I do.”
“So I see.” I inspected both arms with approval, carefully avoiding the bodice that Vadim was still working on, and said sweetly to the indignant watchman: “I’m sorry, I interrupted you. What were you saying?”
“I’ve sent out the signal for Lord Pecus,” he said gruffly. “He’ll be here in a quarter hour. You may not listen to me, my lady; but I’ll wager you listen to him!”
“And so I should if I were going to stay,” I said. “But Vadim has finished with my dress, as you see, and I have errands I need to perform.”
“You can’t leave a crime scene!” protested the watchman. He was beginning to look a little desperate.
“Oh, I’m quite decent again!” I assured him, wilfully misunderstanding. His estimation of a quarter of an hour before Lord Pecus arrived, I held to be generous. I would be surprised if the next few minutes didn’t see him here. “I won’t cause public consternation like this.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to accompany you, my lady.”
“How unfortunate!”
I kneeled briskly, laying my fingers for a sticky moment on Daubney’s stiff shoulder and rising again before I had to look too closely at him.
“I do wonder what Lord Pecus will say if you leave a dead body and all this evidence in the street, however. Do you think it entirely wise? Come along, Vadim; you too, child.”
I swept away up the street without looking to see whether either the watchman or the children were following, and turned into the main street.
After a few brisk paces, I said: “Is he following?”
“No, m’lady,” said Vadim, keeping up without effort.
“Very well. Vadim, how would you like to be a lady’s maid?”
“Well, m’lady, there’s Keenan.”
No more than I had expected. There would be no getting the one without the other. “The pickpocket?”
A mutter behind Vadim protested sulkily: “Was n’accident, didn’t mean to do it. Force of ’abit.”
“That’s him,” said Vadim, in a grim way I guessed boded no good for the still-protesting Keenan.
“Keenan, would you like to be a page boy?”
“Wiv a lacy collar?” demanded Keenan, in deep suspicion.
“Certainly not,” I said firmly. I had a great distaste for the prevailing mode in Glause that dressed little boys in any amount of lace and velvet and called them pageboys: in Civet they were more circumspectly dressed in plain knickerbockers and a white shirt, and performed duties somewhere between those of a Glausian footman and pageboy.
“You will have to fix my pens for me, and fetch things from the market, and I imagine you will have to eat at least three meals a day.”
“When do I get to eat, then?” Keenan’s tone was one of even darker suspicion than before.
“When we get home, of course.” I threw a swift look behind me, saw the look of thoughtful cunning that flashed across the young face, and added calmly: “And not before. Vadim, what do you say?”
“There’s a magician trailing us,” Vadim said, which piece of information I took to signify her assent. “A good one, coming in fast. I think he’s running.”
My eyes opened a little wider. The watchman must have seen me touch Daubney’s body and told Lord Pecus. How unfortunate.
“Vadim, can you buy us any time?”
The smile passed so swiftly across her face that it was difficult to tell if she really had smiled.
“Yes, m’lady. Oh yes.”
Keenan watched her with a kind of brotherly pride as her eyes briefly glazed, and said conversationally: “You shouldn’t of touched the stiff: you’ve got a thread of black magic trailin’ yer.”
“Indeed I have,” I said cordially. “And a very fresh one, too. I imagine it will be useful in tracking the murderer.”
“You’ve got two,” Vadim corrected absently, her eyes focusing again. “One fresh, one dying. The stiff had one, too, before he died. I’ve confused the trail for you, m’lady; do you want a tracker?”
“The best you can find in five minutes,” I qualified.
Vadim’s cheeks took on a slight pink tinge beneath the dirt.
“It will take him at least an hour to find us,” she protested.
“I daresay you’re right,” I told her; “However, since it’s Lord Pecus who’s after us, I’d prefer not to take the chance.”
I saw the dismay creep into her face. “Lord Pecus?”
“A very possibly annoyed Lord Pecus.”
Vadim gave a jerky nod, and said tersely: “Against him, it might hold ten minutes. I know someone a few streets down.”
“Then we’ll walk quickly.”
It would not have been ladylike, of course, to trot in the open street. However, the way Vadim took us delved even further into the more insalubrious backstreets of the magic quarter, and there was no one beyond a few stray cats to see me pick up my skirts and run, displaying my ankles in a satisfyingly shocking way. Being the indefatigable walker that I am, my shoes were light and comfortable, and since I do not tend to breathlessl
y tight corsetry, I was breathing only slightly harder when we turned down a final alley. It was, to my unease, a dead end: I felt that a tracker should have access to at least two directions at any one time.
A quick glance at Vadim, however, showed that we had arrived. She pointed at a small, rotting door hanging loosely in a brick archway, and said: “That’s her, m’lady. Don’t mention the gov’nor, or she won’t help you.”
My eyebrows went up. Indeed? Lord Pecus seemed to have a very present and powerful effect on the general street populace. I wondered how often he walked the streets on business.
I shook out my coin cuff, and put two silver Glausian grits into Vadim’s hand.
“Get yourself and Keenan some fresh clothes. Mind you wash, and on no account spend any less than what I’ve given you. I’ll have clothes made up later, but you’ll need something a little less ragged to get into the ambassadorial palace in the meantime.”
Keenan scoffed. “Can get in there anytime, miss! Them bubblers couldn’t stop us if they tried!”
“Possibly, but that is not what I asked you to do,” I said mildly, scribbling on the back of one of my calling cards. “You must go around by the servant’s entrance, and give them my card. Someone will show you to my rooms. Wait for me there.”
Vadim looked uneasy, but nodded.
“Be wary of Ciara,” she said in parting. “She’s fair, but hard- very hard.”
I waited until they were gone before I knocked, despite the probable shortage of time. My knowledge of magic might be very small, but I knew that what I was about to do was dangerous, and despite the fact that Vadim seemed to be a more than competent magic user, I couldn’t bring myself to walk children willy-nilly into danger.
The door sagged beneath my knock, and a voice from within called faintly: “If that’s the supplier, come on in. If it’s anyone else, push off!”
Choosing to take the term ‘supplier’ loosely, I carefully pushed through the spongy door to find myself in a hallway that was excessively dingy, and as narrow as it was long. But if it was dingy, at least what I could see of it was clean, and I was able to feel satisfied that Vadim’s Ciara was not a shoddy worker.
Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence) Page 6