Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence)

by W. R. Gingell

  The hallway opened into a room that was a little larger and a little rounder than I had expected, and I found myself being observed by a pair of steady grey eyes.

  “You’re not my supplier,” remarked the woman. Her look was appraising. She was stretched out on her chair in a manner almost masculine, clothed in breeches and tunic; and the length of charcoal between her fingers was tapping pensively against the top of her desk, leaving little deposits of powdery charcoal.

  “Not technically,” I agreed, unabashed. I knew ministers like Ciara: they were good at their jobs, and conscientious, but followed the letter of the law down to the very last dash. And as Melchior says, when you follow the letter rather than the spirit of the law, murderers go free, and petty thieves are hanged. Vadim had been right to warn me not to mention Lord Pecus.

  “However, I will supply you with money in return for your services.”

  The grey eyes continued to regard me coolly. “Anything illegal?”

  That made the third time today! Did everyone imagine I was engaged in some nefarious business?

  “Quite the opposite,” I said. “I want you to track some black magic for me.”

  “The thread attached to you?” she asked, one eyebrow rising.

  “Is it still strong enough?”

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly. “But it’s dangerous. If the person who cast the original spell feels what’s happening and sends a kill spell down the thread, I won’t be able to stop it.”

  “He or she has already murdered two people. Do what you can.”

  She nodded with a touch of respect. “Very well. Sit down, my lady, and we will begin.”

  I settled in a solid wooden chair while Ciara, a stick in her charcoal-blackened fingers, drew a circle around me in the dirt floor.

  “Once I’ve begun I can’t stop,” she warned.

  I merely nodded. I wanted to be well begun by the time Lord Pecus arrived. Ciara took my nod as assent, and began swiftly drawing figures about the circle. She had got halfway through the circle when her head snapped around to the door enquiringly; and I realised, with a slight quickening of breath, that she must have sensed Lord Pecus. Oh good! He was too late.

  She threw me a look of burning anger, and said evenly: “Why is Lord Pecus pursuing you?”

  No ‘my lady’ there, I thought, biting back a smile that would not have been helpful.

  “I imagine he doesn’t want me tracking the murderer,” I told her. “He seems to be quite proprietary about these things.”

  “He’s the Watch,” Ciara said curtly, continuing to draw figures with angry, precise strokes. “It’s his job.”

  I gave her a brief half-smile by way of apology. “Raoul was my friend.”

  She drew around me in angry silence until the door slammed open with a soggy pop, and swift male footsteps declared the entrance of Lord Pecus. He had to duck his head to walk the length of the hallway, and straightened only when he reached us in the main room, the ceiling of which was marginally higher. He wore a hood that confused his face – magically, I assumed, with a certain amount of respect – but as he entered, he pulled it back to display his maskless face. Ciara hissed, and my brows rose: Lord Pecus was trying to intimidate me.

  “Lady Farrah, are you trying to make me regret my decision that you are not a viable suspect?” he asked tersely, without acknowledging Ciara by more than a nod. Ah, so they knew each other, did they?

  “Not at all, my Lord,” I said politely. More bear than wolf, I thought to myself, a little more shaken than I would have liked to admit. “I believe, in fact, that I am doing a public service. Careful! You’ll smudge the lines.”

  He abruptly halted, looking down, and took a step back. “Ciara, stop the spell.”

  “You know I can’t,” Ciara said through her teeth, and the look she shot me was pure poison. She drew steadily as she talked, completing a final circle, and straightened. “She tricked me, my Lord.”

  “I have no doubt,” Lord Pecus said dryly. I fancied I saw a gleam of amusement in those green eyes.

  Emboldened, I said: “It wouldn’t have been fair to ask anyone else to do it. Besides, if you had simply done this after Raoul, I wouldn’t have had to be sneaky about it.”

  There was an instant of pause, and then Lord Pecus said: “It was more important to gather the physical evidence at the time, and I didn’t have time to run the spell on myself.”

  “I also touched Raoul- which, my lord, was the point I was trying to make. I had no evidence to gather. The thread only faded this afternoon.”

  “It’s a dangerous procedure, Lady Farrah.”

  “All the more reason not to expose someone who hasn’t already been exposed,” I said cheerfully.

  Lord Pecus opened his mouth and closed it again with something of a grunt.

  “My sergeant wants me to have you arraigned for tampering with evidence. He doesn’t like having his crime scenes interfered with.”

  “I imagine he would have liked even less to come upon the scene with a lady in strong hysterics,” I said. Lord Pecus was now grasping at straws.

  “It’s ready to go,” Ciara said shortly, tweaking at something in the air. A wall of what looked like heat shimmer sprang up around me. Everything took on a wavering aspect, as though I was underwater, and Daubney’s face floated in my mind’s eye, pink and choking, his eyes flooding red. I drew in a deep, silent breath, and was surprised when the curtain of shimmer descended again quickly.

  “Got it!” Ciara said, wiping the circle away swiftly with one foot. “Clear, no trouble. You can get up now.”

  I did so, stepping carefully over the freshly swept dirt, and said: “Well?”

  “You can’t see it?” Ciara’s tone was as disdainful as her glance but there was a light of satisfaction in her eye that suggested she was glad to find me deficient.

  “I’m creditably informed that Lady Farrah’s skills lie in er, twiddling locks,” Lord Pecus said, without expression. “Thank you, Ciara.”

  I was not entirely surprised to see the light flush mantling Ciara’s cheeks. Everything made a little more sense now: the hostility, the blind obedience. Lord Pecus, typically male, did not notice. He pulled his hood back up, blurring his face into conveniently forgettable obscurity, and offered me his arm.

  “I want you where I can see you,” he said.

  Taking this as a compliment, I smiled sunnily up at him and pointed out helpfully that the passage was too narrow for us to proceed down it together. Lord Pecus looked down at me in silence, and I had the feeling that he was struggling not to laugh though I couldn’t see his eyes with any clarity.

  “After you, then, Lady Farrah.”

  Ciara didn’t ask to accompany us, and Lord Pecus didn’t offer her the chance, for which I was grateful. Three is always a crowd when one of those three imagines you to be stepping on her toes.

  Once we were outside, Lord Pecus offered me his arm again. This time I took it without comment.

  “You move very quickly, Lady Farrah,” he remarked as we walked. I was grateful to him for not patronizing me by strolling. I do detest men who stroll.

  “As quickly as I could,” I answered him frankly, well aware that he was not referring to my walking; “With you chasing me I had to do so.”

  “You wanted to have begun by the time I got there.” Lord Pecus sounded more interested than angry, and I smiled up at him without either confirming or denying the charge. “Who was the young man?”

  My smile faded. “Daubney, my lord. He was the footman I was telling you about. I believe I owe you an apology, and Daubney something rather more.”

  “He was already marked and being watched,” said Lord Pecus. “The murderer chose his time deliberately and the mark was in a direct link: had I been there, I couldn’t have stopped it.”

  “Daubney saw something at the ball,” I said, by way of apology. “Unfortunately he didn’t have a chance to tell me what it was before he died.”

  “If
I had tried to speak to him the result would have been the same.” Lord Pecus guided me around a corner made treacherous with piles of assorted and highly odorous rubbish. The locale was steadily becoming worse as we skimmed the rough edge of the magic quarter and slipped into the river quarter, where summer brought with it a lingering scent of decay and scum from the water’s surface. I felt distinctly safer with my hand tucked into Lord Pecus’ arm than I had with poor Daubney walking behind me. For one thing, it was a very muscled arm; and for another, the general populace tended to take one look at the splendid physical size of the man, and melt away into the shadows. I wondered how many of them knew him as Commander of the Watch.

  The trail ended rather abruptly at a dingy inn-door that was unpleasantly close to the river. The door was swollen but Lord Pecus wrenched it open with casual violence, causing the innkeeper, who was rather gloomily sweeping the floor, to drop his broom. I wondered a little cynically what particular criminal enterprise he was at present engaged in that had made him so nervous, and looked around at the dirty little room with my nose wrinkled. The floor had evidently never seen the business end of a mop.

  “It ends here.” There was a frown in Lord Pecus’ voice.

  I smiled sweetly at the innkeeper, who seemed to be actually sweating, and inquired: “Is that unusual?”

  “It’s certainly unprecedented,” said Lord Pecus his gaze roving over the room. “This kind of black mark is almost impossible to hide: to disappear altogether is something I haven’t seen before. You there!”

  The innkeeper nearly dropped his broom again, recovered valiantly, and tugged at a nonexistent forelock.

  “Yes m’lud! How can I assist, m’lud?”

  “Who came through this door half an hour ago?”

  “Didn’t see no one coming through the door, m’lud!”

  Interesting. One could almost see the whites of his eyes.

  “I daresay you turned your back, didn’t you?” I said kindly. I was familiar with the concept of lying by telling the exact truth.

  “Yes, m’lady,” he said, in pre-emptive relief; and then, as Lord Pecus gave a muted snort of laughter: “I mean, no, m’lady! No one came in!”

  “No one,” repeated Lord Pecus thoughtfully. “A slow day for you, then?”

  “Yes, m’lud. No guests at the present.”

  I slipped my hand from Lord Pecus’ arm and advanced a few steps, letting my eyes rest deliberately on the entrance to the taproom, where a ring of freshly-emptied tankards sat around a table that had evidently been the focus of a meeting. The innkeeper saw the direction of my gaze, and swallowed convulsively as I smiled at him again.

  “This is the Commander of the Watch,” I said confidentially, indicating Lord Pecus. “I daresay you’ve heard the rumours.”

  There are always rumours about people like Lord Pecus, of course; notoriety is a great part of how authority works. Be that as it may, I was not prepared for the innkeeper to go quite so white, or to sit down suddenly in one of what I suppose he thought of as his parlour chairs.

  “Sweet lady, don’t let him eat me!”

  I very nearly ruined the effect by laughing. With great restraint, I turned in Lord Pecus’ direction and inquired in something of a strained voice: “Are you particularly hungry, my lord?”

  Lord Pecus let the silence draw out until the innkeeper was shivering, and then said with deliberation: “That depends on the amount and veracity of the information I receive. Speak quickly.”

  I gave the innkeeper an encouraging smile, and he returned a sickly one, his eyes avoiding the area over my left shoulder that was taken up by Lord Pecus.

  “He comes in with six others every week on the same day,” he said rapidly. “They hire out the taproom before it opens and have their meetings there.”

  “Names,” said Lord Pecus. The man was nothing if not succinct. The innkeeper seemed to find his brevity ominous, because he swallowed again, more desperately than before.

  “I don’t know names, m’lud, I swear it! They always give me the same name, Charles Black; that’s how I know they’re part of the group. Sometimes the meetings are bigger and sometimes they’re smaller, but they all give me the same name.”

  There was a brief silence from Lord Pecus that made me think he knew something of the name, so I filed it away carefully in my memory. Charles Black. I wondered if it was the organization that Raoul had been trying to get into contact with at the ball, but it seemed just a little too . . . cloak and dagger, really. Seven men meeting at an old, dingy inn under the same pseudonym, quaffing pints of bad ale as they plotted darkly. It was the stuff books were made of.

  “The ringleaders,” Lord Pecus said slowly: “Were they rich or poor? Noblemen or common?”

  The innkeeper, glad to find a question that he could answer without difficulty, said eagerly: “Oh, they were all common, m’lud; old hats with patches of shine in ’em, scuffed boots. All of ’em as skinny as rakes, too; but for the one fat old gent who kept patting his toupee. The kids they bought in sometimes, though, they were all young and posh, if you know what I mean: rubies in the sword handles, gold buckles on their shoes. It wasn’t just boys, either,” he added darkly, becoming virtuous. “They were poisoning the minds of the young girls as well.”

  “How fortunate for them that they had such a convenient place in which to do so!” I said.

  “S’pose you’re going to arrest them all and close me down, then,” said the innkeeper sulkily. “Well, you can’t arrest me: I didn’t do anything!”

  Lord Pecus, in a velvet rumble that made the innkeeper’s complexion turn two shades whiter, said: “You think I’m going to arrest you?”

  “Anything you want, m’lud; anything you want!”

  “I want you to open and close as usual. I want the meetings to come and go as usual. If you notice a few extra men at the meetings, I would advise you to turn your back and not allow yourself to see. Metaphorically, of course. And,” added Lord Pecus, his voice a low growl; “If Charles Black happens to notice anything amiss, I will be . . . annoyed.”

  “That,” I said appreciatively, when we were outside again: “Was immensely enjoyable! What beautiful timing you have, my lord!”

  “I could say the same of you, Lady Farrah. I would very much like to know where you learned your interrogation technique.”

  “Interrogation, my lord?” I opened my eyes very wide at him. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” said Lord Pecus. “It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before. May I ask, my lady; do you always involve yourself in the affairs of the Watch, or have you made a special exception in my case?”

  “Raoul was one of my oldest friends,” I said soberly, clasping my hands comfortably together on his arm. “And Daubney died before my eyes in a way no man should have to die.”

  I watched the cobbles pass steadily below my feet with a crease between my brows, and then smiled involuntarily. “Besides, Annabel would never forgive me if I let such an adventure escape me.”

  “You seem to be on good terms with the king and queen of Civet,” remarked Lord Pecus, guiding me through a street that was gradually becoming more crowded. It had not escaped my notice that he was walking us in the direction of the parade grounds: by the time we arrived, there would scarcely be time to catch our breath before the conference began.

  “You seem to be on familiar terms with Charles Black,” I countered. The name was beginning to rest with some familiarity in my mind; whether because I knew it in some lower part of my mind or because I had heard it so recently, I wasn’t quite sure. That Lord Pecus knew something more of it I was certain.

  Discouragingly, he said: “I know no one by that name, Lady Farrah. I’ll keep you up to date with any important findings in my investigation.”

  Since I was well aware that this was a promise that was as good as empty, I merely said: “Thank you, my lord,” with polite insincerity, and smiled my sweetest up into the blurry region t
hat concealed Lord Pecus’ face. After all, I had been steadily planting the seeds of my own investigation anyway, and Lord Pecus’ cooperation, though it would have been helpful, was not strictly necessary. I did ask him once what had come of his painstakingly collected physical samples, but was unsurprised when he put me off with a lack of dissimulation which suggested he was happy for me to know that he did indeed have information, but that his lips were sealed. Provoking man!

  The horselords were sitting together in a frowning, tight-knit group when I arrived at the conference. I left Lord Pecus at the door and made my way swiftly toward them.

  “You look as if you’ve been caught with your hand in the biscuit-jar,” I said, sitting down next to Katrina. “For heaven’s sake don’t look so worried! I’m beginning to feel that you leave somewhat to be desired as co-collaborators.”

  “There was a watchman around the grounds all afternoon when you left,” Miryum told me in an undertone, leaning forward with her forearms braced on her knees. “He said he was doing a routine half-yearly check of our sewerage and water lines to make sure we were in compliance, but he didn’t go anywhere near the pipes or the aqueduct.”

  “Lord Pecus certainly works quickly!” I said, astonished and a little impressed. “If it makes you feel any better, a watchman has been following me ever since I left the house. In fact, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you find surveillance magic about after this afternoon. You’d better not say anything you don’t want the Watch to hear while you’re on parade grounds.”

  I left the horselords looking distinctly gloomier than I had found them, and as the meeting came to order, I took my place beside Melchior, who smiled a little wearily at me. No doubt he had been as busy as I had: there would have been communications to send home to Civet and Annabel, and inquiries to make on our side.

  “You look tired, Melchior,” I said in an undertone, as the Lord President of the Council brought the meeting rather damply to order. His tendency to pronounce ‘s’ as ‘th’ was well known, though not so well known as his predilection for spraying the assembly at large with a fine mist of spit as he did so. The irony of his name being Somersby was the cause of a widespread but overall kindly amusement.