by RW Krpoun
“Would you care to share with me, my dear?” The tired-looking noblewoman ran the bowl beneath her own nose, sniffing luxuriously at the thin tendrils of smoke that rose from the sizzling cube as she turned to the Seeress.
“I would love to,” Elonia smiled.
Myra received the next pipe, licking the shining stem as she cocked an eyebrow at Maxmillian. “No, thanks, it, how should I say this, relaxes me too much; I’m...out of action for an hour or more, if I’m awake at all.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” she breathed, taking a lady-like pull on the pipe. The Harwoods and Leopold were passing around a pipe now, while van Feuchter kept the last for himself. Maxmillian watched as the Duchess took several long pulls at her pipe without exhaling, the cube sizzling and popping with each intake. Sliding a hand to the back of Elonia’s neck, the Duchess pulled the Seeress’ mouth to hers and breathed the smoke out in a long kiss. The mixed-blood Badger leaned back, eyes shining, finally exhaling the smoke out in a fragrant breath.
Van Feuchter cut more cubes and lit them as pipes were exhausted, keeping everyone’s bowl full, and the room subsided to the sounds of the sizzling lomba, the sighs of exhaling smokers, the occasionally murmured word. Maxmillian leaned back in his chair and tried to keep an eye on this, but Myra was becoming languidly aggressive in her approach, an attitude not confined to herself; Leopold and the Harwoods had retired to a couch in a corner and seemed to be wearing fewer clothes, although with two lamps out and the haze in the air visibility was becoming poor.
Elonia, he could see, had managed to get the pipe from the Duchess most of the time, no doubt faking her inhalations just as she had mastered the art of feigning drinking, but she still received several lingering smoke-kisses.
The tension was nerve-breaking, although Maxmillian took comfort in the fact that Myra was several bowls past noticing any subtleties about his behavior. The Harwoods and Leopold could entertain themselves as they wished, they were merely stage dressing for the main events he was sure, which were Myra and himself and Elonia with the Duchess, all supervised and studied by van Feuchter, the ringmaster of this little circus. The separation of the prudes from the potential, the scholar thought crazily and felt the hilt of the slender guard-less dagger hidden in the lining of his jacket, the mad impulse to step over and bury it in Geraz’s heart nearly overpowering him as Myra’s hands found his belt buckle. Slowly undoing the buttons of her dress, he nearly screamed in frustration: Elonia’s plan had failed, and they were about to be uncovered in more ways than one; he wondered if van Feuchter had any armed men positioned within the mansion to deal with spies.
Then it happened: the Duchess turned in her seat and passed her pipe to van Feuchter, who lit another cube and pressed it into the residue-blackened crystal bowl; as she reached to take it back the noblewoman slowly slid to the floor, arm still outstretched, and then toppled sideways to sprawl on the waxed boards, eyes open and staring.
Maxmillian stood and dropped his glass which crashed onto the floor and rolled off. “My word, is she...the Duchess...” he sat down suddenly and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to mop at his forehead, the very picture of a man not fully in control of himself. As the more dazed members of the party became aware of the fallen noblewoman van Feuchter knelt beside her and worked his arms beneath her. “She’s fine, she merely fell asleep...” he paused, frowning and brought a hand around to feel the side of her neck. Cursing, he laid his silvery head on her chest, his ear between her breasts and remained that way, holding his breath, for nearly a minute. Finally he stood, straightening his jacket. “The Duchess is, I’m afraid, quite dead.”
“Dead!” Adelot shrieked, the smooth mellowness of the drug suddenly ripped asunder. “Dead! No, she can’t, we aren’t...we haven't gotten....” Her husband, with help from Leopold, managed to sit her down and quiet her; Leopold fetched a glass of brandy for her while her husband whispered to her. Maxmillian took the moment as an opportunity to put his clothes in order.
Myra stood carefully and walked with swaying steps to the corpse’s side. “Dead,” she whispered, a far-off, not unhappy expression on her face. “Dead and gone.” One hand toyed with the unbuttoned bodice of her gown.
Maxmillian stood as resolutely as he could and marched to the sideboard, where he poured himself a glass of brandy and tossed it off with the demeanor of a man deliberately seizing control of himself. Turning, he faced his ‘wife’. “Ella? Do you need a drink?”
“Yes, please,” she murmured dazedly. He poured her a stiff shot and brought it to her, steadying her hand as she drank it down. “Thank you.”
Facing van Feuchter, Maxmillian met the man’s cold gaze squarely. “What do we do now?”
The handsomely aged face quirked in a humorless smile. “Take your carriages and go home; I shall instruct the servants and deal with the authorities. The Duchess would not wish a great deal of fanfare or outsiders taking an interest in her affairs. Leopold, if you will remain and assist me? Excellent. As for the rest of you, good night.”
“If I can help, let me know,” Maxmillian advised Geraz after getting Elonia to her somewhat unsteady feet.
“Thank you,” van Feuchter said absently, staring at the corpse. He shook his head and faced the couple. “I hope you understand, this was not something that was unexpected: the Duchess was a woman of...large appetites, and had been for many years.”
“I understand,” Maxmillian assured him. “She looks as if it was peaceful death.”
“It appears to have been.” van Feuchter seemed to debate for a moment. “When Leopold and I have dealt with the Duchess’ affairs and all the dull details have been settled, I hope I can invite the two of you to a gathering of mine, sometime in the future, something in the honor of this dear departed lady.”
“Of course.” Maxmillian glanced at the body. “I didn’t know her long, but I would guess that she would want her friends to say good bye to her with laughter and wine, not crying and tossing flowers.”
“Exactly. Now, if you will excuse me...”
Keeping in mind the carriage driver, Maxmillian helped Elonia into the carriage, and back out of it at their boarding house; once inside the stairwell leading to their rooms she stopped resting her weight against him but remained leaning on him until the door to their rooms closed behind them. Springing away, she darted to the drinks cabinet and grabbed the first bottle that came to hand. Pulled the cork, she drank a mouthful and leaned her head back to gargle the liquor as she felt her way to the washstand, spitting the wine into the bowl and gargling again. Finished, she tilted the bottle up for four large swallows before bringing it back down, leaning against the washstand breathing hard, drops of wine standing out like flecks of blood on her chin.
“Feel better?” Maxmillian asked cautiously.
“A little; she put her tongue inside my mouth.” Elonia shuddered visibly and took another long drink.
“You know, I’m not complaining, but things took a lot longer than you said they would; I was nearly to the do or die stage with Myra before the old bat dropped.”
“Look, poisons are not an exact science,” Elonia snapped. “It was that blasted lomba, it slowed her heart down. I’ve never seen anyone smoke like that before, she shouldn’t have been able to keep her eyes open smoking six cubes so quickly.”
“Six? Two had Myra ready to get naked right there in the room in front of everyone, although come to think of it she probably would do that cold sober. No wonder the poison took so long, it had to stand in line to get a shot at her vitals,” the historian shook his head. “What does that stuff do, anyway?”
“It softens everything down, makes the whole world dreamy and warm, sort of drifting, sounds come at you as if you were underwater, and small things become fascinating. I only had what she breathed into me, but I’m still fuzzy. I saw a bit of it when I was, you know, but they didn’t approve of the stuff; it’s not only addictive, it’s obsessive, and a hard user is pretty much useless all the
time.”
“So the Duchess wasn’t a regular user.”
“Probably not, it’s very expensive, and she didn’t have much money of her own to throw around, is my guess. But she was no stranger to it, either; I don’t doubt she’s tried everything more than once.” Elonia tossed the empty bottle aside and looked thoughtfully at the open door of the drinks cabinet. “No, I’ve had enough.”
“At least we passed the test.”
“Yes, at least enough so we won another invitation. van Feuchter seemed pretty convinced that both of us were ready for some fun and games before the untimely death of the last Duchess of the family Meurer.”
“It was untimely, too; ten minutes earlier would have been fine with me.”
“Five minutes into the party would have been fine with me,” Elonia sat on the bed and kicked off her shoes. “Unbutton me, will you?”
“Gladly.” He unfastened the row of buttons down her back and kissed the base of her neck.
“Nice. But I’m not in the mood for anything tonight, not after she... uggggh.”
“Here.” Maxmillian pulled her around and kissed her deeply. “There, did that confuse the issue?”
“Some.” She laid her head against his chest and sighed. “When we finish this one, lets go off someplace for a couple weeks before we tell Durek it’s over. We deserve a break after what we’re going through.”
“Great idea. You know, it could be worse: Tonya’s having to tie men up and whip them.”
“I could have happily whipped the Duchess to her heart’s desire, the dried-up bitch; the difficult part would have been stopping. Still, it’s over, time to get on with it. We don’t need to deeply infiltrate the cult, all we need to do is find out where they have their primary ceremonies, the ones where they summon the Sphere, and when the next one is; they’ll have to bring the Orbheart out of hiding for it, making it vulnerable to a straightforward raid.”
“I must say, after this is over I’m never going to another party for as long as I live.”
“That’s a promise I’ll hold you to.”
Philip entered their room with two sausage sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and a jug of ale balanced in his arms as he fumbled with the keys, kicking the door shut behind him with his heel. He caught sight of Tonya and froze. “By the Eight,” he breathed.
The tall Badger smiled at him from where she lay across their bed. “You’ve never seen my ‘outfit’, so I thought I would show it to you.” She leaned back a bit, clad in thigh-length black silk stockings held up by two inch wide polished leather straps that buckled around her thighs, black leather underwear that were not much larger than a G-string, and a sleeveless leather vest that was two inches short of meeting in the center, held closed by a half-dozen silver hooks down the front; a steel ring suspended from a leather collar held the vest up. Elbow-length leather gloves with the palms and fingers removed completed the ensemble. “What do you think, does it make you want to be tied up and whipped ?”
“No,” Philip shook his head as he set down his purchases. “But you could talk me out of a month’s pay without any effort.”
She laughed. “Then come here and let’s negotiate.”
Later, afterwards, she sighed and snuggled close. “I wanted something good to have in mind when I was wearing that.”
“With luck you won’t have to wear it much, if ever; Elonia and Maxmillian seem to be closing in from their end.”
“I hope so.”
“This is a lovely belt, Gerhard; you’re a dear. So Cens will let us play at one of his parties?”
“It’s not his party, he just sets it up,” Gerhard explained patiently. “We’ll be actors, living stage scenery, there to set the tone and help things along, that sort of thing. If we go, you’ll have to obey the rules exactly; Rodolf is not the kind of man you want to cross on this sort of situation; this is his livelihood, and a good one it is for him.”
“I can be very obedient when I’m in the mood, Gerhard,” Tonya gave him a slow sultry smile and fantasized about nailing his tongue to the desk and setting the office on fire. “I can be very repentant, too, after I’ve been punished for being a bad girl.” She watched the flush and sheen of sweat that immediately covered the leather worker’s features. “Tell me about the party.”
“We will have roles to act, simple ones, and we must not deviate from the roles; Cens has given us stock disclaimers to use should anyone make advances on us.”
“Hmmm; I thought this sort of entertainment was all about there being no rules but the ones the players make, Gerhard,” Tonya pouted, secretly and deeply relieved.
“At the kind of parties I would throw, yes, that would be the way it would go, but these parties are different: the person paying for the party wants a certain course of events to happen, and he cannot achieve this if there are all sorts of random individuals getting involved.”
“I see. So for us, this will be a great deal like the Basement, we go and watch.”
“Yes, basically, from our point of view it will be.”
“What will we be doing?”
“The theme is going to be a mock-court, you know, where they have a King and everyone has titles, that sort of thing.”
Tonya looked disappointed. “I’ve been to mock-court parties, Gerhard; I went to ones as a child, they’re nothing special.”
“Ah, this one is: in this one the King is reconciled with the Rebel Faction, which has come to surrender and win back the monarch’s good graces,” the leather worker grinned. “Trust me, you won’t have seen anything like this.”
“And our roles are?” she prompted him.
“Oh, yes, I am one of the Court Executioners, you know, hood, bare chest, that sort of thing, only whips instead of a headsman’s axe. You will be a King’s Guard, you stand and look impressive, and perhaps you go and grab someone when the King says, ‘guards, seize that man’ or woman; then he’ll say to take them to the executioners, or hold them, that sort of thing.”
“What happens if someone takes an interest in a guard?”
“Then you say, ‘no my lord (or lady), I am on duty’; Cens is the Captain of the Executioners, and will see to it that none of the guards or executioners are tampered with, although I understand that some of the servants are involved in the party.”
“It sounds rather dull.”
“Not at all, my lady, not at all; haven’t you been to one of these mock courts where the King assigns punishments to people, you know, push a dried pea along a table with your nose or carry a spoon full of water across the room with the spoon’s handle between your teeth?”
“Yes, one time I had to get a grape out of a bowl of melted butter using only one finger.”
Gerhard grinned evilly. “The penalties this King will be assigning will be considerably different.”
“I told him I wanted to take the outfit home so I could practice moving around in it,” Tonya explained, tightening a strap. “Oh, before I forget, there’s another sleeping draught in my pouch.” She squirmed a bit to adjust the harness, and stood erect. “How does it look?”
“Like a centurion’s wet dream,” Philip grinned. Tonya wore shining silver silk stockings in a sort of irregular net pattern that was intended to imitate chain mail; silvery chains running down from a belt of sliver plates that rode low on her hips held them up. A silver-enameled leather ‘breastplate’ ran from her bottom rib up to her breasts, which were half-exposed in the ‘armor’s’ cups; a matching G-string of enameled leather and a collar made of silver mesh completed the costume. For the ‘guard’ portion of her costume, she had a silver-hilted dagger in an enameled sheath strapped horizontally along the belt across her lower back.
“Pot metal,” Philip mused, examining the dagger. “But I bet we can get a real one’s hilt painted to look like this so you won’t be completely unarmed. Kind of limited armament for a ‘guard’, isn’t it?”
“We’ll get shields and spears at the party, but I’m sure they’re junk
, too; we leave them at our posts when we drag someone off. And speaking of dragging someone off, it’s going to be difficult to do it and stay inside this armor.”
“We can practice a bit, if you want,” Philip leered.
“You’re always ready to help, I have to say that. Just be glad Gerhard didn’t find you attractive, or I would be the one making witty observations while you had to wear these kind of things.”
“How did Gerhard like you in the outfit?”
“His hands were shaking so bad he had trouble fastening a buckle when I asked him to, but it was a good thing you warned me about those drawings, he had a manacle on my ankle before I knew what he was doing, and I was watching for it.”
“How’d you get out of it?”
“I raised a fuss about how dirty his shop was, and refused to be tied to any of his filthy work tables or the dye-stained dummy he has. That, I told him, made him a bad boy, and so on.”
“Beat the badness out of him, did you?”
“I tried; actually, I had to hold back from killing him entirely; it was twice the session of the one we had before, but not that much different, really. He enjoyed himself, which is what we need for the moment; Cens could lead us to the cult’s main ceremony site.”
“Soon, I hope.” Philip tossed the fake dagger in the air and caught it by the point. “The party’s on the seventh, which gives us two full days and part of a third to get this dagger sorted out and any other details taken care of. Do you want me to try to trail you when Stotz takes you to the party?”
“Please do; one dagger won’t be enough if this go badly wrong.”
The party was to be held in an old fur warehouse several miles outside the city walls; from the outside it looked like a seedy, run-down building such as were not uncommon to the area, but inside, the building was clean and neat, the signs of fresh repairs and maintenance clearly visible. Half the interior was set up for a lavish mock court that looked not in any way unusual, although Tonya could see the various devices and portable racks of toys the ‘executioners’ would use hidden behind a dividing ‘wall’ of painted canvas stretched over a wood frame. The caterers were set up in the same area.