Lady Henterman's Wardrobe

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  Saints, maybe the years had addled his brain. Or that blow to the head. Or he was playing them. Any one was possible. And Pilsen was good enough that Asti couldn’t tell.

  Verci came out from the office. “She was ready, I’ll tell you that. She had a ton of papers in her desk, spark loaded or something. They all burned up with the turn of a knob.”

  Asti was on his feet. “Which way did she go?”

  “Brilliant,” Verci said. “She left the door wide open, and the tunnel is collapsed ten feet in. There’s no following her.”

  Asti put his fist through the wall. Then he did it again. And again.

  “Asti,” Verci said sharply. “Keep it together.”

  “I’m together,” Asti said. For once, the beast was still on its chain. “This isn’t me losing it, this is just me angry.”

  “What are we going to do now?” Vellun asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Asti asked him.

  “I thought I was supposed to come to help train the ladies for tonight. But clearly something bad has happened. Can we still do this?”

  “Something indeed,” Asti said. Things were clicking in his head. Tonight still had to happen. Drive forward, like Dad always said. “All right, the plan is shifting, and we all need to be on top of it. If you’re not on top of it, I need to know right now.”

  Verci put his hand on Asti’s shoulder and squeezed. A simple message that he was in.

  “Tell me part of the plan involves blood from Josie,” Helene said.

  Asti nodded. “Not tonight—we’ve got to settle the business at Henterman Hall, and find out what’s next with the enemies of North Seleth—.”

  “But—” Helene started.

  “And Josie has earned a spot on that list,” Asti said. “Have no doubt.”

  “Well, you’re telling me we’re all broke again. And Julien is still in that household. If nothing else, I need to pull him out. So I’m in.”

  “It’s funny,” Kennith said. “Yesterday I might have told you to piss up a rope. But . . . yeah. However you need me, I’m in.”

  “That’s good, Kennith, because I’ve got a blazes of a plan for you.”

  “A carriage plan?” Verci asked.

  “No, but—Almer, Pilsen, Vellun? In?” Not that he fully trusted either Pilsen or Vellun right now, but he needed bodies. He could put them in positions that minimized their risk to the plan.

  “Saints, you got to ask?” Almer said.

  Pilsen nodded. “Though I’m afraid . . . no amount of greasepaint will cover up this gash in my head.”

  “Yes, please,” Vellun said. Asti immediately saw why Pilsen kept calling him a “puppy”. There was such an earnest eagerness to him.

  Asti turned to Mila. He didn’t need to say or ask anything. She held her head high and delivered in a perfect highborn accent, “I can’t possibly imagine a better use of my time than making all of those rat-rutters suffer.”

  “Far be it for me to be the raincloud,” Pilsen said. “But we are definitively lacking in resources. Money, certainly. Dresses and other appropriate outfits. How could we ever pull this off tonight?”

  “Verci, Kennith, we have two carriages at our disposal, yes?”

  “Yeah,” Verci said. “We were working on a repeated spring engine for one, but—”

  “Scrap that, doesn’t matter. Speed won’t help. I need those carriages looking appropriate for nobility, with as much secret space as you can muster.”

  “Both?” Kennith asked. “I can only drive one, you know.”

  “You won’t be driving either,” Asti said. “But also, go through this whole place, and find out every damn thing we’ve got on hand. Every spare crown, every loose screw. I want a list.”

  “Dresses,” Mila said. “Do we still have the dress I stole for Tyne’s Emporium? And the one Helene wore that night?”

  “Probably,” Helene said. “Though they would hardly be high fashion for the ball. And they are kind of filthy with ash and dirt after that night.”

  Almer perked up. “I can get them clean and sweet smelling.”

  Pilsen pointed to Vellun. “And this one is decent enough with a sewing needle to get the dresses to fit correctly.”

  Vellun smiled. “I also know of a theater company in town that would have appropriate outfits for the men to wear. I could call in a favor or two.”

  Asti had a list. “We’ll need three outfits for lords and two for fancy drivers.”

  Pilsen raised a bloody-gashed eyebrow. “Three? What are you playing at?”

  “We need something to draw those swells’ attention,” Asti said. “And I’ve got just the thing.”

  Pilsen shook his head. “Yes, but like I said, my face is a mess. Mila’s as well, honestly, but we should be able to cover it decently enough. But if I try to pass for a lord, there will be questions.”

  “That’s fine, you won’t be playing one,” Asti said. He had already figured out that part of his plan. In part due to Pilsen’s face, but also to put the old con man at arm’s length. No need to give him too crucial a job right now.

  “Then who will be Mila’s escort with the forged invitation?”

  Asti looked over to Vellun. “Suit up, kid. You’re going on.”

  * * *

  Verci had spent much of the day in a blur—going through the crates and boxes in the safehouse, getting both carriages ready, preparing a satchel for his gadgets.

  And finalizing two special gadgets—his new boot and his cane. The cane hid a spring-loaded blade. He wanted to build a dart-launcher and hide it in there, but that would take a few days. No time for that.

  “How’s it feel?” Mila asked when she saw him trying it on.

  “Wrong,” Verci said. “I mean, it still hurts to put weight on it, but I can do it. The framework in the brace takes most of my weight, so I’m not putting any stress on the ankle. But I can’t run well or be too sneaky. Bit too much clang when stepping. But nothing to be done about that. Still need the cane.”

  “You can walk.”

  “I can walk.” He looked over at Mila, and saw something sad and angry in her eyes. “What is it?”

  “Tarvis, Jede, the rest of my boys,” she said. “I mean, I was supposed to be responsible for them. And Josie just used them for . . . whatever her real plan was. Got them scooped up into Gorminhut. And now Jede . . .”

  “Right,” Verci said. “Look, we all got played by Josie this time. I should have . . . I know her well enough that I should have known better. But she still knitted our eyes. And Jede—you can’t take blame for that. There were boys who did that to him, and we’ll . . . we’ll add them to the list.”

  “Those boys got the lockwagon,” Asti said, coming over to them. “Hopefully, they’ll stay in Quarrygate for a while.”

  “And Tarvis?” Mila asked. “We need to find him, help him—”

  “If we can,” Asti said. “He might not want our help.”

  “He knows where to find us.”

  “Part of what I wanted to say, Verci,” Asti said. “This place—”

  “It’s not safe, yeah.” Verci had had the same thought. Surely Josie had other secrets here, just like in the bakery. As much as he scoured the place, he doubted he could find them all. “You think we’ve got to burn it out?”

  “I don’t think we should come back here after tonight.”

  “There’s the bakery, but that’s just as suspect,” Verci said.

  Asti nodded. “It’s no safer. You should get Raych out of there.”

  “Go where? To Hal and Lian?”

  Asti sighed. “It would be safer. I haven’t told Kennith yet, but his stable over at the North Seleth Inn has been nailed down by the constabs.”

  “So where are we going to go?”

  “There’s the empty factory, by the d
ead bridge,” Mila said. “It’s where my boys would hide down and flop out, when they could. Decent enough.”

  Asti frowned. “That place is boxed in, nowhere to run. But I’ll take a look. In the meantime, we should get everything we have that we want to keep and hide it in Almer’s shop.”

  “Why there?”

  “It’s a secure enough place, and it’s controlled. It’s all his.”

  “Fine,” Verci said. “But only equipment and such. I think, for now, for tonight, we can consider the bakery and the bunker below as safe.”

  “Safe?” Mila asked.

  “Look,” Verci said, more for Asti’s benefit. “I’ve known Josie a long time, and worked with her longer than anyone else here, save Pilsen. She can’t be trusted—”

  “Especially now—”

  “But she has a style that we know,” Verci said. “She’s not going to hit back at us, not right away. In a couple days, she’s going to reach out and offer us some sort of settlement.”

  Asti frowned, but nodded. “Right. She’s running from us. She’ll lock away from the places we know too well, like the bakery.”

  “So we go back to the bunker tonight?” Mila asked.

  “If we make it through this, it’s as good a place as any,” Asti said.

  “Not as swank as this,” Mila said.

  “You’ll get your share of swank tonight,” Asti said. “How’s your dress?”

  “Vellun and Almer are working miracles. Explain to me what I’m doing tonight.”

  “Basically, we want to get all of us on the grounds. Once inside, it’s a hot run with little plan, when we come down to it. I really don’t like that, but there isn’t much choice. I’m going to be making decisions as we go, and you need to be able to respond to that. Take initiative if something goes wrong.”

  She took that better than Verci expected. “What can I do when that happens? And what’s our ideal situation?”

  “All right,” Asti said. “The ceremony of Saint Jontlen has to do with everyone going off to hide around the house. At that point, Liora and I will be going up to her quarters—”

  “Saints above, Asti, I don’t need to hear that.”

  “To use the trapdoor in her wardrobe to get into the study.”

  “Which she hasn’t used herself, why?” Verci asked. Everything about Liora and why she was pulling Asti in set his hair on end.

  “I’m sure that there’s a reason that I’m not going to like. We’re clear, she’s using me for some reason, and until we know it, I got to play the part and hope I don’t end up the tiger in a cage.”

  “So,” Mila said. “What I should be doing is backing you up in a way that this Liora woman doesn’t notice. Because we’re expecting a double cross from her.”

  “The double cross is a given,” Asti said.

  “Which is what you and Vellun are there for,” Verci said. “We have no idea what we’re going into with that study. We don’t know what Liora wants, or what she’s wanting to use us for.”

  “Or even what we hope to find there.”

  Mila nodded like she understood. “She knows about Helene and Almer, so you’re putting them up front. He’s your driver and she’s your date.”

  “Actually, in the context of the characters, Helene is my sister.”

  “Who decided that?” Helene yelled across the room. She was wearing just corset, skivs, and stockings, and if she had any reservations about being underdressed in front of him and Asti, she didn’t show it.

  “I did,” Asti said.

  She came closer. “I appreciate that I don’t have to play that we want to roll each other.”

  Mila coughed to get Asti’s attention back. Asti took note and continued, “Right, so: she knows about Helene, Verci, and me. And Almer. A big part of Verci’s job is to be the obvious trick we want her to think we’re playing. He’s the secret backup she’ll presume I have. She won’t know about the rest of you.”

  “Are we not playing a trick?” Helene asked.

  Mila mused for a moment. “Jede and Tarvis and their tricks.”

  Verci tried to ignore that. “Of course we are. But we’re giving an obvious trick—Almer and I placing ourselves to back up Asti—to hide the real one. With Vellun, Mila, and Kennith.”

  “Vellun and Kennith will capture everyone’s attention, right,” Mila said to Asti. “So when you sneak off with Liora, I have your tail, and pull you out when it goes bad.”

  “Why do you say ‘when’?” Asti asked.

  “Because I know you.”

  Asti rolled his eyes, and turned his attention to Helene. “Why aren’t you dressed, anyway?”

  “Because Vellun is putting together some dress hoop thing that looks frightful, and I’m waiting. I have to wear this stuff?”

  “We all have our burdens.”

  “I’m going to be a lumbering cow, you know,” Helene said. “But it’s a place to hide some hip-hangers.”

  “See, thinking in solutions,” Asti said. “That’s much better.”

  “Verci,” she said sharply. “Take The Action and the Rainmaker in the hidey-hole with you. If we’re smuggling stuff in . . .”

  “You want it handy,” Verci said.

  She winked and went back over to the table.

  “Where’s Kennith?” Asti asked.

  “Introducing Almer and Pilsen to the horses. I think all three of them are out of their element today.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Asti asked.

  “Kennith made that char-duck again,” Mila said.

  “Chr’dach,” Asti said. “Is that our gig night ritual?”

  Verci shrugged. “It makes Kennith happy, and given what you’re having him do, somewhat appropriate. I actually like it.”

  “All right, whatever else happens, we need to be in carriages, rolling by five bells. The party starts at six, and we’ve got to get across town.”

  “Paint’s barely dry on those carriages,” Verci said.

  “Then blow on it or something,” Asti said. “I’ve got to put on a stupid suit. Five bells.”

  “Five bells,” Mila said. “I better figure out how to hide a rope in my dress.”

  “What is it with you and those ropes?” Verci asked.

  “I’m good with them,” Mila said. “Kept me alive this long.”

  As she went off to Vellun and Helene, Verci turned to Asti.

  “So then what’s next?”

  “After tonight? Josie, whoever else is behind Andrendon, Treggin, and Lesk’s crew. We’ll figure it out.”

  “Not quite what I meant,” Verci said. “What’s . . . when do we try to be normal again? Decent folk of the neighborhood? The Rynax Gadgeterium?”

  Asti took the sides of Verci’s head and pulled him close, touching their foreheads together. “Soon. I promise you, that little boy of yours will not know this life of ours.”

  “Raych already knows it too much,” Verci said. “It came for her.”

  “We’ll keep them safe, keep them clean. You know—you know—” Asti’s eyes started to well up.

  “You haven’t been holding it together,” Verci said. “Last night . . .”

  “I’ve got it under control,” Asti said. “Finish up your gig night ritual.”

  “It’s not—”

  “Of course not,” Asti said. “Just make sure you’re ready for whatever tonight throws at us.”

  “I’m ready for that, brother,” Verci said, kissing Asti on the forehead. “I’ll be there with you. That’s the only thing I need.”

  * * *

  Raych had to admit, Asti had done a fabulous job of cleaning the bakery. That meant she could spend much of the day—whenever Corsi wasn’t being fussy—going through the place to find all the hidden secrets Verci had mentioned.

  The bunker i
n the basement was the most fascinating. The upstairs apartment was comfortable and well apportioned, but this could be more living space—a lovely office or reading room. Or it could be Verci’s workshop. There was no reason why he couldn’t use it that way. It was a perfectly livable room, but Verci was so set on it being this secret bunker and part of all the Old Lady’s mystique, he couldn’t bear it being anything else.

  Sometimes she wondered if Verci and his brother were so stuck in their ways, being sneaky and secretive, that they just didn’t see the obvious.

  She came back up into the bakery to find a man standing in the middle of the shop, carrying a small case.

  “We’re closed,” she said cautiously.

  He turned to her—and she stifled the immediate instinct to scream or run. He was milky-white pale with stringy pitch-black hair. A Poasian. Raych always tried to have an open mind about people from all parts of the world, but a Poasian? That still filled her with dread, even if she felt ashamed for it. Her uncles who had served in the War in the Islands talked about the “ghosts” in a way that made them sound inhuman. This was the first time she had been this close to one. Did any live in this neighborhood? Asti would know.

  “My apologies,” he said with the harsh accent. “The door was open.”

  That was troubling. Hadn’t she latched it?

  “I—it’s a holiday. I decided to stay closed.”

  “Of course,” he said. “A saint day, yes? You seem to have quite a lot of those, and observe them with irregularity.”

  “Me?” Blazes, her voice quivered there. She wished she could hold some composure here, show no fear.

  “Again, apologies. I was referring to . . .” He paused for a moment, as if thinking of the best way to express himself. “In my native language, several ideas translate to ‘you,’ including addressing a national character as a whole. I know nothing about you, an individual person, as we have never met.”

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “Which is a terrible shame, as I engaged in a robust business with the former owner of this shop.”

  “Oh?” Did he mean the baker, or Missus Holt?