Heroes at Risk

by Moore, Moira J.

  “I would think that an expensive undertaking, Healer Cree,” said Taro.

  “It is, but my patients are willing to pay for the superior quality of their care.”

  Ah. Medicine for the wealthy. I shouldn’t have been surprised that such a thing existed. I wondered if she would treat people from the riverfront if they could scrape together enough money to pay the fees.

  The woman was staring at me in a way I did not like. “Are you quite well, Shield Mallorough?”

  The actor laughed then, and the explosive sound was too big for the room. “You don’t want her as a patient, healer,” he boomed out. “Her sort are notoriously bad payers.” He laughed again. The laughter seemed to physically bounce off the walls.

  From the look the healer was giving the actor, she found him about as hilarious as I did. “What injury have you done to your hand, Shield Mallorough?”

  Oh, that. “I burned it on heated metal.” Zaire, did that make me sound stupid.

  “Is that dressing being changed daily?”

  “Yes, Healer Cree.” Ben was insistent about it.

  “With a vinegar and soda salt compound?”

  “I have no idea.” Well, I was pretty sure there was no vinegar involved, and for that I was properly thankful. That would hurt.

  “Find out.”

  I was tempted to salute.

  Fines resumed the introductions. “This is Grace Ahmad, high master of the Construction Guild of High Scape.”

  High Master Ahmad was an elderly lady, her brown skin heavily lined, hands gnarled by arthritis and resting on the head of a sturdy cane. There was something solid and settled about her, and she merely nodded in return to our greeting.

  “Is Morgan going to be here?” the actor demanded. “Or is he only late?”

  “He promised he was coming,” Fines said with a look of amusement. “You know as well as I how much that is worth.” He then looked a little alarmed. “Not that he is not a man of his word,” he said to me, quickly. “It is only that he gets caught up in things”—the actor snickered—“and sometimes it makes him forgetful.”

  There was an exchange of glances that made me curious. It led me to believe there might be something off about this Morgan. I wondered how rude it would be to ask.

  “So, Dean,” said Fines. “That play of yours.”

  The actor grimaced and groaned. “I am not, alas, in charge of the repertoire.”

  “Or the script,” Ahmad added. Her voice was crinkly. “But surely you have some influence over the selection?”

  “One would think,” Gamut sniffed. “I have warned Beezly—”

  “The owner of the theater,” Fines clarified for the benefit of Taro and me.

  “That contracts were made to be broken and I would have no difficulty leaving a house so ready to debase my talents. There are other theaters.”

  So perhaps I should forgo attending his play. I had been planning to go. I was likely to see any play that had Gamut in it. But now, even if the play would be something I would normally enjoy, knowing that Gamut despised it would make it impossible for me to see him in character.

  “Have you ever thought to put your hand to writing yourself, Dean?” Fines asked.

  “Writers,” Gamut snorted. “Such temperamental creatures where they have no right to be. Always flying into hysterics if you change so much as a single precious word.”

  “I believe I have heard some expression,” said Healer Cree, “that if it hasn’t been written on the page, it cannot be acted on the stage.”

  “Aye, aye, I am not saying playwrights are not without their uses, but it is the players who breathe life into their words, and give shape to their characters. Players are what give a play-wright’s work meaning, for if scripts are not made into plays, they may as well never be written at all. It’s not as though anyone reads scripts.”

  I did.

  The same servant who had greeted us entered the room, a middle-aged man, very lean and with a shocking white mane of hair, trailing in behind her. “Morgan Williams,” she announced before curtsying and vacating.

  Interesting. Apparently he had no honorific of any kind. I couldn’t remember ever meeting an adult with no title. It implied that he had no occupation at all.

  “Morgan!” Fines greeted him. “What can I get you to drink?”

  I found it interesting that Fines was serving everyone, and that there were no servants remaining in the room. I had never spent much time among people of my family’s or Taro’s family’s class, but what little exposure I had taught me they used servants if they could afford it. Fines could clearly afford it.

  We were introduced to Morgan Williams, and as he was introduced to us we were told, “He owns the Mercury Brothels.”

  “Really?” Taro asked with sincere interest. I raised an eyebrow at him and resisted the urge to ask him if he’d ever visited one of those brothels. These people were strangers and I wasn’t comfortable teasing Taro in front of them.

  “You’ve heard of them, then?” Williams asked with a slight emphasis on the word “heard.”

  “Aye. I’ve been told it’s unusual for one person to own more than one brothel.”

  “I should hope that’s not all you’ve heard about them,” Williams said a little huffily. “We also accommodate a wider variety of tastes. Except, of course, anything involving animals or children. We don’t deal in perversion,” he sniffed.

  I bit back a smile. There were those who believed that paying for sex was a perversion all its own.

  Another servant stepped into the room and then stepped out without saying anything.

  “Supper is ready,” Trader Fines announced.

  We followed Fines through a corridor to the dining room, which was considerably longer than the table it held. It appeared to me that most of the leaves of the table had been removed to allow our small number to sit around the table in comfortable proximity to one another. The table was almost completely obscured by an array of dishes, most of them covered, and by each chair there was a wine stand holding a dark bottle. “I would beg your indulgence in the informality,” Fines said as he closed the door. “We prefer to entertain without servants always getting in our way.”

  “Ears are too big,” Gamut muttered, and the silence that followed seemed oddly tense.

  “So, everyone, please take a seat,” Fines invited, surprising me by seating himself at the side of the table instead of one of the ends. “We don’t follow any rules for seating. I find that a little pompous in a private home.”

  Well, all right, then. I took an end seat, just to make a point. There was a small brown clay pot at my place, and one at each place of the others. Everyone except Taro and I took the lid off the pot, dipped out some of the substance, and rubbed it vigorously on their hands. “Please try it,” Fines prompted with a smile. “Ayana created it, to cleanse the hands before eating, and it’s relaxing.”

  I lifted the lid from the pot. The contents, an off-white translucent paste, had a pleasant, clean scent. It spread smoothly onto the skin with no noticeable grease. It was nice.

  “Ayana,” Fines said to the healer, who had sat at the head of the table. “I believe you have the main course before you, but I propose that everyone dip into whatever dish is placed in front of you and pass it to the right until everyone has had access to everything.”

  The next several moments were spent in silence, following Fines’s suggestion. It was an odd way to have a meal served, but it had to be fashionable or otherwise common, because the other guests easily handled the platters that were small and light enough to be held with one hand, with utensils and portions easily manipulated from platter to plate.

  The soup wasn’t even in a tureen, but in a silver jug for pouring into the small bowls unusually placed to the upper left of the dining plates.

  All of the food was piping hot, though, and delicious. Unusually delicious. I couldn’t remember ever eating anything that tasted quite that good. It was really astoni
shing. And soothing on my stomach.

  “Please try the wine,” Fines prompted, though Gamut and Ahmad were already filling their goblets. I joined them. The wine was red, not my favorite, but it was lighter than most reds I’d had before, and I enjoyed it.

  “This is excellent wine, Trader Fines,” said Taro.

  “Richard, please. And I’m pleased you enjoy the wine. It’s one of my best sellers.”

  “The best wine on the market,” Williams drawled, sounding impatient about it, like it was something he had heard too many times before. But Fines saluted him with his goblet as though it were a genuine compliment.

  “And you’re my most reliable customer,” he said.

  Williams shrugged. “My clientele like it, and they can afford it.”

  I was curious about his bordellos, and I had a thousand questions to ask. I’d heard of bordellos, of course—some of the best plays took place in them—but I’d never given the reality of them much thought. But then, I’d never sat down with someone who owned one. Would it be rude to ask him how he got into the business in the first place? That had to be a fascinating story.

  “So tell me, Dunleavy,” said the healer, who had the food on her plate in discrete little piles, no one item touching another. “Which theory do you prefer for explaining how Shields and Sources become Shields and Sources?”

  Damn it, why did I always get that question? Taro was right there. Why didn’t she ask him? “I feel it’s just one of those things. Just like being born with any other kind of talent.”

  “There are those who believe talent is inherited.”

  “Yes,” I said, because that was one I’d heard often enough.

  “So that is a theory you agree with?”

  What did it matter? Shields and Sources were born, and that was good, and why not leave it at that? I was no expert on the subject. What would I know about it? She was the doctor. “I don’t agree with it, necessarily. I don’t disagree with it, either. I really don’t know.” And I never really thought about it.

  “Are there others in your family who have this talent?” she asked.

  “A cousin on my mother’s side is a Shield,” I told her. “He is the only one I know of.”

  “Taro?”

  He plastered on one of the fakest smiles I’d ever seen him use. “Just me,” he said. “For I, Madam Healer, am unique and far outside the ken of the Karish ranks.”

  “Hm,” said Gamut, perhaps in recognition of the only other person at the table who was as melodramatic as he.

  “I’m serious,” said the healer. “Where does this ability come from, if it is not a matter of breeding?”

  “It’s just happenstance,” I said.

  “Or luck?” Ahmad suggested.

  I would have felt fine about agreeing that it was merely a matter of luck a few months earlier, before people were buying harmony bobs and killing cows with their bare hands in a futile quest for luck. Now I was afraid to use the word, afraid of the meaning listeners might take from it. “Happenstance,” I repeated.

  “Do you think there’s any way to influence happenstance?”

  Wasn’t happenstance beyond the reach of any influence? Wasn’t that the nature of happenstance? “I can’t imagine how.”

  “Well, let’s take that Yellows’s fiasco a couple of years ago,” Ahmad said. “You two were there, were you not?”

  “We were so honored,” Taro answered with a bitter twist to his words.

  “And are the rumors true? That the dinner was just an elaborate ritual for their gods?”

  “More like a big trap for aristocrats,” said Taro. “With very bad wine.”

  “Do you believe what the Reanists believe? That killing aristocrats calms the world?”

  “Of course not,” Taro scoffed.

  “So there were still events happening even while aristocrats were being abducted and killed?”

  I was glad that I wasn’t being asked that question. Because the truth was, no events threatened over the months that the Reanists were abducting and killing aristocrats. That didn’t mean one had anything to do with the other, but try convincing some regulars of that.

  “If the Pairs are doing their jobs properly, there never are events,” Taro answered smoothly.

  “And you, Dunleavy? Do you believe there might be any magical potential in killing aristocrats?”

  Aside from ridding ourselves of some deadwood? “I don’t believe in magic,” I said. I wanted to say there was no such thing as magic, but I had the feeling that in doing so I might offend our hosts, and possibly some of their other guests. “And I’ve been given no reason to believe that if magic does exist, the blood of aristocrats is any different from the blood of anyone else.”

  Gamut was snickering.

  “I find it entertaining,” said Ahmad, “when a Shield claims not to believe in magic.”

  Claims? “I don’t understand,” I said, my voice nice and flat.

  “What do you think you do, if not magic?”

  Ah. We’d encountered this argument before. “It is a talent we are born with. From what I have learned of the magic people are currently exploring, it involves the casting of spells; it is something one studies in order to become proficient at it. We don’t cast spells. There are no specific ingredients or words that we use. We just do it. It’s natural to us.”

  “But perhaps there are many forms of magic,” said Fines. “People who are born magical, and people who must study to acquire magical skills. Just think of it, we’re sitting down with two magical beings.”

  What a ridiculous thing to say. I almost winced.

  “Have you noticed,” Cree asked, “that the incidents of spells that have worked have all occurred in specific locations about the city?”

  “Spells have worked?” I retorted, and I knew I sounded sarcastic, but I couldn’t help it. She was a healer. Wasn’t she supposed to be smart?

  “There has been some dispute about it,” Cree admitted. “But the people performing the spells have claimed they work.”

  Huh. “And they all live in the same place?”

  “You should read the news circulars more often.”

  Aye, I knew that.

  “Speaking about rituals and their supernatural results,” Williams interjected. “Ahmad, it took only eight months to have that crater at Center and Dove streets fixed. How was that accomplished?”

  Ahmad shot him a crusty look.

  The conversation moved on to other things, and after dinner we moved back to the parlor and drank more alcohol. That was where Gamut started telling stories about his early days in the theater, about humiliating costumes and missed lines and sets that collapsed midperformance. He had a brilliant knack for description and a way with accents, and he had me laughing so hard it made my back hurt.

  It was a pleasant evening, but I didn’t know why Taro and I had been invited. These were all tradespeople of one sort or another. And they were all older than us. What interest could they have in us?

  I never liked to be the first to leave a gathering—I was always afraid the host would think I was anxious to get away—but all of a sudden my stomach started to slosh, and no one else was making any signs of moving, so Taro and I were the first to say our thanks and farewells. Fines sent out a servant to flag down a carriage for us.

  “None of them had their partners there,” Taro said once we were one our way.

  He was right. I hadn’t really noticed or thought about that. But, “I’ve been to a lot of parties where people didn’t bring their partners.” Though, granted, it wasn’t the rule.

  “People in positions like that always have partners, usually even marrying them. To handle things while they work, like buyers or other contacts. Except Dean, I guess, but even he would bring someone. They all would, to a social event. But they didn’t even talk about having spouses or partners, or offer excuses as to why they weren’t there tonight.”

  “Are you saying it wasn’t a social gathering?” I as
ked. “What else could it be? Why else would they meet? They could be a group of friends who had grown up knowing each other, which would explain why partners and spouses weren’t welcome.”

  Taro shrugged. “Maybe it was. I don’t know. I’m just saying it felt strange.”

  I decided I didn’t care. It wasn’t likely that I’d ever encounter Fines or any of the others again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I was taking Cree’s advice and reading news circulars. I used to read them regularly, but I had fallen out of the habit while on Flatwell. Which was unfortunate, because there were all sorts of interesting things in news circulars. Like a long editorial ranting about the transfer of so many Triple S Pairs with no replacements, accusing the Triple S council of negligence in its duty to an important city like High Scape. I wondered whether it would be appropriate to tell the writer that High Scape hadn’t been threatened with a single event for weeks, if not longer. For all I knew, such information would cause that same writer to complain that the remaining Pairs were a waste of resources.

  “Shield Mallorough.”

  The sudden voice made me jerk in my chair, and I glared at Ben, who was standing in the doorway of the parlor.

  He didn’t appear to notice. “You’re up early.”

  “I slept poorly.” Lately, I was always sleeping poorly. It was getting annoying. “Have you been away? I feel like I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

  “Is that why you’ve taken your wrap off your hand?” he chided, carefully taking my right hand in his.

  The burns were still discolored and tacky. I’d had no idea burns took so long to heal. “That seemed safer than using something harmful out of ignorance.”

  “It is safer to leave the wrap on. The plaster remains viable for several days. I’ll use a stronger plaster today. Hopefully that will address any damage you might have done.”

  Hey, he was the one who left without telling me how to take care of my hand.