by Gaie Sebold
‘I’ll get another cheongsam,’ said Vivian. ‘Not that I don’t want to wear cheongsam. I just don’t like this one so much. It’s too expensive.’
‘How much?’
Vivian told her.
‘Wah, so much ah,’ said Nai Nai. ‘Like that you should just get it tailored. Don’t need to buy from shop. Tailored is cheaper and nicer some more. The seamstress’s phone number is in Nai Nai’s old phonebook. Madam Teoh.’
‘I’ll look,’ Vivian promised.
Nai Nai got up, stretching. ‘Must go now. Scared the demons will don’t know do what if I leave the house so long. You must look after your sister, OK?’
Vivian, doubtful about how any attempt to look after Wei Yi was likely to be received, said, ‘Ah.’
‘Nai Nai already gave Ah Yi her legacy, but I’ll give you yours now,’ said Nai Nai. ‘You’re a good girl, Ah Lin. Nai Nai didn’t have chance to talk to you so much when you were small. But I’m proud of you. Make sure the seamstress doesn’t overcharge. If you tell Madam Teoh you’re my granddaughter she’ll give you discount.’
‘Thank you, Nai Nai,’ said Vivian, but she spoke to an empty room. The curtains flapped in Nai Nai’s wake.
On the floor lay a pile of clothes. Moonlight-sheer chiffon, brown batik, maroon silk and floral print cotton, and on top of this, glowing turquoise even in the pale light of the moon, the most gilded, spangled, intricately embroidered Punjabi suit Vivian had ever seen.
A CHANGE OF HEART
A Babylon Steel story
Gaie Sebold
I leant on the ship’s rail and stared at grey rain hitting grey water, feeling somewhat sorry for myself. I was running. It was something I did a lot back then. Not, this time, from anyone who wanted to kill me; just the end of an affair. We’d both served as bodyguards to a local merchant, and had a lot of fun – rather more than fun, at least on my part. But he’d cooled off. Instead of hanging about with the risk of seeing that face I still loved around the next corner, I decided to get moving.
It wasn’t helping yet.
In this part of the planes they have a legend concerning Meriasen of Kyr, a healer who came from another land to heal a sick queen. She arrived safely but there was a terrible war, and she could never go home. She was so heartsick she had her heart cut out of her breast and placed in a crystal cage on top of a mountain, where she could no longer feel its pain. Right now that sounded like a pretty attractive proposition.
In the absence of somewhere else to put my heart, I’d decided to hang up my sword for a while, metaphorically, at least, and go back to whoring. I was heading for Coriath, where I’d heard that a friend, Deralis, was doing well as a courtesan. I hoped she might see her way to showing me around, help me get set up, maybe introduce me to a decent client or two. I could do with the break, and the healing qualities of some nice, healthy, uncomplicated (emotionally uncomplicated, that is) sex.
Coriath looked chilly and grim, but then a dockside in the rain is seldom the most appealing place from which to view a town. There were a few miserable-looking freelance whores huddled in warehouse doorways; fewer than I was used to seeing, even in this sort of weather. I approached one and she gave me the once-over any half-sharp doxy gives a potential client, but this had a little extra edge to it.
‘Looking for an amourette, love?’ Interesting word. Of all the many I’d encountered it was one of the prettier ones, even if it did sound like some sort of biscuit.
I asked for directions to Deralis’ place. ‘Her? She’s expensive, sure you wouldn’t rather have a nice cosy tumble wi’ me?’ The banter was standard, but her face was strained and she kept glancing past my arm.
‘I’m in the business, honey.’
She glanced up at me, startled. ‘You are?’ She assessed me again, not as a client this time. I saw her noting the weaponry – the visible weaponry, at least - and something passed over her face, a lightening, the promise of sun behind a cloud. ‘Maybe you’ll bring us luck, eh? Hey, I like those hair clips. You wanta sell ‘em?’
I touched the pair of nicely carved curving steel clips I wear. ‘Sorry, love. These are my lucky clips. Can’t bring anyone else luck if I get rid of my own.’ The clips were made for me by a friend. They’re more than just pretty. They come apart, to reveal a pair of very small but effective blades. The sort of thing you can keep discreetly to hand on the bedside table for emergencies without putting the wind up your clients.
She told me the way and I felt her gaze on my back as I walked up the wide, wet street away from the docks.
The house was cosy-looking, built of warm pinkish stone, with a dark green trim. I knocked, and stood as far as possible under the eaves, waiting. Nothing happened.
‘She’s not there.’
I turned around. A young woman in a long leather coat stood behind me, biting her lip, rain running off her wide-brimmed hat. ‘You a client?’
‘No. A friend.’
She was looking me over in a wary, assessing way. I was beginning to get a bad feeling, after the way the dockside doxy – excuse me, amourette – had responded. Something was going on here. ‘I met Deralis a year or so back,’ I said. ‘Over in Thrallick. We kept in touch, and I was hoping to see her, get some pointers on setting up here. Whoring’s legal, here, isn’t it? That’s what her letters said.’
‘Yes, it’s legal.’
I held out my hand. ‘Babylon Steel.’
She took it. Her grip was strong; a spatter of small, shiny scars marked the skin of her hand. ‘Liva Tare.’ She sighed. ‘You’d best come in before we drown.’
She unlocked the door, and led me in. It was nicely appointed, if a bit heavy on the gilt and furbelows for my taste. But that was Deralis all over. If you could paint it gold, add lace to it, or stick sequins on it, she liked it.
‘I’m sorry,’ Liva said, ‘that you’ve come all this way for nothing.’ She took off her hat and coat and hung them on a stand near the fire. She had a strong, attractive face, big brown eyes and a firm chin, but those eyes were sunken in shadowed hollows and her lips had been bitten raw. ‘She wouldn’t mind if I offered you a drink, at least.’
‘Nice place. She’s doing well.’
‘She… yes.’ Liva took glasses from a cabinet and a bottle from another, but her movements were distracted, and she kept pausing as though she’d forgotten what she was doing. Eventually I had a drink in front of me and my boots were steaming. I eased my boots off – the one with the handy little knife sheathed inside always took longer to dry – and put them closer to the fire.
All very comfortable, it should have been, but it wasn’t. Something was definitely up. ‘So, any idea when Deralis is likely to come back?’ I said.
Liva shook her head, then sat down abruptly and put her face in her hands. ‘It’s been ten days,’ she said. ‘Ten days, and another woman dead, and I… gods.’
I waited, then when I was sure she could answer I said, ‘How about you start at the beginning?’
They’d met a few months ago. ‘It wasn’t… I wasn’t one of her clients,’ Liva said. ‘I’m an alchemist.’ That explained the burn scars on her hands. ‘She came to me because she thought I could help her with a potion. I sorted it out for her, and we got talking… she kept coming back, for the silliest things…’ she smiled, sadly, and shook her head. ‘I was so stupid, it took me forever to realise that wasn’t why she was coming to the shop. In the end she just had to ask me straight out. We’ve been seeing each other ever since. I wanted her to stop…’ she looked up at me, flushing dark. ‘It wasn’t because I mind, you know, what she does. Only, two amourettes were killed, and then another, and I asked her to just stop, for a while, you know? I could support us both. At least until they caught whoever was doing it. And she said she would but she had three clients booked who she didn’t want to turn away, so… I waited. She said she’d come to the shop, and I waited. I waited. Then I came here. And that was ten days ago, and they’ve found another body and I kee
p waiting for the next one to…to be her.’
‘You said until they caught whoever’s doing it. You think it was all the same person?’
‘Gods, I hope so,’ she said. ‘Whoever it is takes…’ she swallowed. ‘Takes their hearts.’
‘What?’
‘Whoever kills them cuts their hearts out.’
Liva insisted on getting me another drink, and then she cooked a meal, waving away my objections. ‘Deralis would want me to,’ she said. ‘And it… I like cooking. It helps.’ We all have our ways of coping.
After a good dinner which I devoured and she barely touched, she asked me if I’d stay.
‘What, me?’ I said. ‘Here? Why? I mean, I’d be happy to, but…’
‘You could keep an eye on the place. I’ve got my own rooms over my shop, I can’t be here all the time. Make sure that if… when she comes back, it isn’t all closed up and empty. And…’ she looked up at me, something in her eyes that was a lot closer to desperation than hope. ‘You knew her, and maybe you can think of something. I’ve asked everyone I can think of, but no-one knows anything.’
‘What about local law?’
‘Oh, they’re useless. We’ve got a city guard but it’s just a retirement sinecure for former palace guards. If no-one rich gets hurt they can barely be bothered to turn out.’
‘So…’ who’s going to catch him? I thought, but managed, just, not to say.
‘Please,’ she said, her hands twisting together in her lap. ‘I don’t know where to go for help. I’d ask a mage but the only ones we’ve got are necromancers, and one of those is just starting out – anyway, I don’t see what they could do.’
‘The first place I’d look would be her clients,’ I said. ‘Do you know any of them?’
‘No. Well, I’ve met a few since… but she usually booked them for the evenings and when I knew they were going to be here I didn’t come over.’
‘Did she keep a client list?’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ Liva said. ‘If she did, it’s probably in her bedroom.’
I followed her up the stairs. A graceful back and neat muscular calves above practical boots. Deralis had good taste.
She also had a book tucked into a chest at the bottom of the bed. Clients’ nicknames, preferences and visiting dates were carefully detailed. Thankfully, she was picky and charged high, so there weren’t a huge number.
Like a lot of us in the business, Deralis didn’t write down their real names: that can cause all kinds of trouble if the wrong person gets hold of them. I started to read out the nicknames. ‘Red Head – Cane – Baldy – know who any of these are?
‘I recognise Red Head. He dyes his hair. He just came yesterday, looking for her.’
‘Have you been here much?’ I said. ‘Since she disappeared?’
‘Every evening, just in case … that was when her clients usually came. I was waiting to ask them if they’d heard anything, but even when they’d talk to me they couldn’t help.’
‘All right. You tell me if anyone else has come looking since she disappeared, and I’ll see if I can match ‘em up with the list. Limp… well, I assume that means he walks with one, but…’
‘Oh, yes. There was a man with a limp here two days back. What about from before she disappeared?’
‘Not yet. Just these for now.’
‘Why only these?’
‘Because they thought she was still here. Anyone who didn’t…’
‘…might know she wasn’t.’ Liva nodded. There was a slightly feverish gleam in her eye. ‘See, I said you could help!’
We went through the rest of the list, and ended up with three who hadn’t turned up, or weren’t recognisable. ‘Big Nose Hairy Ears,’ I read. ‘He... OK that’s a new one. Mr Fancy Pants. Maybe he’s a good dresser… oh, no, I see. That’s not a lot of help. This one’s been crossed out. It looks like Rev…Revive? Too much, that’s all I can read of the rest.’ Well, everyone has lines they prefer not to cross.
‘Let me see.’ Liva jumped to her feet and reached for the book.
I hesitated.
I mean, not minding that your lover beds other people is one thing, but reading the details of the services they provide can be a little disconcerting.
‘What?’ Liva said. ‘Oh for the gods’ sake, I know what she does, I’m not going to…’ she glanced at the page, and said, ‘besides, I don’t even know what that means.’ She understood the next bit though, because she flushed, coughed, and said, ‘Oh. Really?’
‘Some people like it.’ People liked much stranger things than she’d just read, and that was just the humans, but I didn’t think this was the time or place to go into it. ‘Right. Well, we can’t exactly go around asking people what they’re into, but...’
‘You could,’ Liva said. ‘Couldn’t you?’
‘What?’
‘You could. Set up here, and tell people you offer the same services, as these three want…’ she looked so pleased with her idea I almost went along with it, but I wasn’t that depressed over my affair ending.
‘There’s a problem with that,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Look, Liva, I like you, and I’m fond of Deralis, but I don’t really want to end up with my heart cut out. I’m still using it.’ However bruised it currently felt.
‘Oh. Oh, I suppose… I’m sorry, I should have thought. It’s just…’ she closed the book, and dropped it on the bed.
I picked it up again. ‘Did she talk about any clients who were giving her trouble?’
‘One, but she wouldn’t tell me who. Just that he was getting insistent.’
I looked at that last page again. Revive, crossed out. Some other things, more heavily crossed out – presumably his particular bedroom preferences. And that phrase, too much. ‘Revive,’ I said. ‘Does that one mean anything?’
‘Revive? No, not a thing.’
‘Liva… do you know if anyone offered her something more permanent?’
‘I don’t…’
‘An exclusive contract, say?’
‘Someone did, yes. But she said no.’
‘Any idea who?’
‘She wouldn’t say, only that he was persistent but she thought he’d got it. You think… But she’d never have done it without telling me! Even if she didn’t want to see me any more, she’d have told me. Besides, we…’ she shook her head and looked away. ‘She’d never do that. Not to me. And what about her things?’ She gestured at the pretty room overcrowded with flamboyant ornaments and gilded lamps. ‘Why would she leave all her things?’
‘It’s not that. If she was taking a contract, she’d probably let her current clients know, that’s just good manners, and good business. It’s just… sometimes, people don’t like being turned down. You sure you don’t have any idea who it was?’
‘I never asked…’ she looked miserable. ‘I didn’t want to know about the clients. I should have asked.’
‘You couldn’t know,’ I said. ‘All right, I’ll see what I can find out tomorrow. Talk to some of the other amourettes. Try and track down those last three clients.’
‘Thank you.’ She gripped my hand, hard; hers felt work-worn and too thin. ‘I’d better go, I’ve got orders to fill at the shop. But please stay here. I’m sure she’d want you to.’
So I did.
I couldn’t settle for a long time. I sharpened my blades, wandered around, found the small back area where a vase lay shattered on the ground. Black, plain, presumably thrown over the wall by a neighbour, not Deralis’ style at all. Looking at the shards gave me the creeps. There had been a bonfire too – the rain pattered on fragments of burned cloth, black and white, puddled wax. Water darkened with ash ran between the stones. Cheery.
Deralis’ bed turned out to be the most comfortable thing I’d failed to sleep in for a long time.
I lay listening to the endless rain hitting the window and running in the gutters. It’s a lonely sound when there’s too much empty bed. Liva
’s face, marked with shadows, drifted through my mind. I wondered what she looked like when she was happy; when she was with Deralis, that big, delicious woman who could play the virgin with any clients who fancied the idea, but who also had a loud, rich laugh and a fund of jokes that even I found astonishingly dirty. I thought of those other women, women whose faces I didn’t even know. Did families, friends, lovers, lie awake tonight, trying to remember those faces, trying not to think of what had been done to them?
And why had it been done? Why that way? Why the hearts?
I finally fell asleep, and dreamed of cold rain falling into the space where a heart should be.
‘Deralis? No, no, I don’t know anyone of that name.’ The City Councillor had guilt written all over him, but not a murderer’s guilt. He fitted the physical description in Deralis’ book so well that I’d just had to ask a few of the freelance whores for ‘big nose, hairy ears…’ They really were incredibly hairy, as though he had a small grey animal living in each one.
I leaned over his desk and whispered, ‘juko fruit.’
He paled, glanced around, although there was no-one else there, and said, ‘What do you want? Money? I won’t succumb to blackmail.’
‘You succumbed to other things quite enthusiastically, I understand’ I said. ‘Look, I just want to know when you saw her last. Was there was anything odd? Did she seemed worried, distracted?’
‘I can’t remember when it was.’
‘Try.’ I stood up. I’m taller than a lot of people and broad in the shoulder, I can loom quite effectively. Especially if I put hand to hilt and glower. ‘Try hard.’
He leaned back in his chair, blinking. ‘All right, all right! I’m thinking!’
I leaned back a little, but kept my hand on the sword hilt, where he could see it.
‘Dofrei! It was just before Dofrei, the Festival of the Dead. It was odd, because she had decorations in the parlour but she was taking them down, before the Festival.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘She said they weren’t hers.’
Perhaps Liva had put them up. ‘So when is the Festival of the Dead?’