Mortal Rites

by Melissa McShane

  Bright yellow globe lights on posts shone on either side of the guard post’s double door. The building had once been some wealthy person’s home, fifty years ago, but the changing fortunes of the neighborhood had subdivided the rest of the homes on this street into apartments and turned this one into a hub for law enforcement. Dianthe led the way up the stairs to the front door, which like all the others stood some four feet above ground level, and pushed it open.

  Once, this door would have led to a narrow entry hall with doors on all sides, opening on other rooms. In converting the building to a guard post, they’d knocked out most of the walls, making the front area one big room with a single well-lit hallway leading deeper into the house. On the right, a battered desk the size of a battleship crowded into the available space. On the left, benches lined the walls, and a few people in manacles sat on them, their expressions vacant or despairing. Sienne tried not to stare, but it was hard not to wonder what they’d been arrested for, and why they weren’t already in the cells that lay just below ground level.

  “Jerome,” Dianthe said to the large man seated behind the desk. “Is he in?”

  “Ho, Dianthe,” the man said with a smile. “Captain’s upstairs. Maybe you can cheer him up—he’s been morose and snappish all afternoon.”

  “That’s unlike him. Thanks.” Dianthe waved and proceeded down the hallway. Plain wooden doors, two on each side, lined the hall, which was floored with bare wood that creaked ominously when Alaric trod across the boards. The hall ended in stairs going up and down.

  “No need to be so cheerful,” Alaric grunted as Dianthe bounded up the steps.

  “Aren’t we in a hurry?” she responded.

  At the second floor landing, Dianthe went to the first door on the left and knocked once before opening it without waiting for a response. “Denys? Is this a bad time?”

  Sienne followed Dianthe into Denys’s office, which was large enough that even with the five of them added to Denys and his desk, it was comfortably crowded rather than packed tight. Denys rose from his chair when they entered. He did look morose—no, he looked angry, which for Denys was so rare Sienne’s friendly greeting died unspoken.

  “Where have you been? I was looking for you,” he said.

  “Out of town, on a job. I sent word, didn’t you get it?” Dianthe went around the desk to kiss his cheek.

  Denys’s frown deepened. “What job?”

  Dianthe took a step back. “Just a job. Is something wrong?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If you have a problem, Renaldi, come out and say it,” Alaric said, his voice deeper than usual.

  Denys ignored him. “Just one question,” he said. “What’s your surname? Your real surname?”

  Dianthe paled. “Denys—how did you—”

  “It’s an easy question.”

  “I said come out with it,” Alaric said, his voice sharpening.

  Dianthe shook her head. “It sounds like you already have an answer in mind.”

  Denys took a step towards her. “Prove me wrong.”

  She shook her head again. “No. Denys, it’s not what you think.”

  “Denys, let her explain,” Sienne said.

  “Shut up,” Denys said. “Dianthe Katraki, I’m arresting you for the murder of Lord Georgius Pontolo. You’ll come with me immediately.” He swallowed. “For the love of Kitane, Dianthe, don’t make me bind you.”

  “You’ll take her over my dead body, Renaldi,” Alaric said, pushing Dianthe aside to face Denys.

  Denys looked up at him without a trace of fear. “You’re no criminal, Alaric,” he said. “This is a lawful arrest. Interfere, and I’ll throw you in a cell next to hers.”

  “You can try,” Alaric said, flexing his arms so the muscles bulged.

  “Stop it!” Sienne said, grabbing Alaric’s arm. “This won’t help anyone!”

  “Listen to Sienne,” Denys said. “She’s sensible.” He looked past Alaric to Dianthe, whose face was white. “How could you do this?” he whispered. “Four years we’ve been together and all that time I thought you were…it was always a joke, that you could be a thief if you wanted, but murder…”

  “It’s not what you think,” she repeated. “Denys—”

  “I can’t hear this,” he said. “Downstairs. There’s someone we’re supposed to contact, to turn you over to the Sileas authorities. We’ll hold you until he comes for you. Then I never have to see you again.”

  “That is so unfair!” Sienne shouted. “She killed that man in self-defense! Why won’t you listen?”

  “So you knew about it?” Denys said, turning on Sienne. “All of you? If it was something so innocent, why didn’t you tell me, Dianthe? Did you think I couldn’t be trusted?”

  Dianthe shook her head. “It wasn’t that simple,” she said. “I thought…it doesn’t matter now. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” Denys said. He glared up at Alaric. “Get out of my way, Ansorjan, or I’ll call in my men and this will get ugly.”

  “Uglier than it already is?” Alaric turned to look at Dianthe. She nodded. Alaric took a step back. He was breathing heavily and his fists were clenched. Sienne’s hand closed more firmly on his arm. The muscles were rock-hard, his arm trembling with the effort of keeping his rage in check.

  “Go ahead,” Denys said, waving a hand at the door. He didn’t touch Dianthe. Dianthe walked out the door just ahead of him, her arms held as tightly at her side as if she were bound. Sienne and the others followed in silence, down the stairs past the first floor landing and on to the cells below.

  Sienne was surprised to find the cell level as brightly lit as the floors above. Somehow she’d thought jail cells would be dark and damp, possibly infested with rats, but these were open and clean. Bars divided the lower level into four cells, each with a bench and a sink with its own pump. One was occupied by a woman who slept snoring on her bench and didn’t wake when Denys opened the door next to her, rattling the bars. “Keys,” he said, snapping his fingers at the guard who hadn’t come to full alertness immediately. “Give me your lock picks,” he said to Dianthe.

  “What are you accusing her of?” Alaric said.

  “I’m not stupid.” Denys accepted the suede roll Sienne was so familiar with, then took Dianthe’s belt knife and her sword and handed it all to the guard. “You’ll get everything back when they take you to Sileas.”

  “Denys, how can you do this?” Sienne exclaimed. “She doesn’t deserve—”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Denys said. He slammed the cell door shut and locked it, then tossed the keys at the guard, who fumbled them and Dianthe’s things and managed not to drop anything. “All of you, out. You can come back in the morning.”

  “You can be damn sure we will,” Alaric growled. “I thought better of you, Renaldi.”

  “Get out,” Denys said, and went back up the stairs, treading heavily.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Alaric said, reaching through the bars to clasp Dianthe’s hand.

  “No touching the prisoners,” the guard said. Alaric turned on him, baring his teeth. The guard’s eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step backward.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Dianthe said. “You have to find Drusilla Tallavena. Stopping Master Murtaviti is more important—”

  “More important than you going to your doom?” Kalanath said. “We cannot let them take you to Sileas.”

  “I’ve been expecting this to happen for nine years,” Dianthe said. “It’s almost a relief that it’s finally come. I feel free, finally.”

  “Dianthe,” Sienne said, and choked on a sob.

  “Go,” Dianthe said. “Find Mistress Tallavena. Stop the lich. I’ll be fine.”

  “You have to leave now.” The guard’s voice trembled, but he stood firm in the face of Alaric’s anger.

  “We’ll be back in the morning,” Sienne promised, and they all trooped up the stairs. D
enys wasn’t there. The guard, Jerome, sat up and regarded them with a pleasant expression that turned confused.

  “Where’s Dianthe?” he said.

  “Ask Renaldi,” Alaric growled, shoving the door open so hard it banged against the wall, sending the sound echoing off the still street and startling the whores. He strode off down the street, faster than the others could easily keep up with. Sienne, trotting along after him, finally gasped, “Alaric, wait!”

  Alaric stopped and turned on her. “We should have done something,” he said.

  “Like what? There wasn’t anything we could do, short of assaulting Denys and getting thrown in a cell. That won’t help Dianthe.”

  “We must do as she asked, and find Mistress Tallavena,” Perrin said. “In the morning, perhaps things will look better.”

  “He said there is a man he must contact,” Kalanath said. “If this is a man we can talk to, maybe we can change his mind.” He didn’t sound very certain.

  “I already have a plan,” Alaric said. “If we can’t get her free some other way, we’ll ambush her transportation on the way to Sileas and break her out.”

  “Alaric! We can’t do that!” But the idea captivated Sienne’s imagination. Fog, to distract Dianthe’s captors, force to break her bonds, and if she only had ferry, she could take Dianthe far away, out of the reach of her enemies.

  “It is premature to discuss the possibility,” Perrin said. “I suggest we find a tavern.”

  “You…want a tavern?” Sienne said.

  “Not for drink. For information. Tavern keepers meet people from all over the city, and one of them may know where The Havens is.” Perrin set off briskly along the street. “We will not be in time to speak to Mistress Tallavena tonight, but it is the best we can do, I fear.”

  “And in the morning, we’ll wait with Dianthe for this man from Sileas,” Alaric said.

  “What if he won’t listen, like Denys?” Sienne said.

  “I don’t know yet,” Alaric said. “But we won’t let her go without a fight.”

  13

  When Alaric pushed open the door to the guard post early the following morning, he took only a few steps inside before stopping. Sienne looked around his arm. The room was fuller than it had been the night before, with a couple of guards standing before Jerome’s desk holding the arms of a prisoner, two more guards sitting on the prisoners’ benches, and a woman with a sergeant’s knot of rank leaning against the wall next to one of the hallway doors. They all froze at Alaric’s entrance. The man at Jerome’s desk, presumably the day shift, held a pen whose nib dripped ink onto the paper he’d been writing on. The guards looked wary. The sergeant openly sneered at Alaric.

  Alaric recovered and continued toward the desk, allowing the others to enter behind him. Sienne stayed close to him, though she wasn’t sure if it was for her own protection or for his. “We’re here to see Dianthe,” he told the man at the desk, ignoring the guards standing there with their prisoner.

  The man swallowed. He glanced over his shoulder at the sergeant, who pushed off the wall and sauntered forward. “And what if I say you can’t?” she said.

  “Then I find your superior and lodge a complaint,” Alaric said. “Prisoners are allowed visitors. Deny us, and we’ll see how big a stink I can make.”

  “Denys Renaldi is my superior. What do you think he’ll say?”

  “He says let them go down,” Denys said, his boots thumping on the stairs. His eyes were bleary, his hair disheveled, and in all he looked as if he’d had a rough night. Sienne almost felt sorry for him, but she remembered Dianthe in that cramped cell, sleeping on a hard bench, and her pity evaporated. She wondered if he’d been down to talk to Dianthe at all. Would he still have looked as haggard if he had?

  Alaric brushed past Denys without acknowledging him and headed for the stairs. “They’re supposed to have an escort,” the sergeant complained. “Captain—”

  “Mathis is down there. He can supervise,” Denys said. “I’m going out for a bit. Send a runner to the Lion when the man from Sileas arrives. I want this over with.”

  Sienne watched him open the door and slam it shut behind him. She couldn’t imagine how much abuse that door took in the course of a day. She turned and hurried after her friends, who’d already headed down the stairs. From behind her, the sergeant called out, “I hope she gets what she deserves. After what she put the captain through—”

  Sienne spun and strode back toward the woman, stopping only inches from her. To her surprised expression, she said, “So do I. Because she deserves justice. Or do you think it’s fair for a woman to have to submit to rape and not fight back? That she’s not allowed to defend herself, no matter what that means? If Denys is going to be a jackass about this, then he deserves what he gets. So shut up and keep your uninformed opinions to yourself, whoever you are.”

  She turned her back on the sputtering woman and hurried down the stairs, fists clenched. It was a good thing wizards needed spellbooks to cast spells, because if she’d been able to cast force as easily as her spark, she’d have blasted that woman into unconsciousness.

  The man seated outside the cells wasn’t the same one who’d been there the previous night. He reclined in his chair, idly watching Alaric and the others standing outside Dianthe’s cell, and showed no sign of distress at the scrappers who’d invaded the cells. The woman who’d slept in the adjacent cell was gone. Dianthe looked as worn out as Denys had. “—food isn’t bad,” she was saying as Sienne reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hey, my mother makes that food,” the guard said.

  “I said it wasn’t bad, didn’t I?” Dianthe smiled at Sienne, and it made Sienne’s heart ache that her friend, in such circumstances, was capable of reassuring her. “Mathis is a fun conversationalist, if you care about birdwatching and horse racing.”

  “Birdwatching? In the city?” Perrin said, turning to Mathis in some astonishment. “I would think watching pigeons defecate on the citizenry would grow old after less than one minute.”

  “There are lots of birds in Fioretti,” Mathis protested. “There’s red-coated warblers, and rock sparrows, and—”

  “You got him started,” Dianthe groaned. “Big mistake.”

  “How can you be so…so relaxed?” Sienne exclaimed. “When you’re going to be taken away at any minute?”

  The smile fell away from Dianthe’s face. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m really not.”

  “Did Denys—”

  “No.” A hard look crossed her face. “That’s over. He’s never going to forgive me for not telling him the truth.”

  Sienne cast a glance at Mathis, who wasn’t pretending he wasn’t listening, and decided not to pursue this line of questioning. Dianthe wouldn’t want to discuss her personal life in front of her captors.

  “Did you find Mistress Tallavena?” Dianthe asked.

  “We learned the locations of a couple of places in Fioretti called The Havens,” Alaric said. He seemed relieved at the change in subject. “Nothing specific about anyone named Tallavena. Once you’re out of here, we’ll investigate.”

  “I’m not going free, Alaric.”

  “We will tell this man the truth,” Kalanath said. “That you are no murderer.”

  “It won’t matter. Whoever it is doesn’t have the power to free me. I have to go to Sileas and pray to Kitane they’ll let me speak in my own defense.”

  “Then we’ll go with you,” Sienne said.

  “No.” Dianthe grabbed the bars for emphasis. “You have to stop Master Murtaviti. It’s a two-week journey to Sileas, and Kitane knows how long the trial will be, if there’s even a trial. That’s more than a month in which he could wreak havoc on the city, or worse. I’ll be—” She laughed, a humorless bark. “I won’t be fine. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “But—” Tears filled Sienne’s eyes, and she forgot what she’d been going to say. There wasn’t anything she could say that would make a difference.

  “We w
on’t let that happen,” Alaric said. He glanced swiftly at the listening Mathis and added, “You don’t have to worry about anything.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Dianthe said.

  “Dare what?”

  “Whatever it is you’re planning. I won’t see you arrested or killed for my sake.”

  “You can’t stop—”

  Footsteps on the stairs interrupted Alaric. Sienne felt an irrational hope spring up in her chest that it was Denys, come to say it was all a mistake. But the man who appeared was a stranger. He was nearly as big as Alaric, but where Alaric was heavily muscled, this man was fat, with an enormous belly and round, rosy cheeks over a thick beard and mustache. He wore his brown hair long and pulled back in a tail, and his clothes were so ordinary Sienne didn’t know how she’d describe them if she had to give someone a picture of him. In fact, despite his size, “nondescript” was the word that involuntarily popped into her head when she looked at him.

  She heard a gasp. Turning, she saw Dianthe had sat down heavily on her bench. Her face was nearly as white as when Denys had confronted her. “Corbyn,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “What—why are you here?”

  The man, Corbyn, took a few steps away from the stairs and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You,” he said to Mathis, his voice a pleasant baritone. “You’re relieved of duty. Wait upstairs until I send for you.”

  Mathis shot to his feet. “You can’t do that,” he said. “You’re not authorized to give me orders.”

  Corbyn glared at him. “Um. Sir,” Mathis added, then looked surprised at himself.

  Corbyn removed a folded paper from within the nondescript vest that strained across his stomach and handed it to Mathis. His eyes never left Dianthe’s. Mathis scanned the paper. His face, darker than Dianthe’s, paled by several shades. “Sir,” he said, this time with great respect. He handed the paper back to Corbyn and almost ran up the stairs.