‘Hello, Sunshine. It’s been a while.’
Something wrenched up inside my stomach. I hoped it didn’t show on my face.
‘Take a seat,’ I said, gesturing at the other end of the table.
She tucked in the folds of her dress and set herself gracefully onto the chair. I stared at her for a long while, noting the lines across her face like a broken pane of glass, and the streaks of gray in her once golden hair.
‘You’ve gotten old,’ I said, but not unkindly.
‘So have you.’
‘But I was always ugly, so it’s no great loss.’
‘You aren’t so ugly.’
I let that lie go unanswered.
‘Does Monck know about this?’ she asked. ‘Or is he not a factor anymore?’
‘Let’s just say you no longer have a protector.’
She took that with something approaching equanimity. ‘How did you find out about me?’
‘I had someone watching Egmont.’
‘Fucking child. I told him there was nothing to Coronet, and still you managed to frighten him enough to blow my cover.’
‘I can be very convincing.’
Albertine reached across and pulled my cigarette out from between my fingers. ‘I believe that convention allows the condemned a last smoke?’
I told myself I didn’t feel anything when her skin had brushed up against mine, though I couldn’t quite make myself believe it. I rolled another.
‘You have it all figured out then?’ she asked.
‘Most of it. When I got a chance to look at the whole thing, it was easy enough to put together. Our past history aside, I’m actually quite good at this. Though I admit, the fundamental crux is still a bit mystifying.’
‘How so?’
‘Why involve me at all? I understand, after ten years you don’t have so many pieces left on the board, but still – best-case scenario, you put another shiv into Black House, skew the Old Man’s vision. Seems like small reward, given the risk of setting me loose.’
‘Perhaps I just wanted to see you again.’
My laugh was long, and bitter, and meant to cover how much I wished that was true.
‘You’re worth more than you like to pretend – the Old Man is a hard person to get to, he doesn’t have much in the way of soft spots.’
‘Soft spot? The Old Man hates me like a rabid dog does a frightened cat.’
‘In our business, emotion of any kind is a weakness. Hate obscures the vision near as much as love.’
‘Not quite so much,’ I said.
She winced. I supposed it was a cheap shot, though I can’t say she didn’t deserve it.
Our conversation was interrupted by three loud knocks at the front door. I got up from my seat, one eye caught on Albertine, making sure she didn’t try anything foolish.
Gusicard was outside, more nervous than I’d have liked. ‘He’s on his way.’
‘Everything as planned?’
Guiscard nodded.
I closed the door and went back to the table. ‘We don’t have lots of time. There are a few things I’d like to ask you, before we get to what comes next.’
She raised her hands palms up, then brought them back together again. ‘It seems I’m a captive audience.’
‘Was any of what you told me about yourself true? Or did you just gin it up as cover? The brothers lost during the war, your little sister a student back in Nestria?’
‘Some,’ she said. ‘I suppose not much.’
‘And that house on the coast that you said your family owned. The one we were going to visit one day, that backed out onto the beach. Anything to that?’
She shook her head.
‘Too bad,’ I said. ‘That sounded nice.’
I watched her smoke my cigarette, like I’d watched her smoke a thousand before.
‘You had me picked out that first night I suppose, as an up-and-comer in Black House it would be wise to get your hooks into.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was I the only one? Or were you building a stable?’
‘No one else. You were a big fish – it wasn’t worth the risk, adding on a side project.’
‘But then of course, you would say that.’
She shrugged, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. ‘Believe what you want.’
I wanted to believe her, though that was reason enough not to.
‘Is there anything else?’ she asked.
I’d had other things I’d thought of asking, but sitting there, looking at her, I decided I didn’t really want to know the answers to them. ‘That’s it,’ I said.
She took a long, slow drag, blew slow circles of white past red lips. ‘Then perhaps you’d allow me a question of my own.’
‘You can ask – I can’t promise I’ll answer it.’
But having received permission, she seemed slow to take it. She watched me for a moment, eyes like yesterday, or tomorrow. The flesh around them had withered, but that pair of blues were as bright and perfect as they’d ever been. ‘What happened to you, that last night?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘You mean, why are you still alive?’
She nodded.
‘Maybe I botched my play. Maybe I sent a squad of hitters around the front, just while you were walking out the back.’
‘I don’t believe that. You were not one to make that sort of mistake.’
‘No? I botched everything with you, Albertine.’
She turned away.
I didn’t say anything, content to watch her in profile, to think about what she’d been to me, and who I’d been when I’d known her.
‘What I did …’ she began finally. ‘It was my job.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’ve done worse, in your time.’
‘Much worse,’ I agreed.
‘That doesn’t mean it was all a lie.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘It really doesn’t matter anymore.’
We smoked along in silence. I watched the ash build up along my cigarette with something much like regret. When the ember was down near the filter, I dropped it onto the floor, rose from my chair and opened the back door.
The night blew in on a chill wind. ‘Well,’ I said.
Albertine spent a long moment staring uncertainly at freedom. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Certainly you’ve got some bolthole secured for yourself? False papers, a stash of ochres?’
‘Of course, but …’ she faltered suddenly, lips fluttering.
‘Now would be the time to use them.’
Whether it was real to her was a moot point. It had been real to me. Maybe the only real thing I’d ever had, the only thing that was ever all mine, that I didn’t have to share with this sick fucking world I walked on. And if you can’t keep faith with that then you’re nothing, not a damn thing, not in my book.
I didn’t say any of that. I knew why I’d done what I’d done. She could spend the rest of her life wondering. It was a magnificent sort of vengeance, the best I’d ever gotten.
Finally she got up from the table and crossed over to the doorway, stopping near enough that I got heady from her scent. Then she reached an arm around my neck and brought my face down to hers. It had been a long time since I’d been kissed by anyone like that. I did my best to return it.
When it was over, she touched my face with the back of her hand, smooth skin against scarred flesh. ‘Farewell, Sunshine.’
I watched her walk off until she had disappeared completely into the darkness, watched a while longer to make sure. Then I lit another cigarette, and breathed in deep.
48
I went back to my chair, sat quietly, anticipating the inevitable.
I didn’t have long to wait. The door opened abruptly, two agents filed in one after the other. They took a quick look around, saw I was alone, then went back outside and waited for the Old Man to make his entrance.
He wa
s smiling. Not the smile he usually wore, the plastered-on thing he kept in place to fool bystanders, but a true smile, honest and cruel. ‘My boy, my boy,’ he said. ‘You’ve certainly come through for us, haven’t you?’
‘I do what I can.’
He took a seat at the table across from me. He seemed very happy. ‘Extraordinary, how life works.’
‘Ain’t it, though?’
‘To think that all these years I’ve been cursing your name, furious at your failure to live up to your potential. And now …’ He let himself go silent. ‘You’ve made good,’ he said. ‘You’ve made good in a grand fashion.’
‘Your opinion means the world to me.’
He must have been aware that this was not the case, because after I said it he whittled his face back into its customary smirk. ‘In any case. Where is she?’
‘Albertine?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I’d pre-rolled a cigarette for this exact moment, and I lit it with deliberate slowness. ‘I let her go.’
‘This is hardly the time for humor.’
‘I’m quite serious. I only needed to hold her long enough to draw you out of hiding. And here you are.’
From outside there were the sudden sounds of a scuffle, steel on steel, screams cutting through the night. Then there was silence. Then there was a knock on the door.
‘It’s open,’ I said.
Hume peeked his head in. There was blood on his collar, and a wide smile above it. ‘Everything all right in here?’
‘Just fine, Brother Hume, thank you for your concern. Can you give us a few minutes?’
‘Of course. Just let us know when you’re ready.’ He shut the door behind him.
For the first time in his life – at least the first time I’d ever seen – the Old Man was utterly speechless. He opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he opened it again.
I smoked the remainder of my cigarette in the silence. It was the best damn cigarette I ever smoked.
‘You,’ he said finally, a condemnation and question.
‘Me,’ I admitted.
‘But … security, the rest of my detail.’
‘Guiscard realized which way the scales were tilting. I may have … slipped a finger onto the balance.’
‘That foolish fucking blueblood. The Sons won’t let him last the night.’
‘I don’t think so – Monck doesn’t seem the type to let a good tool go to waste. Not really your concern either way, though.’
‘And the woman? You would let her free, after what she did to you? After her betrayal?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, his final words on the subject.
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘You don’t.’
Some time went by while the Old Man pondered his predicament. Then his blue eyes recovered their customary twinkle. ‘I must say, you’ve done a bang-up job with the whole thing, truly marvelous. Unfortunately, there is one bit you’ve mislaid.’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘You may have hoodwinked the half-wits that abound in your little corner of hell, convinced them of what a terrifying character you are. But the facade of impermeability is just that – your weak points are manifestly obvious to anyone who would care to look, and very nearly as easy to hammer at.’
‘I just sound soft as tissue paper.’
‘You imagined you would make this final play on me, accept the consequences with your family safely escaped.’ He inflated his smile. ‘Oh yes, I know all about that. I’m afraid your friend Yancey was quite forthcoming. I had intended to countermand the order to have them tortured and killed once on board their ship, but … it seems I won’t have the opportunity.’
‘Adeline and the boy, you mean?’
He bobbled a grin up and down.
‘They went out on a Tarasaighn junk this morning.’ I shook my head. ‘Forget it. You slipped – dance long enough, it happens to everybody.’
The grin dropped off his face. ‘You fool.’ His cheeks filled with blood, and his hands shook in front of him. ‘You damned fool.’
‘Now you’re just being rude,’ I said.
‘Anything they’ve promised you,’ he said. ‘Anything they’ve offered, it’s a lie.’
‘They promised me Albertine,’ I said. ‘And I’ve seen her already. The truth is, they want the same thing that I do – you on the end of a spit.’
‘You won’t live to enjoy your betrayal,’ he said. ‘Monck will make sure of that. You know too much.’
‘I don’t imagine my time line would extend out much further had you ended up on top,’ I said. ‘Of course, the point’s moot. What’s coming is coming – there’s nothing either of us can do now but swallow it.’
There was another silence, a longer one. Across the table from me a man accepted his coming demise. It occupied the fullness of his thoughts, and he forgot to keep up his facade of humanity. Absent conscious effort his face was as empty as a doll’s.
‘What I did,’ he began finally, ‘I did for the Empire.’
‘A simple public servant? It’s a little late in the day to pull that one.’
‘Have I grown fat off my position? Do I live in a mansion, do I wear silk and gold? Do I eat goose pâté, served by nubile courtesans?’
‘You’ve gorged yourself on power for two generations – it doesn’t leave much room for any other vice.’
‘Who else would wield it? Bess? She spent twelve hours a day in church and the other twelve sleeping. Albert? He’ll be mad of the pox in two years, you can already smell the rot. I’ve had to spend a fortune to keep it quiet. The Empire needed a steady hand. Needs it still.’
‘It’s unseemly, this attempt at justification. Remember who you’re talking to. I know where the bodies are buried – and I know how many of them there are.’
‘Bodies? Of course I’ve made bodies. Men and women, mothers and fathers by the hundreds and thousands. How many more live because of me? How many more go about their business every day, how many lives are lived happily and comfortably because of the things I’ve done?’
‘There are always a lucky few at the top of the pyramid.’
‘You think the Sons will be any fairer? Any more just?’
‘I suspect Lord Monck will prove to be every bit the bastard that you were.’ I shrugged, considering. ‘Nearly so, at least. Regardless, it’s not something that matters much to me. Tonight isn’t about justice – it’s about revenge.’
‘The war won’t stop with killing me – it’ll start.’
‘War was coming, anyway. All I did was nudge the timetable forward a bit.’
‘You’ll burn it all then?’
‘We deserve to burn,’ I said. ‘You’re just going to go first.’
It was getting late. That initial burst of feeling I’d gotten at seeing the Old Man humbled was starting to fade. I felt very tired. And I didn’t suppose that Brother Hume’s patience would last forever. I picked myself up. ‘Well, then. I imagine the rest of this can continue without my presence.’
‘Give me something to do it with, for …’ he trailed off.
‘For what? For old times’ sake?’ I buttoned my coat. ‘It’s for old times’ sake that I’m gonna let them carve you up.’
He seemed very small there, at the end. In the dim light his eyes seemed sockets, his mouth a void. I knocked twice on the front door to let Hume know it was time to take his turn, then disappeared out the back.
49
My steps were light as a child’s, I had to force myself not to sprint. It was hard to get used to not being dead by now – the whole play had been a hundred to one, I didn’t have any real idea of surviving it. But it was done, and by some strange oversight I was still here. My heart pumped, my lungs drew breath. I was giddy – there was no other word for it.
I boxed myself into composure. It was too early to celebrate, too early by a long shot. I needed to find my way out of Rigus with something approa
ching rapidity. There was nothing here for me, the Earl was ashes, my family gone. And if I stuck around much longer I wouldn’t be sticking around much longer after that. I knew more than was healthy – and even if I didn’t, this was a bad night to be in Rigus. Tomorrow there would be a lot of dead men who’d had less reason to be made corpses than me.
If the Steps decided to play sly they’d send a team of hitters to trail me out the back door. But battered and bruised this was still my neighborhood – I cut a path down the winding back streets and alleys till I was confident a team of bloodhounds wouldn’t have been able to follow along after. Then I made for Offbend with everything I was worth, squeezing the last drops of strength from my body. I needed to go to ground, find a hole to collapse into for a few hours. Tomorrow morning I’d reach out to my contacts at the docks, I knew enough people to call in a favor with whatever ships were still at berth. Most of my coin was waiting in New Brymen, but I had a few ochres stashed away, hell I’d work for passage if I had to, I didn’t know the first thing about seamanship but there would be time to learn, wouldn’t there? There would be time for lots of things.
I could smell the city’s descent, anarchy in the air, violence like wood smoke. My actions had tipped Monck’s hand, we’d see how well he played it. Guiscard might be able to convince some of his colleagues to lay down arms, but he wouldn’t be able to convince all of them. There were plenty of men who knew they’d be worse off with a change of the guard. More of them than would be willing to swing around to the Sons’ way of looking at things, if I had to guess – though they’d be slow to move, especially with the Old Man no longer around to lead the resistance.
Not that any of that mattered to me – I’d meant what I’d told Monck. I didn’t care who ran Rigus, not one damn bit. If the Firstborn kept with me a little while longer, I wouldn’t even be around to see it.
From the Old City to the northern corner of Offbend was a thirty-minute walk. I did it in a flat twenty. My breath was heavy and every part of me ached, but the thought of refuge kept me going, a warm bed to lie down in, a few hours of peace. I had a room above a tea shop, shuttered for the night. The neighborhood was quiet, middle class and residential. That was why I’d picked it.
She Who Waits (Low Town 3) Page 36