by Max Anthony
The clerk was most helpful in locating the city’s records for this subject of Skulks’ interest. Lisan Flamuscrax was a wealthy lady of leisure. Her former husband had been a wealthy gentleman of leisure until he had been found hanging by his scrotum from a third story window of their house with his throat cut. Lady Flamuscrax had apparently been mortified to find herself implicated in this terrible crime against the husband she loved most dearly, but a number of witnesses came forward to attest to the fact that she was practicing her harp all evening in the orangery.
Further records indicated that the now single Lady Flamuscrax’s house was to be found in the most exclusive area of the West district, whilst additional miscellaneous notes recorded the import duty she had paid on four hundred pairs of Rhultian silk bloomers to be two hundred and fifty Solids.
“Four hundred pairs of silk bloomers,” said the clerk. It was one of those things that had to be spoken aloud to see if it brought more sense to the occasion. It didn’t.
Chapter Fifteen
Having committed the local street plans to memory Tan Skulks took only a short time to locate the Flamuscrax residence, though he waited until darkness had fallen before he made any move to approach. The house was four stories tall, expertly built and showing no signs of having had bits and pieces tacked on over the decades. There were walled gardens to the front, rear and all along one side, the house itself being narrow but very deep. Or wide, but very shallow, depending on how one viewed it. Other buildings did encroach slightly, though here in the gentrified area of the city, any disputes over space tended to be fought by the mercantile route of bringing about the financial ruination of rivals, allowing the victor to purchase the impoverished owner’s property at a knock-down price.
Skulks cast his expert eyes over the house, absorbing every detail. There were many windows and all were well-lit, with figures passing regularly in front of them to indicate that the house was occupied and probably by a large number of people. The front gates saw regular activity, with people and carriages coming and going at intervals. He had a feeling that this visit was going to be dangerous and he reminded himself to be on his guard. He also reminded himself that houses of wealthy people tended to have valuable property lying carelessly and forgotten in all sorts of places and if such forgotten property were to fall into his pockets, then who would be the wiser? A man had to eat after all, and food didn’t come cheap, what with these strikes going on.
The walls were smooth and ten feet high with razor blades embedded in the top, so it took Skulks several seconds to get into the gardens. The grounds were perfectly maintained and he marvelled at the fine array which was assembled here. There were Camuli Camulis flowering orange out of season, an expertly trimmed border of Grah-Grahs and most impressive of all, a Gahgee tree which usually only survived in the very warmest tropical climates found in Rhult and some far-flung islands of the Treads Archipelago.
The gardens were unforgivably deserted. “How could one cultivate such beauty and not want to walk amongst it at every opportunity?” wondered Skulks. There was a small gardener’s house located against one wall, the light shining through the lone window indicating that the tender of the grounds was at home. Skulks avoided the cottage and shifted gently and invisibly through the shrubbery, whilst keeping a wary eye out for trip wires or hidden snares. A house this large would normally have numerous entryways and so it proved to be the case here. The pillar-flanked double front doors were magnificent in polished black wood, but also the hardest way to gain access unseen. There was a back door, similarly magnificent. Both of these main doors were situated to welcome visitors arriving by carriage and were made to impress. Two smaller side doors offered more likely opportunity. These doors were positioned to allow egress to the gardens and to provide a more subdued welcome for servants or less-favoured guests. There was also a set of steps leading down to a basement entrance and it was this which appealed most to Skulks. He also gave brief thought to scaling the building to the roof but his thiefly instincts were attracted to the darkness and lurkability of a good basement.
Years of experience as well as the weight of logic told Skulks that well-travelled doors were unlikely to have any sophisticated locking mechanisms or traps, either of a magical nature or otherwise. This turned out to be true as far as the basement door was concerned. Its iron-banded frame was sturdy enough to withstand an enormous amount of impact, but it was only sealed by four bolts and a simple lock. The key wasn’t to be seen, but Skulks imagined it would be longer than his hand and fatter than his finger. The door wasn’t perfectly fitted, allowing Skulks to see that there was no light coming from behind it.
The bolts made a tiny rattling noise as Skulks cajoled them along their runners and the lock made a quiet click as it turned at his command. Pressing his fingers against the frame, Skulks pushed the door open a fraction. It was then that he heard something: a quiet panting noise. In fact, there were four separate panting noises. He cursed; they kept the hounds down here. While Skulks had a way with animals and found they were naturally keen to befriend him, the thing with dogs was that once they’d befriended him they’d follow him around whimpering for attention, scratching at the ground in the hope of finding a bone, or urinating in places where it wasn’t wanted. He could kill them, he supposed, but that might bring about more attention, even discounting the chance of a stray bark being overheard.
He eased the door closed and went back up into the garden, to find that luck had blessed him. One of the side doors was now ajar and the light behind shone brightly into the garden. The source of this unexpected carelessness was soon found – a group of young ladies had come to avail themselves of the fresh evening air. They were in the process of describing a slow arc around the gardens, the sound of scandal-laden gossiping sufficiently loud to stun small flying insects and drive burrowing insects deeper into the soil.
Without delay, Skulks flitted swiftly towards the door, taking care not to stand on any of the rarer plants. He listened carefully and was able to reassure himself that the room beyond was empty. He pushed the door open further and sidled inside, finding himself in a scullery. It was as well-appointed a scullery as one might expect to find, which is to say not very. Three poss tubs, a sink and a table were the extent of the decoration provided to enrich the lives of those who worked in this room.
Exiting the scullery by the lone door took him into a laundry room, with sturdy shelves reaching from floor to ceiling on two of the walls. Most of these shelves contained the usual panoply of carefully folded sheets, towels, bathrobes, tablecloths and suchlike that one might expect to see in the laundry room of a large and wealthy household. There were other things that one might not expect to see in the laundry room of a large and wealthy household - namely five heavy tarpaulins of dark green cloth, each of which occupied a shelf at waist height or lower, with each tarpaulin being wrapped and tied around an object of approximately human dimensions. They were covered with other, more mundane items of laundry, but they didn’t escape the eye of Skulks.
Alert to the possibility of further guests using this room as an exit into the gardens, Skulks was unwilling to take any of the bundles down for a full investigation, but he used a dagger-sword to open an inconspicuous slit down the side of one, in order to reassure himself that the contents were human, rather than animal. Human they were and freshly killed.
The room was poorly lit, but whoever had left these parcels of misery upon the shelves with such gay abandon had clearly not been excessively concerned about their discovery. This either meant that they were extremely stupid, or he was to assume that everyone in the house was party to the murders. As a man of wariness and caution where it was warranted, Skulks went with the latter and resolved that he would be on his utmost guard.
There were two exits from the laundry room, both of which showed light under the doors. Blending himself into the background, Skulks nudged open the first door. A gentleman in the corridor outside, who just happened to be look
ing in that direction observed the door to swing open gently, but without anyone passing through the aperture. This gentleman was smartly dressed in the latest fashions of the Hardened mercantile class, with a heavy gold chain about his neck and thick gold rings adorning his equally thick fingers. Whilst scarcely interested in a door to the laundry room and with his mouth already craving its next glass of vintage Everseen Scrumptious, he nevertheless trundled his way along the corridor and put his head around the door in order to locate the source of its opening. Finding neither sight nor sign of anyone, he uttered a small curse to himself at the wasted thirty seconds of his evening and turned on his heel back whence he had come, as yet unaware that his single gold earring was no longer in his possession.
The new owner of the missing earring, that being Tan Skulks, had found his way into a drawing room three doors further along the corridor. It was unlit and contained a number of expensive items of furniture, many of which were draped in white sheets to keep them clean and free from dust. Skulks had seen countless houses such as this one, usually on an uninvited basis, and was aware that they were often a symbol of status, containing far more rooms than could possibly be put to use. Consequently, half of the rooms in such houses were left covered up and untouched, to be unveiled only as needed or for a particularly important guest.
Skulks had a faint plan forming in his head, for he rarely bothered to form one beforehand. Unfortunately, he wasn’t dressed for it, so he left the drawing room to locate the stairs. As he’d expected, there was a good number of people in the house. In other circumstances they’d doubtless have come to partake of the generous quantities of quality food and drink available at the abode of the wealthy and single Lisan Flamuscrax. Having seen the carelessly stored bodies in the laundry room, Skulks suspected there was more to their presence than simple intemperance.
He passed at least a dozen people, none of whom was aware of his presence, before he located a flight of stairs. In the process of finding these stairs Skulks had gathered a general idea of the layout of the house and discovered that there were many guests in the orangery, which overlooked part of the rear gardens.
Ascending the stairs to the first floor, Skulks listened at six doors and avoided the sight of three guests before finding what he was hunting: the sound of snoring. He let himself into what was a guest room containing that mainstay of all night-time gatherings – a gentleman who has consumed too much alcohol too quickly and been forced to his room to partake of a nap. This particular man was in a sorry state. He was front-side down upon the bed with his velvet trousers around his ankles - not because he had an enjoyment of buggery, but because he’d been too inebriated to complete their removal before falling into a stupor. His addled brain had evidently deemed the bed’s pillow too comfortable and had instead chosen to rest his head upon a half-eaten pork pie. A large patch of urine on his sheets and underwear gave testament to an ill-fated sortie to the chamber pot, which was empty and peeping out from under the bed. The man’s mouth was still functioning at full capacity however, emitting both a rasping snore and a trail of sticky drool onto the pie.
Not one to judge, but surely one to take advantage where it was offered, Skulks cleaned out the man’s pockets, finding eleven Solids and depriving him of a dark gold band from his middle finger. Carefully prying a drool-free portion of the pie away from its berth, he scouted the rest of the room whilst eating his unexpected supper. It was free of traps as one might expect of a guest room. It would be poor form if one’s visitors were to injure themselves upon a spring-loaded poison needle secreted inside the door of the antique chiffonier, or for their nightstand drawer handle to be fitted with a concealed finger-guillotine.
Skulks didn’t need to do much in the way of searching, for his prize was clearly visible and hanging from a picture rail, this prize being a collection of smart evening wear, evidently brought by the now incapacitated gentleman located close by. These clothes were arranged in a fine display, so that their owner might pick and choose more easily. Plucking down a hanger, Skulks held a garment against himself. The man was a little taller and a little broader than Skulks, but it looked like the clothes would provide an adequate fit. He donned a pair of brown silk pantaloons and a well-cut grey cloth waistcoat, partnering it all with a pair of finely crafted white-and-black Rhultian heels, which although impractical, could be shed easily. Skulks’ existing clothes, of which he was very fond, he stuffed far under the bed, hoping to be able to recover them at a later time. His daggers fit neatly into his belt and were concealed by the waistcoat.
Examining himself in a mirror he adopted a couple of poses, thinking himself to cut a dash, but in fact looking like a boob of the highest order. Each person’s life is governed by a set of celestial scales. These scales are rarely perfectly balanced; one person may have a natural talent at music and art which tips the scales one way, but might find this counterbalanced by a shyness in company and a susceptibility to haemorrhoids. Some people are lucky and have these scales tipped heavily in their favour, whilst some people labour the entirety of their lives under burden after burden, illness after illness, without apparent talent or redeeming feature to make something of themselves. Tan Skulks was generally amongst the lucky group, though his incredible lack of fashion sense was one of the traits perched upon the demerit side of his scales.
Finally, to complete his ensemble, Skulks placed his stolen copy of Juniper the Two-Headed God into the top pocket of his waistcoat, arranging it carefully so that anyone who wanted to could see enough of the title to realise what it was. He left his unconscious benefactor asleep where he found him and exited the room, heading back towards the stairs up which he had recently climbed. The man had worn no wedding ring, so Skulks was hopeful that he wouldn’t stumble across a mortified wife who might recognise the stolen clothes he was wearing so poorly.
Having descended once more to the ground floor, Skulks latched onto the first likely-looking target.
“Excuse me?” he spoke out to an unaccompanied lady in her fifties, whom he found coming the opposite way along the corridor. She was slightly dumpy yet buxom also, with her hair arranged in a stack, held in place with bejewelled pins. She had an unflattering red coat covering her shoulders, which fell vertically to knee length and had some sort of one-piece black shirt-and-trouser affair about her body. She looked at Skulks, eyes drawn unwillingly over his clothing, before manners reasserted themselves and she was able to muster a smile.
“Yes, what is it?” Her voice was a mixture of suspicion and disinterest.
“I can’t find my way back to the orangery,” said Skulks. “Could you show me?” He saw her eyes pause for a split second upon the book protruding from his top pocket.
“Yes of course,” she responded. “Have you just got here?”
“Indeed I have. The journey from Needle has been a long and arduous one.” He paused, before announcing, “I’m Trius Gong.” He’d seen this name amongst the paperwork he’d lifted from the trapped wardrobe and hoped very much that the real Trius Gong was not present in the house at the moment.
“Yerda Grotbeam,” she responded. Skulks wracked his brain and it didn’t fail him. This was another name on the list he’d found. It was quite bizarre, he considered - it was beginning to appear that a number of wealthy personages of Hardened subscribed to the cult of a god who may or may not exist and who appeared to be complicit in the murder of a growing number of Hardened’s citizens.
Yerda Grotbeam led him down a series of corridors, across a large dining room containing fifteen or twenty people and into the orangery. It was an orangery in name alone, for no orange trees were grown here, though a series of small trees and plants were arranged decoratively. The room was large, with glass walls providing a fine view out over the rear garden, though darkness at the moment prohibited any attempts to admire the landscaping. There were about forty people in here, standing in groups of four, five or six. Most people had a drink in their hand or a plate with food. As he studied
them, Skulks realised that these people weren’t in fact all wealthy. The majority were dressed in the clothes of normal people – bakers, smiths, tanners. And here they were, standing in the house of a wealthy lady, talking and mixing comfortably.
“The orangery,” spoke Grotbeam to announce their arrival. “Where’s your group?”
“I am here alone,” said Skulks.
“I see. Are you looking forward to the speech?”
Picking up on this, Skulks ventured, “Yes, I have been excited to hear her words for some time, but Needle is a long way from which to travel.”
Grotbeam stared at him as if only now realising from where he claimed to have come. “I wasn’t aware we had anyone up in Needle.”
“The Two-Headed God’s methods are interesting to me,” said Skulks, hoping that she’d categorise him as a man with an unhealthy obsession with murder, willing to travel long distances in order to please his chosen god.
“Perhaps I could introduce you to my friends.”
“That would be most kind of you.”
She ushered him over to a smaller group of three, where she introduced Trius Gong to Ufflot Rumple, Ryanda Tremble and finally to a certain Tiopan Lunder. None of these names were listed on the papers he’d stolen previously from the Underman wardrobe. Skulks took them all in at a glance, immediately noting that which they wished to remain hidden. Rumple was an assassin; he carried six concealed daggers, a garrotte and had poisoned barbs sewn into the outer edges of his shoes. Tremble was an adept and had her tunic tucked into her undergarments, whilst the tall, slender Tiopan Lunder gave every indication of being a mage of some authority and power. Though Tremble had guards and wards about her person, they were few in number and glowed weakly. Lunder, on the other hand, had layer upon layer of sophisticated arcanery woven about himself, intricately detailed and intertwined in a complex pattern of trigger and counter-trigger. Though invisible to most, Skulks was able to see how strongly Lunder’s defences glowed, changing and pulsing to deflect any attempts to unravel them. Had he not known otherwise, he could have mistaken him for another Wielder.