by Lane Robins
Gilly set a battered tin saucepan on the stove, checked the fire, and poured milk into the heating pan. “No?”
“She was just another Relicts whore. Like me.” The tremble in the rasping voice sounded more like a rattlesnake warning than tears, but Gilly had memorized the nuances of his voice, and spun.
“Shh, shh, don’t do that,” Gilly said, daring to brush his lips over Maledicte’s forehead as if he were no more than an unhappy sibling. “You’re not that; you’re an aristocrat.”
“When he marries—all I become is his whore. Yet I chose this path. Vornatti didn’t matter. I used him as he used me. But once I kill Last—what will I be if Janus is married? Exactly what my mother intended. A rich man’s pet.”
Gilly poured out the milk, added brandy with a liberal hand, and set it before him. “Never seen a pet with so many claws and teeth,” Gilly said lightly. “Drink, and I’ll tell you tales of the court.”
Maledicte brought the cup to his lips, swallowed. “I don’t know why I listen to your sentimental stories.”
“Because you know I’ll put up with your tempers and moods in return,” Gilly said. “But if you’re sick of love, I’ll tell you about the sinking of the Redoubtable and the Deviltry.”
“Is there blood?” Maledicte said.
“It was war,” Gilly said, “There’s always blood. This was during the first days of Xipos, when the gods were still with us. The Redoubtable was captained by Bellane, and the Deviltry by one of the Itarusine princes. Their cannons were loaded with iron, and their chests were packed with gold, the better to coax greedy Naga to their aid. They battled and bribed and bled, throwing sols overboard as often as they fired their cannons, and finally Scaled Naga, god of health and avarice, thrashing below in an agony of greed, raised Himself out of the sea and took it all. Ships, men, cannonballs, and two king’s ransoms of gold. Bloody enough?”
“Mmm,” Maledicte agreed on a hum of pleasure. “No one tried to reclaim the gold?”
“What the gods have touched is changed forever. Better left safely away from men’s hands.”
Gilly rose and fielded the hot bread from the oven, dropping it onto the cooling racks. He took one loaf to the table, found fresh-churned butter in the larder, and settled back at the table. He ripped a piece free, handed the warm bread to Maledicte. “I wager you’ve not eaten today, but wallowed in your temper.”
“Don’t lecture me,” Maledicte said, but he reached out and slathered the butter on his bread.
“Eat, and I’ll tell you another story. An older story of a knight and his squire and their petition to Espit to grant them a child of their own.”
Maledicte rolled his eyes. “And back to love. Gilly, you’re a romantic.”
“It’s an incurable disease,” Gilly said, judging Maledicte’s mood. His eyes were shadowed, drawn with weeping, but the sulkiness had left his mouth; even now his lips curled faintly.
Maledicte finished his cup of milk, walked over to the stove, and poured himself another. He sat down and ate chopped almonds and warmed bread, waiting. “Love stories are too often dull—”
“Should I take a leaf out of one of Vornatti’s pornographic stories, give you ribaldry instead of romance?” Gilly teased.
“Whatever you want, Gilly, I am only your audience.”
“There was a knight—” Gilly smiled as he told the story, not for the subject matter, but for Maledicte’s reluctant attention, like a child coaxed into interest against his will. It was an old tale, and sad. The men’s petition to Espit, the god of creation and despair, had been answered. A mare in the stables swelled with a human child. But during her birthing convulsions, the mare kicked the squire in the throat, and the sound of their daughter’s first cry was mingled with the squire’s death rattle.
Maledicte’s eyes were shadowed again when he finished, his mouth down-drawn; Gilly took a rueful breath and retold it as farce, where the men petitioned Espit, the horse was a stallion; the two men ended pregnant, and the horse…well satisfied. Maledicte’s moodiness gave way to laughter.
“I never guessed you knew tales like that,” Maledicte said when his breath returned.
“I lived with the old bastard for eight years,” Gilly said, “and before that I lived on a farm. It’s only wonderful I don’t talk like that all the time.”
Maledicte stretched his arms across the table, his hands open. “Thank you, Gilly.”
With Maledicte’s bad temper assuaged for the moment, Gilly’s thoughts turned to the wreckage upstairs. “Let’s tidy up so that you’ll have someplace to sleep without worrying about glass shards in your sheets.” He tugged Maledicte to his feet, and herded him up the stairs, ignoring Maledicte’s complaints and mocking claims of being aristocracy.
Maledicte held a handful of shredded lace, and Gilly had the linens stripped and piled neatly, still glittering with thrown porcelain, when Janus returned. Janus opened the door and paused.
Maledicte dropped his bundle, kicked it beneath the bedsteps.
Janus righted the hearthside chair and sank into it. “Temper again?”
“Better out than in, as Celia used to say.”
“Celia used the axiom to excuse her drug fits,” Janus said. He reached down, picked up the boot resting on the hearth, stroked the long scrape down its side.
“Are you angry?” Maledicte asked, crouching before Janus.
“They’re your things,” Janus said.
Gilly picked up the kettle; its spout was cracked and he added it to the wastebin.
After the effort Gilly had taken to soothe Maledicte, he was not inclined to let Janus rile him again so he busied himself around the room.
“What are you thinking about to make you so quiet?” Maledicte said, settling into Janus’s lap.
“About boots. This one is ruined.” He dropped it from his hands, wrapped his arms around Maledicte’s waist. “At least, we consider it ruined. Now.”
Maledicte touched the supple, scarred leather with slow fingertips, tracing the damage. “I haven’t thought about that in years. We could have eaten off a pair of boots like this for a week.”
“You ate boots?” Gilly asked.
“No, fool,” Janus said. “We sold them for coppers, maybe lunas, if Mal did the haggling. Ragmen painted the flaws over, sold them at four times what they paid us.”
“Can’t eat boots, Gilly. They don’t digest, and if you use them to flavor water, it only tastes like feet,” Maledicte said. “If you could get the water at all. I was always thirsty in the Relicts.”
Gilly sat down on the bedsteps.
“Had to put a pebble beneath your tongue to stave off thirst,” Janus said.
“Rise in the dawn to wipe the dew from the walls. But so close to the sea, even dew tastes of salt,” Maledicte said. “I haven’t woken at dawn now in years.”
“I did, at first, no matter that I was in a gilded cage. I woke with the sun, but there was always a pitcher of fresh water by my bed, and later, the maids came to bring me tea.” Janus sighed into Maledicte’s neck. “It seems so hard to recall being hungry.”
“I remember hunger,” Maledicte said. His mouth drew down as if he felt that bite in his belly now, bread and milk and nuts notwithstanding.
“You were always hungrier than I was,” Janus said. “It’s amazing you haven’t gone to fat with the feasts you can have now.” He raised his hand, circled Maledicte’s wrist, spoke in a voice near dreaming. “It was so hard. And no one cared if we starved.”
“Not our mothers,” Maledicte said. “We’re well rid of them.”
“They ate what they would out of our hoard, and if there was nothing left, well then, wasn’t it past time for us to go get more? Never mind that we had to steal or beg for it.”
“You make me hungry now,” Maledicte complained.
“I can’t help you with past want, but if you don’t mind a simple dinner, I can make that,” Gilly said.
“Thank you, Gilly,” Janus said.
Gilly startled at the lack of condescension in Janus’s voice. Gilly nodded and went out the door, wondering what Janus was thinking. While Maledicte was all temper and secrets, Janus’s apparent openness was still harder to read.
MALEDICTE UNDRESSED IN THE NEAR darkness of his bedchamber, the lamps both turned low, watching his shadow flicker and shrink. If he listened carefully, he could hear Gilly and Janus discussing Amarantha below in the unusual silence of a house emptied of servants. Maledicte chose not to make the effort, and let their words fade into a pleasant murmur like the crackling of a low-burning fire.
Carefully, he concealed his padded corset in the back of the wardrobe, trading it for a crisp white nightshirt. He caught sight of his reflection, ghostly in the mirror, and lingered, touching the snowy folds of cloth, the blunt cut of his unbound hair, and wondered, in a melancholy moment, if Amarantha hunted sleep attired in silks and lace.
But he wore silks aplenty during the day, and in the colors he chose. He went where he pleased; he carried a sword. The thought of the sword reassured him; the familiar lean length of it beckoned.
Unsheathing it, he sparred with shadows until the sulky set of his mouth shifted into a fierce grin, until the dark hair on his nape grew damp with the effort. Two final, quick slashes sliced the wicks from the oil lamps.
He woke to sumptuous darkness interrupted by wavering golden light, a flame in the room. His hand opened and closed, found the surety of the hilt in his palm. “Janus?”
“Who else?”
“I thought you were for home tonight,” Maledicte said, opening the bed curtains to allow himself the sleepy pleasure of watching Janus undress by lamplight, all planes and angles, alternately shadowed and limned in flame. The fine hairs on his arms and legs gleamed.
“When I could be here?” He slid into bed, all warm limbs and skin, and Maledicte sighed into the feel of him.
“And you’ve brought your wardrobe with you,” Maledicte said, catching sight of a valise by the door. He smiled and pushed Janus back into the nested pillows, arranging him for his own comfort before resting his head in the juncture of Janus’s neck and shoulder.
Janus raised up enough to tug at the bed curtain, sealing them into a cocoon, then lay back again. “I’ve scandalized the court once by wearing the same clothes when I should not. I won’t do so again. Damn.”
“Hmm?” Maledicte said, half drowsing.
“I left the light burning.”
“It will burn itself out,” Maledicte said. “We’re rich. We can waste lamp oil.” He yawned, rubbed his cheek over Janus’s chest and finally chose the spot over his heartbeat.
“It’s not the oil, nor the light that bothers me,” Janus said, tightening his arm around Maledicte’s shoulders. “It’s those cupids. Watching.”
Maledicte’s slackening mouth quirked into a smile; he let out a few puffs of silent laughter that stirred Janus’s hair on the pillow. “I suppose we could hire someone to paint them over, but I loathe the smell of paint, and I hate the fuss and bother.”
“You love fuss and bother,” Janus said, tenting his elbow over his eyes. “As long as you’re inflicting it.” His voice slowed, relaxed; his body slowly un-tensed, stretching out to fill the space. “Rats take it!”
Maledicte jerked back to wakefulness. “What now?”
“Your damn sword bit me. Why in hell have you given it its own pillow?” Janus sat up, dislodging Maledicte. A bleeding scratch etched the width of his biceps, a line of darkness against the paler skin, as if the night had left its own mark. “Look at that.”
“I wanted company,” Maledicte said.
“You have mine,” Janus snapped, pushing the sword out of the bed with all the distaste of a man removing vermin.
Maledicte’s mouth tightened as the sword hilt rasped along the edge of the bed before falling. “Don’t dump it there. You’ll wake in the morning and tread on it, and that will be my fault too. Get up and put it away.”
“It’s your sword,” Janus said, dabbing at the scratch with the lace edge of the pillowcase.
“You left the lamp burning.” Maledicte drew the blankets more firmly about his neck, burrowing after warmth. After a moment the sheets rustled and the mattress shifted as Janus ceded. Maledicte rolled over, stared at the ceiling, his mouth curling. “While you’re up, will you—”
“Will I what?” Janus interrupted. “Make you tea? Bring you a biscuit?”
“Since you mention it, I am hungry.”
“You should have stayed to dinner then,” Janus said. “Gilly makes an acceptable cook.”
Maledicte smiled. “Thank you, Janus, for being kinder to him.”
“He has his place,” Janus said. “As long as he realizes it’s not in your bed, I have no quarrel with him.” His face, exaggerated by faint light, stayed grim, belying his words. “Where do you keep this blade?”
“As with all my favorite possessions, I keep it near to hand,” Maledicte said. “Set it beside the trunk. There are biscuits in the trunk also.”
Janus paused, his hand on the lamp, then sighed. “Your sword by your bed, the sweets within reach—I am surprised you do not have Gilly sleeping outside your door. After all, he is also one of your favorite possessions.” He fished the tin out and tossed two biscuits toward Maledicte’s outstretched hands. “Will those suffice, or should I stay my hand on the lamp?”
“Put it out,” Maledicte said, nibbling on the first biscuit, cupping his palm to catch the tender crumbs, keeping them from the sheets. Belated recognition of Janus’s words filtered through his mind. “Gilly is no possession. You cannot own a friend.”
“You own him as surely as you owned Roach,” Janus said, moving through the darkness. He finagled his way beneath the sheets, drew the curtain shut. “I do not understand it,” he said, tugging Maledicte into his arms. “I make friends easily. You offend people with every outborne breath, and yet you end with worshippers. Roach, Gilly, even Aris.”
“And yourself?” Maledicte asked, wiping his fingers on the coverlet.
“No,” Janus said, catching Maledicte’s hands, and kissing the crumbs away. “I know you too well. I can only be your lover.”
“Only,” Maledicte said. “Isn’t that everything? Let them follow me as they will. I will follow you.”
· 20 ·
A T TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, the elaborate lawns and paths of Jackal Park swarmed with aristocracy exercising their mounts and strolling along the rows of honored vendors permitted to hawk their wares in this playground. Maledicte clutched the reins and tightened his legs about his steed, trying not to collide with anyone, tensing as they passed the barricade that kept the antimachinist protestors from encroaching. If they shouted or threw stones, as they were wont to do—
“He’ll have you off if you don’t relax,” Janus said, frowning. “Vornatti taught you dancing, dueling, and etiquette, but not horsemanship?”
“Vornatti tried,” Maledicte said.
Janus sighed. He slowed his horse, reached out, and drew Maledicte’s hands back on the reins. “Don’t clench.”
“They can’t like being ridden,” Maledicte said, but forced his hands to loosen. Beneath him, the horse stopped feeling like a pile of agitated muscle.
“Better,” Janus said.
“Still, I don’t see why we had to ride,” Maledicte said. “And at such an hour.”
“This is the hour to be seen, you know that,” Janus said, shaking his hair free from his collar.
“I’d rather not be seen falling off a horse, thank you,” Maledicte said acidly, but followed Janus along the hedge. The hedges, carved into hounds and hares, alternately pursued and fled as they passed. Ahead, the trail broadened to incorporate the promenading aristocracy, the small, decorative carriages, and more riders.
Beside him, Janus drove his horse into a sudden, flashy canter. At the end of the path, he slowed to a showy halt. Maledicte kept his horse to its nervous walk, glaring at the amused glances
he garnered. A thin, dapper man in an Itarusine frock coat laughed aloud, teeth flashing within his neat ring of mustache and beard, and Maledicte spurred his horse forward, drawing up beside Janus. “Was there a purpose to that display?”
“Mating dance,” Janus said, smiling. “The air is sweet, and courting is everywhere.”
Maledicte’s lips softened until he followed Janus’s gaze and found it lingering on two well-attended women promenading along a side path. Their dresses were the height of fashion, and their eyes were raised, discreetly watching Janus.
The older woman was well into her fifties, Maledicte knew, but as un-lined as powder and potions could make her. The younger woman’s beauty needed no such aid. “And Amarantha Lovesy is easily impressed by horse-men,” Maledicte finished.
“So they say,” Janus said. “Will you excuse me? I do not think my chances so good that you should come with me.”
“Then tell me why I accompanied you at all?” Maledicte said. “Why I must rise and ride with you, when I hate horses and despise mornings?” His horse crow-hopped beneath him, and Janus caught its bridle.
“I thought you’d prefer witnessing my wooing of Amarantha to imagining it.”
“No,” Maledicte said. He kicked his horse and sawed on the reins, trying to turn its head. Janus cantered away. Maledicte’s horse, as restless as he at being deserted, made an attempt to follow. Maledicte yanked the reins; the horse danced beneath him, and Maledicte slacked his grip, clutching its mane.
“Too much beast for you? Perhaps you should join me for a stroll instead.” Mirabile dimpled at him and tucked her gloved hand over the curve of boot and stirrup. Lacking his sword, Maledicte’s hands knotted around the riding crop; he was startled to find her alive and well after her disappearance into the Relicts. Maledicte had not dwelled much on her threats, but to run across her of a sudden—he found himself remembering the animal fury in her eyes. To see her so poised now when he knew her enmity made him cat-nervous.
“No steed for you, Lady, or are the rumors true—have you sold your riding habits for pin money?” He was rewarded by the tightening of her rosebud lips.