Maledicte

by Lane Robins

  “I’m only trying to help,” Gilly said.

  “Help? Buy me a drink,” the intercessor said, staggering away toward the nearest pub. Gilly hesitated before following; he had heard the old man speak, had seen his eyes when he recognized Ani in Maledicte; this might be his only chance for answers beyond his books and pamphlets.

  Gilly sat down in the seat opposite him, wincing at the smells of old stew and drunken leftovers. The intercessor sighed. “The servant in Dove Street, correct?”

  “Yes,” Gilly said, “Your name, Intercessor?”

  “Not that anymore,” the man said. “I’ve given up shouting the truth to a city of the deaf and forgetful. I’ll join them in their willful oblivion.”

  “I need your advice,” Gilly said, gesturing to a barmaid when it looked as if the intercessor would walk away. The barmaid brought two ales to the table and the intercessor settled back.

  “No one listens,” the intercessor said, raising his drink, draining half of it.

  “I listen. It’s my job,” Gilly said.

  “It was mine once,” the intercessor said. “I spoke for the gods. Filtering their words until my ears bled. And now—I’m forgotten along with them. You—do you understand how it was? To be like a child, forced to hear his parents come to blows? Months of strife and no surcease—only the visions of the gods battling each other. Intercessors died in their sleep. Others avoided sleep and went mad. Madder. Then came blessed silence—a silence that rendered our lives without meaning, except to bear the blame of Baxit’s final message. On Xipos, we were stoned. In Itarus, Grigor rounded up the intercessors, sick, mad, despairing, and plunged them into a frozen sea. So now, when the gods stir again, there’s none to hear….”

  “I hear,” Gilly said, his voice ragged, remembering Ani claiming Maledicte in his dreams.

  The intercessor paused, set the drink down, and looked at Gilly. “You do. But then, you should have been one of us. I can see it in your face. Do you dream of tombs, boy? Where the occupants lie sleeping, but restless?”

  Gilly took a gulp of the sour ale, and said, “I do.”

  The intercessor pushed his empty tankard aside, and when Gilly would have gestured the barmaid back, the man shook his head, looking weary. “What would you know?”

  “They’re not dead, are they?” Gilly asked.

  “They’re gods and immortal,” the intercessor said. “They’ve only withdrawn. Was that your question, because I believe you knew the answer already.”

  “I need to know how to break a compact between Black-Winged Ani and Her follower.”

  The intercessor gaped, then said, “She’s a god, and Her compact is more binding than anything mortal man can understand. There is no escape save in fulfillment. Oh, perhaps you could distract Her with charms asking for Baxit’s aid, Her opposing force, but even if He bestirred himself from His indolence, it would only buy you moments. It would not undo Her will.”

  “Nothing can be done?” Gilly asked, aware of the desperate edge to his voice. He hadn’t understood how much he had hoped for another possibility until the intercessor scoffed at it.

  “If you truly have a care for your friend, you will help him accomplish Her bloody goal and complete the Compact.”

  “He’ll die,” Gilly said. “I can’t allow—”

  “Die?” the intercessor said. “You’ve been reading Vengeances by the sensation-monger Grayle. Nothing but corrupt scholarship there.”

  “He’ll survive then?” Gilly said, the relief enormous.

  “Quicker he acts, the likelier it is. But Ani’s compact takes a toll. She grants gifts. Grayle will have told you that in his own hysterical fashion. But She also takes. I once visited a woman who is kept walled in a country asylum. Years ago, she climbed a turret in her wedding gown, carrying a dagger in one hand. She should have fallen. She didn’t. She killed her husband, waiting for his lover. But she was left with the mind of a child. Ani is a creature of instinct and emotion, violence and passion, not intellect.

  “In Elisande’s case, it was a kindness, I think. Her mindlessness. Others have taken their own lives after, unable to bear the remorse, the grief. Ani feeds on their triumph and leaves them nothing. Aid your boy or not, care for him after, but do not expect him to remain the same.”

  “There must be some way to fight,” Gilly cried.

  “There is none,” the intercessor snapped. “Do not treat the gods as if they are human.” He snagged Gilly’s ale and gulped it down, then when Gilly continued to sit in mute misery, said, “Boy—let me warn you of one thing further. I have seen several compacts play out, and never have I seen Her shadow so strongly as I did in your master. Grayle, for all his melodrama, is right in one thing. A certain type of follower, strong-willed, fierce-natured, clever, might be enough to let Her manifest, creating Her Avatar, a mingling of god and man. A creature who could destroy the city.

  “Most of Ani’s children hunger and kill, the compact finished before danger ever arises. But the longer they delay, the more Ani invests of Herself, and the greater the gifts: Immunity to poison. Immunity to hurt. Witchcraft. Finally, transformation of the flesh. If your master is as strong as I fear, you’ll not only lose him, but likely your own life, and the lives of all those around you.”

  Gilly fled the man’s bleak eyes and sought the tranquil dark waters of the nighttime pier, contemplating flight. But his panic paled in the memory of dark eyes and a mouth coaxed to sulky laughter. When dawn crept over the sea in streaks of gray and yellow, he turned his steps back toward Dove Street and Maledicte.

  The house was silent when he returned, creeping through the kitchen door. The sun just risen, even Cook was barely awake. Setting the tea to steep, she jumped at the sight of him, and the teapot clattered from the hearth.

  “Sorry,” Gilly said, recovering it before it spilled.

  “So you should be, sneaking up on a body like that,” she said. “Where’ve you been, Gilly lad?”

  “Out,” Gilly said. Without his asking, she poured him tea. Gilly took the kitchen mug in his hand. He drank it in one scalding gulp, then tipped the cup over.

  It was not what he wanted to see, but in the wake of his conversation with the intercessor, he was not surprised to find that again the leaves gave him no shape but the gallows. He shivered in the warming kitchen. There would be nothing but the gallows tree until Maledicte’s vengeance was done. He knew that now. Another death approached? Let it be Last, he thought, and the end of it.

  “You’re too levelheaded a lad to believe in such things,” she said, wiping the leaves up with a dishrag.

  “Thank you for the tea,” he said, escaping her scolding.

  A light limned the edge of the library door, spilled a faint dusting of gold over the dark, carpeted hall, and Gilly paused before pushing the door open.

  “Maledicte?”

  “Come look at this, will you?” Maledicte said, bent over the desk. “Vornatti’s solicitor, Bellington, brought it over last night after you’d gone. He wanted coin for it. I’m not used to paying for information, Gilly. I gave him what he asked without haggling. If you’re going to be gone all night, you need to teach me such things.” The look Maledicte sent him was faintly accusatory.

  “How much did you give him?” Gilly asked.

  “Ten lunas,” Maledicte said.

  Gilly winced. “Oh, he’ll be back then. I hope the information was worth it.”

  Maledicte took his hand from the scroll of paper and it coiled again. “It’s from Vornatti’s spies abroad. The same ones who told us of Janus’s return. Read it, Gilly.”

  Gilly did so, fighting through the tight script. “Vornatti’s cousin, Dantalion, has an agent in Antyre?”

  “A solicitor, supposedly. Janus and I are torn on what it means that, though we know he’s in the kingdom, he’s made no attempt to challenge the will that disinherited his client. No one’s heard of him at all.”

  Gilly sat down, nerves singing.

  “G
illy, what do you call a solicitor who shirks the law in favor of secrecy and prying?” Maledicte said, eyes dark. “I have a word in mind.”

  “Assassin,” Gilly breathed. “Mal, you must be careful. An Itarusine lord is a dangerous foe on his own, and Dantalion is a crony of Last, and so will know more about us than perhaps is safe. Last could tell him your haunts and your favorite pasttimes.”

  Maledicte said, “Should I mew myself up behind these walls? I do not want to be a prisoner, kept away from all my hard-won freedoms.” He was weary; Gilly saw it in the droop of his mouth, the pallor of his skin.

  “We will hire agents of our own to find this man. Once found, he’ll be no threat. Assassins thrive on secrecy, and Dantalion will have to find another route to recoup his losses,” Gilly said, taking the letter. “I’ll send runners out, and you—go back to bed.”

  “I could crawl into his arms and stay there forever, were it not that our enemies would find us,” Maledicte said. “I know the path I’ve taken, and yet it galls me that I have nothing but enemies at my back. Even I weary of the fight.”

  “You may have enemies to spare, but you have allies as well. Janus, myself, even the king.” Gilly tugged Mal to his feet. “It will be well, how can it not be? Are you not the scourge of the court, the terror of Last?” He cupped Maledicte’s face in his hands, and allowed himself to kiss Maledicte’s forehead. “Go to bed.”

  Maledicte rubbed his cheek into Gilly’s palm like a contented cat, then stiffened and freed himself. “I trust you are right, that finding the man is as good as killing him. Because I intend to do so. I have no time for Dantalion’s nonsense. I have an earl to kill, and an earl to create. Fortunately, though I may tire, Ani does not, and Her blade is sharp,” Maledicte said, with a sudden surge of strength, an angry glitter in the black eyes.

  Gilly, chilled again, watched Maledicte leave the room, and thought of the gallows tree and blood spilled beneath.

  · 22 ·

  Stillheart, mostly used to facilitate battlefield surgeries, is a chancy powder at best. The correct dosage is notoriously difficult to quantify, and many a surgeon has finished his task only to find that the corpselike stillness of his patient is nothing less than death in truth.

  —A Lady’s Treatise, attributed to Sofia Grigorian

  A LITTLE PAST THE FASHIONABLE hour of the evening, Maledicte and Janus were still at home, sitting in moody silence in the library.

  From the dining room, they heard the maids laying the table for their last meal together. Without a word, Maledicte rose from his seat and straddled Janus’s lap. Janus tugged Maledicte closer, resting his chin in the dark, loose curls.

  “Sir,” the newest butler said, entering. “There is a solicitor to see you.”

  “Gilly said Bellington would be back. But so quickly? I must have over-paid him dramatically.”

  The butler coughed. “It is not Bellington, sir, but another gentleman and, from the cut of his coat, foreign. Shall I show him in?”

  “Why not?” Maledicte stood, pushing away from Janus’s chest. “Perhaps he’s heard I sought him and chose to save me the effort.” Maledicte collected the sword, strapping it to his hip, ready for use. “But show him into the dining room. I see no reason to hold back supper.”

  Janus said, “I mislike him coming to us. It seems counter to his mission.”

  “Never question fortune,” Maledicte said. “But I agree, he must be a most confident gentleman indeed.”

  The man stood in the dining room, the lean, well-dressed man Maledicte had seen in the park. Laughing at him. Maledicte’s mood darkened.

  “Maledicte, and Lord Last, is it not? How gracious of you to receive me.”

  “How obliging of you to come to us,” Maledicte said, faintly startled to see that the man’s wary eyes fixed not on Maledicte and his sword, but on Janus.

  “I’ve had a task to do first,” he said, “but with that accomplished, I’m aware of how little Dantalion is paying me.” Unasked, he took a seat at the table. Deliberately, he laid a pistol before him, like an unexpected part of their place setting. “It is primed,” he said. “And quicker to hand than that blade of yours. Still, keep it sheathed and all will be well.”

  “You want money from me?” Maledicte said. “Like some distant relative come a-begging?”

  “You have no relatives,” the solicitor said. “Unless you count a Relict whore. Dantalion chose not to challenge the will outright, not with Ixion, and some say Aris himself, sotted on you. So I sought levers and found such a lovely one, I can barely believe it, even now.”

  Maledicte sat down, leaned forward. “Tell me.”

  The solicitor said, “Not until Ixion takes his seat. I know his reputation and I don’t want him at my throat. I doubt you’d grant me my pension if I had to shoot him.”

  Maledicte’s breath sailed out in a rush. When he took it back, there was nothing but rage filling him, pure, cold, and smelling of feathers. “So far you’ve told me nothing worth a copper.” He poured himself a glass of wine, settled himself, hitching his hip to allow for the sword’s presence.

  “I sought information on this black-haired boy from the Relicts and found nothing at all. As if he never existed. But I did hear stories about Janus. I found a quick talker in a Relict rat called Roach—you know him? A useful boy, hungry for coin, and short on moral qualms. He agreed to act my courier for certain letters if I fail to return to him tonight.” The solicitor reached out for a goblet. “Will you quench my thirst, Sir Maledicte?”

  Maledicte poured the glass. The solicitor’s eyes never left his hands. “Do I have your attention?”

  Janus said, “Roach is a liar.”

  “Only an inadvertent one. He told me Miranda was dead. I thought nothing of it, until I saw you in the park, Maledicte.”

  Maledicte shuddered, shaken to the core by hearing that name unexpectedly voiced.

  The solicitor laughed. “I couldn’t believe it—there you were, in a crowd of blind men. No one takes the time to look past expectation anymore. No one but me. So tell me, girl, what do I do now? Tell Dantalion that the will is invalid, or tell him nothing, and let you take care of me?”

  “I will kill you,” Maledicte said, voice raw with outrage, nearly shaking. He sought control. Murder in an aristocratic house took concentrated effort and planning.

  “You’re nothing but a girl, and I won’t let your man get close enough.”

  Gilly tapped and entered. “Mal, Cook’s waiting to serve.” He paused, eyeing the stranger at the table. “Mal?”

  “This is Dantalion’s solicitor, come to blackmail us. I see no reason he cannot stay, so long as he understands that talking business during dinner is a killing offense.” Maledicte’s thoughts raced, calculating risk against risk, exposure versus letting the man disappear back into the shadows.

  “Your house, sir,” the solicitor said. “But I’m afraid I’ve taken someone’s place; the table is set for three.”

  “I’ll eat in the kitchen,” Gilly said.

  “I think not,” the solicitor said. “I will not trust any of you near my food’s preparation. Come, sit beside me and share my plate.”

  Maledicte lowered his head to disguise his sudden chagrin. He wanted the man dead, wanted it so badly he was willing to take any risk, with Ani spurring him on. He met Janus’s eyes, read the communication there, that they could kill the solicitor before he could do more than wound one of them, but the servants were one wall away, and secrets were hard to keep. Best for the man to die silent and quick. If Dantalion’s man could not trust them with his food, neither could they trust him to leave this house and keep to his word.

  Maledicte dropped his hand to his sword, and watched the solicitor’s eyes follow the movement and narrow. Death wouldn’t be by blade; the man was warier than his confidence painted him.

  “What is for supper, Gilly?” Maledicte said, buying time and thinking there was always poison, an Itarusine’s love, but all Maledicte’s potion
s were upstairs.

  “Oysters from market.”

  Maledicte leaned back as he was served, watching the solicitor, trying to judge whether his wariness was only the usual thing, weapon-focused, or something more troublesome. He picked up an oyster shell, feeling the sharp, rippled edge.

  “Gilly, is it?” the solicitor said. “I’ll let you have the first bite.”

  “Too late,” Maledicte said, dropping the empty shell to his plate. “They’re good, Gilly.”

  “So you say,” Janus said, poking at his with open revulsion. “If you loved me, Mal, you’d never serve them, no matter Aris’s strictures on imported foods. I’ve seen the harbors here. The water’s vile.”

  “The price of tablestuffs is ridiculous; Itarus gets the lion’s share and leaves us to squabble over the rest, driving the price beyond reason. The nobles should learn to eat rats, as we did. Cure their impecunious ways.”

  “Must you bring the past into every conversation, Mal?” Janus scowled. “And we never ate rats. Filthy animals.”

  The solicitor grinned. “Hard to convince everyone you’re Quality when they picture you in rags and rubble.”

  Janus surged from his seat, hand tightening around his dull table knife. Gilly flinched. The solicitor’s eyes swung in Janus’s direction, even at that minimal threat; his hand found the pistol beside his plate.

  “Sit down, Janus. Don’t let him distress you. After all, your breeding, illicit though it was, is surely more genteel than his,” Maledicte said.

  Janus nodded at Maledicte. “Ever my voice of reason.”

  Maledicte smiled back. The temper tantrum had done what he needed, shown the solicitor’s predilections toward conventional weaponry. After all, he had focused on Janus and the dull knife, rather than Maledicte with a better edge to hand.

  “Gilly, I’m done. And you’ve had to share. Would you like my last oyster?” Maledicte rose; the solicitor watched him walk, watched Janus, and rested his hand on the pistol.