A Choir of Lies

by Alexandra Rowland

  “Doing what?”

  Orfeo’s hand was a little clammy in mine. “Hell if I know, Ylfing. He’d find something for you. He’d invent something for you if he had to! He’d give you the best cabin on the ship home if that’s what it took. He’d sleep in a hammock in the crew berths.”

  “Just to get me to come back to Pezia with all of you?”

  “Yes. He knows you’re brilliant. Mevrol de Waeyer thinks you’re an asset—you could be an asset to Simoneto, too, and get better treatment. You could have your pick of positions in the business.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “I know him. He would do it.”

  “But did he say so?”

  “No. Not yet. Dammit, though, I know he would.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it?”

  “I suppose I have.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. A little while. Like I said, I think you deserve better—”

  “But you didn’t know how Sterre spoke to me until just now.” He froze again. “You’ve been thinking about me coming back to Pezia, and it wasn’t to do with Sterre at all.”

  He cleared his throat. “There would be a lot of opportunities for you in Pezia, if that’s what you wanted, if you—”

  “Orfeo.” He flinched. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he said. “Fine.” Clearly he wasn’t fine—still fidgeting, still restless as a child waiting for someone to catch them and scold them. He glanced warily at me, held my eyes for only a moment, and then all the air went out of him. He slumped against the back of the bench. “Do you think you . . . might want to?”

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly struck. “You like me. Is that what all your funny looks have been about recently?”

  He fidgeted again. “Yes?” he said slowly. “Yes. Listen, I’m really sorry. I know I said this was going to be temporary—but then Uncle Simoneto liked you and you were getting along so well with the others, and I suppose I just got to thinking . . .” He glanced at me for just a moment, and I saw again that hopeful, hungry look that had dawned on his face the night I first met Simoneto. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how to do this part with gentlemanly comportment.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I used to like almost everyone I met, so I’ve had a lot of practice. You’re doing fine so far.”

  “It just sort of . . . occurred to me,” he said, still not meeting my eyes for more than a heartbeat. “I just realized that it might be nice. I never really saw the benefits of . . . you know. All that. Liking someone, really liking them, enough to bring them home, enough to do that whole . . . ‘I’m yours and you are mine’ thing. But you’re . . . you. And I saw the way you talked with Uncle Simoneto, and all of a sudden I realized how much better my life could be if you were in it.” He winced. “I’ve just been . . . hoping? Wondering? If you might give me the opportunity to convince you that—look, I’m sorry, I know we had an understanding that this was temporary and that we’d both mind our own hearts, and I thought that wouldn’t be a problem for me, because it never has been in the past. And I realize I’m doing the thing that I’ve always hated other people doing; I’m changing my mind and wanting something else, something that wasn’t discussed before, and I’m sorry, but once I thought of it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I realize, I do realize that you’re too good for me; I know that. Everyone knows it. So I guess I’m just asking you—begging, really; let’s be honest, I’m begging—to give me the chance to convince you that I could be agreeable, because frankly I’m desperate.”

  My heart skipped several beats during this tirade, and by the time he finally fell silent, I was gripping his hand tight. I don’t even think I was breathing.

  “Don’t decide anything now,” Orfeo said when I didn’t manage to come up with any words. “Please. Think about it. All I want is a chance. I don’t get many of them these days and—and this is probably the last chance anyone would give me, the very, very last one.”

  “I—I don’t know,” I heard myself saying. I stammered some other nonsense, fragments and shards, trying to articulate what I meant, and I still don’t know what I meant, but Orfeo—

  “Okay,” he said. He was trembling, and his grip was tight in mine, but he nodded without looking at me. “Okay. You don’t have to know. I’m not going anywhere yet. I’ll—” His voice cracked. “I’ll leave it to you to bring it up if you want to . . . say anything.” And then he took a deep breath, and let go of my hand, and stood up with a diplomat’s smile, a smile full of those benign small falsehoods we link together into chain mail for our hearts: Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? This is not a situation that causes me strife in the slightest. I am certain. I am fine. “I’d very much like to go home now, I think. Are you coming, or do you have other things to—”

  “I’m coming,” I said, standing. “Yes, I’m coming.” My mouth was dry and my hand was empty, and it ached from gripping his so tightly, and it ached too for the lack of that grip now. I flexed it at my side, longing to reach out to him, longing for something solid to steady myself against, and was terribly, terribly unsure whether such a touch would be welcome.

  There was a hired carriage waiting in front of the house, something fine but impersonal, which Simoneto had allotted funds for—even a minor scion must be delivered to a potential business interest in fine style.

  Orfeo and I sat on opposite sides of the carriage in silence and the gathering dusk, listening as the faint patter of rain began again. There was a whole hour that we could have filled with talk, but neither of us said a word. I could have slipped over to his bench and laid my head on his shoulder, or coaxed his down to lie on mine; I could have kissed his forehead and twined my fingers in the soft curls at the nape of his neck. I could have told him—anything. I could have explained what was happening under the surface of me, all the thoughts wriggling like fish down in the murky depths.

  He spoke again only when we reached the inn, lingering in the carriage with his hand on the door. “I want to ask you what you want,” he said. “About a different matter.”

  “Oh?” I managed, faintly.

  “It’s to do with Mevrol de Waeyer.” His voice was calm and collected now. “I wanted to ask you whether you’d like the Acampora syndicate to reciprocate her overture of interest towards us. If you want us to do business with her.”

  “Whether I would want?” I said. “What do my wants have to do with that?”

  He met my eyes then—the carriage had come to a halt beneath the two trees at the innyard’s gate, and there was just enough of a glow from the dozens of hanging lanterns to see him by, or at least the outlines of his features, softly limned in candlelight. He said nothing, merely waited.

  “I won’t get in trouble if you don’t,” I said. “It’s nothing to do with me, and she knows it. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Silence. Calm, quiet, waiting.

  “Why did you say it that way?” I demanded suddenly. “What I want. Why not ask what I think?”

  “Because whatever you want, I’m going to do,” Orfeo said in a low voice, and I fell still. He’d had the whole hour to think just as much as I had, and . . . I think he must have made a better use of it than I did. “Say you want us to pursue this, and I’ll go inside and tell Uncle Simoneto that she’s a ruthless snake and we’d benefit from an alliance with her, and that you agree.”

  “Will he listen to you?”

  “He’d listen to the both of us, if we had an accord on this matter.”

  “I can’t take responsibility for—for this. I don’t know anything about your business, or what would be good for it. I can’t. I don’t want it.”

  Orfeo nodded slowly. “Are you saying you have no preference?”

  “Yes,” I said with great relief. “Exactly.”

  He nodded again. “Then I’m going to go inside and tell Uncle Simoneto that she’s a ruthless snake and I don’t like how she speaks about you,
and I’ll leave it up to him. But I’d wager he won’t have anything to do with her.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said desperately. The coach driver knocked impatiently on the roof. “Come on, get out,” I said, and Orfeo flung the door open and leapt out with more furious, focused energy than I had expected to see. He turned back sharply on his heel and offered his hand to help me alight. I’d already clambered halfway out myself, and I could have jumped out just as easily as he had, but the tight knot of worry in my stomach eased abruptly at the chance to take Orfeo’s hand again, to make this whole unspoken mess a little more right, a little more sensible, with just that one little thing—a hand offered at the right moment.

  I remembered the stranger in the boat from my dream, taking my hand, pulling me out of the water. Maybe that was the message.

  So I took Orfeo’s hand and stepped down, and got my fingers laced tight and stubborn into his before he could pull away again.

  “It makes plenty of sense,” Orfeo said, flipping a coin—a full guilder, I saw, as it sparkled in the lantern light—to the carriage driver. “In entirely mercenary terms, you’re an investment. She doesn’t treat her investment well. Therefore, she’s not as good of a businessperson as she pretends she is, and we ought to be careful about climbing into bed with her. Uncle will see that immediately.” He turned towards the inn, paused, and turned again, facing me, our hands still clasped. “You’re going to go up to the attic and write before you sleep, aren’t you?”

  “Yes?” I said faintly. I generally do—either before I slink into Orfeo’s room in the full dark and crawl under the covers, or after we’ve tumbled into bed together, returning much later, when I’ve made sense of myself again.

  He nodded sharply. “You’re welcome to join me. You’re always welcome. I’d like you to know that.” And then, the barest hesitation. “And if you’d rather not, tonight, I understand.”

  I had to step forward then, had to lay my other hand against his cheek and crowd him back against one of the trees to kiss him. “I’d rather yes,” I said, brilliantly eloquent, between kisses. “I—Orfeo, I—” I wrapped both arms around him and shoved my face against his neck because it was easier to say the next part that way. “Before. Earlier. What you said. I just need to think.”

  “Yes, I expect so,” he said, more wooden than I like to hear from someone I’ve just kissed. “Take your time.”

  I wanted to give him some reassurance, some kind of promise. I could only kiss him again, cupping his face in both my hands, and then he went to Simoneto, and I went up here to the attic and . . .

  And that was everything. That was all of it.

  Might as well do the brave thing and make it all real by putting it on paper. Might as well continue in the way I’ve begun:

  He has feelings for me, and he wants me to go to Pezia. He thinks I could work for his family, which means he’s thinking long-term. He talked about Simoneto listening to both of us, if we had an accord.

  Shipwreck! Gods and fishes! Shuggwa’s Eye ever-watchful! I think that’s what he’s getting at, isn’t it? All this talk of accords and meeting his family and all—I just wrote earlier that he’s not the marrying type, and yet here we are.

  So now I get to stare at myself and wonder what sort of type I am. I’ve never gotten much of a chance to find out.

  After an hour or three of pacing, I went down to Orfeo’s room. I wasn’t making any progress all on my own, just circling and circling in my own head until I was mad with it.

  I didn’t bring a candle; it was late and he was already asleep. I climbed into the bed without undressing, kneeling by him on top of the covers in the dark. “Orfeo,” I said, and kissed the corner of his mouth. He stirred and made a soft noise. “You’re serious about—what you said?”

  “Mmm? Yes,” he mumbled.

  “You want to marry me?”

  He made another soft sleep sound and burrowed into the pillows. “Ideally. It’d be best.”

  I sat back on my heels. “Huh.”

  He squirmed onto his back, and the blankets moved as he untangled his hands from beneath them. “What time is it?” he groaned.

  “A ridiculous hour,” I said absently.

  “You’ve been awake?”

  “You didn’t hear me above?”

  He yawned. “Heard your pen-scratching for a long time.” He paused, then added in a much more awake voice. “Lots of thoughts today, I guess. I fell asleep before you were done.”

  “Why do you want this?”

  “Told you that already. More interested in what you want, though.” He pushed himself up and reached out, his hand knocking into my knee, then my elbow, before trailing down to take my hand. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, beguiling. “I had an idea in the carriage of what I mean to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Give you everything you want.” He pulled me forward slowly, got his other hand into my hair, and kissed me until I was dizzy with it. “There’s stories to be found in Pezia,” he said against my throat. “There’s knowledge, and secrets. You’ve never been there. You haven’t learned that language yet. I’d teach it to you. Like this—” He pulled me closer still, until he was breathing my breath, tracing his fingers across my face. “Baciami ancora. Kiss me again.”

  I did, helplessly. “I don’t know what I want,” I said into his mouth. “You can’t give me everything I want if I don’t even know it myself.”

  “You’ll think of something.” He pulled me again, tipping back into the pillows. “And if it’s in my power, it’s yours.”

  I resisted, didn’t let him tug me all the way over with him. “I don’t know if I can do it. Go with you, be with you like that. I don’t know if I . . .” The words stuck in my throat.

  “I’m not asking you to do it.” He ran his hands down my back and sides with long strokes, like he was gentling a horse. “I’m just asking you to think about it and allow me to make my arguments. Allow me to prove you could be happy. That I could make you happy.” I fell slowly into the pillows next to him, and he curled himself around me, tweaking at the fastenings of my clothes and kissing me, and kissing me, and kissing me. “Anyway, I know one thing you want,” he said, and I was expecting something entirely different, but his manner softened and mellowed. His thumb rubbed along the line of my jaw, and he followed it with ghost-light, dry brushes of his lips. “Ylfing. Ylfing. Ylfing.” Another kiss to my mouth, then, as warm as a hearthfire on a winter night. “Ylfing,” he whispered. “Ylfing, Ylfing, Ylfing.” And I could, again, almost feel my name being written back into my skin.

  * * *

  302. Gods, she’s terrible. Has she no concept of you as a private individual? Does she think you’re friends?

  303. Good gods. For an underlayer? She really wasn’t sparing expense, was she? If the gods truly loved me, you’d come straight back here because you’d accidentally forgotten something, and I’d have the chance to catch you and make you tell me what that felt like. Cotton, gods be merciful. I can only imagine. Even the King of Inacha doesn’t have so much as a pair of drawers made of the stuff. Not even a handkerchief.

  304. Green and gold, eh? Trying to flatter the Acamporas, was she?

  305. Yep. Rude. Once again, what call does she have to be so possessive of you?

  FORTY-ONE

  The storms have come as they were expected to, and the city has settled in to wait them out. The Heyrlandtsche live so close to the sea, and there is so much commerce that comes in that way. Even with the dikes around the city, they are still subject, to some extent, to the rise and fall of the tides and the stubborn persistence of water.

  I was not expected at Sterre’s today, so this morning I borrowed a pair of water-boots from the inn-mistress and walked all the way out to the Rojkstraat. There were no market stalls set up, and most of the shops around the perimeter were closed too, due to the inch or two of water covering the cobblestones. People don’t like walking through it, Mevrouw
Basisi had told me—people might not, but I do. I like seeing the sky reflected on the street. I like the way the footbridges rise up above the water like lazy, breaching dolphins. I like the feeling of approaching the bridge, sloshing through the water, and climbing the slope, and then pausing at the peak of it with water streaming from my boots, and then descending the other side again. I like watching the ripples dancing out from my feet.

  The only place open on the Rojkstraat was the coffeehouse, and it was busier than I expected for so early on a wet morning like this. I ducked inside, shaking the water off my boots on the threshold, and craned my neck to see over the loose crowd inside.

  At the door, a burly mann with a great bushy beard and hairy arms, who had watched me shake the water off my shoes, held up his hand to stop me. “Weapons.”

  “I don’t have any.” I really didn’t. Not even my personal knife; it wasn’t that useful in the city, and I was tired of having to stop to give it to someone every time I entered a public building and then collect it again when I left.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Check me,” I said, holding my arms out to the sides. “I’ve got nothing.”

  He patted me down, sticking his fingers down my shoes to check for hidden blades, and finally grunted. “Fine, in you go.” He also handed me a towel to dry off my boots with, which I suppose is quite the usual thing during the king-tide and the rainy season.

  The air was thick with pipe smoke. Almost all the native Heyrlandtsche of the more would-be artistic set smoke constantly, tobacco from Tash or Zebida in long thin pipes made of porcelain or silver or wood, depending on their wealth. Some, who do not care for the taste or smell, still carry around an empty pipe as an aesthetic grace note. People in Sterre’s circles, those so wealthy they have no need to be pretentious, consider it an unbecoming habit—Sterre herself has forbidden her employees to smoke within her offices or warehouses, or when making deliveries to her clients and customers.

  The air was hazy and dim, and the pictures on the walls were yellowed. “What’s going on?” I asked the mann at the door.