Fog Season

by Patrice Sarath

  That son of a bitch. His trunk had everything he owned, with all of the tricks of his trade. Jax Charvantes should have killed him when he had the chance. Abel would show no mercy now.

  “Who told you I had checked out and wouldn’t be coming back?”

  The clerk looked helpless. He rang the bell on the desk, and Abel leaned against the counter, trying to make it look threatening instead of it providing necessary support. The manager came out of the back, an older gentleman with a neat spade beard and clad in a black suit with a string tie.

  “Can I help you, Mr Fresnel?”

  “Yeah, man. Who tol’ you I wuldn’t be back, and where the hell did you send my things?” He could feel the rage and helplessness welling up. The well-crafted mannikin Abel was gone, the wild, threatened kid in his place.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” the manager said, stiff with outrage. “Master Kerrill said he was an associate of yours and that you had sent him to bring your things to his home, and that you would be staying at the Kerrill house from now on. You are here on Guild business, are you not? And quite frankly, sir, we do not enjoy your playing fast and loose with the reputation of this hotel nor with the respectable young ladies of this town.”

  “Do you still have a room for me?” he said, through gritted teeth.

  The clerk made a move to look through the ledger but the manager stopped him. “I am afraid there are no rooms to be had at the Bailet,” the manager said with crisp tones.

  Abel removed his hands from the counter and stepped back. He doubted that Kerrill had found everything in the room, such as the wad of cash in the hidey-hole behind the mirror, or the vial of anesthetic drops that he had hidden in the window sill, after prying away a tiny bit of wood and replacing it so exactly that one couldn’t see the joins.

  “So you see, you’ll have to ask Mr Kerrill for your things,” the manager went on, his voice stern and unwavering.

  Abel didn’t bother to say anything more. He took his leave, and he heard the furious undertones of conversation between the manager and the clerk. He had no doubt that in short order Charvantes and his thugs would know he had survived his swim in the ocean. He needed a place to hole up and rest until he could come back to the Bailet and retrieve his belongings.

  The crowd outside the Mederos house had dissipated. There were just a handful of stalwarts loitering outside the gate, and they had made themselves quite at home with a fire in a rubbish bin. Yvienne could only make out their silhouettes, their voices and laughter quite congenial, rising and falling in comfortable conversation. They passed around a bottle of what she suspected was strong spirits. She sighed. Were they vagrants or reporters or both?

  She skirted the front gate and went down the alley, letting herself in by the kitchen gate, the key always at her side in her little purse. She closed the gate with care, but despite her efforts the gate squealed on its hinges as it always did.

  “Stop right there,” came a deep voice from the darkness and she obeyed at once. A tiny red glow and the scent of tobacco came to her in the next moment, and she could make out the large and reassuring bulk of Malcroft seated off to the side in the garden, his rifle across his lap. He stood and crushed the cigarillo under his heel.

  “Thank God,” she said, breathing easily for the first time.

  “Yeah,” he said, unimpressed. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “A very long story,” she said, and pushed past him.

  She let herself into the bright and homey kitchen, blinking in the warmth and light, while Albero and Mrs Francini bolted from their seats, their words running over each other, both of them worried and careworn. “Miss Vivi! Are you all right?”

  “We were so worried, Miss Yvienne! Where were you?”

  “You’re hurt, miss!” Albero added. “And your clothes… What happened?”

  Malcroft came in after her, setting his rifle in the corner. The scent of tobacco and leather followed him in.

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” Mrs Francini said. “And, miss, if you don’t mind my saying, you have some explaining to do.”

  Yvienne sighed. “Mrs Francini, no scoldings please. These are unusual times, and this is an unusual house. Did you read the paper? Tesara is alive and causing mischief.”

  “We read it,” Albero said. “But we still have no news of her whereabouts.”

  The front doorbell rang with alarming authority, startling all of them.

  “At this hour?” Mrs Francini said.

  Albero got up but before he could take two steps, Noe came clattering downstairs.

  “It’s the chief constable!” she gasped. “He’s come for Miss Tesara!”

  “You’ve run out of time, Miss Mederos,” Chief constable Renner said. “Produce your sister. Now.” He waited in the foyer and eyed her with steely demeanor, his medals and uniform as impeccable as always. Yvienne faced him with her arms folded, aware that she smelled and looked terrible.

  “Why the hurry, Chief Renner?” she said. “You said we had until Sunday.”

  “That was before your sister attacked an unarmed man, leaving him severely injured, and also destroyed property in the process.”

  “Hearsay,” Yvienne said. “And if it were true, no doubt the fellow deserved it.”

  He took in a deep breath as if seeking patience, and then turned to his men. He nodded his head at them and they took the hint, going outside and closing the big doors behind them. Only Yvienne and the chief were left in the foyer. I’m damned if I will let him into the house, she thought. She gave him a steely look.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, his voice peremptory but rather as if he cared.

  “I was pruning rosebushes,” she said. The scratches were still raw and stinging.

  He snorted a laugh. “You don’t give up, do you? Do you know what happens to habitual liars?”

  “Please don’t tell me my face will freeze that way, chief constable. I’m no longer six.”

  “Keep it up, Miss Mederos, and you’ll go to jail for your sister’s crime if you don’t turn her in.”

  “You have no cause to arrest me or my sister.”

  “We have a great many causes, Miss Mederos. But now I’m beginning to suspect something. You don’t actually know where she is, do you?” A different expression came over him, considering something. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

  If she admitted that she didn’t know where Tesara was, she couldn’t protect her. What if Tesara was guilty of setting fire to the Saint Frey Mansion or of anything else, for that matter? She pressed her lips together, striving to radiate irritation rather than indecision.

  “We can help find her,” he said, and his voice was calm and soft. “If she’s in danger, and she very well could be, we can make sure she’s safe.”

  “Safe in gaol?” she snapped. “Chief constable, I’m not a fool. I’m tired of people thinking I am. I don’t believe a single thing you say about my sister and how you intend to protect her.”

  He dropped the compassionate mask. “All right, Miss Mederos, I’ve had enough. You’re coming with me. You are under arrest for crimes against the peace of Port Saint Frey including arson, vandalism, and battery. Do I have to handcuff you, miss, or will you come peacefully?”

  “Those are trumped-up charges, and you know it,” she shot back, knowing she was fighting a losing battle. Was it too much to ask that she had the chance to change her clothes?

  “We’ll let the magistrates decide that, Miss Mederos.”

  Albero and Noe, who had been lurking, burst into the foyer upon the chief’s words.

  “You can’t! You can’t!” Noe screamed, and she rushed the large policeman, her frail form dwarfed by his splendid bulk.

  “Noe, stop it!” Yvienne snapped. Albero caught the maid and wrapped his arms around her, and she burst into sobs against his chest. Albero looked quite wild himself. Give him something to do, she thought. “Where’s my uncle?”


  As if on cue, Samwell came dashing down the stairs and into the front hall. He was dressed, but haphazardly, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his hair uncombed.

  “Damn you, Renner, you know you have no cause here!”

  “I have every cause, Balinchard, and you know it,” the stolid Renner said.

  “Albero,” Yvienne said, surprised at her own sense of calm. “Contact Dr Reynbolten and have her meet me at the constable headquarters. And uncle…” she looked straight at him. “You’re in charge of House Mederos. I know she – we – will be in excellent hands. Please take care of business.”

  Uncle Samwell gaped. His lips traced her words soundlessly. And then he beamed.

  “Yes, admiral,” he said, and he threw a salute.

  Yvienne was not handcuffed. Instead, she was escorted respectfully through the front gates by Renner and his constables, past the crowd, creating a stir and causing a mad scrum of reporters to run after the closed wagon, shouting questions. Yvienne swayed inside the top-heavy box, trying to keep from panicking. Oh, Tesara, she thought. Please come home soon.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The upstairs hall at Fayres was quiet and dimly lit with glowing camphene oil lamps, and Tesara could hear the sounds of revelry getting underway. Downstairs, the casino and bar were beginning to liven up, and the clickety sound of the wheel, the dice, and the slapping of cards seeped upward to the rest of the house. Tesara crept from Mrs Fayres’s apartment, shawl clutched around her, ready to lie through her teeth if encountered, and failing that, lash out with quivering fingers.

  The townhouse itself was genteel enough. It faced the street, rising three stories above with an impressive brick front and a columned portico. Behind the townhouse was another building, once an old stable, now connected to the house via an upper hallway. Tesara had observed many male customers in the casino flirting with outrageously beautiful women who were too finely dressed and too sophisticated to compare with the soiled doves of the waterfront. She had heard the smirking whispers about upstairs at Fayres. She was no fool.

  Somewhere a clock chimed the quarter hour – it was rising nine o’clock. Tesara hurried up the stairs, only to stop in dismay and back up a step or two to hide in the shadows of the landing. There was a burly gentleman standing at the door at the other end of the hall, arms folded, guarding the treasure behind. Could she brazen it out? She was reminded of Uncle Samwell’s assessment, that she was coming into her looks, but it was laughable to think that she was anything like the beautiful women who captivated the customers. She looked like nothing so much as a precocious schoolgirl.

  “Who’s there?” the guard called out. “Show yourself.”

  She hesitated, then crept forward, crumpling the shawl in her fingers. “I’m so sorry, sir,” she quavered, trying to get the words past her sore throat. At least it disguised her voice. “The mistress asked me to help with the hair tonight.”

  He looked her over in the dim lamplight and she spent an agonizing, sweating moment. Did he recognize her? Did he know about the pesky Miss Mederos who had arrived bedraggled and sick on the mistress’s doorstep? Did the ladies of the night even need someone to help them with their hair?

  “Are you new?” he said at last. Tesara nodded, hoping that it made her seem shyer than she was. He sighed. “All right. Go in.”

  He knocked once on the door and then unlocked it and let her inside. She gave an awkward curtsey and sidled past him.

  Once inside, the door locked behind her, Tesara stared. The brothel was simply splendid. The parlor, for it could be called nothing else, was magnificently furnished, with thick velvet drapery and lacy things, and more brocade, and porcelain crockery, silver trays, and crystal carafes filled with wine and liquor. There were boxes of cigars laid out for the evening’s guests. There were beautifully painted portraits of ladies in all sorts of undress, cavorting with fantastical creatures and mythical heroes. She stifled a laugh, because it hurt too much, and she thought it was a good thing she had a sore throat, because if she hadn’t she would have fallen down laughing with tears streaming down her face.

  “It does take one’s breath away,” drawled a lady on a sofa, reading a book, the author’s name – Suristen – and the book’s title – The Madrigal of Grief – picked out in gilt on the leather cover. She was the only person in the room besides Tesara. She sat up, adjusting her lovely silk wrap. She had masses of flame-red hair, and her lips were painted crimson, the same as her fingernails and toenails. “But what can you do – the gentlemen expect it, and they get very unsettled if it doesn’t look this way. Once we asked Fayres if we could redecorate, and she said yes, but she warned us that profits would go down.”

  “Did they?” Tesara croaked.

  “By a good twenty-five percent. We threw it all back up after two days. The customer’s always right. What are you doing here?”

  “I need help. May I borrow some clothes that the gentlemen may have left behind?”

  The woman gave her a keen look. “They tend to exit clothed, you know.”

  “But not always in what they were wearing on the way in,” Tesara pointed out. She had noted it on many an occasion, when an army officer or other notable did not want to be identified leaving either the casino or the back room.

  “We may not have anything in your size,” the woman said. “But I’ll see.” She raised her voice. “Lucielle, can you come out here?”

  Lucielle was a primly uniformed maid. The red-haired woman explained what Tesara needed and she nodded, unruffled by the request.

  “If the young lady doesn’t mind rolling up her trousers, we can outfit her,” she said, casting a competent eye over Tesara. “I think we’ve got some walking shoes that Estinne left behind.”

  “Good,” said the woman. “But first, it is the custom of this house that nothing is for free. So what can you do for us, Tesara Mederos?” She gave Tesara a level stare.

  Tesara had not given her name. Of course, these ladies were not shut away from the world. No doubt they took a keen interest in the doings of Fayres’s establishment and of Port Saint Frey itself.

  “I will be forever in your debt?” Tesara tried.

  “Well, that sounds like a man, but no. Not good enough.”

  More ladies came out in various states of dress. “What is this?” one asked. “Fayres foisting off amateurs on us now?”

  “It’s the younger Mederos girl,” the redhead said. “Fayres has been nursing her back to health. She wants us to disguise her in boys’ clothes.”

  “Dear girl,” said a woman with bobbed hair and a straight fringe across her forehead, “that never works.”

  Tesara thought about Yvienne and didn’t contradict her.

  “I don’t have money, it’s true,” she managed. “But I have to go. I have to find my sister, before Trune tries to attack her.”

  The atmosphere in the room changed all at once.

  “So it’s true?” the redhead said. “He’s back?”

  Tesara nodded. “He tried to kidnap me.” Again.

  The ladies conferred in a huddle, whispers rising and falling. There were some strong words exchanged regarding Trune’s character. She looked at their hard faces, taking in the knowledge that she had not been Trune’s only victim. As Guild liaison and then Guildmaster, he had the ultimate power over all the guilds in Port Saint Frey.

  What had Trune done to these ladies?

  At last they stopped, and then the ringleader – the redheaded lady – gave her a skeptical look.

  “You don’t look as if you are in any shape to stop him,” she said.

  Tesara could not contradict her. She was sick, in pain, and practically trembling with power. Her head pounded with every heartbeat and her throat was sore. She had the worst ague of her life. If her power could do anything, she thought, it should help me now.

  Whatever you do, don’t use it on yourself. The last words of the Harrier came to her, and though she
knew he meant it as a warning, it only emphasized that she could do such a thing, and that it might work. And it’s all I’ve got, she thought.

  She gave it a try, fingers trembling, seeking to turn her energy on herself. At first she swayed as dizziness overcame her. Then her head cleared, and her pain receded. She felt the strength buzzing in her bones, restoring her, dampening the effects of her illness but not curing her. It felt as if she had been jolted with electricity, awakening her muscles and bones and blood and nerves. At the same time, she knew it couldn’t sustain her for long. She was drawing on the last of her strength to keep herself upright and in motion, and it was destroying her from within.

  That’s all right. I just need it for a while.

  When she spoke again, her voice came out strong, and she stood a bit taller. “I can stop him. I will stop him. I won’t fail.”

  She would spend the last of her power if it meant that she could stop him once and for all.

  The redhead gave her a keen look, taking in the difference between Tesara a moment ago and the girl who faced her now. She made her decision.

  “Right,” she said. “We’ll help, but remember, Tesara Mederos, that when it comes time to acknowledge the trade, that House Mederos will honor her debt.”

  “I promise,” Tesara vowed, hoping against hope that Vivi would understand.

  She could tell the ladies thought it was amusing and diverting to costume her, like dressing a living doll. She was outfitted in a pair of trousers held up with a belt and suspenders, and a white shirt that practically swallowed her, so thin she had become as a result of her illness and lack of food, and whose sleeves had to be rolled many times. She was given a warm wool jacket that came down to her hips, and a knitted scarf from one of the ladies – it was lovely and blue and the woman dismissed her thanks saying, “Goodness, girl, it’s just a scarf. I make one a day, just to keep my hands busy.”

  Estinne’s shoes fit with the help of extra socks. The crowning touch was a wool cap, with her hair tucked underneath it. The women oohed.