Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (12 page)

Old habits die the hardest, and even despite fifteen years of being blind, Durnus’ was to wander to the windows and stare out at his city, imagining the slope of its countless roofs, its cobbled capillaries and veins. Occasionally he would even wander onto his balcony and lean over as if he were watching his people.

As the old Arkmage pressed his forehead against the cold glass of the window, he mentally churned his distant counterpart’s words over in his head. One stuck out like a thorn, snagging at him:
No.
Of all the words they had traded, that, and its punching stubbornness, was what made Durnus sad.

Time, for immortals, can only be measured in what others lack of it. Disease and age held no sway over Durnus. The sun could set and rise again and it meant nothing. Another day in a sea of thousands. These days, time was only apparent to him when others were running out of it. Modren and Elessi, for example. The shortest of marriages, and now she lay in bed, swiftly running out of time. Tyrfing too, and his unwillingness to tell Farden the truth. Farden’s daughter and her surge to the north. Soon it would be all too late, and that is a strange thing for an immortal to feel. Only in these senses was he painfully aware of time, of every single second that inexorably slid past, slippery and elusive. For all his mastery of magick and mortality, it was painful how useless he was against time.

Durnus drank his wine quickly, as though it were in danger of evaporating. Soon he found himself nudging noses with the bottom of the glass. He poured himself another and went back to the window.

After an hour of staring into nothing, there came a knock at the door, then a creak as it opened. Durnus barely noticed it. Four glasses of wine will make anybody distracted, even immortal Arkmages with the hearing of a god.

‘Anyone in ‘ere?’ called a voice, finally rousing Durnus from his thoughts.

‘Who is that?’ he challenged, wine in hand.

‘Jeasin.’ Ah, the woman Farden had brought from Albion. The blind one. The courtesan, so the others had tactfully put it. The whore, in other words.
What was it with Farden and women?
‘The servants said you were in ‘ere,’ she muttered. He could hear her shrugging.

Durnus nodded. ‘That I am. And to what do I owe the interruption from a lady such as yourself?’

More accustomed to the stunted vocabulary of Tayn, Jeasin wasn’t used to such formality. It was why she had found Farden so intriguing in the first place. His accent and his words. Normally, if a person spoke like that, then they were Dukes, or lords, or nobles, or rich, or something of that sort, and therefore utterly untrustworthy. She was having a hard time shaking that preconception. ‘You sound busy. Mayhaps I’ll leave you to it.’

Durnus called out just as she was closing the door. ‘Would you like some wine?’ he asked.

Jeasin shrugged again, borrowed clothes rustling, and mumbled something that might have been a yes. Durnus took the click of the door shutting for his answer. ‘Four steps forward, mind the chair. Two to the right. Forward three,’ Durnus recited, as he felt the ridges and edges of the bottles. ‘Red, white, blue, or purple? Or gold, if you are that way inclined?’

‘Wine. Colour don’t matter to me.’

‘Gold it is.’

Jeasin followed the Arkmage’s instructions. She soon found herself at what felt to be a dresser, and soon enough a glass of wine was placed in her hands. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever met another blind person before,’ she said, absently.

‘Is that a good or a bad thing?’

‘Different, I s’pose. You know your way around. That’s useful. This place is so big I don’t dare leave my room.’

‘Is that why you came to mine?’

‘Can’t talk to walls.’

‘Lonely then.

‘Didn’t say I was lonely. I said you can’t talk to walls.’ She sounded offended.

Durnus chuckled softly. The wine was making its way from his stomach to his head. ‘Farden warned me you had a temper,’ he said.

There was a clink as Jeasin found a table to put her wine on. ‘Rich, coming from that bastard.’

Durnus was intrigued. This woman sounded almost like Elessi, in the way she spoke of Farden, and it wasn’t just the accent. ‘The marital status of his parents during his birth aside, how did you come to follow him here?’ he asked.

Jeasin laughed. ‘Follow? No.
Dragged
is more like it. Didn’t ‘ave a choice.’

‘Dragged? I find that hard to believe.’

A snort. ‘How well do you know that mage?’

The Arkmage put his chin on his knuckle. ‘I knew the one that went away better than he knew himself. I knew his uncle too. The Farden that came back,’ Durnus paused, ‘I haven’t made my mind up about him yet.’

‘Well, he ain’t like any man I’ve ever known. And I’ve known a lot,’ replied Jeasin, unabashed as always about her profession.

Durnus leant back in his armchair. Before he’d returned, nobody had told stories of Farden. He was a sore subject. They had just mumbled and shrugged him off. The old Arkmage smiled. ‘Tell me about him then,’ he said, sipping his wine and keeping the bottle close.

‘Well, the Farden that I know is a strange sort. Used to come by once a year maybe. Then twice. Then once a month. He was comin’ to the cathouse for six years before he asked for me. He was gentle, I s’pose, compared to most. Quiet, too. Think he said ‘bout four words to me in the whole evenin’. Part of me just thought he was just satisfyin’ a curiosity, you know? Like most of the other men. Want to know what a blind girl was like to fuck, pardon my cursin’. Thought I’d see him just the once, but then he came back the next day. Then the week after that, and the more he came back, the more he would say. A word here and there, just as he was leavin’. A whisper or two. Askin’ me about the house and its girls. What I liked, what I didn’t. He was a regular, soon enough. I used to find him waitin’ downstairs with the other girls. His hood would be up and his face down, just waitin’ for me.’

‘For what?’

‘ ‘Til I’d finished with whatever man I was with.’

‘Ah,’ Durnus cleared his throat, ‘patient, for Farden.’

Jeasin sipped her golden wine and nodded. This old man seemed to want to hear the story, so she went on. ‘Generous too. Paid well, he did. Other girls used to try to get a piece of the action. He weren’t havin’ any of it. I once heard him turn down three at a time, for the price of a song as well. He just kept starin’ at the floor and shakin’ his head, just waitin’ for me. So it went for months and months. Sometimes the Duke…’

Durnus raised an eyebrow. ‘Duke?’

Jeasin nodded. ‘Kiltyrin. Whatever Kiltyrin wanted, Farden would do. I never asked much. Don’t want to know too much. The guards that came to the house blabbered enough that I never ‘ad to. Those pillocks don’t know what tongues are for,’ she paused here. She seemed to notice the stillness in her listener. ‘You didn’t know ‘bout the Duke?’

‘No.’

‘Do you w…’

‘Carry on.’

Jeasin shrugged and settled back into her own armchair. ‘You don’t need eyes to see bruises. I could tell by the way he walked into the room sometimes. You must know what it’s like. Cracked rib ‘ere. Broken finger there. Whole arm once. Barely said a word to me that day. He was the Duke’s man, if you know what I mean. There were plenty of other men, but he was the Duke’s
man
. The little blade in his boot. Came out to play quite often too. Sometimes he was away for weeks at a time. Didn’t see him for six months once. Came back with a bag of coin so big I could ‘ave used it for a pillow. I actually did, for a while. He’s partly how I bought the cathouse outright. Became the molly.’

‘Molly?’ Durnus asked. ‘I have to admit I am not the most familiar with courtesan parlance.’

‘ “Call a whore a whore, but treat her like a lady.” That’s what the old city watch master used to say. He kept his word too, for the first few tankards of ale. I make no apologies for what I am,’ Jeasin shrugged again. ‘Molly’s a mother cat. Head of the cathouse.’

Durnus nodded. ‘I see.’

‘Kiltyrin. You know him?’

‘Unfortunately.’

‘Then you know?’

‘Know what?’

Jeasin sniffed. ‘Mayhaps you don’t then. Not much to tell as I didn’t see it ‘appen. I’m just here because of it.’

‘What, woman? What?’

‘Farden killed the Duke. Finally snapped if you ask me.’ Here Jeasin shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Though part of that might be a little of my fault,’ she confessed. Durnus seemed to be waiting for her to press on. She sighed. ‘A cathouse ain’t without its troubles. Mine wasn’t any different. Rowdy men. Drunk men. Poor men. Thievin’ girls. An’ jealous wives to boot. The usual. I used most of the coin I got to bribe the guards and keep ‘em happy. I’ve never told Farden, but I think he ‘elped, in a way. Men knew not to talk about him, let alone get in his way. Knowin’ I was his favourite girl gave us a little protection.’

‘So how is Farden murdering the Duke your fault?’

‘I’m gettin’ to that. So, Farden came back from a job one day. Quiet as you like. When he left, there was a man waitin’ outside my door. Bald man. Spoke a bit like you do. Suspicious sort. He had a proposition.’

‘Which was?’

Another sigh. ‘He wanted to watch Farden and me, when he came back to see me. I thought he was like that, you see. More interested in dogs, than cats, we used to say. I said yes. Sounded like he worked for the Duke, an’ he paid me in jewels.’

‘Jewels?’

‘A pile. Enough to set a pair of guards on the door and feed the girls for a year without me workin’. It was everythin’ I’d ever wanted for them. Protection. The Duke’s favour.’ She almost sounded wistful.

‘Then what?’

‘So Farden came. The man watched through a little gap in the wall he’d made. An’ I never saw him again.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows. Never told me.’

‘What happened to Farden?’

‘He was gone for weeks. I assumed he had another job from the Duke. Apparently they tried to take his armour. Duke wanted it for himself. And they did it too. Nearly killed Farden in the process, strung ‘im up in a tree and stabbed ‘im with a spear, so that Loki said. Somehow he survived, and the next thing I know I’ve got an unconscious guard captain lying on my floor and Farden blackmailin’ me. Forced me to leave my girls, he did. Said the guards would blame me for harbourin’ him.’ Her tone grew harder. ‘Fucked me over. Sorry.’

‘I do believe it sounds like it was you who did a bit of the fucking, so to speak.’

Jeasin snorted, but she didn’t reply. She knew he was right. ‘Perhaps I did.’

Durnus took a deep breath. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to hear this after all. ‘And here I was thinking he had become a simple hermit by the sea.’

‘He was that too.’

‘I can see now why he did not want to divulge any of his past,’ he mumbled, swirling his wine. He swirled a bit too vigourously and spilt some on his sleeve. ‘His bloody, murderous past,’ he added, wincing at the lump that had formed in his heart. It made sense, in a way.

‘He likes to keep his secrets, that mage does. Kept all of it from me for more than ten years. Maybe it’s the wine talking, but I’d always dreamt of endin’ up here. Krauslung. Or Essen. Or Kroppe. Any of the places the men used to talk about. Anywhere but that bloody island and its Dukes. Maybe Farden did me a favour, in a way.’

Durnus sniffed. ‘I know the feeling.’

‘Something tells me that you actually do…’ Jeasin hummed.

‘I had another life once, before this one,’ Durnus began, and then finished with the same breath. ‘And that is a story for another time.’ He drummed his nails along the rim of his glass. He had suddenly been struck with an idea.

‘Suit yourself.’

Durnus shuffled to the edge of his armchair. Jeasin could feel him coming closer. She held her wine close. She could smell him. He smelled of tiredness and dust. Of thick cotton robes and wine. ‘Now, young lady,’ he said. ‘I would bet good coin that you ran a few hustles in your time? Hmm? A con or a swindle here and there? That is what whores do, isn’t it? When they are not whoring, of course.’

Jeasin sensed something behind his words. ‘We’ve been known to dabble,’ she replied coyly.

‘Good, good,’ said Durnus. ‘Why play fair, when you can play dirty?’

Malvus was in high spirits. Leaving the sea-fog to hug the gates, he strode into the Arkathedral with a slight spring in his formal step.

Years of planning. Barrels of coin spent. Months of coercing and pulling the tiniest of strings. Working his way to the top of the Copse, and now to the twin thrones. By all logic, his tongue should have been worn to a stub. More so than any other council member.

Politics, like most things, could be compared to war. The battleground was the well-trodden marble flagstones of the great hall. The quarrelling factions the sides of opinion and allegiance. The arsenal of weapons were rhetoric, magniloquence, facts, rumours, lies, and the tongues that delivered them. Some weapons were heavy and bludgeoning, like the trusty mace. Others were like daggers, subtle and sinister. And, like war, politics were far from fair. Sides could be bought, blackmailed, persuaded. Everybody had a weakness. He had seen that from the start.