The Duchess of the Shallows (7 page)

"I...there was a symbol..." Duchess floundered, uncertain. She'd shown that coin only to Lysander and then Hector, and each time in private. She didn't fancy pulling it out here, on the Godswalk.

There was no need; fingers picked roughly at her own, moving along her arms to her face. Duchess felt unable to resist as the woman took her head between wrinkled hands. "Not of the people," she repeated, "but fate-touched nonetheless. I did not think I would live to see the day when one of your ilk would be so blessed." There was uncertainty, fear, and a strange longing in her voice. "But his mark is upon you, I see that as clearly as your ignorance. And you have seen him." Before Duchess could ask who the woman meant, the Domae reached out and pushed with tented fingers on Duchess' chest, and in that instant Duchess was back in her dreams, the gray shape pressing the breath out of her. She jerked back, alarmed, and the woman laughed derisively. "Quick, child! What have you seen?"

Duchess felt as if her stomach had turned to ice, but somehow she found her voice. "I saw..." What? Smoke? Fog? "A shadow. A shape." She shuddered, speaking truths she hadn't dared speak to another living soul. "I've dreamt of a figure in gray tatters."

The woman nodded grimly. "As he dreams of you. His time draws closer, child, and soon this city will shake." She leaned in close, and her breath was warm and dry as dust. "You and yours pretend to a legacy not your own: children playing with toys not of your making, ants crawling upon a great feast laid by others," she declared, gesturing with sticklike arms bedecked with bracelets, beads and baubles. "Nothing you have is yours. All you own has been built by your betters, who came before you."

"The Domae," Duchess replied blankly. This was nonsense. This was ridiculous. This was...

"The god-chosen!" the woman cried aloud. "We went forth into the wilderness, and everything that made us great fell to your kind! You call this the Godswalk, yet once the gods did truly walk the streets of Domani. And they are not mocked." Duchess was about to shove her away when the woman began to cry, tears leaking out of her shining eyes to trickle along the lines carven into her brown face. "You are pale shades, stalking ruins not your own. And we are shades as well," the Domae whispered. "Faint reflections of the glories we once knew. Paradise lost to us, our perfection guttered like a candle, lost to pride and sin and punishment." She clenched her fists. "You and yours now stand where me and mine once did, and one day soon, you shall suffer the same fate." Suddenly tender, she reached a dark and wizened hand to Duchess' face, gently touching first her forehead, then the top of each cheek in turn.

And with that she returned to her altar and her prayers and her rocking, as if Duchess had never existed.

Duchess stood and moved away, feeling weak. Her chest burned where the old woman's fingers had touched her, and she rubbed her tunic with a trembling hand. The symbol from the mark...if the woman were to be believed it was older than Rodaas itself, reaching back to the time before the Domae had fled the great hill. Then what did that say of
P
? She felt a chill as she fingered the mark through the thin cloth of her breeches.

Then she shook her head, feeling scared and angry all at once. Her father would be ashamed. On the Godswalk, prophets and seers were common as rats in the Shallows, and just as unwelcome. They fed on uncertainty, telling the hopeless what they wanted to hear, and she, like a fool, had listened.

She wrapped her arms about her chest and squeezed her eyes shut until tears welled up. The old woman had touched Duchess' doubts as sharply as she'd pressed upon her chest, and had woven in enough mad philosophy to make the whole tall tale seem like certainty. Ancient symbol or no, the coin in her pocket was just a coin, a mark like any other. As to the dream, well, everyone had nightmares. She was sure she wasn't the first to imagine that she could not breathe. Most likely that gray figure came from some story she'd read in one of her father's books, or some bedtime tale Gelda had told. She opened her eyes and rubbed away the tears before they could fall. She had enough problems without worrying about Domae superstitions. Her father had had no time for such, and neither did she.

Tenth bell rang out from above, and a small crowd emerged from the temple of Ventaris, increasing the commotion on the Walk. She watched, grateful for the distraction, as the cult followers finished their mysteries and dispersed. Of the three state-sanctioned faiths, Ventaris seemed the most open to the public, although of course that might be only for show. Only a few passed through the arches of the Gardens of Mayu, and as far as Duchess could tell none were allowed into the inner sanctum of Anassa. It seemed her followers must cry their need from outside.

It was time to turn back to business.
Duchess mingled with the beggars, smiling at those she recognized, dispensing half-pennies to those she didn't, but none of her inquiries yielded more than blank stares or what she could just as easily have picked up at any wine shop in the Shallows, or working in the market. Well, there were a few wild stories. One man with a rotten nose told her he'd seen a giant lizard emerge from a sewer tunnel near the harbor, and a woman with matted gray hair and a lazy eye warned her that the
Harsh Mistress
, an ale house in the Wharves, mixed blood with its beer. "Bet you wondered why it tastes so good, eh Penelope?" The woman seemed undeterred by Duchess' insistence that she was not Penelope, and that she had never drunk at the
Mistress
.

Perhaps she'd been mistaken to seek information from the beggars. Lysander would surely know something about Baron Eusbius, and if not him then Minette. She'd just made up her mind to head back to the Shallows when she felt a tug at her sleeve. She looked down into the upturned, dirt-streaked face of a little girl. She recognized the latest of the Old Mater's children, holding a cloth doll. Duchess smiled at her. "And what can I do for you, little miss?"

The girl beckoned her closer, and Duchess, intrigued, leaned down, one hand on her purse; the girl seemed innocent enough, but Duchess had lived in the Shallows too long to trust even the most appealing of beggar-children. The girl drew near and whispered into her ear a single word: "Euthbiuth." It took Duchess a moment to realize what the child had meant. "Eusbius?" The girl nodded. "You know where I can find Eusbius?" Another nod, and then the child switched the doll to her left hand and extended her right, palm up. A child after her own heart, Duchess reflected as she dug into her purse. Money first. She placed a penny on the opened palm, but the girl merely continued looking at her.

Duchess frowned. "You
really
know something?" The girl shook her hand impatiently. Reluctantly, Duchess pulled a second penny from her purse. "One more, but that's it. And don't even
think
about trying to run off with it. I've caught cats quicker than you." The girl made no reply, but she slipped the coins into a pocket of her threadbare dress, took Duchess by the hand and led her across the lawn, her bare feet whispering through the grass. Duchess allowed herself to be led, wondering what on earth the child had to show her. It was possible she was a shill for robbers hidden in an alley, but this was the best chance she'd seen thus far, and she'd hate to be out her pennies for nothing. She'd make sure not to let the girl lead her anywhere she could be cornered.

The girl reached the Walk and dragged her through the beggar's circle, and Duchess clutched the girl's hand all the more tightly, in case she tried to slip away through the crowd. Instead, the girl took her to the outermost part of the Walk just within sight of the temple of Anassa but well outside the throng of petitioners. The girl pulled Duchess down and pointed with her doll at a man who stood at the edge of the throng. He was tall, with a short mustache, a full beard and a dour look. His clothes were clean and neatly tailored, but hardly noble; in fact, he looked no better than a highly placed servant. He paced back and forth, casting an occasional glance at Anassa's temple.

Duchess frowned at the girl. "
That's
Eusbius?" She wasn't happy to have wasted time and money on this little endeavor, but the girl returned an annoyed expression and pointed again. Duchess looked at the man once more, and although this time she thought that perhaps he looked a bit familiar, he was certainly no baron. He was obviously impatient, though, but she couldn't imagine what he was waiting for.

As if in answer, the crowd around them suddenly hushed as two figures exited the temple. One was a facet, much like every other facet Duchess had ever seen, masked and silent. The second was a woman with sharp, fine features and graying hair combed out in beautiful waves. She wore a gown of wine-colored velvet, embroidered at the hem and sleeves with gold thread, and she carried herself in an unmistakably aristocratic manner. She said something Duchess could not hear from this distance and the facet nodded twice and lifted a languid hand. The noblewoman closed her eyes as the facet gently touched one eyelid and then the other. The crowds watched, rapt, and Duchess knew she was witnessing something out of the ordinary. Outsiders of any rank were seldom allowed in Anassa's temple, and it was even more rare for a facet to directly bless one of the goddess' followers.

The woman pulled back and smiled, and even from where she stood, Duchess could see it was not a happy expression. There was misery and triumph on that face in equal measure. With no further word, the lady descended the steps as if she were the only person on the Walk. The facet reentered the temple as the crowds closed once more, crying and shouting anew.

She passed the man without comment, but he turned to follow, saying, "Lady Agalia." She took no notice, striding briskly along and he hurried after, calling more stridently, "Baroness, if you would..." She continued as if she had not heard and he called out a third time, "Lady Eusbius, will you please wait for me?" Duchess sucked in a breath and moved to put the waif between herself and the lady and her servant. She could not be seen here, not if she were to have any chance at all of completing Hector's little task. The pair seemed to take no notice of them, and Duchess watched as the woman turned an icy gaze upon the man.

"Ahmed, my husband asked you to accompany me to my devotions, and you have done so." The way she sneered
husband
made clear precisely what she thought of the man she'd married. "I do not recall being told to walk gently for your sake." Without further comment Agalia made her way along the Godswalk and Ahmed fell in silently behind her. Duchess sighed with relief, and the girl shrugged off her grip and gave her a little kick. Duchess laughed, dropped a third penny in the girl's hand, and followed the pair southward through the district.

It was easy to remain unobtrusive in such a crowded street, and if Agalia and Ahmed exchanged further words Duchess did not hear them. She followed them away from the Godswalk, moving towards the winter homes of the city's nobles. Although such homes were a means of demonstrating prestige and position, the nobles' holdings outside the city – their lands and the commoners who worked them – were the true source of their wealth.

As Duchess moved along the neat and well-tended way, always keeping the two in sight, she reflected that, in a different life, this district might have been her home. Had things been otherwise, she might now be ensconced in one of those lavish estates, awaiting marriage to some lordling or highly placed city official. She would never have known the hardscrabble life of the Shallows, or the calloused hands and sore back that came from hard work. She would have lived like a bird in a cage, well dressed and well scrubbed. The thought made her feel sad but also a little relieved. By law and custom, the women of Rodaas had little opportunity and even less power; Agalia an example right before her eyes. She wondered how it was for Agalia in her lord's bed. In Rodaas, wives were required to submit to their husbands in all ways, and marriage meant the surrender both of property and of body. Amongst the nobility, marriage was business first and affection second...at best. She thought of her one night with her sweet Lysander and imagined what it would have been like to have been
required
to open her life and her bed to him. Part of her wanted to believe that her father would never have sold her in such a manner, that he was better than the other nobleman. After all, he had been a guild scholar as well, and thus different from the others, but part of her still she wondered.

Not that it mattered; she was not of the higher districts anymore but of the Shallows, and in the Shallows everyone, male and female, had only the position and power they took for themselves.

They soon arrived at a large estate surrounded by a high wall, and Agalia waited while Ahmed ordered the gates opened. By the look of things, the baron had certainly
spent time and money on his home. The walls were whitewashed and a newly installed iron gate barred a fresh path of crushed white stone that crossed a green lawn to a leaping fountain. The estate house itself also looked recently refurbished, with new-painted shutters and neatly tended flowerbeds. Even the guards by the gate wore clean livery.

The two vanished through the gates and Duchess dared to move closer, watching them walk along the path towards the home in the distance. As she did so, one of the guards caught sight of her and gruffly told her to move along. She hurried away, not wanting to draw extra attention, and in any case she'd seen enough. The walls were too high to easily scale, and if there were only a pair of guards in the whole place that was too many for her. If she were to get into House Eusbius and get out with both Hector's dagger and her life, it would have to be by her wits.

As she headed back to the garret, she reflected on the noble life that was no longer hers, and on the unhappiness and victory that had been in Agalia's face. She'd been too long away; the parties her father had thrown were now a blur of tall figures who treated her like the waif's cloth doll – something to be picked at and lifted and kissed and then set aside. She lived a different life now and for all its hardship, perhaps she was better for it. Certainly she was no Agalia, forced to live at the beck and call of some man.