The Fall of Ventaris (3 page)

The time she’d been thinking she should have been dodging, and the woman’s next swing caught her ringingly on the side of the head. Duchess’ hair was long and thick, but not quite enough to cushion the blow that sent her reeling to the side. Duchess was no stranger to tussling — when she was younger she and Lani had had some fine old fights — but Noam’s eldest daughter had never hit so
hard
. As the woman seized her by the front of her jerkin, Duchess decided she’d had quite enough.

“Take ‘em off,” the woman growled, yanking her close. Duchess smelled stale breath and unwashed hair. “Take ‘em off and I’ll let you keep your – ” She froze.

“Knife?” Duchess suggested, holding her blade to the woman’s neck. “Why don’t you just calm down before someone gets hurt?” She pressed ever so gently, and the woman’s eyes flicked toward the blade she could not quite see. She relaxed her grip and Duchess pulled away, keeping her knife between them. “The only way you’re getting my boots is right in the face.” She pointed at her own cheek. “I’ll give you a bruise to match this one.” The woman made as if to charge and Duchess flicked her blade out towards the woman’s eyes. “Careful now,” Duchess warned. “I’ve been cutting Shallows thieves since you were just a small, ugly ogre. If you want to grow up to be an
old
ugly ogre, you’ll tromp right back into whatever hole you came from, or else you get the blade and not the boots.”
 

“Or maybe we’ll take both, then,” came a voice from behind. She whirled to see a man, even larger than the woman, slide out from between two buildings, blocking her way back to the Shallows. He was unarmed but each of his hands looked large enough to grasp her entire head. “Your coin as well, and maybe you in the bargain. I’ve only had
this
one recently.” He nodded towards the woman. “Not easy fucking someone who looks two places at once.” He guffawed at his own joke and advanced a step.

Fear lanced through her, and she turned sideways to keep them both in view. The woman she could have handled with her steel, but not both together. The woman moved to flank her, and Duchess pivoted, keeping one blade at the ready and drawing the second from her boot.
 

“How many of those godsdamned
things you got?” the man spat as he circled around as well, and she realized that no matter which way she turned one would be at her back. So stupid to have come down here by herself, stupid, stupid...

A call from above caught her attention. She risked a glance up and caught sight of Jana, a blaze of color at the top of the stairs, her arms crossed and wearing a grim look, so strange on her delicate features. “There will be no fighting at the bottom of my stairs,” the weaver said sternly, not in the least frightened. Duchess gaped at her audacity, and was even more amazed to see her attackers edging away.
 

“Bloody witch,” muttered the woman, looking between Duchess and Jana. She looked at the man as if for support, but he was already fading back into the alley whence he came, clearly in no mood to continue the confrontation. Duchess narrowed her eyes and raised her blades, and after a long moment, the woman evidently decided that a witch and two knives was one danger too many. With a curse she too retired into an alley and was gone.

Duchess released a pent-up breath and looked back up at Jana, who simply nodded and disappeared back into her apartment. She had wondered how a petite, polite weaver lived in the Deeps without trouble, and now she knew. A reputation for sorcery evidently went a long way. It might also explain why the Domae in the city had been unwilling to say much about Jana, she reflected, sheathing her knives. Still, whatever Jana was, the assistance had been welcome. Duchess turned and hurried back along Beggar’s Way towards the Shallows and safety.
 

As she climbed the hill, she made two resolutions. The first was that this was the first and last time she came into the Deeps by herself, day or night, knives or no knives.
 

The second was that she was going to
have
to get someone to
frune
that she was a witch.

Chapter Two: Grieving before the bier

 “...and I said that if he’d wanted big nipples he should have paid the extra sou for a woman.” Brenn took a triumphant sip from his cup as the rest of the ganymedes roared with laughter. The sound of their mirth was swallowed up by the general cacophony that was a typical night at the
Grieving Bier
. The bar was thronged, every table occupied with men and women from the Wharves and Shallows, and the back room, where a dice game seemed eternally in play, was standing-room only. Duchess had only occasionally been to the
Bier
, but for some reason the ganymedes had eschewed the
Merry Widow
that evening. Lysander had thought the ale house oddly named until Duchess had explained the pun. He’d made a sour face and said the barkeep was better with hippocras than with humor, and in hindsight, Duchess could only agree.

She certainly was in no laughing mood that night. She watched sullenly as Lysander, tall, blue-eyed and golden-haired, laughed along with the rest of the “girls.” When she’d arrived he’d given her swelling cheek a raised eyebrow but said nothing. After leaving the Deeps, she’d spent most of the day asking after him, and had found nothing until running into Deneys and a few of the other ganymedes on their way to the
Bier
. And now there he sat, with no apology, no explanation. He’d simply put a drink in her hand and turned back to telling stories with the others.

In the noise and the bustle of the evening crowd, hers was the only silence. Lysander’s obvious lack of remorse about missing their appointment and her rashly-made promise to Jana both weighed upon her, and she didn’t have the slightest notion how to deal with either. Both Lysander and the weavers’ guild were an utter mystery to her, although some careful
fruning
might tell her something of the latter.

“I’ll bet he doesn’t know that half the whores in the Shallows are men anyway!” Deneys, tall and lean, exclaimed, and Brenn tossed the dregs of his cup at him. Squeak, tough-looking but girl-voiced, took cover, and Lysander howled at the waste of good ale.

“The leash didn’t even fit me, but he liked me to wear it, so I — ” Brenn went on. At that, Lysander began barking, which even in her dour mood brought a smile to her lips. He could imitate man, woman or beast with a facility that would shame even the most legendary mummer.
 

His broken promise had haunted her all along Beggar’s Way and out of the Deeps, and now she watched his insouciance with angry eyes. He, in turn, seemed to have nothing more on his mind than Brenn’s tale of the oddities of his latest client.
 

She forced her mind back to the problem her trip to the Deeps had revealed. Minette and Uncle Cornelius, although their mannerisms and their methods differed, had at least one thing in common: a good deal of help. The Uncle had his redcaps, stern and fearsome, and Minette her network of contacts, with watchful eyes and pricked ears. Duchess, on the other hand, had only Lysander, or at least she had until this morning. If she hadn’t been alone on Beggar’s Way those thugs might have thought twice about assaulting her.
 

“And he told me to just close my eyes while he — ” Duchess lost the rest of the sentence as a cheer went up from the back room. Evidently, the house was losing. The ganymedes, in turn, roared with laughter, adding to the cacophony.

She needed eyes and ears of her own, and muscle to guard her. Minette had once said that in Rodaas enemies were like wrinkles: live long enough and you were bound to accumulate a few The problem, she thought, looking again at Lysander, was trust. Those who dealt in secrets often valued loyalty least of all, and she had to be certain that whoever guarded her back would not sink a knife in it.
 

She felt cold and awful even in the warmth and cheer of the bar. Her best friend sat across the table and she’d never felt so alone. She needed Lysander’s advice, but didn’t even know how to ask. Worse, she knew better than to bring up any such subject in front of the girls. Deneys was too clever even in his cups, and Brenn, now apparently much recovered from his torment at the hands of the Brutes, gossiped as only a ganymede could. Squeak would of course promise to keep any secret he was told, but like a dog that had had the fight kicked out of it, he would roll over for anyone who patted him. Weary of worrying at her problems, she tried to lose herself in the conversation.

There was enough conversation to lose ten Duchesses. In summer, gossip ripened like wheat, and this season was no exception. Lysander, fresh from the latest round of parties in the countryside, had the most to contribute. Lady Vorloi, he confided, was involved in the beginnings of what appeared to be an escalating war of fetes and feasts, each bigger and grander than the last. Lord Levering was apparently getting deeper and deeper in debt, much to the consternation of his two sons. “I’m sure they’re hoping his life runs out before his money does,” Lysander laughed. Deneys told a tale that the lord of House Davari, one of the oldest in the city with a seat on the Imperial Council, had been caught in a shouting match with his eldest son during a particularly important banquet. Squeak brought up the story of what had happened at Baron Eusbius’ first and only party. The awkward silence that fell told Duchess that Squeak was the only one who hadn’t gotten wind of her personal involvement in that turn of events.

Lysander artfully changed the subject with an intriguing tale of a group of keepers who’d abandoned the Gardens of Mayu and set up a rival sect in the Narrows, the poorest and most desperate part of the Deeps. No one knew if such keepers were simply involved in a political game or this was the first sign of a true religious schism.
 

The ale flowed, the tavern grew noisier, the ganymedes drunker and through it all the stories unreeled. Lords and ladies and bastards and thieves all caught up in a romantic rush. Banquets and masques stretching through nights of intrigue and scandal. Balconies and gardens filled with hedonistic revels and riches to beggar the imagination. She glanced at the tables around them and wondered how many others were telling the same tales, here or in a thousand other winesinks scattered about the Shallows. How many rubbed their hands over such stories, like jewels, gloating over each before tossing it aside to reach for the next? And how far would they be from such wonders when the morning fog rolled in and it was time to head for Wharves or Market or Trades for another long day of work?

“...and no one knows what the empress will do,” Lysander was saying to Brenn and Denys, pulling Duchess out of her musing. Squeak was oblivious, head on the ale-puddled table, snoring softly. Squeak had never been able to hold his drink.

“What do you mean?” she asked, straightening in her chair. Lysander gave her a remonstrating look, aware that she’d been woolgathering instead of hanging on his every word.

“I mean that a White who breaks his vows is a scandal even Violana can’t ignore.” He took a sip of wine, his expression unreadable.

Brenn frowned. “So what? She can just have his head off, or throw him in a dungeon, or whatever she wants. She’s the empress, she can do as she likes.” Duchess shook her head. She and Lysander knew well enough that in Rodaas,
no one
did just as he liked.

Deneys was red-eyed from drink, but his wits were still about him. “I’m not so sure. The Whites have been chaste for...well, for a long time. If one breaks his vows that means something even to the empress.” As the official guard of the imperial family, Whites were held to a higher standard than mere blackarms or army-fodder.
 

Lysander nodded. “He’s right, although I don’t think this is the first time a White has kept a mistress. The problem here is that 
this
 mistress had a child.”

Brenn scoffed. “You’d think she’d have done the smart thing and gone to a midwife to be rid of it, but that’s a mother for you.” Brenn was notoriously unsympathetic to the plight of women. “Would have been better for her and better for...what did you say his name was?”

“Pollux,” Lysander said. “I hear he’s a dream though, the kind to make any woman witless – and a few men, as well. Tall, strong, and eyes like...” His words were drowned out by another roar from the gaming tables, but Duchess could imagine the rest.
 

“So this Pollux has a child?” Deneys interrupted, trying to catch the thread of the tale again. He shook his head sadly when Lysander nodded. “Living proof of the crime, you might say.”

“I still don’t understand.” Brenn was getting haughty. “She’s the empress. She makes the laws.” Duchess rolled her eyes, and noticed Lysander doing the same. No one with any sense truly believed the empress did anything other than sit her throne and nod off from time to time.

“It’s not that simple,” Duchess pointed out. “The Whites are as old as the city itself. According to legend their order dates back to the founding of Violana’s line.” One of the many bits of history she’d picked up from her father’s library. “Even the empress can’t just disregard a tradition as old as that one, and I can’t imagine she’s happy that something like this has come out.” She paused as she noticed all three of them looking at her oddly, no doubt wondering where she’d come by such lore. She shut her mouth and took another swig.

“How
did
it come out?” asked Deneys, one eye still on her.
 

“That,” said Lysander importantly, “is where Takkis comes in.” Takkis was the sheriff of Temple District, she remembered. She didn’t even know what the man looked like, but unlike Sheriff Ophion of the Shallows he had a reputation for unimpeachable integrity. His men were referred to as the Saints only somewhat ironically. “Somehow Takkis found out about the child, although what he was doing investigating a White I don’t know. In any case, Pollux is now sitting in a cell in the sheriff’s guard house, until either he dies of some mischance or the empress finds a graceful way to dispose of him. I imagine she’s hoping for the former.”