The Mirador (23 page)

As Jean-Soleil had been expecting, Nuée Duskrose made a dreadful scene. Growing up in an acting troupe, I’d been a connoisseur of hysterics by the age of five; my mama had thrown some very pretty tantrums in her time, and she had been nothing compared to my Norvenan aunt Anna Melissa, of whom even Gran’père Mato went in awe. Nuée Duskrose was, by comparison, a rank amateur. Jean-Soleil dealt with her in a matter of moments and evicted her onto the pavement still shrieking.

At close range, Gordeny Fisher was even more arresting. Although she did not have Susan’s stunning beauty, the sulfurous yellow glints in her brown eyes were as disconcerting as the gaze of a half-tamed hawk. The eyes and the voice were what you would remember, and that was enough to start with.

She listened attentively to Jean-Soleil’s strictures and promised quite faithfully to abide by them all. When he dismissed us, Corinna said, “Come on, Tabby, let’s give Gordeny the grand tour.”

“I’m game,” I said, “although I warn you now, Gordeny, you’re going to spend a week getting lost anyway.”

We took her all over the labyrinth of the Empyrean, from the attics to the storage rooms beneath the stage. We showed her Hell and the Firmament, introduced her to Cat and Toad, the two silent boys—lovers or brothers, I’d never been able to determine which—who ran the scenery and lights and did sound effects when we needed them. They practically lived up in the Firmament among the catwalks and pulleys, and Jabez had told me they’d rigged the thunder machine all by themselves. We showed Gordeny Jean-Soleil’s office, an oddly shaped wedge chopped out of the space behind the stage. It was actually about halfway up the back wall, and had a spindly stair—almost more of a ladder—that led to it and nowhere else. Jean-Soleil claimed that it was only the fear of someday not being able to get up there that kept him from becoming grossly obese. His office window was a jutting oriel, allowing him to survey his kingdom from above.

We showed Gordeny the rehearsal areas and the dressing rooms, with particular attention to Susan’s, which would now be hers. Corinna promised to introduce her to the rest of the staff—the ushers, the house managers, the rest of the crew— and the two of them departed to see if the Velvet Tears had a free room.

I had business in the Mirador.

Vulpes’s business, of course. He wanted to know more about Gideon; he wanted to know how the Mirador was reacting to Stephen’s marriage plans. No power in the world would have gotten me anywhere near Felix’s suite, but Felix was hardly the only person—or even the only wizard—I knew in the Mirador. And truth be told, I didn’t want to go back to the Velvet Tears, to a barren room and a narrow bed, to the images that would be waiting for me when I closed my eyes. Anything was better than lying awake in the dark, thinking about Hallam.

I started in the Painted Grotto, where the young nobles and their lovers came to see and be seen. There, the talk was all of younger sisters and cousins, and I noted carefully which names were already being bandied about: the Novadii, the Lemerii, the Valerii. Lionel Verlalius told me that his manservant had told him that the Polydorius suite was being aired out and that that could only mean Lord Ivo Polydorius was bringing his daughter to the market.

Not that Lionel put it like that, of course.

I bore the Painted Grotto as long as I could, but the company seemed to me too much like a pack of coyotes, hiding their interest in a dying buffalo behind their sharp-toothed smiles. And I was not in the mood for fending off delicate insinuations about my own interest in the Teverii. I left sooner than I’d meant to.

It was hard not to imagine Vulpes watching from every shadow, and I had to restrain myself from telling the page who guided me from the Painted Grotto to Simon and Rinaldo’s suite to hurry. I am still doing your bidding, lieutenant! Leave me be!

Simon and Rinaldo were at home, as I’d expected. They didn’t go out much.

They weren’t lovers, although most people thought they were. They were as comfortable with each other as a long-married couple; being imprisoned together in a small room in the Bastion for a number of years will do that to you. Rinaldo wasn’t molly. He said he was merely lazy, and growing old; if there was some darker reason, I didn’t know it. Simon, tall, stooped, myopic Simon, was janus—and terribly shy. And also painfully self-conscious about his mutilated hands. Another blight to thank Malkar Gennadion for.

They were pleased to see me. Simon fussed about chairs and drinks, while Rinaldo blinked at me like a magnificently self-satisfied portly old tomcat and said, “To what do we owe the honor?”

It didn’t bother him in the slightest that he knew I had an ulterior motive. I smiled and said, “I’m a little unwelcome in the Harrowgate household at the moment.”

“Then Mildmay really . . . ?” Simon asked.

“Mildmay dropped me like a dead rat,” I said and let my smile twist out of true.

They both made sympathetic noises, and Simon pushed a glass of sherry into my hand. From there, asking them about Stephen’s marriage was easy and natural: of course I would want to change the subject.

Their take on the matter was quite different from the Painted Grotto’s, for they weren’t interested in the question of which lucky girl Stephen was going to choose. Simon said, “Robert looks like he sat on a hornet.”

“Robert,” Rinaldo said, “was expecting to leech off Stephen for the rest of his unpleasant life. But even the most amiable sheep of a girl is going to object to having her predecessor’s brother around.”

“Especially
that
brother,” Simon said.

“Will he make trouble?” I asked.

“He would if he could.”

“Would have already,” Simon said.

“Probably did. But even if Stephen would marry him,
he
can’t provide an heir.”

“At least he’s quit bleating about Lord Shannon’s claim.”

“Shannon said he didn’t want to be Lord Protector,” I said.

“Of course he doesn’t,” Rinaldo said. “He may be a feather-brained fop, but he’s not a fool.”

“Then why would Robert . . . ?”

“Not out of any love for Shannon, I assure you. But that’s the solution that allows him to maintain his own status quo. And that, my dear, is the only thing Robert of Hermione has ever or will ever care about.”

I asked, because I’d always wanted to know, “Why do he and Felix hate each other so much?”

“Natural antipathy,” Simon said with a shrug.

“Robert, like Stephen, does not like gentlemen of Felix’s, ah, persuasion,” Rinaldo said. “And Felix doesn’t have the tact to be ashamed of himself.”

Simon added, “He is also, to be fair, monumentally inconvenient. ”

“How so?”

“He has ideals. And he insists on making the Mirador live up to them.”

“Oh,” I said, rather blankly. It had never occurred to me to cast Felix as an idealist.

“He does not,” Rinaldo said, dry as a sandstorm, “compromise well.”

“And he isn’t
quiet
. Well, you know how he argues.”

“Yes.”

“And his influence isn’t dependent on anyone’s good will,” Rinaldo said abruptly, as if he’d only just thought of it himself. “His influence is based entirely on his being himself. Robert is not the only one to find this irksome.”

“I’m sure he isn’t,” I said. And wondered in a back corner of my mind if that was why Vulpes found him so interesting.

“Felix, you see, doesn’t need to worry about who Lord Stephen marries. And that must gnaw at Robert’s dry little soul like a rat.”

“How poetic of you, Simon,” Rinaldo said, and Simon laughed and poured him more wine.

Somebody’d told somebody else. It’s the way things work in the Lower City, and if I’d had my head screwed on straight I would’ve been expecting it.

They caught me in Gilgamesh—being careful not to embarrass Keeper by taking me down on her turf. They were all heart, those guys. There were three or four of them—I never did get an exact count—and they were stupid enough to think that just because I was a crip, I was easy pickings. They didn’t know I was too fucking mad to see straight.

They weren’t expecting the knife, either.

I don’t think anybody got killed, but one guy ended up two fingers less than he’d come into the world, and another one went through a shop window when he hadn’t meant to. But I
was
a crip, and there were more of them than there was of me. Shit, the details don’t matter, do they? We were just to the point where I was either going to have to do something fucking amazing or I was going to go down and they were going to kick me the rest of the way out, when we heard the thump and jingle and shouting of Dogs running toward us. Me and the guys still interested in the fight all froze. We might hate each other’s guts, but Dogs were Dogs. Then one of them said, “You got lucky, cocksucker,” and they bounced me off a wall and lit out running south.

I couldn’t run, but I staggered down an alley, then got my feet sort of under me. I cut across two more streets, and then found a fire escape, and dragged myself up to the roof. From there I could get anywhere I wanted.

Right then, I didn’t want nothing except to sit down. So I sat and panted, and about half a heartbeat ahead of when he spoke, I knew somebody was there.

“So that was Mildmay the Fox in action.”

Septimus fucking Wilder, as I live and breathe.

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Very impressive,” he said, and it wasn’t a bad imitation of Keeper, if you didn’t still hear the real thing in your dreams. “Really something to aspire to.”

And I was still so fucking mad I could breathe it.

“All right, fuckhead,” I said. “You want it? Let’s do it.”

I came up hard and fast, and I knew right where he was, because he’d been running his stupid mouth off.

Now, he was good. Don’t get me wrong. Keeper knew what she was doing, and he was fast and agile like a spider and he knew how to use his reach. And he hadn’t just had a go-round with a bunch of goons, neither. But he’d never been a knifefighter—never had to do this for real where if you fucked up or blinked wrong, you might find yourself holding your guts in both hands. Or, you know, you might find yourself with one whole half of your face nothing but raw, screaming, sheeting pain, and your own blood fouling your grip on your knife. And I didn’t think Keeper’d actually sent him out to kill anybody yet.

It changes how you look at things.

So he was good, but I was mean. I got him down, my knife just nudging the hinge of his jaw and my other hand gripping his balls. Because I was not in a mood to fuck around.

“Now,” I said. “You were saying something before I went and interrupted you.”

“Nnnnnnn . . .” It wasn’t even a word, more like a groan that had gotten some letters tangled in it.

I waited, but he didn’t seem to have nothing more to say for himself. “Okay,” I said. “I can’t hold grudges for shit, so’s far as I’m concerned, this is over. D’you wanna go round again?”

This time, it did come out a word, although it sounded like it hurt. “No.”

“That’s good.” I like it when people ain’t stupid at me. “I’m gonna let go of you now, but the knife ain’t moving yet. Just so you know.”

“I ain’t gonna try nothing,” he said. It was the first thing he’d said didn’t sound like Keeper.

“Good plan.” I moved my left hand away from him, and he took a deep gasping breath. He’d probably been expecting me to twist, or at least squeeze real hard. Or maybe rip his balls off and make him eat ’em. And I ain’t going to lie and say I wasn’t tempted. But ’cept for breathing like a bellows, he didn’t move, didn’t try nothing, like he’d said he wouldn’t.

“Did you set ’em on me?” I asked—mostly just curious. And I wanted to know how twisty his mind was.

“No! Powers, I wouldn’t—”

“You just didn’t feel like helping.”

That shut him up. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I wanted . . .”

“You wanted to see me get my ass kicked.” I didn’t say it nasty or nothing, because, powers and saints, I understood how that went, but I felt him flinch, just a little.

Okay, so at least he could recognize he was a prick.

“I put my knife up,” I said. “What’re you gonna do?”

“What d’you want me to do?”

“Look. I ain’t into mind-games like Keep—like Kolkhis is. As long as you ain’t gonna go for me again, I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

“I won’t,” he said. “I swear. By the Septad Gate and Mélusine’s cunt.”

I wasn’t expecting that, and it hurt a little. Because it’d been something Nikah taught us to say. Before the sangerman got him. And it was just weird to realize that it hadn’t died with him. That kids who’d never even known his name were still saying it.

“Okay,” I said. “I believe you.” I folded my knife back into my boot.

He didn’t move for a moment, like he figured it for a trick. But then he was up and gone so fast I didn’t think I could’ve caught him if I’d wanted to. Which I didn’t.

I looked up the city at the Mirador. And I guess I was a little light-headed—Kethe knows I ached all over like I’d been rolled downhill in a barrel—because I caught myself thinking, if the Iron Chapel was Mélusine’s cunt, then the Mirador had to be her dick.