Painted Devils, page 21
“Nice,” I say, making a mental note to steal as much soap as possible.
“And, naturally”—as we reach the top of the stairs, she turns and unloads another wink—“we’ve provided the absolute best in soundproofing enchantments as well, so you needn’t worry about privacy.”
The wheels begin turning, but by then it’s too late. The hall’s already lighting up with candles that burn magenta flames as the clerk unlocks a white door painted with garish pink roses.
“Congratulations, you two,” she says, pushing the door open. “Enjoy your honeymoon.”
Emeric and I walk in, both a little stunned. As soon as she shuts the door behind us, a shower of rose petals bursts from the ceiling, drifting artfully into a trail that leads to the bed, which is less a bed and more a fortress built to weather a sexy war. Its iron posts are bolted to the ceiling and the floor, softened only by red satin canopies. A matching canopy tents over the aforementioned bathtub. In fact, there’s just a lot of red satin happening, everywhere.
I cough out a mouthful of rose petals as Emeric wanders into the middle of the room, looking like a man swept abruptly into a foreign land. Then he turns to me, raising a finger.
“I want to—to talk about … this.” He waves vaguely at the entirety of the room. “But first … you did say ‘cultists’?”
* * *
“It wasn’t funny,” I tell Helga the next morning. “All I wanted was spätzle! I don’t even like oysters!”
Emeric tsks. After hearing the full story of Helga’s and my afternoon, he couldn’t be dissuaded from accompanying us to the docks today. (Not that I made more than a strictly procedural objection. It’s a nice morning, and I am not above using cultists as an excuse to spend time with my favorite protractor.) “Someday we’ll go to Rabenheim, and you can have real oysters fresh off the rocks.”
“My Nibsi never was one for oysters,” Lady Ambroszia muses from her post in my satchel. Since her personal motive for joining us was to see more of the empire, I figured the least we can do is take her out on the town. “Not that he ever needed them. Like a rabid boar in the bedroom, that man.”
“That sounds…” I search for a word that isn’t a synonym for no wonder his first wife joined a convent and come up with “bracing.”
Helga grumbles as we draw near the piers.
I lean forward. “What’s that?”
“I got the honeymoon suite so you two could have some alone time,” she grouses. “And I just feel like you’re not taking this seriously.”
“I think I’m taking the blood-sacrifice-to-a-hellhound thing extremely seriously,” I protest.
“Not that.” Helga fusses with her russet braid as we pick our way down the rickety foot-traffic ramps to the wharf. “My bet with Jakob. He’s going to be insufferable if he wins.”
“Strong priorities,” Emeric remarks from behind me. “We had to ask for new sheets this morning. Do you know how slippery satin is? I could barely even stay on the bed.”
“Excuses,” she calls back.
When we reach the piers, fewer crews are waiting around, but the Grace Unending is still lodged across the Trench River. Erwin’s boss is there, though, and a handful of other dockworkers.
There are also new faces: a small cluster of city guards, one with a bailiff’s sash. The bailiff is waving a piece of parchment at the boss, looking seriously peeved.
He sounds even more seriously peeved as we draw into earshot: “… someone has to pay the debt. If you can’t tell me where to find Erwin Ros, then I suppose you’ll have to round up a hundred gilden, won’t you?”
Emeric slows, grabbing my sleeve and politely tapping Helga’s shoulder. His voice drops to just above a whisper. “Lady Ambroszia, I’d keep out of sight; I don’t know the local regulations for spirits that aren’t bound to a warlock. And no one talk to the guards. Especially not you, Miss Ros. They’re trying to collect a debt, and they’ll use any relation as an excuse to pin it to you and be done.”
But we’ve caught the bailiff’s attention. Ambroszia quickly drops deeper into my satchel as his voice sails down the pier. “What brings a prefect among the wharf rats?”
“Just accompanying these ladies on their errands,” Emeric answers.
The bailiff’s eyes narrow as he looks from me to Helga. “And what are those?”
Helga stiffens. This calls for someone who’s a lot better at threading truth through the eye of a liar’s needle. I make a show of planting a hand on my hip and rolling my eyes, the picture of familiar exasperation. “From the sound of it, same as yours. Looking to collect from Erwin Ros. You seen him?”
“All I’ve seen is that he owes the Green Sleeve a hundred gilden for their services,” the bailiff snaps, with enough venom that I suspect the Green Sleeve may be turning him away, too, until the matter’s settled.
But that doesn’t sound right to me. “Last I heard, he was at Madame Treasury’s.”
Three small, unusual things happen then.
First: The guards and the bailiff trade glances, and whatever fire and brimstone they’ve been mustering to intimidate Erwin’s boss is abruptly snuffed.
Second: A young girl, maybe fourteen, steps forward from where she’s been hovering nearby. “Excuse me—I work at—I mean, I worked for Madame. I think I can help.”
And third: A dockworker who’s been milling at the back of the pack slips away, jogging toward the ramps that lead up to the street.
“Very well,” the bailiff says with wooden insincerity, “we’ll go check Madame Treasury’s.” He makes a flicking gesture to the guards flanking him, and they head in the same direction as the running dockworker. Somehow I doubt they’re going to do more than a cursory questioning, unless “questioning” has entered the arena as a euphemism.
Interesting. The guards are clearly on the take with Madame Treasury’s … so why go the extra mile and pay the dockworker to spy too?
“Wait, please.” The girl stumbles after them. “I need to report—”
“Go to the station,” one guard laughs, then covers his mouth with a hand.
Emeric makes a noise of disgust.
“I didn’t lie to them,” I remind him.
“No, you were terrifyingly brilliant, as always,” he says, then hastens after the young girl. “Excuse me, frohlein?”
I give an apologetic shrug to Erwin’s boss, who waves us off. Helga and I catch up to Emeric in time to hear “What did you want to report?”
The girl’s dark eyes get very large as she takes in the prefect insignia on Emeric’s coat. She wrings her hands in front of her. They’re mottled with lye burns old and new, but while her too-small dress and apron are certainly worn, they don’t have the telltale pockmarks—so she usually wears a uniform when she handles lye. Expertly braided mousy brown hair peeps out from under a kerchief nearly as ragged as her clothing. “Oh no, sir, it’s not worth a p-prefect’s time.”
“Then we’re both in luck, because I’m not a full prefect yet.” Emeric attempts a casual lean against a barrel, only to misjudge the edge and slip a little. Or at least, that’s what it looks like. He’s used that trick on me before, to get me to lower my guard. “Does it have to do with Madame Treasury’s?”
The girl shrinks a little, hiding her hands behind her back. “I shouldn’t say.”
“Hmm. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. But I’m going to make a few guesses, and if you’d like to tell me I’m correct, you can, all right?” Emeric waits for her to nod. “You said ‘worked’ earlier. I’m guessing you don’t work there anymore.”
She nods again.
“I’m going to guess you have an older sibling who helps you with your hair.”
The girl’s eyes go even wider. She nods. “How did you know?”
“I used to help my little sisters with theirs,” he says with a rueful grin. “Your sibling’s plaits are much better than mine.”
I decide to lend him a hand and pull a braid over my shoulder to show the ribbon. “He still ties my bows for me in the mornings.”
The girl looks a little less on edge, a tentative smile unfurling. “My sister, Marien,” she says softly. “She works at the Green Sleeve.”
“But you worked for Madame Treasury’s.” Emeric’s brow furrows.
Just saying the brothel’s name makes her retreat a step. “I … really shouldn’t … Madame won’t…”
Emeric’s voice turns firm but is still kind. “How many months of wages does she owe you?”
The girl’s mouth drops open.
“He just does that,” I say wryly. “What should we call you?”
She swallows and whispers, “Agnethe.”
“My hands used to look like yours,” I tell her. “A few weeks of salve and rest and they’ll be right as rain.”
Agnethe ducks her head. “Madame said…” Once the words start bubbling up, they boil over. “She called me a liar because I didn’t tell her Marien is at the Green Sleeve. But I thought I did tell her! But Madame said I didn’t, and she said she doesn’t keep with liars and spies, and I’ve been cleaning for her for three months, but she said she wouldn’t pay and I should feel lucky she didn’t take me to the guards for spying, but I never!”
Emeric’s voice stays friendly, but he links his own hands behind his back. I know he does that when he doesn’t want people to see his knuckles turning white. “She hasn’t paid you for three whole months?”
“The first month was supposed to be a trial, and I thought she said I’d be paid at the end, then she said it would be at the end of the second, but she said that month was a bad month and if she paid me it wouldn’t be fair to the others, and then…” Agnethe’s chin starts to wobble. “Marien’s been stretching to feed us both, but we haven’t paid the March rent, and if we miss another month…”
Emeric nods. “I see. Thank you for telling me. We’ll get you your wages, Frohlein Agnethe.”
“And in the meantime, if you want, you can wait for us in the Jolly Magistrate’s tavern,” I suggest. “Treat yourself to some apple cake. You can tell them to bill it to the room under ‘Elske Kirk—’”
Emeric clears his throat.
“… ‘Helga Ros,’” I amend.
“You’re paying me back,” Helga tells me with a scowl.
“Um.” Agnethe’s hands twist in her apron. “The man you’re looking for … I’m pretty sure I saw a bouncer take him to a private room two nights ago. He has hair like yours?”
“Yes,” Helga confirms. “Loud, big googly blue eyes, a weakness for brandtwein. Bit of a sad sack.”
Agnethe tries not to smile. “I’m pretty sure it was him.”
“Thank you again, that’s excellent information.” Emeric tips a salute to her. “We’ll see you at the Jolly Magistrate.”
Once we climb the ramps and reach street level again, Helga turns to Emeric and me. “Ozkar might know something about whatever Erwin’s into. Let me take Ambroszia to his new workshop while you two try the Sünderweg.”
“Is that safe?” I ask. “There could be more cultists.”
Before Helga can answer, Lady Ambroszia rises from the satchel, glowing. “I believe,” she says haughtily, “I can handle a mere handful of scoundrels. You do recall what sweet Willi was able to do in the library when vexed.”
“I do recall,” Emeric says, “and would recommend keeping things nonlethal. But yes, that should suffice. We’ll meet you back at the inn.” He holds out a hand to me.
I take it. “Let’s go see a madame about a dog.”
THE FOURTH LIE
FAMILY
Once upon a time, a maid learned to lie with her hands.
She was only seven; she had lived in a castle for more than a year, and she wanted very much to leave. She wanted to go back to the cozy little hut where her godmothers had kept her safe and warm in a safe, quiet world. She did not like cold Sovabin, nor the mean cook, nor the name they called her by: russmagdt, soot-wench, for the scullery kept her covered in ashes more often than not.
She only liked the castle’s magician, who had taken pity on her and was teaching her to lie. The magician believed that maybe, just maybe, if the russmagdt could impress the royalty of the castle, she might escape the scullery and find softer work in the halls above.
And so the cook found the magician and the soot-wench by the hearth fire of the great hall. “Your hands must always be moving,” the magician was saying, showing the little girl how she’d tucked a bronze sjilling between her thumb and the side of her palm.
“Dishes aren’t done,” grunted the cook from the doorway to the kitchens.
The russmagdt shrank. She was supposed to do as he asked, but …
The magician frowned over her shoulder. “She did them. I saw the empty sink myself.” The cook didn’t answer, and her frown deepened. “Unless you made a new mess for her.”
The cook swayed and braced himself against the doorframe. The girl could smell sour beer even from her seat by the fire; Yannec was his meanest like this. “It’s no good, you daft … You’re trying to make her more than she is. Her own family couldn’t even find a use for her.”
“You don’t know that,” the magician said coldly.
Godmother Fortune shook her head, vehement, her wreath of coin and bone jingling. “It’s not true at all, Vanja dear. We have plenty of uses for you.”
“We’d already kept you too long,” said Godmother Death.
I was the only one who could hear them, see them, so all I said was a muted “They still left me.”
“See!” Yannec crowed. “Blood doesn’t turn on blood without damn good reason. You’re wasting your time.”
Joniza shot him a look of pure spite. “Go clean up your own mess.”
He’d gotten what he wanted; I knew that, when I went to sleep, I wouldn’t be able to keep his words out of my head any more than the rats I was meant to scare out of the pantry. He vanished back down to the kitchens, grumbling.
“Blood and family are not the same,” Joniza said after a long moment. “Do you understand?”
I did and I did not. I scarcely remembered the faces of the family I left that cold midwinter night, nor the face of my mother, lit by a flickering lantern as she turned her back on me. My godmothers called me their daughter, but sometimes I thought they did not understand what a daughter was. Why else would they have sent me to Sovabin?
I was learning to lie with more than my hands, though. And so I said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
COUPLES' ACTIVITIES
“Look!” I show Emeric the back of my hand as he passes through the gate into the Sünderweg. A wreath of green leaves has been stamped below my knuckles. “No bed lice!”
“What a relief,” he says insincerely, wrinkling his nose at the same stamp on his own hand. “I suppose I should be happy they take hygiene so seriously.”
Rammelbeck does, in fact, take hygiene seriously, at least in the Sünderweg. Like any decent brothel district, there are plenty of side alleys and narrow lanes for the client who likes a certain gritty ambience, but if you look carefully, they’re all dead ends. Every street-level entry to the area is blocked by a gate. Each gateway lets visitors pass only after they submit to a brief and brusque exam from a streetwitch to detect bed lice, bed pox, bed warts, or any number of other stomach-turning ailments that start with bed. Even the bordellos we’re passing flaunt weekly inspection placards just as boldly as their more carnal displays.
And displays there are aplenty, though it’s not even noon. Not all are lurid—a crowd of uproariously drunk women enjoy a late breakfast outside one establishment, a damozel is tastefully arranged in the window of another—but nobody would mistake this for a temple district either. Every inch is a curated venue for carnal enterprise. Cosmetically “grungy” side alleys are being enthusiastically utilized by mietlingen and their clients, large signs advertise different services and rates with themed names, and a robust variety of … sounds drift through open windows.
I wish I knew what it was like for all this to be enjoyable, rather than uncomfortable. It’s one thing when it’s me and Emeric alone, fumbling a little, laughing more. Here I can’t shake a squirming feeling, like I’ve accidentally walked into someone’s private party and we all know I don’t belong. The only consolation is that my misery has company, as Emeric, too, looks like he’d rather be doing his taxes. (Maybe that’s not the strongest comparison; I think he does taxes to unwind after a long day.)
“I say we pose as newlyweds,” I tell him, partially to distract us both.
He blinks at me. “What?”
“Well, if I were a shady brothel owner potentially involved in a kidnapping plot, I wouldn’t let a prefect—aspirant, yes—conduct a scavenger hunt for the victim on my property.”
“You’re not wrong,” Emeric says slowly. “However, we’re in a bit of a gray area here. I’m supposed to remain in uniform while actively on duty, unless it calls for undercover work—”
“I mean, isn’t all brothel work technically under covers?”
He lets out a sigh of pure suffering and carries on: “—which needs a stronger justification than what we have. Erwin Ros is connected to the Scarlet Maiden case, but we don’t have reason to believe his disappearance is, so … just to be safe, let’s do this by the book.”
Madame Treasury’s isn’t hard to spot a few blocks into the main strip. Its commanding façade is painted black with golden trim to evoke its titular institution, and wrought iron railings frame a fan of slate steps that lead up to imposing polished-teak double doors. A very sturdy man is blockading the entrance as the brothel’s very own on-call Grace Unending, his chin jutting like he’s got several grudges on layaway and an itch to take them off the shelf.
“Spintz,” he grunts as we walk up.
