The Cage of Dark Hours, page 15
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The afternoon had grown cooler, what with the sun slipping closer to the Valley’s rim, and so the small table they were afforded on the patio was quite comfortable.
The café owner had made sure to seat them in the most visible streetside table—clearly to draw in business—but was courteous enough to leave all the adjoining tables empty. Lovely yellow stained-glass lemons filled the space in the delicate wrought-iron fencing that separated them from the street proper, which matched the lemons decorating every piece of dinnerware set before them.
A child in a long smock delivered their coffee and three spiced cakes, then scampered off again.
The table and chairs were dainty, their spokes and legs thin and filigreed. They reminded Mandip of the crocheted doilies that had been the height of table decoration in his childhood. The furniture hardly looked fit for use by anyone heavier than a doll but in actuality were iron painted over in white. Their apparent softness and fragility were a deception …
Much like Juliet’s.
As they trio sipped their coffee, the songstress regaled the two men with firsthand accounts of stories Mandip had heard a dozen times in gossip. Juliet hardly looked old enough to have been on as many adventures as she had, and Mandip was slightly embarrassed to learn she and he were of similar age. She’d already seen and done so many things, while he, so little.
“Did you really rescue that young woman from a mountainside coterie?” Thibaut asked.
“Rescue her?” she asked, incredulous. Her finely painted nails, each imbedded with a small gem, clicked against the porcelain cup. Mandip wondered if the stones were enchanted. “I married her, thank you. One doesn’t scale a granite cliff face in nothing but their knickers for anything less than true love.”
“You’re not married,” Mandip stated, matter of fact.
“True love is fleeting,” she countered, leaning back in her chair, teetering on its hind two legs for the simple buzz of it. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Hmm,” Thibaut acknowledged, glancing away, out toward the statue of Absolon. Her declaration had apparently hit a nerve. Mandip tucked that knowledge away for later.
Street traffic was light this afternoon, but still, once in a while, someone recognized La Maupin, and her footman-cum-bodyguard would intercept. She’d wave at them cheekily; they’d wave back, then be on their way.
“Enough about me,” she said eventually. “What outlandish stories might I have missed about you, Mandip?”
Thibaut narrowed his gaze and drew a breath, as though to protest, but ultimately held his tongue. He and Mandip both knew all this pleasant conversation was a diversion. The young lord had been a part of enough tête-à-têtes to know that when someone desperately wanted information, they put off talking about the subject for as long as possible.
Charbon’s concern was important enough to Juliet that she wanted it to seem unimportant.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mandip said, feigning diffidence. “I’ve certainly never challenged a head priest to a duel, or jumped the Marrakevian border in a turnip cart, or ended a bloodbath with a ballad.”
“It was more of a tavern brawl than a bloodbath,” Juliet said modestly, “but I take your point, you poor, sheltered boy. We must figure out how to inject some excitement into your stodgy life of civil service.”
“I manage,” he said, bringing his coffee cup to his lips, letting the earthy aroma waft over him.
Thibaut suddenly leaned forward, bracing himself on Mandip’s arm—clinging to him right over the strip of silver. Mandip froze with the cup halfway to the table and stared at Thibaut’s green-gloved hand as though he might burn it away with his gaze alone.
“Did you know,” Thibaut began, and Mandip did not like the particular pitch of his tone; there was an arrogance to it, “that Lord Basu’s family can trace its lineage all the way back to the days of Absolon? Their records are that good.”
To hide his nerves, Mandip took another sip of his coffee.
“I mean,” Thibaut continued, “we all ended up in the Valley the same way, but apparently, if you’ve got vellum that says so, that makes you a noble.”
Mandip choked on his drink. Juliet threw a hand over her mouth.
“Course,” Thibaut went on without skipping a beat, “how they came by this piece of vellum—which is a decree from Absolon himself—remains a mystery.”
“It is not a mystery,” Mandip said harshly, yanking himself out of Thibaut’s grip and wiping his chin on the back of his hand like a commoner, too agitated for manners. “And it was certified by the heads of all five city-states, so how dare you imply—”
“You see,” Thibaut spoke over him, “Mandip’s great-great-great-uncle came to Lutador bearing this document when he was nineteen years old. In Asgar-Skan, the young man had been a painter. A very good one. But not good enough to raise his family out of poverty and into the merchant class, unfortunately. But then he goes and discovers this document submerged with his ancestor’s corpse.
“Did you know that’s how they deal with the dead in Asgar-Skan? They don’t return them to the sand; they return them to the water. That’s Knowledge’s tradition—something about the roots of the present drinking up the information of the past. Anyway, they make these fantastic enchanted boxes they call coffins—waterproof, you see—then chain them to huge stones and sink them at the bottom of the Grand Falls. Thousands and thousands and thousands of bodies down there, and no one ever talks about it.
“Once a body is sealed and sunk, it’s never supposed to see the surface again. Because that’s just a tad unsavory, isn’t it? Not to mention rude. Imagine you’re dead and someone gets it in their head that they’d like to gawk at your half-naked, mostly decayed body. Rude. But that’s not the point. The point is that Mandip’s great-great-great-uncle decides that simply entreating the gods for a better social standing is no good. They don’t tend to answer often, so I don’t blame him. So, he decides that asking his ancestors for a little mystical aid is the way to go. But you see, since they don’t have sand pits or hourglass catacombs in Asgar-Skan, they have to go to the Grand Falls with all the tourists and shout at their relatives above the din.
“Have you ever been to the Grand Falls? Of course you have, my dear, forgive me; I forgot who I was speaking to. Loudest sound in the Valley, isn’t it? Rivaled only by Mandip when he finishes.”
Mandip felt the blood drain from his face, and his mouth fell open.
“Finishes a tournament,” Thibaut corrected himself, though it had clearly been no slip of the tongue. “You gave quite the mighty shout this afternoon. As I was saying, Great-Great-Great-Uncle Basu yells into the roar of the Falls—crying, screaming—and is just sure his ancestors can’t hear him. So, he dives in. Which is illegal. Very illegal. It’s dangerous. The power of the water there is like none elsewhere in the Valley. It can suck a horse under and you’d never see it again. Fish drown under the pounding of the Falls.
“So, the Watch is called to retrieve this none-too-bright young man and save him from certain death by brutish waters. Their best swimmers go to pull him out, but the idiot’s been caught up in some kind of whirlpool and goes under. Gets his foot hooked in a coffin chain. No one can get him loose, so they pull the dead up with him. Takes ten of the Watch to do it.
“Fate has it that he got caught on one of the oldest boxes in the river. And when they wipe all the algae and grime of ages off it, the Basu family name is carved right into it. Since a funeral needs to be planned in order for anything to be legally sunk, they can’t just throw the box back in.
“So, the young man takes it home with him.
“He claims later that the seal breaks—all on its own—the enchantment dissipates, and inside is this perfectly preserved proclamation from Absolon. As Mandip said, authenticators from all over Arkensyre have a look at it. It’s legitimized. It says a Basu was one of Absolon’s closest confidants, that their family was to be given all the authority and standing that should be imbued upon those who best helped Absolon lead us to the Valley and out of the clutches of the Thalo and its creatures. All well and good. Excellent, seems reasonable. Save one small issue.”
Thibaut paused, taking a large bite of his cake, chewing thoughtfully.
What small issue? Mandip had never heard tell of a problem with the documents.
He couldn’t help himself—he leaned in. As did Juliet, absolutely taken with the possibility of an intrigue.
Clearly perfectly pleased with the way he’d captivated his audience, Thibaut took his sweet time masticating his way through his mouthful of confection.
“Yes?” Mandip prompted. “Spit it out.”
Thibaut swallowed. “Well, one small issue, save the fact that it’s strange that in thousands of years, no Basu had tried to claim their birthright, and the writ ended up sunk and nearly useless, of course,” he said. “It wasn’t the handwriting—that matched the scrolls. The ink was the right type and the right age. The vellum, too, was a fine skin, only eaten a little by mites and such. Everything appeared perfectly in order. Except…” He coughed, as though his throat had gone dry, and took a long pull from his coffee.
Mandip gritted his teeth.
Thibaut’s theatrics were fooling no one.
“Except,” he said, “there was a single boar’s bristle from a brush caught in one stroke in the A on Absolon. And one authenticator claimed it was from a kind bred into existence many centuries after the Great Introdus.”
“So?” Mandip asked, voice a tad shriller than he’d meant it to be. His heart rate ticked up, and his muscles coiled. He knew what Thibaut was getting at.
“So, it was a kind quite common in paint brushes of your great-great-great-uncle’s time. I’d wager any painter—even a destitute one—would likely have owned such a brush. And if that painter was skilled, and industrious, and dead set on not resigning himself to both obscurity and poverty, well…”
Mandip had had enough.
Before he could think better of it, the lordling was on his feet, pushing his filigreed chair back with a harsh grating across the stones. He leaned over the table, jostling the porcelain settings, making the remaining coffee in their cups slosh and splatter onto the fine tablecloth. “I demand you rescind your disparaging accusations,” he said through his teeth, pointing a finger sharply at Thibaut. “I did not hire you to slander my family in front of—”
“Slander?” Thibaut said, as though he were the one being insulted here. “Why, I’m talking you up.” He gestured to Juliet. “The mademoiselle asked for an interesting story about you, and you were content to act an absolute bore. What’s more interesting than the fact that you will inherit access to a set of high-priority positions based on an exquisite forgery created by your enterprising ancestor?”
“It’s not a—”
“Come, now. Your family have already been at it for generations—with nary a scandal in any appointments, and that’s saying something. The truth of how they got there is no less shady than any story brought to bear by any other noble family—bless you all—and no one in their right mind would challenge you at this point.”
Juliet’s eyes sparkled. Mandip’s blazed with righteous indignation.
All it took was a gentle touch from La Maupin to subdue Mandip’s newly re-aroused anger. “It was a delightful story,” she assured him, gesturing at his chair, clearly indicating he should sit again. “Do you share any of your clever relative’s artistic skills? Have you ever forged a highly important document?”
The questions were earnest. Where Thibaut was clearly making fun, she was brimming over with interest and sincerity.
All the heat left Mandip then, like his bellows had been deflated. “I … have excellent penmanship,” he said weakly, slumping back down into his seat.
“Maybe you could forge a nice bill of sale or certification of death if you really put your mind to it,” Thibaut suggested.
“I would never engage in such illicit activity,” he spat.
Juliet’s eyes changed, only for a moment, as though the suggestion that Mandip might be useful was something to tuck away for later. “Marvelous,” she said, her voice carrying the slyness of a snake-oil salesman.
And then she turned on her true target. Thibaut. “And what about you?”
Both men knew what she was asking.
The mood at the table shifted considerably. Where Juliet and Thibaut had both been gleeful, now they were suddenly somber.
“I was there,” Thibaut said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “when the Mayhem Mask was used.” He paused for dramatic effect.
“And?” she prompted. “What did you learn from it?”
Why was she so interested?
A woman who scaled coterie walls could be interested out of macabre curiosity or meaningful intent. All the subtle cues of her person implied the latter in Mandip’s mind.
“Nothing so terrible as to how to skin a man or where to separate his joints. I didn’t don the mask. That would have been a terrible betrayal of our oh-so-generous state,” he said, glancing sideways at Mandip. “That mask is as illegal as an item can be. But I was there when someone else put it on. I feared for my life, you know. Some masks carry more than knowledge. I could see the intent of the long-dead killer in my—in this person’s—eyes. I could sense that intent turning on everyone and everything. I could have died by a familiar hand.” He threw in a dramatic shiver that seemed to impress her less than it should have.
“Yes, I know,” she said impatiently, “about echoes, I mean. That’s what I’m curious about. What did the echo say? Anything? Anything strange? Anything personal? Anything about its victims—present or past?”
Her questions came out more like demands, edging on interrogation instead of casual conversation.
Thibaut seemed taken aback by her sudden directness. “When properly controlled…” he said carefully, “most echoes are never allowed to say anything at all.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Then the Mayhem Mask said nothing? Charbon was contained?”
“Why, exactly, are you so interested?”
“I need to know why he did it,” she said frankly. “I don’t mean the rubbish they read out in court; I mean—” She leaned forward, overzealous. The gaiety of her person was gone—her personality shifted entirely, to reveal a woman on a mission. Someone with clear purpose behind her actions.
Catching herself, she took a deep breath and smoothed her skirts. She glanced at the tabletop, and when her eyes rose again, the mask of blitheness was back. “Did the echo give you any names?”
Thibaut’s gaze unfocused, as though he were looking back, into himself, and didn’t like what he saw.
“Monsieur?” Juliet prompted.
He’d gone off alone in his mind. He seemed genuinely bothered.
“Forgive me,” he said sincerely, “the memory still leaves me raw.”
“Perhaps you need time to compose a proper answer?” she suggested. “I understand the trauma of it. Perhaps you will both join me as my guests tomorrow night? As Lord Basu hinted earlier, I’ll be performing at the Palace Rotunda, for the delegates of the five city-states. It’s time again for their Pentaétos, and I am to be part of the celebratory evening’s entertainment. Please, come. I will ease you with comforts and pleasures, and then you will tell me of that horrid man’s mind. Agreed?”
Thibaut clearly forced himself to clamp down on his boyish enthusiasm. His cheeks were flushed and his smile broad. But he bit his tongue, said nothing, clearly worried about being overeager. Mandip wondered if Thibaut had ever been able to attend a performance at the Rotunda. Perhaps the level of nobility he’d been able to reach with his charms had never been so lofty.
It would be a terrible offense to decline, and Mandip’s upbringing overrode his good sense. “It would be an honor, mademoiselle,” he answered for the two of them.
He’d be in attendance regardless. Why not as her special guest?
“Wonderful,” she declared, snapping up the remainder of her cake and throwing down her cloth napkin. “I must retire now, to do my afternoon gargling.” She patted her throat with the back of her hand. “An instrument such as mine takes a mountain of care. See you soon, my dears.”
“This evening,” Mandip reminded her. “For your tour.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Of course.”
With that, she took her bodyguard’s arm, and the two of them sauntered off.
“Why did you tell her that—about my family? How do you know any of that?” Mandip demanded as soon as she was out of earshot.
“As though I wouldn’t research your cousin before taking feir time vials. The accounting is all in the Hall of Records. It’s no secret, but very few people bother with so much reading.”
The child in the smock returned, hurriedly clearing their table, though both men still had coffee in their cups and cake on their plates. Thibaut swiped his last morsel as the dish was pulled away. “La Maupin’s food patron will be billed,” the child assured them, and Thibaut understood this to mean her patron would not be paying for a second more of their leisure.
“Come, milor,” Thibaut said, holding out his arm for Mandip. “The afternoon is bright, and I do believe we’ve been invited to the most exclusive performance in town. We should celebrate,” he added coyly.
“We should part ways,” Mandip countered. “First you manipulate me, then you steal from me, then you insult me. Why would I want to spend one more minute with you?”
“Because you’re having fun,” Thibaut stated, as though it was obvious.
“What, exactly, about you questioning my authority and undermining me at every turn, is supposed to be fun?”
“The novelty of it all?” he suggested. “You’re not being pandered to by the underclasses, for once in your life.” Thibaut rounded the table, dodging the boy as he continued to clear away the dishes.
