“Drink deep.” I said, smiling at the dying man. He took the flask in his trembling hands and put it to his lips, hesitating only a moment before downing the fluid. He looked stricken for a moment, but another moment later his eyes rolled back in his head and his body fell limp in my arms, a look of… not peace… but acceptance on his face. My hand flashed out and caught the empty glass bottle before it rolled out of his hands and hit the floor. Not enough of these, and nowhere to get more. I couldn’t have another one breaking on me.
I stood up from the man’s bed side and put the plague mask back on my face. The man had been well past the infectious stage, I’d taken the mask off as a mercy, no one wants to look on the face of some terrible carrion bird as they died, but the people outside wouldn’t understand that. They’d be afraid I’d carry the disease out to them, so I wouldn’t let them know. Gods knew they’d be angry enough that I hadn’t been able to save their precious Lord. I would, of course, not be telling them that it wasn’t the disease that took their master either. I’d found in my, admittedly limited experience, that the truth did not usually set you free. it landed you in chains, more often than not, and I didn’t have time to spend breaking out.
The man had been dead already, all that awaited him was another few days of bleary confusion and then hours of excruciating pain as his innards putrefied at high speeds inside of him. Whatever foul being had devised this disease was cruel, there was no recovering once the disease hit a certain stage, and once you did, not even Poppy could ease the pain you would start to feel. It was ironic, but I’d been sent to kill this man. Had I truly been here in my capacity as a doctor I would have futilely administered every remedy I knew to no avail, watching helplessly as he succumbed to the disease, and then I would have dissected his body to see what I could learn. Coming here in my… other role… gave me the ability to do what I most desired, putting an end to the poor man’s misery.
Life is a funny thing. I hoped my client knew as much about the disease as I did, and was merely saving a friend hours of pain, but I felt it more likely that some power hungry rival had merely wanted him out of the way, not knowing anything of the Lords sickness.
“Is he…?” The Lords daughter asked, rubbing her dainty hands together nervously.
“Gone.” I said, pulling down my hood, a sign of respect. “I’m sorry. He slipped away peacefully.”
“He…” The girl’s voice broke. She couldn’t have been fifteen, but now she was head of a rather sizeable estate, complete with its own farms, lumber mill and blacksmith. A happy predicament, if only she wasn’t utterly bereft of family. Her mother had passed away of the selfsame illness as her father a few months back, without anyone to ease her passage. She knew what the sickness caused. “He did?”
“Indeed. The illness progressed more quickly in Lord Gyemen than it did in your Lady mother. A blessing, if I may be so crass as to call it that.”
“You think it a blessing…?” The head maid said, puffing up like an angry cat, but the new Lady Gyemen waved her down, a faraway look in her eyes.
“The good doctor is right.” She said, “He’s… Stars forfend, he’s right.”
“Now, my Lady,” I began. “I understand your father and mother were goodly folk, the kind of Lords to take walks down into the village to see what they could do to help the townsfolk.”
“They were.” She said, coloring and sitting up straighter. “And I’m proud to be their daughter. I will do the same.” She was on the verge of tears, but she was holding them in masterfully.
“I… must recommend against that, my lady. The disease spreads quickly in crowded places like that, almost half the village is already sick. If you go down there you will likely suffer the same fate as your noble parents. Wait until the plague runs its course. It should be another week, no more, until the last of the … unfortunates… have passed on.” And the screaming in those last days would likely be more than this poor girl could stand, even shut up here in her parents manor.
“No. Thank you doctor, but I must see my people. It would shame my parent’s memories if I did not tend to them as they did, as their forefathers did. This is not a fief that simply allows its people to wither and die, while the Lord or Lady of the manor sit idly by, safe at home.”
I sighed in my mask and shut my eyes for a moment. Stars save me from high minded fools.
“My lady… all that would accomplish is the propagation of the disease as well as your own death. You would save no one, you have not the skills, and even if you’d had, the ones in the Village are beyond saving. Everyone not too far gone I’ve treated and sent away. Those still sick will die. “
“Irrelevant.” She said. Her father’s death was not affecting her like I had hoped. Many people fear for their own lives after the loss of a loved one, or fear for the lives of other loved ones, but the young Lady seemed to be the type to have caught that lamentably fatal infection called ‘honor’. She would do anything to do whatever she believed would ‘honor’ her father’s memory. If that meant killing herself, she would do it without a second thought. I did not want that to happen. This was one of the few lands in this region without a despotically insane Lord or Lady, and I intended to keep it that way. Whoever wanted the old lord dead was certainly counting on his daughter to do something like this, to clear the way for his own ascension. Anyone who would hire someone like me was not someone I wanted in charge of this place. Small as it was, I did have a conscience.
“My lady,” I said, approaching her, “I apologize profusely.”
“For what?”
“For this.” I said, and my hand lashed out striking her sharply in the temple. The Young Lady fell out of the flowery chair she had been sitting in, the skirt of her dress catching on the leg and sending it tumbling to the floor on top of her.
“You…” The maid began, but before she could say anything more I had a knife at her throat.
“I’m trying to help.”
“Gua…” I pressed it more tightly to her throat and hissed,
“You call the guards and I slit your throat.”
I pressed a bundle of herbs into one of her hands, my horrible, avian face sill pressed close to hers. She stared into the red glass of my eye and I knew she saw nothing of the man underneath. Just a Plague Doctor, an old Crow, harbinger of death.
“Put this in the Lady’s tea. Whenever she wakes up, make sure she ingests at least a little of this. Force feed her if you have to. It will put her back to sleep, and prevent her from making any sort of excursion down into the village. Do this for a week, and do not feed her anything solid. Soup would be best. I’m trying to help,” I said again.
“She will become sick if she goes down there.” I said, “This disease is not a normal one. It seems to… pick… its victims, and one of its many desires seems to destabilize the region by killing its leaders. I believe we both want to see the Young Lady grow to a ripe old age.”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded ever so slightly.
“Believe me or no. I’ve done my best to save your Young Lady.” I took a step back and stashed my knife back up my sleeve. The maid didn’t call the guards, which I thought was promising. “I hope you won’t get in trouble.” I added awkwardly as I left the parlor room. “The body of your late Lord is not infectious, but just to be safe I would burn it.”
The maid said nothing. She only watched me leave in a horrified fascination, like one would watch a vulture picking at the dead flesh of a beast. It was grotesque, disgusting, but it was human nature to look on anyway.
Out in the manors lawn I heard a commotion from inside. Guards kicked the front doors open as I left through the front gate and turned the corner. They probably called for me, but I whipped off my mask, replacing it with a heavily perfumed towel, and stowed it in my bag before pressing on deeper into the town. If they were looking for me to arrest me, then I wanted to be far away from here very quickly, and if they wanted me to revive their mysteriously fallen mistress, then I would still rather not be caught. There was nothing I would do, and the Head Maid might just decide to reveal the source of the strange fainting illness, and then where would I be?
Deeper in the town I could feel the weight of despair pressing close around me. Men and women, all past their prime, wearing the same scented rags around their face (at my recommendation) darted in and out of the main sick house. It was an old school house, no longer in use, and would be burned after the plague passed. The strange, otherworldly presence I’d come to associate with the Red Plague. It was no normal plague, of that I was sure. It was trying to find its way inside me, I’d gotten in its way a few too many times, released those I could before it could sink its claws too deep, healed those it had its eye on, provided preventative measures to those I could. Much of this little fief was wearing these rags around their faces thanks to me and the other plague doctors I had advised.
“I know you too well.” I said aloud, knowing everyone else would be too busy to notice. “You won’t get me. I treat myself for you after every outing, I never uncover my mouth when I know you’re there, so just leave me be. I’ll continue being a thorn in your side, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I nodded to the air. “You’re an opponent who’s like I’ve never had to face before, and I respect you for that. You’ve turned this unsavory rogue into a doctor,” I grinned under my mask. “Thank you for broadening my horizons.”
There was a shifting in the air around me, and the oppressive weight of the plague dissipated. My eyes narrowed. That had never happened before. At least, never so suddenly. Usually the weight just became lighter and lighter until I was able to walk out of its bailiwick, farther and farther from the town or city it held sway. Had the thing heard me? More and more evidence that I wasn’t insane, that the others in the guild were wrong to mock me for taking an impossible contract.
A few months ago the rogue’s guild had received an odd request, one for an assassination. That in and of itself wasn’t so odd. Sometimes we dealt with inhumation of certain personages, for an exorbitant fee, but the contractor, one who called themselves only Blue Flower, called for us to inhume the red plague. The reward was 50,000 Golden Corners, a king’s ransom, and there was no time limit to the request.
Thinking it some sort of joke, none of the others would take the job so I, middling, mediocre rogue that I was, decided to try my hand at it. After all, I could work on this case in between jobs, and plague doctors were cropping up from all walks of life. Every fool with some home remedy and an equally foolish will to do good was donning the beaked mask, why not a rogue? I, at least, had a thorough grounding in alchemy, at least in the realm of what will and will not kill a person, and in many cases the line between poison and potion was thin indeed. More than that, the Plague Doctor mask afforded me a wonderful disguise for my other jobs, especially since I was really a plague doctor, given a writ of authenticity by the king himself. That didn’t mean much of course, I’d met a fellow plague doctor who had owned nothing more than a fruit stand before he acquired the mask, but the common folk didn’t know that. The empire didn’t really want doctors anyway. No, those were too important to risk in the plague riddled slums and country sides. They wanted people to count the corpses and tell the king how much he was losing in taxes, because the usual clerks and assorted leg men were too frightened to leave their homes.
I reached the local guild house an hour before nightfall. It was just a decrepit old bar on the side of an old wagon trail, disused and far gone from the new highways the king had built to facilitate trade. I knocked on the door and said in my most irreverent, roguish voice;
“A hundred bells and a hundred roofs, one of the hundred crows comes back to roost.”
A slit in the door opened up and a pair of beady black eyes peered down at me.
“Hunh. You’re back. Didn’t think you’d be able to handle the job.”
I smiled thinly at the man.
“I’m a part of the guild, same as you.”
He opened the door and let me in.
“I believe you. It’s always the small and smiley ones that make the best killers, believe me I know. I didn’t think you’d be able to pull it off because I was convinced you’d catch the plague and die.
I’d taken off my Plague Doctor regalia. I didn’t need anyone to connect one of us with the Rogue’s guild, even someone on the inside.
“I’m small, but I’m robust.” I said, still smiling.
I stepped inside, bringing to bear all 5’ 5’’ inches of me. I felt almost naked without my Plague Suit. Without it I was just another scrawny knife sticker, as we called the rogues who took on the more… unsavory jobs around the guild, though I rarely used a knife. The men and occasional woman sitting around the bar turned their gazes on me. I was an outsider. Of the guild, but from another chapter, sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Add that to being rather small, thin and fragile looking, it had made me a target here. No one had tried anything yet, but it was just a matter of time.
I walked up to the bar and sat down in a stool, as far away from the other patrons as I could manage.
“Whatever you’ve got. Something strong.” I said, still smiling.
“You sure you wouldn’t want a milk instead?” The bartender snorted.
“I’m twenty seven, though I may not look it.” That was a lie, technically. I had no idea how old I was, but that was an upper range on how old I thought I was. Street rats didn’t usually count birthdays, sadly. We didn’t expect to have too many.
I kept smiling steadily at the man. Small in stature as I was, without my mask, smiling was the best way to intimidate people. If you never stopped, even when treated poorly, some tended to get unnerved. The bar keep was of this type fortunately, and turned quickly away to get me my drink.
Someone sat down next to me and I turned towards her, small smile still on my face. Her face was shrouded by a hood, and her entire body was covered, head to toe, in black.
“Here.” She said, “Your pay for shuffling our dear Lord Gyemen off the mortal coil.” And slid a thick stack of coins onto the bar, which I promptly swept into my belt pouch. It didn’t do to leave money lying around like that. The patrons here could hear the clink of coin from a mile away, and my reward had already drawn the attention of a few less scrupulous types, though I could hardly talk about scruples with my profession what it was.
“You had to give it to me here?” I asked, smiling faintly down at the wood of the bar, not looking at my guest.
“You’ve got problems with the other guild members. Work it out, Alaunus.”
“They have problems with me.” I laughed, “I don’t have anything against them.”
She shook her head and slipped me a piece of paper.
“This came for you too. Seems the client for your… other… contract has asked to meet with you.”
“Ha.” I said, “Interesting. I’ll look at this later, thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible before I get to my drink.”
My guest clapped her hand on my shoulder as she rose to leave.
“Don’t hurt them too bad.”
“Of course.” I said, “I ever endeavor to restrain myself.” And favored her with another smile.
As soon as she was gone the bar tender came back with my drink, and two rough faced men stood up from a table at the other end of the room, glaring at me.
I looked at my beer. “Gotta take the bad with the good.” I took a sip, and my mouth twisted at the taste of the incredibly sour beer. “Never mind.” I shot the bar tender a look. He was hiding a smile.
“You all-all buddy buddy with the Dark Lady then?” One of the men said, taking a halting step towards me.
“You know how it goes. People need someone to talk to after a busy day. She’s all over the barony in just a couple hours, you know, handing out bounty rewards, bringing news to the different chapters, taking care of members that break guild law. Funnily enough, killing another member of the guild is prohibited, did you know that? The Dark Lady told me she likes to kill the men and women who break that rule particularly slowly.” I smiled at both of the men. “Tell me, and remember that this is a purely hypothetical question; do you think you could get away from a woman whose able to move from Taj to Houberg, a trip that would usually take a week, in a couple of hours? I’ve no idea how she does it, but it is simply amazing. I’d be dead within a few minutes, I’m sure.”
One of the men took a step back, they were both visibly shaken.
“Only if she finds out about it.” A huge, mean looking woman said from one of the tables. “She can’t be everywhere if she’s as busy as all that. Go ahead, Karmus, no one here will tell if you exterminate a little outsider with no business here.”
“But I do have business here, ma’am, and have the permission of not just my own chapter master, but yours as well.” I smiled at her too. She spat on the floor.
“One of us would have taken that job. The payout would have set us up for at least a year.” She said.
I looked to the bartender, hoping for some help, but he looked away and my smile faltered. At that moment there was a whistling sound, and I rolled off my seat, not quick enough to avoid being clipped by a glass bottle one of the men had snatched of the bar. The glass shattered and gouged a chunk of flesh from my cheek. I hissed in pain and my dagger flashed from out of my sleeve. I dodged the next swing, dancing around my larger opponent, and stuck the blade into the right side of his back. The main howled, and fell, thrashing, and my knife was pulled from my hands. I stepped away from him, and held my hands in the air.
“Alright, truce. He’ll need medical attention now, I’d advise—“ but I didn’t get to finish, because the second man apparently cared more about hurting me than helping his friend, and I received a very solid blow to the face from the mans closed fist. What was more, as I blinked the pain away, I saw that more of the bar patrons had gotten up and were approaching me in a more than menacing way.
I got back to my feet and deflected another blow from the second man, using his own momentum and slapping it away, sending him charging into the bar. I swallowed nervously. There were seven or eight people surrounding me, a few of them with knives. That was six or seven more than I thought I could reasonably take.
“I’m sorry, all of you. You didn’t leave me a choice.” I said, and began to loosen one of my wisdom teeth with my tongue. It came free with a slick popping sound after a few seconds of wiggling, and then I bit down on it. This was a common thing among many of the more serious rogues. A kind of insurance policy. It was usually filled with poison, as mine was, and was meant to be ingested by the user, so as to keep the secrets of the client safe. Mine, however, wasn’t poison for me. It was a marginally toxic mixture of Frogwort, Killkey weed and Blood Flower. It was lethal in high quantities, but would only cause violent vomiting when not applied in sufficient amounts. The most important part about this mixture, however, was that it immediately turned to gas upon contact with the air. As the seal on the mixture broke open, I breathed out as deep as I could, a cloud of faint purple spread out from my mouth like the smoke from a particularly noxious cigar. The cloud engulfed my attackers who immediately seized up, before beginning to vomit violently.
“Tada!” I said, smiling. I had built up a resistance to this and a few other poisons over the years. I looked around the bar and found the Dark Lady standing in the corner of the room, holding her sleeve to her face. “Tada!” I said again, pleased to have someone still standing to appreciate my cleverness. I started towards her but she raised her other hand. “Stop. Cough away from me. Make sure all of the nasty stuff is out of your system.”
I coughed a few times obligingly. Puffs of the gas left my lungs. On the last cough I felt my stomach seize up, and, despite myself, I puked onto the floor.
“Ugh.” I said, straightening, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
“Not as resistant as you thought, then?”
“Resistant enough.” I said, “At least I didn’t end up like these poor fools.” I said, shaking my head at my former attackers, all still dry heaving into the floor boards. The Barkeep, too, was nowhere to be seen, though I could hear retching behind the counter.
“Let’s go.” She said,
“Go where?” I asked, patting myself down, looking for the note she’d given me.
“I’m to bring you to your client.”
“I haven’t even read the paper yet.” I said,
“Oh. Sorry. Would you like me to wait for you to finish your drink, too?”
“No. That won’t be necessary.” I said, realizing I had left the note on the bar. I stepped over the unfortunate forms of the bar patrons and retrieved it.
I began to read the note aloud. “Most Esteemed Lord Alaunus.” I grinned at the Dark Lady. “A promising start. I like being called ‘Lord’.”
I couldn’t see her face, but I was willing to bet good money she was rolling her eyes.
“I wish to invite you to a gathering of your fellow conspirators at my manor this evening.” I frowned, “Fellow conspirators?”
“Why would the client only hire one amateur rogue whose only talent lies in poisoning himself and everyone around him?”
“I see.” I kept reading. “I await you in Heyl… That’s three days away!”
“Which is why I’m here.”
“Await you in Heyl, where I will reveal the true nature of this contract to the group as a whole. Do not worry about the reward, I will pay each individual the full amount stated should they actively participate in the downfall of our mark. Yours truly, Blue Flower.”
I looked up at the Dark Lady. “Well. I hope this turns out alright. I’ll be getting my money but… I don’t like having to work with other people.”
“Tell someone who cares.” She said,
“I thought we were friends!” I said, “Friends listen to each other’s problems, and they sympathize.”
“You’re the only one who thinks that. Just because you try to drum up a conversation every time I deliver your pay doesn’t make us friends. And no. Real friends don’t sympathize, real friends tell each other to suck it up and get over it. You wouldn’t know, I suppose.”
My smile became stony.
“Well, time to go.” I said, and put out my hand. The Dark Lady strode towards me and took it, and suddenly I felt like the floor had given way. I could see nothing, nothing at all. I felt the Dark Ladies hand in mine, and I felt the rush of bitter cold wind, like we were falling through the dark of some deep, ancient cave. Despite the speed we were traveling at, and the utter blackness, I felt eyes watching me; many faceted eyes that had a horrible interest in the two, tiny creatures hurtling through their demesne.
And then we stopped.
We were standing in the shadow of an old, weather worn statue of some ancient king. I still held the dark ladies hand, and though it was gloved I felt cold seeping through the dark cloth, cold like the wind in the in-between place. I tried, not for the first time, to peer into the darkness of her hood, but the dark defied me again, hanging like a screen between her face and the outside world.
She snatched her hand away from me, when I did not immediately let go, and I knew she knew what I was trying to see.
“I leave you here.” She said, her voice cold, drawing her hood lower and stepping away from me.
“Then I bid you fare well, my lady.” I smiled, bowing slightly. She turned away from me without speaking and the shadows cast by the dying sun swallowed her so quickly that if I hadn’t touched her a moment before I might have doubted she’d ever been there.
“Now then.” I said to no one in particular. I liked to listen to my own voice, so I indulged sometimes when I was alone, when there was no one around to tell me to shut up. “Where am I?”
The statue I stood beneath was on a hill overlooking a little city, Heyl, I assumed. Lights were coming on as the sun set, the hill casting a shadow over the town already. Guard towers were abuzz with activity, a broad, stone wall, thicker than the other portions surrounding the city, faced the river that fed into the sea and was closing its gates. I could see men dropping sea spikes into the river, letting them float toward the ocean a ways before they dug into the silty bottom. Heyl was far away from any Water Folk dwelling, but you could never be too safe. Their raiders were known to swim for miles to pillage poorly defended shore towns. The Barony had learned its lesson long ago, and every important port town, and most of the unimportant ones, guarded their waterways with an obsessive fervor, even with the Nueral Ocean Treaty in place. It made trade by boat hell, I understood, and many merchants in nearby countries refused to trade by anything but cart with the barony.
I turned away from the town. It would be pretty in the night, the cities windows aglow, a muted hum of activity, heard from far away, less in the night. But my employer would be waiting. I looked up the hill. A house, very nearly a mansion, sat languorously in between two, great standing stones, eldritch patterns etched into their surface, relics of a bygone age. They dotted the Barony, a sight so common that only foreigners remarked on them. Fairy homes, some people called them. Some held they still possessed some of the power they so obviously once had, but I’d never seen any evidence of it. Spells and incantations were unreliable, they didn’t last a week, much less several thousand years.
The sun set fully when I reached the front of the house. Sounds came from within, laughter, talking, the clatter of dinnerware. A party! What a pleasant surprise. I took from my bag a nicer suit and pants and changed right in front of the door before I knocked. It was a talent of mine, I liked disguises, I liked the escape from myself they provided me, the second skin, the new identity, and so I’d become adept at shedding them and replacing them anew. It took me under ten seconds to change.
I knocked on the door, smile already on my face. It opened a moment later, a tall, bald gentleman in black and gold servant’s livery opened the door.
“Greetings. I was invited here by your most esteemed master or mistress, to discuss a certain… contract that I took.” I gave an actors bow, hand to my chest, forehead practically touching the floor. The servant didn’t look particularly impressed.
“Be that as it may,” He said in a droll monotone. “You’ll not gain entry unless I see the invitation you were given should your claim prove true.”
“Of course, of course.” I pulled the note out of my sleeve with a flourish. “Here you are.”
He took the note from me and pocketed it.
“Master Alaunus. This way, then. Blue Flower is expecting you.”
No mistress or master, just Blue Flower. Interesting. Would we be meeting our employer at all today? If we were, why the lack of title?
I stepped into the room, making sure I had a lively bounce to my step. I was small, I needed to make impressions other ways, and I liked to make sure everyone knew Alaunus as an enthusiastic, theatrical dandy, so that when I wasn’t being any of those things, my disguises worked that much better, even on the people who thought they knew me.
A dozen heads turned towards me, every one of them well-dressed, high class and very obviously not someone of my sort. I didn’t see a face among them that looked like they might have done a day’s honest, or, depending on the inclination, dishonest, work in their life.
“Master Alaunus!” I heard, the only warning I received before being assaulted by a large, bearded, hand shaking man in a suit that seemed to be bulging, small as it was on him.
“Ah! Greetings!” I said, missing only half a beat, and returned the handshake. The man’s grip was frighteningly strong. I could feel calluses on his palms, and saw the remnants of dirt under his finger nails, though he had tried to clean them. He smiled broadly, and I smiled broadly back, before he put his hand on my shoulder and turned me towards a woman, only a little taller than I was.
“And you know my wife, Bell Lewl’en, of course.”
“I do indeed, Lord Marcus.” I said, playing along, shaking her hand as well. I knew them now, Marcus and Bell Lewl’en, important lords in this part of the Barony, I’d actually taken a contract to steal something from one of their summer homes. It hadn’t been hard, they apparently didn’t care much for their worldly possessions, all I’d had to do was disarm an explosive rune on the glass case holding the tiara and disable once measly guard. “And I’m charmed to finally meet you, my lady, your husband has spoken of you at length. Mostly praising your radiant beauty which, I’m happy to say, I can now confirm with my own eyes.” Lady Lewl’en giggled, covering her mouth with her other hand, and I took the moment to take the measure of her. She wasn’t exactly pretty. Her face was a little too long, her eyes a bit too big, but she wasn’t displeasing to look at. I tilted my head as our hands touched. Her hands weren’t as callused as her husbands, and she was wearing dainty white gloves, but I could feel hard skin beneath them all the same. She wore very little jewelry, too, and what she did wear was cheap, easily replaceable. Did she expect to lose jewelry? Perhaps. If she took it off frequently and went elsewhere, perhaps where she picked up those calluses. That begged the question, what would two obviously upper class individuals be doing grubbing about in the dirt like commoners?
“Now, if you’d follow me to the private rooms? We’ve quite the gathering here today.” Most of the high class heads had turned back to their conversations. I was an old friend of the Lord, obviously, it wasn’t strange that I would be here, or that I’d be dining with him and his wife.
I followed behind Lord and Lady Lewl’en into the back of the house. This house was even more lavishly decorated than their Summer Home, which was saying something. The walls were gilded with actual gold leaf, inlaid with ever twisting, curling vines that were both aesthetically pleasing and hard to follow with the eyes. Chandeliers, shaped like a bouquet of roses hung from the ceiling. I hadn’t even known there were glass makers who could create something so obviously delicate. Paintings lined the wall, and some of them I recognized.
“Le’Fourar!” I said, delighted, my eyes resting on a canvas no larger than my head, decorated with the thin, sweeping strokes characteristic of the artist, depicting a garden in bloom.
“Yes. We’ve got one or two of his. Are you a fan?”
A smile curled its way onto my face, ivy creeping up a moldering wall.
“Of a sort. You know how it is, men like me need something to strive towards.” I sighed, “I’ve tried, but, sadly, I’ve never managed to lay my hands on a Le’Fourar, though a few years back I acquired a Keppler, through significant cost to myself.”
“Speaking of Kepplers, did you hear one was stolen at the Gala in Mercedia, oh, about two years back?” Lord Marcus mused, “I hear the thief left quite a bit of blood behind.”
“I was at the Gala, actually.” I said, trying not to laugh. “And the thief got away, didn’t he? The few pints of blood notwithstanding. It was really impressive he got away at all, wasn’t it? I heard they employed golems to guard the Keppler.” And they were nasty, too. I’d been expecting human guards, and poison doesn’t work well on stone.
“Enough.” Lady Lewl’en snapped. “It disgusts me to think that such a fine piece of art would find its way into hands like… yours!”
My smile vanished. The Lady didn’t like me.
“Ah, well. I regret that I didn’t have the space or security to keep the Keppler I managed to lay my hands on, so after enjoying it for a day or two I sold it. I don’t know If I made quite enough for my excursion to have been worth it.”
“How noble. I’m sure you sold it to a reputable—“
“Peace.” Lord Marcus said, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to offend. I was… showing off, honestly. I don’t get to do that often, not to my employers, with whom I rarely have contact. I like to demonstrate my credentials."
“You’ve made a mistake, Mr. Alaunus. We are not your employers, we’re simply here to guide you to them. My wife is upset because you obviously know about us, are familiar enough with us, at least, to know my first name from hearing my last.” He gave me a strained smile that told me he was worried too.
I frowned at that. If they knew what I was, it would be unpleasant to learn that I knew their names.
“My Lady, I assure you there are no contracts out on you or your husband. I know your name from my… more artistic pursuits. You’ve gobbled up quite a few famous paintings in your time, and while I’ll admit some… consideration as to whether or not to seek to acquire these paintings from you, my experience with the Keppler has made me realize that fine art is more trouble than it’s worth.” Though now that I knew the location of a Le’ Fourar my mind may well change. That would be later, though. A long time later. I didn’t want them to fear for their lives just because I knew their names, and breaking into their homes would likely drive them to paranoia. That sort of fear was a terrible thing to have hanging over one’s head, the threat of death, never knowing when the Wizened Man would come to collect his due. I gave her a small, reassuring smile.
She didn’t deign to respond.
“As for your credentials, you just proved them.”
“Hm?”
“We invited you to a contract meeting, to discuss a mark, to discuss payment, but you arrived to find a dinner party in full swing, and you didn’t miss a beat. You adapted to the situation and no one in the house gave you so much as a second thought.”
I gave a little bow.
“Any of my guild members could have done the same.”
“And now you’re being humble.” Lord Marcus said, laughing gently, “Make up your mind, Master Alaunus.”
https://www.wattpad.com/user/Patrickohal Link to Wattpad if you are interested. I will attempt to add more at LEAST once every two weeks.
Submitted September 19, 2018 at 03:10AM by triteandtrue https://ift.tt/2QGPHAr
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