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Raymundo awoke in a puddle of sweat. His dreams were filled with images of bloody hands and the high-pitched whistling of a man sucking air through a hole in his chest. The man had reached for him with wide, white eyes asking him why Raymundo had betrayed him. Why had he betrayed Alderas?
The whistling still rang faintly in his ears as he lay on the bed trying to steady his breathing. In the dark, Raymundo could still feel the stickiness of blood between his fingers. He could see the terrified look on the guard’s face, younger than his, as his eyes glazed over. It wasn’t anything the songs prepared you for.
He shuddered and prayed to the Mother and Father that he had done the right thing.
“May the Two help us,” he whispered to himself in the darkness of his room.
Knowing that sleep would be eluding him this night, he decided to get out of bed while they were still allowed outside the rooms. The principe’s twelve days of mourning was an excellent excuse to close a brothel, but that only left them four days before Mari had to open her doors to keep suspicious eyes from inquiring. After that, who knew how long they would be enclosed in their rooms to avoid prying eyes.
The blessed light of the moons came through the cracks in the shuttered window. The moons were high in the sky tonight signifying the cold season was fast approaching.
Raymundo reflected on how very different the sky was in Alderas. It was clearer than the sky back home. It was comforting in a way, but it also made him feel vulnerable. He missed the way the soft moonslight reflected off the lakes of Estribacion. They would glimmer on the water like tiny jewels on a flowing satin cape. That seemed like another place in another time.
What would his father say about where Raymundo found himself, he wondered.
He sighed, put his boots on, and stepped out into the hall. It was blessedly empty. The last thing he wanted was to run into Mari’s whores. He was no stranger to such things—even the Tripudium church looked the other way when it came to sins of the flesh—but now it was the last thing on his mind.
He walked steadily down the staircase towards the fireplace, reveling in the stillness of the brothel as its occupants slept when the familiar smell of mint and rotten pears assaulted him. He recognized it as the stench of the comandante’s freshly applied leg ointment.
Raymundo steadily reversed his steps in the hopes that he would go unnoticed.
“You underestimate how loud you are,” the comandante’s voice came from behind a large gaudy sofa that could only be found in a place like this.
Raymundo’s face went hot with embarrassment.
“My apologies,” Raymundo said.
“Well, might as well come and have a seat.”
Raymundo swallowed his distaste and walked towards a small lounging area. He tried to think of an excuse to free himself from speaking to him, but his tired mind came up blank.
The comandante sat alone in front of the fire with a flagon of wine set next to him on a small table. Raymundo briefly considered the idea of putting his fists together and bowing in traditional respect, but he dismissed it as forced and sat without a word.
The comandante looked amused at this.
“So, it seems you can’t sleep either,” Raymundo said.
He grunted in acknowledgment.
“The smell of this twice damned leg.” He frowned and stared into the fire as if he saw more than the flames licking at the charred logs.
Raymundo glanced at the wine and the comandante’s flushed face and wondered if his leg really was the reason. He would wager his familia’s name on the fact that the comandante was a man able to sleep through the stench even if he was bathed in the ointment.
“I’m having dreams too,” Raymundo ventured.
The comandante eyed him for a moment and grunted again. After a time, he filled another glass of wine and handed it to Raymundo.
“I wish I could say it gets easier, but that would be a lie,” the comandante said as he took a deep drink.
“It shouldn’t,” Raymundo blurted, taking the offered glass.
“No, it shouldn’t. What we do should weigh on us. But the fight is never finished; it only changes. Channel what you’re feeling and use it.”
Raymundo considered the man. He wondered how many sleepless nights like this the fabled Old Fox had gone through. Raymundo might have become just as bitter as the man sitting across from him if it was him.
“Comandante–”
“Not anymore,” the comandante interrupted, “might as well call me Diego.”
Raymundo considered the sentiment, but tradition wouldn’t allow him to be so informal with a man so much higher in rank, even if he was a man such as this.
“Señor Diego,” Raymundo settled with splitting the difference, “do you think it wise to seek the aid of the lasiim elders? Perhaps seeking the aid of the Alti Elevadi is a better course.” Raymundo couldn’t help but voice the thought that had been bothering him since the earlier meeting in Mari’s rooms.
He thought about what he knew about the heathens. They worshipped a single false god even since the taking of this holy city hundreds of years ago, leaving a deep-rooted animosity between them and those that follow the tripudium church. Raymundo admitted that what he knew wasn’t much, but it was enough to know that one didn’t seek help from people like them.
Raymundo realized by the way Diego stiffened that it was the wrong thing to have asked him. Whatever conversation they might have had come to a swift end. Diego’s response was measured but cold.
“A word of advice Nobleman Raymundo, the world is so much larger than titles and estates. Perhaps it would benefit you to remember this in the future.”
Raymundo, secure in the knowledge that his initial assessment was correct about Diego, nodded curtly at the rebuke.
“As you say.”
Raymundo thanked Diego for the wine and stood. He wanted nothing more than to get back to his room.
“And one more thing,” Diego’s words slurred from the wine, “the girl and I go tomorrow alone. I think you could appreciate why this would be best.”
Raymundo, caught between anger and shame at being left behind like a child, tightened his jaw and walked back up the flight of stairs. The same thoughts ran through his head as he climbed the steps. He betrayed Alderas. He brought shame to his name. He failed the man he swore himself to as escudero. All of it was for what, exactly?
Again, he found himself wishing for home.
Being in this place, in this city, made him realize how homesick he was. He loved Alderas more than anything, but this city had shown him a side he wished he never saw. He used to imagine this as a place of nobility and justice. But it was nothing at all like the stories his mother had shared with him as a child. In those stories, the danger always came from bandits or daemons. Maybe even the lasiim.
The danger never came from ourselves.
All of this and more went through his mind as he reached the third landing of the brothel. Before he turned to the hall that led back to his room, he paused on something that caught his eye.
It was a painting.
He hadn’t had time to acknowledge them before, but here in the stillness of the hall, its skill was unmistakable. It was a landscape of a rushing waterfall. It was simple, yet beautiful in its use of color. Its waters weren’t painted in the typical blue, but in silvers and yellow water had no business being. The moonslight made it seem ethereal as if the water was flowing within the frame and onto the walls.
He wondered who the artist was. The walls of the estate back home could always use a talented hand to paint some new work. These waters of silver and yellow could liven up the halls of the Estribacion estate.
The waterfall painting wasn’t the only one in this style. There were several paintings by the same hand along the hall. Each had delicate swirls in unusual colors that amplified the strangeness of the landscapes.
He followed them down the hall, admiring each one in turn. There was a fiery blue sunset as if the sun was both flame and water, a brown stream flowing down a cliff as if the earth itself ran in rivulets, and a green mountain as alive as the deepest forest. On they went until he reached the last, a purple sky hovering above black and gold trees that looked just a little sad to him. After a time, he realized that he unknowingly walked to Señora Mari’s door.
This time it was wide open.
Not wanting to invade her privacy he turned back to bed, but something in the room caught his eye. Soft candlelight spread throughout her room, but it was especially well lit at one spot above an easel. On it sat a canvas filled with the colors he had been admiring moments before.
He found the artist.
He wished he could say that a brothel mistress being a skilled painter was the oddest thing he had encountered lately, but it was high on the list.
One quick look told him that the room was empty. Even with the candlelight, it was too dark to see the image on the canvas. Curiosity overruled manners. He moved closer to get a better look. It was incomplete, but he could tell that it was going to be the most beautiful painting yet. Shades of all colors were swirled together in never-ending fields of flowers. From the most subtle pink to shockingly bright orange. The detail of it was more exquisite than any painting he had ever seen.
“Do you see something you like?” asked Mari from behind.
She was wearing a shimmering robe that flowed from her like one of her paintings. Her hair was combed to one shoulder in stark contrast to her elaborate knots from earlier. Her cheeks were flushed, and her breath smelled faintly of wine. It was easy to see that Mari was as beautiful as any one of the women that worked for her.
Raymundo, always opting for honesty, blurted out, “Many things actually, señora. This is exquisite. You painted the ones outside as well.”
She stared, silently. She was a woman a heads width shorter than him, but someone, he was coming to realize, that was just as intimidating as any noblewoman he had ever met.
“I did.”
“It’s some of the best work I have ever seen. The way you play with color and technique rivals the great Alfonso. There’s something magical, almost alive about them.” Raymundo couldn’t stop himself from talking. Perhaps it was because, for the first time in a long while, he was having a normal conversation about something that he loved.
Mari crinkled her brows and looked him over. It was a piercing gaze that made him feel vulnerable. He suddenly became very conscious of himself. He feared that he had spoken out of turn and was about to apologize for it, but then she gave the faintest hint of a smile.
“Bah, Alfonso was an amateur compared to Doron...come, join me for a glass of wine.”
Raymundo, unable to refuse this second invitation of the night said, “I would be honored.”
Mari fetched an empty glass, and he poured out a drink for the two of them. Her room was still as cluttered as the last time he was there, but there was a hidden organization to it by the way certain books remained open. Mari was a woman of many mysteries.
“Tell me, where does a rich, noble escudero learn to appreciate art,” she asked while raising one thin eyebrow.
He couldn’t help but feel a little slighted. He knew what commoners said about nobles. A part of her must think the same way about him, but then she smiled knowingly. It was the first time he saw her do it, and it lightened her face instantly.
“I’ve seen a few pieces here and there in my lifetime,” he said.
“Tell me, are you a fan of the Vazquez style of art?”
“Vazquez is a hack.”
The conversation went on until the candles dimmed. She spoke about art with as much passion as him. In here, he found someone who appreciated style and technique. In here she found an anchor.
He discovered that Mari mostly admired artists that he had never heard of with difficult to pronounce names. The way she described their work was as if he could see a different world filled with color and shapes.
He didn’t have much experience with foreign art, but the way she spoke of it made him want to see it for himself. He wondered, for the first time, if he was missing out on something by not looking studying these strange artists himself.
By the time the bottle was empty, Raymundo had a comfortable light-headed feeling. Sitting there in an armchair, discussing topics he could have been discussing among his friends at home, he could almost forget the events that had led him here. He had misjudged the mistress of the brothel. She was an intelligent woman. Obviously not Alderian, he had come to learn that by the deep pronunciation of her words, something she slipped into when she was excited, but she was a pleasure all the same.
The candles all but burnt out by the time they found themselves with a quiet pause in between conversation. And emboldened by wine and comfort, he asked her a question that plagued him.
“Tell me,” Raymundo said, “do you think the Comandante is innocent?”
Even in the dark, he sensed her demeanor change as she considered the question.
“No,” she said. “He is guilty of many things twice over. But if you mean to ask if I think he murdered the young principe, then I think not.”
“But how do you know?” Now that he had opened the door to the discussion, he couldn’t help himself. Everything he had been thinking since the night Duque Victor approached came rushing out. “How do you know he wasn’t the one to murder the principe...to betray us? What if we’re helping a murderer?”
She finished the last of her wine. Her cheeks were completely flushed now, but Raymundo suspected it was more from anger than from the alcohol. She wasn’t angry at him, he knew that much, but at something. Perhaps it was the world in general.
“If there’s one thing I know is that he would never do anything to hurt Reina Isabella. He would kill for her... and has many times,” she said.
Raymundo kept his silence.
“This I know because we were all friends for a time.”
She paused again. It went on so long Raymundo thought she would say no more, but Raymundo was proven wrong when she spoke again.
“I expect you’ve heard of the stories revolving around Diego. What many people don’t know is that there were more than three in that fabled friendship. But all good things come to an end eventually. Even the closest of friendships.”
Raymundo had heard the stories. Every Alderian from the brilliant city to the flatlands had. Songs about the accomplishments of the Old Fox, Isabella, and Victor were sung in taverns and halls across the queendom. The dashing commoner and the beautiful princesa and the prestigious nobleman. The unlikely set of friends that had saved the brilliant city on the mountain.
If Mari could be believed, she was among them. Now it made sense why the duque would have them come here.
Mari stood up and swayed. It was slight, but Raymundo noticed how much she fought to keep her composure. He doubted that it was something she had trouble doing often. She suddenly looked very tired.
“I believe it’s time for you to get to bed. The night is late,” she said. The wine had made her accent heavier, almost accentuated as if in song. He had never heard anything like it.
Raymundo, having effectively ended the second conversation of the night with his questions, agreed with her.
“Yes, I believe you might be right. It was a pleasure speaking to you, señora.”
Raymundo placed his fist together and bowed. He turned to head back to his bed. There was something that he didn’t quite understand, and the wine made him just brave enough to ask.
“Why do you hate him if you were all as inseparable as the songs led us to believe?”
She glared into his eyes, any traces of the alcohol seemingly burned away by the overwhelming loathing she now radiated.
“You too would hate the man who murdered your brother. Now good night, señor.”