‘This,’ Lemon said, raising an exquisite cage cup that glittered in the candlelight, ‘is fucken brilliant.’
They sat in a secluded, sunken booth on the Pearl Terrace, ensconced by tall screens, reclining around an octagonal table on cushions that were as plump and luxuriant as any Chel had ever seen. Even Rennic was able to raise a smile, turning his delicate drinking vessel in his calloused hands, allowing Lemon to refill it yet again with another splash of heavenly wine. The big man watched the liquid swirl around the cup, mesmerized, while strains of gentle music flowed over them from musicians unseen and undisturbed, and laughter echoed elsewhere on the terrace. On the booth’s far side, Whisper dozed, long limbs stretched and her boots set neatly on the floor beside her.
Chel swallowed a grape, one of the few that Foss hadn’t got to first. ‘Is this … Are we …?’ The wine was getting to him. ‘Tarfel’s birthday?’
‘A rest, cub. Princeling can celebrate himself if he wishes. Discreetly.’
Tarfel sat apart from the others, a wine pitcher to himself, drinking steadily and without pause, and occasionally toasting himself. He seemed both joyful and morose, which was quite an achievement. Chel determined to shuffle over and join the prince in his solitary revels, just as soon as he’d had a bit more fruit. And maybe some olives.
‘Ancestors,’ Lemon said, eyes glassy as she leered once more at her cup, ‘this is the fucken good stuff.’
Loveless took a swig from her cup and made a face. ‘Tastes off to me.’
‘You’re missing out, but more for the rest of us!’
A young couple slid into their booth, clean-limbed and dressed in wisps of silk, each equally smooth and beautiful. The boy smiled and said, ‘Were you looking for any company? We have many friends.’
Rennic belched and pushed himself to his feet. ‘I’m going to the privy.’ He pushed past the young people without a second look.
‘Oh, Gar, try to enjoy yourself,’ Loveless called after him. She looked the new pair over, then muttered, ‘Really going in for the silk thing around here, aren’t you?’
The boy’s polished brow creased, perplexed. ‘I understand we have excellent relationships with many merchants who travel the Serican trail.’
‘I’ll bet you do.’
From her pitch in the depths of the booth, Kosh was staring at the friendly girl. She was tall, muscular, oiled or buttered from the sheen on her smooth skin. Her hair was braided with small silver rings that tinkled when she tilted her head. Kosh gazed, enraptured, then looked sharply away when the girl met her eye with a smile.
‘You know …’ The voice came from Tarfel, looking up now, an empty wine pitcher lying flat across his knees. ‘My birthday party. My proper one. Would have been like this. Bigger, though.’
Chel stirred himself. ‘Well, Tarf, Loveless did say—’
‘Courtesans!’ said the prince emphatically. ‘Concubines! Companions!’
The friendly girl offered the prince a beaming smile. ‘Perhaps, master, you would enjoy a private party this evening?’
Tarfel stared up at her, purple-lipped, his bloodshot eyes offset against his ghastly pallor. ‘You know what? I would!’
The smile widened. ‘Very good, master. Please, take my hand and follow me. How many friends should attend?’
Tarfel disappeared from view, arm-in-arm with the friendly girl. ‘I think …’ came his voice as he skipped away, ‘at least four.’ Kosh watched them go, her face very still. After a moment, she got up and followed.
Chel wanted to go too. An image of Rasha fluttered into his mind, Rasha in the rain, Rasha’s lips on his. He very much wanted to make the most of the Bridge House’s hospitality. All he had to do was stand and walk, something he did countless times a day.
Instead he sat and watched the others vanish from view, his mouth twisted and sullen. A suppressed belch resurfaced. ‘You’re sure it’s safe to, you know, let them go off on their own?’
Lemon and Loveless offered flat stares. ‘We’re all friends here, remember?’ Loveless said. ‘The scumbags and vagabonds are downstairs.’
‘Fewer guards up here, too,’ Lemon added, her speech slurring. ‘Cos we’re all trusted folk, see? Those of good stature. Standing. Stature.’
The friendly boy hovered still. ‘Would anyone else care for a celebration? Perhaps you, master?’ He rested one gentle hand on Foss’s shoulder. The big man swallowed and, with great care, removed the hand.
‘Thank you, friend, but I am just fine.’
The boy smiled, nodded, and excused himself.
‘How …’ Foss sighed, then paused, face clouded.
‘How the fuck do you think, Foss-bot?’ Loveless chuckled. ‘They’re professionals, no different from us.’
‘Aye, well, they’re a little different, though,’ Lemon said.
‘Admittedly, I imagine they get less blood in their hair. I’d certainly hope so, anyway.’
‘You know,’ Lemon said, then paused to drain the last of her wine. ‘I’m surprised you’re not taking them up on their offers.’
Loveless scoffed. ‘I don’t pay for it.’
‘It’s all-inclusive tonight, Ell! Quids in!’
‘You know what I mean.’
Lemon poured out another cup. ‘Not sure I do, honestly. I mean, you generally hop aboard anything with a winkle and a heartbeat, eh?’
Chel expected Loveless to anger, to snipe, but she seemed to keep her humour. ‘Like to think I’m a little choosier than that.’
‘You get your pick, though, eh? Any fella you fancy?’ Chel felt suddenly uncomfortable.
‘I’d rather break noses than hearts.’
Lemon chuckled and sucked air through her teeth in mock-pain. ‘Still, those looks of yours have opened doors for you over the years, right?’
‘Maybe. Doesn’t mean I’ve liked what’s come through them.’ Loveless took another sip of the wine, then put down her cup, frowning. ‘And you, Lemming? You’re not shopping in the market yourself, this evening? I understand Brother Foss’s reluctance— No, scratch that, I’m aware of it, but I can’t understand it. But how about you, Lem? Nothing on the menu whetting your appetite?’
Lemon concentrated on her cup, her eyes glossy with booze. ‘Aye, well, y’see, it’s just not that interesting to me.’
‘What is? Isn’t?’
‘You know … The act.’
‘The—? Sex?’
‘Yeah, all that, I dunno, squelching. Proximity. Smells and …’ She shuddered. ‘… secretions.’
‘You are joking, yes? This is a famous Lemon joke.’
Lemon put up one hand, the other balancing her newly refilled wine cup. ‘Now, I’m not averse to the odd knuckle shuffle, of course, I’m as human as the rest of you. Shut it, Fossy. No, no, if you’ve got it, use it, and all that. But, well, other people, eh? They’re the worst bit.’
Loveless nodded, eyebrows arched. ‘Ain’t they just?’
***
‘How can you keep drinking this? It’s off. Definitely. What’s wrong with you?’
‘Aye, what’s wrong with you? It’s magnificent.’
‘Maybe try the brandy, my friend, if the wine doesn’t agree.’
‘If they’ve spiced dodgy wine and expected nobody to notice, I can’t see the brandy being any better.’ Loveless poured herself a small cup and swilled it around her mouth.
‘Aye, you were moaning about that stuff we lifted from the cellars in Tenailen and all. You sure you’re not coming down with something?’
She swallowed, made a face, grunted. ‘Huh. Maybe I just need to drink through it.’ She poured another, then swivelled on Chel with terrible focus.
‘How about you, cub? Got your eye on anything this evening? Planning to avail yourself of the facilities?’
Chel had been dreading this. He shifted, looked anywhere but her, feigned interest in the decorative frieze that ran along the top of the luxuriant walling. ‘I’m, er … worried about Rennic.’
Lemon hiccupped. ‘Boss-man has been at the privy a while, eh? Hard rations on your little trek east, was it? I told him, told him I did, you don’t get the pickling right, you’re looking at a downstairs deluge—’
‘That’s, um, not what I meant.’
Loveless’s gaze hadn’t left him, sharp and piercing. ‘What did you mean, cub? Something happen on the road?’
He shook his head. The room wobbled. ‘Not on the road. With the Andriz. He was locked up, on his own, for days. I think … I think he was on his own for too long.’ He tapped at the side of his head, nearly managing it. ‘Too much time with his thoughts.’
Lemon waved a dismissive hand. ‘He gets moody, it happens. Same as this one,’ she added, jerking a thumb at Loveless, who flared her nostrils in response. ‘Whispie can talk him down, if she ever wakes up!’ Lemon threw a leftover grape at the sleeping scout, who flicked up a hand and caught it with a smile. Her eyes remained closed throughout.
Chel chuckled, marvelling at the catch, then turned back to find Loveless’s gaze still pinning him.
‘I note, cub, you have yet to answer my question. Nothing here tonight tickling your fancy?’
‘Ha, yon wee bear has appetites that cannot be sated by tonight’s menu.’
He shot Lemon a fierce glare, which set her off in a fit of giggles.
Loveless sipped at her brandy and looked around, puzzled. ‘I doubt that. If there’s one place to serve all desires, it’s this wine-piddling establishment. How unusual could your proclivities be, cub? What sort of heinous shit are you into?’
‘I fear,’ Lemon said between giggles, in defiance of Chel’s warning look, ‘that it’s not so much a what as a whom …’
‘What? Oh!’ Loveless turned on him, one eyebrow raised, a pleased and mischievous smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. ‘Oh.’
‘Thrice-damn you, Lemon,’ Chel growled, feeling the flush ripple up his face from his throat.
‘I’m trying to save your life, wee bear! Poor wee thing like you, she’d break you in half!’ Foss’s gentle chuckles underpinned her cackles, huh, huh, huh.
Loveless was staring at him, amused, undecided, the way a cat stares at a cornered mouse.
He stood, rocking on his feet at the sudden rush. ‘I’m … privy,’ he managed, head spinning.
‘You are, mate, you are. See if you can find out what happened to the boss, eh? Check he didn’t fall in.’
He focused. ‘He’s there, at the doorway. Hey, isn’t that … that …?’
Sure enough, there Rennic stood at the terrace’s end, bathed amber in the light of the many-candled chandeliers overhead. A smaller figure stood before him, tan and gilded, great stacks of glossy black hair coiled and bound. She had a hand on his arm.
Lemon leaned out of the booth, peering past him. ‘I’ll be fucked. What are the odds?’
Loveless pushed her out of the way, and her smile calcified. ‘Grassi of the Mawn. What in hells is she doing here?’
‘Not mixing with the scumbags?’ Chel supplied. Last time he’d seen the Mawnish mercenary, they’d been in a mountain gully of blood-pinked snow, Brother Hurkel their beaten prisoner. Beneath a black flag, Grassi had let them go, on condition that the good brother did not survive.
He had survived.
‘Aye, looks like they’re getting well reacquainted and all. Guess the boss won’t be back any time soon, eh?’
Loveless only stared, her brows low and furrowed. ‘But what is she doing here?’
‘Ah, relax, Ell. They’re having fun. You did tell him to go off and enjoy himself, right? We should all try and get some jollies?’
‘Yes. I did say that, didn’t I?’
Loveless turned her back, downed the end of her brandy and poured another. Chel took the opportunity to slip out of the booth, and make unsteady progress in the direction of the now empty doorway.
***
The music changed as Chel passed the musicians’ nook, the last delicate notes of When Come the Black Doves fading into the merry buzz of the background, followed without delay by the clear strums of an opening he recognized. A moment of cold shock punctured his drunken fug.
‘Please don’t play that one.’
The musicians were a good-looking lot, their polished instruments almost glowing in the burnished light of their nook. The nearest glanced up at the sudden appearance of Chel’s head in their space and broke off what would have been the opening bars.
‘You have no love for the Ballad of the White Widow, master?’
Chel thought of the extreme reactions he’d witnessed from Rennic on previous occasions to hearing the song, and Foss’s words in explanation: If one of the company has an issue with a thing, then all in the company do – that’s how it works, my friend. Given the instability of the big man’s mood, the last thing he wanted was another violent scene in such beautiful surroundings.
‘One of my party prefers not to hear it. If that’s all right.’
‘Of course, master. We are all friends here.’
He ducked out as they started up Qish Baymul and Joy, a seasonal favourite, and went on his way feeling like he’d done something rather good.
***
She was waiting for him in the hallway on his return, framed in the doorway by the soft glow beyond, a silhouette from his every dream.
‘What—?’
Loveless silenced him with a kiss, grabbing him by the hair with one hand, the other soft against his cheek. She mashed her lips against his, hot, fierce, furious, her tongue already pressing against him, licking at his teeth, pushing inside his mouth. She reeked of brandy, tasted of liquid flame. He was against the wall before he realized, light-headed, reeling, its thump against the back of his head an odd and unwelcome intrusion from the rest of the world. A small voice somewhere in his head was comparing the kiss to Rasha, the cool softness of her lips in the rain, her gentle embrace. Loveless was a firestorm, her body rammed against his, her chest flattened against him, her thigh already rising between his. Her heat astonished him.
I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening.
She broke the kiss. ‘Room.’
Half-dragged by the hair, she pulled him down the hallway, trying each door until one opened. The chamber within was dark, cool blue moonlight creeping through a lattice window in the corner. She hauled him inside, the door barely swung closed before she was on him again, hands on his belt, one hand already past it, inside, reaching. He gasped, shuddered, aware his own hands were waving empty and useless in the air. Another kiss knocked him back against the wall while she worked on him, hands expert, while his befuddled brain tried to suggest actions beyond pawing at her back and moaning.
This is happening. This is really happening.
Her kiss faltered, then broke. She staggered back from him, one hand to her mouth, eyes wide, searching. Then she lurched for the chamber pot, dropped to her knees and vomited. Chel watched, stunned, still laid against the wall like meat, feeling his lips cooling in the room’s fireless air. It took him three attempts to speak.
‘Are you … all right?’
Her response was another heave, wet splashes from the pot.
Was it me? Did I do this?
He said nothing.
She retched and puked twice more, then it subsided, and she fell back, one hand wiping at her mouth. Even in the bleached moonlight, she looked pale, sweating, shaking.
‘God’s cock,’ she croaked, ‘what’s wrong with me?’
***
‘Y’see …’ Lemon said, then trailed off. ‘Fuckballs.’
Foss started, belched, then sat back in the booth. ‘Yup.’
Chel was supporting Loveless under one arm, edging back to the booth in a desperate attempt to avoid attention. It appeared to be working; they were two paces away, and Lemon and Foss had yet to notice them.
‘The thing about that wee Nort, right, she’s not … She hasn’t … She’s a wanker, that’s what.’
‘Nothing wrong with that, right, friend?’
‘No, right, exactly. That’s my point. She’s not a wanker. But she should be. Might fix her fucken … attitude. There any brandy left?’
Foss belched again.
They reached the booth, and Lemon spotted them at last through her booze-fug.
‘All right, lovers? Go well, did it?’ she sniggered. ‘Don’t look like a man just shot his bolt, wee bear. Not so much walking on air as last march to plague-pits, eh?’
‘We didn’t—’ he started as they slid into the booth. Loveless raised a trembling finger, staring at Lemon with bloodshot eyes.
‘Shut. The fuck. Up.’
Lemon fell quiet, then perked up as she saw Kosh approaching the booth, brow creased and jaw set in the appearance of great ponderings. ‘Alright, squirt, did you get your—’
A commotion from the archway drew their attention, cries and thumps. A moment later, a half-dressed man came haring around the corner, hopping to pull on one boot, shirt and jacket bundled beneath an elbow, scattering punters in his path.
Lemon half-rose. ‘Boss?’
Chel still had Loveless’s arm over his shoulder, and was loath to relinquish it. ‘Rennic? What in hells—?’
The shirt went over his head as he reached them, the jacket dropped to the table. ‘Where is he?’
‘Who?’
‘The fucking prince! Where?’
Lemon was stammering, seeing the look in the big man’s eyes. ‘H-h-he went with the company! Back that way.’ She spied the friendly boy who’d offered his services, still milling serenely between knots of drinkers. ‘Him, he’ll know!’
The boy was face-first to the wall before he could react, Rennic screaming in his ear. Chel staggered up in pursuit, Lemon right behind him, sending platters crashing. ‘Rennic! Rennic, what are you doing?’
The boy spilled his guts before they could catch up, and Rennic was off again, crashing off down a hallway, loose shirt flying, boots slapping against the rich wood. Chel and Lemon followed, stumble-footed, the walls a blur. Ahead of them, Rennic stopped, turned, then smashed in a nameless door with a ferocious kick, darting inside without a breath.
Shouts came from within, surprised and angry cries that became shrieks and squeals. A moment later, Rennic re-emerged into the hallway, dragging behind him, by the hair, a kicking, screeching and entirely naked prince of the realm, pallid flesh flapping in the candlelight. His hands were locked on Rennic’s wrist, struggling in vain to release the grip and the pressure on his scalp.
‘Unhand me! Unhand me!’
‘Rennic!’ Chel bawled. ‘What are you doing?’
Rennic gave them a dead-eyed stare as he dragged the thrashing prince past. ‘Get his clothes.’
‘Aye, right.’
Lemon ducked inside, through the splintered door, past the upset furniture and alarmed professionals. Chel followed, trying to ignore the musky reek in the air. ‘Apologies, folks,’ said Lemon. ‘Which of these are his?’
By the time they caught up, Rennic had driven the others out of the booth and to their feet, and most of the other punters had cleared out of the open terrace. The friendly boy was nowhere to be seen. The prince was now wrapped, shivering and cursing, in Foss’s long coat. Chel charged at the big man, his arms full of Tarfel’s clothes.
‘The fuck is going on, Rennic?’
‘How fucking dare you!’ the prince spat, rubbing at his battered pate and reaching for his crumpled garments. ‘How fucking dare you!’
‘They are coming, dumbshit!’ Rennic’s hands were claws, imploring, anguished. ‘They are coming for you!’
Chel interposed himself between Rennic and the huffing prince. ‘Who is?’
‘Everyone!’
***
Rennic threw on his jacket, casting a frantic look around the now-empty terrace. ‘We need to leave immediately! We have to keep him safe, remember? He’s the reason we’re doing all this!’
Over Rennic’s shoulder, a figure strode onto the terrace. A small figure, in a long, flowing robe, unbelted, and nothing else, walking with icy confidence. Her hair rolled down her back like a waterfall. Rennic caught Chel’s look, turned and came up short.
‘Grassi—’
She said nothing, only gazed at Rennic with a look of irritation, of disappointment. She extended her hands from the sleeves of her robe. In each glittered a shunoul, a needle-like stabbing dagger, silver-bright and deadly.
‘Aye, how the f—’
‘Grassi, come on, now—’
She looked from Rennic to the others and back, her expression unchanging.
‘Come on, Grassi, this is a place of friendship, remember? You still don’t know the job details, it might be anything.’
Her gaze swung back to him. Chel stared at the little woman, shorter than any of them save perhaps the Nort, a slip of a thing and virtually nude. How could she seem so terrifyingly dangerous?
Rennic swallowed. ‘A head start, at least …’
Without breaking her gaze, Grassi reached her hands up behind her head, then began to twist and wrap her mane of hair. She stared at Rennic the whole time, until it was piled and bunched at the back of her head, held with one hand, then with great precision she slid the daggers, one after the other, into the mass, pinning it there. She folded her hands back into her sleeves.
‘You bad for business, Rennic.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Get out of here.’
Thumps and jangles came from the stairway, suggesting the imminent arrival of Bridge House security.
‘I don’t fancy explaining this mess to the guards, do you?’ Loveless had pushed herself to her feet, her brow gleaming with cold sweat. ‘Service stairway, back there.’
Grassi remained still as they hurried past, making for the stairs beyond, watching Rennic the whole time.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘next time—’
‘Won’t be next time, Rennic. Professionals from here.’
He nodded. ‘Professionals it is.’
‘Run, Rennic. Run!’