A Conjuring of Assassins, page 2
“You’re just trying to get out of this,” snarled the young man. “Cowardly! You’re a broke-down drunk with the shakes! Everyone says so.”
The insult wouldn’t ruffle Placidio, as he cultivated that reputation. But then, neither would it induce any inclination to benevolence.
“I’ll not deny that I was in a less than cogent state when I threw the challenge. And I am willing to pay the price for my folly. I will even add the condition that the first one driven out of the circle must not only apologize to your uncle, but crow like rooster at the same time. That would ensure I never forget to mind my manners when drunk. But I must insist that your uncle be present. I’ll wait right here while he is summoned. You may accuse me as a drunkard, but you’ll not have me up on charges for dueling a pup when its handler is away.”
The young man spluttered, then whipped around and beckoned one of his henchmen. As they did not bellow their energetic consultation, I didn’t hear what was said. But one of the lads took off, and scrawny Buto looked as if he’d swallowed a pig entire. Not near as awful as he would when Placidio was done with him, I’d guess. I couldn’t imagine my swordmaster allowing this pompous little twit to win.
Placidio was a brilliant swordsman even without the astonishing magical gift that allowed him to anticipate an opponent’s moves. Sadly, to avoid notice, he had to take a pounding on a regular basis, which kept him poor, bruised, and settled in the middle ranks of the Dueling List. Certain, he was an invaluable partner. Not only was he strong, skilled, and inured to fear, he was the most observant person I had ever known. He would know Neri was out of position.
I returned to my own objective—informing my brother that I’d not carry his excuses. Just as I reached the spot where the path from the Pillars Prison met the fainter track that circled the haunted field, more noise reached me from the dueling ground. I couldn’t resist stopping to watch through the tangled scrub.
The uncle must have been awaiting his justification in the aforementioned Kettle and Stoke—a close-by alehouse. Placidio acknowledged one man from a group of three new arrivals, better dressed than Buto, but not by much. A slouched hat with a plume of desiccated feathers prevented any chance of me recognizing the man.
Buto returned to the boundary of the ring. Placidio did the same and drew his sword.
The scrawny Buto—perhaps noticing that Placidio’s hands were perfectly steady—fumbled his own weapon out of its silver-banded sheath. Who were these people? Grimy, but not impoverished. Even from here I could see Buto’s sword was of good quality.
“Who the devil have we here?” The man was just behind me.
“The little pustule has a fetching audience, Lonzo! Mayhap we can do a little dueling right here!”
The voices—oily with innuendo—spun me around, on my guard.
One glimpse had me dipping a knee and ducking my head—horrified. It was impossible to mistake Lawyer Cinnetti’s grand moustaches above the wide fleshy lips, the overpadded doublet, the soiled neck ruff, unchanged since the day half a year ago when I’d applied to him for writing work. The day he’d tried to force himself on me.
Cinnetti and his companion reeked of wine and lust. Their position blocked any escape except through the impossibly firethorn scrub.
“I’m Druda, noble segnoré,” I said, tasting bile as I spoke. “Segno Buto’s friend. I’ve come to see how he takes this drunkard bully down.”
On that awful day, I’d used a stunted offshoot of my magic to remove my name and the circumstance of our meeting from Cinnetti’s mind. But I’d been so rattled … so terrified … and I’d no idea how to tie off all threads of a memory when I used magic to destroy it. If he saw me … as Romy … he might well recall my face and how I had kicked him in the balls and threatened to cut off his prick. Such a man did not forget insults.
Cinnetti’s lizard-skin boots stepped close. His fingers twined my hair, gripping it tight as they had on that vile afternoon when he’d so nearly had his way. His other hand traced the line of my neck across my breasts and back up to my chin.
“Don’t be shy, Damizella Druda. We’ll just have a friendly romp, mmm?” His insistent knuckle commanded me to look up.
“You didn’t tell me there’d be sweetmeats at this scuffle, Lonzo.” The other man’s bulk moved in close, his shadow blocking the sun. Sharp thorns pricked my back. “You must share.”
Never in this life would I forget those lips smothering my face. That greasy moustache. The spidery hands. The murderous look on his face when he had sworn to teach me of his needs next time he saw me.
I knew only one way to be sure Cinnetti wouldn’t recognize me. Neri was close. As soon as she could shed these two, Druda must head straight for him. He would pull me out.
Reaching deep for magic, I grabbed at a story, drew all of my will, and let go of my own self …
I lifted my chin. “Oh, good gentlemen … you flatter me. Buto is not half one of you. And you are two! What is a modest girl to do?”
Fluttering my lashes, I gazed from one to the other—not the worst rakes I’d ever pleasured—even as I reached for the roaming hand and nibbled at the fleshy pad beneath his thumb. Old Merle, my bawd, had taught me how to deflect without discouraging.
The tall man reached for the laces at my bodice.
I nipped the moustached man’s hand and twirled to his side. He tried to plant a kiss, but missed. His breath was sour. Good wine could cover that.
“Witch!” said the tall man, whose beard had threads of gray. The tease unsettled me, but I rubbed my hip against his backside, making promises I might or might not keep.
The moustached man stroked my neck. Not a pleasurable touch. But these two had fat purses on their belts. Perhaps I could lure them to the alehouse where I’d met Buto. It had private rooms up the stair, where I could set my own price and keep Old Merle’s share for myself. That could be worth the beating when she found out. She always found out …
“Saluto!”
“Fight’s starting,” I said, taking advantage of the distraction to loose the men’s hold on me. I stepped to the side and pointed through the scrub. “Got to watch this before seeing to our fun. Promised him.”
Buto was a scabby little nuisance … but rich. He wanted me to witness his triumph.
“En garde!”
Buto and the other man—he was tall and broad in the back, and didn’t look at all drunk—struck a ready pose. Buto’s squirrely friend Minque held up a blue kerchief halfway between. A moment’s pause and he dropped it.
The big man stepped forward, sword at the ready, but he didn’t strike or lunge. Buto ran at him yelling, pulling up short just when the big man stepped to the side and crashed the hilt of his blade against Buto’s head. Buto staggered but stayed on his feet.
I knew what that blow felt like. The piercing light behind the eyes. The world dropping out from under. The stomach churning. Old Merle had a way with her broke-off broom handle …
“Enough of Buto’s folly.” One of the moustached man’s busy hands found my hair again. He pulled me to him and reached between my legs, squeezing my thigh. “What’s this?”
As an answer, I giggled and grabbed his hand in my hair, pinched it hard to make him let go, and twisted away before he could get a firmer grip. Before he could anger, I kissed those dirty fingers, laughing as I did so. Teasing him. Pulling away all the while.
Old Merle always found out when I cheated her. No purse was worth another month of headaches and half rations.
Tugging at his codpiece, I danced around behind the tall one. “You fellas gonna duel over me? ’Twill be more fun than Buto’s having, I’ll say. I’ll pleasure the winner of your match till his eyeballs roll back in his head.”
“There’s enough of you for two. Don’t need any dueling.” Growling, the moustache man shoved his friend aside and lunged, but I ran. Back to the path and around Bawds Field.
The two chased me, boots pounding, the moustache man cursing, the tall man chortling. I ran to where I’d seen a man in a red shirt. Certain, he would help me escape these two. But I saw naught of him as I raced past the sprinkle of onlookers, back to the streets, up to the Ring Road. The red shirt man was likely just another of Buto’s posturing friends with filthy minds.
Once on the Ring Road, I ducked behind noodle stalls, into a weaver’s shop, and out again from the back. Into alleys and through squeezes that folk bigger than me couldn’t fit. Through more stalls. Some were half-familiar places, where folk made as if they knew me, but then said I wasn’t who they thought.
By the time I lost the two men, I was lost, too. No matter that the market streets and the Ring Road were familiar, I couldn’t find the turning to Old Merle’s. She’d beat the life out of me if I didn’t get back for the evening. It was Quarter Day and folk had sorrows to drown and coin to spend, and I’d have twenty or more through my crib before next dawn.
I tried asking, but no one in this part of the Beggars Ring had heard of Old Merle. And I couldn’t remember the name of the quartiere … nor the street … nor what else was close to her house. I kept going … on and on. What was the alehouse where they had private rooms upstairs? Why couldn’t I remember? I’d been with Merle for years, since— Since I was ten and the man took me to the yellow house where they stripped and washed me, cut my hair, and put me in a closet.
No, that couldn’t be right. Old Merle had got me off a pimp. She’d gave me the crib with a bed and a washstand. But I couldn’t see it in my head, nor where I kept my things. Surely I had things there.
Atremble, I stumbled into an old stone ruin, long collapsed, and sank into a corner overgrown with weeds. Think, Druda. Even my name sounded wrong. My head pounded, every thought twisted into knots as I went over all that had happened since I glimpsed the moustache man. Had he slipped me mysenthe? Certain, I wasn’t drowsy or pleasured by it. Maybe he had poison on those dirty fingers. My gut rebelled and I vomited out whatever I’d eaten or drunk that morning, but I couldn’t even recall what that had been.
When the sun settled low to the west, fear crawled into me like black mold, coating my spirit, my heart. Old Merle … I couldn’t recall her face neither, only the rules, the beatings. I would welcome a slap from her just now. She knew me.
Night brought a quiet mumbling from the other side of the wall. I huddled deeper in the corner. My hand found its own way into a pocket in my black skirt and pulled out a slim dagger with a white handle. I peered around the stone.
A hunchbacked woman trudged slowly through the rubble, herding a pair of geese. Whether the mumble was hers or the birds’, I didn’t know.
The knife must have been what the moustache man remarked when he was groping. Impossible that I could have such a fine thing and not recall how I’d come to have it. My hand remembered—not just where it was kept in a sheath strapped to my thigh, but how to hold it. How to kill with it. The object itself, though … strange how it pained my heart till I thought it must crack. Crazy.
The city bells tolled hour after hour as I huddled there. Empty. Lost. Best move or I’d lose my mind entire. I’d best go back to Bawds Field, behind the prison down near the East Gate. That was the only place I’d been that I could see in my mind’s eye. I would search for nearby alehouses and ask after Buto. He could surely tell me what I needed to know. Unless he was dead. Unless I had forgotten how to speak. Unless there was a demon slithering through my veins, eating my brain.
Full panicked, I jumped up and ran, clutching the dagger in my right hand as if it were a lodestone to guide me. My left hand I held outspread with ring finger and smallest finger curled tight to ward me from demons.
The last glow of sunset proved the Bawds Field deserted. I circled aimlessly as the light faded, looking for signs that anyone had truly been here or if the whole day had been but a terrible dream. When I found a rag stiff with dried blood, I dropped to my knees weeping. Clutching it to my breast, I prayed to the Unseeable Gods that Buto lived, so that I could find him and ask where he’d met me.
“Romy? Is that you?” The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. That name was what those Beggars Ring folk had called me by mistake.
“Not her,” I whispered, though I wished I were. Old Merle wouldn’t send after me, unless she heard I’d took a crib with some other bawd. Then she’d send someone to cut my face. I gripped the dagger, ready to plunge it into any who thought to touch me.
An ivory light shone out, glaring in my eyes. “She’s over here. I’m sure of it. Black skirt, white chemise, blue kirtle. Wasn’t that what she was wearing?”
I scrambled to my feet and backed away, ready to run.
“Romy, it’s me! Wait, wait…”
He was a comely youth with black hair and black eyes. What if he worked for the moustache man or his tall friend?
“Don’t know who you’re looking for,” I said, “but it ain’t me. Get away. I’ve a weapon, and I can hurt you with it.”
“Certain, you can. You taught me how to use it. The Santorini Thrust. Remember? That’s your dagger with the pearl handle you got from the Moon House. Then he gifted it back to you. You know who. The one we don’t speak of out in places like this.”
Footsteps approached on every side of me. I thought my skull would burst.
“A good guess that she’d be here, Dumond.” This from a big man come into the light, the very one who’d fought Buto.
“Did you kill him?” I yelled, squeezing the bloody rag. “Great Mother of us all, tell me you didn’t kill Buto.” Maybe the only person in the world who knew me.
“Didn’t,” the big man said softly. “His scabby complexion has taken another ill turn, but I didn’t even make him crow like a rooster.”
“Romy.” A woman’s voice this time. On my left. She was small, foreign. Not young, but such beautiful skin. And eyes so kind as I’d never seen. Hands open. “May I come near? I’m so glad we found you. Your brother was so worried. Some in the neighborhood thought they recognized you, but you look … different … tonight. Astonishing how you do that.”
“What brother? Who are you all?” I brandished the knife. “Did Old Merle send you?”
I was shaking again. Cold. Everything I knew of the world—little as it was—was thin and wavering like the youth’s lamplight.
“We’re your partners.” This dry, cool voice came from behind.
Before I could spin to see him, a pair of thick, comfortable arms grabbed me around the middle. I struggled and yelled, and struck at him with the knife, but the woman’s slim fingers gently touched my cheek. “Romy. Come back.”
The world came rushing back, and like the delicate-flower kind of woman I had ever despised, I collapsed, quivering like a birch leaf, breathless, angry, and awash in tears.
2
SUMMER QUARTER DAY
LATE EVENING
“Lawyer Cinnetti!” said Neri. “He’s the one that almost—Gods’ balls, Romy. If he’d recognized you, he’d have cut your throat. I saw his face that day.”
“I couldn’t take the risk, not with the two of them so determined. I’d no time to plan, no time to invent a complete person, no time to let you or Placidio know.” But I’d counted on Neri being where I’d seen him so he could release me from the magic, and he wasn’t there. “All of you came looking for me. I can’t even begin—”
Nor could I finish without dissolving again.
The five of us crowded the one-room stone hovel in Lizards Alley where Neri and I had lived since the Shadow Lord had thrown me out and exiled our parents and our eight living siblings. Neri had been born in this house and never lived anywhere else.
When we’d arrived, I touched every one of our meager possessions, the walls, the window, our clothes chest, the shelf where I kept extra parchment and ink, the table and stools we had bought on our first day as a family of two. The door Neri had built us—the first useful thing he had ever created on his own. All the way from Bawds Field I had feasted on recognition and memory—even the most painful ones—as if I were starving and could never get enough.
Neri leaned forward, as if worried I might not hear him. “When Fesci told me you’d not brought her my message, and the shop was locked up, and you weren’t here though I knew you had writing work to do, something seemed off. Germond said he thought he’d seen you, only it wasn’t you, just someone scared. I found Placidio and we fetched Dumond and Vashti,” said Neri.
“That was well done,” I said. “I could have been anywhere. Another hour like that…”
That Vashti, Dumond’s exceptional wife, had joined the search for me was a blessing. Not solely because I would have tried to kill any man who tried to touch me—lucky for Dumond I had only ripped his sleeve and grazed his arm—but also because once the others had got me walking, she’d kept telling them not to fret when I burst into tears at the sight of Germond the ironmonger’s signpost shaped like a hammer or the row of message boxes in front of my little scriptorium on the Ring Road. “Think about it,” was all she’d had to say. “This is Romy.”
I wasn’t sure I felt entirely like Romy as yet. Sometimes I turned too fast or blinked untimely and for that one instant I was back in that dark void where a few sketchy circumstances—a nonexistent panderer and her house, a whore’s particular skills, and an encounter with a self-important lackwit—were the summation of my life, the entirety of my soul.
“Should never have happened.” Placidio stood leaning on the door, arms folded across his chest. “There’s enough things go on that can’t be prepared for. But this … There’s always scoundrels drift over from the prison when they hear there’s something on at Bawds Field.”
“I should have been more aware of my surroundings,” I said.
“Pssh.” Placidio waved me off. “You went to where I said, aye? Because you expected my conditions were understood and my orders followed.”
“Yes,” I said. To blunt my answer would have accomplished nothing.
