Melissa McShane (16 page)

Zerafine reached into the box and pulled out a scant handful of messages. Well, it was still early, despite their many detours in reaching the Capitol. She glanced through them quickly.

Only one was signed, and she recognized the name of one of the people she’d been introduced to at the Council’s party. Another way to make sure the report got noticed, perhaps?

“Which of you received these messages?” she asked.

“Please direct your questions to me, emissary,” the woman said. It was Zerafine’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Cimelia Argest,” she replied as if daring Zerafine to doubt her.

“Are you the one who received the messages?”

“No, emissary.” She sounded as if Zerafine should know how beneath her the task was.

“Then I fail to see how you can answer my question. Again, which of you received these

messages?” She could practically feel Gerrard struggling not to laugh.

“Madama
thelis
? We all take in messages. There’s no one person handles specific ones,”

said a timid woman near the back of the room.

“Please stop wasting my people’s time, emissary,” Cimelia said. Paola made a sound like a gasp being suppressed. Zerafine was surprised to feel the god’s curse begin to roil inside her chest. The belligerent woman, she realized, wasn’t so much belligerent as genuinely angry at her.

What in the known world does she think I did to her? And why does the god think she’s a threat?

“I’ll be the judge of what’s a waste of time,” she said, politely, swallowing the curse and ignoring the insult. If Cimelia’s anger was personal, Zerafine had no time available to figure out why. “Thank you for your help, madama,” she said to the timid woman in the back, and turned on her heel to leave, Gerrard and Nacalia close behind. Paola, her mouth agape, scrambled to catch up.

“I am so sorry, madama
thelis
. I apologize for Cimelia’s rudeness. I’ve never been so embarrassed,” she said when they were back in her office.

“You weren’t the rude one, and I took no offense,” Zerafine said. It was only a little bit of a lie. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been so helpful.”

“It’s my pleasure, madama,” Paola said. “Please, if you have any more questions, come by

any time.” They exchanged salutes, and Zerafine led her little group through the Rotunda, sparing a glance for the gods on the dome high above. It was a pity they couldn’t tell her what they saw.

Out on the street, Zerafine said, “I wanted to punch that woman straight in the mouth.”

“Paola?”

“Very funny. I got the strangest feeling that that Cimelia person was angry at me personally and not at my intrusion into her fiefdom. And believe it or not, the god agreed with me.”

“I wouldn’t know. I was watching the clerks. You realize this was all inconclusive, right?”

Zerafine sighed. “Yes. Any one of them could be throwing away the reports he or she

receives. That would account for the discrepancies in three of the estates, and we’d never be able to prove which one of the clerks it was.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, none of them showed the kind of fear I’d associate with guilt.

Just the usual existential dread of the red robe.”

“What’s existential?” said Nacalia. She was practicing standing on one foot, the other folded across her chest.

“A really big word,” said Gerrard. “Much as it kills me to admit it, I don’t think Dakariou is involved with falsifying the reports. He’d either have to spend all his time running between the estates or he’d have to find a way to intercept those messages before they get to the Capitol. My instincts tell me the source is somewhere inside the five families.
Someone
has to generate those reports.”

“It would have to be someone operating behind the family heads’ backs,” Zerafine said.

“Well, someone like Castinidou Rodennos is too busy to deal with little details like that.

He’d obviously delegate.”

“I’m really not looking forward to tackling Alita.”

“You think Gordou is a better target?”

“He’d be easier to get around, but he’s also our only unknown. At least with Alita we have some idea of what to look for.”

“So what’s your plan?”

Zerafine stretched. “I’ll have to put her in a position where she can’t refuse me an invitation to her home. I may have to leave you behind,” she warned, and Gerrard frowned.

Nacalia grabbed her sleeve. “
Thelis
, somebody just made this—” she mimed a warding gesture—“at you.”

“It’s okay, Nacalia, I’m used to it.”

Nacalia shook her head. “He looked angry, like he wanted to hit you. There are a lot of

people giving you mean looks.”

Zerafine looked around. Most people, as usual, were avoiding eye contact with her. But

Nacalia was right; there was a sizable percentage of passersby who were looking at her with angry glares. It was unnerving. “I think we should go home,” she said, “and look over this new information before we have to meet with Dakariou later.”

On the way home, Nacalia again taking any number of detours, it became obvious that

nearly half the people they passed glared at Zerafine. One or two even jostled her in the street, which surprised rather than hurt her. Gerrard began making the noises, deep in his chest, that meant he was gearing up to fight someone, anyone, given half an opportunity. He switched his longstaff from his left hand to his right.

They came into a neighborhood market that Zerafine, after a moment, recognized as the

half-empty market they’d passed through just hours earlier. What a difference those hours made.

The place was alive with activity, and every stall was filled with produce or housewares. The only thing that remained the same was the small group of toughs on the corner, still giving her that narrow-eyed stare.

Zerafine stopped and bought some oranges for them at one stall. “I can’t believe how

different this place looks. There was almost no one here when we passed through earlier,” she told the vendor.

The man was relaxed, inclined to chat, and thankfully didn’t seem to hate her. “What a day
I’ve
had,” he said, offering her a small knife to pare her orange with. “I’ve been coming to this market every day, barring the Last of the Old Year, for maybe fourteen years now. You can imagine how well I know my route, yes? And today I got lost. Found myself wheeling down a road I’d never seen before. I tell you, it was like being lost in my own house, that’s how unsettling it was.”

Zerafine glanced at Nacalia, who was up to her eyebrows in orange juice. “
Told
you,” she said in a muffled voice.

“It wasn’t just you, though, was it?” Gerrard asked.

“Goddess, aren’t you a big fellow. No, most all of us had the same problem. Strange thing was, didn’t see any of these others on the road with me. But all us got lost the same way.

Piedrou!” he shouted to a man selling almonds across the way. “You want to tell the
thelis
what happened to you?”

“Ended up in a dead-end street near where I lived as a boy!” Piedrou, an elderly man with white hair and beard, shouted back. “Halfway across Portena! Took me most of an hour to get back here.”

“That
is
strange,” Zerafine said. “I’m glad you made it here safely.”

“Don’t know as it was dangerous, just strange,” he replied.

They went on, having found a fountain at which to wash Nacalia’s face. A few steps later, Gerrard took Zerafine’s arm. “We’re being followed,” he said in a low voice. “Those young men on the corner. Four or five of them.”

“Should I be worried?”

“It might come to blows. I don’t suppose Atenas is interested in delivering justice?”

She felt no gathering pressure in her chest or throat, no sense of the curse filling her. “No.

What is
wrong
with everyone today? I can’t remember the last time someone tried to attack us.”

“Fifth of last Ormuor.”

“I’m disturbed that you remember that so precisely.”

“I so rarely get to flex my muscles in your defense.”

“Bloodthirsty savage. Have you found a place to make a stand?”

“Alcove on the right, about twenty feet ahead.”

Something solid struck Zerafine in the center of her back. Not a rock, something

softer...
please, please let it be mud.
The stink reached her nose. Not mud. Damn.

They weren’t quite to the alcove. Zerafine took a few more steps before turning.
Sweet
goddess of light, did that idiot actually pick up a turd with his bare hands?
The five men—three of them were barely more than boys, really—stood several paces away, grinning the foolish grins of men who had started a fight they wouldn’t be able to finish.

“Do you have a problem?” Zerafine said coldly. There was always a chance they could walk

away from this. No. There really wasn’t. Beside her, Gerrard was loosening up for battle. She didn’t need to look at him to know that he was grinning too, except his grin was that of a wolf who’d just seen the shepherd walk away from the flock.

“Don’t think you ought to be walking around in public like that,” said the shortest gang

member. His hair was slicked down close to his head, parted in the middle and brilliant with oil.

“Don’t think you ought to be so bold.”

Zerafine took a few steps backward, trying to look casual. “Walk away from this,” she

commanded. She nearly tripped over Nacalia, who was clinging to her robe with both hands.

Only a few more steps and she’d have the alcove at her back. Gerrard moved to put himself between her and the gang.

“Last chance,” she warned. One of the men pulled out a length of chain and snapped it

between his hands, still grinning. Zerafine shrugged. “Just remember, this was all your idea,” she said, and scooped up Nacalia and got them both into the shelter of the alcove as the five men ran at them.

The one in the lead met Gerrard’s left fist coming the other way and dropped like a sack of grain. The other four had too much momentum to be able to react to this, and by the time they’d realized they’d lost a man, Gerrard’s staff had caught a second thug between his legs and assisted him down a nearby stairwell. The remaining three retreated a few steps, watching Gerrard

warily. He stood, balanced neatly on the balls of his feet, twirling his longstaff in both hands, and said, “Come on, boys, who’s next?”

What no one ever expected, looking at Gerrard, was that he was so damned
fast
for a man of his size. He did something Zerafine couldn’t see, but which enraged the man with the chain wrapped around his fist, because the man snarled and ran at Gerrard, readying a punch. Gerrard twisted under the awkward punch, booted the man in the seat of his trousers, and used his momentum to run him headfirst into the wall. Zerafine shrieked; he’d come within inches of hitting her. “Sorry,” Gerrard said, and that moment of inattention was enough to allow the short fellow, the gang’s leader, to land a blow in the area of Gerrard’s kidneys. He made a pained sound and turned on the man. “That hurt,” he said, and smashed the man in the face with the staff, then scythed his feet from beneath him.

The man in the stairwell clawed his way upright, saw the carnage, and dropped back into

hiding. The remaining assailant looked terrified, but kept his fists up, hopping from side to side as if hoping to avoid Gerrard’s staff by never staying in the same place for more than a second.

Gerrard watched him do this for a while, then lowered his staff. “This is just embarrassing,” he rumbled.

“You afraid to fight me?” jeered the thug.

“Sorry, was I talking to you? Seriously, what am I supposed to do here? It’s like fighting a little yappy dog.”

“I a’nt a dog!”

“Fine. Come at me and prove it.” Gerrard raised his longstaff again. The man, still dancing, seemed to consider the size difference between his own fists and Gerrard’s, then abandoned his friends and took off running.

“You can beat me all you want, can’t change what she is,” coughed the gang leader, who’d

sat up and was vainly trying to stanch the blood coming from his nose, which appeared to be broken.

Gerrard lifted him by his shirt collar with one hand and held him at eye level, letting the man’s feet dangle ten inches in the air. “And what is she?”

The man glared at Zerafine with such hatred in his eyes that she took a step backward,

feeling the alcove press against her shoulders. “
Murderer
,” he said, vicious and low.

“What?” Zerafine exclaimed.

“You killed Alestiou!” the man shouted. “We all know it. Kalindi’s people will be avenged on you, gore-crow! Struck him down in full view of everyone, but the truth can’t be silenced!”

Zerafine covered her mouth. She felt as though she might throw up. Surely Atenas would

not stand for this, but no, His curse still didn’t rise to her lips. Angry, bitter, vengeful the man might be, but somehow he was also innocent of evil. Nacalia screamed, “She didn’t murder no one, you...you
bastard
! You take it back!”

“Can’t silence me,” he muttered, then shouted, “The Goddess will strike you down!”

“Put him down,” Zerafine said. Gerrard dropped the man, who collapsed on the stones of the road. “I didn’t kill Alestiou,” she told him. “When you wake up from this dream of vengeance, you’re going to remember that the
theloi
of Atenas do not lie. Alestiou was old and sick and in more pain than you can imagine, and the god gave him rest. Tell your friends. Tell the world.

And be sure to remind them that Atenas is merciful as well as just, because you attacked a
thelis
of the god of Death and came out alive.” She removed her robe and shook the clot of feces off, flicking it at him, then wrapped the robe around herself again. “I’m going home,” she announced to the air, and let Nacalia take her hand.

They were all silent for the rest of the journey home, and Zerafine’s first act upon arriving was to shuck her noisome robe and hand it off to Aesoron. “I’m really sorry about this,” she said.