The Duchess of the Shallows (10 page)

"Caught your first cat and didn't choke on your first cup of ale," he laughed, drinking from his own cup. "You
are
a wonder." He dug into his sausage and Duchess followed suit, finding the meat as tasty as the smell had promised. The juices dripped mostly onto the bread but also on her dress, but she didn't care. She was having the time of her life...
let
Noam's wife give her hell for a greasy collar.

"You said that girl was
not
your sister, but
was
Noam's daughter," Lysander asked after a moment, his mouth full. He swallowed tremendously, then washed it down with a gulp of ale. "So what does that make you?"

Noam's warnings rose up in her mind and she nearly choked on her sausage. "I...my parents died. Both of them. In a fire. They were cobblers." She tensed, waiting for the inevitable follow-up questions.
When was this? Where did they live? Who were they related to?
The answers to those questions could start rumors, rumors that could lead whoever had burned her house right to her. Her throat felt tight with old fears and she nearly squeezed her sausage into pulp between nervous fingers.

Lysander, bless him, asked none of these things, but simply shrugged and tore off a piece of bread. She felt a stab of shame that he'd been so wonderful to her and she was lying to him in return, but the baker's training was hard to gainsay. Instead, she held her tongue and drank her ale.

They sat in silence for awhile, concentrating on the food, but it was a
good
silence, and for some strange reason Duchess felt like crying even thought she wasn't sad. Finally, Lysander pushed his platter aside and turned to her, a serious expression on his face. "So do you
really
know Minette?"

She nodded, puzzled that it was so important to him. "Noam has known her since forever, and I go there all the time."

He looked uncomfortable, and he toyed with a crust of bread on his near-empty platter until it disintegrated into crumbs between his fingers. "Do you think..." He trailed off into a mutter, then coughed loudly into his hand. He started again. "Do you think you could you introduce me to her?" he finally asked, strangely shy. It was a reaction she'd scarcely expected from this confident, brash boy.

She shrugged. "I suppose. But why?"

He stared at her as if she'd gone daft and leaned in close. "Why? Because she's on the
Grey
, that's why!" he whispered fiercely.

"What's the Grey?"

Lysander rolled his eyes. "Say that louder next time; the empress didn't hear you." She flushed with embarrassment. He must think her a complete fool. She looked around nervously, but neither Shari nor any of the other patrons were paying attention.

"So what is the Grey, then?" she whispered back. "Is it like the Red?"

He laughed. "If a cat's like a dog!" And so he told her, starting with marks and
fruning
, and ending with legends like Looselimb Llarys and Naria of the Dark.

"I know Naria!" she exclaimed, then blushed at how loudly she'd spoken. "Well, the stories, I mean."

"Well, I'm going to join the Grey one day," Lysander stated with utter certainty, toying with his cup. "But only a member of the Grey can let me in, and
that's
why I want to meet Minette." Duchess had never suspected Minette was so important, but if Lysander said so it must be true. Suddenly her heart was pounding. "Lysander," she asked as calmly as she could. "Does the Grey know
everything
that happens in the city? Every
thing
, every
where?
"

"That's what they say," he replied, grinning. "In Rodaas, the only road that leads from the harbor to the palace is the Grey Highway."

The Grey Highway. There it was, then. The path that could lead her out from the Shallows, out past the Market and the Temple, to Scholars, where the truth of what happened to House Kell might be found. A path that could lead her to the very top of the great hill, past Garden to the palace itself, such that she might look down and once and for all understand the truth of it all.

She realized then how long she'd been away. Much longer and Noam would be angry, particularly when she returned alone. Still, in that moment, Noam's anger seemed very small. Her world had just gotten much, much larger, and now she thought there might be a way through it. And perhaps a companion to join her on the way.

"I'd better get back before I get in trouble." She stood, then said shyly, "Are you...going to catch more cats tomorrow?"

He smiled. "I suppose. But if you're coming along, leave that other girl behind. She's no fun." He got to his feet, and she realized she still had a half-cup of ale. She bolted it down in one draught, just to prove she could. She was still sucking the cup dry when Lysander's laugh came like water over stones. "Finally! No more questions!"

* * *

Eight long years of flour and bread and stories and lies, and nothing to show for it but four florin and a copper mark. But there were no more excuses and there was no more time. There was only one way through, one path that led from Noam's bakery, past her father's burning house, to a place where she could separate truth from rumor, fact from fable. There was only the Grey Highway and the will to walk it.

Chapter Seven:
Houses high and low

"You are completely mad," Lysander said flatly.

She was back in the garret, sitting near the hearth and facing Lysander over the bread,
strawberries and sausages she'd picked up on the way back from the Godswalk. Lysander had still been abed when she returned, but her repeated nudgings and the prospect of food had finally roused him partially out of sleep. Word of the mission from Hector had brought him the rest of the way.

Lysander had sighed, grabbed a strawberry and rolled out of bed, still naked.
She'd long since grown used to Lysander's casual attitude towards nudity, although she couldn't help stealing an appreciative glance now and then. Not that there was anything between them anymore, she told herself as she broke off a piece of bread. He scooted over to the fire and sat, devouring the fruit in one bite. "I didn't know helping you with this test meant getting up so early," he grumbled around a mouthful.

Lysander was always grouchy after being awakened, but this was unusual even for him. "You did offer to help, Lysander, and I need it. You're the only person I know who moves in high circles." Part of her felt guilty, thinking of how long Lysander had toiled towards getting someone on the Grey to notice him.
For as long as she'd known him, he'd been collecting and selling secrets snatched from eavesdropped conversations or the mumbled indiscretions of his clients, hoping in vain to earn a mark. And now, in the form of one brass coin, this chance had almost literally dropped into her lap.

Lysander's attention was piqued. "High circles?" He picked up a knife and began cutting at the sausage. "Who does Hector have you asking after?"

"A Baron Eusbius, in Temple District."

Lysander gave her a queer look, but before she could ask, he popped a piece of sausage in his mouth and tossed her another. She caught it easily and he smiled. "He's just moved in, from what I've heard. Hasn't even taken a look at his country house."

"Hector said he was
newly
a baron. How did that happen?" She had heard that wealthy commoners might buy their way into Market or Scholars, but as far as she knew Temple, like Garden, was reserved strictly for those with a noble title.

Lysander laughed and tore off a piece of bread. "He's bought his way up," he told her through a mouthful. "The old Baron died last winter of a chest cold or something. Do you remember, we saw them carrying the body to the temple of Anassa?" Now that he said it she did remember that clear winter's day when they'd seen the funeral procession that had wound its way through the city and ended at Anassa's temple. Rodaasi commoners were interred in nondescript graveyards just outside the city walls, but the noble dead were disposed of more ceremoniously, according to the faith they had espoused in life. Mayu's children were buried in her garden, that their empty flesh might feed the life to come. The devoted of Ventaris were burnt upon grand pyres, that their ashes might be carried up into the sky. No one knew what happened to the faithful of Anassa, however. The remains carried into her temple were simply never seen again. Lysander finished his bread and grinned. "They carried that body a pretty long way, all the way into the city. Not a bad send-off for a country noble."

"Country noble? But Eusbius has a home in the Temple district."

Lysander flapped a hand to silence her; clearly he was in charge of telling this tale. "Not at the time the old baron died, he didn't. The family had just the country estate, which I heard they nearly lost to creditors. According to one of Lady Vorloi's pot boys, the old baron - Arnolde, I think his name was - had been a great gambler but a sloppy bookkeeper. He left Lady Agalia with a mound of debt and not much else." Nobles derived most of their income from their holdings outside the city; losing a country estate in most cases meant losing everything.

Duchess lay down with her head in Lysander's lap. "So what happened then?" she asked.

Lysander playfully dropped a piece of sausage on her forehead, and she responded by tickling one naked thigh. Laughing, he pushed her away and grabbed another strawberry. "Do you want to hear this or not?" he asked with a mock severity, undercut by his giggles. He gathered up his dignity and continued. "So Agalia needed money, and she needed it fast. Enter Ivan Gallius." Again he looked troubled, and again she didn't interrupt. "He was born very low...arrived in the city without a sou to his name, or so I hear. Worked as a messenger in the Wharves amongst the foreigners and sailors."

"But he worked his way up," said Duchess, unable to contain herself any longer.

Lysander nodded. "Somehow he pulled together the money to buy the company he started working for, as well as a few warehouses and a shipping concern. No one knows for sure just where the money for all this came from, but you'd better believe he didn't come by it running messages for
Ahé traders." He wiped at berry-reddened lips. "He's a bit of an art collector, I recall. Last year he turned one of his warehouses into a museum of sorts, with paintings and ornamented suits of armor and other things. The nobles used it as the latest excuse to venture into the Foreign Quarter. Stephan took me once." He rolled his eyes. "Most tedious evening of my life. A big empty space half-filled with junk and a boring, fat man preening over it all. There were one or two impressive things, I'll admit, and some of the pieces looked very old. One woman who was there said the collection rivaled the Davari's but I think that was just nonsense." House Davari was as old as it was wealthy, with a house high atop the hill in Garden, and its art collection was legendary.

"I wonder if Eusbius made his money during the War of the Quills," said Duchess, thinking. "From what I've heard, there was a lot of money to be made smuggling food past the embargo."

Lysander nodded again, picking up another strawberry. "That's my guess, and I'm sure he didn't stop when the war ended. And I'll wager that's how Hector knows him." Duchess agreed, but this time she kept her opinions to herself. Perhaps Hector was using her initiation into the Grey to settle some old score between him and Gallius, which did not ease her mind. Minette had once said that a man with a vendetta was like a rabid dog; he would bite any hand that touched him.

She set aside that disturbing notion and got back to business. "So Gallius decided that the Eusbius name and crest were old and rare enough to add to his little collection, is that it?"

"He approached the widow Eusbius and offered to relieve her debt in exchange for her hand in marriage." By Rodaasi custom, Agalia's husband would assume leadership of the House, making Ivan Gallius into the Baron Ivan Eusbius. "The wedding was small and hastily arranged," Lysander went on, "but official enough. They were joined beneath the gaze of Ventaris, even though I think Agalia follows Anassa." Duchess happened to know this was true, but again she said nothing. "The ceremony was attended only by the Baron's new stepson, Dorian. There's little love lost amongst that little family, I'm sure."

"So she loses her debt and keeps her house, and he gets the title and becomes head of the household." Duchess' mind jumped two steps further as she picked up a strawberry and fingered it thoughtfully. "And now with both money
and
a title, he can buy a home in Temple District." She got up and went to the window, looking out onto the Shallows. "So in one move he went from Wharves smuggler to Temple aristocrat. The nobles must be furious." The wounds inflicted during the War of the Quills were still unhealed, and for someone like Gallius to rise so high so quickly was salt in the stitches.

"He bought an older estate in the southern part of the district, which he spent what must have been a small fortune cleaning and refurbishing. And you're right, the nobility think it's horrific, but what can they do? It's even become something of a pastime, gawking at the lowborn idiot as he tries to make his way amongst his betters."

"So every noble in the city is waiting for Eusbius to make a fool of himself. And what have Agalia and Dorian been doing during all of this?"

"Hiding, from what I've heard," said Lysander. Duchess could scarcely blame them. The question remained why Hector would care about humiliating the new baron.

"So why's Hector got you asking after minor nobles?" Lysander asked, toying with a crust of bread. She'd told him the rest of it, and watched as his eyes widened and his fist crushed the bread to crumbs.

It was then that he'd given his proclamation on her sanity.

"It's completely impossible. Robbery, maybe. Theft from a noble's house in the Temple, possibly. But to steal some priceless relic from under the noses of a house full of guests? And Eusbius?" He shuddered. "Duchess…you have no idea just how out of your depth you are."