The Duchess of the Shallows (15 page)

"Correct so far. Some of my customers would leave the Vermillion with more of their coin if they knew that."

Duchess lifted one of her own tiles and placed it at her end of the board, revealing it as the lowliest piece in the game. "Take this piece, as far from winning as possible. It's not likely to make it to the end of the game, right?" She took the single sou from her pile, almost all she had left, and placed it on the piece. "But so early in the game, it's cheap to invest. If it manages to survive long enough, it becomes much more expensive, and if it reaches the other side it could become the most powerful piece on the board." She took a deep breath and pushed through. "So it's all about knowing which pieces will survive the game. Even if your opponent later invests the same piece, you have an advantage because you invested early, when it was cheaper. In the end, you might win more than the pot."

Minette smiled. "I quite believe you have it." She sipped at her wine. "Of course, the smaller pieces are often sacrificed so that larger pieces can go on, particularly if they don't have the strength to go the distance." She looked levelly at Duchess for a long moment. "As to the work you're seeking, it so happens there's a party tomorrow night in Temple, given by one Baron Eusbius. He's a recent noble, and his household is too understaffed to handle this kind of event, so he'll be looking for pot-girls and scullery maids at Beggar's Gate tomorrow morning. I'll make certain you're picked from the crowd. I'm assuming you'll be there." She went back to the game, but just as Duchess was silently celebrating her victory, Minette murmured, "And just how far across the board, my dear, do you intend to go?"

Duchess smiled. "As far as I can, Minette. As far as I can."

Chapter
Nine:
Letters and lightboys

After leaving the Vermillion, Duchess wandered idly across Bell Plaza. She was far too wound up to sleep, and in any case it was hardly ninth bell. Lysander was still wringing any useful information he could out of Brenn, and it would be a few more hours before she could meet him back at the garret to plan the next day's work. She considered visiting the
Merry Widow
but she wasn't fond of drinking by herself. She also knew she'd more than worn out her welcome at the Vermillion this evening. Besides, a little bit of Minette went an awfully long way.

Most of all she did not want to be alone with her thoughts, worrying at her plans like a dog with a bone. She'd gone over and over it all in her head: how she would get in to the Eusbius estate, what she would do to search the place, how she might use the information she'd gotten from Brenn, where and when she and Lysander might meet during the party, how to deal with the Brutes...

Such thoughts got her nowhere. To distract herself, she sat in a shuttered doorway and watched as those from up and down the hill wandered past for business or pleasure.

Duchess had known of this place even before she came to live in the Shallows, and had never had to ask why it was called Bell Plaza when it clearly had no bell. Lord Marcus had not believed in coddling his children, and he'd taught them to read not from illustrated tracts meant for the young but from the tomes of history that made up House Kell's collection. One of those tomes had told of the long-ago emperor Vassilus, who, as age and senility set in, became far more adept at praying than ruling. From time to time His Imperial Highness would ensconce himself in the plaza, surrounded by a squad of Whites, and preach to whomever would listen about the evils of the city. As the sermons devolved from pious eloquence to utter madness, attendance became mandatory, and the emperor ordered the construction of a great tower with an enormous bell to be rung to announce the onset of one of these harangues. Shallows folk learned quickly to clear out of the streets when they heard that bell, lest they be rounded up and forced to listen to an hour of imperial berating about whoring, drinking, gambling, and whatever other vices had invoked the imperial ire that day.

When she'd told her father about it that night at supper, he had related a somewhat different tale. Vassilus was rude and self-righteous, yes, but not mad. In his sermons he criticized the nobles for neglecting the unfortunates of the Deeps, the cults for focusing on worldly matters and forgetting their true faith, and the blackarms for letting the Red rule the lower districts.

"Sounds about right," Justin had remarked. At fifteen, he was always taking strong opinions on whatever the topic. Sometimes this made her father angry, although she didn't understand why.

Marguerite rolled her eyes. "No more politics at the table, please." She was only two years younger, but whatever position Justin took, Marguerite was sure to criticize it.

"What's the Red?" Marina had asked them. How naïve she'd been!

"Thugs and brutes," her father had said in that deep, rich voice that was both strong and yet strangely melodic. "But that's not important right now. That book you read…well, the facts are correct as far as it goes. The truth is another matter. Remember that history is often made by he who writes the books."

Both the book and her father agreed that Vasslius' sermons had gone on for some time, until the nobles had finally had enough and had taken matters into their own hands. A brief but bloody coup ensued, which left Vassilus and a good number of the city's aristocracy dead and the bell tower destroyed. Vassilus' son, a more practical and earthly fellow, buried his father, pardoned the surviving rebels and put the incident behind him. There were no more public sermons, but one hundred years later the place was still known as Bell Plaza.

"They killed him for
talking
?"

Her father set aside his plate and took her on his knee. "No. They killed him for speaking hard truths, which are as welcome a guest as week-old fish."

"Isn't the emperor allowed to say whatever he likes?" Justin laughed aloud at that, and Marguerite had patted at her mouth with a napkin, her expression unreadable.

Her father raised an eyebrow at her siblings and smiled grimly at her. "In Rodaas, no one says whatever he likes."

"But he was a good man, wasn't he?"

"So many questions!" he laughed. "Was Vassilus a good man? It depends upon whom you ask." Her father never answered questions with just
yes
or
no
. "But compared to those that came before him, and most of those who came after, perhaps he could be considered such. He certainly thought himself so."

"If the emperor was good, why did they kill him?"

Her father had given her a strange look, and was silent for a long moment. "Because change never comes easily in this city," he said. In that moment he seemed far away, as if he were not speaking to her at all, his expression sad and even a bit haunted. At the time she'd only nodded uneasily and, for once, held her silence. That conversation had taken place years ago, yet every time she entered the plaza she never failed to remember it, every word and expression.

Deep in memory, it took her a long moment to realize that someone was calling out her name from across the square. She looked up to see Zachary and the other lightboys from his band, weaving their way through the crowds of the plaza, making their way towards her.

She was not displeased to see him. Not only had he saved her from the drunken man the night before, but he was a long-time friend of Lysander's. In fact, he ran with the same group of lightboys to which Lysander himself had once belonged, known as the Tenth Bell Boys, or, more often, simply the Bells. The membership of the Bells had changed many times in the intervening years but the connection remained. The Bells were the source of much of the gossip Lysander shared with her, and he reciprocated by recommending their services to the noble clients he served.

Zachary ruled the Bells much as Lysander ruled the ganymedes, and for some reason Lysander had always shown him an affection over and above the rest of the group. He'd even taught the lad to read, which was a rare skill for a lightboy and probably one of the reasons Zachary had come to dominate the Bells. That, and his skill with the infamous lightboy sticks.

"The way I see it," Zachary said, striding up to her and flashing a gap-toothed grin, "you owe us a drink."

* * *

They ended up at the
Widow
, her usual hangout ever since that first taste of ale with Lysander so long ago. The ale house hadn't changed much in six years; Shari still ruled the place, although her gauntness had finally given way to rotundity, and the face that smiled at her from over the counter had become rounded and plump. Duchess thought the look suited her.

"Ale for six," she said, laying a fistful of pennies on the counter. She could afford to be generous, and it was only fair since the money had come from the man Zachary and his boys had helped her escape.

Shari looked over Zachary and his band with a skeptical eye, then turned back to Duchess. "Hope that's all your coin, m'dear, or else this lot will have the rest while you're not looking." Shari was not a fan of lightboys, Duchess knew, but she took their money all the same. Zachary opened his mouth to deliver some sharp reply when Duchess cut him off with a look and a shake of her head.

"If you get me thrown out of the
Widow
you're not getting a drop out of me tonight," she warned him. "So you can find us a table or go thirsty." The boy scrambled off into the dimness of the room, his followers hard on his heels. The
Widow
was crowded at this time of night but she had little doubt they'd find a table; lightboys always seemed to find what they needed, particularly when free victuals were at stake.

She brought the ale herself – best not to give Zachary a second chance to offend Shari – and the lightboys went at their drinks with gusto. Duchess guessed it was not the first time they'd tasted ale. She knew them only by sight and since they didn't seem inclined to share their names Duchess didn't ask. This didn't bother her; lightboys learned wariness at a young age or else they didn't survive very long.

"So what happened last night after I was gone?" she asked Zachary. He was young, perhaps ten or twelve, although with Deeps and Shallows children, who didn't always eat very well, it was hard to know. His height said twelve, but his face looked more like ten. In fact, that face looked so young that she sometimes wondered if he were really a small child stretched to an older child's height. His hair was a long stringy mass of brown, behind which he hid big wide eyes and an innocent grin.

His grin was all that was innocent about him. The Bells, like most lightboys, spent their nights working in the Shallows and their days sleeping in and roaming about the lawless Deeps, which even the blackarms did not trouble to police. That put them right in the path of the most despicable thieves, rapists, thugs and murderers the city had to offer, none of whom had any reluctance to harm children. They did their best to avoid the worst of the Deeps, but sometimes they grew into the very things they feared: the gangs of thugs who fought and killed each other in the Narrows. The more fortunate ones made enough money as lightboys to escape the Deeps and find work and permanent lodging in the Shallows, perhaps as oddbodies or blackarms, or (more rarely) as ganymedes. The luckiest found work in Trades District, and a few even impressed their employers sufficiently to be trained as apprentices and journeymen, with a chance to someday join a guild and labor for themselves. The rest kept trying until their youth ran out and they joined the line that trod Beggar's Way every morning to cry for alms along the Godswalk.

The Bells controlled a large abandoned house in the Deeps that they'd dubbed the Belfrey. They'd dwelt there since Lysander's time, which was impressive in a district in which you owned only what you were strong enough to defend. And defend it they had; Lysander had regaled a younger Duchess with stories of the grand battles they'd fought against thieves, squatters, and other lightboy bands. At the time she'd thought those stories exciting, imagining Lysander fighting squint-eyed pirates and menacing brigands; it was only as she grew older that she realized just how dangerous those struggles had truly been. A defeat would have cost them far more than the Belfrey.

Zachary laughed, bringing her out of her thoughts and back to the events of the previous night. "After we whacked him a few dozen times we left off and gave him a chance to move on, but he weren't having none of it. He swung at a couple of us and then tried kicking me, but he was so drunk he ended up falling right on one of the women we'd been taking about.
That
was a big mistake." The other boys nodded and chuckled into their mugs, but Duchess noticed not a one dared to interrupt him. Not much different from Lysander and "the girls."

"So what happened then?"

Zachary whistled. "Turns out that man she was with was a lord's son...name of Krieg or Koreg, something like that. He starts yelling about his lady's dignity and all that – never even trying to help her up, mind you – and that he's going to send for his sword so's they can duel for honor." He took a gulp of ale. "Well, your man started talking fast, saying he was sorry, no offense to his lordship, slobbering like a dog on a hot day" – this got a cheer from the rest, with much back-pounding and hand-shaking all around – "and after a while the lord's son lets him off with just a warning, saying it wouldn't be right to duel since it wouldn't be no contest." There was more laughter and a few cups were clacked together in celebration. "Still, after that the nobles were going crazy, and one of the women kept saying she might faint from the sight." He snorted, disgusted. "Like seeing stuff like that wasn't 'xactly what they'd paid for." Duchess smiled, relieved that her pursuer had been driven off without harm to Zachary or any of his boys. That had ended better than expected, she thought, patting the purse she'd taken from the luckless lout.

Still, it was probably best to change the subject. "And how are things in the Deeps? Is the Belfrey still standing?"

"Was when we left," he said with a new grimness. "And it best be the same when we get back!" There was some nodding and grumbling around the table, and one small boy with a bald, scarred head, spit out "Damned Nel."