The Immortal Prince (12 page)

Stellan stared at the younger man in amazement. “You're asking me to sanction you and your thugs roughing up three sons of the most important families in Glaeba?”

Hawkes smiled. “It sounds so tawdry when you say it like that, your grace.”

It did sound tawdry, but Stellan nodded, wishing he'd thought of it himself. “It also sounds like a grand idea. Will it work, do you think?”

The spy shrugged. “We've tried everything else.”

“Promise you'll not leave any marks.”

“Not so much as a love bite.”

“In that case,” Stellan said, “I think I'll pay a visit to the Friendly Futtock myself, and see if I can't coax our little friends out of there voluntarily.”

“You be careful now, your grace,” Hawkes warned. “All those whores…and you with a fat purse…”

“I'll try to resist the temptation,” he assured the spy wryly. “Can you arrange to have the carriage out front? In a quarter of an hour?”

“I'll be there,” Hawkes promised. “And I'll have the rest of the lads with me if you need help.”

“Hopefully, it won't come to that.”

Hawkes shook his head. “You should know better than to think that, your grace. We've done this dance together before, you and I.”

“You know me, Declan,” Stellan replied with a thin smile. “I live in hope.”

“That you do, your grace,” the spymaster agreed. “That you surely do.”

The interior of the Friendly Futtock was everything the dilapidated exterior promised it would be. It was little more than an abandoned warehouse divided into curtained-off cubicles across the back for the pleasure and, presumably, privacy of the patrons. In the centre of the room the floorboards had been ripped up, exposing the earth beneath, and a rough fireplace had been built in the hole. The room was lit by a number of thick tallow candles in wrought-iron stands. Lacking a proper chimney, the fire smoked quite badly, the smoke seeking any escape it could through the rough and draughty planking of the warehouse walls.

There were perhaps a dozen women lounging about the dimly lit room, ranging from the very young to the disturbingly old, all in various stages of undress. Stretched out across the laps of two of the whores near the fire, he noticed the unconscious form of Osdin Derork, eldest son of the Duke of Altarnia. His face was buried between the naked, pendulous breasts of one of the whores, who was chatting unselfconsciously to her companion while her patron slept and seemed quite content to leave the comatose young man where he was. Stellan didn't blame her really. These girls were paid by the quarter hour. Osdin's little nap would end up costing him a fortune. There were a few undecided patrons in the room, as well, who paid Stellan little attention. Of Mathu and the other two young men there was no sign.

He had barely stepped through the door before he was approached by a large woman wearing an emerald ball gown that had definitely seen better days. She eyed him up and down, taking in his expensive, albeit travel-stained, clothes, pursing her lips thoughtfully.

“You're either lost, desperate or lookin' for someone in particular,” the madam observed. And then she added after a moment, “My lord.”

“Guess,” Stellan suggested, looking around for the prince. Mathu had to be here somewhere. Osdin Derork didn't stray far from his friends on excursions such as this.

The old whore smiled knowingly. “Figured someone'd come looking for him, sooner or later. You gonna pay his bill?”

“I'm almost afraid to ask how much it is.”

“Two hundred gold fenets, near enough.”

Looking around at the shabby interior, Stellan raised a curious eyebrow. “He bought the place, then, did he?”

“Oh, you're a wit, you are.”

“More a good judge of property values. Where is he?”

“What about my money?”

“You'll get your money. Where is he?”

The woman planted her hands on her ample hips and glared at him in the dim, smoky light. “I want it now.”

Stellan looked down at her with all the condescending disdain he could muster, which was considerable. “What you will get, madam, if you don't take me to him right this minute, is the City Watch tearing this place up, and you run out of the city. If you don't believe I have the power to arrange that, pop over the road to the Sailors' Friend for a moment. Declan Hawkes is there, right now, waiting for me to tell him whether or not I want this place raided.”

The old whore paled. There wasn't a man or woman in Glaeba who hadn't heard of the King's Spymaster. Or doubted how dangerous he was. She jerked her head toward the back of the room. “The one with the green curtains.”

Stellan thanked the woman and pushed his way through the lounging whores to the cubicle in question. He shoved the curtain aside and discovered Glaeba's crown prince sprawled face down and naked across the body of a partly dressed girl who appeared no older than Kylia. She looked up as he entered, frowning.

“I don't do freesomes,” she announced petulantly. In the light of the single candle burning in a copper holder on the floor, with her long fair hair and unusual green eyes, the whore seemed pretty enough, Stellan thought, in a rough, unwashed sort of way. But that wasn't why Mathu had chosen her, he knew. This boy could have any woman in the kingdom at the crook of his little finger. Mathu's predilection for inappropriate bed-partners was a form of rebellion, a feeling Stellan was very familiar with, albeit for entirely different reasons.

“Leave us,” Stellan ordered the girl. He tossed her a gold fenet for her troubles. She snatched it out of the air, pushed Mathu off her and scrambled over the pallet to the curtain before her unexpected bounty could be taken from her.

There was a small stool in the cubicle, besides the filthy mattress. Stellan pulled it up to the side of the pallet and sat down, waiting for Mathu to notice he had company. The whore had woken him in her haste to be gone.

The prince raised his head and peered myopically at his visitor.

“Tides!” he said as his head flopped onto the mattress. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Mathu.”

The prince lifted his head again, pushing his dark hair from his face. “How did you find me?”

“Hawkes found you,” Stellan told him.

“
Imagine
my surprise,” he groaned into the dirty pillow.

“I'm surprised at
you,
Mathu. You should know better than to try anything in Herino City and not realise that Declan Hawkes will eventually find out about it.”

“And good old Uncle Karyl sent you down here to rescue me, I suppose?”

“I can't think why. It's not like you ever listen to me when I drag you out of these places.”

With a groan that hinted at a mighty hangover, Mathu turned over and pulled himself up into a sit, running his hands through his ragged hair, trying to concentrate. The boy was normally quite a presentable young man. He was nineteen, fit, tall, dark-haired and very charming when the mood took him. Right now, though, he was a dreadful mess. He smelled of sour wine, cheap perfume, hadn't shaved or bathed for days and looked as if he'd never slept in a real bed. And the Tides alone knew what creatures he was sharing that filthy mattress with.

“Well, seeing as how you're here, cousin…care to sample the entertainment? My treat.”

“No, thank you.”

Mathu drew up his knees and rested his head on them. “You're a real prude, Stellan, you know that?”

“I have Arkady waiting for me in Lebec,” Stellan reminded him, well practised in such evasions. “What whore could tempt me when I have such beauty waiting at home?”

“Fair enough.” Mathu shrugged. With his forehead still resting on his knees, he turned his head and studied Stellan. “Are you going to tell my parents about this?”

“I should.”

“But you won't?”

“Not if you come quietly.”

Mathu sighed heavily. “Tides, I envy you.”

“
You
envy
me
?” he echoed in surprise.

The prince sat up a little straighter. “You know who you
are,
Stellan. You know exactly what your job is. You know exactly how to go about it, too. You do everything right. I wish I had even an ounce of your certainty.”

Stellan smiled at Mathu's sorry misconceptions about his life. “You have no idea what you're talking about, lad. And you do have a job.”

“My
job,
cousin, is to sit around and wait for my father to die,” the prince pointed out. “That wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if I hated him. Trouble is, I actually quite like the old stick. I don't want him to die.”

“Not a sentiment one could deduce from your current behaviour, your highness. Your father
would
have a stroke if he knew you were down here whoring around the Herino docks when you're supposed to be in Venetia with Reon.”

“Reon's an old woman. You know that.”

“That doesn't make his counsel any less valid.”

The prince reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head, perhaps awake enough by now to realise he was conducting this conversation while still naked as a Crasii pup. “Don't make me go back to Venetia, Stellan,” he begged, as his head appeared through the neck of his vomit-stained shirt. “
Please.
”

“It's not up to me, Mathu.”

“You have influence with Karyl Deryon,” the prince reminded him. “If you speak to him, he'll listen to you.”

“What do you expect me to say to him?”

Mathu thought about that for a moment and then smiled brightly. “Tell him I'm going back to Lebec with you.”

“The hell you are!”

“But it's a perfect solution, don't you see?” he exclaimed. “Father has me studying provincial government with Reon because he's my cousin. Well, so are you. Lebec's not that different from Venetia. And you manage a provincial government just as efficiently as Reon Debalkor.”

“The king chose Reon Debalkor as your mentor for a reason, your highness.”

“The king chose Reon Debalkor as my mentor because the shyster paid my father ten thousand gold fenets for the privilege,” the young prince corrected sourly.

“That's a dreadful accusation to make.”

“Can I come back to Lebec with you if I promise not to repeat it?” Mathu asked with a hopeful grin.

Stellan shook his head. “And what happens the first time you get bored?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to run away from Lebec the way you have from Venetia?”

The prince grinned impishly. “I'll have to rely on you to make certain I don't
get
bored, won't I?”

“In that case, you can stay right here and rot, your highness,” Stellan told him, rising to his feet. “I'm not prepared to gamble my entire province on your contrary whim.”

“Stellan, wait!” Mathu pleaded, scrambling off the pallet. “Don't be like that.”

The duke studied the scruffy, disreputable-looking young man for a moment and then sighed. “Get dressed. We need to get out of here. And I have to settle your debts.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“I've been up since before dawn and had to ride fifty-five miles just so I could drag you and your drunken friends out of a Herino brothel, Mathu. What possible reason could I have to be angry with you?”

“I'm sorry…,” he said, lowering his eyes, genuinely remorseful for once. “I never think these things through.”

“That's the Tide's honest truth.”

“Will you think about me coming to Lebec, though? If I promise to behave?”

“You've made that promise before.”

“But I mean it, this time. I swear.”

“I've heard
that
before, too.”

“Don't send me back to Venetia, Stellan,” he begged. “Reon is such a bore. He serves watered-down ale instead of wine at the dinner table.”

“Ale won't kill you.”

“But I might end up killing Cousin Reon. You don't want that on your conscience, do you?”

Stellan smiled. Despite the young man's recklessness, he liked Mathu. And he sympathised with his dislike of Reon Debalkor. Even the man's own wife and children complained about him.

“I'll think about it,” he agreed reluctantly. “But I'm not promising
anything.
Now finish getting dressed. Where do I find Leam Devillen and Wade Aranville?”

“With Epatha, probably.”

“Who?”

“Epatha the Man Maker,” Mathu explained a little sheepishly, as he tugged on his trousers. “That's why we came here to the Friendly Futtock. She has a reputation for making boys into men, you see, and as young Wade was still a virgin…”

Stellan rolled his eyes. “Tides!”

“It was just a bit of harmless fun, Stellan.”

“I doubt the Duke of Darra will see it that way, if he finds out you took it upon your royal self to have some whore called
Epatha the Man Maker
make a man out of his grandson. I hope the boy doesn't catch anything.”

“I swear, I'll never do anything like this again, Stellan,” the prince promised earnestly. He climbed to his feet, hopping from one foot to the other as he pulled up his tangled trousers. When he was done, he straightened up with a grin and added hopefully, “Not if you let me come to Lebec. Perhaps I could study with Arkady at the university.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Mat,” he warned, wondering what Arkady's reaction would be to such a notion. “You might get more than you bargained for. Now let's get out of this filthy place. Do you think you could manage that much without embarrassing the crown any further this night?”

Mathu gripped Stellan's shoulder and smiled at him. “You're a good friend, Stellan.”

“No, I'm not,” he corrected, picking up Mathu's discarded boots and thrusting them into the boy's arms before pushing him out into the smoky main room ahead of him. “A good friend would stop bailing you out every time you get yourself into strife and make you face up to the consequences of your stupidity.”

“Then you're a bad friend,” the prince amended. “And I'm grateful for it.”

You ought to be,
Stellan thought, as Declan Hawkes appeared in the main doorway of the brothel. That meant the carriage was here. The man nodded when he saw Stellan and the barefoot young prince, and then waved another couple of his men inside, ignoring the objections of the other patrons, with orders to extract the unconscious Osdin Derork from between the breasts of the patient whore who was still nursing his head. He then sent another four men to hunt up Wade Aranville and Leam Devillen.

As they were leaving, a movement to his left caught Stellan's eye. He turned and watched in amazement as the wall appeared to waver and then, where a moment ago there had seemed to be nothing but old planking, a shape detached itself and resolved into the body of a naked female Crasii. Slender and hairless, her skin covered in fine silver scales, without a word the Crasii unselfconsciously followed Declan and the others out of the brothel, nodding politely toward the duke as she passed him.

A few moments later, and two hundred gold fenets poorer, Stellan Desean was on his way back to the palace with the prince. The others, including the remarkable chameleon Crasii, disappeared in the opposite direction, presumably to find a nice dark alley where three inebriated young men were about to have the error of their ways pointed out to them—subtly, of course—by the most dangerous man in Glaeba.