The Duchess of the Shallows Read online

  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."

  She felt her stomach
tighten but resolved to continue. "I know it's risky," she began, determined to be all Steel, "but I just have to come up with the right plan. So, what I need now-"

  "What you need is a swift kick in the arse," Lysander snapped. She blinked; he wasn't often that short with anyone, and never with her. He seemed to realize what he'd done at the same moment she did. He frowned and sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just..."

  "Lysander, what is going on? You've been acting strangely ever since I mentioned Eusbius' name."

  He watched her for a long moment, saying nothing. Then he stood and wandered to the window. He pressed his head against the glass, watching the people wandering in the Shallows below. "This is the second time this week I've heard the name Eusbius, I'm sorry to say. That man..." He watched the movement outside. "I only know a little about him," he said at last. "But it's what I don't know that frightens me."

  It was rare for Lysander to admit to such a thing, wise in the ways of the city as he was. She said nothing; best to let him speak his mind in his own time.

  "For once I don't have the whole story," he said, turning from the window, "And perhaps this time I don't want to know." She signaled for him to continue and he wandered back to the hearth, picked up his knife, and poked idly at a chunk of sausage. "You know Brenn, right?" She nodded, suddenly remembering the boy she had seen with Lysander the day before on her way back from the market, the one who looked as if he'd been beaten. Brenn, Duchess recalled, was as light-fingered as Lysander, although not nearly as clever. "He's...had some dealings with the baron."

  "So? That's hardly unusual. You've all had noble clients at one time or another."

  "We have," he allowed, looking at her darkly, "but it is unusual for Brenn to come back from a job quite that beaten. He's not into the rough stuff, you know." He popped the piece of sausage idly into his mouth, as if eating were better than talking.

  "What happened?"

  He chewed at his chunk of sausage for awhile, then gave up hope of swallowing and simply talked around it. "That's the thing; nobody knows. Deneys had the notion of getting him blind stinking drunk last night in an attempt to get the tale out of him, but even though he could barely stand, he wouldn't talk."

  "I don't understand. What's so frightening about..."

  "That's what's so frightening, Duchess. This is Brenn I'm talking about. Brenn, not some delicate blossom, or even a Poor Gabe. The boy can stand up for himself." He swallowed tremendously. "I've never known him to keep quiet about a job no matter how badly it went. And after he bagged himself a nobleman, he wouldn't shut up about it. He had a bright future as a kept boy, bruises or no. But he won't talk about why it ended...or where those bruises came from."

  "What do you think it could be?"

  "I don't know. I'm left with only my imagination, and somehow that makes it worse. And now you tell me you plan on sneaking into the house of a man who can frighten Brenn into silence, with no plan and no promise you'll walk back out. What do you want me to say to that? What do you want me to do?"

  She weighed her response for a long moment, then stood, brushing crumbs from her trousers.

  "I want you to help me find Brenn."

  * * *

  "It had to be arsing Trades, didn't it?" Lysander muttered, leaning dramatically against a wall, huffing and out of breath.

  When she insisted they visit Deneys, she'd forgotten how much Lysander hated walking through Trades District. But there was nothing for it; Deneys' own garret was here, paid for by the guildmaster who liked his kept boy close at hand and yet prudently distant from his own home and family. And since Brenn was currently living with Deneys, they'd gone through Trades Gate at the north end of the market, then started the long climb up Craftman's Lane, a steep switchback road that zig-zagged through the district. Halfway up, Lysander had started complaining, and she'd decided some conversation would keep his mind off the climb.

  "You know Trades is the newest district, right?"

  He mopped sweat from his brow with a sleeve, and Duchess had to keep from rolling her eyes. "The damned city was ancient before the Rodaasi got here. How new can it be?" he muttered as they resumed their climb.

  She laughed. "Relatively new, then. The city hasn't been redistricted in hundreds of years, but I'm sure Trades was the last one."

  "So where did the craftsmen work before that? It's not like the city could have survived without them."

  "The Shallows, I think. Butchers, tanners, dyers, and all the rest."

  Lysander waved a hand dramatically in front of his nose. "Ugh! That must have been awful! The Shallows smells bad enough as it is."

  "That's why they moved, actually." They crossed one of the district's many man-made canals, which powered the waterwheels used by various tradesmen. The bridge was not as well maintained as it might be; many had been burned during the War of the Quills, and had not always been rebuilt with care.

  He glanced at her playfully. "And I'll bet you a handful of florin you know who made them move," he teased, without rancor. He was long accustomed to the little bits of city history she'd picked up from her father's books, and bless his heart, had never asked the source of her knowledge.

  She giggled and poked him in the ribs. "You'd win. It was Empress Agiri."

  Lysander hooted. "What kind of name is that?"

  "The kind you didn't make fun of if you wanted to keep your head." By now the air was full of the sound of trade: the ringing of hammers on metal, the lowing of cows and the bleating of sheep, and the shouts of apprentices, journeymen and masters alike. The twisting streets, unsuitable for wagons, were crowded with wheelbarrows and three-wheeled carts, and they had to weave a careful way through the traffic. By nightfall, the area would be quiet and occupied only by patrolling blackarms. She'd rarely been in Trades; it was too hard to maneuver the bread cart around the streets there, and the prospective profit too meager. Most of the craftsmen went to the market for their bread. Noam had always talked about buying a new cart, so he could cater to the workers and save them the walk, but...well, none of that was her concern, anymore.

  "Well, she's been dead Mayu knows how long, but my apologies to Her Highness. Why would she order the craftsmen to move? It's not like she could smell them way up there in Garden."

  "She thought she could, and since the emperor doted on her that was good enough for him to order all the craftsmen to move out of the Shallows. Well, actually, he gave them a choice: move to the new district or set up their shops in the imperial dungeons."

  "And they replied, 'You know, I've always wanted to work in the steepest and rockiest part of the city!'" They'd reached the crest of the Lane, and looking down they could make out, far below, the gate in the outer wall of the city, widened long ago so that cattle, goats, and other livestock could be driven directly from outlying farms into the district. They made their way down the other side of the rise. "All because the Empress decides the smell is too much." He shook his head as they turned down an alleyway. "I rather prefer our Violana's attitude: Leave Me Alone." They reached a narrow wooden staircase. "Anyway, enough of politics. We're here."

  Deneys' apartments were less shabby and more roomy than Lysander's, but he seemed eager to be rid of Brenn all the same. "He slouches about all day staring at the walls," Deneys told them in a low voice. "It's nerve-wracking, and it's ruining my beauty sleep." Brenn, staring listlessly into the empty hearth, took no notice. He was dressed in wine-stained breeches and nothing else. Duchess had never paid much attention to Brenn, who was dark, short and slender where Lysander was tall, blond and fair. He might have been attractive except for the black eye and the purple bruises that adorned his neck, chest, and back.

  "Mind if we borrow him for a bit?" Lysander asked.

  "You're welcome to him," sniffed Deneys. "Perhaps he can afford to do nothing all day, but some girls have to work for a living." He waved a hand about him. "This place isn't free."

  "Come on, Brenn," Lysander said in the brusque tones he used with the ganym
edes in his charge. "We're for a walk, all three of us. Let's go." Brenn mumbled something incomprehensible and tried to wave him off, but Lysander was having none of it. "No nonsense, now, or else Deneys will end up disappointing his good friend the guildmaster tonight, and we can't have that. Up, up, up." Eventually they got him on his feet, into a tunic and some shoes, and out the door.

  "Don't hurry back," Deneys drawled as he closed the door behind them.

  "Let's get him to the Square," Lysander said to Duchess, as if Brenn were not present, which she reflected was almost true. "Out in the open by the fountain." Brenn was moving slowly, dragging his feet with every step, so they each took an arm to keep him from stumbling. Lysander locked eyes with her over Brenn's slumped head; this, his look said silently, could be you. Descending a winding stair Brenn did stumble, nearly sending the three of them tumbling all the way down to the Shallows. Duchess found herself impatiently biting her lip, and she had to remind herself that useful information about the Eusbius estate would be worth a fall.

  Iron Square was to Trades what Bell Plaza was to the Shallows, except smaller and less crowded. It was lined on all four sides with neat stone buildings, from which came the clanging sounds of metal on metal; many of the district's smiths and armorers had their workshops on the Square. A large fountain sat at the center of the area, and from it apprentices frequently drew water to temper metal or tan leather, or to wash out the slaughterhouses. No nymphs frolicked here; instead, an impossibly squat and muscular stone man holding a hammer stood vigil amidst the splashing water. At the moment a bentback old man was filling a bucket, and two younger men were washing soot-blackened faces and hands.

  As they approached, the sound of that flow seemed to hit Brenn like a physical force and he stiffened in her grasp. "No," he said, coming alive for the first time since they'd seen him. "No, no, no." He wrenched his arm from her with surprising strength, nearly sending her to the cobbles, and pulled away from Lysander with equal force. He then bolted straight across the Square, nearly bowling over the old man as he was turning away from the fountain. The man squawked and dropped his bucket as Brenn flashed by, sending its contents splashing on to the cobbles.