14
CUTLERY, DANGERS OF
Aurienne
urienne winced as she stepped out of the pub. Scrope’s groping hadA turned to painful grabs as she had made her escape. A single touch of her tācn could have rendered him unconscious—but it would also have given the game away, and so she had refrained.
It didn’t matter. She had got what she came for.
A few steps away from the pub’s entrance, Cerys and some of Madam Miffle’s girls joined her and returned her satchel. They chatted for a few minutes—how this one’s baby was doing; how the other’s infection was clearing up; did anyone need contraceptives?—before Aurienne was able to break off towards the pub’s waystone. She was desperate for a wash and a change of clothes.
As she walked to the waystone, Aurienne thought she heard the heavy step of a man behind her. Glances over her shoulder revealed nothing, however, and she reached the waystone uninterrupted.
There was a tall shadow waiting for her there; the Fyren had decided to join her.
“Gods,” said Mordaunt, pulling his hood down as he stepped out of the penumbra. “The great seduction of the bath-wank bandit. What a show. What did he tell you? What was the name?”
“We can’t talk here,” said Aurienne. She spotted something shiny in Mordaunt’s hand—shiny and suspiciously drippy. “Erm, what’s that?”
“Nothing,” said Mordaunt, tossing the thing over his shoulder.
The shiny object spun away in the air—a dagger?
No. A fork.
“Why did you have a fork dripping with blood?” asked Aurienne as the
thing clattered away.
“I was using it.”
Aurienne took a step in the direction of the fork. “For what?”
Mordaunt got in her way. “I thought you were leaving.”
“I was, but—”
There was a sort of groan in the direction of the fork. Aurienne sidestepped Mordaunt to pass him, but ran into his chest instead.
“You should leave,” said Mordaunt.
Aurienne pushed past him—admittedly not an easy exercise—and strode around the corner. There she found Scrope, studded with at least two dozen stab wounds. Not quite dead, but not quite alive, either.
“What did you do?” gasped Aurienne.
“He fell,” said Mordaunt.
“He fell?”
“Yes. On the fork.”
“He fell on the fork? Twenty times?”
“Yes. Due to…fear.”
“What was he afraid of?”
“The fork.”
Aurienne tore off her glove to heal the dying man. “You’re utterly unhinged.”
“I’m perfectly hinged,” said Mordaunt. “You, on the other hand, have got
the survival instincts of a crumpet.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He followed you out here. You can’t tell me you think it was to ask you to dinner. He saw you talking to Cerys and the girls. He could’ve squeezed
any one of them for information about you. And I need you alive and well, so —”
“You can’t just kill people who inconvenience you,” said Aurienne.
Scrope’s pulse was feeble under her tācn; he was almost gone.
“I can and I do,” said Mordaunt.
“People will want to know why he was murdered, and by whom. He’ll be missed.”
“Missed? A man like this?” Mordaunt nudged Scrope with his boot, as one would a sack of rubbish. “That remains to be seen.”
Scrope twitched and died.
“Never mind,” said Mordaunt. “The remains are right here. We’re seeing them. And look—no one has come running.”
“He’s a human being.”
“Was. A human was.”
“Really? Pedantry? Now?”
Mordaunt ushered Aurienne back to the waystone. “Clutch your pearls over here.”
“Might we,” asked Aurienne, “go anywhere without subtracting from the population?”
“Would you prefer,” asked Mordaunt, “that we add to it?”
He dragged Scrope’s body into the cesspit behind the Bunghole. There was a splash and a nauseating whiff. He replaced the cesspit lid with a clang and asked, in a chirpy sort of way, “Where to? We need to talk.”
Aurienne pressed disbelieving hands to her cheeks. “He’s just going to— just going to rot in the cesspit.”
“Yes. That’s the idea.” Mordaunt dusted off his gloves. “This is how one disposes of shit. Shall we go to a clinic?”
“I want a bath. I can still feel his hands on me.”
“My house, then.”
“What?”
“Well, we’re not going to Swanstone for a bath and a confab.”
“Have you even got a functioning bath in your great, decrepit manse?”
“No,” said Mordaunt, with violent sarcasm. “I bathe in the toilet bowl.”
“Fine,” said Aurienne. “Your house.”
They pushed their tācn to the waystone, were reminded to mind the gap, and were pulled into the ley line.
Rosefell Hall was in much the same state as it had been upon Aurienne’s previous visit, save for the presence of Mordaunt’s steward, whom he introduced to Aurienne thus: “Ah, Mrs. Parson, there you are. Meet my Means to an End, Haelan Fairhrim. Disregard her attire; she doesn’t actually moonlight as a lady of the night. The story is too long and stupid to tell you. Fairhrim—this is my steward, Mrs. Parson.”
Mrs. Parson was a stout woman, white skinned and black haired, save the grey streaks running through her bun. She lowered her head. “Haelan Fairhrim, it’s an honour.”
Aurienne’s impression was of a sturdy kind of competence. Mrs. Parson looked so proper in her neat apron that Aurienne wondered whether the poor woman even knew she was working for a Fyren. Perhaps she was normal?
“How do you do, Mrs. Parson?” said Aurienne, inclining her head in return.
Mrs. Parson turned to Mordaunt and, in a tone edging on reproof, said, “I do wish that I’d known we were expecting company.”
“Spur-of-the-moment sort of decision,” said Mordaunt. “Haelan Fairhrim would like to wash up; she had an unfortunate encounter with a lecherous
shitbag.”
“What?” gasped Mrs. Parson.
“I took care of him,” said Mordaunt. “Couldn’t have him harassing our Haelan.”
“I hope you made him suffer, sir,” said Mrs. Parson.
“I did.”
“Is he dead, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Send his mother a toe, sir.”
“Good idea.”
Anyway, reflected Aurienne, it was nice of Mrs. Parson to confirm so early in their acquaintance that she, too, was unhinged.
Mrs. Parson disappeared for a few minutes to sort out the bath and returned with towels wedged under one arm, and two oil lamps. She led Aurienne up the stairs. In the lamplight, Aurienne noticed that Mrs. Parson was missing a few fingers on her left hand. An old injury, based on the maturity of the scars, but a traumatic one. It hadn’t been a clean amputation.
The lamps cast shivering shadows over draped-over paintings and fading tapestries. The upstairs of Rosefell was even more desolate than the downstairs had been, and reeked of dry rot. Aurienne, whose mortal enemy was dust, began a rhythmic series of sneezes in time with her steps.
Mrs. Parson was a mix of embarrassed and defensive about the state of the place. “You’ll have to forgive the house’s condition. It’s just me and my husband—he’s the groundsman. Mr. Mordaunt doesn’t wish to employ anyone else. I can’t keep up with all of the rooms. I make sure his chambers are liveable, of course, and I’ve just given the Magnolia Room a cleaning.”
“Have you been with the family long?”
“Oh yes. A few decades. Of course, there’s not much of a family to speak of now. Mr. Mordaunt is the last of the line.”
They came to the great house’s bedrooms, where every door was adorned with a small brass frame. Some still contained, in long-faded ink, the ghostly names of guests from more prosperous times. A path was worn in the plush carpet. Once-fine pieces of furniture sagged along the corridor, topped with tarnished candleholders.
“There was a time when any one of these rooms would have been ready to receive you at a moment’s notice,” said Mrs. Parson.
“What happened?” asked Aurienne.
“Dissipation.”
“Mordaunt’s?”
“The younger? Oh, no. He’s recovering the fortune. Or was—until you, of course.” This Mrs. Parson said matter-of-factly, without the acrimony that laced Mordaunt’s remarks on the same topic. “The senior—and his predecessors—were rather less wise.”
Mrs. Parson offered no further insights into these unwise ancestors.
Aurienne did not pry.
“May I ask…?” Mrs. Parson cast a glance at Aurienne over a round
shoulder, hesitated, and fell silent.
“Yes?” prompted Aurienne.
“Is he going to be all right?” asked Mrs. Parson. “Is there a bit of hope?”
“I really can’t comment on his prognosis,” said Aurienne. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“He said not much hope. I suppose not much is still a bit.”
“I suppose it is” was Aurienne’s noncommittal reply.
“He’s told me that you’ve turned to the Old Ways.”
“In desperation, yes,” said Aurienne. “There’s no known cure for his condition.”
“It’s a great relief that he’s, at least, in the best possible hands,” said Mrs. Parson. “Though I know—given your tācn, and his tācn—your hands aren’t the most willing.”
Aurienne produced the most civil answer she could. “Indeed. We seem diametrically opposed on every possible front.”
“Perhaps you’ll be surprised by points of commonality.”
To this, Aurienne could make no civil answer.
Mrs. Parson stopped at a door covered in carvings of tumbling magnolia blossoms. “Here we are. After you, Haelan.”
Aurienne stepped into the high-ceilinged suite. There were no lights save Mrs. Parson’s lamps. The air was hushed and closed; the sounds of their footsteps were absorbed by the swathes of sheets draped over the furnishings.
The bathroom included the luxury of a hearth. Mrs. Parson had taken the trouble to start a fire. Aurienne sniffed at the smoke—it was the same fragrant smoke she had smelled in the sitting room, with that odd undercurrent of bitterness.
“What wood do you burn here?” asked Aurienne.
“Blackthorn,” said Mrs. Parson. “It’s all over the estate. We are quite overrun. Half of my husband’s waking hours involve cutting it back. But it’s not all bad—it makes decent firewood. Burns low and slow.”
She turned the tap adorning the large copper tub, muttered something about the boiler, and convinced the tap to produce hot water by striking it with her fist.
Mrs. Parson left Aurienne a lamp. “Mr. Mordaunt’s not much one for lights,” she said as she placed it next to the bath. “We’d talked of bringing electricity into the house years ago, but, well—with only him here, it’d be of such little use.”
Mrs. Parson left. Aurienne stripped out of the clothes she had bought from Madam Miffle’s girls and slipped into the bath. She paid particular attention to scrubbing the places that Scrope had touched—the last living memories of a dead man.
Thanks to Mordaunt and his fork, she also had literal blood on her hands tonight, which she washed off guiltily. She and the Fyren had left a pile of dead bandits at the lighthouse, and now another body rotted at the Bunghole.
This could not go on.
Aurienne dried. In her satchel was one of her Haelan dresses, a lighter, summer version of her usual habit. She shook it out of its roll, slipped it on, and, feeling much more herself, wandered out of the suite, equipped with the lamp. She took a wrong turn or two among gloomy, forgotten corridors. She discovered more of Mordaunt’s collections—a wall of timepieces; a room that housed antique skulls, human and animal. (Aurienne also collected skulls. It offended her to have discovered a point of commonality quite so quickly.) In her search for the stairs, she came across a locked set of double doors.
A book-filled glass display case hinted that this was the library. Aurienne’s curiosity was stymied by the lock on the doors; she turned it instead to the contents of the glass case. The glow of her tācn revealed anatomical texts—a set of all seven of Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica.
Aurienne sneezed her way to the staircase under the noble faces of Mordaunt ancestors. She travelled across centuries from time-blackened portraits to modern daguerreotypes as she descended. There were marks of Mordaunt’s features in every portrait: a cleft chin here, silver hair there, grey eyes, mouths that hinted at insufferable wide grins. Knightly armour
abounded. And now the family’s one remaining scion was a Fyren. How far it had fallen. Or was it a regression? Hadn’t knightly orders begun their existence being paid for violence?
Mordaunt’s critique cricket was still around; a small voice advised Aurienne, as she went, that she smelled like binned mayonnaise.
Aurienne found Mordaunt sprawling in a large armchair in the sitting room. He, too, had washed—presumably he had found a toilet bowl somewhere. He reclined in a Byronic attitude in a half-buttoned white shirt, his damp hair swept artfully to the side, the heels of his boots on the fireguard. The only light came from the hearth. Aurienne quelled the part of her brain that wished her to take note that he was, once again, Being Handsome.
Around Mordaunt were scattered a half dozen of his ancient dogs. This time they did not flee Aurienne’s presence; one or two tails fluttered in timid recognition. Only the voiceless terrier emerged from its state of repose. It barked so forcefully at Aurienne that it knocked itself off its feet; then, after their mutual exchange of stares, it retreated to its cushion.
A frail whippet, missing a leg and an eye, was in the armchair with Mordaunt. He ran a gloved hand gently along the dog’s bony back. The strange kindness reverberated backwards and clashed violently with what Aurienne knew of Mordaunt; that same hand had just stabbed a man to death with a fork.
Presiding over the sleeping canids like a primal queen was the shadowy form of Mordaunt’s deofol. Starlight streamed through a stained-glass window and cast the shape of an elegant greyhound upon her. She lay in the pose of a sphinx. Her unblinking golden eyes met Aurienne’s as she entered the room. The wolf offered no greeting. The obsequious tail wags of their last encounter were long gone.
The great wolf turned her attention back to Mordaunt, who said, “You may leave us.”
The deofol dropped her muzzle and faded out of view like a Stygian mist.
An aged Great Dane approached Aurienne and shoved its snout into her crotch.
“Sit, Rigor Mortis,” called Mordaunt.
“You named the dog Rigor Mortis?” asked Aurienne, as Rigor Mortis ignored the instruction.
“They’re named for what was happening when I found them,” said Mordaunt. He pointed at dogs as he listed their names. “Arson. Perjury.
Forgery. Outraging Public Decency. High Treason. The terrier is Diverse
Felonies. The whippet is Crème Brûlée.”
“The crème brûlée was a crime?”
“It was the murder weapon.”
Mordaunt waved Aurienne towards a sofa. “You’ll forgive my state of undress. I decided you weren’t important enough for me to wrinkle a fresh neckcloth.”
“You’ll forgive mine,” said Aurienne, extending a foot out from under her skirts. “I didn’t fancy putting Cerys’ boots back on and I forgot my shoes in my haste to leave.”
Mordaunt, his eyes riveted to the hem of her dress, said, “A foot. An ankle. Put it away. You’ll stir my loins.”
Aurienne settled onto the sofa across from Mordaunt and duly tucked away her indecent foot. “Cerys has rubbed off on me.”
“That was downright smutty,” said Mordaunt. “Perhaps Mrs. Parson can lend you some clogs for the way home.”
“Clogs, yes. Just the thing to sneak soundlessly back into my quarters.”
Mordaunt’s oeillade shifted to Aurienne’s face. He observed her with something very like masculine interest, which Aurienne met with a raised eyebrow.
“Are you aware that your throat is exposed?” asked Mordaunt.
“It’s only you.”
“Only? How dare you?”
“I got a bit lost on the way back here,” said Aurienne. “I saw your
library.”
“Which one?”
A question that left Aurienne mildly stunned. “You’ve got…more than one?”
“Haven’t you?”
Aurienne ignored this overprivileged, twattish follow-up. “There was a case with copies of De humani corporis fabrica just outside the doors.”
“Ah. Natural history, then. The other is art history and classical
literature.”
“Why have you got a copy of De humani?”
“I’ve a small collection of classic anatomical texts.” (Aurienne was vexed anew; another point of commonality.) “What?” said Mordaunt in response to her frown. “Do you think the Haelan are the only ones who make a study of the human body?”
“I suppose you need to know where to stab.”
“Exactly,” said Mordaunt. “Also, don’t insult me by calling it a copy; it’s an original edition. About three hundred years old—”
Mordaunt cut himself off. He had just caught sight of Aurienne’s forearm, where Scrope’s literal manhandling had left a mark. His eyes, usually heavy lidded with insouciance, real or affected, flew open. His face lost all cynicism. His slouch disappeared. His scar became a vivid white line across his lips.
A second later, it was over. He fell back into his slouch, veiled his eyes, regained his cynicism, and said, “Pity Scrope’s already dead. Could’ve had a bit more fun with him. Are you hungry? I’ve asked for tea and things. Or will you have something stronger?”
Aurienne healed the marks on her arm. “It’s gone half three. Let Mrs. Parson sleep.”
“Mrs. Parson can still handle the occasional nighttime adventure,” said Mrs. Parson, entering the room with a tray of silverware and porcelain.
“How do you take it?” asked Mordaunt, pouring a cup of tea. “A splash
of milk?”
“No, thank you,” said Aurienne.
“Sugar?”
“No.”
“Nothing fun. I ought to have known.”
Aurienne watched Mordaunt pour approximately two cubic feet of milk into his teacup. “Fun? Is that what you call that debauchery?”
“We all have our vices,” said Mordaunt, heaping in an equally grotesque amount of sugar.
Mrs. Parson set out a pile of biscuits and a bowl of fruit, and left them to
it.
“Pomegranates,” remarked Aurienne.
“Yes,” said Mordaunt. “They’re a metaphor.”
Also in the bowl flopped a large, slightly flaccid banana. Aurienne did not ask if the banana, too, was a metaphor.
She left the tea, the pomegranates, and the flanana untouched.
“What happened to Mrs. Parson’s hand?” she asked.
“Her hand? Oh, that. An accident with a meat grinder when she was a girl. She does an amusing pantomime about it; you should ask her.”
Aurienne did not find such accidents amusing, but she set aside the subject instead of launching into a moral lecture. “We need to talk about tonight.”
“We do,” said Mordaunt. “It was stupid of you to come out. Kindly preserve your idiotic costume escapades for after you’re done healing me. I won’t care what happens to you then.”
“That’s not what we need to talk about,” said Aurienne. “But my idiotic escapade got me the information I needed.”
“You don’t even know if it’s good information.”
“And I may never know, because you—speaking of idiotic—killed our source. Which is what we actually need to talk about: the trail of cadavers we’re leaving in our wake. This isn’t how I conduct business.”
“It’s how I conduct my business,” said Mordaunt.
“Well, we can’t do it your way anymore.”
“I’m not telling you to do it my way. I’m telling you to do it right.”
“There is nothing right about fork-induced thoracic trauma resulting in death.”
A glove was waved Aurienne’s way. “You make everything so unpoetic.”
“I’m sorry. Would you like me to say it again, in iambic pentameter?”
“Yes.”
Aurienne didn’t, because she couldn’t remember what iambic pentameter was. She regrouped and said, “I’d like us to agree to use violence as an
absolute last resort.”
“Sounds like a bit of a faff.”
“Not murdering people for five minutes is a bit of a faff?”
Mordaunt tilted his head back and sighed at the ceiling. “Violence is a first and best resort. But, very well—I’ll let you have your delusions.”
“Then we’ve agreed: no more cadavers,” said Aurienne.
“Fewer cadavers,” said Mordaunt.
“None.”
“Less.”
They stared at each other. Aurienne felt the enormity of the gulf between them—morally, ethically, constitutionally. The points of commonality faded to nothing.
“Why does death frighten you so much?” asked Mordaunt.
“Death doesn’t frighten me. I am very familiar—too familiar—with death. It’s you doling it out all willy-nilly that’s the problem.”
“There’s nothing willy or nilly about my approach,” said Mordaunt. “I’m a professional; I assess situations and act accordingly.”
“I’m a professional, and I’m running a course of treatment, not an
abattoir.”
“An abattoir. That’s a good idea.”
“A good idea for what?”
“Never mind,” said Mordaunt. “Not important.”
“Might we therefore turn to what is important: the name Scrope gave?”
“Yes,” said Mordaunt. “What is it?”
“Bardolph Wellesley.”
Mordaunt straightened out of his slouch. “Wellesley? Really?”
“You know him?”
“He’s one of the Wessexian queen’s retainers. Powerful. Rich. How do you not know of him?”
“I don’t keep track of the goings-on among the kings and queens,” said Aurienne. “My Order is apolitical.”
“As is mine, on paper, but it doesn’t mean I wander about absolutely oblivious,” said Mordaunt. “All the Orders are under some royal’s thumb, somewhere up the line, including yours.”
“You’re incorrect.”
“You’re naive.”
They stared at each other again.
Mordaunt moved on with a shrug. “The Wessexian queen is the most powerful monarch in the Tīendoms. Bardolph Wellesley, though. That’s interesting, if it’s true. It mightn’t be true—Scrope might’ve been trying to impress you with the name drop.”
“If it is true, why would one of the Wessexian queen’s men send anyone to Swanstone?” asked Aurienne. “People aren’t that stupid. With the exception, of course, of one notable idiot who broke in to see me and pin his hopes on fairy tales.”
The Notable Idiot registered the insult with narrowed eyes.
“What have we got that Wellesley couldn’t obtain for himself?” mused Aurienne. “Or would want to destroy? Patient records? Prepublication material? Our archives? Our vault?”
“Wellesley is rich,” said Mordaunt. “He wouldn’t be interested in your vault.”
“If Scrope were still alive, we might’ve interrogated him further on the provenance of his information,” said Aurienne.
“If he was still alive, he’d bleed Cerys until she told him who you were and where to find you. And then he’d know too much. And I’d have to kill him anyway.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He wouldn’t have.”
“Which of us is more intimately acquainted with vermin and their ways?”
“You,” conceded Aurienne. “You’re one of them.”
“I beg your pardon? Me? A gutter rat like Scrope? Have you seen where I live?”
Aurienne glanced about. Given that there was no gutter immediately within sight, she conceded. “Right. I suppose you’re just a rat, then. A plain rat.”
“Thank you.” Mordaunt, placated, settled back into his armchair.
Aurienne awoke her tācn to summon her deofol. “I’ve got to inform Xanthe of these developments.”
“Developments?” scoffed Mordaunt. “A shit bit of information from a shit source.”
“I will remind you that the shit source was your source,” said Aurienne, before whispering Cíele’s name into her tācn. (A deofol’s name was a private thing, and Mordaunt certainly wasn’t worthy of knowing hers.) Her beloved Cíele materialised in her arms and wound his way affectionately up to her shoulder. His fur against her cheek was as soft and intangible as a breath.
When he noticed the Fyren, Cíele said, “Ew.”
“You remember Mordaunt, of course,” said Aurienne to Cíele.
“As one remembers a particularly distinctive haemorrhoid,” said Cíele.
Aurienne did not laugh, though she wished to. “I told you to keep things civil.”
“I have kept things civil,” said Cíele. “I haven’t even drawn blood.”
“You have absolutely drawn blood,” said Mordaunt.
“He’s only a little genet,” said Aurienne. “It was an accident.”
Mordaunt called Cíele a weasel-faced, pugnacious little squit. Cíele expressed amazement that the haemorrhoid could string together so many words.
“You’ve got to endure him for the foreseeable future,” said Aurienne.
“I know,” said Mordaunt and Cíele at the same time.
“She was talking to me,” said Cíele.
“She was obviously talking to me,” said Mordaunt.
“I was talking to him,” said Aurienne, pointing at her deofol.
Mordaunt looked pouty and ate a biscuit.
Aurienne turned to Cíele. “Now, my darling—you must go to Xanthe.
Tell her that the Fyren helped me find out who might’ve sent the intruders to
Swanstone: a man called Bardolph Wellesley, who is, apparently, one of the Wessexian queen’s men. Mention that the source of the evidence was a drunk lech who is now dead, because the Fyren can’t keep his forks to himself—”
“Yes,” cut in Mordaunt. “We’ve established that he’s dead. What do you want me to do? Hold a séance?”
“—so ask Xanthe how she’d like to proceed,” continued Aurienne. “And
don’t forget your bows.”
“Done,” said Cíele.
There was the soft, hardly there pressure of four seith paws against Aurienne’s arm; and then, in a puff of white, Cíele was gone.
Aurienne and Mordaunt hardly had time to snarl at each other about Cíele, and whether he deserved to continue to live (Aurienne was strongly in favour; Mordaunt, against), when a push of seith, soft but leathery, tingled at Aurienne’s tācn. Xanthe’s deofol, Saophal, wanted to come through.
The wrinkled axolotl materialised and took in the room’s occupants with slow blinks. “Aurienne: hello. Put on some socks before you catch a chill.
Fyren: lukewarmest greetings. No tutu today?”
“Puce wasn’t my colour,” said Mordaunt.
“Really? I thought it a nice match for your yellow liver.” The axolotl’s feathery gills fluttered towards Mordaunt. “The evidence on Wellesley’s involvement sounds feeble at best.”
“It is; it’s the slurred words of a sack of shit,” said Mordaunt. “He was, admittedly, a well-connected sack of shit.”
“It’s an avenue for further investigation,” said Aurienne. “Which is better than what we had.”
Saophal floated towards Mordaunt’s face and cocked a beady black eye at him. “Xanthe would like something more concrete.”
“Good for Xanthe,” said Mordaunt.
“Wellesley’s castle will doubtless be a challenge to infiltrate,” said
Saophal.
“Send the Wardens,” said Mordaunt.
“The Wardens aren’t at our command—and they don’t do infiltrations,” said Saophal. “They’d stomp in singing a war song and hang Wellesley from
his own ramparts with his limbs torn off. The situation requires a subtle approach. We find ourselves in the interesting position of needing a Fyren.”
“What are you paying me?” asked Mordaunt.
“Pay?” repeated Saophal. She turned to Aurienne. “Aurienne, what’s the rate of recurrence on emboli for a subject suffering from advanced seith deterioration?”
“Fifty percent chance within the first three months; ninety-five percent
within the next six,” said Aurienne.
“You’re exaggerating,” said Mordaunt.
“The data is in publicly available repositories,” said Aurienne. “You can conduct your own review if you’d like. Let me know if your conclusion differs.”
The axolotl puffed her gills in a satisfied way. “Your pay, therefore, is Aurienne’s assistance for your next, inevitable, seith embolus.”
“Since when do Haelan bargain with Fyren?” asked Mordaunt.
“You opened the door on that when you first slithered into Aurienne’s office,” said Saophal. “Don’t play coy now. You gather intelligence on Wellesley; we save you from your body’s treachery.”
“And I’m disposable, should things go wrong,” said Mordaunt.
Saophal burbled out a laugh. “Of course. Have a think about our offer. In the meantime, no favours, Aurienne. If he blocks, he blocks. He can go to a chirurgeon for a seith embolectomy if he likes. Those are great fun.”
Aurienne bowed her head. “Understood.”
Saophal spun in a slow circle and fizzled out of existence.
“I won’t do it,” said Mordaunt, staring at the place where Saophal had floated. “This is shameless coercion. So much for the goodness of the Haelan.”
“Xanthe found a point of leverage and she’s going to use it to protect her Order,” said Aurienne. “Besides—you coerced me in the first place. You
deserve nothing but a return in kind.”
“I’m just a Point of Leverage, am I?”
“I’m just a Means to an End, aren’t I?”
Mordaunt looked sullen in light of this response. But something shifted when his eyes caught Aurienne’s—he looked more deeply; he searched her out; he questioned. She met him front on in this interrogation; that was what this was, wasn’t it? A purely utilitarian exchange between a Haelan and a Fyren. Nothing lay beyond the transaction. Nothing lay beyond the dichotomy. Did it?
The questions hung unspoken in the indifferent air.
Mordaunt gave her a smile, forced, theatrical. “You’re right, Haelan Fairhrim. And so we must remain to one another—Leverage and Means, on this side of eternity.”
“We must only endure one another a little longer.”
“The dose makes the poison.”
“One day it’ll be over and we can forget each other.”
“You’re going to forget me?” asked Mordaunt.
“I hope so,” said Aurienne.
“I’m heartbroken.”
“You haven’t a heart,” said Aurienne. “Besides, isn’t forgetting you preferable to continuing to hate you?”
“I’d rather you hate me than not think of me at all.”
No reply suggested itself in light of this confession, so Aurienne made none. She rearranged her skirts—it was unnecessary; they were irreproachable—and looked into the hearth.
Mordaunt took in a sharp breath, in the way one does when one wishes to make a sudden change in subject. “I suppose you wouldn’t even run a diagnostic on me now, to see if an embolus looks to be building up.”
“Certainly not,” said Aurienne. “You’ve got to infiltrate Wellesley Keep.
You heard Xanthe’s deofol; I’m not to grant you favours.”
“And you always do as you’re told?”
“I’d need an excellent reason to contravene a direct order from Xanthe.”
“Me asking nicely isn’t an excellent reason?”
“You asking anything nicely is an excellent reason to not do a thing.”
“I won’t do Wellesley Keep. There’s too little benefit to me.”
“Too little benefit?” repeated Aurienne. “To have me on hand for your next blockage?”
Mordaunt, seeing from Aurienne’s sudden straightening of the spine that he had insulted her, backpedalled: “Well—I mean to say—”
“Little benefit? Me? A Haelan who specialises in seith?”
“When you put it like that—obviously, yes, there is a benefit. I meant monetary benefits—I’m usually well compensated for assignments of this nature.”
Aurienne rose amid the stuttering. With calmness born of searing irritation, she said, “Your compensation is access to me. If that’s not good enough, it’s not a problem. We’ll stick to our original agreement. I’d put a chirurgeon on retainer if I were you. I can recommend a few who’ve conducted seith embolectomies with minimal butchery. They usually have trouble finding the clot, of course, so they have to make a few incisions and fish about. You’re a big, tough Fyren, though—you’ll be all right. Your torpraxia is so advanced, you’ll hardly feel it. I just hope they don’t accidentally sever your seith lines while they’re in there. You’ve got so few left intact.”
Mordaunt looked perturbed. “You needn’t go. I spoke without thinking.”
“You do that as a matter of course,” said Aurienne. “I’m off. Thank Mrs. Parson for the tea.”
Her satchel over one shoulder and Cerys’ boots over the other, Aurienne strode out of the house. The critique cricket called her a gnu as she left.
Little benefit? Years of work, decades of education and practice, to be called little benefit by a feckless, blistering ulcer of a man? He could take his next embolus and choke on it.
Mordaunt’s decaying house fell behind Aurienne. The night felt large, clear, and still. The air, laden with the smell of heather and clover, soothed her. She took deep, cleansing breaths of it; too much of the evening had been spent in a malodorous pub and, afterwards, in the foundering carcass of Rosefell Hall.
Collaboration with Mordaunt had seemed, briefly, possible. But perhaps it was better not to be entangled in another bargain with him. One ought to
keep one’s deals with devils to a minimum.
Stars sparkled their eternities above, shrouded by the dapple of a thin cloud. Mist rose from the hollows, redolent with the slow scent of bracken.
Under the curve of the waning moon, an owl drew out a helix.
Aurienne followed the gravel path that led to Rosefell’s waystone. Her bare feet hardly made a sound upon the pebbles.
Someone else was even quieter.
“Fairhrim,” came Mordaunt’s voice.
Aurienne did not turn around. “We haven’t anything left to discuss
tonight.”
“Fairhrim.”
“My deofol will find you with instructions for the next full moon.”
“Wait.”
Fingers in a leather glove caught her hand.
Aurienne turned. The Fyren was behind her, still in his shirtsleeves, bare
necked, grave.
He never looked grave.
Aurienne stopped, her hand in his, two steps away from him, as though they were beginning a dance. Even through the glove, his hand was warm.
She waited. A small hushed wind sifted back and forth between them.
The moon’s all-forgiving, all-encompassing light danced in a scatter upon the mist, stole colours, erased details. The world turned brumous; things grew softer, lost their outlines, became tender and faint.
Nightjars winged between moor and fairy moon. Their shadows darted and coursed at Aurienne’s feet in swift lines; meanings flickered in and out of existence, visible only if she did not look too close.
Mordaunt stood tense shouldered, wretched, pressing his fingers to hers.
Aurienne felt his struggle with the same clarity as she perceived the night.
He needed her, and he hated her for it.
“I’ll do it,” said Mordaunt.
