Maledicte (37 page)

Maledicte’s breath stopped. All his worries about Gilly knowing, about the court finding out, about Aris looking at him without preconceptions, just
once,
and it was this whore who guessed. “I’ve killed one man for suggesting I was effeminate. What makes you—”

“Whores know things, we’ve got eyes for artifice, don’t we? Appearances is our trade, more’n anything else. How to look better, smaller, fuller—each of us has played the man at least once, going out with a fellow where we wouldn’t be wanted or escorting ourselves places where women don’t walk alone. You’re just better than most. Without that sword though, you’re nothing but a tall, skinny—”

“Shut your mouth,” Maledicte said. He grabbed the sword, yanked it free, then fought to resheathe it. He didn’t need to murder her. Whores were easily bought.

“Or you’ll shut it for me?” She vamped at him, flashing her skirts, wrinkling her nose, fluttering her eyelashes.

Maledicte grabbed her neck and slammed her into the door.

She coughed, then laughed. “Rough play do it for you? You’ll be disappointed with Gilly then. He’s a sweetheart, through and through, my Gilly is—”

“Shut up,” Maledicte said, pinching his fingers inward like the claws of a crab, collecting her attention along with the air in her windpipe.

Wary now, she opened her mouth to cry out. As quickly as she did, he barred her mouth with his fingers. “Listen to me, Lizette. Should you unmask me, I will make you suffer. I know Itarusine potions to make your blood surge and foam within your skin, seeking egress. You’ll bleed and keep bleeding from your eyes, your mouth, your overused sex…and you’ll suffer pain you can’t imagine. You’ll die slowly while your blood swells like the surf and your skin splits to make way for it. And when you’re dead, even the crows won’t touch your flesh.” He released her. “And no one will even care. Or investigate. You’ll be just another dead whore.”

She slid down the door, soiled violet silk and blotchy face. “I wasn’t going to say nothing. Whores don’t say nothing.”

“Not if they’re wise.” Maledicte stepped back. She wiped her teary eyes and nose with the edge of her gown, looking up at him. He put a hand to her shoulder and she flinched. “I see you understand me.”

He left the door sagging open, left Lizette huddled on the floor, and went home.

G
ILLY, LOUNGING IN THE LIBRARY,
looked up at the bang of the door. He folded the broadsheet, set it down at his feet. “Did you sleep well?” He doubted it, the way Maledicte clung to the shadows of the room, pulling curtains.

“Did you send Lizette in to me?” Maledicte asked.

Gilly winced at the ugly edge in Maledicte’s voice. “No. But the greedy little cat probably liked the rich looks of you. Did she wake you?”

“The screeching of the matron did, rousting some sailors who out-stayed their coin. Don’t I give you enough to establish a bijou in a peaceful neighborhood?”

“Woke up temperamental, that’s obvious,” Gilly said. Aware that Maledicte hadn’t yet met his eyes, Gilly wondered what ailed him, embarrassment or anger. “Come here.” When Maledicte hesitated, he repeated himself. “Come here.”

Maledicte stood before him, stiff and spiky like a child uncertain of chastisement.

“Woke with a head, I’ve no doubts,” Gilly said. “Poor Mal. You were very drunk last night. I am amazed Ani allowed it.”

Maledicte knelt before Gilly. “You’re not angry?”

“No,” Gilly said. Why should he be angry? He knew something he hadn’t known before, that Maledicte desired him. That knowledge made him lazy and content. He stroked Maledicte’s neck, his shoulders, his dark hair. Maledicte laid his head in Gilly’s lap, sighing.

“I’m sorry you woke unpleasantly,” Gilly said, separating strands of dark hair and twining them again. “You looked so peaceful when I left.”

“That was your mistake,” Janus said. Gilly flinched in his seat, felt Maledicte carry the movement through. “When Mal is peaceful, it’s always deceptive. Usually means he’s going to kill someone.”

“I have to wash,” Maledicte said. “Those sheets probably had fleas.” He pushed away from Gilly’s loose embrace.

Janus snagged his arm, studied him with a sapphirine gaze. “Aris restricted you to these four walls. You went out?”

“You disobey him at will. Why shouldn’t I?” Maledicte said, twitching his arm free.

“I am not on sufferance,” Janus said.

“Aren’t you?” Maledicte said.

Janus’s face darkened, and Maledicte sighed. “My temper is foul today, Janus, so go cautiously.”

“I remind you,” Janus said. “Aris has guards watching the house, watching you. Remember that, should you feel the need to draw your blade.”

Maledicte shivered; his hands clenched, but he made no further response to the tightening noose of suspicion he found himself in. Instead, he drew Janus’s head down and kissed him fiercely, after a quick, burdened glance at Gilly.

“I’m tired. You need to time your visits better. Until then, Gilly will take care of me.” Maledicte slipped out of Janus’s arms and went upstairs.

Janus smiled thinly at Gilly, and prowled the room, unspeaking. Gilly rose to go and Janus forestalled him. “Something you want to confess to me, Gilly? You’re jumpy today. As if you had a guilty conscience.”

“Is yours any more pristine?” Gilly countered.

“Do I need to tell you again to stay away from Maledicte? He’s more than you can handle.”

“I handled things well enough last night,” Gilly said.

The sudden blankness in Janus’s face gave him enough warning to duck the blow. But then Janus seized his shoulders in a grip that trembled with rage; Gilly felt bruises starting.

“You dared,” Janus said.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Gilly said. “If you can change your appetite from women for Mal’s sake, why can I not do the same? He was willing enough.”

The tension in Janus’s arms eased enough for Gilly to free himself. What he had said that defused the worst of Janus’s temper, Gilly didn’t know, and he found himself regretting it. This fight had been a long time coming, and he welcomed it as much as he feared it.

“Get out,” Janus said.

“This is my house,” Gilly said. “You go.” He grinned. His heart raced with exhilaration and fear. He found Maledicte’s evil genius poking him, as if the night spent together had left him with more than frustrated desire. “Of course, you could stay. Could hit me again, threaten to kill me. Again. But I know why you balk…you are not so sure that Mal would forgive you—”

Janus struck and Gilly blocked, catching the fist in his own grip, twisting it. “No more idle threats, Janus. I’ve gotten your measure. Maledicte’s love protects me from you. And he does love me, whether he wants to or not.”

“Then be honest with me,” Janus said. “You mean to steal him from me.”

Gilly said, “Your love will send him to blood and death.”

“You don’t care about the blood, about the court. All you care about is having him for yourself. Don’t dress your motives in fine words. You want him.”

“I do,” Gilly said.

“I’ll kill you first,” Janus said.

“And that brings us around to where we started this quarrel,” Gilly said. “Like two dogs fighting over a bitch in season.”

“That’s a flattering thought. Be sure to share it with Mal. He’ll gut you for me,” Janus said.

“He promised he’d never hurt me. I believe him. He may be many things, but he’s not a liar.”

“He’d forgive me anything,” Janus said.

“Are you willing to test it?” Gilly said. He stepped back, raised his arms wide, inviting Janus. “Not that you’d have it all your own way. I may not be a swordsman, but I outreach you.”

Janus snarled. “You forget your place. Maledicte may call you friend, but you are a servant born, and a servant until death.”

“And you haven’t forgotten yours?” Gilly asked. “You’re so far out of your place that you’re dangling from a rope marked treason.”

Janus hissed, his hand clenching around his sword, but as soon as his knuckles whitened, they relaxed, the rage cresting and disappearing as if it had never been. He turned a placid face to Gilly, leaving him off-balance. Where did the rage go? Where would Janus vent it? Not on Maledicte, surely; it was no longer safe to do so.

Gilly put his back to Janus and walked out, though his skin crawled. If Janus could be rid of him by accident or manipulation, Maledicte’s protection would be useless. And Janus’s anger, though better controlled than Maledicte’s, always erupted in the end.

He listened for Janus’s footsteps in the hall, in case Janus chose to continue their quarrel. But instead, he heard them going up the stairs, chasing after Maledicte.

· 36 ·

T
HE MESSENGER ARRIVED EARLY
in the morning, rousting Gilly from his bed after a night full of stealthy leavings, first Livia creeping out yet again, then Janus seeking the palace. Sleepily, Gilly paid the boy and flipped open the note, curious to see which of their spies had something to report, or if perhaps the coachman hadn’t lost Livia this time—the girl was clever and careful. But the terse lines didn’t involve Maledicte and his schemes at all. The note, straggling words written in a hand unused to a pen, read simply:
Lizette very sick. Need help.
Gilly crumpled the quarter sheet of cheap paper in his fist, releasing the scent of the brothel and desperation.

Gilly was torn between agitation and irritation. Lizette had been furious with Maledicte’s intrusion and threats, had failed to meet with him last night, sent Ma Desire herself down to make her sentiments known. He half suspected this emergency mere stratagem, showing whether he valued her.

When he entered, he smelled the hot tang of blood over all the other odors, and knew the need was real. The madam met him at the door, her skirts splotched with blood.

“It’s too late,” she said. “She’s gone.”

“Gone,” Gilly repeated, and went where the madam beckoned.

Lizette’s boudoir was drenched. The blood, mostly stiff and browning, still had a few spots of freshness to it. One rivulet dripped slowly from the bed.

Her back arched; her eyes were open but obscured by blood, her hands locked on the sheets in her last spasm. Gilly gagged.
Lizette.

“What happened?”

“Poison,” Ma Desire said.

“Poison,” Gilly repeated, his ears numbing.

“She got a box of chocolates, last night, after she sent you away. She ate them up, didn’t she, most of them at once. And a note—didn’t I read it for her.” She spoke to the room at large, though Gilly was the only one listening. Over by the hearth, another whore, her hands gloved, shoved bloody sheets into the fireplace. A second girl scrubbed at the spots on Lizette’s finest dress, attempting to salvage it.

“Said as how you were sorry. That she should forgive you. Real gentlemanly, it was.”

“I didn’t send it,” Gilly said. But he might as well have, he thought. Somehow this blame fell at his door.

“Figured that out when she started to bleed. She knew then who done it.”

“Who?” Gilly said.

The madam turned her head, studied the room with a speaking silence. Gilly’s breath shuddered out of him. Throat tight, he reached into his pocket for coins.

“’Tain’t for me,” Ma Desire said, as she tucked them into her bodice. “For her. Someone’s got to pay for the burying.”

“Who did this?” Beneath the grief, a flicker of anger grew. He was not Janus, was not Maledicte, to find forgiveness of anything.

“She raved about your other lover, your highborn lady, said the crows were at her, tearing her insides. She felt their beaks. Said your lover had warned her. Said she’d bleed. Said Black-Winged Ani was killing her sure. Said she stole the crow’s man and doomed herself. That true?”

“What?” Gilly said, his mind quaking away from the ruined woman on the bed, the fevered words attributed to her. Maledicte? Maledicte found killing offenses entirely too easily, Gilly thought, sick at heart. And penned at home with watchful guards, unable to bring the sword to bear, a box of poisoned sweets would be all too easy to arrange.

“That you’re one of Black Ani’s creatures.”

“No,” Gilly said. “My master—my friend—” His voice broke. He sat on the bed, touched Lizette’s distorted face, cold, waxy, and faintly sticky.

“You want to protect yourself. There’s charms and such,” she said. “You’re a good boy. Don’t get caught up in the crow’s feathers.” She reached out, touched his hair, the hardness fading from her face. “You was good to my girl.”

T
HE KINGSGUARDS POSTED
near the house eyed him curiously as he pounded up the entry stairs, slamming the door open, but did no more than watch.

Inside, Maledicte, muted in gray wool with a scarlet shirt peeking out, sat to luncheon, his head bent over a book. Gilly paused, the anger in him churning, and he bypassed the dining room for the main stairs. He pushed open Maledicte’s doors, ransacked drawers and wardrobe until he found the wooden case that held the poisons and dumped them across the bed, greenish-gray powder spilling out of white twists, dusting his hands. He rummaged through the small vials, looking for the one that could make flesh melt to blood.

“You’ve only been out for a few hours,” Maledicte said from the doorway. “Surely no one’s offended you so badly in that time that you would turn to poison. But if they have, let me know, and I’ll take care of it for you.”

Gilly’s hand closed around the vial. A scant few purple drops clung to the curved bottom. “You didn’t have to kill her. All you had to do was ask me to give her up. I would have done anything for you. I have done everything for you.”

“Gilly?”

Gilly threw the vial at him. Maledicte caught it easily, looked at it with wary eyes. “Precatorius syrup. She bled to death, as you threatened.”

“Lizette.” Just her name drew Maledicte’s supple mouth into a scowl.

To Gilly, it felt like confession. “She bled out and your bottle is near empty. Why kill her like that? Why make her suffer? Why kill her at all?” Gilly’s eyes blurred with tears.

“Is she worth all this fuss? She was just a whore.” Maledicte’s face twisted. “A creature without value.”

Gilly’s fingers clenched; he raised his fist, and dropped it. Maledicte hadn’t flinched.

“I liked her. She was uncomplicated and mouthy. What did she do to you? What did she say? Did she laugh at you? Give me a reason—” He raised his hand to Maledicte’s cheek. “Please.” He needed something, anything to stop the rage and pain churning inside him. He waited in frozen silence for Maledicte’s response, waited to be freed to anger or bittersweet relief.

“I didn’t kill the bitch,” Maledicte said, slapping Gilly’s hand away. “Are you my hanging judge? Go away, Gilly.”

“Chocolate and poison. A sweet with a sting. A note she couldn’t read but had my name on it. It apologized for our interrupted sport. You expect me to believe you didn’t do this?”

“Burn your soul, I—” His voice refused to rise, the rasp giving way to forced silence. Thwarted, Maledicte bared his teeth and shoved past Gilly like a departing evil spirit. The parlor door downstairs slammed with a sound of cracking glass, leaving Gilly cut off from his answers. Small crashes shattered silence like distant cannonfire as Maledicte took his temper out on frangibles.

Gilly’s own rage simmered and roiled. He fled the house, past the lurking guards, and into the city. He was nearly into the merchants’s treets before the fog of temper and pain cleared way for a single thought. Maledicte had never denied his wrongdoings before. Still, it was Maledicte’s bottle that had been emptied….

Gilly moaned, resting his sweating face against his hands. He forgot that he had enemies himself, one of whom resided under the same roof, privy to Lizette’s existence, to her location, to Gilly’s thrice-weekly visits. Grim, Gilly traced his way back in the twilight. He would ask once again, and this time, he would listen.

The door was not locked against him as he half expected it to be. The parlor was awash in wreckage, as if it was the spill point for the tides’ refuse. The mirrored door was broken; winking glass met Gilly’s gaze from every angle; the spinet stool lay beneath the lintel, one leg snapped.

Gilly’s boot crunched in the soft pile of the rugs. A curled bit of porcelain stuck out from beneath his boot. He picked it up—a small porcelain arm. The silk thread and dangling stick were all that told him he held the remains of one of a series of puppeteer figures. He raised his eyes to their shelf. Not one remained, and though he found more identifiable pieces, a dog’s head with a high, ruffled collar, a serpent’s rattle, a minuscule puppet’s puppet with its arms snapped off, he found no whole survivor. Some of them had been broken so fiercely it seemed as if Maledicte had attempted to grind them underfoot.

Gilly set down his handful of parts on the curtained altar with a speculative expression. Janus had gifted Maledicte with these puppets. Maledicte held them dear. Or had. Likened himself to the puppeteer of the gods, but perhaps he felt more a puppet today.

Gilly ascended the stairs to the first level, turning the gas lamps to glowing life as he went.

“Maledicte?” Gilly called. The house was as hushed as if Gilly was the only breathing thing within its walls, and his heart beat faster. “Maledicte?” In the hallway, Gilly hesitated, then chose to climb the dark attic steps. Faint glimmers of porcelain dust traced a footstep six steps before him and he took the rest of the stairs with more surety.

Cool evening air swirled down, whistled under the attic door. Gilly pushed it open. The attic window gaped with jagged glass. Maledicte sat before it, perched on a pile of trunks. The heavy sweep of his scarlet shirt, the sleeves uncorded, unrestrained by a jacket, draped like bloody wings. His knees were drawn up, wrists crossed over their peaks.

“I’m sorry, Gilly.” Maledicte turned his head to look back over his shoulder; the heavy hair whispered and shifted. His face gleamed in the faint starshine and reflected gaslight straining through the city fogs.

A scrabble and the brushed, whiskery sound of feathers kept Gilly from instant speech as the rooks hopped his foot and lifted off, one wheeling out the window, the other perching on the pile of discarded clothing. It dipped its beak, exposed a rent in an embroidered jacket, and flew out the window, trailing golden strands.

“I didn’t know you cared so much about her,” Maledicte said. His voice was muffled; he laid his head into the space between his arms. “I hated her.”

Gilly sat on a low trunk, peering up at the huddled shape. “You didn’t even know her. I barely knew her beyond her profession. How could you know her enough to hate her?”

“She came in while I was washing, teasing me. I told her to go away. She wouldn’t, just leaned against the wall, her dress falling off her breasts, flaunting herself. I tried to scare her away and she laughed at me. I only did it to make her stop.”

“So instead of stabbing her there, you came home and sent her poisoned chocolates, leaving her time to spread the story. No, you came home. You spoke to Janus. And Janus killed her.”

“No,” Maledicte said. “Gilly, you have all the evidence. What more do you want? I am a murderer after all, several times over.”

Gilly let out his breath; it left blueness in the chill air. “Tell me you killed her. Tell me you sent death to her, wrapped in pink paper.”

Maledicte stared down at Gilly. “I killed Lizette.”

The shadows made patchwork of his face, created dark holes where his eyes should shine, and his voice was as calm as ever. Yet Gilly felt his pulse jump, his breath catch as he recognized the lie. Maledicte, the competent killer, was a bad liar, more used to half truth and misdirection.

“I’m sorry, Gilly,” Maledicte said. He levered himself to his feet, standing before the open window. He stretched forward, slipped a clenched fist out into the night sky, rainwater washing over his fist, and then he opened it. Small, and glittering malevolently, the carved puppet of Ani plunged to the street below. Maledicte swayed in its wake and Gilly put a steadying hand on his ankle.

“Sorry for something you didn’t do.” Gilly plucked Maledicte from the chests, and let him go, listening to him stumble down the stairs. Gilly looked out the window, down to where the statue had disappeared.

“You’d forgive him anything,” Gilly said. “Even making me believe you killed her. Trying to set us at odds.” Bile twisted in his belly at the sheer callousness of it, at turning Lizette’s life into a pawn move. In the attic’s soothing darkness, Gilly, like Maledicte before him, crouched and wept. If he had any doubts before—he had none now. Janus was a killer, and like his father, like Dantalion, preferred to smile and kill at a distance.

Gilly bowed his head. The fault, after all, was his. He had goaded Janus, knowing that the man would retaliate. But to imply that Maledicte was to blame—Outrage settled the anger in his belly to a steady flame.

His fisted hands touched the stiff, dark patches of Lizette’s blood, transferred when he sat beside her corpse, and he turned to seek his bath. But through the broken window, he heard the coach draw up outside, the horses’ hooves loud on the cobbles.
Janus,
he thought, and decided to put off his cleaning in favor of confrontation.

When Gilly reached the entry hall, he found Maledicte, blank-faced and white, facing Lord Echo and a brace of Particulars.

“I have a warrant sworn out for your arrest,” Echo said, smiling grimly, his hand on his pistol.

“In what matter?” Maledicte asked. “You’ve sought to blame me for so—”

“One incontrovertible death. The murder of Dantalion Vornatti.”