The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (45 page)

“Pretty much.” Theron pulled Basil closer. “Here’s the Bridge. It’s old—maybe even pre-Union. They never widened it for carriages, just foot- and cart-traffic.” They stopped for a moment, considering the stones. Then Theron raised their torch, and raised his other arm, inviting: “Shall we?”

And they crossed the water onto the island.

Basil felt Theron change, or thought he did. He was like a farmer who’s just crossed onto his father’s land—which, in a way, was it exactly. His step was sure, navigating them down streets and around potholes it was too dark for Basil to see. He gestured and pointed to places where things had happened to him involving people with strange nicknames, until Basil was dizzy with his history.

They ducked as they went down narrow stairs to a tavern in a cellar, dark and warm, that seemed to expand forever underground.

“Hey there, Liz!” Theron greeted the proprietor.

She lifted her hand to her bosom. “It’s him! Back from the dead!” He raised his eyebrows, and she explained, “I heard love put a spike through your heart while you were getting your portrait painted.”

“Old news,” Theron said curtly, “and very stale. Almost as stale as that pie you serve. But I’ve brought my new friend, and told him you have good stuff here. Don’t make a liar of me, eh?”

“You want the oak cask?”

“Of course I want the oak cask.”

The whiskey that came from it was rich and fiery. Basil blinked tears from his eyes. His lover grinned. “Better? This is the real thing—Northern firewater, straight from the mountain streams.”

“Is there anything,” the magister asked quizzically, “you haven’t tried?”

“Nothing that’s any good”—Basil smelled the spirits on his breath as Theron leaned forward—“that I wouldn’t share with you.” In the tavern, there, they kissed, and Basil nearly swooned with the heat and the fumes and pride and embarrassment and disbelief that this was really happening to him.

“Tremontaine!” a voice near their ears whispered.

Theron’s hand went to his knife. But when he saw who it was, he only said, “Louie, what is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

A ferret-faced young man with one ear missing said, “Yeah, but—how busy is busy? I’ve got a new shipment in, see. You get first pick.”

“Not interested.”

“You’ll pay twice as much—three times—on Lassiter’s Row, I’m telling you.”

“I know.” Theron beamed. “But I’ve got a new friend,” he squeezed Basil playfully, “and I’m spending all my allowance on him. He likes books, though, not emeralds; right, my sweet?”

Basil looked from the radiant prince to the shadowy dealer. “If you want to buy me a stolen emerald, I’m not stopping you.”

“Hush,” said Theron, over Louie’s protest of, “Stolen? Who said stolen? What sort of trash you bringing in here, T?”

“Aw, Louie . . .” Theron fished out some coins from his waistband. “Get us all another round, will you?” Then he murmured to Basil, “Bad form, my dear. They’re as touchy as first-years defending their mothers. Certain words do not get used.”

Louie came back with the drinks, and Basil had to listen to the young men reminiscing about a series of fights they’d once been in with kids from other streets. He wondered how Theron had found time for all these exploits while attending so many classes as a boy. It must have been before he’d moved on from street fighting to taking all those lovers, that was it. You found time for all sorts of other amusements when your life didn’t depend on your studies . . . but, no, he wasn’t going to think about Crabbe and the debate. Basil knocked back the last of his whiskey and concentrated on the conversation.

“You still see much of Nora?” Theron asked.

“Nora with three kids and a dockworker husband?” snorted Louie. “Not if I see her first. You should come round more often, T, you’re missing what’s new around here. I’ll save you something special. You still like a hit of smoke now and then?”

“Ah, no.” Theron grimaced helplessly at Basil. “I was only doing that because of . . .”

“Say no more. Well, I’ll let you get back to your books!” And Louie passed on to another acquaintance who might, perhaps, like a deal.

“Well!” Theron said brightly. “That was entertaining.” Basil said, “At least now I understand something you said once. That first night we had together? You said you weren’t really a dutiful son. I’ve always thought you were, though, despite it all. But now I see that it is my good influence—my very good influence—that has kept you from all sorts of mischief. When are you going to introduce me to your mother?”

“When you need a goiter excised, and not a moment before. Come on, let’s move on.”

“To the dancing? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Buy me another whiskey.”

“Sensible man.” Theron kissed his brow and waved to the barmaid. “You are a very good influence.”

THEY COULD HEAR THE MUSIC ALL THE WAY DOWN THE street, pouring out of a hall that was as bright as the other had been dark. Basil’s feet were not quite steady, probably because Theron was hanging on his neck, breathing fumes and kisses into his mouth. Basil started to worry about whether anyone on the street would see him staggering and laughing with a beautiful student; then he remembered that they were in Riverside, not on the streets of University, and that what he did here was no one’s business. The music was even louder when they opened the door, meeting the hot blast of people sweating, the reek of spilled beer, and a cacophony of fiddle and pipe and drum.

Theron held out his arms. “Dance with me!”

Basil knew all of the steps from village fairs: simple swings and stamps and twirls. But it seemed so ridiculous to him. “Ah, no. Let’s have some more to drink.”

“I don’t want to drink; I want to dance!”

“Well, you can’t. Not with me.”

“With someone else, then?” Foxily, Theron eyed the crowd. “How do you like that redhead with the huge knockers? Think she’d be fun to hold? Or the boy with the unconvincing mustache—if it’s a boy at all—you never know, down here.”

Basil’s fingers dug into his arm. “If you dance, you dance with me.”

“But you won’t!” Theron complained. He bounced on his toes to the beat. “And I’ve got the music in me, now! If you won’t do it, find me someone who can. Look at them all. Come on, Basil, let’s play the Wizard Game! Pick me out someone to hold—a partner for the night—”

“How dare you!” Basil flung him away, miraculously missing the people in the tight-packed room.

“What? How dare I what?”

“Don’t make a mock of me!”

“Of your wizards, you mean, and their peculiar fancies? Don’t you think it would be fun? I wouldn’t do anything, only dance—”

“How dare you make a game of it? I study truth and share it with you, and you—”

“I know what you do! Do you think I don’t listen to what you’re always talking about? Do you think I’m stupid, Basil?”

“I think you’re spoiled. I think you presume. I’m not some sort of toy—”

“You are my toy as much as I am yours in this!”

“Love is a game to you, then?”

“Not love, no, but our bodies—like a dance—”

“I said I don’t dance! You heard me; you just don’t like it when I don’t leap to dance to whatever tune you happen to be playing.”

“Well, then.” Theron looked at him haughtily. “Why don’t you just run on back to your scratchy paper mistress?”

“I’m not your servant.” Basil heard his voice, hot as his face and hands. “If I go, it’s only to spare myself the shame of being seen with you.”

“Ashamed to be seen with the Prince of Riverside?” Theron was frostily amused. “Then shall I ask one of my loyal subjects to see you safely home?”

Heat was replaced by chill. “Don’t bother, my lord. I think that I can find the river from here. And if one of your
subjects
wants the few coppers I have in my purse, I will gladly give them.” He made Theron a stiff bow, and stalked to the entrance and out into the night, scarcely noticing how his set face and clenched hands cleared a path through the revelers.

Theron watched this exhibition. As the door slammed shut, he shook his head, as if coming out of a trance. He was moved to follow his lover and beg his pardon. They’d both had too much to drink.

As he hesitated, he noticed a stocky young man standing by the door, looking around as if lost. His face was a little too sweet, and Theron wondered if he knew just where he was. He looked like he might be wanting the Apricot, instead. It was a chance, Theron thought, to be helpful. Basil would take a deal of soothing and coaxing before he’d be ready to make up the quarrel. And suddenly Theron was tired to death of soothing and coaxing and ministering to the tender pride of a mayor’s son who lusted after dead kings.

He snagged two beers from a server and approached the young man.

“How kind.” The stranger’s voice was a pleasant tenor, younger than the lines around his eyes.

“I wonder,” Theron asked politely, “if you were looking for anything particular in here.”

“In fact, I was.” The man gestured to the dais where the band played. “There’s a singer I came to hear. I work on the river; we don’t get much chance for such things.”

“Oh, a riverman! Now that’s something I’ve always wanted to know about.”

“Have you?” The stranger’s eyes were amused. “Well, it’s mostly hauling freight and watching the banks go by. Oh, there we go!”

The singer had come on, a tall red-headed woman in a tight dress. Theron recognized her: “the Sizzler,” they called her, for a number of reasons, not least of all the peculiar hissing purr in her voice, which lent a certain punch to even the most innocuous of lyrics. He had been a big fan of hers when she first appeared a few years back, had even tried his hand at writing her some verses. Now the Sizzler sang an extremely clever song about the city’s lack of charity, and then a risqué one about a shopgirl setting terms with a noble who wanted to sleep with her. Theron clapped and shouted with the rest of the crowd, but he kept his eyes on the riverman. Who kept his eyes on the singer. And when she’d finished her set, the Sizzler made a beeline for them, encircling the riverman in her scented arms. Over her shoulder she said to Theron, “And you, young Tremontaine, you can just keep your hands off my Felix!”

Theron said stiffly, “I hope I may buy someone a drink without being accused of assault.”

“I know you,” the singer continued, unmollified. “And if you make any more scenes in here, I’ll write you some songs will make you wish you’d never been born—aye, and sing ’em, too, where plenty of folk can hear them. How would you like to have your latest folly cried all over town?”

“Now, Sally.” The riverman was grinning. “I can protect my virtue without your help.”

“That’s as may be,” said the singer. “I know this one, Felix, and you’d better watch out. Go with anyone, he will, with no thought in the world save his own pleasure. Last I heard, some painter woman was leading him about by a ring through his nose. Ready to die of love for her, they say, though I take leave to doubt it. And now a blind man may see he’s making that handsome young man’s life a misery. So you just leave my Felix alone, do you hear?”

Theron felt his face grow hot, and hoped it didn’t show.
Leading him about by a ring through his nose
. It was not how he would have described his affair with Ysaud. But he could just imagine the song it would make.

“When I start chasing rivermen,” he said stiffly, “I’ll make sure Felix is not on my list. Fine as he is.”

The woman looked at him, and then, disconcertingly, began to laugh. “You
don’t
much care, do you? Well, if a river
man
is what you’re after, Felix won’t give you much joy!”

“Spitfire,” said Felix lovingly. She quirked her mouth at Tremontaine. “Don’t stare. ’Tisn’t manners.”

Now that Theron knew she was a woman, he could see that she was not as young as he’d thought; well over thirty, certainly. Handsome, both for a woman and a man, and as easy in her man’s clothes as Katherine.

“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly.

“No need. My Sal put you out a moment since; consider the honors even.” She turned back to the singer, and the two of them moved on to the dance floor.

Nonplussed, Theron drained his beer and thought of going on to the Brown Dog to dice or to the Apricot, or even home to a full night’s rest for once. But the singer’s words had stung him more than he’d admit. He thought of Basil, hurt and angry in his shadowy room, imagining his lover in the muscular arms of a young riverman, or worse. How he’ll laugh, Theron thought, when he finds out the truth! Almost without conscious decision, he struck out for the Bridge, his boot-heels ringing over the cobbles, his breath steaming as he hummed the Sizzler’s last chorus.

HENRY FREMONT WAS MODERATELY PLEASED WITH HIMSELF. The act of notifying the Northern contingent of Alaric Finn’s death had gone far to lull his pangs of conscience. He still could not entirely justify his letters to Lord Nicholas, but he was inclined to be proud of his reparations for his misdeeds. He’d given away the leather pouch and fancy jacket he’d bought with the money Galing had paid him. He couldn’t bring himself to part with the books, but he vowed he’d lend them to anyone who asked, and he’d given most of his ready cash, as well as his new muffler and a blanket, to Lindley. He’d even walked all the way out of the city to the Nag’s Head to make sure the Northerners had gotten his message. They had—or at least the body had disappeared from the shed and a purse containing two silvers been left in its place. And he was working for the magister day and night, wizard-hunting in the Archives. Henry still had nightmares—only to be expected, he thought, after such a shock—but on the whole, he thought he’d brushed through the incident pretty well.