chapter VII

S ERIOUS SWORD-PRACTICE MADE ME FORGET TO think in words, so that I didn’t always understand when people spoke to me. I had been at it for some time, drilling first to a rhythm, and then tricking myself with changes, when Marcus came in and said something.

I shook sweat out of my eyes. “What?”

“I’ve got some time free. It’s nearly dark, you’ll have to stop soon anyway.”

“Yes, all right.” I stretched out around the room, carefully polished the sword and put it away.

“Good, Katie. Now that I have your attention, I thought I’d invite you out for a night on the town. What do you think?”

I’d just begun to get my breath back from practice, but now my heart started beating hard again. Something about his jaunty nonchalance, just a little too studied…He was up to something, and he was mighty pleased with himself. “A night out in Riverside?” I did my best to match his tone. “How naughty. How daring. Why not? What’s up?”

Marcus negligently kicked the stand so that all the swords rattled back in place. “I’m taking you to Glinley’s.”

That undid me; I barely managed not to squeak. I had to call on the duke for backup: “Oh, re-eally?” I said, in my best Tremontaine.

“Not just the two of us, of course. Your uncle would never permit it.” The look on my face must have been enough. Marcus dropped the pose and grinned at me. “It’s Perry. He’s here right now, and I happen to know he’s working tonight. Want to follow him?”

This was ground I knew; stalking Perry was just something we did. “Why not?” I said, but this time I meant it.

I toweled off in my room and changed into a clean shirt with dark clothes and soft boots, and buckled on a sword; it was, after all, night in Riverside. No one was in the kitchen; we helped ourselves to bread and cheese and our favorite ginger beer, and then went out the side kitchen door to wait for Lucius Perry.

He wasn’t long in coming. He wore his old-fashioned hooded cloak, with the hood pulled over his head, and he moved quickly. It was a good time of day to be following someone. Although the sky was still pearly in patches between the roofs, down in the street it was dark. I pretended I was a moving shadow, and Marcus, breathing softly next to me, was another. Only Perry was real, as he passed by other shadows, shadows of women heading for clients, shadows of musicians heading for jobs, shadows of thieves heading for houses, shadows of cats heading for food. We were almost to the Bridge when Perry turned down a side street and stopped in front of a large and rambly house with a deep-roofed portico.

“So,” I said softly, “that’s Glinley’s.”

“That’s Glinley’s.” Marcus was smug, as if he’d pulled it out of the air for me.

Like our house, Glinley’s had once been many small town houses, now knit together into one. Lucius Perry hesitated at the front door and then turned round the side as people came out to set torches in the holders in front.

We drew back further into the shadows. “Now what?” I asked.

“He takes off his clothes and wallows in depravity, what do you think?”

“No, I mean—now what do we do? Shouldn’t we follow him?”

I heard Marcus’s clothes rustle as he pulled back sharply. “In there? You can’t go in there!”

“Why not?” Even at Teresa Grey’s we had tried to climb the wall.

“Because—because you’re a lady!”

I stared at where I knew he was in the darkness. “Marcus,” I said. “That is completely idiotic. The duke has just spent half a year making sure I’m not a lady.”

“Katie—”

“I’m not going to do anything, Marcus, I just want to see what it looks like inside.” I could sense his whole body taut with resistance. “Marcus, have you been in there already without me?”

“No, I haven’t. But I know what goes on in places like that.”

“Well, so do I. It’s just like the duke and all his friends, isn’t it?” He was being so protective, it made me want to do something rash just to show him. But I wasn’t going in there alone. “You’ve said it yourself: it’s just full of people copulating. It can’t be any worse than home. What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything. It’s just, you won’t like it.”

“If I don’t like it, or you don’t like it, we’ll leave.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. I only want to see, that’s all. Like Teresa Grey’s: we’ll just look, we won’t do anything.”

“Good,” he said, “because it costs money, and we don’t have enough. You’re right. It is just a house. A house, and some people doing what people do everywhere. Nothing to worry about. Let’s go.”

I followed him as he strode across the street into the circle of light and under the dark porch of Glinley’s front door. “Now what?” I whispered. “Do we just knock, or what?”

“There’s a bell.” Marcus turned the plain brass door-pull. After a moment that was just long enough to belie the fact that people were always waiting for it to ring, the door opened. Light from inside nearly blinded us. A stocky, muscular man stood there, plainly dressed, quietly armed. I felt his eyes flicking up and down, sizing up our clothes and our purses.

“Well, hello there,” he said to Marcus. “Fancy seeing you here after all this time. What’s your pleasure, then?”

Marcus drew himself up. “We’re here to see Mistress Glinley,” he said haughtily.

That worked. What we were going to tell her, I had no idea, but the man drew back and bowed, and let us in.

The halls were dark and shadowy, well suited to a house of vice. I’m sure brothels uptown are better lit. It was all part of what the duke liked to call the Riverside Flair. We followed the man to a small room hung in red, with a fainting couch prominently placed next to a little round table. He lit the candles. There was a decanter of wine and two glasses on the table. Marcus stood there watching while the man filled both glasses of wine for us. Where did he know Marcus from? Maybe the man had worked for the duke once.

“I’m sure you and your…friend will be comfortable here,” the man told him, glancing at the couch. I wondered how many women with swords he saw each week. He looked back again at Marcus, and his face shifted in a sly way. He said, “Very comfortable for you, sir. Tremontaine business, is it, sir?”

Marcus turned his back, and took a glass of wine. “I thought,” he said, “you were paid not to ask questions here.”

“Oh, no, sir, of course, sir.” The man bowed his way out of the room, leaving us in sole possession of couch, candles and wine.

“Well, I’m impressed.” I plumped myself down, testing the couch. It appeared to be stuffed with goose down. “That was quick thinking, Marcus. You’ve got him on the run, cheeky villain. I don’t know what we’ll tell Mistress Glinley, but we’ll think of something, won’t we?”

“She’ll think we’re from the duke.” Marcus drank. “I hope she doesn’t tell him, that’s all.”

“What do you think this room is used for?” I bounced a few times, keeping my sword nicely out of the way. “Do you think people come here in pairs, or do they send someone in? Would we both fit on this couch?”

“Quit that.” He held me still with both hands on my shoulders. “You’re not five years old.”

“I’ll bounce if I want to. That’s what it’s there for.”

He stood looking down at me, his two hands on my shoulders. “You know, Lady Katherine, if you screamed in here, no one would care.”

“I know.” I stopped bouncing and looked up into his eyes. “I could say the same to you.”

“They’d just think we were having fun.”

His eyes were dark, the pupils large in the candlelight. “Well, that’s what it’s here for, isn’t it?” I said.

“Of course.”

“Do you want to try anything, then?”

“Yes,” he said, so suddenly I had only just heard him when his mouth was down on mine. It was hard and warm and exotic and very, very nice. I kept my arms at my sides. His fingers were still; everything was happening with our mouths, which changed shapes and textures to accommodate all sorts of feelings. My eyes were closed. I felt the velvet under my hand, and I wanted to sink down into it while his mouth and mine explored.

A gentle knock on the door made it necessary to stop. No one might care if we screamed, but one of us did have to say, “Come in.”

Nan Glinley was everyone’s vision of a perfect mother: small, round, placid and pleasant-faced. She was gowned in grey, and her hair was modestly coiffed in the manner of city women. I could tell from the way she looked at me only once that she knew who I was. But she spoke to both of us. “How can I help you?”

“Um,” I said, and Marcus said, “We’re investigating.”

“My house,” its mistress asked, “or yourselves?”

Was it that obvious? I guess it was. With the little sense left to me, I realized that if we stayed in there alone, Marcus and I could very well end up naked on the couch, and that was not what I had come to Glinley’s for. “I want to see a man,” I said imperiously. “A really, really handsome one. Dark haired, not too young—experienced, that is. Classy, though. Not trash.”

“I see.” She turned to Marcus. “And you?”

“Me, too,” he said swiftly, having caught my plan. “We’re together.”

“Shall I show you what’s available?”

I nodded. We would find Lucius Perry in here, actually see him in place in the halls of Glinley’s House of You-Know-What. Why waste the chance? After that, we could go.

“You may select a partner first, if you like, and then we can all discuss what sort of setting you’d prefer, and what combination. Or we can sit down together now and decide in advance—”

“Oh, lord!” I exclaimed gauchely as I caught her drift. “I mean—we just want to look—to see—”

“Ah.” Nan Glinley nodded. “Hidden observation? We can accommodate that.”

I let out a breath of relief, and only hoped she didn’t hear. No way on earth was I ending up on a couch with Lucius Perry, and neither was Marcus.

“Discretion, I think, is key here,” she said, “given your tender years. We’ll let you go masked while you search. Excuse me just a moment.”

Nan Glinley left the room. Marcus and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Hidden observation!” That’s what we’d been doing all along.

“We’ll never get away with this,” Marcus chortled nervously.

“What if they throw us out?” I put my hands over my mouth to keep in the laughter.

“Get a grip on yourself and they won’t. Start thinking up a story—”

Nan Glinley came back, carrying a bundle. “You might like to disarm,” she said. “Your weapon will be safe here. Unless that’s part of your personal preference…?”

She knew perfectly well it wasn’t. But she was treating us like real clients. I was impressed. If I ever really did want a little experience, this would be the place to get it, with a nice woman like that taking care of me. I took off my sword with a rueful smile to say of course we wouldn’t be needing it in this lovely woman’s house.

Nothing was forbidden at Glinley’s, but privacy was respected. We were encased in silk capes from neck to toe, surmounted by masks with animal faces. I was a cat, and Marcus was an owl. He cut a caper in the corridor, so that his shadow danced wingéd on the wall. “Come,” said Mistress Glinley, and we followed her through the halls.

We started by looking through peep holes into bedrooms decorated in various styles. They were also decorated with young men sitting or lying around trying to keep themselves amused. It was too early for them to be busy, but clearly they were expecting to be very busy soon. One was painting his nails, one practicing the guitar. Another was smoothing oil all over his body; I was tempted to stay and see what happened with him next—but it wasn’t Perry, after all.

“No?” Nan Glinley asked us at the end of the corridor.

We shook our heads.

“Then let us try the Flower Garden.”

The Flower Garden was amazing: an indoor room with a pool surrounded by plants, strewn with a variety of bodies scantily clad. We picked our way amongst them, feeling almost indecently overdressed, and moving strangely because we had to turn our heads to see anything through the eyeholes of the masks. Cloaked as we were, we had no gender. Bodies of both men and women did what they could to entice us: a languid glance, a flutter of fingers, a roll of the hips. Suddenly it all seemed possible—not seemed, but was—to take one by the hand, go off and learn to minister to desire in perfect safety. I licked my lips. That one…or that one…the golden hair just edging above the trouser line, but how swiftly they’d slip off to reveal the whole…the soft breasts floating unconfined beneath the gauze, to be nuzzled, stroked, explored….

“Come on!” hissed Marcus.

“Are you made of stone?” I whispered back.

He said, “They’re only whores,” as though their very availability rendered them worthless.

We nearly missed Lucius Perry altogether. He was dressed like some nobleman wandered down from the Hill, in black brocade and silver lace. But his face was painted like a mask, skin powdered to white, and his eyes, with blue and gold on the lids, were lined with black, so that they seemed immense. His lips were stained red as old blood. He was sitting solitary by a fountain, staring at the water. He looked very helpless, fragile and alone. It wasn’t only his painted face that made him unrecognizable—I’d never seen those qualities in him before. I wondered if he was doing it on purpose, if it was a mask he liked to wear. He did have a choice, after all.

Marcus raised his arm and pointed. Perry’s eyes flicked our way, and he rose in one graceful movement. But Nan Glinley came forward and put her hand on his arm and murmured something low to him. He nodded and walked out of the room.

“You like him, do you?” She smiled. “You’ve made a good choice. And you’re in luck; he’s got some clients arranged, and he doesn’t mind being watched tonight.”

Now was the time to tell her, No, that’s all right, we don’t want to see any of that, thanks; sorry to bother you, we’re just leaving…. Nobody’s ever really died from embarrassment, have they? I turned to catch Marcus’s gaze so I could pick up his thoughts, but of course the stupid costumes made it impossible. My friend was an owl. And I was amazed to hear his muffled voice saying, “Good,” from behind the mask. “I’d like that. I want to see what he does. I want to see how he does it.”

Well, if he did, so did I. This was better than anything we’d see at Teresa Grey’s—or anything we wanted to see there—wasn’t it? The final piece to Perry’s puzzle, and practically with his consent.

She led us to a little cupboard of a room. We took off our capes and masks and gave them to her. “I’ll be back in an hour,” Nan Glinley said. “That should be enough.” Well, it should. I could always close my eyes if it got to be too much. I turned my attention to the room.

There was a long slit in the wall, a sort of narrow window covered in mesh through which we could look into a luxurious bed chamber, dimly lit and gloriously appointed. It wasn’t very tasteful; it practically screamed wealth and power—or at least, wealth. There wasn’t a thing, from firetools to candlesticks to bedposts, that wasn’t gilded or carved or ornamented in some way.

In his lace and brocade, Lucius Perry looked like yet another ornament, and not a very tasteful one, either. He sat in a chair next to the bed, as still as he had sat by the fountain in the Flower Garden. Gold candlelight on rich hangings made it look like a scene in a painting.

I wondered what he was thinking. Did he know we were there yet? Probably not, or he’d be doing something more enticing, wouldn’t he? Why didn’t he have a book to read? When would something happen? Marcus shifted in his seat and I moved away from him; there wasn’t much room in there, but we were careful not to touch each other.

We both jumped when a knock on the door to the room broke the stillness. Perry turned slowly. A man came in and threw his coat on a chair.

“Well, hello.” Lucius Perry smiled.

I peered at his customer. The man was short and a bit stout; he could have been anyone you’d pass on the street without a second thought. He stood staring at Perry as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. God, you’re gorgeous. They were right.”

“I’m here for you. Name your desire—or better yet, don’t name it, just show me.” Perry began advancing on him, but the man held up his hand.

“No, wait. I want to look at you.” Perry stopped, obedient. “You are…exquisite. But the paint—the eyes, and whatnot—it’s a little much. I wonder if you’d mind wiping it off?”

“That,” Lucius said, “I cannot do.” As the man drew breath to object, he added swiftly, “But why confine yourself to looking, when you can touch?”

“Yes,” the man said again. “Yes. Come here, then.” He put his hands to either side of Perry’s face, and pulled his mouth down, kissing him. He pulled Perry’s head back, and traced his eyes, his cheeks…the paint was smeared all over his face, making the mask all the more effective, but the way he held his body—I watched Lucius Perry melting, melting in a fluid surrender, as though sinking into a water of anonymity…. The man’s hands were all over him now, opening his jacket, plunging under his shirt, squeezing and pulling on his body, and Lucius Perry flowed with it all, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. He loved being touched. He loved being admired. Glinley’s was made for him.

But the client wasn’t really interested in Lucius Perry’s pleasure. He was undoing his own breeches now, and guiding Perry’s hands down to where his tool sprang out. I shut my eyes for a moment, and heard moaning. I peeked through my lashes. Lucius was kneeling before him, obscuring the worst of the view. It was perfectly obvious what they were doing.

“Hmph,” Marcus muttered beside me. “He could have had that on the corner for a whole lot less than he’s paying here.”

“Hush,” I hissed. The man dug his fingers into Lucius’s hair, and arced his back, and shouted so loud I thought the whole house would come running. But nothing happened. The man subsided onto the bed, and Lucius handed him a towel. The man wiped himself off and started to get up, though you could tell he didn’t really want to move.

“There’s no hurry,” Perry said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

The man drank a glass of wine. From his face, I guessed it was better wine than he was used to.

“Thank you,” he said. He began putting his clothing together. “I wish that I could stay, but…” He shrugged. Glinley’s was expensive.

Perry nodded. “Come back,” he said. “Come back and see me, when you can.”

The man smiled. “Don’t tempt me. I’ll dream of you, first, for a good long time.”

He closed the door softly behind him.

So that was it, was it? Did they all do that? A solid hour of this would be the end of me. Our hiding room wasn’t very big, and it was dark. I couldn’t see Marcus, but I could hear his breathing next to me, shallow and a bit uneven.

“Are you all right?” I whispered. I wondered if we really should have come.

“Fine. Don’t fuss.”

Lucius Perry was carefully putting himself back together again. Like an actor, he cleaned off his face—and for a moment, I saw the man we knew, his skin pale in the candlelight, his eyes bright. He was staring into the mirror over his dressing table. He turned his face from side to side, examining it as if trying to see what it was that other people saw. He touched his lips, ran his finger down the straight line of his nose, smoothed his eyebrows, stuck out his tongue and laughed. He took out little pots from a drawer and began layering the paint back over his eyes. The colors made him look magical, like a creature in a dream. The last thing he did was his lips, drawing his crimsoned finger across them slowly, savoring the sensation. He rubbed them over and over, until they were saturated with color. If you didn’t know about the paint, it was as if he had flushed them with stroking. He picked up a comb and drew it down through his tangled hair, again and again until it lay sleek on his head. Then he peered critically into the mirror and ran a hand through his hair, and looked up.

I had missed the knock. Another man came in. Lucius Perry stood, and bowed to him. The new client was dressed like a merchant, a shopkeeper, perhaps. He looked around the room at the canopied bed, the hearthfire, the tapestry; at one point he even looked straight at us, which gave me a scare, but our peephole must have been part of something like a picture or a hanging, and I suppose he was admiring it. “Well,” he said. “A nobleman’s bedroom. I’ve never been in one of these before.”

Lucius Perry drawled, “You’ll find it’s much like any man’s.” He sounded quite a lot like the duke, actually.

The client’s hands were clenching and unclenching. “And are you much like any man?”

Lucius preened. “I’m better. Look at me. Don’t you think so?”

“A better man than I? I do not think so.”

“Don’t you? Maybe you need a better look.”

“Anyone looks good with thirty royals’ worth of clothing on his back. Take it off.”

“How dare you?” Perry said arrogantly. Oh, he was enjoying himself, even I could tell, being just as horrible as the man expected him to be. This was different from the last one. There was a contest here, and a sort of drama. “This coat alone cost fifty.”

“I deal in cloth, you slut. I know exactly what that getup’s worth. You’ve probably passed my shop a hundred times and never looked at me. But you’ll look at me now. You’ll look at me, and like it.” He was breathing so hard, I was afraid he was going to hit poor Lucius. But the younger man showed no alarm.

“I’m looking,” Perry said.

“Keep looking,” the man growled.

“I’m looking.” They were both starting to breathe hard.

“What do you see?”

“I see you. I see you, and I like it. You make me want things I shouldn’t want.”

“Such as?”

“I want to take my clothing off for you. I want you to strip me naked. I want you to see me the way no one’s ever seen me before.”

“Your noble friends would not approve.”

“My noble friends cannot imagine the pleasure. Strip me. Reveal me.”

“Strip yourself,” the man said thickly. “I want to watch.”

Perry lifted a hand to the buttons of his coat and slowly undid them, and his breeches as well, ’til he stood there in his shirt, lovely as ivory, with the silver lace framing his shoulders.

The man watched, entranced. It was like wizardry: Lord Lucius Perry, who wasn’t himself but someone else who looked just like him, taking off layers of disguise until he stood revealed as a painted whore, less himself now than when he started fully clothed in noble’s garb. That’s what I thought, anyway. He wanted to see how far from himself he could go, and this was how he did it. I hoped someday he didn’t lose himself entirely.

The cloth merchant lifted Perry’s shirt behind, and stroked him. “Lie down,” he said. “You’re mine, now.”

“I’m yours,” Perry sighed, and laid himself facedown on the tasteless, gilded bed.

What they did didn’t really seem so terrible, because I couldn’t see much, just a back and some legs. The noise was the worst of it, especially at the end.

Beside me, I felt Marcus turn to the wall. I reached for his hand in the dark, but caught only the edge of his cloak. He was shaking.

The man was already up and buttoning his clothes. “Get dressed,” he said curtly. “I’ll see you next week. Wear something different, though.”

“As you wish.”

When he’d left, and Perry was washing himself, Marcus murmured to me, “Well. Now I know how it looks from the outside.”

“Outside what?” I whispered.

He pulled away suddenly. “Sorry,” he said, and flung the little door open. I tumbled into the hallway after him, and found him kneeling over a convenient basin, puking his guts into it. There were, I saw, many such basins, large and ornamental, placed strategically along the hall. I guessed they were used fairly often, for one thing and another, at Glinley’s.

I tried to hold his shoulders, but he waved me away. Of course he had brought his own clean handkerchief. “You need water,” I said. “It’ll wash the taste out. Was it the wine, Marcus? Did it make you sick?”

He sat all scrunched up with his arms tight around his knees. “No. I’d like more of it, actually.” His teeth were chattering. “C-can you find me some?”

I looked wildly up and down the candlelit corridor. “Not a prayer. But—” There was a bellpull. I pulled it. The man who came was the same one who had first let us into the house.

“My friend is ill,” I said. “We need to get our things and go. I’m sorry about the mess—”

“That’s normal,” he said. “A little too rich for your blood, sir?”

“Stuff it,” Marcus growled.

“Quit being so uppity,” the man said. “You may be the duke’s own bumboy now, but I’m an old friend of Red Jack’s, and I know what you was.”

Marcus seized the sides of the basin again.

“You lay off him,” I said to Red Jack’s friend. “He can be uppity if he wants to.” I heard Marcus laugh—it was an awful sound, in the midst of his retching, but it gave me heart. “Now show us to our room,” I said, “and make yourself scarce.”

The man glowered at me, but when Marcus could stand, he led us back to the room with the couch.

“You won’t get much good of him here, my lady,” the man said rudely. “Too bad—he used to be the sweetest little tosser on the streets.”

“Out,” I said, looking for my sword. He left before I could find it—and without a tip, I need hardly add.

My friend sat shivering on the couch. I put my cloak around him and made him drink some wine. “Never mind,” I said. I needed to pace, since Marcus wouldn’t let me touch him. “He’s just a filthy stupid whoremongering idiot. We’ll tell my uncle, and he’ll have him thrown out on the street.”

“No! Katie, no, you can’t ever tell Tremontaine about this, please, Katie, swear!”

“Well, all right,” I said. “You’re right. I guess it was a bad idea. But it’s over now, Marcus; you’ll feel better soon. I’m sorry it made you sick. You couldn’t know.”

“Yes, I could,” he said fiercely. “I knew exactly. Don’t you understand?” He was shaking so hard he could barely hold the wineglass, so he knocked it back in one gulp. “You heard the man. And I told you that day, in the garden, but you still don’t really understand, do you?”

I was beginning to; I just wished I didn’t have to. “It’s not your fault,” I said. “You were just a kid. It was in Riverside, and you were just a little kid and you needed the money, right?”

“I didn’t get any money. My mother’s man sold me to Jack when she died. Jack gave me food and a place to sleep, and I worked for him. When I stopped being little and cute, he didn’t have any use for me. Someone told him the Mad Duke liked them older. So he took me to the duke and sold me to him.”

It was true, then, about him and my uncle, what people said and what I’d refused to believe. I swallowed bile. I didn’t know how I could stand it, but I was going to have to. Fear is enemy to sword. I listened, and I kept very still, but I couldn’t look my friend in the face.

“Tremontaine saved my life. He gave me a room, and a door that locked.”

I let out breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding, and drank some of the wine. “Oh, Marcus.” I wanted to put my arms around him, but I saw from the way he was gripping my cloak around himself that he didn’t want to be touched; he wasn’t done saying things.

“He gave me teachers, and books, and—well, you know, everything. I owe him like nobody’s business. He’s been protecting me all this time; nobody touches me, and oh god god god, after all that—” Marcus was twisting his fingers together—“If Tremontaine finds out I came here after all that, he’ll fucking kill me, Katherine. He will. You mustn’t tell him!”

“I won’t,” I promised.

“I mean, it’s been all right for so long, I thought I could do this—I didn’t think it mattered, it was all about someone else, like I could test myself—just watching Perry—I don’t know how he does it, honestly I don’t—”

“He’s testing himself,” I said. “Like a swordsman. It’s some kind of challenge for him.”

“Well, he can have it. He’s crazier than I thought.”

“Is there any wine left?” I poured us each another glass, and drank. It made me feel warmer and braver at once. “Let’s just go,” I said. “I think I can find the main door.” I buckled my sword on, a little unsteadily.

“Right.” He was still shaking. He turned his dark eyes wide on me. “Do you hate me now?”

“Hate you? How could I hate you?” I put my arm around him, and this time he let me. “Come on,” I said; “we’re going home.”

Glinley’s smelt of sandalwood and beeswax and smoke and drugs and bodies. We wound our way down infinite identical corridors, trying not to be noticed. Once we actually stood like statues in empty niches as customers passed by. The halls started looking familiar. “Have we been here already?” I whispered. A door opened, and since there was no niche, we flattened ourselves against a wall. It was Lucius Perry, leaving the room where he worked. He was brushed and cloaked, on his way out. We followed him through the house, dropping back far enough not to be obvious. Once he looked behind him, so we quickly seized one another in embrace. I buried my head in my friend’s shoulder, and Marcus put his face in my hair until we heard his footsteps fade away.

When we got outside, even the Riverside air smelled fresh.

I began to turn toward home, but Marcus held my wrist. He nodded in the direction of Perry’s departing back and raised his eyebrows. I shook my head: enough was enough for one night. Besides, Perry was nearly out of the radius of the house’s torchlight—he’d be stopping for a linkboy or his own torch soon, and I didn’t fancy trailing behind him in the dark. We stood in the shadows of Glinley’s, and watched Lucius Perry walk away into the night.

And we watched two men walk after him, faster and faster, and then we heard a loud thump and an even louder shout.

We ran toward the sound, Marcus with his knife and I with my sword. It was one of those little Riverside streets where the houses nearly touch across. We could barely see the shapes of the two men and one more, whaling on one crouching figure who was not quiet as they laid into him.

“Stop!” I shouted, and to my horror I heard one say, “Is that the girl? That’s her!”

“Run, Katie!”

With my sword in my hand, I could not run. I just couldn’t do it. I knew I could take them on—they didn’t have swords, and I did.

“Katie, please!”

“Get help,” I said to Marcus as they came at me, leaving poor Lucius Perry gasping on the ground—but help was already there.

Men from my uncle’s house—a footman and a swordsman, not wearing livery, but I knew them well and had never been so glad to see them. They laid into the three bullies, and they were much better trained and well-armed, besides. I’d like to say I helped, but I didn’t—everyone was much bigger than me, and it was street-fighting without any rules—I hung back, and it was over so fast, with two of the bullies running away and the third one kept for questions, hands bound behind him. The swordsman took charge of him and the footman picked up Lucius Perry, because he couldn’t walk. We went slowly. I felt much better when the Tremontaine swordsman, Twohey was his name, who was having trouble with his prisoner, said, “Lady Katherine, if you could just give him a good jab in the ribs—with your pommel? Good and hard—that’s it, thanks. Come on, you.”

My uncle was wearing a bright yellow dressing gown that didn’t suit him; I’m not sure it was even his. He stood blinking in the hall at the top of the main house stairs, having been alerted by what I was coming to see was an admirable network that something had happened.

“For once,” he drawled, “I try to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and you bring me—bodies.”

“One for questioning and one for bed, my lord,” said Twohey cheerfully.

“Not my bed, I hope,” the duke said; “that one’s a bloody mess—” He saw who it was. “Oh, god. Get him seen to. Now. What the hell do you think you’re doing, holding him in the hall like a package?”

“And this one?” My prisoner moaned, so I whacked him in the ribs again.

“Katherine, my dear! I want him for information, not for kickball. Take him down cellar—Finian can work on him. I’ll be down later. Marcus, come help me find my—”

“I’d like to go to bed, now, please.”

“Re-eally?” the duke drawled, then snapped, “Get up here.”

Swaying gently, Marcus met his master on the stairs. I watched them anxiously. Was it all true? Had the duke saved my friend and never really touched him? If he hurt Marcus, I’d kill him.

As if he could hear my thoughts, the duke said coldly, “Katherine. I don’t believe this. I leave you alone for one instant, and you debauch my personal attendant.”

I felt utterly sick in the pit of my stomach. How did he know? What would he do?

“This boy is drunk,” the duke said. “And I suppose that means you are, too. Go to bed, the pair of you. If you wake up in the morning with a bad head, ask Betty for some of that unspeakable green tisane. But don’t disturb me; I’ll be up all night torturing prisoners.”

He stalked off in a blaze of mustard-colored glory. I suppose I was drunk enough to think that it would be a good idea to explain to him that I was not in the least bit drunk—I certainly didn’t feel it. Marcus had had much more wine than I; but then, he’d needed it. I watched Marcus go on up the stairs alone. He had very nice shoulders.

“Good night,” I said, though there was nobody left to hear me.

L UCIUS PERRY DREAMED HE WAS A TREE, AND that woodsmen were chopping at the bark that was his face. It hurt like anything. Well, now that he knew that trees felt pain, he’d tell his brother to stop cutting the ones on the estate. He was flying now, way above the forest where the trees were, but something was pulling on his leg, and he was all off balance. He fell into the trees, and branches exploded all over his body as he crashed to the forest floor, a wild goose shot full of arrows. They stung him when he tried to move.

Hold still, a deer said. Drink this.

It put him to sleep, the deer’s drink. When he woke, he was in his own body, lying in a bed. The Duke Tremontaine was bent over his head. Lucius’s mouth was all stuck together, and he could see out of only one eye. It hurt so much to move that all he could manage was a feeble moan of protest. The duke pulled away. “I’m not looking for your favors,” Tremontaine said. Someone Lucius couldn’t see put a spout between his lips—an invalid’s beaker, filled with water that drizzled into his mouth.

He heard Tremontaine’s voice. “Perry. I am sorry. I know the man responsible for this, and it is entirely my fault.”

What happened? he wanted to ask, but his lips were too stiff to form the words.

“I had one day,” the duke said. “I didn’t know it ended at midnight.—Never mind. You may stay here while you recover. I promise you’ll be safe. Or, when you are a little better, I can send you home.” The duke went on, something about messages and assurances, but Lucius closed his eyes so he could see the walls of a little white house with the sun on them, and a bowl of roses, freshly blown, on a table reflected in a mirror.

Y OUR UNCLE’S BEING A PIG,” MARCUS SAID. WE’D BEEN playing shesh in his room all morning because we were not allowed to leave the house. Marcus wasn’t really concentrating on his game, so for once I was winning. “He’s not speaking to me, and he won’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Because of Glinley’s? You didn’t—you didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Are you joking? He’d have to torture it out of me, and he doesn’t have time. But he knows we did something. He just won’t say.”

“Is he drunk?”

“No, then he’d talk. He just glares at me and says not to bother him. No one in the kitchen knows anything, either—all he’s eating is bread and cheese. And meeting with secretaries and lawyers and shady characters, and writing letters.”

“It’s Perry,” I said wisely. “He’s probably planning revenge on whoever did it. Do we know who yet?”

“How should I know? He won’t talk to me.”

“He’s got to know. That man in the cellar…”

“He’s gone; I’ve already checked.”

“Check.”

“I did.”

“No, I’m checking you. Look to your other wizard.”

Marcus took one of my peons. “I knew you’d do that.” I ignored the gibe. “We’re definitely still locked in,” he said. “I think he thinks someone’s after us, like Perry. After you, I should say.”

“And you’re just locked in with me to keep me company?” He took my queen. “Oh, dammit, Marcus, I didn’t even see that!”

“I know.” My hand was on the board; he put his own hand over it. His skin was warm, and a little damp.

“Marcus?” I asked. “Are you sorry you kissed me?”

“Not really. Unless you are.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’d do it again.” His hand tightened on mine, but he didn’t do anything. “It’s men that make you sick, right? Not me?”

“You don’t at all.”

“Just because I dress like one sometimes…If that puts you off, I can—well—”

“Take your clothes off?”

“Because I’m really not a man. I’ve got—well, developments.”

“I’d noticed.”

“So do you want to?”

“If you do.”

I touched his mouth with my free hand. “I do.”

This kissing was very different: more like eating, really, satisfying an appetite you hadn’t even known was in you until you found yourself with a big mouthful of pleasure. It was as if the minds that had been playing shesh suddenly flew out through the roof. All I knew was what things felt good, and that I wanted more of them. I had never even imagined Marcus with his clothes off, and now here I was ripping them away to get at more of his skin. I didn’t mind when his hands found my breasts—in fact, I encouraged him, and I pushed his head down so I could feel his face and his mouth on them.

We ended up on the rug because we were too embarrassed to get on the bed, and we rolled around on it and stroked each other and knocked over the shesh board (we never could find the black peon, after) and rolled all over each other. Marcus started groaning and saying, “Katie, stop,” but I didn’t see any reason to, and then he clutched me and cried out hard, and went very still. When he started to weep, I held him, and didn’t even mind the mess he’d made all over us.

“Who cares about going out?” I whispered into his hair, and he laughed, then, and I licked his salty ear.

I N A COZY ARMCHAIR IN HIS STUDY, WHERE HE WAS reading a history of the rise of the Council of Lords after the fall of the decadent kings, Lord Ferris received word that David Alexander Tielman Campion, Duke Tremontaine, had arrived at his front door desiring to speak with him.

Lord Ferris smiled. “I am busy at the moment. He is welcome to wait, if he likes.”

“Shall I offer him refreshment, my lord?”

“Of course. Nothing too sweet; I believe His Grace likes salty foods. And plenty of wine. He might want some diversion, as well. Why don’t you give him this?” He handed the man his book, The Triumph of the Crescent. “It might prove instructive.”