Seraphina(48)

“The usual, no doubt,” sneered Earl Josef, at my back. “Brawling, bringing his filthy radt-grauser into the cathedral, getting drunk and smashing up his own machine.”

I understood “red-women.” “They wear black and yellow stripes here in Goredd,” I said, trying to plaster over my agitation with a joke. “But I expect you know that firsthand.”

The earl ran his tongue over his perfect teeth and tugged his lace cuffs. “Normally I wouldn’t bother, but I like you, grausleine. Stay away from Lars. He’s a Daanite and a liar and trouble incarnate. He’s barely human.”

“Viridius trusts him,” I said.

“Master Viridius has taken a dangerous fancy to him,” the earl said. “Neither of you understands what he is. I pray every day that St. Ogdo destroy him.”

I wanted so badly to say I knew exactly what Lars was and did not hold it against him, but the closest I could manage was “I don’t care what you say. He is my friend. I will hear no more of this slander.”

He snaked an unwelcome arm around my waist; I tried to pull away, but he had a grip like a lobster. “You are the sweetest and most innocent of grausleiner,” he murmured. “But there are people in this world who commit horrifying and unnatural acts beyond anything your naive imagination could conceive. He is your worst nightmare. Heed my warning and stay away from him. I fear for you otherwise.”

He leaned in and kissed my ear as if sealing my compliance, but he drew back abruptly. “What is that odd perfume you wear?”

“Let go of me,” I said through clenched teeth.

Josef gave a haughty sniff and released me, stalking off without a backward glance.

I beat back a wave of panic. He’d smelled me. Had he recognized the smell as saar?

I gathered what dignity I could muster after being so unpleasantly manhandled, and approached the gathered herd of performers, prepared to go full Viridius on them. They expected nothing better, after all.

The stage was beautiful but turned out to be unsound over the trapdoor in the center, as we learned to our dismay when five bassos disappeared at once. I yelled at the carpenters and drilled the choir on the other side of the hall while they made modifications. Then the curtain mechanism didn’t work, the stilt walker’s costume fell off mid-jig—funny, under other circumstances—and Josef’s viola solo kept drifting flat.

I took no satisfaction in the last; in fact, I suspected it was a ploy to make me look at him. I grimly kept my gaze elsewhere.

That was very little gone wrong for a dress rehearsal, but it was more than my mood would support. I growled bearishly at everyone, deservedly or not. The itinerant performers seemed alarmed, but my palace musicians found me amusing; I made an unconvincing Viridius, even at my crankiest. Snatches of my praise song drifted in my wake as I stormed past, making it difficult to keep scowling.

Evening came at last, and my musicians decided it was high time they refused to work. This, of course, meant they set up a massive session in the great hall playing reels and jigs for fun. Music is only work if someone else makes you do it. I’d have liked to join in—I’d more than earned it, I felt—but Orma was waiting. I bundled up and headed downhill into town.

The warmth of the Mallet and Mullet was welcome, although I never felt quite comfortable in the presence of strangers and smoke, chatter and clatter. The fire and lamps provided too little light. It took me some time scanning the tables to realize Orma had not yet arrived. I claimed a place near the hearth, ordered myself some barley water, to the barmaid’s scornful amusement, and sat down to wait.

It wasn’t like Orma to be late. I sipped my beverage, keeping my eyes to myself, until a commotion by the door grew too loud to ignore.

“You can’t bring his kind in here,” snarled the tapmaster, who had come out from behind his bar, dragging a muscular cook with him as backup. I turned around to look; Orma stood in the foyer, unfastening his cloak clasp. Basind lurked behind him, his bell tinkling plaintively. Patrons near the door made St. Ogdo’s sign or pressed fragrant sachets to their noses as if warding off disease.

The tapmaster folded his arms over his dingy apron. “This is a respectable establishment. We’ve served the likes of Baronet Meadowburn and the Countess du Paraday.”

“Recently?” said Orma, widening his eyes mildly. The tapmaster took that for disrespect and puffed out his chest; the cook fingered the edge of his cleaver.

I was already on my feet, slapping a coin onto the table. “Go back outside!”

The open night air, when I reached it, came as a relief even if Basind’s slouching silhouette did not.

“Why did you bring him along?” I said crossly as we stepped into the empty street. “You should have known they wouldn’t serve him.”

Orma opened his mouth, but Basind spoke first: “Where my teacher goes, I go.”


Orma shrugged. “There are places we can eat.”

Places, maybe, but only in one part of town.





Quighole was closed after sunset, technically. Only two streets led into what had once been St. Jobertus’s Close; each had been fitted with a tall wrought-iron gate that the Queen’s Guard, with great ceremony, padlocked every evening. Of course, the buildings facing the square had back doors, so one had simply to walk through a shop, a tavern, or a house full of quigs to get in and out—and there were always the tunnels below. Disgruntled saarantrai characterized Quighole as a prison; it was a porous prison, if so.