“I’m … Before you do that. I may not be quite what you’re expecting.”
Her tongue—pink as pearls now—showed its tip between her teeth. “No? Let’s find out.”
A half dozen possible replies wrestled in Asa’s mind—Please stop and This is a terrible mistake and All right. The stays came loose. Her hand moved gently. Asa’s eyes closed.
“All right. Let’s.”
“You bedded her?” Steppan said. His eyes were wide, his mouth slack. His cheeks were actually gray with shock and horror.
It wasn’t the only answer he could have made. Asa could think of at least a dozen others. Did you enjoy it? and I’m so happy for you, and, best wished for, Wait for me next time. But the prince’s shock was profound and unfeigned. This was a thing he could never have imagined happening, though compared to a thousand other events in Sovereign North Bank in the last week alone, it was common as mud. All Asa’s dreams and hopes vanished in that moment as if they had never been, a bubble popping. The beautiful man, desperate and noble and romantic, was a naive little boy, disgusted by anything he didn’t expect. The pain was less powerful than the relief.
The cruel response floated on the back of Asa’s tongue. She’s no more a virgin now than when you saw her the first time, you dunce.
“Of course I didn’t. I was joking.”
“You were …” Steppan said, and let out a long, stuttering breath. Color came back to his cheeks in two flaming circles of scarlet. They both laughed, but unknown to Steppan, they didn’t laugh together.
“She’s waiting at the Temple. The apothecary says she may be weak for a time. Days at least.”
“We can bring her here,” Steppan said. “Watch over her while she recovers.”
Asa suppressed a grin. There was a terrible idea.
“I think not. There’s another problem. One I hadn’t foreseen. The priest knows who you are.”
“How?” Steppan asked.
“Couldn’t say. He slipped, and I pretended not to notice, but if he knows, others may also. Sovereign North Bank isn’t safe for you. Not anymore. You and Zelanie have to flee, and tonight’s better than morning.”
Steppan’s expression was solemn. He put a hand on Asa’s shoulder. “Will you come with us?”
“Better that I do not. We’re known companions. And in truth, my place is here.”
“Then, thank you, my friend, for all you have done. I will remember you.”
After Steppan left to reclaim his blade and introduce himself to his lover, Asa lit a fire in the little tin brazier. Through the thin walls, the sounds of voices filtered in as if from a thousand miles away. Someone was playing a mandolin. On the other side of the small room, the empty mattress still held the shape of Steppan’s body. Asa rose, hauled it over, and stacked them. They were more comfortable that way.
Morning found Asa on the rooftops eating hot almonds from a rag pocket. To the east, the bridges of Nevripal went slowly dark as the night’s torches were doused in anticipation of the dawn. Carriages lumbered down the riverside streets, the clatter of hooves and wheels barely audible across the water. One by one, the stars faded, giving way to blue. The sluggish breeze stank of coal smoke and rotting plants. Nearer in, the Salt was busy with bodies in rest or motion. The rope bridges teemed with people going from one place to another within Sovereign North Bank, as if the change of a few hundred yards would make any difference. The little city within a city didn’t care, and it didn’t judge, and of all its thousand aspects, that was what made Asa love it most of all.
Somewhere out there, Prince Steppan Homrey, fugitive heir of Lyria, and his beloved stranger Zelanie were likely fleeing his stepmother’s assassins. Asa could only hope Zelanie was competent enough to see them through it. The sky was beautiful regardless.
Rouse’s footsteps were slow, plodding, and unmistakable. He cleared his throat.
“Good morning, Chancellor.”
“Friend Asa.” The priest walked over and sat at Asa’s side, squinting into the growing light. “I trust you’re well.”
“I don’t know.”
“No?”
Asa chuckled and held out the rag pocket. Rouse took a small handful of nuts and chewed them placidly. The poisoner unafraid of poisons after all.
“In the past few days, I have stolen a girl from the workhouses by killing her, hauling her body out of the river, and bringing her back to life; worked with an acknowledged mass murderer, no offense—”
“None taken.”
“—to poison and enslave two agents of the law; and performed glorious if intoxicated sexual acts with my dearest friend’s lover on a corpse table.”
“Busy.”
“It has occurred to me that I may not be a good person.”
“I have no insight to offer on the question.”
For a long moment, they were silent with their private thoughts.
“Love,” Asa said, “is like a pigeon shitting over a crowd.”
“How so?”
“Where it lands hasn’t got much to do with who deserves it.”
The priest made a deep sound in his throat and frowned. “I think you may be confusing love with a different kind of longing,” he said, and Asa barked out a laugh. “You know why I’ve come.”
“Your share of the workhouse money,” Asa said, holding out a small purse. It clinked in Rouse’s hand.
“You won’t take offense if I count it,” Rouse said.
“With me, friend? You’d be a fool not to.”
Paul Cornell
British author Paul Cornell is a writer of SF and fantasy in novels, comics, and television, one of only two people to have Hugo Award nominations for all three media. His urban fantasy novel London Falling is out from Tor, and the sequel, The Severed Streets, was released in December. He’s written Doctor Who for the BBC, and Batman and Robin for DC Comics. He’s currently the writer of Marvel Comics’ Wolverine. He’s had short stories published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Interzone, and many anthologies.
The fast-paced and rather strange story that follows is one of a series of stories that Paul Cornell has been writing about the exploits of spy Jonathan Hamilton in the Great Game between nations in a nineteenth-century Europe where technology has followed a very different path from that of our own timeline, exploiting the ability to open and manipulate multidimensional folds in space—stories that read like Ruritanian romances written by Charles Stross, as Hamilton battles to prevent disaster in a flamboyantly entertaining fashion reminiscent of the adventures of James Bond, or, better, of Poul Anderson’s Dominic Flandry, who may be his direct ancestor.
In this adventure, Hamilton finds himself locked in a life-or-death struggle with someone every bit as clever and dangerous as he is—himself.
A BETTER WAY TO DIE
Paul Cornell
Cliveden is one of the great houses of Greater Britain. It stands beside the Thames in Buckinghamshire, at the end of the sort of grand avenue that such places kept and made carriages fly up, when carriages were the done thing. In the extensive forests, a Grand Charles tree from the Columbian colonies has been grown into the shape of a guesthouse. The yew-tree walk leads down to a boathouse that has, painted on its ramp, dated, descending notches of where the water once rose, taken at the flood. The ramp has twice now been extended to reach the river. From the house itself, one can look out over the parterre to a 180-degree horizon of what were once flood meadows, now seamless farmland. The view of the other half of the world is that which one would expect of a hunting estate. There is a smooth, plunging hill, kept clear to present targets on the horizon, with trees either side, towards which the game can break. There are hides for beaters. There is a balcony that looks down on the yard, from which favors can be thrown and bloods scored. At certain times of the year you will hear the reports of guns, the calling of the hounds, and the sohos of those on the chase, unimpeded by fence or ditch. The gutters of the forecourt are there to catch the blood.