Gowns flew. Veils and unmentionables followed. Opinions and judgments came fast and furious, all reduced to a hushed female shorthand-
“This one is too-”
“If only that were-”
“Too light-”
“Too dark-”
I pulled my hat down over my eyes, forgotten in my appointed chair.
I did not sleep. I managed to buckle the contrivance Victor had given me around my waist. The belt held a leather holster for the hand cannon. It was ringed around with clever little leather pockets, each of which held an explosive round. I loaded the hand cannon and filled the belt and put a handful of extra rounds in my pocket just in case those eighty-five weren’t enough.
Darla and Mary and Martha tittered and whispered and plotted. So did I.
I had to have a ring.
Oh, I could just stop by Whistler’s or Trader Mac’s and walk away with a two-penny ring with a bit of sand in the middle. And that would be just fine for a sham wedding.
But I didn’t need Mama to tell me that handing Darla a backstreet petty ring and taking her to a lie of a wedding was going to have repercussions of the negative variety. Soon.
Very soon.
The street outside was all but deserted. Save for the Army, of course. Soldiers marched by in nervous little bands. Lone Army wagons thundered past, sparks flying from iron wheels, bound for destinations on the Wall.
I stood up quietly, so the floors didn’t creak. I unlocked Darla’s door with the stealth of a footpad.
I locked it behind me when I went out. Laid a finger across my lips to the soldiers I left standing there.
She still doesn’t know I left her there, that day.
We all need our little secrets.
One of the mysteries of the matrimonial process is the disparate amount of effort required in the assemblage of the respective costumes required.
By my count, the bare preliminaries involved in getting Darla kitted out for her wedding required seven and a half hours of continuous effort by no fewer than three determined women, each an expert in the field of elaborate costumery. That doesn’t count the night I’m sure Mary and Martha put in, making alterations or creating accoutrements from scratch.
My outfitting, by contrast, took an hour. Mary hemmed up the cuffs on a pair of black pants that sported grey pinstripes up the sides. Martha added fancy jade and silver buttons to a new white shirt, after Darla claimed the green in the buttons complemented my eyes. Darla found an old-fashioned long-tailed jacket, black as a crow’s wing, which fit. A black hat, black gloves, and some shiny black shoes were procured, I was admonished to shave, and I was pronounced worthy of groom-hood.
I did not see Darla in her final fitting. I reminded the ladies that this was not a real wedding, and thus the old superstition about seeing a bride in her bridal gown early did not apply, but Mary slapped my fingers with a fly-swatter and I decided not to push the matter further.
Night fell. My soldiers outside were swapped for fresh ones. I admonished them to resist the temptation to slack off until Darla caught me by the elbow and led me back inside.
“There’s no need to terrify them so soon, is there, dear?”
“Ha. Shows what you know about soldiers. They’re already plotting ways to get Mary baking them pies.”
“Hush.” She kissed me.
She was dressed again in her black pants and black canvas shirt. The dagger was back in her boot. I felt another hidden away at the small of her back when I put my arms around her, and my heart ached.
This is what you’ve done to her, said a mean small voice. She can’t even go outdoors without arming herself.
“I wore knives well before I met you, Mr. Markhat,” she whispered in my ear.
“Did you now?”
“I did. What’s next?”
She didn’t see. I almost didn’t. A man was walking slowly down the sidewalk, across the street. There was nothing remarkable about him, or the way he walked. He was just a man, perhaps a bit weary, holding his hat against a wind that still smelled of smoke.
But as he moved beneath a street lamp, he pulled back his hat and looked across the street.
It was Mills. His eyes were sunken and circled by mottled black rings. His skin was slack, going blue. The scarf wrapped around his ruined neck was stained an ugly brown in the front.
He nodded, lowered his hat, continued on.
“Dear, what is it?”
“Nothing. I remembered something. You stay here. I won’t be long.”
“Damn it. Damn it all, anyway.” She let go of me and hurried to the back. A cheery little bell tinkled as she closed the door.
I cussed a bit myself. Then I went out the door, gave the soldiers a glare, and hurried off after the dead man.
Mills set a good pace for a corpse. He went two blocks north and turned into an alley. I’d been keeping half a block behind, on the assumption the Corpsemaster wanted some privacy for our talk. I figured the alley was it.
In the alley, though, a plain Army tallboy waited. Its driver was either living or so freshly dead he still felt the need to sneeze. I nodded at him and clambered inside, and once I was seated he snapped his reins and off we went.
Mills sat across from me. There was no smell. No buzzing of flies. Nothing but a slouched figure in a bloody scarf.
“Captain.”
The voice wasn’t even that of Mills. It was the Corpsemaster’s own voice, or at least the voice she’d led me to believe was hers.
With her breed, one can never be too sure.
“Corpsemaster.” I didn’t salute. “Any news from upriver?”
“You refer to the Regency and her attempt to blow the bluffs.”
“I do.”
There was a small stirring of Mills’s dead limbs. “An ingenious stratagem. I had no idea Avalante had continued their research, after the War. I commend you, Captain. Your efforts were daring and bold.”
“But were they effective?”
Silence.
“That, Captain, I simply do not know.”
“With respect, Corpsemaster, might I inquire as to what you do know?”
She chuckled. “Very little, I’m afraid. A powerful charm has been laid on the land itself, north of Rannit. I suspect it required the full efforts of all three of our sorcerers, working in close concert. That is in itself troubling. Nearly as troubling as the extent to which it has rendered me blind and deaf.”
“That’s why the long-talker isn’t working anymore.”
“Yes. Also disabled are the other more conventional lines of arcane communication used by the House. Oh yes. I know of those. Long ago, Captain, I laid certain charms of my own, up and down the Brown. All those that lie north of here have fallen silent.”
“We’re blind, then.”
Mills nodded.
“I have reason to believe, though, that the invaders are also reduced to what they can see with their unaided eyes,” she said. “This can work to our advantage. An unexpected boon, granted by the Angel of Chance herself, perhaps.”
“I don’t follow.”
“They perhaps do not see the Regency. Perhaps not be aware of her approach, or her mission. Indeed, her crew may have already laid the charges and blown the Bluffs. If the crew of the Regency made the attempt after the invaders loosed the concealment spell, the enemy may have well masked the very agents of their undoing. Poetic, is it not?”
“Is that what happened?”
“I have no way of knowing. I merely offer it as a possibility. It is also possible the Regency was discovered and sunk before she laid a single charge. I simply do not know.”
I nodded. We rolled on ahead, heading east, and not in any hurry.
“The reason for your visit?”
“If I should fall, finder, all those who serve me will fall as well. The few remaining sorcerers in Rannit may continue the defense of the city, or they may flee, or they may join the invaders. In any instance, there will be chaos. You will find no place of safety here, in the aftermath. Neither you, or those you love.”