“I know your secrets, Nevin,” I sneered back at him, raising an eyebrow. “How was Fenella? Enjoy it, did you? Wet for you, was she?” I tutted again. “Wasn’t your brother here madly in love with her for years?”
Nevin’s face went pale. Both men’s eyes widened in horror. My arrow had struck home. Grant stared at him in disbelief. Which turned to rage.
“You lying cunt!” his twin snarled, launching himself at Nevin, meaty fist smashing into his brother’s face.
As the twins set to rolling about the ground beating the crap out of each other, I staggered over to the entrance and shouldered the heavy oaken door open. A tiny bell tinkled as I slipped inside and let it swing shut behind me.
Inside, the air in the reception hall was fragrant with exotic spices and expensive oils, the carpets and furnishings all in the best possible taste. I closed my eyes for a second and concentrated on blocking away the pain, telling my body that it belonged to somebody else. It receded to a dull ache.
A lady of sheets carrying a silver tray and cup sashayed down the hallway towards me, nipples almost visible beneath her silken halter, the slit on her long skirt revealing a glimpse of bronzed thigh. No toothless old whores with rotten breath here. And I was certainly no eunuch, that was entirely evident.
Her eyes took in my ill-fitting and now puke-stained clothes. Her brow creased.
I winked at her. “Ah, so good to be back!” I plucked at my baggy tunic. “Urgh, I really must arrange a better disguise next time. Is that wine, my sweet?” Not one to turn down free drink, and keen to wash the foul taste from my mouth, I snatched the cup from the tray and took a gulp before she could protest. It was far from my usual pig-swill. Not even a hint of vinegar. “Is your mistress at home this evening?”
She was having none of it. “Mistress Charra is indeed, m’lord, but she is otherwise occupied.”
The front door shuddered as something heavy slammed into it. Muffled cries of pain and cursing came from the other side. Those brothers were really going at it.
A weary sigh escaped my mouth. “Alas, work before pleasure then. I am here on Arcanum business.”
She stared at me sceptically for a moment before bobbing her head. “Yes, m’lord. I shall inform the management immediately.” She refused to meet my eyes as she backed down the hallway.
I stood, hands clasped behind my back, studying the paintings on the walls and the fresco on the ceiling until the sound of boots on stone gave cause to make me turn. A young woman of serious mien approached, tall and brown skinned with cropped black hair. She couldn’t have seen much more than eighteen summers, but those dark eyes held a composure far beyond her years that seemed oddly familiar. She wore a sombre outfit of black tunic and trousers with a thigh-length tailored coat over it, which on closer inspection appeared weighted in places. I had no problem imagining the knives secreted in there, or any illusions as to her competency with them.
This was Charra’s personal attendant most likely. She reminded me of her mistress in many ways, completely self-assured, her movement precise, smooth as a dancer. An edge of danger clung to her, and that made the woman far more appealing to me than any giggling lady of sheets with a fake smile. Never one to shy away from illicit pleasure, I let my eyes linger.
She took in my patched clothes, then bowed formally, her eyes never leaving mine. “Good evening, Master…?”
“Reklaw,” I said, with full-on pomp. “I am here to see the mistress of the house.” Faced with a member of the Arcanum, even the lowliest full magus, most people tended to react like they’d been dropped into a nest of vipers. Not this girl.
“I see,” she said. “The mistress of the house is not currently seeing visitors. If you would care to return whe–”
“Not a chance. She will want to see me.”
“You sheep-shagging craven little bitch!” a Clansman bellowed outside. Another heavy thump rattled the door.
The girl’s eyes were cold enough to kill. “If you would excuse me for one moment, Master Reklaw.”
She opened the front door and stepped out, sniffed the air. “Is that whisky I smell?” As it swung closed behind her the racket outside cut off mid-swear. I couldn’t hear the bollocking she gave them, but when she opened the door again Grant and Nevin stared at me with seething hatred, all torn clothes and bloody noses. She slammed the door in faces as bruised as their egos and favoured me with an unamused smile.
“Now, where were we? If you insist on forcing a meeting then I must warn you that she does not suffer fools and she has friends in high places.”
I smiled; Charra had suffered my particular style of foolishness for years. “As I said, she will want to see me.”
“On your head be it then.” She beckoned me down the reception hall, “This way please.”
We passed through a curtain into a long hallway with a dozen doors each side. Clearly there was a whole lot of fucking going on here and I pitied whoever had to launder all that linen. Halfway down, she pulled out an intricate black iron key and slotted it into the lock of a door identical to any other. A series of clicks and it swung open to reveal a stone staircase spiralling up, narrow enough that a few men could hold back a small army. I followed her in and pulled the door closed behind me, surprised at a weight more like iron than wood. Reinforced, by the feel of it. The entire building was a small but luxurious fortress.
We emerged from the stairs into a guard room where four men blocked the far door. Armed and ready, three had unsheathed swords, and the fourth held one of those new-fangled Esbanian crossbows aimed straight at my heart. I’d never seen one of the things before: like a normal bow but on its side with some sort of mechanical crank and trigger. It looked all wrong to me, but the things were said to be stupidly simple to use, not requiring the years of practice it took to become a competent bowman. I bet the Arcanum didn’t like that one bit. Now any disgruntled peasant could have the power to kill at a distance.
Weapons in the hands of the low-born didn’t sit well with the High Houses and it was borderline illegal for a Docklands household to be armed like this, unless the law had changed while I’d been away. Fat chance of that.
“Evening, gents,” I said.
At a nod from Herself, they swung the door open. The guard’s hard glares warned me to behave as I passed, stepping out of the smoky torchlight of the guard room into the warmth of a lavish suite more subtly lit by ornate candelabra and shutters on barred windows edged with the sunset. Thick rugs, soft underfoot, covered a dark hardwood floor, and on either side of an archway ahead, black marble columns soared to a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes of writhing naked bodies. Some of those positions… I was fairly sure that most people couldn’t bend like that. And why had somebody painted horses like… I tore my eyes away from the ceiling. Some things were better left a mystery.
The setup was classic Charra; it was all about the psychology of power. The self-proclaimed respectable classes of Setharis would be suckered in by the opulence only to be flustered by the depraved art. The seedy underbelly, meanwhile, would take the riches as a show of power, but the art as a sign that she was still one of them. She still knew what she was, or at least what she claimed to be – she was suspiciously deadly with fists and knifes, and over the years I’d never actually come across a single client who had enjoyed her services, but I wasn’t one to pry into a friend’s secrets. Whatever she really was, with her public reputation no amount of money would buy acceptance among the high-born and no point in pretending otherwise. But in her own way she was rubbing her success in their faces every time they stepped into her domain.