Chapter 3 #2
Meri had only a passing knowledge of Gallmau’s religion, and knew a little about the Sacred Seven and not much more. “Is the Lady of Shadows a folk saint, then?”
“She’s the patron of prostitutes and the, uh— female climax.
” Gallmau, despite his solid performance in convincing most handsome men who caught his eye to join him in bed, could be charmingly uncomfortable talking about the act itself.
“Her shrine is in the worst part of Lutecia, and the city’s bishop tried to have it burned down several years ago.
Then he keeled over from apoplexy and died two weeks later.
No one in the Church has had the balls to say a bad word about the Lady of Shadows since then. ”
“If it takes Mother Naghwe feeling you up to get to the bottom of this, then let her do it.” Meri crouched down to pick up Sinan’s sword from the ground and examined it closely.
It was plain and utilitarian, but the balance was fantastic, and she recognized the wavy pattern on the blade.
Only one place in the world made steel like this, and weapons from there cost a small fortune.
An odd choice for a merchant who could pay others to do his fighting for him.
However, a trader was more likely to have access to formal sword-fighting training than a Bone Lord.
It proved nothing, other than Sinan had excellent taste in weapons.
Gallmau stole another look at Sinan and sighed. Meri couldn’t blame him. Her friend had excellent taste in beautiful men.
“You’re getting the best part of this deal, Meri.” Gallmau whispered before straightening as Sinan came over to them carrying the lockbox and wearing the travel satchel on his back.
His mother scurried to his side and clutched his arm in her skeletal fingers. “You should offer our rescuers a toast, my dear. It’s the least we can do.”
Sinan gave her a brief nod. Placing the small chest on the ground, he used a key to unlock it and retrieved a ceramic jug from inside. He left the lid open, revealing bulging coin sacks and glittering jewelry.
Meri caught the glint of avarice in Tharin’s eyes and was about to make a comment for him to keep his hands to himself, but Gallmau had already bent down to secure the lid and tuck the box under one muscular arm before Karabil had taken more than a few discreet steps in its direction.
“You must accept a small gift from us for all you’ve done.
” Sinan removed the wax seal from the spout, and an acrid smell of alcohol mixed with the scent of ripe pears wafted out, blending in with the odor of blood and death in the grove.
“This is a bottle of eau de vie known as the Deathless Spirit. I brought it along for a wealthy client, but I’d like you to have it. ”
Gallmau nodded along with Sinan’s description—of course he knew about some extravagant brandy worth a fortune—and he reached out to take a swig before Meri could protest.
“It’s the real thing.” He passed along the bottle to an eager Tharin and Karabil, who each gulped some of the liquor. “Not easy to get a hold of. You could get an invitation to Court with this bottle alone.”
Sinan inclined his head toward Gallmau and gave him a hint of a smile. “I suppose you would know.”
Gallmau’s face turned pink again. So much for being a secret royal, who had been—not banished, exactly—but strongly encouraged to leave the Court of Soissons.
Sinan retrieved the bottle from the twins and held it out to Meri. Her expression alone would have told him she wasn’t going to take a drink, but Naghwe clucked her tongue in disapproval, and he pulled it away.
“For shame, offering strong spirits to a devout follower of the Prophets.” Mother Naghwe wagged her finger at her son. “I can tell Meri avoids those vices forbidden by her faith.”
“Some of them, at least.” Meri gave Sinan her best flirtatious smile, and his eyes widened in a brief flicker of interest before he lowered his gaze.
There was more than one way to get information out of a man, and Meri intended to use all of her skills to find out if Sinan knew more about the Death Hounds and the assassin who let them loose.
She gestured toward the path they had followed into the grove and gave the twins a quick hand signal to drop back and take the rear position as they departed.
“We have three horses waiting near the Witch Stone. Your mother can ride on Gallmau’s, and Karabil and Tharin will keep watch at the back on their mounts as we make our way to the city. ”
“There’s a guard station only a half hour’s walk from here.” Gallmau tucked Mother Naghwe’s arm into his own, to her evident delight, as they left the stench and sights of violent death behind them. “You’ll be safe and can rest easy soon, madame.”
Meri breathed in normal scents as they left the scene of the massacre, fresh smells of pine needles and earth.
She allowed Gallmau to get a few paces in front of them and turned Sinan’s sword over in her hand, wondering if returning it might be the best strategy to allay the merchant’s suspicion of their motives.
“This is a quality weapon. The workmanship marks it as being from the City of Jasmine, if I’m not mistaken. ”
“It was indeed forged there.” Sinan’s eyes watched her handle his blade, but he didn’t hold out his hand for the weapon. “A gift from a generous host. I fear its craftsmanship is wasted on a merchant like myself.”
Sinan did like to emphasize his supposed occupation. It certainly couldn’t be much further from a death witch. There should be some ways to test that story in casual conversation.
Meri took out a small cloth from her pockets and cleaned off the stains on the blade. Then she made her decision and handed the weapon to Sinan. “There’s someone else’s blood on your sword, and you’re still standing. I’d call that a fair showing in a fight.”
“I would thank the Saints first and my limited talents second.” Sinan accepted the sword and placed it back in its scabbard with a hint of awkwardness.
Standing this close, she was able to get a better look at him.
In addition to his striking good looks, he was well-proportioned and walked with a lithe, easy gait.
A travel pack made from a pale, silky material was slung over his shoulder, and he had taken the time to retrieve a peaked cap to cover the loose black locks of his hair.
Nothing about his appearance suggested a typical Bone Lord. All of the ones Meri had seen had been hairless, with a skeletal frame and bearing some disfiguring or bizarre mark—a curse earned from the death magic they used.
There could be much hidden by his clothing, of course.
Meri had to remind herself not to dwell on what Sinan might look like naked. At this rate, she was getting as bad as Gallmau.
“You said you were attacked by a necromancer from the Order of Katil.” Meri began the conversation with the one bit of useful information Sinan had provided. “Have you had much experience with magical assassins?”
That phrasing might have been too confrontational, too soon, but Sinan replied in calm, easy tones. “Blessed be Saint Kreztina, I’d not encountered one in the flesh before.”
The devotional phrases common to followers of the Church of the Seven Saints rolled easily off Sinan’s tongue.
Most of those who belonged to Gallmau’s religion held to the belief that Bone Lords could not speak the names of the Sacred Seven.
Some who followed Meri’s faith preached that reading out loud from the words of the Prophets would drive necromancers away.
As for Meri, she preferred to back up her prayers with her blades.
“I’ve talked with several people who’ve witnessed their killings and read about their organization.
” Sinan walked beside her and matched her pace, neither rushed nor deliberately slowed.
“Her face and arms had sigils carved into her flesh, and although the descriptions I heard did not do them justice, the Death Hounds by her side left little doubt who she was.”
They started on the dirt path that led to the grand highway, as the sun dropped lower in the sky.
The temperature was still comfortable, even for the desert-born Meri, and there was plenty of light left.
Still, the talk of the Hounds and their near-fatal attack gave her a chill.
They could not get to the horses and be on their way to Lutecia fast enough.
“Your mother mentioned you were from Iotape.” Meri had fought at the arena there once and liked the eastern port town also known as the Free City.
Even with its new veneer of respectable mercantile activity, the heart of Iotape was still the pirate enclave that had resisted efforts by various empires to crush or absorb it for centuries.
But Iotape was not far from Karakoncolos—the city of monsters, as the necromancer city-state was known—and she had heard Bone Lords walked the streets of Iotape openly after their success in the Witches’ War.
“But this is hardly a common route for a merchant from the Free City.”
“Yes, goods traded between Iotape and the Kingdom of Soissons came in mostly by sea before the Witches’ War.
Now, of course, there’s hardly much trade at all.
” Sinan sounded far less concerned by this than she would have expected from a man who made his money from the exchange of goods.
“I brought along a few specialized items for old customers along the way, but the main purpose of this trip was for my mother to perform a pilgrimage at the shrine of the Lady of Shadows.”
Meri thought about bringing up the oddity of a pious woman from a wealthy mercantile family worshipping at the altars of the patron saint of whores but held herself in check. She knew even less about Continental religions than she did commerce, and it was a sin to criticize the piety of others.
Especially when she was a sinner herself.
“Speaking of specialized goods, I have an interesting item I won in a bet.” Meri reached into an inner pocket for a small leather bag.
This gambit was a long shot, but something wasn’t quite right with the handsome trader, and she wanted to try one more time to trip him up.
“I’ve always wanted to ask someone knowledgeable about magical goods about it. ”
“I don’t trade in those sort of wares.” Sinan’s voice grew a touch colder.
Out of suspicion she suspected he dabbled in necromancy, or did he consider the items beneath him?
The merchant families of Iotape were wealthier than many of the Continent’s aristocracy and could afford to be picky.
It was impossible for her to get a good read on Sinan, and Meri didn’t usually have a problem figuring out men.
“It’s—not a business I care to engage in.”
“That’s unusual for a merchant.” Meri was growing frustrated, and her next comment had more bite than she intended. “Traders aren’t known for their moral scruples when it comes to business.”
Sinan stiffened, a flicker of anger crossing his face for the first time.
Then he relaxed and continued matching her pace along the packed earth path.
The wide expanse of the main road to the capital city of Lutecia stretched out in front of them, and Karabil and Tharin sped up, moving past them toward the horses loosely tethered to pines near the white expanse of the Witch Stone.
“How did you come across this item, if I may ask?” Sinan’s voice was cool and detached, holding nothing but polite interest.
“I did well in a game of cards with a ship captain once.” Meri had also done quite well with that particular captain in bed, but this wasn’t the time to share that story.
“Cleaned him out, in fact. He put this on the table to try one last time to get his money back. He lost.” She stopped and held out the pouch to him.
“Supposedly it’s a type of mineral that drains all of the magic out of Bone Lords. Do you think it’s valuable?”
Sinan came to a halt as well and swung around to face her.
Their gazes met, and for a moment, she expected him to confront her.
Instead, he took the pouch in one hand, careful to not so much as brush against her skin, opened it, and poured the contents into his other palm.
Blue crystals spilled out, and he picked one up with his slender, tapered fingers. “Amor Vitriol.”
“Yes, that was the name.” Meri tried to keep her tone light, as if she wasn’t hanging on every word.
“These are obvious fakes.” Sinan dropped the crystals into the pouch and handed it back to her, his lips pressed into a thin line.
He knew she had been testing him. “Amor Vitriol is unstable in either fire or water. It must be kept in an arid environment but not exposed to as much as a spark. I’m told some of the Artifex guilds can create glass spheres to transport and store it. ”
Meri had talked to far too many local fortune tellers and renegade clergy over the past three years about protections against death magic, hoping to find some way to rid herself of her curse. Sinan had told her more about Amor Vitriol than she had learned in all that time.
“You know a good deal about goods you don’t trade in.” Meri took back the pouch of useless stones and put it in her pocket.
“What I do know”—Sinan picked up his pace as they drew closer to the main road—“is that most of the magical relics on the market are body parts of supposed necromancers.”
Gallmau and Mother Naghwe were now several feet ahead, moving toward the Witch Stone and Meri’s two countrymen, who were likely trying to stash the best of what they had looted from the bodies in their saddlebags.
“As long as they’re dead, I don’t care if Bone Lords get cut up and sold to the highest bidder.
” Meri had left the bodies of witches she had killed, necromancers or not, to lie where they had fallen.
She didn’t take trophies from the dead; it was one of her religion’s proscriptions that she did obey.
If other people wanted to, though, she wouldn’t stop them.
“Children, mostly.” Sinan’s voice was cool and distant.
“Often infants killed at birth. That’s where most of the relics come from.
Perhaps a few had some affinity for necromantic magic, but most were simply unfortunate enough to have a mark or deformity.
In many cases, I’ve heard, it was the mothers doing the selling. ”
He stopped again and turned to her, his black eyes glittering dangerously.
Ribbons of shadow began to swirl around him, and she breathed in the cold, bracing scent of his magic.
“I don’t suppose that bothers the Lioness of Abdju, of course.
Tomb Fighters aren’t known for moral scruples where their business is concerned. ”