The Lovers of Old Viennt #3
“God.” He reaches over, tilting Mallory’s chin with the corner of the envelope.
“Stop planning, Mal. I see you planning. It’ll only make everything harder when it all goes to shit.
” He taps his friend’s cheek with the envelope until, begrudgingly, he takes it.
“You have to learn to live without a script.”
He gives Demetrius a stern look.
“Fine, fine. I’ll give credit to Aufhocker, just a little. If he hadn’t written The Lilies, I never would’ve gotten this far.”
“You never would’ve escaped Mongfestun.”
“You mean the flour sack?” He laughs. “God, that was stupid. Aufhocker is so pedestrian. No offense. I know you love him.”
“Dee, if I had my way, that man would never write an opera again.” He stands, tucking the envelope into his pocket, but not before counting every banknote—as if the miser weren’t hoarding enough wealth to keep himself afloat for months.
Always counting and saving, counting and saving, though for what, Demetrius can’t say.
Mallory has always been unforthcoming about his money, though Dee has heard he’s been in good standing with some wine-runners down at the docks lately.
“Thanks for your help,” Mallory says. “Don’t get yourself killed.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll do that for me.” Dee takes Mallory’s hand.
He lifts it to his lips, thumb on his pulse, where he can feel the soft thrill of his venom.
“I need more, Mal. We’ve got old Gorslung shaken up, but these little stings—well, you know, they heal.
We need something bigger. Something grand. Something for a wedding, maybe.”
“I can make a few pocket squares,” Mallory says darkly.
“Come on, you can do more than that.” The corners of Mal’s lips twitch, and Dee can’t help squeezing his hand. “God, you’re beautiful. Stay ruthless for me.”
Mallory only offers his honest smile. “I’m not doing this for you.”
“Did you hear what the Arbuscle said about the luncheon?” the Chancellor says. “‘An exercise in vulgarity’—can you believe it? From them. They haven’t had a good critic since Wilhelm’s reign.”
Sorav sighs, cradling the phone on his shoulder and looking through the paperwork on his desk.
“Fucking hacks. They’re even bringing Aufhocker into this—now what does Revivalist theater have to do with your monster’s poor behavior on my boat?”
“I’m not sure, Eir Patron.” Sorav holds up a faded photograph to the light, trying to make out the solemn faces. He can barely recognize his own, it’s so overexposed.
“I don’t want to read another word from them, Max. Add them to the list. What fucking number are we on? Eight ninety?”
“Eight ninety-two.” In the photograph, a hundred or so inmates stand before the monastery.
One face, distant features nothing but gray smudges, accompanies the name of M.
vant Passand. An unremarkable young man amid a sea of unremarkable young men.
To Sorav’s surprise, it appears that he told the truth about Mongfestun.
And that in itself is highly suspicious.
“How’s the rat-catching?” the Chancellor asks. “You get anyone to confess to the attack yet?”
“A dozen or so.”
“God. That’s not very many. All false, I presume?”
“Of course.” Sorav locates himself at the edge of the photograph, that year’s honored guest, as expressionless as the rest of them. “I have my eye on something, though.”
“The arm’s only getting worse, Max. Up to my shoulder now—nothing works on it, at least nothing my second-rate perfumers can make. My whole regalia just smells off. Aster—you must lend me Aster. At least for the wedding.”
Sorav resists the pull of his words. “Contract” is all he can say, but the Chancellor doesn’t seem to hear him.
“God, I can’t take all this at once. Elspeth is insisting on that hideous dress—haute couture, she says—it looks like the same shit that’s been popping up in these new galleries. You know, they’re starting to say she’s one of them?”
“One of what?”
“In this city you are what you’re called and I won’t have her called fucking Extemporist. They’re everywhere right now. God. Glow-snail shells, Max. She’s going to blind everyone there.”
Sorav’s memory of that day returns piecemeal. Lunch with the headmaster, the disciplinary demonstrations, the boys sweating like pigs in their formalwear—including Florian, no more than eight and still a sweet child, insisting on following his master to every dismal ceremony.
“Creatures, all of them,” the Chancellor says. “These flower girls she wants—she’s going through those Orphanwell catalogues and they’re just awful. Can’t sit through an audition. You’d think with so many kids littering the streets these days, there’d at least be one or two with some class.”
Maximian sets aside the photograph and the graduation roster.
He unfolds his next stack of papers, pulling out Mallory’s scores, his etiquette violations, his history.
He is, like many in Mongfestun, the unruly son of a southern landowner.
His was a punitive enrollment; he was captured at twelve during a raid on a smuggler’s ship.
His father, an Eir D. Bateusse, was charged four thousand marks a month as tuition.
There’s a story there. A terror of a boy, without his father’s surname. An adopted son, an orphan, maybe a vineyard worker. Southern vintners are known to throw children to the winds as soon as their feet grow too large and rough for the work.
“A charity case,” Sorav guesses.
“Exactly,” the Chancellor replies. “She wants to donate that fucking monstrosity of a dress after the wedding. God knows what use charity will have for it.”
The name Bateusse is familiar to the Marshal, but only vaguely, obscured by so many others, changing with the times and wheels of power. He removes his pen from its case and begins drafting a letter. If sent by schooner, a reply might only take a few days to come from Dagdrun.
“I get the feeling you’re not listening, Eir Marshal. This dress—”
“What would you like me to do about it?” Sorav growls. “Kill your fiancée?”
“God, no! Are you insane? Not until she’s done my portrait. I just need some pest control. I want you at my rehearsals. Keep an eye on the crowd. And I want you close. I don’t trust you enough to let you run loose.”
“Chancellor—”
“If you’re not responsible for all this, you owe me protection from it.
If you are, I’ll make it easy for you. You can get your little coup or whatever over with and save us all the time—oh stop.
I can hear you sighing, Max. You have no excuse not to come.
Have you heard the music? The vows? It’s Aufhocker at his absolute best.”
Sorav grits his teeth. “As you wish, Chancellor.”
“Good. Don’t make me threaten you, old friend. That would be impolite.”