Chapter Sins of Our Patrons
SINS OF OUR PATRONS
Maximian lingers in the solarium, cloaked in Florian’s perfume. The concoction sits differently on a wearer than it does on a witness; it is brutally constraining, intolerably cold, but it does nothing to cool the ache in his breast, that familiar blend of rage and guilt and helplessness.
The empty hollows of the new Rut Moon arc beyond the stained glass, skirting a sky of glittering satellites.
Aster’s herbs overgrow their pots, twisting around the brass filigree of her organ.
Nearby, Florian lies in a golden casket, silk band over his eyes, while a pair of state perfumers, courtesy of the Chancellor, dress him for his funeral.
Dr. Whyck has removed the shards of glass from his face, and sewn his lip and nose back into place.
Dressed in finery and adorned in a pall of scents, he barely resembles himself.
For the first time, he looks untroubled.
Outside the solarium stand the pallbearers, and outside the Palas, loitering in the courtyard, are a hundred marchers, two dozen horses, a brass band.
Maximian knows what will start as a funeral will end as a celebration.
A thousand cheers for the death of the little Impaler of the Tender Guard, gleeful congratulations whispered between ministers who found the boy nothing but distasteful.
A crowd giddy to see what the Marshal will do next, now that his successor is dead.
He doesn’t rise to lead the parade. Tonight, he is not confident he can stand the pageantry. He is not confident he can stand at all.
He shouldn’t say he’s surprised. He shouldn’t say his heart quivered as his car approached that rotten nest of a bar, he should not admit that, when he knelt at Florian’s side and laid his hand over his pierced throat, he had swallowed a cry.
Patrons do not weep over their hirelings.
But as he traced a glove across the boy’s face, closing eyelids stippled with glass dust, he felt something die inside him.
He traced Florian’s still-warm cheek, his jaw, the puncture in his throat.
He ran his finger across the gash, bordered by the same black eschar as on the Chancellor’s hand.
A thread spiraled from the clotted blood, not silk from Florian’s collar, nor his jacket.
As Sorav pulled it loose, he saw a string falling from Aster’s breast pocket, a handkerchief unraveling in her fist, the Chancellor’s wretched lily pulling apart into curled red threads.
A radius of lacework unraveled in his mind, from Florian to Demetrius to Bateusse, all leading back to a single knot of a man.
A memory threatened to surface then, even through his defensive haze of mayfly, a memory of a small, frightened face in the hedges, an ache at the tip of his heart, right where a bullet had glanced off his rib.
Vehemently, he refused it. He crushed the swaying thread in his glove, between his thumb and forefinger.
“It’s a pity. You really did try with him, Max.
It’s always so sad to see a project cut short.
” A shadow falls across the casket, slim, suited, laurels creeping up a staghorn crown.
The Chancellor’s perfume cloaks him in a condolent warmth, but it can’t hide the sneer in his voice.
“‘O, what flower I tend so dearly, blossoms to such noxious malodor.’”
With each word, the Chancellor’s perfume shifts, darkens, compels Maximian to agree. Through sheer spite, he resists.
“Don’t you dare quote Aufhocker to me,” he growls.
“That’s Montresor, old boy.” His veneer of dignified sympathy turns sour as he rests his stiff arm on the edge of the casket.
“And what a garden you’ve tended, my friend.
All those years of letting that lad run amok, terrorizing my citizens—I really shouldn’t have let him go on for so long.
Harassing my fiancée like he did. Making those lewd advances.
Seems position alone can’t bestow class, can it? ”
Sorav says nothing. He lifts his eyes to the Chancellor’s wrist, imagining the eschar under his glove, black and putrid. The thought brings him less satisfaction than he expects.
“You know, that’s your biggest mistake, Max. You treat your hirelings like family. They start to walk all over you. You have to keep it professional. Even my beloved knows the terms of her contract.”
Sorav closes his eyes. Did that stop her from breaking them? he doesn’t say. “This isn’t about terms, Gorslung.”
“Oh, please.” The Chancellor unwraps a creeping vine from the nearest shelf. “Don’t play at grief. You’ve left as many bereaved parents in your wake as you have orphans—this isn’t new to you. So either crawl into the coffin with him or get on with the show. I have things to do. I have rehearsal.”
Sorav holds his breath against the onslaught of Gorslung’s perfume, but he feels it break through. His knees ache to rise, his eyes long to see the outer rings of the city, where Florian’s casket will spill off a rushing cataract into the Catoptric far below.
“You,” Sorav musters the willpower to whisper. “You did this.”
“Did what? Killed your protégé? Blinded my wife?” A streak of rage burns through Gorslung’s scent.
“Did you see her, Max? Wandering around that hive, waving your gun around, terrified, confused, completely blind—you should go to the Sanitarium and see what those fucking Extemporists did to her. She’s in no state to paint, much less perform.
They tried to steal her talents and drove her fucking mad. ”
Sorav wants to laugh, he wants so badly to laugh in the Chancellor’s face. He has seen the sketches the Tender Guard brought back from vant Passand’s collection. He has seen the horrid explosion of her wedding dress, draped with loose, frayed twine.
“You did this,” Gorslung continues. “You didn’t clean out this mess, you let those insects proliferate right under your nose.
You let your perfumer run around with one of them.
And now I’m stuck with an unfinished Scholin commission, just like everyone else in this goddamn fucking town!
” He slams his fist against a shelf, rattling the potted plants.
“Shit. All I want is a portrait, is that too goddamn much to ask?” It takes a moment for his perfume to cool down.
“Get up, Max. As soon as this little parade is over, start fumigating. Clear them out. Clear them all out. It’s your job. ”
Sorav, after an enormous effort, manages to stay seated.
“God,” the Chancellor continues. “You look like utter shit. You want me to call Whyck? See if she can manage to put you out of your misery? I wonder how much you can take before you die. Don’t you wonder that sometimes?”
Sorav, exhausted, answers, “Yes.”
“Well, don’t fret, my friend. The toxin will do its work.
It’s only taking a while to decide how. Now.
Stand.” Bertram slaps his back in a puff of pestilence, and finally, Sorav obeys.
“There, good. Say goodbye to your boy. And go get your perfumer. You need something to wear to my wedding. You’re my best man, for God’s sake. ”
Mallory creeps through the maze of the midcity, Aster trembling in his wake. The dayless glow of tenement windows follows them through the corridors, illuminating the stains on his gloves, the blood slithering down his forehead.
Aster sobs and wheezes and hiccups, but doesn’t let herself hesitate, contemplate, mull over the consequences of her betrayal.
She knows the Tender Guard is not far behind.
Every shadow warps into nozzles and carbines; the soft footsteps in the corridors become the patter of pursuing Crypsis agents.
She is sure that when Mallory rounds the next corner, there will be a spy there, dressed in the costume of a foreman; when he leads her down a winding staircase to a laundry unit, she is sure it will be into an ambush.
When he ushers her into a tiny room, tells her to keep quiet, and locks her inside, she is sure he will never return.
The minutes stretch to hours. She fumbles through her purse, pushing her pill bottles aside and grasping for Mallory’s handkerchief, or what remains of it.
She hacks into it more for comfort than out of necessity.
In the buzzing green lights, what’s left of the embroidery takes on sinister shapes.
Guylag’s green banner unravels, the dragon’s silver body glints like a sword.
She cries into the batiste for a while, then nods fitfully off.
She doesn’t know how long she sleeps, or hovers at the edge of sleep, racked by a vision of Florian falling, blood gurgling from his throat.
She jolts awake when a bell rings somewhere above her, followed by a distant, muffled roar of water.
When the door finally opens, Aster draws her knees up, squinting in the dim light.
A man familiar to her, if only from posters and flyers and newspaper print, enters the room, a bandaged Mallory in tow.
Sleek and dark, jacket trimmed in mink, he looks less like the triumphant Thomas the Younger than someone hired to polish his shoes.
“—fucking misstep,” he’s saying. “Ah, well. Improvisation is key. At least we’ve got one disinherited avenger off our future plate.” He offers Aster his hand. “Vralen Vost. A pleasure. Mallory speaks fondly of you.”
“Eir Prophet,” she says quietly. She takes his glove and allows him to pull her to her feet.
“Apologies. We didn’t intend to kidnap you so abruptly. But you know. Things veer off-script.”
“We?” Aster glances to Mallory.
“Well, him, mostly,” Demetrius says. “The others are more than happy to purge the Revivalist ranks. Mal here likes to maintain that you can always cast off the sins of your patrons. He’s got some sort of Classicist taint I can’t seem to get rid of. I take it he’s told you just about nothing?”
Aster hugs herself. “A few half-truths, I think.”