The Lady Simtal paced. These last few days too much of her hard-won gold had been spent smoothing the waters. That damn bitch of Lim's had not let grief get in the way of her greed. Barely two days shrouded in black and then out on the courts hanging on that fop Murillio's arm, smug as a tart at a ball.
Simtal's pencilled brows knitted slightly. Murillio: that young man had a way of being seen. He might be worth cultivation, all things considered.
She stopped pacing and faced the man sprawled on her bed. 'So, you've learned nothing.' A hint of contempt had slipped into her tone and she wondered if he'd caught it.
Councilman Turban Orr, his heavily scarred forearm covering his eyes, did not move as he replied, 'I've told you all this. There's no knowing where that poisoned quarrel came from, Simtal. Hell, poisoned! What assassin uses poison these days? Vorcan's got them so studded with magic everything else is obsolete.'
'You're digressing,' she said, satisfied that he'd missed the careless unveiling of her sentiments.
'It's like I said,' Orr continued. 'Lim was involved in more than one, uh, delicate venture. The assassination's probably unconnected with you. It could have been anyone's balcony, it just happened to be yours.'
Lady Simtal crossed her arms. 'I don't believe in coincidence, Turban. Tell me, was it coincidence that his death broke your majority – the night before the vote?' She saw the man's cheek twitch and knew she'd stung him. She smiled and moved to the bed. She sat and ran a hand along his bared thigh. 'In any case, have you checked on him lately?'
'Him?'
Simtal scowled, withdrawing her hand and standing. 'My beloved dispossessed, you idiot.'
Turban Orr's mouth curved into a smug smile. 'I always keep a check on him for you, my dear. Nothing's changed in that area. He hasn't sobered up since you threw him out on his arse.' The man sat up and reached to the bedpost where his clothes hung. He began dressing.
Simtal whirled to him. 'What are you doing?' she demanded, her voice strident.
'What's it look like?' Turban pulled on his breeches. 'The debate rages on at Majesty Hall. My influence is required.'
'To do what? Bend yet another councilman to your will?'
He slipped on his silk shirt, still smiling. 'That, and other things.'
Simtal rolled her eyes. 'Oh, of course – the spy. I'd forgotten about him.'
'Personally,' Orr resumed, 'I believe the proclamation of neutrality to the Malazans will go through – perhaps tomorrow or the next day.'
She laughed harshly. 'Neutrality! You're beginning to believe your own propaganda. What you want, Turban Orr, is power, the naked absolute power that comes with being a Malazan High Fist. You think this the first step to paving your road into the Empress's arms. At the city's expense, but you don't give a damn about that!'
Turban sneered up at Simtal. 'Stay out of politics, woman. Darujhistan's fall to the Empire is inevitable. Better a peaceful occupation than a violent one.'
'Peaceful? Are you blind to what happened to Pale's nobility? Oh, the ravens feasted on delicate flesh for days. This Empire devours noble blood.'
'What happened at Pale isn't as simple as you make it,' Turban said. 'There was a Moranth reckoning involved, a clause in the alliance writ. Such culling will not occur here – and what if it does? We could use it, as far as I'm concerned.' His grin returned. 'So much for your heart bleeding to the city's woes. All that interests you is you. Save the righteous citizen offal for your fawns, Simtal.' He adjusted his leggings.
Simtal stepped to the bedpost, reaching down to touch the silver pommel of Orr's duelling sword. 'You should kill him and be done with it,' she said.
'Back to him again?' The councilman laughed as he rose. 'Your brain works with all the subtlety of a malicious child.' He collected his sword and strapped it on. 'It's a wonder you wrested anything from that idiot husband of yours – you were so evenly matched in matters of cunning.'
'The easiest thing to break is a man's heart,' Simtal said, with a private smile. She lay down on the bed. Stretching her arms and arching her back, she said, 'What about Moon's Spawn? It's still just hanging there.'
Gazing down at her, his eyes travelling along her body, the councilman replied distractedly, 'We've yet to work out a way to get a message up there. We've set up a tent in its shadow and stationed representatives in it, but that mysterious lord just ignores us.'
'Maybe he's dead,' Simtal said, relaxing with a sigh. 'Maybe the Moon's just sitting there because there's nobody left alive inside. Have you thought of that, dear Councilman?'
Turban Orr turned to the door. 'We have. I'll see you tonight?'
'I want him killed,' Simtal said.
The councilman reached for the latch. 'Maybe. I'll see you tonight?' he asked again.
'Maybe.'
Turban Orr's hand rested on the latch, then he opened the door and left the room.
Lying on her bed, Lady Simtal sighed. Her thoughts shifted to a certain dandy, whose loss to a certain widow would be a most delicious coup.
Murillio sipped spiced wine. 'The details are sketchy,' he said, making a face as the fiery alcohol stung his lips.
In the street below a brilliantly painted carriage clattered past, drawn by three white horses in black bridles. The man gripping the reins was robed in black and hooded. The horses tossed their heads, ears pinned back and eyes rolling, but the driver's broad, veined hands held them in check. On either side of the carriage walked middle-aged women. Bronze cups sat on their shaved heads from which unfurled wavering streams of scented smoke.
Murillio leaned against the railing and looked down upon the troupe. 'The bitch Fander's being carted out,' he said. 'Bloody grim rituals, if you ask me.' He sat back in the plush chair and smiled at his companion, raising the goblet. 'The Wolf Goddess of Winter dies her seasonal death, on a carpet of white, no less. And in a week's time the Gedderone Fête fills the streets with flowers, soon to clog gutters and block drains throughout the city.'
The young woman across from him smiled, her eyes on her own goblet of wine, which she held in both hands like an offering. 'Which details were you referring to?' she asked, glancing up at him briefly.
'Details?'
She smiled faintly. 'The sketchy ones.'
'Oh.' Murillio waved one gloved hand dismissively. 'Lady Simtal's version held that Councilman Lim had come in person to acknowledge her formal invitation.'
'Invitation? Do you mean to the festive she's throwing on Gedderone's Eve?'
Murillio blinked. 'Of course. Surely your house has been invited?'
'Oh, yes. And you?'
'Alas, no,' Murillio said, smiling.
The woman fell silent, her eyelids lowering in thought.
Murillio glanced back to the street below. He waited. Such things, after all, moved of their own accord, and even he could not guess the pace or track of a woman's thoughts, especially when it had to do with sex. And this was most assuredly a play for favours – Murillio's best game, and he always played it through. Never disappoint them, that was the key. The closest-held secret is the one that never sours with age.
Few of the other tables on the balcony were occupied, the establishment's noble patrons preferring the scented airs of the dining room within. Murillio found comfort in the buzzing life of the streets, and he knew his guest did too – at least in this instance. With all the noise rising from below, their chances of being overheard were slight.
As his gaze wandered aimlessly along Morul's Street of Jewels, he stiffened slightly, eyes widening as they focused on a figure standing in a doorway opposite him. He shifted in his seat, dropping his left hand past the stone railing, out of the woman's sight. Then he jerked it repeatedly, glaring down at the figure.
Rallick Norn's smile broadened. He stepped away from the doorway and strolled up the street, pausing to inspect an array of pearls laid out on an ebony table in front of a store. The proprietor took a nervous step forward then relaxed as Rallick moved on.
; Murillio sighed, leaning back and taking a mouthful of liquor. Idiot! The man's face, his hands, his walk, his eyes, all said one thing: killer. Hell, even his wardrobe had all the warmth and vitality of an executioner's uniform.
When it came to subtlety Rallick Nom was sorely lacking. Which made this whole thing rather odd, that such a complex scheme could have been born from the assassin's rigidly geometric brain. Still, whatever its origins, it was pure genius.
'Do you dearly wish to attend, Murillio?' the woman asked.
Murillio smiled his warmest smile. He looked away. 'It's a large estate, isn't it?'
'Lady Simtal's? Indeed, fraught with rooms.' The woman dipped one dainty finger into the pungent, fiery liquid, then raised it to her lips, inserting it into her mouth as if in afterthought. She continued studying the goblet in her other hand. 'I would expect a good many of the servants' quarters, though lacking in the simplest needs of luxury, will remain empty for much of the night.'
No clearer invitation did Murillio require. Rallick's plan centred on this very moment, and its consequences. Still, adultery had one drawback. Murillio had no desire to meet this woman's husband on the duelling piste. He drove such disturbing thoughts away with another mouthful of wine. 'I would love to attend the Lady's festival, on one condition.' He looked up and locked gazes with the woman. 'That you will grace me with your company that night – for an hour or two, that is.' His brow assumed a troubled furrow. 'I would not wish to impinge on your husband's claim on you, of course.' Which is exactly what he would be doing, and they both knew it.
'Of course,' the woman replied, suddenly coy. 'That would be unseemly. How many invitations do you require?'
'Two,' he said. 'Best that I be seen with a companion.'
'Yes, it's best.'
Murillio glanced down at his now empty goblet with a rueful expression. Then he sighed. 'Alas, I must be taking my leave.'
'I admire your self-discipline,' the woman said.
You won't on Gedderone's Eve, Murillio answered silently, as he rose from his chair. 'The Lady of Chance has graced me with this meeting of ours,' he said, bowing. 'Until the eve, Lady Orr.'
'Until then,' the councilman's wife answered, seeming already to lose interest in him. 'Goodbye.'
Murillio bowed again, then left the balcony. Among the crowded tables more than a few noblewomen's heavy-lidded eyes watched him leave.
Morul's Street of Jewels ended at Sickle Gate. Rallick felt the wide eyes of the two guards beside the ramp following him as he passed through the passage between the massive stones of the Third Tier Wall. Ocelot had told him to make it plain, and while Murillio was of the opinion that only a blind man could ever mistake him for anything other than a killer, Rallick had taken pains to achieve the obvious.
The guards did nothing, of course. Giving the appearance of being a murderer wasn't the same as being one in truth. The city's laws were strict in such things. He knew he might find himself being followed as he strode down the opulent streets of Higher Estates, but he'd leave them to it, making no effort to lose them. Darujhistan's nobles paid good money to loose spies on to the streets day after day. Might as well make them earn their bread.
Rallick had no sympathy for them. He did not, however, share the commoner's hatred for the nobility. Their constant airs, prickly honours and endless squabbles made for good business, after all.
When the Malazan Empire came that would end, he suspected. In the Empire, assassin guilds were illegal, and those of the trade who were deemed worthy were enlisted into the secret ranks of the Claw. As for those who weren't considered worthy, they simply disappeared. The nobles didn't fare much better, if the rumours from Pale held any truth. It would be a different world when the Empire came, and Rallick wasn't sure he wanted to be part of it.
Still, there were things left to achieve. He wondered if Murillio had succeeded in getting the invitations. Everything hinged on that. There'd been a long-drawn-out argument about it the night before. Murillio preferred widows. Adultery had never been his style. But Rallick had remained insistent, and finally Murillio had given in.
The assassin still wondered about his friend's reluctance. His first thought was that Murillio feared the possibility of a duel with Turban Orr. But Murillio was no slouch with a rapier. Rallick had practised with him in secluded places enough times to suspect that he was an Adept – and to that even Turban Orr could not make claim.
No, it wasn't fear that made Murillio shy from this part of the plan. It dawned on Rallick that there was a moral issue at stake. A whole new side of Murillio had revealed itself to Rallick then.
He was pondering the implications when his gaze found a familiar face among the street's crowd. He stopped and studied the surrounding buildings, and his eyes widened as he realized where his wanderings had taken him. His attention snapped back to the familiar figure appearing every few moments on the street's opposite side. The assassin's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Beneath the mid-morning's blue and silver hue, Crokus walked along Lakefront Street surrounded by the bedlam of merchants and shoppers. A dozen streets ahead rose the city hills beyond the Third Tier Wall. On the easternmost hill stood the K'rul belfry, its green-patched bronze scales glimmering in the sun's light.
To his mind the tower challenged Majesty Hall's bright mien, gazing over the estates and buildings crouched on the lower hills with its rheumed eyes and history-scarred face – a jaded cast to its mocking gleam.
Crokus shared something of the tower's imagined sardonic reserve for the pretence so rife in Majesty Hall, an emotion of his uncle's that had seeped into the lad over the years. Adding fuel to this fire was a healthy dose of youthful resentment towards anything that smacked of authority. And though he gave it little thought, these provided the primary impulses for his thieving activities. Yet he'd never before understood the most subtle and hurtful insult his thefts delivered — the invasion and violation of privacy. Again and again, in his dreamy wanderings both day and night, the vision of the young woman asleep in her bed returned to him.
Eventually Crokus grasped that the vision had everything to do with – everything. He'd come into her room, a place where the noble brats drooling at her heels couldn't enter, a place where she might talk to the ragged dolls of her childhood, when innocence didn't just mean a flower not yet plucked. Her sanctuary. And he'd despoiled it, he'd snatched from this young woman her most precious possession: her privacy.
No matter that she was the daughter of the D'Arles, that she was born to the pure blood – untainted by the Lady of Beggars' touch – that she would flow through life protected and shielded from the degradations of the real world. No matter any of these things. For Crokus, his crime against her was tantamount to rape. To have so boldly shattered her world ...
His thoughts a storm of self-recrimination, the young thief turned up the Charms of Anise Street, pushing through the crowds.
In his mind the once-stalwart walls of righteous outrage were crumbling. The hated nobility had shown him a face that now haunted him with its beauty, and tugged him in a hundred unexpected directions. The sweet scents of the spice stores, wafting like perfume on the warming breeze, had unaccountably lodged a nameless emotion in his throat. The shouts of Daru children playing in the alleys brimmed his eyes with sentimental maundering.
Crokus strode through Clove Gate and entered Osserc Narrow. Directly ahead rose the ramp leading into Higher Estates. As he approached he had to move quickly to one side to avoid a large carriage coming up on him from behind. He didn't need to see the crest adorning the carriage's side panel to recognize its house. The horses snapped and kicked, surging forward heedless of anyone or anything in their path. Crokus paused to watch the carriage clatter up the ramp, people scattering to either side. From what he'd heard of Councilman Turban Orr, it seemed the duellist's horses matched his contempt for those he supposedly served.
By the time he reached the Orr estate the carriage had already passed through the outer ga
te. Four burly private guards had resumed their station to either side. The wall at their backs rose a full fifteen feet, topped with rusty iron cuttings set in sun-baked clay. Pumice torches lined the wall at ten-foot intervals. Crokus strolled past the gate, ignoring the guards. At the base the wall looked to be about four feet in breadth, the rough-hewn bricks a standard squared foot. He continued on along the street, then turned right to check the wall fronting the alley. A single service door, tarred oak banded in bronze, was set in this wall at the nearest corner.
And no guard. The shadows of the opposite estate draped a heavy cloak across the narrow aisle. Crokus entered the damp, musty darkness. He had travelled half the length of the alley when a hand closed around his mouth from behind and a dagger's sharp point pressed against his side. Crokus froze, then grunted as the hand pulled his face round. He found himself looking into familiar eyes.
Rallick Nom withdrew his dagger and stepped back, a severe frown marring his brow. Crokus gaped then licked his lips. 'Rallick, Bern's Heart, you scared me!'
'Good,' the assassin said. He came close. 'Listen carefully, Crokus. You'll not try Orr's estate. You'll not go near it again.'
The thief shrugged. 'It was just a thought, Nom.'
'Kill it,' Rallick said.
His lips thinning into a straight line, Crokus nodded. 'All right.' He turned and headed towards the strip of bright sunlight marking the next street. He felt Rallick's eyes on him until he stepped out on to Traitor's Track. He stopped. Off to his left climbed High Gallows Hill, its immaculate flowered slope a burst of colours surrounding the fifty-three Winding Steps. The five nooses above the platform swung slightly in the breeze, their shadows streaks of black reaching down the slope to the cobbles of the street. It had been a long time since the last High Criminal was hanged, while off in the Gadrobi District the Low Gallows' ropes were replaced weekly due to stretching. An odd contrast to mark these tense times.