“Then it seems good fortune has brought you to my door.” Artonin went to the heavily laden bookcase behind his desk, scanning the shelves until he extracted the required volume. Lizanne noted how he ignored the upper shelf completely. The row of thick legal-reference works it held were free of dust but appeared mostly unread from the clarity of the lettering and intactness of the bindings.
“Here we are,” he said, Lizanne lowering her gaze once more as he turned to her with a slender tome in hand. “What do you make of this?” he asked, handing it to her.
She set the tea-tray down on his desk and accepted the book. It was bound in red leather and the gold mostly faded from the embossed title. “Vizian’s Fables,” she read, taking care to labour over the pronunciation. It was a collection of children’s stories from the early empire, long before the Selvurin language had been displaced by Varsal. “Grandmother would tell me these tales,” she said, smiling in fond recollection. “But I never saw them in a book before.”
She began to hand the book to him but he shook his head. “Why don’t you keep hold of it for a little while. I’ve attempted my own translation but my Selvurin is sadly not up to the task. I keep losing the nuance. With your assistance perhaps I can capture it.”
“You want me to write all these stories out in Varsal, sir?”
“Oh, I think a verbal recitation will do. Naturally, you will be paid for the additional duty.”
He smiled again and she found herself hoping she wouldn’t have to kill him. “Thank you, sir. I should be very happy to help.”
A series of loud thumps came from beyond the study door as someone descended the stairs with considerable haste. Lizanne saw a wince of anticipation pass across the Burgrave’s face an instant before the door flew open and a diminutive figure in a blue-silk dress burst in.
“Tekela,” Artonin said warmly, moving towards the new entrant, arms opening to embrace her. The girl, however, didn’t seem interested in a welcoming hug.
“Who’s she?” she demanded, pointing a rigid finger at Lizanne.
“This is Krista, your new maid.”
Lizanne gave a curtsy of the appropriate depth. “A pleasure, miss.”
The girl would have been pretty but for the scowl that transformed her features into a mask of unwelcoming spite. “Get rid of her!” she said, turning back to her father. “I didn’t choose her. You said I could choose my maid.”
“You chose the last one, my darling,” Artonin reminded her in a gentle tone. “And she left after two days.”
“She was a thief and a liar and a strumpet.” The girl shot another scowling glance at Lizanne. “And so’s this one. I can tell.”
Perhaps she shares her father’s keen eye, Lizanne considered, albeit slightly peeved by the strumpet remark.
She saw the Burgrave stiffen, his patience evidently running thin. “Do you wish me to force you to apologise to a servant, Tekela?” he asked in a soft voice.
The girl’s scowl deepened into a defiant glare as she matched stares with her father, eventually softening into a sullen pout when it became clear this was a battle she couldn’t win. “Sorry,” she mumbled in Lizanne’s direction, not meeting her gaze.
“There we are,” Artonin said, smiling once more as he placed a hand on his daughter’s cheek. “Did you find an appropriate dress today?”
“No,” she huffed. “They were all awful. If only you would let me go to Nizley’s.”
“Their prices are ridiculous. Your mother always said so.”
The girl’s scowl returned, accompanied by a self-pitying whine. “Mother wouldn’t have sent me to the ball in little more than peasant rags.”
“Keep looking. I’m sure you’ll find something. Krista will go with you tomorrow.”
Tekela gave another glance in Lizanne’s direction, a frown of suspicion augmenting her aggrieved pout. “What could she know about fashion?”
“I did see a most fine dress this morning,” Lizanne offered. “In a shop window on Careworn Street. I believe it would suit Miss Artonin very well indeed.”
“Marvellous,” the Burgrave said, stilling his daughter’s next objection with a tight hug and a kiss to the forehead. “Now, off to the drawing room, my dear. Miss Margarid will be here soon for your pianola lesson.”
The girl shrugged free of him and stomped to the door, Lizanne hearing the words, “Margarid’s a tone-deaf old hag,” before the door closed behind her.
“I’ve survived revolution, war and over a decade on this continent,” the Burgrave reflected. “But by all the ghosts of the hundred emperors, I think fatherhood will finally do me in.”
—
As was custom Corvantine servants ate together in the kitchen two hours after serving their masters’ evening meal. In addition to Housekeeper Meeram, Burgrave Artonin maintained a staff of three maids, one footman, one cook and one butler. In most noble houses the butler would have exercised authority below stairs but here everyone deferred to Meeram. Mainly, Lizanne assumed, due to the obvious infirmity and wayward memory of the ancient, white-haired fellow seated at the head of the table.
“What is your name, girl?” he enquired of Lizanne for the third time as the cook doled out a dessert of rice pudding.
“Krista, Mr. Drellic,” she replied, earning a nod of approval from Meeram for the absence of impatience in her tone.
“Got a look of the north about you,” he observed, as he had once before. “Best if you don’t go wandering too far. Not everyone in Corvus is as welcoming as the Artonin family.”
Lizanne saw the two maids seated opposite her smother a shared giggle. They were several years her junior and prone to girlish ways, though they both had the sturdy look of those who grow up accustomed to daily labour.
“I shall be careful, sir,” Lizanne assured him.
“May I ask, Miss Krista,” the footman said, “what manner of vessel carried you from Corvus?”
“She was called the Southern Pride,” Lizanne replied. “Biggest boat I ever saw until I caught sight of that warship steaming into the harbour ahead of us.”
“Oh yes, the Regal,” the footman enthused. “A fine sight she makes. Such clean lines. They say she can achieve close to thirty knots.”
Or maybe more, Lizanne thought, recalling the sight of the great steel fan affixed to the Regal’s hull. “You have a liking for ships, Mr. Rigan?”
“Indeed I do. It is my ambition to enlist in the navy, once the Burgrave sees fit to sign my letter of recommendation.” Lizanne could see the keenness in Rigan’s expression. She put his age at just over twenty and his face had a certain plumpish aspect not dissimilar to Housekeeper Meeram’s. His small, dark eyes confirmed Lizanne’s suspicion of a maternal relationship, as did Meeram’s frown of disapproval at his maritime ambitions.
“I was lucky in catching sight of a famous personage disembarking the Regal,” Lizanne went on. “Grand Marshal Morradin no less.”
A sudden hush descended as Drellic stiffened, his spoon falling from his hand and all confusion departing his gaze. “Morradin,” he whispered. “The Butcher is here?”
“Don’t upset yourself, Mr. Drellic,” Meeram said in a cautious tone.
“Twelve thousand men dead in a day,” Drellic went on, voice edged with a long-held anger. “My son amongst them. All on the Butcher’s order.”
“I’m sorry if I . . .” Lizanne began then fell silent at Meeram’s warning glare.
“And they call him a hero,” Drellic said, teeth clenched now. “The great commander, no more than a pig grown fat on the blood of wasted youth . . .”
“Now, now!” Meeram said with a strained smile, getting to her feet and laying a firm hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Our new employee might mistake your meaning, Mr. Drellic. And we all know where mistaken words can lead. I think you’re overly tired. Perhaps an early night will do
you good.”
“Bodes ill that he’s here,” Drellic muttered as Meeram ushered him to his feet, guiding him to the stairs. “Means the Emperor has another slaughter in mind. Best if you send your boy away . . .”
“Please don’t say such things, Mr. Drellic,” Lizanne heard Meeram say as their footsteps ascended the back stairs.
“Well, that’s the most sense I’ve heard out of him since I got here,” one of the maids said. She was the taller of the two with a freckled nose and auburn curls escaping the pale blue cap the maids were required to wear.
“Careful,” Rigan warned. “The Cadre might forgive a half-mad old man’s ramblings, but you don’t have that excuse.”
The maid scrunched her nose at him in dismissal before turning her attention to Lizanne. “I’m Kalla,” she said, then nodded at the girl next to her. “She’s Misha.”
The other girl, clearly the more shy of the two, replied to Lizanne’s smile with an uncertain one of her own. Unlike Kalla, her colouring was more in keeping with Corvantines from the Imperial heartland, light olive skin and black hair, though her eyes were a pale shade of green. “You have been with the family long?” Lizanne asked her although it was Kalla who replied.
“Five years,” she said. “Madam Meeram picked us out of the orphanage. Was going to be just me but Misha gave such a terrible bawling at us being separated that she took her too.” She flinched as Misha gave her an annoyed poke in the ribs. “Well, you did. We should thank you for turning up when you did,” she went on, turning back to Lizanne, “otherwise it’d be us waiting on the Horror.”
“The Horror?” Lizanne enquired.
“The Burgrave’s evil spawn.” Kalla paused to stick her tongue out at Rigan’s sigh of reproach. “Tosh, you don’t like her any better than the rest of us. This would be a happy house to work in but for her.”
“Ah, Miss Tekela,” Lizanne said. “I’m to accompany her tomorrow. She needs a new dress.”
“Then you’d best prepare yourself for a trying day. Once saw her scream herself sick in the milliner’s cos they didn’t have a blue ribbon for her bonnet.”
“Madam Meeram did warn me she was . . . difficult.”
“Difficult’s not the word. She’s been a nightmare ever since her mother died. Now there was a woman who knew the value of a good switching now and then. The Burgrave’s too kind, is what it is. Forking out for pianola lessons, dancing lessons, sketching lessons, new shoes and frocks every week. All has to be paid for. No wonder the Burgrave’s been selling off his old stuff. Won’t be long before one of us’ll be let go so’s she can festoon herself with jewels and such. All so she can snare a nobleman one day, not that there’s one mad enough to have her.”
—
After supper, and an hour spent scrubbing dishes at the cook’s direction, Lizanne repaired to her attic room to lie on the bed. She removed her shoes but was otherwise fully clothed whilst she indulged in two hours of sleep. Her insomnia would always disappear once a deployment was fully underway and experience had taught her the value of seizing the opportunity to sleep whenever practicable. Inevitably, there would come a time when such indulgence became impossible and she would face a constant struggle with exhaustion, though the Green would help as long as it lasted.
She woke in the small hours, finding the house steeped in a gratifying quietude. Rising from the bed, she filled the bowl on her bedside table and splashed water on her face to banish the lingering fog of sleep then retrieved the Spider and Whisper from their hiding-place in the gutter outside her small window. She went to the door and opened it a fraction, strapping on the Spider and injecting a drop of Green to enhance her senses. She could hear no trace of conversation, though a female voice was whimpering through a nightmare and a loud snoring could be heard from one floor down. Mr. Drellic, she assumed with some satisfaction; the grating cacophony would help mask any unavoidable creaking from the staircase.
Lizanne made an unhurried progress down the backstairs to the next floor then across the hall to the main staircase. She had the Whisper in hand though hadn’t thought it appropriate to load a Redball. Should she encounter an unfortunate night-time wanderer the issue would require a stealthy resolution. She had already identified a narrow, shaded alley-way two streets away where a body would most likely lie undiscovered for sufficient time to facilitate her swift extraction.
She paused at the landing on the first-floor, crouching and scanning the hallway below. The distressed whimpering she had detected before was louder here and she realised it emanated from the room of the Burgrave’s daughter. The sounds were mostly indistinct through the door but the ebbing Green enabled her to catch the words “Please!” and “I didn’t tell!” amidst the babble. The Horror has horrors of her own, it seems, Lizanne concluded before moving on.
Haste is the burglar’s worst vice, she had been told at the Division school. Her tutor in the larcenous arts was a compact but muscular man she later learned had been the most successful thief in North Mandinorian history before Exceptional Initiatives offered him a lucrative teaching contract. The thief who rushes towards their object is the thief who will be hanging by a rope the next morning.
So she moved with a creeping slowness down the final flight of stairs, splaying her bare toes wide for a stable grip on the wood. There’s never been a stair or a floor-board that didn’t creak, the former burglar had said. Secret is not to fight it, but control it. Lift your foot just as slow as you put it down. The stairs made a few protesting noises as she descended to the ground-floor, but nothing that wouldn’t be mistaken for the natural grunts and groans common to all older houses in the quiet hours. After a full ten minutes of careful progress she finally felt the chill marble of the chequer-board floor under her feet.
She paused, eyes roving the shadows, ears alive for anything out of place, moving towards the Burgrave’s study only when satisfied the household’s slumber hadn’t been interrupted. As expected the study door was locked, almost certainly by Artonin himself. It would be a rare Corvantine noble who would allow a servant unfettered access to his study, no matter how trusted.
Lizanne crouched, injecting another drop of Green and peering at the lock. One of the former burglar’s more tedious lessons had been the memorisation of every major make of lock employed throughout the civilised world. This was a fairly typical example of an Alebond Commodities Suresafe mortice lock. Like many a Corvantine it appeared Burgrave Artonin was not immune to flouting the Imperial restrictions on purchase of corporate goods. It was an old and uncomplicated design but greatly disliked by the criminal fraternity for its solidity and the weight of its main lever, both of which made it extremely difficult to pick. She injected a half-second burst of Black and closed her eyes, clearing her mind and focusing on the memory of the diagram depicting the lock’s inner workings. The main lever was heavy, but light as a feather under the touch of the Black. She remembered to hold it in place at the apex of its arc as releasing it would result in an unwelcome rattle. Instead the Suresafe issued only a faint click as it surrendered its grip on the door. Lizanne slowly worked the door-handle and let herself in, closing it softly behind her.
She briefly checked the desk, finding it clear of papers and the drawers all locked. Using Black to pick the locks was a possibility but also tricky and time-consuming. In any case, she thought it unlikely Artonin would conceal anything of true value or interest in so obvious a location. She quickly switched her attention to the top shelf of his bookcase and the row of thick legal tomes. She reached up and tested the seam between two of the volumes, giving a soft grunt of satisfaction when it transpired the books were actually joined at the binding. In fact, these weren’t books at all. A few seconds further exploration revealed twin catches at each end of the edifice, and pressing them in unison enabled its smooth removal.
Any expectation that the revealed hiding-place would contain a delightfully complex artifact o
f gears and cogs were swiftly dashed, however. Instead, there were papers. A dozen or so tightly bound bundles of letters, some stacked periodicals and several leather-bound ledger-books. Reading it all in the time available was impossible and she could see no obvious clue as to which would offer useful information.
Sighing, she took a moment to memorise the position of the cache’s contents before reaching inside and extracting the topmost ledger book. She was expecting merely a mundane list of household expenditures but upon leafing through the first few pages found herself pleasantly surprised. The Burgrave wrote in flowing, elegant Eutherian interspersed with sketches and diagrams of an enticingly technical nature. Skipping back to the first page she found herself whispering aloud the title inscribed at the top: “Conjectures on the Designs and Inventions of the Mad Artisan.”
Although Lizanne was not habitually given to expressions of excitement she couldn’t suppress a slight increase in the tempo of her heart-beat as she read on:
The true identity of the man, or one might more properly say “genius,” known to our brotherhood of scholars as the Mad Artisan, has never been fully established. What is known beyond any credible doubt is that he was born in the empire sometime during the late Third Imperium and arrived in the then-nascent colony of Morsvale whilst still a young man in his twenties. It is also known that he made several journeys into the interior of this continent and that his experiences there were fundamental in crafting the many wondrous designs he left to posterity. Chief amongst these devices is, of course, the marvellous Arradsian Solargraph, the exact operation of which still defies our understanding, although the inscription on the box that housed it leads one inevitably to speculate on the Artisan’s knowledge regarding perhaps the greatest mystery this continent possesses . . .
The door’s hinges were well oiled, but still issued a betraying whine as it opened. Lizanne’s arm snapped level with her shoulder, the Whisper straight and unwavering as it centred on the space between the intruder’s eyes.