Frank Tuttle - Brown River Queen

“The Duchess?”

“Shush, man!” I leaned in close and continued in a whisper. “I assumed you of all people had been told!”

He reddened.

“Well, surely you’re in on it? How could you not be-you, the man in charge?”

He positively inflated with injured pride.

“Some people don’t see things that way, sir. I assure you, I’ve been kept quite in the dark.”

I shook my head and sighed. “Then you weren’t told that the Duchess is planning to surprise the Duke tomorrow, right here in the lobby?”

“No one has breathed a word, sir.”

“Unbelievable. Why, if I hadn’t arrived early…” I let my words trail off.

“Indeed, sir! The calamity! Now, how may I assist you?”

“I shall need to see the Duchess straightaway,” I said. “She usually travels under the name Chavel-by-Golance. Perhaps you can send a boy up with word that I am here?”

“Sir, I can assure you, we have no guest registered under that name.”

I snapped my fingers in a show of well-bred rage.

“She must be exercising even greater caution than usual,” I said. “I imagine she’s using another name. Gont de Lamon? Mrs. Notable of Plinker? Baroness Callowhapper?”

“Sir, no one of those names has ever been a guest here.”

“The Duchess is a striking woman. Petite, like all the dames of her line. Black hair, delicate features, blue eyes?”

The clerk’s face lit up with a sudden beaming smile.

“But of course, sir,” he said, his gaze moving past me over my left shoulder. “And here she is, right now!”

I turned.

And there she was. The same black hair, piled high and held tight. The same blue eyes gazing right into mine. The same wide smile, as if she’d just found something dear she’d lost long ago.

The knife in her slender small hands, though. The knife was not the same. This one was a plain backwoods hunting knife, its wicked blade honed to a deadly shine.

“Sir?”

Judging from his tone, I guessed the desk clerk had seen the knife and was beginning to realize that the woman was trouble-duchess or not.

I left my hat where it sat. I saw there to be more chairs and couches to my right, so that’s where I headed with commendable haste.

She followed, still smiling, quiet as a ghost but quick as a Troll. She gripped the dagger in her right hand and knew to keep it waist-high and moving back and forth.

Someone yelled. People scattered. Nervous laughter and snide advice broke out from the suddenly-crowded stairs.

“You shouldn’t have broken her heart, mister.”

“Don’t think flowers are gonna get you out of this one.”

“Call the Watch,” I yelled. I didn’t like the way that blade glimmered in the sun when she moved past a window. Something oily and wet was smeared all over the steel.

I put a table between us. She took hold of it with her free left hand and tossed it casually aside.

The laughter and snide commentary went silent as the mob made quickly for higher ground.

“I don’t even know who you are,” I said as I sought refuge behind a heavy couch. “I’ve always been told it’s rude to assault a stranger.”

She sent the couch sliding across the marble tiles as easily as she’d thrown the table and got close enough to stab.

I leaped away, my shoes clacking on the tile, my right sole nearly killing me by sliding. Toadsticker swung at my side and for an instant, I considered drawing him.

She kept coming. Dart, stab, dart, stab. I had plenty of chances to grab the wrist of her knife-hand but I knew she could nick me before I could wrest the knife away. There aren’t many poisons so deadly they can kill with a scratch, but there aren’t many identical, knife-wielding, smiling women either, so I opted for a series of dignified scampers around the lobby.

I made one complete circuit of the room. I was huffing and puffing and dripping sweat all over the Orlin’s fresh-mopped tiles. She wasn’t even winded, and not a single raven-black lock hung askew.

Worst of all, she was still smiling.

I unbuckled my belt. She lunged and stabbed. I spun and yanked and managed to drag Toadsticker’s scabbard free, and before she lunged again I whacked her hard on the right side of her temple with as much force as I could muster.

She lunged. I dodged.

I hit her again, using Toadsticker’s longer reach to avoid that venomous blade.

She didn’t even blink.

The big oak doors burst open, flooding the room with sunlight and a pair of huge Ogre silhouettes. I dropped Toadsticker and scabbard and ran manfully toward the Ogres, my smiling assassin close on my heels.

“Her knife is poisoned,” I yelled. A hairy Ogre arm swung up and out and I ducked, and she didn’t.

The Ogre’s blow sent her flying. I turned to watch, holding my empty hands up just in case a second Ogre blow was being considered.

She hit the far wall, landed on her feet, and came at me again, still smiling.

The Ogres exchanged low, wet growls.

“Mind the knife, boys,” I said. “Poisoned.”

One of the Ogres stepped into the burbling fountain, casually picked up a smooth, decorative chunk of white stone the size of a wheelbarrow, and hurled it directly into the smiling woman’s belly.

I heard bones crunch. She went down, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and came at me again, crawling this time.

The other Ogre ended her rampage with his boot, then extended to me his massive six-fingered Ogre hand and helped me to my feet.

The Watch whistles were nearly to the door. Curious onlookers, sensing the danger was past, crept back into the room, eyes widening at the sight of the corpse on the floor.

She was face down, for which I was glad. I’d seen all of that vacant smile I ever wanted to see. Blood was pooling beneath her, spreading across the clean white tiles like it had all the time in the world.

“Who was that?” someone said.

“What was that?” asked another.

The Ogres exchanged soft hoots and returned to their posts at the door. The Watch burst in, a dozen strong, swords drawn, crossbows at the ready.

“My name is Markhat,” I said before any of them spoke. I didn’t smile but I made sure they could see my hands. “This woman attacked me without warning or provocation. There were two dozen people present, and most of them are just out of sight on the stairs.”

“Shut your cake hole,” said the biggest of the blue-caps. He swung his crossbow around and kept it trained on my face. “Nobody moves. Nobody leaves. Nobody talks ’til I tell you to. Got that?”

“Got it.”

Cussing and stomping sounded from the back ranks of the Watchmen. I cussed a bit myself when I recognized the angry red face shoving its way through his fellows.

“Captain Holder. How good of you to drop by.”

“You.” The good captain befouled the Orlin’s premium flooring with spit and glared down at the expanding pool of blood.

“What is it with you and dead women, Markhat?”

“It gets better, Captain. Roll her over. You won’t believe me if I tell it, so see for yourself.”

He did.

He cussed some more while his Watchmen tried to force a confession out of me through the sheer intensity of their hateful glares.

“What the hell is this?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Downtown, Markhat. We’re going downtown, right now, just you and me and not a fancy, halfdead lawyer in sight.”

“Always happy to help the Watch with their inquiries, Captain. That’s my hat on the counter. Mind if I fetch it?”

“Lou. Get the man’s hat. Then put him in a wagon and take him to the Old Ruth. Shoot him in the leg if he gets smart.”

A Watchman grudgingly retrieved my hat. I put it on and adjusted the fit.