Lilith Saintcrow - The Red Plague Affair

“Thank you.” She set the alcohol aside, untasted. It was a shame, but her stomach had curdled. Passing too close to the Black Wark was not a thing to be desired, especially since Mehitabel’s temper was extraordinarily uncertain. Not that it had ever been sweet…

… but the wyrm had cause to hate her openly now. It mattered little, Emma would brave much worse than a young wyrmling’s ill-temper if necessary.

It was not quite craven to be glad that today, she did not have to, was it? Merely… wise.

“Good day, then, Mr Rudyard.” She twitched her skirt aside as she rose, and for once, the man leapt to his feet instead of languidly unfolding. His face had suffused itself with ugly colour, and the monkey scrambled to his shoulder, a squeak escaping it.

“It’s good day , is it? Something in return, Emma . What of that?” He pointed at Mikal with two spread fingers, rather as Valentinelli would avert ill-luck. “Do they know, at the Collegia?”

“My Shield was trained at the Collegia, sir. He is properly native born.” The cut was a trifle unjustified, but the idea of the Collegia perhaps investigating Mikal’s background more thoroughly was a pinch in a sensitive spot.

Shields were taken young, and some of them, found or caught in the slums rather as Emma herself had been, were of uncertain parentage. The Collegia became mother and father to them as well as to sorcery’s children, and their fleshly parents – if found – given remuneration. Some hopefuls even brought their babies to the Finding Festivals four times a year or to a sorcerer who could perhaps sponsor them – and add a shilling or two more to the recompense, ridding themselves of a mouth to feed in the process. “Are there none so well-trained in the Indus as to catch your fancy, that you must make eyes at mine?”

He took a step forward, and for a moment Emma thought Kim Rudyard might well strike her. His taste in lovers was easily indulged in some of the sinks of the Indus’s dust-hazed cities, if lovers was a proper term for it. The gold hoop at his ear sparked angrily, foreign charter symbols running golden under the metal’s surface, and her own necklace, a large oval cameo held to her throat by a black band of silver-threaded lace, warmed. The entire room rattled once, as if the hotel had forgotten it was stationary and had temporarily decided to become a train carriage.

It was, she thought, so easy to unsettle a man. Even a dangerous player in the great Game of Empire could be made to stumble in a simple verbal dance.

Rudyard recollected himself with a visible effort. Emma was not surprised to find Mikal’s warmth at her shoulder. “But,” she continued, silkily, “perhaps I misunderstand you?”

“I hope you do.” His white teeth showed in a smile that held no joy, a grimace of terribly amused pain. “Those his kind serve most often end envenomed. Do be careful. The Empire might hate to lose you.”

Is that a threat? “I have no intention of being lost.” She nodded, for that mannerly mark was all she would give him. If he was determined to be a rude beast, she was under no injunction to grant him more. “Thank you, Kim. You’re a dear, sweet boy.” The urge to pantomime a kiss at him rose and was ruthlessly quashed. “Good day .” She turned on her heel, and Mikal stared past her for a moment. Her Shield’s face wore a grinning grimace to match Rudyard’s, and for a moment her breath caught in her throat.

There was a soft thump behind her, and Kim Rudyard made a curious, hurt little sound. Emma glanced back when she had reached the door, and found that he had gone to his knees.

The limp body of the monkey lay against the Rose Room’s pink carpet. The thing lay on its side, its face turned towards her and its gaze, curiously filmed, had pinned itself to Mikal’s back. Was it dead, or merely stunned?

I did not do that. Perhaps it was not an animus after all. Foreign creatures did not take well to the Isle’s clime, and the thing’s screeching no doubt had fatigued it. She fought the urge to curl her fingers in – a lady did not go about with fists clenched. She kept her head high and swept along at her accustomed brisk pace. Her Shield, trailing in her wake, said nothing.

Rudyard had recognised something about Mikal. Her own research and suspicions, while not quite inconclusive, now had a new direction to turn.

But first she would find this errant genius of Biology, and return him to Britannia. And she realised, once she had exited the Rostrand’s glitter, that Rudyard had not mentioned Llewellyn.

Curious, and unsettling. It was turning out to be a dreadful day.

The bone-rattling ride in a hired hansom – for she had left her own carriage at home today, wishing to slip anonymously about – passed in almost complete silence, Emma staring thoughtfully out of the small window. Thankfully, it was Eli’s duty to ride with her, as Mikal ran the rooftop road. The new Shield, for she still thought of him as “new” despite the considerable time he had spent in her service, was laconic in nature, and did not disturb her reflections, well used to her moods by now.

Emma roused herself as the hansom slowed, the driver chirruping to his mud-coloured clockhorse. Hooves struck the cobbles, and she glanced at Eli, whose attention was seemingly taken by the hem of her dress.

“Eli.” As if reminding herself who he was. “How long has it been, now?”

“I couldn’t say, Prima. Two years? Three?”

“Unlike you to be so imprecise.”

“My former…” He halted. For all his dangerousness, he was still at bottom a quick-fingered ill-at-ease Liverpool bravo, who must have been a dark-eyed urchin on the Collegia’s training grounds.

“Dorian asked you that, implying he would rid himself of your service? Charming of him.” Emma sighed. “You are a good Shield, Eli, and much more suited to my temper than his. There’s no danger of that.” She chose her next words carefully. “I wish you to be very… observant, in the next few days.”

As usual, when there was a task to accomplish, he brightened. “Glove, or Recall?”

“Neither. Merely… observe.” I am about to do something I may regret . “It is Mikal. I wish your thoughts on him.”

“I have thoughts?” He sounded honestly puzzled, and a flash of irritation boiled through her. But then he nodded, a curious expression crossing his almost-handsome face. “I shall observe him, Prima. Most closely.”

“But without—”

“Yes. I am not quite thick-headed, though I am no mentath.”

“I am no mentath either, Eli. We are in good company. Thank you.”

He darted her a bright glance, and for a moment she wondered if he knew the nature of the… relations between Mikal and herself. And if he thought it likely she sought to replace Mikal in those particular relations with a more tractable Shield. Some of Emma’s peers delighted in setting their complement of guards at each other in such a fashion, forcing them to vie for position within the closed circle of sorcerer and those who protected.

I am Prime. It is beneath me to act in such a fashion . Even though other Primes did not have the same… reluctance.

The hansom jolted to a stop and Emma alighted, Eli’s hand warm and steady through her glove. Mikal appeared as the driver, a lean iron-spined old man in a tattered royal-blue coat and a voluminous red and yellow knitted scarf, popped the whip smartly over the clockhorse’s dull flanks and drove his contraption away with a clatter and a grinding neigh of protest. The clockhorse was due for an oilbath, and Emma devoutly hoped the driver would give the poor creature one sooner rather than later.