The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Twenty More If I Die

Ludovico’s room was just the same: a monk’s cell, narrow and dark, holding only a single cot and a small leather trunk, a guttering candle throwing dancing shadows over the peeling plaster. Mikal checked it with a glance and nodded them inside. She took the opportunity to hand him the flung knife; he made it disappear with no discernible flicker of expression.

The Neapolitan promptly threw himself down on the cot, eyeing Emma speculatively. He was a quick little man, the efficiency of his movements lacking any sort of grace and bespeaking a great deal of comfort with physical violence. Sleek dark hair, those dark, close-set eyes in the scar-ravaged face – childhood smallpox had been vicious to him. Stretching his arms over his head and yawning, he settled his shoulders more comfortably. He looked like a hevvy, shirt and braces worn but stout, his trousers rough and his boots dusty.

The opening move was hers. “Not even a cup of tea. Your hospitality suffers, signor.”

“You are here after hours, signora.”

“You keep no hours. Do not annoy me. This is the man you’ll be guarding.”

Ludovico scratched along his ribs, tucking his other arm under his head. “Why? What’s he done?”

“That is no concern of yours. You’re to keep his skin whole while I’m occupied with other things.” She paused as Mikal tensed slightly, the candleflame flinching and righting itself. “You may have to kill a sorcerer or two to do so.”

The effect was immediate, and gratifying. Valentinelli sat straight up, eyes narrowing, and a dull-bladed stiletto appeared in his left hand. He spun it over his knuckles, and Emma did not miss Mikal’s own hand twitching slightly.

It was a high compliment from her Shield.

“Why you no have more of him to watch il bambino, eh?” He jabbed a finger at Mikal, still spinning the knife over his knuckles, catching the hilt as it rocketed past. The grime under his short-bitten fingernails, black half-moons, matched the crease in his neck.

She forced herself not to swallow drily. “That is not your concern. Shall I go elsewhere, signor?”

“At this time of night? And Valentinelli is the best. I protect from il Diavolo himself; you pay me. In gold.”

“In guineas, yes.” The smile fixed to her face wasn’t pleasant, Emma suspected, but it covered a set grimace of almost distaste. “Since you are a gentleman.”

He jabbed forked fingers at her and hissed. “Not even for gold do I let a woman mock me, strega.”

She gathered her patience once more. “I am not mocking, assassino. For the last time, shall I seek elsewhere?”

A supremely indifferent shrug. “I take the job. Twenty guinea, more if I die.”

“Very well.” She did not miss the way he blinked at her readiness to take his first price. It was bad form not to haggle, but she had no patience for his tender feelings at this point. “Bring yourself to me, signor. You’ll be bound for this.”

“Ai, you’re serious.” He heaved himself off the bed and paced towards her, graceless but silent. “What he do, you want him alive this bad?”

“Again, none of your concern.” Emma held her ground, suddenly very aware of the space between her and the Neapolitan. Mikal’s eyes flamed in the dimness, matching the candle’s glow. “Mr Clare, please come here.”

The mentath stared at Valentinelli in the uncertain light, his eyes half closed. His colour was much better, and he seemed to have recovered from the shock of the Wark quite nicely. “You,” he said, suddenly, “had a wife at one time, sir.”

Valentinelli halted. Emma could have cursed the mentath roundly.

“She die,” the Neapolitan said. “What, you a strego? Or you inquisitore?”

“Neither.” Clare’s eyelids drooped a bit more. “Your accent is really wonderful. There’s something, though—”

“Mr Clare.” Emma stepped forward and plucked the black-bladed stiletto from Ludo’s filthy fingers. “Do stop carrying on, and come here. You know what to do, Ludovico.”

“If he is inquisitore—” His voice rose, losing for a moment the soft singing of Calabria and becoming more clipped, more educated, and generally more dangerous.

“He is not one of the holy running dogs, do be reasonable! He’s simply a mentath. Give me your hand, Mr Clare.”

“I don’t know what you mean by simply a—” Damn the man, he sounded irritated. Emma grabbed his hand, the knife flickered, and he actually yelped at the bite of the blade. “What are you doing?”

Ensuring your survival despite your thickheadedness. “You are an execrable nuisance, sir. Your hand, Valentinelli.”

Mikal drifted closer. Ludovico glanced at the Shield, his jaw set and his grimy fingers working as if he felt a neck under them. A trickle of sweat traced down Emma’s spine, cool and distinct.

“Mentath? Mentale? Ah.” He smelled of leather and male, a sharp underbite of grappa and sour sweat. “I forgive him, then.” His cupped palm was strangely clean, given the condition of his nails. But then, she had seen him in many different lights, and this was only one of them.

Her breath caught, her pulse threatening to gallop before she invoked iron control. The man unsettled her.

More precisely, he reminded her of certain childhood things. Things best left in the recesses of memory, uncalled and unmissed.

“Most civil of you,” she murmured, and the knife bit again. A bleeding slash on the Neapolitan’s palm matched on the mentath’s, she pressed their hands together. Ludovico had done this before, but Clare resisted; she was forced to glare at him and make a sharp tsking noise.

When their palms were clasped together, the copper tang of hot blood reaching her sensitive nose, she closed her eyes, her own fingers a white cage around theirs. “S——!” she breathed.

It was a Greater Word of Binding, and even more of Tideturn’s charge trickled free of her flesh, sliding into the two men and licking hungrily at the scant blood. She flicked her hands back, like a hedge conjuror flapping a handkerchief, and a brief gunpowder flash painted the peeling walls.

She swayed, and Mikal was there, as usual, bracing her. His jaw was set; Emma wondered just what her own face was expressing.

“There.” She found, to her relief, that she could still speak in a businesslike manner. “’Tis done. Present yourself at my door no later than Tideturn next, Valentinelli, and afterwards Mr Clare shall not stir one step without you.”

“How long?” The Neapolitan examined his palm – smooth, unbroken skin, criss-crossed by thin faint lines where other bindings had been sworn. He arched one sleek eyebrow, and his white teeth showed as his lip lifted.

“You have other pressing appointments, I take it? As long as it is necessary, Ludovico. Until I take the binding off. You’d best hope nothing happens to me, too.” Even the candleflame stung her suddenly sensitive eyes. They squeezed shut with no prompting on her part, tears rising reflexively.

“Home?” Mikal pulled her away, and she made no demur.

“Yes. Home. Come along, Mr Clare.”

“Yes, well.” Clare cleared his throat. “Archibald Clare. Mentath. How do you do.”

She prised one eyelid open enough to see Clare offering his hand to the Neapolitan.

“Ludovico Valentinelli. Murderer and thief. Your servant, sir.” Those dark eyes had lit with something very much like amusement.

“Murd—” Clare audibly thought better of finishing the word. “Well. Very interesting. A pleasure. I shall accompany Miss Bannon to her home, then, and wait for our next meeting.”

“Do that. And be careful with la signora; be a shame to lose her pretty face. Give me my knife, strega.”

“Oh no.” Her fingers tightened on the leather-wrapped hilt. The blade’s sensitised now; it could cut that binding I just laid on you. Try again, bandit. “That wouldn’t do at all, Ludo. Mikal shall leave you the one you flung at me, though. Pleasant dreams.”

There was a sharp meaty sound as Ludovico’s knife thudded into the wall aross the room, and Mikal’s lip curled. The Neapolitan’s curses followed them out of the door, but she could tell he was intrigued.

Good.

The hectic strength sustaining her after dancing with Mehitabel had largely deserted its post by the time they reached Mayefair. In any case, she could not search for more answers until morning and a visit to the Collegia. The darkened foyer was a balm, the house sleepily taking notice of her return. The rooms would be ready, since the servants were well accustomed to her appearing and disappearing at odd hours.

Emma could wish that it was not quite so routine. “I suggest you take some rest, Mr Clare.” She could finally occupy herself in stripping the remains of her gloves from her aching hands.

The mentath was remarkably spry. “Oh, indubitably. I shall no doubt sleep well. You have some interesting friends, Miss Bannon.”

I have few “friends”, Mr Clare. “Valentinelli is not a friend. He is more … a non-enemy. I amuse him, he is reliable. Especially once he is hedged with a blood oath.”

“Yes, well, I am not at all certain I like the idea of a filthy Italian bleeding on me.” Clare actually sniffed. “But if you say he is capable, Miss Bannon, I shall take you at your word. I shall expect him at dawn or shortly after.”

She gave up on her gloves and leaned into Mikal’s hand on her arm. “Breakfast will be shortly after Tideturn. I presume your agile faculties are even now turning over the question of how and where to—”

“Oh yes. In fact, I have tomorrow’s investigation planned.”

Her conscience pinched, but she was, blessedly, too tired to care. “Good.” She took an experimental step toward the stairs; Mikal moved with her. The Shield’s frustration and annoyance was bright lemon yellow to Sight; her temples throbbed as it communicated to her.

“Miss Bannon?”

For the love of Heaven, what now? “Yes?”

“You have suddenly decided this Valentinelli is sufficient protection for my fragile person. Either you have a high faith in his capabilities, or—”

Or I shall dangle you in the water and see which fish rises. You do well to suspect me, sir. “I have become a much larger threat to these conspirators than you, Mr Clare. And by now, they are informed of it. You may take some comfort, at least, in that.”

Wisely, perhaps, Clare left it at that. Emma set herself to climbing the stairs and navigating halls. Her skirts dragged, the Wark’s ash still clung to her despite carefully applied cleaning-charms, and her Shield was about to explode.

He had the grace to keep himself quiet until the door to her dressing room opened, and she moved as if to free herself from his grasp. Her bed had rarely seemed so welcoming.

“Emma.” Quietly.

Please. Not now. But he had apparently decided that yes, now was the time for a discussion.

“A dragon, Emma.”

One of the Timeless, albeit a young wyrm. “Yes.” She fixed her gaze on the shadowed bulk of one wardrobe, the dressing room’s interior faintly glowing from the pale grey carpet and the plain silk hangings. “You should have taken the mentath and fled.”

“Leaving you to Mehitabel.” A single shake of his dark head, one she felt through his hand on her arm. “You should not ask such things of me.”

“What should I ask of you, then? I am very tired, Mikal.”

“A dragon, Emma.”

You are repeating yourself. “I am fully aware of what transpired at the Blackwerks. The ironwyrm had orders to kill me. Those orders could only have come from another of the Timeless; a dragon would not care to obey a sorcerer, even to kill another of our ilk.” She stared at the wardrobe. “And Britannia herself warns me that if Grayson is in league with the wyrms, her protection may not be enough. They are dangerous, and her compact with them is old and fragile. To them, we are merely temporary guests, and our Empire a wisp of cloud.”

“Then why should they care if …” It struck him. He stiffened, his fingers clamping her flesh. “Ah.”

“Someone has made them care for this piece of mechanisterum, Mikal. I must find out precisely who and neutralise the threat they represent to Britannia, or even the possible military uses of a logic engine will be beside the point. I am extraordinarily fatigued. You may retire.”

He still did not let go. “What if I have no wish to retire?”

“Then you may dance in the conservatory or paint in the kitchen for all I care. Turn loose.”

He did, but when she paced unsteadily into her dressing room he followed, closing the door with a faint but definite snick.

Every piece of jewellery on her tired body was dark and dead spent. She was barely upright, and if he sought to free himself of the shackle of duty to another sorcerer, there was no better time. She halted, swaying unsteadily, in a square of moonlight from the glass panels set in the ceiling, charter symbols sliding sleepily over them in constellation patterns.

And she waited.

His breath touched her hair. The closeness was too comforting; she shut her eyes and thought of Ludovico’s filthy fingernails, the healthy animal smell of him, alcohol and exertion. Mikal was perfumed only with soot and the familiar tang of sorcery, a faint hint of maleness underneath.

It was useless. The pointless urge, once more, rose in her throat. This time she did not bar it. “Thrent,” she whispered. “Jourdain. Harry. Namal.”

“They betrayed you.” Intimate, the touch of air against her ear. She shivered, swaying again, but he didn’t touch her. “That was why they died.”

Tall, dark Thrent. Small, blond, agile Jourdain. Harry with his smile, Namal with his gravity.

“They did not betray me. He killed them.” The last name. She licked her dry, smoke-tarnished lips, said it to rob it of power: “Miles Crawford.”

“He hurt you.” So soft. “So he died. And they allowed themselves to be taken by surprise; their betrayal was in their carelessness. I would have murdered them myself for it, if he had not.”

They eliminated the rest of his Shields while Crawford sprang his trap on me. It was my fault, of course. I judged myself too highly. “Very comforting.” But her breath caught. He leaned a little closer, the almost-touch paradoxically, exquisitely more intimate than his fingertips could ever hope to be.

“You know what I am.” A mere breath.

I am not certain at all. “I have my suspicions.”

And there was the other reason to mistrust him. For there were certain troubling things she had observed in her Shield, and if her suspicions were correct, the ease with which he had throttled Crawford was a dire sign indeed.

“Easy enough to prove.”

“What if I prefer them to remain suspicions?” Her voice did not sound like her own. It lacked utterly the bite Emma was accustomed to putting behind each word.

“You cannot abide mysteries, Prima. It is,” he finally touched her, warm fingers sliding under the half-awry mass of her hair, stroking her nape, “a small weakness.”

That you have no idea of my other weaknesses is a very good thing. She raised her chin, pushed her shoulders back, and stepped firmly away from Mikal’s hand. “Thank you, Shield. You may retire.”

His hand fell to his side. “Do you wish me to sleep at your door like a dog?”

Would you? How charming. Her shoes were filthy; she had tracked cinderfall and God alone knew what else into the house. The maids would have a time of it in the morning. Another dress ruined, too, and sending a bill to Grayson was not likely to gain her any remuneration.

And unless she wished to ring a bell and wake someone to help her undress, Mikal would. It was, after all, part of a Shield’s function to act as valet – or lady’s maid, as the case may be.

“D—n your eyes.” Unladylike, yes. But her flesh crawled, and her temper had worn thin.

“Is that a yes or a no?” He even sounded amused, blast him to the seventh Hell of Tripurnis.

Her only answer was to tack for her bedroom. Her bedraggled skirts were lead blankets, her bloomers chafed, and she would have had a special demise planned for her corset, had she not been so utterly exhausted. Let him do as he pleased. She was far too tired to care.

Or so she tried to tell herself, as she heard his footsteps behind her.