Thraxas and the Dance of Death

Chapter Twenty

“You didn’t find her?”

Makri arrives in Lisutaris’s private chambers some time after the death of Demanius. She shakes her head.

“She’s a slippery woman, Sarin. Probably climbed the outside wall while you were still searching the marquees.”

“I didn’t see you rushing to help,” complains Makri, and sits down heavily on a gilded couch.

“I’ve done enough rushing around.”

Lisutaris herself is sitting dejectedly on another couch.

“You still have a lot of fakes,” says Makri.

“They’ll spot it at the Palace. I can’t believe we lost the pendant after we went to so much trouble.”

I’m sorry about Demanius. He was a good man. His body has been removed discreetly by Lisutaris’s staff and now lies in a cellar, along with another two unfortunate souls who met their end as a result of the pendants. Two dead guests. Not as bad as it could have been. Lisutaris can probably explain it away as natural causes. The way some of these elderly Senators have been drinking and dancing, you’d expect a few fatalities.

I take a bottle of wine from under my toga.

“Help yourself to my supplies,” says Lisutaris.

“I figure I earned it.”

I’m tempted to demand an explanation for my not being invited to the ball. It still rankles. I swallow it back. No need to hear Lisutaris explain in detail that I’m just not the right class of person.

“You know that this whole thing was started off by your secretary?”

“So you say.”

“I don’t just say. I know. I searched her rooms. You’d be surprised what I found there. Letters to Barius. A diary full of some interesting observations about you. And a few items she’s probably stolen from you over the years. Didn’t you suspect her at all?”

“I told you to leave her out of this.”

“You know she resents you for inheriting the family fortune? It wouldn’t surprise me if she blames you for her father’s death.”

Lisutaris glares at me.

“Thraxas. Do you think that this is unknown to me? Do you seriously believe it has never crossed my mind that my brother’s daughter may be jealous of my position? That she may have acted unwisely out of resentment at me inheriting the bulk of the family’s wealth?”

“Well shouldn’t you be doing something—”

The Sorceress raises her hand.

“I am doing something. I’m protecting her. I have a duty to my family. You will not mention her part in this to anyone and you will not raise the subject with me again. Count yourself fortunate that I do not punish you for searching her room.”

I shrug. If Lisutaris wants to wake up one day with a knife in her ribs, courtesy of her disgruntled niece, that’s her problem.

“You hired me to get the pendant. So I did what I had to do. It’s my job.”

“You failed.”

Poor Lisutaris. Downstairs her ball is a raging success and here she is, slumped on a couch smoking thazis and looking as miserable as a Niojan whore. It’s a tough life as head of the Sorcerers Guild.

“Failed? Me? Failure is an alien concept to Thraxas the Investigator.”

I take the real pendant out of my bag.

“Number one chariot at investigating, as is commonly said.”

Lisutaris leaps off the couch to grab the pendant.

“How did you get this?”

“I palmed it, of course, when you were showing it off. I made a switch right under your nose. It’s the sort of thing I do well.”

“But why?”

“Why? You think I was going to let you keep the pendant when the gardens were full of people like Horm and Sarin? It was asking for trouble.”

“Couldn’t you have told me that before I went chasing after Sarin?” says Makri.

“You ran off too quickly. You’re impetuous, Makri, I’ve mentioned it before. Anyway, you wanted to kill her and I wasn’t going to stand in your way. Don’t worry, you’ll get another chance.”

Lisutaris, no longer as miserable as a Niojan whore, congratulates me.

“I have the pendant. I have all the fakes. The one Sarin took will destabilise and disappear soon. I’m in the clear!”

“You are indeed. Unfortunately, I’m not. I’m in trouble for not answering a summons from Palace Security.”

“I can have that rescinded,” says Lisutaris.

“I put a Guards captain to sleep with a spell.”

“I can probably smooth that over,” says Lisutaris.

“I hit Princess Du-Akai.”

“You’re in big trouble,” says Lisutaris. “I could act as character witness.”

The sorcerer offers me some thazis and I accept it gratefully. As I inhale the pungent smoke I can feel my body relaxing.

“And what,” asks Lisutaris, turning to Makri, “is the idea of kissing Horm the Dead?”

“I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me.”

“I didn’t see you putting up much of a struggle.”

Makri looks embarrassed again.

“He took me by surprise.”

Lisutaris fails to look convinced.

“I was expecting you to punch him.”

“I tried that already,” says Makri. “It didn’t seem to put him off.”

Lisutaris frowns.

“I can see he’s quite good looking in a pale, high cheekboned sort of way, Makri, but really you ought to be careful. You don’t want to go around getting involved with someone like Horm. You know it’s rumoured he’s already been dead?”

“Thraxas mentioned it,” mutters Makri, and starts inhaling deeply from the water pipe, not wishing to discuss it any further.

“Well, he’s gone now,” continues Lisutaris. “I scanned the gardens. If he comes back I recommend staying well clear of him.”

“He offered Makri a position as captain of his armies,” I tell her.

“Really?”

“Could we just stop talking about this now?” says Makri crossly.

We let the matter drop. I suppose if some insane sorcerer takes a shine to Makri it’s not really her fault, though it might not happen if she could learn to dress properly. A man like Horm, living out in the wastelands, he’s bound to be affected when he hits the city and the first thing he runs into is Makri in her chainmail bikini.

I leave Makri and Lisutaris fuelling up with thazis before they go off to enjoy the rest of the ball. I’ve had enough excitement and decide to head home. In the hallway of the house I run into Deputy Consul Cicerius.

“You are Thraxas, I believe,” he says acidly.

“I am. But about the mask, it was the only one I could find in a hurry—”

“I am not concerned with your grotesque likeness of me. I am concerned with your treatment of Princess Du-Akai.”

Here it comes. Thraxas heads for prison ship.

“She tells me that she was assailed in the gardens by a unicorn and you rescued her. Is this true?”

The Princess is suffering from some very garbled memories.

“Yes, it’s true. But I don’t want to make too much of it. It was very dangerous but anyone would have done the same.”

“Nonetheless, it was a spirited action. Some of Lisutaris’s entertainments have been far too adventurous. I am furious that our royal princess was endangered.”

The Deputy Consul is one of the city’s strongest supporters of the royal family. He’s really grateful to me.

“Do you think I could have my Investigator’s licence back?” I ask.

“Yes,” says Cicerius. “I will arrange it.”

“Can you have the charge of throwing away my shield dropped?”

“Unfortunately not. That must go through its due process. You were mistaken about Praetor Capatius. It was not he who initiated the charge. It was Professor Toarius. He was endeavouring to prevent you from investigating his son.”

“That figures. You know his son’s a dwa addict who’s heading for trouble?”

Cicerius declines to comment. As I leave him he’s looking on with distaste at some dancing girls who are probably Senator’s daughters, but aren’t behaving appropriately. Or maybe they are behaving appropriately. Senators’ daughters are notoriously corrupt.

Next afternoon I’m sitting downstairs in the Avenging Axe. Gurd is beside me at the table, laboriously writing a letter to Tanrose. He’s finding it difficult.

“I’ve never written a letter before.”

“It’ll be fine. Put in more compliments. Tell her that Thraxas is getting thin.”

“She won’t believe that.”

I encourage Gurd to get on with repairing his relationship with the cook. Neither of us can carry on without her.

I’m fairly satisfied with events. Most things worked out well enough. I did good service, for which Lisutaris is grateful, and the Deputy Consul is back on my side. The only bad thing is that I’m still faced with a charge of cowardice dating back seventeen years. I wonder if Professor Toarius will pursue it, now his son has been exposed. He wanted to prevent me from investigating, but now that the truth has come out about his son’s behaviour anyway, perhaps he’ll drop it. I sigh. Dwa addicts. They lose all responsibility. Prepared to steal five gurans from a locker or one of the most valuable items in the city. It makes no difference to them.

I’m keeping an eye on the next table, where young Moxalan, surrounded by onlookers, is working things out on sheets of paper. Calculating how many deaths actually occurred as a result of the case of the missing pendant is a tricky business. There were fatalities all over the city, many of which could be ascribed, directly or indirectly, to the pendants.

The front door flies open and Makri strides dramatically into the room. She flings her bag on the floor, drags her tunic over her head and throws it at the wall, then starts parading round in her chainmail bikini, arms aloft, a look of triumph on her face. I’ve never seen her behave quite like this. It must be something she learned to do in the gladiator pits after slaughtering her enemies.

Makri marches round the room, arms still in the air, grinning arrogantly, so that people start applauding even though they don’t know what for.

“Makri!” she says eventually. “Number one chariot at examinations!”

“You passed?”

“Passed? ‘Passed’ doesn’t do my performance justice. I set new standards. Never has a class been declaimed to in such an authoritative manner. The students were awestruck. When I finished my speech they stood up and cheered.”

Gurd grins. Dandelion, still in residence, brings Makri a beer to celebrate. I congratulate her warmly.

“Well done. I knew you’d pass.”

“It was a triumph,” she enthuses. “Not even Professor Toarius could say a word against it. I tell you, I was great. And all this on no sleep. You know I spent the whole night dancing at the ball? It was the social event of the season. Lisutaris has been widely complimented. I walked from her house to college this morning and did my examination. I’m now sailing into my final year as top student. Incidentally, word got round about Barius. No one now thinks I’m a thief.”

A good day all round. And it might get better. Moxalan is ready to make his announcement.

“With the help of my fellow adjudicators,” he announces, “I proclaim that the final death total in the case of Thraxas and the missing pendant is sixty-three.”

There are groans from all round the room. No one seems to have picked this total. Moxalan’s eye glints greedily.

“No winners at sixty-three? Then we move on to the reduced-odds winner for closest bet. Anyone with sixty-two? No? Sixty-one? Sixty?”

“Me!” yells Makri, leaping to her feet once more. “I have sixty.” She retrieves her bag from the floor and hunts for her ticket.

“I’m not happy at this,” complains Parax the shoemaker. “She had inside information.”

Many suspicious eyes are turned on me. I splutter in protest.

“Makri had no inside information from me. I have remained aloof from the entire contest, thinking it to be in the poorest of taste. I am disgusted with all of you and will now retire upstairs to forget I ever met any of you.”

I leave with dignity, and beer.

A while later Makri appears upstairs, still on a high after her examination triumph. She starts counting out her bag of money, splitting it three ways for herself, Lisutaris and me.

“Twenty to one, not bad. We lost a lot of stake money on our first bets but we’ve still got a good profit. This will get me started at college next year. That was a good wager, Thraxas. You picked sixty, it was well worked out.”

“I’m sharp as an Elf’s ear. Incidentally, did you tell Lisutaris last week that she shouldn’t invite me to her ball because I really didn’t like that sort of thing?”

“No,” says Makri, sharply. “Why would you think that?”

“Investigator’s intuition.”

“Well your intuition is quite mistaken. It’s not all you make it out to be, you know. Here, take this pile of money. It’ll make you feel better.”