This is probably the most common question that any professional writer (or any writer really) gets asked. And the answer is usually the same: You read, you write. But beyond that there are some questions you need to answer for yourself.
The first, and most important, is why do you want to write? Most people don’t want to be writers. They want approval, recognition, money – all things that there are easier and better ways to get. Pretend, if you would, that your future self showed up on your doorstep tomorrow and told you that you’d never get published, your work would never be shared outside of whatever reading group you joined, and you would die in a house fire that would also consume all of your works, preventing any from being published posthumously. Would you still write?
If the answer to that is yes, then the next question you need to decide on is what type of writer do you want to be. There’s an attitude among those that make a living at writing that unless you’re drawing a paycheck then you aren’t a “real” writer. And they can’t be blamed for this. It’s a tough racket and you need to tell yourself something to feel good about it. But it’s also hogwash. Emily Dickinson didn’t make dime one off her writing and if you want to tell me she wasn’t a writer I’d say you deserve a slap in the face. Conversely, Stephen King is a writer and he’s got more money than Algeria.
So do you want to write for you? Or for someone else? The most successful writers ultimately write for themselves, but spend years writing for other people. Stan Lee spent decades writing what other people told him to write until he got so fed up he finally wrote one book the way he wanted and was stunned to find that it was an outrageous success. But he wouldn’t have been able to do that if he didn’t have the tools writing for other people had given him. Another writer I’m acquainted with spent years writing copy for a wood catalogue (wood, as in planks of) until he finally developed the skills he needed to successfully write his own stuff. Trust me, spending a few years figuring out how to make wood sound interesting will sharpen your pencil better than an MFA.
My only advice in this regard would be that if you want to make a living writing, never write for anyone else unless they are paying you. Otherwise, thank them for their time and go back to your copy editing job. Can’t find a job writing? Find a job that’s interesting (EMT, lawyer, teacher) and write about that.
If you want to write for yourself, your task is really no less difficult. Although, if you’re in this situation your either an insomniac or you’ve carved out a chunk of time every day to write, you’ll ultimately be beset by doubts that you are wasting your time. And that may be true. There are over 7 billion people on the planet, a good chunk of which want to be writers (or perhaps just creators). What makes your voice unique? What do you have to say that isn’t being by said by everyone else?
Even thinking about the enormity of that task makes me want to cry a little. You’ll spend years in solitary work trying to answer that question. When you find the answer, though, it will be no different than the monk who awakens from his daily meditation to realize he knows who he is. When you figure out who you are and how that informs your writing, validation from outside sources just doesn’t have the meaning or weight it once did.
So there’s the simple fact that what type of writer you want to be has a lot more dimensions to it than the type of financial success you want to achieve. So start with deciding what type of writer you want to be, which is about as complicated a question as deciding who you want to be as a person.
Select the play button above for an audio reading. To start with the first chapter, go here.
With her Ladyship freed, we haggled for several hours. Given her show of fortitude, it came as no surprise that she was a fierce bargainer. Her tactics were as sharp as her wit: She named a startlingly high price for our work, but then bargained it down with every piece of information she had that would assist us in her husband’s assassination.
Despite everything, I found that I admired the Lady Pawlett, or Glenda as she kept insisting upon, and the promise of a reward for killing her husband and the source of Chand’s misery invigorated me. Eventually, a handsome sum was agreed upon. The inn had become crowded as the evening became night, so once an agreement was reached, we escorted her Ladyship out the back.
My high spirits were immediately challenged by a kick to the crotch. The nauseating pain felled me. I only snagged a glance at the black boots and dressing of my assailant as I fell to the cobblestones.
Through the cloud of pain, I feared that somehow the Blackcoats had located us. I was dissuaded from this by the cudgels that fell upon me, their concussions preventing me from rising. Blackcoats always carried sword-breakers, as silver as the buttons on their tunics. The heavy wooden clubs left a different kind of impression. I was only able to open my eyes long enough to see Chand receiving the same treatment. Another two men grabbed a cursing Glenda and forced her into a coupé, as black as their robes. As she was hustled behind one of the carriage’s curtained doors, I saw the men did not wear the caped uniforms of the Blackcoats, but robes like cassocks, each of them with their pale heads shaved to nothing but stubble.
The carriage driver cracked his whip and the horses pulled away as I writhed upon the ground, internal organs feeling as if they might explode. I was able to settle, though, when Chand laid a hand upon me and spoke soothingly. After his calm words allowed me to breathe through the pain, he patted my shoulder and took my hand. “Come on up, mate.” Looking at his face as he aided me to my feet, I could see he fared no better than I, bruises already forming on his neck and face. His top hat had now entirely disappeared, leaving his black hair to flop about.
I stared after the carriage and the wake of chaos its speedy retreat created. At this hour, the streets of Gallowsgate were crowded with the indigents, the driver scattering vagrants before him.
Watching this, Chand said, “Were those priests?” I shook my head in pain and disbelief. I knew the Ecclisarchy of Dunhill wielded great power throughout the Empire, but rescuing noblewomen was outside of their purview.
Chand leaned heavily on his sword cane as if testing it. “Are you able to move?”
I nodded, hands on knees, still breathing through my nausea. Chand was clearly accustom to physical pain in a way that I was not. Or perhaps he simply had the wisdom to fake more severe wounds so they left him with fewer bruises.
“We can’t let them get away with her,” I muttered.
Chand inspected me with a show of concern that made me yearn to forget this nonsense and take him back to my room in McDowell Hall. Instead I leaned heavily on his arm as he asked, “How do you suggest we do that?”
On the streets of Gallowsgate, with its crowds of paupers, ginhounds, and tramps, the carriage would not get far without having to slow even if it was willing to trample the masses. However, as I hobbled out of Chand’s grasp I knew that he was correct. I wrapped my cloak around me and donned my broad-brimmed hat so we too could disappear into the shifting masses of the lost and hungry. I avoided the streetlamps’ gas glow as we headed back to McDowell Hall.
Arriving home, it would have been difficult to miss the number of Blackcoats that were around the mansion. Surely, there were was always more in the wealthier neighborhoods such as Aldwych (few could be found in Gallowsgate), but even so the number was notable. Perhaps Inspector Rotella had deduced I rarely left except at night and scheduled his men to reconnoiter me accordingly.
Even with their increased numbers, Chand and I were able to enter through one of the many side-doors to avoid detection. We found Aaron and Erin counting out their loot from a night of thievery. From where he had his feet up at the grand table, Aaron inspected us. “You bumfuzzles get into trouble with the Blackcoats for buggering one another?”
Chand laughed out loud at his insolence while I scowled, and strode over with the intention of knocking his feet to the floor. Erin must have seen the anger in my eyes, though, as she interposed herself by holding up a crisp envelope, closed with an ornate red wax seal. “Some ugsome fish dropped this off at the main gate.”
I took it, examining the seal. The symbol pressed into the red wax was a circle containing oddly shaped hands, like rakes spinning off an axis in the four ordinal directions. Staring at it for more than a few moments caused my head to throb from more than just the bruises, but I recognized it from some the of old letters my uncle had received.
I took out my dirk and cut open the envelope. Looking over my shoulder, Chand asked, “What is it?”
“It is addressed to my uncle. From the Priests of Trzciniec.”
“Bless you,” Chand offered at the last word.
I smirked despite the bruises and the foreboding the letter filled me with. “The Priests of Trzciniec are a splinter church of some power and ill-repute in Lechia. I recognize the seal from some of my uncle’s past correspondence with them.”
Chand raised an eyebrow. “Then they must be as corrupt as the Ecclesiarchy of Dunhill or the Papists. Neither of those tolerate competition in the confidence job of religion.” He now eyed the letter suspiciously. “Why would they endanger themselves by leaving their Continental province to come to the City?”
“They must not have gotten word that he’s missing.” Not surprising, considering if the Redcrosse Knights knew of something even as paltry as this communication, it could lead to charges of treason.
Chand shifted his weight under the pain of his bruises. “What would that band of miscreants want with your uncle?”
I stared at him levelly, feeling my wounds match the pain in my soul as I thought about my uncle’s many misdeeds, his abuse of anyone he had power over, his mystical learnings from the Nr and the Trzciniec. “My uncle was not a good man,” I answered.
“Was? You say he went missing.”
“Hardly important,” I said, putting aside thoughts about my uncle’s poisoned corpse rotting in his secret laboratory. “Especially as they do not know that.”
Chand looked askew at me, then came at the subject more directly. “So what is the letter about?” He grinned through the swelling corner of his mouth, “It looks fancy.”
The message was short, cryptic, and chilling. “It appears to be an invitation for tomorrow night. To a convivial society at Guillemin Hall.”
“A what?” Aaron asked. “What kind of bunkum is a convi – vi – “
“Convivial society,” Erin finished for him.
“Nothing to concern yourselves with,” I kept my eyes on the invite and away from Erin. I had learned her ability to sniff out a falsehood could put the best of the Blackcoats to shame. “It is a social function for adults.” Technically, this was true, so I excused Chand and myself to the parlor before more questions could be asked.
In the drawing room, Chand helped himself to brandy and a cigar from the mantle while I examined the invitation more closely. I sat in one of the voluminous chairs to stare at the image below the carefully calligraphied words. In comparison, the ink drawing was crude and indecipherable. It appeared, as best I could tell, to be a naked woman caught in a bramble of vines and leaves like hair, pulling her down into a briar patch of darkness.
“Take this,” Chand handed me a glass of brandy, “It will help with the bruises.” From my seat I absently sipped the wine, feeling it burn a split on my lip. When this did not take my eyes off the invitation, Chand asked, “So, we’re away from the children. What’s a convivial society?”
“It’s a euphemism for sexual congress.”
“You’re using a euphemism for a euphemism? Just say it – it’s about fucking.” Chand took a swig from his glass, stopped with the liquid still in his mouth, pausing to consider what had just left it. He swallowed, then through brandy-dried tones said, “Do you mean that your uncle has been invited to an orgy?” He laughed out loud. “An orgy thrown by priests?”
Such a gathering would break the laws of the Empire. At least for commoners. The Empire’s rules on temperance and virtue were often applied in a lop-sided fashion, particularly, I had learned, when it came to the matters of sex. However, the idea of any practice my uncle would take part in chilled my soul rather than thrilled my libido. Nonetheless, I gave Chand an honest answer. “It would seem so.”
Chand laughed louder. “Those dirty buggers!”
“I suspect much worse than that.”
“How do you mean?”
I tried to suppress the memories of my uncle’s nightly visitations to me, his murders, and his scheme to inhabit my body once he had deemed it ready. Those moments in darkness came flooding back, though, and I struggled to control my expression.
“Are you alright, mate?” Chand laid a hand on my shoulder. For the first time, I revolted against his touch, shrugging his hand away. He left it, suspended in air, as if he could feel the darkness around me.
“No. I suspect our friends in black were the same said priests. This invitation says the bacchanal is to be held at Guillemin Hall with her Ladyship as the primary host.”
“No wonder they were in a hurry to get her Ladyship back.” Chand rubbed a bruise on his chin. “Otherwise with their charm, I suspect an orgy would just be a pile of cocks.”
“I suspect your father will be among them, that the Duke’s departure to Glevum was a ruse so none would discover his association with the priests. Duke or no, the Queen would not look well upon such transgression. Regardless, I cannot imagine a scenario that this is taking place at his residence without the Duke’s knowledge.”
Chand sipped brandy, winced, then asked, “Why would a man want his own wife at an orgy?”
I turned the invitation to him, giving Chand his first good look at the awful caricature. “I fear it is not what she wants.”
Chand leaned forward to inspect the blasphemous image and revolted, nearly spilling his drink. “I’m all for melting moments, but that doesn’t look like sport I’d want a part of.”
“Likewise.”
I rapped the letter on the rim of my glass.
Chand watched me for a time, then, “What are you thinking, mate?”
The increased danger of the situation somehow made me more irritable. “Well, Muffin,” I emphasized the term of affection, knowing it would annoy Chand as his constant use of ‘mate’ was riling me. “I’m going to go have a conversation with the Blackcoats.”
I stood, steadily now, but Chand gripped my bicep. “What’s come over you? You’re acting like a prig of the first water. The Blackcoats don’t have words that anyone wants to hear.”
Feeling his touch calm me, I managed a smile. “Why Chand,” I gazed into his eyes with something I hoped might look like flirting. “Do you have feelings for me?”
Even with his honeyed skin, the blush that came to his face shone. He attempted to stutter a reply and I let him go on, savoring his discomfort. I smiled further as no refusal came from him, but more verbal searching.
I laid a hand on his arm, mirroring his gesture. Even with all the carnal thoughts I had of him, I resisted the urge to pull him into an embrace and said, “I’m not about to walk into waiting arms of the Blackcoats. I just need to speak with a particular one.” Seeing I hadn’t lost my mind, Chand wound down his stuttering and withdrew his grip. I left him in the study, brandy in hand, cigar tucked solicitously between his teeth.
I climbed a spire of McDowell Hall that at its top had wide, round windows in each cardinal direction, affording a view of the city and the area surrounding the manor. The streets below glowed with islands of gas lamps floating amongst the smog. Single Blackcoats wandered near these, dark blots against the flickering of civilization. Eventually, I noticed another, taller and more sinewy than the rest, the silver buttons on his cape polished till they gleamed in the chalky dark. Seeing this one, I pushed open the turret window and used every lesson in physical education I received to make my way down the tiles of the roof, stopping at a rain gutter to climb the downspout.
As the figure made his way from one Blackcoat to the next, I found a spot in his predictable path that allowed me to be hidden in the night and fog until he was practically upon me, the silver insignia of the Inspectors division the only thing visible beyond his rough shape. I stopped him with, “Inspector Rotella.”
The tall figure halted, a smudge in the darkness. “Young Master McDowell,” Rotella answered. He spoke as a man who happens upon an associate in the street rather than to a suspect he had been hunting.
“I believe I’ve discovered where my uncle is.”
“Indeed? Then why are we discussing this in the black of night rather than in a civilized manner?”
“Because the answer to your query may ruin the McDowell name.”
I could feel Rotella’s stare on me, heavy and wondering. “Let’s take a walk to a pub, then.”
“Let’s,” I added, moving up beside him, keeping a careful eye on our way in case he led us to a group of his cohorts. Whether it was his confidence or curiosity, though, he did not attempt to lead me into an ambush, but down the boulevard away from McDowell Hall.
I stopped under a lamp that banished the night enough that one might read by it. Rotella stopped after a few steps to look back to see me holding forth the invitation. I had not attempted to reseal it, but the graven signet was only ruined by a single crack.
Without word, Rotella took it. Before opening it the Inspector observed the seal. “I recognize the symbol.”
I feigned ignorance. “What does it mean?”
Rotella eyed me from under his hat, his eyes blazing from under its chimney-pot. Whatever conclusion his inspection of me reached, he looked back down at the letter. “It is the Hands of God. It’s the symbol of a great enemy of the Ecclesiarch, the Priests of Trzciniec.” He flipped it over, then back again. “It is not addressed to anyone.”
“It was delivered to McDowell Hall. The messenger asked it be given to my uncle.” Recalling Erin’s words, I said, “He was an ugsome figure; black robes, heavy boots, a shaved head under his black cowl.”
“That does indeed sound like one of their acolytes.” To me it would have sounded like any monk, but those holy men had the wisdom to stay away from Dunhill.
He extracted the letter from the envelope. His brow furrowed as he read over the text, the consternation on his face telling me when he reached the illustration. “It would appear both your uncle and Guillemin are in league with the Queen’s enemies.”
Having been a victim my uncle’s insidious touch and knowing how they tied into his heretical designs, my concern regarding the plans at Guillemin Hall were for Glenda. The Inspector was clearly more concerned with the event itself.
As if I had not considered this facet, I affected a gasp. “I thought this was merely proof of my uncle’s moral bankruptcy. I didn’t,” I stopped, stuttered and grasped my hat by its broad brim to doff it. “I didn’t know his sins included heresy.”
“Sin can destroy an empire,” Rotella intoned. “You speak of your uncle’s moral failings. If you did not refer to his vilifying himself with the Trzciniec, what did you mean?”
My false concern became very real then. To tell Rotella of the years of pedophilic abuse at my uncle’s hand would only mark me as an accomplice to his crimes in the eyes of the Empire. The story must be modified. “Uncle…that is Lord McDowell made his fortune in trade across the Empire. I recently came upon correspondence of his with a tribe in the Sulaiwest, called the Nr. It spoke of certain…rites. Not the Lord’s spreading of the Queen’s glory, but those of a horrifying and base nature he learned from the savages. To prolong life was there intent. I began to fear he planned to involve me in his machinations, but then he left. Perhaps in preparation,” I waved at the invitation, “for whatever this is.”
Rotella vanished the envelope into his cloak. “Has he returned since?”
“No,” I answered honestly. Gods willing, he never would.
“Then I must hurry. I will need to alert the Redcrosse Knights. Any matter involving the nobility will grind the gears of the Dunhill justice to a near halt if they are not properly protocoled.” As if echoing his words, the mills of Dunhill sounded out there low growls from across the city.
I had some idea, but keeping to my role of artless heir, I asked, “The Redcrosse Knights? What will they do?”
“This is a matter of her Majesty’s security. Her Majesty’s intelligencer Lord Elphinstone will decide how to act.”
I fiddled with the brim of my hat, looking about into the smog as if in fear. Rotella settled his eyes upon me again in their intense examination. “What of my uncle? What if he is involved in all of this?
The Inspector’s evaluating gaze mellowed a bit, as if self-preservation were the only sacred duty of Dunhill’s nobility and my question naturally fell into this role. “This letter and seal appear authentic enough that if Lord McDowell’s name appeared on it he, and possibly all his family, would meet with the Requiter’s ax. However, it does not. If he should make his appearance at Guillemin Hall at the appointed time, and there are Priests of Trzciniec commingling with he and Guillemin.” He stopped, whatever sympathy that might have been there turned to stone. “None shall be spared.”
I donned my hat again, casting my face into the shadow of the gas lamp. “I see.”
“I hope you do, Master Cole,” Inspector Rotella said.
I kept the smile from my face. “I wish you all of the Queen’s success, Inspector.”
It was the crow and the spider who were renowned for their trickery. It was the grasshopper, though, when the crow swept down upon him, said, “I’ve heard the spider is wiser than you.”
The crow then asked, “Who told you this?”
“The spider,” said the grasshopper. It was then the crow flew off and a new story started.
Select the play button above for an audio reading. To start with the first chapter, go here.
I slept little that night. Even so, I awoke early to don my hat and cloak, heading out one of McDowell Hall’s side entrances. A figure that might have been a Blackcoat standing across the cobblestone street caused me to pivot to a new direction. Instead of walking along the flat shores of the Tamesis, I went a roundabout way that crossed three of Dunhill’s nine hills. While McDowell Hall may reside in the wealthy neighborhood of Aldwych, it still quite a ways from the affluence of Knights Crossing, where the Duke resided.
I set to watching the gatehouse of Guillemin Hall myself. Chand would be espying from the rooftops, his color obscured with soot as he played at being a chimney sweep. While I wouldn’t know what he surveilled until we spoke that night, I was pleased to note that throughout the day a coach left and returned to Guillemin Hall not once, but three times. Behind its curtains I spotted a noble born matching Chand’s description of Lady Pawlett.
Morning, afternoon, and night, the sturdy black carriage, doors emblazoned with the Guillemin coat-of-arms and pennants with the family colors flying went and, a few hours later, returned. Pulled by two beautiful, chestnut steads, the couch started out of the gatehouse, scattering whatever unfortunates were in the way.
To my surprise, aside from the driver and a musketoon beside him, there were only four yeoman-at-arms that ran along side the coach as protection. Each was fit, wearing the Duke’s livery, and carrying pikes, clearly capable of protecting the Duchess’s person. While their numbers were less than I expected, it would still be unlikely that I could overcome them, even if Chand proved capable of using his sword cane and was willing to assist.
We discussed this at great length over the greater length of the McDowell banquet table that evening. The siblings had spent their day around the streets and mews of the great Guillemin Hall, speaking to other children, and listening in on the servants when able. From this they had gathered the critical information that the Duke would be seeing to the port in Glevum for several more days.
Discussing this over dinner, Aaron and Erin finished their meal and went to chasing each other around the Hall while Chand and I chased a plan. The Lady Pawlett was clearly keeping up a robust social schedule in her husband’s absence.
It was decided her evening departure would be the best time, with the streets less crowded with potential complications. It was her routine to go to the salon of an allied family, the Aberffraw, most nights, so we planned our abduction around the route she took most. Instead of spending my evening mooning over Chand and the emptiness of my large bed, I spent it creating concoctions for my phials. I placed each completed chemic carefully into the one of the cartridge boxes on my holster belt, the glass sturdy but capable of bursting when thrown with proper force. Given the nature of our quest, I prepared mostly incapacitating agents. Then I carefully cleaned and prepared my Kalthoff repeater and rapier.
The next evening, Chand and I put our plan into action. With my black, broad-rimmed hat and cape, I posed as a simple lamplighter along her usual route. Standing atop the crossbars on one of Dunhill’s many gas lamps, I disassembled it under the pretense of repairs, darkening the patch of cobblestone road around me. Nearby, my compatriot, face covered in the respirator mask preferred by the prosperous of Dunhill’s street vendors to protect against its constant smog, held up bottles I had prepared for him. Even masqueraded, his charisma shown as he called to the evening’s thinning crowd to buy as if the containers were filled with the Queen’s panacea. I think he may have even sold a few.
While the Duchess’s escort might not have noticed us, to their credit they were alert to danger from the rabble in the streets. Between the noise of the city’s mills and hoof and wheel on cobblestones, not much else could be heard. As such, many didn’t notice the bottle Chand threw into the guard nearest him. However, all noticed the thick gray smoke that filled the air, obscuring sight. The fumes changed the smog as milk flowing into tea, thickening it.
Chand continued hurling the smoke bottles around the carriage, throwing the yeoman into confusion. He had timed the assault perfectly, allowing me to jump from the gas lamp onto the coach. It’s roof held my weight, allowing me to put the boot to the musketoon, knocking him into the street. I put my rapier into the side of the coachman as the smoke enveloped us. I ordered him to drive or be driven through.
With the threat over his life and the smoke obscuring our numbers the coachman rallied the horses to full gallop, causing further panic in the streets as pedestrians scattered. We had barely left the chemical cloud when I snatched the reins and shouldered the driver off the carriage. I felt a weight tilt on the wagon, and glanced to see it was Chand, top hat in hand, pulling himself onto the driver’s bench beside me. I grinned with the mad joy of it and whipped the horses faster. I directed the team through a twisting series of streets in an obscure route down towards Gallowgate.
The alley next to a four-penny coffin was our destination. In a part of the city with overcrowded houses and too many feet, it was one of the few spaces with enough room for her Ladyship’s carriage. With the horses halted, Chand and I both hopped down, mask and scarf in place to hide our identities. Chand yanked open the carriage door and I aimed the repeater in, the better to threaten her Ladyship into submission.
Lady Pawlett had clearly ascertained the direness of her situation. She had cast aside her feathered hat and hiked up her dress to better make a run for it. Seeing our banditried faces, she put her left hand over her right, making me think she was reaching for a pepperbox or hidden blade.
We should have been so lucky. She flipped open the lid on a pillbox ring. I pressed my scarf to my nose, expecting her Ladyship to throw her own cloud of irritant or poison. Instead, something purple and very solid emerged, growing into a slick-surfaced sphere within moments. It’s enlargement was so strange, I thought it might float away.
Instead it burst free from the carriage, unfurling many appendages not unlike the leaves of an orchid. These outgrowths sprung from its eyeless mass, launching itself at us as it continued to grow.
The limbs of this impossible mollusk wrapped around Chand who cried out in surprise before it silenced him into muffled asphyxiation. Looking from it to the small ring it had emerged from, I quickly surmised, “Left-Handed Path.”
Lady Pawlett grinned as her monstrosity gave her the upper-hand. “You had better assist you fellow ratbag before the Devil-Garrote chokes the life from him.”
Instead of doing as she ordered I threw a vial of hypnotic into the carriage and slammed its door shut. While her Ladyship struggled with the soporific, I bent to the abomination that now covered Chand’s face, crushing his hat as it smothered him.
Pulling at its arms proved useless. Its boneless appendages possessed a demon’s strength. Its bulbous, eyeless center provided a target that I could attack with little possibility of harming Chand. so I stabbed at it with my rapier, pushing with all my strength to run it through. The thing’s purple hide proved as resilient as its extremities and the tip of my sword only drew its attention.
Before it could lay its tainted grip on me, I fired into it three times with the Kalthoff, causing it to wobble like a child’s toy until it exhaled a repellant gas, fowling the air as it deflated. I helped Chand to standing as it withered, shrinking until it could have returned to her Ladyship’s ring.
Chand reached for his crushed hat, attempting to salvage it, telling me he was shocked, but unharmed. I pulled open the carriage door to let the hypnogogic gas roll out into the alley harmlessly at our feet. Even in her desperate strait, the Duchess had clawed at the door opposite us, her hand still on the handle as she had fallen under sedation.
The streets beyond the alley had begun to become raucous even for Gallowgate. Widows and orphans leaned out from poorhouse windows to see what the commotion was. Chand quickly bundled Lady Pawlett up while I set the horses free. I did not know what fate awaited them, but it could not be worse than service to someone who walked the Left-Handed Path.
We moved as fast as we could, carrying her Ladyship as one might a carpet, until we arrived at our destination. Unwilling to hide our captive in McDowell Hall, we entered a disreputable tavern, a place Chand assured me both proprietor and patrons knew how to be selectively blind. From a back entrance we moved to a room we had rented in advance.
As speedily as we moved, Lady Pawlett was regaining consciousness by time I sat her in a chair and Chand bound her to it. His work became most challenging at the end as she began to thrash against the bonds. I hoped the chintzy chair would be sturdy enough to keep her.
Chand and I both retained our masks, his respirator and my scarf, as he pulled off the bag that he had placed over her Ladyship’s head. I expected screaming, cries for help, or begging, but instead she eyed us through the perspiration that rolled out of her now disheveled hair. In a distinctly unladylike tone, she said, “Oh, piss on you, you pigeon-livered vazeys.”
Both Chand and I said nothing, surprised at both her resilience and her language. I recovered enough to begin, “Your Ladyship, we are – “
She interrupted with, “Oh, I think we’re passed formalities, don’t you? My name is Glenda. You may address me as such.” A lock of her hair fell from its previously well-coiffed bouffant, which she blew out of her eyes. “What are your names?”
For the first time, I carefully studied the Duchess. She was younger than I had anticipated, perhaps at the beginning of her third decade with only the slightest blush of makeup, so expertly applied only the sweat causing it to run made it detectable. She was slender, as was the fashion, an impressive feat considering the delicacies that would be available to a woman of such standing. Her dress was made of the finest fabrics, not by any slave or factory, but clearly by a skilled tailor.
Seeing me eye her, Lady Pawlett’s initial vulgarities dropped away into the crisp speech I expected from someone of her personage. “Come now, don’t be shy. What is your name?” When I continued to be mute, she indicated my partner with a nod of her head. “I already know who this handsome young man is, yes? Chand, isn’t it?”
That stopped us both cold. Before we could think of how to proceed, she continued, “That respirator hardly covers your lips. Next time, perhaps you should use a physician’s peaked mask? It would disguise more.”
In a rage I had never seen from Chand before, he ripped off his mask and pulled his knife. Before I could think, he leaned over her Ladyship, pointing his blade at her throat. “How do you know my name?”
Lady Pawlett lifted her chin, eyes locking with Chand’s. “My husband has many bastards. It behooves me to keep track of all of them. And you, of late, have made much noise, have you not Chand Fitz Hindustan?”
With this new information and her Ladyship’s continued resilience against intimidation, Chand slowly withdrew both his person and his knife from her. I took the opportunity to insert myself between him and the woman that had expelled him and his mother onto the unforgiving streets of Dunhill. “I think I’ll keep my name, your Ladyship.” Chand shot me a glare as if this were a personal betrayal.
Lady Pawlett shrugged as best she could within her bounds. “Very well. To business then. Am I a hostage for ransom? Or has a rival noble commissioned my kidnapping?” She grinned, a gleam in her eye, “Or perhaps a foreign prince? One of those tall, Roslagen fellows?”
Glad my scarf hid my continued surprise as well as my face, I said, “Fortunately for you, none of those. But we all know noble families such as the Guillemin keep lockboxes on their premises in case of emergencies such as the ones you describe. You will tell us where in Guillemin Hall such items are kept and how to access the crowns therein.”
Glenda eyed me as if sizing up livestock. “You are of noble birth.”
Thinking of my father, the country doctor, and his occult ogre brother that murdered him, I chose the former in this instance. “No. I merely possess manners and an education.” Seeking to reverse the dynamics of the situation I added, “I am most curious, though, where you learned to cuss like a back-alley brawler?”
She laughed at this, a sound like breaking glass. “Oh, what an interesting opponent you would make if you were to live through the night.”
Damn this unflappable woman. “You won’t need worry about that once you’ve told us where the gold is kept in Guillemin Hall.”
Lady Pawlett raised her chin. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it will set you free. Once we infiltrate and take it all you will be released from these appalling surroundings.” Even with the Duchess radiating impervious smugness, I could feel Chand burning with anger behind me. It was like being caught between two celestials, one burning bright, the other cold.
I pivoted on the room’s rotting floorboards, indicating my partner, his features pinched with his barely restrained emotions. “Or I will turn you over to him, the one you cast out from your noble home and into the streets of Dunhill.” Returning to her Ladyship I said, “I wonder what skills he’s learned to survive in such a desperate place?”
“You killed my mother,” Chand seethed.
Whether this statement increased our intimidation or continued to tilt things in Lady Pawlett’s direction, I could not tell. Either way, it produced her first reaction beyond imperiousness. “I did no such thing. I merely insisted your father banish her from the house.”
“Which is why she died!” Chand hissed.
“Hardly,” her Ladyship rolled her eyes. “Your father is Guillemin V, the Duke of Glevum. He could have moved her to another estate, or returned her to his holdings in Hindustan. But he was too afraid of scandal, even with all his philandering. I could never divorce him, or force his hand. But he fears my whispers.” She snapped her teeth shut on the last word.
“Then all you need do is whisper to us the location of Guillemin Hall’s lockboxes and you can return to your marital bliss,” I laid out in a flat tone counter to Chand’s rising anger.
Lady Pawlett briefly considered this. Then, “No.”
Surprised as I was by her bearing under the duress of being kidnapped, the flat refusal still nonplussed me. Chand’s reaction was stronger. His knife hand came up again and he stepped closer to our hostage. “Then we’ll send you back to him a piece at a time.”
The savagery behind this threat must have been as unexpected to Glenda as it was to me. For the first time a pall fell across her face. Gently, I placed a hand on Chand’s bicep, feeling the tensed muscle there. “Glenda, my companion’s enthusiasm makes a point. You will not leave this room alive if we do not leave without instructions on how to find the Hall’s gold.” I looked at her closely, watching color return to her face even as she stared at Chand’s blade. “Why would you tempt that fate?”
Glenda sniffed and turned her gaze away from the blade. “My husband may be afraid of scandal, but he isn’t afraid of hurting me.” She stared at me with clear green eyes, rubbing her shoulder against the grain of the rope. “He has means of making pain you cannot conceive of.”
At these words I felt Chand’s arm relax. While he didn’t lower his blade, the Duchess’s words gave him pause. I interjected with, “The beast from your ring is proof that you walk the Left-Handed Path. How do you think the Blackcoats or Redcrosse Knights would look upon that?”
Glenda ignored Chand’s continued glare to evaluate me. “It is one of the reason he fears my whispers. I do not walk his path but was married into it by arrangement.” Seeing me in something of a kindred spirit, she added, “And it is one of the reasons I fear him more than I fear you.” As if to regain her composure, she gazed around her squalid surroundings. “Even as you hold me here.”
“I am surprised the Duke would allow himself to be married to such a strong-willed woman.” Remembering her vulgarities from before I added, “And one of common stock.”
Lady Pawlett fluttered her eyelashes. “He’s certainly had moments to regret it, but he was the one who insisted upon it.”
“Then we are at impasse,” I said before realizing I was giving away too much, but having done it, continued. “We have no wish to hold you through the long and dangerous process of ransom. Nor can we allow you to return to your husband to tell him of Chand’s identity with nothing to show for it.”
This caused Glenda to laugh, a mad sound in the squalid room with Chand holding his knife close to her. “You have much less time than you think.” She shrugged one shoulder as if attempting to loosen her bindings. “He has branded me. He’ll be able to find me once he returns.”
“That will be a number of days, my Ladyship. Terrible things could happen in that span of time.” I imitated the academic tone of my maths tutor, a practical man who also taught me how to play cards and as such, quite a bit about bluffing.
“Indeed,” Lady Pawlett conceded. “May I suggest an alternative?”
Both Chand and I looked at her expectantly.
“I suggest you murder my husband.” She said this in a manner as if requesting we trim her garden.
Certain I had heard her words correctly, but unable to immediately process them, I wittily replied, “Come again?”
She looked at me. “I would have escaped if you hadn’t dosed with me with whatever ether you threw into my carriage. You must have a chemist’s knowledge. Or access to one.” She did not speak to Chand, but indicated him with a tilt of her head. “And he must remember Guillemin Hall. He was there for years before I discovered how my husband defiled his mother.” I felt Chand bristle at these words and returned my hand to him. Having never seen him angry before, I found great pleasure in the knowledge that my touch calmed him.
Lady Pawlett continued crisply, “I will provide the Blackcoats incorrect information on my would-be kidnappers and a tale of my escape. You will be able to disappear into the backwind of the city. And you will provide me with the death of my husband.”
“Surely your Ladyship knows that as a woman you cannot, by law, inherit your husband’s estate.”
“I’m quite familiar with the ridiculous primogeniture laws that govern the Empire. However, I have a son. And he’s young enough that he will not miss the sum I will pay you with to kill his father.” She smiled in such a way that made me fear for her progeny.
I felt Chand begin to move again, but this time he shrugged off my hand. Before I need say anything he stepped behind Lady Pawlett to cut her free of her bonds. It was a rare enjoyment to see her surprise and relief.
Chand grabbed the only remaining chair in the room and moved it to face her. “Then let us talk terms, Glenda.” Elbow on his knee, he pointed his blade at her. “Please keep in mind you are bargaining for your life. Not just one in which you return home, but one in which you will soon be free of your husband.”
Rubbing her wrists, Lady Pawlett straightened herself. “Very well. You’ll earn every copper. As I’m sure your friend knows, a Lord of Dunhill always expects to be poisoned.”
Select the play button above for an audio reading.
Old wizard Galen grabbed his apprentice and dragged him from his chair. The young novice spilled the ale that had almost reached his lips and couldn’t help cursing as his mentor dragged him out of his seat.
“What have I done?” asked the novice.
“Nothing,” replied Galen, waving towards a barstool with a glass of liquor sitting before it, glitter floating all around it. “But a tavern that serves a sprite spirits is bound for trouble.”
The novice had learned, for an old man, Galen could hustle. He got him and his apprentice out the door just before the pub exploded.
Select the play button above for an audio reading. To start with the first chapter, go here.
In the thick smoke and loud noise of Serpent & Wren that evening I sat with my cloak about me, my rapier and broad-brimmed hat on the table. I had arrived early enough that I could order similar courses to those Chand and I had taken together last time, substituting a decent soup for the sauerkraut. By the time he walked in, the wine was already on the table’s oil cloth and the pheasant being prepared.
He continued to lean on his cane slightly, but otherwise his entrance was the same as always, him glad-handing lowlifes who recognized him, which is to say most of the pub’s denizens. He even tipped his hat to the barkeep who betrayed us both to the Red Hooks, receiving a queasy smile in return.
I waited for him at my corner table, fingering the hammer of my repeater in its holster. Eventually, his eyes lit upon me and he smiled as if spotting an old friend. I tried not to let the joy this brought me show on my face, afraid that it might cause him to disappear.
He made a greeting yards from the table that I couldn’t hear over the cacophony of conversation. This gladdened me, as I had prepared a topic unfit for others’ ears.
“How kind of you,” he said, sliding the cup closest to him and reaching for the bottle. “But why meet here instead of your fabulous chateau?”
“Porridge is one of the few dishes I can make myself,” I answered, holding my own cup for him to fill after his own. “I thought you might appreciate a better selection.”
“Family coffers coming up empty? Nothing to pay the servants with?” he questioned with a grin.
“The household servants left with my uncle,” I responded with something like the truth.
“Well, at least the larder cellar hasn’t – ” Chand stopped pouring the wine, bottle still raised. “You’re baiting the Red Hooks?”
I felt the corner of my mouth tick up at the perverse pleasure that Chand’s detection of my falsehood brought me. “Indeed. If there’re any remaining that are foolish enough to come for us, I’d prefer to know about it.”
Chand harrumphed. “Well, until one of these ginhounds says he saw me, the Red Hooks most likely think me dead.”
I raised my cup in a toast. “Then let us hope they’ve learned their lesson.”
I expected a mocking rejoinder, but Chand only finished filling our cups and raised his to mine. We had barely clinked our mugs when the waitress arrived with our first course. She smiled and tousled Chand’s curly dark hair as he grinned at her. If she knew of his travails, it made no distinction in her greeting or in his flirtations.
We spooned into the soup, soaking up it with bread, munching in silence for a time. Instead of hiding my perversity in the candle’s paltry light, whenever Chand looked up from his soup I gave him a wolfish grin. He only puzzled at this, both of us saying nothing until more wine was consumed and the oysters were served.
It wasn’t until the pheasant arrived that my grin or the gin eventually moved Chand to ask, “So aside from eating and drinking together, what’s the next step in this great plan of yours?”
I pushed the pheasant around my plate with my fork and knife, then around in my mouth with my tongue. I couldn’t keep the grin from my face as I answered, “I’d say we rob your parents.”
Chand looked up from his fowl. Even through the tavern’s smoke his eyes blazed with an uncustomary anger, so much so our intuitive waitress veered away from her approach to our table.
“I assumed you were jesting. My mother was an ayah.” He gestured to his brown skin. While his color might forever put him on the outside of Dunhill society, his Hindustan ancestry also gave him his greater height, burnished skin, and charming smile. I imagined his mother must have been quite beautiful.
I raised my hand in a conciliatory fashion. “Quite right. I mean your father and his wife.”
“Robbing the Red Hooks and tweaking the Blackcoats’ noses by continuing to inhabit this fabulous establishment,” Chand waved at the old stones of its walls and the knotted wood of its roof. “That’s not enough? Now you want to anger Dunhill’s nobility?”
“Yes.” I interwove my tapered fingers around my cup to stare at him over its rim. Waiting for him to arrive I had been sitting with contempt toward my uncle and any father that would throw a son such as Chand out.
Chand leaned back in his chair, watching my reaction. In a tone one would use to call a bluff in a card game, he said, “My father is Lord Guillemin Pawlett, Duke of Glevum. He has several estates. Which one would you have us rob?”
“Oh, I think the one in the city would be easiest. Don’t you?”
“So I came here to discover your mad.” Chand clucked his tongue. “A and E will be so disappointed.”
I laughed at his disapproval, making Chand uncomfortable in a way that brought me a perverse pleasure. “You knew I was mad when I came for you in the Red Hook’s lair. That’s why you disappeared afterward, wasn’t it?”
“Apparently so,” he brought his dark eyes back to me and I held my smile even as his gaze made me blush so that it felt like hot iron. Unable to hold his gaze for long, I commanded, “So tell your madman why we shouldn’t do it.”
“Don’t you already have the Blackcoats eyeing you?” Chand responded with a caution I hadn’t seen in him yet.
“Certainly. But this won’t change that.”
“You realize I haven’t been inside Guillemin Hall in over a decade? I don’t know where the treasure chests are kept.” His sarcasm was unmistakeable, painting a portrait of some dungeon within his father’s home where they stacked lockboxes filled with gold crowns.
“I suspect, like most of the other nobles, your father has much of his actual wealth in The Exchange.” I settled back in my chair, showing that I had some knowledge of how the wealthy in Dunhill operated.
“Then how would we rob them?”
“Surely there are things of value, possibly, yes, even gold, within the Hall?
“Guillemin Hall isn’t some mews. It’s huge. We could spend weeks searching such a place.”
“I’m sure that’s true. That’s why I thought the Pershings might come in.”
“Who?”
“Aaron and Erin?”
For the first time, Chand looked at me as if I might truly be bad instead of just mad. “You want to send children in?”
Insulted that Chand might actually think I would, I replied, “Don’t be daft. Other than getting them boiled alive in the Requiter’s Square, what would that accomplish?”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“That they spy,” I leaned into the last verb. “A manor as large as your father’s must have an army of servants. The men and women who serve them food, wash their clothes, and clean their rooms certainly must have some idea of the family’s strongboxes.”
Chand watched me carefully. Washing down some of his questions with wine, he ventured, “The nobles of Dunhill, I’ve heard,” he stretched the last two words as far as he felt from from his erstwhile guardians, “keep crowns in their halls in case of sudden need.”
“Such as ransom?” I offered, considering an entirely new and ill-advised plan.
“Or bribery,” Chand countered, bringing up the specter that perhaps, like my uncle, many of Dunhill’s upper class were not virtuous and temperate dedicates to the Church. “But also for everyday expenses.”
“Well, then, A and E will simply have to watch the Guillemin Hall until a servant leaves for the shopping. Lifting the purse from them will surely loosen their tongue. Get them to discuss where the Lord and Lady of the house keep their gold.”
“Then why involve the scampers at all? I can do that,” Chand replied.
I raised my glass. “An excellent point. I wrongly thought you wouldn’t want to be near the manor for fear of being recognized.”
Chand let out a laugh that practically blew back my dark hair. “My father threw me out over a decade ago. I doubt anyone would know me from Adam.” Settling back into his chair, he added, “Robbing a servant for blackmail will require putting the fear of God into them, though. Threatening their place in the house, their residence, their livelihood. Are you sure you’re ready to threaten some innocent hardworking mug who’s just unlucky enough to be the one who does the shopping?” When this question clearly produced consternation on my face, Chand added, “It’s most likely to be a woman.”
Thinking of Gildred’s bright white smile as she consumed human flesh in league with my uncle, I swatted the concern of gender aside. However, my life in McDowell Hall had also been populated with any number of tutors and governesses that had only sought to do their best by me, having no knowledge of my uncle’s plans.
With this floating to the top of my mind, my lips pulled into a frown. “I do not think I would enjoy that.”
“Neither would I,” Chand replied.
“Then what do you suggest?”
I watched Chand’s long fingers run along the rim of his cup. “On occasion, the Lady of Guillemin goes out shopping with her own purse.”
“I don’t see how lifting her purse would give us the information we seek.”
“No, stealing her gold would yield nothing. But kidnapping her might.” I could see the revenge Chand would like to extract from the Duchess, a woman who had demanded his own mother and self be ejected from the noble home once his true father had been revealed.
I puzzled at Chand, thinking perhaps whatever madness possessed me was catching. “That would make all of this very public. Surely, the Duke would alert the Blackcoats. Perhaps even the Redcrosse Knights.”
“Only if we tried to ransom her. That,” Chand gestured with his cup across the table as if were the Empire itself, “would be as disastrous as the blood pudding.” Unable to hide my agreement with Chand’s estimation of the dish, I snorted laughter. He rightly took this as permission to continue. “But if we were merely to hold her,” he paused carefully searching for a word, which was not something I had seen him do. “We could extract the information from her.”
“Which would require threatening her life.”
“Or her chastity,” Chand countered. The expression this caused my face to assume must have been striking, as he quickly added, “Neither threat of which I would follow through on. The noble ladies of Dunhill are not renowned for their steadfast courage. Sufficiently believable threats will do.” I wondered at that, allowing him to continue, “If we make no demands, but she goes missing, the household will be thrown into chaos while they search for her Ladyship.”
“Providing us the perfect opportunity to go in and rob the strongboxes.” I warmed to the idea of terrorizing the nobles of Dunhill without the dangers of actually ransoming one.
“Exactly. And we would have even more time if Lord Guillemin was seeing to his actually holdings at the western port of Glevum.”
“If his holdings are so far from Dunhill, why does he maintain an estate here?”
Chand shrugged. “Because Queen Gloriana’s intelligencer insists every noble family do. The better to keep an eye on them. Plus, the extra expense makes it difficult to amass the wealth necessary for a revolt.”
The idea that there might be unrest among Dunhill’s nobility had not been a part of my historical education. “Why would her Majesty need to concern herself with a revolt?”
Even the dim ofSerpent & Wrencouldn’t hide Chand’s expression on my naivete. “There are those among the nobility that still side with the Papists in that they believe that magic, any magic, including Gloriana’s, is heresy. There are others that resent Her Majesty’s monopoly of it.”
I stared at Chand, suddenly aware that he clearly knew much more about the machinations of Imperial society than I did. I did not wonder long on this, though, as what I had seen of Dunhill’s alchemist and sorcerers, I tended to agree.
Instead I reached for a different conclusion. “So when he’s in Glevum…”
“Much of his yeoman-at-arms accompany him,” Chand concluded for me. “Guillemin Hall here in Dunhill is at its least defended. The Ladyship doesn’t often attend him. I don’t think they get on.”
We fell silent into our thoughts. While Lady Pawlett would certainly be with an entourage while her husband was away, outside of the Hall would be the best time to secure her for a discussion away from listening ears.
Chand’s uncustomary silence marked him with similar thoughts. This continued as we finished the meal, then he donned his cape and cane.
Escorting him to the exit, I offered, “If walking still pains you, you’re welcome to return with me to McDowell Hall.” I would, of course, offer him his own bedroom, while my desire conjured us in one room. Beyond that was a black wall of loneliness that allowed nothing more to be seen.
Clearly distracted by other ponderings, Chand offered a, “Huh?” Then making my gesture to his cane he said, “Oh, the cane isn’t for aid in walking.” Gripping its straight handle, he pulled a long, hidden blade from its wooden scabbard. “Dunhill law forbids me from carrying a weapon, but this allows for a good surreptition.”
Admiring his ingenuity, but regretting having no excuse for him to come with me, we departed. At McDowell hall thoughts of Chand kept me awake. Was I only perverted by my uncle’s touch, or perhaps by merely sharing blood with him? I lie rigid deep into the night, tortured by these questions as thoughts of holding Chand would not be banished from my head. As dawn began to color the sky, I could only take solace in that thinking of Chand brought none of the fear or shame of my uncle’s nightly visitations. I had tried to rid myself of these in the past with the service of prostitutes, but these only granted temporary reprieve. Simply looking at Chand, though, banished thoughts of the sins that I had committed and had been committed against me.
