Scholar of Decay (35 page)

Usually.

Last night had been the exception.

The single exception.

“So I’ll give her another chance.” Having made his decision, he set off, with a lighter heart, toward the nearest bridge. There was one thing that growing up with four older sisters had taught him: women occasionally behaved in inexplicable ways.

“Dmitri!”

He turned at Chantel’s call and waited while the whole group of them caught up.

“We’re all going to dinner before we make an appearance at Laurent and Antionette’s boring little affair,” Yves told him when they were close enough. “Come along.”

“I can’t. Not tonight.” He spread his hands and shrugged apologetically. “Louise is expecting me at the chateau.”

Yves shot a quick, warning look at Chantel, but she only said, “Then we can all walk together as far as the second bridge.”

Dmitri smiled down at her. “I’d be honored.” He offered her his arm.

Although overcast and likely to rain, the evening was the warmest the city had seen in some weeks. The more popular promenades were crowded with the fashionable and those hoping to be seen as
fashionable. Nodding to family and ignoring or recognizing the townspeople as whim took them, Dmitri and his six friends crossed the first bridge and started down a shadowed and nearly deserted street—the buildings a dark wall to their left, the river a darker barrier to their right.

When an elderly man approached, Yves murmured, “Let’s have some fun.”

Uncertain of what was about to happen, but willing to be a part of it, needing to belong, Dmitri watched his companions spread out across the street, leaving only a narrow path between Annette and the river.

Shuffling along, the weight of his clothing appearing to be almost too much for him, the old man eyed the only route allowed him if he intended to pass, and sighed audibly. With a weary shake of his head, he turned and headed back the way he’d come, unwilling to play the game.

Dmitri heard Yves snarl and, though no word had been actually spoken, the six surged forward as one and cut off the old man’s retreat. They’d moved impossibly quickly, and while Dmitri hurried to join the circle, Yves’s voice lifted in exaggerated surprise.

“You weren’t avoiding us, were you, old man?”

“I’m tired. I wants ta go home.” He was a laborer by his accent and still more irritated than frightened.

“No one was stopping you from going home,” Yves pointed with poisonous reason. “You haven’t answered my question. Were you avoiding us?”

The man’s head sank lower between the rough edges of his upturned collar. “What if I was?”

“Then you owe us an apology.”

“I owes you an apology?”

“That’s right. One for each of us.”

He sighed again and Dmitri, filling the space between Chantel and Georges, could smell the ale on his breath. The man’s mouth opened, but whatever he’d intended to say got lost in his astonished glance at Dmitri’s face. “What’re you doin’ here?” he demanded. “You don’t belongs with these vermin!”

The six exchanged pointed smiles.

They gave him a moment to realize his mistake, a moment for the dawning horror to blanch the color from his cheeks; then, in a sudden swirl of movement, they were standing on the river’s edge, and the old man was in the water.

He surfaced, lank hair plastered against his scalp, arms thrashing as he fought the pull of his clothing. His terrified gaze locked on Dmitri. “Help me …” He didn’t have breath enough to scream it.

Feeling as though he were caught in some kind of horrible dream, Dmitri stepped forward, only to find Chantel blocking his way.

“He called us vermin,” she reminded him, her voice and manner more like Louise’s than they’d ever been. “
Vermin
. Are we to ignore such an insult?”

“No, but …”

“Oh, look, he’s almost made it back to shore.” Georges dropped to one knee, reached out over the dark water, and grabbed the pale wrist below the desperately grasping hand. A gentle shove put the shore out of reach once again.

“Please …” Voice and thrashing both had grown weaker.

Dmitri stared down at the pale face in the water. It was a joke. Surely they weren’t going to let the man drown. But when he lifted his eyes to the semicircle of fashionably dressed young people avidly watching a man die, he knew it was no joke.

“Are you one of us, or not?” Yves asked quietly.

One of them or not? He felt more like the man in the river, darkness closing over his head, knowing he was dying and knowing he could fight all he wanted but there was nothing he could do to prevent it. And more terrifying still, he had thrown himself from the shore. Then all at once, it wasn’t fancy, it was memory. He could feel the river greedily dragging him down.

He fought his way free and swallowed his fear before it could show.

Was he one of them or not? And if not, where did he belong?

He closed his eyes and made no answer at all.

Which was answer enough.

He couldn’t just stand there with his eyes closed, so he stared across the river at the lights in the distance and tried to remember the last time he’d seen the day; the last time he hadn’t returned home at dawn, slept until late afternoon, and emerged at dusk.

“Shouldn’t have called us vermin,” Yves declared cheerfully, when all sounds of thrashing had stopped.

During the answering murmur of agreement, Dmitri drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and looked at his friends. They didn’t look any different. The old man shouldn’t have called them vermin, he told himself. He was a common laborer; they’re members of the leading family of Pont-a-Museau. How could they ignore an insult like that?

They couldn’t.

Obviously, they couldn’t.

But he didn’t join in their laughter as they walked with him to the second bridge—the bridge leading to Isle Delanuit and Louise—and he stood watching them until they disappeared around a corner, heading for their favorite café.

He walked slowly to the crest of the bridge and stopped again, his attention captured by a shadow drifting by in the water below.
A body? Perhaps. Not the old man, the current would’ve taken him the other way, but there were plenty of bodies in the river. Everyone knew about it. No one seemed to worry about adding one more.

Turning back the way he’d come, Dmitri thought about going home. He wanted to talk to Aurek. Aurek always knew the answers and was more than willing to tell his younger brother what to do—usually it was the most irritating thing about him, but tonight it would be a comfort.

And then, almost as though the gods had read the desire of his heart, he saw a familiar silhouette making its way along the lower esplanade. There could be no mistaking either the breadth of Aurek’s shoulders or the silver line of his braid. Before Dmitri could move to join him, Aurek looked up.

Too far away to read his brother’s expression, Dmitri saw the shoulders slump and Aurek turn abruptly into the dark mouth of an alley. He waited, but no one emerged.

He saw me. I know he saw. His chest felt as though there were iron bands wrapped tight around it. It was just like when he was a kid with four older sisters who made a pet of him and one older brother he desperately wanted to be close to. An older brother who never had time for him.

It wasn’t just the difference in their ages, Dmitri had realized when he reached his teens; it was because he wasn’t smart enough. What difference did it make if he could run faster or fight better than all the other boys his age? Aurek was a scholar, and it was clear that scholarship was all that mattered to him.

Dmitri had finally stopped trying when Aurek had turned away from the awkward words of sympathy he’d offered at Natalia’s death. She’d almost been his friend—would have been, he was sure, had she lived—but his grief and his pain had meant nothing to Aurek.

Not a thing either of them had been able to say—and Dmitri had said plenty—had prevented their sisters from sending them together to Richemulot. Although as Ivana Boritsi’s attraction had grown more marked he’d recognized the need to leave Borca and welcomed the chance for adventure, the last thing he’d wanted was Aurek’s company.

“You haven’t a choice and neither does he.” All four sisters had made that clear. “Perhaps as two adults you can be friends.”

There didn’t seem to be a chance of that happening now.

He’d been shut out of Aurek’s plans and discovered he’d been lied to all his life—Aurek was more than a mere scholar.

And now it was painfully obvious: he was still the younger brother Aurek had no time for.

Brushing the back of one hand over his cheeks, scrubbing away angry tears, Dmitri squared his shoulders and turned toward the black bulk of the Renier estate.

Aurek sagged against a building and wondered if Dmitri would come after him. He was too exhausted, too ashamed of his failure, to endure his brother’s anger.

There’d been nothing but angry accusations between them since Dmitri had begun to keep company with Louise Renier.

Perhaps Edik was right. Perhaps he should tell Dmitri the truth—not the truth about the wererats, for with the loss of the workshop he still needed Jacqueline Renier’s permission to search in Richemulot—but the truth about himself.

Laughing bitterly, he pushed himself erect and continued toward home. He wouldn’t have the faintest idea of where to start. Shall I burden him with the disaster I’ve made of my life? Can I trust him not to share the details with his new friends?

Natalia had believed in the boy, but could he entrust her fragile existence to someone who could, even in ignorance, share the bed of Louise Renier?

He couldn’t risk it.

Vermin Indeed. Trust the Young to Want Immediate
gratification. They should have made the old man suffer for that insult, toyed with him, killed him more slowly. Forced him to watch them devour his steaming entrails …

“Louise?” Dmitri captured one of her hands in his, frowning as he noticed how warm her skin was and how damp her palm. “Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry.” She forced a smile—he need never know she forced it through irritation rather than some gentler emotion—and truthfully explained, “I just can’t help thinking about that old man.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No, I want you to tell me everything. We should have no secrets between us, and this is something that affected you deeply.” Leaning forward, she touched him lightly on the cheek with her free hand. “I want to be there for your pain.”

Missing the double meaning, as he was intended to, Dmitri sighed. “I’m glad somebody does.”

“Aurek! I can’t believe anyone would treat a brother in such a way! Turning his back on you! Reniers would never turn their backs on family!” Watching him wince as her words deliberately rubbed
salt in his wounds, she reflected that, among her family, a turned back usually ended up wearing a dagger embedded hilt-deep. “How I hate to see a family torn apart like this.”

“It’s not my doing,” Dmitri murmured, sliding off the chaise to the library floor and resting his head on her knee.

“I know, dear one. It’s him. It’s all him.” Her voice wrapped him in sympathy and warm concern. “He treats you as if you were nothing.”

“Nothing,” Dmitri agreed mournfully. “He thinks more of that figurine of his wife than he does of me.”

The figurine. The hand that had been reaching down to stroke Dmitri’s hair lifted to rub at Louise’s cheek, though there were no whiskers there to groom. She’d forgotten something, something important about that figurine. She could feel the heat of his sigh against her leg.

“If he had to choose between us, I sure wouldn’t be his first choice. Remember how I told you I picked it up once and he practically threw me out of the house?”

“How could I forget him hurting you like that?” He picked it up! And if he did it once, she thought gleefully, he can do it again. Her brow wrinkled slightly. It seemed very likely that Dmitri’s blood relationship with Aurek neutralized the effects of the protection spell. Or perhaps the spell just wasn’t in place at the time. She considered the possibility and decided that it didn’t matter. If Dmitri couldn’t get her the figurine, then he’d die in the attempt—catering to his constant juvenile self-pity and the perpetual need to shore up his tender male ego was becoming just a tad tedious.