The Burning White (53 page)

“Say, you had me and Tallach jump up out of a pit on purpose, didn’t you? Wait. You made me climb out of a pit—literally! You bastard.”

“Maybe it was just good staging for the speech,” Kip said. But he smiled.

“Maybe.”

“Also, I don’t know how you’re calling
me
a bastard. You used my story.”

Arthur grinned back. “Hell, like I know how to write a speech! Anyway, something something, imitation, flattery, something?”

“I should’ve been way harder on you,” Kip said. “But there’s no worse punishment I could think of than making you a satrap. Every boring meeting you have to sit through in the future, I want you to think if maybe you should’ve been nicer to me.”

“Yeah, thanks!” Arthur said with a rueful grin.

Orholam but it was good to have him back, and have him back with some of his old spirit animating him.

The big man said, “You know, I just thought of something. The thing about using a pickax with half a handle: it’s exhausting.”

“Yeah?”

“So was that your subtle way of telling me it’s exhausting to work with me?” Arthur asked.

“Dammit,” Kip said, “I was planning to hit you with that some
other
day when you were being a pain in the ass.”

Conn Arthur laughed.

Kip thought it was the first time he’d heard the man laugh, ever. It was a magical sound.

And for the first time in a long time, Kip thought that maybe, just maybe, they were gonna be all right.

Before Teia could move, Halfcock doubled back suddenly at some sound she hadn’t heard. Teia froze from old instinct, though she was invisible and hadn’t made a sound.

A woman in her shift came to the door to say goodbye.

Probably not a prostitute, then.

Halfcock gave the woman a kiss, on the lips.

Probably not his sister, then.

And squeezed her butt.

Teia
really
hoped it wasn’t his sister.

Playfully, the woman tried to pull him back inside.

Teia looked away. She didn’t want to see anything approaching tenderness. She reminded herself that it was in this woman’s economic interests to feign feelings for Halfcock. A mistress is more a mummer than a lover. This woman was interested in Halfcock’s coin stick, not his meat stick.

Better?

Better, that derisive part of her that reminded her too much of Murder Sharp admitted.

Teia didn’t know what she’d expected, but the woman was neither very pretty nor very young, both of which were things Teia associated with kept women. But then again, maybe if this woman were very pretty or very young, she wouldn’t live in this neighborhood, nor be a mistress to a man like Halfcock, who had a terrible personality and—despite his skills—wasn’t wealthy. The lowest level of Blackguards were expected to be young, and their elders didn’t want them to have too much money on their hands lest they be corrupted by all those vices that the poor avoided.

Or so the old ones said, as they kept the money and the vices both for themselves.

After some words about how she’d hoped he would stay all night this time, and whispered promises Teia couldn’t overhear, Halfcock pulled away.

Teia had made the right choice. This wasn’ t—thank Orholam—a meeting of Halfcock’s cell of the Order, with this dingy house a front for a secret temple.

Well, unless that woman was in on it.

No, as far as Teia had been able to learn, members of the Order were not supposed to know one another’s identities or fraternize in any special way. Far simpler that she was his mistress, and he was supporting her himself, and she was innocent of his Order ties. Or she might be cheating on a husband, if this was just somewhere they met to make love, but she was still innocent of Halfcock’s Order ties.

Either way, not someone Teia could kill.

The conversation dragged on, and Teia sidled closer to eavesdrop.

“. . . understand . . . retire,” she said. She was turned more away, so Teia couldn’t hear her as well.

“We’re not doing this again,” Halfcock said.

Dammit. That would have been handy.

“Come inside,” the woman said. “It’s practically morning anyway, and I’m freezing. I’ll make you breakfast.”

“Does this place even have a stove?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I, uh, couldn’t get the flue open.”

“Oh, using me for my muscles, I see,” he said.

Please don’t go back inside.

“I thought we agreed you were going to leave right after I did,” Halfcock continued.

“Eliazar is gonna be out all night with his friends regardless, and probably not come home until I can’t smell the liquor on him.”

“But you need to be home before he is,” Halfcock insisted. “Just in case.”

“I don’t know that I
need
—”

“We agreed to certain rules,” Halfcock said sharply. “That’s all that keeps us safe.”

Aha! So it was a love nest. And she was a married woman, it seemed.

Halfcock, you naughty, naughty boy.

Well, his punishment is coming.

“
Safe,
” she scoffed. “You act like there are spies in every alley!”

He cursed. “Promise me,” he said. “You wait two minutes after I leave, then you go.”

“No,” she said. “I’m tired. I’m sleeping here tonight.” Then she lowered her voice and said something else Teia couldn’t catch.

“No,” he said, and then said something else Teia couldn’t hear, but he was obviously getting mad.

The mistress tugged on Halfcock’s nipple through his dark tunic. “Oh? How you gonna make me . . . big man?”

He looked at the sky like a man out of all patience. “You have got to be shitting me. I asked you twenty minutes ago if you wanted to go another—and you said no!”

“You were supposed to ask again.”

“You do this to me every—” He trailed off, sighing at the sky again, but this time his gaze was like one gauging the time. “I am gonna bang you like an open storm door in a tempest, woman.”

She wet her lower lip, a look of erotic triumph in her sudden smirk. “Oops, look at that. I left the storm door unlatched,” she said, hiking her shift up.

He rushed up the steps, and she jumped up on his hips, embracing him, kissing him. He swept her inside, neither of them shutting the door in their haste.

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

Yes, I think it’s exactly for that, T.

She sat down, sighing. Everyone’s got a love life but me. Is everyone getting that much action, or am I just unlucky enough to go out exactly when everyone else is getting lucky?

She stood. Not even a pity party was going to keep her awake if she kept resting.

Instead, she went to the door. Glanced inside.

Halfcock had his lover standing pinned against a wall, her legs around his waist, bouncing her against him as if she weren’t nearly as big as he was. Impressive.

The look of rapture and the delighted gasps from the woman took Teia aback. For some reason she couldn’t have articulated, she’d imagined that really amazing sex was reserved for the young and good-looking. Neither partner here was either.

Huh. Well, go to it, you two. Good for you.

I guess.

She looked beyond them. There wasn’t much to the space. There was only a single room. A feather bed made neatly after the night’s diversions (admirable Blackguard discipline there), towels, chamber pot, a stove with a bit of kindling and firewood stacked beside it. A thick lock and a bar on the front door, and presumably on the back as well, though Teia couldn’t see that. The bed was the closest thing to a luxury; apparently Halfcock saved up for what he really valued.

Love nest indeed.

With loud primal grunts and a sudden alarming squeal, Halfcock finished.

His lover buried her face in his neck, clinging to his shoulders, urging him on. “Don’t you dare, uh, stop. Don’t you—”

Surprisingly, he didn’t, and in half a minute, she cried out, spasming and pushing off the wall. With his trousers around his ankles, he staggered and stumbled, barely making it to the bed before they fell.

He dissolved laughing, and a few moments later, after she regained her breath, she joined him. She kissed his sweaty forehead over and over.

They’re so goddam
happy
.

Great sex? That was one thing. Like, yeah, good for them. One last blast before dying. Let the man have his pleasures.

But joyous companionship?

Teia felt a purple bruise of bitterness that she hadn’t even been aware of, like they’d just kicked it. It was ugly, ugly of her to hate them, but she did. Suddenly, intensely.

She wanted to hurt him.

This is no good, T. You need to expel this poison.

I chose this path. Dumbass that I am, I chose this.

Halfcock rolled off his lover, and Teia saw the reason the slattern had been gasping. The Blackguard’s flag was only flying at half mast now, and Teia saw the full extent of the sarcasm behind his name.

Sure, a woman’s body can stretch. We give birth, after all. But I can’t imagine that even a woman who spoke with the fuzzy nostalgia of the ‘ultimate feminine beauty’ of pushing a baby into the light would want that kind of experience
every time she made love
.

And yet, hierovagus over there lay basking in juicy cetacean satiety.

She gazed at Halfcock with unabashed adoration.

“I don’t want to keep hiding us,” she said. “My son should know—”

He froze, trousers half-laced. Then he finished angrily. “Get the hell out. We’re not talking about this again. I’m gonna be late for duty as is.”

“Don’t be angry with—”

“The hell I won’t!” he said. “I can’t
believe
you.”

“Next week?” she asked, not moving from the bed.

“Up!” he said. “You’re leaving first. You cannot sleep here. You gotta get back. Gimme your key. Eliazar can’ t—”

“You’ll be here, though? Next week?” she asked.

He sighed. “Yes. Now, would you hurry?”

“And we’ll talk?” she asked, getting up and pulling her dress over her head.

“Yes, yes!” he said.

She got dressed and pulled on a cloak as he dressed, too. He glanced toward the open back door, which they had never taken notice of all this time, and slammed it in Teia’s face.

It scared her, though she knew she was invisible.

She heard no more raised voices, and two minutes later, the door opened again. She saw that the lanterns were extinguished in the room behind Halfcock, the front door barred, the folded blankets stacked, and the bedcovers pristine once more. He’d made his lover leave first, then cleaned up. The man might be in a hurry, but he simply
couldn’t
leave a mess.

Too long living in a barracks does things to you.

The paryl was ready. Teia was ready. Through the velvet pistol bag at Halfcock’s right hip, her paryl revealed the exact forward tilt of its grip. A scabbarded short sword was on his left hip.

She’d have to be quick.

Halfcock turned to close and lock the door, key in hand.

Before the door swung shut, she launched herself at the big Blackguard. With fingers of paryl, she enervated both of his knees just before she slammed a shoulder into the small of his back.

She drove his face and body into the door, her hands snatching at the pistol and the short sword.

Her timing was flawless.

Halfcock slammed through the door, smacking his face against the rough wood and careening to the ground inside.

His falling made the pistol bag and the scabbard both pull hard in her grasp, but Teia held on to both of them. She flicked them out behind her into the street. No time to examine the workings or check the load of an unfamiliar pistol, and her shoulder and face were throbbing from where she’d hit the big man. What was he, made of solid rock?

She kept her feet, though, which kept her clear of him. That and disarming him made it a victory, despite the fact that the collision had stunned her, too.

Halfcock’s reflexes were better than she’d hoped, though. A lesser man would have been immobilized. Instead, he tried to launch himself up to his feet a moment before Teia could get a paryl grip on his spine.

His legs below the knee didn’t obey him, and he fell again, farther into his house.

She flicked a kick at his neck.

It caught him mostly across his jaw instead. He rolled with the blow, his legs jamming against the doorframe, and the motion broke the paryl crystals paralyzing his knees.

Teia hesitated. On the long list of things she didn’t want right now, getting stuck in an enclosed space with a bigger and stronger fighter was pretty high up. But she couldn’t get the angle to get at his spine from here.

The advantages of being inside the little house—where they wouldn’t be heard or interrupted—were only advantages if he was paralyzed. Her invisibility was far less helpful in a tight space, where she could be trapped.

But she had to attack or he’d escape and regroup.

She dodged in, kicking, just as he rolled head over heels farther into the house. She was aiming to stab the point of her boot into his kidney, but only half caught him.

He rolled, and rolled again—holy hells, he was fast!

In an instant, he was up on his feet, guarding his pained kidney, gasping, grunting.

He looked around, saw nothing. Maybe he didn’t realize she was invisible yet. He circled quickly, hands up in a guard, trying to get a view out the door, where he assumed his attacker was.

The unexpected motions of his guard broke the reaching tendrils of Teia’s solidifying paryl once again.

Chills shot down her back. She was good at fighting now. She was good at using paryl. She was getting good at using invisibility with the master cloak and even maintaining the fragile paryl cloud around it. But doing them all at the same time?

She was like a marksman also skilled at fencing and grappling, to whom someone had just handed two swords, a musket, and a brace of pistols and plopped her ten paces from a charging spearman. She had so many options to take down the threat, she was going to stand there with her hands full, choosing, until she got skewered.

Halfcock leapt, diving, rolling for the door.