A look of such keen uncertainty, such anguished delicacy, as her breath catches, a happy sob, a nod, her face tipping up, black curls spilling down her back.
He closes up the phone in his hand, scowl losing itself in the shadows as the light of the screen is folded away.
She’s overwhelmed, again, eyes widening in greenly consternation as her head jerks upright, mouth oohing as her white jacket slips from her shoulders as she lowers a hand, her hands, golden halter draped over her rising breast and falling with a breath, fingers stroking severely yellow hair, the head of the woman knelt before her, the head of the woman knelt behind, the same pale naked swoops of torsos that bookend her, pale hands clutching olive thighs, bare hips, white trousers loosely pooled about her ankles, there on the lapping rugs.
Light blooms unnoticed beside him, flaring from his hand, lasting barely long enough to glimpse once more that scowl, yes, framed by ashen curls, his necktie neatly knotted, the smoothly gleaming wooden haft his descending fingers curl about, the tooling that filigrees the butt and cheek of the axe-head at the top before slipping entirely back to darkness.
Pale shoulders rolling those yellow heads swiveling twisting pressing mouths to work, to lick, kissing sucking nipping and licking again together until the one behind lifts up, sits back, removing her lips to make way for her fingers, and between the two of them she throws out a hand for balance.
He steps from behind the column, toward the three of them, the spread of rugs and pillows, the brightly burning candles, the haft of that axe in both his hands the head of it dropped down swung back and then up, behind and above his shoulders. The one knelt behind her sees him coming and starting back her hand slipped free a swallowed yelp of shock at the swinging glint of that axe through the air and between them ungainly she looks up in time to lurch forward falling managing just to duck the uselessly murderous blow and tumble a-sprawling to fall to one side on the pillows.
The one yellow-headed woman getting her bare feet under herself as the other pushes herself upright to blinking wipe her mouth with the back of her forearm but starting to see that axe held high, his one hand choked up hard by the head of it, reaching with his other hand to shove her aside, stumble to crash into her twin. “False Queen,” he snarls, stepping a polished black brogue onto the rugs.
“Jeffeory,” says Ysabel, rolled over on her back, still trying to kick her feet free of her trousers, “put that – ”
“You,” he says, falling on her, his suited knee driving into her belly, “are deposed,” the words too calm, too cold, too steady, as he hauls the axe around, the edge of it over her throat, his grip tightening. “Your gallowglas whores will,” but that last word snags on something, a puzzlement pinching his brow. He falls away to reveal the Starling crouched behind him, the wide flat blade of an ornate punch dagger protruding from her fist, yellow hair severely straight still swaying from the force of her blow, blinking, sternly worried, but blinking, those eyes of hers changing from blue to brightly green, to icy blue again, to the more earthly color of mud.
“What,” says Ysabel, staring at the bit of bone, a patella, landed on her belly, spangled with a chilly silvery glitter, but that’s when Chrissie, sitting up, finds her breath, and starts to scream.
•
“Hello?” he’s calling, peevishly loud. “Anybody? I’m looking for a, is there, anybody?” Turning about, tall but stooped, plain grey sweats, his dwindling hair clipped close. “Hello?” Up on the unlit stage behind him, to one side of the nubbled green couch, a battered acoustic guitar upright on a stand, the frayed ends of the strings of it, unsprung from the tuning pegs, glinting in the shadows, and the whitely striated shellac yet glossy enough to catch and hold a trace of glow, the afternoon daylight sloping through the windows above, perhaps, and the opened stalls, or maybe the gentle golden light that shimmers just over the rim of that wooden tub, out in the middle of it all. A half-dozen or so, scattered desultorily about, a lar and a lutin, a kobold, a clod, a couple of broonies, a slouching hob, murmur or sip or tinker or pack this or that away, but each of them all of them studiously avoiding any notice at all of his agitation, his frustration, “Anybody?” he calls, headed back toward the one great overhead door, but veering from the threshold toward the foot of that skeletal staircase, bolted to the wall there, under the painted letter-shapes of some long-faded sign.
He’s only halfway clanging up those steps when the door at the top of them bursts open and she steps out, willowy tall and determined, loose white blouse and brief knit shorts of an incongruous check, russet hair framing a pair of narrow black-rimmed glasses. He draws himself up as she ringingly hurries down, “Excuse me,” he says, and louder, “excuse me,” but she’s focused on the bottom of the stairs, angling to slip past, and he reaches to impede her, “excuse me,” he says, “I need to find Marfisa.”
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Stopped there she looks up, from his arm to his face bent over her, abashedly stern, “And who are you?” she says.
“Eddie,” he says. “Auchincloss. I’m, is she,” looking away from the darkly irked eyes behind those narrow lenses, out over the warehouse below, “this is,” wonder creeping, distractedly, into his words, “all this, it’s her place, right? Y’all’ve been busy.”
“Marfisa isn’t here,” she says, stepping down and past, but, his attention yanked back, he reaches to catch her arm, “It’s important,” he snaps. “She doesn’t even have a phone, as far as I can tell, I’m sorry,” letting go, “but I really need to find her.”
“Twentieth and Hawthorne, sometimes,” she says. “The older building, dark brown. Number three one two.” Down below, someone’s ducking in under the overhead door, thinning blond curls and a turquoise summer suit, and she’s turning away again, but Eddie hustles a couple steps down after her, “If you,” he’s saying, “if you see her, before I can find her, can you, could you give her a message?”
She doesn’t nod, looking back up at him, but she doesn’t shake her head, either. Down below the man in the summer suit’s looking back outside, lifting a beckoning hand.
“Tell her,” says Eddie, “tell Marfisa, that Abby Tinker is,” but then he stops, and takes a breath. “Tell her it’s about Abby. And that I need to see her as soon as possible.”
“I will,” she says, but another half-dozen or so men in suits of navy and periwinkle, Prussian, steel and azure and sky, all march in to join the man in turquoise, and after but a moment’s conference fan out to ring the tub. “God damn it,” she mutters, and leans out over the railing to spit. They’re unfolding burlap sacks from their jackets, shaking them open, lofting them over the walls of the tub, some with more reluctance, perhaps, or less alacrity, than others, to settle, limply empty, atop the golden dust within, and the light about them dims, the warmth of it falters.
“Only what you need,” calls a domestic, hesitantly, out from one of the stalls, but “Not a Hound!” cries another, and “Not a Hound!” the chant’s taken up, “Not a Hound!” and she’s clanging away down the skeletal staircase, “Stop!” she calls, but “Begin!” booms the man in the Prussian blue suit, and they all, some with more enthusiasm, perhaps, and less trepidation, than others, set to scooping handfuls of spilling golden dust into those burlap sacks.
“Stop!” she cries again, hurling herself toward them as the chants collapse in peals of alarm, seizing a dark blue shoulder even as someone shoves her aside, silence falling as she hits concrete beneath a trident braced against a turquoise hip, the middled prong of it dimpling her blouse. “Keep on,” says the knight in Prussian blue, though the slither and shuff of shoveled dust never stopped, and he steps to the side of the knight in turquoise, holding that trident, and squats beside her, “Now,” he says. “Who is it you think you are, to interfere so with knights of the court, about royal business?”
“Some of you!” she calls, then, “go! Find Big Jim! Call for the Shrieve! Gloria! Send word to the Helm! Some,” faltering, as the knight in turquoise leans on the trident, but the knight in Prussian lifts a hand, “No, no,” he smiling says, “let them go. We’ll need strong backs to load these on the truck.”
The trident’s lifted away, turned about thump to set the butt of it on concrete, and sitting up on her elbows, she reaches to resettle her spectacles, and suddenly alarm, “Petra!” she cries, surging to her feet. “Stay there! Do not set foot on the floor!”
Halfway up those skeletal stairs, Eddie turns to see a few steps above a woman caught in the act of coming down, black hair in angled swoops to her chin, a bit of black lace ringing her throat.
“Oh, do come down, little gallowglas!” taunts the knight in turquoise, hoisting his trident. About the tub, another knight his shoulders straining a navy blue jacket, stops his scooping, bag gaped darkly in one hand, gold light warming the side of his face, sparking the rough weights that tremble at the ends of his mustaches a moment before redoubling his shoveling with frustrated anger. The bottom of the tub can be seen in growing patches, all about the rim, and they’re having to lean well out over the pile now, to scoop up dust enough. “You’d be the Glaive’s secretary, wouldn’t you,” says the knight in Prussian blue, leaned patronizingly over her. “I am,” she snaps, stepping back, “Anna Nirdlinger, I keep the books, for her majesty, and you, Guerdon,” she sneers, “would be trying to take what isn’t yours!”
“Not ours?” turning to sweep an arm toward the tub, the knights busy about it, “this is the very heart and treasure of the court,” he’s saying, “to be held close, and tight, and safe, portioned out to peers and knights, not piled up in the marketplace!” even as the first of the filled sacks’ hefted heavily out. “And we!” he shouts, eyes wildly wide, “are! the court! We are about the Queen’s business! We are bidden by the King!”
“You,” says Anna, as horror crawls into her voice, her eyes, “he’s,” she says, “you,” and her head begins to shake, from side, to side. “It’s ours!” someone pipes up, and “Ours!” the call taken up, “It comes, it comes from us!” from someone else, and “It comes to us! It comes to us!” and “From us! To us!” the building chant, and “Ours! Ours!”
“In good time!” booms the Guerdon, the Trident beside him, weapon ready, as another sack’s hauled out of the tub. “And in such manner as is prudent, and in such amounts as are provident. The owr,” raising his voice over the mutterings and murmurings, the yelps, the shouts, “the owr is once more safe and secure! The owr is in her majesty’s hands!”