Madame Lucretia needed no trumpet to announce her entrance; the heavy scent of roses and myrrh did the job. Her perfume wafted through to Ari before the bead curtains clattered to reveal a jewelled cane, gripped around her blood-red nails, sharpened into talons.

Her equally blood-red lips curved into a smile as she met Ari’s eyes. ‘So good to see a familiar face.’

Bleuet and Rose straightened their spines. Ari struggled to rise to her feet, but Claribel fastened their body to the seat. ‘So good to see…’ The familiar flanged mace at her waist? ‘…you,’ Ari settled.

~Don’t attempt to stand again. We only stand in the presence of Mother, Duke Auster, the King and the Pope. And perhaps the Queen, if we see her in public.~

‘I see that the girls are speaking of Nanny Jesse again,’ said Madame Lucretia, walking through Claribel’s ghostly form to slide into the seat next to Ari. She tipped back her head, rose earrings swinging, and clicked her fingers at the door.

Bleuet moved unbidden to the station behind Madame Lucretia, feed shoulder width apart, looking more ready to serve shots of the non-alcoholic kind.

Another attendant rushed in, clutching a bundle of scrolls to her fuchsia apron. A tuck sword, much like the one that Ari had eyed at the blacksmith’s, swung from her side. ‘The accounts, madame.’

‘Shine my shoes,’ said Madame Lucretia.

‘Yes, madame!’ The attendant snapped her feet together, too fast and too practised to come from anything other than daily drills. She knelt down, wax and cloth in hand, at Madame Lucretia’s feet.

‘You have the attendants well-trained,’ Ari noted.

Madame Lucretia studied her through cat-like eyes, lightly crinkled with crow’s feet. One-legged. Hop, hop, hop. ‘Do you know what this place used to be? A high-brow lady like you might be unfamiliar with our past, but we used to be a famous establishment of another kind. One day, I had a realisation, watching knights swing at each other. We both sell our bodies, yet the king can run a tournament under bright daylight with the bishop cheering from the sidelines. If the king were to run an event with all my girls, on the other hand… That’s when I refitted the place and retained only a nod to what we once were through our name. That’s when I woke up and chose violence.’ She tapped a spot on the scroll and beckoned Ari closer. ‘“Jesse, from the household of Duke Taur.” See?’

The handwriting was more legible than the one’s she’d struggled through in Claribel’s library, and a red thumb print held the message to account: ‘A pledge of five crowns to Madame Lucretia of La Petite Mort, of which four crowns shall go to the building of the new ship, and one crown shall go to Madame Lucretia due to not having money to pay upfront. Latest date of payment to Madame Lucretia: Midwinter’s Day.’

‘And if she doesn’t pay up by then, I’ll send one of my guards to break her good leg,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘Do you think she has five crowns?’

~For me? Ever since we tried to divide the farmland behind Wingshill House into three, and leave one fallow, plant one with rye, and the third with oats, peas and lentils, we have increased my yield by five crowns.~

~Ten pigs then. That would buy Nanny Jesse her own house and hens, which she should be able to afford if she’d saved up her wages. She used to eat from the same table as the Taur heirs, and sleep in front of their hearth.~

And Madame Lucretia was more than happy to provide her a short-term loan with a cut of interest, just as she’d done for Coell. One woman had created two suspects. Could you measure guilt in crowns?

~Lord Coell had borrowed fifteen, to Nanny Jesse’s five, if you were wanting to compare.~

Or was it about desperation?

‘You know what they say about money?’

‘That it’s the root of all evil?’ said Ari.

‘That you can’t take it with you when you die. Isn’t that a shame. There truly is no rest for the wicked. Speaking of the wicked, I mean Nanny Jesse, I wonder how much Tristram left her in his will. I do so look forward to her payment before Midwinter’s Day. I really don’t enjoy hurting people.’ Madame Lucretia rolled up the scroll and gave her a smirk that said otherwise. ‘After all, I am just here to help. I was kind, lending her that money so she could make more from her investment. I don’t like people taking advantage of my kindness though. I am also being kind to you now, aren’t I, my lady? I am cooperating so that you can catch the culprit that murdered a high-ranking noble, like yourself.’

She clicked her fingers, this time in Rose’s direction, and Rose extracted a thinner scroll from the bottom of her chair. ‘Here’s the menu we’re looking to receive Bronze Guild-Approved Vendor on, from the Guild of Mages. I’m sure you’ll find your experience more than satisfactory today. Outstanding, even. Worthy of a Silver, perhaps? I’m not aiming for Gold, like your guild’s beloved Queen’s Arms, but as the most senior mage assessing my establishment today, if you put in a good word, I’m sure the other two minor mages won’t object.’

‘You could have gained Silver Guild-Approved status had you paid for two Master mages to visit you today, and you do not strike me as short of gold.’

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

‘No.’ Madame Lucretia rose to her feet, and the attendants turned towards the door at once. ‘But when I saw your face, it struck me that I am short of good relations with people like you. Let’s be on good terms in the future, no?’

Before Ari could discuss her options with Claribel, Madame Lucretia’s eyes glinted in a way that Ari’s sometimes did: guards up for danger; excitement rising for its elimination.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Max swept aside the beaded curtain and dipped his head under.

If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

What names had they thrown around back then, way back when…? Connor, Natty, Max and her.

Jesus. Nietzsche. Einstein. Then…

‘What about you, Ari?’

‘I don’t care about any of them. I choose you guys. Just… you guys.’

‘Awww… You can’t, like, pick three though. Which one?’

‘As if you have to ask.’ Connor poured the last of the crisp crumbs into his mouth. ‘It’s going to be Max every single time.’

A blink and he was gone, replaced by Hesperus, all dark-circles and furrowed-brows.

Master-Talkative with the friendly-with-the-carpenter wife, whatever his name was again, had decided to grant her this fake school reunion.

Madame Lucretia seemed to study his face more closely than she’d studied Ari, then scoffed. ‘So good to see a familiar face indeed. Tell me… What do you call yourself?’

‘That’s Hesperus of the blue flames!’ cried Rose, fidgeting with the wheels on her chair. ‘I wanted to thank you last time you dined here, but you looked busy with the other guest… I’m from the tanner’s quarter.’

‘Ah. I see. Then you should curse me.’ Hesperus’s brows furrowed deeper still.

‘But you saved us! You turned Duke Lyoness’s flames against him! I was hoping… May I have a token? A… A twig from your winter crown, perhaps?’

Sure enough, a thin, twisting crown of mistletoe had been braided into his hair, making him look like an exhausted woodland deity. Hesperus snapped off a section, taking out a clump of his hair with it, and placed it in Rose’s lap. Bowing deeply, he said, ‘Sixty-four. That was the number of bodies we could recover afterwards. They must have been your friends and neighbours once upon a time. I should have arrived earlier. I am sorry.’

‘What do you mean? No one else was going to come. At all. Not for the likes of us.’

A cackle from Madame Lucretia drowned out Ari’s callous thoughts: what was sixty-four anyway, when victory was wrought in the clash of ten thousand swords, when civilian death tolls could roll past in quadruple zeros, only to be drowned out by the next headline.

Yet still, Hesperus held his bow, his mistletoe crown glistening white. Give a one a name that’d bring a smile, give a one eyes that held a season pass to her dreams, and it could surpass a hundred thousand. What bow would be enough to atone for six million lives?

‘Aren’t you a seasoned warrior mage?’ Madame Lucretia reduced her cackles to a milder chuckle make way for her words. ‘Don’t tell me you’re too soft to kill a man. No wonder this city is falling into disarray.’

‘I will kill, but I will also live with the consequences. Either way, it has nothing to do with this city. The city is falling into disarray because too many able-bodied men became flames upon the River Whye after the Battle, leaving too few guards to maintain order. It was wise of you to fulfil that role yourself. Eirene has become more peaceful under the protection of your guards, and the ever-increasing number of people borrowing from your ever-expanding reserve of gold is also… notable,’ said Hesperus, flatly. He finally straightened from his bow to burn into Madame Lucretia’s mocking gaze.

‘Don’t we all love a mutually beneficial relationship? I was just having a similar little chat with the lady over there,’ she said, jabbing at Ari with her blood-red claw. Something about the twist of her mouth chilled her to the bone: a memory that refused to resurface from the deepest part of her history. ‘Call it foresight, but I don’t foresee a happy ending for any of us, squabbling so. I’m a forgiving soul. Let’s hope you are too. Why don’t we start on a clean slate? Enjoy my food and my hospitality today. Come find me later if you have other matters to discuss. For now, I bid you a goodbye and bon appetite.’

She left them with the fading whiff of myrrh and the click-clack of her cane.

‘Sorry about the mistletoe, my lady.’ Once they were alone, he lowered himself into the seat that Madame Lucretia had just vacated. ‘My… well, you know him. Finn made it for me, and it’s really stuck. I know it’s too festive for guild business.’

‘Why apologise for hair décor? What were you doing anyway? Playing barbers?’ said Ari, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Or was it the leaden weight in her mind? Had she ever lived with the consequences? Or had she merely celebrated each levelling-up of her [Strength] and [Dexterity], the names of grunts never-learned, and their faces fast-forgotten?

‘It was actually supposed to be my wedding.’

‘What? Why are you here instead of with your–’

‘No, no, a pretend one, where I’m supposed to be marrying… wait, you don’t really think… you are… you are joking, aren’t you?’

Ari let her smile slip through. He didn’t look as much like Max when his face came alive with expressions Max had never worn in the same way. ‘No, I don’t really think you’re a newlywed, but I’d still like to know who Finn was marrying you to. Lady Oriana?’

‘Oh no!’ His frown eased. ‘You’ve talked to him. He’d never let anyone short of a great hero like Levia or Sailan marry her. Not even the great and fearless Susu is good enough. No, I was just me today. I was being offered to Lady Una as a sacrifice so that Lady Oriana could ride on and grab an Eye.’

~It’s an old practice, in case you were wondering. Unwedded folks used to be offered to Lady Una as sacrificial brides and grooms, and if she found them appealing enough, a path would open towards Lake Una, where a brave knight might hope to wrestle an Eye from the Lady.~

But even as she let the conversation stray, a question still niggled at the back of her mind. She wondered, then let her mind wander, imagining Max’s answer. He’d always been top of the class for French.

What was in a name?

Perhaps there was no such language in this world to begin with, even under a different name, in which case the evidence against Madame Lucretia would be damning. But then there should be no madame in the first place.

~Why does it need to mean anything other than a small death? It can be a fainting spell, I suppose.~

If she hadn’t read between the wrong lines, then the place was once a brothel.

She looked up and saw Hesperus staring quizzically at her. ‘Ah. Sorry, a sacrifice. Yes. Do you know why this place is called a small death, as opposed to the big one that you’d probably get when you wrestle Lady Una?’

She passed him the menu on the scroll that the madame had left behind, where ‘La Petite Mort’ had been outlined in red ink, next to a sketch of parted red lips. He shook his head. ‘I only know one language, I’m afraid.’

~Exactly. I know several. Don’t you trust my answer?~

Or something closer to post-medieval slang.

Did Madame Lucretia really wake up and choose violence, or did violence simply descend upon her body one morning, stifling the original her? And to that, she had no answer.