Lessek's Key

THE TOPGALLANT BOARDING HOUSE

The sky had just begun to whiten in the east when Brexan woke. The Ravenian Sea and the salt marsh remained dark, insubstantial in the pre-dawn aven. Slipping into her tunic, she crept into the front room, stoked the overnight embers and put on a kettle of water; Nedra Daubert, the woman who owned the Topgallant Boarding House, was happy to wake to a ready-made fire and a pot of tecan already brewing. She had asked no questions when Sallax and Brexan arrived, dirty, shivering and without any bags, but taken the last silver coin Brexan had and invited the couple to stay on with her until their luck changed.

‘There’s enough silver here to last the next Moon, and that’s with meals,’ she told them, clucking around them in a motherly fashion. ‘If you don’t have any more, or you haven’t earned any by then, well, I suppose you’ll be able to stay on for a while after that. What difference does it make? That dog-rutting Malagon taxes most of what I take anyway.’

Sallax had grinned and they had accepted her offer to join her for a flagon of wine and a few slices of just-baked bread.

For the next twenty days, the Topgallant had seen only two other boarders, travelling merchants who stayed a night or two before moving on, but Nedra’s front room was invariably filled to bursting every night. Her seafood stew was justly renowned. Brexan and Sallax helped out in the kitchen, then, worn out from the countless trips back and forth between the front room, the bar and the kitchen, the three tired workers would eat their fill while Nedra counted the evening’s copper Mareks. Each time they helped, the innkeeper would separate out a few coins, slide them across to Brexan, and say, ‘There’s a bit of spending money, and you’ve earned another five nights’ room and meals.’

Brexan tried to argue that she was being too generous, but Nedra would not listen to the younger woman’s objections. After a while, she realised Nedra loved having company around the Topgallant, and any loss of revenue was a small price to pay. There was no danger of the Topgallant going out of business; the boarding part was just an excuse to have new faces around the house.

Brexan wondered if she might one day live like this: with Versen dead, the former Malakasian soldier worried she might find herself keeping a tidy house, caring for her pets, cooking seven-course meals for one, and suffering in silent loneliness until the end of her days. She would have liked to have stayed on at the Topgallant, keeping her new friend company, but that wasn’t possible. Sallax’s shoulder was growing stronger every day, and it would soon be time to exact their revenge on the fat merchant and the spy. Killing Carpello and Jacrys would result in another wave of citywide raids, public hangings and general unrest and neither she nor Sallax would feel comfortable placing Nedra in harm’s way after all she’d done for them.

Instead, they would move west into Praga in hopes of finding Garec and the staff-wielding foreigner.

When Brexan returned to their room, Sallax was awake and standing at the window watching dawn colour the marsh where Brynne’s body had washed ashore. They had gone looking for her together their first morning at the Topgallant, but Brynne was gone, long ago washed out to sea on a Twinmoon tide. Sallax was recovering well; he stood at the window lifting a heavy log he had pilfered from Nedra’s woodpile, to exercise his damaged arm.

‘Good morning,’ Brexan said cheerily.

‘I did it, you know.’

‘What’s that?’ She folded their blankets and draped them over the foot of the bed.

‘I killed Gilmour, me, Sallax Farro of Estrad. Just me. I did it.’

‘I know,’ she said, straightening the sheets. ‘But Versen told me about Nerak, the one controlling Prince Malagon, and you didn’t have much of a choice. He wasn’t playing fair with you.’

‘I know, but I should be stronger than that.’

‘Aren’t you strong enough? Who else could have survived the way you did, on the streets, eating what you ate?’ She shuddered. ‘And yet here you are, having just bested a Seron with a knife.’ She moved to his side, but he avoided looking at her. ‘You may be the strongest of us all, Sallax, and you’re getting more so every day.’

‘No, I’m not.’ His words fell like stones. ‘There’s something wrong with me, Brexan. Those wraiths did something, and I don’t know if time will be enough to set me free – I don’t even know if I want to be free from it.’

She turned to look out the window with him.

Sallax went on, ‘It’s as if a curtain has been drawn across my mind. For a long time I couldn’t see anything through it, just shadows.’

‘But now?’

‘Now I can see, and think, and remember – some things anyway – but I still can’t find the centre of things. It’s a place in my mind, my heart, my soul… I don’t rutting know, but it’s the place where I used to be, the centre point from which I used to look out at the world.’ He paused.

‘And?’ Brexan prompted gently.

‘Now I’m not allowed back there. For some reason I’m off to one side,’ he gestured, ‘where I can see and think and do, but it’s as if the focal point of me is over there somewhere in the corner and I can’t get back there.’

‘Is that the wraiths’ curse, or is it guilt?’

Sallax grunted in amusement. ‘Which is worse?’

Again, Brexan had no reply.

‘I think the only person who could lift this last veil – and it’s not black any more, it’s just irritatingly dark, as though someone has drawn a cloud over the sun and everything has faded slightly – well, the only way I could open it again would be to see Gilmour, to explain it to him, and to have him tell me that he understands what happened. So maybe it is just guilt. Gilmour never wanted anything except to serve the people of Eldarn – and I arranged his execution. I used to sneak out of camp after everyone had gone to sleep; Steven caught me twice. I would meet him in the forest, or in an inn, wherever he ordered. All I had to do was wander back the way we’d come and he would call to me, reach out for me, pull me in.’

‘Jacrys?’

‘Jacrys. Yes. I told him everything – except that we didn’t have Lessek’s key; somehow that seemed too important, it was bigger than Gilmour and me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that. I hated Rona and everything about Rona, because raiders had killed my family. I truly believed they had been led by Gilmour. I wanted to go to Praga, but whenever I thought about it, something kept me in Estrad. Now I know it was Prince Malagon. The wraith, O’Reilly, showed me that.’

‘But think of the work you’ll do from here on. Isn’t that enough?’

‘I don’t know.’ Finally he looked at her. ‘I wish he were here. I would tell him everything, and then I would beg him to forgive me.’

‘He would.’

‘That’s exactly what Steven tried to tell me the morning Lahp broke my shoulder, but I didn’t want to hear it. I guess a part of me still doesn’t; I need to hear it from him. I suppose when I get to the Northern Forest I will ask him.’

‘Maybe that’s why the wraiths didn’t kill you that night in the river – maybe they realised you needed time to figure things out, and to recognise that Gilmour’s death wasn’t really your fault. Maybe they set you up: gave you a sort of vantage point from where you could see and think and be Sallax of Estrad, but from where you could also observe yourself healing. Maybe they did it on purpose.’

‘They were a marauding band of homicidal monsters, Brexan. They did this to me to amuse themselves. They soaked up my pain and spun it so it would torture me for ever; much more entertaining than simply killing me. You told me that.’

Brexan nodded. ‘You’re right. But perhaps it was a gift anyway.’

‘To live like this?’

‘To live at all. Do something with it, Sallax: make them regret not killing you.’

The sun finally crested the horizon and the salt marsh burst into glistening gold as the sun’s early rays refracted off the thin ice that covered everything.

Shielding her eyes, Brexan said, ‘I think we ought to distract you.’

‘Carpello?’

‘That’s a good place to start.’

Turning back to the window, Sallax squinted. ‘It’s the perfect day for it.’

Carpello leaned back in his chair, watching the girl, Rishta, Rexa, whatever her name was. She had disposed of her skirt as she entered the room and the gossamer-thin, loose-fitting tunic that had already fallen off her shoulders barely covered her tightly encased bottom – those breeches looked painted-on, he thought to himself, barely restraining the drool as he watched for the curve of her breasts through the almost see-through material. Craning in his chair, he felt like a schoolboy. RishtaRexawhatever’s brown hair hung in drooping ringlets, jouncing about and getting in the way: just when he felt certain he was going to get a warm-up glimpse of that delicious young package, her cursed hair swept down like a dressing-room curtain.

What kind of a prostitute was she? You don’t take your skirt off as soon as you come into the room; that’s not how it’s supposed to happen. Carpello felt a flush of anger redden his face; with it came a stirring in his groin. Yes, give her a good beating: teach her some good whoring technique. He felt his body respond to the thought of violence as he watched her pour drinks and slice off slivers of fennaroot – that was mostly for herself, but he would have a slice himself tonight, perhaps two. Have all you want, my dear, he thought lasciviously, for tonight you are going to learn how to be seductive – and what happens when you get it wrong…

RishtaRexawhatever stood up, the loose neckline of her tunic falling closed, and stared vacantly at Carpello: too much fennaroot. Now she was adrift in a narcotic dream of colourful nymphs, floating castles and great winged horses, and that made Carpello angry, that the girl was so wrecked before she’d completed her night’s work. His anger fuelled his erection; he didn’t care; his pleasure was yet to come and she would do just fine – in fact, once she realised what was about to happen, that might even sober her up; it did so many of them.

Although he didn’t much like using whores, especially fennaroot addicts like this one, they all retreated back into that state of youthful shyness he desired. It was true that they couldn’t cry like the virgins when they finally understood where he was about to take them; those nights were like grand holidays, glorious events – but even the most street-hardened prostitute managed a satisfactory squeal or two when she realised what was happening to her.

There was no fighting back, of course: Carpello was not a strong man, but he knew how to use his considerable weight to his best advantage. This street whore with the droopy hair and the floppy breasts would be shrieking in terror and pain before the night was over, and no fennaroot haze was deep enough to protect her from that.

As she eyed him in what he was certain she considered a seductive manner, Carpello thought she looked like she had just smelled something disagreeable. He longed to beat that absurd pout off her face. Standing fully erect now, rock-hard in his excitement, he moved to take her. RishtaRexawhatever pulled the thin tunic over her head, exposing a soft roll of flab hanging over her skin-tight breeches. Carpello, distracted by it, ignored the breasts he had been trying so diligently to glimpse earlier; having them bared in front of him wasn’t nearly as enticing.

‘You’re fat,’ he said, amused.

She giggled, sucking on one fingertip and beckoning him closer.

Carpello smiled, but made no move to unfasten his belt; there would be time for that later.

When he punched her in the face, she screeched, a short, high-pitched, wavering cry, and as RishtaRexawhatever tumbled over the table, spilling the wine and fennaroot onto the floor, Carpello felt himself about to burst. She rolled onto her side, still too lost in her drugged haze to cry, and pushed herself up on one arm, shaking her head as if to clear it. Then Carpello kicked her in the ribs and she fell back to the floor again, wheezing, fighting to catch her breath.

RishtaRexawhatever reached up feebly to ward off the huge man descending through the hazy fog of her nightmare, but it was too late.

He was on her.

Normally he preferred to start slowly, squeezing a breast a bit too firmly, or biting a little too deeply, and sometimes he would be gently corrected, told he was playing too rough, and then, then he would deliver his first few punches, still nothing brutal, not that early, for he liked to feel his excitement build, the great waves of pleasure in his loins intensifying and he raised the levels of brutality: beating, biting, scratching, choking- until he felt himself explode in pleasure.

But tonight he was too angry, angry that he had allowed her so much fennaroot; that he had allowed her tunic and hair to infuriate him; that he had not made her put her skirt back at the start… Although he was aroused, the little slut had already cheated him out of a night of true ecstasy by forcing him to hit her so hard and so early. She was a sneaky whore, a trickster slut prostitute with a roll of flab, two floppy breasts and a filthy, sneaky demeanour, and he hated that about her, and now he would make her regret tricking him into punching her.

Carpello’s heart was hammering; he was soaked in sweat and panting. He had to get himself under control or he would fall over, dead… He raised his fist, his fat fingers closed together tightly in a vicious human cudgel. On the floor, RishtaRexawhatever squirmed, moaning and slapping at his great bulging gut with her hands, tiny little things in comparison with his; Carpello barely felt them.

‘You ruined what could have been a pleasant evening,’ he gasped. ‘You tricked me, and I don’t appreciate that. I wanted this to be a nice night for both of us, but now you’ve ruined it, and I have to punish you.’

‘No, plea-’ RishtaRexawhatever’s voice failed as Carpello’s fist slammed into her face, shattering her nose and sending frothy, mucus-filled blood splattering across her cheeks and onto his expensive rug.

‘There we go,’ Carpello shouted, almost singing, rubbing his erection furiously against her stomach as she writhed, desperate to escape. He reared back again. ‘One more just like the last, what do you say?’

The prostitute screamed, the fennaroot fog well and truly dissipated now, and a great white light burst in her mind as unbridled terror took over. She wailed like a child, terrified of the dark, still hitting fruitlessly at his immeasurable bulk, but he didn’t budge. RishtaRexawhatever tumbled away into the dark recesses of her mind as she waited for the great hammer of his fist to fall back into her face.

There was a thud, an audible grunt.

Then Carpello fell off her. He slumped to the floor and she heard the wine goblets clink together. Something broke – maybe the ceramic plate she’d sliced the fennaroot on.

Then there was silence, broken only by her ragged, uncontrollable sobs.

‘Up here, dear,’ a soothing voice said after a while. Rishta-Rexawhatever felt someone take her by the forearms and she lashed out again, shrieking, ‘No! No! Get off!’

‘It’s all right,’ the same voice said calmly, kindly, ‘It’s all right. He’s gone. She felt the hands take hers; they were small, a woman’s hands. Slowly she forced open one eye – the other was already swollen shut – and she could dimly make out a pleasant-faced woman kneeling beside her holding a blanket. ‘Here, wrap yourself up in this and let me help you up,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

Name? The question rattled around in her head; after a while she whispered, ‘Rishta.’

‘Here we go, Rishta, drink some water, and then let me look at your face. Is anything broken?’

‘I- I don’t know,’ she croaked. ‘I hurt all over, but I don’t think so.’ With the strange woman’s help she managed to limp to the armchair the merchant had been using, but the stench of his musty sweat rose up from it and she started shaking again. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘I can’t sit here.’

‘All right,’ the woman said, helping her up again, ‘let’s try here.’

As Rishta sat down on the ornately carved sofa, adrenalin flushing the last of the drugs from her system, she tried to regain some composure. For the first time she realised there was a second man in the room with them. Carpello lay still on the floor. ‘Is he dead?’ she asked in a soft voice, as if he might hear.

‘Gods-rut-a-whore, but I hope so,’ the woman replied, then added, ‘Sorry.’

She didn’t sound in the least bit sorry and despite herself, Rishta laughed. Pain flared from her broken nose. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve heard worse. Who are you?’

‘I’m Brexan Carderic. This is Sallax. Please don’t worry – we came to get him.’ She gestured towards the hummock of flab splayed awkwardly across the floor. ‘He’s a killer, a traitor.’ Brexan pulled a chair up and sat down. ‘Rishta, I need to set your nose. It’ll hurt like a rutting mule kick, but it’ll have to be done. I see you’ve had a bit of fennaroot-’

A bit too much,’ Rishta admitted. ‘I might throw up.’

‘I don’t care. I hate these rugs anyway. You can chuck up all you like. If you’ve got a little fennaroot in your system, this won’t hurt as much as it would if we waited an aven or two.’

The prostitute trembled. ‘Do we have to? Is it bad?’

‘It’s fine if you want to smell what’s cooking off to starboard for the rest of your life.’

Again Rishta laughed. ‘All right, go ahead, but try to be quick.’

‘Okay, let’s have you lying down. I think it’ll be easier that way.’

Rishta pulled the blanket tighter and allowed herself to be stretched out on the soft cushions of Carpello’s sofa. ‘Maybe this way I can bleed and throw up on his furniture too,’ she mumbled, trying not to show her fear.

‘We’ll make an evening of it,’ Brexan agreed. She reached for the girl’s shattered nose, clasped it firmly and, without warning, shifted it back into place. As the cartilage crunched beneath her fingers she felt her stomach flop and a gust of nausea blew through her.

Rishta’s screech faded to a moan.

‘You rest there for a while,’ Brexan said. She looked around and picked up the napkin that had been covering the fennaroot platter. ‘Here, for the blood,’ she said, passing it to Rishta.

‘Thank you – I think. Is it straight?’ She mopped up the fresh blood and squinted with her one good eye, but she couldn’t see a thing.

‘Nearly perfect.’ Brexan said as she considered her handiwork. ‘It looks a good deal better than mine, even all swollen and bloody. Imagine that.’

Rishta giggled, wiped away tears and blood, and rested her head back against the cushions while Brexan turned to Sallax.

‘Is he dead?’ she asked quietly.

‘No.’ Sallax grimaced.

‘Good. Let’s wake him up.’ She picked up a jug of water standing on a sideboard and walked back to Carpello. ‘I’m surprised that didn’t kill him, Sallax,’ she said, looking down at the swollen, bloody lump bulging from the back of his head, then poured the water over him and stepped back.

He groaned, and tried to roll over, then caught sight of Brexan and Sallax. He began to sob. ‘What are you doing here?’ he whimpered.

‘We’ve come to kill you,’ Brexan answered matter-of-factly

‘But I posted guards!’ Carpello whined. ‘I’ve had an escort ever since you escaped.’

‘Guards?’ Brexan was amused. ‘My sister could have run them through with a knitting needle. Sallax eats guards like that to stay in shape.’

‘I like them with red wine,’ Sallax interjected.

Brexan grinned; Sallax’s first real joke.

‘You can’t just come in here and kill me,’ Carpello moaned, ‘I did nothing to you, it was all Jacrys, he killed Gilmour, not me. Why would you come here?’ He turned to Brexan. ‘And who are-?’ He froze, a dawning recognition in his face. ‘You? But you can’t-That swim; it was too-’ His voice tailed off and he went even whiter. ‘You can’t have lived,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, but I did,’ Brexan said. ‘We both did.’

‘Versen.’

Brexan flushed with anger and kicked Carpello hard. ‘Don’t you ever say his name again, you-! Don’t you ever say it! Do you understand?’

Carpello wailed, ‘It wasn’t me, I didn’t want anything to happen to you, I would have brought you back to Orindale, but you had to-’

‘Shut up, just shut up!’ She kicked him again.

Behind her, Rishta slipped out of the blanket and began hurriedly pulling on her clothes.

Brexan shouted, ‘You tied him up, you dragged him behind your ship: you don’t tell me what you would have done because you didn’t. I was there!’

Rishta looked around for her shoes.

‘Your Seron?’ Brexan lowered her voice a little, but to Rishta she sounded even scarier. ‘Old scar-face? It took almost all day for him to die. I watched him. With you it will take longer.’

Carpello lifted his face to Sallax and cried, ‘Please, don’t let her do this to me! Please don’t.’ He was as reprehensible a human being as Sallax had ever seen, his whole fat, filthy, sweat-soaked, blood-streaked body quivering. It made Sallax feel sick just to look at him.

He kneeled beside Carpello and leaned in close. ‘Ren,’ he whispered, ‘do you remember Ren?’

Versen’s voice reverberated in the merchant’s head. You’ll be dead, and she will make it last for Twinmoons… He wiped his arm across his face. ‘What was she to you, Sallax? That was a long time ago.’

‘You cut off your mole,’ Sallax said.

‘He did,’ Brexan said, ‘and I wanted to do that myself, to put it on a string for Brynne to wear on holidays.’

‘Brynne? That was her name?’

‘Brynne was – is – my sister, and you should thank the gods of the Northern Forest she’s not here with us today.’ Sallax lashed out with his knife, so fast it was almost blurred, and sliced the end off Carpello’s nose.

Not realising what had happened, he reached up, feeling for his face like a blind man. His fingers came away soaked in blood, and Carpello began to scream.

Rishta screamed along with him and ran for the chamber door. Before Brexan and Sallax could stop her, she was out of Carpello’s apartments and into the hallway.

‘Rutters,’ Brexan cursed. ‘That’ll bring the neighbours. We have to get him out of here.’

‘Right,’ Sallax said, and clubbed Carpello with the hilt of his knife. ‘How are we going to carry him?’

‘I don’t know.’ Brexan looked nervous. ‘We’ve got to take him to find out what he’s shipping to Pellia. Garec and the others need to know and this bloated piece of rancid meat is the only one who can tell us.’

‘Not the only one.’

‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘We’re not talking with him.’

‘What do we do?’

‘Bind him. Bandage his nose – wrap his whole rutting head if you want. Wait a quarter-aven, then haul him down the stairs. I’ll find a cart or a wagon and we’ll wheel him up to the Topgallant. We can interrogate him there.’

Sallax nodded agreement.

‘Oh, and take whatever silver you can find – when the investigators come, I want them to think it was a robbery. Plus, we owe Nedra.’ She pulled up her hood, slipped into the hallway and ran swiftly down the wooden stairs to the street.