The underwear stopped twirling and wilted limply about Maldynado’s finger. He cleared his throat, but by the time he’d turned to face Yara, he’d reclaimed a calm smirk. “Of course, but I have no need to seek out such personages any longer. I’ve found true love.” He beamed a smile at her.
Yara scowled and stabbed a finger at the string undergarment. “You expect her to wear that? It’s ludicrous.”
“I was suggesting he wear it,” Amaranthe said.
“That’d be even more ludicrous,” Yara said.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Maldynado stretched the strings and considered the tiny triangle of emerald green material in the center. “It’d be too small to hold anything of mine in, but it’s a lovely hue. Perhaps this could lie beside my… appurtenances. Like a flag meant to highlight a particularly fine specimen in a garden.”
Amaranthe shook her head and met Yara’s eyes, half-expecting her to slap him on the back of the head. “When he started associating with you, I thought he might be encouraged to say less… well, less.”
“You mean you thought I’d beat such nonsense out of him? I’m working on it.” Yara waved a fist under Maldynado’s nose.
He winked. “Alas, I’m an obstreperous student.”
“Just find her some suitable clothing, so we can get out of here, you clod.” Yara thrust a hand toward the window where another squad of men was marching past. “There are soldiers crawling all over this neighborhood.”
“Yes, you’d think Millinery Square was on the way to a particularly boisterous drinking house,” Maldynado said.
“We’re less than a mile from the Imperial Barracks.” Amaranthe squeezed a little deeper between the clothing racks. “I’m sure Ravido is keeping these neighborhoods heavily patrolled so he’ll get an early warning if anyone marches on his new home.”
“A good reason to finish up and get out of here.” Yara handed Amaranthe two dark brown glass bottles. “Here’s the bleach and the dye.”
“Let me see those.” Maldynado intercepted the exchange and held the bottles to the light, examining the labels. “You don’t want the cheap stuff. Your hair will turn orange. Or white. Then you’ll look old.”
Amaranthe stuck a fist on her hip. “I will not look old.”
“Add it to those bags under your eyes, and you will. Don’t you sleep?”
Yara smacked him.
“More than you,” Amaranthe blurted. It was the first thing that came to mind. Cursed ancestors, could everybody tell she wasn’t sleeping? “Akstyr was complaining this morning about all the furniture moving that was going on in the room you two claimed for your own.” When the truth struck too close to the target, and a suitable comeback wasn’t available, divert the topic of conversation.
“Furniture moving?” Maldynado blinked a few times before a fresh smile sprawled across his face. “Ah, yes. Furniture moving.” He winked at Yara, eliciting a deep blush from her. “It is invigorating. And you sleep like a turtle basking on a log afterward. You should try it, boss. For health purposes.” He tapped his jaw thoughtfully. “Though I’d recommend you try it with somebody fun. For maximum effect.”
Not Sicarius, Amaranthe assumed that meant. This new shift in conversation wasn’t any better than the last. “Still lobbying for Mancrest?” she asked.
“Nah, he’s a grump of late too. Maybe I can find you a sexy young wrestler at the gymnasium.”
“Let’s… focus on acquiring this costume and getting out of here. Finishing this mission will be the best thing for my health.” Amaranthe grabbed the dubious underwear from his grip. If it would move them onto the next round of this dueling bout, she’d take it.
Yara’s mouth drooped open at the garment exchange, but her cheeks were still red, and she didn’t comment.
“Oh, sure,” Maldynado said. “Let’s hurry up and get you onto a ship full of old matrons. Just where a young woman in need of a furniture mover should go.” He lifted his eyes skyward and strolled into the bowels of the shop.
“Don’t stop yourself from punching him on my behalf,” Amaranthe told Yara. “He could use a little—” A flash of light outside of the window caught her eye.
Another squad of soldiers was marching past, identical to the others except for the leader. The man walking at the head of the column had salt-and-pepper hair beneath his cap and a row of medals hanging on his jacket. The sunlight glinting off them—or perhaps off the large four-sword brass rank pins on his lapels—must have been what had drawn her eye.
“A general,” Yara whispered, slipping behind the garment rack with Amaranthe.
“Not just a general.” Amaranthe hadn’t seen Ravido in person before, but he possessed Maldynado’s chiseled jaw and high cheekbones. If all the Marblecrests looked like that, she’d never misidentify one.
“Let’s hide,” Yara said at the same time as Amaranthe said, “Let’s see where he’s going.”
Yara snorted. As soon as the last soldier’s back was to the clothier, Amaranthe slipped out from between the racks and jogged to the window. She leaned close to the glass, only to jerk her head back. The entire squad of soldiers had halted at the shop next door.
A commanding bark of, “At ease,” passed through the window. The soldiers broke ranks, no longer all facing the same direction. More than a few eyed the surrounding stores.
Amaranthe scurried sideways, ducking behind a thick, velvety curtain. She peeled back an inch so she could see out the window without—she hoped—anyone seeing her. Someone leaned an irreverent elbow onto a weathered headless statue perched between the clothier and the building next to it—a military uniform shop, she recalled. Was Ravido shopping for new belts? She pressed her nose against the glass. Gray mingled with the brown in the hair of the man leaning on the statue, and she realized it was Ravido himself. What was he doing? Waiting for someone?
A sergeant barked a few orders to the squadron, but Ravido said nothing. His head did move, though, and Amaranthe stood on her tiptoes, trying to follow his gaze. A second officer, this one with slate-gray hair and a colonel’s rank pins, strode down the street, also with a squad of soldiers trailing him.
In the back of her head, Amaranthe acknowledged that this probably wasn’t a good place for her to loiter, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spy on the opposition. Even if it was some sort of military shopping trip, she might be able to glean a—
A throat cleared behind her.
Amaranthe jumped, letting the curtain fall as she spun about. The store proprietor stood not three feet away, both hands on her hips, her lips pursed as she stared through her spectacles and down a long nose at Amaranthe. When she noticed the nose print on the window, those lips went from pursing to puckering. She couldn’t have made a sourer face if she’d been sucking a lemon.
Yara stepped away from the other curtain, a defiant lift to her chin. Feeling like a kid caught stealing pies from windowsills, Amaranthe couldn’t manage the expression.
“Are you ready to make your purchase?” the proprietor asked.
“My what?”
The woman pointed to Amaranthe’s hands. Erg, she hadn’t realized she was still carrying the skimpy underwear around. At some point, she’d draped it over one wrist. “I, ah, yes, but my designated shopper will be making the purchases. I believe he’s—we’re—getting quite a few things.” She held out the underwear, stealing a glance toward the window as she did so. Ravido no longer leaned on the statue, and the other officer had disappeared as well. “Would you mind putting this with his—our—other purchases?”
“Your designated shopper? Is that the dandy wandering around with a peacock-feather hat on his head?”
Maldynado hadn’t come in wearing a hat, but Amaranthe said, “That sounds like him. He’ll handle the rest. We need to meet a friend. Can we use your back door?”
The proprietor checked outside the window, no doubt noticing all the soldiers. “Your friend awaits in the… alley?”
“He doesn’t like cro
wds.” Amaranthe gave a cheery wave and hustled away before the woman could interrogate her further. She hoped her actions hadn’t already made her suspicious enough to report.
On the way to the back door, she passed Maldynado, who was indeed trying on hats, decidedly masculine hats designed to fit his head, not hers. Numerous feminine garments—not so feminine as the string underwear, thank his ancestors—were draped over his arm, so Amaranthe didn’t chastise him for wandering off task.
She stopped long enough to whisper, “Keep the proprietor busy, will you? She may have decided Yara and I are… suspicious.”
“You’re aware,” Maldynado said, “that it takes a special kind of female to get in trouble while clothes shopping, right? Women are supposed to be naturals at this.”
“Sorry.” Even as she apologized, Amaranthe hastened toward the door. They might not get another chance to spy upon Ravido. She didn’t intend to miss it.
Belatedly, when she was already in the alley, it occurred to her that she should have warned Maldynado his brother was next door, or at least told him that she meant to poke her nose into a pregnant badger’s den. Well, if gunshots fired and chaos broke out in the street, he’d know she’d found trouble.
Surprisingly, Yara followed her into the alley.
Amaranthe asked, “Are you coming because you’re curious, too, or because you think I’ll need someone to keep me out of trouble?”
“Yes.”
“I see you’ve been training with Sicarius.”
Amaranthe climbed three steps to the back door of the neighboring shop and tugged on the latch, relieved to find it unlocked. She slipped into a dark cubby cluttered with officers’ dress uniforms and fatigues in various stages of customization. Baskets of pincushions and spools of thread littered a workbench. Brown curtains sectioned the work area off from the rest of the shop. As soon as Yara closed the door behind her, cutting off the outside light, Amaranthe crept forward and parted the curtains an inch. She pressed her eye into the gap while listening for familiar voices.
It would have been convenient if Ravido and his chum had been chatting in front of her peephole. Alas, they were near the front of the shop, some thirty feet away. Racks and shelves filled the space between, along with several soldiers shopping for themselves. Not five feet from the curtains, a bald man in a vest adorned with as many needles as the pincushions, tutted to himself as he worked on the trousers of an officer standing before a mirror. Up front, Ravido was talking, but Amaranthe couldn’t make out a word.
She let the curtain fall shut, then leaned close to Yara’s ear to whisper, “I’m going to get closer.”
“How?”
Amaranthe mimicked Basilard’s hand gesture for a snake moving through the grass.
Yara peeped through the curtain, no doubt considering the likelihood of using the intermittent cover to remain hidden from all the shoppers. There weren’t any other women in the establishment.
“I’ll stay here,” Yara whispered. “I wouldn’t make a convincing snake.”
“Never had to slither across a field to sneak up on criminals, eh?”
“In my experience, it’s usually the criminals who partake in such actions.”
Amaranthe waved a hand in agreement, then dropped into a crouch at the side of the curtain, as far away from the tailor as possible. Working with Sicarius had given her copious practice in sneaking about. Now to see if she could employ the lessons in a clothes shop instead of in woods or alleys.
The tailor bent to examine a trouser cuff. The officer was admiring his form in the mirror. Amaranthe slipped out, forgoing the instinct to rush in favor of a less urgent move to the nearest case of shelves. Rapid movement would be more likely to draw the eye.
When no startled shouts arose, she considered herself past the first obstacle. It took another five minutes to slip around and wriggle under sweater cubbies and jacket racks, all the while making sure nobody was turned in her direction. She feared Ravido would be done talking about important things by the time she reached him and would be discussing reputable eating and drinking houses.
That’s ridiculous, she told herself. Chances were he’d never been talking about “important things” to start with, not in the middle of a busy store. Still, she held out hope that she’d overhear something worthwhile.
As she belly-crawled the last ten feet, Ravido’s voice finally grew distinguishable, though she struggled to hear all the words. He and his confidant were keeping their voices low, and the racks full of clothing muffled their words further. How irritating when the villains didn’t enunciate clearly when discussing dastardly plans. Didn’t they want everyone in the store to be impressed by the cleverness of their schemes?
With trouser cuffs swiping the top of her head, Amaranthe inched closer. Her movements stirred strands of thread and clumps of dust on the floor. The fine particles tickled her nostrils, and she crinkled her nose to keep from sneezing. It’d be hard to explain herself if someone hauled her out from beneath the garment racks.
She inched closer. The light from the storefront window highlighted two pairs of brown leather military boots, recently shined and rarely scuffed military boots.
“…Company of Lords,” Ravido said, his low baritone drifting down to her. “They’re being pests about the boy because there was no body. If I’d been running that train attack, I would have grabbed a random charred corpse and brought it back for a public funeral pyre. Cursed women.”
“You’re the one working with them.” The other officer had a gravelly voice, like someone might have tried to garrote him once.
His boots turned toward Amaranthe, and a squeak sounded as he pushed hangers across a metal bar. She scooted back, nearly cracking her head against the rack stand. More voices sounded as other customers entered through the front door. Wasn’t this a workday? Shouldn’t these officers be out ordering their soldiers to do important military things?
Conscious of someone walking by behind the rack, Amaranthe tucked her legs to her chest to make sure nothing was sticking out on the other side. Her movements stirred dust, and she pinched her nostrils shut to stave off a sneeze. What kind of self-respecting rebel leader sneezed on the usurper’s boots?
“Sorry about your wife,” the second officer added once the new shoppers had moved into another aisle.
Amaranthe grimaced. She hadn’t heard all the details when it came to Maldynado’s sister-in-law’s death, but suspected her team would get blamed for it. She pulled out a kerchief and swept up some of the dust balls.
“Yes, thank you, Horat,” Ravido said. “It’s hard to find a woman of the proper lines who’s horny and unfaithful.”
His comrade, Horat, grunted. “You’ll miss her. You’re just as horny and unfaithful. You had a good arrangement.”
“I’m more concerned about arranging things with the Company of Lords right now. Unless I’m willing to replace every dissenter in the chamber, it won’t matter how many troops I control or how much of the city I take over. If they don’t make my claim for emperor official it isn’t.”
The hangers squeaked and the men’s boots shifted again as they grunted greetings toward someone passing, then turned their backs toward the room. A couple of salutes might have been exchanged, but it was hard to tell from under the trousers.
“You can replace people,” Horat said. “It’s been done in the past.”
“I know, but killing a bunch of warrior-caste men would set a bad precedent for a new ruler. Your father’s on the Company. Talk to him, will you?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“I’ve already promised you the Commander of the Armies position,” Ravido said. “What more do you want?”
“You could send a few of the younger, more buxom women in that business organization to warm my toes at night.” Horat chuckled. “No, I jest. I’ll talk to Father. But you better figure out if the boy is really back in the city. With your family connections, you could have most of the votes from the Compan
y if you could prove he’s dead, but if he’s not…”
Amaranthe’s kerchief stilled. The boy. Sespian.
“If he was dumb enough to come back here, he won’t be alive for long. If my men don’t get him, there are others who will. Besides, my contacts said he’s not even the legitimate heir.”
Horat let out a low whistle. “Truly?”
“I’m surprised the papers haven’t run the story yet. They—”
“Lords General?” came a solicitous call from a few racks away. “I have those uniform designs ready for you to look at now.”
“Good,” Ravido said.
As the two men walked away, the last thing Amaranthe heard was Horat saying, “You better find something you like this time. Those gutter-swinging gang brats can do better than sashes tied around their arms.”
“One can’t rush fashion decisions, old boy,” Ravido said, for a moment sounding exactly like Maldynado. “An impeccably dressed army is full of pride—it makes your men fight better.”
If Horat had a response, Amaranthe didn’t hear it. A pair of alligator-skin boots with lizard-riding spurs clanked into view behind her. She vaguely remembered Maldynado mentioning the Kendorian attire was growing popular in the capital. It hardly mattered. She took the foot traffic as a sign that it was time to scoot out of the shop before someone spotted her. She turned about, preparing to scurry to the next rack as soon as the man passed, but a silver ranmya coin clunked onto the wooden floor and bounced under the rack with her.
She stifled a groan. If he noticed and stopped to hunt for it…
The alligator boots halted, and the man turned around. A knee came into view, then a hand touched down, patting the floor not inches from Amaranthe’s legs. For lack of a better idea, she picked up the coin and rolled it back out into the aisle. Maybe he’d think it had bumped against the rack stand and was coming back of its own accord—his lucky day.