The Bands of Mourning

  “Surely this isn’t enough to convict a man,” the banker said.

  “We’re not looking to convict,” Marasi said, looking through the first ledger. “I just need a little direction.…”

  In the minutes that followed, Wayne got his tower to balance with six separate items, including the stapler, which left him feeling rather proud. Eventually, Marasi tapped on one of the ledgers.

  “Well?” the banker asked. “Did you find your culprit?”

  “Yes,” Marasi said, sounding disturbed. “All of them.”

  “… All of them.”

  “Every rotten one,” Marasi said. “No pun intended.” She took a deep breath, then slapped the ledger closed. “I guess I could have picked one at random, Mister Eriola. But still, it is good to know.”

  “To know what?”

  “That they’re all crooked,” she said, and started fishing in her purse again. “I should have guessed. Most corpses are buried with something valuable, if only the clothing. No use letting that all rot away.”

  The banker paled. “They’re selling the clothing off the dead people.”

  “That,” Marasi said, slipping a small bottle of Syles brandy out of her purse and setting it on the table, “and perhaps any jewelry or other personal effects buried with the bodies.”

  “Hey,” Wayne said. “I’m right dry in the throat, I am. That would sure hit me well, like a morning piss after a nine-pinter the night afore.”

  “That’s horrible!” the banker said.

  “Yes,” Marasi said, “but if you think about it, not too horrifying. The only crimes being perpetrated here are against the dead, and their legal rights are questionable.”

  Wayne fished in his pocket a moment, then brought out a silver letter opener. Where did he get that? He set it on the table and took the drink, downing it in one shot.

  “Thank you for your time, Mister Eriola,” Marasi continued, taking the letter opener and sliding it toward the banker. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  The banker looked at the letter opener with a start, then checked his desk drawer. “Hey, that’s mine,” he said, reaching into the desk and pulling out something that looked like a piece of cord. “Is this … a rat’s tail?”

  “Longest I ever seen,” Wayne said. “Quite a prize. Lucky man, you are.”

  “How in the world did you…” The banker looked from Wayne to Marasi, then rubbed his head. “Are we finished here?”

  “Yes,” Marasi said, standing. “Let’s go, Wayne.”

  “Off to make an arrest?” the banker said, dropping the tail into the wastebasket, which was a crime in and of itself. The thing was almost two hands long!

  “Arrest?” Marasi asked. “Nonsense, Mister Eriola. We aren’t here to arrest anyone.”

  “Then what was the point of all that?”

  “Why,” Marasi said, “I had to know whom to employ, of course. Come along, Wayne.”

  12

  So little had changed since Wax’s youth. Oh, the people at this party wore slightly different clothing: formal waistcoats had grown stouter, and hemlines had risen to midcalf while necklines had plunged, with mere bits of gauze draping across the neck and down the shoulders.

  The people, though, were the same. They weighed him, calculating his worth, hiding daggers behind ready smiles. He met their condescending nods, and didn’t miss his guns as much as he would have thought. Those were not the right weapons for this fight.

  “I used to be so nervous at these things,” Wax said softly to Steris. “When I was a kid. That was when I still cared about their opinions, I guess. Before I learned how much power over a situation you gain when you decide that you don’t care what others think of you.”

  Steris eyed a couple of passing ladies in their completely laceless gowns. “I’m not certain I agree. How you are perceived is important. For example, I’m regretting my choice of gown. I was shooting for fashionable, but fashion is different down here. I’m not in style; I’m avant-garde.”

  “I like it,” Wax said. “It stands out.”

  “So does a pimple,” Steris said. “Why don’t you get us some drinks, and I’ll take stock of the room and figure out where our targets are?”

  Wax nodded in agreement. The grand ballroom was carpeted and adorned with golden chandeliers—though their candleholders glowed with electric lights. The ceiling wasn’t terribly high, but the walls were colorfully decorated with false archways that each held a mural. Classical pieces, like the Ascendant Warrior rising above a flock of ravens—the typical depiction of the Lord Ruler’s wraiths, of whom only Death himself remained.

  Though nobody approached him, they also didn’t avoid him. If anything they remained determinedly in his path, refusing to budge—then acted like they hadn’t noticed him as he wove around them. He was from Elendel, their political enemy, and in not moving they made a statement.

  Rusts, he hated these games.

  The bar covered almost the entire length of the far wall, and was serviced by at least two dozen bartenders, so as to make absolutely certain none of the very important guests had to wait. He ordered wine for Steris and a simple gin and tonic for himself, which got him a raised eyebrow. Apparently that wasn’t fancy enough. Should have ordered straight-up whiskey.

  He turned and scanned the room as the bartender prepared the drinks. Soft music by a harpist helped cover the many conversations. It made him uncomfortable to admit that some of the casual discussions in a room like this could do more to affect the lives of the Basin’s people than putting any criminal—no matter how vile—in prison.

  Marasi is always talking about things like that, he thought. How the lawkeeping of the future will be about statistics, not shotguns. He tried to imagine a world where murders were prevented by careful civic planning, and found himself unable to see it. People would always kill.

  Still, sometimes it was hard not to feel like the one chandelier in the room that still required candles.

  “Your order, my lord,” the bartender said, setting the drinks down on fancy cloth napkins, each embroidered with the date of the party. Those would be for the attendees to take as keepsakes.

  Wax fished a coin from his pocket for a tip and slid it to the bartender. He grabbed his drinks to head back to Steris, but the bartender cleared his throat. The man held up the coin, and it was not a fivespin as Wax had meant to give him. In fact, it was unlike any coin Wax had ever seen.

  “Was this a mistake, my lord?” the man asked. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I’d hate to take something that looks like a memento.”

  The symbols on that coin … Wax thought, stepping back to the bar. They’re the same ones as on the walls in the pictures ReLuur took. He nearly overturned the wineglass of another guest in his haste to grab the coin back. He absently shoved the bartender another tip and held up the coin.

  Those were the same symbols, or very similar. And it had a face on the back, that of a man looking straight outward, one eye pierced by a spike. The large coin was made of two different metals, an outside ring and an inner one.

  The coin certainly didn’t seem old. Was it new, or merely well-preserved? Rust and Ruin … how had this gotten into his pocket?

  The beggar tossed it to me, Wax thought. But where had he gotten it? Were there more of these in circulation?

  Troubled, he struck out to find Steris. As he walked, he passed Lady Kelesina, the party’s hostess and the woman who was his eventual target. The older woman stood resplendent in a gown of black and silver, holding miniature court before a group of people asking after one of her civic projects.

  Wax listened in for a moment, but didn’t want to confront the woman yet. He eventually located Steris standing beside a tall, thin table near the corner. There weren’t any chairs in the ballroom. No dancing either, though there was a dance floor raised an inch or two in the center of the chamber.

  Wax set the coin on the table and slid it to Steris.

  “What’s this?” she
asked.

  “The coin that the beggar threw at me. Those symbols look similar to the ones in the pictures ReLuur took.”

  Steris pursed her lips, then turned the coin over and looked at the other side. “A face with one eye spiked through. Does it mean something?”

  “No idea,” Wax said. “I’m more interested in how that beggar got it—and why he threw it at me. It has to be a relic ReLuur found at that temple. Could he have lost it, or traded it to someone, in the city?”

  He tapped the table with one finger, certain now that beggar had been something more than he pretended. He was equally certain that if he went hunting now, he’d find that the man had vanished.

  Eventually, Wax pocketed the coin. “We have to hope that the answers are in this room somewhere. Assuming Kelesina really is involved.”

  “Then it’s time get to work.”

  “I passed her back there. Shall we?”

  “Not yet. See that couple over there? The man has on a maroon waistcoat.”

  Wax followed her nod. The couple she indicated were young, well-dressed, and smug. Great.

  “That is Lord Gave Entrone,” Steris said. “Your houses have had some minor business dealings—he’s in textiles—which should give you an opening to speak with him.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Wax said. “I courted a cousin of his once. It went poorly.”

  “Well, he’s also on the list your mad kandra made in his notebook, so he might know something. He’s young, dynamic, and well-regarded—but not terribly important, so he’ll work nicely as a first try.”

  “Right,” Wax said, eyeing Entrone, who had drawn a crowd of several more young women as he told a story that involved lots of gesturing. He took a deep breath. “You want to take the lead?”

  “It should be you.”

  “You sure? I can’t help feeling I’d be better put to use with Marasi and Wayne, digging in graves—while you are comfortable here. You’re good at these things, Steris. You really are—and don’t give me any more of your rhetoric about being ‘boring.’”

  Her expression grew distant. “In this case, it’s not that I’m boring, it’s more that … I’m off. I’ve learned to fake being normal, but lists of prepared comments and jokes can only take me so far. People can sense that I’m not being authentic—that I don’t like the things they like or think the way they do. Sometimes it amazes me that people like Wayne, or even those kandra, can be so startlingly human when I feel so alien.”

  He wished he could figure out how to keep her from saying things like that. He didn’t know the right words; every time he tried to argue the point, it only seemed to make her withdraw.

  Steris held out an arm to him. He took it, and together they crossed the room toward Lord Gave and the small crowd he had drawn. Wax had worried about how to break into the conversation, but as soon as he neared, the people talking to Gave stepped back and made room for him. His reputation and status preceded him, apparently.

  “Why, Lord Waxillium!” Gave said with a knowing smile. “I was delighted when I heard that you were going to attend our little gathering! I’ve wanted to meet you for years.”

  Wax nodded to him, then to his date and a couple he’d been chatting with. Those two didn’t retreat.

  “How are you finding New Seran, my lord?” one of the ladies asked him.

  “Seems mighty inconvenient to get around,” Wax said. “Nice otherwise, though.”

  They laughed at that, as if he’d said something humorous. He frowned. What had he missed?

  “I’m afraid,” Gave said, “you won’t find much to interest you here. New Seran is a quiet city.”

  “Oh, but what are you saying, Lord Gave!” the other young man said. “Don’t misrepresent our town. The nightlife here is fantastic, Lord Waxillium! And the symphony has been given a citation of excellence by two of your previous governors.”

  “Yes,” Gave said, “but there aren’t many shoot-outs.”

  The others gave him blank stares.

  “I was a lawman,” Wax told them, “in the Roughs.”

  “A…” one of the ladies said. “You oversaw a city’s constable precinct?”

  “No, he was a real lawman,” Gave said. “The ‘ride a horse and shoot bandits’ type. You should read the accounts—they’re all the rage in the Elendel broadsheets.”

  The three others regarded him with bemused expressions. “How … unique,” one of the ladies finally said.

  “The accounts are exaggerated,” Steris said quickly. “Lord Waxillium has only been directly responsible for the deaths of around a hundred people. Unless you include those who died of infection after he shot them—I’m still not sure how to count those.”

  “It was a difficult life,” Wax said, looking toward Gave, who smiled behind his cup of wine, eyes twinkling. For a man like him, Wax and Steris were obviously good sport. “But that is behind me now. Lord Gave, I wanted to thank you for our years of mutually profitable trade.”

  “Oh, don’t bring business into it, Lord Waxillium!” Gave said, with a tip of his wine. “This is a party.”

  The others laughed. Again, Wax had no idea why.

  Damn, he thought, looking between them. I am rusty. He’d complained, dragged his feet, but he hadn’t expected to be this clumsy.

  Focus. Gave knew something about the Bands of Mourning, or at least ReLuur had thought he did.

  “Do you have any hobbies, Lord Gave?” Wax asked, earning an eager nod from Steris at the comment.

  “Nothing of real note,” Gave said.

  “He loves archaeology!” his date said at the same time though. He gave her a dry look.

  “Archaeology!” Wax said. “That’s hardly unnotable, Lord Gave.”

  “He loves relics!” the lady said. “Spends hours at the auction house, snatching up anything he—”

  “I like history,” Gave interjected. “Artwork from times past inspires me. But you, dear, are making me sound too much like one of those gentlemen adventurers.” He sneered at the term. “I’m sure you saw the type up in the Roughs, Lord Waxillium. Men who’d spent their lives in society, but suddenly decided to go off seeking some kind of thrill or another where they don’t belong.”

  Steris stiffened. Wax met the man’s gaze levelly. The insult, veiled though it was, was similar to those he’d suffered in Elendel society.

  “Better they try something new,” Wax said, “as opposed to wasting their lives in the same old activities.”

  “My Lord Waxillium!” Gave said. “Disappointing one’s family is hardly original! People have been doing it since the days of the Last Emperor.”

  Wax made a fist at his side. He was accustomed to insults, but this one still got under his skin. Perhaps it was because he was on edge, or perhaps it was because of his worry about his sister.

  He pushed down his anger, Steris squeezing his arm, and tried another tactic. “Is your cousin well?”

  “Valette? Most certainly. We are all pleased with her new marriage. I’m sorry your relationship didn’t work out, but the man who courted her after you was dreadful. When titles are part of a union, it’s always unpleasant to see what crawls out from the mists looking for a bone.”

  He didn’t look at Steris as he said it. He didn’t need to. That sly smile, so self-satisfied as he sipped his wine.

  “You rat,” Wax growled. “You rusting, spineless rat.” He reached for his gun, which—fortunately—wasn’t there.

  The other three young nobles looked to him, shocked. Gave grinned in a cocky way before adopting an expression of outrage. “Excuse me,” he said, turning his date by the arm and striding away. The others scuttled after.

  Wax sighed, lowering his arm, still angry. “He did that deliberately,” he muttered. “Didn’t he? He wanted an excuse to leave the conversation, so he insulted me. When that didn’t work, he flung one at you, knowing I’d overreact.”

  “Hmmm…” Steris said. “Yes, you have the right of it.” Steris nodded. Other
people nearby made conversation, but they left an open space around Wax and Steris.

  “I’m sorry,” Wax said. “I let him get to me.”

  “That’s why we tried him first,” Steris said. “Good practice. And we did learn something. The archaeology comment prodded too close to something he didn’t want to discuss. He turned to veiled insults to distract us.”

  Wax took a deep breath, shoving away his annoyance at this entire situation. “What now? Do we try another one?”

  “No,” Steris said, thoughtful. “We don’t want our targets to know that we’re approaching them specifically. If you interact with unaffiliated people in between, our pattern will be more difficult to spot.”

  “Right,” Wax said, looking through the busy hall as the harpist retreated and a full band, with brass—something you’d never see at a party in Elendel—began setting up instruments in her place.

  He and Steris sipped drinks as the music started. Though it was slow enough to encourage dancing with a partner, there was a pep to it Wax hadn’t expected. He found he quite liked it. It seemed to be able to beat out his frustration, turn it to something more excited instead.

  “Why don’t you go there next?” Steris said, nodding toward a distinguished older woman with her grey hair in a bun. “That’s Lady Felise Demoux, accompanied by her nephew. You’ve had business dealings with her; she’s exactly the sort of person you’d be expected to seek out. I’ll refill our drinks.”

  “Get me a seltzer,” Wax said. “I’ll need my mind clear for this.”

  Steris nodded, moving off through the crowd as people made way for dancing in the center of the room. Wax approached Lady Demoux and introduced himself with a card given to her nephew, then requested a dance, which was accepted.

  Small talk. He could do small talk. What is wrong with you, Wax? he thought at himself as he accompanied Lady Demoux to the dance floor. You can interrogate a criminal without trouble. Why do you dread simple conversation?