The Masked City (22 page)

‘Not that. Look at the people!’

There was a moment of silence. Now that they were closer it was possible to get a good look at the people loitering along the pavements, even through the shrouding fog. Some were visible through windows, or in other gondolas, and the most obvious common denominator, Irene realized, was that they were all wearing
masks
.

‘Is it Carnival?’ Irene asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Martha shrugged. ‘It’s Venice. So of course it’s Carnival. Why didn’t I
think
of that!’ She slapped her hand against her thigh. ‘I need a mask!’

‘We all do, or we’re going to be obvious and out of place,’ Athanais said. ‘Clarice, you’ve got to ask our boatman to take us to a mask shop first. Please?’ He made big soulful eyes at her. Again, she felt relieved that her cover as one of them seemed to be holding. For now, at least.

It’s Venice, so of course it’s Carnival.
Martha’s words echoed in her head. Venice as the dream, not as the reality. No wonder the water smelt pleasantly of salt, rather than of sewage or worse. No wonder they’d managed to catch a boat easily, rather than having to wait for ages and then haggle the man down.

Our best dreams - but our nightmares, too? No, better not think that, just in case. Because what if thinking makes it real?

Irene informed the boatman of the change in plans, then smiled at the others. ‘It’s nice to know you all trust me to do the talking.’ She hoped she wasn’t pushing the casual nonchalance too far.

‘If you can’t trust a total stranger whom you meet on the train, who can you trust?’ Athanais said lazily. ‘It’s not as if we were plotting to murder each other’s enemies, after all.’ Whatever his origin, he was apparently a Hitchcock fan.

‘Of course not,’ Martha said quickly.

‘Definitely not,’ Sterrington agreed.

‘Quite absolutely not,’ Zayanna murmured.

‘Such illegalities would be not thought of,’ Atrox Ferox said firmly.

The boatman politely waited for them all to finish exchanging quips, before murmuring his agreement to Irene. At a very slight increase in price, of course.

‘Clarice?’ Martha queried. ‘What did he say?’

‘What you’d expect,’ Irene said. ‘We’ll be there in five minutes - ten at the most.’

The others exchanged glances. ‘We’re aware of the favour you do us by translating,’ Athanais said, his language becoming formal. ‘While normally we would be glad to owe you a favour, we can’t be sure when we’ll see you again - would you consider it sufficient payment for us to cover the mask and perhaps a drink or two?’

Just yesterday Irene had been worrying about accepting a coffee from a Fae. Now it seemed the Fae had just as much trouble with favours and gifts between themselves. ‘I would consider it a fair exchange, at least until we get to a good tavern,’ she replied. ‘Besides, we may run into each other in the future.’
If I’m unlucky enough.
‘We might as well start our relationships on good terms.’

Zayanna nodded. ‘It’s funny how we keep on running into people we know, darling, though I suppose Aunt Isra would say it’s only appropriate. Athanais and I are from the same sphere, second-upon-reticulation, third-by-response, and I met Atrox Ferox when he was visiting us in pursuit of a law-breaker at the order of his commander. And Athanais met Martha—’

‘I think Aunt Isra may have been a little quick to judge us when she considered us all total novices,’ Sterrington added. Her tone was pure snobbery, but Irene wondered if she’d intended the undertone of suppressed violence.

The boat slid into a relatively small canal between two rows of buildings, perhaps five yards wide, with strings of blown-glass lanterns in different shades of blue and green gleaming above. Here, away from the open lagoon and among the palazzos, the fog hung in veils. It was enough to tantalize, but not enough to entirely conceal. Irene tried to track her surroundings, wondering how long it would take to get back to the bay, if she had to make a fast getaway. Perhaps she could hire a boat and simply flee this particular city with Kai, once she’d rescued him from wherever he was being held. Then they could escape from another town further down the coast? If there were any other towns down the coast, or anything else in this world except Venice … She wished she knew where the nearest library was.

A couple of streets - or canals - later, they were at the mask shop. It was amazing how much time six people could take choosing a mask, but they all managed to find something in the end, as the gondolier waited, no doubt raising the eventual fee higher with every passing minute. Irene’s new garb included a pale Columbina half-mask with inset aquamarine glass, tied with blue ribbons. The bit she really appreciated was the big black cloak, with its large concealing hood.

With something hiding her from any wandering Guantes, Irene found that she could relax a little and pay more attention to the Venice around her. The place was far more alive than it had seemed from the train platform, out on the bay. Tiny lamps burned in little shrines along the canal banks, and sounds came from the tall houses and shops they passed - music, singing, talk, the screams of an argument, the barking of dogs. And the smells! Food, wine, wax candles, oil-lamps, the scent of the open sea …

Zayanna had clambered into the boat and was more than willing to take up Irene’s share of the conversation, leaving Irene to listen to the others and fret silently behind her mask and hood. All of this was useful cover, but Kai was still a prisoner - and time was running out.

At the tavern, Irene was delayed at the doorway by Sterrington, who was still happy to pay the boatman’s bill, but wanted a fully itemized and signed receipt. By the time she’d negotiated this with the unenthusiastic boatman, the others had all managed to order drinks, despite their lack of Italian.

Probable
lack of Italian. Irene wasn’t entirely convinced they were all as ignorant as they claimed. It would be stupid to take their word for it.

‘It’s the local Prosecco,’ Zayanna said, presenting Irene with a full glass and tugging her towards a table that their group had commandeered. ‘Bottoms up!’

‘You’re really enjoying yourself,’ Irene said. They had all filled their glasses from the same bottle, so it was probably safe. She sipped. No immediate signs of being poisoned. She sipped again.

‘It makes a nice change to get away from all my wretched responsibilities,’ Zayanna said, with unexpected venom. ‘All those shrines to administer, all those snakes to care for, and when do I ever get the chance to have a few days off for myself? I’m always the one who has to milk the serpents while my master seduces the heroes. It’s just not
fair
, darling.’ She took a swallow of the wine. It obviously wasn’t her first glass.

‘I wonder if they’d accept requests for a transfer here,’ Irene said thoughtfully. ‘From what Aunt Isra said, a sphere of high virtue like this could be quite … stimulating.’

Athanais patted her hand. ‘Don’t believe a word of it, Clarice. That’s what they tell you, to encourage you to give your allegiance, but it never pans out. Look at me.’ He sighed. ‘Three times now I’ve been promised a higher place in someone’s household, and has it actually worked out that way?’

‘What we need,’ Sterrington said, tucking her wad of receipts back inside her jacket, ‘is a local informant. If we’re going to parlay this situation to our own advantage - or our mutual advantage …’ she glanced at Atrox Ferox, ‘or our superiors’ advantage, then we need better information on how things stand.’

Irene wanted to stand up and applaud, but restrained herself. ‘But would many local people know about - um, the reason for us coming here?’ Irene wasn’t sure if saying ‘the imprisoned dragon’ out loud would be the proper thing to do. ‘And where would we find the right sort of people to question?’

She looked around the tavern, trying to answer her own question. As far as she could judge, the boatman had brought them to a good place - containing actual locals, rather than just a tourist trap. The other people drinking here, although also masked and cloaked, were wearing garments showing signs of wear, rather than ones straight out of a shop, like Irene’s own.

‘One should be careful,’ Sterrington said. ‘After all, in a situation like this, they’ll have flooded the area with informers, who will be reporting on any suspicious behaviour.’

‘
They
being?’ Martha enquired.

‘Whoever is in power,’ Sterrington said calmly. ‘It’s the sensible thing to do.’

‘That assumes that
they
have lots of informers to flood the area with,’ Zayanna said. ‘Good spies take such a large amount of the budget.’ She held out her glass for another refill. ‘Oh gods, it’s so good to have something to drink other than mushroom wine! I swear that when our master told us about this trip, we were positively assassinating each other for the chance to go on it. I don’t
care
about spies, dragons or whatever, I just want the chance to be careless for once.’

‘Zayanna,’ Athanais started, reaching out to move the bottle away from her. ‘Perhaps if you took a little less for the moment …’

‘Oh, let her drink,’ Martha said. ‘We’ve only got a couple of days here, from what I heard. We might as well enjoy it while we can.’

‘Is it only a few days?’ Irene asked, trying to sound plausibly ignorant. ‘Even if the auction’s tomorrow, there will still be socializing afterwards. That’s what I was told, at least.’

‘Some people may be staying later,’ Sterrington said. ‘I’m not fully informed. But the Train itself will be leaving in three days. It can only stay that long in any given place. Is your patron going to be travelling back by some other route?’

‘He might be,’ Irene agreed, her stomach falling again. So much for any thoughts of hiding Kai after the auction, then sneaking onto the Train once the metaphorical heat was off. Granted, the auction was the most urgent deadline, but this extra hurdle didn’t help. ‘He doesn’t tell me everything. It makes it hard to organize things.’ She shrugged.

‘I’m surprised that you aren’t with him, if you’re his personal interpreter.’ Sterrington delivered the statement quite casually, but Irene felt the hackles on the back of her neck rise in warning.

She shrugged again, as casually as possible. ‘Oh, he doesn’t need me when he has someone
else
to meet.’ She stressed the word to add a suggestion of improper liaison and heated affairs. ‘I didn’t want to get a flogging for impertinence, so I took myself elsewhere. As long as I’m back by dawn, I’ll be safe.’

‘Oh, you’re
that
sort of private secretary,’ Martha said, suddenly sounding extremely prim and disapproving. ‘I hadn’t … realized.’

Athanais rolled his eyes. It was perceptible even behind his scarlet leather mask. He’d stayed with a scarlet theme, to the point where Irene was tempted to ask if he was deliberately impersonating the Red Death, or if he was simply colour-blind. ‘Martha, dear, some of our patrons use a whip as discipline, some use a brand, and some use expense accounts, but let’s not pretend that any of us has that much choice in the matter. If we’d wanted choice, then we wouldn’t have sworn ourselves to a patron. Let’s all just be grateful that we’ve the evening to ourselves. Clarice, do they do food here?’

‘I can smell seafood,’ Irene said, trying to ignore Zayanna’s sagging towards the table, and her muttering that nobody
cared
anyhow and it was all her patron’s
fault
and she was going to slice his heart out on the sacrificial altar some day, just wait and see. ‘Let me go and ask.’

Ten minutes later, shrimps with polenta had been negotiated, and the cheerful landlady Maria (who fortunately spoke English) had brought round another bottle for their table. ‘Always good to have new customers in during Carnival,’ she said, with an approving nod towards their masks. ‘We may as well enjoy ourselves before it’s Lent, eh? And I’ll have you know that my little place is good enough to host the Council of Ten themselves—’

Martha was opening her mouth to say something, and Irene feared that it wasn’t to say
Yes, please do go on telling us all about your customers
, when the tavern door banged open. A man in plain livery entered, bowing as he did so and holding the door wide open for two more figures, a man and a woman in heavy black velvet drapes and matching silver-and-black masks. They entered together in a drift of fog and stood in the doorway, surveying the tavern.

Irene saw the crest on their mantles and was seized by an unpleasant suspicion. A pair of silver gloves, crossed on a black background. Her hands clenched on the table edge. Could the story have turned against her? Was this the part of the narrative where the heroine in disguise is confronted by her arch-enemies - or possibly where the protagonists find and dispose of the villainous spy, all depending on the reader’s viewpoint? And the power of story had been so
useful
up till now …

‘Now, will you look at that,’ the landlady said. She marched forward, dropping a floor-brushing curtsey. ‘My lord and lady Guantes. Welcome to my tavern!’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN