The Merchant of Dreams (28 page)

Mal managed a nod. His captor released him, and Mal turned to see Hafiz, the eunuch slave.

“Please, come this way,” Hafiz said, opening a door at the top of the stairs. “Quickly.”

The voices in the atrium had stilled, but Mal had the uncomfortable feeling the men were listening now, perhaps even creeping up the stair towards him. His left hand groped for his absent rapier.

“Now, please!” the eunuch hissed.

With a last glance down the stairs Mal followed him into a small chamber, illuminated only by the moonlight coming in through an unglazed window. Hafiz lit a lamp and the shadows receded, revealing this to be an antechamber of some kind. Were these Olivia’s own apartments?

“Who were those men?”

“Guests of Signorina Olivia. They come here to discuss business. Discreetly.”

“And you ensure they are able to do so.”

Hafiz inclined his head in acknowledgement and backed towards the door.

“Please wait here,
signore
.”

For how long?
Mal wanted to ask, but it felt like such a childish question. The door closed, and Mal heard the key turn in the lock. It was an answer of sorts, though not one he liked.

Long minutes passed whilst Mal waited, ear pressed to the door. He heard footsteps on the landing, one man only, followed at a long interval by another. The two conspirators returning separately to the company? He laid a hand on the doorknob but had more sense than to rattle it. If Olivia thought he needed keeping safe from her guests, he did not want to face them armed with naught but a dagger.

He crossed quietly to the window. The streetward façade of the palazzo was plainer than the canal-side one, but still offered enough footholds for a climb down to the garden. The gate was probably locked, but he recalled seeing a thick-limbed vine on the far wall, offering an easy climb into the street beyond. However he had come here to find out more, not to run away at the first sign of danger. Best to save this exit as a last resort.

He examined the rest of the room minutely, though there was little to see. Two doors led out of the room, in addition to the one he had entered by; he listened at both, but could hear nothing above the rumble of conversation from the parlour. A credenza stood against one wall, flanked by matching armless chairs. On the wall above it hung a fine silvered mirror, large enough for Mal to see his head and shoulders. He frowned at the trim of his beard and the length of his hair, and made a note to see a barber on the morrow. If he survived the night.

After a moment’s hesitation he took up the lamp and searched the credenza’s drawers and cupboards, but found only a sewing basket and a few items of the sort that a lady might want before leaving the house: gloves, masks and so on. One was the cream silk half-face mask that Olivia had worn the previous evening. So, this
was
her suite.

Intrigued now, he went back to the nearer of the two doors. The small room beyond was spartan even by Venetian standards, with whitewashed walls, marble floor and for furniture only a close-stool, a wash stand and a hip bath in the shape of an oyster shell. A room just for washing? Perhaps it was a Moorish custom.

He was about to try the other door when he heard the key rattle in the lock. Quickly he returned to the credenza, put down the lamp and adopted a nonchalant pose.

“Ah, so you are still here,” Olivia said, crossing to the window with a graceful swaying walk and closing the shutters. “I was afraid you might have been alarmed by Hafiz’s… intervention.”

“Who were those men? Are you an accomplice of Il Mercante?”

She closed the space between them and put a finger to his lips. “So many questions. But first I think you owe me some answers, Signore Inglese.”

“Oh?”

“Who are you–” she reached up and removed his mask “–and why are you here?”

“My name you already know, and I am here because you invited me.”

“Come,
signore
, the time for games is over.” She ran a fingertip along the edge of his left ear and down to the lobe. “Put aside your pretty armour, and be your true self.”

Mal prayed his surprise did not show in his face. She recognised the spirit-guard for what it was, which could mean only one thing.

“And what then?” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

“We are two of a kind, you and I,” she said. “Outcasts, for reasons not of our choosing. Is that why the
sanuti
are here? To track you down?”

Is that what she thinks I am, a renegade guiser? Perhaps I should play along. It is not so very far from the truth, after all
.

He forced a laugh. “I arrived in Venice but two days ago.”

“So you say. But perhaps you have been in hiding all this time, until your Sir Walter Raleigh came along and gave you a reason to visit me.”

“You are very astute,
signorina
.”

“In this city, one learns to see behind the mask if one wants to survive.” She removed her own, and set it down on the credenza next to his. “Come, let us make ourselves comfortable, and you can tell me all.”

She led him through the other door. Into her bedchamber.

Mal hesitated on the threshold.

“What of Bragadin? Is he your partner? Is he Il Mercante?”

Olivia laughed. “He is naught but my puppet. A woman here has no station but that which a man gives her, so I must make the appearance of being a rich man’s mistress.” She turned and smiled. “As I told you before, I am no man’s property.”

Mal followed her inside, little reassured by this. If Bragadin were Il Mercante and she controlled him, what were her plans for himself?

An enormous canopied bed draped in crimson damask dominated the room, and a haphazard layer of Turkish rugs muffled Olivia’s footfalls as she went about the room lighting candles. The window was his best chance for a hasty exit, since it opened onto the Grand Canal, though he was not a strong swimmer. Perhaps the door to the antechamber, then, and a climb down to the garden.

When all the candles were lit, Olivia blew out the taper and sat down on a couch by the window.

“Will you help me with these?”

She lifted her skirts to reveal the chopines. Mal knelt and unfastened the buckles and lacings that held them over her silk slippers, then eased them off her feet and put them aside. Olivia sighed and wiggled her toes, and patted the cushioned seat beside her. Mal sat down, arranging himself so that his hand was not too far from his dagger hilt.

“Who are you?” she whispered, twisting on the seat so that she could look him in the eyes. “Have the Christians taken to capturing our people once more?”

Mal shook his head. “I came here by choice, looking for you.”

He held her gaze, willing himself not to look away and betray the lies.
Sandy should be here doing this, he has far more of Erishen’s memories than I, he would know exactly what to say.

“For me? Do I know you?”

“No, my lady. I am but newly stepped onto this path.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why should I trust you? The elders could have sent you to trap me.”

“The elders would never approve such a step. You know it is against our law.”

“And you broke that law,” she said softly. “Why?”

He tried to imagine how Sandy would put it. “Because I think the elders are wrong,” he said at last. “You are not evil. Becoming human is not evil.”

“Ah, the confidence of youth,” she said, smiling. “The elders are indeed wrong. And you, sweet boy, are the answer to my prayers.”

“How so?”

“Tell your name,” she purred, trailing a hand up his arm.

“You know my name. Mal.”

“Your true name.”

Mal hesitated. In many a fairytale, the true name of an elf or hobgoblin gave one power over them. Did the same apply to guisers?

“Does it matter?” he said at last.

“It is a matter of courtesy. But perhaps as the elder, I should begin. I am Ilianwe.”

“My name is Erishen.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Erishen.” She smiled and said something in what sounded like a skrayling tongue.

“I am sorry. I remember little of our language. My transition was… painful.”

That at least was no lie. The nightmares still troubled him from time to time, even now that he understood what they meant.

“No, it is I who should apologise,” she said. “I was so glad to learn that another of my kind was in the city, I just thought…” She sighed. “You are not her.”

Mal smiled. “Not
her
, certainly.”

She smiled back. “Have you ever been female? Or are you one of those who prefers to be the same sex each lifetime?”

“I cannot remember.”

“No matter. Though you really should try being female one day. These human bodies–” she guided his hands to her waist “–are pleasingly soft.”

Before he could reply she shifted on the chaise and straddled his lap, draping her hands over his shoulders. Her breasts were level with his eyes now, and the silken curves of flesh spoke to his need more eloquently than words.

“No,” he whispered. “I am pledged to another.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. He and Coby had exchanged no betrothal vows; indeed she rejected him at every turn. And yet he had always hoped…

“Then you are fortunate.” She looked away but did not abandon her seat on his lap. “My
amayi
is dead. I am the last of our kind here in Venice.”

Relief washed over him. If she was telling the truth, at least he did not have to worry about dealing with two guisers at once. The one in front of him was handful enough. Two hands full, at least. He chided himself for this unseemly thought, but she was after all very beautiful and he had been chaste these many months.

“When I die,” she went on, “I must take my chances and hope to survive childhood, unprotected and unguided. Have you ever died in childhood?”

Mal shook his head. An odd question anywhere else, but here with her it made perfect sense.

“I have, many times. Plague, most often, though once my careless nurse let me fall into a canal and drown.”

She spoke so matter-of-factly, but Mal could see the pain and loneliness in her eyes.

“How long have you been alone?”

“One hundred and forty-seven years,” she said without hesitation. “My
amayi
was assassinated by a political rival. A human.” She spat out the word.

“When did you come to Venice?”

“Four centuries ago, near enough. We fled to England after the Birch Men tried to sell us as slaves, but that was not far enough. They were everywhere in those days. Then we found this little group of islands in a lagoon, in a forgotten corner of Christendom. And so we made our home here.”

She began to unbutton his doublet.

“Why don’t you take this off?” she murmured.

“The doublet?”

“That too.”

He slipped his hands under her skirts and up her thighs, expecting to feel the soft folds of stocking tops and then bare flesh, but instead his fingertips encountered smooth silken fabric, loose but enclosing, like–

“Breeches?”

She smiled and stood up, raising her skirts to waist-height to reveal rose-coloured breeches, like a boy’s. Like Coby’s. Mal shoved the guilty thought aside. This was business, even if it promised pleasure.

“Why do you think they call them Venetians?” Olivia said. “Even we women wear them, to protect our virtue.”

Mal parted his knees so that he could pull her between them, and began unfastening the points that held the silken breeches in place. At last the flimsy garment fell away, sliding over the graceful curve of her hips to the floor. Mal swallowed as his prick stirred more insistently. Olivia ran her fingertips over his groin, making him gasp, then she unbuttoned his slops and tugged the waist-string of his drawers loose. As soon as his prick was free she climbed astride him once more and caught his gaze with her own as she lowered herself onto him. Gritting his teeth in an effort at self-control, he pulled her closer and bent his head to her bosom, tongue slipping between bodice and flesh to seek out her nipple like a bee questing for nectar.
Sweet Mother of God, it’s been too long…

“Take this out, and we can be as one,” she whispered, fingering the pearl in his ear.

He made an affirmative noise, and felt her deftly unfasten his earring one-handed. He tensed, expecting some kind of magical assault. Nothing, only the warmth of her lips on his earlobe, her teeth nipping the edge of his ear… With a groan of pleasure he surrendered to the moment.

The world dissolved around him, not into the darkness of the dreamworld he knew so well, but a sunny glade by a brook. He and Olivia twined naked in the grass, the sun warm on their flesh. Above them, red and gold leaves fluttered in the breeze. She rolled over on top of him, silhouetted against the light. Her hair was short and spiky now, like Kiiren’s… Mal’s stomach constricted as he gazed up at her. Greyish skin and slit-pupilled yellow eyes. A skrayling. He pulled away.

“No!”

“What is wrong, my love?” She looked around the glade. “This is your dream, not mine.”

“What have you done to me? Have you been haunting me from afar?”

He closed his eyes, trying to force himself awake. He was in Venice, in Ca’ Ostreghe, not in an imaginary forest built of Erishen’s memories. He blinked and opened his eyes.

Olivia sat sprawled on the floor where he had evidently pushed her off his lap, her eyes bright with tears. Mal hastily fastened his breeches and helped her up.

“Forgive me, my lady, I am unaccustomed to–”

“No, it is my fault.” She dabbed at her eyes and nose with a lace handkerchief. “I intruded upon your thoughts, seeking to know you better. It was a great discourtesy.”

He helped her onto the couch. “How… How do you do that? Pass into another’s mind without going through… the dark places.”

“Practice,” she said. “And discipline. Do you really not remember anything of your former life?”

“Only what you have seen,” he replied cautiously. “I am as ignorant of our ways as a child.”

She glanced up at him through dark lashes. “I thought you said you were pledged to someone. You have an
amayi
, to take care of you in the end times and beginnings?”