Too Like the Lightning (49 page)

“You want to ask for them directly? What if they're actually here?”

“They're in Alexandria; Eureka checked. If we ask for them we'll be offered close associates, or at least vague answers. At a place this big we can't count on the first person who opens the door being useful like that Blacklaw housekeeper.”

“I wonder what they call them here,” Carlyle mused.

“Call who?”

“J.E.D.D. Mason. This is a private address. Eureka said Dominic and Martin also come here a lot. It might be a bash'house, or at least the bash' seems to frequent it, and I'm sure they don't call J.E.D.D. Mason by clumsy initials or titles if this is something like a home. What do you think they call them here? Maybe by their real first name?”

I could have Ockham stop Thisbe, I speculated, by calling and telling him she was about to put the bash' at risk. She would obey his order, but that would bring her black wrath down upon me, and danger with it, to myself and, more importantly, to Bridger. Was there another way?

Thisbe chuckled. “J.E.D.D. Mason's full name, now there's a public mystery to rival what's in Cardie's pants.” And proof too, reader, that our age has a least one enlightened aspect, for the Celebrity Youth Act, fierce as it is, could not safeguard these children of the spotlight without the help of a protective public, which has learned (from one too many tragedies) to grant its favorite wee ones what privacies they ask for, and will punish with boycotts—far fiercer than Law's teeth—any journalist or paper which would violate the public prince(sse)s that every bash' on Earth loves as our own. Thisbe smirked. “Well, we know the name starts with the letter J. After Martin and Dominic, I bet it's a scandalous old Christian name, like James or John.”

“Or Joseph,” Carlyle contributed, “Joshua, John-Baptiste…”

“No, then it would be J.B.E.D.D. Mason.”

“I suppose. That rules out Jean-Jacques, too.”

The instant Carlyle's foot touched the first landing, his tracker let out a siren squeal, while a cheerful electric voice rang out: “This is a friendly warning from the Cousins' legal team. Our Member is reminded that Red-Zoned properties and businesses are off-limits. To file for a special exemption for a legal or social-service visit, select ‘file.'”

“Red-Zoned?” Thisbe repeated.

“This…” Carlyle gaped up at the building's side wall, rows of windows closed with drapes of damask and heavy velvet. “This is a brothel!”

“Huh.” Her eyes grew wide. “I guess it is. Does this mean you can't go in?”

“The Emperor's child frequents a brothel?”

“Should I go on without you?”

“The Emperor's child who is still a minor frequents a brothel?”

“Carlyle!” Thisbe had to snap. “It's no problem for a Humanist to go into a Red Zone. Shall I go on without you?”

“No, I'll just turn my tracker off.”

She stared as at an idiot. “Won't your police ask questions if you turn your tracker off on the threshold of a Red Zone? If you need to, we can check into a hotel and you can tell your tracker you're taking it off for a shower.”

Carlyle shook his head. “It's all right. I can get an exemption if I explain that you were going in and wanted your sensayer with you.”

Thisbe frowned. “It's that easy?”

“Well—yes.”

Beware, reader, beware of dogs and snakes and witc … women … when they glare like Thisbe did. “Stupid! That's what it is! You Cousins ban everything under the sun and then make a million loopholes so no one ever has to follow their own rules. What's the point of having the laws if there's no consequence in breaking them?”

Carlyle stared, unbelieving, as her tirade left all stealth behind. “Thisbe, is this the time for—”

“Hypocrites! Always moralizing about how yours is the strictest law. Dominic Seneschal is a maniac, but at least they picked a law they'll follow, while you all go on about being stricter than a Whitelaw and then walk straight into a brothel!”

Her outburst was surreal. A game, that's what it felt like, as if the two had been playing an infiltration game and Thisbe hit pause, expecting the rules and enemies to wait for her rant as they might wait for a bathroom break or a trip to grab more munchies. Gaping Carlyle still believes the danger and mission here are real.

A cough interrupted. “Ahem. Can I help you two fine people?”

The voice came from the window above the back door. Here stood a resident to match the house. She wore an antique gown, the skirts vast with stiff frames underneath, while the tight corset exaggerated her sex, the upper line presenting her breasts like a platter of pudding, while the corset's lower edge came to a central point, directing the eye to the spot in the ocean of skirting where lurked her most forbidden part. One could not guess her age beneath the white face powder, too-pink circular blotches on the cheeks, sharp lipstick, and, of course, the wig, a tower of mounded, stiffened curls with a cluster of feathers sprouting from its peak like a nesting bird. Other faces framed her in the window, and more appeared through the drapes of surrounding windows: painted ladies like the first, youths with curled ponytails like Dominic's, and younger girls with blushing, modest cheeks tittering at the strangers on the steps as if they had been the burlesque and these creatures normal.

“Are you lost?” the first whore invited (in this chapter, reader, I shall call a spade a spade). “You'll get back to the river if you head straight that way.”

“No,” Thisbe answered, “we're not lost, we're looking for … uh…”

“J
əəə
h Mason,” Carlyle ventured, covering the intentional blurring of the first name by reaching to scratch his nose.

French gossip exploded through the spectators.

“MASON? I'm afraid the Emperor just left,” the whore replied, hissing hushes at the nearby window-gapers. “Should I get one of his secretaries?”

“No, I don't mean the Emperor, uh … Mycroft said they'd be…”

“Mycroft?” the whore repeated, her face suddenly light. “Oh! Bless me! You want the Young Master, Jehovah Mason! I'm sorry, I'm not used to hearing Him called by his last name. Sœur Heloïse!» she shouted toward an upper window. «Invitées pour Maître Jéhovah!»

Only Thisbe catching him kept Carlyle from falling backwards down the steps. “Je … Jehovah?”

“She'll be right down.” The whore smiled. “Sorry about the confusion, it's not often anyone new comes for the Young Master.”

Through the windows, one could track Heloïse's approach by the polite bobbed nods of those she flitted past. I was still concocting schemes to stop them. What options had I left? They certainly weren't prepared to listen to my excuses. If I called President Ganymede he could caution Thisbe to back off. She might listen, but not Carlyle, who teetered now on the steps like a tree half-felled in one stroke.

“Jehovah?” he repeated.

“Are you feeling all right, Father?” the whore asked, frowning down at the sensayer through the lipstick which did not so much frame her mouth as mark the twin peaks of her upper lip like two tiny strawberries. “You look pale. Do you need some brandy?”

“They're fine,” Thisbe pretended, doing her best to prop Carlyle between her body and the dainty banister. “Carlyle, deep breaths.”

The door opened before them now, revealing a tiny creature, fragile but overflowing with energy like a hummingbird. “Oh, heavens! This won't do at all!” She relieved Thisbe at once, tipping Carlyle's full weight onto her shoulders, which, in their tininess, seemed like they should snap. “You must come in at once! I'll send for a nurse. Candide!” she shouted to a gawking youth above. «Cherche-toi l'infermière!»

“No, it's okay.” Carlyle seized the rail with all his strength and tried to stand. “I just had a little faint spell. I'm fine, really.”

“Are you certain?” Heloïse asked. Her face was clean and plain with that natural beauty which makes young princes hunger for shepherdesses, and made Carlyle smile in the moment before he saw her clothes. She wore a shapeless cotton smock, straight black down to her ankles, with a white tabard over the top, and a crisp white wimple covering her throat, brows and forehead so not a strand of hair showed through. Though none have walked our streets for nine generations, how many seconds would it take you, reader, to recognize a nun?

“There's nothing wrong with that Cousin that a little food and spirits won't put right,” the whore called down. “Heloïse, take them through to the Salon Hogarth, I'll send for something.”

“Right away!” the nun confirmed. Though willing to let Carlyle walk, she would not release his arm, leading him firmly like a half-blind great uncle. “This way, Father.”

Sister Heloïse (not I) made them cross that threshold (though the panic which froze me in inaction prevented me from stopping it). They entered a service corridor, neither wide nor grand, ornamented with delicate moldings and small wall-mounted chandeliers, which sparkled disdainfully with electric light, not quite as rich as candles. The doors along the walls were strange, all different heights and widths, some low enough to make one stoop, others curved or slanted as if they had been cut into the wall at random. The cause was clear when Heloïse opened the nearest, for on the other side it was a hidden door, carefully cut to fit the gap between a fireplace and bedpost, so none within could deduce quite where the servants passed in and out. The Salon Hogarth was quiet, with leather seats and a hand-carved lady's writing desk, but dominated by a vast canopy bed and a pair of framed prints. “Before” showed a gentleman dragging a reluctant lady toward a bed with no little violence, while “After” had the lady clinging to him in affectionate desperation as he rose to replace his britches. The pair of images would have been distressing anywhere, but were much worse in a room which was itself a precise re-creation of the one shown in the illustrations.

“Please, sit.” Heloïse poured brandy from a bright decanter, her tabard swaying about her knees like an apron. “Here, Father, this should give you back some fortitude.” She had the same accent as Dominic, French flavoring English as milk flavors cocoa. “Drink it slowly.”

“Stop calling me ‘Father.'” I was startled as I listened; I had not thought Carlyle had it in him to make his voice so grim. “Is this a period costume brothel?”

Her virgin cheeks blushed at the word. “Parts of the house could be described that way, yes.”

“And you're dressed as a nun?”

“I am a nun. I am called Sister Heloïse. And what may I call you if not ‘Father'? You are a priest, are you not?”

“A sensayer.”

“As I said, a priest.” She smiled. “We call things by their real names here. Now, drink this, Father, it will revive your spirits.”

Carlyle crossed his arms in refusal.

The nun frowned. “And you, Madame,”—she turned to Thisbe—“or is it Mademoiselle? I see you are one of the subjects of His Grace the Duc de Thouars.”

“Mademoiselle,” Thisbe answered, “and if you mean President Ganymede, I'm a Humanist, yes.” I should have guessed Thisbe would adapt quickly to this new world and its vocabulary. “I'm Thisbe Saneer. Nice to meet you, Sister Heloïse.”

Heloïse attempted a seated curtsey, which made the shadows of her tight breasts bounce beneath her habit. It tried its best, the nun's habit, to leave her shapeless, stripping hips and curves from the figure with its clumsy folds, but all it truly did was dare one to search for them, to wonder how pert the buttocks must be to make the fabric hang so, or to mark the shapes of thighs and calves through the slack cloth. “Pleased to meet you. Marie-Thérèse said you came to see Master Jehovah?”

“Yes,” Thisbe answered, glaring at Carlyle to keep him silent, since the name made him jolt on every repetition like a fresh electric shock.

“I'm afraid Master Jehovah is elsewhere at the moment, and occupied with high affairs. But I can request that he come see you as soon as He is free.”

“That may not be necessary,” Thisbe answered. “I'm running a pro forma background check on … Tribune Mason, to clear them for access to the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash'house, for their investigation. I'm supposed to interview close associates, routine questions.”

“Oh! Why, then I shall answer anything you like.”

“Are you two close?”

“Very.”

Thisbe had to ask it. “Do you work here?”

“I live here,” the little Sister answered, “and I do my work here, caring for the sick, the mending, taking care of Master Jehovah's errands, and, of course, I pray for everyone.”

Carlyle's fists clenched.

“Carlyle,” Thisbe warned, “relax, just … relax.” She sighed. “I must apologize for my sensayer, Sister. I asked them to help with my investigation only quite recently, and they were up imprudently late last night. May I?” She reached to take the brandy from Heloïse's fingers.

Heloïse surrendered the glass gladly. “It's quite all right. It's only natural for a priest to be overwhelmed by such a spiritual place. They often wind up in my hospital room at some point on first visits, though hopefully your friend is not so fragile.”

Thisbe shoved the glass at Carlyle. “Drink it, you need it.”

“A spiritual place?” Carlyle repeated. “A brothel?”

“It's more than that,” the nun corrected, beaming pride. “This is a refuge from the barbarities of the modern day. Our members come here to escape for a few hours to a more courteous and enlightened age, and return to the outside world refreshed by a taste of civilized society.”

Carlyle twitched. “And sex?”

She pursed her lips in disapproval—you may never have endured it, reader, but the disapproval of a nun is extremely powerful. “Do you have some problem with sex?”