Chapter 5

Tristan needed a way in.

The infanzones had claimed a corner of the hold and were entertaining the sole foreigner they’d decided was worth their time, mere feet away but far beyond his reach. The thief did have to admit the Malani they’d picked was a fearsome specimen, with two inches of height on him and a build hinting she could handle that saber she was dragging around. Unlike the noblewoman he was unlikely to get invited for refreshments, however, so he’d have to find another angle. Fortunately one was there for the taking: the infanzones had brought attendants with them. Six people in all, and one would be his key.

The soldiers, as soldiers did, went to dice the moment their masters ceased paying attention. Even the grim-faced Malani huntsman in Villazur service went, joining a tall man in Ruesta colours and the man Tristan would kill before this was all over: Cozme Aflor, thrice accursed and may the fucking devils of Pandemonium eat him whole. There had already been a game going near the mass of crates in the back of the hold, so after the soldiers joined Tristan simply did the same. The welcome was lukewarm until he flashed some coppers, which were in short supply. Most were playing for buttons or trinkets.

“We’re playing Augur,” a dark-haired woman enthusiastically told him. “No matches, Sacromonte rules.”

“Which are nonsense,” a scarred Malani complained. “Why would the Lovers’ Stars make you lose?”

Considering most the circle was Sacromontans, she won herself a few unfriendly stares with that.

“We call them the Rat King’s eyes,” Cozme smiled, stroking his beard. “He is not a god whose attentions are kind.”

Tristan smirked. It was an old legend that the Rat King had been but a pack of rats, once, but that they had devoured one of the Manes – those great pristine gods so beloved of the infanzones – and become a deity even those old things feared. There were a thousand gods worshipped and bargained with in the mud of the Murk, but few as beloved as the Rat King. He was as a patron to the lost and beggared, those who dwelled in shadow and filth. Not the kind of god that would look well upon the likes of Cozme Aflor.

“It’s the usual way,” the same dark-haired woman insisted. “Play or leave.”

The grizzled Malani sighed but picked up the dice, dropping them in a wooden cup before shaking it. Tristan had played Augur before, it was the simplest of dicing games, and so he was not afraid of losing too badly. He was not here to win anyhow. Betting low, he made sure to stay in the game as the dicers began to chat. The pushy dark-haired one who’d lit up at the sight of his coppers was called Aines, and now he recognized her from earlier. She was the woman married to the dust addict. Said man was napping, which spared him the sight of his wife losing badly at Augur.

Gods but Tristan had never seen someone so genuinely terrible at a game of chance.

He was grateful for it, as her emptying pile of buttons loosened tongues. Winning always put folk in a fine mood. Information slowly trickled in. The huntsman come with the Villazur was named Sanale, though he spoke little save when the other Malani addressed him in some foreign tongue. Tristan knew a little Umoya, but whatever they spoke only seemed to have so much in common with the best known tongue out of the Isles. Inyoni, the older woman with the scars who’d complained about the rules earlier, was a great deal chattier in everyone’s shared Antigua. The thief asked casually about the other two Malani she’d come with earlier in the day, soon surprised at easily getting an answer he’d figured he would have to finesse out.

“The boy’s my nephew,” Inyoni said. “I’m coming along to keep an eye on him.”

“Family is the most important thing,” Aines agreed.

The man in Ruesta colours rolled his eyes at them. This one was called Recardo, and though he was not as large as the Aztlan legbreaker it was a close thing. Closely shaved, he had the kind of well-proportioned face that Tristan knew was considered handsome. He was also, to put it in a single word, a shit.

“Women’s talk,” Recardo mocked before pushing a copper on a bet below four.

Aines bet two buttons on above nine, solid odds she had somehow already lost thrice on.

“There’s no need for rudeness,” Cozme drawled, pushing his own bet on eight precise.

He liked to look like a good man, Cozme Aflor. Tristan had been young but he remembered that much. The others on the List had been demanding, often rude, but Cozme had always been kind with his father. Told him with a smile that it would be over soon, that he just needed to get through it. He’d still had that same smile on his face when pulling the trigger. The thief’s gaze must have lingered, for the bearded man glanced at him curiously. There was not a speck of recognition on the Cozme’s face, not that he had expected one. He’d been but a child when they last met. Tristan smiled, burying his hatred deep.

“What is it like, working for infanzones?” the thief asked, feigning fascination.

Cozme did not hide his smugness.

“Exhausting, but rewarding in its own way,” he claimed. “Though in truth I serve not the brothers but one of their uncles, so they must listen to me in all things.”

Tristan doubted that very much but nodded as if admiring. Recardo, who’d been listening to them, laughed.

“The perks are shit when working for the Cerdan,” the big man said. “Now me? I get to look over Lady Isabel and her pretty little maids, there’s a real prize.”

It was not the first time tonight he mentioned the maids, which he seemed to be laying claim on to an entirely disinterested audience. The huntsman Sanale eyed the other man, then muttered something to the other Malani. Tristan smothered a smile when he recognized the words in Umoya, which translated to something like ‘crow-meat’. A grinning Inyoni rolled the dice, a three and five. Aines cursed disbelievingly, Cozme smirking as he claimed the pot. Recardo looked none to pleased at having lost, his coppers thinning.

“We ought to get the valet in there,” the big man said. “Go get him, Cozme.”

“Gascon attending to the brothers is why I can sit here in peace,” the bearded man replied, shaking his head. “Besides, he’s not as bad with money as you think.”

And like that Tristan had what he wanted: names and faces for all six attendants. Recardo seemed like the kind of man that would be easy to get talking when plied with liquor and flattery, but entirely too unreliable to be used. Neither Sanale nor Cozme could be his key either. The Malani was quiet and distant while Tristan was not sure how well he’d be able to hide his hatred if he spent too long around the other man. That left the personal servants. Since the Cerdan valet was even now polishing the boots of the brothers, Tristan’s gaze moved to the Ruesta handmaids. It’d have to be one of them.

Now he just needed to get rid of one last problem.

“Four radizes on below five,” Fortuna demanded in his ear, draped over his shoulder. “This one’s a win, I can feel it in my bones.”

Tristan grimaced. He could not risk even a whisper, not so close to so many people. Irksome when he was itching to point that she did not, in fact, have bones.

“Come on,” Fortuna insisted. “When have I ever steered you wrong?”

Every single time he’d gambled, he silently replied. He put two coppers on six exact instead.

“Wait, no, you’re right,” she muttered. “This is better. All in, Tristan. Bet everything.”

Fortuna, as befitting of the Lady of Long Odds, only had two stratagems in games of chance: doubling down or going all in. He ignored her, which proved warranted when a moment later two fives were rolled and he lost his coppers. He then used the loss as a pretext for retreat, forcing himself to ignore Fortuna’s indignant howling.

“We had them, Tristan,” the goddess bellowed. “Our luck was turning around, I’m sure of it. We just needed to keep at it a little longer.”

Abuela had taught him that gods always craved something. It was in their nature: they were aether given face through mankind’s touch, leaving them with hungers that they could only satisfy through men. It was what gods got from contracts, a way to sate those hungers, and the same reason that if he listened to Fortuna he would bet on bad dice until he was destitute. It was that one in a hundred thousand victory she craved, the Long Odds come true. To her losing a thousand times for that single unlikely win would be nothing more than suffering through overcooked greens to get at a juicy side of pork.

“We’ll try again later,” Tristan murmured, pretending to be brushing his knee so he could hide his mouth.

“You always say that,” Fortuna pouted, “but then we never do.”

She was pouting, so the storm had passed. She’d stay snippy about it for a bit then before the turn of the hour entirely forget. With that seen to, he turned his attention back to the handmaids. Both were near their mistress, who was playing at court with the other nobles and ignoring them so long as she did not need anything fetched. One, a short dark-haired woman whose name he had learned was Beatris, was finishing up mending a coat with needle and thread. The other, a redhead whose name was Briceida – information obtained through Recardo’s boasting he would get her in bed – was paging through a book with a bored look. Tristan got closer but not enough to earn more than an indifferent glance from either, waiting for an opportunity.

It came when Beatris began to put away her needle in a neat box, a sight he answered by immediately borrowing luck.

The ticking began in the back of his mind, a clock’s moving gears, and a heartbeat later the box slipped through the maid’s hands. Needles and threads spilled all over the floor, the woman letting out a horrified gasp, and even as he rose to help her Tristan released the luck he’d borrowed. Fortune snapped back, lightly so for the lightness of what he’d taken, but it returned with unerring aim. A wooden bobbin rolled under his foot and he slipped with a started yelp, falling forward. Tristan landed on his knees, only a hand keeping his face off the bottom of the hold, and did his best to ignore Fortuna’s hysterical laughter.

“Sweet Manes, are you alright?”

Sighing, the thief looked up at Beatris’ face – she was trying to hide her amusement but failing – and dragged himself back up.

“Nothing was wounded save my pride,” he wryly replied. “Would you like a hand?”

“That is kind of you to offer,” the maid said, sounding surprised. “It would be appreciated.”

The threads had rolled away in every direction and needles were hard to pick out in the gloom of the hold, so it was genuine work to get them back. The other maid ignored them as they scuttled about, at first, until finally she closed her book with a loud sigh and got up. Brushing back red curls, she bent and picked up a single bobbin of blue thread as Beatris was reaching out for it. It was dropped into the box almost contemptuously before Briceida turned a sneer on the both of them.

“Careful the vagrant doesn’t pocket some of Lady Isabel’s things, Beatris,” the redhead said, then her lips quirked cruelly. “Though maybe he’ll cut you in so you can finally afford a decent dress.”

“I’ll take responsibility if there is a mishap, Briceida,” Beatris curtly replied.

“Drop things less, then,” Briceida advised. “Your breeding is showing.”

And on that parting shot she flounced away, leaving dark-haired Beatris struggling not look furious. It passed after a moment and the maid turned an apologetic look on the thief.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“What for?” Tristan snorted. “She seems a horrid bitch.”

A gamble, but he liked his odds. Beatris’ mouth closed but she was not quite able to silence the laugh startling its way out of her throat. Under Tristan’s smiling gaze the maid convulsed a few times, then erupted into giggles.

“She really is,” Beatris admitted. “You’d think she were a king’s daughter instead of a drapier’s.”

Ah, Tristan thought. So it was like that. Drapiers were wealthy men and the pressing reason one’s daughter would be serving as handmaid to a lady was so she might use that foothold in noble circles to marry up. Meaning Briceida was a maid only until she found better, while Beatris would be a servant for life. Their status – and treatment – would be starkly different. Good for him, though. An enemy, especially a common one, would make it easier to forge ties.

“My sympathies,” the thief told her, finding he meant it.

The dark-eyed maid looked up at him for a moment, then hummed. Bringing her hand to the side of her dress as if to straighten it, she discreetly curled her fore and middle fingers. The thief hid his surprise at the sight of the Mark of the Rat being made, pretending to scratch at his sideburns while returning it. Beatris smiled.

“Had a feeling you might be,” she said.

“Born in Feria,” he told her.

Feria District was of the nicer parts of the Murk. He’d not stayed there – without his father, there had been no affording the rent set by the Cerdan – but telling Beatris he’d cut his teeth in rougher places like Araturo and Cayerar would do him no favours. The dark-haired maid’s smiled grew more genuine.

“I am as well,” she told him. “The north end, near Araturo.”

“East for me, around Weeper’s avenue,” he shared.

She looked impressed, though she should not have been.

“Before they prettied it up,” he clarified.

These last few years the noble House of Cerdan had cleaned up some of the many streets they owned in Feria. Mostly so they could raise the rents, throwing out the old tenants and replacing them with wealthier migrants that couldn’t find rooms in the ever-overcrowded Quays. A lucrative racket, by all reports.

“Figures,” Beatris drily said, eyeing him up and down.

He grinned back. Tristan was cleaner than most, for a dirty thief would not be allowed into anywhere worth robbing, but he still had filth under his fingernails. He’d not bathed in a few days even if his clothes were clean. Not so for the maid, who even smelled faintly of lilac. Before he could tease her about that, an interruption bowled them over. Lady Isabel Ruesta was barely taller than Beatris and just as dark-haired, but she was hard to mistake for the other. The infanzon had an indolence about her particular to those that’d never done a day’s work in their life.

“It was lovely of you to help Beatris,” the Ruesta told him, smiling and laying a hand on his wrist. “May I have your name, sir?”

It was an effort not to allow distaste to show on his face.

“Tristan,” the thief smiled back. “It is my honour to meet you, Lady Ruesta.”

The infanzon tittered.

“Call me Lady Isabel,” she insisted. “It is the least I can do for someone who so gallantly helped my maid.”

She shot Beatris a look of condescending fondness.

“She is not usually so clumsy, I swear to you.”

Beatris bent her head before her mistress, murmuring apologies that were airily dismissed. Practice kept Tristan’s smile from growing visibly stiff.

“It must be the ship,” the thief said. “Journeys have their difficulties.”

The noble brat nodded.

“Too true,” she said, smile brightening. “Yet they are so very exciting!”

She patted his arm again.

“I do hope to see more of you, Tristan,” the Ruesta said. “We shall talk again.”

She flounced off as suddenly as she had flounced in, returning to her nest of nobles. The grey-eyed thief waited until she was settled to turn to Beatris and roll his eyes.

“Would it be rude,” he said, “to offer my sympathies twice?”

The dark-haired maid blinked, then turned an intense gaze on him.

“No,” she slowly said. “But you mean-”

Beatris hesitated.

“Did you not find her charming?”

“The opposite,” Tristan frankly replied.

Beatris’ face twisted in surprise, to his own. She bit her lip.

“Forgive me for the indiscretion,” the maid said. “But are you perhaps…”

She gestured vaguely, but the meaning itself was clear enough. It was not particularly polite to ask strangers if they were homosexual, however, so he cocked an eyebrow.

“Why would that matter?”

Beatris bit her lip again, then leaned closer.

“She has a contract,” the dark-eyed maid whispered. “I don’t know the terms, but it seems to charm people – only those that are attracted to her, though, at least I think.”

The thief felt sick at the realization that the fucking infanzon had been turning a contract on him the entire time she was pretending to play nice, jaw clenching. It couldn’t give her too much control over others, he knew, else she would be in breach of the Iscariot Accords and the Watch would have purged the entire Ruesta family. Yet the thought that she had been seeking to influence his mind was still nauseating. He hid his anger, lest someone notice it, but there had been no avoiding the maid’s eyes. It’d be safer to concede an answer to keep her on side, he decided.

“I do not deal in attraction,” Tristan told her. “Not physical, at least.”

“Asexual?” Beatris asked.

He shrugged. The thief had never much cared to put a name to his inclinations – or lack thereof – but he supposed it fit well enough. He’d caught feelings once or twice over the years, but it had not changed his distaste for sex. For all that he’d remained vague, Beatris significantly warmed to him after. Was she truly so desperate for company that would not be charmed by her despicable mistress? It must be so, for as the two of them sat near the nobles’ travelling trunks the dark-haired woman gossiped away at him with great eagerness. Tristan swallowed a smile of triumph when the talk turned to the infanzones.

“She’s been stringing along the Cerdan brothers for about a year now,” Beatris noted. “Making them fight for her attention, knowing they want her hand in marriage to settle their inheritance dispute.”

“The brothers are at odds?” Tristan casually asked.

“Hate each other, more like,” Beatris snorted. “The only reason they’re taking the trials is to chase Lady Isabel. If it weren’t for Cozme Aflor coming along to keep them in line, I’d be worried about them trying to bump each other off.”

“He was boasting about them having to listen to him earlier,” the thief shared.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“He’s full of shit,” the maid replied. “I talked with the maids of a Cerdan cousin when Lady Isabel last called on Lord Augusto and they told me word in the house is that he’s being sent as punishment. He used to be in high favour but botched some kind of affair with House Ragoza.”

“He’s here to make sure they both come back,” Tristan surmised.

“The poor bastard,” Beatris agreed. “It’s cruel to play with them so, but I can understand why the lady doesn’t want to marry them. Remund was a real bastard even before he got his contract, but the talk since he got it is worse.”

He cocked his head to the side.

“Apparently he trains using it on servants,” she murmured. “Some sort of light he can make shackles with, but it burns the skin. One showed me marks.”

How was it, Tristan wondered, that even knowing they were monstrous he was still angered at hearing of the petty cruelty of Cerdans?

“And the elder brother’s as bad?” he asked.

“I still have family in Feria,” Beatris said, “and they passed on rumours. He was placed in charge of the Cerdan properties there a few years back, rents and such, and he’s got a… reputation.”

The implication there was an ugly one. Tristan wished it was the first time he had heard it spoken, or that it had even the slightest chance of being the last.

“How bad?”

“It’s said he doesn’t force the girls into bed,” the maid admitted. “But he’ll hold off on collecting a debt or a rent if he’s kept company.”

Kept company. What a gentle way to put it. They were both children of the Murk, so they knew well that in life some choices were not really choices at all.

“Pieces of work,” Tristan said, the hatred is in voice old and lovingly tended to. “I’m almost rooting for Ruesta to make them bare knives.”

“She won’t,” Beatris said, shaking her head. “For the same reason I know she won’t marry either: she’s keeping her reputation pristine so she can get the husband she does wants. An older cousin on her mother’s side, from a branch of the Livares.”

Tristan’s brow rose. The House of Livares was one of the founding families of Sacramonte. Isabel Ruesta did not lack for ambition, to seek marriage into even one of the lesser branches.

“She’ll need more than contract to win that,” he opined.

Beatris nodded.

“It’s why she decided to take the trials,” the maid said. “The cousin is taking them as well, gone over on the first ship. She’ll be pursuing him throughout the whole mess.”

“While playing with the Cerdans the whole time,” Tristan muttered. “Infanzones. Like it won’t be dangerous enough already.”

“She’ll pick up a few others to toy with,” Beatris predicted. “Already she’s sunk her hooks into that poor Malani girl.”

“The one with the saber?”

“That’s the one. Some kind of fallen noble from the Isles, I think,” the maid shrugged. “Already smitten and getting used to prick the brothers.”

“At least she looks like she can handle a blade,” Tristan said. “Another sword arm can’t hurt on the Dominion of Lost Things.”

“I suppose,” she doubtfully replied.

“Though I expect you’d be safer than most without,” the thief said, tone carefully idle. “I’d be surprised if the infanzones hadn’t made a pact to share their soldiers.”

He hoped not, for it would complicate getting at Cozme and the Cerdans, but that was not the way of the world. Nobles always closed rank, hid each other’s vileness.

“All but Lady Villazur,” Beatris absent-mindedly confirmed. “She’s been putting off answering. But safety is a… relative thing.”

The dark-haired maid turned an anxious but hopeful look on him. Tristan had been asked enough favours by the more desperate than he to recognize when someone was about to do it.

“I saw you dicing earlier,” Beatris said. “Did you perhaps chat with a man named Recardo?”

The large Ruesta soldier, Tristan thought. The same who’d been warning everyone off Lady Isabel’s two maids, since he had a ‘claim’ on them.

“You came up,” the thief said, not beating around the bush. “He seemed very certain his advances would be accepted.”