Страница 10 из 86
3. THREE DAYS WITH THE DEAD
The sky had begun to brighten when I let myself into Cavendish Case – a two-storey flagstone house only a few blocks from the Festhall. My father had bought this place the day I was born, as he never tired of telling me: one of the few topics of conversation between us that didn't dwindle into awkward silence.
I had intended to slip inside quietly, pick up some things I would need for the next few days, then slip out again. Of course, I'd leave my mother a note explaining that I'd be gone for a while… and of course, I wouldn't tell her the truth. Something like, «Urgent commission for the Modron Ambassador – must stay at Mechanus embassy till finished.» That would please her and avoid the unpleasantness of lying to her face…
…except that she was standing in the front hall as I slunk inside.
«And did we make a special friend last night?» she asked sweetly.
«No, Mother.»
«Britlin,» she said, «a gentleman's only civilized excuse for staying out till dawn is if he spent the night with a lady. All other alternatives are dclass.»
«Yes, Mother.»
She gave me a winsome smile – Mother had somehow convinced herself I was accumulating a long string of romantic conquests. The truth was much more restrained: yes, there had been a handful of women (and one or two of those had been quite a handful!) but I was no dashing rake with my head on a different pillow every night. Some Sensates strive for quantity and others for quality; I preferred the second approach.
«And what is the news on the street today?» she asked, a question that came up every morning. I rattled off juicy tidbits of rumor about the high and mighty – who was sleeping with whom, who had gone bankrupt in the latest financial scandal, whose souls had been collected overnight by baatezu calling in contractual obligations – a grab-bag of gossip related to me by TeeMorgan when he brought me breakfast at the Festhall. Mother had never met any of the people I talked about, but she nodded knowingly at each blunder and impropriety. The names were unimportant; she simply loved to hear about folly.
She loved to sing about it too. My mother A
It was a strange occupation for a woman born the daughter of a duke; but then, she had long ago abandoned her heritage, and good riddance to it. Her father Urbin, Duke of Aquilune on some petty Prime world, had been a brutal man, a bully who beat his wife to death and then moved on to his daughter. A
On the very day of A
So how does a woman leave behind such a hellish childhood to become a writer of comic songs? One day at a time. It helped that I was born shortly after she arrived in Sigil – taking care of a baby occupied so much of her attention, she had no time for ugly memories. It helped that my father was constantly away adventuring: she could concentrate entirely on her child, without having to coddle a husband too. Sometimes to quiet me, she played the harpsichord my father gave her as a wedding gift; and in time, she began to write little songs to greet him when he finally came home… songs that my father encouraged her to write down, songs that he showed to his bard friends who said they were worth money…
A happy ending, some would say. Some who had never seen the scar down my mother's cheek, made by a drunken uncle who wanted to test a new dagger. Some who had never seen the empty eyesocket that she refused to explain. Some who didn't know that in the thirty-two years she'd lived in Sigil, A
In short, Mother laughed, she told jokes, she was utterly charming… but even I couldn't venture too close without making her flinch.
We blew each other a lot of kisses.
«I should tell you,» I said when I finally ran out of gossip, «I won't be around for a few days. Maybe as long as a week.»
«Good for you, Britlin!» she beamed. «Whoever you met last night must be ravenous for more.»
«It's not a woman, Mother…»
«A man then? I'm broadminded. Is he cute?»
«It's… an assignment. A painting assignment.»
«I see: painting.» She said it with a sly wink, as if she knew that couldn't possibly be the truth.
Sometimes, I had to reflect how lucky I was my mother never got out of the house. Otherwise, she'd bring home a different woman to meet me every night, desperately wanting her son to be showered with constant, all-consuming adoration. I was her substitute, a stand-in who might find the kind of passion she dreamed of: not Duke Urbin's bestial lust; not my own father's heroic pity; «a soul-completing love, a mutual cherishment to make weak hearts brave.»
That last bit was from one of her songs.
«I have to pack some things,» I told her.
«By all means,» she replied. «A gentleman always takes appropriate precautions.»
I laughed and shook my head. Some days, my mother had an unshakably one-track mind. As I began to climb the stairs, she called after me, «Wear the brown jacket, dear, and those nice black pants. They make you look so handsome, your lady will peel off your clothes with her teeth.»
When I returned to the Festhall, I was wearing my father's best rapier, and carrying a sketchbook to while away my off-hours for the next few days. Just inside the door, a factotum gave me a note from Lillian (every word a different color), saying I could find Hezekiah in an i
By the time I got to the i