“I have been known to garden, sir,” the steward said, an almost devilish smile quirking up the side of his lips. Detan whooped and thumped him on the shoulder, then jumped down from the dais New Chum had made him stand on while applying the essentials.
“May I inquire as to just how this particular scheme came to mind?” the steward asked as he tidied up makeup brushes and resealed pots of ladies’ paint.
“Scheme, New Chum? You do me injury! This is the way of the just. We are righting moral wrongs, my young friend. Correcting salacious injury.”
Tibs said, “Mucking about when we have more important matters to see to.”
Detan scowled. “We require the flier to further other pursuits, in case you have forgotten. And besides, it’s the principle of the thing. We can’t let that puffed-up sack get away with bald-faced thievery! Not when we are capable of more delicate, refined schemes – er, I mean methods.”
Tibs rolled his eyes. “It’s called the pox in the pocket, and it’s an old game.”
“Pah. You have no artistic spirit, my glum friend.”
“I got an artistic touch of my own to add, sirra.”
“Oh?”
Tibs held out his closed fist and uncoiled it just a half-hand before Detan’s face. Detan craned his neck to get a better look at the contents, and Tibs poofed out a breath strong enough to blow his hair off his ears.
The hair, however, was not the problem.
Detan swore and reeled back, slapping at the sting in his eyes with both hands. Eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down his painted cheeks, he staggered and swatted at his face, sucking in hot air with sharp breaths. Through his own squealing he heard a short bark of traitorous laughter, and was forced to stand blind and weeping until all the fine grit had washed free. When the burn lessened, he dared to ratchet up one abused eyelid and found Tibs chuckling as he dusted grit from his hands.
So he punched him in the gut.
Or tried to, at any rate. With his fist mid-swing Tibs stepped sideways as his hand snapped down and wrapped around Detan’s wrist, then jerked him forward and released. Detan went stumbling, cursing, crashing into a chair that shattered beneath him. He sprawled across the mercantile remains, savoring the ache in his limbs as he nurtured his indignity.
“Shouldn’t swing on a man when you got just one eye open, sirra.” Tibs knelt before him and offered a hand. Detan spat on it.
“You’re a bastard.”
“True, true.” Tibs wiped the spit-smeared hand on Detan’s arm. “But it adds authenticity, don’t you think? Can’t go telling people you’re sick when your eyes are bright and clear as a hawk’s. And look, now you got a real nice bruise coming in on your cheek.”
New Chum cleared his throat. “The bruise does add a sickly touch.”
“Well fuck you, too,” he muttered as he pushed to his hands and knees, then levered himself unsteadily to his feet. He kicked at a piece of the broken chair. It didn’t make him feel any better.
“Here you are, sir.” New Chum stood with his arm outstretched, a thin grey cloak thrust Detan’s way. He eyed it, prodded it with a finger.
“What? Is this full of snakes?”
“To hide our work, sir, until you reach Grandon’s estate. If you’re spotted with sand scabies on the ferry back to town I daresay the game will be up before it’s begun.”
“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat and straightened his rumpled collar, then snatched the cloak from New Chum and settled it on his shoulders and flicked the hood up.
“How do I look?” He spun around.
“I can’t see a thing,” Tibs said.
“Marvelous.”
The Grandon estate was on the fourth level of the city, clustered amongst similar homes of the newly rich. Detan would have had a difficult time picking it out on any other day, but for his daughter’s birthday Grandon knew no restraint. The slatted wooden gate which separated the house’s private garden from casual eyes was festooned with paper imitations of rare flowers, and from behind reed flutes wavered a cheery tune.
Detan could see little through the close-set slats, so he lingered for a while on the opposite side of the street, his hood pulled low and his back pressed against the fence of one of Grandon’s neighbors. Few people wandered by, and most who did came with colorfully wrapped parcels beneath their arms and disappeared behind the gate. Each time it opened, he learned a little more.
The party was confined, so far as he could tell, to the shade of the front garden’s awning. Some expense had been poured into adorning the garden with real blossoms, though judging by the arrangement of painted rocks on the ground such extravagance was not the usual state of things. The house itself was two flat stories, the second rising just above the crest of the fence. Well kept, white paint. A little balcony to catch the sun on. Pleasant.
This was going to be delightful.
When he had gathered all the information he could, Detan shuffled across the street with his shoulders hunched, kicking up dust to coat his shoes and the bottom of his cloak. The dirtier, the better.
The gate swung inward at his touch. There were no guards to mind the way as at Thratia’s, a difference Detan found common between new money and old. Grandon wanted this party to be full enough that tongues would wag. He would be happy to see anyone at all attend.
Well, almost anyone.
Detan tossed back his hood, and grinned into the sunlight. All around him the crowd froze, murmurs of conversation ceasing as the curious up-and-comers looked his way to find out the nature of this latest distraction. The first woman to get a good look at him screamed, her clay cup shattering amongst the painted rocks. As good a start as any.
“Lady Tela, are you all right?” Grandon emerged from amongst the celebrants and took the lady’s elbow in hand, his thick face crunched with real worry. The lady pointed, and a chasm amongst the crowd opened up all around Detan.
“You,” Grandon snarled.
“Hullo,” he chirruped and waved with the tips of his fingers.
A softly curved woman with a severe jaw appeared at Grandon’s side, her greying brows furrowed in confusion. Not, Detan noted, the slender woman he’d seen Grandon with at the baths.
“Who is this man?” She spoke with a Valathean accent, which was a worry.
The guests gathered in tight round the Grandons, straining their ears to hear every last tidbit of this new scandal. Not a one of them had any clue what was going on, but Detan suspected that for them this little exchange was going to be the highlight of the evening. He intended to make it so.
Thick beads of sweat coalesced on Grandon’s brow, his cheeks flushing red with anger and heat. Whatever he wanted to say, he swallowed it right down. There were too many ears, and he wouldn’t risk tripping over his tongue and coming across as a brute in front of his genteel peers. Detan beamed.
“Why, I’m the man good ole Grandon here bought the flier from.” He gestured toward the place where his flier rested. He’d done his best not look too closely at it since he waltzed through the garden gate. The thing was tied to a raised platform to his left, the rudder-fan neatly patched and a new sel sack inflated above the warm wood.
Some asshole, however, had gotten the idea in his thick skull to paint the hull all over with pink and purple flowers. Happy Birthday Virra! was emblazoned in deep violet along the side of the buoyancy sack, right where a proper ship’s name would have been. As if a flier that small even needed a name.
It was the most hideous thing he’d ever seen, next to the quivering jowls of Grandon himself.