Page 104

“Mordaunt’s?”

“The younger? Oh, no. He’s recovering the fortune. Or was—until you, of course.” This Mrs.Parson said matter-of-factly, without the acrimony that laced Mordaunt’s remarks on the same topic. “The senior—and his predecessors—were rather less wise.”

Mrs.Parson offered no further insights into these unwise ancestors. Aurienne did not pry.

“May I ask…?” Mrs.Parson cast a glance at Aurienne over a round shoulder, hesitated, and fell silent.

“Yes?” prompted Aurienne.

“Is he going to be all right?” asked Mrs.Parson. “Is there a bit of hope?”

“I really can’t comment on his prognosis,” said Aurienne. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“He said not much hope. I suppose not much is still a bit.”

“I suppose it is” was Aurienne’s noncommittal reply.

“He’s told me that you’ve turned to the Old Ways.”

“In desperation, yes,” said Aurienne. “There’s no known cure for his condition.”

“It’s a great relief that he’s, at least, in the best possible hands,” said Mrs.Parson. “Though I know—given your tacn, and his tacn—your hands aren’t the most willing.”

Aurienne produced the most civil answer she could. “Indeed. We seem diametrically opposed on every possible front.”

“Perhaps you’ll be surprised by points of commonality.”

To this, Aurienne could make no civil answer.

Mrs.Parson stopped at a door covered in carvings of tumbling magnolia blossoms. “Here we are. After you, Haelan.”

Aurienne stepped into the high-ceilinged suite. There were no lights save Mrs.Parson’s lamps. The air was hushed and closed; the sounds of their footsteps were absorbed by the swathes of sheets draped over the furnishings.

The bathroom included the luxury of a hearth. Mrs.Parson had taken the trouble to start a fire. Aurienne sniffed at the smoke—it was the same fragrant smoke she had smelled in the sitting room, with that odd undercurrent of bitterness.

“What wood do you burn here?” asked Aurienne.

“Blackthorn,” said Mrs.Parson. “It’s all over the estate. We are quite overrun. Half of my husband’s waking hours involve cutting it back. But it’s not all bad—it makes decent firewood. Burns low and slow.”

She turned the tap adorning the large copper tub, muttered something about the boiler, and convinced the tap to produce hot water by striking it with her fist.

Mrs.Parson left Aurienne a lamp. “Mr.Mordaunt’s not much one for lights,” she said as she placed it next to the bath. “We’d talked of bringing electricity into the house years ago, but, well—with only him here, it’d be of such little use.”

Mrs.Parson left. Aurienne stripped out of the clothes she had bought from Madam Miffle’s girls and slipped into the bath. She paid particular attention to scrubbing the places that Scrope had touched—the last living memories of a dead man.

Thanks to Mordaunt and his fork, she also had literal blood on her hands tonight, which she washed off guiltily. She and the Fyren had left a pile of dead bandits at the lighthouse, and now another body rotted at the Bunghole. This could not go on.

Aurienne dried. In her satchel was one of her Haelan dresses, a lighter, summer version of her usual habit. She shook it out of its roll,slipped it on, and, feeling much more herself, wandered out of the suite, equipped with the lamp. She took a wrong turn or two among gloomy, forgotten corridors. She discovered more of Mordaunt’s collections—a wall of timepieces; a room that housed antique skulls, human and animal. (Aurienne also collected skulls. It offended her to have discovered a point of commonality quite so quickly.)

In her search for the stairs, she came across a locked set of double doors. A book-filled glass display case hinted that this was the library. Aurienne’s curiosity was stymied by the lock on the doors; she turned it instead to the contents of the glass case. The glow of her tacn revealed anatomical texts—a set of all seven of Vesalius’De humani corporis fabrica.

Aurienne sneezed her way to the staircase under the noble faces of Mordaunt ancestors. She travelled across centuries from time-blackened portraits to modern daguerreotypes as she descended. There were marks of Mordaunt’s features in every portrait: a cleft chin here, silver hair there, grey eyes, mouths that hinted at insufferable wide grins. Knightly armour abounded. And now the family’s one remaining scion was a Fyren. How far it had fallen. Or was it a regression? Hadn’t knightly orders begun their existence being paid for violence?

Mordaunt’s critique cricket was still around; a small voice advised Aurienne, as she went, that she smelled like binned mayonnaise.

Aurienne found Mordaunt sprawling in a large armchair in the sitting room. He, too, had washed—presumably he had found a toilet bowl somewhere. He reclined in a Byronic attitude in a half-buttoned white shirt, his damp hair swept artfully to the side, the heels of his boots on the fireguard. The only light came from the hearth. Aurienne quelled the part of her brain that wished her to take note that he was, once again, Being Handsome.

Around Mordaunt were scattered a half dozen of his ancient dogs. This time they did not flee Aurienne’s presence; one or two tails fluttered in timid recognition. Only the voiceless terrier emerged from its state of repose. It barked so forcefully at Aurienne that it knocked itselfoff its feet; then, after their mutual exchange of stares, it retreated to its cushion.