Page 100

But tonight the reek of cindin was heavy in the air, and men slouched insolently in the chairs where the whores usually displayed themselves.

The prostitutes who remained in the room were standing or perched on laps.

Their smiles seemed more brittle, their laughter more forced, and Kennit noticed how swiftly their eyes strayed to Bettel herself.

This time her black locks had been trained into ringlets.

They swung stiff and shining. Despite her layers of powder, a mist of perspiration shone on her forehead and upper lip, and the reek of cindin was stronger on her breath.

‘Captain Kennit, you dear man!’ she greeted him with her usual contrived affection. She came at him, arms wide as if to embrace him. At the last moment she dropped them to clasp her hands joyously before her. Her fingernails were gilded. ‘Just wait until you see what I have for you!’

‘I’d rather not wait,’ Kennit replied irritably. His eyes wandered the room.

‘For I knew you were coming, you see!’ she burbled on.

‘Oh, we hear of it right away, when the Marietta comes to dock. And here in Divvytown, we’ve heard all the tales of your adventures.

Not that we wouldn’t be so delighted if you ever chose to favour us with the telling yourself.

’ She batted her lash-laden eyes up at him, and rolled her breasts forward against the confines of her dress.

‘You know my usual arrangements,’ he pointed out to her, but she had seized hold of his hand and was threatening to engulf it in her bosom as she clasped it fondly to her.

‘Oh, your usual arrangements!’ she cried gaily. ‘Fie on the usual, Captain Kennit, dear. That is not why a man comes to Bettel’s house, for the “usual”. Now come with me and see. Just see what I’ve saved for you.’

There were at least three men in the room who were following their conversation with more attention than seemed polite. None of them, Kennit noted, looked particularly pleased as Bettel tugged him over to a candlelit alcove off the main room. Curious and cautious, he glanced within.

Either she was a new arrival, or had been working on his previous visits.

She was striking if one fancied small, pale women.

She had large blue eyes in a heart-shaped face with painted pink cheeks.

Her plump little mouth was painted red. Short golden hair was dressed in tight curls all over her head.

Bettel had dressed her in pale blue, and decked her with gilt jewellery.

The girl stood up from the tasselled cushions where she had been seated and smiled sweetly up at him.

Nervously, but sweetly. Her nipples had been tipped with pink to make them stand out more noticeably beneath the pale gauze of her dress.

‘For you, Captain Kennit,’ Bettel purred. ‘As sweet as honey, and pretty as a little doll. And our largest room. Now. Will you want your meal set out first, as usual?’

He smiled at Bettel. ‘Yes, I will. And in my usual room, with my usual woman to follow. I do not play with dolls. They don’t amuse me.’

He turned and walked away from her, headed toward the stair. Over his shoulder, he reminded her. ‘Have Etta bathe first. And remember, Bettel, a decent wine.’

‘But Captain Kennit!’ she protested. The nervousness in her voice was suddenly a shrilling of fear. ‘Please. At least try Avoretta. If you do not fancy her, there will be no charge.’

Kennit was ascending the stairs. ‘I do not fancy her, so there is no charge.’ The small of his back ached with tension.

He had seen avidity kindle in the men’s eyes as he started up the main staircase.

He reached the top of the landing and opened the door to the narrow stair beyond it.

He entered it, shutting the door behind him.

Several long, light strides took him to the second small landing where the sole lantern burned.

Here the stairway bent back on itself. He waited soundlessly around the corner.

He drew his sword silently and unsheathed his belt knife as well.

He heard the door below softly open and then close again.

By their cautious tread, at least three men were behind him on the stairs.

He smiled grimly. Better here, in tight quarters with them below him than out on the dark of the streets.

With a bit of luck he’d take at least one by surprise.

He did not have to wait long. They were too eager.

As the first one stepped around the corner, the tip of Kennit’s blade flicked across the man’s throat.

That simple. Kennit gave him a good shove.

He tumbled back into his fellows, gargling incoherently, and as they stumbled backwards down the stairs, Kennit followed, dashing out the lamp as he passed it and then flinging the hot glass and spilling oil down on them.

They cursed in the dark now, with a dying man’s weight pressing them back down the stairs.

Kennit made several random downward thrusts with his sword to encourage their retreat.

He hoped the dying man would be low, collapsing against their legs.

Stabbing him again would be a waste of effort, so he placed his thrusts higher and had the satisfaction of two cries of pain.

Perhaps the stairway and closed door would muffle them.

He was sure that further surprises awaited him upstairs.

No sense in spoiling their anticipation.

He heard these three hit the downstairs door and sprang forwards then, thrusting with both sword and dagger into any flesh he could find.

Here he had the advantage, for anything that was not himself was the enemy, whereas they had as good a chance of striking an ally as him in the dark, close confines of the stairwell.

One man at least was fumbling wildly for the doorknob, cursing when he could not find it.

Eventually he did, but only in time to open it and allow himself and his dying companions to spill out onto the landing.

At the base of the staircase, Bettel looked up in horror from her parlour.

‘Rats,’ Kennit informed her. Another tidy flick of his sword, to be sure the last man stayed down and died. ‘Vermin on your staircase. You really should not allow this, Bettel.’

‘They forced me! They forced me. I tried to keep you from going up there, you know I did!’ The woman’s wail followed him as he turned back to the staircase.

He shut the door firmly on it, hoping it had not carried all the way to the chamber at the top of the house.

Soft-footed as a cat he padded up the darkened stairs.

He let his sword’s tip lead the way. When he reached the second door, he paused.

If they were alarmed at all — no, if they were sly at all — they’d have a man waiting outside this door.

He eased the latch open, took a fresh grip on both his weapons, and then shouldered his way through the door, coming in as low and silently as he could. No one was there.

The door to his usual chamber was shut. Voices came through it, pitched softly.

Men’s voices. At least two, then. They sounded impatient.

No doubt they’d seen him through the window as he approached Bettel’s house.

Why hadn’t they ambushed him at the top of the stairs?

Perhaps because they’d expected their fellows to overpower him and drag him into this chamber for them?

He considered, then pounded roughly on the door.

‘Got him!’ he cried hoarsely, and was rewarded by a fool who jerked the door open for him.

Kennit put his knife low in the man’s belly and then dragged it up with all his strength.

It did not do as much damage as he had hoped it would; worse, it tangled in the man’s loose shirt.

Kennit was forced to abandon it in him. He gave the man a backwards shove and then sprang forwards to meet the next man’s blade.

His blade engaged Kennit’s neatly, turned aside his thrust, then thrust in turn.

A gentlemanly approach to fencing, Kennit realized, as he set the man’s blade tip out of alignment with his throat.

A mistaken sense of gallantry and showmanship.

Kennit whipped a glance about the room. There was one more man sitting with studied composure in his chair before the fire.

He held a glass of claret in one hand, but was prudent enough to have his hand on the drawn sword across his knees.

Etta was flung naked across the bed. They had bloodied both the woman and the linens.

‘Ah. King Kennit has come calling on his lady,’ the seated man observed lazily.

He gestured with his glass at the whore.

‘I don’t think she’ll be up to receiving you just now.

Our day’s amusement has left her… indisposed. ’

It was meant to distract him and it almost worked. It was distressing. No. It angered him. This clean and pleasant chamber, the comparative safety of Bettel’s house had been taken away. He’d never be able to relax in this room again. The bastards!

A part of him was aware of shouts in the street outside.

More of them. He’d have to finish this one quickly, and then get the one in the chair.

But even as he pressed his reach advantage, the mocking man rose and advanced on Kennit with his sword.

That one, at least, was not stupid enough to think that fair-play had anything to do with killing.

Kennit was not stupid enough to think he had much of a chance against two blades.

He wished he hadn’t had to leave his knife in the other man.