THE SERPENT'S TOOTH, Part 6
Three days had passed since our meeting with the Widows, but we were still in Nyagra. My days were mostly filled with additional rounds of talks with the factors. The factors had cautiously accepted my proposals and on that basis we were settling various details. In the meantime, I was communicating with my fellow lords by Angel messenger. The combined force of samurai, auxiliaries, and settlers that would establish the first of the vassal villages was being assembled.
Olivia was overseeing my part of that. Her presence was untraditional, but I didn't think there would be a problem. A Storm-Hammer of Lady Ororo commands respect from both the martial- and religious-minded, so her words would carry weight among both my fellow lords and their wives, priestesses, and samurai advisors. And once anyone got to know Olivia, they inevitably realized two things: she was quite intelligent and it would be really stupid to cross her.
"Those two little girls are still following us," Benjamin observed.
"Yes," I agreed. "Call them over."
Benjamin put his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle. Then he made a "come here" gesture towards a particular alleyway.
After a moment's hesitation, two brown faces with yellowish eyes peered out of the mouth of the alley. The girls seemed surprised.
"Let's get something to eat," I called to them.
The girls looked at each other. This situation probably wasn't covered in their training.
"If you're having a meal with us, than you certainly know where we are and what we're doing," Benjamin pointed out.
"But don't poison anything!" Gant growled.
The two girls were named Samantha and Sophie. They were cautiously nibbling at some bread and cheese as they sat with us in the courtyard of our inn. Our table was one of several next to one of the courtyard walls.
"Why are you following us?" Benjamin asked as he finished off a mug of ale.
"Because we were told to follow you," Samantha replied immediately. I could only tell the difference between the two because Samantha had a tiny mole under her left eye. Otherwise, they were identical. Even their scent was the same.
Their yellow-brown eyes indicated that they had some Creed blood in them. That was not uncommon in this region. It was a leftover from a long-ago large Creed raid. The Creed do not treat captured females as anything other than as objects of amusement and a means of breeding more of their kind. Some of the resulting children don't become full-Creed, and if rescued have a chance of fitting into Blood society - although it isn't a good one. Some ancestor of the girls must have been one of the lucky ones.
Benjamin shrugged, "That's certainly a reasonable answer. Are you supposed to kill us at some point?"
Sophie quickly shook her head. She seemed to be less inclined to speak than her sister.
"How long has it been since your mistress took you in?" I asked as I cut an apple in half and handed it to the girls. Folk and Wilder children require more of that sort of thing in their diet than Blood children.
Samantha frowned for a moment before answering. "Momma sold us to the mistress about three years ago."
Sophie nodded in energetic agreement.
"Killed anyone yet?" Gant asked. He was sitting on the ground next to our table.
Samantha hesitated before answering. "There was someone last year. He wanted to touch us. I told him no and he didn't like that. He grabbed Sophie."
Sophie swallowed a piece of apple and then used a finger to draw a very final-appearing line across her throat.
"He had it coming," Gant said with a shrug. I had to agree with his assessment.
That was when Jessica walked in the door. This time, she was dressed as an ordinary Folk female on her way to market - she was even carrying a shopping basket. As she approached us, she gave Samantha and Sophie a stern look that suggested that there would eventually be a conversation concerning proper surveillance technique. The two girls looked sheepish.
Jessica bowed deeply in my direction. I gestured to an empty stool at our table and she sat down. Benjamin signaled a barmaid. She brought over a clean mug and poured an ale for Jessica from the pitcher on our table. Jessica held up a hand to ensure that she only got half a cup.
"Back to work," Jessica quietly told the girls. They scrambled to their feet, grabbed some spare bread, and then vanished out the gate.
"Please don't make friends with them, Lord Ashe," Jessica told me. "The mistress will beat them if she finds out."
"She'll beat them no matter what," Gant said after swallowing a huge slice of roast pumpkin. "She has the madness. You can see it in her eyes."
Jessica made no response to that. She just drank her ale.
"Do you have news?" I asked.
"If it serves the will of your lordship, the mistress will meet you in Potter's Court, an hour after sunset."
"That is agreeable," I replied.
"Yes, my lord," Jessica said. Then she finished her ale, got to her feet, bowed once again, and withdrew.
Benjamin closely watched her leave.
"You know what she is?" I asked him.
Benjamin slowly nodded his head, his eyes were on mine.
"Do what you feel is right," I told him.
Potter's Court was next to the market and had once been where the pot-makers of Nyagra sold their wares. Over the years, buildings had clustered together and the spaces between them were walled off or otherwise filled in. Then the potter's market moved closer to the city gate. Now, Potter's Court was an enclosed irregular square of two-story structures and their connecting walls. The buildings were almost all residences and there were only two ways in and out of the court. It was also poorly lit and the inhabitants were destitute enough that they minded their own business and didn't expect much from the authorities.
All in all, it was a good place for a discreet meeting - or an ambush.
I almost didn't recognize the cell-mistress. This time, her appearance was now more matronly than elderly, and she was dressed in a manner suggestive of the wife of some prosperous holder. I estimated her age to be in her late-forties. She had obviously once been a notable beauty, but some of that was now gone. However, the problem wasn't really age. Gant was right, there was something cruel and quite possibly mad about her. It was even a part of her scent - an acidity that was her humanity being eroded away.
I didn't want to kill her. Not because her death would be any great loss, but because that would almost surely mean we'd have to kill the remainder of her cell. Calling them "innocent" would be an insult to the word, but none of them really had any choice about the path they were walking. And some struck me as salvageable.
"The woman you seek is indeed alive," the cell-mistress reported. "She was transported to the Point just a few days after her faked execution. She was held in the temple there for about a week, and was then sent north with an escorting force of acolytes and temple guardsmen. At the village of Cats Kill, she was handed over to a priestess of the Storm goddess named Dare. From there, they headed further north to the village of Alban. The woman is now part of the temple staff in Alban. She has a child of about the age you mentioned."
That all sounded very right. Dare was the Storm priestess of the Alban temple, and we'd met once before. Actually, I should have guessed that she had custody of Ingrid. Emma and Dare were colleagues and friends and had connections to the more secretive - and dangerous - elements of their respective orders. And back when Emma was playing the role of a common temple servant, Dare had known her secret and made use of her talents. They obviously trusted each other. If Emma needed help, Dare was her most likely choice for an ally.
My already high opinion of the intelligence-gathering ability of the Widows went up a notch. It was remarkable that they had been able to gather so much information in just three days. It was extremely suggestive of the resources available to the Black Widow network.
In fact, it was alarmingly suggestive. Not for the first time, I wondered if perhaps I should have wiped out the Black Widows back when I had the chance. At the time, I felt it was better to simply eliminate high-mistress Tonya and break that generation of Widows away from her dreams of power. And besides, the ancient connection between the Old One and the Black Widows had to be considered. According to an obscure passage of the Traditions, the first Widow had addressed the Old One as "little uncle."
"Do you have any idea why the temple decided to keep the woman alive?" I asked.
The cell-mistress opened her arms and bowed slightly. "No, my lord. We could investigate further, but the temple is a dangerous target. Your interest in the matter might be discovered and I understand that you do not want that."
Reaching inside my jacket, I pulled out a soft leather document case and handed it to the cell-mistress.
"A map and a written description of landmarks identifying the location of high-mistress Tonya's grave," I explained to cell-mistress. She tried to hide her feelings, but I knew her true reaction. She accepted the case as if I'd given her the keys to the world.
The cell-mistress took a long breath and let it out slowly. Then she nodded her head.
"Then our business is complete," the cell-mistress said.
"Not quite," Benjamin said. "We want to hire one of your cell as a travelling companion. Her skills might be useful."
I didn't react to what Benjamin had said. It was unplanned, but my senior samurai had every right to make certain decisions on his own.
The cell-mistress studied Benjamin. "I assume you mean Jessica?"
Benjamin nodded.
"She is not available," the cell-mistress responded coldly.
Something went still in Benjamin. The cell-mistress recognized it and her eyes narrowed. Beside us, Gant stiffened. Within Potter's court, shadows seemed to shift as owls suddenly called back and forth.
Gant began turning his head, no longer hiding the fact that he was tracking the assassins surrounding us. He speculatively hefted his giant club.
"I will pay generously for Jessica and the two girls," I interrupted.
"You have nothing left to bargain with," the cell-mistress told me. She didn't look away from Benjamin as she spoke. Violence was just a heart-beat away.
"That grave holds high-mistress Tonya's body," I said, "but not her weapons and other treasures."
That actually broke the cell-mistress' attention away from Benjamin. However, he kept his eyes on her.
I pulled a woman's ring out of my breast-pocket and flipped it towards the cell-mistress. The ruby set in the ring flickered in the torchlight as it spun. The cell-mistress caught the ring in mid-air and then held it up for a better view.
"The Widow's Eye..." she whispered in amazement as she gazed into the ring's stone.
"Returning the corpse of the high-mistress to the Black Widows is a great deed," I told her. "But how will you be rewarded if you place the lost trappings of the Order before high-mistress Cecily? The Widows will honor you for your deed in finding Tonya, but Cecily herself will place the Widow's Stings around her wrists after you hand them to her. That's the sort of deed that makes a high-mistress consider the name of her successor."
The cell-mistress just stared at me. You could almost see the complex welter of calculations going through her mind. One of them involved killing us all - damn the losses, consequences, and the serious possibility that her cell would be destroyed in the attempt - and looting my corpse. But it wasn't possible that I had all of Tonya's accouterments actually with me. Was it?
"My price is Jessica and the two girls," I said inexorably. "And I am not renting them, I'm buying them."
Benjamin blinked and looked at me.
My words rocked the cell-mistress once more. The price I was asking was steep. Essentially, I was demanding that she barter away the future of her cell. It would take years to replace her three youngest daughters - quite possibly it would take more years than a short-lived Folk woman had left. And Jessica was a particularly rare and valuable resource. But would any of that really matter if the cell-mistress found herself soon ascending to undreamt of heights within her order?
"If I send a messenger tonight," I added, "the rest of the jewelry and weapons will be yours within the week."
The cell-mistress considered my words carefully. Then she came to her decision.
"Jessica, Samantha, Sophie. Come here," she called out sharply.
Out of the darkness, they appeared. They were wearing dark, form-fitting, leather armor - even little Samantha and Sophie. Dark wrappings covered their faces, leaving only their eyes revealed.
"Uncover your faces," the cell-mistress continued tonelessly.
The cell's youngest assassins stripped the wrappings from their faces. When they were done, their wraps hung from their hands like long, dark, ribbons. I was oddly reminded of my daughters tying up each other's hair.
The expression on Jessica's face was blank - almost lost. She had mentally retreating to the place where orders were instantly obeyed rather than being even slightly considered. The two younger girls were more obviously shocked and confused.
"Kneel. Heads to the ground," the cell-mistress ordered.
The girls did as they were commanded.
"Please, mistress. Please don't," I heard Jessica whisper. She said it so softly that I doubt the cell-mistress heard. Not that the cell-mistress was listening.
"Jessica, Samantha, and Sophie: you are no longer mine," the cell-mistress stated very clearly. "I renounce all claim to you. You now belong to lord Ashe. Your service is his. Your bodies are his. Your souls are his."
Then she bowed to me. I nodded my head in return.
We had a bargain.