Grace charged into the room. Marguerite braced herself, not sure if she’d earned a warm embrace
or a punch in the jaw but willing to accept either.
Grace’s arms went around her and the knot in Marguerite’s chest loosened. She hadn’t broken things past mending. She’d left before Grace became a target, and Grace had forgiven her. She took a deep breath, smelling the scent that her perfumer friend was wearing, something tantalizingly familiar that she couldn’t quite put a name on.
“What on earth is that perfume?”
Grace’s laughing sob, or sobbing laugh—Marguerite doubted that she knew herself—broke against her shoulder. “It’s supposed to be petrichor.”
“Isn’t that a level of hell?”
“No, silly.” Grace stepped back, wiping at her eyes. “It’s the smell right before a rainstorm. You know it.”
“Oh.” Marguerite leaned in and sniffed. “That’s it. How on earth did you make a scent like that?”
Grace shook her head. “Never mind any of that. You’re here! You’re back! Are you staying? I’ve moved into the upstairs, but there’s still a bed in my old room.”
“No, no. I’m only here for a day or two. Until the Bishop has her people ready to ride.”
“Will you stay with us until then?”
Marguerite winced internally at the hope on Grace’s face. She hated to say no, but the thought of that small, narrow room, with only one door, and no way to escape if someone came through… “I’m sorry. I’d love to, but I have to be here for all the last-minute arrangements, not sending runners halfway across the city.” She grasped Grace’s hands more tightly. “But tell me everything that’s happened with you!”
“Me? I haven’t done anything special. I work, I make perfumes, some of them sell, some of them flop. I have a deal with a minstrel who attends all the fancy parties and takes orders, but he’s not half the agent you were. Tab is the same as ever. He gets into Stephen’s yarn and rolls around and makes a horrible mess, and Stephen sighs and extracts him again.”
“And are you still happy with your paladin, dear heart?”
“Yes,” said Grace. “Gloriously, foolishly happy.” She smiled down at her friend. “I go about my work and I sell perfume and everything is normal and then he turns up and I think my god, I love you so damn much. And it’s just…easy. I know that everyone says that love is hard work, but when I compare it to what life used to be like…” She shook her head.
Marguerite knew that Grace had been in a particularly dreadful marriage with a particularly dreadful man named Phillip some years earlier. She had also arranged for the information of Phillip’s death to be brought to her friend last year. （She hadn’t arranged for the death itself, although she’d certainly considered it.）
“I was grateful for your letter,” Grace said, as if reading her mind. “Not just to know about Phillip, but to know that you were still alive. We worry about you, you know.”
Marguerite waved her hands. “I’m fine. Always am.”
“Yes, but I don’t know that!”
“I’d rather not bring anything down on your head,” said Marguerite. “You know what kind of business I’m in. The fact that I lived here for so long is trouble enough. It had to look like a clean break. I’m sorry.”
Grace sighed. “I know,” she said. “Or rather I don’t know, but I know you’re doing what you think is best. And you would know. So, what do you need?”
“Some samples. They don’t have to be anything you actually want to sell. It’s just my cover story.
I’m peddling perfumes to the nobility again, and fell in with a noblewoman who needed an escort to the Court of Smoke. That’s Wren.”
“Oh, that’ll be delightful,” said Grace, laughing. “You’ll like her. I like her, anyway.”
“Right. And I’m taking another one along as a bodyguard. Tall fellow, regrettable beard.”
“Shane.” Grace nodded. “I can’t say if you’ll like him. He’s…very paladinly.”
“What, clanky and judgmental?”
“Oh no, not at all. More like apologetic furniture. He doesn’t talk and when he does, it’s usually to apologize for interrupting.”
Marguerite groaned. “Joy. Still, what I want is an obvious bodyguard for the court, and apparently he’s good at that.”
“Yes, very. The Bishop takes him everywhere. And I hear that he’s the one most likely to overrule the Bishop on matters of her own safety.”
“Not that apologetic, then?”
Grace grinned at her. “Eh, I’ve seen you charm customers who were ready to burn the building down. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting him to warm up.”
Marguerite accepted this statement as her due. “I’ll see what I can do.” She hooked her arm through Grace’s. “Now tell me more about how Tab is doing. I haven’t seen my best civette boy in far too long…”
SHANE CLIMBED the steps to Beartongue’s offices. The outer rooms full of clerks and civil servants, all working with great intensity, still seemed familiar and foreign all at once.
In the Temple of the Dreaming God, there were also scribes and clerks, many engaged in the work of writing and copying, reading reports on demonic activity, and dispatching paladins and priests to deal with it. His father had been one such clerk, and one of Shane’s earliest memories was of rooms of pale stone, the scratch of quills and the murmur of voices, and in the far distance, the sound of the litany being chanted.
But there the similarity ended. There were twice as many clerks here, many of them sharing desks, and three more rooms just like this one, plus a cadre of lawyers and organizers with quarters in the White Rat’s temple compound. The Rat had bigger problems than the occasional demonic possession.
The Dreaming God’s people carried themselves with an air of solemn purpose, whereas the Rat’s always seemed to be cheerfully bailing the tide.
He waited outside the Bishop’s chamber, listening to the familiar sounds of reports being issued and reviewed.
“…says we need another healer assigned south of…”
“…ten gold will fix the problem…”
“…haven’t got enough. I can send an apprentice with her on rounds…”
“…lawyers don’t grow on trees, you know. Not even around here…”
After about five minutes, the door opened and two servants of the Rat came out, holding thick folios in front of them. He slipped in behind them. “May I request a moment of your time, Your Holiness?” It occurred to him belatedly that he should probably have asked for an appointment.
“Not if you’re going to ‘Your Holiness’ at me,” said Beartongue. She gestured to a seat, then leaned back in her chair, sharpening a quill with a pen-knife. “Is there a problem?”
“Ah…not exactly a problem, but…” He sat, wondering how to phrase the question.
Her eyes moved over him and she sighed. “You’re wondering why I’m sending you off with Marguerite and not someone else?”