Lora of Two Worlds

When Dane was settled, Elara sent me a private message-rune: ’Soren, come to the stable, at once! Trouble!’ I thought some great ill had befallen. I ran to the stable, and was hard put to keep from laughing. It seemed that Vivienne Locke, when she drove Elara’s black Watch-carriage out, had by mischance scraped a piece of paint from the door against a pillar. The door lay hard against the pillar, caught between advance and retreat. Vivienne Locke’s skill at the reins was, it seemed, no great thing! Elara cried out in pain of heart, and made a great fuss. Vivienne Locke twitched her mouth. ’What is the great matter? The cost of the paint I will repay you by and by!’ Elara waved her hand. ’Let it be. I have carriage-insurance. It is but a great trouble. I must needs haggle with the folk of the insurance guild.’ Elara bade me help work the carriage free. I said this was not my craft. In the end it was Broderick who stepped up. Three moves and five pulls, and he had the carriage out. Elara clucked in praise. ’An old coachman! Worthy of the name.’ ’Do you know what ’old coachman’ means?’ I asked her. ’Is it not this?’ Elara said, in doubt. I was struck dumb. It seemed Elara did not much go upon the message-scrolls. I had some regret at the choice of Vivienne Locke as driver. The maid was stiff in pride, and said that once on the road there would be no trouble. In the end, she was allowed to drive. We left the stable in a turmoil of fear, but once on the road, the going was well enough. Half an hour later, we came to the scene of the murder. It was an old street, with many shops, but all were shuttered. The buildings were in confusion, and many garments hung overhead to dry. Because it was near noon, the folk were at their cooking at home, and from the windows came the sound of frying and the smell of kitchen smoke. Vivienne Locke said this street had stood in Wuqu City for many a year. In former days it had sold sundries. Later, as the great markets grew thick nearby, the younger folk would not come here, and it had fallen into decay... Vivienne Locke led us to a house of two storeys. Without, there was drawn a Watch-cord, and upon the door was pasted a Watch seal. Elara said, ’The dead were well-enough off, were they not? Why did they not dwell in an apartment tower?’ Vivienne Locke explained, ’The father of the dead was once in the trade of scrolls and paintings. This house upon the street was once a scroll-shop. The dead came to inherit it from his father.’ I asked Elara, ’Have you never dwelt in such an old house?’ She shook her head. ’Never. It must be less comfortable than an apartment tower. I have dwelt in one since I was a child.’ I had dwelt, from my childhood, in the old manor of the House of Vane. Such wooden houses are warm in winter and cool in summer. One has no need of an alchemical cold-furnace. It is most comfortable. Later, when I went to the Academy and dwelt in the apprentice tower, I was a long time ill at ease. We tore off the seal and went within. The ground floor was wide and roomy, like a great hall. It seemed, in truth, to have been a shop. Because no lamp was lit, the ground floor was somewhat chill and ghostly. Elara said, ’It is like a scene from a ghost-play!’ Vivienne Locke gave a gibe. ’With so small a heart, you call yourself a Watchman?’ Elara glared at her. ’Would you die if you held your tongue? Who was it that fainted but now?’ ’I but tripped and fell, that is all,’ Vivienne Locke made her excuse. ’Aye, with the foam at your lips! Go you to the healing-hall and have them look at your skull. See if you have not struck your brains,’ Elara spoke in scorn without end. ’You!’ I feared they would fall to quarrelling there. So I said to Vivienne Locke, ’Mistress Locke, go and buy me a bag of fine flour.’ She was glaring at Elara, and cast me a word, out of all patience. ’What would you with that thing?’ ’Go, at once!’ I commanded. Vivienne Locke, in great reluctance, went out. Elara sighed. ’She is fair of face, but her temper is too ill. No doubt her lord’s-son sweetheart has spoiled her.’ ’Her looks are but common to me, not so fair as you,’ I answered. I had spoken but by chance. Who could have known that Elara would take it so strongly? She took my hand in joy. ’Soren, do you, in truth, think so?’ I owned it, in shame. ’Yea... yea!’ Vivienne Locke was, in sooth, a fair woman. But I felt her fairness was ’sharp’. How shall I say it? A sharp chin, slanting eyes, willow-leaf brows. She was far less round and smooth than Elara, and less winning. But if one speak of bearing, Elara was shrewd, free, and bore the air of a woman Watch-officer, handsome and brave. Vivienne Locke bore the air of one reared in indulgence: self-willed, fractious, a great lady’s temper through and through. As the saying goes, without comparison, there is no hurt! Elara nudged me with her elbow. ’Tell me, we have known each other this while, and I know not yet what manner of maid you favor.’ ’Er...’ I looked at her, and my cheeks grew hot all at once. ’A soft maid with long hair!’ Elara spoke in surprise. ’What? That is the very opposite of me! Do you not, perhaps, shame to say you favor my kind, and so speak thus on purpose?’ ’No! By no means!’ I denied it flatly. We climbed the creaking wooden stair to the second floor. From the head of the stair, one could see at a glance the dining room where the murder had befallen. Within was a scene of ruin. The table was overturned. The windows were broken. The floor was strewn with shards of bowls and chopsticks. The walls were splashed with much blood, so that the original colour of the wall-cloth could scarce be seen. Upon the floor, white cord had been laid out in the shape of the fallen dead. With the thick curtains shutting out the sun, the scene was, as may be guessed, most ghostly and strange. I knit my brow. ’The geomancy of this house is ill.’ Elara asked, in surprise, ’Ho! You know geomancy?’ ’Geomancy is not, in truth, so dark an art. My grandfather told me it is but whether the first impression of a house is one of ease or not.’ I pointed. ’Look. The bedchamber door and the dining-room door face one another. There is no privacy. The stair is so steep. For the old madam, whose legs were faulty, it must have been most ill to go up and down. The bedchamber and the privy are so far apart, with a stair between. On a winter’s night, to go to the privy in the dark, it must be cold and fearful...’ ’You speak with reason. When I buy a house, I will have you, Master Soren, come and look at it,’ Elara nodded again and again. ’I am not worthy, I am not worthy,’ I laughed. The house had, one may say, flaws in its design, but not so great as to bring blood and doom upon its master. Geomancy and the murder had, in all likelihood, no part in one another. We went into the dining room. It was joined to the kitchen. The kitchen, too, was in disorder. The floor was covered with broken shards. The knives that had lain upon the ground had been taken away by the Watch. Before the cooking-table, a line of white cord had been drawn in the shape of a man. I stood still and observed a while, seeking to set the whole course of the murder back together in my mind. By common reason, the case had no need of further inquiry, for the killer was already dead. But what we must lay bare was its unnatural side, and the cause behind it! I drew back the curtain, and marked that there was an empty house opposite. Then I fell to gazing, lost in thought, at a crafted mask upon the wall. Elara said, ’Do you like this thing? I will buy you one by and by.’ ’Nay. I am thinking of other matters,’ I answered. ’Have you any clue?’ Elara asked. I shook my head. ’Not a thread.’ ’I, too, can see no clue. This case is too strange...’ Elara said. Then she turned and asked Broderick, ’Broderick, you are a man of experience. Have you marked aught?’ Broderick, his face without expression, held his peace for ten seconds. Elara sighed. ’Well. My thanks for your precious counsel.’ At that moment, there came a sound of steps from below. Elara said, ’It is Mistress Locke, returned, is it not?’ She was about to go down to meet her, but I held her back, and set my ear to listen. The steps were not like those of Vivienne Locke. I was on my guard in a flash. ’Nay. There is someone else come in!’

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