The Iron Wyrm Affair

Interesting.

“He gets in rather a temper when you fling knives at me, Signor Valentinelli.” Miss Bannon did not move; Mikal was now threading his way between two mounds of bundled, ticketed clothing. “I am not certain I should calm him.”

The invisible voice let loose a torrent of abuse in gutter Italian, but Miss Bannon simply nodded and picked her way to the pile of waistcoats. Her mouth set itself firmly as she retrieved the flung knife, and Mikal halted before the hanging coats, tense and ready.

The cursing ceased. “Is there money, then?”

Miss Bannon straightened. “Haven’t I always paid well for your services, signor? Be a dear and put a kettle on, I could do with a cup after the night I’ve had.”

A sleek dark head appeared, pushing through the frock coats with a slightly reptilian movement. The face was still coarsely handsome, but ravaged with pox scars and bad living, and the close-set dark eyes flicked over the entire pawnshop. “What is it? Knife, pistole, garrotte?”

Neapolitan indeed. Clare placed the accent to his satisfaction. Miss Bannon was proving to have extraordinary acquaintances indeed.

“Maybe none, maybe all and more.” Miss Bannon now sounded amused. “I bring you a chance to injure yourself in new and interesting ways. Do you really wish to discuss it here?”

Valentinelli let out a hoarse sound approximating a laugh. “Come up then. But keep il serpente away. He make me nervous.”

“Poor Ludo, nervous. Mikal, keep a close eye on him.” Miss Bannon held the knife away from her skirts, delicately, and shook a stray curl out of her face. “We would hate to have him faint.”

The Neapolitan’s face screwed itself up into a mask of dislike and disappeared, with a creak of leather hinges. Mikal pushed the frock coats aside, and Miss Bannon motioned Clare forward.

“Come, Mr Clare. Signor Valentinelli is to be your guardian angel.”

Chapter Twenty More If I Die

Ludovico’s room was just the same: a monk’s cell, narrow and dark, holding only a single cot and a small leather trunk, a guttering candle throwing dancing shadows over the peeling plaster. Mikal checked it with a glance and nodded them inside. She took the opportunity to hand him the flung knife; he made it disappear with no discernible flicker of expression.

The Neapolitan promptly threw himself down on the cot, eyeing Emma speculatively. He was a quick little man, the efficiency of his movements lacking any sort of grace and bespeaking a great deal of comfort with physical violence. Sleek dark hair, those dark, close-set eyes in the scar-ravaged face – childhood smallpox had been vicious to him. Stretching his arms over his head and yawning, he settled his shoulders more comfortably. He looked like a hevvy, shirt and braces worn but stout, his trousers rough and his boots dusty.

The opening move was hers. “Not even a cup of tea. Your hospitality suffers, signor.”

“You are here after hours, signora.”

“You keep no hours. Do not annoy me. This is the man you’ll be guarding.”

Ludovico scratched along his ribs, tucking his other arm under his head. “Why? What’s he done?”

“That is no concern of yours. You’re to keep his skin whole while I’m occupied with other things.” She paused as Mikal tensed slightly, the candleflame flinching and righting itself. “You may have to kill a sorcerer or two to do so.”

The effect was immediate, and gratifying. Valentinelli sat straight up, eyes narrowing, and a dull-bladed stiletto appeared in his left hand. He spun it over his knuckles, and Emma did not miss Mikal’s own hand twitching slightly.

It was a high compliment from her Shield.

“Why you no have more of him to watch il bambino, eh?” He jabbed a finger at Mikal, still spinning the knife over his knuckles, catching the hilt as it rocketed past. The grime under his short-bitten fingernails, black half-moons, matched the crease in his neck.

She forced herself not to swallow drily. “That is not your concern. Shall I go elsewhere, signor? ”

“At this time of night? And Valentinelli is the best. I protect from il Diavolo himself; you pay me. In gold.”

“In guineas, yes.” The smile fixed to her face wasn’t pleasant, Emma suspected, but it covered a set grimace of almost distaste. “Since you are a gentleman.”

He jabbed forked fingers at her and hissed. “Not even for gold do I let a woman mock me, strega.”

She gathered her patience once more. “I am not mocking, assassino. For the last time, shall I seek elsewhere?”

A supremely indifferent shrug. “I take the job. Twenty guinea, more if I die.”

“Very well.” She did not miss the way he blinked at her readiness to take his first price. It was bad form not to haggle, but she had no patience for his tender feelings at this point. “Bring yourself to me, signor. You’ll be bound for this.”

“Ai, you’re serious.” He heaved himself off the bed and paced towards her, graceless but silent. “What he do, you want him alive this bad?”

“Again, none of your concern.” Emma held her ground, suddenly very aware of the space between her and the Neapolitan. Mikal’s eyes flamed in the dimness, matching the candle’s glow. “Mr Clare, please come here.”

The mentath stared at Valentinelli in the uncertain light, his eyes half closed. His colour was much better, and he seemed to have recovered from the shock of the Wark quite nicely. “You,” he said, suddenly, “had a wife at one time, sir.”

Valentinelli halted. Emma could have cursed the mentath roundly.

“She die,” the Neapolitan said. “What, you a strego? Or you inquisitore?”

“Neither.” Clare’s eyelids drooped a bit more. “Your accent is really wonderful. There’s something, though —”

“Mr Clare.” Emma stepped forward and plucked the black-bladed stiletto from Ludo’s filthy fingers. “Do stop carrying on, and come here. You know what to do, Ludovico.”

“If he is inquisitore—” His voice rose, losing for a moment the soft singing of Calabria and becoming more clipped, more educated, and generally more dangerous.

“He is not one of the holy running dogs, do be reasonable! He’s simply a mentath. Give me your hand, Mr Clare.”

“I don’t know what you mean by simply a—” Damn the man, he sounded irritated. Emma grabbed his hand, the knife flickered, and he actually yelped at the bite of the blade. “What are you doing?”

Ensuring your survival despite your thickheadedness. “You are an execrable nuisance, sir. Your hand, Valentinelli.”

Mikal drifted closer. Ludovico glanced at the Shield, his jaw set and his grimy fingers working as if he felt a neck under them. A trickle of sweat traced down Emma’s spine, cool and distinct.

“Mentath? Mentale? Ah.” He smelled of leather and male, a sharp underbite of grappa and sour sweat. “I forgive him, then.” His cupped palm was strangely clean, given the condition of his nails. But then, she had seen him in many different lights, and this was only one of them.

Her breath caught, her pulse threatening to gallop before she invoked iron control. The man unsettled her.

More precisely, he reminded her of certain childhood things. Things best left in the recesses of memory,