boys, and put together they’re not as much trouble as that girl.”
“Why not let her go? She might not like it; then you can say you told her so.”
“Oh, she’ll like it. That’s what worries me.” He wiped his hands on a rag, then shook mine. “What brings you down here?”
I flipped a gold coin in the air so it caught the sunlight. Sharky’s eyes narrowed. “I wondered,” I said casually, “what you knew about the new owners of the Lizard’s Kiss.”
Sharky caught the coin on its next flip. “Bunch of weirdos from deep in the Black River Hills. They all look the same because they’ve been inbreeding for generations.”
“What’s with the scarves?”
“Religious symbol. Dragon worshippers.”
My eyebrows went up, but only slightly. Had to appear a little surprised. “Dragons?”
“Yeah. These guys believe dragons were real, and that they’ll come back one day and burn up everyone who ain’t part of their church.”
“Why did they buy a whorehouse?” Usually these strange little cults enforced strict, ascetic behavior that certainly didn’t encourage promiscuity.
“Don’t know, but Joan Diter had to skedaddle in the middle of the night. I saw her load onto a boat and head downstream with barely more than she could carry. And she was no wilting flower, that woman.”
The pattern was forming. Marantz certainly had the muscle to run off anyone he wanted, and his thugs had the same red scarves as these backwoods lacktooths and wore dragon emblems. I couldn’t imagine Marantz had suddenly found religion, though. Why bring these guys to town, buy a whorehouse and then close it? Why send his men into the hills to look for something by coating rocks with lamp oil? And why torture Laura Lesperitt to death? “Thanks,” I said, and patted Sharky’s arm.
As I climbed the hill from the riverbank, Minnow rushed to intercept me. She had on a dry dress, but her hair was still wet. “Mr. LaCrosse! Can I talk to you? You know Mother Bennings, don’t you?”
“She patched me up, but we’re not best friends.”
She looked up at me, eager and breathless. “Would you put in a word for me? I really want to learn from her.”
“Why? It’s not an easy life. There are places where moon priestesses are arrested on sight and turned into prostitutes.”
“Really?” She blinked in surprise. “Around here?”
“No. But they do it in Menasha. And in Brule their tongues are cut out if they speak in public.” That was a slight exaggeration, since all women were forbidden to speak in Brule, but in my experience moon priestesses were harder than most to shut up.
Minnow turned as pale as her dress. “Wow. You’re not lying to me just to help my dad, are you? Because he’s afraid if I join-”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Minnow, I’m telling you things I’ve seen with my own eyes. Your dad probably doesn’t know about them, and if he did, he’d keep it to himself just to spare you. He loves you.”
I could see her mind working behind her big dark eyes. “Wow,” she said again. “Thanks, Mr. LaCrosse.” She turned and went back inside much more slowly, lost in thought.
I sighed. One more dream destroyed. Way to go.
THE barber, his hands still smelling of blood from a tooth extraction performed that morning, cut my hair shorter than it had been since I’d graduated to long pants. He was careful around the scab on the back of my head, but it still made my eyes water a couple of times. He also shaved my beard from my chin, leaving my mustache and side-whiskers. He trimmed them down to a fine, spidery line.
One reason I kept my hair long and my beard shaggy was so, in a pinch like this, I could quickly and drastically alter my appearance. I learned the trick a while back, during a particularly awful job on the island of Grand Bruan. When he held up the polished silver plate for me to check myself in, I saw someone I could barely identify; I doubted anyone who’d casually seen me around Neceda would recognize me elsewhere, especially with my new horse. I paid the barber extra, an unspoken agreement for his silence. It would hold, I knew, until someone offered him more.
I turned up Ditch Street on my way out of town and stopped in front of the old Lizard’s Kiss building.
It was two stories, slightly larger than Mrs. Talbot’s rooming house. The bottom floor was broader than the top, allowing room for a narrow walkway around the entire upper half. During festivals, the girls would hang over the rails to entice new customers. In the back was a walled-in garden, hidden from the street and the neighboring buildings. Upstairs were four rooms, while downstairs held four more, plus the large sitting room where guests could meet the ladies. The decor, on the outside at least, was drab and nondescript. I’d never personally seen the inside, and only knew as much as I did from piecing together stories told at Angelina’s.
From the street it looked abandoned: the doors were closed, and all the windows boarded up. The comfortable chairs that once lined the street-level porch had been removed. Still, the dirt had been trampled recently by a lot of feet, and footprints led up the steps to the door.
I added mine to them. I put my ear to the wood and listened. I heard faint hammering sounds and indistinct voices.
Then I felt the porch shift under new weight. Without acknowledging it, I slid my hand toward my sword hilt. I was ready when the voice said, “It’s closed.”
I turned. One of the red-scarfed men, his clothes streaked with dirt, stood behind me. He had hands the size of skillets that looked like he could twist off a mule’s head. His eyes were small and dark. The top of his head came up to my shoulder.
“Sounds like they’re renovating,” I said genially. “When will it open back up? There used to be a curly-headed redhead here who could swallow-”
“It’s closed for good,” he said in his guttural backwoods accent. “There’s other whorehouses in town.”
“Yeah, but this is the Lizard’s Kiss. It’s a legend.”
“It’s a closed legend.”
I sighed with all the weariness of a disappointed traveler. “Aren’t they all? Okay, thanks.”
He stepped aside as I went back to my horse, but he kept watching me until I disappeared around the corner. Sharky had them pegged, all right. But why were they here? And what did they have to do with Marantz?
MY route to Walpaca took me past the hospital, and Minnow’s questions reminded me that Hank had mentioned Mother Bennings. I detoured up the path to the building, where several of the young apprentices gathered outside the main door. As I got closer I heard some of them sobbing. I dismounted, threw the reins around the post and approached. I realized all of them were sobbing. “What’s going on?” I asked.
A girl with straight black hair and splotchy cheeks turned to me. “Someone killed Mother Bennings!” she wailed.
My stomach clenched. It had been doing that a lot lately. “What happened?” I asked. But the girl resumed blubbering on her friend’s shoulder. None of the others looked like they were in any shape to answer questions, either, so I pushed past them into the building.
I followed the line of crying girls into one of the big consulting rooms. Here the adult staff, all women with gray hair and serious expressions, stood around a table on which a body lay under a sheet. A few had wet cheeks and red eyes, but none were hysterical. I was about to say something when Argoset appeared from a side room, his hand on a matronly healer’s shoulder.
He was in uniform again, every hair in place and all his buttons shiny. The woman sniffled and nodded along with whatever he was saying. He stopped dead when he saw me, and it took him a moment to place me; guess the new haircut and shave worked. “Mr. LaCrosse. I’m surprised to see you up and around after last night. And freshly shorn at that.”
“I’m spry for my age.”
“Indeed. Marion’s still recuperating; I’ll have to tease him about that.” He excused himself from the matron and pulled me aside. “What brings you here?”
“Follow-up visit with Mother Bennings.” It wasn’t technically a lie, and it sounded reasonable.
“I see. Well, as you’ve no doubt heard, Mother Bennings is no longer available.” He gestured at the body on the table.
I lifted the sheet. Argoset said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
