Kushiel's Mercy

girl. She was in the chamber where I’d seen Astegal taking a massage, carefully filling small flasks of scented oil from a large jug. Another woman was with her, neatly folding clean linen towels. Both of them jumped when they saw us.
    “Go,” Kratos said to the second woman, jerking his thumb at the door. He didn’t speak Aragonian and she didn’t speak Hellene, but his meaning was clear enough. She gave us a glance filled with contempt, but she went.
    “Where do they take them?” I asked Kratos.
    He pointed at a storage closet with a slatted wooden door.
    I grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her into the closet. She went without protesting, though I could feel her reluctance. Inside, I pressed her up against the shelves and put my hand over her mouth. Her face was striped with dim light filtering through the slatted door, and I could see the glaring hatred in her gaze.
    “Listen to me,” I said in a low voice. “Terre d’Ange did not betray Aragonia willingly.
    There are dark magics at work here. You have a chance to help us undo them. Will you hear?”
    Her eyes widened and she nodded.
    I took my hand away and fetched the suede pouch from my pocket. I showed the ring to her. “Have you seen this?”
    “Astegal wears it,” she breathed.
    “He wears one like it. It is one of the sources of his power.” I’d thought it wiser not to try to explain further. “Every time he comes here, he takes a massage from you. Do you think you could exchange the rings?”
    “Yes.” She gave me a calculating stare. “I want money.”
    “How much?” I asked.
    “Enough to leave this place until the soldiers are gone,” she said. “Ten gold doubloons.”
    I nodded. “Done. You’ll get it when I get Astegal’s ring.”
    A look of world-weary cynicism settled over her face. “You’ll cheat me.”
    “Hold out your hand,” I said. She obeyed cautiously. I put the ring in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “What’s your name?”
    She looked wary. “Esme.”
    “Esme,” I echoed. “Esme, you’re holding my life in your hand. If you choose not to trust me, show this to Astegal and tell him what I asked of you. He will have me tortured and killed. He will likely reward you, mayhap with more than ten gold coins. And Aragonia will lay beneath Carthage’s yolk for the next hundred years, with Terre d’Ange and other nations like to follow. If you believe nothing else in your life, believe this. I will not cheat you.”
    Her hand clenched on the ring. “This will weaken him? You swear it?”
    “In the name of Blessed Elua and his Companions, I do,” I said.
    Esme gave a sharp nod. “I will do it.”
    I touched her cheek lightly. “Be careful, Esme. May Blessed Elua hold you in his hand and keep you safe.”
    So it was done.
    I left the bath-house in a strange state of heightened awareness, Kratos at my side. Either I’d just advanced a pawn in the deadliest game I’d ever played in my life, or I’d sealed my own fate along with Kratos’ and the girl’s. It was a terrifying sensation. Oddly, it was an enlivening one, too. The sun was rising and the light felt brighter and clearer than I remembered. This , I thought, was what it was like to play the game as her ladyship played it. At the highest possible levels, with the greatest possible stakes.
    And with fearful repercussions for innocent lives.
    I will own, that part troubled me more than I liked to admit.
    Kratos read the thought in my face. “She’s been around those men day in and out, my lord. She knows the risk as well as you do. Mayhap better.”
    “Still,” I said.
    “I know.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’s hard.”
    “My thanks.” I laughed. “Gods, Kratos! You were the best purchase I ever made in my life.”
    He smiled wryly. “It’s an odd compliment, but I’ll take it.”
    It was another piece of irony in an affair fraught with it. I’d arrived in New Carthage with one highly trained ally at my side. I’d thought I’d stumbled over a piece of great good fortune to find another in place, poised to do exactly what needed to be done. But for all the Guild training and skills her ladyship had imparted to her people, my fate now hinged on an idea conceived by an aging wrestler and executed by a young bath-house attendant.
    I wished I were better at praying.
    We wandered the streets of New Carthage for a time, buying spicy sausage pastries in the market once it opened. They were hot enough to burn my