Downtown Druid

Book 2 Chapter 15: Sincerely, Madame Cornelia of the House of Forteville

The next night, Dantes and Jacopo wove through Uptown as rats, moving from block to block until they reached the Administrative Square. They skittered past the statues of the gods in the center, avoiding a few overworked clerks, and one romantic tryst occurring under the shade of one of the columns on the Council Hall. They reached the building they’d determined was where Danglars held his office and, staying closely together, they pushed their way through the barrier protecting it from vermin and made their way inside.

There were no candles, but there were a number of small glass spheres giving off light from different rooms indicating late nights for at least a few of the magisters and their staff that worked within the building. They searched it slowly, doing their best to avoid those few remaining workers, and attempted to find Danglar’s office.

It took some time, but they eventually found it. A door with the name Danglars Forteville written in gold paint. Dantes attempted to squeeze beneath the door, but found that he couldn’t quite fit. He and Jacopo checked the nearby halls and saw no one, so he shifted back to himself and, using his branch, picked the lock quickly. He pushed the door open gently, and seeing no one inside, he let himself in. He slid the door silently closed and looked around.

The office was opulent, both in design and decoration. The walls were black with patterns of golden roses painted across them and ivory white columns in each corner. A shelf of fine imported wood along one wall was filled with books and collected correspondence. The furniture was all of the same matching contemporary style, and the desk in the upper middle was a piece of solid marble on which sat stacks of documents, opened and unopened mail, and a bowl filled with fine bread and cheese that filled the room with its scent.

Dantes focused on the tips of fingertips, but detected no indication of magic. He moved toward the desk in the center, Jacopo leaping onto it and scurrying into the bowl of food while Dantes began rifling through the papers. He found a number of documents from the Docking Authorities, several messages to the guard involving removing Pacha from his job, and miscellaneous messages resolving other work and disputes he was a part of. It generally proved what he had already suspected of how Mondego and Danglars had worked together, but it wasn’t anything particularly useful. Still, he slid a few of the letters he found particularly incriminating into his jacket.

He moved over to the shelf and began sorting through it, finding mostly meetings notes from councils and committees regarding different policies and decisions. There was one about the increasing hostilities from Viscent, the inquiry as to whether they should accept fleeing political refugees from Frasheid, and other things of that nature. There were even some involving increasing domestic food production or drafting new guards to prepare for hostilities. None of it was important to Dantes, or Danglars. From what he could tell the notes were specifically prepared for Danglars by his secretaries for meetings he hadn’t bothered to attend. He shook his head. He hadn’t found a single personal correspondence. Danglars could be surprisingly meticulous, but that didn’t make sense to Dantes. He turned his attention back to the marble desk, and walked over to it.

He bent down and began running his hands along the smooth stone of the desk. He sensed something off about it. Eventually, his delicate fingers felt a slight seam on it. He worked around the seam, sending in a thin shard of wood from his branch into it, and eventually found a simple mechanism. He pushed on it, and a drawer popped open. From it, wafted the scent of perfume and Dantes saw a stack of letters held down by a heavy stone seal.

Dantes lifted the seal, seeing that it was emblazoned with the name Forteville as well as the image of an open palm and a clenched fist, the emblem of the magisters. It was Danglar’s symbol of office. Dantes smiled as he pocketed it, and then he turned his attention to the letters.

He lifted the first one.

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I bet you are opening this and reading it in your office while your poor little secretaries are in the room with you, aren’t you? You filthy disgusting little man. Have you no shame? A magister, a member of Rendholds nobility infected with such degeneracy. You should be punished for what you are, you should have your-

Dantes skipped over two full pages of lurid and detailed descriptions before reaching the end of the letter.

• See you soon Little Piggy, Mistress Dosia

Dantes smelled the letter, finding that it was where the smell had been coming from. The perfume smelled of roses and leather with just a hint of blood. Dantes had to admit it was a rather nice smell, though he was far less interested in the promise that came with it then it seemed Danglars was.

He had known Danglars was bent in that particular direction for some time. When they were deep in their cups they’d had more than one talk about it, and Dantes himself was the one who suggested he act on it and book a specialist every once in a while. Still, he hadn’t realized his inclinations had run quite that deep. Or perhaps, they’d only started moving in that direction in the five years Dantes had been in the Pit.

Dantes started to go through the rest of the letters, finding that most of them were from Mistress Dosia. They were all some mix of demeaning, degrading, and disgusting, but Dantes didn’t judge that so much as the occasional reminders that Danglars owed her money. It was important to pay a whore what they were owed. Knowing how much time Danglars spent with her was also useful, so he filed that information away in his mind for later.

Toward the bottom of the secret drawer was a letter that had clearly been crumpled and uncrumpled more than once. He took it and ran the flat of his palm across it to remove enough of the creases to make the paper legible.

Danglars Forteville, Son of Cornelia of the House of Forteville, A Founding House of Rendhold

This is my fifth letter to you. While the first receiving no response I can blame on the incompetence of the airheaded staff you keep, the other three I cannot. You will not ignore me. Everything you have in this life is thanks to me. The home in which you were raised, the name on the back of which you became a Magister, and even your very life itself. I ensured that you were raised in the manner of a lord. You received the finest training in etiquette, you were taught elvish, orcish, and even the old tongue of the Fatherland. I had the servant discipline you only when you were truly deserving, and attended you myself thrice a day at mealtimes, far more than most mothers of my station. I even nursed you at my own breast when your father’s incompetence cost us the money we needed to afford a nursemaid, though it did cause me great pain and discomfort. Even when you decided to risk what little we have to play thief in Midtown with those disgusting Mutts I held back the majority of my criticisms and used what connections I could to keep you from trouble. Now, when my lessons and parenting have finally sunk in and you have become a true man in high-society, I am ignored. Our house is in ruins, and you will not send money for me to have the servants, and lifestyle to which I am accustomed? You will not allow me to move into your new home, though it holds more than enough rooms in which to place me and whatever servants I deserve? You are killing me son. You are killing your mother. Just as your father did when he invested in that shipment of ginseng. I cough blood into a handkerchief, and each day I grow weaker in this drafty manor filled with regrets, the largest of which is you. I am done expecting you to act as a son should. When I die, I will haunt you. You are a pig, and a scoundrel, and you will someday die as one.

From the honorable Madame Cornelia of the house of Forteville, A founding house of Rendhold

Dantes finished reading , finding his eyebrows were raised even higher than they had been when reading the letters from Dosia. Danglars had mentioned an overbearing mother many times, and an idiot father, but there was a large difference between hearing a friend speak between cups and reading a letter from the man’s mother. Dantes couldn’t really relate. To the idiot father certainly, but for his mother he had nothing but affection. He frowned, there could be something useful there too, but he wasn’t sure what. Still, just to disconcert Danglars, he slipped the letter into his jacket.

He looked through the drawer one more time and found a final letter. This one had a metallic scent to it, and was written in a kind of golden ink. There was no content to it aside from a list of, what Dantes guessed, were meetings or laws. Next to each of them was either a Y an N, or an A. At the very bottom of the letter was beautifully written G, likely to indicate who had sent it. Dantes pocketed that one as well.

He patted the pocket where he’d placed Danglar’s symbol of office, an idea forming in his mind. It was late at night, but morning would come soon. It would certainly be interesting for him to call on some of the boats smuggling goods into the city as their crews began to wake, wouldn’t it?

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