Tenebroum

Chapter 46: Fever Pitch

After the speech had started to go sideways, and the heckling began, Kelvun didn’t even bother to try to get back to his carriage. The way that the mob just kept growing, and he was sure that even over the short distance he needed to travel, he’d never be able to force his way through the streets without making things worse. Instead, he barked a few orders and used his personal guard to force a path through smaller side streets. That way, with only the occasional beating to force their way through, he and his party managed to weave their way back to his palace.

The last time that he’d used armed men to clear the streets and imposed a curfew, it had backfired worse than he’d expected and led to riots. With things this dry, a repeat performance might burn half the city down. So, with the fall rains due to start any time now, it wasn’t the time for heroics. Angry as they were, he could just wait for a few days and let this all blow over.

“Just keep moving,” he growled at one of the other nobles who’d stopped and was steeling himself to try to speak to the crowd that followed them. Lord Leonin had come with him to try to get the people to see reason and feel self-important, but Kelvun had known that one more viscount wasn’t going to make a difference in the eyes of a random peasant.

“But if we don’t teach them there’s a price for this, it will only embolden the rabble further,” Lord Leonin muttered, pausing once again to look balefully at the mob that was lurking sullenly past the men with halberds that were protecting them.

Kelvun couldn’t say he disagreed with the man’s sentiment. He was almost certainly right, and at any other time when their guards weren’t surrounded and outnumbered by thirty to one, he would have gladly made any one of half a dozen examples out of the miscreants. Now was not the moment, though. After the rain started to fall, it would be simple enough to use his spies to suss out the ringleaders and make them regret the part they’d played in all this, and once the Oroza was flowing again, no one would notice if they just disappeared.

For now, he just ignored the old fool as they made good time back to his estate. There the high walls would keep the jackals at bay. Well, the lower-class jackals, anyway. The ones with fleas. The Garvin estate barely had a room to spare just now since most of the nobles worth the name had fled the riots either to his demesne or to their estates in the country, and the constant presence of strangers lent a festive atmosphere to the usually drab place.

Of course, the jackals that wore fine clothes were an entirely different breed than the starving, mangy mass of humanity that followed them while they worked up the nerve to do something bold. That didn’t mean that they were any less dangerous, though. Here his subjects wanted food and rain, while the rich constantly petitioned him for concessions and tax relief. The former was impossible, of course, but the latter was too expensive to conscience. The rebuilding of Fallravea had not come cheap, and the constant construction in Blackwater was almost as expensive. These were the reasons he always had dreams about endless digging, he was sure, because of the endless construction that was always threatening to undermine everything he had planned.

Still - there were advantages to having so many people around.

His wife had never been kinder or sweeter to him than she was right now when she couldn’t hope to escape the eyes of her peers. Of course, the fact that he had to work so hard to coordinate his secret rendezvous and that they were now under his own roof made them all the more exciting too. His favorite mistresses had all apparently fled the city, but there were plenty of noble women in his house right now looking to curry his favor no matter what it took to do that.

That made him smile, even if nothing else in this wretched day did. The Baroness Hilfta had implied she’d be open to some very tough negotiations tonight after the dancing had wound down, should he be inclined to hear her petition about land rights once more. He sighed as he walked through the gate and noticed the preparations that were taking place in the garden. It seemed like every night, they had some sort of gala at this point, and he couldn’t remember if this one was the masquerade sort or just the normal kind.

Honestly, he was almost sick of the parties, even if it was all there was to do. Kelvun resolved to spend a whole week in bed once he’d sent the freeloaders packing after the rains had calmed things down. He could pass the time by counting all the favors that so many of the most important men in the region would owe him.

Kelvun looked at the preparations, but all he was really focused on were the clouds hanging above the city in wispy grey streamers. Any other year those would have held the promise of rain, and no one would have dreamed of hanging bunting and arranging flowers without pavilions, but in this cursed season, they were nothing but a terrible tease. For weeks now, they’d hung above the region, but the scattered showers had done nothing to help either the farmers or the fishermen.

Kelvun stood there just long enough to trigger the knots of people to start walking toward him. When he realized he was about to become enmeshed in layer after layer of hangers on and their impenetrable gossip, he started walking purposefully towards the front door once more. He’d had more than enough talking for one day and would leave it to Viscount Leonin to explain how restless things were becoming outside the gates. Maybe a little fear would blunt their gossip tonight, but he doubted it.

“How did it go, my darling,” Kelvun’s wife Arnisste asked, bringing him to a sudden halt as he strode through one of their parlors.

He’d been intent on going to the chapel so that he could get a little solitude to calm down. There at least, he could pretend to pray for rain as he’d promised the people he would, but it would seem that the gods were enjoying playing with him because today’s conversation was almost entirely inescapable.

“Oh, everything was lovely,” he said, pasting on his best fake smile as he took stock of the women she was having tea with. “I believe the best way to describe the mood of the average man in Fallravea just now is uproarious, though excitable and clamorous would also describe things almost as well.”

“That good then?” Her answer dripped sarcasm, but the brightness of her tone hid it almost completely. “Well - that’s certainly better than expected. We were just discussing how things might take a turn for the ugly out there if we don’t have rain soon.”

“My dear, that is impossible,” Kelvun said with a slight mock bow. “I assure you that common people couldn’t get any uglier if they tried.”

That at least caused a burst of polite laughter, though Kelvun did not stay long enough to bask in it. After a few more exchanges, he made his apologies and left them to while away the day while he tried to decide what, if anything, he could do to improve the plight.

In his bedroom, he found a costume all laid out for him. The coat and hose were crushed black velvet, and the mask had a skull motif to it. He wondered if that was supposed to reflect the specter of starvation that was stalking so many right now or if it was a mythological figure. He was just glad the artist had gone with white instead of gold leaf. A golden skull on his bed would have given him nightmares.

He took the paper mache mask into the small private chapel with him, but he was at a loss on who to pray to. He’d tried to beg Oroza for her mercy in private, but because of his feelings about the river these days, he’d been unwilling to go pray publicly at her temple as the priestesses’ requested. None of the other gods, large or small that he’d sacrificed to, in turn, had done any good either. As far as he was concerned, there was really only one power left to try, and it was better left dead and buried.

Kelvun reflected on everything that had happened and tried to figure out what he could have done to improve things, but as usual, he found his past actions quite correct. Truthfully, he wouldn’t have changed a thing, he decided. Any other choice would have led to an even worse sort of ruin, too horrible to contemplate.

As day faded to night, his manservant finally chased him down and badgered him into preparing for his latest gala. It was supposed to be to celebrate the end of the dry season, but no one really believed that. They’d had three previous parties in the last week with similar themes. Tonight was just another excuse to get everyone drunk and keep the most powerful lords and ladies in the region from tearing out each other’s eyes for sport.

It worked fantastically well at that, at least. After a few bottles of wine and enough masks to give the identity of the person making the insults plausible deniability, everything faded into the background of revelry, albeit a revelry that had overstayed its welcome and grown a bit stale around the edges.

That was how the Baroness found him, he was sure. How could he hide from someone who had seen him almost every day for the last two weeks? He was in much the same boat. Just because he didn’t know that his wife was dressed as the goddess Arden didn’t mean that he couldn’t recognize her favorite blue dress while her face was hidden behind that golden mask.

It would have been so tiresome, of course, had it not provided the perfect cover for these little assignations and trysts. That was why when Lady Hilfte, who wore the mask of a beautiful fairy queen in what he could only assume was a touch of irony for the aging woman, he was happy to follow her into the hedge maze. He’d been planning to add her notch to his bedpost already, of course, but he would almost certainly enjoy it more if he had her keep the mask on.

In the darkness, they had no trouble separating themselves from the guests or the light. Indeed, the light of the paper lanterns did not reach past the second bend in the path. After that, the only way he could keep track of the other woman was by holding her hand as they slipped deeper into the darkness until they finally stopped at a dead end somewhat off the main path through.

“Have you reconsidered my proposal about the logging rights then?” she said in a voice that promised a smile that he couldn’t see in the night.

“That they were yours was never in doubt,” he answered smoothly. “I—”

For a moment, Kelvun imagined that he heard the distant peal of thunder over the sound of the string quartet that was filling the background with sweet notes. That was impossible, of course, since any hope of rain was still weeks away, so he didn’t let it deter him and instead stepped toward the Baroness, pressing her against the wall and kissing her hard enough to make her melt. She wasn’t as pretty as the women he’d been bedding before he was forced into this deadly dull house arrest, but then, those other girls had never offered to let him take them in the middle of his own hedge maze, and tonight that made all the difference.

He’d only started to pull up her skirts and petty coats when the rain started. It didn’t start with a few drops and slowly get worse. Instead, a wall of water descended on the city in a vicious downpour. Kelvun shock quickly turned to disappointment that he was going to be denied his conquest, but only for a moment. After that, he started laughing, and a moment later, the lady he’d been kissing was, too, as they reveled in nature’s grand joke. After all, how could he possibly be disappointed that the drought had finally ended, and soon enough, things would be back to business as usual?

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