There was more she could have told him. The betrayal of her trust hadn’t even been the most terrible part. Worse was the way Will had answered her sorrow with sophistry, informing her that true purity came from the mind and heart, not the body; that he was her teacher, not just academically but in life, and surely it was best to learn this lesson from someone who loved her; that it was not she who was sullied, but he who was redeemed by her goodness.
Worst of all was the way she’d stayed with Will for eight more months, endured more humiliations (of course he’d boasted to all his friends), and learned to absent herself as he took his pleasure with her. She dared not deny him or make him angry, because only the purifying fire of holy matrimony could restore her dignity and virtue.
And he hadn’t even given her that.
* * *
Two and a half months passed, slowly and too fast. Tess’s eighteenth birthday flew by without her telling anyone; she did not like to be reminded that a decision was approaching.
One day Tess came home from work, clambering through snowdrifts. She blew in with a flurry of flakes to see Josquin turning a capon on a spit. “Your mother’s staying late,” said Tess, kissing his ear as she crossed the room. “That massive beadwork for the Contessa Infanta, the peacock in full feather, is taking forever.”
“Does she want dinner at the shop?” Josquin called after Tess, who was making a beeline for the back of the house.
“No,” Tess called back. “Give me a minute, eh? I need the privy.”
“Do you hold it all day?” he asked laughingly. If he teased her more than that, she didn’t hear. She was in the yard already, the door swinging shut behind her.
In fact, she did hold it all day. Josquin’s privy was the nicest in Segosh—not counting whatever they used at Palasho Pesavolta—and it was worth a wriggle of discomfort at the end of the day to come home and use it. It had its own commodious house, with a charcoal fire in winter (Tess stoked it morning and evening). St. Blanche the Mechanic had outdone herself; there was hardly any smell. It was still a pit, like every garden privy in town, but everything washed into the storm sewers with the pull of a handle, ingeniously reusing last night’s bathwater.
It was so marvelous, in fact, that the neighborhood children were always trying to use it. Josquin didn’t mind, as long as they cleared out when he needed it. Today three children were hallooing down the hole, trying to see to the bottom with a lantern. “Hey, shoo,” said Tess, but they paid her no mind. She didn’t have Josquin’s clout—or his intimidating eight-legged chair.
“I mean it, unless you want to watch,” she cried, holding the door open.
Most of the little miscreants bobbed out, but the youngest paused in the doorway, her eyes enormous, and said, “There’s a monster in the sewer!”
“I’m the monster,” said Tess, lightly swatting her backside. “Now get gone.”
Tess got straight to business, not giving the warning a second thought. When the flame struck her backside, therefore, it came as a complete surprise.
She screamed and leaped to her feet. It was dark; the children had taken the lantern, and the only light was glimmers of the full moon through the ventilation slats near the roof. Tess yanked up her breeches and called, “Hello?” into the jake-hole, feeling stupid. Had she imagined fire in the commode? What a thing to think.
No, there it was again. A flicker in the pit. Saints’ bones, what was it? Swamp gas? Some kind of sewer malfunction?
It occurred to her that this might be a quigutl. She hadn’t seen any this far south; if it was alone, it might be lost and scared.
Tess said, “Who’s there? I understand Quootla. You may speak to me.”
“I am speaking—with fire,” said the creature.
Tess recognized the voice and jerked back. She’d all but forgotten Kikiu, but apparently her reflexes hadn’t. “What are you doing here?” she said, keeping her distance now. “Have you come to kill me, the way you tried to kill Pathka?”
“I was defending myself,” cried the hatchling, charging out of the hole. Kikiu now sported three shiny horns; her bite enhancer gleamed as she snarled. “Pathka tried to cut me and make me bleed into a bowl. What else was I to do?”
Tess felt her fear deflate. Of course they’d each been too wrapped up in their own pain to listen to the other. Maybe if she could have been there to interpret…
“I need your help,” said Kikiu, who clearly didn’t know an effective way to ask for it. “My mother’s in the sewer; I dragged ko this far, miles through the snow, but I can’t haul ko up through this narrow vent. You’ve got to come fetch ko.”
“I don’t understand,” said Tess, her heart quailing. “Did you bite him again? Is he dead?”
“No, stupid human,” barked Kikiu. “Ko is ill. It’s Anathuthia who’s dead.”
* * *
A trapdoor in the courtyard permitted St. Blanche to visit the underworld if her innovative plumbing jammed. Tess flung it wide, took a deep breath to steady herself, and descended into the stenchy semidark, grateful that she hadn’t quit her habit of breeches and boots despite Gaida’s daily protestations. The ladder was nothing but notches in the slippery wall. Kikiu ignited her tongue, dissipating the smell a bit, and led Tess through a dank, arched brickwork tunnel. It occurred to Tess—how could it not?—that Kikiu was taking her down here to bite her, but then she saw Pathka lying inert in a pool of icy sludge, barely breathing.
Tess didn’t let herself think about how dirty he was, or she’d have balked. She scooped Pathka out of the muck, threw him across her strong shoulders, and staggered toward the hatch. Pathka was heavier than Griss had been, and deader weight. Climbing through the trapdoor was a nightmare; Tess clung to the wall one-handed, steadying Pathka with the other, her grip slipping. Kikiu tugged Pathka’s tail from above and dragged him onto the bricks of the yard.
Tess hauled water from the well and sluiced the muck off Pathka. Steam rose off him; his internal furnace still burned. Kikiu refused the bucket, preferring to scour herself with her tongue-flame. Tess removed her filthy jacket and washed her hands.
“What’s all this?” said Josquin from the doorway.
Tess had been so busy she hadn’t heard him approach. She was at a loss to explain, numb with cold, disgust, and worry. “I’m…this is my oldest friend, Pathka, and his daughter, Kikiu. Pathka is dirty and ill, and I only know what to do about dirty. Where can we keep them without alarming Gaida?”
“You’ll never keep me,” snarled Kikiu, flaring her spines. “I won’t live in a house again.”
“All right, not Kikiu,” said Tess. She swiped a shaky hand across her forehead, leaving a smudge.
“Tess, it’s fine,” said Josquin, assessing Tess’s distress and coming to a decision quickly. “Let’s put your friend in my room, on the tiles near the boiler. It’s fireproof and warm.”
Tess nodded, grateful for his decisiveness, and picked up Pathka. He was dry, the wash water having evaporated already. They made Pathka a little nest of blankets and got him settled. Kikiu lingered in the doorway making disdainful remarks about the shape of the nest.
“That will do,” said Kikiu at last. There was something in her voice Tess had never heard before, a kind of resignation. “Get my mother well, or I will exact it from your flesh. Ko is all I have, the only thing between me and…” Kikiu’s head spines trembled fragilely, minutely, like poplar leaves. “Something happened when ko joined dreams with the serpent’s—I felt it from miles away, impossibly. Then, when they killed it, I felt that, too—”
“Who killed Anathuthia?” cried Tess. Anathuthia dead had been unthinkable, but killed?
“Don’t pretend you didn’t send them,” hissed Kikiu, swinging back to venom and menace in an instant. Her tail whipped the lintel as she turned back toward the sewers.
Tess closed the door shakily, mind racing. Emmanuele. It had to be. He must’ve gone to Santi Prudia’s, maybe with an expeditionary force, and…she could hardly think it. When she could finally focus, she realized she’d been staring at Josquin without seeing him.
“Could you tell me what’s going on?” he said once he perceived that she was present.