“Tymothus, bring us the rabbit,” Morlia said, sighing into the hand propping up her chin. Her breath fogged a jewel on her brooch the size of a ripe plum. “The venison has a salty flair.”
“Yes, Mum.” I went back, past her lounging armored goons, through the steam, and fetched the rabbits from anticipating cooks. By now our local calendars revolved around the Big Two: Maecidion having been dead a decade—bringing rites and gatherings to the hills and forests and graves that had to be vanquished by our ever-faithful Metropolitan Ward—and the completion of Do-Gooder’s Row. Yes, the dearest latter was only a widely rumored two weeks from being finished. I believe the final brilliance to extract from the marble were the bootless toes of some beggar who’d fallen into a puddle right before a Lotgard or Ouvarnian cart had to cake its polished wheels in Nilghordian street mud. As was the standard, the rabbits were in an array of poses, some caught in flight while others in cartoonish gestures of nobility.
For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why that family insisted on using trenchers. They had the money to fund the forging of a hundred golden dinner plates without a care. It must have been the late Rinlot’s doing, the former master of this ill place. He had been of the southern green hills. An Oxghordian. Those southern voices, with that hilarious booming accent, a continuous melodic blend of aristocracy and farmhand idiot. No matter how long ago a group relocated to the city, they maintained several imperishable southern traditions. He’d been a hunk of a man, the warden of the Municipal Dungeon. As large as a pit fighter, he embraced a regal masculinity in contrast to his rather simple mind.
The lady of the house, Morlia Rogaire—well, I can’t recall the maiden name of that redheaded, bejeweled harpy—her family came from the quarter on the shores of the Thunder Bustle and was probably forgotten by her own decree. How those two ever met and married was the grandest of juxtapositions.
He was the one who filled their hidden vaults—wherever those infernal things were. The formidable and overpaid position of Warden didn’t explain the wealth. I’ve seen crazier things in these lands. Although jewels jangled at the bottom of their pockets, they’d never been fully accepted by the Nilghorde elite. The few Ouvarnias who lived in Nilghorde barely acknowledged their existence, and the Lotgards had only invited them to one party.
She, on the other hand, was from the cannibal streets. She still wore her hair tied up for quick bathing and still wore her makeup with the gaudiness of an aging prostitute. A whore, that’s my best guess anyway, and it would fit all the better that she sensed an opportunity to capitalize on male dimwittedness.