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“Seduction?” “I don’t think you’d manage it,” said Parson. “You offend me, madam.”
Perhaps we can equip you with a plan B. And a plan C.” “B for Blackmail, C for Coercion?”
“Bugger me sideways.”
At Swanstone, duggery was skulled.
On his right stood a bookcase bursting with tomes with such encouraging titles as Crushing It: Rehabilitation of Seith Channel Compression Injuries and Seith Fibre Ruptures and Avulsions: Protocols for Clinical Treatment and Reversible Interruption of Seith Flow: An In Vitro Study and Seith Channel Transection Injuries. An auspicious collection, given what he was here for. Good to see that Fairhrim was studious. Then, with a whispered “Ah,” Osric noticed that the works had all been authored by Fairhrim herself.
Osric was annoyed; the onions had spoiled his aura of menace.
His cleft chin clefted majestically.
“You’re rather bold if you think you can kidnap me.” “You’re rather stupid if you think I can’t.”
“Kidnap it is,” said Osric. He rose, poured the onions onto the floor, and flapped the empty sack at Fairhrim. “Get in.”
It was as though a small dry hand had given his gravestone a friendly pat.
It was hard, being perfect in an imperfect world, but Aurienne managed. If she had a flaw, it was that she was the Best, and she knew she was the Best. Some called it arrogance. She called it competence untainted by performative humility.
The card was perfumed, which offended Aurienne more than the assassination appointments: Swanstone was a scent-free establishment.
“Specifications, not preferences,” said Aurienne.
nascent
Mordaunt sat back in satisfaction, as though he had just committed a masterful rhetorical stroke.
“My client wished to send a message,” said Osric. “Was the message I don’t know where the jugular is and had to stab him twelve times to find it?” asked the deofol.
“I’m a genet,” said the cat-weasel. “An albino genet. Aurienne was right. You are stupid.”
Fairhrim dragged a large sack out of a wardrobe. “What’s that?” asked Osric. “Your body bag,” said Fairhrim. So she did have a sense of humour. Dry, though. Very dry.
“How? Did she forget to die?”
Nym had the peculiar quality of being always uncertain and yet always right.
This specimen had the fortitude of wet quiche.
“I have an extraordinary sense of smell.” It seemed too facile to point out that, indeed, this seemed to be the only sense he had.
The man nodded in friendly understanding. He had the largest penis that Aurienne had ever seen. It nodded, too.
“What do you suppose he does with it when it’s not erect?” “Drapes it round his neck, like a feather boa,” said Mordaunt.
He was a Fine Specimen in the way an abscess might be a Fine Specimen; the best, most shapely, most beautiful abscess in the world still brimmed with foulness and ought to be incised and drained.
Aurienne enjoyed penises and vulvas equally, but penises seemed, as a general rule, more prone to unasked-for exposures, which was too bad, because they weren’t as pretty as vulvas—except, perhaps, for the glossy candied ones in the shop upstairs.
I don’t want to swim in Scrope’s semen. Enjoy your little marinade in the pathogen soup.”
“Not everything can be said with words,” said Osric. “That’s why we invented longing looks.”
“Did it make your skin smooth, at least?” “As a baby’s bum.” “Like your brain, then.”
“I’ll mention that in your eulogy when I attend your farewell barbecue.”
“How can anyone have less regard for the law than me?” asked Osric, offended. “To you, it’s a thing to break. To them, it simply doesn’t exist.” Osric pondered this philosophical difference in silence.
“How imminent is my demise? What’s the length of a standard cock hair?” Osric was interested in Fairhrim’s answer—she probably had a cock-hair almanac with data and averages and things—but she did not respond to the query.
“They aren’t French enough,” said Aurienne. “That’s the problem. We ought to have let the French have their bloody Norman Conquest and be done with it. But no. We beat them back. And now, eight centuries later, here we are, with ten petty kingdoms, and ten clowns in charge, instead of a Noblesse-Obliging Frenchy.” Xanthe ate a piece of cheese and added, “We’d have better Brie, too.”
“Sometimes I’m not certain what the difference is between diplomat and doormat. Three or four letters, but much the same thing.
“One day this will be a case study,” said Élodie. She drew bullet points in the air as she planned it. “Vaccine-preventable diseases. Research financing. Socioeconomic variables.”
Cath’s title suggestion was A Study in Policymaking by Royal Arseholes and the Innocents Who Died as a Result.
The Fyren crossed his arms over his bare chest, which pushed together his pectorals. Aurienne noted in passing that he had more cleavage than she did.
“H-have you got one ball that hangs lower than the other?” asked Leofric, pointing to the testicle in question.
“I don’t know.” “Slap it, maybe? Pinch it? Might retract it?”
“Must we belabour this subject?” Aurienne belaboured. “Is his deofol a porcupine?”
“I see we’re going for the low-hanging fruit.” “Only one of them was low,” said Aurienne. “Is it a porcupine?” “Sea urchin.”
“You’ll have to tell your mistress that I can confirm the obscurity of anals.”
“I should do it,” said Osric. “I’m prettier than you.”
This vexed Osric, because he was prettier than her. Wasn’t he? Was she prettier than him? Impossible. He surveyed Fairhrim with a new, jealous assessment, but only her back was visible now, and all he could conclude was that she had a good figure.
Mordaunt found a tin labelled Tea containing desiccated remains of things. When consulted, Aurienne opined that it might’ve been tea, or perhaps floor sweepings; Mordaunt said it was hair from a mermaid’s armpit. They boiled it.
“Kill them a little? Death isn’t divisible.”
He rubbed his hands like a fly that has found a particularly succulent poo.
“Pretty?” interjected Mordaunt. “Who’s prettier, her or me?”
Aurienne gasped in outrage. Mordaunt, labouring under the delusion that he was prettier, also gasped. “Well,” said Mordaunt, “now you’re definitely going to die.”
“Besides, they threatened to kidnap you.” “And? You threatened to kidnap me.” “Exactly: only I can do that. You
