Page 43 of Roses and Murder
“Do you know who that is?”
“We all know the Tall Man and it’s an honor to meet him. It takes a special kind of man to lose everything to stand up for people different from him. If he guesses what I am, then I’m fine with that, but I’m not quite ready for everyone to know.”
“It’s honestly kind of a relief that everyone knows my secret, but our situation is different.”
“Yes. He’s obviously fond of you, and I know you want to hear what kind of tantrum Folcard is throwing. I’ll stay back here and prep for when we open. You know I’ll be able to hear everything.”
“Thanks for taking care of me, Basselt.”
Leodos was laughing harder than I’d ever seen him when I got back.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, plopping back in my seat.
“Folcard. Princess Esylle’s husband went looking for their child when she got kidnapped and has never come back. Most of us know he’s dead, but Esylle still insists he’s coming back with Lisana. Eventually, Joron is going to have to force her to remarry and have another child, but he’s not there yet.
“Folcard has these grand ideas of setting his wife aside and getting his arse on the throne, but even if Joron tells her she has to remarry, he’s going to let her pick and she can’t stand Folcard.
“He keeps accosting her and running his mouth. You haven’t been around him much, but he can afford regular baths and fancy perfume oils. It’s like both offend him. Any time he’s at the palace, they have to open the windows and light incense to air it out because his stench isthatpotent.
“So, anyway, he corners Esylle, who is an intelligent, powerful woman, with this tale about how all women are liars. She asked, because she figured if he got it all out, he’d leave faster. We got this entire story about how his daughter fromGuttertown tricked him, but managed to catch a deranged serial killer, and all he was worried about was she didn’t have a cock.
“Esylle laughed in his face, which he also had a tantrum about before he left, but he did drop your name in his rants. Esylle would love to meet you, but if you come anywhere near the palace, it’s going to set Folcard off and he’ll make your life difficult. You okay, kid? That’s a pretty decent black eye.”
“The palace is way too fancy for my blood and those people don’t even talk like me. You’re different because you actually lived here with us. It’s neat she knows who I am. It would be neater if she did something about why I had to pretend to be a boy.”
“Not much she can do. Esylle and her father are just the two of them and they are surrounded by snakes who always carry the one thing that can weaken and kill them. She might have money, but her life isn’t easy. It’s just hard in different ways. Butyouare going to be a legend to anyone who gets stuck smelling him while he rants about this for a while.”
“Not in a bad way?” I asked. “A lot of stuff in Guttertown doesn’t fly across the town line and there are other people like me who aren’t just pretending.”
“Fewer people care about that than you think. It’s just the ones that do are very loud about it. It also happens more often than you think outside of Guttertown. Anyway, I came to check on you but I also came to help. He’s going to target your tavern and you need to be prepared.”
“What can we do?” Mom asked.
“How are you going to play this now that your secret is out?” Leodos asked. “Are you going to grow your hair out and wear dresses? Not judging and I don’t care, I’m just planning.”
“My clothes are comfortable. Mom complains about corsets all the time and I don’t want to wear one after binding my chest for that long. It’s also going to be expensive to buy a whole newwardrobe when I have one in good shape that I like. I like the way I look, so I’m not sure if I’ll grow my hair out or not.”
“Well, word of your tavern is spreading. People are actually starting to believe me that my whiskey comes from Guttertown and they’ll eventually come here to order their own. They’ll come to drink the Bloody Mary in person and you said you were working on something else. The girls you hired to sing are massively talented and I’m not sure you realize the kind of power headed your way. You’ll be able to play it differently if you’re a beautiful girl or so androgynous, they can’t really tell.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
The Madame just grinned.
“You’re about to come into possession of some pretty powerful secrets. Drunk men and horny men tend to have loose tongues. We aren’t saying you’ll be able to blackmail them into changing the whole country, but you can keep them off your money to a point. It’s what I do. If my birds tell me anything, I’ll pass it on.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m stealing Lucy,” Neco said.
“But the tavern!”
We were going to get slammed when we opened. Everyone shooed me out and promised to handle it. Letting other people handle things was definitely a problem I had, but everything had changed.
I could skip out to rekindle things with Neco and let my friends and family help out at the tavern.
We had a lot to do at the tavern because we were about to throw a party the like of what Guttertown had never seen. We shooed Neco and Lucy out because that definitely needed to happen. We had a full house. The Madame, Leodos, and Trevils were helping us, too.
Sabina and Mira showed up to help. Mira flirted with Leodos, but he gently put her in his place without being mean about it. Based on how he talked about her, that man was desperately in love with our future queen. I thought it would be neat if they gottogether because he could really tell her how bad things were here.
