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rthstewart) wrote2010-02-21 11:09 pm
Shady Lady -- Comment Fic by Lady_Songsmith, Eloise82, and Metonomia
Feb. 22nd, 2010 02:49 am (UTC)
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lady_songsmith wrote:
"You cannot seriously be intending --"
"I most certainly am," Lucy replied calmly, keeping a brisk pace through the increasingly narrow streets.
Her brother dodged around a man carrying a tray of cheap trinkets and quickened his pace to catch up with her. "You should leave this to me."
"Don't be ridiculous, Edmund," she said. "The ladies will be far more comfortable confiding in me than you. The sisterhood of women everywhere--"
"I am aware of your views on the subject," he interrupted hastily. "But this quarter is far more Calormene than Narnian, and most of the places are owned by Tarkaans. The, er, ladies will not be as independent."
"All the more reason for me to speak with them!"
Edmund winced. "Need I remind you of the fuss your lectures caused the last time? Besides," he continued, seeing her ready to expound on that subject, "this area is dangerous. While I would never impugn your abilities, you cannot go in unarmed."
"I am hardly unarmed," Lucy answered, brandishing her sturdy parasol at him with an extravagant flourish that had him skipping aside quickly. "Now do stop fussing, brother."
He tried one more gambit. "You'll ruin our cover. Shorkaan Ahoris is hardly the sort of man who would allow his sister to accompany him to a brothel."
"Then you had best not be seen with me." She shrugged blithely. "Don't you have paints and powders and nasty scars to apply, anyway?"
"I'm hardly going to get myself up as a beggar to gossip at the Silk Blossom," Edmund said sourly.
...
...
Yeah, that's all I got.
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metonomia wrote:
Feb. 22nd, 2010 02:58 am (UTC)
why why WHY must I go to Mass now???
"Let me borrow some of it, then?" She asked with her most winsome grin, and another little twirl of the parasol that came frighteningly close to his left eye.
"You're not going to actually join them, are you?" He knew his sister better than that, really; knew that despite all appearances she was terribly practical about serious matters, but he could not help asking.
"Of course not, silly! The girls will appreciate the gift, is all, and a good gift always helps open negotiations properly."
(More! More! More!)
elouise82 wrote:
Feb. 22nd, 2010 03:55 am (UTC)
Re: why why WHY must I go to Mass now???
Edmund reflected bitterly that Lucy had absorbed their diplomacy lessons a little too well. "Peter will never forgive me if I let you do this," he said.
"Let me, my dear brother?" Lucy asked with that frightening arch to her eyebrow and a nasty emphasis on the "let." "I believe--"
To Edmund's mingled relief and dismay, Lucy's lecture was interrupted at that moment by the last person he wanted to see: the Duke's oily little assistant Jorn.
"My lord Shorkaan!" he said, popping his round eyes out until they "goggled" (Lucy's term) more than ever. "Whatever are you doing here - with your lovely sister?"
Yes, Edmund thought, Shorkaan would certainly have no problem visiting this particular quarter, but the Tarkheena Maritisa would not deign to set one sandaled foot in this grimey alley.
Lucy didn't even blink. "My dear sir!" she cried, giving every appearance of being more than delighted to see Jorn. Had Edmund not been treated to a ferocious whispered lecture the first night of their arrival on Jorn's utter inappropriateness in his address to ladies, and how if she was in her true form as Queen of Narnia she would have given him a piece of her mind instead of inane giggles, he might have been fooled.
"How very fortunate we encountered you," Lucy continued, smiling sweetly. "I begged my brother to take me shopping today in the common market, for the quaint experience. However, we seem to have gotten lost, and now I don't know where to look for the silks I promised my dear friends back home!"
"I will be more than happy to escort you back to the market, my lady," the oily Jorn said, all but rubbing his hands together.
"Excellent," Edmund said, seeing his chance to do a bit of investigating while keeping Lucy away from this area (and keeping Peter from completely losing his sanity when they returned). "Now that you have someone to steer you in the right direction, sister, I believe I shall finish my exploration." He leered and winked at Jorn, knowing the other man - the scoundrel! - would take his implied meaning.
"Naturally, my lord," Jorn replied smugly, and he hurried Lucy away before she could do more than glare daggers at Edmund.
He would be in trouble with her later for this, but it was a small price to pay for keeping her safe.
...
(and now to bed, so long as the baby and my sinuses let me sleep!)
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Two hours later, a very familiar laugh sends Edmund bolt upright, scattering tasseled cushions and a few friendly feminine hands. The mouthpiece of the water pipe drops from his lips and fingers, clattering on the table. Fortunately for their cover, the instinctive 'she didn't!' that rises to his tongue is lost to the coughing fit that takes him. Smoke is not meant to be swallowed.
Across the table, Kevrin Shoalsilver smiles at him, showing too many teeth. "A bit too much smoke, friend?" he asks, leaning past one of the friendlier ladies to fill his wine cup with exaggerated courtesy.
Edmund catches his breath and smiles back tightly. He doesn't care for the man, officially head of one of the Lone Islands major trading houses. Unofficially, the king knows, Shoalsilver runs some of the most profitable black market activities in the Islands. His smuggling empire is vast, profitable, and more slippery than any eel.
He's been hoping to get evidence against Shoalsilver for years, but right now it's more important to know whether the rumors of Calormene arms smuggling are true. He'll let this eel go if he can catch the Tisroc's (may he choke on fishbones) sharks. And two hours of work is now hanging on the little sister giggling in a corner with three of the house's ladies.
Peter will kill him. If Susan doesn't get there first.
______
...oh, shoot, I changed tense. Sorry. Uhm... I can't make it go back.
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(Also, how on earth are they passing for Calormene nobility? Disguise-writing time, I think. Lucy's getting a makeover.)
Edmund passes the pipe back to Shoalsilver, tossing a coin at the passing housemistress and signaling for more of whatever potent leaf is still choking its way from his lungs. As the smuggler inhales deeply, Edmund picks up his cup and drinks, hiding behind the rim as he searches among the women for Lucy. She's there - that laugh is simply too much Lucy for it to be anyone else - but their combined powers of disguise are fooling even him.
"So, Shorkaan Ahoris," Shoalsilver drawls from within his nest of smoke and girls.
"Hmm?" Edmund replies. There. Lucy has straightened her blonde curls and darkened them, and the clay paste they are both itching to cast aside has turned her face to that of a true Tarkheena, but her eyes sparkle unlike any of the ladies in this hole. He breathes a sigh of relief to have her in his sight again, and turns back to let Shoalsilver finish speaking.
"What is it you are wanting from me?"
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Edmund firmly instructs his mind to ignore Lucy; she is a queen and, though it occasionally pains him to admit it, quite capable of handling herself, so long as she remembers to stay in character. She has been known, in the past, to forget herself in a passionate outburst on women's rights.
"My most esteemed and noble friend," he begins smoothly, Calormene in more than just the oil darkening and slicking back his usually unruly hair and the padding in his cheeks to raise his profile, "My cousin, the respected and beloved Tarkaan Ramdaman, sends his greetings through me, though I am but a humble merchant, the least of the Tarkaans."
Shoalsilver responds in like fashion, proving himself to be far more Calormene than Narnian, despite having been born and raised in the Lone Islands. Edmund suffers through the preliminaries, and then moves on to his point:
"My lord and cousin is concerned, however, by the report that you are perhaps doing business with other Calormenes, in areas more ... delicate, shall we say, than our trade? He fears a change in your loyalties."
He sees Shoalsilver begin to perspire more than called for by the dense, perfumed air, and prays that Lucy does not pick now to lead the ladies in a revolt against their oppressed lot.
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And Edmund knows that Peter's going to have that sword to his own neck, with Susan arrow to his back for the "Yes, our sister insisted upon going into a brothel with nothing but a parasol, some clay paint and a smile."
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So...getting Shoalsilver to do a run for "Ramdaman" would let Edmund in on the workings of the Calormene arms smuggling. Yes. This totally works.
Edmund's got him scared, so perhaps just a hint more of power, a 'suggestion' that Shoalsilver take this job for Edmund's master 'Ramdaman,' and then Edmund (and Lucy?) pulling the strings on the deal so that they see how this arms smuggling is working....hmmm.
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I do most definitely see Lucy wreaking havoc at the brothel with her parasol, one way or another!
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A. Ramdaman is real, and Shorkaan may or may not exist, and if he exists, may or may not be in Edmund's pocket.
B. Ramdaman is real, and Edmund has already cleverly subverted him.
C. Edmund is faking the whole thing.
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"Oh estimable merchant," Shoalsilver begins, "ever have I been a faithful servant to the business...needs of many great lords throughout our lands. Your most honored cousin Ramdaman Tarkaan, great and worthy though he is, is but a thread in the rope of trade I follow."
Edmund allows his face to fall into light disapproval, but he makes no move to halt the flow of words. If he can just keep the Lone Islander talking long enough, he thinks, opportunity will present itself. There is little sense in leaping forward with anything that might be construed as an accusation, and he must not reveal any knowledge beyond what Shorkaan Ahoris would know.
---
Eh. That's all I have right now. Also, I keep seeing Ramdaman as Ramadan.
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"Surely a man of such worth and wisdom as your honor understands the exigencies of trade, particularly in these unsettled times," Shoalsilver continues, his fingers restless on his wine cup. "A man in my position cannot afford to deal solely with one client, even one so honorable, so generous, as your noble cousin. But I assue you, my worthy friend, my loyalties have ever been to your most honored cousin, whom I dare call friend."
Edmund speaks up when Shoalsilver pauses to breathe, carefully schooling his expression so as not to reveal his distaste for the rambling Calormene courtesies. "Most trustworthy friend," he says, getting it out without a trace of irony, "surely then you will undertake a small transaction for my lord."
"Gladly, most gladly!" Shoalsilver exclaims, perking up visibly at what he clearly thinks is a return to straightforward business.
"Good," Edmund says, and smiles, because by the end of the evening he fully expects to have evidence against the Lone Islander and the Calormenes, and that will be a trip well spent. Assuming no disasters strike, he should be able to finish off the visit with a string of very satisfying arrests and report to Peter that the Islands are secure again.
Of course, assumptions are a very dangerous thing.
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Meanwhile, Lucy is both delighted with her many new friends, and horrified at their calm acceptance of their subjugated state. When she presses them as to whether or not they are bothered (appalled is the word she prefers to use, but she tries to contain her indignation) by their situation, she is met with a calm shrug and "It is as Tash wills."
This will never do, she thinks, and immediately begins plotting how to open their eyes. As usual for her, the details are a little fuzzy, but she can picture the end result beautifully: all the brothels of the Lone Islands empty, with their former slaves in the streets, punishing their enslavers with parasols.
She wishes she had more parasols to give out, but they are such a new-fangled Calormene notion that she had a terrible time even persuading Larkin, the Black Dwarf, to make one for her. She did manage to convince him of its usefulness in more than simply blocking the sun, with a simple demonstration after he handed it to her. His head is probably still sore, but he is at least a bit wiser, and will likely have a more cautious tongue around his queens after this.
It had been useful with Jorn, too. Lucy smiles at the memory of tripping him up with one deft swoop, and then standing by helplessly as he tried to extricate himself from the mud. He had no problem hurrying off to the baths after that, leaving her free to sneak back into the Silk Blossom and make her contacts.
Who are proving quite useful, if not ready for revolution quite yet. Little comments they drop without even realizing it convince Lucy, once again, that females make the best spies, because nobody (except in Narnia) thinks of them as anything more than a pretty face.
This will be enough to give her an edge over Edmund, in their little game of "who can learn more." And if he keeps smoking that hideous stuff, he won't even remember half of what he has learned from the odious Shoalsilver.
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Darn. It seemed a good name at the time. This is why Louise should not write anything on only four hours of sleep!
Uhhh ... if anybody wants to change his name, I won't be offended.
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GASP! FLAIL! Thank Aslan for convenient coughing fits
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And don't worry, Rth, if nobody else gets to it first, I have Ideas about the parasol.
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