No harm in mentioning my old war stories to drive home my experience and authority.
“There were plenty of extremists among their ranks even then, but in the last eight decades, the Temple has become even more fanatical, more vulnerable to fear and wild superstition. And that’s good for us,” I say, offering my audience a dangerous smile. “Because it means it’s easy to make their lives a living gloam.”
My words provoke some chuckles and gentle cheers from the crowd. Thanks to the insane ideology the Temple forces on its employees, our allies have managed to plant a seed of chaos and let it grow.
“Lana, let’s start with you,” I address a pretty woman seated with some of Corrin’s other employees. She was one of his working girls, but lately she’s been heading up our aquari division.
“Well,” she says, brushing her hair behind her ear. “We started with the plumbing at their headquarters.”
“Theirheadquarters?” Corrin asks pointedly.
“I mean, Mr. Wadestaff’s joint,” she says apologetically to her old boss. “Sula here has been polluting their drinking water with all kinds of nasties,” she gestures to a woman beside her. “And then I’ve been flooding their latrines. They’ve been knee-deep in shit since Wednesday.”
“That better not have permanently damaged anything,” Corrin mutters at me as I pace past him.
“Of course, they tried to undo it all with their own aquari spells,” Lana continues. “But they couldn’t stop themselves getting awful sick.” She smiles, delighted.
“Good work,” I nod, turning on my heel to address the crowd. “As a result, High Inquisitor Meppos and the other anointers vacated the premises the next day, moving out into the suburbs. They left the lowest-ranking clerics to clean up the mess. Milo, tell us what you’ve been up to.”
The young man straightens up proudly.
“We got tongues wagging, Lady Damia. Me and my lads spread all sorts of rumors about the bad luck the clerics have been having. The whole neighborhood’s been chattering about how the redcloaks have pissed off the gods something terrible, what with setting up their headquarters in a previous den of iniquity and all.”
This was Corrin’s idea. According to the Temple, any disaster that befalls the general population is always the fault of some blasphemer—or group of blasphemers—refusing to be godlyenough. The more senior clerics probably know it’s a load of shit—just scare tactics to keep the population cowed and obedient—but the younger clerics are wide-eyed and naive. Tell them they’re being punished by the gods, and they’ll believe you. They’ve heard the message preached enough to buy into it.
“Excellent, Milo,” I say.
He smiles. “It worked a treat, miss. The poor idiots have been doing all kinds of cleansing rituals around the building, stinking up the whole street with incense.”
“And where did they source that incense, Mr. Chalke?” I ask, turning to the crime lord.
“From one of my apothecaries,” he grunts. “Laced with opios, like you asked, my lady.”
“What willthatdo?” Milo asks.
“It will make them more suggestible,” I explain.
“Will that really be enough?” Chalke says, crossing his arms. “You know I like your grit, my lady, but if you’re planning on storming this place tomorrow, you’ll need more than some spewing latrines and idle gossip to frighten the redcloaks out of that place.”
Corrin clears his throat, studying his nails. “I know it’s not your territory, Chalke, but I thought you’d be paying a little more attention to what’s going on in the city. Particularly as you claimed you wanted the Temple out of Hallowbane as much as the rest of us.”
The older man glowers. “I do,” he says. “And as foryour territory, Wadestaff—if you can still call it that after letting it go so easily—I’ll have you know I used to have a very good idea ofwhat went down on Grove Street before the cleavers came and scared all my spies off.”
Corrin drops his hand, grinning triumphantly. “I always knew you had some of your lackeys sniffing around. But now they’ve done a runner. Pity you don’t inspire the same loyalty as some of us.”
Chalke jumps to his feet, five heavyset men jumping up with him. “Now you look here?—”
“Gentlemen,” I snap, letting Barb crawl out of my collar and hiss at them for dramatic effect. Corrin goes silent, though he knows Barb is only dangerous to people she doesn’t like…or when she’s really hungry. Chalke’s eyes widen at the sight of my snake.
“Keep it civil,” I say. “The Temple aren’t the only ones with creative punishments.”
I pat Barb on the head, and Chalke slowly lowers himself back into his seat.
“What Mr. Wadestaff was hinting at, Mr. Chalke, was the last prong of our offensive on Grove Street.” I look pointedly at Corrin until he takes his cue.
“As well as making the clerics nervous and stupefying them with opios, Damia’s made sure they haven’t slept properly for two days,” Corrin explains. “They’re being seized by strange bouts of hysteria, waking up in the middle of the night in uncontrollable fits of laughter.”
“Y-you can do that?” Lana asks, awed. “When they said fae have mind magic?—”
