THIEF: THE MIDNIGHT VEIL

10: "MOMMY MASK"

Lady Gwyneth Arden was laying naked in her large, luxurious canopy bed. The sheets were wrapped strategically around her body to barely cover certain areas, and she looked at the window across the room.
The moon was so bright that some of it still shone through the storm clouds. The outdoor terrace beyond the half-open window glistened with rainwater and the sheen of moonlight.
Where was Jasper? What in Pagan's Hell was taking him so long?
Her annoyance slowly turned into feeling foolish. She was one of the most influential, powerful players in The City - the Queen of Hightowne, some called her.
What was she doing waiting on him? What was Jasper playing at?
Foolishness turned to anger.
Who the hell did he think he was? She offered her bed and her body to him... and what? He left her waiting there like a servant waiting on their master?
She could snuff his entire life out like a candle if she desired.
And maybe I will, Gwyn thought. How dare he. What a show of crass insolence.
Anger started bubbling over into something else - a dark corner of Gwyn's mind that sometimes made itself known to her in moments such as these.
Once these thoughts started, it was difficult for her to come back from them.
She could snuff him out and his entire family. Better yet, she could make him watch while she made an example of his wife and two children.
Yes. That would be quite fitting. Even better; she could make the children watch as she slit their mother's throat. Jasper would of course seethe with rage. The children would scream, cry, shout.
Wait... how many children did Jasper have? Two or three? Lady Arden couldn't remember.
She thought about starkly evil things she could do to the children while he watched.
She thought of one thing in particular... a horror she had visited upon two fortunate souls many moons prior.
But wait - first, she could have one of the children strewn up in a noose, or perhaps impaled on a pole or meat hook or the like while their mother was still alive. That way Jasper and his wife would have to witness atrocities on their little ones first.
The Mommy Mask could come later.
Gods dammit, Jasper. The nerve. How dare he insult her like this. 'Insult' wasn't a strong enough word. She had murdered people for less.
Any man - and many women, too - across The City would have killed for a night with her, and Jasper chose to throw it in her face? Had he forgotten who he worked for? Had he become too comfortable with his place in the manor, with his place in the world? Clearly sharing her bed meant muck-all to the man.
And now Gwyn's mind ran to a few years prior, when Lady Dunham of North Quarter and her son suffered their cruel fates at her hands in the Chamber beneath the manor - a fitting end, Gwyn Arden thought, for Lady Danika Dunham's connivery.
Danika had defied Gwyn in a political scheme, promising results but delivering something else entirely at the last possible minute during one of Lord Regent Cahill's grand parties.
Lady Dunham had even possessed the nerve to fire a taunting wink at her from across the ballroom. Months of Lady Arden's string-pulling and scheming to reverse The City's new worker protection laws had vanished in a moment, all for naught.
Gwyn was staring absently into the dark shadows at her bedchamber's edges. She did not realize she was softly grinning as she relived the revolting, murderous scene out in her mind.
Quaking in a fit of anger and barely able to control herself from snapping in front of scores of Hightowne's finest, Lady Arden had confronted Lady Dunham in a quiet corner of the ballroom.
She could remember how Lady Dunham stiffened at her approach before trying to swiftly pretend that she was not intimidated.
While The City's leaders, politicians, nobility, socialites, and key figures danced and drank and ate their night away, basking in the evening's merriment, Lady Arden delivered her threat with a pointed whisper.
Gwyn replayed the exchange in her head. She could remember it as clearly as she could see the moonlight bathing her bedchamber's window.
"Evening, Lady Dunham."
"Good evening, Lady Arden. Enjoying the party?"
"As much as one can when the knife is still stuck in her back."
Lady Dunham had tilted her head slightly. "Come now, Gwyneth. Ours is an ever-changing field of play, is it not?"
"You betrayed me, Danika."
"Betrayed you?" the noblewoman had echoed, eyes wide with shock. "Rather strong word. I merely changed my mind at the last moment."
"Why? Who paid you?"
"Who paid me?"
Lady Arden had stepped closer, nearly toe-to-toe with Lady Dunham. "I did not stutter. Answer the question," she ordered in a whisper.
Lady Dunham's eyes were cold. Unfazed. She lowered her voice to match Lady Arden's. "You're suggesting I would take a bribe to influence the outcome of a judicial review?"
"You already accepted mine," Lady Arden had snapped.
"Mm. So I did."
"Do you realize who you're talking to at this moment? You do understand what you're saying to me, yes?"
"Yes, Gwyneth. Now, let me help you understand something: you're cruel. Vile. Sick. Gods know how you got the Lord Regent to reverse the child labor laws and get six year olds back out there working the mines, streets, and chimneys. You imposed higher taxes on businesses. Lengthier prison times for sex workers."
"Prostitutes," Lady Arden corrected. "Whores and nothing more."
"You're still railing on the homeless. Public flogging and prison time for being without a home, living on the street? Really? Punishing them for being down on their luck? Life hasn't been cruel enough to them?"
"For begging. For being a stain on The City and well-to-do folk, and for being a drain on my coffers. And yours, I might add."
"Oh," Lady Dunham had scoffed. "Right. Pardon me. How dare they ask others for help. You're a heartless wretch."
"You overstep, Danika."
"No. I'm tired of your black-hearted stain on this city's affairs, and I'm not the only one." Lady Dunham had squared herself. "Mark my words, Lady Arden: you watch your step. You have enough power already. Why reach for more? Put your hand too close to the cutting knife and you might lose it... or at least your fingers."
That was the moment Lady Arden nearly exploded. She almost gouged Lady Dunham's eyes out on the spot, right there in their private corner of the ballroom.
Nobody in The City had ever had the gall to speak to her like that.
Her heart pounded. She could feel angry blood rushing to her cheeks. She was practically quaking.
She was furious.
Then Lady Dunham smiled smugly at her. "As I thought. You're not used to anyone standing up to you, or your weightless threats."
"Do you know how many people I have killed? How many I have put down like dogs in the street?" Lady Arden had hissed. "You are a sodding fool."
"Are you verbally confessing to multiple murders, Gwyneth?" Lady Dunham challenged. "Maybe we should say it louder for all to hear, yes?"
'Twas then that Lady Arden leaned close to whisper in the other woman's ear. "I want you to go home after the ball tonight. I want you to spend a ravishing night with your husband. I want you to look upon your little one as he sleeps. You won't have the opportunity to do so much longer. How old is your son now? Ten? Eleven years?"
Lady Dunham had put on a confident show thus far, but her stoic stance faltered. "Are you threatening me, Lady Arden?"
"Lady Dunham," Gwyn answered in a deathly murmur, "I shall carve your face from your head and wear it like a mask at a ball. I will make your son watch me dance with it on. I will pare off his eyelids so that he is forced to witness it. You mark my words, Lady Dunham: no one will save you. The Lord Regent himself can't protect you from me. You're finished."
Lady Arden was mouthing her own past words to herself as she replayed the confrontation in her mind. She would always find great pleasure in the disturbed, fearful look that clouded Lady Dunham's face as the grim threats seeped in; the face of someone realizing they had, indeed, gone too far.
And she had done it. Lady Arden had made good on her wicked words.
The Chamber beneath the manor had been the perfect place to spill Lady Dunham's blood - though it had not gone as she had originally threatened.
Lady Arden had a salacious idea at the last moment. To wear Danika's face as a mask had been quite enjoyable to threaten her with in the heat of her angry moment, but in retrospect, Gwyn realized that would be quite messy.
She was no stranger to murder, or torture and mutilation... but to wear someone else's face? That would be difficult to clean up, wouldn't it? She did not mind getting her hands dirty or bloody for theatrics... but the thought of someone's flayed, bloody flesh sticking to her skin was one that didn't particularly appeal to her.
Wearing freshly-carved flesh was a rather unpleasant prospect, even for her evil nature. She wasn't afraid to tear someone's face off with her own knife in her own hand, but the thought of a gooey, sticky, warm, bloody mess matted to her face repulsed her.
Lady Arden spent a great deal of time and effort on her beauty, after all. She had no qualms with defiling others, but she would not defile herself in the process.
And so, why not visit this abhorrence upon Lady Dunham and her son? How deliciously vile would it be to have them wear each other's faces?
Nobody could hear the screams as Lady Arden worked with her knives, and thanks to a potent concoction put together by one of her Hand Mage contacts at the Mage Towers, her victims were awake for it all.
Lady Dunham and her son screamed and wailed in horrified agony, all for naught. Not even the Builder Himself could hear their tortured cries at that depth.
But bloody hell, it started to annoy her.
"Stop screaming!" she had shouted at Lady Dunham's boy after she had sliced off both of his eyelids. "Shut your mouth before I remove it, you insufferable little blight!"
Looking back on that night, Gwyn realized that had been an unrealistic expectation of hers. Yes, to witness your mother being subjected to grotesque horrors carried out with a fine blade did warrant at least some hollering.
Damn, was it irritating. The screams from both mother and son echoed incessantly off the Chamber's walls, so loud and unrelenting that Gwyn began to have trouble enjoying herself and her bloody work. It was ridiculous.
Cutting out their tongues helped. The guttural moans of pain and terror never stopped, but at least they weren't deafening.
Danika Dunham perished first. The sight of her boy wearing her face was the last thing she saw before death.
Her son died soon after, with the twisted vision of his own face being worn by his dead mother as a mask.
She had told the boy to "Hold still so you can put on your Mommy Mask."
Mommy Mask.
Gwyneth Arden nearly snorted with laughter at the thought. Here she was years later, and she still found it hilarious. Every moment of her horrifying act of revenge that night still tickled her fancy.
Even now in her bed waiting for Jasper Galway to show, staring absently out at the moon and rain beyond her window, the woman took immense pleasure in reliving the Dunhams' awful demise
Lady Arden had their bodies discreetly carted back to Lord Dunham's Manor in the North Quarter. She was not there to witness Lord Tally Dunham's reaction at the defiled corpses of his wife and son, both wearing the face of the other; but Gwyn had heard that the man screamed and moaned with such sorrow that he fainted right there outside of the manor house.
She had carved STAY OUT OF HIGHTOWNE into Lady Danika's gut.
Gwyneth Arden always knew she was abnormal. Even at a very young age, Gwyn had been fascinated by death and its many dealers. Her parents had forced her to hide it. Her father called her a... what was it?
Ah, yes. Murderous, psychotic abomination.
     To be fair, she - at nine years old - had tried to kill one of the housekeeping maids while her parents were out at a ball. Little Gwyn had not succeeded, but the maid was so badly injured that her father was forced to have her killed to prevent word of Gwyn's attempted murder from ever reaching authorities.
When she was eleven years of age, her mother visited her late at night, sat on the edge of Gwyn's bed, and in a voice disguised as gentle and loving, tried to encourage the girl to run away and never come back.
"You'll be fine out there, my dear," her mother had cooed. "Take a bag with whatever food you might need. I hear the South Quarter and Old Quarter are hiring lots of little boys and girls for different jobs. You could sweep chimneys, or be a mail courier, or... maybe you could join a ship's crew down at Wayside?"
Gwyn simply shook her head no. "I don't want to."
Her toxic ploy defeated, her mother retreated from Gwyn's bedchamber that night, and not an hour later her door creaked open softly.
A very sleepy and alarmed Gwyn sat up in her bed to see the Arden House Guard Captain, Redoric Halsey, standing in her room near the soft candle burning nearby.
Gwyn's father had ordered Captain Halsey to take the girl out back, kill her, and bury her on the estate grounds.
Redoric, quite shocked by the request, asked for an explanation. He was rebuked for doing so and ordered to carry out killing immediately, lest he lose his own life as consequence.
That had not sat well with Redoric, nor had the order to kill a young girl, and so while he did visit young Gwyn Arden in her room, there of course had not been a murder.
Instead, the man pulled her desk chair over near the bedside and sat quietly, candlelight glowing on his face while he informed the girl of the troublesome order he had just received.
Redoric told Gwyn that she had no choice but to flee, as her father would be expecting her death shortly.
Gwyn, still wiping the sleep from her eyes, suggested that perhaps her father and mother both be killed instead.
Not a tear. No whining. No distress.
Redoric, though ahocked, asked what would happen after. Her parents were both powerful players in The City's politics, after all. People would ask questions.
And so at eleven years of age, Gwyneth Arden conspired with a Guard Captain to have her parents murdered and disappeared before sunrise. Gwyn's parents had never drafted a will, since they so despised their daughter, and so... why not just forge one, leaving the estate and all of its assets to her?
Redoric said he would do so for a small cut of the ensuing profits. Gwyn agreed.
In the glow of the moonlit night and clouds, the silver light streaming through the master bedchamber windows, Redoric Halsey snuck in and cut the throats of both Lord Rupert and Lady Anna Arden while they slept.
The attack was blamed on a midnight robbery attempt gone wrong. Gwyn even helped Redoric arrange things to frame it properly. Missing trinkets and riches, shards of glass, drawers and cupboards turned out and emptied.
It worked.
It was not easy. It took years of navigating the unforgiving political and socialite arena of The City for the 'New' Lady Arden to become the untouchable noblewoman she now was. It was years of warding off predators and scavengers circling her and the estate, looking for signs of weakness that they could exploit to take everything from her.
Every one of those dismal sods failed. Some met rather grisly ends. Others found their loves in total ruin after trying to cross her.
A story for another time, perhaps.
Lady Arden blinked, finally emerging from her trip down Memory Lane.
She was now thirty-eight years of age. This night was just like that fateful night 27 years earlier. As she looked at the moonlit window, she could still see Redoric breaking the glass from the other side, shards sprinkling across the floor.
"You have to make sure you do it from the outside," he had said. "Do it from the inside and the Watch will know right away you're full of shite."
She missed him. Redoric Halsey was a good man. He had stayed on as House Captain for many years before moving away to retire in the country.
Lady Arden looked down at her body, promiscuously wrapped in bedsheets while she waited for Jasper Galway to show up as ordered.
She scoffed at herself, and at her patience with Jasper. To stand her up on an invitation to her bedchambers?
"Insolent slag," she whispered angrily as she tore the sheets away. She got dressed in her nightwear, slipped into a slim tunic, and then pulled a silken robe over herself.
Unforgivable, the nerve of this man. If Jasper had the slightest idea of who he was insulting, he would never—
There was a knock at her door.
Lady Arden whirled about and resisted the urge to call out Jasper's name and ask where the hell he had been. Instead, she made her way towards the door and stopped a couple paces from it. "Who is it at this hour?"
"Forgive me, M'lady," came a woman's voice. "It's Mosley. Jasper sent me."
"Did he, now?" Lady Arden recognized Mara's voice but still took a look through the peephole before opening the door. "What is it? It'd better be good."
Mara Mosley offered a brief bow, her armor shining in the hallway torchlight. "Not exactly, M'Lady. Someone's attacked a guard within the manor walls. We think we have an intruder."
Gwyn Arden raised her eyebrows. "Oh? And how, pray tell, is that bloody possible?"
"Apologies, M'Lady." Mara bowed again. "We're not sure. We think it's someone on the inside. Jasper has rounded up the entire house staff in the main foyer for questioning. He sent me to inform you."
Lady Arden stood in her doorway facing Mosley. Neither spoke for a long moment. The only sounds to be heard was the rain outside and the crackling of the hallway torches.
"Very well, Mosley. I trust the lot of you will do what needs to be done." Lady Arden closed the door, but a gloved hand stopped it.
"Please forgive me, Madame," Mara blurted hastily, seeing the angry flash of the noblewoman's eyes. "Jasper ordered me to stay with you until we have this matter sorted out."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, M'Lady. For your protection."
"He didn't feel the need to come up here himself?"
Mara opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated briefly. "I... well, he has rounded up the—"
"Rest of the house staff, yes. You said that already."
"Right, M'Lady. I just mean... he is leading the questioning, as Guard Captain, and he mentioned that it should be either me or Terri watching out for you."
Lady Arden stared at her.
Mara shifted uncomfortably. "Because... it may not look right to have one of the men alone with you in your—"
"I understand, Mosley." Gwyn Arden squared herself. "However, I think it prudent that the Guard Captain should be the one protecting me in the case of a home invasion. He is the Captain, is he not?"
"Y-yes. Yes he is, M'Lady."
"I will not accept less. Send Jasper up. Find whoever attacked the guard and deal with them. Kill them, send them to Cragscleft, feed them to the street dogs. I care not."
With that, Lady Arden shut the door with an abrupt rasp of the hinges, and the locks could be heard clicking into place.
Mara Mosley stood alone in the third floor hallway for a time and stared blankly at the closed door before turning to go downstairs to the foyer and fetch Jasper as ordered.