Vile

by Keith Crawford

  Last night, illicitly reading the letter in the only clean tavern in Durançon, Elianor had found Carada’s words alarmist. Here in the shadow of the mountain, with the Black Dog’s attack marked on her body, she wondered. Did her master really believe what he wrote? Was his fear of mythical Kindred so great he could justify any oppression? Or was he just trying to manipulate a yokel lord? The latter seemed more likely. She split the rest of the envelope to open it fully, licked her lips, and continued reading. Why was her mouth so dry?

  “In the name of the oath you swore to the throne, and the love my brother Dalard held for you, I beg you to return to the capital by the 30th Ventros and help me vote down this dreadful plot.”

  Théophile Carada had a portrait of his brother mounted in chambers. Elianor had heard her master call him “Dalard the drunkard” on more than one occasion, usually when he himself was drunk. The thought excused the pause, perhaps, but as she came to the next line in the letter, the one she had inserted herself with a stiff hand in the tavern candlelight, her voice tightened.

  “If you will not come yourself, then send one of your children to speak in your place.”

  There, it was done. She sped up as she got to the end.

  “From one whose family has been your greatest friend,

  Théophile Carada.”

  But now, as her eyes skipped back up to the words “one of your children”, it seemed such an obvious forgery. Was this why he was asking her to read it out loud? Was he toying with her?

  “My friend Dalard Carada,” Arbalest said. “Dead at the battle of Demon’s Pass, and the age of chivalry gone with him. Now we have his baby brother in his place.”

  Vile plucked dead leaves from the vines. He crushed them, ground them in his fist, and sprinkled the waste on the snow.

  “Sophists and politicians rule Trist. They care nothing for the glory of true nobility, the generous loyalty that exists between master and servant, the dignified obedience that elevates those who serve. Have you ever killed anyone, Miss Paine?”

  What?

  “Yes.”

  “I mean with your own two hands.”

  The men and women killed in the tavern, protecting her as she went to her meeting with Genevieve Grime, the Queen’s Guard killed trying to affect her capture, what did it matter how you killed; action or inaction; your hands or the hands of others? Were these petty semantics the difference between those capable of taking responsibility, and those who merely looked for excuses to absolve themselves? And which of these was Vile?

  “Yes,” she said. “I have killed with my own two hands.”

  “Your Senate only knows how to send people to their deaths. And Northerners wage their wars from a distance. Their Wardens call it keeping the peace. Did you kill the Black Dog?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “No.”

  She meant it as a refusal, but he took it as an answer.

  “Read me the rest of the letter,” he said.

  Elianor’s heart thudded so hard she felt her ribs move.

  “There is no more letter,” she said.

  “There, on the back of the page.” He pointed a thick finger at the letter. Then, as if some insect caught his interest, he turned his head away towards the night sky. “Read it out loud.”

  She turned over the page. Packed writing covered the small square that had formed the inside of the envelope, that part she had not dared open for fear of tearing the paper. She scanned the words and had to clench her teeth to avoid biting her tongue. He was watching her again, surely noting her surprise, surely wondering what she had to be surprised about if she had never seen the letter. Could she afford to lie?

  “Well?”

  No. There was no way out. She remembered hearing a story that Arbalest Vile had once cut a man in half in a single blow. She swallowed, heavily, and read out loud.

  “You will recognise Miss Paine. She shares little of her father’s good sense. I expect she will do her duty.” Elianor’s throat tightened and it was hard not to choke. “But she is a Republican sympathiser and most likely a spy. I commend her to your good judgement.”

  Warmth spread around the back of her neck. She could almost hear her master’s voice condemning her. A Republican sympathiser and most likely a spy.

  Her pride screamed that it was a trick, a fiddle, that the envelope had been switched or tampered with. Her shame called her an idiot, over and over. She had spent a full hour editing the text, breaking the seal, adding the words, and resealing with the copy of the mark she had stolen from her master’s chambers. An hour staring at the page, and she had not considered there might be more writing on the inside. If Vile chose to kill her now, she deserved it.

  He stood in front of her and stared her in the face. For the first time she noticed that he was a bare centimetre taller than she, but he was lifted by shadows that grew around him, cast by blue eyes bright as a blacksmith’s flame.

  “Are you a Republican?”

  “I serve my master.”

  “Don’t lie, girl. Are you a Republican?”

  Magistrates can’t lie.

  “I am a patriot.” She raised her chin and dared him to strike her down, right there, in the Dead Garden of Shadowgate Manor.

  “Well, patriot is a title that has hidden a multitude of sins on all sides.”

  He stalked back to the vine and grabbed it by the stem. The thick wood struggled to hold to the soil as he choked it by the collar.

  “We received word from Durançon, this morning,” he said. “Genevieve Grime is dead.”

  The blood dripping from the leg of her trousers gathered around the heel of her boot. She felt as though some important part of her fell with it.

  “What happened?”

  “A riot in Lutense, last week. She resisted arrest by the Wardens. It may even have happened before you left.”

  Arbalest shifted his hand lower, towards the root of the vine, rotating his wrist.

  “Without Genevieve to lead the Republican cause, it is unlikely I am needed to prevent it.”

  Or the death of a senator will be the spark that lights the fire, claimed a part of Elianor’s brain. But the rest swam in memory. The last time they had touched, fingers through the grill of the sewer tunnel. How long after had they killed Genevieve? Hours? Minutes? Had Genevieve known, somehow, that their touch had stolen a sliver of the last seconds of her life?

  “Republicans believe in equality. You must know better than that, Miss Paine. You must have observed. Some of us are born superior. Intelligence, physical strength, good fortune. Courage. It’s in the blood. Genevieve Grime was the daughter of Monteguarde Grime. She, too, had her father’s courage, if not his good sense.”

  She too? Was Vile talking about her? About her father, Sebaraton Paine? What courage had he ever had?

  “We must be ruled by the best. Paine is an old family name, almost as old as Vile. It is not a coincidence that the best are found in the nobility. You can lower yourself to be among commoners, but you cannot deny your blood.”

  The muscles rose in his neck and shoulder, settling in, taking the weight of the trunk through his forearm. He placed his feet evenly to let the vine know it was about to meet an irresistible force.

  “I have seen what happens when the people take power. Violent riots to protest the violence. Burning grain to protest the price of bread. Massacre and slaughter to protest the absence of justice. The masses destroy without limit because they have no fear of consequences: they have no past, so what do they care for the future? Thus, the nobility exists, to protect the people from themselves. Your master sent you here to die, Miss Paine.”

  He ripped the trunk of the vine from the ground. The shock shivered up through the dead branches, sent dead leaves tumbling to the snow, and tore hissing shards of bark that fell like insects slaughtered by the rain.

  “Inheritance is the natural order. Stronger than the vague speculative rights of the state. We sow s
o that our children can reap, and this is the divine sanction of monarchy. Do you follow me? Perhaps not. You may if you survive to have children of your own. The Queen must be maintained, until a husband can be found who is worthy of the throne. The Wardens must be kept in place, to protect us from the Kindred until the throne is restored. The aristocracy must be replenished, torn out by the root and replanted, until a new generation can guide the people to a better future. The Queen’s right of primogeniture is central to everything I intend to accomplish.”

  “You…you mean to marry one of your sons to the Queen?”

  He threw the remains of the vine at her feet. The wrecked branches dragged after, but he paid them no mind.

  “As long as the wall stands, the vines can be replanted,” he said.

  Elianor stepped back. Her boot skidded across the snow, smearing the hidden blood.

  “I have no interest in returning to Lutense,” Vile said. “It interferes with my plans. The only question, the question Carada leaves to my good judgement, is whether I allow you to leave Shadowgate alive.”

  He reached out towards her. She gritted her teeth and commanded her feet to stay still. He opened the palm of the hand he had used to rip the vine from the ground and showed her where the fragments of wood had torn through the flesh. Then, one finger at a time, he closed his fingers over the wound, until his hand was back in a fist.

  “This is what you will do for me, Elianor Paine. My son, Nathaniel, will escort you to town, where you will recover the rifle you allowed to be stolen. In the process, you will discover evidence that implicates the Garn family in the disappearances, and, perhaps, re-evaluate your opinions on equality. Prove yourself useful, and we can discuss your future when you return.”

  “I am a Magistrate. I am sworn to the truth.”

  “Then make it true. Make yourself necessary. Survive.” He waved his hand as if dismissing her. “You may keep the letter as a reminder of the nature of trust.”

  “My lord?” She couldn’t help it. The honorific just slipped out. He was already walking away.

  Chapter 12

  Act now, and to hell with the consequences. Elianor turned left at the stairwell, downwards, deeper, into the bowels of Shadowgate, following the direction in which Nathaniel Vile had earlier descended. By the time she reached the end of the first flight of stairs, she was limping. Whatever injury hid beneath her coat sent shocks of pain along her left leg. Her mission and her life were in danger. But that had been true before Vile’s arrogant speechmaking in the Dead Garden. Did he think she cared about his threats? His ambitions for the Queen? His pet theories on the nature of nobility? Vile’s delusions changed nothing. She had to find another way. And so, she would.

  The stairs opened out into a long corridor lit with gas lamps.

  Vile was wrong about blood. Elianor wasn’t responsible for who her father was. She’d had to win a scholarship to go to the Academy, scholarships available to anybody who applied. What good had her name been to her? It had been an encumbrance. She was proof that anyone could make it, regardless of their background, if they worked hard enough. There were snowflakes melting in her hair. Arbalest Vile was insane. Genevieve Grime was dead. Elianor had to succeed now.

  She had been 14 years old the first time she heard the name Nathaniel Vile. The senior year at the Academy was a hotbed of Republican sympathisers. They resented the North. They called the Queen a puppet. And, like everyone else, they feared the Wardens. They built barricades in the streets and threw cobblestones at the Queen’s Guard. Elianor had seen Nathaniel speaking, from a distance, when she was too young to get into any real trouble for attending the rallies of student radicals. It had been impossible to hear what he was saying with so many people in the way, cheering and shouting every time he spoke. But he was so dynamic, his hands held out flat before him, then thrusting a finger towards an unseen future as the students hurled debris over his head at the advancing soldiers.

  The curve and slope of the corridor made it feel like she had missed a turn. There was no sign of a junction, just an irregular sequence of dark doorways. She felt that if she tried to retrace her steps, she would come out somewhere new, somewhere deeper underground, lost beneath… Beneath what? Was she below the castle? Below the wall? Somewhere inside the mountain?

  A door opened.

  “Come in, if you’re going to,” Nathaniel said.

  His room was wider than it was deep, an over-sized cellar whose shelves were filled with books and papers. Pipes ran across the ceiling and down the wall to gather at a stove, where Nathaniel held out his hands. But he was still wearing his short-sleeved jerkin: whatever heat he required, it did not come from the fire.

  “Did you know Persephone and I are twins? Sometimes I think we were born in the wrong bodies.”

  Between them was a table, the sort of counter that cooks used to prepare large meals. Papers gathered across it like stacks of fallen leaves, pinned down by books in the place of paperweights. Across them lay an empty scabbard, and a leather satchel that was almost identical to Elianor’s. From the scabbard the stacked books were structured like a fort, pillaged from surrounding shelves and re-ordered to protect the satchel.

  “What do you mean?” she said, covering her advance on the table.

  He took a book from the table and opened it like a shield. A piece of paper rested inside, down which he ran his finger, line by line.

  “I mean that life mocks us by birthing us one way and sending us another.”

  “Do you imagine your sister feels the same way?”

  “Yes. Trying to live up to that size would be hard enough for a man: for the daughter of a noble house, it is a curse. Whether she will admit it to herself or not is another question.”

  Her head was aching. Had Nathaniel just smirked when she spoke?

  “How do you keep it so warm in here?”

  “You should ask Anton. Something about the pipes.” Nathaniel waved the book vaguely back towards the stove, but his right hand found a quill and dipped it into a pot of ink. The fire belched and flickered. To Elianor, it seemed the flame reached for the papers on the great desk, dreaming of the books on the bookshelves, fantasising of the day when a great gust of air might allow it to leap about the room and consume everything it found. Nathaniel’s library would burn easily.

  “You saw the Black Dog?” Nathaniel said. “You saw it up close?”

  “You heard what I had to say in the hall.”

  “Indulge me. People have died.”

  “Have you found bodies?”

  “It’s easy to disappear on the mountain. That doesn’t make them less dead.”

  She stepped closer. Her thigh brushed against the table.

  “Why only women?”

  “Isn’t it always women?”

  He was testing her. She crossed her arms.

  “No. Most violent deaths are young men.”

  “Didn’t the revolution do away with gender inequality? It’s written right there in the constitution.”

  “It takes time to change. Not all women can be like Captain Persephone.”

  “Persephone wants fairy tales and babies, just like the rest of you.”

  Elianor took the nearest book and threw it at Nathaniel. It bounced off his face, then the covers spread, and air resistance caused it to fall on the table in front of him. He had the good grace to look surprised.

  “When men are murdered, it’s usually outside a bar or over a vendetta,” she said. “Women are killed by family, lovers, and ex-lovers. Start with an open mind but start with what is most probable.”

  “So that’s what you would do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good thing I already did.”

  He lifted the piece of paper on which he had been writing. It curled in the warm air. The tips of his fingers were flushed pink, as though he was warmed by some great, internal fire. When she took the paper from him, he picked up a stack of books and set off about the shelves, checking the title
s and putting them back into place. The note was a list of women’s names. None were nobility. Each was marked with the name of their father, alongside a date and concisely scribed notes. The last person to see them. Friends. Family. A recent addition drew her eye. Seren, daughter of Hodri. Sister of Begw.

  “This place, Nana Haf’s, is mentioned several times.”

  “It’s a hostelry for the miners.”

  “Why would Mayor Brek call it a brothel?”

  “Tannyr hates the Garns. If you give him a chance, I’m sure he’ll come up with a reason for you to investigate the mines. He may even believe it.”

  “Why do you think the missing women are connected? Have no men disappeared during this period?”

  “You know full well they have, but we’ve seen this pattern of missing women before. You must have read your father’s report. Tell me what you saw when you fought the Black Dog.”

  Did he know she had her father’s report there in her bag, or was it just an educated guess?

  “As you wish.” Elianor closed her eyes, trying to picture the events on the mountain. “It was dark. It had claws. It was bigger than me. But probably not much larger than the Captain of the Guard.”

  “Persephone is pretty big.”

  “Its shoulders were wrong. It looked like it could stand.”

  And in the flash of the gunshot, she had seen a tattooed number 1 on the beast’s chest. Nathaniel watched her through the slats of the nearest bookshelf. He had that peculiar intensity of gaze with which she was all too familiar. Truthsense.

  “I thought you left the Magistry.”

  “I was thrown out before I could complete pupillage. Many things have changed since then.” He waved his hand at the papers. “My collection is nothing compared to the Abbot’s library. But I like to think these are Trist’s finest works on the history of Shadowgate and the Vile family. It may be enough. To prove it well enough for anybody to believe it.”

  “To prove what? You think there’s some link between your lineage and the disappearances?”

  “No,” he said, too quickly. “I’m just…some of my books are missing. I’m cataloguing.”