Vile

by Keith Crawford

  “Missing? Do you mean stolen?”

  “I could have misplaced them.”

  He moved along to the next bookshelf and placed two texts neatly between their comrades. Some were modern, printing press produced with steam-bound covers. Many were older. She recognised the way the books were ordered. It was the system used in the Academy. The chances of Nathaniel misplacing a book were roughly the same as Elianor admitting defeat.

  “Can I help?”

  He poked his head back around and looked her up and down, from top to toes.

  “No,” he said. “You’ll only get blood on the covers.”

  She scowled and drew her coat closer. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re making a mess.”

  There was blood between her fingers. From where had it come? Between the buttons of the coat? Suddenly Nathaniel was rushing. He put down the stack of books, first on the nearest shelf, but then he changed his mind and went to another. Elianor put her hand on the table, to steady herself while he wasn’t looking. Nathaniel snatched up his satchel. The flap was unbuckled. A sketchpad tumbled out, followed by a metal pot with a screw-top lid. The clatter as they scattered sounded far away. He pulled a long bandage from the satchel. Elianor pulled her fingers from the table. They were sticky. Bloody prints from the tips of her gloves glistened on the wood. She fell forward.

  Chapter 13

  Elianor could not feel her face. Nathaniel caught her by the arms before she could hit the floor. He held her until she could open both her eyes at the same time.

  “Would you open your jacket, please?”

  Heat from the furnace and multiple layers of clothing had sent sweat running down the small of her back. She fiddled with the first toggle, but her fingers were stiff inside her gloves and she couldn’t get her grip. Nathaniel smelled of smoke and spices.

  “Here, let me help you.”

  He steadied her against the table and undid her coat, pulling the thick wooden togs through the cloth loops one at a time. Elianor’s shoulder twitched and pain ran up her side.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “Just get on with it,” she said, straightening back up.

  “I shouldn’t have tried to use Truthsense on you.”

  “No. Don’t do it again.”

  “It hasn’t worked right since I left the Magistry, anyway. I told you. A lot has changed.”

  He peeled back her coat. The oilskin she had wrapped about herself after her fall from the cart had dug into her hip. Nathaniel drew her left arm up and shucked back the cloth. Her scarf tumbled away from her throat. Elianor’s head swam. The inner lining of the jacket was thick with blood, from her armpit down her side, sticky and dark. Between the coat, the oilskin, and the rest of her clothes, she couldn’t see where the injury ended and the blood began. She couldn’t see the injury at all. Nathaniel shook his head and sucked air through his teeth.

  “How are you still standing up?”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Elianor said, sincerely hoping she was right.

  “I don’t think we can do anything until we get you upstairs.” He tied the bandage from his satchel into a dressing and packed it as close as he could around her hip. She watched the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes. “If we fasten your coat back up, the dressing will at least slow the bleeding. We had better not undress you until we can bathe the wound.”

  Elianor laughed. “A little presumptuous, comrade.”

  There her mouth went again, slipping out words where she didn’t want it to.

  “Of course. I’m sorry. I’ll get you some water.” He looked about himself, helplessly.

  Elianor buttoned back up her jacket. The pressure from the dressing hurt, but at least she felt less like something was about to fall out.

  “Water would be good,” she said, levering herself onto the table and trying to find a way to tie her coat tighter. “You know, there are many in Lutense who would like to see you back.”

  Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed.

  “Genevieve was an extraordinary person. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Our loss. Lord Carada received your message. I read your letter.”

  Nathaniel stepped away from her. He dragged a large red book from the centre of the table and put it in front of him. He tapped his fingers on the cover, but he did not open it.

  “Did you know they only discovered my father was a Vile after the battle of Demon’s Pass? His given name wasn’t even Arbalest until he fought under the banner of Dalard Carada. Sir Carada changed my father’s name, as a joke. The Carada family are jokers.”

  That had not been Elianor’s experience.

  “You don’t have to play games with me,” she said.

  But he was moving again, the promised water forgotten, back around the bookshelves.

  “Most contemporary texts were burned with the looting of the libraries during the twelve glorious years. Another benefit of the revolution. Yet in his day, King Fabian the Foolish was known as Fabian the Bold. He took half the nobility off to fight his wars and left his younger brother Lascalles to run the Kingdom.”

  Nathaniel took out a blue-bound book, then shook his head and put it back.

  “So, it’s around 1643. Arbalest Vile hasn’t won that name yet, he’s just another peasant who doesn’t know his father. He thinks soldiering has got to be better than farming. And maybe because he’s strong and bloody minded… Ah, here…” There was the sound of papers sliding off papers as something was pulled from underneath. “Maybe because he has nothing to lose.”

  Nathaniel came back to the table with a narrow-bladed sword, similar to the one Elianor had broken. He raised it to eye-level and looked along its length in the light of the stove. His longsword was placed there, against the metal. A strange choice, to swap it for a rapier, to swap a weapon suited for fighting a beast for a weapon designed to kill a man.

  “Whatever the reason, he comes to the attention of Dalard Carada, who patronises him. Funny how that word has taken on a whole other meaning since the revolution. Anyway, Dalard literally gives him a new name and has him knighted as Sir Arbalest. By now six years have passed. They’ve fought in the South and seen the King die leading the charge when a little patience might have carried the day. They’ve fought in the North and seen the King’s younger brother negotiate when they thought they were winning. But they weren’t winning, were they? What?”

  Elianor got off the table and limped over until with the tip of her finger, she pushed his sword point towards the floor.

  “Comrade, stop,” she said. “I know who you really are.”

  Nathaniel didn’t make a sound.

  “You are the White Feather,” Elianor said.

  “Nobody has called me that name in a long time.”

  “A badge of honour from a symbol of cowardice. A man who knows how to win from a losing position. You requested that a Magistrate be sent to investigate the disappearances in Shadowgate. You did it because you think your father may be involved, and because you knew Lord Carada would send me. You made the right decision, comrade. I am here to help.”

  Nathaniel sheathed his rapier and buckled it to his waist. He would not look her in the eyes.

  “I will find out the truth behind the disappearing women,” Elianor said. “If it is the Black Dog, then perhaps I have already resolved your problem. If not, or if a greater conspiracy is involved, I will uncover the truth. In return, you will return to Lutense with me, and vote against the Queen. The Republic requires your service. It’s time for you to come home.”

  He stared at the stove. The flames chuckled, biding their time.

  “I saw you, once,” Elianor said. “On the barricades. Is it true you stayed, even after the Queen’s Guard opened fire on the crowd?”

  He reached out his fingertips towards the flame.

  “Yes,” Nathaniel said. “Yes, it’s true. But what difference did it make?”

  “You inspired those that followed you. You can do that ag
ain.”

  “Excellent. More dead students.”

  For a moment Elianor couldn’t speak. She compressed the hidden oilskin at her side until the pain eased and she could trust her voice to stay steady.

  “Is that why you left?” Elianor said. “Guilt?”

  “Disgust at inefficiency. Imagine what we could have achieved if they hadn’t been so intent on getting themselves killed. How do you expect to survive betraying Théophile Carada?”

  “I was sent to return with a vote from Shadowgate, and that is exactly what I will have done.”

  “You think he won’t figure it out? After the vote fails?”

  “The failure of the vote will be a catastrophic blow to his authority. Things will move quickly after that.”

  “What do you think of this law?”

  The moment he turned his back, she leaned against the table.

  “Primogeniture is against the natural order. The people must choose their leaders; individuals must be rewarded according to merit and not parentage; aristocracy is an abomination and Trist’s only hope is a return to the principles of the Republic.”

  It felt good to say it out loud. She wished she had said it in the Dead Garden. Nathaniel only sighed.

  “Maybe you’re too young to remember, but the same people starved under the Republic as are starving under the Queen,” he said. “You’ve seen the road from Durançon. It’s been the same way for a hundred years. The mine here in town is the most advanced in Trist, and my brother Anton only built it so Garn’s daughter would sleep with him. Changing the law won’t change how people feel about their children, any more than calling men and women equal makes it so.”

  It annoyed her to be called young by a man only a couple of years older than she. Nathaniel secured the strap of his satchel and ran his finger along a paragraph in the red book on the table, keeping his eyes on the page as if he were reading, although Elianor could hear clearly that the story was told from memory.

  “By 1650, Trist has lost two wars and nobody wants to fight anymore, except for Arbalest, because it’s the only thing he’s good at. And he knows the Kindred are coming.”

  Elianor reached across him and closed the book.

  “Sir Dalard and Sir Arbalest took every soldier who could fight and travelled to Shadowgate,” she said, “but they found the Manor was run-down and only a handful of defenders remained.”

  “Not unlike today. So, they marched the army to Demon’s Pass and did what nobody expected them to do. They charged. Why did they charge, Magistrate?”

  “If you believe the stories, the Kindred aren’t people, like us. Each invading army forms around a leader, a prince, known as a High Shaper. Kill it and the invasion ends.”

  “I have the rest of the story here,” Nathaniel said. He went to a bookshelf and pulled down a text, hardly looking to find the right page.

  “It was a foul beast, larger than a bear, with multi-coloured scales…blah blah, blah blah…fought through the night until the rising sun… You can’t see the sunrise from Demon’s Pass, by the way, but I suppose we’ll forgive them poetic license…”

  “Nathaniel, may I have some water?”

  “Don’t you wonder what actually happened?”

  Elianor shook her head. “Vile won. The Kindred were defeated.”

  “When the survivors came back to the capital, they all told the story. Théophile Carada, ever the opportunist, announced that Arbalest was the bastard son of Octavian Vile. By the time the monks at Demon’s Pass had fixed Arbalest up enough to make the journey back, everybody believed it was true, and the King was so happy to have finally won a battle that Arbalest was married to my mother and made Lord of Shadowgate. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  Elianor tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. She was sweating again. The heat from the furnace pulsed out through the air. Nathaniel wouldn’t shut up.

  “We tried a Republic. The people were too stupid for it. If you can convince my father to send a representative, and if you can tell enough lies to outlive your master, then I’ll come with you to Lutense. But I may not vote the way you want me to.”

  Elianor wondered how much fuss it would create if she shot him dead.

  “The revolution is a distraction,” Nathaniel said. “The current state of affairs is a reasonable compromise, and the Wardens a necessary defence against the West. They keep the people safe.”

  “How can you possibly say that? You have a Warden right here, and people go missing right under its nose!”

  “Our Warden doesn’t…he doesn’t work right.”

  “The Wardens murdered Genevieve Grime! A Senator!”

  “And I said I’m sorry for your loss. There is no greater danger than the Kindred.”

  “Have you ever seen one? Has anybody, really?”

  “There’s no way you could know. Kindred look like normal people.”

  “How convenient.”

  “I’m amazed you haven’t figured it out. Kindred start out looking like people, and it’s only the Shaper that lets them change. That’s the purpose of the Wardens’ scan. Whatever makes a person Kindred is an infection of the blood. The Wardens are the only way we can tell if the Kindred are amongst us. Ah, Lena has arrived.”

  Lena had silently opened the door and stood, waiting, the gaslights illuminating her slight form. There was no way to know how long she had been there, how much she had heard. The old woman rubbed the tips of the fingers of her left hand together, then lifted them to her nose like a tracker chasing a scent.

  “We appreciate your heroism against the Black Dog,” Nathaniel said. “And I will do everything I can to help your investigation.”

  He snapped shut the small door on the stove and turned a dial on its side.

  “But I had no idea who you were until your introduction in the audience chamber.”

  The fire began to die, the gas lamps diminished.

  “And I wrote no message to your master. The Republic can go to hell, for all I care.”

  Chapter 14

  Nathaniel held himself perfectly still until Lena had escorted Miss Paine away. Then he stepped back into his chambers and carefully closed the door.

  “Will you show yourself, this time?”

  Nothing. Not a sound. Just that presence, behind his eyes. He allowed his lip to curl in anger—after all, there was no point in hiding the truth in here.

  “Coward,” he said, and got back on with what he needed to do.

  So, this was Elianor Paine. A Republican, a revolutionary without the wit or wisdom to know how that path always ended. Would she really start hunting the truth? What if she didn’t care? Shadowgate was a powder keg ready to explode. Things carefully arranged to fall in a particular pattern might easily be disturbed. That was the point, of course, but having finally met her, Nathaniel wondered if he would be better farther from the explosion.

  In theory, he had packed for this sort of emergency. He had a bag of supplies somewhere. A couple of boxes of essential books; a travelling chest that could be strapped to the back of a cart. He knew the best route out of the castle, a tunnel through the mountain from the stables that would lead him north towards the monastery.

  He stopped at the table. Which papers, which packages, which chest? Lying across his sword-sheath was the book Elianor had thrown at him: Great Military Failures of the 16th Century. He smoothed out the creased pages. It had been a gift from Anton, brought back after his first year at the military Academy, and, technically, for Persephone. Anton had brought Nathaniel a small mechanical music box. The twins had swapped gifts the moment their older brother had returned to Lutense.

  Miss Paine’s bloody fingerprints were on the cover of the book, on the surface of the table. It stung, a visit from a Magistrate, but then he’d known it would. Worse still a Combat Magistrate, this young girl, brittle like glass, a blue pane that would shatter sharp enough to cut the throat of anyone near.

  “Glass can be hard as steel if
applied from the proper angle.”

  “I said show yourself, not mutter platitudes.”

  Nothing. An empty room and a guttering furnace. He had been refused for the Combat Magistry. A blow from a police truncheon during the student riots had left him injured for the exams, disapproved of by the board, and nearly kicked out of the Academy altogether, with no way to explain that the injury was less serious than it obviously should have been. Lying was especially difficult in an organisation dedicated to finding the truth.

  He grabbed his emergency bag. There might still be time. He could ask the Abbot for help. The monastery library might have the answers he needed. Some clue to the identity of the Black Dog. Some answer to the history of the Viles, to where he really came from. Some answers before Paine started the killing that would inevitably come. Be somewhere else when the trouble starts, then swoop in like a hero when the time was right.

  Could she be trusted?

  No. This time he would leave for good. Head to the coast and join the refugee boats. Apparently, the North took good care of visitors. He would leave the name Vile behind him forever. Once he had the truth, he could finally do that.

  “Nathaniel? Lena asked me to bring you your coat.”

  Sergeant Rees opened the door without knocking. He hadn’t changed out of his chainmail and he didn’t seem to notice the snow in his beard from his last trip outside the castle. Rees might only be a few years older than Anton, but he had been chasing Nathaniel and his siblings into and out of trouble since they were children. With a heave, he dumped the fleece across the table.

  “The others are grabbing their gear to meet in the courtyard. Anything else you need?”

  “They don’t need me,” Nathaniel said, but he took the coat all the same. “And you heard my father.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think they do need you—and when did you start following your father’s orders?” Rees scratched his beard, licked a snowflake from a dirty fingertip, and looked around the room like a midwife counting toes on a baby. “I think you should talk to Anton before you make any big decisions.”