by Clare London
I was angry with her for using my life as some kind of accusation against me. “You’re planning to confront her? With the Exile force? Unless things have changed dramatically since I was last outside the city, they’re not strong enough. The Guard will cut them down.”
“Not yet, maybe,” she said. “But it will come, if needs be. In the meantime their attacks continue, but in a different manner—subversive, undercover, stealing the resources of the city and undermining the blind loyalty of its citizens. And they will have success because of that. Seleste won’t always be able to counter them with brute force. She can’t think like them, anticipate what it is to be like them. If they can’t defeat her in battle, they’ll do it by other means, and the city will eventually collapse.”
“Is that really what you want?”
Flora stood up then, though with some difficulty. I suspected it had been a long time since she’d crouched on a floor with mere servants. “We’re moving on, and she must do so as well. All of us must—the planet will demand all our efforts. Seleste will join with us or not. That’s her choice.”
KIEL SCRAMBLED to his feet to bow to his Mistress as she left the cave, and I stood up too, a little more slowly. My knee was much more painful after the climb up to the camp, and the old injury was exacerbated by this cold, damp atmosphere. Eila came across to us, leaving just the two men on guard at the mouth of the cave, their backs to us. “We have a place you can both sleep, and together if you wish.”
Kiel’s sudden yelp made me smile. “Thank you, though we’ll sleep apart. Kiel has never been a soldier, or known a soldier’s ways.”
He grunted beside me, and when I turned to reassure him, I was startled by the strange, pained look on his face. “Don’t speak for me like that!” He sounded angry yet embarrassed at the same time. “It’s not that I wouldn’t want to. I just don’t feel that way toward you, though you’re not to take offense. You know nothing about the Remainder ways, though, because if there was the right person and they felt the same about me, well, that’d be fine, and it could be a man, of course it could. I’ve got the same feelings as anyone, I’m healthy, I’ve had some sexual experience of my own, and it’s not a pleasure solely for soldiers, you know. You’re not the only ones who couple, you didn’t invent the idea—” He broke off, biting his lower lip fiercely.
There was a short silence while I wondered what—or who—had provoked his outburst, and Eila stared at him as if she’d never heard a young man’s voice before. Maybe she hadn’t, at least, not in such a passionate rush. She gestured between him and the mouth of the cave. “You can have the tent on the east face. I’ll show you the way. It’s a little farther away, but it’s sheltered from the wind for tonight, and you’ll sleep well enough.”
Kiel was staring at her arm. “That brand…” he said slowly, “it’s familiar to me.”
I looked across at Eila. She’d removed her jerkin, and the sleeves of her vest were so short that, by reaching out, she displayed the tattooed marks on her upper arm. The dominant brand was that of the Royal Household, as elaborate as befitted a Lady from that family, though it was plainer than I’d seen on Seleste’s arm. Maybe that was because Eila had been a less favored child, or because it had dulled from exposure to her life as an Exile.
I was suddenly fearful. I didn’t know how many other people knew of her history, that she’d lived in the Royal Household in her youth as one of the previous Queen’s daughters. I didn’t know if the discovery would compromise her in any way—or us.
“Kiel,” I began, “that’s enough—”
But Eila had already moved, and more swiftly than I’d expected. She’d drawn her dagger and pressed Kiel back to the cave wall with the blade against his throat, all before I could finish my sentence. “Your tongue is too loose!” she snarled into his frightened face. “I’ll cut it from you!”
I moved swiftly too, catching hold of her arm and holding it back. She was stronger than Kiel, and I could see where the blade had already marked his pale skin. “He doesn’t know anything about you,” I said, urgently, keeping my voice low. “He’s just interested in the brand.”
She didn’t take her gaze from him, but her arm relaxed a little. “What do you mean?”
Kiel’s eyes, wide and dark with fear, met mine.
“Explain yourself,” I said, nodding to him to continue.
He tried to swallow past the obstruction at his throat. “I… I recognized the royal theme. I’m writing a History for the Queen and I’m following her family’s story through the brand. It’s the only way to do it, I’ve found. The old documents are full of the drawings. They use brands for indexing, for illustration, to head up the most mundane lists of their shopping and the color choices of fabric for their gowns….” He gulped and drew another breath. “But there are hundreds of them, most of them based on the same shape and form, it’s not easy to track a particular hereditary line without plenty of time, and she—the Queen—has announced there’s a distinctly limited amount of that. So when I told my new Mistress—Mistress Nerisa—I couldn’t get anywhere without more help, she gave me a template of the Queen’s royal brand to follow.”
“You trace the shape back through the records?”
He frowned at me, his mind on his work now, even though he was in personal danger. “It’s more the theme than the shape, like I said. They all have a similar format, so I need to follow the path of a specific figure or particular text. Something unique to that design. The template certainly made my research easier, I’ll say, though I’ve come to a halt again recently.” He wheezed. “Can’t explain it very well.”
Eila growled in the back of her throat. “So you know what the royal family brand looks like. It happens. However, you’ll forget you saw it on me. It’s nothing to do with me.”
Kiel’s eyes closed briefly, then reopened. His voice was hoarse. “I know, of course, my Lady. I’m sorry if I implied anything different. I’ve already forgotten whatever it is I am to forget.”
She seemed briefly satisfied with his apology, for she withdrew the knife, though she still leaned in, holding him captive.
I looked more closely at the brand on her arm, as she braced herself against the wall. Her muscles tensed, showing a strength that was unheard-of in a city woman. The royal brand was clear enough—an oval border with ornate vines entwined around it, framing the elegant, regal figure of a Queen. Of course Kiel had probably never seen it on a human arm. Ladies didn’t hide their brands as a matter of course, but they dressed modestly in the city, and a servant might never have sight of a Lady’s lineage. Kiel was probably intrigued to see it in real life. I looked quickly at him but was startled at the confusion and fear in his eyes. Eila had removed her blade, yet his gaze still darted to and from her arm as if something shocked him to the core.
I couldn’t see what he saw. It wasn’t the first time that had happened, though.
“Maen?” Kiel’s voice was still shaky.
“You must let him apologize properly,” I said, my hand still on Eila’s arm but not so tightly now. “I know he speaks a lot of nonsense around the sense.” And I glared at him as I spoke, warning him to accept the rebuke without protest. “But he’ll come to the point in the end, as long as he still has a voice to do it with.”
Eila withdrew her arm completely and Kiel sagged back against the wall, gulping in large breaths. “Forgive me, Lady,” he croaked, “for offending you. It’s only the brand I’m interested in. I’d never speak of it to anyone else, if that’s what you want.”
“You repeat yourself.” She looked puzzled.
He shook his head. “Not the royal brand. Yes, it’s fascinating to see it in real life, but I don’t mean that one.”
Eila’s eyes widened.
“You’re mistaken,” I said to Kiel quietly. “I don’t know what you think you see.”
“That one,” he said, blithely. “The other brand.” We both looked at Eila’s arm now. Startled, she had kept it outstretched.
Beneath the royal brand was another. I should have realized the unusual circumstances of this, for a woman born into the Royal Household would not normally have any other brand for the whole of her life. But beneath Eila’s birth brand was a far less sophisticated one. A single sketched figure displayed within a pair of overlapping, plain oval frames, holding a stick of some kind, the end of it resting on the ground beside the figure’s feet. There were no vines, no ribbons, no delicate silhouette of a female form like her royal brand. No beauty or glamour. As far as I could see, it could have related to a dozen Households and I wouldn’t have been able to tell its story without a book of my own to guide me.
“Maen, can’t you see?” Kiel was forgetting his fear again, consumed with interest now. “They’re both connected! This brand is inspired by the same basic template as the other, though obviously far more simplistic.”
I didn’t understand what he was implying. I glanced at Eila. “It’s the Exile brand, isn’t it?” I said to her quietly. She didn’t answer.
I had the same brand myself—she’d given it to Dax and me when we were captured the first time. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten the savage, twisted mark on my hip, just that I rarely examined it. Any memory of that time had become too painful to me—and not for any physical reason. Occasionally I looked at it when I was washing myself. It had faded into a dark scar, an echo of Eila’s Exile brand—the same hoops and sketchy border, the same central, tattooed figure. But why, looking more closely now, did I question exactly what I saw?
“It’s a sword,” I murmured. The figure’s stick wasn’t really a staff, but more like the shape of a battle sword, much like the ceremonial one I’d carried into the battle for Queenship.
“It’s refreshing! A simple design, so unlike the ones that are overambitious and ridiculously difficult to ink too, though I daren’t complain to Mistress Nerisa about the documents or the artwork, of course not. But it’s obviously based on the same source.” Kiel chattered on. “May I?” When Eila frowned but nodded, he placed a finger on her arm and traced the brand most reverently. “This is another clue for me, Maen, do you understand? This will help me find a bridge between Mistress Nerisa’s modern template and some of the designs I’ve seen in the older Histories. I can’t wait to get back to the books. The connection is so much clearer on a living person!”
“Kiel.” I tried to warn him against any further insult.
“The brands are not the same,” Eila said sharply, but he ignored her, smiling more or less to himself.
“No, of course not, but they show a history of their own, don’t you see?” He hurried on, not expecting a reply. “It’s in the way the figure stands. I’ve studied the royal brand in its various versions so closely for weeks now, I know how the lines are drawn just so, the length of the neck beneath the head, how wide the stance of the Queen’s feet. But they come alive on an arm, don’t they? There’s movement and pulse in their lines, and this design shows that better than so many other poorer ones. Look how it follows the vein in her arm. The ink artists have told me the royal brand should always be placed for a Mistress at just that point.”
“You’ve been given access to them too?”
“Of course not,” he answered cheerily enough, missing my sarcasm, his gaze still fixed on Eila’s arm. “Not officially, that is, but I’ve been to most places around the Household, the Guard don’t see me if they don’t think to look. And people always like to talk when you flatter them, and sometimes I don’t even have to do that. Of course this is unique in its own way. I’ve never seen this precise posture on any other modern design. It’s more military than utilitarian, don’t you think? And I know the Ladies disapprove of such aggressive designs on their men in case they develop an inappropriate pride.” He flushed. “Or so the artists told me. But I couldn’t mistake that style. It’s a royal design of some kind, same as the other, more elaborate one. The figure is so striking, so familiar.” He laughed softly, with the excited pleasure of a new discovery. “And yet that’s surprising too, isn’t it?”
I frowned. “What is?”
He smiled, unaware of the tension around him. “In this simple form, if you take a closer look, you can see what I mean, what’s so unusual. It’s neither one nor the other, is it?”
I shook my head, staring at him, not quite understanding what he meant.
“Could be a woman, the Queen, of course,” he said blithely. “But then again, it could be a man. There’s so little detail, it could be anything, couldn’t it?”
EILA ORDERED the men on watch to show Kiel the way to his tent. We would both have to stay overnight, for neither of us would be able to find our way back to the city quickly, and none of the Exiles appeared willing to let us go for the moment. Eila and I were left alone inside the cave.
“Am I in danger again?” I asked. The soft murmur of voices from the rocks below drifted on the air, from other caves, other Exile settlers. Through the mouth of this cave, I could see the dying glimmers of a nighttime fire on another outcrop to the west. They were all well hidden, as I’d discovered when I arrived, but now I knew they were there, I could see evidence of the wider encampment.
“From me?” She sighed and chose not to answer me directly. “Who is the youth? Can he really be trusted? He speaks too swiftly, too strangely.”
“Too enthusiastically,” I said, “but he can hold his secrets as well as anyone.”
She gave a brief laugh. “Yes, he has a lot to say. There’s a lot more to him than you’d think. But his comments about my brands….” She crossed her arms against her body as if protecting against the chill. It had the effect of hiding both of her brands. “I’ve kept my background secret from most of the people here, although luckily we have much less interest in brands and people’s heritage.”
“Kiel will keep that secret,” I assured her.
She didn’t respond, her thoughts obviously elsewhere. “The other one, the Exile brand… it was my own design.” She didn’t meet my eyes, and the color was returning to her face. “I’m no artist, so it’s poor work, I know. For a while, I hoped to build a new brand for the camp, for all the Exiles alike. But that wasn’t popular.”
“They come here to escape that.”
She glanced up at me, surprise in her eyes. “Yes, that’s what Takk told me at the time.”
“Where did you find the inspiration?” In my mind, I examined the Exile brand again. The corruption of the royal brand to the one on my hip had been commented on once by my own Mistress, Seleste. Now I’d also seen its use on Eila’s arm. I’d recognized the ways the royal brand was honored by it—and also the ways it was not.
Eila frowned. “I don’t think I had any special example in mind.” She sounded quite genuine in her puzzlement. “Maybe I was unconsciously influenced by the royal brand, but my desire was to develop something new, something of our own. The royal brand was the only one I’d seen, all through my childhood.”
“You hadn’t read any of the old history books Kiel talks about?”
She shook her head. “I used to play around the Library with Nerisa and other friends. We would look at the pictures sometimes, and laugh at the ancient lettering. But I was never much of a student.”
She’d been only twelve when her older sister’s battle for Queenship had made her an Exile, at risk of her life. I nodded, dismissing the subject for fear of antagonizing her. She stood close beside me in the cave, a head shorter but well built and obviously physically strong. She was leaner than our voluptuous Mistresses, with a rough grace that was attractive in its own way. Heavy sensual perfume emanated from her body, a musky smell stimulating to a man. I remembered it from my previous visit to her camp. She wore a vest in a plain, functional design, though it clung attractively to her shoulders and generous breasts; her dagger was sheathed again at her belt, and she knew to keep it on the far side of me so that I couldn’t snatch it from her. She was intriguing as a woman, but a good soldier too, of her own kind.
She looked toward the mouth of the cave, out over the rocks, then back at me. Her eyes were dark and her expression pained. “You look very little older, Maen. Just as fine, just as strong… though we tried very hard to destroy that, a year ago.” Her gaze flickered up and down my body, appraising me.
I tensed. “My leg’s not good, and my moods are more volatile. I’m no longer in the Royal Guard, and other citizens shun me.” The man I cared about more than anyone is dead. “Is that any compensation for you?”
She grimaced. “I’d still have you now, however you are. You must know that.” She touched me on the chest then, her palm flat against my heart. “You still have my brand as well, don’t you?”
I nodded. “You marked my flesh. But it has faded over time.”
She looked hurt, then angry. Her eyes darkened with passion. When she started to run her hand slowly down toward my belly, I grasped her wrist and lifted it off.
She was shocked I’d resisted her. “You didn’t refuse me like that before. You obeyed me. You were too well trained to do otherwise.”
“Other things have faded over time as well.”
She blanched. “I’m not ashamed to say it!” she cried, though she didn’t attempt to touch me again. “If I were still in the city—still a Royal Mistress—I could just take you.”
I was quiet. I knew I didn’t need to remind her of what I’d said to Mistress Flora, that none of us was in the city anymore. “I need to ask you….” I paused, then continued. “Is Varden still with you?”
Eila’s eyes were suddenly sympathetic. “He’s dead, Maen. He died many months ago.”
My breath caught in my throat with grief. “He was killed in one of the raids?”
“No. He died of illness, at the end of a shortened life span. He was a similar age to you, but he worked hard here and struggled with the life outside the city.”
“He died?” I tried to think when I’d last seen a person die from the end of their life span rather than from injury or in battle. I couldn’t remember seeing it often in the city, where the older citizens rested in special homes, or stayed hidden away in their Households. Illness wasn’t a danger, for the House of Physic protected us from so much. It was a rarity, and something our healthy citizens were sheltered from.