by Matthew Ward
“Not me,” he said. “I bring gifts.”
“Only the river brings gifts down here,” replied the first watchman.
Uncertainty shivered Altiris’ spine. Should he claim to be merrowkin? That might open the way, but making such a claim without being able to back it up would only make things worse.
A third watchman pushed his way through. “Devn? I thought that was you.” Radzar beamed through his unkempt beard. “Ain’t no work tonight. Didn’t anyone tell you? It’s Midwintertide.”
The poor joke elicited a rumble of laughter.
Altiris relaxed. “I did my share earlier. Why else would I have gifts to offer?”
Radzar squinted, wary now of a joke at his expense. “Show me.”
Glad to be again on firmer ground, Altiris retraced his steps to the cart. Shooting suspicious glances at Kurkas and Sidara, Radzar followed. “Who are they?”
“Friends.”
Radzar grunted and folded back canvas. “Bless me.” He opened one box, then another, suspicion yielding to wonder. “Where’s all this from?”
Altiris shrugged. “It won’t be missed. Does the rest matter?”
“Not to me. Bring it through. Tie up outside the church. I’ll find willing hands.” He gave a low whistle. “Shouldn’t be hard.”
The watchmen parted. Kurkas guided the cart beneath the lychgate’s ivy-wreathed arch and to rest alongside the church. Radzar’s chain of willing hands was in place moments later, ushering the bounty inside with such eagerness that even with Sidara’s help Altiris could barely unload swiftly enough.
“Who’s Devn?” She tugged a box free of the cart’s bed and pushed it into an old man’s eager hands. Her cheek twitched at the grimy, tattered clothing, and again at the stoop of his gait as he bore the box into the church.
“Blame your brother,” Altiris replied. “He thought he was being funny.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”
Altiris reached into the cart, his hand settling not on a box, but a crate. A dozen ale bottles glinted. Frowning, Altiris saw others behind. “Vladama?”
The steward eased up from his slouch against the cartwheel. “Can’t think how that lot got in there.” He shrugged. “Still, they’re here now. Like you said, won’t be missed.”
Sidara stifled a burst of laughter. “You’re a rogue, Vladama.”
He sniffed. “No manners, you young folk. Ain’t a feast without a good drop or two, is it?”
Altiris winced. Leftovers – even on such grandiose scale – were one thing, but this? “And Lord Trelan?” he murmured.
“My problem, not yours.” Kurkas glanced at Sidara. “That’s right, ain’t it, miss?”
She pursed her lips in thought, eyes on the ragged congregation. “If that’s what you want.”
Radzar ambled over as the last crate vanished inside. “Where’d you say this lot came from?”
“I didn’t,” Altiris replied. “The river provides.”
The phrase wove its magic. Radzar grinned. “That it does.”
“See it’s shared out fairly, would you?”
Radzar jerked a thumb towards the door. “You mean you’re not coming in? Don’t be daft. Folk will want to thank you.”
A tempting offer. Deeds done in the dark were all very well, but to be acknowledged in the light…? Part of Altiris wanted – needed – that. But a higher profile meant risks. “Thanks, but—”
“Of course we are.” Sidara slipped her arm through Altiris’ and dragged him towards the door. “You’ll see to the horse, Vladama?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea…” Altiris cast about for the first name that came to hand. Sidara was too rare a name to be risked. “… Ceren.”
She caught on fast, the smoothing of her brow chasing away brief furrows. “Don’t be ridiculous, Devn. I could use the warmth.”
With no help to be found in Kurkas’ grin, Altiris reluctantly let her lead him inside.
The wall of heat and sound took his breath away. Fires burned in hollows dotted along either transept, the nave cleared of pew and rubble to create a space where couples danced to the whirl of flute, the thump of drum and heel. Not the formal dances Altiris had endured in Lord Trelan’s service, but the abandon of jig and reel.
Distribution was well under way, but without sign of the disorderly scrum Altiris had feared. Folk queued before the altar as they had on his last visit, meats and morsels handed out to all who sought them. Bottles were broached, their contents decanted to mug and tankard.
Radzar, bottle in hand and never long without a grin, introduced them to all who crossed their path, a parade of names and faces Altiris forgot at once. Sidara flinched from the first clasp of hands, but mellowed inch by inch, overcome by gratitude and fellowship.
Still, she remained watchful, as did Altiris himself. The life of the Lady Reveque was worth more to the opportunistic than a Midwintertide meal. He relaxed only a fraction when the church door creaked open and Kurkas – cloak hitched high about his shoulders to conceal a sword worn at his back – took up position beneath the boarded-up east window.
At last, Radzar was called away. Altiris politely disengaged from the press of bodies. Skirting the makeshift dancefloor’s crowd, he leaned against a pillar, careful to keep both Kurkas and exit in eyeline. Sidara settled beside him, her shoulder against his.
“Is this what you expected?” he asked.
“You’ve spent years in my world,” she replied, eyes on the dancers. “I wanted to walk in yours awhile.”
“This isn’t my world,” he snapped. “It shouldn’t be anyone’s.”
Her face fell. “That’s not what I meant.”
But she wasn’t wrong. The room was awash with echoes of those rare nights on Selann when the guards were at their ease, and the workers free to revel. The small adjustments to hem and collar, letting threadbare cloth ape something finer. For all the dance’s abandon, there was formality to partners offered and accepted – the acknowledgement that there should be form to such things, even in poverty. The pride that led a man to keep a fiddle hale in a life where music was luxury.
It might not have been Altiris’ world, but it was close enough.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. Old memories.”
“You never really talk about your past.”
“There’s not much to tell. Days working the fields. Nights huddled around a fire, hoping never to catch an overseer’s eye. And hungry, all the time.” He shrugged, as if doing so robbed the recollections of their power. “I’ve lived more in six years at Stonecrest than in all those that came before. Wearing the phoenix means the world to me.”
“Because it freed the Southshires?”
“Because it represents hope,” he said. “My father always claimed the phoenix was a herald of better times to come, and he was right. I wished he’d seen it for himself, him and my mother both.”
“A phoenix shall blaze from the darkness,” quoted Sidara. “I found a pamphlet in the streets when I was little. Mother called it treasonous doggerel and cast it in the kitchen fire, but I’ve always remembered the illustration of flaming wings stretching into the skies. There should always be light in the darkness.”
“Your light?”
“Maybe. It’s still such a mystery to me. Some days I don’t know what to make of it.” She shook her head and stared at the dancers. “Just as I’m sure ‘Ceren’ wouldn’t know what to make of all this.”
Belatedly, Altiris realised that in his scramble for a name, he’d plucked another from The King of Fathoms. The glint in Sidara’s eye warned that she knew it too. “Probably not.”
“Uh-uh. So you’re a fool, and I’m an arrogant princess. Is that how you see us?”
That she sounded amused more than offended little eased sudden discomfort. “That’s not exactly… Look, it was the first name that came to mind.”
“I see.” Eyes narrowed, she stepped back and held out a hand. “Dance with
me.”
“Pardon?”
“Dance with me, Devn, or I’ll make a scene.”
Her eyes flickered gold, leaving no doubt as to the manner of the spectacle. Admitting defeat, Altiris allowed her to lead him to the nave. He returned her curtsey with a stiff bow, feeling eyes upon him more than ever.
Then the music whirled anew. The tension in his stomach smoothed away and his blood roused to flame.
The church, the smoke, the warmth of fires; fears of safety and uncertain menace. They drowned beneath wildling notes, smothered by the stomp of boot and clap of hand. Brief breaths offered a hand about Sidara’s wrist, her hand, her waist. Each time she spun away, skirts hitched and cheeks aglow, only to return, the moment theirs alone, that strange intimacy found only in a crowd.
The Sidara who so readily made butchery of a formal dance was gone as if she’d never existed. Caught up in the moment, Altiris forgot to wonder who’d taught her to turn such a step. Surely not Sidara’s sainted mother. He decided it didn’t matter. Certainly not in that moment where, for the first time in months, he found himself at ease in Sidara’s company. More than that, he felt whole. Even a glimpse of Kurkas grinning from his self-appointed vigil couldn’t sour the moment.
Eventually, that moment passed as all moments must, occasioned by bursting lungs and jellied legs. Laughing, they withdrew to the quiet of the south transept and the support of an empty pew.
“Queen’s Ashes, but I enjoyed that,” gasped Sidara, smoothing bedraggled golden locks from her eyes. “I’ll pay for it in the morning, but it was worth it.”
Altiris, shirt heavy with sweat and his calves already moaning displeasure, stared back across the nave. Others had already stolen their place. “You seem… I don’t know. You seem different.”
“Maybe I am. Or maybe it’s you.”
Easy to deny, but for the fact he’d come to that very conclusion before leaving Stonecrest. “It’s possible.”
Sidara shook her head. “Ana’s forever telling me I’m growing old too young. Last night, watching her slip away – what I thought was her slipping away – I finally understood what she meant.” She looked up, unblinking. “I should dance whenever I can, and with whomever I want, because we’re none of us here for ever.”
Altiris reckoned he should have had a good response. The idiot smile was all he could muster. “Ana taught you to dance like that?”
“Of course. She, at least, thinks first of my desires.” She shrugged. “Viktor wants me on the border, fighting the Hadari. Josiri wants to keep me safe in the city. Neither asked my opinion. They just repeat their own as if it were mine.”
A chill crackled across Altiris’ spine. Sidara, in the path of the shadowthorns? As a Drazina it had always been a possibility, but somehow remote. “And what do you want?”
“You ask that as if it’s the easiest question in the world.”
There was hurt beneath the words, deep and cloying and thick as tar. Unsure what to say, Altiris struck out in a different direction. “Izack offered me a captaincy in the 1st.”
She stiffened, suddenly serious. “Did you accept?”
“I’m wondering if I should, if you’re leaving for the border.”
“You’d find someone else to quarrel with.”
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
Sidara snorted. “You still shouldn’t accept the commission.”
“Because I’d be no good, I suppose,” he replied bitterly.
“No. Because you’re meant for something more.”
“Me? I’m just a southwealder who’s been lucky.”
“You’re not just anything, Altiris. Not to me.”
“And how’s that different to what Lor—” He broke off, thinking better of using the title in such uncertain company as Seacaller’s, for all that no one seemed to be listening. “To what Josiri wants for you?”
“I’ve a nicer smile.” She favoured him with one to prove the unarguable point. “I’ve lost too many of those I love. It’s part of what’s making me old. Help me stay young?”
He frowned. “You’ve lost me.”
The smile turned sly. “It’s nearly morning. Are you really going to make me ask again?”
I might, if you ask me again in the morning. Words spoken a few hours and a lifetime ago, out of fear Sidara hadn’t meant her own.
Sidara drew closer, eyes shining with expectation. Altiris slid a hand behind her jaw, to the nape of her neck, and gently drew her closer still. She reached out, a small sigh fluttering between them, and closed her eyes.
In the moment before their lips met, blue-green eyes bored into Altiris’ from across the nave, undimmed for the bodies between. Shaking her head in caution, Kasvin waved a black-gloved hand in beckoning.
Altiris dropped his chin to his chest, thoughts ablur with possibilities. None of them good.
Sidara’s eyes snapped open. “Altiris?”
He swallowed, the camaraderie of Midwintertide fading. The ruined church was no longer thronged with the unfortunate in need of alms, but vengeful merrowkin with blades close to hand. He looked up. Kasvin had gone, but Kurkas was still on post beneath the east window.
“Go to Vladama,” he murmured, barely loud enough to be heard over the music. “Now.”
“What is it?”
A difficult question, not least because he didn’t yet have the answer. “If I’m not back in five minutes, I’ll look to the Lady of Light for salvation.”
She didn’t like that, not one bit, but she stood. “Five minutes. Then dawn arrives early.”
A rumpled lip, words unspoken, and she made her way through the congregation. Allowing himself a last, lingering look, Altiris set off in the opposite direction.
He found Kasvin in an antechamber off the north transept, alone save for a statue of Lumestra who’d long ago parted company with her head. She sat perched on the sill of a boarded-up window, skirts a black stain across filthy stone.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’ll not fight. Just let the others go.”
“So noble.” Pale lips parted in a sneer, but Altiris heard nothing of the creeping, seductive whispers. Her manner stood in sharp contrast to how he’d seen her last. Calm, rather than feral. Honeyed words in venom’s stead. “Relax. You’re in no danger. Nor’s your doxy. The Merrow was right about you. He’ll be insufferable for days. More insufferable, I should say.”
He frowned, clinging to confrontation even as it veered away. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe that.”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” Kasvin dropped from the sill. Her skirts barely rippled above soundless footsteps. “We’re only your enemies if you choose.”
“Even after the trail of bodies we left in your safehouse?”
“You didn’t kill them, and they’ll be avenged soon enough.” The promise was grimmer for its lack of boastfulness. “It felt good to make a difference tonight, didn’t it? If only for a little while.”
“Lord Trelan’s generosity made it possible, not mine.” The lie flowed smoothly enough, for it held at least a grain of truth. Or would do so tomorrow, after forgiveness was sought.
Kasvin laughed, music in a minor key. “No it wasn’t. He’s too close to the Lord Protector. He’s made his choice, even if he doesn’t know it. You should make yours before the chance slips away.”
Her fingertips brushed his cheek, then she passed through the doorway and lost herself in the crowd.
Seventeen
Viktor gripped the sheet, anticipation too heady for denial. In the workshop’s candlelit gloom, aspiration seemed more dreamlike than ever, and it was in the nature of dreams to run awry. He caught the amused curl of Elzar’s lip and forced hands to stillness. Everything that could be done had been done. The path ahead was strewn with obstacles, but he could walk it. The sheet slipped from the table’s raised lips with the barest tug, billowing clay-dust glinting softly.
Elzar ran his fingertips across the mannequin’s porcelain brow.
“I didn’t know you’d a sculptor’s skill. I’m impressed.”
Viktor grunted the compliment away. “There are many things I never believed myself to be. This is merely one more.”
The words belied long and disheartening nights honing a skill. They concealed the catalogue of misshapen and misfired fragments boxed away at the chamber’s rear.
Even now, the mannequin possessed little of the artisanry that had made Anastacia’s vanished form such a wonder. The white expanse of samite porcelain was ungilded and bereft of decoration. The features plainer and lacking likeness – more kin to the impartial mask of a mummer performing as Judgement in a carnival play. But the womanly proportions were stylised, rather than grotesque, the stitching of the leather joints immaculate. Less a doll, and more a twin to a kraikon’s stylised form. No, that wasn’t quite right. It put Viktor more in mind of the Ocranza statues that stood silent guard over well-to-do estates, their original purpose – the warding off of evil spirits – forgotten to all save a few, and admired more for their craftsmanship than anything else.
It wasn’t perfect, but nor would it be needed for ever.
Bundling the cloth aside, Viktor unhooked the gold-hilted sword from the wall. Setting it upon the doll’s chest, he folded the lifeless arms atop – table and occupant become parody of an ancestral tomb. His fingers dwelled a moment on the sapphire ribbon.
“Always the soldier,” said Elzar.
Viktor shook his head. “The Hadari believe that beloved metal retains a spark of soul. It’s why recovering this sword was so important. I doubt we’d ever find her without it.”
“Didn’t you tell Josiri it belonged to your great aunt?” Despite his wry tone, Elzar’s eyes remained serious. “I remember dear Abonia fondly, of course – such a wonderful singing voice – but I don’t know I’d deem her a fit candidate for what you have in mind.”
“I told him that most of what was stolen belonged to her.” Seeing the explanation convinced little, Viktor reached for another, more truthful, response. “I didn’t want to offer false hope. The sword was Calenne Trelan’s. The one she lost at Davenwood.”