by Tanith Lee
Argul said we didn’t.
‘Follow me,’ said Halo-Hat.
We followed it into a little bare room with a narrow table.
The doll stood one side.
We stood the other side.
‘What are your names?’ We said them. ‘Are you free to marry?’ We said we were.
Being a machine, it could somehow probably tell if we spoke the truth (?) and weren’t two entirely other people, already married, or wanted for murder, etc.
Then it said to repeat what it said. And what it said was basically this: I, Claidi/Argul, swear that, by the laws of Peshamba, and in the sight of all gods whether or not believed in, I, Claidi/Argul am, from this hour, the wife/ husband of Argul/Claidi, and shall so remain until such ties shall be undone.
When we’d both said our version of this, Halo-Hat said, ‘Now Peshamba pronounces you wife and husband, husband and wife.’
And that was it. Oh, apart from paying for the ‘wedding’ in another room.
‘Do you feel married?’ Argul said, as we stood on the mosaic stairway outside, and the cold air tinkled down the street.
I thought, and answered truthfully, ‘I felt married to you since the first, really – I mean since the first time we were here.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s all right then.’ He kissed me. ‘That goes for me as well.’
‘Peshamba was so beautiful then. I wish this had been – then.’
He said, ‘Like I say, you can’t go back, Claidi-baa.’
Then we walked along to the square with the CLOCK.
And as we stood looking up at it nostalgically, we saw it had icicles like needles pointing all down the length of its high tower. The gold and silver of the CLOCK-frame was tarnished from cold, and the daylight figures – girl, young man, winged unicorn – seemed somehow spoilt.
There was some scaffolding up, too, and when Argul inquired of a passing man, we heard the frost had affected the mechanisms – the CLOCK figures didn’t move any more, and the night-time ones had been unseen for several nights.
It was enough to make anyone frown, particularly a Peshamban. Probably it explains, more than weather, why no one much seems to be smiling.
We went and had some spicy mulled wine to cheer us up. How dreadful. The marriage had been such rubbish, we needed cheering up.
And there was no one with us, no Dagger, Teil, Blurn, to have a party with. And we didn’t feel like a party really.
We – I – tried not to be surly, resentful or angry.
We went back to the room-house, and behaved like two responsible adults to whom it didn’t matter that one of the most important events of their lives had just been wrecked.
And like two responsible adults we’d gone down to dinner.
But then, when Argul said, showing the flirty youngest daughter that he was with me, ‘My wife’ – that was when I felt a kind of glorious sunrise inside me.
Later I thought, we have so much, it would be crazy to fuss about something so unimportant as that clockwork marriage.
The thing is, though, now I sit here in our rented room, writing in my book under the window, and outside the frosty day goes on (Number 39 Frosty Day, for now almost everyone here is keeping count) – the thing is, this thought I’ve had. What if the marriage itself has become – clockwork.
What do I mean?
I mean, Argul and I – our relationship – is it just running along automatically, but the feeling has – changed – frosted over in some way? So it’s working on the surface, but not as it should.
This is awful. I’m being extra dumb … We re happy. It’s just that shadow on us, of what was there before and has gone. What Argul gave up, what I know he misses, perhaps all the time, even when we’re joking and laughing, even when I’m in his arms and he in mine. Even then?
And I can’t be sure.
This small vast area of himself he keeps apart from me, shielding me, I think too, from any depression he feels.
He does feel depressed?
I know he does.
There was all the excitement and rush before – pursuit, escape—But now, everything’s done.
I should have kept Yinyay. She’s in his pocket. If she’d been in mine, I could have called her up to me-size, and talked to her. If I ask for her – he’ll know I need someone else to confide in.
Am I being unreasonable?
I don’t know enough.
After the wedding, I thought we’d take straight off again, travelling in Yinyay. But he said,’ Why don’t we stick around here until the weather improves?’ As if weather could matter to us, with a flying Tower – but that’s it, it would matter, if we were living normal lives, Hulta lives.
I said, Yes, let’s wait.
So now nothing changes. Clockwork days, clockwork repeating frosts. Clockwork us, making clockwork jokes and clockworkily in love. No!
?
He kept a couple of books real-size when Yin shrunk herself and everything. He sits, reads those. Or we go for lots of walks. Stare at things. Come back here. But today he said he wanted to go for a walk alone. He was smiling, almost playful as he said this, and I thought, He wants to get away from me, by himself to think.
So I said, ‘Yes, that’s a good idea, I’d like to buy some things here. I’ll do that better on my own.’
We have money, too, of course, from Yinyay. We have everything from Yinyay. And he knows I’m safe with the Power ring. And he wants not to be with me.
Our lazy life, and nothing to do at all. He’s used to doing things, being. Living—
Is this my fault?
Oh hell, I don’t know what to do.
When I go down, the fur coat girl is lurking by the front door.
‘We,’ she says to me, accusing, ‘don’t like this weather. It’s not good for trade.’
She thinks the weather is my fault?
I’ve got in such a state by then, I almost wonder if it is.
THE GROVE OF MASKS
All over Peshamba there are large public gardens – parks. Wandering around, I found a new one.
I’d bought some silk in a market, for a dress, and a smart bronze and iron cookpot – neither of which I/we need, since Yinyay supplies everything. (Yes, it can be frustrating, I ungratefully admit.)
The park was dim and cold.
The lawns had been burnt by the frost, which still iced the edges of every blade. All the trees were bare, even the palm trees (very odd they looked), except there were a lot of evergreens, the kind that grow even in winter temperatures, pines, cedars, holly, bay trees.
I ambled round a pond, which had been broken free of ice in the middle for some fed-up looking ducks. I didn’t see many other birds, or anything much. Everything was in hiding.
Had the thing about the good weather being stolen been possible?
I thought about the country of Winter in the north. Was that endless snow climate natural? Twilight and the Raven Tower were pretty powerful, and their technology was awesome. But could they reach down here, so far into the south?
Ustareth is the only other one who could have done something like that, I bet. But Ustareth I know died nine years ago. She was Argul’s mother too, and he saw her buried when he was ten years old.
Which ought to be a relief, but somehow isn’t, because she too seems to have cast her shadow over us for ever. Over everyone, with all those games and plots and tests she left for us all to struggle with and trip over.
I glanced round, and stopped.
I’d meandered away from the pond, and was now in a kind of little wood of firs and other trees with leaves.
Through the trees ahead, I glimpsed a formal-looking procession of people. They looked really peculiar, and in fact, they had stopped quite still, and – oh yes, they weren’t people, but bizarre statues—!
I went between the trees, and out on to a small cropped lawn the evergreens surrounded.
Of course I’d seen statues in all sorts of areas, including Pes
hamba. None like these.
There were several stone-robed figures, with masks. Some had masks of black enamel and a couple had stone hoods. These ones reminded me of the priests of the Moon Temple, in the marshes that lie between here and the City of the Towers. Next there was a tall, female-looking figure in a dark blue stone gown, with a face of palest silver mask. Others had hats … They were all very tall – about eight feet – and narrow but for the carved flow of their stony clothes. The light caught on all the masks, of enamel, silver or polished brass. None of the masks had proper features, just a suggestion of nose, mouth, eyes. (The eyes, because they were of the same stuff as the rest of the mask, looked closed.) The faces were beautiful but completely non-communicative. There was nothing friendly about them. In fact, they seemed sinister.
Then I thought I saw someone coming and looked up, and across the lawn, standing in among the jade-green bay trees, were three more figures, one with a round black halo-hat, and one with a hat like a translucent green melon, and the third with a hat like an upside-down gold umbrella.
They hadn’t, of course, moved. They’d been there all the time, but I hadn’t seen them at first, until a little frozen wind stirred the branches.
What a weird place.
Then I saw a stone standing to one side and only being a stone. There were some words painted on it, and they were in Peshamban, but Argul had taught me a bit of that. The lettering read Mask Grove.
I walked all round all the statues. I found another pair in among the trees, with copper round halo-hats.
Masks are worn a lot in Peshamba. The grove was all right, I supposed. I just didn’t like it.
If today had been sunny, and flowers out – it might have looked different, maybe.
I sat on the painted stone, to do my thinking, anyway.
One of the things I’d written in this book, before I picked it up again today, was how I wanted to go and try to get Daisy, Pattoo and Dengwi – at least – out of the filthy House. D, P and D had been my friends. I’ve often wondered what’s become of them after my Escape with Nemian into the Waste-which-wasn’t.
And here was some action – something valuable to do. A Quest even. The Quest to Rescue D, P and D.
The moment Argul got back to the room, I would put this to him. He wouldn’t say No.
And the one great thing was that, with our Power jewellery and Yinyay the Tower, we should have absolutely nothing to worry about as regards the defences or viciousness of the House. Even the House Guards wouldn’t stand a chance. And if nothing else, seeing that would be fun.
I felt better. Carrying my parcels I got up, nodding to the statues, thinking I was glad they couldn’t move.
The wind was getting rough as I marched up the lawns. It made harsh little rushes through the longer grass of the park, and scraped the bare branches overhead. Up in the blank sky some clouds had appeared, big and dark.
When I came out on the streets again and turned for the room-house, I was glad Peshamba is so easy to find your way in. That’s partly because all the streets have such memorably obvious names (for example, the street with the wedding-building is called Marriage Street).
There weren’t many people out, and those that were were scurrying along like the winds, no doubt trying to get indoors before whatever unpleasant new weather was coming hit the town.
Very oddly though, the scurriers still spared some very wild glances for me. Some even halted a moment, gaping, and then usually they crossed over the street. What on earth—?
It wasn’t until I got to Loaf Street (where they make a lot of bread) that, squinting against the now-driving wind, I realized that the people I met weren’t actually staring at me. No, they were staring behind me.
So then, I too hesitated, turned, and—
STARED.
They were all there. Even some I hadn’t spotted before. The masked statues from the grove.
When I’d stopped and turned, they had stopped too, quite still.
I gave a wail. The wind carried it away.
I took one step, cautiously, backwards, then another.
The statues all came rolling forward several inches.
They seemed to be moving on invisible wheels, certainly they didn’t take actual steps. Their stone clothes stayed perfectly rigid. No expressions, or gestures.
But they had followed me from the park, and now they seemed all set to continue to follow me wherever I meant to go—
Of course, I panicked.
I flung round again. Staring hadn’t answered any questions, and walking backwards hadn’t fooled them. I ran.
Short distances, I can run quite fast. So I bolted through the streets of Peshamba, with the freezing now-gale of a wind trying to push me either over on my face or flat on my back. And whenever I turned, they were still there.
All the time, even at that speed, my head was buzzing with Why? Why??
By the time I got to the CLOCK square, I’d had this unwelcome memory of various horror-stories I’ve read or been told, where some dupp insists on entering the forbidden mansion or temple, reads the dire warning DO NOT DISTURB, and gleefully disturbs everything. Then gets upset when the local vengeful ghoul or ghost hurtles in pursuit.
But all I’d done was look at the blasted statues. And … thought I was glad they couldn’t move. Had they read my mind and taken it as a challenge?
And then I thought of the diamond ring, to which I’m still not used, nor all the curious magics it can perform.
Blundering to a muddled stop in the middle of the square, me and my procession now extremely gawped at by shop-keepers busy shutting doors, and men scrambling on the CLOCK scaffolding, I spun round and confronted the statues.
I shook my hand at them – the hand with the ring.
The ring, whatever else, would protect me. If it had managed to keep me safe from Twilight’s attempt to murder me that time, this was nothing to it.
‘Stop and stay still,’ I ordered the statues. ‘No further.’
Then I turned resolutely and strode off across the square. I was less confident than desperate.
However, sure enough, when I got to the square’s other side and looked back again, they had stayed rooted to the paving. There were at least twelve of them.
People were coming out into the cloud-dark wind, swinging down off the scaffolding, hurrying over to the statues to look at them, then pointing after me, really interested.
Claidi strikes again.
Maybe it’s my maid-slave years in the House that so often convince me evasion is the best policy. I took to my heels.
When I reached the room-house, thankfully alone, I dashed in and straight upstairs.
The moment I got through the door, the wind from outside, which had somehow also got in and was now warm, heavy and hairy, leaped hard against me and knocked me back against the wall.
‘Yaah—!—a wolf!’
‘Only half of him,’ said Argul, standing there, grinning.
‘It’s a dog!’
It was a dog.
The dog was very large, and obviously friendly, or the ring wouldn’t have let him near me. He had liquid muscles rippling under a flapping coat of coarse white and grey fur. Two eyes rimmed with black fur beamed yellow-amber down into mine, as the dog stood there with his front paws placed squarely on my shoulders, before washing my face thoroughly with one pink swipe of his tongue.
‘I think he wants to dance with you,’ observed Argul.
‘Yes, he’s not very good though, he’s already trodden on both my feet.’
‘He must have broken several toes.’
‘At least. Yes,’ I added to the dog, as he laughingly snorted, ‘you’re very handsome. But should we sit this one out? Whose is he?’ I added.
‘Ours.’
‘Oh – ours?’
‘I’ve had him on order for days.’
‘Sorry?’
‘And two horses,’ Argul said. ‘The elephant-seller. He sells other animals too. But the
weather here held everything up. This dog is a thoroughbred wolfhound cross. They can be the best. I had a dog like this one when I was a kid. The horses are good stock too, northern bred. Wait till you see. I know I probably should have let you choose your own this time, but once I saw them, I really thought you’d like her. I chose Sirree for you, remember. She’s a bit like Sirree. I wanted to surprise you. A wedding present.’
The dog was still standing with his front paws on my shoulders. I thought, We don’t need horses, but we need them in another way. This too was going to help make things better. So long as none of the animals minded being in Yinyay when they had to be.
Outside the wind hammered the roofs, darkness was coming early. Unbothered, the dog touched my nose with his very wet nose.
‘What’s his name?’
‘I haven’t named him. What do you think?’
‘Argul – thank you for doing this. He’s lovely. It’s all lovely.’ I threw my arms round the dog and buried my face in his fur, determined not to cry.
Argul said, ‘I’m sorry it was such a lousy wedding. But the wedding is only a formality. Like you said.’
‘Yes. It wasn’t – that doesn’t – I’m just—’
‘Claidi,’ he said, when the three of us had sat down together on a rug, ‘I’m always going to remember and miss them, the Hulta. But it’s you I want and have to be with, right?’
‘Yes. Only you seemed – far off.’
‘It wasn’t that so much. I was thinking of—’ he paused, he said, ‘my mother. Zeera – Ustareth – whatever. I was thinking about when she died.’
The dog and I both looked at him. Inevitably he would think of her after what we had come to know.
Argul said, ‘I was remembering how she went off one day by herself, and then she came back. That often happened, but this time – was different. She said she was ill, there was no known cure. She wouldn’t have anyone near her. Not my father. Not me. None of the women even. And then she called us in, alone, one by one. Like dying royalty.’
‘She was,’ I said softly, ‘she was royal, Argul. She was from the Wolf Tower. As you are – like the wolf-dog – half.’
‘That,’ he said dismissively. His face was bleak as the sky had been before the hectic eruption of the storm. ‘When I went in, she didn’t say she was ill, just told me she had to go away. That was how she described it, death. Going away. She said she didn’t want to go, but had no choice. I said – I said would she miss me? I was only ten. She said she would. Later on no one at all was allowed into her wagon. She told them to come back on the third morning. When they did, it was over. She knew all about herbs, medicines. She must have known what to do.’