by D K Girl
‘Might I know your name?’ He worked on keeping his voice neutral, though he’d not thought it possible to feel more vulnerable than in that moment: stark of clothing, injured of body, and without a clue whose bed he lay in.
‘You might.’ The figure rose and moved closer.
A candle set on a stump of wood being utilised as a bedside table sputtered alight. In its gentle glow Silas was left with no doubt that Clarence stood before him. Granted, he appeared as awful as Silas felt. The young man’s skin held the palour of a man with disease, or hangover. His hair hung dank against his head as though he’d been caught in the rain. Perhaps he had. Considering Silas did not know what day it was, or how long he had laid here, he certainly did not know how the weather fared. Clarence moved towards the bed, dragging his feet a little as he moved. Bare feet, odd for a man who appeared fastidious on first meeting.
‘Come no closer.’ Silas pressed against the bedhead, its grooved edge finding his shoulder blade.
‘I’ll do as I please.’
Silas shifted his legs, testing his range of movement. But even if he were to throw off the covers and stumble out of bed, Clarence now made himself an obstacle. Seating himself on the bed between Silas and the door. He stared hard, green eyes a far gentler shade than Pitch’s, tracing every inch of Silas’s face.
‘What do you want with me?’ Silas pulled the blanket higher, exposing his feet to the air which was notably chilled. A shiver ran through him.
‘You’re cold.’ Not a question, so Silas did not answer. A moment later, in a hearth on the far side of the room, a rosy fire sparked to life. ‘Tobias was supposed to build your fire, but he chose to ignore my instruction. Is that better?’
The flames had no chance yet to deliver their warmth but Silas nodded. ‘Thank you.’ A sudden idea struck him with the lighting of the flames. ‘Is that you, Isaac? Do you speak through Clarence?’
The answer caused a deep set frown to pinch at the young man’s face. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. My elemental is hardly capable of a projection across counties.’
My elemental. The only elementals Silas knew of resided in Holly Village. And they all answered to one mistress.
Silas curled in on himself, ignoring the dull protest of his wounds. ‘Lady Satine?’ he whispered.
‘Oh,’ Clarence raised auburn eyebrows. ‘Jane was right, you’re not an idiot. Which is just as well Silas Mercer, for I have no time for fools. And nor does this world.’
Chapter 22
Silas huddled naked, exhausted, and struck quite dumb. Alongside him, barely an arms length away, sat the mysterious Lady Satine. Well, at least the poor man she was possessing. Lady Satine’s name was uttered with a modicum of awe and a dash of foreboding by most everyone he knew. All except Pitch, of course. Did the daemon fear anything at all? Silas envied him, right then and there, for he himself was more likened to a jellied desert.
The fire crackled cheerfully while Silas tried to work out what on earth one said to such a person. In the end, he said nothing at all. Lady Satine held out Clarence’s hand, and opened his curled fingers. The bandalore lay on his palm, the string turned dark brown by mud. At first the wood appeared to be equally as dirtied. Silas frowned, and found himself leaning in to take a closer look. A second inspection confirmed his suspicions. The boxwood now held the hue of red mahogany, as though blood had permeated it’s lighter nature.
‘You did an adequate job yesterday,’ Clarence and the lady said. ‘The deterioration of that teratism was quite astounding. You were handed a formidable task, I’ll grant Mr Ahari that. He would have spared you such a baptism and dealt with the creature himself as would normally be the case but it was a perfect opportunity to test your mettle. And we’ve not time for dawdling.’ She thrust the bandalore at him. ‘Take it. Though in truth I could not keep it from you if I so desired. The scythe is irrevocably yours, Silas.’
He pulled one hand from his covers. Barely had he reached for it and the bandalore moved to him, slipping from Clarence’s palm as though Silas already pulled its string. When wood and skin made contact, a shudder ran through him. His muscles eased their knots, and something akin to that first flush of heat from a downed whisky traced a path through his innards. The memory of Black Annis’s blades inside him caused him to wince but really the bodily reminders of her assault were but shadows of their former selves. He ached, certainly, but nothing he could not endure. How could his wounds have reduced themselves in a mere day?
‘Your injuries are repairing well,’ Clarence, or rather Lady Satine, spoke as though she read Silas’s mind. ‘I suspect in another day you will be just as you were before the encounter.’
‘My wounds…how is it that the are healed? It seems that they should have been…’
‘Fatal?’ Clarence laughed, the lady’s dismissive tone heavy upon the sound. ‘You cannot regard anything about yourself as you did when you were human, Silas. Certainly the wounds were terrible, but you no longer heal as a man, you heal as an ankou, and no ordinary one at that. Now tell me, what did the local people name her? I’m sure there is some title given, the humans are nothing if not fond of naming their horrors so they might tell their tales more grandly.’
‘Black Annis,’ Silas fairly whispered.
Clarence pursed his lips, and cocked his head. ‘Not bad I suppose. Matters neither way, as she will plague them no longer.’
‘She murdered children…mere babes…’ He swallowed with force, the image of the skins upon the branches fluttering in his mind as they had fluttered upon the wind.
‘Only a handful,’ the lady said, casual as can be.
Silas gasped. ‘That is a handful too many.’
‘Perhaps that is true.’ Came the reply, no less casual. ‘But there are those things we should mind, and those we should pay no mind too. In time you will come to find that age brings with it a certain, shall we say, carelessness. I did not intend for such harm to come to those children, but intentions often count for little, and I cannot be expected to address all the ills of this world at the moment they land upon us. It was fortuitous that Annis fouled in such a way really, for otherwise you may not have found your resolve. A dead child rather stirs a man to action. Which is fortunate for you and I both.’
‘How can you say such a thing?’ he croaked.
The fire popped in its hearth, and its heat touched upon Silas, but still he pulled the blanket tight to his chin. The cloth was a flimsy but comforting barrier, all that he could manage against the figure seated beside him.
‘Rather readily. I have small need of pointless discourse. The task was meant to test you, and test you it did.’
Pitch’s words, spoken in the midst of chaos, came back to him. Play their bloody game, and win.
‘It was never the Order’s intent that I search for a lost soul at the Manor.’ He rasped as though sandpaper lined his throat.
‘Of course it was. No matter what else, you are first and foremost an ankou, and it is your death-given duty to remove lost souls from this earth.’ Though it was clearly Clarence standing there, Silas could no longer see the young man as he was. Even though she did not appear, the Lady’s presence overwhelmed. ‘That is not to say that other tasks may be set for you.’
Perhaps it was the exhaustion that flamed his temper, or the spiralling sense of loss of control, regardless Silas shifted himself more upright, jaw tense with his anger. ‘You do not deny it then? You and Mr Ahari knew of Black Annis’s existence and her foul deeds, yet did nothing. Leaving me to be sent as a lamb to slaughter, and those poor children to suffer so awfully. Pitch said you play a game with me, now I see it is true.’
‘Tobias should have watched his pretty mouth. And come now, you were hardly slaughtered, were you? Just punctured a little. You do make it sound far more nefarious than it indeed was,’ the lady declared with an offhandedness that only fuelled Silas’s discontent.
‘I had no warning, no training. And a companion that seemed content to all
ow me to die.’
‘Pitch may have taken his instructions too literally, I will allow. But it will take a little more than a teratism, no matter how fearsome, to bring about your demise now. You would simply have failed, and we would know the wrong choice had been made.’ The lady chewed at her lip. ‘You received no warning, no training, because neither were necessary. That is not how these things work. You could not learn the fortitude that was necessary, it is innate. Or it is not.’
He closed his eyes, wishing to remain for just one more moment in a dark, oblivious place. His hold on the bandalore tightened, and he recalled its most recent transformation. A crude but lethal scythe bursting into existence just as Silas felt sure he was to meet his maker. He opened his eyes.
‘And so I passed your test?’
It was not quite a smile that lifted Clarence’s lips. ‘You saw the bandalore’s transformation did you not?’ The lady paused for a laborious moment. ‘Mr Ahari spoke to you of the Blight?’
Silas nodded, and glanced at the door. He would rather be enduring endless, abhorrent details of Pitch’s sexual conquests than linger here. Silas feared he was about to slip deeper into an already unrecognisable world. ‘And he also told me that ankou were not capable of destroying a teratism.’
‘The man does not lie.’
‘So that was not a teratism I fought?’ And nearly died at the hand of.
‘Yes. It was.’
Silas shook his head, at a loss. ‘Then how did—’
‘Mr Mercer, you are an ankou, that much is true, but also far more than that.’ The lady lifted Clarence to his feet, and moved to the window where she pushed open the chequered curtain to reveal not a window but a set of glass doors that opened up onto an expanse of green lawn. The honeyed touch of a sunset marked the scattering of clouds. ‘You’ve shown fine mettle, Mr Mercer, fine indeed. I have every hope our association will see the imbalance of things set right, with no great disaster.’
‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand…’ Silas rubbed at his raised knees through the blanket. ‘The imbalance of things?’
‘Yes. Mr Ahari spoke to you of the Blight, I’m sure.’
‘He did.’
‘For thousands of years some small semblance has always escaped into the world, and I have dealt with it rightfully so. But there are times, rare as they may be, when the imbalance cannot be regarding with anything but concern. Action must be taken. You, and the scythe you wield, are a part of that action I take. No other ankou possesses a scythe like yours, Mr Mercer. It is quite unique, and after you proved yourself today, it is yours alone to handle. Henceforth you and Mr Astaroth ride not only for the Order, but for me. Together you will seek out those souls fouled beyond redemption, and bring word of the Blight’s direction and strength to me. You are one of my Horseman now, Mr Mercer.’
‘A horseman?’ Silas said, somewhat numbly. He stood atop a great waterfall and knew with certainty he was about to be pushed forward. Sent tumbling headlong into a chaos that might drown him.
‘Perhaps it is more easily explained if you rise from your bed, and follow me.’
Clarence rattled the brass key that sat in one of the door’s locks. ‘Now come, it is time you met the one who will guide you in my stead.’ The door was flung wide open. The delicate twitter of small birds fluttered into the room. The lady strode Clarence outside, hands on hips, taking a breath large enough to visibly lift his shoulders. ‘Such beauty. If my watch ever draws to a close, the gods shall find me here for eternity.’
Silas clamped his mouth shut, conscious it had been hanging open for some time now as he struggled to absorb what he was being told. Aside from setting his own new task, the lady had so casually mentioned that she had observed the Blight for thousands of years. It may well be an immortal who handled poor Clarence’s body.
When Lady Satine spied that Silas had not budged from his bed, Clarence frowned with her displeasure. ‘Get up, get up. You cannot expect Lalassu to come to your bedside, surely?’
‘No, no, of course not.’ Whoever Lalassu might be. But there was a small issue that faced Silas. ‘But my lady, I’m afraid that I…’ He coughed, nodding at his body. ‘Have no clothing upon me.’
‘You have a blanket, wrap it around you. Now come. I cannot hold this young man much longer, it puts a strain upon their feeble hearts and he is too young for Izanami to take just yet.’
The woman in the room next door burst into a gale of laughter, as though she were having the most delightful time. A moment later Pitch accused her of cheating in their game of Whist and advised that he would use his cards to remove both her eyes if it happened again. A wonderful partner, indeed.
Silas slid the bandalore beneath his pillow, a pinch of odd remorse coming with allowing it out of his grasp. Irrevocably yours, Lady Satine had said. Silas was not certain of that but it was with no pleasure that he separated himself from the scythe. With slow caution, he edged out of the bed. Bracing for a stirring of pain that thankfully did not come as his bare feet met the floorboards. The wood was pleasantly warm.
‘Do you ride, Mr Mercer?’
‘Ride?’ Well…I don’t know. I’ve not had cause to do so, thus far.’
‘And in your last life?’
The question brought a pang of something he could not name, bitter and unwelcome. Silas shook his head. ‘I suppose I might have, though I recall nothing of the life I lived.’
‘Of course. What’s done is done. Well at least you are saved the hassle of lamenting a life poorly lived, as so many are wont to do. Besides, whether you enjoyed riding or not is of small consequence now. For ride you must. Follow along, Silas. And come meet the beast that shall bear you.’
Clutching the blanket tight around his breast, smoothing at its fabric to ensure that his privates remained just that, Silas took tentative steps towards the door. Aside from the general stiffness that came with too long in bed there was not much untoward about his movement. Even his belly, with its still-healing punctures merely felt tight and uncomfortable, not ravaged by pain. He was healing unlike any man might. Just as the lady had said.
Silas stood in the door way, a hand pressed to the frame, taking in the view before him. The sun blushed its last before it would succumb to the night sky spread, high clouds streaked across the blueness. A low hedge marked a barrier between the cottage and the seemingly endless stretch of pasture that reached over rolling hills. Grazing amongst the hedgerows were multitudes of horses, from ponies and Shetlands to great Shire horses with coats of snow white and rich golden chestnut. Their scent was strong and not unpleasant upon the fresh air.
‘Where is this place?’ Silas stepped out onto a buckled layer of cobblestones. A wood was visible in the distance to the east of the cottage, and it chilled him to consider that it might be Black Annis’s woods.
‘Don’t worry yourself, we are a long while from that place.’ The Lady spoke as though she’s heard his thoughts. ‘We are just outside of Bishop’s Castle and none too far from the Welsh border. The pastures are finer here, and the finest of all things these beasts shall have. They quite deserve it after the lives I have rescued them from. Some of the finest monster’s you’ll meet are those of human origin, Mr Mercer. I can assure you of that.’
Silas barely took note of much said beyond mention of the Welsh border. Leicester sat easily a day’s journey from the border. They were quite a way from that city, and he recalled none of the journey. Nor of the day that had passed since.
Lady Satine walked Clarence beneath a lop-sided wooden arch that held the slumbering remnants of a rosebush. ‘Sybilla tends the estate and I am bitterly jealous of her for it. If I did not have other matters pressing upon me, I would never leave these grounds,’ she sighed, in the way a lover might on sight of their paramour. ‘Aren’t they magnificent?’
‘The horses?’ Silas ventured.
As though to affirm, one of the steads let loose with a bracing neigh.
‘Of course the hors
es. More steadfast than any man or woman I’ve met, and far more beautiful. Come along, Silas.’ Clarence strode through the tall grasses that stood between cottage and pasture. Silas found himself following on quickly. He swept his free hand through meadow foxtail and Yorkshire fog whose heavy purple tips bobbed at his passing. Their names rose to mind as easily as his own. He liked to imagine that perhaps what’s done is not entirely done, at least in his case.
A piercing equine cry snapped him from his thoughts, the whinny so loud he feared the beast was almost upon him. Silas stopped short, both hands coming to fasten on the blanket. Thundering down a gentle slope were four of the most magnificent creatures he’d laid eyes upon.
Heavy with the broadness of draught horses, they tossed their heads and sent their impossibly long manes streaming, their tails brushed the ground as they galloped. They moved four abreast, keeping perfect pace with one another, feathered hooves lifting high off the grass with each step, necks curved in thick muscular arches. Silas watched, breathless with the beauty of it: a white horse, as brilliant as fresh snow with a mane that touched at its shoulder and concealed its entire broad neck, a sorrel stead with meaty haunches shimmering like copper, a midnight black whose coat rippled like the surface of a pond on a moonless night, and another the colour of distant storm clouds. Its pale grey coat rippled with a strange hint of bruised green.
As the horses gathered pace, rushing ever closer to the hedge, the sun found one last burst of brightness and a streak of straw-gold light lit up their path. Silas blinked against the sudden glare, his eyes watering the horses to a blur. He raised his hand to shade his eyes. The pounding beasts were not more than a few lengths from the barrier. All but one drove their hooves into the dirt and brought themselves to a halt. The unusual pale grey did not falter. Did not slow.