Cheris was like a dog with a bone. Marcus looked ruefully at the skies – how many times had he seen her like this, especially when she felt she had a point to make?
‘Surely,’ she said, ‘the procedure is to make people aware that mages will shortly be walking the streets and, as you say, give them the choice on how to react. Now, if I were to arrive at your tower and to leave again immediately, then anyone still around must be aware of the possibility that a mage could still be in the vicinity. I tell you what: why don’t you accompany me? I would speak to you and only you and be utterly subservient to your demands.’
He stuttered. ‘No, my Lady, no. You are persuasive but no, it would not be appropriate.’
Cheris’s eyes shone. ‘We are some half an hour from the shore, before our ship docks, yes?’
‘Longer! They will have to row; there is no wind.’
‘Excellent! Then that gives me plenty more time to work on you.’
Marcus looked at her animated face and that of the blushing, stumbling knight and realised that he had never felt more sorry for anyone in his life.
The sailors finally secured the ship in the harbour after an hour’s hard rowing. The gang plank was put down and a couple of knights helped to carry the mages gear on to land. Cheris thanked a couple of sailors for their help, including the young lad who had spoken to her the night before, stepped lightly on to the gangplank and then on to the jetty. Thereafter it was up a flight of stone steps to get on to the harbour wall proper. Marcus was labouring up the steps behind her. She waited patiently for him flanked by two knights. In her bright-red robes she realised that she would stand out like a beacon.
‘Do you want to lean on your staff, get your breath back after those horrible steps?’ she said playfully when he was finally standing next to her.
‘I can tell,’ he said slowly, ‘that today you are feeling a lot better.’
They started a slow walk along the harbour wall, behind Sir Dylan and the knights, who were pulling their gear which had been loaded on to a small handcart. Ahead of them, past the statue of Hytha, the harbour wall ended in a flight of steps which then opened on to a large flat area paved in stone that nestled between a shingle beach dotted with small fishing craft and a line of low tiny cottages – some whitewashed and salubrious; others looking far less favourable. This flat area was where the sailors worked at their nets, except in the mornings when the trestle tables would come out and the fish market was held. Between two of the cottages, some two-thirds of the way along the beach, was a cobbled street, Voyagers’ Street, the main artery traversing Voyagers’ Hill, cutting through it until it joined the larger People’s Hill, where it took the name, unsurprisingly, of People’s Street. It was towards this street that the knights now headed.
To Cheris’s surprise, the area was not fully deserted. After Marcus’s dire warnings of the terror the mages provoked among the common folk, she had expected to see no one at all, but there were clusters of people, keeping a respectful distance, regarding them with what appeared to be only barely engaged curiosity. Some fishermen were still working on their boats, apparently oblivious to the strange procession close by them.
‘Marcus,’ she said, ‘these people aren’t bothered by us at all.’
‘It looks that way,’ he replied. ‘But actually the harbour front should be teeming with people right now. We are holding up the fish market, you see; these people are waiting for us to disappear up Voyagers’ Street so they can start to set up their wares.’
‘So we are stopping these people making their money.’
‘Yes.’
She swallowed, feeling guilty, seeing accusation in every local’s glance. Fortunately, though, they soon reached Voyagers’ Street and turned into it. Cheris’s relief that they were no longer holding up the business of the day was immediately replaced by one of horror.
‘By Lucan, the smell!’
Within a few steps it was like plunging into another world. The street with its smooth uneven cobbles was hemmed in on both sides by dark two-storey buildings that extended outward and above her, cutting out the light. It was almost possible, she reckoned, for neighbours across the street from each other to reach out and shake hands through the small, upper windows. Rank straw was scattered over the cobbles, and on either side of the road was a small trench that served as an open sewer, the source of the odour that so offended Cheris.
‘It is a shock, the first time, isn’t it?’ said Marcus. ‘A lifetime on an island with the sea filling your nostrils ill prepares you for this. Tanaren City actually has an army of night-soil men who work like beavers until dawn, but they concentrate their efforts in the better-off areas; somewhere like this might see them once a month. A few weeks back in high summer it would have been a lot worse.’
They continued onwards up the hill. Most of the hills in the city sloped gently upwards, the exceptions being Loubian Hill, with its palaces on the crest, St Kennelth’s where the Great Cathedral was located, and the western fringe of the Artisans’ Hill where it met the city wall, so progress wasn’t too difficult for them. Now and then they would pass a side street, which was always narrower, even more ramshackle and ill-favoured and piled even higher with filth than the one they were proceeding along. Here they did meet no one, apart from the odd skinny feral dog cocking its leg against a wall, or a comatose drunk slumped in a doorway. However, behind these doors as they passed there were sounds – a crying child, a drunken argument, even some wild laughter – but nobody dared come out to face them.
Eventually they reached the top of the hill. Here they emerged into the light again, out into a small square in the centre of which was a statue of a man holding a book and a sword – the usual symbols, Cheris found out later, of the office of Grand Duke. Under the statue was a small tired-looking fountain opening out into a stone basin some ten feet across. The road continued downhill on the other side of the square, but it was not there that the knights now headed. Rather, they turned eastward to their right, towards a narrow street that also headed downhill. This street was a lot cleaner, brighter and better maintained. Along its length Cheris spotted a couple of bright tavern signs and some shops selling wickerwork and the like. There were even a few people in the street; some did disappear down side streets when they spotted the red robes, but there were others who blithely carried on with their own business. One, a large wealthily-dressed man in a red velvet tunic, even walked straight past them while wishing them a good morrow. He seemed to look at her with open admiration. Cheris smiled back at him – being so frankly appreciated by others made her pleased about what she had done to her robe. It was tucked tightly in at the waist, and the lacing at the front was tight enough to emphasise her figure; it wasn’t too long, either, which was the curse of most feminine robes. In fact, at a distance she was sure it would pass as an evening dress.
‘Can you spare a penny, my Lady?’
The child’s voice cut into her thoughts. She stopped and looked to her right. A side street cut into the road they were on – it had the dark look and evil smell of the ones they had passed earlier. Sitting on the ground at the junction of both streets was a little girl of maybe six or seven. Her brown dress was dirty and ragged, probably riddled with lice; her bare feet were covered in filth and she had the large sunken eyes of someone constantly battling malnutrition. Instinctively, Cheris reached into the purse but as she did so one of the knights stepped in front of her.
‘Sorry, my Lady, but you are not allowed to do that.’
She coloured. ‘By all the Gods, why not?’
‘People will think the money is magical. If the child dies, we will be blamed for it. It’s not worth the trouble.’
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and moved off, though slowly, letting the others get ahead of her. When no one was looking she turned to look at the child again, and, catching her eye, she surreptitiously let a penny fall on to the cobbles. No one heard it. A couple
of minutes later she looked back again to see the child running off into the side street, clutching a bright penny in her hand.
At the bottom of the street the houses disappeared. Ahead of them was a broad space paved with wide slabs leading up to the city walls. Here, the wall was some twenty feet high with a parapet wide enough for two men to walk abreast. One of the city gates was here. The gate was opened and Cheris could see a drawbridge over a narrow ditch. On either side of the gate was a conical tower with arrow slits rather than windows; she assumed the gate towers housed the portcullis mechanism as well as a small garrison. As she stared, she realised that her entourage had turned left and was walking slowly uphill again. ‘By Keth, not another climb.’ She did not have to worry for long. They had gone barely a quarter of a mile before they came to another tower. This one was also circular, conical and built into the walls but it was much broader, had some windows of glass and could obviously accommodate a lot more people. Above it flew the flag of the thorn. Finally, they had arrived.
6
For Ceriana, the next few hours passed in a blur. They still took their meal on the beach but the food tasted like paper in her mouth. She listened to the menfolk discussing the body. It had been nibbled by many of the denizens of the sea and was putrefying, yet they could still make out that the man must have been strong and vigorous in life and that he had shaven all the hair from his body. He was clothed entirely in black and the clothes were of good quality, but to Ceriana for all the interest that the dead man held for her they might as well have been discussing the price of grain. She clutched her prize, feeling it hard in her hand. At the first opportunity, she had slipped the thing into a purse she had asked Berek for, but for some reason she kept being drawn to the thing, reaching under the table to touch it again and again.
The climb back up the hill was exhausting; her lungs tore at her chest and her muscles burned. By the time she was seated again on the wagon she was red, flushed, sweaty and encrusted with salt, but it caused her none of her usual consternation. Her mind was elsewhere. Doren, who had stayed at the top of the hill, chastised her for her bedraggled state, as did her mother when she returned home. She ran the gauntlet of frowning courtiers as she sped back to her room, caring not one jot. Shutting the door behind her, she sat on her bed breathing deeply.
She clutched at the purse, scrabbling to loosen its drawstring.
Pulling the object out, she gently unwrapped the stone from the handkerchief and gingerly held it up to the window. It seemed oval in shape but its base was slightly larger than its tip, almost like a water droplet. Its sides were glassy and smooth, but as she looked through it she felt she could see little imperfections, like tiny air bubbles deep inside it. She kept staring at it, squinting until her eyes hurt. Elissa’s blood! Were these bubbles moving? She felt sure they were, though very, very slowly, as you would see with thick sugar syrup. And the thing felt warm, like it was generating heat. This was no ruby! What in the name of all that was holy had she found?
There was a tap on the door. It was Doren calling her. Quickly she opened her vanity desk draw, pulling out one of several jewellery boxes. She chose one with a key, opened it and shoved the thing inside, locking the box tight shut. She then opened the door for Doren.
‘Please could you run a bath for me? I smell absolutely terrible!’
She dressed simply for dinner, in a white linen dress covered by a blue silk kirtle. Her parents were there at table when she arrived; she sat with her father to her right with her mother next to him. He spoke to her in a gently admonishing tone.
‘My dear, I know you were probably distracted but you shouldn’t wander off unattended. Berek and the guards completely lost you for a while today.’
‘There was no danger, Father – the beach was deserted and I just had an impulse to go climbing on the rocks.’
‘You could have fallen into the sea, child,’ her mother chided. ‘Even if you were unhurt, it is unseemly for a duke’s daughter to do such things.’
Ceriana pouted a little. ‘I am not made of porcelain, Mother.’
‘You are about to be married; you could have caught a chill and a chill could lead to pneumonia. If I had been forewarned about your little excursion, I would have put a stop to it even before you had left.’ Margerete realised she was bristling and tried to modify her tone. ‘You are a thin girl and prone to bad humours; your good health is of the utmost importance until you are married.’
‘Until I am married, but not after! Are you not worried about the reputation northern men have of using their women roughly? Is there no concern that the lack of meat on me will serve me ill at the hands of a northern bear?’
‘Ceriana!’ her father snapped, she realised she had spoken out of turn.
‘Sorry, Father; sorry, Mother.’
‘I am as unhappy about this match as anybody else,’ her mother continued. ‘More so in fact. I would much rather have kept you within one or two days’ journey like the other girls, not the weeks it will take to visit you now. But this is a match the Grand Duke himself has proposed and it is your – no, it is our duty – to comply.’
‘Surely no one has suggested that I will not do my duty?’
‘No, my dear.’ Her mother gave a rare smile. ‘You are a Hartfield and a fine example of the line. None of us doubt you.’
Such praise was rare. Ceriana felt a little shame at her truculence. Perhaps her mother was more afeard of losing her than she let on.
‘Thank you, Mother’ was all she could manage to say before turning her attention to her meal.
In bed that evening she was restless – sticky, too, for the night was warm and close. She was tired. Catherine had been right – the climb up the cliff had been exhausting – yet she felt sleep was still some distance away. She kept glancing at her vanity drawer. She desperately, desperately wanted to tell somebody about the ruby that was not a ruby but there was something so ... odd about it that it was compelling her to silence. She hadn’t realised it earlier but the longer she shared a room with it the more she could perceive the strangest feeling of ... wrongness about it, something unnatural that she couldn’t quite shake off. Perhaps it had magic... She shuddered at the thought – even the educated classes held a deep suspicion of such things.
And whose was the body on the beach? She had barely given the poor man a second thought after making her find but on listening to her father speak of him at dinner he seemed almost as odd as the object in her jewellery box.
‘We can only assume he was a shipwreck victim,’ he had said. ‘I have sent a dispatch to the city for any details of ships recently lost at sea. Some minor flotsam was reported as coming on shore a mile or two further up the coast, but no one is going to report anything of value that they could keep for themselves. As to the man himself, someone suggested that he had the malady that makes a person’s hair fall out, but there were signs of stubble on his chin: his hair was shaved, not merely absent. His clothes were thick and would have drowned him pretty quickly; it seems like it was some sort of uniform, but the uniform of what order no one here appears to know. He had a ring on his finger, silver, depicting a double-headed snake that maybe the university could identify, but I fear that the answer as to who this man was will remain closed to us. I have written to the university in any case.’
Flotsam from the shipwreck. That there was a connection between this man and her find seemed fairly obvious to Ceriana. Why hadn’t the stone sunk straight to the bottom of the sea though? The matter was getting ever more perplexing.
At length she could resist it no longer – she pulled back the covers and clambered out of bed, the night air cooling her damp skin. She pulled open the drawer, took out the box, turned the key, lifted the lid then took two steps back in horror.
The thing was glowing.
It was dark in the room but a light came from the stone, the deep-rich colour of blood. It wasn’t a strong light but could be seen clearly – the mirror, the jewellery box, her face
as she stepped back towards it, were all backlit by an eerie red glow. It was not a constant light either – one second the light would die, the next it would flare back up again. It did this for at least five minutes while all the time Ceriana stared at it, eyes like dinner plates, completely rooted to the spot.
Then suddenly, without warning, the light went out. She stretched out a nervous, trembling finger and gave it the lightest of touches. It was still warm.
Shuddering, she slammed the lid back on to the box, locked it, pushed it to the back of the draw and jumped into bed, covering herself with the sheets. Suddenly the wedding seemed to be the least of her worries.
The wedding day itself drew ever closer. The plan now was for the wedding to take place at the Grand Cathedral of Artorus and Camille in Tanaren City and for it to be presided over by Grand Lector Josephus XVII himself. This was at the instigation of the Grand Duke who wanted this most political of unions to receive as high a profile as possible. The only thing stopping it from being a full state occasion was that he had not declared the seven days of grand revelry for the populace, limiting it to a meagre three. Once the nuptials had been completed, they were to travel by carriage from the cathedral, skirting the base of the Loubian Hill to the Grand Duke’s staging post on the river Erskon. From there they were to take the ducal barge to Erskon House, a trip of some three to four hours. Most of the other guests would have to ride there, a quicker journey but one that gave many of the nobles a chance to reacquaint themselves with each other and to enter into all types of politicking. Ceriana would spend her wedding night at the house before starting the long journey, of some ten days’ duration, to her new home.
All these arrangements meant the rehearsals for the ceremony would have to take place within the cathedral, so, three days before the wedding, she was to travel to the city, where she would remain at Loubian Hall. Her betrothed was summoned to do likewise but would stay in the Grand Duke’s palace as an honoured guest. Her departure from Edgecliff would therefore be sooner than she had anticipated.
The Forgotten War Page 9