Strangeness and Charm

by Mike Shevdon

  "I doubt it," said Amber. "Now that would be a coincidence. Besides, I can't see Andy finding this kind of chaos comfortable. He'll be a man who likes things in their place."

  "How do you know that."

  "I don't. But I know bees."

  She threaded her way through the flat until she reached a window overlooking the rooftops at the back. From here you could see the market across the way.

  "Perfect," she said, sliding the window up. She stepped out onto a small balcony.

  I followed to the window. She stepped on a planter with an array of brown dead chrysanthemums, up onto the balcony rail and walked around until she could climb upwards onto the flat roof above.

  I stepped out, looking over the balcony three floors down to the side street below. My stomach sank as I realised I would have to climb up on the rail. I turned away, looking up to where Amber stood on the flat roof above the window.

  "You better come up," she said. "You're going to love this."

  Less confident with heights than Amber, I moved the planter to the side where the rail met the wall and then mounted the rail to lean against the wall and scrabble to the roof. When I stood up I saw what prompted her remark.

  The rooftop was a repeated pattern of leaded flat roofs and gabled peaks. All down the row, wooden hives had been placed where flat roofs offered a sheltered spot. There must have been eight or nine hives, each one circled by bees visiting or leaving. They flew past us, oblivious of our presence, heading off to roof gardens, parks and window boxes to return with nectar and pollen.

  "This is why he keeps coming back," I said. "I couldn't figure out why he didn't head off somewhere else where I wouldn't look for him."

  "And now you know," said Amber.

  As we watched, the bees became more active, circling an area near the centre of the hives. Bees circled inwards, landing and climbing on one another until a mound appeared which grew and formed into the shape of a man – a man that became Andy.

  "You shouldn't have come here," he said darkly. There was a hoarse rasp to his voice which made me wonder how much of a struggle maintaining that shape had become.

  "I'm not here to hurt you," I called across the roof.

  "In this place, you cannot hurt me," he said. The buzzing from the hives increased and a column of bees rose from each one, circling menacingly as if looking for a target.

  Amber's eyes turned hard as glass. "You might want to take things easy," she said quietly.

  "Or what?" he said. "Will you cut me with your sword? You can kill a few of us, but we are many, many more than you can imagine."

  In answer Amber held out her arm and flames licked up her wrist up onto her hand, rising until heat haze shimmered from it. "We all have our talents," she said.

  "Enough," I said. "Stop it. Amber, please don't. It's not helping. Andy, I'm sorry, it seems like I've been pursuing you but actually I want your help."

  "You have a strange way of asking for it." The circling of the bees continued.

  "I know, and I apologise. Can we talk? I think you may find what I have to say interesting, and it could help you and potentially others like you – like us."

  "Us?"

  I glanced at Amber. "As she said, we all have our talents."

  "What's yours?"

  "I could show you, but I'm not sure your bees would like it. Another time, maybe."

  "I don't want you here. Go away," he said.

  "I wish it were that simple. I know where you were taken, what they did to you."

  He shook his head, denying my words. "How can you know? You weren't there. You don't bear the scars. I should know." There was anger in his words now, and remembered fear.

  "I was there, but at the end. I was the one who broke in, a… colleague and I, we stopped it. We were the ones who finished it and set you all free." It felt wrong portraying myself as a hero, when what I'd done felt far from heroic, but perhaps Andy needed something to believe in, something to connect with.

  "Why? Why should I believe you?"

  "Because you can hear it in my voice. Because you know I'm telling the truth. I didn't go there to rescue you, it's true. I went to free my daughter who was there with you. I rescued her, but I set you all free."

  "You brought the darkness?"

  To him, as an inmate of Porton Down, where the lights blazed twenty-four hours a day every day, it must have seemed like that. Raffmir and I brought darkness to a place that knew only light.

  "I brought the darkness. As she said, we all have our talents."

  He looked thoughtful, glancing across at the hives and then back at us. Then he came to a decision.

  "Go away," he said. "Leave the hives alone."

  "I need to speak to you."

  "Go back down, and I will come to you. Go back to the market. I will find you."

  "You'll come?"

  "If you leave now."

  I glanced at Amber.

  "It's not like he can run off somewhere," she said quietly. "He'd have to take the hives with him, and it's not easy moving them. The bees know the area. They're creatures of habit."

  "OK," I called to him. "I'll wait for you."

  We climbed down and made our way back through the flat, locking the door after us.

  "How did you know where he was?" I asked Amber.

  "Bees fly horizontally unless you give them a reason not to. There were no bees at ground level, so they had to be up a height somewhere. The rooftop is an obvious place. Plenty of room, and no one to disturb them."

  "He keeps the bees, and they keep him," I said, remembering him selling the honey.

  "He is the bees. What do you want to say to him?" asked Amber as we made our way back to the street.

  "I want his help in bringing together the escapees. He tried to organise them in Porton Down, so he knows some of them – more than most, anyway."

  "He tried to organise them," said Amber. "Figures."

  "I think he could be helpful," I said.

  "Bear in mind he won't travel far," she said. "He's ruled at least partly by his animal shape. By winter he's liable to be mostly dormant."

  "The other inmates may trust him. You've seen how little they trust anyone else."

  "Well, you don't need me for this. Are you OK to find your own way back to the courts?"

  "I'll be fine. I'll join you later," I said.

  A smile touched her lips. "Don't get yourself stung to death."

  When I got back to the courts, Garvin wanted an update.

  "So you didn't bring him in?" he challenged.

  "I'm not sure anyone could make him go anywhere he didn't want to go," I said.

  "Amber did say it was unusual."

  "He's tied to the hives in ways I probably can't comprehend. He can't move anywhere any more than the bees can. If I brought him here, he couldn't stay for more than a short while. It's not a choice, it's how he is."

  Garvin raised an eyebrow. "Do you think he can have children?"

  "What kind of a question is that?" I asked. "Can Lord Kane? Or is there a risk of kittens?"

  "You need to be careful, saying things like that," said Garvin.

  "Because Kane's fey, or because he's a Lord of the Seven Courts?"

  "Both, and because he's liable to tear your heart out and eat it," said Garvin.

  "He's promised not to harm me."

  "Then it's his word that's standing between you and sudden death. How far do you want to test it?"

  "Point taken."

  Garvin folded his hands. "I'd rather you didn't test his level of patience."

  "My point is that it's not an appropriate question in either case. Sure, Kane is one of the Lords and Ladies, but why is it anyone's business whether Andy can be a successful father? That's between him and his partner, if he has one, surely?"

  "The courts have an interest in the fertility of the halfbreeds, you must understand that. It's why they exist."

  "No," I said. "It's how they came to be, but it's not why
they exist. They exist for themselves, not because someone in power called them into existence, and not because they live to serve. They are themselves. We have to stop thinking of them as an experiment, and start thinking of them as people. Otherwise this will all fall apart. Don't you see?"

  "I live to serve," said Garvin, "and I don't see anything wrong with service."

  "Then that's your choice," I pointed out, standing, "but it's not their choice and you can't force it upon them."

  I left him with that thought, and as I left I thought I heard him make some comment behind me, but it was lost in the background noise. It seemed to me that Garvin was more difficult to deal with each day, but perhaps it was simply that I kept bringing him more and more unsolvable problems.

  I stretched my back and rotated my shoulders. It had been long day and I needed rest. I resolved to go and find Blackbird and try for an early night, though my son might have other ideas.

  SIXTEEN

  I was woken by a familiar sound. I lay in bed with Blackbird breathing softly beside me, listening to our son grizzling to himself in the next room. Miraculously we'd managed an early night and collapsed into bed with the zealous vigour that parents of young children have when given the chance to be in bed together – we were both rapidly asleep. Now we were paying the price. My son was awake and hungry, and shortly he would make himself heard whether we were asleep or not.

  I slipped from under the covers, tucking the quilt around Blackbird so the chill of the night air wouldn't wake her. If anything, she'd been more exhausted than I was, so I would take the opportunity to feed the baby without waking her, and let her sleep.

  Our son was mostly breastfed, but I could make a bottle up if needed and if he was hungry enough, he would take it. It wasn't quite as comforting as the warmth of his mother but at three in the morning he would have to take what he could get. I pulled on a T-shirt and some sweat pants, and went through to his room.

  There was a dim red light, placed in one of the electric sockets by the stewards, so I could see he wasn't exactly awake yet. That wouldn't last, though, as he was already restless and would toss and turn until he woke himself up and demanded food. I reached down and picked him up, resting him against my shoulder while I wrapped a blanket round him. He made small noises, but was momentarily appeased by another warm body.

  I padded back through our bedroom, grabbing the change bag on the way through, and slipped outside into the hall, closing the door softly behind me. Blackbird turned over, but didn't wake.

  Outside it was chillier, but it was too late to go back for something warmer to wear. The temperature in the old house dropped at night – the product of bad insulation and rooms with high ceilings. As a Warder, trained to steel myself against adverse conditions, I could put up with cold feet.

  I walked through the house in near silence, punctuated by the occasional hoot of an owl outside. There were no people, no stewards. The whole house was asleep.

  As we made our way downstairs, my son nuzzled against me and then started chewing his hand – a sure sign of impending hunger. I navigated through the halls and rooms in darkness to the back kitchen. The light in the fridge came on when I opened the door, and I found that Lesley, bless her, had left a feed made up, saving me the task of making one up and then waiting for it to cool. I ran some warm water into a pan to take the chill off the milk.

  My son woke up to the fact that food was imminent and started making a lot of noise. I walked up and down with him a few times, but it wasn't going to distract him. Hungry babies are not easily distracted. They are very focused people.

  Carrying my noisy bundle back through the house to one of the abandoned sitting rooms. I dropped the change bag on one side, placed some pillows to support my back and made myself comfortable. I tested the milk on the inside of my arm out of habit, finding it only just warm enough. Still, he would eat it cold if he was hungry enough.

  Even though I placed the teat of the bottle against his lips where he could feel it, the yelling continued for a few moments, then ceased, to be replaced by a rhythmic sucking. I breathed a sigh of relief, pushed back into the armchair, and got comfortable. I talked to him as he fed, telling him stories about bears and unicorns in the sort of stream-of-consciousness story that fathers make up at three in the morning, and gradually the slurping slowed as his hunger eased.

  Now we had the difficult bit. I smiled at all I'd learned from Alex. It was no good trying to feed a sleepy baby. They ate some, slept for half an hour and then woke you up again for more. You needed to get their attention, and cold nappy cream was the way to do it.

  I spread the change mat on the floor and laid my semi-comatose child on the mat. As soon as I started to undress him he woke up with a vengeance, screaming blue murder that I was not only changing his nappy, but using freezing cold nappy cream as well. I endured his protests and ineffectual attempts to fend me off, and in a few moments he was dry and clean, the dirty nappy set aside and his milk waiting for him. That didn't stop him yelling.

  By now, though, he was awake again, and placated with some more milk, so I could sit back and let him finish it off. He was comfort eating now that his initial hunger was sated, but I wanted him to last until morning.

  "You do that very well."

  "Amber! What are you doing here?" There was a shape across the room which I'd taken for a shrouded chair, but which now resolved itself into a sitting person. My son shifted at the alarm in my voice, and then went back to drinking as I relaxed again.

  "I didn't want to disturb you," she said.

  "Hmmph. If I'd dropped him we would have disturbed the whole house." The shape didn't move. Even though I knew she was there, she was still difficult to see in the dark. "How long have you been there?"

  "Since before you came in."

  "How did you know I was coming in here?" I asked.

  "It's where you came before."

  "You've watched me do this before? Without saying anything?"

  "Only once. I didn't disturb you then. You seemed content." She sat up and moved to another chair where I could see her better.

  "Well don't creep up on me like that again, It's… creepy." At three in the morning it was hard to come up with a better description. "What are you doing up, anyway?"

  "Patrolling – renewing the wards."

  "Aren't you supposed to be scouting the grounds?"

  "You're the only person awake for miles – you and your son."

  "Ah, well. Glad we could entertain you." My sarcasm was ignored.

  "It brings back memories," she said.

  "Of what?" I asked.

  "My daughter."

  I was momentarily taken aback. Amber had never mentioned a daughter. As far as I could tell, none of the Warders had children. I had assumed it was part of the job description and yet another reason I wasn't very good at it.

  "No one said you had a daughter," I said.

  "I don't talk about it. It was a long time ago."

  "Where is she now?" I asked.

  "She died."

  Now I felt really bad. "Amber, I'm so sorry. Here I am, being so insensitive. I'm really… I don't know what to say."

  "It's OK. She was old. She had a good life."

  "Old?" The question was out before I realised what I'd said.

  "She was human, like her father. Completely and utterly as human as could be. She lived into her eighties – not a bad age. At the end… I'd like to think she knew me, but it was hard to tell. The drugs they gave her in the hospital made her memory bad." She thought for a moment. "I think she knew me."

  "But you must have been… you didn't age."

  "I know. It's strange. She started out as my daughter, and by the end I had to play her granddaughter – too young even to be her daughter then. She would touch my face and tell me I had such good skin."

  "Didn't she tell anyone? I mean, it must have been strange. Did she know you were her mother?"

  "Yes. It was our secret. She used to
laugh at how I never aged a day while she grew older every year – until it wasn't funny any more."

  She paused, thoughtful for a while.

  "We tried," she laughed, but there wasn't much humour in it. "We tried to bring it out, to activate the magic within her. It didn't work. Nothing did. In the end it just hurt her."

  "That's… terrible."

  "Is it? Yes, I think it might be. You're either fey, or you're not. You don't get to choose."