“Ah, defensive.” The older man beckoned me closer and spoke in a carrying stage-whisper. “I think he’s trying to hide something.”
I giggled and pressed my hand to my burning cheeks. “You can’t say things like that. It’s forbidden. If anyone heard you…”
He sighed, “Why does everything have to be a rule with you Siren? I’ve half a mind to kidnap you all and force you to play with dolls and make mud pies until one of you actually smiles!”
I stretched my face into the most exaggerated grimace I knew. Guinn snorted and threw one of the cabbage leaves at me. We argued excitedly about ways to improve the hand until the watch called the hour outside. It was midnight; the servant’s entrance would be locked. My heart sank. I could probably sneak in at dawn before Clay left her prince’s bed, and nobody would know, but…
“May… maybe I’ll get back in time, if I leave now.” I stammered, pushing my chair back with a screech.
“Don’t be stupid.” Jonas said, “I’m not letting you run through the streets in the middle of the night.”
My grateful smile froze when he added, “You’re wearing a year’s salary just around your neck.”
“I’ll fix you up a bed by the fire.” Guinn pointed lazily at the door. His eyes softened at my look of panic, and he added diplomatically, “That bolts from the inside, so you can lock the heat in here with you.”
“You don’t know those bloody Siren.” Jonas’s tongue was looser now he had been drinking cider, and the arrogant hand wave he made towards me was clumsy, “If they want her back, they’ll walk through fire.”
“I doubt Harriet is afraid of the Siren, fool.” Guinn retorted, “Have you even noticed that she’s a woman?”
“So?” Jonas snapped, and then understanding dawned over his face and he blushed bright red, “Oh, but… Harriet, you know we’re not interested in that, don’t you?”
I wished the floor would open up and swallow me whole. I wasn’t as drunk as Jonas, but I was tipsy enough to be pert, “How would I know that? What makes you think I know anything about anything? The first time I even spoke to a man was when one of sailors asked me to pass the salt!”
“Incredible.” Guinn leaned forward, his eyes shining. “But you’re not afraid of us?”
I folded my arms and raised my chin proudly, “I’m not stupid.”
“Good.” Jonas cut in. He reeled when he stood up, “I’ll get you back to the palace before anyone notices, Harriet. I promise.”
They brought me a stack of blankets and pillows – far more than ten Harriets would have been able to use. The cider made a warm mist film over my eyes. I stripped down to my slip and made a nest in the blankets. I fell asleep in seconds.
My head ached the next morning when somebody tapped at the door. I groaned, untangled my legs from three separate blankets, and slid the bolt away from the door frame.
“I’m making breakfast.” Jonas whispered, and then his sleepy face lit up with a mischievous grin. “Guinn’s passed out in the larder. I think he fell asleep looking for a midnight snack!”
“Alright,” I said, yawning. It was too early for me to laugh, but the stupid story made me smile. “We can eat in here. Let me just tidy up.”
He nodded. The grin hadn’t faded. “You might want to put some clothes on first.”
I looked down, muffled an embarrassed shriek, and slammed the door shut. The sound made loud cursing erupt from the kitchen. Guinn was asleep again by the time I was dressed. His snore rattled through the rooms like someone sawing wood.
Jonas was a better cook than Guinn, but that didn’t make him good. There were eggshells in the burned pancakes. I built up the fire and lit the candle stubs we had burned through the night before. It felt odd to be eating breakfast in the dark, almost like a game.
I told Jonas that island children sneaked food into their rooms and hid under tented sheets with the other girls. Our Mistresses heard us giggling and telling ghost stories, but they only told us off if we were sleepy the next day, or if they found crumbs in our beds. A girl set fire to her sheets by trying to read beneath the covers. She had the bright idea of urinating on them. The corridor stank for two days, and we were forbidden to open the windows as a punishment. After that, the midnight feasts stopped.
Jonas told me about his childhood in the mountains. He had been completely alone. Sometimes he would meet other trappers and they would share a campfire. Company was so rare that such nights were a blessing. They had their own rules, and the mountains would punish them for disobeying. Hoarding supplies would make your shoulders chafe from the heavy pack; lighting too large a fire would scare away the game and leave you hungry.
Jonas was surprised when he finally left the forest and discovered that the villagers had no such code. He had spent his teenage years trying to reconcile his survival instincts with their odd quirks.
“I shouldn’t tease you for being naïve.” he said, as we started walking through Crozier’s cobbled streets. The dawn light was only just beginning to paint the stones a light blue, “I was even worse. At least you could have asked someone, but I had no-one to talk to. The hermits weren’t exactly going to tell a little boy about women, were they?”
“About women?” I echoed. The thought of us being obscure was baffling. “Women are simple.”
“So are men! The trick is in being mysterious.” he wiggled his fingers at me and made a chilling sound, “I’ll use my Siren magic on you.”
“There’s no such thing!” I laughed, lowering my voice in case someone was listening. Jonas patted my shoulder and I saw his eyes laughing in the dim light. I realized that somewhere in the long night I had forgotten how to be shy around him.
“Would you tell me more?” I hesitated, and then cleared my throat and tried again. “I know all the Siren stories, but the longer I spend here, the more I know they’re nonsense. I’d like to know about the real world… real people… before I go home.”
He looked thoughtful. “Didn’t I just tell you I’m as naïve as you?”
“You said you used to be. You’re not anymore.” I said bluntly, “It’s one of the few things I do know.”
He was embarrassed – I could see his skin darkening in the blue light – and then he shook his head. “You might not want to tell anyone about that talent. It’s rude to even imply...”
I gaped at him. “Why?”
It was a stupid question to start with, but after laughing at me Jonas started telling me about the odd rituals that the Mainlanders enjoyed. I knew about marriage (in theory) but I had no idea that husbands and wives marked each other, tattooing matching patterns under their wedding rings. The rings were just metal, but the tattoos bonded them for life. Promiscuity was also a new concept. On the island, matches lasted for a few days and then were over, without any shame. We called the Siren whores when they took pleasure in it, but we didn’t blame them for taking multiple partners. I only knew the Siren side of it. The men they captured very likely had wives at home, who they were betraying even as they were being drugged.
Jonas explained that Mainlanders learned their own kind of seduction, and some of them didn’t take their marriage vows seriously. A woman caught with another’s husband would be publically shamed; a man would be whipped. The lesser punishment for women was, apparently, because women couldn’t help it.
“That’s not true.” I scoffed. Jonas looked narrowly at me.
“Yanget is enthralled by women whose sexuality drives men to madness.” His words were like a nursery rhyme, but I felt chilled by the truth in them, “Mainland women have learned a lot from the Siren.”
“It’s not sexuality.” I mumbled. “They use drugs.”
“A Yangetti woman can train as an apothecary. Most other trades are closed to her.” The man smirked at me, “Tell me that’s a coincidence.”
I planted my hands on my hips and glowered at him, “Only if you admit that women aren’t… aren’t sordid, rutting animals.”
“The
women I’ve been with seem to enjoy it well enough.” he said breezily, and then interrupted my fish-like gaping, “You’re home, little Siren. Give my love to the apothecaries.”
By the time I could think of something to say, Jonas had disappeared. I suspected he was hiding close by, sniggering to himself at how furious I looked. He was toying with me. I would have to talk to the annoying cretin again if I wanted to set him straight.
I looked forward to it immensely.
CHAPTER 11
Mistress Dahra began to shiver.
She was not cold. The shiver was meaningless, a strange tremor which made the jewels in her hair sparkle in the candlelight. She began breaking and spoiling things which, a week before, her sure hands had found easy.
Mother Miette said that it was a virus. Her skin was pallid, and she had to change her robes twice a day when sweat soaked the slippery fabric. It could have been a fever, but I wasn’t sure. The woman’s mind was as keen as ever – more so. She was more aloof with the Altissi – Miette called it regal. When she spoke to us she was almost vicious. When she was angry, the tremors would become so obvious that she had to grip her hands together to hold them still.
She stripped the flowers from our pool, and then turned her ruthless greed to the garden. The few gardeners in Crozier were chiefly concerned with their plants looking nice. Flowers were cut before they could even come to seed! I did not want to believe that the Altissi really were that wasteful, or that stupid, so I started to wonder if their plants were just useless. Perhaps the reason that Dahra could not cure herself was because the herbs in this country were nothing more than savoury flavours.
She sent me out to buy herbs in the market. I looked for causticum or griffonia bean, which I suspected were what she needed to cure her shivering and foul temper, but I couldn’t find anything more useful than sage. Dahra was not impressed. I was sent out again to visit the filthy dawn market where the farmers sold their wares to inns and restaurants. It was still winter, and so most of the farmers only had roots and potatoes.
“What do you expect me to make, cyanide?” The woman snapped at me. I ran my fingers over the dusty roots and dirt crumbled through the basket.
“I don’t think fresh food grows in the snow, Mistress.”
“Food!” she threw her hands up. She made a growling sound and rooted in her bodice to pull out a silk purse, which she threw at me so hard I yelped.
The shining lorets chimed as they spilled out of the bag, and I scrabbled to hide them before one of the maids saw. Apparently, Dahra had been using a small fortune to pad out her cleavage. We had sacks full of Altissi coins on the island. Dahra did not bother to explain why she had brought so much with her. She waited impatiently for me to stand up. Her hands were shaking so badly that she clenched them into fists.
“Go to the apothecaries.” she spoke through gritted teeth. “Pay them, bribe them, screw them for all I care, but bring me everything they’ll part with.”
I hesitated. Wasn’t it dangerous to let the apothecaries know that we were potion crafters? All of our magic could be explained away by someone who recognised the hand of a skilled alchemist.
“Mistress…” I scrambled for the right words, “Shouldn’t I just find a doctor? We can bribe him to keep it secret, or disguise ourselves, or…”
“Go to the apothecaries.” she repeated in a horribly patient growl, “Bring me everything.”
So I did.
First I went back to the florists. This time I bought bouquets and corsages, trimmed fans and potted fancies. Dahra stripped the petals down to the pulpy nectar, bled the sap from the stems and shredded each glossy leaf into paste. Only the fixtures remained – a confection of ribbons and paper which I swept away with the rubbish.
While the Siren was busy scalding flowers I turned to the bakers and chefs, buying handfuls of cinnamon dust and liquorice roots, cumin and coriander, saffron and star anise, until the people in the market sneezed as I passed. Dahra never smelled of spices. There was a sour odour to her which nothing could disguise.
Dahra’a shaking hands became covered in burns, and she sweated so profusely that Miette had to follow her around with a scented fan. I brought the glamourous creature roots and ground bones, saliva and venom, fangs and cobwebs and all manner of nonsense which the Altissi apothecaries believed in. Despite her furious impatience Dahra took the time to scoff at most of these.
She sent me out one last time, to visit the midwives. They sold me liquors and salves which smelled stale. The dull stink stuck in my throat and made me gag. Miette told me that it was the smell of old frying grease that they mixed with red clover, winter rose, sorghum grass and other delightful poisons. The crones did not care if the taste made their customers retch. That, Miette told me, was half of the point.
The fumes which came out of Dahra’s room grew so pungent that we had to greet visitors in the corridor. I expected Mistress Clay to complain, but she was too busy. Dahra refused to poke her nose outside of her room, and all of her work fell to Clay. Between arranging trysts with Coluber and memorizing important information for the formal events, my Mistress didn’t even have time to complain about me.
The light in Clay’s eyes seemed dimmer when she looked at Dahra. She never admitted that she was worried, but I wondered if the older woman had worked it out. I longed to ask – if Clay was concerned, then surely she knew what was making Dahra sick – but I did not dare. There was a fragile truce between the two Siren which I did not want to disturb. For the first time since we had left the Mainland, they weren’t actively trying to hurt each other.
Jonas told me not to get involved.
“She’s dangerous.” he said. I asked what he meant, and he sighed and shook his head, “I don’t know, Harriet. Maybe the only person she’ll hurt is herself.”
“Why do you think she’ll hurt anyone?” I retorted.
“I don’t know. Just… she does things, and then you see Clay doing the same thing.”
“That’s what an apprentice is supposed to do!”
“Yes, but nobody seems to have drawn a line and told Clay that she’s allowed to stop mimicking the woman. She used to be such a sweet little girl, Harriet. I’m sure she still is, but it’s been buried under Siren filth. I look at Clay and all I can see is Dahra. She parrots back her opinions and her nasty, suspicious bigotry. Dahra never taught Clay to trust her own instincts, and so she’s turned a little girl into an obedient little monster.”
“That’s not the same as being dangerous.” I resisted the urge to say she only did it to Clay. I doubted that Jonas would shrug it off.
After that, I watched the Siren when they were together. Now that I was looking for it I could see the myriad ways they mirrored each other. They narrowed their eyes when they were thinking, and made them wide and innocent when people were watching. They had no nervous habits at all, and their stillness was uncanny. They were both meticulous and critical about their own choices and their servants’. They seemed to take no pleasure from life, simply satisfaction at having puzzled out its latest obstacle.
Happily, Clay only mimicked her Mistress when she was working, unless she was being petulant. I knew that if we had a long day, my Mistress would help me to undress. She would braid up my hair and bank her own fire, so that I might get to sleep sooner. She would interrupt her own tasks to wish me good morning, or tease me to make me swim with her in the pool.
On other days, she was irritable and curt. She would goad me or flatter me, practicing her Siren arts out of sheer boredom. Her cruelty may have come from Dahra, but there was a trace of fire in it that was wholly her own. Dahra never tried to make anyone care about her. Clay raised her prey up before she pierced their fluttering breasts. Her victims returned to her long after Dahra’s had been scared away.
To my surprise, Dahra started bringing men into her room at night. I had thought that she was unmoved by sex. On the island, she had a reputation for bewitching men with her potions rather than her bod
y. She embodied austere command to the point where Sweetwater had dared her to work with her hair streaked in ashes. The men were so stoned, she jeered, that they would think she had a halo.
Sweetwater had forbidden Mistress Clay to indulge herself, but she hadn’t said one word to Dahra. Nobody thought it was necessary.
On the third night, when yet another man slipped through the courtyard, I peeked through the slit in Dahra’s door to watch. I was half convinced that the Siren would strip her robes off and reveal Clay in disguise! Dahra led the man to the bed. She gently took his boots off and then stood up to light two sticks of incense. The odour made my nose tickle, and then a wonderful feeling of looseness suffused my limbs.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. If I hadn’t been so relaxed I would have squeaked and given myself away, but I looked up and smiled peacefully into Clay’s amused eyes.
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