They emerged from a short section of sea-cave and onto the slimed rock of the ocean’s edge.
Bellis loved this part of Maris the most. Old volcanic activity had created blisters and pavements of dark granite about the long shore. The tide lay at its furthest point, an aching distance away. Sulphur fumes slunk across from white-crusted rents in the ground.
Behind them were the jagged mountain remains of the Maris caldera’s last eruption of a century before, curved about like a natural amphitheatre. Bellis sucked in the poisonous fumes, deep, deep. Her yellow-white dress faded into that fog, as if she too were a spirit come out of the smouldering ground.
Then Jonah Riven, blinded with a rag and naked as he was on the day of his birth, arrived in shackles. Any other man might have been pitiful in such abjection, but he only radiated such danger from his bared, bloody teeth and sweat-trembling flanks that he might have been clothed in splendour. Her only concessions to mercy were the old, unlaced boots he wore, for this ground would cut a man’s feet to shreds were he to walk on it without shoes.
Then Riven stopped struggling, and dipped his head, his other senses alerting him to dangers. What did he hear? The hiss of the waves out of his reach? The crunching of those few dozen footsteps meant to witness this indignity, as the stone flakes shattered under boot soles? The rock that was Riven’s punishment faced away from the ocean. It was sharply ridged so that a bound man could not lean easily against its surface. This was the rock he was shackled to by hoops of rusted iron.
Bellis beheld her husband with a carrion-eater’s countenance and had one of her guards take off his blindfold.
There had been a time when he had cursed her face. Today he only considered her without emotion, as if she too were a rock.
‘Who do you love?’
He swallowed, trying to speak, not managing so well. A guard had been too rough, had throttled his already-damaged throat.
‘Who? Who, Jonah, speak if you have any manhood left?’
‘You,’ rasped the voice from his bloodied mouth.
She pressed her bony palms to his sweat-slaked chest, before laying her ear upon his sternum. ‘Your heart beats fast, husband.’
Bellis jutted her chin towards Wren. The Libro stepped forward with her box of cold ointment. Bellis flicked off the lid and took a violet handful. Used the unguent to touch him in a way that would be pleasing, were they lovers in a secret grotto and not players in a degrading theatre in front of several witnesses.
‘When the Redeemer of Lyonne came to the Sainted Isles,’ she murmured through her caresses, ‘the Islanders were not grateful to receive His wisdom. Their ears were blocked, their hearts chained. Their god was the Deepwater King, and they would suffer no interloper. They tied the Redeemer to a rock like this one and let the ocean take Him.’
A cold wind blew in from the water. Wren turned anxiously to Absalom. Bellis had been content to bind and caress her husband like this, but she had never before invoked the symbolism of the Lyonnian god and His inglorious end, killed by Islanders a thousand years ago.
Interesting, Absalom thought. It appears our Deepwater Wife is beginning to yearn for her childhood religion.
He surveyed the gathering to this rite of thwarted, malignant love. With the rock at the focus, ten men stood in a semicircle of attention several paces away.
Nine of them were familiar faces, old-time shorefolk of Bellis’ first successful incursion. The tenth was Leyland Tallwater, the patriarch of the little Hillsider family Bellis had recovered on Sehnsucht prior to Bellis’ husband turning up.
Mr Tallwater had thoroughly ingratiated himself among the Marians. He wore a crimson sash of a senior officer upon his left arm. Where others glanced aside from Bellis’ intimacies, Leyland sneered at the man on the rock. A remnant, inexplicable hatred moved across his gaunt Hillsider face. His wispy yellow hair lay flat in the squally breeze.
Bellis closed her eyes, not finished. ‘Yet even after the tide swallowed Him, God let the Redeemer live,’ she murmured. ‘He was still alive when the water receded.’
When she opened her eyes again, they quickly became narrow. Something had changed in her husband’s demeanour. Riven had developed a vacancy in his expression; there was no vigour to him, no returning of love.
Not that he’d shown much before, but he had fought her touch once and cursed her loudly, daring Bellis to kill him and send him back to the Deepwater King. Now nothing, not even acknowledgement. She pressed her face up to his, and there was such a difference in their heights, her head could not clear his chest.
‘You wish that I leave you here until the ocean swallows you? I will give you no watery escape. I should have had you burned.’
She turned about so he could not see her face, glared at her ten servants, daring them to speak. ‘What say you all? Shall we burn him? Speak to me, fools!’
Absalom, immediately to one side of the shackling rock, saw what the distracted guards did not. Riven’s fist clenching inside a rusted hoop of metal that was not tight enough to enclose him securely, the knuckles popping white against his scarred, work-abraded skin.
As quick as he could, Absalom reached up, grabbed Riven’s wrist and pressed it to the sharp rock. ‘Wait!’
Then Riven’s terrible gaze was upon him, if something had looked up from the abyss in cold rage and seen Absalom’s face.
He almost let go. No man had looked at him just now. No human.
‘You strike her, and she will do what she promises,’ Absalom signed with his free hand. Harbinger convict-talk, that secret sign language of the penitentiary. Riven would understand it, having spent the better part of his life there. ‘Calm down.’
Riven glared at him still, but as a man this time, and a man who obeyed. Bellis had not moved from where she had taken to scolding her entourage.
Still shaken, Absalom said to the others, ‘Time to bind up our prisoner, lads. He has done his duty for today.’
The guards shackled Riven up again, and Mr Absalom hid a sneer behind his hand, for these tough men were all a-flutter over the ignominy of the act, too empathetic, too scared. They would have been happier chopping heads from necks and burning men alive than watching this. Why could Bellis not have crucified Riven on the lava blisters and be done with it?
‘Get him out of my sight,’ Bellis said, her cheeks flushed with pink anger. ‘Have him beaten. I want him screaming when he goes in his cell.’
Riven’s attention only faded, as if his mind were unmoored and somewhere in the clouds.
Bellis picked up the ridiculous train of her wedding-dress uniform herself and stomped back towards the sea-cave. Wren ran behind, the watchers scattered, and once more Mr Absalom found himself the last man standing on the pavements.
Alone, except for one of the town women.
She was a short, delicate little madam clothed in ragfish leather. She came to Mr Absalom’s side, folded her arms against her shallow bosom and spoke.
‘Curious that the Queen should be upset. Her husband finally does the very thing she wanted of him, attained the stone countenance of the Clay Redeemer.’
It was not that the voice was male, for this was not a place of usual social graces and dress. The accent made Absalom pay attention. Pure Lyonne.
Mr Absalom pressed his lips together and took a moment to still that first flush of unbidden anger before turning to the woman.
‘I’d have thought the Order would let me do my business here independently.’
‘Well, the Order never lets anyone stray far from their sight. As you are aware.’
‘Good afternoon too, Mr Lindsay.’
‘And to you, Mr Absalom.’
The last Absalom had heard of his fellow Lion was of Mr Lindsay’s appointment to Vigil, and the managing of the Harrow-Riven problem from the mainland. It was not altogether a welcome sight, seeing a high-ranking Order member here in Maris. One spy was bad enough, but two suggested that his superiors had lost their faith in Ozymandias Absalo
m.
‘That is a lovely outfit, Mr Lindsay.’
‘I try my best. One gets away with a lot more when one wears a dress.’
Mr Absalom squinted at him. ‘Why is my door being darkened, Brother Lion? Let me guess. It’s not about Riven because he is back with his wife and is no longer a concern. And Bellis Harrow is my assignment. The Pride would not be so bold as to replace me without warning. The only other obligation left is Mx Beacon. The sanguis evalescendi that Bellis found so curious. She really is alive, isn’t she?’
Mr Lindsay inspected his cuticles, bore an expression of disagreeableness. ‘Yes. Our colleague Miss Quarry was exemplary in her chaperone duty. There will be a medal at the end of this for her, if she keeps up the good work.’
‘At the end of all this. Meaning that it is not ended, is it? I saw it on Sehnsucht, the look in that woman’s eyes. She was fond of the man. I doubt she would have so easily slid back to her Clay Portside gin-halls like a nice obedient girl once it was all over?’
‘Hmm,’ Mr Lindsay mused, and Mr Absalom deduced all he needed from the sulky silence. Bellis had not been wrong in her obsessions over Riven’s lover at all. Lindsay would only come out here because a client was close by. A Lyonnian sanguinem could only make it to the Sainted Isles by either order or evasion, and Mr Lindsay would never order Arden too far out of his reach.
‘So what happened? Has she slipped her leash the way Bellis did? This is twice you’ve let an asset out of your sight now, brother.’
Mr Lindsay sucked in a barely controlled breath. ‘She is not out of my sight. We know where she is, and I have had new orders telegraphed to me from the Clay office.’
Mr Lindsay slid a finger into his bosom, brought out a medallion of the Order, the coin of instruction.
‘She is travelling to Equus as we speak.’
‘Equus? How will she survive there? I thought we burned that bridge with our agents long ago.’
‘We left a bridge open. For extreme circumstances. By tomorrow they will have made contact.’
Though Absalom was careful to show no strong emotion towards Mr Lindsay, the twinge of annoyance was real. A bridge. Their one precious contact in Equus. The librarian Lord Abaddon would give her shelter. Good Order men had died in Equus seeking safety, but they had never been permitted to darken the house of the Lord. What was this woman to win such a lifeline?
‘Take this instruction,’ Mr Lindsay said as he held out the coin. ‘Go to Equus tonight. Tomorrow, make contact with her and escort her off the island. Bring her back to Clay City.’
Absalom sucked his teeth. ‘But what of my work here? I’m Bellis Harrow’s only trusted insider.’
‘Bellis has become too much of a liability. Right now she thinks only of ruling the Islands, but one day, she will think of lands beyond, and to the north. Can you imagine her in Lyonne? In Clay? No, I will deal with her in my own way, but for now the task before you go is to remove Mr Riven. He causes her grief, and a grieving Bellis is an erratic one who may be encouraged into action long before we are ready to manage her.’
‘Remove? You mean kill him.’
‘Remove is remove. I don’t care how you do it.’
‘Lindsay, the cost is too high. There are hostages involved.’
‘Then work around the bloody cost and the bloody hostages.’
Mr Absalom took the medallion. The inscriptions on the gold surface were worn under his fingertips. Many instructions had been given under its command. Easily worse ones than these.
Remove him.
Absalom sighed in defeat. ‘I will do what the Order requires.’
‘Good. Come into town afterwards,’ Mr Lindsay said. ‘Find me in the Ivy House.’
‘A brothel. How appropriate.’
‘The Order shares the same saint-patron as the night people. Ours is a common profession.’ Mr Lindsay smiled tightly. ‘Good day.’
Absalom stood caressing the medal as Mr Lindsay moved off the pavements. Poor Jonah Riven. Such an ignominious end.
Burdened by duty, he put the coin in his coat pocket. No sooner had he straightened himself to return to the stone offices than another voice spoke.
‘Oh, so that explains my suspicions about you, Ozzy.’
Mr Absalom startled, and whirled on Wren. ‘You mendacious—’
She stepped out from behind the binding-rock and fluttered her saffron robes. ‘How did I fool you twice?’
He reached for the axe head and pulled it from his waistcoat. ‘Twice is a harsh word if there are no witnesses around to hear it.’
She leapt aside, out of reach of his blade-arm before casting her eyes over the pavement. ‘I didn’t know Ozymandias Absalom had a woman from Lyonne. Such a tough little thing with a pretty face. Such strong features, and a husky voice. Did not think a woman whetted my friend’s taste.’
He did not rise to the bait. Palmed the axe head, then with a sigh slid it back into its hidden place. ‘Will I regret this overhearing of my business, Wren?’
Her expression became solemn as she gestured to where Mr Lindsay’s path had taken him. Down into that roil of sordid vice that called itself a town. ‘Few men have the privilege of one master, Mr Absalom. I understand this, I do. But I couldn’t help overhear. Are you leaving us? With an instruction to kill Jonah before then?’
‘I have been commanded utterly, Wren,’ Mr Absalom said. ‘I can make it quick for him, quicker than Bellis would.’
‘But the children.’
For the most brief and unwelcome time a wrenching guilt filled him. The children. Easily one hundred Libro children, from babes to almost-adult, taken from the shores of the northern island as collateral against last-gasp Libran heroics. Later they became the blackmail Bellis had used against Riven on the night he had first come to Maris, bleeding and beaten. She’d gathered the children on the pier and said to him: if you attempt to leave me, husband, by escape or by a knife to your throat, all these children will join you at the bottom of the ocean.
He reached out and touched her cold cheek. ‘Come with me when I go, Wren Libro. There is a place for you in Clay. The Order could use someone with your skill.’
‘I cannot,’ she replied with true regret.
‘You were forced into enslavement. You owe nothing to either Bellis or any of the people who remain on Libro. They gave up their children willingly, ran away to save their own hides.’
‘I made a promise to my mother, Ozzy. A promise to the court of Libro in front of everyone I have ever loved, to bring them all home.’
‘There is no home for them left. Libro will soon be forgotten and slide beneath the waves of memory.’
The tide drifted in, each wave sending creeping foam fingers over the lava blisters.
‘When?’
‘Tonight. After she has her opium tea. Come with me. Back to Lyonne.’
Wren stood back. Her little bird-eyes fell on him, black and accusing, before she gave a shrug and fingered the weal on her cheek. Certainly, Wren could tell Bellis about this plan of Absalom’s, but then she would be in harm’s way too.
‘Oh, all right then. I have grown tired of this place anyway. Where shall we meet?’
He let out a breath, glad that she had agreed to come. The Order would find a place for a girl so good at sneaking around. If she kept out of mischief for another twelve hours, she could at last be free.
‘I won’t see Bellis until midnight, Wren. Then I must lay my traps and be gone. There is an iron boat in the Maris docks crewed by Fiction men and a captain called Mx Greenwing.’
‘Then I will be at the docks after midnight.’
‘Don’t be late, I cannot stay.’
Wren turned to go. Absalom hailed her once more. ‘A word of advice.’
‘Speak it, Ozzy.’
‘These are dangerous days. Don’t do anything foolish. This plan of mine does not allow for surprises.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I have always been able to look after myself.’
&
nbsp; And with that she was gone in a flutter of ragged saffron yellow, over the blisters and towards the yawning mouth of the sea-cave.
13
Twilight fell hard
Twilight fell hard on Maris, leaving the factory cathedral ruins in darkness. The moon had not yet risen, and the evening star gleamed small and white in the orange sky. It would pass below the horizon come the midnight hour, and then Ozymandias Absalom would pour hot tea and poppy-milk into a cup of obsidian glass, climb the high steps into Bellis’ tower and convince the Queen that Jonah Riven had to die.
Wren Halcyon Libro sat in her rooftop eyrie and contemplated the scenes of the day. Wren’s thoughts rarely went to her home, and for that Wren was glad. She too had been royalty, before Bellis and her hundred ships and her thousand love-mad servants stormed their saltwater parliament. It was Mr Tawfik, the armada captain, who had placed her mother’s neck against the barrel of a blunderbuss loaded with broken glass. He had given a sincere apology as he did so. Bellis was the one who had given the order.
Wren went upon her knees before Bellis, seeing instantly in the melee of that first attack to whom she must give her respects.
My Queen, let me serve you in the name of Libro.
Bellis, pale as white topaz, looking down at her, amused that this girl had identified her out of the crowd. Bellis had come to Libro a day before her army did, secretly working her orientis, turning the people into automatons under her control. Nobody had noticed the interloper among them, for the stranger’s Fiction-pale complexion had hardly made her stand out in an island of equally mist-hued southern folk. Wren’s deduction was cunning indeed.
Clever little Libran girl. Will you not beg for the life of your mother, yellow bird?
Her teachers had always an ill word to say about Wren. Undisciplined. A shirker, eavesdropper, tart of tongue. Talked back and ignored instructions.
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