by Patrick, Den
‘Where is everybody?’
Camelia flinched and dropped a potato, before stopping it rolling under the table with a deft foot.
‘Porca misèria, Lucien. You scared me half to death!’ She was a large woman, tall with a hearty hourglass figure, blessed with a head of corn-blonde hair contrasting with deep brown eyes set in a broad honest face. Camelia was taller than some of the men in Demesne but didn’t stoop to soothe their vanity.
‘Sorry, I just . . . It’s strange seeing the kitchen so empty.’
‘Everyone has gone to help at House Erudito. It’s their turn to host La Festa this year. I’m looking after little Dino here and making some gnocchi.’
Lucien crossed the kitchen, trailing fingers along the smooth wood of the long table. The room smelled of flour and a soothing chord of woodsmoke, oregano and other herbs he’d yet to learn the names of. Onions and garlic hung from hooks in the wall, someone had placed wild flowers in a cracked vase on the dresser, a tiny riot of blue and red petals. Camelia’s blouse sleeves were rolled up and she was grating potatoes into a large bowl with gusto.
‘Why do we have it?’ he asked.
‘La Festa?’ Camelia smiled. ‘Well, it’s a custom – we have it every year. And it gives Duchess Prospero a chance to wear one of those dresses.’ Lucien knew full well what she meant and coughed a barely concealed laugh into his fist. Camelia straightened a moment and stretched her back, then regarded Lucien with a curious look.
‘We celebrate the harvest and give thanks that we have enough to eat. Don’t your tutors teach you this?’
‘Why don’t we have a party to thank the farmers of House Contadino instead? Wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, more appropriate?’
‘Appropriate!’ Camelia broke into a wide smile. ‘You sound more like noble’s son every day.’
‘But it would, wouldn’t it? For the farmers,’ he pressed.
‘La Festa isn’t just about crops and harvest, it’s about being grateful to the king for finding us, for waking us from the deep sleep, for building Demesne for us. If it weren’t for him you and I might never have been born.’
Lucien paused to consider this for a moment.
‘So what do the mimes and performers have to do with it then?’
‘They just add a sense of occasion. You know, fun. Don’t you like them?’
‘I think they’re a nuisance,’ he replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
‘Well, there’s many that might think you a nuisance too, young man, so mind your manners.’
Lucien looked around the kitchens a while before letting his gaze come to rest on Dino. The boy looked at Lucien from under a heavy brow, continuing to worry the scrap of bread he was clutching in cherubic fingers. Lucien had never seen a child so small, so young.
‘How old is he?’
‘Dino? Why, he’s all of three, or thereabouts, we don’t know for sure because he’s . . .’
‘Orfano.’ Lucien took a step back, regarding the boy anew. He had dull grey eyes and soft brown hair. He looked completely unremarkable, could have been any child from any estate. Lucien pouted a moment, frowning at the small boy, the innocent usurper, before realising Camelia was watching him.
‘Don’t go gaining the wolf, or I’ll turn you out of here with a broom handle.’ She put one great hand on her hip. ‘And you’ll not get any dinner tonight.’ She gave a sigh and rubbed her forehead with the back of her palm, smudging flour onto her face.
‘Does he have any . . . ? You know. Does he . . . ?’
‘Yes, I know what you’re asking.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t grow those awful spines from his forearms like Golia. He also has trouble with his eyes.’
‘Trouble? How so?’
‘The place where your tears come from . . .’
‘Ducts,’ supplied Lucien, a rare flash of biology coming to him. Virmyre would be proud.
‘Yes, well, they don’t work. Dino’s tears are blood. The poor little thing. Fortunately he’s a stoical boy and isn’t given to crying too often. We have to keep giving him milk and ground beef to build him up.’
Lucien scrutinised the infant some more. He’d not met any Orfani other than Anea and Golia. Everyone knew of the reclusive Orfani who lived with House Prospero, but he’d never bothered to learn her name, just as she’d never bothered to leave her apartment. He imagined her in an attic somewhere, talking to herself in a made-up language.
‘That said,’ continued Camelia, ‘he reminds me of you in a way. You used to sit right there when you were his age, good as gold, staring at folk, oh so serious.’ She smiled at Lucien kindly and he reciprocated with a touch of embarrassment. Camelia had always been someone he’d gravitated to. He invariably ended up lurking in the kitchen, getting in the way or peeling potatoes for want of an excuse to remain. Better busy in the kitchens than alone in his apartment. She’d sat through the night with him a few times when the pneumonia was on him, and sometimes to read to him, which no one else did except Rafaela.
‘I suppose you’ve come down here for gossip and tittle-tattle,’ said Camelia after a moment.
Lucien leaned on the kitchen table, one hand resting under his chin. He looked at her blankly.
‘Surely you’ve heard?’ she asked. ‘A new Orfano was found outside of House Erudito. They’re saying it’s lucky he survived the night. It was dreadful chilly under the stars on those stone steps. They’re calling him Festo.’
Lucien shrugged. D’arzenta hadn’t mentioned it.
‘There’s quite a fuss over who will look after him,’ continued Camelia. ‘Someone suggested Duke Prospero adopt him. Porca misèria, can you imagine? It took them an hour to get Duchess Prospero down off the ceiling.’
Lucien wondered where the Orfano materialised from but knew better than to ask. He’d received more than his share of stern looks for making such enquiries in the past. He pushed the tip of his thumb into the corner of his mouth, testing how sharp his teeth were. He thought back to when he was three and found his memories of those times sparse, the few available to him cloudy and indistinct. Something didn’t quite fit.
‘Ella hasn’t always been my nanny, has she?’
‘What makes you say that?’ said Camelia.
‘Just a feeling. I mean, she’s much too young. She would have only been seven when I was a baby.’
Camelia grinned and paused a moment, regarding the growing pile of shredded potatoes. She set down the grater with a clatter.
‘I see those lessons are paying off.’ She rested one hand on her hip and looked down at him. ‘Rafaela’s mother died when you were just four – it was she who looked after you when you first came to us. She was a lovely lady. Kind and patient. Rafaela looks just like her. Uncanny it is. Sometimes Rafaela walks through that door and, well, it’s like her mother never passed on. Of course, you’re probably too young to remember.’
Camelia wiped her hands on a cloth.
‘Rafaela had been raised to see the care of the Orfano as a great privilege. She petitioned and schemed and argued for the right to keep on looking after you. She’d always helped her mother, you see?’
‘And they turned me over to a eleven-year-old girl? Just like that?’
‘Not exactly.’ Camelia broke some eggs and fetched a large wooden spoon from a dresser further down the kitchen before continuing. ‘You just about screamed the place down for about a month. You were unbearable. In the end they gave in to Rafaela. She was the only one who could do anything with you. I thought Mistress Corvo was going to throw you out of the window one night. Porca misèria, you were a noisy thing.’
‘Where’s Ella today?’
‘She’s at home. Her sister is ill.’
Lucien blinked a few times. Ella had never mentioned a sister before. Suddenly he realised there was a whole side to Ella he knew nothing about. He was embarrassed to realise he’d never thought to ask.
‘Sister?
‘Yes
. She’s called Salvaggia, about your age.’
A bang and scrape in the corridor broke Lucien from his introspection and he suppressed a shudder. It came again with a constant even rhythm, growing louder with each iteration. A cowled figured emerged from under the pointed arch of the doorway, darkness releasing him into the well lit kitchen. The Domo turned his seemingly blind gaze toward them and approached, staff continuing to tap out the dull percussion of his stride.
‘Lucien,’ he droned in his flat voice, the head bobbing in the slightest imitation of a bow. Technically the Domo outranked everyone in Demesne barring the king, but he always nodded to the Orfano. ‘I had not expected to find you here.’
shoulders, pulling him close to her.
‘Isn’t he growing up to be a fine young man?’ she said. Lucien thought he detected a note of challenge in her words. The Domo simply stood in front of them, not saying anything. Behind them Dino smacked his lips and continued gnawing on the bread.
‘He is indeed growing up,’ said the Domo, the flat line of his mouth betraying nothing. His eyes were, as ever, hidden in the deep shadow of the grey hood.
‘I dare say he’ll make a fine addition to the castle.’ Camelia squeezed him, but Lucien could not drag his eyes from the looming presence that filled the kitchen. Another awkward pause and then the chief steward spoke again.
‘Perhaps he can be of some help. It occurs to me there may be a job he could perform admirably.’ And then the Domo turned abruptly, drifting from the kitchen, the hem of his dour robe sliding over flagstones, the staff resuming its plaintive clatter.
‘He’s a strange one,’ whispered Camelia. ‘They say he’s older than sin and twice as ugly.’
Lucien sniggered, caught himself for a moment, then resumed laughing anyway.
‘What do you think he meant? About performing a job, I mean.’ Lucien chewed his lip, suddenly anxious.
‘Who knows what goes on under that hood. Best not to wonder at it.’
‘What will I do when I grow up, Camelia?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She narrowed her eyes a second, hands resting on her hips. ‘I’ve always known about the Orfano, but Golia was the first I’d ever seen. People say there were more back in older times. Then you came along, and Anea, and Dino. And now we have Festo.’
‘But why?’
‘I couldn’t say. And we’re told not to ask.’ Camelia smiled, stifling a laugh behind one flour-dusted hand. She was looking at Dino, who was holding out a soggy crust of bread to Lucien.
‘Looks like you’ve made a new friend.’
Lucien nodded, noticing Dino’s shy smile.
‘Don’t you have somewhere to be? I’ll be in just as much trouble as you if your teachers find you down here.’
‘My testing isn’t until later.’
‘Well go and practise then, for goodness’ sake.’ She sighed. ‘You’ll be the death of me, Lucien Contadino.’
5
Camelia’s Tears
HOUSE CONTADINO KITCHENS
– Febbraio 315
Lucien walked down the corridors of House Fontein, hearing his own footsteps in a daze. A few novices noted his slashed jacket, opened at the shoulder and across the breast. They avoided him, not wanting to speak with a strega, the bastards of Landfall. He heard their whispering as he walked on. Speculation had been rampant in the run-up to the testing, but they could not have dared imagine Lucien’s expulsion. Word of his failing would find its way into every corner of every keep by nightfall. The women of House Prospero would chatter breathlessly from behind fans in well-appointed salons, while the professori of House Erudito would shrug and grumble in lecture halls laden with dust and age. Even now, the many novices and adepts of House Fontein’s three schools would be delirious with the telling and retelling of such disobedience. The least of the novices would be bullied into running to other houses, spreading the word and bringing back new details, fabricated or exaggerated. Few would care. Only the members of House Contadino might spare him sympathy. They knew him best, for better or worse.
Onwards he walked, into the chiaroscuro lamplight of King’s Keep, gliding dreamlike through the circuitous corridor linking the four houses. The wide passage was windowless, supported by thick columns, making it a claustrophobic nether world. Artisans from House Prospero hurried past, clogs sounding on the flagstones toc toc toc, aprons flapping at their knees, calloused fingers thrust into deep pockets. Scholars from House Erudito ambled toward private lessons for Demesne’s privileged few. The professori looked indistinct in their black gowns, pale faces standing out in the gloom. Some small few regarded Lucien with barely concealed distaste. Nothing new. Messengers bore scraps of parchment and lofty expressions, each trying to outdo the others with self-importance and pomposity. They stared each other down through white-powdered faces, pouting past beauty spots. They rushed as if the very stones of Demesne depended on their messages being delivered. Lucien was too stunned to give them one of his customary glares. The guards on the gateways mumbled to each other, shooting wary glances as Lucien approached. He barely noticed. His expulsion would mean an end to the indignities of Demesne.
Finally he returned to House Contadino, his feet leading him back of their own accord. He tried to swallow and found his throat thick and uncomfortable. He was being thrown out. Exiled. He, an Orfano; the very idea of it.
‘Are you hurt? Your jacket . . .’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, his own voice sounding distant. ‘Small cut on the shoulder,’ he added. It occurred to him he was still bleeding, but it was something unremarkable, as if it were happening to someone else.
The staff continued their work without a word, weaving between one another, vying for space on the long table. Lucien was no stranger to them, not always welcome but tolerated. He knew they thought him spoilt and privileged, just as he was aware there was an unspoken competitiveness between the staff of the four houses.
He may be Orfano, but he’s our Orfano was the maxim. The nobles whined and complained about having the unwanted foundlings attached to their houses but couldn’t resist lapses of proprietorial braggadocio. The staff aped their attitudes in their own, less nuanced, fashion. Some even pretended to like him. Fewer still actually did, like Camelia.
Lucien had eavesdropped enough to know the staff had nicknames for the various witchlings. Time spent listening at doorways had revealed Golia was ‘the lug’, unsurprising on account of his great size and apparent dull-wittedness. Lucien had received the less insulting ‘Sinistro’ on account of his left-handedness. Dino was referred to as ‘little Luc’. Nobody called Anea anything other than her name, which itself was a shortened version of her birth name. And there was the woman who lived with House Prospero, the nameless recluse. Festo had yet to earn an epithet, still too young.
‘Well you can’t stand there all day,’ said Camelia. ‘You’ll get blood all over my floors for one thing. And you look like you’re about to pass out. Can someone get him some coffee? Porca misèria.’ She was doing her best not to sound flustered. She was doing well. ‘Come on. Time to see Dottore Angelicola.’
Lucien looked at Camelia, confusion crowding his features. How had he come to be here? Hadn’t he been going to his apartment to collect his things?
‘Camelia . . . I’m going to be exiled.’
‘What?’ The cook stared at him, eyes narrowed not comprehending.
‘I’m going to be exiled. I struck Superiore Giancarlo.’ The industry of the kitchen slowed. People were straining to hear. Somebody at the back of the room dropped a metal ladle which clattered on the floor. Lucien’s mind recalled his shattered blade – he flinched at the thought of it.
‘Well, isn’t that sort of the point?’ said Camelia. ‘You didn’t kill him?’ She swallowed. The silence in the kitchen was absolute. ‘Lucien, tell me you didn’t kill him.’
‘I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,’ said Camelia, but she couldn’t keep the uncertainty out of her voice. By now
the entire kitchen staff had gathered to listen, forming a wall of white jackets, caps clutched in anxious hands.
Into their midst came the Majordomo, towering over everyone. He looked more grim than usual, cheeks and chin almost grey beneath the heavy cowl. A quartet of flies circled him lazily, nestling within folds of fabric the colour of wet ashes. Lucien wondered if the garment was held together with cobwebs and dust. The Domo grasped his staff of office in a skeletal hand, the veins thick and vulgar, his nails frayed and chewed. The porters and cooks shrank back, as if afeared he might spread some nameless contagion. All except Camelia, who stepped forward and placed one arm protectively around Lucien’s shoulders.
‘Lucien. I have been informed of the situation,’ said the Domo in his dull monotone. ‘Most regrettable.’ Lucien stared up at him. A tiny spark of the rage he felt for Giancarlo kindled in his soul.
‘I imagine you’re delighted,’ he whispered harshly.
‘Nothing could be further from the truth, Lucien,’ replied the Domo. ‘No Orfano has ever been exiled. Something I hope to address this very moment. I will persuade Superiore Giancarlo to drop his petition.’
Lucien stared at the Domo. The darkness under the cowl was total, shielding the man’s eyes. Only the flat line of his mouth gave away any emotion, and there was precious little of that.
‘Liar,’ hissed Lucien. ‘You want me gone. You offered me a chance to fit into your grand scheme and I refused. Vai al diavolo. And Giancarlo with you.’
The cooks nearby flinched at this. Some had already slipped away, out through the side door from where they fled to other houses, keen to share the unfolding scandal. The Domo let out a breath; his grip tightened on the staff; the flies took to wing, agitated.
‘Lucien, you are upset—’
‘Upset? I’m a good deal more than just upset. What happened to first blood? And when did the Orfani become the executioners of Landfall?’
‘It is regrettable,’ the steward droned.
‘Regrettable? We’re killing common folk like cattle now, are we? Just so nobili can pass their testings?’