by Patrick, Den
Tell me you’ll take care of her. You two have a chance I never had. You’re the same age. Don’t make the mistake I did.
Lucien felt a powerful pang of regret. He’d not made the same mistakes as the duke, but had created an entirely new catalogue of failures.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, kissing his fingers and laying his hand gently on the corner of the sarcophagus. He turned his back and chewed his lip, ignoring hunger pangs.
The cemetery was a study in stillness. Mist ghosted around headstones strangled with bindweed. Mourning angels presided over the scene, hands pressed together in reverence. The statues had been sculpted from the same dark grey stone as Demesne itself. A path of white gravel neatly bisected the tangle of dew-slicked grasses. Other mausoleums hunkered nearby, coated in moss, spattered with guano. Wrought-iron gates decked with tenacious ivy led to the road. And his escape.
The ravens called out in boisterous rude greeting, drawing his attention to the stand of trees beyond the cemetery wall. It was here he’d tied up Fabien, out of sight and sheltered from the worst of the downpour.
Lucien retreated back into the cover of the sepulchre.
A thin wisp of smoke wound its way into the skies, a single tendril drifting above the trees. Someone was cooking nearby.
But who cooks in a graveyard?
He gathered up the sack of food Camelia had given him and unsheathed the dagger from his boot. The trees whispered, confiding to each other as the Orfano set out toward the telltale plume, dew soaking his boots. Lucien climbed the wall easily, one handed, not wanting to trouble his left shoulder. He pressed on, fighting his way through a weeping willow, the limbs clinging and dragging at him like an intoxicated lover. All around were the trunks of dead trees swarming with woodlice; spiders picked their way across the woodland floor, beetles marched across leaf mould. Miniature life teamed and floundered. The ravens above had fallen silent or taken to wing. He was just moments into the woods when he stumbled across the discovery, able to do nothing but stare in disbelief.
In front of him was a filthy man crouched by a mean fire pit. Fabien, Virmyre’s beautiful roan, lay on the ground, its throat a ragged wound, as if a large stake had punched a hole through the creature. The leaves nearby were splashed with congealing crimson. The roan was missing a foreleg, now sizzling over the meagre flames. The smell of blood was overpowering.
‘You bastard! You killed my horse.’
The man turned to him, saying nothing. Any further rebuke from Lucien died on his lips. He shuddered, stomach knotting, a thick surge of bile in his throat. Two sets of eyes, one pair below the other, stared back. One of the four was an odd blue, the rest three shades of unwholesome green. He looked to have lost his teeth, his lips forming a puckered arsehole below a broken blunted nose. The skin around his eyes and neck was deeply lined, his head bald and massive.
This creature was old.
Suddenly Lucien understood why the fire was so poor. The man had no hands. His wrists extended to black points, sharp and shiny, not unlike his own black fingernails. The right limb was splashed with gore, clearly the source of the roan’s demise. The grotesque didn’t move, only blinked and shivered, chest rising and falling, each exhalation making the sphincter of his mouth tremulous. He was stripped to the waist, skin raddled with discoloration, bruise-purple and jaundice-yellow. Four atrophied arms extended from his broad chest, hanging across his stomach. Each terminated in a withered child-like hand.
Lucien recalled the day the Majordomo had collapsed, remembered the horrors hidden beneath the ash-grey robes. The Domo and the wretch who crouched in front of him had much in common.
Lucien cut four skewers from some wood. He passed them over the flames a moment, burning off splinters, then ran the skewers into slender cuts of the dead roan. He took a moment to bank the fire up. Finally he set the meat above the flames. The toothless man watched with jealous fascination, his many eyes lingering on Lucien’s clever fingers. They waited beneath the trees as Lucien thought of the Orfano he’d killed on the rooftops of Demesne. He’d not been given the chance to feed that starving wretch but saw no reason the man before him should go hungry.
The meat sizzled, browned. Lucien gave the man a skewer, which he struggled to grip between the two pinions of his misshaped limbs. The flaccid ring of a mouth stretched open to reveal mandibles which tore and worried the horse flesh. Lucien looked away, unable to eat or even speak. After a few moments came a wheezing rasp. The grotesque was pointing an appendage at the remaining skewers. Lucien passed another and deliberately looked away, struggling to conceal his revulsion. Gratitude welled up in his chest as he studied his own fingers. Always a symbol of his difference, a source of embarrassment, they were now cherished in a way he’d never considered.
Lucien stood and busied himself, removing the saddle from the still-warm body of his short-lived mount.
‘Not like I was much of a horseman anyway,’ he mumbled. ‘Still, you deserved better than this, Fabien.’
He snatched a glance over his shoulder as the grotesque kept eating. How many more of his kind had been made outcast, hidden away on this windswept isle? How many had been too twisted and warped to serve any purpose? Lucien tugged and fussed with the saddle, performing a quick inventory of his possessions. A gentle tap on the shoulder brought him around sharply, his dagger clenched in his left hand. The wretch shrank back, a manoeuvre that looked as redundant as it was ridiculous; he had to be over six and half feet tall.
‘Sorry. You startled me.’ Lucien looked at the roan. ‘You shouldn’t have stolen my horse. I would have given you food. You mustn’t steal horses.’ He felt absurd, doubting the wretch even understood. He looked up into the mismatched eyes, studying the strange topography of a face wrought hideous.
‘You’re an Orfano, just like me. And this is how they treat us. Forced to live in graveyards and dine on horse meat.’ He regarded the roan. ‘Porca misèria. Virmyre will kill me for this.’
Lucien shook his head, wondering how far it was to the next town. The deformed Orfano loped away, then turned, a wheezing sound escaping the crude ring in his face. He waved the cruel spikes of its arms in agitation. Lucien realised he was being beckoned.
Weeping willows formed the edges, while older oaks towered over all, shedding leaves as winter approached. Coarse grasses grew to chest height, now yellowed with the advance of the season. Not a clearing, Lucien realised; it was in fact a second cemetery. The sanatorio was monstrous for being in plain sight, but the secret graveyard affronted Lucien more. Unease constricted about him, but the faint sting of curiosity also piqued.
The headstones were simpler here. No angels watched over the resting dead, no elaborate crosses decorated the rows of graves, and there were certainly no mausoleums. Lucien spent long minutes resting on his haunches, reading inscriptions. He knelt and scraped moss and guano from where chiselled details had been obscured. The other Orfano stood mute, expression unreadable, seemingly rapt with Lucien’s investigation.
‘There must be nearly sixty graves here,’ said Lucien, as much for his own benefit as for his new companion. He was still undecided if the huge Orfano understood a single word.
‘And I’ll bet they’re all streghe. Every one.’
Lucien kept reading, advancing from grave to grave, then doubled back and rechecked his earlier findings. The wretch scratched at himself and looked around, wishing to be back at the fire perhaps. And the horse meat. He hummed to himself tunelessly, an unkind dirge from his ring-like mouth.
‘They’re born every three years on average,’ offered Lucien. ‘They die at various times, presumably due to complications from their deformities.’
Lucien eyed the wretch and wondered how he’d survived so long.
‘Or perhaps due to more direct action.’
The wretch gave an excited hoot, loping back to the path they had emerged from. The wind exhaled and set the willows to whispering. A raven called out, remaining hidden from view. The
sun had continued its shallow climb while he’d been here, lost in the details of the dead.
Someone approached, and not alone.
Lucien collapsed down behind a gravestone, waiting, feeling cold sweat in the small of his back. His throat was suddenly dry. The silence of the secret graveyard was broken only by the beating of his heart.
The Majordomo appeared at the entrance to the clearing, carrying a body. Lucien’s eyes widened with horror. The wretch scampered in the Domo’s wake, subservient, trailing him like a favourite hound. Lucien’s panic mounted as he realised the Orfano could give him away at any moment, bounding over and drawing the attention of his master.
Instead the wretch began to dig with the spikes of his arms, Lucien’s presence apparently forgotten. The Orfano loosened the surface of the ground, then used both limbs in concert to lift the earth. The Majordomo let the body slump to the ground without ceremony or care. Lucien stole a glance from his hiding place, face pressed against the gravestone. The corpse was familiar to him. His hooded assailant, so keen to throttle him in the gutters of the rooftops, now dead by Lucien’s desperate attack. Seeing the corpse in the dawn light gave new fuel to his shame. Time ground on all too slowly, fraying Lucien’s nerves. He dared to think of sneaking away, but chose stillness over stealth. The Domo had always been preternaturally efficient at detecting him. The wretch continued digging, his breathing becoming more laboured, his wheezing more pronounced. Lucien squeezed his eyes shut, praying the Majordomo was too preoccupied with the burial.
There was a break in the work and Lucien risked another glance. The Domo had grasped the slain Orfano and was depositing the corpse in the crude grave. The wretch loped about, excited hooting escaping the ring of his lips. He dropped to his knees and looked up at his master expectantly. The Domo produced a loaf of bread, placing it between the deformed man’s limbs. This was how the wretch survived, Lucien realised. Another pawn in the Majordomo’s great game. Another cog in Demesne’s macabre machine. Lucien clutched himself, drawing his knees to his chest. Small wonder the Domo’s influence extended beyond the castle walls. Lucien doubted that any corner of Landfall was free of his unholy jurisdiction.
A sharp snap broke the stillness, ravens gained the skies, exploding from the trees in a flurry of black wings. Lucien pressed his face against the gravestone, one eye straining to see what had happened.
‘No more need for you, my friend,’ said the Domo. ‘The endgame is upon us, for better or worse.’ He turned and disappeared among the trees, back along the path, staff holding back branches. Lucien willed himself to stillness, certain Demesne’s steward would return at any moment.
The skies lightened, the disc of the sun became visible over the tops of the trees.
Lucien stood, satisfied he was alone, clutching his knife, for all the small protection it might afford him. He approached the grave cautiously, well aware of the sight waiting in the rude earth. The slain Orfano and the gravedigger lay together in a twisted embrace. In life they had most likely never known each other. Now they had been discarded callously into the same grave.
Lucien made his way back to the fire pit, now smouldering weakly, stamped out by the Majordomo, no doubt. He retrieved the saddle, slung it over his good shoulder with a grunt. Flies buzzed about the corpse of the slaughtered roan, gorging themselves on the congealing blood. Spiders and their various cousins in the order of insects had joined the gathering, already returning the horse to earth in tiny increments.
‘Virmyre is going to kill me, assuming no one else does first.’
Lucien froze in the shadow of the cemetery wall as two House Fontein guardsmen appeared at the gates. The men looked bored and unhappy, their halberds dull in the flat light. The scarlet and black of their uniforms were more subdued than usual, mud-spotted from the road. No guard would relish hunting down a highly trained Orfano. The guards were merely a deterrent, bullies kept in line by tyrants.
Lucien swore as one happened to look up and spot him. Disbelief gave way to anger, and they clutched their weapons more tightly. Lucien turned on his heel and ran, struggling under the weight of the saddle, cursing his luck. Or the lack of it. He longed for a scabbard and a blade at his hip, feeling naked without them. Behind him stifled shouts, the clattering of men in breastplates scaling the cemetery wall. Lucien ran, feet tumbling over themselves. The branches of the copse conspired to hold him back, roots foxing his steps, leaving him sprawling. He emerged from the copse in a tangle of limbs, some of them his own. He took a moment to pick himself up. A surge of elation.
The dull scar of the road cut through the land among patchwork fields and ragged hedgerows. Farmsteads clustered at junctions in the distance. Lucien turned and listened, hoping the guards had given up and turned back to Demesne, reporting to their betters.
It was a short-lived hope.
The guards emerged, muddied and red-faced, exhalations steaming on the chill air. One was missing a helmet, spewing curses and indignation. Their eyes fell on him and Lucien ran, with only the open road ahead of him and nowhere to hide.
12
Diplomatic Intervention
MISTRESS CORVO’S STUDIO
– Settembre 309
‘You should be grateful you have the luxury of such lessons; there’s many that don’t,’ Rafaela told him one morning.
‘Have you ever learned?’
‘To dance?’
‘Of course.’
‘When would I find the time?’ She shook her head, then set down a pile of fresh bedding on the chest in his bedroom. ‘Between keeping this place and helping Camelia I barely have five minutes to myself.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he replied, feeling a twinge of guilt. ‘Maybe I could ask Mistress Corvo to—’
‘That’s a sweet gesture, Lucien, but there’s no need.’
He’d felt curiously raw following her refusal.
‘Lucien, will you pay attention!’ His focus snapped back to the gaunt dance teacher in her studio at House Erudito. He couldn’t shake the feeling: there was something unseemly about her. No one that thin and corpse-like should have so much vitality. She was given to grinning inanely in the presence of nobles, resembling an awful skull, hair gathered up in a bun at her crown. Thick blue veins ran through her hands and up her age-spotted arms. Technically she was part of House Erudito, on account of her status as a teacher, but she spent the greater part of her time clucking around Duchess Prospero. She doted on the duchess’s daughter Stephania, a regular attendee of her classes.
Mistress Corvo treated Lucien no differently to how she treated any other student, which is to say she castigated him in the most caustic language available.
‘Lucien, another blessed hour in your presence. And to think, I could be teaching a dozen young ladies to walk like princesses.’ She rounded on him, slapping and prodding him into posture. ‘Instead I’m teaching an ape to walk. Never let it be said I do not suffer for my art, no?
‘No, Mistress Corvo,’ he managed from gritted teeth.
‘There are some men who are fair of feature and move with beauty. You are not one of these men, Lucien. Nor will you grow into one, I think. Still, we must work with what we have.’
Lucien hated the dance studio: full-length mirrors greeted him at every turn. Mistress Corvo insisted he tie his hair back during lessons. While this did not reveal his missing ears, he could not find any peace. His self-consciousness manifested with greater intensity with each passing year. Now eleven years old, he wondered if he could bear to make it to his teens. He squeezed his eyes shut to be spared his reflection for a second, took a breath, then set his gaze on the withered teacher
She had been especially exacting of late, abandoning their work on a tarantella to teach him a rather more sedate gavotte. He’d not minded. The constant rattle of the tambourine with its effete ribbons, so essential for the tarantella, had tested his nerves. She’d even foregone her attempts to make him do ballet, much to his relief.
&nbs
p; ‘I can’t bear it,’ she shrieked one afternoon. ‘You’re beyond incompetent. You make the incompetent look graceful. I’d rather teach servants.’
‘Maybe you should, and stop torturing me with this horrible shit,’ he muttered. Not quietly enough, as it turned out. He’d been barred from lessons for a week and forced to help muck out the stables. Not much of a punishment, as he rather enjoyed it.
Now he was learning to dance with a partner, and he suspected he knew why. Noble children were often called on to dance with each other at La Festa. The idea of performing like a trained dog mortified Lucien. The dance teacher had icy-cold hands, and Lucien recoiled from touching her. Her breath was strangely odourless, and being so close to her filled him with disgust. He never embraced anyone except Camelia, who occasionally swept him into a bear hug.
‘I see no reason you shouldn’t learn some court dancing now that you’re eleven,’ snapped Mistress Corvo. ‘A boy like you will be quite sought after next year.’
‘Only if I grow some ears,’ mumbled Lucien sourly.
‘What?’
‘Ah . . . I said, “I hope I get taller next year.” ’
Mistress Corvo squinted at him, opening her mouth to say something, then thought better of it.
La Festa del Ringraziamento was the one time of the year the Orfani were officially gathered together in the same room. Twelve months from now he’d be made to dance with an empty-headed noble’s daughter, probably a halfwit from House Allatamento. Golia would be there, glowering at Giancarlo’s heels like a wolfhound. Anea would put in the slightest of appearances. She stayed as long as etiquette dictated and not a minute longer.
Lucien hated La Festa. He loathed that moment of walking through the double doors, being announced by the steward of the house, only to find himself staring back into the dismissive faces of courtiers and pages. Worse still, he never knew what to say, either to his peers or anyone else. He’d be fussed over by some teachers and blanked by others. The nobles of the four families would try to outdo each other in their finery, duelling with sharpened slights and veiled put-downs.