Sourdough and Other Stories

by Angela Slatter

  She’d be a princess, I told myself. She’d have the best. I handed her over with barely a qualm. And I woke the next day to find myself sleeping in the street and the house not merely empty, not merely stripped of all the familiar things I’d come to expect, but simply gone. The place I’d called home all gone in the night.

  It was a big city, but I could have found them. I could have sought him out and asked Why? He’d gone to such trouble, though, to hide—it would be stupid to make him angry by following him. I did not think myself stupid. The child was not mine. She would have a good life, little Jessamyn. The best I could do was to leave her there. I was not her mother, after all.

  But I know, too, that when I gave the child away, all my luck turned bad.

  Now I would not ruin the happy existence I’d imagined for her by telling her dam where she might be found.

  ***

  The first ray of light brings Gwenllian back to my prison. She sees my expression and does not ask again. My answer is plain, even among the scars.

  Out in the courtyard a pyre is waiting. They tie me to the stake and throw pitch over me and the wood, so we will burn faster. I think of the girl, how Jessamyn cannot be worse off. How even death would be preferable to life with this woman who gave birth to her with no more thought than an apple tree puts forth fruit.

  A small crowd of servants has gathered. There is a young girl with the whitest of hair and dreaming blue eyes. She holds a doll that’s almost as big as she is. We smile at each other, but a woman, who might be her mother, hurries her away. ‘Bitsy, don’t look, her kind will curse you.’

  The Lady Gwenllian does not come down, but I know she watches from the tower. As the smoke reaches my lungs, I cough, this time a dry hack that gasps for air. I feel the flames nip at my toes, catch my dress, and I tell myself that I am being warmed by an inn fire. I can almost believe it until the pain licks through me. My last comfort comes with Gwenllian’s screams.

  My magic lives only as long as I do. In that high room, her arms and neck and lovely face are prickling and peeling and burning, a smell of pork filling the air. When I am gone she will not forget me, nor her broken bargain.

  THE STORY OF INK

  THE GIRL is thin, flat-chested and badly dressed, but her hair is dark and glossy and her cheekbones high. Her skin is clear and glowing. The torn sleeve of her dress shows the tiny red flash on her shoulder I’ve been told to look for—‘Get closer’, he said ‘and it will be a tiny red crown.’ She’s easy to recognise, all things considered. The old man’s charge, a runaway.

  He’s paying. I’ve got instructions; he says she’s his ward, so she’s his ward.

  I watch a while longer, the better to know my quarry. She laughs and jokes with the stall-holders in the market and the other whores—these girls work the streets, they’ve not got the protection of one of the pleasure inns. This isn’t the fancy market at Busynothings Alley either. It’s just as busy but nowhere near as clean, nor as reputable. This is Half-moon Lane, out in the slums, where people live packed on top of one another, where the truly desperate find a home in the sewers and some even live in the hollows at the base of the city walls.

  Strictly speaking, it’s far too wide for a lane, more like an avenue or a boulevard but, well, there you go. Here you can buy the usual bits of food and spice, pots and pans, but there are also potions and poisons to be had. If it’s an assassin you’re after then try any of the taverns that line the pavement, and if it’s love you’re in need of and don’t want to pay the overheads of an inn-bred whore, then we can fulfil those requirements, too. Girls just as pretty but cheaper, and with a shared room at the top of one of the perilous staircases that cling to the sides of the buildings. Just watch out for the pimps, that’s all.

  How this pampered princess came to be here is a mystery. You can see she’s had a soft start in life, it shines through whatever’s happened to her on the streets. But almost everything else is as the old man said it would be. Almost. What I didn’t expect, what he didn’t tell me, probably didn’t know, is what she’s carrying: a baby. Wrapped in ragged but clean blue cloth, a boy if tradition’s anything to go by, maybe a year old.

  I rap my cane on the roof of the carriage and the driver knows to gee-up the horses and pull us over to the other side of the thoroughfare, stopping just near the girl. Pennyworth gets down and opens the door, unravelling the fine metal steps so I can descend.

  Around me the noise stops and I’m pleased with the effect I have. My outfit is cut like a riding habit, although I’ve never been on a horse in my life. Blue velvet the same shade as my eyes, the short jacket is fitted and detailed with silver braid; the skirt is full and falls like water. Around my wrist is a pearl bracelet and on my right index finger, a white-gold ring, filigreed, with a moonstone setting. I love the tricorn hat that perches on my dark red curls. The silver-topped cane I clutch in my right hand is another fine gift from my employer. (He said I should be protected and showed me how to slide the blade out from the bottom section.) The fact that I’m only eleven completes the strength of the impression I make.

  I take small precise paces toward the girl, holding my skirts so they won’t drag in the mess and muss. She watches me, the corner of her mouth lifting in amusement. There’s nothing unkind in it, but it annoys me, that she doesn’t take me seriously. My outfit, my poise, my position were all hard won and here’s this street-whore laughing at me.

  I taste the acid of resentment, but I paste a smile on my face. No point in showing her what I feel. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, my old mum used to say, when she was sober enough to say anything.

  ‘What’s your name, lovely?’ I ask her and she laughs. She really is beautiful.

  ‘Jessamyn, but for a quarter-gold it can be whatever you like,’ she grins to let me know she’s joking. She jiggles the baby on her hip and looks at me amiably. ‘You’re a little young for my services, darling.’

  ‘I make you a proposition on behalf of my master,’ I tell her, lifting my hands in a magnanimous gesture, the cane twirling in the fingers of one hand, then hopping across to the other. I’m still thinking, trying to figure out what to offer her, what will tip the odds in my favour.

  ‘Indeed? And what does he propose, this man who sends a child into the streets?’ Her face displays distaste now and I can’t help myself.

  ‘What I do, I do willingly. Don’t be fooled by my size, missy. I choose to be here and I am no man’s whore,’ I hiss, displaying more of myself than I would like. She recoils and looks ashamed, to have shown herself judging of me when she’s the one walking the streets, some stray get on her hip.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says and I can tell she is. ‘Let’s start again, shall we? I’m Jessamyn.’

  I take a deep, calming breath and smile brightly. ‘And I’m Livilla. My master asks that you come to visit. Perhaps that you will stay, if you find his house and company agreeable.’

  ‘And how does your master know me?’ The baby’s strong little hands curl around her fingers and she gives him a distracted smile. How hard is her life with this one to keep? But she has not let him go like so many of them do. She did not get rid of him by drinking some witch’s brew. She keeps him close; that should tell me something about her.

  ‘He has driven by in his carriage.’ I gesture over my shoulder at the fine black conveyance with its silver trappings, but conspicuously lacking a coat-of-arms or any device that might mark it out. ‘He’s an important man, is my master, and it wouldn’t do for him to be seen approaching a woman on the street . . .’

  ‘Indeed not,’ she says and gives a laugh. The baby giggles too, hearing her. He grabs a handful of her lush black hair and gently plays with it. I wonder what my master will do with this little man. Farm him out? Send him to one of the orphanages? Keep him at home and raise him right? I cannot tell.

  ‘Just come and see. One visit. A good hot meal for the boy-bee. Nice bath for you. I’ll look after the boy-bee. Nothing too
strenuous, for my master is venerable.’

  ‘Isn’t venerable just a big word for old?’ she asks, all mirth.

  I ignore her and go on, ‘Just one visit and if you like it then think about staying. Better to be in one of the fancy houses. Better to raise the boy in a safe place, to let him be educated by tutors, rather than thieves. What do you want him to grow up to be? Honest man with a good trade, or a pickpocket?’

  Her eyes darken. The child rubs his face against her neck like a puppy seeking a pat. She runs a hand over him as if to check that he’s not too thin, not too deprived. He’s a fat happy baby, but I don’t tell her that, don’t offer reassurance.

  ‘Alright,’ she says.

  I try to simply look pleased and not triumphant, as if this is a happy result for both of us. As if this won’t bring me a longed-for reward. A place of my own, one of the tiny townhouses that border the richer cantons, newly built for the newly respectable, in the row that burnt down last year in a conveniently tidy fashion (a most controlled conflagration, it has been noted). A little house over four floors and no one to share it with, new-fangled plumbing and a handkerchief garden out the front. All my own.

  Pennyworth’s waited by the coach, now he bows politely as I usher the ragamuffin in and follow her quickly. I flutter my lashes at him and he knows to turn the lock after he rolls up the steps. The door on the other side of the coach has been long ago fused shut.

  Inside we rest on velvet red seats, comfortably firm, but soft to touch. We both sit so as to face forward when the carriage moves. In the middle of the seatback is a panel and I slide it smoothly out: a small contraption with a crystal decanter and two glasses sitting in their own elegant case. Some freshly-made sweetmeats wait in a fine dish suspended in a kind of silver cage. I know they’re laced with an opiate, so even though they make my mouth water I cannot partake. Although, perhaps, for later, when I need to sleep, I will pocket one.

  I pour her a drink and she accepts it graciously, nodding to me over the rim of the glass. The baby tries to grab at it and she gently shushes him. He whimpers but settles. I break off a corner of a sweetmeat and push it into his mouth; it will calm him if nothing else. I offer her a fresh piece but she shakes her head.

  ‘I prefer apples. Lost my taste for sweetmeats after I gorged myself sick on them once,’ she says and I curse inwardly. The tokay isn’t drugged—the old man insisted she would take the sweetmeats, so he didn’t drug the alcohol, so I could have some too and not raise suspicions by insisting she drink alone.

  She lifts one of the shades and looks out the window. She goes pale; she must recognise the way we’re going.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘No!’

  ‘C’mon, love, I’m taking you home,’ I try to sound sympathetic, but it doesn’t seem to help. Her eyes go wide and she’s panicking, but she still doesn’t hit me. That’s the advantage, I guess, of being a kid. She tries the door on her side and finds the handle useless, then pushes past me to get to my door, but all for nought.

  ‘You don’t understand. You don’t know what he’s like.’

  ‘Come now, calm down. He’s your guardian and he just wants you to come home. Be a family, like.’ I twist the top of my ring and the miniscule sharp spike pops up. I grab her arm and scratch the skin, carving a thin furrow that fills with red. She yelps but it doesn’t take long for the poison to work. I have to grab the baby from her so she doesn’t drop him as she falls into a deep, deep sleep.

  ***

  ‘And then,’ I say, feeding the boy another spoonful of stewed apples, ‘the girl unravelled her hair and let it down the side of the tower so the prince could climb up.’

  ‘Don’t know why you’re filling his head with nonsense,’ grumbles the cook. She doesn’t like kids, which was why I was such a cause of concern when I came along just over a year ago. She ranted that she’d only taken the job because there were no children—didn’t complain to the gentleman who pays our wages, mind. Eventually she had to admit I wasn’t really a child, only in my form. My brain is as sharp as an adult’s with a man’s ambition and a woman’s perseverance. My master would often comment on what a force I would be if only I were grown. He says he saw it in me even when I was an urchin—that’s why he plucked me off the street. But I can wait. I will grow.

  ‘He’s just a baby.’

  ‘Brat it is, street-get,’ she sneers. ‘Boss never could resist a stray.’

  She eyes me caustically. She speaks as if he acts out of altruism. That’s a laugh.

  Jessamyn is upstairs, sleeping. The driver carried her to her old room. Master saw the baby and I didn’t like the look that crossed his face. He’s been searching for the girl for over a year and I think—I know—he wanted her to still be pure. The child is an irrefutable sign of how impure she’s become. No matter, no matter, he muttered.

  ***

  I wander up the stairs, the baby in my arms. He’s sleepy and I think to put him on my bed. Perhaps to take him to see his mother, first. The room is locked but I carry a key on my chatelaine’s belt. Now the daughter of the house is back, my place will not be the same—no matter, for I will soon have my own abode and my own servants.

  I smile as I push the door open.

  She is not there. The coverlet is disturbed as if by the tossing of a body in anxious sleep. She should not, could not, would not have woken by herself so she has been taken. I put the slumbering baby down, surround him with pillows so he doesn’t roll off the high mattress and break and wail. There is a drool stain on the shoulder of my fine blue velvet.

  I take the staircase that winds up to the attic room.

  It is unlocked, which means His Lordship is being unusually inattentive, distracted no doubt by this new acquisition. There have been other girls over the years, but I’ve never known any of them to cause my master to lose his customary caution. I don’t usually come here; I know he doesn’t like it, but I feel compelled to go on.

  I open the door. It is well-oiled and makes no sound. I slip inside and stand in the shadows.

  The ceiling is high and hung with censers and lanterns, but the light doesn’t make it to the very corners, as if darkness insists upon residing here and will not be defied. The scent of dead roses and incense is strong. A long window, running almost the length of the room, looks out over the city. There are benches and cupboards and chests, and bookshelves line the walls, although their contents have spilled onto the floor in some places. There is a disorder I do not associate with this man.

  Jessamyn lies on a high table, naked on top of a clean white sheet and face down. Her head is turned to the side so she can breathe; a trickle of spittle shines at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes are open but glazed. She looks frail and pale, there’s nothing round or soft or curvy to suggest she’s a young mother.

  Archbishop Bigod has set aside his red and purple robes and wears a plain black cassock. He is tall and thin like the girl, and appears to be in his middling years. Pennyworth whispered to me that our master is older than he looks. Iron grey hair is brushed back, a widow’s peak making his visage seem even longer than it is. His cheekbones are high, sharp and angular. His eyes are dark, dark blue. Something in the cast of his face and hers tells me that their blood is closer than he would have me think. He runs his hands down her back, checking for imperfections. Satisfied, he leans away and breathes deeply, eyes closed.

  Bigod takes a bottle from the bench next to him and cracks the seal of wax around its sturdy neck. He pulls the stopper out and throws the bottle into the space over Jessamyn. I can hear him intoning an incantation.

  Ink spills out, staining the air, but only the vial falls to the floor, empty. The liquid hovers above the girl’s back. Then the old man claps his hands and it sounds very loud in the silence of the attic. Black tendrils float down and settle onto the snowy skin. It moves around like snakes and beetles, writhing until it has formed a pattern.

  ‘Livilla,’ he says and I jump. I should have known he would sense my p
resence.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Come closer, so you can see better.’ He doesn’t even glance over his shoulder at me. I step into the lit part of the room and stand on the opposite side of the table to him. He gestures to the canvas of his ward. ‘This map will cost me dearly, but it will lead me to the place I need to go.’

  ‘She is really your daughter?’ He is not often talkative, so I will take this chance.

  He nods. ‘Lost and now found, soon to be lost again. A long game, this one; having her in secret, then stealing her away.’

  I don’t understand. ‘Why hide it? All of it?’

  He gives me a withering look. ‘An archbishop with a child? A child fathered for this single purpose? I must be patient with my flock’s sins, Livilla, but their tolerance of my sins is not so great.’

  ‘Is it worth it? This map?’

  ‘Not just a map, but a conduit. It will give me dominion over the dead,’ he says as if that is an answer. ‘There is a price to pay, of course. All things of value must be purchased, little one.’

  He bends down and whispers something to his daughter. The girl rolls over, her smile lazy. A dagger lies on the bench and he takes it up, puts the point of it against her chest, not right in the middle where he’ll get stuck on the breast bone, but to the left a bit. At first there’s just the shadow, then a dent in the flesh, next a pinprick of blood bursting through the skin and finally a great jet of red and Jessamyn sighs. I can almost see her spirit go, fleeing her mouth.