Daughter of Lies and Ruin

by Jo Spurrier

  Kara started towards her, but I quickly stepped in front of her. ‘I’ll come help,’ I said. With one more dark look for my teacher, Kara came away with me, heading towards the milling men.

  They’d been a sorry-looking bunch to start with, and between our defence of the wagon and then the rout from the witch’s beasts, each and every one looked bedraggled and forlorn. A number of them clustered around Holt, talking fiercely and sending wary glances our way.

  It was probably wiser not to intrude upon those affairs. I turned away, but made sure I could keep watch on them from the corner of my eye.

  Instead I turned to a lad who seemed to be the youngest of the troupe. He sat against the stony wall with his knees drawn up to his chest and his right arm cradled across his chest. He was deeply tanned with sun-bleached hair and he looked close to tears, but when I started towards him he lifted his chin and hurriedly sniffed them away.

  ‘How bad is it?’ I asked him, crouching down on my heels in front of him.

  ‘Oh, it’s, it’s naught,’ he started to say, but as soon as he tried to move he paled with a hiss of pain, just as the ring on my finger hummed again. ‘Oh, well, it might be broken. I suppose. That rotten bear got me.’

  ‘Mm.’ It was certainly swollen enough. Not that I had a lot of experience with this sort of thing. ‘Well, it looks to be straight still, that’s a blessing.’ I pointed to the stout stick lying on the rocks beside him. He didn’t have a sword; that stick was the nearest thing he had to a weapon. ‘You could use that as a splint for now. You’ll need something for padding, though. Maybe if we cut the sleeves off your shirt? D’you want me to help?’

  He glanced around furtively, then swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Could you?’

  He had to be close to my age, and decent-looking too, with the sort of muscle a lad gets from working in the fields — not that I was looking exactly, I just couldn’t help but notice as I cut the sleeves from his shirt and tore them into strips. I tried to hold my tongue, but it didn’t take long for my curiosity to get the better of me. ‘Why d’you do this?’

  He looked at me briefly before his eyes slid away. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Don’t play the fool,’ I said. ‘Why do you rob people on the roads?’

  He looked down at his good hand and flushed. ‘It’s easy money, Holt said. We weren’t going to hurt anyone, not really. And I . . . I need the coin, see? My mam is sick, she has been for months. We’ve been calling the physician out all the bloody time; but there’s naught left to pay him with. We’ve got a cow, just the one, and my old man promised the physic we’d sell her once she’s had her calf and pay him then. But if we do that there’ll be no milk for my little brothers until the calf’s old enough to breed, and that’s if she even drops a heifer and not a bull, and if it lives; and I ask you, what’s the calf going to eat if we sell her dam away? I thought, if I can get a little money we can hold the sawbones off for a bit longer, or maybe just buy a nanny goat so Mam and the boys can have some milk.’

  I’d been waiting for the amethyst ring to hum at me, but it never did. ‘I suppose there’s not much honest work around these parts.’

  He dropped his gaze. ‘Not really. Not a lot.’ There it was. The ring on my finger hummed like a bee. ‘And then you and your missus came along and everything’s gone to shit,’ he went on, bitterly.

  I sighed. ‘Oh come on. You don’t expect the people you rob to try and fight back? Maybe the money’s not so easy after all.’

  He glowered at me. ‘It’s all ruined now anyway. Only them who fight get a share of the spoils and I can’t do a thing with this ruddy arm broken, here or at home. Why couldn’t you just—’

  ‘Just what?’ I said. ‘Let you rob us?’

  He pressed his lips tight together and pulled the cloth I was winding out of my hand. ‘I can do the rest meself.’

  ‘If you like,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’

  When I looked around the rest of the troupe, the only person who would meet my gaze was Kara. She glanced around with a frown and then came over to me, wiping bloody hands on a handkerchief she must have soaked in the stream. ‘Maybe you should let me and Holt see to the rest of them,’ she said. ‘Might be best.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Just can’t imagine why they don’t seem to like me.’

  ‘It’s just the way of things,’ she said. ‘You want them to be happy you trounced them and then got them attacked by wild beasts?’

  ‘They didn’t have to attack us.’

  ‘You didn’t have to trick them into it!’ Kara hissed. ‘All right, they’re scum. You know it, I know it. My da is too. But he’s still my da, the only one I’ve got!’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s why we’re still here.’

  She pressed her lips together. ‘When are you going to take us back?’

  I looked across at Aleida. ‘When she says it’s safe. I’ll go ask.’

  ‘All right. Um, Dee?’

  ‘Yeah?’ I said.

  ‘Thanks. And I’m sorry; I know I’m being a right bitch. I don’t mean to be, I’m just . . . I’ve been so worried . . .’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I won’t hold it against you. Let me go talk to my mistress, okay?’

  The rocks slid and rolled beneath my feet as I went to where Aleida sat.

  ‘Well, Dee,’ she said as I crouched beside her. ‘Were you touched by their gratitude?’

  ‘I didn’t help him for the sake of gratitude,’ I said archly. ‘Besides, it’s our fault they got clobbered by those beasts, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘It was their choice to stick their noses into our business. They could have just stayed in the rocks and watched the whole affair from afar. Or, you know, stayed home in the first place instead of trying their hands at highway robbery.’

  ‘So they deserve what they get, then?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ She cocked an eyebrow at me, studying me with her dark eyes. ‘Oh, good grief, do you really feel sorry for them?’

  I bristled at that — on the surface at least. Inside, my heart seemed to shrink, turning icy cold. ‘Fine,’ I snapped. ‘I’m a soft-hearted fool with all the sense of a newborn lamb, and if I ever strayed out on my own I’d be robbed blind before I’d gone a mile.’ I folded my arms tight across my chest and blinked back tears that stung in my eyes.

  Beside me, my teacher was silent and still. ‘That sounds like your blasted stepfather talking,’ she said at last. ‘Dee, what I said came out wrong, I didn’t mean it that way.’

  ‘How did you mean it, then?’

  She rubbed her head again, wincing. ‘I meant, you’ve got empathy by the wagon-load. It’s something I don’t have a lot of, and I know full well that’s not a good thing. But too much can be just as crippling as too little, so maybe just have a care with it, all right?’

  Now it was my turn to be silent, thinking her words over. ‘I guess I’m just trying to understand why they’re doing it,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s so stupid! They’re like children playing a ridiculous game. Lurking on the roads, playing at being highwaymen like it’s just a big lark! And it’s not as though their mamas never taught them that stealing is wrong. What do they think is going to happen? It’s like watching a puppy wander into the bull’s pen; you just know the poor dumb beast is going to get the walloping of its life.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Aleida said. ‘They’re either going to kill someone or get killed themselves, and then Lord Belmont will come along and hang them. It’s just . . . pointless. Then again, it’s not like anyone ever needed a reason to do something stupid.’

  I bit my lip for a moment, thinking. ‘But you used to be like that, weren’t you? Before Gyssha found you, you said you were a thief.’ She’d told me that story once before — Gyssha had found her after she’d been caught stealing, and was in a dungeon waiting to have her hand cut off.

  She shifted on the stones. ‘I’d say it’s not the same, but I bet every one of those fools has a reas
on why they’re not like the others, why it’s okay for them, just this once.’

  ‘So why did you do it?’

  With a low chuckle, she picked up a water-rounded pebble and rolled it between her fingers. ‘My sisters taught me when I was just little — they practically raised me, you know, since Ma was either out working or drunk. We’d head down to the marketplace first thing in the morning to beg for food, or steal it if folk were stingy. They taught me to filch things from stalls and handcarts, or from the baskets of folk walking by. Most people won’t beat a tiny child who gets caught thieving, and I learned pretty quickly to weep and wail and beg for mercy — and run for it as soon as I could wriggle free. My sisters made such a fuss when I got something good! They’d praise me to the moon!’

  I found myself thinking of little Maisie, back home, and what I’d do if she woke up crying of hunger and there was nothing to eat. ‘They were all you had,’ I said. ‘Just like Kara’s da.’

  She shrugged then, a faint smile on her lips.

  Then I remembered the conversation we’d had earlier that day, and shook my head. ‘I still can’t believe you didn’t find them after you left Gyssha.’

  I regretted the words as soon as I said them, but that faint smile never left her lips. ‘I guess I’m just cold-hearted, like you said.’

  ‘Oh clearly,’ I said tartly, turning back to the would-be bandits huddled together at the far end of the cave, as far from us as they could easily get, and I felt myself frown. ‘I wish there was something we could do. I just know it’s all going to go badly for them, and I wish someone could slap some sense into them and send them home before it gets that far. Before someone really gets hurt. Even their own stupid selves.’

  ‘Mm,’ Aleida said. ‘You and me both, kid.’

  I gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Can’t you do something? A compulsion, or something, to send them away?’

  She heaved a sigh. ‘Sure. I could make them pack up and go home. But the moment it wore off, they’d turn around and come back. Mind control is temporary, Dee, you can’t just make someone be a decent person when they don’t want to be. They have to decide that for themselves.’

  I clenched my teeth in frustration, bunching my skirt in my hands. ‘I just . . . it feels like there should be something we can do!’

  ‘’Fraid not. See, this is why I prefer my way of dealing with it. It’s not my problem. They’ve chosen the noose already, just like I chose the axe when I was a thief back in Stone Harbour.’

  ‘But someone saved you from that fate.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Aleida said, gazing out over the water. ‘And look where it got her. Honestly, Dee, I’m probably not the best person to talk over these questions of morality. It should be pretty clear by now that I’m bumbling around in the dark.’

  ‘Not completely,’ I said. ‘I mean, you came here for the Haven, and that place was lovely.’

  ‘Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day.’

  I could see there was no use talking further on that matter. ‘So. What do we do now?’

  ‘Nothing, for a bit. I need to rest, and I expect this witch’ll have those beasts searching around for a while, trying to figure out where we’ve gone.’

  ‘She can’t follow us in here, can she?’

  ‘Nope. Even if she can use pathways, she’d never be able to find the exact one you used. Eventually she’ll give up and call her beasts home, and then we’ll be safe to come out.’

  ‘And will that be the end of it?’

  She grimaced. ‘Maybe. If we just walk away, chances are she’ll let us leave without any more trouble. We meddled in her business, she meddled in ours — we’re even, more or less. That’s assuming she’s not a vicious snake like Gyssha was, of course.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to leave without the money,’ I said, archly.

  ‘There is that. Like I said, I don’t really care. But I don’t want those pricks to keep it, especially if it means the Haven’s losing out. I could track them down when we get out and get it back.’ She glanced across at me. ‘Though I know already you won’t like that. And I suppose I’m not exactly in a fit state to deal with them. Let me think on it a bit. We’ve got some time to kill, after all.’

  ‘And what are we going to do about Kara?’

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. ‘Ugh, Dee! You know she’s not going anywhere willingly without her father, and I’d really rather not chain her up and drag her away. So what would you have us do, Miss Empath?’

  I hugged my knees to my chest. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, if you come up with any brilliant ideas, let me know.’ She leaned back against the stone and heaved a sigh. ‘Now, I really need to rest.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘All right. Let me tell Kara that we’ll be here a little while longer.’ She did care, at least a little bit, I was sure of that. She was just doing her best to hide it. I still couldn’t understand how she could walk away from her family like she had but I knew there had to be a reason for it. She just wasn’t willing to tell me.

  Kara was standing by the pebbled shore with her thumbs hooked into her belt, looking over the dark water. She frowned as I relayed what Aleida had said about waiting for the witch to give up. ‘I suppose that’s best,’ she said. ‘Here’s hoping those candle stubs can last us a while longer.’

  I was too distracted to reply. Beside my foot, a little stone was emerging from the pebbles by the water’s edge, like a mushroom heaving up from the soil. It wasn’t round like the water-washed rocks around it, but merely roundish, with flat faces that glimmered in the faint light.

  It popped free from the earth and rolled with a clink against the neighbouring stones. Kara glanced down, and then jumped back as a second little rock popped up beside the first. She gave me a wide-eyed look. ‘I’ll, I’ll go tell Holt,’ she said, and scrambled away.

  I gathered up my skirts and crouched down to collect the stones. I couldn’t see Facet, but I knew he was nearby, lurking somewhere under my feet. ‘Thanks, friend,’ I murmured. The stones didn’t look like much, honestly. They looked to be plain black and opaque, like shining little lumps of coal; but Facet thought them worth giving as gifts and I wouldn’t be so churlish as to refuse.

  Rattling them together in my palm, I went back to Aleida and settled beside her. ‘I’m going to check on Maggie and Toro,’ I murmured to her when she stirred and cracked open one eye. She gave a weary grunt of assent and settled back to her doze.

  I closed my eyes and turned my attention to my breath, slipping bit by bit into a trance.

  We weren’t all that far from the surface, I realised as I stretched my senses into the rocks and earth around us. Only a few hundred yards — but it was a few hundred yards no human could traverse. Beyond this little bubble within the rock, there were only fractures and cracks for the water to flow through. But, following the flowing water for a-ways, I eventually found moist soil and plants, and from there earthworms and other small creatures, and finally I found my way to the surface. There, I found a sparrow fossicking for seed amid the patchy grass. Once I’d settled into the little fluttering body I didn’t have to concentrate so hard on keeping myself in the trance.

  The first thing I did was fly to the shelter of a tree and perch close to the trunk, where the branches would give me some protection. The very first lesson Aleida had taught me about borrowing was to be wary of beasts of prey. No matter how careful you were, how cautious and how watchful, we could never be as skilled as the beast itself at avoiding predators. All the same, I didn’t think it wise to search further for a hawk or some other creature higher on the food chain. The witch had used an eagle to spy upon us earlier, and there was every chance the bird was still around. Something as small as a sparrow, staying sheltered under a canopy, would be safer than a hawk in the open air.

  I set out carefully, flitting from tree to tree in an ever-widening circle, and before long I found myself beside the familiar w
hite rock of the Scar. From there I started to explore in expanding circles, searching for any sign of our assailants, and eventually I found the tracks left by our hasty retreat.

  There was no sign of the bear or the lion. One griffin remained, perched on a boulder near the place where I’d opened the doorway, as though standing guard. It didn’t appear to notice the tiny sparrow hopping under the enormous rounded stones.

  I was more worried about Toro, who’d risked life and limb to draw the lion away from us. But in searching for him, I found the troupe of five marked men, their faces sour and spiteful. A couple of them were wounded, with one of them moving very stiffly, dark blood crusting his shirt. They seemed to be heading back towards the Scar, and I wondered what they’d make of it when they found Holt’s troupe vanished without a trace, and the griffin standing guard over our trail.

  I winged past them and kept searching.

  Back towards the road, I found Toro sheltering in a dense copse of trees. He was still blowing hard with his flanks streaked with sweat. He was covered with cuts and scratches, but it seemed that he’d taken no real harm. I flitted to a branch near his head and trilled at him, and he lifted his head with a snort of surprise, ears pricking towards me. Could he guess it was one of us? He must have no idea what had happened to us, and I could think of no way of telling him we were all safe underground. Any further communication was beyond me, however, and with another trill I took wing once again and fluttered away.

  Heading back towards the Scar I found a patch of crushed grass smeared with blood — a place where the injured lion had lain and rested.

  I retreated to a nearby tree and studied the sky. Was the eagle still out there? All morning it had been somewhere above us, but since I was so careful to keep under cover I couldn’t see well enough to know if it was still there. Had it gone home along with the other two beasts, or was it still up there somewhere, watching?

  There were flies buzzing around the spilled blood. My sparrow kept turning back to them, thinking of its belly, but my attention was drawn more to the gore smeared over the dry grass.