Daughter of Lies and Ruin

by Jo Spurrier

  The smoke was coming from a rough barricade of dead, dry branches, bundled together into hurdles and set alight. On our side of the barricade there was a large caravan — only I could see now that it was truly no such thing. On each wagon, what looked from the outside like a heavy load of barrels and bales was only a façade made of barrels cut in half and nailed together, with an oilcloth thrown over the top for a roof. There was space inside each one for a dozen men. A trap had been set all right, but it was not Holt and his hapless comrades who had laid the bait.

  From above, I could see it all at a glance — there were a few knots of fighting still, but some of the bandits had surrendered already, and those who hadn’t were fleeing through the rocks, with soldiers hard on their heels.

  Aleida circled the chaos once, and then settled on a boulder beside the road with a rustle of her black feathers. Feeling uncertain, I glided down to land beside her. We must have stuck out like sore thumbs here, black birds against the pale, smooth boulders, but none of the men paid us any mind over the shouts and grunts of effort and the ring of steel.

  On the road, pinned against the boulders, the marked men were making their last stand. One of them was down, wounded but alive. It was the same man who’d tackled me earlier, his shirt still bearing stains of blood where the griffin’s claws had dug into his back and shoulders, and he sat, legs sprawled, one hand pressed to his side as fresh blood seeped into the dust. He still held his sword, though, and the soldiers around him were wary, keeping their distance.

  The rest of the marked men had been split into two groups, each outnumbered, and they cursed and swore as they slashed and parried.

  Two men in merchant’s garb stood back to watch with mild interest, chatting as though they’d happened to meet at a market on a fine day.

  Aleida tilted her head to watch the soldiers with the crow’s beady black eyes. ‘Looks like it’s just as well Minerva didn’t take the deal,’ she croaked. ‘I’d be truly cross if I’d managed to set it up only to have something like this spoil my plans.’

  ‘It looks like they’re playing with them,’ I said. ‘Like cats with a mouse.’

  ‘In a way. They’re not getting out of this, and everyone knows it. But they’d rather fight to the death than be taken alive, and if they can they’ll take others out with them. The soldiers are just playing it safe.’

  As I watched, one of the marked men lunged, striking out just a bit too far. The soldier who was his target nimbly darted back and one of his fellows lunged in and jabbed his sword into the bandit’s thigh. In moments, the bandit was down in the dust, and the soldiers were upon him, disarming him and dragging him away.

  ‘And there you see it,’ Aleida said. ‘Armund’s mark. Sounds good on paper, but not as useful as you’d think when you’re outnumbered and have your back to the wall. Say what you like of Toro’s troupe, they did manage to survive a cursed lot longer than these idiots. Let’s go, Dee, we’ve got work to do.’ She spread her wings, ready to leap up and take flight, but a movement among the boulders caught my eye.

  ‘Wait!’ I said.

  She settled back onto the boulder, folding her wings, and gave me a curious look.

  The soldiers who’d set off into the boulders were returning, shoving their prisoners along ahead of them, all of them dusty and downcast and bloodied here and there. Among them, I saw the young lad whose broken arm I’d helped to bind underground. And near the rear, her blonde hair coming loose from its braid and the sheath of her sword empty at her side, was Kara.

  I fair flew down the stairs of the caravan, tugging at my wand to free it from my belt. Toro had returned at some point while we were distracted — from the way he held himself, head up and ears pricked, he already knew something was afoot.

  ‘Dee, wait!’ Aleida called from behind me.

  ‘I can’t just leave her there!’ I cried. ‘I can’t!’ Even if the nuns back at the Haven swore she’d been kidnapped by force, no one would believe it now she’d been caught with the bandits unbound, unharmed and armed with a sword.

  ‘Stop, Dee,’ Aleida snapped from the doorway.

  ‘We have to do something!’

  ‘We will, all right? Just slow down, take a breath. We’re not going in there unprepared. Come back here for a minute, I want you to carry the bag for me. Lord and Lady, I do not need this right now.’

  Reluctantly I came back to the base of the steps, shifting my weight from foot to foot with impatience as she collected some flasks and vials from the cabinets and shoved them into an old satchel, except for one tiny bottle, which she tucked into the front of her dress before descending the steps. She was still walking on dog’s feet, and thrust the bag towards me before collecting her staff.

  ‘Hurry!’ I said.

  ‘Calm down, Dee. They’re not going to just put everyone to the sword, this isn’t wartime. They’ll march them all back this way away from all the smoke and find a nice tree to hang them from. We’ll meet them on the way.’

  She set out, leading the way towards the road, and as we walked she fished out the tiny bottle. It was very beautiful, with the glass set into a kind of golden frame, to which the cap was fastened with a tiny chain, more like a scent bottle than the usual flasks and vials we used for potions. Aleida paused to unscrew the cap, and then dabbed a little behind her ears and inside her wrists.

  ‘Perfume?’ I said with incredulity.

  ‘Yep. You, too.’ She passed it to me.

  It had to be a potion of some kind. The scent was strong, spicy and sweet . . . and rather cloying, actually. I didn’t particularly care for it; not that I was any great expert on the matter. All the same, I dabbed it on just as she had, and handed the bottle back. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Oh, now you want to come up with a plan. Just follow my lead, kid, and we’ll pull this chestnut out of the fire.’ She glanced up at the sky. ‘Quickly, too. Gods, I could really do without this distraction; our clock is ticking, good and proper.’

  ‘If she does get the ritual finished first, I can always open a pathway and take us out of here,’ I said. ‘Can’t I?’

  She grimaced. ‘Maybe, maybe not. She’s going to tear a hole between the realms, Dee, and the pathways exist in those same spaces. They’ll be unstable, to say the least. But you’re right. Better to chance it than stay here and get a taste of hell on earth.’

  ‘We’ll know, then? If she’s gone and done it, I mean?’

  ‘Oh, yes. You couldn’t miss it, trust me.’

  In the end we had to wait for them, Aleida tapping her foot impatiently and checking the angle of the sun every few minutes. ‘Hurry up,’ she muttered. ‘If I’d known they were going to take this long I’d have got some sigils drawn out in the dust — oh, and here they finally come. About bloody time.’ With a sweep of her hand, she cast a veil over the both of us.

  Along the dusty road they came in a long line, roped together with hands bound and feet hobbled, herded along by soldiers with their swords drawn. The two men in merchants’ garb were walking alongside them, still chatting idly. One of them was older, portly with a steel-grey beard and thinning hair. The other was much younger, with thick black hair and olive skin and a large nose, hooked like an eagle’s beak.

  Aleida stood in the middle of the road, and when they were a dozen or so yards away, she dropped the veil.

  The men at the head of the line faltered, cursing in surprise as she suddenly appeared. She was dressed all in black, from her boots and her dress and even the chemise peeking out above her leather stays. Even the muslin scarf around her shoulders and the hat on her head, pulled down to hide her eyes, a sly smile on her lips.

  I couldn’t help but glance down at my own dress, in a blue so faded it was most-way to grey, and felt glad I wasn’t dressed in all black yet. I couldn’t imagine standing in front of that long line of soldiers — there had to be more than two dozen of them, not counting the prisoners — and holding that small smile. But at the same time, a small voic
e in my head said, Oh, good grief, are you honestly just going to stand there and pose?

  It seemed to work, though. The men leading the prisoners cut their pace. The bandits, of course, recognised her and began to mutter among themselves, until the guards cursed and slapped them into silence, and then turned to the two merchants, as though looking for orders.

  The merchants had fallen silent too, and I could feel their eyes upon us. If I’d been out there alone I’m sure I would have melted away like fog in the sunshine to feel all those eyes upon me.

  Aleida ignored the soldiers and their prisoners, and started towards the merchants, raising the brim of her hat with a graceful sweep of her hand. ‘Lord Belmont, I presume?’ she said to the elder man, and then turned to the younger. ‘And you must be Lord Haversleigh. Good afternoon, my lords.’ With that, she let go of her staff and picked up her skirts for an elegant curtsey, the sort that belonged more in a grand ballroom than on a dusty road with smoke hanging in the air. Meanwhile, her staff just stood there, perfectly upright, until she took hold of it again.

  The men both bowed in return, seemingly out of reflex. ‘Good afternoon,’ Lord Belmont said in return. ‘Madame—?’

  ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘A fine catch you’ve made there,’ she said with a nod to the captured bandits. ‘I knew those fools weren’t going to last long, but I didn’t think you’d have them rounded up quite so soon. Now, Lord Belmont, I simply must ask you for a favour.’

  It was a curious sight to watch. Both men seemed perplexed but there was no hostility in their manner, even when Aleida linked her arm with Lord Belmont’s and turned him towards the line of prisoners. Lord Haversleigh went with them, and though he looked suspicious he did not protest or intervene. I trailed along behind, and began to wonder if Aleida had left the veil hanging over me, after all. Squinting, I checked around me. Nope. She just had every one of these people in the palm of her hand, it seemed.

  Aleida walked Lord Belmont to Kara. Her face was grimy, with tear-tracks cutting clean paths through the dirt. Between her teary eyes and her hair, which had come loose to spill around her shoulders, she looked much younger than she had before.

  ‘My lord, I believe you know young Kara,’ Aleida said.

  With a gulp, Kara opened her mouth — but no sound came out. I saw the muscles of her throat tighten, saw her swallow hard, and realised that my teacher had no intention of letting her speak and spoiling everything.

  ‘Of course,’ Lord Belmont said with a sigh. ‘When I got Ellie’s message this morning I realised she was covering for the young lass. It’s a shame she didn’t stay in the Haven and make a better life for herself. I did hope the girl would have the sense to stay out of trouble . . . but I’m not surprised to see her in this situation.’

  ‘It is a pity,’ Aleida said. ‘So young, with her whole life ahead of her. And such a fierce spirit. You have daughters near her age, don’t you, my lord?’

  ‘I do, yes,’ Lord Belmont said. ‘They’re good girls.’

  ‘And are any of them fierce, like her? Tell me, would they sit quietly at home if it were their father lost and in danger?’

  Lord Belmont blinked a couple of times, his eyes searching her face. He looked like a kindly sort, I decided, for all that deep frown-marks creased his brow. ‘Well, my youngest . . . she’s the wild sort, truly. Madame, I never wanted to have the lass hanged, but to find her here, a willing participant with these pestilent bandits . . .’

  ‘I understand,’ Aleida said. ‘But she’s just a child, a little girl all alone in the world, with no one to look to for guidance.’ Kara’s eyes were fair bulging out of her head at that, but she still couldn’t speak, and Aleida just watched her with a cool gaze.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Lord Belmont said. ‘A most unfortunate circumstance.’ There were beads of sweat on his face, and he dabbed at his brow with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Aleida said, ‘she should be given another chance? She hasn’t actually done any harm, has she? Your men found her hiding in the rocks, didn’t they? It’s not as though she were down there with the other cut-throats. It would be hard for the men here to see her strung up with the rest of them, don’t you think? She’s so young and so small, just like their own sisters and daughters back home.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. You there,’ he called to the nearest soldier. ‘Come cut the lass loose. She doesn’t deserve to hang for this. She’s just a little girl, after all.’

  It was interesting to watch — she wasn’t using mind control, I was certain of that. There was some magic at play, it was just of a very subtle kind. But it wasn’t just the magic that I found fascinating — Aleida’s whole manner had changed. I’d never seen her let a stranger stand so close to her, let alone link an arm through theirs or lean so close to talk. Her manner of speaking had changed, too, her voice and her words softer and more gentle than I’d ever heard from her. She was playing a part, I realised, a role she must have spent long hours practising and perfecting. Lord Belmont was taken by it completely, now — the beads of sweat were gone from his face, and as Kara rubbed her rope-marked wrists he was asking very kindly if she’d suffered any injuries in this unfortunate venture.

  Lord Haversleigh, however, was a different kettle of fish. Without warning, he caught Aleida by the arm, gripping hard, and pulled her away from Lord Belmont. She stiffened at once, clenching her fist to pull away, but then I saw her draw a breath and make her muscles soften, wiping the look of affront from her face.

  ‘You,’ Haversleigh said. ‘You’re doing this, aren’t you? You’re doing . . . something.’

  ‘My dear sir, all I’m doing is taking pity on a foolish young girl who’s made some bad decisions.’ She edged closer to him. ‘You’re here for the five, aren’t you, my lord? The thugs with the tattoos, is that right?’

  ‘That’s right. I’ve sworn a vow that they’ll pay for what they’ve done, and if you think you’re going to weasel them free—’

  ‘Lord and Lady, never. I knew they were trouble from the moment I saw them. I’m just glad someone’s come along to deal with them, there’s no telling how much harm they’d have done to the country folk here if you hadn’t come along with your men. Lord Belmont’s grateful too, isn’t he? He would have needed your men to drive the wagons into the ambush. If he’d used his own folk, the bandits would have recognised them and known something was amiss. It’s really thanks to you that they’ve been captured at all.’

  ‘I . . .’ Lord Haversleigh said. ‘Well . . .’

  Lord and Lady, I thought. You couldn’t butter him up any more if you tried. It was so unlike her I found it rather unnerving.

  ‘Are you taking them back to your lands for trial, my lord?’ she said.

  ‘No, no. I had them in chains once before, you see, and they managed to escape. Some underhanded dealings. No, it’s hanging for them, and for the rest of these louts too. As soon as my men find a suitable tree.’

  I couldn’t help myself then. I gasped, the sound escaping before I could quell it. Kara began to protest, too, but Aleida’s head snapped ’round, like a hawk sighting prey, and Kara’s voice died in her throat with barely a squeak.

  ‘Very good, my lords,’ Aleida said, slipping her arm free of Lord Haversleigh’s grip, now quite slack. ‘But I fear the sight might be too much for these young ladies. I’ll take Kara into my own care; I assure you she won’t cross your path again.’ Her voice was soft, but her eyes were anything but. The warning in them was quite clear as she beckoned the girl with an imperious gesture.

  Kara was looking around with wide eyes. She’d been bound near the end of the line, and just beside her was the young lad with the broken arm. He looked stricken and pale, tears coursing down his face with the news he was about to die.

  Looking at the lad, and further along where Holt stood, head bowed and shoulders hunched, Kara ground her heels into the dust, set her jaw and shook her head.

  ‘Aleida,’ I said softly.


  ‘Hush, girl,’ she snapped. ‘Kara, come on.’

  Kara just shook her head harder.

  ‘You can’t just leave them all to die,’ I said, rushing the words to get them out, in case she froze my voice like she had Kara’s. I wasn’t sure if speaking like this would break the spell the Lords were under, but I had to say something. ‘Half these lads have never harmed anyone! That boy with the broken arm, he’s only here because his ma’s sick and his family needs money to pay the doctor. I bet he’s not the only one seduced by that fool Holt.’

  As I spoke, Aleida’s serene mask all but melted away, and she turned to me with a glare that was equal parts incredulity and frustration. Beside her, Lord Haversleigh began to scowl, and Lord Belmont frowned in puzzlement, rubbing his brows as though his head pained them. With a quick glance back, Aleida raised her hand and both men froze, just like the innkeep had back in the griffin’s chamber. ‘Oh, for the love of life, Dee,’ Aleida said through clenched teeth. ‘Do you think this is easy? I’m not a godsdamned miracle-worker! If they didn’t want to be hanged they should have thought of that before they turned to banditry!’

  ‘That lad is just a boy!’ I said in a fierce whisper. ‘Are you going to leave a child to die because of a stupid mistake? That sounds . . .’ I faltered. The next few words felt rather like I was taking my life into my hands. But if I said nothing, I just knew she’d walk away and leave the rest of them to their fate. I had to try. ‘That sounds like something Gyssha would do.’

  She gave me a look of such vitriol then that I wanted to shrink away. I couldn’t, though. I was too scared to move.

  ‘You really want to save them?’ she hissed. ‘Fine. You do it, then.’