by Prue Batten
Laughter crept into her life, bubbling through her as she and the afrit walked the grounds. With or without knife-edged Salah, she was conscious of the curious looks that burned almost as much as vitriol as she promenaded with her dog. She was sure the crisp eunuch partnered her so he that he could return to the odalisques and deliver snippets of acid information from a position of authority. He would say to her, ‘They gossip, Lalita. You are immortal, Other, a spirit. Those not as fanciful say you are just lucky, insanely lucky and your turn will come.’
She laughed out loud at this and the afrit chortled, Phaeton running ahead, sending a flock of white doves into the sky with a lot of wing-clacking noise. But when she turned her glance on Salah, she saw his eyes had closed to slits as if she found humour at his expense.
The next morning, she went for her daily bath and the ministrations of the ever-cautious mistresses and drifted back on a cloud of gardenia to her apartments, Salah leaving her at the door. The afrit had left the night before, promising her a bowl of fresh strawberries and yoghurt next day. ‘Phaeton,’ she called out as she opened the door, seeing the lattice screen into her sleeping chamber had been shifted. Wonderful afrit. She imagined her favourite fruit glowing red with a bowl of honey-sweetened yogurt close by. ‘Phaeton, here!’
But the silence shouted and her heart began to beat as if it were whipped. Salah’s eyes, his vicious words, his warnings flashed in front of her. Never in Phaeton’s life had he reneged on a command from Lalita, springing to her side no matter what. She walked on feather-soft feet to the alcove, praying she would catch her beloved companion asleep on the divan. She longed to surprise him with a butterfly kiss on the nose that so often plunged its wetness into her palm to give her strength. ‘Oh Phaeton, there you are, you lazy…’
He lay on her bed as if he were surrounded in red silk.
Some infinitely evil hand had cut his throat.
She shook, barely able to stand as her door banged open and an armed eunuch followed the Kisla Agha inside. Seeing the dog, he nodded to the guard and the fellow wrapped the body in the silk coverlet and retreated out the door. Lalita followed, wanting to wail, to snatch Phaeton out of the huge arms, hold the body, never let it go. ‘Why?’ she said to the Kisla Agha. ‘My work is good. The Sultan has said so. Why did you kill my dog?’
The official looked back with no attempt at sympathy, indeed with contempt. ‘Be careful how you speak to me, woman. You are not such a favourite of the Sultan’s yet that you are above my discipline.’
But she hardly listened as he continued to speak. Her heart which had suffered blow after blow, was now curling in upon itself. She could feel it, the beats hard and sharp. She too was twisting up, dry and crackling like a dead leaf from a tree. Vaguely she heard the Kisla Agha as he finished.
‘Your pardon, what did you say?’ To wrench the civility from deep inside was almost impossible.
‘Your aunt and uncle have been found dead. The Sultan wishes you to attend him at the bird aviary immediately.’
The sounds of the aviary, chirruping and whistling, tweeting and trilling, slid past her ears. Even the mournful call of the peacocks, reminiscent of grief and sorrow, elicited no response. She could barely manage the obeisance before the Sultan. Her mind seemed as blank as a new pressed page as she reeled from the outrageous turn of events.
‘I understand you have had significant losses today, and I offer my condolences.’ The Sultan’s voice settled in front of her, low and quiet… perhaps even solicitous.
What does he see in me of my distress? He cannot know what it is like. Does he feel the pain I feel, as if I am slowly being disemboweled? Does he feel the emptiness that creeps upon me? The madness? A realization illuminated her mind at that minute. No, he sees my eyes bright with tears, my lips swollen from biting them, my breasts rising and falling as I try to halt the wailing. Her hand crept to her chest to cover it.
‘It is believed your aunt and uncle were murdered in a crime of theft as money and possessions have been taken, and I can assure you the culprit shall be caught. An odalisque in the Sultan’s seraglio is a member of the Sultan’s family, she is the Sultan’s wife. Her family is the Sultan’s family. A crime against her is a crime against the Sultan. As for your dog, it would appear that one of the odalisques killed him in a jealous rage. She is even now being disposed of.’
The Sultan’s law, Lalita knew, was irredeemably final – the cutting off of hands and subsequent ganching for the murderer or the throwing of the woman off the highest tower into the Ahmad, inside a bag of rocks. But it meant little.
‘I understand you are almost done with the book and I am going to place a guard around you while you finish. When it is done, you shall enter the Valide Sultan’s apartments and my lady mother shall care for you until I need you for further commissions. In her Court, you shall be safe.’
His words were barely intelligible as she swayed on her feet, hearing the river roaring close by. The river? No, it is not the river. It is my head that roars. She realized the Sultan was asking her a question and looked into dark brown eyes sequestered in the face that showed a degree of kindness. ‘I apologise, sire. I did not hear.’
He repeated himself. ‘Lalita, you have had a vast shock. I understand. I asked about the book. Can it be done? Are you able to finish it by tomorrow, so the bookbinders may finish it?’
Can it be done? Lalita kept her eyes fixed to the floor. If I don’t sleep, don’t have bodily functions and if I don’t allow grief to sweep me along in a muddy current like the Ahmad in flood. ‘Yes, sire. It can be done.’ She heard no reply, just feet moving away and gates closing and then Salah’s voice, as sharp and bitter as ever.
‘Come Lalita, I must take you home.’
‘Home?’ She laughed weakly, the tears overflowing. ‘Yes. Take me home.’
‘Courage,’ she heard the afrit say and felt a familiar breeze like a finger on her cheeks, taking the teardrops away. ‘Courage my dear.’
Chapter Eight
Finnian
Finnian stared at the waters of Veniche as they flowed around him like undulating threads of silk. Guilt pulled him in one direction, anger and revenge in another, indifference in another still. What is a Færan but one who has only self-interest at the heart of his life. I am no different. The sailor’s death shouldn’t matter. What do I care for a young boy destined for life without a father. I managed.
The colours lightened then darkened as he made his way along canals, alleys and footpaths. Tints of the Raj pervaded – watermelon, ochre, apricot. Even the architecture was reminiscent of the northern desert land, with quatrefoil carvings on the elegant balustrades that overhung canals, arched windows decorated with stone filigree and little humped bridges that reminded him of Raji camels. But he tired of the smell – a taint of mould and mildew and humid air that thickened one’s clothes and pervaded every waking moment. He found a gondolier and bade him paddle around the watery city while he waited for dusk and for the doors of the di Accia palace, museum of the nobility, to close on the last curious eyes of the day. But the gondola’s curtains only shielded him from curiosity and the weather and not from his dank thoughts. A dozen times he asked himself if the cost of the Cantrips might be too high. A dozen times his most base nature said ‘No’.
At last, when tardy darkness settled, he ordered the gondolier to deliver him to the palace. He paid him and then mesmered the man so that the fellow stared bemused at an empty landing stage where mooring poles and channel markers marched out into the middle of the canal in a regimented line.
The door latch clicked and the double entry swung ajar allowing him to ease himself into a magnificent black and white marble-paved foyer. Life-sized obsidian and ivory shantranj pieces surrounded the area and carved eyes stared down, a gaze that inspired memories of the cruel games he had been forced to play with Isolde. Mostly he lost and a welter of bruisings would follow and thus he moved carefully amongst the haunting pieces, his mind filled with co
ntused emotions. Each giant piece was an edifice to glorify the di Accia name, the title of a woman who had in a moment of brilliant madness managed to kill an Other and that Other, Finnian’s brother. The home of my brother’s murderer. He tried to drag any sort of grief at his brother’s death from deep inside but realised the grief he had felt for so long had been for himself, a self-indulgence. But sadness is self-indulgence. All that matters is that it prompts me to hate Isolde even more and that our lost brotherhood shall be avenged with her death. He walked to the landing at the junction of the curving double stair, where a massive urn spilled white flowers in a cornucopia of blossom and where twin china cabinets were filled with glistening glassware.
He chafed as the overly cautious curator finished his closure duties, dowsing the lighting throughout the building. The man had worked through each of the three floors, passing Finnian on the first floor landing, unaware of the Other and humming as he took the left descending curve to disappear through painted and gilded doors. The man’s footsteps tapped and breaths huffed as candles were snuffed, one after another. A husky laugh slid out from the door into the entrance hall and Finnian leaned over the banister to observe the curator lifting a woman’s skirts, kissing her with passion as his hand ran along her thigh. The woman was pretty and her skirts were of silk, her stockings white; that I had half a chance, the chit would know love like she would never have again but he turned away to look out over a courtyard that was a pool of shadow and silhouette. Where’s the thrill in watching them tup? In the light of one lone torchère, an aged fountain splashed droplets into a scallop shell held by two cherubs and he impatiently tired of the grandiose largesse of Veniche. He craved the Raj where a fountain may have been a simple earthenware jar with bubbling water emptying into a rill running the length of a paved garden and where hedges of oleander and bay would be clipped into formality.
A white cat sat with a leg lifted to the heavens as its furry tongue licked and cossetted. Freedom and revenge, thought Finnian, it’s what I crave. He bunched a fist and rapped it on the windowsill, each knock underlying his impatience and his desperate need.
The loving moment below stairs finished and the woman left the curator by the door, blowing him kisses as she stepped into a covered gondola.
Oh get you gone, woman! Finnian watched the man from the shadows as the front doors were locked again, the massive keys turned and then withdrawn on their silken cord and slipped over the curator’s neck. He snuffed out the last of the flames, picked up a lamp and walked to a side-door leading to the courtyard where he crossed the cobbles, the white cat weaving in and out of his legs, and presently lights moved around the small apartment opposite.
Finnian raced up the stair and began his search, running his hand over every di Accia possession. If there were anything Færan, a frisson would surge up his arm, a prickling wave from his fingertip to his armpit, and he could examine the object. As he ran his palms over the contents of the palazzo, he felt his imperative dancing attendant at his shoulder like some messenger of doom.
A bucket of water stood by a door leading onto a balcony and he bent down to splash his face, responsibility taking a bite at his heels as the face of the cabinboy swam before him. Find the charms and run. Don’t give a toss for a mortal. He moved on as the water dried on his skin and floor after floor revealed nothing except for scattered pigeon feathers in a room at the top, along with a pile of shattered bird bones. A frisson hovered amongst the detritus and he wondered if Others had been in the tiny chamber. But the vibration was old and ambiguous.
The dark surrounded him as he had made his way back to the first floor landing to stand in front of the superbly veneered china cabinets. The moon shone through the large glass windows, lighting the landing in an ivory glaze. A thick silk tassel hung from each key and the glass shelves held a display of paperweights. He turned the first key and it clicked, the doors opening with the lightest touch from his fingers. He ran his hands over the top shelf – no frisson.
Then the second shelf… and the bottom.
Dammit!
He threw the door shut and the cabinet rocked against the wall, the paperweights skittering out of their positions, fetching up against each other with a dangerous clatter, but he had already turned to the other cabinet, flicking the key over and dragging the door open in a fever of impatience. First shelf, second shelf.
Nothing.
He pulled his hands away and looked up at the winding staircase with its ornamental railings that twisted in wrought curlicews like Færan runes, and he wondered briefly what would happen if there were nothing in the whole palazzo. The moon was slipping fast to the far side of the building and he’d checked every gilded and painted inch of the place. He tried to recall anything else from Isolde’s hints but a space yawned back as empty as the celestial Andromeda Darks.
He moved his hands to the third shelf, the paperweights glimmering in their glassy beauty. What possessed the woman to collect so many? He picked one up and held it, turning it this way and that. To be sure it was elegant and if he looked closely the design was different to its fellows but there was nothing unique about it. NOTHING. He swore and would have thrown the paperweight across the landing had a soprano voice not called from further up the staircase.
‘Half that collection is disappeared, Færan.’
He whipped around and spotted a Siofra, a pretty thing, sitting with her perfect legs crossed and her face held in the cup of her palms, her knees supporting elbows clothed in organdy.
‘And you would know this because…’
‘I live here and a little less arrogance and bad manners thank you kindly.’
He walked up to her, juggling the paperweight. She was lovely, a minikin reaching his hip, perfectly proportioned, her breasts eager to spill from the top of a low-cut gown that hung in kerchief ends around her knees. Her shapely legs were clothed in gossamer stockings with flowers patterned all over and her face was as finely drawn as a Færan’s, with lustrous dark hair falling down her back.
‘My apologies,’ he charmed. ‘You surprised me.’
‘You look for something rather crucial, I can tell. You’re as taut as a bowstring.’ She smiled and her simper settled on him like a ray of warmth. ‘Can I help?’
Can you? ‘I doubt it. I don’t even know what I look for myself.’ He sat beside her, vexed at time racing. But racing where? I only know I must find the charms before Isolde. He could see her moving around Castello, asking questions, torturing those with no answers. Already he knew her eye was upon him…
‘Your name is Finnian, is it not?’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Siofra are Other with certain skills and your fame does precede you. My name by the way, is Primaflora.’
‘How do you know of me?’ Finnian eyed the woman with suspicion, wondering if despite her beauty and manner, she was a wight as malign as those who had already crossed his path.
‘Siofra are everywhere, Finnian. Even at that benighted cesspit they call Castello. Have no fear, if there is a side to be on right now, then we choose to be on yours.’
A side? He took the hand she held out and brought it to his lips. ‘Your name suits you. You are the very embodiment of spring in your gown.’
‘Huh, this old thing,’ she fingered the silk tissu, ‘since Madama the mad Contessa disappeared, I have a ready supply of fabrics. This is nothing, you should see my ball-gowns.’
‘I can imagine you entice every male in the vicinity.’
She laughed delightedly, a tinkle that reminded him of finches and other tiny birds flirting with each other in some dawn-lit forest. ‘Severine di Accia was a hellspawn bitch, Finnian. Everyone hated her and she hated many people besides. She thought she was a changeling but just occasionally when reason set in, when she guessed she was only a mere mortal, she set upon this wild desire to be immortal. She found the Cantrips you know, a form of insurance against her delusions.’
‘You know of the charms.’
>
‘Indeed, doesn’t everyone? And my handsome man,’ she tapped him on the hand, a sensation like the pecking of a tiny beak. ‘I am guessing that’s what you search for.’
He held her gaze, unsure if he should invite her into his thoughts, into the necessary hunt, deciding that he could seduce her, it had worked in the past…
‘Don’t you try and mesmer me with your charms, Finnian of the Færan. I’m spoken for. But I shall tell you what I think, shall I, and all because I like you and you seem… taut as I said.’ She shifted her legs around. ‘She had the Cantrips, this we know. When you are Siofra and you live here, it is easy enough to know many things. Obviously she had a plan to hide them because just before the night she disappeared,’ a wry laugh punctuated her words, ‘and we all know what happened to her, don’t we? Anyway, as I was saying… before she disappeared she had a visit from the glassmaker Niccolo, a master artisan and maker of the finest paperweights in Veniche. Signor Everyman in the street would think she merely commissioned him to make something for her collection but I know differently as I was close by when he left. I watched her take four tiny glass rods,’ she measured with her elegant fingers, ‘the centers of what would become her millefiori. She rolled the Cantrips…’
‘You have seen the Cantrips?
‘Indeed.’ She gave a laugh not unlike the chime of a tiny crystal hand-bell.
‘What are they like? And tell me, why did the Siofra not take them for themselves? Surely they are priceless.’
‘To answer your second question – because the Siofra thought they should remain hidden. It is not for this world to see the Vale of Kush again. They are dastardly charms and you know this or you would not be looking for them yourself, would you? We Siofra believe you wish to remove them from Isolde’s clutches and we applaud such acumen.’