by Leyland, L J
We emerged into a courtyard. I opened and closed my eyes twice and shook my head, trying to shake what I thought could only be a sudden illusion from my eyes. The Grand Hall was before me. This room couldn’t be real. Surely this was only fantasy – it was unlike any room I had ever seen before.
The grey, rabbit-warren corridors opened out on to a lush green courtyard, filled with trees and palms laden with dangling baubles of exotic fruits and showy flowers. The sound of trickling water and chirping birds chimed in the air. It was a delicate symphony of natural sounds. Hidden amongst this tangle of leafy gorgeousness was a sparkling glass pavilion with a domed roof, so huge and alien that I had to pinch myself to make sure it wasn’t a mirage. It looked like it belonged somewhere hot and mysterious.
This Arabian crystal palace had alternate panes of sheer crystal glass, and glass that was latticed intricately with swirling metal patterns. Elaborate crystal doors patterned with a network of stained-glass shapes opened outwards onto the courtyard and beckoned us in. We filed in after our tutor. The sugary smell of burning incense from brass lamps relaxed my shoulders and fugged up my brain. The burning oil lamps threw soft, rounded shapes against the glass walls which reflected back and enveloped me in a welcoming embrace. The tinkling of a water fountain located at the far end of the hall sounded musical and beautiful. All the non-glass surfaces were a warm glowing gold; the enormous table and chairs, the fireplace, the vases for the flowers, even a golden giant harp was tucked away in the corner. It was magical.
The whole effect was womb-like; safe, warm, and swathed in happiness. A wave of emotion overtook me. There was awe and amazement, definitely, but also anger at the sheer opulence, and sadness that no-one from the Protectorate would ever get to see such beauty. The hall was like the Metropole’s power – such a fragile mirage heavily guarded by brutal and ugly utilitarianism. Such grandeur may have seemed stable and magnificent to the Metropolites but even the tiniest bit of pressure would cause the illusion to shatter.
Our shoes clicked on the golden floor as we practised serving the first course to a couple of Parrots who were lounging on the chairs as though they were thrones, lording it over the serving girls. The tedium of the serving tasks brought me out of my dreamlike trance and dulled my heightened senses.
Throughout the rest of the morning, we practised doling out food and wine as quiet as mice. We whipped away dirty dishes, trying not to disturb our ‘guests’. We were supposed to be as invisible as possible, to create the illusion that the plates had magically popped out of existence. I suppose the Mayor didn’t want the poor Metropolites to be put off their dinners by having to be confronted with so many starving, young women shooting dagger-eyes at them. Occasionally, a Parrot would snap ‘I can see you!’ or ‘Stupid girl, the butter knife goes on the left,’ and I would have to press a fork into my palm to remind myself of the pain that would follow if I were to punch him.
Just before midday, we began practising serving dessert, piling the table high with an array of cake platters, tea trays, plates for sugared fruits, and jugs for sauces and custards. I was in charge of laying out coffee cups and I took little care, slamming the cups down and flinging the teaspoons across the table like metal missiles. God, it was boring.
I approached where the Parrots sat. They screamed with raucous laughter as one re-enacted an encounter he’d had with a fisherman at the docks. The Parrot suddenly leapt up from his seat to mime having to drag the man to prison and in doing so backed straight into me and my tray.
The cacophony of shattering lasted only a few seconds but it felt like hours. It was replaced by a tense, long silence. I could feel my heart beat in my throat. The Parrot slowly revolved round to face me.
He was a massive hunk of meat – three feet wide, six and a half feet tall, flesh rippled with bulging tendons and muscles like a bull pumped full of steroids. He looked at me for two long seconds and then his lip curled into a snarl. ‘You clumsy oaf. Look at the mess you made. Do you know how expensive this china is? It’s worth a lot more than your sorry little life, I’ll tell you that for free.’
He gave me a hard shove and I tottered back two paces. My hand grasped the cool blade in my apron. I was about to pull it out, hold it to his neck, and done God knows what in the heat of the moment, when I heard, ‘Perkins! Stop that at once! It was an accident and that’s exactly the reason why we have these rehearsals, to make sure the girls know what they’re doing.’
My eyes widened as I saw our tutor coming to my rescue. I had thought she was pathetically soft when I first met her but this sudden show of backbone made me reconsider. I caught her eye. She glanced back, protective, pitying, in a sad maternal way. Perkins bared his teeth in a staggeringly accurate imitation of a wolf and advanced on her as though he was cornering his next meal. Obviously he didn’t appreciate being contradicted by a mere serving woman.
‘She’ll clean up every little last scrap of this mess and will then spend her lunch hour in confinement. If she even puts so much as a toenail out of place tonight, she’ll spend the rest of her life in confinement with that dim-witted moron who spilled soup on the Mayor.’
He spun on his heel and stalked out of the room. My eyes bored into his back and I made a mental note to seek him out after I’d carried out my plan. My fingers lightly traced the blade nursed in my apron.
Chapter Eight
At midday, three Parrots came to escort me to the room where I would be placed in confinement over lunch time.
‘Three of you been sent to handle a weak little thing like me?’ I teased them. ‘Your boss can’t think much of you if he’s worried little old me will overpower you.’
‘Shut it,’ one of them rumbled in reply.
We walked through the dark rabbit’s warren that was the kitchen quarters. The warm glow that had embraced me whilst in the Hall had evaporated. The cold sank into my every pore and a mist of depression began to creep up on me. A sparse stone floor indicated that this was probably the oldest part of the complex.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked.
‘See for yourself – we’re here,’ one of the Parrots said and abruptly came to a halt.
He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and isolated the largest, rustiest one. He used it to open the enormous wooden door which creaked open reluctantly.
The smell of rotting flesh burst out in a tidal wave so pungent it almost overwhelmed me; sweet, sour, and sickening. My feet scrabbled into reverse but I found sharp hands in the small of my spine pushing me forwards towards the stench and the blackness inside.
‘No, wait …’ I started but two of the Parrots grabbed my elbows and began to drag me towards the door. I saw their smirking expressions.
‘Not so big now are you?’ one sneered in my ear.
I shook their hands off roughly and steadied myself. I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by having to be dragged in kicking and screaming like a child. I turned to look them in the eye. ‘One hour?’ I demanded.
The Parrots nodded.
I took a deep breath and slowly turned to face the darkness inside; I walked into the room. The door slammed shut behind me and I was thrown into an oppressive blackness and silence so intense that I was instantly disorientated. I took a few steps forward and tried to make out any objects but found myself confused as to which direction I was facing. Was the door just behind me? I turned and felt along the wall until I found the handle. I clung onto it as though I would drown if I let it go.
A faint light emanating from under the crack of the door outlined vague shapes. It was bewildering. Shapes floating in mid-air, disconnected from ceiling or floor. What the hell were they? They were swinging slightly as though dangling from invisible ropes suspended from the ceiling. I focused on one of the shapes and approached it cautiously. I squinted to make out small details – yes, there was a rope hanging from the ceiling. It was connected to what appeared to be a giant, metal hook that was embedded in what looked like … Bodies. Hundreds of
them hanging from the ceiling.
A wild, animal cry came from my lips and I flung myself at the door, almost knocking myself out with the force that I collided with it. I hammered my fists and kicked so hard that I thought my ankle bones would break. I screamed swear words and threatened to murder every last one of the Parrots unless they let me out. When no Parrot came, I pulled the knife from my apron. If they wouldn’t help me, I’d make my own escape. I yanked it between the lock and the door to prise it open but it didn’t even budge. Eventually, I collapsed at the foot of the door, exhausted.
Suddenly, there was a rasp of a match being struck and a small flame hissed into existence at the far corner of the room. I grabbed my knife and pointed it in the direction of the light. The flame danced through the air teasingly. It became larger as it caught the wick of an oil lamp which ignited and gave off an orb of light. A young woman appeared from the gloom. She peered at me, wide-eyed.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, as though being trapped in the dark with a hundred rotting corpses was no cause for concern at all.
‘What’s wrong?’ I repeated incredulously.
My eyes darted around the room. A cry of relief fell from my lips and I lay my head on my knees to calm myself, inhaling big steadying breaths of the poisonous air. Yes, there were bodies. But not human bodies. Deer. I was in the meat-hanging room.
Huge, red, skinless carcasses with shiny white rib-bones bowed like the underside of sailing boats swung nonchalantly. Some were headless, some had their hooves tied together as though they were prisoners bound by the wrists with brutal rope handcuffs. The deep breaths I had taken of the rotten air brought on swooping, flighty nausea in the pit of my stomach. I spent the next minute swallowing and gagging, trying to push the bile back down. When the fit subsided, I raised my watering eyes to look at the woman. She had edged closer and was cocking her head from one side to the other like an inquisitive sparrow.
Something one of the Parrots said came back to me and I instantly knew who she was.
‘So you’re the one who poured soup on the Mayor? That took some guts.’
I waited for her reply but she didn’t say anything. She just looked at me in a mildly interested manner.
‘I mean, that was really brave. Or really stupid. Probably both,’ I said and gave her more of a grimace than my intended grin. Her expression didn’t change; no fleeting sign of pride or smugness that would’ve crossed my face if someone had paid me a compliment like that.
‘He upset me,’ she replied simply in a slow, child’s voice. ‘He’s not a very nice man.’
What an understatement.
‘You’re not wrong. But seriously,’ I continued, ‘you must have known that he’d punish you for it. To do it anyway despite knowing that he could have you tortured or thrown in prison … that takes guts.’
‘He’s not a very nice man,’ she repeated, her voice robotic, her eyes glazed.
I was wrong-footed by her. This was not what I had expected at all. I was expecting an angry comrade, someone I could plot revenge with. Instead, my comrade was a haunted-looking woman-child who was perfectly detached from the situation we were in, almost unconcerned. I slowly assessed her. There was something not quite right about her. Her eyes stared absently at empty air. She twirled her fingers vacantly in the flame of the lamp, oblivious to the pain.
‘Don’t do that!’ I cried. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’
She shrugged, withdrawing her blackened fingers. She retreated back to her corner silently, weaving through the bodies without so much as a sigh. I followed her, taking care to avoid the puddles of blood and animal juice that had pooled under the bodies of the dead deer. I sat next to her on the cold stone floor.
‘How long have you been in here?’ I asked.
‘Eight days,’ she replied calmly.
‘Don’t your family wonder where you are?’
‘I have no family. I live in the servant quarters.’ Again, emotionlessly.
I let that one lie. I wasn’t going to start prying into her family history within moments of meeting her. ‘Why did you pour soup on the Mayor?’
Her eyes widened. Tears clouded her eyes and she stared at a point just to the right of me. ‘He upset me,’ she repeated.
I inched closer. ‘How did he upset you?’
Her eyes became intensely focused and darted around the room as though she was watching something very real played out in front of her. Her expression changed from placid to horrified, mouth hanging open, eyes watering. Her fingernails scrabbled on dirt as she shuffled backwards, muttering something indiscernible. I reached out for her hand and felt cool terror course through her body.
‘It’s OK, you’re OK, there’s no-one here to upset you, no-one’s here,’ I soothed.
Her pulse beat at her wrist as quickly as a hummingbird’s wing. The sound of my voice seemed to pull her back into reality. I held her hand until her heart rate had returned to something less dangerous.
‘Is that better?’ I asked, as though comforting an upset child.
She turned her tremulous eyes to me and nodded. ‘He got rid of my mother,’ she whispered.
‘… Got rid?’
It was an all-too common a story – the Mayor had the power to permanently dispose of those he disliked and he did so frequently. It had happened with Matthias’ parents. For all I knew, it could’ve happened to mine.
‘Banished her. To the Highlands. Left me here. Alone.’
I let out a low, relieved whistle. It was bad but certainly not as bad as I had thought. ‘Well, at least he didn’t kill her,’ I said.
Her vacant eyes suddenly narrowed and she looked at me with hatred. I realised that she must’ve thought I was the most insensitive oaf that she had ever met.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I blurted out. ‘I just meant that it could have been worse. I’m not belittling it, I just … you know, it could’ve been worse …’ I let my sentence trail off with a shrug of my shoulders.
‘What he did was as good as kill her,’ she hissed with vehemence.
Her eyes possessed a madness that was unsettling. The transformation was sudden and quite alarming. My bluntness often offended normal people and Matthias was always telling me to think before I spoke so I tried to think of a way to frame my next questions without angering her.
‘Why … why couldn’t she take you with her?’
‘Bargaining chip,’ she sing-songed in a babyish voice.
‘Sorry?’ I asked, bewildered.
‘That’s what he called me. “His little bargaining chip.” To make sure his banished wife behaves in the Highlands. Doesn’t cause him any more trouble.’
‘Wife? What the hell are you talking about? The Mayor doesn’t have a wife, he’s unmarried. Everyone knows it. He’s disgusting. He could never get a woman in his entire life; he’s vile.’
The crazy woman-child must have got it wrong. Of course the Mayor didn’t have a wife, or else we’d all know about it. My brain worked furiously, following her statement through to the logical conclusion. ‘Wait a minute … You just said he banished his wife to the Highlands. But you said earlier that he banished your mum to the Highlands.’ I looked up at her with sudden realization. ‘You’re his daughter?’
The force of her fist hit me before I finished the word ‘daughter’. Nails and teeth gouged into my skin, sharp fingers ripped at my hair. ‘Don’t you call me that! Don’t say that!’ she screamed as though I had called her the worst insult I could ever dare to imagine. I struggled to pull her fingers from my scalp and twisted them round her back. My knee lodged firmly in the small of her back. I knew from experience that this hold was excruciating (Matthias had demonstrated it on me a number of times) but she kept on struggling as though the physical pain was incomparable to the mental anguish I had just caused her.
‘Stop it, you’ll hurt yourself! I’m sorry, OK? I’m sorry, please stop, I don’t want to have to hurt you.’
Her whole body sagged
as though she was made of sand and didn’t have the strength to hold herself upright anymore. I let go, gently setting her on the ground. She began to weep in low, mewling wails. I turned my back on her to give her some privacy and let her lie there and cry herself into a stupor whilst I gathered my thoughts.
The Mayor had a daughter. It was unbelievable. Every speech he made on every grand occasion, he had made a point of emphasising how his lack of a family life allowed him to selflessly dedicate his entire being to serving his people. No distractions. Of course, we just thought it was because he was a cold-hearted pig with no desire to ever get close to anyone else. And, obviously, the fact that he was as grotesque as a gargoyle.
Once the initial shock wore off, I began to analyse the situation properly. There were various questions which needed an answer. When did the Mayor get a wife? Why was she kept secret? Why was she banished? Was it because of something she knew? Why on earth did he keep his secret daughter locked up with rotting meat carcasses?
I decided to put an end to the girl’s sobbing. She had managed to drag herself up to a cross-legged sitting position and was singeing her fingers in the oil lamp flame again. ‘He brought me this lamp you know. So nice of him. Such a lovely boy. Lovely eyes,’ she said.
‘… The Mayor?’
‘No, silly. Noah. The assistant. He’s been helping me. Brings me food, talks to me, makes sure I’m not too lonely. Blue eyes, so nice.’
‘The Mayor’s assistant brings you food? I assume the Mayor doesn’t know about this?’
‘I’m his secret. He’ll come to me tonight, during the feast. He always comes when the evil man is busy.’
The Mayor’s assistants are the type of young men I despise with a hatred that consumes me, canker-like from within. They come from the last remaining noble families of Britannia; their fathers made up the Council of Nobles who ruled us and owned all the land before the Flood. Our hatred for these Bluebloods almost rivals the hatred we feel for the Parrots. After the Flood, and after the Metropole had taken control, the Council of Nobles tried to re-stake their claim to the land that remained. They pushed townsfolk off the land with their shotguns and crossbows, chasing them into the sea. The Metropole, our new masters, saw a civil war starting to take shape. They saw that it would destabilize the precarious power they had just gained. They therefore promised the Bluebloods favourable treatment over the townsfolk in return for obeying the Mayor and the Parrots. Although these Bluebloods wouldn’t have ultimate control anymore, they were given the right to exercise their natural taste for power and cruelty by being given favourable positions in the Protectorate’s bureaucracy.