Clovermead shook her head. “I just know they drowned in the Whetstone River. And that you thought the Mayor had something to do with it.”
“A later suspicion. I had no conception of his malice then.” Lady Cindertallow’s hands had cooled, and she moved them back toward the fire. “Grandmother summoned me to her rooms just after breakfast. She stood erect by the window. She was pale, but she always was—a bloodless, rail-thin old woman, with white hair, parchment skin, and always dressed in white. She had a tongue like a rasp and the heart of an icicle. I dreaded her company.
“She turned from the window to face me, and studied me coolly, like a philosopher examining a worm. ‘Your parents are dead,’ she said. She lifted up a letter she held in her hand. ‘The Mayor of Low Branding has sent me word by a fast courier. Their boat capsized in the Whetstone River two days ago. They drowned.’ I gaped at her. I couldn’t believe her. ‘The Mayor informs me that he will send their bodies back to Chandlefort in mahogany caskets packed in ice, with a cortege of patricians following. By such squandering expense he intends to have me believe he grieves.’ She smiled thinly, for the briefest moment. ‘You are Demoiselle now, Melisande. I will add the relevant lessons in etiquette to your schedule.’ Now I did begin to believe her at last, and I hated her more than ever for her coldness. Her daughter was dead, my parents were dead, and even now she had no word of comfort for me. I didn’t rail at her, though. I knew that would be useless. I simply curtsied to her and excused myself from her presence. Only in my own rooms did I allow myself the luxury of weeping.”
“I guess you’re not supposed to punch your grandmother in the nose,” said Clovermead, “but I’d have been tempted.”
Lady Cindertallow laughed, with an echo of old hate. “I was. Most sorely. It was worst at my parents’ funeral. The old Abbess of Silverfalls conducted the service, and she kept losing her place. I wanted my parents’ burial to be beautiful, and her foolish wandering as she led the prayers made it into something ludicrous. And Grandmother stood by my side, with her face as expressionless as ever, as she put her daughter’s body into the ground. I wished then that she were dead. ‘She deserves to be dead, not them,’ I thought. ‘I wish she were rotting in the ground.’ I wept for my parents, so loving and so alive, and I cursed the accident that had torn me from them and left me in the care of this withered husk. Oh, Lady, I hated her.
“I continued to hate her all the next year. Once or twice I started to speak of my parents, but she would cut off my speech with a raised hand. For the most part we only spoke of Cindertallow duty—of power and protocol. Sometimes Grandmother threw off a cutting, casual comment—usually at me, but sometimes at her Chancellor, at a messenger from the Mayor of Low Branding, at a Count come visiting from Queensmart. I remember that after she got some long, protesting letter from the Mayor, she told the Chancellor to dispatch a bridle to the Mayor, and a note that said ‘I ride, not you.’ The Chancellor’s eyes popped out, and he spent a solid minute expostulating with Grandmother. At the end she snorted and said, ‘Change the words if you want. Send the bridle.’ I couldn’t find it in me to care for her, but right then I admired her.
“A month later—” Lady Cindertallow paused for a moment, staring into the fire. “Grandmother had a stroke. I had just celebrated my sixteenth birthday the week before. The doctors attended her all day, but all they could do was make her comfortable. I saw her in the afternoon. Her face was gray and she barely breathed. The Chancellor spent all day going over the papers on her desk with me. I hadn’t signed anything yet, hadn’t done anything as Lady Cindertallow, but when Grandmother died, I would be ready to take her place.
“It was one of those baking summer days of Chandlefort that grind down without relief, and it grew no cooler after sunset. I left Grandmother’s sickroom, and I didn’t look behind as I left. I rushed down to the stables, took my horse, and rode through the streets of Chandlefort.
“It was the first time I had ever really stopped to look at the town I was about to rule. Here was a plastered mansion, and beneath it were bricks and mortar that had been replaced and repaired a hundred times. Here was a bakery that sent fumes of heat out into the night air, as masters, journeymen, and apprentices sweated to get a thousand loaves ready for the morning shopping. Here was a street of uprooted cobbles, and a pile of new flagstones ready to be put in by laborers in the morning. For a moment it seemed to me that I could see the masons who had labored on the mansion, the farmers who had grown the wheat and the millers who had turned it into white flour for the baker, the clerks in Grandmother’s offices who had decided the time had come to repair the street—all the web of people and labor, stretching back over the centuries, that had left this city behind as its residue, that had spun out into canals and orchards and barns, that had turned hard rock and sand into fertile dirt. I saw it all, and I began to love my city as I never had before. I was suddenly full of new energy. I wanted to ride up and down every street, to learn every secret cranny of Chandlefort.
“I was about to gallop off, when an owl flew over my head, hooting. It was strange to see an owl in the town, and I followed its path with my eyes. I looked back, and I saw the Castle, pale pink in the moonlight. It seemed wan and shrunken. I could make out the nineteen statues of the Ladies Cindertallow on the battlements. The moon rode over the head of the last one, Grandmother’s, and it looked like a melting candle. I knew then, in my heart, that she would be dead by dawn.
“‘Good riddance to you,’ I whispered to myself, and I pulled at my horse’s reins, to send him galloping through the town. But all I could think of was how lightly, how thoughtlessly I had said good-bye to my parents when they’d gone off for a pleasure trip to Low Branding. And Grandmother—I had no love for her, sometimes I hated her, but I didn’t want her to die without saying farewell. I turned my horse and galloped back to the Castle.
“I went up to my grandmother’s room, knocked softly, and entered. There was only the one nurse waiting. The room was stifling hot. ‘She’s still alive,’ the nurse whispered to me. I nodded, and sat down by my grandmother’s side.
“She was very old. She’d had her children late in life, and so had her children: We were really three generations apart. She’d already been gray-haired and wrinkled when I was a toddler, and by now she had shrunk and wizened almost beyond recognition. Her breathing was shallower than ever. I looked around, and it struck me that the room was empty but for the nurse and me. Grandfather had died long since, my own parents were dead, and my mother’s younger sister, Lady Sconce, was summering in the Reliquaries with Lord Sconce and my cousins. I wondered where Grandmother’s friends were—but it came to me that while she had ruled Chandlefort efficiently for sixty years, she had acquired no friends in the process. There was only me.
“I sat in a chair by her side and I took her hand in mine. It was barely lukewarm. Her eyes flickered as I touched her, but I couldn’t tell if she was awake, asleep, or in her final unconscious slip toward death. ‘Here I am,’ I said. ‘Your loving granddaughter.’ The words were bitter in my mouth. ‘No, that’s not true. I don’t like you. I never did.’ The nurse gasped, but I ignored her. ‘But that doesn’t matter. We get to be together until the end.’
“Grandmother was silent, so for a while I just sat there and held her parchment hand. Blood beat sluggishly through her flesh. Once she moaned. In the moonlight I looked at her profile. Grandmother was gentler in her sleep, and now I could see something of my mother in her. Something of myself. I shivered as I watched her die.
“‘I miss Mother and Father,’ I said after a few minutes, low enough that the nurse couldn’t hear me. ‘You never let me say that to you. Why not?’ Grandmother was still silent, though now her breathing was more labored. ‘I loved them so much, and it’s an aching hollow where they were. I hoped maybe you could tell me something more about Mother when she was young, but you never did. Just taught me how to be Lady Cindertallow. And you . . . maybe I would miss you if you said s
omething to me. If you gave me a reason to care.’
“‘Nonsense,’ Grandmother whispered. Her eyes had opened. She looked at me blearily in the moonlight. ‘That’s. Girlish. Twaddle,’ she said. It took her half a minute to get the three words out. She breathed out a ghost of a chuckle. I started to withdraw my hand from hers, but she tightened on my fingers with what strength she had. ‘Don’t let go,’ she mumbled. ‘Please.’
“‘You have the oddest way of asking,’ I said, but I left my hand in hers. We sat there in silence some minutes more.
“‘Your mother. Once put. A kitten. In the chandelier. In Throne Room. Funniest thing. I ever saw.’ Grandmother laughed like paper rustling, and then coughed. ‘Whipped her. Afterward. But sorry. I had to.’ She paused a moment. ‘Your mother. Told me. To let her. Raise you. Herself. Leave you alone. I have. Honored her wishes. Best I could.’ She shrugged. ‘Just as well. I mucked up. Raising her. So we’ll see. How you turn out.’ Her lips twisted up a little. ‘Some of me. In you. Anyway. Needed to give you. Some training. To be Lady.’
“‘That you did,’ I said. I laughed, but it was half a sob. ‘All my life. It was such a relief to go back to Mother and relax, after my lessons with you. But I always knew there’d be another lesson. Tell me, is there anything else I should know?’
“‘A last lesson? No. You know all. Already.’ She frowned a little. ‘Should have put. Mayor in place. Been tired. Been lax.’ She fixed my eyes with hers. ‘You. Put to rights.’
“‘I will, Grandmother,’ I said. ‘He’ll bow to Chandlefort as he should, in the end. I’ll be a proper Cindertallow.’
“‘Good,’ said Grandmother. She rested for a while more. ‘Not afraid,’ she said at last, and she closed her eyes. ‘Lady knows. I did my duty. By Chandlefort. I can face her.’ She slipped back into sleep after that. I kept her hand in mine, and I fell asleep in the chair by her side. When I woke, she was dead and her hand was cooling. I put her arm by her side, and kissed her on the forehead.”
Lady Cindertallow stirred now. She stretched her fingers toward the fire once more, and its thick logs sent red sparks flying. “I was glad to be able to say good-bye to her.”
“It’s not enough,” said Clovermead angrily. “I never want to have to say good-bye. Not to anyone. And it’s still too soon.”
“It’s not my preference either.” Lady Cindertallow stretched her hand toward her daughter. “But—”
“It won’t happen,” said Clovermead fiercely. She shrank away from her mother’s hand. “Our Lady won’t let it.” She wouldn’t let herself cry. “She won’t.”
Chapter Seven
Refugees
At daybreak the exodus began. Seven thousand townsmen filed through the gates; in the fields outside, three thousand farmers joined them. Yellowjackets lined the walls and cried their farewells to their departing families, and five hundred mounted soldiers of the Servants’ Regiment escorted the refugees. The gates of Chandlefort sprang shut behind the departing townsmen. Brass lids snapped closed over the outlets from Chandlefort’s great spring, and the flow of water into the canals outside ceased.
“The canals were dry the first time I came to Chandlefort,” Clovermead said to Waxmelt. They rode westward together, Clovermead on her pony, Auroche, and Waxmelt on a gentle gray stallion. Clovermead wore her sword Firefly at her waist. She looked down at a nearby canal whose water had gone still. “There was sand all over these fields. I never dreamed the land could bloom again—but then the war with Low Branding ended, Mother let the water out into the fields, and the farmers cleared away the dunes and repaired the canals. For all the good that did. Now we’re right back where we started. I wonder how long it will take the dunes to come back.”
“A few years,” said Waxmelt. “But the land will stay fertile longer. When I was a boy in Lackey Lane, the old wives said the canals could stay shut for fifty years, and the earth would still be rich under the sand. We have time, Clo. If we defeat the bear-priests by winter—”
“If.” Clovermead glanced back at Chandlefort. Already it had grown small behind her. The Yellowjackets were gold specks on the walls. Clovermead made the crescent sign over her chest. Keep them safe, Lady, she prayed. Keep Mother alive.
“Indeed,” said Waxmelt. He glanced around them. Servants rode nearby; a little farther away townsmen walked by the sides of the oxen pulling the wagons. “Don’t be gloomy too loudly, Clo. They need hope when they look at the Demoiselle.”
“Sensible advice.” Clovermead plastered a smile onto her face. “How do I look?”
“Like you have a toothache.” Clovermead laughed, and Waxmelt smiled. “Now you actually do look happy!”
“I’ll just whisper ‘toothache’ to myself all day, and I won’t stop smiling. Don’t you worry, Father—no more glooming for me. I’ll give everyone a good show.” She squeezed Auroche with her knees, and Clovermead sat upright in her saddle as she cantered by the refugees. Act the part, Clovermead, she thought. She set Auroche to galloping, and whistled derisively at a cluster of servants as she passed by. The servants let loose a whoop, and they chased after her in an impromptu horse race. The refugees smiled as they watched their antics, and they picked up their pace. A little servant with bandy legs, straight brown hair, and a downy mustache passed Clovermead, and Clovermead reined up the panting Auroche.
“Nicely done,” she called out. “Can you fight as well as you ride?”
“Of course I can,” said the little servant, with a cocky smile. “Lord Wickward trained me. I can kill six bear-priests before breakfast.” His companions cheered him, and Clovermead laughed and joined in their cheers.
Show no fear, thought Clovermead. Show no sorrow.
The refugees stopped for the day at the border between the fields of Chandlefort and the Salt Heath. Clovermead set pickets around the camp and guided stragglers to the campsite until long after dark. Finally she ate dinner with Waxmelt and Saraband. It was a greasy combination of mashed potatoes and sausages. Clovermead grimaced as she swallowed her food, and washed it down with fresh, cold water.
“How are the townsmen doing?” she asked Saraband.
“The children and the old ones are tired,” said Saraband. “I spent a good three hours with the nuns tonight stuffing chicken broth down their throats. But most people are more curious than anything. Did you know there are grown men and women who’ve never been outside the town walls? They don’t even know what a tree looks like.”
“I remember,” said Waxmelt. “The first time I saw a green field was when I was seven. Mother sent me out to her cousin’s farm for a week, to help him with the harvest. He had me tie sheaves of wheat together, after the reapers had finished their work. I came back and told my friends, but they didn’t believe my stories of farm life.”
“I sometimes forget,” said Saraband reflectively. “You grew up as poor as any of them. You don’t seem so—” She blushed.
“So ignorant? So cramped?” Bitterness suddenly edged Waxmelt’s voice.
“I was going to say ‘so common.’” Saraband sighed. “I don’t bellow my prejudices, Lord Wickward, but they are deep-rooted. I beg your pardon.”
“Freely given, Lady. And I ask you to forgive my touchiness. It’s also deep-rooted.” Waxmelt took a sip of water from his flask. “Where you go wrong is in thinking I’m unlike my fellows. I am ignorant—I can read and write and sum well enough to make a grocery list or keep accounts, but I never read a book in my life. I learned something of country life while I was in Timothy Vale, so I know a little bit more than the cobbles of Lackey Lane. The Valefolk assumed I was a man of consequence when I came to them with silver pieces in my hands, and treated me with respect, so a little dignity stumbled into my soul—but scratch my skin, and you’ll find a lackey.”
“You are too humble, Lord Wickward,” said Saraband. She smiled wanly. “But I’m afraid you’ll take anything I say as a left-handed compliment.”
“You shouldn’t believe what Father sa
ys,” said Clovermead. “He is different from most people—lord or shepherd or servant. It’s not a matter of reading books—I read no end of books, and no one ever accused me of being dignified.” She waited for a protest from either Waxmelt or Saraband, and then resigned herself to the inevitable agreement that accompanied such statements on her part. “It’s, well, delicacy. I galumph, and so did Gaffer Merrin, and so does Mother in her own way. Most of the servants galumph too. Father has tact.” She grinned at Waxmelt. “You know you do! You tried for years to teach it to me, and it never stuck, but at least I recognize it in you.”
Waxmelt laughed. “There you have it, Lady Saraband—a daughter’s commendation! Just remember that she’s partial.”
“I trust her implicitly, Lord Wickward,” said Saraband.
“Plus he has a head shaped like an egg. It’s the cutest thing.” Waxmelt glowered at his daughter, Saraband stifled a giggle, and Clovermead smiled as she jumped to her feet. “Remember, Father, I’m too old to be spanked.”
“Alas. You never deserved spanking more.” Waxmelt stuffed a hat onto his head.
“I’m stretching my legs,” said Clovermead. “Do forgive me before I come back.”
“I suppose I will,” said Waxmelt. “Does it really look like an egg?” Clovermead heard him ask Saraband plaintively as she strode into the darkness of the Heath.
Clovermead left the campfires of the refugees behind her and turned into a bear. Huge and golden-furred, she loped a few hundred feet through a half-plowed field, over a hill, and into the desert of the Heath. Rocks, ash, and sand surrounded her. She heard a snake curled up beneath a stone breathe in its sleep. A few desert rats chittered as they crept through the night. Humid air wafted from the irrigated land behind her.
Clovermead sniffed to southward for the gut-wrenching, bloody scent of bear-priests. Her nostrils sucked in the dry air, but all she smelled was dust. We’re still safe, she thought, and she sent a prayer of thanks to Our Lady. And, Lady, if there are bear-priests riding this way, make them come slowly. And make the townsmen speedy.
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