by Prue Batten
‘Tell me. How am I cursed?’ Her voice broke as she continued. ‘What have I done?’ The note fell from her fingers as she clasped Nicholas in her arms, crying. ‘Nothing Nico. I swear, nothing.’
But the roles reversed as Nicholas held onto her. He knew she suffered even more now. That her beloved daughter was linked in some way to some foul curse that had taken away her stepson’s voice. Everyone’s pain lay on the breadth of his shoulders and as she shuddered, he knew she hurt for him as much as Isabella.
He raised his eyes to Phelim and his stepfather said quietly, ‘We must go to the Ymp Trees. Gallivant, come and help me pack. We’ll go tomorrow at Dawn. The ship sails from Darlington in a day and we’ll need that time to get to the harbour.’
*
The sea purled along the sides of the ship, creamy waves that seemed to whisper as the vessel made headway.
‘Segreta, segreta,’ Nicholas thought they hissed, a word he knew well as the Hob had often used it himself in the past when relaying stories of mischief and mayhem. Segreta – secret in the Venichese patois. He wondered about the words from Cassiope and from the Swan Maid. Was all that segreta? Why did Others know about curses and Fate but not Phelim or Gallivant? And why did those Others not share the knowledge so much sooner? Such tardiness had done nothing but maliciously condemn the family to a year of pain and suffering. Perhaps, he thought, Others were wary of the Hob and the Færan, suspicious of the length of time they had shared in mortal lives.
‘You mustn’t dwell on things, Nico.’
Phelim moved in by his side at the gunwales, the breeze tossing his hair back, revealing silver wings which Nicholas realised he hadn’t noticed before.
Has this sorrow carved scars on us all – Adelina as thin as a wraith and bordering on morbid hysteria, Gallivant as bitter as lemon and salt, Phelim with silver frosting his hair?
He realised Phelim was talking to Gallivant who had bustled up from the cabins below.
‘Best she sleeps,’ he said and the Hob nodded. ‘I’m worried, Gallivant. She’s as brittle as a twig, as if I could bend her and she’d snap. I’ve never seen her as bad. She’s got no resilience left.’
‘But a mother will always mourn the loss of a child, Phelim,’ Gallivant harrumphed. ‘And in many ways this is worse. She doesn’t know if Isabella is alive or dead. If she was dead, and forgive me for saying this, the Stitcher could grieve accordingly. But her mind is stretched one way as she grieves for a dead daughter, but then there is that tiny shred of hope that pulls at her sanity the other way until it is as thin as spider floss. It’s tantamount to torture.’
‘What happens to sanity if we find Isabella dead?’ Nico passed them a note stating the obvious, feeling that it might as well be said as not.
Phelim stood taller, his shoulders broadening still more as if the weight of the world could never bow him down.
‘She’s alive until we find otherwise. Now listen to me both of you. We’ll not allow despair to cow any of us. As long as there’s hope we’ll continue searching and to be frank, Maeve’s words have given me more hope than I have ever had.’
‘Why did Others not reveal knowledge of curse earlier?’ Nico scrawled quickly. ‘We’re Other, why would they toy with us? They could see what we were going through.’
‘Suddenly you and Phelim are undeniably Other?’Gallivant snorted. ‘This is news. One could be forgiven for believing mortal life was your favoured way to live.’ Impatience rang around the aft deck on which they stood. ‘Why should Others treat you any different than you preferred to be?’
Nico reached across Phelim and grabbed the Hob’s arm in a cruel grip. So much that he wanted to say but he could only think it.
Did you know about a curse? Because I swear if you did I’ll knock you down and lay curses on you that will have you crinkling like a leaf.
Gallivant’s face had become flushed, his faded hazel eyes hardening, hands gripped into balls by his side but Nicholas turned away. Would they understand what it felt like to know that a curse hung over you? Of never being able to vocalise anything, not even to cry with satisfaction, at best a silent howl. Already the dynamics of their family had changed to an almost irreparable degree.
Who knew what might be next?
‘Enough.’ Phelim’s command exploded above the sound of sail and the sea. ‘Put your fists away and listen. We’ll dock at Swansea and it will take us a few days travelling to reach the highway. The Stitching Fair will be in Orford and I propose we visit the Fair as we pass through. Stitching has been Adelina’s life and perhaps, just perhaps, she’ll see something she might like to buy – thread, fabric, maybe even patterns and designs. She always told me busy hands kept the dark away and she may also see some of her old Traveller friends. There’s a chance that some of their wisdom may help her, they are an intuitive people.’
The sound of desperation tinged his words, the sound of a man who would bend a river to save his love.
‘Whatever you say, Phelim,’ Gallivant pushed his hands in the pockets of the impeccable jacket he wore and stared out at the albatross that swooped back and forth over the wash streaming behind the stern.
Nicholas looked up at the cracking sails, at the men scampering across the rigging, at the white cloud bellying in the sky as if the heavens filled their own sails. His eyes swung back to the sailors as he heard their laughing patter and he wondered how long since he had last laughed.
Like the sharp pain of a stiletto in his side he remembered – it was the night Isabella had been taken and he realised everything in their misbegotten lives was now measured by that date. As sure as others might measure lives by the tick of a clock or by a birthday, their own was ever to be calculated by the disappearance of his stepsister.
Chapter Five
Isabella
‘There are none left in the compound, Master Koi. And Madame was specific. She saw the red from the wasp’s nest for the bolt of shifu and she covets exactly that shade.’
Master Koi was sitting erect in a chair before a cherrywood table across which was stretched a scroll displaying the exotic brushstrokes of Han calligraphy. In front of him, he had laid a fine bamboo-handled brush, the slick end dripping ink into a white jade bowl. A black silk tunic pooled over a prosperous paunch and he looked up as Isabella spoke. She chafed at his expression, always so enigmatic, made more so by his charcoal hair slicked so tightly back. This time it was plaited in a long rope and the plait looped in two at his nape with strands of grey creating drama that Belle did not wish to countenance.
‘It is most irregular, Ibo. No servant leaves the compound to go outside their own gates without a guard. Ever. And the Han Gate, never!’
He struggled with Isabella’s language but his meaning was explicit.
‘Then send me with a guard, sir. Or perhaps you should tell Madame Koi that she must pick another colour. There is indigo left in quantities and some of the elm bark which will give an ochre tint. Or if I blend the two, I can make a type of green.’
Isabella knew indigo would be an absolute anathema, not just to Madame but to the Master as well. Indigo was the colour of slaves’ robes after all. And Master Koi was astute enough to know that ochre and green would drain Madame’s face of all colour, incurring wrath from his wife. As Isabella spoke, the rattle of Madame’s curt voice could be heard abusing the staff and she straightened a smile as she observed the Master cringing in response.
She thanked Aine for the timing.
‘No. If it is red she desires, then red she must have. Ibo, I have grown to trust you. Your nature is quiet and obedient and I have observed excellence in your work above and beyond my orders. The First House has benefited from your skills and can only benefit further.’
Ah yes, if only you knew what I know, what Lucia heard, Master Koi. Benefit is all, is it not?
She hated that she was to be offered like a devotion for the benefit of the House of Koi but bowed over her hands as he continued in his sonorous voice.
‘The fabric you made is magnificent, Ibo, and I think we shall have a fine sale and perhaps I shall trust you for that reason.’
He sat contemplating his brush and his fingers touched one end and then the other so that it balanced back and forth over the ink dish as if it were a set of scales. Back and forth, back and forth. His hands showed neither callous nor wrinkle, the hands of a man who spent much time in studious endeavour and his shadowed eyes surveyed the brush, perhaps looking for an answer. Just for once Isabella desperately wanted to read his thoughts but he had perfected the art of inscrutability and so she waited for a response in the papery quiet, twisting her fingers under the cuffs.
Finally he looked up.
‘I shall arrange for the Koi Gate to open and for the Han Gate to be aware you shall be coming. You will collect what you need in the forest and be back before dark. They will be told this. If you are late you know what will happen. You will be seen as an errant slave and your feet will be struck off.’
She bowed again, her heartbeats so loud they seemed like temple drums.
‘You shall go tomorrow and I shall expect you back in the compound as the sun sinks. I do not wish to be let down.’
‘No, Master Koi. Thank you, sir.’
She folded her hands into the cuffs of her robe, glimpsing the toes of her fated feet. Thinking she was dismissed, she turned to leave the dangerous sanctity of the library.
‘Before you go Ibo, I have something for you.’ He handed a parcel to her. ‘It is a roll of woven cotton and silk. You must make a robe for the Spring Lantern Festival and wear it when the Emperor visits the First House. Do you think there is enough time for you to make Madame’s gown and your own? It is important that you are dressed to enhance First House Status.’
Gift-wrapping!
‘I will have time. Thank you, Master Koi.’
Already I work like a fiend to accomplish everything you and your wife want. But I shall do this, if only to divert you and give me space to do what I must.
She bowed again and left in haste as she could feel anger creeping up her body like some clinging plant and knew she must leave his library before it strangled her. It had no place in her plans beyond fuel, like logs to a fire.
Outside she took a breath and then another – deep and redeeming, excitement at the first step of her ploy bubbling over.
*
‘Isabella.’
She turned quickly as Lucia bustled over to her, her arms loaded with a full basket of spinach, the bunches tied together with long straps of onion leaves.
‘You look remarkably happy, my girl. What have you done? Oh. Oh my goodness, you didn’t ask him, did you?’
Isabella nodded.
‘He said yes, didn’t he?’ Lucia’s voice whispered in awe. ‘You’re obviously powerfully valuable for him to agree to such a thing. What did he say?’
The two women walked toward the kitchen, Isabella hugging the parcel close. ‘He was reluctant. But I think he thought less of the trouble of me going outside the compound than of Madame Koi’s tongue should she not get her red silk.’
‘Ssh,’ Lucia looked over her shoulder. ‘You mustn’t be disrespectful.’
‘Lucia, for Aine’s sake. They can’t understand us and respect is a two-way thing. What respect do they show us? Who dares have slaves anywhere in Eirie? It is incomprehensible.’
Lucia dropped her basket onto the verandah step and grabbed Isabella’s arm.
‘Sometimes muirnin, you are too stupid for words. Have you forgotten Master Koi speaks our language and could understand? Have you also forgotten that he has never once treated you ill? That you have good food, clothing, your own room. That you are treated with something akin to awe for your skills.’
‘And yet I could still be at home with my family if I hadn’t been abducted,’ Isabella hissed back. ‘Besides, I am still enough of a slave to be warned that if I don’t return by dark tomorrow, I shall suffer the full punishment of the law without his defence. You call that respect? You call being passed to the Imperial House as a set of breeding loins, respect?’
Lucia eyed Isabella, neither backing down nor intimidated.
‘Tell me friend,’ her voice cracked with ice and her expression could have frozen hot water. ‘What is it you hold in your arms?’
Isabella was taken aback, looking down at the parcel as if it had manifested from the air. She shifted it, a faint blush on her cheeks.
‘Fabric. I am to make a robe to wear for the Festival when the Emperor visits the First House.’
‘Really,’ Lucia hissed like a snake. ‘And what is the fabric? Shibori cotton?’
She grabbed the parcel and flipped open the end. Inside was a role of palest aquamarine. It set Isabella’s heart chiming as she was drawn instantly to memories of the coves and bays of her home.
‘Well, well,’ Lucia continued her bitter whisper. ‘It seems our disrespectful Master has no intention of kindness toward his slave. He is so unkind he forgot to give her heavy indigo cotton. Instead he has chosen ridiculous silky cotton that will sew beautifully and in a colour that will make her skin lustrous. He is indeed an unkind and disrespectful man.’
She picked up the basket of spinach and Isabella watched the bent figure without whom she couldn’t live in this place.
‘It is my sole lot in life, Lucia, to beg forgiveness for arrogance, pride and stupidity. Constantly. I don’t deny the Master is considerate, that he treats us well. This,’ she held up the parcel, ‘is surely proof. But you are not to be presented to the Imperial House as a breeder. I am, and it frightens me and angers me.’
Lucia stood on the steps of the kitchen and looked down on the younger woman.
‘So it would seem. I ought to throttle you, Isabella. It scares me that you can be so wilfully ignorant. Go tomorrow and I shall pray to the Lady Aine to give you sense enough to return by dark. Leave me in peace now.’
She turned away and pushed through the fog of spice-scented steam and Isabella watched her go.
Maybe I don’t escape tomorrow, Lucia. Maybe tomorrow is just a fishing trip but I tell you, I won’t miss any of this when I go. My body is not for bartering and my freedom is not for sale…
*
She spent the night cutting the aquamarine fabric into pieces and tacking them together, snatching sleep in the hours before dawn. The fabric was fine and slipped through her fingers with a sigh. She was reminded of the wind soughing through the avenue of pines near Ebba’s house and how the waves sighed on the shores of the bay occasionally and it was all she could do not to bundle the silk to her mouth and scream.
As light filtered through the slats of her room and the dawnfrost laid a mantle of crisp white over the garden outside, she rose, washed and pulled the luscious hair back into a swinging bunch before twisting it into a bun and tying an indigo scarf around her head. She pulled on her thickest under-clothing, tucking it into trousers and belting a short heavily-quilted robe over the top. From amongst the pattens outside her door, she took a pair of leather boots, the only thing remaining of her life before abduction, and dragged them over her stockings, the trouser legs squashed inside.
Sliding her door shut, she stepped across the icy compound to the kitchens, her breath trailing behind her in clouds that might have been her dreams. Lucia met her with a cloth sling filled with food – dumplings, some crispy vegetable rolls and a small bamboo container with steamed rice under its lid.
‘Can’t have you starving, young woman. Now you listen to me!’
Isabella took the food and paid attention to the kitchen maid.
‘Watch the sky. When the sun drops from the high point, head back. Promise me. Get you gone now.’
The birds had just begun to chirrup in the elm and the sun had lifted beyond the confines of the terracotta roof tiles. The sky had lightened to a palest blue tinged with gold and it promised to be an exceptional late winter’s day. Isabella hoisted the knotted loop over her shoulder.
; ‘Thank you for your concern, Lucia, I mean it. As Aine is my witness I promise I shall watch the sun. As my shadow lengthens, I shall return.’
With that she flicked about and almost ran through the garden to the heavy wooden gates of the First House and for the first time in more than a year, stood waiting for them to open. She turned briefly, conscious of eyes watching her from the verandah and met the intimidating stare of Master Koi. His tall dark silhouette was nothing if not a warning.
And I warn you, sir, I will be gone from here one day. It is but a matter of time…
*
The gates clanged behind her and she glanced involuntarily at her leather-shod feet, reminders of what she had to lose. Gathered around her, surrounded by a fug of condensed air snorting from wide nostrils, was a horse train.
On the instructions of Master Koi, relayed to her by one of the huge female gatekeepers and which she only managed to understand because one of the traders accompanying the horse train spoke her language, she would accompany these traders to the forest outside the Han Gate. Initially angry at the interference, she swiftly realised this had been a courtesy from Master Koi, as she was as like to have walked off in the wrong direction without such guidance and become lost in the panorama that stretched before her – culminating in a late return – and the inevitable punishment.
The city sat in a wide bowl scooped out of the earth’s confines. Surrounding the far reaches, almost as far as she could see and creeping like the humps of a crawling caterpillar, was a winding great wall with castellated towers at intervals. Halfway up the rim of the bowl behind her were tessellated slopes, hoary and pale in the briskness of a cool dawn – richly farmed contours providing nourishment for the Han.
In summer, she imagined it would be difficult to spot anything other than the quaint upturned frills at the corners of the rooves as each tree in private gardens would bend heavy foliage over walls and gates. But in winter everything was obvious as the early sunbeams danced from tile to tile.
The First House sat on the upper levels of the city along with other such magnificences. But streets led away in an orderly fashion down into the city centre where reason would no doubt have dictated a busy market place. The roadways were paved in grey stone and the sides of the roads had gutters lined with rock down which water trickled, still iced and hard against the outer edges of the drains. In the distant vista, she could see a massive lake sparkling copper with the early sun and the resonance of the temple drums calling the Han to the new day made her realise that she had business too, far from the confines of this walled world.