The City Darkens (Raud Grima Book 1)

by Martin, Sophia

  A pale, weak sense of relief washed over me. At least he didn’t sound convinced it was the truth. But the things he was telling me… the relief soon gave way to nausea. “How can people believe Vigja Galmr? How can they let this go on?”

  Liut shook his head again. “I don’t think most believe him, to be honest. Well, there are some true believers, and unfortunately the new konunger and konungdis are among them. The rest… well, no one who lives at court has any dealings with the dwellers of the Undergrunnsby, so they aren’t very concerned about them. If anything, most see them as a nuisance or a stain on the city—it’s nothing new, either. So they go along.”

  I covered my eyes with my hands. The gaunt, pale face of the little boy blossomed behind my closed eyelids. My hands dropped and I opened my eyes wide, willing the image away, but it lingered in my mind. “Oh, Liut, I don’t know if I can bear it. That poor boy.”

  “He reminded you of your son, didn’t he,” Liut stated.

  I bit my lower lip and met his eyes. He frowned and reached for my hand. I let him take it. His hand was warm, and the feeling of it comforted me a little.

  “I’m sorry, Myadar,” he said softly. “I really am. I wish I could do something to help.”

  “I know,” I said, managing a smile.

  “But I think—I think if you can’t get him back… isn’t it better to try to put him out of your mind? What good will it do you to grieve for him? What good will it do him?”

  My heart constricted at his words, and I almost pulled away from him. He had no children, I reminded myself. He couldn’t know the love they drew from you. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a child. I squeezed his hand. “Thank you for trying to comfort me, Liut. It means a lot to me.”

  He sighed and gazed at me. In his expression I read that he thought I was being stubborn, that he thought I should let go of my grief. I found it hard to keep holding his hand, but again I reminded myself that he didn’t have children of his own. He couldn’t understand what he was asking of me.

  “We must keep going,” I said softly. “I’m afraid of what Reister will do when I’m so late coming home.”

  ~~~

  I needn’t have worried. When I let myself in to the apartments Sveinn was standing in a corner of the entry hall.

  “Welcome home, Jarldis Sölbói-ungr,” the robot said.

  “Hello, Sveinn. Are you the only one up?” I asked, and then felt a bit silly. As far as I knew, robots didn’t sleep, so how could he conceive of being ‘up’?

  As it turned out, he did understand me, regardless. “Yes, Jarldis. Jarldis Sölbói is abed, and Jarl Sölbói has not yet come home.”

  I frowned, even as relief washed through me like cool water. “Not yet home,” I murmured as I passed him to head for the corridor to my room.

  “That’s right, Jarldis.”

  I stopped and turned to him again. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I am not certain, Jarldis. He left after dinner. Jarl Snúa met him, and they left together.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Sveinn.”

  “You’re welcome, Jarldis.”

  Jarl Snúa. This must have something to do with the warehouse and whatever it was he was storing there. He had said to Snúa something about a shipment coming in, hadn’t he? I tried to remember the conversation I’d overheard. Something about a warehouse in the Torc, by the customs building. It hadn’t interested me at the time, since it had nothing to do with where Reister had sent Bersi. I didn’t care much about it now, either, except to be grateful that whatever his business was, it was keeping Reister away from home.

  I sighed as I crossed the sitting room on my way to the corridor. The face of that poor boy was sure to hang behind my eyes the moment I closed them to sleep. It couldn’t be helped. I was exhausted. I needed a quick bath to wash the grime from the Undergrunnsby off of me. My coat and dress might be ruined, I realized.

  As I undressed in the bathroom, a feeling of dread rolled through me. That poor child. Those poor people. They had frightened me when they all came out of their shanties, true, but they were desperate. Who could blame them? Talk of extermination, enslavement. And in the meantime, they were cut off from all charity. Their children were dying of hunger.

  Someone ought to do something, I thought.

  Someone ought to.

  For the first time since I’d hidden the disguise of Raud Gríma I thought of it again.

  Raud Gríma was a folk hero. A highway robber who punished the greedy by taking their wealth (and sometimes murdering them) and handing it out to those in need. Had some ancestor of Reister’s tried to help the poor of Helésey, dressed as Raud Gríma? Or had it been a simple costume for a party?

  I left the bathroom, unclothed and shivering, and tip-toed through my dark room to the chest where I’d hidden the costume. I pulled everything out and revealed the red silk mask and the leather hooded vest, which lay folded on top of the black velvet clothes and the boots. I held the vest up and out tumbled a dagger.

  I stared at it. In my haste to carry off the costume and hide it here I hadn’t taken any time to look through the clothes. The dagger must have been inside the vest—I opened it, and sure enough, there was a scabbard sewn inside. A decorative carving ran over the hilt of the dagger in the shape of two snakes swallowing each other’s tails, its cross guard was curved on each side like two horns, and the blade, despite its age, gleamed in the light that came from the bathroom. I touched the edge of it, and gasped as a drop of blood bubbled on my finger. This was no prop for a fancy dress ball.

  Sliding the dagger back into its scabbard, I folded up the vest and placed it back in with the rest of the disguise. Raud Gríma—how could a noble have been behind that mask, all along? Except… who better to see the excesses of his peers? Who better to lose patience with the way they exploited the poor? Raud Gríma rode a horse, the legends said. A war horse. Only nobles had war horses. Of course, storytellers never had any trouble explaining how Raud Gríma, who everyone thought was some desperate outlaw, got his hands on a war horse: he stole it. But after all, you didn’t just learn how to ride a war horse by deciding one day to try it. You had to be trained for many years.

  I stroked the leather of the vest, ornate with braiding and knobby designs echoing the two snakes on the dagger’s hilt, and then buried the costume again, closing the chest. Some ancestor of Reister’s. How surprising. Whoever he was, he must be disappointed now, to see how his line turned out.

  After a moment I went back to my bath and set about washing off the night’s activities. Raud Gríma. We needed Raud Gríma now. Raud Gríma would feed the citizens of the Undergrunnsby. Raud Gríma would restore the vigjadises of Frigga and oust this false prophet, High Vigja Galmr, from the capital. Raud Gríma would bring me back my son.

  I let myself cry for a while, until the water in the bath grew cold, and then I crawled into my bed, pulling the covers up high over my head.

  ~~~

  The little boy in the sewers was crying. He howled, clutching the bare skin of his stomach. I could see his ribs, his skinny fingers digging into them. When he looked up at me, he had Bersi’s face.

  I woke shuddering, my hands gripping the covers. The awful panic the nightmare gave me did not abate. My heart did not slow. I tried to control my breathing, make it even out, but I could not. Had the child survived? Where was Bersi? Was he suffering?

  I knew he was. He must be calling for me. How terrified he must be. Were they hurting him? Did he understand what had happened? We had never been apart for more than two days before. He must be so afraid.

  My heart kept pounding—it was painful. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear the memory of that poor child in the Undergrunnsby. I couldn’t bear knowing the Bersi was mourning me, somewhere, and I couldn’t find him.

  Sleep would be no comfort. I had only to close my eyes for the images from my nightmare to begin replaying themselves again. I couldn’t continue like this. I was exhausted f
rom running half the night to get home, and now I couldn’t sleep or the nightmares would take me again.

  I had to find a way to rest. I couldn’t think what else to do, I was too tired. If I could rest, tomorrow I would puzzle out how to find Bersi. I would find a way. But it was only an hour or two before dawn now, and if I didn’t sleep, I would be no use to anybody.

  Stepping into my bathroom, I leaned against the counter and looked at my reflection. I had lost weight, and my hair no longer shone with its warm honey hue, but looked drab and dry instead. For a moment, my image swam, and I saw the starving boy’s face again.

  “Oh, gods,” I breathed. As I lurched away from the mirror I stepped on the rumpled clothes I’d taken off when I got home. I heard a muffled clink.

  I pulled the bottle of cherry brandy from the pocket of the chocolate silk coat; ruined now by the grit on the roof, the rain that had caught us, and the grime of the Undergrunnsby. Looking at glass bottle, I didn’t have much of a taste for it—I had tried to give it to the boy. I remembered how he coughed, and I cringed. Had I made him worse? Had it been very stupid to give him alcohol? I clutched the bottle tightly, my fingers going white. I only wanted to help him. Was it possible I did? Did the sip I gave him revive him? He had, after all, opened his eyes. Those blue eyes. So like Bersi’s.

  With a sob, I pressed the cool glass to my forehead. What could I do? I didn’t know where Bersi was. I had no way to save that poor starving boy. Seeing him dying… it was like seeing Bersi dying. I couldn’t bear it.

  I unstopped the bottled and drank. Tilting my head back, I took in as much of the fiery liquid as I could swallow. I didn’t taste it, just let it flow down my throat, burning the tissues as it passed. As I tried to swallow more, my throat closed and coughs racked me. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. The alcohol didn’t affect me as I wanted—everything was still clear, stark. I could still see the child’s pale skin, almost translucent—the hollows of his cheeks, around his eyes. What had Helésey become, but a nightmare? A city of the underworld with an underworld city beneath it. I was trapped here, among the demons, separated from my son, unable to escape. I drank again.

  At last my eyes grew blurry, and the anguish abated. I felt warm and numb. I could sleep now, I thought. I managed to find my way back to my bed, and I fell into it, letting darkness come.

  ~~~

  I soon ran out of cherry brandy. The next day after my adventure in the Undergrunnsby, in fact. But I discovered Reister’s liquor cabinet in his study. I tried the knob on the cabinet and found it locked. It was a simple lock, hardly more than decorative. It reminded me of a latch on a jewelry box I’d had as a child. You only needed a pin to open it.

  I undid the headband I wore in my hair and slid the pin I’d recovered into the lock. Sure enough, I just had to wiggle it for a moment before I heard a satisfying click. I opened the door.

  First I gazed at all of the bottles—two different kinds of mead, several ciders, and four different clear brandies, one of which was spiced with caraway seeds visible on the bottom. That one had already been opened. I would begin with it, I decided.

  I stole drinks from Reister’s private liquor cabinet and sometimes at parties I would secret a full bottle, hiding it in my room. My hoard grew, for I tried not to use the bottles I stole. They were for some future emergency. As the days passed I wondered if Reister would notice the theft. Once, I saw Sveinn restocking the cabinet, and relief hit me. Perhaps Reister would never know.

  Weeks passed. I was almost never sober. Liut and I met in special private rooms his family owned throughout the palace—it was my only consolation. Our hands would fumble in our urgency, yet he always made my skin catch fire with his touch. I relished every moment I had with him, and when we were apart, I could think of little else but him. We took risks—I, lying to Reister and Mother Tora about my activities, coming up with excuses for why I must go out during the day. He, using his family’s rooms without anyone knowing, keeping our affair secret. After one tryst, we heard voices in the corridor and he dressed in a flash, rushing out to intercept whichever of his relatives was making his way to the room. He left his golden lighter on the table, and I took it, slipping it into my little handbag—a secret memento, secret even from Liut himself. I took it out and gazed at it sometimes when I was alone.

  Sometimes Reister accompanied me when I went out at night, although he never showed any interest in sharing a bed, for which I was profoundly grateful. Sharing his company at the soirées was enough of an ordeal in itself. I was often invited, and when my husband came along I endured it only by drinking more than before. When he stayed home—or more accurately, when whatever secret dealings took him out of the palace—I could enjoy the soirées and pretend that Liut was my husband. I could forget that I was trapped.

  And so I settled into a routine of sorts. At night I would go out to a dinner, an opera (and usually stay, although I returned more than once to the Perle), a party, or another soirée. I would get drunk enough to attain the numbness that made it all bearable, and when I got home, I would drink more in order to sleep. I would wake in the late morning, sometimes in the early afternoon, and perhaps eat something, perhaps not. I would prepare for the evening, and sometimes I would meet Liut before whatever soirée was planned. It depended on what Reister was doing.

  One thing that I noticed was that the way the men dressed was changing—at least for some. Soirées were soon peppered with officers—called harjas—in uniform. They still wore black, but instead of a white or cream shirt and cravat, they wore the polished buttons and purple and silver trim of the soldiers I’d seen from the window of the sedan that night when we’d driven through the city. As harjas their uniforms might be made of finer fabric and they wore insignias on their collars, but they were essentially the same. And all had upward pointing arrows on their lapels. I was getting very sick of that symbol.

  The first time I met an aeroplane pilot, it took me a moment to understand what Liut was saying to me about him. I had heard of aeroplanes—I had even heard that Jöfurdis Svida had once learned to pilot an aeroplane, although I didn’t believe it. Aeroplanes sounded like a child’s fantasy; I never really believed the stories I’d heard in Söllund of crafts like automobiles, that burned oil, but flew through the air. We had a car; it was heavy. How would such a thing leave the ground? But now, I had to accept that they were real, or call the pilots I met in the soirées liars. And everyone around me accepted aeroplanes as fact, although they didn’t show their usual detachment. Pilots in the soirées always had a flock of people—usually women, but some men at times as well—asking all about their aeroplanes and their missions. The pilots gave inconsequential details, telling stories about their flights without really revealing the role they played in the war. For we were at war. Although no formal declaration had been made, the provinces resisted the Conversion, and before long it was clear that the konunger had no intention of backing down. I gathered from the bits and pieces the pilots threw out that they were dropping explosives on towns in the provinces. The prospect filled me with horror. To be walking through the street of your town, only to look up and see some uncanny machine dropping incendiaries down on your head! And on towns, where children played in the streets… it made my throat close on the mead or brandy I was drinking. Which only encouraged me to drink more.

  “Oh, Jarldis Sölbói, have you met Harja Örn?” Liut said during the cocktail before a dinner one evening. Harja Örn gave me a curt nod. He dressed as a pilot. He wore his hair—was it dark? light?—slicked back like all the rest of the men, but pilots always wore fitted black leather jackets with broad lapels, which, unlike the suit coats or uniform coats of the other gentlemen, stopped at their waists. Around their necks they often had knotted silk scarves, most cream-colored like this one.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Jöfurdis Svida answered for me; she joined us as Liut spoke. Dressed in a dark brown gown, the garnet jewels in her hair piece glowed
amid her auburn bob like coals. She held a hand out to the pilot, who took it and bowed over it deferentially. “Harja Örn. I heard you had to fight down another pilot in the sky above Bóndi.” When they heard this, many other guests crowded around.

  “This is Jöfurdis Kolorma Svida,” Liut interjected by way of introducing her to the pilot.

  “Of course,” Örn said. “I recognized you at once, Jöfurdis. You are a muse to us, heroes of the air.”

  My eyebrows drew together. “Heroes” seemed the wrong word—although I supposed he confronted more danger than just the possibility of gravity overcoming the magic of his craft, if it was true that he’d had to fight another aeroplane.

  “Tell us about the battle,” someone in the crowd said.

  He beamed at the jöfurdis and then cast his smile around at the others. “It came as quite a surprise,” he said easily. “One moment I was concentrating on my mission, halfway over the town, and then the next moment I had bullets flying about my ears.”

  “Bullets!” someone exclaimed.

  “Some local jarling who’d bought an aeroplane when they first became available was trying to shoot me with an old hunting rifle! Sitting in his cockpit, firing away!” Örn said with a chuckle.

  “How could he fly and shoot at the same time?” Jöfurdis Svida asked.

  “I suppose that contributed to his poor aim,” Örn said, grinning. “I was lucky to have a pistol.”

  “You shot him?” someone gasped.

  Örn gave a nod. “Quite so. His plane went down, and when it hit the earth it exploded into flames. Poor chap—he showed Tyran bravery, after all.”

  Murmurs passed through the crowd.

  “The konunger has ordered the development of new aeroplanes with guns fixed to them,” Örn added. “I suppose it’s a sign of the future of aviation, but I think it might be a bit premature. One jarling with an aeroplane does not mean a true threat to the konunger’s forces.”