Dust and Light

by Carol Berg

  “Mam prays to the Mother, but I don’t count nothin’ in it. She bakes when she can afford the makings for bread. We hunger when she can’t. So I’ve lit torches and lamps for them as have oil to burn since I was big enough to climb, and candles for those who can afford such. Wouldn’t like to see a gentle young lady sit in the dark when I could show her what’s a rushlight. Mayhap your gods gave me the task to show her.” He shrugged. “Or not, as you may see it.”

  A bold youth. And honorable to give back the cloak. Foolish, perhaps, but honorable.

  “I’ll think on that,” I said, considering gods and chance in a most favorable light just then. “And no matter what, I’ll see you tomorrow midday on the steps of Arrosa’s Temple.”

  He let himself out the gate. I followed him to lock it and stood peering into the snow-whipped night for a while, but no streaks of sapphire light intruded on the storm. Nor could I detect any scent of meadowsweet or sun-warmed grass.

  Great gods, Lucian, get you to bed. Next you’ll be seeing Karish angels hovering over Necropolis Caton, ready to transport believers to Iero’s Heaven.

  Though I could come no nearer to understanding what my two assailants had said, the encounter in the alley was not imagined. I had evidence. My hand sought the length of rope in the inner pocket of my pelisse. But I drew out only a handful of dry litter—grass or straw with no scent at all.

  Shivering, I locked the gate. The bells pealed half midnight. Only four hours until time to rise and start a new day.

  CHAPTER 10

  The wind packed snow into Palinur’s every crack and crevice through the night, then fled like a thief. When I left the house before dawn, the sky crackled with stars and the cold was deep enough to freeze the marrow. The pocardon bustled with grim-faced women stripping the food stalls like geese at gleaning time. I hoped Filip had stocked our shelves the previous day.

  Humming a nonsense tune under my breath and pressing my hand to my nose, I raced past alleys and side lanes without a glance. I didn’t want to hear warning voices or smell meadowsweet or glimpse blue-limned figures out of myth walking the streets. I dared not acknowledge the encounter as truth. Pureblood sorcerers of healthy mind did not see Danae.

  In a firelit doorway of a hirudo shack, Demetreo the Ciceron played a haunting melody on his syrinx—one that spoke of mysteries and happier times. He didn’t look up as I hurried past. Someone had told him my name and what my portrait of the dead girl had revealed. I needed to squelch such dangerous talk. Only a few in the necropolis would have known.

  Once through the slot gate, my spelled eating knife guided me to the proper burial mound and I returned the arché to its owner. I’d brought a flask of wine, as well, one of the few that remained from the Remeni-Masson vineyards. I poured half onto the grave.

  “Sleep well, brother or sister. May the Ferryman deliver you to blessed Idrium, where all will know your name. Let this small gift refresh your time of waiting and serve as thanks for your help in time of need.”

  I poured out the remaining wine as a libation to the gods and renewed my pledge of service. My sleep had been restless as I wrestled with the guilt of venturing my forbidden bent. Things weren’t so clear in the deeps of the night. Did my portraits actually show truth—the girl’s dress, the soldier’s badge? What if they were no sign of the gods’ favor renewing my second bent, but falsehoods fed by my own pride? Worse, what if they signaled the very madness dual bents could cause? How would I know? And these other things—visions of myth I had been ready to accept as truth . . .

  “Help me know,” I whispered. “Help me recognize the truth and bring honor to my blood-kin as they feast in your halls: Vincente, Artur, Elaine, Germaine, Emil . . .” So very long it took to name them all.

  Though the sun had not yet risen when I arrived at Necropolis Caton, Bastien had already left word with Constance about five more prospects for my pen and his purse. I rifled his book press for parchment and sought out Constance again.

  “We need a new supply of parchment,” I said, waving the few bits I’d salvaged. “Beyond this there’s naught left worth using. I could as easily draw a smooth curve out there on the wagon road. And I’ve brought my own pens and ink so I can do better work, but I’ll need a brazier to keep the ink from freezing. You seem the one to get things done.”

  Her thin cheeks burned—pleased, I thought. “Oh, aye, I can see to it. Coroner’s confounded in his investigationing. Da’s burthened with burnings. Some just won’t wait for the Mother to take their kin, but must send ’em off in smoke. ’Specially these so ruint already.”

  “You burn corpses here!” Some Navrons believed fire was the cleanest way to send their kin on to Idrium, but to smell burning flesh, to raise the imagining of those I so loved screaming as the flames raged all around them—the very thought scalded my throat. “When?”

  “Sunset mostly, so’s it makes a better show. For sure I’ll see to your pages and a bit of fire. Just holler for Garen or Pleury when you need a new corpus brought.”

  Constance hefted a load of cheap tunics she used to replace fouled clothing and set off toward the prometheum. Her awkward gait set her earrings to swaying. Long, dangling earrings of orangey gold—false gold. She’d not worn them before.

  “One more thing, Constance!”

  She halted and looked round as I caught up with her. I wished to speak without the entire population of Necropolis Caton hearing us.

  “Demetreo the Ciceron knows things he should not, Mistress Constance. The law forbids any to spread gossip of a pureblood, and I’m sure you abide by it faithfully. But beyond the details of my person and my family, that restriction must include my name and the drawings I do. The portraits are the magic I provide as the gods’ instrument. Not only are they private matters between the gods, my contracted master, and me, but revealing aught of their nature—especially the wondrous bits that recommend themselves to a lively imagination such as yours—could compromise the coroner’s work, which I’m sure you’ve no intent to do.”

  “But I never—” Her protest died quickly and she wrinkled her long nose into a rueful grimace. “Ah, you’ve the right of it. I might have barbled to the Ciceron about the girlie’s drawn. But you are such a tale! And bits of gossip do help pay for a girl’s necessaries.” She shook her head vigorously, setting her earrings glittering in the torchlight. “Now on I’ll keep my tongue more privacy where you come in. You’ll not tattle to Bastien?”

  I shook my head. Bastien clearly trusted her. “I’ll keep my tongue private as well,” I said. I didn’t blame an impoverished ordinary for wanting trinkets, but I couldn’t allow her to compromise my safety or Juli’s.

  She hurried off again and I headed after, slower, considering the day to come. I wouldn’t begin with the soldiers, but with the girl child, no matter what Bastien had preferred the previous day. I had to know if the first portrait I’d done was true.

  Garen, the lean, dark-eyed runner, was lounging on the steps, waiting for a mission. I beckoned, and we set out for the Hallow Ground.

  The child’s features hadn’t altered much as yet—a little darker, a little drier and less plump. Constance had replaced her muddy rags with one of the white tunics, which I doubted was the usual practice for unknown beggars. But then, who knew who might come to fetch this one, if Bastien discovered her name.

  Arrosa’s priestesses taught that the goddess made mortal love divine—as her own birth had made holy the mating of her mother, divine Samele, and a mortal man. Did the Temple of Arrosa take initiates so young? Is that what one did with a royal bastard? But who would have killed her and why?

  Once we had the girl laid out, I spread a sheet of fresh parchment I’d brought for her, sharpened a pen, and filled an ink cup from the horn I’d brought. While the sun rose and gave me better light, I attempted to clear my mind of the past three days’ upheaval. I centered my thoughts on the banked fire behind my breastbone. As for the dark place between my eyes . . . If my second bent
was involved in these portraits, it was because somehow it had become entwined with my art, not because I’d called it up apurpose. For now I’d do only as I’d done before.

  By the time a diffuse sunlight illuminated the child’s face, the exercise had yielded calm and focus. Only then did I dip my pen in the cup. With a whispered apology to the girl for intruding on her yet again, I stroked her brow and jaw and reached deep for magic. The divine fire rushed through me, filling the simple lines and shapes with truth, and as my fingers transferred the image to the page, my body ached with bruising and quivered with terror, shame, and sickness so vile it repeatedly darkened my inner sight.

  * * *

  “Why isn’t it the same? You’ve drawn naught but what we see here, and not so accurate at that. So which is truth, or is this yet another lie?”

  I had known Bastien wasn’t going to like the new portrait. But his goading was not going to rattle me this morning. This time I was prepared. For the hour since I’d completed the portrait, I had been puzzling over the identical questions. The dregs of terror and phantom bruises had taught me the answer.

  “Both drawings are true. This one just depicts a different time. Though her hair is black, it’s long and not chopped off ragged. What if the black streaks we saw on her face and tunic weren’t just dirt? What if someone colored her hair black, as some women do, perhaps to change her enough she’d not be recognized? The day she died wouldn’t have been the first time they did it. Look at her eyes . . .”

  No merriment. No spark. Though the shape of her face remained unchanged from the other drawing, her eyes were no longer those of a child. The child’s pain explained it all.

  “. . . and notice that the garment in the drawing is not this plain tunic from Constance, but good fabric and finely embroidered. These stains are her blood.” Just as my vision in the hirudo had shown.

  Bastien growled like a dog sensing its prey. “Someone was swyving her.”

  Never could I have stated such foulness so bluntly.

  “What if you drew her a third time?”

  “I doubt anything would change. Since the last, I’ve learned more of where she died. . . .” Without mention of a revived bent for history, I told him about Demetreo and the willow brake. “As the thicket is so tangled, and Constance said the girl had likely tumbled down an embankment, it seemed logical that she’d been let go from the walls, deliberately left to roll down into the ravine.”

  Thrown away like refuse. They’d never imagined anyone might look beyond her garb. And then I told him that it was a goddess’s house abutted the wall so high above the piggery.

  “Demon scat!” he said, jumping up from my stool. “I’ve no love for noble brats, no matter which side of the blanket they’re born to. Most grow up scum, male and female alike. But them that priss and preach of gods, then turn round and debauch babies . . . that I cannot abide.”

  Corruption had always existed among the gods’ human servants, but this? I could not abide it, either.

  “So, how does a prince’s ladylove get her babe into the temple?” mumbled Bastien. “She might have been a temple girl herself. A priestess or an initiate. Maybe a bath girl. I suppose they’d keep the babe and raise her to the goddess’s service. Or it could be the child’s mam was just a servant or a court lady with a devotion to Arrosa, and she chose to stow the mite in the temple to hide her. Or just to get her out of the way.”

  “I doubt she was born to a servant.” I scanned the portrait for any detail that might have escaped me. “The first portrait showed her in court dress, so I’m thinking she lived for a while according to her station. Perhaps she was even known to the prince. She didn’t age much between the depictions, which suggests this nasty business has all happened recently. It might be you could turn over this much information to Prince Perryn. Even if he hasn’t acknowledged his bastards, he couldn’t take well to one of his own blood brutalized. And surely someone at Arrosa’s Temple has noticed she’s missing. They might know who saw her that day or who might have reason to hurt her. Surely the child’s mother couldn’t know what was being done to her.”

  When I glanced up to see why he’d not responded, Bastien was scrutinizing me as carefully as if I were a knife wound on one of his corpses. “You’ve lost your doubts,” he said. “What’s changed? Tell me why you can draw things you’ve no way to know.”

  My skin heated. He seemed able to read me right through my mask.

  I averted my eyes, vowing to be more cautious. “I’m not certain.”

  “Come, come, Servant Remeni. You’ve arrived at some thought about it. I am your contracted master, and I’ve the right to understand. I bought you.”

  Perhaps it was this evidence of corruption in a place that should be holy. Perhaps it was my fears for Juli and my inability to protect her from danger, poverty, or humiliation. Perhaps it was simply because this crude, venal, clever ordinary had reminded me that I was his slave in all but name. Whatever the reason, my anger erupted like the volcano Aesteo that had burst from the earth in a single ferocious moment.

  “You have the right to my best work. That I will give. You have the right to control my magic, save what I use to defend myself and my family. That I will give. But understanding? My thoughts? The inner workings of my power—of my soul? You have no right, and you could not pay enough. Master.”

  I touched shaking fingers to forehead as I was required and walked out. Wrapping arms around my throbbing head, I invoked every mental discipline I knew, determined to forget every single happening in my life since I had left home for the university.

  * * *

  Bastien found me seated on the prometheum steps in welcome sunlight. He made a great show of dusting off the steps to preserve his threadbare velvet. More wealthy cows to milk today, I supposed. When he sat, I ignored him. Once in sufficient control, I would return to my erstwhile studio, do a portrait of one of the dead soldiers, and then leave to visit the linkboy and his vile lodging, where I must house my virgin sister.

  “Wondered when you were going to stop hiding behind the mask, show a spine, convince me.”

  Was he trying to goad me into another outburst? “Command me as you will, Coroner, but soon, if you please. I’m going out at midday on family business. If you disapprove, complain to the Registry.”

  “We’ve two strikes already from yesterday’s six portraits,” he said, matter-of-factly. “One was a palace understeward’s only son. One was an edane’s heir. The lowly understeward offered a grateful twenty coppers; the mighty edane a grudging ten. Did I not tell you how it goes?”

  I tried to imagine warmth emanating from the pale sun.

  He waited for a bit, then heaved a dramatic sigh. Perhaps he was disappointed I expressed no amazement at his accurate prediction of relative generosity. Did he wish me to beg for a share of his tainted earnings?

  He pulled a sliver of wood from his sleeve and picked at his teeth. “Good work on the child. I think we partner well.”

  “We are not partners.” Even if I was stuck in this contract forever, even if Juli and I were reduced to eating raw wheat, I would not sell the dead’s secrets for money.

  “Humph.” The grunt sounded more resigned than angry. He tucked away the toothpick, rose, and dusted off his backside. “See to your family business as you like. Just make sure you get those five done before tomorrow morning.”

  He didn’t wait for my agreement. He recognized that honoring the contract mattered to me. I hated that he knew me even that much.

  Once a frosted haze obscured the sun’s brief visit, I signaled Garen to carry in the first of this day’s corpses, while I returned the child to her ice barrow. I offered a brief prayer for her soul’s peace to whomever might be listening, then returned to my studio, touched a man’s brutally cloven brow, and reached for magic.

  * * *

  “’Tain’t a palace,” said Egan the linkboy, understating the obvious, as we descended the decrepit stair into the Bakers’ District alley
, scattering a collegium of bony cats. “But we’re below, and Mam’s fierce about vermin. She lays traps and ratsbane, and sets out alder leaves and glue for the fleas. You’ll never see none of either. . . .”

  House was too generous a term for the ungraceful stack of soot-blackened stone. From its shape, the lay of the land, and other hints scattered through the street, I’d guess a grand Aurellian villa had once stood in this place, destroyed in the war that expelled the last remnants of the empire. Egan’s residence was likely built around the hearth of the main residence. Stones from the ruin would have provided the extra walls, as well as accounting for the baking ovens that gave the district its name.

  “. . . and when we’ve a fire, the heat’ll warm your floor. Last lodger said his toes were never chilled. I won’t lie, there’s rough in the street, but Ju—the lady says she’s got ways that I know I’m not supposed to speak of. Nor will Mam, though she’ll have to know such if she’s to companion the lady. Got to say, it feels anxious, knowing such persons as yourself suffer the hard times.” Egan’s verbiage had never slowed since I met him on the broad steps of Arrosa’s Temple.

  I had already visited the dank corner where the temple precincts abutted Palinur’s inner rampart. A stair had taken me to the walk atop the hoary Elder wall. The view was most enlightening. Had someone dropped the child from the top of the wall her body would have been much more damaged than it was. But at a place where the Elder Wall bounded the temple’s gardens, a drainage grate opened from the bottom of the wall. Seeps had carved channels down the earthen rampart toward the dark tangle of the hirudo willow thicket far below. The murderer had rolled the child downslope with the sewage. Despicable.

  “How much?” I said, interrupting Egan’s description of his mother’s bread. “What must we give for it?” For two rooms, one approximately the size of Juli’s clothes chest, the other perhaps twice that.