by Patty Jansen
Some time in the morning, she stepped on a particularly slippery patch of mud and fell hard on her side.
“Loriane!” Myra called.
Loriane sat there, wetness seeping into her clothes. It had started drizzling and thick clouds of mist billowed up the cliffside, obscuring the land below from view.
That mist now revealed the stumpy form of Dara, rushing back. “Mistress Loriane, are you all right?”
“Think so.”
Dara grabbed her under the arms and heaved her back onto her feet. “By the skylights, you be even bigger than Sinna were with the twins. You must be exhausted.”
“I’m all right,” Loriane said, but she felt tears pricking in her eyes. “Is it far to where we’re going?”
“Oh, if we’d be going where we planned to go, you’d already be there, but since we can’t—”
“What do you mean—can’t?” She hated how her voice spilled over. Yes, she had noticed how Dara and Ontane had been fighting, but she had been too busy not falling to hear what they said. “Why didn’t you say anything before? Where are we going?”
“Truth be told, mistress, I wish I knew that mesself.” Ontane came stomping up the path. “But with that spectacle of icefire following, I don’t think we’d have been safe. The hunting shack’s only uphill from town .”
“Then where to? All the way to Chevakia?” Loriane stared into the mist.
“If that’s what it takes, yes.”
“I can’t walk that far.”
“You’ll have to, mistress, nothing be helped.”
Myra gave her father a furious look. “Can’t you at least help her?”
“Child, what do you think we’re doing here? It be hard enough getting the cart down this rotten path without you women bellyaching. I wish, too, that we could put our feet up in the shack, but that’s not going to happen, and whether you complain or not, it can’t be helped. I’ll say it again: it-can’t-be-helped.”
“No need to be rude about it,” Myra said. When her light blue eyes met Loriane’s, her expression softened.
“Take my arm,” she said.
She held out her left arm. The sleeve of her right arm hung limply blow the shoulder.
For some reason, Loriane remembered taking the little bundle of fur from Tandor’s arms. A premature baby, his eyes unfocused, his arms and back covered in sparse but unusually long black hair. The stump of a leg withered below the knee. In the first days, she had worried about the frostbite to his single foot, and she had worried about looking after an imperfect child.
Isandor, where was he now? Would she ever see him again?
* * *
They kept going.
At first the path was steep, slippery and snow-covered. Soon the mist overtook them and turned the world dreary and grey. Ruko led the camel, the beast picking its way between the rocks as if it knew the way. On occasion, it would stop and then everyone would have to lift the cart over some rock or another, but those times became fewer and further in between.
They encountered no other people, although sometimes Loriane thought she could hear voices amongst the rocks behind them, but even when the view cleared occasionally, she could not discern any movement further up the cliff.
When the path allowed, Myra came to walk next to her.
“Have you named the babe yet?”
“His name is Beido,” Myra said, and her eyes glistened. Beido was the father of the child, one of those Tandor had gone to rescue, and failed.
“Was his father . . . like Ruko?” She glanced at Ruko’s back, at the head of the column, leading the came.
“No, not like that.” Her eyes went distant.
“What happened to him back there in the shed with Ruko? One moment I couldn’t see him, and the next, I could.”
“When his heart was in the jar, he was Tandor’s servitor, his utter slave. But servitors can’t exist where there is little or no icefire, so he needed to have his heart back, or otherwise he couldn’t flee with us.”
“But he’s still a ghost.”
“I don’t know why that happened either. It almost looks like the conversion back was incomplete. Maybe it needs someone with more skill than I . . .” She shuddered.
“I didn’t know that conversion back was possible.” Loriane had always heard that the king’s servitors had died when the Knights killed the king, and that this was the only way to kill a servitor: by killing its master. “I think this icefire is evil. I don’t know why Tandor is playing with it.”
“There are good things—”
“When you can use it to enslave someone, I don’t want to know about good things. Why can’t we forget about the whole dreadful business? In the City of Glass, we all lived together, and then Tandor comes in with his talk about Pirosians and Thillei as if there were only two types of people. Things don’t work like that in the City of Glass, not at least in the Outer City. The Knights don’t have just Pirosians; they have Thillei, too, and all kinds of people in between, other clans, whose names you won’t even know. All those clans have inter-married, and all the breeders will have been from different clans.” But, she thought with a chill, those with a high percentage of pure blood tended to be more fertile, especially within the Pirosians. And there were legends about the strange occurrences of offspring of two pure members from different clans. She’d seen some crude drawings in the books kept by midwives in the palace. Most of them were very old, and current midwives dismissed the reports of malformed children with six limbs or with wings as fantasies. Those children were, they said, badly malformed Imperfects drawn to look more dramatic to justify their sacrifice to the wild bears. If those things existed, the midwives would have preserved the foetuses in jars.
Looking after Isandor, Loriane had changed her views on Imperfects. The Knights liked to picture them as evil demons, but they were just people with limbs missing. She suspected that over time a lot of the palace midwives had come to think the same, so trying to hide their deeds behind demonic depictions of the Imperfect children seemed only a logical step.
Just like the making of servitors was evil, so was the insistence of the Knights to kill all Imperfects.
* * *
As they descended the path, Loriane cursed herself, and Tandor, and the camel and the glutinous, slippery substance Myra called mud.
Never having seen a ground uncovered by snow, Loriane wasn’t impressed by it. It rained—and rain was like snow, only wet—and progress down the rocky slope was slow. Myra helped her, the babe asleep in a sling on her back.
Loriane wished many times that she carried hers outside of her body instead of within it. She was sure that by now the babe had gone well over its expected date. Her legs ached and pressure of the babe’s head made her need to seek privacy behind rocks many times. She would re-emerge, just as aching and sore, and having earned another scornful look from Dara. Yes, she slowed down their progress. Yes, they heard voices up there and the horde up there was probably catching up, but she couldn’t help it.
By the time they reached the furry mass that Myra called the forest, Loriane was bone-weary.
An odd thing it was, too, this forest. In the City of Glass, little grew outside, even in the highsun season. On occasions when she had been in nobles’ houses, she had seen the “greenhouses” they kept, in which they grew plants. Little waist-high things they called trees that their keepers clipped and kept tidy. These things were nothing like this. These trees were huge, with straight trunks and feathery branches which flapped in the wind. They made so much noise.
And she really didn’t like making camp amongst the pillared trunks, where a fire cast flapping shadows into a mass of tangled wood. Anything could be hiding out there, and they would have no means
to see it.
At least Tandor had recovered a little. Still strapped to the harness on the camel’s back, colour had returned in his skin.
In this forest, they stopped for the night.
What Ontane had called a tent turned out to be little more than a canvas roof. Loriane lay down next to Myra and her babe, under the cover of furs and blankets. But she couldn’t get comfortable and couldn’t sleep. Her back ached, and her belly ached and her legs ached. The babe wriggled inside her, kicking her ribs.
After staring into the darkness for what felt like an eternity, she rose, and picked her way into the forest. In the pitch dark, she crouched for another agonising piss. This time, she sat down on a fallen tree trunk and rubbed her fingers across her wetness. Imagined the pain, the stretching, the sheer hard work of pushing out a child. Nine times, she had done it. Nine times, she had felt the slimy head emerge from her body. Right now, she’d welcome the pain with open arms. She’d do it silently, because no one of the family needed to know what was going on. In any case, there was no need to scream. Screaming was for first-timers. She squatted, her back against the tree trunk, gulping deep breaths as she would do when pains became intense. She waited for tightening aches across her belly, but felt nothing of the sort. She dug her icy hands under her layers of clothing, took her swollen breast in her hands and rolled the nipple between her fingers until it hurt. Previous times she had done this, it had brought on the birth pains. This time, all it did was make her sore. She cried silently up at the stars.
Please, please.
Chapter 14
* * *
MILLEUS SIPPED his tea, leaning his elbows on the kitchen table. Firelight flickered through the kitchen, making Isandor’s hair glisten. He had dropped his spoon by his empty bowl and leaned his head in his hands. For a moment he sagged, then he jerked up and looked into Milleus’ eyes, a guilty expression over his young face.
“Oh. Excuse me.” He rubbed his face.
“You’re tired.” Milleus said. It was not a question.
Both youngsters had worked hard all day. Isandor had chopped the entire pile of firewood and had helped Milleus straighten the collapsed fence.
Nila stared into the fire, her look distant. She was also tired, her cheeks red from being outside. She had spent all day in the garden, doing an admirable job for someone who had never seen a plant that didn’t grow in a pot.
Milleus asked what they ate in the City of Glass, and Isandor said there were no vegetables, but that everyone ate meat or milk, dried, salted or frozen. Nila said that there were some greenhouses under the city where people grew things.
To which Isandor said, “No, not much.”
“Yes, people grow things, and eat them.”
“Not us. I never had any.” He switched to his own language, and they exchanged a few words.
“Not everyone eats vegetables,” Nila said, and Isandor nodded, as if it was a consensus summary.
It became ever more clear that the two came from different backgrounds, and this was probably the reason why they had run away.
Milleus said, “Look, why don’t you two go to sleep. I’ll clean up.”
“No, you have been so kind to us,” Nila said. “We must help.”
“No way. You’ve done enough.”
She had even cleaned up his living room and kitchen with a dedication and precision of someone who did very little of that kind of work. He was almost ashamed of the mess in his cupboards. Mercy, the beetles! Some of the crockery hadn’t been touched for years and a thin layer of mould and dust covered the white porcelain. But this morning, she had taken it all out, wiped the plates and put them back.
“Please,” he said. “Go to sleep. There will be plenty of work tomorrow. I can take care of these three bowls.”
That seemed to sway her.
“Good night.” She rose, came to him and gave him a peck on the forehead, just like his daughter-in-law used to do. She smelled of sunshine.
Isandor got up, too, and they both left the kitchen.
Instead of cleaning up, Milleus leaned back staring into the fire. He hadn’t seen either of his sons and his grandchildren since he’d come to live on the farm, now a few years ago. He couldn’t get his son’s angry look out of his mind, that day at Suri’s funeral, as if he said, you killed her.
Never.
Never would Milleus have thought that Suri would take her own life. She seemed happy, even though they had slept in separate rooms for years. They had come to a silent agreement to make the marriage functional. He brought in the money—she took care of the family things.
That day when he had come home and found her, white and not breathing, on the couch felt like an absurd nightmare. At times, when he thought of Tiverius, he would think that he’d come back to his usual home, the Proctor’s residence, and that Suri would be there waiting for him.
Why had she done it, why?
Because he didn’t care about her, the gossip went, because he ignored her.
It was untrue. He did care for Suri; he cared a lot. It was just that she didn’t find she could return his care in the way he desired back then: by coming to his bed. She had always been afraid of intimacy, her mother had revealed. At the time, he’d been talking about retiring to a pleasant place in the country. He had sometimes wondered if that prospect frightened her too much. Sometimes she would shut herself in her room and wouldn’t come out for a whole day, not even for dinner. She grew thin and gaunt.
These days, there was no use stewing over it. He’d gone over all these things so many times, he couldn’t possibly add anything new to it. It happened, and it shouldn’t have. He could possibly have helped, but he hadn’t seen it coming. In any case, it could never be changed.
He heaved himself to his feet, bones creaking. Mercy, he was too old for all this hard work. Never mind the bowls. He’d wash them in the morning.
He banked the fire and shuffled out of the room. When he walked past the guest wing corridor, he heard a squeaking noise, like a door opening.
Oh, those youngsters weren’t . . .
He went back into the kitchen, opened the door as quietly as he could and stalked into the garden. Mercy, it was cold tonight. Most unseasonable.
There’s something going on in the south. Sady’s words. He wished he’d questioned his brother more.
It was dark in the garden, with the newly-weeded beds deep with dark soil that spilled over the top of his boots when he accidentally stepped in it.
Soft light radiated from the window of Suri’s mother’s room, gilding the tangle of bushes in the courtyard between the main house and the guest wing. Milleus clambered through the overgrown mess and glimpsed inside, feeling dreadful and sure that the kids would be looking back at him jeering ha, ha, gotcha!
But both of them were much too . . . involved with each other to have taken note of any noise Milleus made. Firelight glowed over the pale skin of Isandor’s back, half-covered by the sheet. Nila lay under him, legs apart, rocking her hips with each languid thrust, her eyes closed and mouth open in total bliss.
And images from the past rushed up at him.
A whore? Suri’s eyes burned with anger. You went to see a whore?
The word hurt.
There were six of us, and she was a dancer. It’s the custom in Arania. It’s how men entertain important guests. Nothing happened. Entertaining, that was all he seemed to do since entering the doga.
Milleus, how could you?
Suri, I swear, it was nothing. Not important. Not counting the urgency-filled moments he’d spent in the bed in the upstairs bedroom. Sorry, but sometimes he liked to be with a woman who enjoyed his touch, or had the grace to pretend.
He reached out and snaked an
arm around Suri’s waist.
You will always be my princess.
A kiss, full on the lips. Want to be my princess right now?
She squirmed away. Milleus, you’re drunk.
Yes, deliciously so.
He guided her down on the bed. She spread her legs willingly enough, and that was an improvement on last year, after she had just lost the baby, but she cried when he entered her.
He bit down a curse. I won’t do it anymore if it hurts you so much.
She said nothing—he knew how desperate she was for a child—but held her breath through much of the action when she lay under him, frozen, while he tried to do the job as quickly as possible.
There was nothing enjoyable about it. He had imagined things so differently.
So different from Isandor’s relaxed movements. As if he had all night, and indeed he did. No wonder they had still been asleep this morning when he had found them in Suri’s mother’s large bed, curled up against each other. They could do as they wanted. They were young, they were free and they were very much in love.
Milleus turned away from the window. Nothing he could do about it. If there was any damage, no doubt it had already been done. Who was he to say what the youngsters couldn’t do? Were they going to listen to an old bitter man blathering on about marriage before intimacy? What was marriage worth anyway? The girl’s parents had probably wanted to marry her off to some dirty old man with money, and she had chosen her lover without money instead.
Isandor worked hard. Nila had cleaned his entire kitchen and sitting room. They were honest, good kids. He’d feed them just as well in the morning, and if they were still here at the start of winter, he’d be standing by to help the girl give birth same as he did with his goats. There was no scandal in bringing into the world the next generation. Heavens knew this house could do with a pair of little feet.