The Last Stitch (The Chronicles of Eirie: 2)

by Prue Batten

  ‘Gallivant, promise me on your life - tomorrow no more mesmers. I need to finish my tasks, for my own wellbeing and that of the babe. As I promised the Others to avenge them, so you must promise me you will let me do what I must. Please?’

  There was a short silence and then the hob’s voice answered. ‘On my life Adelina, I swear.’

  Chapter Thirty Two

  An old man sat in a winged red armchair far away in the Barrow Hills in a house sequestered in the Ymp Tree orchard, the Trevallyn gate to the Faeran world. For weeks he had been frail and depressed, more so as young Lhiannon began her travail. Jasper of the Faeran, wise healer, chafed to be the avenging angel, to secure the souls himself, to raise the sword of punishment. Instead he was consigned to a chair like some feeble-minded elder in his dotage.

  Destiny had snatched the task away, allowing youth and energy to take the place of superior wisdom and experience. Worse - discovering fair Lhiannon’s bane had been a bitter pill indeed because he could do nothing, forcing himself to leave the prophecy to continue its run unimpeded.

  Staring at his scrying mirror daily, dug new furrows across his brow, but when he glimpsed Phelim for the first time he knew, the minute he saw the carved face, that Liam’s brother had been found and that Phelim must see the prophecy through to its end.

  His thoughts rested for a moment with Ebba the Carlin. He could not deny it - Ebba was wise beyond expectation. To have concealed the babe so well and be bold enough to invite him into groups of infants, even into her home! What had she used, what charm? Amber? Calendula? Carlin-tongue? He was impressed - a mortal no less…

  But since Phelim’s departure with the souls, Jasper could scry nothing in the mirror or the spheres. Nor had there been visions, despite all manner of incantations. It was as if he were blind and deaf. For days he had existed between his scrying tools, pacing from one to the other. Sleeping in one room or another, pacing endlessly, briefly visiting the walled garden for mystic plants to add to his repertoire, leaving tray after tray of food merely nibbled at.

  Already ascetic, he grew thin and haggard, obsessed with the redemption of the souls and the resolution of the prophecy... so much hung in the balance. Margriet, his housekeeper and Folko, his ostler, could do little else but keep the fire banked, the decanter full and trays of bread, cheese and fruit alongside in the vague hope he would eat more.

  Tonight he sat in the red chair, head tilted back, bloodshot eyes fixed on the mirror which appeared black and uninteresting. Sighing, he leaned over to fill his goblet and grab a fig and a crust. The taste of the food clung to his palate like ashes.

  Ashes…

  He recalled Ana’s funeral and by bitter association, the death of Kholi Khatoun and most importantly to Jasper, the deaths of Elriade the Faeran silk seller and of Liam, all in the space of a week, so much grief. So much to be avenged…

  He tipped up his head as a flickering of light disturbed him. The mirror!

  The ebony vastness contained by the silver frame cleared to reveal a calle edged by Venichese shops - a glove-maker’s, a glassmaker’s. Outside the latter stood a splendidly gilded sedan chair and against the door leaned a brutish fellow whom Jasper recognized - the man by the lake, the day of Ana’s cremation!

  He leaned forward. Rain smeared the colours of the calle and the lout held an umbrella over his bald head, scowling at his environs. Jasper’s hands gripped the stem of his goblet as he stared at the fellow, knowing instinctively that this was Kholi’s murderer.

  A tall, darkly clad man approached through the veil of rain and Luther stepped across the doorway of the fabbrica. But the new customer would not be dissuaded, exchanging terse words, pushing the thug aside with a crafty waft of his hand across his chest. A mesmer!

  Jasper stood up, every sense alert, breath sucking in. The stranger stopped inside the door, bowed and the diabolical bane of all Faeran stepped past, grasping folds of her coat with disdain. In that instant, relief and anticipation flooded through Jasper, titillating him, whispering of the fight to come.

  Severine, Phelim, Luther, the souls! He thrust a fist in the air, a declaration that the glove had been thrown down. But wait, what was that! A movement of something near the sedan-chair, almost but not quite invisible. A hob? Is it the hob - the one that had been directed by he and Lhiannon to care for a mortal woman? If it is then one could deduce readily that Adelina must be in Veniche.

  Jasper shoved the goblet on the mantle as the mirror faded. He flung himself to the door, the frailty and angst of past weeks slipping from his shoulders like a cloak. Relief that the souls had provided the necessary bait to lure Severine energized him like a prick from a buckthorn.

  ‘Margriet,’ he called, his voice bouncing along the hall walls. ‘Margriet, I need food! Folko, pack for Veniche!’

  Next morning, the rain continued its rhythmic patter on the shoulders of their coats and hats as Adelina and the hob traipsed down alley after alley. There were few folk about and the town had an atmosphere at once shady and fearful where everyone walked with eyes downcast and purposefully in order to vacate the streets as soon as possible. No wonder, muttered Gallivant, it’s morbidly depressing. The sky hangs on my very shoulders and makes my head muzzy, as if it isn’t tired enough. Just before Adelina went to sleep the previous night, she had extracted a promise from him, damn it. And she had said something else. She had sat up excitedly. ‘Gallivant! I know what’s happening.’

  He had groaned a response back, something that sounded like ‘g’sleep’.

  She ignored him. ‘Bait, Gallivant, that’s what it is. Bait. Jasper’s using the souls for bait.’

  He had refused to be drawn, just humphed and rolled over, but had hardly slept all night as he gave thought to her revelation. She could be right. The souls could indeed be bait. There was no doubt Jasper wanted them returned to Faeran where they belonged. But as a trap as well?

  He realised Adelina was talking as they walked along the next morning and turned to her, still surprised at the change in her appearance. Gone was the golden Traveller with the russet locks. In her place, a woman with black hair caught up behind her head in a swinging fall. Even her skintones appeared to have altered with the new hair. Now she was almost as pale as Severine and with the black clothes she could almost have been the woman’s sister but he forebore to mention anything like that to her.

  ‘Gallivant, are you listening? I said when you purloin as you so charmingly put it, are you stealing?’

  ‘Sink me Adelina,’ the hob looked mortally offended. ‘No. I always leave a bag of payment behind. If the purveyor is honest then the bag will contain gelt. If he or she is not, then the bag will contain leaves and twigs and such.’

  ‘How often has it been a twig payment?’

  ‘Oh, about half.’

  Adelina chuckled. ‘Hob, I love you... I truly do. You make my sun shine every day and that’s no mean feat. Now look, no Other yet but there is a haberdasher’s.’ She dragged the hob into a cupboard of a shop, the smell of silks, threads and wools exciting her as it always had.

  Outside the door, leaning against the wall with a collar up against the rain and a seaman’s tricorn protecting his head, one of Luther’s spies watched them enter. He glanced through the window and examined the woman bending over the counter to examine the threads for sale. Huh! No red hair, and no Traveller’s garb - but then she was the only woman to come near the shop all day. He studied her face. Perhaps I’d best tell the boss anyway. Afterwards, I can go and grab an ale.

  ‘Well, boss. She were pale in the face, quite pale like Madame. An’ her hair were black, a great long tail at the back like a pony. An’ she were with a shortish skinny fella. An’ it looked to me like they bought some cream and red threads.’

  Damn. Luther crunched his fists into balls. ‘Describe her features to me. Her eyes, her mouth.’

  The spy watched his dream of an early drink fading faster than the foam on a mug of ale.

  ‘Cor boss, I d
unno. She had nice big eyes, sort of brownish, I think. An’ her face were oval and she had a luscious mouth like a peach... kissable like. Her voice were throaty, I heard her speaking to the haberdasher. An’ cor, what else? She were dressed in black, but I guess that don’t mean much. Oh, an’ this here lass were with child. About three or four months gone I reckon.’

  With child? Well, it can’t be Adelina, can it? It was just the way the chap described her mouth... kissable. And her voice... throaty.

  ‘Did you follow her?’

  ‘Aye. She an’ the fella just ambled everywhere. Over alley and bridge, until they came to the Grand Canal an’ then they sat in one of them coffee-houses an’ ate and drank. I thought then I should report what I knew cos there ‘asn’t been no other woman. One thing, sir - I couldn’t make out much of what they said but I heard ‘em mention Madame’s name and I heard ‘em mention the Others.’

  Yes?’ Luther’s attention pricked up like a dog’s ears.

  ‘Just that if they found ‘em, the Others yeah, then all their problems’d be solved. I’m tellin’ you, the fella didn’t look too happy at that.’

  Luther threw a handful of coins to his man and sent him off to the nearest inn and then sat at the window of Madame’s drawing room. Yesterday had been such a mixed bag of a day - five of the six architects had called, been received and sent packing, the useless idiots, with fleas in their ears. The sixth had spent much longer with Madame and there had been no shouting.

  He ran a hand over the shining dome. The scar stood white and ridged on his cheek and the scab on his chin stood proud and he winced as his fingers touched it. ‘Black hair, with child, pale, and with a thin male friend, it can’t be her. Others, Madame’s name, a haberdasher’s, oval face and kissable lips... could it be?’ He muttered and ground his teeth together, striding around the room. ‘Yes or no?’

  In his wily way, despite the unlikely description from his man, he knew he couldn’t afford to ignore the woman. Something in his gut warned him Adelina was close by in the town. He resolved not to disclose this latest information to Madame. She had been so excited yesterday and it put her in such an amenable mood. He sat recollecting the previous day...

  Muffled voices had drifted into the drawing room as the major-domo ushered Madam’s guest out through the palazzo entrance and Severine came whirling into the room, slamming the door behind her. ‘Oh Luther!’ She rushed to the sideboard and poured herself a large white wine from a decanter, drank it off rapidly and poured another. Luther noticed her hands shaking and the bottle made little tink-tink sounds as one edge collided with another. She turned around. ‘I’ve done it Luther, I know!’

  He had never, in all his time with her, seen her truly happy. Now the starkness softened and radiance flushed her narrow face, the storm grey eyes becoming dove-coloured. Even her mouth, so habitually pinched, seemed to become plump as it curved, actually curved, up to her cheeks. Normally she was striking, now she was beautiful.

  ‘The architect recognised the flakes of paint. Isn’t that uncanny? And do you know how, and tell me this isn’t the Fates working in my favour - he has just finished the renovation of the building. Had you and I searched on our own we would never have found it because it is now a completely different colour. But he knew it, he knew it.’ She sipped some more wine and her hand became steadier. As always, Luther just listened. ‘The Museo owns the building. But better still, I have been invited to the Museo ball, to be held there on the night of Carnivale to open the building. By the Fates, things just drop into my lap! Now I can find the Gate amongst the crowd of revelers and then I will wait and snap Lhiannon up as she walks through.’ She squirmed like a gleeful child with a toy. ‘Luther, I can’t believe it! By Carnivale, I will have the souls, maybe more than I need and I will have the Gate to Faeran. It’s truly wonderful.’ She had smiled in his direction and he gave a small tilt to his own lips. ‘I need you to get formal attire and a mask because you shall be my escort. I need you by my side for this, to do what you have to do.’

  Luther, man of few words, knew exactly what she meant and responded. ‘Yes, Madame.’ And so now here he was about to be consort for the Contessa Di Accia and even better, Adelina was in town. He smiled a thin smile. Life was peculiar sometimes.

  The previous evening Phelim sat in the room in the Esperia, the drapes pulled. Such a lost day. He chafed with the uselessness of his journey around the city. Except for the glassmaker’s, of course. That had yielded a thing or two of interest. He had purchased Ebba’s coveted paperweight

  with the millefiori, the many flowers, under the glass dome. As he pulled it from his pocket, he could hear Ebba’s voice. ‘If ever I did go to Veniche there are only two places I would really want to see. One is the Museo and easy enough to visit. The other is the Ca’ Specchio, the Mirror Palace. They say it is the oldest and most elegant palace in Veniche but it is in private hands and so I should never gain access.’

  He sat on the edge of the bed recalling another item of interest - that arrogant woman who had pushed past at the fabbrica was Severine, the glassmaker had said ‘Goodbye Contessa!’ And he had seen her at Ferry Crossing, and the hob’s lady had cursed her with vehemence and fear.

  But it was the souls that confirmed the woman’s identity. As the woman walked past, they froze deeper than ever against his ribs. They knew! He remembered the reaction of the souls to the Traveller on the ferry and seemed perplexed and excited by his discovery. They sense things, enough for hate and displeasure to make them burn with frostbite and affection to make them warm as a kiss. I can understand the reaction to Severine, a murderer, but not to the woman on the ferry. Who is she?

  He swung his feet to the floor and walked over to the table on which was a tray with a basket of bread, cheeses, tomatoes and figs. A bottle of wine stood next to it and he poured a glass. Strange too, he mused, that her companion was an Other, a Goodfellow who calls himself Gallivant. I have a feeling about the two of them. The lady with the copper hair, what was it about her? Her bruised eyes, the hob’s solicitous care?

  He turned his palm face up and ran his other palm over it, almost as if he caressed something of delicate appearance and infinite value. But then his hands fell to his side as thoughts of his task pushed the image of the woman away.

  As each minute passed, he chafed to be done. Leave the Other world behind, become a shepherd again - to feel the wool, oily with lanolin between his fingers, to smell that warm ovine smell, to hear the low bleating of a ewe as she called to her lamb. Real things. No, he did not want the wanton largesse of his father’s life and would turn his back on it in the time it took to make a mesmer.

  Hearing a knock at the door, he jumped up and pulled it open to see a young serving lad with a bundle of washed clothes. He gave him some coins and then smiled. ‘Tell me, young lad, do you know of the Ca’ Specchio, the Mirror Palace?’

  The lad scratched at his messy hair, thinking slowly as he stared at the palmfull of gelt. ‘I’ve heard of it,’ he said. ‘It belonged to an old aristo who died and left it to the city. The last I heard, it was beginning to fall apart but I don’t know where it is exactly.’

  Phelim sighed, it had only been a whim brought on by Ebba’s words and yet something, some intuition said ‘Listen’. ‘Well, thankyou. Here,’ he held out a further coin. ‘For your trouble.’

  The boy’s eyes widened and he turned swiftly to run down the stairs with a grin on the youthful visage as Phelim wafted a mesmer so the fellow would forget he had even been to the room.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  ‘Aine, this is hopeless, everyone is masked and dressed in black, everyone looks the same. We’ll never find him.’ Adelina threw herself into a seat at one of the cafés. ‘I’m tired and hungry and something about needles in haystacks is beginning to strike a chord! It seemed such a good idea - to find the Other and get his help. But it’s impossible and don’t say I told you so.’ She glared at Gallivant as a waiter put some food in front of he
r and she took a sip of water. Gallivant said nothing, just thought to himself that it was the Threadlady’s favourite game, chases with no end. He had not felt a frisson once amongst all the people they had mingled with and even he couldn’t believe there was not one single Faeran in this town... not when there was a Gate close by.

  ‘Look at the masks, Gallivant.’ Adelina stared as people went about their business incognito.

  ‘Wait till Carnivale. Those you see now are bland and dour, but come Carnivale there is nothing from your world or mine, Adelina, that won’t be copied, feathered, painted and gilded.’

  ‘Should we be wearing masks now?

  ‘It would be wise. It’s another sort of camouflage. Did you know that’s what this is all about? Subterfuge, segreta? People use them to hide their faces on the grounds that the Dark requires all manifestation of colour, be it hair, freckles, ruddy cheeks, bright lips, eyes, disguised. But everyone knows it is an excuse for miscreance and libidinous behaviour – albeit in secret. Be that as it may, I shall purchase some plain leather masks, one for you and one for me. Much like those, do you see?’

  A couple walked past with the woman in a plain brown leather mask which covered her from forehead to nose, her body shrouded in a black coat. The man wore a similar mask with the nose extended like a bird’s beak. There was something secretive about the couple. Segreta. Just like everyone else in the piazza.

  ‘My back aches Gallivant, so I shall wait here and finish my meal. See what the mask-maker has for Carnivale. I shall come with you later and pick something wildly extravagant for that. Just in case we are still here and have not found Lhiannon. Meanwhile I shall observe the passing crowd... perhaps we shall strike lucky.’

  Gallivant reached across the table and held her wrist, the strength of the grasp snapping Adelina’s attention away from the crowd to his intense face. ‘Adelina, you must stay here until I return. Don’t move. Remember the danger and remember what happened to Kholi.’ He watched her eyes deepen and darken and he quickly added,’ and remember your babe. Do as I say, yes?’