The Last Stitch (The Chronicles of Eirie: 2)

by Prue Batten

  She nodded her head. ‘Yes, I promise. Truly.’

  The hob threw down some money, leaped down the steps, and hailed a gondolier to take him quickly past the crowds to the mask-maker he knew of in the Calle di Bona Ventura. Ten minutes there, ten back and ten to choose four masks - two for now, two for Carnivale, for I shan’t let her go and pick her own. I shall be back in half an hour. Let her stay where she is, concealed in the shadows of that coffeeshop. Please let her stay still. The poling of the gondola rocked him and faint drizzle drifted in under the canopy as it had done all day, adding to the moist fug that was symptomatic of the Dark. Damn, he thought. I should have put another little mesmer on her.

  Severine stayed seated as the glassmaker was shown into the salon.

  ‘Signor, I am pleased you are working to our little schedule.’ She gestured with her head at the leather roll he held, bedecked with small glistening beads of moisture. ‘And they are the rods?’

  Signor Niccolo’s sweaty hands shook as he untied the leather laces and rolled out the cover. Inside, a faint tink of glass rattled. He reached into the pouches and pulled out four small canes, like tiny coloured straws.

  She picked one up and peered down the middle - just enough space, she thought. ‘Perfetto,’ she said aloud. ‘Leave them and Luther shall bring them back in an hour or so and you should be able to complete the job by Carnivale.’ She dismissed him perfunctorily, ignoring him as the door shut, lining up the canes one next to the other on her desk and reaching for the casket with the paper scraps inside. She took the first one and read it, although it was engraved on her heart, on her very soul.

  ‘From caverns deep, abysses cold...’

  She shook herself, a pleasurable shudder, and began to smooth the thin paper out onto the desk with one finger, then rolling one end tightly towards the other, the looping Faeran script disappearing letter by charmed letter. Presently she held nothing but a fragile, narrow and impossibly tiny cylinder between her index finger and thumb and she slipped it down the middle of the cane.

  There it rested, hidden behind the opaque cobalt blue glass - secreted, segreta. She began again with the second strip and all the while the paper made the faintest crackling sounds. At last the fatal charms were hidden away and within a fingertip’s reach. She had the greatest collection of millefiori paperweights in Eirie displayed in cabinets in the grand entrance hall to the palazzo. There was easily space for another four and none but she would know what they held. She sighed as she slipped the last cylinder into the last rod. By tomorrow night she would be immortal and omnipotent.

  She sat back and looked at the neat row of canes. She, Severine Di Accia who was once a Traveller belonging to a band of gypsies - she shook herself with a shudder of distaste at the memory - she would be the most predominant and irresistable person in the world. And all because Adelina had so kindly informed her when she was very young that she was a changeling. She chuckled. So much to thank you for Adelina. How can I repay you? ‘Luther!’ Her voice rang out around the room so that even the Venichese glass pendants on the chandeliers trembled.

  Phelim had done blending and being discreet. He had traced and re-traced footsteps over bridge and alley as he searched for the Gate with no success, chafing with frustration as he noticed a man walking toward him. ‘Sir, sir, a moment please.’

  The man glanced up from the ground where his eyes had been cast, his mind far away. His face showed displeasure at being so disturbed and he brushed fractiously at the moisture on his face with a red paisley square as he looked up at the tall figure before him.

  ‘Ah, signor, it is you.’ Phelim recognised the glassmaker. ‘Do you remember I bought a paperweight from you, yesterday?’

  Signor Niccolo squinted from tired, reddened eyes and in a harassed manner, nodded his head.

  ‘Sir, I need the address of the Ca’ Specchio.’ It has a ring, I don’t know why. ‘Can you help me?’

  ‘Um, yes, yes of course.’ The glassmaker dragged himself together for his attention was far away. ‘This is the Calle del Vetro. If you go to the end where it joins the Rio del Malcanton, cross the bridge to the Fondamenta Minotto, then you will see it. It is the colour of summer apricots.’ He sighed and Phelim sensed a knot in the man’s throat as if for some reason the thought of next summer held great and unimaginable significance. ‘I’m sorry, you must excuse me,’ he said.

  The glassmaker skirted around Phelim and did not see his hand come up intuitively to swipe the air in the act of mesmer. I hope that helps him, he thought, he won’t remember me and he will feel a little less distressed, he was in a sore mood.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Adelina looked at the crowd thinning in the piazza. There was no one she recognised, she felt no frisson and the hopelessness of her self-imposed quest weighed upon her. She had repeatedly told herself it was pointless and utterly without merit, this desire to see Lhiannon once more, to assure herself the girl was alive but she could no more help the belief that she was everyone’s bane than fly.

  But weighing even heavier was the weight that sat on her conscience - the promises. One promise to the Others to avenge Liam, Elriade and any Other Severine had killed had the capacity to end her own life if she didn’t honour it. The promise to Aine for saving Ajax’s life had the capacity to annihilate her self-respect if she didn’t honour that. One promise juxtaposed against the other. She sighed and frowned, unable to see any answer to her dilemma. Either way, she would be the loser. So she must still find the Gate, for if nothing else she was honourable and owed honesty to the Others. And it seemed the only person in the whole of Veniche who could help with the location was the Faeran from the ferry and he hadn’t been seen since the glassmaker’s.

  She sat up.

  The glassmaker…

  Without a thought for the hob and anything he had said, she pushed away the remains of her food, shrugged on her wet coat and ran down the steps to hail a gondola.

  Luther had left the palazzo not long after the glassmaker and had caught up with the man as he had been firing up the flames in the fabricca and tying on his leather apron. ‘Madame said they must be ready by six o’clock tomorrow. She has a reception to attend at seven and then a Ball, so I will collect them at six and pay you.’ He noticed the glassmaker staring at the white scar on his cheek and turned on his heel to walk out the door, slamming it hard behind him. The bell made myriad chimes and the glass in the shop window wavered. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Signor Niccolo placing a closed sign in the window.

  He rubbed his cheek and leaned for a moment against the window of a glovemaker’s shop further along, pulling the collar of his black oilskin up his neck against the drizzle. The glovemaker’s was closed, adding to the feeling that the city was beginning to shut down as the mizzle thickened and the sky darkened. It was silent in the street except for the occasional tap-tap of shoes on cobbles and the morbid howl of someone’s dog that was tired of the rain and wanted to be let inside. Luther felt angry - at the rain, at the difficulty of finding Adelina and at being thwarted. Fury festered and boiled below the surface of his emotions. It would take such a little thing for it to bubble over...

  Behind him he heard a sound like an infantry line cocking their weapons as a flock of damp pigeons flew up with clacking wings. He spun around and in that moment saw the pot of gold at the end of his tawdry rainbow.

  Despite the black hair and the black clothes, he recognised the seductive body of the woman he hated and craved all in one.

  She knocked at the door of the fabricca even though the sign said closed. Knowing the glassmaker would be out the back and too anxiously frantic to come to the summons, and seeing the street virtually empty of shoppers, Luther slipped a hand to his belt and stepped feline fashion to stand behind Adelina.

  ‘He can’t hear you, Adelina.’ He whispered close to Adelina’s ear as if he was kissing her, breathing in the fragrance of her body and wanting to take her there and then against the dripping walls
. ‘He’s busy.’

  At the sound of Luther’s voice, Adelina’s heart stopped beating and then began again, stampeding with the force of the Cabyll Ushtey’s hoofbeats.

  His arm snaked around to rest over her waist and something sharp pricked the skin of her belly. ‘It’s a stiletto, long enough to pierce your womb and kill your child.’

  Her feet melded to the cobbles, unable to open eyes she had shut in order to block out the horror that had befallen her. She could hear Kholi’s voice - no, no, no!

  ‘You will move with me, that’s right.’ Luther continued to whisper in her ear, his breath hot against her lobe, making her flush with disgust and fear. ‘And I will hold you to my side like my lover, that’s it, and we will walk. For the sake of your child, won’t we? No dramatics, remember it’s important to keep calm for the baby’s sake.’

  Had Gallivant not been Other, the masks hanging from the rafters and from hooks on the walls would have tossed him into the land of the bewildered as empty eye-sockets gazed at him. The maskmaker’s daughter ignored him as she applied feathers to a massive mask fit for a queen. Exotic feathers fanned the air and goldleaf glittered.

  Gallivant grabbed two leather masks and then prowled around the choked rooms searching for Carnivale masks. He stared at a piccolo principe, the face of young boy staring back, golden blonde hair swept elegantly upwards - that could be him. But no, that one there, quickly. It was more to his liking - Pinocchio! He had often heard the story and felt he danced quite readily to Adelina’s tune… like a marionette on strings.

  He hastened on, past gladiatores and colombinas that were gilded and decorated and on sticks. There were voltos and civettas. None would suit her! Oh quickly! Only a few minutes of his allotted time left! He turned a corner to be swallowed by a fountain of feathers rising upwards. Colombina after colombina with plumage of vibrant down, the eye cavities outlined and painted, the rest of the masks gilded. He knew what he wanted Adelina to wear at Carnivale - if she was going to be at the Gate she might as well do it with panache for by then safety would mean little. So he took down a mask, the left side decorated in bronze and blue feathers, the right in vermilion - so very Adelina. He walked to the counter and smiled at the girl, gently waving his hand in the air. She stared at him as a bag of gelt appeared on the counter and continued to stare in mesmered fashion as he ran out the door, along the edge of the small piazza to the waiting gondola.

  The crowd had almost gone when he raced up the steps of the Grand Piazza and into the cafè. ‘Adelina’, he eased himself past a couple of waiters who were bending over the table wiping it. ‘You should see what I have...’

  The table and chairs were empty. ‘Where is Madam?’ He grabbed one of the waiters by the arm.

  ‘Gone twenty minutes since, sir!’ The waiter flipped a damp white towel over his shoulder.

  ‘Gone! Gone where?’ He tried not to panic but a shrill note of hysteria crept into his voice.

  ‘Don’t know sir, but she took off as if Herlingus and his dogs were behind!’

  At the mention of Huon in the Veniche patois, Gallivant grabbed his masks and raced into the middle of the piazza, scanning faces and turning this way and that. Threadlady, why do you do this! My stomach crawls with where you might be and I feel a shiver over my body. He turned to ply his way up the nearest alley and crashed into a man coming the other way.

  ‘Mind sir! Mind how you... You!’

  Gallivant looked up as the deep voice chided him politely. ‘You,’ he gasped, ‘I shiver because of you. Aine, mistress and I have been searching... and now she’s... and I...’

  Phelim placed a hand on the hob’s arm and steadied him in the Færan way. ‘See now. I hoped to meet you again. Where is your lady?’

  ‘Gone, disappeared and I think it’s Severine’s doing!’ The hob fretted, feeling his face drain of colour, as if all the air was being sucked from his body.

  ‘Severine.’ Loose threads were beginning to converge for Phelim, weaving themselves into answers. At the same time his stomach plummeted at the mention of his adversary’s name and the bag around his neck, pressing hard against his ribs, burned alternately warm, then cold at the mention of names. ‘It’s Gallivant, isn’t it? Come back to my hostel. We can’t look for your mistress without a plan and we must talk. I have a feeling about you and your mistress and I think I can help.’

  Gallivant grimaced. ‘We can’t delay too long, every minute she is gone, is a minute off her life!’

  ***

  What do you do when your child is threatened? Show me a mother who wouldn’t do anything to save her child’s life... anything!

  I went with Luther.

  We walked along the alley entwined together, the concealed point of the stiletto occasionally pricking at the skin of my belly. My mind had moments of utter blankness in its panic. At other times, the knowledge of my fate would make me trip and stumble against the point of the weapon and I would straighten to beg Luther - beg him - not to hurt my baby.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  ‘She had this perverse idea, my Threadlady, that she was bad luck to people... mortal and Other. Her parents, Ana, Liam... you know their story? The Faeran silk seller, the list goes on. And Kholi! Oh Aine, it’s that death alone which unhinges her still.’ The hob walked back and forth, hands waving and gesticulating. ‘And now she thinks she’s Lhiannon’s bane.’

  ‘Lhiannon!’ Phelim’s exclamation stopped the hob in his tracks.

  ‘You know Lhiannon?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, Adelina had this obsession that she must see Lhiannon to prove to her unborn child she is not some unfortunate piece of bad luck to all she meets. She liked Lhiannon and missed her when the girl left with the souls. In a way I think she tried to put Lhiannon in Ana’s place. Do you know about the souls? I suppose you do, you’re Faeran.’ Without waiting for an answer the unstoppable hob continued. ‘Adelina had been searching for the Venichese Gate with my utterly useless guidance when we had an idea you could tell us because we had surmised you were Faeran...’

  Phelim sat as still as a statue.

  ‘Because of the frisson.’ Gallivant’s voice petered out, his story almost told. He added an afterthought as he palmed his aching head. ‘So help me find her because I am telling you, she has thought to find the Gate herself without a thought of any danger to she and the babe. She is so damned impetuous. I swear Severine has her now! Help me find her quickly and then tell me where the Gate is. You can mesmer my memory after. And then my Lady can see Lhiannon and get on with the business of being pregnant as far from Severine as possible.’

  Still Phelim didn’t move. It was a skill he had learned as a young shepherd - to be calm, to think, to anticipate. His hands formed a steeple under his chin and he finally locked eyes with the hob who shrank a little from the seriousness of the gaze. ‘Lhiannon is dead.’

  ‘Aine, you say so. Are you sure?’ The hob sat with a hard plop onto the end of one of the beds.

  Phelim told of his relationship with Lhiannon and at the end Gallivant shook his head. ‘My poor Lhiannon, I truly admired her. She was a courageous little thing.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Sink me friend, it’s going to take a better man than I to convince Adelina she is no man’s bane, that Lhiannon’s death is not her fault.’ He jumped up and began the frantic pacing. ‘I must find her! Severine’s got her, I just know it. If we find that foul woman, we can find the Stitcher. Will you help me? Please?’

  ‘We have only to find Severine’s palazzo. There is surely a house brownie within whom you could question as to where she might be confined. And apparently I have ways and means.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  But Phelim ignored the hob’s curiosity. ‘I know where the Palazzo Di Accia is. I asked a waiter at one of the coffeehouses. It’s on the Grand Canal, directly opposite the Ca’ d’Oro, in fact they say one is the mirror image of the other, that the old count built both, unsure which view he liked the best from the balcon
ies.’

  ‘Good,’ the hob ran to the door. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Gallivant!’ Phelim’s hand grasped the hob.

  ‘Aine man, come ON! Don’t you understand? If Severine does have her, she will kill her this time. She is symbolic of all Severine lost - the souls, the robe, immortality. And she is Adelina! That’s almost enough on its own. Sink me, we’ve no time to waste. You’re Faeran, you can do anything if you have to. Come on.’

  He leaped through the door, grabbing his coat as Phelim followed. ‘Hob, wait up.’

  Gallivant hauled to a halt outside the hotel entrance.

  ‘You need to clear out your goods from your inn, especially the robe. If they inveigle its whereabouts from Adelina, she is as good as dead. As long as Severine can’t find the robe, she will keep Adelina alive. The robe appears to be an intrinsic part of Severine’s machinations. Go and do it and I shall wait for you there.’ He pointed to a colonnaded arcade that led to a row of empty gondolas, the mooring poles glistening from the rain.

  The hob vanished into thin air and Phelim hurried toward the arcade. At the end of the cloistered space a dozen empty craft rocked in the slight chop fidgeting in from the laguna. Jumping in to the nearest, Phelim negotiated his way to the upswept stern and untied the rear line.

  As he returned to the side of the canal, he looked up at the night sky in its shroud of grey raincloud. An uneasy mist tumbled and teased over cupola and campanile, crawling as low as the poles. No moon or stars gave any light, creating a subfusc that concealed and threatened - how many pairs of eyes watched? He cast a glance around and could see a glint of amber moving surreptitiously, level with his shoulder. A cat! But a flip in the water spun him round and he saw the iridescent shape of a merrow swimming away as his heart hammered. He heard the tap of feet and the hob emerged out of the dripping mist that thickened as the evening aged. ‘You were quick,’ he said.