Dreaming Death

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  The branch she sat on angled down toward the main trunk. Melanna had shimmied sideways down the branch, and then down the trunk, so with one arm clutching the upper part of the branch, Shironne felt downward. She caught tiny traces of Melanna’s touch, verifying the path her sister had taken.

  The dry leaves rattled madly around her as she carefully slid her rump downward along the branch. Twigs caught at the sleeves of her house robe as she went, most simply breaking, one snap accompanied by the sound of ripping fabric. The bark she touched bore bits of bird and squirrel dung. She had to tolerate it only until she got to the ground. Hopefully not by falling.

  She checked the branch with her hand again and this time felt the upward-rising trunk. She shifted the last distance to that, wrapped her arms tightly about it, and tried not to sob in relief. The worst of it was over, surely.

  She took a moment to gather her nerve again. For Melanna, this part had been simple. She’d just swung around, wrapped her legs and arms around the trunk, and slid down. But that would mean sliding off the branch that was supporting her, and if she miscalculated, she was going to fall straight to the ground. Shironne patted the trunk with one foot and then groaned when the too-large slipper fell off. It hit the ground below her with a leathery thwack.

  That doesn’t sound too far, she lied to herself.

  But she was here now, and she didn’t have too many options. Hoping that no one could see, she parted her house robe, rolled up her tunic and petticoats, and tucked them into the belt so her legs would be free. She stretched out one hand and found another branch, one that bore Melanna’s handprint. She grabbed it tightly, pushed off the main branch, and twisted toward the trunk as she slid downward.

  The trunk hit her chest hard, but she managed to wrap her legs about it, although not before her elbow protested over taking so much of her weight. She did her best to ignore that and set her arms around the trunk as well.

  It had been too long since she’d climbed a tree. Her arms were already getting tired. She was embarrassingly short of breath, as bad as she’d been after climbing all those stairs. If she waited much longer, she would just fall out of the tree. So she started to shimmy down, her trousers catching on the rough bark.

  And then her shoeless foot touched something. Dirt, her skin told her.

  She tried to put the other foot down and let go of the trunk, but her foot came down on the missing house slipper. Her ankle turned and she fell the last bit, landing hard on her bottom in the dirt. She breathed hard for a moment. Did I make it?

  She concentrated on the denizens of the house, finding them all where they’d been before. No one had noticed she wasn’t in her room. No one was outside to see her sitting at the base of a tree like an oversized acorn. Not yet.

  But that wasn’t going to last forever. She shook her hands, trying to get the traces of tree and dirt and all the accompanying contaminants off her hands. She reached carefully into the neckline of her tunic and drew out the cloth she’d placed there to do a better job of cleaning her hands. It was slightly damp and did a good job. After waving her hands for a moment to dry them, she reached into the top of her tunic again and drew out Mikael’s gloves. She tugged them on, immediately feeling better once her hands were covered. She patted around herself gently until she found that fallen house slipper. She managed to get herself up off the ground, slipped the shoe on, and was gratified to find that her ankle seemed to have forgiven her already for twisting it.

  She shook her clothes back into their proper place, stepped carefully over to the fence, and followed that back toward the mews.

  • • •

  They drove down the alley behind the Anjir house so Cerradine might knock at the back door of the house or send Filip through the kitchen with a message.

  “Wait here,” Mikael said. He opened the carriage door and jumped down before either of them could protest. “I’ll be right back.”

  Not given much choice, Cerradine called up for the driver to wait for Mikael’s return.

  In the dim light of the carriage lamp, Deborah shook her head. “Do you remember being that impulsive?”

  Cerradine nearly laughed. “Yes. You can’t remember it because you never were.”

  She threw him an offended look. “I’ve done impulsive things in my life.”

  “And it’s always come back to haunt you, hasn’t it?”

  She shook her head. “I have my doubts about this, Jon.”

  Cerradine ran a hand through his hair. “On the way to the palace the other day, I asked Shironne if her mother had ever tried to contact Dahar. She told me Savelle took her to the summer fair a few years ago, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dahar at the melee.”

  “And did she see him?”

  “Shironne told me no. She claimed she fell, and they had to go home before her mother had the chance.”

  Deborah laughed, covering her face with one hand. “Father Winter, I am a fool. I should have thought of that, Jon. Six years ago, Mikael had a child fall out of the stands and land on him.” Deborah shook her head again. “The girl cut her hand and he bound it up with her hair ribbon. The mother whisked her away before anyone could get a name.”

  That sounded exactly like Savelle. “Shironne was eleven, but she would have been small for her age.”

  “And I’d never met him before that day,” Deborah said. “He was just another boy beaten up in the melee. He had . . . I don’t recall exactly . . . a broken nose and a split lip, and a couple of cuts on his hand. There would have been plenty of blood on his part. He had a concussion, so he doesn’t remember it well, even though Kai periodically drags the story out to embarrass him.”

  “Have you talked to him about this at all?”

  “No,” Deborah said with a shake of her head. “He noticed how susceptible she is to him but hasn’t made the leap of logic that it’s more than that. It’s four months until she’s an adult, Jon, no matter how mature she actually is. We have rules. We have to . . .”

  The carriage door opened and Mikael climbed inside. “You won’t believe it. She’s not here. We’d better go before anyone in the house notices.”

  “Wait,” Cerradine said, grabbing Mikael’s arm. “She’s not here?”

  “According to Pamini, Miss Anjir climbed over her balcony railing, down one of those trees, and then walked out to the mews and ordered Messine to escort her to the tavern.”

  Cerradine banged on the roof of the carriage to get the driver on his way. He sat again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Her mother is going to kill me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Despite his headache, Mikael felt hopeful, unusual before one of his dreams. The carriage rolled on through the darkness, arriving shortly in the heart of the Old Town. The driver reined in the horses and let them down before the door of the tavern. Cerradine jumped out, leaving Mikael to help Deborah. As soon as Mikael stepped inside, he spotted Synen serving that boisterous group of young Anvarrid men again. Synen caught Mikael’s eyes and gestured with one thumb toward the kitchen.

  Mikael caught up with Cerradine, who was looking about the common room of the tavern with an angry expression on his face. “Kitchen,” Mikael said, and led the colonel and Deborah that way.

  When they walked through the doors into the brightly lit kitchen, Mikael almost laughed at Miss Anjir’s disheveled appearance. She was swaddled in a golden brocade house robe with a groom’s overcoat atop that. She had embroidered house slippers on her feet and wore Mikael’s gloves. Her hair, although it looked to have been braided properly this time, had an old dried leaf in it. She looked misplaced again, as if someone had forgotten a young girl in one of the tavern’s guest rooms, like a piece of lost luggage. Filip Messine stood protectively nearby, looking extremely relieved to see them.

  “Shironne, are you insane?” the colonel asked.

  “Sir, I brought her here,�
�� Messine began.

  “At her behest,” the colonel snapped, crossing to tower over her. “You climbed down a tree, Shironne. You could have broken your neck. What were you thinking?”

  She blushed but lifted her chin. “Mr. Lee is going to dream, so I had to get away. I’d heard Melanna climb down that tree, sir, so I knew it could be done.”

  “Melanna is eight,” he said. “You’re not a little girl . . .”

  “Jon,” Deborah interrupted, setting one hand on his arm. “Stop. It’s done. Let it go.”

  He turned a glare on her but quickly controlled it. “Messine, we can take care of her from here. If you would get back to the house and let them know that she’s in safe hands.”

  “I’ll do so, sir,” Messine said. It took a moment for Miss Anjir to extricate herself from Messine’s coat, leaving her in that ridiculous house robe. Once he had his coat, Messine slipped out the tavern’s back door, likely grateful to be out of Cerradine’s reach.

  “Miss Anjir,” Deborah said, sitting across from her, “how did you know that Mr. Lee is going to have a dream tonight?”

  “I didn’t recognize it before,” Shironne said, “but I do now. Now that I’ve met him, I mean. He’s so tense that his head hurts. It’s like a hum in the back of my mind.”

  Deborah cast a significant glance at Cerradine, regarding him with raised brows. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  Cerradine shook his head. “Shironne, you can pick that out all the way from the palace?”

  “Well, now that I know what’s him and what’s not him, it’s simple.”

  Mikael licked his lips, unsure what to make of that. He could barely recognize an oncoming dream himself. How could she?

  Synen bustled into the kitchen then, his eyes widening at the sight of the crowd. “What’s happening here, lad? Another one of those nights? And you’ve brought an audience?”

  Mikael sighed, not knowing at all where to begin. “Actually, yes. We need a room.”

  Synen’s wife walked in, took one look at Mikael and her husband, wiped her hands on her apron, and headed back out to the common room, shaking her head.

  Deborah took charge of the situation. “In addition to the room, we’ll need a private sitting area, for myself and the young lady to have a chat. Do we have time for that, Mikael?”

  He sometimes miscalculated the timing of one of his dreams, but usually that happened with the old dreams, the ones that repeated. New dreams were clearer, possibly because they were linked to the present—or the future—not the past. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got time to lie down and get comfortable.”

  Synen looked dubious about that pronouncement but left to arrange a room.

  Mikael cast a concerned glance at Shironne, hoping Deborah wouldn’t be too hard on her. Deborah would have a thousand questions. Probably more. Shironne bit her lower lip and nodded—a sign to him that she was willing to go along with Deborah, he decided.

  The kitchen door swung open again, narrowly missing Deborah this time. Mikael glanced up, hoping Synen had found a room for him, but instead, Merival strode through the door. He froze as she approached him, a smile on her lips. “Mikael,” she said in a teasing voice, “have you come back to see me?”

  Words tumbled out of his mouth before he had a chance to think them through. “No, I’m not here to see you.”

  Her smile faded, making him wonder whether she’d been teasing him or not.

  His face must be blazing scarlet. “I have other business here tonight.”

  “Let’s go see if he’s found a room for you.” Cerradine placed a firm hand on Mikael’s arm and dragged him from the kitchen before Merival could ask anything else. Mikael went quite willingly.

  Fortunately, Synen directed them up to the second floor. The last few rooms on the hall remained unsold, so Synen unlocked one, gesturing for the two of them to precede him inside.

  “If he starts screaming,” Synen said to the colonel from the doorway, “put a pillow over his face. Shuts him right up.”

  Cerradine raised his eyebrows and turned back to Mikael after Synen disappeared. “I see you come here often.”

  “Often enough,” Mikael admitted. “Synen is willing to put up with a lot. Mostly he just locks me up until Kai comes to drag me back to the fortress.”

  “Well, I hope there won’t be any screaming tonight.”

  Cerradine walked around the room, sizing it up. He ran a finger over a wooden chest at the foot of the bed as if checking for dust and eyed the bed cautiously. Mikael suspected that during his years living among the Lucases, the colonel had developed the same distaste for vermin most members of the Six Families shared.

  Mikael sat on the neatly made bed, unconcerned about the tavern’s cleanliness. He wished the dream would come, but they always happened in their own time. He took off his jacket and boots, lay down, and waited for Cerradine to interrogate him about the waitress downstairs.

  Cerradine settled into a chair set under the white-curtained window. “I’m glad to see that young men still do stupid things.”

  Mikael closed his eyes, pretending not to hear Cerradine’s quiet laughter.

  • • •

  Shironne held a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing aloud at Mikael’s poorly hidden panic. The girl in the kitchen must be the Merival who’d sat on Mikael’s lap, although he remembered nothing of that event.

  Someone else walked into the kitchen just then, and the doctor went to talk with them. Merival took advantage of the doctor’s distraction to introduce herself to Shironne as if she owned the tavern. “And you are?”

  Shironne knew better than to give her name. She was supposed to be home, locked in her room, and she knew from Mikael’s perception of her that she looked ridiculous in her current attire. She needed to get that leaf out of her hair.

  “Are you his betrothed?” Merival prompted.

  Shironne choked down a cough. “I don’t . . .”

  “Excuse me,” the doctor said sternly to Merival, reflecting annoyance over the waitress’ familiarity. “I need to take this young lady up to a private parlor or sitting room. Does this tavern have such a place?”

  Shironne was glad she’d been spared the need to answer Merival’s questions.

  Clearly recognizing authority, the waitress resumed the role of servant. “Yes, ma’am. I can take you up to one if they’re not all let.”

  “Dear,” the doctor said, addressing Shironne now, “why don’t you come along with me?” She took Shironne’s gloved hand and led her across the kitchen in the wake of Merival’s rose-oil perfume.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The doctor instructed Shironne to precede her up the narrow stairwell. Shironne gathered her house robe up in one hand and kept the other on the wall as she felt for each step, the doctor close behind to catch her should she stumble. She warned Shironne when she reached the last step, and they came out into a hallway where the sounds of the tavern’s guests crept up into the air, confusing her for a moment. Then she realized that the hall must be open to the tavern on one side like a mezzanine. Merival stopped not far away, and the doctor took Shironne’s hand again and led her into a room off that hallway.

  The doctor dismissed the serving girl, closing the door firmly behind her. “I hope she didn’t upset you, dear.”

  “Not at all.” Shironne stood just inside the doorway, uncertain where anything was once the doctor turned loose her hand. She didn’t want to move and trip over something. The doctor walked ahead of her, the faint scent of soap following in her passage. She must be tall, Shironne decided, not as tall as Mama but taller than Mikael.

  “Forgive my inquisitiveness, Miss Anjir,” the doctor said, “but I’ve been wanting to talk to you for some time.”

  The doctor—infirmarian, Shironne recalled—kept her curiosity to herself well. She could barely sen
se it peeping out from behind the woman’s control. “You’ve come to observe me working before. What do you want to know, ma’am?”

  “There’s a chair to your left, about a foot away. If you reach out your hand, you should be able to touch it.”

  Shironne followed her instructions and located a wooden-backed chair. She levered herself down into it, grateful that she still had Mikael’s gloves. She heard another chair move, wood scraping across a wooden floor, and then the doctor sat.

  “You said you knew that Mikael will dream tonight. Is that imminent?”

  Shironne considered the question. She reached out to touch Mikael’s mind with her own. His thoughts whirled about, a sure sign that he was still awake. She told the doctor that.

  “Interesting,” the doctor said coolly. “That will give us a few minutes to talk, at a minimum. I wanted to discuss with you why you’re here.”

  “I’m supposed to see what’s in his dream, I thought. Like a witness.”

  The doctor sighed. “Yes, that’s the overt intention, but there’s a more important reason you’re here. The reason that it’s you, dear, and not some other sensitive.”

  “I’m an oddity,” Shironne said. “I know that.”

  “You’ve done interesting work for the colonel. He’s told me you can draw information out of things—or out of people, for that matter.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Would you try something for me?”

  The doctor kept her curiosity tightly controlled, but Shironne could sense it like a fish just under the surface of the water. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to feel my arm, along one of the bones.”

  “If I do that, I’ll be able to get into your head, ma’am.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  Shironne considered the request and then pulled off her gloves and laid them in her lap. “If you’re certain. What am I looking for?”

  “I want to see what you tell me.” She placed her bared arm under Shironne’s fingers.