The Eighth Court

by Mike Shevdon

  I found him in his favourite place, in the high chair at the end of the big table in the old kitchen, a bread stick in one hand and his other hand in his mouth. There was a bowl of greenish goo in front of him, some of which he appeared to eaten while the rest was smeared across his face.

  “Good morning,” said Lesley. “We were beginning to wonder if you’d sleep all day, weren’t we?” My son grinned at me – not a pretty sight with a mouth full of green goo. I attempted to take the bread stick from him, but he would not relinquish it. His grip was firm and his determination was greater than mine, so I let him keep it. He used his hand to scoop up some more from the bowl, pressing it against his lips so that the goo squeezed between his fingers.

  “You’re enjoying that aren’t you?” I said to him.

  “It’s one of his favourites,” said Lesley, “though what there is in peas, potato and sprouts that he likes is hard to fathom. Still, he shows his appreciation, don’t you, Sweet Pea?” She kissed him on the top of his head, and he craned his neck around to see what she was doing.

  “How are you feeling? I understand it was a busy night?” she said.

  “I missed most of it, but I’m doing OK, thanks. Surprisingly well, given that I was shot.”

  “Are you up to breakfast?”

  “I’d love some,” I said.

  “I meant for him, rather than you, but I can arrange some for you too.” She passed me a plastic spoon so that my son and I could engage in the well-tried game of me trying to get the food inside him while he tried to spread it onto me.

  “I don’t know which of us should have a bib,” I said. “Him or me.”

  “I can get you one if you want,” said Lesley. “I have one that says Cute when Asleep.”

  “It wouldn’t suit me,” I said.

  “I’m not sure Blackbird would agree with that,” she said.

  “Did she say anything this morning?” I asked.

  “She said something about a theoretical rose,” said Lesley. “By the way, I wanted to ask you, have you thought about Stewards for the Eighth Court?”

  “Sorry?” I was taken aback by this change in tack.

  “All the courts have their own Stewards, but there isn’t a precedent for a new court. I wondered if you’d spoken with Blackbird about it?”

  “I can’t say I have,” I said. “It’s not really my responsibility.”

  “I took the liberty of mentioning it to Mullbrook, and he suggested I should talk to you.”

  “To me?”

  “You do have Blackbird’s ear,” she said, “and if you go and live somewhere else then I’d hardly ever see Sweet Pea here, and I get on so well with Blackbird, and you wouldn’t hardly know I was there…”

  “Are you asking me for a job?” I asked her. She looked uncomfortable, busying herself with some paperwork spread across the other end of the big table. “Well, I’m flattered that you think I have that much influence, but I’m not even part of the Eighth Court. I’m a Warder. Next week I could be assigned some other duty.”

  “Realistically, that’s not going to happen, though, is it?” she said, looking up from the papers.

  “I’m not sure I can predict what will happen, Lesley, but for my part I would be honoured if you were to join the Eighth Court. Our son thinks the world of you, and he has few enough friends in the world that he can afford to lose any of them, can you son?” He grinned at me, which would have been more endearing without the green smears. “It really is up to Blackbird, though. I can speak to her about it if you want me to, but why don’t you just ask her?”

  “It seems a little forward?” she said.

  My son waved his breadstick at Lesley. “Eh! Eh!” She rose and went to take it from him, at which point he stuck it back in his mouth, grinning at her.

  “Tease,” she admonished him.

  One of the reasons he liked the old kitchen so much was that it was a centre for operations for the Stewards. People came and went, delivery drivers arrived with trays of vegetables or orders of meat. The High Court had to be ready to accommodate whoever arrived, at whatever time of day, and this room acted as an informal hub for the staff. Deliveries were signed for and stored away, while my son sat like a lord at his table and watched everyone with interest. I gave up trying to spoon-feed him and wiped his hands and face with a damp cloth that Lesley had passed to me. He settled into chewing the end of the breadstick. Once he was happy, she found me some fresh bread and golden yellow butter, and a jar of pale honey. I sat and ate, trying to avoid my son getting his fingers into any of it while I was not paying attention.

  As Stewards came and went, many of them stopped to say hello to him or ask Lesley how he was. He rewarded those he favoured with a bread-covered smile. It pricked me slightly; they didn’t ask me, they asked her. I realised that I needed to spend more time with him, and resolved to do so as soon as the present crisis was over. The trouble was, there always seemed to be another crisis around the corner.

  “Did Blackbird mention when she would be back?” I asked Lesley.

  “She just said she hoped to return with good news. I don’t know any more than that. Angela was with her, if that helps?”

  “I have something I need to do,” I said, pulling my side as I rose and earning a worried look from Lesley.

  “Should you be going out so soon?” she asked.

  “I promise I’ll take it gently,” I said. “Is it OK to leave him with you?”I was only too aware that I was prevailing upon Lesley’s good will once again to look after our son.

  She just smiled. “We’ll be fine, won’t we, Sweet Pea? I’ll give him his bath in a while, but I need to make a few calls and check some things first.”

  “You know,” I said, “It’s time that boy had a name, before he starts to believe he’s called Sweet Pea.”

  Lesley looked hurt, “I have to call him something,” she said.

  “That wasn’t a criticism,” I said. “Six months is a long time to wait for a name, and I think we’ve waited long enough. I’ll speak to Blackbird about naming him. I heard somewhere that they used to have name-days – a ceremony to welcome new children into the court. Maybe we should have some sort of get-together and make a thing of it?” I suggested.

  “I think that’s a lovely idea,” said Lesley. “I’ll speak to Mullbrook and see what we can come up with.”

  “Well, maybe I better speak with Blackbird about it first,” I said, in a moment of hesitation.

  “Nonsense. She’ll be delighted that someone else has organised it, and you’re right, I can’t call him Sweet Pea all his life.” She ruffled his downy hair affectionately.

  I left them there, jealous of the time Lesley would spend with my son, but knowing I had other things I needed to do so that he could have a home where he could grow up in safety.

  I went to my room and collected my sword and a small torch. There was someone who knew more about this than anyone realised, and I was beginning to see a pattern. I needed to talk to Kareesh, and I needed to do it while Blackbird wasn’t around, being protective. I left before Blackbird came back and either insisted on coming with me, or dissuaded me from going at all. Down in the room under the courts where the Way-nodes were, Amber was leaning against a wall when I entered.

  “Are you guarding the room, or waiting for me?” I asked.

  “Both?” she said.

  “Are you going to be following me today?”

  “No,” said Amber. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Blackbird said I wasn’t to let you out of the courts alone.”

  “Ah,” I said, thinking that maybe she was ahead of me on that one.

  “I think she’s gained the impression that since I didn’t let you die I might be able to keep you out of trouble,” said Amber.

  “She might be right,” I admitted.

  Amber’s expression said otherwise. “Where are we going?”

  “To visit an old friend. I need to se
e Kareesh, but I want to see her alone.”

  Amber looked sceptical again. “Are you sure you’re up to seeing an ancient frail fey without an armed escort?”

  I was obliged to take the rebuke in good humour, given my success rate, but insisted that I had to see Kareesh alone. “I need to ask her something, and if you’re there, she won’t give me the answer I need,” I explained.

  “Just as long as you don’t get hurt,” said Amber. “I’m not delivering you to Blackbird again like last night. It’s not good for my career prospects.”

  “You’re looking for promotion?” I asked.

  “I’m looking for survival,” she said.

  We left the courts and headed out on the Ways towards London, skipping across the nodes until we emerged in a gym in central London. The pumping bass emitted by the sound system and the movement of the people exercising was good cover. No one saw us in the exercise room, and when we emerged we were just another couple leaving the gym club.

  We walked together up St Martin’s Lane and onto New Row, the small boutique shops displaying designer shoes, jewellery or framed photos of London with touched-up skylines. Slipping past the Metro supermarket we made our way across the road into Covent Garden proper. Here restaurants offering lunchtime specials were nestled between clothes stores and souvenir shops selling plastic Union flags. The streets were paved in cobbles and pedestrians wandered in the road, heedless of the occasional delivery van.

  The entertainers were out in force, competing for the lunchtime crowd, and on the breeze I could hear the high, pure tones of an opera singer, warming up for the evening’s performance by singing to the tourists in the covered market. As we strode up the rise to the tube station, we passed hawkers selling balloons to bright-eyed youngsters, and entertainers who had painted themselves to resemble bronze statues, looking even more frozen than usual. The winter sunshine had tempted out the tourists and the opportunists were determined to make the best of it, no matter the cold.

  The wind whistling down Long Acre cut through the pedestrians, making them turn up their collars against the cold. I reached the underground station and we strolled through the ticket gate unheeded, the metal gates flipping open despite the lack of any Oyster card. The lifts were ferrying people up from the tunnels below like workers coming off shift. They spilled out of the station on one side before the doors opened to allow us in for the downward journey.

  In the warm air of the tunnels, the air smelled faintly of machine oil and electric sparks. It was easy to hang back and let the other passengers disperse. They marched along down to the platforms while we drifted into the service tunnel between the lift entrances. There was a door there that said Staff Only, and it was a moment’s work to unlock it and let myself through onto the top of the stairway leading down to the service access for the lifts.

  “Wait here for me?” I asked Amber.

  “Don’t be too long,” she said. “Or I’ll be forced to come and get you.”

  I took that as a serious threat, and began to wonder what Blackbird had said to her. The door swung closed and darkness reasserted itself.

  The last time I visited here, I was unwelcome. The tunnels had been blank with no stairway rising to a private chamber filled with scented hanging lamps and old rugs. I had been forced to follow the phantom sounds of the person leading me through the tunnels. This time I was hoping for a warmer reception, and an explanation. I was certain now that Kareesh knew more than she was letting on. I also dared to speculate that when Blackbird brought me here, it wasn’t my first visit. The memories from Angela hinted that I’d been here before that, though my own memory of that visit had been wiped from my mind. Kareesh was old, that was obvious, but old didn’t mean weak. The Feyre trod around her as if on eggshells and, if my dreams were correct, that was despite her flouting certain taboos.

  I remembered, at my first encounter when Blackbird brought me here, wondering at the difference between Kareesh and Gramawl, and trying to reconcile the huge troll who dedicated himself to guarding and keeping Kareesh in her nest, against the fragile form he guarded. I’d asked Blackbird why he stayed with her and she’d told me that he stayed with her because he loved her. She’d never mentioned that their love was outside the norm, or that others of the Feyre might not approve of a cross-courts relationship, but then she’d grown up with them, an outcast herself. It was something I meant to ask her about when I saw her next.

  Conscious that using the shifting light shed by gallowfyre to light my way might be interpreted as a hostile approach, I used my torch, and I made my way down by its beam to the tunnels at the base of the stairs. It struck me then that I’d not noticed before that the rounded arch with its flat floor made the shape of a horseshoe. Was there significance in that or was I starting to see patterns everywhere I looked? I listened intently, aware that I was the visitor here.

  “Gramawl?” My voice echoed back from the tunnel. “Gramawl, it’s Niall. I need to talk to Kareesh. Can I see her?” There was no sound in the tunnel except the faded echoes of my voice. “Gramawl?”

  Edging into the tunnel, I expected at any moment to see a looming figure emerge from the shadows. My hand drifted unconsciously to the hilt of my sword and I had to will myself to withdraw it. I wasn’t here for a fight, and didn’t want to give that impression. I entered the tunnel one slow step at a time, using the torch to push back the darkness until the turn in the tunnel revealed the side passage with the stairs heading upwards. The entrance to Kareesh’s domain was normally hidden, but perhaps I was welcome here after all.

  As soon as I reached the opening I knew something was wrong. When I was here before, the steps had been illuminated by the softest light from above, mixed with the aroma of spices and scented candles. Now the stairs upwards were lit only by the beam of my torch. I took the stairs slowly, my hand now firmly on the hilt of my sword. There was something wrong, I could taste it.

  I reached the place where the stairs turned back on themselves and rose to Kareesh’s lair, but there was no light from above. Instead the questing beam of my torch illuminated only the dangling hangings strung from the ceilings in the room above. This room had been like a grotto, with Kareesh at its focus. As I topped the stairs I already knew it was empty. I pushed through the limp hangings, tapping my head against a copper lantern as I ducked through, the darkened lamp gonged dull and soft within the confines of that space. It was immediately apparent to me that it smelled different. Where before there had been musk over new-turned earth, now it smelled stale, lifeless and old. Under the beam of my torch, the hangings were threadbare, and the lanterns mottled with corrosion. I found the nest of cushions where Kareesh had held court. They were scattered listlessly, with no sign of occupation. Kareesh had gone.

  I scanned the pile of cushions, looking for evidence of dust. Had she died, finally? Was there sign of her passing? The Feyre live a long time, but when they finally reach death, they are consumed by the power that they hold at bay with their life force, and Kareesh’s power had been formidable. If there was a trace of her, I didn’t find it. In amongst the cushions I found a bag of boiled sweets – Kareesh’s favourite. It was hard to think of her leaving them there.

  What hit me then was that I would have to tell Blackbird. I couldn’t leave her to find out from someone else. Kareesh and Gramawl had taken her in when she was helpless and alone. Blackbird had told me once that Kareesh had initiated her in the ways of power, teaching her how to wield the magic she’d inherited. She had grown up with Gramawl and Kareesh when no one else would shelter her. It was going to be hard to explain what I’d found.

  I turned away from the nest of cushions and went back to the stairway, descending the steps to the tunnel in torchlight and remembering how Kareesh had granted me the sight of a future where my daughter and I could survive. It had been her gift to me, and following that path had kept both Alex and me alive long enough to begin to learn the ways of the Feyre, and try to find a place in their society. I wonder
ed whether her intention all along had been to ensure that Blackbird was not left entirely alone after she’d gone.

  I reached the bottom of the steps and turned to retrace my steps. As I did, the light of my torch flickered, as if the batteries were giving out. I tapped it, trying to improve the contact.

  As my tapping faded into the dark, something enormous cannoned into me, sweeping me off my feet and ramming me into the arc of the ceiling. I dangled there, held by a huge paw, pressed against the tiles, winded and coughing, the wrench having pulled the newly healed skin at my side. A sound rumbled through me, echoing off the tiles and making my guts reverberate.

  “Gramawl,” I coughed, “it’s me, Niall. Remember me? Rabbit?” Looking down from where I was pressed against the roof, I could see the light from where the torch had fallen, outlining the huge shadow in the dark and revealing only two huge golden eyes staring malevolently up at me. “Gramawl, you’re crushing me…” He was pressing me so hard against the roof, I couldn’t breathe. I coughed weakly, trying to summon the thought of power. I needed to do something. My hand flailed out, trying to work out where my sword was. As it did, Gramawl vanished from under me and I fell flat onto the floor like a sack of wet sand.

  “Oof!” I sprawled on the floor, winded and aware that I should be rolling to me feet ready for the next attack, but my body was still weak and I had no fight left in me. My bones felt like jelly, and my face was numb on one side from the impact. I raised myself up onto my elbows, trying to focus. The torch was a few feet away, pointing down the tunnel, illuminating the exit, if only I could get to my feet and make a run for it.