by Kage Baker
“Years ago,” she said, “I was working for the old Golden Chain caravan line. We got a party of passengers bound for the country up around Karkateen.
“It was the Sunborn and his followers. They’d just been thrown out of one town, so they’d chartered passage to another. But the Sunborn had already begun to talk of founding a city where all races would live together in perfect amity.
“When they left the caravan at Karkateen, I went with them.”
“Had you become a convert?” Smith asked. She shook her head, her eyes fixed on something distant, and she shrugged.
“I was just a bad girl out for a good time,” she said. “I didn’t believe the races could live together in peace. I didn’t believe one man could change the world. But the Sunborn asked me to come, and … if he’d asked me to jump from the top of a tower, I’d have done it. You never heard him speak, Smith, or you’d understand.
“He had the strangest gift for making one clean, no matter what he did in bed with one. He carried innocence with him like a cloak he could throw about your shoulders. With him, you felt as though you were forgiven for every wrong thing you’d ever done… and love became a sacrament, meant something far more than grappling for pleasure in the dark.
“Well. There were nearly thirty of us, of mixed races. Of the Children of the Sun there were a few boys and girls from well-to-do families. There was me; there were a couple of outcasts, half-breeds, and one girl who was blind; and there was a young man who always seemed uncomfortable with us, but he was the Sunborn’s kinsman, and so he followed him out of a sense of family duty. Ramack, his name was. The greenies were all a wild lot, nothing like the ones you meet here running shops. Gorgeous savages. Poets. Musicians.
“It was a mad life. It was wonderful, and stupid, and exhausting. We committed excesses you couldn’t begin to imagine. We starved, we wandered in the rain, we danced in our rags and picked flowers by the side of the highway. It was everything Festival is supposed to be, but with a soul, Smith!
“The Sunborn joined me to a Yendri man, and blessed our union in the name of racial harmony. I suppose I loved Hladderin well enough; greenies make reasonably good lovers, and he was drop-dead beautiful too. But I loved the Sunborn more.
“When Mogaron Spellmetal joined us, he suggested we all go live on his family’s land. Away we went, dancing and singing. I bore Hladderin a child … what can I say? He was a pretty baby. I was never the motherly type, but his father thought the world of him.
“He was just six months old the day House Spellmetal showed up with their army.”
“You don’t have to talk about this part, if it’s painful,” said Smith.
“I won’t talk about it. I still can’t… but during the fighting, a grenade blew out the back wall of the garden. And when it was over, I ran like mad through the break, and so did a lot of others. I looked back and saw Hladderin fall with one of those damned long black arrows through his throat. Right after him came Ramack carrying the blind girl, her name was Haisa, she’d been a special favorite of the Sunborn’s because he said she was a seeress. She was in labor at that very moment. Her baby picked that time of all times for its inauspicious birth!
“Ramack and Haisa got out alive, though. I waved to them, and Ramack spotted the ditch where I’d taken cover, and they joined me there. We managed to crawl away from the slaughter, and by nightfall we were safe. I don’t know what happened to the others.
“Haisa had her baby that night. It was a little girl.”
“Burnbright?” asked Smith. Mrs. Smith nodded.
“We hid in the wilderness for a couple of weeks, weeping and trying to think what to do. It was hard to get our brains engaged again, after all that long ecstatic time. Ramack decided at last that the best thing to do was to throw ourselves on the mercy of the authorities. We hadn’t heard yet about how Mogaron had died, you see, or his father’s blood oath, and since Ramack had never really been a believer in the Sun-born, he didn’t mind recanting. In the end he and Haisa went off to Karkateen and gave themselves up. You know what happened to them. At least the assassins missed the baby.”
“Why didn’t you go?” Smith asked.
“I wasn’t willing to recant,” Mrs. Smith replied. “And I had my child to think of. But what kind of life would he have had with me, under the circumstances, being the color he was? I’d heard the stories of the Green Witch, as we used to call her on the caravan routes. Our nasty little lord’s sainted Mother. Hladderin had told me she took in orphans.
“So I carried him up to the Greenlands, and I climbed that black mountain. I came to a fearful black gate where demons in plate armor leered at me. But a disciple in white robes came down, practically glowing with reflected holiness, and took the child off my hands and promised to keep him safe. And that was that.
“I went down the mountain and took sanctuary myself for a while, in the Abbey at Kemeldion. When the scandal had become old news, I changed my name to Smith and got a job cooking for your cousin’s caravan line. It was work I knew, and, besides, it seemed like a good idea to keep moving.
“I kept track of what the Karkateen authorities had done with Burnbright, which was the alias they had sensibly given her. When your cousin needed a runner to replace one that had quit, I suggested he pick one up in Mount Flame. By sheer good luck he got little Burnbright. I’ve looked out for her ever since, for her father’s sake.”
Loud in the sleeping house, they heard the sound of footsteps approaching. A moment later the kitchen door opened, and Lord Ermenwyr looked in. He was very pale.
“I wonder whether I might get something for indigestion?” he inquired. “But I see I’m interrupting serious talk.”
“Fairly serious,” Smith said.
“Yes, I thought you’d have to have a certain conversation sooner or later.” The lordling pulled out a stool and sat down at the table. “May I respectfully suggest that no one do anything rash? If by some silly chance somebody accidentally happened to, oh, I don’t know, commit a murder or something—which I’m sure would have been completely justified, whatever the circumstances—well, you wouldn’t believe the unsavory incidents my family has hushed up.”
“I’ll bet I would,” said Mrs. Smith. She got up and fetched a bottle of after-dinner bitters, and mixed a mineral-water cocktail, which she presented to Lord Ermenwyr. She sank heavily into her chair again. He lifted his glass to her.
“Consider this a gesture of trust in your excellent good sense,” he said, and drank it down. “Ah. Really, I’m very fond of you both, and I’m not about to let truth and justice prevail. We’ll sweep the odious Coppercut under the carpet somehow—”
More footsteps. The door swung open, and Burnbright and Willowspear stood there, holding hands. They were pale too. They looked scared.
“We—” said Burnbright.
“That is, we—” said Willowspear.
They fell silent, staring at the party around the table. Lord Ermenwyr’s mouth fell open. After a moment of attempted speech, he finally sputtered: “You? Damn you, Willowspear, I wanted a piece of that! Burnbright, my love, if you thought he was a jolly romp, wait until you’ve danced the three-legged stamp with me!”
“No,” said Burnbright, as Willowspear put his arm around her. “I’m in love with him. I—I don’t know how it happened. It just happened!”
“I don’t know how it happened,” Willowspear echoed. “It just happened. Like lightning dropping from the sky.”
“Like a big ship bearing down on you out of the fog,” said Burnbright.
“There was nothing we could do,” said Willowspear, seeming dazed. “I had my duty—and my vows—and I always thought that She was the only love I would ever need, but—”
“I never wanted to fall in love,” said Burnbright tearfully. “And then—the whole world changed.”
Mrs. Smith shook her head.
“And you both look perfectly miserable,” said Lord Ermenwyr smoothly. “But, my dears, you’
re both getting all upset over nothing! You’re forgetting that it’s Festival. This is a momentary fever, an illusion, a dream! Tomorrow you’ll both be able to walk away from each other without regrets. And if not tomorrow, the next day, or soon after. Trust me, darlings. It’ll pass.”
“No,” said Willowspear, his voice shaking. “It will never pass. I won’t blaspheme against Love.” He looked at Mrs. Smith. “I had had a dream, lady. I was an infant hidden in a bush. Another child was laid beside me, tiny and lost. I knew she was an orphan, a child of misfortune, and I wanted to take her in my arms and protect her.
“When I woke, I went to the Compassionate One and begged Her for my dream’s meaning. She told me I must find my life where it began.”
Awkwardly he came to her, leading Burnbright by the hand, and knelt. “Lady, I mean to marry Teeba. Give me your blessing.”
He reached out his hand and touched her face. Mrs. Smith flinched; a tear ran down her cheek.
“Now you’ve done it,” she said hoarsely. “Now we’re both caught.” She reached up and took his hand.
“Marry?” cried Lord Ermenwyr. “Are you mad? Look at the pair of you! Look at the world you’ll have to live in! I can tell you something about mixed marriages, my friend! You’ve no idea how hard it is to be Mother and Daddy’s son.”
Willowspear ignored him. “I never would have troubled you,” he told Mrs. Smith. “But word came to us that there was a man like a jackal, seeking out anyone who had followed the Sunborn. I knew he would hunt down my mother.
“The Compassionate One bid me go with Her son to this city. I meant to warn you. But then, the man was slain … and I saw Teeba, and it was as though I had known her all my life.”
“That’s not her real name,” said Mrs. Smith. “Her name is Kalya.”
“Really?” Burnbright squeaked. “Oh, that’s wonderful! I’ve always hated Teeba!”
“Use the old name at your peril, child,” Mrs. Smith told her. “You’re not safe, even after all these years. And how do you think you’ll live?” She looked from one to the other of them in despair. “What do you imagine you’ll do, open a shop in Greenietown? You think you’ll be welcome even there, the pair of you?”
“I could still be a runner here,” said Burnbright. “And—” She looked at Smith in desperate appeal. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we had a house doctor? My friend Orecrash at the Hotel Sea-Air says all the really elegant places have a doctor on the premises, like at the spa. And rich people like to go to—to Yendri doctors, because they’re exotic and have all this mystic wisdom and like that. He could teach them meditation. Or something. Please?”
“We could try,” said Smith.
“Madness,” Lord Ermenwyr growled. “Sheer madness.”
“It isn’t either!” Burnbright rounded on him. “We won’t need anything else, if we have each other.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” said. Mrs. Smith sadly. “Either of you. You can’t imagine how hard it’ll be. But it can’t be helped now, can it? So you have my blessing. And I wish you luck; you’ll need it.”
“Nobody’s asking for my blessing,” complained Lord Ermenwyr. “Or even my permission.”
Willowspear stood and faced him. “My lord, your lady Mother—”
“I know, I know, this was all her doing. She knew perfectly well what would happen when she sent you down here,” said Lord Ermenwyr wearily. “Meddling in people’s lives to bring them love and joy and spiritual fulfillment, just as she’s always doing. Didn’t bother to tell me anything about it, of course, but why should she? I’m just miserable little Ermenwyr, the only living man in Salesh who hasn’t had sex this Festival.”
“That’s not true,” said Smith.
“Well, that’s a comfort, isn’t it? All right, Willowspear, you’re formally excused from my service. Go be a mystic holy man house doctor to a people who’d as soon stone you as look at you. You’ll have to register with the city authorities, you know, as a resident greenie, and take an oath not to poison their wells or defile their wives. You’ll come running back up the mountain the next time there’s a race riot—if you can run fast enough.”
“Anybody who tried to hurt him would have to kill me first!” said Burnbright, putting her arms around Willowspear and holding tight.
“I see,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “I suppose in that case there’s not the slightest chance you’d be willing to give me a quick tumble before the wedding? A little bit of Lord’s Right, you know, just so you can say you shopped around before you bought?”
“Dream on,” she retorted.
“Well, you’ll never know what you missed,” Lord Ermenwyr grumbled. “Oh, go to bed, both of you. I’m ready to puke from all the devotion in here.”
“My lord.” Willowspear bowed low. He turned to Mrs. Smith, took her hand, and kissed it. “Madam.”
“Go on,” she said.
He clasped hands once again with Burnbright, and they went out. Burnbright’s voice floated back, saying:
“…bed’s too narrow, but that’s all right; we can just move it out and sleep on the floor!”
“Smith, however shall they manage?” cried Mrs. Smith. “That child hasn’t got the brains the gods gave lettuce!”
“We’ll look after them, I guess,” said Smith. “And she’s sharper than you give her credit for.”
“She’s every inch the fool her father was,” said Mrs. Smith.
A silence followed her statement, until they once again heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Slightly unsteady footsteps.
The kitchen door opened, and Lord Eyrdway leaned in, grinning. His ruffled shirtfront was drenched in gore.
“I have to tell you, you’re missing a great party,” he informed his brother. “Did you know there was another corpse in your bathroom?”
Smith groaned and put his head in his hands.
“Eyrdway, they needed that body!” Lord Ermenwyr sprang to his feet.
“Oops.” Lord Eyrdway looked at Smith and Mrs. Smith. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Lord Ermenwyr told them. “He’ll make it up to you. Won’t you, Variable Nincompoop?”
“Oh, drop dead again,” his brother replied. He looked at “Smith. “Seriously, though, is there anything I can do to help?”
Salesh in the aftermath of Festival is a quiet place.
Laughing Youth isn’t laughing as it shuffles along, wishing its golden sandals weren’t so bright. Don’t even ask about what Age is doing. It’s too gruesome.
City Warden Crossbrace had spent much of the last two days in a darkened alcove, so he found the sunlight painfully brilliant as he tottered up Front Street toward the Hotel Grandview. His uniform had the same wrinkles and creases it had had before he’d thrown it off, shortly after bidding Smith a good evening. His head felt curiously dented, and all in all he’d much rather have been home in bed. But a sense of duty drove him, as well as an awareness of the fact that corpses don’t keep forever and that the worse shape they were in when reported at last, the more questions would be asked.
Still, by the time he stepped through the Grandview’s street entrance, he was wondering how big around Copper-cut’s body was in relation to that nice capacious drainpipe, and how much of a bribe he might get out of Smith for suggesting that they just stuff the dead man down the pipe and forget he’d ever been there.
When his eyes had adjusted to the pleasant gloom of the lobby, he spotted Smith sitting at the desk, sipping from a mug of tea. He looked tired, but as though he felt better than Crossbrace.
“Morning, Crossbrace,” he said, in an offensively placid voice.
“Morning, Smith,” Crossbrace replied. “We may as well get down to business. What’ve you got for me?”
“Well, something surprising happened—” Smith began, just as Sharplin Coppercut strode into the lobby.
“You must be the City Warden,” he said. “Hello! I’m afraid I caused a fuss over nothing. Silly me, I forgot to tell any
body I occasionally go catatonic. I don’t know why it happens, but there you are. I was sitting in my lovely room enjoying the sunset and, bang! Next thing I know I’m waking up on a slab of ice in this good man’s storeroom. I was so embarrassed!”
Crossbrace blinked at him.
“You went catatonic?”
“Mm-hm.” Coppercut leaned back against the desk and folded his hands, with his thumbtips making jittery little circles around each other. He cocked a bright parrotlike eye at Crossbrace. “Crash, blank, I was gone.”
“But—” Even with the condition he was in, Crossbrace remained a Warden. “But in that case—why’d you write that note?”
“Note? What note?”
“That note you appeared to have been writing when you had your spell,” Smith said helpfully. “Remember that you’d sat down at the writing desk? It looked like you wrote Avenge My Murder.”
“Oh, that!” said Coppercut. “Well. I’m a writer, you know, and—I had this brilliant idea while I was eating, so I got up to write it down. It was—er—that I needed to get in touch with a friend of mine. Aven Gemymurd.”
“Of House Gemymurd in Mount Flame City?” Smith improvised.
“Yes! That’s it. They’re, er, not very well known. Secretive family. So it occurred to me they must have something to hide, you see?” Coppercut squinted his eyes, getting into his role. “So I thought I’d just visit my old friend Aven and see if I could dig up any dish on his family! Ha-ha.”
Crossbrace peered at him, still baffled.
“You look like you could use a cold drink, Crossbrace,” said Smith, setting down his tea mug and sliding out from behind the desk. “It’s nice and dark and cool in the bar.”
The hell with it, thought Crossbrace. “I’d like that,” he said. As he followed Smith to the bar, he addressed Copper-cut over his shoulder: “You know, sir, you might want to invest in one of those medical alert tattoos people get. It might save you from being tossed on a funeral pyre before your time.”
“Yes, I think I’ll do that,” said Coppercut, following them into the bar. “What a good idea! Because you know, Warden, that there are attempts on my life all the time, because I’m so widely hated, and anybody might make a mistake and think—”