by Glenda Larke
And yet there it was, lying on the stone floor.
His mouth went dry. He lay without moving, stilled by his terror of the unknown, unable to wrench his gaze away.
Va-forsaken witchery.
If I look at it, perhaps it won’t move again.
If I don’t look at it, perhaps it’ll kill me.
He sent a prayer for guidance to Va, even though experience told him Va rarely answered prayers.
With his gaze nailed to the dagger, he realised that the gold threads in the metal catching the moonlight glowed as if they were alive. He’d seen something like that not long ago.
Where?
He struggled to remember, then it came to him. On the counting table in Kesleer’s warehouse. A heap of charts and papers, the bambu rod and yellow-gold gleaming. Not coins. Not metal. Fluffy, flyaway filaments. Like sparks. Like silken threads. No, not quite…
He concentrated, remembering.
They’d been so light, moving in the slightest breeze, like goose-down from a pillow…
They’d been feathers. Soft, downy feathers.
What the pox?
He had to have it wrong. Feathers weren’t valuable to a man like Kesleer, or the Regal; the idea was ridiculous. And of course, no one put feathers into a knife blade. If they did, the heated metal would frizzle them.
Shivering, he drew the rough wool blanket up under his chin. He would have taken on an intruder without a second thought, but nothing, nothing at all, was going to entice him out of bed to pick up that dagger with its wicked, sinuous blade. Not when he was damned sure it could slither out of his pack and cross the floor like a snake. He’d stay awake till morning, staring at the thing.
Half an hour later, he dozed off.
When he did wake, it was in horrified panic as he realised that the first dawn had already pierced the dark, and the monks were ringing the bell for prayers. He sat bolt upright even before his eyes were fully open. The first thing his gaze sought was the dagger on the floor, but the flagstones were bare. He drew in a deep, calming breath. Obviously it was all some horrible nightmare, none of it real. He chuckled. What an addle-pate he was! The blade was still buried at the bottom of his pack, and always had been.
He stood and went to grope for the piss-pot under the bed. And halted halfway, shocked.
Lying on his pillow, next to the indent of his head, was the lascar’s dagger.
3
The Haunted Woman
The house was cold. It always was, even in the height of summer, and now it was well into autumn. Perhaps it was the pretentious size of the rooms and the lofty corridors that made it that way. Perhaps it was just that there was no warmth in this household for the wife of landsman Nikard Ermine.
Sorrel Redwing pulled her shawl tighter around her upper body and shivered. Loggerheaded fool that you are. This place is squeezing the life out of you, one drop of warm blood at a time. One day you’ll wake up to find you’re no more than a dry husk lying on the bed…
A murmur of conversation reached her where she sat, Nikard’s voice recognisable, although the words were indistinct. Drunk again, of course. He always was, when dicing with his friends, especially if his brother Hilmard was there, as he was tonight.
Nikard and Hilmard, confound them both. Pretentious brothers with pretentious names for a Shenat family. And they were Shenat, born of the northern folk even if they no longer lived in the hills. Unfortunately, as landsmen rich enough to employ others to till the land, the Ermines believed they were better men than mere yeomen. Their parents had turned their backs on Shenat customs when their sons were born, eschewing names derived from nature. More recently, Nikard had even called their daughter Antonya.
A pompous name for her little Heather. She’d never used it, of course.
Va rot them all! Because of them, she’d sunk this low, sitting upright in an uncomfortable chair in a cold passageway – just in case her gambler of a husband, or his sot of a brother, called her into the withdrawing room. The relative warmth of the adjacent ladies’ parlour with flames dancing in its marble fireplace taunted her, yet it wasn’t worth the risk to wait there. She might not hear his summons, and experience told her Nikard Ermine didn’t like being kept waiting.
I should leave him, of course I should. But if I do, I lose everything of Heather…
Silly, but true. Heather had been born here. Her baby gurgles still lingered in the nursery; her toddling footfall sounded in the corridors; her childish laughter echoed from behind the hedges of the gardens. How could she leave the only place that contained any memory of her child?
Besides, where could I go? I have nothing.
No money, no property, no family who cared what became of her.
Va, but it was chilly tonight. She sat on her hands in an attempt to warm them. If Nikard didn’t call her soon, perhaps she could risk going to bed. She tilted her head to listen, but heard nothing she could interpret. Only the two brothers remained in the room now. The other men, all from neighbouring estates, had ridden off about an hour earlier, around midnight. Before that, Nikard had made a point of calling for her every hour or so, to ask her to pour the drinks, or put some more wood on the fire.
“She likes to do these little things for me,” he’d explained to his guests. “She thinks the servants should go to bed early, don’t you, sweet mistress mine?” And he would smile at her, that benevolent smirk of his that was a lie through and through. All because she’d once remarked, early in their marriage, that it was unfair to expect the servants to stay up late when they had to rise with the dawn to start their chores for the day. He’d accused her of interfering with the ordering of his household. His household, never theirs. Since then, he’d found a hundred different ways to punish her for her offhand remark, and this was one of them.
He’d never hit her, she’d give him that much. She suspected his restraint might have come from his tacit acknowledgement that she’d have scratched his eyes out if he’d tried, at least in the early days of their marriage. She’d been feisty then. Rebellious. Now, though, her courage had eroded under his relentless despising.
Like water on a stone, it wears you out.
It was easy enough to identify when her defiance finally crumbled: the moment she’d knelt beside the limp body sprawled at the foot of the stairs and seen the blood seeping from Heather’s ears and mouth and nose.
In that moment she had ceased to live as well. Oh, she spoke and smiled and listened, but none of it meant anything.
Her heart, her joy, her precious daughter. Just three years old and gone for ever. Heather, who’d never heard her mother’s voice, never heard the sound of her own laughter. Heather Redwing Ermine, born deaf, destined to be an object of scorn to her own father.
Six months gone, and the agony of the loss was still raw with the power to claw her insides, to shred her sleep. Her equilibrium was as fragile as spun sugar, shattered half a dozen times a day by a word, by a memory.
She was twenty-two. She knew she must start living again, but had no idea how.
A bark of contemptuous laughter interrupted her thoughts, and then Heather’s name was mentioned as if to parody them. Startled, she rose to her feet to approach the door. Nikard never spoke of his daughter, never gave any indication he ever thought about her death. Why would he mention her to his brother?
She laid her ear to the panelling. Her action was enough to crack the door open, startling her. Apparently she hadn’t latched it properly the last time she’d left the room. The voices within changed from an indistinct murmur to clarity.
“…didn’t know better, I’d have said she wasn’t mine. Can’t have been my blood that caused her to be born gummy-eared! Better off dead than being feeble.”
Nikard. He couldn’t even cease his bile now Heather was gone.
Hilmard replied, his voice slurred with drink. “Prob’ly would’ve died without any help from you. Thin-blooded. What if someone’d seen what y’did? You could’ve been hanged! Va
’s blood, Nikard, you always were the boil-brained one. ’S’time you learned to control your temper.”
“Blister your tongue, Hilmard! Why must you bring it up again and again? I was fed up with her mewling. Forget it!”
Sorrel reeled, aghast, shrinking against the wall. Had Hilmard just said that Nikard killed Heather? Murdered his own daughter?
Va above, let that not be true!
Her heart hammered wildly; her knees gave way until she slipped down the wall into a crouch. This can’t be true, this can’t be true…
She heard Hilmard’s next slurred words, but they barely registered. “You shouldn’t have wed that common country milkmaid in the first place, just ’cause she has pert tits and good teeth. She’s a clod-hopper’s daughter! Might’ve known a yeoman’s get would whelp a wrong’un…”
“Shut your mouth, Hil! I didn’t marry her because of her flirtish milkmaid looks.”
“’S’right, I ’member now. You wed her ’cause her sire forced it on you. He wanted your guildeens and he had the evid’nce you killed that yeoman in Barment Green. So you had to take her off his dirt-grubbing hands – and pay him mightily for his silence.” He guffawed. “Might be Va’s truth, but result’s the same. You’re stuck with her, and looks like her womb’s shrivelled.”
Clutching her middle, she retched, bent over, heedless of the need for silence. Propped up against the wall, shaking, her shoulders heaving, she could think of nothing but the horror.
Nikard killed Heather.
No one had questioned the death; no one had considered the unthinkable – that a man had murdered his own daughter, thrown her from the top landing to the foot of the stairs…
The searing hell of that moment, engraved for ever in memory. She’d come running out on to the landing when she’d heard Heather’s single scream, cut brutally short. Nikard had been standing there at the top of the stairs, unable in his horror – so she’d thought – to move. Later, he told her that Heather had run down the stairs ahead of him, tripped and fallen to the bottom.
She’d never doubted him.
And now the truth was just too much to bear.
A sob caught in her throat and emerged as a hiccup. A moment later, the door was wrenched open and Nikard was standing there, staring at her, his gaze and jaw hardening. She saw the danger. Felt it, like a rabbit sighting a fox. Every instinct told her Hilmard would be no help. And hadn’t he said something about another murder? Nikard had killed someone before they were even married…
Sweet Va, I’m dead. She turned and fled, picking up her cumbersome skirts as she ran.
In the middle of the hall, she had to make a choice: run for the front door and hope she could undo the latches before he reached her, or flee for the scullery door through the empty kitchens – or race upstairs? None of them good choices. The servants would all be sound asleep in the attic, and Nikard was hard on her heels. She tore across the empty space of the hall, losing her silken slippers.
The stairs.
Perhaps she could barricade herself in her bedroom. Once there, she might have a chance to think how to escape with her life. Maybe he’d calm down, maybe Hilmard could calm him.
She took the stairs three at a time, skirts clutched in a bunch at her waist. She made it to the top, but before she could cross the landing, Nikard reached out and grabbed her wrist. He might have been drunk, but fury had fuelled his pursuit.
He swung her roughly around, pushing his face into hers. His breath stank of ale.
Her rage bubbled up from inside, a cauldron of ire that would no longer be confined. “You murdered Heather. Why? She was a child, your child. It wasn’t her fault she was deaf.”
He swayed, trying to catch his breath. “What did she ever matter?” he asked. “She was damaged goods. Useless, a runt who’d bring my house nothing but shame. Better off dead. Come to think on it, what use is a woman who can’t give me an heir, eh? A fall down the stairs is so … easy.”
The slight twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth revolted her. Her terror should have been building; instead it was her rage that burgeoned, a black wave of it swallowing her from without, bitter ire bubbling up from within, until she was nothing but elemental fury. Her whole marriage had been a lie. Her father had sold her. Her husband had never wanted to marry her. He thought their child a burden.
At the bottom of the stairs Hilmard had paused to look up at them. “Nikard,” he said in warning. “Don’t be beef-witted.”
Nikard half turned to look at him. “Keep out o’ this, Hil. ’S’my business.”
In her anger and revulsion, she flung up her hand, and twisted her arm away from his grasp. Unbalanced, he teetered drunkenly at the top edge of the stairs. Without thought, without even considering what she was about to do, she said, “This is for Heather.”
And pushed him.
He toppled, falling backwards, arms flailing in vain. He fell hard, his skull cracking on a step. Momentum carried his unconscious body downwards, banging his head on every tread. She glimpsed the appalled look on Hilmard’s upturned face. Whirling, she fled to her room without waiting to see what happened.
Temporarily safe inside, she barred the door and pushed a chest across it. Anything to buy a little time. Panting in reaction, she dragged in deep shuddering breaths. She was shaking so badly she could barely move.
I’ve killed him.
Maybe he didn’t die.
She didn’t know which was worse.
Either way, she had to escape or she’d be gibbet bait. She looked across the dark room to the window, where a twig from the oak outside scratched at the glass in the wind, beckoning her. A summons, she decided, her thoughts wild in her fear. When she opened the casement, the muted whisper of leaves swelled to a rustling song.
I am Shenat. In the name of oak and acorn, I beg forgiveness and mercy…
She climbed on to the window ledge and reached for the nearest branch.
4
The Pontifect and the Spy
“Let me see if I have the story straight.” The Pontifect’s drawl was heavy with sarcasm. “In spite of your promises, you chose to indulge in a brawl under the noses of Lowmeer’s most powerful and richest men, endangering your mission and risking scandal to this office.”
“It wasn’t exactly my choice, your reverence.”
“It never is.”
“I do try—” he began mildly.
She cut him short with a sound best described as a derisive snort. She was famous for them.
Her birth name was Fritillary, after a pretty, fragile-winged butterfly, but Pontifect Reedling was neither fragile nor pretty. She stood taller than most men, with a build to match. Invariably dressed in the dull green robes of her office, she wore her iron-grey hair caught up in a net snood at her neck designed for convenience rather than beauty, and her lined face was always devoid of paints or powders. Most people, taking their cue from her hair and wrinkles, guessed her to be about sixty years old; Saker was not so sure. She moved with the supple ease of a much younger woman, and the backs of her hands were smooth, unmarked by age.
“I do my best,” he said, attempting to stare her down. Tough, when she was taller than he was. Not for the first time he wondered if her intimidating height had anything to do with how she’d ended up elected as the Pontifect of Va-Faith, with authority over all its primes, arbiters, witans, seminarians and prelates, right down to the humble shrine-keepers throughout the Va-cherished Hemisphere – especially as she’d not had a promising beginning. She’d been born to a poor farming family scratching out a living in the Shenat Hills, just as he had been.
“Let me make one thing quite clear, witan,” she said. “Maintaining balance in the Pontificate’s relationship with Lowmeer and Ardrone, and between their Way of the Flow and our Way of the Oak, is a matter for the most delicate diplomacy. In spite of being Shenat and Ardronese, I must be seen to be utterly neutral in purely political matters. Yet by your own admission, you wore our clerica
l oak medallion on a spying mission in Lowmeer – and allowed Kesleer’s son to see it!”
She was pacing the room like a caged wildcat, spinning on her heel every so often to fix him with an icy stare. He might have known she’d worm that slip of his out of him. She always homed in on the very thing he was trying to hide.
I swear she reads my mind.
“Your reverence, I do know it would cause trouble if Regal Vilmar thought you sent Ardronese witan spies to check up on his merchants. He would consider it a deliberate insult to both his person and to the sovereignty of the Basalt Throne. The medallion was a careless mistake on my part.”
“Keeping the unity between the duality of the Ways is like walking a thin crust of ice over a frozen lake,” she said, “and you nearly put your foot through the surface. It is particularly difficult for me because I’m Shenat.”
He knew she was right. The Way of the Oak had begun in the Shenat Hills, where the first shrines had been erected to the unseen guardians of forests and oaks and fields. Shenat witans had taken these beliefs to Lowmeer, where Lowmians had adapted them into the Way of the Flow, proclaiming this to be the purer form. There had even been several wars fought over the matter.
Centuries later, a much-blessed witan from Vavala – after receiving divine revelations – unified the two Ways under the umbrella of the one true god, Va the Creator, but the unification had always been an uneasy one. To keep the peace, pontifects were usually elected from clerics of the Innerlands, where shrines followed an eclectic mix of the two Ways. Fritillary Reedling was an exception.
With an exasperated sigh, she waved her hand towards her work table. “Sit down, sit down. Here’s hoping the Kesleer boy kept his mouth shut after you left.” She took the chair opposite him, her gaze fixed on his. “Explain about the lascar.”