City of the Dead w-4

by Rosemary Jones

  "I don't know. A wizard might be more trouble than he's worth," Sophraea answered, still thinking about the twinkle in Gustin Bone's bright green eyes.

  Fidgeting with Volponia's gift, she slid it on her middle finger. A plain ring, a little tarnished, with no fancy marks or flashing gems, it looked like one of those trinkets that the foolish bought in the cheaper parts of the Dock Ward. It was hard to believe that it contained any magic at all.

  "Maybe I shouldn't worry about the City of the Dead," she said to Volponia. "After all, Leaplow is probably right, the dead don't bother Carvers."

  "Especially if Leaplow restrains himself from punching them in the face," chuckled her ancient relative. The tale of Leaplow's misdeeds last spring had risen quickly to the old woman's chamber.

  "But if someone is stirring up trouble, shouldn't I find out who?" Sophraea continued to twist the ring on her finger, but she kept looking out of the closest window, wondering if the light would reappear in the City of the Dead that night.

  "Well, if you do make up your mind any day soon," Volponia said with a shrewd glance at Sophraea's wrinkled and rather worried forehead, "do let me know. It will give me something to fret over. I have so very few distractions at my age. It may be some time before Leaplow creates another scandal."

  Sophraea smiled and slid from the bed. "I'll let you know if I decide to investigate, I promise. Do you want me to bring you anything?"

  "No need," said Volponia, reaching for her crystal bell. "I'll ring up whatever I want later. And your grandmother will be along once her supper is done for a little chatter."

  "Don't tell too many good stories without me," said Sophraea on her way out the door.

  Volponia called her back. "Weren't you going to talk to Lord Adarbrent? About that letter of recommendation?"

  Sophraea sighed. "He hasn't been back in almost a full month."

  "He will be. He's just as obsessed with his final rest as that Rampage Stunk. So you're going to do it? You're going to take that job with the dressmaker?"

  "It's an apprenticeship," said Sophraea for the umpteenth time. "And she won't take just anyone. You have to show that you have a noble sponsor."

  "Sounds like a snob," Volponia had expressed this opinion many times too.

  "She's considered the very best in the Castle Ward. And what am I to do? Stay here and sew shrouds?"

  "Your aunts Catletrho and Tanbornen seem to enjoy it. As do a couple of their sons."

  "Not me. I want to work with fine materials." "Some of the nobility like silk shrouds as much as silk shirts or sheets."

  "I want to see my creations on the living!"

  "That's harder for a Carver, I'll admit. Although, if your fancy dressmaker puts you to embroidering camisoles and petticoats, you won't see much of those either after they leave the shop. I doubt she'll have you dressing her best customers from the start."

  "No, of course not, the apprenticeship is seven years. But her apprentices have established their own shops."

  "Still seems a long time to tie yourself to someone who isn't family. And she wants her girls to live in the shop, I hear."

  "I'll have a half-day free twice a month. I'll visit."

  "Won't be the same," grumbled Volponia, pulling her blankets closer around her thin old body.

  "Ah, don't," said Sophraea, dropping to her knees by the bed. She clasped one of Volponia's long, thin hands in her own equally slender fingers. "Everyone has been arguing against this. But you don't know what that shop is like. It's so beautiful, all those piles of velvet, silk, ribbons, lace, and embroidery. And little delicate chairs with gilded legs. None of the ladies ever talk in anything but the most genteel tones. There's no shouting or banging or kicking a stupid ball against the wall of the house at all hours! And nobody who works there smells of anything stronger than soap!"

  "Can't say that about the Carver boys." Volponia patted Sophraea's dusky curls. "But we'll all miss you. That's why we fuss so."

  "I know," Sophraea said, springing up and hugging Volponia one last time. Every time she thought about leaving Dead End House, Sophraea couldn't help the stupid tears clogging up her eyes and making her sniff. She loved her family but she really could not see spending the rest of her life sewing shrouds. And she certainly wasn't big enough or strong enough to carve monuments or build coffins like some of her sisters-in-law.

  Besides, if she lived in Castle Ward, there would be some distance between her and her overly protective relatives. She might even get to flirt with the same man more than once!

  Much to Sophraea's surprise, Lord Adarbrent arrived at Dead End House early the next morning. Since they had first crossed paths in the City of the Dead, the elderly nobleman never failed to greet her courteously. More than once, she had heard him refer to her as "a good girl" to her father.

  Of course, Sophraea was not sure that Lord Adarbrent actually realized that she was seventeen and fully grown. He still tended to offer her sweetmeats and pat her on the head, just as he had when she was five.

  But she had a letter of recommendation all written. out for him in her very best hand and only one or two very tiny smudges from being carried around in her apron pocket for days on end. If he would only sign and seal it, she could apply for the dressmaker's apprenticeship in the Castle Ward.

  Despite her best efforts, Sophraea could not attract Lord Adarbrent's attention. The old man had hurried across the courtyard with only the barest of bows in her direction to knock on the door of her father's workshop.

  "Lord Adarbrent," said Astute Carver with genuine pleasure at the interruption. The two shared a passion for the history of the tombs contained within the walls of the City of the Dead.

  Usually during a visit, the conversation would turn from Lord Adarbrent's current plans to the history of the City of the Dead. Lord Adarbrent greatly admired the Carvers' family ledger, which recorded all the details of their work and had often called it an "incomparable history" of the cemetery.

  Once the old gentleman had found the design for a curl of seaweed carved by a Carver ancestor on a mausoleum's door. He told Astute and Sophraea where that emblem could be found etched in a certain family's crest. Lord Adarbrent then related how that twist of seaweed was linked to the long forgotten tale of a blue-skinned wife who came from Naramyr and vanished back into the Sea of Fallen Stars after her noble husband's death.

  "They were a restless family after that," finished Lord Adarbrent one rainy afternoon as a much younger Sophraea perched wide-eyed and wondering on an overturned urn, listening to his story of the elf wife. "None of them could ever bear to see a ship making ready to leave the harbor, for fear that the lure of the wind and water would be too great for them."

  Lord Adarbrent, Astute Carver often declared, was the only man in Waterdeep who knew the great City of the Dead better than the family. And Lord Adarbrent would hem and haw in his usual manner, murmuring "You are too kind. I have learned a great deal since I began my visits here."

  That day, however, the elderly nobleman was almost curt in his exchange with Astute.

  "I need to look over your ledger," he said far more abruptly than usual.

  "Certainly, my lord," said Astute, pulling down the big book bound in black leather and setting it on his worktabie. "Can I fetch you a chair?"

  "No need," said Lord Adarbrent as he waved him away. The old man leaned heavily on his gold-headed cane, carefully turning the crackling pages of the family's ledger. "He's gone too far… that upstart… this is a matter of honor."

  Astute winked at Sophraea. In Waterdeep, old Lord Adarbrent was often called the Angry Lord for his mutterings as he stalked through the streets. Less kind souls also referred to him as the

  Walking Corpse for his dour physique. The Carvers rarely saw that side of his character, but obviously something had touched off the nobleman's well-known fiery temper.

  Finally, with a hiss of rage, the old man turned away from the ledger. "Venal cur." He glared out the workshop door as
if he could see the person who annoyed him so through the walls and buildings of Waterdeep. "Well, that is what I needed to know."

  He scratched his chin, a habitual gesture of contemplation for the old gentleman. "Now. What to do? What to do, indeed!" he muttered to himself.

  With an obvious start of recollection, Lord Adarbrent acknowledged Astute Carver. "I am sorry, more sorry than I can say, that I must leave so soon after arriving."

  "You are welcome here, my lord, whether for a short visit or a long one."

  "Very kind, very kind, I'm sure." The old nobleman hesitated in the workshop doorway, as if trying to decide where to go next.

  Given the gentleman's mood, Sophraea wondered if she should wait to ask him for his signature. A kitten wandered out from under her father's workbench, part of the latest litter deposited there by the Carver's striped mouser. The black-and-white furball tangled its tiny claws in her hem and purred. Even as she reached down to disengage the kitten, Sophraea decided she could not put off asking Lord Adarbrent for another day.

  The customers' bell clanged. Two men entered through the street-side gate, the long and lanky Gustin Bone and the hairy doorjack of Rampage Stunk. Lord Adarbrent took one look at the latter man and spun sharply on his heel, striding across the yard to the gate leading into the City of the Dead.

  "My lord," Sophraea started forward, dropping the kitten back with its littermates and pulling her letter out of her apron pocket. Two of her cousins carried a newly polished coffin out of

  Perspicacity's workshop. Sophraea dodged around them.

  But she was too slow to catch Lord Adarbrent. He plunged through the gate and charged into the City of the Dead. Sophraea ran down the moss-covered steps leading to the gravel path, intent on catching the old man. But even as she rounded the Deepwinter tomb, she lost sight of Lord Adarbrent.

  With a sigh, she stuffed the letter back into her apron pocket and turned back toward home. The next time, she promised herself, she wouldn't hesitate. She'd catch his lordship just as soon as he set foot in the Dead End courtyard and she would get that signature. She just couldn't spend the rest of her life waiting. She needed to make her dreams happen.

  Yet, looking back at Dead End House looming over the cemetery's walls, Sophraea felt the usual pang at the thought of leaving home. The long windows glowed a warm yellow, a Sign that the aunts were already lighting the lanterns to chase away the late afternoon gloom. She could swear that the wind brought her a sniff of wood smoke and supper cooking from the house's crooked chimney.

  As Sophraea retraced her steps, a faint sound caught her attention. A whisper of a noise, not nearly as loud as the rain beginning to patter on the dead leaves littering the pathway or the wind scratching the branches together.

  Sophraea stood perfectly still, listening. It faded away even as she concentrated, the sound of a woman sobbing, a very young woman sobbing as if her heart was broken, "lost… lost… lost."

  The crunch of very real feet on the gravel distracted Sophraea. Gustin Bone was hurrying toward her.

  "There you are," he said with a smile lighting his bright green eyes. Then, as he took in the Deepwinter tomb behind her, those same eyes widened. "Ah, this isn't your kitchen garden."

  "Of course not," said Sophraea, a little impatiently, distracted by trying to tell if the whisper she'd just heard was the usual moan to be expected in the graveyard or something else. "This is the City of the Dead. Why would you think it was our kitchen garden?"

  "I saw you go through that little gate in the wall," Gustin continued, "and I thought… I mean, the big houses in Cormyr, they have gardens walled off where people grow their herbs and vegetables."

  "We have a solarium on the second floor of the house for herbs," Sophraea informed him, still only paying half attention to the young man. "And we buy our vegetables in the market."

  Gustin slov. lv spun in place, taking in the multitude of tombs, the memorial statutes, the ornamental and somber shrubbery, and the urns stuffed with flowers weeping shriveled petals onto the ground below. On the roof of the closest tomb, grotesque carved figures hung over the edge, peering down on the pathway.

  "But this is the famous City of the Dead!" he exclaimed; "Aren't all the gates guarded by the Watch? And aren't the gates into it bigger?"

  "The public gates are very large and guarded, of course. But this is our gate, the Dead End gate. It's just for the family," said Sophraea marching back toward their gate. "To bring things through. It would be a terrible nuisance if we had to go all the way to the Coffin march or Andamaar gates just to take a marker to a grave."

  "And what were you bringing here?"

  "Nothing. I was trying to catch…" Sophraea skidded to a stop and scowled at Gustin. "It's none of your business. What are you doing here?" She emphasized the "you" in the exact same suspicious tone as Myemaw used when saying "And what are you boys planning to do tonight?"

  Gustin reacted just like her brothers. He shuffled his feet and mumbled, "Nothing… I just saw you and…"

  "Oh, come on," said Sophraea. "If you want to see my father about your statue, he's in his workshop."

  "Of course," said Gustin briskly. "That's why I'm here. To see your father."

  Sophraea shut and latched the Dead End gate. "He started your statue this morning," she said, "selecting the stone and roughing out the shape. My brothers Leaplow and Runewright will do the preliminary work under his direction and then he'll add the fine details later. It's a handsome stone he picked. I think you'll like it."

  "I do want to see it," said Gustin following her to the workshop. "I have heard that he's very good at his work."

  "The best in Waterdeep," said Sophraea with no small pride. "All of the Carvers are. Well, except Leaplow, but he can be good when he thinks about what he is doing. But my father and my uncles are the most skilled. They know how important their craft is. It's the last gift the living give the dead, a box to house the body, a stone to mark their passing, so they make their work beautiful."

  "I never thought of it like that. And what do you do?" Gustin Bone asked-

  "I'm not in the business. I'm going to be the first Carver to leave Dead End House and become a dressmaker."

  "Gifts that the living give the living." The young man dodged around a stone cherub with a broken wing waiting for repair and a stack of lumber seasoning for spring coffins. A Carver cat curled atop the lumber gave him an inscrutable look as he passed by.

  Sophraea giggled as she pushed open the door of her father's workshop. "I guess you could call it that."

  Inside Astute Carver and her uncle Perspicacity were pouring over some long scrolls. Rampage Stunk's scruffy knave was still there, leaning insolently against Astute's workbench and cleaning his nails with a long thin dagger. Sophraea could clearly see the stiff black hairs sprouting on the back of the man's dirty knuckles.

  "We should have Myemaw look it over too," said Perspicacity, "but I think it is legal."

  "I am afraid that you are right," agreed Astute. "But who would have thought that a family could sell off their deeds like that?"

  "It's property," said Perspicacity. "Just like a house or any land, I suppose. And it's not like this one was close to them or would even remember who was lodged inside. The seller is a fourth cousin on the distaff side, I think. I'd have to look at the ledger to be sure."

  "Well, they do say Waterdeep is changing and changing fast. But who would have thought…" Astute noticed his daughter and the young man close behind her. "I am sorry, saer, but I am just finishing some business here. Give us a moment more."

  "No rush, no rush at all." Gustin bowed slightly in the direction of all the men in the workshop. Stunk's servant ignored him but Perspicacity gave the younger man a friendly nod. Gustin turned away to examine Astute's chisels and mallets, all neatly hanging from rows of hooks set into the rough plaster walls.

  "Tell your master that we will begin the work as soon as the materials arrive," Astute instructed the servant. />
  "He will be displeased by any delays," growled the man.

  "He would dislike hasty work done with shoddy materials even less," replied the unruffled Astute. "Stunk only wants the finest, and that takes time, as any good craftsman knows."

  The servant shrugged one shoulder. "Very well, I will give him your message." He stowed his dagger in his shirt. Passing by the Carver's open ledger, he paused to read a page.

  "That's a curious book," he said, flicking over the pages much more quickly than Lord Adarbrent. "A lot of old names. My master likes old histories. He might pay you something for this."

  "It is not for sale," Astute said with great finality and, turning his back on the hirsute doorjack, began to chat with Gustin about the stone that he had selected for the young man's statue. Perspicacity joined the two men in their discussion.

  Only Sophraea noticed the servant tug sharply at a page in the ledger, digging in his yellow fingernails.

  "Stop that!" she cried, attracting everyone's attention. "You will rip it!"

  The hairy man backed away from the book, his hand snaking toward the dagger in his shirt as the two big Carver men advanced upon him. Behind them, Gustin's eyes glowed like twin emeralds.

  "Leave me alone," whined the servant. "I didn't do anything."

  Astute snapped the covers of the ledger closed and put the book away on a high shelf. "Go on. Your business is done here."

  The servant hurried to the door, barking in a whisper to Sophraea as he passed her, "Meddling girl, you'll be sorry."

  FOUR

  If she had been asleep, the sound of sobbing would have woken her. As it was, Sophraea was already awake, staring at the ceiling of her room and thinking of what she would say to Lord Adarbrent. She was sure that he would sign the letter, but what if he said no? And what if the dressmaker didn't think the Walking Corpse was quite the right type of reference? Of her own ability to do the job, Sophraea had no doubts. She was as gifted with a needle as her father was with a chisel and awl. And there was always good work available for a girl who was a clever seamstress, given the enduring passion of the Waterdeep nobility for the latest cut of the sleeve or the newest style of embroidery to decorate the collar, and the equally lasting obsession of the richest merchants to dress their own families in the style of the oldest blood of Waterdeep. But, ever since she'd seen those gilded chair legs, she'd really had her heart set upon working in that shop in the Castle Ward.