by Sarah Remy
Midmorning sun turned Mal’s room bright and cheerful, despite the incessant rattle of wind against windowpane and stone. Mal lit the fat candles in their multicolored lanterns with another muttered word, and then threw himself into the leather chair set askew behind his writing desk.
He toed off his boots, watching as Liam selected a ripe peach from the collection of fruit Mal kept in a bowl atop the mantel. The boy had grown since Winter Ceilidh—sprouted into a gangly youth, as much muscle as bone. He’d taken to wearing his hair longer than was lately fashionable; the dark waves fell across his face, untidy. Mal itched to take a pair of scissors to the mess, but hadn’t yet found the courage. He suspected Liam would put up a fight and didn’t relish the tussle.
“Where’s Jacob got to?”
“Dunno,” the lad replied. He chewed thoughtfully. “Haven’t seen him since this morning. Mad for any bird to be about in this wind.”
“He’ll show.” Mal propped his stockinged feet on the edge of his desk, rolled his neck, and closed his eyes. “What news from the temple?”
Liam hesitated, either because his mouth was full of peach, or because the report was unpleasant. Likely the latter, Mal thought.
“Aye, well,” the boy said at last. “They’re digging from dusk to dawn, now. Burying the young’uns. Order’s gone out: none to leave their homes until Red Worm runs its course. The theists are handing out masks, and smudging the streets. I don’t much like the masks.”
“You’ll grow used to them,” Mal said, “if you intend to stay to manhood in the city. They’re a veritable spring staple. Some of the wealthier citizens pay good coin for embellished versions. Embroidery, feathers, gewgaws, and the like. Avani might have made a fortune.”
Liam’s shudder audibly rattled Mal’s desk.
“It ain’t right—”
“It’s not right.”
“It’s not right, making a pretty thing out of sickness and death. Especially when it’s the little children dying, my lord, and their mums and das crying on the cobblestones.”
Mal opened one eye, wondering if the lad had purposefully brought their conversation full circle. Liam wiped peach juice from his pointed chin.
“Shall I pack, my lord?”
“Later,” Mal decided. “I do in fact need an actual body count, Liam. Go down to the temple and bring me back a number.”
Liam made a face, then spit his peach pit into the hearth. The flames jumped to receive the offering.
“Aye, my lord.”
“Thank you.” Mal closed his eye again. “And, Liam, wear your mask.”
“I ain’t got—”
“Haven’t.”
“Haven’t got one, my lord.”
“Find one, then. Before you go down into the city. They’ll be handing them out at every exit.”
“My lord,” Liam groaned, loud. “I’m near enough a man grown. The Red Worm’s been taking only the young, the infants and the babes and the striplings.”
“Wear it. Common sense over vanity, lad. Promise me.”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Thank you.” Mal smiled at the backs of his eyelids. “Close the door on your way out, please.”
Mal counted it a small triumph when the lad stomped his way back across flagstone and into the hall, pulling the door closed with an energetic click. Only a season earlier and Liam would have slunk, little more substantial than another shadow against the wall.
Avani would be pleased to hear of the lad’s growing confidence. Mal considered stirring himself to write, but knew only the most urgent of correspondence would be allowed out of the city while the Red Worm raged.
“Containment,” Mal sighed. He crooked an elbow over his face, rubbed his forearm against the bridge of his nose, and wished he didn’t feel the growing weight of the newly dead pressing against the inside of his skull.
MAL DREAMED OF Avani and limestone pillars shining silver beneath the earth. He woke with a shudder, one hand fisted around the yellow ring of his office. He released the ring slowly, flesh remembering not the smooth impression of true gold, but the rough-hewn facets Avani’s rubies. The stone in the ring flashed. He didn’t remember pulling the band from his finger, but there it lay, warm on the palm of his hand.
The raven perched on the windowsill laughed, raucous. The fire on the hearth was ember and smoke, Mal’s fat candles gone completely out, flames snuffed by the same whistling gusts ruffling Jacob’s feathers.
“I shut that for a reason.” Mal stared at the bird. The bird stared balefully back. “Half my papers are now on the floor.”
Jacob blinked a black eye, and then flew from the window to the drape of velvet over Mal’s bed. Mal rose. The wind through the window was hot and damp. He cranked the pane shut, then paused, caught by his reflection in the opaque glass.
His own hair was little better than Liam’s tangle. He’d had no time to tend to it, lately, and now it hung nearly past his shoulders, sleek and dark as the raven’s wing. He touched his chin and found the scrape of bristle. His green eyes were wary in a thin face.
Past time for a shave and a bathe, or Lady Selkirk would flay him raw with the edge of her tongue.
“Hells,” he sighed, obscuring his reflection with the fog of his breath. “Time to go home.”
Chapter One
A TONSURED PRIEST in a dust-colored robe handed Mal an embroidered square of black linen trailing satin ribbons.
“Lord Vocent, your mask.”
Liam muffled a laugh in his sleeve.
“Very fancy, my lord,” the boy said.
“Give it to my page,” said Mal. “He’s in need.”
“King’s orders, my lord.” The priest bowed, unsmiling, then pulled a second square of linen from his sleeve. “For the both of you, my lord.”
“My, my.” Mal accepted the mask with ill grace. “Are those feathers, Liam?”
“No, my lord.” Liam tied the mask neatly about his nose and mouth. “Fringe, my lord.”
Mal tied his own mask in place, satin ribbons slipping against the leather of his gloves. He shouldered his pack and ducked beneath the low portcullis guarding the king’s private gate.
“Horses,” he said, disliking the press of fabric against his lips. “This way.”
Liam shouldered his journey bag and followed Mal. The boy’s red livery stood out in the smoky half fog shed by smudging torches. Wrapped in the black cloak of his order, Mal was all but invisible.
“Strange to see it so empty,” Liam murmured. “The bailey, I mean. And the rest of Wilhaiim.”
Mal, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with the city’s ever-present ghosts, only grunted. The dead were mostly silent as they paced cobblestones, mayhap as disconcerted by the torches as their living neighbors.
“They’ve shut down the Fair,” Liam continued, nudging up against his master. The crown of his head topped Mal’s shoulder, when it seemed only days earlier the lad had been barely elbow height.
“You’ll be glad of the fresh air,” Mal said. “Some find sea air quite invigorating.”
“Did you?”
“I found it cold,” Mal admitted, smiling behind his mask.
Their mounts were saddled and waiting, shifting nervously in the smoke. Renault’s stable master shook his head, his own mask a much more practical creation of burlap and hemp.
“Safe travels, Lord Vocent.” The man’s cheeks were damp with grief or ash. “South gate’s best. They’re burying the children back north.”
“How many?” Mal asked while Liam lashed their packs to their saddles. He’d stopped asking the boy to bring him fresh reports once the tally had topped eighty. Most of Liam’s companions were of noble blood, and so safely sequestered behind castle walls, but Mal wanted to save Avani’s lad what heartbreak he could.
“More than I’ve sto
nes on my abacus, my lord.” The stable master shook his head. “We’re like to lose a generation before the Red Worm sleeps.”
Mal sketched the temple cross against his breast, a blessing and benediction. The stable master nodded, jaw set.
“Don’t stay away long, my lord,” he said. “His Majesty misses you fierce when you’re off and about.”
“Thank you,” Mal replied. He swung up into the saddle. His mount, a sturdy bay gelding, stood placidly as he adjusted cloak and sword. Liam’s skinny chestnut flicked its tail, ready to be off. Neither animal seemed much bothered by the smoke and ash.
“This way, my lord,” Liam said, urging his horse forward. Mal pressed his gelding forward, hiding a smile. He could feel the stable master’s fretful gaze between his shoulders long after the haze swallowed him up.
The back bailey was quiet but for the mournful squawk of a single roaming hen. The royal blacksmith worked alone in his shop, absent his usual journeymen youth. His hammer struck clear and crisp against his anvil, the roar of his forge muffled. His wife sat silently in the window of their home above the shop, mending. Both wore simple masks; neither spoke as Mal rode by.
There were theist priests at the north gate. They bowed farewell, stepping back when Liam’s chestnut flicked his tail in warning.
Once past Wilhaiim’s graystone walls Mal urged his horse into a gallop, eager to escape the smolder and stink of smudged herbs. The King’s Highway was empty of traffic so near to the city, and the small squatter’s village grown up long ago against the walls was empty. Merchants who would under normal circumstances be up and plying their wares at the Fair were no doubt still abed, treating quarantine as an enforced rest, hiding from the wind as it rattled and shook their flimsy hovels.
Just past the ghetto the highway forked. Malachi and Liam rode west, toward sea and sunshine and clean air, the spring wind scraping at their faces. Liam whooped, kicking his chestnut into gallop. Mal let the boy charge ahead; his red livery wasn’t easily lost in the background of rolling green hills.
He didn’t startle when the raven dropped from the sky, a susurrus of ebony feather against battering air currents. Jacob made a great show of landing on Mal’s shoulder, grumbling and preening.
“Safer to ride than to fly,” Mal agreed, amused. “Wind like this one’s like to toss you into tree or cobblestone.”
Jacob poked at Mal’s newly shorn curls, beak sharp against the tip of his ear. Mal remembered the pain of that beak, a sharp agony between his brows. He lifted his hand and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with a thumb. The bird hadn’t left a visible scar when he’d used his beak to bring Mal back to consciousness beneath the Downs, but the spot ached at the most unwelcome of moments, a phantom reminder of lingering grief and of Siobahn’s betrayal.
“Renault was correct, as usual,” Mal said. He untied his mask, let the ribbons dangle from his fingers, inhaled deeply. “A trip out will do Liam good.”
Jacob chortled, then shifted from foot to foot, claws piercing Mal’s leather jerkin. The bird had ruined a great deal of Hennish leather already, and Mal was sure the damage was purposeful.
“You might have stayed home. Safe behind sturdy walls, and privacy to sort my gewgaws as you liked.”
Jacob didn’t dignify the remark with an answer. Mal hid a smile behind his hand. He wasn’t entirely sure whether Avani had sent her familiar to Wilhaiim with Liam, or whether it was the raven’s own decision to shadow the lad through the city. Either way, Mal was grateful for the bird’s phlegmatic company. It made him feel less alone.
LOW SHRUBS GREW up along either side of the highway, bright with pink and yellow flowers. Grass gave way to gravel and then white sand, and the white sand rose from hill to high dunes. The change was so abrupt a person could blink and miss the delineation, but the sudden tang of salt in the air was unmistakable.
Liam came charging back, hair wild, face flushed. He reined his blowing mount to a dancing trot, excited.
“I can smell the sea!”
“It’s still a day off, lad. We’ve a ways to go yet. Sand and scrub for the next five leagues. You’ll grow bored soon enough.”
Liam only laughed. He reached down and patted his horse, soothing it with a murmured word. The gelding snorted and sighed, and stopped walking on its toes. Mal shook his head. The boy had an uncanny talent with animals, and it was impossible to know whether the knack was learned or a result of his unique sidhe heritage.
They rode in silence for the rest of the afternoon, battered by the wind. Sand kicked up off the dunes, swirling about the horses’ hooves, threatening bare skin. Several times they were forced to stop and brush crusts from the animals’ noses and eyes. Mal kept his hood pulled tight, mask tied back tight to prevent sand in his teeth.
“Gods help you.” The fourth time they stopped, Mal patted his gelding, damping the edge of his cloak with water from his flask, wiping the animal’s face. “It’s not a good day for travel, is it?”
Liam paused in stroking the chestnut’s ears. He’d refused shelter of mask and hood. His face was already chapped red around the flourish of his scars.
“Why do you do that?” he asked.
Mal took a moment to shake sand from his collar and brush down his boots. The sun was mid-horizon above the dunes, the wind cold on his back.
“What?”
“Well.” The lad hesitated, then rushed on. “You crossed yourself, to please the stableman. And you beg his favor often. The temple god, I mean.”
“And?” The wind sent Mal’s cloak flapping around his knees. He captured it with one hand, knotted it to his belt.
“You’re not a man who believes in the gods, my lord.” Liam chewed a lip, thoughtful. “Avani told me so. But you call upon them often as any flatlander.”
“Habit,” Mal said, returning to the saddle. Jacob, perched now on the pommel, opened one black eye. “Like scrubbing your teeth in the morning, or choosing white wine over red.”
Ignoring stirrups, Liam hopped onto the chestnut.
“Ofttimes I forget my teeth, until you remind me, my lord,” he admitted. “The Widow believed, she did. In the gods of man and the gods of the barrowmen.”
“Barrowmen?” Mal asked, mildly.
Liam frowned. “That’s what she called them, the Folk, I mean. The sidhe. Only I didn’t realize that’s what she meant, not then. She used to tell me tales, like. About the barrowmen who’d come and gnaw my bones iff’n—”
“If.”
“If I didn’t sweep down the inn in time, or if I dropped a tankard. She told me stories of the barrowmen all my life, only I didn’t know it was me she meant.”
“You, Liam?”
“Well, aye.” The boy’s expression caught somewhere between mischief and terror. “Turns out I’m a barrowman, ain’t—aren’t—I, my lord? I’m one of them the Widow used to fear so.”
Mal glanced at Jacob. The bird stared back, beady eye unreadable.
“And have you been gnawing at any human skeletons lately, lad?”
Liam laughed, a delighted gasp of amusement. “No, my lord.”
“I wouldn’t worry, then. The Widow’s superstition is little different than the theist rituals. Habits passed down through generations, not easily put aside.”
Liam considered, shoulders pulled up against his ears in the wind.
“If that’s the case, my lord, and the gods and barrowmen are only stories, who’ll see that the stableman doesn’t lose his twin daughters to the Worm?”
“None but himself,” Mal replied. “And then only if he’s very lucky.”
THEY RODE INTO Whitcomb at sunset. Mal breathed a sigh of relief; as they dropped into the valley between white dunes the winds eased. Villagers returning from northern vineyards filled the narrow streets, bare hands and feet chapped red, faces obscured by the dark veils used to protect eyes
and mouth from blowing sand.
They grew quiet as Mal rode past, conversation swallowed. Men and women bent at the knees in cautious respect, while children ducked to safety between whitewashed buildings, only to peek out again. Liam looked from side to side, puzzled.
“You’re not so fearsome as that, my lord.”
Mal smiled without glancing around.
“You’ve forgotten you nearly pissed yourself first time you glimpsed my ugly mug. You’ve grown familiar, lad.”
“I didn’t!” Liam protested, insulted. “And you’re not so ugly as that, my lord. Why, the kitchen maids say you’re nigh as pretty as a girl.”
“Lovely,” Mal growled without anger. He pulled up alongside a building identical to its brothers but for a low-hanging wooden sign, then tossed his reins at Liam. “I’ll have the innkeep send a man for the horses. Meet me inside; if we’re lucky I’m pretty enough to get two rooms for half the coin.”
Liam cast a jaded eye at the sign overhead, taking note of the peeling paint. “The Copper Chalice, my lord? We’ll be lucky if they’ve two rooms to let.”
“Familiar and bigheaded.” Mal pushed back his hood. “Don’t tarry, or I’ll have your share of supper.”
Liam wasn’t far wrong. The Copper Chalice was clean and well tended, but the common room was half the size of Mal’s own bedchamber, two whitewashed plank tables amongst a clutch of ladder-back chairs. The front desk served as bar, the innkeep as bartender. He looked up as Mal ducked inside, expression impressively mild.
“My Lord Vocent,” he said, hands busy with a dry rag and damp crockery. “We’d no word of your visit, or I’d have emptied the royal chamber for you.”
Mal stripped his gloves. He set them on the bar, shook sand from his cloak.
“The royal chambers are occupied?”
“Aye, with much o’ the missus’ winter bedding, and all o’ her winter rugs. Rolled up tight, like, and each heavier than a man, begging your pardon, my lord.”