Pile of Bones

by Bailey Cunningham

  “When’s Carl finished?”

  “I believe his tutorial ends at twelve thirty.”

  “You don’t believe. You have his schedule memorized.”

  “Yours as well.”

  “Right. I’m just saying—why equivocate?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  He shrugged. “Most people are comforted by a bit of uncertainty. If you act like you know everything, they get suspicious.”

  “I’m not those people. Neither is Carl.”

  “Maybe I’d like to pretend that I don’t have arrays of data in my head. That I’m a normal person who actually forgets things.”

  “You forget things all the time. That’s why your power always goes out.”

  “I don’t mean paying bills. I mean words, songs, routines, memories. Most days, I feel like a flash drive that’s about to explode.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry. If you explode, we’ll rebuild you. But only if you promise not to enslave us immediately after.”

  “I fail to see the humor in that.”

  “Sorry. Don’t enslave us. Hashtag sarcasm.”

  Before he could reply, she stood up. “I’m going to see my mother.”

  “Will you need anything afterward? Drugs? Sour candies? Archie comics?”

  “I should be fine.”

  “I’ll bring all of them just in case.”

  “Thanks. Also, text me in twenty minutes, then again five minutes later. I want her to think that I have a raging social life.”

  “On it.”

  She walked past the residence towers and across campus, back to Wascana Parkway. There was a wrought-iron buffalo mural in the green patch across the street, which gradually gave way to the marshy lake edge. She skirted the lake, crossing what felt like an acre of flattened grass, until she found herself at the entrance to First Peoples University. Light gripped the edifice, making it burn in place. The walls were smooth and transparent. She walked in and took the stairs to the second floor, where her mother’s office was. Mel Kingsley was the head of Cree Languages. Her office seemed to glow. A south-facing window captured the endless sky, while plants thrived in every corner. She sat at her desk, listening to a pair of noise-canceling headphones. Above the desk hung a clock in Cree that read fifteen minutes to peyakosap.

  Shelby moved a pile of books and sat down across from her. Mel was oblivious, eyes still closed, mouthing something. Shelby was struck by how beautiful her mother was. Her hair, now patterned with gray, hung across her shoulder in a long braid. She wore turquoise earrings in the shape of parrots and a sleeveless blouse. Shelby’s skin was light and freckled, but her mother’s was olive. She smelled of aloe, with the slightest hint of nicotine. When Shelby was little, she’d deployed tactics of shame designed to force her mother to quit smoking. She would hide her cigarettes, complain about her breath, and cough whenever she entered the room. I just want you to live, Mama, she used to plead. Over the years, Mel had cut back, and now Shelby let it slide. Although she’d never admit it, the whisper of smoke that clung to her mother’s skin had become familiar, even comforting.

  She finally noticed Shelby. Smiling, she put down the headphones. “Hello, dear. Were you teaching today?”

  “Yeah. I just finished a tutorial on Old English poetry.”

  “You know, we really need teaching assistants for Introduction to First Nations Studies. We’re in the middle of a crisis.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “What’s your schedule like next semester?”

  “My supervisor’s teaching a course on Restoration playwrights. It’s upper division, so I’d actually be able to give a lecture.”

  She made a face. “You know so much about that genre. Wouldn’t it be interesting to learn something new? I can lend you—”

  “I’ve already got stacks of reading.”

  “Just one book. I know it’s here somewhere—the new Qwo-Li Driskill. I think it’s going to be pretty controversial.”

  “That isn’t on my reading list.”

  “It should be.”

  Shelby closed her eyes. “And we’re back here already. I’ve barely sat down, so that’s got to be some kind of record.”

  Mel gave her a long look. “You’re an adult. I understand that. You can study whatever you want.”

  “I’d like to record you saying that.”

  “Sweetheart. I respect that you want to be different. I think that—what’s her name—Margerie Cacklefish—”

  “Margaret Cavendish. She was a freaking duchess, Mom.”

  “Whatever. Her work has a certain appeal—if you enjoy listening to an aristocrat complaining for hundreds of pages. I’m just saying that there’s other literature out there, writing that’s a bit closer to home.”

  “You mean native writing.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Mom, I love native writing. I read it all the time. But it’s not what I study.”

  “I just don’t understand—”

  Shelby raised her hands. “You don’t understand because you want me to be like you. I’m not like you. I can’t learn six different dialects and give papers on Swampy Cree folklore. Maybe that makes me a traitor, but I don’t know what else to say. I like reading about sex in carriages, notes at the opera, suitors who carry around their own ladders. None of it’s close to me—none of it ever happened to me—but I wish it had. Do you get that?”

  Mel folded her hands. “Not really. I love you, though.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Will you at least take this? It’s a cutting-edge an-thology—”

  “Mom, for the love of—”

  Mel placed the volume in Shelby’s hand. “You don’t have to read it. I’ll feel better just knowing that it’s in your possession. That you might accidentally open it up one day.”

  “Fine.” She put the volume in her bag. “I’ll add it to the tower. I’ve almost reached the point where I can turn my library books into functional furniture.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “A guy on the Internet did it with FedEx boxes. Why can’t I do it with hardcovers?”

  “Boxes aren’t liable to crush you. Maybe we should go shopping for some appropriate surfaces. I haven’t seen your place in a while—are you still using the oven as a drawer?”

  “No. You were right about that being a terrible idea.”

  “I’m glad you listen to me sometimes.”

  Shelby squeezed her mother’s hand. “I always listen. I just reserve the right to make my own dumbass mistakes.”

  “At least let me buy you a new bookshelf. And silverware.”

  “I have silverware.”

  “I don’t believe you. Come for dinner tomorrow, and you can raid my cupboards. I’ll make spinach salad.”

  “You know I can’t resist bacon bits.” Shelby stood. “I’ll text you later.”

  “You’re so much faster than me when you text. I misspell things—it’s embarrassing.”

  Shelby smiled. “Nah. You’re better at it than you think.”

  She left her mother’s office and walked into the fierce sunlight. Halfway across the field, she took off her shoes and socks, letting the dry grass crunch beneath her toes. The sky devoured her from all sides. When she reached the shade, Andrew would be waiting for her, with sour candies and a double digest. Smiling, she broke into a run.

  2

  TODAY WOULD BELONG TO THE BATTLEMENTS. Morgan pressed a palm against the familiar stones of her alley. Currents of green moss tickled her lifeline. Naked, she let the hot air settle over her shoulders. She could hear the sounds of the city, breathing close, but here she remained untouchable. She wondered what it must be like for Roldan, who could hear the lares muttering at his feet, or for Babieca, whose mind tipped with melodies. All she could hear was the city settling, and above, the racket of gulls. They probably expected her to hear the sigh of arrows, the complaint of the bow as it bent to her will. She he
ard none of these things, though. Only the frayed edge of a voice that she couldn’t quite recognize, pronouncing the same word over and over. She heard it among leaves and between notes, over the white silence of worms decaying in street pools, louder than the constant fizz of flies around drying meat. The word was a drum sounding far away. It meant nothing and everything, and she’d stopped trying to understand it. Like a name, it was something she lived with.

  The sagittarii were the eyes of Anfractus. They saw everything from their stone aviary, high atop the Arx of Violets. Like gargoyles between the crenellations, they scanned the intramural space beyond the city that bled into forest. The silenoi were the only true threat in that direction, and they could never take the city. Night hunts kept them sated, for the most part. There was always the possibility of invaders from beyond the sea, but in her two years on the battlements, Morgan had only seen a handful of vessels willing to brave the fierce nexus where the rivers met. The city had never depended on sea trade. It had never depended on anything, really. It seemed to graze on some invisible substance, growing and perspiring without any obvious source of nourishment. There must have been other cities like it, but she’d only heard them spoken of quietly, like the dead.

  Morgan pulled the bricks out of her wall. The bundle was untouched, like always. The city swarmed with furs, but none of them had ever wandered down this particular alley. No soul had discovered the hairline crack in the wall, the loose bricks that could be moved aside to reveal the humid cell of her belongings. The bundle smelled of moss and weathered stone, cradled in its knot of darkness. We all have our cells and bundles, she thought. Our untouchable alleys, the only safe spaces on a dangerous board. She looked up. Something must be watching from above, keeping track of all those blind corners. It stood to reason. Something must have arranged those stones, calculated those cracks where light and shade met like accidental animals. Morgan reached as far as she could into the darkness of the crack, but beyond the bundle, there was nothing. Just currents of warm air.

  She dressed in a light leather lorica, knotting her rust-colored cloak over one shoulder. Her quarrel was light, but the flexible sinew case retained its shape and was crushproof. Seen from the top down, it resembled a cut pomegranate, with holes for barbed, brass-toothed, and trilobe arrows. Her short bow, edged in horn, felt familiar in her hands. The core was made of polished bone, and her fingers knew every groove. She liked the idea that every part of the weapon had once been alive. The miles liked to brag about how they kept the city safe, but it was the bow, not the sword, that protected Anfractus. Whatever might come for them, she’d be the first to see it. Not that she usually saw anything other than smoke, gull fights, or the dance of rooftop cats. If there was an enemy, it knew how to stay hidden. Perhaps it would devour them from below rather than above. Arrows would be useless in that case. The furs would have to protect them. She couldn’t imagine them emerging from their underground warrens, like perfectly blind moles, carrying broken knives. But anything was possible.

  Morgan walked toward the clepsydra. Even approaching from a distance, she could hear the din of its gears and the noise of people gathering around it. People lazed on the rims of fountains, while link-boys hurried by with crucial wax tablets. Wagons rolled along deep ruts cut into the road, and the smell of animals was thick. Flies clustered everywhere, glistening like layers of black fish eggs on hide and stone alike. The street-level popinae had already begun to fill up, and people lined the stone bars, drinking wine and spooning hot chickpeas from wooden bowls. Morgan could hear the owners cursing as they reached into the round stone ovens. Many of the customers were well into their cups, in spite of the early hour. An aging meretrix sat at one of the nearby bars, eating spiced cabbage. Her mask was gilded in opals, and between bites, she dabbed her lips with the corner of a fine napkin.

  Cold whores of the mind, someone had once called the meretrices. Those who rose above the level of the cheap cell were treated with an odd mixture of dignity and mistrust. Polished and educated, they still weren’t allowed to forget the den of wolves from which they’d risen. Certainly they had power and status, but they would always be lupae, wolves who’d formerly prowled the stone circuits of the necropolis. They’d stood beneath the night-flowering plants, calling themselves glass-mongers, hairdressers, match-sellers. Those upon whom Fortuna smiled were accepted by the parents of a basia, given lessons in everything from seduction to ancient languages. But Fortuna didn’t smile often. Most had to fight for their masks, and nobody would fail to point out the scars of that struggle.

  The older meretrix caught Morgan looking at her. For a moment, she was frozen beneath the woman’s green eyes. Her mask seemed to glow in the sun, until Morgan felt that she was looking at a face cut by sharp planes of light. Then she smiled, raising her cup slightly. Her lined hands were dark and beautiful. Morgan inclined her head politely, then hurried toward the great clock. Roldan and Babieca were waiting for her, beneath the water-driven wheel. As Roldan raised a hand in greeting, one of the carved spokes cast a shadow over him. Morgan looked up and saw that it was the aspect of constant change—the throw forever in motion.

  “Are you sky-gazing today?” Roldan asked.

  “It looks that way. I’ll be alone mostly. It will give me the chance to ponder how absolutely terrible this plan is.”

  “There’s a one-in-six chance that it will work,” Babieca said. “Like all things here. I thought the”—he almost said lupo, but managed to stop himself—“the meretrix seemed to have faith in us.”

  “He has a name.” Roldan spoke while studying the fountain. “Felix. There’s no cause to keep reminding us of his profession.”

  “I met a lot of people that night. Some of their names escape me, so it’s simpler to refer to them by their skill sets.”

  “What do you know about his skill set?”

  “There’s no time for this discussion,” Morgan said. “We simply have to roll. And since I’m the only member of this company who actually has a die, that falls to me.”

  “Is this the part where you show it to us?”

  “You should be so lucky.” She turned back to Roldan. “We have a day until the basilissa’s banquet. Felix can get you past the gates. I’ll be somewhere close, but I need to remain hidden. If we run into each other, we’ve never met.”

  “I still think you should come in a dress,” Babieca said. “Who’s going to recognize you out of uniform?”

  She gave him a long look. “Despite what you might think, I am known to a few people in the Arx of Violets. Wearing something with layers of taffeta won’t serve to disguise my face, and I’m certainly not qualified to go masked. I’ll be more useful if I stay armed.”

  “You could fit a dagger in the right dress.”

  Morgan ignored this. “Roldan, how do you feel about your part?”

  He was still staring at the fountain. “I understand what’s expected.”

  “Babieca will pass for a courtier, if he doesn’t drink too much. You, however, will not. Auditores make people nervous. The surest way to disappear into the scenery—”

  “—is to become his cup-bearer. I grasp the plan.”

  “I think what Morgan may be alluding to,” Babieca said, “is that cup-bearers must be silent and obedient. You’re adept at the first part, but I wouldn’t call you obedient by any stretch of the imagination.”

  “Am I so contrary?”

  “Not necessarily. But you don’t always listen, either. You get distracted by the lares whispering around you.”

  “I won’t say anything to reveal us.”

  “That includes not exposing fallacies, drawing attention to lies, or pointing out that most of the people we’ll meet are idiots. Your job is to be silent and keep the wine flowing. I won’t be drinking much, although it will seem like I am.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Morgan said.

  Roldan made no reply. He was lost in his own thoughts. There was no point in belaboring the issue.
She’d have to trust him to play his part. Instinctively, her hand went to the collar of her lorica. Beneath the leather, she could feel the die around her neck. She’d won it after spending her first night on the battlements, alone, listening to the city below. At first, the noises had been indistinct. But after a few hours, they began to separate: love cries, imprecations, the song of coins, the pulse of lives moving down endless alleys. Near the end of her watch, she could distinguish between the sound of animals and the footsteps of the few silenoi who hunted along the darker streets. Even that high up, she felt vulnerable. They were, after all, her opposite on the dark die. They had arrows of their own.

  There were several things that made her nervous about this plan. The first—which she didn’t want to admit to Roldan—was that she didn’t entirely trust Felix. Should the evening come crashing down around them, he was the one with the most to lose. It was a long and perilous plummet from the good graces of the basilissa. It was convenient to think that he cared for her, that he wanted to shield her from potential danger, but his part in this was still obscure. He knew more than he was willing to say, and Morgan didn’t believe for an instant that he’d been a passive player thus far. He would turn on them if the situation worsened. Only a fool would do otherwise.

  The second problem was knowing, unavoidably, that Narses was manipulating all of them in some way. The spadones ruled the arx, and he ruled them. What if he’d wanted them at the banquet from the very beginning? They could take the blame for whatever he had planned. Nobody positioned themselves against the Gens of Spadones, because it was like fighting an enemy who saw three moves ahead of you. They’d practically invented the board, and people were just stones that they nudged from square to square. They hunted their own way, different from the silenoi, but just as effective. They could destroy you with a tablet, a whisper, a poisoned ring, or a perpetual kiss dissolved in wine. Unlike the furs, who clung to certain standards of roguery, eunuchs dealt with everyone.

  “Let’s part,” she said. “Earn some coins so that you’ll have something to jingle at the banquet. Courtiers always jingle. While you’re fleecing drunkards, I’ll see what I can catch a glimpse of inside the arx. They’ll be preparing like mad, and it shouldn’t be hard to move relatively unseen through the halls. I may even catch a glimpse of the high chamberlain, or at least one of his shadows.”