We Are Blood and Thunder

by Kesia Lupo

  She forced cheer into her voice. ‘Come, is this to be my welcome? It has been six years since I was last home. We shall throw a feast tonight to celebrate!’

  A few murmurs broke out, an uncertain clatter of excitement. Constance beamed, trembling inside. ‘And tomorrow, at midday, we shall hold a Witenagemot—’

  A door to the side of the courtyard opened with a click and swung wide, the fog skittering around it like an agitated animal. The man in the brown physician’s coat held the door, closely followed by a taller, broader figure dressed in the King’s black military uniform. He had straight silver hair tied flawlessly at his neck and a large moustache. The King’s Justice. She felt her fists clench tighter.

  At the Justice’s heels, a huge hound slunk into the courtyard, growling at the gathered crowd. Constance recognised the breed – identical to the hunting dogs in her father’s kennels. But it was white instead of the ordinary brown or black, and enormous – its head nearly reached her waist and its body was corded with muscle. The hound’s right eye was a scar, a gash of shocking pink against the creature’s short pale fur, while its left eye was a hideous, livid yellow.

  From the corner of Constance’s vision, she caught sight of her brother smothering a scowl. As the Justice stepped towards her, the buttons on his black greatcoat gleaming gold, disapproval naked on his face, the courtyard fell silent. No whisperings. No curious glances. No more murmurs of excitement for a feast. Eyes fell to the ground like stones, and people shrank back from the hound, folding their arms as if afraid it might snap at their hands. Six years ago, when she’d left, the Justice’s role had been purely administrative – he was the King’s representative, sent to oversee the royal taxes and the interpretation of the law in Duke’s Forest, and to serve as an ambassador of sorts. Constance remembered the previous King’s Justice, who had been a kindly and very elderly man with a penchant for cream puffs. He’d died of extreme old age about ten years ago, and they’d sent this one to replace him. He’d always been seen as strict, by comparison. But glancing between her father, the Justice, Winton and the people, it was suddenly clear that he was more than just strict: the Justice held the true power here. A retinue of black-uniformed guards followed him into the space that spread around Constance like ripples in a pool. The dog barked at her three times, a rough, tight sound. She flinched, in spite of herself, scowling down at the creature.

  ‘Sit, Barbarus,’ the Justice said sharply, and the hound obeyed, its muscles coiled. A whip mark showed half-healed against the dog’s flank.

  The physician reached his hand out to the Duke. He was tall and heavily built, with a thin, blandly handsome face, his brown hair cropped short in a military fashion. A kind of cruelty revealed itself in the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw.

  ‘Come, my lord. Let me return you to your apartments, it’s past time for your medicine.’

  Her father cringed, as if afraid, and Constance placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Get away from my father,’ she snapped at the man. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Dr Jonas Thorn, my lady.’ His voice was dry as kindling. ‘The Duke’s physician. And I believe you’ve met our Lord Protector, the King’s Justice?’

  Lord Protector? That meant he truly was ruling in her father’s stead. She drew herself up and met the Justice’s steely gaze. Although Constance was tall, and the Justice must have been nearing his seventieth year, he still had the advantage of height.

  ‘Six years,’ he said, his voice low and unyielding. ‘We all thought you were gone forever.’

  ‘You thought wrong,’ Constance said archly.

  ‘You do realise this city is under quarantine?’ The Justice’s question tripped after her reply, dismissive, as if he’d hardly listened. ‘Did you not see the sign? The locked gates? How did you get inside?’ The white hound growled up at Constance, but the Justice lifted his hand – ever so slightly – and the dog fell abruptly silent, cowering at his feet.

  ‘I am aware of your quarantine, and your mage hunts,’ she said, remembering the grim truth told by the bones stacked around the gate. A native of Duke’s Forest, it was said that the Justice had served in the King’s army for twenty years before returning to his home with a fresh disapproval for foreigners and a determination to reaffirm his connection to the Ancestors. He had long been known for his hatred of magic. Constance wondered what had happened in the army to turn him so bitter.

  ‘It is my duty as the King’s representative to ensure the storm cloud and its Pestilence does not escape Duke’s Forest. It is equally my duty as Lord Protector and guardian of the Ancestors to root out the mages responsible for the storm cloud and destroy them.’ He fixed her with his burning steel-blue eyes.

  ‘Why are you so sure the storm is magic? And even if it is, why are you so certain the mage who cast it remains within the city?’ Constance demanded. ‘Your actions are cruel and senseless.’

  The Justice’s lip curled. ‘The storm is clearly unnatural. In seeking out the perpetrator – as well as in persecuting those who practise the foul craft of magic – I follow, as ever, the laws and customs of the kingdom and Duke’s Forest. I shall repeat my question: how did you get inside?’

  She ignored it. ‘I saw the bones of hundreds. Were they all mages? Even the children?’

  The Justice’s stare was so cold that she felt her soul shiver. ‘The nature of magic is mysterious. But this is beside the point. You have broken the law, and you are refusing to answer my question.’ A shudder ran through the watching crowd. His words had turned a few faces doubtful – others full of fear. At a nod from the Justice, one of his black-clad guards stepped forward, grabbing her right arm, pulling her aside from her father, whose face crumpled. ‘I’m placing you under arrest, pending trial, for breaking quarantine.’ His voice was horribly calm.

  The Duke began to weep, a keening sound emerging from the back of his throat.

  At the temple, she’d often dreamed of returning, and she’d never expected it to be easy. But this? Her father was incapable of helping anyone, and the city was torn apart by the Justice and his mage hunt, ravaged by fear and grief. And now her journey would end in a prison cell – or worse. She clenched her fists, her left hand tight around her cane. No, it cannot end this way.

  Then another voice emerged from the crowd. ‘I believe it’s illegal to leave the city, Lord Justice, but – though ill-advised – is it actually illegal to enter?’ A tall, slender man dressed in bright indigo silk, his face swathed in scarves, pushed to the front.

  ‘Lord Irvine,’ said the Justice calmly, a thread of hatred running under his voice. ‘As Swordmaster, I don’t believe you have a great deal to offer on points of law.’

  Lord Irvine? Constance’s heart beat a tiny bit faster. She remembered him aged seventeen, sparring against her in the gardens, the flash of their blades in the sunlight.

  ‘Indeed … Lord Veredith? Ah, there you are.’ Irvine addressed an ancient man with tissue-paper skin, whom Constance vaguely recognised from her childhood. ‘I believe you are an authority on such matters – can you clarify the point for the Justice?’

  ‘Y-yes …’ the old man stuttered, looking up at the Justice with a clear expression of terror. ‘Forgive me, but … I’m afraid … if my memory serves … that is—’ He coughed. ‘I believe, alas, the Swordmaster is correct.’ He raised his voice and began to recite, his voice warbling: ‘The Book of Law, section eighteen, point thirty—’

  ‘Very well, my lord,’ interrupted Irvine. ‘I think that settles it. My men and I will be happy to escort Lady Constance to her apartments and ensure she has everything she requires for this evening’s festivities.’

  Constance glimpsed a number of men dressed in vivid sky-blue livery sliding from the crowd. At a glance, she guessed the Justice’s and Irvine’s retinues were about evenly matched. For a few moments, the two men locked eyes.

  ‘For Mythris’s sake,’ muttered Constance, as she shook free from the uncertain
grip of the Justice’s man. ‘Stop this nonsense.’ Irvine and the Justice blinked in apparent shock. ‘I’ll take my old apartments at the top of the south tower. Can someone be prevailed upon to bring me some hot bathwater? Thank you.’ She took a deep breath, leaned forward and kissed her weeping father on the cheek. ‘I will see you at the feast, Father. Please don’t cry.’ She turned to Winton. ‘I am sorry about the Duchess, Brother. I really am.’

  And with the tap-tap-tap of her cane sounding hard on the cobblestones, she walked through the parting crowd and into the square south tower.

  She climbed the staircase slowly, her breath shallow, the steps swimming in front of her eyes. Nearly. Home. One of her gloved hands was clenched around the bannister. The other, the trembling left hand, held fast to the cane. The tremor was continuous now, a soft shuddering that set her nerves on edge. As she neared the top, she heard the courtyard door open and close.

  ‘Constance?’ Irvine’s voice.

  ‘I’m fine. Leave me to rest,’ she half-shouted. She’d reached the door to her old apartment. It was just the same, down to the scuff marks where she used to kick it shut, and the two angry initials she’d scored into the wood with a penknife as a girl of thirteen. C.R.

  ‘Constance, wait!’ He started to take the stairs two at a time.

  She sighed and pushed the door open.

  Her bedroom was a heap of junk. She leaned heavily on the door frame, shaken. The bed was dusty and piled high with papers, its curtains ripped and ragged. The play chest at the foot of the bed – painted garish pink and yellow by Constance’s own childish hand – was barely discernible under a heap of upturned broken chairs. The main part of the room was a mass of furniture in various states of disrepair, and smelt of old wood and rot. Weirdly, she could still see her hairbrush where she’d left it all those years ago on the dressing table, thick with dust, strung with cobwebs and barricaded in the corner by the grimy window. She stepped inside, her mouth open, just as Irvine reached the landing.

  ‘Constance …’ His breath was even and slow, despite his swift climb up the tower. ‘I was trying to stop you seeing this. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What happened here?’ Her voice was weak. She hated the sound of it.

  ‘When the fog got worse, when the lightning and thunder started, everyone wanted a place in the castle – it’s better up here, thinner and calmer. Most of the upper town moved in. The Pestilence has brought numbers down since then, of course … but at the time, space was at a premium.’ He sighed. ‘Your father refused to let anyone stay in your room. And so …’

  ‘It became a dumping ground. Guess that shows what everyone really thought of me.’ She felt annoyingly close to tears.

  ‘That’s not true, Constance. I think in some way he was keeping it for when you’d come back.’

  He told me never to return, she thought, shaking her head. She turned to face him. ‘I had my enemies, even at sixteen. The Duchess, for one.’ She remembered with a jolt that the woman was dead. ‘I’d been preparing myself to confront her, but now …’

  He pulled the silken scarves from around his face. Six years on, he looked different – and yet somehow just the same. He was a little older than her – twenty-three, or thereabouts – with high, angular cheekbones and the brown skin of eastern Valorian, his mother’s legacy. He’d been gangly, aged seventeen, and clumsy – except with a practice sword. But since she’d left, his face had sharpened, and he’d grown tall and lean and self-assured. His bright green eyes still glittered like gems, just as she remembered.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ he said suddenly, colour rising to his cheeks under her scrutiny.

  Constance’s mouth flickered into a smile, teasing. ‘So where do you suggest I sleep?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘The apartments on the first floor are relatively habitable – I’m afraid that’s the best you can hope for these days. We’re rather short on manpower. I’ve already sent some servants to prepare it for you.’

  ‘Those were my mother’s apartments once,’ said Constance. She’d only been four when her mother had died, but she remembered clearly enough.

  He blinked. ‘There is another empty suite in the east tower, and I hear the north wing has vacant—’

  ‘It’s all right. Downstairs it is.’ She wasn’t sure she could cope with another trip across the courtyard.

  The first floor was already a hub of activity. As she descended the last few steps, Constance caught a glimpse inside the apartments through the open door as a manservant brought in a basket of firewood: a small team of maids had started on removing the dirty dust sheets from the bed, bringing in clean blankets, sweeping the floor and laying a fire in the soot-stained chimney. The door shut behind the manservant and Constance hesitated outside – old habits died hard, and the masked priestesses had taught her to listen before she stepped into a room. A snatch of gossip from the servants reached her ears:

  ‘They say the hounds came back still hungry. They never caught her.’

  ‘D’you think she’s still in the city?’

  ‘Constance?’ Irvine was waiting at her back.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, shooting him a small, apologetic smile. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been here.’

  She swung the door open, Irvine at her side, and the voices fell silent. Here, the furnishings had changed substantially since her mother’s time – they were depersonalised, stripped of character. She wondered who had lived here since, and whether they had died here too. And yet … the window seat, in particular, caught her eye. The sagging blue velvet cushions on the ledge, beaten free of dust, felt familiar against her knees as she leaned against them, peering out over the murky courtyard. She hadn’t sat here since she was a little girl. Once upon a time, her mother had sat here too, outlined in sunlight, her chestnut hair wound in a foreign style around her head. Even after all this time, the memory was clear. Constance had always been able to remember things better than other people.

  Irvine joined her at the window as the servants bustled out. ‘I will leave you to rest before the feast. I’ve asked for refreshments to be brought up to you, and you’ll find clothes in the chest at the foot of the bed. They should fit you. They belonged to Livia … She … she died last summer. The Pestilence …’

  His jaw was suddenly tight. Constance remembered his sister, three years his senior. She’d been beautiful, with her mother’s brown skin and laughing black eyes, and had loved to dance. Constance had often wished, as a pale, awkward child, that she could be like Livia. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said simply. ‘Was that the last time the Pestilence struck?’

  Irvine nodded. ‘Ancestors be thanked, it has been over a year now. This summer we have been spared. Perhaps … with your arrival … I wonder if this horror is finally ending,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she murmured. She turned away from him, trying to disguise the jolt caused by his words. It has been over a year now. She cycled through the descriptions she had studied, detailing the growth of the spell …

  Six years in full the spell shall gestate. First year, a vapour, a mist. Second year, a fog, a storm cloud. Then three years in summer, it shall feast on death. In the sixth year, the sickness stops – the quiet before the storm. And then, in autumn, the contractions begin …

  Her eyes flicked back to Lord Irvine, who was gazing out of the window. She joined him. The cloud was thickening and thinning, concealing and revealing the courtyard like a cheap conjurer’s trick. The quiet before the storm, she thought.

  Her mind drifted over what she had learned, and she frowned. ‘But then … how did the Duchess die?’

  ‘She had been ill for some time – a malady in her lungs. It was no great shock when she passed, but …’

  Constance finished for him, hearing his hesitancy. ‘But of course that doesn’t make it any easier. Poor Winton.’

  But Irvine was shaking his head, as if she’d misunderstood. ‘The shock really came at the Duchess’s Descent,’ he said. �
�It was … traumatising.’

  Constance turned to face him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s the talk of the castle. There was a girl there. A cryptling. She was administering the sacred ointment for the last time, but when she touched the Duchess’s lips …’ He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe the words, even as he spoke them. ‘The body … It moved.’

  ‘It moved?’ Constance’s heart was racing, chills running down her spine. ‘But surely there are natural reasons … The cryptling could have knocked it …’ Her voice trailed off.

  Irvine was shaking his head again. ‘The action was far too determined. Trust me, I saw it.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The Duchess’s hand flew up, quick as a cat, and grabbed the girl’s wrist. As if to stop her. It held tight for a full second before it fell, lifeless.’ He paused, as if thinking through the words he spoke next. ‘There was no doubt in my mind: it was magic. The girl was tried and convicted yesterday, and of course the Witenagemot sentenced her to die. The Justice set his hounds on her, as he does with all his convicts.’ Irvine swallowed. ‘Whatever she did, nobody deserves such a death.’

  Constance tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. ‘How horrible for Winton. For a moment he must have thought his mother was alive, after all.’

  ‘He rushed to his mother’s side, convinced there had been a mistake. A moment of hope makes grief even more difficult to bear.’ Irvine smiled sadly.

  They were silent for a few moments, feeling the horror of everything that had happened. And then Constance spoke again. ‘Before we came in here, I heard the servants talking about a girl, saying she escaped.’

  Irvine nodded. ‘They say the cryptling evaded the hounds somehow. The Justice thinks she’s still in the city. He’s imposed a curfew and is tearing the lower town apart, looking for her.’

  But she’s not in the city at all. Constance felt a small thrill at the knowledge that she’d helped the cryptling mage escape from under the Justice’s nose. She gazed out of the window at the swirling cloud licking against the glass, now flashing blue intermittently. She remembered vividly when her own magic had started to manifest, causing objects to float or fly around the room. Yes, that must have been it. The cryptling girl had just been extraordinarily unlucky to have been standing in front of an audience of hundreds, attending on an important body.