Shadowborn

by Joseph DeVeau

  The room was large, but not unduly so. Though it would have no problem holding a hundred people without fear of their elbows touching, the tapestry lined walls, and twin hearths and paintings at either end lent an intimate, comfortable feel to the place. The coffered ceiling above prevented the room from feeling overly intimate. Though the guests quickly negated that particular point.

  A rotund fellow turned at Aeryn’s approach. She had not aimed for him, but moving through the clusters of Lords and Ladies was treacherous at best. Each noble no doubt brimmed with plots, schemes and various agendas Aeryn could hardly begin to guess. Despite her best efforts at staying far as she could from predatory eyes and all the while trying to avoid servants that bustled about with trays of wine, breads, cheeses and fruits, she found herself face to face with the rotund Lord.

  “Lady Alys,” Aeryn said, sighing with relief at a friendly face that came into view behind the Lord’s girth.

  The Lord held out a hand. “Ah, you must be Lady Aeryn.” He raised an eyebrow and paused for a moment, waiting to see if she would correct the title. He no doubt wondered if Mistress fit better. When Aeryn did not say anything, he continued with his introduction. “I am Lord Hulgin. I—“

  “You!” Alys said coldly.

  “Oh, where are my manners,” Lord Hulgin exclaimed animatedly. “Lady Aeryn, this is Lady Alys. Lady Alys, may I present—“

  “I know who she is,” Alys cut in. Her lips curled in disgust as she took in Aeryn’s clothing. “And I will not stand here and be mocked.” With that, she showed her back and stalked away, her gown swishing in time from the rhythmic swaying of her hips.

  “Oh dear, perhaps I should have introduced her first,” Hulgin said. “She is ever so fond of proprieties. Why if only—“

  Aeryn walked away. The Lord instantly stopped talking and looked around in confusion. He started up a moment later, cursing his failure to observe what he considered proper proprieties. How anyone could become so upset on the order they were introduced was lost on Aeryn. She decided there must be another reason for Alys treating her with such disdain.

  Aeryn realized exactly what that reason must be as she leaned against the far wall. A dozen feet down a trio entertained the gathered nobles from a small raised dais with lute, fife and song. Alys must still be peeved that she had not passed along a good word to Merek all those weeks ago. That had to be it. Aeryn had not done—or failed to do—anything else. That she knew of, anyway.

  She exhaled deeply. Who would have thought Alys could hold a grudge so deeply over such a trifling misstep?

  “Now that is a fine backside,” came a male voice.

  “What was that Cedric?” asked a female’s.

  “Backside. The woman has a nice backside, Isolde,” the man said, loud enough to turn heads.

  Aeryn’s was one of them. At her side, she found an old couple seated in a pair of high-backed, plush chairs. A bloodhound had nothing on their sagging skin, an albino rat nothing on their white hair.

  The Lady squinted through a pair of looking glasses held to her eyes. “You always did have a thing for the conniving ones,” Isolde said. “Why that woman would eat you up and spit you out before noon. And you wouldn’t even be the main course. Besides, she is about as real as your left eye.”

  With a start, Aeryn realized Cedric’s left eye was made of glass, the pupil and iris simply painted on. She gave a second start when she realized the Lady’s gaze had swiveled from the crowd to settle on her.

  “I’ll bet your right eye that she,” Isolde said, peering through the glasses at Aeryn, “is the most straight forward one in the room.” The Lady raised her voice. “She is the only one polite enough to gawk! All the rest of you fools think I’m too far gone to know you are listening in. I see you over there Helda! And you, Piebald! Don’t think I can’t see you leering at me!”

  “Bloody bullheaded old hag,” Cedric said.

  “What?” Isolde asked.

  The Lord shook his head. “Should have married Janeele when I had the chance. But no, I had to go and run off with her sister,” he said, not nearly as quiet as he meant to be. His self-mumblings suddenly become somber. “My wife may be deaf as a brick,” he looked Aeryn straight in the eyes, “but her mind is still sharp. Mark her words, girl. That one will be coming for you.”

  “Who? Lady Alys?” Aeryn asked. “No, we just had a misunderstanding—“

  “What did you say?” Isolde screeched, hand cupped her ear.

  “Nothing!” Cedric bellowed before he returned to his mumbling without answering Aeryn’s question.

  Seeing a familiar shape in the press, Aeryn took the excuse and hurried off, putting distance between her and the bat-crazy old nobles.

  “Fine backside on that one too,” Cedric said before Aeryn had gone two paces.

  Aeryn shuddered and ducked out of the old Lord’s view, focusing her attention on her target. In range, she grabbed Annette’s free arm and yanked her around, nearly toppling the tray laden with glasses of wine balanced on her other hand.

  “What can I do for you, my lady?” Annette asked, her voice and face as cold as a winter blizzard.

  Before speaking, Aeryn looked around to see who could overhear. Only. . .she realized a moment later there was no point. The only way things could be any worse was if Lady Mareen rolled over at this very instant and mired Aeryn in another of her schemes. Aeryn groaned when she remembered that in Mareen’s eyes, she still owed the Lady a favor or three for rescuing her in the nobles’ market. Her groan turned into a whimper, raising Annette’s brow. How much interest would Mareen demand on a debt now more than two months old?

  “I’m sorry, Annette,” Aeryn said without prelude. She could not afford to lose the only potential friend and ally she had in a world of Lords and Ladies she knew next to nothing about. “Your mother asked where I had been and I told her in the storeroom with you and Jynx and well, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

  Annette cocked her head to the side as though she had never heard those words strung together in her life, not in the least from someone dressed- and painted-up as Aeryn was. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, face melting. “My mother could find a way to call down Nameless himself. And ever since Lord Merek left you alone on the road she’s been extra crabby. I’m actually surprised she didn’t snap earlier.”

  Aeryn groaned for what must have been the tenth time in as many minutes—she really would have to get that under control before long.

  “What’s wrong?” Annette asked.

  You mean, besides everything? Aeryn wanted to say. Least of which was that the girl had reminded her that the impossible task of bringing down Nameless himself still loomed ahead. Merek may be optimistic about killing a God, but she certainly was not. “Why didn’t you tell me about the dinner party?” she asked instead.

  “I assumed you knew. Lord Merek himself sent out the invitations the day he got back from his country estate.”

  “And it just so happened to fall the day after I got back?” Aeryn asked. Mighty suspicious, that.

  “Well, no,” Annette said. “He kept the date secret, saying he wanted to keep the Lords and Ladies on their toes. Some political maneuvering so Lady A—“ she shook her head, “it doesn’t matter. He only told us this morning.”

  Aeryn’s eyes widened. That was even more suspicious. “Well, from now on,” she said, “assume I know nothing about courts, balls, dinner parties, or anything that touches on what a Lord or Lady should know, do, or act. Can you do that?”

  “I suppose.” Annette clearly wanted to say, “that will be easy.” Rather, she said, “But why?”

  “Because I want you to teach me all of it. Everything you’ve gleaned from your lifetime of working with them. In return,” Aeryn said, “you can eat my food, drink my wine, parade around in my clothes, play with Jynx, and call me a bloody fool all you want.” She left out the fact that the rich food did not always sit well with her stomach, that she had no he
ad for wine or fancy silk clothes, that she would enjoy having an extra hand to help with Jynx and that she was a bloody fool.

  Annette knitted her eyebrows. “I couldn’t. It isn’t—“

  “—proper?” Aeryn finished.

  Annette nodded.

  “And I suppose you think I’m proper?” Aeryn twirled in place. “Look at me. A few months ago I was on the bloody streets stealing for a living, living in piles of refuse and offal, and rubbing elbows with whores, drunks, and cutthroats.” Annette looked from side to side, her cheeks reddening by the word. Aeryn pressed on. “I’m not taking ‘No’ for an answer. If I have to, I’ll make a scene and draw the eyes of every bloody Lord and Lady—“

  “Fine,” Annette hissed, cutting Aeryn off. “All except the parading around in your clothes part. My mother would whoop me to the docks and back if she caught me wearing a Lady’s clothing.”

  Aeryn gave the girl a hug—the best she could manage with the tray full of wine glasses between them anyway. When she pulled back, she caught Annette smiling. The second she noticed it, it vanished.

  “I saw that,” Aeryn said.

  “Lesson one,” Annette said, all stiff-backed and proper once more, “Lords and Ladies do not talk to servants in public. They especially do not hug or touch them.”

  “Eek!” a full-bodied servant shrieked from the corner by the old man and woman. Half of the room turned in time to see her spill her tray of cheeses and breads and rub her bottom. Lord Cedric watched with a mischievous grin, eying the woman’s rear as she went down to all fours and began gathering up the strewn contents.

  Annette’s face soured. She looked around quickly, then whispered, “Though old, senile men do break that rule every now and again.” They laughed together for a moment and Aeryn reveled in breaking the girl out of her shell. Annette’s eyes went wide and she gulped. “I have to go for now. Good luck.” Just like that, she was gone.

  Good luck? Aeryn wondered about that ominous portent as she surveyed the room for the cause of the disturbance. She saw Reeve, ands at his side, standing between the double doors. His voice boomed out over those present.

  “Lords, Ladies,” Reeve said in a rich voice, “Lord Merek bids you welcome to his home, and invites you to dine with him.” He swept his arms wide and strode away, pulling along a wake of nobles. Servants rushed about chaotically, gathering half-empty wine glasses, showing women to the powder room, and escorting the remainder to the dining hall.

  Aeryn sighed in relief as she followed suit. She would not need Annette’s good luck after all. There was no way dinner could be worse than this forced mingling.

  In the dining room—the same room she had barged into that fateful night so long ago—she took the seat at the left-hand corner of the table when a balding servant escorted her to it and pulled it out for her. A minute later, Merek swooped in with a flourish and took the one at the table’s head on her left side. The chair on her right remained vacant up to the end, when it was pulled out and pushed in with the round form of Lady Mareen. Lady Alys took the seat directly across the table.

  Aeryn had to grip the arms of her chair to keep from picking up the silver table knife and slitting her wrists. Why had Annette not told her there was a seating chart, and that it involved her being sandwiched between Merek and Mareen with Alys directly across? Apparently the night’s fun was only just getting started.

  16

  Dinner and a Guest

  Food, courses upon courses of it, were brought out one after another, each somehow completely different from the ones that had come before. First came eggs cut in half and filled with a yellow paste, then piles of green and brown vegetables, followed by thick slabs of dark red meat, which was ultimately finished off with delicate pastries sprinkled with sugar ground so fine it had turned to powder. And wine. Who could forget the casks and casks of wine brought up hand over fist from the cellar?

  Throughout the meal, two debates raged. The first group, consisting of the Lords and Ladies on Merek’s end of the table, strove savagely to outdo one another in seeing who had the latest tidbits of gossip and rumor. The second group, those towards the table’s tail end, argued every bit as fiercely on which of the assembled had the best-stocked cellar.

  Mareen seemed to be leading the first group. The elderly, dirty-minded Lord Cedric was pulling ahead in the second solely due to a century old cask he had stashed away of something called port. Aeryn had no idea why the age mattered; water could be a day old or a thousand and it would taste the same.

  In either case, winning the debate seemed a point of some substantial prestige. Aeryn had no idea why. She would need to ask Annette.

  So full she felt as if she would explode, Aeryn let the din of conversation wash over her.

  “Why I heard that just this very morning a Shadow butchered three men in a darkened alley,” Alys said. She said it casually, but a faint smile appeared as she stole attention away from Mareen. “It cut one of their throats so deeply, and ripped out the other two so viciously, that their heads fell from their shoulders when they were picked up and carted away.”

  Aeryn jerked her head up from poking at her food.

  A flabby Lady seated next to Alys gasped and put her had to her chest. Her eyelashes fluttered and her breathing quickened. “Did the Shades catch the Shadow?”

  Alys shook her head gravely.

  The Lady rounded on her husband. “I told you we need stronger doors and better locks,” the Lady said in a rush. “We could be next! Just imagine what horrible things a Shadow would do to someone who was actually important! By the time the Shades arrived to help we would be nothing but. . .but. . .” Her hands fluttered to her neck. She went very pale as though moments away from fainting.

  “Relax, Helda,” said the Lord. “Those street urchins never pay their tithes. Instead, they greedily spend all their coin on themselves. I sent our tithes in just last week, but to make you feel better, I’ll send in another hundred gold to set your mind at ease. We’ll be all right.”

  Helda sighed in relief and dropped her hand onto her husband’s. “As always, my dear Bornhald, you are right as rain. I simply do not know what I’d do without you.”

  Aeryn went slack jawed. Surrounded by servants, garbed in silk, and fed until they burst, none of these people had the slightest inkling what life was like for the vast majority of Maerilin’s citizens. Spending all their coin on themselves? As if any street urchins had any coin to spend on themselves!

  “Well I heard that the three people the Shadow killed were cutthroats themselves, which I dare say, rather explains why their throats were cut,” Mareen said, piping in and steal a few heads back her way.

  “Then how do you explain why the Shades didn’t protect them?” Helda asked.

  Mareen favored the woman with a glare. “Use your brain, woman. Do you really think a street urchin can afford to pay a single copper in tithes? Do you think they have no more pressing concerns? Perhaps the Voices should have the Shades protect everyone in Maerilin rather than just those that can pay.”

  Bornhald gasped. “That would simply not work. Not ever.” Helda nodded vigorously. “Why should I have to pay for a street urchin to be protected? I have more coin; I have more assets; I am more important; therefore, I deserve more protection. It is as simple as that.”

  “Why should anyone need protection in the first place?” Mareen shot back.

  Alys’ smile deepened, as if she sensed injured prey and was about to pounce—only for an instant though, then it transformed into one of incredulity. “I can’t believe you would suggest we go without the protection of Nameless,” she said. “With the increasing frequency of attacks by these vile Shadows, how can you deign to pretend that we’re safe?”

  The rest of the table’s conversations died down. All heads swiveled Alys’ way as she gained steam.

  “Who says we won’t be next? Who says that the Shadows won’t strike at one of us in our own homes? And kill our husbands, our wives, our
children?” Alys said. She raised an eyebrow at Helda that turned the Lady white as a full moon. “They have done it before,” she finished, turning her head slowly to rest on Merek, seated at the table’s head.

  The room and all its occupants, servants included, held their breaths. Aeryn saw Merek and Mareen share a lightning quick glance that shifted to Alys as she began speaking once more.

  “I say we need to band together. That the strongest among us,” she favored Merek with a grateful smile, “should shelter and protect the most delicate and vulnerable of us.” Eyes downcast, arms in at her sides, Alys managed to look like a mouse hiding from a hawk soaring high above.

  No sooner had Alys quieted than a shrill voice warbled out from the far end of the table. “See? What did I tell you,” said the wrinkly Lady Isolde. “Backside or no, that one would have you in her palm before you could get out of bed.”

  Aeryn heard Alys snarl at the interruption, as well as Lord Cedric growl something about “bloody woman.” As quickly as it came, it was drowned out as the room burst into a frenzy of heated arguments and exclamations.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Aeryn said to no one in particular as she pushed back her chair, “I must use the—“ She searched her mind for how the other Ladies put it. “—use the powder room.”

  “Why yes of course, dear,” Mareen replied. “Just be sure to be back before dessert. I hear they are serving an almond cream tart with rice pudding and baked apples on the side. Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll fill you in on everything you missed when you get back.”

  Aeryn sighed and rose to leave. Great. Just what I need. More talking.

  “That’s not the way I see it,” Mareen said to Lord Bornhald across the table. “The Shades work for the Voices, who themselves are disciples of Nameless. If a God can’t rid Maerilin of Shadows, then is he really a God worthy of our devotion?”