Beneath Ceaseless Skies #83

by Arkenberg, Megan

  “Er, rather,” said the Earl, clearly aware that Branfolk war criminals were not an appropriate topic for dinner conversation, yet equally aware that the change in conversation had been necessary for the continued tranquility of the drawing room. “It’s quite sickening. Those poor Feldish soldiers, believed to be dead, and all these years they were being held in secret Branfolk prisons.”

  I snapped to attention.

  “Being tortured, I suppose?” Lady Xavior, unlike the Earl, did not attempt to show the appropriate disgust for the subject. “I read somewhere that they used to blind Feldish prisoners with a hot branding iron. But what can you expect from Branfolk? The north counties are barely civilized.”

  “Of course, Feldish war machines are much more civilized than torture.” Lady Merrion’s face was the same color as the old lace doilies on the sofa’s arm rests.

  “Say!” Sir Charles interjected before his wife could reply. “James, I’m afraid I didn’t finish reading the whole thing. What’s this about still holding Feldish soldiers? After the Treaty of Babington and everything?”

  “It appears so, Sir Charles. And I fear your wife is correct in her assessment of the tenderness of Branfolk prisons.”

  Lady Xavior swept hair from her forehead, positively crowing. “And Branfolk prisoners of war had the impudence to complain of our methods!”

  Lady Merrion was looking at me strangely. She wanted permission to say something, I realized; but I was not ready to grant it. I shook my head. And a question that had been troubling me since my visit to Landler Abbey suddenly found an answer.

  A war injury? In a manner of speaking.

  “Did the article explain why these Feldish prisoners were only now discovered?” I asked.

  “Yes,” the Earl said grimly. “One of them was just released. He, er, finished serving his sentence.”

  “Sentence! As though he were a criminal!” Lady Xavior flung her massive hands into the air. Then her eyes darkened. My stomach lurched as I realized she and I had reached the same conclusion within seconds of each other.

  “Mr. Grey,” she said, “you’ve had the privilege of meeting privately with the Viscountess Landler. Do you suppose she possesses, ah, intimate knowledge of these war crimes? She fought in Branfolk territory, after all.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lady Merrion jump to her feet. Lady Xavior appeared not to notice. “Will you ask her for me, the next time you go calling? I’m awfully curious. Or perhaps I should invite her back here and we can ask her together?”

  “Pamela Xavior!” Lady Merrion cried. “I absolutely forbid you to ask the Viscountess anything about the matter!”

  “Lady M., how dare you forbid me to do anything? And in my own house!”

  Both ladies were standing now, so close to each other that their heavy necklaces clicked together with each heaving breath. Lady Merrion was bone-white, Lady Xavior a delicate shade of green. The Earl inclined his body towards a trophy sword hanging over the pianoforte, as though he meant to command it for the defense of his wife.

  Lord Xavior intercepted him, his voice actually cracking. “Say! You show exceptional taste in waistcoats, James.”

  “Rather,” the Earl said miserably.

  * * *

  We left scandalously early. Lady Merrion forced the Earl and me to go ahead in the carriage, saying that she expected the night air in the forest to do her nerves an infinite good. The last we saw of her for the evening was a sturdy iron-bound lantern swinging like a pendulum along the edge of the road.

  When we reached the house, I asked if I could see that morning’s copy of the Times.

  The Earl Merrion and Lady Xavior were of course correct in their assessment of the tenderness of Branfolk prisons. The article gave a catalogue of crimes and abuses, of which blinding with a branding iron could not be counted the worst, and a great many of which were listed in euphemism to spare the innocence and the digestion of the paper’s more delicate readers. I found that my horror was only made worse by the knowledge—the rare knowledge, come across by accident and paid for with my career—that Feldish soldiers were guilty of equal crimes.

  That I, as a professor at the Feldish University school of medicine during the war years, had given them the skill to commit equal crimes. I was as guilty as if I had wielded the brands and scalpels with my own hands.

  I spent the whole of the night lying awake, watching the sickly reflection of the moon and the thorny treetops in my wall of gilded mirrors. My thoughts were every bit as sickly and pale and circular. At last the sun rose, and I left my rumpled and sweat-soaked sheets with a great and sudden desire to see Gethsemane von Reis again. Before any part of my brain could form a coherent protest, I washed and dressed, tucked the Times article into the pocket with my watch, and set off across the herb gardens to the shadows of Armitage Wood.

  It occurred to me, about halfway past the stony ridge, that I was unsure how to secure Gethsemane’s attention once I arrived. What if the gates were locked? But as it turned out, I needn’t have worried; much to my wonder, I found the gates propped open and Gethsemane standing a few paces within. And she was not alone.

  “Good heavens, professor, you don’t look as though you’ve slept a wink.” Lady Merrion made a flimsy and uncharacteristic attempt to smooth down my hair. Her own was ornamented with pale leaves and pine needles and, visible in the glare of the rising sun, not a few strands of gray. “I suppose I should talk,” she conceded, noting the direction of my gaze. “I’ve taken the most vicious advantage of Lady Landler’s generosity, but the gardens are such a balm to one’s nerves.”

  “Countess Merrion assured me that if I didn’t let her wander through the gardens all night, she would most likely strangle Lady Xavior,” Gethsemane said. “And though I believe she would have been doing a great service to the nation, we were neither of us very sanguine about a criminal court’s perception of the matter.”

  Lady Merrion laughed, but it sounded rather forced. “Indeed, though really there was no need to trouble yourself by walking with me. I worry for your health. Come, professor, we’ve no need to further exploit Lady Landler’s hospitality....”

  She made to lead me away, but Gethsemane stopped her with a hand on both of our shoulders. “Lady Merrion, I assure you I’ve not slept more than a couple of hours in a night for nearly twenty years. If a walk in the gardens will assist Dr. Grey’s nerves as it did your own, I have no intention of turning him away.” Lady Merrion stammered further protestations, but Gethsemane silenced them with a farewell kiss. As my friend, clearly exhausted, started back down the road for home, Gethsemane reached up and took my arm. “Shall we resume where we left off, Dr. Grey?”

  “Please, Gethsemane.”

  On my previous visit, I had seen all nine of the formal gardens with their brick paths, foreign funereal statues, and narrow gallows-like trellises; the water garden near the shore of the lake, inhabited by dank-smelling lilies and a somber chorus of frogs; and the pitted stone temple on the edge of the wood, veiled in clematis and surrounded by a field of irises through which no path led. Now Gethsemane took me through an ancient and overgrown archway at the back of the bare rose pavilion, into what I quickly realized must be the newly reordered hedge maze.

  “It’s a true maze, not one of those silly Cathedral-floor labyrinths where all paths lead to the center. Even I have gotten lost in here.” I smiled at this, but her expression was not the least bit playful. “Lady Merrion wasn’t interested in talking last night, which I confess was much to my liking, but I can see that whatever’s gnawing at your gut won’t be frightened off unless you speak of it. What troubles you, Dr. Grey?”

  Despite the cool September air, my palms were damp. I tried to dry them surreptitiously on the front of my waistcoat. “I read something last night.”

  “How very brave of you. Reading is a dangerous business.” Disconcertingly—for what could her comments be, if not ironic?—her voice remained flat and unamused. “There’s a folktale among Branf
olk university students about a man who begins reading a book that he found abandoned on a table in the reading room, and is never able to stop. Every time he thinks he’s reached the last chapter, he discovers another chapter behind it. I rarely read anything.”

  “Not even the Times, Lady Landler?”

  “Especially not the Times.”

  But she did, of course. I felt her grip tighten on my arm as her bad leg missed a step.

  The hedge-maze path began to descend. From a lush blanket of grass, it turned to weathered slabs of limestone, and then a flight of limestone stairs. I could not tell where the steps ended, for they continued at least around the next corner. The tops of the yew hedges remained on an equal level, which meant that the hedges themselves grew taller as we went deeper into the maze; shoulder-high at the entrance, they were soon three feet over the top of my head.

  “Last time I visited, you asked me why I left the University.” She seemed about to reply, but I doubted I could begin again if I were interrupted. I continued rapidly in a raised voice. “I started teaching eight months into the war. That was just about the time they realized that this was no simple rebellion by the northern counties. The Dukes of Branfolk were serious about succeeding from Feldland. And suddenly, men and women in military uniforms would appear in my medical lectures and pull students out of class. These were upper-level lectures. These students had learned all about amputations and scalpels and vivisections, plenty about drugs—which ones caused insensibility, or nightmares, or unendurable pain.”

  I glanced at Gethsemane. If anything, her face was stonier than before.

  “For as long as I could, I pretended ignorance. All through the war and all the years after, I told myself it was medical services the military needed. Then nine months ago, when I was still working for the University, I found a sheaf of old documents ready for the rubbish heap. Recognizing the names of several students, I picked it up. They had been awarded medals of honor for ‘obtaining valuable intelligence’ from the enemy.”

  For a moment, Gethsemane did not reply. Her right hand fingered her own military medal. We took another sharp turn and were greeted by yet more step. These looked even older than the previous ones, and were densely overgrown with moss. “You must be so proud,” Gethsemane said at last.

  Her flat tone, completely void of either sincerity or needling, cut me like broken glass. “They were torturers. I taught them to be torturers.”

  “I know.” If I had been expecting a reaction like Lady Merrion’s or the Earl’s, all horror and sympathetic condolences, I was disappointed. “I know what happened to them. Some of them, anyway. There were torturers in prison with me. They had been arrested, charged, tried and sentenced, like common murderers. As though there hadn’t even been a war.”

  I swallowed hard. We both knew, though neither of us said, that this precisely had been Feldland’s attitude toward the Branfolk rebels.

  “Branfolk is not a forgiving people,” Gethsemane said.

  “I wasn’t expecting forgiveness.”

  “Really? Then what did you hope I could give you at the end of your little story?”

  She stopped walking. We had reached the sunken garden at the heart of the maze.

  The hedge walls now stretched nearly ten feet above my head. The limestone path was replaced by lush, dewy grass, dotted with unfamiliar red flowers. In the center of the garden was a raised stone planting bed, shaped something like a bench, with a long low-arched back and small arms on either side. The von Reis crest, a crossed sword and olive branch before an open gate, was carved into the front. The soil inside the bed was rich and black, but nothing had been planted there.

  “What happened to you, Gethsemane?” I turned to her, taking both her dry, calloused hands in mine. “What horrible things did they do to you? Tell me that Branfolk deserved what they suffered. Make me believe it served a higher end.”

  “What if I tell you that your students deserved what Branfolk did to them?”

  It took several deep breaths for me to regain a measure of control. The air in the maze smelled unpleasantly old and wet. “You don’t mean that. Even I don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I don’t.” She did not sound convinced. “But that’s the mindset of Branfolk, Dr. Grey. How much of what happened to me at their hands was the fault of Feldland’s own cruelty? For it remains the dearest wish of every blinded and crippled rebel to make the Feldish torturers pay.”

  I shuddered, remembering that ghastly detail from the Times. “I thought it was the rebels who blinded prisoners?”

  “Yes, it was. But where do you suppose they got the idea?”

  By this time, some of my sense was returning to me, and I felt deeply ashamed of having used the Viscountess in such a manner, like a fountain in which I could wash away some of my guilt. The more I spoke to her, the clearer it was that she carried guilt of her own—no matter how undeserved. Lady Merrion had shown great wisdom in forbidding us to breach this subject with Gethsemane.

  “Dr. Grey?” Gethsemane tightened her trip on my hands, bringing me back to myself. “A fog is coming in, Dr. Grey. They aren’t uncommon this close to the lake, but they can be very dense. Come, let’s go back up to the house.”

  The fog poured in incredibly fast. It seemed to rise from the very grass and yew hedges, smelling woody and wet and overpoweringly organic. It was a matter of minutes before our vision was swallowed completely in the cold, opaque whiteness. Gethsemane’s pace quickened; there was almost an edge of panic to it, and I remembered her joke—had it been a joke?—about becoming lost in the maze.

  We were perhaps halfway to the exit when Gethsemane’s bad leg buckled, and she fell.

  Her grip on my arm broke. I dropped immediately to help her to her feet, but in the solid whiteness I became disoriented. My outstretched hands connected with nothing but wet limestone and prickly yew. Gethsemane was not where I expected her to be; with growing panic, I realized that she was nowhere to be found at all.

  She was lost in the maze. I was lost in the maze.

  For a dreadful moment, I thought I might scream.

  It was the thought of Lady Merrion that saved me. She knew I had gone to Landler Abbey; with a little consideration of what I had told her about my previous visit, she would conclude that I had gone into the maze. And if I knew anything about Eveline Merrion, she would rip the yews apart with her bare hands in order to find a missing friend.

  Closing my eyes, breathing deeply through my mouth, I managed to collect myself. I began to retrace my steps, calling Gethsemane’s name in a clear voice.

  Slowly, the fog began to thin. To my immense relief, I caught sight of Gethsemane’s bright military cloak at the end of a long corridor. Her back was to me; standing several limestone steps above me, she looked oddly tall.

  “Gethsemane!” I shouted. But something was wrong. She did not turn, and no matter how briskly I walked, I did not seem to be getting any closer to her. Panicked again, I began to run.

  I did not see the branch that had fallen across the stairs.

  My fall drove the breath out of my lungs. I had not had time to fling up my arms, and my chest and knees took the full force of the landing. Black stars danced in front of my eyes, and when they vanished, I saw a dark figure crouched over me.

  It took me a moment to realize that it was Gethsemane.

  “Father instilled a sense of economy in me at a young age,” she said, finally with a trace of a smile. “Normally, I’d be more pleased to find a penny in my path than a professor. But in this case, I confess that I’m frightfully relieved to find you.”

  With a good deal of fussing and dusting off, during which I realized that my trousers were hopelessly ruined, we joined arms once again and made our way back to the entrance of the maze. The path out was somehow not as long or convoluted as I had expected. As we passed beneath the ancient archway and into the sunlight of the rose garden, I turned to smile at Gethsemane, and another wave of uneasiness passed thr
ough me.

  Gethsemane’s cloak was red.

  Of course it was; it was a Feldish military cloak. I must have been slightly mad with panic when I saw her standing at the end of the corridor, and believed for a moment that her cloak was Branfolk purple.

  * * *

  III.

  Lady Merrion wanted to talk, and I could not convince her that it was a bad idea. She cornered me in the solarium, where I had been enjoying the delicate scent of the last dwindling roses, and blocked the door with a man-sized vase of bulrushes.

  “You aren’t alone in this, professor.”

  I wished heartily that I had brought a book or a sheaf of newspaper so that I could hide myself in its pages.

  “Look at me!” Lady Merrion snapped, and I could not politely do otherwise. Her bruised eyes made her look incredibly tired—not only tired, but beaten. I saw again the silver in her hair. It made her look a full decade older, closer to my age than her husband’s. “They used me, too. My model machine for agricultural irrigation was modified to spread poison gas. My prototype corn-husker was used—” But revulsion overcame her before she could finish her sentence. “Feldland did terrible things, professor. And Branfolk did terrible things to us. You’re not the only one who feels responsible for what happened to Viscountess Landler.”

  “I don’t even know what happened to her,” I mumbled. Lady Merrion made me repeat it.

  “Good heavens, professor, put two and two together! You read the Times. You know she was in a Branfolk prison.”

  “Maybe she deserved to be!”

  Contrary to my expectations, Lady Merrion did not appear shocked at the truth of what I had been thinking. “I’ve also been wondering,” she said slowly, “what put her in that prison in the first place. She wasn’t simply a soldier, or they’d have released her after the war. I’ve been thinking and thinking—is she the kind of woman who could have cut off a man’s sword arm while his fellow prisoners watched? Could she have burned out a soldier’s eyes with a branding iron? In the end, I decided I didn’t want to know.”