The Waking Land

by Callie Bates

  Unfathomably, he starts to talk about the weather.

  “Started off quite wet this morning, but about midday the sun began to poke through, a welcome relief, I must say. Do you find Caeris quite as dreary as I do, Lady Elanna? No, perhaps not, considering the rebel attitude. In any case, it promises not to get much better—and of course, there is already snow in the mountains—”

  The sheer inanity makes my head ache; perhaps it’s one of his torture techniques. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To your new quarters.” He peers out the window with a sigh. “Ah, more’s the pity. It’s clouding up over the lake.”

  I dig my fingers into the stuffing that’s coming out through a hole in the cushion. He let me know Hensey is alive and free, and even if part of me worries it’s not true, it’s still enough for me to hold on to for the moment. The coach moves uphill now, and between the houses I glimpse the ruffled water of Lake Harbor.

  We’re going uphill. That must mean he’s taking me to the castle.

  After a few more minutes, the coach slows as it rolls onto level ground—a courtyard of flagged stones. From one window spreads a glorious panorama over Lake Harbor and the rumpled blue hills surrounding Barrody; from the other, the castle’s faceless towers block out the sky.

  We rattle around to a stable yard and jerk to a stop. The Butcher mutters something deprecating about Caerisian coachmen. He climbs out.

  My feet hit the hard cobblestones. I do not feel myself at all; my feet seem very far from my head. A crowd of guardsmen emerges from the stables, apparently waiting for our arrival. Their captain salutes the Butcher. A length of rope hangs from his other hand, ready to be tied around my wrists.

  But the Butcher offers me his arm instead.

  I don’t understand. I’m a prisoner. The Butcher himself has accused me of regicide, of witchcraft, of insurrection. The Caveadear is a threat to Eren, to the society the empire of Paladis has worked so hard to create, untouched by magic. He shouldn’t be treating me like this.

  “You will find yourself much more comfortably accommodated here,” he says to me, strolling us toward the nearest door and up a set of recessed stairs. My legs and thighs protest at the movement, but I can still climb. That’s good. Maybe I didn’t break anything. The Butcher even takes some of my weight: “Lean on my arm, Lady Elanna.”

  We emerge into a carpeted hallway, its walls hugged with tapestries. Servants and guardsmen move about on business. It’s strange to think this is the castle in which Finn should live, the place from which he should rule as king of Caeris.

  I’ve dug my fingers into the Butcher’s sleeve. I release him, trying not to grimace at the thought of holding him so close.

  “Why here?” I whisper.

  “The new duke, as I said, is eager to play games.”

  I close my eyes. So this isn’t mercy at all. Someone has a plan for me. The new duke—whoever he is. But why would Loyce give the title to someone else?

  He draws me on, through a series of pleasant rooms, to a study that smells of leather and ink. A man occupies a wide oak desk, his blond head bent over spread-out maps. His fingers drum the desktop. He appears quite unaware of our arrival.

  The Butcher utters a delicate cough.

  The man looks up. His face is round and genial, and, at the moment, rather cross.

  I flinch.

  It’s Denis Falconier. The man who called me a murderer. The man who had me followed for years in case I betrayed some treason he and Loyce could use against me. The man who has insulted everything from my appearance to my accent to my history. And the man who has taken from others the riches and titles he desires, thanks to Loyce’s love of him.

  I should have known. I should have known if Loyce ever had the chance to appoint her favorite to a dukedom, she would take the opportunity.

  “I’m rather busy,” he’s saying. “These maps are damned unclear. They tell me the farther north you go, the more the land begins to shift, and things don’t stay put where they’re meant to be. Not just landmarks—whole mountains! Forests! Lakes! I’ve had a Caerisian mapmaker in here telling me I have to read the place through my feet. I’m telling you, Lord Gilbert, my feet don’t read maps.”

  “Indeed,” the Butcher says. “Generally speaking, one’s manual digits lack sentience.” He glances at me. “Perhaps not yours, though.”

  Denis, oblivious as he stares at the map, thinks the Butcher is talking to him. “I assure you, my feet are quite stupid.”

  “Hardly a surprise considering the rest of you,” I mutter.

  The Butcher’s arm quivers. I don’t look at him, in case he’s actually chuckling.

  Denis hears me: His head jerks up. He stares at me. Then a slow smile slides across his face. He straightens, coming around the desk, and paces toward me, his hands behind his back. He’s wearing a yellow embroidered coat tailored to fit his short frame with fashionable precision, and matching yellow knee-breeches. The ensemble looks ridiculous.

  “Why, it is Lady Elanna,” he says, drifting closer, right up to me. He picks up a clumped piece of my hair and sniffs it.

  His cologne smells worse than me.

  “Don’t touch me,” I snap.

  He bursts out laughing—the boyish guffaw that makes him so popular at court and with Loyce. “Watch out, Lord Gilbert! She has claws.”

  “So you’re the Duke of Caeris now.” If he’s going to kill me anyway, I don’t see why I should mince words. “What have you done with my father? Is he still alive? And my mother—what have you done with her?”

  Denis rolls his eyes. “So many questions. In case you forgot, I am the duke and you are, well…” A smile. He leans back against the desk, folding his arms. “A regicide. A murderess. A witch.”

  “I prefer to be called a revolutionary. And the steward of the land.”

  “She thinks she has power,” Denis says to a divan beside the fireplace. “She’s always been a bit delusional. Too much studying mushrooms.”

  “Delusional?” I spit the word. “I did not kill the king. But you drove me north. You forced me back to Caeris. So yes, Denis, I am going to fight you and Loyce. You took everything from me. Like Guerin Jacquard. What have you done with him, whom you also wrongly accused of murder?” I almost ask what he’s done with Hensey, but then I remember what the Butcher told me. I don’t dare say anything; I don’t know what games are being played here. And that makes me angrier than before.

  I can’t believe I ever questioned the rightness of this revolution. It’s worth taking up arms against Denis Falconier alone. The cold, angry knot tightens in my stomach.

  He groans. “You really are the most tiresome girl.” He shakes his head at me, at the Butcher, and turns again to the divan. Inexplicably, he speaks in Idaean: “You see, these rebels are quite mad. I am glad she has given you such an excellent example of her vitriol.”

  I turn.

  A young man is sitting on the divan, reclining so that his short, disheveled hair is burrowed into the cushion. He is half smiling. He has one foot propped on his opposite knee and he looks utterly comfortable. Amused. His glance skims me and returns to Denis.

  “I do see,” he says. “She seems quite spirited, I must say.”

  My head buzzes. I open my mouth, but I can’t speak. Too much rage surges up in me, too much betrayal—and worst of all, too much hope.

  Because, of course, it’s Jahan.

  —

  SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE THE echoing in my head, Denis is speaking, still in Idaean. “This is Ruadan Valtai’s daughter, Elanna. She’s not at her best now, but she cleans up prettily enough.”

  Jahan is supposed to be on a ship to Ida. He’s supposed to be begging the emperor for aid. Or at least he should be in Laon, fulfilling his role as ambassador. What is he doing here?

  “Her mind seems quite sharp,” he says to Denis. He’s watching me, his mouth quirked so his dimple shows. He looks so at ease. As if betraying us has cost him so little.

&
nbsp; But Denis has introduced us. If Jahan betrayed us, Denis would know we’ve met.

  Yet the way Jahan is regarding me—as if I’m an entertaining diversion—is nowhere as intense as the way he looked at me when we met before. Maybe the whole thing has been an elaborate act. Maybe he’s not here to help Denis or me or anybody but himself. But what good would coming here do him?

  “Women’s minds.” Denis waves a hand. “What happens in them usually doesn’t amount to much.”

  The Butcher coughs. “Surprising words from a man who owes his career to our queen.”

  Jahan glances at him with amusement. Do they know each other, then? Have they talked about Finn and me, about the Caerisian rebellion and the emperor’s black ships? I wonder if it was Jahan who told the Butcher that my father and the Hounds would be leaving Cerid Aven—if he was the one who told the Butcher to occupy it and take my mother prisoner.

  Heat pulses through me, followed by cold. I’m almost certain I’ve been used. And yet…Jahan isn’t looking at me. Is it deliberate? Perhaps I so want him to be on our side that I’m inventing something that isn’t there.

  Denis is speaking to them in a confidential manner. “All that’s required is a little pressure applied in the right places, if you know what I mean. If you pet ladies, and flatter them, and provoke them just enough, why—” He snaps his fingers.

  Jahan’s upper lip curls, but then his expression flattens into a smile. “That’s the secret, is it?”

  “You’re disgusting,” I burst out. Even I’m not quite sure whether I’m saying it to Jahan or Denis.

  Jahan’s eyes flicker toward me, then away, telling me nothing. He shifts in his chair, but that, too, could mean he simply doesn’t like being insulted.

  Denis laughs. “Thank you for your honesty, Lady Elanna. I had quite forgotten how much you dislike me.”

  The Butcher gives me a pointed look that I can’t interpret.

  My head throbs. “Please, just tell me what you’re going to do with me. What you’ve done with my parents.”

  I can’t keep the tremor from my words. They all hear it.

  It pleases Denis. Of course, he loves to watch me squirm. His awful grin stretches wider. “But that would be so dull, telling you about imprisonments and death sentences. Let’s play a little game. For every piece of information I give you, you will answer one of my questions. First on the docket—Fionnlach Dromahair. The ‘prince.’ He’s in the country. Tell me about him.”

  The floor seems to rock beneath me. My parents—both of them—condemned to death? And Guerin, too? How many people have to die because of me? Our revolution might be the only course of action we can take, but why does it have to come at the cost of all these lives I hold dear?

  “She’s not well.” Jahan’s on his feet. He takes a step toward me and stops, frowning. He lowers the hand he has raised. Perhaps he meant to touch me, to put his hand under my elbow.

  I don’t know.

  “Naturally, she’s not well,” the Butcher says with rare impatience. “The men had to drag her off a city wall last night. I expect she suffered some injury. And the news that one’s father is awaiting trial and execution does not generally promote well-being.”

  Denis just smiles.

  Jahan shakes his head. “If she’s injured, we should send for a doctor. I insist!”

  “Such humanity,” Denis says, rolling his eyes. “But if the ambassador insists…” He shrugs.

  He’s playing a game. I know he wants the information I have.

  And what game is Jahan playing? Is he genuinely worried or is he playing on my feelings again? He meets my eyes. He frowns, and I read a question in his look. Are you all right?

  Or maybe I’m imagining it.

  “Rest and food will improve her spirits,” the Butcher says. “I will take her away.”

  He slides his arm around mine, and I am too shaken to shrink from his touch. We start to walk from the room.

  “Oh,” Denis calls after us. “I almost forgot. Perhaps it would improve Lady Elanna’s state if she met our other guest—unless the shock will be too much for her? Do see they’re reunited, Lord Gilbert.”

  —

  I CAN’T BEAR the Butcher’s silence.

  Neither of us speaks as we pace back out into the hallway, which makes a left-hand turn into another wing, where the ceilings are lower and older, but recently refurbished with fanciful molding. It seems Caeris’s general poverty has not affected the Ereni governors who occupy Barrody Castle.

  As we walk down the hall, I hear it.

  Music.

  A pianoforte is being played—a thunder of low notes spiraling up to a high, tender key.

  Sophy said the Butcher liked music. She said my mother trusted him. How could my mother trust a man who has done the things he has?

  I realize I’ve stopped beside a polished sideboard, my fingers digging into the crimson runner that covers it.

  “Come along,” the Butcher says mildly, pressing a hand between my shoulder blades.

  I look at him. “You have children, Lord Gilbert.”

  A muscle works in his jaw. “Three daughters. You have met them, I believe.”

  “Yes.” A parade of girls’ faces presents itself in my memory—slender, serious children with rigid backs and perfect manners. I am no longer sure why I brought it up. Maybe just because I want to hear him say that he would never harm them. He would never abandon them.

  He does not say it, but I know it’s true. Maybe this is why my mother trusts him, because she sees the sliver of humanity in him.

  King Antoine always told me the Butcher was utterly inhuman. But then, King Antoine made a lot of claims that I now know are false.

  I let him lead me down to the open doorway. We enter a pleasant salon, done in soft blues and creams. A gilded harp sits by a window. Several ladies occupy settees by the wide fireplace, their hands busy with needlework, their heads tilted as they listen to the music.

  But then I don’t see them any longer. I only see my mother, bent over the pianoforte. She plays with her eyes closed, no music before her. She plays by touch. By passion. Her head bobs. I notice she’s well dressed, a fringed shawl swathing her back and shoulders, her hair arranged by a skilled maid.

  The music changes—into the song she wrote for me when I was a child. The song that the land sang to her; the sound it made waking to my presence.

  The Butcher stands by the door. I take one step forward. Another.

  Mother looks up.

  The music rattles to a halt. In the abrupt silence, I hear one of the ladies say, “Don’t stop now.”

  Mother shoves back her bench, scrambles to her feet. Tears stand out in her eyes. She clutches the ends of her shawl over her chest. “Oh, my darling. I thought it had gone the worse for you. I thought—”

  Her gaze seeks the Butcher; he nods. She comes toward me. I cannot move. Then her arms are around me, and I smell her scent, feel the strength in her arms.

  My mother is alive. My mother is well.

  “You left,” she breathes into my hair. “You went on reconnaissance with Ruadan, didn’t you? That’s why you weren’t there.”

  A tear slides down my nose. “Yes. I was lucky. Then.”

  She pulls back, and I realize she’s angry. Her nostrils are flared. “He should never have taken you with him. He should never have put you into such danger.”

  “Better than being captured and sentenced to die for a crime I didn’t commit.” I pause. “Mother, they seem to be treating you well.”

  “And you might have been safe, too, and Sophy as well,” she hisses at me. “If you had stayed at Cerid Aven.”

  I blink at her.

  She cannot be saying what I think she’s saying. But her eyes are bright and fierce. She means it. She believes that if we had stayed at Cerid Aven, we would all be safe now.

  “Mother,” I say slowly. I’ve taken one step back. I take another. My voice dies down to a whisper. I can hardly bear to
say it. “Who—Do you know who summoned the Ereni?”

  Again, she glances at the Butcher.

  I do not want to see their eyes meet. I do not want to hear it.

  “It might have been anyone,” Mother says.

  Yes. It might.

  But I am certain, now, that it was she. Not Jahan. Whatever games he’s playing, this is not one of them.

  How could she? Why would she? Why put her trust in the Butcher, of all people?

  She reaches out to touch me, but then lowers her hands and twists them into her skirt. She looks at me. “We will look after you now. Everything will be all right.”

  I want to scream at her. I will be put to death the moment Denis decides he’s bored with me! But I can’t say the words. It seems like cruelty, more cruelty, and I can’t bear more than this.

  I turn to the Butcher. Somehow I manage to say, “I would like to go to my room now.”

  “Of course.” He frowns at my mother but gestures to the door.

  I force myself to look at my mother, still standing beside the pianoforte, clutching her skirt. There is a kind of desperate strength in her, something I understand too well. “I am glad to see you’re being well treated, Mother,” I say quietly. “I expected they would sentence you to death, as Father has been by now.”

  She flinches.

  I walk out, away from her.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  They give me a secluded bedchamber on the upper floor, tucked into one of the towers. Two guards stand duty in the hall outside it, but within the room, I am alone. Massive leaded windows look out over Lake Harbor and the hills, and an alcove holds a writing desk. The room contains little else besides the bed, with its towering canopy, battened by curtains of florid pink. Two chairs sit by the fireplace, and there is a heavy carved trunk in the middle of the floor.

  I lower myself onto the bed and stare at my hands. The brief courage I felt when Denis granted me reprieve is gone. He must have known it would devastate me to learn that it was my own mother who betrayed us into their hands.

  The music patters around in my head, over and over again, the song she wrote for me. I press my hands over my ears, but that does nothing to stop it. The land’s song, indeed! As if she ever cared for Caeris. Yet the rhythm won’t leave my head. This is why I hate music. I hate the pianoforte.