The Pulse

by A. E. Shaw

  This is not what Aiden had hoped to hear. He is refreshed already, surely? He is clean, presentable. He is ready to take his stage. He has never looked so marvellously himself.

  “I don’t understand. Is it not possible for me to speak with His Excellency now?” His politeness is charming, if unusually placed, and the man seems somehow touched by this. However, he shakes his head in response.

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid you may not. His Excellency has other matters to attend to tonight. He will see you tomorrow.”

  “But I want to see him now.” Aiden is very genuinely shocked. What could be more important than speaking to him? Other matters? He is not the only thing that matters? Wait, wait. All is for the best, all is for him. This room is beautiful. This place is a fine fit. And there is a chance that he should take some time here to prepare himself for his entrance. Perhaps, after all, His Excellency (what a fine name) is orchestrating that parade?

  “I’m sorry Sir,” the man repeats. “My instructions are that you must eat, and then get a good night’s sleep. You sustained several wounds on your journey here, and sleep is the best thing for healing. Please be content. His Excellency has requested that food is sent up to you, that you eat and drink, that you read the book you’ll find here, and that you have a good night’s sleep. He will see you for the first meal in the morning, and you shall talk. If you should require anything else, please ring the bell by the bed. It connects to another in the servants’ quarters, and one of those who are at the duty stage of their cycles will be with you in a matter of moments. Do not, under any circumstances, leave this room. Do not light the fire; there is heating in the floors of these rooms which should be more than adequate. Do you understand all this?”

  Aiden nods, slowly. He is not quite sure how he feels about being spoken to in this manner. It doesn’t seem quite as awed and reverent as he imagines it should. It’s not that he’s dissatisfied with any part of this speech the man has given him but, couldn’t it be just a little more special? No? And no fire? How will he begin his mornings? How will it feel like home? But he says nothing.

  The man smiles, a thin, professional smile. “I’ll ensure the food is on its way, and that you’re awoken in good time in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” Aiden say, stuck for anything else.

  “At your service,” the man says, and those with more knowledge of others than Aiden might have detected sharpness in his tone as he bows out of the room, closing the door silently behind him.

  That’s more like it, Aiden thinks.

  Again, he is comfortable in his faith and conviction that there is a plan at work here, and that he is in precisely the right place for him, and that he is in precisely the right place for the good of the world, and that everything will come together exactly as it should. Isn’t he lucky? Isn’t this a joy? Quite.

  At this point, there is another knock on the door. Careful, Aiden, if you thought you might burst before, you’re in real danger now: a new level of joy is here.

  “Come!” Aiden says, trying out the grandest tone he can imagine.

  The door handle twists, and as the door opens, so appears the rear end of a well-dressed woman. Her outfit is all heavy cotton, indiscernible dark colours, practical, rather than flattering.

  She’s backing in, it transpires, pulling a hefty trolley in after her. Three tiers of silver trolley, laden with stunning amounts of food. He stares at the trolley, and then at the woman, in awe, as if she had created everything in front of him with her bare hands - which, from Aiden’s point of view, she may as well have done.

  “Thank you,” Aiden whispers - he wants to say more, but is captivated, awed. He sits back on the bed, and is distracted even from all of these thoughts by the way it sinks so welcomingly beneath him, so supportive, so secure. This is where you’re supposed to be - even the bed is saying this.

  The woman curtseys a little. Yes! This is the best of all things. Most befitting.

  “What’s your name?” he asks, bold, assuring himself as he speaks that this is not curiosity, no, this is necessary, this is courtesy.

  “Katya,” she offers, a little timid, but keen to fulfil the question.

  Aiden nods. “Are you from here?” That, too, seems like a reasonable thing to follow with.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you always lived here?” Did others have to have this strange journey before him?

  “I have always lived here. My mother, too. We have always lived here. It is my day to serve His Excellency as he pleases, and it so pleases him that I serve you, now, and thus, here I am.”

  Aiden smiles.

  “It pleases me too.”

  “I am to go, now. I have further duties.”

  “Of course. Goodbye.” He doesn’t waste any more words than that, not at this time.

  She smiles to him, genuine warmth there. “Goodbye.”

  Sighing in utter contentment, alone again, Aiden begins his investigation of what his host considers a meal. Certainly, if it’s an indication of his wealth or value then all signs are good. This is the kind of feast of which Aiden has read and dreamt, and it is now all for him.

  There are tiny sandwiches of bread, and cheese, these Aiden is familiar with, although the cheese seems quite different from that which he’s used to, and, come to that, the bread is not at all like that he knows, either. There are strange vegetables, or perhaps fruits, sliced and arranged in a mosaic of strong, appetising colours.

  A (clay?) flask of sea-dark red wine is next, with a smooth glass by that, and there is a pitcher of water which looks as clear and alive as that which cleansed him so perfectly just now.

  Then there’s the main course, such as it is, slices of rare meat, bleeding juices the colour of the wine onto their plate, surrounded by leaves so green that they might have been painted that way just moments ago. He can’t place the animal the meat is from, knows only it’s not one he’s had the pleasure to taste before. It’s delicious, he discovers, satiating his immediate hunger with a slice of it rolled up and crammed straight into his mouth, tongue hungrily catching a bloody drip that runs down the outside of his hand.

  On the final layer of the trolley, a plate of tiny cakes sit, their tops pink and orange with a sort of stiff cream spread across them; these sit next to green grapes which look as if they might explode at any moment, they’re so juicy and bright.

  The plates are all red, the glasses are tinted dark. Everything screams excellence, everything matches.

  It’s as Aiden hoists himself further up the bed, pulling the trolley right alongside it, so that he can have anything he wants with the slightest of reaching, that he notices the book there on the golden bedside table. The golden bedside table, set with tiny enamel paintings decorating its corners, with a grand piece of jade as the handle to a drawer Aiden doesn’t yet open.

  But the book, back to the book. It has no title. Its perfectly-bound leather cover is etched with a string of golden leaves. Aiden picks it up and weighs it in his hands: as he holds it, his heart thumps doubletime. He straightens himself, crosses his legs, places the book upon them, and opens it.

  As he looks over the cover page, his mouth falls open, as he reads the curling inscription there. It is short, simple, and surprising.

  Aiden,

  That you shall know and understand.

  He pauses to take a glass of wine from the trolley in one hand, then, with the other, fighting a little to balance it all correctly, he opens the book again, turns the blank pages at its beginning until he finds the first page of sprawling longhand, drawling fine brown ink.

  He sips once at the wine, and then begins to read.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Story

  Ali makes tea, pounding up something with something else, pouring twice-boiled water over it. The result tastes fresh and muddy, leaving a tang at the back of the tongue. Selina drinks two cups of it, covering up her nerves and letting herself be lulled by the lack of conversation. Little is sai
d, repercussions of the earlier revelations sinking in at different rates. Kit seems genuinely upset about something, but Selina doesn’t understand what. Eliza is angry, and takes herself away eventually, wishing them all a sharp goodnight that may or may not be well-meant.

  “You must be tired,” Ali says, after a little while longer. Selina is about to admit that yes, she is, but that she really doesn’t want to sleep right now, that she doesn’t want to be alone right now, but Ali gives her such a look, followed up with a definite order.

  “Go to bed, Selina.” Her voice isn’t unpleasant, just firm. “There’s plenty of blankets here - Kit knotted up all the scraps in the early days.”

  “The scraps?” Selina asks, “I…I don’t understand what happened, still…”

  Ali shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s my place to tell you about it. In fact, I’m sure Eliza would rather give you the full story herself. She’s the one that saw it all.”

  There’s something else hiding out behind Ali’s words, Selina can feel it. But she won’t find it out tonight. And that’s good for her too, because she’s got memories to straighten and recollections to relive before she needs to burden herself with others’ truths.

  “Talk to Eliza tomorrow,” Ali says. “Best if you bite your fear and go to her. She’s the one you need to get on side of. You’ve got to understand you’ve skipped something…missed something terrible. She holds it against all of us. We weren’t even here when…but it’s her story. Please. Ask her. You’re just going to have to listen and understand why she’s so cut up by being the only one here who was there. Speak to her tomorrow,” she reiterates. “Goodnight.”

  And that’s that.

  She lets herself into the room where Alej is snoring, softly. There are, indeed, blankets in every corner, and it is a surprise to her how warm and soft they are. The castle was all the luxury you could imagine, but without the fire going, it was miserable every morning. There’s no sign of cold here yet, but the comfort of a blanket is more than welcome after their strange nights getting here. Comparatively, the journey might’ve been short, but it already feels as if it was an epic in itself, a full chapter in her life, the intensity and repetition of walking and talking and seeing and hiding in silence.

  There’s hardly any room on the makeshift bed, but she’s slender enough that she slots herself behind Alej easily enough, without feeling in danger of falling off. She shifts closer and drapes an arm around Alej’s solid figure. He radiates warmth and strength, both of which are more welcome than Selina would care to consider at the moment.

  Selina dreams of home, of being young. Of the early days, when her brothers took it in turns to watch her, to tell her stories. It’s one of the reasons she’s so good at listening, the reason she so liked to hear Aiden talk. The better, quieter parts of her childhood involved a lot of the same, although her brothers weren’t at all educated and the stories were much less grand. Often they were about boys coincidentally just like her brothers, and the games they would play. With so little space in which to actually play, talk of playing was relied upon to fill the instinctive gap as well as anything could.

  She tries to remember specific days, but they don’t come. Specific stories, but they won’t either. Her brother’s face. Any of her brothers’ faces. They’re blurred, hidden in overlays of guilt and loss and sadness.

  Much of Selina’s time was spent sitting, staring, keeping quiet, and keeping out of the way. The best times were those spent with her mother. When she was home, her mother would shut herself away with Selina in the smallest of rooms, the one too small even for her to sleep in, and she would teach Selina how to dance. How to dance, in little more than a cupboard. It came without history or context, with only physical instruction and goodwill.

  She taught Selina how to be en pointe (but that wasn’t what she called it), to stretch her long limbs, to let the blood circulate in a way that it couldn’t when she was curled up out of the way for so much of her life. She taught Selina to twirl and extend herself, to be completely flexible and to have a sense of rhythm that came from within, without any music to accompany her. Selina learned how to do vertical splits - there wasn’t the space for horizontal - and how to bend herself right backwards, until she was standing on her hands.

  This was what she practised, in a low, flat extension to the castle, backing out from Selina’s room, reached from a door that lay behind a thick, old tapestry. It was created with a sheet slate roof covering stone walls, finished with a perfectly sprung wooden floor. Great murals lined the walls, paintings of ballrooms, parties, men and women joined at the hands and the tips of their toes, dressed in drastic layers of finery.

  She danced there on her first and second and third days, and this was why she was so slender and strong. When Alej would visit her, he would fill her a bath with water that tasted of salt which eased the aches and strains she’d earnt. She taught herself more and more, creating everything from the inside with nothing to influence her, nothing to poison what came naturally.

  She remembered everything her mother taught her.

  She tries not to remember too much else about her life before the castle.

  There are some things, though, that she couldn’t forget.

  Just before she left, her mother came to her with water, although it was not her day to wash, and cleaned her face and her hair. Selina was told to dress in the very nicest thing she had. Her mother told her they were going to travel a long way. And travel a long way they did.

  They traipsed wide flat roads with hundreds of others, those looking for a place to move into, searching for the smallest hint of work but never finding it, walking ever onwards.

  Eventually, they arrived at a new kind of road, smoother, with fewer people on it. When Selina asked where everyone was, her mother said this was not the kind of place you would be allowed to stay. A tall building lay at the end of the road. Nothing seemed to stick to its walls, which shone dazzlingly bright in the glare of the day’s heavy mist.

  At the door, in itself the largest structure Selina could have imagined, they were met by a woman who was quiet and well-spoken. Her lips were unnaturally red, her eyes outlined in black, making her look startlingly unreal. She was kind, took Selina’s hands in both of her own and welcomed her inside. The grand hallway smelt fresh and strange; her mother told her that it was lemons, but Selina didn’t know what that meant.

  Downstairs was tiled slippery white, but upstairs, where they were led, was overwhelmingly wooden. Selina had never seen so much wood; indeed, she’d hardly seen any at all. There were no trees around the city they lived in. They said that was why the air was so heavy, why you’d get dizzy if you tried to move too quickly. “Not enough air. Just another thing that’s running out.”

  There was air in here. So much of it, Selina began to feel light-headed. The corridor was well-lit with tiny, obedient flames. There were large, ornate golden frames, depicting various men and women, in clothing that suggested the pictures were infinitely old.

  They all looked similar, proud, cold, related, Selina thought, although these people looked even more similar than she did to her own family. In some cases the men might have been just one man, time-travelling through history, such was the similarity of poise and expression.

  The room they arrived at had a green door; the others were brown. This was painted wood. It had gold on it. The door handle sparkled from a thousand tiny stones set around it. Selina’s mother knocked, a delicate, formal tap. From inside came the sound of a chair scraping a wooden floor, and then a few seconds later, it opened.

  A tall man, grey and black-haired in turns, hair longer than any man’s Selina had ever seen, towered over her. His smile was thin and his teeth, revealed in it, were exceptionally white.

  “Welcome,” he said, “it’s been too long.” Selina took this to mean their journey had taken too long. On the whole, she agreed. The man embraced Selina’s mother, and whispered into her ear. Selina saw her mother smile,
and rest her head briefly on the man’s shoulder, as if relieved, or welcome.

  They were given warm red wine to drink, a large metal cup of it for her mother, and a small clay vessel that sat neatly in her cupped hands for Selina.

  It was her first taste of wine, and the texture surprised her mouth. She sat still and quiet, as her mother spoke with the man. She stared at the little green shoes her mother had given her that morning, as they walked the final stretch. They pinched at her heels and deadened her toes. Selina thought they were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, never mind worn.

  In time, the man asked her to dance. He gestured, open-palmed, to the space in the vast, wooden, windowless room, and all but said amuse me. She did everything she could. She had never danced for anyone else, but she felt neither pressure, nor nerves. Her mother smiled a broad, encouraging smile, and Selina let everything she knew flow through her.