by Lane Robins
Gilly’s skin crawled, the hair raising along his arms. Surreptitiously, he made a little X of his forefingers, invoking the old country charm against the god-touched. He had not had time to peruse The Book of Vengeances as he would have liked, but the little he had translated, slowly changing the Itarusine words for Antyrrian, had chilled him.
History claimed that a compact, irreversible, could be entered into, binding Ani and Her devotee to a single task, but that the compact became active only after the first kill. Were Gilly’s fears real, his dreams more than dreams, were Ani not so dead as She once was, those implications would distress him beyond measure—that Maledicte, who hunted Last, would build strength in shed blood.
Gilly’s mouth dried; he snagged the flask back and sipped. He was a fool, dreading the impossible. The gods were gone, and Maledicte—Maledicte was merely a man. The dreams were not evidence, the sword’s presence inconclusive, his dueling skills purchased—if Maledicte survived poison, it owed only to caution; if he never sickened, it owed only to luck. All of it was sea-fire proof, prone to disappearing when Gilly sought answers, leaving him only with a knot in his belly and the taste of copper in his mouth where he had bitten his tongue.
The pleasure in Maledicte’s eyes while dueling came back to him, that gloating joy as he danced around DeGuerre’s strikes. Even while Gilly dwelled on nightmare possibilities, Maledicte smiled, stroking the feathered hilt, eyes black and clouded.
· 9 ·
I T WAS A FINE DAY, just past the cusp of noon, and Gilly chose to walk to the baker’s, escaping the cluster of noblewomen who had come to gossip again with the most scandalous courtier in several seasons. The first day the crush had arrived, Maledicte had found it amusing to parade himself. But a week into the season, Maledicte’s temper sharpened as his interest waned; today he’d abandoned his guests to Vornatti’s care.
Gilly, summoned to the formal parlor, found the room more crowded than before; the very walls, the spinet, even the small stage, seemed overlaid with women. Mirabile had seized the position of hostess and sat entirely too close to Vornatti, distributing tea and spite with an equal hand. When Gilly presented himself, careful not to tread on any trailing hems, Vornatti had dispatched him to roust Maledicte from wherever he had hidden himself.
A lucky word with the cook had sent Gilly out-of-doors, hunting tea cakes as well as Maledicte. He stretched under the sunlight and found himself smiling. Of late, he’d been too much in stuffy, overcrowded rooms. The brisk wind and the faint smell of the sea were balm to his senses. He passed the Dove Square speakers, the men standing on rough-made pulpits, preaching egalitarianism, sedition, economics. In the midst of this, one man, dressed in country best, dared to speak for the absent gods, and was booed to silence.
Gilly dropped a few coppers into the intercessor’s cast-off coat. The intercessor stroked the symbol of Baxit, the god of indolence and reason, above Gilly’s head. Let it stop the dreams, Gilly thought, nodding his head in thanks before moving on toward the shops.
His business done with the baker, Gilly paused, unwilling to go back. He had not found Maledicte and had no desire to be scolded by Vornatti or thrown into polite confines with women he could not touch. Sifting ideas and excuses, he kept walking, heading toward the quay. He would bring back fresh fish and crab for Vornatti, and some of the succulent oysters that Maledicte and Gilly shared an unfashionable taste for. He took the winding way, through the alleys behind the shops, the way the cart horses went.
The alleys were intermittently crowded; Gilly stepped aside for a cart bearing sacks of sugar and fine spices from the Explorations. The stamp on the bags, a blue moon, told Gilly that this was the best of the imports, destined not to be sold to Itarus and Dainand, but to be made into elaborate sweets for the Antyrrian court. The redolence of cinnamon and raw cocoa lingered.
The soughing of the waves, the spluttering suck of water around the pier and ship hulls, announced the docks before he saw them. The last twist of the alley dropped and provided a cobblestoned view that ran, illusory, into the gray waters.
Gilly went down, intending to watch the ships and sailors at dock, perhaps find his friend Reg’s ship at berth, when a flutter of delicate cloth caught his eye. A sprig of the nobility stood on the quay, his pale shirt gold-shot in the sunlight, his hair black and wind-tossed. Gilly stopped. Not just any young noble, but his.
Maledicte stared at the water, the ships coming in, the new ships being built, his body rocking slightly with the movement of the sea as if he were imagining himself on it.
“Planning on catching a ship abroad?” Gilly asked.
Maledicte shifted his gaze to a ship with a red and gold-spotted prow and a figurehead like a dolphin. “Why should I make all the effort? Besides, I have Vornatti’s assurance he’ll return. I can trust that, can’t I?”
The bitterness in his voice slowed Gilly’s approach. “Of course,” Gilly said. “What’s got you so cross so early?” Gilly sat down on the pier, dangled his legs over the eddying water. This close to shore, the waves carried refuse: draggled gull feathers, floating fish, silver bellies up, and ropes of seaweed torn loose from their beds by rough anchors.
“Mirabile,” Maledicte said. “She shadows my every move, clinging to my arm, matching my clothes—it’s uncanny.”
Gilly laughed. “Mal, we broker in information, sift through servants’ tales for our benefit, why not Mirabile? She must pay someone in the house.”
“You?” Maledicte said. Gilly looked up into sun dazzle and Maledicte’s shadowed face.
“Livia, likely,” Gilly said. “She likes coin. It’s harmless enough.”
“Well, tell Livia to stop, or to feed Mirabile lies, that I’m wearing rose when I’m wearing blue. She’s too vain to cling if she clashes.” Maledicte kicked a small strip of tar-daubed wood into the water.
“If she learned you had misled her deliberately, she’d be offended, and she’s not one to take offense lightly,” Gilly said. “She’s courting you, Mal.”
Maledicte snarled. “Why me? No, her reason doesn’t matter. Stop her.”
“All right,” Gilly said, and Maledicte ceased his fidgeting.
“Just like that?”
Gilly grinned; for once he had surprised Maledicte. “I know what to say. It’s only a matter of feeding the information to her.”
Maledicte let out a long sigh, his shoulders loosening. “No one taught me how to repel the nobles. All my lessons were to fit in. It was easier before I learned proper etiquette.”
Gilly stifled a laugh. “How would you have rid yourself of her before you became such a pattern card of propriety?”
Maledicte shrugged. “With a stick.”
Gilly let the laugh free. But when the first wash of amusement had faded, he knew it was the truth. He’d seen the boy Roach and his rude weaponry, knew the damage a savage hand and a stick could inflict. And Maledicte wasn’t just any Relict rat; a glossy dark feather washed by, and Gilly’s good humor died with resurgence of his fears, waking something in its stead.
Gilly didn’t understand it—why that one drifting feather should spur him to the point that he had avoided for a week, for far longer, were he honest with himself. A dream of Ani. A boy with a feather-hilt sword and a thirst for vengeance. The words rose in his throat, the question, the need for an answer. Knowledge had to be preferable to this gnawing uncertainty. But Maledicte’s moods were tricky, and Gilly swallowed the first simple question for a more cautious approach, attempting to creep up on truth. He cleared his throat of nervousness.
“You came from the Relicts,” Gilly said. “Have you ever heard the story of how they came to be?”
“Of course I have. The noble girl, spurned by her merchant lover, prayed to Ani. Ani answered her prayer by destroying the merchant, the shops, the streets, everything he ever loved.” Maledicte sank down to sit beside Gilly, sheltering in the lee of Gilly’s broader body. “Just proves the power of the nobles, even over the gods.”
Gilly shrugged, kept it casual with an effort. “I know a different version. Should I tell you?”
Maledicte aped Gilly’s shrug. “If you must.”
“The noble girl’s name was Liana, the merchant was no merchant at all, being even more common than that. A delivery man named Edward. She loved him beyond all reason. She gave him everything—her body, her heart, the jewelry she stole from her home. And when she had nothing more to give, he left her for another. The rage and pain she felt were too much to bear and she cried out to Ani to avenge her hurt, to deny that he could love someone else, that the other woman could exist.”
“So the Relicts—” Maledicte said.
“No. Nothing happened. Ani didn’t act Herself, but She crept into Liana’s dreams, bartering love for vengeance, rage for power. Liana drowned her rival in a swan pond. Edward found his new love there, soaked in black feathers though all the swans were gray, and knew Liana had asked Ani for intervention.”
Gilly fisted his hand; even in tales the proof of Ani’s touch seemed ephemeral at best, until it was far too late for any doubt. The rook feather eddied below them, riding the waves, and Gilly looked from it to Maledicte, wondering if Ani might be listening behind those black eyes.
“Go on then,” Maledicte said.
“Once the deed was done, Liana found nothing left in her heart but grief. Ani muttered, reminding her that she had cried out against her lover also and their compact must be completed. But there was no hatred left for Ani to fuel; though Liana sought Edward, it was only to beg forgiveness.
“It was then that Ani roared to life, Her wingbeats leveling the Relicts. Liana and Edward disappeared beneath the rubble, entombed together in the city. Vengeance, once begun, cannot be stopped. Black-Winged Ani has no pity in Her, and Her wings are carrion wings.”
Maledicte watched the wavelets foam and fade against the pilings, wordless. Gilly tilted his chin up, peered into the dark eyes, his fingers trembling as he finally braved the question. “Where did you get the sword, Maledicte? Why do I dream of Ani when you’re near? Did you call out to Her? Did She answer?” His fingers tightened as Maledicte’s silence continued.
Maledicte’s eyes stayed enigmatic behind barring lashes. He tugged his chin free from Gilly’s fingers, dropped a piece of shell into the water, watching the ripples overtake the waves and fade before answering. “I never called Her.” He flicked a quick glance at Gilly, cooling Gilly’s burgeoning relief, and continued, voice low. “Yet, while I was dreaming, She woke in me, whispered such things—When I slept, it was summer. I woke to winter, the feel of feathers in my skull and skin, and a black sword at my side.”
In that moment, Gilly knew he had expected Maledicte to laugh at him, to shelve his doubts behind a wall of scorn for his gullible nature. Gilly had expected to laugh at himself, and to compliment Maledicte’s talents for acting. This impossible admission woke shock in his belly, set his blood to racing, and rendered him mute. The gods not gone. Maledicte bound to Black-Winged Ani. He shuddered, wanting to surge to his feet and flee, heedless that he might offend Mal—or Ani!—mortally. His breath seized in his chest.
The thing that balked him, cooled him, kept him from panic, however, was a memory of another quiet moment, and how lovely it had felt to hold Maledicte’s trust, to be the one who could tease truth out from semblance.
Maledicte shivered as if he would unsay his words, remove Her looming presence. Gilly dropped a wary arm over his shoulders, seeking something to take the chill from between them, to chase the nearly solid mass of fear from his belly.
“That ship, you see it?” He pointed to a massive square-rigged ship entering the cove, setting up a frenzy of motion on a far pier. Its figurehead shone molten in the sunlight, a curled cat with a fish’s flukes.
“It looks like gold,” Maledicte said, ignoring the quiver in Gilly’s voice, focusing on the ship with an avidity that suggested that he also hunted an escape from his confession.
“It is.” Gilly found a shaky smile at Maledicte’s astonishment. As always the ships soothed him as nothing else could. The fear unclenched; his voice evened out. “That’s the Virga. She sails to the Explorations and comes back with treasures—spices, wood for our shipbuilders, and strange pets, birds, and small scampering monkeys that look nearly human. Someday I’ll be on that ship. Headed for the new world, where people build ascending temples of dirt and stone to speak to their sky gods, see what they have to teach me. Though, according to most accounts, they’re only savages.”
“Why do we call them savages if they have temples and religion? That’s more than we have,” Maledicte said, his hair whipping in the sea breeze, his booted feet swinging off the pier, his frozen stillness broken.
Gilly laughed, drew closer to Maledicte, inclined his head in the studied manner of a professional gossip. He raised his brows, and exclaimed in falsely arch tones, “Oh, my dear, haven’t you heard, don’t you know—?”
Maledicte’s ease faded. He cast a slantwise glance at Gilly, testing for unexpected mockery.
Laying his hand on Maledicte’s arm, careful of the bandages beneath the full sleeve, Gilly dropped his voice to a penetrating whisper. “My dear, they wear feathers where we wear leathers.”
Maledicte’s eyes widened and he laughed, a stuttering, raw thing in his ruined throat.
Gilly grinned, pleased with the result of his teasing. He had wanted Maledicte to laugh earlier; he shook back the shiver that wanted free, concentrating instead on their innocuous conversation.
“For breeches? Are the feathers ticklish?”
“I suppose there’s a hide backing. But they wear feathers all over. On their feet, in their hair, all shades of red, gold, blue, and green. They have birds down there bigger than our owls, and more brightly patterned than our pheasants.”
“What else, Gilly?”
Maledicte seemed honestly interested, completely at ease, and Gilly wondered if perhaps he had only been teasing. But—I woke, a black sword in my hand, Maledicte said, his voice drowned in memory. Gilly shuddered. He fell into the security of speech, nearly babbling. “They find gold on the ground, in the waters, and they make soft, hand-malleable jewelry from it. Wide necklaces, armbands, earrings, rings. They even press gold between their teeth so that their smiles are as bright as their feathered clothing. They have dark eyes, like yours, but their skin is the color of strong tea, and they draw pictures on it with clays and dyes. They drink chocolate with every meal under warm blue skies.” Gilly spoke mostly for himself, remembering the tales his sailor friend, Reg, told. Maledicte, rapt, watched the Virga, resting his chin on his drawn-up knees, setting Gilly to wondering where Maledicte’s interests lay: The gold? The tropical warmth? The images of strange cities and stranger men?
Maledicte shivered and said, “I’m hungry.” The complaint was blessedly familiar, and Gilly relaxed into it.
“Cook said you missed breakfast, and I know you missed tea. Let’s go get you an ice.” Gilly stood, offered his hand.
Maledicte took it, shook the dust from the pier off, and said. “I have no money. Vornatti was angry this morning and wouldn’t make me my allowance.”
“A true aristocrat doesn’t even think about money. He assumes all shops offer credit and are pleased to do so.”
Maledicte merely nodded, his face pale, his lips drawn.
“Your side? Your arm?” Gilly asked, stopping in his tracks. Since Maledicte’s injuries, Gilly had feared infection. The boy had not let him see to the wounds, instead had trusted his skin to Vornatti’s suturing.
“Sore,” Maledicte admitted.
“You’ll be lucky if the wounds don’t fester. Vornatti is no physician.”
“It heals, regardless,” Maledicte said.
Yes, Gilly thought, the knowledge assailing him again, a slap of frigid seawater, scouring and impossible to digest. Wasn’t healing one of Ani’s gifts? Something good turned to malign purpose; it was hard to stop a man immune to violence. Bu
t Maledicte had bled enough—
“Stop staring,” Maledicte said. “You promised me food.”
Gilly found them a table in the public rooms of the Glorious, the ice shop popular among the maidservants and merchants, secretaries, sailors, and laborers. It had once been a temple to Naga, the serpentine god of health and avarice, and the rooms still boasted elaborate murals of undulating waves and scale; the columns were Naga rising from the sea depths, fanged mouths gaping and holding coats.
In the midst of this they sat, eating tart lime ices and sugar pastries, drinking bitter coffee with sweet sludge at the bottom. Maledicte’s lips reddened with the cold kiss of the confection, his cheeks flushed by the steaming drink.
“Vornatti must have grown bored with his company,” Gilly said, looking at the carriage drawing up to a discreet storefront, marked only by three silver balls on a cord.
Following Gilly’s gaze, Maledicte turned his head. They watched Mirabile step out of the carriage, her dress loosely cloaked for anonymity, carrying a parcel. She disappeared into the dark recesses of the shop.
“A pawnshop?” Maledicte said, shifting to shelter behind Gilly, out of sight.
Gilly said, “She’s popping her valuables. Or more likely Westfall’s. I doubt she has anything left of value. But if she wed someone wealthy…”
Maledicte pushed his plate away. “She can’t think of anything else?”
“There’s nothing else for her to do,” Gilly said. “She’s an aristocrat, not trained to do anything. Or allowed to. Women in this society are ruined so easily.”
“You sound sorry for her.”
“No,” Gilly said. “She had a rich husband and killed him. You might keep that in mind when you speak with her.”
“I don’t have to,” Maledicte said, recovering his appetite, stealing the rest of Gilly’s pastry. “My tasks require swords. This one doesn’t. This task is yours.”