Three Stories About Ghosts

  “Every day and every night she is either masked or kept under lock and key like a songbird.” A laugh, harsh and giddy at the same time. My blood curdled, and the chill in my stomach threatened to creep up my throat and spill out of me. “She has learned nothing from her family’s example. She has not learned to simply bow her head and accept the wisdom of her Elders.” I edged near the door and peered through. Perro was standing by the window, dressed in Verocci Claimant’s finery. He held a glass of wine in one hand, inspecting it against the light between sips. He was red-cheeked, and stumbled slightly as he counted points off on his fingers.

  “She has not learned,” he said, slopping wine over the edge of the glass, “what is important. She thinks some dalliance—some affair of the heart—is worth more than the Claim.”

  Behind him stood two Cousins, silent and awkward. They shared none of Perro’s amusement. Other than his retainers, the room held several young Verocci men, their hair as dark as Perro’s. Most of them were dressed in high-collared dark tunics that they wore buttoned up to the neck, decorating them only with a spray of intricate lace around the collar, and wore their hair slicked back in the Calderan fashion. I did not need to see their masked faces to know them—Verocci Stregali, young men who threw their lot in with the Verocci Crones to buy influence for themselves in the family’s business.

  “Loyalty,” said Perro, savouring the word with his lips tugged up in a playful half-smile, “is well rewarded.”

  Heaving, I reeled back. Perro among these terrible petty men, revealing my life to them. I had been betrayed. I had always been betrayed—it had been nothing.

  I wanted only to run—to break through the doors of the Roscovi and tear along well-lit streets and over stout bridges until I was back in my own bed—but I knew I could not. I had to hear what he would say. I had to hear, and I had to remember.

  My family would need to know.

  Perro talked at length about what he had planned, of how he had noticed my interest in him and approached Antonos himself with the opportunity of ending the stalemate and finally taking the Duchy for the Verocci Name—of settling the Claim on Antonos’ line. I watched him carefully, studying how his eyes blazed when he spoke—how eager he was for the approval of the bland masked faces that surrounded him. My hand was tight on the door frame, the white-knuckled grip of my fingers all that held me steady as Perro spoke of his plans for the Truce Dance—of burning Per’Secosa’s mask in the kitchens beneath the King’s Palace and making it look like my work, as if I had gone mad with jealousy or desire and attacked him before ripping off and destroying my mask.

  My vision buckling as tears swam in my eyes, I looked away. There was only one way that it could look as if I had destroyed Per’Secosa. The mask was bonded, it was family. My blood was bound to that dirgewood, witch-cursed to prevent its family from rising up against it. Perro—my love, the only soul I had ever felt a true and honest connection with—planned to kill me.

  It was then, as I blinked away hot angry tears, that I saw his price.

  Perro turned and laid down his glass on the table. Slowly, with reverential delicacy that looked for all the world like love, he picked up a small clay pot. I could already see the sapling that rose up from the grave-earth inside—a grey twig, twisted and warped even though it was no bigger than Perro’s hand, topped by a halo of sleek black leaves. My jaw set, and my heart sounded like the roar of the sea in my ears.

  He held a dirgewood sapling. Perro had sold me for immortality. Worse, he had sold me to inflict on others the servitude that we had both lived with for our whole lives. He saw me as nothing more than coin, after all.

  I spun away from the masked faces and honey-warm light and headed for the stairs, walking with silent steps learned lifetimes ago along the edge of the neat and polished hallway. I had seen and heard enough. Eyes burning and struggling to breathe, I descended in foggy darkness to the lowest parts of the building and worked my way to the Roscovi’s enormous kitchens. In less than half an hour they had been transformed from a warm and welcoming place, a cosy respite from the night outside, into some sort of vision of the World Below. I stormed through them, hardly knowing where I went. Trays caught on my cloak and were dragged along in my wake, spilling their contents onto the floor. Angry shouts were raised in my pursuit. I didn’t care. I simply walked dead-eyed and silent like one who wore a mask unbonded, teeth gritted and seething with rage. I lashed out, striking over stacks of dirty plates and pounding fruitlessly at steaming joints of spitted meat. Nothing meant anything.

  The shouts grew to a crescendo before a hand grabbed at my sleeve and yanked me away into darkness. I blinked, insensible of where I was and barely aware of who I was.

  “Hey!” A woman’s voice whispered sharply in my ear. Arms shook me roughly. “Are you drunk? Have you been helping yourself to the wine?” A sniff. “The Allarac?”

  It was Serra, the kitchen maid who had let me in. I shook my head. My wig had come unattached and dragged down one side of my head, hot and heavy and itchy. I slumped against the wall and tore the damn thing off, shaking my hair loose as I hurled it into the darkness beyond.

  “No,” I muttered. I looked up at Serra. My clothes were dishevelled and I had picked up more than a few stains as I stumbled around the kitchens. If she didn’t want to believe that I was sober, I would never convince her. “I’m not drunk,” I added, my voice thick nonetheless, glowering tight-lipped past her. The streets beckoned. I needed to be home, to think. I needed clean air and silence. “I haven’t been drinking.”

  The kitchen-girl looked at me in shock. Exposed as I was, I was still no one to her. If Per’Secosa’s mask had framed my eyes, she would have known. She would have run, or screamed, or fallen on the floor. I—and the many Untrusted before me—have seen all of these reactions over the years. I raised my chin, lips tight, eyes burning with rage and pain. The woman laid a hand on my shoulder, lowering her voice as she looked at me with pity. I winced, looking away. Pity is a reaction we rarely see.

  “You’ve had a bad night,” she said, her voice gentle.

  I barked out a bitter laugh. “My worst.” It didn’t feel like an exaggeration.

  Her eyes were kind, her expression helpless. “Here.” She reached over to a table, one hand raised to keep the others of the staff back, to shield me from any more embarrassment. Cooks and servers alike drew back at her sign, and the rolling-pins and ladles they grasped dropped slowly to their sides.

  Serra held up a pie, steam curling up from the vent neatly cut into the crust. “Take this. There’s not much else I can do for you.”

  I nodded. “I know.” I held the pie, numb and stupid, hardly knowing what to do. My stomach lurched—I was hungry, but could not stand the thought of eating, of anything. I had been betrayed, and could not comprehend it. Not then, not there. “Let me do something for you. Let me tell you something.” I swallowed, steadying myself against the great stone table. “Find work elsewhere. This place will be torn down by winter’s end.”

  My eyes met hers, and I was overcome by a tranquil hardness. “Find work elsewhere,” I said again. “Perhaps you should present yourself at the gates of the Vetruvi Estate. Something new will stand here next year, Serra.” With that, I took her by the shoulder and pushed her aside while her mouth framed clumsy, silent questions. My stride lengthened, and I felt my future, long and heavy and cold, gathering in front of me as I left the shining lights of the Roscovi behind me.

  On the way home I looked to the sky. The night was dark, and the city’s lights hid the stars from my view. Only the fat, heavy Moon lay low in the sky, turning the canals to silver. Pulling off my gloves and casting them away, I laid a hand over my heart and swore an oath before the grim bulk of the Moon.

  I swore to any gods that would listen—gods of the living and the dead, gods who favour our people and gods of our enemies—that I would never be hurt again. Let it be a promise, let it be a warning. Hurt would find me no more.

&nb
sp; Chapter Five

  “IDIOT.” MY OWN lips curled in a sneer as I stalked across the courtyard, collar pulled high against the rain. “Young stupid lovesick fool.”

  Per’Secosa had been spitting insults at me with my own tongue ever since I had returned home and donned the mask. I had let him in—let him see my whole night. I held none of it back, kept no secrets for myself. After what I had seen, what I had heard in the Roscovi’s halls, I doubted that I had the strength to hold him back.

  I had wept as he dug through my betrayal, his scrutiny scraping against the raw aching of my new, sickening pain. When he examined my unmasked meeting earlier that day, it took all I had to keep my agreement in Perro’s scheme from him—I would never be myself again if he thought for even a moment that I had wanted to see his empty dark-lacquered eyes cast into the flames. If he feared even the hint of such fatal insubordination, he would wear me until I died, allowing me to draw only my last breath as myself before he passed himself over to his chosen heir.

  Per’Secosa had plotted through the night until morning in absolute secrecy, pacing back and forth in my bedroom as he cursed and spat at me. My body was numb with exhaustion, and hidden deep inside myself I was beyond fatigued. Per’Secosa saw none of that, choosing to pass on the pain to me along with his bitter, terrible anger. Too suspicious of the Verocci to call an attendant, summon a relative, or rouse a guard, he schemed in silence until sunrise brought an ugly wash of grey rain creeping through the city’s streets.

  As thick raindrops spattered against the window, he settled on a method of dealing with his enemies that best pleased him, donning a heavy oiled cloak to make the journey through the grounds to the family vault. Still in silk slippers I was dragged exhausted over the quiet dawn-grey lawns and through orchards that whispered with the tap of rain on leaves until, masked and scowling, Per’Secosa reached the thick iron-shod doors of the family’s shrine to our undeparted ancestors. The building sat unassuming and grand all at once, a heavy and severe mausoleum of dark stone that held within it the most revered and priceless treasures of the Vetruvi—the heart of our wealth—that nevertheless stood unguarded among our gardens. It was always there, the vault, yet always at the edge of our vision. I knew of none of the family—none of my playmates as a child—who cared to walk in the rose garden that grew near to the vault, or to tarry too long in its shadow.

  Still muttering curses, Per’Secosa fumbled a key from my pocket with cold, wet fingers and slowly began to unbind the locks. A misapplication of pressure and I would be poisoned by the darts that hid deep inside the heavy door. I could feel the temptation to rush the opening of the door—to kill me—coil around Per’Secosa’s spirit for a moment, thick with malice and amusement, before it passed.

  Rainwater gathered in the collar of the cloak, seeping down my back as he worked. His fury burned close beside me, sickly-sweet and hot. I stood, aching and tired, as my hands moved with bored precision over the locks and catches of the vault doors. With a click the last catch was released, and the door swung slowly back to admit the Vetruvi Claimant to the resting place of his family’s greatest treasures. He swept on into the musty dark of the cramped passage beyond, dragging me along with him in morose, numb silence.

  “I should at least thank you,” he growled in my voice. “You have brought matters to a head, and I no longer need to think in terms of this worthless bloodless truce. Too long a woman—too long itching to feel Verocci blood on my hands. Now at least I can contest the Claim as I was meant to—with steel and fire and poison as well as coin and writ.” My shoulders tensed, muscles bunching as Per’Secosa anticipated the long bloody days to come. “So much blood will flow.” He sounded thrilled, giddy as a child in the chapel on their Naming Day. With my shaking hands he struck a spark from a flint, igniting a torch. The resin and tar took up the spark hungrily, and light bathed the narrow staircase that wound its way down into the heart of the vault.

  Per’Secosa moved swiftly and with purpose, striding past alcoves that led to galleries of masterpieces and jewels beyond price without so much as glancing to the side. He knew these treasures. He had placed many deep inside the vault himself; others he had inherited from masks too far gone to bear the Claim, or those who had been destroyed by their enemies, their bearers, or their impatient heirs.

  Flickering light danced across the exquisitely shaped facets of perfect emeralds and lustrous chains and bands of gold as he marched me with cold purpose deep into the most secret chambers of the vault. Muttering curses against me and my name through clenched teeth, Per’Secosa fitted the torch into a wall sconce before dragging a heavy chest to one side. Polished wood groaned as iron bracings scraped along the stone floor. A gold ewer spilled from the open chest, bouncing and clattering noisily out of the ring of light. Dimly, at the edge of my consciousness, I felt a sharp, sickening pain tear at my shoulder as the ghost doggedly hauled the chest out of his way.

  “Your father was stronger,” Per’Secosa hissed as my fingernails dug into the cold, dirty stone of the wall behind the chest.

  My father. I had barely known him, save as the Claimant’s vessel. Even as my hands cleared the dust from a hidden recess in the wall, my wandering memory could not recall his eyes. I struggled to see more than his death, his body lying at the fire’s edge in our home at Villa Anora. Behind that sight lay the memories my Grandfather-Looking-Out enjoyed using to punish me—the last memories of the man who had worn him, of pain and fear and regret.

  Stone rumbled as Per’Secosa pulled at the wall. Slowly the hidden counterweights took over, drawing the neatly laid stone aside to reveal a still, silent chamber beyond. No light caught on any surface, and a cold older than dirgewood radiated from the depths beyond. My steps faltered for a moment as some animal part of my soul pushed back against Per’Secosa’s will to take up the torch and step into the darkness.

  The mask growled a curse in my voice and clumsily snatched at the torch, pushing forward into the passage beyond. He squeezed down the narrow confines, unconsciously hunching over even though my narrow, slight frame could pass through the vault’s path without discomfort.

  Dusty and undisturbed since its construction, the secret passage swiftly became so narrow that even I would have had to duck down and bring in my shoulders to navigate it. We had twisted and turned, slipping down galleries and descending and climbing stairs so often beneath the earth that I had no idea where we were—or even if we were still under the ground beneath the Vetruvi estate. The corridor plunged on endlessly into shadow, none of its neat, firmly set slabs of stone any different to the others, when I became aware that Per’Secosa was silently counting paces. Abruptly he stopped and, turning to one side, he felt again at the wall. I could see my fingers by the flickering light of the torch, dirty, bloodied, and bruising. Per’Secosa wiped them absently on my dress before resuming his search.

  Finding the stone that satisfied him, the mask pushed down on it. A clasp gave way behind the hinged stone with an audible click, and then the wall receded silently before swinging away. Beyond lay a wide alcove set with a number of recesses. Each held a carved marble bust—the likenesses, I knew and recognised, of prominent Vetruvi from centuries ago. They looked uncannily as they had in life, sculpted with the greatest care by masters of their craft who would have known better than to question why their work had never been displayed. Perched in mute tribute upon its face, each bust held an exact replica of its own mask. My eyes travelled at once to the stern, scowling face of Secosa Vetruvi—fifth in line to the Claim at the time the vault was constructed and filled, and so nowhere near as prominent as the now-pointless masks of Gianno and Carlottiana Vetruvi at the apex of the alcove. My own mask—his mask—stared back at me, Per’Secosa’s empty, smooth eyes regarding me blankly above his distinctive sneer. Per’Secosa curled my lip in triumph, mirroring the expression on his own silent marble face. It took all my focus to keep my cool in that moment. I had never seen the substitutes before. Nobody had.

&n
bsp; Among the Untrusted, the existence of a small trove of replicas was only ever hinted at, and never accounted with any real credibility. Luciana, lost to us and living in seclusion with the Elders who had been too long bound to dirgewood, had once said that she remembered carving her own mask in a dream, long ago. Nobody believed her—Luciana had many dreams, and the Elders didn’t care whether she spun them all out for the rest of the Untrusted. Yet after she had spoken to us of the carving of her own mask, the Crones had come, robed in black, and taken her away in a high-sided carriage to the Convent. Most of us had thought little of the connection between Luciana’s rambling and the Crones’ arrival—indeed, how could she have carved her own mask? How could she remember such a thing? A few of the Vetruvi children had grasped the significance of her dream, but had known better than to ever speak of it. They had kept it far from their thoughts, where their masks would never see it.

  Yet there they were, all of them—the mask of every Elder in our entire clan, all neatly laid out in case one of them ever needed to fake their death. If I could have smiled in that moment, I would. Luciana was right—all of them were right, even those who only held onto the idea of the substitutes out of some sort of ragged hope that the masks they wore were not the true souls of their family’s honoured ancestors.

  Per’Secosa reached in and delicately lifted the copy of his mask, trying not to look for too long into that chiselled remembrance of his own long-gone features, before turning around and storming back down the winding passageway. His discomfort seeped through the grain of the wood, curdling into a pounding ache in my temples which Per’Secosa duly ignored.

  “Now, girl,” he hissed, the false mask gripped tight in my grimy hand, “when the time comes for the dance, we give the Verocci what they want. We let them have their moment of victory, their sweet breath of spring air. Then, when blood is spilled, and the King’s word cast aside by those thrice-cursed wretches, then… the Claim is mine.” I felt the hairs bristle at the nape of my neck as he thrilled, daring to speak those words aloud.