“I’ll let go of it. I promise.” But it was starting to seem like she was no good at letting go.
Behind his back, Isern tapped her fist against her heart and mouthed one word.
“Stone.”
Like Rain
“Home,” said Savine as the carriage lurched to a halt. Broad never rode in one before and it had been a bone-shaking business. Like most luxuries, he was starting to realise it was more about how it looked than how it felt.
Savine’s home would’ve been daunting as a fortress, let alone a house. An almighty box of pale stone, acres of dark windows frowning onto the Kingsway across gardens on fire with autumn colour. It had a great porch with great pillars like it was some temple of the Old Empire. It had a tower at one corner with slit windows and battlements. It had a pair of guardsmen holding ceremonial halberds, still as statues on either side of the sweeping marble steps.
Broad looked at Liddy, and swallowed, and she looked back, eyes wide, and neither one of them had a thing to say. Footmen helped them down from the carriage. Footmen with emerald-green jackets and mirror-polished boots and great flapping lace cuffs. May stared at the man when he offered her his spotless white-gloved hand as if she was worried her fingers might stain it.
“The bloody footmen look like lords,” muttered Broad.
“One of them is a lord,” Savine threw over her shoulder.
“Eh?”
“I’m joking. Relax. This is your home now.” Which was easy for her to say, she was stepping through her front door. Broad felt like he was sticking his head into a dragon’s mouth. Though few dragons could’ve had a maw half the size of the towering front doors.
“I don’t feel too relaxed,” he muttered to Liddy as he shuffled up the steps.
“Would sir prefer a cell in the House of Questions?” she forced through an unconvincing smile to one of the guards. “Or a gibbet over the road to Valbeck?”
Broad cleared his throat. “You’ve a point.”
“Shut your mouth and be thankful, then.”
“Always good advice…” The hall could’ve held a whole terrace of Valbeck’s slum houses. A gleaming expanse of rare woods and coloured marbles imported from places whose names Broad couldn’t even pronounce, most likely, and he twitched down his worn cuffs and twitched up his worn collar in a pathetic effort to make himself more presentable.
A fine-looking lady was waiting for them, dark-skinned, tall and elegant, with hands clasped and jet-black hair knotted tight. “Lady Savine—”
Savine stepped forward and caught her in a hug. “It’s so good to see you, Zuri. I can’t tell you how good.”
The dark-skinned woman stood a moment, surprised, then lifted her arms and hugged Savine back. “I am so very sorry I let you down. I kept thinking… if I could have been there—”
“I’m glad you weren’t. There was nothing anyone could do. Let’s not speak of it again. Let’s have everything… just as it was before.” And Savine gave a brittle, queasy smile, as if that might be easier said than done. Broad knew how that went. “Were you able to help your brothers?”
“Thanks to you. They came back with me.” Zuri beckoned two men forward. Both dark-skinned like her, but otherwise they could hardly have been more different. “This is Haroon.”
Haroon was wide as a door, bald and bearded. He touched two fingers to his wide forehead, solemn as an undertaker, and spoke in about the deepest voice Broad had ever heard. “We thank God for your safe return, Lady Savine.”
“And this is Rabik.”
Rabik couldn’t have been much older than May, slight and bright-eyed, glossy black hair to his collar. He gave a quick little bow, lots of teeth in an easy smile. “And we thank you for this refuge from the chaos in the South.”
“I am very glad to have you with us,” said Savine.
“Your mother would like to see you, of course,” said Zuri, “and there is a great deal in the book to discuss, but I thought you might want to bathe first.”
Savine closed her eyes and gave a ragged sigh. “By the Fates, how I’ve missed you. Bath, Mother, book, in that order.”
“I will be up to help dress you as soon as your friends are settled. I… took the liberty of hiring a new face-maid.”
Savine swallowed. “Of course. And could you get me some pearl dust, Zuri? I need… a little something.”
Zuri squeezed her hand. “Already waiting for you.”
Broad watched Savine sweep away up the stairs. They were wide enough she could’ve been driven straight up them in the carriage. His eye was caught by the chandelier. Nearly blinded by its glittering, in fact. An upside-down mountain of twinkling Visserine glass. Dozens of candles, and each a fine ten-bit wax candle, too. He wondered what it cost to make. Wondered what it cost just to light each evening.
“You must be the Broads.”
Zuri was studying him, no longer so welcoming, her black eyes hard and cautious. Broad couldn’t blame her. He and Liddy had lost the power of speech altogether. Fell to May to speak up for the family. That seemed to happen more and more.
“I’m May, these are my parents Liddy and Gunnar.” She raised her chin in a little gesture of defiance which made Broad feel strangely proud. “We looked after Lady Savine in Valbeck. Made sure she was safe.”
“She and her parents will be extremely grateful. And no one ever did this family a favour or a wrong without being repaid triple. I understand you will be joining Lady Savine’s service?”
“We’d like to,” said Liddy.
“She will make you work. She makes everyone work.”
“Never been afraid of work,” said May.
“The Prophet says it is the best way into heaven, after all.” She said it with a funny sort of smile, as if she wasn’t near so pious as the words implied, and led them through into a seemingly endless corridor. No gleaming marble, just whitewashed plaster and bare boards, but all orderly and smelling of soap. Even back here, Broad still felt a bit out of his class. A pair of girls walked past with armfuls of laundry, looking nervously at them as if they were animals got free of their cage. Maybe they were.
“How many servants are there?” asked May.
“Nineteen in this house, and twelve guardsmen.”
Liddy’s eyes were nearly as wide as Broad’s must’ve been. “How many houses does she have?”
“This is the townhouse of Lady Savine’s father, His Eminence the Arch Lector. Lady Savine spends much of her free time here, though she has very little.” Zuri glanced quickly at a watch she wore on a chain around her neck and slightly upped the pace. “But she owns five houses of her own also. One in Adua which she uses for meetings of the Solar Society and other social functions, one in Keln, one in Angland, a small castle in the country near Starnlend and one in Westport.” She leaned close to murmur. “But so far as I am aware, she has never actually been to that one.”
“It’s a small castle,” squeaked May in Broad’s ear.
They passed a kitchen where a woman was giving some dough a thorough pounding, another sawing away at some fish with a filleting knife. “How many people work for her?” asked Liddy.
“In her personal service, including you and my brothers and the new face-maid, thirty-four. In her various business ventures, well… hundreds. Thousands, maybe.”
“What business is she in?” croaked Broad as they turned up a long staircase.
“It might be better to ask what business she isn’t in. What experience do you have?”
“I can stitch,” said Liddy. “Was assistant to a dressmaker once. I can wash, I can cook some.”
“Lady Savine will always find work for someone who can use a needle. Her wardrobe provides labour for legions on its own.” She turned a key and led them into a room flooded with light. Trees whispered in the breeze outside the three big windows, yellow leaves gently falling. Through one doorway, Broad could see a big old bed frame. He was wondering if they were there to clean the place when she held the key out
to him. “You can use these rooms for now. Until we find you something better.”
“Better?” muttered Broad, staring at a vase of fresh flowers on a fine old table. He’d always thought himself unfortunate. Now he wondered what he’d done to deserve all the luck. Why was he standing in these clean-smelling rooms while crows pecked at the corpses of better men on the road to Valbeck? All he could think was that deserving’s got nothing to do with anything. Life just falls on you, like rain.
“What role did you see yourself occupying, Master Broad?”
Broad pushed his lenses up his nose and slowly shook his head. “Never saw myself occupying anything in a house like this one. I was working in a brewery, my lady—”
Zuri smiled. “No need to call me that. I am Lady Savine’s companion.”
“I thought you were friends,” said May.
“We are. But if I ever forgot that I am also her servant and she is also my mistress, we would not stay friends for very long.” She looked to Broad again. “What else?”
“My family were herders, going way back.” She didn’t care about that. He hardly even cared about that any more, it felt like a thousand years ago. “And… I was in the army… for a while.”
Zuri’s eyes came to rest on the tattooed back of his hand. “You have seen action?”
Broad swallowed. He was getting the feeling she didn’t miss much. “Some. In Styria.”
“You didn’t learn anything on campaign?”
“Nothing that’d be useful in a lady’s service.”
Zuri laughed as she turned towards the door. A laugh with quite the edge on it. “Oh, you might be surprised.”
Drinks with Mother
Savine had hoped that once she was home with her things about her, bathed, perfumed and safe in her armour of corsetry, she would be herself again. Better, in fact, because adversity builds character. She would be the deep-rooted tree that bends in the storm but cannot be broken. She would be the sword that comes through fire tempered and blah, blah, fucking blah.
Instead, she was a dead stick shattered. Pig iron, melted to a slurry. Valbeck was not behind her in the past, it was now, all around her. She jumped at whispers and startled at shadows, as if she were still hiding in the corner of May’s sweltering room and the gangs were restless in the street outside. While she powdered the freckles on her nose away to pale perfection, she felt as if her slit guts were unravelling across the floor. She could hardly remember that easy confidence she used to have. She was an impostor in her own clothes. A stranger in her own life.
“Mother!”
“Savine! Thank the Fates you’re safe!”
“Thank the Broads. I’d never have made it without them.”
“I thought you’d come straight to me when you arrived.” Her mother had that familiar lecturing pout. As keen as Savine was to pretend everything was the same.
“I wanted to get clean first. It seems like months since I was clean.” She did not feel clean even now. However she scrubbed, the aimless dread still stuck to her like a clammy second skin.
“We’ve all been so worried.” Her mother held Savine out at arm’s length so she could look her over. Like an owner examining the damage to a fire-ravaged house. “Dear, dear, but you’re so thin.”
“The food was… not good. Then the food ran out.” Savine gave a shrill laugh, though nothing was at all funny. “We ate vegetable peelings. It’s amazing how quickly you feel lucky to get them. There was a woman in the next house who tried to make soup by boiling the paste off her wallpaper. It… didn’t work.” She shook herself. “Could I get a drink, Mother? I need… a little something.” She would much rather have been held but, since they were who they were, she could be drunk instead.
“You know I never turn down a drink before lunch.” Her mother flicked open the cabinet and began to pour. “Lubricates the rough road through to afternoon.” She handed Savine a glass, and she knocked it off right away and handed it back.
Her mother raised a brow. “You do need lubricating.”
“It was…” Savine felt tears gathering in her eyes as she tried to put into words what it had been. Crawling through the grinding engines. Running through a city gone insane. Crouching in the stinking darkness. “It was…”
“You’re safe now.” And her mother pushed another drink towards her.
Savine jerked herself back from the slums of Valbeck. Sipped at her glass though she’d rather have swigged from the decanter. “Where’s Father?”
“Working. I rather think he couldn’t face you.” Her mother sat with a rustling of skirts, wiped a streak of wine from the outside of her glass and sucked her finger. “He can send a hundred prisoners to freeze in Angland without batting an eyelid, but he lets you down and he can scarcely get out of bed. I’m sure he’ll be along presently. To check that you’re well.” Her mother considered her over the rim of her glass for a long moment. “Are you well, Savine?”
“Of course.” Splash of the bucket into black water, the stench of burning in her nose. “Although…” Creak of the chain as the body of the mill owner swung from the gib of his own manufactory. “It may take…” The feeling as her sword slid through that man’s body. So little resistance. The look on his face. So surprised. “Just a little time…” The grinding, ripping, screaming as the guard’s arm was dragged into the gears of that machine. “To adjust.”
She drained her glass again. Shook herself free of Valbeck again. Forced the smile back onto her face. Again. “Mother, I… have some news.”
“Bigger news than that you’re alive?”
“In some ways, yes.” Certainly Queen Terez would think so…
“Is it bad?” asked her mother, wincing.
“No, no. It’s good.” She thought. “It’s very good.” She hoped. “Mother… I’ve received a proposal of marriage.”
“Another? How many is that now?”
“This time I’m going to accept.” What man could suit her better, after all? What man could offer her more?
Her mother’s eyes went very wide. “Bloody hell.” She finished her glass with one long swallow. “Are you sure? Given what you’ve been through—”
“I’m sure.” It was the one thing she was sure about. “What I’ve been through… only made me realise… how sure I am.” Orso was the one thing that made sense, and the sooner she was back in his arms, the better.
“But surely I’m not old enough to have a married daughter?” Savine’s mother snorted up a laugh as she went to the table and pulled the stopper from the decanter. “So… who’s the luckiest bastard in the Union?”
“That’s the thing. It’s… well…”
“Have you fallen for someone unsuitable, Savine?” Wine gurgled out into the glass. “Marrying down isn’t the worst thing in the world, you know, your father did it—”
“It’s Crown Prince Orso!” Her mother’s head jerked up, her glass, for once, forgotten in her hand. Savine had to admit it sounded absurd. The most unlikely part of some unlikely fantasy. She cleared her throat and looked at the floor, went halting on. “It seems that… in due course… I’m going to be Queen of the Union.”
And she had to admit it felt fine to say it. Perhaps the snake of ambition twisted around her innards had not died in the uprising after all, only slept through it. At so heady a sniff of power, it jerked awake with twice its old hunger.
But when she looked up, her mother had the strangest expression. Certainly not joy. Not even surprise. One would have had to call it horror. The base of her wine glass rattled as she slid it onto the table, as if she could hardly hold its weight any more. “Savine, tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not. He asked me to marry him. A lady of taste never answers right away, of course, but I’m going to say yes—”
“No! Savine, no! He’s not… he’s not at all your type. He’s a wastrel. He’s notorious. He’s a drunk.”
Savine almost gasped at the hypocrisy but her mother caught her, fingers digging
desperately tight into her arms. “You can’t marry him! He just wants your money. You just want his position. That’s no foundation for a marriage, you must see that—”
Lectures on the proper foundation for a marriage? From her? Savine shook her off. “It’s not about the money, or the position. I know everyone thinks he’s a fool, but they’re wrong. He will be a great king. I know he will. And a wonderful husband. I’m sure of it. He was there. When I really needed him, he moved mountains for me. People think he has no character but they’re wrong. I am what he needs, and he is what I need. What I didn’t even realise I needed.” With him she could feel safe. Be the better person she had promised to become. With him she could turn her back on the horrors of Valbeck and look to the future. She gave a girlish giggle which was quite unlike her. “We’re in love.” Fates help her, she wanted to sing it and dance around the room like a child. “We’re in love!”
Her mother was not dancing. She had turned positively ghostly. Now she sank down in a chair, one hand to her mouth. “What have I done?” she whispered.
“Mother… you’re scaring me.”
“You cannot marry Prince Orso.”
Savine squatted in front of her. Caught her hands in hers. They were cold. Corpse hands. “Don’t worry. He will speak to the queen. He will speak to the king. They’ve wanted him to marry for years, they’ll be relieved he’s marrying a human! And if they’re not, he’ll convince them! I know him. I trust him. He’ll—”
“You cannot marry Prince Orso.”
“I know his reputation’s bad, but he’s nothing like people think. We love each other. He has a good heart.” Good hearts? She was blathering but she couldn’t stop herself, going nervously faster and faster. “And I have sense enough for both of us. We love each other. And think of all the good I can do if—”
“You’re not hearing me, Savine.” Her mother looked up. Her eyes were wet, but there was a hardness in them, too. A hardness Savine had not often seen. She pronounced each word with stern precision. “You cannot… marry… Prince Orso.”
A Little Hatred Page 46