Beneath the Keep

by Erika Johansen

  “Ah, the witch,” the first voice replied. Christian knew that voice: high and tinny, its accent broad and flat. “And did you pay Thorne?”

  “Yes, sir. But he demanded assurances too, that we meant to kill the prisoner.”

  “And did you give such assurances?”

  “ ’Course I did, sir.”

  “Good. Leave.”

  Footsteps shuffled away, then: “Almost forgot, boss: Thorne said to give you this. He says it’s yours.”

  “Leave it on the table.”

  The man dropped something with a heavy clunk, then closed the door behind him. Light bloomed behind Christian’s closed eyelids, then he felt heat. A flame had just been placed close to his cheek.

  “Your eyes are wiggling around beneath their lids, boy. You’re just playing possum now. Come on, wake up.”

  After another long moment—for Christian did not want the dealer to think he did anything by his orders—he cracked his eyelids and found himself in a low-ceilinged room. There was something wrong about this room, though Christian could not have said what. It was no different from any other room in the Creche, tiny and cramped and dark . . . but something was not the same.

  Arliss sat across from him in a high armchair, so big that it made the dealer’s frame seem childlike in proportion. The armchair was upholstered in a thick, rich material that Christian thought might be velvet. He had never seen such a luxurious piece of furniture in his life. Arliss’s legs and torso were swaddled in a thick blanket, hiding his injured hip. Behind the chair, two lamps sat on either end of an enormous oak desk, dangerously close to the unwieldy piles of paper that covered the surface. In fact, as he sat up, Christian saw that paper was strewn all over the office as well, covering the surfaces of chairs, the spread of the floor.

  “I would think a morphia kingpin could afford a tidier life.”

  Arliss shrugged. “This is my private office. I have a system. It works for me.”

  Christian sat up, clutching his head. Whatever Thorne’s witch had done to him, it wasn’t finished yet; the ache was terrible. His chest throbbed, and his legs felt loose and wobbly.

  “I’d hoped that the bounty would bring you in, but I didn’t expect it to happen so fast,” Arliss remarked. “Going after Thorne on your own? Are you mad, boy, or just stupid?”

  “Stupid,” Christian replied, massaging the nape of his neck. “How’s your hip, old man?”

  “Shattered. The doctor said I’ll never walk right again.”

  If Arliss was waiting for an apology, he wasn’t getting one; Christian sat in truculent silence. But now Arliss looked at him with a strange expression, one so foreign to life in the Creche that it took a moment for Christian to identify it as sympathy.

  “Was she your special girl? The one who overdosed?”

  “No,” Christian replied slowly. “But she could have been. That entire stable is hooked on the poppy.”

  “Aye, and they have to be,” Arliss replied grimly. “An entire life spent fucking on demand? At least my morphia lets them sleep.”

  “Right. You’re a real prince.”

  Christian tried to stand as he said this, but it was just as he’d feared: his legs were jelly. There would be no daring escape, but at least he would not beg, the way his lesser opponents had sometimes done in the ring.

  “Sit down, boy, and stop being a fool. It will take you time to recover, hours perhaps. You’re lucky Thorne’s witch didn’t kill you.”

  “How do you know she’s a witch?”

  “She’s got a particular skill set, that’s certain. None of us can compete. They say the witch is better than any poppy. I’ve heard she can even alter memory.”

  “Alter memory? Who would pay for that?”

  “Queen Arla, for starters. Don’t you listen to any gossip, boy? The witch is moving up in the world. Thorne’s installed her in the Keep, right at the Queen’s very ear.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? I’ve heard Thorne’s noble-born, but talk is cheap in the tunnels. Memory as well.”

  Christian nodded automatically, though he didn’t agree. The Creche had a very long memory. Arliss might not hold a grudge himself, but he would still kill Christian; he would have to. Even the slightest hint of weakness and Arliss would be finished, torn apart by any one of the other dozen aspiring tinpot dictators who battled constantly over rule of the narcotics trade. Arliss would kill him, and Christian did not begrudge it. He himself had spent his own life killing . . . not because he wanted to, but because it was expected of him. And now he suddenly remembered what Wigan had said on that long-ago day when he had sold Maura to Mrs. Evans, the words that had made Christian so angry that he had tried to strike Wigan, and received a beating in return.

  Most of the culls down here, even if they weren’t born to the life, as you were, they’ve accepted it. They root and scramble and scratch, never looking upward. But I know you, Lazarus. I’ve watched you fight since you could barely walk. You may keep your head down, like the rest of us, but some part of you is staring topside, all the time. You think you’re better. You think you deserve better, and pigeons like you, exceptional pigeons, are dangerous. They make others start looking upward.

  What does that have to do with Maura? Christian had demanded, near tears. He had only been seven, still young enough to burn with the unfairness of specific moments. But even at seven, he knew what went on in the Alley. What Maura was in for.

  Think of Maura as dead weight, boy, Wigan had replied. A rock around your ankle. I don’t like bubbles in my ale, and I don’t like you looking topside. I will sell your little friend, and I will do it to keep your head down here, where it belongs.

  And so Christian had tried to hit him, but Wigan was taller and heavier, and when they were done, Christian had sported two black eyes. But the shiners had been nothing. In selling Maura, Wigan had delivered an injury much worse than any Christian would ever receive in the ring. Maura had gone to the Alley, and Christian had kept his head down. Lazarus had kept his head down.

  “I have cleared myself from the Creche,” Arliss told him, breaking Christian’s thoughts from the past. “What you saw in Mrs. Evans’s stable was the last bit of business I intend to conduct down there. From now on, I will deal and book topside.”

  “Why tell me?”

  “Because I bear you no ill will, boy. You should bear me none either.”

  “Just kill me and have done with it.”

  Arliss sighed in exasperation. “I’m not going to kill you, you tiresome little shit. I’m going to let you go. And when I do, I would rather not spend my life looking over my shoulder.”

  Christian stared at him. “You’re letting me go.”

  “Yes.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “For nothing.”

  “That’s a kind repayment for crushing your hip.”

  “Topside is a different world, boy. I’m dealing with a better class of people now. Not heroes, but better. I’ve no need to save face among them by flaying your skin from your bones. You’re free of me.”

  “And what about the bounty?”

  “I will call off the bounty,” Arliss replied evenly. “I’ll tell the world that I’ve forgiven you . . . which I have.”

  This statement so alarmed Christian that his legs twitched, almost in spasm. He grasped the arms of the chair and wobbled his way to his feet, staring down at Arliss. The dealer was undoubtedly a career liar, but Christian saw no lie in his face.

  “You’re a poppy dealer,” he said slowly. “Why would you need to forgive anyone? Why not kill me just for spite? Or even sport?”

  “Because I wish to be better. All of us can be better.”

  “Better than what?”

  “Better than the man I was before. The past is powerful, but it need not control the future.”r />
  The words rang a faint bell in Christian’s mind. Listening to Arliss was like listening to the frocks from the Arvath who came down to try to win converts in the Creche . . . except that Arvath forgiveness always required coin. Arliss’s words had a different ring, a ring that Christian had heard before, if he could only remember—

  “Holy hell,” he blurted out. “You’re one of them. The Blue Horizon.”

  Arliss said nothing, merely looked at him. And now, out of nowhere, Christian suddenly identified what had struck him strange about the room: it had slabbed stone walls, like any room in the Creche, but there was no mold sliming the stone. Not even a trickle of moisture marred the smooth surface.

  “Where are we?”

  “Haven’t you guessed, boy? We’re topside. Out of the dark and into the light.”

  Arliss reached over to the table that sat beside the sofa. For the first time, Christian noticed that his mace sat there, still crusted with the bodyguard’s blood. Arliss offered the mace, but Christian only looked at it, thinking: Topside. Blue sky and white clouds.

  But Maura was supposed to be here with him. Everything had gone wrong.

  “Keep it, boy,” Arliss insisted, offering the mace again. “The man who owned it is dead, and clearly you have some aptitude for it. Maybe it will even keep you safe, though if Arlen Thorne wants you dead, you’re on a dangerous path.”

  “He said he was moving into the Keep,” Christian murmured, trying to remember. The effort made his head hurt. “Or no, the witch said that. What could Arlen Thorne possibly want in the Keep?”

  “I don’t know. Last I saw, he was busy expanding his business. He’s been buying children like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Christian nodded, grimacing. “I saw his stable.”

  “Not for his wretched stable. He’s buying pretty children, from all corners of the Creche. My man says Thorne’s paying top dollar for straight teeth and unblemished skin.”

  Christian felt a sick tremor ripple through his stomach. He clutched his temples, trying to stop the pounding inside his head.

  “Look at you,” Arliss muttered. “About to get sick all over my nice carpet. Webb!”

  The door opened, and a man a few years older than Christian came in, his hand on his knife. He presented himself before Arliss, but his narrowed eyes never left Christian.

  “Give him ten pounds,” Arliss ordered. “Then show him out. He might need help walking to the door.”

  I don’t need help from anyone, Christian almost said. But that wasn’t true, because now, for the first time in his life, he owed a debt. For a moment he considered telling Arliss that he still held a grudge . . . would always hold a grudge. It was easier to murder the past than learn to live with it, and Christian wanted to be in no one’s debt. Then Arliss held out the mace again—his arm shaking the slightest bit—and before Christian knew what he was doing, he had taken it, grasping its solid weight in his hand.

  “There’s a better world out there,” Arliss told him. “So close we can almost touch it. The Blue Horizon has given you your life. Do not waste it.”

  Christian said nothing, not even when the bodyguard, Webb, placed a hand under his elbow and guided him toward the door, holding him up as though he were an invalid. He took Christian down a long hallway, toward a door that seemed to have about fifty deadbolts on it. At Webb’s nod, the two men on the door drew multiple bolts and pulled the door inward. Then Webb led Christian through, out the door and down a step, where he let go of Christian’s arm. The air smelled so crisp and sweet that Christian wondered how he had ever breathed down below. Water misted against his face, and he looked up, seeing the entire world through a curtain of tiny droplets that fell from the darkness above.

  “What is that?” he asked Webb, and Webb looked at him as though he were an idiot.

  “Rain. First fall in months.”

  It’s real, Christian thought, looking around him, seeing more new sights: the long straight street, not lined with cobbles but simply a vat of mud. Several beasts were hitched in front of a nearby structure, their long tails swishing, and Christian realized that these must be horses. The structure was lit with bright lights, but above it stretched a dark canvas: the sky. In all of Christian’s imaginings, the sky had been blue, but now it was a swirling black.

  “Here,” Webb said, and offered him a tiny purse. “Take it.”

  Unable to think of a reason not to, Christian took the purse and shoved it into his pocket.

  “The boss said to get you gone from here,” Webb said. “Go on.”

  “Where do I go?”

  “How the fuck should I know? Just get gone.”

  Christian stepped down from the stoop, wandering forward. After a few steps, he stopped, his legs shaking beneath him. He meant to turn around, to ask again where he should go, but Webb must have sensed it coming, because Christian found the door slammed in his face.

  He turned and began wandering, unsure of his direction, his eyes drinking in the wide world as though it were water. The rain sprinkled lightly on Christian’s face, and he thought that nothing had ever felt so good. So clean.

  But all the buildings had strange, oblong openings that allowed him to see through the walls, and as he walked he saw men drinking, women with tight bodices showing off their wares, brutes fighting each other. For a few minutes Christian wondered whether topside had anything new to show him at all. Then he rounded a corner and emerged onto a street wider than anything he could ever have imagined, even in his dreams. Every inch seemed to be lined with banners and awnings and windows, and an ocean of movement lay before him: people and horses, dogs and wagons, all of it gleaming with glass and color and torchlight. In that moment it became too much, and Christian was forced to close his eyes, seeking the cool dark.

  Where do I go? he thought helplessly. Arlen Thorne wanted him dead, and Arlen Thorne’s witch was in the Keep . . . in the Keep, where Christian had to go, if he meant to find Maura. He closed his eyes and saw her lying on the bed, her bright smile dulled with poppy; saw Mrs. Evans, her eyes gleaming with coin; saw boys without number, their mouths wide in agony as they died in the ring. All of them, none of them, swept away into the past. What happened next would depend entirely upon Christian. He would have to make a choice, and then live with the consequences.

  Do not waste it.

  The rain abruptly ceased, leaving the air damp and clear. Looking upward, Christian saw tiny pinpricks of light above his head. Stars . . . he had heard of them, but had not pictured them this way at all: bright but limited, their brilliance trapped in black night.

  That was me, Christian thought, staring up at the twinkling points. But what will I be now, in the light?

  The stars did not answer.

  Chapter 17

  THE EDGE ON THE BLADE

  When we speak of Queen Elyssa, we never talk about Queen Arla. The relationship with the mother undoubtedly lies at the heart of the Shipper Queen’s destiny, yet no one wishes to examine that relationship. Are we lazy? No, we are unwilling . . . for Queen Arla had her own mother, and that mother her own as well. If the Raleigh Dynasty was a pyramid, building toward the Glynn Queen, then there was plenty of rotten stone as the ziggurat ascended.

  —The Raleighs: A Comprehensive Analysis, Sofie Hawkins and Violet Fisher

  Elyssa was terrified.

  She sat on the low sofa outside her mother’s chamber, crossing and uncrossing her feet. It had taken more than a week for her mother to summon her, and in that time Elyssa had felt like nothing so much as a hermit hiding in her room, avoiding even her guards. They had all seen her naked, but that was only part of it. They had seen her in a moment of weakness, one that would never be forgotten. Each day that her mother’s summons did not come only served to underline Elyssa’s own powerlessness, but this was all part of her mother’s punishment: to make her dangle and dance
.

  “Why does she do this?” Elyssa had once wailed to Lady Glynn, after she had tripped and ripped a tapestry from the wall. Her mother had not spoken to her for days; Elyssa had only been eight or nine, but it was the first time she could remember thinking that her mother’s style of punishment was conscious, almost vicious.

  Lady Glynn, who had known the Queen since childhood, had answered immediately. “Because it was just as her mother did, and her grandmother before.”

  “I will be different,” Elyssa had vowed bravely. “I will change.”

  She had meant it, but even now, Elyssa had to admit that her mother’s wrath was effective. She was twenty-one, not eight, but she felt no braver than she had on that long-ago day of the tapestry. Gareth, the speech in the Circus . . . Elyssa’s latest infractions had been so great, so unconscionable, that she could not begin to imagine what lay in store.

  “Princess,” Bowler murmured. He had opened the door of her mother’s chamber, and Elyssa had not even noticed. “She’s ready for you.”

  Elyssa stood. Her legs wanted to wobble, but she would not let them. Taking a deep breath, she passed Bowler and went into her mother’s chamber. The stocky guard remained outside, closing the door behind her—her mother wanted no witnesses to this conversation, apparently—and at the click of the latch, Elyssa’s anxiety seemed to ratchet upward even further. She had meant to take this opportunity to raise the issue of Thomas and the girl he had purchased, a scandal that had now spread beyond the Keep and out into the city. But now she didn’t know whether she would have the courage.

  Gareth is safe.

  Elyssa held to this fact as though to a lifeline. Rain had fallen several days before . . . only a night’s shower, not enough to put a dent in the drought, but the city had gone mad, taken to the streets, and their joy had reminded her of Gareth. . . . Gareth, who had spoken with such certainty of the better world. Whatever was in store for her, she had traded it for Gareth’s life. The Guard had been unable to track him in the tunnels, and in the days since, Elyssa had begun to think that they were even angrier with her than they were with him. When Givens spoke to her, it was with cold politeness only. Her own Guard—Kibb and Carroll in particular—seemed more sympathetic, but they would not show that sympathy, not where Givens could see. Fear threatened to overwhelm her again, and Elyssa closed her eyes and thought of that night with Gareth on the bed. It was not an entirely comfortable memory, for deep within lay the knowledge that the witch had seen it all, and the more alarming idea that the witch might have orchestrated the entire thing for reasons of her own. But Elyssa shied away from the latter thought. It was a good memory, that night with Gareth, and it had gotten her through all of these long nights of fear and doubt, the certainty with each dawning day that her mother would summon her, strip her of her birthright, and set Thomas in her place.