by Sarah Ash
White for purification. Hyacinth-blue for mourning. And willow-green for hope, life beyond death…
The blue scent of hyacinths drifted through the painted room, imbuing it with the wistful memory of past springs.
Orial breathed in the scent as she tuned her cithara. She had come to work on her new composition, a prelude dedicated to the memory of Iridial.
But after playing a few bars, she stopped. Khassian’s music still resonated in her mind, its tortured complexities making mock of her own simple, brightly coloured harmonies.
Her music darted with the jewelled brightness of a dragonfly skimming the surface of the waters. His music rose from the depths, it spoke of despair and madness, it aspired vainly towards stars too far to reach.
He had told her she had much to learn. Now she sat in silence, listening to the dark echoes in her head.
‘What should I do?’ she whispered to the silence. ‘Iridial. Mother. I wish you could tell me what to do. I wish you were –’
I wish you were still alive.
She began the prelude again. Soon her fingers strayed, plucking other notes, unfamiliar notes.
Not her music, but his.
He was slowly infecting her mind.
Her fingers crept from the cithara strings to press against her temples, as if they could force the alien shadow-sounds from her mind.
What’s happening to me?
Shadow-sounds ravelled themselves around her prelude, distorting, mocking. She shut her eyes – but still her melody continued to disintegrate in her head.
She stands alone in a ruined hall of broken mirrors. In the distance a rainbow shimmers. Slowly, yearningly, she moves towards it, hands outstretched. Her feet crunch over shards of broken mirror-glass until they bleed, each step releasing a harsher burst of cacophony until the stones of the ruined hall start to tremble. Yet with each painful step, the iridescent bow seems further and further away…
Orial opened her eyes.
She wanted to weep for her spoiled prelude, for its bright and innocent spontaneity – but her sore eyes felt too dry for tears. Or maybe she wanted to weep for the loss of her mother; the two had become inextricably entwined.
Loss: an aching emptiness, mingled with a child’s uncomprehending anger…
How had she thought she could ever adequately express her feelings in such naive musical language?
Orial wrapped up the cithara and replaced it behind the memorial stone.
She took the lantern and began to wander aimlessly through the Undercity. But now the raw, rekindled anger began to conjure shadows from the silence of the Lifhendil necropolis. She started at the sound of her own footfall, began to glimpse spirit-shapes, pale and formless, out of the corner of her eye. Were the souls of the dead still lingering here, waiting for the Day of the Dead to release them?
Was that slight sound the whispering of dead voices… or her own hesistant breathing?
She found that she had come to the door of the Lotos Chamber; within, the Lotos Princess still held court, playing the cithara to an enraptured Lifhendil audience.
Holding the lantern high, Orial tried to scry the winged figures Jolaine Tradescar had described to her.
She had never paid them much attention before… but now she saw that they hovered, like tutelary spirits, behind the Princess’s head. The insubstantial gauzes that streamed from their shoulders could be… wings?
The air behind her seemed – for one brief moment – to twitch. A breath fanned her hair.
Startled, she wheeled around, almost dropping the lantern.
‘Who’s there?’ she whispered into the darkness.
It was almost as if something – or someone – had flitted past her. And yet there was no sound of footsteps or voices.
She was alone. And yet not alone.
For the first time in the Undercity, Orial Magelonne found herself overwhelmed by a sudden sense of mindless terror.
She gathered up her skirts – and ran.
CHAPTER 11
Orial was sorting through the first pages of Act Three with Khassian when the Diva wandered yawning into the salon, patch box and mirror in hand. He had obviously only just risen from sleep even though it was well past midday.
‘Orial, sweet.’ Cramoisy kissed the tips of his fingers to her.
‘We’re busy,’ Khassian said, reading the sheets over Orial’s shoulder.
‘I met such a charming woman at the Mayor’s reception last night.’ Cramoisy was applying a beauty spot to his cheek, a black-sequinned star just above the upper lip. ‘A Contesse, no less. An exile, miu caru, just like us.’
‘An exile?’ Khassian looked up, frowning. ‘From Allegonde?’
‘Another fugitive from the tyranny of the Grand Maistre. She had seen me in Firildys – three times! It is so very agreeable to meet one’s admirers when far from home…’
‘You didn’t tell her anything of our plans, I trust?’
‘She could be of great help to us, Amar. She has connections… and she is such a fan of your music. You would have blushed to hear the compliments she paid you.’
‘Cramoisy,’ Khassian said warningly, ‘have you been indiscreet?’
‘How could you!’ His mouth twisted from its perfect painted bow to an expression of mortification. ‘Oh, Khassian, how could you accuse me of such a thing? You know I am the soul of discretion. I would never betray you.’
‘I know that you love to hear the sound of your own voice,’ Khassian said brutally.
‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Cramoisy’s voice began to rise; Orial winced at the shrillness of the pitch.
‘What was her name, Cramoisy, this charming Allegondan Contesse?’
‘Fiammis.’
‘Cramoisy, you will be the undoing of us! Why do you never think before you open your mouth?’
‘Pardon me, Illustre, but what precisely have I done wrong? Tell me!’
‘I was warned… to beware of a Contesse called Fiammis.’
‘And did you warn me?’
‘I had no idea you would encounter her.’
‘Fa! A fine excuse!’
‘So I should have told you. But you should have known when to keep your mouth shut.’
‘What harm’s been done? And why is she such a threat?’
‘I have it on good authority that she is an agent of the Grand Maistre.’
‘Whose authority?’ demanded Cramoisy.
‘Captain Korentan’s.’
‘Oh!’ Cramoisy threw up his hands. ‘And you believe him?‘
‘What exactly did you confide in the Contesse?’
Cramoisy suddenly seemed engrossed in putting the sequinned patches back into the enamelled box.
‘Cramoisy?’ said Khassian warningly.
‘I might have mentioned the opera…’
Khassian closed his eyes.
‘Well?’ Cramoisy said defensively. ‘It’s no secret!’
‘Why didn’t you also tell her we were plotting to assassinate Girim nel Ghislain whilst you were about it?’
‘Great heavens –’
His sarcasm seemed lost on Cramoisy who stared back at Khassian uncomprehendingly.
‘We must all be more careful. We cannot afford to take risks. We cannot rehearse in a public hall. We need a room where we will not be overheard.’
‘But where in Sulien would one find such a place?’
Orial realised they were both looking at her.
‘The Undercity?’ she said.
‘Rehearsing in a necropolis. That has a certain ghoulish appeal.’
Cramoisy gave a fastidious little shudder.
‘I don’t think it is seemly. We should show respect for the dead.’
‘I have always practised my music in the Undercity. I don’t think it is disrespectful,’ said Orial.
‘I will make contact with the other musicians. Let us agree to meet in the Parade Gardens tomorrow – say around three in the afternoon? That way, anyone who observes us will think we have come to
listen to the band.’
Amaru Khassian left Mistress Permay’s house in a rainstorm. Acir Korentan watched him check the Crescent to see if anyone was watching and then, head down, plunge out into the pouring rain.
Acir followed – at a distance.
The composer seemed to know where he was going. He dodged through the umbrellas in broad Millisom’s Street and crossed the rainglossed cobbles at a run. Acir just caught sight of him slipping into a qaffë shop. With a sigh, he positioned himself under the striped awning of a milliner’s and prepared to wait.
By midday the louring rainclouds had lifted from the city, revealing a sun-sheened sky of delicate blue. By the afternoon, it seemed to Acir that all Sulien had come out to take the warm spring air, to see and be seen…
Numbed with boredom, he almost missed Khassian as the composer came out of the qaffë shop in the company of three men.
Three strangers, all unfamiliar to Acir.
He slipped out into the jostling crowd and followed them.
North Parade was thronged with people, all taking their afternoon promenade. Posy-sellers thrust little bunches of violets and anemones under his nose; confectioners offered him dishes of junket sprinkled with nutmeg or brown-bread ices. In the Parade Gardens below the band had begun to play country dances: quaint old-fashioned quadrilles and rigadoons.
Silken ribbons streamed from spring bonnets and straw hats, fluttering like pastel pennants in a skirmish of fashion. Even the men had entered into the spring spirit and sported brightly embroidered waistcoats; lace, white as cow parsley, frothed at necks and wrists.
Acir passed like a sombre shadow between the cheerful promenaders, keeping his quarry in sight. In the Undercity he had experienced the visceral power of an ancient religion. Could these muslin-gowned women, these periwigged men, be the same people he had witnessed at the subterranean funeral?
Khassian and his companions had reached the bridge across the Avenne; they turned abruptly aside and took the steps down to the gardens. Acir stopped in the shadow of the bridge’s arch. No longer raging and swollen with snowmelt, the Avenne lapped placidly at the bridge’s foot.
Acir watched Khassian talking with his companions in the shade of a snow-blossomed cherry tree. Who were these three shabbily dressed strangers with whom he seemed so intimate?
A woman came strolling towards Acir, idly twirling a lacy parasol on her shoulder.
The sun dazzled in her tumbled marigold curls; yellow and gold, echoed in the faint dusting of freckles on her nose that even the most clever maquillage failed to disguise. Golden pollen.
‘Contesse,’ he said formally – though his heart had begun to beat faster at the sight of her.
‘Captain,’ Fiammis said. Her tone was equally cool.
He placed himself so that the sun was behind him; he saw her dazzled eyes narrow to try to read what was in his face.
‘What are you doing here?’
“The same as you – taking the air. And if we are not to draw attention to ourselves, we had better do as the other visitors,’ she said, sliding one delicate hand under his arm, ‘and… promenade.’
He flinched at her touch – but, seeing Khassian glance around, reluctantly submitted. He hoped he had not been seen.
‘I wonder if you have read the latest issue of the Sulien Chronicle?’ She handed the paper to him. The front headline proclaimed:
THE DIVINE JORDELAYNE TAKES SULIEN BY STORM
No singer has received such a rapturous reception in Sulien since the days of the late, lamented Nightingale, Iridial Magelonne. The pure tone of the world-renowned castrato Cramoisy Jordelayne, the majestic command of the expressive art, all combined to make the recital at the Assembly Rooms an unforgettable evening.
But the item which provoked the most controversy was the first performance of an aria from the Illustre Amaru Khassian’s new opera Elesstar. Such passion! Such fervour! When, the Sulien audience are asking, may we expect to hear more from this remarkable young composer?
‘Well?’ said Acir, handing it back to her. ‘I understood you were here to take the waters. How can this possibly be of interest to you?’
‘It should be of interest to you.’
Irritated at her interference, he turned to pull away but Fiammis’s fingers suddenly tightened on his arm. ‘Look,’ she said softly.
A young woman was threading her way through the crowd towards Khassian, clutching a portfolio of papers. ‘The Magelonne girl,’ he murmured.
Behind her came Cramoisy Jordelayne in an outrageous perruque, long powdered kiss-curls adorned with little crimson bows. The Diva blew kisses to left and right as people in the gardens recognised him.
‘They’re coming this way,’ Fiammis pulled Acir aside from the gravel river-walk.
The musicians went along the gravel walk and passed beneath the arches of the bridge. Fiammis waited a few moments and then darted after them. Acir followed.
‘Where –?’ She gazed around her. The riverbank was deserted, there was no one in sight. ‘They can’t just have vanished!’
Beyond the bridge, the formal gardens with their neatly planted flowerbeds ended in another shady river-walk meandering away beneath the willows.
‘This looks like some kind of grotto.’ Acir pointed to the entrance to a mossy cave which had been skilfully carved out of the rocks to look like a ruined chapel.
‘What are you waiting for!’ Fiammis gathered her skirts in one hand and, gracefully ducking her head so as not to dislodge her hat, went inside.
The grotto was empty; its rough walls glistened with whorled patterns of shiny pebbles inlaid with shells from the far-distant sea. The muddy floor was damp, showing the prints of many feet.
‘There must be a secret way through here.’ Fiammis began to twist the shells, to press on the stones, but the sequence – if there was one – eluded her. Frustrated, she stamped her foot on the floor in vexation. ‘We’ve lost them.’
‘We?’ Acir said. ‘Why are you here, Fiammis? Why are you shadowing Amaru Khassian? Or are you shadowing me?’
‘Maybe I was bored… these spa cures are not very diverting. Then when I spotted an old acquaintance, maybe I was curious to see what he was doing.’
Her explanation did not convince him.
‘There’s a bench beneath that willow tree.’
She drew him out on to the bank and seated herself beneath the slender willow branches which formed a rustling canopy of tender green streamers.
‘And while we wait and watch,’ she said, re-arranging the folds of her gown – taffeta, pale as buttermilk, the underskirts striped, grey on cream – ‘we can pass the time agreeably enough in conversation.’
‘Conversation!’ Acir turned away from her, his eyes fixed on the grotto. ‘What is there to say?’
‘So… I am not forgiven?’
He said nothing. He knew what she was up to, recognised her wiles of old. He would not be tricked into revealing his feelings for her. Not this time.
‘I can tell from your silence that I am not.’
Was this the true purpose for her visit to Sulien? He felt doubly confused now. Was he hunter – or hunted?
‘Why didn’t you wait for me, Acir?’
‘I? Wait for you? ‘ He wished he had bitten his tongue. Too late now, the words were out. Besides, all the while he was angry with her, he could not listen to the deeper voice that whispered of more tender feelings, long repressed. ‘You were the one who couldn’t wait. You married the Conte. Because I, a nobody, a nothing, could not give you what you wanted. Money – lands – titles.’
‘The Conte was old.’
‘You shared his bed.’
‘It was a contractual obligation, that was all. If you’d waited –’
‘There’s no point in discussing this. It’s all in the past, all behind us now.’
Perhaps she did not hear what he was saying, for she carried on, ‘Instead of which you renounced the world on my wedding day and joined
the Commanderie.’
‘I had found my vocation.’
‘That was not what I heard.’ The little smile on her lips was provocative, openly challenging him.
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Fiammis.’
‘But what a perfect opportunity this is to renew our acquaintance.’ She had moved closer, close enough for him to become aware of the scent of her skin, a milky jasmine
‘We’re far from the Commanderie here, Acir. Who would know if we –’
He stood up and went to lean one arm against the coarse-grained trunk of the willow, staring at the river.
She followed him. He closed his eyes, willing himself not to be swayed by her soft voice.
‘I took a vow. For seven years I have kept that vow. I don’t intend to break it now.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course you don’t.’ Her words were silvered with laughter, light and inconsequential as the willow-shadowed sun flickering on the riverwater.
‘You’re certain we’ve lost him?’ Khassian glanced back into the darkness.
Orial was busy with the lanterns they had brought, nursing a tiny spark to flame between cupped hands.
‘The grotto door to the Undercity is only known to a few people. Jolaine Tradescar let me into the secret. I can assure you that Captain Korentan will be utterly confounded!’ She smiled to herself as she replaced the glass cylinder around the flame. ‘Besides – even if he were to follow us, I could easily lead him astray. He’d be days finding his way out again.’
‘What is this place?’ Valentan shifted uneasily from foot to foot.
‘The necropolis,’ Azare said, laughing in the darkness. ‘The city of the dead. The realm of shades and shadows.’
‘Must you, Azare?’ Cramoisy hissed, tapping him sharply with his quizzing stick.
Orial handed him a lantern.
‘Shall I lead the way?’
They followed her in silence along the descending passage until she found the pillared portal to the chamber she had chosen.
‘In here.’
Black-rimmed eyes stared at them, unblinking from the shadows.
‘Aiii! We’re being watched!’ Cramoisy let out a shriek which echoed around the dark hall.