by Andra Leigh
Acanthea hadn’t been in this room since she was seven, when her Mother had died. Before her death she had often had breakfast with her Mother in the room, snuggled under the piles of heavy blankets, laughing at the strangest things. The Reigner had never joined them, saying food had its place and it was not the bed. Either years had changed his mind or it had only ever been an excuse to avoid spending time with them, as he now sat in the very centre of the giant bed, pillows propped behind his back, breakfast in the shape of spiced loaf, fruit, honey porridge and an extensive assortment of jams packed around him.
His face snapped into a mask of anger at the intrusion, then proceeded to blister red when he discovered the cause of it was his only daughter.
“What’s the meaning of this?” his sharp tone insisted.
Acanthea didn’t know who the question had been to, her or the guards who now stood, completely nonplussed, at the cast open entrance. There had never been any need to refute her unannounced visits before as she had never had any unannounced visits until now. The guards were clearly completely untrained for the situation. Not that they wouldn’t jump to toss her out if he gave the signal. Therefore she wasn’t going to waste time.
“Where is my maid?” her voice clipped.
The Reigner lifted an eyebrow as he spread a thick layer of apricot jam across a slice of spiced loaf. “Well, that timid child behind you does appear to be dressed as such.”
Acanthea cut in, “Where is my real maid?”
His eyes flashed dangerously at her interruption, but she didn’t care.
“Are you suggesting this woman is not a real maid?” he drawled.
Acanthea found the comment strange. The Reigner wasn’t the type to play games. She tried again, “Where’s Miss…” She knew better than to call Cathrainra by her first name to the Reigner. He’d have his brainless guards cart her out of his room before she could get any answers. But she couldn’t remember Cathrainra’s last name. She clicked her fingers over her shoulder a few times.
“Eddwist,” answered a small voice behind her.
“Right, yes. Miss Eddwist,” Acanthea said. “Where is she?”
“Why would I possibly know that?” the Reigner snapped.
Acanthea narrowed her eyes. That was unlike him too. Not only would he never admit to having an absent spot in his knowledge, his normal behaviour to something so obviously below him would be to command her out of his sight with the strict order to complete twenty extra hours of lessons for the week.
No, something was wrong.
She decided to push her luck further. “Because you signed the transfer of duties over to this maid,” she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, “suggesting that you know where my real maid is and why she was not the one to wake me this morning.”
“I sign too many documents a day to remember a silly one such as that.”
Acanthea ground her teeth. Nothing good would come from launching herself at him and shaking him, but the thought was still tempting.
Polishing off the last of his spiced loaf, he moved onto the honey porridge. “Maid’s leave all the time. Obviously she has done so.” His hand waved dismissively at the cowering woman behind her. “And obviously she has been replaced.”
Acanthea was done with this.
Not bothering with a farewell, she spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, almost knocking over the maid, who wasn’t expecting the quick exit. She didn’t stop until she was four very long corridors away. Turning on the maid who was scuttling behind, she bore down on her.
“Go find out where my maid is,” she said. “Report back to me when you know.”
The maid shrunk before her. “Reigness?”
Clicking her tongue impatiently and wondering if the Reigner had chosen her a chronically petrified maid on purpose, she said, “I know how all you maids and guards talk. Everyone knows part of everything, so you go get all those parts. Go!”
“But… Reigness. I’m not fluent at, you know, gossip.” She whispered the last word like it was dirty.
“What a surprise.” Acanthea rolled her eyes. Of course she had to have the only maid not comfortable with sticking her nose in other people’s business. “Don’t consider this as gossiping,” she said sweetly, “but as your job, which you will be removed from if you do not do.”
That was enough to make the maid jump to a reluctant attention. Acanthea knew threatening her job would be enough to ensure she would do everything possible to find Cathrainra.
Acanthea returned to her room after that, half expecting to find Cathrainra waiting for her. But she was alone. She got dressed, making it to her first lesson of the day late when she struggled to lace the back of her dress up by herself. After a distracted Genealogy lesson she tapped her foot impatiently through an hour of Mathematics, then snapped at her dialect tutor in multiple vernaculars. She found a sense of calm in her Populism lesson that was focused on the small eastern town of Owaine – which she learnt had a bustling trade in meat with many of the cities. Then in Theory of Stratagems, she grew increasingly agitated at Cathrainra’s strange absence, killing everyone in the Southern City, Cyse, in a hypothetical wartime situation.
The jumpy maid sought her out at noon, shaking her head in small jerks. “Nothing, Gentle Reigness. No one seems to know anything.”
“Nothing!” Acanthea hissed, pulling the girl to the side of the corridor. “That’s not possible. Not a thing?”
“Well…” The maid hesitated.
“What?”
“There has been some talk…”
“Yes?” Acanthea pushed.
“N-not necessarily of Miss Eddwist, Reigness.”
“Then who.”
“There’s been no names.”
“So it could be Cathrainra,” Acanthea verified.
The maid hesitated again. “Yes, Reigness.”
“Well? What is it?”
Flinching, the girl whispered, “I overheard the cooks talking –”
“Not hard, they speak loudly,” Acanthea muttered.
“ – they were talking about an execution, a supposed execution, carried out in the early hours of the night. As in, between the end of the banquet and maids call at dawn. You know those things, some maids watch if given the chance. But there was no notice. No notice means no maids who can say it even happened for certain. If it did happen it was done secretly. No witnesses or official records. I can’t even tell you where the rumour of an execution came from.”
Cold panic swept through Acanthea. “Prisoners are executed all the time, sometimes without much warning,” she said, trying to keep her voice even.
The maid cast her eyes down. “Thing is, Madam – er – Reigness, according to Guardsman Vly down in the cells, there was no prisoner in the bars last night. None at all. Hadn’t been for a week or so.”
“Perhaps this person, if they existed, was brought in last night for a law that required no trial,” Acanthea argued weakly. Undocumented executions happened all the time, just not at the palace. Palace executions were done by the book. It would be a direct stain on the Reigner if an informal execution occurred under his roof and was discovered by the people he reigned over. They would call it a murder, even if the man or woman had lived a sinful life and deserved to be terminated.
But the maid didn’t point this out, simply saying, “Yes, Gentle Reigness.”
Acanthea thought about what she’d just been told, trying to focus on the positives. There was no real proof there had even been an execution. No one knew where the rumour had begun. Perhaps one of the banquet guests had gotten exceptionally drunk and had had to be tossed out, a story that ended up exaggerated as the palace servants got hold of it. And there was no reason why Cathrainra – bustling, brisk, red-cheeked Cathrainra – would be put to death, especially in the manner explained by the nervous maid.
Except…
She had been so strange the night before. So unlike herself. Speaking of things Acanthea had not cared to try to under
stand. And then there was the Reigner. He had been so odd this morning. Something had clearly been wrong. Was wrong. Something was wrong.
And Acanthea knew who to talk to next.
She dismissed the maid without further orders and, after filching a bottle of pale rum from the kitchens, went straight out to the palace grounds. Along with sweeping gardens, stables and leisure yards, some servant quarters were also dotted around the land. She made her way toward one such stone cottage that sat beyond the stable-hands’ lofts and sties. Smoke curled out of the chimney, despite the warmth of the day. Knocking on the door she heard a series of swear words, thuds and hacking coughs before it was wrenched open by a man clearly just roused from sleep. She knew she would be waking him, he was a man who did not adhere to the usual hours kept by people. She also knew he would be waking with a sickness from the drink he had used to fall asleep in the first place.
“Lysom,” she greeted.
“Eh, Gentle Reigness?” he sniffed.
He was a gnarled man that smelt like raw meat and sweat. She did not revel in having to be in his presence, but if there had been an execution last night, this man would know of it. This man may have very well performed it. He certainly would have disposed of the body.
“Did anyone think to check last night’s body for important items that had been given to them in order to have polished and returned to their owner?” she lied smoothly, watching Lysom’s unkempt face for telltale signs. “In case there is any question, I am that owner and I do not appreciate having my belongings unaccounted for just because you had to rush a job. Unless of course you’ve been padding your own pockets.”
He growled at the insinuation. “Haven’t stolen anything, eh. Not a thief.”
She was focused on what he hadn’t said. He hadn’t denied an execution.
“So you’ve just left it on the body? Wonderful, you simpleton,” she snapped. “Looks like you will be burying the same body twice. Unless you’ve burnt the darn thing, in which case you better hope there was no damage inflicted on my belongings.”
“There’ll be no damage,” the man ensured her with a hacking cough.
That was all the information she needed. It was also all the information she would be getting. Lysom wasn’t known for being particularly loquacious.
“That’s lucky for you,” Acanthea sneered as she held the sloshing bottle of rum out to him. “Drink up and get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
He took the rum without hesitation, giving her a grim nod before closing his door.
He may not be a loose-lipped man, but he had his vices. And those vices took priority. He would drink himself to sleep before acting on any thought that he should notify the Reigner about her questions. By which point, she would know who had been buried.
As well as executions and body disposal, Lysom also tended to the gardens, so it didn’t take her long to locate a spade. Hefting the awkward instrument into her arms, she tottered away from the cottage, its chimney still smoking.
Executioners Valley was the name given to the low stretch of land lying to the far north-western edge of the palace grounds. A Soet-jē overlooked the grounds. It was a round stone building, peaking up into a spire with a large bell suspended within the open chamber near the top. The ancient iron bell had been forged in spells, back when humans had worked magic without being called Witches. Its purpose was to call to the magical essence left behind within bodies of Bloods or those that had been born of a lineage. It was said that when the bell tolled by itself it was sensing magic with no life to attach to. It would attract the magic with the spelled chiming, trapping it within the Soet-jē walls, never to be released, as a Soet-jē had no doors. They were a prison for all the immortal essences which people believed death could not destroy. The last Soet-jē to be built had been fourteen years after the end of the War. The one in Executioners Valley was far older than that. During the age where Bloods and humans lived alongside one another and then later as each moved to kill the other, all graveyards had had a Soet-jē. Nowadays, they weren’t considered such a necessity. However, given the lore surrounding them, the surviving ones would always be held in the highest level of respect and fear.
The land where Acanthea stood had once been a vast graveyard, but the stones scripting the life of the bodies below had since been demolished, and the burials had started again. This time, unmarked and upon the remains of the previously honoured.
If the people before the War had known how the graveyard would be reused, Acanthea wondered, would they have built a larger Soet-jē?
Although all the graves were unmarked she could see which ones had been made recently. There hadn’t been an announced burial for a few weeks, so only one grave was completely absent of new grass shoots, showing only dark, freshly turned soil.
She picked her way over to it carefully and dropped the spade at its edge, only to pick it back up immediately, plunging it into the broken ground.
She’d never dug a hole before and it soon became clear she should have started out with one that didn’t require reaching a destination. Her hands were cramping, the skin rubbing raw against the handle. Her arms screamed with each pathetic shovel she attempted. She could somehow taste dirt, despite having no recollection of getting any in her mouth.
But she kept going.
Every time she had seen a grave dug or watched a body be lowered into one they had been a perfect rectangle. Hers was not a perfect rectangle. In fact it didn’t seem to resemble any shape at all. Something which frustrated her. She found herself subconsciously attempting to straighten the sides out a few times, reprimanding herself when she realised the ridiculousness of the action. She worked for hours, making the hole deeper.
She saw the ruffles first. They hadn’t even bothered to dispose of her uniform. But that wasn’t enough for Acanthea. She wished it was. That seeing the colours and patterns of the uniform was enough evidence for her. But it wasn’t. Falling to her knees she pushed the spade aside and started moving the dirt with her hands. Too soon she had Cathrainra’s face uncovered. Acanthea wanted to be able to tell herself that she looked like she could be sleeping. That she seemed at peace. But not even Acanthea was that good of a liar. Dirt caked Cathrainra’s mouth and nose. It clumped around her glassy eyes. The effect was both dehumanising and frighteningly real.
Suddenly the reality of the situation slammed into her. She had just dug up Cathrainra’s grave. Cathrainra’s body.
Kneeling beside her, she did something she hadn’t found cause to do in many, many years.
She cried.
After the death of her Mother, Cathrainra had taken Acanthea under her wing the best she could – overstepping the boundaries of her job to do so. And no one had stopped her. Not the other maids, the wealthy families who watched her grow up and definitely not the Reigner.
Acanthea had often wondered if the Reigner even had a clue about how much Cathrainra had participated in the raising of his daughter.
She doubted it.
And now he had taken the last parent she had from her.
A parent who had given her so much. Which she had taken without thought of giving anything in return.
Although no one had necessarily stepped in to put Cathrainra in her place, it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Acanthea that her maid’s relationships with the other palace staff had been tense, perhaps even hostile. Clearly she hadn’t endeared herself to many when she had chosen to care for Acanthea.
And Acanthea had never once tried to put a stop to the attitude.
She had never even bothered to ask why she did what she did. She hadn’t cared to. After all, their whole relationship had been based on Acanthea. Why should a Reigness know that much detail of her maids life?
And now the Reigner had had her murdered. Because there was no doubt in her mind that he had been behind this. But why?
What had Cathrainra said at the banquet? A boy. She’d had a boy. And Acanthea had never known. He’d been taken. Or killed, was
it? Because of the Reigner. Or by the Reigner.
And something about blood.
It’s in the blood. That’s what she had said. That it was still in the blood.
Still.
It naturally made Acanthea think of the Bloods. After all, that had been how they had received their name. From the magic contained in their blood. But that had been centuries ago and no Bloods had been captured or seen in almost as long. Sure, the Extinction Law was still in effect, but that was done so the people of Rylock believed that there was both a threat out there and that the Reigner was taking care of it. All sentences carried out under the law had very little basis in truth. More often than not it was an unfounded rumour that brought the accused before Lysom’s hand.
Was that what had happened here? Acanthea couldn’t imagine Cathrainra being involved in anything that would have her punished under the Extinction Law.
The only thing she could imagine her maid being accused of was speaking out of turn. Last she checked, being killed in the middle of the night and secretly buried wasn’t a fitting punishment to that crime.
Acanthea stared down at her maid’s body, desperate for her to wake and tell her why. Why she was here. Why she was dead. What the Reigner had to do with her death. And this time Acanthea would listen. She would hear all the words, understand everything that was going on.
Cathrainra had been the one person who had been there when Acanthea had woken crying as a child. She had washed her face, gotten her back to bed and sung her to sleep. Then as Acanthea had grown up, Cathrainra had picked her up after each Dusting and washed her face, singing that same song to her.
Cathrainra had been the only person to ever love Acanthea enough to raise her after the Lady Reigness’ death. And only now did she realise she had never cared enough for Cathrainra in return.
What did that make her? Surely nothing less than a monster.
After managing the gruelling task of covering Cathrainra’s body with dirt once more, Acanthea returned to the palace, her mind made up.