‘Meaning?’ I ask through my fingers, but I think of Ellingham’s comments about Bethany Lawrence, about the changes in Aidan when he began having truck with her.
‘Meaning bigger fish eat little fish.’ He pulls up the chair from beneath the window and sits with a sigh, as if he’s a housewife who’s had a trying day tramping around the markets. He gestures I should do the same, and I perch on the edge of the bed.
‘How did you track me? From Breakwater?’ If he’ll tell me I might learn something to avoid in future; oh, there’s no doubt I’ll run again.
He cocks an eyebrow and grins. ‘Afraid Mr Fitzpatrick might learn who helped you?’
‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘My friends don’t deserve hurt for rendering aid.’
He waves a hand. ‘Never fear. I don’t reveal my sources, no point in giving away the tricks of the trade. That’s not what clients pay me for anyway. Your Mr Ellingham and his people are safe... and Miss Brigid.’
‘Gods, please don’t tell him about Brigid.’ Somehow I’m not sure she’d survive. My, Miren O’Malley, I think, how your heart has turned.
‘On my honour. But I would point out that more than one person saw you and she that night, wandering Breakwater’s inky streets.’
I try to breathe evenly. If the assassin brings me back, there will be no reason for Aidan to find out. Of course, he will ask questions, he will want to know who my allies were so I can be stripped of them. How much can I withstand before I beg him to stop hurting me? Another thought hits.
‘What about...’
‘The old people at the Hallow?’ His expression grows grave. ‘Ah, now that’s another story.’ Suddenly he seems hesitant to talk. ‘They chose their own end, Miss O’Malley. That should give you some comfort, although I’m not sure how much.’
‘What…’ I swallow but there’s not enough saliva left in my mouth, my entire body. An entire lake couldn’t water my parched throat at this moment.
‘They took poison. The maids found them the morning after your departure, I’m told.’
‘No…’ I think of Aidan, that he somehow orchestrated matters, but the green-eyed man must see this in my expression.
‘Mr Fitzpatrick told me about them when he sent me after you. He was quite enraged he didn’t get the chance to interrogate them for your whereabouts. I’m a good judge of men, Miss O’Malley, I know when one’s lying. Your cousin’s fury was his truth.’
I think of Maura and those potions she kept in the pantry, the tinctures and tisanes we brewed together. The lessons she taught me, planting and picking the kitchen garden, harvesting the other things that grew best wild along the sea brim, or just below the surface of waters salty or fresh. I think about the herbs that could burn the cold from you, relieve a headache, make you sleep for weeks, give you dreams for joy, or ensure all your days were those of forgetting. I think of Maura making her own choice about how she departed Hob’s Hallow, and that she’d have let no one take that from her. I think of Malachi who’d never have gone, not when his wife and babe were buried there, not when he’d lived more of his life there than anywhere else. And he’d have not left his sister, as much as they grumped and grumbled at each other, much as they annoyed one another. He’d not have deserted her anymore than she would him. One last drink together, one final winter-lemon whiskey to chase away the chill, and then to slumber forever.
‘For what it’s worth from one such as I, I am sorry.’ The green-eyed man breaks into my thoughts. ‘And now, Miss O’Malley. I feel strongly that we should depart before daybreak. The sunlight gives too much power to witnesses and who knows what you might do if you think you can enlist the sympathies of some bold passerby?’ He gestures to the coil of rope on the floor by his chair; I’d missed that. ‘Do I need to restrain you? Or will you be biddable?’
‘I shall be biddable.’ I wonder if he’s as stupid as Aidan was, taking my apparent defeat to be true. ‘What choice do I have?’
He gestures to the bed on which I sit, smirks. ‘Well, we might pass the night here, with the room already paid for. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, the last time, was it?’ There’s a tiny hint of need in his query; he seems to jest, but in his tone there is a limning of uncertainty.
‘Not entirely, no.’ I blush and smile. I laugh. ‘And to cuckold Aidan once again has its own appeal.’
‘I saw you, you know,’ he says it almost hesitantly.
‘Where?’
‘In Breakwater when you wandered through the assassins market, wide-eyed, taking it all in, all the potential for the deaths of others. You looked... luminous.’
I want to deny it, but there was a certain fascination in what I observed that night.
‘I watched you a while, followed a little, then you left and I had an assignation to keep.’ He smiles. ‘Imagine how I felt to see you again at Mr Fitzpatrick’s townhouse, to go with you to Hob’s Hallow...’
To find you wet and willing and whorish, I think. I slide the coat from my shoulders, then unbutton my shirt until I can slip that off too.
He rises, comes to me.
Why do they all think me harmless?
He might be a good judge of men, but he’s an appalling one of women. He knows about my purchased knives, yes, but not about Óisín’s pearl-handled knife, hid deep within my pockets, and it’s an awful surprise to him that I slip it across his throat as he’s kissing me. He makes a terrible noise; I swiftly wrap my shirt around his neck to keep the blood from spurting too much, but not enough to staunch the flow and accidentally save him. I watch the crimson soaking into the white fabric, wonder if all that red might fill the hole inside of me where Maura and Malachi used to be… the knowledge of what they did to keep me safe… a gift, a weight, a grief I’ll never be able to repay, shift or forget.
His eyes are wide and so very green. And angry and afraid and bewildered. The prince of assassins felled so low by a woman and a tiny knife.
‘Life,’ I tell him as I sit on the bed to watch him die, ‘is full of surprises.’
* * *
As I’m going through his pockets I realise I didn’t ever know his name, but it causes me no great sadness. He served a purpose. He did me an ill turn and a good one. He is gone. There’s a full coin purse – I take two-thirds of the contents – and a golden necklace, which I do not. Coins cannot be claimed by anyone but a unique piece of jewellery? Might as well give yourself up to the local constable or armsman.
When I’m done, I drag him to the window – he’s heavy, but I’m an O’Malley, we’re tall and strong, and I’ve spent my life doing physical work around Hob’s Hallow when we couldn’t afford the hired help. I haul him up and, carefully checking that the muddy alley is empty, tip him over the sill, pushing him away from the building so he doesn’t leave any bloodstains on the walls to suggest where he came from. I make sure the sill itself is clean, and wipe the wooden floor with a towel – easy enough to explain away as my monthly courses. Then I sit for a moment. I could stay here. I could stay for the night, wake and eat and leave at my leisure. But if someone finds the green-eyed man, decides to question the inhabitants of the inn? But if I leave now and someone decides to ask at the inn what guests were here and where are they now? Who departed precipitously? Well, that would look suspicious.
I run a bath once again, and bathe to ensure there’s not a trace on me of the dead man. I hide my bloodied clothing at the bottom of my duffel bag – it’ll be too hard to rinse here without lye – and check for spatters the clean outfit the housemaid returned to me.
Stay or go? Go or stay? I waver a while longer.
I think of the times Aoife instructed me in how to lie, how to brazen things out. How to appear innocent when I’m guilty. How I got good enough to deceive even her. Keep your lies closest to the truth; do not shout your innocence, only look wounded that anyone should question it; throw suspicion on someone else in an offhanded manner so as not to appear too eager to turn eyes elsewhere.
Mentally, I flip a coin.
; I’ll stay.
I’ll stay until dawn. I offer prayers, again to any who’ll listen, that I be allowed to continue on my way. This, after all, was not murder but justice. The green-eyed man had Aoife’s blood on his hands; he strangled her, did not even give her the gentle grace of a sharp swift knife or the kindness of poison.
I’ve done what I should.
I repack everything the assassin had spread out on the quilt, then I crawl into bed, and weep at the thought of Malachi and Maura cold and lifeless in the earth of Hob’s Hallow.
22
I don’t sleep, or at least not for long – in spurts perhaps, like blood from a throat –
before waking hollow-eyed and hearted. The four who raised me are gone, all gone. The hole that opened inside my body last night feels no smaller. The murder – no, the retribution – gave me no pleasure (but perhaps some satisfaction), had to be done. Revenge, self-preservation, justice. A little of each. Yet it hasn’t touched the sides of the abyss, not even as it tumbled down into the well of me, not even an echo as it fell.
Yet the body still demands to be fed and to deprive it would be foolish. I eat an early breakfast in the common dining room of the inn because I can’t quite bear to remain in my room any longer; warm buttered porridge, toast, and hot coffee flavoured with vanilla and cinnamon. The inn-mistress, Beck, organises the restocking of my provisions for a few extra silver bits. She tells me, too, as she pours more coffee, of the mysterious body in the alleyway beside the inn. I widen my eyes and ask questions she cannot know the answer to, as if I’m equally ignorant.
‘Man or woman?’ I ask, thinking Aoife would be proud of the quick-witted lie.
‘Man. Handsome too, before he had his throat cut.’ She straightens, put her free hand on a hip like she’s settling in for a good chat.
‘Who was he?’
‘No one knows. He wasn’t a guest here and thus far no one’s admitted to either meeting him or renting a room. It seems he just appeared where he died –
as if by magic.’ She laughs cynically.
‘No witches around here, surely?’ I say and we exchange a glance. Witches everywhere, she answers without words, but let’s keep them secret and unburned.
‘His throat slit!’ I say. ‘Was it robbery?’
‘No, for his gold jewellery was intact, and there remained some coin in his purse. Which is not to say,’ she confides, ‘that there aren’t criminal elements in Lelant’s Bridge, but to kill a man and not steal his valuables? Well, that seems more personal than anything.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘And that suggests that at least one person in town knew him. Unless…’
She waits for me to speak, the excitement of such a crime is clearly a bright spot in her day; rumour and gossip can have that effect.
‘…unless there’s a madman about. Who knows what might happen?’
She puts a hand to her chest, shudders. ‘Gods forfend!’
‘How terrible to meet one’s end in such a fashion,’ I reflect, ‘unknown by those who find you, and perhaps leaving behind others who will never know your fate.’
The landlady nods and pats my shoulder. A group of guests clomp down the stairs and enter the dining room and, after confirming I’m almost done, she turns her attention to them.
I finish my breakfast in peace. No one troubles me, although the party of six men do throw me glances. I’m clearly a lady for all I’m dressed in trousers, with my hair pinned up primly. When I woke I carefully studied the map Ben brought with him and memorised the turns and twists of it, while I thought about the old silversmith insisting that no one was meant to know about Blackwater. That might explain the lack of road signs, of notations on other maps, of a place in people’s memories. Of Isolde not giving her father an address to write back to. An entire estate kept secret…
This morning I’ll cross the bridge on the kelpie-horse and head into the unfamiliar. Well, in all honesty I’ve been doing that for weeks now, but I have a certainty from hereon in, that I am advancing towards something old and new: my parents.
Unremembered, thought dead for so long. Isolde and Liam Elliott. Mother and Father. Yet all I can think of is my mother. In truth, I’ve always wondered about her, but my father was simply… an irrelevance? Does Isolde look like me? I look like Aoife, I look like all the proper O’Malleys… but what does my father look like? Is there anything of him in my face? “Pretty boy,” Maura had said, but that tells me nothing. Were his eyes blue or brown, yellow or grey? Or perhaps a light green that seemed to see inside you?
They left me behind.
I can’t help but recall that. Left me like an extra coin, something they didn’t want. Left me behind like a limb chewed off in a trap.
Will they welcome me? Will they like me? Will Isolde love me?
* * *
The bridge is wooden and its planks make a hollow sound under my mount’s hooves. I feel it echo in my chest. Looking over the rails I scan the river below; it rushes down the weir frothing and fast. I see no sign of heads or tails, neither mer, rusalky, nor morgens or nixies – only the kelpie-horse beneath me – just the liquid untroubled by anything more spiteful than fish. Perhaps I’ve gone beyond them. Perhaps the mer won’t or can’t go into water so fresh, with no salt in its makeup. Perhaps they grow sickly and weak when deprived of that chemical. Or perhaps they’ve simply given up on me.
So, northward I continue. For how many days? Who knows, the map has no scale. But there’s that tree to look for, the strange tree with a face in its trunk so neatly drawn by the silversmith.
One tree in a forest, I think.
What, though, if all this is wrong? What if it’s all a lie? What if the silversmith was simply mad and I’m following a road laid out by demented fantasies? Where to go then? Where to hide? Will Aidan send someone else after me? Will he assume his assassin could not find me? Chose to flee with me? Was killed by me? Who knows? I cannot write to Brigid and ask. I cannot know if Brigid will be handed her own letters or if Yri or Ciara or whoever will give them to Aidan first.
The sound of my passage changes as the beastie’s hooves leave the bridge, touch the packed earth of the road. The rhythm remains, but dulled, now a thudding, deadened, and the echoes in my chest cease. A calm settles over me.
Blackwater. Blackwater is my destination, at least at first. Answers await me there. My parents. Secrets. Secrets that are mine, not second-hand ones I’ve stumbled upon and stolen. I touch the silver ship’s bell at my throat; the raised scar on my hip tingles as if it’s burning. Then the sensation is gone.
Forwards, then; it is the only way.
* * *
The road rises steadily day by day, and the temperatures drop at night, although the days remain warm. The forest gets thicker the higher we go, the branches meeting above the road to create a canopy. Occasionally a squirrel or fox will dart across our path and the kelpie-horse eyes it speculatively. I’ve asked more than once if he wants to return to his proper shape and go hunting for things more meaty than grassy, but he’s shaken his head. I suspect he’s of the mindset that he might as well continue with this unpleasantness until we reach my goal, rather than flipping in and out of different forms.
On the morning of the fourth day I wake, shivering, to find the fire’s gone out too soon, and the kelpie-horse giving me a reproachful glance; clearly he’s regretting his bargain. He hasn’t moved from the spot he was in last night beneath the tree. I eat in the saddle, aiming us at the road, which is growing narrower and less well-tended, the undergrowth twines and weaves together, fallen logs are covered in a green carpet of moss, and there are bright red and purple berries I know well enough not to eat grow thickly.
The further we go on and the more neglected the thoroughfare becomes, the more I become convinced that very few take this trail. There cannot be carts going to and from Blackwater bring supplies in and taking silver away, at least not this way. Perhaps they do not ship to the places I’ve come from; perhaps they send it
elsewhere.
Only then does it occur to me that I do not know what comes after Blackwater. The map is a simple thing, with no sign of what lies on the far boundary of the estate, the northernmost. What is there? What roads lead down the other side of this mountain range?
Perhaps, a voice in my head says, Blackwater does not truly exist.
I’ve also seen no one else for four days, and unlike the earlier part of my trip, it wasn’t because I’d been avoiding people. There just haven’t been any other travellers. This road, I must accept, is the one less travelled by. There’s been no sign of a hedge boundary, nor sign of that tree with face in its bole. I’ve been carefully looking for that.
My nerves, which have held so well until now – burying Óisín and Aoife, escaping Aidan, the deaths of Maura and Malachi, murdering a man – now begin to sing. No, more like harp strings being plucked by cruelly subtle fingers. It is only now that my goal is so close – or is it? – a new life, so many answers to so many questions, that I suppose I have relaxed enough for the fears and yearnings to break out of the box I put them in. Around me there are no sounds, not even the trills of birds or the calls of badgers and foxes to their mates and young. There is no ocean here and, risk of mer notwithstanding, I do miss it terribly. I miss the daily salt breath of it, the crash and roll that was a constant my whole life – it doesn’t matter that I learned to fear it, hated to swim in it. I have been so consumed with flight that this missing, this absence, has been suppressed. But the kelpie’s naming of me as “salt daughter”. The assassin’s tales reminding me of what I left behind at Hob’s Hallow: my grandparents in their cold tomb, and Maura and Malachi too. All these things crash in on me now like a wave, an entire storm.
To distract myself, to make some noise, I dredge up a tale from memory and begin to tell it aloud. The kelpie-horse’s ears prick up at the sound of my voice.
A long time ago, the old people say, there lived a mari-morgan, in a lake that was not too big and not too small … indeed, some argued it was neither big enough to be one, nor small enough to be the other. And yet it was just right for the mari-morgan who suffered not much more than boredom in her long life.
All the Murmuring Bones Page 18