Broken Earth

by C M Blackwood

  “Well,” she said, rising from the table and motioning for her companion to do the same; “I suppose that that’s the last bit of it. I promised your men that I would respect your decree, after you had heard all that there was to hear – and I am not one to break my word. So I thank you for your time, and wish you nothing but the best.”

  She took her eyes from Lila’s face, and strode from the room with whatever pride she could muster, through the obvious brokenness of her spirit.

  Lila knew that she should have let her leave. She should have kept her seat at the table, and waited for the women to be shown out. She should have said nothing at

  all – but as is usually the case with things that we should not do, she did in fact do the thing that she had told herself not to do. She rose from the table, cleared her throat and said: “Wait.”

  The dark-haired woman bumped into her friend, as the latter whirled about in a blink. The seams of her face seemed bursting with hope – the same hope that shone suddenly in her eyes, sparkling against a backdrop of liquid silver.

  “Perhaps I was too hasty,” said Lila. “Watching you leave, I realised that my recent string of poor luck had caused me to abandon the principles which I have always taken pride in. The truth of the matter, is that I am still terribly busy; but I will do my absolute best to complete my duties in a timely fashion, and to listen in much greater detail to your story.”

  “Thank you,” said Heidi Bastian. She watched Lila, as if she were some kind of missing piece to the puzzle that kept falling apart; and Lila was rather discomfited to realise, that the effect was not an altogether unpleasant one.

  “Do not thank me yet,” said Lila. “Only allow me, for now, to offer you something to eat. After that you shall have a place to bathe, and a place to sleep.”

  She rang for the maid named Rilga, and deposited the two women into her care.

  XVII: Restless Hours

  Heidi slept for a short while, but woke to the pitch darkness of night, and the sound of silence. In recent nights, she had grown used to the steady sound of Dera’s breathing, somewhere to the left or the right of her. Its absence started up in her a great loneliness, which spread slowly through that great, empty chamber.

  The drapes at each of the windows were drawn, and the darkness of the room was complete. She closed her eyes against it, searching for a light somewhere inside.

  She started, when she felt someone touch her face. She looked with closed eyes, towards the hand that lay upon her cheek; and saw Jade’s face through the thickness of the night. She reached out – but just when her hand came to fall upon Jade’s, the image shimmered away. There were no more green eyes; no more shining of imagined moonlight upon long red hair.

  “This is more than I can bear,” she whispered, raising her hands to cover her closed eyelids. There could not be enough to stand betwixt her and the darkness.

  After a time of agonising stillness and silence, she rolled out of the wide bed, and went to the door of the chamber. She opened it just a bit. so that she might peer out into the hallway.

  The hall was empty, of course. At that late hour, which but the most troubled of minds would choose to wander about, in spite of the peace that awaited them in their beds? None, it seemed.

  Heidi stepped out into the hall, pulling the door to the chamber shut behind her. She crept slowly across the stone, debating for a moment knocking on the door to Dera’s chamber. Yet she knew that Dera would indeed have nothing more comforting to offer, than perhaps a few choice curses, aimed towards reciprocation for being awoken in the dead of night.

  At the West end of the hall, there was a tall window that let in a wide beam of moonlight. The entire corridor was filled with that shining, silver light, what sparkled against the stone walls. Every great door was illuminated; but all were closed (and as it seemed in most cases, due to a few trial attempts, locked) to her admittance. In what hiding place would she be welcome in that great castle? Surely there were enough places to hide – but where could she go, where she would not be ashamed to be found? In no private place, that was for certain. For a private place, in a place that is not yours, is a place you must not enter. It is a general rule, though, that hiding places must be private places; and so Heidi was not quite sure how to navigate around that rule, in order to find a place where she could escape from the lonely darkness. It seemed wisest, then, just to leave the suffocation of the walls altogether.

  After she and Dera left the Princess that afternoon, Heidi went to accompany the stableboy, who had been bid to deposit their horses in their temporary keeping places. The low, long barn had been cool – not cold – and spacious. So Heidi resolved to go back to that place, where she could find at least the small comfort of Eriah’s presence.

  Between finding her way out of the castle (which should not have been so difficult, what with the attention she had paid to the twists and turns they made, as Rilga led them up and up the stairs earlier that day) and crossing the wide, white lawns that stretched out to the stables, the sun had already begun to make an appearance in the grey Eastern sky, by the time she reached the stall where Eriah was housed. She stopped first, of course, to pat Dillyn and Buck; but then went on to Eriah, who stood erect behind the low swinging door of his stall, seemingly in expectation of her arrival.

  “There you are, my boy,” said Heidi. She went into the stall, and sat down in the hay beside Eriah, stroking his head when he brought it down near her face. She leaned back against the wall, feeling much freer in the air that moved through the stables, than she had in the fastness of the castle. The night was less quiet there, filled with the sound of the slow wind in the bare trees.

  Heidi was very near asleep, when Eriah started from his restfulness. He moved his head up and down, and stamped his hooves. He snorted once, twice.

  There was someone else near.

  Heidi rose slowly from the floor, grabbing onto the door of the stall for support. She kept herself slouched down a bit, and peered over the top of the door, to look out into the wide aisle between the two rows of stalls. At first she saw nothing; but quite suddenly she heard someone say, “Who is standing behind that door?”

  Instead of answering, or even raising her head up, she ducked quickly down behind the door.

  “I already saw you,” said the voice. “You might as well come out.”

  Heidi felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and was reluctant to step out into the aisle in such a fashion. She could see nothing to do, though, but open the door.

  “Miss Bastian?”

  “Oh, my,” said Heidi. Any of the red stuff that remained in her veins went, then, to her face; and she felt, for a moment, a little faint.

  “What in the world were you doing?” asked Lila Bier.

  Heidi pointed wordlessly to Eriah’s stall.

  “What?”

  “My horse,” she said softly, feeling very small under the scrutinising gaze of the Princess.

  “That’s your horse in there?”

  Heidi nodded.

  “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”

  Heidi shrugged.

  The Princess turned about, and walked a short way down the aisle. Heidi thought, with some relief, that she had already been forgotten; but she had not.

  “I come here often,” said the Princess. “Especially at night. Sonya is the only one who will listen to me, you see, without telling me everything that I seem to be doing wrong.” She paused. “Some people might argue that it is due to her lack of ability to speak in the first place – but I like to think that she is just a good listener.”

  When Heidi failed to respond, the Princess looked back at her and asked, “What is the name of your horse?”

  “Eriah.”

  “Does it mean anything?”

  Without meaning to (indeed intending to simply say no), Heidi answered:

  “It was my brother’s name.”

  She had never told anyone about her brother. She had told Jade, once, about her sist
er; and on another occasion (or perhaps the same one) had mentioned her mother; but never a word, not a single word, about Eriah.

  “Was?” said the Princess.

  Heidi shook her head, attempting to indicate that she wanted not to say any more. But it seemed that the Princess either did not see, or did not heed the motion.

  “What happened to him?”

  “An accident,” said Heidi, very quietly; for her voice came as nothing more than a voice surely can, when it bespeaks of lies.

  The Princess nodded, and said no more about it. She stood before her horse’s stall for many minutes, leaning against the door, and running her hand repeatedly down the horse’s neck.

  Heidi only stood there, quite as is she had been struck stupid. She wanted to leave the stable, and escape the attention of the Princess; but she was not sure if that would be deemed rude. Yet eventually the Princess turned towards her again, and asked, “Are you quite all right?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Heidi, nodding as she began to walk quickly from the stable. “Quite.”

  ~

  The remainder of the early hours passed quickly enough for Heidi, what with so much of her own strange behaviour to analyse.

  The last time she spoke the name of Eriah, and had not been referring to a horse, had been nine years ago – come February. It was the day her sister left home for the last time. That had been a terrible day, filled with screaming and tears, violence and horrible memories.

  Heidi could still hear Helena’s voice, raised in anger and despair over the shrill cries of their mother.

  “What can you be thinking?” she had shouted, shaking Heidi by the shoulders. “There is nothing here for us. Come with me now, and we can forget all this!”

  Heidi had pulled sharply away from her.

  “I cannot forget!” she cried. “The very fact that you can – oh, it makes you someone other than the sister I have loved!”

  “And you bear no shame?” asked Helena quietly. “It is not as though you did anything to help him.”

  Heidi slapped her across the face, then. “I knew not what was happening!” she hollered. “I did not know!”

  “Spare me,” said Helena. “You must have heard him screaming! He was only there across the yard!”

  “He did not scream. Don’t you think I would have come, if I had heard him scream?”

  “I don’t know, Heidi. You tell me.”

  “Stop it, both of you!” said their mother, coming forward to put a beseeching hand to their faces.

  “And you!” said Helena, shaking her finger accusingly in their mother’s face. “This is all your fault. You knew who he was – and you let him into our house!”

  Their mother covered her face with her hands. “Oh, please stop it,” she begged. “It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t mean –”

  “He didn’t mean it, Mother? It does not matter what he meant! Eriah is dead – because of him. Because of you!”

  Their mother had burst into tears, then, and run back into the house. Her husband came out a few moments later; surveyed the scene below the steps, and shook his head.

  “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” he said. “Upsetting your poor mother, after all she’s been through.”

  “I can’t look at him, Heidi,” said Helena, walking about in quick, wide circles. “I’ll kill him, I swear I will!”

  “Kill your own father?” asked Nirin, coming towards her down the steps. “Who ever heard of such a thing?”

  “You are not our father!” Helena screamed. “You murdered our father. And you murdered our brother, you ruthless –”

  Nirin crossed the small space that separated them, and took his fist to her face, in the way that a man should only ever do to another man. Heidi pulled her away from him, trying to support her as she sank down to the ground. He aimed a kick at her stomach, laughing to himself.

  “Stop it, Nirin!” Heidi cried, trying to shield Helena with her own body.

  “Mind your own affairs!” said Nirin. He pulled Heidi to her feet, and threw her against the house.

  Heidi slid down the rough wood, and slipped into the mud of the dead flowerbeds. She put a hand to the back of her head, and took it away to find it covered with slick blood.

  “Heidi!” said Helena, crawling over to the place where she sat stunned. She took her head in her hands, and inspected its wound with overflowing eyes. “Oh, Heidi, please come with me.” She leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “I can’t make it without you.”

  “I can’t,” Heidi gasped, holding her head as she fell against Helena. “I can’t leave Mother.”

  “She chose this!” said Helena, cradling Heidi’s head against her shoulder. Blood quickly ran down, to stain her dress from blue to red; but she held on anyway, rocking back and forth in desperation. “She chose him, and we should not have to pay for it! We should not have to pay, Heidi – not anymore. Eriah is gone, and there is nothing to keep us here. Come with me now, come with me –”

  She helped Heidi from the mud; and they started down the drive together.

  “No,” said Heidi, halting her step. “She doesn’t understand what’s happened, she doesn’t –”

  “She is a grown woman! If she does not understand by now, she never will. She is your mother, Heidi – not your child. She could leave, if she wanted to! But she wants him.”

  “No,” Heidi repeated, resisting as Helena tugged upon her arm. “I cannot leave her.”

  “Then I cannot help you.”

  Helena let go of Heidi – and in the haze of pain that still echoed through her head, she fell back down to the ground, reaching for her sister as she hurried down to the road.

  XVIII: Discussion of Known Troubles

  At eleven o’clock that morning, the Princess called Heidi and Dera to the Rally Room. A servant named Gero led them there from their chambers.

  The Rally Room was much different than the grand, mirrored hall on the first floor. It was smaller, cosier, and had a round table. When Heidi stepped into the room, she saw the Princess sitting on the right side of the table, beneath an enormous oil painting of what could only have been her family. Heidi recognised the Princess in the face of the young girl.

  “Please sit down,” said the Princess, gesturing for Heidi and Dera to take the two seats nearest her. “There is still a great deal to talk about, and though I only have a bit of time, I suppose that now is as good a moment as any to get started.”

  Neither Heidi nor Dera moved to speak. Surely one of them would have begun somewhere, if they had been certain of what it was that the Princess wished to hear.

  “Tell me first,” said the Princess, “of how you came to have anything at all to do with Dain Aerca. It seems a sensible place to start.”

  Heidi and Dera looked at each other, asking with a glance who should begin that part of the story. Dera nodded to Heidi; and Heidi sighed.

  “It was two years ago,” she said. “When I think now of how easily it could have all been avoided, I feel almost angry. Not with Jade, but with the way that things could be – if only that day had played out a little differently.”

  “Who is Jade?” asked the Princess.

  “Our friend,” said Heidi, “whom I told you of yesterday. Now, on that day which I mentioned, she was riding home alone. She was on a deserted road, when she came across two of the Dúnanen, who were taunting a boy and his younger sister. It seemed that they meant to kill them. Of course, Jade had no idea at the time what they were – and so she intervened. She drew her sword against them, but they held tightly to the children. She became terribly angry (as is rather her wont to do), and so used her Power without thinking – to separate them from the boy and the girl. At that, they gave up the fight in an instant, and excused themselves with their apologies. Jade had no way of knowing – but of course they must have gone to their mistress, and informed her of what had happened.” She took a breath, and a moment to quell the shaking of her knees beneath the table. “And that was when it sta
rted. The following week, all of us came home saying, that we had seen people watching us – in the market, or on the road. Jade put a spell of protection round the house, so that they might not see where we lived. It took them two years to break it.”

  She had been speaking with such abandon, she knew that it must be nearly time to stop. There were things she had omitted; things she had thought best to keep to herself. Whether or not it was enough, though, she did not stop to think.

  The Princess was sitting in silence, looking at Heidi rather incredulously. Heidi only stared back, not entirely sure of what she had said. The words had come quickly; and she had not quite heard them as they came. She was, therefore, left with the knowledge that she had spoken – but not of what she had spoken.

  Dera was only shaking her head (which, of course, gave Heidi the notion that she had said something which she should not have).

  “Your friend is an Auren?” asked the Princess.

  “Very subtle, Heidi,” whispered Dera.

  “You came here for a reason,” said the Princess. “You already know what I am. So why should you fear anything from me?”

  Heidi said nothing.

  “Your friend is an Auren?” the Princess repeated.

  “Well – yes,” said Heidi. “And so am I.”

  The Princess raised her eyebrows. “That seems incredibly unlikely.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It is one thing to have more than one in a family – but to meet one as you go about your normal business? It is only unlikely.”

  “Why would I lie?” asked Heidi, feeling suddenly defensive.

  “I did not mean to imply that you did,” the Princess said calmly. “I am only somewhat amazed.”

  “Well, then,” Heidi said simply.

  “Well,” said the Princess, smiling thinly; “is there anything else of this sort that I should know about?”

  Heidi glanced at Dera; but she knew that she could not offer that information herself. It was only Dera’s to give.