A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (36 page)

‘Ah, Lalita.
Adelina said there is something between you and her intuition is rarely wrong.’

‘Something between us?
Disgust, disquiet, maybe even hate.’

‘You think?’
Phelim laughed, a merry sound that cut acro
ss the sensations of earlier. ‘Brother, open your eyes.
The woman is mad for you.’

‘Huh. Mad indeed.’
He shivered as the welk
in wind persisted at his neck. ‘Let’s go back.
There is
family who must be cared for.’

He knew he would be quizzed over the future that waited o
n the other side of the mists.
He knew as well that he could not and would not talk with t
hem about what should be done.
This was
a battle he must fight alone.
A batt
le that he must fight and win.
He glanced at Phelim as he walked alongside.
I wish a third had passed through our two
shadows and touched us tonight.

He looked back but only their own dissolving footprints marked the descending dawn dew.

***

‘This is
the most unbelievable night.’
Adelina spoke softly to Lalita as they sat in the corner of Jasper’s large drawing room after Phelim
and Finnian had left earlier.
‘I feel as though I have fallen into my past or that my past, pre
sent and future have collided. So many likenesses.
You,
muirnin
– you are the embodiment of my Kholi a
nd thus the image of Isabella.
It’s as if he could walk through that door right now with one of his glorious poems.’

Lalita’s eyes filled.
I like her.
Against all my intentio
ns, I can see what Kholi loved.
‘Was he happy, Adelina, near the end?’

‘Happy? Yes.
In as much as one could be happy when one’s young friend has just died and one’s other
friends suffer because of it. But were we happy together? Oh, beyond doubt.
We were to
be married in the Raj in time.’
She looked down at her left hand where Phelim’s lover’s knot ring gl
istened on her marriage finger. ‘But it was not fated to be.
I was unaware that I carried Kholi’s chi
ld for a long while, you know. Prison does that to you.
You lose touch
with your body and your mind. Inevitably though
Isabel
la was born and I thank the day
because she is so like her father
. She’s a ray of light that
binds Phelim and I completely by our love for her.’

‘She is very like you as well.’
Lalita looked across at the infant who lay asleep on Gallivant’s lap, the lamps making spidery shadows of the child’s dark eyelashes.

‘And you,’ replied Adelina.
‘
Muirnin
, I shall cherish this day.’

Amongst many things, they spoke about Isolde and about the charms.

‘Are you afraid?’
Adelina touched Lalita’s hand.

‘
Yes.
She is a viciou
s woman, be under no illusion.
She will ki
ll us all if the chance arises.
I try to think of a way out of this siege and I cannot for I’m a mere mo
rtal and must trust to Jasper.
The charms are bound up in it all and it makes it even
worse.
Finnian and I wish to see them destroyed, Adelina.  But for myself, my wish began the d
ay I found out about Isabella.
I wanted to protect her for Kholi.’

‘And yet they are indestructible.’

‘I know.
But there
must
be a way.
I would give my life to find it.’

Adelina sat back, frowning. ‘Would you? My dear, I’m aghast.
Isabella
has just discovered her aunt. Leave it to the Others. They have a way about them.
I have liv
ed to see it, I can tell you.’
The elegant fingers bunched into the unive
rsal sign against bad fortune.
‘
Let’s not talk about this now. Not tonight.
We must savour what we have in the here and now.’

Lalita found she agree
d with her new sister-friend. T
his was a nig
ht for celebration, not tears.
‘Phelim doesn’t mind about Kholi?’ she asked.

Adelina gave her husky laugh.
‘Why should he?  Kholi is dead
and Phelim is vital and alive.
No,
he is too good a man to mind.
He shall never begrudge my love for Isabella’s father and he knows I shall always love him as much as my he
art is able.
But Phelim saved my mind, he
saved me and he saved my babe.
Your brother, Lalita, was the wisest, most generous man and I know he would never wish for the child an
d I to live alone and lonely.’
She smiled and the corner of the room lit as i
f the fog had rolled away.
‘But enough about
us, I want to hear about you.
There is a bon
d between you and Liam’s twin.
I see it and you can never ga
insay a Traveller’s intuition. And do you know, I am content.
It closes that broken and torn circle.

‘But you are wrong Adelina,’ Lalita
looked at her brother’s lover.
‘There is nothing between us, nothing at all.’

Lalita struggled to sleep.
Adelin
a had unsettled her even more.
Happy beyond doubt with having held her niece, delighted to bond with the child’s mother, she had thought she wo
uld be content for this night.
But her conscience tossed her from one
side of the bed to the other.
Finnian
had
done no wrong.
More than that –
he had been valorously right.
Did it matter in the end
who
delivered t
he charms to safety? It didn’t matter to Isabella.
Was she, Lalita, so small-minded that she must lay claim to the deed?
Does
he mean something to me then?
Do
I crave his attention? His affection?
She threw herself to the colder side of her bed, the divan creaking in response.
What about love?
For a flick of a minute she lay very still.
I’m not
sure I could survive his love.
It is tempestuous and tortured and besides, if I make my feelings known, what if he should reject me?

Her stomach was in knots on waking and she jumped from th
e bed and vomited into a bowl.
She retched and retched again until her stomach was purged and on looking in her small mirror, saw a pallid face grimace back and
so
pinched he
r cheeks viciously,
bit
ing
her li
ps to infuse them with colour.
To little avail as she vomited again and Ebba put her head round the door.

‘Poorly are you,
muirnin
?’

‘I must have eaten something. I am so queasy.’
Lalita lay back on her bed as the carlin wrung out a cloth and laid it on her forehead.

‘Hmm. I think not, child.
None of the others are sick and we ate the same food.’

‘Then it’s tension, anxiety over the charms and over Isolde.’

Ebba’s mouth turned down. ‘Well, that could be true.
Aine knows you have every reason
.
But tell me Lalita, ho
w long have you felt like this?’

‘Some days.
But it will pass.’

‘Oh indeed it will pass,
muirnin.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but could you be just a little with child?’

Lalita’s stomach, so lately ill, sank to her toes with a thump.

‘Perhaps two weeks, maybe less?’ the carlin pushed.

No
!
‘But it’s too soon, surely.’
No!

‘
Sometimes it can show earlier.
It can depend on any number of imponderables, not the least of which is how sensitive the mother
might be.
Phelim’s brother?’

Lalita nodded.
Oh what have I done?
Aine
help me, this is the worst…

Ebba clucked, a measure
of delight in the homely sound.
‘As my dear Adeli
na says, it closes the circle.
Blessings on you,
muirnin
.
Goodness, why do you cry?’

Lalita felt as if her heart would break, sobs
reaching to choke her throat. ‘Because he hates me.
I’ve let him believe I abhor him like the plague and I’ve been indescribable.’

‘Have you indeed?’

Lalita nodded.
‘Besides
,
we are in a state
of siege.
Somewhere out there is a woman who wishes to wipe every trace of Finnia
n from the face of the world.’
He
r hand crept over her stomach.
‘She would kill Finnian’s child as quick as she would kill him.’

‘Maybe and if that is the case, then you mus
t tell him you carry his babe.
If he’s half a man, he will forgive you
everything when he finds out.
Now I shall get Margriet to give you some dry toast and ginger tea and I guarantee in an hour you will look as fresh as Jasper’s daisies.’

His child.
She growled, a defeated sound, throwing her head back on the pillow.
What
am I but some whore?
This is surely proof.
She clasped her hands tightly together, feeling the bones wrap around each other
. So I must tell him.
And what shall he
say?
For he hates me and would not want
me as the mother to his child.
What shall I do?

‘It’s fixable,’
Ebba had said, in that no non
sense manner of a grandmother.
But perhaps
it was fixable in other ways?
The woman was a carlin, she would know how to abort the infant.

Lalita gazed out her window, seeing herself on a bed, drinking some noxious draught and the carlin holding her as t
he seedling was stripped away.
She watched herself writhing with the cramps and heard the carlin say, ‘
There there muirnin, it will pass.’

Her hand pressed against her stomach, trying to feel the shape of the life that had been created, half of it hers, half of it his and she knew for her part that she couldn’t rid herself of it, that even if he rejected her and the babe, that she would be its mother, that she would love it and no matter what, she would try to do whatever she could to make sure its life was as perfect and
safe as Finnian’s own had not.
She would create a new family branch, extend what she had been given with Isabella and her mother, maybe even the r
est – Phelim, Gallivant, Ebba.
Even Jasper.

But now she must draw as deep inside her a
s she had when Kholi had died.
As when she found herself in the harem, or when her uncle had farewelled her at The Gate of a Thousand
Promises.
Even when Phaeton had been killed and the Kislar Agha told her that her uncle and aunt had been murdered.
What a life!
Filled with pain and yet here I stand on the other side, a child inside me and the need to convince its father that I have wronged him, that I have feelings for him.

So many reasons to destroy the paperweights that had them all hanging over the abyss by their fingernails.

‘Finnian please, before you go about your b
usiness, may I have a moment?’
Lalita reached for the muscled arm and touched it, aghast at the sexual tension clutching her belly as she did so.

‘Be quick, Lalita. Phelim waits for me.’
Finnian’s voice froze the
air and she almost shrank away in defeat.

But she wouldn’t be denied, so took a breath and began.
‘Finni
an, I owe you such an apology. No please, don’t be so. Don’t make me grovel.
I have be
en so arrogant, so ungracious.
To owe someone your life requires infinite loyalty in return and it is what I owe you, more than I cou
ld ever imagine.
Please,’ she reached for his arm again and hel
d it as he tried to pull away.
‘I’m sorry.’