Dangerous Gifts (27 page)

Standing in front of the overgrown mess that had once been a garden in front of the captain’s cottage, rubbing at the scar on my jaw, I wondered if I should have chosen something else. Or if I should just give up, and try and persuade Enthemmerlee to, if not sack her damn guard, just stop using them; or hire in a decent officer, and see what they could do. But I didn’t think she would. I pushed a hand through my damp hair, feeling my fingers catch and pull in the tangle. How had I got myself in such a mess? I was never going to get anywhere with this. Even if Stikinisk was being straight with me, she was just one, half-trained, with whatever supporters among the guard she could scrape together. The rest were probably, in the way of people, waiting to see which way the wind blew; which wouldn’t do Enthemmerlee any good if they were still making up their minds when someone attacked.

Once, I could have bound them to me with a word, forced their obedience with lust in their hearts and joy in their steps.
I remembered what it was like, and for a moment I longed for the powers I’d once had. I felt a tickling buzz, like something pressing on the back of my skull, and whipped around. But there was nothing there, except the rainy night.

Nerves, perhaps a windblown leaf tangling in my hair. And reluctance for the task ahead of me. How easy it would have been, once, to convince the captain of the virtue of his task, to turn him into someone not only effective but furiously loyal, with nothing more than words.

That tickling buzz strengthened, became words inside my head.
You could do it again, Avatar that was.

That voice. I knew that voice. I’d heard it last on Tiresana.

Babaska. Not a mere Avatar like me, but the Goddess Herself.

The voice was distant but clear; a far lantern in a night wood. I shuddered with a mix of fear and fury.

“Get out of my head,” I whispered into the night. “I did what you wanted, leave me be!” How had she found me? How had she made the connection with me, here, uncountable miles from Tiresana, on another plane?

I can help you, Babylon. I can give you back the voice that raises the sword to your command
– a little, unexpected flicker of humour at the double meaning –
you know I can.

Yes, I believed she could, even so far removed from her home plane and mine.

“No. I’m done with it. That power was stolen.”

But it was mine, and I offer it. You cannot steal what is given.

“And what would you ask in return?”

...

“There’s something, isn’t there?”

Perhaps. For now, only that the door should be left open.

“No.”

Ebi that was, Avatar that was; I can help you.

“No!” I shouted, and slammed... something, shut.

The light was gone. The buzzing at the back of my skull was gone.

I stood alone in the whispering night.

There was a muffled thump from the cottage, and a voice said, “Who’s there? Who’s out there?”

“It’s Babylon Steel. The bodyguard. Could I speak with you?” My voice sounded calm, but my hands were shaking. I clenched the fingers and released them, glared at them until they held steady.
I have a fight to fight. Everything else can wait.

There was a grumbled response I decided to take as a ‘yes.’ I pushed the door open. Didn’t anyone lock anything around here?

Something clinked against my foot.

A wine-bottle; full. I hefted it. Well, I’d brought some anyway. He must have left it outside, forgotten it, perhaps.

Inside the cottage it seemed colder than outside, and almost as damp. I followed the glimmer of lamplight.

The lamp stood on a table with a single plate holding the remains of a meal. There was a slumped shape in a low chair. Tantris, or so I assumed. He turned his head towards me. He had a mug in his hand and a blurred look, and there was an alcohol tang in the air. Apart from that, the place smelled like dust and emptiness.

“I’m here about the thing at the Palace. Tomorrow, right?”

He didn’t answer, just glared at me.

I held up the bottle I’d brought, and put the other one on the table. “Found this outside. This one, I brought with me. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink.” I looked at him, trying to keep my face calmly expectant, like that of an old friend who’d dropped in, and was just waiting for him to fetch my usual tankard.

Eventually, when I didn’t move or change expression, he grunted and got to his feet. From his movements, he wasn’t that far gone; he didn’t have the exaggerated carefulness of someone fighting a swaying floor.

The tankard he brought in was tarnished, but without any of the wear or dents of use. He’d gone to the trouble of wiping most of the dust out of it.

I poured him a slug of wine and a swallow for me and perched myself on the only other seat, an upright wooden chair that creaked in protest, or possibly shock at actually being used.

“I need your advice,” I said. “Obviously you and the guard will be there, but you know the place far better than I do, and I’d like to know if there’s anything in particular you think is a danger.”

“Anything in particular? The place will be full of people who want her dead,” he said. He drank, knocking it back. Lucky I hadn’t brought the
good
wine.

“And what do you plan to do about that?”

“I plan to do my job, best I can with what I’ve got.” He gave me a brief, red-tinged glare.

“Rag-ends and scrapings.”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve been with the family long?”

“Long enough.”

“What do you call that vine out front?” I said.

“What?”

“That vine, growing all over the front. Hairy thing.”

“Creeping garrotte.”

“Creeping
garrotte?
”

“Strangles everything.”

“Oh.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I just wondered,” I said. “Looked like there was a garden out there.”

“I don’t have time to keep it up,” he said.

No. You’re too busy sitting here in the dark feeling sorry for yourself.

“Back where I come from,” I said, pouring more wine, “it’s desert country.” I felt my hand start to shake and put the bottle down, harder than I meant, but Tantris didn’t notice. Oh, I wished I’d chosen another story, this was no time to be talking about my past. But I couldn’t think of another. This one I knew well enough to tell almost without thinking. I took a breath to steady myself, and carried on. “Hard land; hard to grow anything much. But they love their gardens. If you’ve access to water and enough people to work it, you can make glorious gardens. Some people made places that were so green and scented and quiet you’d think you were in a dream. Rich people, of course. And the temples. No shortage of workers, and they could get water most of the time.

“But there was a lady who lived nearby where I grew up. She didn’t have much. She made her living weaving; not even fancy stuff, just plain cloth. She had this tiny patch of sun-blasted ground in front of her place, with soil like dust.

“And over the years, she worked that patch of ground. She collected dung, she dug in all sorts of things, begged or scavenged around the city. It was barely bigger than that table, her garden, but she loved it. And she fed the ground, and watered it with her washing-water. And one spring I walked past and this tiny patch was like a piece of embroidery; little bright flowers, everywhere.

“By summer, she had flowers that were the envy of the city. Not many. There wasn’t room. But what she had was better and brighter and more highly scented than the best of what grew in the temples.

“She was a quiet, nervy scrap of a thing, like a little brown bird. I was there the day some high-nosed priest, sweeping down the street in robes worth more than the house she lived in, stopped and looked. He knocked on her door. I remember her face. She was terrified. But as they talked, and he asked her how she’d made her garden, she started to stand up straighter, she smiled. She told him everything she could.

“Word got about. The priests and priestesses started to summon her to the temples for advice, and she went.

“They still couldn’t grow flowers like hers. Some offered her gold, some offered her a high position in the temple to come make their gardens, but she wouldn’t go. She’d have had to leave her own garden, and she loved it too much. I suppose because she’d done it all herself, from nothing. And they kept coming to her for advice, and they paid her for it. She’d
take
gold, but she’d rather have seeds, or cuttings. She never moved from that house. And everyone stopped and looked at her garden. Avayana, her name was. She bred a new kind of lily, and they named it after her; a little gold-flecked flower with a scent like an angel’s dream. It grows in the harshest places, where nothing else will.”

His head had nodded down to his chest, and I wondered whether all I’d managed was to send him to sleep, but his hand went out to his cup again, and lifted it.

After a few minutes, I put down my own barely used mug, and stood up. “Well, I’d best be off. And if your lot are as hopeless as you say, maybe I
should
just advise the Lady Enthemmerlee to hire guards in. She wasn’t going to – she seems to think they were worth keeping – but you’re the one who knows them, and you don’t agree. I saw you’ve a training-ground behind the barracks; I’ll be checking it over tomorrow, just after sunrise.”

He was still slumped in his chair when I left. Probably a waste of half-decent wine and a better story, but the best I knew to do.

On the way back, I kept my ears open, both inner and outer, and heard nothing but rain, the shift of the beasts in their stables and the subtle scrabblings of small creatures going about their overnight business in the wet leafmould.

Halfway back to the house, it hit me properly.
Babaska.
She had found me, and she wanted something. I didn’t know what, I didn’t know if I could go on keeping her out, I didn’t even know how I’d managed to shut her out this time. My hands and feet went to ice, and I shook like rat in a dog’s jaws. I wrapped my arms around myself, and waited for it to be over. When the shivering finally let go, I felt as leaden-weary as though I’d been fighting for days.

At least now I knew why my gut had been unhappy about leaving Scalentine. It seemed disease and powerful magic weren’t the only things the portals blocked. And perhaps my use of the device had opened a door that might otherwise have stayed shut, even outside Scalentine.

“W
HAT IS IT
?” Fain said, snatching the door open. “Is something... No. It can’t be something wrong with Enthemmerlee, can it, or I wouldn’t be standing here. You know, I’m somewhat weary of feeling like a damn weathercock.”

“A weathercock?”

“Twitching with every breeze that might bring a threat. It’s hardly restful.”

He did look tired; his beautifully curved cheekbones were more prominent, and shadows had been brushed under his eyes with an artful hand. It was the sort of look that would make the susceptible long to soothe away whatever troubled him.

“You look tired,” he said, startling me.

“I was about to say the same.”

“Well, we both have our troubles.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Then I suppose you’d best come in.” He gestured me towards a chair, and paused. “You appear to need a towel.”

There were some of the house towels, embroidered with the reaching lizard, done in scarlet. They were thick, velvety things, almost as good as the ones we had at home. The ones back in my room were mostly slung over the backs of furniture. I’m not naturally tidy. Fain, on the other hand... if he hadn’t been standing there, holding out one of the towels, you wouldn’t have known the room was inhabited, there was so little sign of him scattered about.

“Thank you,” I said, and took the towel. “Has there been any news?”

“News?” Fain went to the window and ran the curtain through his fingers, frowning at the faded cloth.

“From home.” I coughed. “Through that loathsome device of yours.”

“You really do dislike it, don’t you?” I watched him carefully, but there was no extra weight to his voice. If he knew I’d used the thing in his absence, he gave no sign.

Of course, the next time he used it himself, the woman on the other end would no doubt tell him. Then I’d be up to my knees in shit.

What had I been thinking?

Perhaps something wanted you to...

“Yes,” I said, meaning it. “I do dislike it. A lot. But I admit it’s a very useful thing, and I just hoped...”

“No. There’s been nothing. We do not use the device casually, but if there had been anything of importance, someone would have contacted me.”

I didn’t know whether or not to feel relieved.

“Now,” Fain said. “Since you’re here. The ball. There will be outsiders, according to what the family were telling me earlier. And I would be grateful if you could mingle with the crowd. Keep your ears open.”

“For what, exactly?”

“Chatter about grain prices. Chatter about trade, and borders, and so forth. Merchants’ chatter.”

“Oh, yes. I wanted to talk to you about that. You noticed anything about the food?”

“The Gudain cuisine is quite lively.”

“That’s one way of putting it. But they don’t have bread.”

“No? Well, one can live without it. Why?”

“Mr Fain, they don’t have
grain.
They don’t grow it. They don’t eat it. It’s not part of their diet. So why would someone be stockpiling it and planning to try to sell it to them?”

He laced his fingers under his chin. “Hmm. Interesting. Then perhaps something else is going on.”

“You were talking to Lobik. He didn’t have any ideas?”

“No, although his grasp of the politics of the situation is astute. Remarkably so, considering that he was deprived of any real education until adulthood. A most extraordinary man.”

“Enthemmerlee’s lucky to have him, then.”

“Indeed. So long as the Gudain do not see her as too heavily influenced by an Ikinchli; that, too, is a danger he is aware of, but there is little he can do except not make it obvious when he is giving her advice.”