Land of the Beautiful Dead (42 page)

“Lan,” said Master Wickham.

“He sent me away!” she shouted, turning on him. “This wasn’t my idea! He said he was done with me!”

“And are you done with him?”

The wind again, burning her cheeks and her eyes. “I’ve been with him practically every night since I got here! Did you think that was going to last forever?”

“Oh, I know it won’t,” he replied seriously. “But for all your shouting, I don’t believe you’ve quite grasped that concept yourself or its consequences. You seem to think you ‘get’ to stay in Haven as long as you wish, simply because you wish it. You think you are owed audiences, even when your arguments consist mainly of insults and profanities, which our lord is obligated to forgive simply because it was you who made them. And that sex is all you need to provide him, whenever it conveniences you to do so.”

“He set the terms!” she insisted. “It’s all he wants!”

“That may well be true. I personally don’t believe it, but for the purposes of this conversation, I’ll grant the supposition. The fact remains, he doesn’t have to get it from you, whereas no one else in this wide world can give you what you want, and there, Lan,
there
lies the burden of apology. This is where you’ll tell me again how you have nothing to apologize for,” he went on as Lan opened her mouth to say just that. “And how he said or did this or that and you have the moral high ground. I don’t care. I suspect I wouldn’t care even if I had the capacity. The reality of your situation is, you have less to offer and more to lose, and therefore, you will apologize.”

The wind blew hard against her face, chapping her cheeks and making them burn. “It’s not that simple.”

“Oh for God’s sake.” Master Wickham pinched at the bridge of his nose and turned to Deimos. “Do you want to try?”

The Revenant cocked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t want her to stay.”

“Please.”

“Please yourself. I know what you’re trying to do, but I don’t agree with it. You were made to care for your students, but I was made to protect Haven, and she—” He paused, then turned on Lan herself. “You. You represent a direct threat to this city,” he told her, advancing with one gloved hand on the hilt of his sword and the other drawn into a fist. “If I had even a sliver of doubt that our lord wants you with him, I would put you right over this wall myself. No other warmblood woman has ever had this power over him,
ever
. You are an infection upon his thoughts and his judgment and with every day that passes, your corruption spreads. If he takes back his hungering dead for you, the living will come. Everything he has built may be destroyed. Ten thousand of his people have made a home here, raised with love to serve him for all eternity, but he will put them all at risk for
you
.”

Lan could not answer. She could barely seem to breathe.

“Thank you, Captain,” said Master Wickham, smiling.

Deimos looked at him, his brows furrowed. “For what?”

“He sent me away,” Lan said again. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the Eaters, which strained it, making it seem as though it cracked. “He said he was done and he meant it. He doesn’t want me back.”

“Please don’t be stupid,” Master Wickham said, looking pained. “You’ve no idea how much that annoys a dead educator. If he was, as you say, ‘done’ with you, you would know it. You are not so formidable that our deathless lord fears to confront you, nor remove you, should that become necessary. And I tell you now, it may, if you continue to make yourself his adversary.”

“I…” Lan looked from one to the other of them, then down at the Eaters, her breath a hot knot in her chest. “He could have sent for me, if he wanted me back. I would have gone.”

“Could have and would have, weighed together, measure precisely nothing. What did you do yesterday?”

“Huh?”

“Yesterday,” he said, patiently. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know. I ate. I slept.” She looked at Deimos, who was no help at all, and did her best to hide her confusion with a shrug. “I did a lot of looking out the window. There’s not a hell of a lot to do in that tower.”

Master Wickham acknowledged that with a polite nod and said, “Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?” she asked stubbornly, knowing she was about to get a lecture on the pointlessness of spite.

But he didn’t. He said instead, speaking pleasantly and enunciating so she couldn’t miss a word, “You traded a day of your life for a little food, a few hours’ sleep, and the view from that window. You will never have that day back. You have no guarantee you will ever have another. You would have returned to him if he’d sent for you, but he didn’t, so you did nothing and now that day is over. That day is gone. So. Was it worth it?”

She didn’t have an answer. He didn’t seem to be expecting one.

“You have to want the time you have, Lan,” he said, not unkindly. “More than anything. More than everything. Because that is the cost at which you are selling it. Do you understand?”

Still she could only stand there, silent, while the wind whipped at her eyes.

“Good.” Master Wickham tugged his sleeve back to check the time on his wristwatch, then turned a broad smile on Deimos. “Thank you for your help, Captain. I’d like to take her back now. You needn’t trouble yourself to accompany us if you’d rather stay.”

Deimos glanced out into the wastes, then gave Lan a hard stare. “Behave yourself,” he told her. “I have standing orders to prevent your escape. If you attempt to leave Haven, I have our lord’s authority to hunt you down and do whatever is necessary to have you back.”

Her chest tightened, but not with fear.

Signaling the Revenant at the stair, Deimos resumed his watch over the distant ferry as Master Wickham led her away, keeping a weather eye on the next woman who might conceivably fall into his lord’s favor.

The way back was so much longer than the way to the wall had been. She walked with her head down and her back to the Eaters and the dark dot of a woman who was maybe coming, watching her shadow grow fainter over the cracked pavement as the whole world seemed to darken. The clouds were thickening, but only over Haven, reminding her of the black rains Azrael was said to summon at a whim. She’d believed it once, as she’d believed he could wave his arm and send out plagues or wither crops or start fires. She wished she could still believe it, because it was, in its way, a comforting thought. How much easier this would all be, if only everything were his fault.

Lan wasn’t sure just when she started crying, but Master Wickham was kind enough to let her do it without an embarrassing show of concern. He studied the buildings as they passed them, admiring cornices and casements and waiting until she’d wrung herself dry. Then he said, “What will you do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Unacceptable.”

“I don’t! You think I planned all this? You think I’m doing it on purpose? Everything I say is the wrong thing! Everything I do just makes it worse!”

“Do you remember what life is, Lan?”

She didn’t, not right away. He had to pick up one foot and hold it off the ground—an incomplete step—before she remembered. “Motion?”

“Motion,” he agreed. “Never forget that. There are no side-steps. There is no waiting. You are moving even as we speak, so you need to decide what it is you really want and how much you’re really willing to give up to achieve it, because everything you do and say, every decision that you make, can only bring you closer to your goal or further from it. We’re going to go right past Westminster Cathedral,” he concluded without a pause, but with a stark tone of regret. “Religious iconography was never a fancy of mine, but Westminster has the most beautiful mosaics in Haven.”

Lan sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “Want to stop in and look at it?”

“We haven’t time, I’m sure.”

“I’m supposed to be in lessons until six, aren’t I? It can’t even be half-noon yet.”

“Well…” He checked the sun’s position and sent her a probing glance. “A few minutes couldn’t hurt. An hour, at most. Would you mind dreadfully?”

The thought of standing about in the street while Master Wickham gawped at a bunch of mouldy old tiles for an hour was a deeply depressing one, but still better than facing Azrael. “Sounds fun,” she said dully. “I love old pubs.”

“It’s a cathedral, actually.”

“What’s the difference? Let’s just go.”

* * *

Once again, the dead man’s enthusiasm for poking around an admittedly pretty damned amazing building eclipsed his sense of time and the one hour he’d promised not to exceed passed and was buried under at least six more. The gathering clouds she’d seen from the wall had held off all this time, but now opened up with a vengeance, shrouding the city in thick mist and eye-stinging rain. The electric lamps that lined the streets were no match for English weather and in the gloom, even Master Wickham got turned around once.

By the time they arrived back at the palace, it was full dark and Lan’s clothes had soaked up easily ten thousand liters of stormwater. All she wanted at that point was to climb the million steps to her room and fall asleep in the rain-damp bed waiting for her, but the pikemen standing watch at the palace doors held her in the cold foyer, dripping whole oceans over that fine floor to the visible consternation of every servant who scuttled in and out about his or her nightly chores.

Master Wickham stayed with her throughout the long minutes that followed, although she told him twice there was no need. No one told her what she was waiting for. No one had to.

At last, she heard the sound she had been listening for and dreading—the long stride of a bootless foot, accompanied on every step by the rattle of metal plates and rings and all the other jeweled things he wore. Azrael.

She was watching the corridor that led to the dining hall, but sounds echoed oddly in the foyer and he appeared unexpectedly on the second floor. And he was not alone.

The red-haired dolly who was with him was so pretty, she might have been dead, except for the movement of breath that caused those perfect breasts to rise and fall, barely contained within that low-cut corset. Her hair was done up, glittering with gold chains and dotted with pearls, with just a few careful curls artfully allowed to slip the net and lie against her flawless cheek. Her right hand rested on Azrael’s bent arm and his right hand rested on hers, at least until he reached out to grip the bannister. His claws scraped at the gilded wood, so much louder than his voice when he said, “Where have you been?”

There was never any doubt who he was asking, so Lan answered. “At lessons.”

Azrael’s eyes brightened as they narrowed. “Do. Not. Lie to me.”

“We had them outside today,” said Lan. “That’s all.”

“My lord, if I may—” Master Wickham began.

“I do not address you.”

“It’s not his fault,” said Lan.

“I do not ask fault.” His voice raised on the last word, creating a blameful echo to bounce around the room. He waited until it was entirely gone before he spoke again. “You do not have my will to wander freely in Haven. I thought I had made that clear to you, but it seems you found some ambivalence in my words when I forbade you to leave the palace.”

“Unless I was with a guard.”

Azrael’s gaze cut sidelong to Master Wickham.

“I was with Deimos,” Lan said quickly.

“Were you.” Azrael moved a few long strides forward, letting his claws scrape over the carved rail. There was a pattern, imperceptible to the eye at this distance, but with its own unique sound:
sss
-tak-tak-
sss
-tok-
sss
-tak-tak. “And yet, Deimos returned some four hours ago, much displeased to learn you had not returned some
eight
hours ago. So. You were not under guard and I am forced to ask again.” His voice, so soft, became a sudden thunder: “
Where were you
?”

Lan had closed her eyes against the blast of his rage. Now she opened them, but it was still some time before she could bring herself to answer. “We went to the wall.”

He halted, mid-stride. Under his hand, the bannister splintered. “You left Haven.”

“No. Just as far as the wall.”

“For lessons.” Azrael showed his teeth. It was not a smile. “I would not have thought there was much reading material at the wall.”

Lan glanced at Master Wickham, who did all he could to shake his head without moving, then went ahead and said it anyway. “There’s a woman out there. In the wastes. They wanted me to see her.”

Master Wickham closed his eyes.

“They said she might come here and when she does, you’re going to think I said all this just so I could stay. Because she might be…I don’t know…sweeter than me. Maybe she’ll sing or dance or do something girly and grand that I don’t know how to do and don’t know how to
want
to do.” Rainwater dripped from her hair and down her face, warm as tears. She wiped it away. “Even when I know I should.”

“But there were Eaters at the wall also,” he said. The bannister groaned as his claws dug deeper. “And so you returned.”