The Boy with the Porcelain Blade (31 page)

32

The Unquiet Dead
HOUSE CONTADINO COURTYARD
–
Augusto
313

Lucien let the heat of the sun suffuse him. Sweat coursed from him freely; his arms ached with the effort of swinging the blade and bearing the shield. Blood pumped heavily in his veins, rich with vigour. The air smelled sweet, the faintest of breezes tugging at his hair. D’arzenta stood before him.

Lucien was grinning. His instructor had decided to teach outside. They’d cleared a fighting circle in the Contadino courtyard and marked it with broken cobblestones borrowed from the stonemason’s workshop. A small crowd had gathered to watch the Orfano duel with the
maestro
. Dino stood nearby, clutching Achilles to his chest proudly. The drake stared over the younger Orfano’s shoulder, uninterested in the clang and scuffle of the duel.

‘Again!’ bellowed D’arzenta, and launched into a series of strikes. The blade ricocheted from Lucien’s shield, barely audible above the din of the crowd, who variously cheered or chanted the Orfano’s name. The student struck back with a series of deft jabs and thrusts, forcing the instructor to go on the defensive, losing ground until he was at the limits of the circle. D’arzenta waited until the conclusion seemed inevitable, then sidestepped, striking Lucien across the back of the head. Fortunately, he’d used the flat of the blade.

‘And that’s how you get killed, Master Lucien.’ D’arzenta smiled and shook his head slowly. ‘Reckless. Impatient. Enough for today. You’ve fought hard and fought well. For the most part.’ Lucien clutched the back of his head but couldn’t help a rueful smile. He’d gone from over-cautious novice to hot-headed adept. Something flickered behind D’arzenta’s eyes. Lucien turned around on instinct.

Golia stood proudly attired in his usual sleeveless voluminous tunic. The quills on his forearms looked thicker than Lucien remembered, his bulk more imposing. The sheer weight of his presence fell like a shadow across the courtyard. The kitchen staff and pages of House Contadino recoiled from the Orfano.

‘Perhaps if you’ve finished dancing with the fairy boy you can dance with me, D’arzenta.’ Golia spat on the ground, drawing his steel blade from his scabbard. He’d faced his final test some eighteen months ago. Lucien eyed the weapon jealously, aware he was vulnerable with only a ceramic sword to defend himself. The shield would not last long, not against Golia.

‘The only lesson you’ll get from me today is one on manners,’ replied D’arzenta. ‘Why don’t you run back to Giancarlo like the miserable cur you are. I’m sure his boots need polishing.’

The crowd erupted in a rash of gasps and murmuring. No one including Lucien had ever heard D’arzenta deliver such a scathing dismissal. Golia grinned, the thick cords of his lips pulling back from broad teeth. There was nothing about him that was in any way small. It was at that moment that Lucien spotted the family entering the courtyard. Everyone followed his gaze. Even Golia turned his great head and observed the ragged band as they stumbled toward them. A man, a woman and a boy of around sixteen. A girl at the edge of puberty followed them. All were tear-stained and tired. Their clothes were distressed from the journey and they stood hollow-cheeked and unblinking.

‘Somebody get some water and a bench,’ yelled Lucien. The kitchen staff setting about their orders, he strode across the courtyard, past Golia, and presented himself with a short bow. He immediately felt ridiculous and gauche, too formal.

‘What happened?’ he asked. D’arzenta appeared at his elbow and waited for their answer.

‘Our daughter…’ replied the man. He was grey from fringe to nape and hadn’t seen a razor in days. His voice sounded rough and unvarnished. Lucien realised the man hadn’t stopped on purpose but was unable to continue, his mouth twisted in agony as if the words themselves tortured him.

‘They come and took my oldest sister, didn’t they?’ said the boy angrily. He squared up to Lucien. ‘You sent your filthy guards to snatch her in the night.’

Lucien fell back a step, the vehemence of the boy’s accusation staggering. D’arzenta held out placating hands and opened his mouth to speak.

‘We are beset by a revenant.’ Not D’arzenta’s words. The droning nasal tone of the Majordomo called out across the courtyard. Above them, standing on a vine-choked balcony, the imposing figure of the Domo seemed like a cemetery angel, ash-grey robes completing the illusion.

‘What’s that then?’ snarled the boy, anger dimmed by the Domo’s sudden appearance.

‘A revenant,’ said the Domo, ‘is an unquiet dead soul, come back to cause havoc among the living. He lives in the woods beyond the graveyard. We will hunt him down.’

‘Why does the revenant only steal eighteen-year-old girls?’ shouted the boy at the retreating form of the Domo. He was nearly shaking with fury, his eyes fixed on the now-empty balcony.

Lucien stepped forward, placing himself in front of the woman, who had a look of far-away suffering in her eyes. She appeared to be only vaguely aware of the situation unfolding around her, unseeing, unhearing.

‘I’m sorry to have to ask, but—’ Lucien drew in a breath ‘—did your daughter have any problems?’ He touched two fingers to his temple, tapping twice. The woman didn’t answer but instead looked at her feet.

Her husband scowled. Finally he replied, words thick with emotion, ‘No, never. Nothing like that. She was a good girl. She wanted to…’ He broke down, slumping onto his wife, resting his head on her shoulder as if it were a great weight. Lucien turned away from the family, hurrying inside, stomach knotted. He thought of Nardo and Navilia, knowing immediately what he must do.

Feigning disinterest in the incident was the hardest part. Lucien stayed in his rooms and told Rafaela to spread the rumour his was violently ill. Food poisoning. Camelia wouldn’t thank him for such a slanderous deception, but he was hard pressed to think of anything else. Every dining hall in each of the four houses was buzzing with speculation that night. Rafaela absented herself, looking tired and drawn. She’d barely said a word since she’d heard the news, performing her chores in a fugue. Navilia’s disappearance was a reopened wound, and Lucien would have given anything to console her. Instead he waited for darkness.

The night refused its summons. The sun set reluctantly, the horizon remaining afire despite Lucien’s wishes to the contrary. He locked his door and made a slumbering mannequin of himself with spare pillows under his sheets. He scattered a handful of crickets into the glass tank to keep the drakes fed as it was possible he wouldn’t return before the following day. The prospect of failing to return was a frightening one, but not unrealistic. Dino would undoubtedly come to the drakes’ rescue. Lucien dragged a finger down the glass; the drakes looked back with unblinking black eyes.

And then he was out of the window, not letting fear dull his desire, nor caution contain his curiosity. The tenacious vines that grew on Demesne’s walls served his needs more perfectly than any rope. But before he could climb down, he had to climb up.

Anea’s startled face appeared at her window after a few tense seconds. He guessed she was attaching her veil and was quietly grateful. She opened the window, brow creased in silent question. Lucien sat himself on the sill, glad to take his weight off his arms. The sword hanging from his hip wasn’t making the ordeal any easier.

‘I’m off to the
sanatorio
,’ he said simply, ‘There’s something amiss.’

He recounted seeing Giancarlo and the Majordomo spiriting a woman into the
sanatorio
the night he’d been roused by the raven. Anea sat still, listening, her head bowed, green eyes unreadable. Lucien told her of the Domo’s explanation – the endemic madness that supposedly afflicted Demesne.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said bitterly. ‘Not a word. There’s a pattern here. Every few years the same thing: an eighteen-year-old woman disappears and no one sees her again.’

Anea retreated into her bedroom, returning with her battered book. She scribbled a message:
I’ll wait for you to return. Tell me what you see. Go now and be careful.

Lucien descended the stony face of the castle feeling unnaturally calm. He noted the fall would most likely kill him, but this was a minor consideration compared to the compulsion of his curiosity. His hands and feet picked their way through the masonry as if he made this journey every day of his life. Divesting himself of the Domo’s secret had lifted a weight he’d been struggling to carry all these years. Now there was a surge of hope, a lightening of the spirit. In Anea he had a confidante, an ally. He continued downward, grasping the ancient vines. Ivy leaves stroked him, blood-red and apple-green. The sky overhead was now bruise-purple, dark blue creeping along the eastern horizon. The few clouds looked ethereal and unreal in the twilight. Lucien imagined them as shades arrived early, awkward and waiting for the haunting hours.

He reached the ground, shoulders and arms alive with exertion, heart beating a steady tempo in his chest. He noted the stillness. The landscape stretched out from him in a patchwork of fields and neatly ordered hedgerows. Clusters of trees watched over the graveyard in the distance, supposed home of the Domo’s revenant.

He ran, eyes fixed to the ground, holding his breath in anticipation, waiting for the piercing shout that would lead to his discovery. No one called out. Onward, across the yellowing grasses of the untamed meadow between House Contadino and the
sanatorio.
Onward, under the watchful gaze of Anea, far up at her window. He wondered how many women had been dragged across this expanse. How many loyal citizens of Demesne discarded here under the pretence of madness?

He reached the
sanatorio
, heart a muffled drum, the sound thick in his ears, heightening the sense of danger. His mind drifted to the many times Virmyre had made him run the circumference of Demesne. He’d need to thank him for that. The doors of the miniature citadel stood in front of him, stained vermilion, sickly and visceral in the dying light. The iron banding and studs lent further brooding weight to the imposing portal. And beneath his feet the cracked flagstone where a roof tile had fallen all those years before. A physical scar, one that assured him the events had not been a figment of a young boy’s imagination.

Lucien followed the broad sweep of the circular building until he came to the spindly tower. The taller of the two constructions leaned heavily on the main building. He picked his way up the vertical ravine where the two met, fingers like pitons, searching out every depression and crease in the grey stone. It was almost too easy. The ground simply fell away from him, the wall moving smoothly under his hands, under his boots. Upwards he climbed, not daring to look through the barred windows for fear of what might be waiting in the darkness. Once or twice he thought he discerned a muffled moan or stifled whimpering, but the sounds were at the very limit of his hearing.

He reached the top, hauling himself over the cornice and rolling onto his side. Thick clinging moss cradled him. No cry of alarm had sought him out, and yet he waited long minutes until the darkness offered more of itself. Overhead the first stars revealed their beauty, joining him on his lonely vigil. More clouds materialised, the breeze gaining a bite that had been absent before. No matter; he’d dressed for the task ahead, knowing all too well how cold it was in the company of gargoyles. Finally he sat up, but slowly so as not to attract attention. His sculpted companions were at the roof’s edges, maintaining their eternal watch over the land, and he was not the only living creature on the gently sloping conical roof. At the apex perched a raven, inky black in contrast to the terracotta tiles. It stared at Lucien for long seconds, then turned its tail to him, fussing at its wing feathers.

‘You again.’ Lucien knew it could be any of the ravens which haunted Demesne, but his belief in coincidence was stronger. ‘You wanted me to see them that night, didn’t you?’ The raven gazed at him balefully, then blinked a few times and looked away. ‘You wanted me to unearth their secret.’ The raven gave a half-hearted squawk and resumed cleaning itself. Lucien huddled next to a gargoyle, finding the very spot he’d clung to the last time he’d lurked here. The raven did likewise, an adjacent gargoyle’s head providing a perch.

Time idled, and if the day had been slow to draw to an end then the dawn was equally tardy. More than once Lucien woke to find a length of spittle lining his sleeve, his buttocks numb, fingers cold. He contemplated returning to bed. Perhaps they weren’t bringing her tonight. Perhaps he slept through their passing. It was possible they’d delivered her the night previous. He picked at the possibilities like a scab, then fell asleep as the horizon became lucent with amber and gold.

The raven squawked and flapped its wings. Lucien jolted awake, nearly pitching over the edge. He clutched the gargoyle for support, swearing softly under his breath. The dark bird produced a torrent of guano, staining the gargoyle’s face white and black. Lucien wrinkled his nose.

‘I really need to improve the company I keep,’ he muttered, attempting to stand. His legs were stiff and refused his commands. He sat awkwardly, massaging feeling back into his feet, pulling his boots off when patience failed him. Sensation flooded back in waves of pain.

He almost didn’t see them.

They were a silent procession: the girl slumped over Giancarlo’s broad shoulder like a sack of grain, the Domo leading, his oak staff stabbing down into the withered grass of the meadow. Lucien stared, unable to breathe. Giancarlo was absorbed. The business of putting one booted foot in front of the other consumed him. The Domo picked his way across the field, seemingly blind, yet nimble in his long-limbed way. Dew had saturated the hem of his robe, which had darkened to charcoal-grey as far as the knee. They drew closer and Lucien slid onto his side, merging with the rooftop, daring himself to hang his head over the side.

Closer now, and Lucien was sure a dark mist of flies trailed the Domo, following lazy orbits around the cowled dignitary. The girl had a sack over her head, and her wrists were tied with heavy rope. The gaunt man battered at the door three times with his staff, and then they were gone, disappeared inside the
sanatorio
’s unknown depths.