The Fall of Ventaris (18 page)

She looked around the basement for the hundredth time, at stacks of folded linens, bolts of cotton cloth and dressmaker’s forms standing naked and barely human. She’d pushed much of this aside to clear an empty space at the center of the small, low-ceilinged room, working by the light of her candle. At first there had been noise from the shop above — the creaking of floorboards and muttered voices as Ferroc and her nieces finished up their day — but soon enough the shop closed, the workers went home, and she was left to pace in silence...and to worry.
 

She’d dared not try to
frune
any news about Pollux — her questions might raise unwanted suspicion — and so she was confronted with every fearful possibility she’d managed to avoid while searching through the scholar’s house the previous evening. Could the moonshadow just have made Pollux ill? What if it had worked too well and killed him? And so much relied upon the First Keeper, a man she hardly knew and barely trusted. If Jadis had forgotten his promise, Pollux could very well awaken in a potter’s grave. The thought made her shiver.
 

To distract herself, she let her mind wander over the other dangling threads before her: her as-yet-unfulfilled promise to Jana; the unexpected scrutiny of Preceptor Amabilis; the news of the
second
disappearance of the baron’s dagger; and, most recently, Savant Terence, his daughter Darley and the secret passage. And above it all loomed Antony, still awaiting news of his love’s ring. She had more than enough worries without even beginning to think of Pollux, and not for the first time, she wondered if she had jumped into waters too deep to navigate.

Is this what she was, alone in the dark and stripped of everything else? A ticking device, constantly whirling with schemes and plots? She thought suddenly of Minette, for whom every conversation, every relationship, was just a game of tiles to be won or lost. The mistress of the Vermillion was wealthy, widely regarded and even more widely feared, and yet Duchess found herself pitying her nonetheless.

She shook her head at such nonsense. Pity Lysander, pity Jana, pity the damned Uncle. Pity every soul upon the hill while you were at it. Minette for her plots and her schemes had at least the certainty of survival. How many in Rodaas could say that?

A faint noise from outside pulled her from these thoughts, and she slipped up the creaky wooden stairs to peer into the alley. The fog had come in with the evening, and in the dim light of the waxing moon she could see little but a wall of grayish white. It seemed not just weather but a living thing of unknowable but sinister intention, snaking slowly but relentlessly up the hill, wrapping about the city like a great hand. Then she heard the noise once more: a short, sharp squeak in the misty dark. She held her breath and waited.

The sound came again, closer, and then she saw the light, bobbing along like some faerie from a children’s story, growing brighter as it approached. Then came the sound of a squeaking wheel, and the scrape of footsteps on muddy cobblestones. As she watched, the mist coalesced into the shape of a large barrow, accompanied by a man-shape holding aloft a lantern. For an instant she thought of Mayu and her lamp, leading the way to Her eternal garden, and resisted the urge to shrink back into the cellar and hide behind a bolt of cloth.
 

The fog parted and she saw the barrow was filled not with the souls of the dead but with a bundle wrapped in white cloth. Two shapes resolved themselves, cloaked and hooded: one broad and tall, pushing the wooden cart, and another, shorter and round, holding the light. The broad shape set down the barrow as the round one pushed back his hood to reveal the sweaty face of First Keeper Jadis. He smiled broadly and rummaged through his robes for a handkerchief, with which he blotted his brow. “A delivery,” he whispered through a mad grin, “from the very gates of my Lady’s gardens.”

“That was a risk,” Duchess said, nodding towards the man at the barrow, who was even larger than Antony, although his face was concealed by a hood. Bad enough that Ferroc knew Duchess was up to something in her basement. What tales might this unknown man spread throughout the city?

“And yet safer than a man of my rank undertaking such a menial task by himself. The rumors would have flown all about the hill.” Jadis looked around her at the open bulkhead doors. “Is this the place?” She nodded and Jadis gestured to his companion. The huge man picked up the wrapped bundle, handling it as easily as a Shallows wife carrying the day’s laundry. Duchess stepped out of the way and the man bore the bundle down the stairs into the basement.

She looked after him doubtfully. “One word in the wrong ear...” She left the rest unsaid.

Jadis tucked away his handkerchief and moved to the barrow, reaching inside. “That would require a word, wouldn’t it, my dear?” As Jadis removed a large black bag from the barrow the man emerged from the cellar, empty-handed. “But I’m afraid Cregan hasn’t had much to say these past few years.” He beckoned the man closer. “Cregan, show Duchess just how good a secret-keeper you are.”

Cregan loomed over her, and she saw a broad, blank face, with dark eyes and thick lips. Those lips parted and she saw that his tongue had been lopped off long ago, and its end was blunt and ridged with scar tissue.

“This city has many sinners,” Jadis said into her ear. “Those who have sinned most egregiously are forgiven only after they have fully dedicated themselves to holding the secrets of Mayu.” She couldn’t help but think of Adam Whitehall in radiant’s robes, in service to a different faith for the same reason. “And if a man will not give up the only tongue he owns...well, if there is no loss, there is no true repentance.” He gestured again and Cregan moved to take up the barrow once more. Duchess took a steadying breath. She didn’t know what crime would require such dreadful punishment and she didn’t want to. She was relieved to see Cregan move off into the mist, trundling his barrow before him.

“Shall we?” Jadis murmured, indicating the stairs. She nodded and they descended to the cellar where the candle and the wrapped bundle awaited. She nudged the cloth with her foot and the cerements shifted, revealing a human hand, waxy and pale in the dim light. It was large and calloused, and she could see a faint stippling of hair just above the wrist. She touched it with a finger and found it cold. She glanced back at the keeper. Had Jadis kept his promise or simply delivered her a true corpse?

“No worries, my sweet.” He set down the black bag and rearranged the cerements to hide the hand. “This one’s not ready to be set amongst my Lady’s plantings quite yet.” He glanced around the cellar. “This certainly appears a grave, does it not? And yet soon enough a resurrection shall visit this place. Just a little longer and my Lady’s miracle will be complete.”

“What...will happen when he...?” She wasn’t sure how to finish.

Jadis’ smile returned. “The moonshadow is wearing off even now, and by dawn poor Pollux will be back amongst the living, for what good it may do him. But the return will not be easy. Mayu’s gifts never are.” He rummaged in the bag. “When he begins to stir, you must administer this” — he handed her a bulging wineskin — “but slowly, a sip here, a swallow there, until he returns to himself.”

Duchess sniffed at the wine. “The dregs,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Jadis took no notice of her disdain. “Then have him eat these,” he went on, producing a cluster of grapes. “You should have no difficulty persuading him. He’ll be ravenous, and the grapes are fresh.” Jadis smiled. “With the sour and the sweet you will welcome him back into the world. Beyond that, you must trust to my Lady. She will make certain he is not lost along the way.” He indicated the bag. “Here are what few personal possessions were left him.”

She set aside the wine and grapes. “Then I suppose we are finished.”

He smiled again, as if indulging her. “No, not just yet, I think.” Before she could ask him what he meant, he was up the steps and gone into the night, leaving death behind.

*
 
*
 
*

Then she was alone.

Although she knew the man inside the shroud was not truly dead, Jadis had been right: she was, indeed, sitting in a grave. Both the shop above and the alley outside were quiet and empty, and only her small candle stood between her and the dark. With the addition of the bundle there was no room to pace, and in any case movement felt like a desecration. The cerements lay mute and silent as death itself, and part of her wondered if Jadis had done his work not with moonshadow but something deadlier.

An unsettling thought occurred to her. If –
when
– Pollux awoke, he would be trapped inside those tight wrappings. He could suffocate and find himself before Mayu regardless of her efforts. She slid closer to him and pulled out her dagger, meaning to cut away the shroud, but decided against it. It would be too easy to slice through cloth and into flesh. Best to use only her fingers. She picked awkwardly at the bundle, tugging here, unfolding there, until finally she threw back the shroud to reveal the not-dead man.

She should have expected he would be naked — no one sent a corpse to a potter’s grave fully clothed — and yet she found herself blushing nonetheless. Surprise and embarrassment warred for a moment, both losing to curiosity. The last, and only, naked man she’d seen had been Lysander, and since nudity to him was as natural as breathing that scarcely counted. The keepers had cleaned, oiled and shaved Pollux so that he scarcely resembled the unkempt man she’d visited in prison. His eyes were of course closed, but she hadn’t forgotten that steely gray gaze. His nose was broader than Lysander’s but not unattractively so, and now that the surrounding beard had been cleared away she saw his mouth was softer than she’d noticed. His jaw was strong and his chin had a small cleft. His brown hair had been neatly trimmed and there was less gray than she’d thought. His face was unlined, so she realized he must be graying before his time.

She looked down at his body, feeling a bit ashamed but too curious to stop. His chest was broad, far broader than Lysander’s, and his nipples were surprisingly large, seeming nearly as large as hers. She’d once asked Lysander why men had nipples at all —
 
it was not as if they were nursing babies — and he’d replied archly, “So you can make extra money by sucking on ‘em.”

Pollux’s belly was as flat as a boy’s but dusted lightly with dark hair, and she reached out a finger to touch it. His skin felt as silky smooth as Lysander’s, though cold. She pulled the shroud all the way aside and saw his manhood, nestled in a patch of hair as dark as night. He was much larger than Lysander, she noted, and she wondered if it had hurt the mother of his son when he had...

She glanced guiltily at the cellar door as if to make sure no one was watching. What would Lysander do if he saw her ogling an unconscious man? Shove her aside for a better look, most likely, and she smothered a giggle with one hand and she used the other to cover Pollux to the neck. She doubted he’d be happy to wake up to a strange woman checking him over like a prize bull. She stepped away and seated herself upon a stack of linen to wait.

The hours dragged on in silence, broken only by the sounds of her shifting position on the cloth. Her candle burned down and she lit another. A mouse skittered across the earthen floor. The alley above was silent except for a few hurried footsteps now and then and, once, drunken singing. Through it all Pollux lay motionless, or nearly so. She noticed the barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest. A tightness in her own went out of her. He was not dead.

She wondered again if she’d done the right thing by getting involved in all of this. There was no way of knowing what this man, wrapped in his premature shroud, would do when he awoke. He had not exactly received her warmly when she’d visited him in prison, and she doubted waking up naked in a crowded cellar would make him more receptive. Everything she had
fruned
about this man confirmed what she’d learned from the ganymedes: Castor had risked his honor, his standing, and his life to care for the son he’d had with the woman he had loved. Her own father had done the same for his own children, and surely that was the mark of a trustworthy man? And surely such a man would be grateful that she had saved him from a dishonorable death, and would want to repay her kindness with his service. In any case, she thought, less charitably, it was not as if he’d have many other options. He would want to stay close to his son, to take care of him, and that meant he’d need work. Who better an employer than her?

Not that it mattered at this point. What would happen would happen, she told herself, but instead of fatalistic serenity the thought brought only more nail-biting worry.

The harsh gasp from the man on the floor was so unexpected and sudden that it jolted her from her perch and sent her reaching for her knife. In the dim, flickering candlelight she saw Pollux twitching, as if ants were crawling over his skin. There was another gasp and the twitching became convulsive, his limbs thrashing and tearing loose of the cloth that swaddled him. His back arched so that only his head and heels were touching the floor, then he collapsed back into the folds of the cerement, every limb in purposeless motion, like a marionette wielded by a madman.

She settled back on the cloth, easing her hand away from her weapon. Jadis had warned her about this. She drew her legs up and watched.

Pollux shook again, his head thrown back, his eyes now sightlessly open and veined in blood red. Breath tore from his rigid throat like wind through a clothesline. His legs flexed and relaxed, almost as if he were trying to run. He rolled on to his side and made as if to rise, but his arms buckled, dropping him back to the dirt floor of the cellar.

She watched and waited, and said and did nothing.

Suddenly he began to vomit great choking gouts of red, as if he were ejecting all of the blood in his veins through his mouth, and even in the stench that followed she detected the sweet scent of the moonshadow she’d baked into the tart. He heaved up the last and pushed himself painfully to hands and knees, dripping scarlet from his mouth. He raised his head, his face contorted as if in terrible pain and in the dark his eyes were pools of blackness. Then he collapsed forward, head on his folded arms, knees still braced against the earthen floor, groaning.