The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter (27 page)

“May I approach?”

“Stay on your side. Turn your face away. Are your hands clean, at least?”

Tully laughed. “Clean as my arse, I suppose.” He took a few steps closer, without invitation, still holding out the bag. “For the love of the gods, why do I have to see your wrinkled old johnson every time I come up here?”

“Please, show decorum.” The castellan stepped back even more, to keep distance between himself and Tully.

One bushy eyebrow cocked. “And did you see them, castellan? Roaring through on their mysterious errands?”

“Who?”

“The goddesses. Just a short time ago.”

“What? What are you saying? I might have heard some commotion or other from down there. Always some commotion from you lot. Don’t change the subject.”

The last cobali, tugging on the cords that tied it to the table, watched in terror as the large man approached.

“You see,” said Tully, “I was at South Gate—”

Holding up one hand, the castellan gave the command for silence. So many creatures were borne on the winds that issued from the bellows of the chest and from the lips of others when they spoke or when they breathed. These could sicken a man, transform him, and even kill him if he was in a weakened state.

Plus, Tully talked an incessant load of shit.

“Will it try to escape? Whatever it is. Will it? Nod or shake your head.”

Tully chuckled and shook his head, putting the bag down on the table. In a loud whisper, he said, “From outside the city. I watched ’em come in. He can’t go nowhere.”

“He? Remove the bag.”

Tully did so, and out rolled a boy with no arms and no legs, face clenched tight, blinking his tiny eyes in the dungeon’s light. His forehead was massive, his lantern-jaw jutting. Yet, for a moment, the castellan was too stunned to comprehend what he was even looking at.

Empowered by the reports of numerous eyewitnesses, several of whom were among his own palatinate, visions of returning gods had inflamed him, invigorated him. He had not seen them, for they were gone by the time he got outside, but nevertheless his decision to oversee the morning’s trial had been ordained and validated; the chamberlain felt a great deal more vital than he had for as long as he could remember. A time of rebirth! His limbs did not ache and his heart thudded in his chest like that of a younger man. This was a renaissance for him, for the palatinate, for all Nowy Solum.

The eyes of the chamberlain glinted like pieces of polished stone. His face was firm, lined with stern crevasses. He stood very still in the Ward of Jesthe, fingers together, his robe sweeping the floor, adding to the illusion that he might be a statue. On his head he wore a red miter, the same red as his gown, a metre in height.

The visitor to Jesthe, who had been escorted in by officers, now said, “A way has been cleared.”

“Ah yes? Explain.”

“You’ve seen the results, over the rooftops of our beleaguered city?”

The chamberlain cleared his throat. “We were visited by benevolent Aspu, and her sister, Kingu.”

“Yet there is still much work to be done.”

“I’m not sure I follow you. The goddesses have sent us a clear sign.” Until recently, the man before him had been an unwelcome visitor to Jesthe, an irritant in the city, most likely insane, certainly dangerous. Now, in the light of recent events, the chamberlain was not so sure. “We will not sanction killing in any form,” he said. “Is this what you’re saying? We will not sanction violence without a proper trial or blessing from myself.”

Behind the chamberlain, seven officers of the palatinate stood, also in red robes, also with narrowed eyes and stern faces.

“I don’t know anything about killings. I’m here to tell you that there have been transgressions. These need to cease before the way becomes cleaner still.” The man rubbed at the stubble on his narrow chin.

“You presume to tell the palatinate this?”

“Am I to be detained?”

“No,” said the chamberlain. “You are being cautioned.”

“Just today,” the visitor continued, “there was a woman, sullied by activities in Hangman’s Alley. A red-blooded girl. A hemo. And a fight, on Hoffstater Avenue.”

“You refer, of course, to one kholic? The same kholic?”

“The darkest bile. I have seen him imbibing in public. He met my gaze.”

“There will be no more killing.”

“Killing? There has been no killing.”

“I believe there has.”

“We mark the unclean, make delineations. We prepare our city, chamberlain. Marking abodes, associates, haunts. We all need to prove that we are ready.”

“Again, I caution you.”

By the visitor’s side cowered chained cognosci; chains rattled.

“You are not cautious,” said the chamberlain, eyeing the disgusting beasts with disdain. “I tell you again, there will be no more killing.”

“I am bringing the gods back to Nowy Solum.”

“Insolence. Gods return of their own accord.” The chamberlain’s words echoed faintly in Jesthe’s cavernous Ward. Above the gathering—set high into the walls, near the vaulted ceiling—ancient stained glass windows let in no light. Greasy lanterns burned in alcoves. The chamberlain glared silently, pressing his fingers together.

“I mean no harm,” said the visitor, but his comment was interrupted by the sound of slippers on the stone floor.

Turning from his council, the chamberlain watched as the chatelaine ran into the Ward from the Lower Great Hall entrance, looking flushed as usual, her outrageous robes billowing. Her hair, perched atop her head, teetered like yet another nervous animal.

“I’m ready, Erricus,” she called loudly, her own words booming off the walls. She was clearly unable to locate him. “I’m here for our conference! Where—?” Then she noticed the palatinate and the bare-chested stranger with black pants and lash marks, cognosci huddled at his feet. She froze. “Who is this?”

“He was just leaving.” With a slight movement of his flinty eyes, the chamberlain had given an order: two officers of the palatinate moved forward to escort the man—who stared, blatantly, coldly at the chatelaine—across the vast floor of the Ward and toward the main doors.

Cognosci followed, half-dragged.

The chatelaine stepped aside to let man and beast pass.

Then, when the visitor had gone, the chatelaine made her way toward Erricus and the remainder of the gathered palatinate. “What’s going on? I don’t like the way that man looked at me. Don’t bring him in Jesthe any more.”

“He is a citizen. He is within his rights to seek counsel—”

“I’m bored with this already.”

“Chatelaine, your city has been godless for too long. These are important times.”

“What else is there to discuss?”

“What else? This day might be the single most important day in the history of—”

“
What else
?”

The chamberlain was silent. His left eye ticced. None of his officers moved. Finally he said, “There has been an accident at the main gates.”

“What kind of accident?”

“A tourist has died. The Black Arch, apparently, is now in need of repair.”

“The Black Arch.” The chatelaine looked disturbed, as if she felt a sudden chill. “What happened there?”

“Structural problems.” The chamberlain put his fingers together once more. His face had darkened. “Perhaps you have news of committees today? Bills of import to sign? Protection of the lizards that fly overhead? Or more additions to the plumbing?”

She sneered. “I do have important news to share, so hold your comments.”

The chamberlain and his officers had heard more than their share of news considered important to the chatelaine. They waited.

She said, “I’m ready for reform.”

He cleared his throat. “Reform?” he asked. “Reform of what? And
to
what?”

“Security, for one. Inside the halls of Jesthe. Inside Nowy Solum. As of today. As of now. I want your palatinate upstairs, in all the halls.” The chatelaine pursed her lips. “You were right all along, Erricus.”

The chamberlain lifted his eyes toward the gloom overhead. He said, “I have been a chamberlain without chambers. This auspicious day. We will turn this city around. We will navigate Nowy Solum from dark times.”

“Don’t lay it on so thick, Erricus.”

Now the chamberlain actually smiled; it was not a pleasant sight.

At the first opportunity, Tina bolted from Cadman and the neighbour; either her husband was too stunned or too preoccupied with his own dim thoughts, because he just watched open-mouthed as she vanished down the street. Possibly, Cadman knew that he would be unable to ever say anything appropriate to his wife about what had happened, and that he could never truly relate to a mother’s loss. He watched her go, and was quickly left behind.

The old neighbour, who had struggled all afternoon to keep up with the couple, was now starting to get seriously worried that the recent turn of events might mean his pint was in jeopardy. This would have severe impact upon the remainder of his day and upcoming night. His good mood had ebbed. He snarled. He had the shakes and was tired and thirsty. His swollen feet throbbed and, inside their cloth wrappings, they had begun to weep.

Moving through the streets of Nowy Solum, a fleeing woman, wild-eyed and on the verge of hysterics, was not an unusual sight. Tina headed unimpeded along the same route she had solemnly walked not so long ago, toward the centrum, not really expecting to see the kholic boy again, but at least wanting to be near the spot where she had seen him, needing to be on the move. One thing for certain, she was unable to ever return to her home or to the life she’d led until now. Thoughts of the tiny room she and Cadman shared—the smells of the street outside, the small pile of cotton swaddling for diapering, the thin mattress on the floor—made her stomach clench and her legs move even quicker.

Cadman was as good as dead to her.

Would he be okay? Soon enough, most likely. He would have his ale, and the neighbour for company, and the men from work. With his steady job at the mill and his fading looks and passive attitude—maintaining a constant state of either exhaustion or semi-drunkenness—he would find another woman to live in quiet unhappiness with. They might even try for another child—

Tina could have approached any kholic she saw—the tattooed, averted faces, toiling silently in the shadows of the city—and would be offered no stories of desperation, no revelations. Kholics accepted their rank in society. Maybe her son would, too? But Tina did not want that. She hoped her boy would grow up hating the palatinate and the city that had condemned him.

She pushed through a small crowd—a demonstration of some sort, lots of shouting—and from there across the street, slowing now, her breathing starting to regulate—

The kholic she sought was in the mouth of a narrow alley. He appeared to be touching the roof of a small house, pulling at it with both hands.

He did not see her approach. Without thinking, Tina grabbed the boy’s arm and he spun, eyes wide, his own hands lifted to ward her off. His eyes flicked up, but just for an instant, before he lowered his head.

Tina released his arm. She searched what she could see of the kholic’s face, of his tattoo. The boy was so remote from her, closed. When she embraced him, crushed his rancid body to her, he did not respond, standing stiffly, so she let him go. “We almost met, earlier today. . . . I want to help you. I need to . . .” There was a stone in her chest.

Melancholy, she realized, had dried on the sides of the boy’s face, as if his mark was spreading. More flaked off his hands and arms. She was suddenly frightened, waking up to what she had already done and what she might have the capacity to do.

There was blood on his tattered, crusty clothes.

Red blood.

From the rear of the tiny, dead-end alley, an amorphous shape—a pile of refuse—emitted a low, throaty moan and began to move toward her.