The Stumpwork Robe (The Chronicles of Eirie 1) (16 page)

‘How so? Is that my bane?’

‘No.’ Jasper's voice had a tone that may have had anyone else shivering at what may be coming.

‘So? I don’t care. I will cope when it does.’ Cocksure, he shrugged the act and its guilt away.

‘Liam, you may not be able to. But all that aside, are you sure you want to know your bane?’

Liam nodded, his fingers still pulling Florien’s mane.

‘Ah my boy. It is... it is...’

‘Oh Jasper, for Aine’s sake…’

‘I believe it is Ana.’ The words flowed out quickly on the tail of Liam’s impatience.

‘Ana?’ Liam’s heart chimed a single beat. For a minute it felt like a death knell; so final, so loud was it, he thought Jasper would hear it. ‘How so? Will she kill me?’

‘Not directly,’ Jasper replied, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead as the sun climbed higher. ‘She is soft, kind, in love; it would not be likely. No, she will be the death of you in some way. That is all I know.’

‘What if she died before me?’

‘Before, together, after - it makes no difference. She is your bane.’
Jasper approached his black steed and vaulted up. He
waited while Liam placed a foot in the stirrup and mounted Florien. They rolled in the saddles as the horses eased themselves one hoof in front of the other down the steep slope.

‘And you saw this in that confounded mirror?’ Liam found he couldn’t leave it alone. The idea that the woman he had settled on for a game should be his bane.
What irony.

‘Yes. I saw you, and a slim, dark-haired woman stood over you with her back to me.’

‘Was I old, young? And anyway, it could have been any mortal. Why should it be Ana?’

‘Because Liam, one of the painful things about my skill is that I can hear what happens and I heard what you said with your last breath.’

‘Ana,’ Liam whispered as the game reconfigured beyond expectation.

‘I’m so sorry, my boy, so sorry. That is why I was angry. There was nothing I could do.’

‘Nothing?’

‘A destiny is set in stone, my boy.’

They rode on.

***

Books are being finished and concealed at a prodigious rate and the story begins to darken like the sky as a thunderstorm approaches and the air begins to crackle with lightning. I find as I write these journals that I feel ill as the knife begins to carve close to the bone. So you must move on quickly.
There is a magnificent white lily, tall and gracious with yellow silk stamens of wrapped wire and fine strappy green leaves.

Can you see the beetle at its foot?

It is a Ruby Longhorn Beetle. Brick red Venichese silk and tiny black antique bugle beads from Bressay in the Pymm Archipelago. They mark its antennae beautifully. Lift the elytra just as you have done before and there is the next journal.

Chapter Twenty Three

The Fair took place in the ancient roofed market place. Never sure of the vagaries of mountain weather, the forefathers built an area filled with arcades and spanned by huge wooden transoms, carved and wrought with flowers and leaves. The sculptural wonder alone made the place remarkable. High up, as in the mews, skylights allowed light to enter and sunbeams slanted down and pooled in brilliance on the floor: golden discs that could be mistaken for puddles of glamour, the kind that someone could fall i
nto and be trapped by the Nicker.

Faeran entrepreneurs occupied one arcade of the massive bazaar in a veil of mystique whilst Raji traders had set up in the other, radiating brash and colourful exotica. Whilst sitar and tabla
evoked souk, stone and sand; Faeran harp and gittern created promise and the answers to expectation... a strange cadence which shivered down backbones. But it was enticing music as well, music filled with contradictions as it soothed as well as seduced. Brilliance radiated as light played off silks and satins, soft, bejewelled skin and fantastic raiment. Patrons touched things tentatively, overawed, wondering if they were destined to buy silk purses that were actually sows’ ears.

Kholi and Adelina wandered, the embroiderer’s nervousness on hold,
her anxiety at the entry of Severine into her life blotted out by the sellers who smiled and charmed. The mortal crowd edged by, warily fascinated, observing the rules of care when dealing with the Others - wearing charms and amulets, palming surreptitious signs of horns, avoiding name-giving. Irrespective, the goods for sale glistened and sparkled like a treasure trove, the like of which few mortals might ever see again. Adelina found threads she must have: a skein of the finest silver thread for the stitching of a cobweb, silk gauze ribbons of gold shot with mauve, raspberry with green, white with silver; the perfect degree of flimsiness for insect wings. But she craved fabric and wandered until she smelt the silk stall.

Silk has its own fragrance - delicate, redolent of mulberry and sunshine
and the perfume of flowers and leaves from which the dyes are taken, and it drew her with its subtle tang. On her advance, the seller behind the trestle sent cascades of a pure silk flowing to the end of the table with a flick of her wrist. It floated like a waft of mist or cirrus cloud, entrapping the white brilliance from the skylight, whispering as it fluttered to lie in front of Adelina.

‘Oh,’ she said as
she gazed at the fabric, reminded of the unblemished cream of just
poured milk. But then the light changed and she glimpsed a delicate flesh tint, recalling a Venichese cameo lying in her van.  She had visited a cameo-maker's stall in Veniche and watched him carve into a palely pink shell with a tool called a
bulino.
A typical Venichese gent, he had sat Adelina on a chair and carved her likeness in profile so that she found she simply had to buy the piece. It called to her then just as this oddly tinted fabric did now. The silk’s lustre flowed from milk to shell and back to milk, a constant play of light akin to an aurora in the sky. So utterly unique was it, so completely Other, that Adelina stilled with awe.

The Faeran woman beckoned holding a fold of the fabric out to the Traveller in graceful fingers. Needing no second bidding, Adelina slid the cool folds through her palm, feeling the faint texture as here and there was a slub or knot. She could hear the seductive whisper as it rolled beneath her fingers, '
Buy me, use me.
’

‘Oh Kholi, I can see a robe of such magnificence. So unique. A work of art.’ She turned a glowing countenance to the merchant. ‘Can you envisage it?’

‘Indeed, my princess, I can. A work the Faeran will want to own.’ He grinned at the silk seller and she smiled a secret smile.

‘Seven lengths then, if you please?’ Adelina deferred politely to the seller who questioned the mortal in amusement.

‘Don’t you want to know the price?’

‘Faeran, whatever you ask I shall double the amount. And pay
you
double again to make that robe for
me
, Adelina.’ A sharp voice cut through the quiet negotiations at the stall. It reminded Adelina of fingernails on a panel of glass or the Symmer wind in the Raj which could drive a man mad with its shrieking. She swung around to stare into the basilisk eyes of
Severine di Accia.

In her mind, she stamped her foot, glorying in the image of Severine’s own being under her heel as she repeatedly ground that heel in and in. Aware she could never afford the price the Other would ask. But, she thought with a flash of pure venom, neither would she ever make her robe, her design, for Severine. Never ever. She turned a grim expression back to the seller.

The Other’s perfectly drawn face was framed by mahogany hair in cascades of curls interlaced with gem and pearl. Loose twists fell over the alabaster forehead, sliding around her neck as she glanced almost mischievously from one to the other of the competing women. ‘Your inspired robe sounds almost good enough to
be
Faeran, Adelina. As your handsome consort knows.’

‘Thank you.’ Adelina tried to smile with grace, knowing an Other’s desire to toy with mortals, knowing the seller would see the naked lust for the fabric in her eyes, positive she would enjoy watching the disappointment and sadness as Severine departed with her prize.

‘Come then, seller, hurry and name your price. I don’t wish to dally.’
Severine’s shrill voice pushed between them

Her disr
espect acted on the Other like a fierce weather change
. The Faeran’s eyes darkened and Adelina shivered. ‘Well now, Contessa di Accia.’ The seller’s voice shriveled the air and
Severine’s hands slid into a sable muff. ‘It seems today I have no liking
for straight black hair, grey as slate eyes and mouths painted redder than a drop of mortal lifeblood. Today I like copper hair. And eyes like dark topaz. And freckles. Yes, today I like freckles. And because I like freckles, I am going to
give
Adelina her seven lengths. And for you some advice. There is a seller of dyes further down the aisle. She does a good line in copper hair tint. Avail yourself of her services.’

Adelina’s eyes opened wide in surprise, turning to observe Severine’s reaction. Hell and damnation burned back as if all the malfeasant of the world had been sucked into the very soul of the woman before her.
Severine remained speechless but Adelina felt such a stream of hatred
rushing toward her, she knew the woman’s thoughts could have ganched and flayed her to death. She flipped around quickly toward the stall and buried her shaking fingers in the cool of the silk. Severine departed in haste. Mercifully, thought Adelina.

‘Here you are.’ The seller held out a thick parcel wrapped in cobweb fine paper. ‘But I lied, Adelina. I do require payment. As you know, nothing is for free from the Faeran. There is always a price.’ She leaned forward and wrapped soft fingers in a hank of Adelina’s curls. ‘I want your hair. Not much, a dozen or so strands. Then we shall consider payment made.’

Moments later, with her parcel under her arm and a long lock of copper hair
curled into the Other’s palm, Adelina walked toward the Raji stalls. ‘Aine I feel ill. Severine and I were mere playthings just then. That Other had a game at our expense. She was so livid at Severine; not caring a scrap that the woman now hates me even more. Heavens above Kholi, trust me when I say this is a terrible game that is only just begun. Severine will make me pay in the end and all the while that Faeran will laugh at the outcome, that’s for sure.’

The day sank behind the clouds of night and the couple returned laden with purchases to their temporary home. As they spoke, their words escaped in puffs tinged white and vapid with the freezing air. ‘But it has been a good day, my love,' said Kholi. ‘Excluding that last moment. The marketplace, the goods, the Raji stall holders?’

‘Oh indeed.’ Adelina hugged the parcel of silk to her chest, the urge to cut and stitch bursting. But in the back of her mind she saw an image that cast a dark stain over the folds of her fabric. ‘Except for Severine.’

‘Adelina I insist you must tell me why she agitates you so. Your frown desperately when you speak of her.’

‘If you say I must then I will. But later, yes?’ She shuddered and hugged the silk even closer, lapsing into a puffing silence as the steady incline took hold. They had reached the door of the inn and as Kholi pushed, Buckerfield pulled it back to greet them, his cheeks flushed and pouched, the welcoming smile widening at the sight of them.

‘Well, my lovelies, I can certainly see you have had a good time. You’ve been gone long and spent gelt too, it seems.’ He eyed the arms loaded with parcels. ‘Now, go to my little nook and I’ll bring you some refreshment. You have visitors.’

He moved his bulk aside and as Adelina and Kholi squeezed past they smelled the fragrance of grape and hop, a pleasant enough perfume. They stopped dead when they caught sight of the visitors. Dropping her parcels where she stood, Adelina ran across the room and threw herself into waiting arms.

‘Ana, thank Aine.’

C
hapter Twent Four

Ana had woken whilst Liam and Jasper were galloping up the Barrow Hills. She had stretched languorous hands above her head and felt a slight chafing in unfamiliar places. Her hands flew to her belly as the early morning’s delight flooded into her mind. Turning to the window, lying on her side and gazing out between the slightly pulled drapes, she felt a surge of coyness as she remembered what she and Liam had done; coyness coupled with rampant desire.
She wondered what Pa would think. Disappointed at her
looseness? Probably.
But Pa, you are gone now. I trusted you to stay with me for so much longer than you did and now I must make my own way. And I choose to make my way with a man called Liam who I believe loves me as much as you did, as much as I trusted Mother to love me.
She sighed and in the midst of a resolution that it would be the last time she ever dwelt on trust and the lack of it, missed the gentle opening of the door.

‘Ana?’ A soft voice redolent of honey and spice eased her from her poignant reverie and she rolled over.

‘Are you feeling well,
muirnin
?’ A slim woman of indeterminate age moved to the window and pulled back the drapes. A man appeared with a tray of steaming breakfast food and an armful of trailing clothes. Having placed the tray beside the bed, a smile lightening the crooked and austere face, he laid out his bundle on the bed as the woman spoke. ‘Jasper said you needed clothes so there are some jodhpurs for you and a shirt and warm jacket. The ewer is filled with water.’ The woman waved a hand in the direction of the jug and bowl and Ana heard the trickle of water, saw steam. ‘Liam and Jasper are riding. If you are ready before they return, you are welcome to walk in the garden. You will be quite safe.’ The woman hustled the ostler in front of her and the two walked to the door. ‘If you need anything, just call. We can hear you wherever we are.’

Ana slipped her legs over the edge of the bed, caution erased by the woman’s matter-of-fact, easy manner. Picking up a triangle of steaming toast, she licked preserve off her fingers and chewed as she walked to the window to gaze at the humming, blossoming garden. Peace cosseted her almost to the depths of her soul. For the first time for months there was no suffocating grief, no confusion. For all that time her energies had been directed to the sublimation of emotion, to the mere act of survival because if she let sorrow in with more than a foot at her door, she had thought it would completely overtake her. But of course, her efforts had been in vain because the misery had its own agenda, controlling her rather than the other way round.

Now she felt different, lighter. She could think of her father without the black dog of loss sitting behind her staring dolefully. She could see Pa’s face with its slightly balding head and kind, brown eyes and she knew she could draw up his image without pain. Her mother had said in one of her rare moments that it took time. In Ana’s mind, time equated with distance and the miles she had travelled serve to lessen the load.

She was reminded oddly of the oubliette, so recently in her thoughts -
the dark, dank hole where people were imprisoned and forgotten so that they rotted into eternity.
What a perfect place to jettison awful memories
. Of the way her father had died starving for air; the rasping, the panic as he clawed at the bedding fighting for just one last breath. Of Bellingham and his outrageous brutality, of the Others who had wantonly tried to kill her. She watched them in her mind as they slid into the hellhole, and then she turned away to fill the emotional space so recently vacated by her father with Liam.

The two men picked their way steadily across the rolls of the Barrow Hills. For some time Liam had been quiet, brooding on Jasper’s revelations. He flicked a section of mane from one side of Florien’s neck to the other and broke the silence. So he was to die at Ana’s behest somehow. As his heart once again found a rhythm, he wondered why she affected him so? ‘Did you discover anything about Ana’s future?’

Jasper had relaxed, allowing his horse to meander along, and took a moment to answer. ‘No. Mortals are hard to divine. Their heads run at a million miles an hour with things they hold on to. And to be honest I was concentrating so hard on trying to get Ana to break free from the constraints of her emotional withdrawal, I did not give it the time it needed.’ His horse jogged a few paces and Jasper sat easily in the saddle, his posture hardly changing, hands relaxed on the reins. ‘But there was a repeating symbol,’ he added.

‘Indeed?’ Liam sat straighter, the saddle creaking. ‘What?’

‘Quite odd really. A horseshoe.’

‘And so?’

‘Well I’m not quite sure. To mortals, horseshoes are tied with good fortune and marriage.’

‘Ah well, to be sure. We shall be married and live a long life.’ Bitterness rose in Liam’s gullet and he despised himself for the frailty.
Change the subject, that’s what I must do.
‘Did you ever seek my brother?’ He wanted to get far from Ana and banes for the moment, it required a commitment in which he suddenly had no desire to indulge.

‘In fact, yes. Every year for five years I spent time in the Pymm Archipelago for that’s where he was mislaid. I thought to find signs but there were none. Not a solitary thing.’

‘Do you think he died?’

‘There are only two possibilities. Certainly one is that he died. I never spent time with the babe to be able to determine his bane. If I had, I would perhaps have had clues as to where and what to look for. At least I could have reported something definitive back to your father. The other possibility is he may have been found by a carlin... a mortal wise woman whose skills and abilities border on Other. Only one such as she would have known how to hide a Faeran babe from Faeran eyes. But there was no sign. Plenty of orphaned children as there were hard times in the islands but none were Other.’ He turned back and looked at Liam, raising his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders. ‘So there you are. Now what say you to a race, to blow away gloom? To home! HYAR!’

He closed his heels hard on his horse and sat down firmly in his saddle. The horse flew into a gallop, sending clods of soil and tussock in its wake and
Liam needed no second bidding. Faeran are renowned for indulging to
excess when there is amusement to be had and besides he wanted so much to shake the uncharacteristic foreboding with which Jasper had filled him. He clapped the reins either side of Florien’s neck shouting, and the grey animal sprang after their fast disappearing companions.

The duelling horses racketed through the Ymp Trees and skidded abreast to a gravel-scattering stop outside the house. The noise of the snorting, the shouts and laughter and the shod hooves crunching over gravel as they plunged about brought Ana flying around the side of the house. When she saw Liam she stopped and smiled. Jasper scrutinized the couple carefully as Liam grinned back but there was nothing overt that one could construe as love, or even fascination. But there was something of Fate in all of it and the one thing Jasper knew was that one could never change Fate, Destiny; call it what one will. He jumped off his horse. ‘Well Ana,
muirnin,
you look much better. Perhaps you can return with Liam to your friends. What do you think?’

‘And so here I am.’ Ana relayed an expeditious account of her trials and tribulations with the occasional help from Liam, although the two carefully left out reference to the morning’s dalliance. But Adelina knew immediately that Ana had given herself to Liam. She held herself a different way, as if she had discovered seduction on her journey - a glance with a heavy lid, a licking of the lips, a toss of the hair. This time she was no ingénue.

Adelina sat back as Ana laughed with Kholi. She held a goblet of wine in her hand and tapped it thoughtfully against her lips. Liam sat down beside her and his very presence acted like salt on a wound. ‘She was fortunate beyond doubt,’ she said.
‘She could be living the murky life of a Limnae now. And all thanks to you.’ She began swirling the wine in her goblet, trying to dredge up her long lost equanimity.

‘Yes, Adelina, she is alive and well and here. Surely
now
you will trust me. I truly have nothing but her best interests at heart.’

At this she turned and looked at him. ‘Yes, but why?’

He shook his head, laconic, dry. ‘Ah, Adelina. Sometimes I think you are brave as well as unbelievably stupid. Do you forget that it is totally within my power to bewitch you or Kholi and turn your lives upside down.’ He spoke to the air, not looking at her once, and she could feel the insidiousness of the threat, as sure as if he held a poniard to her side. He continued, bending to flick a white thread from his dark breeches. ‘But by all means have your digs and jibes. I allow them to pass before me, free of restraint. Because of this.’ His voice hardened even more. ‘I want Ana. Whether it is to love her, lust after her, dominate her, mould her...’ he dragged out the word ‘mould’, his hand cupped, fingers closing as if on a ball of soft clay. ‘It is my choice, not yours. So I care nothing for your approval or otherwise. All you need to know is that I will have her.’ He closed his fist with a snap. ‘Besides, look at those two.’ Kholi and Ana chatted amicably, the Raji’s arm around her shoulder. He said something and she laughed, the embodiment of spontaneous happiness. ‘Do you think with your perpetual carping you will convince them I am anything other than what I appear to be?’ He raised an eyebrow, clinking his goblet against her own, the
tink-tink
sounding like the clash of swords in Adelina’s overactive imagination. As he moved away, his voice returned to her. ‘Your move, I think.’

Adelina was speechless, her cheeks flushing but Ana called to her. ‘It seems you’ve had your own excitements. Silks and satins and Faeran markets and what about Severine? She sounds dire.’

Adelina composed her face with speed, not wishing Liam or the others to see her distrait. ‘Oh she’s dire indeed. I’ve hated her since I was an infant. For some perverse reason, both our sets of parents flung us together as often as not. We are of an age you see. And neither of us had siblings, the difference being that my parents were quite young whilst Severine’s were ancient, truly.’
She took a sip of her wine, remembering the jabs, jibes and joys of childhood.
‘And because she was this wondrous gift from Lady Aine so late in their lives, they spoiled her, loading her with gifts and compliments till her ego was the height of Mount Goti. What made it worse was that she really was quite a pretty child, itself amazing as her parents were nothing out of the ordinary. And I was so plain, a typical redhead, and she let me know it. She called me spiteful names behind our parents’ backs and encouraged some of the others to bully me. You know how insidious children can be. After that, my hate for her knew no bounds and my red temper would pitch itself at her, scratching and screaming if I should let it. I sabotaged her life; pinching, pulling, stealing, destroying - anything and everything to get my own back on her.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Then I heard the word ‘changeling’ and I decided
she
was one. She just didn’t fit in our Travellers’ world, the way she gave herself airs. I began to call her a changeling and the other children took up the chant and I hoped we could make her life wretched, but it was water off a duck’s back. Inadvertently I gave her the tool by which she would re-shape the rest of her miserable, and let me say dangerous life. When she found out that changelings were exchanged Faeran children she began to see herself differently. Never mind that a changeling was usually a sickly babe; in her mind it was of no account. Hell’s teeth! If she had given herself airs before, it was nothing to the way she behaved as we reached our more mature years.' She took a sip of the comforting liquor and continued.

'I blossomed a little as we grew up. My hair quietened down, I lost my childish fat and I began to draw the male eye, a thing Severine loathed. All her life she had been the one who attracted the attention in the camp and now she had a contender. She pitched herself against me in everything; relationships, trading, embroidery; which I might add I trumped her on every time. What some saw as amusing competition, I knew was actually war. In her private moments, she constantly read about the Others and tried to emulate them and their ways, her belief in the changeling theory having rooted itself like an ugly weed. Her parents were devastated because as long as she believed such illusory stuff, she was denying her parentage but they were too feeble to gainsay her. And then something terrible happened.’

Her audience was still, even Liam who leaned against the wall in the shadows, sipping a goblet of red Raji wine.

‘We had stopped in a glade we knew of, to collect fungi, truffles. It was something of a tradition when we passed through that part of Eirie. All of us, even Severine, set out and filled baskets of the stuff and then went about preparing our food and eating it, each family enjoying their own repast. But something stirred in my gut that night as I remembered a few years ago my dog, my little terrier and my shadow, had been poisoned at this very same time, the truffle feast. And next morning the memory was even more vivid as there was an unseelie shriek from
Severine’s family van and when we ran to investigate, she stepped back to
show us her parents, their faces set in some agonizing rictus of death.’