The Visitor (26 page)

The supply officer took forever to read the list.

“Y'say sheets and blankets and a pillow, but you don't say bed,” he commented.

“There's a bed already there.”

“Not your bed. Whadever you're gonna use, you godda ast for. Otherwise, somebody fines a bed there and no bed on your rekazishun, they take the bed.”

“Give me a moment,” asked Dismé. “I'll put down the bed and the chair and the wash stand that's already there.” She did so, then resubmitted the list.

“You got down here curdens or shades but you don' say how many winnows.”

She amended her list once more. Three windows, curtain rods.

“There's curden rods already there,” he said.

“Not my curtain rods,” she responded.

“They're fas'ened in. Stuff that's fas'ened in, you don't got to rekazition. Like a stove. Id's build in, so take it offa the lis.”

“I see.”

“You don' got down here no rug.”

“Am I allowed a rug?”

“You don' know 'less you ast for one.”

“All right,” she murmured, “I'll ask for a rug.”

They continued in this wise for some little time, adding an oil lamp, a fuel box (a limited supply of firewood and coal was provided), and concluding with a grudging agreement on the part of the supply officer that most of what she'd asked for could be delivered to the room by the following day.

Dismé returned to the Division of Health offices, where she was ostentatiously ignored by Captain Trublood. An officer of lesser rank gave her meal chits, an overnight chit for the hostelry where she was staying, and another one that allowed her to go on living there until her quarters had been furnished. “Do some sightseeing,” this one suggested kindly. “Go over to Mill Street. It has all kinds of nice shops, and there's respectable places to eat, and a little park.”

Accordingly, Dismé went to Mill Street and spent the afternoon wandering in the dull little shops and having a barely edible meal at a cafe and sitting in the little park, which had more weeds than grass and no flowers except six badly maimed marigolds around a broken sundial. Noting her own lack of appreciation, she realized she had been spoiled by Faience. Molly Uphand was a superlative cook with access to unlimited milk, cream, eggs, meat, vegetables, and fruit from the surrounding farms; the grounds were visually exciting; and the contents of the Museum, at least the artistic ones, put any shop to shame. Aesthetics obviously didn't occupy a high place among the mostly Turnaway masters of Hold.

She decided to go back to her hostelry, started to rise, then sat back down again. The hair on her neck prickled. She was being watched. She took several things out of her bag and laid them on the bench as though looking for…her handkerchief, which she wiped her nose with as she turned toward the items lying on the bench in order to glance toward the area that had been behind her. There was a figure standing against a building at the end of the street, where the
park ended. That is, she thought it was a figure of a person, though it could have been…anything. It was too far away to see the eyes though, for some reason, she thought they were red. Keeping her head down, she replaced the items in her bag, stood up, shook out her skirts, and turned slowly in that direction. The figure was gone.

She returned to her hostelry, had a better meal in the refectory there, and wrote a letter to Mrs. Stemfall saying she had been hired and would not be returning to the Conservator's house, though she paused a few moments before adding those last words. Staying in Hold might involve danger, but going back to Faience was out of the question. If something wanted to look at her, it could do so as well in Faience or Apocanew as here in Hold. This Fortress, with its hall keepers and bureaucratic systems, was among the safer places she could be.

She walked over to the Fortress, and in the main corridor, the one with all the dusty flags, she located the post service office, where she paid a fee to have the letter taken to Apocanew on the train; another, lesser fee to have it delivered in Apocanew to someone on the route list who worked at Faience; and still another, quite small fee to have that person deliver the letter to Mrs. Stemfall. Returning to the hostelry, she locked door and window, pulled the curtains, and settled herself to sleep, grinning unashamedly at the thought of what Rashel would do and say when she heard the news.

Just before she dozed off, however, the grin faded as she remembered what Doctor Ladislav had said. “A man, traveling with a wife, and one or more children…”

She was obviously expected to play the part of the wife, but where were they to get the children? She drifted into sleep with the question unanswered.

In the night, she had several dreams that half wakened her, not her usual type of dream, but something much more real and immediate. When she woke at dawn, she was the surprised possessor of a discrete section of missing memory concerning climbing down a well and traveling through caverns, and the memories were still returning, like bubbles in
a mud pool, each preceded by a feeling of fullness and then a soggy
pwufl
as the bubble broke to disclose an event in all its details. Dismé lay abed until the day was well advanced, recollecting her journey underground with amazement, some embarrassment, and more than a little joy to know that somewhere Arnole still lived.

She also thought about the dobsi in her head. She could not feel it, but now she knew it was there! Should she tell the doctor? Would it upset him? Would it place him at risk? The initial impression she had of him made her believe that he and the demons might well be of like mind, but in the end, she decided not to mention it.

T
wo days later, Mrs. Stemfall went into the dining room where Rashel was having her noon meal in lonely splendor. Just outside the door, she adopted a dour and disapproving face.

“Parm me, Ma'am,” she muttered, with a sniff. “But there was a letter from your sister, Miss Dis. She ast me to tell you she has that job they was offering. She won't be coming back.”

Rashel turned quite pale. She had received Michael's message regarding the “stuck door and extra day away” with a degree of composure, expecting Dismé to return today. Now she rose from the table and left the dining room, missing the sly smile that fled across the housekeeper's face. Upstairs, in Dismé's room, Rashel pulled out the drawers, opened the cupboards and threw wide the closet door. They were empty except for a tattered shirt and pair of men's trousers, which she regarded with momentary rage until she realized the belt around them was Dismé's own. She returned to attack Mrs. Stemfall.

“You packed her things! You sent them on to her.”

Mrs. Stemfall allowed herself a measure of hauteur. “I did no such thing. I'd have had no time to do so.”

“I'll get to the bottom of this. I'll question Joan and Michael. If you have…”

Mrs. Stemfall turned in outrage and left the room, feeling Rashel's fury crackling the air after her. Rashel raged through the house, looking for evidence, so she said, that one of the servants had helped Dismé do whatever it was Dismé was alleged to have done. Molly Uphand retaliated by providing a supper that was barely edible, but Rashel didn't notice. Carrying her rage from the house to the museum, she went on so furiously in the succeeding days that a number of museum staff took sick.

In the classroom, Lettyne bit her lips in aggravation. Tidbits of news about Dismé had been good for a few coins from her mama, and now that source of income had departed. At home, Molly Uphand smiled quietly behind a dish towel, postponing a good gossip with Joan about it until they were home. Dismé had often lent a hand and was well-liked.

Rashel's interview with Michael caused the gravest affront. He denied taking baggage from maid or cook or housekeeper to send on to Hold. He denied he had packed any such thing himself. He kept his temper very well, considering that half-a-dozen times he came within a breath of assaulting her. When a momentary lull allowed him to do so, he tendered his resignation to the Caigo Faience, thereby renewing hostilities.

“What do you mean, you're leaving?” she snarled.

“I have already secured a driver's position in Hold which is to begin in a few day's time.”

“You don't have my permission to leave!”

“I'm sure the BHE will find someone for you within the next few days,” Michael replied. “I informed them earlier, and they said it would take little time to replace me.”

“
You
informed them!”

“Yes Ma'am. In accordance with the rules of my contract.”

“I am your employer!”

“Respectfully, no Ma'am. I work for the BHE, like the rest of the staff of Faience and this house. We all took the job on short notice, to oblige, for a minimum term that was over some time ago. Any or all of us can leave on three days' notice.”

Rashel opened her mouth to shriek, but was forestalled when he held out a packet.

“Pardon me, Ma'am, but this letter was delivered a few minutes ago.”

“From whom? From where?”

“A rider, Ma'am. On a black horse up from the city.”

She ripped open the envelope, read the first two lines, and turned quite pale.

“Ma'am?”

She wiggled her fingers at him, brushing at him. Go, said her hand. Go away. He went, noting her discomfiture with great satisfaction.

Behind him, Rashel read the brief note again. And yet again. Nothing changed what it said. She was summoned from Faience to meet with Hetman Gohdan Gone. Damn him and damn him! She had tried to ignore him, and failed. She had tried to charm him, and failed. She had tried compliance, but mere compliance didn't satisfy him either. He was not susceptible to any form of handling, and it was all her fool mother's fault! Her foolish, stupid mother who had obligated all Rashel's future life.

She remembered screaming at her mother for involving her in such a thing. “How dared you?” Rashel had cried.

“Because it was the only thing I could think of,” her mother had replied, glancing up at her daughter from the hands that twisted in her lap. “He wanted to sacrifice you. I bargained for your life by convincing him you could be of help to him…”

Rashel hadn't believed her. She had seen no reason why the Hetman would have wanted to kill her. He hadn't even met her!

In the face of this disbelief, Cora would have been wise to have gone away at that point, or to have sent Rashel away. She loved her daughter, however, and did not assess either the depths of Rashel's hatreds, or the shallowness of her affections. As a result, Cora died quite suddenly, just before Rashel and Ayward were married. She was quite alone at the time, and only the timely arrival of the cleaning
woman allowed her to be bottled while tissue was still harvestable.

Rashel's disposal of her mother had put an end to a minor annoyance. Rashel wished a similar departure for Hetman Gone, but nothing she could do would rid her of Hetman Gohdan Gone, save die, perhaps, and she was not sure even that would serve. She knew very well what had prompted this summons. Dismé! Dismé the idiot. Dismé the “little golden bird.” Dismé, whom Hetman Gone had commanded Rashel to keep close and under supervision. Dismé, who had departed without Gone's approval.

When she stormed out of the room, Michael, who had stepped only around the corner, immediately re-entered it and found the letter upon her desk. He approached it (as he thought wise to do) with his hands clasped behind his back. He read it quickly, keeping well away from it and fighting a strong urge to pick up the letter, to look at it more closely, to bring it near his eyes. Instead, with a shiver, he stepped away, glancing back to see the page disappear in a single flare of red, leaving no ash.

Though he had not heard the name of Hetman Gohdan Gone, he had been told about sorcerous documents. Such manuscripts were often designed with a dual purpose, first to convey a spell or enchantment, second to entrap the person who read or touched them, making them subservient to the sorcerer's will. It was good he had handled only the envelope.

Within the hour, Rashel ordered the carriage for a trip to Apocanew, directing Michael to the street corner where he had taken her before. She told him to return in two hours' time, and after the carriage turned a corner and disappeared, Rashel walked toward the Hetman's gate, taking no notice of the small boy who came around the corner where the carriage had turned. He followed her at a distance, obviously preoccupied with the ball he was bouncing against buildings and walkways, always leaping and scrambling to catch it before it bounded into the street.

The keeper of the iron gate was as rude as usual, and gain
ing the Hetman's dwelling was as onerous. The way seemed longer, the air colder in the hallways, hotter in his room.

He told her to be seated, and when she had done so, he remarked, “Quite unexpected, Dismé running off like that.”

“Temporarily,” murmured Rashel. “They won't keep her long. She's totally inept.”

“Tsk,” murmured Gone. “She was the only one left in Bastion, and you let her get away. And after you'd been so efficient with all the others. But then, Dismé was the only one you were specifically ordered to keep alive.”

She looked puzzled, not understanding him.

“The others went so very neatly, too. I always admired the ease with which you disposed of her father and brother, and you barely into your teens. No one ever thought you'd done it.”

For a moment, Rashel's heart stopped. This was a new tack, something never mentioned before, something she had not been sure he even knew. Still, his voice had not been angry.

She was practiced enough at these interviews not to dissimulate. She replied in a monotone, “It wasn't difficult. The man wasn't my father, and he didn't like me. Roger wasn't my brother and he slapped my face. I didn't like them.”

“You didn't mind at all?”

“Roger was
his
favorite. And Roger couldn't stand being called a coward: he would walk on the bridge parapet above the river, showing off. All it took was a little push.”

Hetman Gone was, for a moment, silent. When she said nothing more, he murmured, “And Val Latimer?”

“I brewed foxglove from the garden and put it into his tea. His heart was bad anyhow. It didn't take much.”

“Well you did it very neatly. Your mother knew, of course.”

She gasped. She had had no idea her mother knew!

“Oh, yes. That's why she brought you to me, after you killed Roger. She had to. She was under instructions to protect all three of the Latimers. You had killed one of them, which meant your life was forfeit, Rashel. Then you killed
again, and for the second time she convinced me you'd be useful. I'm afraid she was wrong.”

She sat, stony faced, her mind awash in confusion.

The Hetman went on. “Five of them altogether, wasn't it. Roger, your step-brother. Latimer, your step-father. Then your own mother. Then Arnole, and Ayward—oh, you didn't kill those two, I know, but you disposed of them, nonetheless. If only you'd been
told
to dispose of them, I could congratulate you. You weren't ordered to do anything to Arnole or his son, however, so why did you?”

In deep confusion, Rashel moved fretfully. “They were complicating things, attracting attention. Ayward would go on and on about Inclusionism.” She swallowed deeply and attempted an appearance of candor. “It wasn't done as neatly as I planned. For some reason they both disappeared.”

“True, neatness escaped you. But Arnole and Ayward are not the ones I regret. It's the three Latimers I wanted: not killed, not hurt, not maimed, only watched and kept, for we of the Fell may need one or all of them alive and unhurt. You weren't punished for killing Roger or his father, and we forgave your mother in return for her donating your life and services, and for keeping tight watch on our little bird. Then you disposed of your mother, which wasn't authorized, and the duty fell to you. Now…now we no longer have her. You have cost us much, Rashel, and you have given us little. What will you do about it, ah?”

“They'll send her home,” Rashel blurted.

“I think it unlikely. I feel wheels spinning within wheels, circles emerging from circles, the pivoting and whirling of forces, while the danger looms still. The Latimer lineage is of unusual interest to certain powers outside Bastion, and you have let the only Latimer in Bastion get away.”

“In Bastion? You mean there are others?”

“Latimers? Oh, yes. One here, one there. A dozen or so outside. Who knows how many altogether? Each new bit of information only serves to confirm their importance, as is clear from my reading of the Book of Fell.” He laid a huge, horny hand upon the book beside him, a heavy book, with unevenly
cut pages and patches of mold on the cover. She shuddered. The book had played a part in her dedication. At least, the thing that had emerged from its pages had played a part.

The Hetman went on. “But you weren't responsible for any of the others. Dismé was the only one of the Latimers you needed to concern yourself with.”

“Why are we concerned about Latimers outside Bastion?”

“You're questioning me?” His tone was amused.

She swallowed deeply, moistening dry lips with her tongue. “I'm naturally curious, that's all. I have long thought I could serve you better if you involved me in your magic. I know you have magic. Several of my dear friends have spoken of it, to me, without mentioning your name, of course, but I knew who they meant.”

“You have wanted to be involved in my magic,” he said musingly. “Now that's an idea.”

“And I could serve you better if I knew why Dismé is so important!”

Gohdan Gone chuckled, such a clatter as a gibbet load of bones might make, rattling in a cold wind. “You work best when you do what you were told during your dedication. You were perhaps distracted at the time? I will tell you once more. The Lost Book of Bertral says there is or will be a Guardian Council. There are a score or more members of this Council. We read this in the Book of the Great Fell, whom I serve, whom you serve. Whoever or whatever this council may be, it will be inimical to us, and the Latimers have something to do with it. We of Fell don't want a Guardian Council. Now, what will you do?”

She drew herself up. “I'll visit her in Hold! I intended to go there in any case. I am part of the commission studying The Artifact. There is a meeting there in a few day's time.”

“Of course you are part of the commission,” he murmured, looking her full in the face. “Another of the little benefits we have provided you.” He hummed under his breath. “Have you learned yet what it is?”

“No. No one has any idea. Not at this stage.”

“What do you think it is?” he demanded.

She took a deep breath. “I believe it is a crystallized process, something which was ensorceled into being but never potentiated.”

He pinned her with his glance, his eyes red in the fireglow. “An interesting concept. And was there a book with it?”

“No one has seen a book. The whole cellar has been excavated, and all that's there is the thing itself.”

“While you are in Hold, take care of Dismé. Somehow, you must take her back to Faience.”

She licked her lips again, and murmured, “I found a recipe a few years ago, in one of the old books Caigo Faience had collected. It was an account of a potion used by black magicians in the deep past. The drug seems to kill, but the one dosed and seeming dead may rise again, subservient to the will of the person who does the raising up. It uses the liver of a certain fish, which I've obtained through trade channels.”