Winter (The Manhattan Exiles) (13 page)

Then the train spoke. Aine winced.

“
It’s a recorded voice,” explained Winter, reading her expression. “Probably recorded a decade ago. It’s not just you, princess. No one can understand it anymore.”

“
Then what is the point of it?” Aine looked around at her fellow passengers.

Three or four were shifting in place, putting order to their belongings, getting ready, she thought, to disembark. As though the garbled words and broken sounds had in fact made sense.

“It’s only a cue,” explained Richard. “Nobody understands what it’s saying, but we all know it means we’re coming to a station. Watch. Out the window.”

Just as Aine turned to look through the glass again the tunnel widened, and the train began to slow.

“Capitol South.” Winter shifted to let impatient mortals past. “Not our stop. We’re one more.”

The seat next to Aine emptied. Winter collapsed into it. He stretched his legs, and propped the heels of his boots on the shaft of Richard’s stick. Richard ignored him.

“It’s really quite a work of art,” Richard said as the train coasted to a stop. “The barrel-vaulted ceilings had to be put together at the Navy Yard. And they’re a fine example of Modern Architecture.”

“
Exposed concrete is rather past its time, I fear.” Winter clicked his tongue. “Very 1980s.”

The train doors slid open, and passengers spilled out onto red brick. Aine watched the humans as the first crop ebbed and a new group pushed back. Most of the travelers kept their heads lowered and their eyes forward. None bothered to stop and admire the endless pattern of squares pressed into the high, arched ceiling overhead.

“What’s that?” she asked, squinting.

“
What?” Richard turned.

But the train spoke again, and the doors hissed shut as the new load of humans hurried to find a bit of space to call their own.

“I don’t know.” Aine pressed her hand against the dirty window. “I thought I saw something, up against the vaults, floating. A bird, maybe. A large bird. Do you keep birds in the tunnels?”

“
Only rats and the occasional bat,” said Richard, cheerful, as the train lurched forward again.

Aine shuddered.
“Bats. Bats are bloodthirsty creatures.”

“
Not here. Here, they’re harmless. Besides, for some reason they tend to steer clear of Winter, even when we’re deep in the tunnels. So, don’t worry. Right, Win?”

Winter grunted assent, but he’d sat forward and was staring through Aine’s window as though he could see back along the tunnels.

She couldn’t help but notice he was scowling again.

7
. The Poet

They exited the train at the next station. Richard led the way, parting the crowd with his stick, and clearing a place on the moving stairway used to pull travelers to the surface.

Once above ground Richard adjusted the sack he carried over his shoulder, and took his leave.

“I’ve cable to find. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours. You’ll be fine without me.” He glanced at his timepiece. “Shall we meet back before noon?”

Winter stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coat. Aine wondered if the grey-eyed boy was cold. It wasn’t snowing. In fact, the sky was blue and the mortal sun bright.

But for all the star’s shine their breath still frosted in the morning air.

“
You’ll have the entire capitol stripped of cable in an hour,” Winter said. “What do you plan to do with the other two, if not help us dig up dead verse?”

“
I’ve a few things to finish,” Richard returned. “Things of my own. If you two can’t find
Argus
by yourselves, I doubt I’d be much help.”

“
Sure.” Winter turned his back on the other boy. He stared out across the next street.

“
Be careful,” Aine said, although she wasn’t sure what prompted the warning.

Richard smiled and bowed. He walked away, stick tapping time on the pavement.

Aine watched until Richard turned a corner. Then she took a deep breath of the cold air, and regarded Winter.

“
Well?” she asked, wondering if he planned to stand in place until Richard returned.

“
He’ll be okay. He’s lived in this city longer than I. Granted, he doesn’t usually venture out in broad daylight. I think he’s showing off.” Winter shot Aine an accusing glare. “And you’re encouraging it, all unknowing.”

Puzzled, Aine studied her companion. In the morning light his striped cap was more colorful than she had first noticed, his coat less worn. He looked almost presentable, if one ignored the healing burns on his face.

He looked more than presentable, she admitted to herself. He was a beacon in an otherwise drab world, bright as the cold sun above. Simply standing and breathing he made the humans hurrying past look dull and awkward and clumsy.

“
You should come back with me,” she said before she thought. “Back home, once we’ve worked it out. You don’t belong here. Gloriana would welcome one such as you at Court.”

“
Would she?” Winter’s beautiful grey eyes were hooded. “We’ll see, princess. First there’s the not small matter of getting it all ‘worked out’.” He took his hands from his pockets, and crooked his arm. “So we’d better get started. Walk me across the street. There, to that big brick building with the massively overdone pillars.”

She took his elbow. The brick building was in fact the largest on the street, and Aine thought the pillars were rather plain.

“Are you worried?” she asked, looking left and right before stepping into the roadway. “That you won’t hear the cars before they chase you down?”

“
No. I’m worried you’ll dash off into mischief and me without Richard and Lolo as backup.” He put his fingers over hers before she could pull away.

“
Humor me,” he warned. “Below ground I had some small protection. Above I can feel hungry eyes watching, and you’re a pretty treat in spite of the shorn hair.”

The nape of Aine’s neck prickled.
“Who? What do you mean? Is it
him
?”

Winter kept his eyes fixed on the bricks as they climbed a short, wide flight of steps between white pillars. A sign at the base of the building read ‘Southeast Branch’.

“People don’t talk much on the Metro, or did you notice? They’re thinking ahead to business matters or behind to personal matters or they’re listening to music or, some, not thinking at all. They’re travelers, not companions, and generally they prefer to remain undisturbed.”

“
Aye,” Aine agreed softly. “The sound of the train is disturbing enough.”

“
Probably,” he acknowledged. “But out on the streets, now, that’s a different matter. People flock and talk and yell and scream and whisper and curse. Most people, normal people, you can filter the noise. And you certainly don’t know that that young man there,” he tilted his chin over her shoulder, “talking so sweetly to his infant daughter, is wishing he could leave the babe on the library steps and walk away from the responsibilities she entails.”

Aine glanced at the man and his babe.
“I suppose most parents think the same way at one time or another.”

“
Maybe. But most parents don’t mean it, not deep down. That one, he means it, he’d rather she were dead, even as he sings her a lullaby. His despair feels like a weight in my chest.”

Aine stopped in front of the library door. She looked back down the steps. The young man and the pram he pushed were nearly out of sight.

“Will he hurt her? Should we do something?”

“
Probably.” Winter reached around and pulled the door open. “But there’s not enough time in the day, in a lifetime, to antidote every sad, sick or psychotic person who speaks where I can hear. Majority of people in this city are sad, sick or psychotic. Their pain is like a broken chord in my head. It’s enough to drive an innocent mad. Luckily, I’m not.” He nudged her over the threshold and into the building.

“
Not what?” Aine asked.

“
An innocent,” Winter returned. “Come on. Pope’s on the third floor.”

The library was quiet. Aine took note of the silence as she followed Winter up two flights of carpeted stairs. She’d never taken time to appreciate quiet before, or even the space in her head that was Aine, safe and private.

Out of the corner of her eye she studied the gems in Winter’s ears.

“Who put them there? Your dreadful little jewels? Who put them on you?”

He heard her, of course he did. But he didn’t answer.

“Alexander Pope was one of humankind’s most prolific poets,” he said instead. “Born three centuries ago in London, he was the son of a very wealthy merchant, also called Alexander. Young Alexander lived with his father and mother very near Windsor Forest and did well enough until, at the age of twelve he drank poisoned milk.” At the top of the second flight Winter turned through a small arch, and then stopped. Hand painted letters over the arch read “Folio”.

Aine, standing at his side, considered rows and rows of volumes on shelves, and inhaled greedily.

Old books. Vellum and leather and hard glue. Most were locked away under glass, but many were carefully arranged on tall shelves. The large room was as neatly ordered as Gloriana’s own library, complete with rolling wooden ladders and sturdy little tables for study.

“
Why was he poisoned?” she asked. A bard’s life was dangerous. She’d seen several silver-tongued poets executed for a single word misspoken in the wrong company. “Whom did he offend?”

“
Pope’s talents earned him accolades even as a child. By all accounts he was a sweet little thing, with a voice like a bell. In fact, his contemporaries named him ‘The Nightingale.’ My father believes he had the Sight. More importantly, Pope’s family was very Catholic.”

“
Aye?”

Winter smiled, just a little.
“You’ve gaps in your education. Or you’d know the Catholic Church provided most of the iron spears and bullets that drove the fay underground. And the fay in Windsor Forest were some of the last to give up their land.”

“
Oh.” Aine understood at once. “He was poisoned by one of us, was he?”

“
Human history reads differently, but my father certainly believes so, and Father never allowed for gaps in
my
education.”

Aine ignored the barb.
“Did he die as a lad, then? And still he’s well remembered? He must have been sweet-voiced and prolific indeed.”

“
The poison didn’t kill him. But it did twist his bones monstrously. He went from nightingale to hunchback, and from then on took solace mostly in his pen and paper.”

“
A good story,” Aine allowed. “But what has it to do with me?”

“
Or Michael Smith, more exactly. I’m not sure. Maybe nothing.” Winter reached into his pocket and drew out a small slip of paper. “But let’s make sure. We’re looking for shelf F-2-5.”

They wandered the rows. Aine let her thumb trail along the book spines.

“Most of those under glass are original manuscripts,” said Winter. “First editions. Back in the day the bookbinders knew their craft.”

“
You like it here.”

Winter’s fingertips followed Aine’s along the books.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I do.”

They found shelf F-2-5 in the south corner of the room, against a window, in a patch of filtered sunlight. Winter murmured to himself as he searched the texts. Then let out a whistle of triumph.

“
Here we are,” he pulled a small leather-bound book from its spot, and held it up for consideration. “‘The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Cambridge Edition’. Containing
Argus
, I’m sure. Where shall we take it?”

“
Open it here,” Aine demanded. She sat cross-legged on the rough carpet in the sunlight. “Read it. What does it say?”

Winter dropped onto the floor without pr
otest. He let the volume fall open on his lap.

The pages were plain, neatly lettered, and without ornamentation. Winter flipped backward to the contents page, studied the order of poems, and then flipped forward again, pages whispering under his touch.

“The book’s divided by time line,” he said. “
Argus
was written in 1709.” He smoothed the page with the palm of his hand. “It’s very short. Shall I read it aloud?”

“
Aye,” replied Aine. She held her breath, waiting.

Winter bent his head. Broken sunlight scattered across the carpet and climbed over his shoulders, turning his badly cut hair sharp and shiny as glass.

“
Argus
,” he began. “By Alexander Pope, 1709.

'When wise Ulysses, from his native coast

Long kept by wars, and long by tempests toss’d

Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,

To all his friends, and ev’n his Queen unknown,

Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,

Furrow’d his rev’rend face, and white his hairs,

In his own palace forc’d to ask his bread,

Scorn’d by those slaves his former bounty fed,

Forgot of all his own domestic crew,

The faithful Dog alone his rightful master knew!

Unfed, unhous’d, neglected, on the clay,

Like an old servant now cashier’d, he lay;

Touch’d with resentment of ungrateful man,

And longing to behold his ancient lord again.

Him when he saw he rose, and crawl’d to meet,

(’T was all he could) and fawn’d and kiss’d his feet,

Seiz’d with dumb joy; then falling by his side,

Own’d his returning lord, look’d up, and died!
'“

Aine looked at Winter’s bent head.

“
I don’t understand,” she said. “What does it mean?”

“
It’s not complicated,” he answered after a moment. “In fact, it seems very straight forward, for poetry. Cliché, really. The lost adventurer returns home unrecognized by all but his faithful hound.”

“
But what has that to do with me?” asked Aine, impatient.

Winter looked up and shrugged.
“Apparently, nothing. Maybe we’re going about it the wrong way. Maybe it’s Pope himself Smith has a fascination with, and the poem is of no matter.”

He passed Aine the volume and stood up, studying the books on the shelf.

“Maybe it’s more about the poet himself.” He frowned. “It would take days to go through everything Pope wrote. I doubt we’d find it in one library.” He tapped a shelf with his knuckles. “Where’s the fascination, Michael? What’s so special about one dissatisfied human poet?”

“
Nothing,” Aine replied. “He had the Sight and he was murdered for his interference. The same can be said for more mortals than there are fish in the sea. It must be the poem. Richard said he quoted from the book in his pocket, this poem,
Argus
. It must be here, something.” Stubborn, she read through the lines again.

“
This man, this Ulysses, he’s returning to his queen, his court,” she pointed out.

“
Aye.”