Legend of the Lakes

by Clara O'Connor

  “Where the disappeared go.”

  The disappeared. When I had helped Devyn smuggle Marina out of the city, it had been to flee the mysterious arrests and disappearances of latents who surfaced because of the illness, signifying the magic that lingered in their blood from their Briton ancestry.

  “Are people still disappearing?” I asked. In light of how many ill there were now, surely there was safety in numbers for those who hid real abilities?

  “Yes, donna, so many.”

  “They can’t all have magic.”

  “Just so. Seems like they don’t need to have magic nowadays to be a target. Like I says, a smidge of the taint, and off you go,” he said. “That’s why nobody can get papers. To get papers you got to do a test, see how many genetic counters you have. People with a high count, they never make it to the gates – never make it home some of ’em. As for the rest, in no time they get picked up.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  He shrugged helplessly. “Hundreds from this area alone, maybe thousands across the city. All from ’tween the old wall and the outer wall, of course.”

  Devyn had never been able to figure out what happened to the people who mysteriously disappeared. His leading working theory had been that Calchas was taking them away and somehow using them for their magic.

  “How is he getting away with this?”

  “Away with what, donna? Nobody knows but a few of us who managed to piece it together through our network. All the mob knows is the feeds, and the Mete, and shopping and working. So maybe a neighbour ups and leaves, it’s only one person here, one there. Why would a normal person think oddness of that? Ain’t nothing in the feeds or in the gossips about such carrying on.”

  Thousands. What was happening to them?

  “We didn’t know.”

  “Nobody does, donna. We’ve tried to tell our friends in the Shadowlands to leave now before it starts out there, but they don’t believe us neither. Though they are good folk so they still help what few we can get out.”

  Thousands. My mind was reeling. So many lives were at stake and I had come here in search of one. But she was my one.

  I stood. I needed to leave – had stayed too long as it was. “You have no news about my daughter then?”

  “I’ll reach out to my network to see if they’ve got any word of her. What are we looking for?”

  “Devyn found me because the records left a trail that he followed, perfect records, but there’s always a mistake. Her name is… was Féile. They maybe call her something else now. She was three at midsummer. She was stolen just over a month before Beltaine, so she’s been here six or seven months, no more. She has Devyn’s black curls, and her skin is a lighter bronze than his was. Look into Marcus Courtenay; I believe he may know where she is. I’ve got to go. Thank you, Linus.” I pressed his hands in mine. “I don’t know how to help you, but I will if I can.”

  I looked around the small, shabby room, farewelling its ghosts as I stepped out into the hall. I saw Devyn turn to me in the shadows by the window, his intense features willing me to listen, to believe.

  “You need me to see you back?” Linus asked.

  “No,” I blinked. “I know the way.”

  I stepped out into the dirty street and took a breath. The area had been poor when I left, but there was something new in the air, an added hopelessness. Maybe people didn’t know what was happening, but there was an undercurrent of worry, of fear. They knew someone was coming for them, and they were helpless to fight it.

  I was late for the banquet, the rest of the delegation already leaving when I hurried down the hall to my rooms.

  The door opened, and a formally attired Gideon halted in the doorframe. His amber eyes glowed down at me, the question in them easily read. I might not be able to sense his emotions, but when it came to Gideon, reading exasperation and annoyance in all its varied nuances was something of an art form for me at this stage. There was more than a touch of relief there too, and I felt terrible for the worry I had caused him. He walked and talked like the same devil-may-care warrior I had first met but the pinched look in his eyes, the slight tightness of his lips, spoke to his constant worry for Féile. His every waking moment was consumed with finding her.

  On impulse, I stretched up on my tiptoes and planted a peck on his mouth.

  “Later,” I whispered as I pulled away. In both interpretations of the word.

  His eyes glinted down at me.

  “Do hurry, my little cobblestone,” he said. “I shall keep a place for you.”

  Despite everything, his nonsense made me smile. He had overheard a senator calling his wife a little cabbage in the fashion of the Gauls. It had amused him, and in our role of husband and wife, he had taken to calling me equally outlandish endearments.

  I paused as I put a dab of colour on one eyelid, a green that went wonderfully with the brown eyes reflected back to me in the mirror. Our role of husband and wife. We were married, so why did it feel like playacting here in Londinium? My shoulders dropped. Because we were happy. Not happy happy, obviously, as Féile’s absence consumed our thoughts, but in the sense that with our joined purpose we were united as husband and wife in a way that felt novel and not dissimilar to happiness. It was different from the tentative, cautious emotions when I had been recovering, different from when we had started sleeping together, which had felt more like an exploration. This had purpose, connecting us, making us more sure of each other. I sighed, finishing my makeup and throwing on the dress that Gideon had laid out on the bed; Oban himself would be impressed at his choice.

  The great hall of the Governor’s Palace was a picture of lavish decadence, the table piled high with delicacies and delights from the four corners of the Empire and beyond. The merchant’s daughter in me surveyed the heaving banquet with an assessing eye. There was dragon fruit from the Orient, corn and squash from the Americas, and olives from the Med scattered around the gleaming roasts. The aromas indicated a liberal use of spices from Africa. I had never attended this event before so had no way of measuring the excess against previous years, but given the strained relations on the island right now it felt like a point was being made here.

  I wove my way between the tables and glittering company over to Gideon who rose and pulled back a chair for me.

  “Why, how very civilised of you,” I batted up at him.

  “I can be civilized.” A brow quirked in his darkly menacing face before he took my hand and laid a lingering kiss on the backs of my fingers, a delicate, barely there kiss. My heart swooped in response.

  “You’re feeling better?” Bronwyn asked from the other side of Rion’s captain of the guard who stayed close to us, on his lord’s orders no doubt. I greeted Alec before answering, mindful that my lateness would have been explained somehow to the citizens at the table. Alec nodded gravely even as he excused himself, no doubt to pile another mountain of food onto his plate, a look at Gideon indicating his duty was being handed over until he returned.

  “Much,” I smiled faintly, the better to give the impression that, while improved, my reason for being absent, whatever it was, had not been agreeable.

  “Terrible things, headaches,” Bronwyn commented. She looked lovely tonight with her black hair glossily free to flow down her back and a scarlet confection of a dress, which somehow managed to look whimsically Celtic and vaguely martial at the same time. There was something to the cut of it that suggested the wearer was ready to fight should events overtake them. Subliminal messages were everywhere, it seemed.

  Rion and Richard sat at the table of honour with Calchas and the new Governor Dolon who looked at least as impressed with his new title as anyone else in the room. A title bought with the blood of a man I had loved. A squeeze of my hand alerted me that my emotions were conveyed all too clearly in my expression.

  I lifted an olive off the plate piled with food in front of me, popping it into my mouth after the cursory check I gave all food and drink before I consumed i
t. A simple technique Fidelma had taught all of us with magic to ensure we didn’t ingest the suppressant while at our host’s table.

  “Whatever happened to Acteon anyway? Did anyone hear?” I asked softly.

  Not softly enough as my question was answered by a familiar voice behind me.

  “He sickened with an untreatable illness some years ago,” Marcus said, pausing at our table. He nodded in turn to Bronwyn and Gideon in recognition. I gripped the hand that moments earlier had been alerting me not to give my emotions away. I needn’t have feared. Gideon was all too good at hiding what he felt behind a languid mask. You would be hard put to tell that Marcus wasn’t a complete stranger. Bronwyn, on the other hand, had no such mask. Her face had tightened into an expression of complete and utter contempt.

  “May I join you for a moment?” Marcus asked, indicating Alec’s empty seat.

  Bronwyn sat frozen as the man she blamed for her cousin’s death casually took a seat beside her. Marcus’s father may have struck the blow, but Matthias Dolon was nobody to her; Marcus was the target of all of her anger, and plenty of mine as well.

  “Untreatable illness?” Bronwyn asked silkily, recovering. “And you such a clever healer.”

  Marcus gave her his easy smile. “If only I could cure all the ills and damage in this world.”

  “If only.” Bronwyn’s smile was thin as she directed her gaze to where Governor Dolon sat holding court. “But then there are such rewards to be had from the gap left behind.”

  “So true,” Marcus agreed amiably, his head turning to encompass Gideon and me in his response. There was a flicker as his gaze dropped to our entwined hands. I momentarily forgot how to breathe. Did he know? “Some damage creates gaps that can never be filled. As a healer, there is a line that I cannot cross.”

  Bronwyn’s eyes flicked to mine for an infinitesimal moment, as she also felt she heard or saw something beneath the surface of Marcus’s casual chat.

  “Is there?” Bronwyn responded icily, after the silence went on slightly too long.

  “As a healer, it is my life’s work to keep families together, if I can,” Marcus answered before changing the subject. “I would like to repay some of the hospitality I so poorly returned when I visited your lands. If you and your friends would like to visit my hospital and see my work, I think there is much that could be gained by helping each other.”

  Bronwyn’s eyes narrowed at him.

  “That sounds interesting,” she said cautiously.

  “I trust it will be very educational,” he said, rising, as Alec now hovered behind him. “I will send my man in the morning.”

  My chest felt tight as he walked away after flashing us his charismatic grin – a movement of teeth and lips that hid the traitorous, deceptive, shrivelled-up soul beneath. There was a roaring in my ears and I closed my eyes to shut out the sensory overload and focus on the chaos inside me.

  I hated him. He had been my friend, and now I hated him with every particle of my being. Marcus had lied and deceived and had me lure Devyn to his death, using bait he would have known I would be unable to resist: the promise of a future… a future in which I married the man I loved, the father of the child that grew within me. Marcus had known I was pregnant, and now they had taken my child from me. A flash of memory slivered its way through the maelstrom of bitterness and grief that consumed me. During our escape, I had told Gideon about the baby in an attempt to persuade him to let me have the future I had thought awaited us on the other side of that moonlit ride. I had been filled with hope and dreams for a future that was at my fingertips. But I had caught an expression on Marcus’s face that had seemed so out of place in that moment. He had looked sick… because he had felt guilt at what he was doing?

  “He wants to help,” I whispered.

  “What?” Bronwyn asked, unable to hear the words that I had uttered half to myself.

  “We should go,” I said brightly. “I’m sure a visit to an imperial hospital will be fascinating.”

  “No,” said Bronwyn and Alec as one, even as Gideon said, “Yes.”

  “He has her,” Gideon said.

  “Could you smell her?” Bronwyn whispered, vaguely horrified.

  His lip curled up slightly as he shook his head. “It’s not like that. But he has been with her. Recently.”

  Had Gideon been so focused on sensing Féile that he had failed to see what I had? Had I imagined it? That flicker that went to our hands? Marcus had given no indication that he knew me, acknowledging Gideon but speaking only to Bronwyn, and so why the interest in our relationship?

  “We are already behind the walls. What does it matter whether we are in the palace, or touring a public facility in another part of the city?” I asked lightly.

  Bronwyn frowned and then nodded. “She’s right, and he promised it would be educational. Let’s see what the city boy thinks he can teach us.”

  The next morning, we were met in the great marble lobby of the palace by Praetorian Kasen, who I had last seen lowering the watergate at the White Tower. He had been Senator Dolon’s man then; it seemed odd that Marcus would send him to fetch us if I was right about his intentions. Kasen introduced himself, showing no sign that he might be more familiar with me than the face I presented to the world.

  A town car whizzed us across the city to Bart’s hospital. A military vehicle trailed us – for our own security, Kasen assured us; there had been some trouble in the city the night before, and it didn’t hurt to be extra careful with the visiting delegates, especially with one of Bronwyn’s status amongst us. Rion had wanted to come, but we had persuaded him that Bronwyn and a couple of companions attracted significantly less attention than the King of Mercia would.

  The car brought us directly to the door, no sign this time of the less fortunate people of the city – those with symptoms of the sickness unable to afford treatment but lingering here in the hope that help would be offered. Instead, it was almost eerily silent as we stepped out of the vehicle, the populace giving the building a wide berth.

  Marcus stood waiting in the entrance, two sentinels positioned either side of him.

  “You came,” he said with some relief to the four of us, as Rion had insisted Alec accompany us. “I wasn’t sure.”

  He exchanged glances with Kasen who indicated to the red-cloaked sentinels that they might step back a few paces and allow us some space.

  “Yes,” Bronwyn said acerbically. “I brought some of my people. I hope you don’t mind. It’s not seemly for one of my station to travel alone.”

  Marcus looked toward Gideon and me for the first time. His eyes were lidded and slightly averted. He nodded courteously at Alec, before his eyes flicked back again.

  “I hoped you would bring—” He pulled up short, swallowing with effort. “Please, this way.”

  “As you can see, we are equipped with all that modern medicine offers,” he said in a more confident tone, striding down the shining marble and glass corridor. He pointed out different aspects of the facilities as he gave us a grand tour. There were remarkably few occupied beds.

  “A hospital with no sick people,” Bronwyn eventually remarked. “How clever.”

  “We are fortunate that so many of the world’s more serious diseases are practically extinct within the Empire,” Marcus said in a formal manner.

  “Not all illnesses,” Bronwyn cut in shortly.

  Marcus bowed his head, and when he looked up again, his eyes were hollow. “No. Unfortunately not. As you are aware, we gained a treatment which manages the Maledictio… at a high cost. We developed it and have made it spread as far as possible. Those who can afford it live comfortably and have no need of a hospital. Those who cannot have no reason to come here.”

  “Where do they go?” I asked. Where were they, the masses he had traded Devyn’s life to save? Where were the ill Linus had told me were disappearing?

  Marcus’s eyes slipped to the sentinels who waited at a discreet distance behind us.

 
“I must show you our genetics labs,” he said in place of an answer. “I think you’ll find it most illuminating.”

  We followed him down more sterile, empty halls until we came to a busier section of the hospital. Here, white-robed men and women bustled busily about. Marcus handed us white lab coats and masks which were needed to cover our noses and mouths.

  “It is important to minimise the possibility of contamination,” he explained. The sentinels were not provided with any.

  “We’ll be just in there; you’ll be able to see us the whole time,” he told them, pointing out a room which was visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass. It was a sterile white room with glass fridges full of vials of blood and a bench on which sat microscopes.

  Marcus stood in front of a panel which used some biometric measure to identify him and then the door opened. Kasen positioned himself outside the door as we entered behind Marcus. Gideon gestured to Alec to stay outside too, to guard our exit from outside.

  “The lab is where we test for the genetic markers which… uh, may indicate a patient’s likelihood to contract the illness which has plagued the Empire over the last few decades,” he explained. His tone was much less confident than it had been now that his audience had been reduced. He was hesitant almost.

  “There are particular markers found in the native genetic lines that increase the chances of being a carrier of the illness.” He swallowed. “Many of these indicators have been bred out of the gene pools across the Empire. In citizens here, we’ve found that there are a lot more of these markers, perhaps due to the greater dominance of the Britons and the high incidence of intermarriage prior to the introduction of the Code.”

  “You believe the illness is caused by being Briton?” Bronwyn challenged. “That’s ridiculous. Our blood is no less mixed with other European and African gene pools than yours.”

  “This is true,” Marcus agreed, pulling out a sample from the countless vials of blood on the countertop. “The difference is that on your side of the border there are more of the genetic counters that indicate latent or present magic.”