I was too busy thinking about what he was saying to answer that question immediately. I would live with him, in his home? I could scarcely believe it. I had judged him a man who scorned fashion and had no interest in the politics of the court, but surely he would not be prepared to scorn all propriety?
“Are you not going to send me to live quietly with some...lesser relative, in the country?” I asked rather timorously.
“Why ever would I do that?” He seemed genuinely surprised, but then he stopped and his lips pursed, and I could see he understood me.
To my surprise, he smiled, and his eyes almost danced. “I see I should tell you my name. And that is Alban Serapion Ravena. I was your mother’s husband, and you are my legitimate daughter. No ‘lesser relatives’ will be necessary.”
~+~
CHAPTER 6
A HOUSE OF STONE
My mind raced as I sought to digest the Duke’s words. I was not illegitimate? Not a bastard? All this time I had thought...why had no one told me? Illegitimate, even to a Duke, hush it up, but legitimate to a Duke!
My thoughts paused. My uncle...how? I backed up a bit and carefully sorted my memories. Had I ever actually heard my uncle called by his name? His full name? I knew his first name was Eliot, while Baron Hendfield was his title and he usually used it, for he was vain about it. But I had never seen that much of him and had been too young to go anywhere where he might have been announced in full. I had always assumed him a Ravena, assumed to the degree that I had not even known it was assumed. I had thought I had known. But it could not be so.
“What is my uncle’s name?” I asked my father, half-embarrassed.
Alban Serapion Ravena cocked an eyebrow at this odd question, perhaps not so odd to him now, knowing the delusion I had lived my life under. “Eliot Jacob Pellenporth. Does that clear a few things up?”
I nodded silently and tried to let myself relax. I had not been so near another person for longer than I could remember, and he was a man. I felt hideously guilty at being so suspicious, but I just couldn’t help it. Looking up suddenly, I caught him looking down at me with what I suspected was an unusually soft smile on his lips and I suddenly felt much more comfortable with him. He was not a bad man. I felt sure of it.
~+~
I was never quite sure afterwards how it happened; no doubt a combination of the wonderful warmth of the blankets, the gentle swaying of the coach, and the sheer physical and emotional exhaustion of the day, but I fell asleep, tucked in the circle of my new father’s arm. Father, yet complete stranger, and I fell asleep! I stirred as the coach turned sharply. We had left the city—were we on the road to Islington?—and I glimpsed great gates rearing up in the dusk. I sunk back into a doze.
By the time the coach drew to a halt, I was almost completely asleep again, and I struggled to muster the energy to open my eyes.
Fingers touched my shoulder gently. “Serapia...”
I dragged my eyes open and sat up as memory flooded back. Licking my lips nervously, I glanced at this man, my father. He’d gotten out of the coach and now offered me his hand to dismount. I stood up rather carefully, for my head felt hot and heavy and spun when I moved. Normally I could have jumped down in one leap, but I knew ladies descended calmly with the aid of a man’s hand, and anyway, I didn’t want either the blanket or my aching head to fall off.
When I had alighted, I stood for a moment, swaying slightly. Concentration was very difficult, but after a few moments I blinked in puzzlement. It was raining still, I could hear it pouring on the ground, but it was not falling on me. Peering up in the painful light of a guttering torch, I saw that a roof stretched from above the door outwards, to be supported by two stone pillars. It was so large that the whole carriage stood beneath it. How odd. How useful.
“Oh, the carriage-porch,” said the Duke, noticing my distraction. “My father thought of it and had it built. There’s one over the back door as well. The tradesmen and beggars bless him. Everyone else says it’s ugly as sin and they wouldn’t dream of having one on their own home. Which is fine by me, they can be as fashionable and wet as they like.”
He laughed, and I understood better his comment about how he thought his house was nice.
Unable to summon any reply, I silently followed him inside. I had a dim impression of antique weapons and old flags hung from the rafters of the entrance hall as a memorial to past military victories, but it smelt very musty, as if long disused, and there was no fire lit in the grate. My nape prickled with the emptiness of it.
My father led on towards the next room, gesturing around him. “The place is miserable as anything right now, but it hasn’t been lived in for many years; it will soon wake up again.”
The room we approached was better, I was glad to feel. Someone, either the Duke or servants, had already spent much more time in there and the stone walls were warming in a way that had nothing to do with heat. But I had to catch the end of the banister as I passed the stairs and stand for a moment. The pain in my head I could almost ignore, but the dizziness threatened to overwhelm me.
My father was turning back towards me, so hastily I stepped forward. But something caught my eye and I jerked around to stare up the stairs. “Mother?”
The movement was too much; that indistinct figure spun into a grey haze along with everything else and I was falling. I was dimly aware of strong arms catching me, then everything dissolved into blackness.
~+~
CHAPTER 7
SIRIDEAN
I bit my lip to keep from moaning; surely I was in hell, I was so hot...so very hot. Raven crouched on my chest, chattering fiercely at the shadowed figures around us. Knowing Raven was frightened from the occasional wails she shot in my direction, I tried to speak to comfort her, but I just couldn’t manage it. There were voices, but I was unable to make out what they said.
A hand came down towards me. I saw the speck of scarlet blood as Raven sprang and bit, and it was gone again. A face appeared instead, on our level...my father’s face. He spoke sternly to Raven, and reached out once more. Raven watched warily, tail lashing, but did not attack again. Something wonderfully cold touched my forehead and with this slight relief, I sank into fever-sharpened memory.
~+~
I huddled against the wall, arms wrapping around my ragged silk dress. It had been such a fine, pretty dress barely... I could not quite remember when. The last few nights and days bled into one another, a long nightmare of terror and confusion.
I pressed closer to the wall, but the cold stone sucked heat from my back and I shrank away again. It was only October, but no sun shone that day and I was so desperately hungry and so very tired. I’d barely slept for days.
Two men staggered from the tavern opposite and I eyed them warily, trying to make myself small and still. I hadn’t forgotten the man who’d tried to throw me over his shoulder, or the man with the apples and the wandering hands.
The bright pink silk defeated my efforts, not yet wholly darkened with grime. I saw the one man nudge his companion and nod in my direction, caught snatches of their thick speech. A fine little sow, the one said. Nay, a fine filly, said the other, the pale skin on her. Worth a penny, despite her age, the other replied. It went something like that, as far as I could tell.
Decision taken, they headed towards me at a lumbering run, and I snatched up my tattered hem in one hand and fled. They were faster than their initial lack of grace would have implied. I had a rather imperfect idea of the fate I fled but still I ran until my lungs strained desperately for breath.
I took the corner as fast as the slippery cobbles permitted and ran headlong into a tall man coming the other way.
“Watch where you’re going, brat,” he snapped, his irritated tone such that my meager experience already made me to cower from the anticipated blow.
Something much worse happened. The upraised hand darted like a striking snake and closed around my wrist. I twisted, tugging, but for one of such a slender build, the man
was uncannily strong. And something about him frightened me far more than my pursuers did. He had oddly pointed ears, but was nondescript in dress and must have been either respectably well off or extremely poor sighted, for he wore spectacles. But there was a choking feeling around him that I could not ignore. The nape of my neck prickled fiercely as that sense which I could not but heed, flamed into life.
The man drew me to him as if reeling in a fish and seized my chin with his other hand to get a proper look at me. Ignoring my futile struggles, he slid his hand from my chin to the nape of my neck and ran a forefinger down those three bumpy vertebrae that my maid pretended not to notice and my mother sniffed at if mentioned. I shivered, my fear momentarily soothed. I stared up at my captor as he put a straggle of hair back from my face and took a second look at me.
His eyes behind the spectacles were brown and a myriad of things lurked in their depths, tumbling together in a way that made me want to flee. But I could not flee, and besides, dominant in those brown eyes just then was something wonderful, something I had not seen for far too long.
That thing was kindness.
“What are you doing alone here, elfling?” the man asked, his voice still harsh but no longer angry.
I cringed inside, appalled that this man had taken one look at me and seen that strangeness even my uncle had only guessed at. Though lack of certainty had never protected me from that most hated name, ‘witch child’, nor saved me from the terrible result of my uncle’s hatred. But there was no condemnation in this man’s voice, despite his more imaginative choice of aspersion.
“My...my uncle...” I croaked, but his hand slipped back to the nape of my neck and I fell silent, too out of breath to go on.
Only when his head jerked up an inch and his eyes darted behind me did I remember my pursuers. I spun around, backing towards my captor until the renewed impression of darkness from his proximity reminded me that he was not necessarily the lesser of the two evils.
The two men stopped and eyed the individual who had beaten them to their prize. Edging sideways, I distanced myself from my disturbing captor/rescuer until I could look from one to the other. The brown-eyed man calmly transferred my wrist to his left hand and with the same absolute matter-of-factness pushed his cloak back to give the men a clear view of the dagger at his belt.
There were two of them, and they probably had knives as well. I was trembling but steeled myself to run again if necessary. Two big men like that would surely not be so cowardly as to fear a willowy man like this.
The two men looked their adversary in the eye for a few moments. Then they glanced at each other with an eloquent shift of body language that popped the seldom-heard phrase ‘like hell’ into my mind. And they turned and hastened away.
“Good riddance,” retorted the brown-eyed man, in a tone that hovered halfway between a snarl and a hiss. He looked at me again, and I searched hastily for the kindness in his eyes.
“I am Siridean,” he said distractedly, then unaccountably looked around at the surrounding rooftops, speaking to himself as though he’d forgotten I was actually there. “Let’s get the elfling fed before sunset; I’ve time for that much...”
Hand still clamped like a vice around my wrist, he turned and towed me away.
~+~
A cup was being pressed to my lips. The liquid tasted bitter, but I was so very thirsty. I sipped weakly and it was held patiently to my mouth until I slipped away again.
~+~
The sun was low in the sky when we reached Siridean’s lodgings. My legs had soon given out trying to keep up with my companion’s long strides, and he bore me in his arms without apparent effort. I licked my dirty fingers in a way that would have appalled my mother, scavenging the last shreds of grease from the bread and meat Siridean had bought me.
The stairway was narrow and something scuttled away into the darkness as we ascended. Safe in my new friend’s arms, I turned a fearless gaze in its direction. It was a garret room we entered, about the size of Cook’s pantry at home. I was quite impressed to see a bed, table and chair fitted into such a space. And a chest, I saw, as Siridean set me down on one end of the bed and lit several candles before drawing it from underneath.
I watched in silence as Siridean took out some garments, then drew the dagger and chopped off sections of breech leg and shirt sleeve. He stopped only once to look at the window and talk to himself; he’d done this several times by now and I was getting used to it.
Eventually he shut the chest with a thud and slid it away, gesturing to the pile of garments on the bed. “Put those on. So when... Just in case. You’re safer as a boy.”
I blinked at him, confused. Just in case of what? But I got up and started to pull the breeches up under my skirts, struggling with the unfamiliar garment. Siridean turned away and stood by the window, looking out into the twilit street, so I rid myself of the dress entirely and got the breeches held up with the belt, pulling the shirt on over the top. Last I slipped on the coat, welcome warmth despite the hot meal in my stomach. The coat was baggy but fitted surprisingly well, considering. He’s like a sword blade, I thought, remembering Cook’s phrase for someone who needed more of her fine cooking.
When I was still again, Siridean turned from the window and sat in the chair beside it, running an appraising eye over me. “Come here.” He held out a lean hand.
I obeyed, and he took my shoulders and turned me so my back was to him. I heard the whisper of a blade being drawn and before I could react there was a firm pressure on my hair and an unmistakable ‘sniiiick’ sound. Spinning around, I reached behind me and my hands closed on thin air, even as I saw that he held what I sought. Finally locating what was left of my hair, I found that he had cut it off along the line of my shoulders. I must look like...like...like a boy, I realized abruptly, remembering his earlier words. So I looked sadly at the mass of long locks in his hand, but the words of furious protest died in my throat.
He seemed blind to my pain at my loss, simply coiling the hair and handing it to me. “Put it safe, it’s worth coin.”
Hair? Worth coin? But the past few days had impressed upon me the previously unknown necessity of coin, so I tucked it carefully into the inside pocket of my new coat.
“There’s the dagger,” he said, placing a hand on it, eyes straying back towards the setting sun. “And my coins here, if...you’ve a need.” He took my small hand and laid it on his doublet; I felt the hard lump of the purse from which he’d paid for my meal and nodded obligingly to show that I understood. I couldn’t imagine why he thought it important I know, though, when he would be doing the paying.
“That won’t last you long, though,” Siridean went on. “And you’re too young to be employed for anything but the wickedest kind of work—no, trust me, you don’t want to know what that means, and still less do you want to be driven to it. You can beg, but that’ll lead you to a whorehouse fast enough—or the grave, like as not—or, you can pickpocket. So I’ll teach you. Just… just in case you need it.”
I felt I’d understood less than half of that. “What’s…pick…pocket…ing?”
His eyes widened, then he bent his head and pressed his hands to his forehead. “Ah…innocence…” he murmured. “I had almost forgotten…beautiful…” But after a moment he dropped his hands and his head came up again. “Pickpocketing is when you take someone’s purse out of their pocket and use their money to buy what you need.”
I frowned. That sounded rather like…stealing. “Isn’t that…wrong?”
“Yes,” he said frankly. “But it is more wrong to have enough and ignore a starving youngling. Saint Thomas Aquinas—a very wise human—would have been quite happy for you to pick pockets, desperate little elfling that you are. Now, pay attention.” He rose to his feet, all the great length of him, turned his back, his arms moving as though rearranging something under his doublet, then faced me again.
“So, elfling. You only need to do two things. First, concentrate on what you want. Im
agine the purse and the coin—copper, silver or gold, as you think it most likely to contain. When you have concentrated hard enough, you will know where the purse is. Then concentrate—hard—on the idea of ‘unseen’. Invisible. Unremarked. Unnoticed. Concentrate hard, really hard. Get that wrong and you will merely swap starving to death in the gutter for starving to death in jail. So, go on… Take my purse from me.”
I stared at him, growing more and more confused. No one had ever given me such a strange set of instructions before, yet he spoke as though doing what he said was obvious and easy.
“Come on,” he gave an impatient jerk of his head. “Try and take it. Think…concentrate…”
Concentrate… That was both his instructions, actually. What did he say the first thing was?
Where is the purse?
How could concentrating tell me that? I was loathe to disappoint him, though, when he’d helped me so much, and still a little nervous of him. I had to try. I thought about the purse I’d seen earlier. It was green, made of cloth. Full of coppers and silvers. He’d taken it from under the left side of his doublet. I stared at him…where was it?
It? The image of the purse had dropped from my mind.
“Concentrate,” purred Siridean, as I struggled to fix image and question in my mind alongside one another.
This was ridiculous. How was this going to tell me where the purse was? I knew where it had been, but he could have moved it…anywhere.
But…as I stood there looking at him, I found I had an unaccountable certainty that the purse in question was now under the right-hand side of his doublet. How could I feel so sure? But I did. The nape of my neck prickled, almost tingled.
Elfling (U.S. Edition) Page 5
