by Tanith Lee
He came from the unknown outside places, the Hell known as the Waste.
And I’d never thought anything that came from there could look any good. Terrifying, yes, revolting, probably. But not glowing and handsome, packed with energy, and this kind of easy pridefulness. With hair like melted sun.
One of the princes – Shawb – had risen, and now walked along the raised part of the hall, where the royalty were all sitting, until he came to the area just before the Old Ladies’ chairs. Shawb turned swiftly and nodded to them. (Armingat cackled. Corris looked hungry for trouble. Jizania was unreadable.)
Then Shawb stared down long and hard at the prisoner.
‘You speak, I understand, the language of the House.’
The prisoner shrugged slightly. ‘Among others.’
‘That doesn’t interest me.’
‘Nor me, really,’ replied the prisoner.
I liked his voice. It was clear, and had a faint accent of something or other. I liked his cheek, too.
Shawb didn’t.
‘This isn’t a joke. You’re in a bad situation. Didn’t you realize?’
‘Well, after your men fired on me, and brought my craft down, I had an idea or two about it.’
The Guards growled. Shawb scowled.
‘Your name?’
The prisoner half turned. He put a hand in a pocket of his coat, and at once a hundred knives and rifles were scraping up at menacing angles. But out of the pocket he only took a clean white handkerchief, very laundered.
‘Nemian,’ he said. ‘That’s my name.’ And then he walked straight across the space they’d stood him in, right up to the (unguarded) table and chairs of the Old Ladies. He laid the handkerchief in front of Jizania Tiger.
During this Shawb was shouting and the lined-up Guards breaking ranks and I heard the rifles clicking and clacking, getting ready to fire. I’d dropped the fan I’d been supposed to wave, and put both my fists over my mouth. What a hopeless gesture. But I didn’t know I’d done it until afterwards.
It was Jizania Tiger who held up her topazed hand.
‘All right. What do you want, young man?’ she asked in her excellent voice.
‘To give you this, madam.’
‘What is it? The rag you wipe your nose on?’
Nemian laughed. I liked his laugh. So did she. A carved little smile moved her lips.
‘Of course it isn’t, madam. It’s a flower from the Waste. You might care for it.’
Shawb bawled, ‘Don’t touch the muck – it may be poisonous.’
But Jizania said, ‘Not everything in the Waste is bad.’
I’d never heard anyone say that before. (It was then I noticed my fists clamped over my mouth and took them down.)
She’d unwrapped the handkerchief, and lifted up the flower. It really was one. It was fresh and firm, with big juicy green leaves, and the colour of the flower-head was crimson.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Jizania. As if she knew these flowers, although I’d swear there are none in the Garden, and so it must have come from the Waste.
And the Waste was Hell-on-Earth. So everyone had always said.
Nemian turned from Jizania with a bow. He looked round at all of us. He was smiling and unfussed, even though I now saw there was a streak of blood across his forehead. His eyes looked tired. I felt sorry about his eyes. I liked their colour, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Only the shape, and the shadow.
He said, ‘I’m on a search, a quest for something. I might have liked to visit your wonderful gardens, but alternatively I could just have gone elsewhere, if you’d preferred. In the end, I didn’t have much choice, did I? You shot me down. I assume you’re not used to visitors. Shame, really.’
Then he yawned.
I never saw anyone sit down so elegantly on a floor. Even when he was lying full length, he lay in a stylish way. Presently he seemed asleep.
Maybe you’re getting used to my odd type of thinking. But I thought just then, all those days and months I’d polished the floor, and never knew one day he’d stretch out on it and lie there. There was a strange ache in my chest like the pressure of tears.
But the Guards milled forward now and surrounded Nemian so none of us could see him. It seemed they thought that by going to sleep, he’d performed another dangerous and life-threatening trick.
A few minutes after that, the Guards hustled almost all of us out of the Debating Hall. Only the most senior of the princes remained, Shawb among them. Even the Old Ladies were politely and firmly requested to go.
Jizania made no protest. The other two cackled and squeaked and struggled like nasty old children kicked out of a party.
In the outside chambers, the thrown-out royalty stood around chattering to each other. I thought Jade Leaf might be her usual self, but instead she went barging over to her mother, Princess Shimra.
‘Mummy-mummy, can I stay with you?’
‘I’m going to the library soon,’ replied Shimra, ‘to read,’ looking uncomfortable as JL laid her head on Shimra’s shoulder.
‘Let me come too, mummy. I want to, mummy.’
‘But you don’t like reading, dear.’
Jade Leaf is about a head taller than Shimra, and now JL was acting like a little ickle girl, making her voice all gooey. This didn’t happen often, thank goodness, as it makes you sick. Shimra as well, from the look of it.
Soon after that, Jizania Tiger swept by, her two attendants proudly holding up her long brocade train. When she had passed, Shimra had somehow escaped her daughter, and JL came disconsolately back to us, her maids. Her one-side-reddened face was cooler, but she still seemed to be confused. Had I done that?
But I didn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of him.
What would they do to him? I’d only heard tales of punishments delivered to trespassers. Remember the lion, the one they killed?
We couldn’t hang about though, for JL went off upstairs to the Jewellery Chamber, and we all had to go too.
When I was a child I liked this room, which has all the most ancient jewels and ornaments of the House displayed behind glass. Now that room only made me annoyed. I don’t know why.
Today I barely saw it. Daisy seemed to be in the same state, and a couple of the others. Dengwi and Pattoo not.
I had an embarrassing idea Daisy and I at least had got a thing about Nemian. Yes, I had, I was sure. My face had gone hot simply thinking of his name.
This was dismal, wasn’t it. I’d fallen for an outcast from Hell, who anyway they were going to kill. Besides which, he would never have glanced my pathetic way.
JL mooned over the bracelets and earrings. But gradually I could see the vagueness leaving her. The ickle girlie business. She had that snake-like air again. Not that I’ve anything against snakes – only the human ones.
‘Claidi,’ she said suddenly, very brisk and clear.
‘Yes, lady?’ I asked, my heart sinking even further. (Even with Nemian’s arrival to distract me, I hadn’t quite forgotten the professional beating.)
‘Thank you so much for viciously slapping my face and destroying that dreadful insect. It was an insect, was it?’ I attempted to seem bashful and pleased. ‘I never knew you were so loyal. I ought to reward you.’ She smiled brilliantly. ‘When I tell mummy tonight, I’m sure she’ll command her steward’s whip-master to tie an extra-pretty ribbon on the whip. Do you know about the whip, by the way?’ She bent closer. It didn’t seem to be happening really. But a glass case pushed at my back and reminded me of where the paperweight she threw had bruised me. ‘It’s got spikes on it,’ said LJL, triumphant. Ah, the whip had spikes.
She turned in her clumsy bulking way, and knocked a case, which shuddered. As I was shuddering.
The other girls looked glum. But some ladies had come tinkle-rustling in, loudly exclaiming that the enemy-invader had been imprisoned in the Black Marble Pavilion.
Daisy gasped. Then I did, because one of the ladies turned to me and snapped, ‘You, girl – Claid
i-is-it?’ ‘Yes, madam.’ ‘Her Oldness, Jizania Tiger, wants you.’
Somehow I swallowed nothing the wrong way and choked. Pattoo thumped me on the back, luckily just clear of the bruise.
Dengwi guided me to the doorway. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what the Old Lady wants, but everyone says she’s all right. Appeal to her mercy. You mustn’t be whipped. You do know, don’t you, Claidi? My sister was, and—’ Dengwi’s face was like smooth black steel, ‘she nearly died.’
I didn’t know what to say. (Had I ever heard Dengwi had a sister?) There wasn’t time anyway. A slave of the Old Lady’s was standing there, looking haughty and patient, because a slave of an Old Lady had more status than anyone’s maid.
My head was already whirling inside. So much was happening in my life where, as you know, for sixteen-ish years, nothing had happened at all.
THE LION IN THE CAGE
I’m staring up at the moon, which, ironically, is visible tonight. Again ironically, I keep hearing a piece of LJL’s terrible poetry: O moon, of liquid floating lemon-green—
In a way I feel sorry for her now. That’s no doubt pretty stupid of me. But she’s so hopeless. I mean, there really isn’t a shred of hope for her. She’ll always be like that, mean and spiteful and unjust and downright appalling. She isn’t happy. If she were happy she’d be different. Look at Lady Iris and Prince Eagle, and there are others. They’re kind to their servants.
There’s some lecture we were given, about the time I was polishing the floor where Nemian lay down so wonderfully and went to sleep. The lecturer told us hard work and suffering would fine our characters, make us better.
What a load of poo.
Anyway, here, at this very high up window, staring at the moon, the whirling in me and all of me trembling, and yet somehow serene – I can’t be angry at Jade Leaf.
But I feel weird about the other maids, especially Daisy and Pattoo. Because I won’t be able to say good-bye.
To get back to my story:
Jizania Tiger’s haughty slave took me along the glassy corridors (windows, burnished wood) and up marble stairs. We reached Her Apartment, and I found it was built up on a flat roof. There was a roof garden, with trees in pots, and a pool with a fountain and coloured fish.
The Old Lady was sitting in a room open to this garden.
She’d taken off her jewelled headdress, and I admired her well-shaped bald head. She truly is magnificent-looking. (But of course I have extra reasons to be impressed with her.)
‘Sit down,’ she said to me. ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty?’
Startled, I mumbled I wasn’t. Although my mouth was dry.
She seemed to know this, I suppose not too difficult. She had the slave pour me a glass of fruit juice, orange, I think, which we only ever had watered-down in the Maids’ Hall.
‘You have no notion,’ she said, ‘why you’re here.’
‘No, lady.’
‘It’s been a busy day so far,’ she said. She gave a short bark of laughter, like one of the Garden foxes. Then she said, ‘Jade Leaf is an unpleasant girl to serve, I should think. I intend to look into that. And no, I understand you can’t agree. But your life, Claidi, won’t have been much fun. Is that true?’
Amazing she knew my name. Amazing she’d singled me out.
I said, awkwardly, ‘Well, not really.’ I thought of Dengwi’s words, and blurted, not having meant to so soon, ‘I slapped Lady Jade Leaf’s face today. And she says I’m to be properly whipped. The whip with – spikes.’
Jizania Tiger slowly raised her exquisite eyebrows.
‘A slap? A whip with spikes? I don’t recall such a whip. I think there isn’t one.’
I was afraid for a moment. Dengwi knew there was.
Then Jizania added, ‘However, just in case, perhaps we had better think of an alternative to the whipping.’
I blurted again ‘Thank you, thank you’. I knew well enough Jizania had power in the House. If she promised it, I’d be safe. At least for now, which always seems all you can ever hope for.
A crazy thought came to me. Perhaps Jizania Tiger would make me one of her own maids. They were of a rarer breed than us, they didn’t even use the Maids’ Hall, but had their own rooms in the Old Lady’s apartment.
Why such an extreme of good luck should come my way I couldn’t imagine. This kept me cautious.
Then she said, without warning, ‘And what did you think of the enemy-invader, the young man called Nemian?’
Did I go red? Somehow not. I think I was too surprised.
‘Er – well – he er – well he’s – er—’ cleverly said I.
‘A very awful enemy, wasn’t he,’ said Jizania. ‘I’m sure you were terrified.’
It seemed daft to lie. Her eyes seemed to say she could read one’s mind.
‘He looked just like the princes here,’ I said. ‘Well, actually, better.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘very fit and bold. And that hair.’ She sounded younger than ever when she said this, only about fifty. I blushed after all. She took no apparent notice. ‘And the flower he brought from the Waste. That was a shock, wasn’t it, Claidi? Did you ever guess things might grow there, beautiful healthy things?’
‘No, madam. I thought the Waste was all poisoned.’
‘Some of it. Some.’
There was a gap then. My eyes roamed uneasily. She had a spectacular indigo-feathered bird on a perch, which sat looking at me with wise old eyes like hers.
All at once, Jizania Tiger rose, with a stiff old grace.
‘Come along,’ she said, as I scrambled up. Naturally I didn’t impertinently ask where we were going.
Where we went however was through the room and a door, and down a back stair, a winding cranky stair with only the narrowest windows. Several floors must have gone by, and then she took a key from a bracelet, and unlocked a narrow door.
Outside the door was a hanging. Brushing that aside, we were in the Black Marble Corridor.
It’s not a lovely place. They send you there at night for lesser punishment. Strange eerie sounds come through holes cunningly cut in the walls, and there are dim-lit dismaying pictures of executions and people being cast out into the Waste, crying and pleading not to be. I’d sat here on the floor as a kid more than once, and had nightmares afterwards, as they know you will.
At the end of the long corridor is a courtyard, and in that, the Black Marble Pavilion.
Another key from the bracelet opened the door to the yard.
Huge paved slabs sloped away to the Pavilion. Its black columns hold up a black cupola. Between the columns run black thick bars.
Above, the sun was shining, but the Pavilion looked like total darkness. I couldn’t see through the bars and columns to anything.
But Jizania Tiger, with only me to attend her, went sailing out on the paving.
Immediately two House Guards came striding around the Pavilion.
They saluted and stood to attention for the Old Lady, but as she got near, one shouted:
‘Wait, please, madam. The enemy prisoner is here.’
She just gave a nod.
‘Why else am I here?’
‘It’s this, madam. The prisoner is an alien from the Waste. It would be better if you—’
‘Tottered back to my easy-chair?’ Her voice sliced him in two. He lost his stern military stance. ‘Don’t presume, my lad,’ said Princess Jizania Tiger, ‘to give orders to an Old Lady of the House.’
Now there was creepy-crawl rather than salute. ‘Excuse me, madam.’ (The other Guard was grinning.)
She swept on, and I with her.
Nemian was around the other side in the Pavilion-cage, where the Guards had been. Maybe they’d been insulting him, or just talking. Surely someone must be interested in the Waste just a teeny bit.
He stood there inside the bars. His coat hung over a bench. He looked – overpowering, so close. So I couldn’t even squint at him.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Hallo,
madam. A great lady, and a girl in a blue dress with green hair tangling from a blue scarf.’
I could feel him staring at me, a long, long gaze. He, who would never have glanced my way.
‘She is Claidi,’ said Jizania Tiger. And next she said, ‘Claidi for short, that is. Her full name is Claidissa Star.’
My head shot up. I goggled at her. Most unbecoming I must have appeared. I had no words. I’d even forgotten the gorgeous Nemian.
Was that – that – my proper name?
My arm aches from writing so much. But I can’t stop. There isn’t time. The moon’s moved. Can I squeeze the rest in before I have to go down?
For a minute, dazzled by the new name, I didn’t take in what the princess and the prisoner were saying to each other. They were talking about something.
I sort of came back to hear him say, ‘It’s kind of you to inquire, madam. I wasn’t seriously injured, no. A handful of bruises, a scratch or two. The balloon brushed against some of your trees in falling, and I was able to swing out on a handy bough. Then the balloon veered again and crashed at quite a distance. I was damned lucky.’
‘Lucky but damned?’ said she.
Nemian smiled, and I saw him colour very slightly. My heart turned a somersault. I’d certainly remembered him again.
‘Pardon my rough language, lady,’ he said. ‘I’ve been travelling some while, and lost my good manners.’
Then his eyes came back to me. For a moment they held mine and I seemed to be sinking in them. (Still can’t recall their shade – blue – grey???) (Soon I’ll know.) Then he smiled such a smile. And I thought, I really am not going to be so totally, tiresomely soppy. So I frowned at him in a grave and ugly way. And he laughed. And I turned my head. (Childish. I’d run out of ideas on coping.)
Nemian said to the princess, ‘She seems to have had enough, Lady Claidissa Star.’
‘I expect she wants her tea.’
‘Then please lose no further time in seeing she gets it.’
I found she was turning me with her slender claws, and we were going back over the paving, the Guards saluting, and I was convinced I’d messed everything up. Whatever everything was.
