Voices in the Dark

by Catherine Banner

  ‘Let go of me.’

  ‘Those are worth hundreds of crowns! In God’s name, Leo!’

  He shook me off and poured more paraffin onto the pile. The flames rose high enough to turn his eyes to a fierce red. I pulled him into the back room and slammed the door on the smoke. Jasmine was huddled in the corner, coughing. I emptied out the coal bucket and began filling it with water from the tap in the corner. I threw it over the flames and went back, again and again, although I knew there was no point in it. The fire dwindled and became a smouldering pile of wreckage.

  Everything was ruined already; there was no salvaging it. I turned over a shattered lamp with one foot and bent to pick up a lucky coin in its charred display case. ‘Papa, what have you done?’ I said. The coin burned my fingers, and I let it fall again. ‘Do you think people will stop troubling us if you pretend not to be a royalist?’ I said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I’ve had them in here, Anselm,’ he said. ‘They come in every day, when you’re at school, and say, “Why are you selling these things? Don’t you know you shouldn’t be selling these things?” They come in with their blue uniforms and their guns, and they do it to every trader who looks like a royalist. The police don’t stop them because they can’t, Anselm. So tell me what else I should do.’

  ‘Who are they?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. The Imperial Order.’

  I kicked at the ashes that had once been a history book. ‘So this is a solution?’ I said. ‘This melodrama.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever I have to,’ he said. ‘And don’t you condemn me for it, Anselm!’

  ‘You’re supposed to have signed up,’ I said. ‘John Keller was talking about it at school. Everyone is talking about it. So why draw attention to yourself, Leo?’

  Jasmine started to cry and reached for his hand. The cold wind drove ash against us. It clung to our boots and misted all our clothes. ‘Let’s just go inside,’ said Leo.

  I turned and went to the yard gate instead.

  ‘Anselm?’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘A walk.’

  ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘But, Anselm—’

  I turned and left.

  As I crossed the city, the air turned very still, and I heard what sounded like gunshots. I stopped on the corner of the square, beside the church, and listened. They were faint but real, somewhere in the east beyond the hills. They must be explosives, diminished by the distance into a faint cracking sound. I shoved my hands down in the pockets of Leo’s old jacket and decided to go to the graveyard. I had put it off too long.

  The graveyard was different, I saw, when I approached it. Torches were burning at the gate, and shadowy figures stood at the end of the bridge, looking in. I was too close to turn back when I realized they were the Imperial Order. They saw me hesitate but made no move. In the lamplight, I could see them clearly. They wore modern rifles across their backs, not like the battered ones the police carried, but their uniforms were stained and worn through with age. I wondered if they had salvaged them from a trench somewhere. One man had a captain’s badge and the other a sergeant’s. The sergeant, a man about Leo’s age with wiry brown hair, gave me a grin and an exaggerated bow. I had no choice but to pass them. My heart thumped dishonourably fast, but I did it.

  The graveyard was deserted. I walked quickly until I was lost among the ancient tombs, then stopped. Here on the edge of the city, I could hear the silence of the eastern country. I stood there watching the dark beyond the far gate. Alcyria was over those mountains, the army’s machine guns trained on all the passes, their armoured vehicles rolling slowly across our soil. That was what their army was like; it had been in the newspapers. ‘An unstoppable force’, the reporter had called it. A strange kind of panic twisted my heart. It came to me that no one really knew the rules. The castle lights, blazing over the city, seemed no protection at all.

  I started among the old tombs, more to keep out of sight of the Imperial Order than anything else. These graves belonged to the noble families, and their names were carved over the entrances. They were names from the history books – MARLAZZI, ST. JOHN, MARKOV. Most of them had no living descendants. A cold thought came to me out of nowhere, that maybe this country was already the past. Maybe the new places, the nations with armoured vehicles and automatic rifles, were the real world now. Michael once talked to me about England, about how he could not believe in it, because how could the people living there be as real as us, and how could their lives matter as much to them? But perhaps we were the ones who did not matter. I had never thought about that before, and it made me melancholy.

  As I was wandering along the line of tombs, the last one made me pause. The stone angels on the walls were damaged, as though someone had attacked them with a heavy object. And the name – ‘de Fiore’ – was nearly destroyed. I wondered what this ancient family had done wrong. Was it the Imperial Order who hated them? But when I looked closer, I could see that the damage was old and weathered. This had happened years ago, probably when I was a young boy or even before. Or perhaps it was just chance. I knew people stole the marble off these tombs and sold it in the markets; maybe that was how this grave had been damaged.

  One of the Imperial Order men outside the gate laughed and coughed, and when I glanced back, I saw his breath scudding upwards in the frosted air. I left the old tombs and wandered along the lines of newer graves. The sky in the east was a fathomless blue; the graveyard walls stood out darkly against it. The wind sighed in the branches of the trees. Aldebaran’s tomb still bore the skeletons of the flowers people had left there weeks ago. I passed it and started towards the far corner, beyond Stirling’s grave, looking for graves with the twenty-ninth of July as the date of death.

  Suddenly I came upon them, a whole row of headstones. Forty people or more had died on that day. I read the names: John Worthy, Ishmael Salter, Andrew James Goldhart. They were resistance members and Lucien’s soldiers; they had all died on that day, because that was the day the old regime had fallen. And I had never thought about it. I had been stupid to think I would find my father’s grave by looking here. I thought of all the other graveyards in this city and in the countryside about it and suddenly knew it was hopeless.

  I had tried to make up a story about my real father, years ago when I was still a young boy. I had written the title ‘The Lost Son’ in my journal, naming it after a story of Diamonn’s, and had written seven very grand pages in Leo’s ink pen. In the story, my real father was a reckless young man who drifted through my mother’s life by chance. He was a soldier, and he truly loved my mother, but they fought, and the war separated them before they could make amends. He had heard of my birth from a military camp and tried to come back and see me, but he was killed before he reached the city. ‘And the soldier left a fortune for his son, but it was never discovered,’ the story finished. ‘So, alas, the boy grew up poor and fatherless.’

  But that seemed such a betrayal of Leo and so far from the truth that I could not leave it as it was. I was neither poor nor fatherless. I ripped it out of the journal and burned it and tried to stop thinking about my real father after that day. But now I was thinking about him. I could not help it.

  As I left the graves behind, I noticed something strange. Every few yards, there was a space the size of a grave, with a rough square of turf that did not exactly match the rest, but with no headstone. It was as if one in every five graves had vanished from this part of the graveyard, when everywhere else they were packed closely. I stopped beside the last one. Had someone dug it up, or was it just a space that had never held a grave? The breeze raced low over the ground, making the grass shiver.

  ‘Anselm?’ said someone, and I turned.

  Father Dunstan was standing a few yards away, his cloak drawn up to his neck and the faint light of the city gleaming in stripes on the side of his thick grey hair.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

 
‘Keeping watch,’ he said. ‘People were damaging the graves, so a few of us have agreed to come here and keep vigil every night.’

  ‘Is it not dangerous?’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps it is.’ He came closer and studied my face. ‘Is there something troubling you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘And how are your family?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘They are all well.’

  ‘I have been meaning to call and see your father. I have hardly spoken to him since his uncle passed away. How is he?’

  ‘He’s all right,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Father Dunstan. ‘That’s good.’

  The wind troubled the grass and set an empty can somewhere rolling with a mournful note. ‘I should go,’ I said. ‘It’s getting late.’

  He nodded. ‘Goodnight, Anselm.’

  Father Dunstan left me and went on his way, pacing among the graves with his hands behind his back. I wondered how many of these names on the stones had once been part of his congregation, and how many of them he had tended in their last illnesses. Then the wind caught at my hair, as though trying to hurry me away, and I turned and walked in and out of the graves towards the gate. I had to pass between the Imperial Order men to get out, and I did not turn back after that.

  I didn’t want to go home after I reached Trader’s Row, so I went into Jared’s shop instead. The last customers were leaving as the clock struck five, and the glittering lines of furniture stood serene and empty in the front room. The Barones’ shop had never seemed large, but Jared had imposed a kind of grandeur on it. He was at the counter, packing something carefully into a leather suitcase. ‘Ah,’ he said, smiling when he saw me. ‘My young neighbour. Come in and close the door. Here, this will interest you.’

  I crossed to the counter. He returned his attention to the suitcase and unfolded a couple of leather cloths. I breathed in quickly, and he laughed at that. The case was full of jewels. They looked like they were worth what our shop turned over in a year. He rifled through them carelessly. ‘Diamonds, more diamonds, sapphires, and rubies.’ He glanced up. ‘You look dismal. I thought these might lighten your spirits. Value them for me, if you are a trader.’

  ‘Which of them?’ I said.

  He handed me the biggest of the sapphires. I did not know what he meant by it, but I was captivated in spite of myself. I studied the jewel in the harsh light of the gas lamp on the wall. I had never seen a sapphire this size, but I multiplied by eight from the ones the Barones had sold once in their shop and added another hundred crowns for its clarity of colour. The way it was cut was some technique I had seen Michael’s father doing once. If you got it right, the value was doubled. ‘Eight hundred crowns,’ I said, looking up.

  ‘Very good,’ said Jared, taking back the jewel. ‘Very good, indeed. Do you deal in gold and silver?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not things like this. Mr Barone did.’

  ‘So I’m told,’ said Jared. He put the suitcase into a safe in the wall but left it unlocked. ‘It is amazing, what Alcyria is mining now. I have seen the machines they are using. They drive the pumps with steam, drain out the water, and go down deeper than anyone could before. Have you heard about this?’

  Mr Pascal had given us his own version of the story. ‘Is it true, then?’ I said. ‘They have new technologies there?’

  He nodded. ‘The military technologies are what I would watch. Armoured vehicles, and ships powered by steam, and the newest automatic rifles. No one can match them, I shouldn’t think, on this continent.’

  ‘They will take over for sure,’ I said. He was only confirming what I already knew.

  ‘There is no point in being sentimental about it,’ said Jared. ‘When a country falls apart, traders should be there to divide the spoils. It is our inherent nature – it would be dishonest to fight it.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want them to invade any more than you do. But I am not going to complain if the political uncertainty makes me a fortune.’

  My heart felt so restless that there was no accounting for it. I supposed it was thinking of my real father and Aldebaran and Michael. In my head, all the people who were gone from me drifted like spirits, gaining in strength the more I tried to ignore them.

  ‘Tell me, Anselm,’ he said. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘What?’ I said, startled.

  ‘What’s on your mind? You seem troubled.’

  ‘I’m just thinking.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘My friend who used to live here,’ I said. ‘And other things.’

  ‘What things?’

  I studied the nearest picture and waited for him to ask me a different question, but none came. ‘I’m trying to find out about someone who died years ago,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know how.’

  ‘I’m told Daniel Markey is the man to ask. He is a veritable mine of information, according to that Pascal gentleman from the clothes shop over there. Apparently, he lost everything when the old regime fell. He is not a man whose company I like, but he knows a lot about those days.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I could ask him.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ said Jared.

  ‘Just his name,’ I said. ‘I know the date he died, but I want his name.’

  ‘Go to the government records office and file an enquiry. That’s what I’d do. Not that those records are very reliable. Especially the ones from around the Liberation.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, though it was no help really. I went to the wall and studied the pictures that were leaning there.

  ‘How is your young sister?’ he asked.

  ‘She is well.’

  ‘You know, I could have sworn she was a magic child. But you don’t come from a family of great ones?’

  I shook my head. He went on watching me. ‘I have heard that those born with powers sometimes see visions and write or draw what they see with no knowledge of it, and it’s accurate to the smallest degree. Fascinating. Think what use they would make as spies; no wonder the great ones used to be in such demand. Does your sister ever do that?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said,‘I heard a rumour that Aldebaran had written a last prophecy. Someone said that to me. “He wouldn’t have died without leaving one” – that’s what this man said. Imagine that. Imagine how rich you’d be if you discovered it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘When I heard your name was North, I thought you might be related,’ he said.

  ‘You heard our name was North?’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know how you found out, that’s all.’

  ‘Mr Pascal,’ said Jared. ‘Who else?’

  I smiled because he expected it. He was still studying me thoughtfully, and I could tell he wanted me to look up. I turned to the nearest picture and examined it instead. It was a portrait of a red-haired man with a patch over his eye, standing on a hilltop looking outward. His head was outlined in gold like a saint’s. Ahira again. I did not know what a picture like this was doing for sale in an ordinary shop. ‘Is this an original too?’ I said by way of changing the subject.

  He did not answer. And when I turned, he was staring at me so strangely that I forgot the picture altogether. ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘My God,’ he said. ‘It’s not what I thought at all. You’re Maria Andros’s son, aren’t you? You’re Anselm.’

  I did not know what to say. I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped. ‘You are Anselm,’ he said. ‘I am convinced of it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  He reached out and gripped my hand. ‘My God,’ he said again. ‘How old are you now?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Sixteen years? Is that how long it has been?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, taking my hand back out of his. ‘But how do you know my mother?’

  ‘Oh, Maria? We were childhood acquaintances. Close friends at one poin
t. But to tell the truth, you do not look much like her, and it was only when … it was only … my God.’ He lapsed into silence, still staring at me. ‘I’ve seen her,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen her walk past the window of my shop a dozen times, and I never once realized. I thought the Androses had left the city.’

  He went on staring at me, running his hand absently over his hair. ‘But I must visit her,’ he said. ‘The coincidence is so strange. I never thought I would see you again. And the man you live with – North, the secondhand trader – is that your stepfather? I heard rumours that Maria had taken up with someone after you were born.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘How is Maria?’ Jared went on without noticing. ‘What does she do now? I cannot see her as a trader’s wife, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘She is a governess,’ I said.

  He nodded and his teeth flashed. ‘Very like her. Has she ever mentioned me?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she has.’

  ‘Jared Wright.’

  I remembered then. She had mentioned him once, years ago when we were walking through the city and she was pointing out places she had been. ‘The Wrights lived there,’ she had said, and pointed to an old mansion. ‘The father was in the government, and I was engaged to the youngest son for a day.’

  ‘Were you the youngest son of the Wright family?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘She has spoken about you.’

  Jared regarded me like a lost relative. I did not know what to say, so I stood there between the counter and the door, putting my hands in and out of the pockets of Leo’s old leather jacket. ‘Anselm Andros,’ he said again. ‘I can hardly credit it. I must come and see Maria at once. I had no idea that she was still in the city.’

  The wind moaned through the door, and we both started. Two men had come in and were lingering in the draught. ‘Pierre, Westwood,’ said Jared Wright, nodding to them. ‘I will be with you at once.’

  ‘I had better go,’ I said.

  ‘Wait,’ said Jared, turning back to me. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do for you? As the child of an old friend, it is only right.’