by Gaie Sebold
We passed into the defile. A few Ikinchli, mostly very young, were perched here and there on the rocks; but gradually, the whispering chorus faded behind us.
One of the guards, I couldn’t see which, spat, deliberately.
Then, there was only the sound of the wheels, and the boots of the soldiers, and the padding feet of the beasts. I eased my aching shoulders and hoped we didn’t have much farther to go.
CHAPTER
NINE
I PERSUADED ENTHEMMERLEE back inside the carriage before we got to Lincacheni.
The city seemed barely awake. Great houses and public buildings turned shuttered faces to the wide, sweeping streets. The rain called out subtle colours from the buildings, deep soft greens and plummy reds and blue-greys; the overall effect was oddly dreamlike. Yet it was an uneasy dream. Many of the stately old buildings had closed shutters, crumbling under beards of grey-green moss, and here and there small trees grew in the guttering.
There were smaller, more recent-looking buildings too, of pallid grey stone the rain did not flatter. These seemed to be inhabited mainly by Ikinchli; handsome, long-jawed faces watched from windows hung with ragged cloth. A few children scrambled about on the narrow unrailed stone stairs that ran up the sides of the buildings, stopping to stare at the coach with wide gold eyes. I’d got used to seeing them in Scalentine, but never so many at once. I was struck again by what a beautiful race they were. Their main scales varied from deep bronze to the green of ferns growing in shade, while the softer, smaller scales that covered throat and chest and belly were every blend of amber and cream.
The few people on the streets, too, were mostly Ikinchli. I saw a few Gudain, some with Ikinchli servants in tow, and one Gudain woman followed by a young Ikinchli girl laden with parcels. The girl caught sight of the symbol on the carriage and gasped, dropping one of the parcels and immediately falling to her knees to scrabble for it. The Gudain woman grabbed the girl by the back of her shirt, hauled her to her feet and slapped her, the sound sharp enough to be heard over the boots of the guard and the rumble of carriage-wheels.
The woman strode away, chin up. The girl trudged along behind her, eyes carefully on her parcels.
The other Ikinchli watched this with utterly expressionless faces, but you didn’t need to read faces to see the number of crests that were up, the number of tails flicking. Some noticed the symbol on the coach; those who looked twice glanced away quickly. I wondered why, until I spotted the two Gudain in the bulky brown uniforms and low helmets, looking over the passing figures. Fenac. Otherwise known, though not aloud, as guak, or ‘the shits.’ They had a tough, narrow-eyed glare and a bullish stance, but their hands were hovering an inch from their hilts and their shoulders were hunched. Arrogant, but nervous. Not a good combination.
We went through what looked like a market area, where a few people were setting up trestles and benches in a space big enough for many more, and past one old building that, unlike many of its fellows, was in fine condition. Deep red spiralling pillars held up a roof tiled in red and green. The carved oxblood doors stood open. An old man, a Gudain, swept the forecourt with careful pride.
It wasn’t until later I realised that he was the only Gudain I would see at any such task.
The rain was still falling, not cold, but persistent. The smell of damp and that odd alchemical taint clung to everything.
As we turned uphill, I caught a glimpse of the main road out of the other end of the town. A wide, straight, well-kept road; I could glimpse the tail end of a caravan train heading into the city. No way of telling what the cargo was from here.
I wondered where they stopped. There are usually places that cater for that sort of traffic, but with the Gudain being so suspicious of foreigners, maybe not.
Still, people who dislike foreigners are often amazingly willing to make money off them.
The buildings of the Ten Families were set high on a hill at the centre of the city. As we approached, we moved up away from the clatter of commerce into sculpted parkland. Thin, upright trees with silvery bark shivered with thousands of narrow leaves that whispered and hissed together in the breeze. Gravelled paths swept in elegant curves, streams chattered, tumbling among rocks thick with brilliantly-coloured mosses: scarlet, viridian, bright pale yellow.
Mansions stood among the trees. Elegant, no doubt, with their softly-coloured stone, but they looked oddly dumpy, to me. Their roofs, like flattened cones, were somehow too low and wide for the buildings. Admittedly, the Red Lantern would have fitted into most of them five or six times over.
Right at the top of the hill, dominating all the other buildings, was the Palace. Its long-gone architect had decided that the subtle tones of the local stonework were insufficient for the glory of the royals; they needed something more colourful to show them off.
They’d got it. Every single ashlar had been faced with marble. Different marble. Black marble swirled with white. Plum marble blotched with violet. Forest green marble. Butter yellow marble. Even in the rain, it looked like a giant gaming-board; in sunlight it probably hurt the eyes. Its wide, low roof swept up to points at intervals. The overall effect was somehow both squat and fussy, like a plump, overdressed child. Behind it was a slope of green hill, and at the top, a small, plain structure that was not much more than columns and a roof. That was where the Patinarai would take place.
Enthemmerlee’s family home proved to have a wall, though only about a foot taller than I was, so not much of a defence. It was pierced by a pair of rather fine wrought-iron gates, in a pattern of twining vines and little running lizards, but from the greenery growing lushly around the posts, it didn’t look as though anyone had closed them for a long time. That would need dealing with. There was a small stone guard-house, and two Gudain standing either side of the gate. They peered at the carriage, nudging each other. Sloppy. That would need dealing with, too.
We passed onto a paved driveway of a soft rust colour; the large central building was of deep green stone, with a sprawling litter of outbuildings. Standing off by itself was a smaller version of the red-pillared, mosaic-roofed building down in the city where the old man had been sweeping.
“That is our family chapel, where we take privaiya,” Selinecree said. “The oldest part of the estate, going back at least ten generations. The Entaire family was the first to have a private chapel, you know. Until then, we worshipped at the Palace with everyone else.”
“Really?” I said, trying to sound suitably awestruck.
I was, in fact, more depressed than impressed. The place had enough outbuildings, statues, fountains and decorative shrubbery to hide a hundred assassins. And everywhere faces peered, mostly Ikinchli: the family servants, wanting to catch a glimpse of Enthemmerlee.
Several servants were heading towards us, following a middle-aged Ikinchli male with a little belly rounding the front of his dark-blue livery, who moved with a curious un-Ikinchli-like rigidity that made me wonder if he had something wrong with his spine.
“Thranishalak, we have one extra guest,” Selinecree said, as he handed her out of the carriage. “This is Mr Fain, a very important gentleman from Scalentine. I hope you can find somewhere to suit him?”
“I believe the western suite is free, Madam,” Thranishalak said.
“I hope you will find it adequate, Mr Fain.”
“I’m sure I will,” Fain said.
Enthemmerlee, stepping down behind me, smiled. “Thranishalak. Oh, it is good to be home!”
Thranishalak, seeing her for the first time, blinked. Once. Then he bowed, and said, “Welcome home, Ma’am.”
He was good; his voice hardly wavered at all.
“Madam Steel I believe is next to me?” Enthemmerlee said. “And the honoured Scholar is across the corridor.”
A flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. My sword was out, my shield up, and I was staring at a Gudain girl-child, with the pearly, ethereal looks I remembered Enthemmerlee having before her transformation, w
ho skittered to a halt, staring at me.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “And why are you hiding that person?”
“I’m here to protect her,” I said. “In case anyone wants to hurt her.” I hoped everyone was listening; I could feel the shocked looks.
The child, at least, seemed unbothered. “Oh. Where’s my Aunt Emmlee?”
Enthemmerlee moved my shield out of the way. “Here, darling,” she said. “It’s me.”
The girl looked at her, and said, “You’re not my aunt.”
“Yes, I am. I just look different now,” Enthemmerlee said. “Selinecree. You were supposed to have warned her.”
“I did,” Selinecree said. “Chitherlee, sweet, I told you your aunt was going to be different when she came home. You remember.”
Enthemmerlee knelt down on the stone pathway, and said, “Chitherlee, itni, it’s me. Truly. Come and look close.”
“You’re not my aunt!” The girl’s mouth drew down in a trembling bow. “I want my Aunt Emmleeee!”
“Now, now, that’s no way to go on,” Malleay said, striding forward. “That’s not the way my sunshine girl behaves, is it?”
“Mally!” The girl sobbed in that unashamed, open-mouthed way of small children. “She in’t Emmlee! She in’t! Make her go away!”
Malleay knelt down and produced a handkerchief. “Come, come, shhhh.”
He produced a necklace from his pocket and tried to get her to play with it, but did not put his arms around her. No one touched the child until an Ikinchli woman hurried up, scattering apologies, and scooped her into her arms. The girl buried her head in the curve of the woman’s neck. The woman stroked and patted her back, with the unconscious automatic motions of someone who’s spent her life looking after children, while she stared at Enthemmerlee.
“Ma’am?” she said, the word barely more than a whisper.
“Yes, Enkanet. It’s me.”
Enkanet kept soothing the child, but seemed to be shocked into immobility.
“You’d better take her,” Enthemmerlee said. “We’ll have to give her time.”
“Oh! Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
“Don’t be sorry, Enkanet,” Enthemmerlee said, with a strained smile. “We all have to get used to this, you know. Even me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Enkanet said, and walked off, the child still sobbing into her neck.
Enboryay shook his head, went up to the beast that the stone had hit, and ran his hands along its flank, making hissing noises. “Sha, sha. There, beauty. This needs poulticing.” He unhitched it from the carriage, and led it away, still muttering.
Enthemmerlee turned and strode swiftly towards the house. Thranishalak, who seemed to be some sort of head servant, struggled to stay ahead of her.
It should have been a relief to get out of the rain, but though it wasn’t cold, the place struck chill. Grey rainlight failed to reach all the corners of the entrance hall; faded hangings in muddy colours hung limp against the wall. The ceiling was at least five feet above my head, but I felt as though it pressed on my shoulders.
We followed Enthemmerlee down long, empty corridors. All the doors were shut, and I didn’t sense any movement behind them. How many empty rooms were there in this place?
Thranishalak opened the door on a pretty suite decorated in blue and white, uncluttered, but seeming overlarge for the slight, weary-looking girl who stood in the doorway. I gave it a quick check, with Bergast, to the obvious disapproval of Thranishalak, and found nothing that seemed threatening.
“Thank you,” Enthemmerlee said. “Now please, go make yourselves comfortable. They will call us for a meal soon.”
“But surely...” Bergast said.
I could hear the barely controlled shake in Enthemmerlee’s voice. “Yes ma’am,” I said. “We’ll see to everything. You rest.”
“Thank you.” She closed the door. I gripped Bergast’s shoulder and moved him away, ushering the others ahead of me.
Thranishalak opened a door opposite Enthemmerlee’s suite. “Your rooms, sir,” he said.
Bergast’s glance swept the funereal purple-draped splendour before him. He nodded, and placed his pack on the bed as though afraid it might raise a cloud of dust, though the place looked clean enough to me. “Thank you.”
My room was next to Enthemmerlee’s, with a connecting door. Fern-coloured silk hangings, clothes chests the colour of pine forests, a bed draped in dark jade covers, two pale green couches, and a heavy, ornate washing set, in green marble with gilding. Rather like the bottom of a luxurious pond.
I gave the place a quick going-over. Nothing but a few abandoned bits of clothing lurking in the chests. “Now, Mr Thranishalak, you know why I’m here, and why the Scholar is here?”
“To protect the... the Lady Enthemmerlee.”
“Yes. And am I right in thinking you are the head of the household?”
“I have the honour to be my Lord’s seneschal.” He had a way of staring just over my left shoulder which was like having a chilly draft run across my collarbone.
“Excellent. You’ll know the running of the place better than anyone. I’ll need to go over things with you, when you can give me a few moments. And perhaps you could spare someone to show us about?”
“That sort of thing would be the duty of the guard,” he said.
“Oh, of course, for the more obvious things,” I said. “But they won’t be on such terms with the inner household as yourself.”
“Certainly. If there is anything you wish to discuss, please call on me.”
“And when would be a good time to do that?”
“After supper. You will find me in the Lower Quarters. One of the other servants will direct you.”
“Before that, the gates.”
“The gates?”
“They need to be shut. The main gates. The ones that are standing wide open for any passing assassin to wander in.”
“I have received no such orders from the family,” the seneschal said.
“The family may not have thought of it. I am responsible for the Lady Enthemmerlee’s safety, and I have thought of it.” I shrugged. “If you don’t have the authority, of course...”
His tail twitched, once. “I will make arrangements.” He bowed about half an inch, and left.
No sooner had he disappeared than Malleay, flushed green in the face and gesticulating wildly, appeared with Lobik at his side. Malleay had a pretty green and gold snake draped around his shoulders, which seemed to be placidly unbothered by his extravagant gestures. “Where’s Enthemmerlee?”
“She’s in there,” I said. “She’s tired.”
“Oh. Oh, of course. The child upset her. But I must speak to her! I’m in the west wing near Fain, and Lobik and Rikkinnet have been shoved in the servants’ quarters!”
“Ah,” I said.
Malleay made for Enthemmerlee’s door.
“No,” Lobik said. “She is tired, and should rest, not be troubled with this.”
“But you’re being insulted!”
“Malleay, we have big battles. Maybe better to pick other fights than this.”
“But whoever arranged the rooms...” Malleay said.
“The seneschal, I imagine. He is... tic dricancai.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“Tic dricancai? It means having chains in the head.” Lobik’s mouth twisted. “He has been a servant all his life; for him, to be a good servant is the highest he can reach. He does not wish to see himself as Ikinchli, any more, but he cannot be Gudain.”
“That’s horrible,” Malleay said.
“Do you think he’s likely to be a threat?” I said.
“To Enthemmerlee?” Lobik frowned. “He lives by his loyalty to the family. He might wish things would return to the way they were, but I do not think he would hurt her to make it happen.”
“How can he want that?” Malleay burst out. “How can he possibly want that?”
“Change is frightening, Ma
lleay,” Lobik said. “For you, no. You are young, you welcome it, you see a future you can take in your hands, and shape. But for someone like him... Imagine you are a poor carpenter, Malleay, scraping a living with the work of your hands. Perhaps you did not want to be a carpenter, but it was expected, or it was all there was. It is hard, and you have very little. Your one hope is to earn enough that when you can no longer work, you will have enough to keep you. And someone comes and says, soon, no one will need chairs any more. The first thing you will see is not, perhaps, that now you might be able to do something else with your life, that you are free, but instead, you think only that you will starve for lack of work.
“Once cannot force people to welcome change. One has to coax them into the net, like fish. No, that is a bad... what is the word? A bad metaphor. And also now I am hungry.” He grinned, and I felt that stab of attraction again. It was, as much as anything, that smile; his was a face that had seen trouble, but his smile was joyous, life-embracing. “I think he may be difficult,” Lobik went on. “He may make trouble in small ways. But an assassin? No.”
“Good. Because it’s not as though we need another one,” I said.
“You don’t think that one, what was his name, that Kankish, has gone,” Lobik said.
“Maybe. But if he had the guts to risk his neck in that crowd, who’d have torn him apart if she hadn’t given the word, maybe not. And maybe he’ll find some friends. Either way, I’d rather know where he is. Any chance of sending someone after him?” I said.
“We can, at least, alert the Fenac. Or, rather...” Lobik shrugged. “His lordship can. If I go...”
Malleay said, “Even if they listen, they’ll just arrest the first Ikinchli they find near the border.”
“It was attempted murder,” I said.
“It was attempted murder of the Itnunnacklish. Most of them would probably be happy to see her dead.”
“On the other hand, it was attempted murder of a member of the Ten Families,” Lobik said. “Put like that, perhaps...”
