Monstrous Heart

by Claire McKenna

  None of her silent declarations eased the antipathy that kept intruding on her desperate attempt to feel remotely interested in her companion. Instead Mr Justinian’s little annoying traits amplified into ugliness. He complained most of the time he walked, and when his discussions were not negative, they were aggrandizing monologues on his own advantages over other lesser folk. The wind snickered through the scrub, blowing her dress sideways, and making her regret she had not chosen to wear a decent pair of woollen long johns instead.

  They trekked along the old coastal path, following the limestone and shale pavements that led to the other side of the promontory, where the larger and more windswept cliffs of Dead Man’s Bay battered the cliffside ruins.

  The wind whipped up with angry little teeth and got underneath Arden’s skirts, and at one stage she shivered enough for Mr Justinian to sidle close with the offer of a warm embrace, his move fouled only by the narrow path. On the old trail they could only walk in single file and not two abreast, a situation that Arden preferred, for the silky rustle of her golden lingerie made her anxious with impending unpleasantness.

  A sea-spray spangled Arden’s lips with salt kisses, caused Mr Justinian’s hat to blow away and a careful coif of hair to droop sadly over one eye.

  ‘Ugh, this blasted climate. I could have driven you back to town, my dear. I know I said a walk, I can offer something more civilized. Such as, the promenade.’

  The idea of the pair of them strolling the fishy-smelling, sad little boardwalk had even less appeal. ‘No, this is nice,’ Arden replied. ‘I prefer the wildness.’

  ‘Don’t prefer it too much,’ Mr Justinian cautioned. ‘It drove your uncle mad in the end.’

  ‘We are entirely different people, Mr Justinian. You must not worry.’

  At one cliffside Arden stopped at a pile of stones that were newer-hewn than the ruins, a careful little cairn in the shape of a rotunda. A flat piece of stone at the base bore chisel marks. A crude Bellis pitted there. Someone had added underneath – and this with a different hand and including the Beacon family mark – Stefan. Her cousin, who had disappeared along with Bellis before he could testify against Mr Riven.

  Mr Justinian tsked. ‘Such a rude little cenotaph. She deserves better than that pile of rubble. I should have it knocked down.’

  He shoved it with his foot, swept a few stones from the surface with the dismissal of clearing a table of crumbs. The cairn held fast, mostly. The sea grumbled through caverns below them, as if upset at the interference.

  ‘Perhaps you could build her one.’

  ‘Out of what, dear? She deserves better than rubble.’

  ‘I saw much hidden statuary mouldering in the Manse gardens. Maybe the little mer-girl that sits at the edge of the south fountain. Put her on the promenade. Have a brass plaque made in Bellis Harrow’s memory.’

  Mr Justinian laughed, and did not bother to hide his ridicule. ‘Arden, the Coastmaster budget would never extend so far as to encompass such fripperies as statue moving and random emplaquement.’

  ‘What about your own money, Vernon? Doesn’t Bellis deserve that?’

  His laughter stopped. Arden cast her eyes over his wormsilk suit, his plesiosaur coat, the pink diamond on his index finger in a recent gaudy style. There might not have been a lot of money left, but that did not mean he couldn’t liquefy old baronial assets for his own fripperies.

  Annoyed now, he changed the subject abruptly. ‘We must talk about you visiting Mr Riven.’

  ‘I made my introductions on the first day, yes.’

  ‘You are brave, I give you that.’

  ‘I doubt Mr Harrow would say the same thing.’

  Mr Justinian shrugged. ‘His job is his job. The wretch did assault three people the day before. You could easily have been the fourth.’

  ‘I find that unlikely.’

  ‘Unlikely, you say?’ With barely restrained glee, Mr Justinian launched into a story, told her of the corpses that might wash ashore from the Sainted Isles, bloated with seawater and lungs black with congealed rockblood. He described the white bone poking through paper skin, the scars upon their flesh that suggested shackles, or worse. Purposeful mutilations, bodies hurt beyond measure.

  ‘… not long after the man returned from prison, myself and Stefan Beacon came to this very spot. We saw Mr Riven down here trying to carry away one of the bodies. A woman, I think. He ran away when he saw us. No doubt he intended to use the corpse for his own pleasures. Eventually he became tired of such easy pickings and turned his attention to the living.’

  The disgusting descriptions excited him. His face flushed, his breath quickened. Vaguely nauseated now, Arden hurried on ahead, down the rough stone steps that gave access to the inlet. The steps were slippery from the sea mist, so she capitulated to take Mr Justinian’s hand to help her down.

  ‘Arden, my dear, this is hardly a beach. Come up and we might rest in the old ruins. You can have my jacket for warmth.’

  She ignored the lingering squeeze his hand left upon her fingers, and concentrated on making her descent in a halfway vertical fashion. She would succumb to his invitations eventually, but the mood had not taken her quite yet.

  ‘I’ll scout around down here, first.’

  Realizing she wasn’t yet ready to submit, Mr Justinian resentfully followed Arden to beach level.

  The rocky shelf had a sharply uninviting atmosphere where it met the waves. The monastery ruins above fell away at the eroded cliff and into a jumble of slime-shiny basalt blocks. Spars of grey shale occluded coarse yellow sand, and the remains of anchors, winches and other rust-smeared equipment littered the shoreline.

  ‘Ah, your cousin’s boat is still on the rocks.’ He pointed to the sea-battered remains of a small oak and steel dinghy wedged in the granite, several winters’ worth of storms melting it into the earth. ‘I remember that day too well,’ he added. ‘No sea-sense in Stefan Beacon. Twelve years old and pretending himself a master sailor.’

  ‘Did you know him very well before he became a Rector?’

  ‘We were youthful friends, but adult responsibilities are what they are. Years in a seminary and he never lost the …’ Mr Justinian picked up a sea-stone, worn smooth from the waves. ‘Impulsiveness. A certain rash wanderlust. His mother came from the Sainted Isles, and she lived with Jorgen for a time. Only a time, mind. The blood of the rock has a call on certain people. She abandoned her child to go back to the Islands, left him to live with a half-mad Lightkeeper. In the end, they both went mad together.’

  ‘It would be a sad story, though my account is a little different.’

  ‘Is it now? Who have you been talking to?’

  Arden rolled her eyes. ‘Stefan was already six years old by the time he came here. I knew his mother. She was a Lyonne sanguinem. Jorgen and her divorced amicably, and sometimes she visited during Festival.’

  Mr Justinian’s face went scarlet. ‘So, my memory is rusty. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Which leads me to think that maybe memories can’t be that reliable.’

  Mr Justinian waved her away. ‘Perhaps his early years are shrouded in mystery, but I can recall crystal clear when our Rector started stealing back here for trysts. When he began his affair with Bellis Riven.’

  Arden shook her head, not understanding.

  ‘Excuse me? Stefan was a priest. He had taken vows. Would only have been out of friendship that he spent time with her.’

  ‘The idiot abandoned his vows. Oh, did you not know? He had an affair with Bellis in the last month of her life. He would meet her here in the ruins when Riven was away, hunting. He brought her medicines for her injuries, sympathies from when her treatment had been rough. Then he gave her his body, and you know where that leads.’

  As much as she tried, Arden couldn’t visualize Stefan Beacon having such a rash affair. He’d seemed so deliberately fey and insular whenever they’d met, even now she could not quite imagine him having an affair with any human being, muc
h less a woman.

  ‘Are you sure, Vernon? Or is it another bit of fishmonger gossip ill-remembered?’

  ‘He confessed to me his sin,’ Mr Justinian said. ‘In confidence.’

  ‘The local Coastmaster seems an odd choice for a holy man to reveal such a dangerous relationship to.’

  ‘It may be gauche to say this, but I called Stefan my best friend, once. We grew together as boys. Brothers, almost. Yes.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Confessed to me. Wanted my blessing since Bellis and I were once engaged and the guilt weighted his brow.’

  ‘Blessing for what, exactly?’

  ‘To run away. Bellis’ brutish husband suspected something afoot.’

  Arden exhaled. ‘Running away. Of course. The one idea always doomed to failure.’

  ‘Devil curse him, that Riven.’ He threw the stone at the distant horizon with an almighty heave. ‘If he never existed, Bellis would still be here.’

  ‘Mr Justinian, look out—’

  A wave broke upon the rocks, so close that they were spattered with foam. Mr Justinian turned upon Arden and seized her up by her waist and pressed himself close. His wet lips caught the side of her mouth. His tongue, foiled by her clenched teeth, trailed damp upon her wincing cheek before turning wet slug-trail circles under her ear.

  ‘Arden, don’t fight me.’

  She attempted to squirm away. ‘Wait a minute, Vernon, this is rather sudden.’

  ‘Why must we tease each other?’ he whined. ‘All these games of love are for children.’ He fumbled his hand on her breast. ‘Ah, your heart beats fast with passion.’

  Was not passion that moved her so. Her loins could have been a desert, for all that she responded to Mr Justinian. His fingers folded over into the corset of her dress, his heavily manicured nails sharp as a scratch upon her delicate skin.

  ‘Vernon …’

  She froze the way a watch-escapement that has danced out of synchronicity will stop the whole clock, her prior thoughts of giving in to Mr Justinian’s lusts evaporating.

  I cannot go through with it. He disgusts me. In the distance of miles felt him seize the neck of her corset with a frantic grip while with the other hand yanked up her dress hem. ‘It’s all right if you are a virgin, it will not hurt but a prick.’

  A terrible antipathy came over her as the ruffled silk tore. She had not thought this thing through, not thought how the touch of Mr Justinian upon her intimate places would cause her such distress.

  She was a spring wound too tight. The escapement tore free of the tooth. ‘I said no, Mr Justinian!’

  Shoved him away with her lantern-turner’s strength and with a wide, swinging blow slapped him hard across his face.

  The contact sent a shockwave of pain through her elbow and shoulder, sent him spinning. She lost her foot upon the wet rock. Mr Justinian lunged for her as another wave breached the rocks and suddenly the world went cold and white, yet all she could think of was to dart away from Mr Justinian’s grip.

  She fell into the foamy tumult, half by accident and half – the worst and most dreadful half – by the same instinct as that of an animal that will gnaw its leg to escape a trap.

  Her legs tangled up in the cotton of her skirts. The wave dragged her out with an almighty surging, sucking power, casting her perilously close to the sharpest rocks before she reached the becalmed straits of deeper water.

  Reeling from both water-dumping and Mr Justinian’s assault, she drifted as the waves gathered for another battering. She was gone and gone.

  Don’t try to make it back in. The rocks will kill you.

  A jolt of anoxic raptures forced her hands and she tugged on the release-strings of her dress. With a tug, suddenly freed herself from the billowing fabric. Her head cleared the water and she gasped for air, rode over the swell as it headed back to the rock where Mr Justinian, drenched and horrified, watched his lighthouse keeper drift helplessly out to sea.

  12

  She swam with the surge

  She swam with the surge, and the further she went from the rocks, the more the sea-rip lost its power. By now her jaws ached from her clattering teeth, and she had overshot the small stony bay by far too much of a distance to consider swimming back. Another inlet appeared, this time one sheltered from much of the waves. Gathering the last of her strength, Arden over-armed herself through the slosh, half-blind with salt water. When her boots touched gravel, she wanted to weep with joy.

  The cold had numbed her completely now, and she staggered chill-drunkenly out of the foam. Her torn undergarments stuck to her in membranous translucent flesh, made her a sea-monster half in the process of shedding skin. She limped across the sand, only half-believing that she’d survived and not lost herself within the rapture of drowning.

  Before Arden could fall upon the dry beach a dark shape flopped towards her, as large as a mastiff but not a dog, not a seal, a thing with a long neck and a sharp head, and a toothed reptilian mouth that let out a chatter of sharp hissing coughs.

  Arden braced for impact, received none. The beast swung wide at the last moment, entered the water to her left instead. It splashed on past in a riot of flipper and barking, before diving under a small wave. A scar on the pebbled grey back, like that left by a flensing blade …

  ‘Plesiosaur,’ she said to herself as if the speaking would make it seem less perplexing. ‘That’s the baby plesiosaur.’

  She turned back to the shore. A man stood there on the sand, watching her with dumb surprise.

  Only then did Arden notice the glowing blue rings of krakenhide and the tall figure made spare and severe by the ocean’s trials. Wasn’t an ordinary man. She was in front of Mr Riven.

  Naked, in front of Mr Riven.

  Three Djennes’-worth of the gold silk she’d intended for her only love, and now her promise-night garb hung in tatters. The sight that should have greeted Mr Castile was given instead to a bearded, swollen-eyed brute. She didn’t bother to cross her hands about her chest. It wouldn’t make much of a difference to what he saw anyway.

  ‘Well then,’ she said to any devils that might be listening. ‘This day cannot possibly get any worse.’

  He did not stare, not long at any rate. The expression on his face amounted to dumbfounded shock, then to another, firmer and more decisive gaze. He dropped the bucket of fish-guts held in one hand, and shrugged out of his coat.

  So, she thought with frozen, and exhausted inevitability. This is the place where I will be ravished, and if I’m fortunate he might not finish me off with my head upon a rock.

  Mr Riven took off his woollen sweater and revealed a tattered shirt. Another chill wind gusted against her wax-cold skin. She huffed with impatience. Get on with it so I can get back somewhere warm. I’m not going to put up a fight.

  The plesiosaur child lumbered past her again. The sharp, beaky nose plunged into its bucket of disgusting meal.

  Instead of disrobing completely, Mr Riven placed his sweater on a basalt spar and shrugged back into his coat. He nodded once, before leaving. In all that time he did not say a word.

  Arden, stupefied by surprise and cold, merely watched him go. She should have spoken to him, acknowledged this odd meeting, but her nakedness made her so self-conscious she could not bring herself to speak to the man. His back gave communication enough and she welcomed it.

  When the fear drained away, the shivers came. She dived for the dry, warm sweater, would not have cared if the wool were filthy and crawling with maggots and prepared herself that it would be, that she would retch from the stink of unwashed flesh from this man who lay with the dead, and yet …

  And yet …

  A whiff of a clean, warm, masculine scent filled her senses as she tugged the knitted cables over her head. The yarn startled her with softness, but lay heavy across her shoulders, arms and bosom in a gentle embrace. Along with the smell of a young, healthy man, there came the dusky smell of kraken oil, that exotic perfume that always lingered in the air of the more important Clay Ports
ide offices. The purled hem brushed her knees.

  Relief dizzied Arden. She had expected horror and received the opposite. She might have collapsed and rolled herself up in a warm knitted cocoon if she had not heard someone calling her name.

  Mr Justinian appeared, ashen, at the top of the cliffside track.

  ‘You’re all right! Oh, by the Gods! When I saw that Riven character heading for the likely deposit of your body, I was certain you’d be lost.’ He stopped, realizing that from the ragged fronds of her bloomers and her waterlogged boots, she’d ended up quite naked below the knees. ‘And what are you wearing?’

  ‘Shut up, Vernon,’ she said harshly. ‘Was your fault I ended up in this mess. I told you to stop!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he cried. ‘I’m sorry, forgive me! My desires overcame my senses, I thought they were reciprocated! I don’t know what came over me!’

  He crawled towards her feet, prostrating himself. Arden jumped back, not knowing how to take this sudden change in character.

  ‘You should have asked! Presented your case, but instead you speak filth about a dead woman and her husband, then grab at me as an animal in heat!’

  ‘I’m a goddamn fool, it’s true. I was impassioned in my concern for your safety around the Riven creature!’

  A font of disgust flowered in her, a sudden bloom of sympathy for her wretched, broken neighbour.

  ‘Nothing you say about Mr Riven assists me in any way. No repetitions of my neighbour’s monstrous appetites, no gloating appeals to my sanity! You relish speaking of your fiancée’s ordeal with a pleasure and not a shame. You revel in her torments. In fact, I don’t know who I should despise most, Mr Riven or you.’

  Mr Justinian stood up, rubbed his cheek, affected an aspect of sheer misery.

  ‘The fault is mine! I never learned how to properly romance a woman in anything other than the coarse ways of Fiction. My background has been emotional poverty and stolen, pleasureless embraces. I’ve never had a teacher to show me how to make love.’ Mr Justinian raised his eyes hopefully to her. ‘Arden Beacon, please help me become this man.’