Soul of the World

by David Mealing

  He turned and led the trio out of the cell. Recesses for doorways lined the outer edge of the hall into which they emerged, each one covered by a blue haze of Shelter. The walkways were smooth stone, sunlight trickling in from barred windows at either end of the hallway. The priest led them through the twists of the corridor, up one staircase and down another. From time to time she saw another brown-robed figure, but more often it was men garbed like her two escorts in leather tunics and breeches. Evidently the priests kept watch over a special area of the prison devoted to dangerous types like herself.

  An amusing thought, that she would be considered among the most dangerous of the prisoners of the crown. Zi appeared just in front of the priest, trundling along as if he and not the jailor were leading the way. He was livelier than she’d seen him in days, his head perked up, scales alternating red and white. She supposed she was dangerous, between her leylines and Zi’s gifts, and then there was the cat-spirit, the mareh’et …

  The memory of it was fresh in her mind, the sensation of being the predator, of living and breathing and wielding the power of his form. A frightening magic, separate and different from anything she’d known before. The spirit seemed to beckon at the edge of her mind, a blessing waiting to be called upon whenever she had need. She’d been afraid to do it here.

  The priest unlocked an iron grate, leading them into the chambers beyond. By the décor, she judged they’d left the prisoners’ quarters. Paintings hung on the walls, carpets lay across the stone floors, and actual furniture could be seen through open doorways. They tracked up another flight of stairs before the priest motioned to her two escorts to wait behind. He led her into a chamber, where another brown-robed figure waited.

  “Here she is.” Her captor handed a set of keys to the second priest. “The one the warden wanted. Can you have her prepared promptly, Sister?”

  “Of course.” The woman spared a look for her as she took the keys. “I’ll get her cleaned up.”

  “Sister Zoelle will take good care of you, child. We’ll be waiting outside once she’s finished.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.”

  The door closed, and the sister tsked as she looked her over. She must have looked a mess, skin covered in filth, clothes ragged, and hair more knots than otherwise.

  “Now, child, whatever you did to find yourself here, I’ll brook no nonsense, understood?”

  She bowed her head as meekly as she could manage. The prospect of a warm bath—she saw the basin across the chamber—was enough to cull away any thoughts of ill behavior.

  “I trust you’re learning a lesson about the King’s justice. What exactly was your crime, dear?” The sister arched an eyebrow at her in askance as she brandished a key and made to unlock the manacles around her wrists.

  “Being somewhere I shouldn’t. The wrong place, at the wrong time.”

  Tsking again, the sister asked, “Political, then?”

  “You could say so.”

  The priestess sighed. “Too many, lately. Far too many.”

  Her manacles came off with a click as the latch turned, and the sister went about getting her cleaned up. True to her word, Sister Zoelle worked quickly. Sarine wanted nothing more than to soak in the hot water, letting the soap lather melt away the grime from her skin. The priestess would have none of it, scrubbing her clean with washcloths. This warden was a strange manner of jailor to insist on keeping prisoners in filth and then require them bathed before a summons. She supposed it was a means of distancing himself from the reality of his post. Regardless, she was thankful for his odd proclivities. She hadn’t been well and truly bathed in far too long.

  Once she’d been toweled dry and dressed in fresh clothes from the sister’s armoire of simple linen shirts and long skirts, she found herself manacled once more and back in the company of the first priest and the two guardsmen, on her way to the warden’s offices. After a short wait in a modestly appointed foyer, they were ushered inside.

  The warden leaned forward, gesturing with his free hand for her to enter as his quill worked furiously at a piece of parchment. She was escorted into one of the chairs in front of his desk while the guards and the priest stood along the rear wall of the chamber. They made no motion to leave the room; evidently the warden wanted whatever protection their presence offered. She was a highly dangerous prisoner, after all.

  Finishing whatever he’d been writing, the warden lifted the paper and blew to dry it, then set it aside and turned his attention to her.

  “So,” he said, voice clipped and stern. “This is the trespasser.”

  “Yes, my lord.” No point trying to deny it; she’d been dragged here straight from the royal green.

  “What were you doing on the palace grounds?”

  What was this? It sounded like an approximation of a trial. Her heart beat faster as her mind went through all the arguments she’d practiced, all the things she intended to say before a magistrate should she ever get the chance. It appeared this was it, as close as she was like to get.

  “My lord, I climbed the wall to sketch the nobles at masquerade. I thought I could sell the drawings to commonfolk in the markets to earn a few coins.”

  The warden paused a moment, considering her. When he spoke again, it was in another tongue, harsh and guttural. Zi’s voice sounded in her head.

  He asks whether you understand Gand speech.

  She dissembled, or tried to. At once she understood where this was going. A strange girl, an unmarked binder, caught at a function of Sarresant nobles with a pack full of sketches. They were at war. It didn’t take much to draw the conclusion that she might be a spy, or worse.

  Mercifully, he seemed to accept her insistence that she couldn’t understand.

  He switched back to the Sarresant tongue. “That you risked yourself attacking the beast is the only reason your head is still attached to your shoulders, girl. I hope you know that.”

  She swallowed. “I saw it about to hurt them, I didn’t stop to think—”

  “Do you know what it was?”

  She shook her head. “No, my lord.”

  “Do you know anything of the weakenings in the Great Barrier? They found holes to the north. Large ones. Large enough for the beast to have come through.”

  Again she shook her head. “No, my lord. I’ve never been to the Great Barrier.”

  He pursed his lips, considering her. “Very well. And yet you are a binder, a freebinder who had evaded the King’s tests before you came into our keeping.”

  This was it; the moment she’d dreaded from the day she’d first realized her gift. Again, no point trying to deny it. “I am.”

  “A crime.” He rose from behind his desk, motioning for the priest to step forward. “But there are worse ones. And it seems your actions earned you a patron among the nobles.”

  “My lord?” Footsteps approached her from behind, and a brown-robed figure leaned over her shoulder to unlock her manacles.

  “You saved more than a few lives on the green, girl. One of them is thanking you to the tune of buying a royal marque, to pardon your binding. Provided I am satisfied you pose no further threat to the state or the peerage, you are free to go.”

  Her head swam. Had she heard him aright?

  “Only one thing remains. Your name. I need your name, to affix to the letter of marque.” He picked up his quill again, returning to the paper upon which he’d been writing when they entered.

  “Sarine,” she said numbly.

  “Surname?”

  “Thibeaux.” Her uncle’s name; she’d never known her parents to ask for another.

  He wrote it down.

  “Very good.” He handed her the papers. “Take these to a marquist’s shop bearing the King’s seal. Remuneration is included with these orders.”

  She stared at the papers in her hand. A royal marque. The blue and gold tattoos, three flowers entwined, on the scarred hands of nobles or the priests and soldiers who had completed their years of service to
the crown. It meant a sanction to use her bindings, and it cost more than her uncle’s church.

  “Your benefactor has sent a coach. He’d have come in person, but he suffered injury on the green when the beast attacked, and now recovers at his townhouse in the Gardens district. He wants to meet you, to thank you for what you did.”

  She looked up at him in a daze.

  “His name is Lord Donatien Revellion, son of the marquis. You will take the coach, I expect?”

  17

  SARINE

  The Coach, Approaching the Gardens

  Southgate District, New Sarresant

  The cushions helped mask the rough ride of wheels over cobblestone. In her brief trip from the Citadel to the Gardens, she arrived at the conclusion that one did not ride in such a conveyance for comfort. One did so for the view.

  Only a few feet higher than walking, but it might as well have been a seat among the clouds. Ordinarily she’d have had to navigate the press, weaving through crowds, trying to avoid the busiest thoroughfares. In the Revellion coach they went where they pleased, the team trotting ahead while passersby on foot ducked to the side to avoid them. And the stares. Half-masked envy mixed with wonderment. Never in all her years at the Sacre-Lin had she seen such reverence, not for the Oracle, the Exarch, or the Veil. She could almost believe herself a Goddess, riding behind the gilded doors, behind transparent curtains of the thinnest lace. No wonder the nobles acted so far above the commonfolk. The evidence of their superiority was wrought plain, in the eyes of the tanner, the baker, the wretch, looking up at them mere feet away, but worlds apart.

  They approached the gilded-iron gate in the ringwall surrounding the Gardens district and, with a shout from the driver, bypassed the line of couriers, merchants, and whoever else had waited on their pleasure. The guards waved them through without so much as a glance inside the carriage. Past the gate, lush greens and lavish buildings welcomed them on either side, the cobblestones paved so smooth the wheels seemed to glide over the streets. Zi drank it in with the fervor of someone who hadn’t eaten in days. She felt a similar hunger herself. She hadn’t been more than a few weeks in the prison—a short stay, when rumor spoke of grandfathers grown old there—but it was enough. To go from daily sojourns through the heart of the city to a beast caged in a menagerie made her bones ache. She yearned to draw again, to watch, to observe. Through a sheet of fresh paper she could make sense of the world. Here, now, the prospect of what she was about to face seemed a load beyond what she could bear.

  And yet all too soon the coach came to a stop.

  The door swung open, and like a hand descended from the heavens, the coachman escorted her down the steps and onto the street.

  The Revellion townhouse.

  She’d seen it before, sketched it even. Fine construction that spoke of wealth without shouting it. A small garden and a waist-high black iron gate between the main door and the street. In the haze of a dream she acknowledged the curtsies and bows of the servants as they ushered her inside, up the stairs into a small receiving room. And there he sat, reclining on a long chaise with enough room for him to rest his feet comfortably; he did so, with one leg in finely cut trousers and a calf-high boot, the other wrapped in the bandages of a chirurgeon. One of the servants announced her by name, though she hadn’t remembered giving it, and Lord Donatien Revellion’s eyes widened as he gestured her into the room.

  “You’re here,” he said. “Sarine.” His voice was weak and strained, with only a hint of the rich tones she’d overheard in the Gardens. The way his chest constricted suggested more bandages hidden beneath his blue formal coat and linen shirt. Still, he adorned her name in gold when he said it, and whatever the frailness of his body, he was still Lord Revellion, all chiseled looks and pushed-back black hair.

  “Yes,” she replied, then hastened to add “my lord.”

  “They never told me your name. I suppose you couldn’t have given it before. They said you passed out after the beast was slain.”

  She nodded, unsure what he wanted to hear.

  He took a deep, steadying breath. “Unjust, what they did to you. You’re a hero.”

  Ah, it felt good to hear him say it.

  He went on. “I’ve passed most of the time since that night in a sleep, the sommeil de la mort, as the chirurgeons call it. I made arrangements for your release this morning, as soon as they’d told me you’d been taken. And now here you are.” He smiled weakly and gestured to a chaise opposite where he reclined. “Please, sit, be welcome.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said as she settled into a chair with more cushion than any bed upon which she’d ever slept. “The warden told me you wished to see me. That you’d arranged for my release, and …” She swallowed. “ … and for a marque to pardon my binding. I owe you my thanks.”

  “I owe you my life, Sarine.”

  “I suppose, if—” Heat rose to her cheeks.

  “As do half the city’s peers,” he continued. “How they could think to reward you with a cell is beyond me. I was in a rage over it. All for the crime of what, some drawings and an uninvited showing at our masquerade? You’d not have risked yourself fighting the beast if you’d been there to spy; any fool could’ve reasoned it.” He coughed at the exertion, passion dissipating from his voice as he closed his eyes, lying back once more against the cushions. A moment later one eye snapped open. “You aren’t a spy, are you?”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “No, my lord, I’m not a spy. I’m an artist.”

  “I knew it.” He closed his eyes again, smiling. “Far too much talent to waste on covertcy.” He gestured absently toward the corner of the room.

  “My pack!” The sight of it, dirt-covered and worn as it was, was a treasure beyond price after so long away from her sketching.

  “You won’t mind that I had a look? It must be said, you are a woman of many talents.”

  She felt another flush, but couldn’t dim a smile as she retrieved the pack, thumbing through its contents. All there, to the last sketch.

  “Thank you, my lord. Truly. Thank you.”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “Returning what is yours is the least I can do. I fear you esteem us too highly, though—the nobles, I mean. Your drawings are flattering, to be sure. Too flattering, for some.”

  “I draw what I see, my lord.”

  “Would that I had your gift—I could show you what I saw, when the beast attacked. You were a thing to behold. They say you slew it by yourself, quicker than a man could see.”

  Her smile faded, recalling long years of training herself to avoid even the barest mention of her gifts. And here they were, in the open, tugging at a knot forming in her stomach.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “The shame is on us, the nobles. We take children who show talent and we train them to serve the crown. We fear what binders might do with freedom. I think your example shows we underestimate you, people like you, I mean.”

  “Few enough of the people on the streets are like me, my lord.” She shuddered to imagine what the toughs and thugs would do if they had unfettered access to leylines; it was dangerous enough when the odd deserter from the army’s binders made a go of becoming a gang boss.

  “Well, and why not, when we expect so little of them? And all the while the nobles buy royal marques when our children fail the tests, to exempt them from service to the crown.” He grimaced. “It is injustice, simple and plain.”

  The sentiment hung in the air as she contemplated a reply. Strange and unexpected to hear that sort of talk on the lips of a man who’d lived his life surrounded by gold and the privileges it bought. Still, she didn’t dare affirm the idea; whatever her personal philosophies, he was still the son of a marquis.

  A knock at the door of the study saved her from the need to demure. It swept open, revealing a thin, tall woman in House Revellion livery.

  “You’re s’posed to be resting, m’lord,” the newcomer said in an ornery voice colored by cou
ntry accents, sparing Sarine a derisive look that weighed her head to toe.

  “Yes, yes, Agnes. Tell the docteur I feel fine, more than up for a little polite conversation.”

  She sniffed, gainsaying him by demeanor if not with words. “Very good, m’lord. Time to dress the wrappings, though, docteur’s orders.”

  Revellion sighed and made an apologetic look in her direction. “No allaying her when Agnes gets like this.” Another sniff from behind. He laughed, a weak sound accompanied by a pained wince. “Well enough. I would see you again, my lady, if you’d receive me. This is hardly my best.”

  She looked down, remembering the times she had watched him on the green. No, not anywhere close to his best.

  He took it as assent. “Can I send a message to you?”

  “Yes, my lord. With Madame Guillon, at the Five Cats, in the Maw.” Not the Sacre-Lin. She would not betray her uncle no matter how well-intentioned Lord Revellion seemed.

  “The Maw! Sarine, let me find you lodgings elsewhere.”

  “My lord, I can take care of myself.”

  “I suppose you can at that.” A soft laugh, and he met her eyes again. “Expect to hear from me soon, Sarine. And thank you again, for saving my life.”

  She bowed her head and, a short time later, found herself once more in the Revellion coach, this time bound for home.

  Whatever the egalitarian notions espoused by Donatien Revellion, they were not shared by his father’s coachman. Pulling up to the edge of the Maw, the man made clear she was to find the rest of the way herself. His lordship the marquis would not have it said that his carriage had visited the slums, not to mention the risk of showing wealth among the city’s lowest born. Or something to that effect. In any case, the result was her, in a linen blouse and long skirts with her pack slung across her shoulder, watching as the last vestiges of the morning’s dream drove away beneath the whip of a Revellion retainer.

  Had it been real? She supposed she had the skirts for proof. And the royal writ, a slip of paper rolled up safely in her pack. Permission, bought and paid, to do what she’d kept hidden since she was a child. Here among the shuttered windows and ruined buildings of the Maw, the notion of royal permission for anything seemed out of place, a relic from another world. Her shield of paper would do little to keep her safe if the wrong sort took an interest as she walked. She made quick about it, heading toward the familiar spires of the Sacre-Lin.