by Prue Batten
She snorted like a tricksy mare and raced up the stair.
Liam had spent time alone, sitting at the window staring at the iced escarpments of the Goti Range. The forbidding edifice echoed the unease in his mind because the game had taken a turn, changing drastically as if the rule-book had long since been torn up and thrown out the window to be blown up to the crags. He wanted to win, but to win what? And against whom? Adelina? Himself? With Ana as the prize? A valuable enough trophy to be sure, but did he really want to marry her? Then again he could do worse for surely her devotion knew no bounds. The thought of that unlimited affection, of the yearning that brought them together in a silent paroxysm shook him to the soles of his boots, making him doubt his own game-play. And when doubts crept in, it was those moments that caused marriage offers and such. As if he lost control of the game utterly.
‘Liam, Liam.’ Ana’s voice called up the staircase.
‘I’m here.’
Ana flew in on wings, grabbing him, sparking with a brittle light. ‘Come on, let’s go out, take me to the mews. I need to stretch my legs, they are wound tighter than a spring.’ She pulled him after her and he was struck by the frenetic edge to her manner.
‘Ana, is anything wrong?’
‘No, no. I have cabin fever, that’s all. All this snow and staying indoors. I need to breathe.’
They had reached the foot of the stairs, entering the bar on the edge of Ana’s odd mood, the air crackling and shifting around the two. Onlookers could assume it was excitement and love as they informed their friends they were going out, reaching for the quilted coats they had necessarily acquired since taking residence in Star. Bundled up, twice as rotund and with leather boots and fur hats, they called farewells and headed into the remains of the grim day.
‘Ah well, kegs and ale to be shifted so I’ll get on. Here,’ Buckerfield pushed over two goblets of wine.
‘I knew I loved you for a reason.’ Adelina patted the big hand as he turned away to serve more customers. She picked up her drink and joined Kholi by the window. ‘You know, this really was my favourite place when I was young.’ She spoke quietly to Kholi as the inn filled around them. Dulcit chatter, as yet unfuelled by alcohol, created a murmuring backdrop to their conversation. ‘Buckerfield’s not that much older than I and when my parents stayed here on their journeying, he always included me with his local friends. After the horrors of Severine’s company and not having a brother of my own, let alone a sister, Buckerfield was always special. I remember he taught me how to make snow angels. One winter we lay down and made dozens all the way up the Stair. We were wet through when we got back. It was such fun.’
‘Life has its moments, my love, most assuredly. And I think Ana’s will improve now. Aine knows she deserves something good after her terrible traumas.’ Kholi raised his glass in a toast.
Adelina gave a crisp little laugh frilled with the sharp timbre of sarcasm. ‘And you think a Faeran can supply that? Kholi, you live in a dream world.’
A Raji expletive shot across the table, along with Kholi’s hand as it grasped Adelina’s wrist. She stared in shocked silence at the fingers pressed around her wrist and then she shifted her eyes to his face. She saw anger where she had expected none. Once before he had shown such ferocity. At the campsite when she had raged at Liam on Ana’s disappearance. As then, Kholi’s calm constancy changed, as explosive as a firestorm. With a sick heart she knew she had pushed his calm to breaking point.
‘Adelina, enough. Let this whole matter go.’ His eyes burned. ‘You have had days of opinionated rhetoric pouring forth from your mouth till I swear I could sail away on it. And Aine it has become boring. He has done nothing wrong, do you hear me?’
‘But I don’t want her to marry him. Kholi, you have no idea. He is duplicitous and cunning. You have only ever seen the affable side, I have seen the reverse.’
Kholi’s eyes bored into hers so deeply she looked away as he spoke. ‘I will not listen. He has proved himself more than enough to me. I would be happy if Lalita chose such a man. By afrits and foliots, Ana is a grown woman and I’ve said it a dozen times. Adelina, she has made her choice. Let her alone. She deserves to have love.’
‘You think maybe to compare what we have with what they have? Please.’ Adelina spat back.
Kholi’s hand tightened further. ‘You profess to be her friend. Not her mother, nor her sister, not even her mentor. To me, and it galls me to say this because I have loved you so much these last few weeks, you seem rude and insensitive. A friend wishes to share in her friend's happiness. I compare nothing with nothing because right now, Adelina, that is what we have. I have no intention of tying myself to someone so mean-spirited. Not so different I think from your vile friend, Severine.’ He placed his drink down firmly and left the table, slamming the door behind him.
‘Oh,’ Adelina gasped. ‘Oh.’ Nausea welled up in her throat. Their journey had been remarkable for Kholi’s gentility, support and unconditional affection. She had come to rely on his companionship, falling asleep cocooned in his broad arms and to wake as a finger trailed like a skein of silk down her backbone from her neck to her buttock. She shivered as she remembered, reminded also of the intellectual span of his mind, of his poetry, his prose. He was no dullard, as capable of assessing men as she was in determining her own view. So could he be right?
She growled. What was it about Liam that caused war-drums to beat and sabres to rattle? 'Fight me,' he urged. 'Fight me and I will win.' She pounded her fist on the table. Kholi says I am wrong. If I say I am not and we dispute still, might he leave me? She shrugged her shoulders. So? I have been alone before and I can be again. But then she remembered him touching her and drawing her along in exquisite passion, whispering how she would be the home for his heart, the key for his soul, the scabbard for his sword.
She ran to the door and wrenched it open. ‘Kholi,’ she shouted as she pounded up to their room. ‘Kholi, wait.’
Chapter Twenty Eight
The wind hurtled around corners and up and down alleys, cruelly pulling at buttoned up coats and rushing under fur trimmed hats. Every now and then a flurry of snow would draw its white veil over everything and one would be forced to take shelter in a doorway for visibility was impossible. The two young lovers had been bowled down to the mews by the mountain wind, running furiously as the blast blew under their heels. Returning was a different story, as bent double and shielding their faces with free hands, they twined hands together. As they rattled around a corner, a flurry of snow obscured their view and they bumped into a woman coming down from the steps above. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Ana grabbed her fur hat and smiled as the woman’s hand clasped a nearby handrail.
Anger and impatience sharpened the woman’s expression as the snow flurry cleared but she brushed herself down after taking a steadying step and looking the couple over. ‘It’s Liam and Ana, isn’t it?’ she said with obvious care.
Ana nodded observing the woman’s smooth skin and beauty. She was evidently moneyed, for how else would she be able to afford such thick and lustrous furs, or such fine black kid which covered the hand extended Ana’s way?
‘I am Severine, Countess di Accia. I am a friend of Adelina’s from many years ago,’ the woman said, her voice slightly high-pitched but clear and well spoken.
Ana shook the proffered hand after glancing at Liam’s shuttered face. As the woman’s fingers closed over her own she felt an ache surge up her arm, bone deep and deathly. Severine turned to Liam to shake his hand but as she turned, she stilled. Becalmed in mid-action, devoid of expression; like a waxworks figure, lifeless and yet not. ‘What did you do,’ Ana’s heart thumped. ‘I saw you, what did you do?’ Her agitated whispering was less a question, more a show of panic as she checked to see who might be watching. Inevitably with the chill wind, the streets were deserted.
‘She’s mesmered, it’s nothing, calm down. Ana, did you feel anything as you shook her hand?’
‘By Aine, yes. My arm, it ac
hes unbelievably.’ she rubbed up and down the appendage, her gloved fingers trying to erase the pain. He nodded grimly, and Ana could almost feel the despair.
‘I can hardly stand near her,’ he said. ‘This woman is evil.’ He circled her, holding out a hand from which he had stripped a glove. ‘See, watch my hand shake.’ And indeed, as he held his hand beside Severine, it began to tremble and the fingers crushed into his palm like the petals of a flower closing when the sun slides below the horizon. ‘She is dark. She has done something utterly terrible.’
‘Why should I feel it though? I’m not Other.’ Ana stared at the glassy eyes, unable to believe they registered nothing. She was tempted to pinch the arm held out, just to see... but no, the woman discomforted her. She turned her attention to Liam as he answered her query.
‘Some of my Otherness has rubbed off on you. Is it not the way with lovers Ana, that they feel each other’s joy and pain?’ He prowled around Severine, taking in the slate eyes with lashes that were lined with tiny snowflakes. Strands of fur on her hat and coat trembled with the weight of the minute crystals. His face paled and his eyes filled with a pain that cut Ana to the quick.
‘What’, she grabbed his hand. ‘What ails you?’
‘She has killed. She has killed a Faeran.’ His voice was low, a growl like a dog threatening to bite.
‘Are you sure? How do you know?’ Ana stepped back from the space in front of Severine, the fear of the Barguest and its portents forgotten. A murderer whose hand she had shaken and who claimed to be a friend of Adelina’s? It didn’t make sense.
‘Because the monstrosity of what she has done has penetrated her so deeply she reeks of it. And I know, Ana. I know what she’s done. She’s stolen a Faeran soul!’
Ana saw something in his eyes that frightened her even more than the Barguest had done. He had said We feel each other’s pain, or words to that effect. Does he mean I feel his rage as well? Because that is what I see and feel now... thunderous rage; deep, dirty, surging to crash beyond the point of restraint. She bit her lips, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘How do you know? Liam, let her go and let’s get away. Please. She frightens me.’
But he ranted on, ignoring her. ‘And I know why.’ He turned, brushing Ana away like a speck of snow, oblivious to her anxiety. ‘Remember Adelina mentioned she had heard Severine was seeking immortality? This...’ It was as if he would plunge a knife through the woman’s heart there and then if he had one. ‘This aberration of a mortal has taken a step on that reckless path. She has taken a Faeran soul... only one, I can sense only one. She has murdered one of us on her journey to immortality and damnation.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ana’s voice trembled with cold and fear as the man in front of her railed with fury.
‘Immortality can be gained by a mortal with possession of two Faeran souls.’
‘But how?’
‘The tales of old tell of a ring - an ancient gold ring. If one spies a Faeran through the aperture, the soul can be sucked through the circle into one’s hands leaving the body a dried up husk. It’s an old occult secret. We thought it was long gone, one of such foul secrets hidden or destroyed ages ago.’ He continued to prowl around. ‘Ana, take off her gloves.’
‘Liam …’
‘Please.’
The woman stood as if she were some sculpted piece in a museum and Ana reached reluctantly for the hand. As she peeled the glove away, both her arms ached to the bone. As the glove fell away, she stepped back.
But Severine’s hand was bare.
‘Now the other.’
Anguished, Ana took the other hand in her own. The black kid glove slid off and Severine’s fingers were fanned out. Long and artistic like all Travellers’ hands, she betrayed the creative heritage of her ancestors. The nails were beautifully shaped - pale pink, oval and with perfect white crescents at the nail bed. And there, glowing in the flickering light of a street lamp was a plain but dented gold ring on her middle finger.
Liam stepped forward and tried to run his hand over the ornament. But he pulled back quickly, hand flying to his mouth, an expletive escaping.
‘What, what?’ whispered Ana.
He turned his hand over. In his palm was a burn, an arc, half a ring perfectly mirrored black and red in the skin. ‘I can’t touch the ring, I can’t. No Faeran can. It is the ultimate bane.’ His tone echoed with hopeless frustration. ‘She can murder any one of us whenever she wants.’ He stepped back, the reality of the horror filling his eyes.
‘Unmesmer her, Liam. Now! Let’s get away.’
Liam moved his hand. Severine’s eyes brightened with life... a cold sparkle, reminiscent of ice on the high passes of the Goti Range. She looked at her bare fingers, then surprised at the ground where lay the gloves hastily dropped by Ana. She bent to retrieve them. ‘Such a pleasure to meet you both. You are indeed as beautiful as people say. I do wish you well.’ She pulled the gloves on, sliding them over her freezing fingers. But as Ana and Liam nodded their heads at her and began to walk away, she called them back. ‘Ana, if you have a moment I do have something I wish to ask you. A business deal, shall we say.’ Her voice was like a descant to the moaning wind scraping at windows and doors.
Ana waited, superficially polite, deeply afraid of this cold as ice woman.
‘I would buy your wedding robe. I tried to buy the fabric at the market but Adelina was more successful, quicker in her dealings than I. I had my heart set on commissioning her to make such a robe for me, you see. And it is the fabric I covet, Other as it is.’
Liam’s breath sucked in as Ana’s fingers clenched his arm through his quilted sleeve, trying to prevent an outburst. ‘Countess di Accia...’
‘Come now, Liam. My friends call me Severine.’
‘As I said... Countess di Accia,’ his voice resonated with undisguised hate. ‘My betrothed’s robe is not, nor shall it ever be for sale. Now if you will excuse us we are deathly cold and wish to return to our home. Good evening to you.’ He spat this last and turned his body away from Severine, dismissing her and pulling Ana after him, chivvying her into the wind away from the accursed woman.
Severine watched them go, fury shaking her shoulders. She marked Liam’s well-formed body as he disappeared around a corner and in her mind’s eye, recalled his face as he spoke to her. She traced the image of that unusually striking visage with a mental finger; the high planes, the eyebrows, the fiercely strong jaw. The lines of his race were imprinted in her brain and she knew as she ticked off one characteristic after another, that Liam was Faeran. She smiled, a slow drawing up of the cupid’s bow lips. ‘Well well now, there’s a thing.’ She turned and walked down the alley, the wind pushing and pulling at her. ‘The robe and a Faeran soul.’
She gave a small chuckle and then laughed out loud. But no one heard her. She laughed like a banshee and the wind sounded the same, it was all of a piece.
***
Time again to move on. I have said before that my narrative is a purging of the emotions I have filled to the brim inside me and I shall continue this expunging until every trace of angst has been expressed across every page. So if you want to continue with me, follow the bees again.
You will come across one of my favourite pieces... see how I have inserted it in the godet at the back of the robe? It gives it weight and makes it flare even more. It is a creation of two Pymm thistles bending their mauve heads in some unseen wind. They are partnered with a dandelion plant, the white thistledown heads leaning and casting their seeds to the wind. They remind me of so much in their unusual partnership. Maybe Liam and Ana. Perhaps Kholi and myself. Even Maeve and Jasper. Perhaps even more folk… who knows?
Under the prickly thistle leaves, you will find two little books. These are my next offerings to you, my friend.
Chapter Twenty Nine
The robe hung on its hanger, swaying in the warm air that filled the attic, the little floral stove merrily burning its logs underneath the timber mantel. Adelina had moved t
he garment and hung it from a nail jammed into a central rafter so she could examine it from all angles. She was alone. Ana talked downstairs with Buckerfield, which may help drag her out of the strange mood she appeared to be in last evening, she thought. Ana and Liam had rushed in the door with the wind behind their backs and some sort of discord had blown in with them. Liam’s face was as dark as the mountain clouds and Ana was withdrawn.
Had they fought? Adelina didn’t think so, although secretly she wished they had. Liam said they had seen some idiot belaboring a mule, trying to push it up the Stairway into the teeth of the blizzard. That would be upsetting, an answer for sure. But Ana had still been quiet this morning. A bad night she said, fretting about the mule. It was certainly Ana’s way. Ana… how you have turned our lives upside down. Sometimes, Adelina wondered if she should have just ignored Ana that day at the fair. If she hadn’t given her the music box, if she hadn’t engaged in conversation. If… if wishes were horses.
Adelina blamed Ana and Liam for the rocky night she had just experienced. She could not, would not let Kholi go. If ever a kindred spirit had arrived in her life it was Kholi Khatoun and no amount of pride and posturing was worth the loss... if he should be so offended by her and leave. So she had tried valiantly to explain a Traveller’s view of Liam the night before, asking him to forgive and forget. Please, she had said. I love you, Kholi, and I must not lose you.
Ana had talked with Buckerfield but he was too busy to chat for too long; lists to made, providores to be visited. He left in a flurry, Ana retreating to sit in the nook, staring out the window. People toiled up and down the Stair because the carlin had placed her staff in the ground pronouncing a few days of blizzard free weather and journeymen had decided to make a break for the top of. Equally, those who had been imprisoned by snow in the various Inns of Happiness were now arriving in the town, claiming the Stair was passable higher up the crags. A parade of nations rattled past Ana’s window; Rajis, Venichese noblemen, Pymm merchants. Shaggy pack animals loaded with goods negotiated the wide way to the mews where if they chose to stay like Ana and her friends, they would leave their animals and return up the walkways to the hospitality of the town.
