The Shifu Cloth (The Chronicles of Eirie 4)

by Prue Batten

  ‘It’s true,’ Isabella replied with no attempt at dissembling. ‘I can’t profess to find interest in a regime that kidnaps free women and turns them into slaves and then ultimately abandons them in an unmarked graveyard.’ But then she paused, adding almost as an after-thought, ‘But then I have also seen beauty and culture and the Han has much to recommend it.’

  Kitsune bowed her head in a nod, a half-smile tinted with irony almost concealed by a fur collar. ‘Beauty indeed. But I can understand your caution, Han moral code could be seen to be unbalanced.’

  ‘Seen to be? Aine it is. And I for one, have no wish…’ her tirade stopped.

  She is Kitsune, the most frightening spirit of the Han.

  ‘To be a part of it?’ She gazed at Isabella and her eyes darkened, one of her hands smoothing the ice-white hair that lay across the collar of her robe. ‘Indeed. Foreigner, it is wrongful to have one’s life curtailed, I know this. Ibo, I am a Celestial Spirit and as such I have reason to know something of your Fate. Nah!’ She held up a hand with elegantly expressive fingers as Isabella tried to interject. ‘You must listen to me. Your time to leave is not yet. There is something greater in play and if you leave before time, then you will, most indubitably, lay your feet across the grey stone near the walls and lose your traitorous toes. Your mother would then have real reason to mourn.’ The curious eyes fixed on Isabella and she trembled. ‘You have a manner, Ibo, which puts you above your station. Think on this, for if you don’t then you shall never leave here.’

  ‘Why? If I want to escape, what does my manner matter?’

  ‘Think on it, Isabella. Work it out for yourself.’

  She reached forward and touched Isabella’s hand and a flood of warmth flowed through her body, removing the harshness of the Celestial Spirit’s words.

  ‘Lie down, Ibo. Tomorrow is another day and I want you to think on my advice. Use the time wisely. Sleep now.’

  She opened Isabella’s curled fingers and laid the rest of the roll of gathered thread on her palm.

  My lifeline. How could you? Her eyes prickled. So close.

  ‘Sleep Ibo, and trust me.’

  The woman stood, rising in one smooth movement like a ribbon of silk unrolling. She leaned over Isabella and touched the hair on her head, a frisson shivering between them, then moved to the door and raised her arm.

  ‘Sleep, Isabella.’

  Isabella hunkered deep into her bedroll as the door slid shut, the room assuming the chilled cool of a spring night. Outside, the water in the fountain trickled and as the bells chimed a little more strongly in a welkin wind, her eyes seemed as heavy as if someone weighted them with the coins of the dead.

  She awoke with a jump much later, her mind immediately drawing up a vivid image of the woman in white. She threw back her coverings and grabbed the thickest of her robes, pulling it on and rushing to the sliding door. She held onto the frame and sucked in vast breaths of the chilly night air, as if its freshness would ground her again and enable her to move on with her plans. She uncurled her other hand and let fall the clump that had lain clutched like a memento all night. There were her threads, her lifeline, frayed like her plans which fluttered down around her.

  ‘Your time to leave is not yet.’

  But Isabella could not decipher meaning from the enigmatic words.

  ‘You have a manner which puts you above your station.’

  She shifted the thread with her toe, shoving it out to the middle of the verandah where a very ordinary nightbreeze scooped it into the shrubs.

  What sort of manner?

  She stared at the stars and saw a large dark patch in amongst the swathe that the Eirish from her home called the Celestine Way and after which the Celestine Stair was named. Nicholas had told her the fathomless black hole was called the Andromeda Darks and as she gazed at it, at its emptiness, the incipient nothingness of its nature, she wondered where Nicholas was and whether her message was closer to him.

  Nico, I am in trouble.

  *

  ‘What’s the matter, Isabella? Have you had that fall I teased you about?’

  He might as well have stood next to her, so real was his voice.

  ‘Pride you silly woman, pride.’

  She could see the look of vexation on his smooth, high brow as surely as if she traced the lines herself. His dark eyes, so dark the local maids thought they would drown in them, admonished.

  Oh Nico, I am not proud. I am afraid and sick with longing for all I hold dear. A slave has no room for pride.

  The Andromeda Darks merged into the starry mass as her eyes filled with tears.

  How can I be proud when I am about to be handed over in a relationship of convenience – nothing better than a concubine, just a whore.

  Her toes had numbed and her hands were stiff with cold, so she turned and slid her door shut just as she heard the cook open the kitchen partition. It was almost dawn, the Darks fading as the heavenly lights flickered in the sky.

  ‘You have a manner Ibo, which puts you above your station…think on this.’

  Isabella scurried across the woven mats and slid down into her bedroll, robes and all, as if the ensuing warmth could help her think.

  Am I too arrogant, Nico? Is that what she means?

  ‘Always a little too arrogant, Isabella – a touch of the princess.’

  She remembered that day, the day she had spurned the advances of her ardent admirers at the Fair.

  ‘A touch of the princess,’ Nicholas had said.

  ‘Think on my words.’ The Fox Lady had been adamant.

  A princess, a manner above my station, Isabella thought.

  The answer flashed through her mind, as bright as the Daigh Star. The seeds of a new plan began to form as she gratefully closed her eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  Nicholas

  Nicholas watched Poli with grim satisfaction as they turned into the third row of espaliered trees. The man’s jaw unhinged itself as the orchard changed from a sporadically blossoming spread of fruit trees, to a foaming and humming eldritch swathe that flowed for miles. Nicholas had no doubt the mortal would find the fragrance titillating beyond belief and watched as his hand reached out to pluck an apricot from trees that blossomed and fruited simultaneously.

  ‘Don’t eat, Master Poli,’ Gallivant spoke up. ‘Unless you want to stay in Færan for eternity.’

  ‘Færan!’

  ‘Indeed. We are here.’ Gallivant waved his arm in a proprietary sweep. ‘This is a place to which mortals would fain never come and yet like a drug it draws them. They wish to know its secrets but to do that they will always pay a price.’

  Nicholas led the way in single file, but he heard Poli’s response behind him.

  ‘And what price shall I pay?’

  Let me count the ways.

  ‘None that I can think of because you rescued our young fellow from a creaming. There is honour at stake here.’

  ‘Something tells me he doesn’t see it like that. Do you, Nicholas?’ Poli called out.

  Nicholas pretended not to hear and kicked his horse into a canter, leaving the others ambling behind, no doubt dissecting his manners and moods into tiny pieces.

  Bastards.

  He careened onto the gravel forecourt of the manor that had been Jasper’s. The horse’s hooves crunched and chewed the tiny stones as the animal slid to a stop and the noise brought Phelim to the door which had been left open to the sun.

  ‘You’re here. Nicholas! What happened to you?’

  Nicholas held up bunched fists and parodied a fight.

  Phelim shook his head as he spoke. ‘And the other fellow came off second best, I presume?’

  ‘Only just,’ said Gallivant as he appeared around the corner, Bottom’s delicate hooves barely disturbing the gravel. ‘And that was because our friend here pulled him away before any more damage could be done.’

  As Nico bent to loosen his horse’s girth, he noticed polite curiosity written on Phelim’s fac
e as introductions were made.

  ‘Take the animals to the stables and settle them. Folko is there. And I’ll get Margriet to prepare refreshments.’

  ‘How’s Adelina?’ Gallivant hopped from one foot to another. ‘Where is she?’

  Nicholas realised how hard it must have been for the Hob to stay behind instead of accompanying Adelina and keeping watch. A momentary surge of shame slid through him and as quickly left as Phelim answered.

  ‘Since we went to the Fair she is slightly changed. There is detail I must tell you about the Traveller’s revelations but it is that bolt of fabric that draws her out of herself, I think. She has laid it across the library floor and walks around it. She has always said that material will tell her what design she must cut and stitch, that she is merely a conduit. I used to think it was some sort of creative fantasy but watching her now, I can see what she means. It talks to her. But take your horses and settle them and I shall see you shortly. Come to the garden, it’s a perfect day to be outside.’

  When isn’t it, stepfather? Have you forgotten? We are in Færan. One perfect day followed by another more perfect day and another again, to infinity.

  He turned and led the way, pulling his horse’s reins, and eventually the handover to Folko had been made, Jasper’s ostler delighted to fill the stable again and crooning over the lop ears of the donkey.

  *

  Nicholas left the others to their refreshments, departing to Jasper’s workroom, where the smell of herb and vellum filled him with comfort. Margriet, Jasper’s housekeeper, had kept everything pristine – the phials, vials and crucibles glistening on their shelves and the cedar drawers glowing with care. Papers were concealed within the decoratively carved boards of folios and tied neatly with leather laces and Nicholas ran his fingers over the tooled runes on the covers. He remembered everything Jasper had ever taught him but refused to use such skill. It smacked of all he wished he could forget and reminded him too readily of what he was and what he represented. The Fey could not be trusted and what was he but an Other by his birthright. An Other who couldn’t even be trusted to protect his sister-cousin.

  He glanced around the room and wondered if he should leave Phelim’s house altogether and move permanently here, to the Ymp Tree Orchard – sequestered from the mortal world where he could hurt no one. Once Adelina left here, she would never have to see him again, wouldn’t have to look at the face that reminded her, day upon hour upon minute, that Others were the stuff of heartache.

  I see it when she looks at me. Even though Phelim is Other, she has forgotten and she leans on him like any mortal wife. But when she looks at me, she sees pain and suffering, she hears no voice and knows I am cursed and she knows that her daughter’s disappearance and my lack are tied together.

  Jasper’s home was Nicholas’s anyway. The old man had left the property to Finnian’s son.

  Why? He knew I hated Færan and all it represented. Why should I want to live so close to where my father and mother disappeared from my life?

  He ran his hands through his hair. Phelim had told him once that Finnian believed the family was cursed.

  He was right.

  He sat at the window, rolling three of Jasper’s storage vials beneath his hands and gazing at the huge dovecote that had always charmed him as a child.

  Jasper, did you know that I would need sanctuary one day? That to repay Adelina and Phelim for all the love they have devolved upon me, I would have to remove myself from their sight? What other reason could there be? You always told me you could scry into a Færan’s future. Did you know what was coming?

  He received no reply, just the cooing of the doves, that contented burbling that spread its ease through Nico’s heart as he sat staring into space. Another sound rumbled somewhere between his neck and navel and he realised he was hungry so shoved the vials in his pockets and hurried down the stone flagged passage to Margriet’s kitchen.

  But the room was deserted.

  On the scrubbed table, a loaf of bread sat with a few slices freshly cut. He slapped on some berry confit and a slab of flaky yellow cheese, dressing the whole with a further slice of bread and then opened the back door to make his way under the arbours and away from where the others may be. But voices chatting pulled him up behind an old flowering dogwood and he leaned against the tree listening.

  ‘You know about the Cantrips of Unlife?’

  Phelim’s deep voice always managed to strike a chord with Nicholas. As though invisible fingers tugged on his heart-strings.

  ‘Aine yes,’ replied Poli. ‘They inspire shipboard stories to last a lengthy voyage. One of the greatest myths I have yet heard.’

  ‘Hmm...’ Phelim’s voice rumbled.

  ‘Right then. Not a myth,’ said Poli.

  ‘No. And therein lies the reason for Finnian’s demise. He found the Cantrips and destroyed them by taking them to the Afterlife from where they and he could never return.’

  ‘You say,’ Poli’s voice breathed out in awe. ‘Then he is the hero I always imagined.’

  You think? A hero? He had a son. A hero doesn’t give his son away.

  It was an age-old argument that suited Nicholas’s bitterness.

  Poli spoke thoughtfully.

  ‘He was a man of contradiction when I knew him and I was but a twelve year old and perhaps not the best judge of a person’s foibles, but he was an angry man, self-obsessed.’

  Nicholas had never heard such words before and leaned against the bark of the tree, a little bit of the truth piercing his own stubbornly riveted armour.

  ‘But there was kindness there as well, as if he recognised pain in a child and wanted to ameliorate it. It wasn’t just that he bought my ticket from the captain of the Pourpoint or even that he gave my mother the deeds of an apartment. He could see that I was scared. Scared of life in this adult world. In a storm before my father died, he kept me busy and talking to take my mind off my fear and when my father died…well I don’t know…there was just something there, as I said.’

  ‘There is something of the father in the son,’ Phelim replied. ‘They say the apple never falls far from the tree. No matter how often we have told Nicholas of his parent’s selfless act in removing those charms to the Isle of the Dead, it makes little difference. He believes he was deserted. But Finnian and Lalita were intrinsically tied to the destruction of the charms and they did what they thought was right. It made him grow up too quickly.

  ‘I hear what you say.’

  Of course you would, patronising bastard.

  ‘On my father’s death, I became old overnight. Not by choice but by necessity. I grew into a man the day my father died with his guts spread across the planking of the Pourpoint and I think Finnian saw that my childhood died that same day and tried to help.’

  A clinking sound of glass upon glass could be heard and Nicholas guessed tea was not the libation of the day but something much stronger. Phelim’s voice wound round the breadth of the tree-trunk.

  ‘Perhaps he did. No doubt he understood what it was not to have a childhood because Aine knows he never had one.’

  ‘As you say. And in many ways, it was a blind act of love on their part that they left Nicholas in your care. I’d venture to say that he has had more of a childhood within your family than if he had remained in their care on the Isle of the Dead. I’ll bet he has laughed here, got into scrapes, been chided and more.’

  Phelim chuckled.

  ‘Oh yes. With Isabella, he could have done nothing else. She was like a sparkling light through his childhood…’

  For a moment there was a silence filled with Nicolas’s own heartbeat and then, Poli spoke.

  ‘And now she’s gone and he re-lives all his losses over and over again.’

  Over and over and over again.

  ‘You’re a prescient man, Mr. Poli.’

  ‘Not really. Gallivant is a chatty chap.’

  Phelim didn’t laugh this time.

  ‘Then you know we are where Finni
an and Lalita went to the other side.’

  ‘And where you hope to get answers.’

  ‘Gallivant has informed you.’

  Nicholas walked out from behind the tree, affecting an insouciance he didn’t feel. Since meeting Poli, there had been an occasional rush of something he didn’t understand.

  Curiosity?

  He moved to the bench against the wall and sat, thrusting his long legs out and shoving his hands in the pockets of his breeches. Looking down at his boots, he noticed how scuffed and scratched they were and indeed how unkempt his clothing appeared. He drew his fingers out and examined his nails, slipping one edge under the other to try and remove the grime and realising he needed a bath. Slowly, the silence from the two men pierced his consciousness and he looked up.

  ‘You’ve deigned to join us, have you?’ The sour note in Phelim’s words tainted the air and Nicholas realised he hadn’t heard that tone for years. ‘So kind,’ his stepfather continued.

  ‘Perhaps he still sulks.’

  Poli grinned and Nico jumped to his feet and went to storm off.

  ‘SIT DOWN.’

  At last Nicholas knew he had pushed the boat too far.

  Do I really care?

  ‘I’m heartily sick of your moods and manners. I have given you more leeway than a caravel gives an unwieldy coracle and I am tired of it. We are all hurting. Every one of us in this family! It has been a long year filled with sorrow. When Isabella was with us, she ameliorated your sour moods. Gave us the sunlight in amongst your thunderclouds, and whilst I know you feel guilt and anger at her disappearance, that you feel frustration at not being able to speak and confusion over a curse, I have two words to say to you. GROW UP.’ He turned to Poli, ‘I apologise for this, for you seeing our dirty laundry as it were…’

  Poli gave a small flick of his hand.

  Phelim rose and stood directly in front of Nicholas and Nicholas realised that despite this past year bending his stepfather, the man was tall and immovable, as if he could solve every problem that existed. ‘But I cannot tolerate rudeness any longer. You listen to me and you listen well. Tonight we are going to the Lake of Mists. I am hoping that tonight when I call your father, he will come. Don’t snort, Nico, you know nothing.’