by Prue Batten
He turned away from his stepson and resumed his seat next to Poli, fixing Nico with eyes as hard as nails. ‘Well, have you nothing to add?’
Nico shook his head, embarrassed, furious that he should feel so.
‘Just as well,’ Phelim continued in the same tone and Poli looked down at his feet, as though he wished that he were elsewhere as the angered rhetoric continued. ‘With your current mood, Nicholas, I don’t wish to tell you what eventuated yesterday and yet I must. Take it in and think on it. When Adelina had her fortune read by Katinka, a strange thing happened. They do it differently, the Travellers. No cards or palm-reading. She blindfolded Adelina and then laid out a rainbow of hanks of silk thread. She asked Adelina to pick a hank and your stepmother ran her hand over the threads and it hovered, as if something drew her hand, and then she picked a colour. Katinka gently guided her hand to a basket and prised open her palm and allowed the hank to drop in. Again she laid out colours and again Adelina had to pick. This was dropped in the basket also.’
Despite himself, Nico was drawn to the telling and when he glanced quickly at Poli, he could see the same interest.
‘A third time and this time Adelina’s hand went back and forth, back and forth until it hovered and then she grasped the thread and Katinka manoeuvred her hand over the basket and the hank dropped in. She asked Adelina to remove her blindfold and took the basket and cleared the table until it was empty and then she counted … yain…tain…tethera. Every hank was the same colour and that colour… Aine, it is so remarkable.’ He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he had seen, and he a Færan. ‘They were the shade of Adelina’s hair when she was younger, before circumstance coloured her hair with streaks of white. But what was even more astonishing was that the colours were the exact shade of the bolt of cloth we bought. Katinka said that if Adelina had picked black at any time, let alone three times, it would be proof that Isabella was dead and that was when Adelina’s face lit up like the sun. ‘But’, Katinka said, ‘the shade you have picked is more than just the colour of your hair, Adelina. If that colour is in your life in the immediate past, present or future, examine it thoroughly. The colour has surfaced as a message to you and you must not ignore it.’ And so she has spent hours circumnavigating that spread-out bolt and now Gallivant is helping her.’
Nico knew enough about scrying by whatever means to know that one never ignored a message.
Besides, imagine Phelim’s wrath if I did discount it.
Quickly he wrote on a scrap of paper from his pocket.
‘The lake, what time?’
‘Moonrise.’
He nodded to the two older men, turned on his heel and left.
*
You think that by going to the lake just because Maeve Swan Maid told you to, that answers to Isabella’s disappearance and my voice will magically appear. I wish I had your confidence.
He walked swiftly, as if he could leave his unsettled mood behind but positive that his feet drew him closer to another mystery and one that would further ripple his equilibrium. He thought briefly of his stepfather’s analogy of the immovable caravel giving the unwieldy coracle leeway and couldn’t help his lips twisting into a wry grimace. He swung around the front corner of the manor and passed the open window of the library from where he heard low voices and glanced in to see Adelina’s and Gallivant’s head bent over the bolt of fabric that flowed down the centre of the room like a river of molten copper. There was no doubt the bolt was the colour Adelina’s hair had been when he was a boy, but time and circumstance had dulled the lustre if not the abundance. The two of them turned as his shadow fell across the room and Gallivant sprang up, his face lit with a gleam of excitement.
‘Hola, Nico. Come in. We seem to be making some sort of discovery.’
‘Maybe, Gallivant. Maybe.’ Adelina broke in. ‘It may be nothing. But Nicholas, come in anyway. Another pair of eyes will help.’
He ran both hands through his hair as he entered the house, strands catching on the scabbed fighter’s knuckles. He grimaced as a cut split apart but thought he deserved little pity. Even he could see that.
Gallivant stood at the library door.
‘Come look.’
Adelina turned and her gaze swept over her stepson.
‘Nicholas, your face is a mess. Fights, tuh! They never end well!’ But her attention was patently elsewhere as she examined the fabric in front of her, her voice changing from care to awe in less than a heartbeat. ‘They call it shifu, Nico. I had heard of it but merely as legend and never expected to see the real thing. And yet here it is.’
Gallivant walked from one end of the cloth to the other as if it were a race he must win.
‘It’s made of paper and silk you know. There is some sort of legend that shifu was used to pass secret messages aeons ago. Has Phelim told you what Katinka said?’
Nicholas nodded.
‘Well sink me,’ the Hob said with a grin, ‘if this isn’t the exact shade as the thread Adelina chose, just as Katinka said, and we have been examining it inch by inch and look, come see.’ He danced on his rapid feet to where Adelina knelt with a fold of the fabric in her fingers. ‘Look, what do you see?’
Nico bent down and gave the fold due attention. The weave was close and fine and seemed to be two colours, one on the weft and one on the warp. One was a dark shade of copper, one almost white and the luminosity of the paler thread bled through the deeper one, lifting it into that peculiar blend of sunrise and sunset that was Adelina’s glory. His fingers followed the weave, sliding over the whispery slope of the fabric as it fell from his stepmother’s fingers.
At first he could detect nothing and he heard an intake of breath from Adelina.
What does she want me to find?
So he slid his hands down again.
There. What is it?
The faintest slub rippled beneath his fingers, hardly detectable, certainly nothing like the slubs that ran through raw silk. He bent down to look closely and there was a dark spot.
Dirt?
Closer now and he could almost make it out. He looked up and met two sets of eyes, hazel and golden-green.
‘What?’ Gallivant practically pirouetted so excited was he. ‘Sink me, what?’
Nicholas bent again and manoeuvred the fabric in the light. He could see something.
It’s an N.
‘An N?’ Adelina queried, ‘Do you see an N, Nicholas?’
Chapter Eleven
Isabella
Madame Koi’s voice drilled through the peaceful ambience like shrill cicadas on a hot summer’s evening.
‘She asks why you didn’t do what she wanted?’
Lucia stood to the side of Isabella holding a satin ball stuffed with pins as Isabella measured the hem of the robe. As she thought on what sort of reason may be remotely acceptable to the fiery woman, the door slid aside and Master Koi entered. Lucia folded her hands into her sleeves and bowed over them, and Isabella pushed herself to climb to her feet and begin the simple obeisance. Master Koi gestured and shook his head, motioning her to continue with her task as he spoke to his wife. She looked at him and for a moment the stony eyes glimmered in their habitual temper but then the pleats on her brow evened out and she allowed her mouth to tip up as she smoothed the red silk and slowly flicked her eyelashes down and up.
The woman’s simpering.
‘What did he say, Lucia?’ Isabella whispered.
But before Lucia could answer, Master Koi spoke up.
‘I said that she looks as beautiful at this minute as the day we were pledged, that the robe becomes her, allowing her perfection to radiate forth, that she will undoubtedly make her mark on the Imperial House.’
Isabella coloured at being caught out. She pushed a pin in, pricking her finger in the process as he continued.
‘But I must ask for my wife. Why did you change the design? It is not what Madame requested.’
Carefully, carefully.
‘In my c
ountry, Master Koi, a noblewoman or a princess is often marked by the sparing elegance of what she wears. In my very humble opinion, Madame’s beauty needed no overt display to enhance it. Madame has always reminded me of the beauty of a white peony, her skin, its texture, the radiance of her face.’
Enough, Isabella.
‘And I felt that a trail of white peonies embroidered in Han silks all along the plaquet and the cuffs were all the robe needed. I have made a silk peony bag to contain her essentials and hang from her wrist and a smaller peony to adorn her hair, which I hope Madame will allow me to dress. I believe she will be a study in understated perfection, particularly if you, Master Koi, were to wear the new welted black silk with red piping. In anticipation I have made a red silk cap from the remains of Madame’s fabric. It has a white peony tassel.’
She looked at him, then bent her head politely.
He interpreted her words and Madame Koi spoke in return.
‘She says she wonders how you know so much about noble families but is nevertheless not displeased that you disobeyed her. I on the other hand, Ibo, am very pleased, as I believe you are right. Madame will surpass all the other women. But I too would like to know how you have such intimate knowledge of the aristocracy’s habits.’ His eyes burned from his great height, but Isabella kept working. ‘A question for another time perhaps,’ he continued.
The bait has been swallowed.
She gave a last tug to the garment just as Madame Koi ordered her husband away so she could disrobe. As he slid the door shut, she moved behind a screen and her instructions clattered around Isabella’s small space as Lucia interpreted.
‘She says when you have finished the hem, she wants it delivered to her chambers and that you should prepare yourself to return to her rooms early tomorrow as she would like you to dress her hair and prepare her for the Imperial Presence. Oh, and you’d better make sure you look well enough yourself.’
‘Indeed. And when shall I have the time to do that? She can just be content with how I turn up.’
‘Isabella, stop it,’ Lucia ordered.
Madame spoke, a string of words slicing the air like gittern wire.
‘What are you telling her?’ Isabella asked. ‘A lie of some sort?’
‘Be quiet or I shall be interpreting till dawn.’ Lucia frowned, almost contemptuous. ‘I shall tell you later.’
Madame Koi walked out from behind the screen, smoothing the vivid blue of her patterned gown. She nodded her head in Isabella’s direction and ignoring Lucia completely, she swept through the sliding doors leaving a sigh of relief to fill the room behind her.
‘Well?’ Isabella laid the red robe out on the floor and stood and stretched.
‘I said that you would make every effort to compliment the First House, that the Master had found some fabric at a street stall and that you have made a simple robe to replace your indigo ones. And I told her you would be at her rooms immediately after the early morning meal to dress her hair.’
‘You didn’t lie.’
‘I did actually. I said you would make every effort to compliment the First House, but you and I both know you won’t, that you will just be you and to hell with everyone.’
‘No, Lucia. I really will try hard, I swear. I have spent a lot of time thinking as I sewed and I realise it’s pointless to swim against the current. What does upset me is that if the Imperial House takes me, I shall leave you. Maybe I shall never see you again.’
Lucia moved to the sliding door.
‘I’m glad you have seen sense and that you will pay Master Koi the respect he deserves. If you misbehave, it will be he that is punished and he is a good man and would not deserve that.’ She closed her eyes to slits and her open face became shadowed. ‘Why have you changed so much? It’s almost too good to be true.’
Isabella bit the inside of her cheek.
Have I changed that much, am I over-stating things?
‘Lucia, you haven’t seen the graves.’ She gave a shudder. ‘Or the chopping block. It’s stained with aeons of blood and the grass is completely dead all around. It’s frightening. I saw myself sitting there, my legs laid across the block and footless, bleeding to death in agony.’ She turned away, hiding her face in the dark corner of her room, storing her threads. ‘I am not brave at all really. And if it has changed me, then so be it.’
‘Hmm,’ Lucia walked onto the verandah. ‘Indeed, so be it. Not such a bad thing then that you saw the graves.’ She drew herself up and stood tall, if her diminutive height could be called such, and called back into the room. ‘Get up early and come to the kitchen, I shall have some broth or some baby dumplings for you. If you have to endure the endless hours waiting with Madame for the Imperial House to arrive, then you shall need sustenance. See you later.’
‘Maybe.’
Isabella threw the answer after the departing back of her friend and wondered on the expression of earlier. So unlike Lucia; as hard and cold as slate.
Is she jealous of my good fortune as she sees it? Yet she claims to love her position here, that she is content.
Isabella sat in her doorway with the red robe and her basket of threads and began to stitch the hem in a neat and serviceable herringbone; careful not to allow stitches to show on the front side, slipping the thread through the fabric weave, creating a virtually invisible anchor. Seeing the warp and weft of the beautiful raw silk, she was reminded of the shifu cloth and wondered where it was.
Who has bought it?
She allowed herself the brief, oh so brief luxury of imagining someone finding a letter here and there, of deciphering a message and giving it to Nico who, like all strong brothers, would come and sweep her onto his horse and carry her back to her family.
As she dragged the needle through the silk, she pricked her finger again and the bubble of her imaginings burst, leaving her with the new minted gold of a spring evening and the scent of roast duck in a honey baste slipping amongst the trees and their bells.
She worked into the night until Madame’s robe was complete. Carefully she folded it, one arm tucked in, then the other, a tiny sachet of dried gardenia petals slipped into the body and then she began to fold from the hem. One fold, two, three until the robe sat with its neck uppermost and the embroidered peonies glowing in the lamplight against the vibrancy of the neck and cuffs. She laid the tiny bag with its fat twisted cord on top, and Master Koi’s red cap and then Madame’s white silk hair peony. She groaned as she stood and straightening the kinks from her spine and her knees, she scooped up the goods and slid her door open to go to make her delivery.
The sky stretched out, studded with a galaxy of stars. A spring frost would settle tonight and already it crispened the air so that Belle could almost bite it. She shivered, not just with cold but because a welkin wind chose that minute to wind its fingers through the trees of Master Koi’s garden, touching the bells, moving them so the tiny clappers tinkled. Isabella knew that with a frost there was never a breeze and her hackles stood. She stopped at the bend in the path, close by the bubbling fountain.
‘Who’s there?’ she said as she stepped a further two paces toward a white azalea. ‘Show yourself,’ she hissed.
‘Be calm, Isabella,’ Kitsune detached herself from the blooms of the shrub, its petals sliding off the ivory fur. ‘You have finished the robe then, your last night in the First House compound.’
‘Unfortunately yes.’
‘Unfortunately? Then I read you wrong. I would have said that you were desperate to leave.’
‘Don’t play games, Fox Lady. Of course I am desperate to leave. And not just this compound. You know this.’
‘Indeed. But I merely wish to point out that perhaps this comfort is now being realised and cherished for its care of you whereas in the Imperial House,’ she shrugged her fur-shrouded shoulders, ‘who knows?’
Isabella sighed and shifted the goods in her arms.
‘Yes, it’s true. Of the two I would prefer to stay here, but it is not to
be and so I must adapt accordingly.’
Kitsune laughed, a strange sound part way between a soft yip and a bark.
‘You lie to them, Isabella.’
‘No. I tell them nothing. They imagine the rest.’
‘And you think this will help?’
‘I have nothing to lose.’
‘True. Nothing to lose. But you leave the Koi House tomorrow and you have still not done what I hoped. Still too self-indulgent.’
‘Self…’
‘Nuh!’ Up came that peremptory hand, white and startling in the dark of night. ‘You still don’t learn about the Han.’
‘What do you mean?’
Isabella stamped her foot, the sound muffled by the mosses.
‘You must learn something of the Han. You could have learned it here with the Master’s eye, but now you must learn it at the Imperial House and it may be harder. Most who know you think you are serious and honest. I however, know that you are a chameleon and change to suit the demands of the occasion. One would almost think that you were a celestial spirit yourself, such a changeling are you.’
Isabella could not help her mouth settling in a bitter line as she went to walk on. But the woman’s hand held her back and a shiver coursed up her arm, reminding her of Nico’s occasional frisson.
‘We haven’t finished.’
Isabella just wanted to place the garments in Madame Koi’s ante-room and return to her bedroll. She sighed.
‘I think I have.’
Kitsune’s eyebrows rose and she stood a little bit taller, overshadowing Isabella.
‘I know what you plan. It is perhaps all that you can do. But mark my words. Do not stretch the bonds of favour too thin. You are as vulnerable as you ever were and time is running short. Be very careful.’
‘What do you mean, time is running short?’
‘Your Fate has arrived and is close, Ibo. You are moving toward it at the speed of light. It will be a collision that will throw you off balance so badly you will be stunned. Just remember that decisions you make at the time may have the power to free you or condemn you.’
