by Toby Frost
“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh my God.”
“It was a bad business,” Hugh said. “You’re safe now.”
Giulia sat down on the bed. She put her face in her hands. When her head stopped aching, she looked back up. “Yes,” she replied. “Thanks for coming to help.”
“Not a problem,” Hugh replied. “Rescuing maidens is what I do.” He smiled, without any irony.
“What about Edwin and Elayne? Did they get away?”
“Yes, their ship’s gone. We did the job.” Then he was quiet.
“Good… good. I’m glad,” Giulia said. Her voice sounded strange to her. It seemed to come from someone else. “I need to get dressed,” she added.
Hugh stood. “Of course. I’ll wait in the corridor. Let me know when—”
“No – just turn around. It’s all right. I’d rather you didn’t go.”
“Right, then.” Hugh stood up and turned to the wall. “I’m not looking,” he said. “Tell me when I can turn round again.” He put his hands behind his back as she picked up her things and carried them to the bed.
She dressed. She was careful in putting her shirt on, and the bandage did not hurt. Someone had patched her sleeve, where the poker had burned through it. “I’m all ready now,” she said as she strapped on her knives.
Hugh turned and looked her over. “Excellent,” he said. “All set, eh?”
Giulia walked to the window. There was an ornamental garden outside, with a little grove of trees in the centre. The garden was very large by Averrian standards. She’d been led through it when the boatman had brought her here, when she’d spoken to Iacono the mapmaker.
Pretty.
She knew what she had to say: the words were like a stone in her mouth, waiting to be spat out. “I told them everything,” she said. “All of it: you, me, Edwin, Elayne – shit, I even told them about Severra.”
Hugh didn’t say anything.
“I mean, I tried not to, you know? They didn’t get it out of me easily, Hugh.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know that.”
Outside, boats were moving across the window, up and down the canal. None of them seemed very important. “I held out as long as I could, I—” Another stone in her mouth. Deep breath. “They made threats. Bad ones.”
Hugh stood up. He looked around the room impatiently, as if waiting for someone who had failed to arrive. His knobbly fists were straight down at his sides.
His silence made her angry. He was taking it too well: she wanted to argue with someone, to justify herself. “I mean, what was I supposed to do, Hugh? They’d have killed me otherwise. I didn’t have another choice. I did what I could – I – fuck!” She drove the flat of her hand against the windowframe, hammered it with her palm. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Hugh took a step towards her. “Hey, now.”
Giulia’s chest lurched and she drew in a huge, wheezing breath and suddenly she was head down, shoulders bucking with hard, raucous sobs. It felt like being sick, as if she could purge the misery from her body, as if she could puke it out if she cried hard enough. She heard a noise like a broken bellows coming out of her. She reached up and put her hand over her eyes and at once it was wet. Her head swam. “I tried – I bloody tried, I swear it—”
“Come along, old girl. Let’s sit down, eh? You’ll feel better sitting down.”
She wrenched the breath back into her lungs, took one long, shuddering breath, then another calmer one. “Right. Right.”
Giulia quietened and turned away from the window, rubbing the water off her eyes. She saw him gesturing to the chairs like an idiot footman, and she remembered what a good friend he was, and she was crying again. Her chest hurt, her eyes hurt; she seemed to be nothing except this puckered-faced, weeping wreck, a person she’d despise, and it made her sick with fury.
“Come on, Giulia, let’s sit down.”
His hand was on her back, almost round her shoulders, guiding her towards the chairs. Three steps in and she wanted him to take it away – for a moment she hated him for it – then she was desperately glad that he was here. She let him show her to the chairs.
She sat down. Quietly she said, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“I know. Nothing you could do.”
“I was supposed to have a new life. I was supposed to get away from this. I thought killing Severra would—” She stopped and shook her head. Hugh patted her back. Grief wrenched more croaky words out of her. “Ah, fuck it.”
Hugh sat down beside her. For a moment, he didn’t move. Then he leaned in and dropped his arm across her shoulders. He hugged her quickly, hard, as if welcoming a drinking companion. Giulia felt desperately grateful.
“They made me betray you, Hugh.”
“Nonsense. You had some bad luck, that’s all.” He looked around the room, as though worried that he was missing something interesting elsewhere. “Look, ah, Giulia… they didn’t, ah, you know, mess with you, did they?”
“No.”
“Because if they did, I’ll butcher them.”
“No, they didn’t. Too professional for that.”
“Well, that’s something, isn’t it? Eh?” He patted her on the back. “Come on. We’ll sort it out. Your arm’ll heal up – it’ll scar a bit, but not much—”
“Just another scar, eh?”
“Absolutely!”
“Another fucking scar.” She took a deep breath and opened her hands, knowing there was no point trying to explain. “I don’t want any more scars. I spent six years hunting down the man who put these on my face. I want – I don’t know, I’d like to live like a fucking proper person for once.” She was surprised how quiet her voice was. It sounded like someone else’s, so measured it was almost threatening. “Sometimes I think I went off the path a long time ago, and no matter what I do I can’t get back. The more I try, the further away I get.”
Hugh said nothing. She looked at far side of the room, feeling the wetness around her eyes, seeing the bed distorted through the water in them.
“I just can’t get back on the path,” she said. “I’m not sure I ever will.”
“Listen,” said the knight, “that fey apothecary, the fellow who patched up your arm, he says he can get you back to Pagalia. There’s a way they’ve got that they don’t usually use for our sort, a magic way. He says you’d be back home in a day or so.”
“Pagalia isn’t home,” Giulia said. Her voice was harder than she’d expected.
“Well, wherever, then. I’ll ask him, if you like.”
Yes, I could. Go back to Astrago, where the criminals live, or Pagalia, where I got my scars. Live off acquaintances for a while, and then from crime. Make enough to rent a room in a tenement block and spend the rest on drink and tinctures against Melancholia. Just find enough drink, and work, to stop thinking about my glorious adventure and how it all went wrong – how it ended in a cellar with that little bastard holding a poker to my arm.
“You mean retreat.”
“You could go wherever you want,” he said.
“Fuck that,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere..” She swallowed twice, and her voice was normal again. “I need something to do. I can’t just sit here, getting miserable again. Can we trust the people here, in the Scola?”
She expected him to say, “Oh, of course,” to naively accept that they were friends just because they’d treated her wounds. But Hugh thought about it. “I think so,” he said. “But I’d tread carefully.”
“Do you know when they want us to leave?”
“Not for a while. But they do want to talk to us.”
“We must be wanted by the Watch, you know. We’re pretty trapped up here.”
Slowly, thoughtfully, he said, “The dryad fellow, Sethis, said that he wouldn’t tell anyone that we were here. I got the feeling that whatever he
wanted to talk about, it wasn’t quite, um, legal.”
“Oh yes? How d’you mean, exactly?” It felt good to talk business again.
“Well, I’ve been doing a bit of thinking, over the last day or two. I reckon you were on to something – we all were – about the priest, about that man Varro, the whole thing. It’s all connected. I’ve talked to the people who run this place, and we’re getting a crew together. They’re not fighters here, but they know people. They could help us. They’ve asked to talk to me, in the garden. You can come along if you’d like.”
“I want this bastard dead,” Giulia said.
“That’s the plan.”
“No trials, no magistrates, no lying bastard procurators. Just a knife in the back. Actually, make that the front. I want him to see who he’s crossed.”
“Right.”
“These people you’ve spoken to have to understand that. I’ll help them find him, but then he’s mine. I’m going to pull down whatever he’s got going here, every bit of it. Are you all right with that?”
“Sounds fine to me. The justice of cold steel, eh?” Hugh stood up. “Let me know when you’d like to talk to them.”
Giulia looked at her hands. She could feel the bandage on her arm when she thought about it: not the wound itself, but the tightness of the cloth around it. She needed to make a plan, to work out how to wreak her vengeance. If she evened the scales up enough, it might blot out the terror and humiliation of being in her enemy’s hands. She got to her feet. “May as well get started,” she said.
The room opened onto a narrow staircase. Cautiously, Giulia began to walk down the stairs. “I’ve got a room up here too,” Hugh explained. “I put our stuff in there.”
“They gave both of us rooms? They must really need us for something.”
“Yes. I got the feeling—”
A figure stepped onto the stairs: a dryad man in normal clothing, smartly-dressed but not showy. He had the same huge eyes as Anna, at once gentle and unsettling. He wore spectacles perched on his small nose. Giulia remembered the faces leaning over her when she had woken, and wondered if one of them had been his.
He smiled and held out a hand. “Hello. You’re awake, I see.”
Giulia stopped on the stairs. “Hello.” She reached out and shook his hand. The long fingers were warm and strong. The dryad was a few inches taller than her.
“I’m Sethis.”
“Giulia.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Giulia.”
“He’s the doctor,” said Hugh.
“Well, in a way,” the dryad replied. “I’m not a trained apothecary, of course. But I’ve had a few lessons in anatomy.” He raised a hand and scratched the side of his neck. His hair was short and dark brown. “I’m glad to see you’re up and about. How are you feeling?”
“Not bad, considering.”
“Good. You’ve woken up earlier than I expected: I thought you’d sleep for another day or two.”
“A day?” Giulia said. “How long have I been asleep, then?”
“Two days,” Hugh said. “I did mean to say.”
“Two days?”
“We gave you a potion for the pain,” the dryad said. “Your wound needed treating, and it was the easiest way to do it. Besides, it looked like you needed to rest.”
“I did.”
Nobody said anything for a moment.
“Well,” Sethis said, “we’d best get off the stairs, I suppose. There’s food downstairs, if you want it,” he added, and he turned and began to walk down. Seen from behind, he looked like a slim, slightly athletic human: he could have been a tumbler or an acrobat.
Giulia followed. “Thanks.”
“I’ve been speaking to Sir Hugh here,” Sethis said, “and I think that you and I have got quite a lot to talk about. You see, I’m fairly sure we’re both working towards the same end.”
“Is that so?” Giulia said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs. They stood in a wide corridor, lined with paintings. It looked like a rich man’s house.
“You must be hungry,” Sethis said. “There’s plenty of food in the dining hall. I’ve got to do some work, but if there’s anything you need, call me.”
As with Anna, Giulia could not tell how old he was. He reminded her of a young man, somehow: perhaps it was the sense of awkwardness, the eagerness to get things right.
“There is something you could do,” she said. “You said you know anatomy.” She spoke quietly. “Just between you and I, do you know how to make a tincture against Melancholia? It doesn’t need to be particularly strong.” She felt ashamed for asking, for admitting that she might need it.
“Not a problem. I can’t make it myself, but I know just the man. I’ll get him to sort out a tincture for you. Just between you and I.” Sethis smiled cautiously, like someone trying it out for the first time. She smiled back. “I’ll see you later, I believe,” he added. The dryad stepped back, raised his hand to wave goodbye, turned and hurried off down the corridor.
Giulia watched him go. “When I came here before, they nearly threw me out the front door,” she said. “Looks like we’re worth keeping now.”
“And worth feeding, it seems,” Hugh replied. “They serve decent meals here. The beer’s not bad, either.”
They started along the corridor. Giulia said, “Just be careful. We don’t know these people.”
“He’s a fey,” Hugh replied. “They were on our side in the war. He’ll be fine.”
“Right,” Giulia said. It seemed best to change the subject. “You did find Anna, didn’t you?”
Hugh nodded. “The dryad girl? Yes, I went there. You gave me directions, remember?”
“Did I? I don’t remember much at all,” she added, and a face appeared in the foreground of her mind: an elderly, intelligent face, cold and inquisitive, lit by the glow of a poker. There was no malice to the face, no spite – just the calm disdain of a man who did an unpleasant job. It was the face of a man pouring a pan of hot water over an anthill, watching the ants wriggle as they boiled alive. Yes, she thought, I remember you. And by the time I’m done, you’ll remember me.
“Well,” said Hugh, “let’s get something to eat. I’m bloody starving – and you should be too!”
“Good idea.” Giulia envied the simplicity of Hugh’s needs. It must be wonderful, not having to fight your own Melancholia, worrying only about the source of the next helping of beer and stew. Then she remembered Elayne, and was not quite so sure.
The stairs curled down into an entrance-hall – not the hall Giulia had seen when she had visited the Scola, but a grander one. A statue stood in the centre, of some ancient sea-captain posing with one foot upon the globe, like a hunter beside his prey. The banister curved as gracefully as the hull of a ship.
Well, Giulia thought, they wanted me here. May as well make the most of it.
At the rear of the hall was a pair of high wooden doors. Giulia took hold of the handle – cast in the form of a curling dragon, in the dwarrow style – and opened the door.
She stood in the doorway, looking into a great single chamber that must have taken up most of this floor. Long windows let in light: there was a fire burning in an ornate grate as tall as she was, and the sight of the poker lying beside it made her hesitate.
Giulia forced that down and stepped inside, feeling that she was walking into a palace.
The floor was neatly tiled. The windows were huge and flanked by columns; she could have driven a cart through them. Life-sized statues of robed men stood against the walls, holding tools: telescopes, quills, chisels. Huge paintings hung between them, showing a variety of scenes: a picture of Holy Alexis rising from the pyre stood beside a depiction of the dwarrow king Sarus founding the Temple of Temples in some valley far away. Giulia imagined the members of the Scola dining here, discussing their various branches
of savantry under the statues.
Above the fireplace, a life-size portrait hung. It showed a black man in ornate armour standing on the docks of Averrio, making a speech to a group of soldiers. The man had a long, intelligent face and a strong jawline. The soldiers gazed up at him, rapt.
“Good lord,” said Hugh. “Look up there.”
She looked up. Some genius had painted castles and mythic scenes onto the ceiling. A woman nursed a baby in front of a decrepit temple, while a soldier in modern dress looked on. Satyrs and plump, pink women frolicked beside a stream.
“This is something, isn’t it?” Hugh said.
She nodded. The last time I was in a place like this, I sneaked out with the candlesticks. “Come on. Let’s get fed.”
They ate stew in a small dining room behind the great hall. The room was bare by comparison, but the stew was spiced and expensive-tasting. Hugh watched Giulia carefully as she ate.
“Is something wrong?” Giulia asked as she spooned stew into her mouth. She was surprised how hungry she’d been.
“No, not at all,” Hugh said, peering into his beer.
“Are you sure? You’re not eating much.”
“Giulia, are you certain you want to carry on with this? I don’t mind if you want me to do this alone. I realise you’ve had to sort things out yourself in the past – and you’ve done more than most men ever could – but I’m happy to avenge you on my own, you know.” He took a sip of beer.
She looked up at him. What do you mean? she thought. That I can’t do this, that I’m not good enough? Don’t be stupid. He’s trying to help. He’s just bad at saying it.
“Thanks,” she said, “but I’m in for this. I can’t not be.”
She tore off a chunk of bread and began wiping up the last of the stew. Giulia remembered a line from The King of Caladon, the play she’d watched while she’d prepared to take revenge on Publius Severra for cutting her face. She thought of Lord Macgraw, given the chance to flee from the kingdom he had usurped: I have swum so far in blood that it would drown me to turn back now. She leaned forward. “Look, Hugh, you know I’ve done some pretty bad stuff. Vendetta and all that.”
