That was all. I told her, expecting impatience or even anger—some other girls would have cried, “Try again! Tell me what can be seen from the hilltop or I won’t pay you!”—but she smiled.
“My grandmother’s village was always full of butterflies in the early fall—my mother told me this. I have been thinking of going there, and now I am sure.” She unclasped a silver chain from around her neck. A single ruby hung from it.
“No,” I said as she was handing it to me, “this is far too precious. . . .”
She nodded. “It was to me, too, for a long time. Now I don’t need it any more. Take it—and thank you, Nola. Yours is about the only city face I’ll miss.”
I collected the barley, after she had left me, and set it in a pile by the mirror. The mirror in its cloth, the grain, the goblet in which wax and water swam; the tattered tree and its worn-smooth carvings. All mine, now that Yigranzi was gone. In the two weeks since her death many people had come to me—many more than I’d ever seen come before.
The Lady had noted this, of course. One afternoon when she came to take her share of my payment she said, “For years Yigranzi’s island skin and accent made her a curiosity here, and this was good—but then she grew old, and that hump . . .” She twitched, as if she were warding off a fly. “I am happy she is gone. And you have turned out better than I expected, when you came to me with your filthy nails and your hair crawling with bugs. We will do well for each other, you and I.”
I should have been proud, or at least excited. But as I sat among the Otherseeing things that were mine alone, all I felt was a hollowness beneath my bones.
Perhaps it was because I was immersed in this feeling that I did not see him come. I was fastening the pendant around my neck when I heard a footfall on the wood. By the time I lifted my head, he was in front of me.
“Nola,” he said. Dawn was giving way to morning; the light was more white than gold, and I squinted to see him clearly.
“Orlo,” I said, as calmly as if I had been expecting him. I laid my hands on my thighs; the sweat that already slicked my palms belied the steadiness of my voice.
“I came to see you and Yigranzi—both of you, to tell you that I tracked Prandel to a brothel by the western gate, and that I missed him only by moments. But I’ve just heard . . . the Lady told me that Yigranzi . . .”
His eyes are wild, I thought, too black, half in the Otherworld, or someplace just as far away from this one. He rubbed a hand roughly over his stubble, which was thicker and redder than it had been the last time.
“She was old,” I said—words that had angered me when spoken by others.
He said, “Yes. But I am still sorry to hear she is gone, and so soon after Chenn.”
I clasped my hands now, because they had begun to shake. “Thank you. I—I miss them very much.”
He crouched next to the stone so that his head was level with mine. “And what will you do now?”
I looked into the restless dark of his eyes. “I will stay here.” These words rang as false as the ones about Yigranzi. “I will be the brothel seer. The Lady has asked me, and I’ve already had many customers.”
He smiled at me and raised a honey-coloured brow. “You do not sound certain. Is there another choice you would make?”
“No.” The word was too high, too quick, and it seemed to echo in the space between us. Images came to me, as suddenly as if I had summoned them in the mirror: a girl surrounded by butterflies; my hand lying against the stone of the castle wall; Chenn’s face, distant with secrets. “No,” I said again, blinking these images away so that all I saw was the courtyard. “This is where I should be.”
“I understand.” Orlo hesitated, cocking his head to one side as if he were listening to a voice I could not hear. “But think, Nola,” he continued, his eyes back on mine, “think of your own safety. Prandel is hunting girls like you more and more frequently now; it would be best if you—”
“Nola?” Bardrem’s new, steady voice had arrived with the summer. It was deep, and sometimes I still did not recognize it right away—like now, when I was slow with recent Otherseeing, and Orlo’s gaze.
“Nola,” Bardrem said again as he walked from wood to grass (the beautiful, soft green grass that would live only until midsummer, when the heat would turn it brittle and brown). “Who is this?”
Orlo and I stood up. Orlo was taller than Bardrem, but not by much, which took me aback, somehow.
“This is Master Orlo,” I said, “the man I told you about—the one who’s looking for Prandel, who killed Chenn.”
“Ah,” said Bardrem. “The man from the castle.”
Orlo inclined his head. “Indeed. And you are?”
“Bardrem,” he said before I could answer for him. “Cook and poet.”
I glanced at Orlo’s brows with expectant dread and was rewarded when one of them arched. “I do not believe we have such a job at the castle. The ways of the lower city continue to amaze me.”
“Perhaps you mean ‘amuse’?”
“Bardrem!” I hissed.
He held up a hand. “No, Nola—wait—I have a real question for Master Orlo. Why would an important castle seer come down to the lower city to look for a girl?”
“A murderer,” Orlo said, as if between gritted teeth. “I seek a murderer who was also, once, an important castle seer.”
“Yes,” I said hastily, “of course—I told you this, Bardrem—”
“Oh, you told me—so I must believe it?”
“Bardrem, stop! He’s from the castle!”
“When have you ever cared so much about the castle?”
“When have you ever cared so little?”
“What—”
Orlo stepped away from us and we fell abruptly silent. “This is obviously not the time for a quiet, reasonable conversation,” he said with a small smile that took any sting from his words. “I will return soon. Soon,” he repeated, looking at me.
I nodded, watched him walk back into the brothel. Then I whirled to face Bardrem.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, my voice high and thin with anger. “You finally get a chance to talk about the castle with somebody from the castle, and—”
“I don’t like him.” He spoke quietly, which made me snap my mouth shut in surprise. “He doesn’t look right. He doesn’t talk right. He doesn’t fit.”
“Maybe because he’s a castle seer standing in a lowtown brothel. But that’s not even the thing, is it? You’re jealous, Bardrem.” I tossed my head as if there were hair to billow out behind me, and stamped my foot. “You’re jealous because he’s where you want to be, and he’s a man, and—”
“And you admire him—don’t forget that—you look at him like the Lady looks at silk—and yes I’m jealous, yes yes yes—how else could you expect me to feel?”
He had been coming closer to me as he talked, and I had retreated until the tree was at my back and there was nowhere else to go. “Bardrem,” I said, holding my hand up—and it was against his chest, he was so close. I felt his heart beneath my palm and his breath on my cheeks, and just as I was thinking that his breath smelled of carrots he kissed me.
It was clumsy—a tangle of hair (his, of course) and tongues and knocking teeth—but I did not pull away. It was the taste that held me—his taste, which was carrots and also porridge, but which was other things, too, that I could not name; warm, wet, dark things that made him someone new.
I did not pull away; he did. He stared at me for a moment, his mouth open and glistening, and then he turned and ran.
I did not follow him until much later. For most of that day I sat at the foot of the tree, shifting sometimes on the roots that made parts of me completely numb. My body’s lethargy felt strange, for my mind was spinning, a blur of vivid, tireless wings: He’ll come back—which he?—but she never will—which she?—and I am here, here because I am here and that is where I must be. . . .
The Lady loomed over me at one point. “You aren’t ill, are you
?” I heard her say, though the noise in my own head was louder than her words. “Some of the girls told me you looked ill. . . . There was another girl murdered, you know, by the western wall; another seer, this one was . . . You’ll get no customers today, so you might just as well come inside. . . . There—do you hear that? Thunder. Now come inside; you’ll be no good to me soaked and feverish.”
I closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was alone, and the courtyard was sunk in an Otherworldly light: dark purples and yellows that matched the thunderclouds massed above. A flash of lightning turned everything white and black and I started as if I’d just woken up. The rain began—fat, warm drops that drove me to my feet at last.
I headed for the kitchen, where Rudicol was plucking a chicken, cursing as each feather came free. “Where is he?” he shouted when he saw me in the doorway. “Where is that accursed boy—this is his task—tell me, girl, for you always know.” I shook my head and backed into the corridor as he flung a handful of down at me (I saw it settle on the floor directly in front of him, gentle as snow). As he yelled more words I could not hear, thanks to another clap of thunder, I ducked beneath Bardrem’s low door. His tiny room was empty.
Lightning showed me the way up the stairs. On the second floor the air seemed heavier and darker, and the thunder louder, rattling shutters and even stone. I trailed my hand along the wall, expecting to feel puffs of mortar dust. There was no light here—no candles burning, nor oil lamps; no glimmers from beneath doors that proved there were people behind them, too. My own door was just as dark as all the others, but I opened it with relief.
I stood with my back against it. “Bardrem?” I called. I could see nothing, and thought, more irritably than fearfully, Now I’ll have to go all the way back downstairs to find a candle, and I’ll probably have to talk to the Lady about the newest murder, even though she cares only for lost money, not for dead girls. . . . I took a step forward and felt my foot hit something. It was light, and I had to get on my knees and grope a bit before I found it: a piece of paper folded into a shape with many facets, like a gem. Bardrem, I thought, placing the paper in the front pocket of my dress. I stood back up. I would really need a candle now, to read the words he had written me. I wondered whether they would be about the kiss, or whether they would be meaningless, foolish: cabbage tendril toad tomorrow . . .
Thunder tore the room apart—or so it seemed, for I stumbled forward as if the floor had pitched, and the shutters above me flew open with their own, lesser crash. A few heartbeats later, lightning filled the chamber and seared everything into my eyes: the washstand, Yigranzi’s goblet, the rumpled rug, the man rising from my bed.
If I managed to scream, the sound was lost in fresh thunder, and his hand was over my mouth before I could draw another breath. “Nola,” said Orlo in the shuddering quiet, his lips warm against my cheek, and his chin rough. “Hush. Hush; I have you now.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Shh, Nola. I won’t hurt you—but Prandel will, if he finds you. You must come with me now, before he does. There’s a place, a safe place; it’s not far.”
I heard only him. The thunder was retreating now, grumbles instead of roars; his voice was the nearest thing, closer than my own breath.
“I must go to Bardrem first,” I stammered, “I must tell him—”
“No one can see us. No one can know that you are going, or try to stop you. Secrecy will be your only protection.”
I thought, with a twisting in my belly, I’ll come back, Bardrem—I will, after Orlo has killed Prandel and the danger has passed. I nodded at Orlo, over and over again. Even in the dark I could see his eyes stirring, awake—a deeper darkness, like cloud against starless sky.
“The door,” I whispered, “locked from the inside tonight, so no girls get out and no one else gets in.” My words made no sense to my own ears, but Orlo nodded, still smiling. He held something up, something that glinted in the thin light from the window. It was the front door key—heavy, notched, silver—that usually itself lay locked in the Lady’s oak desk. “How . . .?” I said, but Orlo only shrugged. His teeth glinted too, so even and white.
We walked, me in front. I felt his hand in the small of my back, its pressure light but warm. Down the hall to the stairs, turn—and there was another girl coming up, shielding candle flame with her hand.
“Nola?”
I thought, wildly, Just when they start addressing me with respect instead of fear, I leave. Orlo’s hand was gone from my back.
“I’m . . .” I cleared my throat. “I’m going to get a candle. And some water for my room.”
“But you don’t have your pitcher,” the girl said, squinting at my empty hands.
“No,” I said, “no—I . . . I need a new one; my old one’s cracked. Rudicol will have an extra.”
“Are you all right?” The girl was frowning, and I grinned back at her, far too broadly.
“Yes. Fine. Perfectly fine. Just . . . thirsty. Excuse me. . . .” I walked past the girl, feeling my breath catch in my throat and stay there. I waited for a screech and a scuffle, for more lights and running feet and the arrival of the Lady. For a moment there was silence behind me, then soft footsteps.
“Go on,” he mouthed at me, his lips serious but his eyes shining, as if he were a boy with a secret.
The front door was close, but the Lady’s was closer. It was open a bit; a branch of light shivered on the hallway floor. I pressed my back against the wall across from it and edged forward. I thought I would slip past, but when I drew level with the Lady’s door I paused, looked. The Lady was sitting very straight, in her high-backed chair of wood inlaid with something that looked like gold but (Bardrem insisted) was not. The desk in front of her was covered with papers and books, one of them held open with an inkpot. There was a quill in her hand but she was not writing; she was staring and still.
Orlo nudged my foot with his and I moved, imagining the Lady’s eyes shifting and her voice calling out, sharp and thin. As before, there was only silence. She will hear the door, I thought as Orlo passed me and set the key to the lock. It always squeaks, always, always. . . .
It did not squeak. Orlo stood with his hand on it, gesturing at me with his head: out, now; out. I squeezed past him, my bare arm brushing his, and suddenly there was rain on my skin. I stretched into it—summer rain, warm and gentle as fingertips. The door closed behind me with a muffled thud.
“Run!” Orlo cried.
He was past me, vanishing into an alley across the street. I followed, my feet sticking, sucked down by mud. “Who’s there?” The Lady’s voice at last. I did not turn, but I could picture her anyway, tall in the doorway, a candelabra sputtering in her hand, making her shadow leap. “I see you: stop! Come back!” I scrabbled at my cloak’s hood as I ran, and pulled it over my head just as I reached the alley. I plunged into its darkness, gasping, waiting for the Lady’s hands to find me. Orlo’s did, instead; he put one around my wrist and one, briefly, to my cheek.
“Good,” he said, and drew me forward. “She will not follow us here.”
He led me a very long way, through a maze of alleys and over low walls, and onto wider streets paved with cobbles that made me slip. “I thought you said it was close,” I said after he steadied me. I was bending over, my hands on my thighs, but also looking up at him.
“Of course I said it was close.” He smiled, tugged my lopsided hood straight over my head. “You wouldn’t have come with me if I’d told you you’d have to walk half the night, would you?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Now are we close?”
“No,” he said. “So walk, Mistress Seer, and ask no more questions.”
The rain had turned to mist and the sky to silver when he finally halted. “Here,” he said, and I looked where he was pointing.
“Here,” I repeated, the word a slow release of breath. In front of me was a fence made of iron, curved into graceful shapes at the top. Behind the fence was a garden of dark, hanging leaves and f
lowers bent by rain. I could not make out their colours but guessed that they would be brilliant in sun.
Orlo pulled open the gate and bowed to me, deeply, with a wild flourish of arms that nearly unbalanced him. I laughed. The sound seemed very loud, in this place of tall walls and taller houses, at this hour just after dawn, but I did not care. I walked into the garden, onto a path of glinting pebbles (glass, I saw later: little pieces of blue, green and dark red glass, their edges rounded smooth). This house, too, was tall—three storeys—and not attached to any other houses. Its great stone blocks were a light, sandy colour. There were carvings around the arched windows, of animals whose names I had heard in Bardrem’s poems: stags, peacocks, lions. The windows had no shutters, for they were made of glass, and bound with iron bars that looked like the garden fence. I reached through the bars and touched the glass, which was green-tinted and thick and scattered inside with tiny, frozen bubbles.
“Nola,” Orlo said. The word had a smile in it. I smiled back at him and followed him through the enormous wooden door.
“This was my great-aunt’s house,” he said as he walked around the entrance hall, adjusting the oil lamps that hung from walls and sit on tables.
“Oh,” I said, as light bloomed. Mirrors and portraits in gilded frames; my own eyes and others’ (an old woman’s, a young woman’s, a boy’s) gazing back at me. Carpets on the floor and tapestries on the walls, among the frames. A ceiling so high I almost could not see it, and a staircase that spread out and up like a fan.
“I’ll show you these rooms later, after you’ve slept.” I nodded, too distracted to tell him that there was no way I’d sleep at all, not soon. “Up here”—the stairs creaking, maybe, somewhere beneath the carpet—and up again—“I’ll put you on the third floor, next to the room you’ll study in.”
I stopped, my feet on different steps. He did not notice until he was about ten steps above me, when he turned and looked down at me with his eyebrows raised.
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