The Pattern Scars

by Caitlin Sweet

  Lord Derris was still frowning. “Sometimes the Pattern can make calm only from chaos—is that not right, Master Teldaru?”

  “Yes,” Teldaru said, though he was looking at me. “This is so.”

  “If only Derris were king,” Teldaru said to me later, as we were walking toward the school. “The battle would be nearly upon us. But no—no—it is better this way, for we have more time, you and I. More time, though we must hurry now, even so.”

  He was speaking very quickly, and the words were slurred. His chin and cheeks were covered with stubble. I felt a stirring of hope, followed, as ever, by dread—If he’s too weak, how will he mend me? And if he is dead—if Bardrem gets to him, how will I go on as I am, crippled, lesser?

  “Tonight.” Teldaru took my face in his hands. His own face was dappled with sun and branch shadows that trembled and bristled with buds that had not been there yesterday. The wind smelled even more strongly of spring—but now, too, of burning.

  “Ranior tonight, O Seer-Who-Will-Be-Queen. Ranior tonight and every night until he breathes—for no, we do not have much time at all, in fact.”

  I imagined Bardrem everywhere, as I had before. Among the throngs of people in the main courtyard—the soldiers in their lines, and the servants, the stable boys, the guards. And even though there were hardly any people in the city (everyone hiding behind the walls that stood, unblackened), I imagined him there too, disappearing around corners and into alleyways, somehow, impossibly, a boy again. Night after night Teldaru and I slipped to the house, through sooty, heavy air, and I was more and more tired every time, from the War Hound’s remaking, and from thinking Bardrem was nearby, even when he was not.

  Only he was.

  “Mistress.” Leylen, one dawn a month after the fires had begun—a month of fires throughout the city, and no one ever caught setting them; a month of Bantayo raging at us in letters that went on for pages. “Mistress, I’ve something to give you.”

  Her voice was strange; I could tell this, though I was not yet fully awake. I had been asleep for maybe an hour. It was all I ever got, these days, and it was not so much sleep as it was a dizzy blur of images: gobbets of flesh and clean, sharp, red bones.

  “Mistress! Here, in my hand . . .”

  It was a little, folded piece of paper. I felt it in my palm and remembered, so suddenly that it made me dizzy, how Bardrem used to leave me notes just like this in the brothel, under my rug or in one of my shoes.

  I sat up. Leylen was blushing, turning the end of her braid around between her fingers. “He was handsome—Bardo, the one who gave me that. Said he’d known you long ago. Said he didn’t want Master Teldaru to find out—a secret longing, he said.” She bit her lip and glanced at me.

  “Thank you, Leylen.” My voice was steady. “You may go.”

  “But I must help dress you soon . . . and your hair—”

  “Go, Leylen. I’ll dress myself today.”

  And then I was alone.

  I unfolded the paper. My hands were not steady.

  Two cloaks and two hoods

  House

  Fence

  Lock

  Every night the same

  I will understand, Nola.

  I touched the letters as if I would be able to feel them. His quill and ink; his marks, which I did not actually understand until minutes after I’d first read them. A note like so many others, which I had found in unexpected places.

  I refolded it; I would only gaze at it foolishly otherwise, and be late for my class. I slid the paper under my wardrobe. The other one was there too—the one he had left for me the same night Orlo had lured me away from the brothel. I did not look at it again later, when I returned to my room. I could still feel the words, though—then, and after midnight, when Teldaru and I slipped out the postern gate and down into the city.

  I will understand, Nola: words as rounded and urgent as veins beneath my skin.

  Three months. Three months after I had met Bardrem in his room. Three months after I had lifted Ranior’s skull from the mirror’s golden bowl. Princess Layibe three months old. The city still burning fitfully, a night-pattern of flickering orange and rising smoke.

  It was early summer, and Moabu Bantayo was coming to Sarsenay.

  “We have no time,” Teldaru said.

  I had never seen him look so stricken. “You did not plan for this,” I said. “You did not foresee it”—and he turned to me, his black eyes narrowed.

  “Are you mocking me?”

  I smiled—for him, and for the people who might be watching us from the tables below. “No, no—how could I, now that I understand so much? I am only asking; wondering. . . .”

  He gazed at me a moment longer. His fingers were drumming against the underside of the table. “We will take them away tonight,” he said at last. I arched one of my brows, while my chest tightened so suddenly that I feared I would gasp.

  “I wanted to wait until he was finished,” Teldaru continued, “but now we must move more quickly. We will take them to the Hill tonight, and hope that it will not hurt him.”

  He came to my room much later than usual. I was half-asleep when Borl shook himself and whined. I sat up and then the knock came, light but insistent.

  He did not speak to me at all as we walked to the house. Bardrem, I thought, as I always did now, but it was just a word; there had been no other note or glimpse, and I had lost the sharp hope I had had before.

  There was a wagon and a single, stolid horse in the street in front of the house. “Up,” Teldaru said to me. The word sounded harsh, after all the silence. I climbed to the long wooden seat. Borl scrambled after me and slid, and I held him around the middle to steady him. I looked back into the wagon, which was open, and saw a jumble of sacks and garden tools.

  Teldaru climbed up beside me and lifted the reins. He laughed as he flicked them. “Imagine! Two ancient heroes lying unattended in the back of a wagon, and no one the wiser!”

  I wanted to look over my shoulder again but did not. I wondered, as we clattered over the cobbled street toward the east gate, how Teldaru had managed to get them down the stairs—Mambura, who was tall and bulky with muscle, and Ranior, who had only just grown a layer of skin, and whose own muscles did not yet seem solid.

  I wondered too, when the gatehouse guard stepped out to meet us, whether Teldaru would fail to be convincing this time. But as soon as the man saw who was sitting with the reins in his beringed hands, he bowed and smiled nervously and I knew we were as good as out already.

  “Mistress Nola and I are taking plant specimens,” Teldaru said, nodding over his shoulder at the sacks, and the trowels and shovels that lay near them.

  The guard peered into the back of the wagon. Just poke at the cloth with your sword, I thought. Just ask him why we’re plant-collecting in the middle of the night. Except that Teldaru would probably have had an answer.

  “Mistress Nola,” the guard said after he had stepped down, “I . . . that is, my family was near enough to you on Ranior’s Hill last Pathday to see you.” The smile is for me, I thought then, and I smiled back at him, glad that the darkness would hide my flush. When we were out on the road beyond the city, Teldaru chuckled and said, “Nearly one year later! The legend of Nola. . . and yet there is so much more greatness to come.”

  When we arrived at the Hill, I saw that Mambura and Ranior were strapped onto litters. Teldaru hauled Mambura’s off the wagon; I knew it was him, even though he was wrapped in cloth, because he was so big, and the lines of him so firm. I winced when the litter hit the ground, and Teldaru laughed again and reached a hand out to tug on my braid. He did not let me help him. He pulled the litter down the stairs and along the dark, damp corridors. He set it down just inside the door of the tomb and went immediately back into the corridor.

  I sat by Mambura and waited. I imagined what would happen if Bardrem appeared now. I pictured Teldaru returning, and myself standing and crying, “Kill him!” I pictured Bardrem and me doing it to
gether, with knives or fists or feet. “It was like a terrible, terrible dream that I feared would have no end,” I would say when it was over. “I could not speak or act because he had cursed me.” And I would gaze at Bardrem with my eyes that could see both worlds, and kiss him with my mouth that could say anything.

  But no—that was the dream.

  Teldaru dragged the second litter up into the chamber. He laid it down by Mambura’s and untied the ropes that held the cloth in place. Mambura’s blind eyes stared at the dome of ceiling. Ranior had no eyes yet: only two slick hollows above the fleshy wrinkle that was his new nose.

  “Why have we brought them here?” I said. “It’s so much farther away than the house.”

  Teldaru drew his fingers along Ranior’s smooth, yellow brow and then rubbed them against his thumb. I could almost feel the clinging wetness myself.

  “The battle will take place nearby, sooner than we may think. We will finish Ranior here, to be certain we are ready. And in any case, this place is his. He died here; it is only right that he be remade here, too.”

  He took his knife from his boot with one hand, and held his other hand out to me. “So come, now. We must continue.”

  We got back to the city at dawn—later than usual, and Leylen was waiting for me.

  “Mistress, where’ve you been?” she asked, and I gestured vaguely, said, “Master Teldaru and I were together outside the city, gathering plants.”

  I noticed, through the haze of my exhaustion, that she was shifting from foot to foot. I noticed that she was holding a piece of folded paper—which I read when I had sent her away.

  Not the house tonight

  But the Hill—that fabled place

  Death there for the Hound

  Laming for the Cook

  But Otherseers, at night—

  What is there for them?

  I slid the paper under the wardrobe. I crawled beneath my sheet but did not sleep.

  A Sarsenayan boy raped a Belakaoan girl—a thing that had happened before, while the city burned, but not to the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant whose wares were bought by castle women. One of the girl’s brothers killed the Sarsenayan boy.

  Bantayo’s ships landed on Sarsenay’s eastern shore. There were four ships. “For now,” said Teldaru to me. The island men were only a few weeks away.

  “This is not enough,” Teldaru said. He was pacing in front of the table where I was sitting, by his window. “This violence, and the fires—there will need to be more, if Bantayo is to be sufficiently provoked.”

  “But if we’re not ready anyway,” I began, and he whirled to face me.

  “This is the time, Nola. The only time. I would have waited longer, but the Pattern has led us by a swifter way.” His eyes were glittering—feverish, I thought as I looked at them, and at his sallow, sunken cheeks. He had finally shaved, but he must have done it too quickly; his chin and throat were covered with blood-encrusted nicks.

  “The Flamebird of Belakao and the War Hound of Sarsenay.” He smiled. Fell to his knees before me and wrapped his hands around my waist. “They will do battle on the plain. And they will not die.”

  “But they will,” I said slowly, finding words that would not bring the curse up into my mouth. “If you and I do.”

  He laughed. His whole body vibrated, even after he stopped laughing. He trembled and twitched but did not seem to notice.

  “We will not, my love. They will not. Do you have no faith in your own visions?”

  And then he went very still, and his eyes fixed on nothing. I almost expected to feel an aching beneath my skin—but he was not in my Otherworld this time; just somewhere else that was far away.

  He smiled. His teeth were as straight as they ever were, but they were not so white; there were grey lines on some of them. I wondered if my own would soon look the same.

  “So simple,” he said. “The only way to ensure Bantayo’s rage. I should have thought of it before.”

  “Tell me,” I said lightly, but he shook his head. He laid his head in my lap and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “Tomorrow morning,” Teldaru whispered to me at dinner one evening. “You should go see the queen.”

  It had been several days of nothing—no notes, no plan revealed. Nothing but the man-creatures beneath the Hill, and a weariness so overwhelming I could hardly sit upright at the lesson table, or here.

  “Why?” I whispered back. “I can see her now—look—she’s wearing a green dress and a necklace of wooden beads.”

  “Insouciant girl. You pester me relentlessly for information and now I am giving you some. Go to her chambers tomorrow before your lessons.”

  We went to the Hill that warm, rainy night. We made one blind, brown eye and five fingernails, and while we were watching, Ranior’s lips parted for the first time, slack and wet. We returned to the castle and I collapsed into bed with Borl beside me, but soon I woke with a start because I remembered Zemiya. Zemiya—why?—I fumbled with bodice laces and slippers and pushed past Leylen, who was just arriving.

  “Mistress? What now, Mistress—wait!” But I was running, even though the hallways seemed to melt and bend around me.

  I was nearly at the queen’s door when I heard the scream. One piercing note; a girl’s voice.

  No one was in the front room. The bathing chamber’s door was open. I stumbled as I slowed, just inside it, and I slipped too—not because I was moving too fast but because the floor was wet. She is bathing, I thought in that first instant—yes, of course; that is all, and perhaps Jamenda only screamed because she fell herself, on the wet floor.

  The floor was pooled with red. The walls were sprayed with it. It was like Chenn’s room at the brothel, when there had been different screams, and girls clustered around the doorway, craning to see in. Now it was only one girl—Jamenda, kneeling beside the tub, clutching Zemiya’s blood-streaked hand.

  The queen was lying with her head back, as I had seen her do before. But there was no water this time. She was naked, patterned with cuts and blood that looked darker than her skin. Her eyes were open, staring at the great, splayed crab’s legs above her. I looked up too, then down again, toward the window—and I saw another body. A man, lying flat on his back with his arms outstretched, his wrists gaping. His own blood had darkened his clothing, but I could see he was a guard. I knew his face; somehow, in that long, still moment, I remembered him: Jareth, who had let me inside the castle years ago, when I had thought I would tell everyone the truth. Me in my pink dress, and everyone laughing but him. His beard was matted with blood now. His eyes were closed.

  I knelt beside Jamenda. She was holding the princess in the crook of her arm. Even as I noticed the baby she began to cry. The sound was thin, and the flailing of her fists was weak, and her white-veiled gaze flitted over everything and nothing.

  There was a shout from the outer room. Footsteps pounded away; soon there were others, much closer, and the chamber seemed full of people. Someone gripped my shoulder.

  “Nola . . .” Haldrin was beside me, sagging to his knees. His fingertips ground against my bones. “What did you see? What do you know?” His voice was Lord Derris’s, suddenly. His face was collapsing, spreading lines; he was old now, forever.

  Teldaru did it. People will say that Jareth did—and they did, for it turned out that the Sarsenayan youth who had been killed by the Belakaoan merchant family was Jareth’s nephew, and this seemed like reason enough to people already accustomed to madness—but it was Teldaru.

  “I know nothing,” I heard myself say. “I was coming to see the princess—

  I knew Zemiya was having trouble, still, and I couldn’t sleep anyway, so I thought . . .”

  I reached for Layibe then, my body confirming the lie. Jamenda let me have the baby, who quieted as soon as she was up against my shoulder. She burrowed and snuffled and clung to my dress and my braid.

  “No,” Haldrin said. I could feel him shaking. “Not this. Moabene
. . .”

  “Oh, Hal.” It was Teldaru, behind us. His own voice broke. “Hal—my King—come away; let someone cover her.”

  “I will. I will wash her, too.” I looked up at Teldaru as I spoke. “It is only right.”

  He smiled down at me sadly, but his eyes were still glittering. I wondered where he had put his bloodied clothes, and how long it had taken him to get himself clean. I wondered if she had managed to laugh at him at all, as she had long ago, by the courtyard pool with its tiny glowing fish.

  They left us alone: Jamenda, Layibe and me. Jamenda fetched me buckets and buckets of water. I poured it over Zemiya’s ruined skin, and Layibe listened, kicking her legs out in delight.

  It is so difficult to remember everything that came after Zemiya’s murder. This is strange; it happened so recently, and yet my days in the brothel are clearer. I want to make a list of words, only: Soldiers, Bardo, Uja, mourning, tomb. But it would not be enough. I must try harder.

  I stumbled to the kitchens, the day Zemiya died. Or I intended to, but when I was only halfway down the stairs to the main courtyard, Teldaru called out from behind me. I ran a few more steps (three of my footfalls in the time it took for the gatehouse bell to toll once). Then I stopped, because he was beside me, holding my forearm.

  “Where are you going?” His voice was tight. He was clawing at my bare skin.

  To find Bardrem. And to find the words, somehow, that will tell him he is right: you must be stopped. I have waited too long to try to find these words, and maybe I won’t—but I need to go to him. “Away,” I said. “Anywhere.”

  “Foolish girl—you know you won’t be able to leave these walls while I’m still within them. And in any case, you mustn’t leave me, even for a moment. I need you close. We must be close.”

  I smiled into his fevered eyes. I thought, I will find another way.

  I was alone later that evening, though I knew I would not be for long. I dipped a quill in ink and set its tip to paper. Help me, I tried to write. I will help you. Trust me, even if you cannot understand me. I tried to write very quickly; tried to hardly think about the words, since this might keep the curse at bay for a moment. But I wrote only, “I will”—and the rest flowed out, unplanned and strange, as smoothly as if I had intended it: