by Mary Gentle
Her forehead wrinkled in concentration.
"Full moon, the Water-Carrier dominant, what ascendant . . . put her in the West High Chamber; I’ll come to her there."
The Lord-Architect wheeled and walked towards the stairs, carrying the tall young woman without effort. The White Crow stared after him.
"She’s stunning."
Spoken to the air, her words found an ear not far off. Pollexfen Calmady guffawed. "Madam, you’re jealous!"
An odd smile crossed her face.
"Not precisely," the White Crow said.
Chapter Two
Pollexfen Calmady put down a card. "Ten of Lances . . . What ails your lady?"
"Knight of Grails. My trick. At the parting of roads that all Scholar-Soldiers come to. She has studied and become a healer," the Lord-Architect Casaubon said, "a Master- Physician. And she misses the blade, and hates herself."
Pollexfen Calmady upended a pewter mug of beer and wiped his lips with a lace kerchief. He dealt again. "All I can say, sir, is that your letter painted her in damned pastel colours!"
Casaubon said hastily, "I didn’t write to you."
"So you didn’t. I was forgetting." He belched.
Icy wind screamed. Tall windows creaked open. Bess, Lady Winslow, standing by one, callused hands on the frame, kicked glass panels out so that the driving snow blew in. She leaned back to shout to Lord Rule, who tossed her another wine bottle.
Outside, the lords Thompson and Gadsbury pissed steaming yellow jets onto the terrace in competition, perilously close to Hay who, having wrestled Arbella Lacey to the flagstones, was putting snow down the tall woman’s bodice and getting an ill-aimed knee between the legs for his trouble.
"Dabit deus his quoque finem." Pollexfen Calmady rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye-socket. "God will grant me an end even to these troubles!"
Bevis sat with one knee up in a chair, a cittern across his lap, picking out melancholy tunes. "They’re a fine troop, Father."
"A fine troop of the destitute, I grant you!"
Cold yellow, the sky wept flakes that moved with the aerodynamics of feathers. Snow built up on terrace, balustrade, statues, and lawns. Eight inches and rising. Cold gales seared in the open window.
"Close that! Apologies." Pollexfen Calmady kicked at the snow on the rug, sprawling in the chair before the roaring fire, thumbing through his cards.
The Lord-Architect’s fat fingers prodded his cards with delicate concentration. He reached deep into the pocket of his sprigged velvet frock-coat, unearthed two rose-nobles, and wiped them on his sleeve. A trail of grease scummed the satin.
"I perceive," he rumbled, "that you still play for stakes vastly too high for your pocket."
"I do. Let me see." Pollexfen Calmady reached across, gripped the Lord-Architect’s wrist, and turned it over. A small white scar crossed the flesh, an inch above the wrist’s creases of flesh. "Not gone yet, then? Blood brother still."
Four o’clock light glinted in the mercenary captain’s eyes. It silvered the waterfall-curls of his periwig, gleamed from brocade sleeves and breast and breeches. Something of the unnatural brilliant dark of daytime snow found an echo in those eyes.
"Madam White Crow." He loosed Casaubon’s wrist as the woman entered the long room.
"Our visitor’s sleeping. Well, say you, are you persuaded to town yet?" She rested her arms along the Lord-Architect’s shoulders, looking down over his stained satin lapels to his cards. "It smells of collusion to me, I must say."
"My little one . . ."
Pollexfen Calmady broke out in a great laugh. He threw his hand of cards down and grabbed the jug to refill his mug. "There’s for you, boy! The worst folly of a man is thinking he can conceal his folly. Do you confess to her now. The odds are in your favour, if I’m a judge."
The Lord-Architect Casaubon spread fat-fingered hands, glancing over his cushioned shoulder at the redhaired woman. A slight pink coloured his earlobes. "Well . . ."
The woman stepped back. Her thumb hooked over her breeches-belt. For some moments she stared at Pollexfen Calmady. "This Protector of yours—"
"Not mine!"
"—must have architects of her own."
"A few poor renegade-architects, perhaps. Geometry being considered in that court a Black Art." Pollexfen Calmady snorted. "Listen to me. ‘Renegade’ "
An odd smile moved her mouth. He caught some quirk of humour that vanished before he could identify it. She said, "Renegades have their own honour."
"Madam, at a very respectable price."
"Hmm. I suspect I would have known, even if you hadn’t told me, that you were an old friend of his." She wound a coil of the Lord-Architect’s copper-red hair around her forefinger, tugging it sharply. "How long since Casaubon last dragged you into this sort of foolery?"
The Lord-Architect said hollowly, "He inveigles me. Always has. All through university."
"I remember the first day of your arrival at the Sun of Science." Pollexfen Calmady regarded the fan of cards in his large fingers. "Thin as a lath, in a filthy black doublet, on fire to show how much you knew of the Craft, and how much better than anyone else you could be at it."
The Lord-Architect fetched up a belch from the recesses of his stomach.
"I did do it better. Pox rot you, I still do!"
"But not in the city you were born to?"
"I am allowing them to try the experiment of republicanism," Casaubon said loftily. "They’ll come crawling back to me, any day now."
"Ha!" the White Crow said.
"But you were right," Pollexfen Calmady concluded softly, looking at his five-guinea hand. "I did indeed gamble away my inheritance—estate, house, shares, and all."
" ‘Thin as a lath,’ " the White Crow echoed.
"We were younger then." The gentleman-mercenary discarded the Six of Grails. "And of more general service to the world, I doubt not; but forgive me, madam, would you have him any other way?"
"If pressed to an answer . . . no, I would not."
The Lord-Architect pulled her onto his lap in an exuberant hug, played the Seven of Swords, and raised an eyebrow at her groan. "Strategy. Forward planning!"
"My trick," Pollexfen Calmady observed.
And night slides in across the curve of the world.
She sprawled across the workbench, asleep.
Air and darkness sang, struck. A warning of magia burned under her skin. Her arteries ran with sudden fire.
Hard metal bruised her hand: dagger ripped from its boot- sheath before she stood properly awake. Shaking her head to clear it, the White Crow staggered along the corridor from the herb-room.
The stairs and far hall shouted with drunken rout. A woman screeched a song. Dagger blades screeled, peeling strips from the panelling. One man hacked his heel to the beat of the song. Another—Lord Gadsbury?—vomited as she passed.
She took the narrow wooden steps two at a time. The wall banged her shoulder. Twisting the handle, she wrenched at the nursery door.
Locked. Pain in her wrist jarred her awake. She fumbled the key-chain from under her shirt and opened the door, eyes darting up and down the corridor.
Dim lamplight glared from the muzzle of a musket. The dark man, Hazelrigg, loosened his finger on the trigger at the sight of her. Beyond him, small bed and bassinet stood peacefully occupied.
"Madam?"
"Whoreson stupid—not you!" She hit her head with her hand, aghast; threw the key at him, and shouted, "Don’t open this door to anyone!" as she spun round and sprinted back down the corridor.
Magia wards fired her blood. Boot-heels hit stairs two at a time; she grabbed at her belt and again missed the presence of a sword.
Footsteps clattered up the stairs behind her.
Third floor: West High Chamber.
The door stood open.
Linen and blankets tumbled down onto the floorboards. A man’s back hid half the bed. Thrown back in pillows, mouth loosely open, the young woman’s head boun
ced up and down with the movement of the mattress.
Wig tipped sideways, showing his shaved head, and his breeches tangled around his calves, Pollexfen Calmady sprawled across the bed and the woman. His bare buttocks pumped. Pox-scarred skin shone yellow as old grease in the lamplight. One pale foot jutted from under the man’s arm, trapped. Thrown wide, the young woman’s other leg jounced and flopped.
Three floors below a fiddle pumped in gruesome counterpoint.
"Leave her—"
The bed’s uneven leg knocked rhythmically against the floorboards; the man grunting deep in his throat, oblivious.
He dug hard fingers into her left breast, her flesh swelling out pale under his kneading hand, and his nails raked red lines from her nipple to her ribs. The curled wig slipped: his mouth coming down hard on her right breast, chewing, biting; he worried at it, scarlet-faced; lifted a mouth dripping saliva and plunged it down upon hers, thrusting his tongue into her slack mouth. His hips jerked back: slammed forward, the back of her skull hitting the headboard.
The White Crow reversed her grip on the dagger to strike with the hilt; called up magia invocations from her sleep-sodden mind:
"Tagla-mathon —"
"Father!"
Something hit her elbow and knocked her against the door-jamb. She glimpsed Bevil Calmady, eyes and mouth gaping. She pushed him aside. He skidded: another body barrelled past both of them. A whiff of familiar smells cut off her automatic reflex: she clamped her mouth shut on a magia-word.
"Calmady!" The Lord-Architect, flushed and his coat discarded, roared. His footsteps shook the floor. In two strides he crossed the room, grabbed Pollexfen Calmady by the collar of his coat and the back of his knee, digging fingers into muscle. He heaved, twisting: the man screaming at the awkward angle of withdrawal. Casaubon lifted the man bodily up from the bed and threw him. Eighteen stone of bone and muscle smashed a chair and hit the floor.
"What—"
Pollexfen Calmady screeched. He reared to his feet, grabbed the bed-hangings, slipped; and stumbled up again. His face burned purple, his eyes ran with water. Vomit stained the front of his brocade coat. He coughed a breath that stank of old wine and half-fermented beer.
"Wha’s?— ’S outrageous! ’S damnable! Gut me, I’ll rip you!"
"Rapist!"
He slipped again, grabbing a bedpost. The curled wig slid down over his shoulders and fell to the floor. Thick stubble covered his shaven head, brilliant with drops of sweat.
"I did not—"
His shining eyes gained focus. One hand brushed at his ruffles. Tan breeches hobbled his ankles. His engorged penis rocked as he moved.
"She’s willing, damn you! Never said a word. Never a protest, my life on it!"
The White Crow slammed her dagger down on the dresser and knelt up on the bed, straightening the young woman’s body. Hands on the bloodied thighs, she glared up at Calmady.
"She’s drugged, you whoreson bastard!"
The man’s mouth opened. He stared.
"Yes, you pig-drunk shit! She’s sick, she’s drugged to make her sleep, to make her well! How could you—"
Bending to pull at his breeches, the man fell forward. He hit the floor face-down. The Lord-Architect drew back his foot and kicked Pollexfen Calmady over onto his back, the force of it lifting and throwing his rangy body a yard or more.
Abiathar blocked the door. She pushed the stunned Bevil aside, her head turned back, issuing orders to other servants to keep the gentlemen-mercenaries in the main hall. She gasped, seeing Pollexfen Calmady. "Blind drunk. As like to be fucking our old pig, or whatever he stumbled across, I reckon."
"Drunk? Him? He's too capable of the act to be drunk!" Outrage made the White Crow breathless. "Bastard!"
Song echoed harshly up the hall and the corridor. The White Crow smoothed hair back from the young woman’s unconscious face. "I’ll have to examine her. See what damage . . . Get that boy out of here!"
"I’ll take him." The Lord-Architect belched gently. "Where the fuck were you?" she demanded.
"Dealing with fifteen others in a similar condition." Sharp, if not sober, Casaubon’s gaze took in the slumped man, the pale young woman, and the White Crow. "You?"
"I went to the nursery first. I got here too late. I should have been here!"
He reached to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but the White Crow sat down on the sick-bed, already bending over the sheet-covered form of the younger woman.
* * *
The sky is clear all the rest of the night, starshine on the new snow.
Towards morning, laden clouds gather.
"I remember nothing."
The young woman put her hands down between her thighs, under the sheets. Pain stabbed at her face, muscles around her eyes contracting. Swollen flesh half-closed one eye; her lower lip puffy; and yellow bruises, just beginning to come out, marked all one side of her jaw, neck, collarbone, and breast. She shifted to one buttock, to the other; and leaned back awkwardly against the sloping pillows.
"But reason tells me, had you not drugged my sleep, I could have defended myself."
"You’re bruised. Something torn. Don’t wipe off what you find down there," the White Crow said, "it’s a salve I spent the early hours of this morning making. It should help."
"Should it?"
The White Crow sat down on the edge of the bed. She took cold, slender hands in her own. "Shock—"
"Was he diseased, this man?" Calm dark eyes fixed her. "Am I carrying a child?"
"It’ll be some days before I can perform the magia to know either. I can do that."
The young woman took both hands back to smooth the hair away from her marked face. "Yes. You’re a Master-Physician, of the Invisible College. Valentine called White Crow, of Roseveare."
Dark red brows indented. The White Crow stood. She folded her arms, hands cupping elbows. "You—who are you?"
"My name is Desire-of-the-Lord Guillaime."
"Ah."
The black-haired young woman in the bed regarded her with self-possession. "Are we secret?"
"Reasonably. Do I want," the White Crow mused, "to hear anything that has to be told to me in secrecy? No, I think I do not. I live a quiet, retired life here in the country. I’ll hear nothing that disturbs it."
Desire’s black eyes moved under long lashes. The faintest slurring marked her speech, and her tongue licked out to probe her swollen lip. "Not even a plan to fund the escape of Carola?"
White Crow blinked.
"This is Carola the Second? Her most Catholic Majesty? Her most indolent Majesty," she added, and then shook her head in annoyance. "I haven’t seen the woman since I was twelve. And in any case, Desire-of-the-Lord, you don’t have a name that I’d expect to find in the royal court."
The younger woman leaned back, smoothing blankets down around her torso. Linen defined the shape of breasts and stomach. She gritted her teeth and grunted.
"No. I’m a good Protectorate woman, madam."
"That I guessed."
"And to be most honest, no one more wishes the escape of Regina Carola than the Protector. Her most Catholic Majesty is a liability. We’d sooner see her in exile."
The White Crow stood. She rested both hands against the carved bedframe, and then took several paces one way, several paces back. The air chilled her skin. Snow-light shone up from the ground and in at the window, bleaching the plastered ceiling.
"This is the trouble, you see. Coming back after so long, belonging to no faction or party, being seen as—" She smiled, curiously, "—new blood. New fodder for the war."
"This house has always stood for the Protectorate."
"This house," the White Crow emphasised, "hasn’t seen me since I was thirteen. We had no business coming back here; I knew what I was doing when I ran away to join the Scholar-Soldiers; I should never have consented to inherit!— It’s my inheritance. It isn’t my concern."
Desire shaded her eyes with her hand. She moved down in the bed,
painfully and awkwardly pulling sheets and rumpled blankets up about her shoulders.
"But you will do it."
The White Crow turned. The unbruised curve of Desire’s shoulders showed smooth, pale, marked with old scars of duty and church discipline. Knotted matt-black hair cushioned the young woman’s head.
She reached down to pick at snarls in that soft, sweat-matted hair, flicking a glance at Desire’s face.
"Will I?"
"Yes." Black lashes swept down; back. "Because I ask you. Because of what happened to me here."
"That isn’t something you use for blackmail!"
The White Crow’s hand, still moving among the tangles of hair, felt hot moisture on the young woman’s cheek. She stopped as if her muscles had locked.
"The Protector wants Valentine Roseveare."
"Yes."
The room’s air is chill, snow-bright; the kind of morning in which to scrunch down under heavy blankets, in cloth-scented warmth and safety.
The White Crow said, "I suppose I had better come to London."
Chapter Three
Bevil Calmady’s breath whitened the morning air. The young man put his heels into the big gelding’s sides and maneuvered down the snow-covered slope. The coach-and-six rattled down, scant yards away, its brakes squealing.
"Hei!"
He spurred past Gadsbury and Lacey without looking at them, coming up with the coach as the slope levelled out. Hooves threw up clots of snow and half-frozen mud.
The snow-covered heath and moorland stretched away, frighteningly clear under a pale blue sky. Against that sky the distant white hills shone; all their shadows blue and lilac. Leafless shrubs pricked the air. Bevil swallowed, cold drying his throat.
"Mistress Abiathar!" He leaned over, peering through the coach’s horn-shutters.
The nurse huddled in blankets and a massive coat, the orange-haired baby almost smothered in its swaddling. Jared sat as stiff-backed as is possible for an eight-year-old in a jolting coach.
