The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter

by Michael J. Sullivan

  Hadrian’s brows rose.

  Royce frowned. “You know what I mean: monsters that fear the color blue. The carriage had to be reupholstered because of the cofferer’s blood, which means Devon De Luda was attacked while still inside. That the kid missed such a hole in his logic demonstrates how people are willing to overlook the obvious if it doesn’t fit their beliefs. We’ll know more once we find the driver.”

  “How we going to do that? The guy’s practically invisible. No one has any clue who he is.”

  “I do. And I know enough to be sure I’m not going to like him.”

  Hadrian laughed. “That narrows the search to nearly everyone on the face of Elan.”

  Royce started to respond, then stopped and nodded. “Okay, sure, but I’m really not going to like this guy.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Gold Eater

  Genny Hargrave scraped the silver coin across the stone floor. She paused frequently to check the sharpness of the edge, and to listen.

  She didn’t hear anyone outside the door or walls. No one to see, either. The door to the little cell, while solid enough to keep her imprisoned, had gaps aplenty. She’d found a handful of spy holes, and at that moment they all agreed: Her captors had left, and she was alone. Genny made the best use of her time by sharpening the edge of the coin, but each scrape chilled her.

  What if he comes back while she’s gone? What if he discovers what I’m doing?

  He was Villar, and although a last name had been mentioned, it wasn’t clear enough to catch. She was a significant improvement over the mad dog that was Villar. Mad, that’s how Genny thought about him, like a snarling rabid animal. He had a kind of caustic hatred doled out to everyone, for any reason.

  Genny knew the type. She hadn’t transformed from illegally distilling and distributing liquor on the black market to a key player in Winter’s Whiskey of Colnora by attending cordial dinners with dignified aristocrats. In the same way, this wasn’t the first cold, filthy bucket Genny had sat on. Men like Villar were mean, unpredictable, dangerous, and sadly plentiful. Her father had been one. She liked to think she’d tamed the madness out of the man, that the money, power, and respect had quieted the demons unchained by his wife’s death. But she knew quieted wasn’t gone and the mania would always be there, watchful and looking for a reason to return.

  What if neither comes back at all?

  Genny still didn’t know where she was, couldn’t even be positive how long she’d been there. More than two but less than three weeks was her best estimation. Early on, she hadn’t bothered keeping track of the days. She had expected to die, and that one thought filled her mind to the exclusion of all else. Then, as time went on she had been forced to reevaluate. No sense keeping me alive just to kill me later, she reasoned, but had to admit a bias in her conclusion. The same could be said about her expectation of rescue. Her husband was the duke, and he controlled a full contingent of city guards. With such resources, could a rescue be far away? Apparently it could. As the days dragged on, she began to wonder if something had happened to Leo.

  In all that time, Genny learned little about her prison. Didn’t even know what sort of place it was. The stone was marred with pockmarks, lichen, and ivy, which made her suspect she was outside the main gates. She hadn’t seen much beyond the Estate and the Merchant District since her arrival in the city. Parts of Rochelle might be deep in jungles—how would she know? There might even be a ruined quarter that she had yet to discover. Still, her little square of the world was unusually quiet. All she ever heard was birdsong. No sound of carriages, barkers, blows of hammers, or cries of babies. She’d never found a part of her new city—or any city—that was this quiet. Most important, she never heard the chimes of Grom Galimus.

  They took me to the surrounding countryside, but where and why?

  She tried to remember the night Villar grabbed her. So much of it remained muddled, like a nightmare recalled hours after waking. She’d witnessed Devon’s death. Villar had wanted her to see, but it wasn’t a matter of pride. The man wasn’t a professional, no expertly slit throat or precisely inserted blade. It’d been brutal and bloody. Villar had stabbed Devon repeatedly with a small knife. The violence and gore paralyzed her. Genny was no pampered debutante, and before becoming the newest member of the nobility, she often enjoyed gambling at cards and impressing men with her capacity for holding hard liquor, but she’d never been exposed to anything like that. Watching a man butchered close enough to feel the spray of his blood was more than enough to horrify. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The hood came next, a bag placed over her head and cinched tightly. Then she was shoved into a cart, covered with rough blankets, and off they went.

  Too afraid to scream or cry, she cowered, something she hadn’t done since she was eight. At any moment, she was certain she’d be killed. If she’d been thinking, she might have taken note of the trip’s length, turns, bumps, or accompanying sounds, but all she could think of was the way the knife had sounded when plunging over and over into Devon’s chest. That and the gasping gurgle that came from his mouth. He’d been trying to say something, and Genny thought it might have been please stop, but she couldn’t be sure. When the cart had finally halted, she was carried quite a distance before being dropped into the cell. A metal collar was fastened around her neck, and a chain secured her to a wall. A door slammed, and she heard a lock click. A lock, not a bolt. She took note of that. While lying on cold stone with the bag still over her head, she heard her assailants talking, their voices muffled by the door. The memory of the quarrel was so vivid because it had provided hope. Genny could recall it word for word.

  “Where did the blood come from?” the woman had asked, her tone full of fear.

  “She wasn’t alone,” Villar replied.

  “Who did you kill?” The woman’s tone had changed to anger.

  “I have no idea, a courtier of some kind.”

  “No one was supposed to get hurt!” she shouted.

  “No one was supposed to be with her, either. He saw me. Did you want a witness?”

  “This is bad.”

  “It’s what it is. Deal with it.”

  Genny clung to the most important line from that argument: No one was supposed to get hurt. If that was true, her death wasn’t inevitable; it might even be unlikely.

  That first night, she had waited for hours, until certain she was alone, before finding the knots, untying the string, and pulling the hood off. She found herself in the small stone room, no window and only one door. Light from a small fire on the far side seeped underneath and around it, as did an awful vinegar odor. The door was new and very sturdy. The freshly cut wood still smelled of the forest, and sap dripped from knotholes. The collar around Genny’s neck was closed and fastened to the chain by a large iron padlock that hung on her chest like the gaudy pendant of a horrid necklace. The other end of the chain was bolted to the wall opposite the door. The restraint granted her full range of the room, but nothing more. There had been a pile of straw, which she assumed was meant to serve as her bed, but it had since been scattered and matted. She scooped it into a pile each night, but each morning it was strewn about, which made her wonder about her dreams. She couldn’t recall them, but was sure they weren’t pleasant. She had the bucket, the straw, and two surprisingly thick wool blankets. She lay on one; the other she wrapped around herself, tucking the corners down under her legs and shoulders. The cell was cold but, thanks to the blankets, not unbearable. She was able to sleep, and that was something.

  She hadn’t been hurt, and nothing was taken from her. Not that Genny had much when pulled from the carriage, just the dress she wore, her shoes, and a tiny wrist bag. She was surprised they hadn’t taken the purse. Not that it had much money in it, only a few silver—emergency coins—she called them, but why had they abducted her if not for money? The purse also had one other item, the key to her traveling trunk. She’d used the big sea chest as luggage when she moved to Rochelle and cont
inued to keep it in her room as the one personal space she reserved for herself. It held nothing of value to anyone but her. The trunk was filled only with memories and mementos. She had a bottle of whiskey from “the old days,” and a diary, and her mother’s rings that were too small for Genny, and letters from her father. She kept those in the chest because she didn’t want Leo reading how much Gabriel hated him for “stealing” his daughter. The trunk couldn’t help her now, nor could her dress or shoes, but the coins and key were treasures. She had long since hidden them in her cell, in the stone’s cracks, fearful her captors would finally notice the purse and take it. She couldn’t afford to lose her treasures.

  Most of the time, Genny was left alone in her cell. She was pleased that Villar was rarely there. When he did appear, his visits were mercifully brief. Erratic and berating, he would argue with the woman, insult Genny, or rant about the misdeeds of others. He usually left in a huff. Genny preferred the other warden. She was quiet, reserved, and respectful.

  A noise outside the door caused Genny to stop in mid-stroke. She stashed the coin, went to the door, and quickly pressed her cheek to peer through the crack in the slats. She was relieved it wasn’t Villar. Standing near the entrance and shaking the rain out of her soaked shawl was the woman, the one Villar called Mercator Sikara.

  Mercator pulled off her soaked dress and dropped it on the floor. Long ago she’d given up trying to save her kirtle. Surrendering to the inevitable, she’d dyed the whole thing, but it didn’t help. The front and sleeves were darker by several shades. Still, the garment fared better than her skin. The creamy white cloth had turned blue, but Mercator’s brown skin became a blackish purple. Standing naked in the faint light, she looked like one great bruise.

  On the bright side, I have to be the safest person in Rochelle.

  She dried off and wrapped up in one of her blankets. Soft, thick, and warm, it ought to sell for close to a gold tenent, considering the ridiculous amounts nobles paid for anything blue. Mercator bought raw material from Calian weavers who either didn’t know or, like Erasmus, didn’t care she was a mir. Mercator had an excellent eye for quality, and made good deals buying cloth for five to eight copper. When able, she sold the blankets to merchants like Erasmus for double. The blue dye made all the difference. After more than a century, Mercator knew how to cultivate and harvest woad, a genial flowering plant that produced a less-than-effective blue dye. To compensate, she had to soak and dry each woven cloth or bolt of yarn, then repeat the process a dozen times. The process was time consuming, but she couldn’t possibly afford to purchase indigo, a rare imported plant that was exceedingly expensive. The source of the dye wasn’t what mattered; the only thing people cared about was the deep-blue color. Her process, while time consuming, produced the desired result. If she weren’t mir, she would’ve been rich.

  Mercator put the kettle on, stoked the fire, and then checked her work. Popping the lid on a clay pot marked with the blue handprint, she fished out the cloth, held it up, and let it drip while she studied the shade. It looked perfect, which meant it would be too light when dry—once the excess dye was removed.

  With a disappointed sigh, Mercator submerged the cloth in the pot again. She had close to a dozen of the old clay vessels, which were found in the belly of the ruined church. At least she thought it was a church, but from the outside it was hard to tell it was even a building. Tall grass and bushes grew all around. If not for the arched doorway, the place could easily be mistaken for a stony hill.

  The pots were huge old urns, a good three feet in height and beautifully crafted. Mercator almost hated employing them. Still, she had to use something, and these were ideal for her purposes. Mercator spent the late summer and fall gathering woad. She fermented the leaves in a tub of water mixed with a bit of lime. In the spring, she planted seeds that she’d meticulously salvaged, only a fraction of which would take root.

  In winter, she spent most of her days dunking cloth in the blue dye just as she would do that day. She wrung out her soaked dress as best she could, dressed, and went back to work. Crossing to the last pot, the one she’d been working on the longest, she submerged her arms up to her elbows. Mercator held the wool under as if drowning a small animal, squeezing the material as hard as she could, wringing the cloth below the surface to help infuse the dye more completely into the material.

  Dye! Dye, you miserable woolly lamb! She tried to smile, amazed at the insanity she indulged in to keep from going mad.

  It wasn’t working.

  Not-thinking was her best hope. Work kept her mind occupied, but she was running out of cloth, and after speaking to Erasmus Nym, it was becoming impossible not to—

  “Any chance you’re thinking of feeding me in the near future?” The duchess’s voice came from the other room. Even muffled by the only door in the ruin, the duchess was loud. And she talked a lot. “I know I could stand to eat a bit less, but there is a difference between a diet and starvation.”

  Mercator pulled up the cloth, let it drip, and studied it carefully.

  Good enough.

  Once upon a time, good enough was never acceptable. Mercator used to fuss about such things, but once upon a time she’d been younger. Age, she realized with some regret, had diluted her need for perfection. Passion, they called it. Everyone placed such high value on an intensity of spirit, but it was like the dye: valuable when focused, limited, and used properly. She looked down at herself—but what good is anything when randomly splattered? The young were fountains of energy and vigor, running blind sprints into imagined lands. Mercator was done with races.

  I’m also done with this cloth.

  She dropped it into a vinegar bath.

  One more thing that makes this place smell so grand.

  “In case you forgot, food is a plant or animal that can be consumed,” the woman bellowed through the locked door. “It’s required to live. Did you know that? Some people even enjoy the process of eating. They do it every day. More than once, even.”

  “Salt,” Mercator said.

  “What? What did you say? Did you say salt?”

  “Yes, salt. It’s a rock, a mineral. Neither plant nor animal and it must be consumed to live. It’s the only rock you can eat, and you have to consume it in order to survive.”

  “True enough, but it doesn’t quite fill the belly like a good roasted leg of lamb, now does it? People eat all kinds of things that aren’t filling. You can eat gold, too.”

  “Gold is a metal and definitely not required to sustain life. No one would ever eat that.”

  “I have.”

  Mercator was wiping her hands and arms on the blue-stained towel she kept near the pots. She stopped and stared at the closed door that separated the outer room from the little chamber where they kept the woman. She had tried to refrain from speaking to the prisoner. At first, it was important that the duchess know as little about them as possible. As the days dragged into weeks, trying to avoid the woman was just pointless. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No, I’m not. Chefs make it very thin and lay it on top of chocolate cakes.”

  “You disgust me.”

  “Well, I can’t say it’s my favorite, but when it’s served at the dinner of an important potential partner, one shouldn’t insult the host by turning up one’s nose, now should one?”

  “People are starving all over the world, and rich people eat gold?”

  “I know, I know! It’s a ridiculous thing to do. I can assure you it wouldn’t be my first choice. I’d much rather dine on a fine steak or perhaps a goose. Oh yes, what I wouldn’t give for a roasted goose, one where the skin has been crisped to a caramel brown. Perhaps some oysters and mussels in a butter-wine sauce. You know, there are easier ways to kill me than starvation.”

  “You’re not starving. It takes more than a month to die from lack of food. Being a person who consumes gold, I would expect you to be more learned.”

  Mercator took the cloth out of the vinegar rinse and h
ung it up on the line that ran the length of the area under the dome. A curious choice for a roof, it was the dome that made Mercator assume the little ruin had once been a church because the only other dome she’d seen was the one over the altar of the grand cathedral of Rochelle. This little dome above Mercator’s dye industry was made of crude interlocking stones the same as the walls. While the ruins were ideal as a hidden workshop, the site also dripped with ancient mystery. All of Alburn was that way, and Rochelle was its graveyard of inconvenient secrets.

  The duchess was one of those, and becoming more inconvenient by the minute. “And why do such a thing?” Mercator asked. “Why eat gold at all? What’s the point? It doesn’t benefit you, and it can’t taste good. So why?”

  “Same reason people live in houses with too many rooms, have more clothes than they can wear, and ride down the block in a horse-drawn carriage rather than walk. Only the very rich can afford such things, so they use these extravagances to demonstrate to others the height of their status.”

  “But everyone already knows you’re rich.”

  “You’d think that, but there is one very important person that everyone wishes to impress. Someone who rarely gets the message of a person’s true worth. People will go to any lengths, like eating gold, to convince this person that they have value.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Why, ourselves, dear.”

  Such an odd woman.

  They had abducted her in a desperate gamble to change things. But it didn’t seem to be working. And if something didn’t happen soon, everything would fall apart. So many depended on Mercator, and she felt like she was letting them all down.

  Things will improve. I’m going to make it better. That’s my responsibility as matriarch of the Sikara. I owe that to my grandfather and his father before him.

  She had told Seton that spring was coming, but Mercator had failed to explain what that could mean. Villar will have his way, all because I . . . because I . . .