The Icefire Trilogy

by Patty Jansen

  Loriane donned her cloak, bid the healer good luck and left the tent.

  She had feared there would be more people waiting outside for treatment, but the queues had gone and a sense of quiet had descended over the festival grounds in preparation for the night, when revellers moved to the Outer City’s melteries.

  Soon enough, the stream of patients would recommence, bringing unconscious drunks choking in their own vomit and men with gashes from fights.

  With a shiver, she wondered what Isandor was doing. He’d been a boy this time last year, talking about the races with wide-eyed wonder. Now he was with the Knights, there was brooding handsomeness to him that made her sure that by the end of Newlight, he would no longer be a virgin. If a girl came to her door claiming to carry his child, would he have the money to deal with it? Could she cope with raising another one of those strange children that made her skin crawl? He was fifteen, not ready for any of this.

  I was thirteen when I let myself be taken by the young noble Knight with the curly hair, and fourteen when I pushed out his son. After a day of pain, a beautiful baby with big bright eyes. She had fed the child and had never wanted to part with him. But the palace midwives had taken him away. The boy would be sixteen and living a world away in the towers of the City of Glass.

  Oh, she had done well enough. With the Knight’s money, she had been able to leave her embittered father. But no amount of money could take away the pain.

  She wanted a different future for Isandor. She wanted to tell him not to touch any girls, but knew he wouldn’t listen anyway.

  “Loriane,” a male voice called.

  “I’m on my way home. Go to the help post at the festival.” Then she realised she sounded snippy and added, “Unless it’s an emergency.”

  “For you, there is always an emergency.”

  The next moment warm arms enclosed her from behind. The man’s clothes smelled of exotic spices and oil.

  “Tandor!” Could it be true? She leaned away from his male warmth.

  Tandor indeed. By the skylights, where had he been? His blue eyes smiled at her. The street lamps glinted in golden curls on his cheeks. He was wearing his noblemen’s disguise again. He looked so good; he was here for her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Shh.” He put a finger to her lips and pulled it away when his lips came closer. His kiss was hungry, and for a moment, she lost herself in desire.

  His hands strayed to the taut skin of her belly. “Another one, eh?”

  “It pays my food.”

  “Oh, Loriane, how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t have to do this.”

  “And I’ll tell you just as many times that I have no other option. I’m a fertile woman, and there’d be talk if I wasn’t carrying.”

  By the skylights, she was angry all of a sudden. Why hadn’t he let her know he was coming?

  “So, what are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story. We need a safe place to stay, and I thought—”

  “Isandor’s bed is empty so you can stay with me.” By the skylights, he was so transparent. “Tandor, you don’t need to find silly excuses to stay with me, even though you always manage to think of some.” Wait—he had said we?

  She glanced over his shoulder. His familiar sled waited in the street, with the equally familiar cloaked and hooded driver. She had never seen the man’s face, and had never heard him speak. Tandor had told her the young man had an accident and couldn’t speak. His face had become terribly disfigured, he said. Would he have to sleep in her house, too? He never came inside.

  Fur stirred on the back seat of the sled; a head lifted from what had looked like Tandor’s luggage a moment ago.

  “Can we go now?” asked a female voice.

  Loriane stiffened. “Who’s that?”

  She pushed himself out of his embrace. Her heart thudded like crazy.

  “This is Myra, from Bordertown.”

  His eyes met hers, intense, and she had no idea what that look meant.

  Her lips felt stiff when she spoke her next words. “It’ll cost to stay with me. This is the time of Newlight. There are no beds for hire anywhere in the city. If you stay in my house, I’ll have to cancel a paying visitor I’d agreed to take.”

  “Loriane, Loriane, you know you’re the worst liar in the world?”

  Damn him. She shrugged and let a silence lapse. Then she let go of his arm, severing the last bit of physical contact between them. “Let’s go.”

  He guided her to the sled, where he sat between her and the girl. She was a wisp of a thing, barely older than Isandor. It looked like she had travelled with him for quite some distance, with the amount of furs that covered her and her wind-blown rough cheeks.

  Tandor never said a word to the cloaked driver, but the man flicked the reins and the bear loped into action. Once they were out of the street, the going was slow. Groups of drunken youths came out of side streets, laughing and pushing each other, and generally not looking out for other people, let alone sleds.

  “Busy,” Tandor said into the uneasy silence. He kept his gloved hands ostensibly on his lap, as if uncomfortable with showing either her or his young lover affection.

  Loriane turned her head away, seeing shops and groups of revellers pass through a blur of tears.

  She thought he travelled to collect knowledge and to conduct his Chevakian stepfather’s merchanting business. She thought he belonged to her; she thought that was why he visited the Outer City. She thought . . .

  What did it matter?

  The sled stopped in front of her limpet. Loriane stepped from the sled fighting her pricking eyes. She opened the door and stumbled into the short hallway. The air was cold and still in the space between the outer layer of ice blocks and the inner wall of the limpet structure. She had tossed a few bricks in the stove this morning, but they had burnt a long time ago. Not even Isandor waited for her these days, not since he had moved to the eyrie in the City of Glass.

  Loriane charged into the central room, not waiting to see if Tandor and his mistress followed. She opened the door in the side of the huge stove and flung in a few fire bricks—rubbishy ones. No point wasting her good bricks on someone who cheated her. With a wick of fire, she then went around the circular room and lit the lanterns. Greasy curls of blubber oil rose past the sleeping shelves towards the ceiling. She indicated to what had been Isandor’s shelf, above her head.

  “The bed up there will be yours, once I’ve—”

  She turned. Tandor and the girl had come in after her. In the flapping light of the oil lamps, she saw how pale and tired the girl looked, and how young she was. And how incredibly pregnant.

  Loriane froze, looking from Tandor to the girl.

  Impossible. If Tandor had the necessary equipment, all her ten children would have been his. Or had he perhaps found a way . . . Why this girl? She’d been available for him all these years.

  The girl gave her a desperate look. “Mistress Loriane, can I please, please use your outroom?”

  Loriane played with the notion to refuse, but tucked it away just as quickly. She was a midwife first, always. “Sure, it’s at the back over there.”

  The girl stumbled past the stove to the door Loriane had indicated, clutching her belly, leaving Tandor and Loriane facing each other in an uneasy silence. The fire bricks sputtered and hissed in the stove.

  “Don’t tell me that you took her all the way from Bordertown in that condition,” Loriane said.

  “She’s in danger.”

  “From dropping the child on your lap, yes. What do you know about delivering a child, Tandor?”

  His face hardened. Right, one didn’t go there with him. “M
ust’ve been some pretty big danger to do something as stupid as that.” She flung a pan onto the cookplate and re-opened the door on the stove.

  “Loriane—”

  She grabbed the poker from its spot against the chimney and stabbed the dying coals underneath the bricks more vigorously than necessary. A volley of sparks flew into the chimney.

  “—I will explain. There’s a real danger to her—”

  “No, just leave it. When you talk like this, everything that’s real to you isn’t to me.” She hated how her voice sounded unsteady. Tandor was the only bit of colour in her dull life. She waited for his visits. She dreamed of travelling with him. Why, Tandor, why?

  A small noise indicated that the girl had finished her business in the outroom, and remained standing by the door. Loriane couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Had she asked to carry his child, did he pay her, or—she cast Tandor a glance—had he played some sort of trick on her? How had he done it?

  Loriane, jealousy is an ugly emotion.

  “Come on, shut the door, come here and sit down. Let me have a look at you.”

  The girl sat down on Loriane’s old couch and folded her hands in her lap. No, wait, one of her sleeves hung empty; she had only one hand. The other ended in a stump just above the wrist. Oh. That explained a lot. Tandor had said something about other Imperfects during his last visit. It was so long ago, she struggled to remember what it was.

  Loriane kneeled on the carpet and pushed her hands under the girl’s dress. The skin on her belly tensed into a hard ball. The girl took in a sharp breath.

  “Does that hurt?”

  “A bit.”

  Loriane prodded the skin, feeling bumps of the child’s elbows and feet. “How long do you have to go?”

  The girl shrugged.

  “Do you know when you slept with a man?” She tried to see how Tandor responded to this question, but he had gone to the other side of the stove and studied the contents of her pantry, where she couldn’t see his face.

  “Many times,” the girl whispered. “My father didn’t like it, so we climbed into the hay loft. My father was furious when my belly started growing.” Her face crumpled. “I wasn’t the only one either, just the first one. Tandor says the Knights took the others to the City of Glass. Do you know where they are?”

  Others? A chill went over Loriane’s back.

  Just what had Tandor been doing?

  “The Knights discovered the sanctuary I set up for Imperfect children in Bordertown,” Tandor said, still speaking at the wall.

  Loriane could tell from the tenseness in his posture that this was important to him. So he had found himself a bunch of teenage lovers and was breeding an army of Imperfects?

  He continued, “That’s why I took her with me. The Knights didn’t take her because of her condition, but they will be back.”

  “So you brought her to the one place in the land that’s crawling with Knights. Some days you make so much sense to me, Tandor.”

  She pulled down the girl’s dress, a coarsely-knitted thing which barely fit over her stomach. Tears trickled down the girl’s freckled cheeks.

  Loriane hated herself for being so jealous, for admitting how much she had longed for him to come back. It had all been a waste of time.

  She rose. “Come.” And charged across the room.

  When he was a small boy, Isandor, with his peg leg, had fallen down the ladder to his sleeping shelf a few times, so her brother had built him proper stairs. The girl followed Loriane up these steps to where Isandor’s bed stood, untouched and musty. It was dark up here, and the air thick with rancid smoke from the lanterns. The light that reached from downstairs was feeble and orange.

  “Take off your clothes and get in the bed.”

  Loriane snipped another lantern into life as the girl obeyed. First she took off her cloak, her jacket and her dress. In the pale light, she looked like a misshapen troll. Too skinny.

  The girl hesitated. “Bottoms, too?”

  She wore a coarsely woven pair of shorts, tied with a ribbon under her belly. Her bellybutton stood out like a weak spot on a waterskin.

  “I’ll give you some clean bottoms.”

  Myra undid the ribbon and let the garment fall to the floor, not looking at Loriane. She wore a piece of cloth between her legs, covered with blood-streaked slime.

  By the skylights. “How long have you been bleeding?”

  “Started yesterday.” Her voice trembled. “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t tell Tandor . . . Does it mean . . . the child is harmed?”

  Loriane picked up the cloth. The discharge was slimy, and brownish. “You’ve been having pains?”

  She shook her head. “Is that bad?” New tears threatened in her eyes.

  “I don’t think so. It just your body getting ready for the birth. It means that you will be having a child very, very soon.”

  “It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “If you panic and fight it. You should let the pains come over you and it will hurt a lot less.” But as skinny as you are, it will be a very hard job.

  The girl nodded but her face was pale. Oh, she was so young, and obviously no one had taught her anything about becoming or being a mother.

  Shivering, Myra slipped between the covers of Isandor’s bed. Loriane draped the blankets and Isandor’s bear skin spreads over her. Poor girl.

  “I’ll be back to bring you some soup. Eat it all. You will soon need your strength.”

  The girl nodded, but was already drifting off to sleep. Loriane guessed soup—and sleep for herself—would have to wait.

  Before going downstairs, she pulled the string to open an air vent at the limpet’s very top. For Myra’s health, air laced with smoke and smells would never do. Too many people died from stale air inside their limpets.

  Tandor paced around the stove.

  The orange light made his golden tattoos glitter. His hair was smooth and glossy, tied back in a loose ponytail from his face bronzed by the Chevakian sun. He was so handsome, so mysterious it made her heart ache.

  Tandor looked up to where she had stopped on the stairs, white-knuckled hands gripping the railing. There was a look of concern on his face, a look that said you-shouldn’t-be-doing-this-in-your-state. Loriane raised her chin, daring him to say it, but he didn’t.

  “I’m angry with you,” she said instead, still shivering. “You let that poor girl suffer. She’s scared and in pain. She needs a mother to show her what to do and I have no time—”

  “No, Loriane. I’m angry with you.”

  “Angry with me?” she whispered. “You are angry with me?”

  “About Isandor. I saw him this afternoon. He’s wearing a Knight’s uniform. What’s this, Loriane? How could you allow that?”

  “Allow it?” She gave a hollow laugh while trying to keep her voice down so Myra wouldn’t overhear. “You try and raise an adolescent boy alone and tell me how you can or cannot allow him to do anything. It was either the butcher’s or the Eagle Knights. It was his idea to sign up. I’m happy for him. The uniform looks good on him.”

  Next thing she knew, Tandor had crossed the room and was looming over her. His mouth trembled.

  “Looks good on him? By the skylights, looks good on him? Have you forgotten?” Spit flew into her face. “Have you forgotten who made me what I am, who killed my family and made me an outcast in my own country? Have you forgotten who is killing all people of my clan?”

  He had to take a panting breath.

  “No, I have not forgotten, but that’s your life, not his.”

  “It’s his life as much as it’s mine. I saved him. I asked you to
keep him safe, and where is he? With the Knighthood by the skylights. He’s Imperfect, and the Knights will kill him. I don’t understand why they haven’t done so already.”

  “Times have changed, Tandor.”

  “They haven’t. What do you know about it? How could you let him join?”

  “Well, I never received instructions that he couldn’t. And I couldn’t have stopped him if I wanted anyway. He’s a pretty wilful young man.” And much stronger than me, besides. Frankly, Isandor was starting to scare her, with the wild look in his eyes. Those times, she wondered who his parents were, and wondered why Tandor had brought him, red and screaming, to her door with the end of the umbilical cord still attached.

  “Just leave it, Tandor. It’s his life. What is it to you anyway? I’ve looked after the boy and you’ve never shown any interest in him. And now you have your little family . . .”

  Tandor’s mouth fell open. Then he threw his head back and laughed, not a pleasant laugh. Loriane motioned for him to be quiet, gesturing upstairs to the sleeping shelf.

  He snorted. “So that is what you think? You think the damage the Knights did to me can be restored like that? Yes, Loriane, this is about family, but much wider than your narrow understanding of it.”

  “I don’t care about my narrow understanding of family! You intrude into my life, impose yourself on me, let me think you feel something for me, and then you think you can get away with this and I won’t mind?” She turned away before she would burst into tears and left the living room for the outroom, slamming the door behind her.

  She stood there, panting in the dark. Forget about him, forget him.

  She lit the wick and let its end sink into the oil reservoir of the light that hung next to the door. It was cold here in the washroom, and her breath steamed in the air. Tears were streaming down her face. She had been such a fool.

  “Loriane.”

  She gasped. “Will you stop sneaking up on me like that? In my own outroom?”

  “You’re not using it.” He glanced pointedly at the seat with the hole against the outer wall of the limpet’s double layer. Natural sculptures of glistening icicles dripped down the inner cladding.