I pull a golden vial from my apron and carefully toss it towards her; she snatches it from the air, quick as a snake. She appears to concentrate and then, as if on cue, she weeps. No actress treading the stages of the great cities could do better. Sluggish silver tears creep down her cheeks and she holds the ampoule up to catch them, first one side, then the next. She cries freely, generously. When she is done, she pushes the stopper home, making sure nothing can escape, then slips down the rock and swims to me in a flash of white skin-now scales, flashing feet-now tail. She reaches up and offers me the vial; I reach down and give her the coil of hair; we swap our treasures at the same moment.
We both smile, each certain that she has gained the better part of the bargain.
On the day the Revenant docked, I was placing the last stitches in my quilt, the silver thimble he’d brought me all the way from Lodellan shining on my pointer finger. Pure damask, a double wedding ring pattern embroidered in argent threads. Between the two internal layers of padding I had sewn a series of tokens: tiny sterling horseshoes, miniature bags containing sprigs of apple blossom, yet others of althea and balm of gilead, cardamom and clove, rose and lavender; love knots and bows, four coins (one for each corner), and seersucker clovers.
And it was white, so white, white as snow, white as bone.
I finished my task, dexterously folded the coverlet, wrapped it in a laurel green cloth, tied it all together with a silk ribbon, then gently placed it in the box of reinforced hunter-coloured brocade decorated with gold lace trim. The box with the tiny stain in one corner that was ruined for customers, but which Mistress Saunders was more than happy to let me have. I wonder now, as I did not then, why I was so willing to accept second best things.
Outside, the air was fresh and intoxicating after a morning of being cooped up in my attic room. I wandered down to the docks, thinking to buy some of the sweet small fish Léolin kept aside, perhaps a fresh loaf of bread, which would be delicious today and passable tomorrow. As I neared, I could hear the sounds of ships creaking against moorings, of men shouting to one another, of cargo and baggage being hefted to and fro, and, beneath it all, the carillon peel of rusalky voices on the breeze. Salt aromas clung to hulls that had known the seas but days before, and I daydreamed of voyages I would take alongside Adlai.
“Careful, hen, or you’ll fall in the drink. C’mon, pay attention now.” Léolin’s rough voice was belied by the kindness in his tone. He was tall and broad, blond and bearded, with skin red and rugged. He made a good living, but smelled like fish. “You’re looking pleased with yourself, and your feet are barely touching the ground.”
“I’ve finished my quilt, laid the last stitch,” I fairly sang, and his face darkened.
“You’ll be looking for your man, then,” he observed, and shook his head, began adjusting the shiny grey bodies all lined up on the bench of his stall. “Wait; I’m sure he’ll have business hereabouts.”
He lifted his chin and I followed the direction of his gaze.
The Revenant was a clipper from Breakwater; it plied the seas then crept up rivers like ours, to despatch passengers and some cargo—mostly high end, expensive and small, cargo and passengers both—and it was a vessel on which Adlai had taken passage more than once. A party of five was tripping down the gangplank. A pretty pink miss with large eyes led them, with a parasol to protect her, an ecru and lapis dress with bustle and gold lace cuffs, her caramel-coloured hair all caught up in a net with the sheen of spider silk covered with morning dew, and a teeny-tiny hat perched on the crown of her head, tilted ever so slightly to the left. She was accompanied by an older woman, grey-haired, grey-gowned, with a black mourning veil wrapped tight about her face as if her private grief might never be allowed to escape; two girls—the Miss’s sisters? cousins?—not yet in their twenties, who looked like twin roses in coral dresses and white gloves; and there was a man, old, serious in appearance, with the air of a majordomo about him—a man used to organising affairs.
I watched and listened as arrangements were made for their effects to be decanted from the ship as soon as possible and delivered, post-haste, to the house at Number Six Lady’s Mantel Court. As I pondered this there was the sound of a carriage clattering to a halt; a fiacre, shining with red and black lacquer and gold fittings, drawn by four night-coloured horses, each with ebony leather trappings studded with brass bits and fastened with brass buckles. The conveyance pulled up and Adlai, lithe and resplendent in pale fawn breeches, hand-crafted square-toed shoes, brocade tailcoat with emerald buttons, white silk shirt, golden cravat, and a magnificent waistcoat of cream and cerise and wheat, stepped forth. He bowed so deeply to the lady at the centre of the party that I thought his fine tricorne hat (in shades of chocolate) might fall from his cinnamon curls. But no; it was judged perfectly, his obeisance, like all things Adlai had done—had learned to do—all the things that drew him further from me.
When he straightened, he was bold—but just the right amount—stepping in close to the pretty girl, one hand on her elbow, the other around her waist, his lips to her ear, almost touching, and I could see the wet glimmer of his tongue as he spoke words no one else could hear, but which I suspected I knew, for he had told them to me enough times. But to her—to her he would mean them. On her left hand glistened a fat sapphire set in gold, a piece I recognised. He had shown it to me and promised it would be mine, one day. And I noticed at that very moment, the flash of enamel at the join of her prim collar, twisted in the shape of a lovers’ knot.
The rusalky chorus, which had been as steady a rhythm as an untroubled heartbeat, seemed to swell at that moment, impossibly high. Penetrating the air between their rocky domain and the docks, shocking all who heard it, making eardrums ring. Or perhaps that was simply my perception.
Then Adlai broke contact, and time moved again. He greeted the governess, the twins, the majordomo, and bustled them all towards the fiacre, which would be snugly packed, but he would sit so close, so close to the pretty girl, perhaps she would be almost in his lap—propriety suspended a little, after all, they were affianced and such a man could surely be trusted with a lady’s honour. Certainly with a lady’s honour. Not that, though, of a stupid illiterate quilter.
I watched. He was the last to climb into the carriage and he must have felt the weight of my gaze, for he turned and found me, standing in my faded lavender dress, with its made-over sleeves, patches, and many-times-repaired hem, the white lace applied to make it seem not so poor. For I spent no money on clothes, setting it all aside at first for his voyages then later when he stopped needing it, for our wedding, our life. For all the things that would never happen.
He smiled at me, sadly, nervously.
I wondered how long he’d thought he could get away with it. Not even I could tell myself she was a guest, the daughter of a business partner simply passing through, being offered hospitality. Perhaps I would have tried, had it not been for that look, that last look as he turned his head and hauled himself into the carriage and I saw him seated beside the pretty girl, one hand lightly laid over her pale two.
Léolin’s paw was heavy with sympathy on my shoulder and, did I but realise it, hope. I heard him say my name and it occurred to me, finally, that Adlai had not used it for some time.
After the sun had set and good folk were sitting down to their evening meal, I took one of the bridges to the Vines District. I was unsure what I would do. Whether I would knock on that pastel door, ask to speak to the master of the house. Whether I would simply stand on the corner cloaked in twilight and watch the windows as people moved past them, carrying tapers to light lamps and candles. Whether I would take one of the stones I had placed in my pockets and hurl it at those very same windows, purely for the joy of hearing the shattering of their expensive glass and the high-pitched shrieks of well-bred women.
As it transpired I had no chance to do anything.
From behind, hands grabbed me and pulled me into deeper shadows. A cloth came over my mouth
and nose, stinking of belladonna. Sleep was swift.
I run a finger across the stump of my tongue. It no longer aches, the scars are smooth now with the stitches removed and the blood-crusts gone. Despite the absence I still sometimes think it yet remains—a phantom tongue to match my phantom voice.
Setting aside the quilt, I stand—this new quilt is all but ready, the two halves finely made, some strips and scraps of my old wedding quilt worked in, so that skerricks of lost hopes and broken dreams will cling to it. It needs only to be pinned and sewn together, then the pattern I have chosen stitched, but the second ingredient is needed.
From beneath my bed, I draw a cup of water. Last night it was clean and clear when I placed it there. Now it is black and churns of its own accord, filled with the nightmares that would otherwise plague me if I did not employ this simple piece of magic to draw them away and trap them. Carefully, I add it to the contents of the stout earthenware jar Magnus gave me. I slide the flat copper disk into place then heat the stick of red wax, and seal the container, blowing gently to cool and set it quickly. I move into the sitting room, which is filled with light from the large windows and thence to the lean-to which runs off the kitchen. This is where Magnus grinds her herbs, mixes her potions, and casts her spells; a small area, cramped, its shelves over-laden, and hanging from the ceiling are bunches of dried plants waiting their turn to be made into something else. I place the jar on the workbench where it will be ready for her when she returns, and hidden from Léolin when he arrives.
Mother Magnus is a hedge witch. She is not shunned, nor is she embraced. She is, however, accepted as an essential part of Bellsholm’s life. Her magic can shade from white to black, should she choose and should her clients pay enough. Her cottage, neat and tidy, is just at the edge of the town, just before the earth begins to climb, to roll up to the Singing Rock. There are no other dwellings nearby. This, perhaps, was why Léolin brought me here.
In the grey dawn, Léolin out in his dory, noticed what seemed a lavender sack floating downriver; then he recognised the rags of white lace, then the red hair stretching out like waterweed. When he pulled me aboard, I coughed and he had a brief hope, for it was a sign of life—but with that cough came a great gout of blood and a sound—oh, a sound he swears he never wishes to hear again. Something told him not to take me back to the town, not to try the doctors there, the doctors who socialised with Adlai. He made his way to the shore, then carried me to Magnus and begged her to save me.
And save me she did, although for a long while I would not have thanked her for it. She healed the cuts, helped the bruises fade faster, set the breaks in my arm and ribs, and stopped me choking on my own blood where they’d cut out my tongue. Léolin has told me since, somewhat unwillingly, that that particular part of me was taken as proof of my death, presented to my erstwhile beloved. I was fortunate; I suppose that they were too lazy to try for the heart as well. These are the rumours he collects, the whispers from the docks where worlds mix and mingle and good folk might hear terrible things about what has been done and covered up.
Magnus has tried, too, since that day, to mend the breaks in my spirit, but I did not respond until she began to stoke the strange and terrible cold fire of revenge. She knew, I think, that it was the only way to keep me alive, the only way to keep me from sliding into the apathetic darkness of death—for I was determined to walk that path for the longest time.
“Do something,” begged Léolin as he sat beside my bed in those first days and weeks. “Do anything.”
I wonder if he would have said the same thing if he knew what Magnus dangled before my dimly flickering soul in order to pull me back.
There is a knock, politely tentative. I wait and then the door opens, as always, and Léolin ducks his height under the lintel. He can stand straight inside, but must watch his head. He carries a posy of lilac roses and windflowers; the townsfolk surely must think he is courting Magnus. He blushes to see me and smiles. No matter that he plucked me from the river, that he saw me at my lowest, that he has seen me more in the past few months than he ever did in the time I lived in the town, that he has lain with me, he still flushes like a lad whenever he arrives.
“Hello, my dove, I like your hair.” He fingers its sheared edges in wonder. We do not kiss but we do all the other things a courting couple might. Léolin makes plans for us.
“When you’re quite better, hen, we’ll leave. I have enough for us both. There’s anywhere in the wide world we can go; put your finger on a map, choose a compass point and that’s where we shall be.”
I smile as he speaks and I listen. I wonder sometimes if this was how I sounded to Adlai. Léolin does not know how ruined I truly am.
After he leaves, Magnus discretely returns, her basket filled with medicinal blooms and newly-dug roots, a rabbit or two to feed us for the next few days. She has been trying to teach me my letters. I try, I do, but I cannot help but feel it is merely a distraction—that, having shown me a path, she now wishes to divert me from it.
Magnus is tall, her hair ash-white, but her face belies that colour, the skin smooth and creamy, a wide plum of a mouth—she has not yet crossed over that boundary into the shadow-land where women become invisible. Her figure is fleshy but shapely, her eyes the colour of honey, and her smile is ready.
“I saw Léolin,” she says, “on the road.”
I simply watch her. We have had this one-sided conversation before and I do not imagine its direction will change.
“He would take you, you know. Take you elsewhere, uproot his whole life all for your sake. You don’t have to do what you’ve planned.”
We have made ourselves understood with signals and signs these past weeks and months. When I first came to her, it was she who offered me solutions, with me accepting and refusing alternatively with nods and head shakes. It was she who suggested the option I ultimately chose and now she asks if I am sure? I don’t even nod, merely lift an eyebrow and look towards the bench in the lean-to, where she can see the earthenware jar awaiting her attention. Awaiting her ministrations so I might have my second ingredient.
I need her and her wide-reaching, her all-encompassing magics—the tiny spells I have always known are white as white can be. They are good. But what I need now must be black as the cat curled by the cold kitchen hearth. I pay Mother Magnus in nightmares, in aqua nocturna. All I ask in return is a little dust.
“He doesn’t know, does he? You will not tell him?”
I shake my head and look away, find the cat regarding me with large green eyes.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “Certain this is the path you wish to take?”
I nod, and stare at her so she cannot mistake the answer. She blows out a heavy breath and I think she deflates a little, seems to age, to bow and bend; then the moment is past and she inclines her head.
The bottom half of the quilt lies across my bed. I have covered my mouth with a cloth, as per Magnus’s instructions, so I don’t breathe in any of the dust made from the water of my nightmares. “Do not waste a speck,” she said. Attentively, I upend the black pouch and sprinkle its contents over the fine white felt I have used as a warm lining. I make sure it is evenly distributed and as I watch each particle worms its way into the fabric, disappearing, embedding itself into the fibre and the future. When I can no longer see the argent-grey gilings, I lay the top half over and pin it in place. Then I pin the pattern that I will quilt, much as I did when I made my own, but this time I make a forest of trees, which a careful eye might note is actually a nest of serpents, but I make their long bodies look like trunks, their heads and tongues seem like flowers, all so intertwined that only the most alert, the most perspicacious might notice the malice sewn there. I place stitches with a silver thread, spun by Magnus from the rusalka’s tears.
When I am finished, my eyes and hands ache. I show the coverlet to Magnus. “Just in time,” she says, fingering the border thoughtfully.
While the inhabitants of Bellsholm are eit
her at the wedding of Adlai and the girl I now know to be Edine, daughter of a rich Breakwater merchant, or celebrating it in one of the taverns, I will set foot in the house at Number Six Lady’s Mantel Court for the one and only time. Covered and cloaked, I have wandered and stalked, meandered and crept through the town’s streets and byways so many evenings these past months, moving like a spectre unseen and unsuspected. Magnus gave me a pair of soft slippers, their soles enchanted to muffle any noise I might make.
Now I move towards the Vines district in the dimness of dusk, my gift carefully wrapped and bundled on my back like a pack; I sidestep revellers and avoid any who might be sober enough to peer under my hood, perchance to recognise my face. And I slide through the tiny lane behind Lady’s Mantel Court, where there is a back gate for deliverymen to use. I sidle up the gravel path, making not a sound, and thence inside through the servants’ entrance, left unlocked so those preparing for the happy couple’s return might enter and exit with ease. Up the stairs to the second floor, along the corridor towards the front of the house, where there is only one door—the master bedroom runs the width of the building.
The room is a symphony of grey-blues and creams, and all the furniture is of white oak: a roll-top desk, dresser drawers, a vanity complete with cushioned stool, two matching armchairs and a chaise longue placed around a delicate low table inlaid with mother-of-pearl. A walk-in dressing room and bathroom are at one end, and at the opposite, a canopied bed.
Upon it already lies a quilt. I look it over, wasting precious moments with professional contempt. The stitching is shoddy, the design mundane—flowers and rabbits—it may well be the work of my former Mistress; she had not sewn since I began to work for her and it seems her skill has deserted her. I yank the spread away, rolling it tightly and pushing it under the bed, where the layers of ruffled valance will hide it from prying eyes. I replace it with the coverlet of my making. It is perfect; even if anyone should notice the change, no one will remove it—not so close to the wedding night when another might not be found, and certainly not when it is as exquisite as this.
A Feast of Sorrows, Stories Page 16
