by Prue Batten
As he spoke, he saw his charge turn her head and look for him, watched her eyes open wide as they fixed on the tall Other next to him and as the flare of the lamp lit the man’s face, he saw her blanch and he stepped back. ‘Excuse me, milady needs me.’ He turned quickly and returned to the passenger seats to forestall any drama as he could see emotion beginning to brim. ‘By the way,’ he said as he left the man’s side. ‘My name is Gallivant.’
In the dark of night, the further they moved away from the flickering torches of Ferry Crossing, the more the laguna glistened like beaten metal. Adelina’s hand crushed the hob’s in her own, occasioning a visible wince. ‘Adelina,’ he whispered, ‘everybody in the world has a match somewhere. Please calm down. Think of the babe if you can’t think of yourself. Sink me, think of me if that doesn’t work.’
She looked at her friend and realised she was being ridiculously overwrought, for what did it matter if there was someone who looked like Liam. It only mattered to her surely. It was her equilibrium that was upset, no one else’s. And what could the poor man do about it anyway? He couldn’t help his most perfect face. She felt her child wriggle and slide in the dark of its nest and she slid her hand under her coat to smooth and soothe, the very act calming her as well.
Gallivant watched the stranger walk back to his seat, an air of loneliness hovering about. He would like to have invited him to sit with them but the irrational outbursts from Adelina put paid to that. Besides, the fellow was Faeran.
The ferrymaster’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Did you realise the Days of the Dark will begin in Veniche at midnight.’
‘You say?’ Gallivant asked. ‘And that is?’
‘You will have a brief time to find lodgings,’ answered the ferrymaster. ‘Then at the stroke of the hour, you will see the lights go out and for three days and nights the city will be dark. During the daylight hours it is clothed in black and immensely serious and at night nothing will light the way. If one has to travel the canals in the evening it is dangerous, mark my words. Finally at midnight on the third day, at the final stroke of the town bells, the city is lit up and Carnivale begins.’ The man grinned. ‘And then one drinks and parties furiously.’ He moved away to watch his oarsmen, balancing against the sway of the boat as the oars dragged through the water.
Adelina had heard him. Damn the heavens above. It would be hard enough with light let alone without. She asked herself once again - did she really have to do this? Go to the Gate and make sure Lhiannon was safe? Oh Aine yes. Yes I do! She wanted to know not everyone connected with her was tainted with death. Otherwise what future for her babe? And what of the robe? Would it not be a wonderful thing for the child to grow up knowing its mother’s artistry hung in the gallery amongst the Masters’ works? It was all she had to give her baby. After all, there was no father.
Then there was ‘the promise’. But did she mean the promise to exact revenge or the promise to Aine? This uneasy thought circled round and round in her head until it ached and until the stranger’s mellow tones filled the watery silence. He spoke to the ferrymaster and Adelina’s thoughts hauled to a halt as his words reverberated in her ears.
‘Tell me sir, presumably you know Veniche well. Can you tell me where the Countess Severine di Accia lives?’
The lights of the canal city danced along a yellow road of wavelets toward the bow of the ferry. In the moonlit night, the shapes of cupolas and campaniles covered in brass and copper roofing filled the space above the horizon. As the craft drew closer, vast walls winked their windowed eyes at the approaching visitors and balconies with latticed balustrades in the Raji style, legacy of a history long past, jutted out from rendered walls. Striped poles leaned drunkenly whilst others stood in sober lines marking the deeper channels.
As the evening progressed toward midnight, late gondolas slid past carrying passengers home in a race to beat the Dark. Water lapped fractiously at the walls of the buildings, eating away with each fretful slap at the fabric and structure, and here and there was a chunk missing or a crack creeping web-like across the aged facades.
But there was such beauty.
As the ferry negotiated carefully between channel markers and other craft, the passengers sat quietly, even Adelina. As each stared in awe at the floating city that surrounded them, they were uneasily aware that the surface beauty cloaked a realm of dreams and maybe even nightmares.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Veniche embodied dreams and fantasies Phelim thought as he disembarked, almost as beautiful as the woman who claimed his discrete attention. He stepped back as she passed and her eyes sought his as if she knew him and there beat an odd moment. Then her gaze bent down, the better to negotiate the step to the wharf. The hob on the other hand, gave a half-smile and a nod.
Adelina noticed the smell of decay, mould and rot together with the fug of the laguna. The mist ever present on cool nights had twined and undulated around the visitors and muffled the sounds of the wharf and the ferrymaster dismissing his crew.
Maybe because she was with child, Adelina’s stomach heaved a little and she longed to lie down and rest and not to think about where she was and why and especially not to think about that stranger because she felt something indefinable all around. Maybe then, when her head was clear and her stomach settled she could talk to Gallivant about him and why he had mentioned Severine’s name.
‘Come milady.’ The hob placed a solicitous hand on her elbow. ‘I have heard of a small inn. Let’s go. You need to sleep.’
Phelim, ever aware of the chamois bag under his clothing, felt it warm from its normally frigid state and wondered why? Perhaps because they know we are close to a Gate, he decided. He watched Gallivant and Adelina disappear into the mist, his eyes fixed on the indistinct shadow of the woman, struck again by her bereft expression. The ferry master knocked his shoulder. ‘They have the right idea. It’s cold and close to midnight, you need to find lodgings.’
Pensione Orologio was more than comfortable; to Adelina a tiny little palace – as narrow as the House of the Thrush and squeezed between a milliner’s store and a men’s outfitter. Gallivant had secured a pocket kerchief room with two beds lying affectionately side-by-side. By squeezing past the carved walnut ends one could find a chaise in front of double doors - the doors themselves, like all Venichese doors, leading to a balcony overhanging one of the smaller, quieter canals. The balustrade was fretted and carved in the Raji style and Adelina was immediately transported to Ahmadabad where windows overhung tailored gardens and where water tinkled and Raji doves cooed and fluttered. It was a memory that pained and so she sank onto the bed as Gallivant closed the doors of the balcony, sealing the room from the damp smell.
She fell into an exhausted sleep and was thus surprised and anxious when her eyes flew open to find the dark room lit by the pallid light of a sickly moon. She could hear the quiet breath of Gallivant, presumably in the bed by her side. Immediately thoughts of Veniche, Severine and her purpose for being there filled her mind and she shifted her legs from under the coverings till her toes hit the cool of the aged parquet floors. With the quietest effort, she pulled on the tunic and jodhpurs from the end of the bed and took her boots in her hands, creeping to the door and praying to Aine the parquet wouldn’t creak as it had done when they climbed the stair to the rooms. Her fingers found the elegantly wrought handle of the door and she pushed it down slowly and proceeded to pull - enough for her to squeeze through and begin her search for the Gate and news of Lhiannon.
‘And just what, mistress, do you think you are doing?’ The door slammed shut in front of her before she could slip out. Gallivant stood defiant as she swung round.
‘I thought to try and find the Gate.’
Gallivant’s expressive eyebrows shot skywards. ‘You did? Well, sink me, Adelina, and where would you start? You’re not an Other, you know. To be frank your behaviour is beginning to worry me. Where is your self-control, your logic? You can’t possibly go off in the dark in a c
ity you don’t know and begin a random search. At any time Luther might spot you. Aine, woman! Have you not thought of your child?’
Adelina had never seen the hob so filled with ire. ‘Of course I have, but...’
‘Oh but nothing.’ He took her arm and towed her back to bed. ‘Lie down. Now!’ He helped her pull off her tunic and covered her with blankets as she lay down. ‘Adelina, I am Other. If anyone can discover the portal’s whereabouts it’s me, and with complete invisibility if necessary. Do you agree?’
Chastised, she nodded, too tired to argue.
The hob rubbed her with solicitous a palm. ‘Then you must rest now for obvious reasons. And let me do a preliminary hunt tomorrow. You can finish the robe and by then I will have some information for you and we can plan. This way you are safe and Kholi’s child is safe.’ Gallivant knew he risked a flood of tears by invoking the father’s name but needs must. As it was she smiled damply and closed her eyes. Within moments, maybe even a moment of mesmer, Gallivant could see sleep had claimed her and he heaved a relieved sigh.
He sat guard by the window. Ever since the hobyahs’ attack he had been afraid for her, never dreaming he would have to protect her from herself. He looked at the face in repose. There was a Venichese artist who painted magnificent madonnas and Adelina looked just like a heavenly mother, he was sure. He sighed. He loved her deeply - as he would love a sister if he had one. She needed to be guarded - she was too spontaneous and emotional. In addition, the canals could be as full of the unseelie as any other watery place. Satisfied she was heavily in slumber, he mused quietly as he gazed at her in the last moonlight of the night.
‘That tall fellow on the boat,’ he whispered. ‘The one you thought looked like Liam. I’ll tell you something, Threadlady. You are very astute. Not that you recognised any familial likeness, I’m sure. But you did recognise Other because the fellow is Faeran. Sink me madam but the world’s an ironic place. We seek the Gate and we find a Faeran in the process. I wonder if we should have asked him for the location?’ He reached over and pulled the covers higher over her shoulders, muttering to the room at large. She was curled like a question mark, protective hands around the belly and the new life, eyes closed, breath regular and calm. ‘Huh, he’d probably not have shared the knowledge. It’s as well you can’t hear me. It would just be another wild goose for you to chase and there’s quite enough to be going on with.’ He lay on his bed, dressed and primed and staring wakefully into the dark.
Phelim had taken the ferrymaster’s directions to a likely inn. He stepped along one alley after another and over some precious little bridges shaped like the humps of Raji camels until he found the entrance of the Pensione Esperia, a place of faded grandeur not far from the Grand Canal and where plants hid chipped paint. The parquet, like all Venichese parquet, squeaked and groaned as it was traversed. But it was a clean establishment and had a large room with a garde-robe and twin beds. It looked out over a narrow calle and if one leaned precariously, one could see a bigger canal in the distance.
As he had proceeded along the cobbled alleys, his footsteps echoing from one high wall to another, he followed in the steps of the night watchmen as they snuffed street lamps, torchères and braziers. Phelim wondered if he was entering some unseelie underworld as the lights progressively disappeared. Blackness and shadow festered and footsteps became disembodied sounds, perhaps unfriendly - who would know? In the increasing silence of the Dark a cat yowled and further away a street cur barked half-heartedly in response. Phelim, for all that he was Faeran, was glad when he turned into the Esperia - he needed to give the Dark some thought.
He laid his coat over a chair and pulled out the chamois bag from under his shirt to place it on the coffer by his bed. The bag seemed so innocent of interest; scuffed hide, the drawstring faded, stains where he had bled through the frosted blisters on his ribs - such a mundane appearance for something of such import.
He had been disappointed the ferrymaster was unfamiliar with Severine’s address; he only wanted to know so that he could avoid the danger therein. The fellow knew the woman of course but he rarely ventured beyond the wharf on workdays and his own home was on the island of Marino where he led a village existence by the side of the laguna. He stripped off his clothes and washed himself before climbing between crisp linen sheets, lying back with his arms behind his head. Glancing down, he registered the frostbite against his ribs and thought of the bag and how it had warmed as Gallivant Goodfellow and his Traveller friend passed by. He recalled the woman’s face again. She was beautiful - lush and full of promise but with some sort of melancholy that bit deep.
His fingers ran gently over the blisters just as they would if they ran over the woman’s face. Skimming the rawness with the touch of a butterfly’s wings, pattering away the hurt. Looking down he realized there would be more damage as long as he hung the pouch under his shirt. He reached for the glass of wine by his bed and wondered how the woman’s distress could be soothed and what she would think of his Faeran ancestry and then he had an absurd desire to tell her if she ever asked, that he was indeed an Other and would deny his heritage, for it made him unhappy.
***
Had I been aware my unfamiliar companion on our ferry trip was Faeran, do you think I would have been friendly? For the sake of Liam, for the sake of Lhiannon, for the sake of Elriade the silk seller?
I suppose I would. But it was hypothetical and hardly of concern at that very point in my life. The only thing that truly worried me as I lapsed into a heavy sleep that first night at the inn was how he could know of Severine? It scared me that even on the ferry I was unable to escape the threads of her web. I determined as my eyelids crashed down to block out the world, that I would ask Gallivant what he thought in the morning.
But now we have just finished the last book of the second last design on the robe. We have entered and exited each godet on the front and back and we have finally reached the enormous design that spreads itself over the centre back seam.
It is the marriage piece and I’m sure you guessed quickly to whom I dedicated every stitch. The bride and groom of course - one dark, one titian and dressed in silks and with lace stitch fan in the hand of the bride - can only be Liam of the Faeran and Ana, his mortal betrothed.
There are a number of journals hidden here, enough to finish the story. But one at a time, so firstly go to the folds of the groom’s shoulder cloak. As you can see, it is appliquèd to the robe and it is just a question of lifting two or three of the stab-stitches and you will find the book beneath. There are four other books hidden amongst the stitching of my bride and groom and one of them you must not touch, the one hanging from the bride’s hand. Please, I beg you.
On pain of death.
You think I jest? I do not. Remember that Faeran and Others have become my friends and there is such a charm on that particular book that in fear of your life you must do as I say.
You will find out why at the end of our story and if you are the friend I think you to be then you will pay attention and observe what I have said. Indeed, if you have read the story thus far and you are still with me, you have obviously paid heed from that very first time when I requested you read the books in sequence if the fires of damnation were not to be lit.
In any case you have one to read now. So shall we continue?
Chapter Thirty
Dawn arrived like a flood. Moisture ran down windows and exterior walls and the persistent patter and tumble of drops down drainpipes stretched nerves.
The Dark before Carnivale could be a difficult time. Few people ventured out, there was an air of shadow about the city aided and abetted by the time-honoured ritual of dressing in black. The funereal shade served to heighten the atmosphere and many chose to stay indoors close to hearth and home. The emphasis on darkness inevitably created some expectation that the unseelie might be about in more pressing numbers. Certainly there was a lift in crime about the city-state, but whether this could be attributed to some eldr
itch being or whether the offenders were entirely mortal and taking advantage of a situation was a moot point. No one was prepared to argue that by celebrating the Days of the Dark the city was any more or less dangerous than normal. Besides, Carnivale was so good for the merchants’ coffers before the Dark began each year, it was highly unlikely it would ever be banned without a massive outcry. It was easier to be aware, to have talismans, charms and potions and to conclude all necessary business before the Dark commenced.
History says the Days of the Dark began hundreds of years ago when the city suffered a famine after years of drought. Rats and mice abounded and disease and starvation were rife. But then had come three days of torrential rain... of gloom and grey and sombre moods where death and destruction appeared at the door and the Reaper was heard at every second corner. But the days of dripping rain and the accompanying dark shadow had perfected a miracle in the city and its mainland environs. The pestilent and germ-ridden alleys and inns, villas, huts and palazzos were washed clean and crops on the mainland grew.
The next year, a similar period of seasonal rain occurred. But with a difference - the citizenry celebrated the end of the three days with a feast. Thus Carnivale grew to become a vast theatre of extreme colour, of vibrant masks and extravagant silk and satin clothes. There was absolutely no effort amongst the citizenry to recognise or placate Others during this festival. This was purely a time for mortal self-indulgence on a grand scale.
So amongst the angst at the diminution in business around the streets and the dislike of the black as Hades nights, there simmered an air of acute expectation and none stronger than in the Palazzo Di Accia.
