The Last Stitch (The Chronicles of Eirie: 2)

by Prue Batten

  ‘Huh, there has to be some advantage to being Other. I just hope another is that we can save my lady friend. Let’s go.’ He leaped onto the craft like a dancer, the boat barely shifting.

  Phelim jumped aboard, his thoughts on Adelina’s bereft face. Stepping to the stern, he began to pole the craft backward out in to the middle of the waterway. He directed the bow along the canal and they passed under bridge after bridge until a broad swathe of black water met them at the junction. ‘We go left,’ he whispered. ‘To the Bridge of Sighs. See that shape right up there, the bridge that is mask-shaped.’ He pointed into the wet and misty gloom. ‘It’s just past there.’

  He poled deftly, standing at the stern, bending into the pole stroke, one leg stretched behind the other. The oar made a faint rhythmic squeak in its post and he ran his hand in front of his chest, reducing the uneasy tool to silent movement. The palazzos, the Libreria, the Museo all slid past silently as the Bridge of Sighs emerged in the mist. ‘It’s traditionally the bridge where masked women throw tokens down to their lovers as they pass underneath in gondolas.’ He spoke gently to Gallivant to ease the hob’s angst. ‘But it’s also the bridge where the condemned pass from the Courts of Justice to the executioner. It’s strange a bridge can mean two such disparate things.’ A faded fresco of lovers lying within an arbor graced the smooth arch. ‘It would be pleasing to think Severine would pass over this bridge after she had suffered the Courts’ indulgence.’ Phelim knew it was a mortal comment that passed his lips and it pleased him that some of Ebba was still ingrained. ‘A life sentence, perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t think so, she deserves something far worse.’ Gallivant muttered.

  Phelim raised an eyebrow and then spoke softly. ‘There. See?’ He stopped poling.

  On the left bank of the canal sat an elegant palace glowing pale as moonlight in the night and taking up a whole block with a canal on either side. It was three stories high, each long window arched with fluted masonry, cobwebbed traceries of leadlighting marking the windows themselves. On the second storey, a balcony ran the breadth of the building, carved in the Raji style in quatrefoil patterns. Even in the dark of the evening with a vacillating mist, the ivory paintwork and cream marble set up its own reflective light. In front of the building, poles stood to attention and a studded pair of doors warded off the unwanted.

  The two companions stared at it. Gallivant whispered. ‘What now?’

  ***

  Had I known my hob and his new friend were close by, I would have felt less of the pain that assaulted me, for Luther used me as roughly as a man can. I cannot and will not say anything more about it as it sickens me and brings me to the edge of an abyss.

  My rapist consigned me to a room at the top of some building to begin his work. I know because I was forced on contused legs to climb at least three long sets of stairs and counting them stopped me screaming. He threw a large blanket over me afterward as I lay in a heap on the floor but I cared about nothing as I shivered there.

  ‘Adelina, the pleasure was mine.’ Luther assailed me with his filthy words. ‘Your body is a delight that I find I must have more of and which I shall do after I take you to Severine. She’ll want the robe and then I think she’ll give you back to me. Behir woman, I shall enjoy the gift. I have so much to repay you for and there is so much else I want to try with you. This was just an opener shall we say.’ He burst out laughing as he re-buttoned his breeches.

  The door locked and I succumbed to a cold silence bereft of thought.

  A faint light stretched across the floor and glinted on a piece of broken glass near my hand. Sharp, part of a bottle perhaps and my mind sped through the process - glass, cut, bleed, death, Kholi. My fingers curled around it and drew it towards me.

  I stretched my other arm out and laid the glass against my wrist. I couldn’t imagine the pain being any worse than the rape of a pregnant woman and I felt the tears scald as I remembered the brutality Kholi’s child had just suffered. How could any fledgling survive that?

  I raised the glass to slice and as I did a sensation issued against my belly wall like a small hand tapping against a door. Again and then again.

  I sucked in my breath.

  My child demanded my attention. Against the odds, against the battering that had pounded the walls of its home, it lived and in its staccato rhythm against my womb it seemed to say, ‘don’t give up, we have a long way to go together and much to do.’

  And so, my friend, have you.

  Shrink the latest book and replace it under the groom’s shoulder cape. And then repair to his black tricorn hat with its carmine feather. I wired and embroidered it in another hoop, then cut it out and applied it to the head of my groom. It is capacious enough to fit a thick book underneath, so once again you will have to slice some of the stab-stitches that hold the hat in place.

  There are so few hiding places left now and only three more books beyond this one. I beg you to remember what my instructions were. On pain of death, don’t touch the one hanging from the bride’s hand, please.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  ‘There are no house brownies, only Siofra.’ Gallivant had paddled rapidly back across the canal to his companion on the landing stage at the Ca’ d’Oro opposite Severine’s palatial home. ‘And I have found out what we need to know. She’s there.’ Using the skill that so drove Adelina mad, to pass through a building no matter how thick the walls, he had ventured deep into the stronghold and found the kitchens and cellars to be bereft of any Other life at all. Bemused, he passed into the cobbled yard at the rear, where tubs of dripping bay and olive trees stood sentinel in the empty space. He could hear sparrow-like chattering coming from a half opened door on the other side of the yard so he crept like a shade towards the noise.

  A party of Venichese Siofra sat around a small flame. Like their mortal counterparts, they were dressed in black and the women sat applying tiny feathers to masks while the men deftly splashed gold paint around.

  ‘Hola, friends,’ Gallivant whispered a soft greeting.

  The Siofra jumped but seeing the hob, settled back to their tasks. ‘What do you want, hob? You’ll not be welcome in that house,’ said an aged fellow as he sucked at his pipe, his cheeks puffing like bellows.

  ‘I can see,’ replied Gallivant. ‘Does the palazzo have no hobs or brownies at all?’

  A pretty Siofra with a turquoise feather in her hand spoke up. ‘That woman wouldn’t want Others in the house. When one moved in, there were instructions that within a day a set of clothes should be laid out and they would be forced to leave.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘Siofra go where they like and when,’ she replied with a pointed laugh. ‘It is not for the likes of that hell-spawn to dictate to us.’

  ‘I like your spirit, there are many Others who could emulate you.’ The hob watched the Siofra preening with satisfaction. ‘Do you ever go into the palazzo yourself?’

  There was a chorus of delighted chuckles. Like a flock of finches.

  ‘Of course, whenever we like.’

  ‘Today, this night?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I look for someone.’ The hob sat on a wine-cask and hung his clasped hands between his knees. ‘Ithink they may be here.’

  ‘There is only a mortal woman that the brute Luther has locked in the top rooms. She’s very ugly. Her hair is shorn and she’s dirty. But then, so’s he.’ The turquoise feather was given a final push and took its place amongst others on the diminutive mask as Gallivant’s heart began a racketing beat. ‘That’s who you search for, isn’t it? Hob, she’s mortal!’ The woman’s tone was scathing. ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘She is in my care,’ was all the hob would say.

  ‘Then you don’t do a good job, letting her be locked up here.’ The little woman who did all the talking cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘And let me tell you this - you will never get her out, the brute has the one key and she can’t pass through walls like you.’


  ‘But they told me there are windows all along the top storey, Phelim. We can do this. We must do this! If we go down that canal on the side there, there is a large tree draping over the water and we can climb to the balcony on the first floor and then there are ornamental grilles we can use as ladders to the balconies on the next level and the next. Adelina is in one of the top rooms.’

  Phelim looked at the hob’s desperate face. ‘Do you propose to make her climb down the same way, with child as she is?’

  ‘No, no... I don’t know. Sink me, can’t you mesmer?’

  Phelim sighed, time would tell. ‘Let’s just find her first. Something will reveal itself, I’m sure.’

  The companions poled the gondola to the small, bending canal that laced away round corners to some far away distance. Phelim waved his hand over the rope line and it climbed to knot itself amongst the hanging branches of the ancient olive that bent gnarled branches over the dark grey water. Then they climbed up the branches and around the corner onto the first floor balcony with its carved balustrade. Phelim hoisted Gallivant onto his shoulders and the hob grasped the ornamental grille and climbed rapidly to the next balcony with its smaller quatrefoil design and then to the next. Phelim slipped in quietly beside him.

  ‘Maybe we should have manifested inside the building, ’ the hob swore as his feet slipped on the wet marble, ‘instead of all this climbing.’

  ‘Indeed, but it is as well to spy the lie of the land for Adelina’s descent and hob, I have my doubts about her being able to get down the way we got up.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Gallivant snapped as he edged along the balcony.

  It stretched its narrow and decorative way the width of the palazzo. Wide enough only for the two to progress in single file, looking in each darkened window and hoping to spy something – anything. But each window was empty.

  A nightbird hooted from close by, startling the pair.

  ‘She has to be here, she has to be.’ The hob’s whisper was on the slide to hysteria.

  Phelim leaned against one of the windows, worrying for the woman, for her condition. He turned to examine the darkened interior and thought he saw a huddle that could have been a pile of rugs or some such. ‘Look! What do you think?’

  ‘What, what?’ Gallivant leaped to his side, his voice sharp.

  ‘Ssh, look. Could it be someone on the floor?’

  The hob cupped hands over eyes to peer through the glass. ‘Yes. It is!’ He whipped through the glass of the window and Phelim watched him bend over the tumble of fabric. He kneeled and cradled something in his arms and then smoothed his hand and kissed the top of a head that drooped. He bent lower, looking into her face, speaking earnestly, gesticulating over his shoulder. She moved and the hob eased his arm under her and then walked carefully to the window.

  Phelim wafted his arm in front of his body and the window catch flipped up, the fenestration opening wide like a door. A leg appeared, bare and bruised, then a shoulder and a head that would have been capped in short russet hair if he could see it properly. She was dressed in nothing but torn smalls and his heart broke at her indignity so that his hand came up and within minutes she was clothed in breeches and a sweater, some boots and a jacket.

  He held her hand gently, feeling emotion creeping through his body and then he spoke to them, the woman’s exhaustion and delicate condition not lost on his sensibilities.

  ‘We must travel across the rooves and quickly.’

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  ‘Now a city... slips beneath us... Castle rooftops battered by the tide’s foamy tentacles.’ Another of Ebba’s poems echoed in Phelim’s mind as he edged Adelina across the terracotta roof tiles. She stepped over a row of decorative marble crockets cut and honed to the sharpness of knives. At their edge the threesome looked out over Veniche - row upon twisting and curved row of canal, flat rooves, rippled and decorative rooflets, coned chimneystacks, erect campaniles and arched cupolas and in the distance the expanse of the laguna wrapping itself around the city like a dark blanket.

  ‘It’s no good here, too wide to traverse.’ Phelim turned away, pushing Adelina ahead, in the circle of his arms. ‘Further along the canal, it might narrow.’

  All they could see as they looked down was an abyss of black shadow, the water indistinct apart from the fractious lapping against the palazzo walls, the whole uninviting

  They had reached the end of the palazzo’s extremes, placing each foot carefully on the tiles and skirting around conical chimneys that were cold and cheerless to the touch. Pigeons poked heads out from under wings and gave them baleful looks, a few clacking their wings and making a nervous burble at the back of their throats. But the threesome continued their careful way, their speed geared to Adelina’s condition.

  She hadn’t uttered a word, just followed like a trusting child. Phelim’s heart had shifted at the terrible bruises on the bare legs before he had clothed her. In the night gloom, he couldn’t see the wounded sadness in Adelina’s eyes but he knew without doubt that it was there.

  ‘Here, look - steps! Must be for the tilers and chimney sweeps,’ the hob whispered just loud enough for them to hear. He led the way, Adelina following at a much slower pace. Suddenly there was a terrific yowl and a thud and the companions froze.

  ‘Gallivant?’ Phelim whispered into the night.

  ‘Bloody cat,’ his angry reply hissed back. Adelina’s face softened as she stepped down the ladder. She wasn’t yet ready for mirth but the hob had cracked something, if not his bones. Phelim noticed and allowed himself a breath of relief.

  He helped her onto more iron steps stretching down from Severine’s roof to her neighbour’s, his hand guiding her as if it should never let go. Clambering down, her toe slipped off the wet rail and she banged onto the tiles below. Again hearts leaped and they all stood still expecting an armed Luther to appear on the edge of the roof. But silence prevailed. Nothing. Phelim rubbed Adelina’s arm. ‘Alright? Can you make it to the next edge?’

  Adelina’s need to escape was paramount and she hugged the roof, feeling her way along slippery as ice, moss-covered tiles. She reached one of the odd, cone-shaped chimneys and as she went to step round, another cat shot out as if Huon and the Hunt were behind. Her feet slid as she stepped back with a gasp and she fell hard on her hip to begin the inexorable slide toward the edge and the grim water of the canal below. The tiles tore at her jacket and against her skin as the downward slide pushed the fabric up against her ribs. She bit down on her cries, on her fear and her breath held tight in her throat as she scrabbled with bleeding fingers for anything that would stop her descent.

  Her feet struck a barricade and she slid to a halt, enough to enable her to sit up, rub elbows and pull her clothes back over an exposed and bruised back.

  ‘Let me help.’ Phelim appeared at her side. Gallivant, unaware of her predicament, had disappeared further around the chimney. She nodded. As she looked to her toes she saw there was no barricade, nothing but air, and yet her feet touched something large and unyielding.

  ‘Thank you’ she whispered and looked up at him. She gave a hint of a smile, a tip to a corner of the mouth, and then dropped her gaze.

  Phelim said nothing as he helped her to her feet and gently pushed her to continue. She trod on, putting one foot in front of the other, the need to protect her child driving her across the roofline. They breached the end of this next roof and stood by box guttering.

  The canal had narrowed and was hung below with laundry-lines weighted with dripping loads. They had reached the end of Severine’s immediate domicile and would only describe a square back to their point of departure if they followed any more of the roofline they occupied.

  ‘We haven’t any option, we have to jump over to that next block. We shall be well away from the palazzo then and can follow the alleys more safely to get to our inn.’ Phelim guaged the jump, knowing he was asking the impossible.

  ‘You expect Adelina to jump from here to there in her
condition?’ The hob stood legs akimbo, hands on hips.

  Adelina’s head hung and her hands shielded her belly. Phelim knew she hadn’t the strength to make the leap but could see no other means of escape. Their luck began to teeter on the edge of the guttering.

  ‘I can do it.’ She spoke into the dripping silence. ‘It’s alright, I can do it.’

  ‘Adelina!’ Gallivant swung around but she shook her head at him.

  The hob walked over to Phelim and in a surly undertone, gave him a whispered blast. ‘Friend Faeran, you’d best do something pretty good because that is a huge gap to leap over. It’s impossible for any mortal. I tell you man, if she is hurt I shall curse you until you are dead!’ He stepped back over the tiles to the edge of the roof to look down at the houses that were almost lost in the mist and gloom.

  ‘You first Gallivant, then you can be there for Adelina.’

  Phelim watched as the hob stood at the guttering. He raised himself onto his toes and like a diver, launched himself up and out. Being Other, the distance was as elastic as he wanted it to be and he floated like a piece of mask-plumage to the lower level opposite.

  Phelim took Adelina’s hand and felt a gentle tingle through his body, not a frisson, something more emotive and far-reaching. ‘Are you ready? I swear it will be safe.’ Again he heard Ebba’s voice as she recounted the poems of his childhood. ‘Longlegged boys leapt from rooftop to rooftop. The dark between their legs widening as they spread.’ He smiled to himself, realizing that on every strife-strewn step of the way, Ebba had been with him and would continue to be.