by Ash, Sarah
No sooner had they arrived in the city, than Lord Stoyan insisted that Gavril meet with him to discuss an urgent matter, so Kiukiu was left with the servants to supervise the unpacking. Unused to having others doing the tasks she was used to performing herself, she busied herself with feeding and cleaning Larisa, whilst Sosia and Taina, the mansion housekeeper, removed the clothes from the trunk.
“What are all these paintings?” she heard Taina ask in the hallway. “Where am I supposed to put these?”
“Hush,” Sosia replied, “they’re Lord Gavril’s hobby. He insisted on bringing them with him. They’re not to everyone’s taste but . . .”
“Then they can go in Lord Gavril’s study. They can’t stay here in the hallway, cluttering up the place. And what about my lady’s linen? And little Larisa’s clothes?”
I’m sure Taina is tutting to herself over the way everything was folded and packed.
“Have you not employed a nurse for the baby yet, Lady Kiukirilya?” enquired Taina pointedly as Kiukiu settled Larisa in her cradle.
And now she’s disapproving of my child-rearing practices.
“There’s no need, really,” Kiukiu said, forcing a smile. She shivered; the main rooms had been shuttered up all winter and even though Taina had lit a fire, the atmosphere was chill and a little musty. “Auntie Sosia and Ninusha help me out at the kastel.”
“What a pretty box, my lady.” Taina held up the little lacquer tea chest that Chinua had sent as a gift for Larisa’s Naming Day. “Is that Khitari craftsmanship?”
“You’re right; it’s a tea caddy,” said Kiukiu, pulling her shawl about her. “A present from an old friend.”
“You look cold, my lady; shall I make you some tea?”
Kiukiu nodded. “That would be very welcome.” She had been saving Chinua’s gift for a special occasion but one had not yet presented itself. And when I visit his shop, he’s sure to ask me if we enjoyed his gift, so I’d better sample it.
She moved restlessly about the bedchamber, stiff from sitting so long in the bumpy coach, wishing she could leave the mansion and walk freely. But twilight was falling and the first lady of Azhkendir would not be expected to go out alone at night; such an unseemly show of independence would only reflect badly on Gavril. She let out a sigh of frustration.
“You’re very pale, Kiukiu,” Sosia said, closing the door of the armoire. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“A tad tired after the long journey.” There was little point, Kiukiu knew, in telling her how cooped up she felt; she would never understand.
“Hm.”
Taina came back carrying a tea tray which she set down on a little table near the fire and drew up a chair. “Warm yourself over here, my lady.” She poured some of the tea into a delicate gold-rimmed porcelain cup and the aromatic fragrance wafted into the room.
“Will you join me, Auntie?” Kiukiu turned to Sosia.
Sosia sniffed the tea suspiciously. “You know that fancy scented tea isn’t to my taste,” she said. “Dried jasmine flowers, indeed. I’ll go join Taina in the kitchen for a proper cup of Serindhen blend. With bilberry jam.”
They just want a good gossip together. Kiukiu smiled to herself, settling down in the chair by the fire. The bitter-sweet odor of the hot steam was stronger than she had anticipated and made her nostrils prickle. She risked a sip and nodded, relishing the subtle flavor . It’s delicious. We used to drink tea like this in Khitari all the time. The taste brings back memories . . .
Kiukiu took another sip. The perfumed tea fumes drew out buried images and emotions. Her lids felt heavy, drooping lower . . .
She closed her eyes, letting the tide of half-forgotten Khitari impressions wash over her: the hazy green of the vast grasslands, the haunting songs of the herdsmen following in the wake of the khan’s caravan, the lonely cry of the steppe eagles wheeling high overhead, the bubbling hiss of the healing waters of the Jade Springs . . .
Kiukiu opened her eyes with a start. Fragments of melody whispered at the back of her mind. Words attached themselves to the notes.
“ She can grant your wish, the jade-haired witch of the springs .”
Khulan’s ballad again. Kiukiu shuddered at the memory—and yet still the song refrain insisted on replaying itself until she was desperate for a means of exorcising it.
Why now, of all times? She lifted her gusly from the bottom of the trunk. A swift test of the strings confirmed that they needed tightening to correct the pitches. She took out the tuning key and set to work, plucking softly so as not to disturb the sleeping baby, until she was satisfied.
As Kiukiu picked out the first notes of Khulan’s ballad, she began to shiver uncontrollably. Each sonorous pitch was creating a portal into that shadowy aethyrial dimension where even the most skilled shamans trod the paths of the dead at considerable risk.
The way that had opened up before her was mountainous, hazed in ever-shifting mists.
Suppose I get trapped again?
Kiukiu’s fingers slowed and instantly the pathway started to disintegrate.
But this isn’t the Realm of Shadows. And now that I’ve come this far, I have to see it through.
She picked up the broken thread of the melody and continued to play, sending her spirit out along the mist-wreathed path. And the further she went, the more familiar the mountainous landscape became. Passing beneath a rocky archway, she saw the bubbling waters of the Jade Springs.
“Lady Anagini!” she called into the mists. “Why have you brought me back here?”
“Look into the waters,” breathed a woman’s voice behind her. “But don’t stop playing. The instant you stop, the image will disappear and you’ll never be able to recapture it.”
Kiukiu nodded. The bubbles stilled as she gazed down into the pool and the waters became glassy clear. A distant murmur of voices superimposed themselves over the notes of the melody. It was hard to listen to what was being said without losing the sense of the tune but she forced herself to concentrate.
Two radiant figures appeared, their faces so bright that she could hardly distinguish their features. She had glimpsed such radiance once before when she and Malusha had dared to use the Golden Scale, travelling deep along the Forbidden Ways into the Second Heaven in search of Saint Serzhei—and that same light had emanated from the gilded wings of the Heavenly Warriors dispatched to drive them from the saint’s garden.
“Angels?” she whispered.
“So it’s happened again. The forbidden union. Just as it did with Nagazdiel.” The speaker was a tall, powerfully built warrior with a long mane of golden hair. “The Drakhaoul Khezef has sired a mortal child.”
“But can you be sure, Galizur, that the child has inherited any of Khezef’s powers?” asked his companion in gentler tones.
Galizur. The name Gavril cries out in his nightmares. Kiukiu forced herself to concentrate on playing, desperate now to hear more.
“This child is a girl, Sehibiel.”
Kiukiu struck a wrong note and the image wavered. Was he referring to Larisa?
“A girl? Like Azilis, Nagazdiel’s daughter?” Sehibiel, the softly-spoken Guardian, shook his head; his hair was a silvery gray, shot through with strands of rose. Like a sunset sky.
“Even if she’s inherited a fraction of her father’s abilities, she’ll prove a threat to the balance between the worlds. So I’m sending Taliahad to take care of it.”
Take care of it? Kiukiu’s fingers began to tremble. She forced herself to keep playing, even though Galizur’s words had shaken her to the core.
The air thrummed and a third Winged Warrior alighted and went down on one knee before the other two; his eyes and hair shimmered with the wintry blue of the icy waters off Azhkendir’s shores.
“You summoned me, Prince Galizur.” His voice sounded young and fervent. “What is your will?”
“I’m sending you to the mortal world. I want you to find a child with Drakhaoul blood in her veins—and destroy her.
”
Kiukiu’s hands flew up to her face in shock. Too late she realized that she had broken the thread of melody—and the dazzling image shattered into a thousand ripples.
“What shall I do?” She turned to Anagini. “They want to kill Larisa. How can I save her? Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything. Anything!”
“You already know what to do.” Anagini’s voice soothed her. “Bring her to me. I will protect her.”
“But what should I tell Gavril?”
“Nothing. No one must know where she is.”
“It’ll break his heart.” Kiukiu could hardly say the words. “He adores her. How can I take her away from him?” Only then did the full import of Galizur’s words hit her. The forbidden union. So Khezef was as much Larisa’s true father as Gavril. The Drakhaoul had used them both as his mortal surrogates to ensure the continuation of his line.
***
Kiukiu pushed open the door to the tea shop, hearing the little bell tinkle overhead. Inside, the dusty, aromatic smell tickled her nostrils.
“Is anyone there?” she called. Larisa, snugly wrapped in her shawl, let out a little sneeze. The Khitari rug covering the doorway at the rear of the shop was raised and a man appeared, smiling in welcome as he beckoned her into the back room.
“Chinua!” Kiukiu cried, hurrying toward him. “I need to go to the Jade Springs. Can you take us there?”
“The Guardian warned me that you might need my help. Hallo there, little one—aren’t you pretty?”
Larisa beamed and stretched out her chubby hands to him, gurgling a greeting in return.
“I see she has her father’s eyes.” Chinua let her grasp his finger in hers.
“And that’s not all she’s inherited from her father,” Kiukiu heard herself say, her words salted with bitterness. Why did Khezef use us both? What was his true design? “When can we leave?”
“As soon as you like. But did anyone see you come in here?”
Kiukiu shook her head. “I made sure the coast was clear.”
“Then I’ll just shutter up the shop and we’ll be on our way.”
***
Gavril would not return home till late from the boyars’ council. By then the gates of Azhgorod would be shut till morning and the tea merchant’s little cart would be on the other side of the city walls, trundling towards the border with Khitari. No guard would think to question Chinua the tea merchant, about his passengers; he often gave lifts to villagers on his way back through the mountains.
Larisa, snuggled close beneath the cloak, lulled to sleep by the jolting of the cart, murmured in her sleep. But as Kiukiu huddled in the back of Chinua’s cart, hood pulled down over her brow to hide her face, she felt an aching void in her heart as she imagined Gavril running from room to room, searching the empty mansion for them, interrogating the servants, the druzhina, all in vain.
Why had she been forced to choose between the two she loved most dearly in the whole world? And the words of Khulan’s ballad returned to torment her, echoing through her mind as each jolt of the tea merchant’s cart took them further away from Azhkendir.
Beware the jade-haired witch of the springs . . . she never gives without taking something in return. Something you value more than life itself.
“Gavril.” But her heartbroken whisper was drowned by the rattle of the cart wheels over the stony tracks.
Chapter 29
“And now we come to the final matter on today’s agenda,” the clerk of the boyars’ council announced, adjusting his spectacles, “the application by the Caradas Company to begin mining in the area currently known as the Arkhel Waste.”
Several of the boyars were nodding off in the stuffy warmth of the council chamber; even Gavril felt his lids growing heavier, especially after another disturbed night with Larisa. But hearing the name “Arkhel” acted as effectively in waking them as opening the window and letting in a blast of cold evening air.
“The Caradas Company?” echoed Lord Stoyan. “Who the hell are they? Never heard the name before! And what claim do they have to the land?”
Gavril turned to Oris Avorian, his lawyer, who was sitting on his left.
“It seems,” Avorian said, “that Caradas is also the name of an old, established noble family in Tourmalise. I’ve traced a Brigadier, Lord Denys of Caradas, who distinguished himself in the Allegondan campaign twenty years ago.”
“So why would he want to come prospecting this far north? What possible connection does this Lord Caradas have with Azhkendir?”
“The Brigadier died five years ago. The claim has been filed in the name of his daughter, Lady Tanaisie.”
“And what rights do these Tourmalise foreigners have to mine the Arkhels’ lands?” demanded a tetchy voice from the end of the council table as Vsebor, the eldest boyar, glared at the others. “Surely they belong to Lord Gavril now.”
Gavril was thinking about the letter Eugene had sent, warning him about Lilias and a certain Ranulph Arkhel, currently residing in Tourmalise, who had married into the “local gentry”. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unwilling to mention Lilias who had been, until not so long ago, Lord Stoyan’s mistress. “Is that so, Avorian?” he said, aware that all the boyars were staring at him.
“Legally speaking,” said Avorian, “the Arkhel lands still belong to the Arkhel Clan. The only living claimant that I’m aware of is Stavyomir Arkhel, the Emperor’s ward. And he’s only two years old.”
“Claimant? Doesn’t Stavyomir inherit automatically?” Gavril asked, wondering if they’d come up against some complex Azhkendi law of birthright.
Avorian cleared his throat. “Stavyomir was born out of wedlock. Unless his mother can provide us with proof that she and Jaromir Arkhel were married, their son is a bastard in the eyes of the law, and has no automatic rights of inheritance.”
“I see.” Gavril sat back in the uncomfortable carved chair of office, wishing he had thought to bring a cushion or two. He would have asked, but suspected that such a request would be frowned on as betraying his soft Smarnan upbringing; sitting through an interminable meeting on a wooden chair would be seen as a luxury for an Azhkendi man raised to endure the hardships of the long northern winters without complaint. “And the Caradas Company? What are their plans?”
“They’ve been recruiting miners already,” said Lord Pereneg, a boyar whose estates lay to the west of Azhgorod, on the main road to the port of Narvazh. “They set up an office as soon as the thaw began. A dour, sallow-faced fellow’s running it; he’s called Iarko, if I recall correctly. And he’s offering good wages, from what I hear.”
“Then we need to have a word with this Iarko,” said Gavril. “I’ll go and investigate first thing tomorrow.”
The boyars shifted uneasily at this suggestion, looking from one to the other. Gavril wondered what he had said to cause such a reaction.
“Forgive me, my lord,” said Avorian crisply, “but it would be more appropriate at this stage to send someone else; the sudden appearance of the High Steward himself would doubtless cause consternation. Let me—or one of my clerks—go in your stead.”
“Your carriage is here, Lord Nagarian,” announced Lord Stoyan’s portly steward from the far end of the chamber.
“Very well.” Gavril, glad of the opportunity to escape the chamber, rose and the others rose too. “I’ll leave the matter with you for now, Avorian; I’ll look forward to your report. Good night, gentlemen.”
I’d much rather walk back; the night air would clear my head. He rubbed his dry eyes as he followed his bodyguard Semyon into the courtyard. Why must the boyars insist on overheating the council chamber? That fug stifles any kind of fruitful discussion; half the councilors were dozing off during the last petition.
As Gavril stepped up into the waiting carriage, he heard the cathedral clock of Saint Sergius striking eight, each sonorous note resonating dully through the chilly spring evening.
Is it so late already? I forgot to send word ahead to Kiukiu and
now the dinner will probably be spoiled. He sat back against the worn leather of the carriage seat as Semyon closed the door and took his seat beside the coachman. I doubt she’ll be pleased; she’s still unconfident around the mansion servants. He couldn’t help a little grin at this thought. I shouldn’t tease her; after all, I’m almost as unused to being a noble as she is. What a strange pair we must make: an impecunious portraitist and a kitchen maid, playing at being lord and lady!
He felt the grin fade as the carriage jolted into movement, the wheels bumping over the rough cobbles, as the coachman directed the horses out onto Azhgorod’s main thoroughfare.
Have I asked too much of her? She’s been so distant recently. And since Larisa started teething, neither of us has had enough sleep. Then there’s been all this official business to deal with: endless problems with the customs office at the new harbor in Narvazh. I haven’t spent nearly as much time with them as I’d planned to. And now there’s this.
He checked inside his jacket to make sure he still had the paper Avorian had slipped him earlier that day.
The druzhina aren’t going to like it. Not at all. How am I going to break it to them? And how will it affect Kiukiu?
The thick cloth of his jacket gave off a faint stale whiff of tobacco smoke and barley beer. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Too long cooped up in that stuffy chamber with the councilors; they like their pipes and mulled beer too much. Kiukiu will complain; she’ll think I’ve been whiling the afternoon away in the tavern. A little sigh escaped him. It seemed an age since his carefree student days when he had gone drinking with his friends and argued passionately over politics, art, and philosophy late into the night.
