by D. K. Fields
It was Serus.
He was on watch at the back of the barge and called out. ‘Cora? What are you doing? What’s happening?’
There was concern in his voice, that she could recognise, but the panic there – did that speak of something else? A plan gone wrong? She wasn’t going to hang around to find out and ducked under the trees, out of sight from the water. She heard Ruth calling back to the barge.
‘Change of plan, Captain. I’ll be on foot a bit longer than I thought, and Cora’s coming with me. Keep sailing and we’ll meet you a little way upriver. Nullan knows the place. Tomorrow at noon, we’ll be there.’
Silence then, too long to be comfortable, before Luine answered in her usual disinterested way. ‘My job is to captain this barge. No concern of mine who’s on it, who’s off.’
Then Ruth was coming under the trees. She marched past Cora. ‘Time to enjoy this stroll in the countryside, I guess.’
*
Ruth had decided their course, and that was fine with Cora. Wayward sense of direction was legendary in the Union. Though her sister had been born and raised in the narrow streets of Fenest, the sky so often hidden by upper storeys leaning drunkenly towards one another, by lines of washing and by makeshift bridges between roofs, she had no trouble working out the direction they should take now, in West Perlanse.
Cora had offered to sketch Ruth a map from memory, after Marcus had silently returned the charts to Captain Luine’s cabin, but Ruth had said there was no need. She would use the sun as her compass and the lie of the land as her map. When they’d travelled south to see the widening Tear, it had been the same. Cora had had her own map for her own purpose, but Ruth had seemed to just follow her nose.
They walked away from the river, and though the copse of trees wasn’t large, the trunks swallowed all noise of water, so that within minutes there was no sense the River Tun was anywhere near them. Cora found herself thinking of the trees outside Fenest, and the Seeders hanging there. The smell of rotting bodies rose around her. The day was warm – warmer than she’d realised. The movement of the barge must have given a false breeze. Through the treetops, only the barest scraps of clouds were visible. The smell of the dead sat heavy on the hot air, though it was a memory, wasn’t it? A memory she couldn’t shake, and maybe that was right, given how terrible it was that the people of the south should take their own lives from despair. It was a relief when the trees began to thin, then she and Ruth came to a gate. Beyond it was a lane.
‘We follow this until we reach a Seat,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s the Dandy’s, I think. There should be a crossroads there.’
‘We could stop at the Seat, see if the Dandy wants to hear a story of two women in borrowed clothes.’
‘Ah, but Cora, you know the Dandy also likes stories of what happens in bed. Perhaps you have one for him?’ Ruth gave her a sly look. ‘A story involving a certain Rustan fire investigator…’
‘Not yet.’
Ruth clasped her about her shoulders. ‘I like your optimism.’
Cora could feel the heat rushing to her face and she wasn’t going to let Ruth mention that, so she took out her bindle tin to distract Ruth as much as give Cora something to focus on.
‘Roll me one?’ Ruth said, just as Cora had known she would.
There were tall, wide walls on either side of the lane. In the event that Tannir was on their trail, the walls of the lane would give them some protection. The stones in the walls were neatly placed, all the same size and colour – a uniform white. There was nothing ramshackle about this landscape. On top of the walls were coloured stones, reds of all different hues, one set every five feet or so along the road. Red, the colour of the western duchy of Perlanse.
‘Do you think someone from the Commission comes along each night and measures the distance between those red stones?’ Cora said, pointing at one with her bindle. ‘Checks no one’s moved them out of place?’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ Ruth said.
‘For the wall Morton wants to build, she’ll need an even number of red and blue stones to keep both Perlish duchies happy.’
‘She will, won’t she,’ Ruth said. She slowed her pace then stopped walking altogether. ‘Give me a leg up, Cora.’
‘Are you sure you’re up to that? With the cut Tannir gave you, it might not—’
‘It’s better, don’t worry.’
It hadn’t looked better when Cora had caught sight of Nullan changing the bandage, but Ruth didn’t look in a mood to change her mind. So Cora did as she was asked, making a cradle of her hands for Ruth’s knee, then lifting her level with the top of the wall. Her sister was light – light enough to fling over the wall if Cora had a mind to. When they were children, they’d done this the other way around, Ruth lifting her younger sister to reach the sintas in the neighbours’ trees. Now the frailness of Ruth was almost too much to bear.
But for a frail-seeming woman, Ruth still had a fair bit of force in her. She shoved one of the red stones off the wall and into the pasture on the other side.
‘That’ll give some officious oaf something to do,’ she said, as Cora lowered her back to the ground.
‘Bound to be a specific Commission log to record such vandalism,’ Cora said, and Ruth laughed – a bark that sounded too loud in the quiet of the sheltered lane.
The Perlish woman on horseback coming towards them apparently thought so too as she gave them a wide berth and a scowl as she passed.
‘Two Caskers without a barge,’ Cora said. ‘We’ll be logged too.’
‘Not for a while, I hope. Map suggested we wouldn’t be passing any towns.’
‘Ah, but the Commission has eyes in every part of the Union.’ Cora spread her arms wide. ‘No dusty lane in the middle of nowhere goes unnoticed by the eyes of the Wheelhouse.’
She’d meant it as a joke, but Ruth was frowning at her. ‘You miss it, don’t you?’
‘Who in their right mind would miss paperwork?’
‘Who in their right mind would work for the Commission in the first place?’ Ruth said.
Cora shrugged. ‘People born in Fenest. People whose parents could afford to send them to a Seminary that makes Commission staff. People like you and me, Ruth. If you’d stayed—’
‘I’d never have got involved in that corrupt monster.’
Cora made to flick her bindle end away but was surprised to feel bad about the idea, given the pleasant countryside, so pinched the end with damp fingers and stowed it in her pocket instead. ‘Given that you did leave, guess we’ll never know, will we?’
‘I know,’ Ruth muttered.
They rounded a corner and the spire of a Seat came into sight. It wasn’t a tall one, but the building looked fine: the same smooth white stone of the tower at K’stera Point. Would there be an indentured storyteller stowed inside?
‘One thing’s for sure,’ Cora said, ‘I’d never have guessed that you’d end up coming back to Fenest as an election storyteller.’
‘It was never meant to be this way,’ Ruth said, her voice hard. ‘If Nicholas was still alive…’ She shook away the end of that sentence. ‘But my job is nearly over. Once the Wayward Hook is in Fenest I have one more thing to do, and then it’ll be finished.’
‘Big thing still left on that list though,’ Cora said, ‘telling an election story. The risk too.’
‘That I won’t deny, and if Morton should take me, Cora, if she uses my life—’
‘She won’t.’ Cora kept the spire of the Seat of the Dandy in sight. Wouldn’t look at Ruth in this moment. Couldn’t. Then she felt Ruth’s thin arm snake through hers.
‘Morton’s already managed it once, after the Seeder story at Tithe Hall. Look at the lengths she’s gone to since then.’
That Cora couldn’t argue with. Hadn’t she been telling Ruth about the risks since the day she’d left the police and thrown in her lot with the southern alliance?
‘It’s important we talk about this,’ Ruth said, ‘and I’ve been meaning
to, but on the barge…’
‘It’s a bit crowded?’
‘It is, isn’t it? I wasn’t expecting Serus or Marcus to join us.’
‘Neither was I.’ Cora used her coat to wipe the sweat from her face.
‘But what I wanted to say, Cora, is that it doesn’t matter what happens to me. Once I’ve said the last word of the Wayward story, my own story can end.’
They were almost at the Seat of the Dandy, and Cora could see the crossroads Ruth had said would be there. A crossroads, just as they were talking of a life’s purpose. The Audience might doubt how those things came together, consider them too neat. But that was the way of life sometimes. At least there was something to break the perfection – a pennysheet seller was shouting his headlines somewhere close.
‘Is that what you want?’ Cora said. ‘To tell the story and then give up?’
Ruth gave a deep sigh. ‘Part of me gave up when Nicholas died. A large part, Cora. The part of me that’s kept going… It’s the story that’s done that. And you.’
Cora squeezed and released her bindle tin, squeezed and released. ‘You think your life has no other purpose than to tell a story?’
‘Maybe it does, but this story is—’
‘Bigger than either of us. I know. But—’
‘There are no “buts”, Cora.’ Ruth drew her arm from Cora’s and stood square in the lane, blocking her way. ‘My task is to tell my son’s story. Your task is to help me do that, help me stop Morton dividing the Union and condemning countless people to a terrifying, painful end as the Tear consumes the south. Will you do that, Cora?’
‘I’m here, aren’t I? Gave up my badge in the process.’
Ruth was studying her face. ‘But when it comes down to it, to a moment of choice, which will you choose, Cora?’
Sweat was beading round Cora’s mouth. The bindle tin was slippery in her hand. She stepped away and started walking. ‘Every choice I’ve made so far has been to help you, Ruth. I wouldn’t start doubting me now if I were you.’
‘We’ll all be tested, Cora,’ Ruth called after her. ‘I wonder if yours is still to come.’
The pennysheet lad was on the steps of the Seat, shouting his headline and proffering pages to those coming in and out of the Seat, which was busy, despite there not being many houses in sight. The large double doors were like no doors Cora had ever seen, more like gates – thin wooden poles held in a frame but with gaps between them. Woven through those gaps were ribbons of all colours, and within those were poked flowers. The smell was enough to make Cora’s nose itch, but would the Prized Dandy expect anything less at his Seat, especially a Seat in Perlanse?
‘Here.’ Ruth gave the ’sheet seller a penny, which was helpful, given that Cora had no coin at all.
Cora took the pennysheet and quickly skimmed it. ‘Looks like a local paper. You got anything from Fenest?’ she asked the lad.
‘Sold ’em all,’ he said. ‘Always go quick, the Fenestiran ’sheets.’
Apart from having a sheaf of printed sheets over one arm and an appraising glance that Cora recognised, this pennysheet seller looked nothing like those of Fenest. He was washed, for a start, and his clothes, though lacking the usual finery of Perlish stuff, were clean and unpatched. Perlish pennysheet sellers were a different animal entirely.
‘Leaving out that useless rag The Spoke, can you remember the headlines of this morning’s Fenestiran papers?’ Cora asked him.
‘I can,’ he said slowly, his brown eyes wide beneath his green velvet cap. ‘But that’ll cost you extra.’
Not so different to the capital’s ’sheet sellers after all. Ruth gave him another coin and then he drew a deep breath. Cora was about to tell him he didn’t need to shout the headlines – she was right there in front of him – but there was no stopping him. Another habit that couldn’t be unlearned.
‘Wayward Hook will be greatest yet – huge crowds expected. Will the Commoner have room? That’s The Fenestiran Times.’
‘For once, they’re not wrong,’ Ruth said.
Before Cora could ask her what she meant, the lad drew a deep lungful of air and yelled, ‘Talks to choose final story venue collapse. Wayward blame Commission.’
‘Let me guess,’ Cora said. ‘The Daily Tales?’
He nodded.
‘Sounds like the head herders are doing a great job in my absence,’ Ruth muttered.
The lad drew breath again. A man leaving the Seat had stopped to watch. Short and round, sweating beneath what looked like a wig of blueish curls. Perhaps he thought this was the start of some loud story, told outside a Seat for a change, rather than inside. Whatever his motives, it wasn’t good to have company.
‘Make it quick,’ Cora told the boy.
‘Black Jefferey suspected in south gate camp. Perlish Chambers tell Commission to dispel the destitute. That’s—’
‘—The Stave,’ Cora finished for him. ‘I know their way of reporting human misery. Another penny for his trouble,’ she said to Ruth, and when the lad had pocketed the coin, she leaned close to his ear and said, ‘We were never here. Now, keep that one there busy until we’re out of sight.’
He began his loud sales patter on the man who’d stopped to watch, while Cora and Ruth set off again, taking the left-hand lane of the crossroads.
As before, the lane was flanked on either side by high walls of white stone, topped at regular intervals by the red stones. But from the narrowness of the way and the weeds peppering the gravel, it seemed they were on a less well-trodden path than before. That was no bad thing, and neither were the trees that sprawled over one side of the lane, giving welcome shade.
‘I was enjoying not knowing what was going on in Fenest,’ Ruth said. ‘Why did you have to remind me?’
‘Because we’ll be back there soon enough, and I’d rather know what was waiting for us.’
‘Sounded like the usual Fenestiran politics to me. Southerners are bad, they spread disease, so don’t let them come anywhere near us. Commission falling out with the realms they’re meant to serve.’
‘And excitement about a Hook,’ Cora said, rolling a new smoke. She guessed she had enough bindle left for three more so she and Ruth would have to share. ‘Will the Wayward Hook live up to it?’
‘It’ll do more than that.’ Ruth said. ‘But it’s not excitement people will feel when they see our Hook. It’s fear.’
‘Not sure the pennysheets will know how to write about that – a Hook doing something new.’
‘They’ll have to find a way,’ Ruth said. ‘With the Tear widening, all our stories will be different.’
‘Mine already is,’ Cora said. ‘But yours—’
There was a grating sound behind her, but somehow above too. Cora spun round, but she was too late.
Too late to stop the hooded figure leaping from the wall towards her.
Twenty-Three
The force of the impact knocked Cora to the ground and took the air from her lungs. As she struggled to breathe, she was dimly aware of Ruth charging to her side, the glint of the sun on her sister’s knife.
Tannir was on top of Cora, his knee pushing deeper into her chest with every lunge he made at Ruth – he had his own knife. Of course he did. Darkness was swooping at the edge of Cora’s vision. She tried to push it away. Her hands found cloth and that was dark too. Had night come when she wasn’t looking, and did it have buttons? That made no sense, but she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t…
Pain in her cheek. Raw, hot, slicing. He’d cut her face, and it hurt like nothing else ever had. Then there was a cry from Ruth, her sister’s arms shoving – she was so much stronger than she looked – and then the black cloak was falling away, falling to the ground. Air raced back into Cora’s body, but too much, too fast. It hurt to breathe, and she could taste blood. Her cheek rested on gravel, and now she could see the tiny grains. They were rough against her skin because her face was cut – Tannir had cut her, and she was coughing.
Then there was another sound: Ruth. Ruth saying, No, no. I won’t let you. No. You can’t stop me. No. Get back.
Cora scrabbled to her feet to face the tumbling figures. Her body felt heavy and it still hurt to breathe, but she had to move, and quickly.
Ruth was on her knees. Tannir stood over her, his back to Cora, but she could hear Ruth’s choking, knew what he was doing to her sister. Her sister who needed her voice more than she needed any other part of her body, and Cora needed to be quicker, lighter, as she stumbled to the wall, but her legs were as heavy as the red stone she grabbed from the top of the wall. And the stone was itself a terrible weight and she wasn’t sure she could carry it but she was doing it, she was lifting it, somehow, and when she slammed it down on Tannir’s hooded head, she felt light as the breeze that had come from nowhere, now cooling her face.
It was Tannir now, who was the heavy one. He was lying across Ruth, silent but twitching. Cora picked up the stone again and found it was easier to hit him the second time, and she used more force. He stopped moving then. The stone’s red surface was streaked with new shades. She tossed it to the ground and tried not to see the same colour all over her hands.
‘Cora – help me.’
Ruth was attempting to push Tannir off her. Cora grabbed his shoulder and pulled. Together they flipped him onto his back. His hood had fallen over his face but the blood from the ruin that Cora had made of his skull was trickling down his chin and onto his chest.
‘I was wrong,’ Cora said, then her mouth filled with blood so she spat. ‘We should have stayed on the barge. Ruth, are you hearing me?’
But Ruth was bent over Tannir, fumbling to push back his bloodied hood.
‘Wait – are you sure Tannir’s dead?’ Cora said.
‘It’s not Tannir, Cora.’
She slumped against the wall. ‘What? How can that…’
‘All the time we thought it was him following us, shooting those darts. But we were wrong. I should have realised, after the Water Gardens… Cora, help me uncover him – there’s so much cloth.’
