by D. K. Fields
Twenty-Five
‘Well?’ Ruth said.
‘It should be me that does it,’ Cora said. ‘Marcus is my fault. If I’d taken more care of her—’
‘None of that matters,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s only the punishment I care about now.’
‘Leave it to me. I’ll see to it.’
Ruth looked like she would say more, but then there was a noise from the bank. A loud noise, an unexpected noise, but of course it shouldn’t have been.
It was a horse, calling to another of its kind.
The effect on Ruth was as if she were the one being called, because she turned away and rushed down the corridor towards the captain’s wheel.
Cora stuck her head back into the saloon. ‘Come on!’ she called to Marcus.
The girl didn’t need telling twice, and her trust made Cora feel sick to her stomach. The corridor was empty. Cora pushed Marcus into the galley and there found a knife to cut the girl’s bonds.
‘Thanks, Detec—’
‘Shh. In here, quickly.’ Cora led Marcus into her cabin. The only sign of Serus was his slipdog hide coat lying on the bed, which made things easier. ‘Get under that bunk and stay there until I come for you. If Ruth finds you, you’re dead.’
*
As soon as Cora stepped on deck, she could smell a change in the air. Gone was the freshness of the river, replaced by something ripe and slightly sour. A smell she’d caught on Ruth every so often, and of course on nearly everyone who’d been in the safe houses back in Fenest. The smell of horses. And it was no wonder, given how many of them were on the riverbank.
Having moored the barge, Captain Luine had joined Harker on the roof of the barge where both Caskers were smoking and staring at the sight before them. Nullan, too, was transfixed, leaning on the captain’s wheel. Cora went and joined her, the breeze stinging the cut in her cheek. The Seeder storyteller had sliced her deep.
Horses crowded the bank – all kinds of them. Some black and glossy, like the special paint the Commission used for depicting the spoked wheel. Others were brown as mud, some with patches, some with spots even. Greys that ranged from the colour of pebbles to almost blue. Creamy hides. Yellow hides. Tall ones and short ones, some in harnesses and some without any kind of rein on them at all, just wandering around as if they were dogs.
The row of tents behind the animals suggested the herd had been here at least a day or two. This was nothing like the camp outside Fenest. That was full of despair – frightened people unwanted where they’d pitched up but with nowhere else to go. For the Wayward whose whole existence was to wander, this place was just one stopping point on the journey of their lives. Cora couldn’t think of anything worse than trudging across the Union in all weathers, sleeping on the ground. But that was the life they chose, that Ruth had chosen too.
There were people everywhere, most wearing Wayward cloaks. Men, women and children, every one of them looking busy as they carried saddles, cooking pots, logs, sacks, pails of water filled from the river.
‘I know Ruth said the herd we were meeting was big,’ Cora said, ‘but that’s a lot of Wayward.’
‘It’s because of the Hook,’ Nullan said, her gaze fixed on the herd. ‘They’ve come from all over the Union to work on it, under the direction of… Well, I’ll let Ruth tell you that part.’
Cora turned to look at Nullan. ‘You know what it is, don’t you?’
‘Only a few details. I’m excited to see it.’
‘Will we be allowed to, given we’re not Wayward?’
‘From the little Ruth’s told me,’ Nullan said, ‘there’s no way we can’t see it.’
That didn’t make a lot of sense, not that it mattered right now.
‘Speaking of Ruth,’ Cora said, ‘where is she?’
‘Didn’t even wait for me to tie up the barge,’ Captain Luine called from the roof. ‘First cry of ’em ponies and she was jumping onto land. Like one of ’em little ’uns the Rustans had as their Hook, jumping around the Seat of the Commoner.’
‘Didn’t think she had it in her,’ Harker added.
‘She’s among friends here,’ Nullan said. ‘Makes a change not to have to worry someone will kill her.’
‘Don’t get used to it,’ Cora said. ‘As soon as we’re back in Fenest, Morton will try again. She’s running out of time.’
‘Morton or Ruth?’ Nullan said.
‘Both.’
Nullan had put her hand to Cora’s face, making her jump.
‘Your cheek,’ Nullan said. ‘It doesn’t look like it needs a stitch after all.’
Cora stepped away, onto the deck. ‘Thank the Audience for that. My face hurts enough without you poking a needle into it.’
Serus was there, sitting on the deck, his back against the barge rooms. He seemed to be ignoring her, and her spirits sank. Ruth might be safe for the moment, but she had other things to worry about.
Cora made her way over to him, and at the last moment, he looked up. The sun was in her eyes, but she could still see his gloomy expression, just like when she and Ruth had returned to the barge.
Cora gingerly put her fingers to her torn cheek. ‘Thought this might be a good opportunity to try something new. Thought you might be able to help.’
He said nothing, just looked at her.
‘Reckon this gash is the perfect site to try a metal plate.’
She was joking, but he wasn’t laughing. Or even smiling.
‘Only a small one,’ she said. ‘The teaspoons in the galley might work.’
‘So there are some decisions you trust me enough to share.’ He looked back across the bank to the ever-changing landscape of horses and Wayward people. ‘That is good to know.’
‘Serus, what is it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Cora, just the fact you didn’t tell me you were leaving the barge with Ruth. That you were risking your life.’
‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t…’
‘Couldn’t what, Cora? Couldn’t trust me?’
‘Serus, I know this trip hasn’t given us much time together but—’
‘Oh, I think it’s given us more than enough time together. Time enough to know how you really feel about me. If we’d stayed in Fenest that might have taken another three months, so at least we’ve reached the truth quickly.’ His metal cheek plates were grinding over one another, and the noise was awful – she’d never heard this from him before. Nor his anger. ‘I guess I should thank your sister for that.’
Cora grabbed his arm and pulled him close to her, their hips pressed together. He wanted her, she could feel it, and the Devotee knew she wanted him too.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ she said. ‘Truly. I needed to find out who was giving away our plans.’
‘And you thought it was me?’
Not wanting to answer that, she kissed him, hard and long. He kissed her back, despite his anger, and for a moment she thought she was forgiven, but then he was pulling away, and she couldn’t keep hold of him. He was a few feet away, at the edge of the barge, his back to her.
‘I can’t do this, Cora, knowing that you doubted me like that.’
Her blood was hot, and she wanted him like she’d never wanted him before. Was it partly the relief of knowing Serus hadn’t betrayed her? She’d been holding herself back, and now she was ready, but her hesitation had spoiled things. She had a strong desire to break something. But instead she found her voice and asked him to watch Marcus.
‘Ruth can’t find out she’s still on the barge.’
Serus turned to face her. ‘Do you truly believe your sister would kill a child?’
‘I don’t want to risk finding out.’
‘You Gorderheims are really something. The pennysheets were right all those years ago.’
So he had read the stories. He did know her history. Well, at least that was out in the open now. Maybe it was better they didn’t take things any further.
‘Will you keep Marcus in the cabin?’ she aske
d him. ‘Keep her quiet until I get back?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Just tell me if you’ll do it, Serus. It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.’
He stared down into the river. ‘Of course I will, Cora.’
She moved back along the deck to draw level with the barge roof where all three Caskers were now gathered. Harker and Captain Luine were playing cards. Nullan had her face turned to the late afternoon sun, her eyes closed.
‘What’s Ruth’s plan now?’ Cora called up.
‘We’re to wait until the Hook’s ready to be transported,’ Nullan said, ‘then join the herd and head back to Fenest.’
‘There’ll be horses for us?’ Cora said.
‘Well, I’m not walking.’ Nullan’s piercings glinted like fine jewellery.
She looked exhausted – the loss of her lover Nicholas, telling her realm’s election story, doing her best to keep Ruth safe so that she could tell her story. Nullan had had a tough few weeks, and Cora had barely given her any thought. Now, the strain was clear on Nullan’s face, mixed with the relief at the chance she now had to relax, even if only briefly. A murky bottle of lannat was set between the three Caskers. Time to leave them to themselves, and Cora had enough to do.
She needed to find out how long she had until the herd began the journey to Fenest, and that meant finding Ruth. And seeing the Hook? Despite all the things on her mind at that moment – Serus’s anger, what to do about Marcus – she felt a flicker of excitement at the thought of seeing the Wayward Hook. She jumped onto the bank and headed into the herd.
*
With the huge numbers of Wayward and their horses, Cora feared it would take all afternoon to find the Hook, and Ruth with it. Might as well get started on the hunt, she thought, spying a pair of young women filling buckets next to the barge. Hoping for some luck, Cora asked them where the Hook was and was surprised to find that they knew. One of the women pointed over the heads of the surrounding horses to a large blue tent in the middle of the camp. Cora set off, but she soon lost her way amid the bustle and mud, and couldn’t see a path between the ropes and wagons to reach the blue tent. Fortunately, everyone she asked knew where the Hook was, and knew the way. Nullan’s words came back to her: whatever the Hook was, it couldn’t be missed. Before long, Cora was standing before the blue tent that housed it.
It was nothing like the garbing pavilion used at the election sites – that was a spotless wall of white canvas, no doubt regularly scrubbed by purple tunics under the direction of whoever had replaced Jenkins’s mother as Director of Electoral Affairs. The garbing pavilion had always struck Cora as being a hard, sharp thing – all angles. This Wayward tent was a smooth dome, and the deep blue canvas – if it was made of such stuff – was spattered with mud and horse grease and Audience knew what else. A working structure, put up and taken down regularly. The Commission’s garbing pavilion was as much about show as it was anything else.
Cora glanced back to the river. It was barely visible with all the herd between her and the barge, the last of the afternoon’s sunlight leaching into early evening. Had Marcus done as she’d been told and stayed on board? If she had, there was still a chance. Cora pushed her way into the tent.
And found herself in a different world.
Twenty-Six
She closed her eyes and opened them again, but that didn’t change what was in front of her. With just a single step inside the tent, she’d gone from the muddy riverbank in West Perlanse crammed with Wayward, to a very different land. Gone were the grass and the trees beside the river, the rushes and little flowering plants she’d never found time to ask the name of. Instead, she felt she was standing on rock, and before her were cracks, ash and an orange fissure, within which were islands of rock, caught with the lake of Wit’s Blood – a lake that was hot. She wiped her forehead, but her hand came away dry. No sweat, and yet she was on the edge of the Tear. Wasn’t she?
‘It should excite even the most jaded of Fenestirans, wouldn’t you say?’
Cora turned to the man who’d appeared beside her. He was tall and with more muscle than his bones seemed able to bear, bunched and corded visibly beneath his skin. His face was lined with the effects of the sun, like most Wayward, but there was something familiar about his eyes, bloodshot though they were, and the shape of his nose.
This man looked a lot like Nicholas Ento.
‘You’re in shock,’ he said, and it was as if Ento was speaking, something he’d never been able to do in Cora’s presence, given how his lips were sewn by the time she’d found his body. Given the fact he’d been strangled. ‘Seeing it for the first time, everyone is,’ the man said. ‘And that’s the idea of our Hook, of course. Shock first, action after.’ His hands were covered in orange, brown, grey. The same colours as the view ahead of her, and then she realised.
She hadn’t somehow stepped from West Perlanse to the edge of the Tear. She was looking at a painting. A painting of the Tear made by this man standing beside her, smiling at her shock. She turned to face the Tear again, and now she knew what it was, she could marvel at the scale of it. The painting was colossal – at least thirty feet tall and just as wide, if not wider. The headline the pennysheet seller had told her that morning, about the Seat of the Commoner not being large enough to hold the Wayward Hook, there had been some truth in it.
‘Just wait until you see the whole thing put together,’ the man said.
Cora dragged her gaze away from the orange of the Wit’s Blood before her. ‘There’s more?’
‘Oh yes. Three canvases that fit together. The other two are finished. This is the middle. I had to do some final touches.’
At this, he frowned and moved closer to the canvas – so close, it looked as if he would step into the Wit’s Blood, such was the powerful effect of the painting.
There was movement at the edge of the canvas. It was only then Cora noticed the ladders propped against it and the trays of brushes, pots of colour. Other Wayward were in the tent too, packing up the materials, though the paint splashed across their hands and clothes spoke of their work on the Hook too. Nullan had said people had come from across the Union to make the Hook, and now, their work was done. They’d head back to their saddles, while the Hook set out on a journey of its own.
The painter turned back to Cora. ‘This middle section shows how the Tear has looked for centuries,’ he said. ‘It’s the “stable” Tear, if you’ll pardon the pun.’ He smiled at Cora, but it wasn’t a smile of happiness or peace: he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. Cora recognised as much from the gaming houses.
‘And the other parts of the painting?’ she asked him.
‘The start and the end. The Wayward Hook will take the eye on a journey,’ the man said, his body once more turned to the canvas, as if he couldn’t look away from it for long, let alone leave its side. ‘We will show the land before the Tear opened, when the Rusting Mountains rose into the sky without clouds of smoke and ash surrounding them. Then we will show the rent in the earth when first it split open.’
‘And then the state of it now,’ Cora said. ‘You’ll show it’s widened.’
He swept his arms before the painting. ‘There’ll be no denying the truth once we’ve shown the Union this Hook.’
The blue wall of the tent opened, and Ruth appeared. She’d changed out of the dirtied, bloodied Casker clothes and was now wearing a long, dark dress Cora knew to be a Wayward riding habit.
‘I see you’ve met Frant,’ Ruth said, joining them in front of the painting.
He opened his arms wide and bowed, then moved away to speak to the Wayward packing up the materials.
Cora leaned close to Ruth to whisper. ‘Is he—’
‘You see it too then, the resemblance?’
‘Hard to miss it,’ Cora said.
‘Don’t mention our son’s name in front of Frant. He’s… struggling.’ Ruth said this as if she hadn’t suffered herself, as if she was speaking of someone
else’s child.
‘He’s your husband?’ Cora asked.
‘Not in the way any Fenestiran would understand, but in the Wayward way, yes – we were bound.’
‘Not any more though?’
‘Frant and I had chosen different paths years before we lost Nicholas. It’s not uncommon in Wayward relationships. When your lives are shaped by the movement of herds, the weather, which season you find yourself in the Rusting mountains, which season back on the Steppes, couples pull apart. They don’t always come back together again. Frant was… upset when I decided I was happier alone, but he still had his son. Since we lost Nicholas, the painting has become Frant’s world.’
‘It’s soon to be everyone’s world,’ Cora said, ‘given what’s happening in the Tear. How are we going to get this to Fenest?’
‘The wagons are being readied as we speak,’ Ruth said in a low voice. ‘Once we can convince Frant to put down his brushes, this last canvas can join the others, and we’ll set off. This is why it had to be me that came for the Hook. He’ll struggle to let it go.’
‘How long has he been working on it?’ Cora asked.
‘Two years. He only accepted help from the apprentices when time grew short.’ Ruth looked over at the other Wayward packing up the materials with quiet, deft movements. ‘I dread to think how he’s treated them.’ She cleared her throat then called over. ‘That’s your last brush stroke, Frant.’
The painter shuddered, as if Ruth’s words were like cold rain suddenly pelting his shoulders.
‘There’s no more time,’ Ruth said. ‘You know this. What good is the most powerful Hook the Union has ever seen if it doesn’t reach the capital in time to be displayed?’
Frant hung his head and stepped away, but his eyes were still on the canvas. His hand that held the brush reached up, as if working independently of the painter. Ruth strode forwards and grabbed him, all but dragging him from the painting.
‘Some help here, Cora?’
Cora took Frant’s other arm, and together she and Ruth walked him out of the blue tent, into the deeper blue of early dusk. Lamps had been lit, and for a moment Cora thought she was back in a city. Then she heard the horses calling to one another, smelt them on the warm air, and remembered.
