Reign of Beasts

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  I swarmed him, beat him senseless with my slender arms bolstered by bright animor and forced him to surrender. Then I bought him a new suit of clothes and a tankard of beer, and he followed me like a pet lamb.

  He was a soldier waiting to happen. Once I showed him how to fight the sky, he never killed another demme, though I had to watch him carefully in the months when the sky was quiet.

  Zero was another matter. Livilla found him only a day or so after he came into his powers, and dumped him on my doorstep. When I asked her what the fuck she meant by that, she shrugged and smiled. ‘He doesn’t match my set, dearling. Besides, he reminds me of you.’

  Zero was quick and smart and knew how to applaud when I was practising a new song. I kept him, and would have put him on the stage if he had an ounce of talent for anything but trouble.

  Garnet did not mock me for changing my mind and taking courtesi, though I half-expected him to. He made one veiled comment — that it was lucky I hadn’t sworn an oath on the matter — but left it alone. Perhaps he was glad I was no longer alone. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care very much about what I did.

  There was only one thing I could not forgive Garnet for. Dying was the cruellest trick he had ever played on me.

  It was Ashiol’s fault. He was back in the city and we all knew it. His return had Garnet rattled. It was an ordinary skybattle on an ordinary nox, but one careless mistake led to another.

  The sky swallowed Garnet, and the world ended.

  Ashiol, Velody; Velody, Ashiol. I thought she was the cheap trick, the distraction, and that Ashiol would come back to us when he realised how much he was needed. But he turned out to be a constant disappointment, and she was the future.

  Finally, I put Garnet behind me. Mourned in private. Continued with my life.

  In the years that Ashiol was gone, I had grown up in every way imaginable. It hardly hurt at all when Halberk died. It’s easier when you don’t love the people you’re trying to protect. You can feel failure without wanting to die of it.

  When the upstart Ferax Lord went the same way as Tasha, I saw the loss in the eyes of his hounds and let them into my own corner of the Court. My life, such as it was, continued.

  But then the song started. So quiet at first, hardly an undercurrent of sound, a note here and there. Then, gradually, getting louder and louder. It followed me everywhere, through the city.

  It was loudest in the Killing Ground. I wasn’t supposed to go there, but I trespassed more than once, trying to find the source of the song that filled my head.

  The most obvious possibility was that I was going mad. It seemed likely to happen eventually; why not now? I had my first vision of the future the night that we took down Priest, when he was possessed by the sky. A future which had Garnet in it. If this was madness, I didn’t want to be sane.

  Then came the performance we made: a mad circus on the sands of the Killing Ground, the whole Court coming together to heal the city. In the midst of it all, I heard the song louder than ever before, and caught sight of something I had never expected to see for the remainder of my lifetime. Garnet’s face, staring out of a mirror. He had one finger pressed to his lips to silence me. Our little secret.

  The song was his, the voice was his, and how had I ever thought any different?

  Mirrors, it was all about mirrors. I saw him in every reflected glass, every shiny surface. The song he sang was the song of the Bestialia, and so I gathered my own Cabaret of Monsters, child by child. After Livilla, I had developed the knack for spotting them: children who would belong to the Court someday.

  Like Tasha before me, I would bring their powers out a little early. Where was the harm? They were destined to be ours. I only wanted to ensure that they were mine, and his. That they would sing the song to guide Garnet home.

  Courtesi, our courtesi.

  I have no regrets. How can I have regrets? It all worked as it should. Livilla is dead, but Garnet still lives. He loves me.

  The future is ours.

  ‘I have been talking for a long time, and I have spoken nothing but the truth. Am I allowed to know my captor’s name? Why am I here, and why is it dark?’ I know I am in the cage. I recognise the scent of it.

  ‘Ashiol, is that you?’

  ‘No,’ says a low voice, a demme’s voice, and while I can feel her animor, I still don’t know who she is. I know, however, that I am inside a cage.

  She strikes a light and holds a lantern up to my face. I know where I am now. This is my old dressing room underneath the ruined Vittorina Royale. Behind the stench of the skysilver bars is the smell of mould and damp. How did they get the cage here? They must have burnt their palms raw. Never underestimate the strength and ability of children who travel in a pack.

  ‘Topaz,’ I say. I remember her. More than any of the children. Her solemn, dark little face. Bright eyes. She wanted it, wanted the stage, more than any of them. Of course she is the salamander. She is the best of them. Her voice has more power in it than mine ever had. ‘What did you give me?’

  ‘Dalerian,’ she says, looking at me like I am the enemy. ‘It’s a tincture using —’

  ‘I know what it is.’ I am quite the amateur apothecary. Someone had to be when Garnet and Livilla took too much of one powder or started keening for a potion they craved. ‘No wonder I’ve been talking for so many hours.’ I don’t remember when it started, but my throat is rubbed raw.

  ‘Days,’ she says. ‘We gave you the dose days ago. Too much, I think. You kept falling in and out of consciousness, but when you were awake, all you did was babble.’

  She knows all my secrets, then. Much good may they do her.

  ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘Because Livilla is dead, and it’s your fault.’ Her voice is shaking. I remember that, the loss of your first Lord. Had it been anyone but Garnet who killed Tasha, I would have avenged her fiercely.

  ‘I never meant for her to die. I didn’t expect —’

  ‘No,’ Topaz says sharply. ‘You expected him to kill me. You were going to let him kill me. You didn’t give a damn. How selfish is your love that you can just stand by and let him do these things to other people?’

  ‘We’re all selfish when we love,’ I tell her. ‘What are you going to do with me?’

  ‘I’m going to hurt Garnet.’ She means it, she really does. Her eyes are bright with the fire of the salamander.

  I laugh. Maybe it’s the drugs or the tiredness or the pain in my throat, I don’t know, but the whole thing strikes me as deeply hilarious.

  ‘You think you can hurt Garnet by killing me? He won’t bat an eyelid. He doesn’t love me.’

  Saying it aloud doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it might.

  Topaz tilts her head at me, confused. ‘Why do you say that like it’s some kind of triumph?’

  ‘Because he doesn’t love anyone. Not me, not Velody, not Liv. Only —’ And there I stop because, oh yes, it does hurt, after all.

  ‘Only Ashiol,’ said Topaz. ‘That other King.’

  That about sums Ashiol up, doesn’t it? That other King. The runaway. The traitor. The one who isn’t Garnet, isn’t Velody. The one we don’t need.

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper. My body is sluggish from the potion, but I recognise the burn now, the feel of the skysilver cuffs at my wrists. Topaz has learnt from the best. ‘He only loves Ashiol.’

  And Aufleur, of course, this fucking city, which takes everything and repays nothing. Garnet loves Aufleur, and Ashiol, and I am nobody.

  Topaz blows out the lantern and I hear muttering in the darkness. Three voices, or four.

  ‘Where are the rest of you?’ I call out, and it takes a while before she answers.

  ‘You don’t need to know that.’

  ‘I know that the sacrifice for the Kalends was a taste of things to come,’ I tell them. Here they are, the final secrets, spilling out, and I don’t even have the dalerian to blame for it as the potion has long since worn out of my system. ‘Garnet has been lis
tening to the dust devils, to whatever lives beyond the sky. It was my fault. I gave him the watch; I didn’t know … He thinks he’s made a fucking bargain with them, and if the city is going to survive past Saturnalia, it’s going to take seven hells of a sacrifice.’

  Silence, and more muttering.

  ‘What kind of sacrifice?’ Topaz asks.

  ‘Where are the rest of your lambs?’ I counter. ‘Are they safe? He’ll be coming for them first. They’re easy meat.’

  How long have I been wanting to tell someone, to warn them all?

  ‘Courtesi, Lords, sentinels, Seers, Kings. Maybe even the daylight folk. I don’t know who they are. But I know he thinks that he has to make sacrifices to save the city from falling into the sky. He thinks they will keep their bargain.’

  Topaz is so still in the darkness. ‘Livilla?’

  ‘Livilla was the first. More to go.’

  She leaves me after that and I find myself crying, tears wet on my face. Not for my poor pitiful life, or the memories the dalerian has made me spill forth. I am crying for Livilla, who loved Garnet, and who was finally brave enough to stop loving him, to find something else to fight for. I always thought she was the weak one, but she was so much stronger than me.

  Garnet is wrong. I love him, but he is wrong.

  On the Kalends of Saturnalis, my true love gave to me, a lake full of milk and honey.

  On the Nones of Saturnalis, my true love gave to me, two lambs a-crying and a lake full of milk and honey.

  On the Ides of Saturnalis, my true love gave to me, three sentinels screaming, two lambs a-crying and a lake full of milk and honey …

  I don’t feel like singing any more.

  She comes to me again, later, in the darkness. I am exhausted and sore, can barely move even when she unlocks the cage. The potion has worn off, but its effects still have me in their grip.

  ‘I don’t remember how you captured me,’ I whisper.

  ‘I slipped the potion into your drink.’

  ‘No. I am not so foolish as to take a drink from your hand, my little poisoner.’

  ‘I did it.’

  Another voice; one so familiar that I am startled into a coughing fit.

  ‘Zero.’

  Another betrayal. First the brighthound hid his powers from me, and now my pet urchin sides with his own kind to bring me down. Was Halberk really my most loyal courteso? I should never have broken my own fucking rule.

  ‘I’m sorry, my Lord,’ Zero gabbles. ‘But you’re going to get yourself killed if you stay at his side, that Power and Majesty. He killed Livilla, he don’t care about anyone, and I know you can’t see straight when it comes to him. I only wanted …’

  And he runs out of words, finally.

  ‘You wanted to protect me,’ I whisper in the darkness.

  Oh, saints preserve me from this.

  ‘We need you, my Lord,’ says Topaz, her voice damnably confident. ‘We need you to help us take him down.’

  ‘It can’t be done,’ I croak. Not because it’s impossible, but because if they are relying on me to betray Garnet, they are playing a fool’s game.

  Topaz reaches out and touches the side of my face, a gentle touch that reminds me horribly of Madalena. This demme knows all my secrets. All my weaknesses.

  ‘It don’t have to be the way it always has been,’ she says. ‘It can be different.’

  Saints and devils. Another Velody. How will we cope?

  I see Livilla’s white throat with the slash of red across it. I see Garnet, knowing before he did it that he was going to make the cut. I taste the wolfish burr of her animor at the back of my throat.

  ‘Time to make a choice, my Lord,’ says Zero.

  When did he grow up? He doesn’t sound like the boy he was when I took him in.

  I want to scream, or sing, or laugh. Anything but make the choice to, finally, let Garnet go.

  ‘Show me how you take salamander form,’ I say instead, forcing the words through my scraped throat. ‘Show me your fire.’

  Garnet is afraid of flame. Flame, betrayal and Ashiol. The one thing he is not afraid of is me.

  It could be his undoing.

  PART XII

  The Saints of Bazeppe

  35

  Bona Dea;

  One day before the Nones of Saturnalis

  Velody leaned back against the cool leather of the train seat. It felt as if Aufleur was tugging on her skin, trying to restrain her from leaving. They were moving away from the city so fast, she couldn’t think straight.

  Of all the people she might have expected to have sitting opposite her, Kelpie was one of the most unlikely. They had never been friends. Kelpie was the sentinel Velody felt she could count on the least. There was something about her that made Velody feel as if she herself wasn’t really part of the Creature Court, more an unwelcome visitor. It hadn’t surprised Velody that Kelpie chose Garnet and the Court over her, though the fact that she had turned her back on Ashiol at the same time was rather more shocking.

  Perhaps that was why she was here — to make amends to Ashiol, not Velody.

  ‘If you have something to ask me,’ Kelpie said abruptly, ‘just do it. I’m not made of glass.’

  ‘Have you recovered from the poison?’

  ‘That’s not what you want to ask.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Velody fell silent. She should ask Kelpie about her motivations for coming to Bazeppe with her, but that wasn’t enough. ‘Why don’t you like me?’ she said finally.

  Kelpie stared at her. It was rare to see her entire face; usually she hid behind her hair or swords, or in the shadows.

  ‘You haven’t earned your place,’ she said finally. ‘You don’t belong in the Creature Court. We’re family, and you’re not.’

  ‘The others seem to disagree.’

  ‘They’re stupid. We all know each other, inside and out. We start young, we grow up in the Court, that’s how it works. I don’t know you, and they all seem to … I don’t know. They love you, and I don’t get it. You’re not one of us.’

  ‘Why did you pledge your loyalty to me in the first place if you feel that way?’

  ‘Because you’re a King, and we don’t get a choice about loyalty. Because it was the only way Ashiol was going to stay with us. If we made him Power and Majesty, he would run, we all knew that.’ Kelpie smiled thinly. Her eyes looked so sad. ‘He ran, anyway.’

  ‘And if you have to choose again, between the three of us?’ Velody challenged her. ‘If it was down to you, which of us would you have as Power and Majesty?’

  Kelpie sighed. ‘Maybe this time I’d be the one who chose to run away. It seems like the thing to do. Maybe I’m doing it already.’ She leaned her head back against the moulded leather and gave Velody an unfriendly look. ‘It’s an unfair question. Sentinels never get to choose.’

  ‘Do you think we can bring him back?’

  ‘Depends, doesn’t it? What’s in Bazeppe to keep him there?’

  That, Velody thought, was a very good question.

  The servants at the Palazzo in Bazeppe were of a different mould to those at home. Velody had expected to have to lie her way through a phalanx of factotums and stewards to get to Ashiol. Instead, she and Kelpie were sent directly to a chatty under-secretary who proclaimed how delighted he was to show them to the Ducomte’s office.

  ‘Office,’ Kelpie mouthed behind the under-secretary’s back.

  It made as little sense to Velody, but she pretended to be unconcerned. The under-secretary gave them a rambling lecture about this particular wing of the Palazzo and its historical significance, which allowed her to gather her thoughts.

  Her animor had sparked with life again once she stepped within these new city walls. It tasted different, but good. In the Palazzo, it truly awoke within her. Ashiol was here. She could feel the heat of him, though he was still several rooms away. His animor was awaking, as well, stirred by her own. She felt her skin prickle at his proximity.

  ‘
Troyes, these demoiselles are here to see the Ducomte,’ the under-secretary said with a flourish as they entered a room in which a slender young man in a burnt-orange linen suit lounged behind a beautifully carved desk. ‘I believe they are his …’

  ‘Tailors,’ said Velody, her gaze steady and uncompromising.

  ‘Indeed,’ said this new secretary, eyeing her with an unfriendly gaze. He walked with deliberation to the connecting door and knocked before opening it. ‘Seigneur Ducomte? I’m afraid the lawyers have not yet sent up the draft contracts. But your … tailors are here to see you.’ His voice made it clear that he didn’t believe a word of it.

  Kelpie hung back for a moment, but Velody seized her hand and pulled her into the office.

  It was a gorgeous room, all green leather and carved wood. Ashiol sat behind a desk four times the size of his secretary’s, and he had a view of the wintry landscape outside.

  He stood to greet them. He looked so different. He wore a plum-coloured brocade suit with a beautifully cut sapphire-blue morning coat — respectable and debonair, but obviously designed for a man ten years older and thirty years more respectable than himself. His hair was recently combed. Strangest of all, he seemed at peace with himself. Had Velody ever seen him when he wasn’t angry or afraid? She couldn’t think of a single occasion.

  ‘Mistress Velody,’ he said politely, treating them as near-acquaintances. ‘Mistress Kelpie. How kind of you to come all this way.’

  ‘I couldn’t entrust your shirts to anyone else, seigneur,’ said Velody, as the secretaries withdrew and closed the door behind them.

  Immediately, Ashiol’s face changed. The old anger surfaced, most of it directed at Kelpie. ‘Changed sides again, have we?’

  Kelpie stepped back as if slapped.

  ‘Garnet almost killed her,’ said Velody. ‘Don’t be horrible about it.’