Darkhaven

by A. F. E. Smith

  As for the alternative … Travers frowned. With all the furore over Florentyn’s death, he had been unable to check on the alternative for several days. Perhaps it was about time he went back down into Arkannen and continued with the final part of his orders.

  ‘Captain Travers.’ A Helmsman stepped into the room, giving a salute. ‘Lord Myrren sent me. He wants to consult with you.’

  Travers suppressed a sigh. His errand to the city could wait; for now, he would have to go and find out what Myrren wanted.

  The old Changer’s son was waiting in his room, looking serious and uneasy. Stepping through the doorway, Travers bowed low to hide a smile. Myrren had always been uncomfortable with ordering people around; it would make the forthcoming conversation much easier to steer.

  ‘You sent for me, my lord?’ he enquired, straightening up.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about Ayla,’ Myrren said. ‘Are you looking for her?’

  Travers nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My lord …’ Travers spread his hands; surely the reasons were obvious. ‘She escaped on the same night your father was murdered, after having been imprisoned for carrying out a previous attack. Do you really need to ask why?’

  ‘I have interviewed the priestess who was attacked, and her description of the creature does not match Ayla’s other form.’ Myrren gave him a narrow-eyed look. ‘As your men knew very well, the night they brought the news of that attack.’

  It was an unexpected accusation. Travers shook his head, unsure how to react.

  ‘My lord … there was no deliberate misinformation on the part of the Helm. Lady Ayla was the only Changer in Mirrorvale apart from Florentyn himself. No-one else could have done it.’

  ‘The priestess doesn’t think she was attacked by Ayla,’ Myrren said stubbornly. ‘And if something else attacked her, something else could very well have killed my father.’

  Travers shrugged. ‘The priestess must be mistaken.’

  ‘Captain Travers, my father was killed by something that ripped his throat out!’ Myrren’s voice rose in anger. ‘The form my sister Changes into couldn’t possibly commit such an act.’

  ‘I am sorry, my lord.’ Travers deliberately remained calm and reasonable. ‘But you are the only person still living who has seen Lady Ayla’s other form. She can’t be acquitted on your word alone.’

  Myrren frowned. ‘Acquitted?’

  ‘Before Lord Florentyn died, he informed me that he was going to find his daughter guilty of the attack on the priestess and that I would be required to carry out a sentence of incarceration,’ Travers explained. ‘He signed and sealed the warrant in my presence. Until it is proven that another person committed these crimes, I am bound by law to uphold your father’s judgement.’

  ‘I see.’ Myrren folded his arms, looking suddenly weary. ‘So no matter what I say to you, you will continue to search for Ayla in order to lock her up.’

  ‘It is my duty to the Nightshade line, my lord.’ Their eyes met, and it seemed to Travers that they understood each other. Then Myrren sighed.

  ‘Very well, then. In that case, I have no more to say to you.’

  He nodded dismissal, and Travers departed with a feeling of slight surprise. He had met an unexpected adversary in Myrren; it was clear the man believed his sister innocent and would do what he could to prove it, which didn’t suit Travers at all. At the very least, it meant he should set a watch on Myrren, just in case he found Ayla before the Helm did. Once Ayla was locked up, in that lightless room with its thick stone walls and its reinforced metal door, there would be nothing anyone could do about it. The room was too small to Change in – intentionally so – and the holder of the single key controlled all access to it.

  Travers intended to make sure he was the one who held that key.

  EIGHT

  Caraway awoke with a dry mouth and a longing for ale. His neck and shoulders ached from lying on the floor all night, though he couldn’t remember what he was doing there. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and saw the cloaked and hooded figure curled up on the bed. In an instant, memory came flooding back: he had offered Ayla Nightshade his help, and she had accepted.

  Moving softly, so as not to wake her, he left the room and descended the stairs into the chill air of dawn. Plunging his head under the pump, he gulped down a few mouthfuls of water, then wandered over to the pisspot to relieve himself. At least when you lived above a tanner’s yard, your urine didn’t go to waste. As he stood there, breathing in the stench of rotting flesh and excrement that characterised the leather-making process, he tried to work out what he should do next. He had no money, lived in what was probably the worst room in Arkannen, and couldn’t get through a single day without needing a drink. How in the name of all the elements was he going to help Ayla prove her innocence?

  Of course, it didn’t aid matters that she hated the very sight of him. He understood that, though it saddened him. It must be difficult for her to accept help from the man who was responsible for her mother’s death. And she’d changed: in place of the bright-eyed girl he remembered was a bitter and arrogant young woman who clearly thought he was worth less than the dirt beneath her shoe. He hadn’t been able to envisage the old Ayla committing murder, but the new Ayla seemed wholly capable of it. Yet be that as it may, he knew he had to do something to help her – to atone, in however small a way, for his past. After all, if the years since Kati’s death had changed her, he had only himself to blame.

  These thoughts weren’t helping. He tried to push aside recrimination and regret, to think rationally. If Ayla was suspected of her father’s murder then he must have been killed in a way that suggested a Changer had done it. In turn, that meant one of two things: either there was a hidden Changer in Mirrorvale, or someone else had committed the crime and made it look like a Changer’s handiwork.

  Well, actually it meant one of three things. The third possibility was that Ayla really had killed her father. Thinking back over the few words they had exchanged, he couldn’t remember her saying outright that she hadn’t. Still, he would have to ignore that third option, because if it was true he might as well slit his wrists now and be done with it.

  So, two possibilities. He could think of no way to investigate the first with the limited resources at his disposal, but the second struck him as far likelier anyway. Ayla had said the Helm despised her, and to a large extent she was right. Caraway could name several men he’d met during his brief employment in Darkhaven who would have been glad to see the half-blood Changer discredited. Whether they would go as far as killing Florentyn, who was pure blood and a true creature of power besides, he didn’t know. But perhaps if they thought he was betraying the Nightshade line in some way, they would have taken the chance to swat two flies with one blow …

  He ran his hands under the pump, then hurried back upstairs. Ayla was sitting on his bed, arms folded, the cloak arranged neatly at her side.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded as soon as he set foot inside the door, her expression a mixture of suspicion and annoyance. He shook the question off, too intent on deduction to let her hostility affect him.

  ‘Lady Ayla, before your father died, did he do anything … unusual? Anything that might have been seen as a threat to someone who wanted to preserve the purity of the Nightshade bloodline?’

  ‘You mean, like announcing his intention to disinherit Myrren and make me the heir to Darkhaven instead?’ Her tone was dry. ‘Of course, that was before he decided I was unstable and needed to be locked up for the good of the country.’

  Caraway frowned at her. ‘He locked you up?’

  ‘About a month ago, a priestess was attacked in the sixth ring,’ Ayla said. ‘I was the only suspect. Myrren helped me escape on the same night my father was murdered.’

  The words held no trace of emotion, and for a moment the third possibility Caraway had considered earlier seemed distinctly the most plausible of the three. Yet looking at her more cl
osely, he could see the tension in her interlocked fingers and her straight-as-steel back. She was frightened and in danger, and it was up to him to protect her as he hadn’t protected her mother.

  ‘It’s possible both of these attacks were carried out deliberately to implicate you,’ he said. ‘I think I’d better visit the fifth ring.’

  Her lip curled. ‘Surely you’re not allowed up there any more?’

  ‘I know a man who owes me a favour.’ Five years had passed since he left, but he’d never called it in. He’d always been too ashamed to show his face. But now … he studied Ayla’s tight, controlled expression. Now he had something more important than shame.

  ‘I’ll go this morning,’ he said. ‘Just as soon as I’ve brought you breakfast.’ He hesitated, chewing the inside of his lip. ‘Um … do you have any money?’

  After dashing off and returning with something he called a butty – he produced the thing with a beaming smile, as though he hadn’t just bought it with her own coin – Caraway started out for the fifth ring. Ayla sat on his bed and stared at the butty. It appeared to be two thick slices of coarse bread with an unidentifiable chunk of singed meat in between. She had never eaten anything so disgusting in her life, and she didn’t fancy starting now.

  On the other hand, she’d finished the last of the food from Myrren a full day ago …

  The smell of the meat crept into her nostrils, and her stomach gave an insistent gurgle. Deciding she had to be practical about the situation, she took a tentative bite. A surprisingly short time later, she was left with nothing but grease on her fingers and a longing for more. Interesting. It hadn’t been nearly as horrible as it looked. She supposed it was hunger and the stress of her situation that made a cheap piece of meat and some bread taste as good as anything she’d ever eaten in Darkhaven.

  Wiping her fingers on a fold of her cloak – if she kept that up, she’d soon fit in here – she gazed around the room. It was just as depressing as it had been the previous evening: filthy and bare. And she was going to have to spend her days here, relying on Tomas Caraway to exonerate her. At the thought, the food she’d just eaten condensed to a cold lump in her belly. She swallowed, fighting the sudden nausea. If only her Nightshade colouring didn’t give her away. If only she wasn’t so obviously herself …

  She’d left her knife on the windowsill, where she’d be able to reach it in a hurry if Caraway decided to rid the world of another taint to the Nightshade line. Now, without letting her mind dwell on what she was doing, she caught up the heavy fall of her hair in one hand and the knife in the other. Maybe she could make herself look a little less like an inhabitant of Darkhaven.

  Her hair was harder to cut than she’d expected; it resisted the blade like a tight-woven rope. Gritting her teeth, she sawed away at it. As each individual strand snapped, there was less and less resistance, but it became increasingly difficult to hold straight and taut. When she finally finished the job, she probed her head with her fingertips: as she’d guessed, she’d cut it crooked. Looking down at the dark locks scattered around her on the bed, she blinked back unexpected tears. She wouldn’t cry. Even if her hair seemed a symbol of everything she’d lost, she wouldn’t cry. But how in the name of wind and flame was she going to neaten it up without the aid of a mirror?

  After hacking at a few odd strands without much success, she gave up and put the knife down. She had become aware of another, more pressing problem: she needed to use the water closet. Only Caraway didn’t have a water closet, did he? Where on earth did people like him go to relieve themselves? She paced the floor with increasing urgency, before finally deciding she had no choice but to go out. It was hardly likely the Helm would be looking for her in a tanner’s yard, after all. She’d wear her cloak, though, with the hood pulled close over her head. She wasn’t altogether convinced by the efficacy of her shortened hair as a disguise.

  The door to Caraway’s room didn’t have a lock on it, of course, so she just pulled it shut behind her and crept down the rickety stairs. At the bottom stood the archway that led out into the yard; she hesitated before walking through, surprised by just how busy it was compared to yesterday evening. Several skins were pegged out in the centre of the open space, the workers leaning over and scraping them with knives. The smell was even worse than it had been indoors; it made her eyes water.

  As she watched the scene, unsure where to go, one of the men walked over to a large pot at the side of the yard and started to unbutton his breeches. Feeling her face heat, Ayla averted her eyes. She looked back in time to see him pick up the pot and carry it over to a vat containing more skins, into which he emptied the contents before replacing the now-empty pot beside the wall. So that was how they made leather. Ayla glanced down at her boots and wrinkled her nose. She’d never be able to look at footwear in quite the same way again. And if she had to use that pot …

  Summoning up her courage, she stepped out into the path of two women who were passing the archway with covered baskets in hand.

  ‘Excuse me? Can you tell me where women go to, um, you know …?’ Speechless with embarrassment, she gestured at the pot. One of the women she’d accosted, an improbable redhead, let out a broad chuckle.

  ‘Same as the men, my lovely, only we does it sittin’ down.’

  Ayla stared at her, aghast. The other woman – brown hair and a missing tooth – shook her head, grinning.

  ‘She’s just messin’ with you, sweetheart. For those of a sensitive disposition, there’s a closet t’other side of the yard.’

  ‘Oh.’ Limp with relief, Ayla gave them both a nod. ‘Thank you.’

  She turned to go, only to be stopped by the redhead’s voice. ‘What’s yer name, love?’

  ‘Kati.’ Her mother’s name fell from her lips before she could stop it. She suppressed a wince, but the two women seemed not to notice.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Kati,’ the brown-haired one said. ‘Just moved in, then, ’ave you?’

  Ayla offered a weak smile. ‘I – I’m staying with Tomas Caraway.’

  ‘Ah.’ The woman exchanged glances with her friend. ‘Well, good for ’im, I say. Been ’ere years, and this is the first time he’s ’ad a girl in his room. I was beginnin’ to think his interests, well, you know …’ She produced a leering wink. ‘Lay elsewhere.’

  ‘So.’ The redhead leaned in, eyebrows raised suggestively. ‘What’s he like, Kati? No need to be shy. We’re all dyin’ to know.’

  Fire and blood. They thought she was – that Caraway was – that the two of them were together. Ayla opened her mouth to give a swift and unequivocal rebuttal, but before she could speak it occurred to her that denying it would only lead to more questions about who she was and what she was doing there. Though it pained her to let it happen, it would cause less talk all round if they thought she and Caraway were an item. So she forced her jaw closed, gave the two women a tight-lipped smile, and hurried off towards the water closet before they had a chance to ask any more inappropriate questions.

  On her way back across the yard, she stopped to wash her face and hands under the pump, wishing she had some of her favourite rosemary soap. She hadn’t realised, until she left Darkhaven, how many little everyday indulgences she really depended on – indulgences that hadn’t been kept from her even in prison, though they’d been less regular. Like soap. And clean clothes. And a water closet that was more than just a worm-eaten lean-to with several cracks large enough to see out of and thus, by inference, in through …

  Ayla shook her head, straightening her shoulders. This was only temporary – she just had to keep telling herself that. And besides, she wasn’t a spoilt rich girl who couldn’t live without luxury for more than a day. She was a Nightshade, and Nightshades endured.

  All the same, she didn’t think she’d be filling her water bottle again for a while. The less frequently she had to avail herself of the facilities, the better.

  As she walked back towards the archway and Caraway’s room, a heavy arm fell acros
s her shoulders. She looked up to see a man grinning down at her, his rough sleeveless vest doing nothing to disguise his muscular build. At the same time, with a horrible plummeting sensation that shot right through her core, she remembered she’d left her knife upstairs. How could she have been so stupid?

  ‘All right, love?’ the man said, pushing the hood back from her face with his free hand. ‘Gonna introduce yerself?’

  ‘Don’t touch me, you big oaf!’ Deciding attack was the best form of defence, Ayla slipped out from under his arm and turned to confront him, hands on hips. He frowned at her.

  ‘You better watch yerself, girlie –’

  ‘No, you watch it, Carlo.’ The two women she’d met earlier were observing the scene from a little distance away. It was the redhead who’d spoken; she nodded in Ayla’s direction. ‘She’s Caraway’s woman.’

  ‘Oh.’ Instantly the man’s expression turned wary. ‘Well, she only had to say so, din’t she. I din’t mean any harm.’

  With that, he shambled off across the yard; Ayla frowned after him before recollecting herself and hurrying back to the safety of the archway. Yet the little scene stayed with her, playing over and over in her mind. Apparently, despite being a drunken idiot and a murderer besides, Caraway had these people’s respect. He didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidating to her – in fact, he cringed around her like a dog longing for its master’s approval – but she supposed he must still have some fighting skills that made ordinary folk keep their distance. Which meant, though she hated the very thought of it, that her continued safety in this place depended on her remaining Caraway’s woman.

  At least for now.

  NINE

  Myrren stood in his father’s bedroom and tried not to shudder. They had stripped the bed, of course, and scrubbed the floor until it shone as bright as it had the day it was laid, but he thought he could still smell the blood: a faint, cloying reek underlying the heat of the gas lamps and the scent of the dragonlilies someone had put in a bowl on the table. Myrren had never liked dragonlilies – their florid purple and red blooms reminded him of an open wound – but in this room they were appropriate enough. He stepped closer to the flowers, breathing their spiced aroma deep into his lungs. The stench of death was replaced by the smell of a Changer creature, cinnamon and heat. His father’s smell.