by Sarah Remy
“You next,” Lory said. He sounded darkly amused. “I’ll keep the sewer rats from your behind, witch.”
Avani nodded her thanks. They hadn’t encountered a single living creature in the sewer, not a rodent or insect. The Maiden Spring was too foul to support life, the fumes too hazardous. She’d managed to discharge the sigil without difficulty by using one of the basic banishing cants Mal had taught her via correspondence, but she suspected the trouble taken was unnecessary. The sigil felt old, weak, forgotten. And if it triggered an alarm somewhere above ground, Avani thought only the greatest of fools would brave the effluvia-filled tunnels in investigation.
“Gah!” Renault spat, horrified, as Avani popped through the hole and onto his cellar floor. “By the Scald, Avani, you’re covered in shit.”
“I’m aware.” Avani lay on the cold cellar floor next to Russel. She turned her head and regarded Wilhaiim’s king without favor. “Your kind welcome is much appreciated.”
Renault blanched. Avani watched as his disgusted expression smoothed away to bland courtesy. She saw the effort it took the man to walk across the flagstones and offer his hand. She spared him her filthy fingers and rose on her own, then helped Russel to sitting. Lory and Peter dragged the grate back into place, sealing back some of the rising gases. The two pages watched with identical expressions of alarm and excitement.
Both the lads and the king went unmasked. Avani supposed those quarantined in the castle had little need of protection, safely locked away from the rest of the city as they were.
“Can you walk? I’ve had baths ordered, but we’ve a few stairs to climb yet.”
“We can, Majesty,” Peter said, even as he wrapped an arm around Russel. Lory took the woman’s other side, and between them the two men managed to get her upright and moving once again. Avani retrieved Russel’s forgotten sword as they staggered after one torch-bearing page. Renault fell into step by Avani’s side, and the last lad took up the rear, torch smoking.
“Servants’ stairs,” he explained, and herded them up a seemingly endless slant of square-hewn steps. They met no other person coming up or down, although Avani heard hushed voices behind closed doors, and once, the faint sound of a warbling lute. She knew when they passed the kitchens, because she could smell fried bread and roasted meat and parsnips through the invasive stink of sewer on her clothes and skin.
The upper floors were quiet. Avani wondered how much of the court had fled early while they could still escape the city. She knew the wealthiest of families had country estates, and often started the plague season away from Wilhaiim, relying on isolation to keep sickness at bay.
The rising stair seemed to run on forever, perhaps to the very tip of one of Wilhaiim’s white towers. But when the lad at the front finally stopped and opened a bronze-bound wooden door, she realized they weren’t very high up at all, and that the cellars must have been far below the bailey, the Maiden Spring running very deep in the earth.
She recognized the faded tapestries hanging in the corridor beyond the staircase, and the faded rugs on the floor. Torches burned in brackets between tapestries. Small pots of incense hung on silvery chains from the brackets, smoldering. The pots were new since Avani’s last visit, and the sickly-sweet smoke made her sneeze.
“Garret will take you to your old room,” Renault said. The true-gold circlet he wore on his brow sparkled against torchlight. Avani noticed now that he’d traded his usual Hennish leather for a simple pair of black trousers and a matching tunic.
“Water’s waiting,” he said. “Wash and rest, Avani, and we’ll speak in the morning.”
“Wait!” She reached toward him, then remembered the encrusted state of her hand, and settled for beckoning with one finger. “Renault, is there news?”
“Witch!” Lory said, affronted. “You truly canna go about speaking to His Majesty in such a—”
“He’s not my king,” Avani said, although in truth she paid his tithe without protest summer and winter. “Ai, and it’s Renault courting me for position in his empty cold room, isn’t it?” But she softened her shoulders and tried for respect when she met Renault’s thoughtful stare. “Unless he is no longer? Your Majesty, is there news of Liam and Malachi?”
“None,” Renault replied. “For the temple allows no messenger to pass my gates, nor any missive shot over the battlements. The fear of the Red Worm runs rampant.”
Avani used temper to bolster despair. “The infection is inside the walls, is it not? What danger in a missive?”
“We’ll speak in the morning,” Renault repeated. “Private words are more easily overheard when there are midnight shadows to stand eavesdrop.” He smiled, very slightly, a twist of his lips against his beard. “I may not be your sovereign, Avani, but you’re in my city now, and you’ll not present yourself for audience until you’ve oiled your skin with the tansy and slept until dawn. Do you understand?”
“Aye,” said Avani, without enthusiasm. “So be it.”
HER OLD CHAMBER was just as she remembered, but for the empty corner beneath the window where her loom once stood. Two large wooden casks stood before the kindled hearth, the first filled to the brim with clear, hot water, and the second empty but for a small bucket. A large vial of clear oil sat next to the bucket. Avani freed the cork, curious, and dipped her finger.
“Tansy, my lady. For oiling against the Worm. Though castle carl thought my lady would prefer a soak, as well,” the little page said, making a dubious face. “I think you may need both, my lady, even though the tub’s a bit of a risk, what with the sickness.”
Avani laughed in spite of herself. The lad reminded her of a young Liam, and she couldn’t fault his reasoning.
“A bath never hurt anyone.” She shrugged free of her journey bag and sword. The bag and the leather sword belt were soaked through. She worried both were ruined. She knew her sodden boots were. “Please, could you ask them to bring up more hot water?”
The page nodded. “Aye, my lady. There are clean clothes on the bedstead, my lady. His Majesty said you’d have no need of a lady’s maid.”
“His Majesty is quite correct.” Without mind for decorum, Avani began stripping away her soiled clothes. The page bowed and hurried off in search of clean water, taking his torch with him, leaving the chambers dark but for the glow of banked flames on the hearth.
Avani’s bare skin was black and crusty as dried tar. In the end her clothes had provided little protection against continuous slips and dips into the Maiden. She kicked her tunic and trousers and boots toward the door, irritated by the ruination of good fabric. She’d loomed the light wool herself, soaped and dyed the fibers with dearly bought pigments.
She climbed into the empty casket, used the empty bucket to dipper hot water from its steaming neighbor. The casket floor was rough under the soles of her feet. Avani upended the bucket over her head, and gasped at the heat of clean water across her shoulders. Muck and shit ran away in sluggish layers, turning clear water brown. Avani poured and scrubbed, scraping her scalp with her fingernails, shaking clumps of waste from her hair.
She wondered if she’d have to cut her long hair again, not for the Maiden, but in mourning, for Mal, and for Liam. She pushed the traitorous thought away. Mal was still alive, she could feel him still, like a raw nerve at the back of her skull, a distant limb gone phantom.
And Mal would keep her lad safe.
A knock on the chamber door preceded more hot water. Six young women carried water-heavy buckets without visible effort. A seventh lass bundled Avani’s shoulders in a thick towel, warm still from the laundress’s fire.
“If you’d step out, mum,” she suggested as her companions refilled the cask. “We’ll see about the dirty.”
Avani nodded, and stepped free of her soiled bath, fingering the cloth about her shoulders with interest.
“What fiber is this?” she asked. �
��Not silk, and not wool. Nor even hemp.”
“The tinkers call it algodon,” the maid answered. “It’s a rare thing, new even to the castle, from the Black Coast, mum.”
Intrigued, Avani took the towel with her into the newly filled casket, wrapping it neatly about her hair and shoulders. She sunk to her waist in the fresh water, resisting the urge to rise and help the herd of youngsters as together they slid the used tub across flagstones to the window.
“Ware!” The nearest maid threw open the casement windows, glanced casually below, and together the girls lifted the entire cask, pouring its contents into thin air. The water splashed across sill and floor before cascading into the night. Four of the maids slid the empty bath back toward the chamber door, while their companions wiped up spilt water with their skirts.
“Ai,” Avani scolded. “That water’s poisonous with filth. You’ll ruin your gowns.”
“Don’t worry, mum.” One responded, chipper past a wide yawn. “The laundress cleans us up every night, with what water’s left after the ladies are done primping and oiling. Begging your pardon, mum.”
Avani shook her head. “Go,” she said. “Tell the laundress to wash your hands and the cask with white spirits.”
The lasses all looked at Avani as if they thought her mad, but they nodded assurances before they rolled their burden into the corridor, spattering bits of brackish water as they retreated. Avani, flushed and sweating from the heat of the water, eyed the droplets with mistrust.
Minute, monstrous entities, the voice that wasn’t quite Mal reminded her. The seeds of disease. Often found in contaminated soil, salt water, animal corpses. He’d written her an entire treatise on the dangers of moving straight from sheep or garden to supper or tea without properly cleansing her hands, as if she’d been a babe lacking in sense. As if her island mother hadn’t insisted her family cleanse their hands clean in a bowl of the white spirits before every meal.
A breeze through the open window made Avani shiver. The water was growing cold. She stood up, rubbed the towel over her flesh to dry it, and took her shivers out of the bath to the hearth. The towel came off her skin more clean than soiled, although the state of her fingers and hair made her shudder.
Tomorrow she’d visit the laundress, demand more hot water and the white spirits.
Naked, she spread the towel on the hearth to dry. She twisted her hair into a knot atop of her head, unwilling to deal with it without a comb, and secured it with silver pins. The clothes on the bed were simple but to her taste: a salwar, and trousers, and soft slippers, each dyed black—Mal’s color, the vocent’s color. A pointed message from the throne. She put them on anyway.
Avani dressed, then pulled shut the rattling casements. The night was growing rough with wind, the weather making mockery of temple proclamations. The air tasted of dawn. They’d been longer in the sewer than Avani had supposed.
She yawned wide. The bed was unchanged, high off the ground, hung with curtains, strewn with cushions clad in her own fabrics and designs. The rug at the foot of the bed was also her own, loomed before she’d grown too busy with clients to indulge her own tastes.
A branch of thick white candles burned in one corner. One of the maids must have set match to wick. A plate of cheese and bread and a pitcher of sweet wine sat on a low table. A small jar of dried herbs smoldered atop her old clothes chest. She sniffed, and identified tansy, and more lavender. Still, the combination made her sneeze. She set the snuff lid over the jar.
Sleep was calling, but Avani had one last task before she could burrow beneath cushions and quilts. The knots of her journey bag were water swollen and tight. She retrieved her blade and used the tip to slice the bag open. Her small box of teas tumbled out, still sealed. Her expensive threads in their silk pouch, all ruined. Her tins of healing salves and herbal compotes appeared salvageable.
Her Goddess was wedged at the very bottom of the split bag, swathed in fabric and bound with cord. The top layer of fabric was ruined, the cord wet, but beneath her wrappings the idol was dry as bone. Avani breathed a sigh of relief, and placed the gold-skinned statue on the hearth. She added a twist of bread and a square of cheese for offering, then snuffed the candles and climbed into bed, pulling the coverlet up past her chin.
The wind rattled against the sill, and the embers on the hearth burned low, and Avani could still smell the Maiden in her hair. She slept deeply, and dreamlessly, and woke to the sound of wings outside her window, and sat upright thinking it was Jacob knocking against the panes.
But when she sprang out of bed and threw the casement open, it was only sparrows nesting on a nearby buttress. The early morning was still, the breeze died again to nothing. People moved about in the courtyard below, wreathed in scented smoke. She heard temple bells and the breathing of the blacksmith’s bellows, but couldn’t see either the temple or the blacksmith’s corner for the fog of incense rolling about the bailey. A cart rattled by directly beneath the window, the driver slouched low behind his horse, a plague mask tied securely about his nose and mouth. There were corpses in this cart, four small bodies, partially shrouded.
The dead children sat in the cart alongside their stiffening corpses, impassive. Their eyes burned blue as they watched the courtyard roll by. One, a little lad with a snub nose and a perfectly bow-shaped mouth, looked up at Avani as they passed.
“Can I have a sweet, mum?” he asked, plaintive. “One of them red-and-green jelly sweets? Please, mum?”
The carter stared forward, unaware, and clucked impatiently at his horses.
Avani closed the window. She ate some bread and drank a little of the sweet wine, and then she went to see the king.
THE KINGSMEN ON duty outside the throne room let Avani in without hesitation. The heavy double doors slid soundlessly open and shut again. It was cold in the large room, in spite of the warm day dawning outside. Renault was not on his throne, but lingering by the hearth, warming gloved hands over the fire. His secretary lingered at his side, and a man in priest’s robes stood a few strides away, watching. The rest of the hall was empty, but for the guards standing in pairs along the walls.
“Avani.” Renault turned at the sound of her footsteps. He smiled. “Up early, I see. I remember that about you, the eagerness to greet the day, and waste not a slip of sunlight.”
The gleam in his brown eyes was cautionary, his wide smile a warning. Avani didn’t know Wilhaiim’s king well, but she’d seen the very same twitch of expression on Mal’s face when she was meant to hold her tongue.
“Tea?” His Majesty asked. He nodded at the pot resting on the hearth, and at the two delicate porcelain cups alongside. “You won’t be surprised to hear, I think, that the court’s developed a taste for island spices. Your doing, and Friend Deval’s.”
“Thank you,” Avani replied. The scribe set aside his portable desk, and poured out the tea. The young man’s hands were steady, fingers ink stained. “I wasn’t aware you knew Deval, Your Majesty.” The tea infused the porcelain with warmth. Avani cradled the cup in both hands.
“The man’s grown quite popular. Your influence, I think. He’s a small home inside the city walls, now. And a shop front. You must visit him, Avani. He’ll be pleased to see you.”
The scribe bowed as he offered Renault tea. The yellow-eyed priest was not included in the quiet ritual.
“Michael,” the king said. “Go and fetch me the book, will you?”
The scribe bowed again, and took himself off to the edge of the hall. Renault watched the young man depart, then took a careful swallow of his tea.
“That one,” the king said, a quiet murmur, “was trained up well in the temple dormitories. Both as a scribe, and a telltale. He’s been trying to steal a peek at Malachi’s journal since midnight. Now he’s his chance, and so have we.”
Avani arched a brow at Renault. This time, when he smiled, it was in honest amuse
ment.
“Brother Orat is trustworthy. As he was trained up well in my dormitories.”
“This,” said Avani, “is only one of the reasons I’ve no desire to serve you, Majesty. As far as I can tell, near everyone in this castle popped out of the womb with two faces.”
“Crude,” Renault replied. “And in general, apt. Honest men and women are more precious than true gold. Which is why I do need you here, in Mal’s laboratory, at least until the Red Worm is vanquished.”
“I’ve a pot of salve and serviceable herb knowledge. If it’s a hedge-witch you require, I’ll give you my help gladly. If it’s prohibitive magics you require, or cold-room lore, you’d best wait for Malachi. Or, at the very least, mend whatever rift’s developed between throne and temple. Brother Orat’s kind have more than a few pots of salve, and, I’m led to believe, a few healing sorceries.”
Renault finished his tea, then wiped amber droplets from his mustache with the back of his hand.
“The Masterhealer’s methods are failing. And Mal is aboard a ship bound across the Long Sea, closer now to Roue than our Low Port.”
Avani realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out in a long sigh. “You’ve found them, then. They’re well, the both of them?”
“For the nonce, although I understand it’s been a bit of a close thing. Roue’s a far older kingdom than my own, centuries older and yet still suffering growing pangs. I’m told they’re in desperate need of a magus, and although I’ve denied them—several times—still they came after mine.”
Avani set her porcelain cup, untouched, back on the hearth. “Mayhap I can spend some time in the cold room, mix up more salve, walk amongst the sick with drink and bandages until Mal returns.”
“Returns? Avani, I said I’ve found them, not that I have them. Brother Orat is only one of a legion of my eyes and ears.”
“Majesty,” Brother Orat said, a warning. The scribe was making his way back across the hall, leather book held in front of him in both hands.
