Land of the Beautiful Dead

by Smith, R. Lee

  “I said, sod off.”

  “And I do not follow your orders. You are not my mistress!” Serafina said again, her voice rising shrill and strained. “He made me for her. Only her.” She pressed her lips together, fighting with it, then burst out, “I know she’s dead, I know it, but I also know that if only I were not with you, I would be with her! You are keeping me from her! And don’t tell me it’s a lie because I already know, but knowing doesn’t make it right! So don’t tell me I can’t blame you. He made me for her and he gave me to you!”

  They just looked at each other for a while and then, without a word, both started walking again.

  “I’m sorry,” Serafina said stiffly. She may have even meant it, in some deadish way. “But I don’t have to like you, you know. Our lord provides well for his companions. If you are obedient to his rule, you are certain to have a comfortable life here in Haven, even after you’ve fallen out of his favor.”

  This was said so matter-of-factly that Lan could not immediately take offense, but she rallied and managed. “Thanks a lot!”

  Once again, her handmaiden seemed surprised. “Well, how long do you think you’ll have it, warmblood? You are very plain.”

  “And you’re a bitch.”

  “That wasn’t an insult,” Serafina said. “That is a fact. You are also coarse and unmannered, and that is a choice, which ought to be a far more pressing matter of concern to you.”

  Lan defiantly bit at the edge of her thumbnail and spat it onto the floor. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. You are opinionated and stubborn and resistant to every effort to educate or refine you. You have none of the womanly graces, no artistic talent I’ve been made aware of, and certainly no virtue, as you yourself have remarked. Above all, you are mortal. Your looks, such as they are, won’t last and then what will you rely on to hold our lord’s interest? Your charm?”

  “I can be plenty charming when I try.”

  “I must always just be missing it then.”

  The rest of the walk was a silent one.

  Lan did not recognize the room they eventually ended at, but she recognized the people waiting for her on the other side of the door: Azrael’s musicians, surrounded by their instruments, although none of them appeared to be playing, not even to pass the time while they waited for her. Neither were they in any great hurry to begin the meeting when she finally did stumble in. They looked at her; only the living flute player had any readable expression and hers was not a happy one.

  “I am Master Tempo.” One of the dead musicians came forward a single step, but kept his hands clasped behind his stiff back to make it clear there would be no touching. “I shall be overseeing your musical education.”

  “What’s that mean?” Lan asked warily.

  The dead people exchanged a group glance.

  “It means,” Tempo said, speaking very slowly, as if to a stupid child, “our lord desires you learn to play music.”

  If he had told her Azrael wished her to learn to fly, she could not have been more dumbfounded. She stared at him for some time before sputtering, “That’s…What…I don’t know the first flipping thing about music!”

  “Hence the need for an education. Beginning tomorrow, you will attend lessons every morning until noon.”

  “Balls if I will! Every day?”

  Serafina whapped her on the back of her head, hissing, “Ladies do not say ‘balls’! Stop being difficult! I told you, our lord requires his companions to better themselves.”

  “Lady, I hate to tell you this, but I’m all the better I’m ever going to be. Why should I have to plunk away at one of these stupid things when I’m never going to be any good at it?” she demanded, slapping the top of the nearest piano (and trying unsuccessfully to shake away the resulting sting). “Can’t he just chain me up in the garden again if he thinks I’m going to run riot in the street when he’s not around?”

  The flute player sighed and went to the window, hugging herself too tightly as she looked out into the winter rain. “It isn’t meant as a punishment. Music is a gift and a wonder.”

  “For you, maybe. For the rest of us, it’s a waste of bloody time! I—” With effort, Lan bit the rest of that off, reminding herself that this lady was living and therefore probably one of Azrael’s dollies and as such just might have his ear at least some of the time. “I’m not interested,” she said instead and if she said it through clenched jaws with a scowl on her face, that was just too bad. “So, thanks…I guess. But no thanks.”

  “None refuse our lord’s command,” Tempo told her. “He has generously allowed you your choice of instrument. Now. What will you play?”

  “Bagpipes!”

  Slap, went Serafina’s hand.

  “We don’t possess…bagpipes,” the dead man said coolly. “Nor have we anyone to instruct you in their use. I’m afraid you will have to choose again.”

  “You should be afraid,” Lan told him. “Because if I don’t get to play what I want, I’ll play whatever the hell it is you play. Oh yeah,” she said as his eyes narrowed. “I’m going to get my grubby hands all over your whatsis and I’m going to play it just so badly it’ll make your ears bleed. Eventually, you’re going to lose your temper. You may not think so, knowing what’s at stake, but this nobby bitch is my handmaiden and she still slaps me around even when she knows damned well one word out of me will put a pike up her muggins and plant her in the yard.”

  Serafina sniffed haughtily, but took a small step aside so she wasn’t quite in line with the aim of Lan’s pointing finger.

  “You, now? I know you were raised up just to play that whatsis and for no other reason and it’s going to make you sick to see me make a muck of it, isn’t it?” Lan waited, then said again, with steel, “Isn’t it?”

  He did not reply, but the answer was there in the flat shine of his dead eyes.

  “The truth is, you don’t want me here anymore than I want to be here, so what do you want to do? Show me which one of these bloody fool things is yours so I can start bashing away on it? Or send me off to my next appointment and see the back of me forever? Those are your options. Pick one.”

  He considered and said, “Shall I be honest with you?” in the sort of voice that suggested he would, whether she agreed or not.

  “Please.”

  “If I had a choice in this matter, I would happily allow you to refuse our lord’s request. Our small orchestra already has a full complement of winds, strings…and warmblood whores.”

  Lan pursed her lips and looked sidelong at the flute player. The flute player did not react, just kept watching the rain.

  “However, it is our lord’s request and so I have no choice. I must ask you to select an instrument now or I shall assign one to you. I play the piano,” he went on. “But if I may make a recommendation, perhaps the clarinet would be more suited to you. We could use a woodwind and your…kind…seems to have more talent with your mouth than your hands.”

  Lan gazed thoughtfully at the dead man. “Which one’s a claret?”

  “Clarinet,” he corrected and fetched a long, black something from one of the racks on the wall. It looked a bit like a flute and a bit like a horn, and certainly seemed sturdy enough for Lan’s purposes.

  Tempo handed it over, launching as he did so into the beginnings of what promised to be a lengthy speech that would help her to appreciate the significance of the stupid thing, but Lan didn’t bother to pay attention. She hefted it lightly on her palms, getting a feel for its weight and balance, and then she swung it around and whalloped Master Tempo right in his pretty face just as hard as she could. He staggered back into a rack of violins and they all went down together in a not unharmonious crash.

  All the deadheads took a sharp breath. One of them rushed over, but it was an instrument he reached for and not the groping hand of his fallen colleague. His eyes when he looked up were almost living-bright with hate as he clutched the broken neck of the violin to his chest.

  “You g
ot something to say about my talents, too?” Lan asked him, hefting her new weapon.

  “You’re impossible,” Serafina sighed, but went to open the door. “Hurry up, then. You’re late for lessons.”

  “How could I possibly be late already?” Lan asked, stepping over one of Tempo’s sprawled legs on her way out. “I just barely got here.”

  “But you’re not staying, are you?” Serafina countered. “Which means this interview was nothing but an interruption to your usual lessons, which means you’re late. Get rid of that.”

  ‘That’ was the clarinet, forgotten in Lan’s hand. Still in one piece, but she doubted it would ever sound the same. She held it a moment more, indulging a friendly little fantasy in which she planted it like a flag in Tempo’s upturned arse, but in the end, she settled for holding it out.

  The flute player came to take it. Their eyes met and, strangely, Lan felt a twinge of shame. She’d been trying to scrape up a good line to go out on (something wonderfully bitchy and smart, maybe with a music pun in there somewhere, although she already knew she’d settle for a ‘Fuck you.’ She wasn’t good with words), but something in the other woman’s eyes made her half-formed efforts shrivel up and sink away.

  Fortunately, she had Serafina sighing over by the open door, so she had an excuse to turn away first. She told herself she wasn’t slinking away, she just had lessons. She told herself she hadn’t meant to hit the dead bastard so hard and even if she did, it was only because he’d called her a whore. She told herself she wasn’t sorry and she wouldn’t look back, but she did and saw the flute player watching from the hallway with the clarinet cradled in both hands, silent.

  * * *

  Master Wickham was not alone when Serafina thrust her through the doors of the library. The dead woman who was her etiquette instructor was also waiting, pacing back and forth in front of the table where Lan usually did her lessons, but this wasn’t one of her etiquette days.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Lan said cautiously. “I had a…another appointment.”

  The dead woman swung around and glared at her. Did she know about the thing with Tempo? How could she, so soon?

  “I’m aware,” said Master Wickham. “Please, come in. How did it go?”

  “Not great.” Lan inched forward. “I don’t think I’m going back.”

  “No? Capital. I despise upsets to my routine, although objectively speaking, I suppose it is a pity. Our lord so enjoys music—”

  “Did you use your napkin at breakfast?” the dead woman interrupted.

  Lan blinked. “Uh…sure. Of course I did. I always use my napkin.” She looked at Master Wickham. “What’s going on?”

  “A performance review,” he replied. “And before you answer any further questions, you ought to know your tutor was in the dining hall.”

  The dead woman adjusted her grip on her switch and glared at her.

  Lan heaved a sigh. “Okay, fine, whatever. No, I didn’t use my napkin.”

  “Put out your hands.”

  “Why?” Lan asked. She knew why.

  The dead woman waited.

  Lan slowly brought her arms up and opened her hands.

  The switch came whistling down and landed right across her palms. It didn’t hurt too bad. The sound was worse than anything, but still Lan jumped back, shaking them as the initial heat of the blow faded and filled in with that hornet-like sting, The dead woman stepped forward with every step Lan took away, never further than arm’s reach. “Did you eat with your fingers?”

  “Yeah, but it was—”

  “Put them out and turn them over.”

  She knew what was coming, which made it that much harder to hold out her hands.

  The switch howled down and lay a brand of pure fire across all of Lan’s knuckles, rapidly swelling to fill her whole hands. “Did you lick them?” the dead woman asked as Lan hopped in place, swearing and shaking them. “Did you?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t remember! Maybe!” Entirely unwanted, the memory of that heavenly lemon cake swam into sharp focus, and herself tapping crumbs off her plate and catching them on her tongue. “Oh damn it,” she said, dismayed.

  “Put them out.”

  Lan flinched, scowled, then thrust them out.

  Whh-whack!

  “Fuck a bag of balls!” Lan howled, bending over her throbbing hands and stomping her feet.

  The dead woman’s strong fingers closed on the back of her gown. It tore, but Lan was caught anyway, caught and shook like a pull-toy in a puppy’s game of war. “Did you spit at the table?” the dead woman hissed and without waiting for an answer, commenced with the switching.

  Lan ducked, her arms in a protective shell around her head and the rest of her open to getting the ever-loving shit beat out of her in a rain of lashes. She ran, hunched and yelping, crashing into chairs and lamps and books, with the dead woman always right behind her and that switch like burning brands on every part of her it could reach, which was all of them. Lan’s foot inevitably came down on the long hem of her skirt. It tore. Serafina was going to be furious.

  ‘At least she won’t have a bloody switch,’ Lan thought inanely and bleated laughter even through her sharp cries and swears.

  The sound sent the dead woman into a frenzy which ended only when the switch broke in two across Lan’s shoulders. Before she’d recovered, she was seized by the hair and dragged around the table to be thrown in a chair.

  “You utter swine!” the dead woman spat, clearing Master Wickham’s neat arrangement of books and primers with a sweep of her arm. “Nine days under my tutelage and you ate like a pig with your head in the trough! You tore your dress on purpose and you…you said the most vulgar things! You…! You…! You made me look incompetent in front of him! Well, I will not be embarrassed by the likes of you! I am going to the kitchen and when I come back, you are going to practice eating until you can do it right!”

  “Eat? Lady, I just had breakfast!”

  The dead woman grabbed up the nearest bin and banged it down on the table in front of Lan. “Get rid of it! And you!” She turned on Master Wickham, who raised an eyebrow at her. “Not a word out of you about how your…your silly scribbles are more important!”

  “You’ll hear no argument from me,” he agreed.

  The dead woman glared at him a moment longer, then turned back to Lan. “Just you sit until I come back,” she hissed. “You are not leaving this room until you have learned to use a napkin, if it takes all day and a bottle of ipecac!”

  With that, she stormed away, slamming the door behind her so hard it bounced out of the jamb and came shuddering slowly open again. Master Wickham closed it properly, then clasped his hands behind his back and looked at Lan.

  His quiet reproach got in under her skin in a way the dead woman’s switch-happy tirade couldn’t even touch. “Hey, I wasn’t rolling on the table with my tits out!” Lan said crossly. “I just forgot my napkin! And, okay, maybe some other stuff, but I didn’t even know she was there!”

  “It makes absolutely no difference,” he replied. “The dead have no judgment, only our lord’s command.”

  “He ate the cake with his fingers too, and I don’t see Miss Mannerly-Buggery-Do going at him with a switch!”

  “He could eat with his feet and she would never find fault in him. He is her lord.”

  “Well, it’s not fair,” Lan grumbled, rubbing at her knuckles.

  “Life isn’t fair.” He gave that a moment to set in, then left her and went out into the hall. She could hear him there for some time, his low, pleasant voice parrying the clipped, hostile tones of the pikemen posted there and gradually overcoming them until, at last, he opened the door again and beckoned Lan to him.

  “Where are we going?” Lan asked, although she didn’t really care as long as it was in the opposite direction of the kitchens.

  “Possibilities abound. Where would you like to go? The National Gallery? T
he Tower? That’s a bit of a walk, but there are a number of fascinating buildings along the way. I’ve developed quite an obsession with traditional pubs lately.”

  The thought of having to stand around in a bunch of empty old buildings was so depressing that it was quite a while before she realized what he was really saying.

  “Are we bunking off?” she asked, blinking around at him in amazement.

  “I despise,” he said cheerfully, “upsets to my routine. You were given to me to be my student until six on full days, one on half days. Today is a full day. You are mine until six.” He paused to nod at a passing Revenant. “Or until I am given new orders by one with authority to give them. However, while the library is a convenient setting for lessons, I have never been made to understand it was the only place to hold them and, circumstances being what they are, I think we might benefit from a change of venue.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said I wouldn’t argue. I never said I’d let her have you. Semantics, dear Lan, semantics are everything. So! Where would you like to go? I can say with certainty that Haven’s museums boast the finest collections in the world, but there is surely something to be learned anywhere.”

  Lan never had much interest in exploring ruins, especially if there wasn’t going to be any salvage or hunting involved (it struck her as somewhat sinful, in fact. Wasteful. Like bathing in water), but coughing up her breakfast a few dozen times in between switchings held considerably less appeal. All the same, the persistent magnificence of Haven’s ruins had become exhausting and more than a little oppressive. If she had a choice, she’d rather go somewhere, do something, at least a little familiar.

  “What about the greenhouses?” Lan suggested.

  “You have an interest in gardening? The palace is beautifully kept in that regard, but if you like, I could probably arrange a car to take us to one of the old gardens about Haven. They aren’t quite what they were, but when Lady Batuuli first took an interest, my lord had many of the old sites restored and replanted. It’s rather a tricky time of year, but he always keeps something in flower for her. I don’t know that the habit will continue, circumstances having changed, but I doubt he’ll have her work uprooted. He’s not a spiteful man.” He nodded to another passing Revenant. “Not often.”