Land of the Beautiful Dead

by Smith, R. Lee

  Master Wickham was comfortably settled in a chair by the fireplace, a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other, when Lan opened the library door. He quickly moved his cup behind the arm of the chair, then saw her and smiled. “Good gracious, you’re early,” he said, bringing his tea out of hiding. “Please, sit down.”

  He saw Chloe at nearly the same moment she saw him. They both drew back slightly.

  Chloe was first to recover. “Why are you drinking?” she asked, laughter threading through her words.

  Master Wickham’s hand twitched, as if to hide the cup again.

  “Can you give us a moment alone?” Lan asked. “I know it’s inappropriate and all, but please. Just a few minutes.”

  He didn’t say yes. Frowning, he rose and set book and cup aside. “Would you like coffee?” he inquired, heading for the door and avoiding all eye contact with Lan and Chloe both. “I’ll fetch you a tray, if you like.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Why was he drinking?” Chloe asked again as soon as the door shut behind him. “Did you see that? Master Lareow had a—”

  “Is that what you want to talk about?” Lan interrupted.

  Chloe sighed and smiled. “All right. I’ll get to it, shall I? Do you know who I am?”

  “I know your name isn’t Chloe.” Lan watched closely, but if the shot hit, it was a glancing blow at best, exposing no more weakness and leaving no visible scars. She tried again. “And I know you’re not from Balehurst.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “No,” said Lan. “You’re not.”

  Chloe shook her head, not in heated denial, but in that laughing way that silently asked if anyone else could see the stupidity she had to deal with. Speaking slowly and with a sigh, she said, “I have to prove it to you? How? What is there to say? It’s a farming town, but nothing grows well enough to make a trade by. We put out mostly flax and honey.”

  “And horseshit,” said Lan. “I’ve been there, lady. I grew up not ten miles from there. I know how it sounds and it doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I left when I was young,” said Chloe with a careless shrug. “But I never had another home, not really. I may have lost my accent, but I’m still from Balehurst.”

  Lost her accent, she said. No one knew better than Lan, cursed with her mother’s tongue, accents were never simply ‘lost’. They had to be buried and it took a lot of shoveling. More than that, Lan couldn’t quite identify the accent Chloe had ‘found’. If it had been wholly alien to her, she might have believed it better, but it wasn’t, quite. Hiding under certain words was the faintest blush of strange—a softened R, a shortened E. The English she’d adopted was fine enough, finer than Lan’s own, but the more Lan listened, the more certain she became she was hearing a practiced lie.

  “Seriously, now,” she said. “Nobody’s here but us. Where are you from?”

  “Balehurst,” said Chloe, no longer smiling or sighing.

  “Yeah? What color was the wall?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said after a short silence. “I told you, I left when I was—”

  “You remember flax and honey, but not that bright pink wall? What happened to the town that used to be where Balehurst is now?”

  “I don’t know. No one ever told me.”

  “An airplane fell on it. No one ever told me either, but they left the tail sticking up in front of the pub in the middle of town. Us kids used to climb on it, but you never did, because you were never there. What’s your stock, sheep or goats?”

  The other woman never dropped her gaze, but her lashes fluttered. “Sheep.”

  “No, it’s geese, actually, but good try, thanks for playing.” Lan got up and headed for the door.

  “I’m not finished talking to you.”

  “And I don’t waste my time with liars.”

  An extra-loud sigh answered her, letting her know just how unreasonable and wrong she was, but when Lan’s hand touched the latch of the door, Chloe said, “I’ve never been to Balehurst.”

  Lan took a moment to smother her smile before she looked back. “I’m listening.”

  “I rode with a ferryman who was born there,” Chloe said in her practiced long-suffering manner. “He talked some and I took it for my own story. I didn’t know how it would go when I got here. If it went bad, I didn’t want my people to pay for my mistake.”

  “And the people of Balehurst?”

  “Fuck them,” said Chloe with an easy smile. “That ferryman felt me up for twenty-eight miles and charged six ‘slip for the privilege. He should have kept his hands to himself or his mouth shut. So. Is this what you do for him?” she asked with oversweet curiosity. “You’re his warmblood watchdog?”

  That hit and she knew she showed it.

  “I’m no one’s dog,” said Lan.

  “You just sniff around his dollies for him.”

  “You’re the first I’ve even met proper. If I’m sniffing, it’s only because you stink. And if I smell it, believe me, so does he.”

  “Does he? Well, he’s never said so.” Chloe touched a finger to her chin and pretended to think about it. “No,” she said slowly. “No, he’s mentioned my looks a time or two, and he seems to like the sound of my singing. He likes the touch of my skin and the way I taste…”

  She paused there to let that hit. Lan folded her arms and waited her out without flinching.

  “…but he’s never mentioned a smell. I don’t think you know him as well as you want me to think you do.”

  “I don’t give two tin shits what you think of me, dolly.”

  “The feeling is mutual.” Chloe tapped her eyes at the clock over the mantel and turned a bright smile on Lan. “Much as I’d like to continue this ritual dance with you, I have music lessons, so perhaps you would be so kind as to skip the remainder of the formalities and let me come to the point.”

  “What point?”

  “Azrael.”

  “What about him?”

  “He was with you last night.”

  It wasn’t a question, so Lan didn’t bother answering.

  “I’m told he’s with you most nights,” Chloe was saying, coming toward her now. Her step was light, deceptively slow. Predatory, in spite of her smile and swinging hips. “And that’s fine. I don’t mind admitting I’m not eager to get under him again, but I don’t like being stood up either.”

  She was still coming, trying to push Lan back ahead of her or force her to step up and square off. Lan did neither, simply folded her arms and let her come. “I have no idea what you’re on about.”

  “No? I’ll make it clear for you, then. He was supposed to be with me last night.” Chloe pushed her pointed chin forward; the light glinted on the ring in her lip. “It was arranged. It took altogether too long to arrange it and I waited up all night, only to find out you had to be a jealous chavvy and keep him for yourself. Don’t do that again.”

  Maybe it was her hangover. Maybe it was her less than restful night’s sleep. Or maybe it was just her nature, as in the old story about the girl and the snake. Whatever it was that made it happen, of all the ways Lan could have responded, she just had to go with, “Or you’ll what?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! That’s not a challenge, honey.”

  “It better not be.”

  “All I’m saying is, let me do what I came here to do and we can be friends. Or don’t and we won’t. It makes no difference to me. I’m not making a life for myself here. As soon as I get what I want, I’ll go away, I promise. I’m no threat to you, as long as you let me have him, but if you don’t, I’ll have to try and take him. And I really think I can. No offense, but it is…” Her gaze traveled over Lan’s body, all the way down to her feet and back up again. “…rather obvious you don’t know how to dolly for a man. I do.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  “I do,” Chloe said again, unoffended and with disturbing self-assurance. “And if that doesn’t scare you, it should.”

  “You’re
sure that’s not a challenge?”

  “I’m sure you don’t want it to be. Unless you’re so confident in his faithfulness that you think you can win one. Now, me?” Chloe lowered her painted eyelids in a dolly’s stare and licked at the air, revealing a metal stud in the tip of her tongue. “I’ve never met a faithful man.”

  “I don’t tell him who to fuck. And if he wants it to be me tonight, I’m not telling him no. So, this? All of this, where you don’t threaten me and we’re all friendly? This is a waste of your time and mine.”

  “Yes,” said Chloe, giving Lan the sad eyes even as she continued to smile. “I was afraid it might be.” She took one more step forward, now close enough to kiss, if that were her goal. It wasn’t, but she lowered her voice to a lover’s purr, just as if it were. “They don’t breed them smart in Norwood, do they?”

  Lan backed up.

  “I may not know your name, but I can hear peaches and pigshit in every word that comes out of your inbred mouth.” Chloe moved forward, taking up every inch between them and smiling, smiling like a cat. “Do you honestly think you’ve seduced him with your, ha, charming country ways? Oh no. He’s just a powerful man who likes to dip it in something dirty once in a while. But believe me, the day will come when he’ll wash you off down the nearest gutter.” Her eyes cut away toward the library door as it opened on Master Wickham pushing a trolley, and she laughed like it was a joke. “Enjoy your coffee, honey.”

  Lan let her get all the way to the door before giving in to the gutter in her and saying, “Hey.”

  Chloe sighed prettily and looked back, one sculpted brow raised in query.

  Lan said, “When you waited up last night, you forgot to mention how you did it in another room. On account of how, you know, we were fucking in your bed.”

  Wickham’s eyebrows rose.

  Chloe laughed, but it took a while to get started and scraped a bit on the way out. “Is that the best you can do? That’s so sad.”

  “I don’t waste my best on the likes of you, dolly. I save it for him. I have to ask, though…how the hell do you sleep with all those angel-babies staring at you?”

  Chloe stared at her, her smile utterly gone and lips slightly parted.

  “He said it put him right off his rhythm, but he still went four times. Left me feeling about as limp as that dress you had hanging over the wardrobe door, and you shouldn’t do that, by the way. It brings them all out in creases. I’m surprised my handmaiden hasn’t told you, but then again, maybe I shouldn’t be. You’re not her mistress. I’m pretty sure she’s told you that.”

  “Fuck you, you pig-ignorant twat!”

  “Careful now. Your country charm is showing.”

  Chloe stared at her, high spots of color bleeding through her dollypaints, then turned and swept herself away.

  Master Wickham stepped aside and waited until she was gone, then shut the door and gave Lan that special look.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “She wanted to chat.”

  “I see.” He wheeled the trolley over to the table where he was accustomed to hold his lessons and began to set out the coffee things, including two cups and two saucers. “Was it a useful chat?”

  “Well, I think I got in a pretty decent shot there at the end, but it’s all lies, you know. I passed out drunk and he sat up and watched me, so if truth counts for any points, I reckon she won.”

  “Not at all. The value of one’s experience is not dependent upon one’s success or failure, but in how one uses that experience in the future. Life is motion,” he said yet again, pouring for both of them. “And to allow oneself to think in adversarial terms is extremely limiting and ultimately self-defeating. Don’t do it, Lan. Think, not of what you win or lose, but of what you learn and what you teach, and you will always have the advantage. So. What did you learn?”

  “I learned she’s a bitch.”

  “I could have told you that.” He offered her the first cup and took the second for himself as he sat down. “What else?”

  “I learned she’s dangerous. Or she thinks she is.”

  “Ah.” He tasted his coffee, then put it at arm’s length and studied it as he asked, “And what did she learn from you?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing good.” Lan scowled, but distractedly. She was far away, picking apart Cassius’s words stitch by stitch and examining each thread, coming back to the brightest again and again: “She says she’s not staying.”

  “I told you that, too. But she admitted it,” he mused after a short, considering pause. “How curious. Why would she tell you such a thing and give away what would seem to me to be a most effective weapon, that of her rivalry?”

  “So I’d back off and let her do what she came to do.”

  “Which is what?”

  “That, she didn’t say.” Lan did her coffee up with cream and sugar, watching Master Wickham inspect the contents of his cup. “Can I ask you something?”

  He smiled faintly without looking up. “Why do I drink?”

  “Well…yeah.”

  “Have a guess,” he invited. “In fact, have three. If you get it right, you shall have a present.”

  “What present?”

  “I’ll take you back to Hampton Court to see the chimneys.”

  Lan blinked slowly.

  He smiled and nodded.

  “Right,” she said. “Well. That’s…quite a hook.” She thought it over while Master Wickham stirred his coffee and occasionally sipped at it. “I guess I should start with the obvious: You like the taste.”

  “That’s a very good guess.”

  “I got it?”

  “No,” he replied. “Although the simplest solution to any problem is most often the correct one—that’s what’s known as Occam’s Razor—in this particular case, it happens to be wrong. My sense of taste is, I imagine, somewhat diminished in death. I am quite fond of tea, for example, and given a choice, I will always choose black teas over green or red, but I confess they all taste the same to me. My preference is purely arbitrary. Try again.”

  “You’re cold.”

  “Another good guess. Being dead, my body is only capable of producing trace amounts of heat by way of kinetic friction and, as my work is largely sedentary, I am indeed colder to the touch than others of my kind. However,” he said, raising one warning finger against any premature celebrations, “being dead, I am not discomfited by it. One more try.”

  Lan peered into his unblinking eyes, feeling out and discarding a number of equally implausible answers before settling on, “You seen us drink and were curious?”

  “Saw, Lan. I saw you drink and so forth, and no. While I must confess to some curiosity when it comes to the habits of the living, as my digestive system is entirely defunct, that would be a foolish one to indulge as often as I do. But it was a good effort. It is a pity we won’t be seeing Hampton Court today, but there’s always tomorrow. However, since you’re here, shall we get started?” He set his coffee aside, virtually untouched, and opened his briefcase, angled in such a way as to block the cup from sight. “I think a quick refresher on the differences between simple past and present perfect tense—”

  “You hid it.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You hid your cup.”

  Master Wickham looked at it, then pushed his briefcase back to open her line of sight.

  “Not now,” she said. “Before.” And she laughed, shaking her head over and over as the realization grew. “Oh, you got me. You and your little guessing game, trying to get me to figure out why you drink when I was supposed to be figuring out why you hide the fact that you drink.”

  He took a breath, but not to speak. He closed his briefcase, folded his hands atop it, and just waited.

  “You remember drinking, don’t you?

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yeah, you do. You can’t taste it and you can’t feel it and you have to sick it up afterwards before it goes sour, but you still do it, because you remember doin
g it when you were alive.”

  “No,” he said again. “As I said before, I have no true memories, only impressions. Specifically, this sound.” He picked up his cup and set it down again on its saucer, then moved both aside and made himself sigh. “I was going to let you win on your third guess, whatever it was. I knew if I didn’t, you’d keep thinking about it and eventually…” He spread his empty hands. “But when the time came, I just couldn’t.”

  “You’re a teacher. It’s a lesson.”

  “Precisely.” He paused, then said, “And in that same spirit, I am compelled to ask, is it your intention to…oh, how shall I put this? To do something about Cassius?”

  Lan scowled. “No.”

  “Oh thank heaven.” With obvious relief, he reached across the table to pat her hand. “I’m aware it won’t be easy for you, but it is the wisest course of action. The very fact that she took the time to interrogate you means she sees you as a threat. If you give her cause, she will almost certainly attempt to remove you from our lord’s favor. I personally can’t think how she’d manage it, but it doesn’t pay to provoke her, especially as the situation will resolve itself quite handily as soon as she leaves. Until then, you would be well served to do all in your power to speed her departure.”

  “I don’t mean I should stay out of it because blah blah the moral high ground blah blah bollocks blah. I mean I should stay out of it because I’d only make a muck out of it. Conniving isn’t something you just have a bash at. It’s a skill like any other. You need talent or practice to be any good at it, preferably both…and I don’t have either.” Lan rediscovered her coffee and drank it off before it could get too cold, then poured herself a hot one. “Last night proves that, if I needed any more proof.”

  Master Wickham settled back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other and his fingers steepled beneath his chin—his ‘listening’ pose.