Land of the Beautiful Dead

by Smith, R. Lee

  “Shall I have a zoo built for you here on the palace grounds?”

  She looked at him, but he seemed to be serious. “No,” she said, frowning. “Not just for me. That’s…not right. Here.” She stuck out her arm defiantly. “Want to hold my hand?”

  He looked at it like it was a snake and moved ahead of her without speaking.

  Lan lowered her arm and picked at her dress. “Sometimes in Norwood, people hold hands.”

  No response.

  “I guess once you actually start fucking, you don’t need to do any of that dovey stuff.” She walked behind him, watching her toes wink in and out under the hem of her long skirts rather than his unyielding back. “Mom told me once the only kiss she could remember was the one her mother gave her when she put her on the boat. She never kissed a boy or let a boy kiss her because she wanted to remember it. She told me that, but you know? She never kissed me either. It made me so angry—well, not angry, exactly, but close—I went out behind the drying shed with Eithon Fairchild.” She made a face and shook her head. “I told him he could kiss me if he wanted. I don’t know what I was expecting. Something nice. I’d see Eithon walking with Bess or Elvie and sometimes holding her hand and I wanted that so bad. Mine were always dirty.”

  She raised her hands to look at them now. Gloved. Because they were stained. She sighed and let them drop again.

  “So I told him he could kiss me and he grabbed my tits and stuck his wormy tongue right down my gob until I gagged on it. I tried to push him away and he pushed me back, so I fell down and when I was on my knees, he climbed on me and pretended like he was dog-humping me. He was laughing. Then he pushed me all the way over and left me there and later I saw him walking Elvie to the cookhouse when the dinner bell rang. He was holding her hand and she was smiling.” Lan shrugged. “I don’t care. Elvie Peters is a git.”

  He reached the corner that took them out of this hall and waited there, so that they turned into the next hall together. He resumed walking at her side. He still didn’t speak.

  “I like to think I’m not a git,” Lan said. “I know you think I am—”

  “I do not.”

  “Well, you think it’s stupid of me to keep asking for audiences when your answer never changes.”

  “Hm.”

  “But I like to think I’m not utterly useless, you know? Maybe I’m not smart, but I’m not an idiot either. Like being alive or dead…there’s degrees, you know?”

  He gave her a frowning glance.

  “Sometimes I wonder if maybe the reason you give me all these nice clothes and offer to build me zoos and such is because you really just want to be with me. And if that’s true,” she went on as he put a bit more distance between them, “then I figured you’d ought to know by now that I hate wearing dresses and I don’t guess I’d want to see animals in cages either, but if you want to be with me, that’s all right.”

  “How comforting. And how unnecessary. You came to me as clay. I shape you according to my desire and I need take none of it by proxy. I dress you for the pleasure of looking at you. You take lessons so that I might have the pleasure of educated conversation in the future. And whatever whim moves me, whether it be to see you dance or game with you or converse in any of the hundreds of tongues known to me, so shall you be cast.” He uttered a sound a little too sour to be a laugh. “Truly, you should be grateful my desires are not wholly physical. I know my touch—”

  “—is loathsome,” she finished for him. “No, it isn’t. Hey.” She caught his arm.

  He stopped walking, but did not immediately turn to face her and when he finally did, the only thing he let her see was his impatience, even when she took his hand and placed it on her bare skin, just below the hollow of her throat.

  “Am I lying?” she challenged, staring straight into his eyes. “Do I loathe this?”

  “Let us examine.” He moved his hand lower, hooking the neckline of her gown on his thumb and pulling it down until his palm pressed against her breastbone. “Your heart is quickening,” he observed. “Your muscles, tightening. You have always been delightfully responsive, but even you shudder in my embrace.”

  “And writhe,” she agreed. “And moan. But there are more reasons to moan than with horror.”

  “A point.” He slid his hand beneath her gown and her corset’s stiff constraint to cup her breast and feel for himself her stiffening nipple. “A fair point. You have the intriguing habit of using honesty against me in the most unexpected ways. A formidable weapon in the right hands.” His own gently kneaded once and then released her. “But even the sharpest weapon is useless if it cannot strike a mortal blow. So come, child. There will be time enough to talk…and touch…later. Dinner is waiting.”

  Lan adjusted her gown. “You’re lucky I’m hungry or we’d have this out. Are you going to hold my hand or not?”

  “No. Do you miss Norwood?”

  “Why do you have to say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like it tastes bad.”

  He scowled. “I don’t. Do you miss it? I would not have thought your life there to be a happy one, yet it is all you seem to talk about.”

  “Sorry. Am I being tiresome?” she asked, annoyed.

  “Answer my question.”

  “No. Sometimes. Sort of. Not really.”

  He threw her a bewildered glance and a crooked smile in spite of his obvious irritation. “Am I meant to pick the answer I like best?”

  “I miss…I don’t know…the memory of Norwood. I hated it when I was actually there. Maybe if I had mates, it would be different, but I was never really one of them.”

  “Hm.”

  “My mother…she wasn’t one of them either, but she could have been. She was foreign, but she made them respect her. She was…” There were so many ways to end that, so many memories, but they all ended in the bonfire. Lan looked away, studying her reflection in the many shiny surfaces they passed—the soft face, the fine gown. “She wasn’t like me. She had her own place there. I just had part of hers. And when she died…sometimes I think I left to spare them all the embarrassment of throwing me out.”

  He chuckled, looked at her and laughed aloud. “Until you said that, I never really believed you were British.”

  As they came into the next corridor, Lan could see two pikemen and another guard in a uniform whose variations were unfamiliar to her, which was in itself strange enough to draw her eye. The three of them were clustered together at the far end of the hall along with Azrael’s steward, and although Lan could not hear them, their tension was obvious as they conferred.

  “What do you suppose that’s about?” she asked.

  Azrael didn’t even look to see what she was referring to. “If it is important, someone will tell me.”

  “My lord, a word?”

  Azrael halted, fixing her with an undeservedly blameful stare before turning around. He folded his arms and assumed his most forbidding stance as his steward approached them at what could only be called a trot. He asked no questions, merely waited.

  “Forgive the intrusion upon your…er…” The dead man’s gaze darted toward Lan and away again. “Perhaps your companion would be more comfortable in the dining hall while my lord attends to this, ah, minor matter.”

  Lan took a neutralizing pause before smiling at Azrael. “Something you don’t want me to hear?”

  “This is none of my doing,” Azrael replied with a convincing frown. “What news? Speak.”

  The dead man looked at Lan again, then grit his teeth and said, “My lord, I’ve just had a message from the gate.”

  Azrael’s fingers drummed on his bicep.

  “They’ve had, ah, an arrival. Which is to say a human. Living. Two of them, actually.”

  Azrael spat out what could only be a curse, even if Lan did not recognize the language. “Take them back to their village and when they are there, shove their guns down their throats, impale them to their ferry and set them on fire. Not a wor
d!” he snapped at Lan, who had only just opened her mouth. “Let their fellows see the fate of those who dare to strike against me! If there is any resistance, if there is so much as one stone thrown or one insult spoken—”

  “Azrael, no!”

  The steward took advantage of Lan’s interruption to bow and loudly blurt out, “Forgive me, lord, but they had no guns, only a hunting knife immediately surrendered. They were not attempting to enter Haven by stealth. Their ferry dropped them at some short distance and they walked to the gate.”

  Azrael leaned back and cocked his head. “What,” he said after a lengthy pause to consider, “a fantastically foolish thing to do in the wake of recent events. What do they want?”

  “An audience, sire. More than that, I do not know. Shall I have the gatewatch bring them here?”

  “No. Release them.” Azrael turned, beckoning to Lan as he resumed his walk.

  “Don’t you even want to hear what they have to say?” Lan asked.

  “I’ve heard it,” he replied, unmoved and incurious. “A hundred times over from dozens of different throats, including yours.”

  “But what if they—”

  “Lan, come.”

  Lan reluctantly followed him, twisting around to keep watching the steward bow and fidget. He started to walk away, raked a hand through his hair, and abruptly turned and came after them. “My lord, I must recommend you receive these visitors.”

  “Visitors.” Azrael threw out a curt laugh. “Beggars at my gate are not guests, and even guests I am not obligated to receive with grace. I reward their audacity with their lives and that, surely, is reward enough. Send them away.”

  “My lord, I must strongly—”

  “Am I in the habit of granting audiences to beggars, steward?” Azrael asked without stopping.

  Lan glanced back to intercept the troubled look the steward sent her way. “You’ve done it before,” she pointed out.

  “Hush,” he told her, not without a smile. “I would say you’ve grown too bold in your speech, but you came to me this way.”

  “I also came as a beggar to your gate.”

  “You had no such respect. You trespassed into my city, invaded my palace, insulted me and made arrogant demands.”

  “That’s a good point. When was the last time someone just up and knocked on Haven’s door?”

  “More often than one would think.” He shook his head. “It matters not. I grant only one audience each day, and tonight, it is promised to you.”

  “Are you going to end the Eaters tonight?”

  “No.”

  Lan shrugged. “Then they can have it.”

  “You overstep yourself.”

  “You just said you gave one audience a day. You don’t have one scheduled tonight, so now you have to hear them.”

  “I don’t even have to hear you,” he replied with a pointed glance. But he raised his voice to reach his steward, still trotting after them. “What do they want?”

  “No one ever asks for an audience because they’re so happy,” said Lan.

  Azrael’s jaw clenched. “Ah yes. Life is bleak, the dead are an abomination and I am a monster. Now I don’t even need to meet with them.”

  The steward must have agreed, because he actually wrung his hands and suddenly called out, “She claims to come from Mallowton, lord.”

  Lan and Azrael both stopped mid-stride. They looked at each other, then turned, still in sync, to look at him.

  “She,” Azrael echoed. “You said there were two.”

  “A woman, sire, and a child.”

  Azrael’s frown deepened. “From Mallowton.”

  “So they claim, my lord.”

  Softly, so very softly, Azrael said, “Do I know this woman?”

  The steward didn’t seem to know how to answer and the silence only grew heavier the longer he made it last.

  “Fetch Deimos,” were the words that finally broke it. Azrael’s hands creaked like old leather as he drew them into hooked fists. “And bring my…guests…to the dining hall.”

  Without waiting to receive his steward’s bow of obedience, Azrael stalked away, forcing Lan to follow at what was almost a run or be left behind.

  “What are you going to do to them?” she asked.

  He did not answer.

  She caught his arm. “Azrael, whatever you’re thinking—”

  He shook her off.

  “You can’t—”

  He swung around so fast that she instinctively threw up one arm to ward off the blow. He froze, his anger dissipating at once, as Lan tried to pretend she had only been scratching at her hair.

  After a long, uncomfortable silence, he said, “You cannot ask me for mercy.”

  “These people have done nothing wrong! It isn’t mercy to not punish someone for someone else’s mistake.”

  “Mistake? The youths of Mallowton did not offend a fairy as they set off for their fields and magically arrive at Haven’s gate with guns! I fed them!” he snarled. “Would you not call that an overture of peace? And would you not agree that it was rejected, violently?”

  “And punished!” She touched his arm again and again, he raised it, but this time did not pull free, although his eyes burned hotter. “I know you think you were making an example out of them—”

  “Enough! You swore you would not speak of this!”

  “—but all you did was slaughter a village!” she finished stubbornly. “No one else will ever know why! What you did…” Her throat tightened with the remembered stink of ash and blood. It was several seconds before she was able to force her next words out. “Your anger may have been justified, but when no one is left to tell the story, the story will always be, ‘Azrael sent Revenants to brutally murder every man, woman and child in Mallowton for no damned reason!’”

  “Men need no reason to murder, but I must have one?”

  “Only if you want to believe you’re better than the worst of them.”

  He paced away as far as the next window and leaned against the frame, seemingly just to have something to scrape at with his claws. “Your mouth,” he muttered, glaring at her over his shoulder.

  “All I’m asking you to do is hear them out.”

  “No, it isn’t. You want me to hear them, agree with them, spare them and give them whatever they demand of me, and moreover, you want me to do it according to your definition of what is reasonable, which is to say, whatever most benefits my enemy!” His voice had been rising steadily so that his final word was a shout, punctuated by his fist slamming into the wall, but after that he was quiet. His eyelight, reflected in the window glass, flickered and faded. His fingers drummed. He glanced back at her. “If I were to hear them, would you pay for their audience?”

  “Yes,” said Lan, going to him without hesitation. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Firstly.” He pointed one claw at her, so that the tip nearly touched the sensitive place between her eyes. “You will not speak so long as they stand in my presence. I will hear whatever argument you wish to make afterwards—for days, no doubt,” he added sourly, “but you will remember this is not your audience and be silent for theirs.”

  “Fine.”

  “At your first word, you will be removed and my promise of passage shall be revoked.”

  “I said, fine!”

  “Very fine.” He lowered his hand and smiled at her. She had come to find over her long stay in Haven that Azrael had many smiles, most of them with at least some degree of real humor behind them. This was not one of them. “Secondly, you must eat.”

  Lan waited, her brows knitting, but he just smiled his unpleasant smile at her. “Is that it?” she asked finally.

  “Bear in mind that whatever else happens tonight, you and I will end it in one another’s close company. I will hear your empty belly’s every complaint.”

  “What makes you think I won’t eat?”

  “I think only you may find it difficult once you see her.” His smile twisted even thinner
. “And once she sees you.”

  They resumed their walk in silence that lasted all the way to the dining hall. As he entered, even as the gathered dead were rising noisily to make their formal genuflections, he said, “Clear the court. Guards, remain at your posts.”

  “No witnesses?” Lan asked as the hall swiftly emptied.

  “That should comfort you. I don’t mind making public displays of my tyranny. It’s acts of mercy I regret. Clear this,” he ordered, indicating the feast laid out over the imperial table. “Tonight, we serve in courses. But leave the rest.”

  “That’s sadistic,” said Lan, remembering only too well how it had felt to see all that food—see it, smell it, all but taste it—the first time she’d set foot in this hall.

  “Remind me to congratulate Wickham on his improvements to your vocabulary. Sit, Lan, and be silent.”

  She sat beside him. Servants came to fill their cups. Azrael helped himself to a sampling of the starters and watched the door.

  Soon, Deimos arrived. He marched toward them, showing no reaction to either the near-empty hall or the obvious black mood of his lord, but went straight to the dais and down on one knee. He waited, his neck bent and one hand on the hilt of his sword, motionless.

  Azrael ate another canapé and watched the door.

  Silence, deafening as only the worst silences are. No one breathed but Lan. No one moved but Azrael.

  At last, an eternity after he had left, the steward returned. “My lord, as requested, the…ah, the envoy,” he said with some satisfaction. “From Mallowton.”

  Deimos looked sharply around.

  The person who timidly answered the steward’s impatient wave was so small, Lan thought at first it was the child he had mentioned, until the real child came in hugging at her hip. Large eyes seemed even larger sunk in the hollows of the woman’s thin face, especially as she stared at what must seem to her a twinned mile of tables groaning with food. Ill-fitting, over-patched clothes only emphasized her thin frame. She wore her filthy mat of dark hair cropped short. The child’s was longer, tied back with string; a girl.

  Lan looked at Azrael and saw only confusion beneath the snarling wolf’s face that he showed to the world.