by Ben Galley
‘What happened?’ Lilain demanded of him.
Merion shrugged. ‘We weren’t even close to the rail. It saw us from afar and came chasing. Lurker killed it.’
‘Anyone die?’
‘A lordsguard. A brave one. Maybe a sheriffsman.’
‘Well, I guess bravery has a price out here.’
‘It would seem that way.’
Lilain worked her lips around her teeth as she pondered what to do with all this pent-up energy she suddenly found herself with. Her rage had fizzled out after her nephew’s words.
‘Don’t wander off,’ she ordered him, as she strode into the house.
‘I won’t,’ mumbled Merion. He stretched, winced, and then slumped a little more, splaying his legs and arms across the angles of the bench. It was far from the comfiest thing in the world, but right now Merion’s tired body did not care. He rested his head against his fist and closed his eyes, just for a moment.
It had been a long day after all, a fractured day, full of excitement and terror.
Merion watched the railwraith in his mind’s eye, reliving its shining claws and tortured bones. Even then, safe and sound on the bench, he shuddered. His heart followed suit, and Merion gasped, putting his hand to his chest momentarily.
Almighty he was tired. And lucky.
He had almost died today. Several times. He’d been a fool. An idiot. His father would have whipped him for his stupidity. And yet he had survived, by the skin of his teeth, and all thanks to rushing. His father might have whipped him, but he could imagine a little smidgeon of pride holding back the lashes, ever so slightly. Merion clenched his fists tightly and smiled to himself. It must have been tiring work, because it only took a matter of minutes for him to drift off into a murmuring, twitching sleep.
Chapter XXIII
DINNER WITH THE SERPEDS
‘Fought a dog today. Some Lord’s prize spaniel. Kicked its arse halfway across the lawn. Yappy little thing tried to take my head off. It’ll walk on by the next time it sees me. If it ever walks again, that is.’
2nd June, 1867
The silence hanging in between the clinks of rings on glasses, between the gentle scraping of silver on fine, gold-rimmed china, was downright painful. Even the candles seemed to cringe, making the dark room even darker at the edges. Merion bunched his face up into another smile and cleared his throat.
‘I must apologise again, my Lord Serped, for my tardiness,’ Merion offered, his voice thankfully not breaking this time, as it had done a dozen times already that evening.
Merion had awoken at precisely a quarter to six, still caked in blood and dust, and stinking of grease and fear. He had spent half an hour on making himself even remotely presentable, but it took only five minutes to reach the Serped riverboat, the one moored several miles away on the tail-end of the Seragho. Five minutes to travel three miles. Merion quite liked antelope blood.
Before he could wonder again at the sort of trouble he was already in (by now Lilain was sure to have spied the empty space on her shelves and noticed her nephew had vanished from the porch), Lord Castor Serped looked up from his plate and levelled his gaze at Merion. It was the sort of look that silently asked: ‘Who and why is this peasant boy sitting at my table?’
Merion, to his credit, held the gaze, as his father had taught him. Inwardly, he longed to stare down at the spotless black lacquer of the table, at his delicious white fish and buttered vegetables, at anything but this man. But it was for this environment that he had longed for the last few months: society, manners, seven courses, and everything in between. This is what Merion was good at. This was his pastime.
‘Do you not own a horse, young Master Hark?’ Even though Calidae had introduced him as Lord Hark, Castor was insistent on calling him master instead.
‘No, my lord. Therein lies the problem, I’m afraid,’ replied Merion.
‘And your family. You aunt. Does she not own a beast?’
Merion shook his head. ‘Again no, my lord, My aunt is a skilled worker, but her profession isn’t a wealthy one.’
Castor hummed at that. ‘I see.’ And that was all he said. The lord went back to his fish, attacking it like a battlefield general. The silence returned to haunt the dining room.
Castor was a thin man, and bony, but tall. Almost as tall as Merion’s father had been. Castor’s face was a sharp arrangement of proud bones, as if somebody had grabbed the skin at the back of his head and pulled hard. His hands were the same, all bones and tight white skin. Merion watched those hands manoeuvre the knife and fork around like his aunt worked her scalpel and prongs. Castor’s hair was a slicked-back cap of black streaked with a little silver here and there. It was the only hint of his age; his clean-shaven face, although gaunt, had an ageless quality to it, decades younger than the grey in his hair suggested. His attire was as sharp as his face. Almost military in cut, his suit was a dark green, punctuated with gold buttons and a black trim. He looked quite at odds with the grand atmosphere of the dining room, and the billowing dresses of his female company.
Lady Ferida Serped was also tall, and willowy of frame. Her hair was a very pale blonde, so fair it was almost a silvery white. It was tied back and left to trail down the back of her cream and black lace gown. Though its ruffles and layers splayed out around her legs and over her chair, the gown looked impossibly tight around the waist, so much so that when Merion ever stole a look, he felt short of breath.
Ferida had a soft face, pure and unblemished, save for a single dark mole sitting high on her left cheek. That, and a fine beak of a nose. When she spoke, Merion could not help but stare at it.
Calidae, of course, stole most of his glances. She too wore a gown, though hers was a bright green. Her hair was in curls, which bounced gently as she ate. She was perfectly prim and proper, eating her fish one tiny morsel at a time. Whenever he caught her eye, she smiled, once even daring to wink.
If there was one part of the evening that was going swimmingly, it was the food. There was not a bean in sight, and instead he had been served food he had thought non-existent on the frontier: fish so soft it must have been a pillow in a previous life; vegetables so fresh and green that Merion swore he tasted the Empire whenever he bit into one; and sauce so rich you could have paid men with it. His dusty taste buds were on fire. There was one problem: the wine.
Merion had only ever tried wine several times before, and every time it had turned his stomach sour, and made his head spin. Merion had so far avoided drinking it, taking fake sips when they had toasted the first course. Castor was consuming his at a rate of knots. Ferida sipped hers at a steady pace. Even Calidae was getting close to the bottom of hers. Merion was at risk of looking rude.
Merion reached for his glass, but before he could get it to his lips, Castor spoke.
‘How does she move the bodies?’ he asked, rather bluntly. He was still busy dissecting his fish. Lady Ferida tutted, but Castor held up a hand. ‘How does she move them if she does not own a horse to pull the cart?’
Merion decided truth was the best option here. ‘She pulls it, my lord, as do I.’
Castor looked up and pointed a fork at Merion. ‘You pull the cart?’
‘On occasion,’ Merion replied, praying he had not just committed social suicide.
‘So you are, in fact, the horse,’ Castor surmised. It sounded like a joke, but there was no humour in his face, no little hint of a smile.
‘Father …’ Calidae reprimanded him. Castor just chuckled and went back to his fish.
Merion chose his moment. ‘My father, Lord Karrigan Hark, always said that an unemployed man is either a broken man, or a lazy man. I am neither, my lord, and so I work for my aunt,’ he said. That seemed to have got Castor’s attention.
‘So you work with the bodies?’ asked Calidae.
‘Not directly, my lord,’ Merion replied.
Calidae looked either intrigued or horrified, Merion could not tell. ‘Is there a lot of blood?’ she asked.
‘It must be meagre pay. An undertaker’s assistant,’ Castor said.
Merion decided to try his luck. ‘I get a carrot a day, my lord. Fair wage for a cart-horse,’ he said, making sure to smile so as not to seem sarcastic.
There was a moment, an awkward moment, where Castor just stared at him and did not move. But then he smirked, and he laughed. Merion bravely laughed along with him, more with relief than anything else. Ferida and Calidae both chuckled as well. Merion had well and truly broken the ice. He sighed to himself as he wiped his lips.
Why not? he told himself as he reached for the wine again. He took a swig, wincing, waiting for the disgusting taste to hit his tongue and the back of his throat. Instead he tasted something sweet and fruity, something altogether different. Merion took another, and another, until he had almost caught up with Calidae.
‘Did you hear of the railwraith today, father?’
Castor templed his fingers. ‘Of course I did, my dear. It halted work on the rail for over two hours, and cost me one of my best lordsguards.’
Merion kept his eyes on his fish.
‘Merion? Did you hear about it?’ Calidae seemed excited.
‘I did,’ he replied, saying nothing more than he had to.
Calidae looked around the table, both her hands gripping the black table. ‘One of the biggest yet, they say. Had it not been for that lordsguard, the rail might have been delayed for days, father,’ she said.
Castor nodded. ‘True enough.’
The four continued on in silence until their plates were clean, with only the bones left on show. Knives and forks were crossed and taken away, and more wine was poured. Merion noticed that some of Castor’s servants were dark-skinned like Lurker. Any servant is a slave, he’d said. Merion dabbed his lips again.
‘How are you finding living in Fell Falls, young Lord Hark?’ Ferida asked him, once the second-to-last course had arrived, a steamed pudding and custard, just like the cooks in Harker Sheer used to make. Merion’s mouth watered intensely.
‘It is rather hot,’ Merion said with a smile, trying not to slobber. ‘It’s taking some getting used to.’
‘It does take time,’ Ferida nodded.
Merion took a sip of his wine. ‘There’s not much to do, however. And some of the people aren’t too fond of people of the Empire. And of course there is the constant threat of death.’ Perhaps the wine had loosened his tongue a little too much, he thought. He had meant for his words to sound casual, off-hand, but his voice had cracked on the word death, and he had sounded nervous instead.
Merion put his wine glass back on the table and reached for a spoon.
‘Not at all like London, is it, Master Hark?’ asked Castor, in a low voice.
‘No, my lord. Not one bit,’ Merion replied, shaking his head.
‘Do you miss it?’
Merion sat a little straighter. ‘Constantly, my lord,’ he replied, noticing Calidae watching him out of the corner of his eye.
Castor just nodded and stabbed his pudding with his spoon.
Ferida scratched her beak and hummed. ‘I must say, I think I might even miss the dreaded rain,’ she tittered, and Merion couldn’t help but agree.
‘It must be nice though, to travel by riverboat,’ he said.
‘It’s hideously slow,’ Castor muttered.
‘But comfortable, and refined, Castor,’ Ferida patted her husband’s hand. ‘Calidae and I won’t travel this far by carriage. Will we, my dear?’
Calidae shook her head.
‘You came to this town by train, didn’t you, Master Hark?’ Castor asked.
Merion bobbed his head. ‘I did, sir.’
Castor threw another question at him. ‘And what did you make of what I’ve built so far?’
‘Impressive, my lord. Very impressive.’
‘Mhm,’ Castor grunted. Merion bit the inside of his lip.
‘And fast too,’ he quickly added. Castor’s eyes shifted upwards. ‘Very fast. It only took me several days to get here from Boston. Faster than any carriage or riverboat.’
Castor chimed in. ‘Quiet too.’
Merion could not agree less, but his smile and nod did not betray him.
When the puddings were devoured and removed, the cheese course arrived—an absolute cornucopia of varied cheeses, with sweet wine, grapes, apples, spreads, and a giant assortment of crackers and biscuits to top it all off. Even though Merion was truly stuffed, his stomach still managed to gurgle. He was eating like a king again, and he was loving it. As they nibbled at the smorgasbord that had been set before them, they chatted idly of railways and weather, of home and of Merion’s family and estates. Everybody at the table, blunt Castor included, kindly skirted the subject of his father’s murder. Every time any of them strayed too close, the talk skipped away. Ferida and Calidae talked the most. Castor just devoured the cheese as if driven by a personal vendetta. Merion tried to keep up, but it wasn’t long before he had to throw in the towel, or in this case, the napkin. His stomach felt fit to burst.
The chitchat continued on for a time until it died of natural causes, somewhere at the tail end of a conversation about how difficult it is to find good sausages in Kaspar. It was then that Castor Serped leant back in his chair and swilled his wine around in his glass.
‘What do you know of the Shohari, Master Hark?’
Merion pursed his lips. I spent two nights with them, getting drunk at their fires, playing their games, and consorting with their shamans and magick trees. ‘Not a great deal I’m afraid, my lord. Except that they are a nuisance, and are apparently moving south to interfere with the railway.’
Castor raised an eyebrow, and turned to his wife. This time, he patted her hand. ‘Not a great deal, says the young man.’ Castor fixed him with a narrowed look. ‘It sounds as though you know quite a bit, Tonmerion, more than you would let on.’
Merion looked at Calidae, but she made no movement to help him. ‘My aunt has spoken of them a few times. That’s all I know,’ he replied, quickly taking another sip of his wine.
Calidae chimed in at last. ‘They are a nuisance, indeed. Now they are moving south, we will have to defend ourselves against more than just wraiths and sandstrikes,’ she said, almost as if she were her father’s business associate as well as his daughter.
Castor tapped the blade of his cheese knife on the table. ‘The Americans have done a fine job so far, to hold them back and keep them in their forests and in their hills, but they grow bolder every season. I received a report just the other day of a raid on a cattle farm north-west of Kaspar. Murdered the whole family and took the entire herd. Found all the animals slaughtered in the next valley, for no reason. They’re savages, Master Hark, and must be dealt with. The more we can kill this year, the less we will have to kill the next. Their children will soon learn not to trifle with us.’ Castor took a moment to spread a mound of chutney across a slab of cheese. ‘In fact, the more I see of these Shohari the more convinced I am that they should all be killed, or otherwise be maintained as a species of pauper—should they make good servants, that is. Don’t you think, Master Hark?’ Castor peered at him from across the table.
Merion didn’t know what to say, so he simply nodded.
Ferida cleared her throat politely. ‘Please, Castor. No more business at the table.’
‘Mmff,’ Castor said around a mouthful of cheese. ‘Then we shall find another table,’ he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. ‘Merion and I will talk in my study. Have them bring in the good wine.’
‘Of course,’ Ferida bowed her head. Merion managed to catch one last glance from Calidae. She smiled once again and Merion found himself suddenly reticent to go talk business. He cracked a smile of his own, almost more of a wince, and got up from the table. He bowed and then followed in the long footsteps of Castor, as the lord led him into an adjoining room.
*
The riverboat squatted like a fat whale in t
he water. Rhin eyed its huge arching stern and the big wheel that hung from it, half of its paddles in the dark, murmuring water. The river was low, and the dock had been built for smaller boats. The ropes creaked with every wash of current. Sand scraped against the hull.
The faerie moved off, thumbing his nose against the cold air. He had followed Merion as best he could, though following a boy who had antelope blood in his veins had proved rather difficult. Rhin had been forced to track him instead. Night had fallen, and the stars had come out to shine and mourn the lack of moon. It was a perfect night for sneaking.
For the most part, the riverboat was cloaked in darkness. Only a few windows at its centre glowed, and they shone with the sleepy orange of dying candles or crackling fires. A thin pillar of smoke rose up from a spindly chimney at the centre of the vessel. A few men were hunched over at the prow, a few at the stern, and a pair at the gangplank. Rhin smirked.
No problem.
Within minutes, Rhin had found a rope, shimmied up it, and found a door down to the lower decks. Sometimes it was just so easy. Knowing his time was precious, Rhin darted along the edges of a corridor, towards what he guessed might be the living area. His wings were proud and his spell was strong. He barely cast a shadow as he strode past lantern after lantern, each standing guard beside a dozen boring paintings of pompous-looking rich people. The carpet was thick, and the ceiling high. He felt as though he were treading the carpets of Harker Sheer, rather than a riverboat in the middle of an American desert. Rhin shook his head.
His keen ears heard conversation behind one door, and the uncorking of wine behind the next. A door was kicked open and Rhin froze against the skirting board, tensing his spell so that it held strong. The servant was utterly oblivious. He strode past without a single glance for Rhin. The faerie smirked, and crept on. Soon enough, he came across another set of stairs and followed them down into a darker corridor. Like its predecessor, it too was bedecked with painting after painting of jewellery-laden octogenarians. Rhin’s eyes glowed as he took each of them in. He eyed their gold frames and sucked his teeth loudly. Humans aged so quickly.
