Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince

by Melinda Salisbury

  “No. They’re burned. The royal family and the lords have family vaults that they can visit.”

  “Are the ashes kept in them?”

  “No.” She looks perplexed. “They’re rooms for contemplation. They’re places for the families to go to remember.”

  “What about the, erm, common folk?”

  “They don’t have the luxury of remembrance.”

  They. They don’t. Without further comment I lead my horse over and she follows. We both dismount and tie up our horses. Dimia runs her hands over the wood of the entrance to the graveyard, looking up at the roof, then down at the recessed wooden benches in the sides of the gate.

  “Pretty,” she says.

  “It’s a lichgate,” I tell her, unsurprised when she frowns. “A corpse gate. When they bring the dead to be buried they carry them in here, head first. The priest says a blessing and then they turn the coffin feet first and carry it into the graveyard while someone rings the lichbell.”

  “Why?”

  “To confuse the spirit so it doesn’t try to follow the living back out.” It’s an old superstition. She nods and walks through the gate into the graveyard proper. My insides writhing, I take a deep breath and follow her.

  Dimia walks ahead of me, her head turning left to right and back again as she takes it all in. I notice she keeps strictly to the path. Once, when I was little, we came to leave flowers on my grandmother’s grave, and I’d been delighted by the mounds of loamy earth, running up and down them, chanting that I was the queen of the molehills. My mother had smacked my legs and yanked me back to her side, her skin reddening with mortification. I hadn’t known they were fresh graves; I hadn’t really known what a grave was. The memory, though macabre, makes me smile. Mama would approve of Dimia’s careful tread.

  She pauses every now and then to read the inscriptions on the gravestones. She seems to stop especially at the ones for children, her mouth moving silently as she reads, before moving on.

  “It’s eerie, isn’t it, to know that beneath us there are bones shifting and resting.” Her voice has a strange, heavy quality to it and in the oncoming twilight it makes me shiver. I look back to the lichgate to reassure myself the horses are still there. “All lined up, like crops, almost,” she continues. “A field of the dead.” She looks over to where the first row of mausoleums stand, leaning precariously against one another. “How strange to build monuments to house corpses.”

  I blink in shock. “It’s a monument to their lives, not their bodies. It might seem strange to you, but it seems stranger to me that you burn your bodies. Burn the arms of the mothers that held you. Burn the lips of the fathers that kissed your brow when you cried. You destroy the bodies that gave you life. We give them back to the earth. We treat our dead with respect.”

  She whirls around to face me. “You know nothing of death.”

  “I know enough,” I snap, forgetting that she holds the keys to getting my mother back. “I’ve seen it. I’ve smelt it. I’ve tried to fight it. What more do I need to know?” My eyes drift towards the row of vaults along the far wall and she follows my gaze. She nods, as if remembering something. Then she turns around and carries on walking.

  I follow, my nerves jangling, as she continues on her tour of Tremayne’s dead. Every so often we pass a grave with a circle on it, a line across the centre of it. The symbol bothers me, because I’ve seen it somewhere recently, and then I remember: it was carved into the salt merchant’s door in Tremayne.

  I pause in front of one of the graves with the symbol on it and pick absently at a blackberry bush snarling out from beside it, piling the last of the fruit in my hand. I know it means something else but I can’t quite catch the memory.

  Without meaning to – or perhaps I meant to all along – I’ve wandered to the west side of the cemetery. Here the vaults are of tall, grey stone with the family name carved across the top. A field of the dead, she called it. In this part of the cemetery the description is accurate, I’ll give her that. They’re like little houses; some have windows, and some have altars inside with shelves for offerings. Almost all have oak leaves or holly leaves, sometimes both, carved across the lintels, a superstitious throwback to the old gods and old ways. The tombs here are well kept, none of the stones are broken, and from the corner of my eye I watch Dimia stare at them all, occasionally trailing a long finger across the carved leaves.

  The fog has rolled in now, bringing the scent of smoke from the villagers’ fires with it. My hand has folded into a fist, crushing the blackberries so the purple juice runs out between my fingers. My eyes shift to the right and my heart begins to race.

  Our tomb is right there, perhaps ten or twelve feet away. The door carved with the names of my grandparents, great-grandparents.

  And my father.

  I turn from it and gaze at the monument behind me, a winged angel asleep on a stone bed, the crossed circle carved into it: the final resting place of Jephrys Mulligan. I try to concentrate on the dates and words as my stomach churns, willing myself not succumb to panic. Dimia passes behind me, her eyes still fixed on the vaults, and I count to ten in my mind.

  I’ve reached seven when she gasps and I turn slowly to her.

  She’s staring up at the tomb. Her hand is still outstretched, but frozen in the air. Her mouth moves silently as she runs through the names written there.

  “Lief Vastel,” she says aloud.

  “My grandfather. My father’s father. My brother was named for him.”

  I walk towards the tomb, every footstep like walking through swampland, the effort to lift my legs painful. And there it is: Azra Vastel. My father. His name is carved into the door below that of his mother, who died ten moons before I was born. The words already have a faded, old look to them, as though they’ve been there for much longer than six moons. I step past Dimia and grip the iron handle. It sticks for a moment, then gives, and the musty smell of the tomb flows out and mingles with the smoky air.

  I step inside, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the scant light coming from the dirty windows. I begin to make out the shapes of stone plaques on the walls, the names carved on them matching those on the door. There are blank ones, for me, for my mother, for any children that follow. I realize with a sharp pain beneath my ribs that one of the plaques will have to be inscribed for Lief. He won’t have a coffin though. He won’t lie here, turning to dust with the rest of his family, given back to nature. He might have been burned, like a Lormerian. Or worse.

  I take a deep breath, holding it in my lungs and then exhaling so hard that dust motes swirl around me.

  The air shifts; Dimia has followed me in. I turn and she gives me a look of heartbreaking pity. I blink, confused by her concern, until a tear lands on my hand. I’m crying again. Quietly, as though I’m a wild animal and she’s afraid I’ll bite her, she steps towards me and raises her arms. It’s she who stiffens as she wraps them around me, holding me rigidly as if she’s not quite sure what to do. The awkwardness of it reminds me of Silas. I pull away from her and she steps back immediately.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, and I don’t know if she’s apologizing for my loss or her embrace.

  “It’s the first time I’ve been here,” I say, my voice echoing strangely off the stone.

  She looks around the inside of the vault, taking in the plaques, the small, bare altar, the stone shelf that doubles as a seat. “That’s why you didn’t want to come. You should have said.”

  “Is this what your vaults are like? For your nobles?” I ask her.

  “No. They’re not like this.” She shakes her head curtly, and instantly my upper lip curls in anger. “They’re … cold,” she says quickly. “This is simpler, but real. The nobles’ vaults have carved effigies of the dead in them. Faces, hands, all picked out in marble. More museum than mausoleum.” She smiles wryly. “It’s not a place you’d go to grieve. It’s
a place you’d go to be cowed. They make you feel small, but this … this is supposed to make you feel as though you’re part of something.”

  She nods to herself in her strange way and steps out of the tomb, leaving me alone with my family. I step forward to touch my father’s plaque when she appears in the doorway again.

  “The horses are fretting,” she says. “And the smell of smoke seems stronger. I think something nearby is burning.”

  I follow her out. The wind has changed direction, and the faint smell of smoke is now powerful, blowing into our faces, thick and sharp. The sky is darkening, the night swooping in, in the swift, without-warning way it does in autumn. Already out, the moon is newly waning, just losing its fullness, and blue smoke passes over it, trailing a line across it, and the image nags at me.

  “We should go.” I shake off the irritation. “It’ll be dark soon.”

  “Where are we going to shelter tonight?”

  Apprehension tightens my belly, but we have little choice. “Tremayne is closest, two miles, if you want an inn.”

  “Where the alchemist house is.”

  “Where I was born, too. And Lief.” She doesn’t reply. “They close the city gates at sundown.”

  Dimia looks up to where the sky is starting to turn dark around the edges, like ink bleeding across paper. “We should hurry, then.”

  We stumble in the growing darkness back to the horses, which are fretting, whickering softly to us as we untie them. We ride out, past the silent graveyard, cantering into the night, the smell of smoke getting ever stronger. Half a mile outside the town walls, we find the source of the fire. There, smouldering crimson and orange in the darkness, is what remains of one of the harvest stores built on the outskirts of the village. The barns where the hay harvests were stored over winter, the lofts filled with apples and pears. Byres and sheep houses and stables where cattle and sheep were sheltered when the snows arrived. Burned to the ground. The air is thick with smoke, the smell of burnt hay and corn. Of roasted meat. My throat catches when I think of the animals that would have been caught inside their barns, frightened and trapped.

  Dimia is looking at me with some curiosity. “Do you know who owns it?” she asks.

  “The Prythewells. Friends of my father’s. They kept sheep and cows for eating. That’ll be all their food and income for the winter.” I shake my head at the loss.

  “It looks as though there is nothing to be done.”

  I frown at the remains of the buildings. The ruins still smoulder. Surely someone should be here, trying to put them out? If the wind blew hot cinders into the village and they caught in a thatch, then the fire could easily spread, passing through Tremayne like a plague. Where are the people? Where are the soldiers? Shouldn’t someone, anyone, be here, salvaging, or even looting?

  I turn towards Tremayne as a cold, stark fear begins to bloom inside me. I kick the horse straight into a gallop; I can hear Dimia’s pony pounding the dirt behind me. The smell of smoke becomes stronger and the ears of the horse flatten against her head as she stops, despite my urging. She skitters sideways and refuses to move, weaving across the track. Dimia’s pony pulls ahead of me. Dimia clings to its neck as it rears, its whinny more of a scream. The whites of its eyes are visible as it tries to throw her.

  I dismount to help her, but as soon as I’m down my horse bolts, back the way we came. I stare after her in horror. Then Dimia whimpers and I turn to see her pony rushing back towards me, running after mine. As he passes I reach out and grab his reins long enough for Dimia to slide from his back. Then he’s gone too, leaving my fingers red and stinging, burned from the leather whipping across my skin.

  Dimia leans against a tree, pale and shaking. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “I’ve no idea,” I say, though it’s not wholly true. My horse was an army mount, trained to fight. Whatever it’s running from must be terrifying. And unnatural.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Find out what’s going on,” I say with a lot more courage than I feel. I pull my knife out from my belt.

  We find the first body lying inside the gate, his legs bent at a funny angle, his throat slit. His blood is dark and thick-looking, not fresh. Tuck, the meaner one, has been impaled, his sword pinioning him to the walls he was supposed to guard. When Dimia moans I turn and follow her gaze. The soldier who lied to get me through the gate, the one who winked at me, is hanging over the top of the tower gate wall. One eye is open, blue and staring. The other is home to an arrow, and I turn away, praying that it wasn’t one of his own and that it was fast. I didn’t know his name.

  Dimia slides her hand into mine and I grip it tightly as we enter, stepping gingerly around the fallen men. Ahead of us, inside the walls of Tregellan’s second city, fires burn. We walk slowly through the merchant quarter, tunics pulled up over our noses and mouths, eyes streaming from the smoke. The light from the fire is enough to see the devastation as we approach the main square.

  Everything is gone. Every shop – the baker’s, the chandler’s, the general store – all black shells, acrid smoke pouring from them. The apothecary is a wreck, the windows gaping like missing teeth, the door vanished, the insides dark and cave-like. The House of Justice is smouldering rubble, the golden bricks charred and shattered, glass reflecting the remaining flames. The village green is torn up; brown earth scores the turf like scars.

  People lie prone in the debris, arms flung out, feet disappearing into piles of stone. The angles of their bodies tell me there’s no use in seeing if I can help, for no one who falls in that way will ever rise again. What was it Carys said – death favours the bold? Death has favoured everyone here equally. The green tunics of the soldiers, stripped of their weapons, the rough wool in red and blues of the people who lived here. My friends. My neighbours. I’m scared to look at the faces, turning away before recognition can punch me in the stomach. Dimia squeezes my hand, and when I look at her, tears are clearing a path through the soot on her cheeks.

  We walk silently through the square and out towards the smith and masonry quarter. I strain for the sound of voices, hoping desperately someone has been left alive here. We walk past houses that have been gutted, doors torn from their frames, windows smashed on upper and lower levels. Belongings are strewn about the place, as though a giant has come in and picked up the houses, shaking them out before tossing them to the floor. Copper pots, broken pottery, bedding, wooden stools, all smashed, or dented, or crushed underfoot; nothing has been left whole, everything has been ripped out and destroyed with a deliberateness that makes me feel sick.

  I peer into the house where Kirin used to live. When I see a shadow lying inside, I turn away, covering my mouth.

  “Do you know any of them?” Dimia asks quietly. “Are any of your people here?”

  My eyes widen and I drop her hand, taking off at a run, tripping over the possessions that litter the ground. I feel the flesh on my left knee split open and stones embed themselves in my palms but I don’t care. I force myself back to my feet, hobbling past the tavern, its shell still echoing with pops and cracks as forgotten caches of alcohol catch alight. My lungs burn from the smoke and the effort, and my thighs and calves scream at me, but I can’t stop. They live on the edge, near the clock tower. It’s far out. They have to be safe.

  And at first their house looks miraculously untouched. But then I see the door, gaping open like a wound, and I see the darkness inside.

  “Don’t,” Dimia says as I walk towards it, but I shake her off, leaving her behind me as I approach the house.

  When I get closer, my heart hammering in my chest, I see a flicker of light near the kitchen. Hope floods through me, and I move to the doorway.

  “Lirys?” I call softly. “Carys?”

  The light grows as the owner of the candle steps towards me.

  It’s not my friend.

  A dark-haired man s
tands before me, his teeth as black as his hair, a knife in his other hand. I scream in rage and raise my knife, and he throws the candle at me, hot wax splashing against my hand and I drop my knife.

  “There’s a girl here!” he calls, and I turn on my heels and bolt.

  “Run!” I scream at Dimia’s startled face, and she does, lifting her skirts and starting to run.

  I grab her as I pass her and we tear away from the farm, my knee throbbing with every hard step. When I look back I see other men, bearded, sallow-skinned and armed to the teeth, pouring out of the dairy and the cowsheds, like ants from a nest. Their hands are red with blood and I grip Dimia’s wrist tighter, dragging her forward.

  I guide us towards the town square, hoping we can lose them in the labyrinthine streets around the merchant quarters, racing down narrow alleys, left, then right, stumbling over rubble and household objects the fog blinds us to. Somewhere behind us voices chase and footsteps echo, urging us to move faster, to not stop.

  When we break out on to the square I lengthen my stride, putting all of my energy into getting us across it, into the guild area, where we can climb to the walls and hide. We’re halfway across when Dimia shrieks and pulls me to a halt.

  Appearing from inside the fog like a nightmare and blocking our path is a golem.

  I try to double back, but too late: its colossal hand thrusts forward and grips my arm, its clay fingers crushing my wrist.

  “Errin!” Dimia screams as it hauls me into the air, black spots exploding in my eyes, my arm feeling as though it will tear from its socket. It hurts so much I can’t breathe. It raises me until I’m level with its head, as if looking at me. As I dangle in its grip, I see the men out of the corner of my eye. They’ve stopped; some of them watch Dimia and some watch the golem. I get the distinct impression they’re keen to stay out of its reach, even as they try to edge around it towards Dimia.

  “Go,” I shriek at her, and the golem swings around, taking me with it. Then I’m soaring through the air, the moon above me. Stars burst behind my eyes as I hit the side of a building, something in my back snapping with a faint pop. A second later pain explodes with such force that I can’t even scream, choked by the agony of it. Then I can’t feel anything, lying on the ground, staring up at the night.