"Darling child" he said, "you cannot possibly understand what will happen if I do this. This boy does not understand. We have only just begun to see the depths of the King's madness. There will be no end, if we do this. When we are caught, as we certainly will be, it will mean death for every Gravaile in the city. Our line will be seared off the tapestry of the land. All our secret strivings will come to nothing."
By the end he was wheedling. Perhaps he saw, as surely as did she.
"You sent me to that Abbey," she said, her voice growing firmer as she used it for the first time in many months. "I did what I did, and we live with the aftermath. But why did you send me, if not for this? Was it not such a risk at the very start? Was it not the same risk that Sen asks you to take now?"
"Oh, Feyon," said her mother. "Hush about such things, you cannot know-"
"Cannot know?" Feyon asked, turning on her mother. "About my sister, who died for the mark on her back? You see I have my own now!" She touched her own throat. "You lied to me about her for years, and taught me to belong in a world that murdered my sister, and what for, if not for this moment? How can I be a good little Blue girl, a courtier's daughter aiming for a good marriage, with this? Or am I the thing you'd hoped for when you sent me to the Abbey? Which am I, mother, I would very much like to know, and what future do you see for me now, and all of my line? Am I a warrior for the Heart, or a quisling for a King who would murder me if he ever saw me?"
Her mother's jaw dropped. She hadn't heard that many words from Feyon in all of the last eight months. She didn't like to look at her daughter's throat, where the ugly scar lay. Still more words kept coming though, and Feyon turned to use them on her father.
"What he asks for is right," she said, pointing at Sen, who also appeared a little surprised. "He is Avia's son, after all. He bears the scars she wrote onto him, that the Saint might rise, and here he asks for your help in raising the Saint, and you argue because you're afraid you might die? That I might die? Father, mother, we are already dead, if we bow before this King any longer! What life can I have, or what children can I bring, if we bow now? What people will we be, if we deny the Heart when it calls?"
The anger flooded through her. She didn't know where it was coming from, but it felt good. It felt good to see her father wilt, and her mother strain for words.
"Feyon," she attempted, "you speak of ideals. Faith is more complex. We have always served the Heart from within the court. We are not warriors."
Feyon slammed her hand on the table. The sound was shockingly loud, and made even her own heart skip a beat. Her father flinched. "And what if I am a warrior? What if I want to fight? If you have any love for the Heart, you will join me!"
Her father looked at her mother. Her mother looked to him and back to her, while Sen sat dumbfounded.
"Feyon-" the Duchess began.
"Mother," Feyon answered. "There is no real choice here. You will help Sen. You will obey the Heart when it calls." She looked at her father. "You will get him what he needs. And I, if he will have me, will go with him."
Sen's brows beetled together. He started to speak, but Feyon cut him off. Now she had started speaking, it seemed like she could never stop again.
"You don't want me. I understand. I killed your Sister Henderson, and I can never repay that. But let me try. I can help with your paper. I have ideas, I know the King's world better than any, and the weak points of his court. I can turn his highest supporters against him. I am written in your scars, after all. I have to go."
Sen opened his mouth, stood, thought for a moment, then nodded. "Very well."
Feyon turned to her father. She was blazing now. He seemed diminished. He gave a sad sigh, puffing his moustaches slightly, then a nod. "Very well." He turned to Sen. "I will do as you ask, and more. Take care of my daughter."
Sen nodded gravely.
Feyon turned to her mother. There were tears brimming in her eyes.
"I can't lose you as well," she said. "Not like Cherlyndra."
Feyon went to her. She held her hands. "This is what Cherlyndra died for."
THE SAINT III
Sen didn't know what to think.
He returned to the millinery alone, avoiding the patrols, turning over the events at Feyon's home repeatedly in his mind. She was like a different person. He thought back to the way she'd told her parents what they would do, as if no other answer was possible.
But she'd turned them all in to the Adjunc and gotten Sister Henderson killed.
He wasn't angry at her any more for that, but still, it was hard to forgive. It was complex, like him killing a Moleman then writing a posting about how great Molemen could be. Had that been his attempt at atonement, he wondered, and was that what this was too?
He jumped off a church spire and slid down the lead-roofed side of a tinsmith, passing near to Jubilante. Briefly he thought about Alam. That was complex too; they were friends, but Alam had his own atonement to pursue, still making good on his father's legacy.
It was strange. Climbing through the under trellis of Gilungel Bridge across the Levi, with all the broad flat river spread before him and the stink of salt and fish in the air, he wondered if everything he was doing was atonement for something, some original sin he'd forgotten about and couldn't remember.
He'd been at Aradabar when it fell, he knew that much, a babe in Avia's arms fleeing through the devastation. The teardrop sense of King Seem was always there beneath his skin still, reminding him of the epic scale of his life. Three thousand years was a long jump. In three thousand years, Seem had done some awful things. He'd killed countless ghasts, enslaving thousands to exhume the crater around his palace, but he'd set on that path for the best of reasons: to see and help his son.
Still, Sharachus was dead.
It was a puzzle.
Passing back along a side-Haversham street, he saw new bonfires on the tradeway. Atop one a person screamed. That blood was on his hands too, but it didn't seem all that important next to thinking about Feyon. That was awful, but he couldn't help it.
She'd been so thin and weak looking, with no makeup and her hair in disarray, with the scar across her perfect throat damning her just as surely as he was damned. But when she'd stood and given orders to her family, there'd been something deeply substantial about her. In those moments she'd felt more real than anything else, bigger and more real than the millinery or the Saint, more important than his mother or his scars.
It was strange.
Gellick was waiting for him in the millinery, nearly hopping up and down with excitement as Sen came in.
"Well, did you see her? Will they help? Will they bring us paper?"
Sen smiled. "They'll do better than paper. The Duke's going to set up three printworks for us, far outside the city, and run off whole newspapers. Not just single page sheets. Whole papers like The Soul."
Gellick looked like he was about to burst. "Whole papers? What?"
Sen enjoyed the moment. This was a real bit of good news. "Whole papers. Thousands of copies. We won't need to post them anymore. We can just drop them from the rooftops. Post them through doors. Whatever."
Gellick's eyes blazed. "Through doors!"
Sen felt the deep warmth of a job well done. He patted the Balast and moved past him, into the resonant, woody warmth of their shared home. "Oh, and Feyon is coming to join us. Maybe tomorrow."
Gellick laughed. It was loud, and he clapped his hands to mouth, but that was loud too. Sen chuckled at his excitement.
"Feyon too! Then Daveron, and Alam, and Mare! We need to clean up." He looked around anxiously at the bare peat floor, littered with scraps of broken wood and old shattered buckets. "Make it nice for Feyon!"
"We don't need to worry about that," said Sen, riding the warmth of the good news up the stairs. "She's come a long way down since the Abbey days."
When she came two nights later, she proved him very wrong.
* * *
She had the brougham drop her at th
e Abbey. Her Malakite guardian was loath to leave, but the agreement had been struck with her parents.
For a long time she stood in front of the gates, looking in. It was after dark, and a solitary Sister patrolled the grounds like an errant shellaby bug. She hadn't returned here since the Adjunc raid.
Now she knocked for attention. It took time, and she waited. It was Sister Pomefrey who came to her. As she neared, Feyon pulled her tight hood back and dropped to her knees.
"May I see the Abbess?"
Sister Pomefrey stared for a long moment. "You have gall, to come here, girl."
"You're right," said Feyon. "I don't deserve an audience."
Pomefrey sighed. "Yet the Heart teaches forgiveness. Come."
It wasn't comfortable.
The Abbess rose from sleep to meet with her, and together they walked in awkward silence to Sister Henderson's grave. The Abbess used a stick now, to balance, making little clacks on the gravel path as they went.
They stood in front of the grave. Feyon had dreamed of this moment for a long time. She had written all the stories, but there was no easy way. The easy way didn't exist. There was just the horrible, awkward way.
She bowed her head, and said her apologies.
"Sen came to you," the Abbess said, looking at her.
Feyon nodded.
"Now you're going to him."
She nodded again.
"In deeds we may find our forgiveness. It is better, to act in the world than to kill yourself. The Heart teaches as much."
Feyon could feel the displeasure with which the Abbess dealt with her. She understood it, because her coming brought back painful memories. But that didn't mean she shouldn't have come. That it was awkward, and that it hurt, was good.
"Thank you for seeing me, Abbess. Thank you for allowing me to come here."
The Abbess frowned. "Who am I to dictate? Sister Henderson liked you, after all."
That surprised her. She forgot to be pious and sorrowful for a moment, and looked directly at the Abbess. "She liked me?"
"Of course. Do you think she carried that brick just to torment you?"
Now Feyon frowned. Of course she remembered the brick. It had started on one of the first days at the Abbey, when she'd asked Sister Henderson for a feather pillow to rest her head on during lessons. Sister Henderson had come back with an old, dirty brick.
She'd been stunned, too surprised to really protest as the Gawkish Sister had attempted to slip it under her head.
"Would it be most comfortable here, Miss Feyon?" she'd asked, adopting a soft and servile tone that was all the more mocking for how dirty the brick was. It had been covered in wet earth, as if she'd just dug it up from the grounds.
"She did torment me," Feyon said, confused, and now the Abbess laughed.
"She did. But think of the lengths she went to, child. Was Sister Henderson merely cruel?"
Feyon thought back. After that first moment with the brick, Sister Henderson had taken to carrying it around with her. Whenever she'd caught Feyon's eye, she'd pop it out from behind her back, and make a smiling face as if she was going to offer it to her again, as if she was doing her a great service.
"It was a joke?" she asked, not at all certain.
"A lesson, I think," said the Abbess. Her tone was warming now. "One you may now have learned."
Feyon took a breath. Things with the brick had gotten so bad that she would avoid looking at Sister Henderson at all. But then the brick would always just be there, left somewhere she'd see it on the path or in the middle of the grounds, like it was following her around. Once it had a little smiling face chalked onto it.
Now the thought of that made her smile.
"I used to get so angry," she said quietly. "I thought she was disrespecting the Gravaile name."
Now the Abbess rested a clawed hand on her shoulder. "With a brick. Child, there are lessons in humility for us all."
Feyon smiled. At the same time, she started to quietly cry. She'd never known Sister Henderson had liked her. Had cared for her, even.
"I'm sorry for what I did. Truly."
"Oh hush," said the Abbess, and pulled Feyon toward her, cowling her wings around them both. "I know that. I know what you are, Feyon, and it was always better than you thought. Sister Henderson saw as much too. She wouldn't be angry now. You're risking your life for Sen, aren't you? So you join the ranks of we women, who have all risked our lives for him, and what he represents. Dry your eyes. You're one of us, now."
Feyon gulped. This was more than she'd ever hoped for, and different to anything she'd written.
"Thank you, Abbess. You don't know what this means."
"Nonsense. Blame the Adjunc, Feyon. Blame the King. I cannot blame a child for their crimes."
They walked back to the gates in silence. In silence, the Abbess waved her out.
Walking down Aspelair, Feyon felt the next stage of her life begin. It felt appropriate to do it in this way, following in Sen's footsteps. She'd mapped the route he must have taken to his millinery, and now she followed it, down the canal and up through the deserted ghost roads of the Slumswelters.
She was muddy, dusty and weary when she reached the abandoned hat shop atop its hill. She'd never walked so far in her life. But still, she felt an inner well of possibility beginning in her chest.
When Sen met her in the dark of the doorway, she felt him sense it.
"Feyon?" he said, and she luxuriated in the uncertainty. He was looking at her face with something like awe. "Did you walk?"
"I came from the Abbey," she said, simple and deceptively meek.
"From the Abbey?" This puzzled him delightfully. "We were watching for your brougham from the roof. But-"
"Where is Gellick?" she asked, and that left him frozen for a moment.
"Here, I mean, here, upstairs."
He turned awkwardly, holding a revelatory lamp light, and for a moment seemed frozen about whether to let her go first or lead the way himself, before settling on leading. "This way."
She followed. The place was simple and neat, if decrepit and ancient. On the second floor she saw Gellick standing beside an iron press, with papers scattered across the floor. The Balast's big dark face lit up when he saw her. He truly had grown, almost doubling in size since she'd last seen him.
"Feyon!" he cheered.
She went in and kissed him carefully on the cheek. His cheeks blushed a shade darker, and he went quiet.
So they stood quietly together for a time, as Feyon looked down at the papers they'd been working on. They seemed to be ideas for articles to go in the next copy of the Saint. She knew all about the system; had helped thrash it out. Sen would produce the proofs, then leave copies in areas her father could send a representative to collect. They would smuggle the proofs out of the city, print them, and return within a week bearing the copies.
She saw the beginnings of an article on the King's response, and something about Indura, and a general treatise on caste.
She cleared her throat, and both Sen and Gellick looked to her.
"I have an idea for the Saint."
"Yes?" Sen answered, a little too quickly. In this light, in this place, she could see how adult he now looked. He belonged here. He was taller too, and stronger, and his face had lost the puppy fat of boyhood.
"It will split the Roy. It's about a little girl called Cherlyndra, my sister, though of course we should change the name. I thought we might pair it with another story, about Mare of Indura."
Gellick frowned. "Our Mare?"
"Pair them," Feyon said, bringing her hands together. "Show the ways they were both prisoners and victims of the King's law on caste. They'll hate the comparison in the Roy. It will humiliate them, and anger the King, to have their shared bondage pointed out so bluntly. Some of them, it will break."
Sen nodded sharply. "It can be our lead story. Alongside the Moleman response."
Feyon looked at him. Now he met her gaze. He was curious, though the
mistrust was there still. She would have to show him. She was here. She would stay.
"I have lots of ideas. I've been thinking about this for a long time."
* * *
Within a week, two thousand perfectly printed copies of The Saint came back. The Duke Gravaile did not explain the detail of his means or his methods, but the result was far more professional than the efforts Sen and Gellick had made alone.
Now the Saint had eight pages, and every page was filled with treason. The weakness and cruelty of the King's response was lampooned, using a woodblock print image that Sen had carved himself; a cartoonish image of a fat, nappy-wearing baby with a crown, wailing at a scrap of paper.
Feyon's story of two girls across the castes was on the next page. Following that was Sen's expanded essay on caste, laying out in simple steps how the King's law kept them separated and weak. If they were ever to conjoin, they had the power to overwhelm all the King's forces. The Molemen and Adjunc and standing armies paled into insignificance next to the weight of people. He went on to raise up the power of all the Balast folks. He sang the skill of the Carroway castes with saltpeter and iron and wood. He conjured the notion of a citadel city turned against the King, seeking a righteous rule that would not break them upon such a bitter wheel.
After that came other stories, some less serious. Gellick insisted on including a funny story about Prince Coxswold, and his love for candied butter. It didn't even mention the King, was simply a rambling, breathless tale of the Prince and his grandiose hunt through the many parts of a beautiful, strange land, ending with a cliffhanger and a promise for more in the next edition.
Would the Prince get his candied butter?
Sen dropped it round the city through that first long night, delivering copies even deep into the Roy. The streets swarmed with Molemen and Adjunc, but they were spread thin, and now that he no longer needed to take the time to post papers to walls, he could move with greater speed.
Down chimney pots they went. Into letterboxes. Tucked under slits in doors, wedged through cracks in window boards, left in outdoor privies, settled on second floor window sills.
The Saint's Rise (Ignifer Cycle Book 1) Page 35
