The weeks spent themselves quickly; and soon it was the afternoon of winter solstice, and in trepidation I climbed the maple through Natalya’s window.
Natty, dressed in green silk, kept her excitement hidden until Andrei left the room.
“Find her something with long sleeves,” he said on his way out. “And don’t kill each other.”
Natty slammed the door, flipped the latch and grinned at me. It made my hair stand on end.
“The soap might send you into shock,” she said, “but don’t worry––the bath water’s cold.”
Natty walked over to her bed and held up a dress. “I wore this when I was twelve. I think it will do.”
There was a girdle, silver, fashioned like an ivy wreath, and a blue velvet smock that hung over the creamy silk; and as soon as I saw it I wanted to stab it in the heart. But I wasn’t allowed to touch it until I had taken a bath.
“And don’t shed your trousers and tunic.” She pushed me towards a tub full of her used bathwater. “We might as well wash everything.”
When she was through my skin felt as though it’d been scoured with a currycomb. I was surprised my hair hadn’t fallen out. I believe Natty would’ve preferred it had, judging by the way she sighed over it’s length, which wasn’t so bad—I’d not cut it in a while.
She rolled the hair toward the nape of my neck and secured it there with all her pins. Then she batted my hands away and dressed me. The fine, clean fabric felt stiff and strange against my skin.
She finished it with a silver headband and couldn’t hide her pleasure. “Lucky for us that Gireldine girls hide beneath rags and buckets, my mother always said.”
She turned me out into the hall. The bench at the end was occupied by Andrei and Max, and though Andrei was asleep (a fit that often possessed him during bouts of boredom), Max watched as Natty and I approached.
“Who’re you?” said Max to me. Then he slammed the bench against the wall and woke Andrei. “She looks like a girl.”
“Max,” said Andrei, “one of these days I’ll pee my trousers.” He recognized me and the red spread up his neck all the way to his ears. I’d never seen him blush before.
“You’d smell better,” said Max.
Andrei stood up. “You’ve redeemed yourself, Natty.”
“So you’ll be nice to me?” said Natty.
“You’ve a little more to redeem yet.”
And we found a cloak for me, sought out Trid, and to Natty’s dismay left on horseback for the ferry across the estuary; and Natty hissed about my straddled legs and terrible poise until I turned in my saddle and rode backwards.
***
Daifen’s house hugged a sea bluff with its old stone arms, and the place would have seemed wild and lonely but for the number of people that showed up that night, all of them dressed in the same high fashion with cloaks drawn tight against the chapping wind.
A groom took our horses, and we stole inside with me hidden in the middle. Floy flew in before us, looking like a stray leaf.
The entrance hall was fragrant with winter greenery and potted orange trees. Max (who’d grown taller that autumn) reached and picked a few oranges. “They’ll probably read poetry for a couple of hours while we slowly starve,” he said, handing some to Andrei, who put them in his jerkin pockets next to my canister of acid.
A number of people were already in the big hall, talking and laughing. The tables, colorful with food and drink, had been pushed aside to make room for dancing and entertainment.
Trid sat on a bench in a corner as far from the center of the room as possible. I made to sit beside him, but Andrei laughed and pulled him up. “We’ve got to sit closer to Daifen, Triddy. Don’t fret––I’ll protect you.”
I looked about the room. My heart slowed considerably when I failed to see the Queen. Andrei nudged me and pointed at Daifen. A woman stood at his right, old as he was––probably his sister, as he’d taken no wife. The other Gralde were easy to spot, dressed brightly, acting raffishly, talking loudly in their own tongue. I kept my eyes averted when we passed them.
Andrei chose a couch near the food, close enough so that he could hear what Daifen was saying, and I sat in his shadow. Trid, head down, dropped onto a bench directly opposite us.
Max sat beside Trid. “And now,” he said, almost drooling, “to start a fight.”
“A fight?” said Trid. “That’s the plan?”
“Don’t sound so cynical. Andy’s here.”
“Not yet,” said Andrei, looking round. “We need a reason––Ah.” Luka had just come in, arm in arm with his mother.
Mulled drinks were offered in liberation, loosening tongues. Music commenced. I had a cider I thought was just cider, but soon my words crammed together and I catcalled with the boys when Natty was called to play a little harp that had been arranged on a stool. She sat on the stool and refused to play for lack of a singer. A Gralde girl was cajoled out of serving drink and shoved, giggling, to the spot beside Natty.
“The Bean, the Bean,” cried another Gralde. “Ocling’s Bean.”
“That piece of nonsense?” Natty said.
“It’s all Jennet knows.”
The Gralde girl blushed, and more folk took up the call; so Natty plucked grumpily at her harp and the girl sang along in her kitten’s voice:
“O half sunk in sea stood a doorstep of yew
That had once borne the stamping of old Ocling’s shoe;
A squall had provided the rest of his house
With a taste of the sky, then a sea-salty douse,
And Ocling was left with a bean to his name,
And a thirst that could put a fried flounder to shame,
So he walked the north shore with a rattling groan
Till he’d come to a well in a grotto of stone.
But ’twas high in a sea bluff secured by a sprite
And the grotto was guarded by day and by night,
And this saebel with teeth all of sea-foam and salt
Bid Ocling good day, and then ‘Drink not thou shalt.
‘For the water is mine after many a brave
Hath attempted to take this, my rightful enclave.’
Though stern spoke the saebel, old Ocling’s retort
Held that lack of a drink equaled pleasures cut short
By the curse of the mortal, by death’s dark estate,
And the Elde found fit to steer clear of this fate.
So he jumped on the saebel––and throttled a mist,
For the neck of the sprite is like water in fist.
Then the sprite drew a cutlass––the famed Eel’s Claw,
And he thrust the misnomer at old Ocling’s jaw,
But Ocling was skilled at the Lobster’s Gavotte
And deflected the blow with that curious knot
That one makes when the pelvis is placed in the mouth,
When toe plugs the west ear, and knee plugs the south.
But Death’s dire scythe would have still reached its mark
Had not old Ocling’s secreted bean stopped the arc
Of the cutlass thrust toward that intrepid face.
Then the bean and the sword locked in rigid embrace,
Were flung in the air, and thrown down to the source
Of the water and bigotry, greed and remorse.
The saebel was fond of his sword to a fault,
And the worst of the battling drew to a halt
When the saebel leapt after his cutlass of bone,
Grabbed Ocling’s ear, and dropped like a stone.
For three frightful days down the shaft of the well,
Past limestone and granite and iron they fell
Until sea-salty sprite upon cutlass was flung
And Ocling’s suspenders from tendril were hung;
Tendril that curled from a branch of a stalk
That had grown from the bean in a watery shock,
When the bean had encountered a crystalline lake
Filled with water disdainful of ordin’ry make.
For a full thousand years Ocling worked for his means
In the deep of the well, cultivating his beans,
And growing more youthful with each sip he downed
Of that water unknown to the rest of the round.
And when young Ocling found that he’d grown enough twine
For twisting together and lashing a line
That could climb to the rim of the sweetwater well,
He began right away with escaping his cell.
He worked his way up with his rope and the claw
That was ripped from the sword that had threatened his maw,
Till at last he climbed over and slid down the scree,
And found himself amidst the grand jubilee
That the locals threw yearly to honor the man
Who had freed from the clutches of saebeline hand
Their marvelous well full of radiant dew,
Though the stuff was redolent of beans to a few.”
Natty ended with a miserable glissando. Before the notes had whispered away Max was up and slicing for himself a slab of partridge.
Luka had, at Max’s offhand request, joined us on the couch with a platter of food. “That was utterly ridiculous,” he said, tugging the honey cruet away from Max.
“Excuse me?” Natty sat down next to Trid.
“He wasn’t talking about just you,” said Andrei. “Of course he’d find it ridiculous. Hasn’t yet mastered an Eldine language.”
“And Andrei”––Luka slathered honey over his ham––“hasn’t yet mastered basic etiquette, what with his inviting that scrawny rat to a court function.”
“So,” said Natty, her eyes dangerously bright, “I haven’t the wits to make your scrawny rat look good enough for a drunken, loutish––”
“He wasn’t disparaging your wits,” said Andrei. “He’s trying desperately to hide his attraction.”
“And what is it you’re hiding, Andrei?” said Luka. “Something a bit more severe than attraction. Can’t be healthy. I’m not half as important as you and I’m growing unwell just looking at her.”
Andrei jammed his elbows into the upholstery. I poked him in the side.
“Hit a soft spot, haven’t I?” said Luka. “Look at him, Max. Unhappy as a lion in a monsoon.”
“Shut your gob,” said Max, still chewing.
“Why? I’m a strict believer in openness and honesty.”
“How’s this?” said Andrei. “One more word and I’ll boil your head in its own spit.”
“No, none from me. I’m trying to keep from retching, anyway.” He set his plate on the floor.
Trid, who had been hunched silently over his drink, stood up. He walked to the sideboard, grabbed the red rump of a hind, and swung it into Luka’s chest.
Luka keeled over and took the couch with him.
There was a rush of wind, and Andrei, Luka, and I fell in a jumble on the floor. “Here’s our chance,” said Andrei. He grabbed a turkey leg from Natty’s plate, and clobbered Luka around the ears.
“That’s my brother!” said Max, and he threw gobs of mashed turnip at Andrei. He miscalculated some and smothered Natty’s hair.
This was unforgivable. She pelted him with things from her plate, harder than I would’ve thought her capable.
“What’s this? What’s this?” said a fat old man with no hair, and he got up from his chair. “This is no way to––” Max slammed a tart into his face before I could make out if he was human or Elde.
Max threw the next tart at Andrei and I, and using the couch as a barricade we lobbed handfuls of pudding and flan towards the Garvad boys. Daifen got caught in the barrage.
Max cackled maniacally when a woman (probably his mother) called his name, and he took plates of fruit, and candied orchids, and sugar lace, and toffee-brittle, and apple custard from the table and hurled it around without reserve. Trid, shaking his head, attempted to walk toward the exit while ladies pushed, prodded, and shrieked around him. It looked almost like a riverside riot.
Shaking nuts out of my skirts, I nervously eyed the crowd.
Their silks and velvets were dripping and patched, and they had very ugly looks on their faces. One of them had Max by the ear.
Floy chose that moment to fly down from the rafters. “It’s time to leave,” I said, and heaved Andrei up by the collar. “You saw Daifen, didn’t you? Having a bad time. Wiping his doublet and screaming at you.” We left, slipping on gravy, onions, scallops, and finally, through a side door.
Floy led us down a spiral stair. We stopped next to a laundry, and hid behind a hamper of sheets while grinning servants ran up and down the stairs. Daifen must have been stuck apologizing for some time, because a good hour passed, and several steaming tubs of water, before two boys emerged from the laundry with the right tub.
They were grey-eyed Gralde, eleven or twelve, dressed in Daifen’s russet livery with hoods drawn up against the drafts. “That one’s for him,” said Floy. The tub was wood, very big, with wheels rolling beneath it.
The boys stopped when they saw Andrei and me. They smiled. “M’lady,” said the smaller one. “You look like you could use a damp towel.”
“For Daifen, is this?” said Andrei. I ran a sleeve over my turnipy face.
“Aye,” said the smaller.
“He said the lady might use it instead.”
“We weren’t told of this,” said the taller of the boys.
“Oh, but he did say so, he felt so badly about it.” Andrei glanced at me. “She had a terrible meal. Got her face stuck in a whiskey jug, and started dancing on the table soon as she was drunk enough. People started throwing food––”
The boys giggled. “I don’t think that’s what happened, sir.”
“But look at her tears,” said Andrei. I scraped turnip from my eyes.
“All right then. Where shall we put the lady’s bath?”
“Is there a room nearby?”
The boys rolled the bath into what looked like a broom closet and ran off with the two oranges Max had given Andrei. “We’d better hurry,” Andrei said. “They’ll come to their senses soon enough and draw him another.” We hauled the tub back into the laundry and emptied it some, and I uncorked the acid.
“This won’t hurt him,” I said, pouring it into the water. “It’s too diluted. But it’ll give him a rash. And it’ll sting like a hundred hornets.”
“If that doesn’t hurt I’ll boil my own head in spit.” Andrei dug through a basket and pulled out a large house tunic with a hood.
We dressed ourselves in russet tunics and rolled the tub, with much maneuvering, repositioning, and slopping, along the corridors. Six guardsmen were seated outside Daifen’s chambers, drinking their new year’s gifts and playing dice. One of them got shakily to his feet and opened the door for us. We had to stand to the side, though, because a human man about near tumbled out.
“Fine Murig leather, completely ruined,” he called back into the room. “I want compensation––”
“A new jacket?” came Daifen’s voice. “Strip the hide off those Garvad boys.”
“You staged it, I’ll stake five hundred sheep on it––”
“And you’d lose every one, you gangling human weed. Out, out, I’ll have no more of your stupidity.”
The man left, muttering, and we pulled our hoods tighter and wrestled the tub into the rooms within. I almost felt sorry for everything, until Daifen turned in his chair. “Took your time, didn’t you? You can expect gruel and saltwater for the rest of the week.”
Andrei gave me a keep-quiet look, and we dragged the tub over the hearth. We draped dressing linens over the rim and slipped out to wait in the corridor with the sentries.
“Saltwater?” one of them said. I nodded. “He’ll forget by tomorrow.” The others laughed and invited us to join in the game.
One of our dice was a soft wood. Out of habit, I rolled it down the stairs (as if by accident), and at the bottom hammered one of my lock-picking needles into into it. Then I brought it back up to play with. And Andrei and I sat winning a ridiculous amount of coins until the die was actually thrown down the stairs by a soldier who leaped up and watched all of its one-sided progress, at the end of which he howled about swindlers and cheats. But a much louder howl came from behind Daifen’s door.
“For a mercy,” cried a sentry, “he’s being murdered in his bath!” He grabbed an axe from his fellow and hacked at the door, making a sizable hole.
The four soldiers tumbled through it, weapons at the ready, and disappeared into the bedchamber. Andrei and I followed, but no farther than the anteroom. I crawled beneath the washstand, swept Floy from the flagstone, heaved it up with Andrei’s help, and found an ant colony.
“I can’t believe this,” said Floy. I shook ants from my fingers. “He must’ve had more than one hiding––”
“Aly! Aly,” said Andrei, concentration crossing his eyes. We stopped our breathing, listening to Daifen calling for talc and soap. “He needs water. The closest water.”
“Why can’t you––”
“He’ll recognize my voice.”
I scrambled to my feet, slid towards the noise and shouted, “M’lord, clean water’d put you to rights. Where’s the well key?”
There was a great splash and the drops irritated my face. “Boy,” Daifen yelled, “I’ll tan you red as a lobster’s arse.”
“Can’t do much tannin when yer dead, m’lord,” I said. “Could be shark lye got in the laundry cistern, and that stuff melts bone.”
I’d never heard of shark lye, but he must’ve. “The arch! Above the––” His words became unintelligible, and one of the guards shouted something about a keystone.
The only arch in the room was above the entrance. Andrei looked at the stone in the top. “The door will collapse,” he said stupidly.
“Try above it.” I pushed him next to the doorway. He couldn’t reach that far, and dropped to his knees. I seated myself on his shoulders, and he shot upward. I felt feverishly for the loose stone, wrenched it from its place, and dropped it to catch the key in my palms. The stone landed on Andrei’s foot. He collapsed and cried on oath when I fell on him; and I jumped up with the key and dragged him over to the small door of iron sunk into the wall.
Andrei grabbed a lantern and striker tipped against the wall and set about lighting it with fumbling hands.
“Oh, come on,” I said when the key wouldn’t rotate.
“I’ve seen those before.” Andrei blew on his burned fingers. A flame flickered in the lantern. “You’ve got to push before turning. Hard.”
I did so. It shoved the keyway back into a place too muffled for the finger-joint language of the lock-pick, and the key turned. The heavy door opened a crack. We squeezed ourselves inside, and a wind sucked the thing closed with a gong-like sound. Floy was on the other side.
It was absolutely silent.
Andrei tried the door. “Well.” His voice echoed. “Doesn’t open from the inside.” A cold damp raised the hair on my legs, and the lantern cast strange shapes around us. “Did you hear it lock?”
“The wind came from this room,” I said bravely. “There’s another exit somewhere. Goes outside, probably. And Daifen can’t get in––the key’s in here.”
“How very reassuring.”
“Get looking, the wick’ll burn down.”
“Help me, then. It’s a chain with a silver pendant.”
So I crept into the circle of lantern light, and we rifled through boxes of jewelry, stacks of books and maps, and purses of silver. Sharp stalagmites grew like needles on either side of the path, and we jumped from stone to stone to explore the deeper recesses. We found buttons and clasps, and broaches and rings, but no pendant.
I inched up the path, shoving fingers into crannies. Andrei jerked me back. The well opened right before us––a large black hole that gaped through ceiling as well as floor.
An ancient iron contraption stood to one side, its barrel wound with a single coil of rope. A lever stuck from the middle.
“I wonder.” Andrei raised his lantern over the hole. “Could it be down there?” Groaning, he loosened the lever. It began to spin, slowly at first, and then accelerating, winding the rope around the barrel faster than my eyes could see. “It must be clockwork,” he said, staring. “Or powered by water.”
The machine droned for a time and finally came to a clanking halt. Andrei pulled on the rope and hauled a bucket over the edge. His sleeve sloshed as he felt around. His face shone triumphant, and he pulled a silver chain from the bucket. The pendant was hidden in his fist.
I peeled an orchid off my neck. “Why’d he hide it down there?”
“Water won’t give it away,” he said. “You put something in water and it’s as though it disappears off the earth.”
“Must’ve been a right annoying necklace.” Andrei squatted and dropped the thing between his feet. He cupped his hands in the water and drank.
“Mmm.” He took another drink. “Come and have some. This stuff’s special.”
“Does it taste like beans?”
“That’s why it’s special.” He flicked some at me, and I knelt beside him. The water was like sunlight; it made us giddy. We hopped up, playing with each other’s limbs. Andrei kicked the empty bucket down the hole and pulled the front of my tunic in a wide arc around the well. I made a face at the silver chain that had snagged on his sandal strap.
I bent down and took it, and ran down the path into the darkness, where I kicked off Natty’s shoes so I could feel my way. The air chilled, the closeness fell away, and the ceiling was alight with stars rolling over the sea, and a wide moon. Spray wet my feet. I kept the stone at my back, shivering and waiting for Andrei and the lantern.
The pendant was silver, skinny, curved like a claw. When the lantern cast light around my fingers I saw it was a miniscule bottle, cap fastened to the chain.
“I was taught something terrible would happen if I opened it,” said Andrei, looking over my shoulder.
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “Maybe the oceans would flood the South.”
“Or the sun would go out.”
“Or we’d all go crazy.”
“Or the earth would be squeezed inside-out.”
“Or we’d disappear.”
“Open it,” I said. The wind whipped my hair loose. He set the gasping lantern at our feet, took the pendant, and screwed the cap loose.
He dropped it and reeled back. He slammed against the stone, and then crouched, arm over his face.
I picked the pendant up and held the opening to my eye. I couldn’t see anything. I picked the chain off the ground, screwed the cap on, and crouched next to him. “Are you going to die?” I whispered.
“There was a light. You couldn’t see it? A blinding light.” He fingered his eyes. “I can’t see.”
“Joker.” But his face remained perfectly serious. I waved my hand in front of him. “Anything?”
He shook his head. “No––just dark. There’s a stream of dust over my head.”
“Stars, aren’t they?”
He stared at the sky, then at me. “I see you, now.”
“You sound happy about it.”
He grabbed the lantern from me. “You really didn’t see it? It was so bright, like lightning striking right in front of me.”
“It must be a human thing.” I passed him his necklace. “Happy Yule.”