Burying the Shadow (56 page)

From ‘Comus’,
Milton

Many memories were
brought back to me as I walked in the affluent quarter where the
great Sacramantan families had their estates. It was as if my
childhood had been but a few days before. I could see my mother’s
purposeful stride, her downturned grin. What would she think of me
now? I had grown up like her in many ways, yet I lacked her levity
and her warmth of personality. Would the Tricantes recognise
me?

The high,
stone walls of the Tricante estate seemed sun-worn, soft to the
touch. I ran my hand along the stone as I walked slowly towards the
elaborate metal gates. Liviana would be married now, of course, and
living somewhere else. It was possible one or both of the parents
were dead. Who would hold the keys to the house now? A withered
Zimon, moulded into a respectable shape, a version of his father?
The elder sister Agnestia, a spinster and dressed in lace? And what
of Salyon - did he still live at home? I smiled at my fanciful
conjectures and pulled the bell rope at the gate.

A haughty
retainer came to peer at me through the curling metal patterns. He
waited for me to speak, and I was relieved I had dressed myself in
one of my new dresses with a smart embroidered jacket. I did not
look in the least unsavoury. ‘Good afternoon,’ I began in my most
ingratiating tone. ‘My name is Rayojini. I am a soulscaper from
Taparak and an old friend of the Tricante family. I would be most
grateful if you would allow me to request an audience with the lady
of the house.’

I expected
further demands for explanation, but the granite planes of the
servant’s face dissolved into an avuncular smile. ‘Good afternoon,
Mistress Rayojini. Forgive me not recognising you, but you are a
little early.’

‘Am I? For
what?’

He laughed in
reply. I was not aware of having made a joke. ‘Follow me to the
garden, if you please.’

I held my
skirts up daintily in pinched fingers and minced unconvincingly
behind him.

‘Your journey,
I trust, was comfortable,’ he said, over his shoulder.

‘No, a
nightmare,’ I replied.

He flapped a
hand in the air and laughed heartily. I was confused, and also
anticipated an unwelcome revelation. They were expecting me
here.

And there were
the Tricantes, arranged on garden seats, beneath a trellis denuded
of flowers. The men all rose to a sharp stand as I entered through
a bower gate; the women turned towards me with smiling faces. I
felt totally disorientated; this was so unexpected. The servant
announced me in a loud and important voice, and an attractive,
dark-haired woman jumped up and came scurrying towards me over the
grass, in a froth of yellow lace and ribbons.

‘Rayo, little
Rayo!’ she exclaimed and smothered me in a startling embrace,
filling my face with her perfume and stiffly curled hair.

‘Liviana!’ I
said. ‘I had not expected to find you here!’

She held me at arm’s
length. ‘Rayo! Did you think I wouldn’t come to see you? We had
such fun all those years ago. I missed you afterwards for, oh, so
long!’ She led me across the garden to her family. ‘Of course, I
have a house of my own now. You must meet my children! Are you
married, Rayo, do you have a family?’

‘No. Excuse
me, Livvy, but were you... well…
expecting
me?’

She looked
puzzled. ‘Yes, of course. We received your message yesterday.’

I stopped
walking and looked hard at this grand woman who had once been a
girlhood friend. We had not known each other very long, but our
friendship had been intense and intimate for all its brevity. I
felt I had to trust her. ‘Livvy, I would very much like to talk
with you alone before I meet your family.’

‘Why?’ Her
tone implied she was not pleased for this undercurrent to mar her
perfectly planned afternoon.

‘Because I did
not send you a message telling you I was coming. Because I did not
know for sure I was going to be here in Sacramante at all until
very recently. Someone is doing things in my name, Livvy, dogging
my footsteps. They got to you before I did.’

Liviana’s
mouth had dropped open. ‘Rayo, this sounds so terribly sinister!
What
do
you mean?’

‘I know how it
sounds, but it is the truth, Livvy,’ I gabbled urgently. ‘I’m sorry
to have to burden you with this, but it is very important. I have
to talk to you.’

Liviana
controlled herself. Now she wore the face of a mother; concerned
and competent. ‘We
will
talk. This is most disturbing. But I
feel it would be better if you put your chin up and, for now,
pretended it
was
you who sent us the message. Come and say
hello to everyone.’

‘Livvy...’ I
did not really feel like socialising.

Liviana patted my arm.
‘Trust me, Rayo. We will share a light refreshment and then I will
suggest we go off somewhere for a little girl-talk. How will that
do?’

‘Thank you.
Yes. You are right.’

She hung onto
my arm as we crossed the last few yards of lawn, as if she feared
I’d break away and run from her at any minute.

Both Tricante
parents were still alive. The mother had wizened into a hook-nosed
matron, whereas the father had thickened, although he still held a
semblance of his former handsomeness. The only person who had
turned out as I had imagined was Agnestia; an archetypal spinster
and dressed in lace. The cousins were no longer in residence, but
the younger sons were still unmarried and at home. Almero was a
couple of years older than me, with the face of a seasoned
libertine. Salyon was a grave, ethereal-looking creature of maybe
thirty years whose hands shook continually. He and I nodded at each
other in a faintly embarrassed way, as if we shared some shameful
secret. Zimon too had come home to welcome me and had brought his
family with him; a round, pretty, dark-haired wife and a boisterous
toddling son. Liviana was not escorted by her husband, but lost no
time in impressing me with how wonderful he was, such a fortunate
catch, so rich. She had brought her children though - two of them -
sharp-eyed and intelligent. I did not like them at all. Sitting
there, with a tiny glass of cordial clutched in a hand more used to
earthenware jugs of murky beer, I was thinking about how alien a
concept the family - as it was presented here - was to me. I found
it oppressive and clammy, nothing more than a breeding ground for
spite and intrigue. Barbed comments flew between the women;
sarcastic, nasal remarks between the men. In my family, the members
wander in and out of Taparak all the time. It is rare we get the
opportunity to meet together, but when we do it is an enjoyable
experience; this seemed a far preferable arrangement. Today, the
Tricantes had put on their best faces because they had a visitor to
impress. The spiked bantering was supposed to be humorous. I
suspected things were not always as convivial, having noticed the
feral glances of mutual loathing that passed between Livvy and her
brother’s wife. Livvy had slipped into the mechanical role of
perfect hostess, eclipsing her rather vague mother, and I had no
doubt that she had purposefully forgotten the urgent, furtive
things I had whispered to her as we walked across the lawn. I would
not have been surprised had she neglected to talk to me alone at
all.

However, my
judgment of her was harsh because, after an hour of aimless
prattle, she graciously rose from her seat, placed a maternal hand
on the head of each of her brats and said, ‘Now then everyone, you
must forgive us, but Rayojini and I simply
have
to bustle
off for a gossip together.’

She linked her
arm through mine and yanked me to my feet, shooting a particularly
poisonous glance at her sister-in-law, who clearly envied Livvy’s
long-standing association and apparent friendship with a
soulscaper. The matriarch made me vow I would stay for dinner
before she would let Livvy cart me away.

‘Don’t be
antisocial for
too
long!’ the sister-in-law said with an
impish grin, as if it was a joke.

‘You hate her,
don’t you,’ I couldn’t resist saying, once we were out of
earshot.

I expected
Livvy to ask me what I meant by that, but as we left the company,
the Livvy of old, (who I had rather liked), seemed to well up from
deep inside her. She wrinkled her nose. ‘Vile little beast!’ she
said. ‘A good breeder, no doubt, strong of hip. Zimon has hundreds
of affairs, I should think - at least, I hope so. She is an
ensorcelled rat. One day I shall break the enchantment and she’ll
scurry off on her belly again.’

We both laughed.
‘Imagine, Livvy, if you picked your moment!’ I said, and we fell to
giggling as lewd scenarios presented themselves to our
imaginations.

‘You look very
much like your mother now,’ Livvy said as she led me into the
shaded interior of the house. ‘I would have known you anywhere. How
is she?’

‘Dead,’ I
replied.

‘Rayo, you are
terrible. How can you say it like that?’

‘Because I’m
glad, that’s why.’

‘But that’s
awful. Didn’t you love her, didn’t you get on?’

‘Of course we
did, and I do love her. It’s because of that I’m glad she’s dead.
She died before she got old. She’d have hated being old. She would
have been miserable.’

‘Hmm, perhaps
I can understand that. Still, you Taps have very strange ideas
sometimes. I hope I live to two hundred! Why haven’t you any
children, Rayo?’

‘Because I
enjoy my life as it is.’

‘But...’

‘No buts,
Livvy. You love your life, I love mine. I wouldn’t expect you to
wander on foot across the world. Do you see?’

She gave my
arm a little shake. ‘You are
so
strange! So exotic!’ She
laughed as we walked into her mother’s sitting room. ‘Promise me,
you’ll try to seduce Zimon while you’re here!’

‘Livvy,
really!’ We giggled again, like girls. Amazing. We were so
different, yet the interval of years was meaningless. It was as if
we’d seen each other every day since then. Very few friendships
have this magic.

‘So, tell me
everything,’ she said, pushing me gently into a seat. ‘Brandy?’

I nodded,
shifting my weight. Now, I didn’t know how to begin. It was going
to sound ridiculous, however I put it. ‘Livvy, some very strange
things have been happening to me.’

She laughed.
‘Look at you! You’re such a rogue! You don’t look at all
comfortable in that dress, but then you never were a person for
frills, were you. Strange things? I am not surprised!’ She sat down
on a chair nearby and handed me a glass. ‘What things?’

I turned the
glass in my hands. ‘Some of what I’m going to say, you might not
understand, because it involves scaping work and I’ll have to use
scaping terms.’

‘Just tell me.
I can always ask questions afterwards.’

I was as vague
as I thought I could get away with. I spoke a little of how I
thought I might have discovered the existence of a very old race,
who for reasons of their own, had been interfering in the lives of
people in Khalt, and perhaps even further afield.

‘It sounds
outrageous, I know,’ I said, grinning at Liviana, whose face had
remained oddly expressionless throughout my narrative, ‘but I
believe someone is following me now, someone who has perhaps tailed
me from the Strangeling itself!’

Liviana
straightened the folds of her dress, head bowed. She did not
respond. I assumed she was questioning my sanity.

‘I am not mad,
Livvy,’ I said.

She looked up
at me then, and smiled at me tightly. ‘Of course you’re not. I’m
not sure how I can help you though...’

‘I’m just so
relieved to have found you here, Livvy,’ I said. ‘I need someone to
discuss all this with. I’m not sure what to do. Half of me wants to
continue the investigation, while a more sensible half urges that I
should return to Taparak. I wanted to establish contacts in the
city, so that it would be more difficult for someone to make me...
disappear. However, it seems whoever is shadowing me has a cruel
sense of humour, sending you a message like that. It’s so
threatening. They’re telling me they know everything I’m planning
to do.’

Liviana made
no comment but, with terrific poise, got up out of her chair to
enfold me in a fierce embrace. I thought she really must consider
me insane and was comforting me in the only way she knew how.
Neither of us spoke, and yet I could feel the weight of unspoken
words in Liviana’s chest, as if they hung inside my own. I wondered
what it would take to convince her I wasn’t losing my mind.

‘You poor
thing,’ she said after a while, disengaging herself. ‘How terrible
to be followed like that!’ She had obviously simplified the
situation in her head in order to understand it. That was fine by
me.

‘Livvy, the
woman who visited the inns looks like an artisan. If that
is
her true form, it could mean she’s a native of Sacramante, couldn’t
it?’

Liviana looked
wary and turned away from me. ‘Not necessarily.’

‘Oh come on!
The term ‘artisan’ generally refers to a creative individual,
resident in this city and connected with one of the ancient family
lines associated with the arts. At least, when a
Sacramantan
refers to someone as being an artisan that is what they mean.
Correct me if I’m wrong.’

Liviana sat
down again and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘It’s not
wrong
, but...’ She sighed. ‘There are artisans all over the
world, Rayo.’

‘Of course
there are, but not like the Sacramantan ones.’ It was as if someone
had just lit a torch in the darkest corners of my mind. For a
moment, I was back at the theatre in Livvy’s company, surrounded by
the tall, pale artisans. Why hadn’t I considered this before? They
were
different to other Sacramantans, radically so. I leapt
to my feet. ‘By all the gods! Yes!’