Corambis (44 page)

There was something tight and sharp in her voice that I had not heard before. I said, for I was obliged to, “Vanessa, this is Mildmay Foxe, who is kind enough to come read to me. Mildmay, this is my fiancée”— the word still stuck in my throat like sand—“Vanessa Pallister.”

The sounds of Mildmay getting to his feet. “I should go,” he said. “I can—”

“No,” Vanessa said, sounding almost as alarmed as I felt. “This will only take a moment, and I do beg your pardon for interrupting. Kay, we have been summoned to an audience with my mother. She says we will leave tomorrow, and we may return to Esmer on Geovedy.”

“Is your mother always this high- handed?”
“Frequently worse,” she said, with that tightness in her voice again.

“That’s all. I’ll have to check Ottersham to find out when the train leaves.” “You will find me here,” I said, and she shut the door.
“So,” said Mildmay after a long silence, and I heard him sit down again.

“That’s the lady you’re marrying.”
“Yes,” said I.
“You, um, don’t seem real happy about it.”
I laughed, though it was bitter. “Is not of my choosing. But, no matter.

You were telling me of the mother of Michael Teverius.”

There was another pause, in which I knew he was considering pressing the matter. Then he said, easily, “Yeah. Inez Cordelia. Now
she
was a piece of work.” And I blessed him silently for letting it go.

Vanessa’s parents— cousins of Murtagh in some degree, although I neither knew nor wished the details— lived at Isser Chase, an estate some ten miles out of Isserly, the principal city of the Duchy of Murtagh. The train left from Pollidean Station at noon. Vanessa and Vanessa’s maid and Springett and I duly caught it. We did not talk on the train journey north and reached Isserly at half past sixteen.

Vanessa left me with Springett and her maid, Woodlock, in the lobby of the train station while she sallied forth to hire a carriage for the journey to Isser Chase. It should have been my task, but had been made very clear to me that it was not.

I sat where Springett put me and tried with painfully little success to cease thinking. Springett and Woodlock stood nearby, talking quietly. Woodlock was a native of Whallan, hired when Vanessa’s Esmer- born maid did what Vanessa could not and quit, and she was clearly very ner vous about the new ramifications of her position.

“He’s not going to bite you,” Springett said, and I realized with horrified amusement that one of the things of which Woodlock was ner vous was me.
“We get the papers, you know,” she said. “Even all the way out in Whallan.”
“I’m not saying he was right, or he didn’t do things any decent person would be ashamed to think, but
look
at him. He can’t go two feet without someone to hold his hand, and he knows it.”
Outwardly, I kept my face blank, as if I didn’t even know they were talking; inwardly, I curdled. Truly, Springett had mastered the art of damning with faint praise. And I could not keep from contemplating all that I had done that Springett might think I should be ashamed of.
I considered the course of the Insurgence. Gerrard had raised his banner in Barthas Cross, the ancient city of the kings of Caloxa, and the Margrave of Larrowan, whom I disliked but respected, had been the first to swear fealty to him. I had been the second.
It had been the experience of those of us trained to fight the Usara that had allowed us to last as long as we had. We knew that war wasn’t like the colored plates in children’s history books; we cured Gerrard of his desire to meet the Corambins head- on. We knew to attack from ambush, to present a moving target, to strike at the most vulnerable target, not the most obvious. If we could have avoided the siege of Beneth, we might still have been fighting. I did not allow myself the fantasy that we would be any closer to winning, but had never been any real hope of that. Our plan had been to outlast the Corambins, not to defeat them.
But Beneth Castle controlled the Crawcour, and the Corambins had already had the overpowering advantage of the railroad. Could not let them have the river as well. It had taken the Corambins three indictions to bring Beneth down, and Benallery’s plain little sparrow of a margravess fought them every inch of the way, though it meant her death.
In the aftermath, knowing we were doomed to defeat, watching Benallery struggle against his grief like a man with a mortal wound struggling to stay upright, I had ceased to take prisoners. My men had been as heartsick, as helplessly furious, as I, and although I had ordered the massacre at Angersburn, there had barely been any need. And Angersburn, most likely, was what Springett meant.
As Springett truly said, any decent person would be ashamed. Was I? I discovered that I did not have an answer. My life had been one war after another since I was fourteen, and was not ashamed of that. Had killed far more Usara than the three hundred men of Angersburn, and no one was suggesting I was monstrous for that. I’d waded in blood in a defile of the Perblanches that didn’t even have a name. Did it make a difference that it was Usaran blood? It had been just as dark, just as sticky, the reek just as choking. The Usara had been just as dead.
My head ached; I realized I was rubbing my eyes and forced my hands back into my lap.
Springett said, “Are you all right, sir?” He was conscientious, what ever he thought of me.
“Fine,” I said, although my voice lacked conviction. “Do you think Mrs. Pallister will be back soon?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir. Do you want anything?”
“No,” I said, because what I wanted was nothing I could articulate, and nothing Springett could give me in any event.
“Some water, maybe?” Springett said, and I realized I was causing him anxiety, most likely because I was sitting with my head down and my shoulders hunched, and my hands were now gripping each other tightly.
“No, thank you,” I said. I forced my shoulders straight, forced my head up, forced my face to smooth out of a frown. I turned my head toward Springett. “Truly, am fine. Am sorry to have worried you.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, although he sounded dubious. I had never wondered about my own skill in lying before. Had never needed it. As a margrave, as a soldier, I had prided myself on my truthfulness. Was one of the reasons Isobel and I struck sparks off each other; neither of us had mastered the art of the politic lie, and we were both proud of it. Foolishly proud? I had never thought so before, but then the truth had never been my enemy before.
I had never been ashamed of what I was.
Now, I was. Ashamed of being blind, of being helpless, of being alive when Gerrard and Benallery were dead. Ashamed of having failed. Ashamed of being a token in the negotiations between Vanessa and Murtagh. Ashamed of . . . blessed Lady, Lady of Dark Mercies, I had not words for what I was now.
I hunched forward again, burying my face in my hands. “Please,” I said. “Am fine. Just . . .” Was nothing I could think of to ask Springett to do, except to leave me alone, a child’s defiance, a tantrum.
“There’s Mrs. Pallister now,” said Springett, and some small honest part of me hated him for sounding so relieved.
The smell of lilies reached me first, and then Vanessa’s sweet Corambin voice. “Kay? Are you all right, darling?”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, the words grating in my throat.
“Fine. Are you all right, bonehead?”
She surprised me into laughter. “I am well, I thank you.”
“Good,” she said briskly. “Then let’s get going. I want to reach Isser Chase before full dark.”
“Yes’m,” said Springett and Woodlock, and I was gathered up with the rest of the impedimenta in Vanessa’s wake.

I’m standing in the courtyard of St. Crellifer’s. The doors stand open, and madness is flowing out, dark and corrosive and cruel. Like the Sim. A dead madwoman is standing beside me; her blood is a halo around her head. I don’t know why I’m here— don’t know if I’m dreaming or if this is true.
Watch,
says the dead madwoman and points.
And I look up, up past the barred and glaring windows to the roof,

where someone has climbed onto the parapet and is standing, peering down. At this distance, I can’t make out his features, but I know who it is.

I remember Mildmay telling me once that all the buildings in the Lower City have roof- access doors.
Along of fire,
he’d said and given me one of his solemn sidelong looks that said he knew I knew exactly what he meant. I’d never found that door, but then when I had been in St. Crellifer’s, I hadn’t known Mildmay.

Then this is a dream. I should be relieved, but I can’t feel it.
What is he doing?
I ask.
Learning to fly.
I remember St. Crellifer’s. It has three storeys and its steep- pitched attics. I don’t know if the drop alone would be enough to kill anyone, but when he jumps— and he does jump, deliberately and hard— he jumps headfirst. The sound of his head hitting the paving stones is sharp and thick, and blood and bone and other things spread across the pavement like flowers.

Or wings.
The dead madwoman touches two bloody fingertips to my forehead and smiles the smile of a saint.
He can fly now,
she says, and I wake up.

Martedy I couldn’t go read to Mr. Brightmore along of him being off meeting Mrs. Pallister’s family, and if I’ve ever seen a guy who would rather’ve cut his own head off with a butter knife, Mr. Brightmore was that guy.

I was reading the paper to Felix while he ate breakfast, something about a way to make the mines in the eastern mountains safer by using magic to detect bad air earlier, and he just sat there looking sourer and sourer, and I finally said, “What? You got something against mining?”

“Corambins are an ingenious people.” I wasn’t sure what “ingenious” meant, but Felix didn’t sound like he thought it was a good thing. I was trying to decide if it was worth maybe getting my head bitten off to ask, and I guess he knew that look on my face because he said, “It means they’re clever. Good at inventing things.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, because I could see where they were. “For example,” Felix went on like I hadn’t said nothing, “it never occurred to us that the binding- by- forms could be anything but permanent, but the Corambins can undo it in the twinkling of an eye.”
He was being a prick on purpose— I knew that look on
his
face. “Okay, I got it,” I said.
“Good. I’d hate to have your education interrupted just because Kay’s off meeting his future in- laws.”
Well, that was just nasty. “You trying to pick a fight because of something I’ve done, or is it just because you ain’t sleeping good?”
“
Aren’t sleeping well.
And I’m not trying to pick a fight.”
I laughed at him. “The fuck you aren’t.”
“I’m just explaining a definition. With illustrative examples.”
“In case I’m too stupid to get it the first time, yeah, I know.” And I wasn’t asking him what
illustrative
meant, not if he begged me.
“Past experience has shown . . .” He trailed off meaningfully, and you know, it can’t be good to start off first thing in the morning wanting to punch somebody in the nose.
“Yeah, well, past experience also shows you’re a fucking prick when you want to be. Guess I should be glad they took the binding- by- forms off after all.”
“And why is that?” His horrible purring Strych- voice, and I decided all at once to quit dancing around the fucking thing.
“You know, you sound like Strych when you do that, and I wish you’d cut it the fuck out.”
It worked. He went white and said furiously, “No wonder you’re glad to be rid of the obligation d’âme. I’m surprised you stay around at all. Or have you changed your mind about that, too?”
“I said I wasn’t going, and I ain’t.”
“Am not.”
“I’m
saying
, you get this tone in your voice when you’re playing with somebody, and you sound exactly like Brinvillier Strych or Malkar Gennadion or what ever the fuck you want to call him today. Which I get enough of in my dreams already, and don’t fucking need from you.”
“Then what
do
you need from me?” he said, with a horrible smile, his voice rising. “Food? Lodging? Spending money?”
I looked at him for a long moment before I could say levelly, “I don’t need nothing from you, and you might be smart to remember it.” And then I left, before one or the other of us came up with something even worse.
I was four blocks away before I could think again, and then I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and tried to figure out whether to laugh or scream.
Powers and blessed
fucking
saints, he’d done it to me again. I could say I didn’t want to fight with him— fuck, I could say I
wasn’t
going to fight with him— until I was purple and blue in the face, and it didn’t make a scrap of difference. He could get me going every fucking time.
“Fuck me sideways ’til I cry,” I said, and startled a man passing so bad he almost fell off the sidewalk.
Watch your mouth, Milly- Fox.
I shifted my grip on Jashuki and tried to figure out a plan.
Well, the first thing was, don’t go running back, either to slug Felix or to apologize for wanting to slug him. Let him go work that nasty temper out on his students. They didn’t deserve it, but neither did I, and they didn’t have to live with him.
Right at the moment, that felt like their good luck.
Second thing was, don’t go running off and do something stupid like, say, proving to Felix just how much money I could pull down in a day if I wanted to. I’d been looking, because it never hurts to have, you know, options, and I knew where to find a game if I wanted to.
Which I didn’t. I wanted to be done playing cards for money. Never fucking mind what Felix thought and how purely satisfying it would be to make his eyes bug out.
I sat down on a bench— that’s one thing I’ll say for Esmer, they put benches everywhere. I sat down and thought about my breathing for a while, until I was sure I wasn’t going to go do something stupid. And then I sat there and tried to figure out what I was going to do instead.
And, okay, I’d got myself calmed down, but Felix’s crack about my education was still eating at me. Like I needed Mr. Brightmore around to read a book or something. And that reminded me of Miss Leverick and her Society for the Advancement of Something- or- Other, and I remembered that when we’d finally gotten off the train in Lily- of- Mar Station, she’d given me her card instead of Felix, along of having figured out that Felix would just give her one of his five- alarm smiles and then lose the card.
But I’d kept it, along with Robin Clayforth’s card— which Felix
still
hadn’t noticed I’d lifted off him— in the little purse I kept money in for fathom tickets and buying flowers from street vendors and shit like that. So I fished it out.
Society for the Advancement of Universal Education, 117 Smiling Angel Street, Tamsen Dominion, Esmer.
I’d expected not to recognize the street name, and I didn’t. I was learning Esmer as fast as I could, but there was a fuck of a lot of it. More than Mélusine, maybe. But I didn’t recognize the dominion, either, and I thought I’d been doing pretty well with those.
Well, at least I knew where to find a map.
I hauled myself up. It was easier than it had been for a while, but I figured I was pretty much stuck with Jashuki for the rest of my life. The goons in Gilgamesh had seen to that, which might’ve made them happy if they’d known. My feeling was, I deserved it for being stupid enough to get within spitting distance of Kolkhis, no matter
what
I thought was at stake, and maybe in the future I could do like Rinaldo had said and remember I was lame.
It was a nice day to be out, sunny and with a breeze. Chillier than it would be at home, but not bad. I paid attention on my way to the fathom station, along of not having been paying none at all on my way to that bench, reading the signs and making mental notes. And if I couldn’t quite shut up the part of me pricing everything for a fence— well, old habits die extremely fucking hard.
I planted myself in front of the map in St. Ingry Station and went looking for Tamsen Dominion, figuring it couldn’t be near either the Institution or Carey House or I’d know it already.
The dominion names were written bigger than everything else, so they were easy to spot. It only took me a minute to find Tamsen, up north of Nath, a couple dominions out from the center of town. A considerable hike, but not as bad as it could’ve been. I looked for fathom stations next and got lucky, because there on the south end of Tamsen was Smiling Angel Station.
It was midmorning, and Felix wouldn’t go and teach for another three or four hours. I gave the girl a penny and headed down to find a northbound train.