Dust and Light (13 page)

“They never went beyond the gardens,
domé
,” said Soflet, earnest and apologetic. “I’ll swear to that. And I never saw him lay a paw on her. Never would I permit such. They played the peg game from time to time. Talked mostly. Laughed a bit, as children do. That’s all.”

“How long has she been gone? And what do you know about him?”

“’Twas half seventh hour when we found her missing. I think his name is Elgin or Edan or some like, but I’ve not a notion where he bides.”

Footsteps hammered on the stair. “Soflet! The sneakers are—” Filip, our excitable footman, burst into the atrium from the cellar stair. “
Domé
Remeni!”

Pale as alabaster from hair to fingertips and deceptively slight for a youth who could lift a wagon bed while Soflet installed a new wheel, Filip halted, whipping his glance between the steward and me.

“My sister?” I said, praying he brought good news.

“Two bodies are creeping through the south hedge,
domé
. By size, one could be the mistress.”

My blood surged. “You two keep them talking. I’ll see he doesn’t get away until we have some answers. And beware. Her magic . . .” They both knew the sting of Juli’s ire. Though she’d never truly hurt anyone . . . or so I would have said that morning. Did I know her at all?

I raced through the kitchen and into the garden. The icy blast scoured my face as I sped across the frozen ground, over the low wall in a single leap, and out to the lane. Silencing breath and footsteps, I slipped through a side gate so as to creep up behind them. The two of them had reached the inner gate, a wild-haired boy in snow-crusted slops, gripping Juli’s arm. She wore no pureblood cloak and no mask. No matter that my magic was depleted, I’d have him dead if he’d touched her ill.

“. . . brother is off searching, near out of his head with worry,
doma
.” Soflet blocked the gateway, arms folded across his breast. “Though ’tis not my place to speak, I take it anyway. I’ve known you since you were birthed, as I have your good brother and all those lost to us. You’ve betrayed their trust in you and in him, in me and the rest of the staff, and I know not how—”

I clamped my arms around the youth’s thin shoulders and, with no gentle force, dragged him away from my sister.

“Luka! Wait—”

“I’ll break your scrawny neck do you so much as twitch, vermin!” I could do it. He was almost as slight as she was.

After a brief resistance, he went limp.

“Are you all right, Juli? Has he hurt you, touched you? If he’s laid a hand . . .”

“Certainly not! Luka, let him go.”

“No. Have you the least idea—? Go inside. I’ll speak with you after I speak with this person.” With every word I squeezed harder, but he refused to so much as squeak.

“
Ancieno
, listen to me. This is Egan. He’s my friend.
Only
my friend.”

“He is
ordinary
. You know—”

“I know he laughs and eats and works hard and cares for his mother. I know he’s clever at games and has taught himself to read. Let him go and I’ll tell you the rest. If you fear for my virtue, you can be easy. But if you hurt one hair on his head, I’ll give you such a case of boils, everyone you meet, including your new master, will believe you have the plague.”

I could not allow her to distract me. “Where did he take you?”

“He took me to his home,
ancieno
. Showed me how he lives . . .”

My heart sank.
Oh, gods,
serena
, have you no idea what comprises your virtue?
“Juli!”

“. . . and introduced me to his mother and his landlord. Luka, I found us a new place to live.”

“W
e cannot,” I said, holding
patience as well as I could. “Not in the same house as an ordinary you’ve companioned so freely. I will believe you that he is all innocence. He may be respectful and clever, but we must live by certain rules.”

It was the same stanza I had repeated for the hour since Egan—indeed a mannerly boy of Juli’s age—had gone. My sister and I were both wrapped
in heavy quilts, seated by our hall fire and drinking a thick posset that had at last begun to thaw our bones.

“But you said we’d need new lodgings, and I knew you’d not wish me left alone all day. I’d surely go mad and give you all sorts of trouble. Egan’s mam is so like Maia, you’d believe them sisters. She said she’d even cook for us if we paid for our own food. Certainly
I’ve
no idea how to do such a thing, and even if you did, I’d never stomach it when you came home smelling like a rotting carcass. The house is ugly and vile, but unless you’ve found better . . .”

Which, of course, I hadn’t. Juli’s plan was eminently sensible, if we were ordinaries. But we were not.

“I’m not stupid enough to believe we can maintain full Registry protocols on a hundred and sixty silver pieces a year,
serena
. But we must try, else—”

“
They
broke the rules first.” She sparked and snapped like embers in the hearth. “Ask those dried-up sticks at the Registry who else had a contract accelerated two days ago. I’ll lay you Matronn’s thickest quilt against this luscious one of yours that you were the only one. Just listen to your story of the
non
-negotiation! Pew-Pons wants you punished. Perhaps she wants you to beg her mercy so she can force you into her bed, since no man could bear to look at the old cow. Or perhaps she’s one who takes her womanly pleasures seeing beautiful young men whipped!”

“Juli!” Great gods, how did she know of such things?

Something strange was happening to my sister—a twisting, twitching, squinting struggle that resolved itself only when she shook loose of her cocoon, flung her arms wide, collapsed flat on her back, and burst into great whoops. “Oh, Luka, you should see your face! Are you not the most priggish, solemn, dearest
ancieno
in this miserable world?”

Such was the measure of my weariness that it took me a seeming lifetime to comprehend that the noise was cascading laughter. Then I grabbed hold of her arms, raised her again, and wrapped her quilt so tight about her it near squeezed her into hiccoughs. I was bereft of words. . . .

Until she began pestering me again. In self-defense, I agreed to look at the house in the Bakers’ District where Egan and his mother had a room. No promises beyond that. No assurances. And
no
permission for her to visit it again.

“. . . and you will wear your mask and cloak
every
time you stick a toe
outside our door. Promise me. No! Hush your excuses. Swear it on all we hold in our hearts. Promise.”

She promised. And then said Egan had shown her a shop where one could sell unwanted goods. Perhaps she could go there and take things we didn’t need and would have no room to keep, adding a few coins to our box.

I hated that it made good sense. I’d never imagined visiting a pawner’s shop. “Filip can go. Not you. No, not
ever
. Pick a few things, but only things Matronn sent here from Pontia. These furnishings, the plate, the bedclothes, the hangings—all go with the house and we’d have to replace them when we turn it back to Tessati.” Whom I needed to notify very soon. “And keep your best clothes and jewels. We’ll still be summoned to sittings, to entertainments, to Registry feasts, and we must make a respectable appearance. This is your year for an anniversary portrait. Yes, gossip will spread about our situation. Many will expect us to crumble, but we won’t. We’ll not dishonor our family.” Even if some in the Registry did so.

It was not the time to mention that as soon as she turned sixteen in the summer, families would begin inviting her to visit. Though we had naught for a marriage portion and our influence was ash, Juli carried powerful bloodlines. Eligible families would be foolish not to consider a match . . . as long as she behaved. My own marriage negotiation was supposed to begin at the end of my first contract. Now that rested, as did my entire life, in the hands of the Registry. Not that I could imagine any pureblood family matching their daughter with an artist who worked in a graveyard.

“And
serena pauli
, please, about this Egan, you cannot—”

“Oh, to be rid of that ivory nymph Camatronn sent me for my birthday. It looks like the hind end of a goat. Some half-blind crone will adore it!” Juli crushed my face into her quilt wrapping, smothering my command. Then she planted a kiss on the top of my head and danced away, giggling as I’d not heard in forever.

As I drained my posset and gathered my quilt, she poked her head back through the doorway. “
This Egan
will be waiting in the inner court. I’ll let
you
tell him when we’re coming to see our new house.”

She grinned and vanished.

An entirely unwarranted laugh rose from somewhere not related to good sense. I wished I could share her enthusiasm. It was certainly understandable. After so many months of grief and boredom, such a change promised
adventure, as the prospect of the university had done for me. If I could just cushion the worst consequences, it would be a blessing indeed. Perhaps Master Pluvius could advise me on that as well as the contract. He had both a daughter and a granddaughter. I had to visit the Registry Tower on the morrow, whether Bastien liked it or not.

But first I needed sleep. And before either I had to speak with the boy in the courtyard. Egan was likely an icicle by now.

S
oflet had called the boy
respectful and indeed he was. He kept his eyes down and waited for me to speak. To begin I draped one of my old cloaks over his shoulders. His teeth were clattering a galliard, his legs shaking, and it was impossible to miss the dirty strips of rag tied round his hands and bird-thin legs for warmth.

“I’ll visit your house tomorrow midday,” I said. “But it is highly unlikely to suit. My sister’s position in life—her gifts granted by the very gods you worship—make demands of her that you cannot comprehend. Nor does she fully, young as she is. She cannot be your friend. Not that you are unworthy of friends, only that the course laid for you is different. We must all attend the work we are given. Do you see that?”

He drew the cloak tight around with a sigh, as if it were his mother’s arms. Then he shrugged it off and pushed it back into my hands. “Didn’t come here to take nothing from you nor the lady. I’ll show you the house midday. It’s hard to find. Where shall I meet you?”

“In the Temple District, at the point where the Elder Wall juts out over the west end of the hirudo.” Over the pigsty. I’d make the errand count for two.

Tomorrow morning, I’d tell Bastien of my discoveries in the hirudo, insisting I needed daylight to discover the exact house where the girl’s murder had taken place. It would provide the excuse to leave the necropolis.

“Do you know the place?”

“Aye, lord. I light divine Arrosa’s cauldrons every even, though her priestesses are squinch on the pay.”

“Arrosa . . . that’s where Arrosa’s Temple sits?”

Revelation exploded in my soggy mind. Of course! It explained my vision—the moonflowers, the ephrain, the baths. The Goddess of Love saw cleansing of the body as a prayer; thus, her temple housed the finest
baths in Palinur. Or so I’d heard. Three days ago, someone had defiled those sacred precincts with child murder.

“Aye, lord. And if I may speak . . .”

“Yes?” I forced my thoughts back to the youth.

Fourteen, I’d guess his age. His light brown hair draggled on his brow. His bony, unfinished face was pinched with cold and raw with windburn, but his clear gaze met my own through my mask, fearless.

“Mam prays to the Mother, but I don’t count nothin’ in it. She bakes when she can afford the makings for bread. We hunger when she can’t. So I’ve lit torches and lamps for them as have oil to burn since I was big enough to climb, and candles for those who can afford such. Wouldn’t like to see a gentle young lady sit in the dark when I could show her what’s a rushlight. Mayhap your gods gave me the
task
to show her.” He shrugged. “Or not, as you may see it.”

A bold youth. And honorable to give back the cloak. Foolish, perhaps, but honorable.

“I’ll think on that,” I said, considering gods and chance in a most favorable light just then. “And no matter what, I’ll see you tomorrow midday on the steps of Arrosa’s Temple.”

He let himself out the gate. I followed him to lock it and stood peering into the snow-whipped night for a while, but no streaks of sapphire light intruded on the storm. Nor could I detect any scent of meadowsweet or sun-warmed grass.

Great gods, Lucian, get you to bed. Next you’ll be seeing Karish angels hovering over Necropolis Caton, ready to transport believers to Iero’s Heaven.

Though I could come no nearer to understanding what my two assailants had said, the encounter in the alley was not imagined. I had evidence. My hand sought the length of rope in the inner pocket of my pelisse. But I drew out only a handful of dry litter—grass or straw with no scent at all.

Shivering, I locked the gate. The bells pealed half midnight. Only four hours until time to rise and start a new day.

T
he wind pack
ed snow into Palinur’s every crack and crevice through the night, then fled like a thief. When I left the house before dawn, the sky crackled with stars and the cold was deep enough to freeze the marrow. The
pocardon
bustled with grim-faced women stripping the food stalls like geese at gleaning time. I hoped Filip had stocked our shelves the previous day.

Humming a nonsense tune under my breath and pressing my hand to my nose, I raced past alleys and side lanes without a glance. I didn’t want to hear warning voices or smell meadowsweet or glimpse blue-limned figures out of myth walking the streets. I dared not acknowledge the encounter as truth. Pureblood sorcerers of healthy mind did not see Danae.

In a firelit doorway of a hirudo shack, Demetreo the Ciceron played a haunting melody on his syrinx—one that spoke of mysteries and happier times. He didn’t look up as I hurried past. Someone had told him my name and what my portrait of the dead girl had revealed. I needed to squelch such dangerous talk. Only a few in the necropolis would have known.

Once through the slot gate, my spelled eating knife guided me to the proper burial mound and I returned the arché to its owner. I’d brought a flask of wine, as well, one of the few that remained from the Remeni-Masson vineyards. I poured half onto the grave.

“Sleep well, brother or sister. May the Ferryman deliver you to blessed Idrium, where all will know your name. Let this small gift refresh your time of waiting and serve as thanks for your help in time of need.”

I poured out the remaining wine as a libation to the gods and renewed my pledge of service. My sleep had been restless as I wrestled with the guilt of venturing my forbidden bent. Things weren’t so clear in the deeps of the night. Did my portraits actually show truth—the girl’s dress, the soldier’s badge? What if they were no sign of the gods’ favor renewing my second bent, but falsehoods fed by my own pride? Worse, what if they signaled the very madness dual bents could cause? How would I know? And these other things—visions of myth I had been ready to accept as truth . . .

“Help me know,” I whispered. “Help me recognize the truth and bring honor to my blood-kin as they feast in your halls: Vincente, Artur, Elaine, Germaine, Emil . . .” So very long it took to name them all.

Though the sun had not yet risen when I arrived at Necropolis Caton, Bastien had already left word with Constance about five more prospects for my pen and his purse. I rifled his book press for parchment and sought out Constance again.

“We need a new supply of parchment,” I said, waving the few bits I’d salvaged. “Beyond this there’s naught left worth using. I could as easily draw a smooth curve out there on the wagon road. And I’ve brought my own pens and ink so I can do better work, but I’ll need a brazier to keep the ink from freezing. You seem the one to get things done.”

Her thin cheeks burned—pleased, I thought. “Oh, aye, I can see to it. Coroner’s confounded in his investigationing. Da’s burthened with burnings. Some just won’t wait for the Mother to take their kin, but must send ’em off in smoke. ’Specially these so ruint already.”

“You burn corpses here!” Some Navrons believed fire was the cleanest way to send their kin on to Idrium, but to smell burning flesh, to raise the imagining of those I so loved screaming as the flames raged all around them—the very thought scalded my throat. “When?”

“Sunset mostly, so’s it makes a better show. For sure I’ll see to your pages and a bit of fire. Just holler for Garen or Pleury when you need a new corpus brought.”

Constance hefted a load of cheap tunics she used to replace fouled clothing and set off toward the prometheum. Her awkward gait set her earrings to swaying. Long, dangling earrings of orangey gold—false gold. She’d not worn them before.

“One more thing, Constance!”

She halted and looked round as I caught up with her. I wished to speak without the entire population of Necropolis Caton hearing us.

“Demetreo the Ciceron knows things he should not, Mistress Constance. The law forbids any to spread gossip of a pureblood, and I’m sure you abide by it faithfully. But beyond the details of my person and my family, that restriction must include my name and the drawings I do. The portraits are the magic I provide as the gods’ instrument. Not only are they private matters between the gods, my contracted master, and me, but revealing aught of their nature—especially the wondrous bits that recommend themselves to a lively imagination such as yours—could compromise the coroner’s work, which I’m sure you’ve no intent to do.”

“But I never—” Her protest died quickly and she wrinkled her long nose into a rueful grimace. “Ah, you’ve the right of it. I might have barbled to the Ciceron about the girlie’s drawn. But you are such a
tale
! And bits of gossip do help pay for a girl’s necessaries.” She shook her head vigorously, setting her earrings glittering in the torchlight. “Now on I’ll keep my tongue more privacy where you come in. You’ll not tattle to Bastien?”

I shook my head. Bastien clearly trusted her. “I’ll keep my tongue private as well,” I said. I didn’t blame an impoverished ordinary for wanting trinkets, but I couldn’t allow her to compromise my safety or Juli’s.

She hurried off again and I headed after, slower, considering the day to come. I wouldn’t begin with the soldiers, but with the girl child, no matter what Bastien had preferred the previous day. I had to know if the first portrait I’d done was true.

Garen, the lean, dark-eyed runner, was lounging on the steps, waiting for a mission. I beckoned, and we set out for the Hallow Ground.

The child’s features hadn’t altered much as yet—a little darker, a little drier and less plump. Constance had replaced her muddy rags with one of the white tunics, which I doubted was the usual practice for unknown beggars. But then, who knew who might come to fetch this one, if Bastien discovered her name.

Arrosa’s priestesses taught that the goddess made mortal love divine—as her own birth had made holy the mating of her mother, divine Samele, and a mortal man. Did the Temple of Arrosa take initiates so young? Is that what one did with a royal bastard? But who would have killed her and why?

Once we had the girl laid out, I spread a sheet of fresh parchment I’d brought for her, sharpened a pen, and filled an ink cup from the horn I’d
brought. While the sun rose and gave me better light, I attempted to clear my mind of the past three days’ upheaval. I centered my thoughts on the banked fire behind my breastbone. As for the dark place between my eyes . . . If my second bent was involved in these portraits, it was because somehow it had become entwined with my art, not because I’d called it up apurpose. For now I’d do only as I’d done before.

By the time a diffuse sunlight illuminated the child’s face, the exercise had yielded calm and focus. Only then did I dip my pen in the cup. With a whispered apology to the girl for intruding on her yet again, I stroked her brow and jaw and reached deep for magic. The divine fire rushed through me, filling the simple lines and shapes with truth, and as my fingers transferred the image to the page, my body ached with bruising and quivered with terror, shame, and sickness so vile it repeatedly darkened my inner sight.

“W
hy isn’t it the same?
You’ve drawn naught but what we see here, and not so accurate at that. So which is truth, or is this yet another lie?”

I had known Bastien wasn’t going to like the new portrait. But his goading was not going to rattle me this morning. This time I was prepared. For the hour since I’d completed the portrait, I had been puzzling over the identical questions. The dregs of terror and phantom bruises had taught me the answer.

“Both drawings are true. This one just depicts a different time. Though her hair is black, it’s long and not chopped off ragged. What if the black streaks we saw on her face and tunic weren’t just dirt? What if someone
colored
her hair black, as some women do, perhaps to change her enough she’d not be recognized? The day she died wouldn’t have been the first time they did it. Look at her eyes . . .”

No merriment. No spark. Though the shape of her face remained unchanged from the other drawing, her eyes were no longer those of a child. The child’s pain explained it all.

“. . . and notice that the garment in the drawing is not this plain tunic from Constance, but good fabric and finely embroidered. These stains are her blood.” Just as my vision in the hirudo had shown.

Bastien growled like a dog sensing its prey. “Someone was swyving her.”

Never could I have stated such foulness so bluntly.

“What if you drew her a third time?”

“I doubt anything would change. Since the last, I’ve learned more of where she died. . . .” Without mention of a revived bent for history, I told him about Demetreo and the willow brake. “As the thicket is so tangled, and Constance said the girl had likely tumbled down an embankment, it seemed logical that she’d been let go from the walls, deliberately left to roll down into the ravine.”

Thrown away like refuse. They’d never imagined anyone might look beyond her garb. And then I told him that it was a goddess’s house abutted the wall so high above the piggery.

“Demon scat!” he said, jumping up from my stool. “I’ve no love for noble brats, no matter which side of the blanket they’re born to. Most grow up scum, male and female alike. But them that priss and preach of gods, then turn round and debauch babies . . . that I cannot abide.”

Corruption had always existed among the gods’ human servants, but this? I could not abide it, either.

“So, how does a prince’s ladylove get her babe into the temple?” mumbled Bastien. “She might have been a temple girl herself. A priestess or an initiate. Maybe a bath girl. I suppose they’d keep the babe and raise her to the goddess’s service. Or it could be the child’s mam was just a servant or a court lady with a devotion to Arrosa, and she chose to stow the mite in the temple to hide her. Or just to get her out of the way.”

“I doubt she was born to a servant.” I scanned the portrait for any detail that might have escaped me. “The first portrait showed her in court dress, so I’m thinking she lived for a while according to her station. Perhaps she was even known to the prince. She didn’t age much between the depictions, which suggests this nasty business has all happened recently. It might be you could turn over this much information to Prince Perryn. Even if he hasn’t acknowledged his bastards, he couldn’t take well to one of his own blood brutalized. And surely someone at Arrosa’s Temple has noticed she’s missing. They might know who saw her that day or who might have reason to hurt her. Surely the child’s
mother
couldn’t know what was being done to her.”

When I glanced up to see why he’d not responded, Bastien was scrutinizing me as carefully as if I were a knife wound on one of his corpses. “You’ve lost your doubts,” he said. “What’s changed? Tell me why you can draw things you’ve no way to know.”

My skin heated. He seemed able to read me right through my mask.

I averted my eyes, vowing to be more cautious. “I’m not certain.”

“Come, come, Servant Remeni. You’ve arrived at some thought about it. I am your contracted master, and I’ve the right to understand. I bought you.”

Perhaps it was this evidence of corruption in a place that should be holy. Perhaps it was my fears for Juli and my inability to protect her from danger, poverty, or humiliation. Perhaps it was simply because this crude, venal, clever ordinary had reminded me that I was his slave in all but name. Whatever the reason, my anger erupted like the volcano Aesteo that had burst from the earth in a single ferocious moment.

“You have the right to my best work. That I will give. You have the right to control my magic, save what I use to defend myself and my family. That I will give. But understanding? My thoughts? The inner workings of my power—of my
soul
? You have no right, and you could not pay enough.
Master
.”

I touched shaking fingers to forehead as I was required and walked out. Wrapping arms around my throbbing head, I invoked every mental discipline I knew, determined to forget every single happening in my life since I had left home for the university.

B
astien found me seated on
the prometheum steps in welcome sunlight. He made a great show of dusting off the steps to preserve his threadbare velvet. More wealthy cows to milk today, I supposed. When he sat, I ignored him. Once in sufficient control, I would return to my erstwhile studio, do a portrait of one of the dead soldiers, and then leave to visit the linkboy and his vile lodging, where I must house my virgin sister.

“Wondered when you were going to stop hiding behind the mask, show a spine, convince me.”

Was he trying to goad me into another outburst? “Command me as you will, Coroner, but soon, if you please. I’m going out at midday on family business. If you disapprove, complain to the Registry.”

“We’ve two strikes already from yesterday’s six portraits,” he said, matter-of-factly. “One was a palace understeward’s only son. One was an edane’s heir. The lowly understeward offered a grateful twenty coppers; the mighty edane a grudging ten. Did I not tell you how it goes?”

I tried to imagine warmth emanating from the pale sun.

He waited for a bit, then heaved a dramatic sigh. Perhaps he was disappointed I expressed no amazement at his accurate prediction of relative generosity. Did he wish me to beg for a share of his tainted earnings?

He pulled a sliver of wood from his sleeve and picked at his teeth. “Good work on the child. I think we partner well.”

“We are not partners.” Even if I was stuck in this contract forever, even if Juli and I were reduced to eating raw wheat, I would not sell the dead’s secrets for money.

“Humph.” The grunt sounded more resigned than angry. He tucked away the toothpick, rose, and dusted off his backside. “See to your family business as you like. Just make sure you get those five done before tomorrow morning.”