Reign of Beasts (22 page)

A
shiol was well experienced with torture. Actual torture, with nets and blades and all manner of cruelties. He had been beaten bloody and had every drop of power drained out of him. Right now, he would gladly trade one of those long noxes with Garnet for the evening he had to endure in the Palazzo of Bazeppe.

Everyone was so
interested
in him, and there were few aristocratic airs in this city of clockwork and metal. Its people touched constantly, hands brushing arms, kisses against cheeks and wrists. He had spent too long in the Creature Court, where touch meant an exchange of power or comfort or blood. He wasn't used to it meaning nothing.

The air smelled of thunderstorms and tin. It set Ashiol so far on edge that he jumped at every sound. The music crushed around him, and the people as well. So many people in a ridiculously small reception room.

He had expected Isangell to be the centre of attention, not himself. The few public receptions he had not been able to avoid in Aufleur had been peopled with seigneurs and demoiselles who gave him a wide berth for the most part. Those stories were good for something, after all. No one here had any such qualms. They tugged at
him, cooing and gossiping, and dragged him into dance after dance. The steps seemed overly confusing, and though he matched his partners' movements well enough, it was clear that he was being in some way utterly hilarious.

So many of the women had their hair cut short; not in the flapper bob he was used to from home, but mannishly short. Was it the fashion, or fear of being dragged into machinery?

The food was brought up from the kitchens on jerky little elevating platforms, and steam puffed constantly out of a large metal water pot, kept piping hot for the servants to serve fresh tea at a moment's notice. Even at supper, the people of Bazeppe drank tea as if it were their patriotic duty.

The Duc-Elected of Bazeppe — who, it transpired, had been elected to the position without contest for the last twenty years — had three sons. Ashiol didn't think much of any of them — they obviously spent far too much time inside reading books and talking politics or some shit like that. Besides, he couldn't really tell the difference between the three, except that one was particularly irritating — either the plump one or the one with spectacles.

Ashiol had made the mistake of putting on the outfit laid out for him by the Palazzo servants: some kind of embroidered jacket thing over a waistcoat, and breeches that were far too tight. It was as if there was metal in the cloth, pressing too close around him.

Not any daylight metal he knew, nor skysilver. Something new. It made his skin itch.

‘I've never been to Aufleur,' said a buxom dame wearing a seigneur's suit of clothes. A pearl-edged pocket watch hung decoratively from of her cravat and Ashiol couldn't take his eyes off it. This whole city was as bad as his stepfather, counting time in hours, minutes, seconds. How did they get anything done?

‘Are they all like you back home?' the dame asked.

‘I hope not,' he said fervently.

A hand slid over his sleeve. ‘Excuse me,' said a melting voice. ‘May I borrow the Ducomte for a moment?'

Once more, Ashiol was not consulted. On the other hand, nothing could be worse than this. He allowed himself to be led away.

The melting voice belonged to a man in his early twenties, whip-thin and energetic, in one of those gaudy suits. ‘Sorry to be so forward,' he said with what could only be a flirtatious smile. ‘But you looked like you were about to drown yourself in the punch bowl.'

‘I had considered it,' Ashiol admitted.

The young man held out a hand and shook Ashiol's vigorously when he ventured it in that general direction. ‘The name is Troyes. I'm to be your personal secretary while you're in Bazeppe.' There was no mistaking the way he lingered on the word ‘personal'.

‘And what exactly does that mean?' Ashiol asked, giving little away.

‘It means I'm to provide you with anything you need,' purred Troyes. ‘What do you need, Seigneur Ducomte?'

‘Fresh air,' Ashiol said without thinking.

Home. I need to go home and put my feet under Velody's table and run on the rooftops and save the world. But I don't think you can offer that.

‘Done,' said Troyes, whipping out a small book and making a note inside with a scratchy feathered pen. ‘I'll have you moved to a room with a balcony — somewhere at the back, overlooking the oak grove. Not too high up.' He smiled a dazzling smile. ‘You seem the athletic type. I'm sure you'll want to make use of the grounds.'

 

Days passed, a jumble of receptions, suppers, breakfasts and other formal occasions, all measured out to the second by the hundreds of noisy, ticking clocks. Factory visits, parades, ceremonies … clocks.

There weren't as many parades and ceremonies as Ashiol might have predicted, though. He didn't notice at first, because the latter half of Bestialis was traditionally quiet, but then it was the Kalends of Fortuna, and no sign that there would be any celebration of the Pomonia. No green ribbons, holly crowns or sacrifices in honour of the beginning of winter. Now he came to think of it, Bazeppe had only held a single parade in more than a market-nine, and Ashiol got the impression it was especially to honour their ducal guest. Even the everyday rituals were sparse compared to what he was used to.

The ticking didn't stop even when Ashiol was alone in his room. There were clocks on the walls, on the bedside table, and in the corridor outside. He could have asked Troyes to clear the room of clocks. His ‘secretary' was nothing if not brutally efficient in any task given to him, whether in or out of Ashiol's bed. But Ashiol couldn't help his suspicion that Troyes was watching him carefully and he was loathe to give too much information away.

He could live with the clocks.

The balcony attached to his room saved his sanity. It provided the closest thing he could get to silence. He liked to go wandering in cat form at nox, climbing trees and running for miles. Sleep found him sometimes before he even reached his bed. He'd fall asleep as a pile of black cats, warm and purring, only to awake naked on the balcony or by the fire in his room, with a blanket tossed over his body. He wandered what Troyes thought about that, but couldn't find it in him to care.

The evening of the Kalends of Fortuna, after a particularly gruelling poetry reading at which Ashiol had spent an hour trying to make conversation with one of Isangell's prospective husbands (and considered it a great triumph that he hadn't bitten the twit's throat out), he retreated to his room and his balcony. The first snowfall
covered the skeletal tree-shapes of the grove and he closed the glass doors behind him, leaned against the snow-dusted rail and breathed in the cool nox air.

Guilt set in. However irritating the chatter and amateur dramatics of the nobles of Bazeppe might be, at least they filled his head. Only here, when it was cool and silent, did he remember everything he had left behind. Garnet. Warlord. Livilla. The sentinels. Velody.

It was more and more difficult to avoid thinking about Velody.

Stars gleamed between the misty shapes of the clouds. It was a long time since Ashiol had been able to look at a nox sky without fear or tension. The sky over Aufleur was coloured with the constant threat of death, blood, devils. Bazeppe's was calm. A greenish black, lit as it was by so many flickering gas lamps, but it was peaceful to gaze up and see nothing that wanted to eat you alive.

A white shape flickered near his field of vision and Ashiol turned his head to see pale owls gliding overhead, their wings catching the breezes beautifully. Even that was a peaceful sight. The owls called to one another, disappearing into the silhouetted bare trees of the oak grove with only a hoot or two breaking the silence.

Ashiol breathed. He could live here. He could forget about Garnet, and Velody. The ticking clocks were worth putting up with, surely, in return for this kind of inner peace. No wonder Priest had seen this city as a sanctuary. It was so far from the politics of the Creature Court, from everything dangerous.

A city that wasn't doomed. Must be nice.

A woman walked out of the oak grove. She was the colour of moonlight all over: pale hair, pale skin, a lush figure contained within a long white gown. Her feet were bare. Ashiol gazed at her for a long while, wondering why this scene seemed familiar, like something from an old story someone had once told him.

The woman turned her head and for a moment Ashiol thought she was staring directly at him, though she shouldn't be able to see anyone from that distance. The room behind him was dark.

She crossed the lawn towards the Palazzo, stopped right underneath Ashiol's window and looked up. ‘My Lord Ducomte,' she said in a voice laden with sarcasm, familiar and cutting. ‘Or should I call you King?'

Ashiol's fingers gripped the railing. Motherfucking saints, it was Celeste.

‘Lord of Owls,' he said with a dignity that belied the panic in his head. ‘Are you well?'

‘Aye,' she said, and there was that smile, a half-crease that had completely enraptured Lysandor and drawn him away from Tasha, from Garnet, from all of them. ‘I am well. I never thought you would come here. I did not think you would still be alive, in truth. Men like you don't grow old.'

‘Is —' Ashiol's voice broke a little, because he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

‘Lysandor,' said Celeste, and her face glowed like the moon this time when she smiled. ‘He is also well.'

Something Ashiol had not known he had been holding tight inside himself for years cracked open. ‘Can I see him?' he asked.

Celeste grinned and held out her hand.

Ashiol leaped off the balcony, landing on hands and knees on the grassy earth. He took Celeste's hand and they went into the grove together.

C
eleste took Ashiol to an old factory warehouse at the edge of the city near the train station, one of few factories in the area that did not belch smoke from its smokestacks.

‘Is there a Court?' Ashiol asked, looking around at the size of the place. There were several enormous rooms, still filled with their original equipment. One space even larger than the Haymarket was half-full of tables, chests and bedrolls. It looked very much as if people lived here.

‘Of course there's a Court,' said Celeste, sounding as if she thought he was stupid. Just like old times. ‘The sky falls here as well, you know. Aufleur is not a unique flower. Bazeppe never had an underground city, but we make do. The roof of the Emporium is reinforced with skysilver, which gives us the protection we need; and besides, we have friends to help us in our battles.'

There was a groaning sound, not far away, and then Ashiol heard the ticking of a clock, and another, loud enough to fill the warehouse with noise. A nearby door opened to admit two of the bronze statues from the
Palazzo, or something very like them. A harried-looking demme with wild hair accompanied them, and an old man, and Priest, and Lysandor.

Ashiol was so busy staring that he couldn't even acknowledge the presence of Priest. He couldn't take his eyes off the man he thought of as a brother. When Lysandor had left with Celeste six years ago, he and Ashiol had been so young and wild and hopeful. Well, Ashiol had been hopeful. Lysandor had given up all trust in Garnet and his reign. Now. Lysandor was every inch a man: a grave-looking seigneur in a wool suit, his gold hair trimmed short. He had a beard, in the manner of so many men in Bazeppe.

‘What's this?' the demme said in a strident voice. ‘Bringing chaps in off the street now, Celeste? I hope he has useful skills, or you can throw him back where you found him!'

She wore trousers, had a smear of what must be oil on the side of her neck, and smelled of wolf.

‘Nonsense, Peg,' said Lysandor, his voice wary but warm. ‘He's an aristocrat; he can hardly be trusted to tie his own shoes.'

Ashiol laughed at the familiarity of it, of Lysandor mocking him, and the laughter broke a tension of sorts. Lysandor came forward. They clasped and shook hands in the Bazeppe fashion, then hugged hard. Lysandor smelled of smoke and metal, like everything in this city. He smelled like he belonged here. But underneath it all was the comforting, familiar scent of lynx.
Brother
.

‘You made it,' Lysandor said in a muffled voice. ‘I have so much to tell you.'

Ashiol looked over his friend's shoulder to Celeste. More people were coming through the doors now, including a small girl with bright silver hair who cried, ‘Mama, mama,' and ran to Celeste, begging to be picked up.

Celeste held her child closely and her mouth tightened
just a little. ‘If you make him go back with you, I'll kill you,' she said, quite calmly.

‘I wouldn't do that,' said Ashiol, staring at the impossible child.

‘Really?' She arched her eyebrows. ‘You wouldn't even try?'

‘My boy,' Priest said warmly, rescuing Ashiol from Celeste's sharp gaze.

Ashiol clasped his arm in greeting. ‘I'm glad you're here.'

The Pigeon Lord nodded, and smiled.

‘Come, stand in the warmth,' said Lysandor, smacking Ashiol on the back. ‘Did you come here on your own?'

‘He was staying at the Palazzo,' said Celeste, still gripping her silver-haired child as if she thought that Ashiol would snatch her away.

‘Of course,' said Lysandor, leading the way to a boiler that pumped warm air into the space. ‘Ducomte and all that. Have some warm cider. It's been too long.'

Ashiol looked around at the people who were making themselves comfortable in the warm part of the warehouse. Some were interested in him, staring openly, but others had started up their own conversations. It was more casual than the crowded receptions of the city aristocracy, and had nothing of the tensions he expected from a Creature Court.

‘You're happy here,' he said to Lysandor.

It was more of a statement than a question, but Lysandor launched into an anecdote about his daughter — his
daughter —
and it seemed this wasn't the time for complex discussions about the nature of their different Courts.

Later, as Ashiol sat against the wall with a mug of cider in one hand, watching Lysandor tuck the little demme into a makeshift cot at the back of the warehouse, Celeste came over to sit near him.

‘Do you live here?' he asked, still not understanding. There was no evidence of anything but a nomadic
existence — many of Lysandor's friends had bedrolls or swags with them.

‘Only when the sky is being unfriendly,' she said. ‘Some of us have managed to reinforce the roofs of our homes with skysilver, but the protection is better here.'

‘And is the sky unfriendly this nox?'

‘You're getting old if you can't feel it,' Celeste said cynically.

Ashiol looked around. There were half as many people as before, and the walking bronze statues had vanished as well. Priest was gone, and his birds with him. How much had Ashiol been drinking? He hadn't even noticed. He stretched his animor out to the sky, but the heavily shielded roof made it hard to have any awareness of what was happening outside.

‘We work in shifts,' said Celeste. ‘It's rarely bad enough to require all of us up there, especially with the saints on our side.'

‘Saints,' said Ashiol. ‘Is that what you call them, the mechanical men?'

‘Clockwork saints. Did you never wonder why clockwork is banned in Aufleur?'

Aufleur had so many odd conventions and traditions, Ashiol had honestly never thought about it. He tried again to get a sense of the skybattle, but even once his animor extended beyond the skysilver roof, nothing felt familiar.

‘I feel blind,' he said.

‘It will get better if you stay here long enough,' said Celeste. ‘Lysh and I were the same at first — our bodies were attuned to Aufleur; anything else felt numb and pointless. But our animor adapted. It still doesn't feel the same as Aufleur. Less intense. It doesn't make you so …' She trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

‘Crazy,' said Ashiol.

‘I didn't say that.'

‘They really fight the sky, these … clockwork saints?'

‘I'll show you.'

She glanced back at Lysandor once and then led the way out of the Emporium and into the empty street.

Ashiol looked up, and saw nothing at first. It was like being dosed with sentinel's blood, all his senses dull and useless. Finally he saw pale grey lines streaking across the sky, then a few dashes of colour here and there. There were creatures in the sky, and clockwork saints, fighting side by side. It all seemed so ordinary, and businesslike.

‘This is what it's supposed to be like,' said Celeste. ‘The Clockwork Court don't rip each other to shreds over it all. We don't just survive. We live.'

‘Who is your Power and Majesty?'

Lysandor, he thought, unless there were more Kings here. These people all felt so lacking in animor, although they fought the sky with as much power and ability as any of his own Court.

‘I am,' said Celeste.

He looked at her in surprise. ‘You're not a King.'

‘We don't use those titles.'

‘But … you're not a King.'

She shook her head at him, like he was a child refusing to learn his letters. ‘Leadership is about more than power and brute force. I was chosen to lead this year because the people trust me. It doesn't matter that Lysandor could beat me in a duel. He doesn't choose to. None of us choose to.'

‘What if someone else thinks they would be a better leader?'

‘Then they can run for election in the autumn.'

‘
Election
?'

‘It's called civilisation, Ashiol. We are not animals. We don't have to be monsters.'

‘Because these clockwork saints do all the work for you?'

‘That's part of it. It's another life. A better life. Ask Priest how different it is. How different he feels. Aufleur was killing him. It is better here. Better for all of us.'

‘And if this life of yours is so perfect, why are you afraid I would be able to take Lysandor back with me?'

‘Because he loves you. He has always held a sadness inside about leaving you, and Garnet. Despite everything that monster did to us, he thinks of you as family.'

Ashiol could hear the bitterness in her voice.

‘I didn't think we could have children,' he said. ‘The nox you left … all that blood. I thought you had lost the child.'

‘Our miracle,' Celeste said softly. ‘Lucia was the sign, the first sign, that life didn't have to be the way the Creature Court dictated. This is our family now. Our home. Don't break it. Stay with us, Ashiol, or walk away as you choose, but take nothing that is mine.'

‘I promise,' he said, but how could he promise that? This was Lysandor, and Ashiol had been missing him for so long, like a lost limb. Perhaps together they could save Garnet, bring him back from the brink.

The skybattle had ended. The warriors came back in groups: creatures, humans, Lords, all glowing with animor accompanied by the clockwork Saints. One saint was surrounded by falcons, which changed quickly into the form of a slender young man who gave Ashiol a guilty grin before heading inside the Emporium.

‘Troyes,' Ashiol said beneath his breath. ‘So he was a spy.'

‘We're not entirely original,' Celeste said sweetly. ‘Will you stay, Ashiol? We have so much more to show you.'

It was peaceful here, in a way Aufleur had never been. There were no complications. No one who wanted anything from him, except for him not to destroy what they had. It was a better way to live.

‘I'll stay,' said Ashiol finally. ‘I have nowhere else to go.'

Celeste hugged him and the scent of feathers filled his senses. ‘We are glad to have you here.'

 

‘What do you think?' Isangell asked him over breakfast the next morning. ‘Roget or Niall?'

‘Which is the one who keeps talking about historical theorems?' Ashiol asked, biting into the largest pastry in the hope that it contained meat. No such luck, and the flakes exploded all over his shirt.

‘Michel,' said Isangell. ‘I've already discounted him. He smells of peppermints.'

Ashiol shrugged. ‘Whichever of the others you like most, or dislike least.'

‘Very helpful.'

‘Matchmaking was never my forte. If you wanted an opinion, you should have brought your mother.'

‘Beast,' she laughed, and threw the napkin at him. ‘I have to be home before the games begin. The priests and proctors are unnerved enough that I have been away from Aufleur for more than a market-nine. And I will have to commission several dresses for Saturnalis —'

‘We're going back, then.' Ashiol straightened his back.

‘Aren't you glad? It's no secret you're not enjoying yourself here. The servants are all half-afraid of your temper, and the number of marriage proposals I've received on your behalf has dipped strongly since the first few days.'

‘That doesn't mean I want to go back.'

He had work to do here. Lysandor and Celeste barely trusted him, and he had so much to learn from them and their odd clockwork saints. He had to talk to Priest, really talk to him. The old man had avoided him for the most part, the nox before.

‘You could stay without me,' Isangell said quietly.

Ashiol had been trying to think of an excuse to do exactly that, and stared at her with suspicion. ‘I could? Why?'

‘Whether I betroth myself to Roget or Niall, I will need a representative here, to arrange things between our families. A sort of ambassador.'

‘And I'm so known for my diplomatic skills.'

‘Aufleur was killing you, Ash. I'm the one who brought you back, and it … I feel bad about that now. I didn't know what you were coming back to. You need to stay away from that world, from the Creature Court. If you don't want to return to Diamagne, then why not make a home for yourself here?'

‘Aufleur was killing you' ran around in his head as he thought it over. Celeste had said the same thing of Lysandor.

‘You sound like Grandmama,' he said finally. ‘Only she was under the impression I was running rampant in the streets with criminals and drunkards.' Isangell knew the truth, though, or as close as anyone of the daylight could know.

‘I leave in two days,' she said. ‘If you want to remain here in Bazeppe, say the word and I will arrange it.'

‘You don't have to protect me, you know.'

Isangell gave him an impatient look. ‘Someone has to.'