16
The month of Fortuna
Time passed. Bestialis became Fortuna. Life without the Creature Court was odd, but survivable. No one had any idea where Ashiol was; he seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, or at least disappeared from Aufleur.
Velody started sewing again, just festival smocks at first, but then she sent her cards to former clients and accepted two dress commissions for the month of Saturnalis. She went back to working during the day and sleeping at nox.
The hardest times were when the slow rain seeped in through the cracks in the ceiling, or the sky erupted into the lights and colours that signified a battle. Velody would stand at her bedroom window watching, wanting to join in, wishing she could be part of it all.
Sometimes Macready would come in and sit in a corner of the room, not saying anything, just being there. Delphine never acknowledged the difference between one nox and another, and gave a very good impression of having completely lost any of her sentinel instincts.
Rhian was never there on those noxes. That was the strangest part. After so long not being able to leave the house, Rhian now absented herself on a regular basis. The first time Velody had found her room empty, she’d had a major meltdown, but she had grown used to it now. It was normal — as much as anything to do with Rhian these days could be normal. She didn’t work. When Delphine had prompted her about the berry fronds and bleeding-heart for Ludi garlands, Rhian had looked at her blankly, as if the words made no sense. Eventually, Delphine found another florister to supply her with what she needed to fill the council order.
On the last day of the Ludi Plebeii, four days after the Ides of Fortuna, with a wintry chill stinging the air, Crane returned.
Velody felt him coming. That, at least, hadn’t changed. She ran to the door, grinning all over her face as he let himself in the back gate. ‘You’re here.’
‘I told you I would be,’ he said, reflecting her grin with his own. ‘Didn’t you get my last letter?’
She hugged him, letting his familiar smell enfold her. ‘I thought your mother might want to keep you.’
‘She was pleased enough to see me,’ he said. ‘I was able to get in the winter’s firewood for her, at least, and see to the roof.’ A shadow crossed his face. ‘There was usually a cost when I petitioned the Power and Majesty to let me go at this time of year. It wasn’t always worth paying.’
Velody drew back from him, crossed her arms uncomfortably over her chest. ‘I’m not the Power and Majesty,’ she reminded him.
‘I know that,’ he said quickly, and there was an awkwardness between them after that.
Velody drew him inside. ‘There’s soup if you want it.’
‘Always.’ Crane sat at the table, stretching out his long legs as Velody busied herself with fixing a bowl for him, with bread and oil and herbs. ‘Any sign of Ashiol?’
‘He went south with the Duchessa on some diplomatic mission, but they’re back now. He’ll find us when he’s ready.’
The Duchessa had recently returned to the city to preside over the sacred games, and they all assumed that Ashiol had returned with her, though no one had seen hide nor hair of him.
‘Good for him. I mean, he’s neglected his daylight life for so long.’
Velody sighed. ‘I don’t like giving up like this. But it’s not like any of the Creature Court is begging for my help. They chose Garnet.’
‘They’ll regret that, if they don’t already.’
‘I can’t help that, either. I can’t march in there and — what, challenge him to a duel? They don’t want me!’
She sat near Crane, enjoying his proximity. She had missed him. The Macready – Delphine circus of fighting, making up and canoodling in corners was tiring to witness, and Rhian didn’t feel here even when she was physically present.
Velody missed Ashiol, too. However tense their relationship had been, there was the certainty of him and her, linked by the Creature Court. Part of her even missed Garnet — the man she had met in that other Tierce, the man she had brought home, if not the man he had become once he was here. There was an emptiness in Velody’s life where the Creature Court used to be, and no amount of dressmaking could fill it.
‘You’ve lost more than I have,’ she said to Crane.
He wasn’t wearing his steel sword. Macready didn’t, either, although they hadn’t given those up to Garnet. They belonged to another life, and were apparently best kept in the cupboard under the stairs.
Crane set his soup spoon down. ‘As long as you still have time for me.’
‘Always,’ she said. ‘Do you know what you’re going to do next?’
Macready had been working some shifts at the dockyards and would often disappear for days at a time. Velody was pretty sure he was drinking, though he worked hard to hide it from Delphine.
Crane hesitated. ‘I’ll think of something.’
‘Do you want to stay here? The nests don’t work any more.’
‘I know they don’t. Velody, I’m not your responsibility.’
‘Of course you are. Garnet can take away your swords, but he can’t take anything from me. Like my obligation to look after you, for example.’
‘Don’t you understand?’ Crane said in frustration. ‘I don’t want to be your obligation. I want …’
Oh. That. Velody tried not to react awkwardly, but her shoulders stiffened as she realised what he was trying to say.
Crane saw it, he had to, but he pressed on anyway. ‘I love you. I don’t expect you to feel the same — but that’s how I feel. I don’t want you to see me as some stray you have to feed and house. I want to be something better than that in your eyes.’
She reached out and touched his hair in the old way.
‘You can be anything you want,’ she said. ‘You’re free of it. This should be the beginning of your life, not the end.’
The Creature Court had given them nothing tangible. Just loss and danger and bloodshed. But this daylight life they had now seemed no better. None of them had the hang of it yet.
Crane nodded. ‘I’ll find something on my own. But thank you for the offer.’
The fact that she hadn’t responded to his declaration of love hung between them. But Velody couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it.
‘Thank you for the soup,’ Crane said finally, pushing the bowl away. ‘I’ll come by in a day or so, try to catch up with Macready. If that’s all right?’
Velody nodded. ‘You’re welcome here any time, Crane. I really have missed you.’
He smiled sadly. ‘That’s all right, then.’
Livilla had transformed herself into the princessa of the Haymarket quite successfully, with the lambs as her court. Topaz loved the fact that it was her own strength, her fire, that was protecting Livilla and the lambs from those who thought they could order them around.
From a position of power, Livilla had been benevolent, granting Garnet the Haymarket rooms below her own, on condition that no one came up to the balcony without her permission. She was, it turned out, the mistress of diplomacy, managing to preserve her own power without making Garnet look weak to the rest of them. Livilla evidently enjoyed everything that went along with being the Power and Majesty’s consort, and saw no reason to give that up.
Topaz was still figuring out what it meant to be a salamander. She’d never heard of them before. The other lambs loved to practise shaping and unshaping into their creatures, but none of them could do what she could — shape into one large creature or many small versions. They were all one or the other.
Livilla never answered when Topaz asked about it, just acted all mysterious. Topaz was starting to suspect that she didn’t have the faintest idea.
She stared at herself sometimes, when she was alone in the room she shared with Bree. There was a long mirror propped against one of the walls, with a crack in the corner. Topaz would stare at her body, trying to figure out how her firm, brown skin could change into all those lithe, scaly little legs and tongues. When she shaped herself small and then big, it felt so right that it filled her head with crazy-making joy. It was better than singing on the stage, better than clean sheets, better than the taste of ciocolata melting on her tongue.
Better than anything.
The lambs had all adapted to being in service to Livilla — it was just another role to play, and they got more rehearsal time than they were used to. Niloh and Zeb got into it most, bringing stolen food and other gifts from the city above in attempts to please their new mistress.
Topaz rarely went up above. Why should she? There was nothing up there but people and things. This was their home now. The lizard part of her liked it underground, the dark dampness of it all. She craved sunshine, but it was winter and there was hardly any to be had, so better to stay down here in the dark.
Seven days before the Kalends of Saturnalis, Niloh brought Livilla a flagon of hot coffee she’d pinched from a stall vendor while Zeb distracted him by pretending to steal a handful of chestnuts. Livilla smiled at both of them like they were sunshine and light. She allowed them to pour her a cup, then called Topaz over.
‘Take this to Garnet, with my compliments,’ she said in a low purr, handing Topaz the mostly full flagon.
It was always Topaz whom Livilla sent to Garnet with messages or gifts. Topaz reckoned she didn’t trust him not to snatch any of the other lambs and hand them straight over to the Orphan — to Poet.
There had been many gifts: many little tokens of food or drink. All props adding to the show that Livilla was subservient to the Power and Majesty, instead of holding him at bay with her powerful fire-lizard. There was no reason why this gift should be any different. But it was. Topaz could tell. She hadn’t seen Livilla add anything to the coffee, but there was a brightness in her eyes, an excitement that was out of place.
That was when Topaz knew she was being sent to Garnet as an assassin.
She carried the flagon carefully down the stairs, her feet heavy, and knocked on Garnet’s door before entering. Perhaps he would be asleep and then she wouldn’t have to …
‘Come in, little firetrap,’ he called in a merry voice.
Topaz kept her eyes mostly downcast as she entered the room. She glanced up briefly to see that Garnet was naked in bed, his skin shockingly pale against dark green sheets. A demme shared the bed with him, but she lay with her face to wall, body held stiffly as if she couldn’t wait to leave.
‘A gift from Lord Livilla,’ Topaz said politely.
She was a mask. She had always been a mask. She could act as if this were any other token of Livilla’s ‘respect’.
‘Another crumb from the table of our landlady,’ Garnet said in one of those voices men liked to use when they were pretending not to be as cruel as they were. ‘Is she not kindness itself, Kelpie?’
The woman in his bed shrugged one shoulder and said nothing.
‘Sit up, sentinel,’ Garnet said sharply.
Kelpie sat up. She didn’t look right. Something about her eyes. Topaz had seen beaten women before — the stagemaster in the place where she was before the Vittorina Royale had been a right bastard to the columbines, leaving them blue and streaky all over when he was in a drinking mood. The sentinel had that look, though there wasn’t a mark on her.
Garnet took the flagon. Topaz couldn’t help wondering how it would happen, what it was, how fast it would be.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Cups, woman.’
Kelpie slipped out of the bed, looking more uncomfortable with her nakedness than anyone around here ever did. She found a cup and returned to the bed with it. Garnet poured for himself with great ceremony, eyes on Topaz.
‘My mother always made the best coffee,’ he said conversationally. ‘She was a cook, you know. Head cook of a fine manor house. The Baronne himself said she was a saint in the kitchen. He liked to start his day with a small cup of coffee prepared by her hands. There’s something about that smell, the way it infuses a kitchen.’
He handed the cup to Kelpie without looking at her. ‘Drink.’
I am a mask, I am a mask, I am a mask. Topaz didn’t want this. She had no problem with offing this vicious cove, but how could she let a demme, another of his victims, die from it?
Garnet smiled, and Topaz knew then that she had failed, she had let something slip. Her face had given it away.
‘Now,’ he commanded.
Kelpie looked at the cup and then up at Topaz, and oh saints and devils, she knew, too. She knew there was something about that cup. Quick as a ferax, she threw the contents down her throat, swallowing hard.
Topaz wanted to scream, but it was all too fast. She bobbed her head, taking her leave.
‘Wait,’ Garnet said in a low, threatening voice.
Kelpie was shaking, and at first Topaz thought it was fear, but then her face twisted up into an ugly mess and she fell to the ground.
Topaz ran. She ran and ran, feet pounding up the stairs. She was so scared she changed into salamanders halfway up, leaving her dress behind as she scampered up the balcony and into her room where she slid miserably under the covers, shaking and shuddering more wildly than Kelpie had.
She was a murderer.
Eventually she changed back, and cried so hard she almost threw up her guts onto the pillow.
Livilla came later, her hand stroking Topaz’s short hair. ‘Is it done?’ she asked quietly.
Topaz hated her and loved her all at once. She shook her head tightly. ‘He gave it to —’ and then she was crying again, so hard she could barely breathe.
‘Ah,’ Livilla said, sounding mildly regretful, ‘he doesn’t trust me yet. That’s worth knowing.’
She patted Topaz as if she were a well-behaved pet and went away again, the smell of perfumed smoke lingering in the air.