‘Is it growing?’ he said after a while.
‘We go down to the border of it twice a year,’ she said quietly. ‘All together, our strongest and our brightest and our bravest, and we burn back the growth and we sow the soil with salt. Marin, gods love him, even brings his priest friends with him and they say blessings over the ground.’ She sighed. ‘But still it advances, every year.’
‘It’s dead though,’ said Bernhart. ‘It’s a dead thing, nothing inside it could be alive now.’ He paused, and Vintage wondered if this was what his mother had told him, perhaps after he’d had a particularly bad nightmare. The House wasn’t close to the Wild section of the forest, but it was apparently close enough for bad dreams. ‘It’s just the broken shell of a Behemoth. Why does it make the forest –’ He stopped, struggling for the right word. ‘Why does it make the forest bad?’
‘It attracts parasite spirits,’ said Vintage. She slipped the seeing-glass from her belt and held it to her eye. The ruined section of forest suddenly loomed closer, and she frowned as she looked over the blackened branches and the shifting mists. ‘It’s long dead, Bernhart. Just the empty husk of a Jure’lia ship and that in pieces, but it’s like a corpse attracting flies. The parasite spirits are drawn to it. If we knew why, or how, or what they really are . . .’ She lowered the seeing-glass and bit her lip. ‘I have always wanted to find out more about them, and what their connection is to the worm people. So little has been written about the Jure’lia, and gods know the Eborans have always been tight-lipped about their periodic scraps with them. All we have left are the remains of their Behemoths, and a lot of very unpleasant stories. If only Eborans were a little more . . . gregarious. But of course these days they have no time for humans at all.’ She pursed her lips as a face from the past rose up unbidden in her mind – eyes like dried blood, a sardonic smile, and the memory of her hands. Her touch had always been so warm. With difficulty she dragged her mind away from the pleasant memory.
‘You must have every book written about it, m’lady. About the Wild, and the worm people, and the parasite spirits,’ said Bernhart. ‘In your library, I mean.’
Vintage smiled and briefly cupped her hand to the boy’s face. Her fingers were a deep brown against his white cheek.
‘There are bigger libraries than mine, Bernhart. And I suspect that what I want to know won’t be found in one. In fact—’
They felt it as much as heard it; a low rumble that vibrated uncomfortably in their chests. Vintage looked back at the Wild part of the forest, half unwillingly. In the darkest part the canopy was trembling, blackened leaves rustling. It shouldn’t have been possible for her to hear it from this distance, but she heard it all the same: a dry empty sound like the hissing of water across arid ground. A translucent shape, a deep dirty-yellow colour, briefly pushed its way up between the upper branches of the trees. It had multiple fronds that carried strange white lights at the ends, and darker stippled marks across its back. The parasite spirit twisted in the air for a moment, its fronds reaching out blindly to the bright sky above, and then it sank back out of sight. Its odd rumbling cry sank with it.
‘Gods be damned, that hardly seems like a good omen.’ Vintage looked at the boy, and saw that he was standing very still, his eyes wide. The blush of colour on his cheeks had vanished. Gently, she patted his shoulder, and he jumped as though he’d been dreaming. ‘You know, I have a good mind to tan Ezion’s hide for sending you out here by yourself. Come on, Bernhart, let us get you home. I’ll have Cook make you some honey pastries.’
They were gathered in the dining room, the best silver and porcelain laid out on the vine-wood table, as if they were waiting for the Emperor himself to drop by for a currant bun. Vintage’s family were wearing their best silks and satins, despite the heat. Vintage took a particular pleasure in watching their faces as she trooped up to the table, letting her solid boots sound noisily against the polished floor. She snatched off her hat and threw it on the table, her eyes already scanning the dishes the staff had laid out for supper. Just behind her, Bernhart loitered in the doorway, technically dismissed but reluctant to leave what might prove to be the scene of an argument.
‘Is there any of the good cheese left?’ she asked, dragging a plate towards her with dusty fingers. ‘The one with the berries in?’
‘Sister.’ Ezion stood up slowly. He wore a deep blue silk jacket and a starched shirt collar, and his dark eyes were bright with impatience. ‘I am glad to see you’ve returned to us. Perhaps you’d like to change for dinner?’
Vintage glanced around the table. Carla, Ezion’s wife, met her eyes and gave her a look of barely restrained glee, and Vintage tipped her a wink. The woman was heavily pregnant again, her rounded belly straining at her exquisitely tailored dress, while Vintage’s various nieces and nephews made a clatter of their cutlery and plates.
‘I do believe I am fine as I am, Ezi.’ She reached over and made a point of picking up one of the tiny pastries with her fingers, sticking out her little finger as she did so as though she held a fine porcelain cup. ‘What were you thinking, exactly, by sending Bernhart out into the vines by himself?’
Ezion was frowning openly now. ‘He is a servant, Vincenza. I was thinking that it is his job to do such things.’
Vintage frowned back at him, and, turning back to the door, held the tiny pastry out to the waiting boy. ‘Here, Bernhart, take this and get on with your day. I’m sure you’ve arrows you could be fletching.’
Bernhart gave her a conflicted look, as though the brewing argument might interest him more than the cake, but in the end cream won out. He took the pastry from her fingers and left, decorously closing the door behind him.
‘The boy will maintain the vines for us one day, it is his job to be out there, Vincenza, as well you know. If we don’t—’
‘The Wild is spreading.’ She cut him off. ‘And we saw a parasite spirit today, rising up above the canopy. It was very large indeed.’
For a few moments Ezion said nothing. His children were all watching them now, with wide eyes. They had grown up with tales of the tainted forest, although it wasn’t something often discussed over dinner.
‘It is contained,’ he said eventually, his voice carefully even. ‘It is watched. There is nothing to be concerned about. This is why you should stay at the House and not go gallivanting around the forest. You have got yourself all agitated.’
Vintage felt a wild stab of anger at that, but Carla was speaking.