*
It was a small village, so it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did to find the little house on the outskirts, but finally we did find it. We stood outside a tiny tailor’s shop, supported on two sides by crooked trees.
‘I don’t get it,’ Brasti said. ‘What good is a tailor going to be?’
Kest answered for me. ‘Have you ever in your entire life heard of a tailor’s shop in a village this size? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Then what do you—? No – you don’t think …?’
A cackling voice broke the silence. ‘Well now, ain’t you just about the sorriest-looking pack of half-dead rabbits I’ve ever seen?’
Though it had been only a few weeks since I’d last seen her, I found the sight of the Tailor strange to behold. She was her usual dishevelled and disreputable-looking self, and yet there was something changed in her bearing.
‘Mattea!’ Aline shouted, and ran two steps towards the Tailor. Then she stopped abruptly, as if she too could tell there was something was different about the old woman.
‘Come on then, girl,’ the Tailor said, one eyebrow raised. ‘I don’t have all day.’
Aline tentatively took a half-step backwards and curtseyed.
‘Hah,’ the Tailor shouted. ‘Did you see that? She curtseyed at me like I’m some fine, high-born lady!’
The Tailor came over, took Aline by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘Nobody bows before a Tailor, do you hear me, girl? Nobody. The Tailor’s much too important for bows and curtsies and pleases and thank-thees and all your other fine claptrap.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Aline said.
‘And we don’t take to no “ma’ms” either.’ Then her gaze softened. ‘Ah, child, there’s no need for this shyness now, is there? I’m still your old nanny Mattea underneath it all, aren’t I?’
‘You’re scaring her,’ Brasti said.
The Tailor rose and her mouth twitched, but then she sighed. ‘Aye, I am at that. I suppose the time for pretend is past.’ The old woman turned. ‘Come, sit down here at the table, all of you. I’ll give you food and drink. We have a little time, though not much.’
She ushered us into the shop and motioned for us to take seats around her large sewing table.
‘How—?’ I asked, my mind struggling to put together how we could all be meeting here, at this place. ‘How is it possible that you’re here? Right here? In a village we had no reason to ever come to?’
The Tailor brought out a plate of cheese and bread and favoured me with that twisted smile of hers. ‘You had every reason to be here, boy. You followed the strands of your life and they led you here, from Paelis’ foolish quest to Tremondi’s death and through that bitch Patriana’s machinations: all of it pulled you here, and a good Tailor knows where every thread leads.’
Then she grabbed the collar of Kest’s coat roughly. ‘And what in the name of every hells-bound Saint have you been doing with my coats?’ she demanded. ‘Take those damned things off and get in here.’
‘There’s a small army down the road,’ I said, ‘and another one coming up behind us.’
‘Quiet, boy. I know where they are, just as I know where you are, where you’ve been and where you’re going. I know where every thread in the coat travels and I’m too old to listen to you tell me your tales at your slow, sorry pace. Now, give me your coats. They ain’t much use to you in the state you’ve got ’em.’
We took off our greatcoats and handed them over to her and she began examining them, talking all the while. ‘Cheveran, eh, Falcio? Bloody piss-rain there, full of Gods knows what mixing with the mill-fumes. Burn holes into your clothes if you’re not careful, but not these coats, not my pretty ones.’
She turned over my coat and then picked up Brasti’s and gave it a sniff. ‘Damn, boy, can’t you take off your clothes before you rut?’
The Tailor didn’t give him time to answer but instead went back to looking at every patch, every stain, every thread of our greatcoats, muttering as she went.
‘Well, that’s it, then,’ she said at last.
‘Can you mend them?’ I asked. I realised I had been hoping as she scrutinised them that she might actually repair a few of the frayed edges of my coat.
She froze then, just for a second, then she looked at me and her face was scrunched up and I thought she was going to sneeze or spasm, but she just burst out laughing. ‘Can I mend them? Can I mend them? Saints alive and dead, Falcio, may all the Gods who never were bless your name and send me a thousand more like you.’
She dropped the coats on the table and clapped her hands together. ‘Here he is, the most completely buggered man in the whole world, with an army on one side of him and an army on t’other, with no way to run, nowhere to hide, no chance at fighting and no idea what he’s fighting for. The fate of the entire world is resting square on his shoulders and there’s not a saviour in sight – and the first thing he asks me is if I can mend his holes in his greatcoat, thank-you-please!’
The others were laughing too, but I didn’t find it nearly as funny.
She kept chuckling and snorting and clapping her hands together. Finally she said, ‘Ah, if for no other reason than this, Falcio val Mond of Pertine, you have the gratitude of a Tailor.’
I wondered if perhaps that came with an army attached to it, but I thought better of asking. Instead, I asked, ‘Can you tell us anything about the other Magisters? Have you seen any of them? Has anyone found the King’s Charoites?’
‘Aye, all of ’em, and aye, one of ’em,’ she said. ‘But I won’t tell you more, and I won’t mend your coat, but I will give you this.’
She went to a cupboard at the back of the shop and brought out a large bundle tied with reeds. She dropped the bundle on the table and pulled the reeds apart and, even after all those years and the hells we’d been through, the sight still took my breath away.
There were greatcoats there on the table, new and perfect, and each one bearing the crests that Brasti’s, Kest’s and mine had borne.
‘How is this possible?’ Kest asked. ‘How could you know we would come here? Tailor, why did you come to this village?’
‘I told you,’ she said. ‘A Tailor must know where every thread starts and where every thread ends up.’
Kest and Brasti picked up their coats, and then I took mine, the last in the pile. Only it wasn’t; there was something underneath. Another greatcoat, a little smaller than ours, made of the same dark brown leather. The inlay on the right breast panel was rich purple: it was a bird, rising from the ashes.
‘You can’t be serious – you can’t think that— Aline? A Greatcoat?’
Aline came forward and examined the coat. She ran her palm along the smooth surface of the leather, then reluctantly pulled it back before shaking her head. ‘It’s not for me,’ she said, and then she pointed at Valiana. ‘It’s for her.’
Valiana stood from her chair and her eyes flitted from the coat to me, and back again. ‘But I don’t— I mean – I don’t know what this means.’
‘What’s your name, girl?’ the Tailor asked.
‘I’ve been called Valiana of Hervor,’ she said, sounding doubtful.
‘No, that ain’t your name. And you know that now, right?’
She nodded, slowly.
‘You hate the Duchess, and that’s fair, but I’ll tell you this: if the old hag hadn’t taken care of your real mamma while you were in the womb, she never would have carried you to term. She was a poor woman, your ma, and not a healthy one at that.’
‘I was never meant to live,’ Valiana whispered.
‘That’s right. You weren’t meant to live then, and you ain’t meant to live now.’
‘What—?’ I began.
‘Now you just shut your fool mouth, Falcio.’ She waved me aside. ‘Truth be told, girl, you ain’t got no place in this world. I know the weave of things, and you ain’t meant for nothing but the blade of a Knight’s sword across your belly. But the world needs a few good shocks now and then, so let’s make the best of it.’
She held out the coat to Valiana. ‘Now, you’re goin’ to need a new name, and you’re goin’ to have to pick it for yourself. In this world people don’t have to make themselves up; they have parents who tell them what their name is, what they believe, what they are – but you don’t have that, so you’re goin’ to have to find it all out yourself. But for a start, you’ve got this.’ The Tailor held open the coat and Valiana slipped her arms in. It fit her as if she’d been born into it.
‘But I can’t be one of— I’m not qualified or trained or …’
‘Says who?’ the Tailor asked. ‘You’ve studied the laws, King’s and Dukes’ alike, haven’t you?’
‘I had to, to prepare for—’
‘And I’ll bet Hervor had you take sword lessons just to make sure her little vixen could be there with you to learn how to stick the pointy end in someone’s back.’
‘Yes, but I was never all that good at it.’
The Tailor chuckled. ‘Well, neither are these three, and they do all right on occasion. Don’t worry, girl. Being a Greatcoat isn’t just about judgin’ and ridin’ and swingin’ a sword, no matter what these fools tell you.’
She straightened the lapel of Valiana’s greatcoat. ‘But that’s for later. For now, you’ve got to take the oath.’
‘What oath?’ Valiana asked.
‘Well now, if it was just as easy as someone telling you what to say, then it wouldn’t be much of an oath, would it?’
Valiana looked around at us. ‘I don’t understand – do you want me to swear fealty to the Greatcoats? Or the King’s memory? Or some Saint?’
‘Is that what you believe in? What you want to die for? Cos, make no mistake, girl, the end of this road is a shallow, dirty ditch with your corpse in it.’
Valiana looked into the Tailor’s eyes for a moment, then looked away. ‘No,’ she said softly, ‘I don’t … disbelieve in those things, but then, I don’t know what it means to believe in anything, really. My life was always about me, and so was everyone else’s life around me, too. I don’t even know what I should care about. I never made a promise to anyone else, except—’
She looked at Aline, who was sitting down on a stool, looking at her hands.
‘—you,’ she said. ‘I promised you I’d protect you, didn’t I?’
Aline nodded and sniffed a little.
Valiana looked to the Tailor. ‘Is that—?’
The Tailor put a hand on her face and then gave her a light, almost affectionate slap. ‘No one can tell you but yourself. That’s what being free means – not the right to do whatever you want, but the right to take a stand and say what you’ll die for.’
Valiana stood motionless for a moment and then knelt before Aline and took her hand. ‘Listen, I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know who I am or how long I have to live. I thought I was the most important girl in the world and now it turns out I’m worth nothing, not even the coat on my back. I’m not innocent – I know that now. Just being ignorant doesn’t mean I’m free of guilt. But you are. You didn’t do anything wrong, and now people are coming to – well, they’re coming to do bad things. And you didn’t do anything wrong. You should have the right to live and figure out who you want to be. I’m not strong, and I don’t know how to use a sword, not really anyway. But I think – I think I can be brave, or I can try, at least. I think that if someone tries to kill you I could … I don’t know, put myself in front of you. I don’t know how well I can fight, or run, or judge, but when the blade comes, I swear on whatever they want me to swear on, I’ll stop it, with my body if nothing else.’
I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t. There was a heaviness in the room as we all stood there and listened to Valiana’s quiet tears.
I don’t know how long we waited like that before Valiana looked around to the Tailor, who nodded at her, just once.