Satisfied that the bloodhollow was undamaged, Isabelle said quietly, “Dress yourself. Gather my paints.”
Marie moved off to do as she was told. For twelve years, nearly half the span of her life, Marie had padded silently after Isabelle, fetched and carried and performed other small tasks. It was not her fault that she also acted as a lens through which Father could spy on Isabelle. In return, Isabelle attended all of Marie’s needs, examining her from crown to toe every morning and evening, keeping her fed, watered, cleaned, and clothed.
It was a strange sort of symbiosis they had, each one tending the other, spending energy in a downward, inward, self-negating spiral. Effort that should have been spent exploring the world and unlocking the secrets of the universe, or tending an estate, or raising a family, was instead spent tilling dust on barren ground.
Yet Isabelle could not quit. An untended bloodhollow would not care for itself. Without Isabelle’s attention, the revenant that had been her friend would collect wounds, rot, and fall apart, if she didn’t starve to death first. Even if Isabelle could have borne the thought of such a fatal indignity heaped upon Marie, the notion of being trailed around by a putrefying near-corpse held no appeal. Nor could she put Marie out of her misery, for fear that her father would murder some other innocent soul to replace her.
Not that he had any obvious targets. After news of what he had done to Marie got around, Isabelle had become social poison. No one would allow their daughter to associate with her for fear of being next. Even the servants preferred to leave her meals outside her door, knock once, and run away.
This suited Isabelle well enough. Talking to people was risky. You never knew what they really meant with their words. Even if they weren’t lying, even if they’d learned to speak precisely, you could never tell who they were going to talk to next. The bookbinder you confided in today might need a favor from your father tomorrow; best not to talk to him, lest some unguarded word slip and be carried off like an uncrewed skyship to disaster and ruin.
As time went on, she’d grown more comfortable with silence and solitude. She frequently went months without talking to anyone save Marie, who hardly counted, and Jean-Claude. Ever since the day her father hollowed out Marie, Jean-Claude had made it his habit to cross Isabelle’s path at least twice a day. He was father and friend to her, bringing her gossip of the town and news of the world. He kept her from going mad, or at least any madder than she already was.
She hardly missed other people at all. Hardly. Most days.
Today, however, she meant to receive a guest, a mathematician from Brathon. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to speak much, just “Hello and thanks for coming,” polite formalities devoid of significance or dangerous connotation. Then she could sit and listen to his lecture.
Isabelle pulled the cover off her mirror and took stock of her appearance. She didn’t have the resources to waste on finery, so the best she could say about her clothing was that it was well preserved. There were no stains on her somewhat dowdy bodice nor rips in her pleated sleeves. She’d long since clipped her hair short for convenience and comfort, but her long, curly white wig was full of bounce and devoid of lice.
She pinned on a thin demi-veil, just long enough to shade her eyes, as a nod to her noble status. A deep-throated glove fitted with adjustable wooden fingers disguised her wormfinger. Alas, there was not much she could do with her face. It was too long and lean for the current fashion and sported a nose like a rudder. At least she didn’t have boils.
As soon as Marie had gathered her things, Isabelle pulled herself up, hefted her tripod easel over one shoulder, and faced the exit. By Temple order, the certificate declaring her officially unhallowed, signed by Hormougant Sleith and stamped with his seal, hung by the door for all to see. It was something on the order of an anti-diploma, a formal declaration of complete unworthiness and abject failure. She tried not to let it disturb her, but it was always there, an indelible mark of shame. It put her in mind of a sailor receiving his hundredth lash. What did his tormentor imagine the last blow would teach him that the first ninety-nine had not?
She took a deep breath for courage and pushed out into the world. The morning had dawned fine and clear, not too cold for the month of Thawing, with a brilliant blue-white sky. It almost made her wish she could hit the footpath, turn right, and head for the Oreamnos Hills to paint skyscapes or dig into the collection of books on empirical philosophy, history, and mathematics she had cached in an old mine shaft.
Instead, she turned left and descended into Windfall. She walked swiftly and without stopping, long legs striding out. Marie almost had to trot to keep up. Townsfolk saw her coming and paused in their business to point and whisper in each other’s ears. Isabelle had no desire whatever to know what lies they were telling about her. She’d given that up after being apprised of the widely held belief that she’d asked for Marie to be hollowed out as a favor, so she could have a bloodhollow servant like a proper Sanguinaire.
That lie had shattered Isabelle in part because it lay so close to the truth. Isabelle had chosen for her friend to be destroyed. Or at least she had said yes, even if she hadn’t known what she was assenting to, even if the result would have surely been the same if she said no.
Isabelle plowed through that bitter memory and mounted the steps to the town forum, a colonnaded square topped by a tiled roof. There a small group of well-dressed men had gathered, but neither Jean-Claude nor her esteemed guest was amongst them.
She turned her back on the gathering and erected her easel facing the distant harbor.
“Set up here,” she said to Marie, who proceeded to assemble the rest of her kit before retreating to the shadow of one grooved column to stare into the middle distance.
Isabelle adjusted a spyglass to focus on the harbor, looking to frame a painting.
There were three Célestial warships in the harbor today, and not the first set she’d seen lately. Jean-Claude had told her war was on the horizon, and the Imperial Navy was taking on supplies at every port, even one so remote as this. So thoroughly had the navy looted the town that the mayor had dared petition the comte to open his private warehouses to relieve the famine.
The comte, of course, had refused. “If your ranks have grown so great that you cannot feed them, then a culling is in order. Begin first with the sick and the old, and then with the very young. Give to the sky those who do not carry their own measure, and you will find there is plenty for those who remain.”