Seraphina: A Novel Part 23

He said: "... time to mull it over, and I am no longer afraid. I am sickened that you inherited her collapsing house of deceit, and that instead of tearing it down, I sh.o.r.ed it up with more deceit. What price must be paid is mine to pay. If you are afraid on your own behalf, fair enough, but do not fear for me-"

Then he was shaking my shoulder lightly. "Seraphina. We're home."

I threw my arms around him. He lifted me down and led me through the lighted doorway.

The next morning, I lay a long time, staring at the ceiling of my old room, wondering whether I'd imagined most of what he'd said. That didn't sound like a conversation I could have had with my father, even if we'd both been drunk as lords.

The sun was obnoxiously bright and my mouth tasted like death, but I didn't feel bad otherwise. I peeked at my garden, which I'd neglected last night, but everyone was peaceful; even Fruit Bat was up a tree, not demanding my attention. I rose and dressed in an old gown I found in my wardrobe; the scarlet I'd arrived in was too fine for everyday. I descended to the kitchen. Laughter and the smell of morning bread drifted toward me up the corridor. I paused, my hand upon the kitchen door, discerning their voices one by one, dreading to step into that warm room and freeze it up.

I took a deep breath and opened the door. For the merest moment, before my presence was noticed, I drank in the cozy domestic scene: the roaring hearth, the three fine bluestone platters hung above the mantelpiece, little window altars to St. Loola and St. Yane and a new one to St. Abaster, hanging herbs and strings of onions. My stepmother, up to her elbows in the kneading trough, looked up at the sound of the door and paled. At the heavy kitchen table, Tessie and Jeanne, the twins, had been peeling apples; they froze, silent and staring, Tessie with a length of peel dangling from her mouth like a green tongue. My little half brothers, Paul and Ned, looked to their mother uncertainly.

I was a stranger in this family. I always had been.

Anne-Marie wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n and tried to smile. "Seraphina. Welcome. If you're looking for your father, he's already left for the palace." Her brow crumpled in confusion. "You came from there? You'd have pa.s.sed him on the way."

I could not remember anyone meeting us at the door last night, now that I thought of it. Had my father sneaked me into the house and upstairs without telling her? That sounded more like Papa than a conversation about love, lies, and fear.

I tried to smile. It was an unspoken covenant with my stepmother: we both tried. "I-in fact, I'm home to retrieve something. From my, uh, room. That I forgot to take with me, and need."

Anne-Marie nodded eagerly. Yes, yes, good. The awkward stepdaughter was leaving soon. "Please, go on up. This is still your house."

I drifted back upstairs, lightly dazed, wishing I had told her the truth, because what was I going to do for breakfast now? Astonishingly, my coin purse had made the whole journey and wasn't languishing on the floor of Millie's room. I'd buy myself a bun somewhere, or ... my heart leaped. I could see Orma! He had hoped I'd come see him today. That was a plan, at least. I would surprise Orma before he disappeared for good.

I pushed that latter thought aside.

I packed the scarlet gown carefully into a satchel and made up the bed. I could never fluff the tick like Anne-Marie; she was going to figure out that I'd slept here. Ah, well, let her. It was Papa's to explain.

Anne-Marie required no farewells. She knew what I was, and it seemed to put her at ease when I behaved like a thoughtless saar. I opened the front door ready to head into the snowy city when there came a pattering of slippered feet behind me. I turned to see my half sisters rushing up. "Did you find what you came for?" asked Jeanne, her pale brow wrinkled in concern. "Because Papa said to give you this."

Tessie brandished a long, slender box in one hand, a folded letter in the other.

"Thanks." I put both in my satchel, suspecting I should view them in privacy.

They bit their lips in exactly the same way, even though they weren't identical. Jeanne's hair was the color of clover honey; Tessie had Papa's dark locks, like me. I said, "You turn eleven in a few months, do you not? Would you-would you like to come see the palace for your birthday? If it's all right with your mother, I mean."

They nodded, shy of me.

"All right then. I'll arrange it. You could meet the princesses." They didn't answer, and I could think of nothing more to say. I'd tried. I waved a feeble farewell and fled through the snowy streets to my uncle's.

Orma's apartment was a single room above a mapmaker's, nearer to my father's house than St. Ida's, so I checked there first. Basind answered the door but had no idea where my uncle had gone. "If I knew, I'd be there with him," he explained, his voice like sand in my stockings. He gazed into s.p.a.ce, tugging a hangnail with his teeth, while I left a message. I had no confidence it would be delivered.

Anxiety hastened my feet toward St. Ida's.

The streets were jammed full of people out for the Golden Plays. I considered walking down by the river, which was less crowded, but I hadn't dressed warmly enough. The crush in the streets stopped the wind, at least. There were large charcoal braziers set every block or so to keep playgoers from freezing; I took advantage of these when I could wedge myself close enough.

I had not intended to watch the plays, but it was hard not to pause at the sight of a giant, fire-belching head of St. Vitt outside the Guild of Gla.s.sblowers' warehouse. A blazing tongue ten yards long roared forth; everyone shrieked. St. Vitt caught his own eyebrows on fire-unintentionally, but Heavens, was he fierce with his brow aflame!

"St. Vitt, snort and spit!" chanted the crowd.

St. Vitt had not been possessed of such draconian talents in life, of course. It was a metaphor for his fiery temper or for his judgment upon unbelievers. Or, as likely as not, somebody at the Guild of Gla.s.sblowers had awakened in the middle of the night with the most fantastic idea ever, never mind that it was theologically questionable.

The Golden Plays stretched the hagiographies all round because the fact was, no one really knew. The Lives of the Saints contained many contradictions; the psalter's poems made things no clearer, and then there was the statuary. St. Polypous in the Lives had three legs, for example, but country shrines showed as many as twenty. At our cathedral, St. Gobnait had a hive of blessed bees; at South Forkey, she was famously depicted as a bee, big as a cow, with a stinger as long as your forearm. My subst.i.tute patroness, St. Capiti, usually carried her severed head on a plate, but in some tales her head had tiny legs of its own and skittered around independently, scolding people.

Delving deeper into the truth, of course, my psalter had originally coughed up St. Yirtrudis. I had never seen her without her face blacked out or her head smashed to plaster dust, so surely she had been the most terrible Saint of all.

I kept moving, past St. Loola's apple and St. Kathanda's colossal merganser, past St. Ogdo slaying dragons and St. Yane getting up to his usual shenanigans, which often involved impregnating entire villages. I pa.s.sed vendors of chestnuts, pasties, and pie, which made my stomach rumble. I heard music ahead: syrinx, oud, and drum, a peculiarly Porphyrian combination. Above the heads of the crowd, I made out the upper stories of a pyramid of acrobats, Porphyrians, by the look of them, and ...

No, not acrobats. Pygegyria dancers. The one at the top looked like Fruit Bat.

I meant Abdo. Sweet St. Siucre. It was Abdo, in loose trousers of green sateen, his bare arms snaking sinuously against the winter sky.

He'd been here all along, trying to find me, and I'd been putting him off.

I was still staring at the dancers, openmouthed, when someone grabbed my arm. I startled and cried out.

"Hush. Walk," muttered Orma's voice in my ear. "I haven't much time. I gave Basind the slip; I'm not confident I can do it again. I suspect the emba.s.sy is paying him to watch me."

He still held my arm; I covered his hand with my own. The crowd flowed around us like a river around an island. "I learned something new about Imlann from one of my maternal memories," I told him. "Can we find a quieter place to talk?"

He dropped my arm and ducked up an alley; I followed him through a brick-walled maze of barrels and stacked firewood and up the steps of a little shrine to St. Clare. I balked when I saw her-thinking of Kiggs, feeling her dyspeptic glare as criticism-but I kissed my knuckle respectfully and focused on my uncle.

His false beard had gone missing or he hadn't bothered with it. He had deep creases beside his mouth, which made him look unexpectedly old. "Quickly," he said. "If I hadn't spotted you, I'd have disappeared by now."

I took a shaky breath; I'd come so close to missing him. "Your sister once overheard Imlann consorting with a cabal of treasonous generals, about a dozen in all. One of them, General Akara, was instrumental in getting the Goreddi knights banished."

"Akara is a familiar name," said Orma. "He was caught, but the Ardmagar had his brain pruned too close to the stem; he lost most of his ability to function."

"Does the Queen know?" I asked, shocked. "The knights were banished under false pretenses, but nothing has been done to correct this!"

My uncle shrugged. "I doubt Comonot disapproved of that consequence."

Alas, I believed that; Comonot's rules were applied inconsistently. I said, "If the cabal could infiltrate the knights, they really could be anywhere."

Orma stared at St. Clare, pondering. "They couldn't be quite anywhere, not easily. There would be a danger of law-abiding dragons sniffing them out at court. They could count on there being no other dragons present among the knights."

It hit me then, what Imlann might have been doing. "What if your father has been observing the knights? He might have burned their barn and shown himself as a final a.s.sessment of their capabilities."

"A final a.s.sessment?" Orma sat down impiously on the altar, deep in thought. "Meaning Akara didn't just have the knights banished for vengeance? Meaning this cabal has been deliberately working toward the extinction of the dracomachia?"

There was one clear implication of this; we both knew what it was. My eyes asked the question, but Orma was already shaking his head in denial.

"The peace is not a ruse," he said. "It is not some ploy to lull Goredd into false complacency until such time as dragonkind regains a clear superiority of-"

"Of course not," I said quickly. "At least, Comonot did not intend it that way. I believe that, but is it possible that his generals only pretended to agree to it, all the while making St. Polypous's sign behind their backs-so to speak?"

Orma fingered the coins in the offering bowl on the altar, letting the copper pieces dribble through his fingers like water. "Then they have gravely miscalculated," he said. "While they sat around waiting for the knights to grow old, a younger generation has been raised on peaceful ideals, scholarship, and cooperation."

"What if the Ardmagar were dead? If whoever took his place wanted war? Would this cabal need you and your agemates? Couldn't they fight a war without you, especially if there were no dracomachia against them?"

Orma rattled coins in his hand and did not answer.

"Would the younger generation stand against the elder, if it came to it?" I pressed on, remembering the two saarantrai in the dining hall. I was being hard on him, but this was a crucial point. "Can the current batch of scholars and diplomats even fight?"

He recoiled as if he'd heard that accusation before. "Forgive me," I said, "but if war is brewing in the hearts of the old generals, your generation may have some painful decisions to make."

"Generation against generation? Dragon against dragon? Sounds treasonous to me," said a grating voice behind me. I turned to see Basind mounting the steps of the shrine. "What are you doing here, Orma? Not offering devotions to St. Clare, surely?"

"Waiting for you," said Orma lightly. "I only wonder that it took you so long."

"Your wench led me here," said Basind greasily. If he was hoping to get a reaction from Orma, he was disappointed. Orma's face remained completely empty. "I could report you," said the newskin. "You're having trysts in roadside shrines."

"Do," said Orma, waving a dismissive hand. "Be off. Scamper and report."

Basind looked uncertain how to respond to this bravado. He pushed his limp hair out of his eyes and sniffed. "I'm charged with seeing you report to the surgeons in time."

"I gathered that," said Orma. "But you will recall that my niece-yes, my niece, daughter of my nameless sister-wished to bid me farewell, and wished to do so in private. She is half human, after all, and it pains her that I will not recognize her when I see her again. If you would but give us a few more minutes-"

"I do not intend to take my eyes off you again." Basind bugged his eyes to underscore the point.

Orma shrugged, looking resigned. "If you can endure human blubbering, you have a stronger stomach than most."

My uncle shot me a sharp look, and for once we were in perfect understanding. I began to wail noisily, giving it everything I had. I howled like a banshee, like a gale down the mountainside. I bawled like a colicky baby. I expected Basind to stubbornly stand his ground-this seemed a very silly way to drive him off-but he recoiled in revulsion, saying, "I will stand guard just outside."

"As you wish," said my uncle. He watched until Basind had turned his back to us, then closed in, speaking directly into my ear: "Continue to wail, as long as you can."

I looked at him, sorrowing in earnest, unable to say any words of parting because I had to expend all my breath on loud crying. Without a backward glance, Orma ducked behind the altar and out of sight. There must have been a crypt under the shrine, as sometimes happened; the crypt would surely connect with the great warren of tunnels under the city.

I wailed, for real and for true, staring down St. Clare, beating on the hem of her robe with my fist until I was hoa.r.s.e and coughing. Basind glanced back, then looked again, startled. I could not let him work out where Orma had gone. I looked past Basind, over his shoulder, pretending to see my uncle's face in the shuttered alley windows behind him, and I cried, "Orma! Run!"

Basind whirled, perplexed at how Orma could have reached the alley without his seeing. I rushed him, shoving him into a pile of firewood, causing a little avalanche of logs. I took off running as fast as I could. He recovered far more quickly than antic.i.p.ated, his flat-footed gait echoing behind me, his silver bell ringing out a warning.

I wasn't much of a runner; each step seemed to drive a spike into my knees, and the hem of my gown, sodden with dirty snow, clung to my ankles, nearly tripping me. I ducked left and jogged right, sliding on b.l.o.o.d.y ice behind a butcher's. I climbed a ladder onto someone's work shed, hoisted it up after myself, and used it to climb down the other side. That struck me as clever until I saw Basind's hands grip the far edge of the roof. He was strong enough to pull himself up; that was unexpected. I jumped off the ladder and crash-landed, causing a ruckus among the chickens in someone's little yard. I sprinted through the gate into yet another alley. I turned north, then north again, making for the crowded river road. Surely the crowd would stop Basind-not just slow him down, but restrain him. No Goreddi could stand idly by while a saarantras chased one of their own.

Basind's breath rasped close by my neck; his hand hit my swinging satchel but couldn't quite get a grip on it. I burst out of the alley into bright sunlight. People scattered before me, crying out in surprise. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but what I saw then stopped me short. I heard Basind stop running at almost the same moment, arrested by exactly the same sight-we'd emerged in the middle of a cl.u.s.ter of men in black-feathered caps: the Sons of St. Ogdo.

I did the first thing that occurred to me. I pointed at Basind and cried: "He's trying to hurt me!"

It's possible he was; I'm certain he looked guilty, chasing me out of an alley like that; and I knew, in my heart, that I was maligning one dragon to save another. But I should never have said such a thing, not to the Sons of St. Ogdo, who needed little enough excuse to harm a saar.

They mobbed him, slamming him up against the side of a building, and I knew I had started something far larger than I had intended. There must have been forty Sons in this cl.u.s.ter alone; their numbers were growing daily, with the Ardmagar here.

My eyes met those of one of the Sons, and with a shock, I recognized the Earl of Apsig.

He was disguised-homespun clothes, a cobbler's ap.r.o.n, a squashed hat holding his black feather-but nothing could alter those arrogant blue eyes. He'd surely seen me when I dashed from the alley; he tried to conceal himself now, ducking behind his fellows, averting his face while they chanted St. Ogdo's Malediction Against the Worm: Eye of Heaven, seek out the saar. Let him not lurk among us, but reveal him in his unholiness. His soulless inhumanity flies like a banner before the discerning eyes of the righteous. We will cleanse the world of him!

I looked around desperately for the Guard and spotted them approaching from the north, riding toward us in a unit.

They were escorting the royal coaches around to the Golden Plays. The Sons noticed them too, and called to each other. Leaving just two men to restrain Basind, who hung limply between them, the rest spread across the roadway, just the way they'd been standing when I came crashing out of the alley.

The Sons had been waiting here for the Ardmagar's coach.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Josef duck up the alley. He had the right idea. I'd been in riots before; the novelty wore off quickly.

I shouldered my way through the crowd and reached the alley just as the Guard reached the front line of Sons. Shouts rang out behind me, but I didn't turn to look. I couldn't. I fled the fighting as fast as my cold feet would carry me.

The Sons had gangs all over town, I discovered. I had not, in fact, started the worst day of rioting our city had ever seen, but that was cold comfort. The Sons had seized the Wolfstoot Bridge; in the warehouse district, they were throwing bricks. I kept to the alleys but still had to cross the major arteries of the city without getting my skull cracked open. Orma was lucky to be underground.

I had hoped to reach my father's. I made it as far as the cathedral; from there, the action in the plaza and upon Cathedral Bridge looked grim. The Guard had subdued the plaza, but the Sons had erected a barricade upon the bridge and set it on fire, and they were holding their ground behind it.

Someone had vandalized the Countdown Clock, switching the heads of the Dragon and Queen and posing them suggestively together. A question was scrawled across the clock face: But how long until the filthy quigs go home? Another hand had written in answer: Not until we drive the devils off!

The cathedral could provide me with refuge until the Guard retook the bridge. I was not the only one who hoped so. There were about fifty people in the nave, mostly children and elders. The priests had corralled them all together and were treating injuries. I didn't care to huddle with everyone else. I skirted the eastern side of the Golden House without the priests noticing and crept quietly toward the south transept.

The megaharmonium hulked in its alcove under a tarp, defense against dust and greasy fingers. I wandered behind it for a closer look and because the chapel offered a s.p.a.ce away from the questioning eyes of the priests. Behind the megaharmonium were bellows as tall as my shoulder. Did someone have to sit back here, pumping endlessly, going slowly deaf? That sounded like unpleasant work.

The chapel looked like it had stood empty a long time; the walls were stripped of decoration, leaving only traces of gilt in the cracks of the wood paneling. I could discern dark shapes that had once been painted letters. It took some squinting, but I finally read the words No Heaven but this.

That was the motto of St. Yirtrudis. I shivered.

Above me, her outline was just visible beneath layers of whitewash. There was a rough patch where her face had been chiseled off, but around it her shadow lingered: her outstretched arms, her billowing gown, her ... hair? I hoped that was her hair and not tentacles or spider legs or something worse. Nothing was clear but the silhouette.

I heard muttering out in the transept and poked my nose out of the chapel. There stood Josef, Earl of Apsig, minus his black-feathered cap. He talked quietly with a priest. The priest's back was to me, but he wore a string of amber prayer beads around his neck. I drew back quickly and crouched behind the instrument, watching their feet between the legs of the bench. They conferred, embraced, and then parted. By the time I felt safe to rise, Josef had departed through the southern doors.

I crept back to the great crossing, stood behind the Golden House, and looked for the priest he'd been speaking with among those tending injuries in the nave. None of them wore amber beads.

A peculiar movement in the north aisle of the nave caught my eye. I thought the figure, cowled and ca.s.socked, was a monk at first, except for how strangely he was moving. He stood frozen in unnatural att.i.tudes for long stretches, followed by almost imperceptible motion. It was like watching the hands of a clock or clouds on a still day, all of this punctuated by extremely brief bursts of motion. He obviously intended stealth but seemed unfamiliar with the usual means of achieving it.

I suspected a saar.

I lay low until the figure reached the north transept, where I had a better viewing angle. I looked full at him, recognized his profile, and froze.

It was the Ardmagar.

I followed him toward the shadowy apse, keeping my distance. The floor of the apse was marble, so finely polished it looked wet. Hundreds of tiny candles reflected off the gilded ceiling vaults, lending a shimmer to the incense-spiced air. Comonot walked more normally now, past grim St. Vitt and devious St. Polypous. He proceeded to the chapel at the very end, where St. Gobnait, round-cheeked and benevolent, sat enthroned, her blessed beehive in her lap, her head crowned with golden honeycomb. Her eyes shone a brilliant unearthly blue, the whites a glaring contrast to her burnished face.

Comonot paused, lowered his cowl, and turned to face me, smiling.

The smile took me aback, coming from a dragon, but it evaporated the instant he recognized me. He turned away from me, back toward the Holy Skep, which the monks took outside in springtime to be a dwelling for her blessed bees.

"What do you want?" said Comonot, addressing St. Gobnait.

I addressed his plastered-down hair: "You should not be out on your own."

"I crossed the city on foot without incident," he said, gesturing grandly. I was. .h.i.t by a waft of incongruous perfume. "No one looks twice at a monk."

They'd look twice at a scented monk, but no good could come of arguing the point. I kept on doggedly: "There's something I must tell you, about my grandfather."

He kept his back to me, pretending to examine the Skep. "We know all about him. Eskar is probably biting his head off right now."