‘Huh?’ I wondered what he had been doing to her. ‘Aren’t they famed for it?’
‘Not “fast” running; I mean “fast” intelligent. Listen . . .’ He spoke to Dellin in Awian: ‘Say what you learnt.’
Dellin took a deep breath and glanced around the room. ‘Table. Chairz. Plate. Spear. Knife. Oven. Bucket. Glass. Rice. Herbs. Eyes - nose - mouth. Hair. Feet. Wings. High. Low. Asleep! No asleep . . . awake. Beans! Dog! Chimney! Coal! Porn mag! Woodcock! Zoysia Einkorn!’ ‘My god.’
He nodded. ‘Does Comet know she can do this?’
‘I don’t know.’
In the silence we could hear the boing, boing, boing of Comet’s bed in the ground-floor suite. I sighed. I’d never even have the chance to serve his dinner, let alone whisper, ‘Would you like to sleep with me?’
‘Let’s teach her some more words,’ said Woodcock eagerly. Having seen so many women’s bodies, he was prone to be impressed when a girl preferred to use her mind. Dellin had broken the tedium and he was keen to talk to someone who wasn’t either a tart or desperate for his service. And, y’ see, Dellin was physically different too, so of course that piqued his interest. Nobody wants to be a gigolo - or a whore, come to that. It’s just that there’s very little work in Fescue for those of us who are too poor to escape.
‘One, two, three, four, five,’ Dellin recited. ‘
Amre, demre, shanre, larore, keem
.’
‘Is that counting in Rhydanne?’
‘
Keem-am, keem-dem, keem-shan
—’
‘Let me guess:
keem-laro
?’
‘
Keem-laro
, yes!’
‘You see!’ He beamed at me. ‘I’m learning Rhydanne too. I’d love to see her in her natural habitat, climbing, catching edelweiss, or whatever it is she does. Spear, Dellin?’
‘
Sleagh
.’
We named the objects in the room until long past midnight, and our eyelids grew heavy. Dellin was very keen to learn more and forced herself to continue, bringing us stuff to name, but we ground to a halt and Woodcock went to bed. Dellin cleaned her teeth carefully with water and a pine twig, which surprised me, then curled like a squirrel on her jacket on the floor. Mindful of Spelt’s instructions to keep her in sight I kipped on the kitchen bench beside her for a couple of hours, no more, because y’ see, she woke me at the crack of dawn, pulling my hair and demanding, ‘Food!’
‘You never stop.’ I gave her some bread and tried to introduce her to make-up. She ate all the bread after a summary sniff and would have eaten all the butter too, but no amount of cajoling would make her submit to lipstick and foundation cream. I was still trying when Spelt called down, ‘Zoysia? Bring that thing upstairs!’
Comet was standing at the reception desk, counting coins from his wallet to pay the enormous bill. ‘Here she is . . .’ I faltered, melting.
Comet smiled and looked at me properly for the first time. He opened a wing to block Spelt’s view, leant and whispered, ‘Thanks. Here . . .’
I felt his warm lips brush my ear, and by the time I had recovered he had his back to me and I realised he’d pushed a roll of banknotes into my hand. I whipped it behind my back, gripped the notes tightly - it was a solid roll! - and tucked it up under my bodice.
He said something to Spelt and left with Dellin. Outside she ran off and he followed at a most unnatural pace, as if they’d become two-legged racehorses. Everyone crowded into the porch and blocked my view, but did I care? Not me! I turned and dashed up the stairs, piled all my outdoor clothes on my bed, threw myself among them and began to count the money Comet had given me. At last! At last! I’m going to catch the southbound mail coach - from the stop by the green! I’m going to the city!
REEVE MARRAM
It was late, at the end of a warm autumn, after a summer finer than we had any right to expect, the weather on the fells being what it is, and I was at the high table eating my supper, a thrifty pease pottage such as is my habit. All of a sudden the watchman was standing at my elbow. At the shock I put my spoon down harder than I intended and splashed soup on my jumper. ‘What do you mean by creeping up on me?’ I snapped. ‘And what are you standing there for, anyway? Ey?’
‘Someone’s at the gate . . .’
‘Well, didn’t I tell you to ring the bell? Ring the bell if we have a visitor, I said, and announce them. No need to stand there jarring me as if we’re at the quarry face!’
The lad protested that he had been sounding the bell for ten minutes and nothing had happened. Typical of young men these days: they first disregard your orders and then lie with barefaced cheek. I was halfway through telling him so when he glanced at the ceiling and pointed to the porch. ‘Comet is waiting in the gatehouse, ’ he complained.
‘Comet? The Emperor’s Messenger?’
‘Yes.’
‘You kept Comet
himself
outside? You idiot! Go and welcome him in! And stop staring at the ceiling - don’t think I haven’t noticed - there are no tiles loose. I know, I had ’em all fixed in that dry spell. Wait! Wait! As you’re going, take these plates . . .’ I pushed the soup bowl and bread board towards him. ‘No need to wake the cook, is there?’
The lad took the dishes, all the while rolling his eyes to check the tiles, and I sat back in my chair and felt in my coat pocket for my short pipe and baccy pouch. An after-dinner smoke is one of my few pleasures and I like to take time to fill my pipe. While tamping it with the Marram muster seal I reflected: I hope the Messenger doesn’t stay long. It’s a drain on the resources of the household. Though thankfully he never expected the ceremony he was entitled to.
He hasn’t been here for years. About ten years, and although I’m the first to admit those years haven’t been kind, Comet will look just the same. I surveyed the surroundings that he would soon see, and felt proud. Though I run Marram as tightly and scrupulously as I used to manage the mines, the house is growing increasingly eccentric with age and needs constant work to keep it even halfway habitable. It used to be a manor in its own right, Marram did, before it became a muster of Fescue, and that’s why this hall is so spacious compared to those of other reeves.
The lad had typically left the door open, so the night air was blowing in and wavering the flames on the candleholder hanging from the rafters. The lamp in the courtyard shone through the leaded panes and cast a net of shadows across the switchback floorboards and the somewhat threadbare rug. I would like to replace it but the accounts won’t allow.
The lad’s clogs clattered on every single cobble across the courtyard. I saw him go by the array of little bay windows with Comet and another boy following, their outlines distorted and rippled as they passed the bull’s-eye glass. My lad entered at the far end of the hall and announced . . . something. He muttered too softly to hear over the sound of the crackling fire.
Comet’s head appeared in the doorway, he raised his arm in greeting and strode in. What always strikes me is his incredible exuberance. He came down the hall, creaking the floorboards with his swinging walk and a big grin on his face. The other young man, similarly vigorous, followed in his wake.
I felt for the handle of my walking stick - it was hanging from the table - and, pressing heavily on it, gained my feet. ‘Comet!’ I called. ‘Welcome!’
‘Reeve Marram! Call me Jant. How many times do I have to tell you?’
I considered. ‘You’ve only told me twice. Who is this young man?’
‘This young man is a Rhydanne woman.’
‘Indeed?’ I picked my spectacles from a side dish, wiped butter off them, fitted them on my nose and leant forward, the better to see her. ‘So she is, by San’s flat bottom! Well, well, well. Sit down, both of you.’ I gestured at the bench, and relaxed back onto my own chair because I was obliged to take the weight off my bad leg.
I picked up my briar pipe and pressed its warm bowl in the palm of my hand. The Rhydanne girl seemed to have a folded chair on her back and a home-made spear in the crook of her arm. ‘Any news?’ I asked politely.
‘She is the news.’ Jant pointed at her. ‘Nothing happening at the Front. Lightning’s still prone to morose spells. Mist is away sailing the tempest until his throat fills with salt. But the biggest news of the moment has walked right into your hall! May I introduce you? Reeve Marram; Shira Dellin.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘Hello,’ she enunciated in Awian.
‘She’s changed a lot since I first met her,’ Jant said triumphantly. ‘You wouldn’t believe how wild she was. Completely untamed.’
He spoke to her quickly in her tongue, and I noticed she didn’t sit wholly facing the table but astride the bench so she could see both me and down the length of the hall to the porch. ‘Is she wanted by the law?’
He laughed. ‘No, that’s just a Rhydanne thing. They’re chary.’ He explained who the odd lady was and the bare bones of his assignment.
‘My, my,’ I said. ‘Is this to do with Raven’s exile?’
‘Yes.’
‘Goodness. I do remember it. We get so little news these days that I followed the whole story. Year before last, it was. Ah yes, I do recall it . . . Thinking back, it was October . . .’
‘I have to negotiate on her behalf,’ said Jant. ‘Though if compensation is her aim, I’m a cat’s aunty.’
The Rhydanne girl did indeed look vengeful and seemed to be following much of our conversation. Her thick hair draped over her shoulder and down her front, like a scarf, and her chin came almost to a point. The folded chair on her back was actually a rucksack frame of bone struts handsomely joined, just as the timbers of this house are pegged together at every corner. She freed herself from its weight and rested it against the bench, though it nearly came up to the level of the tabletop.
I lit a match, cupped my hand around the bowl and sucked the flame into it. I puffed out a mouthful of the sweet-leather smoke, which makes me think more clearly, and looked about for the lad. ‘Rustle up a meal for Comet. Bring cheese pie and the roast . . . What about her?’ I asked Jant. ‘Does she eat . . . um . . . civilised food?’
‘She’ll be happy with the roast.’
‘Well, then. The end of the beef, laddie; as lavish as possible.’
The lad glanced at the ceiling again, knowing that lavish in Marram terms would be nothing to the Messenger, then slouched away. ‘We need to stay the night,’ Jant said. ‘We have to start early tomorrow to get as much distance covered as possible before the weather breaks. Can we have a room?’
‘Of course. Messenger’s prerogative. Take the best room, such as it is. The doors of Marram are always open to you and your couriers.’ I tilted my pipe stem at the lady. ‘What about her . . . does she sleep outside? Or in the stable?’
‘She will sleep in my room.’
I nodded thoughtfully, careful not to let the surprise show on my face. I knew he was decadent but I hadn’t been aware how far his tastes extended.
‘You can’t expect me to know very much about her kind,’ I said, and addressed her directly: ‘I’m very sorry for my ignorance, young lady.’ She found it funny that I puffed out pipe smoke with my words. ‘Mountainlanders don’t come down as far as Fescue. Pardon my curiosity, and if I make mistakes don’t take offence because there’s none meant. And I would be obliged if the Messenger would translate for me.’
Jant did so and I was pleased to see her smile - a little ferret smile, with very white teeth.
‘So you’re going up into Darkling?’ I prompted.
‘Yes. Hence all the gear. Where we’re going, even Rhydanne will feel the cold.’
‘I see. Can I help you with anything else? A packhorse, perhaps? We have tough ponies.’
‘I think she’d prefer a tender pony.’
‘Tender pony? I don’t know that breed. Oh, I see.’ I chuckled, finished my pipe and tapped the dottle onto my plate. I opened my clasp knife and reamed out the bowl. Then I opened my old baccy pouch and set about rubbing the moist flakes into shreds. ‘Sorry the cook is taking so long. It’s not good to keep hungry guests waiting.’ Jant pushed the apology away but I continued, ‘I just can’t get the staff these days. The lad’s family is from Garron Mill and the lead fumes go to their brains . . . And it’s easier to raise the dead than it is to wake that damn cook—’