Cobweb Empire (3 page)

“Come, now. Something happened. Or
rather—
you
did something. And it did something to
you
in turn. Whatever impossible thing you did with your grandmother to
grant her death—it’s related, is it not?” He spoke softly, looking
up at her. And his slate-blue eyes, their liquid gaze now intent
upon her, reflected the radiance of the campfire. “Who are you,
what
are you really, Percy? Or should I now call you
‘Persephone,’ as you call me ‘My Lord?’”

“No need,” she replied. “I am not really
able to—speak of what has happened, nor do I understand it, but I
can tell you I am mostly the same. Not entirely, but
mostly
.
Call me what you will.”

She looked at him, expectant, agitated and
yet somehow frozen on the outside, forgetting to draw breath, and
for once not avoiding his direct gaze. And his gaze was relentless
upon her, in silence.

There was a long peculiar pause.

And then at last he took a deep weary breath
of his own and said: “Why don’t you bring the sick girl into the
barn. What is her name, Emilie? There is room enough here for a few
more bodies, next to me. . . .”

“That is kind of you, Sir Kni—My Lord.”

He watched her steadily, and—it occurred to
her—seeing only her dark silhouette against the glow outside.

“What of—the
other
girl?” Percy said,
to avoid the continuation of the strained silence, but not daring
to mention the Infanta outright.

“No,” he said. “Leave her be where she
is. . . . Less apparent, that way. Besides, she is
rather well guarded.”

Percy knew he was thinking of the Marquis
Vlau Fiomarre, the man ever present at the Infanta’s side. Indeed,
why not? Let them both stay in the cart, and call less attention to
themselves, instead of being singled out.

Percy nodded then drew away from him at
last. She moved past Riquar who was still arranging pieces of
armor, past the many horses—including Jack, the knight’s great
black warhorse, and Betsy—and slipped outside. She walked in her
familiar backyard, made surreal by the presence of camped out
soldiers. The once-pristine covering of white snow was now trampled
by many feet of men and horses, churned and beaten down into
brownish sludge that had frozen into the earth. A fire pit was dug
among the snowdrifts where in the spring would have been a long
vegetable patch and herb garden.

The remaining girls who had gone to be
Cobweb Brides with her, and were now returning home, had found
spots for themselves in the yard, to eat and drink tea. She noticed
how they lost most of their caution of the knight’s men-at-arms.
Little dark-skinned foreigner Marie and street-smart urchin Niosta
were both seated near the fire, their threadbare coats pulled tight
about them, talking to an older soldier, and there was soft,
subdued laughter, and not a few crude snorts from Niosta. Nearby,
Lizabette Crowlé, with her somewhat superior big-town airs, was
snapping open a burlap blanket, and biting her lip disdainfully in
the direction of the giggling sounds. Emilie Bordon, a simple
swineherd’s daughter, still rather ill and occasionally coughing,
sat deep in the cart with her feet pulled up, a steaming mug in one
hand, and a blanket over her head.

However, at the sight of Percy, everyone
seemed to glance at her momentarily. Or did she imagine it? The
conversations certainly did not cease. But—had they started to look
at her strangely, differently, after what had happened with
Gran?

Percy tried not to think, and instead
touched Emilie’s shoulder gently, saying, “In the barn you go, it’s
warm there.” She then helped the girl down from the cart, past the
two remaining shapes of the marquis and the Infanta, lying
perfectly still next to each other.

One dead, one guarding the dead
,
thought Percy.

After Emilie was situated in the barn near
the already fast-asleep knight and a couple of his men, Percy
emerged again, and stood momentarily. She lingered, looking at the
scene before her, a scene of superimposed worlds—at these people
who had become her strange travel companions, who were about to
spend the night in her family’s backyard next to their house, while
her parents hid within, and the empty husk that was the body of her
grandmother lay on her old bed, in the dark corner, where her death
shadow had once stood like a sentinel. . . .

Percy did not know exactly when the tears
started to pour—not until her face was streaked with the icy
fingers of cold, and each wet streak was like a scratch of cruel
claws of winter.

I
n the first light
of dawn, Alann Ayren left to bring Father Dibue, as Niobea had
insisted.

Percy, lying huddled in the cart, was
awakened from dark abysmal sleep by the sound of their front door
shutting, and the creaking porch, and her father’s familiar
footfalls crunching against the snow, then receding down the
street.

It was strange to hear it from this vantage
point, lying
outside
the house as opposed to within. Percy
felt a moment of disorientation, of existential vertigo, forgetting
where she was, and then it all came slamming into place.

She had killed Gran.

Percy’s face was cold, the tip of her nose
almost frozen, as the wool shawl had come unwrapped around her face
in the night, making her skin numb. She stirred in the bluish
morass of receding darkness that was the dawn, feeling someone’s
body on the other side—it was Marie, still asleep. And beyond her
lay Niosta, a small lump under a blanket. A very fine snow had
sprinkled them all with a delicate sheen of powder overnight.

Behind them, closer to the back of the cart,
slept the Marquis Fiomarre, and furthest in the back lay
she
whom he guarded.

Lizabette had found a spot in the barn next
to Emilie, with the knight and a few of his soldiers, all taking
advantage of indoors warmth which Percy herself had given up for
the sake of these “houseguests.” And with the other Oarclaven girls
gone—they had been dropped off at their respective homes
earlier—this gave them all plenty of room to stretch, at least for
this night in the cart.

Tomorrow might be a different matter.

But first, there was today to reckon
with.

Percy quietly pulled back her blanket,
dusting off the light sprinkles of snow, and added it on top of
Marie’s blanket. She then crawled out of the cart and went to take
care of nature’s business in their familiar outhouse.

By the time she was done, struggling with
the extra layers of clothing, some of the soldiers were up also.
And so were some of the neighbors, as could be heard from the
voices along the street, and the more than usual number of passerby
at this early hour.

Come to gawk at me
, thought Percy.
Gawk at the misfortunate Ayrens and their accursed daughter, and
the strange soldiers in their yard.

She allowed herself a few moments of
self-pity, and stared dully as two of the men-at-arms set to making
a breakfast fire, and one of them placed a well-aged and cured
baton of smoked sausage to warm on a spit. Its pungent apple-wood
smoke aroma soon wafted throughout the yard. And then, as more
people came awake and came out of the barn, and the hungry horses
started making noises, she pushed self-pity away, and got to work.
The kettle needed fresh water, and then Belle and Patty came out,
dressed in their headscarves, coats, and mittens for the outdoors,
to help with some of the chores in the backyard camp. Percy
observed her eldest sister’s beautiful wretched face, and it looked
like Belle had not had any sleep, judging by the dark sunken
smudges under her eyes. Meanwhile, Patty looked no better.

“Where will you go?” Belle whispered, taking
a moment when no one was paying them attention.

“I don’t know. . . .
Letheburg. Maybe farther south.”

“But what will you do there? Why must you go
so far? Can’t you just stay here in Oarcalven, maybe stay at
someone’s house temporarily until mother comes around? What can you
do, so far from home?”

Percy sighed. “I’ve some things to do,
Belle. Gotta return a horse and this cart to someone in Letheburg.
And—other things to do.”

“But,
what
things? What crazy
nonsense is this? And you have never even
been
to Letheburg!
Are you really leaving home? You can’t! I don’t care what happened,
and our father is right, Gran is at peace now! Whatever mother says
now, you know she’ll come around—”

“No.” Percy said. And then added,
“Is—Gran—”

“She is lying still, in her bed, as she was
when you left. Her face is restful and her forehead is cold, I
touched her just now. . . . She is gone, Percy.
Completely gone. Mother is keeping vigil in a chair next to her
bed. She insisted we all touch Gran, to make sure.”

“I was scared,” said Patty then, also moving
in to whisper with them. “I am sorry, I didn’t want to touch Gran,
not like this. But Ma said to do it.”

“I am so sorry.” Percy softly watched her
youngest sister.

“I know. But, don’t be.” Patty was looking
into her older sister’s eyes with intensity. “Are you really
Death’s Champion, Percy? Is that like being his Bride? Did he give
you magic of sorts, death magic?”

“Don’t say such ungodly things, Pat!” Belle
began, but Percy interrupted gently.

“I think it may be something like that. I
don’t know how exactly, or what it is I did to let Gran go. But
Death had assigned me a task that must be done. As a Champion does
his Lord’s bidding, so must I do
his
. But—please don’t tell
Ma or Pa, all right? It will only upset them more. Because, well,
thing is—I can
see
death. I could always see it, for as long
as I remember. Or at least, its shadows . . . when
they stand next to people, next to the dying. Before, I could only
see them, but now . . . now I can also
touch
them.”

And as Patty and Belle stared at her in
growing awe, Percy finished. “With Gran, I think, what I did was
put her
shadow
inside her. I took hold of it, and it obeyed
me, like a child. . . . It is not evil at all, just
a part of being. It was like a sorrowful wild thing—a thing
lost.”

“Oh!” Patty gasped. “So then how—”

“Percy!”

They turned at the sound of a familiar
childish voice, and there was Jenna Doneil, their neighbor from a
few doors down, and Percy’s fellow Cobweb Bride and traveling
companion of the last few days. She waved at them frantically as
she ran into the Ayren yard, her poorly shod feet sinking in
snowdrifts with each step. Jenna was a skinny, fair-haired child of
no more than twelve, and apparently she had run here from her home
down the street, bare-headed in the dawn cold, and had barely
managed to pull her old coat on.

“Jen? What is it?” said Percy. “Is something
wrong? Are you all right?”

“Morning, Jen,” said Belle. “Now, why are
you not dressed properly, child? You’ll catch your death of cold in
this freezing air—”

And then Belle went silent, likely realizing
what she just said, “catch your death.”

But Jenna grabbed Percy’s arm with both her
cold little hands, without mittens, and she started pulling at her.
“Percy! Oh, Percy, you gotta come with me, please! Come!”

“Where, Jen? What is it? Did something
happen at home? Are your parents treating you well, since we
returned?”

“No!” Jenna exclaimed, then amended. “I
mean, no, they are fine, Ma and Pa both. I didn’t think they would
be, but they were happy I returned and wasn’t any kind of Cobweb
Bride or anything. But—but, you gotta come, please! It’s awful, I
could not sleep, it’s still there in the back of the house, same as
it was when we left!”

“What are you talking about, Jen?” said
Patty. “What is?”

“The pig!”

“Holy Lord!” Belle exclaimed, and started to
cross herself.

Percy frowned, growing very cold on the
inside. A wave of memory came to her, that terrible evening when
the Doneil livestock butchering turned into a nightmare, and the
animal would not die. . . .

And Jenna resumed pulling her arm, and
crying, “Please, Percy, you have to come and help it! I know you
can! What you did yesterday, my parents say it’s some kind of dark
unholy magic, probably, but I know they’re wrong! Everyone’s
talking, but I know you helped your Gran, and you can help the poor
pig! I beg you,
please
come!”

“Oh Lord, no!” Belle whispered. “No, Percy,
oh no, you shouldn’t go—”

Jenna wailed, so that heads turned in their
direction. “But she’s gotta!”

“Stop it, Jen!” It was young Patty who spoke
up angrily, then shoved the barely younger girl lightly with one
arm. “Percy has better things to do, and you are just a stupid
dunce-head—”

Jenna’s thin little earnest face started to
contort and then she was sobbing, loudly and thickly, snot
gathering at her nose with each juddering gasp.

“That’s enough now, all right, I’ll come.”
Percy looked up, meaningfully nodding to her own sisters to move
away. She then took the weeping girl by the shoulders, holding her
then giving her a solid but gentle shake.

“It’s all right, Jen. Here, wipe your nose,
now. I’m coming with you.”

Chapter
2

I
t took them five
minutes to walk down the street to the Doneil house. Belle and
Patty stayed behind, following their sister only with frightened
looks that seemed to have become a permanent fixture with them.

Jenna hurried, moving almost at a run, ahead
of Percy, and pulling her by the arm.

But at the door to their house, on their
porch, she stopped.

“It’s in there, in the
back . . .” she said, shivering, clutching at her
dress with her fingers. “But you have to be really quiet,
please. . . . Pa and Ma are still asleep upstairs,
and they don’t know I went to get you.”