Daughter of the Flames (22 page)

“I’m sorry, Emelia,” he whispered. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Slowly, slowly, as if struggling with an object a hundred times heavier, he lifted the candle so that its dancing point touched the edge of the picture frame. The gold paint began to blister and blacken. Abheron’s tongue flickered out to wet his lip. His hand shook.

A long rivulet of wax spilled over the edge of the candle and onto his skin.

With a hiss of pain Abheron dropped the candle, and the liquid wax doused the flame as it fell to the ground. He stared down at the smoking wick, and then at the ruined corner of the picture frame. He blinked, as if waking from a trance.

Then he buried his face in his hands and wept.

Sorin told me that under Abheron’s rule the summer city had enjoyed more popularity than ever before. The pale-skinned Sedorne people, used to cooler weather in their native Sedra, found it impossible to stand the heat in the lowlands. Still, the main part of the population – living in small wooden houses close to the waterline – remained Rua. And somehow they knew who was in the carriage travelling along the road to the summer palace that afternoon.

Everywhere we looked, people were clustered, staring at the carriage, running along after it, trying to catch a glimpse of us through the windows. Their faces were alive with curiosity and fearful hope. I was too used to that look now. When gourdin peeled away from the column around us to break the gatherings up and force the crowds back, I almost felt grateful.

The road climbed steeply, zigzagging back and forth along the steps of the terraced riverbank towards the palace. The building seemed to glow ahead of us, pearly and luminous. As we drew closer I saw that carved lanterns hung from the peaked roofs – an incredible extravagance so early in the day. Dada had loved the cool green shadows under the trees, and would never have banished them.

We drove slowly past the east wing of the palace and into the central courtyard. The carriage jerked to a stop before the entrance.

The doorway was not grand, but the wooden frame and lintel were beautifully carved just as I remembered – images of pygmy monkeys, leaping tamul and parrots with their wings spread wide. Three low steps, inlaid with blue and yellow tiles, led up to the simple wooden door. The archways of the verandas on either side were covered with the climbing starflower vine, the bellshaped blossoms closed now.

There was a moment of stillness. Sorin and I looked at each other.

“Well,” I said. “We’re here.”

The door of the palace opened and a small elderly Sedorne man, grandly dressed, appeared. His steps as delicate and precise as if he were taking part in a dance, he came down the stairs to the carriage door and opened it. He unfolded the coach steps with his own little hands, and then reached out to me.

“My lady,” he whispered, his voice papery and dry.

Reluctantly I reached out and took his hand; it was as papery and dry as his voice. He made a production of helping me from the carriage, though I was perfectly capable of climbing down on my own. Then he stepped aside to allow Sorin to disembark too. I looked around and realized that, somehow, without me noticing, the second carriage with our luggage and servants, including Deo, had disappeared. The courtyard was empty except for us three, and the unit of gourdin who had been our constant companions throughout the journey. They formed a loose crescent around us and the carriage, apparently happy to hand us over to this harmless-looking little man.

I gazed down at him with some misgiving. What was happening now? Beside me, Sorin was braced and waiting, gripping his cane below the heavy silver cap at the top. I realized he was getting ready to use it as a club.

“Lord and Lady Mesgao, I am the master of palace ceremonies, His Majesty’s personal servant,” the man began, his breathy tones addressed respectfully to our feet. “He has instructed me that you are to be treated as his most honoured guests. There is an amusement planned for you tonight; but for now, he wishes you to rest and recover from your hard journey. If you would consent to follow me…” His voice trailed off and he waved his hands towards the entrance.

I looked at Sorin in confusion. Honoured guests? I didn’t know quite what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this.

Sorin shrugged, his shoulders relaxing a little. He let his cane drop down into its normal position in his hand. “Into the lion’s den, my love?”

He held out his free arm – a peculiar Sedorne gesture that I didn’t believe I would ever grow used to. I laid my palm on his arm, and we walked up the low steps. I heard muffled boot falls as two of the gourdin fell into step behind us, and was surprised to find the noise slightly reassuring. It reminded me that no matter what games Abheron played, we were still prisoners here.

As I passed through the doorway I found my free hand reaching out to the frame at about waist height – and there, on the nose of one of the tiny carved monkeys, the smooth place that I had stroked each time I entered this door as a child. It had been at eye level back then. My finger slid off the wood, and then we were inside.

I felt another echo of recognition as the cool shadow of the hall fell over us. There were no lamps burning here; the dim shapes of the archways around us were quiet and mysterious. I made out the geometric patterns of the yellow and blue tiles underfoot more through memory than sight.

The little man stepped up beside us. “A suite has been prepared for you,” he said. “Your possessions and servants should already be there. If you would care to come this way…”

He led us to a large room, where there was a very formal, very Sedorne arrangement of chairs and reclining couches. I looked in vain for a comfortable cushion anywhere.

“I will leave you here,” he said, gently sculling his hands in the air. “Arrangements will be made for you later on.” He slid gracefully out of sight.

“Whatever that means,” I muttered.

The gourdin who had followed us took up positions on either side of the door. Sorin smiled wryly and we passed inside. On one side, light flooded in through doors opened onto the garden; and on the other, I could see another room dominated by a large bed. In the centre of the room, golden-haired Anca stood over a pile of trunks and cases, directing several Sedorne servants to unpack them.

When I had told Mira that she would not be coming with us, she had insisted that I would need a maid, and to my surprise, Anca had volunteered. Even after my warnings about possible danger she had stood fast. Her lady would need someone, she said, and she knew how to do the job properly.

She curtsied when she saw us. “Deo is caring for your horse, my lady – the one who pulled up lame. He said he would come later and report to you.”

I smiled at her in gratitude. She knew I hadn’t the faintest idea about horses. She was reassuring me that Deo was well and would come and see us when he could.

“Thank you, Anca,” Sorin said.

“Would you like me to order refreshments?”

“Um … not for me,” I said. The idea of food made me feel a little queasy. Suddenly I was very tired.

“No, we ate on the journey,” Sorin said. I could feel him gazing at me with concern. Always trying to look after me, I thought guiltily. I should be looking after him.

“I think we should rest,” he continued. “Whatever … amusement Abheron has planned, it would be best to attend with clear heads. I imagine we’ll need them.”

When I woke, the bronzy shadows told me that dusk had fallen. I lay still on the bed, listening to the peculiar quiet that holds the world still as it passes from day to night.

Sorin was sprawled beside me on his stomach, pale hair lying in a long curve along his spine, face relaxed into a secret smile. I reached out and stroked a few stray strands back from his cheek, careful not to disturb him. I liked to see him quiet like this. When he was awake his face could change as swiftly as clouds in a storm, alive with emotions both real and assumed – whatever would help him to convince people of his point of view. At other times he could look blank and impassive, his features a mask that only I saw through. I liked to watch him when he slept, and remember that he was only eight years older than me.

But the quiet, rather than lulling me back to sleep, stirred a vague itch of restlessness. I stretched, pointing my toes and hands. My muscles felt stiff and my bones creaked ominously. Too much waiting around; too much sitting in carriages. I lay still again, but it was no good. I had slept my fill; I needed to be up and moving.

I burrowed under the draped muslin – arranged over the bed to keep out stinging flies – and emerged to stand beside the bed. Anca had folded my dressing gown over the footboard. The gown was gorgeous, heavy watered silk in my favourite shade of blue. Sorin had given it to me as a surprise a week before we married the second time, and I loved it. It seemed far too fine to be worn casually but I could never resist putting it on – it made me feel like a child playing in a queen’s robe. I pulled it on over my shift. The hem, heavy with blue beads, swirled majestically around my feet as I tied the beaded belt at my waist. I kicked the dusty, creased travelling gown, which I had flung down on the floor in disgust earlier, out of my way and opened the door into the sitting room.

I found it empty as I had expected, with the doors to the garden closed. I looked at the square, formal Sedorne furniture. The low ceilings and windows were not meant for such tall objects – they made the room seem out of balance. My restlessness increased and I began to pace the walls. Something wasn’t right. This room was blank, empty of memories. I’d probably been here as a child, but it looked so different now that it failed to touch anything in my mind. I wanted familiarity and comfort. This place only offered strangeness.

Then a memory came – the nursery where I had played with my brothers and sister. The room where I had once slept. Without thinking, I was at the door and opening it.

I half expected the gourdin to block the exit, but they stood back, not even glancing at me at the door swung inwards. I looked at them suspiciously, wondering what their orders were. If all the exits were guarded in a similar fashion, perhaps I was allowed to move freely within the palace. I paused on the threshold, looking around. There was no one to be seen in either direction, and when I stepped out, the guards still did not move.

Caution warred with curiosity. Was this some kind of trap? How could it be, when Abheron already had Sorin and me just where he wanted? God only knew what the madman had planned, but it didn’t seem that close supervision was part of it.

I wanted to see my old room. I wanted to meet the memories in private. This might be my last chance.

I closed the door experimentally behind me. The gourdin stood motionless. That seemed to settle it. They would not interfere. Decided, I walked purposefully along the corridor, leaving the guards behind. My feet – bare, as they had usually been when I was a child – instinctively found their own way, leading me round a long bend in the corridor, down some low steps, and then…

I walked in, shutting the door silently, and looked around. I had thought that seeing the nursery now, it would seem smaller. In fact it was bigger – a vast, echoing expanse of a room. Empty.

The childhood clutter of toys, tables and books was long gone. The floor was bare, the shutters tightly bolted. Things were heaped haphazardly against the walls and covered with white sheets. Like winding sheets, I thought morbidly. When I tugged at one, it came back to reveal Sedorne furniture – disused and damaged pieces that had been piled here out of the way. There was nothing familiar.

“Well.” I sighed to myself, disappointed. “It has been nearly eleven years.”

I went to the place where I remembered my bedroom’s entrance being. It was almost hidden behind another pile of sheet-covered furniture. I scrabbled and pushed until I opened up a little space, enough to get at the door. With a shock, I realized another reason why everything seemed so alien to me now. There had been no wooden doors here when I was a child, only curtains, beaded at the bottom to hang straight. Abheron must have gone through the whole palace and had doors fitted into every entrance, even where the rooms were disused. An odd, compulsive thing to have done.

I reached for the handle – feeling the slide of dust under my fingers – and turned it, squeezing through the narrow gap into the room beyond.

Here, as in the nursery, furniture and junk were piled everywhere, but no one had bothered to tuck sheets around these discarded objects, and dust lay in a thick bluish-grey layer over everything. The large windows in the right-hand wall, which had often served as doors to me and my siblings, were shuttered, leaving the place in melancholy gloom.

I gathered the full skirt of my gown around me and picked my way through the mountains of old furniture, looking for anything familiar. I found a book on the floor, its pages rippled and rotted with damp so that I could not tell what had been written there. The painted pictures were streaks of washed-out colour. Had it been a story I knew? A book I loved? There was no way of telling. The pages crumbled under my fingers, releasing a musty, sick smell.

Near the far wall I found my old bed. It was nothing more than a box of polished redwood with a fanshaped headboard and a stylized pattern of dancing monkeys carved into the sides. I remembered tracing the pattern at night as I drifted into sleep. My fingers were too big now to fit into the grooves and bumps. I crouched beside the bed for a long moment, stroking the polished wood – thinking about stories read to me by my nanny and my mother, the way the sun fell through the windows in the mornings in long silky bars of gold, birds and monkeys calling, and the distant splash of water that had lulled me to sleep…

Then I heard something that made me jump: laughter.

The laughter was masculine, and close – someone was outside the window. I got up carefully, stepped over a fallen chair, and put my hand on the shutter beside my bed. To my surprise it was only pushed shut, not bolted; I eased it back, looked out – and froze in shock.