Encante (6 page)

“Amos Newton?”

“Newt, as my uncle calls him. He finds it humorous, what with the majority of Newton’s research having to do with our amphibious cousins.”

“That is truly abominable.” I caught myself. “My apologies, it is not for me to criticise your—”

“No, sir, you’re quite correct, it is abominable.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You forget, my sister is half encante; I do not see them as any less than human. In fact, in many instances they act with more humanity than most men.”

“That I can believe.” I considered the flower on the table. “Forgive my asking, but if your sister is half slave then . . . ?”

“How is it she is treated as an equal?” Axel laughed again, bitterly. “My mother has been asking that very question for years. Drusilla is younger than me, you see, not by much, but enough. My father’s indiscretion would have been shameful enough for Mother, but his choice of companion is something she has never suffered to bear. If Dru’s mother weren’t dead, my own would have killed her.”

I stared at him in silence, utterly appalled.

“Don’t look so shocked, Mister Escher. To Minerva, the woman was nought but a slave.”

“How did she die?”

“She was executed. It’s a crime to bear the child of a full blood, or indeed to be the progeny of such a union.”

“Then how . . . ?”

“Did Drusilla survive?” A wry smile crossed Axel’s lips. “My father is more pirate than he would have my well-born uncle believe—he hid her well enough, at first. When they were finally discovered, he was able to save Drusilla, but not her mother. The guilt of that is still with him, I fear, and shall be until the end of his days. He truly loved her, in a way he never loved my mother. He realised too late he had married Minerva out of convenience, rather than love. You may not have noticed, but I bear my uncle’s surname, not my father’s; of the two, my uncle is seen to far out rank him. He was a deck hand, raised through the ranks. He won his own ship through skill and cunning, a canny business sense and a decent heart, unlike my uncle, who was born to his position and fortune.”

“You surprise me. Captain Everett seems born for the seas.”

“Do not mistake me.” Axel smiled. “Uncle is a fine sailor. He is not, however, a fine man.” The boy’s eyes dropped to the lip in the platform over which I had just tripped and he kicked at it in agitation. “Their views when it comes to my sister’s people differ greatly.”

“He treats your sister as if she were his blood, Axel, that is no small thing for a nobleman to do with any illegitimate child, let alone one born of an illegal union. It is one thing to save a child from death, quite another to have her raised as a true-born daughter.”

“She was almost three by the time Uncle found out what Father had done.” He shook his head. “He tried to have her killed.” The boy looked up at me, eyes searching my own for my response. I did not have to feign my shock, or my outrage.

“I was only a young thing myself,” he continued, “but I remember it. It was the first time I met her, and from the second we laid eyes on each other I knew . . . she was part of me. Mother, of course, only encouraged Uncle in his response. I often wonder how any of us survived that day.” He fingered a long, slender scar running the length of his jaw, left ear to chin. It was barely visible and I had never noticed it before; had he not touched it so obviously, I doubt I would have had cause to notice it at all.

“What saved her?” I asked.

“She had already started displaying certain . . . gifts. Even at that age she had some skills with alchemy. My uncle is an intelligent man, enough so to recognise an opportunity when it presented itself. Between his own observations of the way she reacted to that fight, and tests he had Newton perform, they soon realised Drusilla had very useful abilities.”

“Abilities?”

He looked at me as if I were slightly dim-witted. Perhaps I was, for once he told me, the truth was plain.

“She hears thoughts”—he tapped a finger on my temple—“and sees truths.” He smiled. “I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner, but I assumed you would realise.”

“That’s how she communicates with Vee?”

And how she seemed to know so much at dinner.
I found myself blushing again.

“The encante have a form of telepathy—they have no oral speech. Before my sister, they made do with ugly hand gestures. Now she speaks for them, and to them. A few others are able to pick up something of their meaning—Garrett, for one, gets some sense of what they’re trying to say, if not the exact words. It’s one reason Uncle suffers to have him aboard.”

“And she hears human thoughts too?”

“She knows if a person is lying. She senses their emotions, and if they think something particularly strongly, she will hear. It takes concentration though; if she’s distracted by aught else, she won’t hear you, and some people are better at hiding what they think than others. I’ve grown very good at it, having spent so much time with her; I love her dearly, but a man needs his privacy.”

“Indeed.” He looked at me questioningly. “I’ve been wondering how it was your uncle so readily believed my tale, and I thought it odd when he seemed to look at her for affirmation. Evidently she was able to glean enough to know I wasn’t lying.”

Axel nodded. “As I said, Uncle saw her value immediately. He does not keep her for love, Mister Escher, but for information.”

“You said she sees truths, but what does that mean exactly?”

“You’re a very inquisitive man.”

“I am, and I make no apology for it, I’m afraid; I’m a born explorer.”

“And yet you intend to give it all up for a woman you do not even love?” That took me aback.

“What makes you think I do not love her?”

“When I asked if you did, your response was that you were soon to marry. Marriage and love are two very different things.” He laughed. “I learned that from my own parents.

“My sister has some precognitive abilities, although Uncle and that ghastly Newton refuse to believe it is so—a lack of empirical proof, they say. Proof be damned, I know what I know—I’ve seen her look into the future and always her visions were true. I also believe she has knowledge inherent to the encante—it was she who told Uncle of this passageway into another world. I suspect it’s some form of genetic memory their species possess; she came to her gifts too young and too easily for any other explanation. She knew things at that age that full-growns of her species do not.”

“Such as . . . ?”

“The legends tell of a time before humans conquered the seas, when all encante had such knowledge and gifts.”

“So it was your sister who sent the captain on this hunt for Hollow Earth?” That was interesting. That was very interesting.

“I wouldn’t say sent, exactly. She made a few well placed comments and he came to think it was entirely his idea. Drusilla has wanted to find the hidden sea for as long as I can recall.” Axel yawned suddenly.

I shook myself. “My apologies, I’m keeping you from your bed.”

“It is late, and I have first watch. You should rest also; my uncle will doubtless expect you to join him on the morrow.”

“I think I shall walk the causeways a little more before I retire, the water is oddly relaxing.”

Axel looked hesitant for a moment, then nodded and bade me a good night. He’d abandoned the flower on the table, and I ducked inside the little pergola to pick it up, unable to shake the image of Drusilla wearing it in her hair.

Cecelie would be furious with me
, I thought, then checked myself as I wondered if Drusilla could hear me. I was so distracted by the thought, I barely noticed the sensation that someone else was present, watching me from the shadows.

Chapter Seven

A
s Axel predicted, I was summoned by the captain the following morning to share in his breakfast. I am ashamed to say I was disappointed when it transpired it was just the two of us, and I would not have another chance to see Drusilla. I’d kept the flower watered through the night in my washbasin, and took the first opportunity to return to my cabin and retrieve it once the captain was summoned to the deck. He invited me to accompany him, but I feigned fatigue and retired, making some discreet observations as I did so.

It was not difficult to determine which of the opulent quarters belonged to Drusilla: the officers’ quarters occupied a corridor beneath the bridge, and another corridor, containing only two rooms but otherwise identical, ran parallel to it. I noted Minerva exiting her own chambers as I dawdled on the way back, and concluded that the one next door must belong to Drusilla. The cabins were twice as large, it seemed, but half as many—a pandering to the needs of women, I was sure, although I suspected Drusilla would have been just as happy in the cabin I was using.

I knocked lightly, not wanting my arrival to be marked. She called me in and I pushed the door open, stumbling slightly on the threshold and inadvertently slamming the door closed behind me in my efforts to remain standing.

“Do you always enter a woman’s chamber in such a dramatic manner?” she asked. “Or am I special?” She smiled broadly, laughing to herself.

So much for my entrance going unnoticed.

Her cabin was softly lit and more lavish than I’d expected, given her casual manner. Despite this, the wealth was in books and maps, charts, and strange contraptions that could only have been used in the alchemy of which Axel had spoken. She was seated cross-legged on the floor amidst more of the type of cushions I’d seen in the belvedere, and I realised the entire arrangement in the hydroponics bay was her handiwork.

For the comfort of the workers
, I realised,
when they are able to rest
.

Drusilla smiled again, inclining her head to indicate I was correct, but making no move to interrupt my observations regarding her quarters. I caught sight of the graceful curve of a pair of dolphins supporting an enormous scallop shell, carved from what appeared to be a single slab of amber. The shell cradled all manner of items, from candles to a wooden replica of a human hand, carefully scored with lines and symbols which meant nothing to me but clearly carried great meaning. Several scarves in a rainbow of autumnal hues tumbled from a solid looking chest, and I was only marginally surprised to catch a glimpse of a skull nestled within them.

There were more tables and surfaces than I would have thought possible in such a small space, all of them occupied and most peculiarly shaped. In one corner stood a curving, multi-tiered Shatrasi board, the pieces carved as exquisitely as the dolphin table, one side from blood-red jasper, flecked with black, the other from a suitably aqua-hued fluorite, dark at the base. It appeared she was in the midst of a game with someone. The game had always eluded me, no matter how hard Cane tried to instruct me in its play.

Drusilla herself sat at a low table, which sported a short brazier of oddly scented candles and a deck of pictographic cards she’d been laying out as I arrived.

It seemed she preferred the subtle tones of autumn: browns, greens and reds, the occasional streak of bright orange. I stared dumbly at the pink flower I cradled and thought myself rather foolish for ever thinking it would look lovely in her hair; it was by far the wrong shade.

“Because it was never intended for me,” Drusilla smiled and stood. She wore a long skirt today, heavily layered in black and crimson, with a wide belt that draped strings of bells across her slender hips. More bells were tangled through her curls, and her stomach was as naked as her encante kin, shimmering with just a hint of their own effervescent hue. Mercifully, her breasts were covered, albeit scarcely, by a twist of fabric, cleverly wrapped around her bosom and upper arms. Of all the ensembles I’d seen this perculiar girl wear, this was by far the strangest, yet for all that, it suited her very well—though what the good folks of Hollowvale would think to behold her I had no notion.

Her smile broadened.

“Minerva refuses to allow me to dress in such a manner outside this room; apparently it would not do for the crew to see me so. I’m only forgiven my suits because she knows how much worse it could be. You’re blessed to see me dressed in this manner—few do.” She considered my groin for a moment. “Then again, perhaps it is more of a curse for someone with such . . . obvious responses to beauty.”

“I’m . . . that is to say . . . I apologise. I did knock—you said to enter.”

“It wasn’t a complaint. Come, sit with me.” She took the flower from my hands, regardless of its originally intended recipient, and deftly secured it in the tangles of her freely flowing hair. She looked exactly as I’d pictured her, only more beautiful still, and I scolded myself for harbouring such thoughts when my dear CC awaited my return.

“Why do you do that?” Drusilla asked suddenly. “Pretend to have feelings for this woman when you do not. You pretend even to yourself.”

“She is my betrothed.”

“And yet you love her not.” Drusilla considered me. “It is a marriage of arrangement, not love—of convenience, not passion.”

“Is that so obvious?”

“I have a unique insight.” She tapped her temple.

“Your brother had much the same insight only last night; perhaps he has learned some of your skills.”