Power & Majesty (31 page)

I
‘won’t do it,’ said Delphine, pouting like a six year old.

‘You can’t make me.’

It was an hour before noon and Velody still hadn’t slept. After Macready left she had been swamped by a wave of tiredness that slowed her nimble fingers. The dresses had been completed on time for the couriers, but there was little margin for rest.

Neither Delphine nor Rhian had work today, as there were no garland traditions for the Vestalia. Their next important festival was the Matralia in two days time, when mothers and maternal relatives everywhere would be crowned with silverbreath and ivy.

‘Please, Dee,’ said Velody, trying to smooth all irritation out of her voice. Without meaning to, she slipped into her Power and Majesty cadence. ‘I need you with me today.’

‘I don’t see why,’ said Delphine. ‘You’ve got all your new friends to watch out for you.’

Velody glanced at Rhian, who was staring at the kitchen table as if it were fascinating. ‘If we’re going to keep living together, you have to understand what’s changed in me,’ she said. ‘I need you to see it for yourself. I can’t take
Rhian, but you’re not afraid of anything, Dee. Please come with me today.’

Delphine’s head snapped around. ‘If we’re going to keep living together? You wouldn’t leave?’ she asked incredulously.

‘I can’t stay if you hate me all the time,’ Velody replied.

‘I think you should go,’ Rhian said unexpectedly.

‘You’re not serious?’ said Delphine.

‘Perfectly. I want to understand what’s happening to Velody. I can’t…I can’t go, but you can.’

If there was one thing Delphine hated more than being told what to do, it was being told what to do by two people. ‘You go if you’re so keen to find out,’ she shot at Rhian.

Rhian replied with surprising warmth. ‘Velody’s been looking after us for years, Delphine. Both of us. If it’s our time to look after her, we need to know how. And why.’

Delphine glared at them both. ‘Will he be there?’ she asked after a moment, pronouncing the ‘he’ quite savagely.

Velody was amused at the venom. ‘Macready? Yes, I think so.’

‘I don’t like him. He’s smug.’

‘What exactly did he save you from last nox?’ Velody asked.

Delphine obviously didn’t want to answer that one. ‘What should I wear?’ she asked with a sigh.

‘What you’re wearing is fine.’

Velody had been planning to dress up, but it seemed a little silly in broad daylight. She had settled for a plain green festival dress with a looping overskirt that implied an apron even though it hadn’t been strictly designed for the Vestalia.
They’ll have to get used to me being me, not some strange, primped-up stage act.

‘Are you joking?’ cried Delphine in alarm, jumping to her feet. ‘These people eat and drink glamour. We can’t wear just
anything
!’

Ashiol arrived at the alley behind Velody’s home to find the sentinels waiting for him. Kelpie looked the better for some sleep at least, wearing a crisp uniform and all four of her blades beneath her leather coat. Crane was bright-eyed and tense, only his strict sentinel training preventing him from fidgeting. Macready was Macready. Obviously the bastard wasn’t human.

Ashiol already wished he hadn’t let Poet’s sly words push him into this.

Velody opened her gate and came out to greet him. She wore her hair up in businesslike fashion. No grandeur. Then her blonde bint of a housemate joined them, bright in a pale blue festival gown that barely covered her knees.

Ashiol turned on Macready, his eyes flashing dangerously. ‘What is she doing here?’ he hissed.

‘Nature of an experiment, my King,’ said Macready, not even flinching.

‘You thought it appropriate
today
?’

‘Our job isn’t just to look out for the Power and Majesty,’ replied the sentinel in an undertone. ‘We also tend to the welfare of Velody.’

‘Well?’ began Velody, standing at the gate and pretending not to know about the tussle going on between the two men. ‘Which way is it?’

‘I thought we could walk across the city and go down below in the Lucian district,’ said Ashiol. To his annoyance, Velody’s gaze flicked to the sentinels as she considered her response.

‘Why do Macready and Crane think that’s a bad idea?’ she asked.

Ashiol swung around to glare at Macready, who shrugged innocently.

Crane answered the question, little traitor that he was. ‘It means you enter the old city almost immediately above the Killing Ground, which is where we find the Smith. You can probably get through today’s ritual and be above
ground again before any of the Creature Court even sense you’re down there.’

‘I see,’ said Velody. Her eyes rested on Ashiol again. What was it about those grey eyes of hers? They were impossible to argue with. ‘That would seem most appropriate, Ashiol, if I were a cat-burglar creeping into someone else’s home. Somewhat less appropriate for a Power and Majesty visiting
her own territory
for the first time.’

The blonde bint was smirking. Had she forgotten her ordeal in Poet’s dressing room so quickly? Daylight folk found it so easy to ignore what they did not understand. That was why they were bait and meat. Not warriors.

‘What would you suggest, Macready?’ Velody asked. Ashiol resisted the urge to bite her face off.

‘The main entry isn’t far from here, Majesty. You can walk up through the main tunnels and cross old Aufleur from one end to the other. Show them all you aren’t afraid of making a bit of an entrance, so it will. You’ll have to decide quickly, though, if we’re to make it to the Smith during the hour after noon.’

Velody smiled that sweet smile that Ashiol was starting to hate. ‘We’ll follow you, Macready. Show us the way.’

Ashiol choked down the chimaera beast that was rising inside him.
Let her be the Power and Majesty then, if she’s a mind to it
, said a jealous voice inside him that could not belong to him. Possibly it spoke in Garnet’s accent.
See how far she gets before she needs to scream for help.

This was what he had wanted. He had to remember that.

It was a dark place, and dripping. They all stepped carefully along the dim tunnel, keeping their feet out of the water. Each of the sentinels carried a lantern on a pole, which sent shimmering patterns of light over the walls, ceiling and water.

Velody wanted this. Every little brown mouse within her tight human skin was squeaking with excitement. Her
fingertips tingled. The old sensible part of her was a little concerned at how easily she had adapted to this life, but only a little.

She liked this new Velody.

‘Is this where you’ve been spending your time?’ Delphine asked as they made their way up the long, broad tunnel into old Aufleur, down below.

‘This is my first time here,’ said Velody.

Crane, walking ahead of them beside Ashiol, turned his head to grin at Velody. She smiled uncomfortably back.

Delphine had not missed either look, Velody knew, but mercifully she didn’t comment. Velody was all too aware of the watchful Kelpie and Macready bringing up their rear.
Seventeen. Oh, saints.
Nearly ten years younger than herself.

There was more than Crane’s puppy lust to think about today. Velody knew that in the days of the old skywar, Aufleur had been an underground city, housing a huge population. She also knew now that the remains of this once great engineering masterpiece served the Creature Court as a home. Still, it came as something of a shock when the tunnel opened out into a magnificent gallery, with an ornamental bridge cresting the sluice river. Then there was the cathedral. Velody hadn’t expected a cathedral. It was as grand and imposing as anything she had seen in Aufleur above, for all that the points of its highest spires disappeared into a ceiling of dirt and cracked marble.

As she gazed up at the majesty of the architecture, a flock of pigeons burst out from an upper eyrie of the cathedral, descending to the bridge in a fall of graceful plumage. Ashiol and the sentinels all tensed at this first sign that they were not alone down here. Delphine giggled and pointed. Velody stared, only remembering a moment too late that the Creature Court included a Pigeon Lord.

Priest emerged from the flutter of pigeons in glowing Lord form. He swept a tapestry cloak from the floor of the bridge and wrapped it around his nakedness.

For my benefit?
Velody wondered, not sure whether to be amused or wary.

Delphine’s giggles had turned into a choking sound. Velody reached out absently and took her hand, squeezing it a little. ‘Greetings, Lord of Pigeons,’ she said aloud.

‘Greetings of the day to you, Power and Majesty,’ replied Priest in a deep, sombre voice. ‘And what a fine day it is for a visit to your territories.’

Velody was not imagining that emphasis on ‘day’, she was certain. Neither had she missed the unspoken, ‘And about time too’, that he would never, of course, be impolite enough to speak aloud.

This one would disembowel me as soon as look at me
, Velody decided.
But he would display impeccable manners while doing it.

‘We have brought our sentinel for a long-awaited appointment with the Smith,’ she said aloud, trying not to sound as if she was explaining herself, or, worse, asking permission.

Priest’s face did not falter. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘We are not to be graced with a Court then, Majesty?’

‘I would not be so discourteous as to call a Court during your time of rest, my Lord,’ Velody answered diplomatically.

‘We are at your call day or nox, Majesty,’ he replied, bowing low. ‘May I ask when we are to be thus honoured?’

Velody paused for only a moment. She could blaze with anger at the Pigeon Lord’s effrontery, thus avoiding answering his difficult question. That was what Ashiol would want her to do.
That’s how he would handle it. What would I do?

She smiled sweetly and answered the impertinent question. ‘This nox, my Lord. If it is not too short notice?’

She had the pleasure of seeing Ashiol’s shoulderblades stiffen.

Priest’s whole demeanour changed. ‘No, indeed, Majesty. We shall be prepared for your grace and presence.’

Velody inclined her head, feeling like a pantomime dame.

Ashiol turned around and looked at her, his face calm but his eyes burning. Velody nodded to him. ‘We must not keep the Smith waiting,’ she reminded him.

‘Indeed not, Majesty,’ Ashiol grated, and set off at a blistering pace, Crane hurrying to keep stride with him.

As Velody dragged Delphine after them, Macready and Kelpie close at their heels, she heard the cries of a flock of pigeons. They sounded remarkably like human laughter.

‘It’s some kind of cult, isn’t it?’ Delphine said breathlessly.

Velody rolled her eyes. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ She heard Macready’s snort of laughter behind her. ‘You needn’t contribute.’

‘A thousand pardons, Majesty,’ he chuckled.

Ashiol led the way through a cluster of many small cottage terrace buildings jammed up against each other and separated by narrow, oddly proportioned streets lined with round cobbles.

‘Is this the Shambles?’ Velody asked.

‘We haven’t time for a guided tour,’ growled Ashiol. Obviously he wasn’t going to berate her while there was a chance any of the Court might overhear.

They moved in silence now, into an awkward-shaped square in the middle of the Shambles, then through more tangled streets. When they emerged, it was into a strange, earthy place. It smelled of rot. Pinpricks of daylight shone through glass tiles in the ceiling.

‘Where is this?’ Velody asked, looking around in awe.

Macready sidled up beside her, swinging his lantern forward. The remains of dirt banks and landscaping were visible now—even the twisted remains of once-living trees. There were stones everywhere, each carefully placed. ‘The Angel Gardens, so,’ he said quietly. ‘A grand place once. Food was grown here, and children played.’ For a moment it seemed as if he was going to say more, but changed his mind.

‘Why didn’t anyone keep it going?’ Velody asked, recognising that the place had once been beautiful.

‘Eh, none of the Court are well-known for their green fingers,’ Macready said. ‘That’s more of a daylight skill, would you not think?’

‘It’s getting warm,’ said Delphine. ‘I’m not shivering any more.’

‘We’re close then,’ said Macready. ‘Step lively, lass. Don’t want to keep the man waiting.’ He eyed Velody for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t practise your Power and Majesty airs on the Smith, lass. He’s not where you might expect him to be in the pecking order. He’s more alongside.’

‘Doesn’t react well to intimidation?’ Velody replied, widening her eyes innocently.

Macready laughed in a sharp, surprised bark. ‘Gods, lass. If our Crane didn’t need his swords so much, I’d be tempted to see you try. What a show that would be!’

As they crossed the Angel Gardens, the sounds of a forge filled the air: metal striking metal with hollow, hot echoes. A gust of warm air breathed over them from ahead. Velody could smell coals and steel.

Ashiol halted in mid-stride, swinging around to face Velody. The glare still had not eased from his face. ‘You lead us,’ he said sharply.

Her confidence drained into somewhere near her feet. ‘I don’t know the way.’

Ashiol simply stared at her, implacable.

It was Crane who broke the silence, holding his hand out to Velody. ‘I know the way, Majesty. We’ve been here before. You have to present me though. It’s…the way it is.’

There was a note in his voice she had not heard before. Something very like fear. This was important to him, but it wasn’t until now that she realised just how important. Slowly, Velody let Delphine’s hand drop and reached out to Crane. Together, hand in hand, they walked into the dark.

The smell of the place was all heat and danger. Hair prickled all along Velody’s skin. Her mouse-selves did not like this at all, though her inner chimaera uncurled at the scent of hot metal and the biting sounds.

She squeezed Crane’s hand, and he led her towards a glow at the far side of the darkness.

A huge figure loomed up in the orange and grey shadows, large muscular arms pumping as he slammed hammer to anvil, turning a glowing blade as he worked. He did not look up as Velody and Crane approached.