The Boy with the Porcelain Blade (32 page)

Lucien fled.

The calm ordinariness of the girl’s delivery had unmanned him. He’d been expecting resistance, had hoped for a desperate escape. Instead the whole scene had played out in chilling silence.

The grass conspired to slow him. Lucien pressed on harder, anger and disgust hot at the back of his throat. As soon as he reached the grey walls of Demesne his flight continued vertically, at much the same pace. His mind was full of questions that burned, while his gut was full of disappointment. A tiny spark had existed that wanted to believe the Domo’s story of women driven to madness. Wanted to believe the fiction he’d been told. He’d not admitted such a spark could exist until it had been snuffed out.

Before he knew it, he was staring in through Anea’s window, aching fingers gripping the cold stone. She was asleep in the vast fabric of her bed. Panic crawled up his spine. His arms were tiring, and yet he was terrified that if he knocked too loudly others would hear him. He squeezed himself onto the window ledge, feeling too large for the narrow sliver of stone. He looked below, regretting the glance immediately. The fall would snap him, and yet the prospect of climbing back down was a daunting one. He stared at the squat form of the
sanatario
, which appeared no less imposing for the sun’s first rays. He shivered, wretched and despairing.

The window beside him opened. Anea waved him in, eyes, jade-green in the candlelight, full of concern. He climbed in, staggering as he jumped to the floor, turning to face her, shocked agony on his features. Anea stared back, hair falling about her face in a wave of pale yellow. Lucien smothered himself in it, clutching at her. She stiffened, her whole body going taut. Cautiously, she raised one hand to his head, smoothing down his wind-tousled hair. The embrace continued for many minutes, he silently shaking his grief out into the ropes and braids of her tresses, she remaining stiff-limbed, painfully self-conscious in his arms. Finally he released her and they sat down cross-legged on the floor as he dried his eyes on his jacket sleeves. Lucien couldn’t meet her eyes, addressing his boots instead.

‘They’re taking women. They’re taking them and I don’t know why.’

He detached his scabbard from his belt, placing it across his knees.

‘They’re taking women, and I don’t know if I can stop them.’

33

Among Gargoyles
HOUSE CONTADINO
–
Febbraio
315

Lucien emerged into the corridor of King’s Keep hollow-eyed and gaunt with shock. He looked around at the carnage. The Majordomo’s severed limbs lay in congealing pools of blue blood. No sign of his inhuman strength remained in the hands. Pale and withered, they resembled diseased offcuts, as if specimens in the king’s laboratory. Lucien hoped the museum of horrors might be consumed by fire, just as the perpetrator of those experiments had been.

The stench of burned meat and singed hair lingered in the corridor like a curse. The Domo’s staff lay shattered on the floor, the amber headpiece glinting like a jaundiced eye, but he was nowhere to be seen. Lucien struggled to comprehend how the man had escaped, or even survived the sundering of three limbs. He had no wish to make death his constant companion, and yet the opportunity to end the Domo had fled. He doubted a second chance would present itself. His only priority now was Rafaela.

Keys jingled in the darkness, hanging from the king’s chain, now wrapped around his forearm. His left hand grasped Virmyre’s sword while he yanked a lantern from a sconce with his right. The darkness receded ahead of him, cowering, falling away to reveal locked portals and empty corridors. Once or twice he saw people at a distance, like phantoms. They drifted away, disappearing around corners beyond the range of the light and his curiosity. Doors closed and were locked. Tension clung to him like a cobweb until he reached the more familiar environs of House Contadino.

Nothing stirred here; even the cats had given up their nocturnal hunting. He pressed on, knees bruised, arms aching, ribs twingeing when he breathed too deeply. He was almost at the kitchens when he heard the commotion.

‘Get away. I don’t know anything about it.’ A young voice. Maybe a few years older than himself, he guessed.

‘We just want to ask some questions.’ Older, grizzled, drunk. The last word distinctly threatening.

‘Reckon if anyone knows where he is, you do. What with being a messenger an’ all.’ Another voice, much softer.

‘Get away from me.’

Lucien traced the voices to the sitting room near the kitchens. Light flickered from underneath the door and down the side. Left ajar. Lucien would not refuse the invitation.

‘I’ve not seen him since he left. The Majordomo had him thrown in the oubliette. Isn’t that enough?’ It was Nardo, the House Contadino messenger. Navilia’s brother.

‘Perhaps you should go in too,’ said the older voice. ‘You Contadini have always been too close to that filthy
strega.
Reckon it’s time you paid for that.’

Lucien felt a new surge of anger, but it was a cold thing, not the heated fury that had consumed him when facing the Domo. He kicked open the door. It slammed against the wall, rattling on its hinges. Everyone turned to face him. Lucien’s sword was held out in first position, its tip lurking near the nearest guard’s exposed throat. Eyes widened in shock as they recognised him, changing to terror as they took in the sight. He was smeared with blue blood, clothes ragged and ripped from his encounters, face streaked with dirt, purple bruises flourishing beneath the grime.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said in a harsh whisper before calmly setting the lantern down on a dresser near the door. The sword at the guardsman’s throat moved not an inch. The guards had cornered Nardo, but were armed only with knives. The messenger had crumpled to the floor, back pressed to the wall. He looked tired and dirty; his cheek was bloodied, the eye above starting to bruise. He nodded to the Orfano.

The nearest guard had his eyes fixed on the point of the sword just inches from his jugular. He was a downy-cheeked sort, barely eighteen summers, the corner of his mouth a riot of sores. His accomplice was an older man bearing a slash across his cheekbone that had been sewn up badly, making him squint in one eye.

‘I think it’s time you both retired from House Fontein and took up something more useful. Farming perhaps.’

‘Y-yes, Master Lucien,’ said the younger guard in a falsetto. His boots began to fill with piss.

‘Go. The Fuck. Away.’

The man left, his knife clattering to the floor. He struggled past Lucien, looking both apologetic and awkward as he went. The sound of his footsteps receded in the distance. Lucien’s eyes remained locked on the older guard, who hadn’t moved. His fist grew tight on the hilt of the knife as he squared up to Lucien, mouth a sour curve, arrogant and pugnacious.

‘I serve the king,’ growled the man, the scar twisting on his face. Lucien ignored him.

‘Stand up, Nardo.’ The messenger dragged himself to his feet, brushed himself down. ‘It was the Majordomo who had your sister abducted, on the orders of the king.’

Nardo stared back wordlessly. He swallowed, then nodded.

‘I’m sorry. But I thought you should know.’

The messenger knelt down and retrieved the discarded knife.

‘Squads of guards from House Fontein were sent out under cover of darkness. Sent to abduct girls around their eighteenth birthday. Guards like this one.’

‘I wasn’t no part of that business,’ blustered the scarred man. His face grew scarlet, uncertain eyes turning to Nardo, then back to the
strega
who held him at swordpoint. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

‘I swear I didn’t go with them. They asked me but I refused.’

‘You refused an order from Giancarlo?’ Lucien raised an eyebrow. ‘And the Majordomo?’

‘That’s right. I stood up to them.’

‘What a hero,’ sneered Lucien. He slapped the man’s knuckles with the flat of his blade leaving him nursing numbed fingers. The knife fell and embedded itself in the floorboards with a gentle
thud
.

‘He’s all yours, Nardo.’ Lucien backed out of the room and closed the door. The guard began to beg, his voice becoming high-pitched, then incoherent. Suddenly the sounds stopped. What Nardo had done wouldn’t bring Navilia back, but it would have to do.

The night sky was smeared with an amber light where it met the land. The mist had a luminous quality as the sun crept closer to the horizon. At first Lucien thought he was hallucinating or his eyes were playing tricks with the dawn. Figures drifted in the meadow between Demesne and the
sanatorio
, awful shades half seen, the very images of the things that haunted his stories, creatures from dark tales. The unquiet dead.

But they were not dead.

The doors to the
sanatorio
had been unlocked. And not just the doors but the cells too. The shaven-headed women had stumbled out into the breaking dawn, legs stick-thin and unsteady. Some simply gazed at the stars above as they were extinguished by the coming of the sun. Others lurched and staggered, hunched over and heedless of anyone around them. A few clutched at companions only they could see or batted away invisible persecutors. Grubby shifts like burial shrouds concealed their sparse frames. Lucien staggered on, exhaustion weighing on his heels. Rafaela was not among them. His pulse raced, mouth turning dry.

The doors of the
sanatorio
yawned open, the arched portal revealing nothing but darkness within. Lucien looked at the chain of keys wrapped around his forearm with disgust. He’d faced the king for nothing. The call of ravens reached him as he picked his way through the meadow of withered women, past unseeing gazes. A few noticed him and tried to mouth words but none came. The awful silence remained unbroken.

Inside the
sanatorio
, sprawled on the floor, was Dottore Angelicola, his right eye darkened by bruising, hair tousled and wild, trousers wet with dew. Keys lay discarded on the floor nearby. He was rocking back and forth keening to himself like a child. Cradled in his arms was a haggard woman close to death. If she was aware of Angelicola’s distress she didn’t show it: her eyes remained blank and rheum-grey. Her hands were lifeless claws in her lap.

‘Just for a while, they said. Oh yes.’

Lucien wasn’t sure the
dottore
had seen him. He stood at the doorway and listened.

‘You and your pretty wife can live for ever, they said, Oh yes. Such a pretty wife.’

The
dottore
sobbed and sobbed, only stopping to cough and shudder.

‘And all you have to do is deliver the babies in the
sanatorio.
Such pretty babies. And such unfortunate women. Oh yes. So pretty.’

Lucien gripped the hilt of his sword. He was certain Angelicola’s confession would be more than he could bear to hear.

‘But those pretty babies weren’t pretty at all. They lied. I pulled those creatures from the wombs of women, cutting them out when I had to. Filthy Orfani, foul
streghe
every one.’ The
dottore
had settled into a conspiratorial whisper, the woman in his arms a captive audience.

‘But we won’t let those dreadful vermin take over, will we? Not even that thug Golia. No, we’re much too clever. Aren’t we? Oh yes.’

The
dottore
pressed his forehead against the woman’s own.

‘I don’t know why I’m telling you these things. Your mind snapped twenty years ago.’ He laughed hysterically, almost screeching. Lucien wondered if he’d sampled his own morphine.

‘Dottore.’

Angelicola looked up as if he’d just woken from a dream. He drew in a shuddering breath.

‘L-lucien?’

‘Care to tell me what in the nine hells is going on?’

‘I-I set them free.’

‘You had keys to this place the whole time?’

The wild-haired
dottore
nodded.

‘
Porcia misèria!
I could have stolen them from you and been spared meeting the king.’

‘The king?’ Horror seeped in behind Angelicola’s eyes. ‘H-how is he?’

‘Dead. Which is what you’re going to be if you don’t give me an answer.’

The
dottore
squealed and scrambled away from him. The corpse-like woman fell to the flagstones, her head hitting the floor with a dull
smack
.

‘Where is Rafaela?’

‘I’ve not seen her. I swear. Golia brought me here. He made me give him the keys. He said he was… looking for someone.’ The
dottore
’s eyes filled with understanding. Lucien felt his stomach clench. ‘Lucien. I’m—’

‘Where?’ Barely restrained violence.

‘I don’t know.’ Angelicola choked back a sob. ‘Lucien, finish this. Finish me, I beg you.’ His eyes were brimming.

Lucien ignored him, pressing on into the
sanatorio.
His mind was blank, feet seeking out the stone steps that would take him higher, legs protesting underneath him. It was cold in the heart of the
sanatorio
, and he felt the chill all too keenly. Running from cell to cell, he searched each and every one, scoured the corridors, ignoring the smell of bodies and piss. His every exhalation was transformed. A single-word prayer, a chant.

Rafaela, Rafaela, Rafaela.

Only emptiness greeted him. Here a sodden pile of rags, there a mouldering mattress or a pail of excrement. The
sanatorio
was deserted. Lucien despaired. He screamed in fury, throwing his lantern against the wall in pure rage. It hit the floor and leaked oil for a few seconds before the liquid spluttered into life. Fire bloomed.

He was still shaking with anger when he spotted it – a ladder lit by the bright glow of the broken lantern. He followed the wooden steps up, then realised they were attached to the wall with metal pitons. Above him was a trapdoor that could only lead to the rooftop and the ring of gargoyles that looked out across the countryside.

Lucien sheathed his sword and scrambled onto the bottom rungs, nearly losing his footing in his haste. He scaled the ladder quickly, pushing against the trapdoor, flinging it back. Morning light flooded in, making him squint. He climbed up, drawing his sword on instinct as soon as he gained his feet. The women still drifted in the meadow below: they stumbled on, arms outstretched, moaning faintly to themselves. Lucien glanced at them only briefly before turning his attention to the presence at the edge of his vision. His mouth went dry.

Golia stood with a rope in his hand, a rope terminating at a hangman’s noose, looped over Rafaela’s neck. She was tight-lipped with fear, her eyes pressed shut. More rope bound her wrists together in front of her. Mercifully she looked unhurt.

The largest of the Orfano was dressed for
La Festa.
His suit was immaculate, his shirt brilliant white. Only the sword in his hand and the dagger hilt protruding from each boot disclosed his agenda. And the crude leash about Rafaela’s neck.

‘They were going to make me king.’

‘I know.’

‘Giancarlo and the Domo. They were going to make
me
king.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you couldn’t stand it, could you?’ Golia snorted. ‘That they chose me and not you.’

‘I don’t want to be king, Golia.’

‘They chose me, Lucien,
me
.’

‘There’s a lot more going on in Demesne than you know. We—’

‘No more words, Lucien. Everyone speaks of how clever you are. Well all the clever words in the world aren’t going to help now, are they?’

He tugged on the rope, causing Rafaela to flap and flounder. She clawed at the rope.

Lucien took a step forward. ‘Please.’

‘Don’t even think about trying anything clever.’ Golia grinned without humour. ‘I’ll kick her over the side.’ He flicked his eyes to the edge of the roof. Lucien saw the rope passed through Golia’s hand and was tied around one of the gargoyles.

‘Don’t do this, Golia.’ He held out one hand. ‘You can still be king.’

‘I’ve seen you.’ Lucien wondered if Golia was drunk. ‘Getting all cosy with Dino and Anea. Plotting to get rid of me. Think you’re so clever, don’t you, Lucien?’ He looked down at the rope in his hand and smiled sadly. ‘I don’t want to be king either.’ He released a great sigh. ‘I just want to kill you, kill you and all your clever words.’ He looked down at Rafaela. ‘I don’t even care about this
porca puttana
: I just wanted to see you squirm.’