The Promise of the Child (24 page)

“If we can't get this thing open,” he said with a sigh, “you'll have to return it.”

Lycaste flinched as if struck. “Go back? I can't do that! I stole from him, from a Plenipotentiary! I can't go back there.”

“He'll know before too long, Lycaste.”

“I
stole
.” He shook his head emphatically and glared at the embers. “I'm a thief now.”

“It was brave thing to do.”

Lycaste looked up sharply. “Brave? Why? What's going to happen to me?”

Thievery. So revolting an act that parents did not even discuss it with their children. Lycaste dropped his head into his hands.

Elcholtzia sat down beside him without a word.

“I can't go back there, Elcholtzia,” he whispered between his steepled fingers. “Please don't make me go back.”

The man took a long time in answering. “If he finds out—”

Lycaste nodded, peeping between thumb and forefinger at Elcholtzia. “What happens when he finds out?”

“I don't know.”

He pushed his face between his fingers again, stretching the lattice across his brow. His heart pounded thickly and comfortingly inside him. It was safe in there, in its dark, sticky little hole. Lycaste wished he could swap places with it—just for a while—and hide somewhere in the deep recesses of himself, blind and deaf to everything that happened outside.

“Why wouldn't you speak to him? That day when we came to see you?” He did not look up, hearing Elcholtzia's breath beside him.

“That was not my first encounter with a Plenipotentiary,” the old man said. “A representative of the Second came to us many years ago. His name was Solenostemon. Perhaps some relation.”

“
Solenostemon
,” Lycaste repeated, tasting the exotic name. “Why was he here, in the Tenth?”

“For the same reason—to count us.” The man paused, thinking. “I shall never forget the day he arrived for as long as I live. That was when my parents were still alive.”

Lycaste nodded absently, his head still cradled in his hands. Every few moments the thought of being wanted for thievery returned to him, sending shivers across his skin.

“All the Province came to see this strange yellow man,” Elcholtzia continued. “In those days, there were few of us, living close together in the northern Menyanthes.” He hesitated, as if deciding where to begin. “The party lasted days. I thought it would never end. He promised to teach me many things, this man Solenostemon—we went for walks together, played on the beaches. All the while, he grew closer to my mother, angering my father.”

Lycaste looked up at the man briefly.

Elcholtzia shrugged. “Then one day my father disappeared. We didn't see him again.” He glanced into the garden. “To this day—sometimes when I'm out walking—I feel like I can hear him calling my name, deep in the forest.”

Lycaste studied Elcholtzia sadly for a moment, suddenly ashamed to have ever been afraid of him.

“Solenostemon grew steadily bored of our adventures together after that and I saw less of him. When he did take me out, it was usually for the purposes of instruction—on the ways of the wider world, the hierarchy of the Provinces and our lowly place in it down here in the Tenth. Sometimes he appeared disgusted with me; at other times he looked at me almost lovingly. He left for long periods, always neglecting to say goodbye, but never failed to return.

“But the last time he came back he was visibly unwell,” Elcholtzia said, standing and beginning to tidy up the iron implements, stacking them neatly in the corner of the forge. “He said it was something he ate, but even then I didn't believe him.”

He hefted the fallen hammer and leaned it against the wall, tipping a pail of water over the smouldering stones. “My mother and I looked after him during his final days, tending to him in what had once been my parents' bed. Sometimes he babbled, incoherent, sometimes he was cruelly lucid, his eyes hateful. He died in agony not long after, and I suppose I was glad of it.”

Lycaste put his head back into his hands.

“When my mother gave birth to his son later that year, the baby boy was orange—bright as a hen's yolk.” Elcholtzia sat down again beside Lycaste. “But he had inherited the same strange illness, a malaise of pain and these … strange, bloody sores. I comforted him as best I could, but it was no use. He did not last long.” The old man paused, examining his hands. “My mother took no interest in the boy while he lived—she had become confined to her chambers herself, morose and feverish with shame, so I named the boy after my father, Lathyrus, and took him away.”

“Where did you go?”

“I came here, to the coast. And it was here that I buried him.”

Lycaste kept his hands over his eyes. “I never had any brothers or sisters.” He listened to the drumming of his heart, thinking on all the pain Elcholtzia must have felt during his life.

A change in the rhythm forced him to open his eyes. It wasn't just his heart he'd been listening to. “What's that?”

It was knocking, at the courtyard door. Elcholtzia strained his neck around.

“Don't!” whispered Lycaste harshly, gripping him by the wrist.

“I shall have to.” Elcholtzia frowned and pulled his wrist free. “
Stop that.
The door isn't locked.”

“We can climb the wall!”

“
You
might be able to. Just wait here.” Elcholtzia disappeared up the steps of the forge.

Lycaste looked across to the garden wall where it joined the house. It must have been the height of two men, but secured to it was a wooden flower trellis that might just take his weight.

“Lycaste!”

He turned. Impatiens was standing, arms crossed, watching him. He came over to where Lycaste was sitting, Elcholtzia following behind. “Am I beyond understanding you, even after all these years?” He noticed Callistemon's case sitting at Lycaste's feet, his eyes widening. “Is that—? What have you done?”

Lycaste looked to Elcholtzia, then back at Impatiens. “Does Callistemon know I'm here?”

“I shouldn't think so. What's going on?”

He picked up the case and handed it over. “I stole it, Impatiens. I brought it here. Elcholtzia had nothing to do with it.”

Elcholtzia grabbed the bag. “Enough of that.”

Impatiens studied the satchel in Elcholtzia's hands, taking the information in. He lowered his voice. “Why?” he asked. “Why now?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you were so suspicious, why wait all this time?”

“It was the first chance I had,” Lycaste said.

Impatiens cleared his throat and studied the case some more. “I suppose it won't open?”

Elcholtzia shook his head.

“You've tried everything?” Impatiens asked, taking it from Elcholtzia.

“We're short on time—someone has to return it before he notices it's gone,” the old man said.

“I'll go,” muttered Lycaste as he looked at Elcholtzia, without leaving space for objections.

Someone was up there in the darkness. He hoped and dreaded that it might really be her waiting for him, knowing that he had to find out.

Passing his orchard, he'd seen the light in his tower, the beacon that had drawn him to her before. Lycaste took out a long knife from a drawer, resting it carefully on the table beside the Plenipotentiary's travel case as he searched his darkened kitchen. He finished packing a small bag and took the knife, pointing it ahead of him up the stairs as he went, the silence thickening in reaction to his own withheld breath. The unsteady light was coming from the study, where his model palace now took up almost the entire chamber. As he came closer, he realised the light was unsteady because it was produced by fire, the shadows flickering across the wall. He quickened his step.

Lycaste pushed the door fully open with the tip of the knife, noticing the sharp smell of burning plastic just as he saw the interior of his palace. Three of the figures were alight, their bodies bubbling and running beneath little plumes of black smoke. He ran to the model, searching for a rag or anything that would smother the flames in the boxes under the huge table that held the palace up.

Something hit him hard on the nape of his neck. Lycaste fell forwards, head slamming into the table leg, dropping the knife. His feet were pulled from under him.

“This is what happens, Lycaste,” said Callistemon's voice behind him. “This is what happens when you insult a man of the Second.” He grabbed Lycaste under the armpits and hauled him to the window while he was still stunned. Lycaste opened his eyes and stared at the flames engulfing his precious palace. Now two whole rooms were alight, the fire climbing from surface to surface, floor to floor.

“Look at me!” The slap was hard, jerking Lycaste's attention back to Callistemon. The Plenipotentiary pointed to the flames. “This will burn until you tell me where it is.”

“Where what is?” he managed.

The second blow was less of a surprise and hurt more. Lycaste felt his freshly healed nose splinter again, by now familiar with the sensation. He breathed thickly through the blood and tried his hardest not to make a sound.

“It doesn't really matter. You can't open it.” Callistemon's face became clearer as Lycaste's eyes adjusted. It looked freckled in the light, like a banana that had begun to turn.

He heaved his arm from the man's grip and struck pathetically, Callistemon intercepting it easily in the dark. The Plenipotentiary clamped his fingers around Lycaste's slender wrist and bent it back. He couldn't stop the whimper as it escaped.

A humourless smile appeared on Callistemon's lips. “Theft
and
striking a representative. There's a revolutionary in you after all.”

Lycaste stole a glance at the fire, now tasting the roof of the palace. “All right!” he yelped. “I had it—I can get it back.”

Callistemon leaned away to look at him, his face defined suddenly in the light of the fire. “Who has the case now?”

What Lycaste had taken to be dirt before was dried blood, caked and scabbed across the bridge of the man's nose. “I can get it for you,” he said, his eyes flicking to the palace again, knowing it might earn him another blow. “Just put the fire out!”

Callistemon wiped his face and inspected his hand while he restrained Lycaste. “I knew there was something unusual about you, Lycaste, the instant I met you.” He glanced to the fire, watching it spread to another room. “You have that shyness that afflicts young men who aren't brought up correctly. Maybe something else, too.” He smiled as Lycaste struggled, watching in horror as more miniature rooms became engulfed. “A touch of the syndrome, I think?” He took Lycaste's face roughly in his hands and leaned closer, his soft voice and musty breath tickling Lycaste's nose. “If you thought your difficulties would absolve you of responsibility, though, you're wrong.”

The fire was growing very hot now, precious years of his life expended only in heating a room. Lycaste watched the roof collapse in a flurry of sparks that threatened his tapestries and looked back at Cal-listemon, an ember of rage igniting inside him as if it had floated from the burning palace.

He roared in fury, the man's grip tightening in surprise. “You took her from me! The only person I ever loved!”

Callistemon's eyes widened as Lycaste yanked his hand free of the Plenipotentiary's grip and grabbed the man's neck, swinging him around and slamming his head against the wall. He was surprised for a moment at how light his attacker was, realising as he shoved Callistemon into the stone again that the Plenipotentiary was a good deal smaller than him. Callistemon forced himself away from the wall, swinging a fist. The two gripped each other, swaying and staggering back towards the open window. Callistemon raised his fist again, but not before Lycaste shoved him hard to one side.

The man disappeared as if the wall had suddenly dissolved. Lycaste steadied himself, confused for a moment, finally placing his hand on the lintel of the window that he'd forgotten was there to peer out.

Somewhere in the darkness the waves sighed over pebbles. He stared down into the black orchard, searching for any sign of Callistemon. A crackle from the fire brought his attention back to the palace and he ripped a hanging from the wall, staggering across to throw it over the fire. He pulled it off when he was sure the flames had been smothered, inspecting the remains of the palace uselessly in the now dark room.

The silence rushed back in, dampening his adrenalin. Lycaste returned to the window, looking down.

Surely he hadn't. At the bottom of the tower, perhaps thirty feet below, he could just make out Callistemon's prone form. He looked at the black remains of his model once more before carefully descending the stairs.

Lycaste knew that breath was an indicator of life, and bent his head down carefully to Callistemon's mouth when he came upon him, straining to listen. His own heartbeat drowned out anything he might have heard. He needed light, but the tower's hanging lanterns were not responding to the movement of his blood. The bastard must have done something to the kinetics.

Lycaste tried to remember where he might find the pulse—somewhere on the face, he supposed, that was where most of the body's blood went. Lycaste grimaced as his thumbs kneaded the man's motionless flesh, warm and unresponsive.

“You can't hide this.” Elcholtzia looked even more drained than usual. “Someone's going to come looking for him, sooner or later.”

Lycaste gazed at the flaking wall miserably.

“You're well known here,” said Elcholtzia as he gazed out of his window into the pre-dawn blue. “Nobody's going to say anything, but that doesn't mean it'll go away.”

Lycaste chanced a look at Elcholtzia, noticing he hadn't said
well liked
. “We could say anything—tell them a shark got him, just like Drimys.”