It is the reign of Emperor Hugh the Unready, and the Empire is in the grip of a bitter winter as the new year 360 YE comes hard and unwillingly into the world, like a difficult birth. Dawn lies frostbitten under sullen grey skies; the fields are frozen hard as iron, and the cobbled streets of the towns are slippery with ice and slush. Even the children are huddled indoors, abandoning sledges and ice skates for the fireside. On a corner of a street in Applefell, a smithy stands silent, the forge cold and abandoned. Someone has not latched the door properly; it keeps banging in the wind. In the small house attached to the smithy, a smith lies still and silent, as cold as the ashes.
In life, Alienor was never still – a solid, hard-muscled woman who laughed loudly, and carried her children on her shoulders as though they weighed nothing. Now she lies on the bed as though frozen, hands folded in unnatural repose on her breast. Her cheeks are pale as ice, drained of the restless fever-flush of nights past; her flaxen hair is loose and combed out, not bound back away from the heat of the forge. There are no flowers to put around her; not in winter. Under her hands lies a bunch of holly, bright berries and dark glossy green leaves. If they prick her fingers, she does not bleed.
She has been dead for two days, and only three people know it.
In a chair in the next room, a man sits in front of a dying fire, staring sightlessly into the kitchen hearth. His face is unshaven, and dark hair falls lank and unwashed into his eyes. At his feet, a small girl of five fiddles disconsolately with a box of toy soldiers, edging closer to the feeble flames for warmth. Behind him, an older child catches at his hand where it hangs loosely at his side. She is seven years old, with dark hair bound back into a thick plait long enough to sit on, and something of her mother’s stubbornness about her chin. She tugs at the hand, but receives no response.
“Dad,” says Clarice. She gives a short, impatient seven-year-old sigh. “Dad, we’ve got to tell someone.”
Kay Fields shakes his head almost imperceptibly, but doesn’t look at his daughter. “Leave it.” The words come out breathless, almost stillborn.
“We can’t just leave her there, Dad.” Her voice wobbles, but she ploughs on. “We’ve got to bury her.”
On the hearthrug, five-year-old Aleidis gives a choked, hiccoughing sob. Reflexively, her father reaches a hand down to rest on her dark curls. “Don’t make your sister cry,” he says automatically. His gaze is still fixed on the dying fire, on something only he can see. “Leave it.”
Clarice grits her teeth against the desire to scream, or cry, or break something, or just fling herself on the cold flagstones and howl. Instead, she blinks hard, and changes tack. “It’s late, Dad. We need supper.” Receiving no response, she drops his hand and does it herself – hacks some lopsided slices of bread from a stale loaf, scrapes the mould off a lump of cheese, goes through all the jars of pickled apples in the pantry until she finds one from last year’s harvest that her small hands can force open. The sweet sharp scent of them makes her eyes sting with tears; her mother had taught her to bottle fruit that autumn. She sniffs, wipes her nose on her sleeve, portions it all out onto three plates and carries it back to the fireside. It’s not much of a supper, but it’s better than nothing. Aleidis stops crying and sets to hungrily, even though she hates pickled apples and there’s no butter for the bread. Good lass, thinks Clarice, mopping up apple juice with dry bread and looking at her father as he stares dead-eyed into the hearth, oblivious to the plate on his lap. “Dad, you’ve got to eat or you’ll starve.”
Again, she receives no acknowledgement. For a moment, tears blur her view of the plate. She clears her throat, shoves the crust of the bread into her mouth, then gets up from her stool. “I’m going, Dad,” she informs him with her mouth full as she pulls on her winter cloak. She has no idea where she’s going, only that surely someone can help. One of their neighbours will help. “I’m going to get Matilde Taverner.”
He blinks, slowly, but doesn’t turn around. “Not her,” he says after a long moment.
“Then Philip. Or Stephen Turner. Or Marguerite Baker. Or someone.”
Kay Fields lapses into silence. Clarice stares at the back of his head, willing him to react in some way, but he seems lost in the flames.
Then she turns on her heel and strides off into the filthy weather to hammer on a neighbour’s door, because her mother is dead, and she needs someone who will do something.
*
It is almost spring, in the year 360. A sharp March breeze is blowing through the market square in Applefell, whipping colour into cheeks and catching at cloaks pulled tight around shoulders. Geoffrey Hawker sits behind his market stall and turns over a hammer and tongs in his hands, watched closely by a dark-haired child. Holding her hand is a smaller child bundled up in a cloak, her face barely visible under her hood. At length, he sighs. “They’re in good nick. But they’re your ma’s, are they not?”
“She’s dead,” says Clarice bluntly. “There isn’t another smith in the family.”
Geoffrey’s brows knit. He’s a kind-faced man, red-haired and red-faced with Cambion horns; his coppery labyrinth markings are almost entirely obscured by a thick ginger beard. He turns the tools over in his hands. He is one of those who helped dig the grave for Alienor, a heavy task in the depths of winter with the ground frozen hard. “How’s your father?”
Dad is useless, thinks Clarice. She very nearly says it. The words leap to the tip of her tongue, along with the mental image of what her father is doing at this moment: sitting in his chair, staring into space. Their neighbours had rallied around them after Clarice had hammered on Marguerite Baker’s door that bitter night and said, please help us, I don’t know what to do. They had wept with them, helped wash the body, helped hack a grave out of the iron earth. Throughout it all, Kay Fields had sat motionless in his chair, barely acknowledging their presence. Nobody had been angry with him. They had laid hands on his shoulder, and murmured things like heartbreak and to be expected, and had brought over bread and pies and other things. They hadn’t gone hungry or without company, in those first weeks.
But the weeks have turned into months, and he hasn’t moved from the fireside, and somehow they have slid into some horrible pretence that things are improving. Alienor is too little to care, and Kay doesn’t care about anything. But Clarice is old enough to be horribly, miserably ashamed of living on people’s charity because her father can’t pull himself together enough to wash or shave without being reminded by his children. Dad is useless because he is no use. He sits in his chair. He eats if I make him. He goes to the privy. He looks at the fire. He sleeps in his chair. Those are all the things he does. She wonders, if she or Aleidis were to fall sick like their mother did, whether he’d even notice. But she can’t say that in front of Aleidis; and if she’s too proud to confess how useless he is to anyone else, then she certainly can’t betray him to Geoffrey. “Dad’s very… very tired,” she says in the end. It’s true, though she doesn’t know how doing nothing could be so tiring. “Will you buy the tools?” She stops herself from saying, please buy them. There’s nothing left in the coin box. She has no idea what they’ll do once there’s nothing left to sell. Under her bed is a sleeveless chain hauberk that she took from the forge the day after her mother died; she can hardly bear the idea of not having anything left, but if it’s that or begging…
Geoffrey sighs again. “Yes, love. I’ll give you three crowns for the pair.”
She frowns a little. “That’s more than they’re worth,” she says, before she can stop herself.
“You go and get your Citizenship before you come telling me what is and isn’t Prosperous, young lady.” He smiles, pushes the coins at her, and makes a shooing motion. “Go on with the pair of you, and give your father my best.”
Clarice gives a tight, awkward smile, and pockets the coins. Aleidis tugs at her hand as they walk away. “Are we going home?”
She shakes her head, and tears her eyes away from the baker’s shop. It’s too early in the day; better to come back in the evening, and pick up whatever Marguerite has left for cheap. “Let’s go and play with Gawaine at the Vintner’s Rest. He’ll be in.” And if we’re lucky, his parents will feed us while we’re there, and the coin will go further.
*
They are, as it happens, in luck. In spite of Clarice’s scruples, almost all of their hot food nowadays is found at other families’ firesides. Gawaine Taverner’s parents are generous with their helpings, and Aleidis is happy to be left there a while, building fortresses with Gawaine out of chairs and bedsheets. Clarice leaves her to it and wanders up to the taproom, secretly glad of the respite. It isn’t that she doesn’t love her baby sister, but sometimes it would be nice to be on my own. Or to be with children her own age. Or just to play, instead of thinking all the time about coin, or food, or looking after Aleidis, or what other grown ups are thinking.
The taproom is crowded, and busy enough on market day that she has to thread her way through a crowd of grown-ups to find a spot to curl up in and watch the world go by. The air is laced with the sweet smell of ale and strewing herbs over an undercurrent of market-day sweat. It’s pleasant to be somewhere so noisy, when home is so quiet; after the soft crackle of the fire and Aleidis’s play and the soft silence of whitewashed walls, the hubbub of the tavern feels alive. Suddenly, a voice she recognises filters through the slatted wooden partition – Geoffrey from the market, talking with someone she doesn’t know. With an uncomfortable start, she realises she’s being discussed.
“… came to me earlier with her ma’s hammer and tongs. Hardly knew what to say to her. What’s Kay thinking of, to send a child out on an errand like that?”
“From what I understand he’s not thinking of anything. Half mad with grief, I hear.” The voice is unfamiliar, a little cultured. “He’s not worked since the midwinter, there can’t be a ring coming into that house.”
“Grief is right enough, and who can blame him.” Geoffrey’s voice is heavy, gloomy. “Alienor was full of life. It’s hard to think of her dead, and of a fever of all things. I think losing her would have killed him if not for the children.”
“Better if it had.”
“Better for Kay, maybe. Not for the children, though – Virtues save us, they don’t need to lose them both. I suppose he’ll sell up in the end, surely. It’s a shame, but… well, the kid said it herself, Kay’s got no use for a smithy.”
“Sell up? It’s rented, and far in arrears.” The stranger murmurs something inaudible over the surrounding noise. “And that won’t go on forever. Nobody can keep on renting to a tenant who doesn’t pay the rent, it isn’t Prosperous.”
A heavy sigh from Geoffrey. “If Kay doesn’t pull himself together… well, William and I’d take the kids in gladly, and the Taverners would too. Plenty would. It’s a terrible thing, but when someone loses the love of their life…”
“Mm. I can ask at the castle whether any of the House are looking to adopt…”
The words run into each other, fading away to a low distant buzz. Clarice closes her eyes, feeling oddly distant and weak-kneed, almost faint. I thought we were all right. I thought I was making things be all right. Suddenly afraid that she’s going to be sick, she slips out of her hiding place and squeezes her way through the crowd, then darts through the door behind the bar. In her haste she almost crashes into Philip Taverner, Gawaine’s father.
“Steady on!” He pauses, suddenly concerned. “Are you all right there, love? You’re white as a ghost.”
“I – I don’t know,” she admits unsteadily. I can ask at the castle whether any of the House are looking to adopt. Her lips have gone curiously numb, and Philip’s voice sounds as though it’s coming from a very long way off. “I… I think so… I’m… just…”
The words don’t make it out of her mouth before her vision greys at the edges, and she feels Philip bundle her up into his arms and lift her as though she weighs nothing. He’s a big man, big and broad like her mother, and she buries her face in his chest, closing her eyes against the sick faint feeling as he carries her through to the house. Voices blur past one another, snatches of conversation floating like thistledown on the wind – … I don’t know… come over poorly … just lie her down … be fine … not in here Philip, you’ll frighten her sister, take her next door … Slowly, laid on a sofa with her feet on the arm, the world settles back into place with the Taverners looking down at her. “… what happened?”
Phillip hands her a tumbler of water. “A dizzy spell, love. Drink this. You gave me quite a fright, I thought you were going to faint on me. Are you not feeling well?”
Clarice considers this for a moment, then shakes her head. “No, I’m – I’m fine.” Awkwardly, she raises herself on one elbow to sip at the water. She pauses, feeling the words cluster in her mouth, buzzing things with stings or poison in them. “… Philip, what does in arrears mean?”
Philip and Matilde Taverner glance at one another. There’s a moment before Philip answers; his brow furrows in thought, and he takes a breath, choosing his words with care. “You know what renting a house means? That you pay the person who owns the house, so that you can live there?”
Clarice nods. “Like ours.” It seems pointless to try and lie about it.
He nods. “Yes. Well, in arrears means that the rent hasn’t been paid. It means the people living in the house owe money to the person who owns the house.”
She closes her eyes for a moment. Rent. I didn’t even think about rent. Why didn’t I think about that? Why am I so stupid? Why can’t I get anything right? “What… what happens, when someone’s in arrears?”
Again, husband and wife share a look. Philip pauses. “Well, a good landlord might give them some time to pay up. If… if it’s because something bad has happened.”
Clarice pushes herself into a sitting position. It makes her head swim briefly, but the world settles back into place soon enough. “And then? If they don’t?”
“I’m going to go and have a word with your father,” says Matilde abruptly. Her eyes flash bright blue, and the pointed eartips showing through her thick tawny hair are warning enough not to cross her. “You’re a child of seven and you shouldn’t be thinking about this.”
I’m nearly eight, she thinks, but doesn’t say it. Matilde is kind, but it doesn’t do to cheek her. “I don’t think he’ll listen,” she says quietly.
“She’s right my love,” says Philip to his wife. “He’s heartsick. He blames himself. I don’t think he can listen.”
Matilde certainly isn’t listening; she’s halfway out of the room already. “He’ll bloody well listen to me!”
Philip jumps to his feet and follows her. “Matilde…”
“… if that man had a loyal bone in his body…”
“… Matilde…”
Clarice listens to their footsteps and voices echoing away down the hall. Loyal. Suddenly, a thought drops into her head, along with a memory of a lady with silver hair and purple scales, and a sweet, sweet singing voice that had hushed the noise of the taproom. Loyalty. She scrambles off the sofa, pausing only to retrieve her cloak from the next room before slipping out of the back door.
*
The hill up to Castle Novarion is steep for small legs, and by the time she reaches the top she is flushed and breathless. In the first flush of resolve, it had been easy not to be frightened. Fear of simply marching up to a noble household and asking for an audience is easily quelled by a purposeful stride, the desire to do something, and above all by simply not stopping for long enough to think about it very hard. With the castle walls towering in front of her though, even Clarice is beginning to have misgivings. The people standing around inside the open gates look intimidatingly… well, noble. Wealthy. Strong. Grown up, in a way that’s somehow different to the grown ups she knows. In a corner of the courtyard, two knights are sparring. I can ask at the castle whether any of the House are looking to adopt. This is where they’d bring us. The thought makes her cheeks feel numb again, in a way that has nothing to do with the chill March wind. If it were a neighbour’s house, she would just bang on the door, but… how do I knock on a castle door when it’s already open?
Feeling foolish, she hesitates, precious momentum draining away. Just as she begins to think about turning back, a flash of colour catches her eye. Tucked into a corner between an old apple tree and the castle wall is a small girl of about Aleidis’s age, with a mass of brilliant copper hair as thick as Clarice’s own. She sits cross-legged on the ground, apparently impervious to the cold, absorbed in some book or other. I suppose nobles’ children learn earlier, thinks Clarice, rather impressed. She’s sure Aleidis doesn’t read well enough for proper books yet. Of course, the girl’s parents might not be nobles, but from her clothes they’re wealthy at the very least. Cautiously she approaches her. “Excuse me, but do you live here? I’m looking for someone…”
“No, I live in the castle.” She does not look up from the book; apparently it is considerably more interesting than people.
It’s like something Aleidis would say in one of her more awkward moods. Oh, we’re playing that game, are we. Clarice sits back on her heels, bringing them nearer eye level. “I’m looking for a lady – a noble lady, a troubadour. She’s old. A naga, with – with silver hair and purple scales. Only I don’t know her name. Do you know who I mean?”
The girl looks up and stares at Clarice intensely. “Yes…” She looks thoughtful for a second. “Was that one of the questions my grandfather says I should not answer literally because people ask dicho… Dichoto…” Her brow furrows slightly. “Dichotomous questions when they actually don’t want one?”
Clarice blinks. Maybe she’s older than she looks; either she hasn’t heard the word right, or it isn’t one she knows. “Um… It might be. What’s her name? What’s yours?”
“The Lady’s name is Melisende, and my Father says that rhymes with pretender for a reason, but my mother says he is just bitter and it was ten years ago and he should just let it go. I’m Igraine. I’m five and three seventeenths.” She says all of this in a rush, then stops and takes a deep breath.
Clarice blinks again. She’s not sure she’s ever met a five year old quite like this, not even Helouise Fisher, who’s a merrow. Maybe Igraine is too – there aren’t any scales, but bundled up in her winter clothes, it’s impossible to see whether she has gills. But her mother had always told her it was rude to ask about someone’s lineage. “I’m Clarice. I’m… nearly eight.” Even if she’d known her exact date of birth, she would still have had no idea how many seventeenths were involved. She wasn’t sure what to make of the bit about Igraine’s father, but it sounded like grown ups arguing, and that was usually boring and stupid. “Do – do you know where Lady Melisende is? Can you take me to her?” Part of her felt that asking someone so much younger for directions was silly, but Igraine didn’t sound younger. Certainly talking to her was nothing like talking to Aleidis.
Igraine tilts her head to one side and fixes Clarice with an unblinking stare. “Yes… I think… Maybe… But I can take you there!” She carefully closes her book and scrambles up to her feet.
Clarice smiles, in relief as much as in friendliness. Thank goodness. I won’t have to ask a grown up. Resolutely, she pushes aside the thought of what she is going to have to ask a grown up once they get there, and gets to her feet. “Thank you!” Despite being much taller, she still has to hurry after Igraine, who sets off across the courtyard with the confident speed of a small child given the opportunity to show off their expertise. None of the adults pay them any heed. One of the sparring knights shouts a very rude curse as her opponent lands a heavy blow. Clarice giggles, distracted for a moment, then finds herself having to sprint after Igraine before her coppery head vanishes around a corner. They go through halls and up stairs, Igraine forging ahead with utter confidence while Clarice begins to feel dizzy with high ceilings and fine tapestries. Eventually, they come to a halt in front of a doorway.
“It’s this one!” Igraine whispers breathlessly.
Clarice pauses for breath, looking up at the door. There’s something carved around the top of the doorframe, but it’s in a language she doesn’t know. “Thank you, Igraine. Very much. Um… will you be all right going back by yourself?” It’s a stupid question, but Igraine looks so small that she can’t help herself.
“Yes, unless I fall down the stairs. Great uncle at home did that and still walks with a limp… I think that was a dicho.. Dichotomous question you meant as one though. But grandfather says children break like spring twigs not old wood so I would probably be fine even if I did.”
Clarice considers this. “I think that’s true. I broke my wrist last year, but it healed very quickly and it doesn’t even hurt now.”
Igraine nods sagely. “Like a spring twig.”
She smiles. “Yes.” Then she looks up at the door, and sobers. “Thank you for showing me the way. But you don’t need to wait for me or anything. I’ll… be fine.”
Igraine sits down resolutely on the floor and takes out her book. “No you won’t. When people say that they usually aren’t going to be. Also you will get lost.”
She’s not sure she can deny that with a straight face. On the other hand… “All right. Thank you.” She hesitates a moment, then presses her lips together and knocks on the door before she can lose her nerve. There’s movement from inside the room, and a sudden desire to run away before she gets caught sends a sharp prickle of apprehension through her. But it’s easier to keep her nerve with Igraine there to witness it.
The door opens to reveal a lady, wearing a sweeping gown of heavy lilac-coloured velvet. She is tall to Clarice’s eyes; her hands and face are lined with age, and her long silver hair is caught back from her face in a series of complicated braids. But her eyes are bright, and the scales covering her brow are still a deep, shimmering purple. “Hello there,” she says, with evident surprise but not displeasure. “Can I help you? Have you come with a message?”
Clarice shakes her head, and tries not to stare. She’s never been so close to someone so splendid. “No, my lady. I…” She falters, then squares her shoulders and presses on. “I – I had something I wanted to ask you about. About… about the Way. If you don’t mind.”
“Oh!” She smiles a little, opens the door wider, and gestures. “Of course I don’t mind. Do come in.”
With some trepidation, Clarice follows her into the chamber, allowing the door to swing shut behind her. On the far wall, her gaze is immediately arrested by a splendid tapestry of the night sky, deep blues and purples shot through with silver threads like webs. A hint of roses lingers on the air – perhaps there’s something scented on the fire? – and the bitter March daylight seems softer as it streams through the tall glazed windows, forming fractured patterns on the gleaming floorboards. The chamber is so intimidating that she almost steps back into the corridor, afraid of dirtying the floor with her boots. But Lady Melisende moves through the scented air with the casual ease of a woman a fraction of her age. She pauses, runs a finger along the furred edge of a mantle left draped over the back of a chair, then proceeds to seat – no, drape herself at one end of an elegant sofa, with the easy grace of a creature of Night finding a comfortable spot. She smiles, showing slightly pointed incisors, and gestures to an upholstered bench opposite. “Sit down, child. What’s your name? What can I do for you?”
Carefully, so as not to risk touching anything unnecessarily, she sits. The rose-scent and the warmth of the room makes her uncomfortably aware of her own scruffy attire; there’s a sudden panicked moment of wondering whether she smells bad to someone who lives in a place like this, even though she knows she washed this morning and her hands are clean. “My – my name’s Clarice. Clarice Fields. And I…” Suddenly, her fickle courage deserts her, and the words shrink away into a whisper that not even she can hear. I need you to help me.
Lady Melisende doesn’t seem impatient, though; she merely smiles. “Oh – how rude of me. I should have offered you some tea.” Without waiting for a response, she gets up and goes over to the fire, giving Clarice time to compose herself before she returns with two cups. “It’s apple and lavender.” She drapes herself back on the sofa, and inhales the steam with obvious pleasure. “Try it.”
The cup is of fine porcelain, frighteningly breakable-feeling in comparison to the mugs and plates at home. But the steam is pleasant – sweet-scented, a little floral. With immense care, she takes a sip, then places cup and saucer on a table before her hands can shake and spill it. “Thank you,” she whispers. She takes a breath, and another. “I… I remembered you singing. In the Vintner’s Rest, before the midwinter. And I…” She closes her eyes, tries to collect her thoughts into a sensible order. “I… I need your help. My mother’s died, and…” Somehow, her throat closes up, and she has to swallow back tears, even though she’s known it for months and she doesn’t really cry about it any more. Perhaps she’s too busy to cry.
Lady Melisende lowers her cup. “I’m so sad to hear that,” she says softly, in that low voice of hers. She does sound sad, too. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
Clarice shakes her head. “No. Not exactly. It’s all right. I mean, it’s not all right, but…” She clears her throat. “I – I need help with my dad. He’s… Useless. Hopeless. Practically dead too. Suddenly it all tumbles out in a rush. “He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t care about anything. He doesn’t say anything, hardly. He just sits in his chair all day doing nothing.” Once she’s started, it’s difficult to stop, as though all the things she hasn’t been saying are bubbling up like a wellspring in thaw. “He doesn’t eat unless we make him. He doesn’t wash unless I draw the water and put soap in his hand. He doesn’t even sleep in the bed, he just sleeps in his chair. He – he doesn’t pay the rent. He doesn’t cook, or clean, or – or look after my little sister, and I can do those things, but I can’t pay the rent.” Her voice cracks. “I hadn’t thought about the rent. And Dad isn’t thinking about anything at all. I just…” Against her will, scalding tears spill over onto her cheeks, and she wipes them away with both hands. “I – I don’t think he doesn’t love us, he just… Everyone says he can’t anymore.”
Lady Melisende has put her cup on the table, and looks at her intently. Her expression is impossible to read. “How old are you, Clarice Fields?”
“Nearly eight.” She sniffs. “Nobody will give me a job yet. Not for more than a few rings.”
“That… wasn’t what I was thinking, Clarice.” She looks somewhere between sad and troubled. “Have you friends who can help you? Adults, I mean?”
“Yes, but… They have helped us, it’s just…” It’s just not enough, and I’m too ashamed to beg. “I… I think they think it’s going to get better, and it’s been months now, and it isn’t.”
“Do you mind telling me how your mother passed? What was her name?”
“Her name is – was – Alienor. Alienor Smith.” It’s one of her favourite names to say; in her mind, she traces the graven letters on the headstone with her fingertip. Alienor. “She – she took a fever in the chest at the turn of the year.” She had been ill for weeks, really, but she had carried on as usual – as she always did, through coughs and colds and fair weather or foul. Her mother had never been a great one for taking physic. Blacksmiths always cough, Kay, she’d said. Don’t fuss. “Only… only then it got worse.”
“And your father’s done nothing ever since?”
Clarice nods miserably. “Everyone says he’s broken-hearted. Or heartsick. But I – we – haven’t the coin for a physick. Edmund Weaver tried casting magic on him, but it only made him cry for six hours.”
Lady Melisende sighs. “I’m afraid there’s no tincture or potion that a physick could make for this in any case, Clarice. Heartsickness… It’s an affliction of the soul, rather than of the body. Sometimes it happens, when someone loses their true love. They simply… fade away.” She straightens up a little, picks up her cup again, with a look of sudden focus. “But he still has you and your sister.”
“I don’t think he sees us any more,” says Clarice dully. It’s something she hasn’t admitted to anybody before. “If someone took us away like they’re talking about, I don’t think he’d notice. He doesn’t notice anything.”
“I’m certain he would,” says Lady Melisende, with surprising firmness. “Not because I don’t believe you… but because despite it all, he hasn’t left you to follow your mother into the Labyrinth. And if he’s as heartsick as you say he is, that can only be because he has something worth living for.”
I want that to be true. “He doesn’t look at us. He doesn’t talk to us.” Her voice wobbles again, treacherously. “It’s… Matilde Taverner said something about Loyalty, and – you’re a troubadour, my lady. Can you… can you make him remember that he loves us?”
“Oh, my dear.” There’s a split second where the lady looks as though she might get up and hug her, but it passes. “He hasn’t forgotten it, I’m certain.” Again, the sudden focus comes into her face, and she gets to her feet. “I can’t make him stop grieving. I wouldn’t even if I could. But I think I can help him… act on his love for you.”
Clarice wipes her eyes on the back of her hand, and gets to her feet, abandoning her tea half drunk. “How?”
“Do you know what an Anointing is?” The capital letter is clear in her tone. “Well, there’s an Anointing of Loyalty that I think will help him. It will make him want to look after those he loves.” She hesitates. “Of course, he will need to consent to it. But from what you’ve told me, I doubt that will be a problem. Can you take me to him?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. I see no reason for delay.” Graceful as ever, she shrugs on a heavy winter cloak and emerges onto the landing, quickly followed by Clarice. “Hello there Igraine. Still with your nose in a book?”
“No, I am reading the book” came the small, and rather world weary reply.
Lady Melisende chuckles. “I stand corrected. Do your parents know you’re hiding away up here?”
Igraine fixes the old naga with a stare. “I’m not hiding, if I were hiding you would not be able to see me. Father says you lack suttlety, is that why you don’t understand hiding?”
“I lack subtlety, do I?” She shakes her head in amusement, apparently unperturbed. “Well, you can tell your father that he may have to do without my unsubtlety in the coven tonight. I have some business in Applefell this evening.” So saying, she sweeps away down the steps, leaving Clarice hurrying after her.
*
It’s later than Clarice had realised. As they walk down the hill into Applefell, the sun is sinking low, and the temperature of the air drops sharply. Philip Taverner is waiting in the street; his shoulders drop in obvious relief, and he rests his hands on his head briefly. Clarice feels guilty for making him worry – after all, she had vanished without a word and left Aleidis behind – but Lady Melisende’s presence saves her from a lecture beyond I’ve been worried sick, where have you been? She throws him a look of mute apology, then shrinks back into the troubadour’s velvet shadow and leads the way through the darkening streets. As they approach the house by the smithy, she frowns at the raised voices coming muffled through the wooden shutters.
“… she’s run off, Kay! I’ve got your youngest at mine, and she’s only five!” Matilde Taverner sounds halfway between outrage and desperation. Clearly she’d got there despite her husband’s efforts. “This can’t go on, you know it can’t!” There’s a hollow groan that sounds like her father, followed by the slam of a palm on a tabletop. “Don’t you dare sit there and just groan at me, Kay Fields! You’ve got to do something!”
“She can’t have.” Even muffled, he sounds wretched, as though the words cause him physical pain.
“She has, Kay! You can’t keep on pretending nothing’s happening -!” Matilde breaks off as the door slams open.
“I haven’t.” Clarice insists breathlessly, emerging into the dull firelight and pushing her hood back from her face. “I haven’t run off. I’ve -” She falls silent as her father gets up from his chair, crosses the room in two strides and pulls her into a tight embrace. It’s the first time he has, since he began staring into the fire. He feels thinner, bonier, and his unwashed shirt smells stale, but she buries her face in his chest anyway. The words I’m sorry make their way to her lips, but he squeezes her gently, and she doesn’t say them.
“Matilde,” says Lady Melisende softly from the doorway, “Can you bring the youngest back here, please?”
It’s a strangely quiet evening after that. Clarice sits at the table in the corner with Matilde, Gawaine and Aleidis, playing things like dominoes and pick-up-sticks by candlelight. The two younger children are absorbed in their competition, but Clarice’s eyes are drawn constantly back to the fireside, where Lady Melisende and her father are in intense murmured conversation, silhouetted against the flames. She makes an incongruous sight in their bare whitewashed kitchen, in her fine gown, but if she notices she doesn’t seem to care. Kay has his head in his hands most of the time, but he’s talking in a way that he hasn’t for months.
At long last, late enough that Gawaine is asleep in his mother’s lap, Clarice sees her take a small bottle from her pocket. Liao. She wonders whether that’s what makes her scales purple, as she watches the troubadour swallow the dose, and take her father’s hands in the flicker of the firelight.
She cannot hear the words they speak, but all the same, they fill her with hope.
*
It doesn’t solve everything all at once, or even at all. But seeing him laugh, and weep, and hold the two of them close in the flicker of the candlelight, somehow makes the rest of it bearable. He doesn’t get up the next morning and go back to work at the vinyard. He isn’t transformed into the father they used to know. But still, even so, he moves with purpose now. He washes, shaves, scrapes together dinners out of the dregs of the pantry. He makes Aleidis practice her letters, and scolds Clarice for not combing her hair. I haven’t been looking after you two. And that’s unforgivable, but I’ll look after you now.
They have to move out, of course; merely moving with purpose does nothing to pay the rent. Perhaps it isn’t a bad thing – that was something Lady Melisende said. Perhaps you all need to be somewhere new. Somewhere that isn’t full of memory; somewhere that doesn’t feel empty without her. The new house is a mile or so out of the town. In truth, it’s barely a house at all – a single room with a packed-earth floor under a leaking roof, leaning into the hillside like a tipsy farmhand after one too many ales on market day. But Aleidis announces stoutly that it’ll be nice to all sleep together in one room; and Clarice, watching her father hammer down wooden shingles and repair broken beams, is filled with optimism.
They still haven’t a ring between them. There’s the spectre of her Aunt Clarice – Alienor’s sister and Clarice’s namesake – descending upon them from Culwich in order to sort them out. Kay vows that he won’t live with her, but seeing as he isn’t earning anything, Clarice doesn’t see how he can possibly refuse her help.
But then, she doesn’t have to worry about that now; her father can do that for her. Clarice sits beside the small brook that runs past the house, and floats a twig on the water; watches it until it’s carried away out of sight. She grins as she hears a startled yell from the house and Aleidis’s high-pitched giggle – obviously her dad has discovered the bats.
Everything’s going to be all right here.
Tales from the Empire 