Shadebound, page 5
part #1 of The Last King Series
Artemio shrugged. “Show me a man who says there is no monster in him and I’ll show you a liar.”
In the face of such apathy, there was little the maid could do but obey. She fetched Artemio a storm-lantern and watched as he removed the candle and deposited her rat inside before twisting it shut with wire. Neither girl nor rodent gave much in the way of argument.
He gave her no reassurances from that moment on. Only instructions. “I shall expect to hear from you once every week. If I have not, I shall assume that our arrangement is at an end. If you hear anything pertinent to the assassinations tormenting the court, reach out to me immediately. If you serve me well in this, there may be a place for you in my household, where you might be shielded from the consequences of your foolish overcommitment.”
“I wouldn’t live under your roof if you paid me.” The maid seemed to have some spark left in her, despite Artemio so thoroughly defeating her.
“A free servant, even better.” He had settled at his desk and watched her as she lit a taper and the candles above them. She stood staring defiantly at him with those beady little eyes for a long moment before he tutted. “I am certain you have other duties to attend to.”
With much stomping of feet and swishing of her tail, she departed. That was one step forward at least. A spy in the palace. Albeit a poorly placed one.
The rat made a little chirp in its lantern, and Artemio peered in at it and sighed. He was aware that if left to their own devices, rats would eat more or less anything they could set their teeth to, but he had no idea what they were meant to eat. A trip to the library would be necessary. Presumably someone throughout all of history had kept one as a pet and had the foresight to leave instruction behind.
He had taken a name for neither the servant or the rodent, and he now wondered if it might have been an oversight. If this investigation stretched on, he could hardly be expected to call the two of them Maid and Rat for weeks on end. A glance around the room furnished him with a solution. Above the bedframe, spattered with blood, was an oil painting of the queen mother, now sadly departed.
“Make yourself comfortable, Daria. We have a long and studious day ahead.”
She chirped once more.
“Indeed, my predecessors have left me a mess of ill-filed papers to untangle. How astute of you to notice.”
The rat turned around a few times before lying down on the far side of the lantern, facing away from him.
“I have been in the palace for only a morning and I am already reduced to talking to rodents. This does not bode well for my sanity.”
When there was no response, he had no more excuse to ignore the work set before him. Starting from the most yellowed-looking vellum, he began to read.
5 - Children of the Selvaggia
Arancia, Regola Dei Cerva 104
The first year in the deep dark woods was the hardest on Orsina. Or better to say that for the first year in the deep dark woods, Mother Vinegar was the hardest on Orsina.
Neither girl nor crone had spent much time learning the care of others, both having devoted a similar proportion of their lives to mastering solitude, and both had a stubbornness to them that would have made a mule seem pliant. Neither one was willing to give an inch.
The first days, Orsina was in shock. Everything was new, everything was strange. When Mother Vinegar barked a command, she obeyed because she had no clue what else to do, and the old woman was satisfied that everything was as it should be. Then the girl found her footing.
When the morning water needed fetching, she was nowhere to be seen. It was no worry. Mother Vinegar had been fetching her own water long enough. When the herbs needed to be bundled to dry, she was gone. That was no worry either. Clumsy child fingers fumbled knots. No great loss there. Wasn’t like there weren’t hours enough in the day for doing things before the brat came along.
Beneath the boughs of the Selvaggia, light was a ghost of the world beyond. Green and dappled when it came through, but mostly a forgotten luxury. It was not a forest the way those in the preened parts of Espher would know it. There were no clean pathways, no trimmed grass, the undergrowth reached as high as the lower branches, and to make progress, you either followed the flow of the woods, trailing along the rabbit trails and streams, or you came with a blade and forced the forest to part.
When the sun came down, only those who kept an eye turned to the sky knew it, and even they would have to check twice. Mother Vinegar knew. She could feel the cold creeping in her bones before the sun touched the horizon. The cold was familiar. The other sensation curling up in her stomach was not. It was not fear. Mother Vinegar was the thing other people feared, not subject to its whims herself. But she could recognize that curled chill in her gut as kin to fear, a distant cousin perhaps. Descendant from the same root of dread, but not the flowering stem. The girl. Where was the girl?
Selvaggia was not as dangerous as the people of Sheepshank thought it was. The beasts of the true wild that came roaming through were few and far between. The old shades that gathered in the thicket might have given some shepherd or farmer the scare of their life, but they weren’t any danger to them. Not really. To the girl, though, they presented a lethal risk, one that Mother Vinegar, so intent on getting her settled under her own watchful eye, hadn’t the chance to warn or ward her against.
A soft woman might have gone running out into the woods to look for her, flapping her arms and fretting. Mother Vinegar sneered instead. If the girl would run off without her leave, then falling to a shade was her just reward. Most of the shades in the forest were weak enough that they’d only manage a sip at her years. Maybe a wrinkle or two would set the girl on the road to behaving herself right. The coil in Vinegar’s stomach twisted at the thought of the girl fallen under a briar, shade after shade riding through her, stripping her years away. Still, she didn’t go and look. That would be admitting defeat.
When Orsina slipped back into the house an hour after sunset, there was no dinner left for her. The bread crust had been thrown out for the birds, the stew scraped from the kettle. Mother Vinegar sat in her rocking chair, paying her no heed. Not a word was exchanged that night, nor the next day when Orsina took herself out roaming again at the crack of dawn.
Each day the dread coiled, and each night it spun out into rage. Rage that Mother Vinegar swallowed down without a sound. Wouldn’t do for the girl to get ideas about attachment. Wouldn’t help her to think that the old woman had any love in her heart to share. That was the way folk got broken hearts and bitterness. Any kindness in the girl would be a hole for a shade to climb in through. Better this way, better sour and closed than vulnerable.
The third night the girl came wandering home, Mother Vinegar had a bowl of gnocchi there waiting. Muddy-kneed and wide-eyed, the girl set to it while the old woman used an old deer-bone comb to pick the worst of the thickets from her hair. When it hooked in a tangle, she used the knot of hair to drag Orsina’s head back like she was about to string a bow. “No more roaming until your work is done. No more roaming at all until I says so.” Mother Vinegar gave the hair another sharp tug. “Understand me, brat?”
For a moment the tension held. Comb, tangle, hair, scalp; all straining at their limit. Orsina’s eyes met the old woman’s glower. A girl of eight years against all the cruelty the forest could instill in a hag. Orsina’s hairs began to ping loose as she added to the strain, giving the old woman a slow nod but no answer.
The next morning, she was home. The next week, they spoke. Small things at first. How a knot should be tied. How much water to add to the pot. Which herb would bring out the poison with the bile. Which bulb would slow the stuttering heart. There were some who’d spend their life learning the secrets Mother Vinegar swatted down like flies and many more who’d die for the lack of that learning. Orsina took it in stride, never showing an interest or a care. Taking on whatever burdens were thrust her way without complaint.
The only time her eyes lit up at all was when Mother Vinegar sat her down in the evening and spoke to her of the shades. Through their wanderings, they crossed paths with plenty of shades through the day, and every time Mother Vinegar behaved as though the words they whispered and the shadows they cast were not there at all.
The old woman’s silence infuriated Orsina. She knew the shades saw Mother Vinegar and Mother Vinegar saw the shades. In her deliberate ignorance, Orsina saw the same stubbornness that had let a girl wander the woods unattended. Yet to admit her annoyance would be admitting defeat in this strange game they were playing.
The evening stories were different from what she was used to. In Sheepshank, tales of the shades were rare and spoken in hushed tones for fear of inviting a shade in by naming it. Mother Vinegar spoke of them with the same dull repetition she rattled off the species of birds or the leaves of herbs. She took all the majesty of a hidden world of wonders and made it mundane. A box of tools. All the stories of Orsina’s youth withered in her memory, replaced day by day with facts.
Every word that came out of Mother Vinegar was a fact. Solid as stone and unwavering despite any opinions to the contrary. When she told Orsina things that seemed to make no sense, it was as though she could hear the girl’s doubt, yet she never corrected herself. Never wavered. Her world was filled with plants that grew to rhythms unseen, seasons that could be predicted by a glimpse of a bird’s feathers through the thicket, and those same facts, applied with the regularity of a poultice to draw all wonder from the world.
A month passed before they went to visit Ginny Greenteeth.
A month was long enough for Orsina to truly believe that all the fearmongering tales she’d heard about the forest were nothing but tales. She was living under the same roof as the Aceta Madre, and the most frightening things about her were the smell and the sharp edge of her tongue. The few animals she had seen roaming the forest were either smaller than her or so afraid that she barely caught a glimpse of them.
The shades were much the same. After being taken by Perlita, Orsina had been dreading every shade she saw. She reared back from them like a startled mare, watching from the corner of her eye as the old woman pretended not to be looking at her with contempt.
“You’ve a hole in the heart of you. A hollow. Same with all the Shadebound.” It was the first time they’d actually spoken of what Orsina was. Of what had happened to her back in the graveyard. It took the wind out of her. The old woman toddled on as if it was nothing. Just as she always did. Calling back over her shoulder, “That’s why a shade can climb in you. That’s why they be wanting you. Not a snack, a home.”
Like the rabbits and the birds, the shades of the forest scattered ahead of their coming. Glimpses of them through the dappled light, but nothing more. Every one that flitted away made Orsina all the more the fool for fearing, all the weaker for having been taken by some old woman.
Orsina glowered at them. “Why aren’t they coming knocking then?”
There was a hint of a smile on Mother Vinegar’s face. “You’ve got the door shut now. Slammed it and pressed up against it. Maybe even put some locks on. There’s few enough of them are strong enough to push in when you’re holding it shut.”
Greenteeth was waiting at the bottom of her pond in the deep woods. A convergence of all the little streams that ran through the forest amidst exposed stones and moss so thick it would have made a better bed than any Orsina had ever lain down in. She had her marching orders from Mother Vinegar before they’d even set out for the pool. She was not to speak. She was not to touch the water. She was not to reach out to the shade beneath the surface in any way. She was to behave as much like a stone standing still and silent in the midst of the woods as she could accomplish, and even then she was to run the moment Mother Vinegar addressed her directly. After a month of naught but the glimmers of ghosts, Orsina was understandably skeptical.
Deep in the murky water, Orsina couldn’t even see Greenteeth, but by the prickling of hairs on the back of her neck and the shiver that ran through her, she believed Mother Vinegar’s words.
“Off your lazy backside. We’re here visiting, Gin.”
Orsina startled. After all her talk of shades being mindless, now the old woman was chatting away like the presence beneath the water was an old friend.
“What little mouse comes a-creeping in? Who wanders so far to see Ginevra Greenteeth? What little babe comes to dip their toes in my pond?”
Orsina had almost convinced herself that everything that had happened back by the graveside had been a dream, that she was just a little mad and there was nothing to fear. She wished she was a little mad. A little mad would have been easier.
Orsina heard without hearing. The shade, whispering into her head. She didn’t know the voice, but she could taste the mold of old rotten wood and feel the press of drowning water in every word.
“Don’t be starting with your nonsense now. You know me, Ginny. And mind your manners, there’s no toes for eating, neither.”
Orsina’s giggles bubbled over and they just wouldn’t stop no matter how hard she tried to swallow them down. There was a manic edge to them by the time Mother Vinegar turned to face the girl, moving slowly, like when there was a wild animal she was trying not to startle.
“It’s just like in the stories.”
The full weight of Ginevra Greenteeth’s attention fell on her. Orsina could taste pondweed, her eyes clouded with algae. Until then, she was just catching the edges of the shade’s voice, now it thundered inside her.
“What’s this little treat you’ve brought me then?”
Orsina’s laughter was strangled by the water she felt bubbling up her throat. Mother Vinegar was glowering at her with enough force to send a grown man running. “Don’t you pay her no mind, Gin, this daft thing is just about to get sent home with a flogged arse for talking when she was told not to.”
“How could we ignore such an offering. So brimming with life. So rich with it. Come into the pool, my little dove, the water is lovely and cool.”
Orsina’s feet moved before she had the chance to stop them. Just a step, but wouldn’t it be so nice to cool off after a long day walking through these woods. She hadn’t had a proper wash since Mother Vinegar took her in. It would be so easy to just slip into the water and… she stopped.
Mother Vinegar had not moved, she had not made a sound, but a memory had caught Orsina instead. Her body doing things she did not want it to do. Her life trickling away. She stopped dead at the memory, then took a step back.
“You have been teaching her well, Madre, but I shall have her yet.”
Now Mother Vinegar moved again. Now her hand closed over Orsina’s wrist and the flat of her hand skipped off the back of the girl’s skull. A crack that could be heard through the woods, louder than the flowing water.
“I’ve taught her nothing.”
The shame was good, the flush of heat on her cheeks as she blushed, it reminded her that this was her body, it reminded her of how she felt after Perlita rode her. Shamed, worthless. She would not feel that way again.
This time the pond water washed over her without making it inside. The chill touched her skin, but not her mind. She pushed back. Her arms lifted up, but they didn’t need to, it wasn’t like there was something real to push back against, no tide to part with a wave. The water ran away from her.
There was a bitter edge to Greenteeth’s voice. “Someone has.”
That was all for the first day, and the second. More than anything else, it felt like Mother Vinegar was testing Orsina’s limits. They went to visit, and Mother Vinegar and the thing in the water exchanged stories, but nothing more. Meanwhile, Greenteeth pried at Orsina, trying to worm its way inside her. It never had the same beginner’s luck again, and now Orsina understood what they were there for, she pushed back more and more. By the end of their last visit, the shade could barely even be heard above the water.
Walking home from the pond, it was like all the colors were drained from the world. All of the shades, blending away to nothing. Held back by Orsina’s will alone. They’d creep back in as the days went by, but now she knew how to push them away. She knew how to close herself to them. The most dangerous thing in the woods became the brambles hanging low from the branches, the odd wild animal roaming through.
By night, the old woman’s tales became instruction. She set a stump of candle on the floor between them as it was about to die and had Orsina watch as the last sputters of wax gave birth to a puff of smoke. Mother Vinegar glanced up from darning a shirt’s elbow to mutter, “That’s your shade. All they are. Here and gone as fast. You stay well clear of the dying and you needn’t fear.”
Orsina’s brows drew down at that. All the other statements of absolute fact she’d sat through from the old woman had some grain of truth, but this made no sense at all. “They aren’t, though.”
“What’s that you say?” Mother Vinegar’s eyes narrowed somewhere down in the thicket of wrinkles. “You know better, do you?”
“If they were gone that quick, we’d never see them. They’re all over the woods. I see them every day.”
The old woman broke her usually impenetrable stare. “Catch a puff of smoke under glass, it’ll linger.”
“Is that all old Ginny Greenteeth is then?” Orsina skipped right to the point. “Smoke in a glass?”
“Some fires make more smoke. Don’t they? Wet leaves. Rotten wood.”
“But the smoke doesn’t last long enough for folk to write songs about it.”
“All right, all right,” Mother Vinegar grumbled. “There’s things that can be done to stretch them on longer. To keep them going when time should’ve rubbed them away. Songs and stories, remembering them, that helps them along. Though minding them wrong can twist a shade up something fierce. Make it into something it never was to start. Feeding them too. That’s how your kind gird them. Slip them a little life here and there to string them along.”
