The Book That Wouldn't Burn, page 35
A twinge of guilt ran through Livira at that. The truth was that she dug out the secrets that interested her most, the big ones; the library secrets were the mountain she intended to climb. Meelan knew he was more interested in her than she was in him. Both of them knew it and both of them knew they both knew it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she deflected.
‘People look at you differently when they know you’re rich.’ Meelan walked ahead of her, following the path by starlight. ‘You could give them enough money to change their life, they think – but most lives can swallow any amount and stay the same.’
‘You can stop them being hungry!’ Livira caught him up again but did not attempt to link arms. She’d been a long time in the library, long enough to be surprised by the cold, but not long enough to forget being hungry. Even the library didn’t hold enough time for that.
‘True.’ Meelan twisted his mouth. ‘I wasn’t thinking about that kind of poor. I suppose I should have been. But most of the people down there’ – he nodded towards the carpet of lights spread out below them – ‘most of them think money would change who they are, and that’s the thing: you take yourself with you wherever you go. Money can’t buy a new you. At least that’s what I find.’
A dark shape loomed behind them. ‘Rich people talk a lot of bollocks about money. But the bottom line is always that they’re keeping hold of it.’
‘Malar!’ Livira whirled around.
Malar took a step backwards. ‘What’s up with your face, girl?’
‘What?’ Livira pressed both hands to her cheeks, searching, then caught the glint of starlight in Malar’s eyes. ‘It’s called smiling, you idiot. I’m pleased to see you!’
‘No accounting for taste.’ Malar shrugged and looked at Meelan. ‘And this would be Sirrar Meelan. I’m to escort you two to Yute’s place, on account of how murdery things tend to get every time Livira leaves the library.’
‘Once!’ Livira protested. ‘OK, twice, but it was on the same day.’
‘The only day you’ve visited.’ Malar pushed between them and took the lead. ‘Come on then. I’ve got a beer waiting.’
Whilst it is the first words of a child that often gain notoriety among the family, it’s their last words that are more likely to continue to roll down eternity’s slope. For those whose path leads to the executioner’s stage, this presents the rare opportunity to reach an audience far beyond the picnickers, gawkers, delighted enemies, and misty-eyed lovers who might crowd in upon the day itself.
Always the Bright Side, by M. P. Thon
CHAPTER 38
Livira
Livira and Meelan followed the soldier down the mountain road. Livira decided not to mention that she’d escaped the complex on a fairly regular basis over the last few years and got to know the city quite well, all without needing Malar to keep her alive. She’d seen the changes there, month by month, building and rebuilding, better this, better that, reaching for a bright tomorrow. The poor remained though, haunting the narrowest streets on the northside, where you could smell the laboratory fumes on a still afternoon. They were joined by the war-wounded these days. Not that there was an official war. But still, more and more of the injured veterans seemed to crowd the corners, rattling their cups for coin. Soldiers who had lost arms, legs, and eyes to the sabbers, but most of all it was their spirit that had been taken from them, snatched away by the sight of too much horror, too much dying.
She kept her experiences to herself, however. It wasn’t that she thought Meelan or Malar would tell on her, but secrets always seemed to escape if given space. One person could hold a secret tight to their chest with both hands. When it was two, or three, or four people it was as if that secret had to be tossed back and forth between them, creating many chances to drop it. Instead, she asked, ‘Why now then? What’s so important out in the world that we’re risking things getting murdery again?’
Malar pretended she hadn’t spoken. ‘Your friend Yute had thoughts to share on wealth. In his opinion, it’s not the gift of money that’s the greatest – it’s the gift of purpose. He said, and the fancy words are all his: all of us in our secret hearts, in our empty moments of contemplation, stumble into the understanding that nothing matters. There’s a cold shock of realization and, in that moment, we know that nothing at all is of the least consequence. Ultimately, we’re all just spinning our wheels, seeking to avoid pain until the clock winds down and our time is spent. To give someone purpose is to free them, however briefly, from the spectre of that knowledge.’
Meelan whistled softly. ‘What did you say to that?’
‘That my price was still three silvers and two wouldn’t cut it.’
Livira snorted laughter. ‘A good imitation.’ Malar had caught Yute’s gentle, rather distracted tone well, and the fact that he was given to wandering into speeches as if everything still amazed him and he was keen to share each new epiphany. ‘Still, you remembered what he said. So, he must have made an impression.’
The former soldier shot her a narrow look. ‘You’re not the only one with a good memory, girly. And I remember everyone who tries to short me!’
At the next turn Livira paused. ‘There are a lot of lights out beyond the wall.’
‘Campfires,’ Malar said. ‘There’s dead wood out on the Dust if you know where to look.’
‘Those are the people the king doesn’t want to let in?’ Livira asked.
Malar shook his head and spat. ‘The refugees are camped so close to the wall it hides them from here. Also, they haven’t got enough fuel to waste on fires like that.’
Meelan tried. ‘Who is it then—’
‘Fucking sabbers,’ Malar snapped. ‘Too many of them. One’s too many, mind. Especially when they get into the city.’ He tapped the hilt of his sword, as if explaining his presence and the size of his fee.
‘They’re in the city?’ Livira gasped.
‘Sometimes. We’ve had raids.’ Malar spat again. ‘You’re safer down there than up here though. Been scouting ways over the mountain lately … And if they blockade the passes then there’s going to be a lot more hungry bellies in Crath. The mountain trails are the only way food’s reaching us right now!’
‘Why is killing us so important to them?’ The old stone of Livira’s hatred began to warm in her stomach.
‘The king says they’re just evil, vicious animals that—’
‘Animals aren’t evil,’ Meelan said.
‘If you’re going to start calling the king out on his nonsense, we’ll be here all fucking night.’ Malar spat to the side. ‘Me, I think they want what we’ve got.’
‘They want to eat us?’ Livira frowned. Are you good to eat? The sabber’s words from that day long ago echoed in her mind.
‘What we’ve got.’ Malar waved expansively at their surroundings.
‘Houses?’ Livira frowned again.
‘The library?’ Meelan snorted. ‘What would they do with that?’
‘Maybe they’d surprise you. They kept on surprising me out there.’ Malar shrugged and led on. ‘I do keep hearing one scary rumour though. And it might just be true.’
‘And?’ Livira asked into the following silence.
‘They’re running from something.’
Livira said nothing. She’d heard that one too.
They reached Yute’s house only a few minutes later and Livira thought that three silvers was an outrageous price for so brief a service.
‘I’ll watch the street.’ Malar nodded at the door.
‘Gas lights even here …’ Livira quite liked the effect. The surrounding houses were so tall that their upper storeys vanished into the night while the lower levels basked in the new lighting’s warm glow.
‘Nothing stays the same for long in Crath City.’ Malar glanced back the way they’d come. ‘That’s what makes it so dangerous.’
Meelan went to knock on the door.
‘Go easy on the librarian,’ Malar told Livira. ‘It’s a bad day for him.’
Salamonda had the door open almost as Meelan’s knuckles made contact with the wood. ‘Livira!’ She looked past Meelan. ‘And who’s this? You’ve traded in your last boyfriend for one that’s a prince?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’ Livira hurried up the steps and pushed Meelan past Salamonda.
‘You should fix that,’ Salamonda said in a too-loud whisper as Livira came through. ‘He’s lovely.’
Livira scowled at the woman, noting for the first time that there were streaks of grey in the tight bun of her hair.
Salamonda picked up a bowl of biscuits from the kitchen table. ‘I suppose you’re too old for—’
Livira snatched three. ‘I’ll be too old for biscuits when I’m dead.’ The knot in her stomach had loosened as soon as she entered the kitchen. She nudged Meelan. ‘What? Afraid of getting crumbs on your lace? Try them!’
‘I’m not wearing any lace,’ Meelan growled. He took a biscuit. ‘My thanks, madam.’
‘Salamonda,’ Salamonda said. ‘And you’re Sirrar Meelan. Yute talks about you all the time.’
‘About me?’ Meelan’s eyes widened in astonishment.
‘He talks about all the trainees.’ Salamonda nodded. ‘Sit! Sit! He’ll be down in a moment.’
Livira sat at the table, so amazed at the idea of Yute even knowing who was in the trainee class that she forgot to chew.
Salamonda turned away to stir something on the stove. ‘And that’s what you’re wearing, is it?’
Livira didn’t have to ask to know that Salamonda meant her. ‘Unless you’ve got something better upstairs?’ Even a mouthful of biscuit didn’t take the sharp edge off the words. She’d had enough of being told she was a mess.
‘I’m afraid we don’t.’ A voice spoke from the stairs, which hadn’t had the decency to creak a warning. ‘We lost Yolanda when she was about the size you were on your first visit here.’ Yute came into view in his dark robes, white-faced and sombre.
‘I’m sorry,’ Livira said. And she was. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
Yute forced a smile and lifted a hand to ward off further apology. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’ He paused, thoughtfully, and looked back up the stairs as if he could see all the way to his daughter’s room at the top of the house. ‘Hurts don’t stop, but they fade into shadows of what they were. That’s sad. That something so vital, something that bit you so deep, can be eroded by time into a story that almost seems like it happened to someone else. Any hurt. The years have taken away her meaning. It lessens us.’ He paused, as if realizing that his words had carried him away, then shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’
Salamonda watched him, bright-eyed with sympathy. ‘Yute …’
Yute brought his white hands together with a sigh as if trying to wring some warmth out of them. ‘So, we’re ready to depart? Livira’s attire will serve.’
‘You’re in robes too!’ Livira realized for the first time. She’d only ever seen Yute in robes so the fact that he wasn’t dressed up to the nines like Meelan hadn’t registered.
‘I am.’ Yute crossed to the street door. ‘I have an official duty to perform!’
Livira’s heart sank again. She wanted to ask the whats and whys, but in the face of Yute’s old loss it seemed petty to focus on troubles partly of her own making. She could have kept her head down, played by the rules, waited until she was entitled to know the answers to all those secrets that taunted her. Yute’s sombre mood promised nothing good. Deputies Ellis, Synoth, and Acconite would be waiting for him to bring her to the vote.
Once out in the street, Yute began to lead them down into the city. Malar fell in behind them, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
‘You haven’t got an arrow-stick yet?’ Livira resolved to tease the soldier in defiance of her grim mood. Whatever the deputies did to her tonight she was damned if she was going to let them see that it hurt her.
‘No good in close quarters on a dark night.’
‘I heard they use chemical explosives to throw the lead balls these days.’ Meelan spoke up. ‘Over great distances.’ He seemed keen to earn Malar’s approval – which surprised Livira more than his up-to-date knowledge of arrow-sticks.
Malar shrugged. ‘The longer the distance over which you conduct your murders the more likely they are to happen. Not sure that’s a good thing. But when it comes to blasting sabbers from the ramparts of the city wall anything that works is fine by me.’
‘You don’t swear as much,’ Livira said. ‘You used to swear all the time.’
Malar nodded at Yute’s back. ‘Don’t want to make an albino blush. Certainly not one who pays a fair wage.’
‘As long as you’re not going soft,’ Livira teased.
Malar narrowed his eyes at her and for a heartbeat she thought he might actually attack her. ‘When a dog stops barking, that’s when you should be most afraid of its bite.’
Yute led them down the stairs cut into the rock slopes that rose behind the great square. He pointed to some dark entrances in the steepest parts.
‘People used to live there. The first homes here weren’t built from stones or bricks or sticks, they were caves that just happened to be here. Later people made them bigger. Made more of them.’ He paused to look at one of them, a doorway or a window, Livira couldn’t tell. Yute sighed and led on. ‘I need new streets to be old on. Walking the same places I walked when things were so different – it makes me forget who I am, when I am.’
‘Careful there, Master Yute.’ Malar spoke up unexpectedly. ‘Nostalgia’s a dangerous thing. Especially on steps like these.’
Meelan, still more unexpectedly, joined in, quoting from a text Livira had helped him translate from Relquian the week before. ‘“Nostalgia is the best and the worst feeling – complex – nothing has the ability to so delight and wound us simultaneously, except perhaps for love.”’
Livira watched the three men in the starlight. She expected philosophy from Yute, but the other two? It really did seem that they were descending towards her execution, drawing out each yard as if to wrestle meaning from the grasp of each remaining moment.
Yute, ignoring Malar’s warning about the steps, turned to look at Meelan with a mixture of appreciation and amusement. ‘What does nostalgia mean to a child? An abstraction. A standing stone waiting for them in the mist. Walk a path across some decades, any path you like, and the word will gather weight. It will come to you trailing maybes and might-have-beens. Nostalgia is a drug, a knife. Against young skin it carries a dull edge, but time will teach you that nostalgia cuts – and that it’s a blade we cannot keep from applying to our own flesh.’ His voice carried a measure of pain, as if he felt that edge himself. He stumbled on the next step and both trainees caught him in an awkward clinch that might have seen the three of them pitch to their destruction. Malar said nothing.
They descended in silence after that. Livira turned her gaze towards the rest of the city. Many hundreds of lights burned within the windows of the grand buildings around the great square, and lanterns dotted the plaza itself. Ground-based constellations aping the night’s glory.
Yute steered a path around the outer walls of the lesser palace gardens and into the square. It surprised Livira that the library was conducting its business outside the complex. Her reading had led her to believe that nothing undermines a faith so much as exposing the inner workings, and whilst the citizens of Crath might swear allegiance to a hundred different gods, they put their faith in the library.
When they reached the square Livira could immediately tell that the well-dressed crowd was in the grip of a current and that the flow was taking them to the steps of the lesser palace. Yute allowed himself to be carried along.
Livira started to drag her heels and would have fallen back but for Malar taking her elbow.
‘People say that murders happen in dark alleys. Really, it’s easier in a crowd. A quick stab, and leave before anyone understands what’s happened.’ The way Malar said it made Livira wonder if he’d had personal experience and on which side of the blade.
Yute glanced back and seemed to misunderstand Livira’s reluctance as being concern about her attire rather than her fate. He tried to jolly her along, though the tension in his face and in his voice rather undermined the effort. ‘If anyone asks why Livira’s in black we can say she’s the new head librarian and has come to assess my performance.’
Drawn along in Yute’s wake, Livira found herself walking through the palace gates. Malar set a hand briefly to her shoulder and fell back, remaining outside. A score of guards watched on, arrayed around the gateposts in gleaming armour, the scarlet plumes above their helms bobbing in the breeze. Livira doubted their steel breastplates would stop one of the lead balls from the latest arrow-sticks, but they looked impressive.
To her amazement Livira was allowed to follow Yute into the palace itself, climbing marble steps and passing through a doorway as large as a chamber door in the library. Tiers of seating wrapped the huge hall that the doorway gave onto. The gas lamps that had lit the courtyard marched on into the hall, bathing it in a steady light that was kinder than the library’s merciless illumination, and had the decency to cast shadows.
Almost all the benches were already crammed with the high and mighty, glittering in diamonds, cloth-of-gold, silks and lace, ornamentation of all manner, a dazzling array that made even Meelan’s finest look merely commonplace and rather restrained. There were hundreds of them, some more lordly than others, many merely richly attired but lacking gravitas. Livira struggled to understand what was going on.
‘Over here.’ Yute swerved to the left, aiming towards an empty space in the front and lowest tier.
Livira sat, sandwiched between Meelan and Yute, the former scowling as if he’d rather be translating a page on Galathain economics, the latter as serious as Livira had ever seen him. All around the hall the last few empty places were being filled.
Livira could restrain herself no longer. ‘What’s going on?’
