Clutching her worn canvas bag with her precious notebooks stuffed inside, Dame Jolaine Tradescar crossed the forecourt of the Temple of the Source, all the while glancing back over her shoulder to see if anyone had followed her.
Inside the Temple, she dipped her handkerchief in the shell of sacred spring water and dabbed the perspiration from her brow.
A curse on the Mayor and his meddling clerks! And, more particularly, a curse on erudite young Dr Philemot. A wicked thought flitted across Jolaine’s mind, a scholar’s revenge. Perhaps she should inscribe her rival’s name backwards on a thin sheet of pewter and cast a curse into the spring as her ancestors had done! Boils. Boils were particularly irksome and unsightly. Yes, boils would do nicely for a start… and maybe a touch of scrofula?
Why couldn’t they have waited a week or two more? Her life’s work was so very nearly complete. And there was no way that her successor was going to snatch it from her now.
She took up her bag and made towards the stair to the Under Temple. A Priest rose up from the shadows to bar her way.
‘You cannot enter the Under Temple today.’
‘Whyever not?’ cried Jolaine, exasperated.
‘It has begun. They must not be disturbed.’
‘What the deuce has begun?’ Why must the Priests always speak in riddles?
‘They are almost ready to be born again into the Light.’
‘The dragonflies!’ Jolaine struck her palm to her temple. The Day of the Dead was approaching – and sooner than she had anticipated. This was a double blow. But there was no way accurately to predict the hatching patterns of dragonflies.
‘And besides, Dame Tradescar,’ the Priest said, ‘there has been some concern expressed in the Temple Court about your excavations.’
‘This is a fine time to start expressing concern!’
‘There have been portents. Warnings.’
‘This is the first I’ve heard of it –’
‘Disturbing the ancient sacred sites. The unravelling of mysteries that are better left unravelled. It must cease.’
‘Portents? Hocus-pocus! A fig to you and your silly superstitions!’ blustered Jolaine. ‘I’m City Antiquarian –I have unlimited access to all the historic sites. I’ll be taking this up with the highest authorities. I’ll go straight to the Mayor!’
The Priest did not budge, his face bland, expressionless.
Fizzling with frustration, Jolaine hefted her bulging canvas bag under her arm and left the Temple.
In the Temple forecourt she sat down on a bench to think. She knew all the hidden ways into the Undercity… but the stelae she wished to reexamine were all located on the rim of the Main Reservoir.
A little boy ran past, scattering breadcrumbs. Soon he was surrounded by an attentive, pecking flock of Temple doves. Jolaine heard the child’s sudden shout of delight as he spotted the bustle about the stalls in the forecourt. Chandlers were setting out trays of scented lotos candles; there were rainbow streamers, dragonfly paper kites, and the traditional striped lotos bonbons, their curved sugar petals flavoured with strawberry, lemon and spearmint.
All in readiness for the Day of the Dead.
‘Dame Tradescar?’
Jolaine looked up, shading her eyes against the morning sun, to try to make out who was addressing her. A young man stood before her, soberly attired, with a plain, pug-like face, rather endearingly ugly.
‘Do I know you, sieur?’
‘I don’t believe we have ever been introduced.’ The young man held out his hand. ‘Theophil Philemot. Of the University of Can Tabrien.’
Jolaine’s manners deserted her. She stared with hostility at the outstretched hand.
‘How did you know to find me here, hm? Did you follow me?’
Dr Philemot slowly let his hand drop; his face had flushed bright red.
‘It must be quite a wrench to relinquish the collection to another curator after so many years, Dame Tradescar. I must say I’d never have guessed you were eighty-one! Taking the waters must keep one youthful –’
‘Relinquish the collection?’ Jolaine interrupted. ‘Maybe I’m a little hard of hearing at my very great age – but did I hear you say I had relinquished the collection?’
‘Why else would I be here?’ Dr Philemot seemed flustered. ‘I was appointed – I understood – as you had retired –’
‘Retired?’
‘See for yourself. My letter of appointment.’ Dr Philemot rummaged in his pockets and brought out a letter which he put into Jolaine’s hands.
‘My dear young man, there has been a mistake. A clerical error. I have most definitely not retired, as you can see. I –’ Jolaine was seized with a sudden apprehension. She grabbed the canvas bag and started off across the Temple forecourt. Dr Philemot followed, moderating his lanky stride to Jolaine’s hobbling pace.
She was puffing for breath by the time she reached the Guildhall steps; halfway up, she could see that she was too late. The blinds were up and her sign had been removed. She fished out her key to unlock the door – and saw the shiny new lock and the pile of sawdust beneath, left by the Guildhall locksmith.
‘Ingrates!’ she cried, hurrying around to the back door. It too sported a new lock. Jolaine sank down on to the doorstep, defeated.
‘I deeply regret –’ began Dr Philemot, and then subsided as she flashed him a look that would have withered a braver man. ‘I will personally ensure that all your possessions are safely packaged up and taken to your lodgings.’
‘My life’s work,’ muttered Jolaine, not listening. ‘Fifty-five years of service to the city – and they throw me out into the gutter like a beggar!’
Jolaine Tradescar gave the Sanatorium bell-pull another vigorous tug.
The peephole in the door shot open and the porter’s eye appeared.
‘We’re closed.’
‘Closed! My dear fellow, it’s two in the afternoon, not two in the morning. Let me in. Tell the good doctor I’m here to see him. It’s urgent.’
‘Like I said – we’re closed.’
‘I’m a family friend. Don’t you know me? Tradescar. Dame Jolaine Tradescar. I’ve two silver courons here for you if you’ll admit me.’
There was a silence, a considering silence. Then Jolaine heard the key turn and a calloused hand appeared, palm turned expectantly upwards. She placed the coins in the upturned palm which instantly shot back out of sight. The door opened.
‘Don’t tell him I let you in,’ the porter said, hastily ushering her into the courtyard.
‘What’s the matter? Why is the place shut up like a tomb, the blinds down? Is there plague? Is someone dead?’
‘It’s his daughter. Taken ill.’
‘Orial?’ Jolaine stopped. ‘Damn it all to hell!’ she muttered. ‘Am I too late, even now?’
‘You all right, Dame Tradescar?’ The porter was staring at her warily. ‘You’ve turned a funny colour.’
‘Just take me to Dr Magelonne,’ Jolaine ordered, her own troubles forgotten.
Cook appeared in the corridor carrying a tray.
‘Tragic,’ she said to Jolaine, shaking her grizzled head. Her eyes were red-rimmed. ‘Just like her poor dear mother. Tragic.’
‘How’s the doctor taking it?’
‘Bad. Very bad. Won’t even touch his food.’
‘Shall I go up?’
Cook gave a shrug, setting the cutlery rattling on the tray.
The stairs seemed steeper than before; Jolaine had to stop and pause for breath several times, clutching on to the polished handrail. At last she reached the top and tottered towards Orial’s room. The door was ajar.
Orial lay on her bed, one arm across her breast, her hair trailing across the white pillows like strands of waterweed.
Jerame Magelonne rose from her bedside and came across to Jolaine. Even in the shadowed room, Jolaine could see the unshaven stubble darkening his face; he had neglected his own needs to stay at her side.
‘The Accidie?’ Jolaine said.
‘I can’t be sure. I’ve sedated her.’ Magelonne spoke in a whisper as though frightened a louder tone might disturb Orial.
‘Why didn’t you let me know, Jerame? I would have stayed with her. You need rest. I don’t need so much sleep at my age.’
Magelonne beckoned her out on to the landing.
‘What use will you be to her if you fall sick too?’ she said sternly. ‘You must eat, you must sleep. Go to bed – I’ll watch over her.’
‘But –’ Magelonne began to protest but his voice was slurred with tiredness.
‘Go.’
‘I’ll be in my room. You’ll wake me if there’s any change?’ he added anxiously.
‘Yes, yes.’ Jolaine waved him away. ‘Just get some sleep.’
She settled herself in the chair at Orial’s bedside. The girl’s pale skin seemed almost translucent in the darkness – except for the long red weals marring her cheeks.
How Jolaine hated to have the blinds drawn by day; it reminded her of far-distant childhood sickrooms, of fever and bowls of gruel, beef tea and barley water…
‘Mmm…’ Orial murmured in her sleep.
Jolaine leaned over her, listening, watching for any sign of a change. Her pale lips moved, mumbling a word.
‘Ama…’
‘Ama?’ Jolaine repeated out loud, perplexed. What did it mean? Was it a name? Or was it ‘Mama’, was she calling for Iridial?
But Orial did not speak again, drifting back into drugged slumber.
Jolaine raised one of the blinds, took a book from her canvas bag and began to read, moistening her finger-tips as she turned the pages.
‘Tea, Dame Tradescar?’ Cook stood in the doorway.
‘That’s remarkably good of you,’ Jolaine said.
Cook came in and placed the tea-tray on the table beside the bed. All the time, her eyes were on Orial; she softly clicked her tongue in disapproval as she gazed down at her.
‘Poor lamb. She doesn’t even know we’re here.’
‘Cook.’ Jolaine laid down her book. ‘Won’t you join me for tea?’
‘But the doctor–’
‘Is asleep.’
‘I’ll pour then. Can’t stay long. Left the soup simmering on the hob.’ Cook wiped her bony fingers on her apron and poured tea for the two of them. ‘As I recall you like your tea with sliced lemon and two sugars, Dame Tradescar?’
‘What an excellent memory you have!’ Jolaine took the bowl and pressed her spoon against the slice of lemon, releasing its sharp fragrance. ‘I’ll wager you can remember when they pulled down the old town hall and started work on the Guildhall dome?’
‘Lady bless us, I do indeed.’ Cook eased herself down into a chair with her tea. ‘Such a fine building. Not that all the changes you and I have seen have been for the better.’
‘Too many of the old ways forgotten or pushed aside to make way for the new.’
‘These young people – excepting our Orial here – they want to make change for change’s sake.’
Dr Philemot’s eager face briefly floated before Jolaine’s eyes.
‘True, true… Look how the old traditions are swept away. I’ll also wager you know tales and songs that the young today have never even heard?’
‘When I was a girl, there used to be this custom – surely you remember it? The morning after the souls flew free on the Day of the Dead, you had to get up before dawn and go into the hills. The Faer Folk held their revels that night. If you could catch one, they were bound to grant you a wish.
‘Well, I saw one of them. With these very eyes. And no one ever believed me – they all laughed when I told them. I was nine years old at the time. We were up in the hills over Illyn way, collecting bilberries. At the rocks, near the waterfall. You know how the sun on the spray makes rainbows? That’s what they said I’d seen. But I know different.’
‘One of the Faer Folk?’ Jolaine said softly.
‘I heard something. It was like – a bird flying over my head. Wingbeats. But when I looked up, I saw. Behind the waterfall. A figure. It knew it had seen me, for it was gone in a flash. But I’ve never forgotten the way it looked on me. Never forgotten the eyes. Rainbow eyes, Dame. But not human. Wild. Wild like a wildcat’s eyes. Faïe.’
‘Faïe. Now that’s a word I haven’t heard in many a year.’
‘An old word and none the worse for being old!’ said Cook, noisily draining the last of her tea. ‘I dearly wanted them to grant me a wish.’ She gave a wry little sigh. ‘I’d go chasing them again if a wish would bring Orial back to us.’
‘Perhaps it might,’ Jolaine said pensively.
‘A wish? Now you’re supposed to be a learned woman.’
‘And if the old tales hold a grain of truth?’
Cook gathered the tea things on to the tray. ‘Well, I’d best away to my soup, I don’t want it boiling the pot dry.’
‘Amar…’ murmured Orial again.
‘Did you hear?’ Cook turned to Jolaine.
‘I heard. A name.’
‘Sister Crespine and I, we thought she had a sweetheart. A beau.’
‘Amaru,’ Jolaine said. ‘Of course. Amaru Khassian, the musician.’
‘Ohhh…’ Cramoisy raised his handkerchief to his mouth to stifle his sobs. ‘It’s all my fault. I should never have brought you together.’
Khassian paused in his pacing.
‘How was it I didn’t know? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t know. I never knew till now. I heard Iridial was dead – but they said it was from fever. Not this… Accidie.’
‘Then why didn’t she tell me? Why did she have to play the martyr? Why?’
But Khassian already knew the answer. And it only made him more disgusted with himself. She had given him her gifts because she wanted – more than anything – to become part of the musical world he inhabited. And he had used her, he had played on her sympathy, on the generosity of her character.
And now it was too late.
The score lay on the table, the last pages smudged with her tears.
Even to look on it made his stomach crawl. It recorded the disintegration of a mind. Her mind. It was evidence of the insidious progress of a mental disorder so devastating it could kill her.
He should have recognised her distress earlier. But instead he had forced her to continue.
And now the score lay there, a constant reminder of his wanton selfishness.
A sharp rat-tat at the front door made them both start.
‘Suppose it’s the police?’ whispered Cramoisy. ‘The permits.’
‘You said you would go to the Mayor.’
Cramoisy waved his damp handkerchief. ‘All this business with Orial has quite put it out of my mind.’
They stared at each other as footsteps could be heard coming up the stair.
‘Out of your mind!’ began Khassian.
Mistress Permay appeared.
‘There’s a Dame Jolaine Tradescar downstairs wanting to speak to you.’
‘I’m not at home to visitors.’
‘She’s most insistent. Says it’s urgent.’
‘Tradescar?’ The name was familiar to Khassian but he could not remember where he had heard it before.
‘You won’t know me,’ announced a voice from the hallway, ‘but I come on behalf of a mutual acquaintance. My soul-child, Orial Magelonne.’
Orial. Khassian closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw a crook-backed old woman in the doorway, eccentrically attired and periwigged in the fashion of some thirty years ago.
‘May I come in?’
Khassian shrugged; Dame Tradescar was in already. He dreaded what she might have come to say to him – and yet there was something in the sprightly bearing of the old woman that belied the bearing of bad news.
‘Please… sit down.’
Jolaine Tradescar spread the panniers of her ancient gown and sat.
‘I’ll come straight to the point, Illustre. Orial’s affliction is very grave – but I believe there may be a way to restore her sanity.’
‘I understood the condition was incurable.’
‘Did you know that she has been calling your name?’
‘My name?’ Khassian felt his face flood with fire. Sweet Mhir, this woman obviously believed he had made some kind of advance to her soul-child. Who would begin to understand the true nature of their relationship? Should he blurt out that he had never so much as laid a finger on her?
‘I hoped you would want to help,’ Jolaine Tradescar said bluntly. There was something of the directness of Acir Korentan’s stare in the old woman’s blue eyes, light as a summer’s sky.
‘I wouldn’t be of much use,’ Khassian said, revealing his hands.
Jolaine Tradescar seemed barely to notice them. ‘Maybe you can reach her in ways the rest of us cannot. Through music.’
‘My music has wrought the damage! I don’t want to make matters worse.’
‘Tell me, Illustre,’ Jolaine Tradescar said, leaning forward, ‘exactly what happened before her collapse?’
Khassian swallowed hard; even to recall that afternoon gave him a feeling of nausea, the griping headache that precedes a storm.
‘I should have noticed she was not… herself. She was playing a tune, over and over again on the keyboard. Obsessively,’ He could not suppress a shudder as the notes of the bizarre melody wound their way back into his brain.
‘Over and over again?’ repeated Jolaine Tradescar. She seemed excited. ‘I don’t suppose you recall the melody?’
‘I find it hard to forget.’
‘Could you sing it?’
‘Of course. But I fail to see –’
‘The melody may be of some significance to her. It may act as a stimulus to restore her to herself. Or it may lead us to others who can help save her.’
There was something in the way she pronounced the word ‘others’ that made the hair at the back of Khassian’s neck rise.
‘D’you know, I owe you a debt of gratitude, Illustre?’
‘Me? How?’ he said, surprised.
‘It was you, wasn’t it, who discovered the hidden hieroglyphs in the Hall of Whispering Reeds? And those hieroglyphs may hold the key to solving Orial’s predicament.’
‘You’re the Antiquarian!’ At last Khassian realised who his visitor was.
‘Was the Antiquarian,’ said Jolaine Tradescar. ‘I have just been replaced without so much as a by-your-leave – but that’s a story for another day. I’d like to propose that you come with me into the Undercity. Your keen eyes may yet discover some hidden hieroglyphs that we scholars have missed.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I could possibly be of any use to you –’ began Khassian. A polite but firm refusal, his customary response in such circumstances. And then he was seized by a curious impulse and heard himself saying, ‘But, seeing as I have no other pressing engagements, I think I might accompany you, Dame Tradescar.’
Jerame replaced the sedative tincture in the drugs cabinet and turned the key in the lock; each movement slow, automatic, as his thoughts chased each other in a frenetic fugue whose subject was Orial, Orial, Orial.
Wild eyes staring at him through a cage of slender fingers, eyes whose iridescent colours were muddied with tears.
‘Iridial?’ Time somersaulted, spinning him back to a chaotic vortex where all was madness and despair.
The revenant raised one trembling hand to him: the finger-tips were stained with blood.
‘Papa… make it stop. Please make it stop.’
Not Iridial but Orial, their daughter, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, her face torn by her own nails, her body hunched, drawn in on itself, shaking…
The Accidie.
Why had he not kept better watch over her? Why had he not recognised the signs of imminent collapse? Should he consult the experts from the Medical School? They had been of no use at all when Iridial had shown the first symptoms of the Accidie. Which left one alternative: should he call in Ophil Tartarus?
No. Not Tartarus. He would not have that man poking and prodding with his yellowed finger-tips, peering into her wandering eyes with his glass, pawing her – and all in the name of his research.
‘Dr Magelonne.’ Sister Crespine tapped discreetly at the half-open door. ‘There is a woman here to see you.’
‘Send her away. I cannot see anyone. My daughter is ill. Desperately ill.’
‘I think you may wish to see me, Doctor.’
That grave, cool voice subtly inflected with its Allegondan accent – he turned to see the Contesse Fiammis in the doorway.
‘I cannot see anyone –’ he began again, but she came in and closed the door, placing herself in front of it.
‘Are the rumours correct? Your daughter was taken ill in the apartments of Amaru Khassian?’
‘Him and his damned music!’ Jerame choked on the words.
She drew close.
‘Are you prepared to lodge a formal complaint against him? With the Constabulary?’
‘On what charge?’ Grief-drunk, he almost laughed aloud at the thought. ‘Abusing my daughter – with music? ‘
‘Corrupting your daughter’s mind.’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ Jerame let his head sink into his hands.
‘You want him out of your daughter’s life?’
‘I – don’t know if my daughter has any hope of a life now –’
‘Then make a formal complaint.’
Jerame slowly raised his head to gaze at the Contesse.
‘Were you aware he was making your daughter work long hours transcribing his music?’
‘No, I was not aware,’ he heard himself saying in a voice bleared with fatigue. Even though Khassian could not have known of Orial’s condition, the composer must have sensed he was pushing her to the limits, he must have seen her pallor, her exhaustion. Doubtless he thought he was bestowing some privilege upon her in using her as his assistant. And Orial had such a kind, giving nature, she would have striven to please, not heeding the cost to her own health.
‘And can we be certain that is all he was making her do?’ said the Contesse in a silk-soft voice.
Her words conjured lewd images of seduction, as loathsome as they were lascivious. All those long hours they had spent together, alone, unchaperoned…
‘I have no proof, of course, but…’
‘Orial,’ whispered Jerame. His beloved daughter wasting all the promise of her young life on a selfish, over-indulged composer.
A father’s anger, pure animal instinct, raw and primitive, flared up within him. His child, his only child…
‘I am on my way to see the Commissaire now,’ said the Contesse. ‘Can I count on your support, Doctor?’ She opened the door and went out into the hall, her taffeta gown whispering with the soft rustle of willow leaves as she walked.
‘Wait!’ Jerame took up his hat and gloves and strode swiftly after her. Amaru Khassian must answer for the consequences of his actions.