The Arkhyn’s robes were of ivory satin, the tiny cuffs and hem intricately embroidered in gold and scarlet thread. Laili looked at them – and looked at Dion. Such a shame to wake him. He would hate to be undressed – and hate even more being confined in these antique, uncomfortable garments. She knew her reluctance to do as Clodolë had bidden her stemmed from a much deeper fear. Once he was dressed in the official clothes of the heir to the House of Memizhon, he was no longer her child – but Clodolë’s.
‘Well?’ Clodolë said. ‘Is he ready?’
‘He’s asleep.’ Laili let her hand rest protectively over the rim of the crib.
‘I told you to have him ready!’ Clodolë said, fretfully waving her silken fan. ‘There are crowds gathering outside. They’ve come to see him. Can’t you hear the noise? Dress him now. Or do I have to do it myself?’
I’d like to see you try, Laili thought. She leaned over and stroked Dion’s cheek.
‘Wake up, little one.’
He let out a grunt as she burrowed her hands beneath him and lifted him out onto the bed. He was too drowsy at first to notice but as she untied and peeled off his robes, he gave a convulsive shiver of displeasure.
As Laili worked, she glanced up at the open doorway. If she were to seize him and run—
Hawk-grey eyes met hers. Rho jhan stood outside in the shadows. Of course, Clodolë would not have come alone, unguarded.
‘I’m waiting,’ said Clodolë, tapping her fan against her fingertips. She seemed unduly agitated.
Laili tried to coax and squeeze Dion’s chubby little arms through the ornate cuffs. Dion was not pleased with this new indignity. His face puckered up as her fingers fumbled with the ribbon ties.
‘You should take a clean cloth to protect your gown,’ she said, staring directly at the Arkhys as she lifted Dion off the bed.
‘And why?’
‘He has a tendency to bring up a little of his feed.’ It was a small and bitter triumph to see the unmistakable expression of disgust on Clodolë’s face.
They stood a moment, the baby held between them, Laili unable to let go, Clodolë suddenly tentative, almost reluctant. In the silence, Laili became aware of a far-off clamour of voices.
‘The crowd’s growing restive,’ Rho Jhan said from the doorway.
Clodolë snatched the baby out of Laili’s arms and swept out of the room.
Laili rushed after her, only to find the door slammed in her face. Rho Jhan had locked it before she could drag it open again. In rage she beat her fists against the gnarled wood until they were bruised and sore.
‘Dion!’ she cried. ‘Dion!’
Nothing in her training in the Grove had prepared her for this. She had learned the disciplines of endurance and self-denial. But this separation roused a deep animal instinct within her; they had taken her child from her. She could find no inner calm until she had him back with her again.
The shouts of the crowd grew louder as Clodolë climbed the steps of the gatehouse. She climbed slowly, awkwardly, afraid to drop the squirming bundle.
Emerging into the daylight, she was greeted with a tumultuous cheer; servitors and citizens thronged beneath the walls, gazing up at her. Her eyes ached in spite of the gauze veil; the autumn sun seemed overbright even though there were clouds gathering above the heights. She smiled, and lifted the baby to show them.
‘Mithiel has blessed me with a son!’ she cried, triumphantly. Her dhamzels brought forward baskets and threw down handfuls of sugared almonds and silver eniths into the cheering crowd.
She hugged the baby to her triumphantly.
‘Now you’re mine, Dion,’ she crooned. ‘All mine.’
Lai shaded his eyes against the cloudy light and gazed intently upwards.
Clodolë. He felt a strange stir of emotion as he saw her appear on the ramparts, a distant vision of drifting golden veils and pale hair.
He did not join in the scrabbling for almonds and coins, but stayed gazing upwards, jostled to and fro by the crowd.
Dion. She had taken Dion from Laili. From the awkward way she carried the baby, he was sure his suspicions were true.
And if she had taken Dion – then where was Laili now?
Dion began to snuffle in his gilded cradle. The snuffling soon deteriorated to a quiet but insistent grizzling. Clodolë crept closer, wondering what she should do. The baby’s face crumpled up, its fists clenched tight as it began to hiccup its rage. Its face had turned bright scarlet.
‘There, there, baby,’ Clodolë said. She patted its arm ineffectually.
Dion’s toothless mouth opened and he let out a yell. A terrible yell, as if all the daemons of Ar-Zhoth were raging in his belly. He drew his knees up, his little body convulsed.
What was she supposed to do? Was he hungry? Cold? Wet?
Uncertainly she reached into the crib and picked him up. Ugh. The linen robe was damp and stained. As she lifted him, his lower lip drooped and he let out another shivering cry.
‘Hush now.’ She tried to hold him close but it seemed hard to get a safe grip on this quivering, hot, damp little body. She began to rock him in her arms. ‘Hush. What’s the matter?’
Dion only yelled louder.
‘Quiet, baby.’ Why was he not responding? This was what mothers did, wasn’t it? How could he tell she was so inexpert at it? How could he tell she was not his real mother? She began to pace up and down the little room, patting at the furious baby on her shoulder. ‘Quiet, Dion.’ His sobs were beginning to affect her; tears stung her eyes. If this were her baby, it would not cry so. If this were flesh of her flesh, it would nestle close to her heart, it would know the sound, the rhythm of her heartbeat. How could it go on crying so? Did it know what she intended? Did it know it was to be taken from its mother?
Panicking, she dropped it clumsily back in the crib. It went on yelling piteously, its knees drawn up to its chest, as though in agonising pain. Perhaps it was in pain. Perhaps even this one would die, as every baby of her own had died—
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she seized the silver bell and rang it hard.
One of her dhamzels came hurrying in.
‘Take the baby away.’ Clodolë had to shout to make herself heard above Dion’s yells.
‘I think he’s hungry, Arkhys.’
‘Then bring the wetnurse. The one with red hair,’ snapped Clodolë.
‘I thought you said her milk had dried up—’
‘Just bring her here! Bring anyone!’
In his mother’s arms, Dion’s frenzy gradually subsided. Laili drew him into the little room, talking to him, hushing him, rocking him … all the things Clodolë had tried to no avail.
Clodolë lingered outside the door, watching them: mother and baby, locked in a charmed circle which she could not penetrate. They seemed so absorbed in each other. So content.
Well, it would not last much longer. Laili was dispensable. Clodolë had sent into Perysse for wetnurses; as soon as a suitable woman with a good supply of milk had been found, Laili would be disposed of.
Someone gave a discreet cough; Fhedryn stepped out of the shadows.
‘My lady Arkhys, there are petitioners from the city waiting to see you about the ravages of the plague—’
‘I will see no one else today, Fhedryn. I have a headache.’
‘But I really think you should—’
‘No one!’ Clodolë cried.
But when she had closed her chamber door, she crumpled slowly to her knees, burying her face in her silken sheets, weeping and clawing at the soft-sheened fabric with her nails.
Lerillys crept up to the door, listening, terrified to knock to see what her mistress wanted and yet terrified to leave her alone in such a passion of weeping.
‘He knows,’ wept Clodolë, rocking herself to and fro. ‘He knows I’m not really his mother.’
‘Lerillys!’ Clodolë rang the little bell to summon her attendant. She called again. ‘Where are you, girl? Lazy slut. Still asleep?’
She went into the antechamber and flung open Lerillys’s door. And stopped, mouth open. The air was filled with moths; they fluttered everywhere, coating the silken draperies with their sweet-scented dust. And on the bed lay Lerillys, naked, head lolling back, eyes unfocussed, moaning with pleasure beneath the vigorous thrusts of the tarkhastar who had mounted her.
‘Lerillys!’ said Clodolë again, gazing with fascination and loathing at the lovers. They neither heard nor saw her. They were trapped in a trance of sexual ecstasy that would go on and on …
Yskhysse …
Moths swirled about them, dusting their sweating bodies with stargranules of boskh, brushing one against the other in their own darting, swooping dance of mating.
Clodolë inhaled the boskh-laden air, the sense-stimulating tingle flaring through her brain like a kaleidoscopic orgasm of flame – and dying to ashes.
She shivered, hugging her arms to her body. The room had turned winterdrear and cold, her mind was draped with dull mourning sheets.
Moonmoths began to settle on the lovers, their shimmering wings covering their hair, their naked flesh, like lacy wedding gauzes.
Clodolë, staring unseeingly down the dark attic corridor of her past, began slowly to walk away. A fitful wind banged the doors of the rooms where her stillborn babies lay …
The road leading to the plague-stricken Memizhon barracks was barricaded and the barricade was patrolled by tarkhastars. But Ymarys had once shown Lai another way in, a treacherous scramble through thornbushes and scree.
You have to be drunk to even consider attempting it …
Desperation drove him; he would have clambered up the sheer rockface below the mausoleum, if need be. He had to find Azhrel.
At the top, he scanned the deserted parade ground, sucking the thorn scratches on his hand. No one was about. Where all had been bustle and military precision: drills, orders, marching feet … now only a few birds hopped amongst the weeds.
Lai warily pushed open the armoury door. For a moment he half-expected, half-hoped to hear Ymarys’s voice drawling from the shadows, ‘What time do you call this? You’re late!’
But the armoury was empty … except for a thin vapour that wreathed its way across the floor. Lai sniffed – and pulled a face. He had not smelt that foul stink of chymicals since Mithiel’s Day. His guess must be right; Azhrel was in his laboratory.
Azhrel was warming an alembic over a flame. He was so engrossed in his work he did not even notice Lai come in.
‘Arlan.’
Azhrel started.
‘What by all the daemons are you doing here? Suppose someone recognised you?’
‘I have to speak with you.’
‘In a moment,’ Azhrel said distractedly, tapping the grey granules in the alembic with a glass rod.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Lai’s voice trembled.
‘Heard?’ Damn him, he wasn’t even paying attention.
‘The proclamations have been posted all over the city. They’re – they’re going to try her for witchcraft.’
‘Witchcraft?’ Azhrel’s herd jerked up. The granules had begun to sputter.
‘Djhë, Arlan, do you have to repeat everything? Laili, my sister Laili. A public trial for witchcraft. They say she brought the plague on the city.’
‘When?’ Azhrel said tersely.
‘The Day of the Dead. Sh’amain, you call it. They’re holding some kind of rite in the arena.’
The sputtering became a violent sizzling. Azhrel, glancing around, suddenly grabbed hold of Lai and threw him to the ground.
The alembic split apart in a flash of white light. Glass fragments shattered, sprinkled down in a lethal hailstorm.
Lai’s ears dinned with the after-echoes of the explosion. His sight was scored with jagged lines of whitefire. Someone was shaking him, someone was asking, ‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’
He put one hand to his jangling head.
‘I think so.’ He could not hear the words although he knew he had spoken them aloud. ‘What happened?’
Thick smoke swirled between them; Azhrel’s face, smeared with firedust smuts, loomed over his. Slivers of glass powdered his hair, his leather jerkin. And in that moment Lai saw what he had never seen before: Azhrel’s eyes unguarded, staring wide with fear.
‘The mineral salts produced a more volatile reaction at that temperature than I had anticipated.’ He began to cough on the smoke.
‘In other words you nearly blew us to bits.’
Azhrel nodded between wheezing coughs.
‘Now surely someone will come!’
‘If you hadn’t interrupted me in the middle of an experiment—’
‘Oh, so it’s my fault?’
‘Yes, damn you. Now I’ll have to start again.’
‘Hold still. You’re covered in glass.’ Lai took out his kerchief and gently wiped the smuts from Azhrel’s scarred face. A smear of blood stained the fine linen. ‘Was this how it happened?’
‘My father was working on a new weapon for Sardion. I was helping him, learning the secrets of the art. He … miscalculated.’
‘An explosion?’
‘I was lucky to escape with my life. He was – not so lucky.’ Azhrel stood up to survey the damage; glass crunched beneath his feet. ‘He did not wish to make weapons. Sardion compelled him.’ He took a broom from the corner and began to sweep up the shards.
‘It’s not going to be ready, is it?’
‘I need time. Just a little more time.’
‘There isn’t any more time. Not for Laili. I can’t wait for Sh’amain, Arlan. I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to find her.’
‘You said she’s to be tried for witchcraft? That’s priests’ business.’ Azhrel propped the broom back in its corner.
‘The priests of Mithiel? You think she’s being kept in the shrine? Or the temple?’
‘It’s possible …’
An idea came into Lai’s mind, an idea so absurd he almost began to laugh aloud.
‘How do you become a hierophant?’
Azhrel looked at him.
‘The ultimate irony, yes? The adept of the Goddess becomes a servant of Mithiel.’
‘A servant of Mithiel! Look – I know you’re upset. But take time to think this out, Lai. If they discover you, an imposter, trying to infiltrate their mysteries—’
Lai was not listening; he was already planning how he would present himself at the temple.
‘I’m obviously wasting my breath,’ Azhrel said, turning away.
Lai went to him and caught hold of him by the hands.
‘Whatever happens to me—’
‘Whatever happens to you, I’ll do my part. I’ll give them a display of firedust they’ll never forget. And if it doesn’t destroy the moonmoths, it will distract Ophar and Clodolë just long enough for you to spirit your sister away. Just don’t try to take on the brotherhood of Mithiel single-handed.’ His mouth twisted into an ironic, affectionate smile. ‘You’d better take this too.’ He handed Lai a leathern pouch. ‘It will open any door – no matter how strong the lock.’
Lai tipped the pouch open: inside were two lengths of string, a set of tinderstones and a packet of grey granules.
‘Firedust?’
‘Indeed. So take care and don’t stand too close to any naked flames.’
‘And the string?’
‘Not just any common kind of string!’ Azhrel said, affronted. ‘These are fuses – of my own designing – to set the firedust alight. Once you’ve lit the fuse, you’ve ten seconds to take cover before the dust ignites. Understand me? Ten seconds – no more.’