27
Lord Kalliarkos,” I call as loudly as I dare. Silence is my only reply.
“Kal!”
Fortune save me! What if I’ve been an utter fool? No Patron prince could ever care for a mule like me. If Thynos and Inarsis were in on the plot all along, they would agree to help and then trap me here, like a kick in the face to let me know I got above myself. They are probably laughing right now as they walk out Eternity Gate and leave me buried.
Quite out of nowhere a sharp edge pricks me just under the ribs. Coriander has come up beside me, holding the lit lamp in one hand and the knife in the other.
“I’m going out first.” She holds the knife like she knows how to use it. Flame glints on the blade’s polished surface. The metal is incised with the mark of the winged phoenix, the badge of the royal house. “You’re not leaving me in here.”
My throat is tight and my heart is pounding, yet I slowly raise both hands as in supplication, but really so I can defend myself if she tries to stab me. “That’s right,” I say evenly, “you’ll go first. I just need your help to lift me up to the shaft so I can climb out and get the rope.”
Under my breath I murmur a prayer that I have not been duped. He doesn’t want to be like the other nobles. He told me so.
Coriander moves closer. “Did you scheme with your twin so you two wouldn’t get trapped here?”
“I didn’t scheme with anyone!”
“Then how did you know we were inside? We were drugged and shrouded! No one knew.”
I’m so angry at the accusation that I poke her right in the chest. “I recognized my mother through the shroud. That’s how I knew. Don’t you dare accuse me! Do you believe I would ever have anything to do with burying my mother and sisters in a tomb?”
A sneer twists her mouth. In this place she need not hide her feelings behind a mask: she is just as insolent as her brother. “Everyone knew you were your father’s favorite. The one he took to the army camp with him. The one he treated like the son he never had. You and he came out of this the best, didn’t you? He becomes a general and you get to run the Fives.”
“Of course you would defend him.”
“He never whipped you! He isn’t a cruel man.”
“Even the kindest Patron is cruel, Doma. They all walk on the bones of dead Efeans and never give it a thought.”
“He didn’t know this was going to happen! He’s the one who sent me to get you out. He loves her, Coriander. You know he would never condemn her to this!”
To my relief her expression softens and she lowers the knife. “It’s true I can’t imagine him doing this to Doma Kiya.”
Can I grab the knife from her? As if she guesses what I’m thinking she takes a step back.
“Why did you agree to trade places with Bettany?” I study her stance. Her hand is steady but if I rush in I might take her by surprise.
“Doma Kiya promised if I would sit the vigil and let Bettany supervise the house until we got back that she would speak to people she knew and see if she could get my brother freed from prison.”
“My mother said that?” This is not the first time I’ve been knocked off my feet by an example of my mother’s knowing and doing things I am unaware of. Her string of connections seems far more extensive than I ever guessed. Perhaps I too can find other allies, more trustworthy people than Thynos and Inarsis. That Kalliarkos might be in on their plot is a thought I can’t stomach. They must have fooled him too.
“Sitting a nasty vigil seemed a small enough thing to do to save him,” Coriander says. Her brow wrinkles with pain and agitation. “He’s going to be executed.”
“Is he really in prison for murder?”
“Yes.” She isn’t even ashamed.
“You want to free a murderer?”
Her contempt glints more brightly than the blade. “What the king calls murder is what others call truth. Anyway, what do you care? Lord Gargaron is a murderer eight times over if we can’t get out. He’s far from the only one. How many Efeans have died in the last hundred years as Patrons enrich themselves on our lands? How many Patron women have been entombed in this ugly City of the Dead because Patron lords wish to rid themselves of inconvenient girls?”
“Oracles and their servants go to the tombs willingly.”
She snorts. “You’re such a fool. Girls raised from infancy to believe this is their destiny? I don’t call that willing.” She takes an aggressive step toward me. “How are you getting us out?”
I gesture toward the ceiling. “Through the air shaft.”
“Do you expect me to believe that? We can’t reach the shaft and we can’t climb it without assistance. You’re lying.”
“I have accomplices outside with a rope. They lowered me in.”
“Who would dare help a person like you break into a tomb?”
I’m not sure it’s true anymore, and yet I cannot fathom that he would abandon me here. “Lord Kalliarkos.”
She cocks her head to one side, almost laughing. “Is he your lover? After your father told you never to speak to him again?”
“Yes,” I lie, hoping it isn’t a lie, that Kal is still out there.
She nods. This is a story that makes sense to her. “I’d have defied them too, just to show them! All right. I’ll help. But your mother and Cook won’t fit up the shaft.”
Hearing the words forces me to acknowledge the ugly truth. Mother and Cook both are too big. No, I won’t give up! There must be a way out of this maze. First I have to see if Kalliarkos has truly abandoned me, but the thought of discovering that he has makes me almost afraid to try to get out.
She nudges me hard enough that I have to take a step. “If my brother was free, he knows people from the masons’ guild who can break into a tomb and get your mother out. If he was free.”
“No one can break into a tomb without the priests seeing.”
Her sneer reasserts itself as a mask of derision. “You think you know so much because you speak and act like a Patron. You know the lies they tell you but you don’t know the truth.”
Hands on hips, I lean assertively toward her. “Insult me all you want, but I know how to climb that air shaft!”
With a grunt of laughter she sets down both lamp and knife. “That’s true enough.”
I show her how to brace her hands on her knees. We practice her taking my weight on her shoulders until I am sure she can keep her balance. The gods are merciful because she is strong, and we are both determined. When she tremblingly straightens to her full height I can just snag the bottom of the shaft. I feel along the old brickwork for any sort of handhold. Fortunately it gives me a finger’s width of purchase.
She cups my feet in her palms and, shaking hard, lifts me as I finger-climb my way up the shaft. The coarse grain chafes my skin. My nose scrapes the wall, drawing tears, but I keep going until I can’t go farther. I push off her hands to give me momentum to arm-climb up enough to get my knees wedged in.
Someone has torn my arms out of their sockets and crammed them back in again but I can’t stop now. Back and knees pressed against opposite sides of the shaft brace me; my arms have a moment to rest. Sweat breaks down my back. Grit tickles in my nostrils. I dare not sneeze.
Bracing and pushing, I creep my way upward one grunting exhalation at a time. This is not different from climbing a blind shaft, just tighter and more fearsome, and I’ll die and my mother and sisters will die if I fall. Tears flood from the dust sifting into my eyes. My upward movement is so agonizingly slow but I can’t fall.
I will save them. There must be a way if I can remain patient and stubborn.
At last my head breaches the top of the shaft and I hook myself over. I sprawl forward with my face pressed onto the tile and my lungs on fire.
Men’s voices rise from nearby, loud as clarions in the night’s hush. “Did you try to ignite the tombs to burn a way in?”
“No, my lords,” says the hero of Marsh Shore in the tone of a man pretending to be a humble servant. “I am here as escort to my lord master, who visits the tomb.”
“Where is he, then? You people always have some excuse when you are about your thievery.”
Cautiously I shift my head but do not otherwise move. Partway down the path two priest-wardens confront General Inarsis. One carries a lamp and the other holds an edged staff. Inarsis stands with arms at his sides and palms forward in a posture I often see Commoner men using to display that they are harmless.
“My apologies, Your Holinesses. He is taking a piss.”
A hand brushes my arm so unexpectedly I flinch. Kalliarkos rolls up alongside me.
He’s here! He didn’t abandon me.
Such a wave of relief hits me that I press my face into his shoulder for comfort. His fingers tangle in mine, our hands warm against each other.
He whispers, “I heard you shouting. I was afraid something was wrong so we pulled up the rope so I could come in after you. Then the wardens came. I have to interrupt them before they arrest Inarsis.”
I shudder, and his hand tightens reassuringly on mine. “They are alive but we have to get them out fast. The food and drink is poisoned.”
An exhalation of shock gusts from him. “Blasphemy upon blasphemy!”
“My mother won’t fit through the shaft,” I add. “We have to find another way to get her and Cook out. That day you followed me to the Ribbon Market there was a young man arrested. He was taken to the king’s prison. His sister, Coriander, is one of our servants. She is trapped inside too. She claims her brother knows people who can break into the tomb. You have to get him out of prison and see if it’s true.”
“How can I get a man out of the king’s prison?” he hisses. He sounds angry. “I can’t just walk in and demand they free him.”
“Of course you can. You’re a prince. Act like one.”
“You think it’s so easy just because of my birth? Everything I do is watched and measured.”
“What are you really afraid of?” I retort, made bold by the intimacy of him lying against me exactly as if we were lovers. The night, the danger, and our desperation make our closeness sharp and vivid.
“Of becoming like them,” he whispers, his tone so dark it makes me shiver.
“You aren’t like them because we are already fighting back.”
My fingers brush the bare skin of his neck and the lobe of his ear. A spark of pure sensation flashes through my body like a wave off the sea breaking over me.
He sucks in a breath. “Jes!”
“Go!” I say. “The Rings are opening. The time is now. If you need more help seek a man named Polodos at the Least-Hill Inn.”
Below, the lamp-warden booms a command. “You are under arrest for trespassing in the City of the Dead with the intention of desecrating a holy tomb. If you come quietly you’ll be given the mercy of a quick execution rather than torture.”
“I will return, I promise you on my honor as a man,” murmurs Kalliarkos against my cheek. “The rope and harness are up here on the roof. The clothing and jug are below. Wait for me.”
When he releases my hand my fingers feel so empty. He drops off the edge and hits with a loud-enough thump that the wardens exclaim. A moment later he appears on the other side of the tomb, walking with the knowledge that the world must give way before him. Both wardens make a deep obeisance.
“What trouble are you giving my servant?” Kalliarkos demands.
“My lord, criminals and troublemakers set a fire on the far side of the tombs. We are commanded to sweep everyone out while we search for the culprits. Our apologies, my lord.”
“Good Goat! Are you saying I am not safe here among the holy dead? Have you wardens shirked your duties?” His tone so closely matches that of the Angry Prince in The Hide of the Ox that I wonder if he is acting a part or if he has finally found his resolve.
For all Kalliarkos is a palace-born lord, the priests have their own authority separate from the court. “We must escort you to the gate, my lord, by order of our superiors.”
“I am outraged by this interruption of my peaceful communion with the memory of a Fives adversary I have long admired and studied, for I must suppose you did not know Lord Ottonor was an Illustrious in his youth.” His curt disdain makes me smile.
He allows them to escort him and Inarsis away. Lamplight bobs out across the necropolis as the wardens trawl the grounds for interlopers. I stretch to ease the throbbing pain in my muscles. So much for my brilliant plan. I have to believe he will do as he promised. Yet the truth is that I trust him because of the way he snared my fingers in his. That is the worst reason of all to trust, but my bitter heart will not stop singing its recklessly giddy song.
I lean over the shaft. Gilded by lamplight, Coriander stares up into a darkness in which she cannot see me. “I’m coming down in a moment. Stand away.”
I secure the climbing rope around the air shaft and slip on the harness, then rappel down the tomb wall to the outside alcove to gather up the bundled clothing and the jug. I lower it all down to Coriander. Although it is a risk to have the rope tied around the air shaft, where someone might see it from outside, I need to be able to show Coriander she has a way out in order to ensure her cooperation. As I descend hand over hand down the narrow shaft, my shoulders bumping the bricks, a muffled cry drifts eerily out of the tomb like the lament of the dead. Its timbre agitates me until I realize it is a newborn’s startled wail. The baby’s cry ceases just as I reach the floor.
Cook speaks in a voice of such calm cheerfulness that I marvel at her generous courage. “That’s right, Doma. See how strongly she suckles!”
“What happened up there?” Coriander’s gaze sears me. I never understood that her blank servant’s expression hid so much dislike.
“We have to keep quiet until Lord Kalliarkos returns. He’s going to free your brother.”
“I should just climb the rope and leave,” she says, chin jutting forward as if to dare me to forbid it.
“You still can. But I hope you will wait and help me get the others out.”
She frowns at her hands, then glances into the central chamber. “For Doma Kiya’s sake I will.”
Maraya continues to support Mother against the stone bier. She has rallied enough to become absorbed in the baby suckling at her breast.
Cook now has the knife and is cutting the afterbirth into small pieces. “Mistress, you must eat a bit of placenta to strengthen yourself.”
“I’m too tired to eat,” says Mother in a murmur that dies away as her eyes flutter closed.
Maybe I gasp at this sign of her intense weakness. Coriander touches me on the arm with a flash of unexpected compassion, then pulls back her hand and rubs it over her scalp. I wonder who gave her the scars on her head.
“How did my mother rescue you?” I ask.
“That is not your story to know since you never bothered to ask before now.” She sets the lamp beside the oracle’s chest and like a tomb robber opens it and begins rifling through its contents.
Chastened, I go into the central chamber.
The oracle huddles in a corner, still rocking the dead infant in her arms. I cannot forget the words she whispered to me any more than I could forget scars on my body. Even now she mumbles phrases that make no sense and yet flow with a poem’s music.
“The stars fall from the sky as blooms of fire… the infant bloomed with blood under the knife… the bird-haunted ship carries his sleeve of roses away from me… hope withers in a dying flower… poison has killed the flower that bloomed brightest.…”
Maraya grabs hold of me as soon as I am close enough. Her shaky voice worries me. “I thought I was dreaming when I saw you before, Jes, because then you vanished again.”
“I am really here, Merry.”
My voice jolts Mother’s attention.
“Jessamy?” She looks so worn and broken that I want to pour all my determination into her.
Kneeling, I press my face against her sweaty cheek. “You must drink some of this broth and eat, just as Cook tells you. We’re escaping tomorrow. We have to hide here tonight.”
“Hiding” sounds better than “trapped.”
“Is Esladas coming?” The way her voice quavers cuts my heart to pieces.
To lie to the ill or dying when they know you are lying is the worst kind of dishonesty. “No.”
“First Lord Gargaron poisoned Lord Ottonor to take Esladas away from me. Then your father threw us away.” She begins weeping bitterly.
“Mother, he has to fight in the war. Efea depends on the courage of its soldiers.”
Her eyes are all shadow. Blood is smeared along her upper lip, and a scratch reddens her left cheek near her ear. Yet for the first time, as her sobs fade, she speaks almost normally. “How like your father you sound, Jessamy. You always did.”
“He couldn’t defy Lord Gargaron,” I add.
“Oh, Jessamy.” Her gentle gaze makes me love her so much. I would do anything to protect her, she who has always protected me. “That is sweet of you to say even if we know it is not true.”
“Of course it’s true!” Maraya wrinkles her nose as at a bad smell but I forge on because I must give Mother the heart to live. “When he found out you’d been trapped here he sent me to rescue you. Everything is going as planned. Now you must eat.”
She allows Cook to feed her moist pieces of raw afterbirth. The baby loses hold of her breast and smacks her tiny lips. Tenderly Mother helps her find the nipple again. I pray that this frail newborn spark will fasten Mother’s self and shadow and heart to the earth.
I crouch beside Amaya. “Amiable, I have salty broth to settle your stomach.”
She claws for the jug. I trickle a little down her throat. At first she coughs; then she swallows the liquid greedily just as she probably gulped down the candied almonds.
“That’s enough for now,” I say sternly. I offer the jug to Maraya. Amaya doesn’t protest, just sinks back onto the floor.
“Are we really getting out of the tomb?” Maraya asks after she has drunk.
“Yes!” I don’t tell her that I can save her and Amaya and Coriander but I have to leave Mother and Cook behind. I don’t say that Mother might die anyway from blood loss and despair, that she desperately needs a healer, food, rest, and comfort. Maraya knows it too.
Pitchers in the entry chamber contain wash water, for the priests do not wish the oracle and her servants to live in filth. Coriander refuses to wash Amaya so I am left to pull her nasty stinking shroud off, wipe her clean, and then dress her in the humble clothing I’ve brought.
She complains the whole time in her whiniest voice. “Why do I have to wear this coarse linen sheath, Jes? It’s too long. Why is it so dark? I want another lamp.”
I am pretty sure she is still too delirious to realize where she is. Her breath smells of bile made more sickening by being mingled with the ghastly scent of the sweet lotus potion. I pant in shallow bursts to avoid the stench. When I’m done, Coriander and I carry her to the oracle’s bed. The stench permeates here too, but sachets of spices and herbs hung around the bed to keep it free of bugs leaven the air somewhat. Amaya curls up, hands pressed to her belly.
Washing and getting dressed in ordinary clothing cheers up everyone more than I expected. Maraya and I settle Mother on the bed beside Amaya. Then I go back to examine Lord Ottonor’s bier. The wooden lid of his coffin is sealed with wax sigils molded and melted to prevent the spark-animated corpse from clawing its way out before the spark fades. By lamplight we study the lacquered offering tray with its poisoned morsels arranged pleasingly in decorative bowls and tiny ceramic platters. It looks so tempting that I almost pick up one of the artful little seed-cakes.
“Merry, aren’t oracles buried young to keep a lord’s name alive longer?”
“Do you know what else is odd, Jes?” I almost weep to hear the crisp tone so characteristic of Maraya before all of this happened, the one that means she’s sorting through her archive of knowledge. “After Amaya grabbed the candied almonds we took the tray away from her, greedy pig! Cook offered the food to the oracle because she is supposed to eat first. But she refused to touch anything. She just watched Amaya like a vulture. After a little while Amiable got sick and vomited.”
“As if the oracle feared poison.”
“It’s why the rest of us didn’t eat right away. Cook made us wait for the oracle. Although she didn’t mean to, the oracle saved us.” Maraya glances toward the oracle’s chamber, where Mother and Amaya sleep while Cook cradles the baby. Coriander is going through the treasures she has picked out of the oracle’s chest: a tidy pile of expensive silk clothing, pewter utensils and cups, and a trove of wristlets, anklets, and necklaces strung of beads, pearls, and polished stones. “I wonder what Father’s new wife is like.”
“Very rich. Young. Palace-born. Her grandmother is Princess Berenise.”
“Truly? Princess Berenise is the younger sister of Kliatemnos the Fourth and his queen, Serenissima the Fourth.”
“What do you know about her?” I try to keep my passionate curiosity from my voice. Knowing more about Kalliarkos’s grandmother will teach me more about him.
“In her youth Princess Berenise was married to King Sokorios of Saro-Urok. I can tell you his exact degree of relationship to our own royal family if you want.”
“No, no, that’s not necessary.”
Her voice lightens because now she is trawling through the dusty old Archives that often seem more real to her than the sisters chattering around her. “King Sokorios either died in battle or was murdered by his chief rival. It depends on which account you read and what faction the chronicle supports. They all tell a different story to make their side look good and the others look bad. After his death she married Menos Garon of Clan Garon. That is how Clan Garon became elevated to Garon Palace, through her status. She gave birth to one son. He served in the army, married a noblewoman from old Saro, sired Lady Menoë and Lord Kalliarkos, and died in battle. Gargaron is her husband’s brother’s son.”
Voices float from outside as a party of loud men argue in the distance.
“Hush! Coriander, blow out your lamp. We can’t let them see light in here!”
I rip several strips of cloth and hurry over to the oracle. She shrinks back as I loom over her. I must be ruthless even though she is just an old woman. If she screams, they’ll know we’re alive and Lord Gargaron will find out that his poisoned food did not work. She easily gives in as I tie her hands behind her back and gag her. This must be what they teach the girls raised in closed rooms to prepare them for a life in the tomb: to accept what others tell you to do without questioning.
Merry wraps the dead infant in cloth and sets him in the oracle’s lap. “Maybe our poor brother’s body will comfort her. How strange that she holds him as if he is her own. I wonder if she had a baby once? But how could she if she was raised in the temple to be an oracle?”
I blow out my lamp and we feel our way into the oracle’s chamber to sit huddled together by the bed. Amaya snores noisily, burps in her sleep, then farts with a long gassy whistle.
Maraya shudders against me, and I can’t tell if she is silently giggling or shaking with grief. I’m so grateful Amaya is alive that I can’t laugh.
When Maraya speaks I am surprised by how much anger heats her whispered words.
“Father could have sneaked us all onto a ship. It’s a lie to say he had no choice, that he wasn’t swayed by ambition. If he really wanted to, he could get work as a soldier in a mercenary company like the Shipwrights. Mother could have taken in washing or sold goods in a market. We could have sailed away together to another land.”
“Yes, that’s a lovely story, Merry, but it’s not that simple.”
“It seems simple to me!” She shivers as with a fever. “The worst thing was waking up. It took me a while to understand that we were trapped inside… and then I heard scratching… and I was afraid the corpse was trying to claw out of the coffin.” She chokes on the memory.
“Hush,” I whisper. “The coffin is sealed. Even if the borrowed spark hasn’t died, the flesh can’t get out past the seals.”
A long silence follows. Merry’s breathing deepens and slows. I need to sleep but I am wide awake listening to the baby’s fretting.
“Cook,” I whisper. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you leave with the other servants?”
“I could not leave your mother, Doma Jessamy, not when she was so distraught. Years ago she saved me from a bad place. I owe her my life, so obligation binds me to her. If the gods have led me to this place, then I am content with it.”
“But you’re a Patron, and she’s a Commoner.”
“I am a woman, and so is she. Now rest, Doma Jessamy. We need your strength.”
My eyes close as I allow myself to relax. The infant whimpers. Mother wakes and nurses the baby while Cook coaxes her to take more placenta and broth. Afterward Mother weeps wearily, the grief seeping out of her like blood from an oozing wound. Maraya crawls onto the bed to comfort her. They all sleep while I stretch out on the floor.
Again all grows quiet, a perfect stillness. In the half-aware state between sleep and waking I sense the stone’s contours beneath my legs, I breathe along its shadows, I feel through my skin the quivering of each vibration that stirs the earth beneath the tomb. Stone has a shadow and a secret name too, and maybe even a self.
A scratching like fingernails dragged listlessly along wood shudders me into full heart-pounding alertness. It sounds exactly as if it is coming from inside the coffin.
Is the body of Lord Ottonor trying to claw out?
My breathing squeezes tight as I pray it is only a rat. Yet rats might swarm at us out of the dark and gnaw out our eyes before we can wake up.
Scratch scratch scratch.
I wish I had the knife. What if Coriander murders us in our sleep? No, she loves Mother too. We are all here because Mother saved us.
Finally the scratching stops. A low moan jolts me until I realize it is the wind in the shaft. I lie still for the longest time. At last with the hum of the wind as my lullaby I let go of my anxious thoughts and sink, praying that nothing attacks me while I sleep.