A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (12 page)

At the end of the lines, the vicious draft flicked at a torn fragment of bedraggled cotton, wrapping it around the
foreleg of a large bull-camel.
The animal began to bellow, bucking as the l
ong shred flapped like a flag.
Ropes stretched and snapped and a posse of distressed camels began to skirl
around, roaring with distress.
One began to canter toward the open city gates and in seconds a stampede had begun, the bazaar a foetid cloud of dust and screaming.

Finnian jumpe
d up the steps out of the way.
The noise of shrieking women and yelling men and the bark of ex
cited dogs created more panic.
The camels brayed, drawing their lips back over tombstone teeth, huge feet kicking out, bodie
s swaying, ungainly and heavy.
The old in the crowd tripped and fell and were dragged out of the way as children ducked and wove but there was crushi
ng and bruising in the tumult.
Finnian lifted his arm to still the beasts but the whirlwind djinn spun harder, the kizmet moaning louder, a shriek that drilled fea
r ever deeper into the camels.
Try as he might, Finnian cursed that he was no match for this malicious Raji Other.

In a dusty, fraught while, when the gates had been wrenched shut and handlers with whips and fierce words had rounded up the beleagured animals and secured the lines, a tiny infant was found beaten black and blue by many calloused hooves, tossed and turned as if it had been a ball kicked in a game of
cuju
or
dhada
.

The wails of the mother filled the bazaar and the crowd turned
away with pity in their eyes.
Finnian saw the woman pull the corpse to her chest and rock back and forth as she hauled her sari over he
r head and over the limp body.
Its precious head lolled
back, eyes mercifully closed.
As Finnian stepped near, he saw a lock of baby-fine black hair fall over the bruised and cut forehead and for a moment he thought he looked at himself, so bizarre
was the likeness of the child.
The mother looked up, her eyes filled with anguish that spilled in
kohl rivulets down her cheeks.
Finnian heard the question asked over and over as she wailed: ‘Why, why, why, why?’

He searched the crowd that surrounded the mother for a face with a crooked turban and there in the light of the fast setting sun, there he was – gappy mouth grinning, the fingers waggling back and forth.

Hatred choked Finnian.

Chapter Eleven

Lalita

‘Begin at the beginning,’ the afrit mumbled with a mouth full of sultanas, ‘and just say it and be done, Rajeeb.’

‘Indeed, the beginning,’ Rajeeb sm
oothed his trousers as he sat.
‘Lalita, you are aware your brother was friendly with a Traveller, the embroiderer Adelina, since he was but a babe in arms and she likewise?’

‘I have vaguely heard of her.
I believe she was his friend from the markets and fairs and I think our parents and her own were traveli
ng acquaintances even earlier.
But I never met her.  My parents died when I was but a babe and
I spent my whole life with…
’ pain fi
lled her chest with raw edges.
‘I’ve lived in
Ahmadabad for my whole life.’
She clasped her hands tightly.

‘She is very
beautiful,’ continued Rajeeb.
‘Like the Luned forest in a blaze of autumn which in itself is unheard of because it is always spr
ing there, enchanted as it is.
But I am su
re you understand what I mean.
A year ago or perhaps a little more, Kholi and Adelina were attending the Stitching
Fair in Trevallyn.
They came across each other by accident and began to travel together, taking a young woman with them w
hom they picked up on the road.
I won’t go into the woman’s history because it has no beari
ng on what I wish to tell you.
It is a s
tory for another time.
But suffice to say that as Kholi and Adelina journeyed with this young lady, they also met
an Other called Liam; a Færan.
Kho
li and Liam became friends…
’

‘My b
rother friendly with an Other?
How very strange.’

‘Is it?’ the afrit looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

She went to speak and then stopped as re
alization dawned and then, ‘Oh. No.
I see.’

The afrit grimaced as he lay down on the floor, his head pillowed on a jute bag, his
hands clasped over his belly.
‘This
is a so-so story, Rajeeb. Mortals are so uninteresting.’
He glanced at Lalita inviting her objections.

‘Afri
t, this is a story for Lalita.
I tell it for her, so be quiet
or you might end in a bottle. Where was I?’
He propped his fists on his thighs a
nd leaned forward.
‘Kholi and Adelina went to Star, the town on the Celestine Stair and I believe by dint of time together, that is where they began to fall in love.’

Love. Kholi had been in love.
Lalita thought back.
Yes, I felt it.
He was content.

‘Now the story begins to take a darker, and in the case of your paperweig
ht charm, most dangerous turn.
Kholi and Adelina ran in
to a woman, Severine di Accia.
Formally a Traveller like Adelina, she married a Venichese noble and became wealthy and powerfu
l.
She was also a madwoman; it is the only way to describe her.’

‘Why?’
Lalita had
a million images in her mind.
Of her brother with the
woman he was learning to love. Of a madwoman. Of Others.
It had the makings of a story from
A
Thousand and One Nights;
Rajeeb had been right
.
Envy
flowed through her, a sour, acidic burn directed at
Adelina who had Kholi’s love. 
I’m jealous
.
She squeez
ed her hands as she tried to rationalise
.
But why?
I could have h
ad Mahmoud in another life if I had wanted but I didn’t because I craved something else…

‘Severine di Accia was responsible for the death of your brother.’

Her eyes began to fill.
No.

‘
Yo
u must not cry, little Flower.
We have far to go and if you weep then
I shan’t be able to continue. For Kholi you must be brave.
You must hear this story.’

She nodded and he recounted more, the daylight shifting
along the slats of the shed.
‘S
everine had found the charm of i
mmortality as well as the other three charms of dominion.  I would not be the only one who would like to know how she unearthed them because for hundreds of years they lay buried where the Færan Elders secreted them and it is almost inconceivable that a
mortal
should have found them. Can you understand?
These were
Other
charms, it’s unbelievable and yet it happened.’

‘Why weren’t the charms destroyed if they were
so iniquitous?’ Lalita asked.
‘Surely a mind that can create such a thing can just as easily destroy the same thing.’

‘I told you, Flower.
They are above destruction.’

‘But that doesn’t make sense.’

‘Nevertheless it is true and sad with
it.
A sick woman’s obsession with those charms caused your brother’s death.’

Rajeeb spoke so plainly, Lalita despising
it and yet she knew she must listen if she was
to learn of Kholi’s last days.
Her stomach turned; she was afraid of how she might respond, afraid of the strength of her grief, aware that she had already been weakened by
loss and yet she had to know.
She sat silent, staring at the djinn’s face, barely seeing the crisp features, the hair as blue-black as Kholi’s.

‘But it was the immortality charm
Contessa di Accia wanted most.
In her twisted mind she believed she was destined to b
e immortal one way or another, either by an accident of birth, which we know was not possible, or by the immortality charm as form of insurance.
By the use of a ring, a soul-syphon that went with the spell, she could suck out two Færan souls and have them sewn into a garment which she would then wear, the life force soaking through the warp and weft into her own tissue; into her very being.’

The repugnant detail unraveled and all the while Lalita’s hands twisted
and turned
as her brother’s life hung in the balance.

‘Severine had kept a close and secret eye on Adelina and her friends and had
surmised that Liam was Færan.
She began to track him – he would be her
second
soul and all the better because Liam was a friend of Adelina’s w
hom she hated with a passion.’
Rajeeb stoo
d and leaned against a pillar.
‘Fate is
such a cruel master, you know.
Liam and the young woman, Adelina’s friend, were in love and she was killed at this time when she fell from a horse.
’

‘This story is such a trag
edy and
hangs about my brother like
stinking carrion. If only…
’

‘The world is m
ade up of ‘if only’s’, Lalita.
Tragedy
must be faced and dealt with.
It is pointless hiding from it or running away, because in the
end it will be there waiting.
Somehow, we must drag up our intestinal fortitude and deal as best we can wi
th whatever the Fates serve us.
Life
goes on, it is the way of it. Shall I continue?’

Rajeeb touched her and she nodded, wrap
ping her arms around her body.

‘Adelina was fil
led with grief as she loved the young woman like a sister.
Kholi supported her as a soon-to-be husband would
but even he..
.’

‘Soon-to-be husband?’ Lalita gasped. ‘Adelina was to marry him?
B
ut he sent no message home. He would have told me.
’

‘Ah, little flower, love is speedy; barely a breath before one knows it is the right person and the right moment
.
But we must continue.
After the woman’s funeral, the three grief-stricken friends left for Veniche, trav
eling along the Luned Highway.
The contessa tracked them down and found Liam and Kholi in a clearing.’

Rajee
b moved to sit next to Lalita.
He took her hands in his own and cradled them gently, runn
ing his thumbs back and forth.
Lalita’s belly writhed in a tangle.
I am not ready, I shall never be ready
. ‘Oh no, Rajeeb,’ she begged.
‘Please.’

‘
It is time,
my dear. This you must know.’ His thumbs still circled.
‘Kholi died trying to pr
otect Liam who was his friend.
You know he would have b
een courageous and steadfast.’
Rajeeb sat for a moment and
then, ‘Contessa di Accia was desperate for
Liam’s soul and she used
Kholi’s life to threaten him.
She got what she wanted but there is little doubt she intended for Kholi to die all along.
Witnesses had no role to play in her plans.
’

A sob racked forth.
‘How?’

The afrit sat by her other side and slipped his arm comfortingly an
d most unusually through hers.
‘
Oh
Little damsel,
what does ‘how’ matter? What difference does it make?
He is gone and was brave and forthright and you can be proud.’

‘I need to know,’ she whispered.

R
ajeeb sighed. ‘His throat…
’

‘It was cut, wasn’t it? I felt it.
Som
eone cut my brother’s throat.’
Her own throat tightened and stung.

‘He was garotted, Lalita. It would have been very quick.’ Then
Rajeeb held her as the maelstrom broke.

Quick was a relative term.
She knew that Kholi would have struggled and fought as his
life drained into the mosses in
the Luned Forest and she needed to wash the
thoughts away with her tears. ‘I felt it.
It was as if I swallowed wire and the
pain knocked me to the floor.
After,’ she took a shuddering breath, ‘a dark shroud dropped over me and to tell the truth it has been on
my shoulder ever since.’
She burst out,
‘Why did Adelina love him
,
why involve him with her life?
If she had kept herself away,
I would still have a brother.
At least one member of my family would still be alive.’

The djinn took her hand and held
it tight.
‘But thi
nk, Lalita,’ he replied gently.
‘What was Kholi like?’

S
he allowed one tear a
fter another to roll unchecked.
‘Passionate, caring, courageous and loyal, so loyal.’

‘Easily led?’

‘Never.’

‘Then what he did he did of his own volition, a master of his own emotions?’

Lalita nodded, answering back.
‘But why did he love
her?
’

‘It is the way of it. Fate. No one can control with whom they fall in love and with whom they wish to spend a life. It happens.
He
did
love her and Fate decreed their l
ove should be strong if short. That it endures is obvious as i
t can be measured by the end r
esult. T
hey had a child.’

‘A child.
’
Lalita stood up.
‘A child?’

‘Indeed. A little babe called Isabella.
She is dark haired like her father.’

Silence filled the shed
although Lalita could swear that in one of those odd crystal-clear moments that happen in life, she heard the silkworms chewing the edges of mulberry leaves and the slippery lick as caterpillars began to tease the saliva from their mouths, to twist and turn until they were
sheathed in a silky chrysalis.
She twisted a knot of her own silk clothing in her fingers and wiped her eyes with it.
I have family.

‘
Is that the end of the story?’

‘Yes and no,’ Rajeeb moved and eased
his legs out in front of him.
‘But Lalita, I am thinking that the re
st of the story must be later.
The sun begins to sink and the women will be here shortly to refresh the mulberry leaves, so we shall move to another place.’