Grim (13 page)

“My mother did not kill herself,” Jeremiah growled.

Uriel smiled. “Oh, that's right,” he said. “
You
killed her.”

Jeremiah shook his head, disappointed. “Remember when we lived in the same house, Uri?” he asked. “And we used to play pranks on Michael and Gabriel? We had our lessons in the courtyard. And the tutors wanted so badly to please us because of what our father could do.”

Uriel laughed. “I do remember,” he said, a sweetness creeping into his voice with the memories. “And we were top in scores, but they always gave Gabriel higher marks because he was the eldest.”

Jeremiah felt himself relaxing. He dredged up another memory. “And the walnut tree?”

“How could I forget the walnut tree?” Uriel turned to Selaph. “Remember that? We would climb up and throw shells at the maids, but they still loved us because we were only boys.” He smiled. “Oh, and I'd almost forgotten.” He looked back at Jeremiah. “Remember —” He touched his forehead with the backs of his knuckles as he laughed. “Remember how Father called us into court that afternoon and we were so excited because we thought he was going to give us a holiday? And remember how he told us …” He snorted. “How he told us that you were a bastard?”

Jeremiah's face fell.

“No, no, listen,” Uriel said, still laughing. “Remember how he tried to tell us about your mummy, but he couldn't because he was so upset? And how
my
mother looked like she wanted to tear out his throat? Remember that? And we finally realized that all those years were lies, and that she really
had
hated you, but was too afraid of Father to say it?” He wiped dry the corners of his eyes. “And remember how he said that he loved you? And then he turned you out of the house anyway?” Now Uriel's smile was fading too. “And remember how you still tried to come home, Jeremiah, but no one let you in? How you tried to follow us to services, but the guards wouldn't let you through? Gabriel was your last ally, but he gave up too, didn't he?” Uriel shook his head. “You can't win, Jeremiah,” he said. “So don't try. It only makes you seem more pathetic than you really are.”

“Then why not finish me?” Jeremiah asked. “Now? Here?”

Uriel's voice dropped to a whisper. “You know why not. You know very well why not.” He sighed. “But you can't stay in Limbo forever. We almost had you last time and then, well.” He nodded at Erika. “You're lucky, Jeremiah. That's all. That's the only thing your mother gave you, because she was awfully lucky too. Until she died.” He leaned in, bringing his lips right up to Jeremiah's ear. “What does that mean for you, Jeremy?” Then he straightened up and tugged at the cuffs of his sleeves. “Give him the papers, Selaph.”

Selaph pulled a sealed letter from his pocket and held it out to Jeremiah, who accepted it without a word. He turned the envelope over in his thin fingers, picking at the red wax seal and the pale satin ribbon.

“It's from Daddy dearest,” Uriel said. “We would've given it to you yesterday, but you never came home. Where were you, I wonder?”

“I'm sure you've heard.”

“You're right. It's not so bad being the messenger, you know. We hear all the gossip, hardly ever get shot, and it's a shoo-in for Gabriel's cabinet later on, which is more than I can say for you.” He took a step back to end the conversation. “Love to chat, but we've got too much to do. I'll put in a word to Gabriel if you'll do the same to Jegud. We miss him on the hill. Tell him that our hearts are always open as long as he keeps his shut. Tell him that Father still doesn't know. Good afternoon, Jeremy. And you, Miss Stripling. I think that we'll be seeing both of you again quite soon.”

Selaph and Uriel floated off under the afternoon sky, their cloaks trembling in the wind.

Jeremiah turned away and headed back for his own house once more, Erika trailing behind. “Always,” he hissed under his breath. “Uri
always
makes me argue with him.”

“Are you sure you didn't want to all on your own?” asked Erika.

Jeremiah cut her an angry look and lifted his hand to quiet her. The stamped seal, against its bed of white, flashed bloody between the two of them. The rest of the way home, Jeremiah kept his mouth closed and his eyes on the ground, but all the time he measured the weight of his father's letter. The crisp, expensive paper rustled as he slipped it into the breast pocket of his jacket. Around it hung a dark, sweet smell of incense.

Jeremiah dismissed Erika as soon as they made it through the door.

“I need to be alone right now,” he told her, and left the hall before she could protest. Erika watched him stalk off, her heart sinking. When she turned to go up the stairs, she saw Kala sitting in the cage, preening her feathers, the morning hyacinth wilting in one of her claws. Erika poked a finger through the silver bars.

“Does anyone ever watch after you?” she whispered.

The bird twittered softly in her throat and dropped the flower as she tucked her beak under one wing and closed her eyes.

Erika went on up the stairs and locked herself in her room, where she took off her filthy clothes and stepped into the bathroom, bracing for a shower cold enough to numb away the guilt.

 

After a few minutes longer on the lake, Shawn noticed the spread of light creeping down the prow of the boat, but he didn't know what to make of it. Then a burst of summer sun forced Shawn to close his eyes. Spots danced inside his eyelids. When he opened them again, the twilight had vanished, leaving the lake bathed in a silky afternoon gloss.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw that the whole world was lit — West and his crown of burning curls, and the shore they'd come from alive with green. Shawn couldn't see West's cottage through all the trees, but he did see crowds of bushes that he hadn't noticed before, their branches bowing to sip the lake water.

West dipped his head lower to shade his eyes, and kept rowing. A trickle of blood slipped down the left oar, leaving a sinking trail of cranberry red in its wake.

“What happened?” Shawn asked.

“We made it,” West said easily, and continued to push the oars into the lake with smooth, even strokes. The shore, their destination, sparkled yellow-gold in the daylight, the blades of grass on the steep bank dusted with shadow. A little stone house, stitched over with ivy, perched on the top of a low hill. On this side of the lake, everything was jubilantly alive.

West stayed in the boat when they reached the beach, but helped Rebecca and Megan to shore with his uncut hand.

“The friend that I told you about lives here,” West said to Shawn. “His name is Laza. He'll keep you. Give you something to eat.”

“Thank you.”

West shook his head. “Nothing to thank,” he said. “It's my job.” He pushed out with the flat of his oar. “Good luck,” he called.

Shawn turned back. “With what?”

“With everything.” West drifted back a few more feet and began to slip away into thin air. When the tip of the boat's prow vanished, Shawn took his sisters by their hands and led them up the hill to the little cabin, where pale curls of smoke drifted from a brick chimney.

 

Jeremiah sliced through the wax seal with his pocketknife and unfolded the letter, pressing it flat on his desk.

In silence, he hunched over the heavy parchment. After reading it once, he picked it up and leaned back in his chair, pressing the paper against his knee and taking in each measured loop of the letterhead. Sent from a king, not a father. A god, not a man.

 

Regarding the Concerned:

We of the Council of the Throne, on this thirteenth day of this eleventh month in the standing and final year of our Crown, do issue a decree on behalf of the people of the Middle Kingdom:

Be it sanctioned by the progeny, and so enacted by the commonwealth, His Magnificence the Throne shall preside at the coronation of his heir, the Crown Prince Gabriel, on a date so to be debated and elected.

However:

Whereas the law of this Council does necessitate, and His Magnificence the Throne does still so seek, it has been deemed compulsory by the Council that pains be taken by the progeny to establish a consort in procession.

Whereas the law of this Council does necessitate, it is so considered requisite that all members of the progeny concur, or so render the proposition moot, on the point of coronation.

Whereas the law of this Council does necessitate, in relation to birthright, an establishment be made among the progeny due to discrepancies, as the Small Queen, mother of the Sixth Prince, was so removed from interment in the sepulcher of the Throne and thus her title has been renounced, but not that of her child and of His Magnificence the Throne.

Whereas the law of this Council does necessitate, despite the legislation proposed by the Fifth Prince, so named Prince Jegud, debate has now arisen in accordance to sections seven and thirteen regarding the legality of the sixth head of the progeny, so named Prince Jeremiah, and it is at the request of His Magnificence the Throne that the Sixth Prince renounce his title and his standing without further concern to establishment of consort and without further concern to outside concurrence.

Whereas the law of this Council does necessitate, the renouncement of said title shall establish the progeny at five, and must therefore account for the Sixth Residence of His Magnificence the Throne, which shall be reclaimed by the Crown and the Council so standing.

Whereas the law of this Council does necessitate, the renouncement of said title shall strike the standing Sixth Prince from the record of the Council, establishing him as neither blood nor charge and so revoking his right to reside within the boundaries of the protectorate of His Magnificence the Throne.

Let it therefore be announced, as witnessed by the undersigned, that His Magnificence the Throne, and his Court, has so extended a proper and authorized request unto the Sixth Prince that shall be answered within a period of no more than fifteen days or that shall, by default, be considered a renouncement in the eyes of the Court and the Crown and the Council.

 

Beneath were the smooth, clear signatures that accompanied royal politics. Jeremiah recognized all the names of the men who had tutored him in his childhood, and who had brought him prizes of sweets when he studied well, and who had called him Prince. And at the very bottom, signed with an ink so fine it still looked moist, waited his father's rolling scrawl. A death sentence wrapped up in a gold-leaf box.

“So you've seen it.”

Jeremiah glanced up.

“Jegud.”

“I came as soon as I heard that Uriel was giving it to you.”

“You knew?”

Jegud nodded. “And I'm sorry. I should have told you.”

Jeremiah waved away the apology. “Not your fault. You're in enough trouble already. Have you agreed to this?”

“I had to, Jeremiah, or I would be …”

“In my position? I understand.” He paused and looked again at the letter. “They want my name, Jegud.”

“I know.”

“And my mother's.”

“I know.”

“And my
house
.”

“And they'll have it,” Jegud told him. “One way or another, they'll have it.”

Jeremiah rubbed his bottom lip with the back of his thumbnail. “Will they?”

“What are you planning?”

“Nothing. Not yet. Only …”

“What?”

Jeremiah shrugged. “I think I have a consort in procession.”

“No, Jeremiah.” Jegud took a step back, as if to distance himself from both the idea and his brother. “Making her a bride to an old man, just so you can get out of your own mess? You can't do that to Erika.”

“It's no worse than anything else I could do. She wants her children, and I can't give them to her. But our father can.”

“You don't know that.”

“He has always outdone himself for love. Why else would I be here?”

Jegud turned away and paced the floor. Then he paused behind the couch, resting his fingertips on the polished wood of the mantel. He looked at the portrait of Jeremiah's mother, and at the dome of glass that sat in front of it, protecting a silver pendant, gone copper colored with age. From a length of sheer black ribbon dangled a perfect little ring, no larger than a watch face, crossed through the middle by a pair of sickles. So much trouble, Jegud thought, over something so small. He could feel his brother's eyes on him.

“She has the same hair,” Jegud conceded.

Jeremiah smiled. “So I've heard. It might work.”

“It won't.”

“It might. And if I can make her queen, Erika can have anything she wants. She can have her children, or she can send them home. She can save them, Jegud. She won't say no to that. And I can keep my head and my house, and maybe even my name.” He paused while Jegud watched him, fascinated and a little appalled. Jeremiah pretended not to notice. “Have you seen Uri's pick?” he asked. “Or Gabriel's?”

“Gabriel is refraining,” said Jegud. “He finds it improper.”

“Good of him. That leaves me to fight off four.”

“Three.”

“Michael isn't offering, either?”

“Of course he is,” Jegud said. “But I'm not. I won't play politics with them, Jeremy. That's your job.”

Jeremiah ran his fingers along the creases of the proclamation and reread all the names that were daggers in his back. “Then thank His Magnificence the Throne,” he said, “that I'm still good at it.”

 

It was a pretty little cabin, but in greater disrepair than West's had been. A sheaf of honeysuckle and ivy crept up the side and over the roof, and a line of bird nests clogged the gutter. Moss, like a second glue, had worked itself into the sandy mortar. A pile of firewood waited by the stoop and, on top of it, a wicker basket brimming with mulberries. Shawn looked at them with hungry eyes and realized that it had been days since they'd last eaten.

“If thinking were acting, then you would be a thief.”

Shawn jerked up to see a man peering through a gap in the shuttered window near the door.

“Luckily, this is not the case. Can I help you?” The old man's eyes fell to Megan, who had turned in the direction of his voice. “A bit young, aren't you? And … not a man.”

“Excuse me?” Rebecca's head bobbed out from around Shawn's shoulder.

“Oh, bless,” the man said. “What happened to your guide?”

“We never had one,” Shawn told him.

“How did you get across?”

“West brought us.”

“West?” The man pushed the shutter out a little farther. “Has he gone?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, what are you doing?”

“Are you Laza? He said that you would help us.”

“Oh, he said so, did he?” Laza asked. “Well, fine then, but leave the berries be. The door's open.”

 

Jeremiah made the long, slow climb up the stairway and walked down the hall with the light of the open window. The air still smelled like morning, but the sky had taken on the clear white of cloudy afternoons.

He knocked on the door.

“Yes?” Erika called.

“May I apologize?”

The lock clicked open and Erika's face appeared in the door. “If I deserve it.”

“Erika,” Jeremiah said, “I'm the only one here with cause to ask for second chances. You deserve so much more than my secrecy, but I stand here after having told you nothing. I haven't even told you things that you should know. That you
need
to know.” He looked over her shoulder into the open room. “May I come in?”

She stepped out of the way and offered the threshold. “Please.”

“Would you mind if I asked you to sit? It's a long story.”

Erika sank into the wing chair and watched him. Her eyes were curious and expectant as she waited for her story. The letter in Jeremiah's breast pocket was heavy, and each careless, scribbled signature darted through his thoughts. Jeremiah shook his head to clear it and closed the door with the back of his heel. He moved to the bedroom window.

Beggars crowded the streets now, all returned from morning services. They stretched their hands out to the riders who traveled from one side of the district to the other. Jeremiah wondered how many of those dead he had brought here himself, giving them promises of peace because it was what they wanted to hear. He felt a rush of self-disgust creep up his throat.

“My mother wasn't a whore,” he said.

Erika held the silence for a few seconds. “Okay,” she said at last, when it became clear that he didn't want to continue.

“She wasn't.” Jeremiah looked at her.

“I believe you.”

“She was only unlucky.” He wet his lips. “And my brother Uriel is a liar, since you're thinking about this afternoon.”

“I'm not.”

“You're a liar too.” He picked up the edge of the silk curtains and rolled the hem between his thumb and forefinger. “I never knew her because I lost her in birth. It was out of wedlock. My father's fault.” He shook his head. “And not what you think, either. It was his fault completely. He wanted another boy. He had five, but he thought that he needed one more. There's a lot of familial killings in the Middle Kingdom, ironically enough. Father didn't realize that she knew, which was stupid of him. And even so, he didn't realize that it would matter. I don't think that she did, either. She was never made to reproduce. But then, she was never made for anything. She was an accident too.” He dropped the curtain and glanced over at Erika. “You don't understand a word of this, do you?”

“I'm trying.”

Jeremiah left the window and settled at the foot of the four-poster.

“My father,” he said, “is a seraph.”

“An angel?”

“Sort of. Purebred. And yes, they breed. He is, and was, the ruler of souls. Of the Middle Kingdom.”

Erika nibbled her lip. “And your mother?”

“My mother … was different. There are three groups here. There are the seraphs, who live like royalty; the souls of men, who live like dogs; and the rogues, who are halfway between. Rogues guide the dead along the road and try to help them transition.