Land of the Beautiful Dead (32 page)

“Sorry I’m late,” Lan said cautiously. “I had a…another appointment.”

The dead woman swung around and glared at her. Did she know about the thing with Tempo? How could she, so soon?

“I’m aware,” said Master Wickham. “Please, come in. How did it go?”

“Not great.” Lan inched forward. “I don’t think I’m going back.”

“No? Capital. I despise upsets to my routine, although objectively speaking, I suppose it is a pity. Our lord so enjoys music—”

“Did you use your napkin at breakfast?” the dead woman interrupted.

Lan blinked. “Uh…sure. Of course I did. I always use my napkin.” She looked at Master Wickham. “What’s going on?”

“A performance review,” he replied. “And before you answer any further questions, you ought to know your tutor was in the dining hall.”

The dead woman adjusted her grip on her switch and glared at her.

Lan heaved a sigh. “Okay, fine, whatever. No, I didn’t use my napkin.”

“Put out your hands.”

“Why?” Lan asked. She knew why.

The dead woman waited.

Lan slowly brought her arms up and opened her hands.

The switch came whistling down and landed right across her palms. It didn’t hurt too bad. The sound was worse than anything, but still Lan jumped back, shaking them as the initial heat of the blow faded and filled in with that hornet-like sting, The dead woman stepped forward with every step Lan took away, never further than arm’s reach. “Did you eat with your fingers?”

“Yeah, but it was—”

“Put them out and turn them over.”

She knew what was coming, which made it that much harder to hold out her hands.

The switch howled down and lay a brand of pure fire across all of Lan’s knuckles, rapidly swelling to fill her whole hands. “Did you lick them?” the dead woman asked as Lan hopped in place, swearing and shaking them. “Did you?”

“I don’t know!”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t remember! Maybe!” Entirely unwanted, the memory of that heavenly lemon cake swam into sharp focus, and herself tapping crumbs off her plate and catching them on her tongue. “Oh damn it,” she said, dismayed.

“Put them out.”

Lan flinched, scowled, then thrust them out.

Whh-whack
!

“Fuck a bag of balls!” Lan howled, bending over her throbbing hands and stomping her feet.

The dead woman’s strong fingers closed on the back of her gown. It tore, but Lan was caught anyway, caught and shook like a pull-toy in a puppy’s game of war. “Did you spit at the table?” the dead woman hissed and without waiting for an answer, commenced with the switching.

Lan ducked, her arms in a protective shell around her head and the rest of her open to getting the ever-loving shit beat out of her in a rain of lashes. She ran, hunched and yelping, crashing into chairs and lamps and books, with the dead woman always right behind her and that switch like burning brands on every part of her it could reach, which was all of them. Lan’s foot inevitably came down on the long hem of her skirt. It tore. Serafina was going to be furious.

‘At least she won’t have a bloody switch,’ Lan thought inanely and bleated laughter even through her sharp cries and swears.

The sound sent the dead woman into a frenzy which ended only when the switch broke in two across Lan’s shoulders. Before she’d recovered, she was seized by the hair and dragged around the table to be thrown in a chair.

“You utter swine!” the dead woman spat, clearing Master Wickham’s neat arrangement of books and primers with a sweep of her arm. “Nine days under my tutelage and you ate like a pig with your head in the trough! You tore your dress on purpose and you…you said the most vulgar things! You…! You…! You made me look incompetent in front of
him
! Well, I will not be embarrassed by the likes of you! I am going to the kitchen and when I come back, you are going to practice eating until you can do it right!”

“Eat? Lady, I just had breakfast!”

The dead woman grabbed up the nearest bin and banged it down on the table in front of Lan. “Get rid of it! And you!” She turned on Master Wickham, who raised an eyebrow at her. “Not a word out of you about how your…your silly scribbles are more important!”

“You’ll hear no argument from me,” he agreed.

The dead woman glared at him a moment longer, then turned back to Lan. “Just you sit until I come back,” she hissed. “You are not leaving this room until you have learned to use a napkin, if it takes all day and a bottle of ipecac!”

With that, she stormed away, slamming the door behind her so hard it bounced out of the jamb and came shuddering slowly open again. Master Wickham closed it properly, then clasped his hands behind his back and looked at Lan.

His quiet reproach got in under her skin in a way the dead woman’s switch-happy tirade couldn’t even touch. “Hey, I wasn’t rolling on the table with my tits out!” Lan said crossly. “I just forgot my napkin! And, okay, maybe some other stuff, but I didn’t even know she was there!”

“It makes absolutely no difference,” he replied. “The dead have no judgment, only our lord’s command.”

“He ate the cake with his fingers too, and I don’t see Miss Mannerly-Buggery-Do going at him with a switch!”

“He could eat with his feet and she would never find fault in him. He is her lord.”

“Well, it’s not fair,” Lan grumbled, rubbing at her knuckles.

“Life isn’t fair.” He gave that a moment to set in, then left her and went out into the hall. She could hear him there for some time, his low, pleasant voice parrying the clipped, hostile tones of the pikemen posted there and gradually overcoming them until, at last, he opened the door again and beckoned Lan to him.

“Where are we going?” Lan asked, although she didn’t really care as long as it was in the opposite direction of the kitchens.

“Possibilities abound. Where would you like to go? The National Gallery? The Tower? That’s a bit of a walk, but there are a number of fascinating buildings along the way. I’ve developed quite an obsession with traditional pubs lately.”

The thought of having to stand around in a bunch of empty old buildings was so depressing that it was quite a while before she realized what he was really saying.

“Are we bunking off?” she asked, blinking around at him in amazement.

“I despise,” he said cheerfully, “upsets to my routine. You were given to me to be my student until six on full days, one on half days. Today is a full day. You are mine until six.” He paused to nod at a passing Revenant. “Or until I am given new orders by one with authority to give them. However, while the library is a convenient setting for lessons, I have never been made to understand it was the only place to hold them and, circumstances being what they are, I think we might benefit from a change of venue.”

“But you said—”

“I said I wouldn’t argue. I never said I’d let her have you. Semantics, dear Lan, semantics are everything. So! Where would you like to go? I can say with certainty that Haven’s museums boast the finest collections in the world, but there is surely something to be learned anywhere.”

Lan never had much interest in exploring ruins, especially if there wasn’t going to be any salvage or hunting involved (it struck her as somewhat sinful, in fact. Wasteful. Like bathing in water), but coughing up her breakfast a few dozen times in between switchings held considerably less appeal. All the same, the persistent magnificence of Haven’s ruins had become exhausting and more than a little oppressive. If she had a choice, she’d rather go somewhere,
do
something, at least a little familiar.

“What about the greenhouses?” Lan suggested.

“You have an interest in gardening? The palace is beautifully kept in that regard, but if you like, I could probably arrange a car to take us to one of the old gardens about Haven. They aren’t quite what they were, but when Lady Batuuli first took an interest, my lord had many of the old sites restored and replanted. It’s rather a tricky time of year, but he always keeps something in flower for her. I don’t know that the habit will continue, circumstances having changed, but I doubt he’ll have her work uprooted. He’s not a spiteful man.” He nodded to another passing Revenant. “Not often.”

“I mean those,” said Lan, pointing out a window.

“Yes, of course you do,” he sighed, not quite resigned. “You realize those are the kitchen’s greenhouses? There’s really nothing interesting in them.”

“I think they’re interesting.”

Master Wickham stopped walking and caught at her sleeve to stop her as well. He was still smiling, but there was a faint crease between his eyebrows as he said, “People are working there. You’ll disturb them.”

“I’ve worked in a greenhouse since I was knee-high. I won’t get in anyone’s way. Besides,” said Lan, doing her best to affect a casual tone, “I might even be useful. Look, I can’t do music. I can’t read. I can’t even dress myself, apparently, but at least I know what I’m doing in a greenhouse.” She trailed off, searching his perfectly neutral face with a growing sense of hopelessness, but couldn’t bring herself to surrender. “I’d think you, of all people, would understand why someone would want to…to just do what they know they’re good at!”

“You aren’t here to work our lord’s greenhouses.”

She knew he was right, but still she snorted. “I don’t need you to tell me what I’m here for, jack.”

He started to answer, then tipped his head back thoughtfully. “Jack Wickham,” he murmured.

Lan rolled her eyes and waited.

“No,” he said at length, with an air of wistful regret. “It doesn’t feel quite right, but I do like it. Lan, listen to me. I know you’ve not known me long, but please believe that I have your best interests at heart. I do understand the appeal of doing the work you have always done, work you were made to do.” He took her hand and held it lightly between both of his, enclosing her in cold as he quietly said, “I understand it because I’m dead. And believe me when I say the job satisfaction of the dead is nothing to which you ought to aspire.”

“I just want to look around a little.” She groped for something more to say, something to convince even a dead man, and could come up with nothing better than, “I live here now, don’t I?”

“Yes, you do. You
live
here. But Haven is for the dead and we none of us tolerate disruption to our routine in good grace. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to leave the dead to their work.” He released her hand and smiled. “Come, now. We’ll have a walk over to Hyde Park, shall we? It’s quite green and pleasant, and if the rain catches us, there are plenty of places to pop in and dry out.”

“I promise I’ll be on my best behavior! I promise…fine.” Lan gave the window a last sour glance and resumed her aimless walk down the corridor. “Let’s just go somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t care.”

Master Wickham did not immediately join her. When he did, it was with a tap on the arm and a thin frown that told her she’d won.

He led her in silence to a door that took them outside. It had rained earlier and Lan’s slippers quickly soaked up the cold and wet, as did her skirts, which got heavier the more damp they got, until she had to hike them up to keep from stepping on them. Awkward as that was, her pace quickened and when he didn’t call her back, she reached the door of the first greenhouse well ahead of him and let herself into to its familiar muggy stink.

The dead people working there took a moment to look her over when she first walked in, then another moment to exchange glances with one another, and then resumed work. None of them spoke to her, but there was a clear sense of interruption to their routine and equally clear was their collective resentment about it. Never mind. For the moment, she was content just to look around, but if she decided to pitch in, she was confident she could keep up with the best of them.

And this was a nice greenhouse. Farming could never be made easy work, even in the best of houses, but this was as good as it came. Lan picked her way up and down the narrow aisles between the rows, holding her skirts high to minimize mudding, genuinely envious of everything she saw. The soil was black and heavy in her hand, not just raw earth and old shit mixed together. The glass panes were all perfectly intact, with a thin layer of sediment that diffused the sunlight so it could never burn even the most sensitive leaves. High on the wall, fans turned in well-oiled silence so that the air, while warm, was not stuffy. A complicated network of pipes and hoses supplied each plant with specially-treated water from one of several marked reservoirs. The crops that grew from this expert design made those in Norwood look, and taste, like weeds.

‘All to feed Azrael,’ she thought, but that wasn’t strictly true. It fed her as well and probably his other former courtesans living elsewhere in Haven. Also the favored members of his court who ate for his amusement rather than their own hunger and then sicked it politely up in private. And now, of course, it fed Norwood. Soon, it would feed other villages, too, and she felt good about that, even if it wasn’t the reason she’d come here. She’d feel better if she was making it happen through a different kind of work—the kind that got mud on her knees and under her fingernails, made her back ache and her hands blister, soaked her clothes in sweat and filled her senses with this green, growing scent—but only, she suspected, until she actually had to do it for a few days. Then she’d start feeling sentimental about the sort of work she could do in a soft bed.