Land of the Beautiful Dead (92 page)

So she wasn’t in the best of moods to begin with and it wasn’t improved by seeing Deimos waiting with the vehicle, and not just any vehicle, but the
Dinah Might
, which had taken them all the way out to Azrael’s cave and back. She supposed she shouldn’t expect a ride in the fancy open-top car, because Serafina had all those gowns that needed fitting and they couldn’t very well be crushed up in a car’s boot, but Lan had spent altogether too much time shut up with the two of them in that particular ferry and she wasn’t happy to be seeing it again. Plus, it was raining, so not only would she be riding around in a vibrating box with two dead people, she’d be riding around in a vibrating box with two dead people and a wet dog.

But when Deimos opened the door for Lan, the interior of the car was surprisingly dog-free. Not a hair of the thing to be seen. Lan scouted about as she settled herself, checking the front seat and the floor and even peeping around into the rear hold, but Phobos remained absent. As Deimos started the engine and pulled away from the palace, she said, “Where’s your newest recruit, Captain?”

His eyes tapped at her in the rearview mirror and for once, the stone-faced expression which was the usual face worn by a Revenant struck her as contrived. “He died.”

Lan’s smile dropped away. “What? When? You fed it, right? Every day?”

“Yes.”

“And water? Were you—”

“He had some sort of skin disease,” Deimos interrupted, still without expression and without raising his voice. “I’m sure you remember.”

“Well…yeah, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Neither did I. But it got worse. I had the doctor give me something for the sores, but they weren’t healing. They didn’t look infected, but they must have been.” He drove for a while in silence, then said, “He got out of his bed six nights ago, as I was cleaning my boots. It was the first time he had voluntarily moved so far in two days. I thought the medicine was finally helping. He lay down beside me and licked my hand. I pushed his head away so he wouldn’t drop hair into the polish. I didn’t notice he had died until I was finished.” Perhaps half a minute passed, marked by rain and the steady rumble of the road beneath their tires. “I didn’t know what to do with him, so I buried him beside the garrison.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she said awkwardly, “I’m sorry.”

Serafina looked at her. “Why?”

She didn’t know how to answer that either. Sympathy was strange enough when it was offered up for people; for dogs, it felt a bit silly.

Off they went to the tailors, where Lan’s weight loss was loudly and irritably discussed, even though Serafina had only brought four gowns to be altered and it had to be easier to take the damn things in than to let them out. But it did surprise her, because although she knew she’d been off her feed and had to have lost a pound or three, according to the tailor-books, she was very nearly as skinny as she’d been the first time she’d been fitted. As the dead folks fussed over the dresses, Lan stood by the mirrors and ran her hands up and down her naked body, frowning at bruises she couldn’t remember bumping into being and feeling bones prodding up through her dry, dull skin. What was lush, she had made lean; what was restored, now ravaged.

Nothing to be done, she told herself. He was on his way home. He’d see it and for sure, she’d hear about it, but in the meantime…nothing to be done.

Six hours or so being measured, draped, pinned and fitted was never going to rank high on Lan’s list of ways to spend a day, but it shouldn’t have left her as exhausted as it did. Any enthusiasm she may have had for it fizzled out long before the tailors finished with her. She sat quietly as often as they let her, sipping her tea in a futile effort to drown the headache that was only growing, hour by hour and then minute by minute, until it was wearing her like a poor disguise of a person and walking about on its own. Now and then, her stomach cramped, but whether it was out of hunger or nausea, even she couldn’t tell and didn’t care to know. All she wanted was a dark place to sleep, but even after she was released from the tailor, it wasn’t over.

Next on the list of appointments was a trip to the salon because Lan had let herself go to a degree beyond Serafina’s ability to repair. The dead woman who met them there took one look and declared Lan’s hair a lost cause. It was too dry and much too thin and the ends were split halfway to the roots. The only way to deal with it was to cut it off short, she insisted, after which there would be more washing and hot oil treatments and perhaps some color because Lan’s complexion was not doing her hair any favors.

Lan did want to look nice for Azrael’s return, she really did, but the smell of the stuff the stylist was setting out was like a knife directly to her headache. When the dead woman brought out the scissors, she flatly refused to sit in the chopping chair. Words were said. Volume increased. It ended with Lan storming out of the shop minus a good hank of hair over her right ear, and the stylist trying to pull the scissors out of her chest.

Now thoroughly out of humor, Lan sat in the ferry at least an hour while Serafina alternately pleaded with or berated her. At last, Serafina gave up and slammed herself into the car, only to tell Deimos to take them to the shoe shop. Lan protested, Serafina insisted, so Lan very sensibly kicked open the door and jumped out.

Deimos had only just pulled away from the salon, so they weren’t going very fast and this certainly wasn’t the first time Lan had jumped from a moving vehicle, but it was quite a different thing to land on Haven’s paved road rather than a town wall with watchmen on the ramparts with their arms out to catch her. She hit and rolled, fetching up hard on the curb, but still scrambled to her feet before the ferry could stop.

She started walking, hunched against the rain with the car creeping along beside her and Serafina haranguing her from the open door, but the buildings all looked the same in the failing light and the streetlamps hadn’t come on yet. She turned down the wrong street, but was too stubborn to admit it and turn back, so she tried to correct her course with another turn…then another…and another, until at last, the ferry stopped and Deimos got out. She stood, soaking and fuming and feeling stupid as she stared up through rain and her own swimming eyes at the names of the streets, none of which meant anything to her, listening to his boots splash up behind her.

He took his uniform jacket off and laid it over her shivering shoulders. He said, “I’m taking you home.”

“Serafina says—”

“I’m taking you home.”

So she turned around and let him guide her back into the ferry, where Serafina was waiting.

“Not five minutes and you’ve ruined your dress,” Serafina began and probably would have gone on in that vein, except that Deimos went around to her side of the ferry, opened the door, leaned in and pulled her out. Lan couldn’t hear what he said to her and it sure didn’t take long, but when he got back behind the wheel, Serafina didn’t budge.

They left her standing in the street in the rain, watching them drive away.

The rest of the ride was silent, except for the rain. The buildings, the roads, even the grass—every surface was made a mirror, reflecting the yellowish-grey sky so that Lan was trapped at the center of a world that seemed sculpted from pissy cement. Her headache dug in, throbbing just behind her eyes and making everything seem too bright, even as overcast as it was. It felt a lot like being hungover, so that when the ferry stopped and Lan got out on the captain’s arm, she thought nothing at all of bending over and retching in the gutter.

She didn’t have much to heave up, just a few swallows of tea, but it came out like razor blades and left her feeling dizzy and too short of breath.

“Are you all right?” he asked, helping her climb the shallow stairs that led to the palace. She doubted she could have done it without his help. She felt awful.

Lan nodded, but still had to hold on to Deimos for more than a minute before she felt steady enough to prove it. “I’m fine. Bad breakfast this morning, that’s all.”

Deimos nodded, turned her around and scooped her into his arms in a business-like fashion. “You shouldn’t have been out,” he told her, marching up the rest of the stairs and into the palace foyer. “I’m putting you to bed.”

“Good idea,” she mumbled.

The nice thing about dead people is, they never think anything is odd. Deimos carried her past a dozen servants and two dozen guards easily, but not one of them gave her a second look as she clung to his neck and dozed. She even entertained the hopeless cause that Azrael might not hear about this after all. All she needed was little lie-in, a little tea. She’d be right as rain tomorrow.

She let Deimos undress her and it did not occur to her to feel uncomfortable at all with his hands on her entirely naked body as he folded her limbs, one by one, into Azrael’s bed. What did seem important as she curled herself onto her side and hugged her churning stomach was, “I’m sorry about Phobos, Captain. I really am.”

His impersonal hands paused, then resumed their work. “I’m not. But I think I ought to be. I shouldn’t have kept him. I don’t know why I did. I think he reminded me of something, but I don’t know what. So thank you. Thank you…for feeling something on my behalf.”

She nodded, too tired to open her eyes, and was asleep before he even left the room.

CHAPTER THIRTY

I
t was a bad night. She woke, drenched and shivering in an ocean of chill sweat, slept without dreams, woke screaming with her guts ripping themselves apart inside her, slept and puked on herself, and woke as exhausted as when Deimos had put her down to find the dead doctor pulling a hypodermic needle out of her arm.

“That should control the nausea and help her sleep,” he was telling Serafina. “Make sure she has plenty of tea—”

“Bugger your tea!” Serafina hissed, actually picking up the cup next to the bed and dashing it against the wall nearest the doctor. “Our lord is mere hours away and you give me tea?!” She seized the pot and threw that too. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Do you?” the doctor snapped back. “I told you to let her rest and you took her gallivanting out about the city—”

“Gallivanting?! How dare you! She needed gowns!”

“No, she needed rest and clear liquids! You took a simple matter of stomach complaint and turned it into what is very likely gastritis! Possibly even acute gastritis!”

“Oh and what book did you read that in?” Serafina asked scornfully.

The dead can’t blush, but the doctor came as close as the dead could. Recovering, he began to punch his equipment back into his medical bag, his eyes positively life-like with anger. “I find the care of your mistress to be woefully inadequate, madam, woefully, and if our lord asks my opinion, that is precisely what I shall tell him! Good day!”

He banged his way out the door and Serafina ran after him, solely to open the door and slam it even louder. Lan could see her there through the bed curtains, her hands in shaking fists, and managed to reach through the misery in which she floated to scoop out a little handful of sympathy.

“If he asks me,” she croaked, “I’ll say it’s bad doctoring.”

Serafina threw her a look every bit as furious as the glare she’d given the doctor and stormed over to start picking up shattered porcelain. “It won’t matter what you say,” she snapped. “You look awful. There’s no hiding it. He’ll be here tonight! He’ll see you and just what am I supposed to tell him? Oh, why did you have to be so…so
difficult
?”

“Sorry.”

“Yes, you’re always sorry when it’s too late to do anything else. I need a broom,” Serafina declared, throwing down her shards to smash into even smaller pieces. “Just stay in bed. You should be able to manage that, you’ve had practice enough.”

Lan winced when the door slammed, but she didn’t have energy to get up or even to roll over. She closed her eyes just as she was and hugged on her aching stomach until that medicinal darkness came that took the place of sleep when doctors were involved.

It was not especially restful, but it ate up the hours, and when its hold over her broke at last, she did feel better. It helped even more to see Serafina setting out her black dinner gown and all the shiny shit that went best with it. That meant she was going to dinner and, after a month of eating her meals off a tray as a matter of routine, that could only mean one thing.

“Is he here?” she asked as she groped for the teapot that had miraculously restored and refilled itself on the bedside table. “Is he home?”

“Finally!” Serafina exclaimed, turning on her at once. “I thought you’d sleep all night! Get in the—wait, are you going to be sick?”

Lan took cautious stock of herself. “No.”

“Good.” Serafina came swiftly to the bed and tore the covers away. “Get in the bath. No arguments! Dinner is in less than an hour and you look dreadful.”

“But is Azrael—”

“Not yet returned to the palace, but he’s sent word to say he will see you at dinner.”

“Still changing out lightbulbs, is he? A girl does like to know where she stands,” Lan muttered, pulling herself from bed and onto her unsteady feet. And then she caught sight of her reflection in the glass of the vanity. “Less than an hour?”

“And I’ll need every minute, won’t I? In the bath!”

Lan got in the bath.

In quick order, she was scrubbed, dunked, out and dried. Scented lotion softened her dry skin and powders smoothed out its uneven tone. The dress went on and for once, Lan was thankful for a corset to put curves on the wasted lines of her body. She sat and watched anxiously in the mirror as Serafina expertly painted her from her hairline to her neckline, erasing sunken eyes and hollow cheeks as if by magic. There wasn’t much she could do about Lan’s hair, but diamond combs and sprays of feathers could at least distract the eye from the choppy bits and the rest was artistically piled, pinned and lacquered into place to give the illusion of fullness. All the while, Serafina said encouraging things like, “This isn’t working,” and “Try to stay out of the light as much as you can. If he can’t see you, he can’t see how bad you look.”

Before she knew it, Azrael’s chamberlain was knocking on the door to inform them they’d run out of time and so Lan had to hurry upstairs and through the dimly-lit halls to the dining room, only to find it empty. Azrael’s steward ushered her in like she was last to arrive instead of first, holding her arm all the way to the imperial table and even pulling out her chair for her.

“Is it just me tonight?” she asked, eyeing the lower tables, which had all been fancied up with flowers and such, but not with plates and cups.

“As per our lord’s command. He should be here shortly. Shall I bring a bottle of—” The steward started to indicate the wine-lady, only to perhaps recall the last occasion on which Lan had tipped a bottle or five and freeze in that awkward position while he tried to think of some way to rescind the offer. “—coffee?” he sputtered at last, the sure knowledge that coffee did not come in bottles stamped large across his puckered face.

“No, thanks anyway, but could I get some tea? The kind Azrael drinks when he’s got, you know, tum trouble? I forget what it’s called…gentleman’s tea?”

“Gentian?”

“That’s it.”

The steward gave her a dubious look and a chance to change her mind before nodding at a servant. “Will there be anything else?” he asked as the dead man ducked out. “Consommé? Amuse-bouches?”

“
Non, merci
,” Lan replied unthinkingly, watching the doors. “
J’attendrai
.”

“Ah…yes…well, then.” The steward backed off, blinking rapidly, then turned and bustled back down the long hall to take up his position outside.

The tea came, every bit as nasty as she remembered. Her first swallow tried hard to come back on her, but she fought it down and kept it there, shuddering and staring at her cup with a despairing eye. Forewarned is forearmed, it was said, but knowing what was coming only made the second swallow harder to take and the third, harder still. It did calm her stomach though, or at least, it dulled the overused ache of it and quieted the persistent rumblings that promised more to come later that night. All the same, she couldn’t bring herself to drink more. Like a child at a dolly-party, she only brought the cup to her lips and set it down again. She told herself it was the taste of the tea and not nerves that made it impossible to drink, but she didn’t have time to torture herself over it.

Azrael arrived.

He entered the dining room like he knew she’d be watching, flinging the doors wide open so his arms were out, putting his powerful body on its most impressive display. She supposed he might have intended to stop the way he did also, to give her a chance to admire him—as she did—but it lasted just a hair too long. At this distance, his expression would have been impossible to read even if he weren’t wearing his mask, but his body gave her broader clues. She would have bet a year’s crop he’d known she was here when he walked through that door; why then, was he so surprised to see her? Not even just surprised, said that flaring of his eyes, but alarmed.

He surely couldn’t make out her features any better than she could see his and she always looked too skinny in the corsets, so what did that leave? Lan started to feel at the side of her head, but managed to turn the fidget into a wave. If he hadn’t noticed the state of her hair yet, he would soon enough.

After a moment, he raised a hand in return, but did not move from the doorway. His head tipped toward his steward. Words were exchanged, too low to be heard.

Lan drank off her nasty tea and poured herself another cup, dumping in spoonful after spoonful of sugar in an effort to make it palatable and thinning out the resulting syrup with milk. The grey muck she created was even less palatable than the unadultered tea, if possible. She choked down two swallows, hiding her shudders in her napkin, and plucked at the front of her corset in an effort to make her tits stand out a little more so her collarbones wouldn’t be quite so apparent.

“Lan!” Azrael called at last, striding toward her. “Journeys end in lovers meeting!”

“Also in lemon cake!” She held up the platter to show him, then set it aside and cupped her mouth to loudly confide, “I’m using the jentacular napkins. Shh! They don’t know yet!”

“Are you indeed?” Azrael laughed. “How devious!”

The servants waiting on the imperial table exchanged puzzled glances. One of them sidled closer to peer at the napkins.

He reached the dais at last and stood for some time with one foot on the lowest step, just looking at her. It was not the look of a man drinking in the sight of the woman he had been missing for a month and more.

“What?” Lan asked. She knew what.

He started to speak, stopped, then turned his gaze boldly on the side of her head. “Was that deliberate?”

“Sort of. She deliberately cut it and I deliberately left with the rest uncut.” Her hand half-rose and foolishly hovered. “Is it bad? I know I should have at least let her even it out, but I didn’t want it cut in the first place and I…didn’t really leave on good terms. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Not even were you shaved bald,” he assured her, ascending the dais. “In any event, it will grow.”

“You really don’t mind?”

“It wasn’t your hair I desired to hold all these empty nights.” He gathered up a loose lock and tucked it behind a pin, but his gaze dropped to her clean plate. “Were you waiting on me?”

“I don’t come to dinner—”

“For the food,” he said with her and picked up her cup. “This isn’t coffee.” He sipped. Frowned. “Gentian tea.”

“I just thought I’d try something different. I kind of liked the taste when I tried it before.”

“No one likes this taste,” he said, taking the tea with him around the table. He sipped again as he seated himself, then passed it back to her, watching closely as she drank. Signaling a servant for wine, he asked, too casually, “Are you well?”

“Don’t I look well?”

“It’s difficult to say. Your mask is thicker than mine.” He tapped a claw on the golden cheek of his false face as his eyes moved over her, their narrow light belying his nonchalant tone. “Perhaps it was a mistake to send word on ahead of my return. You’ve passed a restless night, it seems.”

“Hopefully, I won’t be sleeping too well tonight either.” She dropped him a wink and hid from closer inspection in her cup. “So, have you seen to your other dollies or do I have to worry about them wanting to flutter in here and welcome you back while I’m trying to get tapped?”

He barked out a laugh. “My, you are bold, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t had my man in a month. You’re lucky you’re not on your back in the butter dish right now. So have you?”

Azrael looked up from his inspection of the butter dish with a guarded expression. “I must confess, yours is the second living face I’ve seen since my return.”

She gave him a moment to take that back and when he didn’t, Lan knocked back another swallow of tea and set her cup down, smiling at him pleasantly. “Interesting. So. Whose ass am I kicking tonight?”

“Heather’s.”

“Eh? The kid?”

“I had presents to deliver, if you’ll recall. I thought it best to have it done so I could devote the whole of my night to you.”

“Oh.” And now she was curious. “What’d you get her?”

“Seashells.”

“Nice,” said Lan, genuinely impressed. “Did she like them?”

“She said so, although she seemed more interested in what I had to tell her of the sea itself. This is an island,” he added, allowing himself a tolerantly puzzled expression. “And it isn’t that big. How is it she’s never seen the sea?”

Lan drew deep on her diplomatic roots and did not point out the girl had spent most of her life behind walls with Eaters howling on the other side. Instead, she smiled and said, “Neither had I until I went to France.”

“She wanted to know if I’d bring her a mermaid the next time I went away.”

“And you said…?”

“I said I would, if I were fortunate enough to capture one.”

Surprised, Lan peered at him, but he seemed serious. “Are there mermaids then?”

He shrugged. “There was a time not so long ago I disdained the existence of dragons. Now I think anything may be possible. And that reminds me, I have a present for you as well.”

“For real?” she asked, pleased and a little wary. “Or is it one of those and-then-you-put-it-to-me presents? Not that those aren’t fine in their own way, but—”