The Boy with the Porcelain Blade (23 page)

‘We’re the last of the Orfani now,’ he repeated sadly.

Anea said nothing.

‘Not quite the last, not exactly,’ said a voice from above the grille. A lantern light shone down through the rusted bars, illuminating the three prisoners in golden light.

24

The Poisonous Missive
HOUSE CONTADINO
–
Augusto
312

Lucien would always remember the night when Demesne was no longer safe. Not for himself. Not for any of the Orfani. The fights in the classrooms, the scuffles in abandoned corridors, the posturing and insults all paled into insignificance after the shocking events of that terrible summer evening.

Virmyre’s warning in the classroom had not gone unheeded. Almost a year had passed since that tense conversation, and the path that lay before him remained obscure. The only certainty was that Golia would make a play for power, and Lucien’s survival would depend on allies, which he had precious few of. Try as he might, he could not see what shape the forthcoming conflict might take, or how he could plan to survive it. Assassination was the obvious danger, but whether it would be delivered by blade or poison was yet to be seen.

The summer’s day had been sultry. The air felt solid, unbreathable, no breeze or relief from the sun. He’d forgone dinner in the main hall that evening, instead taking bread, cheese and apples with some farmers. They’d brought their carts to Demesne, loaded down with produce: sacks of corn, crates of apples and a trio of barrels. Rafaela checked on him, making sure he wasn’t being a nuisance. The ruddy-cheeked and weathered men fed Lucien small amounts of cider. The oldest of them, Franco, told him he’d grow up to be a fine young man. Franco had forearms larger than Lucien’s thighs and iron-grey hair running to his shoulders. He was a cheerful type, able to take disappointments in his stride, and Lucien had never seen him angry. The Orfano smiled at them and nibbled on cheese, enjoying their camaraderie. He was less interested in growing up to be a ‘fine young man’ than he was in simply growing ears. If only it were that easy. Puberty had ushered in a broadening of the shoulders, the beginnings of stubble and a few extra inches of height, but the puckered holes on each side of his head would not enjoy any miraculous metamorphosis. The farmers left, carts creaking as they were drawn back to hamlets or homesteads departed hours earlier. Franco waved cheerfully over his shoulder with one meaty hand. Lucien watched the men leave until they became dots on the horizon, then headed into House Contadino.

A tension lingered in the air long after sunset, the dwellers within Demesne’s walls longing for a thunderstorm to clear the charged atmosphere. Lucien lay awake with his sheets rucked around his ankles, skin grown clammy with the night’s duration. He washed his face and hands in the basin to cool himself. Small chance of that. Deep below, a long-case clock announced midnight in muted chimes, the sound reverberating through the corridors of House Contadino.

That’s when he heard it. Indistinct at first, then more loudly in the darkness. In seconds he was on his feet, sword drawn from its sheath, the obsidian blade invisible in the darkness. He was long past discarding the weapon in the armchair at the end of each day. The weapon slept at his side, another consequence of Virmyre’s warning.

He crept out to the sitting room, bare feet silent on the rugs that covered the stone floor. The sound came again. Rustling, scratching. His pulse quickened as he looked around. The windows were open, but no raven had gained entrance. Lucien retreated back into his bedroom, lighting a lantern, fearful the sound would bring a cloaked assassin into view at any moment. He entered the sitting room again, emboldened by the illumination. Shadows haunted the corners of the chamber and the drake uncoiled in the glass tank. He wondered if rats had found a way in and looked down at the floors. A scrap of parchment had appeared underneath the door to the corridor. The gap was not large so delivery had been difficult.

He hesitated a moment before retrieving the note, then retreated to his bed. The sword lay unsheathed across the pillows as his fingers teased the missive open. A worn key dropped into his lap as he unfolded the paper, ignored in his haste to read the contents. The handwriting was neat and fine, clearly a scholarly hand. The parchment looked much like the quality of paper Virmyre gave to his students. Lucien calmed himself and read.

Lucien,

Please come at once, this very night, to my chambers. I must discuss with you a plan I have for Golia. By now you must realise we will not survive if he gains any measure of standing within Demesne. I plan to poison the oaf and save the skin of all the Orfani.

Find a key to my chambers inside, so you may enter without undue fuss.

Yours,

Anea

It stood to reason of course. If Virmyre had warned Lucien of the forthcoming danger, then there was every chance he’d have given the same speech to Anea. Where Lucien had struggled to comprehend his survival, Anea had formulated a plan. A way to deal with Golia without recourse to arms.

Lucien waited in the lamplight a moment. It seemed odd that she’d written down her intentions for Golia. Such a declaration committed to paper was a dangerous thing, unless of course she trusted Lucien completely. He waited there for long seconds, heart racing in his chest, key in one hand, Anea’s poisonous missive in the other, if indeed the words were hers.

His eyes scanned the text one more time. The signature looked uneven, rushed perhaps. If the note was a forgery he could be the instrument of Anea’s downfall. And his own. All these thoughts raced and spun. He’d go to her. But only after burning the note.

House Contadino was shrouded in darkness, and only the ticking of the clock breached the silence, measuring the hours until the next sweltering day. Lucien crept along the passage, ascending the spiral staircase with care, the light from his lantern washing along walls, filtering over the floor ahead of him. The smell of the burned parchment still lingered in his nostrils. Had he dreamed the letter? He looked down and found the key in a sweating palm. He knew he must press on.

Anea’s door stood before him. All this time spent as uneasy rivals, now changed by unexpected complicity. The key was suddenly heavy, his fingers thick and uncooperative. The lock
clunked
, thunder in the silence of the night. Lucien winced, then pushed open the door, entering and closing it quickly. Anea’s room looked much like his own, the bedroom situated to the left of the sitting room. He thought it strange no candles were lit. Stranger still embers in the fireplace glowed with a ruddy light, making the already humid night unbearable. Sweat prickled at his brow; his neck was slick to the touch.

The connecting door stood ajar. Lucien slipped through and into Anea’s bedchamber. He could hear her now, breath gusting lightly with each exhalation. Fast asleep and rolled on her side, she’d pushed the sheets pushed down to her waist. A silvery nightshirt covered her slender torso, arms bare and alabaster. Lucien called out, gently so as not to startle her. She remained soundly asleep.

He drew closer, suddenly aware she was without her veil. The candlelight lingered on her pale face, growing stronger as he approached. And then Lucien stopped breathing, staring in sickened fascination. He’d imaged frail bow lips and a small pointed chin if he ever admitted to thinking about her at all. In fact the truth was far from delicate or beautiful. Anea had a gaping hole where her mouth should be, flanked on each side by insect-like mandibles. Her lower jaw was missing, and stunted human teeth peaked from her gum line. From above the tip of her nose she looked like any other girl of eleven years. Yet the bottom half of her face was as nightmarish and twisted as anything in Virmyre’s specimen jars.

Anea’s eyes fluttered, then flicked open. She flinched and sat up, one hand gesturing toward the door emphatically, index finger issuing her silent command. Her other hand drew the sheets up, past her shoulders, past her mouth. Her green eyes were now shimmering with tears, shoulders shaking with upset. Lucien spread his hands in apology.

‘I’m… I’m sorry. I came as you asked. In your note. You asked me to come? You sent me the key.’

He felt terrible, withdrawing to the sitting room. She was still gesturing as he left her, the pointed finger now accusatory, no longer indicating the direction of his departure. He stood in the sitting room, trying to regain his composure, mind racing. A deep pang of shame swelled inside, shame for being so preoccupied about his ears when Anea’s plight was far worse. He took a deep breath, set down the key on a side table and made to leave.

But the door was locked.

He’d not locked it. He
knew
he’d not locked it. And then came the sickening realisation that they were in trouble.

The room was brighter than it had cause to be, the fire in the hearth now roaring, wood crackling and snapping in the heat. He could smell lamp oil on the air, aware of a thin veil of smoke obscuring the ceiling. A trail of fire sprang up from the hearth leading to the drapes at the windows. Another trail of flame reached out, this time grasping at the couch. Fingers of flame danced on the fabric, giving off jet smoke.

Lucien blew out the lamp and set it down, attempting to unlock the door. The keyhole was blocked from the other side.

They were trapped.

Behind him the heat intensified. Cursing, he rammed the key into the hole, conscious that the couch was now ablaze at one end. Yellow flames were licking at the window, glass tinkled from leading, now soft in the heat.

Anea appeared, one hand covering her face, her green eyes furious and brow creased.

‘Someone’s locked us in.’ Lucien looked over his shoulder at the burning room. He had to admire the efficiency. Orange light danced across the surface of the walls as the furniture smouldered, burning fitfully. A pall of smoke weighed heavily on the air above them, thickening with each passing moment. Lucien’s skin tightened in the heat. He worried the keyhole some more before Anea tugged at his sleeve, leading him back into the bedroom. The sitting room was thoroughly alight now. Lucien closed the bedroom door to buy them precious seconds. Anea stumbled around her room, a wretched wheezing sound issuing from her misshapen mouth.

Lucien knelt on her bed as the fire roared next door. Smoke was filtering into the bedroom from a gap above the door. He ripped the sheets in half, then tied them end to end, knotting them tightly. Anea saw the sense of his plan, fetching more sheets from a chest at the end of the bed. Lucien opened the windows and gulped down lungfuls of cool air. Suddenly, the storm arrived, edging in from the west. A cacophony like a hammer blow rolled in from the coastline, a slower angry rumble following after. Lucien tied the improvised rope to the bed as smoke poured into the bedroom, the door shuddering under the onslaught of the flames. The top half of the room was now a poisonous stew of fumes.

Anea looked down at the drop, some forty feet and more. She looked at Lucien and shook her head. The door to the bedroom disintegrated, falling away from the hinges. A wash of heat rolled over them. The rug on the floor kindled immediately, the sheepskin adding to the cloying smoke.

‘I’ll go first. You’ll be fine. Just wrap the rope around your wrist like this and take it slowly. Brace your feet against the castle.’

Lucien loved climbing. Unless of course there was the possibility another Orfano might suddenly lose her grip, tumbling down onto him. Still, he’d rather risk a fall from over forty feet than be found a charred corpse come the morning. Lucien could have made short work of the climb down; instead he opted to match Anea’s pace, looking up and coaxing her on with words of encouragement when she faltered. They inched down the makeshift rope, the inches adding up to feet, the feet bringing them closer to the safety of the ground. Lucien picked up the pace and dropped the last ten feet, landing and rolling, cat-like, just as D’arzenta had taught him. He looked up. A plume of roiling black poured from Anea’s window. If the fire had consumed the apartment then the bed itself was alight, and the rope was tied to the…

Instinctively Lucien took a step back and held out his arms as the rope came away from the windowsill. Anea released a strangled yelp. She fell, hands clawing at the air, legs pedalling beneath her nightgown.

Seconds later Lucien found himself flat on his back, his left wrist aching. Anea was sitting nearby, her legs draw up to her chest, head down, weeping onto her knees. Lucien drew his knife and cut a sleeve from his own nightshirt, fashioning a veil. Anea took it, blinking away tears. Once the fabric was tied across her face she composed herself. They sat, watching the orange flames lick the windowsill, listening to the faint tinkle of glass as the remaining fixtures surrendered to the heat.

Lucien explained about the note and the key, apologised again for startling her. Anea listened, not looking at him, gaze fixed on her toes. She extended a hand, and when Lucien didn’t respond she pointed at his dagger. He handed it to her warily. No need to fear, she just needed a tool to scratch her words into the dust.

Golia?

‘I can’t be sure.’ He chewed his lip. ‘I think it’s safe to assume it’s Golia. Dino and Festo are much too young. There’s an older Orfano too, but I’m certain she never leaves her rooms.’

Anea spent long moments working the knife at the hard earth.

Whoever it was, they meant to eliminate both of us in one strike. They’re not stupid. Or if they are stupid, they’re receiving instruction.

Lucien stared at her in the darkness. This was the most protracted conversation he’d had with her. He was already admiring her deduction. However, this ruse possessed too much nuance and subtlety to be a scheme devised by Golia. He wondered if they had underestimated House Fontein’s favourite student. The vanguard of the storm had reached Demesne now, occasional spots of rain flickering down in the night, threatening more to come. Lucien pulled Anea to her feet gently, leading her to the House Contadino kitchens.

There would be a lot of explaining to do come the morning.