The Stumpwork Robe (The Chronicles of Eirie 1) (26 page)

Chapter Thirty Eight

Adelina gazed down at her pricked, red hands. Where she held the pen tightly at night, her words running away with her fingers, the joints were swollen and where she sewed during the day she had pierced herself so often the skin peeled from the tops of fingers. But she wanted to feel the silk, the gold purl and the leather and most recently, she wanted to feel the pain. Something perverse and masochistic inside her made her think that pain was what she was due. Why not? Ana had died, perhaps because of an attempt at righteousness by Adelina. Guilt was undeniable. In addition, like salt to the worst wound, Liam and
Kholi were she knew not where.

Meriope walked in through the door, Luther holding it open and then locking it swiftly behind. She gestured with a finger to her lips.
Say nothing!
And then, ‘The brute has gone. We are free for a little while. Oh, Adelina,’ aghast at Adelina’s pallid face and her bloodshot eyes, she worried. ‘What ails you? Are you sickening?’

‘No, I just want a change of scene. Some fresh air, a walk. But the madwoman won’t let it happen.’ She sighed and rubbed her fingers in the corners of her eyes, reluctant to admit to the writing and concealing.

‘We shall see. Now what would you like me to do?’

Adelina directed the girl to smooth the bed
ding and handpress some clothes she herself had washed and dried in front of the banked-up fire. Meriope worked quietly, occasionally commenting on a piece of embroidery. As she passed the robe hanging on the side of the armoire, she gave it a pensive look, caressed it with gentle fingers and then moved to the worktable. ‘You work very hard.’

‘I have to. Kholi’s and Liam’s lives are at stake.’ Adelina licked the end of some raspberry pink silk thread and poked it through the eye of a straw-needle. Opening her mouth to continue in some anti-Severine diatribe, her heart skipped a beat as the key rattled in the door and her nemesis walked in, stopping to stare with a finger at her lips.

‘By Behir Traveller, you look terrible, In fact now I think on it, you get worse every day. And here was I thinking you would bloom at being able to embroider uninterrupted.’

‘I am tired and stale, Severine, and my hands are sore. What do you expect?’

Severine walked over to the worktable and inspected the hands of her
prisoner, turning Adelina’s drawn face to the window - inspecting, analysing. ‘You must get some fresh air. I can’t afford for you to sicken, not now. A walk outside. Yes, an hour a day in my walled garden. It is secure and I shall have Luther watch you. You will enjoy the garden. It is quite magnificent.’

Meriope glanced at Adelina, raising her eyebrows.
See,
she seemed to say,
I told you so.

Severine turned to her. ‘You shall accompany her. If anything untoward happens it shall be your fault.’

Meriope nodded, silent - the dumb dupe.

Severine walked to the window and looked out.
‘It’s a fair day. You may go out for an hour now. Luther will escort you. But before you go Adelina, I want you to look at these.’
She placed a chamois bag on the table and pulled open the drawer-
string. Tipping it up, two shiny, ebony shapes fell out onto the table, lying in a heap, folds softly forming as they crumpled on top of each other.
‘I want you to cut these into four and I want you to sew them under the stumpwork on the robe. This is the variation I mentioned when you first arrived here, and it will go severely for you, even for your... friends… if you don’t accomplish it to my liking.’

A crash behind and pins flew across the rug, Meriope’s face anguished as Severine rounded on her. ‘Damn you girl! Useless creature. Get on your knees and pick every one up. When you are done, go with Adelina to the garden. Luther, get the cook to send a basket. They can eat there. Remember my orders, Adelina. I want to see you started on the black by tomorrow.’

When Severine left, Adelina fancied the air grew warmer and heaved a sigh of relief.
A walk in the garden.
She bent down and picked up the last of the dropped pins.

The walled garden was as Severine had said - graceful, elegant, with shady nooks and arbours and foaming flowers and shrubs of every shade of white.

‘So perfect,’ Adelina moved disbelievingly down a walk of weeping silver-pear trees, their snowy blossoms lying across the ground like a piece of delicate organza. That such a woman should create such a garden, it beggared belief.
Meriope followed behind, on edge and withdrawn as the two came to a
seat under an arbour and Adelina gestured that they both rest.

‘It is as well here as anywhere. Luther watches from the house. He can see our feet sticking out from under the arbour but he can’t see me talking.’ Meriope spoke guardedly.

‘I am surprised you want to talk at all. You seemed so very upset when you dropped the pins.’ Adelina stretched. ‘Oh but how warm it is here.’
She pulled off her woollen jacket, shaking out her hair
. Her eyes began to lose their dry heaviness as the fresh air caught hold and a soft seabreeze eased over the walls and teased the folds of her toile skirt.

Meriope sat back against the wicker of the seat and pushed
her sleeves up. ‘Yes. I was somewhat overwrought. I will confess I don’t like her, despite my attempt at equanimity. She makes me uneasy.’ Her hands lay in her lap, clasped tightly, her fingers twisted in on each other and Adelina noticed the fine wrists, delicate and as fragile as porcelain. On one arm the girl wore a bracelet of woven stuff, unusual.
She leaned forward to get a better look as it reminded her of something -
something infinitely familiar and personal.

She grabbed Meriope’s arm and examined the wristlet, touching with her fingers. Made of rich autumnal hair, plaited to form a circle, it swung idly and it sang to Adelina, a rich chime setting up in her own heart in response. Because her hair was remarkable - red with glowing gold highlights. There would hardly have been another person in Eirie with those vibrant hues. ‘Where did you get this? Where, Meriope? That is my hair, as sure as Aine is the Mother of the World and I know where I left it last.’

‘I know you do. I will not deceive you because at last I can tell you. You have no idea how I have wanted to, how I have hated the deceit. My sister, Elriade, gave it to me. She got it from you.’

‘The silk-seller,’ Adelina’s breath sucked in. ‘Oh my goodness, you’re Faeran, oh I knew it. I kept thinking of Liam every time I looked at you.’

‘I am. My name is really Lhiannon and I have been sent here by Jasper.’

‘Truly? To rescue me and find Kholi and Liam?’

‘No.’ The unequivocal negative floated in the air like a cool draught.

‘What then?’

‘Oh, Adelina, let me tell you. What I have to say is so very hard.’
Meriope-Lhiannon’s eyes moistened. It silenced Adelina
completely. ‘The black material… that... that is not what you think. You know
Severine has been chasing immortality. Well, she found an old poem, a
charm of occult lore.

‘From caverns deep, abysses cold

There lies a ring, so very old.

Through its eye the bearer sees souls of Others which are keys

Keys to locks which open a door

from which the bearer can expect more.

More life eternal, evermore.’

Lhiannon shuddered before continuing, her hand playing restlessly
with the plaited hair bracelet on her other wrist.

‘The souls must part befront, behind.

Till four of the same from two will wind

their power around, around and more.

More life, eternal evermore.’

Adelina nodded, a shift of her hands indicating that Lhiannon continue.

‘You see,’ the young woman said, ‘it tells of a ring, a soul-syphon, the universal bane to all Faeran... a goblin ring that if held to the eye could suck the soul out of me and all my ilk. If the holder, malign Others included, can secure two Faeran souls and wear them on a garment, then immortality will ensue, sucked into the very marrow of the wearer. You may not know,’ her voice issued in an almost whisper. ‘But Faeran are the only ones of the Others who are immortal. It is why, during the times of chaos, the goblins created such a weapon. You can imagine,’ she looked at Adelina’s disbelieving face. ‘It is true. I speak the truth. The shapes on your worktable are two Faeran souls and if they are sewn onto the robe, their power will permeate Severine’s skin and enter her body. In time she will be immortal.’

‘Oh by the spirits, how repulsive,’ Adelina tried to stand but Lhiannon pulled her back down. ‘So that is why my robe is such a part of her plan. To have a gown made of Faeran silk and Faeran thread and the Faeran souls as well. She is obsessed! Did I not say she was deluded?’

‘It is more than repulsive and I haven’t finished, there is worse yet to come.’ Lhiannon took a big breath, her face devoid of colour, her eyes bruised with hurt. ‘One of the souls is that of my sister. She so offended
Severine when she gave you that fabric, the woman made her pay with
her life. She found Elriade by the lake at Star. The rest would have been so simple. Faeran traders found her body and spirited it away. No one outside of Faeran knows of the murder. Only you and the perpetrators.’

Adelina’s face had mirrored a dozen expressions in the telling and something in her was beginning to slide to the pit of her stomach. ‘Whose is the other soul?’ There was silence... a weary, unwelcome silence from her companion. ‘Oh Aine, I know, don’t I? Please tell me it isn’t Liam?’ Her voice weakened to a whisper, her hope lying at her feet, breathing its last.

Lhiannon looked down and said nothing but a tear threaded its way
to her chin and she wiped it off. Adelina tried to stand but her legs folded like paper. ‘There is more?’

Lhiannon nodded.

‘Oh please, no.’ Adelina whispered, twisting and crushing the coat in anguished hands. Her hopes died in that minute, one heartbeat and one breath and everything that she had loved and dreamed of disintegrated, leaving an ugly empty vacuum.

‘Adelina…’ Lhiannon placed a tentative hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Jasper found them. He took them both to the Ymp Trees. Mogu carried Kholi.’

Adelina could not cry. She felt like a dried up oasis in the middle of the Amritsands and a hot Symmer wind swirled through her, crisping the edges of her psyche. Moulding and shaping hatred like a mound of sand before the howling desert wind. Finally she spoke. ‘Then if you are not here to release me yet, why are you here? What does Jasper want?’

‘The souls. The souls must be returned to Faeran or the bodies will be caught in some ghastly frozen tableau, hunched and crushed in whatever ugly position they died. Never to be laid out and given a Faeran farewell. The water that they float on in their funeral barge would dry up. The flames of the arrows flying towards their floating pyre would burn out. If we buried them, the soil would fly from the
sidh
and they would lie uncovered. If we built a cairn over them with rocks, the boulders would tumble down revealing their unfortunate empty husks.’

Adelina said nothing for a moment, her face white, her heart crushed into a million grains of sand. But lacking wailing tears, she needed to pitch her gall at something, someone. ‘Why isn’t your great Jasper here himself? Why can’t the old man get the souls through some enchantment or other and free me in the process? Isn’t he supposed to be all-powerful, infallible, whatever the damned hell you like?’

‘Because the prophecy says not, Adelina, and one must never defy Fate. This is the way it must be.’

‘Prophecy? What prophecy? I don’t care a fig for some vacuous Faeran prophecy! Aine, I have lost the love of my life!’ Adelina stood and began to stride down the walk. Lhiannon hurried to catch up, her black hair beginning to slide from its bun.

Hatred flooded like white-hot lava and filled every sinew of the embroiderer’s body, her legs racing to cover the ground. ‘She will pay, Lhiannon. Prophecy or no, she will pay with her life!’

***

I need to show you how shattered I am, to make you understand.

But how?

By the paper that is torn by the nib of the pen as I scrawl the words across. By the agitated spatters of ink?

By the tears that splash and smear my very words?

Would it help to know that I have ripped one sheet of paper already, into tiny pieces of confetti, ripped and ripped as if the paper was Severine and I tore her apart?

Prophecy be damned!

I idealized Jasper of the Faeran! I thought he was infallible, capable of anything, the least being to secure those unfortunate souls, to rescue us, surely that was within the scope of his eldritch skill.

But the old man is confronted by some vapid vision and folds. I hate him! I hate everyone!

Chapter Thirty Nine

Lhiannon and Adeli
na sat side by side at the worktable.

Adelina demanded Lhiannon’s help with her work. She had reminded Luther how adamant Severine had been that work with the black fabric begin on the morrow. She was sure he did not want to be the cause of her being unable to start, she said persuasively and he locked them both back in the room. They sat quietly for a while and then Lhiannon gave a nod; Luther had moved away down the winding stone stair. Adelina opened one of her drawers and pulled out a length of weighty black satin and placed it beside the souls, flinching in case her fingers touched them, unable to believe one was Liam’s. Oh help me, she thought, Aine help me, I cannot do this. Faintness blurred her vision and numbed her hands as she remembered Liam searching for Kholi, of the two being found by
Luther and Severine. Of what ensued...

Her hand flew to her throat.
By heavens, I know how my love died.
She choked, evoking what Kholi must have felt and began to cough as if her lungs would fly out of her mouth; gutwrenching hacks. She bent over the table, her head hanging. Lhiannon placed a hand on her arm and softness crept up to her shoulder, over her breast and into her heart, her focus shifting away from the horror. She glanced at Lhiannon gratefully. ‘Take the souls and this will suffice to replace them. Quickly.’

Lhiannon drew out a small grey chamois pouch and with trembling
fingers placed the precious things inside and tucked it in her bodice.

Adelina watched, her mind running fast. ‘You must get away and I have had a thought.’
She grabbed her toile skirt and slid it around to the image of a waterfowl.
There, glowing in the afternoon light was the black feather Liam had given her. ‘It is a feather from a swan-maid. Liam said I could use it if I ever needed help. What do you think?’

‘It may work,’ Lhiannon was circumspect, ‘although swan-maids are not renowned for their love of the Faeran but we have little choice.’ She grabbed Adelina’s hand in pinching fingers. ‘Ssh! Be quiet, Luther returns.’

‘Tomorrow in the garden then, yes?’

Lhiannon nodded and picked up scissors to snip threads.

The midday sun shone palely in a water-washed blue sky. Adelina had once again not slept, choosing to write with a feverishness fuelled by the fires of hatred. To sew that morning had been a trial beyond belief as she cut the satin to mimic the souls and sewed the first piece underneath a design of a black thistle she had placed on the back of the garment. The
Raji knots she plied back and forth to give the semblance of the thistle
head were difficult and at one point, she bled on the fabric of the robe. She swore and hastily dropped some spit onto the stain, dabbing it gently. In some alchemist’s miracle, the blood faded and disappeared and the fabric returned to its pristine form.
She constantly glanced at the sun outside the window, longing for
midday and wondering why Lhiannon had not come. They needed to talk for what would she, an embroiderer, know of feathers and summoning swan-maids?

At midday precisely, with the sun directly overhead, the door unlocked and Luther pushed it open. Lhiannon stood just behind him, her arm hooked under the handle of a rush basket. Adelina flung down her sewing and tried not to hurry to the door.
Remain the same. Be what I am. Sullen, angry… murderous.
It was all she could do not to grab her scissors and run screaming at Luther’s throat, to stab, stab and stab again...

‘Meriope has brought your food. I will collect you in an hour.’ He strode ahead and they followed, not acknowledging each other at all.

Once the garden gate had shut and Lhiannon had given the signal all was safe, Adelina pounced on her. ‘Where have you been? I needed to talk.’

Lhiannon stayed under the canopy of a spreading cherry tree. Its blossom
cast a wide white awning and she could speak freely. ‘Severine was in one of her compulsive moods - polish, polish more and then polish again. She followed my every move until Luther reminded her it was midday and you needed your walk and food, to which she gave grudging way. What is wrong?’

‘I don’t know how to use the feather and we have so little time.’ Adelina chafed.

‘Worry not.’ She grabbed Adelina lightly by the arm. ‘Let’s go to the pond, there is a willow which will shield us. Quickly.’

The willow branches had just sprouted lime green leaves. Tiny pendules of green-white blossom filled the air with a heady scent, the sounds of bees sucking at the pollen droned lazily from under the weeping branches. The leafy curtain closed about the two women like the folds of a tent. By the side of the huge pond, myrtle flag and water plantain spread over the banks. The racemes of swamp lily spiked into the air and the placid waters of the pond were coated in the dark, floating leaves of the water hawthorn. A secret pond, it was a place for swan-maids and Others.

‘Adelina,’ Lhiannon’s hand gripped the woman’s arm. ‘The feather, quickly.’

Adelina eased away the threads she had cut earlier and handed the glistening flight feather to the Faeran girl. ‘What if she’s on the other side of Eirie?’

‘It makes no difference. It’s an oddity. If you call, they can be instantly here. Now watch.’

Lhiannon held the feather by the sharp quill and carefully brought it to
her mouth. She blew gently on its length. Each delicate individual piece of the whole danced and fluttered as her sweet breath drifted over it, to sink gracefully back to form the one long feather again.

‘And?’ Adelina hands twisted together.

‘We wait.’

The air beneath the willow was sweet and clean. Light dappled the water and shore and the pendulous branches undulated, finding a puff of air where there would seem to be none. The luminous wings of dragonflies beat in front of the two women but neither noticed, too nervous to speak, too desperate to move. On the other side of the pond, water fowl splashed and duck-dived for a feed of water beetle and worm. Frogs set up a croaking chorus and the mirrored surface was occasionally marked by a series of unexplained concentric rings. Calmness prevailed as Adelina chewed at the torn skin on her fingers and Lhiannon palmed the feather back and forth. A honking cry echoed above the garden and the two women looked up.

A black swan flew over the wall, skimming it lightly. She slid along the slick surface of the pond, feet sinking to paddle through the water, wings folding gracefully. The long neck stretched up, bending at the head, the red beak defined against the sable of the splendid feathered coat.
She glided toward the willow, under the branches and to the shore.
A leg stepped out of the pond and as she walked forward she shifted from bird to woman, the winged mantle sliding down her arms, to hang like a magnificent cloak from elbow to elbow. ‘Thy call was heard, Lhiannon of the Faeran, although it was not thine to make.’ She turned the long white face, utterly symmetrical and beyond beauteous, toward Adelina. ‘So. Thy soul is as empty as husk of Liam. Black feathers echo black heart. Thou has inherited Maeve’s feather, what dost thou want of Maeve Swan Maid?’

Adelina, heart tender and sore, remembered when she had last met the woman as she had sat with Kholi by the lake at Star. ‘It’s simple,’ she said with as much respect as she could manage. ‘Lhiannon has retrieved Liam’s and Elriade’s souls from that witch and must get away. Can you help?’

Maeve Swan Maid moved around them as they sat under the willow.
She glided, her black robe trailing behind, the feathery cloak still draping
from elbow to elbow. She spoke to Lhiannon, her tone iced and unkind. ‘If Maeve gives thou flying cloak, thou may not give it back and Maeve will remain here in this garden unable to return to her form. For surely the only answer is that thou fly away.’

Adelina broke in. ‘She’s slight. Could you not carry her?’

‘Stupid mortal! Swan has small strength and would never be able to fly with Faeran astride. Maeve is not beast of burden nor friend of Faeran.’ She snaked her head at them and then turned away.

‘But we have asked for your help. You are obliged to honour the debt.’

Maeve Swan Maid turned again, fury marring the beauty. If she had been avian, Adelina had no doubt she would have approached with wings outstretched, hissing and spitting from the red mouth. As it was, the carmine lips drew back and invective in some form of Other language cascaded down upon them. Then, ‘Invidious Faeran stole Maeve’s feather and it has grieved and pained Maeve ever since.  Why should swan-maid be obliged to do anything?’

Adelina sucked in a breath that was almost a sob. ‘Please…’

Maeve looked sideways at Adelina and their eyes met and held and then the swan-maid moved again, her black folds trailing over Adelina’s toes. ‘Maeve will honour debt because she wants to be free of all mortals. Thy trials are not hers and she would be gone. She knew love of Liam for mortal woman was fated. Stupid Faeran! But Maeve will save his soul and that of the Faeran girl’s sister because she honours all debts. She is a truly honourable Other. She has an idea. Come tomorrow and the answer will be here.’

‘Tomorrow,’ both women broke out in an anguished cry.

‘Tomorrow.’
Maeve turned away with finality and stepped into the water, not to be
gainsaid. She became a swan as seamlessly as she had become a woman and began to swim away, the wings unfolding as she prepared to take flight. Within minutes she had glided up over the sea wall and was gone.

‘Tomorrow!’ Adelina whispered, aghast.

Lhiannon merely nodded, taking the embroiderer’s hand in her own as
they sat and blindly watched the willow billow back and forth.