Bloodkin (Jaseth of Jaelshead) Page 19

  We had introduced some of the others to Anna and Aliakh at the Thistle, taking them up to the private lounge above the bar when Anna’s guards indicated that she was free to receive visitors. Thomas had spent some time in Lille over the course of his career as a Mentor, and it soon became obvious that he and Fiona had an attraction that had stretched back many years, even before Fiona had left Жanờ the first time as a Journeyman. No mention was made of Anna’s profession, and if the others thought it odd that she had bodyguards, they said nothing. Charlie tried to pretend that his romantic feelings for her had been nothing more than a boyhood crush that ended with his time as a Journeyman, and he acted like a good platonic friend, but I still noticed when he would gaze at her admiringly, sometimes longingly, when he thought no one was looking.

  Sometimes, if the night was relatively quiet, O’Malley himself would climb the circular stairs to sit with us. He was particularly fond of Aliakh, who coddled him like a favourite uncle, patting his bald head and bestowing on him her best dimple-cheeked smiles. It wasn’t long before the other boys were completely enamoured with her too – she truly was ridiculously beautiful. I borrowed Dunkerle’s notes from class one day to catch up after I had stayed at the Hall in bed with a rotten head-cold and discovered in the back a rather embarrassing, poorly-written love ode about her ‘red tumbling tresses like fire’ and ‘creamy breasts of milk and honey.’ I briefly considered making a copy to show everyone for a laugh, but I refrained, only showing Charlie who giggled a bit hysterically when he read it.

  “Dirty old Dunk eh? Wouldn’t have thought he had it in him, going for the older ladies!”

  I hadn’t pressed Charlie on his relationship with Anna, or the supposedly unpleasant reason she had become involved with Lya Vassalion. The right time had just never presented itself, but my patience was rewarded one night when we were walking back from the Shivering Thistle.

  Our friends from the Hall had gone on ahead and we were alone as we made our way through the Quarter. Charlie seemed restless; fidgety and a bit disturbed. He kept opening his mouth and gesturing as if he was about to say something, then would close his mouth and stop, as if he couldn’t decide on the right words to use. Finally I had to ask him what the matter was.

  “She shouldn’t be doing it, that’s what.”

  “Doing what?”

  “This! This… murdering business!” He exclaimed with a heavy sigh and motioned violently with one arm, as if he was trying to throw something unpleasant away. “It’s not in our nature to take lives, and that’s what she has to decide every day, when she accepts a contract, she decides who lives and who dies! It’s eating at her, from the inside, it’s killing her. She’s done it for long enough, she’s paid any sort of debt she thought she owed and should stop, but I don’t know how to make her!” The disjointed, slightly drunken jumble of words halted for a minute as he hung his head despondently, and seeing my opportunity I had to ask.

  “Charlie, what happened, you know, back then?”

  He looked up at the sky for a long moment and took a deep breath before beginning. “Okay, well, I knew I’d have to tell you sometime. You’ve a right to know, I suppose.” He gathered himself and launched into his story, speaking quickly as though if he stopped he wouldn’t be able to continue.

  Charlie had met Anna’s younger brother Joey in Fortesta while they were both staying at the Hall there as young Journeymen, Charlie fresh from Ұiờ, and they quickly became firm friends. They worked together at the Hall for some months, like Steven and Alan at our Hall, before travelling round for a year, ending up in Vesterg. Joey had wanted to push on to Lille to meet up with his sister, who had just been Assigned a prostitute from the city, Aliakh, to Mentor. Charlie wanted to wait out the winter before heading east.

  “I’m afraid we had a bit of a falling out,” Charlie told me sadly. “Joey was always in a rush to do things, get someplace, and he was headstrong. Much, much too headstrong.”

  Joey knew that Anna’s best friend was a horticulturalist and he had a big plan to go get some Black moss and have a big party or something. Nea’thi Journeymen were forbidden to smoke the Black while Outside, and Joey knew this, but thought that with his sister’s connections he could get hold of some anyway. After the fight with Charlie he took off to Lille, and Charlie stayed in Vesterg for the winter before following, figuring that Joey would have cooled off in the intervening months.

  When Charlie got to Lille he was given a room at the Hall and was recognised almost immediately by Anna, to whom Joey had described as his friend. However, Anna was cagey about Joey’s whereabouts, only telling Charlie that yes, she had seen him, but no, she didn’t know where he currently was. Charlie had thought this odd, but didn’t probe deeper, already a bit in awe of the charming and graceful Nea’thi woman.

  One night, after he had been in Lille almost half a year, Charlie was walking home after drinking at the Shivering Thistle when he was accosted in a dark doorway by a shambling, filthy creature. It took him some time to realise that it was Joey. Something terrible had happened to him, something terrible enough to turn him from an energetic, headstrong young man into a decrepit, raving beast. Joey had mumbled something about Oakeselle, a small village on the other side of the hills to the north of Lille, and then took off into the night, despite Charlie’s best efforts to hold him and take him back to Anna. Deeply disturbed by this, he summoned the courage to ask Anna about it, and when he got back to the Hall he knocked on her door and told her what he had just seen. Anna had been deeply saddened but not surprised. Haltingly she told Charlie what Joey had done when he arrived in Lille.

  After drinking with Anna and Fiona one night he had broached the subject of procuring some Black. Fiona, horrified, had naturally refused, but Joey stole her keys and broke into the horticulturalist’s shop where she was finishing her Apprenticeship, removing a quantity of the Black moss before disappearing. Charlie asked Anna if she knew why Joey had gone on about Oakeselle, but she had not heard anything from her brother since the robbery.

  Charlie had decided to investigate, and so on his next free day he took the steam-carriage through the tunnel that ran under the north hills of Lille, and found the village on the other side. While having his lunch at the small country pub he struck up a conversation with the old man working behind the bar. He told Charlie of a night, some three seasons previous, when a Nea’thi Journeyman fitting Joey’s description had had to be forcibly removed from the tavern. He had been wild-eyed, ranting and crazy, and the soles of his boots had worn through to the skin of his feet. What had happened to Joey after he had been kicked out, the barkeep didn’t know, but he had left along the road that led north, through the forest.

  Charlie decided to follow the road Joey had taken, and a half-mile into the woods he had come across a small cottage in a clearing. The gates to the cottage were wreathed in the black ribbons of mourning, and an older woman sat in a rocking-chair on the porch, black-eyed with grief, while the sounds of a screaming baby could be heard from inside. When the woman noticed Charlie she had yelled viciously at him and tried to throw stones.

  “I had to use Hầұeӣ to calm her down so she would talk to me,” Charlie admitted, shamefaced. She told Charlie about her daughter, who had just died giving birth.

  “I knew then what had happened. Before she had even said anything else, I knew what Joey had done.”

  Joey, in a Black-fuelled hallucinogenic rage had broken into the cottage that night. He had tied up the old woman before repeatedly raping her daughter, then fleeing into the night.

  The pair of them had been too distressed and ashamed to go to the Temple, and once the pregnancy became evident the older woman had confined her daughter to the house. Bringing the Mingle baby to term had sapped the last of the girl’s strength, and she had died quietly, exhausted, a scant few hours after the baby was born. The woman begged Charlie for his help, she knew not the requirements of a Mingle infant, and was confused and dismayed by its incessant
crying. She had gone into the cottage and brought out the screaming bundle, thrusting it at Charlie and demanding he take it away.

  “So I did. It was all I could do. I took the baby.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “I took the baby to Aӣấ, but she was busy with Aliakh – our first and only duty as Mentors is to our Bloodkin. So I was the one that took the baby down to Жanờ and I left her with her paternal grandparents. When Aliakh had Graduated from the Academy and had joined the Temple as an apprentice Solast—”

  “Aliakh’s a Solast?” I broke in, surprised.

  Charlie waved his hand at my interruption. “Of course. This was before Anna gave her the money to buy the brothel where she had worked before Anna had taken her to the Hall. Anyway, Anna had Jeetz locate Lya Myr – the father, or master – the head of Lya Vassalion, and she went to him and offered to take over.”

  I shook my head, not understanding. “I don’t get it. Why would she do that?”

  Charlie sighed. “It’s her punishment. Well, a self-imposed penance really. Lya Myn, or Myr, is the one who accepts or declines contracts. It’s a position of terrible power. Aӣấ was so ashamed of her brother’s actions she felt she needed to do something to make up for it. Becoming Lya Myn was the most unpleasant thing she could think of.”

  “Well why doesn’t she just stop? It’s been what, eighteen years?”

  Charlie laughed mirthlessly. “It doesn’t work like that. She can choose a replacement if they go to her, but… Not everyone can do it. I’m sure there are lots of people who would love to be in charge of the city’s most ruthless and skilled assassins, but they are the kind of people who should absolutely not be. There are unwritten laws about the kinds of job Lya Vassalion will take; so while it’s illegal to murder someone, probably even more so to accept money for it – which is why her identity is a closely guarded secret – they are tolerated to a certain degree so long as they are discreet. Which of course they are. Aӣấ only accepts contracts where the legal system cannot exact proper justice for the victims, or where she feels the hit” – he grimaced at the term – “will contribute to the peace and safety of the city. Do you see Jas? She has the power of life and death and it’s destroying her.”

  I didn’t know what to say to cheer him up. It was pretty obvious he was in love with her, and that he was completely helpless. “So, what about that stuff those guards were saying?”

  Charlie thought for a minute. “I don’t know. I’ve heard rumours of a rival gang of assassins, and some disturbing things about Mingles, but… I can’t really believe it. Aӣấ doesn’t seem worried, but it’s hard to tell. Фấ ςanaл Jas, she’s changed so much, she used to be so happy and joyful and now she’s just… It’s like she’s constantly on guard. And she won’t let me in or tell me anything important and I…” He gestured weakly. “I just don’t know.”

  We had arrived back at the Hall and I could hear the others up in the common room. Charlie looked utterly defeated.

  “You go on up and hang out with the others if you want, kiddo, I’m just going to… I just need to be alone.”

  I shrugged and left him to it. And in the common room, if the others noticed that I was unusually quiet, they didn’t say anything.

  he beginning of autumn was bright and mild. The leaves on the trees in the quad at the Academy slowly turned golden, then orange, then finally dropped, to be raked into neat piles by a Journeyman. Up on the hills, in the little gullies between the mansions of Lille’s elite, the foliage was bright, as if the whole city was making an attempt at rivalling the colour of the Nea’thi Quarter. At the Academy we began to have our classes taught by guest lecturers from the school of science. Myr Stewart explained Human biology and evolutionary processes, spending a considerable amount of time on the workings of the Human brain – how chemicals and neural transmitters created thoughts and emotions. We began to see how Hầұeӣ could be used by a Psychotherapist or Psychosolast to treat mental imbalances. Myr Nicholas lectured on physics – the way everything in the world reacted with each other. Perhaps most important for us were the classes taken by Myr Edward, the head lecturer in chemistry. He explained more fully to us how atoms were made up, and how chemical reactions could be manipulated with Hầұeӣ. These lectures were not merely theoretical: with Hầұeӣ we could see into objects and discover – and dissolve – these atomic bonds for ourselves. In our practical sessions in the afternoons we began investigating what we had learned in the mornings. We began simply with one of the most basic compounds in life – water. We practised joining together atoms of hydrogen and oxygen to create it, and then we used bowls of water to practise breaking it back into its component parts.

  One Tuesday, on the eve of the Temple festival of Samhain, Fiona popped her head round the door of our classroom as we were finishing for the day.

  “Oh! Hello everyone!”

  Myr Edward smiled and gestured for her to come in. Her hair was dyed a bright, fiery red. “Beetle shells,” she had explained to me the previous weekend when I had seen her at the Thistle. “Lovely colour, don’t you think?” She was dressed in her usual Human-style gown, with its full skirts and tightly nipped-in waist.

  “Hmph,” I heard Sallagh mutter to Mantilly behind me. “I’ve never seen a Nea’thi wearing a proper dress,” and she chuckled derisively.

  Quick as a flash, Fiona smiled at her winningly. “I have to admit, I’ve never seen a Bloodkin wearing one to class either, but I admire your perseverance. Dresses are marvellous though, aren’t they dear? I love how they make me feel so girlish, so silly!” and she gave a little wiggle of her hips. Sallagh blushed furiously as the rest of us laughed.

  “It’s nice to see so many familiar faces here.” Fiona gave me a tiny wink. “From Thursday I will be coming in to teach you some of what I know about moss. Of course tomorrow is the festival, so you have the day off, and please feel free to enjoy yourselves. On Thursday we will be sampling moss. We’ll begin with the White of course, but try not to be too hungover, you will not be smoking anything until you have satisfied me that you have grasped what I will be teaching you in the morning.”

  The next day dawned bright and clear, but the breeze from the lake held a hint of autumnal chill. Dew still glistened on the grass as the whole group of us from the Hall – Journeymen and Myn Eve included – hurried to the Temple for an early service.

  Festival services were much longer than the usual ones held on Sundays, and the Temple was packed with people, Humans and Nea’thi alike. Samhain was the last of the big festivals before Yule, at the very end of the year. It is essentially a celebration of autumn, of the slow descent of the year into winter, and a time for remembrance. Inside the Temple, a great, cavernous stone edifice, the rows of pews were festooned with ribbons in the colours of the season, yellow, orange and red, tied about chrysanthemums and marigolds. The entire length of the front altar underneath the statue of Queen Lilbecz was laden with offerings of seasonal produce: apples, pomegranates, pumpkins and squashes, donated by the people of Lille for the Priests and Priestesses to cook and serve to the poor of the city. Instead of the simple ritual of gratitude, there were two main parts to the Samhain service. After welcoming us, the High Priestess, Hanniash, conducted something of a meditation, set to slow, almost mournful music piped from the organ, on loved ones who had passed away. She reminded us to honour their memories, to sit with feelings of pain and loss. We had been given pieces of paper and pencils at the door, as was usual, but now she bade us try and scribe these feelings. It was kind of a weird festival, really. No one I knew had died recently, so I was feeling rather untouched by the whole thing, though weeping erupted sporadically from around the congregation.

  My pencil and paper still sat untouched when the music ended and Hanniash spoke the traditional words of Samhain, marking the passing of the sun, like the passing of people from life into death. Then it was time for the second part of the service, and the organist began playing again, a stirring a
nd almost violent piece. Now we were to write on the other side of the piece of paper any aspects of our lives that we wished to be free of: anger, bad habits, misplaced feelings, disease. Again I struggled with the words. Frankly, on the whole I was pretty content. I guess that thoughts of Sallagh still bugged me. The way she had treated me still bugged me, and perversely I still wanted her, and this annoyed me. I thought of Charlie too, troubled by his relationship, or lack thereof, with Anna, and although it wasn’t really my place, I still wished we could, I don’t know, let it go. So I wrote the names of the two women on my piece of paper and quickly folded it.

  When the second piece of music ended the High Priestess gave her blessing, ending with the traditional “So mote it be,” and the congregation stood as one to file forward slowly to the brazier waiting at the front of the Temple. After I dropped my piece of paper into the flames I turned to walk back down the aisle then noticed for the first time the large portrait hanging above the great double doors leading outside. Apparently Telgeth had been right, Queen Thaelique was a babe. She had long blonde hair, so fair as to be almost white, a straight, regal nose, and a strong, wide jaw. Although the portrait was only a copy of the Ashlu original, painted before the last elections, her slate-blue eyes seemed to sparkle with some fierce intelligence, the cast of her curved lips, resolute. I don’t know what the other Candidates looked like, but I would definitely have voted for her.