Authors: Cat Rambo
They caught it with ropes and nets. I scrambled away trying to avoid its thrashing. They dragged it into the stable and locked it in a stall.
The next morning, I went down to see it even though Jolietta had forbidden me to do so; she had said I would disturb its training. I opened the stall door, thinking that I would give it a handful of sugar that I had filched from the kitchen.
Everything smelled of blood and shit. It had battered itself to death against the stable wall trying to break out of its prison. It lay on the floor amid the dirty straw, and its white fur, that had shone in the sunshine the day before, was matted and discolored with its drying blood.
“They don’t take well to captivity,” Jolietta said. And then she beat one of the Minotaurs, blaming it for what had happened, saying that it should have secured the Unicorn better. It was an unfair accusation, as most of her accusations were, but I did not speak in the Minotaur’s defense. I didn’t want to draw her ire upon myself, for she was in a fine fury that day knowing that she’d lost a good sum.
She ordered it butchered and made the most of it, selling the hooves and certain internal organs to the College of Mages. She had it skinned and hung the shining hide and horn on her bedroom wall.
These are the thoughts that haunt me whenever Alberic forces me to walk within his menagerie. I can never tell him so, for he does not take being thwarted well. He would take criticism of the menagerie as a personal offense. Every Duke leaves their own mark on the city, like the 99 statues along Salt Way, commissioned by another Duke long ago. The menagerie is Alberic’s.
A petty legacy for a last Duke.
“I don’t like the menagerie,” I say. “It makes me sneeze almost as much as spring.”
Alberic looks amused. “Say that too loudly and they will begin making up tales that Tabat has languished in the grip of Winter all this time to ward off your hay fever.”
“Hardly that.”
“Why then? Why do you love playing Winter so?”
Why indeed? I keep silent, thinking. Is it the chill and silence of Winter, the touch of ice preserving whatever it grasped, perfect and unchanging?
Or something else?
Years and years before the death of the Unicorn, while still at Leonoa’s parents’ house, Winter came back unexpectedly—a sudden storm late in the Spring, as though to make one last threat, pitch one last tantrum. I rose in the morning to find the world sugar-glazed, painfully brilliant in the early morning sunlight.
At that age, I was always hungry, but it had been before the days with Jolietta. Hunger was still a half-stranger, a tease, a flirtation, not a weapon that could be used against me with measuring-spoon precision, not a cudgel that could be used to drive anyone, anything to their knees. So I hadn’t worried about breakfast that day and had gone out in robe and slippers to walk in the rose garden that had been Coro Canto’s pride and joy.
All of the roses were encased in ice, better preserved than in any museum case. On the outskirts of the garden’s circle were great crimson roses like wounds in the air, further in were white roses like chalk and ivory and eggshells, and in the heart of the little garden were the sunshine and citrus colors that Coro’s son, long-dead Cosmo, had loved, roses shaded candy yellow and orange, bright as toys.
The ice cased up each rose’s fragrance, bottled it in crystal, hid it away with jealous closeness.
Yesterday when I had walked through the garden, the sweet perfume of each rose had bludgeoned me in turn, cloying as old sorrow, sweet as muscavado sugar from the Southern Isles.
Now, without the fragrances to distract me, I looked more closely at the flowers. A poet would have come up with a thousand ways to describe them, the tousle-headed blooms saved from their downward swoon, and upright, chaste buds who would never open their cores to the sunlight and now stood undrooping, filled with virtue and wasted potential.
Standing in the midst of the ice and silence, I tried to free a great red rose, shagged with petals like a lion’s mane, big as both of my fists laid together. I wrestled with its thick stalk, bending the stem back and forth, abrading it until it could be pulled apart. A thorn ran into my thumb, leaving a dark splinter in the soft pad. I swore—a schoolgirl’s oath that twitches me into a smile now—and picked it out.
I felt for a moment as though I was in a fairy tale. As though everything around me had come into focus, sharpened, become more significant. I held my breath. What was about to burst upon me? What figure would appear, the sky splintering around it? What would the Gods manifest in order to guide me all my days?
I waited, but nothing happened.
A bird fluttered in the tree dislodging clumps of snow. Scuffs of horsetail clouds marked the high blue sky. The shadows of trees laddered the gravel paths. Frozen dew had made glittering lace of the spider webs stretching between bushes.
I wanted something to speak to, wanted—well, I’ve never found it, not then and not later as a Gladiator. I was told, before I ever set foot on the arena’s tiles, that I would be taken over, would become the very presence of some God or Goddess on earth. My actions would show what was happening in the Spiritual Realm.
The wonder of it all was that such flabberjabber still worked, even when I don’t believe a word of it. For a long time, Winter seemed more sacred still to me, and somehow retained a vestige of that sensation, no matter how desperate the disappointment that had followed.
I had thought, in the cold, with the taste of my blood on my lips,
I am the instrument. Play me, play ME!
I flung my spirit out into the aether in acquiescence to the universe’s wishes, seeking, grasping, falling.
And I found nothing waiting there to catch me.
And now? Winter reflects the emptiness of things, I think, and that is why I like it. Winter makes no empty promises of pleasant existence. It is bare, cold life with no other claims. It is the Gods’ reminder to us that life is hard, that it can always be harder.
But I do not say this in answer, but instead shrug and let Alberic take my arm and tuck it through his own, taking me to the menagerie as though he hasn’t heard my protest.
* * *
When I can, I slip away from Alberic and make my way out through the kitchens.
There are those who refuse to eat the flesh of any creature that displays the power of speech. They will not share a household feast of the kind that occurs whenever an Oracular Pig dies, for example, refusing to partake of the meat that most folks believe will give them luck.
This is not a common attitude in Tabat, though. There are those who make their living off the flesh of Beasts, even a few slaughterhouses devoted to the techniques needed for a creature well aware of the impending fate when going to the butcher.
At Piper Hill, no body ever went to waste. No body. Nobody.
But even with those memories, I have never abstained from such flesh. It is the way of the world, to feed on or to be fed upon. Even so, venturing into the kitchens that serve the Castle and Alberic’s court, I feel a twinge when I see the great standing roast that once was a Dragon’s rib cage and the flesh clothing it.
I tell myself it’s because it’s such a waste. Dragons are rare and are harder to capture than almost any other Beast I know. They do not live well in captivity. That glistening meat covered with a slick red sauce redolent of garlic and honey and turmeric cost more than the entire year’s tuition for a student at the Brides of Steel, and the school is not known for its cheapness.
I do not believe, as some do, that eating a Beast’s flesh bestows its powers on the consumers. Pig flesh does not make one’s luck wax, no matter whether it comes from a speaking swine or its more silent kindred. Dragon’s flesh possesses no innate virtue, and it is tough as a leather strap and gamey to boot. Only its rarity and price give it savor.
The kitchens bustle around me as I pass through. One assistant cook crouches over a tray of tarts, frosting them with blue and yellow icing, her fellow beside her peeling potatoes, the long brown curls falling into a basket that I know is destined for the Duke’s menagerie. Like Jolietta, Alberic is ever one to save coin where he can. I rarely used to visit this place, but more recently I’ve found it a useful way to escape the castle without being intercepted by any servant Alberic might have dispatched to fetch me back to whatever conversation I have fled. Now I am avoiding speaking to him further of the Dryads. I have no way to save them, but increasingly I am loath to stand by and watch.
The servants here are too busy to pay me much mind other than an eye roll as I pass, a murmur or a whisper. That’s nothing new, that’s something I encounter every day on the streets of Tabat. More recently, the whispers have been hostile at times, so I almost expect it here in the kitchens, but they are more civilized, perhaps. Or at least more aware that I could have them turned out for some insult.
No one dares say anything when I slip a napkin-wrapped tart into my pocket or take one of the golden fruits sitting on the table waiting to be peeled as well. These plump orbs, furry-skinned and sweet, are called sun fruit in the Southern Isles, which is the only place that they will grow. They come to Tabat on the ships that go back and forth to serve the Duke’s pleasure, the fleet of fat-bellied trade galleons that supply those here with spices and sugar and, sometimes, Oracular Turtles.
Why only Turtles and Pigs might be capable of glimpsing the future, I do not know. A Mage lover tried to explain it to me once, but the conversation got lost in talk of the stars, tiny animals, and waves of energy until I stopped him with kisses because he was boring me. I make no claim to understand anything of these matters.
The only things that really concern me are those that concern the safety of the city—the city I protect and guard. Some people claim this makes me shallow. I prefer to think it rather that I have a narrow focus.
***
Chapter Nine
Teo Escapes
Fireworks slapped bright fingers across the night sky above the
Water Lily
as it arrived at the city’s northern river docks. Three quick booms startled Teo. Each time he flinched, a whistling scream and explosion of brilliant color followed: silver, red, purple.
Was this what life in a city was like?
he wondered.
Fireworks every night?
He’d read descriptions of them in the penny-wides but these were bigger, brighter, and better than anything he’d imagined.
Sparks glittered down across the water in which the terraces of Tabat were mirrored. The reflections wavered, jagged stairs leading away from the belt where the two worlds, real and reflected, collided.
Teo stepped back from the steamboat’s railing, dazzled by the noisy splashes of light, then recovered himself. Overhead, sparkles continued to sink from the sky, leaving chrysanthemumed smoke trails lit by each new splash of light.
He looked around, embarrassed by his reaction, but the others on the boat also gawped upwards. They had more important, more interesting things to watch than his awkward moments. He felt more insignificant than ever. It was more likely that city life would be like
that
, the depressing knowledge of his insignificance. He felt small and lonely.
But it was hard to feel miserable with fireworks lighting the sky. Another distant boom shook the deck underneath his feet. Teo leaned over the railing, feeling its cold line against his belly. Slowly happiness overtook him and he grinned until his jaws ached, shivering. A new world was opening up, bigger than anything he’d ever have seen back home. Though he shouldn’t think of it as home anymore—just the place he’d left behind. He was as unmarked as fresh ice now, historyless. Unfailed. He
would
be happy here, he’d make it so.
Despite the wind’s bite and a shout from Ridley reminding him that there was still luggage to unload, he stood there, watching the dusk-shrouded shore approach. He had arrived—what could he expect next?
The day had been a weary blur for Teo. Captain Urdo had pushed the
Lily’s
crew hard in order to arrive by nightfall. Teo’s wrists and arms and the long muscles on the back of his legs ached from rearranging cargo, carrying luggage, clearing the back deck and the litter accumulated there. Fresh sunburn rode the back of his neck. Unlike the early, leisurely days of travels, there had been no time to sit and rest in the shade.
Upriver, they had passed through sharply crevassed valleys. The wrinkled mountain folds filled with pines and cedars that reminded Teo of the land surrounding Marten’s Ferry. Snow draped the branches and sheets of ice edged the banks where the water was stiller.
The river’s zigzag course had brought the steamboat through the mountains, then between white cliffs pocked with the mouths of mines. Teo remembered thinking that they would never arrive, only to hear a shout go up from the front of the boat as, between the shout’s beginning and end, they shuddered free of the rock’s embrace and glided onto a flat, broad stretch of river surrounded by snowy plains that sloped down towards the dim line of the rocky tumble marking the city.
Ridley shouted at him again. He scurried to stack suitcases for a passenger: the Advocate, who had boarded at the last stop and said he had to get to the Ducal Offices as soon as possible once the steamboat had landed. Teo ran back and forth, gathering up the Advocate’s belongings.
As he stacked them beside the railing, Teo let out a sigh. He had not minded life on the boat at all, but always at the back of his mind this had worried at him, an insistent tug like testing the edges of a scab: What would happen next? He had tried to avoid looking at it. He jittered where he stood, knowing he should fetch the next brass-bound trunk, but he was consumed by his own worries, approaching as insistently as the shore.
He certainly knew what was expected of him. To let Eloquence hurry to the Temples of the Moons and turn him over as a new acolyte. He didn’t want to go to the Temples. He didn’t want a life of piety and drudgework, no matter what promises his parents had made on his behalf.
The
Lily
rode low in the icy river, its hold stuffed with furs and salted fish, northern goods brought from small hamlets in the wilds, like Teo himself. He could see workers on the dock and wagons awaiting their cargo. Everyone was busy, everyone was bustling about, even Captain Urdo, who was hurrying up from below decks with a sheaf of papers, the quartermaster in tow behind him.
Finally the Advocate was readied and the other luggage had been stacked near the gangway. Teo returned to the boat’s side to watch the fireworks. He rubbed his palms over the railing’s cool brass, so recently polished, oblivious to the smears he left.
The white moon, Selene, had gleamed full and fish-belly white on the icy banks when he’d first stepped on board the steamboat. Now it sailed above him while the rockets reached ineffectually for it. Toj, the tiny purple moon that changed full to thin and back again every few days, trailed in its wake like a bull-pup chasing its mother. Hijae was a thin, blood-colored crescent.
By the time the
Water Lily
approached the pier, Captain Urdo watching as the Pilot maneuvered the ship into its berth, the sun had vanished below the horizon. Clouds hid Selene and Toj. The solitary red moon left bloody snakes in the dark water, as though the boat had been wounded, its life seeping outward to be swallowed by the river’s darkness.
The ship jolted into place. The railing trembled beneath his fingers. Teo gripped the brass, more to feel its solidity, so unlike his stomach’s lurch, than for balance’s sake. The
Lily
was one of the last few boats still alight, not dark and sleeping. Here and there on the land, though, he could see people moving along the muddy, half-frozen street. The river looped here, avoiding the walled city and splitting into waterfalls that set the city’s northern boundary.
Cannons boomed in the distance as Urdo stepped up beside him. Teo braced himself, ready to be scolded back to work, but the Captain seemed willing to overlook his idleness now that they had arrived. Maybe the fireworks marked some event that had pardoned Teo of responsibility.
“Is it a celebration?” he asked.
Urdo snorted. “The Duke wouldn’t waste the money. Politics, boy.” He’d trimmed his hair and beard sometime that day, Teo noted. Pink skin shone next to the weathered, tanned spots that had been exposed to the river wind and weather.
“Politics?”
Teo hadn’t dared speak to the Captain since being placed in the boat’s charge. He was too aware of the Captain’s grandeur and his own skinniness, his ears that protruded like jug handles waiting to be grabbed, the intimation of fuzz on his face. His blonde hair bristled wildly, no matter how much he tried to slick it down with water or oil.
Now, though, excited curiosity filled him, squirted out of him in the single word.
“Tabat’s rounding up on its three hundredth year,” Urdo said. A pair of rockets spoke and flashed again, setting his hawk-nosed features in relief. He was Old Continent blood, his skin darker than Teo’s even at the end of a long, bright summer. “One of the Duke’s ancestors promised it would become a democracy before that happened. And so it is, and all the city’s alight with fireworks and frenzies and candidates juggling for their positions in the race. You’ve arrived just in time, boy, to find a city full of changes.”
“I don’t want it to change,” Teo said. “I just got here!” The vehemence in his tone surprised him. Exactly when along the long trip had his excitement built to this point, taken fire without him noticing?
Three rockets arched in parallel over the ocean before bursting into showers of indigo and gold sparks.
Urdo laughed. “You’ve arrived well,” he said. “All three moons in the sky.” He pointed eastward, where the triumvirate gleamed above a bank of clouds. “They say finishing a journey under three moons is good luck, and under one is sorrow.”
“What about two?”
“Then your luck is nothing out of the ordinary.”
Teo’s hand strayed to the coinless thong around his neck. Eloquence held his coin, entrusted to him by Grave. He’d refused to let Teo have it. If he went to the Temples, they’d give it back to him.
What if they blamed Grave’s accident and absence on him? He couldn’t be blamed for the Fairy bite, though. He’d done his best and saved the Priest’s life.
He licked wind-bitten lips, feeling a chill run its fingers along his spine. Time was running out. He had to get away before the Temples swallowed him.
“What moon are you?” Urdo asked.
“Toj.”
“Toj the Trickster.” Urdo nodded, but said nothing more. He turned as Ridley approached. “Did you rouse the Dock Keeper?”
“Aye,” Ridley said. “He’s bringing his crew round.”
“Very well.”
Ridley squeezed in beside Teo and the angle where the railing shaped itself to the boat’s contours. He half hung over the rail, his eyes excitement-wide.
“I never seen buildings like that before,” he said, staring at the street. “Look how high they are! That one’s got three stories! Must be building with bricks. And smell that, do you? Eloquence says it’s from the factories on the northern side of the city, the Slumpers, where they make all the tiles.”
“Why do they call them the Slumpers?” Teo asked.
“Dunno. Townfolk, go figure. Look, there they are.” Ridley pointed towards the street as a bulky form obscured a distant window’s light. “Bet you didn’t see Beasts like that back home, Teo.”
Teo squinted through the darkness. “What are those?”
“Minotaurs,” Urdo said. “Dock labor needs heavy lifting, and those Beasts have stronger backs than most. You’ll find Tabat full of Beasts, Teo. Minotaurs, Mermaids, Piskies—anything you can imagine. But you’ll need to remember that here the divisions are stricter. It’s not like your village, where Beasts might get treated as though they were regular people. Country ways are looser. Here, people won’t think much of you if you act as though Beasts and Humans are the same.”
Ridley said, “There’s Abolitionists in Tabat, aren’t there?”
“Abolitionists?” Teo asked even as Urdo said, “It doesn’t do to get mixed in with that sort. Claiming that Beasts should be on the same standing as Humans. Fools and criminals, that’s all they are. I pity the man or Beast who gets tangled in their foolishness and lies. Stay away from such folk.”
He gave Teo a warning look. Teo blushed, staring down at his toes before glancing towards the dock.
Three great Minotaurs paced in the wake of their Keeper, pulling an empty wagon. When they stopped they unbuckled their harnesses in a laborious, thick-fingered process.
The impatient Dock Keeper prodded them into place, and the Beasts, several heads higher than any of the sailors around them, began passing the crates and barrels to the pier and onto a waiting wagon.
Teo watched, fascinated. They were as ponderous as ancient oaks. Ripples of muscle moved as they shifted the cargo, crawled beneath their skin like furrows of earth following a plow’s line.
As the darkness thickened, two streetlights sprang to life beside the dock. The brilliant white light made Teo gasp as it showed the network of scars across the nearest Minotaur’s back, silvery weals and keloids that gave the dark skin an irregular, almost corrugated appearance. Past the lights Teo glimpsed a lean, middle-aged man in a bright blue coat leading a cart with what Teo thought must be a Gryphon harnessed to it.
Urdo laughed as Teo jumped. “Welcome to civilization, boy! The Duke developed those lights with the College of Mages. By the end of the year, they’ll be throughout the major parts of the city.”
“How are they fueled?”
The Gryphon was bigger than any ox back home. Its beak, as large as his head, reminded him suddenly of the eagles that nested at home in the tall pines, but he put the thought away. He was here in Tabat now, in a new place, one that would be different from his village. A place where he could be more than he could ever hope to be back home.
Urdo tapped his nose. “Magic.” He returned the Gryphon driver’s wave before turning to Teo. “Anyhow, you can’t stay here tonight, boy. Go find Eloquence. He’ll see you’re taken to your Temple.”
“What?” Teo said with a rush of panic. “Why can’t I just sleep in my berth again? I thought he’d take me to them in the morning, so I’d have time to explore the city.”
Urdo shrugged. “He said to tell you to come find him.”
Ridley touched his shoulder as the Captain headed towards the gangplank to speak to the Dock Keeper. Teo stared at the water under the pier, where spangles of light danced like false coins. His spirits felt sodden and sorrowful. “I thought I’d have more time.”
“You still do,” Ridley said. “You have to—remember, Eloquence gave you a skiff to ride the Tram!”
“How can I do that? Once I enter Toj’s Temple, they won’t let me out till I’m done with my acolyte period!”
“Look,” said Ridley. “Maybe he’ll let you meet him in the morning. You can rough it on the streets for a night. You deserve a chance to see things before you go into the Temples, eh? Not like you were the one who promised yourself.”
Teo nodded uncertainly. Grave had healed Elya in exchange for the promise of Teo. If he reneged, would his sister relapse? Or was it all just an excuse to remove his failure from the village? Doubt crawled in his heart.
But he didn’t need to go to the Temples right away, did he? The moons wouldn’t betray him if he played truant just long enough to learn the city and see its sights.
Eloquence hustled him down the gangplank. Teo found himself on Tabat’s river dock with the other passengers taken on over the course of the journey—two Merchants who dealt in pine gum and fine papers, the traveling Advocate and her clerk, an elderly man who wore a grimy top hat and refused to speak his business to anyone, and the sailors, along with the cook. The Advocate, trailed by her clerk, left quickly as soon as they stepped on land. The rest of them milled around, collecting luggage, saying goodbyes, and settling up accounts. Teo wavered, unsure which way to go, then fell into the majority’s wake.