The Stumpwork Robe (The Chronicles of Eirie 1) (24 page)

‘What,’ she shouted, signalling to Luther. He pulled Kholi to stand straighter by tightening the garotte again. ‘Tell me,’ she snarled in his face, some spit
tal hitting his cheek which twitched as he answered.

As strong and defiant as he could manage, stronger even than the man who had stood in front of Bellingham the day he had tried to rape Ana, he sneered. ‘Then you must search more, woman.’ The words croaked out like a man who had wandered the Amritsands without water. ‘Because with
Liam’s soul, you do not have what you seek.’

‘What say you?’ She grabbed Kholi’s shirt and pulled at it so he stumbled toward her, the garotte cutting further so the beads became a steady stream. He swallowed, knowing nothing he could do now would help the situation. His heart ached as he thought of Adelina back at the van waiting for he and Liam to return. He thought of big hairy
Mogu, of Lalita.

‘WHAT!’ Severine screamed in his face, shrieking like the Symmer wind. Her eyes were filled with a fury that reminded Kholi of ancient t
ales of the fires of damnation.

‘Because Liam gave up his immortality,’ He smiled as the woman’s jaw dropped, wanting to fatally wound her, to cut out her heart and feed it to the dogs, to strike her fool’s ambition down utterly. ‘In order to live with Ana for the duration of her life, he took buckthorn potion. He has not been an immortal for two weeks or more. In your little bag, lady, you hold merely a mortal soul, as short of life as the rest of us.’

‘But he is Faeran,’ Severine screeched in dismay, her life-long vision crumpling at the edges just as Ana’s soul had done when she had been disillusioned. As Liam’s soul had done when he died.

‘Yes, lady,’ Kholi tried to stand tall over her as the garotte dug deeper and deeper, cutting close to his windpipe and the precious life-giving blood vessels in his neck. He girded himself, gathering strength into his deep voice. ‘But his soul is mortal. As plainly mortal as you or I.’

Severine’s face flushed. She crushed the bag to her chest feeling the glacial cold seep through the fabric.
But if Liam’s soul was mortal, would it be so frigid and would the syphon have sucked out a mortal soul?
No, the Raji lies. It’s an execrable trick, some insensible way for the filth to get back at me for killing his friend.
She turned toward Kholi and studied him for a moment and then smiled. ‘You lie. Luther, kill him.’

Kholi began to struggle as the garrotte tightened. Severine, not wanting to see blood spilled, began to walk away. But as she climbed over a root of the waterbeech she heard a bubbling scream as the Raji yelled, ‘You’ll find out!’

***

Oh my faithful reader, grief freezes my mind as much as that chamois bag froze Severine’s hands. Pack away these books quickly and move on away from it all.
See the soft taupe butterfly with the gold trimmed wings. Lift the wing and there, another journal. And then follow the shooting gold stars to the clouds, stitched with metal thread in excruciating trellis stitch. My fingers bled... a form of penury you see. In amongst the clouds, a further book.

I have no words to speak to you at this moment. Read on.

Chapter Thirty Six

The kettle had boiled dry twice as Adelina waited for the men to return. On a whim, she took out the robe from the drawers, tapped it with the wand and then hung it from a hook against one wall. She sat gazing at it and then took a piece of paper and some charcoal and began to sketch the gown with its panels, labelling each panel and then drawing them larger and in more detail as she began to sequence her stumpwork designs around the robe, always looking for something to link each piece to the next. It was with satisfaction that she sat back after drawing a flight of bees between one element and the next. Yes, that was it. The vital link defined; more and more little gold and black bees flying from leaf to tree.

To fill in time she laid out her stumpwork pieces to determine how much work she had yet to do. Already she had a supply of wired leaves, berries filled with Pymm knots and silk stitched butterfly wings. As she lifted the last of the beechwood hoops filled with calico and to which she had applied various botanical elements, she came across a small wooden circle with a little
Raji man embroidered on silk in its circumference. She held it up to the light to
admire it.

He stood, legs akimbo with red and yellow silk pantaloons and a red tunic belted widely by a bronze cummerbund. His face was beautifully shaped and embroidered on the finest sun-tinted organza, right down to the indigo tattoos on the cheekbones. Atop the head sat a red fez, with a swinging navy silk tassel. Adelina ran her finger down the four or so inches of his length to the tiny brown leather shoes with their quaint, up-turned toes. She touched his hands. One waited, fingers curled.

Her mind drifted to the road where Ana had embroidered Aladdin. She remembered the night Kholi had told the story and how they had sat glued to his every gem-like word. Some days later, Ana completed her stitching and shyly displayed it.

‘Ana! You truly have a great skill. I am so proud of you. Kholi, Liam, look at this.’

‘He needs one thing, my little dove... a lamp.’ Kholi had said. ‘A bright gold one.’

‘Indeed he does,’ Adelina observed. ‘And we shall find one and if we polish it maybe we will have wishes as well.’

Adelina re-wrapped the tiny Aladdin and felt her teeth chewing the inside of her lip. Ana was a bridge between us all, she thought. The woman had single-handedly reconfigured the geography of their lives.
Oh dear girl, how your own life re-configured as well.
She wiped her eyes with her fingers. Hating the solitude, she squirmed
on her knees on the floor, circulation stemmed, numbness pervading.
Somewhere out of a sudden swirling blackness, she coughed, a sawing
pain cutting into her throat. Continuing to cough as if she would turn herself inside out, her heart banging, she reached for a mug of water.
‘Oh by Aine,’ she gasped. ‘I wallow in my own pain too much’

Eventually she could swallow more easily and the sensation of wire stuck in her throat gentled but a feeling of unease disturbed her as she stood in the door of the van. The sun was high in the sky and she cocked her head to listen for any sign of the approaching men.
Nothing.
Just birds and the contented snort of Ajax as he grazed at his tether. Mogu lay on the ground, her legs folded neatly underneath, eyes closed, chewing her cud like a house-cow. Ajax whinnied and Adelina looked up. ‘Liam? Kholi?’
She jumped off the step to the ground, catching her skirt on a splinter as
she landed and she turned away from the clearing to unfasten the garment and make sure it wasn’t torn, nor the feather ripped off. Satisfied, she stood for a moment, wondering why evident relief had not filled her veins, why she experienced a cold shudder and why the hair on her arms stood up and her neck prickled underneath her hair.
Someone’s behind me. Someone’s there!

She began to turn but her arms were grabbed firmly and a large, sweaty
and blood-covered hand covered her mouth so that she smelt the odour of gore. She was turned round roughly and a figure dressed in dark green strode into her vision.

‘Adelina. It is good to see you again.’ Severine smiled, a smirk filled with an arrogance Adelina remembered well. She tried to answer but speech was impossible. ‘Now, now,’ laughed Severine. “Don’t speak. Luther is going to muffle you and I am going to make you a drink. I thought to give you a lesson in etiquette, because you seemed so ignorant of it the other day. Or perhaps we could call it payment for the unexpected turn at the Faeran silk stall.’

Adelina thought back to that flay-filled moment at the market and her heart sank. It had only been a matter of time; she knew Severine would make her pay. Luther’s grip was oxen-strong and she watched as Severine busied herself at the fire. Luther had tied the muffle so tight over her mouth that her lips and cheeks numbed and a sharp pain throbbed where he had caught her hair in the knot at the back of her skull. He had bound her hands; wrapped round and round in a thin skein of silk and she pulled hard against the bonds.

Severine saw her and commented. ‘It’s no use, Adelina. It’s Faeran silk. And we all know how exceptional such silk is, don’t we?’ The woman filled a mug and brought it over. Unstoppering a phial, she dripped in some thick black drops that left a resinous tang in the air although Adelina knew it was something far more dangerous. Her eyes sought Severine’s and she tried to speak.

‘Now, now, it’s rude to talk with your mouth full and it is even ruder to refuse something offered in hospitality. Just drink this and you will be fine. I think it’s time you had a nice long rest.’
Luther grabbed her hair and jerked her head back, ripping the
muffle off, tears stinging her eyes as Severine pinioned her chin with the sharp talons of her free hand. Forcing the drink to Adelina’s mouth, she nodded at Luther and he prodded her throat with a dagger. She gasped and as her mouth opened in shock, Severine poured the drink down. Coughing, spluttering, she toppled to her knees with Luther still holding her by the hair. A roaring sound filled her ears as if she lay on the seashore and listened to waves being blown in over damp sand. Her protagonists’ faces liquefied; blurring and fading as a rush of something bitter filled her mouth. She sank to the ground.

Severine stood looking at the tawny figure as it lay crumpled.
‘There was enough poppy to keep her drugged for a day and a night. Keep her that way, Luther. Take her in the van. Hobble the camel and leave it.’
She mounted her horse, springing with an agility that belied the thin,
delicate body.
‘I will be in Veniche for a few days and shall make my way to the coast as soon as I am able. You know what to do. Keep her drugged and clean and safe. I need her skill to finish my plan. How I am longing to see her face when the realization that she must work for me finally sinks in.’
Clapping her heels to the horse, it sprang away at a gallop.

Luther watched until the horse had disappeared out of sight and then picked up the Traveller, throwing her roughly over his shoulder.
He tied her to the bed, careful to protect the hands his mistress thought so valuable, staring at the voluptuous form which was totally at his mercy for the next few days. Behir, it was so tempting. He rubbed his groin crudely and backed out to step to the ground. Presently Ajax had been harnessed, kicking and biting, and the van began to sway and creak as it rolled along the road, Luther’s whip plying sharp cracks in the air. Adelina’s head rolled sideways on the pillow but she didn’t waken. Nor did she hear the bellows of the hobbled camel or the cries as Ajax neighed back.

Mogu’s throaty cries filled the forest. Anxious birds dipped and dived between branches and twittered restlessly, the tenor of the fettered camel creating trepidation.

She tried to shuffle forward but the rope hobbles from fore to hind leg
threatened to tip her over and with her great height and bulk, she instinctively feared injury. So she was reduced to bellows, gut-wrenching cries that could be heard over the top of the Luned’s canopy.

Jasper urged his horse faster when he heard the roar, his horse stumbling as the sound wound between the oaks, ashes and elms. He pounded into the clearing and pulled to a sliding halt, dust surrounding he and the animal and as it cleared he saw Mogu. He leaped from the saddle and walked toward the beast, holding out his hand and soothing it with a gabble of soft words. She curled her lips and spat, trying to shuffle away but Jasper continued to advance, softly softly, until he was nose to nose with the beast. Gently he touched the cambered face, whispering, until the camel groaned back. The groans became bereft bleats and finally Mogu dropped her head and rubbed it against Jasper’s arm. He stepped to her leg and slashed the rope with a sharp blade.

‘Have they gone, my friend? Have they left you? I doubt they have gone willingly.’ He worked at the front knot, undid it and pulled it away, throwing it on the glowing embers of the campfire. ‘For Kholi Khatoun would never leave his faithful Mogu.’ He pulled the other knot free and threw that with disgust after the rest. ‘Mogu, my friend, will you follow me while I look for them, find out where they have been taken? There is time surely to save them all.’ But as he spoke the most suffocating despair settled upon him and he clicked his horse to follow, dragging at the reins. Mogu watched. Jasper called over his shoulder. ‘Come, my girl, come with me. Help me find them.’

Mogu snaked her head from side to side, a mournful bleat shuddering
out. Then she took a tentative step and another, to follow the gentle man who had released her. They trekked along the rill about half a mile, until the sun began to slide down on the late side of the sky and birds flew up with alarm from the thickets. There were signs Jasper recognised; a cracked branch, a scatter of leaves on the ground, half a step in the mud on the side of the rill. Someone had passed this way.

Luminescence flickered through the leafy boughs of beech trees and
a tiny breeze rattled the green discs together as Jasper entered the tiny clearing. Wavelets danced across the rill as the breeze skipped to the other bank, a tranquil scene of eldritch beauty. But Jasper’s skin crawled as if ants marched across it. The mellow patterns of gold on the ground held no suggestion of sunny comfort for the old man and he, an Other who had seen life and death, wanted to cry. The tears filled his eyes as he saw the desecration before him. His horse pulled back, snorting fiercely. But Mogu walked on, up to her master’s body and nosed it gently, breathing soft breath all over it until she dropped her nose onto the blood-stained chest of her master.

Kholi Khatoun lay on his back, eyes wide, mouth snarling. His neck
was slashed wide and his life-blood had drained in a massive pool all around and then soaked into the hungry mosses. Jasper turned away.

Liam lay on his face on the other side of the clearing and as Jasper
turned him over, seeing the eyes screwed tight in some terrible reaction to pain, he knew the twisted body was merely a husk. That his death had been by soul-stealing. There was a crackling dryness about him, as if his essence, his life force had been sucked out through a straw. It was something peculiarly Other, this cruel dragging at the spirit. Jasper could barely stand, shaking with the self-loathing and disappointment of someone who has been unfailingly wrong about something of the greatest import, something that could have saved someone’s life. It was never Ana who was Liam’s bane.

‘Never!’ He shouted, choking on the words. ‘NEVER!’

Another mortal woman, a woman with a skein of dark hair falling down her back had willingly, knowingly, killed Liam of the Faeran. He touched
Liam’s forehead and heard a name sussurating on the breeze dancing back
and forth over the rill. Severine, Severine, it whispered. Weakness overcame him as he viewed the bloody violations and he sank to the ground, head ringing, ears roaring. With frantic determination, he whispered charms and incantations, pushing the frailty back, back until he could breathe deeper and focus on the insubstantial message that floated before him like a delicate river mist.

A vision wafted, stronger and weaker colours undulating. Jasper sighed tiredly, feeling a regrettable punishment approaching, but one he deserved. The prophecy ebbed and flowed like strands of hair streaming behind as a swimmer floats in a river. An indelible and bald message. Immediately and with a sick despair, Jasper knew his role for the foreseeable future was as an onlooker and it chafed him because his pain cut so deep.

Jasper plunged his face into the basin of his hands.

Not to seek, not to find.

Only to wait.

And then... to judge.

‘Not me,’ he said tiredly. ‘Not me, Liam. I cannot gainsay a prophecy.’ He took the rigid hands of the young man in his own aged ones. ‘But your soul shall be returned to you in Faeran and you can receive the farewell you deserve.’ He glanced across at Kholi and shuddered. ‘And I swear, you and Kholi shall be avenged.’

Bending over Kholi, he smoothed his hand over the bloody scorings at the neck and over the wide staring eyes and the open mouth. Kholi’s body became soft, clean and peaceful as Jasper asked Mogu to kneel down. Gently and with respect and the greatest sadness, he placed Kholi on the camel’s back. ‘My dear friend, I must tie you on. Please forgive me... I would take you to Faeran, to the Ymp Trees where... where you can rest in peace. Your dear Mogu will live with me.’ He waffled on, as kind as if Kholi was alive and merely injured. Mogu bent her neck and sniffed the dangling, inanimate toes. The look of anguish in the huge eyes was almost more than Jasper could bear. He clicked his tongue and she swayed to her feet, Kholi secure on her back.