6
The cart driver let me down right inside the city gates. We had been waved through by guards with plumed helmets and muddied boots, the buttons on their coats all shined up like pennies.
At first I thought it was all terribly grand, looking up at the ornate masonry, but as soon as we rumbled out from under the archway, I saw the midden piles and the narrow streets, houses leaning in on each other like gossiping neighbors, and any awe I might have felt disappeared right quick.
The cart driver came round to the back to let down the gate, and I jumped down frog legged. I kept up the tale of my sick aunt, although I knew by now that he didn’t believe me. He stared into my face from under beetled brows but did not question me out loud. Why should he care if I was running away, or had got myself into mischief? “Be careful,” was all he said.
I was picking bits of hay out of my clothes for a good hour afterward.
So. The city. It wasn’t anywhere near as frightening as I had imagined—not because it wasn’t enormous, loud, and stinking, because it was all three of those things, but because its enormousness meant I was near invisible. No one gave me so much as a glance.
I wandered upward, because that was the only way I knew to go, scratching at the hay rash on my arms and legs, and had a good look at the place as I went. I knew the city was meant to be full of cutpurses and murderers, but I had no purse to cut and, honestly, being murdered might at that point have been a relief, so I didn’t trouble myself overly.
At first, I was in the outskirts, where the poorer people lived; I could tell. The roads all sloped upward, and if I squinted, I could see greenery and white walls farther uphill. The king was in his castle at the very top of the hill, and everyone else spiraled out neatly in their correct order, nobles and sorceresses and merchants and poor folk, down to the beggars who squatted right against the city’s outer walls.
As I climbed, the smell of shite about the lower levels gave way to the scent of fruit from the trees that lined the streets, and of the city’s blooming flowers that clambered over every wall, great fat things with too many petals, like women wearing all their best clothes at once.
The uphill wasn’t kind to my tired legs, but the pulling at my ribs drew me forward, like a toddler hanging onto my hand and dragging me on to show me a favorite toy. The pull became more and more enthusiastic as we drew closer. I was panting already from the climb, and this didn’t help.
About halfway up, where the houses were neat but small, I came upon a pebbled market square. I didn’t look too closely at the items for sale, because I was so preoccupied with my journey to the sorcerer, but there were definitely more frills and furbelows and sparklies than there would be at the market back home. There didn’t seem to be any shortage of produce either, and I wondered about what I had overheard in the pub about the magic-workers and their orders.
A man sitting at a stall covered with scrolls and papers and a sign saying “Letters Read and Written,” peered at me over his wire-rimmed spectacles. Before I could walk over to him, though, there was a commotion in the middle of the market that immediately threw the whole place into chaos. A crowd clustered all about something in its center, drawing yet more people as they spotted the drama and wanted to join in.
Folks were the same everywhere, it seemed: willing to postpone just about anything to get a bit of gossip. I wanted a rest, and so I propped myself against a dried-up stone fountain and watched the show.
There was a lot of scuffling and grunting from the group. The crowd parted for a moment to show two men fighting in the center, with their arms on each other’s shoulders, staring, red-faced and panting, into one another’s eyes as each tried to wrestle free. They looked like two sweethearts clenched in a dance.
Some of the spectators were egging them on, others begging them to stop. It was the usual drama you’d see outside a pub any day of the week. Or so I thought.
“Gerroff!” one of the men was saying indistinctly through his puffed-up lips. He must have taken a punch or two.
“Gimme!” said the other.
I watched with interest to see what trifling object they were fighting over. One of the men had his fist tightly clasped at his side, and so probably had the thing, whatever it was. The crowd was milling about so much that it was hard to see.
“It’s not yours!” said the first man, sounding like a child whose favorite toy had been taken away. They wrestled again, and the crowd shouted around them, and something came skittering out of the second man’s hand across the cobblestones. It made its way almost to my feet, as if seeking the one spot of calm in all the chaos. I could almost see it shaking its head. Can you believe all that fuss? it was saying.
No one seemed to notice that the object of all that bother had made its escape. The crowd still cheered the two on as if they were in a boxing match. I bent down and picked up the Thing.
It was wizened as a peach pit and about the same size, but softer, misshapen. Clearly pickled or dried. Some kind of preserved fruit, maybe? It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. There was a faint squish to it between my fingers, and it gave off a dry puff of powder when squeezed.
I had no idea why it was important, but no one had noticed it was missing. And if it was worth a street brawl, maybe it would help me barter, bargain, or bribe. I put the thing in my skirt pocket and glanced at the commotion, which had not halted a bit.
I almost wanted to stay and see their reactions when their precious object was found missing, but the urge to find the sorcerer tugged me on and upward, through the spiraling streets.
Higher up I went, and higher still. The houses here were whitewashed, with glass windows and wrought-iron gates through which I saw gardens or tiled floors. These gave way to even larger buildings, made of stone, with great doors twice the height of a man, and offering no glimpses inside at all, as if the valuables within made the houses close themselves up all tight and unfriendly.
I had expected that the houses would grow grander and larger as I wound my way up to the palace—and they did—but they also became stranger. No longer whitewashed plaster or stone, they were instead of odd, outlandish materials, strangely colored.
One looked to be made all of mirror; another of a smooth, flatly gleaming green stone. One was stained glass, patterned all over with birds and foliage; and another was luminescent and pearly, which yielded gently to my fingers when I dared to touch it, like the faint ripeness of a plum. These were magic materials, clearly, which meant I was getting close.
When I came to the sorcerer’s house, I knew it at once. It was made of that same black, shiny stuff as his carriage had been, smooth as glass. When I ran my hand over the wall, it left no grease or fingerprints, despite my hands being dirty and slippery with sweat.
So. I was here at last. I plumped myself down for a moment, my back against the shining wall, to catch my breath. There were few passersby up here, and they walked with urgency, barely glancing left or right and certainly not down at the girl in the gutter, so I felt safe enough taking a breather. I was proud of myself, I have to say, for making it all the way to the city by myself—a journey that so few from my village had ever taken.
When I felt well enough to stand, I made my way along the shining black to what looked like the gate. It was set flush into the wall, with no knob or knocker or anything announcing its presence, except a line as thin as a hair that traced its outline.
I probably wouldn’t even have noticed the door if it hadn’t been for the spell on me, which was practically jumping up and down by now, so eager was it to get inside. I was all set to rap my knuckles against the door, but it swung open as I approached, making no sound at all, the gap just wide enough for me to squeeze through.
The door was a good three feet thick, it turned out, all in that same featureless black stone. I found myself standing in an open-air space and staring at another door across the way, this one leading into the house itself.
The sorcerer either had a great love of that black stuff or very little imagination, or both, because everything out here was made out of it: the courtyard tiles, the fountains (although the water appeared to be of the usual sort), the house itself with its great front door.
He’d set dark jewels here and there—they never could resist a shiny, these magic-workers—but for the most part, it was that same expressionless, smooth, smothering blackness.
Despite its shine, it didn’t seem to have any reflective properties; bending over, I couldn’t see my face or even my shadow in the black, mirrorlike tiles. The shine came from inside it, somehow. Just as well, because it would be a right bitch to clean.
It had the smell of magic about it, magic made solid and polished to a fine sheen, and I imagined the sorcerer had invented this stuff to make himself look all the more dark and impressive. Well, it was working on me, for certain.
I found myself almost tiptoeing across the courtyard to the bejeweled front door, all hung about with spangles and sparklies glittering in all directions, like the thousand-faceted eye of a fly. Like I said, they couldn’t resist shiny things, these magic people.
The front door opened for me like the street door had, but it was nowhere near as thick. I was expecting guards barring the way, or at the very least, a snooty butler, but there was no one inside that I could see. Just more black, lit with black and glittering chandeliers that were powered by something other than fire.
The tugging directed me down the long corridor, and I followed it. I wondered why it had been so easy to get inside such a grand house. Perhaps it was so that people like me would wander in like mice into a trap. Or perhaps everyone was so frightened of the magic-workers that they would never dare to try to rob them, making guards unnecessary.
Something soft against my knee made me yell, thinking it might be a trap of some kind, but it was only a cat—black, of course—who had heard me coming and decided to investigate.
“Hello,” I said quietly, feeling a little foolish as I bent down to offer my hand. I knew better than to reach for him or presume to touch his fur without permission. After a suspicious, slit-eyed moment, he proffered the underside of his chin for a scratch, then whirled around and proceeded to escort me down the corridor.
He was the only living thing I had seen in the house so far, and so I was grateful for his company as he stepped a few feet ahead and led me forward, tail up and twitching, his little cat arsehole winking at me with each step.
He could have been leading me to his master, to the kitchens, to my doom, or just on a wild-goose chase, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to be almost at the end of my journey.
As it turned out, he was leading me to his master. The door at the end of the corridor was even grander and blacker than any of the others. The cat sat on his haunches and scratched away at the door, just as if he were any ordinary old moggy begging at any ordinary old door.
I looked behind me at the long corridor and wasn’t too surprised to see that it wasn’t long at all anymore, just a score or so steps away from the front door. Magic-workers were tricky like that, and it no doubt amused the sorcerer greatly to make his guests traipse about and lose their breath before knocking.
I knocked. The cat squawked and twined itself about my leg.
“What?” came a voice from inside.
Well, I wasn’t about to shout the whole story through a door. There wasn’t even a keyhole I could peer through. I opened the door a crack, just enough to let the cat slither past with another squawk and a quick burst of purring as if to say, thanks very much, and you’re on your own from here.
“What? Who is it? Come in.”
The voice was a man’s but petulant: the kind of voice that deserved a clout around the ear. I pushed the door open with more courage and then immediately regretted it, because my heart gave such a leap from the power of his presence that I thought I might actually keel over.
“Who the hells are you?” said the sorcerer.
At first, I couldn’t see anything but the mess. Plates and plates of food, only half-licked clean by the cat’s tongue, and still loaded with enough bones and bits of gristle and crust to feed a herd of pigs.
Fine food, as it turned out, stank worse than plain food when left to rot. All those creams and sauces, maybe. The worst stale bread and old cheese could smell of was stale bread and old cheese, but this room smelled of the overripe armpits of a dozen fancy ladies.
How could he bear it? Wouldn’t it just take one wave of his hand, the magic of one purloined heart, to keep his dishes clean forever? Of course, I didn’t know anything about how their magic worked, but it wasn’t much use if it couldn’t even mop a floor.
I looked up from the mess and saw that the sorcerer was sprawled across a throne, a big, dark throne, just as I had pictured it, made of the same diamond-bright blackness as the rest of the house. It was magnificent, no doubt, but didn’t he long for a cushion or two? Was even his bed made of the same mad stuff?
His head was on the seat; one arm was dangling down and the other thrown up to hang over the back; and his legs were folded up into a black triangle against the other arm of the throne. He seemed boneless as a scarecrow. As I watched, the white hand draped over the back of the throne twitched its fingers, setting its rings all to sparkling.
“I said, who the hells are you?” he repeated, but he hadn’t even bothered to turn his head from where it was fixed, staring at the ceiling. I could see his profile, that aristocratic beak of a nose and the strong chin that I remembered from the village.
Even strewn all about like a cut bundle of rushes, his limbs looked elegant. I could have taken each of them in my mouth and sucked them like sticks of cinnamon. I could have pressed my cheek against the sole of his foot and been perfectly happy, so happy that it just might have killed me.
I came closer, and he finally looked at me properly. I imagined what he must be seeing: a short, solid figure with travel-mussed red braids (probably still with some bits of straw sticking out), an unremarkable face, plump in the cheeks, and a pair of rather small blue eyes.
I also wondered if his elegant, magical nose could smell the bad fortune that clung to me from my cursed birth, or if it had some visible aura he could see. Honestly, at that moment, I didn’t much care.
He raised an eyebrow as he looked me up and down, but the pain in my chest had eased so greatly that I felt almost joyful, despite the strangeness of the place and my uncertainty. I could put up with being stared at and no doubt deemed unworthy, for the cessation of that terrible pain.
“Foss,” I said. I debated adding a “sir,” but decided that he didn’t deserve it, what with all the trouble he had caused. I hated how much I was drawn to him. The closer I got, the closer I wanted to get. It felt like the only way to satisfy the straining of my guts toward him would be for him to unbutton his skin like a suit of clothes and let me climb inside.
He swung his legs around and sat up, his hair fanning out in a perfect black swathe before settling itself back into even waves about his jaw and neck. This close, I could see his gray blue eyes had gold rings about the pupils. I could have stared at them until I starved.
It was strange to feel these things, and yet at the same time to be aware of feeling them, and to know how ridiculous it was to be feeling them.
“Foss? What kind of a name is that?”
Rude little so-and-so, my Da would have said. He really did have the kind of face that begged for a good punch—indifferent and arrogant at once, as if he couldn’t be bothered with the world. He leaned his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, looking for all the world like a gargoyle perched on a window ledge, and stared at me, still waiting for an answer.
“It’s a type of flower,” I said finally, reluctantly. “Where I come from.”
I imagined I could see him thinking he had never seen anything less flowerlike. Fair point , I thought. My name had always been something of an embarrassment. He rubbed at his nose, violently.
“Have you come for a spell? I haven’t the energy today,” he said. “Go ask someone else.”
The irony of it. I didn’t even want the spell I had. “No,” I said.
“Then why have you come here?”
Well, you leave the doors unlocked and unguarded, I wanted to say, and surely people wander in all the time. I searched those gold-rimmed gray blue eyes for a hint of recognition, but there was none. I felt affronted. Clearly he had no memory of me at all.
“What do you want? A charm? Something to ensnare a sweetheart?” He spoke with self-mockery more than scorn, but I still felt my whole self bristle.
“You sell those things?”
“I can. I’m no better than a hedge-witch in that respect. Although my charms are more expensive.”
“I don’t want a charm.”
His interest was waning, like a little boy’s. He picked at his sleeve, looked about, chewed at the edge of a nail.
“Well, then ...” he began.
“I’ve come to be your housekeeper,” I said, before I had realized the words were queued up on my tongue and ready to jump out.
“Oh,” he said. “Well.”
He clicked his fingers. The black cat appeared like smoke.
“The cat will show you where things are.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected him to accept it so suddenly and without question.
“Go on. Clear off. I’m thinking.”
I bent down to pick up one of the dirty plates.
“Leave it! Leave it. You can get it later. Go on.”
The cat raised its tail like a banner and started marching back toward the big doors, glancing back over its shoulder to make sure I was coming. I straightened up and followed, feeling with each step away from the sorcerer that the ache was becoming worse again.
Still, it was a thousand, thousand times better than it had been in the village. And if I had to live with something permanently that was no worse than a mild stomachache, I could manage that.
The doors opened as if, well, as if by magic, and the cat sauntered through. I glanced back, once, and saw that the sorcerer was sprawled out again, staring at the ceiling, but now with one hand clicking its fingers in the air as if to inaudible music. I had not asked his name.