Chapter Thirty The Maiden and the Stable Girl #2
The Cobra clasped her trembling hands. Over his golden shoulder, Caracalla saw her brother’s expression change slightly and wondered for an instant if she had made a bad mistake.
“Marius,” snarled Lucius, his cane clattering to the flagstones with the sound of bone, not metal. The way he spoke was not the way a friend would speak a name, but the hungry sound of the dead, tricking their prey, laying claim to a kill.
Caracalla gave a small scream and clung to the Cobra. Just then came a footfall upon the grand staircase.
The brown-haired, grey-gowned, very small woman descended the steps, hands demurely folded, gaze modestly upon the floor. Every soul in the hall fell silent on her approach.
Eumenida Valerius, the duchess, their lady mother. Caracalla was half a head taller than she, and Marius a tower to her, but she had a way about her. If the duchess had ever set foot on a ship, she would have been its captain.
“Lord Lucius,” she murmured. “I’m not accustomed to entertaining the dead, but if my son says you are welcome, so do I. Delighted to receive you to Ancilley House. I fear my dear children grow overwrought in your presence. Please retire to the smoking room.”
As soon as the duchess’s feet touched the flagstones of the hall, Master Engus wheeled across the flat, grey stone to her side. With the swiftness of someone who had a secret to protect, Caracalla saw Lucius take note.
Lord Lucius’s eyes were as cold as a soldier’s taking stock of an enemy, but his voice was filled with courteous apology. Soft though he hated to disoblige a lady, Lucius said, “I cannot smoke.”
An edge of ice gleamed in the duchess’s whisper. “And I cannot truly feel delight you are here. Yet we pretend, otherwise society collapses, and we all run around screaming in despair as madness closes in and tea is never served. Caracalla, my love, you have my leave to depart.”
Caracalla fled.
In desperate need of comfort, Caracalla went down to the stables.
Amid the soothing rustle of straw and soft neighs, she went to the rations box and produced an apple she then fed to her childhood pony Clover, and a dead rat she fed to her war steed Swift Fang.
Swift Fang, true to her name, had already eaten the head off her rat when Caracalla heard the noise.
She spun in terror that the ghoul had come to find her, and found the stable girl who wore breeches regarding her with startled dismay. Caracalla waved a hello with the hand still grasping a headless rat.
The stable girl looked horrified. Which was odd, considering her profession.
While the poor did own sad, vegetarian horses, anybody rich enough to hire help for the horses must be rich enough to own a proper steed.
Nobody accustomed to a noble’s stables would be discomposed by the sight of a war steed’s bloodied fangs.
When fleeing the city, Caracalla suspected the girl had grabbed for any protection: breeches, and the claim to a useful trade.
Very clever of her. If you were not protected, you perished. Caracalla lowered the hand holding the headless rat, and offered a friendly smile.
“Hello there. Ink, is it? I’m Caracalla.”
“I know who you are, Lady Caracalla,” said the stable girl reverently. Caracalla’s mother would be pleased at least one of the strangers in their home felt appropriate awe when dealing with nobility.
Caracalla herself didn’t require awe. She wished for sympathy. “There’s someone dead and talking in the manor!”
“What?” Ink sounded outraged. “That should not be happening.”
“It should not! Luckily Marius is dealing with the situation. He will know what’s best.”
Ink nodded. “He always does.”
So true. Caracalla was glad they agreed. It made her wonder whether she might ask Ink the truly important questions.
She started with the easiest question first. “Is Lord Marius Valerius the most noble and valiant knight in the world?”
“Yes,” said the stable girl.
Correct!
“Are breeches more convenient for riding?”
“Yes.”
As suspected!
“Do you want to be best friends?”
“Yes.” The stable girl paused. “Wait.”
Caracalla clapped in joy. She had never possessed a best friend before. Or a friend at all, really, but it was only reasonable to try for the best.
“You can’t take it back. I hope you’re a woman of your word.
As a Valerius, I scorn to tell a lie. We Valerius are men and women of honour.
We kill people, some would say too frequently, but that’s much more honourable than telling lies.
Consult any book about knights and it will tell you the same. ”
The stable girl blinked. “Do you kill people?”
“Not frequently at all,” Caracalla promised. “Maybe one person once, but I don’t think she counts above half.”
“I’d like you to explain what that means before I agree to be best friends!”
Ink had already agreed, but Caracalla was ready to explain if it would smooth the path of fellowship.
“My old teacher, before Master Engus, always said I would be the death of her. Once I was climbing from my bedchamber window to evade my lady mother’s lessons on ladylike comportment.
I intended to drop gently into the flowerbed, but unfortunately Mistress Una had stopped to smell the roses.
I happened to land on her with force. She took to her bed and died two weeks later.
But it might have been a coincidence! She was extremely ancient. ”
Ink regarded Caracalla with horror. “That must have been distressing.”
“Not really, she wasn’t a gifted teacher. I much prefer Master Engus.”
Ink the stable girl seemed to chew on this with the same deliberation Caracalla’s old pony did on her apple. Caracalla patted the spot on the hay bale beside her encouragingly.
“So, are we best friends?” Caracalla bit her lip. “Unless you already have one?”
For a moment Ink looked suddenly and unbearably sad.
“No,” she answered slowly. “I don’t have one.”
Caracalla was puzzled, until it occurred to her Ink’s previous best friend must have been slaughtered when ice raiders attacked the capital. What a tragedy.
On the other hand, it left a place vacant for Caracalla.
Slowly, Ink came over to sit on the hay bale beside Caracalla.
Who savoured her victory for a moment, then inquired, “So, my dear friend. What tidings from the capital?”
“The raiders are at the gates,” said Ink impressively. “The god-Emperor has risen with the hungry dead.”
Caracalla shook her head in deep disappointment. “I know all that. Tell me, does the Golden Cobra have a paramour?”
She didn’t wish to hear tedious news. She wanted to hear gossip.
“Many paramours!”
“I know he is a rake,” Caracalla nodded with relish. “We are betrothed, you see.”
“I’m so sorry,” murmured Ink.
“I’m delighted,” Caracalla assured her. “He’s kind and amusing and handsome – what more could one wish in a husband? Only I would like to capture his heart, and I wished to know if I have a serious rival. The court says not?”
The lamplight, held far from the dangers of dry haystack and nervous horse, shone upon a moment of silence. Ink seemed to be struggling, as the Cobra had earlier, with the decision to speak when speaking might change all things.
Caracalla’s new friend took her hand. Ink’s fingers were not callused as a real stable hand’s would be, confirming Caracalla’s growing suspicions that she might be a rich merchant’s daughter in disguise. How thrilling!
Ink’s eyes were huge and dark in the lamplight.
When she spoke, her words were darker still.
“The court says the Cobra blackmailed your brother to act the part of friendship, and Lord Marius secretly hates him. The court says nobody knows where the Cobra came from, or where he gets his fortune. And I say, whatever you do, Lady Caracalla, don’t trust the Marquis of Popenjoy.
He’s a liar. Ask your brother! The Cobra is a villain. ”
Naturally, Caracalla did not believe any vile rumours about her betrothed and dearest love. Her lady mother said the lower classes had an unsophisticated view of life. Ink only meant that the Cobra took lovers. Everybody knew that.
Still, when Caracalla went creeping up the staircase of her tower and saw a movement in the dark, her heart went wild and her hands searched the stone wall for a weapon as she thought it was Lucius, or worse: her father, like a monster in a night-told tale, back to finish what he started.
Ink’s warning meant her heart did not quiet, even when she saw it was the Cobra.
He sat on the lowest step of the stairs, one hand in his loosed braids and one holding a letter.
A woman’s writing, Caracalla saw that much with her Valerius sight, until the Cobra caught her eye and tucked the letter away with a shake of his head.
He was used to Marius being able to see and hear what others could not, she supposed.
“Is that a letter from one of your lovers?” Caracalla asked. “I wish you wouldn’t have so many. It distresses—” she did not wish to be an overbearing wife “—my brother.”
“Does it?”
“You know how he is,” said Caracalla. “So honourable.”
It wasn’t a lie. The subject did distress Marius. Anyone could tell.
“This is not a letter from one of my lovers.”
“One of your spies, then.”
Caracalla nodded wisely. In a way, having many spies must be like being a Valerius. You could see and hear what others could not.
“Who has been telling you dreadful stories about me?”
The Cobra’s smile flashed bright, then dimmed almost immediately, as if under the shadow of a dark suspicion.
Caracalla hastened to reassure him. “I like terrible stories.”
“Do you?” asked the Cobra softly. “Here’s one. What if a friend wrote to you that you could stop a great disaster? That you could save an innocent soul. Except in order to save one, you would need to put another person in their place. To die in their place.”
“Oh, you couldn’t,” Caracalla said at once. “That wouldn’t be right. That would just be killing the other person.”
Through Valerius eyes, she saw the faintest release of tension in the Cobra’s shoulders.
“Unless, of course, the other person would be willing to take the innocent soul’s place. But how likely is that?” Caracalla shrugged. “Who would volunteer to die?”
The Cobra murmured, “A hero.”
“A hero” should be a beautiful thing to say, but somehow from the Cobra’s lips it made Caracalla shiver. She thought again of Lord Lucius the ghoul, of her father, and of her new friend calling the Cobra a villain.
The Cobra’s voice was as low as the sigh of cold wind through the stone corridors of the manor, as if talking to his own soul. “If there was a hero, and an innocent soul, and one of them must die, and only you knew you could replace one with the other, what would you do then?”
“I suppose I would have to ask myself…” said Caracalla. “Which one I was willing to sacrifice.”