Chapter Thirteen #2
One by one, she visited the Denizens. Each time, she stopped and asked for permission to enter their patch of courtyard, as if she stood outside their lairs.
Each time, she asked after their wounds, the conditions of their cages, and brought such little comfort as she could – but she was a prisoner here, too.
In one respect only did she differ from the other Denizens: all the rest of them were diminished under the light of the sun, but not Bait.
Orphir and I watched her progress from a high window. Some instinct told her to look up, and she glared at us with a wrath she learned from the dragon.
I told myself it was directed at Orphir, not me. I told myself she could not know me.
I had a heart again, and so had to guard it against breaking.
When I was young, I had a sister. Or, to be precise, I thought I had a sister.
My childhood on the streets of Crowhaven is another tale entirely; the absences of my drunkard father, how I met Orphir, the son of a crumbling house, how we gulled our way into the confidences of Master Pentsable – all dust on the wind now.
Not all tales need to be told – and, indeed, the story of the girl I thought was my sister goes unrecorded in any grimoire or ledger, save the record of births and deaths in the parish church.
I never told it to Bait; why I’m telling it to you will become clear in a moment.
Her name was Mira; she was a delight to me and a torment to my mother.
She was five when the plague took her. After the funeral, various aunts and uncles came back to our little house to talk and drink and remember and forget.
I was six, maybe seven, not old enough to be part of the company – and I was a sneaky wretch even then.
I thought that maybe if I eavesdropped on the talk of the adults I might learn why my sister had perished and I had lived.
There must be some reason for it, surely.
What I gleaned was something altogether different.
Mira was not my sister at all, or at best she was my half-sister.
Her mother was not my mother, and it was a matter of bawdy speculation as to who had sired her – my own father, or some other man.
It seemed that my father, who I knew chiefly as a heavy tread on the stairs, a shouted argument, a slammed door – had bedded another woman.
Mira had been born of that union, the other woman vanished (died or fled, I know not) leaving my father with another child.
He had somehow convinced my mother to raise Mira as her own, until plague cut short her little story.
My point is that I knew none of it, and, more, had no reason to suspect anything was amiss, even though there were any number of clues.
The way my mother favoured her other children over Mira, the colour of Mira’s eyes, certain comments the neighbours made.
I was a clever child, I delighted in secrets and intrigues; had I paid the slightest attention, I would not have overlooked those hints.
But children have no reason to question the first circumstances in which they find themselves; it seems to them the natural shape of the world.
Afterwards, though – I looked back, and was amazed that I did not know.
What had seemed a straight and unbending road was now revealed as but one possible path through a labyrinth of possibilities.
But what of you?
When did you first suspect what you were?
Did you wonder why you were not permitted to accompany your father into the crypt beneath the grand cathedral where your mother’s ashes were interred?
Did you question the strange potions prescribed by your physician?
Did you dream of dark places, deep under the earth?
The Princess Aldebara had been forewarned—
You had been forewarned, that is – but for the benefit of our audience, you’ll forgive me if I continue in my own manner, and give them a glimpse into the intrigues of the keep that they could not have perceived from the courtyard.
So, the Princess Aldebara had been forewarned of Bait’s capture.
As manners dictated, then, Aldebara rose from her sickbed.
This represented a great effort for her; a day out of bed meant three lying there aching and recuperating.
Servants washed and combed her long and untangled hair, and dressed her for the day.
She thanked them, very sweetly, even as she hated to rely on them.
The days when she could care for herself were like a fading dream.
She breakfasted on the same fare as the rest of the castle, although she ate with knife and fork of carved bone, not iron; the touch of iron sickened her.
Despite these precautions, she ate little.
She kept the shutters closed, and ate by candlelight, for sunlight hurt her eyes.
Only at the last minute, when she heard the guards’ footsteps on the stair, did Aldebara order the shutters be thrown back and the room flooded with daylight.
When Bait entered, her counterpart had a halo so bright she swore in the Dungeon Tongue.
“Such language is inappropriate,” said Aldebara; then the shadow of a frown crossed her face.
She had never heard the Dungeon Tongue before in her life, but it was instantly familiar to her.
She rolled this discovery around in her mind, let it rest on her lips.
Under her breath she tried a few words – the hiss of a hagworm, the yowl of a troll, the rumbling hiss of a dragon. Eggs, bacon, toast.
The Dungeon Tongue was a changeling’s inheritance.
Nala pushed Bait over the threshold. “It’s polite to curtsey before the princess, Bait.”
“No.”
“She is a wild creature,” said Aldebara. “We should not expect more from her. Leave us.”
Nala bowed and withdrew. The guards stayed.
“You may go also.”
“The Chancellor commanded we keep watch on this creature. It is dangerous in any shape.”
“Even mine? I can barely stand.”
“So we are commanded.”
“As you wish.” She indicated a nearby stool. “Sit, please.”
“No.”
“Please,” said Aldebara in the Dungeon Tongue.
Bait sat.
There are no mirrors in the Dungeon, and even if there had been this was not like looking in a mirror.
A mirror shows what is; this was what-might-have-been, for both of you.
Bait told me she was chiefly struck by your calm, how assured you were in your place.
You were frail, and sickly, so weak you clung to the arm of your chair for support, but your posture was impeccable, your voice more commanding than any arcane exhortation.
She said you were like glass, polished and translucent and gleaming and so very fragile.
What did you see in Bait, I wonder? A monstrous ragamuffin, trousers caked in grave dirt, fingernails black with the scrapings of the Dungeon? Something feral and wild – did you envy her vitality? Did you fear her, knowing she was the true image and you the illusion?
Or am I letting my own failings slip into the narrative? One who piles lies on lies and trades in clever sophistries forgets that truths may be found in unlikely places.
For a long moment, Bait told me, you stared at each other.
Then you spoke in the Dungeon Tongue.
“You are the true princess,” you said. You took Bait by surprise, which was quite a trick.
The guards glanced at each other; from their perspective, the princess and her changeling twin had suddenly started speaking in growls and yelps and snarls.
“I’m not a princess,” replied Bait.
“You are the daughter of King Arus and Queen Aldebeth. Royal blood flows in your veins. I am not certain what flows in mine, but whatever it is, it is drying out.”
“You know what you are, then?”
“A cuckoo.”
Bait’s frown was much more pronounced. “What’s that?”
“I know that I am a changeling. The Chancellor tells me that you are the changeling, I the original. He says that you fed from me when I was an infant, and that only by extracting those stolen vital fluids from you can I be restored to health.”
“That’s not true.”
“I know that. It is not the first lie that he has told, not the thousandth. I have had the measure of him for a long time. But it is said that the best lies have a grain of truth. I know I am dying – if I was ever really alive.”
“Why would you say that? I know dead people who were alive.”
“I hardly know anyone at all. I am permitted few visitors – and none who are not in the service of the Chancellor.”
“He’s master here then, too?”
“My father—” Aldebara caught herself. “Your father.”
“Yours more than mine.”
“Ours, then. Our father is still the king, but the Chancellor rules in his name.”
“Nala said he’s ill.”
“His infirmity is natural, unlike mine. When I first discovered what I was, I feared that I was responsible for his sickness. It is said that changelings feed on blood and the breath of infants. But it’s only age that claims him.
Age, and the Chancellor’s diligent medical care.
” Aldebara nearly swooned then, and Bait caught her.
A guard darted forward; Aldebara dismissed him with a glare.
“Is he dying?”
“Yes.”
“Are you dying?”
“That,” said Aldebara, “rather depends on you.”
“Orphir made you.”
Orphir was a human name, and it shone out of the yelping and growling of the Dungeon Tongue like a glimmering candle flame in the dark.
On hearing it, one of the guards glanced at his compatriot, then slipped out of the door.
He marched very smartly, and bowed formally to take his leave of the princess, but as soon as the door was closed and propriety observed, he broke into a sprint.
The clatter of his boots on the stone was very loud.
“We do not have much time,” said Aldebara. “He has gone to fetch the Chancellor.”
“Tell Orphir to stop attacking the Dungeon,” said Bait. “Tell him I’ll stay and help you if he lets everyone else go.”