Power & Majesty (44 page)

‘Me too,’ said Delphine between bruised lips. ‘We’re family.’ It evidently hurt her just to talk.

Velody reached out and held her friend’s hand. ‘You’ll leave now. All of you.’

She glanced at Crane and then wished she hadn’t. His face looked like someone had killed orphans in front of him. She raised the animor within her to force them out if she had to.

‘No need for that, my lass,’ said Macready lightly. ‘We’ll be going now.’ He stepped forward and stood beside Ashiol. ‘My King?’

Ashiol stood up and pushed back his chair. ‘I’m coming.’ He kept his eyes on Velody all the way to the door.

Crane reached out as he followed the others, and Velody squeezed his hand quickly. ‘Goodbye.’

‘Did you mean that?’ Delphine asked after Ashiol and the sentinels were gone and Velody had latched the door behind them.

‘I don’t see any other way,’ Velody said helplessly.

‘It’s a good idea,’ said Rhian. ‘Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll make soup for Delphine. After we’re all rested, we can make our plans.’

Velody smiled. ‘That sounds wonderful.’

T
he house was quiet as Velody went up to her room. She hadn’t felt so peaceful in the longest time. She looked longingly at her bed and the messy tangle of quilts and blankets. But she couldn’t lie down quite yet. There were little brown mice along her shelves, floor and window ledge. She had finally trained them to keep off her bed, but that was little comfort now.

Velody went to the window and pulled it up sharply. ‘All of you, out. This is no longer the rodent hotel. Sorry and all that. But it’s over.’

She reinforced her words with a little push of animor, and watched with some satisfaction as two lines of small brown mice scampered up her wall and out her window.

As the last one crept away, Velody was startled by a meow. She spun around and saw a ginger tom glaring at her from the top of her wardrobe. ‘Are you still here?’ she said in amazement. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Old Tom since Ashiol had given him to her, though Rhian had reported stolen bacon, milk and biscuits from the pantry on a regular basis over the last month. ‘The eviction goes
for you too, puss-puss. The last thing I need is one of Ashiol’s spies watching over us as we make our getaway.’

Scornfully, Old Tom leaped down from the wardrobe and loped towards the window.

Velody turned around and saw nine black cats settling themselves on her bed, even as Old Tom climbed out of the open window. ‘Oh, no, Ash,’ she wailed. ‘This isn’t fair. Dramatic exits are non-refundable.’

The cat shapes blurred together, shifting into a single, male human figure. ‘We still have things to talk about, Velody.’

She glared at him. ‘If we’re going to have this conversation, I want you to put some clothes on.’

He shrugged, utterly comfortable in his skin. ‘I forgot to bring them with me.’

‘I’m tired, Ashiol. And I’m done. This is it for me. Why is it so hard for you to accept that?’

He didn’t smile. ‘Maybe because you leaving is pretty much the end of the world? I can’t have that.’

She stilled. Every inch of her was aware of the violent potential of his body. He was a lethal creature, and had one distinct military advantage over her: he was more prepared to hurt and maim and kill. ‘Are you going to try and force me into changing my mind?’

‘No.’ He moved from the bed with animal grace to stand near the window. ‘I’m going to beg you.’

This was unexpected. ‘You? Beg?’

‘Us. Beg. Look outside.’

Suspicious, she moved to the window and looked down to the courtyard below. It was full of people. The Creature Court—or, at least, Warlord, Livilla and Priest, surrounded by their respective courtesi. They all knelt on the cobbles, heads bowed.

‘This is not what we agreed,’ Velody said angrily.

‘We agreed nothing. Look at them. Really look at them. They’re on their knees to you.’

‘Oh, they make a fine show of penitence,’ she raged. ‘When you all want something from me.’

‘We want everything from you,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t deny that. We need you. Even now, Dhynar’s shade is latching itself to the streets and walls of this city. The days after Tasha died forsworn were the worst that any of us has ever seen. They were worse than anything Garnet did to me at his craziest. Anything the sky ever threw at us. We need a Power and Majesty to save us, to protect us, Velody.’

‘You expect me to believe all this?’ she asked. ‘That somehow, as soon as I make up my mind to leave you, there’s a great threat that only I can be equal to?’

‘There will always be a great threat that only you can be equal to. That’s what Power and Majesty means.’

Velody shook her head. ‘No, Ash. Let’s not play this game any more. We’ve been going through the motions, pretending that I could play the lead, but it’s not true. It’s time for you to take your rightful place.’

‘I’m not strong enough. I’m not good enough. If I were, I would never have let Garnet drive me into the ground and chase me out of the city five years ago. I gave up. You’re better than that.’

It began to rain. The back gate opened and Poet stepped into the yard, his boy courteso only a step or two behind him. He looked up at the bedroom window and smiled. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile, but he joined the others on their knees, and his boy mimicked him.

‘Over-beading the hem, aren’t you?’ Velody muttered.

‘Are you going to turn your back on us?’

She glared at him. Mac wants Delphine to be a sentinel! Saints only know what he has in mind for Rhian. If I don’t get them out from this web now, we’ll never escape.’

‘I understand that Delphine and Rhian are family to you,’ said Ashiol. ‘Family is important. But they aren’t the only ones due your loyalty and protection. They aren’t your only family. Not any more.’

Velody closed her eyes. She couldn’t take much more of this.

‘Be our Power,’ said Ashiol. ‘Be our Majesty.’

‘They don’t want me,’ Velody said, and she hated that she could hear her voice wavering.

‘Their knees say otherwise. Would you rather they opened a vein?’

Velody shuddered. ‘We’ve had enough of that sort of thing for the time being.’

Rain splashed against the window and down to the yard below. The air smelled salty and stale. Velody held a hand out, and looked at the rain as it pelted against her skin. It was dark red, and definitely not water. ‘The sky’s bleeding.’

Worse than that. She could hear the blood calling her, whispering to her in a familiar voice. ‘Not so smug now, are you?’ she asked.

Ash started to say something, but she held up her hand. ‘Not talking to you.’

She clambered up to the window ledge and stood with the cold blood blowing around her for a moment in droplets and spirals. She could hear Dhynar’s voice, crying out to her.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…

‘Too late,’ she said sadly. ‘I can’t save you. I don’t know how.’

A slight sound made her turn, and she saw a long line of little brown mice crouching along the thin ledge that ran across the buildings. Some of them nibbled on fragments of food. Others just stared at her, unblinking. ‘Oh.’

‘Velody,’ Ashiol started.

‘Shh. I’m thinking.’

A few times before, she had tapped into the mind of the city, if only momentarily. She could feel it now, the beat of Aufleur. If she opened her mind and her animor to it, she could feel the pulsing streets, like veins, and the sparks of life that denoted daylight people going about their business. Most of them were sleeping now, and that gave a warm hum to the city.

The Lords and Court below her burned like fierce candlelight, all heat and nervous tension. She ignored them, trying to see beyond into the dark and breathing city. She found Dhynar’s body easily enough, a withered husk of dry skin and splintered bones, barely even recognisable as human once the animor had abandoned him.
So that’s how we all end up—those who aren’t swallowed whole by the sky.

Dhynar’s shade was nowhere near his body. Velody breathed with the city, searching for the wrongness that was causing blood to fall from the sky like rain. She found it in a narrow street near the Forum, moving at a disturbing pace. It was not just wrong, but devastating. There was something corrupt and rotten about it, a soul-stench that trailed along the cobbles with easy, careless pollution.

Velody removed her dress and let it float on the blood-soaked breeze down to the yard full of Creature Court below. ‘Come, if you like,’ she said. ‘I doubt you’ll be able to keep up.’

Then she was swarming, tumbling, a raging race of tiny paws and quick-beating hearts, a cloud of streaking brown fur and paws that danced so much faster than your average mouse. She was as fast as a breath, as quick as a thought. Her paws did not touch the ground as she tore across the city as a blur of little brown mice.

The Thing that remained of Dhynar had covered three more streets in that time. The cloying pollution of him clung to the stones and bricks and Velody pursued him. She burst into an open piazza, not yet populated by the early-morning crowd. She shaped herself into Lord form and called his name, though she was well aware that it wasn’t his name any more. ‘Dhynar! Dhynar, Lord Ferax!’

The Thing turned and regarded her. It was as thin as a whisper, translucent enough that Velody could see the cobbles through what served it as skin. ‘I am not that Creature,’ it said in a rasp.

‘You still wear his shape,’ said Velody, though the shape in question was a bastardisation of the real man, more ferax than man, with long orange fur and a ragged half-face. The real urban feraxes that had so loyally dogged Dhynar in life now hung back at the darkest edges of the piazza, whining. Some were dead already, and others oozed with sickness.

‘Not for long,’ gasped the Thing, and a foul breath billowed out from it with those words. ‘I will feed soon, and then there will be countless shapes to choose from.’

Velody shuddered. ‘I can’t let you do that.’

It took a step towards her, and pestilence boiled out of the print left behind on the cobbles. ‘It hurts.’ That sounded more like Dhynar himself. There was still some of him there within the wrongness.

‘I know,’ she said, compassion flooding into her voice. ‘I know, sweetling. I’m here to make it better.’

‘Bring me back to life,’ he moaned.

‘I can’t do that. It isn’t possible.’

Thing again, its eyes glowed with a blinding whiteness. ‘Then I will eat this city whole. I will be flesh, or I will have flesh. You decide.’

Velody’s mind was open to the Thing as well as the city. She could see how to end it, as easily as breathing.

‘I can make the pain stop, Dhynar. I can make everything stop. Oblivion is the best I can offer you. Will you take it?’

‘No!’ he howled.

She ate him anyway.

It was a fierce meal. Velody was not quite little brown mice, or Lord, or chimaera, but some strange combination of the three. She tore at the foul Thing that had once been Dhynar, Lord Ferax, and with each bite and gulp she consigned him to oblivion. ‘Nothing, be nothing, be gone,’ was her mantra as she consumed his soul.

Velody was not human any more. That much was obvious, for she could sense every pulse of her body just as
she could sense every pulse of the city, and she could feel her animor working on the fragments of soul and shade as she ate them, changing the pestilence into something else.

She wasn’t sure exactly what that something else was, but it tasted like power. Power and honey.

When it was over, she collapsed into a scattered pile of little brown mice with full bellies and splitting headaches. She moaned and wriggled in that mass of tiny bodies, allowing herself to rest for a few precious moments before she scanned the city for traces of Dhynar.

He was gone. Completely gone. Not a breath of him remained in Aufleur. The pestilence that still daubed the streets he had polluted was already beginning to lose its potency.

With a word and a thought, Velody killed every one of the feraxes. Better safe than sorry.

That last burst of animor was too much for her and the crowd of little brown mice collapsed back into a single, clumsy human female body. The cobbles were cold against her breasts and stomach and legs. She was willing to sleep right there anyway.

Cool hands found her and drew her to her feet. The scent of roses and foreign tinctures enveloped her as Rhian wrapped a shawl around her waist, and Delphine pulled a soft shirt over her head.

That made no sense at all. How could they have found her here? Velody leaned against them, not asking questions. The nox was beginning to fade and there would be daylight people filling this piazza soon. She still wasn’t enough herself to recognise which piazza it was, though she knew them all so well.

‘What day is it?’ she asked, and laughed at herself. A fine thing for a woman of their house to have forgotten her place on the calendar. ‘Was there work today? Garlands?’

‘Shh,’ said Delphine, and held her closer.

They were all there. Not just Rhian and Delphine. The Creature Court clustered around them, keeping only a
slight distance. The Lords came forward hesitantly. Livilla brushed her dark mouth to Velody’s cheek and then retreated hastily. Warlord brought a heavy man’s coat, and Velody allowed him to slip her arms into it.

Ashiol was there, further back from the others, flanked by the sentinels. Velody had no idea what he was thinking—even if he was pleased or angry—and found that she didn’t overly care.

‘You, my dear,’ said Priest, Lord of Pigeons. ‘You are more than we deserve.’

‘I’d agree with that,’ said Poet. ‘But what in seven hells has she done to deserve us?’

Velody had no answer for that. Exhausted, she reached her arms out to Delphine and Rhian again and allowed them to lead her home.

The Creature Court followed. But there was time enough to worry about that later.

Alexandrine Basilica
—once the largest church in the known world, constructed by the fourth Duc d’Aufleur, mad old Ilexandros. His successor, Duc Giulio Gauget, declared the Basilica to be an unholy abomination and stripped its rich furnishings to ornament his own Palazzo. The hollowed-out and falling-down Basilica is now used as a marketplace, and a merchant’s lot here is worth a small fortune.

Ammoria
—a principality once consisting of three duchies: Silano (capital city: Bazeppe), Lattorio (capital city: Aufleur) and Reyenna (capital city: Tierce). When the city of Tierce vanished, Reyenna became one of the baronies of Lattorio.

Animor
—the energy/power contained within the bodies of all full members of the Creature Court. Seers and sentinels do not hold animor, though they are touched/ contaminated by it, which gives them a status between the nox and daylight worlds.

Ansouisette
—a fashionable cocktail of aniseed and lemon liqueur.

Arches, the
—ruined city that exists below Aufleur, where the city’s inhabitants once lived after being forced underground during the old skywar. Now inhabited by the Creature Court. Also known as ‘the undercity’.

Artorio Xandelian
—former Ducomte d’Aufleur, son of Duc Ynescho Xandelian and Duchessa Givette Camellie. Artorio refused to marry in his youth, but at age thirty-three was prevailed upon by his father to marry nineteen-year-old Eglantine in order to produce an heir. A year later Isangell was born. Artorio died of the Silent Sleep when his daughter was thirteen.

Ashiol Xandelian
—Ducomte d’Aufleur; son of Augusta and Bruges, stepson of Diamagne. Cousin to Isangell, Duchessa d’Aufleur. Member of the Creature Court; rank: King; creature: black cat.

Atulia
—region to the north of Ammoria.

Aufrey
—one of the twelve Great Families of Aufleur.

Aufleur
—capital city of the duchy of Lattorio in the principality of Ammoria. Ruled by Isangell, the daylight Duchessa.

Augusta Xandelian
—second child of Duc Ynescho Xandelian and Duchessa Givette Camellie. Married Bruges Lanouvre and had one son, Ashiol. A year after Bruges’s death, Augusta married the Baronne di Diamagne and retired to his estate. She bore Diamagne four sons: Bryn, Keil, Jemmen and Zade, and then a daughter, Phage (Pip). Now widowed.

Avleurine
—one of the hill districts of Aufleur; location of the Temple of the Market Saints.

Bridescake
—ornate wedding cake traditionally covered in spring flowers.

Bruges Lanouvre
—late husband of Augusta Xandelian; father of Ashiol (died when Ashiol was seven years old).

Burnplague
—a spreading sky pattern of blisters that spit motes of light and acid.

Camellie
—one of the twelve Great Families of Aufleur.

Camoise
—country to the far east of Ammoria. One of
many cultures that trades extensively with Aufleur. Providers of the exotic and expensive ‘real tea’, the best of which is Camoisean leaf.

Carmentines
—bright scarlet flowers with long stems.

Cathedral of Ires
—place of worship dedicated to the Crone Ires, who is venerated by the Irean Priestesses. Place where wills are lodged for safekeeping. The priestesses guard the wills and provide public readings after the client’s death.

Celeste
—former Lord of the Creature Court who left with Lysandor during the tyrannical reign of Garnet as Power and Majesty.

Centi opera stands
—portable stalls featuring puppet shows. Sometimes a young female performer, an ingénue, performs among the puppets.

Centrini
—affluent mercantile district in the centre of Aufleur.

Cheapside
—part of the market district of Tierce, where Velody’s family own a bakery.

Chimaera
—a monstrous dark shadowy shape with claws, teeth and scales; an amalgam of every devil and forbidden creature imaginable. Only Creature Kings are able to take chimaera form; used in battle.

Church Bridge
—traditional starting point for festival parades; finishing point is the Forum. One of two city bridges across the River Verticordia, the other being the Marius Bridge.

Ciocolate
—a very expensive delicacy brought over from Nova Stella. Served as a fondant or as a hot, spicy drink called ciocolata.

City Fathers
—the members of the City Council, who meet in the Curia: this group is made up of the Duc’s Ministers, a Proctor for each of the city districts, and the three senior priests who between them form the
ruling body of the city, under the hand of the Duc or Duchessa. The three senior priests are the Matrona Irea of the Irean Priestesses (the only woman allowed to be a city father), Brother Typhisus of the Silver Brethren, and the Master of Saints.

Clara
—member of the Creature Court; rank: courtesa to Warlord; creature: greymoon cat.

Coinage
—the coins of Aufleur are divided into gold ducs, silver ducs, copper shilleins and copper centi.

Courtesi (courteso: male; courtesa: female)
—the lowest rank of the Creature Court; must ally themselves with a particular Lord for protection. Too vulnerable to exist alone.

Crane
—youngest of the surviving sentinels. Weapons: blue-hilted daggers and swords.

Creature Court
—the courtesi, Lords and Kings who hold animor within their bodies, belong to the nox and have the ability to fight the sky. Ruled by the Power and Majesty, the highest ranked of their Kings. Peripheral members of the Court include the sentinels and the seer, but they often consider themselves separate from the Court.

Crossroads
—any part of the city where two streets meet is considered sacred to the protective spirits or household gods of Aufleur. Casual sacrifices (for example chickens or honey cakes) are often made here for greater effect.

Curia
—slope-roofed building in the Forum that houses meetings of the City Council.

Cyniver
—brother of Rhian and lover of Velody; lost when Tierce was swallowed by the sky.

Damascine Virgins
—an order of priestesses in service to Damascus the war-angel. They sacrifice to him on the eleventh day of Martial.

Dame
—appropriate form of address for a respectable matron, diminutive of ‘madame’.

Damson
—member of the Creature Court; rank: courtesa to Priest; creature: gull.

Delphine
—friend to Velody and Rhian; ribboner and garland-maker.

Demoiselle
—unmarried girl; ‘demme’ for short.

Duc/Duchessa d’Aufleur
—ruler of the city of Aufleur.

Dhynar
—member of the Creature Court; rank: Lord; creature: ferax.

Diamagne
—farming and wine region south of Aufleur; part of Lattorio. Also the name of the Baronne di Diamagne (now deceased), who married Ducomtessa Augusta Xandelian (Ashiol’s mother) a year after the death of her first husband, Bruges.

Donagan
—reputed to be the finest tailor in Aufleur, a master craftsman.

Dottores
—medical practitioners, mostly male. The only women allowed to practise in Aufleur as dottores are those registered as midwives, although many of them dispense other forms of medical advice on the side.

Edore
—region to the north of Ammoria and Atulia.

Farrier
—member of the Creature Court; rank: courteso to Dhynar; creature: slashcat.

Floralia
—six-day festival commemorating the glory of spring and the fertility of the coming summer. It begins in Aphrodal and ends in Floralis. Honours maidens, sweethearts, brides, household gods, passion and abundance, each on a different day. The first day (maidens) is celebrated with a public parade by the Spring Queen (the highest-ranking female in the city) and her Spring Consort, both dressed in pink and white.

Flame-and-gin
—common bar drink.

Florister
—artisan who works with plants and flowers; often works in conjunction with a ribboner or garland-maker to make festival garlands.

Fornacalia
—festival from the sixth to the seventeenth of Lupercal in honour of the harvest saints, so that the baking of the corn is successful. Citizens wear ceremonial baking aprons for the rituals. Overlaps with the Parentalia, Quirinalia and Lupercalia.

Forum
—the public centre of Aufleur, a large area lined with temples and public buildings such as the Alexandrine Basilica and the Curia. The city market is held here every nine days, events such as the apprentice fairs are held here, and this is the traditional climax of most public parades and pageants. The Duchessa’s Avenue connects the Forum to the Lake of Follies. Other cities, such as Tierce, also have a Forum, though the Forum of Aufleur is unusually large.

Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre
—large gardens covering one side of the Lucretine hill in the centre of Aufleur; built over the top of the decadent public baths established in honour of the third Duc d’Aufleur, Trajus Alysaundre. The gardens face on to the Lake of Follies and the Forum.

Garnet
—member of the Creature Court; rank: Power and Majesty; creature: gattopardo (mountain cat). He is the son of the cook and the groundskeeper on the Diamagne estate, and was Ashiol’s boyhood friend.

Giacosa
—bustling merchant district at the southern end of Aufleur.

Giulio Gauget
—fifth Duc d’Aufleur. Known for excessive modesty and piety in contrast to his predecessor, mad old Ilexandros Alysaundre.

Givette Camellie
—the Old Duchessa, wife of Duc Ynescho, mother of Artorio and Augusta, grandmother of Isangell, Ashiol, Bryn, Keil, Jemmen, Zade and Phage. Became Regenta when her late husband was mentally incapacitated; pre-deceased him after a long illness.

Gleamspray
—a rare and lethal element of the skybattles which is known for killing daylight folk; victims appear to succumb to the ‘Silent Sleep’.

Grago
—member of the Creature Court; rank: courteso to Dhynar; creature: stripecat.

Great Families
—the twelve Great Families of Aufleur: Xandelian (ducal), Leorgette, Lanouvre, Gauget, Paucini, Aufrey, Alysaundre, Vittorio, Giuliano, Camellie, Delgardie, Octaviano.

Halberk
—member of the Creature Court; courteso to Poet; creature: bear.

Haymarket
—located in the Arches. Formerly a packing and storage facility; now a large space where the Power and Majesty resides. A canal runs water from the River Verticordia right through the Haymarket and down through the Arches, emerging at the Lock in the side of the Lucretine hill, which is the main entrance to the Arches.

Heliora
—member of the Creature Court; rank: Seer. Joined Court as a sentinel; became Seer during Ortheus’s reign as Power and Majesty.

Ilexandros Alysaundre
—fourth Duc d’Aufleur; also known as ‘mad old Ilexandros’. Built the Alexandrine Basilica, largest church in the known world, in the Forum of Aufleur.

Irean Priestesses
—powerful priestesses who venerate Ires the Crone, otherwise known as Saint Grandmere. The priestesses wear white and are said to have communion
with the dead. Wills are lodged with them for safekeeping. Their chief priestess is the Matrona Irea, one of the three priests included in the City Fathers.

Ires
—the Crone, or Saint Grandmere, worshipped in the Cathedral of Ires and venerated by the Irean Priestesses.

Isangell
—Duchessa d’Aufleur (full name/title: Duchessa Isangell Xandelian d’Aufleur, First Lady of the Silver Seal); daughter of Artorio Xandelian and Eglantine; granddaughter of previous Duc d’Aufleur, Ynescho Xandelian, and his Regenta, the Duchessa Givette.

Isharo
—an island country to the Far East, a trading partner with Aufleur, particularly for flowers and fabrics.

Janvier
—member of the Creature Court; courteso to Livilla; creature: raven.

Kelpie
—sentinel. Refers to her swords as her ‘Sisters’ and her daggers as her ‘Nieces’: hilts are wrapped in dark leather.

Lanouvre
—one of the twelve Great Families of Aufleur.

Lemuria
—festival during Floralis to placate the shades of dead ancestors and lost loves.

Lennoc
—member of the Creature Court; courteso to Dhynar (formerly courteso to Lief); creature: brighthound.

Leorgette
—one of the twelve Great Families of Aufleur.

Librarion
—Aufleur’s city library.

Lictors
—honour guard that protects ranks of Duc, Duchessa, Ducomte or Ducomtessa, as well as select City Fathers, priests of high status and the Chief Minister. Lictors travel in multiples of three, carry ceremonial rods of state, are armed with axes and wear black and scarlet.

Lief
—deceased member of the Creature Court; rank: Lord; creature: greathound.

Livilla
—member of the Creature Court; rank: Lord; creature: wolf.

Lucian
—one of the districts of Aufleur, known as the theatre district.

Ludi
—as well as being the name of the first autumn month, this word means ‘games’.

Ludi Aufleuris
—fifteen-day series of games held during the first month of autumn, Ludi. Women traditionally wear scarlet shawls when attending these games and wave the corners of the shawls to favoured gladiators and performers.

Ludi Megalensia
—Games of the Great Mother, held in the month of Aphrodal. Unlike other Ludi, there are no fights, animals or mock battles; instead, the games feature theatrical performances.

Ludi Sacris
—Sacred Games, held in the month of Felicitas. On the chief day of sacrifice (day four), everyone in the city makes a sacrifice to their chosen saints or gods.

Ludi Victoriae
—Victory Games, held in the month of Cerialis, in which favourite historical battles are reenacted in the Circus Verdigris by gladiators and actors.

Lupercalia
—one-day festival in Lupercal during which men carouse in the streets wearing goatskins, goat masks and fake phalluses. Not unheard of for their real phalluses to hang out, in the name of veracity.