Sparrow Falling (22 page)

“Nothing,” the girl said. “I am glad not to be there any more.”

Liu nodded. “I am not surprised,” he said. “I expect where you come from is much less charming than this. Where was it, exactly?”

“Limehouse.”

“Oh, I know of it, a most unpleasant place. I am sure you were glad to leave.”

“Yes,” the girl said, watching him carefully. “Yes, it was ugly and smelled bad. I did not know then, that I could be so very lucky.”

“I would not be surprised if you had changed your name,” he said, with great casualness. “Human names are so ugly and odd!”

“Oh, the Queen was pleased to like my name,” Pearl said. “It is Huntridge. The sound makes her laugh.”

“I’m sure! It is most amusing,” Liu said, “and even in Limehouse, perhaps quite unusual. I am sure there cannot be very many people of that name, should one check. I might even do so. Perhaps I shall become a scholar of human names, and write a treatise, and bore everybody...”

The glittering creature flew off.

“I think if you checked,” the girl said, “you might find that the name is mostly found about Hind Street.”

“And the man who brought you here, did he have an amusing name?”

“Oh, yes, it was Stug. Is it not ridiculous?”

Stug. Stug. He had heard that name before...
oh
.

“Yes,” he said. “A most foolish name.”

I
N THE
V
ALLEY
of Sighs, the wind moans in the bare branches. Here, indeed, the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing. This is the place of exile, where those banished from the Queen’s regard drift like ghosts among the empty trees.

Some drift no longer. They stand, or sit, or lie, unmoving. A faint shimmer, a gleam like mica or moonlight, encrusts their skin, flickers in their eyes; but they are gone, lost. These have been too long banished. It pleases the Queen, and those who would avoid the same fate, to assume that, too long out of her notice, they have succumbed to despair. But despair has less to do with it than the air of this place, imbued with a magic older even than the Queen’s, that will fold into its everlasting embrace any who stay too long.

The still-moving avoid the stilled, seldom even glance at them, except unwillingly, from averted eyes. Are they alive, trapped in their chilled, glimmering, immobile flesh? The rest try not to think of it, and cover their ears, or sing loudly, whenever they think they might hear lost voices, wailing among the trees.

Oh, yes, the banished sing. They make songs for the Queen, of their loyalty and love. They create, as best they can, entertainments for her averted ears and eyes, hoping that the guards or one of her hundreds of little spies will report back to her, will plead their case for return to the Court; or that she, on one of her rare visits, may be pleased to... be pleased. The faintest rumour of such a visit runs through the place like plague, sending them all into a fever, rattling the trees with songs and dances and demonstrations of wit.

In this grey place, all falls flat, echoless and thin. But sometimes, the Queen will deign to notice their efforts, may, even, take one or another back into her favour. Their desperation feeds her. She requires, lives upon, their longing.

Liu, feeling his mouth stiffen with loathing and nerves, steps lively and bright-eyed among the whimpering trees. He knows dozens of eyes are on him. Visitors are positively encouraged by the Queen – she feels it does no harm for her people to remind themselves of what happens to those who fail in their worship.

The guards glance at him, and turn away, pretending unconcern. His presence will be the source of bitter, anxious gossip and speculation within moments. The guards are members of the court whose exile is temporary – theirs are lesser offenses, their punishment is to see every day the fate that awaits them should they fail again. Or should the Queen’s whim change, or some rival whisper successfully in her ear that they have transgressed against perfect adoration.

They make very good guards.

He listens, fox-eared, fine hairs aquiver.
There.

Faint and melancholy, the low moan of a breeze that is not quite the breeze in the branches, not quite a voice.

The Harp.

He is alone, in a clearing. His base rests in grass that nods with heavy silvery seed-heads, dancing to the music he cannot help but make.

He is not playing. His hands are limp at his sides. His eyes are shut. His gilded skin, still perfect and youthful, glimmers smooth and still. But his strings shiver in the faint constant breeze, a sigh of notes. The breeze plays him, denying him even the stubbornness of silence.

A harp. A harp whose frame is a young man’s body, its strings woven of his flowing hair and living nerves.

Liu must be very careful. He has calculated as best he can, but there are still so many things that could go wrong, through spite or sheer bad luck. And as he looks at what was once a man, a young harpist skilled enough, handsome enough, unfortunate enough to catch the Queen’s attention, Liu shudders all the way to the bottom of his soul.

He could still run.

But if he fails, his father will suffer for it.

It is so quiet here, apart from the hum of the wind in the Harp’s strings. There are no birds to sing, not in these bare and melancholy trees.

Liu looks at the Harp for a long time, trying to work out his best approach.

The Harp’s eyes open.

They are dark brown eyes, dreadfully weary, painfully human in that perfect, gilded, unageing face. Liu realises with a terrible, mortal tug, as though he too had strings, that the Harp’s eyes are the same colour as Eveline’s.

“Am I summoned?” The Harp’s voice is beautiful, too; or it should be. Its harmonies are arranged in a way that should be pleasing. But weariness soaks every word.

“No,” Liu says.

The Harp’s eyes close again, in something that looks a great deal like relief.

“I have... a thought,” Liu said.

The Harp does not answer.

“Tell me, what do you wish for?”

The Harp remains silent, though the corners of his mouth tighten the merest fraction.

“I can help you,” Liu says.

“No,” the Harp says. “No, you can’t.”

Liu detects a footstep behind him, and a scent he knows. Surprised, he turns.

“Well,” Charlotte says. “I hope you’re learning as you’re supposed to.”

“M
E OR THE
Harp?” Liu says, keeping his tone light. What is Eveline’s little sister doing here? She looks much the same; she has grown only as far as is pleasing to her master, and will, if he wills it, be fourteen for long ages – though even he cannot make her as long-lived as himself. Glossy curls cascade to her waist; her skin is palely perfect, her face and figure unmarked by the hardships Eveline has known.

“Both of you,” she says.

“Is that why you are here?” Liu says. “To remind yourself what becomes of those who... upset the Queen?”

“Why else would I be here?” Charlotte gives an exaggerated sigh.

“Why else indeed.” Liu forces back his exasperation; he is getting nowhere with the Harp, and although Eveline did not ask for news of her sister, he knows she longs for it, as does her mother.

Is Charlotte here on purpose to see him? He hopes she would not be so foolish as to make it obvious, especially here.

Not that the Harp would betray such a thing, or, probably, even notice; his lack of interest in the petty intrigues of the Court is one reason he has been banished to the Valley.

“I suppose she’s cross with you, and you’re hoping to get back in her favour. Though I can’t see why talking to
him
will be the least use.” Charlotte avoids looking directly at the Harp.

“Oh, one may learn from others’ mistakes, you know. Isn’t that the purpose of the Valley?”

“And what do you think you may learn from me?” The Harp says. He turns his gaze to Charlotte. “What but despair? That will not please your Queen.”

“Well, I don’t know why I should talk to you, if you’re only going to be miserable,” she says.

“That is now my function, I believe. Easy enough to fulfil.”

“I could help you,” Liu says.

“Leave me be,” the Harp says. “Let me...”

He falls silent, closes his eyes, as though he could make them go away.

“Let you what?” Liu says. “Become like these others? A statue to your own memory?”

“What can you offer me that is better?”

“A chance.”

“At what? Home? What do you think they would make of me there?” He laughs, a terrible, wrenching sound. “Can you make me a man again, instead of this thing, this grotesquerie, this wretched, gilded nightmare?” The Harp writhes in his own frame. “You cannot,” he says. “Only the Queen has such power, and she will not do it. But even were I a man again, and could escape to the Lower World... what is there for me there? Everything I knew, everyone I loved, is dead a hundred years and more, dust on the wind. My home, if it is standing, houses strangers. The fine folk I played for, they have died, their velvets and satins shat out by moths. Leave me. Let me crumble away. All I have left to share with the world I knew is my own decay. Leave me that much. Go away.”

“Are you sure?” Liu says. He knows he is being cruel. But what he offers, surely, is better than this, he tells himself. “Are you sure you will crumble? Some of those who have stilled here, they are very old, they have been here a hundred mortal lifetimes and more, and have not crumbled. And none knows, if what is within them is fled... or not.”

“Better that,” the Harp whispers. “Better that than she use me as she has before.”

“Surely a luxurious captivity is better than such a cold fate.”

“Don’t!” Charlotte claps her hands to her ears. “Stop talking about it.”

“Yes,” the Harp says. “Stop.” He looks at Charlotte. “Poor child. I at least came willingly to my fate, although I did it in all ignorance. Poor child.”

“Don’t call me that!”

The Harp closes his eyes.

“So you came to see the Harp,” Liu says, “despite the fact that he obviously upsets you.”

“Why else?” Charlotte says. “Don’t think I wanted to see
you.
”

“I would not be so foolish. I expect I remind you of your visit to the Lower World.”

“Maybe.”

“And it’s not as though you want to know anything of it.”

“No. Why should I? I suppose they’re still alive, if you can call it living.”

“Yes, they are.”

“Don’t be foolish enough to think I can get them anything, jewels aren’t the fashion any more,” she says, “even if I wanted to.”

“They do not want jewels.”

“Well they couldn’t have them anyway.” Charlotte’s eyes flicker towards a patch of green, like a leaf, that has appeared on one of the leafless trees. It is not a leaf. It looks a little like the mating of a mouse and a frog, with a mouse’s large, quivering ears.

“Although the Lower World is so horrid, I expect jewels could hardly make much difference. I can’t imagine anything they’d need that would make things better there. I’m so lucky Aiden took me away.”

“He too, of course, is the Queen’s subject,” Liu says, averting his eyes from the little spy in the tree. “Does he ever come to the Valley?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte says. “Why?”

“I am merely curious.”

“I can’t see why he would.”

Liu’s frustration increases. How is he to say what he needs to, surrounded, as they are, by eyes and ears? He eyes Charlotte. He believes she is neither as unconcerned or as stupid as she takes care to appear, but if he is too subtle neither she nor the Harp will pick up on what he needs.

“You are his favourite, are you not?” he says.

“Sometimes,” she says, and something underlies the carefully casual tone, something that jabs.

She has learned a great deal, in her time here; in her own way, she may be almost as cunning as Eveline. But not quite. And she is still human. She still feels things, needs things, that the Court can barely recognise.

In time either she will become so much like them as to be indistinguishable, or she will fall. Either will hurt Eveline terribly, and he would do much to prevent it, but he cannot see how.

And what of you, Liu? What will you become – or will you fall?

He will be an honourable son, he will save his father, and he will continue to dance, hopping from one world, one Court, to another – because he is Liu, the Little Fox, and it is the only way he knows.

“Favourite is a most enviable position,” he says.

“He has redecorated his Court,” she says. “Everyone is talking of it. You should come and see.”

Good girl.

“If he will permit.”

“Oh, I think so.
I
want you to. And as you say, I am his favourite.”

“Goodbye, sir Harp,” he says, and gives Charlotte his arm.

The Harp does not answer, keeping his eyes shut, hoping only for the endless silence of stone, but the breeze, uncaring, continues to tug at his strings like an importunate child.

“C
HARLOTTE TOLD ME
my lord had refurbished his court,” Liu said, straightening from his bow. “It is most charming.”

“I find it pleasing,” Aiden said. He was in his full growth, now – bearing the form he would wear as long as he lived, tall and lean and pale. His hair, coppery gold, flowed over his shoulders. He was dressed, almost, like a human – close-fitting trousers, gleaming leather boots, a splendidly embroidered waistcoat – though no shirt. Charlotte sat upon cushions at his feet.

Musical instruments were scattered about – a silver flute, a lyre, a fiddle and, in pride of place, much more recent creations. A concertina, a saxophone.

The Queen relied on the Lower World for gifts, and worship, and entertainment. But this... this suggested a fascination of a different nature. The throne on which Aiden lounged was an extraordinary construction of glass and brass, pistons, cogs, and fat buttoned leather. The throne room, a great gleaming hall, roofed with soaring iron and glass, put Liu forcibly in mind of St Pancras station.
Well, well.

“Does it move, my Lord? The throne?”