The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter (21 page)

Cadman tried to keep up, following several paces behind. He did not speak much at the best of times and this morning he held his face downcast, like a kholic. He had long ago given up. He was certain how this visit to Bedenham House would end. Cadman and Tina fought several times about this attitude: once he’d actually tried to convince her not to get “too attached” to the baby, which was such a ludicrous and hateful thing to say to a young mother that it made Tina sick and she could never look at Cadman’s face the same way again, ever. He had concerns about resources. Resources they didn’t have. Food and coin, and the space it would take to raise a child. Fucking
resources
!

How could he believe that if elements of black choler were found in the veins of their son, and the child was taken away to be raised as a ward of the city (becoming a lost soul, just like the wounded boy she’d seen), that it would be merciful for them as a couple? Cadman had even said they could try again for another in a year or so. A second boy, maybe, when they had more money, more food, more room—

Cadman (decided Tina, biting her lip) was an imbecile.

No good could come from having a child taken away.

Behind her husband followed the elderly neighbour, whose name she could never recall and perhaps had never known. His presence was in lieu of a close friend. All Tina’s friends had been conveniently busy this morning. Even the ratty old neighbour only cooperated in hopes of a promised pint, and who knew where they would get the coin to buy it when this was finally over.

Tina stood directly before the south entrance, the baby asleep on her shoulder. A palatinate officer within, wearing the long red robes of his position and holding a lantern, saw her and beckoned.

The chamberlain and his men knew how many babies had been born in Nowy Solum over the past month; they knew how many had survived. If Tina had not brought her son here before dusk, officers would have come during the night.

Again she considered fleeing, taking her chances with monsters and dead gods and who knew what else lurked in the unending wastelands outside the city.

She had never been outside the walls.

Bedenham House was exceeding dim and smelled of oil and camphor. There were four large fireplaces, burning low, one either side of each door, each end. Along the west wall was arranged a line of small cots from entrance to exit, perhaps twenty in all. The palatinate who led her inside without a word, swinging his lantern all the while, made his way to one of these cots and gestured for her to place the baby down.

The boy, of course, woke immediately, staring blankly up at the wooden ceiling. Her hands shook. The officer did not even look at her son but instead watched her face, searching it, his expression impassive, as if seeking something in her features that could betray aspects of her child’s biology.

Then the officer motioned abruptly with one hand toward the bench; she took her place, like all good citizens would.

Glancing outside, she saw Cadman standing with the neighbour, who grinned in at her. Cadman faced away, watching (she imagined) Horse Market, where barkers shouted and women shopped and children played with their friends or walked with their parents and life went on for all those lucky ones.

She turned away.

Deeper in Bedenham House, another mother—a woman she had not previously noticed—waited in the shadows on another bench. She tried to wave but the woman was not looking her way.

Tina’s son did not fall asleep for a long time. The officer waited quietly by the cot, like a predator, a slight smile on his face, swinging his lantern so that scented smoke rose up to the gables. Tina listened to the quiet sounds her baby made and knew he was hungry and scared and tired.

“Please,” she whispered, watching the palatinate as he, in turn, stared straight ahead. No. He was not like a predator, more like a statue, cold stone.

From the north entrance, near Jesthe, two more palatinate officers entered then, murmuring, and as her eyes adjusted to the relative glare, Tina realized with shock that one of the men—the one on the left, in the deep crimson robe, who moved slowly, and hunched—was Erricus himself, the chamberlain of Nowy Solum.

The second man wore a dark sash at his neck, clearly a physicker. He had a boy’s face and did not appear old enough to shave. The chamberlain, of course, was ancient.

Both men walked the length of Bedenham House, stopping briefly at a cot near the other woman, then proceeding to where her own boy lay.

There they conferred.

Tina had never seen the chamberlain this close. Her heart thudded as he nodded and turned toward her. When he approached, she stopped breathing. He was a dead man, a corpse.

She imagined the chill of his bony hands upon her, his hollow face, his leather skin.

He asked, “You are the mother of this boy?”

She nodded.

“What is your name?” His eyes glistened.

She replied.

“I am here to oversee trials this day. We were waiting for you. Though, of course, it was well within your rights to come any time before dusk.” The chamberlain coughed, light and dusty. He pressed his fingers together. “Your son will be tested first. He is older than the girl over there by nearly nine hours.”

“I understand.” Though Tina did not understand. How could she? How could any mother? As far as she knew, Erricus had never presided over an infant’s trial, not in decades.

At the south entrance, Cadman stared in, though if he recognized who was speaking to his wife was not clear. Probably he recognized nothing.

Chamberlain Erricus lingered by the bench a moment longer. Finally, he coughed again. “Very well,” he said. “Let us begin.”

Back at the cot, the physicker held out a small, ornate jar, which he now cracked open.

Holding both hands up for silence, or to evoke his gods, the chamberlain returned to the cot while the physicker made a big show of listening, apparently to her baby’s breathing. Then the physicker touched her boy lightly in several places Tina could not identify from where she sat. The officer did not wake her son, or at least the boy remained quiet throughout this process. Erricus had closed his eyes. Finally the physicker put his fingers up to his own face, sniffed them, and produced a small vial of liquid from the jar. He sprinkled a few drops, watching her boy intently.

Then Erricus, whose eyes snapped open, did something quickly with his left hand, so quickly that Tina could not follow the movement.

Her son wailed.

The wail ended abruptly.

Outside Bedenham House came a tremendous roar, as if all of Nowy Solum were being torn apart. For an instant, Tina thought this was an extension of the test, a reaction, but two of the empty cots crashed to the floor and the beams of the Bedenham House groaned, shaking dust and debris that pattered all around.

Erricus and his palatinate officer recoiled. The physicker went down on one knee. Gripping her son’s cot for support, with one hand on his chest, the old man looked outside. Screaming had begun.

On the shed roof, Tully was surprised to discover a kholic man and a hemo child sleeping together, huddled under a threadbare blanket. Until this point, his day had been unfolding fortuitously. Most days started off rather badly for Tully and continued to be a bit of a struggle as they went on, yet Tully found himself on this foggy afternoon whistling tunelessly as he climbed in Kirk Gate Alley. He had slept well, eaten a crust of bread (stolen from a lady’s cart), and had wandered South Gate, looking for unaware cobali to trap or a rube from outside to rob.

He had been, in unexpected ways, successful.

Stopped over the couple now, though, his good mood wavered. Whistling ceased.

“Wake up.” He spoke as coldly as he could. Neither man nor child awoke. This kind of thing, Tully thought, happened more and more. He kicked the man, who grunted and rolled onto his back, opening his eyes and quickly averting them when they registered Tully standing over him.

“You piece of shit,” Tully said. “Did you just look at me?
Did
you fucking look at me
? Shouldn’t you be cleaning shit off my arse instead of sleeping with our girls?”

Continuing to stare at a point to the side of Tully’s face, the man said nothing. Now the girl had awoken. She might have been ten.

The kholic said, “This is not what you think.”

“How you know what I think?” Tully kicked the man again, harder this time, in the ribs. “I think I see a piece of shit sleeping on a rooftop.” Against Tully’s back, his heavy bag moved, and he remembered his intentions. “Lazy-ass motherfuckers. Sleeping away the day. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood. You,” to the girl, “what are you doing with this piece of shit?”

“He’s nice,” the girl said, barely audible.

“What? What did you say?”

“He’s a nice man. He takes care of me.”

“
Nice
?” Spittle sprayed from Tully’s mouth. “Mother
fuck
! You called him a
man
? He’s
not
a man. Does he look like me?
I’m
a fucking man! Let’s cut him open and see what comes out.”

Yet Tully laughed to see the girl’s face.

Rain that had just recently stopped had soaked the roof here, so that the couple lay in a puddle. Tully knew they were addicts, most likely not lovers, as the kholic had said. Not that he cared about the girl’s age—he had slept with younger—but hemos were for hemos. Kholics were for gutters and shit. He glanced about for anything worth taking but had no expectations and saw nothing that belonged to the pair anyhow except the rags they wore and countless fleas. He entertained a fleeting image of violence, kicking the kholic in the face, or perhaps forcing himself on the child, to give her a taste of red blood, and he amused himself briefly with these lurid images. But he had no time right now to follow through.

Besides, he
was
in a good mood.

He gave the kholic another kick but the kholic remained on his side, breathing heavily.

“You need to learn your place,” Tully said. “Go back to where you belong. Are any of you left in that fucking shithole you live in? Seems like you get bolder every day, you lot. People won’t take this anymore. You’ll see. There’s something in the air. Find out soon enough. And you, kid, you’re as bad as him. You should be marked with a tattoo. You disgust me.”

The girl seemed to be waiting for Tully to say something else but Tully was done. He would remember this roof. He would return. He told the couple this. The girl looked lithe and strong. She hadn’t been addicted for long. Most addicts had bags under their eyes and the skin of their faces was yellowed and creased. Like the kholic’s. What Tully could see of his face, anyhow.

Tully smiled at the girl.

As for the fleas, well, they could keep them—he had enough of his own. Adjusting the load on his back, Tully grinned. “If I ever see either of you again,” he said, “I will fuck you up, I promise.”

Then, happy with himself, Tully stepped over the pair to scale the damp and mouldy bricks of the adjacent building. This residence had been constructed, or had fallen, in such a way that the surface of the wall merged with the roof Tully stood on. Moss and lichen and spawl gently sloped away from him. Masonry crumbled as he scaled it. His fingers, in more than a few places, sank right into porous bricks.

The higher rooftop sagged under his considerable weight. Tully was a large-boned and meaty man. Always had been. Other body types irritated him. Any man who was not large and strong was unworthy, unless they had money or food.

Women, other than his dear mother, and the whores of Canning Street, were entirely baffling.

Once, his first time making the upward trip, he had nearly plunged through this very spot. But he learned where the hidden beams were and placed his feet accordingly now, almost without looking. A few inches made all the difference.

Deeper water had collected in a pool here. The water must have been stagnant for a while, since swarms of the tiny tube-like creatures that lived in unemptied barrels and brackish ponds, and in the rain gutters of Nowy Solum, churned to detect his dim shadow. Because he was barefoot, Tully tried to avoid the pool, but his feet were already infested with parasites to the point where he could watch the skin near his ankles moving, if he took the time, as if his skin was cast over a stormy and ill-blown sea.

The next part of the climb was more challenging. Tully made sure his bag was securely strapped across his back before attempting it. He spit on his hands and rubbed them together. Over his head, the wall of an old temple had shifted so it leaned overhead; he was forced to hang, suspended by the strength in his hands, hauling himself from lintel to gargoyle to steel flagpole, finally to another lintel, until his legs gained enough momentum to hook over the head of a great grey god. Pulling himself up, panting, he rolled onto this clay roof. The mists had made this climb more treacherous; surfaces were wet and slick. His cargo had banged against the stone several times. Grunts came from within the sack.