The Last Stitch (The Chronicles of Eirie: 2) (20 page)

Chapter Thirty Five

‘She had this perverse idea, my Threadlady, that she was bad luck to people... mortal and Other. Her parents, Ana, Li
am... you know their story? The Faeran silk seller, the list goes on. And Kholi! Oh Aine, it’s that death alone which unhinges her still.’ The hob walked back and forth, hands waving and gesticulating. ‘And now she thinks she’s Lhiannon’s bane.’

‘Lhiannon!’ Phelim’s exclamation
stopped the hob in his tracks.

‘You know Lhiannon?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, Adelina had this obsession that she must see Lhiannon to prove to her unborn child she is not some unfortunate piece of bad luck to all she meets. She liked Lhiannon and missed her when the girl left with the souls. In a way I think she tried to put Lhiannon
in Ana’s place. Do you know about the souls? I suppose you do, you’re Faeran.’ Without waiting for an answer the unstoppable hob continued. ‘Adelina had been searching for the Venichese Gate with my utterly useless guidance when we had an idea you could tell us because we had surmised you were Faeran...’

Phelim sat as still as a statue.

‘Because of the
frisson
.’ Gallivant’s voice petered out, his story almost told. He added an afterthought as he palmed his aching head. ‘So help me find her because I am telling you, she has thought to find the Gate herself without a thought of any danger to she and the babe. She is so damned impetuous. I swear Severine has her now! Help me find her quickly and then tell me where the Gate is. You can mesmer my memory after. And then my Lady can see Lhiannon and get on with the business of being pregnant as far from Severine as possible.’

Still Phelim didn’t move
. It was a skill he had learned as a young shepherd - to be calm, to think, to anticipate. His hands formed a steeple under his chin and he finally locked eyes with the hob who shrank a little from the seriousness of the gaze. ‘Lhiannon is dead.’

‘Aine, you say so.
Are you sure?’ The hob sat with a hard plop onto the end of one of the beds.

Phelim told of his relationship with Lhiannon and at the end Gallivant shook his head. ‘My poor Lhiannon, I truly admired her. She was a courageous little thing.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Sink me friend, it’s going to take a better man than I to convince Adelina she is no man’s bane, that Lh
iannon’s death is not her fault.’ He jumped up and began the frantic pacing. ‘I must find her! Severine’s got her, I just know it. If we find that foul woman, we can find the Stitcher. Will you help me? Please?’

‘We have only to find Severine’s palazzo. There is surely a house brownie within whom you could question as to where she might be confined. And apparently I have ways and means.’

‘What do you mean?’

But Phelim ignored the hob’s curiosity. ‘I know where the Palazzo Di Accia is. I asked a waiter at one of the coffeehouses. It’s on the Grand Canal, directly opposite the Ca’ d’Oro, in fact they say one is the mirror image of the other, that the old count built both, unsure which view he liked the best from the balconies.’

‘Good,’ the hob ran to the door. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Gallivant!’
Phelim’s hand grasped the hob.

‘Aine man, come ON! Don’t you understand? If Severine does have her,
she will kill her this time. She is symbolic of all Severine lost - the souls, the robe, immortality. And she is Adelina! That’s almost enough on its own. Sink me, we’ve no time to waste. You’re Faeran, you can do anything if you have to. Come on.’

He leaped through the door, grabbing his coat as Phelim followed. ‘Hob, w
ait up.’

Gallivant hauled to a halt outside the hotel entrance.

‘You need to clear out your goods from your inn, especially the robe. If they inveigle its whereabouts from Adelina, she
is
as good as dead. As long as Severine can’t find the robe, she will keep Adelina alive. The robe appears to be an intrinsic part of Severine’s machinations. Go and do it and I shall wait for you there.’ He pointed to a colonnaded arcade that led to a row of empty gondolas, the mooring poles glistening from the rain.

The hob vanished into thin air and Phelim hurried toward the arcade. At the end of the cloistered space a dozen empty craft rocked in the slight chop fidgeting in from the laguna. Jumping in to the nearest, Phelim negotiated his way to the upswept stern and untied the rear line.

As he returned to the side of the canal, he looked up at the night sky in its shroud of grey raincloud. An uneasy mist tumbled and teased over cupola and campanile, crawling as low as the poles. No moon or stars gave any light, creating a subfusc that concealed and threatened -
how many pairs of eyes watched?
He cast a glance around and could see a glint of amber moving surreptitiously, level with his shoulder.
A cat!
But a flip in the water spun him round and he saw the iridescent shape of a merrow swimming away as his heart hammered. He heard the tap of feet and the hob emerged out of the dripping mist that thickened as the evening aged. ‘You were quick,’ he said.

‘Huh, t
here has to be some advantage to being Other. I just hope another is that we can save my lady friend. Let’s go.’ He leaped onto the craft like a dancer, the boat barely shifting.

Phelim jumped aboard, his th
oughts on Adelina’s bereft face. Stepping to the stern, he began to pole the craft backward out in to the middle of the waterway. He directed the bow along the canal and they passed under bridge after bridge until a broad swathe of black water met them at the junction. ‘We go left,’ he whispered. ‘To the Bridge of Sighs. See that shape right up there, the bridge that is mask-shaped.’ He pointed into the wet and misty gloom. ‘It’s just past there.’

He poled deftly, standing at the stern, bending into the pole stroke, one leg stretched behind the other. The oar made a faint rhythmic squeak in its post and he ran his hand in front of his chest, reducing the uneasy tool to silent movement. The palazzos, the Libreria, the Museo all slid past silently as the Bridge of Sighs emerged in the mist.
‘It’s traditionally the bridge where masked women throw tokens down to their lovers as they pass underneath in gondolas.’ He spoke gently to Gallivant to ease the hob’s angst. ‘But it’s also the bridge where the condemned pass from the Courts of Justice to the executioner. It’s strange a bridge can mean two such disparate things.’ A faded fresco of lovers lying within an arbor graced the smooth arch. ‘It would be pleasing to think Severine would pass over this bridge after she had suffered the Courts’ indulgence.’ Phelim knew it was a mortal comment that passed his lips and it pleased him that some of Ebba was still ingrained. ‘A life sentence, perhaps.’

‘I don’t think so, s
he deserves something far worse.’ Gallivant muttered.

Phelim raised an eyebrow and then spoke softly. ‘There. See?’ He stopped poling.

On the left bank of the canal sat an elegant palace glowing pale as moonlight in the night and taking up a whole block with a
canal on either side. It was three stories high, each long window arched with fluted masonry, cobwebbed traceries of leadlighting marking the windows themselves. On the second storey, a balcony ran the breadth of the building, carved in the Raji style in quatrefoil patterns. Even in the dark of the evening with a vacillating mist, the ivory paintwork and cream marble set up its own reflective light. In front of the building, poles stood to attention and a studded pair of doors warded off the unwanted.

The two companions stared at it. Gallivant whispered. ‘What now?’

***

Had I known my hob and his new friend were close by, I would have felt less of the pain that assaulted me, for Luther used me as roughly as a man can. I cannot and will not say anything more about it as it sickens me and brings me to the edge of an abyss.

My rapist consigned me to a room at the top of some building to begin his work. I know because I was forced on contused legs to climb at least three long sets of stairs and counting them stopped me screaming. He threw a large blanket over me afterward as I lay in a heap on the floor but I cared about nothing as I shivered there.

‘Adelina, the pleasure was mine.’ Luther assailed me with his filthy words. ‘Your body is a delight t
hat I find I must have more of and which I shall do after I take you to Severine. She’ll want the robe and then I think she’ll give you back to me. Behir woman, I shall enjoy the gift. I have so much to repay you for and there is so much else I want to try with you. This was just an opener shall we say.’ He burst out laughing as he re-buttoned his breeches.

The door locked and I succumbed to a cold silence bereft of thought.

A faint light stretched across the floor and glinted on a piece of broken glass near my hand. Sharp, part of a bottle perhaps and my mind sped through the process - glass, cut, bleed, death, Kholi. My fingers curled around it and drew it towards me.

I stretched my other arm out and laid the glass against my wrist. I couldn’t imagine the pain being any worse than the rape of a pregnant woman and I felt the tears scald as I remembered the brutality Kholi’s child had just suffered. How could any fledgling survive that?

I raised the glass to slice and as I did a sensation issued against my belly wall like a small hand tapping against a door. Again and then again.

I sucked in my breath.

My child demanded my attention. Against the odds, against the battering that had pounded the walls of its home, it lived and in its staccato rhythm against my womb it seemed to say, ‘
don’t give up, we have a long way to go together and much to do.’

And so, my friend, have you.

Shrink the latest book and replace it under the groom’s shoulder cape. And then repair to his black tricorn hat with its carmine feather. I wired and embroidered it in another hoop, then cut it out and applied it to the head of my groom. It is capacious enough to fit a thick book underneath, so once again you will have to slice some of the stab-stitches that hold the hat in place.

There are so few hiding places left now and only
three more books beyond this one. I beg you to remember what my instructions were. On pain of death,
don’t
touch the one hanging from the bride’s hand, please.

Chapter Thirty Six

‘There are
no house brownies, only Siofra.’ Gallivant had paddled rapidly back across the canal to his companion on the landing stage at the Ca’ d’Oro opposite Severine’s palatial home. ‘And I have found out what we need to know. She’s there.’
Using the skill that so drove Adelina mad, to pass through a building no matter how thick the walls, he had ventured deep into the stronghold and found the kitchens and cellars to be bereft of any Other life at all. Bemused, he passed into the cobbled yard at the rear, where tubs of dripping bay and olive trees stood sentinel in the empty space. He could hear sparrow-like chattering coming from a half opened door on the other side of the yard so he crept like a shade towards the noise.

A party of Veniche
se Siofra sat around a small flame. Like their mortal counterparts, they were dressed in black and the women sat applying tiny feathers to masks while the men deftly splashed gold paint around.

‘Hola, friends,
’ Gallivant whispered a soft greeting.

The Siofra jumped but seei
ng the hob, settled back to their tasks. ‘What do you want, hob? You’ll not be welcome in that house,’ said an aged fellow as he sucked at his pipe, his cheeks puffing like bellows.

‘I can see,’ replied Gallivant.
‘Does the palazzo have no hobs or brownies at all?’

A pretty Siofra with a turquoise feather in her hand spoke up
. ‘That woman wouldn’t want Others in the house. When one moved in, there were instructions that within a day a set of clothes should be laid out and they would be forced to leave.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘Siofra go where they like and when,’ she replied with a pointed laugh. ‘It is not for the likes of that hell-spawn to dictate to us.’

‘I like your spirit, there are many
Others who could emulate you.’ The hob watched the Siofra preening with satisfaction. ‘Do you ever go into the palazzo yourself?’

There was a chorus of delighted
chuckles.
Like a flock of finches.

‘Of course, whenever we like.’

‘Today, this night?’

‘Why?’

‘I look for someone.’ The hob sat on a wine-cask and hung his clasped hands between his knees. ‘Ithink they may be here.’

‘There is only a mortal woman that the brute Luther has locked in
the top rooms. She’s very ugly. Her hair is shorn and she’s dirty. But then, so’s he.’ The turquoise feather was given a final push and took its place amongst others on the diminutive mask as Gallivant’s heart began a racketing beat. ‘That’s who you search for, isn’t it? Hob, she’s mortal!’ The woman’s tone was scathing. ‘Why does it matter?’

‘She is in my care,’ was all the hob would say.

‘Then you don’t do a good job, letting her be locked up here.’ The little woman who did all the talking cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘And let me tell you this - you will never get her out, the brute has the one key and she can’t pass through walls like you.’

‘But they told me there are windows all along the top storey, Phelim. We can do this. We must do this! If we go down that canal on the side there, there is a large tree draping over the water and we can climb to the balcony on the first floor and then there are ornamental grilles we can use as ladders to the balconies on the next level and the next. Adelina is in one of the top rooms.’

Phelim looked at the hob’s desperate face. ‘Do you propose to make her climb down the
same way, with child as she is?’

‘No, no... I don’t know. Sink me, can’t you mesmer?’

Phelim sighed, time would tell. ‘Let’s just find her first. Something will reveal itself, I’m sure.’

The companions poled the gondola to the small, bending canal that laced away round corners to some far away distance. Phelim waved his hand over the rope line and it climbed to knot itself amongst the hanging branches of the ancient olive that bent gnarled branches over the dark grey water. Then they climbed up the branches and around the corner onto the first floor balcony with its carved balustrade. Phelim hoisted Gallivant onto his shoulders and the hob grasped the ornamental grille and climbed rapidly to the next balcony with its smaller quatrefoil design and then to the next. Phelim slipped in quietly beside him.

‘Maybe we should have manifested inside the building, ’ the hob swore as his
feet slipped on the wet marble, ‘instead of all this climbing.’

‘Indeed, but it is as well to spy the lie of the land for Adelina’s descent and hob, I have my doubts about her being abl
e to get down the way we got up.’

‘I know, I know,’ Gallivant snapped
as he edged along the balcony.

It stretched its narrow and decorative way the width of the palazzo. Wide enough only for the two to progress in single file, looking in each darkened wind
ow and hoping to spy something – anything. But each window was empty.

A nightbird hooted from close by, startling the pair.

‘She has to be here, she has to be.’ The hob’s whisper was on the slide to hysteria.

Phelim
leaned against one of the windows, worrying for the woman, for her condition. He turned to examine the darkened interior and thought he saw a huddle that could have been a pile of rugs or some such. ‘Look! What do you think?’

‘What, what?’ Gallivant
leaped to his side, his voice sharp.

‘Ssh, look.
Could it be someone on the floor?’

The hob cupped hands over eyes t
o peer through the glass. ‘Yes. It is!’ He whipped through the glass of the window and Phelim watched him bend over the tumble of fabric. He kneeled and cradled something in his arms and then smoothed his hand and kissed the top of a head that drooped. He bent lower, looking into her face, speaking earnestly, gesticulating over his shoulder. She moved and the hob eased his arm under her and then walked carefully to the window.

Phelim wafted his arm in front of his body and the window catch flipped up, the fenestration opening wide like a door. A leg appeared, bare and bruised, then a shoulder and a head that would have been capped in
short russet hair if he could see it properly. She was dressed in nothing but torn smalls and his heart broke at her indignity so that his hand came up and within minutes she was clothed in breeches and a sweater, some boots and a jacket.

He held her hand gently, feeling emotion creeping through his body and then he spoke to them, the woman’s exhaustion and delicate condition not lost on his sensibilities.

‘We must travel across the rooves and quickly.’