The Shattered City (13 page)

‘What the seven hells is this?' Macready demanded as he and Kelpie marched into the nest.

Velody looked at Kelpie, whose eyes darted to Warlord on the bed, though she did not move from Macready's side.

‘You speak like that to your betters?' Grago sneered.

Macready barely gave him a glance. ‘This is a sentinel's nest,' he thundered. ‘This belonged to the Silver Captain. It was not designed to be the playground of the Lords and Court. It's
ours
.'

‘Macready, stand down,' Ashiol said sharply. ‘We have other issues to worry about.'

‘More important issues, of course,' Macready said, folding his arms. ‘Everything is more important than the sentinels, as ever.'

‘Shut up, Mac,' Kelpie said tightly.

‘You're just as bad,' he growled at her. ‘Did you give Warlord access to this nest? Is that how he got in?'

Kelpie looked utterly devastated. ‘Is that what you think of me? That I would dishonour our fallen?'

‘I have no idea what you would fecking do,' said Macready. ‘Not now.'

‘I'm sure Warlord will be more than happy to fight a duel with you over the matter, sentinel,' Ashiol said forcefully, his voice reverberating through the room. ‘If he wakes up.'

Her hands. Velody tuned out everyone and everything in the nest, staring at the backs of her hands, then her palms. Her hands. What had Warlord meant? Was he crazed from his illness and wounds?

Her hands. She remembered the cobweb shadow that had pulsed over her skin after the time she and Warlord saved Poet from the sticky black noxcrawl. She had caught flickers of it occasionally, but thought she was imagining it. It appeared when she was angry, or afraid. It had got worse after the battle with Dhynar's shade. She had thought there was something wrong with her, or with her animor. Was it something else? Had
something crossed over from the sky? Was it still inside her?

She had worked on her sewing, and every stitch had calmed her, brought her back to herself. The shadows had vanished.

Her hands.

She couldn't have done it, couldn't have killed Livilla's courtesi, or hurt Warlord, without knowing about it. Could she? Velody already knew that she could not trust her own memory. Between Garnet's games and the loss of Tierce, her mind had been well and truly jumbled, like a tin of stray buttons.

Her hands. She laid one palm on Warlord's chest and his eyes flashed open. His gaze held hers for a moment, and then he shuddered and fell still again. It was several moments before she was certain he was still breathing.

She filled her hands with animor, until she could all but see light streaming out of her fingernails, and then laid her hands on him again, using the power to see inside his body. He was full of shadows. Here and here she could see where his own animor had been ripped out of him by force. It was already beginning to heal itself, tiny fragments sparking back into life, but they were struggling. He had drunk the blood of all five of his courtesi, and he still teetered on the precipice. The line between life and death was so very thin.

Velody flexed her fingers and gave him some of her own animor. Just one push at first, and then another, and she could feel it inside him, a slow burn to speed up the healing process. They were going to need him.

When Velody thought she had done enough, she looked around the nest again and saw chaos. The sentinels, courtesi and Ashiol were all arguing fiercely.

‘Quiet, all of you,' she demanded. ‘What now?'

‘I want them out of here, all of them,' Macready said hotly. ‘This is a sacred place and naught to do with your Court. Send them back to the Museion.'

‘No,' Velody said crisply. ‘I'm sorry, Mac, but Warlord is in no state to be moved.' She looked across at their angry, defensive faces. ‘I have no idea what is going on here, but someone is attacking the Court. Livilla and Warlord are both victims to it. We don't have time to play factions or argue who is the most aggrieved. All of the Court is in danger, all of us are vulnerable. We need to hold together.'

‘Pretty words,' growled Ashiol.

‘You can't just choose to respect me when I agree with you,' Velody flung at him. ‘Keep your mouth shut. I need you to think for once. If Warlord isn't behind all this, then who is?'

She looked to her sentinels next. ‘You too, both of you — I need you with clear heads. You know these people better than anyone …'

Ashiol snorted.

Kelpie glared at him. ‘Something to say, my King?'

Ashiol's eyes were on Velody, anger flooding through every word. ‘What are you suggesting? We all hold hands and vow to cleave to each other and the world will be well?'

‘I know stamping your foot like a child is more tempting right now,' Velody said, trying to keep herself calm so that her fears did not overwhelm her.
Did my hands do this?
‘But you must be able to see that it doesn't help.' She looked to Macready and Kelpie. ‘I want one of you to stay here, keep an eye on Warlord and his people …'

‘No,' said Kelpie.

‘Come now, lass,' Macready said in a low voice, hand brushing her arm.

She shook him off. ‘No. You'll stand up for an empty nest but not for us? I'm sick of it, Macready. The world does not live and die for Saint Velody!'

Velody blinked, startled at the sentinel's venom.

Kelpie turned on her, eyes blazing. ‘No one bothered to explain it, I suppose. Why should they? You have so much to learn about the Lords and Court, and we've long realised that we don't matter, not to any of you. But the sentinels are a sacred order and our duty — our only duty — is to stand at the side of the Kings. We protect you with our blades and our blood. But we are not your servants or your spies or your whores. Warlord has five fucking courtesi right here to defend his body. That is their duty. Ours — saints help us — is to defend you and Ashiol when Warlord or his courtesi or someone just like you tries to rip off your skin and drink you dry.'

Velody had no idea what to say to that.

Ashiol had no such qualms. ‘That's enough, Kelpie,' he commanded.

‘Not nearly enough, my King,' she retorted. ‘In case you haven't noticed, there aren't a dozen of us to clean up after you any more. There are three, and we're doing our best.'

‘You didn't seem to mind stepping outside your duties to romp in Warlord's bed,' he said harshly.

Kelpie's face froze over. ‘Thank you for reminding me of my place in the Court, my King,' she said woodenly. ‘A whore after all. Good to know.' She turned, and walked out of the nest.

Velody watched her leave. ‘Go home, Ashiol,' she sighed. ‘I don't have any use for you right now.' Without waiting to hear Ashiol's response, she went after Kelpie.

She didn't have to go far. Kelpie was sitting in a small miserable huddle against a wall, only a street and a half away. Velody joined her, crouching against the cool bricks. ‘What did Garnet do to you?' she asked after a long pause.

Kelpie almost cracked a smile. ‘That obvious, is it?'

‘I know he used the sentinels — the whole Creature Court — in ways they should not have been used. I don't know enough of the details.' There was a long silence from the sentinel. ‘I need to know, Kelpie. You might not like me, but I am trying to be different to Garnet. I am trying to make something of this Court. I need to know what mistakes he made, so I can avoid them myself.'

‘He took our honour from us,' Kelpie burst out, as if it hurt too much to keep it inside.

‘You mean your blades? Or something more?'

‘That was the start of it. We couldn't fight, which made us weak. Toys for his amusement. Spies, dolls. He sent me to Warlord's bed. The joke was that I wasn't even a spy. How could I be? Warlord knew who had sent me. The only effect it had was to piss off Livilla.' Kelpie sighed. ‘Garnet took our blood and our dignity — he liked to frig me because he knew Ashiol and I had been something once. But Ash was just as bad, in the old days, even if I did want him. At least Warlord knew he was using me. He was almost nice about it.'

There were no words for this. Velody thought about Crane, about how eagerly he hovered around her, how much he wanted to please her. It was different, she knew it was, but it still made her cringe inside. Power imbalance could so easily turn sinister.

‘It's not just about the frigging,' Kelpie said suddenly. ‘We meant something once. Being a sentinel was
glorious. Garnet took it away, piece by piece, and we let him do it. There's something about Kings and sentinels. We can't help loving them. They treat us like dirt, but it doesn't matter because we have our honour. We're warriors, with a place in the Creature Court, a place in the war against the sky. Our deaths count.' She turned and met Velody's troubled gaze. ‘Mac was so angry about them taking the Captain's nest. I barely even registered it. I thought, what does it matter? We've lost everything else. But it
matters
.'

Velody took a deep, shaky breath. ‘Ash gave you back your blades,' she said carefully. ‘But not your honour.'

Kelpie nodded slowly.

‘I'll work on that,' said Velody. ‘I want to make the Creature Court sensible and strong, and that means bringing back the parts of it that were good, the parts that have been lost. I need you to help, to show me the way.'

‘I don't know where to start,' Kelpie said helplessly.

Velody almost laughed. ‘Neither do I.'

‘Is —' Kelpie hesitated, and then blurted it out. ‘Is that blonde flapper of yours really going to become a sentinel?'

‘If she's worthy,' said Velody.

Kelpie looked grim. ‘I don't want to trust you. I don't even know how to hope for it all to be better.'

‘Try trusting me,' said Velody. ‘Working with me. For a short while, that's all. What do you have to lose?'

‘Nothing,' said Kelpie, but it wasn't a happy answer. ‘There's nothing left.'

They sat in silence together for some time.

O
nly a few months ago, Ashiol had been keeping farmer's hours — sunshine and hay — and had the world really made sense then? Once he returned to Aufleur, he had moved effortlessly back into nocturnal, so much so that it felt wrong to sleep when it was dark outside.

He awoke from an exhausted sleep to find himself in a narrow cot in Macready's smallest, mustiest nest, north of the city, with no idea whether it was day or nox. His mouth tasted foul. Ashiol ran his hands over his face, almost — for a fraction of a moment — feeling the scars he had borne for five years. Scars he hadn't been able to see for most of the time, though there were days when he had looked at his hands and they crumbled under his gaze, crusted and broken.

He breathed, reminding himself that he had his animor back. He was whole again. Whatever else he had to deal with, there was that.

‘If you're expecting coffee and pastries, it's the maid's day off, so it is,' mumbled a voice from a little way away.

‘Fuck you,' said Ashiol. He sent his animor out to check the sky, and recoiled with surprise. ‘It's morning.'

‘You slept like a daisy once you swallowed that third glass,' said Macready. He had been resting in a battered chair, his feet up on a box.

‘The sky was calm all nox?'

‘Aye,' said Macready. ‘Would I not have woken you if it got exciting out there?'

‘Hard to tell.' Ashiol sat up on his elbows, blinking in the near-darkness. Sleeping so long was alien to him. ‘Don't you have places to be?'

‘Solemn duty to guard your person from danger,' Macready said, in that light voice that sounded exactly the same as the voice he used when nothing was actually wrong. ‘More than ever now, given that we have a bloodthirsty maniac making their way through the Creature Court.' He paused. ‘Well, another bloodthirsty maniac.'

‘Dead courtesi, a Lord wounded and rambling,' Ashiol agreed. He was starving, but after Macready's crack about pastries, he wasn't going to mention it. ‘If I didn't know better, I'd say there was a new Power and Majesty in town.'

‘Funny,' said Macready. The box creaked under his feet. ‘You have a point, my King. If it's not our Velody, not you …' To his credit he didn't pause too long after that suggestion. ‘Which of them has got themselves a taste for blood? Livilla herself?'

Ashiol had considered that possibility. The mingled scents at the scene had thrown him into confusion, and there was something about that woman … she was not the Livilla-child he had once known inside and out, the
demme he had been able to read like a storybook. Not any more. ‘Could be,' he admitted. ‘She hasn't been right for a long time.'

Macready laughed shortly. ‘Are we only considering the suspects who might not be sane? I think I've spotted a flaw in that plan.'

Ashiol's stomach growled. He might be able to skip breakfast but the creatures inside him could not. ‘Let's go.'

They were at the arse-end of the Alexandrine, right by the river, and it was only just beginning to get light. Ashiol stopped at a hot food bar and eyed the unappetising selection of cold pulses and pickled eggs.

‘Not open yet,' the dame told him, sniffing against her sleeve.

Ashiol glared at her, and fished a silver duc out of his purse. ‘Wine, meat. Buy it elsewhere if you have to. There's another of these in it for you if you don't make me wait long.' He threw himself on the nearby bench, impatiently.

The dame scuttled down in the direction of the docks. When she was gone, Ashiol saw a look he didn't like on Macready's face. ‘What?'

‘They all act like nobles,' said Macready, seating himself with deliberation. ‘We forget, I think, that you really are one. You breathe it.'

‘That has nothing to do with blood in the Haymarket, and Warlord flat on his back,' said Ashiol.

‘Never said it did.' Macready helped himself to one of the dry rolls from the counter, since there was no one to stop him. He started to whistle, a slightly offkey rendition of something undoubtedly filthy. ‘You were hard on Kelpie yesterday,' he offered some time later. It was almost a relief after the whistling.

‘She deserved it,' Ashiol growled.
Don't go there, Mac. Seriously. You'll regret it.

‘For falling into bed with Warlord? She's hardly the first to have done that.'
Hypocrite
, went unsaid.

‘For keeping secrets from her Kings,' said Ashiol.

Macready laughed. ‘And considering how well you took the revelation, can you blame her for keeping quiet?'

‘You knew, did you?' Ashiol accused.

Macready gave him that look he pulled out on special occasions, the ‘I have half a decade on you and don't you forget it, laddie' expression. It never failed to make Ash want to thump him. ‘I didn't know it,' he said finally. ‘But I'd have kept her secret if she wanted it so. Were you listening to her words at all?'

‘That she had no choice,' Ashiol said bitterly. ‘Whatever that means. Is Mars supposed to have forced her?'

‘Not in this lifetime,' said Macready. ‘I think Garnet gave the order.'

Garnet, always back to Garnet. Ashiol stared into the distance. The dame was hurrying back with a basket, her cheeks red with the exertion. He should be able to talk about Garnet without feeling like the walls were about to fall in on him, crush him into fragments and dust on the ground. ‘Made a habit of that sort of thing, did he?'

‘Aye,' said Macready, eyes flat. ‘He'd taken to sending us spying, since we didn't have blades to make ourselves useful. Wouldn't put it past him to put Kelpie in Warlord's camp. If it annoyed Livilla, drove some distance between her and Warlord, all the better. Feck, he'd have done it to prove he could. Liked to show the sentinels who was boss, so he did.'

Ashiol's throat was dry. ‘Where's that wine?' he snapped as the dame passed him. She fussed behind her
counter for a little while and then emerged with a platter of sausage and oysters, and a dusty bottle of red wine, that she poured into chipped cups.

Macready had obviously caught a flicker of the contempt from Ashiol. ‘You'll give that poor hen the second duc,' the sentinel warned, gulping from the cup nearest to him. ‘Or I'll throw you in the river, King or not.' He made a face. ‘Too early for this.' Didn't stop him refilling his cup.

The oysters were fresh, at least. Ashiol was swallowing the last salty morsel when a brown mouse skittered across the floor and up the side of the bench. Its eyes glowed for a moment and Kelpie's voice said, ‘Get your sorry selves to the Palazzo. We'll meet you there.'

‘Interesting,' said Macready.

‘Where the hell is my coat?' said Ashiol.

 

Ashiol grew more and more tense as they walked up the road to the Palazzo. He didn't want to be here, not since Isangell had turned into some kind of seductive harpy. He hesitated, as they rounded the crest of the Balisquine.

‘Waiting for Saturnalia, are we?' Macready asked.

Ashiol didn't want to have to explain to the gabbling imbecile why he didn't want to take another step towards the Palazzo.
Damn you, Isangell, why did you have to screw everything up?
He gritted his teeth and continued on.

‘Ay-aye, we're not the only beggars up early,' said Macready.

There was a crowd gathered at the Palazzo gates. There were often people hanging around, but this was different. Robes, veils, garlands … Priests, for the most
part, and several people with scholar bands around their arms. Ashiol had a horrible feeling that he wasn't going to like whatever this mob had in mind. ‘Let's go around the other way,' he suggested, but it was too late.

‘It's the Ducomte!' cried one voice and then more. The crowd moved frighteningly fast.

‘Feck,' said Macready. They backed up, but it was too open here, no narrow alleys to disappear into. ‘What's going on?'

‘Isangell cancelled the Sacred Games,' Ashiol said in a low mutter, only now remembering. ‘And every other festival this month.'

‘That'll be popular,' said Macready. ‘No touching the Ducomte,' he added in a bark, drawing his steel sword to keep the mob at bay. ‘Stand back!'

‘Please, seigneur,' cried one, and many others added their pleas to the chorus. ‘You must beg the Duchessa to let us perform the ceremonies.'

‘She won't listen to me,' said Ashiol, but they drowned him out with their cries.

‘Please, Seigneur Ducomte, we can't miss another day … there are four days left of the Ludi Sacris. We must be allowed to complete the rituals.'

‘It's one circus,' Ashiol said, raising his voice so they could all hear. ‘Give her this. She's a demoiselle; let her have her way and she'll roll over like a kitten in a few nundinae.'

This caused ripples of panic to surge through the crowd. ‘Seigneur Ducomte, we don't have nundinae to spare, there's the Mercatus to think of, the Equitum, the Ides, Ludi Victoriae …'

‘Enough!' Ashiol yelled. He was tired and his head hurt. ‘I can't help you.'

‘If not us, Seigneur Ducomte, think of the city, you must save the city …'

Ashiol rolled his eyes at Macready. ‘Like I don't already get enough of that.'

‘I wouldn't laugh at this number of frightened priests,' said Macready. ‘But I'm a commoner, so what do I know.'

Where are you?
Ashiol heard Velody's voice in his head, clear and familiar.

Quarrelling with priests. You?

Around the back.

Why hadn't he thought of that?
I'll be right there.

 

Ashiol and Macready found Velody near the merchants' entrance at the back of the Palazzo gates. She sat on a slab of stone, with Crane and Kelpie on either side of her. They all looked troubled.

‘I received this for you at the house,' Velody said without ceremony, as Ashiol approached. ‘I was lucky to spot it among the commission notes.' She handed him a pretty piece of card ringed with gold — the kind of formal invitations that the Palazzo servants sent out to members of the Great Families. It was Isangell's stationery all right, even stamped with her seal, but it wasn't her spiky handwriting, inviting him to tea with the Duchessa.

It was Livilla's.

Ashiol could have run, could have shaped himself into cats, could have flown through the corridors faster than any of them. But he needed his sentinels at his back. This was not a time for undue haste. Whatever Livilla wanted, whatever performance she was planning in that evil little bobbed head of hers, she would wait for her audience to arrive.

They marched in through the servants' entrance and strode along the familiar halls, heading for the Duchessa's rooms.

Livilla, here. Fuck. Livilla, who had kept a pet kitten because ‘it reminds me of you, Ash', and then drowned it in a fit of anger when she felt he and Garnet were neglecting her. Livilla, who was now more like Tasha than he had ever believed possible. Petulant, destructive, powerful. Livilla, who was grieving and broken for the loss of her courtesi.

He had most assuredly been neglecting her, and this was his punishment.

The sentinels and Velody followed Ashiol as he looked from room to room. No sign of Isangell, but he could smell Livilla's recent presence here. There was cigarette ash on the carpet.

‘Where would Livilla take her?' Crane asked aloud.

‘No,' said Velody. ‘Where would the Duchessa take Livilla?' Ashiol looked at her, momentarily baffled. ‘A scandalous-looking demoiselle comes to her,' she explained patiently. ‘Claiming intimacy with you. Assuming they are acting in a civilised manner, where would the Duchessa choose to take her?'

‘What makes you think they are acting in a civilised manner?' Kelpie said scornfully.

‘They're both women,' said Velody. ‘From what I've seen of Livilla, she likes to put on a show. She wouldn't just … pounce. She would play for a while first. Especially if she's doing all this to get Ashiol's attention.'

It was a horribly accurate assessment. Ashiol went back out into the corridor. He headed to the old Duc's rose atrium first, knocking aside pots and green fronds to check it was empty. If not there, then where? ‘Which way
is the walled garden?' he barked at a passing servant, not trusting his own memory. The maid scurried along ahead of them, leading them back out of the building and across the grounds that spilled down the far side of the Balisquine, past the glassy pools and fine statuary, past the scented lawn to the high hedge he remembered, and the polished, antique wooden door set into the hedge.

Ashiol sent the maid away and pushed open the door with both hands.

The walled garden had been their grandmother's favourite place. The old Duchessa would invite her grandchildren for tea there only when they had been especially well behaved (for Ashiol this was almost never). As a child, Isangell had yearned to hold dolls' tea parties there, and never been allowed.

It looked exactly the same as he remembered from his childhood. There were no fancy topiary animals or gleaming statues or scalloped beds as in the rest of the Palazzo grounds. No colour, just green herbs in the beds, neatly trimmed lawn, and jasmine vines climbing the walls. Simple. Calm. For a moment, the old Duchessa was alive again, sitting there with her giant teapot, passing the almond cakes. But no, she wasn't here.

Instead it was Livilla, dressed in a long white morning dress as if she was a daughter of the Great Families, all pearls and pale green accessories. She wore gloves, and even her cosmetick was muted. They had been right, damn it. Livilla was putting on a show.

She was alone, despite the table being set for three. As Ashiol came down the grey stone steps, Livilla dropped a sugar cube into her own teacup with a tiny splash. ‘You're here,' she said, sounding pleased with herself. ‘I knew you loved me really.'