Seraphina(22)

No one in my visions had ever been aware of my presence before. How could they be? I wasn’t really there. He could not have touched my face because there was no face for him to touch, but I felt myself trying to recoil from his searching hand.

He frowned and scratched his head carefully. His hair had been arranged into coiled knots all over his scalp, the part lines between sections forming tidy little hexagons. He sat again and stared hard at the ceiling, his brows drawn. If it had not been impossible, I’d have said he was looking right at me.





I awoke with a salty leather glove between my teeth. I opened my eyes to see a woman cradling my head and upper body upon her knees. She held prayer beads in one hand, moving them along rapidly with her thumb, and her mouth moved quickly; my ears were slow to focus, but I heard her say, “St. Fustian and St. Branche, pray for her. St. Ninnian and St. Munn, be at her side. St. Abaster and St. Vitt, defend her—”

I sat bolt upright and yanked the glove out of my mouth, startling the woman. “Excuse me,” I croaked before my stomach let loose across the cobblestones.

She held my forehead and handed me a pristine white handkerchief to wipe my mouth with afterward. She called, “Brothers! She’s come round!”

Her brothers, Shorty and Tallfellow, emerged from the stable leading a team and a cart with the words Broadwick Bros. Clothier painted in black upon the side. The three of them together wrapped me in a fine wool blanket and bundled me into the back. The woman, who I concluded was the sister Shorty had mentioned, hefted her matronly person into the back with me and said, “Where are we taking you, little maid?”

“Castle Orison,” I said. I wasn’t going to make it to Orma’s tonight. Rather belatedly, I remembered to add, “Please?”

She laughed kindly and directed her brothers, who had surely heard me. The cart jostled and swayed. She took my arm and asked whether I was cold. I was not. She spent the rest of the trip instructing me in ways to get stains out of my gown, which I’d soiled by sitting in the filthy street.

It took nearly the whole cart ride for my pulse to slow and my teeth to stop chattering. I could scarcely believe my good fortune, collapsing in front of people who would help me. I could have been lying in an alley, robbed and left for dead.

Louisa was still chattering, but not about stains. “… horrid thing! You poor dear. It must have scared you half to death. Silas and Thomas are trying to devise a way to poison the green devils, something you could bury in garbage so’s they wouldn’t notice. It hasn’t been easy. They can eat most anything, can’t they, Silas?”

“Milk makes them ill,” said the short brother, who had the reins, “but not enough to kill them. Cheese they tolerate well, so it must be the whey. If we concentrate the whey—”

“They won’t eat it,” I said, my voice creaky from vomiting. “They have such keen noses, they’d be able to avoid it.”

“That’s why we hide it in garbage,” he said, as if I were simple.

I shut my mouth. Anything that could smell how sharp my knife was could smell whey even at the center of a dung heap. But let them try. They would try and fail, and that would be the best possible outcome for everyone.

We reached the barbican, where the palace guard stopped the cart. Louisa helped me climb down. “What do you do here?” she asked, awed. I wasn’t noble, clearly, but even a lowly lady’s maid carried a certain glamour.

“I’m the assistant music mistress,” I said, giving small courtesy. I was still unsteady on my feet.

“Maid Dombegh? You played at the funeral,” cried Silas. “Thomas and I were moved to tears!”

I inclined my head graciously, but as I did so I felt a snap in my mind, like a loosed bowstring, and the headache started up again behind my eyes. My evening’s excitement was not yet over, apparently. I turned to go inside.

A powerful hand on my arm stopped me. It was Thomas. Behind him, Silas and Louisa chatted at the guards, asking them to mention the Broadwick brothers, purveyors of sturdy woolens, to the Queen. Thomas drew me a little aside and whispered in my ear: “Silas left me to watch you while he fetched Louisa. I saw the quig idol in your purse.”

My face burned. I was ashamed against all reason, as if I were the guilty party and not the person who’d been pawing through an unconscious woman’s belongings.

His fingers dug into my arm. “I’ve met women like you. Worm-riding quig lovers. You don’t know how close you came to hitting your head during your fit.”

He couldn’t mean what I thought he meant. I met his eye; his gaze was a shock of cold.

“Women like you disappear in this town,” he snarled. “Tied in sacks, thrown in the river. No one calls for justice because they get what they deserve. But my brother-in-law can’t kill a filthy quig in his own home without—”

“Thomas! We’re going,” called Louisa behind us.

“St. Ogdo calls you to repent, Maid Dombegh.” He released me roughly. “Pray for virtue, and pray we don’t meet again.” He stalked off toward his siblings.

I swayed, barely able to keep my feet.

I had thought them kind, despite their prejudices, but Thomas had been tempted to dash my head against the cobblestones, just for carrying a quigutl figurine. That specific statuette didn’t carry some deeper meaning, did it? Had I inadvertently chosen the one that indicated I indulged in some particular perversion? Maybe Orma would know.