Land of the Beautiful Dead (67 page)

Azrael drummed his fingers, then leaned back and lifted the tablecloth. “Heather. Come here.”

“Please, my lord, don’t hurt my daughter! She’s all I have!”

“Be silent.” He extended his open hand. “Come, child. Stand here before me.”

Heather’s small hand slipped into his. She crawled out into the light and quickly stepped away, wiping her hand on the side of her thigh. Her lip was a little curled with idle disgust, but her eyes were only curious.

“Tell me,” said Azrael, offering her a cheese tartlet. “How did you come to my city?”

“In a van. Mum called it a ferry,” the girl added scornfully, “but it didn’t have a name or no picture on the side like a real ferry has. It was just a van.”

“Where did you board the van?”

“In Fords. We took a real ferry to Fords. The Screaming Sally.”

“And where did you board the Sally?” Azrael inquired, looking at the woman.

“Some place,” the girl said disinterestedly, sniffing her tartlet. “It was dark and we weren’t there long.”

“How many ferries did you ride to come here?”

The girl shrugged, her mouth too full to talk.

“And where did you board the first of them?”

“I dunno. It was open ground.” The girl quieted, looking at her last bite of tartlet as from a great distance. “The morning after Bran…fell down.”

“But eventually, you came to Fords and the van brought you here?”

The girl found a grape on the floor and ate it. “Oh, there were lots of other places first. Alaighcroft and Camfork and I forget the rest.” Her thin face scrunched up with thought. “Celtscross. And some other place…Sexy.”

Azrael’s smile went crooked. “You mean a waystation.”

“No, not a sex-
place
,” said the girl with lofty disdain. “That was just the name of the town. Sexy.”

“Iversex,” whispered the woman.

“Ah. So if I were to ask Deimos here, he would no doubt assure me you went to all these other villages because they were on the way to Haven.” He picked distractedly through a platter of cakes, offering one to Lan and two to the child before selecting one for himself. “It was a long way to travel. I’m sure it necessitated many stops.”

The woman said nothing.

“Deimos, what is the nearest human settlement between Haven and Mallowton?”

“A waystation called Ba’s Goods, my lord, if any permanent human habitation can be called a settlement. The nearest village would be Covington, some thirty miles further east.”

“And Iversex? Are you familiar with Iversex?” Azrael asked, turning to Lan.

She shook her head and forced herself to swallow a bite of cake. Lemon. Her favorite.

“No. I don’t suppose you would be. I did not present it for negotiation between us, as it lies beyond what I would consider convenient reach. Well beyond Mallowton, for example. Which raises a familiar point.” Azrael turned back to the woman. “Why, finding yourself safe in Iversex, did you abandon it and come here?”

Lan could have answered, if only she could speak. Even if the ferryman who had picked them up had kept Mallowton’s destruction and the reason for it a secret—damned unlikely—charity was something no village could afford. If she’d been alone, maybe she’d have a slim chance of convincing the mayor there to take her on trial. It was the custom to offer travelers a chance to farm or cook or work whatever skill they had in exchange for a bed and a bowl of scraps, but that was a courtesy and courtesy was thin enough these days. One woman might not be too much underfoot and might even be a help; a child was nothing but an open mouth. No, she would never be given more than a foreigner’s welcome—a camp bed to share with her little girl while her ferryman charged his batteries and did some trading, only to be moved on in the morning.

“Are you a stupid woman?” Azrael asked evenly, since Mary had not answered. “I confess I thought it must be an extraordinary mind that had eluded my captain here, but it would seem your escape had more to do with blind chance. I’m not certain yet whether to be relieved or disappointed that you are instead a stupid, nigh suicidal woman who has left not one or two but at least four settlements to come here.
Directly
to me. To throw yourself upon my mercy, a quality for which I’m certain I am not well-known.”

“I…I thought…”

“Yes?”

“It is said you sometimes take a…a mistress.”

Azrael leaned back in his throne and huffed out what was nearly a laugh. “I had no idea rumor of my predilections had spread so far. How embarrassing. Deimos, how far is Mallowton from Haven, at your best guess?”

“I would say somewhat less than three hundred miles.”

“And Norwood? How far is Norwood?”

“Two hundred miles, perhaps. Perhaps a little more.”

Azrael turned to Lan and cocked his head. “And are my amorous exploits the stuff of public house knowledge in Norwood, dear Lan?”

Even if she had permission to speak, she doubted she could have found her voice for that question. To speak the Devil’s name was to invite him in, everyone knew that. It wasn’t enough to stop the talk—as long as there were bored men and children who needed scaring, there would be talk—but it was safely confined to night-time tales of his legendary cruelty and whispered speculation on his origins. Not even at the bottom of the deepest cup in Norwood could a rumor be found concerning Azrael’s sexual appetites. Hell, she’d slept in that bed a hundred times over by now and still there was a part of her that could scarcely believe he had one.

Azrael’s gaze shifted back to cringing Mary and burned cold. “Mallowton’s ears are sharp indeed, to have heard what Norwood has not guessed, at half the distance. Tell me—” He leaned back and drummed his claws once on the arm of his throne. “—how well did you know the woman they sent to spy out Haven’s defenses?”

Lan started and stared at him.

The woman flinched. Whatever reaction she had expected (and her dull, desperate eyes suggested it wasn’t much), it hadn’t been that. “I had no part of that, my lord.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“I…I knew her, lord. But she came from the dolly-house on High Row and I worked the stockyards!” she went on quickly. “I never knew her better than to nod at!”

“You knew her well enough to hear her talk. And I’m sure it was entertaining to hear.” His mouth behind the mask twisted into a smile, made all the more terrible by the sincere humor it held. “What did she tell you of my nights in her bed? Did she describe the positions I favored? The sounds I made?” His head cocked. His smile widened and split to show a glint of fang. “Ah yes…I see she did. So you knew her, woman. You knew her very well. And even if you were not wholly in her confidence, you knew she was a part of the plan that
Peter
and
Yancy
and various other
foreigners
hatched together without your interference. And when the repercussions came due, you knew enough to gather your children and come to Haven, where you hoped to use what you knew to escape your measure of the consequence for your actions!”

“Lord, I swear—”

“Your inaction, then,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Either amounts to the same sin and, as with any sin, forgiveness is reserved for those who confess. So tell me, woman. Tell me all you knew of Mallowton’s insurrection and I may show you mercy. Tell me not, or tell me lies, and you will have none.”

The woman stared at him, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her face, and finally, hoarsely, said, “I knew I had children, my lord. And I knew I had nowhere else to go. That was all I knew and all I let myself know. Forgive me.”

He did nothing. Nothing.

Lan steeled herself and touched his arm. He put his hand over hers absently and patted twice, but didn’t look at her. Maybe that was a good thing, she thought, but was not convinced. She wished he wasn’t wearing that damned mask. All she could see was his eyes and the cruel shadow of his mouth. He could be thinking anything.

“I am not convinced,” he said at last, even as he took a wedge of cheddar from the tray and passed it to the child. “However…I am disposed to be convinced. What have you to offer?”

“My lord?”

“Lan here—” His hand gripped hers, lifting it and bringing her unwillingly into focus. “—is not only a skilled conversationalist and a student of the architectural arts, but a master negotiator and advocate for this land. By her works, sixty-three settlements of Men are fed from my table. But of course, you know this.”

“I…” Mary’s eyes darted aimlessly about the room and finally dropped. “Yes, lord. I know.”

“Where then do your talents lie? You would seem to have a pragmatic nature,” he remarked, signaling for more wine. “And if your tale is true, you’ve demonstrated you are capable of logical thought and decisive action. You say you worked in the stockyards, but even there, one might develop skills of use to me here. I have some need of a doctor who understands biological imperatives as more than an intellectual exercise and it is a small step from tending animals to tending humans.”

Lan could tell the woman didn’t even know what all those words meant. She could only shake her head, her cheeks flushed and eyes downcast.

“No? Pity. What were you, then? A butcher?”

“No, my lord. I fed the cattle and cleaned the stalls.”

“But surely, you had leisure pursuits. That woman of our mutual acquaintance may have mentioned I am fond of music and I have found the talent of the living often far surpasses even the dedicated training of the dead. Do you play anything? Sing, perhaps?”

“No.”

“Paint? Stitch? I confess the artistic imagination both eludes and fascinates me. I am open to any interpretation. Have you any?”

“Mallowton is…was…no place for that sort of thing.”

“No, I suppose not. Do you read? No?”

“No, my lord.”

“However did you think to gain my favor?” Azrael inquired, offering the child a sip of wine and watching with a tolerant eye as she drained his cup.

“I thought…if my body pleased you…”

“A dangerous offering. My Lan is prone to jealousy. However…” Azrael gave Lan a narrow sidelong stare. “One cannot always bend to the whims of one’s concubine. Show me.”

The woman shifted on her feet, her eyes darting from Azrael to Lan and back again.

Azrael waited.

“M-my lord?”

“If your body pleases me, you said. How shall I know unless I see it?”

The woman threw Lan a haunting and hopeless glance, then shut her eyes and kept them shut. Her hands fumbled at the buttons of her shirt. Taking a deep breath to make her wasted breasts seem fuller, she rose and bared her chest to him.

It was awful. A filthy map of bone and bruises leading from nowhere to nowhere and leaving no footprints behind.

Azrael gazed without comment until dull color flooded the woman’s haggard face and she covered herself again. “I think not,” he said dryly. “What else have you to offer?”

The woman looked at her daughter and bent her head in the slightest of nods.

The child wiped her mouth on the back of her arm and matter-of-factly opened her shirt.

Azrael looked at her, his narrow twist of a smile finally and utterly gone, then at her mother.

The woman only waited.

Azrael shoved his throne back and stood up, seizing the startled girl by her wrist. “Steward!”

“Oh no! Please, no!” The woman stumbled forward and was pulled back and shoved to her knees by Deimos. She did not try to rise again, only held out her empty arms, crying, “Kill me, but don’t hurt her! She’s just a baby!”

“She’s old enough, it would seem,” Azrael spat and bellowed again for his steward.

The girl began to cry and then to struggle, twisting and scratching like a cat as she fought to return to her mother, but Azrael paid her no notice. He dragged her behind him as he descended the dais steps, moving fast down the hall to meet his uneasy steward. “Find a bed for this,” he ordered, passing the now-screaming girl over. “And someone to look after her. Captain!”

Deimos lifted his sword. “My lord?”

“Take her whoremongering mother to the nearest waystation. Another ferry should be along presently,” he snarled, turning his savage eyes back on the woman. “Pay for it on your own back!”

“Don’t take my baby!” The woman surged, letting her patched shirt tear in the Revenant’s grip so that she could catch at Azrael’s ankle. “She’s all I have! Please!”

“Would you have her returned then?” Azrael raised a hand to halt his steward’s retreat. “Or would you be paid for her?”

For a bad time, the only sounds to hear were the child screaming for her mother and the breaking of Lan’s heart.

Slowly, the woman put out her empty hand and held it, shaking, in the air.

Azrael snapped the clasp on his golden collar and threw it at her. It hit hard, leaving red marks on the woman’s cheek and arm, but she said nothing as she gathered all its pieces together, nothing as her daughter was pulled kicking and shrieking from the hall, nothing as Azrael swept away.

The audience was over. Lan supposed she was free now to speak, but honestly, she could think of nothing to say. The woman looked at her and, in spite of the pikemen and the servants and Deimos standing close with his sword in his hand, it was just the two of them.