Land of the Beautiful Dead (91 page)

* * *

A month, he’d said. A month at most. A month was nothing.

So she told herself, but time was different in Haven, even when Azrael was there. When he wasn’t, it might as well have stopped entirely.

She did her best to keep busy, but there just wasn’t anything to do. Deimos found her the monument man she asked for, but after telling him what she wanted the stone to say—
dedicated to the memory of James Wickham, friend and teacher
—she wasn’t needed for anything. She went to see the stone set and to wander a little while through the empty museum, looking at bones and pots and columns until the oppressive weight of all that collected time crushed her out. She went to the place where Tehya’s garden had been, with half a thought to plant some flowers back and maybe have it done and ready to surprise Azrael with on his return, but the sight of that scorched pit and blackened stones sapped her of any energy she had for the project and she never went back. She walked out to the wall once and sat there all day, staring into the wastes where not even Eaters walked any more, until Deimos fetched her home. He offered to take her in a car if she wanted to watch for their lord’s return, but under no circumstances was she to go anywhere without telling him again. She told him that wouldn’t be necessary and it wasn’t. She did not leave the palace again.

She did not go to dinners. She did not go to breakfasts. She ate her meals on a tray in her room and. More often than not, sent them away unfinished. She wasn’t moping, despite what Serafina said, or at least, she wasn’t only moping. The troubles with her stomach persisted, although it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been before Azrael left. It was easy to blame the food—nothing tasted right—but she’d eaten rats, roaches and peaches plenty of times in her life without fading away over it. She didn’t feel well. Even on those rare days she didn’t spend her first hour after waking hunched over the chamberpot as she contemplated the meaning of life, she never really felt well. Sad, tired, sore and sick: this was her new normal.

But it would only be a month, he said. A month at the very most.

So she waited.

* * *

Morning arrived, as it always did these days, with the sound of curtain rings sliding on a metal rod. Light like spears stabbed in under her eyelids. Lan groaned and pulled the blanket over her head, which worked fine until it was yanked away.

“Good morning,” said Serafina, reciting her customary greeting. “You look awful.”

“Go away.”

She did, or at least she seemed to, but she was back in mere moments with a breakfast tray, forcing Lan to sit up and accept it. Hot coffee with cream and sugar, bread and marmalade, bangers, kippers, black puddings and a huge wedge of lemon cake—all her favorites, together on one tray. The sight of it stirred nothing but a twinge of guilt vaguely tied to the faceless, nameless cooks who were clearly trying so hard to stimulate an appetite she simply didn’t have these days.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be difficult!” snapped Serafina, already rummaging through the wardrobe for a suitable morning gown. She brought back several, holding them up one a time and eyeing Lan critically over the neckline. “Apricot? No. Lavender? No. Lemon? Ugh, no. Coral,” she decided, holding up a mass of heavy skirts attached to a beaded corset.

“I hate pink.”

“It isn’t pink, it’s
coral
, and you don’t have to like it, you just have to wear it. Stop playing with your food and eat. You have appointments.”

“Horseshit.” Lan picked up a slice of pudding and ate it with her fingers. It was all right at first bite, but left an unpleasant aftertaste and sat in her stomach like lead. “I don’t have anything to do. I don’t have to get dressed to do nothing. I don’t even have to get out of bed if I don’t want to.”

“You want to today.” Serafina draped the hated pink morning dress over her arm and continued looking through the wardrobe, now on the ‘night’ side.

“No, I really don’t.” Lan had another bite of pudding, chasing it down with coffee, but that aftertaste endured, turned cloying with the addition of cream and sugar. She put her cup down and pushed it all the way to the edge of her tray. “I don’t think I feel very well.”

“Oh, you’re always saying that, just because you’re bored.” Serafina looked back at her to roll her eyes where Lan could see it, then returned her attention to the gowns. “Instead of arguing with me, you ought to have asked why I made appointments.”

“Because
you’re
bored,” Lan muttered, but her curiosity had been piqued, damn it. For all her faults, and there were many, Serafina was a very good handmaiden and as such, she did not go out of her way to make more work for herself. “Okay, fine. Why?”

Serafina glanced back over her shoulder with a smug smile. “Our lord sent a messenger to say they’re on their way home. Oh, have a care, you clumsy cow!”

Lan had sat up, jostling her tray and sloshing coffee over the bedspread. She mopped it up hurriedly with her napkin, gulping down the rest of her cup to prevent further spills, and sputtered, “Today? They’re coming back today?”

“No, tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Which gives us a much-needed chance to put you in order, to which end—” Serafina pulled Lan’s old nemesis, the black gown with the beaded corset, from the wardrobe with a flourish. “—I have made appointments! You’re welcome. Now hurry and eat.”

Lan tried a little marmalade on her black pudding in the hopes of smothering that nasty aftertaste. It did seem to help and actually tasted pretty good. She had another bite and then another and then, without any warning at all, her mouth dropped open and she yarked it all up into her lap.

Lan had just enough time to register Serafina’s look of shock and to take a short, choking breath, and then she puked again, hard, spraying coffee and bile out her nostrils in twin burning streams. She doubled over, gasping and choking, and puked a third time, making a sound like a barking dog and seeing to her horror just an amazing glut of bright red blood come honking out between her fingers to splatter over her breakfast tray.

“My
God
!” Serafina said and then dropped her dresses and came running over to seize and steady Lan’s shivering shoulders.

“I think I shit the bed,” said Lan in a small, stunned voice. “I’m so sorry.”

“Never mind that. Come along. Can you stand? Why didn’t you tell me you were really ill?” she demanded in a sudden furious rush, then just as suddenly turned soft and consoling, saying, “Just this way, a few more steps. I’ll clean you up and send for the doctor.”

“Don’t do that. I’m okay,” said Lan and she did feel better, although a bit pale and headachy. “I think I just ate too much too fast.”

“I don’t really care what you think. I never have and if I ever did, it certainly wouldn’t be now. I’m sending for a doctor. My God,” she said again, looking back at the bed with wide, round eyes.

“I’m begging you, don’t! Azrael will find out!”

“Whereas if I don’t and he finds out you’re ill and I did nothing, why, that can only end well!”

“But I was sick when he left!” Lan wailed. “He’ll think I’ve been sick this whole time! He’ll be all noble and concerned and won’t lay a bloody finger on me and he’s been gone forever!”

“Never mind you and your warmblood hormones. Let’s just get you cleaned up. Here, lean on this.” Serafina propped Lan against the wall and started water running in the bath, shooting her nervous glances over her shoulder every few seconds. “You would do this to me today. I swear you plan these things. Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look all right.”

“If you tell me how rotten I look one more time, I’m going to start crying,” Lan said crossly.

That seemed to satisfy her, but as soon as Lan was settled in the bath, Serafina was out of the room and calling down the hall for a guard. Lan was left to bathe herself, which she did just fine. Whatever fit had taken her in the bed seemed to have passed, although she was still a bit achy in places. Mostly what she felt was embarrassment.

When the doctor arrived—the dead one again, thus guaran-damn-teeing Azrael would hear about this—she was out of the bath and toweling off, and except for the taste in her mouth and a lingering burn in her throat and nostrils, she felt right as rain. He looked her over anyway, bow to stern, putting his cold hands just anywhere he felt like it and mm-hmming to himself.

“You were eating, you say?” The doctor moved over to the sheets Serafina had stripped and had a look. “What is this?”

“Coffee and pudding.”

“Pudding? For breakfast?”

“Black pudding,” Lan amplified. “You know. Blood sausage.”

“I see, I see. They make that from pork’s blood, don’t they?” Without waiting for an answer, the doctor nodded and started packing his doctory kit away. “Undercooked pork. Standard stomach complaint. One of the others was off her color after the sausages this morning as well. Must have a word with the kitchen.”

Serafina sniffed. “If you’re speaking of that horrid little child, she was caught in the wine cabinet. The only color she was off was cabernet red.”

The doctor met her sniff and raised her a haughty brow. “And was your mistress also tipping the bottle last night, madam?”

“No,” said Lan.

“So there we have it. Stomach complaint. Inform the kitchen to adjust their standards accordingly unless they want to find themselves taking the air in our lord’s garden.”

Sniffing again, Serafina picked up the soiled bedsheets and wordlessly showed the worst of it to the doctor, particularly the red patches, drying now to brown.

“Yes, I saw the blood. Not an uncommon occurrence in episodes of violent vomiting and…and so forth, which you would know if you were a doctor and not a dresser,” he added with a pointed glance. “I’m sure it was startling, but it isn’t serious. In fact, I dare say the most significant aspect of this episode is the timing.” Now he gave Lan the Look.

“You saying I’m codding you on?” Lan asked, more amused than offended, although she was offended.

“Not at all, although if I thought you were, I would very much advise against it. Our lord does not tolerate attention-seeking deceits, even in his favorites. So! Allow her to rest and see to it that she has plenty of tea,” he declared, because Azrael could call this the Purged Lands or the Land of the Beautiful Dead or any old thing he wanted, but it would always only ever be England. “Ginger or licorice. No peppermint, nothing too stimulating.” He paused. “Should I be writing this down?”

“Rest and tea,” Serafina said frostily. “I can remember that, little as it is.”

“Very well. Call me if there’s any change in her condition. Good day, madam.”

“What an ass,” muttered Lan as soon as the door was shut on the doctor’s self-important backside.

Serafina sniffed agreement and pointed Lan toward the wardrobe. “The coral dress, then. You know the one. Let me finish here and I’ll help you with the lacing.”

“What, I’m still going? He just said I’m supposed to rest.”

“You won’t be walking to the tailor, now will you? I’ll have a car! I’ll need one to hold all your gowns,” she added, stripping the bed.

“More gowns?” Lan groaned, but slouched over to the wardrobe and had a look at the pink dress. Ugly bloody thing. She hated pink. She put the yellow one on instead, which was possibly even uglier, but didn’t have a corset. “The ones I have are fine.”

“The ones you have no longer fit properly. I’m certain once our lord sees you, he’ll order your entire wardrobe replaced, but in the meantime, your gowns need to be taken in. You—You’re in the wrong dress,” she finished blackly.

Lan quickly shook the flowy skirts down around her hips and patted them flat.

“Oh, you’re just impossible.” Serafina sighed and went to the vanity for a brush, but after just one or two painful passes through the mess of Lan’s hair, she stopped and pinned it up. “Right, it’ll have to do until the stylist has you.”

“Stylist?”

“I told you, I made appointments,” said Serafina, stressing the plural. “And I have only one day to do them all, so stop wasting time.”

“Is it going to take long?” asked Lan.

“Yes.”

“I don’t—”

Serafina, back at the wardrobe, abruptly threw down her armload of gowns and slammed the wardrobe door hard enough to bounce it back open. “I don’t care!” she hissed. “Whatever it is you don’t want, I don’t care! You don’t want to eat! You don’t want to dress! You don’t want to bathe! You don’t want to do anything and I’ve had to stand by and let you, but our lord is coming home tomorrow and I will not have him see you looking like…like…” Words failed her. She flung out her hands.

Lan looked at herself in the mirror. She sighed.

They went to the kitchens first, or rather, Serafina went to the kitchens while Lan stood out in the hall and waited for them to find a couple thermoses and fill them with hot tea. Then Serafina had to go arrange for a driver, even though Lan insisted she was fine to walk. Serafina ignored her, of course, which was irritating almost as much as it was a relief. Did she really want to walk? No, she did not. It was raining and cold and frankly, fresh air had never done anyone anywhere any good at all. But she didn’t want to go to the tailor either. She wanted to go back to bed and stay there until she’d slept away her headache and maybe wake up with Azrael’s hand sliding up her leg…but there was no telling Serafina that.