Song of the Abyss Page 9

  “You’ve never shown this much interest in a boy before,” Jaime commented. He had found a bench in some far-off corner and dragged it over. It still had its cushion. Tufts of wool poked through faded red velvet. The bench was too short for Jaime’s tall frame, but he looked perfectly content sprawled across it, legs hanging over the edge. In one hand he held a small book bound in leather. It had been unearthed beneath some tapestries, the title obscured with dust. Jaime had scrubbed it free of grime with the statue’s ratty handkerchief, the only bit of tidying he’d done all morning. In his other hand was an apple. “Never thought your first love would be made of clay.”

  “Very funny,” she said absently. “Jaime, do you remember your Coronad history?”

  “No.” He spoke with a mouth full of apple.

  “Neither do I,” she admitted. “What a pair we are.”

  “What’s to remember? They’re thieves and cutthroats.”

  “Not all of them.” Her words fell on deaf ears. The last time Jaime had visited Coronado, he had been robbed in an alley and relieved of his prized dagger. The loss smarted still.

  “Pfft. Name one good thing about a Coronad.”

  “Gunnel saved my life.”

  “And the rest of them tried to take it,” Jaime said, unimpressed. “I’m telling you, Reyna. Never trust a Coronad.”

  A voice interrupted. “Hard at work, I see.”

  Reyna whirled around with a squeal, hand at her throat. Jaime flailed and leaped to his feet. His half-eaten apple rolled across the stone.

  “What are you two up to, besides loafing?” Lord Elias had returned from Esperanca the night before, riding with Commander Aimon, his maman thankfully on the mend. The look in his eye suggested he had meant to creep up on them and was enjoying their reaction immensely. He was dressed formally, in black and silver, something he usually tried to avoid.

  “Where did you come from?” Reyna looked past him. They had not heard the creak of the door or footsteps to warn them that they were not alone. Was there another way into the vaults?

  Jaime pointed his book at the statue. “We were discussing him. Reyna thinks this Coronad looks like her raider.”

  “He isn’t mine.” She threw a dark look Jaime’s way. “The hair is the same. And the design on his sword.”

  Lord Elias walked up to the statue. He was no longer smiling. “The same design? You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I remember the chrysanthemum.”

  Lord Elias circled the statue. Black boots kicked up the dust. Jaime fetched his apple from the floor, brushed it off against his sleeve, and took another bite. He grinned at Reyna’s expression.

  Lord Elias said, “This man is no Coronad. He’s Miranese.”

  Reyna wasn’t that ignorant of Coronad history. “Miramar? Aren’t the Coronads their descendants?”

  Lord Elias nodded. “The Miranese kingdom exiled its criminals four—no, five hundred years ago. Murderers, rapists, thieves. They were sent to colonize one of their island possessions.”

  This bit of information interested Jaime. “Coronado was a prison colony?”

  “Yes.”

  “That explains many things,” Jaime said with a sour expression.

  “What happened to Miramar?” Reyna said. “It’s barely mentioned in the history books.”

  Lord Elias ran a hand along the statue’s sword hilt. “It’s still there, as far as I know,” he said. “They’re isolationists. Completely self-sufficient. Foreigners are rarely admitted. You must have a good reason for going there. And few Miranese leave.”

  “I’ve never seen a Miranese in person,” Jaime said.

  “You might have once or twice,” Lord Elias assured him, “and thought he was a Coronad. There are a few in Cortes.”

  “Who?” Reyna said.

  “There’s an old woman in the Coronad parish. Her name is Niemi-si.” Lord Elias circled the statue once more, frowning. “Miranese ships in the Sea of Magdalen. That is not normal.”

  “Do you know who brought it here?” Reyna gestured to the statue.

  “Could have been anyone.” Lord Elias peered behind its neck, inspected its wrists, licked his finger and scrubbed some of the dust from its sword. Searching for something. “Let’s have a look underneath. See if there’s a sculptor’s mark.”

  Obliging, Jaime went behind the statue and tipped it back while Lord Elias and Reyna knelt and looked beneath its boots.

  “Nothing.” Reyna’s sigh was a long one.

  Lord Elias said, “Don’t give up just—”

  Jaime yelped. Reyna and Lord Elias jumped aside as the statue toppled onto the floor with a sickening crack. A snake slithered by: four feet long, speckled green and gold. It disappeared around a floor globe.

  “Bloody snake!” Jaime cried. “Where did it come from?”

  Unfazed, Lord Elias said, “Who knows in this place?”

  Dismayed, Reyna picked up the statue’s head. It had snapped clean off its body. She held it away from her as an ashy substance poured from within onto the floor. In her arms, the head became hollow and light. She glared at Jaime. “You broke him,” she accused.

  “Don’t look at me like that! You saw the snake.”

  “It was a baby.”

  Lord Elias said, in placating tones, “Come, the damage is done.” He took the head from her and tossed it to Jaime, who caught it with one hand. “I almost forgot why I was here in the first place. Pack your chest. You’re coming with me to Lunes.”

  Jaime looked startled and delighted. “For the coronation? Why?”

  Lord Elias was blunt. “Because Beatrice’s husband returns in two days, and your father wants you off island before then. He left me a detailed letter. We leave tomorrow.”

  It was all Jaime needed to hear. He hurried off, compounding Reyna’s aggravation by taking the soldier’s head with him, cradled beneath one arm like a ball.

  Lord Elias sat beside the apple Jaime had abandoned on the bench. “I didn’t have a chance to ask you . . . How is your uncle?”

  “Very well.” She settled beside him, Jaime’s apple between them. Before yesterday, it had been six months since she had last seen Lord Elias, when he and his family had visited Aux-en-villes. “He has an admirer.”

  “Does he?” A sideways glance. “Who?”

  “Her name is Lise. She owns the cottage we rent by the river. You met her.”

  “I remember. A widow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he admire her back?”

  Her uncle did not speak of such things to her. Reyna said only, “She makes him laugh.”

  Candles sputtered in their iron stands, the wax nearly melted away. She would have to remember to bring fresh ones tomorrow, or risk being trapped here in the dark.

  When Lord Elias spoke again, his voice was carefully neutral. “I’m glad.” Silence followed, then, “I need a favor.”

  Reyna looked over, waiting.

  “Mercedes is . . . The baby is harder on her than Sabine was.”

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  “Nothing,” Lord Elias was quick to reassure her. “Only, she tires more easily and . . . Will you keep an eye on her while I’m gone? Make sure she doesn’t do too much?”

  “Sir.” What was he not telling her?

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said again. “I would not lie to you. I just need someone around her who can’t be browbeaten.”

  He meant for her to smile, so she did. They both knew Mercedes could be scary when she wished.

  Lord Elias had never asked her for a favor before, though his own kindnesses toward her were many. He had found her uncle. He had championed her as a geographer in the earliest days, when few others would. He championed her still.

  She spoke her thoughts aloud. “I would do anything for you.”

  Another smile. “Then do this.” He stood, ruffled her hair as if she were still nine, and made to leave. A look at the statue stopped him. It was a macabre sight, lying there witho
ut its head. “The Miranese don’t have a history of piracy, Reyna. I can’t imagine what they’re doing this far east. Let me think on it while I’m gone. If Admiral Maira hasn’t found our men by the time I get back, we’ll figure out what the Miranese have to do with any of this.”

  Eleven

  WEEKS LATER, Reyna consulted the scrap of parchment in her hand, then studied the building before her. A narrow structure, three stories tall, and painted a green so dark it reminded her of seaweed. The color was not important. Every home in this corner of St. Mark’s Parish bore the same depressing shade—the Coronads did not favor bright colors—but this door was different from the rest. At eye level, where there would have been a knocker, or nothing at all, someone had carved a chrysanthemum the size of a fist. The same chrysanthemum she had seen on the raider’s axe. On the clay soldier’s sword. It was no coincidence. She knocked.

  The door was opened by a boy her own age. In a gathering of Coronads, he would have earned no special attention. Not with the broad face and hulking figure that distinguished the men of Coronado from their neighbors. His expression was neither friendly nor unfriendly.

  “You’re lost?” He spoke the del Marian of someone born and raised here.

  “I don’t think so.” She had to tip her head back to meet his eyes. “I’m looking for a woman named Niemi-si. I was told she lived here.”

  Reyna’s original plan had been to visit her with Lord Elias, but as the days passed, she had grown impatient.

  His look shifted distinctly toward the unfriendly. “What for?”

  “I was hoping to ask her a few questions. About her . . . childhood.”

  “Wrong house. You’re lost.” He stepped back. The door swung toward her.

  “I can pay,” Reyna said quickly.

  The door stopped, caught in his hand with inches to spare.

  Reyna held up a silver double-shell. A calculating look came into his eyes, prompting her to add, “It’s yours when I’m done. There are people nearby to make sure I leave here in one piece.” She made a show of looking up and down the street.

  He scanned the busy parish road full of people and horses and stray dogs. Impossible to say who, if anyone, was paying them any particular attention. His scowl deepened. “Wait here.” The door shut in her face.

  She turned around, careful to keep her back against the door. The windows above were open. She had no wish to have the contents of someone’s chamber pot flung onto her head. This lesson she had learned the hard way, long ago. The boy returned in no time at all. He jerked his head—In!—and walked off. Following, Reyna discovered the children of the household taking their afternoon nap. A chamber opened off to the right, shuttered and dim. Straw mats covered the floor, and on them slept four children dressed in long white shirts. An older girl knelt close by, fanning the young ones with a large palm frond. She looked over curiously as Reyna walked by.

  The boy led her straight through to the back of the house and out into a garden. High stone walls separated them from their neighbors. A stunted palm dominated the space, and beneath its leaves was a miniature house, no bigger than an outhouse, really, painted a glorious shade of amber. It would have stood out in any parish, on any island, and was like discovering a sparkling jewel by her feet in the mud and rain.

  The boy knocked. A female voice said, “Enter, boy.”

  He reached for the latch, said in a low voice, “If you’re cruel to her, it will be unpleasant for you,” and opened the door.

  With that threat hanging over her head, they entered a single chamber, large enough to hold three floor cushions the color of sunset. Red and gold hangings decorated the walls, the burnished shades heightened by lit candles. Reyna saw that the voice belonged to an old woman. Small and hunched. White hair gathered into thin braids so long they brushed the cushion she sat upon. Niemi-si wore an amber robe with a black sash. Her face sent a jolt of horror through Reyna. Someone had gouged her eyes from their sockets, leaving two scarred blackened holes in their wake.

  The boy loomed over Reyna in warning. She gave him an offended look. What cruel thing did he imagine she would do to this poor woman?

  “Madame,” Reyna said. “Thank you for speaking with me.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” Niemi-si spoke in heavily accented del Marian. The chamber smelled vaguely of ginger root and candle smoke. “What interest could a del Marian painter possibly have with me?”

  Reyna’s fingertips bore faint traces of black ink and blue paint. The boy had surprised her, observing more than she had credited him. “I wondered if I might ask you about Miramar.”

  The boy started to speak. Niemi-si said, “Be silent, boy. Sit there.” She pointed to a cushion. He sat, muttering under his breath.

  “And you,” Niemi-si said to Reyna. As soon as Reyna knelt on the third cushion, she demanded, “What is your name?”

  “Reyna.”

  “Ray-nah. Named for the sun goddess?” In front of Niemi-si was a black lacquered tray, not covered with food or tea, but with paper tortoises the size of a thumb. Exquisite little creatures, created by a woman who could not see.

  “No, madame. There are no goddesses on del Mar.”

  Niemi-si looked amused. “I forget. Del Marians worship one god. And a hundred saints. Pray, what is the difference?” And before Reyna could think of a response to that: “You’re not a painter?”

  “I do paint, mostly maps. I’m a geographer for the royal house.”

  A snort from the boy, which Reyna ignored.

  “A girl explorer?” Niemi-si mused. “How very strange.”

  Reyna smiled. “You’re not the first to say so.”

  Niemi-si picked up a half-completed tortoise and resumed folding. “There’s a nice boy in the Tower of Winds. I met him years ago. Lord Elvin.”

  “Elias,” Reyna corrected. “Yes, he told me where to find you.”

  “Why? Why do you ask questions about Miramar?”

  Reyna had thought carefully about what to say. “My apprenticeship with the tower is finished, and I’m required to begin a masterwork . . .”

  “And you chose Miramar?” Skepticism coated each word.

  “It interests me,” Reyna insisted. “The kingdom exists still, yet little is known about it. I could only find two books on it in the tower, both hundreds of years old, and one is unreadable.” Parchment crumbling to dust, ink fading, it had been of no use to her.

  Niemi-si said, “What sort of masterwork do you intend? A history?”

  “Perhaps,” Reyna answered. “I thought I would learn what I could first and go from there. When Lord Elias mentioned you lived here, I wondered if you might be able to help.”

  Niemi-si had finished her tortoise. She set it aside and began another. “The boy says you have silver.”

  “Yes.”

  Niemi-si cocked her head, listening as Reyna’s double-shell clinked onto her tray. “One more” was her suggestion. The boy smirked.

  Reyna placed another double-shell on the tray and asked, “What is Miramar like?”

  The coins disappeared within the folds of Niemi-si’s robe. “It is lovely,” she said. “Clean and bright. The people as well as the buildings. Do you know Coronado?”

  “Very well.”

  “Then I’m sorry for you,” Niemi-si remarked, and Reyna found herself smiling. It wasn’t just Jaime. Coronado wasn’t to everyone’s taste. It was a rough, illiterate kingdom with little interest in art, music, or literature. Reyna thought Coronado was not so different from other kingdoms. If you looked hard enough, beneath the surface, you would find both the ugly and the beautiful.

  Niemi-si continued, “Take everything you’ve seen and heard and smelled on Coronado and picture the exact opposite. That is Miramar.”

  “How long have you lived here?” Reyna said.

  “On del Mar? Since I was fifteen. And before then I lived on Coronado for three years.”

  Only a girl when she had left home. “It was my understanding that
leaving Miramar was forbidden.”

  “It was,” Niemi-si acknowledged. “Do you know the meaning of tutto mortise?”

  “I do.” Reyna leaned forward, repulsed and fascinated. “Is it a Miranese custom?”

  “When I was a girl, yes.”

  Tutto mortise was an ancient, barbaric custom once practiced in kingdoms such as Pillard and Caffa. But that was so long ago. Reyna did not know of a single kingdom that still honored it. It meant that when a king died, he did not die alone. To offer him comfort in the afterlife, scores of men and women were sacrificed and buried with him, sealed alive in his tomb until they too succumbed from lack of food and air. Who was sacrificed varied, though usually included were the king’s trusted councilors and their families, his favorite wives, his top generals and soldiers. Dancing girls and musicians were occasionally granted the honor. She had even read of an entire menagerie being sacrificed once. War elephants and colorful, exotic birds. Tutto mortise cleared the way for the new king to begin his reign with advisors of his own choosing, and to not have to face opposition and discord from meddling, older statesmen.

  “My father was a councilor to the king,” Niemi-si said. “And then the king died. In life and death we serve.”

  “Did you escape?” If Reyna understood correctly, Niemi-si should not be here. Or anywhere. She should have been sacrificed in that tomb, along with her family.

  “I did not have to. The royal family of Miramar values beauty and strength above all else. My father made it so I was no longer valuable.”

  The boy sat so quietly Reyna had almost forgotten he was there. She shared a brief glance with him, united in their unspoken horror, then looked into the woman’s ruined eyes. “Your father did this to you?”

  Niemi-si nodded. “I sailed from there with one servant and two silver candlesticks. All I had left in the world.”

  “And your parents?”

  “Remained with the king.” There was an awful finality to the answer. She turned to the boy. “What does she look like?”

  The question startled him. “Grandmother?”