But she clung to his arm, and he stumbled to a halt.
He noticed her mouth, and remembered the maid who’d pouted so seductively at him. Was this the same girl?
He felt a stirring of interest.
One should never be intimate with those to whom you must issue orders and directions. That was the forty-eighth rule (in a total of seventy-two) of the “Butler’s Code of Conduct” which sat neat and trim and orderly in a workmanlike frame above his pillow.
Raspu had read it assiduously when he’d first embarked upon this ridiculous challenge. But now, as the girl pressed her warm and curiously pliable flesh against him, and pouted her mouth just so, Raspu wondered if perhaps he’d passed the test a long time ago.
Surely he’d done enough? Proved himself beyond doubt?
“He’s not important to me,” the girl murmured, and Raspu gave a start of shock—and desire—as he realised that one of her hands had crept down between his legs.
“Who?” he managed.
“The footman. Pete.”
“Oh.” The girl’s hand was very bold, and Raspu supposed he should say or do something about it, but…
“It’s only you I care about,” the girl whispered, and now somehow her blouse had fallen open, and Raspu found that one of his hands was kneading at her breast.
“You’re so strong,” she whispered, “and so powerful. You’ve given everyone such a scare.”
She thrust her breast more firmly against his hand and Raspu groaned.
“I do like a man with authority,” she said, and shivered enticingly as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.
That was enough for Raspu. Tearing away his butler’s stiff black coat and grey-striped trousers, he threw her to the floor and took her there and then.
If she wanted authority, then who was he to deny it to her?
Deep in her watchful seclusion, Gwendylyr grinned. He was almost lost. There remained only one more small test.
“Y’see,” the footman said, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it, is there?”
His voice was very persuasive, and Raspu looked about at the rest of the staff gathered together in the kitchen.
The maid he’d enjoyed—several times—the previous night, ran a tip of pink tongue over her lower lip, and one of her hands crept caressingly over her belly.
“It’s only a packet or two here and there,” the footman continued. “The mistress’ll never miss it.”
“And it’s not like we don’t deserve it,” another footman said.
“What with the wages we get, and all,” said the cook.
“I know you don’t get paid much—” a small, red-haired maid to one side began, and Raspu stared at her. He’d never thought about how much he got paid. Was it not good enough for him?
“—and yet we all know how hard you work,” she continued.
Raspu nodded. Yes, he did work hard, didn’t he?
“At all those accounting books,” the cook said, and Raspu wondered that he’d never previously noticed the pleasantness of her voice.
“I mean,” said the cook, “what thanks do you get for keeping all those numbers ordered and neat?”
That’s right! Raspu thought. No-one has ever thanked me for all the work I’ve put in.
“Just a can here and there,” said a gardener, poking his head in the open window. “For me kids, y’understand. No-one else.”
Of course. Of course.
“Just a can here and there,” the cook whispered, and Raspu nodded.
“Just here and there,” he said.
Gwendylyr stood before the closed brown door to the kitchen. She tucked a stray hair neatly behind her ear, then took a deep breath.
She opened the door and walked in.
Raspu jerked out of his doze and leapt to his feet.
A cat, which had been curled up beside his head on the table, yowled, and fled out the door to the garden.
The cook was lying in an alcoholic coma to one side of the kitchen, an empty brandy bottle in her hand, and the remains of a meat pie crumbled across her ample bosoms.
She’d vomited a while before, and the horrid stuff lay crusted on her chin and neck.
One of the maids had pulled her blouse open to allow a footman to lick and suck at her breasts, while two other footmen were packing sacks full of food and assorted packets and handing them out the window to one of the gardeners who put them in a cart.
Three footmen were once more engaged in a game of poker at a small table in the farthest reaches of the kitchen.
A thin-ribbed hound was humping a grunting bitch in the cold room, while several rats chewed on a joint of meat lying on the floor.
Dust and grime and trails of fat lay everywhere.
Raspu’s uniform was creased and stained and his hair wild.
Gwendylyr stood, as if transfixed by the mess and sloth, and then she half gasped, half sobbed, and began to cry, slapping her hands to her face in theatrical despair.
Raspu reddened, and then cursed as he realised the blaze spreading across his cheeks.
Gwendylyr managed to control her weeping, and she turned her face to Raspu. “I am so sad, Demon. I thought you were strong enough to govern my household but—”
“No, wait!” Raspu cried, and stepped over to the cook, landing a foot in her ribs. “Wake up, you drunken sot! There’s a meal to prepare! You! Get back to work!”
He made a grab at the footman nuzzling against the maid’s breast, but the man rolled to one side, and Raspu’s hand slapped harmlessly against a barrel.
“Be still,” said Gwendylyr. “It is too late. You have made your—”
“No!” Raspu screamed turning back to her. “Wait! I can still redeem myself! I can—”
“Ah,” Gwendylyr said, “now that would be difficult. How can any man redeem himself who cannot even keep a kitchen in order?”
Gwendylyr waved her hand around at the mess. “Look at this! You allowed yourself to embrace laziness and corruption, you allowed yourself to—”
“Give me another chance.”
“No.”
“I know I will manage next time—just give me the chance!”
Gwendylyr stared at the Demon, still red-faced, although now from fear. “No. You have failed the challenge. You could not govern this household, and thus you have lost the right to govern yourself.”
“No!”
“Yes. Self-determination is no longer yours, Raspu—”
He stretched out a hand, his face twisted in pleading, but already he could feel the bonds encircling his being.
He was no longer free.
“—and thus you must accept an eternity of servitude.”
“No,” he whispered.
“Servitude is the price of your failure,” Gwendylyr said, no sympathy in her voice at all. “What a pity you would not listen to me when I tried to tell you that.”
Raspu crouched close to the floor, whimpering.
Gwendylyr stared at Raspu briefly, then twisted her fingers amid his hair and hauled him to his feet. “Be silent, and accept your servitude. Your position has already been chosen for you—”
Raspu stared at her. To what slavery would he be put?
Gwendylyr smiled, and as she did so Raspu’s face lightened in hope.
“The Field of Flowers,” she said, “requires a man for the door.”
And she snapped her fingers.
Far, far away, sitting at her table before the Gate of Death, the haggard crone looked up, her fists clenched.
“I’ve been made redundant?” she said. “Me?”
Chapter 50
The Memories of the Enemy
SpikeFeather had jumped at the chance to escort Azhure and Katie into the waterways, and had only been mildly surprised when the two ice sisters had said they’d come along as well. The only wonder was that Urbeth had not seemed to mind, saying only that the threat to the column had now receded, and it would do her daughters good to see the wate
rways.
And so now here they were, trudging through ice and snow. SpikeFeather had not known of any entrance to the waterways in the frozen northern tundra, but Urbeth’s daughters had merely smiled secretively to one another, and led the small group towards the coast.
It was freezing away from the protection of the trees, and while the ice women were apparently unaffected, SpikeFeather, Azhure and Katie had to huddle close, sharing their cloaks and their warmth, in order to survive.
Azhure was deeply unsettled. It had been a generation at least since she’d been separated from Axis. And had she ever been separated from him without the use of power, or the comfort of Alaunt and Wolven at her side? Now she had the responsibility of Katie—Azhure would sooner have died than to let Faraday down—and nothing with which to guarantee the girl’s survival.
Nothing.
Not even a dagger.
What was I thinking of, she thought, to have walked away without even a knife?
In fact, they had nothing with them save a small bag with enough food for a day in it. Nothing but SpikeFeather’s assurance they’d find something in the waterways, and nothing but the confidence of the two ice women in finding an entrance down to the Underworld in the first instance.
As they stumbled forwards, eyes narrowed against the icy wind, numb hands clutching the edges of the cloaks about them, Azhure glanced down at Katie.
The girl was subdued—but then who wouldn’t be under these circumstances? Otherwise she seemed well enough, her cheeks coloured despite the cold (or perhaps because of it), and she lifted her eyes and smiled sweetly enough at Azhure when she realised the woman’s regard.
Azhure nodded at the girl, and swung her eyes forward to where the two ice women strode straight-backed through the wind, heedless of the cold. Their grey and silver hair streamed and snapped out behind them, and every so often one of them would lift a bare, white-skinned arm and swing her hand in a graceful arc before her.
Whenever one did that, Azhure noted that the sting of the wind eased, and warmth stole back into her flesh.
When they’d set out, Azhure had asked them their names, but both women had smiled pleasantly, but with deep puzzlement.
“Names?” one of them had said. “We have no need for names.”
And that had been the end of any conversation. The two women had simply walked forth into the snow, and, after a final glance at those they left behind, SpikeFeather, Azhure and Katie had followed them.
How long had they been walking? It had been late afternoon when they’d left the column, and night had come and gone. Now grey light filtered through the driving snow, and Azhure, together with SpikeFeather and Katie, stumbled every third or fourth step.
“How much longer?” Azhure muttered. “How much longer?”
“Soon,” said a voice, and Azhure looked up.
The two ice women stood before her, but Azhure did not look at them. Instead she stared at the towering icebergs some forty or fifty paces behind them.
“Where are we?” SpikeFeather said.
“The Icebear Coast,” one of the women said. “And the icepack.”
“But that’s impossible!” Azhure said. “We were many, many leagues from the coast, and—”
“Nothing is impossible,” said the other ice woman. “Nothing.”
“Where?” SpikeFeather said. His teeth were chattering too much to say more, and his arms were wrapped tight about himself.
His entire body was shaking.
One of the ice women put out a hand and laid it on his shoulder.
Instantly SpikeFeather’s shaking stopped, and he straightened, his eyes wide.
The woman’s sister did the same for Azhure and Katie—gods! but Azhure could feel herself unfreezing as the woman briefly touched her—then turned and pointed towards a crack between two grinding icebergs. “There.”
“There?” Azhure said. “But that’s too dangerous! The icebergs will crush us!”
“Nothing is ever too dangerous,” one ice woman said.
“Not until it’s killed you,” Azhure muttered.
“Ah,” the woman said, “but we do not know the caress of death!”
“Well,” Azhure said, and grinned despite herself, “keep in mind that we do.”
By Azhure’s reckoning, it took them over three hours to pick their way over the jumbled edge of the icepack towards the icebergs.
The towers of ice reared almost a hundred paces above them, turning the light in their shadows a grey-blue and the air so frigid that the ice women had to walk close to either side of the other three, wrapping them in enchantments so they could continue to move.
The ice towers ground against each other, the sound a constant deep wailing and roaring that made both Azhure and Katie plug their ears with their fingers and clench their teeth.
“Do not fear too much,” one of the sisters whispered in Azhure’s ear, and she tried to relax, if only for Katie’s sake.
But the trembling and shaking beneath her feet! They were going to have to climb down into this nightmare?
“There,” said one of Urbeth’s daughters. “Between the walls.”
They picked their way over the uncertain ice, and then stood, staring.
Whenever Azhure had climbed down into the Underworld previously, she’d descended down a gently sloping spiral staircase.
Not down anything even faintly resembling this terrifying plunge.
This ice staircase descended straight down between the two grinding icebergs, their walls sliding up and down as they fought for space in the crowded sea.
Straight down—so far Azhure could not see its end.
Stars help them if they slipped on the ice steps! They’d tumble to their deaths.
“I do not know that we should—” she began, but one of the ice women laid a hand on her arm.
“You will manage,” she said.
“Katie—”
“The girl will manage.”
Azhure briefly closed her eyes, then nodded. She took Katie’s hand, and tried to smile for her.
Katie looked at Azhure, looked at the descent before her, then looked back at Azhure. Normally so placid, so calm, so strong, Katie’s eyes were terrified.
Azhure’s hand tightened about that of the girl’s, and she opened her mouth, trying to find something reassuring to say, when SpikeFeather leaned down and swept the girl into his arms.
“Put your face into my shoulder,” he said, “and doze for this trip down to the waterways. I am Icarii, remember? My balance is like no other, and I fear no heights. You’ll be safe with me.”
Whether it was his words, his reassuring tone or his touch, Katie relaxed and, putting her arms about his neck, lay her head trustingly in the hollow of his shoulder.
The two ice women shared a glance, and a brief nod, then one turned and stepped into the stairwell.
“Come, SpikeFeather, Azhure,” she said. “My sister will bring up the rear to protect us against whatever vile attack the seals have planned.”
SpikeFeather laughed, and even Azhure managed a smile.
The birdman stepped onto the first step, the ice woman two or three below him and moving ever downward, then glanced over his shoulder at Azhure. “Take my wing,” he said, extending one of them towards her, “and hang onto it. I can balance for all three of us.”
“Thank you,” Azhure said softly and, taking hold of SpikeFeather’s wing—it was so warm!—she summoned her courage and stepped down.
The climb down was worse than any nightmare Azhure had ever endured. Stars, but she thought she’d prefer to go through DragonStar and RiverStar’s appalling birth all over again if it meant she could get to the bottom of these stairs the faster! To either side of the stairs the icebergs grated and ground, as if cursing and throwing insults at the other berg just an arm’s span distant. Azhure wondered if it were possible that at any moment one or the other iceberg would lose its temper completely and lunge across the frigid distance between them
to tear the throat out of the other.
No, she thought, that is just my fancy, and foolish at that.
And at that precise instant the iceberg on her right moved so suddenly and so precipitously that a frightful grating scream filled the stairwell, and Azhure cried out and halted, letting go of Spikefeather’s wing, her hands flying to her ears.
“You are safe,” said the ice woman behind her, laying both her hands on Azhure’s shoulders. “Safe.”
SpikeFeather had stopped, and was looking over his shoulder at Azhure; Katie, apparently, was asleep and unconcerned, her face tranquil as it lay on his shoulder.
The birdman’s eyes were full of concern for Azhure, but Azhure thought that she could see just the slightest tinge of panic in their depths.
She took a very deep breath, held it as she fought for self-control, then let it out once she thought she had it.
Slowly Azhure lowered her hands away from her ears, and the ice woman’s hands on her shoulders tightened briefly in encouragement.
“Soon,” said the ice woman’s sister from below SpikeFeather. “Very soon.”
Pray to all the stars that it is the truth, Azhure thought, for I cannot stand much more of this.
They continued to descend for an hour, perhaps two—time had no meaning in this narrow ice tunnel—and then Azhure heard SpikeFeather exclaim as he jumped down three or four steps.
“We’re here!” he cried, and Azhure had to blink the tears out of her eyes.
She stepped onto an ice floor that was, unbelievably, smooth but not slippery. Above her the roof of the ice tunnel had soared into a beautiful opaque dome of pink ice, while before her the floor extended towards a waterway that wound through the ice cave from one wall to the other.
A brass tripod with a bell stood to one side.
SpikeFeather had a huge grin stretching from one ear to the other, and Azhure couldn’t help the feeling that he felt as if he’d come home after too long away. She leaned forward and took Katie from him—the girl murmured sleepily as SpikeFeather transferred her into Azhure’s arms, but otherwise did not stir—and the birdman turned to the two ice women standing before him.