‘It’s a small castle,’ squeaked May in Broad’s ear.
They passed a kitchen where a woman was giving some dough a thorough pounding, another sawing away at some fish with a filleting knife. ‘How many people work for her?’ asked Liddy.
‘In her personal service, including you and my brothers and the new face-maid, thirty-four. In her various business ventures, well … hundreds. Thousands, maybe.’
‘What business is she in?’ croaked Broad as they turned up a long staircase.
‘It might be better to ask what business she isn’t in. What experience do you have?’
‘I can stitch,’ said Liddy. ‘Was assistant to a dressmaker once. I can wash, I can cook some.’
‘Lady Savine will always find work for someone who can use a needle. Her wardrobe provides labour for legions on its own.’ She turned a key and led them into a room flooded with light. Trees whispered in the breeze outside the three big windows, yellow leaves gently falling. Through one doorway, Broad could see a big old bed frame. He was wondering if they were there to clean the place when she held the key out to him. ‘You can use these rooms for now. Until we find you something better.’
‘Better?’ muttered Broad, staring at a vase of fresh flowers on a fine old table. He’d always thought himself unfortunate. Now he wondered what he’d done to deserve all the luck. Why was he standing in these clean-smelling rooms while crows pecked at the corpses of better men on the road to Valbeck? All he could think was that deserving’s got nothing to do with anything. Life just falls on you, like rain.
‘What role did you see yourself occupying, Master Broad?’
Broad pushed his lenses up his nose and slowly shook his head. ‘Never saw myself occupying anything in a house like this one. I was working in a brewery, my lady—’
Zuri smiled. ‘No need to call me that. I am Lady Savine’s companion.’
‘I thought you were friends,’ said May.
‘We are. But if I ever forgot that I am also her servant and she is also my mistress, we would not stay friends for very long.’ She looked to Broad again. ‘What else?’
‘My family were herders, going way back.’ She didn’t care about that. He hardly even cared about that any more, it felt like a thousand years ago. ‘And … I was in the army … for a while.’
Zuri’s eyes came to rest on the tattooed back of his hand. ‘You have seen action?’
Broad swallowed. He was getting the feeling she didn’t miss much. ‘Some. In Styria.’
‘You didn’t learn anything on campaign?’
‘Nothing that’d be useful in a lady’s service.’
Zuri laughed as she turned towards the door. A laugh with quite the edge on it. ‘Oh, you might be surprised.’
Drinks with Mother
Savine had hoped that once she was home with her things about her, bathed, perfumed and safe in her armour of corsetry, she would be herself again. Better, in fact, because adversity builds character. She would be the deep-rooted tree that bends in the storm but cannot be broken. She would be the sword that comes through fire tempered and blah, blah, fucking blah.
Instead, she was a dead stick shattered. Pig iron, melted to a slurry. Valbeck was not behind her in the past, it was now, all around her. She jumped at whispers and startled at shadows, as if she were still hiding in the corner of May’s sweltering room and the gangs were restless in the street outside. While she powdered the freckles on her nose away to pale perfection, she felt as if her slit guts were unravelling across the floor. She could hardly remember that easy confidence she used to have. She was an impostor in her own clothes. A stranger in her own life.
‘Mother!’
‘Savine! Thank the Fates you’re safe!’
‘Thank the Broads. I’d never have made it without them.’
‘I thought you’d come straight to me when you arrived.’ Her mother had that familiar lecturing pout. As keen as Savine was to pretend everything was the same.
‘I wanted to get clean first. It seems like months since I was clean.’ She did not feel clean even now. However she scrubbed, the aimless dread still stuck to her like a clammy second skin.
‘We’ve all been so worried.’ Her mother held Savine out at arm’s length so she could look her over. Like an owner examining the damage to a fire-ravaged house. ‘Dear, dear, but you’re so thin.’
‘The food was … not good. Then the food ran out.’ Savine gave a shrill laugh, though nothing was at all funny. ‘We ate vegetable peelings. It’s amazing how quickly you feel lucky to get them. There was a woman in the next house who tried to make soup by boiling the paste off her wallpaper. It … didn’t work.’ She shook herself. ‘Could I get a drink, Mother? I need … a little something.’ She would much rather have been held but, since they were who they were, she could be drunk instead.
‘You know I never turn down a drink before lunch.’ Her mother flicked open the cabinet and began to pour. ‘Lubricates the rough road through to afternoon.’ She handed Savine a glass, and she knocked it off right away and handed it back.
Her mother raised a brow. ‘You do need lubricating.’
‘It was …’ Savine felt tears gathering in her eyes as she tried to put into words what it had been. Crawling through the grinding engines. Running through a city gone insane. Crouching in the stinking darkness. ‘It was …’
‘You’re safe now.’ And her mother pushed another drink towards her.
Savine jerked herself back from the slums of Valbeck. Sipped at her glass though she’d rather have swigged from the decanter. ‘Where’s Father?’
‘Working. I rather think he couldn’t face you.’ Her mother sat with a rustling of skirts, wiped a streak of wine from the outside of her glass and sucked her finger. ‘He can send a hundred prisoners to freeze in Angland without batting an eyelid, but he lets you down and he can scarcely get out of bed. I’m sure he’ll be along presently. To check that you’re well.’ Her mother considered her over the rim of her glass for a long moment. ‘Are you well, Savine?’
‘Of course.’ Splash of the bucket into black water, the stench of burning in her nose. ‘Although …’ Creak of the chain as the body of the mill owner swung from the gib of his own manufactory. ‘It may take …’ The feeling as her sword slid through that man’s body. So little resistance. The look on his face. So surprised. ‘Just a little time …’ The grinding, ripping, screaming as the guard’s arm was dragged into the gears of that machine. ‘To adjust.’
She drained her glass again. Shook herself free of Valbeck again. Forced the smile back onto her face. Again. ‘Mother, I … have some news.’
‘Bigger news than that you’re alive?’
‘In some ways, yes.’ Certainly Queen Terez would think so …
‘Is it bad?’ asked her mother, wincing.
‘No, no. It’s good.’ She thought. ‘It’s very good.’ She hoped. ‘Mother … I’ve received a proposal of marriage.’
‘Another? How many is that now?’
‘This time I’m going to accept.’ What man could suit her better, after all? What man could offer her more?
Her mother’s eyes went very wide. ‘Bloody hell.’ She finished her glass with one long swallow. ‘Are you sure? Given what you’ve been through—’
‘I’m sure.’ It was the one thing she was sure about. ‘What I’ve been through … only made me realise … how sure I am.’ Orso was the one thing that made sense, and the sooner she was back in his arms, the better.
‘But surely I’m not old enough to have a married daughter?’ Savine’s mother snorted up a laugh as she went to the table and pulled the stopper from the decanter. ‘So … who’s the luckiest bastard in the Union?’