Old Man's Ghosts Read online

  Kine bowed her head as a final burst of pain clamped around her, then it swiftly faded to just a memory in her bones. She gulped down air as she gingerly straightened and looked around the room. Ahead of her stood an elegant desk of polished wood as dark as her own skin – the pearl inlay as clean and white as the teeth she’d been taught to hide from men whenever she smiled.

  The things we women do to each other, Kine thought as she took a tentative step towards the window. Little cuts, every day these little cuts to keep others weakened and bleeding.

  Another step and a phantom breath of cold ran down her spine. But it’s not the little cuts I need to fear now. Never again will I care about petty things.

  She edged round the desk as best she could, one hand on it for support, the other pressed protectively to her swollen belly. Month after month she’d grown used to her burgeoning size, working hard to maintain that elegant carriage her aunts had beaten into her. Now it was all gone and she heaved herself flat-footed across the patterned rugs, past the crackling fire and to the window. Kine hauled back the heavy brocade curtains and felt a gust of cold air like a slap in the face.

  Lead-lined panes of glass reflected the dancing firelight back at her. In the centre of each window was a single red pane that bore a blue wyvern, a device that adorned every window in the entire palazzo. Kine grimaced as she saw it – sickened now at the sight of her nation’s emblem. She was glad that her private rooms were at the rear of the palazzo, overlooking her husband’s jungle-like garden rather than the sandy enclosure in the square where a real wyvern lived.

  The beast was a sad sight in Kine’s eyes; wings clipped and confined to a rocky home a mere two dozen paces in each direction. She had seen wyverns hunt once. The boldest of the desert noblemen reared a few from birth just for that purpose and the savagery of the swooping predators had taken her breath away.

  ‘As you are too, my little one,’ she whispered, looking down at her belly.

  Her shift had parted slightly, caught on her protruding stomach, and offered Kine a sight of the paled skin where it had stretched. Kine had grown up knowing her dark mahogany skin could almost pass for the near-black of House Dragon itself and would have been a factor in her marriage to a man of higher station. Raised to be proud of her flawless and even colouring, the sight of it blotchy and pale triggered a childish anxiety inside her.

  Her fingers fumbled briefly on the window’s brass bolts, the metal so cold it seemed to nip at her fingers as she gripped it. With a little persistence she worked them open and pushed the window wide. The night air was shockingly cold, enough to make Kine gasp as she pulled a white scarf from around her neck. Clear starlight gleamed on the frosted roofs of Dragon District; the snarling statues and peaked ridges picked out in the glistening white of the Gods.

  Trying to ignore the biting chill, Kine leaned carefully forward and let the air wash away the last mustiness of sleep from her mind. It was late into the night and high above she could just make out the constellation of General, first among the Ascendants of God-Emperor. Past midnight then, but not so late that there was no hope.

  Kine glanced back at the cream damask sofa she’d been asleep on these past few hours, a tangle of blankets and cushions half-slipped onto the floor below. As she did so a warning tingle began in her belly and Kine’s eyes flashed wide open – so soon? With the awkward haste of panic Kine gritted her teeth and leaned over the windowsill, hands questing for a hook set into the mortar just below it. At last she found it and slipped one corner of the silk scarf through, tugging hard before tying a knot in the scarf to secure it.

  By the time she was done, the pain had intensified and now washed in sharp, piercing waves through her body. Kine jammed her knuckle into her mouth to stop herself crying out, biting down on her hand as the pain only worsened. With all the concentration she could muster and a force of will no less than that of her conqueror ancestors, Kine reached for the open windows and dragged them shut again. Her knees shook, ready to collapse; her arms turned to jelly as she fought the window clasps.

  The pain in her belly was white-hot, exquisite and all-consuming. A red haze fell over her vision and the shadows darkened, but somehow she refused to submit. At last both windows were closed and the numbing whips of winter wind ended their scourging. Gasping and heaving for breath, Kine took hold of the floor-length curtain and dragged herself forward, putting much of her weight on it as her knees refused to obey. One brass fitting popped open and she lurched forward, barely catching herself as her fingers clawed and long nails dug into the embroidery for purchase.

  Distantly, she was aware of herself keening; a high, animal sound unlike any she’d heard herself make before, but she had only the safety of her baby in mind. Another stuttering half-step brought her within reach of a chair. Just as more curtain fittings burst apart, her slender arm slipped over the thick back of the armchair and she sagged forwards, slipping down to her knees and the safety of the rug-strewn floor. Hands gripping the chair, Kine gasped for breath, desperate for air after the battle even a few paces had been.

  Sweat streamed down her face, and a trickle of something warm and sticky coated the ankle folded under her body, but she had achieved victory merely by making it safely down. Now there was nothing but the pain and the fear that followed it. Her entire body was a slave to it, everything a distraction to the bands of pain around her belly. From somewhere she found the strength to suck in another lungful of air and at last she screamed properly – a mangled attempt at her maid’s name that was loud enough to make the actual word an irrelevance.

  She heard the door crash open, the underwater sound of a voice failing to make sense through the pain and then it began to recede again. Shuddering at the effort of breathing, Kine felt hands under her armpit and howled until they stopped trying to lift her. The red veil faded from her vision and she found herself blinking at the back of the chair, beside which crouched the rounded face of her maid – a shy young girl called Esheke.

  The maid’s hair trailed loose around her shoulders and Kine was struck momentarily by its length, almost to Esheke’s waist. Kine had only ever seen it pinned neatly up.

  ‘My Lady,’ the maid wailed, ‘is it coming?’

  Kine almost slapped her, but a lifetime of reserve interfered so she merely nodded and whimpered at the last sharp twinges. She could feel the sweat run freely down her face and her limbs shake with the effort of staying still, but somehow with Esheke’s help she rose a fraction and edged past the chair.

  ‘Get me to the sofa,’ Kine whispered, ‘then fetch the midwife. My baby is coming.’

  And I pray she is not the only one to be here soon, said a voice in the back of Kine’s mind as an image of her lover, Narin, flashed across her mind.

  There was no chance he could be there, however much she desperately wanted his presence at her side – his anxious, guileless face that shone with a blazing, unwavering love. He had been terrified of this moment for months – unable to sleep for days on end or even enjoy the Emperor’s own command that raised him to the rank of Lawbringer. And now the day they both feared most had come, and he could not be here without certain death at the guns of her husband’s guards.

  But let someone come, Kine prayed desperately as she crawled onto the sofa and her maid darted off. God-Empress, let someone come.

  It would not just be the midwife Esheke fetched, there could be no doubt of that. Kine’s cuckolded husband had hired doctors too and they had barely left the palazzo since Order’s Turn. A pair of quiet, sharp-eyed men from the homeland, their skill as physicians she had been unable to fault, but she knew why they were truly there. Castrated in the attack Narin had saved him from, Lord Vanden had hidden the injury from his peers, knowing the shame such a thing carried in Houses Dragon and Wyvern. Once the baby was born, Kine would have only moments to live – her last days won only by the chance of a male heir so desperately craved by her husband.

  Lady Chance save my child she found hersel
f crying out in her mind, fear for a daughter more profound even than her own life. I beg you, save a life tonight – just one. If this is a girl, I’ll gladly give my own.

  The pain returned and all thoughts of prayer fled.

  Bredin looked up from the bar at the empty room ahead. The last patrons had left for the night and he’d bolted the doors already, and yet … He frowned and touched two fingers to the club cradled on hooks underneath the bar. The fat bar of wood was there as always and its presence was enough to reassure him.

  He’d run the Lost Feathers for a decade now, long enough to know the settle and groan of its timbers like he knew the face of his wife, Sennete. She had already retired for the evening, leaving Bredin with the takings and that tiny slip of a maid, Feerin, to sweep and wipe. By now she would be asleep, drained by a long day with dawn’s chores always too close at hand.

  ‘Feerin?’ he said out loud, fingers still on the club.

  As though in response there was the bang of a door at the top of the tavern. The hatch to the loft, where Feerin slept.

  ‘Must be just getting old then,’ Bredin said with a weary smile.

  His fingers never left the club, but that sixth sense of being watched had faded. The tavern room was still and quiet, full of shadows now the lamps were turned low and the fire burned down to embers, but he’d never found anything to fear in those shadows. The tables were scrubbed down, the floor swept. All was in order and with a shake of the head he went back to the pile of coins on the bar.

  Almost ten years older than Sennete, Bredin had never been much for education and only bothered to learn to count when his ten-year bond on a merchant ship was almost up. Despite that, he finished quickly, the tally half in his head already as little Feerin couldn’t ever be trusted to make change right.

  The last of the coins swept into his palm and deposited into a battered strong-box, Bredin locked it and re-hung the key around his neck. Just as he did so he caught a faint sound, one strange enough to make him look up. Few people in the city had dogs; there wasn’t the space for them. Aside from the hunting hounds of House Wolf you rarely saw anything other than a ratter keeping the dock’s vermin in check. And yet, faint in the distance, it could almost have been a wolf’s howl he’d just heard.

  ‘Strange thing to hear,’ he muttered to himself. ‘But I s’pose, after the demons of summer, maybe not so strange as all that.’

  On a whim, he brought the club with him as he carried his strong-box all the way round the bar and back to the kitchen door. By the grace of Lady Chance, they hadn’t been affected by the goshe fever-plague the demons had borne in their wake, but Brodin had seen one with his own eyes and lived for days fearing the worst. As he’d watched the Lawbringers pursue it through the streets, converging like hungry ghosts in the evening gloom, he’d only been able to think of the fever cutting a path through his home district as it had across the city.

  As he reached each of the lamps, Brodin turned the wick right down so their light was extinguished. The room was already chilly as the first real bite of winter was upon them, but it seemed to get colder still when the light drained from the room. A final inspection revealed a room in good order, tables and chairs silhouetted by the orange ghost-glow of embers still formed in the shape of the logs they had once been.

  Just as he turned his back, the embers spat out a spark across the stone hearth. Brodin flinched at the sound then felt his guts turn to ice as it was followed by a low rumble like a growl – as quiet as the distant howl, but now close at hand.

  ‘Anyone there?’ he asked, raising the club.

  Brodin peered around the room. He could see nothing out of place but would have sworn on Lawbringer’s stars that he’d heard some sort of dog. From where he stood he could see the whole room except behind the bar he’d just come from – there was nothing there, only a glow on the stone floor that he went to tread out after a moment’s pause. After another check around the room he set the strong-box down on a table and used his club to break up the remaining embers. The orange light flared brighter while he dragged an iron fire-guard across the front, casting its light up towards the ceiling beams while the lower half of the room became incrementally darker.

  Brodin turned back to the strong-box and froze. The shadows around the table had changed. He could still see the chairs on either side and the strong-box on the bare tabletop, but some part of his mind wanted to form a different shape out of the darkness there. A rounded shape that swept down behind, the hint of a protrusion ahead. The hairs on his neck prickled up as Brodin blinked.

  Just a shadow, he told himself, able to see the line of a chair-back through the darkness.

  He reached out with the club, heart hammering with childish dread, and waved the tip through the darkened air. It met nothing, no resistance at all as he moved it back and forth and feeling foolish he lowered it again.

  Behind him there came a noise. A growl – quiet, but this time unmistakable.

  Brodin felt his chest tighten as a bitter taste filled his mouth. He watched the club waver as fear sapped his strength, but before he could turn or even move, the shadow in front of him shifted.

  In the fireplace there was a crackle and hiss as a finger of yellowed flame appeared over the embers. The shadows below the line of the fire-guard deepened, intensified. Brodin saw it now, the curve of a neck, the thick muzzle and ragged snub ears.

  Two red glowing eyes turned his way. There came a second growl behind him but he was transfixed and in the next instant the shadows leapt forward. The hot lash of tearing teeth whipped across his face. Brodin fell back, swinging the club wildly but hit nothing as the shadow-hound pounced.

  Claws tore at his arms like burning nails while his own blow passed unnoticed until it hit the brick chimney and was jerked from his grip. Brodin hardly noticed as a second set of teeth tore into his cheek – he screamed with all his strength, then jaws of crackling fire closed about his throat and snuffed the sound out.

  Light flashed before his eyes as the pain drove deeper into his mind and eclipsed all thought or feeling. Images and faces flooded through his last moments of life – a bottle, a glass, greying hair, a weathered face. Then deeper – the stains of tattoo-ink on fingers, a mark of the Imperial House.

  Then it all faded. The light drained away and all was black as the last of Brodin Catter, proprietor of the Lost Feathers, died. The growls in the tavern continued a few moments longer, before melting back into the shadows and once more becoming just a distant howl on the wind.

  Kine lay very still, pain, exhaustion and terror draining what little strength she had left. The sounds in the room were garbled and distant, the faces around the sofa looming and monstrous. The midwife, head down and focused as she tended to Kine – unaware of what was playing out around her. The fat young wet-nurse at her side, commanded into silence by the stern doctors who attended the child.

  My baby.

  Kine wanted to cry out, but she barely had the strength to breathe. She could see little, lying on her back with her head wedged back against a cushion. There was blood, she could feel that and see smears down her thighs, but how much soaked into the padded seat she didn’t know.

  The head of the taller doctor turned towards her, his mouth a thin, hard line. His words were garbled in her ears, Kine couldn’t make out the order he snapped at the midwife but she saw the shock in the woman’s face. The doctor’s hair was scraped back and tightly bound. Kine could see scars disappearing beyond the hair line; ugly, jagged marks that spoke of violence. His companion was cherubic by comparison, skin so dark he could almost have been House Dragon – darker even than Kine’s – and so smooth and clean it seemed to shine in the lamplight.

  The doctors wore white aprons, now stained with blood, over expensive clothes. Lace cuffs had been rolled up to be kept clean and secured with gold pins embossed with the constellation of Lady Healer. Kine could see the detailed braiding on the blue collars that declared their caste, symbols of Healer, Pi
lgrim and Chance worked into an elegant design.

  How many others? Kine wondered in her dazed state. How many deaths in childbirth have these men overseen? How many murdered babies?

  The midwife had half-risen to argue with the doctor, confusion and anger on her face, but he gave her no time. An open hand caught her across the cheek and sent the woman sprawling over Kine. The weight of her made Kine shriek, the shock and fear in the midwife’s lined face lending her strength.

  She took a heaving breath and the room came into greater focus. The taller doctor advanced on the midwife, threatening another blow as she half cowered and half shielded Kine from his sudden wrath. The round-faced man, a tangled bundle in his hands, dispassionately watching the scene play out. The tiny limbs that twitched, the hand of her child upraised with fingers splayed in final, desperate appeal to the Gods.

  Something caught in Kine’s throat. The way he held her child, carelessly and without interest. It was a girl – an heir would be cradled like the Emperor’s crown itself.

  My daughter, Kine tried to say as the realisation cut her to the bone more effectively than any murderous doctor might.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered, causing the doctor to pause in his remonstration of the midwife. ‘Please let me see her – just once. Before … see my daughter once.’

  The doctor spoke in a quick, clipped tone as he glanced at his colleague. ‘Quickly then.’

  Incredulity crossed the face of the other, but the taller man just frowned and waved him forward.

  God-Empress – grant me her life Kine prayed, half-delirious as the bundle was shoved forward. I offer my own, but save my child! Lady Chance, name your price and I will pay.

  It took her a moment to take it all in, but then the pain and fear was washed away as she stared at the face of her daughter. Thin and pale against the darker hands of the doctor, a cruel flicker of hope appeared in Kine’s heart. Wrinkled eyelids were crumpled against the weak light, rounded cheeks squashed by the grip on her, but the girl was a Wyvern still. Skin no lighter than Kine’s husband, the girl’s face betrayed nothing of her mixed heritage. In that moment Kine knew she could be accepted as her husband’s child – loved and protected all the days of her life.