Wind Over Bone Read online

  “But,” he said, eying her furtively, “your apartment is a ruin, you gather sausages in your skirts, and I’m sure people like Vanli and Leva make your life unbearable. All because your grandmother had a saebeline child?”

  “That’s not the worst of it.”

  He stopped and she bumped into him. “I don’t want to hear it.” He’d grown some. Sarid had to look up at him now, and it was humiliating, and oddly nice, and she didn’t like the mixture at all. “Besides”––he took her hands and the feeling grew worse––“forty years ago what harm could you’ve done?”

  “Don’t touch me.” She said it kindly and pushed him away. He looked bemused, hurt, and she said quickly, “It’s not you. It’ s my power. I’m scared something will happen. That I’ll lose it, if I try for another sort of––what you want.”

  He ran his hand up the side of his head. “Like that, is it?”

  “I don’t know. Could be.”

  “I could never do it.” He said it with such vehemence she laughed.

  “No one’s asking you.”

  “Thank Ayevur.” They started walking again. “I’m going west to Anefeln for three months.”

  Sarid couldn’t hide her frown, the pause in her steps.

  “There’s no help for it,” said Rischa, looking pleased. “My father wants to see me some of the year. And Charevost is too small to retain us for long.”

  “And your brother––”

  “He’s staying here.”

  “Why is he staying here?” she said slowly, but she already knew the answer.

  He said haltingly, as though the words tasted bad, “he’s less trouble up here, out of the way. And because of you. I’m sure you’ll get used to each other. If you agree. You’ve agreed, haven’t you?” It was a very optimistic thing to say, even for Rischa.

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned and began walking away from her. “Perhaps in the time I’m away you’ll have decided whether you want to be human or saebeline.”

  Four

  Rischa went west with his family’s retainers for three months, and the place seemed unnaturally quiet––something Sarid would have welcomed in the past. But this time she was bored and discontent.

  Mari noticed, and ignoring Sarid’s halfhearted protestations, smuggled her into her group of friends, where Leva conveyed the bits of conversation meant for Sarid to the eagerly listening Gryka. And Sarid was discreetly showcased, her chair turned toward the room entrance, her melancholy face lit by windows, especially when Count Pash was about. Sarid tolerated it and soon got used to it.

  “It’s working, anyhow,” Mari said once. “Pash doesn’t let Vanli lock chambermaids in his room anymore. It was me did that.” (“It’s because he wants Vanli to share,” said Leva.)

  The group teased Sarid in a benevolent way, avoiding the subject of her pedigree, calling her Savvel’s nanny and Hada Vanada (‘form over function’ in Northern Lorilan).

  Savvel was less benevolent than Mari.

  Yoffin would fetch her when his master was feeling out-of-sorts—a bad mood could easily turn into a bout of madness––and Sarid would go for Rischa’s sake.

  “Sarid is not an attractive name,” Savvel declared one evening.

  “Why should you care?” she said.

  “Why should I have to say such an ugly name?”

  “True, sir,” said Yoffin, who was playing blind-the-traitor in the corner with the real Gurd. “I get a cramp in my belly every time I say ‘Savvel.’ Sounds like a boil, or an arsehole. And Master just makes it worse.”

  Gurd bent over, laughing and snorting, and upset the little knots of wood on the game board.“Don’t ‘Sarid’ have a short-name?” she said. She was Rileldine, and did look a little like Sarid, with her blond curls and brown eyes. “‘Ida’ I think it is. I’m afraid not much can be done with Savvel, though, sir. You can always scrap it, like Rischa did.”

  “Ha!” said Savvel. “Bless my mother for not crushing me with a monument like Gavorian.”

  He was in an unusually good mood that day.

  Some days he was despondent, responding only to a physical prod, and some days he was sunk so deep in his black moods he considered Sarid’s every move an offense. Some days he was terrified and jumped at the bark of a dog. The worst days for Sarid were the sad ones.

  “I’m horrible,” he said once. “I’m sorry for it.” He was sitting on the floor in a patch of sunlight, eyes glowing. He looked awfully like his brother.

  “Stop looking into the sun,” she said. And then she said, “You’re the real Savvel.”

  “The other forty-five sides of me might disagree.” He drew his hair over his eyes. All she could see was his mouth. “And they’ve all been perfect beasts haven’t they?”

  She looked away and fiddled with the pen she was holding, and said finally, “You’d be too sensitive without them, I think.”

  She began to pity him, more than fear him. His visions were unpredictable and always strange––colonnades at the bottom of a lake; swamps full of burning cypresses; a ruined tower sticking out from a forest of gibbets; a great room overgrown with a briar bush. All crawling with a soft, underground malevolence. Nothing compared to Yule’s Eve. She wondered if perhaps the dreams grew worse at the dark of the year.

  But she couldn’t bear thinking about them for long––why the hallucinations happened, and how she might stop or temper them––and so she didn’t. She just led him out of them when she could, and her head got muzzier every time it happened.

  ***

  One late, golden afternoon Sarid was walking along the lakeshore with Gryka. It was early spring, and she dragged a stick through the water, stirring the leaves at the bottom. A heady smell came up and made her think of autumn. The sun was out, warming the air and rotting the ice; and she saw three people––two boys at the lake’s edge and one girl venturing away from them, stepping over the ice, which stretched to the shore right there. The girl, in Mari’s white coat, turned carefully on the ice, saw Sarid, and waved.

  “You’re stupid,” called Sarid.

  “I’m brave,” said Mari. “The boys are too craven to join me.”

  “I’m comfortable where I am,” said one.

  “I can’t swim,” said the other, and Gryka bounded over and jumped on him, because it was Rischa. He was almost as tall as Gryka, stretched out but not filled in. His shoulder blades poked through his shirt, sharp like plowshares.

  “I don’t think you’d sink very far,” said Sarid, walking up to them, nettled that the dog had recognized him before she had. “Did they feed you at all in Anefeln?”

  “What are you talking about, Bones?” He pushed Gryka away and rumpled the dog’s ears. “I’m built like an ox.”

  “You’re confusing an ox with a grasshopper,” said the other boy. He reminded Sarid of a fox for some reason, and then she remembered he’d gone to the dance with them last winter.

  Mari stepped off the ice and unbuttoned her coat. “You both owe me a foot rub,” she said. “Rokal can go first. Rischa looks preoccupied.”

  “Your shoes are wet,” said Rischa. Mari looked down. “Go change them or you’ll get sick. Go with her, Rokal. She may need to be carried.”

  “Oh, carried,” said Rokal. “And she’s built more like an ox than you.”

  Mari punched him in the stomach. He howled and doubled up. “He’s pretending,” said Mari. “Come on, you stupid lug. Edloiva’s looking for you.” She took his arm and pulled him along the path. He looked back once, grimacing, and then they disappeared around a bend.

  “She’d be very entertaining at court,” said Rischa. “I wish she would come to Anturvy.” He frowned at Sarid. “You stay here, though. I like you hidden. You stay here, and I’ll come visit you.”

  “I have no intention of leaving the north,” said Sarid. “You’ve come to see your brother, I suppose?”

  “Yes.” He sounded distracted. He looked at her, eyes half-closed in the sun. “He thinks
well of you. I’m happy. Yours was the face I most wanted to see.” He sighed, and oddly enough, looked thoroughly unhappy. “But you’re more saebeline than human today, I think.”

  Sarid was hot in the sun. The birds made a racket in the woods. She could feel the earth shaking the cold away, settling into warm-weather madness. Sweat ran down her leg.

  “Yes, I’m feeling very saebeline today.” She rubbed damp hands in her gown, certain her face had gone scarlet.

  “But I’m wasting away, Bones.” His expression was so guileless as to be sinister. “Why do you think I’m so skinny? I’m sick with longing, like to become a corpse.”

  She looked away, at the lake, at a robin nattering idiotically on a branch. “Bury it, then.”

  “Couldn’t you spare me a kiss?”

  “I already have. And a second would dry me out.”

  He walked closer, and the dog wriggled between them, groaning.

  “Just one kiss?” he said.

  She shook her head. “I’d go dry as a cured fish.”

  He laughed at this. “All on account of a kiss?”

  She put a hand on Gryka and looked down at her mock-sad eyes, her soft, pink tongue, the jaws that could rip out a throat. “You’d betray me,” she said. “You’d take my power away and betray me.”

  He stopped laughing. “Give me some credit.”

  “Why? You’re only sixteen. A boy. A noble.”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Hardly worthy of it.”

  “You really think so?” He pulled on one of his curls––a perfect baby, she thought. “But you hardly know me. Aren’t you curious? Isn’t there power in passion, too?”

  But Sarid had read a great many books. “I’m a girl. Passion is all about yielding if you’re a girl.”

  He made a face at her. “Met Leva, haven’t you?” There were very light freckles on his nose.

  She pushed him back. “You’re cloying.”

  “There’s surrender and power on both sides. If a person’s right with himself, balanced––”

  She was hot as blazes now, but she didn’t take off her coat. “You’re balanced?” A sharp, cold wind ruffled her clothes, but did nothing to cool her down. “I’m not.” Gryka barked, jumping, and she pushed the dog away with her foot. “I’m on edge, and you’re pushing me over it.” She stepped around him and walked away.

  “Jump, then,” he said, flippantly, and something in Sarid pushed out––some sort of madness. She turned and ran at him.

  He fell down in the loam, and she fell on top of him.

  He laughed, and she searched his face, wondering where she should spit. He had stupid dimples and big teeth, and red leaves in his stupid hair. The light fell over this and made it glow, and his stupid eyes said, Too late for you, Bones. You jumped. He looked at his chest. “Goodness. I’ll have a bruise there, I expect.”

  She pushed her elbows into his chest. “Why are you still talking?”

  “Because you’re ridiculous, aren’t you––”

  She finally stopped his mouth.

  ***

  Perhaps it was the coriander, or perhaps it was Vanli Pash, who, though not as pleasant as the coriander, did have something to do with it. Sarid and Rischa were thinning the herbs in her garden, kneeling in the mud, when Vanli rode by on his red horse.

  “The blonde vixen is brewing a potion,” he called. “Be wary, my lord. Coriander is a dangerous herb in the hands of a wicked woman.”

  Sarid had been baited before by Vanli, but not in front of Rischa. Cheeks hot, she looked at her hands in the dirt. Rischa stood up. “Move off,” he said. “Your horse is standing on the purslane.”

  “She has you groveling in the mud already? A fitting start. She is driving your brother madder, you know, sticking her claws in his head and mixing it up like one of her brews.” Vanli brought his horse closer and leaned toward Rischa. “She plans to ensnare you and become Ravinya, I’m sure.” He straightened and shrugged. “But then Savvel schemed his way into being the heir-presumptive. It’s only fitting that he be schemed out of it.” He nodded at Sarid. “I’m only relieved you’ve given up on Charevost, Lady Hyeda. I wouldn’t want you setting your demon father on my children.”

  Rischa threw a clod of mud at Vanli and knocked his hat off.

  “All right,” said Vanli. “I’ll stop bruising the purslane. Have a care for the boy, Sarid. He’s in a temper.” Vanli turned and rode down the hill.

  “He’s left his hat,” said Rischa. “Shall I piss on it?” She turned her head away. Too late he saw she was crying. “Ah, Bones, he’s a fool. Don’t listen to him.” He knelt next to her and wiped her face with his collar. “I’ll thrash him if you like.” She laughed, imagining skinny Rischa trying to thrash Vanli the blond bear. “I’ll cut off his tongue and give it to you for a toe rag.” He ran a hand through her hair. “Oh dear,” he said after a moment. “I’ve got my ring stuck.”

  He lifted her up, his hand tangled in her hair, and she could feel him laughing. “I’m completely caught. Let’s go over here––the light’s brighter.”

  He led her behind a mass of willow suckers, down into a divot in the lawn. His hair was dark, and his eyes had gone amber. The light had definitely not got brighter. A coriander sprout stuck to his forearm.

  They sat down very close together and he worked his fingers through her hair. “There,” he said.

  She was hungry––not in the usual way. “You’re lying.”

  “About what?”

  She wiped the mud off his face. He started laughing.

  “Am I filthy?”

  “Only your clothes.”

  She untied his shirt. They helped each other with buttons and fastenings, and lay naked on their cloaks, skins prickling in the breeze.

  He took her feet in his hands and traced his fingers up, and her skin responded pleasantly. He was careful, but it hurt, and felt so strange. As though someone had reached inside her and changed everything around.

  “It gets better,” he said.

  She coiled his damp hair round her finger. “You haven’t got a ring.”

  ***

  There were complications, of course. A day later, as they shoved a little red boat off the lakeshore landing so they might have a moment alone, Yoffin came running up, wearing only a long undershirt. He splashed into the lake up to his waist. “What was it? What was it I came––Oh, yes! Your brother needs administering to, sir. He’s in the shoals and not yet sunk. Trust me, I knows what it looks like before he sinks and this is it, sure enough.”

  Rischa dropped his oar. “Ayevur damn his head.”

  “Come on,” said Sarid, stepping onto the landing. “We’ll have to hurry. Is anyone with him?”

  “On my life, no,” said Yoffin. “He’s in the smaller conservatory. Next to the kennels.”

  “Fetch us some help, then,” said Rischa.

  “All that glass,” said Sarid.

  She and Rischa pulled the boat back up and left it lying lopsidedly over the bank. They ran toward the hall, leaving Yoffin red and puffing behind them.

  ***

  They found Savvel crouching under a lemon tree.

  “Ida.” He said. “We meet at the armpit of the day.”

  Late afternoon sun fell through the glass, gilding the leaves and setting the pools aglow. The barking of dogs came through an open window. Savvel flinched at it. “They smell my blood.”

  “You’re not bleeding,” said Rischa.

  “His finger,” said Sarid. Blood ran in a ribbon over Savvel’s knuckle.

  Rischa stared at it and shook his head. “They couldn’t possibly smell that.”

  But Savvel’s eyes were wide and black. “They haven’t been fed for years and years,” he said.

  “Listen to him,” said Rischa. “Already gone, bitten by Lady Midday.”

  “You’re gone.” Savvel hid his finger in his shaking hand. “A ghost. I’m talking with myself. Years and years I’ve wandered, only with myself. W
hy’ve you here?” Tears started in his eyes. “To hurt me. You’re hurting me.”

  “I’m your brother. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “You died,” said Savvel. “Face yellow, soft like the belly of a newt.” He started to cry and the words stuck in his throat. It was so pathetic Sarid wanted to turn around and leave him to it. “The plague took you first. I couldn’t do anything. It was my parakeet.”

  “You haven’t got a parakeet, Savya,” said Rischa.

  “The one I brought north. The yellow plague came north in it and killed you, and everyone else, the rooms, every room in the place stank like it, and you’ve all been dead for years and years. I ate the lahida fruit in the south. I went, but I’ve come back.”

  Though it was warm and wet in the hothouse, a cold wind seemed to come off Savvel. Sarid drew her cloak tighter.

  “No one let the dogs out,” he continued. “Everyone was dead. They were locked up in the kennels for years and years, the big eating the small, and I didn’t know, I would have let them out. They bred, and they’re worse than wolves, worse than feral. Lunatic, like giant brutalized children.”

  The barking came again, booming, horrible.

  “You hear them?” said Savvel. “They’re utterly mad. They’ll eat me.”

  “We should lock you in your room,” said Rischa. “Stuff up your ears.”

  “They’re breaking out.” Savvel’s face was slack with fear; Cerid looked behind her, almost expecting something–– “I should’ve gone by now. I want to die.” Savvel stood up so quickly his head tore leaves from the branches. “They’ll eat me. I must find a tree.” He pushed past Rischa and weaved through the trunks, stumbling as though drunk.

  “I suppose I’ll have to break his leg.” Rischa’s hands shook worse than his brother’s.

  The thought of Rischa thumping Savvel was much less funny than the thought of Rischa thumping Vanli. Sarid caught Rischa’s arm. “Let me drag him out.”