The House of Flame Lilies Ch. 04

"No," Father Petru replied stiffly. "No, the people here are well-accustomed to the tricks and turns of the weather."

Sandu took another sour sip of beer. "Of course."

"It's not the weather that took this time," the priest's mother croaked, her voice like torn paper. "God sends many punishers. The Devil has many minions."

Sandu frowned. She moved her stoic gaze to the old woman. Ioana sniffed and shuffled in her blankets and returned her stare, beady, black eyes glinting in the folds of her drooping, doughy skin.

"Mother, don't be dour," Father Petru said mildly. "Our guest has had a long journey."

Ioana grunted at him, the blankets bunching, as she raised her shoulders indignantly. "Skarpo folk have no idea what life is up here. Don't see why we should sugar-coat it for them."

Father Petru sawed the bread and shoved a slice aside with a tired sigh. His skin was sallow.

Sandu kept her tone gentle. "No, she's right. Please, Ioana, tell me. I want to know if not all is well so close to my home. Skarpo may be in the valley, but we are neighbours of a kind." She glanced at the sentinel saints around the wall. "Are not all people under God?"

Ioana nodded curtly, her wrinkles slinking into a reluctant look of approval. "You've sadly come to the village at a time of suffering, Captain." She used Sandu's title with a mocking sneer. L'Héritiers du Sang Mortel had left the mountain villages to the mercy of the wilds years ago. It had not been forgotten. "We lost one of our little girls in the blizzard."

Sandu raised a thick eyebrow and leaned towards Ioana with a creak of the stool. "I thought you said the blizzard didn't take anyone?"

The sunken mouth of the talking bundle of knitting pursed. "We lost her in the blizzard, not to it. As the snow began to fall, she was found dead by a search party going out to ensure everyone was coming home. Murdered, with her killer defiling her body on the mountainside."

Sandu's upper lip drew back in revulsion. She carefully breathed the warm scents of bread and wood smoke. "Defiling?"

The bread knife clattered down. "Mama, don't exaggerate."

Sandu snapped her attention to Father Petru. He was laying two thick slices of bread on a wooden plate and sinking his knife into a pungent wheel of goat's cheese. He glanced at her with exhausted eyes. "Forina was not murdered," he said evenly. "She went out to play and went too far. She always was a precocious girl. She fell and hit her head." The knife clunked to the wood. "Poor child."

Sandu pressed warily. "But your mother said her killer was..."

Father Petru sighed heavily. He extracted the wedge of cheese, glimmering creamy in the early sunset through the open door. "Sparrow always was a troubled boy."

Sandu's senses all pointed to his voice, like pistols. Sparrow. That was the name the creature had called the boy.

Father Petru laid the plate of bread and cheese at her side on the table and rubbed his hands on his fraying, faded cassock. "Sweet," he continued. "But troubled."

"He didn't belong here," Ioana croaked bitterly. "Probably born straight out of Hell's cunt."

"Mama!" the priest huffed. He shot Sandu an apologetic look.

She gave him a subtle, dismissive wave, and pushed her gaze against him, her stern eyes demanding more.

He grimaced and rubbed his hands on his cassock again. He sat with a small groan on a chair across the table from his mother. "He was found as a child by another resident of the village, Cristian. A good man, a kind man. So kind he seemed to struggle to see, even now, that Sparrow was..." He moved his hands palm up, as if weighing his words on a scale. "Odd."

Sandu looked questioningly at him.

"Strange things would happen around the lad." The priest explained. "And his temperament was... fragile. No one thought anything of it. But then this happened..." He trailed off uncomfortably. "Please, eat. You must be hungry."

Sandu quickly took a slab of bread and cheese into her mouth. The cheese was soft and fluffy and spread easily over her tongue, strong-flavoured but deliciously creamy. She smiled, the simple satisfaction filling her senses and making her stomach grumble. It grounded her body in the normality of eating after the unnaturalness at the manor.

Father Petru smiled weakly at her.

"What did happen exactly?" Sandu asked thickly, swallowing the hearty bite. "He found this child dead and then... You said he defiled her?" She spoke measuredly. "He raped the body?"

Ioana spat. "Worse!"

Sandu sat straighter. "Worse?"

Ioana glared at her, her voice rasping and wheezing like blocked bellows. "He defiled more than her body, he rent her very soul! He stole her from God and gave her to the Devil! Reached into where she waited for the glory of Heaven and tore her from Christ's embrace!"

Father Petru raised his voice a little. "Mama, please, you'll over-exert yourself." He scratched his lined brow. "He was found holding Forina in his arms. She was clearly long dead, overnight at least. She looked ghastly and her limbs were... And her skull was... " He gulped and took a shuddering breath.

His mother scrutinised him, patchwork ruffling. Sandu watched him too.

"And then Sparrow looked up at us in the search party and..." Another gulp. His voice dropped so low that the crackling of the fire almost drowned him out. "His eyes were white. Pure white. As if they'd frosted over. And the snow was all about him in a storm, while it was only falling softly everywhere else. And then..."

Sandu leaned forward, her boots scraping the stone floor. She fixed Father Petru with an ignited stare.

He met her eyes, then avoided them quickly. He scratched his temple. He looked back at her. "You're going to think we're all mad for saying this. We know the folk of Skarpo think we're all just foolish rustics."

Sandu shook her head vigorously. "Not so, Father. We are all mountain folk."

He sighed in concession. He ran his fingernails lightly over the grooves in the table and spoke to his hand. "Captain, Forina came back to life."

The blood drained from Sandu's face. "What?"

"I know it sounds impossible," he said with a note of keen distress. "But one moment she was lying limp and ragged in his arms, and the next, she was hauling herself to her feet."

Sandu stared stonily at him. She glanced to Ioana, who was looking at her testily, daring her to deny it. Ioana bunched her blankets again. "But it was no miracle of resurrection," she croaked gravely. "The Forina that the party brought back was not the little girl we all loved. She was monstrous, screaming without words and lunging and snapping her teeth at us. Deranged. She was barely half human, her wound still eating away at her, little more than a smashed doll. And Sparrow..." She spat on the ground at his name. "That witch, that demon. He was crying out for her to obey him, crying out with the wrath of Satan." Her voice mingled with the crack of the fire. The flames seeped into the creases in her face. She spoke as if her telling the tale might send avenging angels after the boy, the demon, as if her own wrath could be greater than that of the Antichrist himself.

Sandu hung onto her words, her mind racing. What creature was this? No mere thrall of the manor beast, that was for certain. So what did Vestalia want with him? More importantly, what could she do with him? Raise armies of the undead, make them walk the earth as in Revelations? What had Sandu's predecessors allowed to grow beyond the border? What had been allowed to fester? What had she herself allowed? Her fingers chafed hard on the mug. Beer and smoke and goat's cheese faded under the vividness of her speculations.

"See?" Ioana snapped triumphantly to her son. "She understands the severity of this sin!"

Father Petru gave his mother a pleading expression. He turned back to Sandu, his shoulders seeming to sag with the weight. "It was a terrible thing. Forina's father was among the search party. Can you imagine having to see your own child as some raised, possessed corpse?"

Sandu shook her head, muscles hardening. "What happened to her?" she asked quietly.

Father Petru's face creviced with pain. His reply came snagging in his throat. "She was burned. We tried to execute her cleanly, with a knife. But she walked through such wounds as if they were the brush of feathers. Even as she was consumed in the flames, she howled like a wolf until there was nothing left of her but ash."

"Devilry." Ioana sniffed sharply. "And now the poor girl is in Hell, where she never belonged."

Sandu looked with grim sympathy to the priest, gazing mournfully at his hand again. "Do you really believe that? That she was damned?"

Father Petru didn't raise his eyes. "I can imagine no other possibility."

A penetrating cold dripped through Sandu. Her mouth went dry. She sipped the sour beer. "And... this Sparrow?"

Ioana spat again. "Dead, if God is just!"

Father Petru answered hoarsely. "The village was in agony. They were both brought back bound to be judged by our Headman. The more moments that passed, the more clear it became that Forina was absent from this bellowing, hollow creature. When Vasile ordered she be released from this mindless existence, a mob formed in outrage against the one who denied her peace. Sparrow was driven from the village. They would have killed him, but he was always fast." He ended on a bitter note. His fingers in the table grooves curled into a fist.

Sandu sat in the fractious, wounded silence, her gaze travelling between Father Petru's grief, Ioana's righteous anger, and the all-too homey details around her that deserved none of this unnatural terror. Her heart squeezed. Her stomach turned to iron. "I'm sorry for the suffering of your village," she said plainly.

Ioana shot her a furious glare from the nest of wool. "Keep your sorry. Put a line about it in that treaty that sacrificed us to the Devil. Your order abandoned us to Hell long ago."

Sandu's square jaw set. Her knuckles went white on the mug. She'd known it was risky to admit this far up that she was a captain for Sang Mortel, but Ioana had been too canny to accept her lie about being a traveller. Now she faced the old woman, older than the treaty, old enough to remember protection and the loss of it. She faced her and spoke with the rumble of flame in her proud, strong voice. "No. No more." The resolve set into her body, like mortar into stone, sank deep with the smell of human cooking and human drinking and human toil. "L'Héritiers du Sang Mortel is coming back to the mountain."

*

The dry, clean, forest scent of the library balmed Sparrow's raw senses after his unsettled dreams. He was wearing all his new clothes, even the coat, wrapping himself in layers of warmth and the sweet way Vestalia liked to spoil him. He walked listlessly among her cabinets of treasures, their beauty somewhat dimmed without her. He looked out of the window, the sparkling veil of night drawing over the cerulean sky. It was almost dark. She would be awake soon. He had very little time left to think. His nightmare was a blur of snow and shouting and sex. The stranger had been in it, the one who had come yesterday and accused Vestalia of...

Damn. What was it? Why can't I remember?

And the stranger had been trying to help him in his dream. She had been calling for him to remember...

What? Something from yesterday. Something she needed. She came here for a reason and I knew what it was, and she needed me to remember. Why would I forget that? Maybe I didn't know. Maybe I just made a guess while my head was making noise.

But he really felt like he knew.

"She's trying to make you forget something."

Every time he tried to grasp any of the specifics of yesterday, his mind filled with Vestalia. The heat of her mouth swallowing his cock. Her eyes richly ablaze in the hearth light. Her perfume. Her low moans and lower laughter. He went to the window. The blue of the fading day was so intense it pushed on his pupils. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, feeling their soreness smart. It wasn't just the nightmare. Over these past few days he had hosted a war in his body between his goatherd habit of rising with the sun, and his desire to spend every possible moment with Vestalia late into the night. He was sleeping less than he should. Maybe that was why his memory was foggy. He needed to rest. That was all. And Vestalia always helped him do that. He was sure she'd lulled him to sleep yesterday, after...

Oh, it's gone again. After something anyway.

Answers wilted through his fingertips as the light fell on them. He sighed and massaged his temples.

Vestalia would be awake soon. She would find him here and explain anything he didn't understand. She loved answering his questions. Everything would be alright once she was here.

He shook out his limbs and picked up his agile step, bouncing to the soaring shelves. He scurried up a tall ladder, rising through the swirl of book covers, like a bubble bobbing to the top of a stirring potion. The ladder creaked softly. Almost two dozen feet up, he wedged the soles of his boots into a rung, and swung dramatically outwards. One hand and foot held him secure, the rest of his body fluttering like a flag in the large room. The hexagonal walls spun about him, as if he was a pin in the mechanism of a gun. The rainbow sheen on the book covers rippled in the burgeoning starlight and the glimmer of the chandelier. He felt like he was flying through the Northern Lights.

He let his body go loose and hung in the air, dropping further out so the varnished floor swam beneath him. The glass cases and plump couches floated in it, like wreckage from a decadent merchant vessel. He let his head spin in the colours and shimmers, his coat flapping around his legs, his long, slack braid falling over his shoulder. He smiled. He breathed.

He jumped from the ladder and landed like a lemur on the balls of his feet. He rocked onto his heels with a clack of leather on hardwood, and tripped around the walls, dragging his fingertips over the bumps of the book spines. Their titles were meaningless to him, gold and black squiggles like discarded tangles of thread. He pulled a few volumes out at random, looking for pictures. Most in this section were only text in its refined rows, though one did have some pretty diagrams of toadstools. He blew out through his lips, like a pony, and slotted them back. He glanced at the window again, the sky was watery indigo. She should be here soon.

"She should be here soon," he said casually to the suit of armour stood stoically by the grumbling hearth.

The suit of armour didn't reply. It didn't so much as flinch. He wandered over to it and stood squarely facing it. Whoever had worn it must have been very tall and very important. The plates slotted mathematically together seamlessly, as if it was stitched rather than riveted, the hard steel folding easily as petals into shape. It was dark, almost black, the carnelian lick of the fire on its surface like the torches of ferries crossing a midnight lake. The breast and shoulder were inlaid with flourishes of burnished gold, like brushes of fern fossilised in stone. The helmet was hazelnut-shaped, the slats in the mouthguard long, tar-stained teeth, the slitted eyes unsettlingly keen. The segmented, metal fingers lay elegantly over the pommel of a longsword, inset with a single, blazing fire opal, like a winking, draconic eye. The blade drove down into the suit's stand. Firelight trickled in the furrow down its centre, like fresh blood.

Sparrow swallowed. He looked back up into the helmet's focused expressionlessness. He recalled Vestalia showing him the rapier. He grinned, sprang into a squat with one toe pointed towards the suit, and flung his fist out on an arrow-straight arm. "En guarde!"

The suit of armour didn't budge. Just as well, Sparrow wasn't convinced he would win.

He clucked his tongue and slid his feet back together. He stepped right up to the metal figure. His head only came to its barrel chest, his own reflection smudged in the dark steel. He ducked down to the fire opal encrusted in the pommel. His own eye glittered back at him, now the same colour as Vestalia's. The blade glimmered, almost singing with motion even though it was still. His hand drifted out to it. His fingertip glided down it, the smooth surface humming, the metal cool. His finger slipped.

"Ouch!"

The blade was sharp, recently whetted. A droplet of blood bloomed on Sparrow's skin where the keen edge had caught him. He grimaced at the sting and lifted his hand to suck the cut. He paused. The fire opal caught his eye, shimmering as if a real flame was trapped within. His eyes glazed a little in the mesmerising flicker of light. He held his fingertip to it, letting the bead of blood catch the gleam. The droplet quivered like dew on a twig of cherry blossom. It fell and splashed onto the jewel, painting it wine red.

The screech and scrape of metallic movement.

Sparrow's heart leaped into his throat at the sound. He stumbled back and gaped in wonder, as the suit of armour heaved and creaked to life. The plates clinked and squeaked against each other. Its great shoulders shifted, its tree trunk legs bent and flexed. It hauled a stiff step sideways off its stone stand. Its fingers curled around the hilt of the longsword. Sparrow jumped back, flinging his hand up defensively, staring like a startled fawn into the slit eyes. But the suit did not raise the sword towards him. It merely stepped in front of the hearth, leaving a blank space of stone wall. It extended the sword towards the wall, reflecting the rainbow of books. The point dragged with a light, toe-curling scrape in a knotted pattern around the mortar lines in the bricks. The suit lowered the sword and clicked back to utter stillness. Sparrow blinked, pores pricking. The squeak of metal was replaced by the groan of rock. The room trembled, the floor vibrating under Sparrow's feet. Then the bricks began to sink back and slide away, one by one, in a strange, organised crumbling of solid wall. A doorway appeared, looking into total darkness.

Sparrow's mouth hung open. He glanced frantically between the new doorway and the now static suit of armour. He coughed out a little, bewildered laugh. "This place..." He hurried to the doorway and peered inside. The light from the library leaked onto a long, stone staircase leading down into shadowed depths. Sparrow hesitated. Vestalia had asked only one thing of him, one thing for all her kindness."Stay in the rooms above ground, the nice rooms for a nice boy." It was such a little thing, such a minor request, when she could command him to do anything. But... Why? What under the house could she possibly want to hide?

"She's trying to make you forget something."

It was just a dream. But didn't dreams come from real fears? Real thoughts? He hadn't been able to shake the feeling all day that there was something he needed to know about Vestalia. Perhaps something he already knew and couldn't remember. Or couldn't name.

The darkness yawned beneath him. It wanted to swallow him down, guzzle him into the belly of this great dragon, this hoarder of secrets. Sparrow's pulse thrummed. His fingers tingled. He didn't want to disobey his mistress, truly, deeply. But, how long before the not knowing became worse for them than the knowing? What could there possibly be to learn about this miracle of a woman that could dim her enchantment? And... Well... This doorway was technically part of the library, and she had given him the library...

He chewed his lip. He pulled back from the alluring chasm. He strode away from it resolutely. He went to the library door, plucked the delicate key from his waistcoat pocket...