Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) Page 17

  Paulus’ father found a beautiful meadow

  between two streams with a large waertree.

  He spread a warm blanket on the ground

  and took all the food out of the basket.

  Eat, drink, and be merry, he said.

  Let this always be a pleasant memory.

  And they ate, and they drank, and they were merry.

  Their bellies were full and they grew tired.

  “Lie down and rest,” said Paulus’ father.

  “I will watch over you.”

  And he did. For as long as he could.

  But he knew Grimasca was coming.

  When the boys awoke, their father was gone.

  They knew not where they were.

  They knew not how to get back.

  And they were hungry again.

  Grimasca came and Paulus offered him the bread.

  “I’m a butcher, not a baker,” Grimasca said.

  “What would I do with bread?”

  So the boys ate the bread.

  Paulus led his brothers deep into the woods.

  Soon they came to a house full of giants.

  A whole family of them.

  A mother and seven children. All girls.

  Paulus explained their predicament.

  Was the mother willing to let them spend the night?

  The mother was reluctant.

  “Grimasca comes here too, you know.

  So many children means

  Grimasca will come.

  But you can stay one night . . .

  Upstairs and to the right.”

  The giantess mother liked to drink.

  More than she liked to eat.

  That night she got drunk.

  Paulus was worried she’d change her mind.

  He crept to the left

  and dressed all the giantess’ daughters

  in his brothers’ clothing.

  Sure enough, the giantess mother changed her mind.

  In a drunken stupor,

  thinking they were Paulus and his brothers,

  she locked her own daughters out in the cold

  and waited for Grimasca to come get them.

  It took three days and three nights.

  The giantess mother never stopped drinking.

  When she heard beating on the door, she drank.

  When she heard crying on the stoop, she drank.

  Finally, the cries stopped.

  The giantess mother stopped drinking.

  She blinked. And saw Paulus and his brothers.

  And she knew what she had done.

  She nearly killed herself that night.

  But Paulus stopped her.

  “Give me all your gold,” he said,

  “and I’ll bring one of them back.”

  The giantess mother didn’t believe him.

  But she had no choice.

  She gave Paulus all her gold.

  And Paulus left with his brothers.

  The giantess mother was as lonely as ever.

  In the city, Paulus’ father was as lonely as ever.

  Paulus climbed a tall tree

  And saw the crumbling walls.

  He led his brothers home

  And gave his father the gold.

  His father rejoiced.

  His brothers rejoiced.

  And Paulus rejoiced.

  But the next day he left.

  He’d made a promise.

  To return to the giantess mother.

  Before Paulus left the crumbling walls,

  he had one more thing to do.

  Down the street was another family.

  Grimasca was coming for them too.

  This family had a mother, a father,

  And a daughter, Paulina.

  Paulus took Paulina.

  And led her to the giantess mother.

  And the giantess mother rejoiced.

  The next spring, many new babies were born.

  Paulina’s parents rejoiced.

  And Paulus and Paulina rejoiced.

  And Grimasca rejoiced.

  Because he was coming for . . .

  EVERYONE!

  Once, long ago, there was a war. A terrible war.

  The fields around a once great city died.

  People grew hungry. Babies were born.

  And Grimasca got fat.

  Well, as Haljan bedtime stories went, this one was pretty typical, designed to ensure a plethora of nightmares. It was easy to imagine a mother reading her children this, and then, just at the line “EVERYONE!” scaring them half to death with a mock attack. I’d never heard it, but that didn’t mean anything. Our culture was rich in myths. There were likely a hundred different versions of this story and just as many names for Grimasca. The real question was whether Grimasca was real. Was he still living? And, if so, where?

  The folktale itself seemed allegorical, rather than literal. The whole point of the story seemed to be that postwar famine killed indiscriminately. Paulus’ father deciding to let Grimasca have his boys was probably that character’s way of acknowledging he could no longer feed his sons. And the part of the story where Paulus’ father took the boys to the meadow definitely seemed to be a wish fulfillment fantasy. No poor New Babylonian family in the immediate post-Apocalyptic era would have been able to row a boat down the Lethe and go for a picnic. (No one did that now!) The “resting” the boys did after their day of merriment was likely a gentle euphemism for death.

  Unlike Grimasca, however, I knew giants were real. They were small in number now and weren’t very social. There’d never been much written about them—no accounts of heroism during the Apocalypse or anything that you might expect from huge, immensely strong beings. But then again, giants didn’t have magic and they generally shunned humans. They lived in the forests and swamps and weren’t usually prone to violence. They weren’t usually prone to intelligence either, as this story suggested. It was, unfortunately, all too easy to imagine a drunken giantess mother locking her own children out of the house while a monster ate them.

  That said, the giant part of the story was probably just a continuation of the allegorical tale about hunger. With fourteen children instead of seven, that would mean that Grimasca (or starvation) would be more likely to come. A story about a giantess mother putting half her kids out to starve (or to be eaten by the Demon of Hunger) made about as much sense as any other Haljan folktale did.

  My guess was the author tried for a celebratory tone at the end, what with all the rejoicing over new births, etcetera, but by then they’d been too traumatized by the war and its aftereffects for their efforts to be successful. The author clearly felt that hunger (demon or not) would always be out there waiting and that Hunger, or the Grim Mask of Death, would be the only one really rejoicing after a war.

  So did this story prove that Grimasca was real? Hell if I knew.

  What I did know was that sleeping after a story like this would be impossible so I packed up my books and shuffled quietly down to the kitchen. Sooner or later, I’d have to make amends with Ari. This distance between us couldn’t continue. But, for now, I set my sights on a lesser task: getting through this night.

  I pushed open the galley door and froze.

  Rafe stood with his back to me, staring at something on the tiny stove in the corner. He turned around when I came in.

  “See?” he said, pointing to a small, steaming pot on the stove. “A watched pot does boil. But then, you probably already knew that.”

  My first instinct was to retreat and go back to my room. But I couldn’t decide which would be worse: sleeplessness or sleep . . . and the dreams that came with it. I’d come in here thinking to make some tea with the herbs my mother had given me. There was bound to be something in there that would send the drinker into a dreamless sleep. So I stepped into the room and retrieved a box from the shelf. In it were tins and paper envelopes full of the various herbs Aurelia had prepared for us.

  Rafe set the pot of bo
iling water on an unlit burner and walked over to the table where I was sorting through the tea offerings. He leaned down next to me, propping his elbows on the table right next to mine. Silently, we sifted through the box. Rafe pulled one of the envelopes out and turned toward me. Naturally, I too turned, and realized how close we were. Physically anyway. I scooted back.

  “Damiana?” Rafe’s mouth quirked. Damiana was widely known as an aphrodisiac. “Your mother gave you this?”

  I shrugged, fighting to keep my face neutral. Like it was any of his business!

  “Obviously, your mother’s not a Mederi,” I said. If there were two things Mederies weren’t shy about, even with their own offspring, it was plants and sex.

  “No,” Rafe said, laughing, turning back to the box. “I’ve no Host blood. My mother is an Angel.” But something about the way he said it made me think she was anything but.

  I glanced over at Rafe, hoping to catch him in an unguarded moment. But no such luck. He appeared as carefully carefree as ever, perusing a box of herbs, hoping to find a soothing combination for tea. Despite the fact that we were on a boat sailing through Wild Territory that was full of rogare demons on our way to an outpost known for starvation where sixteen people were missing, the scene before me was undeniably domestic. I let out a sigh—a deep breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. Rafe pulled three envelopes out of the box and shut it. He waved them in the air at me, his silver bracelet glinting in the light of the galley kitchen’s lone oil lamp.

  “Spearmint, lemongrass, and blackberry leaves.”

  He poured some of the leaves into an empty teapot, added the water, and then pulled down cups and a strainer. I walked over to him and together we waited for the tea to steep.

  “I shouldn’t have called you an oath breaker,” I said. I braced for the shrug of nonchalance, the sign that he didn’t care, but instead he nodded solemnly and said:

  “And I should have cast Gold Gorget over you before you went up the stairs with that hellcnight.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was serious. That was the problem with Rafe. I never knew when he was serious. And most of the time, he wasn’t. I said nothing else, nor did he. The silence was companionable, though, not tense. Just before the tea was ready, I touched his silver bracelet. It was a small plain cuff, less than an inch wide.

  Was it enchanted?

  Maybe there was a protective spell written on the inside. I twisted it a bit, trying to see if there were letters engraved on the back. Rafe didn’t complain, even when my efforts caused the bracelet to slip off his wrist. I stared at the markings on the inside.

  Bhereg 9-2-92

  “It’s the day my brother died,” Rafe said, reaching for the bracelet. He slipped it back on and then poured our tea, taking care with the strainer.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, never meaning anything more.

  He handed me a cup and I inhaled, smelling mint and the faintest hint of lemongrass. Tentatively, I took a sip. It made me feel warm and drowsy. Rafe stared at me over the edge of his cup.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You ensorcelled this with ‘Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.’”

  I thought he’d laugh, but he just shook his head and continued blowing on his tea. After a few moments he said, “I don’t know any sleeping spells. But I can sing you a lullaby if you’d like.”

  Was he serious? He seemed so. I nodded, expecting a song that was as silly as his spells. But his voice was slow and deeply plaintive.

  Dormi, mi infans . . .

  Dormi, certe.

  Grimasca venit . . .

  Et te vorabit.

  I blinked when he finished. My drowsiness had fled.

  “What does it mean?”

  He sang it again softly, like a mother might before she kissed her children good night.

  “Sleep, my baby . . . sleep, baby do. Grimasca’s coming . . . and he will eat you.”

  I swallowed. “Did your mother used to sing that to you?”

  He walked over to the sink and set his cup down. Resting his hands on the edge of the sink, he stared out of the galley’s small window. There was nothing to see but darkness.

  “Many, many times.”

  “Who did your mother think Grimasca was?” I said, my throat burning. Rafe walked over to the oil lamp. I set my empty cup down just as Rafe lowered the wick.

  “The one demon you never want to meet. Grimasca is whatever you’re deeply afraid of.” The wick sputtered and went out, plunging us into darkness. Rafe’s hand found mine and he led me toward the door.

  “Think you’ll be able to sleep now?” His quiet laughter echoed in the dark.

  Chapter 16

  The rain pounding on Cnawlece’s now inaptly named sundeck sounded like a thousand rogares banging on the back side of Burr’s metal pots. It made hearing anything else exceedingly difficult. Earlier this morning, I’d tried to study with Fara, but the rain’s incessant beating drowned out the sound of our voices. Discussion had been impossible. Reading, or focusing on anything, had been impossible. The rain rattled everything, and everyone. Even Virtus, who, after a particularly loud thunder crack, had flung himself beneath the dining room table.

  In his haste to escape the perceived threat from around and above, he’d crashed into a few chairs on his way under. One of them had fallen into an easel, which had then knocked over a painting of Estes, midshift and (ahem) midthrust, taking the maiden Kora. Since I’d always hated the expression on Kora’s face, I was secretly overjoyed when I realized the crash had irreparably damaged the painting. Delgato wasn’t conscious to complain so I’d removed the painting’s frame, rolled up the ripped canvas, and stuffed the whole thing into a sideboard drawer.

  Good riddance, I’d thought, clapping the dust from my hands.

  I’d left the dining room with renewed purpose, the drumming rain sparking my determination to put an end to this maddening silence between Ari and me. But when I put my foot on the bottom stair and prepared to ascend the last half flight to the upper deck, I’d started shaking uncontrollably. I’d crept into Delgato’s room, the first door I encountered, and here I sat contemplating what seemed to be my endless faults: I’d nearly killed our captain; I’d set our boat on fire, not once, not twice, but three times; I was too yellow-bellied to face my loving boyfriend, whose only fault was looking like the demon who’d attacked me; and I absolutely was not assured, in any way, that I could help anyone in the Shallows, let alone the sixteen people, including one eight-year-old little girl, who were missing or possibly dead.

  I gave a sigh of utter abdication and slumped onto the foot of Delgato’s bed. No doubt, were the manticore conscious, my prostrate form would have pleased him greatly. But that thought plunged me into an even fouler mood, and so it was that Burr found me about an hour or so later when he came in to check on Delgato.

  He gave a shriek and promptly dropped the tray he’d been holding. Ugh. Great. Yet another calamity I was responsible for. But then I realized that my self-pity was dangerously close to melodrama so I got down on my hands and knees and helped poor Burr mop up the spilled soup. When we were finished, he promised to return with more, and after an awkward moment when Burr wasn’t sure whether to stay or go (there was only one chair in the tiny room), I convinced him to stay by giving him my seat. I stood by the door, holding my soup. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to waste it. The soup somehow seemed like an unofficial offering from Burr to me. Hyrkes didn’t usually go around making offerings to members of the Host, but ordinary Haljans gave gifts to one another all the time. It showed they cared. I took a sip and Burr smiled. What was that old saying? That the way to someone’s heart was through their stomach? I smiled back. The rain had lessened a little so I could finally speak without shouting.

  “How long have you been Delgato’s cook?”

  Burr frowned, concentrating. He was short, but big around the middle. He dwarfed the desk chair he was sitting in and he never would have been able to fit his legs under Del
gato’s small corner writing desk.

  “Maybe six years, give or take. Who knows? Who can remember anything out here? The only way we even know time’s passing is because the seasons change. Or because Estes’ mood changes. And the Lethe changes with them. But Delgato, he never changed. He was always the same. Until now.”

  I winced, but Burr continued eating his soup, oblivious to my guilt.

  “Have you always been a cook?”

  Burr nodded. “I learned to cook from my mam. She cooked mostly over a fire, but she knew how to use a box oven, and she had an iron kettle and some pie irons. She could make a meal out of almost anything. Fish broth, corn-meal, beans. We almost never could afford fish, but she made sure we didn’t starve. I had a bunch of brothers and sisters. There were nine of us! My mam cooked for us all, and anyone else who brought her food to cook if they paid her or if they let her keep some.

  “When I was thirteen, I realized how hard it was for my mam to feed nine kids. So I told her good-bye. She cried, but she was glad to see me go. She wanted me to see more of Halja than just the street I was born on. So I found work on a dahabiya not unlike Cnawlece. My first captain wasn’t a bad man, just fairly gruff, as they all are. That captain got killed, when I was sixteen, I think. And so it went. I’ve worked for more captains than I can remember now. But none so long as him.”