Year of Miracles, page 19
part #1 of Collected Stories of the Old Races Series
"It would be too like an act of war. One does not casually murder the...wives," he finally said, cautiously. "Of one's acquaintances. Not without expecting repercussions."
"Wives," Sarah echoed. She would have expected her heart to lurch at that word; it would have had Jacob used it once upon a time. Instead amusement rose, as much at Eli's discomfort as anything else. "Have I missed the ceremony, then, or is all of this the ceremony?"
"I thought you might take offense at 'mate'," Eli mumbled. "And 'lover' seems so transient, in human terms. You take husbands and wives when you mean to spend decades together. Only the wealthy or bold retain long-term lovers without marriage."
"We take a husband or a wife, not two of one," Sarah said. "I think 'lover' will do, Eli. I don't believe I need to be a wife. I don't believe I ever did." The thought surprised her and she kissed Eliseo's knuckles as gracefully as he'd ever done hers, then released him to walk away, lost in her own contemplations.
She'd been too busy with her father's business to worry much about marrying, though she'd have had Jacob if he'd asked. Marriage was security, warmth at night, children to care for and finally to care for you. But that had been before the Old Races; before a vampire's gift ensured she would have far less need of any of those mortal concerns. Eliseo had probably not intended to free her by offering her health and life, but he'd done so, and the truth was a bright place within her. She had no need to be a wife, and no pressure to become one, not anymore.
Later, she wondered if it had been a proposal: if it had been Eliseo's way of asking without exposing himself too badly. If, even more, it had been a sly way of determining whether she would take him over Janx. He had not followed her, perhaps taking her dismissal of the word as a rejection. It had been the right interpretation, if that's what had gone on in his mind: she had meant it when she'd asked how she could ever choose. Janx came to her in time. It was a dance itself, these two, always careful not to push too hard for too long with her alone, nor to overwhelm her with their constant presence. She danced, too, trying not to show favoritism—easy enough, because their different aspects appealed differently. She was more comfortable with Eli's less-striking looks and quieter manner, but outrageous Janx was the one who most often made her laugh. Evenings almost always saw the three of them together from supper until retirement, and in the morning they broke a little ways apart to begin the dance again.
But it was afternoon now, and she had left Eliseo, and so it was Janx's turn to steal time. He was quiet for once, only taking her hand and leading her into the steps of a silent pavane, one of the dances she'd struggled to learn. It was easier trading steps with imaginary partners and coming back to touch fingertips with Janx than it had been with bemused servants and staff playing the parts of other dancers. Perhaps it would be easier still with the lords and ladies and gentle folk born to the classes that did these dances as a matter of course. Sarah came to the end of the five-step pattern and curtsied so that Janx had to stop and bow, himself.
Only then did he finally say, "You're ready, you know. You're ready for a masque or a feast or any such manner of meeting."
"Then you had best have a Lammas Day masque for me, my lord, so I might prove to myself that you're right."
Janx, delighted, swept another bow. "As my lady commands."
Her ladyship, Sarah thought nine nights later, was mad and a fool besides.
Even the poor celebrated Lammas Day, with the first of the harvest in and fresh breads and fruit and grain to be dined on. There were rituals of gift-giving and of thanking the earth and a long night of dancing before the summer sun began to slip away in earnest. Sarah had fought mock battles over loaves of good brown bread and poured watered wine on the ground all her life, and had thought nothing of it until Janx had smiled when she'd done it that morning. The wealthy, perhaps, did no such thing. And it was the wealthy who were coming to the Lammas Night ball: Janx had shown her the list of names, told her who they were. They did not reach quite so high as dukes and princes, but every rank below them was invited, and in truth the king's bastard sons were only not expected because of their youth or distance from London.
Alban and Hajnal, though, were not on the guest list, nor, upon asking, were any others of the Old Races. "The nearest dragon is in Wales," Janx said with a curled lip. "We do not enjoy one another's company, Sarah."
"And vampires?"
"This is to be a ball, my dear, not a bloodbath."
Perhaps not in actual terms, she thought now, as she sat dressed and lovely and determined not to leave her room. Not in actual terms, but from the coldness of her hands and the swift beat of her heart, she already felt she would be a sheep for the wolves in the ballroom. It would be bloodbath enough for her to leave this room. She watched the long drive from a window, carriages coming down the drive to finally pool like a school of dark fish at the steps. Stunningly dressed men and women stepped free of them, and the sounds of music and laughter began to rise from the halls below.
A tap came at her door. Sarah scowled down the road, knowing to open the door was to lose a battle that was already ridiculous to fight. Still, she remained where she was, stubbornly insistent on not joining the party, until Eliseo pushed the door open and stepped inside. "What do you see when you look at me, Sarah?"
That surprised her. Surprised her enough to look at him, and then she was lost indeed. He tended to wear sober clothing, even for a masque, and so his ribbons and half-coat and breeches were all black over white stockings and a white shirt. But even without the riot of color Janx would be in, there was no imagining him to be conservative, not with the sheer, absurd yardage in the breeches and shirt or the dramatic poof of his cravat, which was red.
So was Sarah's dress, and so would Janx's entire outfit be. There would be others in red, of course, but the keen-eyed among the guests would notice that the three of them all wore the same red, the same fabric, the same shade. It would cause speculation, curiosity, interest—all the things Janx thrived on.
That was, of course, if Sarah agreed to leave the room. She closed her eyes against Eli's repeated question, "What do you see when you look at me?" and answered less than honestly: "More than I should."
Because she saw the quicksilver speed that was Eli's to command. She saw the mass that Janx hid in his day to day mortal life, and the shadow of wings around him always. More than she should see, and yet never enough. That was the dishonesty in her answer: it suggested she saw too much, when she would never, never be able to see deeply enough into the two men who had become her world. "Always," she said quietly, and opened her eyes. "Always, more than I should."
"And they," Eli said with a subtle emphasis, meaning the gathered courtiers and nobles in the ballrooms below, "see less than they should. They'll see a woman of wealth and beauty, Sarah, no matter what you feel lies below. Scratch their surface, and they're much like you. Not bold enough, perhaps, to pour wine as openly as you did, but they'll break bread and feed it to the earth as well. They know where their food comes from."
"Serfs," Sarah said, bitterness rising from fear.
Eliseo smiled. "And slaughterfield daughters. Perhaps what you should be thinking is not that you'll be found out, but how agog they would be to find the finest masque of the season is hosted by—"
"A dragon," Sarah interrupted dryly, and Eli, who had clearly not been going to say that, laughed.
"Very well. By a dragon. Do you think any of them would accept that easily?"
"I think they'd try to kill him. As they would probably try to kill me, if they knew."
"In that case." Eli offered his arm. "Let us all three go into danger, Sarah Hopkins, for we belong with the king's elite no more than you do."
By all reason, it ought not have given her any confidence. Eli and Janx were no more endangered by a ballroom of courtiers than they might be by little girls with daisies. It was the equality, though: offered, granted, assumed. To Eli, she was no more and no less in danger of being found out than he was, and nothing save Pandora could possibly expose him. Buoyed, she took his arm and let him bring her to the masque.
The music stopped when they entered.
Whether it was Janx's theatrics or uncanny timing, the music stopped and three hundred souls turned curiously toward the doors Sarah and Eli passed through. There was no herald to call out their names; this was a party, not the king's court, but in the silence there was no need for such a man. Recognition rippled over them in a whisper of shifting silks as women curtsied and men bowed.
They straightened again with recognition satisfied and interest alight in their faces. They knew Eliseo, but Sarah was new to them, and she saw in their gazes what Janx and Eli had told her time and again: that she was extraordinary herself, even in such company as she now kept. They were eager for her, eager for what new gossip and talk she would bring, this woman who had been hidden for weeks—months!—at Janx's country estate, with no visitors to make society any the wiser.
In the moment before Eli introduced her to the nearest couple, an astonishing thought came clear. They had to hide, the two men in her life. She did not, and it seemed a sudden and peculiar gift she might give them, the gift of her own honesty and true self. As Eli drew breath to speak she made a choice, and thrust her hand forward as any man in the market might. "Sarah Hopkins," she said, and made no effort to keep the cultured accent her men had lent her. "Not Goody, for I'm no one's wife, and not Mistress, for I'm no one's lady. Just Sarah will do. You are?"
Eli went terribly still. Distressingly still, the way only he and Janx could do, and then he smiled so broadly Sarah almost laughed to see it. "Lord Bothswaite, and the Lady Cecilia, Sarah. Second cousins to the Duke of York, I believe? We're honored to have you here tonight."
Bothswaite had taken Sarah's hand and now held it with an expression of not knowing how to release her politely. "It's," he said. "We're. I'm. It's...."
"You too, yer lordship." Sarah extracted her hand from his dull grip and beamed at Lady Cecilia. "Your gown's beautiful, my lady. Would it be imposing to ask who your seamstress is?"
Lady Cecilia drew herself to her full height and said, as coldly as she could, "Yes."
Sarah, brightly, said, "Oh dear," and turned to Bothswaite again. "Would ye care to dance, melord?" She'd have sworn an actual chill blew off Lady Cecilia as Bothswaite, unable to refuse without being a boor, accepted the offer as gracelessly as he could.
Sarah danced beautifully.
She was handed from one partner to another, hasty and uncomfortable introductions made each time, until Janx stepped in barely able to contain his laughter. "What are you doing, my dear? The Bothswaites have left, but I think new attendees are arriving even still, as if rumor draws them here."
"That's what I'm doing. I can't possibly go back to where I've come from, Janx, but it suddenly came to me that I didn't have to pretend to be one of them, either. I've probably cost you your place in the courts," she said with a hint of apology.
"There are other courts, if it comes to that, but fear not. We will be wildly popular for months because of this, Sarah. They're shocked, horrified, and will be entirely unable to stay away. The idea of talking with a butcher's daughter in a lord's house will be irresistible."
"It's not that the bear dances well," Sarah said, and Janx's quick grin flashed across his face.
"Precisely, though it happens that the bear dances very well indeed. I knew we had given you a voice and clothes, Sarah. I had no idea we'd invested you with a sense of theatrics as well." He laid a hand against his chest, modestly, as they stepped apart and came together again in the pattern of the dance. "Or dare I say I invested you with a sense of theatrics."
"Dare all you like. I have." Sarah curtsied as the dance ended and was passed away again, this time to a group of women flushed by excitement. They hadn't been dancing: it was Sarah's presence and coarse tongue and their proximity to her that made the occasion heady. Before she was called to dance again she had secured and offered half a dozen invitations to tea, and she was merry as Eliseo took her away onto the ballroom floor.
"They'll turn cruel, you know."
"They're cruel already," Sarah said. "It's voyeurism, not friendship, that guides the invitations. But it works both ways, doesn't it? We watch them with their fine gowns and mincing ways even as they watch me and my rough ones. Perhaps we'll all learn something from one another."
"You, at least, will," Eli murmured, and Sarah nodded. People were leaving, and the musicians began a mournful tune meant for goodbyes rather than dancing. The room emptied, remaining individuals scattered like fallen petals, and Sarah turned to Eliseo.
"Would you have wanted me, if something else had lain below? If I was one of them, and not a daughter of blood and guts and gore?"
Eli tilted his head, bird-like, and remained silent a moment before giving a considered answer. "I think he wouldn't have noticed you, then. You would have been an ordinary sort of beautiful, rather than a beauty hewn from muscle and sinew. Janx has never had an eye for the ordinary."
"And you?"
"I," Eliseo Daisani said blithely, "would have had you for lunch."
Sarah shouted with laughter, and the Lammas Masque came to an end.
She had worked hard every day of her life until Janx had taken her from the slaughterfields. There was no sense in mere socializing being exhausting, not after the girlhood she'd known, but she slept even in the hard-bouncing carriage, and retired early when callers came to her. Her rude upbringing was excuse enough: she could hardly be expected to behave in a more civilized fashion, and besides, sudden departures from polite company gave her visitors all the more to gossip about.
Janx was as happy as she was to sleep, especially in a south-facing room where the afternoon sunlight poured in and warmed the bed to baking. "Cool blood," he mumbled into her shoulder when she asked. "Lizards of all sizes like to sun themselves."
"What an unfortunate thought."
He chortled and she drifted into sleep again. Eli was there when she awoke, concern in his dark eyes. "Are you well, Sarah?"
She rolled over to catch his fingers with hers, hair tumbling in her eyes as she did so. "I've never been so lazy in all my born days, Eli. It's tiring, that's all. I would be better with back-breaking labor as I'm accustomed to."
"Perhaps the groundskeeper would give you a ditch to dig." He smiled, kissed her fingers, and stood. "Supper will be ready soon. You haven't been eating well, either."
"I'm fine," she promised. "I'll dress for supper and see you soon."
He nodded and left Sarah sprawled on the bed, sleepy eyes watching the sun slide toward the horizon. She'd been tired since Lammas Night, since the aftermath of the ball, as if it had taken all her energy and nothing had replenished it. Food had smelled too strongly of late; that was why she'd eaten little. It would pass soon, as summer illnesses did. She sat up, reaching for a dressing gown, and winced as she compressed her breast with the action.
Winced, then went still, her heart and breath stopped between one beat and the next. Her hands turned to ice and goose bumps swept her despite the lingering afternoon heat.
It was not a summer illness, and it would not pass in a little while, not if fatigue and tenderness and scent-sensitivity meant what it usually did. And it did, she was sure of it. Her blood hadn't come for weeks, a detail unnoticed in the fullness of her new life. It should have been on her during the masque, red as her gown, and that meant she was more than a month gone. Almost two, by all likelihood.
Two months gone with child, when she had believed she would have no children at all. Two months gone with the child of a dragon or a vampire, when the Old Races forbade such unions entirely.
She chose a simple gown that needed no assistance for donning, and dressed herself with cold hands so she might go to supper.
"There was another story," she said over the meal. "Another one you read to me, Janx. About the statue who came to life?"
"Pygmalion's statue," Janx said. "Elise. A gargoyle, of course."
Sarah stopped herself before she spoke further, staring in astonishment at the red-haired man across the table from her. He blinked, mild expression, then smiled. "You're surprised. Should you be, my dear? So much of human mythology and magic can be laid at the feet of the Old Races. Surely you know that by now."
"I hadn't thought." That changed the story. Changed the truth of it, but not the thrust that had prompted Sarah to ask. She nearly went on, nearly asked more, but Janx continued instead.
"A statue by day, a woman by night. Only the touch of the gods could make it so, by human understanding, but in truth? One of us."
Sarah sat with lips parted, questions ready to fall from them, but a whisper of wisdom held curiosity in check as wonder raced through her mind. Had she known? Not Elise, of course, but the woman Elise had become in the stories? Had the statue known she'd been carved of ivory and brought to life by a sculptor's love and a god's gift? Had she known, as Sarah did now, the difference from one life to another?
And had she, as the story claimed, had children? Had that gargoyle female called Elise birthed babes to a human man?
And if so, what, what, oh, what, had the Old Races done about it?
"I didn't mean to stun you into silence," Janx said in amusement. "Are you all right?"
"Of course. You'll have to tell me what other Greek myths the Old Races are responsible for. I begin to think no part of humanity has gone untouched by you." Sarah left that where it was, smiling and nodding as the men began to out-do each other in tales of times long past. She heard almost none of it, though, consumed with the idea of an impossible child.
She had not meant to leave them, not ever. But nor had she thought to be a mother to the extraordinary, and her thoughts came slowly clear as Eli and Janx bantered.
