The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [20]
She sighed.
Noises from Nowy Solum came muffled through the parchment over her windows. Judging by the light, it was well past dawn.
Banging, a third time, at the door.
Then the squawkings from her pets. Was that the sign things were amiss? Had her creatures been more upset than usual, or were these regular cries for food and affection now they knew she had woken?
“Please,” the chatelaine had whispered, holding onto her forehead, where an invisible knife twisted. “Please, my little babies, please. Momma has a splitting pain. Give me a second . . .”
Breakfast was pears and quince jelly, a croissant, black coffee. The tray was left abandoned in the doorway, on the wooden planks of the Great Hall. Nobody around. A glass of fizzy water for her stomach, which she sipped before returning with the tray in one hand to her bed. Once there, picking at the meal, propped up against her pillows and listening again to the sounds of the morning outside and to the protests of her pets, she tried hard to recall details from the latter parts of the night—faces at least—forcing herself to steer away from further guilt or regrets, or at least staving off these feelings for as long as possible. Clinical, she told herself. Be clinical. This is your science, your study.
Several people had been in the room. Evidence was widespread: empty and half-filled glasses; a broken bottle; discarded garments. The son of a barker from Soaper’s and Candles, a man she had taken a liking to—Jonas, was it? And maybe he had brought a friend. And a dark-skinned girl, from goodness-knows-where, possibly outside Nowy Solum, who had sat on the mattress for the longest time, fiddling with her hair and frowning before finally crawling over. Her lips and tongue had been black, rough. There were oils flowing, endless spiritus, the smell, and crack, and taste of leather.
At one point, two cobali had watched the activities—she remembered an isolated and crystalline image—laughing at the exertions from the foot of the bed.
Then the chatelaine lay thinking about the kholic girl, the one from Hot Gate. She pictured her pretty face. The poor thing had been brought inside with the best intentions and then left, alone, somewhere in Jesthe. Was she still in the palace? The chatelaine had no idea. Not that she ever wanted to involve the girl in an orgy, but neither did she intend the child to become lost in the huge halls and empty rooms of her home, just another servant. Today, she vowed, on this very day—or perhaps the next, at the latest—she would seek the girl out.
Almost ready at that point to throw off the cover and call for a bath, the chatelaine looked into the large mirror—which took up most of the west wall, and in which she discerned the row of her beloved beasts, stirring in their gilded cages—and, for the first time, saw the door to one cage hanging open.
That was the moment her day, her world, her life changed.
Agitation was clear in the faces of those remaining creatures, at least those with eyes. Fearful expressions, not understanding what had happened, brimming with hurt and betrayal of what they had seen in the night. The cries had been much more than hunger: they were of betrayal.
Why had she not looked earlier?
Heart pounding, the chatelaine stood for a moment, dizzy, naked except for the band of flea fur around her upper arm. She held onto the bed for support. Tiny stars spun about her head and drifted, falling, across her vision.
Her cherub was gone.
She glanced about the bedchambers, a slight twist of anticipation on her face, as if maybe an obscure joke had been told, one she didn’t quite get. Or maybe she was hopeful that the precious creature might be watching her, perched on a curtain rod, or on a statue, but she saw nothing of the sort and her wispy smile faded as quickly as it had come, replaced by apprehension that was like a rag pushed into her throat.
The cherub had never before been out of its cage.
Oiled parchment