The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [41]
Others in the crowd, seeing this boldness, this transgression, and recognizing the potential confrontation, began to clear away.
Hakim shook Nahid, hissing as the man with the whip slowly raised his free hand and pointed a long finger. Then he brought his hand up and moved his finger across his own throat. Between the two, the marked cognosci danced nervously from paw to paw.
“You fool, Nahid,” Hakim hissed. The stall owner’s hands were huge and powerful; Nahid could not break free. “You’re lost in your own world. You have no idea how the city has changed.”
Nahid’s palms had gone cold. Had changes happened to Nowy Solum because of his actions? Would he never look at Name of the Sun’s face again? His gaze began to burn with tears.
Was he truly a coward?
Across the Alley, another kholic—a young boy with long hair and a broad, dark tattoo— cleaned the gutter. Nahid felt as though he had betrayed this boy, and all the others working the streets.
Then he found himself wondering how another full glass had arrived so fast. And, when he turned to Name of the Sun, to share with her a new theory about why the time was so right for the actions they had taken, and why he had to stay behind the curtain, she was no longer sitting at the table.
Nahid was stunned. How long had she been gone? He drank half his pint in big gulps. He was not a coward. He was not. And he would prove it. He would return to Jesthe right now, alone, to enter the cavernous chambers, to walk the hallways of Nowy Solum’s rundown palace.
The chatelaine pulled open both doors as soon as the girl knocked. She had even tidied the room herself, perfunctorily, putting away her devices at least, and telling herself as she did so that she would not retrieve them again for some time.
On the threshold, Octavia looked small and even more lovely than earlier.
“How was your visit?”
“I did what you asked.” The girl’s blue eyes, collarbone level with the chatelaine, seemed out of focus, swimming in the tattoo, as if she were trying to conjure some remote memory. “How long has she been down there? The fecund?” Her eyes flickered up, and away. “She said strange things to me.”
The chatelaine laughed. She touched the girl. “Oh yes, you get used to her. She says all kinds of things. She’s never the same twice. Sometimes she knows the future and other times she’s afraid of her own shadow. She talks about aggression but I know for a fact she can do no harm. She’s not like us, Octavia. Now, did she ask about me?”
“In a fashion.”
Again the chatelaine laughed. She felt so much better. This girl was a veritable tonic. “Won’t you come in? The room’s still a bit of a mess but please, come in, sit down. I’ve lemonade ready. Do you like lemonade?”
Octavia let herself be steered into the bedchambers. She sat on the end of the bed, where the chatelaine patted, and took the cool glass of lemonade. She held the glass between her knees, in both hands, but did not drink. She looked down at the straw matting on the floor.
“Well, did the fecund like you? Was she surprised to see you? Did you talk for a while?”
Octavia looked up warily but stopped short, as always, from looking the chatelaine in the eye. “I think she, uh, I think she liked me. Like you said she would.”
The chatelaine clapped and released from her lips a strange exclamation that neither acknowledged. “Who wouldn’t like you? My goodness. Tell me, what did she say? Or you can tell me later, if you’d like. Look, I’ll show you my pets. Would you like that? Drink up.”
“If it’s all right with you, I’d rather just sit