6
OSRIC WISHES TO MURDER A CHILD
Osric
he Fyren Order took a rather more nomadic approach to headquarteringT than the Haelan. They shifted their base of operations every few months, which meant that Osric got to visit truly charming parts of the Tīendoms.
Tonight, he strode down an alley lit by sputtering grease lamps in the picturesque town of Shanksby in Strathclyde, taking in the local sights (a rat nibbling upon a severed human head) and smells (piss, suffering).
Osric spared the severed head a quick glance to see if he knew whose it was—he did not—and proceeded among buildings in various stages of decomposition. His objective came into view at last: a long-abandoned pharmacy with boarded-up windows. The crude carving of hellhound fangs on its peeling door marked it as the current location of the Fyren HQ.
The sign above the pharmacy had lost a letter, and now proclaimed, with no less accuracy:
HARMACY BLOODLETTING SERVICES AVAILABLE.
The bell on the door gurgled a sickly jingle as Osric pushed it open. His nostrils were met with the acridity of decaying materia medica. In the
dimness around him stood rows and rows of amber glass bottles, some broken, some whole, their dusty labels fading away in the gloom. Remains of the pharmacist’s trade were scattered about on the floor: disintegrating prescription ledgers, a brass scale, smashed.
Behind the counter stood a slender man balancing a rapier upon the point of a finger. It was the dainty Sacramore, the Fyren Order’s second-in- command—small, oversensitive to draughts, and an absolutely deadly swordsman.
“Osric, darling, lovely to see you,” said Sacramore.
“Who lost his melon?” asked Osric, with respect to the orphaned head outside.
“Some lordling or other,” said Sacramore. “Offended Tristane by trying to negotiate. Threatened to report our location to the Strathclydian king. And Tristane, pure soul that she is, wished to save the king the trouble of beheading him. The rest is here.” Sacramore nudged at something below the counter with a satin slipper. “I’m meant to dispose of him, but, honestly, he’s making a decent footrest.”
The footrest oozed a rivulet of blood towards Osric, who sidestepped it to approach the counter.
“Have you got anything for me?” asked Sacramore, who was not only an excellent fencer but also an excellent fence.
Osric clattered a handful of precious stones onto the counter, stolen after dispatching his latest mark.
Sacramore didn’t even bother to prod at the gems; he determined their value, apparently, by sound alone. He peered at Osric like a disappointed magpie. “Why are you wasting my time with trinkets, darling?”
“I’ll take whatever you can get for them,” said Osric.
“Tss,” said Sacramore. “Bit short on cash, are we?”
Osric, who had just paid twenty million thrymsas for the privilege of being called an “Abscess with inferior hair,” said bitterly, “A little.”
Sacramore brushed the gems out of view with a disgusted sweep of his handkerchief, as though Osric had just done a poo on the counter. He jutted
his chin towards the signet ring on Osric’s right hand. “That would go for a pretty pile, if you ever wanted to part with it.”
“It’s not for sale,” said Osric.
“Let’s have a look at it anyway,” said Sacramore, pressing a loupe to his eye.
Osric slid the heavy gold ring off his glove.
“Bloodstone, eh?” asked Sacramore.
“From Rùm.”
“Intaglio of a hound rampant. Lovely rose motif.” Sacramore held the ring upon the flat of his palm. “Heavy gauge. Eighteen carats. Shank attractively ornate. I like the scrollwork. Rather worn down—a few centuries’ worth of use, eh?” Sacramore returned the ring to Osric. “If you found the right buyer, you could have a fair bit of pocket money.”
Osric replaced the ring. “No buyer could pay what it cost me.”
Sacramore, his loupe still pressed against his eye, tutted at Osric.
“Dramatic boy. What’s a little patricide among friends?”
“Is Tristane in?” asked Osric.
Sacramore twirled his rapier towards a corridor behind the counter.
“Madame awaits. Do be careful.”
“Why? What am I in for?”
“Nothing. Proceed.”
“What sort of mood is she in?”
“Quixotic,” said Sacramore.
“I’m serious,” said Osric.
“Canescent.”
“Sacramore.”
“You mustn’t say my name in such commanding tones,” said Sacramore.
“You’ll give me the vapours.”
Osric placed his hand over Sacramore’s on the counter and made deep and intimate eye contact. “You know how much I depend on you.”
Sacramore fanned himself with his kerchief and said coyly, “You
beguiling bastard.”
“Tell me.”
“Can’t blow the gaff.”
“Can you blow other things?”
“Osric,” gasped Sacramore.
“I can.”
“You’re being rather cheeky for someone within immediate kissing range,” said Sacramore.
Osric swept his thumb over Sacramore’s knuckles and dropped his gaze towards his mouth.
“You’ve stopped talking and it’s making me nervous,” said Sacramore.
“Not everything can be said with words,” said Osric. “That’s why we
invented longing looks.”
“Oh, behave.”
“Tell me.”
Sacramore caved with a sigh. “Noldo just came out of there shaking like
a shitting dog.”
“Really? Why?”
“No idea. I only hope you haven’t done anything to incur Madame’s displeasure.”
“Of course not,” said Osric, who would obviously never dream of gallivanting about with a member of an enemy Order, etc.
“Then you haven’t anything to worry about,” said Sacramore. “I dare say you’ll be fine.”
Osric raised Sacramore’s hand to his mouth, pressed a kiss on it, made Sacramore’s knees buckle, and proceeded down the corridor. Among old boxes lining the hall, there lay a massive, scummy tub letting off a foetid reek. The water within—more gunge than water—wriggled with thousands upon thousands of leeches. By what quirk of nature were the creatures still alive? Osric peered over the edge of the tub to find the answer: they were
feasting upon themselves.
Interesting.
He came to the door of the pharmacist’s office and knocked.
“Entrez,” came Tristane’s voice.
Osric entrez’d.
Tristane was such a fabled figure in the Fyren legendarium that it still shocked Osric to find her doing regular human things, such as eating a Cornish pasty.
“Sit,” said Tristane, around a mouthful of crust.
Her green eyes followed Osric as he found a seat in the gloom; she liked to keep things dark in her war room. The only light emanated from the flickering glow of a Lovelace engine.
Tristane was Osric’s warchief, a revered Fyren with, it was rumoured, over three thousand kills to her name. She had the most geometrically correct hair that Osric had ever seen and was particularly frightening because she was French.
“Pornish pasty,” said Tristane, pushing a basket of pasties towards Osric.
“Owing to them being shaped like penises. Leofric brought them in.”
“Of course it was Leofric,” said Osric, helping himself to a cock. (Leofric was his sometimes partner. Also a consummate sex pest.) “You’ve taken care of the Painswick merchant?” asked Tristane.
“I have,” said Osric. “Dismembered and left on display in the window, as requested.”
“Excellent. Your steward can collect payment at the Dog’s Bollocks. Are you looking for another job, or would you like some time off to enjoy the
fruits of your labour?”
“What else have you got?”
Tristane slid an envelope towards Osric. “A grievance between gentlemen. London. Our regular fee for the killing, with a fifty percent bonus
if you make it look accidental.”
Osric took the envelope. “Done.”
“The client has indicated that a drowning would be preferred, but they leave the final decision to you.” Tristane scribbled a note to herself, then asked, “How are things otherwise?”
The question put Osric on alert; Tristane didn’t do chitchat.
“Fine,” lied Osric. “Why do you ask?”
“You weren’t in on Thursday,” said Tristane. “I’d wanted to introduce you to the new recruits. Did you forget?”
Tristane fixed Osric with a sedulous eye. Osric’s mouth went dry around
his pasty.
“Shit,” said Osric.
“Effectivement,” said Tristane.
“Sorry. I had another thing come up.”
“Was the thing that came up your penis?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Tristane sat back in her chair. The perfect isosceles triangle that was her hair swung with the movement, then settled back into its sharp black angles.
“You were seen at the Randy Unicorn. Was there some emergency? You were overdue for a ball massage, perhaps?”
“Ah,” said Osric. “Yes. The Randy. I was there. You’re right. All my apologies—I forgot that I had another commitment.”
Tristane studied Osric in silence. Lying came easily to him, however, and he met her gaze with a look that conveyed that he was sheepish due to a poorly scheduled rub and tug—and not that he had missed her event because he had biffed off to hot springs at the full moon with a Haelan in the harebrained pursuit of a cure for an incurable disease that would kill him if Tristane didn’t.
“Sorry,” said Osric again, producing an abashed grimace for good measure.
Osric rarely displeased Tristane. She therefore compartmentalised her annoyance and did not further probe his ill-timed testicular massages.
She returned to the subject of the new recruits. “A promising lot. With them trained up, I don’t think it’ll be possible for the Dreor to ever catch up with our numbers again.”
Osric whistled. “They really haven’t managed to replenish their ranks since the Winter War.”
“No. As far as I’m concerned, they’re functionally extinct. I’ve always said they’re too selective as an Order. There are only so many individuals with the right build, the right propensities, and the right…mind.”
“Or lack thereof.”
“Exactly,” said Tristane. “However, I can’t be too smug. We’ll be losing
one of our number soon.”
“Oh?”
“Noldovite.”
“What about him?”
“Our dear Noldo has failed a mission.” Tristane rapped long black- painted nails on the desk, in a way that suggested that, at this moment, Noldo wasn’t particularly dear; in fact, she would like to press those nails into his jugular.
“Ah,” said Osric. “He’s getting on a bit, isn’t he? Perhaps too old for fieldwork?”
“If only it was old age,” said Tristane. “The reality is far worse: it appears
that he’s developed a conscience.”
“No,” gasped Osric.
“A malady that strikes the best of us,” said Tristane. “He decided that the mark, and I quote, ‘didn’t seem to deserve being murdered.’ ”
“Deserve?” repeated Osric, scandalised. “We don’t arbitrate. We execute.”
“I know. Can you imagine if we all fannied about, hemming and hawing about deservedness? This is an equal opportunity Order. No judgement. Only results.” Tristane shook her head; her triangle of hair swayed in alarm. “It appears that Noldo’s grasp of this key part of our philosophie has weakened.”
Osric tutted. “He’s practically gone rogue.”
“His target for the assignment has now gone into hiding,” said Tristane.
“I had to refund the client, which was mortifying, as you can imagine. We don’t do refunds. We’re the Fyren Order, not Murder Mart.”
“What are you going to do with Noldo?”
“I might’ve carried out a tācn excision—I am fond of him; he’s always served the Order well—but, given that he hadn’t solid enough kidneys to complete the most basic of jobs, and made the Order look incompetent in the process…”
Tristane had the charming habit of translating French idioms directly into English; Osric was generally too frightened of her to request clarification. He
took Noldo’s feeble kidneys in stride and asked, “Do you want me to take care of him?”
“No,” said Tristane. “I’ll do it myself. He deserves that much.”
“Be careful. He’s wicked with that blaecblade.”
Tristane gave Osric an indulgent smile. Her eyes became crescent moons above her cheeks. “Thank you, but…few are more wicked than me.”
“Will you tell the others?”
“Only when I’ve got the body. I’ll bring it here to burn. It isn’t worthy of our tācn, even in death.” Tristane sighed, then grew businesslike again. “I expect you here tonight to meet our new recruits. Mind you don’t forget.”
“Of course,” said Osric, bowing. “I do apologise about last week. It won’t happen again.”
“Keep your cock under control, Mordaunt.”
Then, in a threatening sort of way, she took a large bite out of a penis
pasty.
Osric took that as his cue to leave.
Back in the leech reek of the corridor, he crossed two other Fyren coming in to meet Tristane: Lady Windermere and Brythe. Lady Windermere, her whip at her hip and a dancer’s grace in her stride, always put Osric in mind of an elegant praying mantis—in stark contrast to Brythe, who was a graceless brute.
Lady Windermere winked at Osric. Brythe was occupied in dragging along a hapless prisoner. His maul was strapped into his belt—the same maul, incidentally, that was responsible for Osric’s training injury a few months ago.
Pulverised your cervical spine, came Fairhrim’s precise voice as Brythe neared. Barbaric.
Osric, who had never held a particular rancour towards Brythe for the injury, now found himself macerating in it. That maul had resulted in complications. In Osric having to crawl to an enemy Order and empty his coffers into theirs for a minuscule chance at healing Brythe’s blunder. And he couldn’t even ask for justice, because revealing the extent of the damage would put him in his Order’s crosshairs for a cull.
It was therefore tempting to push his dagger into Brythe’s too-thick chest.
“You all right, Mordaunt?” asked Lady Windermere. “You’ve a gleam in your eye.”
“Mordaunt?” Brythe turned around with a grin. He slapped Osric on the shoulder and almost propelled him into the wall. “My man. As great a blackguard as ever was damned. All right?”
“Good to see you both,” said Osric, trying to look less killy. (Lady Windermere had sensitive antennae about that sort of thing.) Lady Windermere gave him a curious look, but seemed to detect no ill intentions. She tilted her chin towards their prisoner. “Just back from a stakeout.”
“Took days,” said Brythe. “Bored the arsehole off me.” He tugged a rope, and his unfortunate prisoner tripped and flopped towards him. “But we’ve got our man in for his interrogation.”
“Bit whiffy in here, isn’t it?” said Lady Windermere.
Osric indicated the tub. “That’ll be the leeches.”
Lady Windermere approached the tub and observed the slow roil of the leeches. “Poor things.”
“I know,” said Osric. “They must be starved.”
Osric looked at Lady Windermere. Lady Windermere looked at Brythe.
Brythe tilted his head in the direction of the prisoner.
“Soften him up before he meets Tristane?” asked Lady Windermere.
“I reckon that’s a good idea,” said Brythe.
Brythe pulled the sack off the prisoner’s head and pushed him towards the tub. The man screeched into his gag at the sight of the starving, wriggling goo beneath him. Just as things were about to get interesting—Osric was keen on animal welfare—his tācn tingled.
Fairhrim’s deofol was asking to come through.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” said Osric. “Let me know how you get on. This is all rather innovative.”
Brythe seized the prisoner by the hair and plunged his head into the tub.
There was a high-pitched, bubbly gurgle.
“We’ll share our notes,” called Lady Windermere over the splashing.
Osric exited the Harmacy, blowing a kiss to Sacramore (returned with a girlish flourish) as he left.
He shadow-walked to a nearby roof. His tācn buzzed insistently at him; Fairhrim’s deofol had absolutely no patience.
As usual, and because Fairhrim was a show-off, the albino genet gleamed into existence with every whisker and hair rendered in extraordinary detail.
“Finally,” said the deofol as it materialised.
“What do you want?” asked Osric.
“I’m here to convey a message.” The deofol floated to Osric’s eye level.
“Aurienne spent the past week conducting inferential statistical analyses.”
“Maths?”
“Yes.”
“That does strike me as her sort of hobby.”
The deofol bristled at Osric. “It wasn’t for fun. You’re to keep your diary clear the night of the Hara moon. Meet Aurienne at the waystone at the Rummy Thing. Ten o’clock at night.”
“She’s found something promising, has she?” asked Osric.
“More promising than bathing in spunk.” The deofol wrinkled its muzzle.
“Did it make your skin smooth, at least?”
“As a baby’s bum.”
“Like your brain, then.”
Osric aimed a cuff at the deofol, but it went right through the creature.
“Aurienne did say you were slow,” tutted the deofol. “I had assumed she meant that metaphorically.”
It disappeared. Osric could not have said, at that moment, whether the deofol or its mistress was more aggravating.
MARCH SNIFFLED AND SNEEZED TO its rainy, miserable end. Osric heard nothing further from Fairhrim for the remainder of the month, which was excellent, because he couldn’t stand her. However, after weeks had passed in silence,
and brought with them nothing but the advancement of the rot, he found himself hoping that Fairhrim would grace his tācn with her seith again. He wished she would make some spectacular discovery and her deofol would materialise and throw insults at him while delivering the good news.
She did not; it did not. In this sense, both continued to provoke him.
Osric dealt with his anxieties by thieving his way through the finest galleries in the Tīendoms and murdering minor members of the peerage.
“Perhaps,” he suggested to Mrs. Parson when the silence drew overlong, “Fairhrim has died.”
Mrs. Parson gave him one of those half-pitying, half-affectionate looks that sometimes escaped her, as though she weren’t his steward but rather a tolerant aunt. “She’s told you what you need to know. You can’t expect a Haelan to keep up a frequent correspondence with a Fyren.”
They were eating in the kitchens. Well, Osric was eating. Mrs. Parson was attempting to make apricot jam, but the stoned apricots kept disappearing before they could make their way into the pot.
“I’ve got the address you were looking for,” said Mrs. Parson, plucking a bit of paper out of her apron and passing it to Osric, who hovered behind her.
“You’re meeting Haelan Fairhrim tomorrow night?”
“Yes. Ten o’clock at the Rummy Thing, somewhere in Kent.”
Mrs. Parson, who had been measuring sugar, spilled a bit of it and tutted to herself.
“It’s the Hara moon tomorrow,” said Osric. “I didn’t know moons had names. Did you?”
“Learned them from my mother long ago,” said Mrs. Parson. “Haelan Fairhrim surprises me. Her sort don’t keep to the Old Ways.”
“She doesn’t. She’s hostile about it. I’m never sure whether she’s going to heal me or knee me in the spuds.” Osric flung himself into a chair. “I don’t like any of this. I don’t like needing her.”
“She’s your only hope,” said Mrs. Parson.
“Aegri somnia, that’s what she is. A sick man’s dream.”
Osric’s tācn tingled, but it was not the restrained coolness of Fairhrim’s seith. It was, on the contrary, lively, demanding, and sharp. He held up his
palm. Tristane’s deofol gleamed into existence above Mrs. Parson’s cutting board.
Tristane’s deofol was a polecat—a violently irritable creature normally, but today she was in an unusual good mood. “Hullo. What’s all this? Are you making jam?”
“Trying to,” said Mrs. Parson. “Apricot.”
“Lovely,” said the polecat. “Un délice. Sunshine on toast.”
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” asked Osric.
“Tristane has finally caught Noldo,” said the polecat, with a delighted
spin in midair.
“Oh, bravo,” said Osric.
“The burning will take place tomorrow at sunset,” said the polecat. “All Fyren are expected to attend. Meet at the Dog’s Bollocks.”
“I’ll be there,” said Osric. “Give Tristane my felicitations.”
The polecat gleefully flashed her fangs and said, “Avec plaisir,” then
spun upon herself and disappeared.
“Putrid luck for Noldo,” said Osric.
“That’s just before you’re meeting the Haelan,” said Mrs. Parson.
“It is,” said Osric. “Do you think she’ll notice if I smell like Fyren flambé?”
ALL LEVITY ASIDE, WATCHING NOLDO’S corpse burn was a sober reminder of the Fyren Order’s ruthless willingness to cull those who no longer served its purposes. Osric left for the Rummy Thing as soon as he was able, accompanied by a new sense of urgency to heal his failing seith system, as well as a whiff of burnt flesh.
The Rummy Thing was, indeed, a rummy thing. In the long shadows of the April evening it looked more like a shack than a pub, suffocated by ferns, leaning against the waystone in a weary sort of way. The waystone was also unusual—it was almost perfectly round, with a hole right through the middle.
The pub was surrounded by trees, from which an upright figure detached herself and advanced, iceberg-like, towards Osric. Fairhrim had hidden her Haelan whites under a blue travelling cloak. The cloak did little to camouflage everything else that made Fairhrim Fairhrim, however—the sharp cheekbones, the superior tilt of her chin, the disdainful set of her mouth.
Most people were charmed by Osric—or, if they knew what he was, terrified of him. Fairhrim was neither. She approached with the grim determination of a soldier setting off to war.
Osric found himself almost looking forward to their inevitable skirmish.
There was, after all, something curative in the drawing of blood.
“You’re late,” said Fairhrim. She sniffed in his direction. “I smell burning.”
“Just a corpse,” said Osric, shaking out his greatcoat. “Lingers a bit.”
Fairhrim’s condemnation came in the form of pursed lips, which remained pursed as Osric rearranged his coat.
“Are you waiting for a kiss?” asked Osric. “It was a Fyren, if that makes you feel better.”
He waited for Fairhrim to assimilate this information. She assimilated.
The pursedness disappeared. “I suppose that is good news. Why were you
burning one of your own?”
“He was naughty,” said Osric.
“You’re all naughty.”
“He betrayed one of my Order’s most fundamental tenets.”
Fairhrim asked, with asperity: “Isn’t that what you’re doing as we
speak?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be next, then?” enquired Fairhrim, with an offensive amount of anticipation.
“Not if you do what I paid you to do,” said Osric.
“You paid for something impossible. Do you think I might attend the burning when this endeavour inevitably fails?”
“It won’t fail,” said Osric, wishing he were as convinced as he sounded.
Fairhrim stepped up to Osric and peered into his face. Osric did not move so she wouldn’t win.
“Obstinacy and hope,” said Fairhrim. “What a foolish combination.”
“I prefer strong-willed,” said Osric.
“I’ll mention that in your eulogy when I attend your farewell barbecue.”
“There will be no farewell barbecue.”
“All right,” said Fairhrim in the tone one takes with a stupid idiot whom one no longer cares to argue with. “How’s your seith? Any changes since last month?”
“The fluctuations are getting worse. The numbness has spread.”
“You’re still able to use it, which is the good news.” Fairhrim’s eyes slid over him. So penetrating was her gaze that Osric felt she might actually slice him open and have a look within. “I’ve got just enough seith for our healing attempt. I decided to put my faith in the maths, even if everything about this course of treatment is naive, uncontrolled, and suboptimal. I’ve put together a plan for today based on what seem to be the most successful parameters linked to the Hara moon. I have little confidence that it will work, of course, but we only have so many full moons—and I’ve only got so much seith.”
Fairhrim snapped her hand in the direction of a bridleway. “Let’s talk as we go. We’ve got a bit of a walk.”
Osric followed her along the path. “Where are we going?”
“Along the South Downs,” said Fairhrim. “This place has the full repertoire—it’s on the cusp between earth and sea, it’s got a long history of unexplained phenomena at the Hara moon, and it’s positively studded with
ancient barrows.”
“Barrows?”
“Burial mounds.”
“We like barrows?”
“We do. Barrowlands are good—they’re places between the living and the dead, between us and eternity. The maths concurs, insofar as it can.”
This last part was said as though Fairhrim pitied the maths—as though she had put it through something unbefitting of maths and felt sorry for it.
“And, of course,” she continued, “we’re also on a temporal cusp at this time of year—moving from winter into spring. We’ll be attempting the
healing at midnight.”
“How far up are we going?” asked Osric.
“Only an hour or so of walking, I should think,” said Fairhrim. “This area is Hedgewitch territory, by the way. Let’s mind our step—and our manners.”
“I’m not worried about a few outlaw witches,” said Osric.
Fairhrim froze him with a look.
“What?” asked Osric. “They just putter about in ditches, growing mushrooms and things.”
“Not that I needed further confirmation that you’re an idiot, but that was another data point.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Osric, with rather less of the beg and more of the intent to decapitate.
“Have you ever met a Hedgewitch?” asked Fairhrim, unfazed by his
intents, murderous or otherwise.
“No,” said Osric.
“Keep a civil tongue in your head if we run into one,” said Fairhrim, which was rich of her. “They’ve got even less regard for the law than you— and they consider men a nuisance.”
Fairhrim eyed Osric as though he were as prime a specimen of a nuisance man as had ever walked the earth.
“How can anyone have less regard for the law than me?” asked Osric, offended.
“To you, it’s a thing to break. To them, it simply doesn’t exist.”
Osric pondered this philosophical difference in silence. The moon- dappled woods fell behind. Black downlands opened up before them in rolling hills.
Both Fairhrim and Osric held up their tācn in the dark. Fairhrim was lighting her way with hers; it cast a white shimmer upon the path straight and narrow. Meanwhile, Osric used shadows to navigate; his seith mapped contours and profiles, cracks in the earth, the shape of ivy clambering over stone. There was a lovely irony to their respective wayfinding: her light
created a blind spot for him, and his shadows were inscrutable darkness to her; opposite topographies guided them up the same path.
They came to a crossroads marked by two signposts. One pointed left and said Over Here, and the other pointed right and said Over There.
“Practical,” said Osric.
Fairhrim followed the sign for Over There.
They came to another sign, which said Ignore This One. The next said Notice: Sign Not in Use.
Fairhrim seemed unperturbed. In Osric’s opinion, however, the Hedgewitches ought to leave off making signs and focus on their mushrooms.
Now they came to a sign that pointed up and said Down.
“Really?” said Osric.
They climbed up the Down.
Which upset him.
Osric smelled crushed thyme and fescue in Fairhrim’s wake. Underfoot, the soil grew thin. Chalk gleamed through it like bone.
They went through a kissing gate. No kisses were forthcoming.
Thorny, wind-tortured shrubs grew along the path and threatened to draw blood from the careless traveller. “Sea buckthorn,” explained Fairhrim as they passed, adding that its berries were a good source of vitamin C. Osric had not asked for this information and did not care.
The air around them hummed with mosquitoes and meadow grasshoppers.
Osric heard a minuscule, croaky voice say, “Ugly boots.”
He stopped and looked around. There was nobody there.
Fairhrim, too, stopped. “Did you say something?”
“No,” said Osric.
“Never mind,” said Fairhrim, though she looked unsettled.
She turned and went on, picking her way along the path with narrow, precise steps.
“Hair up so tight, she can’t even close her eyes,” came a croaky voice again, this time from the other side of the path.
Osric, his blaecblade in hand, whipped around.
There was nothing there save wind-stunted thistles, blowing in the breeze.
Fairhrim stared at the spot where the voice had come from. “That wasn’t you?”
Osric had many talents, but ventriloquism was not one of them. “No.”
“Why’s he so slouchy?” came another raspy voice, from somewhere behind them. “Posture like a damp croissant.”
“She’s got a rod up her arse; dunno what’s better,” replied another.
“She’s so…perpendicular.”
“The face on him, though…”
“Like a burst sofa.”
“Look at her eyes.”
“Contents of a portaloo.”
“And his nose?”
“A boil, rather.”
Then a new voice chimed in: “Don’t let them bother you.”
Osric and Fairhrim turned to find a dirty little girl sitting on a stile. Her black hair caught the moonlight. Her clothes were sack-like and held in place by buckles at the elbow and the knee. She swung muddy bare feet as she looked at them. They stared back.
“Sorry—don’t let who bother us?” asked Fairhrim.
“The critique crickets,” said the child. There was a purple flower hanging from her lips; she chewed upon its stem. “What are you doing here?”
Fairhrim’s fingers found Osric’s forearm and squeezed a warning before he could open his mouth. He therefore did not tell the little girl to fuck off with her questions.
“We’re looking for somewhere to do a bit of healing,” said Fairhrim.
The child pointed a grimy finger to the top of the Downs. “That’s a good
Somewhere.”
“Thank you,” said Fairhrim.
“It can be dangerous,” said the child.
“Oh?”
“The veil is thin up there. Don’t fall through.” The flower twirled between smirking lips. “Small chance of that, though.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Fairhrim.
“You lot are never able to cross,” said the child, with a cavalier gesture towards Osric and Fairhrim. (This was said as though Osric and Fairhrim were Like, which they were decidedly not.) “You can’t even see,” continued the child. “You look and you behold nothing.”
Having made this impressive, vaguely insulting pronouncement, the child pushed herself off the stile and skipped down the path.
“Wait!” called Fairhrim.
But the child was gone. Grass danced in the wind where she had stepped.
Osric had little patience for enigmatic children who disappeared mysteriously. He was going to throttle answers out of the little twit. “Let’s go after her and—”
“No,” interjected Fairhrim. “Whatever you were about to say, don’t say it
out loud.”
“Was that a Hedgewitch?”
“A newling, perhaps.” Fairhrim looked serious. “If it was, you won’t find her.”
Osric took the statement as a challenge. It vexed him that the child had appeared before them so silently and disappeared so easily. Even the best Fyren shadow-walkers couldn’t pull off that sort of feat. He wanted an Explanation.
He had done three jobs that day and was running rather low on seith, but he nevertheless pulled off his glove and awoke his tācn. He felt about in the shadows in the direction where the child had vanished. First he pushed his seith out fifty feet, and found nothing, and then a hundred feet, and found nothing, and then he flooded it out past two hundred feet (his Cost made itself known; his right eye went blurry)—and he found still nothing. The child was gone.
Fairhrim, who had been watching his investigation in haughty silence, said, “I told you.”
“I believe I’d like to learn more about Hedgewitches,” said Osric. Which was as close as he would come to admitting that Fairhrim had been right.
“Good luck,” said Fairhrim. “There’s a reason you think all they’re good
for is wading about in ditches.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re safer if everyone believes they’re useless. No one bothers them.
At one point in our history, they were relentlessly persecuted. They’ve never forgotten.”
“And how do you know so much about them?”
“I knew one once.” Fairhrim touched her neck, and for a moment she looked wistful—sad, even—and then her face closed again.
Osric turned his attention back to the stile. There wasn’t a single bent blade of grass, or a single disturbed pebble, where the girl had been kicking her feet. Of the flower she’d been chewing on, a leaf and a single petal remained.
“Harebell,” said Fairhrim, observing the petal. “Also known as fairy thimble.”
“You say that as though it’s significant.”
“There are claims about its properties. Undocumented, of course—”
Fairhrim interrupted herself with a double take at Osric. “Your eye. It’s gone
white.”
“My Cost.”
Fairhrim, who had briefly looked concerned, said, “Ah,” and regained her impassivity.
She continued up the footpath. Osric found himself breaking a sweat as they climbed. The crickets began to chirp again, and turned their attention to the shape of Fairhrim’s bun (“Frizzy turnip”) and Osric’s body odour (“Chimney and armpit”).
The commentary faded as Osric and Fairhrim climbed. Which was good, because Osric wanted to laugh, but he didn’t want to laugh with Fairhrim, because that would be chummy, and they weren’t chums.
He stole a glance at her. Her lips were pressed together harder than usual, and twitched when one of the crickets called him a mithering wanker.
They reached the top of the Downs.
“Well,” said Osric, panting, “we are definitely Somewhere.”
“Right,” said Fairhrim. She, too, was breathless. She pointed her hands in opposite directions. “Sky above, earth below. The living and the dead. The present and the past. Winter turning to spring. And the Hara moon presiding
over it all.”
“Sounds potent,” said Osric.
“Let’s give it a go.”
Osric pulled off his cloak and collar. Fairhrim dropped her satchel and removed her cloak. She consulted her pocket watch as midnight neared. The acrid, too-clean scent of hlutoform reached Osric’s nostrils as she spread it over her hands.
They waited. The pocket watch ticked to eleven fifty-nine. Two moon- gazey hares loped dreamily along cropped turf. The wind picked up.
Fairhrim, with her white dress gusting around her, stood like a bride at some wild altar. Fescue and thistle danced upon barrows. The sea murmured a song that seemed melancholy.
They stood on the border between death and life; they stood on the bones of kings.
At ten seconds to midnight, Fairhrim tugged down the back of Osric’s shirt to expose his nape. This was the third time they were attempting this, and he had learned what to expect. There was the moment of silence when Fairhrim did nothing but study the back of his neck. Then came the brush of her palm and the shudder in the air when she activated her tācn. He felt the reluctance in her touch, her desire to flinch away, the force of her will keeping her hand against his skin.
As for Osric, he loathed having people behind him, and his own instincts desired him to pull away from this vulnerable position—but it was Fairhrim, so it was all right. Frankly, he could think of very few in his acquaintance whom he trusted more than her to stand behind him with a hand at his neck.
Strange thought, that.
Fairhrim’s cool palm pressed against his skin. Her seith, too, was cool.
As during her previous attempts, Osric found himself impressed by her
control over it. He would never tell her, of course—she was arrogant enough as it was—but he had never encountered such masterful command over seith.
And as before, it felt salutary to have her seith flow through him. It was Goodness itself coursing into his system.
The moon hung above them, hard, pitted, bone white. And Osric, under Fairhrim’s palm, stood motionless in this place between sea and earth and winter and spring and the living and the dead, and he hoped. A translucent cloud passed the moon; the landscape grew insubstantial and twinkled unsteadily between pearl and black. In the stillness, the pace of time felt altered. A minute passed like an hour. The horizon felt wider.
Fairhrim followed Osric’s seith system to the very tips of his fingers, lingered there for an optimistic moment, and retreated.
There was an afterglow that came with her seith, even after she’d pulled her hand away. A humming through him, a burnishing.
But it wasn’t the healing Osric needed. He felt exactly the same as before.
Once again, nothing had happened.
He was an idiot for insisting on this load of absolute malarkey. And she
was an idiot for humouring him.
“Fuck,” said Osric.
Fairhrim’s exasperated sigh feathered the back of his neck. That surprised him; she was so convinced that this wouldn’t work that another failure should’ve been expected. Why the sigh of frustration? What other outcome was she anticipating?
Also surprising: how intimate it was to feel Fairhrim’s breath against his skin. Bit tingly. Bit pleasurable.
Bit disturbing. Nothing about Fairhrim was pleasurable.
For a moment they stood in silence made companionable by their mutual disappointment. But Osric didn’t want companionship. He wanted results.
He ignited war again between them by saying, accusatorily, “This isn’t bloody working.”
“Really?” came Fairhrim’s tart response. “Isn’t it? I hadn’t noticed.”
From the safety of renewed war (oxymoronic; it was fine), Osric replaced his collar.
Fairhrim left him to his dressing and paced. Her steps were quickened by aggravation. “I’m missing something.”
“Well, there’s a rather critical clue you refused to examine further,” said Osric.
Fairhrim turned. Her skirts whipped around her ankles before settling back into their crisp vertical lines. “A critical clue? Please—enlighten me.”
“The writing on the Monafyll Stone. The bits in the fairy tongue.”
Fairhrim stared at Osric. Tension ran down the line of her jaw. “The hallucinations of a discredited philologist about a language that doesn’t exist?
That’s my missing clue? Brilliant.”
“Why not? Our current approach clearly isn’t the answer.”
Fairhrim resumed the brusque back-and-forth. Osric expected a cutting refusal and prepared to launch his own barbs—only Fairhrim, to his vast
surprise, ended up agreeing with him.
“Why not, indeed?” said Fairhrim.
Osric felt that stumbling feeling—you know the one, when you’re aggressively climbing stairs and the top stair is simply not there because you’ve already hit the landing.
“This entire treatment plan is predicated on nothing but fantasy,” continued Fairhrim. “Why not indulge further? Lean into the ridiculousness of the whole idea?”
“I’ll remind you that this ridiculousness is my only hope of survival,” said Osric.
“Against expert advice to the contrary,” said Fairhrim, like the pitiless creature she was.
Osric produced a piece of paper, upon which an address was written in Mrs. Parson’s tidy cursive, and gave it to Fairhrim. “We’re going to go find
the discredited philologist.”
“What?”
“Tonight. It won’t involve using up your precious seith. Have you anything better to do?”
“Thousands of better things.” Fairhrim read Mrs. Parson’s note with a raised eyebrow. “Nether Wallop?”
“Ooh,” said Osric. “My favourite game: is it a place or is it a kink?”
“This is going to be a waste of time. Widdershins was already a fringe sort of professor before he went off the deep end. He’s absolutely barmy. I told you—his findings were retracted. His doctorate was revoked. He hasn’t any scholarly credibility.”
“I don’t care about scholarly credibility,” said Osric. “We’ll shake him up. Get some answers. See how they fit into the rest of the apocrypha.”
“He might not want to talk to us.”
“I’ll make him talk,” said Osric.
“How?” asked Fairhrim, like the naive thing she was.
“Trust me.”
“Trust you?” repeated Fairhrim. “Absolutely not. Make him talk? Is your
plan to torture the man?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Have you no compassion?” asked Fairhrim.
“I’m not burdened with it, no.”
“I categorically object to torture.”
“Do you, really? It had escaped my notice,” said Osric, before sauntering away.
“Mordaunt,” snapped Fairhrim, and she made his name sound so pejorative, it delighted him.
They bickered about the merits of torturing dotty old professors all the way down the Downs. Osric said that he was the expert here and that he would appreciate it if Fairhrim reserved her pointy opinions for her own areas of specialisation. Fairhrim said she was going to review the literature on the efficacy of torture and sharpen her pointy opinions further, and then puncture him with them. Osric asked why she must be so obstreperous. Fairhrim asked when would he stop being a Menace to Society. Osric called her a Self- Righteous Plague. She called him a Foppish Crouton.
The night air was full of the hum of insects, but the critique crickets did not offer fresh insult, perhaps because Osric and Fairhrim were doing such an
excellent job by themselves.
They returned to the waystone and the lean-to that passed for a pub.
Instead of striding up to the waystone, as Osric had expected, Fairhrim walked towards the Rummy Thing.
“You can’t be serious,” said Osric. “We’ve got things to do.”
“It’s bad form to use their waystone to come all the way out here and not even leave a coin,” said Fairhrim.
She left a coin on the windowsill and made Osric leave one, too.
The Plague and the Crouton pressed their tācn to the waystone and went to Nether Wallop.
