Beneath Ceaseless Skies #189 Read online

  Alquen murmured something that may have been a prayer or a request for forgiveness, then resumed his walk to Plessner Street.

  Engarten answered the door and ushered him into the smoky warmth of a small parlour. It was apparent that he had been entertaining one of his many lovers, for he was bleary-eyed and his normally immaculate coiffure hung in disarray.

  “I am sorry to disturb you at such an hour,” Alquen said.

  “Not as sorry as I, my friend,” Engarten replied with a sly wink. “Still, the lady will keep. Another flower has been delivered, I take it?”

  Alquen nodded and held out the geranium with the ribbon still attached.

  “You have started a fire in her heart, Gunter, though the devil alone knows how or why.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Unless I have misread the sign it means she wishes to meet with you. And even you should be able to decipher the ribbon.”

  “St Labre’s Park.”

  Engarten applauded softly and without irony. “You are learning, Gunter, we will make a roué of you yet.”

  Gunter Alquen smiled his hangdog smile: “You are lecher enough for both of us, for the whole of PameGlorias, perhaps. Besides, I do not believe you would welcome the competition.” He rose and made his way towards the door. “In the meantime we have work to do. I will meet you at the Place of Blades. I doubt that your lady, whomever she may be, would wish to meet me this early in the morning.”

  “Spoken like the gentleman you are.”

  Alquen bowed slightly from the waist. “Do not tarry, my friend.”

  “No more than is necessary.” His smile faltered. “You have blood on your doublet, Gunter.”

  “Do not trouble yourself with that—it belongs to the Glamour Boys, and no one will weep for them. Although I fear that Master Mersh may have betrayed our trust.”

  “Treacherous little bastard.” Engarten said. “I’ll gut him for this.”

  “Leave him be,” Alquen said. “The matter has been concluded.”

  “Love has softened your heart, my friend.”

  “Aye,” Alquen replied. “Perhaps it has.” He punched Engarten lightly on the arm by way of farewell.

  * * *

  Every city, even the Shining Cities of the World’s Dusk, have their secret places, those squares and gardens where lovers may meet and talk far away from prying eyes, where affectionate words may be whispered and tokens exchanged. In PameGlorias it was St Labre’s Park, ten square miles of living grass and trees in the southern quarter of the city, kept verdant by Parasheeva’s Blossoms. It was the avowed task of the Order to bring greenery back to the dying world, to make the Winter Plains and Fading Forests bloom again—a task akin to emptying the ocean with a leaking bucket—but in St Labre’s Park, at least, they had succeeded.

  Alquen waited there, sitting in the lee of a tall elm, for three hours, barely aware of time passing. Each time a green-gowned woman appeared, his chest tightened a little. But they paid no attention to him, their minds occupied by the business of the day—attending flower beds, pruning stunted branches from trees and shrubs, crooning soft, melodious hymns to the soil.

  He wore his finest clothes: a blue silk shirt with only two threadbare places, black tunic and breeches covered with a burgundy cloak and a tall hat decorated with a single raven’s feather.

  He felt ridiculous and handsome at the same time.

  “You waited. I’m glad that you did.”

  He stood up quickly, almost tripping as his sheathed sword tangled in his cloak.

  Then he found himself staring into a pair of exquisite hazel eyes.

  “It was a pleasure,” he said. “To wait, I mean... to wait for you, that is.”

  She smiled, and he felt his heart flutter like a dying bird in his chest. “I came as quickly as I was able,” she said.

  “As indeed did I... as quickly.” His mouth was dry, his tongue swollen to twice its normal size, and his ability to form coherent sentences had abruptly abandoned him.

  He stared at her for a moment, taking in every detail. And she stared back. Her hair was chestnut, drawn back into a single long braid, and her face long with sharply defined cheekbones. She wore a thick line of kohl around her almond-shaped eyes, but other than that her face was free from powder and paint. Her gown was silver-grey, its bodice made of dark pink satin.

  “Gunter Alquen at your disposal, Madame.” He bowed as elegantly as he was able.

  “Destinada Germane.” She executed a small curtsey that was all the more charming for the fact that it was poorly done.

  “Will you sit or would you care to walk?”

  She smiled again. “A walk, I think.”

  “An excellent choice, Madame Germane. To the lake perhaps?”

  “An excellent choice, Master Alquen.”

  She took his arm without prompting, and they left the shade of the elm, heading towards the bright expanse of water that formed the heart of St Labre’s Park.

  He was not a man who was accustomed to speaking with women, even in the most formal of settings. He lacked the aptitude for small talk and the easy charm with which his friend was so abundantly blessed. However, in Destinada’s company, none of these things appeared to matter, and within a short time he found himself quite at ease.

  More than that, he found himself capable of listening to, and being fascinated by, the even smallest details of her life.

  She was, he discovered, the daughter of a merchant, Aemilius Germane, an only child and motherless. In addition, she knew a great deal about the blooms of St Labre’s Park—a fact which did not surprise him in the slightest.

  “My mother’s legacy to me was her picture books,” she told him as they walked along a path flanked with lines of rose bushes. “She had a large collection of them and when I was very young she would lull me to sleep by telling me all about the flowers and plants of the Prior Days.” She stopped and leaned down to sniff the fragrance of a white rose, and at the same time she lifted her left hand to her face as if to raise an unseen veil.

  He had seen her make the same gesture before, many times in fact, during their walk. “The absence of a veil troubles you?”

  “One becomes used to it,” she said. “One can become used to anything, or so I am told.”

  They walked on in comfortable silence for a while, their promenade interrupted now and again as Destinada paused to make a gesture at a solitary beech or larch—something like a benediction, Alquen thought.

  And so strange, how the trees seemed to respond with a blessing of their own, a subtle rustling of twigs that had no correlation to the evening wind.

  Night had begun to fall, sending grey waves through the park, dulling the splendour of the flowers all around them.

  “How long have you worn the veil?” Alquen asked. He regretted the question almost immediately.

  “Long enough.” Her hand went to her face again. “It was my Mother’s dying wish that I give myself to Parasheeva.”

  “And what did you wish, Destinada?” The simple act of saying her name filled him with a bold and unfamiliar excitement.

  “My wishes were—and are—unimportant, Gunter.” Again, that same delicious excitement. “But even so, there are times when the heart is the most important thing.”

  She leaned close to him. Her lips were merely an inch or so away, and he could smell the sweetness of her breath, could feel the warmth of her even through his cloak.

  “You! Master Shortarse!”

  He broke away from her and sought the speaker.

  It was a tall young man in a velvet cloak, his face shadowed by the brim of his tall hat. He was not alone, but stood with three others, all dressed in the same fashion.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” the young man said.

  “And you have found me. Congratulations.”

  “Clever little bastard, aren’t you. Let’s see how clever you are when you’re slipping on your own guts.”

  Alquen did not deign t
o reply. He stepped forward, placing himself between Destinada and the group of men.

  “You owe us blood,” the young man said. “And we’re here to collect it. You made a big mistake when you crossed blades with the Glamour Boys.”

  “And now it appears that I shall make another.” Alquen risked a quick glance at Destinada. The color had drained from her face.

  The Glamour Boys seized on his moment of distraction, drawing their knives and hatchets and lunging forward. Alquen’s naked sword was in his hand before the first one reached him.

  His blade wove through them swiftly, efficiently. The four young men died as quickly at dusk as their comrades had died at dawn.

  He stood there for a moment, looking down at the dead men. A great red pool had begun to form beneath them, pouring from their bodies like thick wine.

  “So much blood,” Destinada Germane said softly. “I never believed there could be so much blood.”

  Her almond eyes were wide and glittering, a thin sheen of sweat upon her forehead, her breath rapid.

  She came towards him with her arms open.

  “Do you love me, Gunter?” she whispered.

  “With all my heart,” he replied.

  They kissed for the first time among the dead, their passion rising with each heartbeat. Her hands were inside his shirt, nails raking at his skin. He saw the marks of thorns upon her wrists; even those excited him.

  And there, in the gathering darkness with the smell of blood and blossoms and each other filling their senses, they made love. Afterwards, for the first time in his life, Gunter Alquen slept in a lover’s arms.

  * * *

  When he awoke she had gone, but his skin remembered the heat of her body, the taste of her was in his mouth, the smell of her in his nostrils. Even the sight of the dead Glamour Boys—lying no more than five feet from where he and Destinada had made love—gave him an erotic thrill, though he doubted that the Boys themselves would have appreciated such a thing.

  She had left him a flower as a parting gift—a black rose, decorated with a single drop of blood, artfully placed on its largest petal.

  He dressed and set off into the velvet night with the flower carefully tucked into his baldric. The air was filled with sound, the darkness thick with the threat of violence and magic, but Gunter Alquen was unaware of any of it. And equally, it appeared, PameGlorias was unaware of him, or at the very least was prepared, if only for this night, to allow him safe passage through her streets.

  Before long he arrived at Engarten’s manse. His comrade was awake and, unusually for him, alone.

  “Your lady speaks in ever starker symbols, Gunter,” Engarten said when Alquen showed him the flower.

  “What does it mean?”

  Engarten stroked his jaw for a moment before answering. “A black rose. I am truly sorry, my friend, it means ‘farewell’.”

  “No!”

  The word, so agonised, struck Engarten with the visible force of a blow.

  “People change,” he said. “It is in their nature.”

  “Not so swiftly,” Alquen said, his voice still full of pain. “And not without reason.”

  “The lady has her reasons. Her soul belongs to Parasheeva. She has made her choice, Gunter. What else can you do but respect it?”

  Alquen stared at him. “What else, indeed,” he said.

  * * *

  To have loved and lost is the greatest pain of all. To have the prospect, the promise, of happiness snatched away cuts deeper than any knife.

  The days that followed saw a marked change in Gunter Alquen. A black depression—greater than any he had ever known—settled upon him. He spoke infrequently, even to Alois Engarten, and took to prowling the nocturnal streets, hand upon the hilt of his sabre as though challenging the gangs to accost him.

  None did. Even the Glamour Boys gave him a wide berth, all notions of retribution thoroughly purged from them.

  Ever and always he found his steps turning in the direction of St Labre’s Park, to the place where he and Destinada Germane had spent their time together.

  A suggestion, perhaps, but it seemed to him that the grass in that little sheltered grove had grown thicker, stronger, its blades darker as through in mockery of his heartache.

  “Something, at least, finds the will to thrive in this rotten world.” But the thought gave him no comfort.

  Although he scarcely admitted the fact to himself, he prowled the Park in the hope of seeing Destinada once again. From time to time he saw others of Parasheeva’s Order, green-gowned Blossoms tending to trees or flowerbeds even in the darkest part of the night, but of Destinada Germane there was no sign.

  “You follow a fool’s path,” Engarten told him. “If you wish my advice, you should treasure the memory, not embrace the pain.”

  “I do not wish for your advice,” Alquen said curtly.

  They sat in the comforting gloom of a secluded booth in Maimon’s, a near-empty bottle of hock between them, although Engarten had drunk a single glass at most. Alquen drained the last of it and called for another.

  Mersh brought it timidly, clearly all too aware of Engarten’s previous threat. A livid bruise covered one cheek and his lower lip bore the criss-cross of crude black stitches—a reminder from the Glamour Boys to send them easier targets in future.

  He placed the bottle on the table. Together with another, much smaller, object.

  A single flower. A white daisy.

  Alquen’s hand shot out and clamped down upon his wrist.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “The lady,” the boy said. “the lady gave it to me.”

  “Which lady.”

  “The Blossom.”

  He released his hold and the boy scuttled away again, casting a sour glance over his shoulder. Alquen stood, all thoughts of wine forgotten, a strange light glittering in his eyes.

  “I must speak to her,” he said.

  “You are making a mistake, my friend,” Engarten said softly. “Remember that people change.”

  That final word, so full of portent, should have halted him, but Alquen chose not to heed it. “It is my mistake to make,” he said.

  “Then damn you!” Engarten rose, setting his baldric into place beneath his cloak so that the swordhilt rested on his hip. “Damn you for the lovestruck idiot you are.”

  “I do not need your assistance in this matter,” Alquen told him, making for the door.

  “Yet you have it nevertheless.”

  * * *

  “Purity,” Engarten said. “Innocence, loyal love, patience, that’s what the flower means.”

  “Only that?” Alquen asked.

  “Only that.”

  They made towards St Labre’s Park. Alquen knew she would be there, for where else might she be waiting?

  He half-ran, such that even Engarten with his long stride, found it difficult to keep abreast of him.

  “Slow down, man, in the name of the gods.” Engarten grabbed his shoulder and spun him round.

  Immediately, Alquen half-drew his sword—an instinct so engrained that he was barely aware of it.

  “You would fight me, Gunter?” Engarten said.

  “I would kill you, Alois.”

  “Over a woman?”

  “Not just a woman, damn your eyes. You do not understand -”

  “No,” Engarten said. “I do not. But then, why should I. I have never known love, only passion.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “I believe so. One merely touches the body, the other—as they poet claim—touches the soul.”

  “She is waiting.”

  “Let her wait, my friend.”

  “I cannot.”

  “You are a fool, Gunter,” Engarten said. “But at least you are a passionate one.”

  They went through the gates of St Labre’s and into the park, to the last place where Gunter Alquen had seen Destinada Germane.

  She was there, as he had known she would be.

  Bu
t not alone.

  Her sisters were with her, a dozen or more Blossoms wearing the Gown and Veil, intoning a soft litany to Parasheeva. They stood in a cluster around her, heads bent, and their tears watered the earth at her feet. The earth that Gunter Alquen had inseminated with the Glamour Boy’s blood.

  The earth her feet were enveloped in.

  “Destinada!”

  At the sound of Alquen’s voice the Blossoms turned. And each had a little stiletto clamped in her fist.

  “Go away,” one of them said and the winter in her voice was as sharp as the steel in her hand.

  “No,” Destinada said. “I want him here.”

  They parted to let him pass, but the weapons remained poised, and he knew that they would not hesitate to kill him.

  Let them, he thought, what does it matter? To see her again is all. To take her in my arms...

  He reached out and touched her. It was not flesh beneath his hands but warm, living wood. Leaves had already begun to bud on her face, an eager insect crawled across her lip and into her nose.

  She stroked his face with twig fingers and, said in a voice like a breeze through an orchard:

  “Thank you for coming. I needed you to see this, to know where I will be.”

  “I would have known anyway,” he said.

  She tried to smile, but the stiffening of her face would not allow it. “Do you love me, Gunter?” she said.

  “With all my heart.”

  And he stayed there for a long time, weeping at the foot of the tree, until even the Blossoms had said their last prayers and departed. Not tears of sadness, but neither were they tears of joy.

  Finally, Engarten returned and gently led him away.

  “Time to leave her,” he said.

  “Aye. For now.” Alquen touched the rough bark. “I will return tomorrow, Destinada,” he said.

  As they walked away, back into the filth and the fug of PameGlorias, Alquen turned look at the tree—a rowan, he judged, with a single orange blossom on its trunk.

  Strange, that a rowan could produce such a flower.

  Or perhaps not so strange, given the nature of its conception.

  A sacrifice to the goddess to keep the gardens green? No, not a sacrifice, an act of defiance against the cold universe, an act of adulation. She could not escape her destiny—did not wish to—but her last human act had been to heal his heart.