Law of the Wolf Tower: The Claidi Journals Book 1, Tanith Lee [pocket ebook reader .TXT] 📗

going back over the paving, the Guards saluting, and I was convinced I’d messed everything up. Whatever everything was.

Back in her apartment a carved table had been laid with the most delightful ‘tea’. (Really it was lunchtime.) I thought she meant me to wait on her, but she said I was to sit down and eat the tea with her.

In fact she only drank a glass of iced chocolate.

(It would be madness not to note down at least some of the ‘tea’. There were sliced peaches, and strawberries, in painted dishes, and cakes still hot, and biscuits in the shapes of birds, and white butter shaped like a rabbit. There were hot and cold drinks of all types. How the cups and glasses sparkled.)

What a shame I couldn’t eat anything. I tried. I’d never been offered such a feast. But you’ll grasp why I couldn’t.

And when Jizania Tiger saw I couldn’t, she started to talk to me, and what she said made it impossible for me to eat and drink even the crumbs and drips I’d been trying to get down my throat.

‘So much is said,’ she said, ‘about the House. Long ago, the House was a sanctuary. It was a pleasant enough place. But now it’s like an overwound clock. It goes in fits and starts and tells the wrong time.’

Then she said, ‘They talk about the Waste too, and terrorize little children with stories of it. But you saw the flower. The Waste isn’t as bad as it’s made out, just as the House isn’t as good.’

Then: ‘That young man, our handsome prisoner. They don’t know what to do about him. He meant us no harm, but they’re so used, by now, to distrusting and fearing anything from outside, that they can only lock him away. They may keep him in that cage for years. Or, in some sudden unreasonable alarm, they may decide after all to murder him. Really, I think he should be allowed to escape, don’t you? But then. Someone needs to assist him. I have the means, but I’m old. I can’t be bothered with such an adventure.’

After this she looked into my eyes with her amber hawk’s stare.

‘Then there is you. You’ve had a deathly life here, Claidi, and what can you hope for or ever look forward to? Beatings, nastiness, endless uninteresting work. Perhaps a marriage with some suitably obedient servant, if even that’s allowed. You too, my girl, ought to be let out of your cage.’

I hadn’t followed it all, not properly. My heart followed though, in rattling leaps.

Was she saying what my heart thought she was?

‘You see, Claidi, you’re reckless enough, and young enough, and bothered enough. If I gave you the means to let Nemian out of the Pavilion, and spirit him away from the House and the Garden, and into the hellish Waste … which is the world … Would you?’

Yes, heart, you were spot on.

She said, ‘The Waste is more than we know. And you’ve said yourself Nemian is a lord. He comes from somewhere just as grand, grander, no doubt, than here. And he would take care of you.’

Before I could think it through, I cried, ‘Why would he? I’m only—’

‘Only what? Only a lady’s maid?’

I withered at her words. The truth of them made them less swallowable even than the food. Maid – I was a slave.

Princess Jizania Tiger half turned, and held out her wrist for the indigo bird to soar down to, weightless as muslin. As it perched there, she fed it peaches, which it tucked daintily into its beak.

‘Claidi,’ said Jizania Tiger, ‘you recall that your parents were driven out in the first year of your life?’

‘Y – yes.’

‘They profaned a Ritual. A most serious one.’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t know what it was. No one has told you.’

I shook my head. The bird scanned me, and shook its head too, copying.

But then Jizania Tiger told me that the first profanation had been that my mother was a princess of the House, and my father her steward, and that the second profanation was me – the fact that I was born, because no one is allowed to be born here, save when permission has been granted, and never of mixed rank.

‘They saw fit not to exile an innocent baby,’ said Jizania Tiger. ‘Instead they condemned you to a life of harsh service to the House. And Shimra, who was your mother’s friend – a false one, evidently – gave you to her atrocious daughter, a human boil, that someone should burst. These things I saw, but I’ve said, haven’t I, how old and lazy I am. Besides, until now there’s been no way out. I must add, Nemian knows, since I’ve told him, you are royal.’

‘Did he believe you?’ I croaked.

‘Do you?’

Do I? I don’t know.

All I know is, she gave me every key I shall need to free him, (she has, she said, a key to each lock of the House and Garden.) And she’s told me how to do everything, and where to go, and that it’s my choice, all this. That I needn’t. But then, the Waste has flowers in it, and Nemian’s own house, whatever that is, is there, and also my parents, just possibly, somewhere, if they survived. My courageous parents who fell in love and dared let their love make me.

It’s all tumbling through me. Not just love – I feel I’m made of racing water and drums, and fired up by lightning.

And you’ll have known all the time that I’ll do it. I’ll free him, and go with him. Take the risk. Out there – Wouldn’t you?

THE ESCAPE

By moonlight, the Garden looked heavenly – I mean like heaven, whatever that is, we never had it properly explained. But obviously, a lovely and special place. I felt a moment of terror. This was what I knew, good or bad.

She’d said I was reckless. I didn’t feel it, just then. I wanted to creep back to the