A Prelude to Penemue Read online

  “I healed her.”

  “And let her go on fighting.”

  “But, she…fell. It was in vain.”

  “No. It was everything we needed. Hester, you are a savior to us all.”

  “Who else has died?”

  “Many. But no talk of that now, let us get you somewhere you can rest and recover.” Cadmus directed the litter-bearers and sent Emile with them as they carried her awkwardly through the ruins, keeping her as steady as they could.

  “You will be long in healing.” Emile’s voice shocked her. It was quiet but full of calm self-assurance. “Lady Judith Vedma did not finish what she began.”

  “And she?”

  “Fallen.”

  “I see.” Hester bit her tongue, not daring to ask after her husband or her daughter.

  “Hester!” Lady Damarus Regalii nearly leapt from her chair. Two servants gently held her back by her shoulders. “They told me you had perished!”

  Relief at seeing her sister’s battered but smiling face brought tears to her eyes. “It was a near thing. How do you fare, Damarus? Does Mother know you are whole?”

  “I would hardly call this whole!” Lady Damarus ran a hand along her bruised forehead and cheek and pointed to her rose silk gown, burnt and ripped to rags. It had been her favorite, Hester recalled.

  “I think my leg is broken,” Hester said, feeling quite stupid.

  “Bones heal. But where shall I find another bolt of such fine fabric? This dress took the lot!”

  “Damarus, where is my husband?”

  Her sister paused and glanced around her. “I have no idea. But you know, when I saw him tonight, I was surprised he was yet so handsome! Humans are so very fragile; it was quite a shock! Such short little lives, too. Are you sure it was not his time to die anyway? I have no idea why we must bother to protect them in the first place. They always just up and die not a few short years later. They are just like pets. Really, what is the point and purpose to it?” Damarus went on about the injustice of serving pets as Hester’s heart sank.

  She motioned her litter-bearers away, and they set her in the shade of an old oak on the far side of the road. “Emile, that is your name, yes? Could you be a dear and seek out Master Marius Sloane for me, please? Tell him that I need to see him at once, and to bring Charlotte over with him.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Emile bobbed a bow and dashed off across the scorched lawn toward what had been the grandest house in the principality.

  Hester waited. Some time later, Emile returned with a plate of early apples, some brown bread, and a small wedge of cheese. He offered her a bent silver ewer of water, but he had no cup. He also had no news.

  It was growing dark when he returned again, this time with cold sliced meat, more brown bread, and a pear. There was still no news.

  Together they sat in silence as torch-bearing workers cleared rubble and laid out the dead, draping them in sheets, towels, curtains, and whatever textiles were at hand. The remaining Vedma, battered and weary, came and soothed Hester’s leg.

  “The bone is still weak—take care not to bear much weight on it until it heals properly,” she said and moved on before Hester could even thank her.

  By the first light of the following day, the scene had not much changed, save that the Regalii had all been moved into the apartments and rooms that remained intact at the estate house. The estate’s owners had slept in the servants quarters, and many of the servants had spent the night out in the field with Hester and Emile. One of the house servants came to them early, wringing his filthy hands in the tail of his equally dirty shirt.

  “I would speak to the Lady,” the man said. His face was puckered with burns, and he had several teeth freshly missing. His breath smelled of blood.

  Hester tensed.

  “If you would follow me, my Lady.” He extended his arm and helped her to her feet, bearing her weight as he led her to the line of corpses.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You must be strong, Lady. For all of us.”

  “I do not want to be strong! I do not want to be a lady! I just wanted an ordinary life.”

  The servant laughed darkly. “We always want what is denied to us. It is what makes us human, even you who were born to rule Heaven and Earth.” They came to a shaky halt at the end of the line. “I need to know if this is your husband, Lady Hester.”

  “I know. But I do not want to tell you. If I see him dead, then dead he will be. While I still hope, he still lives.”

  The servant patted her hand. “I know.” He pointed to a swaddled body lying away from the others. “I lost my wife. Now please, that we may get on with identifying the others.” He drew back the damask drape and Hester forced herself to look.

  Marius looked peaceful, his hazel eyes closed, his mouth relaxed, almost as if in sleep. Nevermind the terrible gash that opened his head from ear to hairline.

  “Oh, my love,” she murmured, sinking to her knees. Glancing back at the servant, she steeled herself for her next question. “And what of my daughter?”

  “Daughter?”

  “Charlotte!” Hester staggered to her feet and ran as best she could into the ruins of the house. The nursery had been down the corridor from the main hall, she remembered. Climbing over timbers and fallen masonry, she limped past several broken doorframes until she found one that still stood intact. The brass plaque on the door announcing that this was the nursery still gleamed. “Help me! Help me with this door!” She beat against it with fatigued arms. Emile and Cadmus were behind her in an instant.

  “Stand aside, Hester,” Cadmus told her and barreled into the finely painted door with his shoulder. It was well jammed into the frame, but no mere wood could withstand the force of a determined Gyony warrior.

  As the door gave way, Hester ran inside. It was still dark in this room, and the children’s playthings were tumbled about, creating strange shadows. The roof had halfway fallen in, and a fine layer of ash lay over everything. The air was stale and more than once Hester lost her balance as she searched, her head growing light and her arms and legs even more unsteady.

  “Hester, it is not safe in here.”

  “I have to find her, Cadmus.”

  “Let me help you.” He hooked his thickly muscled arm around her waist and held her up. Together they pushed aside pillows and plush creatures until they came to the farthest corner of the room.

  Emile was waiting there, having gone around in the other direction. Hester searched his face, but he would not meet her gaze.

  “Is she…?”

  “I believe so. They are all here.”

  She pushed him aside with what little strength she had remaining and stepped away from Cadmus. Mary, the nanny, and four other girls were huddled in the corner. Blankets and nappies and petticoats were over their mouths and those of the children. There were only six youngsters, Charlotte being the youngest. They, too, might have been sleeping, but that their faces were flushed violently pink.

  The floor seemed to tilt abruptly, and Cadmus caught her once more. “The air’s to blame. Everyone out before it drops us, too!”

  Hester could not catch her breath until they returned her to her litter beneath the tree. “Gone. Everything. Both of them. Gone.”

  Emile took her hand, rubbing it softly. Cadmus dropped to one knee. “I am so sorry, Hester.”

  “What is this? Oh, princess, did you lose your favorite fur in the rubble? Perhaps one of your earbobs has gone missing? What else could account for these crocodile tears?”

  “Speak no more, Moll Aldias, you have no notion of what you are saying,” Cadmus rumbled.

  “I lost three of my sisters,” the black-haired woman hissed. “Tell me how that compares to anything she may be missing! Her sister is whole, I saw her myself. What else of value can the brat be bawling over?”

  “My husband and my child are dead.”

  “Oh, you are the one with the mortal husband, are you not? What pain can that be? And children c
an always be gotten again. I might even be able to find the soul of the babe for your next getting…for a price.”

  “Get away from me, witch!”

  “Suit yourself.” The Aldias gathered her dignity and walked away, hiding a limp.

  A long bright note from a horn sounded across the landscape, not too far distant. “That would be my mother.” Hester slumped. “I cannot face her. She will not have an ounce more sympathy than that wretched, heartless Moll Aldias.”

  “We can take you anywhere you would like to go,” Cadmus said softly. “We can let her think you have perished. ‘Twould be easy to accomplish.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Why? I heard what you said to that servant. I cannot promise you an ordinary life, but I can offer you a place that is far removed from the Regalii and the Primacy as well. As ordinary as it gets for our kind, anyway.”

  Emile nodded. “You would love it there. Master Cadmus has recently been accepted into House Gyony, and I will be studying for the trials for my House in the coming decade. It’s practically right around the corner.”

  Hester had to laugh at his enthusiasm. “What house would that be, young Emile?”

  “Edulica, of course. And as empathic as you are, I daresay you would make a wonderful addition. We will speak to Lord Andrew as soon as we are home.”

  “Home?”

  “Home to Penemue.” Cadmus set his hand on Emile’s shoulder. “Say you will come, Hester dear. Leave all of this behind you.”

  “I do not know if I will be able…”

  “Kitty would be begging you.” Anna stepped out from behind the oak. “I apologize for eavesdropping.” She made what could have passed for a curtsey in some other country. “But really, m’lady, there is no love for you here. And if the Edulica deny you, you can train to fight with the Gyony. I will teach you quarterstaff myself.”

  Hester gazed at them, at their earnest faces. These were her battlefield companions; they had each entered into a pact with the rest, unspoken yet binding: the willingness to lay down one’s life for the other. No one had ever done such a thing for her. Sequestered away from the rest of the Grigori—the rest of the Nephilim, even—Hester had spent her days learning elocution, music, embroidery, languages...and to what end?

  She thought of Kitty’s face, triumphant as the great mechanical thing went down into flames and ashes. She thought of Marius and her own dear baby. He had taken her away from her staid life of nobility, he had given her what she had always wanted; he had given her happiness. She owed it to him to claim it for herself once more.

  “All right, then. Lady Hester Regalii shall be no more from this day forward. For all anyone will know, she died here with her beloved family.” Cadmus clapped is massive hands and Emile nodded. She managed a small smile. “So, then, we shall be off? I have no baggage; I can leave when you are ready, Master Cadmus.”

  “The day is still young. If we leave now and press hard, we shall be home by supper time.”

  “Home.” Hester breathed the word, for it still felt so new in her mouth. “Home to Penemue.”