Wolf Wing Page 5

  Dengwi nodded. ‘We were lucky. And Jizania helped us.’

  I said, ‘And was it you who let the lions out?’

  Dengwi’s face relaxed. ‘Yes. I did that while Daisy and Pattoo and the others took the wine to the Guards.’

  ‘So everyone was in on it,’ I said, ‘but for me.’

  ‘Hardly everyone. Jade Leaf’s maids, that’s all. Jizania recruited us, you might say. She thought we were a good bet, since Jade Leaf was both vicious and stupid. It was arranged with us and her that evening, after she made plans with you.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ I stated the obvious.

  Dengwi said, ‘She didn’t mean you to. She wanted you to concentrate on getting Nemian away, and then both of you reaching his city.’

  So she does know about the Wolf Tower?

  I felt it was wiser if I didn’t bad-mouth Nemian to Dengwi, in case. Just as I hadn’t Jizania, who’d sent me off to new and much worse slavery under the Wolf Tower Law.

  I was bewildered though, almost insulted.

  All that skulking around that night, and feeling so guilty about not telling Pattoo and the others. And – they were ahead of me, and not telling me.

  I imagined Dengwi slinking through the shadows, fearlessly opening the lions’ cage with another of Jizania’s keys.

  And Daisy and the rest, making eyes at the Guards as I’d had to, encouraging them to drink the wine.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ said Dengwi, like a queen.

  We sat.

  Pattoo said, ‘They want to hold Lion Night tonight, in Claidi’s honour. She’s never been here before to enjoy it with us.’

  I beamed.

  Argul beamed.

  Wolf Tower plots were still possible. After all, had it been not the best idea to come here? Was this still a House of Enemies?

  We weren’t left alone all that day. Everyone kept coming to see us, as if we were an exhibit. Claidi and Argul Her Husband, from Peshamba. (We hadn’t said from where else.)

  They gave us guided tours of the House, showing us fancy apartments now turned into sewing-rooms and nurseries. (The Debating Hall had had its seats ripped out and become a real exhibition, of devastating dullness – full of instruments of Servant Toil, such as brooms, hoes, clothes-brushes etc. All carefully labelled so no one forgot what they were.)

  People gushed up to us. Heroine and Hero. Perhaps they were just curious, or friendly, fellow-workers set free.

  It all made me uncomfortable. I didn’t think I deserved of all things praise for running off. And I kept wondering about plots. Jizania is Twilight’s mother. That says everything.

  I tried to see what Argul thought. Difficult. Between waves of people we had three-second dialogues. Like, Me: ‘Should we get out of here?’ He: ‘We always can if we have to. There aren’t any Guards now, are there? They were all kicked out.’ Me: ‘Yes, but something’s going on—’ Someone Else, abruptly arriving: ‘Oh do come and see the roof pool. It used to be Kerp’s roof garden, till we flooded it accidentally.’

  And later, while we were admiring the dismal stuff in the Debating Hall, I said, ‘No one needs rescuing here. We could just slip away.’ But Argul said, ‘There’s still Jizania. Don’t you want to meet her at this Dinner tonight?’ ‘Me? Do you want to?’ ‘I’m fascinated,’ he said.

  And then we were swept off to watch a display of rug-cleaning by three former lords and lady, who seemed worryingly genuinely thrilled at their deadly job.

  Outside again, we came across the once-Lord Flindel, chopping wood for the Garden furnaces.

  I recalled Lord Flindel. He had once tried to push me in the hippo river when he caught me stealing a flower. Now he greeted me cheerfully. Apparently he and I were old friends too.

  The Lion Night Dinner is always held on the lawns.

  Everyone that can prepares it, arranges the tables and so on.

  The sun set ruby-red into the invisible desert. Ruby-red birds flew up like fireworks bursting from the trees, and wheeled around. They were once kept in the Aviary. But the freed slaves freed the birds. None of them fly away, they like it here.

  Lady Iris, who was now just Iris, came sailing over the terraces to supervise all the dishes she’d made. She used to be quite large, but oddly, now she cooks all the time, she’s become quite slim.

  Daisy was helping her at first.

  I hadn’t seen Daisy until then. Soon she rustled up in a tight-skirted dress patterned with daisies, and carrying a mustard pot. She was followed by a hulking male companion.

  ‘Oh Claidi! I couldn’t get away before.’ She hugged me to the mustard pot. The only one to dare – or want – to hug me. Then she ruined it. She said, ‘This is my boyfriend, Jovis.’

  I’d wondered where I’d got to know him. Out of Guard uniform he looked less important but also (impossibly?) less appetising. He’d been one of the ones I’d drugged with the wine. Though he had hated Nemian, wanted to behead him. Perhaps I could get to like Jovis—

  Not appearing to bear a grudge about the drugging, he leered, then punched Argul heartily in the chest, and seemed disappointed when Argul didn’t even sway.

  ‘This your hubby? These women,’ confided Jovis loudly to Argul, ‘they keep on till they trap us, don’t they. I expect she—’ waving at Daisy, ‘ ’ll want marrying soon.’

  ‘I had to work very hard to get Claidi to marry me,’ said Argul.

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s how they manage it. They make you think it’s you doing the chasing.’

  ‘Really?’ Argul was polite, interested to be educated. ‘I see.’

  Daisy frowned.

  ‘Jovis,’ she snapped, ‘Iris says we have to hurry back and help with the table-centres.’

  ‘There, you see,’ said Jovis, satisfied. ‘Nag, nag.’

  Off they went.

  I wanted to spit.

  Had Daisy no taste in men at all?

  Then the moon rose.

  It was three-quarters full and china white, and suddenly all the glamour of the Garden returned for me.

  The tables were laid out along this one big area, the paved terrace below Hyacinth Lawn, where the great two-storey-high waterfall plashes down and down.

  Crystal glasses and cutlery glittered in the light of tall tangerine candles.

  It reminded me of the Rise, even the sound of the waterfall, that evening we ate in the gardens there. Me and Treacle, that girl who could ‘cry’ at will – enough to water the pot plants – and turned cartwheels to make us laugh, and splendid Grem, and kind mechanical Jotto – and … can you tell I’ve been putting off writing the last name? – and Venn.

  Argul and I were actually alone for a moment. We watched the birds resettling in the trees.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘If you truly want to get out of here, let’s just beat it.’

  ‘No, I think I do need to stay. I do need – to see Jizania again. And Dengwi. I need to sort this out if I can. Dengwi isn’t my enemy, is she?’

  ‘I think, from how she looked, she just got a shock when you turned up. And she’s learnt to hide things like that. It’s like the way—’ he hesitated.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Tell you later. Here comes Herself.’

  I looked where he was. ‘Jizania,’ I said. For here Herself was coming, and no mistake.

  SPILLING THE BEANS

  Before, she was supposed to be one hundred and thirty years old. So she must be getting on for a hundred and thirty-two by now. She looks so old, it isn’t like Old any more. It’s almost like a new kind of Young. She’s probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Even more beautiful than Winter Raven, who was disgustingly perfect.

  Jizania Tiger wore an olive-green robe. Her hairless head was painted in complex spirals of gold and silver, with little gems pasted on. On her slender crooked wrist she carried her indigo bird. The big topaz ring dazzled on that hand, too. I’d forgotten about the topaz ring.

  Of course, I thought instantly of the topaz Power
ring at the Rise, which Ustareth had left there.

  Was this one also Power jewellery?

  I’d never seen or heard of her displaying supernatural abilities. But then Ustareth had hidden her own entirely successfully from the Hulta.

  Then I got distracted.

  At Jizania’s side walked Dengwi. It was quite obvious they were companions. No Great-Lady-being-Patronizing-to-crawly-servant kind of thing.

  And round them both, in a herd, padded about twenty lions.

  Seems they’re always let out on Lion Nights, in recognition of when they were let out before. They weren’t on leads either.

  I’d thought them tame, the lions, laid back and spoilt. But now, palely luminous in the moon and candlelight, black maned, flame eyed, they looked frankly fairly dodgy.

  I had the feeling though, even if they started leaping for everyone’s throats, Jizania and Dengwi would be the last two people the lions would ever attack.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Argul.

  J, D and lions, were all moving straight towards us.

  And now they were here.

  Ignoring the big male lion that had immediately decided to investigate my beaded belt, even though it had to bend its head to do so(!) I stared in Jizania’s face.

  And she smiled her carved little smile that I recalled so well.

  ‘Good evening, Madam,’ I said.

  ‘No, Claidi,’ she answered sweetly, ‘we don’t use titles like that here any more. Now I am only Jizania.’

  Only!

  Then her amber eyes slowly left me and went to the man at my side. ‘And this must be the extraordinary Argul, leader-king of the Horse People, and adventurer-prince of the Wolf Tower.’

  Argul didn’t bat an eyelid.

  He looked at her and nodded. ‘Charmed to meet you,’ he said. ‘I think you’re acquainted with my grandmother.’

  ‘Ironel? Oh yes. Many long years ago.’

  ‘Not so long,’ he said, friendly, ‘since I think she somehow contacted you recently, and told you a few things.’

  ‘Such as your true identity,’ said Jizania.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  The lion was now eating my belt. ‘Oh, stop that!’ I snapped, giving it a push.

  The lion growled, but only sullenly. It swung away and moved off.

  ‘Of course,’ said Jizania, ‘Claidi has now no need to be afraid of a lion.’

  She knew about my ring. Knew about everything. Everything?? (It doesn’t have to be Ironel told her either – could be Twilight!)

  The indigo bird half-raised its wings. It wasn’t as comfy as she with lions.

  ‘Come along,’ said Jizania, ‘let’s take our places. You’ll sit with me, won’t you, though I’m only an old woman and you are the guests of honour.’

  Argul gallantly offered her his arm. She liked this, her eyes sparkled a moment. He was prepared to flirt also with her. I remembered how she’d liked Nemian, too. Ironel was just the same.

  He gave his other arm to me.

  As we walked, I still had a silly nasty sensation, recalling Nemian and Ironel that time in the Tower. The sort of private party they had going on between them. This wasn’t that. Argul was playing clever. Though never forget, Claidi, your marvellous husband too is, as she reminded us, Wolf Tower blood.

  Jizania sat down in a carved chair at the head of a table, with Argul on her left and me on her right. Dengwi sat at the other head of this table.

  No one seemed concerned about the lions. As the Dinner started, people kept throwing them food. Maybe that was what stopped them pouncing on us and having us for dinner.

  There were tons of food. What did we eat? Can’t remember. Only what Jizania had.

  She only ever had Teas. I’d learned that ages ago. And now, even though she was no longer a capital letters Old Lady, and we were celebrating the Night of Freedom, she was brought a whole separate set of dishes. There were tiny sandwiches, and marzipan fruits, and chocolate-bread, and a silky blancmange. There was even a teapot. And this silver plate piled up with tiny beans made of coloured sugar.

  ‘How little you eat, Claidi,’ she said amusedly to me. ‘I recall how little appetite you had last time.’

  Yes, I thought, I was nervous then, too.

  I said, ‘But you eat even less.’ I couldn’t somehow bring myself to call her by her name.

  ‘I eat little, I need little. Not like Corris and Armingat over there. Dear, dear. It’s my interest in life that feeds me.’

  She offered her bird a buttered biscuit.

  Then she started chatting – I mean chatting – to Argul. They talked all about Ironel and the Towers City, and the Hulta. I noted he was being careful, even though he seemed not to be, and also that no one yet had mentioned the north, or Ravens, or Twilight Star.

  Jizania had conned me into taking the place of Twilight’s daughter in the Wolf Tower. Though I couldn’t read Jizania’s mind, I knew she was still up to something. It wasn’t just life she fed on, it was making things happen.

  And then, something did happen!

  The former lords and ladies were all sitting down with everybody else. (Flindel was particularly expert at lobbing roast to the lions.) Everyone also got up now and then to help serve each other things.

  There was a young woman who served only Jizania. She, this woman, didn’t sit down like the others. She sort of hovered and retreated. Jizania didn’t speak to her. Jizania treated her – like a slave.

  What with one thing and all the other things, I hadn’t paid this person much – any – attention. I think I’d vaguely seen she had a flushed, screwed-up face – the only agitated girl present, apart from me.

  She had no hair. I’d thought, I now think, this was because she seemed to belong to bald Jizania. (Though none of her maids had ever been made bald in the past.)

  A man had just got to his feet to propose another toast we had to drink.

  ‘Here’s to our three Lion Night Heroines,’ he cried over the waterfall rush. He had been one of the kitchen slaves. ‘Fabulous Dengwi and Jizania and Claidi. Without them – none of this!’

  Everyone stood up, but for the toasted ones, Jizania, Dengwi and me. As the glasses and cups were raised, Dengwi and I looked at each other. She shrugged.

  But before I could either like that, or wonder what it really meant—

  ‘Heroines – damn them!’ screeched a high unmusical voice just above my right ear.

  Something held up next rattled down all over me. And I thought, Can’t be very lethal, or the ring would have stopped it – but it – they – are sticky—

  And then Argul was there and he’d thrust someone away and she had gone sprawling. And there she lay, this sprawled someone, honking: ‘I’d kill the lot of them! Kill all of you! Whipping – that’s what you deserve – you scum – you ants—’ And then a string of truly unwritable dirty words that, I’m embarrassed to say, I now know all the meanings of.

  I stared at the writhing female earthquake on the terrace.

  ‘It’s Jade Leaf.’

  She’d finished (for now?) cursing us all. She sat there panting, rubbing a bruise on her arm where she’d fallen.

  How could I ever have not known, even for a moment, that horrible squinched pointy face.

  Even bald. (Why was she bald?)

  ‘Why is she bald?’ I said blankly to Jizania.

  ‘She lost her hair,’ Jizania answered.

  ‘Lost it?’

  ‘It fell out.’ Jizania rose. She glanced at JL, that was all, but there was something unnerving in her glance. A sugar-bean dropped too from Jizania’s sleeve. I’d thought they were all down my neck.

  ‘Er—’ I said, ‘why is she—’

  ‘Why did she stay?’ Jizania arched her brows. ‘Her mother, when she left, didn’t want her. And Jade Leaf was too afraid to go on her own. I allowed her to wait on me. She was no good for anything else.’

  ‘But I thought no one was to be a servant any more—’ I heard myse
lf blurt.

  ‘Come, Claidi. Are you protesting at ill-treatment of this pimple, who made your life a misery all the years you lived at the House?’

  Well – was I?

  Didn’t know.

  I’d always hated and feared Jade Leaf. Now she’d just thrown a dish of sugar-beans at me, and I thought … what?

  A couple of people walked across to Jade Leaf. One of them laughed and poured a jug of wine or something all over her, over her shocking-pink face and unattractive frock and bald head where she’d lost her hair, perhaps from fright and unhappiness.

  But anyway, she was angry now (I expected the liquid from the jug to sizzle) and no sooner had he done that than she scrambled up and went for him, so the other one pulled her off. He was just going to hit her really hard when Argul stopped him.

  Then she balanced there, shivering with meanness and spite and helplessness.

  She wouldn’t look at any of us now.

  In the past, she’d often had ‘tantrums’. But given the position she was now in—

  She’s brave.

  Stupid and rotten – but brave.

  And Shimra, her mother, just left her.

  And I can see Jizania has some (secret) special reason for making JL suffer. And that can have nothing to do with getting JL back for me, or for any other former maid.

  Dengwi stood beside me. I hadn’t seen her come up. Jizania had floated away.

  ‘She’s remembering that now Jizania will punish her in the morning,’ Dengwi said.

  I felt a bit sick. Shook myself. I mean, JL had been no close friend of mine.

  And had Dengwi?

  ‘You approve of that?’

  She didn’t reply.

  Jade Leaf was turning. She walked off the terrace and down into the Garden, and no one stopped her.

  Then Jizania was calling us, Dengwi and me, back to the table. Her voice was kind, fond – like a mother’s.

  Then she called the tables to order. ‘Now I will propose a toast, if an old lady may make so bold.’

  Actually, she made a little speech.

  It was very short. It said a lot.

  I still haven’t worked out all she was playing at. Will I ever? Sitting here now in the warm clear light of Yinyay’s library, I rack my brains. Have no answers.