Anna von Wessen (25 page)

XXV:

Between Heaven and Earth

F
ortunately, she came awake quite alone upon the forest floor, with no foes nearby looking to take her head, and no friends, either, looking to assist. This latter possibility was the main reason she had come away so far to begin with. Looking into Vaya’s face, she had known very well that she would try to follow her, the very moment she had shifted away. This she suspected, and this she nearly hoped for; but all the same she knew that it would not do for Vaya to see her in such an inexplicable state of gory grime. Therefore she came alone into the wood; and therefore she woke alone beside a pile of black ashes, a very small number of feet from the trunk of the tree which she had felled with her poker.

She removed her bloody raiment, cast it upon the ground, and set it afire. After that she meant to stand; but as she found it very difficult, at present, to lift herself to her feet, she shifted from the very spot where she lay. She fell, already prostrate, into bed. Some time after
that
she meant to go and scrub the guilty remnants of blood from her skin; but still she could not rise to her feet. She slept long, and very luckily suffered no one to call upon her, before she had had the chance to pick up what shattered pieces of herself she could find, and stick them back together just as best she could.

She had hardly completed this overwhelming task, when hunger – for her, now, a nameless and faceless entity which came to assault her, just when she least wanted it – gave its greeting. She went down to the corridor outside of the kitchens, kept up a short watch upon the great chambers themselves, and hurried inside when finally she had satisfied herself as to their emptiness. She stole from the cold-case another ration of animal flesh; and in a flash was gone again.

She sat long in her chamber, feeling that she was waiting for something; though she knew not at all for what. She was unspeakably weary, and her stomach was nowhere near so full as she wished it to be. Ever and anon her whole breast pulsed with what felt a Titan’s heartbeat, and those dark wiry shadows came repeatedly to pass over the skin of her hands and arms. She made note of these things with a paradoxically agonising indifference, her muddy boots propped up on the trunk at the foot of her bed, and her eyes riveted thoughtlessly upon the sunny window.

When Greyson came to her in the late afternoon, she hardly knew whether all this had ceased. She was resigned, almost, to his seeing, and to his shrieking in that terrible way of his, hence unlocking the floodgate; which would afterwards fall with a resounding crash, as the door to her chamber flew open, and all the castle proceeded to swarm inside, the better to gaze upon the disgusting curio which had come to be sitting, with its muddy boots propped up on the trunk at the foot of the bed, and its eyes riveted thoughtlessly upon the sunny window, in Anna von Wessen’s chamber.

But there came no such shriek to her pricked-up ears. When she looked towards Greyson in surprise, the steady drone of his voice began to make itself apparent; and she understood that he knew, and had seen, nothing.

She was almost disappointed.

For the first time in a long while, she agreed to Greyson’s plea, and went with him for a walk out in the grounds. The sun shone down over their heads, and upon the grass, staining the scene with an intense light and heat. It almost seemed another world entirely, as she looked absently about, and Greyson chattered on and on. Once, he tried to pass his arm through her own. But she moved away with a jerk, and then peered very carefully towards the distant line of trees, in an attempt to make it appear as though she had merely caught sight of something, and for that reason parted with him. So he asked her what she saw, and she answered that there was nothing – it was only a mistake on her part. He made no further remark.

But the cause of her anxiety was this. The sun felt differently, this day, against her skin; and instead of the usual sensation which she perceived – the distinct feeling of heat surging over cold, and then rolling harmlessly away – presently she felt as if the warmth were mingling with her flesh, and sinking deep below the surface, to raise the temperature there. She was afraid that Greyson might mark this oddity, were he to touch her. Therefore she would not allow him to do so. 

She thought that he noticed nothing; but nevertheless he finally halted his step, and turned towards her. “Are you all right, Anna?” he asked.

“I am perfectly well, Greyson! Why do you ask?”

“You seem troubled today.”

“Troubled? I am not troubled in the least.”

“No? Well, good then!” He said this very lightly; but still could not seem to dispel his frown. “I am always glad to hear that my Anna is well.”

“And I love you very much for it, Greyson,” Anna replied.

As twilight came to spread it grey pallor over the places where the yellow sunlight had touched, they bent their steps back towards the castle, and proceeded to walk slowly in the direction of the nearest entrance.

“Fancy a game?” Greyson inquired.

“If you like,” Anna answered.

They passed through the doorway, and began down the wide corridor; but their quiet progress was disrupted by what seemed some sort of scuffle, taking place in one of the passages which branched away from the kitchens.  So they moved to the turning of the passage, and glanced round its corner, only to see a group of six Lumaria huddled round a solitary, miserable form, which was crouched very still upon the stone floor. Anna needed not approach much farther at all, before she realised that this was the form of a servant, with its knees drawn up to its chest, and its head hanging sorrowfully in its hands. Its silver Turin glimmered faintly in the weak daylight.

Greyson took a single look at the situation, and then turned his head away again, to pursue his path. But Anna stood for a long while, utterly frozen; and then, with an inexplicable resolve, began on her way down the passage. Soon the servant’s face swivelled towards her, and she recognised it as that of Hyro – the Narkul, you will remember, whom she so pleased that distant night, merely by answering his greeting. She watched as the Lumaria swarmed him with violent kicks, which already were producing a large number of ghastly bruises upon his thin, sickly skin. A tremor ran through her at the sight, and seemed to reverberate round her recently troublesome heart, which pulsed with sympathy for the persecuted wolf.

She would not have been surprised in the least to see that Valo headed the small party; but alas, he was not there. Neither was Ari’s potent malice present to incite such a show of wrath. As she drew nearer, she perceived no less than the face of Filipovic,
contorted in hatred and fury as he sneered down at Hyro. All the others looked to him, and modelled their behaviour, apparently, according to the degree of his own brutality.

Anna gave a sharp cry, which resounded like thunder through the corridor. The offending Lumaria spun instantly towards her, and watched her cautiously, very clearly wondering what she would do.

“Well!” she shouted. “Six of the King’s servants, torturing another whom they have caught by himself!”

Greyson, who it seemed had come to follow her, gave an audible squeak at her side.

Filipovic’s mouth fell open, and he took a shaking step towards her. “What – what did you say?”

“You heard me very well.”

“Anna!” Greyson whispered, as he tugged persistently at her sleeve. “Be quiet!”

“That I did!” said Filipovic, ignoring Greyson’s interruption. “Indeed I heard you quite well, Anna von Wessen. You know, Ari has told us many stories about you – but never were we sure whether they were true. Of course we knew already – everyone knows – of your apocryphal origins. But the way Ari speaks of you, why, we dared never call you thus! But now – but now . . .”

“We,” hissed another of the party, with his eyes fixed irefully upon Anna’s face, “are no
servants.
We are the King’s aides, as you very well know. Why do you address us this way?”

Most of these fellows, you should know, were fairly young still, and were nothing at all like old Nim the sailor. Even if the King had stood before them, and threatened to slay them if they did not call him “Master,” probably still they would not have said it.

“His aides?” Anna scoffed. “Well – I am glad to see that your hubris has not been affected by the reality of your servitude.”

“Speak that word once more,” said Filipovic, “and we will kill you. I care not at all who you are! Anna von Wessen, the King’s favourite pet! Doubtless, though, he will not mourn you long; for now he has his true daughter back again.”

“You only speak as you do, because you envy the position you will never attain. For long years you have served as the footstool of the steward – and what have you to show for it? You are farther from Ephram, now, than you would be from Koro himself! Never will you be anything, Filipovic, but what you are this moment.”

Filipovic turned wildly upon Greyson. “And you, Greyson Menuch!” he cried. “Do you agree with all Anna von Wessen says?”

“N-no!” Greyson stammered fearfully, as he fell back against Anna.

“Truly?”

“Be assured,” said Anna, as she pushed Greyson gently away, “that Greyson Menuch’s sentiments are nothing at all similar to my own. If you wish to seek battle, do not seek it with him.”

“Very well! Leave us now, Greyson Menuch.”

Greyson looked questioningly to Anna; but again she gave him a shove, and whispered him a quiet word of assurance. He shifted away with a horrified countenance.

No sooner had he disappeared, than the six Lumaria made a mad rush at Anna, and tackled her with a force unlike anything she had ever known. Very familiar was she with combatting Narken – but never before had she been attacked by a group of Lumaria,
made ferocious with a wound to their pride. She was ripped mercilessly by teeth and nails, pulled this way and that till she verily believed that she would separate into pieces, and yanked under twelve stamping boots so that she thought she would be ground down into powder. 

She endured some long minutes of this torture, before confessing to herself that to stay was to die. With a fierce wrench, then, at her own pride, she shifted from beneath the writhing mass of hard flesh, skipped as she had done the night before from her intended path, and found herself all of a sudden strewn upon a blasted heath. 

She struggled to her knees, and looked for a moment all about her – but she saw nothing, nothing but dry and empty grassland all around, and hers the only point of height in its midst. She was perched at some thirty feet above the ground, atop a very flat mound of hard, cold earth. In the distance there was the shadow of mighty trees, towering like wild wooden flowers up above the hardness and the coldness. She fell down to the ground, and lay for a long time upon her stomach, breathing shallowly. She had not the energy to shift again; and she had not the will to do anything, anything but close her eyes.

She felt that she was bleeding from every pore – for surely pores she must have had, what with all the sticking sweat that covered her. There was not a single place in all her skin, she thought, that was not rent open by cruel Lumarian fangs. All these many slits and gashes wept red over the pale, dead grass, till it seemed that she was lying upon the remnants of some ancient battle, which the earth had somehow forgotten to swallow into its massive bosom.

The pain was very great, but she thought that perhaps she may have fallen asleep, in the time between her last struggling view of the dark and clouded sky, and the touch of a cool hand upon her fevered brow.

She undertook, then, the very earnest office of opening her eyes. When she had succeeded, and found herself looking into the face of this newly arrived companion, there was no method by which she could have eloquently explained (even to herself) the particular feelings which were engendered in her now-beating heart, merely at the sight of that face. It was different, now, from any occasion upon which she had ever had the privilege of viewing it before. She recollected, too, the many changes it had undergone since the days of its original invidious composition; but still there had been nothing like this. Nothing like
this,
which seemed so very like . . .

But no, surely it could not be. Probably Anna only fancied that she saw this thing, because (without even being wholly aware of it) it was something that she desired so very desperately
to
see. Her mind and heart were weak with the life and heat which had so recently come into them. It was only a kind of lunacy.

“I’ve been looking for you,” said Vaya Eleria. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”

“Have you?” Anna rejoined quietly. She spoke thus quietly, because there was presently no other manner in which she
could
speak. Her very throat was choked, and did faintly gurgle, with blood. Blood still flowed, too, from her wounds, coming very hot, but going cold again as it dripped down her skin, which seemed gradually to be returning to its familiar state of frigidity, under the influence of the chill wind which buffeted to and fro.

This same wind that made her shiver so, shook also the tops of the wild wooden flowers, till it looked almost as if they would uproot themselves from the very soil, and fall like priceless and ancient dominoes all round the empty earth. And then, they would
cease to be what they had always been: sage but silent guardians of a world which had come to feel that they were no longer needed.