فصل 15

15.

In Which Antain Tells a Lie

The scars from the paper birds never healed. Not properly, anyway.

“They were just paper,” Antain’s mother wailed. “How is it possible that they cut so deep?”

It wasn’t just the cuts. The infections after the cuts were far worse. Not to mention the considerable loss of blood. Antain had lain on the floor for a long time while the madwoman attempted to stop his bleeding with paper—and not very well. The medicines the Sisters gave her made her woozy and weak. She drifted in and out of consciousness. When the guards finally came in to check on him, both he and the madwoman lay in a puddle of so much blood, it took them a moment to find out who, exactly, it belonged to.

“And why,” his mother fumed, “did they not come for you when you cried out? Why did they abandon you?”

No one knew the answer to that one. The Sisters claimed they had no idea. They hadn’t heard him. And later, one look at the whiteness of their faces and their bloodshot eyes led everyone to believe that it was true.

People whispered that Antain had cut himself.

People whispered that his story of the paper birds was just a fantasy. After all, no one found any birds. Just bloody wads of paper on the ground. And, anyway, who had ever heard of an attacking paper bird?

People whispered that a boy like that had no business being an Elder-­in-­Training. And on that point, Antain couldn’t have agreed more. By the time his wounds were healed, he had announced to the Council that he was resigning. Effective immediately. Freed from school, from the Council, and from the constant needling of his mother, Antain became a carpenter. And he was very good at it.

The Council, owing to its members’ profound discomfort whenever they had to look at the deep scars covering the poor boy’s face—not to mention his mother’s insistence—had given the boy a tidy sum of money with which he was able to secure rare woods and fine tools from the traders who did their business via the Road. (And oh! Those scars! And oh! How handsome he used to be! And oh! That lost potential. Such a pity it was. What a great and terrible pity.)

Antain got to work.

Very quickly, as word of his skill and artistry spread on both ends of the Road, Antain made a good enough living to keep his mother and brothers happy and content. He built a separate home for himself—smaller, simpler, and infinitely more humble, but comfortable all the same.

Still. His mother did not approve of his departure from the Council, and told him as much. His brother Rook didn’t understand, either, though his disapproval came much later, after he had been dismissed from the Tower and returned home in shame. (Rook’s note, unlike his brother’s, did not contain the preface, “We had high hopes,” and instead simply said, “This one has disappointed us.” Their mother blamed Antain.)

Antain hardly noticed. He spent his days away from everyone else—working with wood and metal and oil. The itch of sawdust. The slip of the grain under the fingers. The making of something beautiful and whole and real was all he cared about. Months passed. Years. Still his mother fussed at him.

“What kind of person leaves the Council?” she howled one day after she had insisted that he accompany her to the Market. She needled and complained as she perused the different stalls, with their various selections of medicinal and beautifying flowers, as well as Zirin honey and Zirin jam and dried Zirin petals, which could be reconstituted with milk and slathered over the face to prevent wrinkles. Not everyone could afford to shop in the Market; most people bartered with their neighbors to keep their cupboards slightly less bare. And even those who could manage a visit to the Market could not afford the heaps of goods that Antain’s mother piled into her basket. Being the only sister of the Grand Elder had its advantages.

She narrowed her eyes at the dried Zirin petals. She gave the woman standing in the stall a hard look. “How long ago were these harvested? And don’t you dare lie to me!” The flower woman turned pale.

“I cannot say, madam,” she mumbled.

Antain’s mother gave her an imperious look. “If you cannot say, then I shall not pay.” And she moved on to the next stall.

Antain did not comment, and instead let his gaze drift upward to the Tower, running his fingers over the deep gouges and gorges and troughs that marred his face, following the rivers of scars like a map.

“Well,” his mother said as she browsed through bolts of cloth that had been brought from the other end of the Road, “we can only hope that when this ridiculous carpentry enterprise winds itself toward its inevitable end, your Honorable Uncle will take you back—if not as a Council member, then at least as a member of his staff. And then, one day, your little brother’s staff. At least he has the good sense to listen to his mother!”

Antain nodded and grunted and said nothing. He found himself wandering toward the paper vendor’s stall. He hardly ever touched paper anymore. Not if he could help it. Still. These Zirin papers were lovely. He let his fingers drift across the reams and let his mind drift to the rustly sounds of paper wings flying across the face of the mountain and disappearing from sight.

Antain’s mother was wrong about his coming failure, though. The carpentry shop remained a success—not only among the small, moneyed enclave of the Protectorate and the famously tightfisted Traders Association. His carvings and furniture and clever constructions were in high demand on the other side of the Road, as well. Every month the traders arrived with a list of orders, and every month, Antain had to turn some of them away, explaining kindly that he was only one person with two hands, and his time was naturally limited.

On hearing such refusals, the traders offered Antain more and more money for his handiwork.

And as Antain honed his skills and as his eye became clear and cunning and as his designs became more and more clever, so too did his renown increase. Within five years, his name was known in towns he had never heard of, let alone thought to visit. Mayors of far-­off places requested the honor of his company. Antain considered it; of course he did. He had never left the Protectorate. He didn’t know anyone who had, though his family could certainly afford to. But even the thought of doing anything but work and sleep, the occasional book read by the fire, was more than he could manage. Sometimes it felt to him that the world was heavy, that the air, thick with sorrow, draped over his mind and body and vision, like a fog.

Still. Knowing that his handiwork found good homes satisfied Antain to the core. It felt good to be good at something. And when he slept, he was mostly content.

His mother now insisted that she always knew her son would be a great success, and how fortunate, she said again and again, he had been to escape a life of drudgery with those doddering old bores on the Council, and how much better it was to follow your talents and bliss and whatnot, and hadn’t she always said so.

“Yes, mother,” Antain said, suppressing a smile. “You truly always said so.”

And in this way, the years passed: a lonely workshop; solid, beautiful things; customers who praised his work but winced at the sight of his face. It wasn’t a bad life, actually.

Antain’s mother stood in the doorway of the workshop late one morning, her nostrils wrinkling from the sawdust and the sharp smell of Zirin hip oil, which gave the wood its particular sheen. Antain had just finished the final carved details on the headboard of a cradle—a sky full of bright stars. This was not the first time he had made such a cradle, and it was not the first time he had heard the term Star Child, though he did not know what it meant. The people on the other end of the Road were strange. Everyone knew it, though no one had met any.

“You should get an apprentice,” his mother said, eyeing the room. The workshop was well-­organized, well-­appointed, and comfortable. Well, comfortable for some people. Antain, for example, was extremely comfortable there.

“I do not want an apprentice,” Antain said as he rubbed oil into the curve of the wood. The grain shone like gold.

“You would do better business with an extra pair of hands. Your brothers—”

“Are dunces with wood,” Antain replied mildly. And it was true.

“Well,” his mother huffed. “Just think if you—”

“I am doing fine as it is,” Antain said. And that was also true.

“Well then,” his mother said. She shifted her weight from side to side. She adjusted the drape of her cloak. She had more cloaks herself than most extended families had among them. “What about your life, son? Here you are building cradles for other women’s grandchildren, and not my own. How am I supposed to bear the continuing shame of your un-­Councilment without a beautiful grandchild to dandle upon my blessed knee?”

His mother’s voice cracked. There was a time, Antain knew, when he might have been able to stroll through the Market with a girl on his arm. But he had been so shy then, he never dared. In retrospect, Antain knew that it likely wouldn’t have been hard, had he tried. He had seen the sketches and portraits that his mother commissioned back then and knew that, once upon a time, he had been handsome.

No matter. He was good at his work and he loved it. Did he really need anything more?

“I’m sure Rook will marry one day, Mother. And Wynn. And the rest of them. Do not fret. I will make each of my brothers a bureau and a marriage bed and a cradle when the time is right. You’ll have grandchildren hanging from the rafters in no time.”

The mother in the rafters. The child in her arms. And oh! The screaming. Antain shut his eyes tightly and forced the image away.

“I have been talking with some other mothers. They have set a keen eye on the life you’ve built here. They are interested in introducing you to their daughters. Not their prettiest daughters, you understand, but daughters nonetheless.”

Antain sighed, stood, and washed his hands.

“Mother, thank you, but no.” He walked across the room and leaned over to kiss his mother on the cheek. He saw how she flinched when his ruined face got too close. He did his best not to let it hurt.

“But, Antain—”

“And now, I must be going.”

“But where are you going?”

“I have several errands to attend to.” This was a lie. With each lie he told, the next became easier. “I shall be at your house in two days’ time for dinner. I haven’t forgotten.” This was also a lie. He had no intention of eating in his family’s house, and was perfecting several excuses to remove himself from the vicinity at the last moment.

“Perhaps I should come with you,” she said. “Keep you company.” She loved him, in her way. Antain knew that.

“It’s best if I go alone,” Antain said. And he tied his cloak around his shoulders and walked away, leaving his mother behind in the shadows.

Antain kept to the lesser-­used alleys and lanes throughout the Protectorate. Though the day was fair, he pulled his hood well over his forehead to keep his face in shadow. Antain had noticed long ago that his hiding himself made people more comfortable and minimized the staring. Sometimes small children would shyly ask to touch his scars. If their families were nearby, the child would invariably be shooed away by a mortified parent, and the interaction would be over. If not, though, Antain would soberly sit on his haunches and look the child in the eye. If the child did not bolt, he would remove his hood and say, “Go ahead.”

“Does it hurt?” the child would ask.

“Not today,” Antain always said. Another lie. His scars always hurt. Not as much as they did on that first day, or even the first week. But they hurt all the same—the dull ache of something lost.

The touch of those small fingers on his face—tracing the furrows and ridges of the scars—made Antain’s heart constrict, just a little. “Thank you,” Antain would say. And he meant it. Every time.

“Thank you,” the child always replied. And the two would part ways—the child returning to his family, and Antain leaving alone.

His wanderings brought him, as they always did whether he liked it or not, to the base of the Tower. His home, for a short, wondrous time in his youth. And the place where his life changed forever. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tilted his face to the sky.

“Why,” said a voice. “If it isn’t Antain. Back to visit us at last!” The voice was pleasant enough, though there was, Antain realized, a bit of a growl, buried so deeply in the voice that it was difficult to hear.

“Hello, Sister Ignatia,” he said, bowing low. “I am surprised to see you out of your study. Can it be that your wondrous curiosities have finally loosened their grip?”

It was the first time they had exchanged words face-­to-­face since he was injured, years now. Their correspondence had consisted of terse notes, hers likely penned by one of the other sisters and signed by Sister Ignatia. She had never bothered to check on him—not once—since he was injured. He tasted something bitter in his mouth. He swallowed it down to keep himself from grimacing.

“Oh, no,” she said airily. “Curiosity is the curse of the Clever. Or perhaps cleverness is the curse of the Curious. In any case, I am never lacking for either, I’m afraid, which does keep me rather busy. But I do find that tending my herb garden gives me some amount of comfort—” She held up her hand. “Mind you don’t touch any leaves. Or flowers. And maybe not the dirt, either. Not without gloves. Many of these herbs are deadly poisonous. Aren’t they pretty?”

“Quite,” Antain said. But he wasn’t thinking much about the herbs.

“And what brings you here?” Sister Ignatia said, narrowing her eyes as Antain’s gaze drifted back up to the window where the madwoman lived.

Antain sighed. He looked back at Sister Ignatia. Garden dirt caked her work gloves. Sweat and sunshine slicked her face. She had a sated look about her, as if she had just eaten the most wonderful meal in the world and was now quite full. But she couldn’t have. She had been working outside. Antain cleared his throat.

“I wanted to tell you in person that I would not be able to build you the desk you requested for another six months, or perhaps a year,” Antain said. This was a lie. The design was fairly simple, and the wood required was easily obtainable from the managed forest on the western side of the Protectorate.

“Nonsense,” Sister Ignatia said. “Surely you can make some rearrangements. The Sisters are practically family.”

Antain shook his head, let his eyes drift back to the window. He had not really seen the madwoman—not up close anyway—since the bird attack. But he saw her every night in his dreams. Sometimes she was in the rafters. Sometimes she was in her cell. Sometimes she was riding the backs of a flock of paper birds and vanishing into the night.

He gave Sister Ignatia half a smile. “Family?” he said. “Madam, I believe you have met my family.”

Sister Ignatia pretended to wave the comment away, but she pressed her lips together, suppressing a grin.

Antain glanced back at the window. The madwoman stood at the narrow window. Her body was little more than a shadow. He saw her hand reach through the bars, and a bird flutter near, nestling in her palm. The bird was made of paper. He could hear the dry rustle of its wings from where he stood.

Antain shivered.

“What are you looking at?” Sister Ignatia said.

“Nothing,” Antain lied. “I see nothing.”

“My dear boy. Is there something the matter?”

He looked at the ground. “Good luck with the garden.”

“Before you go, Antain. Why don’t you do us a favor, since we cannot entice you to apply your clever hands to the making of beautiful things, no matter how many times we ask?”

“Madam, I—”

“You there!” Sister Ignatia called. Her voice instantly took on a much harsher tone. “Have you finished packing, girl?”

“Yes, Sister,” came a voice inside the garden shed—a clear, bright voice, like a bell. Antain felt his heart ring. That voice, he thought. I remember that voice. He hadn’t heard it since they were in school, all those years ago.

“Excellent.” She turned to Antain, her words honeyed once again. “We have a novice who has opted not to apply herself to an elevated life of study and contemplation, and has decided to reenter the larger world. Foolish thing.”

Antain was shocked. “But,” he faltered. “That never happens!”

“Indeed. It never does. And it will not ever again. I must have been deluded when she first came to us, wanting to enter our Order. I shall be more discerning next time.”

A young woman emerged from the garden shed. She wore a plain shift dress that likely fit her when she first entered the Tower, shortly after her thirteenth birthday, but she had grown taller, and it barely covered her knees. She wore a pair of men’s boots, patched and worn and lopsided, that she must have borrowed from one of the groundskeepers. She smiled, and even her freckles seemed to shine.

“Hello, Antain,” Ethyne said gently. “It has been a long time.”

Antain felt the world tilt under his feet.

Ethyne turned to Sister Ignatia. “We knew one another at school.”

“She never talked to me,” Antain said in a hoarse whisper, tilting his face to the ground. His scars burned. “No girls did.”

Her eyes glittered and her mouth unfurled into a smile. “Is that so? I remember differently.” She looked at him. At his scars. She looked right at him. And she didn’t look away. And she didn’t flinch. Even his mother flinched. His own mother.

“Well,” he said. “To be fair. I didn’t talk to any girls. I still don’t, really. You should hear my mother go on about it.”

Ethyne laughed. Antain thought he might faint.

“Will you please help our little disappointment carry her things? Her brothers have gotten themselves ill and her parents are dead. I would like all evidence of this fiasco removed as quickly as possible.”

If any of this bothered Ethyne, she did not show it. “Thank you, Sister, for everything,” she said, her voice as smooth and sweet as cream. “I am ever so much more than I was when I walked in through that door.”

“And ever so much less than you could have been,” Sister Ignatia snapped. “The youth!” She threw up her hands. “If we cannot bear them, how can they possibly bear themselves?” She turned to Antain. “You will help, won’t you? The girl doesn’t have the decency to show even the tiniest modicum of sorrow for her actions.” The Head Sister’s eyes went black for a moment, as though she was terribly hungry. She squinted and frowned, and the blackness vanished. Perhaps Antain had imagined it. “I cannot tolerate another second in her company.”

“Of course, Sister,” he whispered. Antain swallowed. There seemed to be sand in his mouth. He did his best to recover himself. “I am ever at your service. Always.”

Sister Ignatia turned and stalked away, muttering as she went.

“I would rethink that stance, if I were you,” Ethyne muttered to Antain. He turned, and she gave him another broad smile. “Thank you for helping me. You always were the kindest boy I ever knew. Come. Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible. After all these years, the Sisters still give me the shivers.”

She laid her hand on Antain’s arm and led him to her bundles in the garden shed. Her fingers were calloused and her hands were strong. And Antain felt something flutter in his chest—a shiver at first, and then a powerful lift and beat, like the wings of a bird, flying high over the forest, and skimming the top of the sky.