‘Halt!’ Ari cried.

Badd or Bador complied at once.

~Now you show your true colours.~

Testing her, huh? So be it. Well, it was too late for Claribel’s regrets.

‘Boy,’ she said, making her entrance out of the carriage all-the-more pretentious by a flourish of her ta-daa hands, ‘there is no need to sell your Ma for school fees. Let me take care of your time at the Academy, and your Ma shall be cremated, as that is what the Fated One desires.’

The boy waved the tendrils of earth away and squinted at her.

‘I’m sorry, milady,’ he said, ‘but who’re you? Also, I’m a girl.’

Ari took two steps towards the child.

Now that she could see her up close, there was a certain roundness that… Scrap that. Who was she lying to? Now that she could see her up close, there was still nothing to tell her that the child was a girl. There was no roundness; the girl was scrawny in the way that Ari used to be, scavenging for food, but there was a light in those eyes that reminded her of Natty.

‘I am the one who should be sorry for mistaking you for a boy,’ she said. ‘What’s your name, then?’

The girl’s lips trembled, and the tremor spread to her fingers.

~Stop asking her for her name if you’re going to forget it anyway! That’s not the most important thing right now. You’ve got to feed her. Now. It’s not ideal, but feed her my wind mage medicine. All of them.~

This time, when the girl fell, it was Ari who caught her, not the earth. Ari fumbled, one-handed, with the jewelled tube that held those black balls of herbal medicine as Claribel took over her voice.

‘Badd, sugar. Now. Baddor. Go and buy some flatbread for the child. Now.’

‘At once, my lady!’

A curse indeed, to need more food than most when you could afford less.

Tugging at each ball of medicine, she broke up the paintball-sized sphere, deadly in its own way against a child’s airway, especially when the child was slipping in and out of consciousness.

‘Sugar, my lady.’

Ari nodded a quick thanks to Badd, and ordered, ‘Give me your waterskin.’

A few drops of water on the lump of sugar, enough to make the outside soft. Then she turned the child onto her side and slipped it under her tongue.

Another child, another place.

‘Every year, the number of children who die from malaria is more than twice the number of people who were killed by the two atomic bombs added together. Many of them die from hypoglycaemia, and we can save them. A sublingual administration of sugar is one of the fastest routes to bring their blood glucose level back to normal, especially when you can’t get stomach tube or an intravenous administration of dextrose. Watch. Simple, right? Ari, stay here. Stay here, with us, and help them.’

A gentle hand on Ari’s wrist.

‘I can’t. This is not… what I do.’

She waited, counting Mississippis to keep track of the minutes.

‘They should regain consciousness within ten minutes. If not, repeat.’

It took three minutes and twenty-two for this child’s eyes to flutter open, enough time for Bador to return with enough flatbreads to build a new child, piled into the wheelbarrow of the stripey-aproned woman.

‘I…’

‘Shhh. Take your medicine first. And more sugar. Chew it properly, all right?’

Ari rested three fingers against the child’s bony wrist, waiting for the fluttering heartbeat to slow.

‘Better now?’ she said, wiping the cold sweat from the child’s brows.

She nodded.

‘Bring in the flatbreads. I don’t think she could eat all of them though…’

Bador picked one from the top and beamed at her, as if she’d just praised him to the high heavens, or at least to the top of the flatbread pile. ‘I bought them all with your money, my lady.’

~This is why I prefer to travel with Rin…~

‘Thanks…? Bring ten into the carriage with us. As for the rest…’

~Usually, Cardinal Octavus hands out food for the needy every morning, but it is quite a distance to wheel these in a wheelbarrow, and we are short on time to get to the Court, so your best chance is the Guild.~

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

‘My dear Master Rubric,’ said Claribel, turning to the man at the gate of the Guild of Barbers.

<…You know his name as well?!>

‘I am loathe to ask this favour of you. From one Warden to another, may I please call on the assistance of your Almoner to distribute the rest of the flatbreads?’

‘I’m sure we can manage getting these to the Cardinal,’ said Master Rubric, bowing his head and lowering his voice. ‘And I’m sure that there will be a time when the Guild of Barbers shall call on your assistance. In fact, I believe our Guildmaster has been hoping to speak with you.’

‘That shall be an honour.’ Though Claribel’s inner voice seemed to think upon it with dread instead. To her guards, she ordered, ‘Badd, Bador, bring the child into my carriage.’

‘At once, my lady.’

‘And the mother too,’ Ari added.

‘…The mother?’

‘Yes. The mother. We can’t leave the girl’s mother out here, can we now?’

Ari leapt back into the carriage, making space for the newer occupants. Bador set the child next to her, dusting off her tunic as he did so, while Badd, who’d drawn the short straw, hauled the mother into the seat that Ari waved at, right opposite her, where she’d also moved the box of Malory’s remains.

The dead woman’s body jerked with every bump of the road, bumping knees with Claribel’s body. Ari soaked in bluish lips and purpling fingertips of the deceased, toying with the idea of hypothermia, toying with Claribel’s unease.

~Ugh. I…~ Claribel gagged. ~Why did you have to bring the mother into my carriage as well?!~

~On top of the carthorse, maybe?~

~Ugh… Can’t you just–~

~Oh…~

~I know.~

~It… It wasn’t a test, really. I knew you’d help, but I wasn’t sure if you knew.~

<…Why do you have to…>

...have expectations of her? It made her want to live up to them.

~Sorry.~

~No, don’t, I think… I think I’m getting used to it. At least Mal has company now.~

Claribel forced a weak smile.

‘Thank you, milady,’ said the child, breaking the silence. She stared at her hands as she spoke, as if hearing Claribel’s title had made her suddenly shy. ‘Can I… can I really go to the Academy?’

‘Yes… but they are on their winter break, so not quite literally today. Should I deliver the news to your father?’

‘He died three years ago, in the Battle of Eirene.’

‘I see… Any other family?’

The girl shook her head.

‘So you’re alone now.’ Typical. Feed a girl some sugar, and soon you’d be stuck with her whole tragic backstory. How was she supposed to chuck her out now? When the girl made no response, Ari tried again. ‘I wanted to get your name before. What shall I call you?’

‘Oh. I’m Tilly, milady.’

Tilly. A girl all skin-and-bones-and a too-old-for-her-age glare.

‘And your mother?’

‘My… mother?’

‘She must have loved you very much to want a better life for you as a mage,’ said Ari, trying to imagine a mother’s love.

‘She did…’ Tilly sniffed. ‘Her name was Beatrice, my lady. She was the best Ma in the world.

Beatrice. She’d not forget.

The carriage slowed for once more on their accursed journey, with a thankful ~We’re here!~ from Claribel.

‘Badd, Bador…’

While she could still tell which one was which, Ari nicknamed them Bren and Sten in her head; Badd armed himself with a rapier that stretched from a simple, crescent-shaped cross-guard, so he was the long-reaching light machine gun, the Bren; Bador, on the other hand, carried a gently curved falchion at his side, like the more short-ranged sub-machines, so Sten he was.

~How is that any easier than remembering their actual names?~

~…No…?~

‘Can you accompany the child to…’ Ari double checked with Claribel, ‘…the Apothecary while I attend to the Court of Assistants? Afterwards, take her to a crematorium, then take her home and see that she is settled with Granny Gertrude…’

It seemed apt: a last burst of warmth to a body that died of the cold.

*

A tavern sat around the corner from the Guild of Mages, tucked in between the Guild of Barbers and the Guild of Candlemakers. A wooden sign bearing the likeness of Queen Rosalind, but with a much more generous bosom than the one she’d seen at Malory’s burning, creaked in the wind.

~The Guild doesn’t have its own supply of ale.~

As soon as she stepped inside The Queen’s Arms with Claribel swooping above her, a table of men waved at her, each wearing the same cloak and pin as she did.

‘Here, Master Claribel!’

No one took note of the real Claribel. No Miri to be found here either.

Ari stifled a groan. What was there was nine more names to forget and faces to muddle up. Sir Dagon was right: some of the tops of their heads were radiant indeed.

She slid in next to the man who’d beckoned her and went for the tried and tested words, ‘Sorry, I’m late.’

‘No, no, no need for apologies. You were close to Malory, weren’t you?’ said–

~Master Malote, the Guildmaster.~

…said Master Malote, ‘But today is a new day, and we are still here, so what do we say?’

‘We say, never mind the dead, we’ve got to live for the living,’ said the man next to her with twinkling blue eyes. He slid a pint in front of Claribel and waved at the table crammed with food. ‘Tuck in!’

There were round pies, square pies, pies with rippled edges and pies with latticed crusts, jostling for space next to five different types of breads and three pots of frumenty. Each of them had a lump of oddly shaped dough next to it. From where she was sitting, she was surrounded by pies and breads next to a crude bird shape. Master Malote sat near the foods with a round blob of dough, and at the far end of the table, the pies were topped with wriggly worm-like dough-strings.

~The Queen’s Arms is popular among mages for a reason. You’ll want to eat the ones with the bird. They are tailored to wind mages. That’s why Master Rodber had you sit next to him. Master Malote also eats from these, but Master Cypren is the only other pure wind mage today. Do not eat the foods labelled with the circular signs. They are tailored with spices for a fire mage’s body, and will give us intense stomach pains and make us unable to go to… uh… move our bowels for days. The earth mage’s foods are a little less damaging. We will merely spend a whole day in the garderobe.~

~She is still untrained, and like I said, earth is my secondary aspect. It should do little damage to her body, especially as she is on her way to the apothecarist as we speak.~

Ari double-checked the bird symbol next to the frumenty, even though it was the closest pot to her, and helped herself to a bowl, breathing in the smell of honey, saffron and ginger. Sweeping her gaze over the lounging forms of the other Assistants of this Court, she wondered if the person who’d ended Tristram was lounging now, gloating in their own victory, gloating despite the setback they’d caused her.

‘I’m not actually late today because of Malory,’ she said slowly, studying their faces as she went. ‘Unfortunately, as I was making my way to this Court, I was approached by the Cardinal to identify a body, and it was Tristram.’