~ TEMA ~
She dreamed uncertain dreams. In them time seemed to stand still. Fréreves’ grove was twice as cold in the still blue of this twilight, cast in a silence so deep not even the birds dared to break it. Dead leaves fell like feathers from the gnarled hands of ancient trees. They made no sound as they crumbled to dust on the floor.
Why should she listen to Fréreves? What had the Gods ever given to her? She turned all the same, cold dew sliding between her toes with each step. There behind her stood Caroline. Caroline, unblemished by pain or age, an elegant siren hovering before her as if a ghost. A corona of pale light illuminated her.
“Caroline,” said Tema, through lips that didn’t move. “Caroline, I’m sorry. I failed you.”
A lie. There must have been something more she could have done, something she missed. Why had Caroline returned from death just to lie to her?
Tema stood mesmerised in her wake, as Caroline retreated into the shadows of the trees, passing through the cracked statue of Fréreves as though it weren’t even there.
“Stay with me,” she begged. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Caroline turned to her, and spoke with the voice of the goddess.
When at last she woke, hours or days or weeks later, she couldn’t remember where she was. Her head hurt. Her arm hurt. An intravenous tube was still attached at the wrist, and she batted it away without any thought. That hurt even more, and her arm started to bleed.
A nurse came to her. “No, Doctor Caerlin, you have to do it properly,” she chided. “You should know better.” The voice was one she knew well, the face familiar. But the name eluded her.
She squinted. It seemed to make her brain work. “Betsy,” she realised. “Betsy Clanackan.” But Betsy Clanackan was ill, close to death. The sickness had taken her. “Is this death?”
“No, Doctor Caerlin. This is the hospital.”
Once the bleeding was stemmed, Betsy brought her some fruit, and she ate it gratefully. Her stomach had stayed quiet until she began to eat, but now it growled ravenously. It screamed its painful scream until every last morsel was gone. By then, she had a visitor.
Ella Trang came in looking tired. Her hair was tied into a ponytail, and she wore a woollen jumper that she definitely hadn’t had on when she crossed the lockdown line. She wore a triumphant smile. “We did it, Doctor Caerlin. We saved the day.”
“Ella? What do you mean?”
“We saved them all. Everyone got better
Tema couldn’t hear Ella properly. What she was hearing made no sense. “No, no they can’t have done. I only did the blood so you wouldn’t do it. Ella, it was never going to work.”
“But it did, Doctor Caerlin. It did work.”
“You must be mistaken,” said Tema, shaking her head. “It’s impossible.”
“Who cares if it’s is impossible? It worked.” Ella seemed earnest enough. In fact, she seemed positively bouncy. There must have been glue on the soles of her shoes, keeping her from jumping up and down. Her excitement was infectious. Tema found herself starting to believe the impossible too.
Ella had dispensed with her old clothes. She looked elegant today in a knitted plum jumper and white breeches. Tema’d not seen her in that outfit during the quarantine. “That jumper... where did you find it?”
“This? It’s mine. I found it in my bedchamber.”
Tema shook her head. “No, you definitely weren’t wearing that before. It’s pretty. I’d have said something about it.”
Ella frowned. “I put it on this morning.”
“You couldn’t. The lockdown—”
“—finished two days ago. Doctor Maynard lifted it as soon as she could walk again.”
Have I slipped into some parallel timeline? “Doctor Maynard can walk? No, that can’t be the case. She was just about dead. It’ll be a miracle if she even wakes up again.”
Ella shook her head, a grin on her face. “She’s better. Everyone’s better. I said that.”
Tema frowned. “How long have I been asleep?”
“A week, easy. At first we thought you might have caught the disease yourself. You’ve been plugged into anaesthetic ever since. I guess nobody thought to wake you.”
They wanted to forget about me, no doubt. But Janna wouldn’t forget about her, even if everybody else did. Janna was a good egg. “Janna?”
“Gone up to one of the forts on the hills,” Ella explained. “They had an emergency. The quarantine hadn’t been over for a day by then, but Janna went straight off.”
“Someone needs to tell that girl to slow down.” Tema held out an arm. “Can you help me up? I’m not staying here longer than I have to.”
Ella smiled. “Of course.”
She didn’t realise how weak her legs were until she tried to put her weight onto them. Without Ella there to lean on, she might well have fallen. But she wouldn’t sit back on the bed. She had to get on with it. She was the head doctor, after all—and there was surely work to be done.
Emmeline Maynard met her in the washroom. Tema was sweaty and sticky from a week bedridden, so the first order of the day was to clean off the filth. She was towelling herself dry when Maynard entered the room.
“Tema...” Maynard froze in the doorway. Tema froze too, braced for Maynard to moan about her using the facilities. Instead, she smiled. “You saved my life, Tema. I can’t thank you enough.” Before Tema could respond, Maynard moved forward and pulled her into a hug so tight she thought the air might be squeezed from her lungs.
At last, Maynard let her go.
“It’s good to see you walking again, Doctor Maynard.”
“Emmeline, please. And the same to you. When I woke to find out you were sick—” Maynard shook her head. “But what am I doing, rambling on? The sun is bright today. You want to get out there in the fresh air.”
“Later, maybe. I have a job to do.”
Maynard laughed. “Tema, you’re convalescing. The hospital can cope without you for the day.”
“Can it?” Tema’s face was grim. “We’ve lost near fifty staff, including our head doctor. I can rest later.”
Maynard maintained her protest for a little while longer, but Tema was resolute. She hated herself for wasting so much time lying in a bed. If Doctor Staniforth thought she wasn’t up to the task—
She threw on the first set of scrubs she found in her locker and went up to the wards, not even pausing to put make-up on her face. What was the point in it? None of the other girls bothered, really. She was a woman whether she painted her face or not, and she had a job she was running late for.
The shift was a breeze. She was reenergised, and whenever fatigue or boredom suggested at making an appearance, she was buoyed by the sight of a friend she thought to be lost. Every time she went by Betsy Clanackan or Martha Salcombe, she forgot for a wonderful moment that anything had happened. She even convinced herself that she might pass through a doorway and find Lily Day on the other side, all smiles. Maybe even Caroline would be there. Perhaps the whole thing had been a bad dream.
It was busy though, busier than it had ever been before the sickness spread. There were three dozen people spread across the wards, with all manner of breaks and bruisers. “A riot up at the church,” Cherry Aspwell explained. “After that girl got stabbed.” Tema made a note to find out what she’d missed.
Some of the injuries were worse than others. A young cook’s assistant in service to the Sorrells, a cheery girl with a sing-song voice called Sophie, had lost all the sight in her right eye, when it was hit by a missile of some kind. Master Dombric’s wife Leowene had suffered a nasty break to her leg; the leg had become infected, and Doctor Sinclair was of the opinion that it might end up being lost. Others had only bruises or scrapes, nothing that some iodine and a bandage couldn’t fix.
But while Tema had plenty to do, there was no indication that she was specifically needed. Doctor Maynard was right. Things were well in hand.
After what couldn’t have been more than a few hours, satisfied that the hospital wasn’t about to collapse the moment it didn’t detect her presence, she felt the call of the outside world. Lockdown is over. I don’t have to keep myself cooped up in here. But if she left too early, Caro would be cross.
Caro.
There had been no time to mourn. Not while there was work to be done. Caroline had still been living, in her mind, around a corner somewhere in another room. Only by chance had their paths not yet crossed.
But that wasn’t true.
All of a sudden her energy was gone. Everything seemed colder.
She needed to see the sun again.
As she passed through reception, she saw Viola Watling coming in. Both froze. Tema could feel that bitter taste filling her mouth, anger and fear and everything else boiled into one. And beneath all that, hope. Viola might not hate her, not really. It was foolish to hope.
But why not be a fool sometimes?
Viola looked at Tema, and Tema’s breath caught. Then any hardness in Vi’s face melted away. She collapsed into a smile. Her eyes were hopeful, a doe’s, pleading for permission to approach. Tema ought to put up the barriers. Seal her emotions away, and never let Viola close again.
Instead, she nodded. Approach. Bare your heart to me, and let me bare mine.
And then a flash of lilac from Viola’s swaying skirts. The girl dashed across the room, came to a stop in front of Tema. She looked up, sheepish. “Have I been a twat?” she asked, with a grin on her face.
Tema nodded. “The biggest.” She held out her arms.
Viola leapt into them. Tema closed her eyes and let the moment wash over her. When was the last time she’d been properly hugged? Not in all the time she’d been herself, that was for sure. And Mother and Father hadn’t been the hugging type even before they’d decided Tema was an affront to their very values. She was just a small child the last time. Playing with Tasha, she’d fallen and skinned her knee. Maria the maid found her. Goodwife Maria was always her favourite. She’d carried Tema to the house, to the big sitting room in the western gallery, and she’d read a story from one of the dusty old books while Tema cried her eyes out. Goodwife Maria had been such a storyteller. In time, tears and pain were always forgotten, their places in Tema’s mind occupied instead by brave princesses and gallant knights. And after the story, the hug. Maria used to call Tema up onto her lap, folded up in her arms. It was the mother’s cwtch, from the only woman who’d loved Tema as a mother should.
The last time she’d crawled into Goodwife Maria’s arms for a cwtch, Viola hadn’t even been born. The warmth of the hug was a foreign sensation. She’d been out in the cold for so long, she’d forgotten even to shiver.
“Mum expects me to give her grandchildren,” Viola smiled, pulling away from Tema’s embrace. “The whole pregnant thing always skeeved me out, but still... they say your life has to go one way, you expect the plan to happen.”
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“People change,” said Tema. “People don’t follow their scripts. I was supposed to be the lord of some estate somewhere. A shitty estate, granted, with half the windows boarded up, but an estate nonetheless.”
Viola looked at Tema, those doleful brown eyes staring into hers. “What if I made a mistake? What if I don’t like women after all?”
“Then you don’t like women,” Tema shrugged, “and the Darkness can take anybody who hassles you.”
For a second then neither of them said a word. Viola’s arm twitched, as though she were about to move. And then she did. She kissed Tema, a long kiss imbued with passion, their lips pressed together as though she meant for them to stick fast. It seemed to go on forever. When it was done, Viola stood away, breathing heavily.
“I think I like women,” she said. “I like you. Is that okay?”
Tema smiled. “I won’t complain.”
Viola moved from one foot to the other. “Can we maybe have a drink at some point? Together, I mean. We could—”
“You hurt me, you know. You betrayed my trust. I know you were scared, but that didn’t give you the right to tell everyone all about me. That was my secret to spill. You saying sorry doesn’t mean that never happened.”
Viola nodded mutely, her eyes cast downward. “Give me this chance,” she said, pleading softly.
Did she deserve it? She was young, and struggling with herself—did that somehow make her guilt less? Tema almost wanted to be harsh with Viola. But then again, she’d missed having the girl’s friendship.
Fool she might have been, but Tema let her feelings decide for her. “Godsouls, I can’t deny you. Come and see me when your shift’s over, if you still want to. You know where I’ll be.”
A smile flashed on Viola’s face. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Sunlight was a welcome tonic. It was her first time back out in the fresh air, her first proper walk. It felt like she’d been born again. She wasn’t sure where she was heading, but she couldn’t stay indoors. Not any longer. She swung by her chambers, very briefly, to change into fresh clothes. Even staying there for that long was enough to make her antsy. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the hospital. It was confined.
There were some weird looks from people on the street as she crossed from the Eia to the perimeter of the town. It was presumably something to do with the way she held her hands up to receive the sun, but let them give their funny looks. She was happy just to be free.
Before long, she came found herself in the plaza. Everything was normal here—just the way it should be. A couple of red-faced soldiers were making an early start on their drinking, sat outside the Tavern with their hats discarded on the ground. A corpulent man with two layers of chin, each independently growing its own beard, had his hand in the lap of an anxious-looking girl with her face coated in yellow powder. A matron in billowing skirts shepherded a small boy around the edge of the plaza, chiding him whenever he strayed onto the grass.
Tema smiled. If the sickness had left the hospital all these people could have been ill. They could have died. She’d saved them.
“Temmi!”
The screech was too loud for her to ignore. Barbara Flower was sat on a strip of grass, a gentle meandering slope along the north edge of the plaza, in the shade of a marble statuette that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. She hadn’t changed a bit.
Before Tema could get half a dozen steps towards her, she was on her feet and bounding towards her. Babs took a flying leap, pulling Tema into a tight hug as she bowled her to the ground. The whitewashed gravel which had filled the plaza’s perimeter walkway cut pieces out of Tema’s skin as she landed; dribbles of her blood poisoned the clarity of the path. Was it just the light of the sun, or was it a cleaner scarlet than before?
“I missed you,” Babs cooed. “I thought you were dead.”
“I’m still alive, at least as far as I can tell.” She waved the palm of her hand, scraped by the gravel and gently bleeding, so Babs could see. “Dead women don’t bleed.”
Babs raised an eyebrow. “I can think of more than a few serial killers who would disagree with you.”
That had been their thing, in the academy days. Evenings were spent in the depths of the library, filling their heads with the grittiest crimes in the archives. Facts, figures and faces were memorised more easily than any of the things they were supposed to learn. It must have been a strange sight, the gloomy boy and the gauche girl getting drunk together at the back table of the inn and arguing about the most banal details of murders centuries past. Was Tally Vaux a real person, or the identity assumed by a syndicate? Did Henry Allan kill the Calderbridge Three, or was it a copycat? And all those mariners who drowned in their beds, in the fishing towns of Ivyne—could it really have been some supernatural force that filled their lungs with water?
“Remember when we used to write those stupid little shows?” Tema brushed white dust off her clothes and her knees. They’d often meet in Barbara’s dorm room and re-enact their favourite stories, dressing up in costumes and reading from handwritten scripts to an audience of none. Tema always seemed to play the women, even beforetimes.
Bab rolled her eyes. “It was you who did the writing. I was just glad to have a friend.” She looked at Tema for a moment, then reached to hug her again. “I’m happy you’re alive.”
“I’m happy I’m alive.”
They sat and chatted like they had in the carefree days. Hours and minutes became meaningless to them. Bab kept prodding at Tema, begging her to spill every sordid detail of the lockdown. “Don’t leave anything out,” she begged.
“It’s not as exciting as it sounds,” said Tema. “I’d much rather hear about what you’ve been up to. All this sunlight—I bet you had so many adventures.”
“You know I didn’t,” Bab poohed. “Now, spill. There’s not many people who get to live through a lockdown like that, least of all leading one. If you don’t tell me what it’s like, I’ll never get a chance to know.”
“You make it sound like something worth knowing,” said Tema. “It’s an unpleasant story, you know.”
“Weren’t all the stories we used to read together?”
Bab had a point. Tema told the story in bits. It was too painful to dwell on the bitter parts—on Caro. She tried to focus on the happier moments. When she told Bab about Viola, Bab pulled her into the tightest hug. “I’m so proud of my Temmi. She’s finally got the girl.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Babs,” Tema laughed. “All we did was kiss.”
“I’ve never kissed a girl, Temmi. You’re ahead of me.”
“You don’t like girls.”
“Presumptuous,” said Bab. “True, but presumptuous.”
“I’m meeting Vi later. After her shift.”
“Yes, girl,” Bab said, punching the air. “Go get her. I want to be your honourmaiden, when the wedding comes along.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Tema chided. “It might not turn into anything. But yes. You will be.”
Bab beamed. “That’s my Temmi,” she said.
“So you don’t think it’s weird? She’s younger than me.”
“And an adult. A nice girl, to boot. I say go for it.” Bab pinched Tema’s cheek gently, the way she’d always used to when they were youngsters at Raconesta. “Come on, let’s get something to drink. You like starflower tope, right? Áine at the Tavern makes a really good one.”
A drink sounded perfect. Tema grinned, and as they walked she started to tell Bab everything.
The sun was making its tired descent when the conversation started to die. The big topics had been exhausted; now, they were talking about the flowers that grew in the plaza, and the funny birds that wheeled overhead, and everything that didn’t matter.
A man’s shadow fell over them. “Doctor Caerlin?”
Bab’s mouth fell open. “Temmi! It’s the Governor!”
“Piss off,” said Tema, turning to look at the man. And there stood Governor Ballard, exactly as Bab had said, resplendent in a starched jacket, run around by a sash, with a gilt kepi on his head. Beside him was a surly looking soldier, robbed by alopecia of all the hair on his head. A hand shot up to cover her mouth. “Governor. Sorry. About the language.”
Governor Ballard smiled. “I’ve used worse. I’d like to show you something, if you don’t mind.”
“Me?”
“Caroline spoke very highly of you. She wanted me to put you in charge, if anything were to happen to her.”
“In charge?” Tema felt like an idiot, not being able to think of anything to say that was more intelligent than regurgitating bits of what the Governor was saying to her. As Caro’s nominated deputy, she’d filled in as chief doctor in an interim capacity. She held no illusions of keeping the job. When things settled down, she assumed Edith Sinclair would get the gig, or maybe Emmeline. Caroline had said she wanted Tema to take her place, but they’d been doing the job for longer, and they had no skeletons of a masculine past to fuel the bigotry of the masses.
The Governor’s smile vanished. “I’ve had to overrule my wife on this one,” he said. “Someone like you has no place on the hospital floor.”
“What do you mean, ‘someone like her’?” Bab chipped in angrily.
“I’m no different to anybody else,” said Tema. “What, do you think that just because I’m—?”
“A good friend of my wife, and a doctor with considerable experience in the field?” Governor Ballard smiled. “Doctor Caerlin, I have a far more important job for you. If you would.” The Governor motioned her to follow him.
At first she lingered, unsure of what to do. The Governor seemed to have no interest in whether or not she went with him. He was making his own merry way across the plaza grass, without so much as a glance back. The soldier he’d brought with him was less keen to let Tema be.
“The Governor’s asked you to go with him,” he grunted, flexing his muscles as he adjusted the grip of his gun. “I’d remind you that he’s not in the business of being refused.”
“Perhaps he’ll have to learn, then,” said Tema, though she had a growing inclination to go along.
The soldier opened his mouth, showing off yellowed teeth as he traced them with his tongue. “Perhaps.”
“You should go, Temmi,” said Bab. “We can catch up another time.”
“Are you sure?”
Bab nodded. “You don’t want to disappoint the Governor, after all. He might put Staniforth in charge to punish you.”
Tema shuddered. “Don’t even joke. He can do one if he tries it.” She bade Bab goodbye and headed after the Governor, acutely aware of the soldier following on behind.
The Governor led her in silence, meandering through the town. She hadn’t realised just how big this place was. Down every twisting bend, men and women rushed by, going about their business of the day. Cherry Aspwell, in her favourite mulberry gown, waved at Tema from the arms of a handsome boy. An ashen-faced girl with knotted hair and tattered rags fell at Tema’s feet, and apologised profusely when Tema helped her up.
At some point, the soldier stopped following them. He was nowhere to be seen when Tema happened to glance back, a short stretch from Peseltane, and he never rejoined them.
Walking along the south-east path, she thought about Tasha. The last time she’d come this way, she would have preferred to rot in a barrel of overripe apples rather than going to see her sister again. Weeks of isolation could do a lot to change a perspective. Perhaps I’ll pay her a visit when I’m done with the Governor, she thought. It wasn’t as if she had any more pressing engagements. And if nothing else, it would be good to speak to Tash again—if her sister was still set on refusing to acknowledge her womanhood, at least there’d be some finality. Some closure.
Eventually they came upon a gently sloping area at the valley’s southern extremity, where the Governor swung left through a muddy gully and up, emerging atop a cuesta. Two men in plaster-stained overalls were chiselling away at a large block of marble, inside a haphazard workshop of timber that reeked of sweat. Another wheeled a barrow full of dirt down the slope towards them.
Rising high into the sky at the top of the slope, pressed tight against a granite escarpment, was the shell of a mansion, five stories high. Dozens of builders were busy on each level. A bespectacled soldier was stood looking thoroughly bored at an open doorway, his uniform flecked with varnish. He stood suddenly to full alert when he saw them coming.
“Watch where you’re standing, Sergeant,” said the Governor.
“I’ve learned my lesson, sir,” said the soldier, pulling on his stained lapel. “This stuff’s never coming out.”
“Sergeant, this is Tema Caerlin. She’ll be working on a special project here. You’re to give her entry, at any time of night or day, no matter what. I’ll relay the same instructions to the men in your command.”
“Any time. Got it.” The soldier held out his hand for Tema to shake. His hand was slick and sweaty, the fingernails were thick with grime. She wiped the ick away on the skirt of her dress. “Joe Marris,” said the soldier. “But you should probably call me Sergeant Marris.”
The Governor stood just inside the threshold of the house. “Mistress Caerlin. With me, please.”
The inside of the mansion was grand even in its unfinished state. The hall behind the open door spanned all five stories, and Tema had to crane her neck all the way back to see the ceiling. Staircases of granite rose in meandering curves on each level, with banisters of brass and alabaster. The walls were boundless seas of quarried stone, so much stone a mountain must have been levelled to source it all, and an escutcheon plate bearing the image of a blood-brimming dirk hung, three metres across, at the very top. The ceiling itself was vaulted, with several domes rising ever higher the closer they came to the centre. Unpainted as it was, it lacked some of the gravitas the finished thing would undoubtedly possess.
It all must have cost a fair fortune. Being the Governor obviously brought with it some enviable riches.
She didn’t have time to stop and look at everything. The Governor walked with long step through a doorway into a long corridor, and then through several more doors. She was amazed that he seemed to know where he was going. She was already lost.
At last he came to a halt, at the end of a dark, unfurnished corridor. A huge square had been carved out of the back wall. It required a high step to get through, but it was easily big enough for people to pass. “In time there will be a portrait of my wife hanging here,” said the Governor. “For now it’s just a gap. On the other side is your laboratory.”
Tema stepped through. Here, the darkness was near-absolute. She could just about make out a set of stairs going down, carved into the ground. A faint suggestion of blue light was shimmering. She went hesitantly. Every step echoed off walls she could not see. The air was cold here, and colder the further she descended. Some sweet musk filled the place. What, she couldn’t quite tell.
Halfway down, she gasped. The light was coming from a cylindrical tube, grey metal for the most part with a thick window of glass at the front. It was humming gently.
It couldn’t be.
The Governor caught up to her. “It’s a tevion,” he said.
“A tevion?”
“It’s an old word, from a dead language. It means—”
“I know what it means,” she snapped. It meant isolation. In modern times, the word had found a new life as the name of a dark piece of technology. The tevion—the isolation tube—was a wartime dream, reborn as a peacetime nightmare. Filled to the brim with a turquoise substance of uncertain provenance, it could hold a person alive indefinitely, without regard to how ill or how badly injured they were. On paper, it was a perfect invention. If somebody had some incurable disease, they could be preserved within until the cure was found.
But paper wasn’t real life. The person held within an isolation chamber would not die, but they would still age. They would still feel pain. They would remain awake, fully conscious, unable to even move, until they were released from the tevion. If they were released from the tevion. It was torture.
The Unity had banned them more than a century ago. There was only one left in existence, and it had no right being here.
“I need you to save her,” said the Governor. “Don’t let her die.”
Tema didn’t know how to respond. She felt suddenly sick.
The tevion was occupied, and the near-naked form within was unmistakeable. The poor woman looked deceptively peaceful. Her eyes, unseeing, looked out at Tema with no hint of fear. No doubt she was terrified, even if her face didn’t show it. She must have been in agony.
And to think that the Governor would do this... Surely the love he bore for her should have been enough not to subject her to this, but he had. There was no mistaking her. The thick red hair, floating wildly in the liquid, could only belong to Caroline Ballard.