‘Possibly. But is that what you want?’ Childersin held up an admonishing hand as Neverfell opened her mouth to give a hasty yes. ‘No, think carefully before you answer. Aside from the fact that True Wine can be very perilous to those who are not used to it, have you considered the other dangers?
‘If your earliest memories were removed using True Wine, then somebody has gone to considerable trouble and expense to keep a secret. The use of such a luxury suggests somebody at Court, that is to say somebody with power and influence. Thanks to your amnesia, you are no threat to them. If they think you are starting to remember, on the other hand, you will be in a great deal of danger. Your thoughts can be read in your face. Once you can remember the guilty parties, you will not be able to hide it from them.’
‘But somebody’s already trying to kill me!’ Neverfell gave a gabbled account of her near-drowning in the Enquiry cell. ‘So whoever ordered that is probably the same person who wiped my memory, isn’t it? They already want me dead. Wouldn’t it be safer for me to know who they are?’
‘Not necessarily.’ Childersin steepled his fingers and mused. ‘And you should also consider that forgetfulness can be a blessing. I believe there may be dark matters in your past – matters which you may not be happy to remember.’
Neverfell said nothing. Her throat felt tight. Suddenly her mind was full of the image of Zouelle slamming the folding mirror shut.
‘You’re trembling,’ Childersin remarked.
‘Yes.’ Neverfell twisted her hands, but they kept on shaking. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘I do. Do you want to know what I glimpsed in your face just now, for the briefest moment? Rage. I saw the same look flash through your expression this morning when you were filling the bowl with water. You’re shaking because you’re very, very angry.’
‘But I’m not! I’m not angry! Am I?’
‘Hmm. Well, somebody is.’ Childersin retreated into contemplation for a moment, and his next question surprised her. ‘Tell me, Neverfell, do you ever do things without knowing why?’
‘Oh yes – all the time! But . . . that’s just because I’m a bit mad.’
‘Maybe not. Maybe your memories are locked away but not destroyed. Maybe that younger you is still trapped deep inside, remembering everything and just now and then giving you an unexpected nudge in certain directions. I have known such things happen.
‘I suspect that there is another Neverfell caged inside you, and that she is burning with rage. Anger at something she remembers, perhaps. Anger at being locked away for so long. She may even be angry with you.’
Neverfell moved her hands up to her chest, and almost wondered whether she would feel a second heartbeat from a hidden self. The idea frightened her, as if ordinary Neverfell was an egg that might crack open and let out something stronger.
She had lived seven years without knowing about her past. Did she really need her memory, or could she get on quite well without it?
‘I can’t!’ she exploded. ‘I can’t go on like this forever! I feel like I’m running around with a hole in the back of my head, with things falling out or crawling in without warning! If I don’t find out who I am, then I’ll always just be oh-don’t-mind-Neverfell-she’s-a-bit-mad, and nothing will ever make any sense. I have to know, Master Childersin! I want to know.’
‘Good,’ answered Childersin, suddenly crisp and matter-of-fact. ‘I had to point out the risks, but I myself am deeply curious about the secret somebody has been so desperate to hide. Wait here.’
He absented himself for a short time, then returned with a single glass goblet in his hand, a tiny splash of Wine in the base.
‘The most powerful reprise Wine in my cellars,’ he said as he put it into her hand. Neverfell knew that Wines with ‘reprises’ could sting faded memories to life, so that one experienced them afresh. ‘If this cannot force the lock of your caged memories, nothing can. After this, one way or the other, we will know if they are lost to you.’
A rich, strange and entrancing smell tickled at Neverfell’s nostrils. She hesitated a moment, remembering stories of those who drank Wines too strong for them and went mad, or forgot everything except their birthdays. Then she fought down the spasm of fear, dipped her mouth and sipped.
For a while it felt as though she was rising, or the world was dropping way. There was no room, there was no stool. She was suspended above a nothingness as she had been in her cage, but this gulf was full of light instead of darkness. It seemed to her that a torrent of moths surged up and past her, fanning her with their burgundy-coloured wings as they went. The flavours were not flavours; they were ruby and purple lights that coruscated about her.
And then, with a shock like a faller’s impact, she found herself in darkness and being pulled in two. Somebody much larger had an arm around her middle and was trying to drag her away, but she clung to a hand, a hand twice the size of her own. She could not let go, they could not make her let go, she would never let go. The hand was gripping hers too, as tightly as it could. That other hand was everything she had, everything she loved. But there were too many of the dark shapes pulling them apart, and they were too big and too strong. Her fingers slipped from the other grasp, and she heard a scream from the owner of the other hand. The sound tore through her. It was her fault. It was all her fault. She had failed to hold on. Her fingers had weakened.
The scene faded. She was floating in the ruby radiance again, and it gave a dark pulse with each beat of her heart. There was a vast purple voice all around that thundered questions at her, and she tried to answer but could barely hear her own voice.
‘What else?’ The reddish haze was ebbing, and the voice resolving into something more human, less deafening. ‘What else do you remember?’
Neverfell opened her eyes. She was still seated in her chair, the goblet gripped in one shaking hand. Childersin was standing over her, everything in his posture suggesting urgent and intense concentration. Something was tickling her cheek, and when she reached up to brush at it she found it was a tear.
‘Nothing. Just that one memory. Being dragged away from . . . somebody.’ She wracked her brain, but the great locked doors of her memory stared back at her. ‘Nothing else.’ There was a long pause during which Childersin continued to examine her, and then he slowly exhaled.
‘I see.’ Childersin’s voice was calm and kind. ‘Then I am sorry, Neverfell, but the Wine that took your memories must have been too powerful to be removed safely.’
‘But . . . I saw something from the past!’ Neverfell could have wept with disappointment, and this no doubt showed in her face. ‘If we tried again . . .’
‘If we tried a hundred times we would get nothing more,’ responded Childersin pensively, ‘and Wine this strong would destroy your health long before that. No, you glimpsed this memory only because it was particularly powerful, and had left its mark on your mind.
‘If we are to find out about your past, we must try other methods. I have taken you at your word, Neverfell. You say that you wish to know the truth at any cost. So I have a plan to propose. A risky plan.
‘Tomorrow my family will be attending the banquet of the Grand Steward. Now, you were signed over to me as an indentured servant, but the papers also effectively make you my ward. If I can argue that you are an honorary member of my family, then I would be entirely within my rights to bring you to the banquet.’
Neverfell did not know what her face was saying, but she could feel it growing hot and cold in turns.
‘As far as the hoi polloi are concerned,’ continued Childersin, ‘I would be bringing you along as a novelty, an oddity to invite stares. The more astute would be told that you were there to use your fine cheesemaker’s nose to detect anybody trying to use Perfume against me or my family.
‘Only you and I would know why you were really there. Anybody who is anybody will be at that banquet, so you would have a first-rate opportunity to cast your eye over them and see whether any of them stir those lost
memories of yours. And, even if the memories are too deeply buried for you to recognize anybody from your past, it is possible that somebody might recognize you, and give themselves away with their reaction.
‘Do you think you are brave enough for that, Neverfell? I know you are not used to big crowds yet, and the Court has frightened braver men than I. It is not a safe place. One may make a deadly enemy by meeting the wrong gaze, or wearing a tactless shade of purple.’
‘Will I have to get forks right and drink out of goblets made of ice with live fish in?’
Childersin laughed under his breath. ‘Is that a yes?’
Neverfell thought for a moment. ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
‘Very well. I had not planned for you to make your debut so soon, but this is too good an opportunity to miss. However, please remember – this plan is hazardous for more than just yourself. I will be staking the good name and safety of my family on your behaviour, and there is nothing I care about more than my family.
‘You will be at the banquet to see and be seen. Please try not to . . . do anything.’
‘I’ll try, Master Childersin.’
‘Bravo, Neverfell.’
The Stackfalter Sturton was making its Court debut in less than a day, and it seemed that so was she.
Death by Delicacy
When Neverfell woke next day after nine blissful hours of deep sleep, she no longer felt out of clock. Her mind was clearer than it had been for weeks.
Almost immediately, she noticed that the mood of the Childersin house had changed. She could not pin down what had altered or why, but she sensed a bristling tension, and noted the way conversations died when she entered the room.
Zouelle found her quickly, and commandeered her arm.
‘Come on!’ she said firmly. ‘We have a lot to get through and not much time.’ Her smile was charming and rather motherly. Her grip on Neverfell’s arm was fierce as a vice.
Before she knew it, Neverfell was neck-deep in an exhausting crash course in basic etiquette. Her brain cramped in the face of countless people waving what looked like elegant torture instruments in front of her face, whilst slowly and patiently explaining exactly what food each was meant to dissect. Try as she might, she could not tell the difference between the spoon for tadpole pâté and the one for tamarind jam. She was shown two dozen times how to spread her napkin on her lap, and copied the gestures as exactly as she could, but still everybody flinched when she did so and exchanged glances.
The more she focused, the worse her nerves and clumsier her gestures. She was just wondering how everybody else managed to stay so calm when Zouelle gave a wordless noise in her throat, and strode from the room.
‘Zouelle?’ Neverfell pattered after the older girl, and found her leaning against the wall, both hands in fists, showing every sign of controlling herself with difficulty.
‘Do you have any idea,’ Zouelle asked in a tight little voice, ‘how much danger you could put us all in if you get things wrong? Even the tiniest mistake could anger the Grand Steward, or put us at war with another house!’ She closed her eyes and raised trembling hands to her cheeks. ‘Nobody ever goes to one of these banquets without years of training. Some of us have been rehearsing for our first banquet since we were old enough to stand!’
‘I . . . I’m sorry!’ stammered Neverfell. ‘I didn’t know!’ Then the true import of Zouelle’s words sank in. ‘You . . . you mean this is your first banquet too?’
Zouelle’s smile remained perfectly sweet-tempered and encouraging, even as she released a long and bitter sigh through it. ‘It was going to be my debut,’ she murmured. ‘And now . . .’
Now you’ve spoilt everything.
‘I won’t go, then,’ Neverfell answered hastily. ‘I’ll tell Master Childersin I’ve changed my mind – that I’m ill . . .’
‘No!’ Zouelle’s voice was sharp with alarm. ‘If you try to back out after talking to me, he’ll blame me! It’s too late once he’s set his mind on something. And because he’s put me in charge of you, everything you do wrong at the banquet will be my fault as well.’
Uncertainly, Neverfell reached out and squeezed one of Zouelle’s hands. It lay there in her grasp, cool and inert as a bar of soap.
‘I won’t get you in trouble at the banquet – I’ll just copy you all the time. Or sit on my hands and look at people and do nothing. Just like a parrot in a cage. But with no gnawing or squawking. I’ll only do what you tell me, I promise.’
Seconds passed during which Zouelle stared down at their clasped hands, her face as serene as a porcelain angel.
‘All right, then,’ she said at last, sounding calm again, almost bored. ‘As long as you don’t . . . do anything, perhaps I can get you through this. Come on, let’s go back. Forget about the napkin for now. We have so many other things to teach you . . .’
There was a long list of prohibitions. Don’t sneeze, don’t point at anybody with your little finger, don’t scratch your left eyebrow, don’t angle your knife so that it reflects light in somebody’s eyes unless you’re challenging them to a duel . . .
There were briefings on even more alarming issues as well. Neverfell was given a rundown of various strange or innocent-seeming symptoms she might experience, and the poisons that caused them. Her fingers were loaded with rings, each containing a secret cavity with a different antidote.
‘And it’s important that you know what to do if Uncle Maxim gives any of the emergency signals. Remember, we won’t be able to bring any of our retinue and guards into the actual banquet to protect us from assassins. It is terribly bad form to admit to being terrified for one’s life, but nobody in their right mind would go to a Court banquet without making preparations. One must have the right costume, the right Faces, and at least eighty-two ways of avoiding assassination.’
Neverfell looked about her, with the expression of somebody suddenly expecting to be assassinated in eighty-two different ways. The rings were heavy on her fingers.
Everything is really something else in disguise. Of course she was no exception, she reminded herself. Everybody would assume that she was there as the Childersins’ novelty pet, or as a Perfume-detector. Nobody would guess that she was there to look for the person who had stolen her history.
By the time the hour arrived for departure, Neverfell was feeling sick and suffering from second thoughts, and for that matter third, fourth and fifth thoughts. The die was cast, however, and even if she had wanted to flee she did not think the heels on her green satin shoes would have let her. Her green dress was simple, thankfully, and a wreath of silk ivy leaves had been twined in her hair. Zouelle herself had a new smile that she had been learning and saving specially for this banquet. It made Neverfell think of a shimmer of silver, and went well with the blonde girl’s elegant jewellery.
Both had short capes of white fur, but Neverfell found herself shivering nonetheless. As they were walking down the street, Zouelle noticed and slipped a hand into hers. Her grasp was warm and firm, her gaze steady, and Neverfell had no idea what her smile meant.
The flying sedans at the end of the street were beautifully ornamented boxes hanging from ropes with dark shafts above and below them. Muscular-looking men stood by great turnstiles, waiting to haul the sedan up through the ceiling or down through the floor as required.
Childersin dropped coins into waiting hands. ‘Down,’ he instructed. ‘The Lagoon.’
Taking their leave of their servants, the Childersins climbed into the waiting damask-covered sedans. Neverfell obediently seated herself in one next to Zouelle. As the sedan juddered into life, however, and began its rocky descent, she lurched out of her seat again.
‘Neverfell!’
Neverfell could not resist leaning far out of the door, so that she could peer up the shaft, and watch the ropes as they vibrated with the strain. She had just about made out where they fed into pulleys, and how those connected to the surrounding wheels and spindles, when she was pulled back into the sedan by Zo
uelle.
‘Sorry,’ Neverfell whispered apologetically as she dropped into her seat again. ‘I just . . . wanted to see how it worked.’
Zouelle sighed, and mouthed an answer. Don’t. Do. Anything. Remember?
Neverfell hung her head, and kicked her heels for a while. Then the sedan reached their destination, and all other thoughts dropped out of Neverfell’s mind.
The cavern facing them was not high, but it was broader than any Neverfell had ever seen. The lantern-studded ceiling was rugged and rough-hewn, rising here into cathedral-like domes, then dropping into jagged, menacing, downward spikes. At first it looked as though the floor were just as tumultuous, a perilous landscape of spikes and ravines. The next moment a tiny ripple slid across this image, disrupting it, and Neverfell realized that she was looking not at the floor, but at the ceiling reflected in the mirror-smooth surface of a large, dark lagoon.
Neverfell and the other passengers stepped out of the sedan, taking great care not to fall down the shaft that continued to descend below it. On the nearside shore of the lagoon, a company of white gondolas was waiting, white-clad gondoliers standing at their prows, all wearing the same poetically pensive Face.
It took a small convoy of the gondolas to transport the Childersin family. Neverfell could not concentrate on their conversations. Here and there the ceiling dipped almost into the water, and she watched fascinated as the gondoliers sidled their boats through without getting their poles wedged. Once Neverfell thought she heard a splash and saw a small, dark rodent head swimming away from them.
At last the ceiling started to rise, and the cavern opened out. And out, and out, and out. Neverfell dropped her jaw, craned back her head, and stared around at the largest cave she had ever seen.
It was about two hundred feet across and roughly circular, with a high domed ceiling, the uppermost reaches of which were lost in darkness. From the walls tumbled countless tiny, silver waterfalls, which trickled into the waters of the lagoon. In the middle of the cave a broad, low island rose from the waters, and it was towards this that the gondolas were steering. Four great vaulted pillars rose from the edges of this island to the high ceiling, presumably to support it and stop the cavern from caving in.