Simon Levack - The Demon of the Air

“Why did you save my life, Lily?”

The woman looked as if she was trying to make up her mind about something. She had her eyes fixed on a point somewhere above my head and her toes kept twitching as if she were about to take to her heels. One hand plucked absently at a loose thread on her blouse.

I persisted. “What were you doing at the market? You were sitting next to Curling Mist’s boy, Nimble, at the ball court, but you left early. I followed him into the marketplace but lost him, so I thought I would look for you, or news of you, instead. I got as far as your family’s pitch and was attacked by Curling Mist himself. Now it turns out that you were there too. Why? What are Curling Mist andNimble to you?” It was a longer speech than I had set out to make and the last two words came out in a painful croak.

There was a long silence, and at the end of it a barely audible snap as the thread the woman had been tugging at gave way.

“Curling Mist?” She whispered the name to herself. “I don’t understand. The man you were fighting with was a priest.”

“It’s a disguise. He and the boy were there together. So were you, but why?”

I looked directly into Lily’s face. Her eyes were narrowed, although whether in anger or disquiet or puzzlement I could not tell.

“Is that all you want to know?” she asked quietly.

“Well, no,” I replied. “What I really want to know is …”

What was I doing here? That was what I wanted to ask, but I was not given the chance.

Lily flared. “How dare you question me in my own house! Do you know what I’ve done for you? I had to talk the police out of throwing you in the canal, among the manure boats. I had to pay off the owner of the pitch you demolished. I had to send a runner to tell Constant and a couple of bearers to come and get you. I’ve sat over you for two days and cleaned you up and endured your stench and paid for the best doctor, and what thanks do I get? Who are you, to pry into my business? What were you doing following me around anyway?” She had begun pacing again; now, as though the question had only just occurred to her, she broke her stride, pausing thoughtfully for a moment before rounding on me again.

She bent toward the mat I lay on, put her face close to mine and hissed dangerously: “Tell me why you were looking for me. Tell me now, or I’ll have you thrown out of my house!”

I tried to scuttle away from her like a scorpion retreating into a crack in a wall, but it still hurt too much to move. If I needed a reminder that I was still helpless, that was it.

“I wanted to give you a message,” I said weakly.

“What message?”

“It’s for your son-or for Curling Mist, or his boy. But …”

“You know my son’s not here,” she said coldly, straightening up and moving away. “I told you the first time we met, he’s gone away.”

“I didn’t think he had, though. I thought he and Curling Mist and Nimble were still in touch. I thought you were taking messages betweenthem. Wasn’t that what you and the boy were doing at the ball court?”

“No!” she cried vehemently. “It was not! I mean, who said we were doing anything …” She stumbled to a confused halt.

I waited, listening in silence to her quick, agitated breathing. I was not about to ask any more questions and risk being thrown out into the street.

Eventually she said, in a low, guttural voice: “My son gambles. It isn’t a secret. He has given more of his family’s wealth away to Curling Mist than I care to remember, and there are still debts. They have to be paid, do you understand? Merchants trade on their reputation: we would be ruined if they were not honored. So, yes,” she went on, forcing each word out between clenched teeth, “I did go to see the boy, to pay some of what my son owed his father, but I have never met the father and what I told you about my son is true-I will eat earth!”

Then, keeping her eyes on me the whole time, she slowly knelt down, touched the ground beside her with a fingertip, and solemnly brought the fingertip to her lips.

I tried not to react. I tried not to show my shock at the woman’s impiety, or surprise at the extent of her desperation, because I was convinced she was lying.

“What was the message?”

“Message?” I repeated absently.

“The message you wanted conveyed to my son.”

I hesitated. I was in no fit state to confront a ruthless killer now. On the other hand, I realized that what I had intended to say really did not matter. It was my name that had been found on the body in the canal. It would be enough for Lily just to tell her son or his allies where I was.

Perhaps she would not betray me to them, though. I clung once more to the thought that she had saved me in the marketplace and brought me here and nursed me and done nothing to hurt me when she had ample opportunity. Perhaps the best way to dissuade her from going to my enemies was to tell her what she had demanded to know.

I described all that I had seen and done since the day I had met her son, at the Festival of the Raising of Banners. By the time I had finished my throat was dry and my head was throbbing with the effort of remembering it all, but I got a strange sense of relief at having hadsomeone to tell the story to, even someone I did not trust.

“So my son’s Bathed Slave was a sorcerer,” Lily said wonderingly. “But I don’t understand how Shining Light got hold of him.”

“Neither do I. I wondered if he had got him from Curling Mist, but it could just as well have been the other way round, and either way I can’t see how he fell into their hands.” I studied her for a moment until the pain between my eyes forced them shut. “What was going on between your son and Curling Mist? Was it just gambling, or was there something more?”

She looked at me sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” I replied hastily, alarmed by her tone. “But I know Shining Light had one of the prisoners, and it looks as if Curling Mist and Nimble had another, and they were both treated the same way before they died, and I can’t see why. And my name comes into it somewhere, and I can’t see why that is, either …” I ended on a groan as the pain in my head was starting to make me dizzy.

The woman stood up abruptly. “You need to rest.”

“But …”

“And I have work to do,” she added in a voice that did not invite argument.

As she walked away I remembered something.

“Lily.”

I heard her footsteps falter. “What?”

I looked at her as levelly as I could, through eyes squinting with pain under droopy, puffy lids. She stood with her weight on her left foot and the right slightly raised, a muscle in the ankle twitching as it made up its mind whether to take the next step or not, and looked at me over her shoulder with her eyebrows drawn together and her lips pursed thoughtfully, as if she was trying to anticipate my next words.

“Thank you for saving my life,” I said.

Lily’s work included rousing her aged father, who found it difficult to get up in the morning. Soon after she left me the old man appeared, stumbling into view on the arm of a servant, bearing a sour look and a gourd full of liquid.

“Not against the tree. There’s a knot in the wood, it’s like an arrowhead between my shoulder blades. Put me against the wall, next to the slave, there.”

As soon as the servant was out of sight he pulled the maize cob out of the neck of his gourd and upended it into his mouth, smacking his lips when he was done. When he turned to me the smell of his breath matched his expression.

“You’re still here, then? Well, as my daughter seems to have taken a fancy to you, I’d better make you welcome. Have a drink!”