Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

He came up from a murky dream, the mist of memory thinning into vague uneasy recollection then fading to nothing. Cold. Cold darkness. Carnelian sensed it was not long till sunrise. The shutters were rattling. Sleet volleyed against them like arrows. Perhaps he had dreamed the visitors with their long black ship. His heart beat hard. He did not know which was worse: that they had come or that they might not have come at all. He put his feet onto the floor, fumbled a blanket round him and walked over to the shutters. When he swung them back, the wind ran iced fingers through his hair. Its kissing snow set him trembling. In the morning twilight the waves swayed their sickening surge. The ship was there in the anchorage, black as a hole.

He did not bother to wake Tain. His brother's breathing was fitful. Carnelian had returned to find him sleeping there on a makeshift bed and had not had the heart to send him back to his own room. In truth, he drew some comfort from having him there. He would just have to do without paint.

He hunted around in the half-light. He found an under-robe and slipped into its icy grip. He threw on more layers until he began to feel warm. His gull-feather cloak went over everything. He walked towards the outer door and stopped. 'Gods' blood,' he hissed. He returned for his mask. He had no intention of running into the visitors but it was safer to be cautious. He hitched the cold thing by its straps to his belt and returned to the door.

He should have expected the guardsmen outside. They eyed his cloak. One of them stepped forward. 'You know you're not supposed to leave your room, Carnie, not till the Master sends for you.'

'If there's anything you want we'll go and fetch it,' piped up another.

'Who told you this?'

'Grane,' said the first.

Carnelian glared at the man, who flinched. For a moment he considered putting on his mask and commanding them to let him pass. Grane's granite face appeared in his mind. It was one thing to play the Master in front of the visitors, quite another to do so in front of his people. He nodded and bit his lip. One of the guardsmen sighed the general relief as Carnelian retreated back through the door.

His hand kneaded the door handle. With the arrival of the visitors his life had changed, and not for the better. His father had warned him of the restrictions of life in Osrakum but Carnelian had never expected these to come to the island. All his life he had heard his father say that life in the Hold was very lax. Still, he burned with questions and would have them answered before the conclave.

He considered his options and made up his mind. He strode back to the window and let in the grey sky.

'What are you doing?' a voice said behind him.

Carnelian turned to look at Tain. He was propped up on one elbow squinting past a hand. 'I'm going to find out what's happening. If you could bear it, Tain, I'd appreciate it if you'd hold the fort till I come back. You know, pretend I'm still here.'

'What…?'

Carnelian was not in the mood for long explanations. He climbed into the window space, braced himself against the wind and looked down at the swelling anger of the sea as it foamed and mouthed the rock below. He mastered his fear and peered just below the sill. The ledge was there, slushy, slick with spume.

There was a tugging at his cloak. 'By the horns,' he heard Tain spluttering, 'are you trying to get yourself killed?'

Carnelian craned round. There're guardsmen at the door and this is the only other way.' 'But you'll kill yourself!'

'Rubbish. We've both done this a hundred times.' 'When we were little, Carnie, and even then, never in winter.'

'Let go, Tain,' Carnelian cried and pulled away.

Tain let go, afraid Carnelian might pull so hard he would lose his balance. Tain knew well enough how obstinate his brother could be. 'Yesterday, when he wasn't going out, he needed to be painted,' Tain grumbled. Today, he's prepared to go out on ledges with naked skin.'

Carnelian ignored his brother, stooped down to remove his shoes and tied them to his belt beside the mask. It was better to feel the ledge. He lowered a foot down to it, ground his heel into the slush and bore the stab of cold that went up his leg. The other foot joined the first. He turned to face into the room and walked his fingers over the stone of the wall outside looking for the once familiar handholds. He had to search a bit. The last time he had done this he had needed to stretch for them, now he actually had to bend his arms. Below him the sea was a beast ravening at the cliff. He edged along. His foot slipped, thumping his heart up through his throat. He made a shuffle to the side, another, one more and he had reached the next window. It would not open. Shoving it, he almost pushed himself out into space. He did it again, with more care. The catch gave way and the shutters snapped into the room. He looked back to his own window. Tain's face was there, sick with fear. Carnelian winked at him then disappeared.

Carnelian slipped into the barracks. He had no wish to run into the Masters or any of their guardsmen. He found a balcony that looked down into the Sword Court. A path had been cleared across it through the snow. The training posts with their wooden arms and heads were buried up to then-waists in drifts and looked like miserable old men. Carnelian smiled. There was nobody about.

He skirted the court, avoiding the main corridors. When he reached the final stairway he could hear voices. He listened for a while. When he was sure they were men of his own tyadra, he went down to the alleyway. Its cobbles had recently been scraped clear but were already smearing with new snow. Two of his men were there. One had a brush and a cake of paint that oozed its indigo over his palm and was dribbling it down his arm. The men looked up and saw him.

'What're you doing?' asked Carnelian.

'Making wards, Master.'

'Don't you "Master" me, Poal.'

The man showed gaps in his teeth as he grinned.

Carnelian looked north towards the Holdgate, then south into the Sword Court. The eaves' icicle jaws clamped a leaden sky. There was no sound, no movement save for fluttering snow flecks. He turned to inspect their work. An eye was already painted on the archway. The run of the paint was making it cry. Below this they were daubing a crude chameleon. The first sign warned against any uninvited intrusion: the second removed the restriction for those belonging to the House Suth.

'Where's this being done, Poal?'

'Everywhere, Carnie.'

'Are the strangers wandering around?'

The man shook his head. 'I've not seen any today.'

'Where's Grane?'

They both shrugged.

'Keal?'

'In the kitchens, I think,' said the other man.

Carnelian thanked them, crossed to a door, opened it and slipped into the warm gloom beyond. Somewhere a door slammed. He felt his way down narrow corridors, met no-one and managed to reach the kitchens unseen.

Pungent smells. A steam of air. Enough smoke to sting his eyes. Fires hissed and danced their gleam across walls panelled with platters of precious brass. Endless clatter, clanging and the scolding of the cooks. Stone slab tables stood on either side of the firepit. The centre of each was jammed with condiment boxes and bottles of sauces. Round them people were chopping with flint cleavers, slicing with obsidian knives. Along one wall were the cisterns with their chipped-lipped spouts where dishes were being scrubbed. Cracked flagged floor, tiled walls.

The whole huge room funnelled up blackening into a chimney.

Carnelian wandered into this world with his customary delight. He almost forgot his reason for being there when he saw they were cooking feast dishes. The storerooms had yielded up their treasures. Dried fish wallowed in pools of marinade. Air-mummified birds were being soaked in red, honeyed oil. A boy was binding their feathers into fans for garnish. There were flint-grey shrimp just drawn from their tanks, still trembling their combs of legs. Fruits like wizened jewels were being sorted into their kinds. The seeds and bark of rare spices were being pounded into pastes with garlic and rounds sliced from the segmented giriju roots, whose gnarled golden fingers had to be handled with leather gloves because their juice burned skin. Carnelian insisted on sniffing everything and the cooks indulged him. One of the older women slapped his hand away when he stole an apple. He made a face at her and she waggled her cleaver at him. Everyone laughed. He bit into the fruit, grimaced at its bitterness, and she told him that it served him right.