Anna Smaill - The Chimes

‘Yes. She made the memory for me to take. She said that only someone from within the Citadel would be able to find it, that it would take a combination of good hearing and memory.’

‘But how did she know about it?’

‘There must have been a rumour. My father was high in the Order. Not a magister but a scholar, someone who travelled for research and to conduct auditions for the Orkestrum. He could have known.’

I think about what Lucien’s mother did. Going against everything she knew, sending a son alone to the city with its dirt and its struggle and without protection from Chimes.

‘My mother’s attendant rode with me to London. It’s only when I left the Citadel that I learnt there was no proofing outside. I tried to understand how the Order could allow it. For a while I tried to find a reason. Maybe they believed memory was unimportant. I knew magisters in the Order who lived inside music alone, whose lives went by without any events worth remembering. Maybe they believed life without memory was better, simpler.

‘But then I saw the other cost, the shaking. The pain. Chimesickness. And I knew that there wasn’t any explanation. The Order saw the Carillon’s toll and did nothing to stop it.

‘Because of the weapon’s soundproofing, it’s very well hidden. I’ve been looking for it since I arrived. A very long while before I caught even a small glimpse. Then I had to start again and again, night after night, approaching always from the same angle. Working out the route that would take me closer.’

‘What about the pact?’ I ask.

‘I needed to eat and I couldn’t get a prentisship, looking like I did. So I started to trade palladium. I got into a fair few fights before I carved out some territory, but my hearing gave me an advantage. So, I began to trade and the pact grew up by itself. First Brennan, then Abel, then you, then Clare.’

I think about Clare joining the pact, but I still don’t have a memory of it. And then I try to fit together the two parts.

‘You recognised the song from what your mother told you?’ I ask.

‘Yes. She told me there was a group who opposed the Order. She thought I would be able to find others who could help me. But I didn’t have any other clues. And just the melody of the song at that, no words. When I heard you sing it whole on the strand, I knew that I needed you to join the pact. I needed your memories.’

I listen to the bare refusing silence of the walls, the breathless dark. Then to Lucien’s presence, his body bending forward in question. It feels like days since my last memory, the codebook and my mother’s explanation. I needed you , is what he said.

‘It’s a guildsong,’ I say. ‘For a guild that tried to keep memory.’

Lucien is still, unmoving, listening.

‘My mother told me about a time before Chimes.’ I feel the bite of the blasphony. The biggest one of them all. ‘Before Chimes they could write down words so that the ideas stayed in formation. That’s what code was. Everyone knew how to write and read in it. But when Chimes came, no one could keep the words still anymore. And at the same time as the words died, birds died too. And memory flew away.’

I look again at the shapes behind my eyes, trying to see if I have it correct.

‘The name of the group is Ravensguild. Gwillum, Huginn, Cedric, Thor, Odin, Hardy, Muninn, they’re all names of ravens. My mother said the guild had spread across the country.’ I think of the word. ‘Like a web, a network. All of them like my mother, people who could see others’ memories. They were trying to preserve memories and also put them together, so that people would understand what had happened. She chose the key ones and took them to someone else.

‘I think she meant they had to preserve memories that would tell the truth about the Order. Because the song isn’t just about time before and time now , is it? It’s about time hereafter. They had a plan for how to make things change. Never ravens in the tree till Muninn can fly home to me . The most important of the ravens is Muninn, which is another way of saying memory. When Muninn comes back, memory returns. In order for them to come back, Chimes must stop.’

The meaning of what I have just said strikes me in the stomach.

‘That’s why it’s not safe to sing in front of the Order,’ says Lucien, wry. I laugh. I have been holding my breath inside myself for who knows how long. The candles flicker.

‘So, they’re afraid of what you know,’ I say, and Lucien nods. ‘And they’re afraid of what you could do. But if you’re such a threat, why didn’t they look for you when you left the Citadel?’

‘According to them, I died. That is what my mother planned. They must have buried something.’

‘Then why are they looking for you now?’

‘I’m not sure. An eightnoch ago I got word that there was danger. We need to act presto. By now Wandle will have reported back — the Order will know our run.’

‘What do you mean, you got word? Your mother contacted you?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘You can answer that,’ he says.

I shake my head. ‘No.’

‘Go on,’ says Lucien. ‘You can.’

Though I want to refuse, the urge to remember is like a hand now at my back, pushing me. It comes smooth and it comes in a line. Yesternoch was the fight with the Wandle runner, Lucien chimesick on the race. Two days back was poliss in the under. Three days before there was the smell of burning incense on the morning air. Four days was a fight among the strandpickers. I cast back further. It begins to come harder. My brain dry like there’s not enough air for it. Our daily rhythms blend together. I look for detail, anything that will keep a day separate.

Five days, there was the member of the Order in the burial grounds at Bow.

Six days back was when Clare asked me about Lucien, and I made the memory of that in my skin.

Seven… ‘Seven was the rabbit stew that Clare made,’ I say. I see the pot hanging from the mettle tripod over the flame and the warm light on Clare’s forehead as she stirs.

‘Eight is…’ I stop. My mind is only blankness, white as seawake. I wait and nothing comes. Eight is nothing.

‘Eight is…’ I say, and I can’t ignore my sense of failure. I see a mirrorsmooth stretch of sand uncovered by the water at low tide, with the patterns of water on it. And I see the clear space of a sky without cloud, opening and blue.

And just as my brain refuses and closes, there’s a jerk from somewhere else, violent and sudden. And a bubble rises from under the seawake, dark, and I can’t stop it. A picture of a white shirt with red on it in streaks.

‘Eight is the dead girl.’

There is silence from Lucien. Only the sound of the two of us breathing. And in the dark where there had been nothing previous, there’s now a picture.

How could I have forgotten it? How hard would it have been to have made a memory? Guilt is a blurry feeling — like forgetting. It makes you want something solid and sharp.

I tell it.

‘We were down in the tunnel near Mill Wall. Abel found a big piece of Pale. You were the only one who hadn’t returned from the run. And when you did come, you were dragging something behind you.

‘She had blood on her clothes,’ I continue. I can’t read Lucien’s expression. It’s strange that what is buried deepest comes up clearest. I can see it all in front of me. ‘They weren’t from the city, the clothes that is. They weren’t roughcloth or wool. They were fine. Linen, I think.’

I pause, keep going. ‘We did our best to clean her up. I washed her face and her hair. We gave her Brennan’s shirt. We waited all day in the under until it was dark and we wouldn’t be seen. Then we put her on a board and pushed her out onto the river.’