“He’ll find a suitable Head to take over,” Lynsey said. “And depending on that person, and the number of students remaining, the school will founder or prosper.” She smiled at Rian. “There’s an open day on the twenty-fifth. I’ll send you the information and you can make up your mind away from Evelyn’s naysaying.”
“The way you look now, you’ll be mistaken for a student,” Lyle added to Rian, with a mix of discomfort and fascination.
“Going to school with them would be an excellent way to appal my nieces. I’ll have to give it some thought.”
A crash followed by a solid thump brought all three of her visitors to their feet. Rian rose less hastily, focusing her senses to catch the departure of a half-dozen tiny rivers, and noticed Evelyn also looking toward the grove.
“I’d better check what that was,” she said. “Would you care for a tour?”
As they climbed she explained folies and watching ravens, and was entirely unsurprised to find black feathers in the attic next to a fallen trunk. The Order of the Oak was certainly taking an interest.
But no raven had opened the chests crowded into one half of the attic, or disturbed the piles of clothing she’d been sorting through that morning. Something had managed to creep in here and start searching, before the folies noticed. And there’d been no river.
TWELVE
“We walk on the faces of the dead.”
The South London Orientation and Expeditionary Force blinked up at their navigator, Melly.
“We’re walking on grass,” Griff corrected. “And there’s only skeletons below. No faces.”
“Skulls have faces enough,” Melly said. She raised her bag-laden arms, a stretching, expansive gesture. “I love this place, but no matter what anyone says, we’re walking over people. Rooms of bone and teeth.”
Climbing the last few feet to the top of the rise, Eluned turned to gaze back at the city. London was such a flat place that this must be one of the best views of it, unless they could gain permission to scale one of the three major pyramids that rose higher than any other building. One of those was not too terribly far south, but most of the view was a grand sweep of tile and shingle, the spinning blades of roof-mounted dynamos, and the occasional tips of lesser pyramids.
Turning inward, Eluned could remove the city completely from her view, replacing it with rounded green slopes marked by a tinge of brown thanks to the summer of windstorms. London’s Great Barrows were shaped like three overlapping almonds—a perfect triquetra to symbolise the coming together of the Suleviae as Sulis. The south-west barrow was almost deserted, only a handful of kite flyers ahead.
But Melly’s words made it impossible to see simply a hilly park. Beneath them were halls and pits lined with stone and people: the bones of those who had died, separated by type and neatly stacked. Freed by Arawn’s Tears of all the weight of flesh, bones could not anchor spirits in the living world, or hold them from the Grey Shores of Annwn.
A tight bubble had expanded in Eluned’s chest, and she gripped the handle of the carpet bag she carried. They had said their goodbyes at Caerlleon’s Black Pool, and she no longer felt like she was suffocating every moment of the day, but there were times when the thought that her parents no longer had hands to touch made her want to scream.
“Ar-rrooo!” Griff cried, pretending to be one of Arawn’s hounds and chasing Dama Chelwith’s two grandchildren, Redick and Falwen, toward the intersection of the three barrows.
“How does he have so much energy after all today’s walking?” Melly asked, then added in a lower voice. “Stupid thing for me to say. Sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Eleri said, putting her bags down and wriggling her fingers. “Definitely will come back with kites,” she added, critically surveying two girls as they launched a multi-jointed extravagance.
“Not during one of the windstorms.” Even in an ordinary breeze Nabah needed a firm grip on the trailing section of her sari as they followed the younger three toward the centre of the barrows. “Or you will be donating your kites to Danuin. Do they always offer to employ you, these workshops?”
“Caerlleon ones never did,” Eleri replied. “But they knew Mother and Father were teaching me.”
“You did not seem very much interested.”
“Neither of those are worth my time,” Eleri said. “Maintenance shops. School first, university, then a workshop of my own.”
“Why not a workshop now? Or work to put together the money for one?”
“Mother thought a wide view important. And I like lessons.”
Nabah gave Melly an oddly significant glance, but the taller girl simply looked over her head.
“We’ve all of summer break now, before we have to think of school,” Eluned put in, thoughts on a gate and a ruin and a forest. “Plus the last bit of term,” she added, unrepentant about expulsion.
“There are waiting lists for the better ones,” Nabah warned. “Tollesey only has vacancies in the upper forms if someone leaves.”
“Is that nearby? Do you both go there?”
“I’ve already finished,” Melly said. “And Nabah—” She hesitated. “Nabah might be leaving a vacancy there soon.”
“You’re finishing up? Have you decided not to be a doctor?” Eluned knew that children born in the families of the Daughters of Lakshmi didn’t have to go into medicine, but she was willing to bet that it would feel like deciding not to belong.
“A doctor, yes, of course.” Nabah’s voice held no shadow of doubt. “But the Raya…the Raya of Karnata has rescinded the ban on the Daughters.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Eluned said, sharing a look of surprise with Eleri. When the Karnata Empire’s Raya had forbidden women from practicing medicine and ordered arrests, the Daughters of Lakshmi had fled their homeland, eventually asking for asylum from the Queen of Prytennia. That had been nearly two hundred years ago, and the Daughters had become part of everyday life in Prytennia, particularly in surgical matters where Thoth-den vampires could not always help, or with those who objected to vampire ‘taint’.
“Are you—are all the Daughters going to leave, then?” Eluned asked.
“It’s an individual choice.” Nabah shrugged, though there was a tiny crease between her brows. “I at least can speak the home tongue, although I am told my accent is terrible. This is no easy choice, but…Lakshmi is not here. Our practice might not depend on godly assistance, but Lakshmi is still more than a namesake for the Daughters. In Her name do we offer the riches of health, but our prayers have not brought Her here, so we cannot achieve individual allegiance, and our souls go to Arawn.”
Gods were very territorial. Most of them were not so completely bound by borders as Sulis—else Rome could not have conquered half the world with Jupiter’s lightning—but often travel led to one-sided devotion. Cernunnos was one of the gods who transcended borders. He protected forests all across Europe, and had even been known to answer petitioners in far-flung points around the world.
The two neat punctures by the base of Eluned’s thumb itched, and she tried to think soberly of the consequences of allegiance, but images of Hurlstone took her instead. Yesterday, after sleeping most of the day, she’d had no chance before sunset to do more than check on the mannequin. And she’d looked in again this morning, but only a glance because Eleri was keen to start their tour of workshops, and collect what she needed to create a new arm. It fascinated her how inconsistent the time of day appeared to be in the Otherworld.