As Below, So Above
The cage was every bit as horrible as it sounded. Suspended on a thick chain, and operated by a team of four, it was designed to lower between thirty and fifty men at a time down to the underground reserves of the white stone mined for construction in Rhannon. Once, the stone had been closer to the surface, but demand sent the miners deeper into the bowels of Laethea for it, and it was there that Sorrow was to go to see them at work.
The cage wasn’t meant to transport so few people at a time, and it swung precariously when Sorrow entered, forcing her to cling to the bars and the poor bird to go wild in its own cage, flapping its wings until yellow feathers showered the floor. Braith entered and slammed the door shut, frightening the bird again. He gave Sorrow a look as if to tell her to control it, then nodded to the operators. They each took hold of a large bar attached to a wheel, and slowly began to push. As they did, the cage jerkily descended, and Sorrow heard the soldier who was accompanying them whimper above the twittering of the bird. She didn’t blame him. Even Braith looked uneasy, fiddling with the lamp he’d brought, his face watchful as they lowered.
Her treacherous mind turned to Luvian then, imagining him here. His pompadour hair flattened by the helmet, dust on his pristine suit. She could see the way his upper lip would curl, hear the sarcastic quip that would both amuse and infuriate her.
Or was that all part of the persona he’d worn to trick her? she reminded herself, stopping the smile in its tracks. For all she really knew of him, he was like the guard with her, born to a family of miners.
It couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes, but to Sorrow it felt like for ever. She saw the layers of the rocks in the lamplight as they passed, the rainbow of colours in them, saw long-legged insects skittering over the surfaces away from the light, chased by pure white lizards that Braith told her gleefully had no eyes. Finally, the cage hit the ground, and Sorrow stumbled, banging her hip against the side as she tried to keep the bird in her arms. Braith pulled the door back, and all of them left the cage on shaking legs.
He led Sorrow and the soldier down a long tunnel lit at intervals by more lamps. Sorrow had expected it to be damp, but the air was clear, and clean, and the bird seemed happy enough, launching into song. She followed the miner towards the sound of metal against stone, and they entered a medium-sized cavern, where a group of twenty or so miners were busy hacking away at the glowing white rock in the walls. Five large columns of stone had been left, and Sorrow could see where a sixth was being formed by four large men carefully scraping at the rock there instead of hacking.
There were other birds down there too, dotted around in all the corners, and when Braith nodded to an empty one Sorrow carried the small cage over to a wooden crate and left the bird on it, its song mingling with that of the others.
She rejoined Braith and the soldier at a large drum full of pickaxes, taking one when it was offered and following him to a patch of wall where five other men were already working. They turned as one and looked Sorrow up and down. None of them looked impressed, and the largest of the men, towering a good foot over the next tallest, and thrice as wide as him too, went as far as to shake his head.
“Hello, I’m—”
“We know who you are,” the giant of a man said, swinging his axe and loosening a large chunk of white rock, which fell to the ground. He picked it up and dropped it in the metal bin behind them with a decisive clang, before returning and swinging the axe once more. “We don’t care.”
Sorrow waited to see if anyone else would speak, her cheeks heating, but when they didn’t she too began to hack at the rock.
Within five swings she realized she didn’t have the physical strength to keep it up for long. Already her hands felt hot from gripping the wooden handle of the axe, her shoulders beginning to ache. As if he could sense her discomfort, Braith turned to her.
“You can stop, if you like. I mean, this is it. This is what we do. Work for two hours, then a fifteen-minute break. Then back to it. Four cycles per day.”
“I can keep going.” Sorrow swung the axe again and a small chunk fell loose. Pleased, she went to pick it up, but the man who’d dismissed her earlier spoke.
“Too small,” he grunted, his own axe carving out a chunk three times the size of Sorrow’s head, which he hefted easily on to his shoulder, then into the bin.
“How is it too small?”
“No good.”
“Why not?”
The man paused, and wiped a layer of dusty sweat from his brow with a hand the size of a dinner plate. “Because I said not.”
Sorrow met his gaze. “I don’t accept that.” She picked up her small piece of rock and took it to the bin, making sure to meet his eye as she dropped it in. It didn’t make a sound, and her skin burned again as she waited for his response.
The man watched her, and the air between them became taut and brittle. The others around them had stilled, and the soldier moved closer to her, but the giant didn’t pay him any more attention than he would a fly, his stony gaze fixed on her, his expression betraying no hint of his intentions.
Then he shrugged, and the tension vanished as he turned back to his work. Sorrow’s heart was battering her ribs inside her chest, but all she did was take a deep breath and return to her part of the wall. She glanced at Braith and he gave her a brief nod of approval.
“How does the stone become homes and buildings?” Sorrow asked as she attacked the wall again.
“It’s ground down, and mixed with a binding paste, then baked, to form bricks,” Braith said, cutting out a medium-sized rock and carrying it to the bin. “The bricks are used for building.”
“So size doesn’t actually matter,” Sorrow said as she swung again and loosed another small piece.
The giant who’d decided she was his enemy stopped mid-swing, driving the handle of his axe into the ground and leaning on the curved iron top of it. “What do you want, little girl? Why are you really here?”
Sorrow lowered her axe, and mimicked his stance. “Because I don’t see how I can be the chancellor of a country if I don’t know how it works. How it’s built. Who does the building, and the mining. Because I saw the way my father governed, from a palace miles from here, a place he barely left, and I don’t think it was right. In fact, I think everything my father did was wrong. And I think I can do better. To me, that means I have to start from the ground up. No – from beneath the ground up. I have to see what the foundations of Rhannon are built on. So I’m here to learn. You don’t have to like it, but it’s happening anyway.”
She picked up her axe and swung it, carving out a decent-sized rock. Thanking the Graces for her fortune, she went to pick it up, only to find it was too heavy. Swearing under her breath, and aware she had an audience, she tried again, managing to haul it to her knees.
A large pair of hands took it from her, and carried it to the bin.
“Better,” the big man said. “But I think you can still do more.”
Sorrow accepted the challenge.
She sent the soldier back up with Braith when his overtime ended, but she stayed down there for another cycle, working beside the big man. When her arms grew too tired, she fetched water for the men from a table at the back of the room, passing it out and talking to them, asking about their families, their jobs, what they needed, what mattered to them.
A man named Wood lived in a village where they still pumped water from a well; all attempts at building pipes and reservoirs to supply fresh water from the river had been abandoned when Mael died.
Another, Salt, came from a family of celebrated violin makers, but the business had died, along with the family’s fortunes, when Harun had banned music. Salt had become a miner because of it.
Tully Dearcross had watched his young wife bleed out while giving birth when a nurse was too frightened to save her because Cerena’s life had ended thus.
Each story broke Sorrow’s heart a little more, the small and terrible damages that had been inflicted on the people. But each story furthered her resolve to help them. To be the one to do so.
When they stopped for their next break she sat with them and accepted the bread and olives she was offered, spitting the stones into the same bowl on the floor, exhilarated when she finally got one in. It was only when the soldier returned, with a message from Irris saying they really should leave, that she said her goodbyes to a crowd that was much warmer than the one she’d first met, the giant even deigning to shake her hand between his massive ones. Whether that meant they’d vote for her, she wasn’t sure. But they’d started to like her, she knew that. And she’d started to see ways she could help them. If she won.
They arrived back at the manse to three birds from Charon, all of them calling Sorrow reckless and stupid, every word reeking of rage that he’d been disobeyed. He chastised his daughter too, but the girls didn’t care. While Sorrow had been down in the mine, Irris had been charming the mine’s managers, and both of them felt positive for the first time since Sorrow had returned from Rhylla.
“Think we can woo the physician’s guild tomorrow?” Sorrow said as the two girls ate their supper, both tearing meat from bones in their hunger.
“I think you’ll have an honorary medical degree by the end of the day,” Irris replied.
As the days passed, they entered the season of the Gathering Gala, and for the first time in eighteen years Rhannon would celebrate it. From what Sorrow had read, the Gathering was all about preparing for winter, harvesting the fields, readying the home for a change of season, and lighting fires to stave off the darkness. It was a time to put away the year gone by and look forward to the next. For Sorrow, this year, it had a touch of fate to it. A time to start anew.
Sorrow had never paid her respects to the Grace of Hearth and Plenty, nor had she painted a crown of laurels gold and worn it in her hair to mimic the natural turning of the leaves as they died, though she knew all the traditions from her books, and her grandmother (not her grandmother, she reminded herself). There was to be a large party to celebrate it, in Istevar. She, and Mael, were to go as guests.
She read in the morning circular that Mael was planning to host a small, pre-Gathering party of his own, no doubt at Vespus’s insistence.
Sorrow, however, decided not to throw a party. She could have done as Mael had, and invited professors and local leaders to an exclusive event. Instead, she, Irris and their band of soldiers-cum-bodyguards toured Rhannon like a troupe of street players, celebrating the run-up to the harvesting festival with the people.
They never announced where they’d go, not wanting to tip the Sons of Rhannon off or give them time to plan, instead arriving with little fanfare, and never staying more than an hour or two. They darted across Rhannon, deciding where to go the night before: the South Marches one day, the West the next. Then south again to Asha, then skipping over Istevar to go to the far north.
They took every precaution, using unmarked carriages they hired on the day, never staying in a village or town they’d visited, never booking ahead or giving their real names. Sorrow and Irris shared rooms when they stayed overnight in inns, their soldiers sleeping on pallets outside the door, wedging a chair under the handle as an extra precaution. Windows were bolted, sometimes nailed shut, with Sorrow reimbursing the innkeeper the next morning. They kept knives under their pillows and Sorrow went nowhere alone; Irris even checked the bathroom before she used it, remaining outside to periodically ask if she was all right.
They became a well-oiled unit, visiting guilds and unions, farms, hospitals and schools across Rhannon, ignoring the occasional Sons of Rhannon graffiti they saw. The vigilantes didn’t bother them, had fallen curiously quiet since they’d tried to kill her, apparently content with graffiti denouncing the Decorum Ward, and attacks on their buildings, their focus seemingly shifted away from her, and Mael, once more. In the dark moments that still sometimes plagued her she wondered if Luvian was responsible for it. Had he called his friends to heel? And was she supposed to be grateful for it?
She couldn’t help wondering if he was keeping an eye on what she and Irris were doing, following the reports of her passage through Rhannon. And, worst of all, she wondered if he was proud of her. If he approved of what they were doing, if he thought it would help her win. But those thoughts were toxic and she raged at herself when she thought them, tearing through them in her head and throwing herself even harder at the next task, and the next thing to fix.
They sought out small villages that seemed to care very little who their chancellor was, as long as the wretched Decorum Ward would be a thing of the past and they’d largely be left alone. Sorrow promised them they would, and they seemed happy, but again, whether that would translate into votes was anyone’s guess. They’d find out, soon enough.
As well as being the harvest festival, the Gathering traditionally marked the time the chancellor and his family moved back to Istevar from the Summer Palace, and it was on Sorrow’s mind as she and Irris made their way to the Winter Palace, for the final celebration before the election. With a few days before the election, she was keenly aware that it might be the last time she ever went to the Winter Palace. She hadn’t let herself think about what might happen if she lost, and what it might mean. Before she found out she wasn’t a true Ventaxis, she’d assumed she’d continue living in Istevar anyway. But now she didn’t know if she could… She shoved the thoughts aside as they turned on to the road approaching the Winter Palace, and looked out of the window.
Arran Day had written to his sister, mentioning there had been some renovations, but nothing could have prepared Sorrow for the sight of her childhood home brought back to life.
Even from the outside, it looked completely different. The sweeping drive up to the white mansion was manicured, the trees trimmed into uniform sizes, the gravel freshly raked. The palace glowed in the late summer sun, the windows finally uncovered, reflecting the cloudless blue sky above them.
Sorrow was hesitant as she climbed the steps to the front door, where servants now dressed in soft green livery waited with wide smiles. She didn’t know this place.
The staircase that dominated the main hall gleamed, the marble floor free of dust, the banisters polished to a mahogany shine. Everywhere was light, no shadowy corners; even the smell was different. The scent of her childhood home had always been burning oil, and sadness – she realized then sadness had a fragrance: mould, and dust. Neglect. But now it was gone. The palace smelled of lemons, and warm sunlit skin.
Grinning at each other, she and Irris began to explore, but were quickly hustled out of the ballroom, the chandeliers sparkling above them, by servants preparing for the Gathering. The formal dining room was also in a state of siege as staff readied it for the celebration, so instead they wandered into parts of the palace Sorrow hadn’t visited since they were children, hiding away with Rasmus and snatching at tiny moments of joy. The winter breakfast room, made entirely of glass, looking out on to a now immaculately mown lawn. The games room, the green baize tables now uncovered and ready to be used. The ladies’ parlour, where all the furniture had been re-covered in soft, buttery yellow velvet. Last time Sorrow had been in there, Rasmus had dared her to touch one of the old chairs, and the fabric had turned to dust under her fingers.
The piano in the music room played true when she ran her fingers down the keys; even the portraits of her ancestors in the walking gallery looked friendlier. It was as she’d imagined it, as she’d longed for it to be. A living palace.
The only place they didn’t go was to the west wing, partly because it held nothing but miserable thoughts for Sorrow, but also as it was where Charon had informed them Mael would be housed. Both of them were staying overnight following the party.
Her old rooms were transformed too, the holey carpets and furniture replaced with bare floors covered in thick rugs, and new sofas and tables. Her mattress had been replaced too, and she enjoyed a few bounces on it before leaping off and throwing open her bedroom windows legally for the first time in her life.
Below her she could hear the preparations for the gala, and she leant out to watch the people bustling to and fro. A pair of swallows darted back and forth from their nest above her, leading Sorrow to believe they must have chicks in there, even this late in the year.
Because of the election, she had no official role at the Gathering, and was there as a guest only. So she took her time bathing, and choosing an outfit. Traditionally people dressed in the colours of nature, the golds and russets and oranges of the leaves, and Sorrow had chosen a burnt-orange dress in layers of crepe that fell to her ankles, paired with matching slippers.
She looked at the coronet of gold-painted leaves on her bed. Across the land, people would be fitting them to their heads, preparing for their own feasts with their family and friends…
Sorrow had an idea.
She left her rooms, coronet in hand, and ran down to Irris’s door, knocking impatiently.
Irris answered the door, wearing a russet gown and a confused expression. “Yes?”
“I think we should skip the feast, and go into Istevar. I think we should take food with us, as a gift, and go door to door, offering our blessings.”
“Sorrow, you can’t. You’re a guest here. This is the first Gathering in eighteen years.”
“Exactly. A huge thing for everyone. I’m not saying all night, but a couple of hours, during the feast. We’ll come back for the offerings to the Graces, and the party. Come on. One last push before the election. Think of the message it sends, that I left a huge, fancy feast to visit the people…”
Irris shook her head, and sighed. “There’s never a middle ground with you, is there? Either you’re adamant you can’t or won’t do something, or you’re throwing yourself into it as though the world will end if you don’t.”
For a moment Sorrow faltered, before saying, “All part of my charm?”
Irris’s lips twitched as she fought not to grin. “It’s like you want my father to be angry with you.”
“Nonsense. I simply want to be with my people. You go and get the guards. I’ll write a note.”
The palace kitchen servants had cheerfully loaded them up with fruits and pies and cheeses once the girls told them their plans, some even recommending houses to go to, where their friends and family lived. The guards, by now used to Sorrow and Irris’s particular brand of strange requests, escorted the girls down into Istevar proper, not even questioning why they’d been asked to leave a feast to do so.
“Hello, I’m Sorrow Ventaxis, and this is Irris Day,” Sorrow announced when the puzzled-looking citizens opened their doors. “We’ve come to wish you a fruitful Gathering, and offer you a gift, from our hearth to yours.”
She held out the basket, and waited until they took something. Then she bid them farewell and moved on, leaving them standing in their doorways, watching after her.
After ten houses, people started to come out and follow her.
At the twelfth, a small, wizened old man stared at her, then walked back into his house. Sorrow and Irris exchanged puzzled looks, and the guards’ hands casually drifted to their weapons, when he returned with a large lionfruit in his hands. He held the yellow, spiked fruit out to Sorrow, taking a bunch of grapes from the basket.
“Thank you,” Sorrow said, surprised.
“Bless you,” the man replied.
After that, not a single person took without giving something back, and when the guards finally urged the girls to return, warning them they’d miss the ceremony, fifty or so citizens walked behind them, waving and bursting into applause as Sorrow passed through the gates and turned to give a final wave.
“That went well,” she beamed at Irris.
They arrived back in time for the ceremony, still bearing the basket of food they’d been given by the people, joining the procession of people trailing out of the palace and down into the grounds. As they all gathered in the grotto of the Grace of Hearth and Plenty, Charon spotted Sorrow and shot her the darkest look, not even attempting to hide his fury, but she was too happy to care. Happier still when Vespus, standing opposite her with Aphora, gave her a look to rival Charon’s.
Mael, beside him, met her eyes, and his mouth moved as though he might smile, but at the last second he stopped himself and nodded. Something about the gesture sobered Sorrow, and guilt prickled at her. It wasn’t his fault he was in this position, any more than she was to blame for hers. She offered a smile, feeling better when he returned it.
Then Vespus turned his gaze on Mael, and even Sorrow reeled from the venom in it. Vespus didn’t appear to speak, but Mael’s smile dropped at once, and he lowered his head. Sorrow had no time to ask Irris if she’d seen, as Charon moved his chair forward, and the ceremony began.
The Ventaxis family had never been devout, especially not in Sorrow’s lifetime, so this was the first time she’d been to a traditional ceremony in honour of one. The icon of the genderless Grace of Hearth and Plenty was set into the west wall of the palace, guarding both the inside and out. It was the traditional placement for the Grace, and the crowd gathered beneath it, all of them with an offering in hand.
Charon placed a bowl of honey atop a plinth beneath the statue, then touched three fingers to his stomach before moving away. The rest of the Jedenvat followed.
Arran Day had become handsome since she’d last seen him two years ago, tall and statesmanlike, though still with the wicked twinkle to his dark eyes that Sorrow recognized from childhood. He was a full ten years older than her, and had gone away to university the year Rasmus had come to Rhannon. But it seemed he hadn’t changed much, as he passed Sorrow and winked at her, before presenting a bushel of fresh silver fish from the east to the statue, and making the same gesture Charon had.
Tuva Marchant, too, grinned at Sorrow before she laid down her offering of dates and figs from the west, until every councillor had left something that represented their people’s finest produce as an offering. Bayrum Mizil paused to kiss her cheek as he passed with bunches of grapes and a jug of wine. Samad and Balthasar ignored her, but to her surprise Kaspira gave her a curt nod.
Once the Jedenvat were finished, then went the other guests, one by one, adding their offerings to the Grace.
Across the country the scene would be the same – for the first time in eighteen years the temples would be filled with people celebrating the Gathering, thanking the Graces for a plentiful year, and hoping to bribe them into another one to come with gifts and offerings.
“Hello, stranger,” a voice said, and Sorrow turned to find Arran Day had slipped in beside her.
He held out his arms for a hug, and Sorrow stepped into them. “Long time no see. You’ve grown up.”
“People keep saying that as if it’s unusual.”
“You look well,” he said, holding her at arm’s length as he examined her. “Very chancellor-ish.”
“Chancellor-ish isn’t—” she began, only to fall abruptly silent when her heart pitched at the memory of Luvian telling her off for saying “scheme-ish”. He would have loved this, she thought sadly. He would have been in his element.
“Row?” Arran was staring at her. “You OK?”
“Yes. Thank you. Sorry, I’m fine,” she smiled sheepishly.
Arran laughed, and then greeted his sister.
“Father should be worried,” he said. “You’d make a very good vice chancellor.”
“You should be worried,” Irris replied. “I made an excellent senator.”
He laughed again, and then it was Sorrow and Irris’s turn to make their offering. They stepped up together with the basket, touched their fingers to their stomachs, and accepted the glass of summer wine an attendant handed them afterwards.
“So … you two have had quite the tour of Rhannon these past three weeks,” Arran said. “You’ve certainly rattled a lot of cages.”
“Any in particular?” Irris asked, and Arran nodded to his left.
Vespus, Arta Boniface and Mael were standing talking. Or rather, Vespus and Arta were. Mael was silent beside them, staring at his wine, clearly ignoring them both.
“Rumour has it your opponent isn’t thrilled with the counsel he’s been receiving.”
“Really?” It was the first Sorrow had heard of it.
“He blames Vespus for his strained relationship with you, so I’m told.”
Mael looked over then, but when Sorrow smiled he looked at her blankly. Then he turned and walked away, heading towards the palace.
Vespus spoke, loud enough for Sorrow to hear. “Where are you going?”
“Away.”
“Mael…”
But Mael ignored him, leaving Vespus glaring furiously after him.
Sorrow didn’t stop to think. “I’ll be back,” she said, handing her glass to Irris.
“Sorrow…” Irris warned.
“Bathroom,” Sorrow lied.
She weaved her way through the crowd, making excuses when people tried to waylay her, promising she’d find them later.
There was no sign of Mael in the foyer, and she wondered where he’d gone.
A door closed down the passageway and she moved towards it, passing through a reception parlour, and a smaller antechamber, until she reached the door to the library.
She knocked, and heard something inside fall, and footsteps. But no call to enter.
Too bad, she thought, and opened the door.
“Mael?” She stepped into the room, peering around. “Mael?”
A gloved hand closed over her mouth, as another pulled her flush against a body.
“Don’t scream,” Luvian Fen said in her ear.