THE TAILOR OF PHAN
We rode through the morning skies and the evening sunsets, past the boundary markers for Orison and all the way into the yellow fields of the Duchy of Pulnam. I had to force Monster to stop often enough to keep the horses from running themselves to death, but though we rode for as long and as fast as we could, we never made it to the village of Gaziah or the monastery. The only way to pass Pulnam and get to the beginnings of the Eastern Desert was through the Arch: a fifty-foot gully with massive sheer walls on either side, formed by the wind and sand that blew west from the desert itself.
We stopped to rest in a small village a few miles west of the Arch. Valiana and Aline weren’t trained for hard riding and they were saddle-sore and exhausted. And then there was the matter of their lives being shattered …
When Brasti went to scout ahead, he saw the army arrayed there, waiting for us.
‘I don’t think their scouts saw me,’ he said, ‘but they were already starting to march this way. There’s no way forward, and with the Duke’s men and who knows how many reinforcements from Orison after us, there’s no way back.’
‘Where are we now?’ I asked.
‘The village is called Phan,’ he said. ‘There’s not much here. I asked a boy down the road and he said there’re just a few merchants here, along with the butcher, the smithy and a tailor’s shop, if I heard him right.’
‘Hide, ride or fight?’ Kest asked.
‘Can’t ride, can’t fight,’ Brasti said.
I didn’t have an answer. Something was bothering me.
‘Then we hide,’ said Kest. ‘Can we make do in one of the forests?’
‘Look around,’ Brasti said. ‘It’s mostly fields in Pulnam until you get to the Arch, and the forests they do have are too small. That army looks to have a good five hundred men. They won’t have much trouble smoking us out.’
Aline started crying and Valiana, who hadn’t spoken since Orison, put her arms around her.
‘Then where?’ Kest asked.
‘I suppose we could try to hide here, but I don’t imagine the locals will lie for us when the Duke’s men arrive.’
‘How far behind us are they, do you suppose?’ I asked.
Brasti took a deep breath. ‘Honestly? I don’t think they’re very far. They had better mounts and more of them, and we’ve had to stop far too often to outdistance them by much. The damn wagons could have caught up to us by now.’
‘Doesn’t it seem like an awful lot of work?’ I asked.
‘They want the girl dead,’ Brasti said.
‘They want the scrolls proving Valiana’s lineage, and they already have those.’
‘No, they don’t,’ Valiana said, looking up from where she and Aline were huddled. ‘Feltock made me take them out when we left Rijou. He told me to keep my travelling papers in the packet instead.’
She reached into a pocket in her blouse and pulled out a pair of scrolls marked with Ducal seals.
‘Well, isn’t he a cunning old fox?’ Brasti said, admiration in his voice.
Kest looked at me. ‘It does give us something to bargain with.’
Bargain with the most powerful and canny woman in the world, in front of the army she was commanding? And then what? She kills us, and what’s the difference? Better to just burn the damn papers and see what chaos that brings.
I was tired and sore and more confused than I’d ever been. I walked over to Valiana, who was still hugging Aline.
‘I’m out of ideas and out of hope,’ I said. ‘Just tell me what you want me to do, Valiana, and I’ll do it as best I can.’
‘I’m not Valiana,’ she said. ‘I’m no one and nothing – or if I am something, it’s just what you said in Rijou: a foolish girl who dreamt of sitting on a Queen’s throne without ever thinking about what she would do when she got there.’
I felt a hand on my arm and looked down into Aline’s eyes. She sniffed and then said, ‘We hide, Falcio. We hide, and then we ride, and then we fight.’
I started to pull my arm away but she hung onto it. ‘I don’t think we can win, Aline,’ I said softly.
She took a deep breath and stood up a bit straighter. ‘I know that, but what they’re doing isn’t right. It isn’t fair. And maybe if we fight a little, we can make it a bit more fair. The world should be a more fair place, don’t you think?’
Then I put my hand on her cheek and she gave me a little smile, just for an instant, but I swear with every Saint at my back that in that moment my heart broke and my mind followed, and great wracking sobs filled the air as a thousand hurts arose in my body that I hadn’t felt in so long, from my first bruise to the arrow I took in the leg, and every wound I had forgotten on the long walk to Castle Aramor where I went to kill a King; the sight of my wife’s wasted body on the tavern floor and the sight of the burned mansion in Rijou; the knowledge that I had failed my King to the knowledge that I was about to fail this little girl – all of it came out of me until every wound, every memory, every sorrow was voiced. The tears bled from my eyes until I thought there was nothing left – but there was one thing there. Nothing grand, no great plan or hope.
Just a small thing.
‘Brasti,’ I said softly.
He came over and knelt beside me.
‘What can I do?’ he asked gently.
‘Did you tell me that there was a tailor’s shop in this village?’
*
It was a small village, so it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did to find the little house on the outskirts, but finally we did find it. We stood outside a tiny tailor’s shop, supported on two sides by crooked trees.
‘I don’t get it,’ Brasti said. ‘What good is a tailor going to be?’
Kest answered for me. ‘Have you ever in your entire life heard of a tailor’s shop in a village this size? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Then what do you—? No – you don’t think …?’
A cackling voice broke the silence. ‘Well now, ain’t you just about the sorriest-looking pack of half-dead rabbits I’ve ever seen?’
Though it had been only a few weeks since I’d last seen her, I found the sight of the Tailor strange to behold. She was her usual dishevelled and disreputable-looking self, and yet there was something changed in her bearing.
‘Mattea!’ Aline shouted, and ran two steps towards the Tailor. Then she stopped abruptly, as if she too could tell there was something was different about the old woman.
‘Come on then, girl,’ the Tailor said, one eyebrow raised. ‘I don’t have all day.’
Aline tentatively took a half-step backwards and curtseyed.
‘Hah,’ the Tailor shouted. ‘Did you see that? She curtseyed at me like I’m some fine, high-born lady!’
The Tailor came over, took Aline by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘Nobody bows before a Tailor, do you hear me, girl? Nobody. The Tailor’s much too important for bows and curtsies and pleases and thank-thees and all your other fine claptrap.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Aline said.
‘And we don’t take to no “ma’ms” either.’ Then her gaze softened. ‘Ah, child, there’s no need for this shyness now, is there? I’m still your old nanny Mattea underneath it all, aren’t I?’
‘You’re scaring her,’ Brasti said.
The Tailor rose and her mouth twitched, but then she sighed. ‘Aye, I am at that. I suppose the time for pretend is past.’ The old woman turned. ‘Come, sit down here at the table, all of you. I’ll give you food and drink. We have a little time, though not much.’
She ushered us into the shop and motioned for us to take seats around her large sewing table.
‘How—?’ I asked, my mind struggling to put together how we could all be meeting here, at this place. ‘How is it possible that you’re here? Right here? In a village we had no reason to ever come to?’
The Tailor brought out a plate of cheese and bread and favoured me with that twisted smile of hers. ‘You had every reason to be here, boy. You followed the strands of your life and they led you here, from Paelis’ foolish quest to Tremondi’s death and through that bitch Patriana’s machinations: all of it pulled you here, and a good Tailor knows where every thread leads.’
Then she grabbed the collar of Kest’s coat roughly. ‘And what in the name of every hells-bound Saint have you been doing with my coats?’ she demanded. ‘Take those damned things off and get in here.’
‘There’s a small army down the road,’ I said, ‘and another one coming up behind us.’
‘Quiet, boy. I know where they are, just as I know where you are, where you’ve been and where you’re going. I know where every thread in the coat travels and I’m too old to listen to you tell me your tales at your slow, sorry pace. Now, give me your coats. They ain’t much use to you in the state you’ve got ’em.’
We took off our greatcoats and handed them over to her and she began examining them, talking all the while. ‘Cheveran, eh, Falcio? Bloody piss-rain there, full of Gods knows what mixing with the mill-fumes. Burn holes into your clothes if you’re not careful, but not these coats, not my pretty ones.’
She turned over my coat and then picked up Brasti’s and gave it a sniff. ‘Damn, boy, can’t you take off your clothes before you rut?’
The Tailor didn’t give him time to answer but instead went back to looking at every patch, every stain, every thread of our greatcoats, muttering as she went.
‘Well, that’s it, then,’ she said at last.
‘Can you mend them?’ I asked. I realised I had been hoping as she scrutinised them that she might actually repair a few of the frayed edges of my coat.
She froze then, just for a second, then she looked at me and her face was scrunched up and I thought she was going to sneeze or spasm, but she just burst out laughing. ‘Can I mend them? Can I mend them? Saints alive and dead, Falcio, may all the Gods who never were bless your name and send me a thousand more like you.’
She dropped the coats on the table and clapped her hands together. ‘Here he is, the most completely buggered man in the whole world, with an army on one side of him and an army on t’other, with no way to run, nowhere to hide, no chance at fighting and no idea what he’s fighting for. The fate of the entire world is resting square on his shoulders and there’s not a saviour in sight – and the first thing he asks me is if I can mend his holes in his greatcoat, thank-you-please!’
The others were laughing too, but I didn’t find it nearly as funny.
She kept chuckling and snorting and clapping her hands together. Finally she said, ‘Ah, if for no other reason than this, Falcio val Mond of Pertine, you have the gratitude of a Tailor.’
I wondered if perhaps that came with an army attached to it, but I thought better of asking. Instead, I asked, ‘Can you tell us anything about the other Magisters? Have you seen any of them? Has anyone found the King’s Charoites?’
‘Aye, all of ’em, and aye, one of ’em,’ she said. ‘But I won’t tell you more, and I won’t mend your coat, but I will give you this.’
She went to a cupboard at the back of the shop and brought out a large bundle tied with reeds. She dropped the bundle on the table and pulled the reeds apart and, even after all those years and the hells we’d been through, the sight still took my breath away.
There were greatcoats there on the table, new and perfect, and each one bearing the crests that Brasti’s, Kest’s and mine had borne.
‘How is this possible?’ Kest asked. ‘How could you know we would come here? Tailor, why did you come to this village?’
‘I told you,’ she said. ‘A Tailor must know where every thread starts and where every thread ends up.’
Kest and Brasti picked up their coats, and then I took mine, the last in the pile. Only it wasn’t; there was something underneath. Another greatcoat, a little smaller than ours, made of the same dark brown leather. The inlay on the right breast panel was rich purple: it was a bird, rising from the ashes.
‘You can’t be serious – you can’t think that— Aline? A Greatcoat?’
Aline came forward and examined the coat. She ran her palm along the smooth surface of the leather, then reluctantly pulled it back before shaking her head. ‘It’s not for me,’ she said, and then she pointed at Valiana. ‘It’s for her.’
Valiana stood from her chair and her eyes flitted from the coat to me, and back again. ‘But I don’t— I mean – I don’t know what this means.’
‘What’s your name, girl?’ the Tailor asked.
‘I’ve been called Valiana of Hervor,’ she said, sounding doubtful.
‘No, that ain’t your name. And you know that now, right?’
She nodded, slowly.
‘You hate the Duchess, and that’s fair, but I’ll tell you this: if the old hag hadn’t taken care of your real mamma while you were in the womb, she never would have carried you to term. She was a poor woman, your ma, and not a healthy one at that.’
‘I was never meant to live,’ Valiana whispered.
‘That’s right. You weren’t meant to live then, and you ain’t meant to live now.’
‘What—?’ I began.
‘Now you just shut your fool mouth, Falcio.’ She waved me aside. ‘Truth be told, girl, you ain’t got no place in this world. I know the weave of things, and you ain’t meant for nothing but the blade of a Knight’s sword across your belly. But the world needs a few good shocks now and then, so let’s make the best of it.’
She held out the coat to Valiana. ‘Now, you’re goin’ to need a new name, and you’re goin’ to have to pick it for yourself. In this world people don’t have to make themselves up; they have parents who tell them what their name is, what they believe, what they are – but you don’t have that, so you’re goin’ to have to find it all out yourself. But for a start, you’ve got this.’ The Tailor held open the coat and Valiana slipped her arms in. It fit her as if she’d been born into it.
‘But I can’t be one of— I’m not qualified or trained or …’
‘Says who?’ the Tailor asked. ‘You’ve studied the laws, King’s and Dukes’ alike, haven’t you?’
‘I had to, to prepare for—’
‘And I’ll bet Hervor had you take sword lessons just to make sure her little vixen could be there with you to learn how to stick the pointy end in someone’s back.’
‘Yes, but I was never all that good at it.’
The Tailor chuckled. ‘Well, neither are these three, and they do all right on occasion. Don’t worry, girl. Being a Greatcoat isn’t just about judgin’ and ridin’ and swingin’ a sword, no matter what these fools tell you.’
She straightened the lapel of Valiana’s greatcoat. ‘But that’s for later. For now, you’ve got to take the oath.’
‘What oath?’ Valiana asked.
‘Well now, if it was just as easy as someone telling you what to say, then it wouldn’t be much of an oath, would it?’
Valiana looked around at us. ‘I don’t understand – do you want me to swear fealty to the Greatcoats? Or the King’s memory? Or some Saint?’
‘Is that what you believe in? What you want to die for? Cos, make no mistake, girl, the end of this road is a shallow, dirty ditch with your corpse in it.’
Valiana looked into the Tailor’s eyes for a moment, then looked away. ‘No,’ she said softly, ‘I don’t … disbelieve in those things, but then, I don’t know what it means to believe in anything, really. My life was always about me, and so was everyone else’s life around me, too. I don’t even know what I should care about. I never made a promise to anyone else, except—’
She looked at Aline, who was sitting down on a stool, looking at her hands.
‘—you,’ she said. ‘I promised you I’d protect you, didn’t I?’
Aline nodded and sniffed a little.
Valiana looked to the Tailor. ‘Is that—?’
The Tailor put a hand on her face and then gave her a light, almost affectionate slap. ‘No one can tell you but yourself. That’s what being free means – not the right to do whatever you want, but the right to take a stand and say what you’ll die for.’
Valiana stood motionless for a moment and then knelt before Aline and took her hand. ‘Listen, I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know who I am or how long I have to live. I thought I was the most important girl in the world and now it turns out I’m worth nothing, not even the coat on my back. I’m not innocent – I know that now. Just being ignorant doesn’t mean I’m free of guilt. But you are. You didn’t do anything wrong, and now people are coming to – well, they’re coming to do bad things. And you didn’t do anything wrong. You should have the right to live and figure out who you want to be. I’m not strong, and I don’t know how to use a sword, not really anyway. But I think – I think I can be brave, or I can try, at least. I think that if someone tries to kill you I could … I don’t know, put myself in front of you. I don’t know how well I can fight, or run, or judge, but when the blade comes, I swear on whatever they want me to swear on, I’ll stop it, with my body if nothing else.’
I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t. There was a heaviness in the room as we all stood there and listened to Valiana’s quiet tears.
I don’t know how long we waited like that before Valiana looked around to the Tailor, who nodded at her, just once.
‘Tailor – how—?’ I choked on the words before I could get them out.
‘Shush,’ she replied, her eyes still on the girls.
After a moment Aline took Valiana’s right hand and placed it against her cheek. Somehow I knew she was going to do that … I knew because—
‘No,’ the Tailor said to me, ‘not yet. You’re not ready to understand.’ Then she made the tiniest gesture with her hand, like someone pulling a needle through cloth, and the question was gone.
‘Is that all right?’ Valiana asked. ‘Is that an oath? Did I say it right?’
The Tailor looked at me now. ‘Well, Falcio, do you reckon she said it right?’
‘It’s my oath,’ I said. ‘It’s the same oath I made to the King. And you said it just right.’
‘So is that it, then?’ Kest asked quietly. ‘Are coats and oaths the only things we have left?’ A look passed between him and the Tailor and she walked up and took his hand.
‘You know the answer already, don’t you, boy?’ she asked, tapping a finger on his forehead.
Kest nodded.
‘And you know who’s comin’, don’t you?’ she asked, more gently this time.
‘I do.’
‘So you’ve been trainin’ and practisin’, and now you reckon yourself the best in the world, don’t you?’
‘I have. I am.’
‘And you know it ain’t enough, right?’
I thought I saw the hint of a tear in his eye when I heard him say, ‘I know.’
She patted him on the arm. ‘I’ll say this for you: you’ve tried hard and you’ve learned a lot. But you have too much here,’ she tapped him on the forehead, ‘and too much here,’ she patted his arms, ‘and not enough here.’ She put the tip of her finger on his chest. ‘And now your time is comin’ and you ain’t ready.’
‘How long?’ Kest asked.
‘How long is the thread in my hand?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied.
The Tailor said, ‘Tonight. It’s going to be tonight.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said to her. ‘I don’t understand any of it any more.’
‘You ain’t supposed to,’ she said irritably. ‘Damned Magisters: you always want to know what to do or where to hide or who to kill. This ain’t that any more. There ain’t much time left, and what there is ain’t for judgin’ or ridin’ or fightin’. It’s for livin’, for as long as you have left.’
She walked stiffly over to the door and opened it. She clucked at Monster, waiting outside, and the Fey Horse opened her mouth and growled.
The Tailor ignored the warning and put her hands on the side of the scarred creature’s face. ‘You’ll come with me now, Horse. I’ve got a job for you. You can’t help them right now, much as you might want to. We’re sisters, you and I,’ she said absently, ‘old and broken and scarred and angry. They’ve taken it all away from us.’
She turned back to the rest of us. ‘They’ve taken it all,’ she said. ‘They’ve taken every last good thing in the world.’
Then she swung the door wide. ‘Now go and show them your answer.’