Read Online Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Hand
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catch you if you don’t.”
“You can’t, you’re too big—” She laughed, grasping one of the bed’s heavy carven feet and snaking behind it.
“Huh,” I said, prying her fingers loose.
With a shriek she darted from beneath the bed. I caught her before she could flee back into the Clandestine Adytum and hugged her to me, kissing her cheek and inhaling her soft scent, still milky and sweet with childhood. “How long were you there, you little snake?”
She shrugged, flushed with excitement, and straightened her shift. “Not long. An hour—”
“An hour!” I pretended to pull her braids, when from downstairs resounded the harsh strains of the sistrum heralding last worship, and Doctor Foster’s voice intoning the opening verse of “The Magdalena.”
“Come on,” she said, and we ran downstairs.
Only Miramar and Doctor Foster lay prostrate in the fane when we arrived. All of the older children and pathics had gone to a Conciliatory Masque at Saint-Alaban. Since this was Third Day, when Doctor Foster attended to Miramar’s castigations, I knew that if I remained I would have the chance to tell Miramar of my decision to join Roland at the Museum. I waited while Fancy stood on tiptoe to reach the font which held civet and attar of roses, tried not to grin at how earnestly she anointed herself before turning to let me pass. My own anointment was cursory, and I was punished for my sloppiness in spilling unguent down the front of my chasuble. Miramar ignored Fancy and myself as he chanted the long verses of “The Duties of Pleasure.” Doctor Foster sniffed and rolled his eyes as I took my place beside him, trying not to choke on the cloying scent of roses that mingled with the more bitter reek of hemp burning on the altar.
After only a few minutes I heard Fancy’s slow breathing: already sound asleep. How could Miramar and Doctor Foster stay awake through worship, night after night, despite long hours of attendance upon the Magdalene’s affairs and the samovars of sedative tea they consumed between Visits from Curators and other Paphians? I yawned and focused as I always did upon the ancient figure of the Magdalene. Swathed in smoke from the blackened brazier, the pale contours of Her face had been smoothed to an eyeless plane by the impressions of thousands of small hands over the centuries. To stay awake I counted the stars painted upon Her blue robe and wondered how many years it had been since She was made. Hundreds, perhaps. Miramar and Doctor Foster maintained that ours was the oldest of all the Magdalenes upon the Hill Magdalena Ardent. It was brought there from the ruined Shrine in the northeast part of the City, in the first years of the Second Ascension. That was before the ‘rains of roses made a wasteland of the northeast, before the aardmen and hydrapithecenes and other geneslaves drove the Curators and the first Paphians from their homes, to dwell in the Museums and Embassies as we did now. The House Saint-Alaban claimed that its Magdalene was older than ours. It had come from the Cathedral that still stood to the northwest upon Saint-Alaban’s Hill. But the Cathedral was an evil place. The very earth there was poisonous, contaminated by the rains of roses. Only lazars lived in the ruins now, though Doctor Foster said that many janissaries once stood guard over an ancient hoarde of weapons placed near Saint-Alaban’s Hill before the First Ascension.
“Only a Saint-Alaban would want to lay claim to an image from the Engulfed Cathedral,” Miramar would say disdainfully whenever the issue was brought up. “If they are so proud of their ancestry, why don’t they return there to live?” This would anger whatever Saint-Alabans were present, but the rest of us would laugh.
Perched upon a small ridge overlooking the River Gorge, our House commanded a view of two others—Saint-Alaban and Persia. To the south sloped the Hill Magdalena Ardent, shadowing the ornate fastnesses of Illyria and
“You can’t, you’re too big—” She laughed, grasping one of the bed’s heavy carven feet and snaking behind it.
“Huh,” I said, prying her fingers loose.
With a shriek she darted from beneath the bed. I caught her before she could flee back into the Clandestine Adytum and hugged her to me, kissing her cheek and inhaling her soft scent, still milky and sweet with childhood. “How long were you there, you little snake?”
She shrugged, flushed with excitement, and straightened her shift. “Not long. An hour—”
“An hour!” I pretended to pull her braids, when from downstairs resounded the harsh strains of the sistrum heralding last worship, and Doctor Foster’s voice intoning the opening verse of “The Magdalena.”
“Come on,” she said, and we ran downstairs.
Only Miramar and Doctor Foster lay prostrate in the fane when we arrived. All of the older children and pathics had gone to a Conciliatory Masque at Saint-Alaban. Since this was Third Day, when Doctor Foster attended to Miramar’s castigations, I knew that if I remained I would have the chance to tell Miramar of my decision to join Roland at the Museum. I waited while Fancy stood on tiptoe to reach the font which held civet and attar of roses, tried not to grin at how earnestly she anointed herself before turning to let me pass. My own anointment was cursory, and I was punished for my sloppiness in spilling unguent down the front of my chasuble. Miramar ignored Fancy and myself as he chanted the long verses of “The Duties of Pleasure.” Doctor Foster sniffed and rolled his eyes as I took my place beside him, trying not to choke on the cloying scent of roses that mingled with the more bitter reek of hemp burning on the altar.
After only a few minutes I heard Fancy’s slow breathing: already sound asleep. How could Miramar and Doctor Foster stay awake through worship, night after night, despite long hours of attendance upon the Magdalene’s affairs and the samovars of sedative tea they consumed between Visits from Curators and other Paphians? I yawned and focused as I always did upon the ancient figure of the Magdalene. Swathed in smoke from the blackened brazier, the pale contours of Her face had been smoothed to an eyeless plane by the impressions of thousands of small hands over the centuries. To stay awake I counted the stars painted upon Her blue robe and wondered how many years it had been since She was made. Hundreds, perhaps. Miramar and Doctor Foster maintained that ours was the oldest of all the Magdalenes upon the Hill Magdalena Ardent. It was brought there from the ruined Shrine in the northeast part of the City, in the first years of the Second Ascension. That was before the ‘rains of roses made a wasteland of the northeast, before the aardmen and hydrapithecenes and other geneslaves drove the Curators and the first Paphians from their homes, to dwell in the Museums and Embassies as we did now. The House Saint-Alaban claimed that its Magdalene was older than ours. It had come from the Cathedral that still stood to the northwest upon Saint-Alaban’s Hill. But the Cathedral was an evil place. The very earth there was poisonous, contaminated by the rains of roses. Only lazars lived in the ruins now, though Doctor Foster said that many janissaries once stood guard over an ancient hoarde of weapons placed near Saint-Alaban’s Hill before the First Ascension.
“Only a Saint-Alaban would want to lay claim to an image from the Engulfed Cathedral,” Miramar would say disdainfully whenever the issue was brought up. “If they are so proud of their ancestry, why don’t they return there to live?” This would anger whatever Saint-Alabans were present, but the rest of us would laugh.
Perched upon a small ridge overlooking the River Gorge, our House commanded a view of two others—Saint-Alaban and Persia. To the south sloped the Hill Magdalena Ardent, shadowing the ornate fastnesses of Illyria and
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