The Promise of the Child

Part 10 (updated daily)

He walked slowly, weaving through the whispering fruit trees, sometimes craning his neck to look at the spray of cold stars and the green half-moon that had begun to rise over the hills, its light staining them with artificial colour.

Pentas's absence struck him as more loaded a gesture than anything she could have possibly said, and he'd felt the weight of her scorn with each glance at the empty place-setting. He reached the edge of the water – green-tinged waves that bled to black lapping gently at the stones, still warm when he dipped his foot in – and looked up nervously from the sand, knowing before he did so that there would be no one to see. He carried on along the beach with one foot in the water, deliberately going in the opposite direction from where she might be – as if the reverie might subconsciously carry him to her.

Lycaste had contemplated leaving, perhaps returning to Kipris Isle for a year or two, but he could hardly show his face there, either. His eyes moved unseeing across the jungle of indifferent stars, wondering where he could go. There were trade ships docked in the ports of the Tenth Province that might take a wealthy traveller anywhere within the Nostrum – Fouad, Tripol, even past Tunizerres and as far as the Westerly Provinces – but such a journey would be long and likely fraught with danger. Lycaste knew he hadn't the stomach for travel, just as everyone said. After five miles he'd be pining for home, trembling and sick from the sea.

The moon had now risen fully, its dense whorls of cloud shrouding whatever mysterious things went on up there. His feet met grass and he looked up to see that he was back in the orchard, walking slowly through an irregular grove of young trees. He hadn't known love could be so draining, so demanding. The stories he read had never explained what it did to you when it left, how much it stole as it drifted away.

He would have seen Eranthis sooner if her skin had not flushed a bottle-green to match the moonlight, and the resemblance to her sister was just enough to shock his heart into life – the way she carried herself, the angle of her neckline, the exact curve of her bare shoulder. Even before he saw her face.

'Lycaste.'

'Eranthis. I thought you were . . .'

'You were hoping for someone else?'

He resumed walking slowly back to the tower, the sounds of low conversation coming from the lighted doorway. His entire life had been spent surrounded by nudity, people clothed only in the formal colours they assumed when etiquette required. He cared for Eranthis, of course, almost as fondly as you could care for someone who was not family – but the similarities between the sisters were all too noticeable, and he found it hard to look at her now.

'She's confused, Lycaste. She thought she could trust you more than other men.'

He hesitated, turning back. 'Of course she can trust me.'

'Pentas has been through so much. She needs you – just not in that way.' Eranthis came closer in the moonlight, her features, more yellow than red without added colour, were stronger than Pentas's. 'I know you have . . . difficulties, that it's not always easy for you to understand people or feel things for them, and that now you do feel something at last it's not returned in the way you'd like—'

He shook his head. 'That's her business.'

'Give it time. All things heal with time.'

Lycaste looked off to the hills as he contemplated such an empty statement. 'It is hard, for me,' he said at last. 'My parents on Kipris always wanted another son, someone different.' He glanced dejectedly back at her. 'I thought I'd be used to rejection by now.'

'Nonsense.' Eranthis smiled. 'I've never known someone so in demand. Perhaps you should open the door when the bell rings once in a while. Perhaps happiness is waiting on the other side.'

He nodded solemnly, thinking that he just wanted to be home, in bed, anywhere else. Eranthis took his hand and walked him towards the gentle light of the doorway.

'She counts you as her finest friend – can't that be enough for now?'

He smiled and looked away, opening the door for her as he knew a gentleman should. She didn't understand what it was like to be shy, to have one's entire life governed by self-consciousness. In Eranthis's mind there were always others out there for Lycaste, potential suitors just a letter or a smile away. But he knew that was not so. He had found his love, even if she did not want him in return.

Inside the butler birds were drying bowls with sheets of linen, passing them to one another to be stacked. Holcus, Borago and Sonerila were each excellent – and expensive – examples of some pedigree breed Lycaste could never remember the name of, their ancestors no longer present in the world. Where wings had presumably once been, there were now four flightless twig-like arms complemented with a multitude of clawed fingers, their legs long enough for them to reach waist-high to most Tenth people. Lycaste had grown up among creatures like them and he took the birds and the services they provided for granted. They were people, in the accepted sense – along with anything able to converse – and their large grey eyes could appear unsettlingly human in the right light. Briza, Drimys' little boy, treated the birds like aunts and uncles, entirely unconcerned with any differences between their species.

The boy had joined them, and Lycaste watched him carefully as he sat down, anxious in case the child dropped anything. He carefully positioned himself as far from Eranthis as he could.

'Tell him to use a plate if he's going to eat something,' he reminded Drimys, pouring a final digestif and staring morosely into the darkness of the drink.

'It's all right,' said Impatiens, preparing to leave. 'He has a task – we gave him the silver to polish.' He touched the boy's shoulder. 'He has something for you, don't you, Briza?'

Briza smiled shyly and placed a small plastic figure on the table. 'Sorry for touching your dolly house, Lycaste. This is mine – you can have him.'

Lycaste took the figure and examined it. It was a wolf, standing on its hind legs like a man. The plastic was yellowed and sun-faded, but he thought with a lick of paint he could find a place for it somewhere. He glanced back at the boy, trying his best to smile.