Page 51 of The Devils

A Miraculous Medicine

‘I’m still alive,’ said Alex, but so doubtfully it was almost a question.

‘It’s true.’ Sunny reached up, and caught a pinch of her cheek, and shook it about with a faint flapping. ‘Far as I can tell.’

They sat huddled together on Sabbas’s carved bench, on Sabbas’s plump cushions, with Sabbas’s gilded cloak, which was surprisingly soft, wrapped around both their shoulders. They sat staring into Sabbas’s fire, and drinking Sabbas’s wine, and Sunny had drunk too much, which was about three sips.

She used to think any wine at all was too much, but she’d had an epiphany the last hour or two, and now considered it a truly miraculous medicine. Your first sip might taste like feet but the more you drank the better it got and now it was summer meadow in a bottle, sunshine for your tongue. Her many hurts had faded to whatevers with a slightly dizzy sense of contentment and a warm love for the world, which might hate her but what the hell. You can’t choose how other people will be, only how you’ll be, and she’d chosen to be a good thing.

At least till tomorrow.

‘I wasn’t stuck with a spear.’ Alex prodded at her stomach as though checking for holes. ‘Or hacked with a sword or shot with an arrow …’

‘Well, I’m delighted for you,’ growled Jakob. ‘Gah!’ as Baptiste dug at the great wound in his chest with her needle and pulled the thread through.

The monastery had held little appeal in the aftermath. Not to anyone but Balthazar, at least, who’d stared into the opened plague pit with the delighted disbelief of an architect seeing their grand cathedral finally realised. So they’d limped and blundered, leaning on one another and nursing their various injuries, from the destroyed church into the destroyed courtyard and through the destroyed graveyard, out into the woods where they’d come upon the camp of Sabbas and his hunters, looking much as the so-called Angel of Troy must’ve left it, complete with tents, horses, provisions, and a very great deal of wine.

Alex waved a bottle of it around now. ‘I wasn’t ridden down, or crushed by falling masonry, or blown off a cliff by a winged man, or dragged into a plague pit by a legion of the dead.’

‘On balance …’ said Sunny, ‘I’m glad.’

‘Think I might’ve survived as well.’ Brother Diaz frowned at the scabbed back of his hand, then turned it over so he could frown at the scabbed palm. ‘However little I deserve it. You could get to thinking … that God must have a purpose for you.’

‘Can’t …’ Jakob’s scarred cheek twitched at each movement of Baptiste’s needle, ‘recommend it.’

‘It’s just a short hop,’ murmured Baptiste, scarred mouth pressed into a hard line as she stitched, ‘to thinking your every whim must be part of his plan.’

‘At which point any outrage is justified,’ said Baron Rikard. ‘As a man who has been justifying outrages for centuries , you can take my word for it.’ He slipped another bottle from the crate and studied it by firelight. ‘I must say, your cousin’s valet kept an excellent cellar.’

‘Shame he fell in the pit, really.’ Alex held her bottle out to the baron. ‘My uncle once told me one can always make more dukes, but a good servant’s a rare treasure.’

‘Most kind, but I already drank my fill.’ He glanced towards Sunny, firelight gleaming in his black eyes, on his white teeth. ‘A most intoxicating vintage.’

Sunny nervously cleared her throat, and drew Sabbas’s cloak tighter against the cold, and Alex offered her the bottle instead.

Their fingers brushed as she took it, and there was a strange heat there, and Alex caught her eye, and there was a strange heat there, too, and Sunny right off looked away, and sipped from the bottle, and slooshed it around her mouth, and swallowed it, and breathed it in, and her head filled with its fruity vapours.

‘Aren’t you worried they’ll come back?’ Alex was asking, glancing at the good gear abandoned in the camp.

‘The ones who went into the pit?’ Balthazar peered up at the stars. ‘I am not.’

‘I meant the ones who got away.’

‘After they saw those others go into the pit?’ Jakob winced down at the ground. ‘I am not.’

Alex’s turn to pull the cloak tighter, and her shoulder rubbed up against Sunny’s shoulder, a comfortable rubbing that made her want to rub back, like a cat rubs at things, and purrs. Sunny might’ve purred, a little bit.

‘First time I haven’t been cold in weeks,’ she murmured.

‘First time I haven’t been terrified in weeks,’ said Brother Diaz.

‘First time I haven’t been in pain in weeks,’ said Balthazar.

‘Well, I’m delighted for you,’ muttered Jakob as Baptiste pulled the last knot tight and trimmed the thread with a dagger.

‘Turn around, then.’ She licked a new length and started twisting it through the needle. ‘I’ll do the back.’

‘God damn it.’ Jakob puffed out his cheeks, then stiffly clambered up, gripping his bandaged leg, and with a groan turned around, firelight catching the even larger spear-wound in his back.

‘So what next?’ asked Alex.

‘A little more of this,’ said Brother Diaz, grinning at his bottle, ‘then bed.’

‘I meant in general.’

‘Well,’ grunted Jakob, ‘thanks to your winged cousin—’

‘Such a generous soul!’ observed Baron Rikard, raising his arms to take in the camp.

‘—we have horses, we have supplies, we have money—’

‘And a very nice cloak,’ said Sunny, pressing her bruised cheek against it.

‘And wine!’ Brother Diaz thrust his bottle in the air and a bit of wine slopped from the neck and spattered on the ground. ‘Lots of wine.’

‘Isn’t temperance among the Twelve Virtues?’ asked Balthazar.

‘Down near the bottom, though. And who’s got all twelve?’

‘I can’t even name all twelve,’ said Sunny. Though everyone said she had no soul to save, so it didn’t make much difference whether she sinned or not. Probably she should be sinning more.

‘We head for the coast,’ said Jakob, grimly soldiering on, as usual. ‘Make for a port. Not one of the busiest—’

‘Kavala, maybe?’ muttered Baptiste.

‘Kavala is lovely this time of year,’ said the baron.

‘—and then ship—’

‘One that stays afloat this time,’ grunted Balthazar.

‘—to Troy.’

‘And then what?’ Alex blinked at the fire. ‘You drop me off at the gates?’

‘Well …’ Brother Diaz gave the strong impression he was considering that question for the first time. ‘Assuming Duke Michael made it back to the Holy City, and assuming he recovered from his wounds, and assuming Cardinal Zizka secured him passage, it’s entirely possible … that he’s in Troy already?’

Alex was far from reassured. ‘That’s a lot of assuming.’

‘He could be with his friend, what was her name?’

‘Lady Severa?’ muttered Alex.

‘Exactly! Preparing for your arrival!’ Brother Diaz waved his bottle again. ‘Maybe cheering crowds will await us! Isn’t hope the foremost of the Twelve Virtues? The one from which … all others flow?’

‘Maybe.’ Alex looked less reassured than ever. ‘Can’t say it’s ever done much for me—’

‘D’you hear that?’ Sunny glanced towards the bushes, only to see them shake and rustle. Jakob twisted around, groaning as he pulled free of Baptiste’s needle, and clutched for his sword, only managing to knock it over. Brother Diaz lifted his bottle as if he’d throw it, Sunny heaved in a breath to disappear but burped halfway through and ended up just sheepishly drawing the cloak to her chin.

A huge figure loomed from the shadows and lurched bow-legged into the light. A figure swathed in a coarse and filthy blanket. A blanket now pulled back to reveal a mass of black hair tangled with mud, leaves, twigs, and a strong-featured face marked here and there with tattooed warnings.

‘Vigga!’ Sunny barked out a laugh. ‘You’re back!’

Vigga narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve got wine?’ And she plucked the half-full bottle from Sunny’s hand. ‘Last time you had wine you lost your dignity.’

‘I’m fine. Look how fine I am.’ Sunny threw up a hand, but forgot it was under the cloak, and got it a bit tangled up. ‘What’s the point of dignity anyway? Can you hug it when you’re lonely?’

‘You cannot.’ Vigga upended the bottle and started to swallow, throat working. Sunny wasn’t sure if she’d grabbed for Alex’s hand in the excitement, or if Alex had grabbed for hers, but she realised they were holding hands now, under a dead angel’s cloak, and didn’t want to let go.

‘Wait.’ Vigga paused to look around the fire. At Jakob, stripped to the waist, Baptiste, with needle and thread, Balthazar, bottle in hand, and finally, with some disgust, at Baron Rikard. ‘Were these lot here when I left?’

‘We charged in.’ Jakob, who’d finally fumbled up his sword, now tossed it back down. ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’

‘Well, I’m glad you did,’ said Alex. ‘What about the Dane? You kill him?’

Vigga sucked the bottle dry and slung it into the bushes from which she’d come. ‘I did not.’

‘Huh.’ Balthazar raised his brows. ‘Most unlike you, to not kill someone.’

‘We rutted ,’ said Vigga proudly, and she plucked Balthazar’s bottle from his hand and took a long pull, then burped, and wiped her mouth. ‘Like beasts of the forest. It was one for the songs.’

Baron Rikard sighed. ‘Which songs are they?’

‘The full moon and all.’ Vigga waved vaguely towards the sky. ‘Couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to.’

‘One imagines you did not.’

‘Almost wish I had.’ Vigga perched herself gingerly on a log, grimaced, turned herself one way, then the other. ‘Feel like I’ve fucked the bell tower of Saint Stephen’s.’

Baptiste slightly narrowed her eyes. ‘An image to lodge in the mind.’

‘Gave as good as I got, though!’

‘Who’d doubt it?’

‘He’ll be limping back to fucking Denmark to stick his cock in a glacier.’

Baptiste winced. ‘And another.’

‘You would’ve been proud, Jakob!’

The old knight thought about that a moment. ‘Would I?’

‘What became o’ that tit Sabbas?’

‘He had wings,’ said Alex, staring into the fire.

Vigga froze with her bottle halfway to her mouth. ‘Ah. Hence the cloak. Likely hard to find anything that fits.’ And she primly adjusted her filthy blanket around her shoulders. ‘I know the feeling. Could he fly, then?’

‘Not well enough to avoid being dragged into a plague pit by a legion of the long dead.’

Vigga thoughtfully nodded. ‘Huh.’ And she raised her bottle to Balthazar, and he gave a little nod in return, like two professional competitors recognising the quality of one another’s work.

‘God damn it!’ hissed Jakob, twisting in his chair as Baptiste dug at his back again.

‘You should have some of this.’ Vigga held her bottle up to the light. ‘There’s no such thing as bad wine, but this is good wine. It’ll dull the pain.’

‘He doesn’t want the pain dulled,’ said Sunny. ‘He loves the pain.’

‘I swore …’ grumbled Jakob, gripping his stool with his knotty-knuckled fingers, ‘an oath of temperance.’

Vigga raised her brows. ‘Life’s too short to commit to things for ever.’

‘ Your life’s too short?’ Jakob snorted. ‘Well, I am fucking delighted for you – gah!’

‘So what did you lot get up to?’ asked Vigga.

‘Usual stuff,’ said Baptiste as she pinched Jakob’s wound closed and pushed the needle through again. ‘Spot of grave robbing, briefly jailed by an old friend, attended some peace talks. Balthazar summoned a Duke of Hell …’ She snipped the last bit of thread free with her dagger and sat back. ‘Then another last stand, earthquakes, winged arsehole, plague pit. You’re done.’

‘Thanks,’ grunted Jakob, pulling on a fresh shirt. It must’ve belonged to Sabbas, involved a lot of golden thread about the collar and cuffs, and made him look like a wealthy widower determined to throw himself back onto the marriage market.

‘Is every one of your missions …’ Alex waved vaguely at everything and nothing, ‘like this?’

Baron Rikard looked happily towards the night sky. ‘The missions assigned to the Chapel of the Holy Expediency are like the members of its congregation – each awful in its own special way.’

‘It could be a lot worse,’ said Sunny. Everyone looked over at her, and she wondered whether she might be drunk. ‘I mean … we’re all alive, and back together.’

‘Hallelujah,’ grumbled Balthazar, whose delight at his own necromantic achievement had not lasted even one day. ‘We remain stuck in the middle of nowhere, in the cause of the world’s least likely Empress, no offence …’

‘Entirely fair,’ said Alex.

‘… at the behest of a ten-year-old Pontiff,’ and he waved towards Brother Diaz, ‘under the command of the Celestial Palace’s least effective monk—’

‘Don’t talk to him like that!’ snarled Vigga. ‘He’s a good man! An honest man, and a brave man, and an excellent lover! Surprisingly bold and assertive—’

‘Wait …’ Balthazar’s look of surprise turned to one of confusion. ‘What?’

‘Oh.’ Vigga blinked. ‘Shit.’

‘Really?’ Jakob of Thorn pressed the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. ‘Again?’

‘When …’ Balthazar glanced from the monk to the werewolf and back, ‘where … how …?’

Brother Diaz looked pained. ‘Could we … talk about something else?’

‘You spend years illuminating manuscripts,’ said Baptiste, working off one boot, ‘and singing hymns, and tending the monastery gardens, but all anyone wants to talk about is the one time you fucked a werewolf.’

‘Three times,’ said Vigga, ‘in fact.’

‘Once could be considered a mishap,’ said Baron Rikard, in a sermonising tone, ‘but three times begins to look like deliberate sin!’

‘How can even once be a mishap?’ asked Sunny, confused.

‘Cardinal Zizka, I must confess,’ sang Baptiste as she pulled off her other boot and leaned back, wriggling her bare toes at the fire, ‘that I slipped while praying, my habit caught upon a stray nail, and my prick, engorged as it always is while filled with the love of our Lord, accidentally went up a lycanthrope’s twat.’

‘I have heard it all.’ Balthazar stared off wide-eyed into the darkened forest. ‘The universe holds no mysteries for me any longer.’

‘Fine!’ shouted Brother Diaz. ‘The road to redemption begins with confession.’ He took a swig from his bottle, eyes closed, and then blurted out, ‘It was four times!’

Vigga squinted up at the sky, then her eyes went wide. ‘Ah! You’re right!’

‘The heart wants what the heart wants,’ said Baron Rikard.

‘As does the twat,’ said Sunny, ‘apparently.’

‘And I have no regrets!’ shouted Brother Diaz. She’d heard that when you’re drunk, it can be hard to tell whether other people are drunk, but she was reasonably sure the monk was drunk. ‘How about that ? Vigga’s an excellent lover.’ And he offered her his bottle. ‘Surprisingly tender and sensitive.’

‘Doubt the Dane would agree on that score.’ Vigga modestly flicked her twig-filled hair back as she plucked the bottle from Brother Diaz’s hand and raised it to him in a toast. ‘But I have my moments.’

‘ Now I have heard it all,’ murmured Balthazar, looking from Vigga back to Brother Diaz with an expression almost of wonder. ‘How can I be both disappointed and impressed, and with both of you at once?’

‘It’s a wonderful thing …’ Jakob rubbed gently at his chest, where a spotting of blood was already marking his shirt. ‘That a man can live as long as I have, and see the things I’ve seen …’ He wasn’t exactly smiling into the fire but, for once, he wasn’t exactly frowning, either. ‘And still the world can surprise him.’

‘It’s a bitter place!’ Sunny lurched up, feeling she had something very important to say. ‘And we must grasp …’ was a bit difficult to organise her thoughts with her face so hot and the world drifting around so much ‘… at any joy we can.’ She shut her eyes, but that was even worse, so she opened them again, and raised one hand high. ‘So I would like to make a toast— ’

And on the word toast she burped and was suddenly sick all down herself.

‘You may have toasted too much,’ said Vigga.

‘Oh.’ Sunny straightened up, her legs all wobbly, and wiped her wet chin. ‘Did I lose my dignity?’

‘Some of it,’ said Baptiste.

Jakob stared off into the darkness. ‘But what’s the point of dignity anyway?’

‘Here.’ Sunny felt her arm lifted and Alex’s head slipped under her armpit, which seemed a good place for it. She was held up, and helped along, which was a very good idea since each of Sunny’s legs wanted to wobble off in a different direction.

It was dark in Sabbas’s tent, which was almost as gaudy as his cloak. Just the glow of the fire through the canvas, and the gleam of gilt here and there, including the big bedframe that was fit for an Empress indeed and was probably the finest Sunny would ever lie on. Not that there was much competition. When she’d been with the circus she’d slept in a dog basket.

She tripped on something, and nearly fell, but Alex held her up, and she giggled a bit, which was very unlike her. Sunny had never been much of a giggler. Maybe she hadn’t had much to laugh at.

‘Thanks …’ she said, suddenly a bit breathless and the tent dark and spinny and smelling of flowers. ‘For the help.’

She felt rather than saw Alex shrug. ‘You kept me alive, when I was hunted.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’

‘Least I can do is help you to bed … now you’re drunk.’

‘You think I’m drunk ?’

Sunny flopped onto the bed on her back, and Alex flopped with her, onto her knees, hands either side of Sunny’s shoulders.

They stayed there for a moment, in the darkness, with the sound of the others outside, Balthazar saying something, and Vigga laughing, and Alex was only a dark outline against the glow of the fire through the tent’s side. Then she started to move away, and Sunny caught her. Caught her face with both hands, and craned up, which was a dangerous operation with her balance so far gone, and kissed her, very gently, and dropped back down, breathing hard.

Silence again, and Sunny’s face was tingling, and the breath was tickly on her lips somehow, and Alex was frozen over her, her knee pressed up against Sunny’s hip, her face hot against Sunny’s fingers, and now it was Vigga saying something outside, doing a Jakob impression, deep and growly, and the others were laughing, and probably the kiss had tasted somewhat of sick and probably Alex hadn’t wanted it anyway but she’d had to try.

‘You can go back to the others,’ whispered Sunny. ‘If you want.’ Usually she couldn’t find the words she wanted to say. Now she couldn’t seem to stop. ‘I’ll be fine. On my own. I’m used to it.’

‘The world’s a bitter place,’ said Alex, a gleam in the corner of one eye made Sunny think she was smiling. Made Sunny hope she was smiling. ‘We’ve got to grasp at any joy we can.’

‘Wise words. So very wise.’

‘You’re sure about this?’ whispered Alex.

Sunny slid one hand around the back of her head. ‘Who’s ever sure?’

She dragged Alex down, and Sunny closed her eyes as they kissed, lips and tongue and warm breath and fingers in hair and legs tangled together, and the tent spun pleasantly, and the laughter burbled outside—

And Sunny twisted free and was sick all over the floor.