4

Crime and Punishment

Candle awoke, cold and cramped at the clanging of the dawn bell. She got up, with some effort and closed her iron shutters. She waited in the dark for the second bell. It rang, and she sat, staring into nothing as she waited for the night to fade into the day. She took her candle stub out of her pocket and rubbed the wax with her thumb, absentmindedly. She concentrated on her finger, on the feeling of heat and flame. Please, Ancestors, she thought.

Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened. She sighed and put the candle away. The stone walls felt like they were pressing in on her. She stared up at the ceiling. Not being able to make a light meant there was nothing for her to do during the twilight vigil. Most people prayed to their Ancestors or worked on their devotions, but all of these things required some kind of light. She thought about her Ancestors and spoke to them each, in turn, going back three generations. On her father's side, most were dull aetheling lords and ladies who had lived long, dull lives. Her great-grandmother Meraud Fays had apparently had a rather scandalous obsession with painting nudes. Her great great grandfather Carantok Enys had been a drunk who had died when he had walked off a cliff after a good harvest party. That was about as interesting as it got. Her mother's Ancestors were less numerous and slightly more mysterious. Their names were foreign to Candle's ears - Blackbrights, Hallows and Frosthallows. Her mother's parents were not yet Ancestors and were still living somewhere in the far north. Candle had never met them. Lady Enys did not speak of them, and for they had not approved of her marriage to Lord Enys. Candle spent a wonderful and creative ten minutes or so imagining what they might be like. If she arrived on their doorstep would they welcome her? She imagined crowds of blue-eyed aunts and uncles and cousins who would embrace her and invite her to live with them forever. It was a lovely fantasy.

She sighed, then put the vision aside as a childish fantasy and formally praying to her Ancestors. She promised them she would try to do better. Be better, more obedient, more devoted. She didn't know if they believed her as she didn't know if she believed herself.

The minutes dragged on. Most twilights vigils at this time of year were about twenty minutes long. She rolled onto her stomach and pressed her face into the mattress. The darkness of her eyelids was better than the empty darkness of her room. She stayed like that for as long as she could without suffocating then rolled back over. She blinked at the ceiling. It was growing brighter, thank goodness. Without anything to occupy it her mind slipped back to the events of the previous night. Her skin chilled as she thought how close she and Rasmus had come to being killed or possessed. And then there was Rasmus and his shadow, whatever it was. Belias, he had called it. What in the seven realms had that been? She pushed her knuckles into her eyes and hummed the words of a song, trying desperately not to think about it... Fortunately, her tortured musings were interrupted by the second dawn bell. She leapt up in relief and opened the iron shutters, flooding the little room with the golden light of the new day. She lay back down and stared up and out at the tiny edge of the mountain she could see from her bed. The cliff was sheer and craggy, and right at the top was the crumbling remains of an ancient castle. A relic of the past when the distant Ancestors had been barbaric and warlike. Staring up at it, Candle wondered what the view would be like from the top? How fierce would be the wind? When was the last time anyone had ever stood there? With these, more pleasant thoughts, she drifted back to sleep.

Some hours later she was woken by a gentle knock on her door.

"Yes?" she asked, sleepily.

"Candle," whispered a voice that could only belong to her sister. "I brought you some food." Ishbel poked her head around the door. The sight of the sandwich woke Candle's stomach up and it rumbled noisily.

"Thanks," she said, grabbing it and taking a large bite.

"I felt bad about forgetting your birthday," said Ishbel, settling Candle's bed, and gazing at her little sister with her wide brown eyes. "But why on earth didn't you get back in time! The parents are going to be angry for ages, honestly, I've never seen them so mad." She reached out to touch Candle's cheek where a bruise was forming. "You really must try not to vex mother so."

Candle sighed and swallowed. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again, settling for a shrug.

"I am trying, you know," she said. She wondered if Ishbel would listen if she tried to tell her about Rasmus. She thought it unlikely. Ishbel hadn't listened yesterday when Candle had told her about the hole in the solstice procession. And while Ishbel was more realistic about the less appealing qualities of Rasmus' character she still thought he was in essence, a good person. A talented, slightly eccentric artist just as an aetheling heir ought to be. Candle always marvelled at how normal Rasmus seemed when he was with the rest of his family. Ishbel might suspect the darkness he carried within, but he always seemed to manage to hide the worst of it from her. Or Ishbel chose not to see it. No, thought Candle, swallowing the last of the sandwich. Voicing her suspicions about Rasmus would just lead to more misery. She had no proof. And Rasmus had a million ways to visit revenge on his magically defenceless younger sibling.

"I was so worried about you," Ishbel was saying, "and the whole village knows! Honestly, how embarrassing." Candle sighed and Ishbel looked down at her younger sister, pausing. "I know it's hard for you," she said, awkwardly, "being cooped up here with ....with no prospects. But just try and be more careful. And keep working at your devotions! The Ancestors will look after you, I know they will. Just try to ... be more biddable."

"I will," said Candle. And wondered again if she meant it. A small kernel of anger was brewing somewhere in her chest. "Have you ever seen a good spirit?" she asked, suddenly.

"What do you mean?" said Ishbel, carefully. Candle hated it when she spoke to her like that - like her inability to speak to the Ancestors made her fragile in her mind. Or as if she was a very small child. Ishbel was only two years older than her after all.

"Like a good spirit? Like something the Ancestors would send here to watch over someone..."

"Have you seen a good spirit, Candle?" Ishbel asked kindly, and Candle bit her bottom lip in frustration.

"No," she said, sharply. "I was just wondering...I mean those things that come from the between places, from the Night Nation. If they can come through from the world of the dead then why not something good?"

"I suppose they might," Ishbel conceded, "But no one is around during twilight to see, I suppose...I think the Ancestors watching over us is supposed to be more... metaphorical...Father might know."

"I suppose," said Candle, slumping against the wall. Talking to Ishbel was pointless. Attempting to talk to her Father even more so.

"Anyway, I'd better go," said Ishbel, getting to her feet. "Mother has forbidden anyone to speak to you or bring you food. I'll really get in trouble if she catches me up here. I'll see if I can sneak you up something later."

"Thanks, Bel," said Candle. "No one else cares."

"Just try and behave," her sister said, looking embarrassed, "and then you won't end up here so often. I'm sure mother will get over it soon. Father is furious though, he still thinks the wight might be wandering about ready to gnaw on some of the village children."

"Don't," said Candle, shuddering, and closing her eyes, remembering the smell of the hideous thing as it reached for her.

"He's called for the Ancestors Own to hunt it down. You know how he hates dealing with those criminals. Ug! Anyway, I'd better go, I didn't make my devotions yet this morning so I could come and see you. And I'm going to need all the glamour I can muster if I'm going to look presentable at the Mother's Night dance tonight."

"Oh, is it tonight?" asked Candle, but Ishbel had already slipped out of the room, locking the door behind her. Candle lay back down on the bed and fell asleep again, her misery eased a little by the fullness of her stomach and the kindness of her sister.

Candle awoke sometime later with no idea how much time had passed. The room was still stuffy and the air coming in the window beckoned her with its freshness. She was out of the window and up on the roof before she stopped to consider whether or not the Ancestors would consider this bad behaviour. She decided if the Ancestors were so mean-spirited she did not want to serve them anyway and then felt immediately guilt-stricken at her irreverence.

Her internal struggles were interrupted by the voice of her father who seemed to be standing in the garden, directly below her garret.

"Please tell the Mester," he said, in that clipped tone that reminded Candle so much of Rasmus, "That I summoned you here to ask you to deal with a wight, not to hear her fanciful warnings and fear mongering. It is bad enough that I have to let you sully the sanctity of this estate without you having the gall to lecture your betters..."

Candle peered over the edge of the roof. She had never seen a member of the notorious Ancestors Own at close quarters before. Convicted criminals every one, they were shunned by the community at large and kept to their training house at Gwavas. Some of them patrolled the fells, especially along the western border. The only time they visited the villages was if unpleasantness brought them there. Candle leaned as far out as she could, without toppling over the edge. She wanted an eye full of whoever it was that was doing such a grand job of making her father so magnificently angry.

Down below a short, well-muscled man of middle years flanked by three, rather grim looking men. One of them was white skinned, with the narrow features of the wild Teurek tribes to the west. The rest looked Havi. Shockingly, they were all holding brutally efficient looking weapons, weapons that looked functional, mundane even, and not in the slightest bit ceremonial. They wore form-fitting leather clothing of a dull green and a lot of paint on their faces. Their eyes rimmed black with kohl, and whorls of blue woad markings making them look like savages out of the history books rather than actual living people. Candle had never seen anything so barbaric before and found the sight quite thrilling.

"My Lord," said the leader, not in the slightest bit cowed by her father's demeanour, "as I was saying, we have made a thorough search of Hanternos and surroundings and have found no less than four malignant spirits, which we have destroyed. None of them match the description you gave us-"

"A wight most likely," interjected one of the other men. The leader silenced his companion with a look.

"-which means the creature has either left the vicinity or returned to the Night Nation." Lord Enys opened his mouth but the leader of the Ancestors Own ploughed on. "Hopefully the latter. However, it seems most likely that there is a breach in your defences."

"Impossible!" said Lord Enys, "We processed but yesterday!" The leader shrugged, with an admirable casualness, that Candle found charming.

"I can but advise you," he said. "Our charter is to defend and protect." He raised his eyebrows at Lord Enys as if daring him to challenge his statement.

"Do not presume to tell me how to run my holdings, " Lord Enys, practically spat.

"Good evening, Lord Enys," the spokesman said, calmly, as if Lord Enys had been the epitome of civility. "If you need us further we will be camped at the Dawn Watch Bothy for the next few days." And with that, he turned and strode out of the garden. The three men followed him, the youngest glancing up at Candle as they went. Candle ducked down hastily. The last thing she needed was her father seeing her up on the roof in front of strangers.

Back in her room and now deprived of diversion Candle took a deep breath and then started assembling her supplies. She knew she would be kept locked in for days, possibly weeks. She would be let out once a day to relieve herself by a dour servant who refused to look her in the eye. Some bread, fruit and water would be pushed under the door every morning after the dawn bell. If her parents and the Ancestors wanted proof of obedience and devotion, she would give it to them. She had nothing with which to burn her offerings, but by the stars and the moon and every shade in the Night Nation, she would give them something worthy of the flames. Besides, it had begun to rain, so she couldn't even escape to the roof.

The Ancestors were fond of time-consuming gifts, as well as skilled and passionate ones. Candle had no access to water, except what she could carry with her from the bathhouse once a day, so she stuck to pencil and graphite and occasionally ink. She sketched the men from the Ancestors Own in fine detail, down to every remembered wrinkle of skin and crinkle of clothing. She drew Steren's dragon, and Steren herself, laughing and happy on the fell above Hanternos. She drew a large and elaborate artwork of the horizon that she and the Mad Old Weather Lady had admired. She drew scorched and wind seared mountain tops, she drew the star field that she could see from her rooftop on fine nights. She drew the spirits in all their disturbing glory. She nearly drew Belias and Rasmus but stopped herself. That would be unwise. When real life inspiration deserted her she drew from her imagination.

She drew till her fingers bled and her pencils were reduced to stubs. Then she switched to composing sorrowful, passionate sonatas meant to be played on a mountaintop under a moonlit sky. This was particularly challenging without an instrument but she plucked the imaginary strings of her telyn and persevered. She imagined the sound each note would make, writing down the results with feverish inspiration, crossing out and scribbling corrections until she had it perfectly.

So she passed several weeks. She lost track of exactly how long, living in a strange frenzy of eating, sleeping and creativity. Only when her stack of parchment was in danger of running out and she had to beg for more from the dour servant did she start to slow down. She gazed with some satisfaction at the large pile of devotions ready to burn for her Ancestors. No one could say she had not used her time wisely. But as she sat looking at the fruits of her labour her mood soured. The Ancestors would reject her offerings. As they had done her whole life. Nothing would change.... Ishbel had taken to telling her that she was a pessimist but Candle knew, deep down, that her art was as good. Better than good even. She had seen far inferior art that had pleased the Ancestors, and she was sure her tutors agreed, although few dared to voice that particular opinion.

The general consensus was that Candle must harbour some inner flaw. Something must be lacking in her character or thoughts. Some taint of thought or spirit. Something that was reflected in the colour of her eyes. And perhaps she did. Perhaps she had something in common with the Wight. Perhaps she was a monster. She lay back on her bed and listened to the sound of the rain on the shutters and wondered when she would be allowed out again.

Her frenzy of creativity left her dry of inspiration and exhausted of spirit. She took to lying listlessly on the roof staring up at the sky. The storms had passed, but occasionally she got wet. Nothing mattered. She ate, she slept, she dreamed of clouds and the wind on the slopes. It all felt pointless. Some more time passed, how much Candle had no idea. One day her father came to see her. She heard him coming, and sat up, trying to uncrumple her smock.

"Candle," he said, looking down at her sternly, his brown eyes sombre. "I cannot pretend you have not been a disappointment to your mother and me." He paused, as is seeking inner strength in a distasteful task. "This - this cannot continue. "

"I am trying, father," Candle said, swallowing. "I really am trying my hardest."

"I must warn you," he said, casting his eyes around her bare room, taking in the piles of devotions. "That your mother thinks we should keep you locked up permanently." Candle swallowed, suddenly terrified. The air in the small room suddenly seemed more difficult to breathe, the walls closer than they had been before.

"But your brother argued against it, arguing that you deserve one last chance."

"He did?" Deep within her breast Candle felt anger stir, but she kept the flame hidden.

"Your mother, out of love and respect for Rasmus, has agreed to let you out." Candle let out a sigh of relief. "But-" her father raised a finger warningly, "this is your final warning. Put one foot wrong, one hint of your nose outside the estate, one more incident, one more act of disobedience and we will lock you up here permanently. And your brother will not be able to protect you. Do you understand?"

The anger flickered again, deep and intense at the thought of Rasmus 'protecting' her. She realised her father was waiting for a response.

"Yes, father," she said, meekly. "I will do better."

Lord Enys paused, looking down at his youngest daughter.

"Do not provoke us," he said and left the room, leaving the door open.