In the Night Garden

Grog looked at the woman pityingly. She ran her hands through her emerald hair, coifing the ratted heap.

“I know you’re not from these parts, dearie, but you do see the tail, right? You do grasp the concept of a tail? It’s for swimming and all? I may not like to dip my tender parts in it, but no one knows the sea like a Magyr. Of course I could find it again. But I have no mind to—I consider it a gift that I escaped with full pockets, and I’m not about to go skipping about looking for a nice big mouth to jump into. Now fill up my cup, Eyvind, and keep your woman nice and quiet while a body’s having her drink.”

Snow, unseen by all, as always, had crept closer to the wide tub of brine, and pulled a knife from the bar into her thin hands. She leapt like a feral cat onto the lip of the tub, and seized Grog by a tuft of bottle-green hair.

“Take us,” she hissed. “Take us to the monster or I’ll cut your throat.”

“Snow!” Sigrid gasped. “What’s gotten into you? If anyone’s to threaten the sea-cow, it’ll be me.”

“Sigrid,” Snow pleaded, “you know what’s out there. You’ve spent all this time telling me about Saint Sigrid, and you think I’ll let a chance to be in that story, to be part of it, slide by? Didn’t you give eight years to a Tower because a woman told you a story you loved? All I want is a few days at sea! You know it was you in the song—but couldn’t it have been me, too? An orphan will find her! I’m an orphan if you ever knew one. You’ve waited all these years to find the Echeneis and you’re going to let this greasy old thing stop us? Let me come with you, let me help you find her—and let me cut this foul-smelling fish if she won’t help us!” Snow pressed the knife into the rolls of fat around Grog’s neck, and the Magyr squealed helplessly.

“Fanatics!” she screeched. “I tell you, there is nothing so dangerous in the world as fanatics! Sheapshank! Turkshead! Snap this one in half for mistress!”

The great hulks of men leapt forward to pummel the pale child, but Eyvind stopped them with a glance.

“Touch her and I’ll bash mistress’s face in with a bottle of rum,” he growled. Sigrid gave him a grateful nod.

“All right! All right! I’ll take you there, you stinking dogs. You used to run a fair bar, Eyvind, but look at you now! Groveling before some fat wench and her brat!” Snow released the Magyr’s head and climbed nimbly down from the tub rim. Grog glared at her and spat out a hunk of green phlegm, which splattered across Snow’s back. Sigrid smiled wanly and wiped it off.

“Thank you,” Snow said stiffly.

“Mistress,” came a soft, high voice. Turkshead had crept forward and was kneeling at the side of the tub, pawing Grog like a pup. “Not the sea again. Not the boat. Please. My stomach…”

“Not the sea again,” agreed Sheapshank. “We’ve had enough. It’s out there, waiting. We’ll wait here for you—we love you—but we won’t face the monster again.”

Grog rolled her eyes. “Well, who will carry my tub, then? That waste of a girl couldn’t lift a mug

of rum!”

Eyvind coughed, spat, and gave the bar an affectionate swipe with his rag. “I’ll go with you and carry your can of soup, you old sturgeon.”

“Well, ain’t that sweet of you, precious?”

“But I go for Sigrid. Not for you,” he grumbled, and fixed his drooping eyes on the older woman.

“Fine. Everyone is so bloody loyal it stinks. Fanatics give me heartburn. Maggie’s ship is lashed at the dock. Be sure you get a firm grip—I don’t fancy spilling out on the street like a bucket of bluegill.”

And so Sigrid, Snow, and Eyvind wrapped themselves in wool and readied themselves to go to sea. Sheapshank and Turkshead were given the back room to sleep in and the other customers gently shooed to the door.

“Bring a barrel of rum!” screeched the green-haired Magyr. “We’ll want it, mark my words!”

In the Garden

“IF YOU’RE A SMART GIRL, YOU’LL GET OUT NOW,” CAME THE BLACK-SMITH’S voice like a hot iron through the silk night.

The girl jumped up immediately, accustomed to quick escapes, darting away from the blacksmith’s shadow. She hardly looked at the boy as she dodged horses’ legs and tin buckets, nimbly bounding out of the stable doors as the first drops of light seeped out of the East.

But though she found him safe and sleeping where she left him, Dinarzad kept the boy by her throughout the day, a torture worse than any she had yet devised, as he was made to copy her every action, and his fingers grew red and swollen from pinpricks, then black from inkstains, then blue with costly dyes. He could not do any of it properly, and so he was made to burn with shame under the disapproving stares of so many women. By evening, no matter how much he might wish to escape to the Garden, he was as exhausted as a deer which has stayed ahead of the hounds by the smallest of steps. Dinarzad insisted he sleep near her as well, and for once he did not protest, but fell onto the bed, sore and ashamed.

Past midnight, the boy woke to a pair of dark eyes peering through the stone arch, which was hung with soft violet gauze, thin as secrets. Dinarzad lay still on her bed, covered in white furs, and the boy thought, not for the first time, that when she did not speak or move, she was beautiful. Her smoky black hair spread over the bed like a river of shadow, and her skin caught the moonlight just so. Her slim, elegant hands curled over the bronze keys which unlocked the bedchamber’s proper door, and her breathing was slow and sweet as a flute.

The boy lay on a smaller spare bed, his own dark hair tangled, as though he had run his hands through it many times in anger. His eyes were wide and open, staring at the low window, and the girl’s deer-poised form. He crept silently, a spider in a well, until he reached the windowsill and drew aside the lavender veils. Dinarzad’s breathing continued, slow and rhythmic as a dance.

“You came!” he whispered. “How do you always find me?”

The girl smiled. “Magic,” she whispered. “After all, I am a demon.”

“You always come to the window, you come to find me and carry me away—that is not what girls are supposed to do. It is what the Princes do in all the stories.”