Heaven's Bones Read Free Page B

they blinked open, with an energy that startled him.
    â€œThe baby, Sebastian. I don’t hear any crying …”
    He brushed a lock of hair from her face.
    â€œThat’s because you dozed off, my dear. He’s had a good strong bawl and Janet is giving him a bath in the other room.”
    He felt tears creeping down his face and knew she couldn’t see them. Her eyes were glazing over already.
    â€œA boy?” she managed. He had to bend close to hear.
    â€œYes,” he said firmly, willing his voice not to break. “A fine healthy boy. Sleep, my love, and when you wake you can see him.”
    Her eyes drifted halfway shut and stayed there. A smile crossed her lips. She sighed once, and was gone.
    He stayed sitting there a long time, dimly aware of others going about their business in the room, moving things, cleaning up. When he was quite sure she wasn’t going to stir he reached up with an only slightly shaky hand and thumbed her eyelids shut.
    Then he saw that his hands still had her blood on them, drying and peeling, and that he’d left traces on her neck and eyelids.
    The medallion chain was still tangled about his fingers. He looked at it a minute. A crude little figure, barely identifiable as female, with a snake-like form tangled around her legs. The dragon seemed to be smiling up at the saint, in collusion with her instead of planning to devour her.
    He tucked the medallion in his pocket. He sat a long time beside Margaret’s body as the shadows in the room grew long and the light behind the curtains faded away.
    At one point Janet, or at least some woman, came and touched him on the shoulder, asking him a question. He ignored her and eventually she went away. Symons came and spoke to him and Robarts looked at him blankly, seeing his mouth move and hearinggarbled sounds but understanding not a word.
    Eventually he felt about for a discarded damp cloth, and wiped his hands over and over with the rough fabric until the blood was gone and his fingers were chapped and raw.
    Robarts rose and walked to the doorsill. There his legs failed him and he leaned heavily against the frame.
    He hung there a second. Then he drew back one arm and struck the wall with all his might.
    Beneath the bright striped wallpaper the plaster dented. Robarts examined his fist.
    The skin across the knuckles was torn, and blood welled in the pink gash. The flesh was already starting to purple.
    He didn’t feel a thing.

C HAPTER T WO
The Mists
    When he dreamed, Tibor saw his sister’s face.
    They were gathering the freshwater mussels that clustered thick as grapes under the banks of one of the many rivers that branched from the Musarde in the land of Kartakass. It was the end of summer, when the river was low enough to get at the mussels easily, and that was a good summer, he remembered, stretching out over the beginning of the autumn season when the land gave and gave like a generous lover.
    They went there almost every year so that the men could break the Lord Meistersinger Harkon Lucas’s horses, and the good weather held so long that year they stayed longer than usual, until the halfwild creatures were so tame they would come at a child’s call. He and Jaelle brought armloads of sweet grass to their fields, and the mares and half-grown foals came readily to eat what they brought and to mumble at their fingers.
    Lord Harkon was well pleased with the weather and their work, and ordered three great heifers to be slaughtered and delivered to the Vistani camp with his compliments, together with a barrel of strong red wine. Jaelle remembered the mussels and promised their aunt a good skirtful to make stew, together with the seaweed and tubers they’d gathered that morning.
    There’d been no rain for at least a month, and the banks of the river were eroded under like the empty crust of a pie. Tibor andJaelle walked along a stretch where the channel had been forced deep into bedrock.