“Best holes in Novadich, in her prime, an’ they was always open, an’ she never turna down for right spit or fop, all dollied an’ what av ye—no lass, ney a nelly, drippy or dry, soz the tackles were plenty. When ye fine her nowsaday, ain’ no prime cut. Ruddy Rose got muddy toes, an’ a terr’ble scratch, flea or fungi. Botherin’ folk, fumblin’. Try’ta keep to the side, not passer or be makin’ about face when I do got attendin’ at the poles.”
The Rider withdrew a hand from her waistcoat and pressed gloved fingers into the beggar’s palm. Two tackles for his tale. A third to ignore his next question.
“What business mourners be got in the poles?”
Slipping into the crowd, her shadow figure shrank, a series of soundless strides leading down the bramble and out of sight.
⁂
“I will not come again.”
Rose, newly scrubbed until her skin was raw with blotchy pink patches, did not answer the Rider.
“I leave sundown. Elsewhere once more, though likely for always. The less I share, the less you will be punished. They will punish you, but not harshly. Not mercilessly. Do you understand?”
Rose rubbed her knuckles and puttered, the soles of her feet as thick as hardtack. Always, was it? Always was a long time to be gone. The longest.
“If I return, you do not know me. We have never met.”
“Whyn’t?”
“Have I ever given you reason to doubt my intentions?”
Rose gobbed her lips, sucking off the remnants of berry syrup, butter smudged in creases for her tongue to find. “Years of this? No. An’ not closer to know’an. Mourner pity farspread, an’ ahm pity-full.”
“Pitiful?” The Rider’s thin mouth frowned. “If so, weaponize their pity for you. Use your plight when they come. Have them pity the broken whore so as not to break her further, pity the lameness of her legs and the shake of her hands. Be ragged and bare. Be as broken as the stone of the streets, and they will tread over you, Rose, with indifference. Do you hear my words?”
“Why leavin’ an’ why d’they come?”
The Rider stiffened, straight backed and flat chested, proving her posture that of a board beneath her dark finery. Long tangerine hair was bound into a brutal braid, the hold sealed with ribbons and wax and a delicate line of chain circles threaded from root to end. Her eyes were pale, icy, and they were steady when they met Rose’s prying gaze.
“Not every bud will thrive.”
⁂
“Poppy?”
So small were her hands, his fingers compared. She held one finger as they walked the garden, high iron spiked skyward to frame their trip.
“When relinquished.”
“But?” He moved at a pace she mimicked, led them onward through drooping splashes of yellow and red and purple.
“No longer, Dove.”
“Poppy is pretty,” she mused, too quick to smile when smiling was often the wrong expression for her face to make. She would learn as much, be drilled on the stillness of the heart, but not then.
He smiled, too.
“Dove is pretty as well, isn’t it?”
“But we are all Dove. I do not like that.”
Threadbare hems dragged the walkway, his in a humbled state. Linen white, the torn edge tassled with the last slivers of his position. Hers was simple. Sacklike. Cut from unbleached cloth, matching those of Doves and Kits.
“Afraid you do not matter?”
“Do I?”
“Silly to ask what you know.”
“Please?”
“You do matter.”
⁂
“Ain’ so posh, but dosh’ll do it. Tackles?”
The Rider produced a heavy pouch. Rose eyed it suspiciously.
“Mourner tricks.”
“No,” the Rider said, their tone soft.
Beneath a dark cape and matching cap, she was difficult to quantify. Tall for a woman. Features soft for a man. The Rider was pale, with exposed skin nearing translucence, spidering blue veins visible beneath her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks.
What tinges of color met her countenance were those brought about by the cold, for it was the cold months in Novadich and a layer of snow returned day in and day out to replace the slush driven downhill.
“Beckon me out init for tricks, d’ya? Open it then.” Rose crossed her arms and puffed out her chest, too proud to let her squalid living conditions shake her from confidence.
Twisting the leather, the Rider’s fingers plied coin of gold from the pouch and held out the contents for Rose to inspect. She had never seen so much at once, and it glittered in the low light of her hovel, possibly the only value within these less haunted blocks of the poles.
“Why this?” Rose hissed. “Come’ta kill me? Ain’ worth this, mark me. Worth less for more years than you been fancy.”
Tackles snatched and tucked into the tangle of her moth bitten bodice, Rose gave the Rider a once over.
“Fuck an’ all it, paid for. If y’been hurtin’ to hurt somein, be at it. Quicklike. No tellin’ how I bellow under boot.”
“Go take a bath,” the Rider said, adjusting their collared cape as if harboring no more in mind for Rose. Rose scoffed.
“Ain’ got water ‘nough.”
“Then find water. With what I gave you, you could see yourself a home on the lake.”
“Pay again for ‘nother service, eh?”
“Unbelievable.” The Rider flipped another gold tackle at Rose.
The oval coin bounced harmlessly off Rose’s shoulder, landing in a murky pool of collected snowdrift.
The roof sagged and dripped, rotten wood full of termites and small critters nesting. Rose scooped up the gold and wiped it over her breasts, not particularly bothered by the streak of mud left emblazened on her frayed lace.
“Be back w’buckets, Lady Shadow.”
The Rider watched Rose crack the front door open and slip out into the busy street before expelling a sigh of disappointment.
⁂
“Disgraceful.”
Older, she said nothing.
Wiser, she did not look up.
“Have an Echolight running wild, and what comes of it? Hm? Not satisfied with failure of your own?”
She did not hold his finger as they were scolded.
“Umbrage, I beckon.” His voice was deep. Transcendant. The sound dug into her chest and filled her lungs with air, demanded she remember to breathe.
“Esotyrian, I do not speak to be spoken to. You are to listen.”
“A mistake of a Dove, she did not mean to defy Deepnight.”
“Did she not? To be found in the poles? If not to run from her duty, why?”
“I do not know, Umbrage. Allow me to reprimand this Dove. See me for this task, for I am worthy. She will never shirk her duty again.”
“…do this and so shall it be forgotten. Forgiveness will not be given a second time.”
⁂
“Why did you run?”
Rose snarled in the Rider’s face, thrashing madly through all efforts to bathe her. The Rider did not give up. She held Rose’s shoulders and shook her until Rose’s head was dizzy and her cups threatened to rise from deep in her gullet.
“I ain’ askin’ none of this, howler!”
The Rider had her by the hair, grunting as she dunked Rose’s ratty orange mane in the stew of water.
“Why are you fighting me?!”
“Beg off an’ find new charity! I AIN’ YOUR TOY! GEDDOV! FUCKIN’ SWINE! LAZERUS BELCH! CRUSTY CUNTWIFE WHORE! BEGGONE!”
Rose yowled and spit, tore to one side and the other, flailing and screaming and making a racket well into the dark hours.
The Rider gave no quarter, offered no pause. She scrubbed and scoured, cut and untangled. She found bites of parasites and a gamut of old wounds, infection and rot in both cases, but she would not be deterred. She worked Rose’s flesh with herbs and poultices, combed the hair left on her wailing head, and ignored every insult spit soggy in her direction.
By morning light, Rose was passed out cold. The Rider carried the immaciated whore to her straw bed and laid her beneath a thick fur she brought in from her steed. It had been a comfort to her; Rose would make better use of the pelt than the Rider ever could.
⁂
“By each lash, Dove, I beg you-”
“Forgive me these actions. No less do I love you-”
“But love is the pain we carry through the darkness-
“And when the darkness is all around us-”
“What remains is love and sacrifice-”
“Do you understand?”
⁂
Rose watched the Rider climb onto their steed.
They came with the full moon. Showed up in the dark as a real shadow never could, waiting on the back stoop overlooking the lake.
Often they told stories and cooked. Brought trinkets from their travels.
Sometimes Rose would find tackles tucked under her pillow, a bag worth or more—as much worth as the cottage she resided in. She banked them in the larder, hidden beneath loose stone in a box from Braunlin. The Rider said the wood was aged for strength.
Rose had not stepped foot in the poles for as long as her acquaintance with the Rider.
Her avoidance was not a condition of their deal, but Rose thought the Rider wanted her free from the trade of flesh. Tackles aplenty kept her clean. Gold paid for meals nightly. Wine flowed from stores of barrels in the cellar. The Rider’s wealth even bought her an echo to tend to her home—they slept in the spare room and rarely spoke.
Rose liked the echo well enough. Little Dove, she called her.
Old and ready for what was owed by someone such as she, the loss of the Rider marked the end.
Her end.
But oh how her Poppy bloomed.