The Phoenix (Highmast series, flashback)

Her lungs were screaming at her to breathe but Ryvette ignored them. As she was still submerged under the water, giving in to their tantrums didn’t seem like a good idea right now. Her muscles were screaming too, still stiff from the remnants of the poison draining out of her system. In fact, it felt like her whole body was a symphony of pain.

Just a few moments more. I have to be sure. I’m not going back alive.

Of course, drowning out here in the fetid wash of the corpse canal was not her preferred option either. Her hair, shimmeringly dark, fanned out around her face like seaweed, her body bobbing sluggishly through the tidal waves, as they dragged her out to sea. Her fingers tangled with another body’s also making its last journey out of the harbour city, and it took everything within her not to flinch away.

Not that she had never seen a dead body before, of course. The Pearl Blossom silk-house stood right on the edge of the corpse canal in an insalubrious part of town. When the sun was high, the stench rising from the fetid water choked the air, until she was surprised the customers could even finish their business. The pomanders she’d hung in the glassless windows did little to ease the smell.

The tide tugged Ryvette onwards, far from the docklands and the more expensive harbour moorings of the merchant class or nobles, and still she slumped face down in the water, straining to hold her breath. Her silk dress, the emblem of her trade, was utterly ruined, as it spread out around her, billowing like a mermaid’s hair through the dark, dank water, but she didn’t care. If all went well, she would never need to wear it again after today.

Only as her eyes began to fuzz into a clawing, frantic grey did Ryvette allow herself to tip on to her side and take a breath. She pushed her hair out of her face, spitting out as much of the water as she could. Who knows what diseases are rife here? I’m going to be lucky to get out of this alive. But then again, Ryvette had always been lucky—or so Madam Myal always said. You’re lucky to have such fine onyx hair and such smooth, unblemished skin. Not all girls are so blessed by nature, Ryvette.

Perhaps she was. If she had been less pretty, Madam Myal would not have saved her for one of the wealthy patrons that came to her to assuage their needs, hoping to sell Ryvette’s virtue for the highest price. Instead, she would have been put to work immediately like the other girls and, when she’d outgrown her use, she would have been sold on to another, cheaper silk-house. Finally, when age and disease ousted her from even that position, she would have ended up plying her trade on the street, where any one of her customers could slit her throat in the alleyway and nobody would blink an eye. It was an age-old story, worn thin by repetition, but that didn’t make it any less grim.

Yes, perhaps she was lucky the fates had blessed her. A mere roll of the dice and she could be earning copper coins for Myal the hard way. Still, if she had been less pretty, perhaps she would not have been sold to the silk-house at all, and certainly she would not have attracted the notice of Earl Adderforth.

Ryvette shuddered at the very thought of it as she struggled to tread water. Another corpse floated by her. This one had a garish smile gaping across his throat and was probably a recipient of some ale-house brawl further up-stream. It bumped towards her, as if it wanted to leer over her even after death, and she pushed it away hard.

It was an open secret that Earl Adderforth had specialised tastes. And when she had grown too old for him she doubted he would buy her off with a pension and a place in the country. Young women had a tendency to disappear around the earl when they outgrew his lust. She scowled to herself. If he had been a guttersnipe, someone would have dropped him off of Main Bridge by his ankles by now, but the earl was a favourite of the king. He had more than a fancy name to protect him. He had money, and power, and all those things that a thirteen-year-old silk-girl did not.

She stood, treading water for a moment, considering her next option as she looked around. The paths which ran alongside the canal were high and steeply sloped and she was feeling exhausted. Climbing them did not seem like an attractive proposition. She supposed she could follow the tide all the way out to sea and try to sneak back to shore along the coast, but the sluice gates at the entrance to the corpse canal were always guarded. Sometimes officially, by the city watch, but more often by Henkin’s men, whose North-side sewer rats often dragged the corpse canal for fresh bodies, hoping to sell body parts on the black market to unscrupulous magewitches, or at the very least salvage what little possessions the dead had left when they were swept out to sea.

If they find me alive, they’ll tell Myal and she’ll have me dragged back to the earl anyway.

Ryvette shuddered again at the thought and almost took another dip beneath the waves as she did so.

I’m not sure I’d get away again. I barely escaped with my life this time.

The hyhorn venom, thick and gelatinous, had tasted foul when she had downed it, all the while wondering if she was sealing her own fate. She had gagged and choked, black foam spasming up through her mouth and staining the drapes of her silk dress, as she had convulsed on the floor, her throat burning and seizing up. She remembered hitting her head hard on the floorboards as she went down, the pain sharp even through the gasping airlessness assailing her as she clutched at her own throat, and then blackness.

When she had awoken many hours later, it had been with the earl breathing over her, a presence looming darkly through the eyelids she could not open, his body warm and far too close to hers in the cool night air. Panic had flared through her. She had tried to push him off, tried to shout, but her body was rigour-mortis stiff and none of her limbs had worked. She could not even do as much as open her eyes.

“Poor, delicate beauty,” he had drawled, one of his fingers running softly over her cheek. “To go so soon and so suddenly. What did you say killed her again?”

“Wyvanwort, my lord.” Myal’s voice had been thick and unctuous, as it ever was when the earl patronised her establishment. Ryvette’s panic had subsided slightly when she realised they were still at the Pearl Blossom and they seemed to have bought the ruse. Still, the venom had worn off too soon. Even as she lay there, she had felt her muscles loosening slightly, the warmth seeping slowly back into her skin, her pulse ever so slightly increasing. If they linger too long, they will know I am still alive. They will know I have tricked them.

She had willed for them to leave with everything in her, but Myal had been in the mood for talking, it seemed, trying to defend the abrupt death of her charge before the earl could taste her.

“Wyvanwort always comes on suddenly, my lord, and Ryvette was always a stubborn little thing. She did not tell us the sickness had come upon her until it was too late for us to heal.” It was a good choice by Myal, Ryvette thought wryly. The disease was non-contagious so the Pearl Blossom would not be quarantined, but it was also fast-acting and silently lethal. It struck alike at nobles and commoners with very few outward symptoms and no one yet knew how to cure it. No charge of negligence could attach to the silk-house madam for losing the earl’s new toy.

Ryvette had struggled not to breathe too noticeably as the earl still lingered by her corpse-stiff body.

“Ryvette, you say? A strange name, but it suits her.” He had me bought and paid for, but he did not even know my name? “Yes, she is rather like a little bird, is she not?”

“Thank you, my lord. I named her myself. I rename all my girls in the Old Tongue. We are an exclusive house, my lord, and it puts our wealthier clientele at their ease. For only educated, noble gentlemen like yourself understand the significance of their names.” Myal’s voice was coated in a thick layer of preening pride, heavily intermingled with that obsequious leer she always used for her most powerful patrons.

Ryvette would have snorted with derision, were she not currently locked in the faux-embrace of death. She had always hated her name. I am not a ryvette—a little bird. I am a phoenix. I will show you my talons and flames if you do not remove your hands from me, Adderforth.

“To be taken so young, so much still ahead of her.” Adderforth sighed deeply, his hand still stroking her cheek. “Still, at least she went with her beauty unmarred. That is a blessing. She is lucky, in that regard.” The words had echoed through Ryvette’s head. Oh yes, I am always lucky. The earl had lingered for a moment more, then she heard the squeak of bed-springs and the looming presence removed itself.

“I will require a full reimbursement,” the earl had said, the wistfulness fading from his voice at once, the single moment he had spent ruing her wasted life quickly passing away. Ryvette had heard footsteps and her chest had loosened slightly.

It had worked. This mad plan had actually worked. She had known Dryvus would come through for her in the end.

She had gone to him in desperation. It had taken her weeks to find him, for he was an elusive man, hidden away in the depths of the harbour city’s underworld. She had spent all her free time and all of her petty savings she had spent years stealing from unwary silk-house patrons chasing down his shadow. When she had found him at last, she had had nothing left to bargain with.

I have no coin, but I can work, she’d pleaded. I know how to. Just let me work for you and not as the earl’s bed-slave.

I don’t run a silk-house, he’d said, his eyes unreadable and she had left desperate and desolate. But the next day a man had clambered silently through the window of her chambers in the Pearl Blossom and had handed her the small vial of Hyhorn venom along with a letter from Dryvus. At that moment, she began to feel the first flicker of hope she had felt since Myal had first told her the earl had taken an interest in her.

But even Dryvus was not invincible, it seemed. For, as Myal was leading Adderforth away, wheedling about other supple young women to take Ryvette’s place—better girls, more beautiful and maidenly—she also added over her shoulder to Griff, the large man she employed to guard the Pearl Blossom, “Oh, and dispose of that body, would you, dear? Don’t bother with anything fancy, just throw her out of the window. The corpse canal will deal with the rest,” and panic had once again flared through Ryvette.

She had felt strong arms slipping under her body—loosened from its rigour hold but still far too stiff—and the grunt of the man as he heaved her upright.

She had cursed Dryvus silently in her mind, for he had insisted that they needed to believe her truly dead instead of just fleeing in the night, or the earl and Myal would hunt her down. Ryvette had already tried running away thrice since she had been told she was earmarked for Adderforth and each time she had been dragged back. Myal had said she would chain her down if she tried again, and Ryvette had believed her enough not to test it, so she supposed Dryvus was right. But she was supposed to be collected by the bodyhaulers for the magewitches after her supposed death. Dryvus had said he had arranged for them to pass this way tonight. He said he had arranged everything, all she had to do was take the venom. She was not supposed to be given to the untender mercy of the last river. 

It had been all she could do not to scream all she was hauled unceremoniously out the window. Still, the fates were with her it seemed, for the cold of the water had shocked her system and chased away the remaining vestiges of stiffness from her muscles. They still ached like the blazes, of course, but she could move them once more. And, even as the slow-moving tide carried her out to sea, surrounded by the occasional dead companion on its last journey, she had felt like singing.

He has brought me this far, she thought now, staring around the darkness surrounding her. I should trust him for a little bit longer.

She forced her weary muscles to carry her to the side of the shore and clung on, trying to regain enough strength to clamber upwards onto dry land once more. She tried once but almost slipped under completely as she slipped on the steep, uneven banks.

A hand reached down for her and she looked up into Dryvus’ round, cheerful face. She had never seen a sight so beautiful.

“You came in person?” she spluttered, spitting out another mouthful of water. He tightened his fingers around hers and dragged her up onto the slick, mildewed ground.

“As quickly as I could. It’s always best to be around when a plan is in action, Ryvette. That way you can deal with things when they go wrong. And, trust me, they will always go wrong. It’s just working out how. Forgive me, I should have accounted for the corpse canal only I thought a woman like Myal would not pass up the opportunity to make a few iron coins from the haulers. Here.” He handed her a bag. Within it was a flagon of something steaming merrily—the pot must be charmed for it to keep its heat like this—a thick cotton dress and a warm grey cape. “Drink first, and then change.” His eyes darted towards the canal at their feet. It was glinting darkly in the night, sending fractured reflections of stars across the rippling waves. She took the flagon and drained it in one, choking as she recognised the pungent taste of panaceus lingering on the warmed wine. It was expensive and strong, but there was nothing better for warding off infections before they could take hold, so the magewitches said. It scorched and burnt all the way down, but she felt a little better when it was done. She rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth.

“Hyhorn venom, panaceus, bribing the haulers…this is all pricy stuff, Dryvus. How long am I going to have to be working for you until I have paid off this debt?”

But Dryvus just shook his head.

“I don’t expect you to pay me back.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to believe you did this for charity?”

“Let’s just say that I enjoy inconveniencing the earl as much as possible. He and I have a long history.” He got to his feet. “You’ll have to change your name, Ryvette,” he added. “You’ll have to leave your whole life behind you now. Get out of Highmast entirely, perhaps, and start afresh in some little village somewhere. There’s a whole wide world waiting out there for people who are brave and enterprising.”

She grinned. That was barely a hardship. She’d leave it all behind if she could. She smiled up at the stars staring down at her with their usual unfeeling, celestial boredom. I can go anywhere. I can be anything.

She grabbed the bag and got to her feet.

“No,” she said. “I want to stay and work with you. I want to do what you do—help people who need it.”

Dryvus raised an eyebrow. “It’s dangerous work,” he cautioned. “If you come with me now you will be hunted for the rest of your life by both sides of the law.”

“But if I stay I can help you get revenge on the earl, can’t I? And help rescue other girls who might otherwise become his bed-slaves?”

Dryvus regarded her for a long moment and then shrugged. “I can see you’re decided,” he said. “But you’ll still need a fresh identity.”

She thought about it for a moment, her eyes darting upwards once more to the stars that shone down upon her, full of hope, full of fire, full of more tomorrows than she ever thought she’d live to see. It occurred to her that it was the first time she had ever seen them as a truly free woman.

She would no longer be Ryvette, that girl had floated down the corpse canal to the sea, dead. But perhaps an Old Tongue word would still suit her for her new name.

“I’m Hastra,” she told the stars. “The Phoenix.”