The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,31
jointed back bearing several chairs (empty for now) moved in a sinusoid curve as the thing slithered down the street. A lone mechanic presided over the front end of the contraption; he sat on a small shelf jutting out of the monster’s flat metal face, and moved two long jointed levers.
“What is it?” Mattie shouted over the roar and hiss of the mechanical beast as it passed her.
“It’s a caterpillar,” the mechanic shouted back. “It can carry ten people at once.”
“What if they are going to different places?” Mattie asked.
The mechanic did not grace her with an answer—the mechanics often ignored stupid questions, especially if they came from automatons and easterners—and steered the metal caterpillar down the street. Mattie had a feeling that soon enough more of them would crawl through the narrow streets, displacing pedestrians and buggies and spooking the lizards.
She realized that her feet, of their own volition, were taking her to Loharri’s house. It was only natural, she supposed—she passed this market so many times, up the slight incline of the ancient hill eroded almost to nothing, to the white house almost hidden by overgrown rose bushes. Loharri paid little mind to the plants now that Mattie, who had planted them, wasn’t there to take care of the succulent green growth that seemed to become more audacious with every passing year. Ten years since she first planted the roses, and now they were taking over, erecting themselves into a formidable hedge. The first pale and red blooms studded the thorny branches, a decoy of beauty hiding their murderous intentions. Mattie imagined that one day the plants would take over the house and bury Loharri within . . . she could almost live with this thought, if it weren’t for the key he wore around his neck.
Mattie circled the house to check on the plants in the back yard, and she had to fight her way through the roses that crowded the path leading to the back door and grabbed at her skirts with their thorns. She tried the back door—unlocked as usual, and she pushed it open.
Despite the brilliant light outside, the kitchen remained subsumed by velvety dusk. This home had a special quality of light and air about it; it softened and gilded everything inside, and it was kind. Mattie’s eyes needed a second to adjust to it, and the familiar objects came into focus—the generous hearth, the glinting of kettles and pans suspended over the table in the middle, the reassuring solidity and slight woody smell of the cutting boards, the automaton in the corner . . .
The presumed automaton turned to face Mattie and she belatedly realized that it was a woman—scandalously underdressed at that, lacking her corset and bustle and even a skirt, wearing only a white shift flimsy enough to reveal the curvy, fleshy body underneath.
Mattie looked away quickly. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” said the familiar voice. “I was just getting a drink of water. How’ve you been?”
Mattie dared to look up into the woman’s face. “Iolanda.”
Iolanda shrugged and the thin strap of her shift slid off, revealing a round and freckled shoulder. “You seem surprised.”
Iolanda moved closer, silent on her bare feet. “I don’t,” she whispered. “And yet, here I am. And here you are.”
Mattie reached for the door. “I’ll come back later.”
“It’s all right,” Iolanda said, and grabbed Mattie’s wrist. “Don’t be so uptight.” She dragged Mattie along, yelling, “Loharri! Look what I found!”
He was in his workshop, thankfully dressed. “You don’t have to scream your head off,” he said. “Don’t they teach you any manners at the palace?”
“There is no palace,” Iolanda said cheerfully. “The Duke is moving.”
“Where?” Loharri and Mattie said in one voice.
“To his summer mansion, by the sea.” She gestured vaguely east, and laughed.
Mattie thought that she had never yet seen Iolanda like that—so energetic, so giddy, crackling with some hidden excitement. And the fact that she was here and undressed . . . she decided to ponder the implications later, when she wasn’t so distracted.
Loharri apparently thought the same. “What are you so happy about?” he murmured, and pretended to study a copper spring with greater attention than it warranted. “Eager to bathe in the sea?”
Iolanda giggled with a girlishness Mattie had not suspected in her. “I’m not going,” she said. “I’m staying here. A whole bunch of us are.”
“By ‘us’ you of course mean ‘courtiers’,” Loharri said, dropping the spring on the workbench