style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Then Capra was wrong,’ came Freddy’s reply.
‘Seldom,’ said Lilia. ‘And not about this. The world behaves the way the Cuckoos choose to describe it. Out of courtesy. That’s been proved. Until somebody comes up with a better idea –’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Suzanna. ‘Are you saying the earth somehow listens to us?’
‘That was Capra’s opinion.’
‘And who’s Capra?’
‘A great man –’
‘Or woman,’ said Apolline.
‘Who may or may not have lived,’ Freddy went on.
‘But, even if she didn’t –’ Apolline said, ‘– had a great deal to say for herself.’
‘Which answers nothing,’ said Suzanna.
‘That’s Capra for you,’ said Cammell.
‘Go on, Lilia,’ said Cal. ‘Tell the rest of the story.’
She began again:
‘So there’s you. Humankind, with all your laws and your perimeters and your bottomless envy; and there’s us, the Families of the Seerkind. As different from you as day from night.’
‘Not so different,’ said Jerichau. ‘We lived amongst them once, remember that.’
‘And we were treated like filth,’ said Lilia, with some feeling.
‘True,’ said Jerichau.
‘The skills we had,’ she went on. ‘you Cuckoos called magic. Some of them wanted it for themselves. Some were afraid of it. But few loved us for it. Cities were small then, you must understand. It was difficult to hide in them. So we retreated. Into the forests and the hills, where we thought we’d be safe.’
‘There were many of us who’d never ventured amongst the Cuckoos in the first place,’ said Freddy. ‘Especially the Aia. Nothing to sell, you see; no use suffering the Cuckoos if you had nothing to sell. Better be out in the great green.’
‘That’s pretension,’ said Jerichau. ‘You love cities as much as any of us.’
‘True,’ said Freddy. ‘I like bricks and mortar. But I envy the shepherd –’
‘His solitude or his sheep?’
‘His pastoral pleasures, you cretin!’ Freddy said. Then, to Suzanna: ‘Mistress, you must understand that I do not belong with these people. Truly I don’t. He –’ (here he stabbed a finger in Jerichau’s direction) ‘– is a convicted thief. She –’ (now Apolline) ‘– ran a bordello. And this one –’ (Lilia now) ‘– she and her little brother there have so much grief on their hands –’
‘A child?’ said Lilia, looking at the baby. ‘How could you accuse an innocent –’
‘Please spare us the histrionics,’ said Freddy. ‘Your brother may look like a babe in arms, but we know better. Masquers, both of you. Or else why were you in the Border?’
‘I might ask you the same question.’ Lilia retorted.
‘I was conspired against,’ he protested. ‘My hands are clean.’
‘Never did trust a man with clean hands,’ Apolline muttered.
‘Whore!’ said Freddy.
‘Barber!’ said the other, which brought the outburst to a halt.
Cal exchanged a disbelieving look with Suzanna. There was no love lost between these people, that much was apparent.
‘So …’ said Suzanna. ‘You were telling us about hiding in the hills.’
‘We weren’t hiding,’ said Jerichau. ‘We just weren’t visible.’
‘There’s a difference?’ said Cal.
‘Oh certainly. There are places sacred to us which most Cuckoos could stand a yard from and not see –’
‘And we had raptures,’ said Lilia, ‘to cover our tracks, if Humankind came too close.’
‘Which they did, on occasion.’ Jerichau said. ‘Some got curious. Started to poke around in the forests, looking for trace of us.’
‘They knew what you were then?’ said Suzanna.
‘No,’ said Apolline. She’d thrown a pile of clothes off one of the chairs and was straddling it. ‘No, all they knew was rumour and hearsay. Called us all kinds of names. Shades and faeries. All manner of shite. Only a few got really close, though. And that was only because we let them.’
‘Besides, there weren’t that many of us,’ said Lilia. ‘We’ve never been very fertile. Never had much of a taste for copulation.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Apolline, and winked at Cal.
‘The point is, we were mostly ignored, and – like Apolline said – when we did make contact it was for our own reasons. Perhaps one of your Kind had some skill we could profit by. Horse-breeders, wine-merchants … but the fact is as the centuries went by you became a lethal breed.’
‘True,’ said Jerichau.
‘What little contact we had with you dwindled to almost nothing. We left you to your bloodbaths, and your envy –’
‘Why do you keep harking on envy?’ said Cal.
‘It’s what your Kind’s notorious for,’ said Freddy. ‘Always after what isn’t yours, just for the having.’
‘You’re a perfect bloody species, are you?’ said Cal. He’d tired of the endless remarks about Cuckoos.
‘If we were perfect,’ said Jerichau, ‘we’d be invisible, wouldn’t we?’ The response fazed Cal utterly. ‘No. We’re flesh and blood like you,’ he went on, ‘so of course we’re imperfect. But we don’t make such a song and dance about it. You people … you have to feel there’s some tragedy in your condition, or you think you’re only half alive.’
‘So why trust my grandmother to look after the carpet?’ said Suzanna. ‘She was a Cuckoo, wasn’t she?’
‘Don’t use that word,’ said Cal. ‘She was human.’
‘She was of mixed blood.’ Apolline corrected him. ‘Seerkind on her mother’s side and Cuckoo on her father’s. I talked with her on two or three occasions. We had something in common you see. Both had mixed marriages. Her first husband was Seerkind, and my husbands were all Cuckoos.’
‘But she was only one of several Custodians. The only woman; the only one with any human blood too, if I remember rightly.’
‘We
