Page 18 of Skysong

‘You’re an inventor, too,’ Oriane marvelled. Of course – what was it the king had called him?Ajackofalltrades. The room was filled with contraptions and creations. A long brass cylinder mounted on three curved feet stood poised at an angle by the window. A strange device full of metal wheels and levers sat in the middle of the workbench, surrounded by papers covered with diagrams and calculations.65

‘I don’t really like to call myself that,’ Kitt said. ‘Inventorimplies a certain sense of usefulness in the things I build. In reality, I’m a grown man still playing around with toys.’

In Oriane’s opinion, he was being absurdly modest. She watched, enraptured, as he showed her the intricate workings of a large mechanical clock and a tiny rabbit he’d made entirely of metal, whose ears actually moved when the right gears were pulled.

‘But you made all these,’ she insisted. ‘Toys or not, they’re wonderful, Kitt.’

‘I made most of them,’ he corrected. ‘Andala actually bought me this one.’ He picked up a tiny wooden box and turned a key at its side, and to Oriane’s delight, it began to play a delicate, twinkling tune. ‘It’s a traditional song from Sengela, the country where my parents were born. They arrived here on board a tiny boat a few years before they had me.’

‘Why did they leave your homeland?’ Oriane asked, fascinated. She had thought leaving her own home was a leap into the unknown; it was nothing compared to travelling across the vast, unknowable ocean.

Kitt considered this, turning the music box over in his hands. ‘They wanted a different life, I suppose. Not so much for themselves as for their future children. For my brother and me.’

‘You have a brother!’ Oriane had wished for a brother when she was younger. Or a sister; any kind of sibling, really.

‘I do. But I haven’t seen him in a long time. He went back to Sengela after our parents died.’

‘Oh.’ Something told Oriane not to pry here, not to probe at the bruise she thought she heard beneath Kitt’s breezy tone as he spoke of his family. ‘Would you ever want to go there? To Sengela?’ she asked instead.66

‘Yes.’ He was still studying the contraption in his hands, too intently to really be seeing it. ‘Yes, I think I would.’

Oriane found herself unsure how to respond. It was the first time that afternoon she’d so keenly felt the gap in her own experience – the lack of interactions with others that might have taught her what to say, when to say it. Fortunately, Kitt broke the silence, bouncing back to his usual self.

‘Speaking of families – when do you think we should expect your father to arrive?’

Oriane clapped a hand to her chest, aghast.Herfather. She’d written to invite him to the palace that morning, but in all her rapture over the sights she’d seen since, she had completely forgotten to pass on the letter to the king’s messenger.

Kitt was frowning at her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I have a message for him that I have not yet passed on to be delivered,’ she admitted. ‘You don’t think it’s too late, do you?’

‘Not at all.’ Kitt stood and offered her a hand up from the workbench where they sat. ‘I know where to find Marcel, and he’s always up for a job. If we catch him soon, he might even be able to get away and back before dark.’

Oriane hoped so. Guilt seeped like poison through her insides as she pictured her father alone in their cottage, staring at the sky as it darkened towards the close of another day.Thereisnoneedtocomeafterme, she’d written in her first letter.Iwillbehomewithyousoon.

It would be all right, Oriane reassured herself. Soon her father would be here with her instead.

Before they had gone more than twenty steps into the hall outside Kitt’s chambers, a figure emerged from a corridor and into their path.

‘Afternoon, Terault,’ Kitt greeted him.67

Terault gave a smile and a neat bow. ‘Kittrick. Lady Oriane. What good fortune I have to run into you. I trust you are settling in well?’ His question was directed at Oriane. She nodded gratefully.

‘We were just on our way to find Marcel,’ Kitt explained. ‘Lady Oriane has a message for delivery to her father.’

‘Well, this is good fortune indeed – I happen to be on my way to see Marcel myself.’ Terault looked to Oriane. ‘We see rather a lot of each other, with the amount of correspondence I must carry out on the king’s behalf.’ He patted his breast pocket, where Oriane imagined all manner of important messages must lie.

‘Will he be available to deliver my message, my lord?’ she asked, anxious that she had missed her opportunity. ‘If he has other business to attend to for the king?’

‘I will make sure of it,’ Terault said. ‘You have my word.’

Kitt nodded at her encouragingly, so Oriane fished the letter out of her pocket. Terault tucked it away, then, with another bow, bid them good day and turned smartly on his heel to return the way he’d come.

‘Lord Terault?’ Oriane called after him, her voice tentative.

He turned back. ‘My lady?’

‘Did … did Marcel have any message for me, when he came back from delivering my first letter? Any word in return from my father?’ She had been sure her father would have sent some reply; perhaps it had been forgotten by the king’s messenger, busy as he was.

---