Mazes of Power

by Juliette Wade

  “Tagaret,” said Selemei gently. “You have no choice. Not if you want to see your life get any better. You can’t change anything from the outside—if I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned that.”

  Tagaret felt sick to his stomach. He stood up. “Pardon me, Cousin. I have to go.”

  “Please, Tagaret.” She reached a hand toward him. “I’ll consider what you’ve said. Just please, consider me as well. With you as my cabinet assistant, we could accomplish so much! The offer still stands—don’t forget it.”

  Tagaret bowed stiffly and walked out. Couldn’t go upstairs to see Reyn, because it would mean seeing Erex’s life destroyed; couldn’t go home, because Nekantor was there. He walked fast in another direction, into the central section of the Residence. The marble nudes supporting the door to the empty Heir’s suite regarded him impassively as he turned onto the curved stairs of the Grand Rotunda, descending beneath the dome of white glass. His feet moved on their own, carrying him out into the grounds, toward the Plaza of Varin.

  Before long, he became aware of a figure running toward him—fast. He tensed and stopped walking. Maybe this was just a messenger headed to the Residence? But the figure ran closer, and closer—

  Was that Erex’s Kuarmei?

  The manservant stopped before him, breathing fast but quietly. “Grobal Tagaret, sir,” she said. “It’s my good fortune that you came this way.”

  “Is Erex here somewhere?” he asked, bewildered. “How did you find me?”

  “I waited outside the Academy, sir, in hopes you might choose to pursue your inquiries there.” She bowed. “If I may beg your indulgence, Erex would like to speak to you.”

  Erex? Was she even allowed to call her Master by his name? Tagaret frowned, but followed her, and his own curiosity, out into the Plaza.

  As he passed among the Imbati bureaucrats and crowds of tourists, he glimpsed a Kartunnen in a gray tailcoat standing beside the shinca tree at the Plaza’s center. He thought instantly of the composer’s apprentice, Vant—but this person was older, unassuming, outlined with strange clarity by the silver light.

  Five steps away he stopped dead, unable to move.

  “Sir?” asked Kuarmei.

  The Kartunnen man—it was Erex. While Tagaret watched, he moved closer with the same delicate walking pace as always. He had the same hair, the same face, the same way of moving his hands—even the same clubbed fingers, visible now that he no longer wore gloves.

  “I’m sorry, Tagaret,” Erex said.

  “Wh—” Tagaret stammered. “Are you in hiding? Why are you in disguise?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word crossmarked.

  “I decided it was time to stop being careful,” Erex said. “I told the Eminence your brother should be disqualified from Heir Selection.”

  His stomach clenched with nausea. “Oh, gods, no . . .”

  Erex held up his hands. “No, it’s all right—I didn’t tell him what you told me. In fact, I told Herin about Nekantor and your cousin Benél.” He laughed bitterly. “One of the many ironies of my existence. I knew the risks. I’m only disappointed I couldn’t bring him down with me.”

  Tagaret swallowed hard. “But what happened? The rumors, that you . . .”

  Erex sighed. “I’ve never lied to you, Tagaret. The day I met Lady Keir was the luckiest of my life. I’d put off partnership so long it was starting to damage my reputation. But she understood. To find someone like her—a Lady who prayed to the holy Twins for guidance as fervently as I did—it was a miracle. We realized if we accepted partnership in Sirin and Eyn’s name, it might take effort to conceive children, but once our duty to the Race was fulfilled, we could more quietly pursue . . . brotherly and sisterly interests.”

  Of course, he thought instantly of Reyn, and tried not to blush. “But somehow Nekantor exposed you?”

  “We made a mistake,” said Erex. “Mine far more serious than hers. At least she fell in love within the Race. I met Dois in the Kartunnen house, which is where Nekantor and Benél saw us.”

  Tagaret couldn’t help it—he clapped his hands over his mouth.

  Erex’s tone softened, pleading. “I never contracted a thing there, Tagaret. I couldn’t stop seeing him. For a long time I blamed it on the weakness of my heart—but when you’re in love, risks don’t matter. Like you with your Sixth Family girl.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “I was unfair to you about her, Tagaret, and I apologize. Inconsiderate, in fact—too busy fighting to keep my own eyes shut.”

  “What can I do, Erex?” Tagaret asked. “If Innis wins, he’ll take her as his life’s partner—I would die.”

  Erex pressed his hand. “Do anything you must,” he said. “It took losing everything for me to see what Dois has been telling me all along: that my future lay outside the confines of the Race.”

  “Outside?” Tagaret exclaimed. The whole world shuddered, as if the roof had come crashing down. “You mean you Fell?”

  Erex said nothing.

  Impossible—no one could erase the First Family from his features. The coat and Erex could not possibly be one. And yet, Imbati Kuarmei had called him simply Erex . . .

  Crown of Mai, how could a person be expected to sweep away years of guidance and trust beneath the name Kartunnen?

  “I’ve had an idea,” Erex said. He glanced at Kuarmei, who pulled a thick sheet of paper from a hidden pocket under her arm. “As of today, I am no longer able to retain Kuarmei’s services, and you need a manservant—someone with proven ability to keep dangerous secrets. If my status had not already been reduced, I would make Kuarmei a gift. Instead, I must ask: please, sir, take her into your protection.”

  Tagaret flushed and turned away—to hear Erex call him ‘sir’ was just too horrible.

  “Grobal Tagaret, sir,” said Imbati Kuarmei quietly. “I would be honored by your inquiry.”

  Tagaret gathered himself. The fact was, Erex’s generosity was inconceivable—there could be no secret more dangerous than the one Kuarmei had kept for him. He turned back to them. “I’m honored, Kuarmei. I would be happy to inquire, but I’ll just need to . . .”

  “Here,” said Erex, producing a paper. “This time I wrote it for you. But you will have to sign it.”

  Tagaret did more than that. He signed it at the Academy, and countersigned Kuarmei’s contract with the Headmaster, and with Serjer, who appeared quickly when they contacted him by intercom. Kuarmei vowed service and allowed him to touch her forehead, whereupon he dismissed her from duty—both to allow her to move her things, and to give himself a chance to recover from the shock.

  He walked out of the Academy still rubbing his hand. Serjer walked beside him with a subtle Imbati smile showing on his face.

  “Serjer, thank you for coming so quickly,” Tagaret said.

  “It was my pleasure, young Master.”

  Tagaret pushed his hands through his hair. “I can hardly believe this. I’m really lucky.”

  “Kuarmei is also lucky,” Serjer said. “I have met her off-duty, and I believe she will make a strong addition to our Household.”

  He should have thought of that. “Well, I’m glad,” Tagaret said. “Of course, I’m not sure what to do now.”

  “I would suggest you speak to your mother, sir.”

  Tagaret nodded. “You’re quite right.”

  But when they reached the rock gardens, Serjer stopped suddenly, between an obsidian boulder and an enormous swooping formation of sandstone.

  “Young Master—while you were out, I received an urgent message for you.”

  Serjer’s head was tilted to one side; a chill ran down Tagaret’s back. “Who from?”

  “Enwin and Pazeu of the Sixth Family,” Serjer said. “If you will forgive me, I would feel more comfortable in paraphrase—perhaps I should have mentioned this when you were sitting down.”

  D
ella—oh, Sirin and Eyn . . . Tagaret reached a hand to the shining black rock beside him. “I don’t have Kinders fever anymore. Say it however you wish.”

  “They invite you to their house tonight,” Serjer said. “They impress upon you the need for absolute secrecy. They wish you to—” He hesitated. “To render their daughter ineligible for partnership with Grobal Innis of the Fifth Family.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Complicit

  Mother. . . !” Young Master Tagaret’s voice echoed under the bedroom door, desperate.

  Aloran leapt to open the door with his Lady’s beryl-green jacket still swinging from his hand. The young Master burst in and ran straight to his mother’s arms.

  Tamelera held him, stroking his hair. “Tagaret, love, what’s wrong? You haven’t been to the medical center, have you? We were just on our way over . . .”

  Please, no. Aloran held his breath. Surely he would have received word if Grobal Garr had died!

  “No,” said young Master Tagaret. “I’ve just received a message, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who else to tell.”

  Lady Tamelera’s fine brows pulled together. “Is it Selemei again?”

  “It’s from Enwin and Lady Pazeu of the Sixth Family, about their daughter Della,” said Tagaret hesitantly. “You won’t believe me . . . you’ll be angry . . .”

  Pity twinged in Aloran’s heart. The young Master and Lady Della had been so sweet together—to see their hopes fall apart because of Kinders fever was an injustice that holy Mai should never have allowed.

  Tamelera looked at her son seriously for a long time. She raised one hand as if to twist her hair, apparently forgetting that she had chosen a tightly braided style for visiting the medical center. At last she said, “Come. Sit with me.”

  She sat at the foot of her bed, arranging her long green skirts. Aloran moved to his station beside the bedpost, shifting her jacket over his arm.

  Young Master Tagaret seemed too agitated to sit comfortably. He was blushing—a more extreme reaction even than the day Della’s Yoral had permitted him a kiss with his young Lady. For several seconds, Tagaret’s voice seemed bottled up; then words poured out of him all at once.

  “They—want me to spend the night with her tonight.”

  “What?” Tamelera flung up her hands.

  Young Master Tagaret cringed away as if she might strike him.

  Aloran bit down on the gasp that tried to escape his throat. Extreme didn’t begin to describe this. Such an invitation was unheard of.

  Tamelera jumped up and paced to the window. She whirled back to face her son. “It can’t be true. Tagaret, it can’t. You wouldn’t lie to me!”

  “Please, Mother—I don’t know what to do. I have to talk to someone. I got the message from Serjer . . .”

  Aloran stiffened—Serjer was in trouble. Lady Tamelera’s eyes snapped to him like a whip of ice. Her voice was just as cold.

  “Aloran, fetch Serjer please.”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  But surely Serjer hadn’t done anything wrong. Aloran hung his Lady’s jacket and left the room, crossing the drawing room and sitting room to the vestibule. He cracked the door of the lesser Maze, calling, “Serjer?”

  The First Houseman stood up from his chair behind the door. “At your service, Aloran.”

  Aloran gaze-gestured warning. “My Lady wishes to speak to you regarding a certain message received by young Master Tagaret.”

  Serjer’s body went rigid, and his head tilted to one side, suggesting deep distress. “That message—Aloran—”

  “I’m sorry to mention it, but my Lady expresses doubt of her son’s truthfulness.”

  Serjer’s eyes widened. He stood unmoving, unspeaking, far too long.

  Aloran swallowed. “I apologize. I shall tell her you are unavailable.”

  “Aloran, wait—”

  Aloran turned back.

  Serjer took a deep breath. “The messenger was Della’s Yoral of the Household of the Sixth Family. I was unforgivably rude. I questioned him, and when he was kind enough to answer, I realized I should not have asked. He told me the idea for the request was Lady Della’s, but that she acts upon it with her parents’ joint consent.” He paused, breathing hard. Pain came into his voice. “She’s a seventeen-year-old girl, Aloran. She’s willing to risk her health and social standing, and our young Master’s, out of the pure terror of a betrothal to a thirty-year-old man she doesn’t know. There’s no way to rescue the Grobal from the depths to which they sink!”

  “I won’t ask you to bear witness before my Lady,” Aloran said gently. Serjer had always been so kind to him—he couldn’t possibly insist. “I’ll speak to her on your behalf.”

  “Thank you.” Serjer sighed. “I only wonder where our Mistress would be now, had she been given the same choice.”

  Those words felt like a hand twisting in his guts. Aloran tried to hold himself tall, breathing a pattern as he returned to the master bedroom. Young Master Tagaret still sat frozen on the bed, but his Lady’s pacing had quickened. Aloran watched her, throat aching. Was it disapproval that goaded her? Or were her frantic footsteps those of the girl inside her, seeing someone else being offered a way out of the prison where she now lived?

  Aloran walked into her path and bent to one knee. “Lady, our First Houseman offers his apologies, but has spoken with me on this matter,” he said. “The invitation from Grobal Enwin and Lady Pazeu of the Sixth Family was indeed offered with sincerity. According to the young Lady’s escort, the young Lady herself was the originator of the plan, and both of her parents have given their consent.”

  Tamelera swept up to him and stopped. Hands shaking, she bunched her green skirts in both fists. “Tagaret,” she said. “Do you know what they are asking you to do?”

  The young Master broke from his paralysis. “To come at night, to . . . to . . .”

  “To ruin her.”

  “Oh, Sirin and Eyn,” Tagaret moaned, and hid his face in his hands.

  Aloran bent his head, blushing.

  “Even if you’re not discovered,” Tamelera continued mercilessly, “you won’t be able to take her as your life’s partner without suffering serious questioning about her value, and about your sanity in accepting an obviously compromised partnership.”

  Tagaret gained some resolve. “Mother, I would have been questioned anyway, because she’s Sixth Family. I don’t care about that.”

  “Easy enough to say, young man.”

  “I mean it!”

  “Then you must do as they ask.”

  “M-mother,” the young Master stammered. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious!” she snapped. “Will you be offered this opportunity, but sit back and allow her to partner with Garr?”

  Silence smothered the room. Aloran’s heart pounded and his face burned.

  “Aloran,” Tamelera said sharply.

  The hand in his guts had twisted so tight, it hurt to stand up. “Lady?”

  Her jaw was set, but tears trembled in her eyes. “If Tagaret is going to do this, he must be able to take her in partnership afterward. All his good intentions will mean nothing if she conceives a child tonight. Could you—access something for her?”

  Aloran gulped, seeing lines of bright green Restricted labels in the Academy pharmacy. On the other hand, there was an alternative, if he still had any left . . . “Lady,” he said. “May I be excused to check something?”

  Tamelera nodded.

  Aloran stepped behind his curtain into his own room. Breathing shallowly in guilt and disbelief, he opened the drawer of his bedside table. The bottle in the back corner felt empty to his hand. When he opened it, he discovered he had only two tablets left, unneeded since he’d lost Kiit and sworn off Chenna. For the medication to take full effect by this evening—he checked hi
s watch—the young Master would need to take both of them, immediately. He fetched a clean glass of water and returned with it to his Lady’s room, where he offered the tablets to Tagaret.

  “Young Master, please take both of these, at once.”

  Tagaret ran his hands through his hair. “What do they do?”

  “They will render you infertile for a period of one day.”

  Tagaret glanced up nervously. “Are you sure? Only one day?”

  Aloran took a calming breath. “Yes, sir. They are both effective and safe; I have taken them myself for more than a year, and I swear by them.”

  Gingerly, Tagaret took the tablets and swallowed them. “I guess I’d better go,” he said, blushing. “I have to . . . make plans.”

  “Oh, love,” Lady Tamelera sighed, but she didn’t stop the young Master walking out, or call him back. After a moment she wrapped both arms tightly around herself and shivered. “Poor Lady Della.”

  Something broke in Aloran’s mind. Horror flooded through him. Look at her. That retreat, that fear—that, for her, was the experience of sex! And that was what she imagined her own darling Tagaret would bring to Lady Della, simply because she had never known anything else.

  He couldn’t let her be right.

  “Excuse me, Lady,” he said, and leapt out the door after the young Master, catching up to him just as Tagaret reached the door of his rooms.

  “Aloran?” Tagaret looked puzzled. “Does Mother want me?”

  This was presumption of the most egregious sort, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Young Master, I must speak with you alone,” he said.

  Tagaret shrank. “All right. Do come in.”

  Aloran stepped inside the young Master’s rooms, just far enough to allow the door to close. There was no natural place for a guest to sit; and since he was no guest anyway, he remained standing.

  “Young Master, forgive me, but I shall presume to ask you a question.”

  Tagaret nodded.

  “Do you have any idea how to make love to a woman?”

  The young Master sank down on his bed with his head in his hands. “Sirin and Eyn help me,” he whispered. “I can’t do this.”