“Help that you’re only too happy to provide.” I leaned a little closer; this sounded almost promising. What kind of help could the Nemair want? I willed them to say more, but Lady Cardom just grunted noncommittally.
“I don’t like her maid,” she said, and I stiffened. “I don’t want her in my house.”
“The little one?”
“No, that Phandre. She’s too . . . loose. And she’s a Séthe. Never did like them much. The other one is fine. She can bring her.”
“I don’t know, Mother. I think Eptin Cwalo has his eye on that one, for one of his sons.”
“Huh. Those Cwalo think they can buy every thing. Aren’t you ready yet? We want to be there before they serve the duck.”
At long last, the Cardom rose together and exited the room. I waited a good twenty seconds before I collapsed to the Corles rug underneath my cramping toes.
Lady Cardom’s inconvenient timing had thrown me off my own schedule, and Meri was already dressed and gone by the time I returned to her rooms. I scurried down to the dining room, slipped in the back way behind the tapestry, and threw myself into place beside Marlytt, hoping no one would notice how late I was.
“Where have you been?” Marlytt hissed. “Meri was looking for you all afternoon.”
“Hunting,” I said crossly, glancing up to see Daul prowling in across the room.
“Bag anything tasty?” she asked coolly.
“A marriage proposal from Eptin Cwalo, if you believe Lady Cardom.” I didn’t mention what else I’d found in Lady Cardom’s rooms. I wasn’t even sure myself what it meant. Probably nothing, but tucked inside her jewel chest I’d discovered a band of embroidered linen that looked a lot like the piece she’d given Lady Lyll. But now, inexplicably, someone had gone through and cut several of the stitches, undoing rows of flowers and curlicues. I’d brought it back to Meri’s rooms and studied it, trying to work out its significance. Daul had told me to let him decide what was important, but he’d also been quick to show his displea sure when I returned with trivialities. I was smart enough to figure out on my own which category included ripped-up scraps of embroidery.
Dinner that night was informal; we sat where we wanted and collected what food we pleased as the servants strolled by with platters. It had finally stopped snowing, but the cold was impossible, seeping through the floors and walls of the Lodge despite the modern fireplaces roaring in every room. About the only warmth to be had was from dancing in the Round Court. I snagged a passing meat pie and a cup of ale — good sturdy peasant food for a night like this, although I was getting used to the dainties served up on the Bryn Shaer menu too — and settled in beside Marlytt to watch.
Meri was a surprisingly good dancer, bounding along on the arm of Lord Cardom, who flushed red with delight as he swung Meri through a turn.
“They look happy,” Marlytt said. “He’d be good to her. I can tell.” There was a strange note in her voice.
“I hope she likes pink,” was all I said, popping a hunk of crust into my mouth. As the dance drew on, my eyes drifted across the Round Court. Lady Nemair was sharing a pie with the el derly gentleman beside her — a man called Wellyth, whose rooms had revealed only a fondness for tobacco, a couple of law books, and a handful of letters from a young granddaughter, completely free of hidden ink seals. Daul lounged beside Antoch, rolling his goblet between his hands and watching the assembled company with those dark, predatory eyes.
What was he looking for? These seemed like nice people, but maybe my weeks of luxury were coloring my own instinctive suspicions. But I knew someone who never let her sharp perceptions about society be dulled by rich food and soft beds.
I pulled myself closer to Marlytt. “Tell me about these people,” I said.
She eyed me sideways and sipped her wine. “I beg your pardon?”
“The guests here — who are they? What do you know about them?”
Marlytt hesitated. “Why do you want to know?”
“I just do.” When her eyebrows pulled together suspiciously, I changed tack. “Look, I’m stuck here with them for the gods only know how long. It might be nice if I didn’t trip up every time I opened my mouth. Help me out?”
“All right. What do you want to know first?”
“Everything. Anything.”
Marlytt turned her gaze across the room, to where Eptin Cwalo was being pulled onto the dance floor by Phandre. “Well, Cwalo you know already. Wealthy merchant from an old Yerin shipping family. And by ‘shipping,’ I of course mean smuggling. He’s made a name for himself outfitting every army in the known world, but his current passion is reportedly spices from Talanca. He’s the sort of fellow you find circling the waters every where nobs get together.”
I looked at her evenly. “I can’t imagine. Go on. I know Phandre too. What about Daul? What’s his story?”
Marlytt shook her head, and a delicate swag of crystals glittered in her hair like snowflakes. “Be careful of Phandre. She’s a loose nob — orphaned, unattached. Unpredictable. If the moons align in her favor, she’ll end up like me. If not . . .”
“I can handle Phandre. Daul?”
She tapped her fingers on the rim of her glass. “I don’t know much. Boyhood friend of Lord Antoch. Father was Senim Daul, commander of the Sarist forces in the war. He’s been away from the court scene for a while, since his familial lands were seized after the war — and of course he spent something like twelve years in traitors’ prison.”
Twelve years? I was almost impressed. Nobody lived that long in Bardolph’s gaols. “That seems . . . excessive.”
“I guess that’s what you get for being the son of Bardolph’s mortal enemy.” She pointed a discreet little finger at the Cardom, now sitting with Meri between them. “I’ve heard Lord Cardom — that Lord Cardom’s father — only got a year for his role in the conspiracy. Lord Sposa a few months. And Antoch was out —” Her voice slowed, stopped.
“What? What is it?”
“No, it’s nothing — it’s just —” She paused again and seemed to be making a tally in her head. The strains of the court musicians in the gallery above floated down, the flutes and recorders sounding distant and eerie.
“Marlytt, if you know something . . .”
She turned to me, her eyes gone very serious. “What do you remember about the Battle of Kalorjn?”
“Less than you, I expect.” Courtesans trained in history, music, mathematics — anything to make them more appealing companions to accomplished men. “A great defeat for the Sarist cause. That’s about it.”
“No, the great defeat. The end of the rebellion.” She nodded slowly. “I think this is them.”
“Who?”
“The defeated Sarists. No, look — Daul. Nemair. Sposa. Cardom. Wellyth. Except for Lougre Séthe, they’re all here. All the families that backed that last rebellion.”
My eyes swung down across the room, to where the dance was breaking up and Eptin Cwalo was leading a tawny-haired beauty from the floor. “No,” I said. “Séthe’s here too.”
A moment later, Phandre swept over and dropped down beside us. “Ah,” she sighed dramatically, a hand to her dewy bosom. “I just can’t decide. Do I like Lord Cardom for his estate and his allowance, or do I like Lord Sposa for his youth and his beauty?”
It was hardly likely she’d nab either one of them, but she and Marlytt fell easily into sober speculation of the potential faults and virtues of each man, as if they were examining goods at a market. I drew back, wondering how they’d like the corset Sposa wore to achieve that youthful figure, or the blocks in his shoes that added two inches to his height.
I sighed into my ale. My days kept getting wilder, and I wanted someone I could talk to — really talk to, not just this shallow court gossip Marlytt and Phandre excelled at. I wanted somebody who would laugh about Lord Cardom’s ridiculous smock or my close call in his mother’s rooms. Or help me figure out just what Daul was up to. Back home, there were people I could tell. Tegen
would have laughed with me.
Marlytt was watching me now, her pale eyes glittering in the firelight. Together she and Phandre looked fat and pompous and ridiculous, in their crisp silk and heavy jewels, their bodices laced so tight their breasts heaved when they breathed. Phandre had picked up a collar of pearls and a garnet ring somewhere, and she fanned herself elaborately, showing them off.
“What were you two talking about?” she asked in her bored voice.
“Oddly enough, the very same thing you were,” I said.
She perked back up. “Really? What were you saying? Have we made matches for everybody yet?” Then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to like me. “Excluding poor Celyn, of course, since there isn’t anyone here of her rank.”
I didn’t even need to respond to that, because the music died and Meri collapsed in a breathless heap next to me. Her hair curled in damp tendrils at her forehead, and she was grinning, her color high, her sil ver necklaces askew in her bodice. I reached to straighten them, but pulled my hand back at the last moment. Suddenly I didn’t want to be there. My dress felt hot and stiff, my headpiece was making me sweaty, and the silver bracelet was starting to chafe. I tapped my fingers against the neckline of my dress, looking over the crowd, and wondered whose bedroom I hadn’t had the plea sure of perusing yet.
Daul was in the back of the room with Lord Antoch, who was laughing his big, warmhearted laugh at something Daul had said. Heat crept up into my belly and my limbs as I felt the idea take shape. He wanted a thorough job, didn’t he? Professional pride as a thief from Gerse’s Seventh Circle demanded that I give this my most diligent effort.
“I’m a little tired,” I said. “I think I’ll get some air.” I rose and stifled a yawn, for their benefit.
“She hasn’t been sleeping well,” Meri said in an exaggerated whisper. Poor Meri — alone with the grown-ups. She was trying so hard.
“I’ll walk with you.” Marlytt stood and hooked her arm into mine. Pox.
“Not me,” Phandre said. “I’m going to give Lord Sposa another turn.”
And thus we abandoned Meri to the circling wolves. I could almost feel the suitors pressing in, waiting for their chance to nick in for a sniff.
My blood was rushing as I pulled Marlytt into the servants’ stair, curving up the back of the Round Court.
“Where are you going? I thought we were getting air.”
“We can breathe upstairs.”
“Ow! Digger, you’re hurting me! What are you doing?”
“My job — and you’re going to help.” Marlytt wasn’t Tegen, but she’d do for the moment. I didn’t know how much time we’d have; not much if the gods’ perverse humor held out this evening. With my luck, Daul would suddenly appear, waiting for me to deliver my “report.” We slipped out onto the third floor, and I glanced down the hallway. Empty. Everyone from these rooms was still downstairs at dinner. The leaping light from a single torch at the end of the hall cast crazy shadows on the paneled walls. Marlytt’s bright face was taut, confused, but I had a good idea she’d keep her mouth shut.
Until we stopped before the door at the end of the hall.
“Are you crazy? These are Daul’s rooms!” She pulled her arm out of my grip and rubbed at her shoulder.
“You’re the one who said I should be curious.”
“Curious, not stupid. What if he catches you — us?”
“I never get caught.” The words tasted thin and hollow. They hadn’t been a lie, once. “Stand there and watch. If he comes — do what you do.”
“Fine.” Her eyes mimicked mine, taking in the hall on either side of us, and then she hiked her skirt up an inch or two above her stockinged ankle and leaned casually against the wall outside Daul’s door. I knelt beside her, hidden behind her voluminous skirts. She also blocked most of the light, but this was work I could do by feel.
Of course, Daul hadn’t been as trusting as the Cardom, or as Lord Antoch, for that matter. The doors on the third-story suites had latches and bolts, not set-in locks — but you can’t bolt a door from the outside.
You can, however, padlock it.
Which normally shouldn’t be an impediment, but Daul had something special picked out for me: a delicate, barrel-shaped lock clipped over the hasp, its brass case traced with scrollwork. A work of art, really — I had a mind to keep it, once I had it free. I slipped a pick from my bodice and went to insert it into the keyhole, but at my touch, the entire thing sparked up like a firebrand, and a thread of silvery mist seeped from the keyhole, circling the shackle. “Balls!” I swore through the pick in my teeth, and dropped its mate.
Marlytt looked down, a line creasing her forehead. “What’s the matter?”
I still had one secret Marlytt didn’t know. I scowled and shook my head, fumbling on the dark floor for my dropped pick. I tried a second time, sliding the pick into the lock, following behind with the second one from my mouth. And met with re sis tance. It was like pok ing two wrong ends of magnets together, as if the lock repelled my picks.
“Well, how about that,” I said in a low voice. I had only encountered one other lock like this. It had been on the Master Confessor’s door at the Celystra — and I’d been curious about what kinds of secrets he’d kept behind his too. Magical items were almost as rare as magical people, mostly old charmed objects that had been forgotten about. There was a black-market trade in spelled goods; things changed hands very quietly and for great sums of money. Most of the spells had worn off over the years, of course, but a perpetual charm like the one on this lock would have cost a fortune.
And why was it on this door? It was the sort of thing I’d have thought Daul wanted me to find for him, not the sort of thing he had already. It seemed a little strange that a man intent on uncovering Sarists would flaunt a magical item so openly.
Of course, I was the only person likely to discover it was magic, by sticking my fingers where they didn’t belong. And it wasn’t like I could do anything with that knowledge, except glare at Daul and seethe.
“Magic lock?” Marlytt said. “That’s interesting. Can’t imagine who Daul wants to keep out.” There was a trace of wryness in her voice, which I ignored.
“Or in,” I suggested, carefully lifting the lock to peer at its back side.
Marlytt shook her head. “It’s only locked on the outside,” she said. “You can leave the room, but nobody can get in without the spelled key.” When I looked up at her sharply, she shrugged daintily. “Valros had one.”
Well, Marlytt’s “friends” were the type who could afford such a thing — but it seemed like overkill for a man like Daul, in a place like this, supposedly among friends. Maybe the Nemair weren’t the only people at Bryn Shaer with secrets. “What’s he hiding in there?” I sat back on my heels and frowned at the door, as if force of will could make the lock fall open on its own.
“Digger, I know that look. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not worth it.”
“Oh, it’s worth it.” I grabbed the lock and held it tight in my fist, letting the strains of magic seep out around my fingers like smoke. “I’ll get in there.”
I just had to figure out how.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My conversation with Marlytt echoed in my thoughts the next morning as I ground poppy seeds in the stillroom. I sometimes spent mornings here while Meri and her father were out riding, helping as Lady Lyll set medicines to brewing, put up herbs to dry from the kitchen gardens, or recorded remedies in the great bound book she called an herbal.
The poppy seeds had a distinctive sweet smell, and Lady Lyll explained that the flowers grew wild on the sides of the mountain in the spring. She was working on a salve to fight poison in a wound, while a decoc tion of willow to reduce fever simmered in a crucible. Before this, we’d torn white linen into strips for bandages. I touched the scar on my arm, now a red weal, and thought Lady Lyll might have been a useful ally that night.
“Didn’t we make that wound salve last week too?”
I looked at the little jar she was spreading the ointment into. “But what happened to the last batch?”
Lady Lyll gave me a strange look. “I gave it to the kennels. Some of the dogs have abrasions on their paws from digging in the snow. You’re awfully curious this morning. Is there anything else you want to know?”
That felt like a rebuke, and I could feel my face getting hot. “Lady Cardom’s head aches seem better,” I said instead.
She nodded. “She’s suffered from them ever since I’ve known her. I think it’s the tension of having to hold her head up so high all the time.”
A high surprised laugh jerked out of me, but Lady Lyll’s wide fair face was as smooth and expressionless as a full moon. I watched her a moment, thinking about what Marlytt had said last night. Why bring together all those once-allied families? Maybe Daul was right, and there was something suspicious going on.
Or maybe they were just all old friends, gathered innocently together to celebrate one family’s milestone.
“Have you known all your guests a long time?”
“Oh, Goddess, yes. Some of them, like Petr Wellyth, since I was a girl. And some of them came with Antoch, of course.”
“Like Lord Daul?”
The bemused smile faltered just slightly. “Celyn, this is some of the most valuable information I have to teach you: Never get between your man and his friends. Theirs is an old, old relationship, and there’s no breaking it.”
“You don’t like him?”
Lyll sighed and rummaged for a vial and funnel. “We’ve known him too long; it goes beyond liking or disliking. He is the closest thing Antoch has to a brother, and that is that. He has not been so fortunate in this life as we have, and we do what we can for him.”
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