Mistress of Ambiguities

by J F Rivkin

  Corson stood and stretched, grinning down at him. “Nyc says no honest work’s beneath the dignity of a lady, but I have yet to see her carrying cheeses about-eh, not that she could.”

  “You could,” Steifann pointed out. “I’ve been to market and back this morning, and chopped the wood, while Your Ladyship was still abed.”

  “I could sleep all morning, at court, and have my breakfast in bed if I liked, waited on by maids and minions. I don’t have to toil like a scullion.”

  “You do if you want to stay under my roof! Asye! Not here a week, and already longing to run back to Rhostshyl again. I wonder you give yourself the bother to visit us lowly commoners at all.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Trask said wistfully. “I’d stay at court if I could.”

  Steifann glared at him. “Well you can’t, so go open the taproom.”

  Trask, who knew exactly how far he could safely provoke Steifann, obeyed at once this time, and Steifann turned on Corson again. “As for you, Desthene, if idleness and luxury are what you want, you know where to find them! No one’s keeping you here.”

  Corson shrugged and made for the door, without a word.

  “Corson!” Alarmed, Steifann started after her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To fetch in the cheese, where else?” Corson said, laughing.

  The house was full of customers by midday, and everyone was kept busy drawing the ale, turning the spits, carving the meat, cleaning the platters, serving and carrying, and keeping order. Corson, for all her chaff about her exalted station, did her share of the work, only occasionally reminding the others what an honor she did them by her presence alone.

  No one paid her any heed except Trask, who honestly couldn’t understand why anyone who could live the life of a courtier would choose to spend her time-much less earn her keep-in a common ale-house. The Jugged Hare had been Trask’s home for years, and it was as good a home as he could ever have expected to have. A castoff beggar’s brat, scrambling to survive on the streets and wharves of Chiastelm, he’d been lucky to find a place with Steifann, as he well knew, yet he dreamed of somehow becoming something more than potboy of a tavern-something finer, grander… Ever since he’d been to the palace of the Edonaris in Rhostshyl to see Corson receive her title, he’d been under the spell of the splendor and glamour of the court. He longed to cut a figure among the noble lords and ladies he’d encountered there, eagerly observing their every gesture and expression. He had persuaded Corson to take him along with her to Rhostshyl now and then, but such tastes of court life, far from satisfying his hunger, had only made him more discontented with his lot. He was more sure than ever that he could master their elegant manners and turns of speech, if given a chance. He could already mimic Nyctasia’s aristocratic accent with considerable accuracy-and often did so, much to the amusement of the others and the annoyance of Nyctasia. She assured him that there was more to the life of a courtier than looking and acting the part, but Trask was not put off by that. He was even willing to learn to read, if need be, but Steifann was too busy, and Corson too impatient, to teach him. If he only had the right clothes, Trask thought, with a little practice he could surely pass for a youth of good family. Even Corson could assume an acceptable demeanor at court when she chose, and Corson was common as dirt, as ill-bred and vulgar as any soldier. He could hear her cursing like a peasant as she hauled a heavy cask of ale up the stairs from the cellar.

  “To think I could be dining in state now, off silver plates, instead of serving a lot of rutting drunken louts and tosspots,” she remarked, setting down her burden and wiping her face with her sleeve.

  “Our little starveling Rhaicime says the food’s better here than in her own palace,” said Walden, who repeated this often and with considerable pleasure.

  Corson knew better than to argue the point with him. “So it is,” she said, “but at least I can find time to sit down and eat a proper meal there, and let others make it ready and serve it to me.”

  Steifann was not likely to let that pass, however busy he was. “You find time to eat enough for three whenever you’re here! And what’s more-”

  “Do they really eat off silver plates there?” Trask interrupted, ever interested in details of the life of the nobility.

  “Well, not anymore,” Corson admitted, “They did, but Nyc had most of them melted down to feed the City Treasury. She told her steward she’d concern herself with cutlery when the poor of Rhostshyl had enough to eat. Her kin were furious, but of course they couldn’t disagree. All the same, silver or no, it’s still a far cry from trenchers of wood and bowls of earthenware.”

  “Why don’t you stay there, then?” Trask demanded. “You must be crazy to give that up for this.” He gestured scornfully at the pile of onions he was supposed to be peeling.

  “Ah, but she doesn’t have me there, you see,” Steifann explained, pinching Corson in passing. “What’s the use of a bed as big as a barn if I’m not at hand to share it? Better straw with your sweetheart, they say, than silk sheets without.”

  “I have admirers aplenty at court, I’ll have you know-”

  “But none that measures up to me, I’ll wager. Admit it, woman.”

  He would have won that wager, but Corson had no intention of admitting it.

  Ignoring him, she told Trask, “The truth of it is, I get bored at court after a while. There’s not much for me to do there, now that Nyc has matters in hand. No one’s tried to assassinate her for months.”

  “Well, here’s something for you to do, take this,” said Annin, handing her a platter piled with roast beef. She took up a pitcher of ale in each hand and pushed open the door to the taproom with her hip, waiting for Corson to follow.

  Corson caught the door with her foot and started after her, but suddenly backed into the kitchen again, letting the door swing shut after the surprised Annin.

  “Corson!” she heard, “bring that meat here! What ails you?”

  Corson cursed softly. Now he’d heard her name called out, even if he hadn’t seen her! But he had seen her, she was certain, though he’d given no sign of it.

  Their eyes had met for only a moment, but that had been long enough for Corson to recognize Erystalben ar’n Shiastred, and so for him to know her as well…

  She thrust the platter of meat at one of the serving-girls and grabbed Trask, dragging him to the door to look through the knothole at the taproom. “The dark one,” she said, “sitting apart from the rest, near the window.”

  “Mmm, the beauty with the blue eyes?”

  Corson nodded. “Find out who he is and what he wants here.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure. You’re nowhere to be found, I suppose?”

  He was gone without waiting for an answer. For some things, Trask could be relied upon. Corson watched him moving from table to table, mopping up spills with a wet cloth, and joking with the other customers before he approached Lord Erystalben’s place.

  “Trouble?” Steifann asked, joining her. He’d seen her reach instinctively for her sword-the sword he had insisted she not wear in his house. It was hanging high on the wall among copper pans and iron skillets.

  “I don’t know,” said Corson, “maybe.” Trask had reached his quarry now. He was pretending to scrub at the table near Shiastred, and addressing him in his most flirtatious manner. Corson couldn’t hear him, but knew he was saying, “You’re not from these parts? A traveler?” Shiastred shook his head, smiling, and said something that seemed to surprise Trask, then laughed at his reply.

  Corson straightened up, frowning. Could she have been mistaken? He looked like Erystalben ar’n Shiastred, and yet… this man was haggard and unkempt, his clothing drab and worn, commoner’s garb that the man Corson remembered would never have worn. And that was not the only difference-it was his expression that was unfamiliar, Corson decided, not his features. Lord Erystalben wouldn’t bandy words with the likes of Trask in that open, friendly way. He was the sort who gave orders to hi
s inferiors and, apart from that, didn’t notice them at all. As soon as Trask came through the door she pulled him aside and demanded, “Well?

  What did he say to you all that time?”

  “Ow! Corson, would you stop hauling me about!” he complained, straightening his sleeve. He was clearly enjoying himself not a little.

  “I’ll tear you into shreds if you don’t stop preening yourself and answer me!”

  “All right, all right, I’m trying to-no need to get into a lather. Well…” he paused, drawing out the drama, “that one’s a strange lot, and no mistake. He calls himself Veron, for want of anything better, but he claims he doesn’t know who he is, that he’s lost his memory and his name! Did you ever hear a tale the like of that?”

  Corson shook her head. “If that’s true, then why is he here?”

  “He says he’s been told that he has the accent of a Maritimer-and he does, too-so he’s been working his way along the coast looking for someone who knows him. He didn’t ask for you.”

  “He must be after me, to come right into the Hare!”

  “He’s been to a few other places in town already,” Trask explained, “but he says folk told him to try his luck here.”

  That was not unlikely, Corson realized. Anyone who was searching the coast would try Chiastelm, and anyone who was searching Chiastelm would sooner or later try the Hare. People of all stations frequented Steifann’s tavern, even the gentry, of late. It was the advice anyone in the city might give a stranger. “What did you tell him, then?” she asked Trask.

  “What else?” Trask grinned, “I said if I’d ever seen him before I’d surely have remembered him.”

  “Corson, who is he?” Steifann asked impatiently.

  “Asye, I’m not sure-I think he’s a lord of Rhostshyl, of Jhaice rank. A magician. And an arrogant, vicious cur,” she added with feeling.

  “He could be a Jhaice, I suppose,” Trask said doubtfully. “He’s well-spoken, like a nobleman, but any cozener can manage that. And he doesn’t look to have much money about him; his shirt’s worn to a thread.”

  “He’s not the Jhaice who gave you that whorish silk dress?” Steifann said, suspicious.

  “He wasn’t a Jhaice, I told you, his sister was. This one is Nyc’s paramour, none of mine. If he’s the same one.”

  “Oh, well, if he’s a friend of Nyc’s, where’s the worry? Let her see to him.”

  Corson didn’t want to explain the deadly struggle for power-and for Nyctasia-that had taken place between Lord Erystalben and a rival mage. In that battle she’d sided against him, perhaps unwisely, and she doubted that he would forget it. But suppose he had really forgotten everything, what then? In answer to Steifann’s question, she said only, “I don’t trust him.”

  “Do you think he’s really lost his memory?”

  Corson didn’t know what to think. “It could be so,” she admitted. “I know he did some dangerous spell or other, and Nyc said it would take its toll of him-that he’d lose something by it-but there was no telling what it would be…”

  The more Corson thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Shiastred-if indeed it were he-had truly come there by chance. If he knew who he was, why wouldn’t he have gone directly to Rhostshyl? Finding Nyctasia would surely be more important to him than hunting down a mere hireling like Corson. The proud Lord Erystalben would probably consider it beneath him to seek vengeance on an inferior; even as an enemy he’d think her of no importance.

  “If he keeps on along the coast, he won’t come to Rhostshyl,” she said uneasily, Rhostshyl was at least a day’s ride inland, a Maritime city only by alliance.

  “He’ll not find his people that way.”

  Steifann shrugged. “What do you care, if you think so little of him?”

  “I don’t care! He could stay lost forever, for all of me-but Nyc cares, the little fool. She still grieves over that bastard.” And she’d never forgive me, if she lost him again because I let him go off none the wiser. Corson sighed.

  “I’d better try to see if it’s really him. I’ll warrant it is, too. That would be just like my luck.”

  She might as well know the worst. If she didn’t find out what his game was, she’d have no peace, wondering if he’d come to cast some foul spell on her.

  Corson took down her sword-belt and buckled it on. Weapons would be of no use against Shiastred’s sorcery, she knew, but she felt the better for it all the same. And she took heart as she remembered Nyctasia explaining that the source of Shiastred’s power was the mage-land where he’d established his stronghold. If Corson had understood her aright, he ought not to be so dangerous now that he was far from that spell-haunted place. Unfortunately, Corson also remembered that she hadn’t paid very close attention to Nyctasia’s explanation. She usually didn’t.

  From near at hand, the stranger looked more than ever like Erystalben ar’n Shiastred. Corson was not likely to forget those vivid blue eyes, all the more striking because of his dark skin, but blazing with murderous wrath and inhuman power when she’d seen them last.

  He was still beautiful, Corson thought, for all that he looked wayworn and weary now, and older than she would have expected after only two years’ time. His long black hair was shaggy and disheveled, carelessly tied back with a leather thong, and Corson was surprised to see streaks of grey at his temples.

  He had only glanced in her direction when she entered the taproom, with no more than the casual interest commonly inspired by Corson’s unusual height and pulchritude. He paid no further attention to her at all until she sat down across from him, leaned over the table and said, “If you’re looking for me, here I am. What do you want?”

  He stared at her in seeming bewilderment for a time before he gasped, “You know me?”

  “We’ve met,” Corson said drily. She studied him rather than listened as he hastily explained what she’d already learned from Trask, but she could read nothing in his features or manner except intense eagerness and excitement. It was a relief to her that he maintained the story-if he were still a powerful magician, he’d have no need to invent such a tale. He was either really as he claimed to be, or he was desperate enough to resort to deception, and either way he could not be much of a threat, Corson assured herself. Still, she had no intention of revealing anything to him before she’d warned Nyctasia of his return. Whatever she might tell him would lead him to Nyctasia, and Corson didn’t mean to let her be taken unawares.

  When he asked her for his name, she said, “If you’re the one I think you are, I’ve a friend who used to call you ’Ben. But that was short of some fancy long name with a string of titles to it. I only heard the whole of it once, and I didn’t trouble myself to remember it.”

  Her tone was mocking, meant to provoke, but he said hoarsely, “Don’t toy with me, for pity’s sake. If you know who I am, tell me!”

  “Why should I?” Corson spat. “When I saw you last, you tried your best to kill me.”

  He looked startled, then, recovering his self-possession, he said coolly, “I’m not in a position to deny it. But how am I supposed to have done that, pray? One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m no fighter.”

  If he didn’t remember his sorcerous powers, Corson was certainly not about to remind him. Let Nyctasia decide what to tell him and what to keep from him-she understood the ways of witchery. “You were a lord and I a lackey, in those days.

  But now I’m a Desthene, and you’ll remember that if you expect any help from me.”

  He spread his hands helplessly. “Very well. But am I to expect any help from you? You’ve told me nothing.”

  Corson scowled. “I know little enough about you myself-and what I do know I don’t like. But I can arrange for you to meet with someone who knows you all too well, if she wishes it.”

  “And if she doesn’t, what am I to do?”

  “For my part, you can go drown yourself! I’m doing this for her sake, not for yours. But you needn’t worry,” Corson s
aid reluctantly, “I expect she’ll meet you. If I know that one, she’ll not rest till she’s seen you. All the same, maybe she’s come to her senses, who knows? You’ll wait till I know for certain whether she wants any part of you. You’ll abide by my terms or you’ll never see so much as her shadow, I promise you.”

  “Why then, I accept your terms, Desthene,” he said with an ironic smile, “since you leave me no choice.”

  Corson stood. “Then we understand each other,” she said. “Wait here.” Turning her back on him, Corson strode across the taproom to the kitchen, shoving aside anyone who got in her way. “Something like this always happens to me,” she muttered. “It’s not fair.” There was some satisfaction in making Lord Erystalben bear with her arrant effrontery, but she was not looking forward to telling Steifann that she had to go back to Rhostshyl again so soon, And with Destiver still in port, too.

  8

  the moon was full, and Nyctasia stepped in and out of pale pools of moonlight as she paced her bedchamber, weary yet restless, unable to dismiss the cares that kept her from sleep. What more could she do to placate her kin, without jeopardizing the stability of the city? How much of her responsibility did she dare to turn over to others? Which was the greater risk, to act or to wait? And what of Lord Aithrenn’s proposal of alliance with Ochram…?

  At least Erikasten was out of harm’s way, though-that was something gained. She need no longer fear that he would be drawn into a plot against her, that she would be forced to deal with him as with an enemy. The thought chilled her. The greatest danger was not from the conspirators, but from the woman she herself might become if she were to sacrifice her principles to safeguard her position.

  It would be easy-all too easy-to persuade herself that she had no choice. She must be strong, for Rhostshyl’s sake, yes, but sometimes it showed strength to yield, rather than to conquer at the cost of one’s own spirit. If she was not to be mistress of her own actions, how could she be fit to rule over others?