Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  He flicked his fingers at the servant; relieved, the servant began walking again and Arsenault after him. I had no choice but to follow, the sound of my bootheels echoing hollowly off the bare stucco walls.

  Mosaics were now visible on the floor, chipped gold medallions older than my oldest great-grandfather, tile that had been laid fresh beneath the soles of Eterean sandals. Frescoes I’d never seen revealed themselves on the bare walls—the faded gray-green outlines of olive groves, the line of a deer strung up by its heels.

  Adalus.

  Hidden in the disappearing foliage of olives stood the faintest imprint of a man with a bow, taking aim.

  I’d never known Erelf inhabited our very house.

  For his part, Arsenault looked straight ahead, his gaze fixed on the servant’s back. I don’t know if he saw the frescoes or not, but probably—I had to remind myself—he had seen them before. It felt strange to know less of my birthplace than he did, but he belonged to it now and I didn’t.

  My parents sat on the veranda outside the drawing room, illuminated against the night by a bronze candelabra that gave off a soft yellow glow. More candle flames guttered and shook on the stone abutments of the balcony, but these had an acrid smell—herbs to drive off the mosquitoes and other night insects.

  “Kyrra,” Arsenault said softly, putting his hand briefly to the small of my back. “They’re expecting us.”

  I gave a start at Arsenault’s touch, gazed up at him like a deer, then nodded and followed him across the room.

  The servants disappeared and the door closed with a snick, leaving us alone with my parents.

  “Kyrra,” my father said. I stumbled on the division between the stone floor of the balcony and the tile of the drawing room as I turned around. My face burned as I straightened up.

  My father visited the barracks from time to time, so I’d been able to track the changes in him, even if we’d never spoken. His hair, once black streaked with gray, was now more gray-streaked black. I wondered what Claudia d’Imisi would think of him.

  My mother said, “At least you came.”

  I couldn’t see her face well in the candlelight. There were too many shadows. But I couldn’t mistake her disapproval of my appearance. My father looked upset too, a troubled frown pulling down his mouth.

  “Didn’t I give you instructions, Arsenault?” my mother said.

  He stood with his shoulders a straight line. “I brought Kyrra here as you requested me to, Messera.”

  “So you did,” my father said. “And I’m grateful for that. But, Kyrra, you do realize that all the Houses will attend this wedding, and that you may come under disapproving eyes?”

  There were no greetings, no niceties, not even a formal kiss. Not even the acknowledgement a servant could expect. Instead, it was as if I’d walked into the middle of a conversation already in progress.

  “What matter is it that they disapprove of me now?” I said. “They’ve always disapproved of me.”

  I could feel the way my parents stared at my stump. I’m sure they didn’t mean to, because both of them turned abruptly away, looking not at me or at each other but instead at different points in the setting: my mother into the night; my father, the base of the candelabra, where wax dripped in thick pools.

  “Camile di Sere is barren,” my father said. “And Geoffre blames you for cursing his son. If he sees any hint of favoritism from me…”

  “He wishes me dead, Father. He’ll call anything more than that favoritism.”

  “No.” He rose from the table to lean on the balustrade. “He wants you alive, and he wants to observe me favoring my only child, so that he may accuse me of treason in the Circle and legally have all my lands. All the Heads of House will be here, and they will be waiting to catch me in a misstep. The Caprine want me removed and Lisano elevated in my place—do you remember Lisano, my cousin?”

  “Just because I’m no longer your daughter doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten all my blood ties, Father.”

  “Mind your tongue, Kyrra,” my mother snapped. “Why don’t you sit and eat, and we’ll discuss this after we’ve taken some nourishment. Otherwise, I don’t believe I’ll be able to stomach it.”

  My father sighed and sat down. My arms and legs stiffened, and I looked to Arsenault for a cue as to how I should react.

  In truth, I only wanted some escape. But he didn’t provide it. Instead, he pulled out a chair for me and waited for me to sit before he sat down in the other chair.

  I tried to serve myself, but my mother took the spoon away from me and did it. Startled, I looked up at her, but her mouth was pursed tight and she kept her gaze on the spoon as she ladled out a bowl of stewed eggplant, then passed us a cheese board with a fan of thin ham slices above the cheese. There was a platter of sliced melon and a loaf of bread, but the oil that accompanied it didn’t have the fruity olive taste I remembered, and the wine was mediocre. The best wines were being saved for the wedding, and maybe the olive oil too.

  We ate in silence for a moment, the only sounds the wind in the trees and the clink of our silverware. We had small silver forks to pick up our food. The gavaros said forks were becoming the fashion, even among the lesser Houses who could ill afford it.

  I ate little. The melon wasn’t quite ripe, the ham too salty, and I couldn’t seem to swallow with my mother and father watching me cut one-handed, then put down my knife to pick up my fork.

  I began to be grateful that I wouldn’t have to endure the endless courses of the wedding feast, where hundreds of little silver forks would be laid out in rows.

  “Does your arm still pain you?” my father asked.

  I stopped trying to spear a chunk of eggplant and looked up at him. “Sometimes,” I said.

  “The chirurgeons did their best sewing it up. I did all I could.”

  The corners of Arsenault’s mouth turned down into his beard and I knew he was trying not to scowl. I laid down my fork. “It isn’t the stump that hurts,” I said.

  My father’s brows lifted in nervous surprise, and I looked away hastily, picking up my goblet and finishing off the dregs of my wine.

  My mother sighed. “We can dispense with this, I think. What’s done is done, and there’s no use trolling back over it. You seem to have healed well, daughter.” Her mouth quirked as I put the goblet down. “With your rebelliousness still intact. But I tell you, Kyrra, you must obey us in this.”

  “In what, Mother? If you wished to make it seem as if I enjoyed no favoritism from you, then you shouldn’t have invited me here. The servants saw us; they’ll talk.”

  Arsenault cleared his throat. “The servants don’t entirely know who you are, Kyrra. Most of them are new.”

  “They’ve heard the stories. They’ve seen me and my arm. Who else lives on this estate without a right arm?”

  “My suggestion is still to send her away, Mestere,” Arsenault said. “Let her go, someplace she’ll be safe.”

  I frowned. “I told you I would stay, Arsenault. You’re staying, aren’t you?”

  “I fail to see how whether Arsenault stays or goes has anything to do with it,” my mother said, leaning back in her chair. Her eyebrows formed twin arches. She steepled her hands and pressed the tips of her fingers to her mouth.

  It was a question. More than a question. I battled down a flush and held my head up.

  “Arsenault is in much more danger than I from Geoffre di Prinze. If Geoffre were to find him out—”

  My father frowned at Arsenault. “I knew she was in the barracks, but what have you told her? Do the other men know?”

  Arsenault drew himself up straight, and I cursed myself. Then the tension in his shoulders eased and he fingered the rim of his goblet, spinning it as he spoke. “No,” he said. “Though they might wonder, as often as I’m away. They all know why you hired me, Mestere.” He stopped spinning the cup. “One of the reasons, anyway.”

  My father hunched over his food, arranging his forks. “Would that I could send Kyrr
a away. But where would I send her? The only place that would satisfy the Prinze would be one of the cripple colonies—”

  “And you are of no use to us there, daughter,” my mother said as she leaned forward. “No matter how they’ve tried to sever your ties to your House, you still exist within its confines. We want to show that you have become, in truth, a serf, in body and soul. Then the Prinze won’t be able to make any legal claims against us in the Circle. They’ll have no evidence to stand on.”

  “Do they need evidence?” I said. “They’ll make it up if it doesn’t exist. All they have to do is expose Arsenault and they’ll know you’ve been spying on them.”

  “As if they don’t have their own spies everywhere?” my mother said, waving her hand in dismissal. “It’s not illegal, spying.”

  “But Arsenault is a trusted member—”

  My father slammed his fist down on the table so that the dishes rattled. He sat up against the table’s lip and said, “Arsenault. How much have you told her?”

  Arsenault had been following this exchange with an increasingly stormy expression, and now he clearly struggled to bring it under control. I saw the warrior in him as he matched my father’s anger with all the give of a steel blade. “I told her only as much as she discovered for herself, Pallo. You can’t expect me to carry out all these tasks and have none of them overlap.”

  My father rose and paced behind the table. “You were supposed to keep her safe. But how is she safe with all this information in her head? In the barracks, with sword and dagger? I thought she was just playing at something, the way she’s always done. But do you mean to tell me she knows?”

  Arsenault clenched his jaw but remained seated. “She knows how to use a knife. And a sword. You told me you couldn’t give me any instructions but you wanted to see her safe, so I should protect her in the way I saw fit. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve protected her in the way I Saw to do it.”

  I shivered, half in anger, half with the crackling feeling that came into the air when Arsenault spoke of his magic—as if he’d called it to himself. His eyes glittered in the candlelight.

  I stood up. “I’m not a child,” I said. “I’m a woman grown, without ties to House or kin, and I can choose as I please. If I choose knowledge, then let it be my own responsibility.”

  They all stared at me, my father, my mother, Arsenault. Magic thrummed in the night air. I could reach out and take it if I wanted.

  If my father knew there was magic in the air, he didn’t show it, but my mother narrowed her eyes shrewdly.

  “Knowledge bears a heavy price, Kyrra. It makes it doubly important that you not give yourself over to Geoffre.”

  I sat down. “I know far less than he’d be able to get out of Arsenault. Geoffre has no reason to suspect that I know anything.”

  “Only if you give him no reason to suspect it. But don’t think he won’t try to dupe you into giving up your information, one way or another.” My mother laughed, bitterly. “If he knows you can use a knife, he may even have you attempt to kill his son. Then he could take you on the spot and send his troops down on us all at the same time.”

  To my mother, it was a jest. But Arsenault’s fingers stilled on the table. He looked like a statue, gray, unmoving.

  There was fear in his eyes.

  I found my hand at my side of its own accord again, and I looked up to find my father looking darkly thoughtful and my mother, torn.

  Geoffre loved Carolla, Arsenault had told me, not long before, and I had counted back from a birth to find the month that Geoffre visited us…

  Seated across from her, with the magic swirling around me, I Saw the truth.

  She had lain with Geoffre and hidden it from my father. Had she done it of her free will? I couldn’t tell. But I could see that she knew Geoffre better than anyone.

  How naive had I been? I felt like an old woman now, and a dupe.

  Arsenault said, his voice rough, “Let me send her away, Pallo. I know a place where she’ll be safe. I can send her by boat to Vençal. I know a man there, and I’d trust him with her life. Mestere.”

  My parents had to see what Arsenault and I had become in his plea. I didn’t understand how they couldn’t.

  But they said nothing. The tone of Arsenault’s voice might have passed by like the wind, forgotten as soon as it was gone.

  “You’ve done enough, Arsenault,” my father said. “I think it’s time for you to relinquish your role as bodyguard. You won’t be able to perform it, anyway, in the times to come.”

  Arsenault cursed and stood up, leaning on the table with both hands. “So, now, when your daughter is most in danger, now is when you’ll give up her protection? You’ll just throw her to the wolves?”

  “I am the Householder. I am responsible for the entire Aliente family and all our holdings. We are responsible for the safety of every single person on this estate. I am not asking Kyrra to do anything I wouldn’t ask of myself.”

  Arsenault looked like he was grinding his reply in his back teeth. Then he straightened and bowed, stiffly. “Pardon, Mestere, if I misunderstood. I didn’t realize that you would stand in her place if need be.”

  “Do you think I enjoy this, Captain?”

  “No, Mestere. But you’ve refused to listen to all the alternatives I’ve presented you.”

  My father gripped his own sword hilt. “Because all your alternatives involve war, damn you.” Then he dragged in a heavy breath and turned to me.

  “You’ll be a serf, Kyrra. You’ll trade your sword for a skirt and sleep in the combing house until the wedding has passed, and Lobardin will check in on you.”

  I came out of my seat. “Lobardin! Father, Lobardin is in Geoffre’s pocket! He’ll betray you if he thinks he can save himself!”

  “What?” my father said, his brows crinkling. He looked as if he’d just been slapped. He turned to Arsenault. “Arsenault—what is this about Lobardin?”

  He didn’t know. Arsenault hadn’t told him.

  “Gods curse Jon!” I said, shoving my chair away from the table. “You didn’t tell my father what you knew? Gods curse you, too!”

  Arsenault’s expression went flat. I could have forgiven him if he had put his arms out to stop me, if he had been less of a warrior, if he had said, No, please, you don’t understand… But he did none of that. The pain in his eyes was such that I might have cut him, but the emotion was quickly gone, submerged in that sea of murky gray.

  “Arsenault,” my father said. His voice shook. “You will tell me what my daughter is talking about. Now.”

  Arsenault let all his breath out. “Lobardin di Cozin is the youngest son of Trescan di Cozin, the lead householder of the Amoran Circle. He was banished from the city of Amora several years ago for running Prinze ships under the barricade for payment, and when he got to Liera, he went running to Geoffre. But Geoffre used him for another purpose.”

  “Which was?” My father’s mouth was one hard line. My mother clenched the tablecloth in both hands.

  She’d trusted Lobardin too but had trusted Arsenault more.

  Arsenault rubbed his brow. “Sorcery. Geoffre accepted Lobardin into his household, then made him into a sort of magical experiment. Magic comes in many guises. It can be used for many things—Sight and Fixing primarily—but there are other purposes, fouler, most of them lost. Even Sight can be an evil thing, turned to the wrong ends.”

  He looked up, his face drawn. “Geoffre had Lobardin See into himself. This isn’t a trial to be taken lightly. In my homeland, it was the supreme test of a haukdal, one to whom magic comes willingly and well. It isn’t meant for anyone unwilling or for those who only call wild magic. Especially not those whom Ires uses. Most men, when faced with their own darker corners, flee.”

  As the shadows flickered on his face I thought, He’s been through this trial. But what had he Seen? Had he fled or had he stood?

  I couldn’t imagine Arsenault fleeing.

  He went on. “Whatever Lob
ardin Saw, he hates Geoffre now.” He turned to me. “It isn’t so much that Lobardin is in Geoffre’s pocket, Kyrra. It’s just that he knows he’s caught between two Houses that want to use him, and nobody else wants to hire him because of who he is. Lobardin loathes Geoffre, and I think there’s a good chance he could assassinate Geoffre while he’s here.”

  The table went quiet. My father moistened his lips. “We’d have the entire Prinze force down on us in a trice.”

  “But it would be disorganized. Without Geoffre, who will head the Prinze? Devid? Cassis? They’re both weak men. Neither has the strength to marshal the kind of fear their father does. And they have no heirs.”

  “What you’ve said courts war,” my mother said, tight-lipped. “It invites the Prinze to war with us.”

  “We’ll have war no matter what we do, mistiri,” Arsenault replied, looking at my mother directly, then at my father. “Better to have it on our own terms.”

  “What does Lobardin think of this plan of action?”

  “I haven’t broached it with him yet. But he knows I plan to use him for something. And he knows it involves Geoffre.”

  “But why do you fear that Lobardin will betray us?” I said. “If he hates Geoffre, what would be so hard about killing him?”

  My father frowned at me, but I ignored him. Arsenault frowned, too, but for a different reason. “Lobardin is also terrified of Geoffre,” he said, “and Geoffre wants him because of what he’s Seen in him. The risk we take is that Lobardin isn’t strong enough to oppose Geoffre.”

  I thought about Lobardin and his many faces—his mocking public persona full of bravado, and the way he became meaner and more dangerous when he smoked kacin. But I’d also seen what I thought might be the real man inside, and knowing now that Geoffre had used him, perhaps his behavior made more sense. I had no doubt that he could kill Geoffre, and no doubt that he possessed more strength of character than most people credited him with.

  But if he recovered his strength…would he perhaps choose to destroy both our Houses, to seek redemption from his family in Amora?

  “How do you know about this, Arsenault?” my mother said.