To say that the nobles surrounded the Siren was an understatement. They swarmed to them. They pushed so close that Miette and I had to shove them back. After that they packed themselves into a tight semicircle – at least five people thick. The droning music was drowned out by the roar of their questions.
Clay turned her back on the pack entirely. I knew that nobody was permitted to approach the throne uninvited, but Clay had clearly decided that rules only applied to lesser mortals. As she ascended the steps, several things happened at once. The little princesses squeaked and clutched at each other, terrified of the brazen sorceress with her sweet smile. The guards stepped forward and loosened their weapons from their holsters. They looked at the king, for without his order they would not dare to draw steel Who would fight with a sorceress – let alone a goddess? They were only mortal men, after all. They were trained to face down blades, not magic.
The king did not give the order. He was watching his two eldest children. Coluber was grinning from ear to ear. The princess was red with fury. She could not forgive the impropriety. Her brother would have borne any indignity if it could entertain him. He struck me as the kind of person who found his own life utterly tedious. No wonder he had invited the Siren into the palace. Dangerous or not, at least they were interesting.
Coluber’s smile faltered when Clay walked straight past him. The woman had a mischievous streak in her. I wanted to scream at her – What are you doing? Don’t offend him! - but, of course, I held my tongue. In truth I was too much of a coward to approach the throne.
Clay smiled at the princesses and then sank into the deepest curtsey I had ever seen. It was far lower than the one she had given the king, marking the girls as higher in her estimation. The princesses were hugely confused by it, and answered with a series of awkward bobs. They looked like a chain of ducklings.
“I know your names.” Clay said clearly. “I hoped, dear sisters, that we would have a chance to speak – but, alas, the men have already taken all our words!”
“I know plenty more.” The eldest said curtly. “And you have no right to speak so informally to us.”
“Nor you to me, Princess Ichina. If we both followed protocol we would never be allowed to look at each other, much less speak! Forgive your guest for being so forward, and let me kiss you as my dearest sister.”
Ichina bit her lip, unsure of how to respond. Refusing to greet an equal was a shocking offence, but the Siren were neither noblewomen, nor royals. Her father had shown them respect, and so then should she, but it clearly insulted the girl to have to humble herself for a foreign witch. The little girls leapt forward. They squealed in delight as Clay caught each one and kissed them. They played with her dress like they were dressing a doll.
Clay stood up and took Ichina’s hands. She kissed her cheek. “Let me be your friend, sister. These men think I am here to speak only to them! Tell me about your beautiful dress. How on earth does the skirt hold that shape?”
Ichina made a few stilted replies. Clay’s exuberance was disarming, but the princess was as cynical as her brother. It struck me that the Siren’ methods were perfectly suited to children. Their drugs reduced men’s minds to a simple slate of likes and dislikes. It was far more difficult to impress a clear-headed adult. Coluber and Ichina had fought through court intrigues for so long that they would not have trusted a goose to honk.
Clay would not bother to speak to the princesses again. The Altissi were patriarchal. Ichina’s only power at court was to welcome the guests and to see to their needs. This last part was only symbolic; she commanded an army of servants from the safety of her mother’s throne. Clay had respected or mocked the woman’s position, depending on how you looked at it, and now they could ignore each other in mutual dislike.
Prince Coluber did not bother to hide his pique. He ignored the Siren for the rest of the reception. When the banquet was finally served, he formally asked Clay if he might escort her to the high dais so that they might share a platter. This time, she accepted.
CHAPTER 6
When we returned to our rooms I started to sob. My head had been aching since the dancing had begun, and after an hour it had turned into a migraine. Fierce bursts of colour started flashing in my eyes. Clay took a long look at me and then sent me to lie down until the maids brought us our supper. The smell of rich food made my stomach turn, and I shyly asked if they could bring me some porridge or white rice.
“Is that something Siren eat?” Miette asked me snidely, watching me pick at my food. I pushed it away. They had stirred spices into the milk which I did not recognize.
“I’m not a Siren, am I? I’m just Clay’s maid.” I muttered in reply. “Why do I have to eat their fancy food?”
Miette gave me a slick smile and sauntered over to the other women’s table. She helped herself to a portion of each dish, and then ate them with signs of relish. I was so disgusted by the sound of her smacking lips that I gave up on my porridge for good. Clay looked just as sickened, but neither she nor Dahra told the old woman to stop. They waited until she had swallowed her last bite, and then they let the maids serve them from the silver bowls.
“You’re not a Siren either.” I pointed out when Miette returned to me. “They just don’t want to eat poison.”
The hag belched. “Then I’m more valuable than you, aren’t I?”
“They could get a dog to do that.”
“Are you so eager to be cast aside?”
I shrugged. I knew that I was at the bottom of our pecking order. If Miette wanted to risk her life to feel superior, then she was welcome to do it. I crept into my room, slid the door shut, and slept so deeply that I did not even dream.
Clay woke me up the next morning by shaking my shoulder. “Get up! It’s late.”
I squinted at the dim light outside my window and buried my face back into the pillow. The woman huffed, and tore the blanket away. I curled up and shivered, and then reluctantly opened my eyes.
“It’s early.” I groaned, “Go away.”
“I can’t. Don’t you think I want to sleep as much as you do?” She pulled me upright. Her fingers flinched away from my scarred arm when she accidentally touched it. For a second her throat worked, and then her impatient voice returned. “We have a lot to do today. Dahra forbade those maids to touch our things. You need to unpack the boxes.”
“Unpack! Wear the dress you wore last night. You didn’t mess it up.”
“Are you simple minded?” The woman shook her head and dragged me to my feet. “Wake up, for god’s sake. You should have done it last night.”
The woman hovered around me for the hour it took me to sort out the cases. She made me lay out each gown on the bed so that she could inspect it. None of them had been torn or chewed on by the ship rats, but a couple had a stale smell from their weeks in the hold. I set them aside. Clay held up the clean dresses while I unpacked her headdresses and jewellery. She frowned and muttered to herself as she ran her fingers along seams and buttonholes.
“Don’t you like them?” I couldn’t resist goading her. My mistress shot me a dark look.
“We’re going to give an audience to the city folk today. I will not be able to… to talk to them, or make them drinks and pretty promises. Thousands of people are going to judge me based on what I look like.”
“Poor you.” I untangled the long chain on a gold necklace. “Still, we can cover your face.”
Her glare could have turned sand into glass. “I can’t believe you’re not taking this seriously.”
“Oh, I am. I’ll take it very seriously this afternoon when we actually have to get ready. I’m not going to sweet-talk you after you woke me up. It’s not even dawn yet. I don’t see why I should suffer just because you’re too nervous to sleep.”
She slapped me and then drew her hand back. Touching me disgusted her. That knowledge hurt more than my stinging cheek. I laughed brightly and upended her fragile perfume case onto the bed.
Dahra did not appear until almost noon. He
r pretty, upturned nose poked around Clay’s door and she smiled at the rows of dresses. Her apprentice was sulking at the other side of the room. She had told me to wash her clothes in the fountain, but I refused to give her a chance to lock me out and go back to bed. Dahra slipped away, and a few minutes later I heard Miette laughing.
“Well!” I said sweetly, and pulled a crease out of the last dress. “I think it’s breakfast time, my lady. Would you like me to chew your food for you?”
“I hope it makes you sick.” She snapped.
The maids had made me more porridge, and this time they had left it plain. I ate ravenously. Clay picked at the bacon, eggs, toast and jam which she had been served. It would only take a few meals like that to make her as fat and greasy as the courtiers. I finally took pity on the woman and brought her a piece of fruit.
“Truce?” I held it out with a grin. She sighed and bit into it.
“I’m sorry, Harriet.” Her eyes were shadowed. “I didn’t sleep at all. I kept thinking about that court room, wondering if I said or did something wrong. Every time I heard a noise I thought they had sent their soldiers to arrest us. I couldn’t bear to be alone.”
I planted my hand on my hip, “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Because you would have tried to comfort me.” The woman shook her head, “I would have hated you for it.”
“You hate me anyway.”
“I can’t do that,” she took another bite of the apple and said something very peculiar: “I might as well hate the island.”
The odd cadence of her words made a chill run down my spine. I had never heard anyone talk about hating the island before. Everyone who lived there was sure that the world outside of it was awful. It was easy to think that all of the Mainlanders were as twisted as the ones we were sent. Clay was one of the few people who had lived in Yanget. Did she think she was a Mainlander?
“You’re just as much…” I began, and felt my throat closing up. She wasn’t one of us, was she? Clay had always been an outcast. We had made her into one. Was it because of her odd ways, or had she only become odd afterwards?
The woman looked at me quizzically, and then spat an apple pip into her hand.
We began dressing after lunch. I was annoyed when I found out the reception would be held outside. Why had I spent the morning cleaning dresses? Clay would be wrapped from head to toe in her warmest cloak. Despite that, my Mistress insisted on wearing one of the finest dresses she owned. I cursed as the fiddly clasps fumbled from my fingers.
“You should put a hook on your hand.” Clay said absently, “Then you could hold on to things.”
“Or you could help.” I growled. I had to fight the urge to hide my wrist behind my back. The woman waggled her drying nails at me. It took an effort not to slap her.
I took extra care with Clay’s hair. Snow flurries were beginning to dance against the glass roof, and I could not risk a curl coming loose just because she got wet. I reasoned that if I stacked up her hair I could pin the hood over it like a kind of bonnet. It was rarely cold enough to snow at home, so I had no experience planning for it. Clay bit her lip when I held up the mirror. I risked a smile.
“The Altissi don’t know anything about us. They won’t know that it’s unfashionable.”
The woman turned her head slowly from side to side and gave me a grateful smile. “I like it, Harriet. You need to put more pins in it, though. If it falls over my eyes then the Altissi will think that the Siren trip over their own feet!”
Dahra appeared long before we were done. Her hair was a messy tumble, and she was dressed in a crumpled dress which bulged in the wrong places and made her skinny body look haggard. She glared and tapped her foot impatiently but did not say anything. The pins slipped from my fingers as nervous sweat made them slick. Clay stared stubbornly into the looking glass and pretended that she couldn’t hear her mistress’s heavy breathing. Her pulse fluttered when my fingers brushed against her temples and I drew back in confusion. It had never occurred to me that Clay, of all people, could be frightened of Dahra.
“They’re showing us to their peasants.” Dahra snapped. I breathed a sigh of relief. The woman was angry at the Altissi, not at me. Clay pursed her lips.
“The king is letting evil witches hide in his castle. Did not you hear them shouting all night? If he doesn’t let them see us, they might riot and drag us off to the gallows.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“I’m not.” Clay looked quite peaceful, but her voice was like iron. “If this is the most dangerous thing we have to do, then I’ll be surprised.”
“I’m not going to stand around waiting for one of them to spit at me.” Dahra snapped. Clay finally spun around in her seat, sending hairpins flying.
“Then what will you do? Go home because you’re scared of a few frightened farmers? Either lock yourself in your room or get dressed. You’re making my head ache.”
The woman took a deep breath and leaned forward to pinch Clay’s ear. Beads of blood blossomed around the Clay’s earring before the Dahra let go. Clay never made a sound. As soon as Dahra had gone, she fumbled for a handkerchief and pressed it to her ear.
“That was petty.” I muttered, picking up my pins. My Mistress looked down at her lap.
“I deserved it. I was rude.”
“Someone needs to pinch Dahra’s ear. It’s not like she outranks you.” I slid the last pin into place and gave the hood an experimental tug. “There, you’re done.”
A servant asked for me an hour before we were supposed to leave. We trailed down the corridor to a large mirrored room. Silver plinths held crystal vases filled with white cottontails. I had to squint, because even the weak winter light made the room dazzling. I later found out that in the summer the windows had to be shuttered, or the glare could start a fire. The windows opened up to a balcony that ran the length of the glass chamber. I wrapped my arms around myself and stepped out into the snow. There was a long, sharp crystal spike hanging from the overhang, and I reached up to it curiously. It looked like a spear head.
The servant muttered something and reached up. He smacked the spike with the hilt of his belt knife. There was a dull snapping sound, and then the spear fell to the ground. I cried out and blushed when the man laughed at me.
“It’s an icicle.” He said, and waggled it before my eyes. “Frozen water. Haven’t you seen one before?”
I had seen five snow storms in my entire life. When I shook my head the man laughed again. I folded my arms and mustered my fiercest Siren glare, which shut him up. “Why did you bring me here?”
“This is where the ladies will stand.” He gestured to two little archways in the wall. “They can stay dry until the king invites them to step forward.”
“Invites them?” I echoed mockingly. “They will not like that.”
“And that is why you are here.” The man gave me a sheepish smile. “I’m Agon, the Master of Ceremonies. I need to know what your ladies will expect from us. The last thing we want to do is offend them.”
I cleared my throat. “They are goddesses. Your king is just a man. They’ll suffer being treated as if he is their equal, but if they think he’s setting himself above them…”
“This is his kingdom.” Agon reminded me gently. I nodded and thought hard.
“If another king was presented to your people, how would you treat him?”
The man looked around as he thought. He led me to where the balcony widened. A long flight of stairs curved down from the circular platform towards the courtyard. We were higher up than I had realized. The stairs made me a little dizzy, but I could see what Agon was thinking. The Siren could stand beside the king without anyone needing to make way.
Agon pointed forwards at a set of huge iron gates. They were the ones we had driven in through two days before. Hundreds of people were already milling around them. We must have looked like ants to them, but I could hear their voices rising as they spotted us. When the gates were open they cou
ld run up the stairs in an instant.
“There will be guards.” Agon said, but I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. The people behind the gate did not sound happy. If they wanted to hurt us then fifty armed men would not be able to stop them.
I sighed. It was a choice between safety and pride. Agon saw the answer on my face, and patted my shoulder in reply. I flinched. I was still unused to men touching me.
We could tell when it was time to leave our rooms. The distant roar of the crowd suddenly drew closer. It was impossible to tell whether they were angry or excited, but at least they did not seem about to revolt. Dahra glowered as she lowered her veil, and I wondered if she would manage to sulk through the entire audience. Clay drew me close to her and kissed me before I pinned her own veil. I think it was her way of comforting herself, for it certainly did nothing for me.
Miette snorted air through her nose when she saw the glass room. Even she had to admit that it was beautiful. Now that the snow was falling in large flakes the mirrors made the room look like a swirling wonderland. A brazier would have spoiled the illusion, so we stamped our feet and blew on our fingers until we heard a fanfare. We stepped out onto the balcony at exactly the same time as the king emerged from his own rooms. A roar went up. Both of the Siren walked beside the windows, and so I was forced to walk beside the balustrade. The seething mass of upturned faces made me reel.
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