Hearts of Tabat

by Cat Rambo

  But surely that didn’t apply to Adelina’s own mother. That was unreasonable, outside expectations.

  And then, in the course of clearing Lucy’s belongings away, the little box from the gallery had turned up and Adelina said it was hers! She must have lost it in the gallery, but she wouldn’t believe Lucy’s insistences.

  The door remained closed in her face.

  Very well, then. She raised her chin and lifted her shoulders. She would go and make her own fortune, then return and dazzle Adelina and the rest of the Press with their unworthiness and their failure to note the prodigy in their midst.

  A few blocks away, at a rally in Swan Park, she managed to secure two sausages wrapped in pastry, being handed out to attendees. They were very small, barely the length of her hand. When she went back for a third, though, the woman distributing them gave her a reluctant negative.

  “Children don’t vote,” she said, her tone kindly. “If you’re hungry, child, the Moon Temples offer food.”

  Less than a day homeless and she was already marked as vagrant that clearly? Embarrassment washed over Lucy as she backed away.

  Other rallies proved to have similar procedures.

  For a while, she felt happy enough wandering at her leisure. She drifted through markets, fingered the hats woven of purple reeds at one stall and Brownie dishes at another, until she caught the vendor eying her suspiciously.

  If she’d had the mirror still, she could have sold that for enough to keep herself comfortable for a while, she thought, but Adelina had reclaimed it.

  Adelina had admitted that she’d been at the gallery when the riot occurred. Sooner or later she’d remember losing the mirror there and realize how unreasonable she was being.

  Then she’d be sorry she’d kicked her apprentice out.

  She couldn’t go home. They’d send her back to the tannery and her sisters would gloat at her. No, Eloquence would find her someplace worse than the tannery. He’d been so angry about the apprenticeship, but his fondness for Adelina had saved Lucy. Now she didn’t have that any longer.

  In the end, the most logical place to shelter was among the paper bales in the shed behind Spinner Press. While paper moved in and out of there at a weekly rate, she knew, it was not much guarded. Paper’s bulk made it hard to steal in worthwhile or profitable quantity. As long as she took care not to be seen entering or exiting, she’d be undisturbed. Investigation even yielded a deserted niche behind some bales where she dragged tail ends of paper to make a nest for herself.

  She had gotten nothing near enough to eat that day. But as she crawled into her nest, she puffed with satisfaction. This was surely a step or three above street life. She settled into sleep.

  A kick in the ribs woke her. “Think I don’t know all the nooks where the street rats hide?” the watchman sneered. More blows followed when she moved too slowly, drove her out of the door.

  She thought of Maz. Perhaps he’d know something. And students at the College, many of them were rich and needed servants to do commonplace things for them. She might meet Sebastiano there. He liked Adelina—could she parlay that somehow, offer to ally with him against Eloquence? But Adelina would surely never speak to her again. She shuddered, remembering the force of that anger. If it had been a physical blow, it would have driven her to the ground.

  She had to stop and see the Fairies; they drove all thoughts of her misery from her mind. But Maz did not appear and finally, reluctantly, she pulled herself away. She smelled food, although it had an unappetizing edge of cinnamon and cabbage. Rounding a corner, she came face to face with the Sphinx. Surprise froze them both for a moment.

  Lucy was the first to recover; she turned on her heel and ran, full out and pell-mell.

  Startled faces flashed past as she pelted down a pathway. The Duke’s bell had just rung the hour and the press of people slowed the much larger Sphinx.

  This was impossible.

  Surely Adelina’s anger would have cooled by now. Surely Lucy, clever Lucy, could talk her way back as her namesake always had.

  “I CAME TO SPEAK WITH YOU AN’ beg your pardon for offending you yet again,” Eloquence said stiffly from the doorway.

  Adelina could see Serafina’s curious and sympathetic face just beyond him.

  Her heart thawed a drip or two’s worth. He stood there so stiff and proud, but he unbent enough to come seeking her a second time.

  But is this what things would be like with him, a constant back and forth of anger and apology? What does that profit my heart in the end?

  “You find me at a bad time for apologies,” she said. “I am moving households.”

  He raised an eyebrow and she elaborated. “I have chosen a boarding house closer to work. It should prove much more convenient.” She turned and faced him, folding her hands in front of her. “Why have you come back? Is there anything you still think can be had from an alliance? Perhaps you should seek another Publisher.”

  Eloquence shook his head, and then nodded. “I do think another Publisher would be more suited to me, Adelina.” He paused, and took on a wheedling, flirtatious tone. “I am sure you wish me well in that.”

  “To be sure.”

  Did I manage to keep irony from edging that tone? Perhaps not as successfully as I might have wished.

  His eyes stayed locked on hers. “In fact, I wish to request something of you.” For a Moon Worshipper, he certainly follows trade precepts. Never pass up an opportunity. “And as I said, I know you’ll understand.”

  “What is it?”

  “The Duke’s Occasion. I was thinking that I might accompany you there. There are people I might meet, patrons and the like. You said last week you had an invitation and meant to go, to try to speak on Bella Kanto’s behalf. Take me with you.”

  Effrontery upon effrontery. Does he understand what he’s requesting of me?

  Still. His blue eyes, asking.

  “All right,” she began, and then a tap on the door saved her from further betraying herself.

  Lucy, bedraggled.

  “Where have ye been?” Eloquence exploded.

  Lucy ignored him. “I wanted to say I was sorry again, Miss Adelina lady, and ask if I might have my employment back?”

  “Beyond question, this is a ‘no’!” Eloquence thundered. “Go to the Temples, to talk to the Priests and be assigned wherever they dictate.”

  Lucy’s eyes sought Adelina’s. It’s for the best. She nodded, and fought back a pang at the look on Lucy’s—perhaps now Obedience again—face.

  CHAPTER 48

  It had taken so long to finally get the jailers to admit Adelina, finally letting her go down a cramped and clammy stone hallway with one before her, one behind.

  When they came to the cell, a jailer held the door open and gestured Adelina into the small space with its shabby table and two benches, Bella occupying one, a strange woman dressed in Ducal colors on the other.

  Bella didn’t look up as Adelina entered. Just kept staring at the walls. Her face so pale, so worn. She would have been tortured, Adelina assumed, but there was no sign of it on the fresh skin, pale as fish gills. Her hair had been cut short to the scalp, inexpert and uneven. She wore a linen shift, so wrinkled it was evident it had been slept in more than once.

  Something about the way Bella held herself, like a cat about to flee or a bird ready to flutter away, made Adelina’s heart ache with the need to reassure her battling against the certain knowledge that if she acknowledged the tension in the room, it would lead Bella to flee.

  Adelina said, “Bell, it’s me.”

  A long slow blink before Bella’s attention swiveled, mechanical, to regard her.

  “Adelina.” The voice was flat, matter-of-fact.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Another long, slow blink. “Tabat’s magic is gone,” Bella said.

  Relief surged in Adelina. “Is that all? At least you’re alive.”

  This time two slow blinks before Bella focused fully on
her. “Is that all?” the flat voice said, a bitter edge of mockery around the outline of the words. “Yes, that’s all.”

  “What is to become of you?”

  “Who cares?” the voice said, but the room’s other occupant spoke before the words had died away.

  “Exile,” she said.

  Bella and Adelina both looked at the speaker, one slow and wearily, the other quick and curious. There was no telling what Bella saw, but Adelina witnessed a neat, spare woman of near the same age as herself. Her dark hair was cut short and serviceable, and her livery was not new, but well kept, with the golden tuft on her shoulder that signaled a trusted member of the Duke’s inner circle.

  “And you are?” Adelina demanded.

  “Ruhua, the Duke’s huntswoman. I will take her into her exile. We’ll take a ship to Valorsport, then travel overland from there.”

  “Where is she being sent?”

  “To Cloudmarch. There’s a holding there that the Duke will let her maintain. It comes with a small allowance, enough to keep a servant or two.”

  “And what will she do there, in some frontier town?” Adelina was appalled. No place for Bella to teach, no taverns or teahouses to keep her entertained. None of the thousand amenities and nuances of civilization provided by Tabat.

  And no family there. No Adelina or Leonoa, or any of the other scattered friends and cousins that Bella had. Adelina tried to imagine what Bella would do, but her mind balked, unable to supply adequate detail.

  Ruhua shrugged. “That is up to her, surely,” she said. Her voice was calm and reasonable, a tone that Adelina thought might be infuriating in sufficient quantity. “We will leave for it soon enough. The Duke feels that it is best this way. To leave as soon and unobtrusively as possible. There have been threats, but beyond that he thought it would be unkind to expose her to stares.”

  Adelina looked at Bella. Her friend’s state wrung her heart, but what was she to do? She stepped towards Bella, holding out a hand.

  Bella flinched back, flung an arm over her face, moving fast as a snake, fast as she’d ever moved in the ring, colliding awkwardly with the wall and nearly falling over. The gesture made Adelina hurt even harder—Bella had been so graceful, so beautiful, so economical in her motions and now her she was, awkward as a cripple—what had happened in the Duke’s prison?

  She must have said that last aloud. Ruhua murmured, “They heal them afterwards, so there is no way of knowing, and very few will ever speak of it.”

  “Then she was tortured!” Adelina said, shocked.

  Ruhua spread her hands.

  “There is, as I observed, no way of knowing.” Her voice was smooth and bland as cream sauce.

  “Does she have supplies?”

  “A pack of clothing and essentials for the journey has been assembled for her.”

  “Nothing of her belongings? You could send someone to her house to fetch her things. It might make her feel more at home, when she is far away.”

  “Her goods have been confiscated by the Crown. Perhaps once everything is sorted out, the Duke will see fit to send some of them north to her.”

  “Perhaps.” Adelina doubted it. Alberic will have plenty to think about with the elections and their aftermath. Once north, Bella and her rights will be forgotten, never thought of again. And given the way she looks now, would that be a terrible thing? Perhaps more than anything she deserves a hint of peace, a chance to rest from all her labors.

  Bella now—so terrifying, so different than the bright and cocksure thing she had been. Was it so easy to destroy a person’s core and remove all that they were?

  Would Bella ever be herself again?

  THE OREAD WAS no longer at “Ellora’s Daughter.” Instead, the Human owner, sour faced and harried, was wrapping up flowers.

  Adelina bought herself Winter roses, despite the scantiness of coin in her pocket. She thought of the irises beside Emiliana’s bed. As they were wrapped up, she said, “Where is the Oread that’s usually here?”

  “Had to have it put down,” the woman grunted. “Got a bad case of nerves, started doing things wrong.” She looked at Adelina sideways. “Seems like she was involved in some bad doings. Peacekeepers came by asking about her, just like you.”

  “Oh,” Adelina said.

  “I’m not involved in anything like she was.”

  “Of course not,” Adelina said, snatching up the flowers.

  She tried Jilla’s shop, but the studio was unlit and a clutter of papers on the doorstep showed no one had been there for a while.

  Can I speak again without the drug? It made it so easy. It made everything so much easier.

  She stared through the front window into Jilla’s shop, trying to make out details. A wooden counter, rows of framed pictures, too dark to distinguish.

  I’ll find a way. And maybe Jilla will turn up.

  The cell’s horror still nagged at her, so she put aside thoughts of what to do without the drug and took refuge in the place that had always healed her soul.

  Of all of Tabat’s markets she liked the Salt Market the best, because of the book stalls in the Salt Market Building, where the western side held a scattering of book stores on the third level, near the Bumblety’s staircase. It smelled of old pepper and new-brewed ale, and theatrical greasepaint from the stall that sold retired finery from the Maypippin Theater.

  It was always the same temperature, even in the depths of the hottest Summer or the longest, coldest Winter night, some trick of the thick-bricked walls and high ceilings. Underfoot the timbered staircases smelled faintly of creosote when you trod heavily on them.

  Each stall reflected its proprietor, whether a scattering of historical documents and old papers, ceramic paperweights or theatrical flash and Gladiatorial trinkets and souvenirs, including Bella’s silver-gilt hair combs and penny-wides and prints, signed in her awkward, sloping scrawl, a signature at once utterly illegible and unique, instantly recognizable. Another stall was stacked with play scripts, new and old, often heavily annotated by previous owners.

  Adelina paused by a favorite holding love stories, run by an ancient and very bawdy crone. Often their plots, particularly of old adventures, could be recycled to star Bella. Two rival stalls sold texts from the College of Mages, each with the book’s “soul page” removed—the page that was traditionally signed and which bore the author’s name and the Press and the year and the little marks signifying which Trade Gods its purchase appeased or worshipped.

  In the first of these, she saw a familiar figure.

  Sebastiano.

  He was conducting trade with the owner, so she politely waited until he turned around. Next door held maps of all sorts, including elaborate charts of the Trade Gods, so she studied one of those, though she already knew its intricacies.

  “Merchant Scholar!” Surprise and delight in his tone, despite how much she’d hurt him. Seeing me makes him happy. That’s worth a lot. “So good to encounter you.” He stepped beside her to see what she was looking at. “Did you ever wonder about religions, how they came about?” he asked.

  Adelina gave him a careful glance. “Most people do not care for that conversation,” she said. “No one likes to think that the rules that guide their lives are arbitrary and created from their fellow beings’ whims.”

  Sebastiano’s eyebrow rose, a new light entering his eye. “So you don’t believe in the Trade Gods?”

  “I believe,” she said, picking each word with tender caution, “that they represent certain things. That they are a shorthand of a sort most useful to a Merchant.”

  He dropped a single nod, eyes flickering with warmth. She felt as though she’d supplied the answer for a favorite teacher and the degree to which it mattered to her gave her pause. She was unused to that sort of trust—too many betrayals by Emiliana. Her face warmed. I hope it’s not too noticeable.

  His lean face was animated as he chattered. Dressed immaculately as ever, she was amused to notice.

  “I see
you have never lost your fashion sense,” she teased him. “Do you remember when we were children, how you chided me once?”

  Confused, he shook his head.

  She’d started teasing, now somehow she had wandered into truth. “You made fun of the length of my clothing, and I cried for days.”

  His face cleared, remembering. “Oh, Adelina,” he said, and dared to reach for her hand, which she allowed. “It was because you had changed all of a sudden, and I had to say something, but how could I say how pretty you looked? I was only a child. So I teased you.”

  His fingers were warm, his tone confiding and confusing all at once.

  “Come and drink chal with me,” he coaxed, but she shook her head.

  Something about his eyes, so warm in a way Eloquence’s had never quite been, even amid all the smiles and winks and clever jocularities. Something about this man, childhood companion now turned into something entirely different and yet still the boy she had kissed, so long ago. He wouldn’t preach at me about deceiving my mother. He’d figure out ways to ensure the deception, know which Trade Gods to invoke.

  “I must go about the Press’s business,” she said. “Another time.”

  I must go and think all of this over.

  CHAPTER 49

  A beautiful day outside, Sebastiano thought, an amazing Spring day, unparalleled. It was as though the season had suddenly burst on Tabat. Was this what the Weather Mages had been describing?

  He almost wished for the weather spectacles, for a day like this would have lifted the spirits even more into a giddy whirl, looking at the benign sunlight drifting down to collide with the pliant earth, to see the breezes bending the stalks of daffodils into shapes of erotic cuneiform. He felt a wiggle of satisfaction at his state of mind. Life is good, he thought, really, truly good. He was even inclined to forgive his father’s meddling.