by Carol Berg
“Please do not trouble yourself with the conventions of refreshment or pleasantries, Patronn. I am here strictly on business, and must make speedy work of it. My royal master bids me—” I twirled a finger to indicate his retinue. “Ah, I really must present his request in private.”
Though he would clearly prefer to strangle me, Claudio motioned his attendants to the corners where they could not hear us, and then seated himself in a delicate armchair. He left me the choice to remain standing, drag another chair to his side, or sit on the floor—any one of which would be demeaning to a pureblood. As he intended. He was a bit discomfited when I chose to perch on a marble table a few steps away. My position only emphasized the difference in our height.
“You look well, Valen,” he said. “Does submission to the Bastard suit you, then?” Curiosity poked through his studied calm like a kitten’s sharp claws through silk.
“My master believes in strict discipline, as you warned me.” I folded my gloved hands in my lap. “And he has schooled me quickly in his requirements. Fortunately, he is pleased with my talents. So much so that he is interested in pursuing a contract with another of our family. In short, he desires a cartographer to map the new bounds of his kingdom. My difficulties with written language preclude such service, of course. But what prince would consider other than a Cartamandua to make him maps?”
“His kingdom? You’re saying Osriel the Bastard intends to claim the throne?” His dark eyes raked my face, hunting signs of the mockery and lies that had passed my lips far more often than serious discourse.
But thanks to this man, I was well practiced in deceit. I only smiled again and shrugged. “He has his plans. As you might imagine, I tried to divert his attention to other mapmakers, but he would have none. He bids me insist, and I do not disobey. I am to remind you that Evanore’s gold could ensure our family’s fortunes for decades to come.”
My father sprang from his seat, walked away a few steps, then spun to face me, calculating. “You cannot be serious.”
“I told him it must be Max or Phoebia, as Nilla and Thalassa have taken the Celestine bent instead of yours. Janus, of course, is out of the question. And you…well, you are head of family and could not possibly leave Palinur. My master will not be denied, Patronn.”
There passed a long silence. He chewed on his lip and did not take his eyes from me. I strove to remain neutral in expression.
He lowered his brows, pursed his lips, and glanced at me sidewise. “Phoebia has decent skills. Max’s are better, if he would only get off his horse and use them, but he is contracted to Prince Bayard.”
I swallowed my disgust at his connivance. “I need to speak with each of them, of course, to form a better estimate of their experience with such work and their degree of willingness to cooperate with a demanding master. Once my lord has my report, he will send Mardane Voushanti to negotiate terms. He doesn’t quite trust me to do that as yet.”
Yes, that last point made him relax a bit. That any master would trust me was the most difficult of all these matters for him to believe.
“Phoebia is easily available,” he said, “and Max…fortunately he is in the city just now. I can send an official summons as head of family, which requires no explanation to his master.” He rubbed his chin in a mockery of indecision. “But, of course, to release him from Prince Bayard’s contract…that would cost a great deal of money.”
Somewhere in our family veins must run a river of lies. Had Max not complained to me of how our family’s contract value had waned due to my rebellion and long disappearance, I would have believed his last concern.
“Understood,” I said. “Now, I shall require privacy for the interviews. My master would not wish his business to become public prematurely. I’ve certainly no fear of anyone in the family speaking out of turn, but servants…” I shrugged again. “And you have frequently expressed your disinterest in anything from my lips. Unless that has changed?”
I thought his teeth might grind to powder. Mighty is the power of fear and gold to a pureblood. But Claudio’s pride and hatred won out. He spread his arms. “Wherever you like.”
Despicable gatzé! What kind of man would even consider pledging his young daughter to a master of Osriel’s foul repute—a daughter who had amassed no history of violence or disobedience as I had? Even Max, though arrogant beyond bearing, had been the most dutiful of sons, deserving no such fate.
As I waited for Claudio to summon my young sister, I tried to think what to say to her. Bringing Max to the neutral ground of our family home, out of his master’s hearing, had seemed a more reasonable course than tracking him down myself in war-ravaged Palinur. I had foolishly assumed Bia’s father would wish to shield her from a monster, making this bit of playacting unnecessary. On the other hand, I wished again that I had some excuse for speaking with Thalassa, but this lie was elaborate enough without working Samele’s high priestess into it.
Footsteps hurried through the tiled passages of the family wing. As I stood, the walls of the room wavered and bulged. I closed my eyes for a moment, breathed deep, and blessed the potion Saverian had offered me that morning to tame my nausea at sitting indoors. The insidious panic of collapsing walls, I had to manage for myself. The symptoms seemed much worse since taking on my Danae gards. Or perhaps it was only my approaching birthday.
“Serena pauli,” I said, offering a shallow bow to the young woman who appeared at the door, her arm firmly in Claudio’s grip. I motioned a servant to bring her a chair, and then waited as Claudio dismissed the servants and guardsmen. When he saw I was not going to begin until he’d followed them, the glowering Claudio whirled and withdrew.
My younger sister Phoebia, a plainer, less womanly version of her mother and elder sister, wore her heavy black hair wound about her head in tight braids like a warrior’s helm and resentment about her shoulders like a mantle. She had been so young when I left home, I did not know her well enough to read beyond her sullen facade. The only time I’d seen her since my recapture, she’d spat on me.
“Our conversation will be private, Bia,” I said, drawing my chair close so we would not be overheard. “Patronn told you why I’ve been sent here?”
She jerked her head in acknowledgment. Her knuckles were bloodless, and a thin film of sweat sheened her copper-colored skin.
“You’ve naught to fear from either me or my master,” I said. “He is hard, and a man of fearsome mystery, but fair to his servants who carry out their duties…” We spoke for more than an hour of the tasks she performed for the family—coloring Claudio’s maps, inking lists of place names and distances, using her Cartamandua bent to smooth curves and add in details he thought too unimportant for his particular attention. She did not travel, did not publish maps of her own, and had attracted neither a contract nor an offer of marriage. She blamed her sorry lot on me. I could not deny the responsibility. Despite my rehabilitation by the pureblood Registry, my years as a recondeur had made alliance with our family a risk for other purebloods. Petronilla’s beauty had caught Bia’s twin a lucky match, and Max and Thalassa had the talent and determination to gain them favored, if not excessively profitable, contracts. Which left Phoebia alone with a despicable father and a drunken mother.
Though she did not warm as we spoke, her fists unclenched. In the end, I felt sorry that I had no contract to offer her. When I heard the bustle of an arrival from the front of the house, I stood and, to her astonishment, kissed her hand. “I doubt my master will take you on this time, serena pauli. Right now he needs particular skills. But if this succession is settled favorably, he will have need of many services.”
She touched her fingers to her forehead, then wriggled those I had kissed, examining them as if half expecting they might break out in a rash. “The city…out there…is very bad, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard that Harrowers burn books, so I would guess that they’ll have no use for maps. And they despise purebloods.”
&nbs
p; “All true.”
She looked up at me, her dark eyes troubled. “What should I do, Valen? Matronn warns of this danger—a dark veil, she calls it—that is coming down on Navronne. She sees purebloods sent into the countryside to dig and plant…to labor in the fields like villeins. Patronn refuses to listen. He calls me stupid to worry.”
I shivered. Josefina de Cartamandua-Celestine’s divinations invariably made me shiver.
“You are not stupid to worry,” I said, touching Bia’s shoulders, wishing I could do more for her. “Go to Thalassa. Patronn can’t stop you going to temple. Temples are little safer than anywhere else, as it happens, but Lassa understands what’s happening in the world as well as anyone. She’ll see to you.”
Bia didn’t question how I knew all this. I was no diviner. But she ducked her head and hurried out of the room a great deal livelier than she’d come. Then Max strode through the doorway, leather and steel gleaming from beneath his cloak, and I could think no more of frightened little sisters.
“What in the name of the blistering bawds do you think you’re doing?” he said through clenched teeth, as he whipped off his mask. “If one word leaks out linking Bayard and Osriel, this little game is up. Are you as mad as your prince, or is this his imbecilic idea?”
“Sit down and speak normally,” I said, as I bowed and touched my forehead. “Patronn believes I’m here to discuss a possible contract between you and Prince Osriel, and we would not wish him to learn differently. Hear me out, and all will become clear.”
Though seething, he greeted me properly and lowered his compact bulk into the chair. “We are involved in no alleyway scrap, Valen. The witch has left Grav Hurd, her favorite ax man, here in the city. He’s pushing Prince Bayard to close the temples and alehouses and ship any man, woman, or child convicted of crimes into the countryside where they can ‘heed the voice of the Gehoum.’ He threatens to bring down the Registry tower. We are drowning in madmen.”
“I understand,” I said, leaning back in my chair as if settling in for a long interview. “Prince Osriel has sent me to hear the terms of the solstice bargain you’ve worked out with her.”
He leaned back, twisting the corner of his thick mustache where it tangled in his well-trimmed beard. The beard was Max’s only true rebellion of his one-and-thirty years. Claudio hated it. “Why now?” he demanded. “It was your master who chose to confirm the agreement on Coronation Day.”
I’d never seen Max so serious. His private face had always been a snigger, and he met every circumstance by boasting of some way to turn it to his advantage. Only a few short weeks ago, he had twiddled magical dust from his fingers and joked how sorcerers would be exempt from any harsh future by virtue of the awe in which we were held. Yet, in a way, his sobriety might make my task easier. I quickly rethought my approach.
“Prince Osriel is a hard master, Max, and more clever than you can imagine. He will do anything to accomplish his purposes. He’s told me I need to prepare—” I leaned forward and dropped my voice even lower. “Great gods, Max, tell me that you’ve talked the priestess out of having me.”
His black eyes sharpened. “Why would you care? I assumed from all he said that this bargain was but a feint as long as we got Sila into Evanore by the solstice.”
“It is and it isn’t. He wants her focused on the solstice and will do whatever is needed to convince her that she’s won. Indeed that is the night that will prove who holds power in Navronne. But he also wishes—” I stopped. “Tell me the bargain, Max.”
“One honest answer first. Did Osriel send you to me? Here?” He watched me unblinking, his every sinew like stretched wire.
I shook my head and felt him relax.
“All right, then. You’ll be hearing the terms soon enough.” He rested his thick forearms on his spread thighs and clasped his hands loosely. He was already gaining confidence…recognizing advantage to be won. “I met twice with this Grav Hurd—a smart devil, tough as a spire nut—and once with the priestess herself, to wring out the final changes. I tell you, Valen, these people make Patronn seem as charming as a courtesan. But we came to agreement, signed and sealed. It states that as of midnight on the winter solstice Sila Diaglou will reign sovereign in Evanore, subject only to Navronne’s crown. She will administer Evanore’s gold, but will pay the crown a twice-yearly tithe of no less than ten thousand solae—and don’t ask me who will collect it. Prince Bayard will not release Prince Perryn into her custody, but agrees to parade him in chains through the streets of Palinur on the first day of the new year and allow the priestess to conduct a rite of purification for him. Perryn’s life will not be forfeit—though I would not stand in his boots that day for all of Evanore’s gold. As for the lighthouse…she dropped the demand for its location, indicating that it was no longer of immediate concern. But you, little brother…” He paused for a long moment in this impressive recital, gazing at his boots and shaking his head, near smiling when he raised his head and took up again. “On your contract she would budge not one quat. And no matter how I strutted or wheedled, the witch would not tell me why. So…Prince Bayard agreed that you are to be turned over to her on the solstice.”
I should have been happy to hear this. My hope to get near Osriel and Stearc and Jullian relied on Sila Diaglou’s intent to have me. It fit with my odd, unlikely belief that my personal mystery was fundamentally entangled with Navronne’s doom. But all I could feel was hollow and clammy…the dread of being locked in a tomb while living…the dread of facing Judgment Night and seeing the One God point to the downward path. What did a priestess who found joy in bleeding miscreants and innocents want with me? I just had to believe she didn’t want me dead.
I mustered a voice. “What of my master? What do they propose to do about him as they apportion his demesne?”
“Ah, yes…” He tapped his fingertips together for a moment, then shrugged. “If the priestess captures him on the night of the solstice, she may keep him, but he will neither be publicly punished nor publicly displayed. He will disappear.”
“And if he were to end up in Prince Bayard’s custody?”
Max shrugged and grinned. “Well, for the purposes of the agreement, we implied the result would be the same…Osriel would be neither seen nor heard from again…which could, of course, mean private retirement or exile. But, of course, Bayard believes that our joined might will defeat the witch and that Prince Osriel will come to an equitable and honorable agreement with his elder brother as to Navronne’s ruling.”
“Yes. That is certainly the intent.” Though, after Osriel’s betrayal in Aeginea, I had no more certainty of his true intent than I did of Bayard’s.
Max leaned close again and his smile vanished. “Now, why are you and I discussing what must be laid out again three days hence for your master’s messenger?”
“He desires for her to have me before solstice night, Max. She has a Karish monk in her party.”
“Her pet monk…yes, I saw him. Smug kind of fellow, always whispering in her ear. I never trust a man who shaves off all his hair.”
“That’s him—Gildas. The monk owns some secret…gods, I don’t know what.” I rubbed my head and kneaded my neck. The wavering walls left me dizzy and sweating, like a prisoner awaiting the hangman. Did I appear as ill as I felt, Max would certainly believe me frightened—as I hoped for him to do. “So Osriel is sending me to Bayard. He’s going to let you turn me over to the priestess as a pledge of good faith, as if you’d caught me by good fortune. And then…he’s commanded me to kill Gildas. I’ve no qualms about that. We’ve no love between us, Gildas and I. That he serves the priestess is reason enough to condemn him. But my master’s given me no way out. Just says that he’ll see to it as he’s no intention of forfeiting my contract. He says that all will be sorted out on the solstice. Max, I’ve seen what Sila Diaglou does to those who displease her. But if I disobey the Bastard…”
He settled back in his chair, tilting his head, saying nothing. It took no Danae
senses to feel his mind racing.
I stood up abruptly. “All right, then. Thank you for sharing the information with me, ancieno. I’ll figure out something.” I hurried toward the entry court door, listening…
“Wait!”
Closing my eyes, I promised Serena Fortuna a grand libation. I swung around slowly.
Max waved me back to my chair, and when I was seated, leaned forward as if to hold me there with his authority. “I know exactly what solution you’ll ‘figure out,’ little brother—the same as always. But running away will not save you this time. Despite Grav Hurd’s best efforts to drive all purebloods out of the city, the Registry is like to be the only power that survives this war—and once they find you again, they’ll bury you so deep, you’ll remember this house as heaven and beg for Patronn’s strap in preference to their gentle hands.” He smoothed and straightened the front of my pourpoint as if he were a caring elder brother. “And, of course, you would destroy the family along the way, not to mention laying waste all this delicate negotiating—for which I have pledged every minim of my own future.”
No matter that I had expected this response from him—no matter that I had come here rejoicing that I no longer accounted these people the whole of my kin—I could not stifle the rage his calculation roused in me. I let him see it. “And why would I be willing to suffer either Sila Diaglou’s fury or Osriel the Bastard’s to preserve this misbegotten family or this misbegotten kingdom?”
“Hold, little brother. I am not suggesting you sit back and accept your dismal lot.” He smiled in the very same superior manner he claimed to detest in Gildas. “I owe you a debt. You gave me this chance for advancement when you stood up for my honor in front of your prince and mine. Even you know the importance of honor and trust to those of us who actually believe in pureblood contracts. So perhaps you and I can come to an accommodation…help each other…”