Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  “Perhaps I might be included in this logistical discussion?” Haval suggested.

  They both turned to look at him.

  It was Jewel who looked away first. “You win,” she said. “I blink. I fold. Whatever it is that people do when they try to play a game with a bum hand.”

  “And you are suggesting—” His brows actually rose. He could have stopped them had he desired, but saw no advantage to hiding a shock that any person in the Empire might have shown. “You’re not suggesting that he take her to the Terafin manse by magic?”

  “I’m open to any other suggestion,” was her flat reply. “But without a good reason, we can’t have the healer in question come here. If Hannerle’s awake, you can figure out a way to sneak her out of the House. Hells, if she’s unconscious and you can think of a reasonable way to sneak her in, that would be our first choice. The rest of us would go by carriage, you included. For the next few days you have every reason to be in the House—tailors will be coming and going all over the manse. But not unconscious ones.”

  “May I ask a question while I consider these options?”

  Jewel nodded.

  “What did you intend to offer me? Or were you aware of Hannerle’s condition?” Jewel’s silence, so loud with facial tics, was answer enough. “I believe I will have words with Jarven ATerafin. He told you, Finch?”

  Finch was also silent. Her silence was meeker and smoother. “Jay wasn’t certain she believed him.”

  “Very wise of her. Unusually wise. What else did he tell you?”

  “Not very much,” was her diplomatic response. She even smiled apologetically as she said it. As lies went, it wasn’t—but her smile was smooth as sword steel.

  “And did he happen to mention his reasons for being so generous with other people’s information?”

  Finch’s brow folded. “Pardon?”

  “Did he suggest you use this to your advantage?”

  “No. But he knows that Jay’s fond of Hannerle. He thought, given everything, word might not reach Jay in time.”

  In time.

  Had she said it to be cruel? No. No, not Finch. But he thought her angry, at the moment, and words could be said in anger that might never be thought of otherwise.

  Haval lifted a hand to his eyes. When he lowered it, he looked tired and overwhelmed. Her expression softened, as he’d intended.

  “I remember,” Jewel said, as they stood in silence, “that you once told me a good lie worked because it used things that were true as foundation.”

  “That is not entirely what I said; I assure you I would have been somewhat more exact.” He exhaled, straightening as he did. “There are other things you must learn. It is possible to threaten someone when you have no intention of carrying out that threat. We call that a bluff. It is not possible, however, for you to use this particular bluff on me. I am too aware of your foibles, and also aware of your current circumstances.

  “I am not a foolish man. Sometime in the very near future the bluff could become truth, even in your hands. Your context will shift, Jewel. It will change. You feel you are desperate now—but you are far from it. You will understand the difference. I do not wish that on you,” he added, softening his voice. “But if you intend to take the House—and I understand that is your decision and you will not be moved from it—you will be forced to do things that you have never considered before.”

  Jewel lifted a hand; it was trembling. “Enough, Haval. Enough. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Attempted to use a weapon against me that wounds you almost as deeply when you wield it? No. Never do it again.”

  The domicis actually chuckled, and this time, Haval turned to look at him. “I wish you luck, Haval,” Avandar said, his lips still etched with the lines of a particularly dry smile. He was, in Haval’s opinion, a handsome man, and a distinguished one. “I have attempted to teach Jewel ATerafin similar lessons on occasion. She can be forced to listen; she cannot be forced to obey.”

  “Ah. Perhaps that is your difficulty. I have no need to be obeyed. I tell her what she should have already observed, no more, no less. She—like so many—observes what she pleases, and she evaluates it in a similar fashion. Because she is canny, she is often partially correct. If I sound either irritated or displeased, it is because, if she cannot learn from her errors with regards to other people, she should at least know better than to make such rudimentary errors while I am her opponent.”

  “And are you?” The domicis said, the sly smile still gracing his face.

  “You, on the other hand,” Haval replied, “are canny, perhaps in exactly the same way I am; I cannot help but think that you were offered your contract in the domicis hall for exactly this fight, in the end. The Terafin was an admirable woman in almost all ways; she saw far, and she planned for many, many contingencies. I do not believe that you—that any of you—have yet seen the full range of the plans she set in motion before her death.”

  Finch took a step toward Haval; Teller caught her hand and shook his head. It was a single, economical movement. She halted, waiting.

  Waiting, Haval thought, for Jewel to speak.

  “Avandar,” Jewel said crisply.

  Avandar’s silence was chilly, but he nodded. “I will meet you in the West Wing. I would appreciate it if you survived until then.”

  Jewel snorted, which made Haval wince. It was not a sound that should have come from the mouth of a member of the Terafin House Council; it was certainly not a sound that would be allowed The Terafin. He studied her clothing; she wore it the way she always had: gracelessly, but energetically. Her bearing was not—would doubtless never be—regal. She exuded neither confidence nor power.

  “ATerafin,” Haval began.

  “You haven’t come up with any suggestions as to how we sneak Hannerle into the manse,” was her practical reply. “Which means you don’t have any.”

  “Not at the moment, no.”

  “Then we’ll do without.”

  “I have not agreed to any terms.”

  “No. I told you, I surrender. I’m going to do this regardless, and I’d appreciate it if you just shut up and accept it. If you want, you can run out into the streets after the magisterial guards; we’ll be long gone by then, with any luck.”

  “I think they would frown on kidnapping.”

  “They’d probably do a hell of a lot more than just frown. You want her to wake up, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “Then leave it, for now. Work, do whatever it is you need to.”

  “I think Hannerle will be confused and possibly annoyed—”

  “Enraged?”

  He winced. “Or, indeed, somewhat angry, if she wakes in a strange room and in a strange place. If I am there, I can calm her.”

  “Fine. You can come back with us. You’ll need to bring her home, regardless.”

  “Then give me a few moments to gather a few things. Finch, if I may borrow your help?” he added, as he headed out of the room.

  Haval’s definition of a “few things” was like Jay’s definition of a “little trouble.” It was also, sadly, in line with his definition of a “few moments,” and involved a lot of carrying. He moved tall bolts of white cloth and tall bolts of black cloth, none of which were light. They were easier to handle than the small jars of pins and beads, and the heavy box full of needles and thread.

  “You realize,” she said, while she was carrying the third bolt, “that we’re going in a carriage, not a wagon?”

  “Ah, yes.” He picked up the measurements he had made and slid them into a pocket. “If we had more room or more time, I would take more.”

  She nodded, although she couldn’t imagine how much more he could take with him.

  “The Merchant Authority is closed tomorrow,” he said, as he picked up a few small items and also deposited them in pockets. “Which is good. I find this type of tight deadline taxing.”

  Finch nodded. “I’ll be home, but Teller will spen
d most of the day in Gabriel’s office.”

  “And the House Council?”

  “There’s a meeting later this afternoon, but it should be brief. The only items of import so far have been discussions about the funeral and the guests invited to attend the burial itself. The great hall’s been opened up, and the servants have been working like a small army; as far as I know, we have three Senniel bards who will either sing or play during the procession and the burial. The Kings and the Queens will also be present, so the House Guard’s been busy as well. The gardeners have been weeping in frustration,” she added, with a pang of sympathy. This was not the time of year for the gardens, and absolutely not the time of year for a burial.

  But death didn’t particularly care about the weather or the season; it came when it came.

  They had reached the door with the last of Haval’s “few” items, and Finch waited while he adjusted the sign proclaiming his absence, and locked the door firmly. The carriage was already waiting, and given the day, it received its share of baleful glares. They were carefully baleful, on the other hand, given the prominence of the Terafin crest and the size of the horses.

  Haval was not required to carry his cloth and his tools; the footmen who met the carriage did that. Nor was he required to use the tradesman’s entrance, because he had arrived in the same carriage as no less than three members of the House Council. He took care to look smaller and more nervous than he might otherwise have looked, and he walked several steps behind Finch. Jewel led, but she led in the unconscious way she always had. Her stride was wide and unfaltering, even given the skirts she wore; her step was heavy and certain. It wasn’t elegant and it certainly wasn’t graceful; Hannerle might have approached a kitchen counter in just the same way that Jewel ATerafin now approached the wing of the manse she called home.

  She would have frowned—and not silently—had she heard the comparison, but there it was: something in Jewel reminded him of his wife. They were not the same woman, not even close to the same woman. Jewel was cursed with an earnest heart and a hope for the future that never wavered enough to break, something that Hannerle had never had. His wife believed in the present, and held onto it with a ferocity and a focus that defined her.

  But they were both practical women, and they both had a temper that on occasion caused crockery to break. They were both fiercely protective of their homes, their families. Hannerle’s home and family had always been small. Jewel’s had grown.

  It had grown, Haval thought, beyond her capacity to protect. She hadn’t realized it. Not even The Terafin’s death had yet made that clear. But she would understand it in time. Had he been a man who found prayer useful, he might have prayed now: let it be a long, long time in the future.

  He was not a man for prayer, and not, in any case, pointless prayer. He trailed behind the three House Council members, deflecting the brief glances of passing servants and House Guards.

  Marrick. Elonne. Haerrad. Rymark. Each had their strengths and weaknesses; each had, over the course of a decade, built a base of power on which they might both stand and maneuver. If rumor was to be believed, Rymark had gone as far as claiming a writ of inheritance from The Terafin herself. Rymark was canny, if cruel; he was clever. He was also the blood son of Gabriel ATerafin, the man who now held the House Council together until a successor emerged. That successor, if it was not his son, would emerge from the shadows his son’s corpse cast.

  Jewel had gained little height in the past fifteen years; she was small, her shoulders slender. She walked like a boy in the streets of the hundred holdings. He was uncertain whether or not she had ever actually killed a man. He was certain she had seen death, but seeing it and causing it were in no way the same. Death was not her gift, but he could see no clear path to the future she wanted if it could not become her tool.

  All this he thought dispassionately, even coldly, as the famous galleries of the Terafin manse passed by him. He had an eye for geography that was almost as sharp as his eye for human detail; he knew the statues, the arms, the paintings, and the windows, and knew as well when the next turn would lead into the west hall in which Jewel’s home was situated. He knew the tabards of the House Guard well; the tabards of the Terafin Chosen were similar. He saw both on display, and wondered, briefly, what would become of the Chosen; they had not, to his knowledge, been disbanded yet, although the Lord to whom they swore their life was now gone.

  Frowning, he accepted his sparse knowledge of the minutiae of the guard structure within the House. He would have to ask Jarven who the Captain of the House Guard now was. He disliked even the thought of having to all but beg Jarven for information; it pricked at his dignity.

  But…it gave him something to think about. Walking as he was, he couldn’t retreat to smooth seams and stitching; nor could he soothe thought with the numbing task of perfect beading. The only other option was Hannerle, and that was not a place he wished to revisit, he had spent so much time by her side thinking of little else.

  The doors to the wing opened as Jewel approached them, and he realized that wish or no, he would now do exactly that. An old man stood in the opened doors, bowing in greeting as the three members of the den approached. “Jewel. Finch. Teller.”

  It was Finch who spoke. “We have a guest,” she told him, turning toward Haval. “And we require a room in which he can work in relative peace.”

  The man nodded briskly, and waited until they had all entered, even Haval; he sent the overburdened footmen on their way while he disappeared to prepare tea and something that smelled very like hot cider with a touch too much cinnamon. Only when the footmen had left and the doors to the wing had closed at their back did he speak again.

  “He is not the only guest on the premises.”

  “Ummm, we know,” Finch replied. “We had no real way to send word.”

  One white brow rose. It was as much criticism as the older man seemed prepared to offer, at least in the presence of guests. “I have taken the liberty of assuming the guest’s stay will be for an unspecified length of time, and I’ve opened a room for her use.” He turned to Jewel. “Avandar is taking a brief rest; he will join you shortly.”

  Shortly.

  Haval glanced at Jewel, who seemed both unsurprised and unfazed by the comment. Jewel’s domicis had always radiated an unseemly confidence—even arrogance—for a man in his chosen profession, but Haval was honestly surprised. A short rest for the magic he’d used implied a depth of power that no domicis in Haval’s experience should have. It was novel.

  Jewel rose, tea in hand. So far, her hand was the only thing that had touched it, but the room was chilly, even with wood burning in the grate. “Take us to her,” she told the man. Her tone was rough and cool. Finch cast her gaze at the carpets. Even when she chose not to speak, she was expressive, which was unfortunate. Haval noted that Teller was not.

  The man bowed and led them past the sitting room into a hall that was girded by modest doors on either side. He paused at the third door on the right and opened it. Haval, following at the same distance as he had in the external halls, was last to enter the room. Hannerle was already in bed, her head propped up by pillows. She was not, however, alone.

  One young man and one boy stood beside her, on the side of the bed farthest from the door; they were both looking up at Jewel as Haval approached.

  Jewel lifted a hand, signaling with a brief sweep of three fingers; the older of the two nodded. The younger, however, seemed to take no information from the gestures. Interesting.

  “Daine, why are you here?”

  Daine had now transferred his gaze from Jewel to Haval. She coughed and said, “This is Haval. The woman in the bed is his wife, Hannerle. Neither of which answers the question I just asked. Why aren’t you in the healerie?”

  “Jester called me. He said Avandar had brought a guest.”

  “…Jester told you to come. To our wing, in the middle of the day, without any visible reason.”

  Daine said nothing
. Given the shift in her tone, this was probably wise, at least for another few minutes. It became less wise with the passage of time, however.

  Haval cleared his throat loudly. “Adam and Daine are both healers.” It wasn’t a question.

  Jewel nodded; she knew there was no point in lying, not to Haval; she had brought Hannerle here for one purpose.

  “And it is Adam who can achieve your minor miracle.”

  She nodded again.

  “Adam is not from the Empire.”

  “Adam is new to the Empire, yes. Before you ask, no, I didn’t bring him here.”

  “You knew he was healer-born.”

  “Haval—it’s long, complicated, and entirely irrelevant, but yes, I knew he was healer-born. He was given into Levec’s keeping, and Levec doesn’t let go of much. Believe that here was not where I expected to find him. He’s so young—”