Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  Teller slid—carefully—out of the jacket, and Haval equally carefully laid it flat between two thinning sheets, which were currently draped across the bed; Teller’s rooms were very sparsely furnished, and the table—the single table—was already in use.

  “Will Finch and Jewel be much longer?”

  “Gods know. There’s something going on in the Authority,” Teller added. Haval noticed only the slightest of pauses between the first phrase and the minimal information of the second one. If hearing could be sharpened, Haval would have been holding a whetstone.

  “Does that something happen to involve Jarven ATerafin?”

  “Sooner or later, it has to.”

  “Oh?”

  “Anything interesting in the Merchant Authority almost always seems to involve Jarven; if it doesn’t, he sulks. According to Finch,” Teller added with wry haste. “Lucille only gets involved in important, practical matters and again, according to Finch, she doesn’t start trouble.”

  “And Finch now feels that Jarven is starting trouble?”

  “Not in so many words, no, but she’s feeling less than fully confident.” The door opened. Teller’s mouth closed.

  “Ah, Finch. Just the person I wanted.” Haval, pins more or less in hand, gestured her toward the small footstep on which Teller had been standing. “I’m informed speed is of the essence,” he added.

  Teller, in the background, was already changing into the attire he wore when in the office.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. We had a message from Haerrad. It couldn’t be easily refused as it was personally delivered, although Ellerson did try. How’s Hannerle?”

  “She is in fine fettle.”

  “That’s bad?”

  He chuckled; it was genuine. “Indeed. A less intelligent man might think she was trying to make him regret the lack of sleep and silence.” At the small round “O” of shock she made, he relented. “She is confused and she is frightened. Finch, please—stand still. And straighten your shoulders. Thank you.”

  Jewel made her entrance as Finch attempted to follow his instructions. Haval took a brief break to do something about Finch’s hair, which had not yet been bound in any way and now threatened the careful placement of his pins. It was long and fine, although its color was almost entirely nondescript.

  “Good morning, Jewel. Before you ask, Hannerle is still awake.”

  Jewel grinned; it was a very tired expression. But where Finch and Teller were willing to listen more or less politely, Jewel was not. “Has she said anything?”

  “Rather a lot.”

  This earned a chuckle. “Anything repeatable?”

  “In this wing, yes; outside of it, no. Since I feel that a certain type of language devalues truly cutting wit, I will not repeat most of it.”

  “We probably said worse in the kitchen.”

  “No doubt. I did hear some of it—from the sitting room.”

  The den leader winced. “Sorry. We had a couple of minor emergencies, and talking people out of dealing with them in the wrong way took time. Speaking of which,” she added, “I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

  The door opened again.

  A familiar young man—Angel, not ATerafin—stood to one side of an entirely unfamiliar stranger. The second man was the one who arrested Haval’s attention, and he did it so thoroughly the dressmaker forgot, for a moment, that he was pinning sleeves.

  “This is Celleriant. Celleriant, this is Haval.”

  It was hard to say which of the stranger’s features was the most arresting, but Haval settled on his eyes; they were a gray that was both cold and luminescent. It was either his eyes or his hair; his hair was a platinum spill that extended in a straight fall down his back, as if it were a cape. His features were striking: high cheekbones, tapered chin, pale, perfect skin, long neck. He was tall, slender, and his clothing—which Haval always noticed—was simple at first glance. But Haval spared more than a single glance for the cloth that draped from neck to mid-thigh because he wasn’t entirely certain what the cloth was. It wasn’t silk; it hadn’t the sheen or the nubbled textures one would expect of silk. Nor was it anything as common as linen or wool.

  It moved as he did, clearing the frame of the open door. Angel followed. Angel looked about as exhausted as his three den-mates, and in the light of the stranger’s eyes, he seemed shadowy, insignificant.

  “Would I be remiss in assuming that the source of this morning’s possible difficulty was Celleriant?”

  Celleriant’s eyes narrowed. In the narrowing, he reminded Haval of someone, although no ready face or name immediately presented itself. This annoyed Haval greatly.

  Jewel, however, heaved something too heavy to be a sigh. “No. For some reason, Celleriant thought that separating Haerrad’s head from his shoulders was the acceptable response to an unwanted message. You won’t notice the bruises Angel is sporting, but if you see Carver or Jester, they ran into Celleriant’s shoulders or elbows.”

  Haval raised a brow. “Please tell me that he did not pull a sword.”

  “I would, but you always lecture me about lying.”

  “I lecture you about the very, very poor quality of the lies you attempt to tell. There is a difference; I have nothing against a competent lie.”

  Celleriant, silent until this point, glanced at Jewel. It was, however, to Haval that he chose to speak, and his voice was, like his face or his clothing, glorious and cold. “Haerrad, as he styles himself, is a danger. A threat.”

  Haval nodded. “My apologies, ATerafin. If you will just lift your arms—delicately, delicately!—I will be done. Unless the shoes you are wearing for the funeral services differ greatly in height?”

  Finch shook her head.

  “Good. This will not be my most outstandingly intricate work; I apologize. Hannerle has chosen to help, and the beading and lace will be done at the store; I will return either in the morning or in the late evening with something close to the finished work. Please, step down.” As Finch left the stool, Haval motioned Jewel forward.

  Jewel glanced at Celleriant and Angel.

  “Haerrad is a danger, yes.”

  “And you feel that his death is unwarranted?” Celleriant asked.

  Jewel’s glance drilled into the side of Haval’s face; Haval was busy once again laying out pins and rethreading needles; he had no need to look to know what she was thinking, her thoughts were so lamentably loud.

  “I feel his death is necessary,” Haval replied.

  Angel coughed. Loudly. No one else made any sound.

  “But his death is not the only necessary death. Lord Celleriant, why are you here?”

  Celleriant looked to Jewel. Interesting. Jewel nodded, and then shoved random curls out of her eyes.

  “I serve Jewel ATerafin,” Celleriant replied, the words cool and proud.

  “And that is your only concern?”

  “What other concern would I have in such a diminished place?”

  “I frankly haven’t the slightest clue. But for the moment, let me take you at your word.”

  “You speak as if such courtesy is rare.”

  “It is, as you surmise, rare.”

  A Winter smile crossed the features of Celleriant, and Haval felt old. But he also, conversely, felt young—young enough to believe in Dragons and Gryphons and all manner of beautiful, fanciful death. “You are counted wise, among your kin?”

  “Ah, no. I prefer not to be counted at all. Jewel, please. I realize you are not under the time constraints of either of your two companions, but I am. I am honestly thinking of adding a factor to the price I am generously charging for my work and my lack of sleep.” Jewel removed her outerwear hesitantly. “Where is your domicis?”

  “Not here.”

  Ah. “Very well. Yes, Celleriant, Haerrad is an issue. But the political situation in the House at the moment is somewhat delicate. If you have served Jewel ATerafin for any significant length of time, you will understand some of her sho
rtcomings and some of her reservations. If you do not, or you will not acknowledge them, I will make them bluntly clear: She is squeamish. She does not like to kill.”

  “She is not capable of killing Haerrad,” was the cool reply. “Nor was it my suggestion that she do so.”

  Jewel, standing exposed on the stool in a way that neither Finch nor Teller had been, now ground her teeth in annoyance. “If you serve me, and you kill him, it’s the same damn thing; it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s my hand that wields the sword. What’s so hard to understand about that?”

  “You agree that he needs to die.”

  “…yes.”

  “I could have easily killed him.”

  “He had House Guards with him.”

  “He had four. They were not significant.”

  “They don’t deserve to die because I’m playing hide and seek with their boss!”

  Teller cringed and took this opportunity to escape. Finch, after thanking Haval, did likewise; judging from their harried expressions this was more or less a rising replay of the argument that Haval had heard in the distance when he had first arrived. Angel, however, moved to the wall nearest the door and leaned against it, watching Celleriant moodily.

  “If you believe that he will die alone, you are gravely mistaken.”

  “What she believes,” Haval interjected as he helped Jewel into the skeletal outline of what would be the finest of the three pieces, “is that someone else will kill him. I do not think, at this point, she particularly cares who—although she should. He is not significant enough that the desire to kill him should drive all thoughts of caution to the winds.”

  Celleriant’s very fine features did not shift at all, but his voice grew sharper. Clearly a repeat of the morning’s argument did not deter him the way it did the less militant Finch or Teller. “You have already stated—clearly—as did your aides, that you do not believe you will achieve your goals with no deaths. While I do not understand the subtleties of mortal politics as well as you claim to, it is clear to me—and I believe clear to Teller at least—that the four who have openly claimed to seek the throne—”

  “We don’t call it a throne.”

  He waved a hand at the inconsequential correction, and Haval winced. It was, of course, a deliberate wince, meant entirely for Jewel’s sake. “That the four who have claimed the seat, if you prefer, are also aware of this. They will not achieve their goals without killing.”

  “Killing and death are not the same.”

  “In this case?” Celleriant surprised Haval. He turned to the dressmaker. “What are the four now discussing?”

  Haval frowned. He could dissemble, and considered it. “I am not a Lord,” he finally said. “Nor am I considered a man of power; I have been a dressmaker for decades now, and I am content. It is not of me that you must ask that question; how would I know enough to answer it?”

  Celleriant’s frown was thin and edged, and his eyes narrow. “I fail to understand why your first statement would make you incapable of a cogent answer to the question.”

  “Pardon?”

  “In the Court of my birth, only a very, very few are given the privilege of clothing the Queen; a very few. Most survive it; some do not. The fact that they are capable of emphasizing her glory does not turn them in one act into witless fools; it heightens the esteem in which they are held.”

  Haval was genuinely surprised. He was also, which was worse, suddenly curious. But he did not leap like a naive fool into that curiosity; he marked it instead. “You will find, in these lands, that dressmakers are not held to such high standards. The question of a dressmaker’s survival is never an issue, for one.”

  “It is given to few,” Celleriant replied, “to create beauty, or to enhance it.”

  “And it is instead given, in your distant lands, to the many to create death?”

  “We do not create death; we merely cause it,” was the cool reply.

  Ah, he had stopped his pinning. He began immediately, given Jewel’s known impatience for standing partially clothed in any company. She had, lamentably, already begun her ritual of pushing hair out of her eyes, and the partial sleeves were swinging, unpinned, in a most haphazard fashion.

  “It is my belief that your aesthetics and ours are completely different,” he told the stranger.

  “Perhaps. Living in this place feels akin to burrowing with the rabbits in their small, dirt hovels.”

  Angel stiffened.

  Jewel snorted. “Enough, Celleriant.”

  “But even here, I am not unobservant. You are called Haval?”

  “I am.”

  “And you profess to no skill but the making of clothing?”

  “I do.”

  “Then it must be common for dressmakers in this mortal Empire to also kill.”

  Chapter Four

  HAVAL DIDN’T CEASE HIS PINNING. His expression did change; his eyes widened slightly and his brows packed more tightly together; it was brief. Jewel, however, understood that Haval was capable of perfect control of expression; he was capable of guarding his words, voice, and posture. Nothing that he wanted to hide escaped him, and what did escape was what he chose to reveal.

  But the most revealing thing to Jewel was the fact that he did not stop. So she held out her arms, but she watched his face, trying to understand why he’d chosen to enact surprise while she could see it. Waiting, her breath short, for his denial.

  Wanting it.

  He met her gaze; he held it. And then, to her surprise, he offered her a slight and chagrined smile. “My dear Jewel,” he said, gently folding her arms to test the pull across the back of her shoulders, “Did your Oma never tell you to be careful of the company you keep?”

  “No one’s likely to judge me by Celleriant; if he’s in the room, no one’s likely to see me.”

  He chuckled. He gave her that much. But he didn’t give her more.

  “Haval, how’s Hannerle?”

  He adjusted the pins in the shoulders of the dress with care. “She is, as you now surmise, concerned.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “No. She understands you, Jewel. I would say, in different circumstances, she might even be brought to approve. But that would take time, and we have little time.”

  “Haval—”

  “You are now uncertain, ATerafin? Your man has made a single statement, and it has so unsettled you?”

  Jewel, never good at hiding anything, bowed her head. But she lifted it again, and this time, she looked at Celleriant. She was angry, but she’d been angry since Haerrad’s name had been carried into the kitchen by a diffident and cautious Ellerson. She was afraid. That fear had also come with Haerrad’s name, because whenever his name was mentioned, she remembered Teller’s injury. She remembered, as well, that the injury was a warning that implied—strongly—that it could have been so much worse.

  Leave it alone, she told herself. Leave it the hell alone. But her mouth opened anyway. “Celleriant, why did you say that?”

  He frowned. “I observed, Lady. Only that.”

  “He’s an old man, and he makes dresses.”

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t—”

  “Jewel,” Haval said, catching her wrist almost gently. “What do you hope to gain? You already know what Lord Celleriant will say.”

  “We don’t call him Lord here.”

  “Ah. But he is that.”

  “Not here.”

  Haval bent. “These are the shoes you will wear?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” He began to adjust the unpinned hem. “Answer my question while I work. What do you hope to gain?”

  “I—I want him to understand that we’re different. From him. From what he’s known.”

  “And what have I told you about your lies?”

  “They’re bad.”

  “They are appalling. They are beyond simply bad, Jewel. Do you think that Celleriant has never killed?”

  She shrugged. Her
silence was stubborn, and it wouldn’t last, not against Haval. “I know he’s killed. He’s probably done worse.”

  “Do you think he will never kill again?”

  “…no.”

  “Yet you accept his presence.”

  “I have no choice in that.”

  “You have every choice in it. I believe your domicis—yours, not the older gentleman—is capable of removing Lord Celleriant should you but command his removal.”