by Shannon Page
“Oh, but no one will have shown you yet! How silly of me. May I enter?”
“Of course,” Sian replied, unused to such deference.
The maid swept in and walked briskly to what seemed nothing but one more of many gilded panels on the room’s walls. When she pushed this panel with her fingers, however, it issued a soft click, then swung outward to reveal an entire closet full of dresses, which Sian saw instantly were … really rather hideous.
Everything was both far too elaborate and many years behind the times, as if someone had stuffed all the ladies at some dreadful coronation ball into this little space fifteen or twenty years ago, then locked the door and left them until everything had rotted away except their dresses. Where in all of Alizar, Sian wondered, had her cousin acquired these? And why ever had he kept them?”
“I … will eat first, I believe,” Sian told the maid.
Clearly perceiving her dismay, the maid said, “These are what your cousin had sent up, my lady. But, if you wish, I am sure he will not mind if I find something … simpler?”
“That would be lovely, if you’re sure he wouldn’t mind.” Sian had no wish to risk insulting her host — at the best of times, much less right now.
“I will bring the food, then,” said Cleone, “and go find you something nice to wear while you are eating, if that is acceptable?”
“Thank you. Yes.”
The maid smiled, and ducked out of the room again. A moment later she was back, pushing the door wide to drag in a silver cart barely narrow enough to fit through. It was laden with more elaborate confections, more smoked and salted meats and fish, more fresh-baked breads and cunning little rolls, more savory cheeses and delicately sliced and sugared fruits and nuts than Sian had ever seen. And a whole rack of lovely wines and morning cordials, plus — naturally — a silver pot of kava with a matching pitcher of heavy cream. She raised both hands to her face in wonder, and laughed aloud.
“Is anything amiss, my lady?” Cleone asked. “Do you require something more?”
“Oh no.” She laughed again. “This will keep me very busy for a while.”
“I will go then,” Cleone said happily, already moving toward the door with brisk efficiency. “But I will not be long.” She turned to point over her shoulder at a velvet pull hanging in the corner. “If you require anything before I’m back, just tug at that.”
“I’ll be fine, Cleone. Thank you. Very much.”
“Your pleasure is my own.” And the girl was gone again.
True to her word, Cleone returned not fifteen minutes later. When Sian bade her enter, she walked in with arms full of silk and various other accoutrements, set them on the bed, turned to say something to Sian, and saw the virtually empty meal cart. Her mouth dropped open as she cast a startled glance around the room, as if all that food might merely have been moved for some strange reason.
Sian could not help grinning. “I have a very healthy appetite these days.”
Recalling herself, Cleone snapped her mouth closed, and lowered her eyes in chagrin. “Would my lady like to sample something more?” she asked demurely.
Sian shook her head. “Not until it’s time for lunch, at least.”
Cleone arched her brows, then allowed herself to grin as well. “Shall we see then if the dress I’ve brought is any more to your liking?”
“Please,” Sian said, thinking it could hardly be much worse.
Cleone shook out and held up a simple shift in light green silk with accents and delicate piping in darker emerald.
Sian sighed in relief. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
“Very well. Let’s get my lady dressed then,” Cleone chirruped.
They had hardly finished when a less delicate knock came at Sian’s door. “Cousin? Are you decent?” Escotte called. “I am extremely eager to continue last night’s conversation.”
Sian nodded to Cleone, who went to admit him.
Escotte entered in a robe all stripes and paisleys, mauve and gray and charcoal. Less glimmer but more ruffles than the previous night’s attire; it didn’t clash as badly with the monkey. “You may leave us,” he said to Cleone, who dropped him an unsmiling curtsy and left without a word. “So, my dear Sian. How did you sleep? Well, I hope?”
“Quite well, cousin. Thank you. The bed is marvelous, as is Cleone and every other aspect of the hospitality I’ve been shown here.”
“Good,” he said, then paused to examine her with a frown. “You did not find the dresses I had sent to you?”
“Oh! Why … yes, of course. Cleone showed them to me right away. But they seemed far to nice to waste just wandering around my room here. I assumed they were for some special occasion? Dinner perhaps?” Escotte still looked … hurt? “I’m honored by your thoughtfulness,” Sian rushed to add, “but I asked Cleone to find me something simpler — just to loaf around in. You don’t mind, do you?”
He shrugged. “Of course not. Those were just some old things Víolethe left behind.”
“Oh.” That would explain it. His wife’s taste had always run toward excess. “Is Víolethe not here? She is well, I hope?”
“She is fine, and will be pleased to hear that I have seen you looking in such good health as well, despite your, er, clothing and all.” Escotte went to pour himself a little glass of morning cordial from one of the un-emptied bottles on her breakfast cart. He studied the decimated cart with interest, then turned to give Sian a curious look as the monkey hopped down and started looking through the empty dishes. “My wife does not so often reside here on the islands anymore,” Escotte added, going to sit in the room’s most spacious chair, arranging his robes with care, lest some important pleat or panel be crushed. “Víolethe seems to prefer cooler climes now. I suspect it’s something to do with the change.” He made a dismissive little gesture of distaste.
“The change?” Sian asked, unsure whether this was just a vague reference to Alizar’s troubled economic condition, or some part of the ‘wasps’ nest’ he’d referred to last night.
“You know.” He laid a hand against his groin. “These sudden spells of heat that overtake her at all hours. I can understand how Alizar’s warm climate might exacerbate … all that.”
Sian tried not to look too startled — or to laugh. “And how are your children?”
“All well,” he said, sipping at his cordial. “Kareen is to be married in a fortnight. I am sorry we were unable to invite you, but, given my position, the guest list is already as horrific as you might imagine, and times being as they are…”
“Of course,” she murmured. She had not invited any of her cousins to Maleen’s wedding either, if only because they were all so much more important than she was that she had wanted to spare them the discomfort of having to decline.
There was a crash as the monkey toppled a chafing-dish. “Gigi, no,” Escotte scolded. The monkey returned to his shoulder — sulking, Sian was sure of it.
“How are Reikos and Pino this morning?” she asked, wondering suddenly why they had not yet come to see her.
“Who?”
“My companions. From last night. Does Pino still seem well?”
“Oh! Yes, his health was really quite remarkable this morning. That was quite a marvel, dear. I, myself, am still recovering, just from the astonishment.”
“Could I prevail upon you to invite them up to see me when we’re done?”
“Sadly, that will not be possible. They are no longer here.”
“What? Where would they have gone?”
“As I believe I mentioned to you last night, dear, though I well understand why you might not remember, we are all embroiled at the moment in a tangle of very delicate dilemmas. Now that he is reassured of your safety, your good captain has agreed to help us navigate, if you’ll excuse the pun, one of our more urgent peccadilloes. He and his young crewman set sail very early this —”
“No!” she gasped. “That isn’t possible! Without even saying goodbye? I can’t believe —”
“What are all these games about, Escotte?” she demanded. “First it’s false arrest. Then Pino nearly dead. Now you’re telling me that my two dearest friends have just disappeared mysteriously in the night, without a word to me? I’m sorry, cousin. While I am deeply grateful for your help, I must insist that someone tell me what is really happening.”
“But, my dear Sian, that is precisely what I’ve come to do.” He gave her a patient smile. “If you will but allow me to.” He sat back and took another sip of cordial, then ruffled the monkey’s fur. “I’ve been waiting half the morning for you to be up and finished with your … breakfast.” He gave her naked cart another glance. “Such an appetite, my dear. Did the temple fail to feed you very well?”
“You knew I was there?”
“Not until your two friends informed us of it. Though we had begun to fear something of the sort. There have been so many disturbing rumors circulating.”
“Then I assume they also told you I was tortured there — before they left, I mean?” She had no idea anymore which of her proliferating questions to pursue first.
“Yes,” he said, setting his glass down with a grimace. “How absolutely dreadful for you. Clearly we were not a moment too soon in gathering you to safety here.”
“But why do it that way, Escotte? I still don’t understand. If your men had simply told us they were sent to offer refuge, I’d have thrown myself into their arms, and Pino never would have suffered so for trying to protect me.”
“I’ve been trying to contact you more directly for days, my dear,” Escotte protested. “I’ve sent letters to your home on Little Loom Eyot, your townhouse on Viel. I even sent inquiries to your daughter on Malençon. Forgive me, I’ve suddenly misplaced her name.”
“Maleen.”
“Yes, of course: Maleen. But when you did not respond, I began to think that you were hiding. From me. Your own cousin.” He placed a hand against his heart, looking wounded. “With all these nasty stories I’ve been hearing, what was I to think? I confess, it even crossed my mind to wonder if you really might have fallen into league with that fanatic priest.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “The one who leads this new cult of the Butchered God.” He seemed to shiver in revulsion at the thought, and got up to pour himself another drink, putting a hand on the monkey’s tail as though to keep it in place. “Anything for you, dear?”
“No. Thank you. I am quite satisfied.”
“With all due respect for our beleaguered Factor,” Escotte said, returning to his chair, “Viktor really stuck his foot in that one. It’s the influence of that foreign bride of his.” He shook his head again. “Of all the bizarre things to do. I ask you. Cutting up the creature’s body, and —”
“From what little I am able to observe, our Factor tends to be a very practical man,” Sian interjected, unsure why she suddenly felt so protective of this Factor she had never met. “In a nation with so many hungry people, he may have thought only to demonstrate his concern for the poor by making the best use of a sudden, large supply of edible meat.” She shrugged. “They ate it, didn’t they? Perhaps they agreed with him.” She hoped the dead god would not be irritated with her for speaking of him this way. But his own followers were still eating that flesh, if she was not mistaken.
“I am not so sure what the poor are thinking these days, cousin.” Escotte studied her again. “I assume you aren’t.”
She shook her head in confusion. “You assume I’m not what? Sure what the poor are thinking?”
“In league with that fanatic priest, I mean.”
Sian stared at him, caught off guard — again. She had been anything but in league with him, until just last night. This morning … This was nothing she wished to parse right now. Least of all with Escotte. “Please refresh my memory,” she said, trying to sound exasperated. “Who was reminding me just last night that we have known each other all our lives? Have I ever seemed the slightest bit religious, cousin?”
“You never seemed a miracle worker either, cousin. Yet, now …” He raised his hands uncertainly. “I would, of course, be fascinated to hear your version of exactly how this remarkable new skill of yours was acquired. The rumors I have heard, of course, but I’ve been reserving judgment for this opportunity to ask you directly.”
“Well, if you’ve heard that the fanatic priest you fear I’m in league with beat this power into me somehow with a giant bone, then you know the truth of it as well as I do. But, once again, Escotte, I ask you why you’d think me likely to conspire with someone who had nearly murdered me, and shattered my whole life. Just tell me plainly. Was I really brought here for my own protection, or am I under arrest after all?”
“Cousin, if I wished to arrest you, you’d have been locked up in my dungeon long before the Mishrah-Khote had so much as time to think of throwing you in theirs. You are here because a world of urgent issues seems suddenly to pivot around you, of all people, and it unnerved me greatly to have so lost track of you these past few days. I have no desire to lose track of you again. Does that make me a jailer?” He gave her what was doubtless meant to be an ingratiating smile; Gigi bared her teeth as well, in ghoulish mimicry of her master. “You are here because you matter deeply to myself and to the Factor. And your friends have been sent off to do something useful elsewhere as much for their own safety as for any other reason.”
Sian paced over to stare out the window, trying to digest all this. “So what is this world of urgent issues you keep alluding to? I am so tired of mysteries and riddles. You have no idea.”
“But I do,” he said. “Mysteries and riddles are my entire life, dear cousin. I empathize. More profoundly than you might expect. So allow me to lay things out for you.”
“Please do,” she said, turning to face him again.
“First, there is a longstanding power struggle between the Factorate and the Mishrah-Khote, which is coming to one of its periodic crisis points just now — in part because of the Factor’s unfortunate handling of this so-called Butchered God affair.”
“I know something about that power struggle,” Sian said. “It was brought to my attention in some detail while I was imprisoned at the temple. I understand that I am something of an embarrassment to the Mishrah-Khote — and a threat to their prestige.”
“Good!” Escotte said. “That saves us some time. But do you understand that you are also problematic for the Factor?”
“Me? Why?”
“His son is very, very sick, as you have doubtless heard.”
“And here I am!” she said. “You’ve seen what I can do. Take me to him, and I’ll heal his son. How is this a problem for him?”
“Oh, dear cousin,” he chortled. “How lovely it must be to live in such a simple, sheltered world.”
“Simple? Sheltered? What part of ‘beaten, imprisoned and tortured’ seems sheltered to you?”
“The part that’s free to go on day to day and year to year imagining no threats larger than those leveled at yourself, Sian.” He was no longer smiling. “My world, and the Factor’s, are both filled with threats aimed not just at us personally, but at an entire nation full of people. Right now, Sian, the Factor’s feet are made almost entirely of clay. Was that explained to you at the temple also?”
She shook her head.
“I am relieved to hear it,” Escotte said. “Though I�
�m not innocent enough to hope they do not know it there as well as I do.”
“What feet of clay?” She felt suddenly ridiculous, despite all she had been through.
“Our economy is crashing, cousin. Surely you’re aware of that much, given your modest but reportedly solid skill at business. This, and Viktor’s foolish handling of that giant body on the beach two years ago, has helped accelerate the deterioration of our nation’s social fabric as well, which was a fairly rotten cloth already, if you ask me. In such times, the tension between Factorate and temple always rises, but the addition of this Butchered God cult has thrown all the usual stops in that tug-of-war completely out of balance — not to mention drawing more and more of our already faltering labor force away from their constructive employment to go marching ’round the streets all day instead. As you may imagine, dear, neither Alizar’s other leading families nor its continental allies are very satisfied with Viktor’s performance at the moment.” He turned to pin her with his gaze. “And if House Alkattha falls from power, cousin, we all fall with it. Had you considered any of that during your little skirts with trouble these past few days?”
Sian had forgotten how good Escotte was at shaming people when he chose to.
“If Viktor should fall while Alizar’s economic and social affairs are in such disarray,” Escotte continued, “there will be a struggle for dominance between at least half a dozen other leading families here, such as Alizar has not seen since the rebellion. Many of them are already jostling for position at the starting line of that disaster. It is even rumored that Lady Sark is finally considering Patterin Orlon’s longstanding marriage proposal, in hopes of strengthening her own position in this race. You think Alizar a quiet, peaceful nation, don’t you? Everybody has, for so long now. I doubt that you have any notion just how quickly this could change. And not just for you, and me, and our small but thus far fortunate little family.”
“I had no idea things were so bad,” she said.
Escotte drew a deep, unhappy breath. “And you could be the detail that sets match to powder here, Sian, in either of two ways.