by Shannon Page
Viktor looked down at Arian. “I believe my wife has given us all the cover we need — for this, at least. How did your conversation with Duon turn out, my love?”
“I … He … When I realized he had been lying about all of it, I …” She looked down and shook her head. One more hysterical woman for the sergeant’s collection. “I told him we would have his head, basically. … In front of everyone this time.”
“There! You see?” Viktor raised his hands triumphantly. “How could we possibly continue to trust priests in Konrad’s chambers after such an altercation with their leader? Everyone may wonder if we’re crazy, but no one will wonder why we sent them packing so suddenly.” He gave Arian a grim smile, which she hadn’t the heart just then to return.
“It will be seen to, then,” Hivat said, still clearly very dubious.
“But what good will that do now, if Konrad dies anyway?” Arian protested. “There is someone in this city who can heal him, and we know exactly where she is. We must get her out of there and bring her to him while there’s time!”
“My lady, I see no ready way to do that without alerting the Census Taker that he’s been discovered. I can think of no better way to ignite whatever coup may be in the offing. We simply must have time to find out how badly your own household has been infiltrated, and then to formulate a plan for defusing the plot without launching Alizar right into civil war. For that is what’s at stake here. Civil war. The stars themselves have seemed aligned against this nation for some time now. All these islands need is one more shock, and the entire fabric could give way. We have no choice but to act more cautiously than ever.”
“Which means that I’m to sacrifice my son, our heir, to the slender hope that if we all just sit still enough and hold our breaths, this storm may dissipate?” She looked up at her husband, trembling with frustration. “You just told me that if there was any way to fight, even with our feet, you’d do it. Did you mean for our son, Viktor, or just for Alizar?”
“Arian … please. Don’t cast the difficult decisions before us in such a light. I exist — we exist — to care for Alizar. I too love our son. I would do anything within my power to save him, but I cannot plunge the whole nation I am sworn to serve into fiery chaos just to spare myself … or those I love. That would mean betrayal of all I’m sworn to do and be.”
“So you would betray instead the son who loves and trusts you?” Arian surged to her feet once more. “To accommodate a country that would throw you — and me and Konrad — to the sharks without a second thought? You said yourself, this morning, that they only endure us so they’ll have a …” she glanced at Ennias, “a scapegoat to spare themselves responsibility! Well, we’ve given them our best for half a lifetime, but we owe no one the life of our son. If there’s a woman out on Cutter’s who can save him, then I want that woman here! No matter what it costs this ungrateful nation.” She spun to glare at Hivat. “Find a way to get her here immediately. I am done waiting and waiting while he dies.”
“Arian,” pled Viktor. “If Escotte has the slightest reason to suspect —”
“Tell Escotte he can have the Factorate!” she turned to snap at him. “Tell him we will give it to him — or to whomever he’s been plotting with — and good riddance! What joy has it ever brought us?” She turned back to Hivat. “Wouldn’t that help even more to ensure an orderly transition? Why let Konrad die, when we can just make plain to these conspirators that there is no one standing in their way?” All three men were staring at her now, in speechless astonishment. The quintessential hysterical woman. It made her want to scream at them — as loudly and as incoherently as she was able.
All her life, she had allowed the disciplines of statecraft to define her — first in her father’s house, and then in this one. It felt sometimes as if she had spent every minute of every waking day holding her breath in the fearful service of whatever avatar of wealth and power might be looking down and judging her performance. And now they wanted her to hand them Konrad and just look away. For the greater good of Alizar and the Alkattha clan.
Well, she was finished serving at such altars.
“I know what you’re all thinking,” she said, with glacial calm now, “and I don’t care.” She looked at Hivat, then at Ennias, and finally at Viktor, holding each man’s gaze until it wavered from her own. “You ask me how one child’s life can matter more than all these vastly larger things at stake. Is it not possible, gentlemen, that such perspectives are precisely what has led our country to this impasse?” She gestured toward a window at her husband’s fraying kingdom. “Ask these threadbare islands what has rotted all the bonds that once welded them into a nation. You say the stars have been aligned against us, Hivat, but I’d say we have simply been aligned against ourselves. If Alizar had not sacrificed so many children over all its centuries, perhaps there would be less discontent seething in its streets today, less ruthlessness driving its most fortunate citizens to betray each other. Less fear of civil war to bind our hands.”
“What would you have us do then, Arian?” Viktor asked quietly. “I cannot just write Escotte and offer him the Factorate. You know it’s not that simple. Especially if he’s made a deal with some other house. My own family would as likely have me assassinated, and go to war with him themselves, as allow it. Nothing would be fixed that way.”
Now it was her gaze that wavered. In the end, no matter how good one’s intentions, there was always that godsdamned insurmountable question. What to do. What could be done? She turned back to the chief of security. “I do understand the need for caution, Hivat. I too want this crisis defused without calamity. But if Sergeant Ennias is correct, it would take this cousin of ours no more than a touch to heal my son. A single moment of contact. Is there no way this could be arranged? In some manner that Escotte would never be aware of?”
“How, my lady? She is kept imprisoned in his house.”
“Perhaps … we could pay Escotte a visit of some kind. To discuss … my mishandling of the temple. I don’t care. And someone …” she turned hopefully to Ennias, “could smuggle Konrad very briefly in to see this woman while Viktor and I kept the Census Taker distracted. Do you think you might be able to do that, Sergeant?”
The sergeant cleared his throat, and looked nervously from Hivat to Viktor. “I would need to know more specifically what my lady has in mind …”
“My lady,” Hivat asked carefully, “are you suggesting that you and the Factor show up at the Census Taker’s home, for some hastily scheduled meeting, with your unconscious son in tow? That would seem quite strange, to anyone, I should think.”
“Well … of course we would not bring Konrad to the door with us,” she said, scrambling to articulate what she did mean, exactly. “He would be hidden in our litter, I suppose, and smuggled inside to the woman by this sergeant, perhaps, while we were in discussion with Escotte elsewhere?”
“An unconscious boy carried into the Census Hall from your litter in the building’s unobstructed forecourt,” said Hivat, “then through who knows how many corridors, and up any number of stairs, by one man, without being seen by an entire household of serving staff, into the presense of a woman who is, by the sergeant’s account, never unaccompanied?” He shook his head. “My lady, I am sorry, but we must come up with some more likely plan. Can we be sure your son would even survive such strenuous transport at this point?”
She did not know. And it was a fair question, she reminded herself sternly, determined neither to allow herself tears right now, nor to snap at him for asking it. “All right then. Might we smuggle her outside to him, somehow, while Viktor and I were with Escotte?”
“My lady,” Hivat said, “we’ve been told that she is always under guard, and I cannot imagine that Escotte would not have her more closely guarded than ever while you and the Factor were in his house. Indeed, he would likely find your very presence there, on such short notice, quite suspicious under these circumstances.”
The sergeant cleared his
throat again, and said, “If I may, my lady, Domni Hivat?”
“Please,” Arian replied, leaning against her chair.
“I believe Domni Hivat may be correct about the Census Taker’s unease with your presence there, which means that I would likely be the guard assigned to Domina Kattë during your visit. For whatever that is worth.”
“Might that not make everything easier?” she asked.
“Some, perhaps,” said Ennias. “But there would almost certainly be others with her too. Her maid, at least. Unless you came after Domina Kattë had retired for the evening, and her maid had gone home — which would be a strange time to visit the Census Taker, I assume.”
“I see,” Arian said. “How much might it take to subvert this maid to our purpose as well, do you think?”
Hivat shook his head before the sergeant could answer. “Much too dangerous, my lady. Even if she could be persuaded somehow, she might lose her nerve at any moment during or after the task, and expose us. Sergeant Ennias is a military man, with all the nerve and discipline implied, I’m sure. But an untempered domestic trained to fear the authority of a man like Escotte Alkattha … I would never trust my back to such a creature.”
Hysterical women. Again. Arian turned to Ennias. “What is your opinion, Sergeant? You have actually met her, surely. And, as a commander, you must be a decent judge of character. I will trust your assessment. Is this maid a willing party to Escotte’s conspiracy? Does she like or dislike her employer? Might she be persuadable, do you think, and if so, trustworthy, or not?”
Ennias glanced uncomfortably at Hivat, then back to Arian, clearly understanding what an awkward position she had placed him in, which just affirmed her growing trust of his perception. “Cleone seems a decent sort, my lady. She’s clearly been instructed not to leave Domina Kattë unsupervised, and to keep her presence at the Hall a secret, but I doubt she has any idea why, or would ever think of asking. She is quite proper — or she would never have been trusted with this task to start with.” He fell silent for a moment, looking thoughtful. “In fact, she is so proper that, if she were to learn what her employer was involved in, and involving her in, she might well feel compelled, as I did, to do the right thing.”
Arian was careful not to smile in triumph. Not yet, at least. “And what about her nerve, Sergeant? Once persuaded, could she be trusted to keep her head and follow through?”
She saw Ennias suppress another of his little grins. “No one remains in Lord Alkattha’s service for very long unless they are equipped with ample nerve and ability to keep their heads and follow through, my lady.”
Arian turned back to Hivat and raised her brows.
Hivat sighed deeply, clearly struggling not to roll his eyes. “And what do you think it might take to persuade this woman that betraying her longtime, and frighteningly powerful, employer was the right thing, Sergeant? Would you be able to do it?”
Ennias thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “I doubt she would trust my word enough to risk the Census Taker’s wrath.”
“Whose word might she trust enough, then?” Hivat asked, seeming to suppress a triumphant smile of his own now.
“None I can think of,” Ennias conceded. “Except …” He looked uncertainly at Arian. “Cleone respects authority. Unquestioningly, from what I’ve seen. If she were to be told what’s happening by someone whose authority exceeded the Census Taker’s, I have little doubt she would comply with whatever they requested. She would see it as the only right thing to do.”
“Well then,” Arian said briskly. “Can we not smuggle her up here somehow? Tonight, after she’s gone home from work, perhaps.”
Hivat shook his head and sighed again. The game was not going his way after all, it seemed. Poor man. Arian was careful to look sympathetic.
“Do you have any idea, my lady, how difficult it was to bring the sergeant here without being seen by anyone? And now we are to do it twice? In a single day?”
“And yet, you succeeded, Hivat,” Arian parried. “In broad daylight, while we will have the cover of night and almost no one about, this time.”
“I believe I could get her here, sir,” Ennias informed Hivat. “I am given the afternoon and evening off once a week. This is the day. It’s why I came to see you now. I could intercept Cleone tonight and bring her here, if you wish.”
Hivat nodded, glaring daggers at the sergeant now, to Arian’s considerable amusement. “Very well, but I will be accompanying you. We must be certain that you are not seen — at any point along the way — a task I dare not leave to amateurs.”
Amateurs! Arian thought. What had happened to all that seasoned ‘nerve and discipline’ Hivat had credited this military man with just minutes earlier? It was a struggle, suddenly, to keep herself from laughing. She was liking this young sergeant quite a lot by now. Perhaps when this was over, he might better serve in the Factorate house guard — if not some higher post. “Unfortunately, I am having dinner in my chambers with my brother tonight.” Viktor gave her a surprised look. “It seems he’s tired of being an outcast,” she told him. “He met me on the docks this afternoon, an utterly changed man, concerned about my visit to Duon, and offering to help if I was in any trouble — quite sincerely, if you can believe it.”
“Pardon me, my dear, if I trust sincerity in your brother even less than I trust his self-serving arrogance,” Viktor replied. “His help is the last thing I want, at any time, least of all right now.”
“I understand that, Viktor. But, as I’ve been telling you all along, it does seem he is not the snake in our fruit bowl. I hardly wish to risk discouraging this sudden change of heart, so I will have to see this maid after Aros and I have finished supper.” She turned back to Hivat. “Do you think that you could have her here by … three or four hours after dark?”
Hivat turned an inquisitive, if still quite disgruntled, look at Ennias, who nodded.
“Cleone leaves after Domina Kattë has retired for the evening. That should give us time.”
“Good,” said Arian. “I’ll send Maronne down my private stair to fetch you two and the maid as soon as my brother is gone, if that’s acceptable?”
“As you wish, my lady,” Hivat said. “But, if I am not mistaken, we have still devised no plan for bringing your son and this healer together. Should we not know what we’re asking this woman to do before smuggling her into your presence?”
“Yes, of course,” Arian said pleasantly. “By all means, let’s devise a plan, then. I have at least another hour or two before dinner. Sergeant, can we not offer you a seat? You too, Hivat. This will doubtless take a while.”
Sian followed Cleone up yet another stairway toward this evening’s cocktail hour with Escotte, being served tonight, it seemed, in a third-floor sitting room on the building’s northwest corner, as opposed to all the other sitting rooms she had been shown to on all the other evenings in who knew how many other wings. She sometimes felt as though she were being taken on an extremely slow tour of the Census Hall, one or two rooms per day.
“Will that be all, my lady?” Cleone asked, hesitating at the doorway when they had arrived.
“Thank you, yes. I can safely find my way inside from here, I think.”
The maid curtsied, seemingly oblivious of Sian’s attempt at wit. “I hope you pass a pleasant evening, then. I will see you before bed.”
Sian did, in fact, navigate the passage from plush hallway to elegant sitting room without incident, to find Escotte waiting for her, seated in a large, well-upholstered chair, clad in magenta and puce like a particularly ill-painted chessman. Gigi was nowhere in evidence tonight. Sian wondered if she should inquire after the monkey’s health. Perhaps she had retired to the continent as well.
“Please, refresh yourself,” Escotte said as she walked in, waving toward Quatama, his chief butler, who stood stiffly by a sideboard generously laden with bottles and a plate of pastries, ready to serve her. As usual, Sian was hungry. Everyone seemed used to that by
now.
When she had accepted an arak-and-soda and a small sterling plate of pumpkin-and-goat-cheese tartelettes from Quatama, she went to settle herself in the large upholstered chair beside Escotte’s. The butler followed to refresh Escotte’s drink and offer him another tartelette, then bowed low to them, and withdrew.
Her cousin made his usual show of enjoying the snack, as though he’d never dined so sumptuously in all his life. “Have you had a pleasant day?” he asked around a mouthful of pastry.
“Lovely,” Sian said, savoring the bitterness of the anise against the sweet soda. “Cleone and I wrote hideous villanelles.”
Escotte tittered. “I am sure they were quite capably executed. I should like to see them.”
“I am certain you would not, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.”
“Oh, yes, do send them to me.” He watched her eat her second tartelette, making her self-conscious of the crumbs falling on her dress. “You look stunning tonight,” Escotte added.
“Why, thank you,” Sian said, trying not to laugh as she brushed the crumbs away. The dress she wore was one of Víolethe’s, and not much more attractive than Escotte’s own appalling robe tonight. She had quickly realized that, whatever Escotte might pretend, showing up for cocktails or dinner in anything other than the clothes he had procured for her caused him disappointment. She’d started working her way through the closet of horrors, wearing the least objectionable first. After more than a week, however, she was left with this tight-bodiced tangerine and scarlet gown with its extravagantly padded sleeves and ruffled peplum. It was almost a cruel parody of her own, more muted dusty rose dress with orange piping, ruined the night of her … rescue. If these clothes had not been on loan to her, she would have at least torn off the layers of frothy red lace at its neck, wrists, and hemline, but alas … “It was kind of you to find me all these lovely things to wear.”