He felt too ill to fence with her. He sighed, watching the lieutenant’s ghost hovering at the foot of the bed. He had never been quite sure if she could see it or whether she simply sensed its presence. Resigned, he said, “The moons weren’t aligned last night.”
“What of it?”
“This is Merafi.”
“You astonish me.”
“Stop it, Quena. You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” She was determined to play games.
“You taught me. Merafi is a null space. Confluence of salt and fresh water. It’s harder for ghosts to manifest here, there’s no nourishment for them. They need extra force to appear, the combining of the moons.” The lieutenant’s ghost laughed. Gracielis looked at it and added, “Usually.”
“They can be seen at other times if one has the power. Even here.”
“Yes, but . . .” His head ached too much for this. “Who is he?”
On another person, her expression would have been shock. It was not possible. She knew him too well to be surprised by him. She stared at him, almost as at a stranger. He heard the catch in her breath.
She said, “Who do you mean?” There was something deadly in her tone. He did not intend to be afraid, but he shivered.
Dry-mouthed, he said, “The moons were wrong . . . He shouldn’t have been able to see anything, but he did. Thiercelin duLaurier.”
The change in her was like cloud lifting. She smiled and her face was contemptuous. “Thiercelin of Sannazar? He’s nobody.”
“He saw Valdarrien d’Illandre last night. And at other times, too, when the conditions were wrong for it. At the masquerade . . . When I touched him, I could read his memory—and he experienced it with me.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps he simply has a drop of good blood. Forget it. It’s unimportant.”
If it was unimportant, why had she insisted that he go through with it? It was not in him to ask. She was not going to tell him. She knew something . . . Something to do with a ghost seen untimely by eyes that should have been blind to it.
Eyes without undariitraining, without undariiblood.
Quenfrida was using him. As ever. He said, “That’s all, then. I’ve done as you wanted.”
“Have you?” She sounded amused. “You forget yourself. You’ve grown self-willed.”
“I doubt it.” He could smell her perfume, like a noose. “Lord Thiercelin has had what he asked for. There will be no further contact between us.”
“No?” She came closer. “You’re wrong, I think.” She ran a finger along his cheekbone. He swallowed. “Your landlord told me he was here into the small hours. That suggests he’s concerned about you.” She sat down, let her hand stroke his hair. He shuddered. He had no strength for defenses. He doubted he had the strength to do what his body wanted. She continued, “And he’s attracted. You’ll see him again.” She leaned her face against the crown of his head. The softness of her breast pressed against his cheek. She said, “Won’t you?”
He bit his lip. “No, Quena. He doesn’t deserve it.”
She laughed. “He doesn’t deserve to be . . . pleased by you? Do you dislike him so much?” Her hands were traveling. “Will you deny him the pleasure of your talents?”
“He doesn’t want . . .” Gracielis began and broke off, gasping. “Stop it. This isn’t fair.” He had opened his eyes again. The lieutenant’s ghost watched them avidly.
“To whom?” She took one of his hands and kissed the palm.
To both . . . “To Lord Thiercelin.” She licked his wrist. Raising her head, she smiled at him, then kissed his lips. It was hopeless. He could barely move, and she could still do this to him. He said, “Don’t.”
“My poor Gracielis.” She had taken off her shoes. Now she slid to lie beside him. “I don’t deal in fairness. Only in truth.” Her hands were on him, sweetly tormenting. “Do this for me.”
He shivered. “I don’t want to.” The lieutenant’s ghost leaned over him in lubricious spite. “I can’t.” Even Gracielis was no longer sure to what he was referring.
She kissed him. “Oh, you can,” she said, softly. “Let me show you.”
Thiercelin missed breakfast, but arrived downstairs in time for lunch to find both his sister-in-law and his wife present. He kissed the latter’s hand before taking his place. “This is nice. I didn’t know you were home today.” A servant placed soup before him.
“I came back midevening yesterday,” Yvelliane said. “You were out.”
“I wish I’d stayed in, in that case.” He raised his wine-glass to her. She looked tired. He wished the servants would leave so that he might take her in his arms and kiss her worry lines away.
“You’d have been bored, home with me.”
He could never be bored in her company. He said, “Are you here this afternoon? You could bore me then.
I’d like it.”
For an instant, a smile flickered across her lips. But then, she sighed and looked down. “I have to get back to the palace. I’m sorry.”
“I wish you’d woken me.”
“Was it fun, your party last night?”
“Not really.” Thiercelin stirred his soup. The royal aisle. Valdarrien’s ghost and the message he did not understand. Tell Iareth Yscoithi she was right. Perhaps Yvelliane would know what that meant. He could not tell her, not now when she was so anxious.
There was a silence. Only Miraude was eating. Thiercelin said, “And tonight?”
“It’s the reception for the heir to Lunedith, remember? I told you last week.”
He had forgotten, somehow. It would be a chance, perhaps, to speak with Iareth Yscoithi. Did Yvelliane know she was back in Merafi? He did not know if he could risk asking. Yvelliane went on, “You don’t have to come, if you like. It’ll be very formal.”
It would be an evening with Yvelliane. And if she did not know about Iareth, then he would be there to support her. He said, “Of course I’m coming. I want to see you in your party dress. And Mimi, too, of course.”
“Yviane’s intending to wear that dark gray thing again.” Miraude sounded disapproving. “I tried to make her get a new one, but she kept being too busy.”
“You have enough new dresses for both of us,” Yvelliane said, a smile in her voice. Thiercelin looked up, just to catch it on her lips. She went on, “Besides, I don’t want to stand out. Kenan Orcandros and I have met before. He disapproves of me.”
“He has bad taste, then.” Thiercelin said, hoping to keep her smiling.
He failed. “No, he just has bad politics,” Yvelliane said, and sighed. “Firomelle needs me there. She . . .” Her voice died.
He looked at her. “Is she worse?”
Yvelliane looked at Miraude before replying. Then she said, “I can’t tell.” She rose. “I’m sorry, Thierry; I don’t feel like talking. Later, perhaps?”
Later. When she was weary from work and wanted only to sleep. There would be no time at the reception. She looked tired and sad. This was no time to speak to her of her brother or of Iareth Yscoithi. Rising, he held the door open for her. She smiled at him in passing, but her eyes betrayed that her thoughts were elsewhere. He sighed as he sat down again, and Miraude looked at him curiously.
Later. He was losing his faith in later.
Miraude said, “Thierry, is something wrong?”
She was watching him with a certain caution. He said, “No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s just . . .” Her tone was thoughtful.
He put down his spoon and stared at her. “What?” She evaded his eyes. “It’s just something I heard yesterday, from Mal.”
“From Mal?” He was baffled. “My so-called friend Mal? As in Maldurel of South Marr? The one with the big mouth and the small brain?”
“You know another one?”
“River forfend! Are you going to tell me what he said?”
“Well . . .” She fidgeted with a knife. “Apparently one of Mal’s sisters is supposed to have seen you in a coff
eehouse with one of the professional kind. The beautiful Gracieux—Gracielis de Varnaq. And you’ve been preoccupied lately, and I just wondered . . .”
“If I’d taken a lover?” Thiercelin was torn between outrage and a species of bitter amusement. Dead for six years, Valdarrien, it seemed, was still nevertheless capable of getting him into trouble. He said, “Well, I haven’t and so you may tell Mal!”
She considered him. “Mal said he was holding your hand.”
“It was nothing like that.” For the thousandth time, Thiercelin found himself regretting having ever introduced Miraude to Maldurel. “I love Yviane; you know that.” Miraude continued to stare at him. “Do you want me to swear on a holy book or something?”
“No, I don’t think so. Men aren’t your thing. And I believe you wouldn’t hurt Yviane. It’s just Mal . . .”
“Mal talks too much.Valdin always said so.”
“Oh, Valdin,” said Valdarrien’s widow dismissively.
Thiercelin was still dealing with his outrage. “If he’s going to be telling everyone, I’ll . . .”
“Oh, he won’t. I convinced him it was nonsense. And anyway, he always said that his sister had too much imagination.” Miraude had charming dimples. They appeared now, as she smiled and leaned forward. “So: tell me about Gracieux. You doknow him? He’s supposed to be absolutely fabulous.”
“Well, he’s fairly unlikely, anyway,” Thiercelin said. Miraude pulled a face. “I don’t know him well. My connection with him is just . . .” He hesitated, unsure of what to say. “He does translations.”
She raised her brows. “You’re interested in Tarnaroqi literature?”
“No, but . . . it’s for my younger brother.” Miraude still looked disbelieving. “I swear it, Mimi, I’m not having an affair with him. Or with anyone else, for that matter. And so you may tell Mal!”
“All right, I’m sorry.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I didn’t mean anything. I was just worrying.”
He looked at her, “You, too? Is something wrong?”
“Not really. I suppose I’m concerned for you and Yviane. And this weather!” She gestured at the window. “All this rain. It makes me restless.”
“Like Valdin.”
She looked interested. “How?”
“He hated to be bored. Weather like this . . .” He shrugged. “He was always more . . . excitable at such times.” Her expression suggested that she had noticed the euphemism. He looked apologetic. “More violent, then. He had an abominable habit of fighting duels in the rain. Very unpleasant for the seconds.”
“Poor Thierry.”
Thierry, forgive . . . Abruptly, Thiercelin said, “It was worth it. It has to be.” He had to face Iareth Yscoithi, tonight, if he got the chance, and without Yvelliane knowing of it. He could hardly burden Yvelliane with his present problems.
“What is it?” Miraude sounded concerned. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I could tell her, Thiercelin thought, looking into her wide eyes. She was Valdin’s wife,she’s young, she might understand. It would be easier, shared. Then he remembered Iareth, who had abandoned Valdarrien when she had learned that he had a wife. Iareth Yscoithi, and a chill autumn night, and slim fingers holding his. He shook his head. “It’s nothing, Mimi. I’m just . . . I’m just worried about Yviane.”
It appalled him that this was, in the end, a lie.
It was late afternoon before Quenfrida left. Her potions and caresses had eased his discomfort, but Gracielis found no peace. The lieutenant’s ghost mocked him, and he flinched from it, afraid of shared comprehension.
She was planning something. She was using him to some purpose that he did not understand. He liked it not at all. Dressing with uncertain fingers, he went over it in his mind. Good blood . . . He had never studied the pedigrees of the lesser nobility of Gran’ Romagne. He did not remember hearing that Thiercelin’s duLaurier line shared Gracielis’ own kind of blood. That was the kind of thing he was schooled to know and to recognize. But his out-of-practice eyes had seen no such traces in Thiercelin.
A ghost out of time. Out of order. (A glance, there, for the lieutenant’s ghost, watching him as he drew black lines below his lashes.) In addition, it was raining too much, unseasonally. There was something wrong. Something in Merafi’s air bespoke change.
It was not his concern. He was Tarnaroqui, bred to beauty and artifice. There should be no place in him for compassion, for Thiercelin or for dead, murderous Valdarrien. It was nothing to him, what Quenfrida schemed.
Except when she reminded him too sharply of his dependencies. He stroked color along his cheekbones. It was folly, this compassion, in either of his professions. He was merchandise, no more. In him, attacks of conscience tasted only of sophistry. What right had one who lived through the sale of his body to any dominion over his soul? He could not afford the luxury of integrity.
He was, after all, no better than the rest. The lieutenant’s ghost watched him, its face expressionless, as if it distrusted this sudden bitterness. Well, and so he did himself. He was better accustomed to fear and dissimulation. They had honed him to be a weapon, the priests of his people, and cast him aside when he failed. Cast aside, but not lost, as long as Quenfrida lived to bind him. The gift and the burden of the undarii, the perfumed ones, servants of love and death. They were bearers of the other blood, the true blood that was feared in Merafi, bound together in heritage.
He ran a comb through his disordered hair, and caught the eye of the ghost in the mirror. It took no part in his life, save in its self-appointed role of mockery. Whatever it knew of the changes, it would not share.
No more than Gracielis might share any of his own suspicions with Thiercelin of Sannazar.
And yet . . . There was more to all this than Quenfrida revealed. He did not doubt that she sought to harm Yvelliane, but her course was oblique. There was something else here.
He laid down the comb, and turned to face the ghost. “So,” he said to it, to himself, “you have a recommendation?” It made an obscene gesture. “Quite. But that is sadly impossible, given your noncorporeal condition.” He spread out his hands. “I must forgo your advice, I think.”
He hesitated before opening the chest that stood at the foot of his bed and taking out a small box. It was folly to seek to outguess Quenfrida, especially by these means. And then, his physical condition was weak.
He had no other recourse. The box was not locked. From it, he took a small deck of cards and began to shuffle. Quenfrida had left cups on the table. He had to pause to clear it. Then he looked across at the ghost and began to deal. “I hope you’re paying attention. You won’t often see me do this.” It began to drift nearer, affecting scorn. Gracielis smiled. “So. You never know, you might even learn something.”
Privately, he doubted it. He used this method seldom, finding the symbols imprecise. It was too easy to reach generalized conclusions, unless one possessed the necessary mastery, which, frankly, he lacked. He had never been good with cards. As a ghostseer, he was better at reading the past than the future.
Well, it was the present he must try to see now. That was often the hardest of all. It would not stand still. Inexperienced as he was, the reading was made harder in that he lacked both Thiercelin’s presence and any possession of his to facilitate contact. He laid the cards out Mothmoonwise, in the spread that divines character, and stared down at them, frowning. The lieutenant’s ghost peered over his shoulder, disarranging his lace with its insubstantial breath.
“Opinion?” he said to it. It sneered. “Ah. Too much privilege, you think? Were you a leveler?” The ghost made a gesture of distaste. Gracielis shrugged. “Perhaps not.” Anyway, there was little here of privilege, if wealth was meant by that word. Thiercelin’s fortunes had lain in friendship, and in his own reserves, not so much in worldly things. The past was clear on that. The future was confused. Even to himself, Gracielis could admit that the disarray lay in more than his own shortcomings as a seer
. Change, quadranted in water and earth. No obvious line of continuity. And as to the present . . .
There was a shadow on that. Too many cards of mixed meaning. He could make no sense of them. A slow turning, a journey without forward motion. A joining; a meeting with an enabling stranger . . .
He pulled a face. This was too glib. As ever, he was blinding himself by viewing only the expected. Shaking his head, he passed a hand across the cards and jumbled them. The ghost watched, impassive. He was too remote from his subject. There were too many variables.
Quenfrida or no Quenfrida, nothing in Thiercelin’s past bespoke good blood. And Gracielis had a talent for the past, for the dead. It was Quenfrida’s mystery, after all. He had a scarf of hers, kept safe. She would know, of course, if he meddled.
He needed to know. Fetching the scarf, he spread it out before him and dealt the cards onto it, one hand touching it. Not a full reading, she was too well guarded for that. But a partial one might do; the levin-bolt form that sometimes—sometimes—struck unaware.
He remembered the warmth of her and the taste of her skin. Her hands on him, long ago, before he learned to fear her. Long ago, when he had had her approval and her kindness. He should see in his cards her strengths, her ambitions, his own flawed presence. Placing the last card, he looked down at the whole, to read back up to the present moment. Then he froze.
Quenfrida undaria. Mistress. Mentor. Under her guidance, it should show only himself, failed acolyte.
The spread was plain, there under his hands. Not one pupil. Not one, but two.
“It’s the Duke d’Almeide all over again,” Joyain said, dismally. “You can’t begin to imagine. And I thought court service would be exciting.”
“Poor Jean.” Amalie smiled at him. “I suppose another pastry won’t help? No, I didn’t think so.”
“Foreigners,” Joyain said, in a tone of the darkest disgust. And then, “I’m sorry, Tante Amalie. It’s not really that they’re foreign; it’s just Prince Kenan. He’s enough to drive any man to drink.” He sighed again. “And I’m stuck with him for the foreseeable future.”
Amalie took a flask from a rosewood corner cabinet and poured a healthy tot from it into a cup. Joyain watched her gratefully. If he had been a gambling man, he would be keeping as far as humanly possible from the tables, the way his luck was running at present. All right, it made sense that the trouble in the new dock should take precedence over the shepherding of a bunch of (supposedly) friendly Northerners around the city, but it still seemed rather hard that the latter duty should have defaulted onto him. He was feeling very put-upon, and rather sorry for himself, and not even the excellence of his aunt’s pastries was quite enough to make him let go of his self-pity just yet.
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