House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  His “impossible” had been repeated, but softly; Jewel was aware of some shift, quiet and subtle, in his expression—it slid from absolute certainty to the desire for a certainty that was slipping away. But even that hadn’t caused as much of a stir as what he did next; he had stood, swayed, and collapsed.

  And now, she thought grimly, he was here, in the same healerie to which she’d practically dragged Devon. Devon was ATerafin, and accustomed to Alowan; he allowed Alowan to examine his hands. He also allowed Alowan to escort him to one of the beds in the heart of the healerie, and after a half-hearted attempt to excuse himself from using it, lay down. The healer then pulled a large chair up to the bedside.

  Jewel, her daggers deposited in the wooden box to one side of the outer door, watched, trying not to flinch as the healer peeled back her makeshift bandages.

  Alowan glanced at her, his gaze briefly marking the ragged hem of a skirt that was composed of exactly the same material as those bandages, albeit without the blood. “Well done,” he told her softly.

  Her smile was tired, but it was genuine. It was impossible not to like Alowan, and therefore impossible not to feel a little bit of pride when he offered her the acknowledgment she was almost afraid to admit she wanted. He didn’t bother with ointments or dressing, not for these burns; instead, he took both of Devon’s hands in his and closed his eyes.

  Devon kept his open, and he grimaced in obvious distaste. Which meant he was really, really uncomfortable being healed—he usually had a face that was about as expressive as brickwork. It made no sense to Jewel; he wasn’t dying. The healing couldn’t be as intrusive or emotionally painful as it had been for Arann, who had been.

  But Meralonne APhaniel gave her perspective, because the mage refused to be healed. In fact, he refused to be approached by the healer.

  Alowan raised both of his frail hands, and exposed his palms. “I mean you no harm,” he told the mage.

  Meralonne, who was shuddering enough that he had difficulty speaking clearly, said, “You mean more harm than you know. I am in the throes of the fevers. I am not injured.”

  “I have some experience with the—”

  “Keep your distance!”

  Alowan’s hands didn’t move. Nor did he take a step forward; he simply waited for silence. Devon started to rise, and Alowan, as if he had eyes in the back of the head he didn’t even turn a fraction of an inch, said, “ATERAFIN, remain in your bed.”

  Devon subsided at once.

  “I don’t understand,” Jewel whispered, moving slightly closer to where the mage lay.

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong with him? Why did he collapse?”

  “He’s mage-born. Talent-born,” he added. “But there’s a reason they’re often called mage fevers.”

  When she didn’t appear to look enlightened, he grimaced. “We each have abilities and limitations. In the case of the magi, the limitations aren’t obvious—but they exist. If mages tax their power beyond those limitations, they pay.”

  “But—the illusion—”

  “No. It was not the illusion. Don’t even think it. He could do something like that for four days on end without sleep; this has nothing to do with you. The fevers come when the mage has been unwise in his use of power. If the mage is spectacularly unwise, the fevers can consume him.

  “Only in that case is a healer actually useful; the healing cannot in any way stem the course of the fevers, but it can heal any damage the fevers cause to the body.”

  “Do you think he’ll—” She stiffened.

  A bright, orange globe suddenly flared to life around the bed in which Meralonne so angrily lay.

  “Devon?”

  “What?”

  “If it’s because he used his power that he’s now suffering, shouldn’t it be impossible for him to use any more of it?”

  Devon swore. Alowan, defeated, retreated and gave orders to his assistants to do the same.

  “He is powerful, Jewel,” Devon told her softly. “Never doubt it.”

  “And arrogant,” she added quietly. “And really, really grouchy.”

  “Luckily, he is not your problem.” Devon reached out and caught her hand. “Go back to your rooms,” he told her gently. “Eat. Try to sleep. I think it highly unlikely that you will be called upon to search for the undercity again.”

  Chapter Six

  5th of Corvil, 410 A. A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  WHEN JEWEL WOKE for the third time that night, she bitterly regretted sending Teller and Finch scuttling for cover from the floor of her room. It was easy to feel self-conscious during the day; it was easy to worry—to know—that the ability to sleep in the dark without crying like a child was damned important if she wanted to stay in this house.

  At night, though, with the sky moon-dark, and the air slightly chilly, it was much, much harder. She glanced at the floor upon which her den-kin had slept, keeping watch, as if the very fine beds in their individual rooms counted for nothing, and she missed them fiercely. The fact that she could leave her room and enter theirs without walking outside on a bitter stretch of holding street meant nothing; she wouldn’t do it. She knew herself that well.

  But she missed them.

  Shaking herself, she slipped out of her bed, grabbing a robe that was hanging over the nearest chair. There were more chairs in this room, she thought, than they’d had at home. It wasn’t precisely true, but there was certainly more space. All of her den could live here, and it wouldn’t be crowded. She rose and left her room; she’d had enough of what lay waiting in sleep to want to avoid it.

  Teller heard her door open; he heard it close. He’d heard, from the safety of his bed, her cries through the open door. He heard the floor creak slightly as Jewel walked past, and he almost rose. But he knew she would tell him to go back to sleep, and he knew that his presence wouldn’t comfort her at all.

  Here, without the cold and the lack of food hanging over them all like a threat, the den had not grown comfortable; they had simply paused, holding breath. They were waiting. He was waiting. For what, he couldn’t say. He liked the Terafin servants, or at least the ones that saw to the wing; he liked the old healer and visited him frequently, taking care not to interfere with his work. He liked Torvan, and Arrendas, the two Chosen who stopped by every so often to see how the den was doing.

  But he wasn’t comfortable with The Terafin. The fact that they never saw her probably helped. Or didn’t. He turned over onto his side, pulling the blankets around himself. Trying to sleep.

  Thinking of Jewel in the kitchen, because he knew that’s where she would go.

  It was not Teller—or Finch—who interrupted Jewel’s silent vigil; it was Ellerson. And he did not interrupt it immediately; he stood like shadow in the space left by a door that was partially open, watching her slumped back, the curved line of her shoulders. This was not the first night that she had walked in relative silence to the large, enclosed kitchen; it would no doubt not be the last. But tonight she stayed longer, and she seemed, in the flickering of lamplight, to be almost defeated.

  Her hands, however, were in motion, and if he listened with care, he could hear the scratch of chalk across the surface of slate. Beside her, lid open, was a blackened iron box; she glanced at it every so often.

  He was aware of the circumstances surrounding her return from her outing with Devon ATerafin; he was also aware that Devon ATerafin and Meralonne APhaniel had both subsequently been sent to Alowan. Jewel, however, had not been required to surrender to the healer’s ministrations. She had been sent to the West Wing, instead.

  He watched her work for a few minutes more. They drive you too hard. Frowning, he entered the room.

  “That is not,” he told her quietly, “a wise use of oil.”

  She didn’t startle at the sound of his voice; that much, time and familiarity had given him.

  “I’m studying.”

  He lifted the lamp in his hand as she continued t
o write and saw that her eyes were half-closed. “To bed.”

  She rose, slowly, but managed not to sway. “I—”

  “To bed. Now.”

  She was so transparent to a man of Ellerson’s varied experiences. He saw the desire to argue come and go on her face as she turned and lifted her own lamp, as if it were a shield. Or as if the light it cast were.

  “It is not often,” he told her, lowering his lamp in turn, “that a domicis finds his master in a kitchen.”

  She shrugged. Of all her gestures, it was the most common, and it was shared across the den. “Back at the den, it was the only empty room. Wasn’t even a full room.” Her lamp’s light moved as she turned, surveying the kitchen. “Our whole place was smaller than this.”

  Her voice was low and soft, and in it he heard nothing that surprised him. Gentling his own, he said, “But you miss it.”

  Denial came and went, just as argument had; she looked up and met his steady gaze. “Yes. I miss it. It was mine. I knew how much it cost, I knew when I had to pay rent, I knew how to clean it and break into it when I had to.” She turned back toward the slate and the box. “It’s stupid. I couldn’t dream of a better place than this.”

  So dreams went. He said nothing as she struggled with words. The desire to speak them and the desire to deny their truth was evident in the gaunt lines of her face.

  “But I don’t see my den-kin anymore. I go out early, I come in late, and I’m forbidden to speak about anything I do in The Terafin’s service. It’s not what I thought it’d be.”

  “No. It never is. Come, Jewel. It is time to sleep.”

  She looked young, then. She never looked old, but it was easy to forget that she was so close to childhood. He led her down the hall and back to the door of her room, which was ajar. She hesitated only once, at the threshold.

  Ellerson knew about her nightmares. Both Finch and Teller had taken care to inform him. He knew, also, that some were significant. Those, however, she was not self-conscious about; she woke the den. But the others? She tried to keep them to herself, shouldering them with the guilt and resentment of someone who yearns to be strong but doubts, always, that she will ever achieve that state.

  “Jewel, I am a domicis. I have been trained for most of my life to serve. I take pride in it; all of our number do. I was brought here to serve you; it seems that you did not—or do not—understand this.” He held out his hand for the lamp she carried. Her fingers caused the light—and its cast shadow—to shake. But she did as he silently demanded, surrendering light into his keeping. “Come. It is time for you to sleep.”

  He placed her lamp on one side of her bed and placed his own on the other. She stared at them in confusion.

  That confusion did not ease much when he pulled the closest chair to her bedside and sat in it. “I will watch the lamps,” he told her quietly. “When they are low, I will fill them.”

  “But the oil—the cost—”

  “Sleep, Jewel. You are not the master that I envisioned when I was called to serve—but I understand now why it was I who was sent.”

  He watched her crawl between the covers and watched as her head sank into the pillows. Her eyes were circled and dark, and her skin was almost sallow, but her hair was the same wild mess it always was.

  He was not entirely certain that his presence would calm her, but it did, and he took some small satisfaction from the knowledge; her face lost its tired, stretched lines as she surrendered wakefulness.

  She looked young then.

  6th of Corvil, 410 A. A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  Night. Again. Jewel woke not to darkness but to light; Ellerson, however, was nodding off quietly in his chair. She felt a twinge of guilt, watching him; he was not by any stretch of the imagination a young man, and instead of sleeping in a bed—and she assumed he had one, although it occurred to her that she had never, ever seen his rooms—he sat awkwardly in an armchair.

  She had not, apparently, screamed.

  But even moving as quietly as she could while sliding her legs off the edge of her bed, she woke him. One white brow rose as she cringed.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, in his usual starched voice.

  She glanced at her clothing. The desire to be curt came and went; he was here because of her nightmares, no more and no less. “I’m going,” she told him softly, “to the Terafin shrine.” She didn’t ask his permission.

  In turn, he didn’t ask her why she’d awakened. He glanced at her nightdress.

  “Yes,” she told him, “I’m going to get changed first.” She paused, and then said, “Thank you.”

  He didn’t ask her why; he nodded in his usual brisk way.

  But when he had turned from the door she had just exited, he did not immediately make his way back to the small suite of sparsely furnished rooms he occupied; instead, he waited by the door until the shadows moved.

  They resolved themselves, almost hesitantly, into the spiral-haired Angel, who stood, arms stiff by his sides. “You saw me,” he said.

  Ellerson nodded.

  “Jay didn’t.”

  “She is much occupied at the moment with The Terafin’s concerns.”

  Angel’s nod was as unlike Ellerson’s as a nod could be. He was not, precisely, belligerent, but he was not entirely comfortable. Of the den, the House seemed to suit him the least. The others had found some role for themselves among the servants or in the unexpected tedium of their daily routine—but Angel had yet to surrender to that comfort.

  He was not Carver; he was often silent, and in Ellerson’s opinion, unusual hair aside, he was not a boy who cared greatly for the regard of others.

  “Did you wish to speak with me?” Ellerson asked him quietly.

  Angel hesitated again and almost turned to leave, but the unadorned question forced another nod.

  “Then come, Angel. Join me in the kitchen.”

  Angel bridled, but he didn’t argue. The kitchen, however, was Jay’s, and in the end, Ellerson chose to lead him to the outer chambers of what had once been attendant rooms. The long benches that girded two walls were habitually empty; the only attendant who used them was Ellerson himself.

  He carried a lamp, which added a trace of orange gold to everything its light touched; this he set to one side. Indicating that Angel should sit, Ellerson offered him water. Angel accepted, glancing around the sparse and simple room, its benches and its counter, overlooked by closed cupboards, the only adornments.

  Ellerson poured water for himself and leaned against the cupboard wall. “You wished to speak with me,” he said quietly.

  Angel nodded. After a long pause, he asked, “What is a domicis?”

  It was not the question Ellerson expected, but he had long since given up demanding predictability of life. “An unusual question. What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you will not chance an answer?”

  “You do know. I thought I’d ask you instead.”

  At that, the older man smiled. “Some would call me a servant.”

  Angel nodded. “Servants don’t have guilds.”

  “Not generally, no.”

  “Torvan said you were hired especially for this wing.”

  “I was. The guildmaster understood the nature of the request far better than I, at the time I chose to accept employment here.”

  “You serve Jay.”

  Ellerson nodded.

  “But you’re paid to serve her.”

  Ah. “I am not her leige, no. I have accepted a contract with House Terafin for my responsibilities to Jewel Markess; it remains in force for two years, or until the situation markedly changes.”

  “So . . . it’s a job.”

  “It is a vocation,” Ellerson replied with quiet dignity. “Understand that the Guild of Domicis encompasses service. Not all who apply to learn the art of the domicis are accepted, and not all who are accepted, in the end, are deemed worthy of offering that
service. The domicis are, of course, free to decide where their services are best put to use.”

  “So it’s up to you.”

  “It is. When we serve, we bend the whole of our thought and our will to our master, or masters. We give them advice, yes, but we do not expect all of that advice to be followed; they take the lead, we merely attempt to guide. We are not—as you may have noticed—mute and obedient; fear of having no roof over our head does not determine our future in the way it often determines the future of others.

  “But we value our service, and we do not give it lightly. In the end, it is not,” he added softly, “a life that recommends itself to everyone.”

  “Did you never dream of leading?”

  “Or ruling? Perhaps when I was four; I admit that I am so far from that age that I cannot honestly recall.” He hesitated, aware that more was wanted but unaware of precisely what the more entailed. “Angel, I am proud of what I have achieved in my life. It will not be written about; there will be no songs sung in my honor, and if I fall in the line of duty, my body is not the body that will be borne home upon a shield.”

  That struck a mark.

  “Is it the money that disturbs you? The existence of a contract?”

  That, too, struck home. Angel’s eyes were darker in the orange light. After a moment, he nodded. “It makes it seem like a job.”

  “It is a job,” Ellerson replied with care. “I am not a political man; that was never my strength. Nor am I content to serve where I am not needed—and that, perhaps, has been my one vanity. What is it you desire?”

  But Angel was not yet ready to answer that question. Instead, he said, “Why don’t you serve The Terafin?”

  “The Terafin has a domicis.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Ellerson nodded. “I do. You wonder why it is that a man of my years and experience does not serve a lord of power.”