Rasmus reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers and bringing her palm to his lips. “I know. Everyone misses her.”
Not quite everyone, Sorrow suspected. In the months before the dowager had died, Sorrow had realized the vice chancellor would never quite meet her grandmother’s gaze, and his mouth would pucker sourly when he looked over at her in the dining room. Charon never said a bad word about her, as far as Sorrow knew, but once she saw it, it was clear he didn’t like her. Not that it mattered; Sorrow had loved her enough for the whole country.
Absently, Sorrow pressed a hand to her chest. It was the only pain Rasmus had never been able to heal, in a place she hadn’t known existed until she lost the only mother figure she’d ever known. And now, she realized, she’d lost so much more than that. She’d lost a teacher and a guide too – someone who both knew what had gone before, and how to govern. If only they’d had more time… More time for everything.
“It should be her here, doing this. No, actually, it should be my father,” Sorrow corrected herself. “He should be the one listening to the stewards, and dealing with Meeren Vine. He should be the one making decisions. Not me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” She leant into his chest, and sighed.
“Right now, you should take a break. Let’s run away.” Rasmus rested his chin against her forehead as he murmured into her hair. “Irris will help cover for us, I’m sure. We’ll pretend your headache has forced you to your sickbed, then we’ll sneak out. Dress as servants and steal down to the lake. No one will be around; they’ll all be preparing for the memorial tomorrow. We’ll avoid the Decorum Ward and relax. We could talk. We should talk, Row. You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I have not.”
“Don’t lie,” he said gently. “You’re not as subtle as you think. So, make it up to me. Let’s escape for a while. We could spend the rest of the afternoon swimming, or fishing. And we can finally talk.” He slipped his arms around her.
Stars, it was tempting. To be outside would be such a luxury. Yes, it would be hot there too, but the dry, natural heat of the summer sun. Not the fetid heat of grief and madness, incubated in a palace that hadn’t changed at all in almost eighteen years. She imagined sinking into a pool of clear water, pushing her head beneath it and watching her hair float around her. She shivered despite herself, so vivid was the thought of it.
But then he’d talk, and she’d have to listen. Have to hear his futile arguments, have to watch his face fall when she told him he was wrong. Have to hurt him. It was inevitable they’d both get hurt, but there was a difference between her finally telling him they would never, could never be properly together, and circumstances forcing them apart. One was a kinder sort of cruelty.
She shook the thought away.
“I can’t, Ras,” Sorrow said finally. “You know I can’t.”
She allowed herself the luxury of his embrace for a moment longer before she freed herself from his arms. He sighed softly as she did, but she ignored it, walking to the window and sweeping the curtains aside, pushing the frame open, relishing the small act of defiance.
She was surprised to find it was raining, for the first time in at least a month. The air that rushed in was crisp, and smelled fresh and earthy, and droplets lashed her face. It made her think again of sinking into a lake or river, and she opened the window as wide as it could go, raising her face to the sky. Lightning flashed, and seconds later thunder followed, the pressure low across her forehead. Perhaps that explained the true reason for the headaches. Not because she’d thought she smelled Lamentia, but the storm.
She let the water run down her face, not bothering to wipe it away, and it scored her cheeks. As she watched her reflection she realized it looked as though she was crying, and it reminded her of something Rasmus had once said about the Winter Palace. The Court of Tears, he’d called it. An entire palace locked in grief and sadness. But it wasn’t just the Winter Palace that slumbered like a fairy-tale princess.
Beyond the palace walls the country existed on a knife edge. Artists were not permitted to create art, save for government-sanctioned homages to Mael. Merchants could not stock fripperies – no ribbons, no trinkets, no vases, no flowers. The universities were prohibited from teaching arts subjects. There was no music. No performance. No games.
It was treason to wear anything lighter than dark grey or brown, treason to read books for pleasure, treason to laugh. Pregnant couples were treated with suspicion, and had to take great pains to assure anyone who’d listen that their union was made out of duty, and not in happiness. No one held hands, nor kissed. No one smiled, or at least not where they could be seen. Make-up and perfume were banned; even haircuts were seen as frivolous and vain, sometimes enough to warrant a visit from the Decorum Ward.
Children silently haunted the streets like drab little wraiths, never laughing, never smiling. They were taught from infanthood not to, for fear they’d be caught in a moment of joy when Mael had no more moments.
The Land of Tears would be more apt. All of Rhannon was forced to weep for what was lost.
Rasmus moved behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, thumb rubbing her collarbone. His skin was cool, pale against her bronzed tone. Each of his elegant fingers had multiple silver rings on it, some at the base of his fingers, some just above the knuckles, the small green and blue stones in them the only colour in the whole room. They lit up when lightning flashed above them, glowing like lights, and spontaneously she kissed the back of his hand, feeling his chest swell against her spine as he smiled, thrilled that she’d done it. He leant down to kiss her neck, and her eyes closed for one delicious moment before she broke the spell.
“I suppose I should go now.” She let the drape fall back into place, shutting out the storm, and raised a sleeve to dry her face as she turned to him.
“I suppose you should.”
But she didn’t move.
“I hate this,” she said, so softly she might not have spoken. “I hate all of this. It isn’t right. Grandmama told me – even during the Eternal War there was still life. Hope. Art. Music. Growth. People went on holiday to Meridea, and sailed out to the Skae Islands on pleasure cruises. People studied, and started businesses, and invented. Nothing has changed in almost eighteen years, Ras. It’s like Rhannon is trapped under glass. Something has to change. Someone has to do something.”
“Who? You?” When she didn’t reply he asked again. “Who, Row? Your father is a mess, granted, but he’s still alive. Right now the only way things will change is if he dies, or you overthrow him. Is that what you want?”
“No. Of course not.”
Rasmus watched her carefully. “You know they want you to,” he said slowly. “Why do you think Lord Day sent everyone to you?”
“To help prepare me. To teach me, so when the time comes—”
“He wants it to be now, Row. You’d have his full support if you did choose to depose your father. Sometimes I get the feeling he’s waiting for it. Waiting for you to suggest it. Which is why we need to talk, because things are changing, and fast. And it will have an impact on us. We need to be ready—”
“Rasmus.” Sorrow moved her hands to his chest and pushed him gently back. “Not now. I have to go.”
“Wait. Please, Row.”
She paused. He didn’t often say please. Rhyllians never did. Nor sorry, nor thank you. Rhylla didn’t have a single word that translated to mean the same thing, and in Rhylla the phrases they used instead were potent, Ras had told her. Powerful words that were only spoken when they were truly needed. He said the Rhannish versions were used too freely to fill holes, after goodwill had been dug up, too easily tossed around so that they were all but meaningless. So for him to say “please”…
Her brown eyes met his violet ones. “We will talk. I promise. Just let me get through the next two days. After the memorial ceremony, we’ll talk properly.”
After a moment he released her wrist, his mouth a line of grudging acceptance.
“I’ll see you later?” she asked.
“Ever your servant, Row.” He bowed low, taking her hand once more and turning it over to kiss her palm.
She slipped her hand from his, leaving him there, a new layer of guilt coating her old ones like varnish.
Lamentia
Sorrow walked through lantern-lit corridors, her footsteps silent on the threadbare carpet, in no hurry to get to her father’s apartments. The palace, as always, felt still, as though in the midst of a great sleep, and when she trailed her fingers along the decorative stucco on the wall, thick dust coated the tips, leaving a glaring smear of white in the grey.
As she crossed the landing between the wings, something brushed her cheek, and she lifted a hand to gently catch it. A small spider, ink-black and gleaming, scurried across her palm, and she carefully placed it on the banister, watching it skitter away out of sight.
Sorrow had grown up unafraid of spiders, simply because there would have been no end to her terror if she had been. The neglected Winter Palace was a haven for them.
While her grandmother had been alive she’d tried to keep a grip on things, fighting dirt and decay in a palace determined to atrophy. But Sorrow hadn’t bothered since she’d died, allowing dust and cobwebs to accumulate. What was the point? They did their best to discourage visitors; the guests who’d come to Rhannon for the memorial dinner would be smuggled into the palace via the east wing, straight to the state dining room, and they’d leave the same way the moment the feast was over. The stewards who’d visited her earlier were herded in and out the same way. Though there was room for them all, the suites simply weren’t in a fit state for guests. And neither was the chancellor.
Sorrow tried not to leave the east wing, using the rooms there to dine, sleep and work. There, at least, she could make things comfortable; sew up the holes in her hand-me-down furnishings, scavenge cushions from the cavernous storerooms to cover the damage she couldn’t mend. She’d found other treasures too, like the Malice board, storybooks and even some old jewellery, though she assumed it was paste, and not real gems. Sometimes at night she’d take them out, trying to imagine where she might wear a ruby the size of a duck egg, or emerald earrings that were so heavy they made her lobes hurt when she tried them on.
In her room she could push back the drapes, and open the windows when there was no one to tell on her. She could smile illegal smiles with Irris and Rasmus, play games, talk about dreams and hopes.
The rest of the Winter Palace felt too big: a mausoleum for the living, where sunlight was banished and the oil lamps were always lit. Where every moment, no matter the hour, felt like the dead of night: those quiet hours when it felt unnatural and strange, dangerous even, to be awake. Sorrow hated to walk the palace, because it made her feel like a ghost, too.
As for her father’s quarters, in the west wing, Sorrow avoided them as much as she could, avoided thinking about them if she could help it, unwilling to deal with the tangled mix of guilt and fury that rose whenever she thought of the chancellor. And with good reason.
The moment she crossed the balcony along the central complex of the palace and opened the doors to the west, the sweet reek of Lamentia smoke – real this time – assaulted her nose.
Sorrow raised her sleeve to her face to breathe through the fabric, her headache rallying once more, her mood souring even further.
Almost as soon as she passed through the double doors to her father’s reception rooms, she found Balthasar, and the source of the Lamentia reek.
Disappointment flooded her as she looked at the senator for the South Marches. He was a relatively young man, barely in his thirties, handsome, and recently married; Sorrow and her grandmother had attended the subdued ceremony a month before she died. And now here he was, slumped in a chair beside the covered window, a small bone pipe, still smouldering, between his fingers. He’d clearly wasted no time heading here once the meeting of the Jedenvat had finished.
“Senator Balthasar,” Sorrow barked.
One bloodshot eye peeled open, looked at her, and then rolled back into his skull. A single tear fell as the lid shut once more. Sorrow closed her own eyes, breathing through her sleeve as she counted slowly to ten, trying to decide what to do with him.
She’d thought him too driven to be so foolish; after all, he’d been shrewd enough to talk his way on to the Jedenvat eighteen months ago after Harun fired his predecessor. He’d done it despite his age, despite having no family ties to the council, and despite being a descendant, albeit distantly, of the royal family the Ventaxises had deposed centuries before. It was no small thing he’d achieved, and Sorrow knew he must have wanted it very badly.
But perhaps that’s what led him here – his ambition, right to the inner circle of the chancellor, and his addiction.
For a while, Sorrow hadn’t known Lamentia existed, shielded by her grandmother and Charon, for once working together to keep it from her, and the rest of the country. While she’d secreted herself away with Rasmus, they’d been dismissing servants and guards, silencing the Jedenvat, and locking down the palace. Already in the habit of avoiding her father, Sorrow had no idea the headaches she suffered from were triggered by the drug’s smoke. She’d been only too happy to stay away from her father’s rooms when they’d asked her to.
The truth had been revealed when her father offered her a pipe in the early hours of the morning after his mother had died. At breakfast the dowager had been fine, signing papers and smiling at Sorrow. But by dinner she was bedridden, writhing and sweating, an anxious Sorrow forced to keep away in case her fever was contagious. It wasn’t, but it was mortal, and by dawn the dowager was cold, and still, and gone. Sorrow and her father stood beside her bed, alone together for the first time Sorrow could ever recall.
She didn’t know what to do, how to be, around this stranger she called “Father”, so she’d kept her eyes on the body of the woman who’d been both parents to her. Movement had caught her eye, and she’d looked up to see Harun reaching into a pocket of his robe, pulling out a small ivory pipe, the bowl already packed with something. She watched as he lit it and sucked the mouthpiece greedily, finally exhaling a cloud of smoke that instantly caused a familiar pain to bloom across Sorrow’s forehead.
“It’s Lamentia. It’ll help,” Harun had said, tears welling in his eyes as he held the pipe out to her.
“What does it do?” Sorrow watched her father’s pupils widen, then contract. “What is Lamentia?”
“It’ll help you grieve,” he said.
Fear twisted her innards. “Where did you get it?”
Harun had brought the pipe to his lips again, and smoke whispered out of his mouth, drifting towards her.
Sorrow had backed away from him, clutching her head. “I don’t want it.”
“You need it.” The tears spilled down his cheeks. “We all need it. Or we’ll forget to miss them.” He’d reached out towards his daughter with trembling, stained fingers.
Sorrow had fled straight to Charon, the only adult left she trusted. And he confessed he already knew, and that he and her grandmother had been working to keep Harun’s use of it contained. But the insidious grip of Lamentia had tightened on the chancellor, despite Charon and the dowager’s efforts to halt it.
And now one of the senators, a man who sat on the Jedenvat council, had taken the pipe Harun must have offered. Fear inched an icy path down Sorrow’s spine, obliterating the incessant warmth of the palace, as she realized if he had, then others might follow. And sooner or later, the secret would be out. Balthasar moaned as a trickle of blood leaked from his nose, and Sorrow’s rage spiked, burning away her revulsion.
Sleeve still covering her nose and mouth, she passed the incapacitated councillor and headed towards her father’s private suite. When she saw the guards on the door, she beckoned one of them to follow, leading him back to Balthasar.
“Take him to the cells to sober up. Give him food, water, make him comfortable – not too co
mfortable,” she amended. “He’s not to leave until I, or Lord Day, say so.”
The guard nodded, and bent to lift the prone man, but Balthasar was too far gone to stand, let alone walk. The guard looked at Sorrow, gave a shrug, and hauled the young senator over his shoulder. Sorrow watched him go, waiting until he was out of sight, before she turned back towards Harun’s private rooms, dread squatting like a toad inside her stomach. What state would she find Harun in this time?
Her foot nudged something and she looked down. Balthasar’s pipe had fallen to the floor and Sorrow picked it up, examining it. It was beautifully crafted, a mermaid curved around the stem and shank, holding the bowl in her arms, peering coquettishly over the top, back towards the lip. An antique, she realized, something from the days past when artists could create beautiful things for the sake of it. And look what Balthasar had used it for…
She dropped it to the floor and stood on it, grinding it under her heel and leaving the pieces on the floor, as she strode towards her father’s quarters.
The remaining guard opened the door for her, and she entered the inner sanctum of the chancellor of Rhannon.
The chancellor was alone, prostrate in front of a candle-strewn altar, sprawled beneath a large portrait of a boy with impossibly curled hair curving against tawny cheeks, brown eyes staring soulfully out, a birthmark on the left-hand side of his neck shaped like a moon. Her mother had been born with a mark too, though Sorrow hadn’t known it until Charon had told her. In the few portraits that existed of her, the first lady’s neck had been covered, as the fashions of the time dictated. As they had remained. Sorrow pulled at her own high collar, before approaching Harun.
“Father,” she said softly, kneeling beside him. “I’m here, Father.”
The chancellor looked up slowly, dazed, his eyes raking over her. His pupils were pinprick small, and his nose … his nose was red, and weeping clear fluid. Lamentia frosted his thick beard. Her stomach dropped as understanding knocked her back two full paces. He wasn’t smoking it any more. He was inhaling it.
State of Sorrow Page 3