Dalton spread his hands. “I’m sure I don’t speak out of turn when I tell you from my knowledge of the situation that Minister Chanboor intends to seek the best terms for our people. Nothing more, nothing less.
“You, for instance. What if we were to surrender to the new Lord Rahl and join the D’Haran Empire? This Lord Rahl has decreed all lands must surrender their sovereignty—unlike our alliance with the Midlands. That would mean, I suppose, he would no longer have need for Directors of Cultural Amity.”
Linscott’s tanned face turned ruddy with heat. “This isn’t about me, Campbell. It’s about the freedom of the people of the Midlands. About their future. About not being swallowed up and having our land brutalized by a rampaging Imperial Order army bent on the conquest of the Midlands.
“The Anderith ambassador has relayed Lord Rahl’s word that while all lands must surrender to him and be brought under one rule and one command, each land will be allowed to retain its culture, so long as we do not break laws common to all. He has promised that if we accept his entreaty while the invitation is still open to all, we will be party to creating those common laws. The Mother Confessor has put her word to his.”
Dalton respectfully bowed his head to the man. “You misunderstand Minister Chanboor’s position, I’m afraid. He will propose to the Sovereign we go with the Mother Confessor’s advice, if he sincerely believes it to be in the best interest of our people. Our very culture is at stake, after all. He has no wish to choose sides prematurely. The Imperial Order may offer our best prospects for peace. The Minister wants only peace.”
The Director’s dark scowl seemed to chill the air. “Slaves have peace.”
Dalton affected an innocent, helpless look. “I am no match for your quick wit, Director.”
“You seem ready to sell your own culture, Campbell, for the empty promises of an invading horde obsessed with conquest. Ask yourself, why else have they come, uninvited? How can you so smoothly proclaim you are considering thrusting a knife into the heart of the Midlands? What kind of man are you, Campbell, after all they have done for us, to turn your back on the advice and urging of our Mother Confessor?”
“Director, I think you—”
Linscott shook his fist. “Our ancestors who fought so futilely against the Haken horde no doubt shiver in their eternal rest to hear you so smoothly consider bargaining away their sacrifice and our heritage.”
Dalton paused, letting Linscott hear his own words fill the silence and echo between the two of them. It was for this harvest Dalton had sowed his seeds of words.
“I know you are sincere, Director, in your fierce love of our people, and in your unflinching desire to protect them. I am sorry you find my wish for the same insincere.” Dalton bowed politely. “I pray you enjoy the rest of the evening.”
To graciously accept such an insult was the pinnacle of courtesy. But more than that, it revealed the one who would inflict such wounds as beneath the ancient ideals of Ander honor.
Only Hakens were said to be so cruelly demeaning to Anders.
With the utmost respect for the one who had insulted him, Dalton turned away as if he had been asked to leave, as if he had been driven off. As if he had been humiliated by a Haken overlord.
The Director called his name. Dalton paused and looked back over a shoulder.
Director Linscott screwed up his mouth, as if loosening it to test rarely used courtesy. “You know, Dalton, I remember you when you were with the magistrate in Fairfield. I always believed you were a moral man. I don’t now believe differently.”
Dalton cautiously turned around, presenting himself, as if he were prepared to accept another insult should the man wish to deliver one.
“Thank you, Director Linscott. Coming from a man as respected as you, that is quite gratifying.”
Linscott gestured in a casual manner, as if still brushing at cobwebs in dark corners in his search for polite words. “So, I’m at a loss to understand how a moral man could allow his wife to parade around showing off her teats like that.”
Dalton smiled; the tone, if not the words themselves, had been conciliatory. Casually, as he stepped closer, he caught a full cup of wine from a passing tray and offered it to the Director. Linscott took the cup with a nod.
Dalton dropped his official tone and spoke as if he had been boyhood chums with the man. “Actually, I couldn’t agree more. In fact, my wife and I had an argument about it before we came down tonight. She insisted the dress was the fashion. I put my foot down, as the man of the marriage, and unconditionally forbade her from wearing the dress.”
“Then why is she wearing it?”
Dalton sighed wearily. “Because I don’t cheat on her.”
Linscott cocked his head. “While I am glad to hear you don’t ascribe to the seeming new moral attitudes where indulgences are concerned, what has that to do with the price of wheat in Kelton?”
Dalton took a sip of his wine. Linscott followed his lead.
“Well, since I don’t cheat on her, I’d have no play in bed if I won every argument.”
For the first time, the Director’s face took on a small smile. “I see what you mean.”
“The younger women around here dress in an appalling fashion. I was shocked when I came here to work. My wife is younger, though, and wishes to fit in with them, to have friends. She fears being shunned by the other women of the household.
“I have spoken with the Minister about it, and he agrees the women should not flaunt themselves in such a manner, but our culture grants to women prerogative over their own dress. The Minister and I believe that, together, we might think of a way to influence fashion to the better.”
Linscott nodded approvingly. “Well, I’ve a wife, too, and I don’t cheat, either. I am glad to hear you are one of the few today who adheres to the old ideals that an oath is sacred, and commitment to your mate is sacrosanct. Good man.”
Anderith culture revolved a great deal around honor and word given in solemn oath—about holding to your pledge. But Anderith was changing. It was a matter of great concern to many that moral bounds had, over the last few decades, fallen to scorn by many. Debauchery was not only accepted, but expected, among the fashionable elite.
Dalton glanced over at Teresa, back at the Director, and to Teresa again. He held out a hand.
“Director, could I introduce you to my lovely wife? Please? I would consider it a personal favor if you lent your considerable influence to the issue of decency. You are a greatly respected man, and could speak with moral authority I could never begin to command. She thinks I speak only as a jealous husband.”
Linscott considered only briefly. “I would, if it would please you.”
Teresa was encouraging Claudine to drink some wine and was offering comforting words as Dalton shepherded the Director up beside the two women.
“Teresa, Claudine, may I introduce Director Linscott.”
Teresa smiled into his eyes as he lightly kissed her hand. Claudine stared at the floor as the procedure was repeated on her hand. She looked as if she wanted nothing more than to either jump into the man’s arms for protection or run away as fast as she could. Dalton’s reassuring hand on her shoulder prevented either.
“Teresa, darling, the Director and I were just discussing the issue of the women’s dresses and fashion versus decorum.”
Teresa canted a shoulder toward the Director, as if taking him into her confidence. “My husband is so stuffy about what I wear. And what do you think, Director Linscott? Do you approve of my dress?” Teresa beamed proudly. “Do you like it?”
Linscott glanced down from Teresa’s eyes only briefly. “Quite lovely, my dear. Quite lovely.”
“You see, Dalton? I told you. My dress is much more conservative than the others. I’m delighted one so widely respected as yourself approves, Director Linscott.”
While Teresa turned to a passing cupbearer for a refill, Dalton gave Linscott a why-didn’t-you-help-me? look. Linscott shrugged and bent
to Dalton’s ear.
“Your wife is a lovely, endearing woman,” he whispered. “I couldn’t very well humiliate and disappoint her.”
Dalton made a show of sighing. “My problem, exactly.” Linscott straightened, smiling all the way. “Director,” Dalton said, more seriously, “Claudine, here, had a terrible accident earlier. While taking a walk outside she caught her foot and took a nasty tumble.”
“Dear spirits.” Linscott took up her hand. “Are you badly hurt, my dear?”
“It was nothing,” Claudine mumbled.
“I’ve known Edwin a good many years. I’m sure your husband would be understanding if I helped you to your rooms. Here, take my arm, and I will see you safely to your bed.”
As he took a sip, Dalton watched over the top of his cup. Her eyes swept the room. Those eyes held a world of longing to accept his offer. She might be safe if she did. He was a powerful man, and would have her under his wing. This test would tell Dalton what he needed to know. It wasn’t really a huge risk to play out such an experiment. People did disappear, after all, without ever being found. Still, there were risks in it. He waited for Claudine to tell him which way it would go. At last, she did.
“Thank you for your concern, Director Linscott, but I’m fine. I have so looked forward to the feast, and seeing the guests come to the estate. I would forever regret missing it, and seeing our Minister of Culture speak.”
Linscott took a sip of wine. “You and Edwin have labored vigorously on new laws since he was elected burgess. You have worked with the Minister. What think you of the man?” He gestured with his cup for emphasis. “Your honest opinion, now.”
Claudine took a gulp of wine. She had to catch her breath. She stared at nothing as she spoke.
“Minister Chanboor is a man of honor. His policies have been good for Anderith. He has been respectful of the laws Edwin has proposed.” She took another gulp of wine. “We are fortunate to have Bertrand Chanboor as the Minister of Culture. I have a hard time imagining another man who could do everything he does.”
Linscott lifted an eyebrow. “Quite a ringing endorsement, from a woman of your renown. We all know that you, Claudine, are as important to those laws as Edwin.”
“You are too kind,” she mumbled, staring into her cup. “I am just the wife of an important man. I would be little missed and quickly forgotten were I to have broken my neck out there tonight. Edwin will be honored long and well.”
Linscott puzzled at the top of her head.
“Claudine thinks far too little of herself,” Dalton said. He caught sight of the seneschal, impeccably dressed in a long-tailed red coat crossed with a sash of many colors, opening the double doors. Beyond the doors, the lavers, with rose petals floating in them, awaited the guests.
Dalton turned to the Director. “I suppose you know who will be the guest of honor tonight?”
Linscott frowned. “Guest of honor?”
“A representative from the Imperial Order. A highranking man by the name of Stein. Come to tell us Emperor Jagang’s words.” Dalton took another sip. “The Sovereign has come, too, to hear those words.”
Linscott sighed with the weight of this news. Now the man knew why he had been summoned, along with the other Directors, to what they had thought was no more than an ordinary feast at the estate. The Sovereign, for his own safety, rarely announced his appearances in advance. He had arrived with his own special guards and a large contingent of servants.
Teresa’s face glowed as she smiled up at Dalton, eager for the evening’s events. Claudine stared at the floor.
“Ladies and gentleman,” the seneschal announced, “if it would please you, dinner is served.”
Chapter 21
She spread her wings, and her rich voice sang out with the somber strains of a tale more ancient than myth.
Came the visions of icy beauty,
From the land of death where they dwell.
Pursuing their prize and grisly duty,
Came the thieves of the charm and spell.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
Alluring of shape though seldom seen,
They traveled the breeze on a spark.
Some fed twigs to their newborn queen,
While others invaded the dark.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
Some they called and others they kissed
As they traveled on river and wave.
With resolve they came and did insist:
Every one touched to a grave.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
Roving to hunt and gathering to dance,
They practiced their dark desires
By casting a hex and a beautiful trance,
Before feeding the queen’s new fires.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.
Till he parted the falls and the bells chimed thrice,
Till he issued the calls and demanded the price,
The bells chimed thrice and death met the Mountain.
They charmed and embraced and they tried to extoll
But he bade them in grace and demanded a soul.
The bells fell silent and the Mountain slew them all.
And the Mountain entombed them all.
With an impossibly long note, the young woman concluded her bewitching song. The guests broke into applause.
It was an archaic lyric of Joseph Ander and for that reason alone was cherished. Dalton had once leafed through old texts to see what he could learn of the song’s meaning, but found nothing to shed light on the intent of the words, which, there being a number of versions, weren’t always the same. It was one of those songs which no one really understood but everyone treasured because it was obviously a triumph of some sort for one of their land’s beloved venerable founders. For the sake of tradition the haunting melody was sung on special occasions.
For some reason, Dalton had the odd feeling that the words now meant more to him than ever before. They seemed somehow nearly to make sense. As quickly as the sensation came, his mind was on to other things and the feeling passed.
The woman’s long sleeves skimmed the floor as she held her arms wide while bowing to the Sovereign, and then once again to the applauding people at the head table beside the Sovereign’s table. A baldachin of silk and gold brocade ran up the wall behind and then in billowing folds out over the two head tables. The baldachin’s corners were held up with outsized Anderith lances. The effect was to make the head tables appear as if they were on a stage—which, in many ways, Dalton supposed they were.
The songstress bowed to the diners at the long rows of tables running down each side of the dining hall. Her sleeves were overlaid with spotted white owl feathers, so that when she spread her arms in song she appeared to be a winged woman, like something out of the ancient stories she sang.
Stein, on the other side of the applauding Minister and his wife, applauded apathetically, no doubt envisioning the young woman without her feathers. On Dalton’s right, Teresa added enthusiastic calls of admiration to her clapping. Dalton stifled a yawn as he applauded.
As the songstress strode away, her arms lifted to wave in winged acknowledgment of the whistles trailing after her. After she’d vanished, four squires entered from the opposite side of the room carrying a platform atop which sat a marzipan ship floating in a sea of marzipan waves. The ship’s billowing sails looked to be made of spun sugar. The purpose, of course, was to announce that the next course would be fish, just as the pastry deer, pursued by pastry hounds leaping a hedge of holly in which hid aspic boar, had announced one of the meat courses, and the stuffed eagle with its huge wings spread over a scene of the capital city of Fairfield made of paper board buildings had announced a course of fowl. Up in the gallery, a fanfare trumpeted and drums rolled to add a musical testament to the arrival of the next course.
There had been five courses, each with at least a dozen specialties. That meant
there were seven courses yet to come, each with at least a dozen distinctive dishes of its own. Music from flute and fife and drum, jugglers, troubadours, and acrobats entertained the guests between courses as a tree with candied fruits toured the tables. Gifts of mechanical horses with opposing legs that moved in unison were passed out to the delight of all.
Meat dishes had included everything from Teresa’s all-time favorite of suckers—she had eaten three of the infant rabbits—to fawn, to pig, to cow, to a bear standing on its hind legs. The bear was wheeled from table to table; at each table its hide, draped around the roasted carcass, was pulled back to allow carvers to slice off pieces for the guests. Fowl ranged from the sparrows the Minister favored for their stimulation of lust, to pigeons, to swan’s neck pudding, to eagles, to baked heron that had been re-feathered and held by wires in a display depicting them as a flock in flight.
It was not expected that everyone would eat such a plenitude of food; the variety was meant to offer an abundance of choice, not only to please honored guests, but to astonish them with opulence. A visit to the Minister of Culture’s estate was an occasion long remembered, and for many became a legendary event talked about for years.
As they sampled the dishes, most people kept an eye to the head table, where the Minister sat with two wealthy backers he had invited to dine at his table, and the other object of great interest: the representative from the Imperial Order. Stein had arrived earlier, to the whispered oohing and aahing of all at his man-of-war outfit and cape of human scalps. He was a sensation, drawing the inviting looks of a number of women weak in the knees at the prospect of winning such a man to their bed.
In vivid outward contrast to the warrior from the Old World, Bertrand Chanboor wore a close-fitting, sleeveless, padded purple doublet embellished with elaborate embroidery, gold trim, and silver braiding over a simple sleeved short jacket. Together, they gave his soft rounded shape the illusion of a more manly frame. A frill of white stood above the doublet’s low, erect collar. A similar ruff stood out at wrists and waist.
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