Skirmish: The House War: Book Four

by Michelle West

  “They are awake?”

  “They are no longer awake, no. The waking was brief, but they all cried out at once and sat up. Some of them are not strong enough to remain sitting for long.”

  “How long were they awake?” He spoke Weston, although it was painful.

  “For an hour.”

  Only an hour.

  “They woke once again in the evening, with the same cry. This time, they remained awake for longer. Two of those who were wakened are still awake,” he added quietly. “Or they were, when I left the infirmary to fetch you.” He frowned in his usual single-brow way, and added, “They were also speaking with the magi. I attempted to order the magi out of the infirmary,” he added, “but was overruled by Duvari.”

  “I don’t think it will hurt them.”

  “Oh, and you’re now the director of the House?”

  “No, Levec.”

  “Good. Don’t forget it.”

  “What do you want of me today?”

  “We’ll do what we normally do when we’re saddled with the magi.”

  Adam didn’t understand how Avantari worked; nor did he understand what power meant in this large and intimidating city. Averalaan was almost like a waking dream to him. For the most part, men didn’t even carry swords into the streets of the city; if they required protection, they hired guards, and dressed them in the colors of their various Houses. This last, at least, was comforting in its familiarity. But the guards were prohibited from doing the simple things that they could do in the South, most notably in the way they responded to insult or obvious signs of disrespect. They could legally do nothing.

  The Voyani weren’t serafs; they weren’t slaves. Adam was, therefore, used to a measure of freedom, but that freedom had always come from a lack of home and a lack of land. Those who lived on the land were most frequently chained to it, owned by it. That was the truth of the South. But here? There were no serafs. Even the poor in the infirmary were free.

  He glanced at them as the doors opened and Levec entered the room. When he entered a room, he was the first person anyone noticed, and if he was in a bad mood—and he was unarguably in a bad one now—he might be the only one noticed.

  Levec had already told him that there were two of the mage-born present; Adam did not, and had never, trusted them. Although Levec assured him that the Sword of Knowledge and the Order of Knowledge were in no way the same, Adam couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it, in part because Levec had made it perfectly clear that Adam was not to speak when the magi were present. Levec was willing to speak for him, and that was the only risk Levec was willing to take. As far as Adam knew, Levec had never even divulged his name.

  But it was awkward to remain silent when the Princess Royale asked a question. Levec had had words with her—harsh ones, but he always reserved harsh words for any nonhealer standing beneath his roof, especially among the powerful—and she asked seldom in the presence of the magi, but when she was concentrating or thinking, she could forget.

  “Today,” Levec told Adam quietly, “we will wake some of the sleepers. The magi,” he added, with a grimace, “want to compare interviews between those who woke on their own and those we wake.”

  Adam nodded, and Levec turned toward the Princess Royale and Commander Sivari. Adam liked the Princess Royale. She was strong, but she spoke in a soft, clear voice. Her eyes were the color of bronze, her hair, the same. She dressed like a Voyani Matriarch, although her clothing was Northern in style; no skirts or saris, no confining dresses, for her. She also wore a sword; it was the lone sword in the room. Commander Sivari did not carry one. Commander Sivari deferred to her without any discomfort at all, as if she were a Matriarch.

  She couldn’t be.

  No, Adam did not understand the North. Mirialyn smiled when she saw him, which was about five minutes after he’d entered the room.

  “The mages?” Levec demanded.

  “They are still in conversation,” the Princess Royale replied. “I know that you don’t approve, but the interview has been…interesting, Levec.”

  “Dantallon?”

  “He is resting.”

  Levec snorted and stalked off. Adam glanced at the magi in their familiar dark gowns, and decided to stay put; they were far enough away.

  “You were late,” Commander Sivari said.

  Adam nodded.

  “Levec was worried,” Mirialyn added. “You are well?”

  Adam nodded again, and glanced at Levec’s back. Mirialyn smiled. “He will not, I think, mind small talk while he rousts Dantallon. The Queens’ healer has been busy since the crisis began, and he is very underslept.”

  “What have the sleepers been telling the magi?”

  “Only of their dreams,” Mirialyn replied.

  “They remembered their dreams?”

  She nodded, her expression becoming more remote, as it often did. “They not only remembered, but they seem to have had the same dream.”

  “Did the magi talk to all of those who woke?”

  “No. I didn’t think to summon them in time; the rest were once again sleeping by the time they arrived.”

  He felt a small pang, a tightness of throat. “Did they eat before they slept?”

  She nodded. “It was the first thing Levec demanded of them.”

  Adam drew a deeper breath. Of course.

  “To be fair, they didn’t eat much—but they did eat.”

  He looked more closely at the backs of the magi. Both of the people they were in the process of interrogating were among the older victims of the illness; the children had evidently succumbed to sleep. It was the children who worried him.

  “Sigurne Mellifas is staying at our home,” he told Mirialyn. He wasn’t even certain why, but once the words were between them, there was no way to withdraw them.

  “She’s staying at the Terafin manse?”

  He froze, as if caught in a lie. He had called it home. He had used the Weston word, our.

  “Adam?”

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said, more stiffly than he’d intended. “In the Terafin manse.”

  Mirialyn frowned. Her frown, unlike the frowns of the Matriarchs Adam personally knew, was not etched in her skin; it took no permanent residence. But it made her look cold and distant. Margret and Yollana had just looked more dangerous.

  “Adam,” the Princess Royale said, “the sleepers were dreaming of a forest.” Watching his face far too closely, she bent and added, “A forest of golden trees and winged lions.”

  Levec came to the rescue, dragging a bleary-eyed Dantallon in his wake. Dantallon’s eyes were green, but seemed darker in the infirmary’s light; his hair was pale and golden, like stories of Northern men. His skin, however, was sallow, not pale.

  Tired or no—and he looked exhausted—he made clear, at Levec’s request, that the two awakened dreamers seemed to be following the patterns established by Adam’s intervention; he didn’t expect them to drift back to sleep within the next couple of days.

  Levec greeted this news with characteristic grace. “Wonderful. We’ll be plagued by the magi for at least another two days.”

  Dantallon winced, but said nothing. Neither did the Princess. Commander Sivari was watching Adam carefully, and in a way that reminded Adam of the Tyrs of Annagar. He didn’t speak.

  The magi, however, did speak, at length, when Levec demanded their attention. Adam was shocked to see that one of the magi was female. He knew Sigurne Mellifas was a mage—he should have guessed that other women would also be part of her Order. In the South, it would have been unthinkable—or worse.

  But Sigurne was a Matriarch; of that he felt almost certain. That she occupied the sole position of power over the Order felt natural to Adam. This woman, half her age, with too-bright eyes and pale skin, did not. She, however, felt no similar lack of ease in Adam’s presence; she almost failed to notice him.

  The man beside her also failed to notice, but his attention was focused on Levec. “Healer Levec, we h
ave very little time, and we have no desire to waste it. You have already—”

  “Insisted that they be given food?”

  The man fell silent for a moment; it was clear this took effort. “Dantallon assessed their condition; he did not feel their situation was so dire that they would lack the time to eat before they once again succumbed to their illness.”

  “Dantallon’s responsibility is the Queens’ healerie. My responsibility is this one.” He glared at Dantallon, who said nothing.

  “Do you dispute his diagnosis?”

  “What diagnosis can we offer with certainty in this case?” Levec countered. They were speaking quickly enough that Adam had to struggle to keep up.

  The man—whose name Adam hadn’t caught—jabbed the air with his finger. “We have no certainty, of course—which is why it is of utmost import that we be allowed access to information before it is once again beyond us!”

  “You will not speak of my patients as if they were artifacts in your possession.”

  “They are not simple victims of injury or disease—they are practically witnesses.”

  “This is not a magisterial court. They’ve committed no crime.”

  Adam took a step toward Levec, but Dantallon caught his sleeve and gently pulled him back. “They’ve been brewing for a fight,” he said quietly. “They’re unlikely to come to blows, and if anyone can afford to anger the Order, it’s Levec.”

  “I don’t see how it will help the sleepers.”

  “No. But can you see any way it will hurt them? Come,” he added. “While they sort out their difficulties.” He gestured toward the table in the back of the infirmary. It was long and flat, and it served one purpose in this room: it held a map. Adam was fascinated by it. Pins, with different colored wax heads, had been pushed into the map’s surface; these indicated the places in which the men and women in the infirmary had lived before they’d been brought here.

  Waxless pins indicated possible victims. These theoretical victims existed in the holdings that Dantallon said were wealthier. “There are more?” Adam asked, when he was closer to the table.

  Dantallon nodded. “Four that we’re certain of; three that we now suspect.”

  Adam had asked, only once, how they came by these suspicions; Dantallon had made clear that it was not a question that could be answered—or asked—in safety. Dantallon took up a position across the table from Adam.

  “If you don’t sleep,” Adam said, surveying the pins, and noting the new ones that Dantallon had mentioned, “Levec’s going to beat you unconscious.”

  “The very same Levec who threatened to throw me out into the street if I wasted his time dozing in a chair?” Dantallon chuckled. “Your Weston has greatly improved. Who taught you that word?”

  “Beat?”

  “Unconscious.”

  “Levec.” Adam frowned. “This pin—”

  “Yes. It’s on the Isle.” It was also unadorned by wax. “I will be escorted to the manor this evening, to either confirm the rumor or put it to rest.” He ran a hand through his hair. “The Kings are concerned.”

  “Dantallon—the dreams they’ve talked about—”

  The shouting banked suddenly; the room became instantly too quiet. Dantallon looked up, lips thinning as they compressed. The two guards who habitually adorned the doors outside of the makeshift infirmary were now on the inside, flanking two visitors who had obviously pushed their way past them.

  They must be men of import, Adam thought, to trespass so boldly and survive; the guards hadn’t even drawn swords.

  Dantallon said in soft Weston, “This is just what we need.” He straightened out, moving away from the table and toward the two strangers who stood near the doors.

  “They’re important men?” Adam asked, as he scurried after Dantallon.

  “They are not politically important in the same way The Terafin was,” Dantallon replied, knowing how little Adam knew of the City’s political structures. “But the older man is a very successful merchant, in one of the oldest of the Imperial Houses.”

  “I’ve had word,” the man was saying to Levec, “that my granddaughter woke. Twice.”

  Levec’s brows were compressed across the ridge of his prominent nose. “She’s not awake now,” he replied.

  The expression that crossed the stranger’s face made Adam wince; it was familiar in a way his spoken language was not. Before Dantallon could stop him, Adam said, “But she ate, while she was awake.”

  The man turned to Adam, ignoring the royal healer who stood just slightly in front of him. “Did she?”

  Adam nodded, although he hadn’t seen it himself.

  “What caused her to wake?”

  “We don’t know yet. If you ask the magi—”

  “Oh, gods take the magi,” was the acerbic reply. “If I ask the magi, I’ll be standing here for hours and at the end I’ll be none the wiser for their response.” He removed his very fine, very Northern outer jacket and handed it to the other stranger, who took it without comment and handled it with care.

  “Patris,” Levec began.

  “And gods take you as well,” was the acid reply. “I have in my possession a writ which clearly states that I will be immediately informed of any change in my granddaughter’s status. Clearly we define those words differently, and I mean you to understand how I define them.” He turned to the man who held his coat. “Andrei.”

  The man bowed.

  “Patris Hectore—”

  “I will see my granddaughter, Levec.” He paused, looked down his nose at Adam, and added, “You may supervise me.”

  Adam bowed, just as his servant had; the gesture came naturally. This was a man concerned about a child—his granddaughter—and to Adam, such concern was worthy of respect. To Levec as well, because Levec gave a curt nod in Adam’s direction—one that wasn’t joined by words.

  The infirmary was large; the man’s granddaughter was slightly separated from most of the adult sleepers; so were the other children who lay abed, breathing deeply and evenly, their lids closed, their hands by their sides.

  “She ate?” the older man asked as they walked.

  “Yes.”

  “She ate well?”

  He hesitated; the man marked it. “None of the sleepers ate well,” he finally said. “They have little appetite.”

  “Bring me water, boy. And a goblet. Bring me a towel as well.”

  Adam nodded and bowed.

  When he returned, the man was seated beside his granddaughter, his chair wedged in the narrow gap between her bed and the next one. His granddaughter slept by his side, undisturbed by—unaware of—his presence. He was not a small man; his hands were large, and they cupped one of hers, engulfing it.

  Adam offered him the goblet; he set the dry towel on the bed within his reach, and put the pail on the floor beside him before he began to withdraw.

  “Don’t go, boy,” the man said. “Stay a moment. Talk me out of my rage.”

  For a raging man, he spoke quietly, although his voice was strong and certain. When Adam made no reply, he turned. “My cousin thinks me insane. I’ve many children and many grandchildren, and so far, only two have predeceased me. Sharann is young,” he added, his hand still covering hers. “And she is not, that we know, in pain.”

  “Your cousin thinks you insane? Because you are worried about your grandchild?”

  The man smiled. “He’s not a doctor, and he’s certainly not a healer.”

  “He has no children of his own?”

  “He has three.”

  Adam shook his head. He was aware that this man must be both powerful and important, and kept any other words of disdain for the man’s cousin from leaving his mouth.

  “You don’t approve?” He frowned. “What is your name, boy? I am Hectore.”

  “Adam. I am Adam.”

  “You’re not originally from our fair city, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Where is home, for you?”

&nb
sp; “In the South. In Annagar.”

  Hectore’s brows rose. “But you managed to make your way to Levec.”

  “Levec saved my life.”

  “He’s a good man. Remind me that I said that,” Hectore added. “I left my grandchild in his care because he is ferocious in defense of those in his care; nothing short of royal edict will move that stubborn—that man, and sometimes, not even royal edict.”

  “But—”

  “She woke. She woke, and he did not immediately summon me; he sent me neither word nor notice. She was awake, Adam. Do you know what that would have meant to her mother? And instead of family, she wakes to this. This is not where she went to sleep; she was probably confused and frightened. And where was I? In my ignorance, I was in the Merchant’s Authority, arguing with idiots.”

  “This is why you wish to strangle Levec.”

  “Indeed.” He now released his granddaughter’s hand and slid one arm under her neck, lifting her from the bed. Adam scurried around to the other side to rearrange her pillows as Hectore began to gently dribble water into her mouth. “This must seem strange to you.”

  “Strange?”

  “In the South, men are reputed to care far less for their offspring.”

  “The Voyani are not like the clansmen,” Adam replied, showing this stranger a glimpse of ferocious pride. “We know the value of the children; they are the only future we have.”

  “So. You are Voyani. I should have guessed. The Voyani are free to travel, although I confess I have met few.”

  “Have you met any?”

  Hectore chuckled. “No.”

  “We do not come to the North.”

  “Yet you are here.”

  Adam fell silent for a long moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “I am here. Is there anything else you need?”

  “No. I will sue the magi into penury if they come anywhere near my granddaughter, and you may tell them I said so.”

  Adam frowned, attempting to make sense of the sentence. “You wish me to tell Levec to keep the magi away from her?”

  Hectore pursed his lips and then said, in Torra, “I will beggar their precious Order if they so much as touch one hair on her head.”

  Adam’s eyes rounded. “Go on,” Hectore said, making shooing motions. “Tell him. He’s unlikely to bite you.”