by K. J. Parker
“On second thoughts,” Oida said, “you’d better come in mine. What you need is a bath.”
While it was filling she stripped off the remains of the dress without a thought. Oida, however, was shocked. “For God’s sake look at you,” he said. “How many guards did you have to fight?”
“One,” she said, “and it wasn’t a fight.”
“You got in that state just strolling down a few passages?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she got into the bath. It hurt like hell, but she was past caring.
He fetched clothes from her room. “The veil’s a blessing,” he said, “it’ll cover those burns on your face, and you can wear gloves, so that’s all right. What about shoes? Will you be able to get them on?”
She was wrapped in a towel but made no effort to dry herself. “I don’t know.”
He leaned back in his chair. He had a few smears of brick dust and cobweb on his cloak and robe, and a few swabs of her blood, and his hair needed brushing. “In a little while, all hell’s going to break loose,” he said. “But not officially, thank goodness.”
She realised she was supposed to ask for amplification. “What?”
He smiled. “The man we rescued isn’t supposed to be in prison,” he said. “Officially, he’s retired to his country estates. If the Queen found out what they’ve been doing to him, there’d be blood on the floor. Division believes she’s in love with him, but personally I think they’re just friends; which is rather more significant, since he’s the only friend she’s got.”
She pulled the towel round her. Unbelievably, she was starting to feel cold. “Who is he?”
Oida hesitated. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but what the hell. His name is Daxin, and he was the chief minister or grand vizier or whatever you want to call it. If you remember, he was the one who made such a muck-up of the first expeditionary force against the nomads, before Forza slaughtered their army. The ruling faction on the Council nabbed him and stuck him away down there – it’s a sort of unofficial prison, nobody’s supposed to know about it – and he’s been there ever since, poor bastard. We’re going to give him to the Queen for a birthday present.”
She forced herself to take an interest. “Will he be all right?”
Oida grinned. “At this moment he should be on a garbage cart underneath two tons of kitchen waste on its way to be sweated down into pigswill. The farmer will dig him out, brush him off and put him in a fast chaise to the coast, where a ship will whisk him far, far away. Her Majesty’s birthday isn’t for three months, so they’ll have a chance to put some flesh back on him. Anyway,” he went on, “it’s all good for us, because the bad boys won’t tear the place apart looking for him, since officially there’s been no jail break and no crime committed.” He paused and rubbed a mark off the back of his hand. “They’ll know perfectly well we did it,” he said. “But we’re quite safe, at least until we’ve paid our respects to Her Majesty tomorrow evening, and after that I suggest we get out of town sharpish. But they won’t do anything to us, I’m too high profile and besides, where’s the point? It’s done now, and killing us would just risk drawing attention. They’ll be too busy packing small items of value in case they have to leave in a hurry.”
She let her head loll forward. “Job done, then.”
“I think so, more or less.” A long silence, and then he said, “How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad.”
“How are you feeling?”
She turned her head and looked at him. “You might have told me,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Told you what?”
“That you came to fetch me from the castle because you needed me for a job. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. I’d have understood.”
He looked steadily at her. “Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t know there was a job until after we’d crossed the border?”
She closed her eyes. “Don’t try my patience, Oida, there’s not a lot of it left.”
“A beautiful girl once told me—”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“—about the three categories of reason,” he went on. “Good, specious and real. Would you believe me if I told you I was only allowed to rescue you because I said I needed you for the job, because in my opinion you were the only one on the payroll who could pull it off?”
“You’d be contradicting yourself,” she said.
“Oh, this is all hypothetical. Well, would you?”
She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge something. “Allowed? Who by?”
“I’m under orders, same as you are, you know that. Rescuing Daxin was important. Sooner or later, someone was going to try and do it; the East, the West or us. If the East or the West did it, they’d have the Queen and they’d have Blemya. More likely, given the quality of their personnel, they’d try and do it and fuck it up, Daxin would’ve been killed or there’d have been a revolution or a civil war, and Division doesn’t want to speculate about what might happen then. So we had to do it, quickly; and now there’ll be a new regime in Blemya that thinks we’re wonderful and will do exactly what we tell them to. Joy in heaven?”
“If you say so,” she said. “But you should’ve told me. Even if you didn’t know right from the start, you should’ve told me earlier, not just out of the blue like that.”
“Would you believe me if I told you I was specifically ordered not to?”
Yes, as it happened, because she knew how their minds worked. “Do you always obey orders?”
“Yes,” he said. “Nearly always.” He took a deep breath, then said, “Assuming, which is not admitted, that I’ve behaved really badly, will you forgive me?”
She shook her head. Too tired. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. “So luckily the question doesn’t arise.”
“Ah,” he said. “So that’s all—”
“You’ve just done the right thing incredibly badly.” She got up. “As usual. Goodnight, Oida, I’m going to bed.”
She was very, very tired and went straight to sleep. In the circumstances, that was just as well.
The presentation ceremony was in the main audience chamber. She’d seen it before, on her previous visit, so it didn’t come as a total shock. If this was Providence’s way of making it up to her for all those confined spaces, she decided, Providence was overdoing it, yet again.
This time, however, she had to process down the endless central aisle, past the best part of a thousand men and women in gorgeous silks and gold tiaras, with only Oida for company. Every step was like trying to walk when you’ve got pins and needles, and brought her that bit closer to the extraordinary, grotesque golden throne, like an altar on which she was about to be sacrificed. For the first time she was truly grateful for the veil; it was something to hide behind, in a place with no natural cover whatsoever.
Twenty yards or so from the foot of the throne, Oida put his hand on her elbow and whispered, “Stay here.” Then he went on alone. Some official intercepted him after he’d gone a few paces, and there was a muttered conference. Then the official walked up to her, tweaked aside the corner of the veil, looked at her face, nodded and went back to where Oida was waiting, then escorted him the rest of the way. He stopped about six feet short of the throne steps; if he’d gone any further, he wouldn’t have been able to crane his neck back far enough to see the Queen.
She could see her, a tiny, incongruous speck nestled in the extraordinary Royal regalia – chlamys, divitision, lorus, triple crown with pendetilia; a tiny human face peeping out over the upper hem of the lorus, like a monkey that’s climbed the curtains. She thought she saw the lips move; an official on the upper tier of the scaffolding beside the throne scampered down six flights of steps, approached Oida’s escort and whispered something to him. The escort then whispered to Oida, who turned toward the throne and said, in a loud voice, apparently to his feet, “Thank you, your Majesty.” The upper-tier official scrambled back up the scaffo
lding; when he was back in position the tiny, faraway lips moved again. The official came down again and repeated the performance. Oida said, “Yes, indeed, your Majesty, it’s a great honour.” Then the whole colossal block that comprised the throne shot up in the air, until the little face was completely indistinguishable. Oida bowed to it three times, then turned smartly and marched back down the aisle towards her.
“Is that it?” she whispered.
“That’s our lot,” Oida hissed back. “Now then, easy does it.”
There was a half-platoon of soldiers waiting for them at the door they’d come in by, and her legs went weak, but Oida muttered, “It’s all right” and bustled her along with a hand on the small of her back. The soldiers parted to let them through, then closed in behind them and followed, all the way to Oida’s door. Then they saluted and marched off.
“In here,” Oida said, opening the door of his room.
“What the hell was all that about?”
“For our safety,” Oida said with a grin. “I asked for them specially, but I think I was unduly concerned. While we’ve been lolling about all day, exciting things have been happening in Blemya. There’s now a provisional Council, replacing the old one, all of whom have mysteriously disappeared. My bloke couldn’t tell me if they’d hopped it or been rounded up or a bit of both; anyway, the plan seems to be working just fine. I don’t think we’ll have much trouble, at any rate.”
She sank into the chair and dragged the horrible shoes off her poor feet. “What was all that about stopping—?”
“Ah.” Oida grinned. “Brainwave. Just came to me, as we were walking up the aisle. I told the Chamberlain’s runner you’re suffering from a mild form of leprosy – absolutely not contagious, I said, but better safe than sorry. Two birds with one stone, see. If you’d gone into the presence, you’d have had to unveil, and we couldn’t have that, also explains the scars on your face, which I have to tell you are visible even through all that fishnet stuff.” He poured two glasses of wine and put one down next to her. “Won’t have fooled anybody, naturally, but it’s plausible enough to be officially acceptable, if you see what I mean.”
“So I’m a leper now. Thank you so much.”
“Do you honestly give a damn what the Blemyans think of you? Well, then. This time tomorrow we’ll be on a ship, and the hell with the lot of them.”
Quite suddenly, the significance of something he’d said struck her, and she felt her insides twist. The scars on her face; like leprosy. She hadn’t actually looked in her wonderful Mezentine mirror since she’d dressed for the concert. Not that she’d ever been beautiful, but—
“It’s all right.” Oida’s voice made her start. “They’ll heal up just fine.”
“How would you know? You’re not a doctor.”
“Actually—” He shrugged. “They’re superficial. There may be one or two small patches of shiny white skin, nothing a dab of powder now and then won’t cover.”
“I want a mirror. Now.”
At any other time, she’d have been amused by the speed with which he could produce one (and what a mirror; only just bigger than the palm of her hand, but also Mezentine, older and therefore with a better tone, and he carried it in the sleeve of his gown – well, of course he did). She grabbed it from him and looked. “There, see?” he said.
She didn’t say anything. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Really, it doesn’t matter.
“I do actually know a bit about burns,” he was saying. “True, I never qualified, but I did do two years at the Studium in Choris, and there was this woman who’d been in a fire. Then I met her again, ten months later, and you’d never have known to look at her. Truly.”
She handed the mirror back and said nothing. He sat down again, his head in his hands, then jumped up, left the room, came back with her best remaining dress. “Sorry,” he said, “but I think you’d better go back to your room now. Try and get some sleep. We’ve got an early start.”
For the first two hours he read a book: Cellec’s Confession of Faith, which was supposed not to exist any more. She’d asked after it in half the libraries in the West, and they told her that all the manuscripts had been lost two hundred years ago. When she was sure he was engrossed in his reading, she studied him for a while. Of course, he was hard to see, because of his reputation. Oida the Great, who respected women the way the scythe respects the corn.
They stopped to water the horses; he stopped reading, marked his place with a feather and yawned. “Are you speaking to me?” he said.
She shrugged. “Why not? Who else is there?”
He grinned. “You can have the Cellec after I’ve finished with it,” he said. “I always had this feeling that a copy might’ve survived in Blemya, and I was right. I have to say, though, it’s a bit of a disappointment. Well, I guess it would be, after I’ve waited my whole life to read it.”
She held out her hand. He hesitated, then gave her the book. She pulled out his feather and dropped it on the floor, then put the book down on the seat beside her.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
She lifted her aching feet and propped them up on the bag on the floor. In it, among other things, was the big fat bag of gold coins she’d won off him at cards. It wasn’t quite enough to retire on, but she had a bit of her own put by. An image flashed through her mind – the tragic veiled woman living in seclusion in the big house on the hill; once, one of the local kids saw her without her veil and ran home screaming. Well; maybe she’d stick it out a few more years – assuming they could still use her, now that her face was instantly recognisable and profoundly memorable. A job in administration, maybe. And wouldn’t that be fun.
The coach moved off. He opened his own bag and took out another book. Calojan and Eioja; her mother had read it to her when she was small. She reached over, took it from him and dropped it out of the window.
“Fair enough,” he said. “All right, let’s play cards.”
“No. I don’t need any more money.”
He opened his right hand; it had been empty, now it was full of pistachios. She loved pistachios. “Play you for nuts?”
She allowed him a very wan smile. “I haven’t got anything to bet with.”
“Not a problem. Pistachios for absolution. If I win, you forgive me.”
She looked at him, then suddenly smiled. Smiling hurt, so she stopped. “Why the hell not? You know you’ll lose.”
“Ah.” He winked at her. “I cheat.”
“So do I. Better than you can.”
“You really believe that? How sweet.”
They played for a long time. When he’d run out of pistachios, she took the pack from him and put it down beside the book on the seat. “Got anything else to bet?” she asked with her mouth full.
“Nothing you want.”
She pulled her hair back behind her head, so it wouldn’t tickle the burned places. “Oh, I’ll have it anyway,” she said, and picked up the cards. “My deal.”
By the time they reached the coast, she owed him fifty-six angels.
“I could say, forget it, keep the money,” he said, lifting the heavy purse and dropping it into his bag. “Or I could give you your revenge and let you win. But you wouldn’t want me to do that.”
She watched the bag close. “Actually.”
“You wouldn’t want that,” he said firmly. “You don’t take presents from strange men.”
She was furiously angry with him, either for letting her win the first time or taking back his gift, she wasn’t sure which; or maybe it was because she could have retired, with her scarred face, and now she couldn’t, and he’d done it to make sure she didn’t – or because she’d known in her heart that he’d let her win it in the first place, so she’d always known she couldn’t keep it, so what was all that about, some kind of test? Good reasons, specious ones, the real one; and once they were back in Rasch he’d go off somewhere and she didn’t know when she’d see him again. Bastard, she thought. And proba
bly just as well.
“Job for you,” he said.
She lifted her head so fast she hurt her neck. “Now what?”
He didn’t answer straight away. “When we get to the coast, there should be a letter waiting for me telling me where they’ve parked young Daxin. I need someone utterly reliable to nursemaid him and keep him out of trouble, for three months. Well?”
She felt a heavy weight on her chest. “It’s not up to me,” she said.
“Oh, I can swing it with Division,” he said casually. “And you’re the obvious choice. For one thing he knows you, you rescued him, he’ll trust you. Also, if you’ve got him, I needn’t give him another thought. Alternatively, another thing I could swing with Division is three months’ expenses’ paid leave anywhere you fancy.” He smiled at her. “Sometimes it’s nice being me,” he said. “Well?”
She thought for a moment. “Will I have to fetch him back to bloody Blemya, or will someone collect him?”
“I think you’d better stay out of Blemya for a bit,” Oida said. “Wish I could, I’ve had about enough of it. However, I don’t have that luxury. I take it that means—”
“I get bored having fun,” she said. “Are you doing this so I’ll have three months’ easy duty?”
“Yes,” he said. “And because it’s vitally important that Daxin is kept safe, and I wouldn’t trust anyone else. And because wherever they put him is bound to have a good library.”
“Of course,” she said. “Tell me, have you ever just killed one bird with one stone?”
He blinked. “To the best of my knowledge I’ve never killed a bird. I have falcons to take care of that sort of thing.”
She gave him a look that was meant to convey that this time he’d gone slightly too far. “Give me your writing set,” she said.