The Councillor

by E. J. Beaton

  The girl had her own kind of ambition. Lysande understood, better than most.

  She laid a hand upon Litany’s shoulder. “I brought an army here. I mean to use it. Armies are blunt weapons, even when they win, and you are a very fine instrument—I shall need you by my side, to protect me, if a battle breaks out tonight.” She gripped Litany a little tighter. “You can shadow me in a way no one else can. I do not ask purely for my own sake. You told me once that in doing, we find meaning—and I think you have so much more to do, in the years to come. I should bet on it.”

  “What kind of bet do you see yourself making?”

  Lysande eyed her carefully.

  “Double your current pay,” she said.

  The tension slowly melted from Litany’s face. It took a few moments, but in time, she looked down, and nodded.

  “My advancement is your advancement,” Lysande said. “I have a good memory for debts, and I know what I owe. But to pay it, I must defend the Council, and survive.”

  “I suppose I must let you be right.”

  “And you must survive to create our strategy of defense, in a truly coordinated way, against threats to come.” Lysande smiled. Slowly, Litany nodded again. “Now, you see, this doublet does not look very different from any other doublet,” Lysande said. “That is the trick. It is not the outside, but the inside that needs work.”

  Litany carried off the doublet with a muttering about making “adjustments to the inner fabric.” Lysande felt a twinge of gratitude for the ease with which the girl understood her.

  Her books had disappeared into their chests, and the desk had been covered with an array of jewelry. A necklace of square-cut emeralds accompanied a set of earrings shaped like the capital crown, and twenty-four hair pins inlaid with tiny chips of emerald glittered, along with other rings and baubles that she could not possibly wear. She wondered if the bone people on the platform would have cheered her so loudly if they could see all this show. Sorrow and shame rose at the memory of the boy smiling at her, the skeleton with the bright eyes. Later. Always, later. It did not feel good to relegate them to a lesser rank in her mind.

  Nor could she entirely push that sphere she had glimpsed, where Lysande Prior might be anyone and anything, into some dusty corner of her thoughts—no more than she could forget the sound of sunlight and steel in her voice as she ordered Raden to halt the executions.

  She imagined laws as winged creatures: pictured Pelory giving her new order to the advisors, the guards, and the steward, and each time, the words flapping up, soaring toward the ceilings of Axium Palace and butting their heads against it.

  All persons in Axium found to be acting as vigilantes, against elementals, the poor, or any others they persecute without evidence, shall be jailed forthwith.

  What was she hoping for? It was only a little change that she had asked for, but still, a little change was a beginning. Where prejudice rules, the crown weakens.

  Luca had said that to her.

  She pictured him getting dressed, now—standing before a mirror, in all his smooth-skinned delicacy, while the men of his chamber pulled his trousers over his calves and thighs, laced up his doublet, and combed his hair. Or did he do that himself? Did he slip on his garments as he slipped on a layer of unwavering defiance each day?

  She had scarcely donned her own trousers and the doublet that Litany returned to her, and shrugged on the cloak, when a knock came at the door. “The Overseer of Wardrobe of Rayonnant Palace,” Litany announced.

  The Overseer flounced in in head-to-toe gold, took one look at Lysande, and shook his head. “Oh, dear me,” he said. “You—attendant—outside.”

  It took ten minutes for Lysande’s cloak to be tied perfectly and adorned with a crown pin; another ten for the sleeves to be brushed and the shoulders plumped so that the swirls of silver would show to their full advantage; a half-hour for her hair to be arranged with two plaits pinned back to frame her natural waves. Her deathstruck strands disappeared beneath the left plait, pinned so tightly that there was no chance of them coming free. It was hard to say if she was pleased to see them hidden so well, or if she wanted to see them displayed . . . ever since she had seen the black stain creeping across the silver dagger and felt the terror of knowing how her blood marked her out, she had begun to wonder how it would feel if everything strange about her was no longer concealed.

  Soon, Lysande began to understand why Raden said torture was worse than a swift death. By the time a few touches of silver powder had been applied around her eyes, she was wondering why any ruler bothered with balls when they could stay at home and dance around their throne in ordinary clothes—or whatever passed as ordinary when you had grown up swathed in velvet. A vision of herself charging at the White Queen and tripping over her own hem did not help.

  The Overseer of Wardrobe sent for two assistants, who brought in a mirror and held it up. Her gasp drew smiles from them. The person looking back at her in the rich green cloak and the emeralds was not the scholar of Axium Palace—she could pass as a silverblood.

  But if you were smoothed, your ink flecks removed and your straggling locks pinned back, perhaps you could still be tangled on the inside.

  “There we are. You’re a proper Axium girl, now,” the Overseer said.

  Lavish the costume might be, but it did not cling, nor expose her skin. The shoulders puffed up, like new muscle. No, she thought, staring at it. Not a girl. A Councillor.

  Litany was allowed to come in at last, and when the door was closed, Lysande turned to her. “Go on, then. Show me the work.”

  A deft movement, and practiced hands opened the cloak, unbuttoned the doublet beneath and exposed two pockets sewn onto the left side of the lining, just below the breast. Two more adorned the right side of the lining, with a further pocket positioned toward the very front of the doublet. Lysande drew in her breath. It was the work of a minute to slip a few of her daggers into the slim pouches and tuck the gold quill into the outermost pocket, before pulling the doublet shut. She ran a finger over the boiled leather of the exterior and admired Litany’s handiwork, noting how well the garment hid its secrets. Even if it had bulged, however, she would have been glad for the advantage of her cargo.

  When she leaned to the right, she felt the tapering point of the quill, close to her as blood to bone.

  She slipped Sarelin’s gold dagger into the last loop on her dagger-belt; some gifts demanded to be used, calling in the voice of their giver.

  “It seems dress clothes have a use after all,” she said. “They smuggle. Actually, I have a garment for you, too, Litany.”

  In the closet on the wall hung a silver jacket cut in the Axium style and overlaid with fine Lyrian cloth. A likeness of the Axium crown shone in emerald thread on each sleeve.

  “I had your measurements sent from the palace steward by dove . . . I hope you won’t think it an impertinence. The first time you dressed me, you fixed crown pins in my hair. They were capital-made. The very same design marks these sleeves.” She placed the jacket in the girl’s arms. “I should have rather got you a matching cloak, but an attendant can get away with this . . . at least this way, we can represent Axium together.”

  Laying it out on the bed, Litany turned to face her, and after hesitating for less than a heartbeat’s length, threw her arms around Lysande’s waist and embraced her fully.

  * * *

  • • •

  The preparation chamber seemed to be hidden in the farthest point of the eastern wing. Lysande followed her guide out to a staircase and through corridors she had not seen before, decorated ever more sumptuously with gold and jewels. Lyrian guards dotted the walls; the southern soldiers eyed her with interest as she passed, but kept their silence; there were more of them, now, Vigarot Chamboise having got his wish in time for the ball, and the palace had put on a serious air, torchlight gilding the hilts that jutted from leat
her belts.

  They entered a corridor lined with portraits, beginning with Princess Catherique Gaincourt and running through every other Lyrian leader, from Claubert Tancey to Charine Orvergne, depicted next to fountains or the blazing sun, and she felt the weight of history upon her, those royal faces looking down at her from the frames. Tonight, standing in for Axium, she did not feel quite as removed as she ought to have.

  Tonight, I could be one of them.

  Some thoughts blew through you, a disquieting gale.

  The attendant knocked three times on a set of doors at the end and opened them. “The Councillor of Axium arrives!”

  The shards of light emanating from a chandelier dazzled her. It took Lysande a moment to see clearly, and when she walked through, she discerned Dante standing beside a high-backed chair. He and Jale stood with scarcely an inch between them.

  “I have no patience for his grasping,” Jale was saying, as she came in. “And the First Sword of Valderos is beholden to no climbing thorn. Tell him that.” The signs of consternation written on his face might have been natural on another man, but on Jale, who was usually so adept at putting on a cheerful mask, they stood out like paint slapped across a clean wall.

  Where Dante wore a northern warrior’s outfit of a brown cape over armor, Jale sported a blue doublet and trousers, fashioned from a silk that had to cost hundreds of cadres. As the chandelier’s light fell on his clothes, they shimmered like waves of the sea. He reached up to straighten the sapphire-studded ring that nestled on his brow. Lysande thought that the Lyrian crown outshone even Axium’s jagged silver diadem, yet the look on Jale’s face was far from glowing. “You overestimate my courage,” Lysande heard Dante whisper to him as she passed. “I’ve never dared . . .” A shift in Jale’s expression, a tightening of his jaw, seemed to set off a shift in Dante, too. “I shall dare it for you,” Dante whispered.

  The two of them broke off their dialogue to greet Lysande. She kept her pleasantries brief, slipped out of the conversation, and edged around the table, to where the leader of Pyrrha stood upright with arms folded, a sight that comforted her. Anything more polite would have suggested calculation. Lysande could not forget the happiness she had felt when Cassia had hugged her, after she had presented her with the livea branch, nor the sense of companionship she had felt when they had talked of chimeras inside the palanquin: the sense of being joined to her colleague, for better or for worse.

  Side-slashed trousers of plum silk, overlaid with a sword-belt that might have even impressed Sarelin, marked Cassia out from the small crowd. She tapped the white spikes in her hair as Lysande approached. “Leopard’s teeth.”

  “You look quite imposing, I assure you.”

  “Well, let’s hope we do more dancing than dicing. I’ve been longing to speak with you.” Cassia’s eyes lit up, and Lysande felt another surge of guilt.

  Vigarot Chamboise swept through the room with a train of attendants, giving orders left and right. While the staff dispensed sugared nuts of an alarming pink hue, Lysande felt a tap on her elbow.

  She turned. As Luca moved into the light, gold beams fell on a black doublet slashed through the sleeves, tied with leather down the middle; with the deep red of the shirt beneath, it gave the impression of flowing blood. The coloring was not the only thing she noticed. Surely, if Luca had been placed in front of a mirror like her, he must know how well his doublet clung to the outlines of his body, and how the cascade of his hair lent a softness to the lines of his jaw, a touch of delicacy against that exquisite sharpness. Was this another move in the campaign?

  “This should prove an interesting wedding, don’t you think?” Luca remarked, as Vigarot guided the Council into a line. “The reluctant husband.” He nodded toward Jale, a smile twisting his mouth. “Have you figured that little puzzle out?”

  “I’ve no notion what you mean.” She had no desire to expose Dante and Jale, if she was right about that particular suspicion—not to a man who saw scruples as playthings.

  “Indeed. Your attention seems with your handsome advisor, of late.”

  She was spared any further conversation by the attendants moving them into place. Luca was pulled away from her, and Lysande felt a resurgence of the determination she had felt weeks ago, when she had first confronted the advisors in the Oval.

  “Tell me the truth, Lysande,” Cassia whispered into her ear, as ushers in gold livery marched past them. “Were you really ill all that time?”

  “Of course I was.”

  “I’m so glad. I thought you might’ve been avoiding me.” Lysande nearly tripped, and Cassia caught her and steadied her. There was no chance to explain, nor to navigate the fine line between logical suspicion and her quite illogical desire to be liked by Cassia.

  At a nod from Vigarot, the ushers pushed the doors open, and a wave of hot desert air hit Lysande in the face. She followed Jale and Luca down the palace steps, a roof of gauzy mesh providing the only barrier between them and the sky: the blue a little darker than afternoon but not quite as deep as night. Hundreds of candles flickered in bowls along the ground, lighting the way a few feet ahead at a time, drawing them down a long path until the glow blossomed into full light. Lysande listened for any sudden noise. At the end of the path, they passed onto a low stage, where a wedding pavilion offered her a view of an altar wreathed with sapphire flowers, each bloom fully opened; beyond the stage she spied a long platform with two lines of palms encased in gold running down the middle.

  She nearly jumped as something hit her arm, but she realized that it was only water. Flat pools flanked the platform, and as they walked, dozens of little jets of water sprang up on either side, giving rise to applause. The source of the clapping, Lysande guessed to be further ahead, where the platform ended and a path led through a mass of round tables . . . so many tables that she faltered. After Three’s warning, her body was on edge, her mind sharpened. It was not easy to fight the soporific power of all this adornment.

  Every notable person she had ever seen in Axium Palace seemed be sitting before her. Lady Langlore and Lady Banover, the two Axiumites as famous for their feuding as for their epic verses, shared a table to her right. She recognized a Pyrrhan merchant and several Bastillonian dignitaries—all silver-haired, and all with golden-haired servants standing behind them; a bolt of anger shot through her at the sight and lodged in her. She wondered what Charice would have thought of this unhuman separation; then she wondered if Charice was, perhaps, here somewhere, keeping company with the Shadows, talking to them instead of her.

  Lyrian guards ringed the enclosure, she was relieved to see, while the other cities’ soldiers prowled. She searched the crowd for any figure out of place, any watcher among the talkers. She caught a movement at the end of the enclosure where six tables stood, five draped with a city crest, one bearing a design of the Bastillonian ram under crossed swords.

  “Look,” she heard Carletta Freste say, from the table she was passing, “that old stoat Ferago’s brought his whole family.”

  And now she saw the man approaching the Bastillonian table, his sword sparkling in the candlelight. King Ferago walked slowly, a ram’s-head crown nestled on his white curls and a great cloak trimmed with ermine trailing along the ground behind him. Both crown and cloak enveloped him, leaving very little of his person to peep out. His wife supplied the height: towering over the heads of the rest of their party, Persephora Ferago looked sharply at the city-rulers, her hand clasping that of a young woman in armor. The princess on her arm reminded Lysande of a warrior in the Silver Songs, who had been tasked with leading a legion through the Tracian Hills in winter, and who had paused every noontime to look for a sign from the goddesses.

  What sign Mariana Ferago was hoping for, though, Lysande could only guess. The princess shot a glance across the enclosure. Following her line of sight, Lysande found Dante and Jale—the pair had somehow reunited for a moment, despite
Vigarot’s best efforts. Dante leaned in to straighten the collar of Jale’s shimmering doublet, and Jale laughed, the sound a rush of sunlight. When she looked back, Mariana’s face had not lightened.

  The two young men behind Mariana glistened as they walked, their confections of chatoyant silk falling over their limbs. One wore significantly more silk across his broad shoulders than the other, more slender son, but each prince carried off the Bastillonian white and blue admirably, Lysande thought. They were staring at the city-rulers, and she saw them lean in to whisper; while she watched, the slender brother pointed at her.

  Was she being marked out for distrust? Litany had whispered to her that Gabrella Merez had agreed to appear at the ball, along with the Bastillonian royalty; to Elirans, at least, this was a step toward reconciliation. Yet was it possible that the events of the Room of Accord had lingered on in the collective Bastillonian imagination?

  Perhaps she was being unduly anxious. And yet perhaps it was right to remember that the history books were not furnished with examples of the smooth and easy temperament of Bastillonian leaders.

  At Vigarot’s prompting, they reached the Council’s seats. The Axium table brimmed with the people Lysande liked best—Derset, Litany, and Chidney welcomed her. Derset rose as she arrived. Looking at her cloak and then at her face, his gaze moved slowly and lingered on her countenance, and he seemed about to voice some remark when he thought better of it and bowed. “My lady, I am afraid the Axium guests do not like your seating arrangement.”