The other woman had reacted again at the use of the Divine’s given name. “Justinia wishes to see this world made better, Your Radiance. We gain nothing by acting capriciously.”
“Sometimes events do not allow us the time we wish, especially when magic is at play.” Celene looked at Nightingale, who sat as a proper lady, relaxed and poised in her simple robes, and made a guess. “I understand that during the last Blight, the Circle tower in Ferelden was nearly lost when one of their senior mages became an abomination. After killing the creatures, the Hero of Ferelden was forced to decide on the spot whether to kill every remaining mage in the tower.”
Her barb struck home, as Nightingale blinked, then said with heat, “We are hardly in the thick of battle, Your Radiance.”
“We are always in battle,” Celene said. “It is only that some of us do not always realize it. A bard named Marjolaine once told me that. I heard she met an unfortunate end in Ferelden.” She sighed. “Isn’t that sad, Nightingale?”
Nightingale paused for a moment, looking at Celene with cautious respect. “I suppose,” she finally said, “it is a matter of perspective. And perhaps you might call me Leliana.”
“Perhaps I might,” Celene said, and smiled before lowering her voice and continuing. “Divine Justinia must know this: I have nobles begging in private salons for the throne to take direct action in this matter.” At Leliana’s shocked look, she nodded. “There are men of Orlais who would sooner see us march upon our own people in the name of safety. I would despise that. Dorothea knows that I would. But I must offer them some alternative.”
Leliana stood, frowning in thought. “You wish the Divine to make some overt show of ameliorating the situation.”
Celene let out a breath. “In truth, any overt show will bring complaints that I have allowed the Chantry free rein to rule this empire for me,” she said, and Leliana nodded wordlessly. “But if Justinia can calm tempers before I am forced to turn the blade of the empire upon itself, then I will pay such a price willingly.”
Leliana smiled. “You think less for yourself and more for Orlais than I had expected, Your Radiance. It is a fortunate quality in a ruler, and one I have not seen enough.”
Celene stood as well, and for a moment her gown was bathed in the crimson light of the stained glass. “Tell me something. How large was the Archdemon?”
Leliana laughed the delicate cultured laugh of a noblewoman or trained bard. The effect made her sister’s robes look like a poor disguise. “Large enough, Your Radiance, that after having seen it, most problems seem small by comparison.” Her face turned serious, and she added, “I will ask Justinia to consider acting directly. She will want your support, to head off accusations that she might be attempting to steal power for herself.”
“Of course. Perhaps if she made a statement at a ball thrown in her honor?”
Leliana considered it. “It is not the place where one would expect her to make such a pronouncement…”
“Which is why you like the idea,” Celene said, smiling. “It will also ensure that many of the nobles petitioning me for action will have little choice but to hear her words and know that the matter is being attended to.”
Leliana grinned. “You were trained as a bard as well, Your Radiance. It is easy to forget. I shall take the proposal to the Divine.”
“Three weeks,” Celene said, “or at most, a month. Any longer, and I will have no choice but to act. The nobles will want some sign of resolution before they retire to their winter homes.”
Leliana bowed. “Your Imperial Majesty.”
The Divine’s spy left through a hidden side door, and Celene sat back down on the bench. This time, mindful of her training, she sat without making a sound or wrinkling her gown in the slightest.
Three more weeks of gritting her teeth and dealing with Grand Duke Gaspard, who agitated with the other nobles in an attempt to start a war. Three weeks of trying to ignore the idiotic arguments started by thuggish templars and mages who refused to see the way of the world.
And her reward for perseverance would be Gaspard bellowing that she had let the Chantry have more power, as though power was a sword only one person could hold at a time. It was not. Power was a dance to be navigated with partners, knowing when to lead, when to follow, and when simply stepping on the hem of a rival’s gown could send her to the ground in shame.
In careless hands, such power could bring down the greatest empire in Thedas. The culture and history of all of Orlais was Celene’s to protect.
It was at times like these that she enjoyed the simple pleasure of bending a recalcitrant professor to her will. “Three weeks,” Celene said, and allowed herself a moment to watch the fiery light play through the stained glass.
* * *
The half-masks that the nobility wore in public were always mirrored by the masks of their servants, albeit less extravagantly, and with less variation than the nobles, who could often afford different masks as the needs of fashion dictated. If a lord’s house mask was a lion carved from ivory and inlaid with onyx and gold, his servants’ masks would be lions as well, painted black and lined with brass. The masks protected the servants when they were about, warning tradesmen and merchants that any offense given to the servant was potentially an offense to the servant’s master. To servants of other houses, the masks were a way to instantly recognize a potential ally … or a potential enemy.
The masks worn in the royal palace at Val Royeaux by servants who were to be seen in public mirrored the one worn by Empress Celene. Where hers was inlaid with moonstone, theirs were simply enameled, or inlaid with ivory for the highest-ranking servants, and the gold and violet were simply painted on. Below the half-masks, the servants of Val Royeaux painted their faces white, a mark of additional status.
To a visitor, looking at a sea of pale faces trimmed with gold and violet, the servants were almost identical. The women wore serving dresses, the men tight breeches, both cut in the latest fashion and dyed in the royal colors. Only the guards and the servants who were never meant to be seen—the cook and her assistants, for example, or the laborers who cleaned the privy—had their faces visible.
But the goal for the half-masks that every servant wore was pageantry, not anonymity. Otherwise, the mask would have covered Briala’s elven ears.
“You, there! Rabbit!” called the chatelaine as Briala passed the great hall.
Briala turned. “Mistress?”
“Turned you out, did they?” The chatelaine looked back to the great hall, where servants on ladders were adjusting a great purple banner so that the golden lion of Empress Celene’s House Valmont would hang at the proper height. “It may be acceptable to have you dress Her Imperial Majesty on a normal day, but for a ball, they’ll want everything proper.” She squinted. “Higher on the left!”
Briala had seen the chatelaine prepare for countless balls before. The woman was always angry and snappish at the time, taking out her anxiety on anyone she could. Today felt different, however. Her barb had little heat behind it, and all the servants knew that Briala got on well with the girls who dressed Celene for the most formal occasions. She had to, lest they become rivals.
What was more, a few stray locks of the chatelaine’s hair had been caught under her mask, a faux pas that was completely unacceptable for any servant in the imperial palace. The chatelaine could not have failed to notice it unless she had removed her mask and then put it back on quickly.
“Yes, mistress,” Briala said. She had been Celene’s handmaid since childhood, when the empress had just been one girl among countless rivals for the throne. Now, in Val Royeaux, Briala was one of the few elves who had been granted the mask of public service.
“Well, you can make yourself useful, then. Run to the kitchen and speak with the cook and her girls. The weather has been dry, and I won’t have the meat go dry along with it.” She turned back to Briala. “Last autumn, Lady Montsimmard said that the Circle of Magi served better duck than we did.” She g
lared, the narrowing of the eyes visible through the slits in her mask. “Tell the girls that if this happens this year, I’ll have them whipped.”
“Yes, mistress,” Briala said again, ducking her head to make her respect clear. The hierarchy among the palace servants was strict and clear, and while Briala’s status as Celene’s personal handmaid set her off to one side of the chain of command, she was by no means free of it completely.
“Oh, no need to worry, rabbit.” The chatelaine patted Briala familiarly on the shoulder. As she did, Briala saw that the clasp on the other woman’s cuff was unfastened, another mistake that the servants who dressed the chatelaine would never have made. “It’s just to put the fear of the Maker in the lazy things. We’d never whip you. Off with you, now.”
“Yes, mistress,” Briala said for the third time, and left as the chatelaine began yelling at the servants to lower the left side of the banner.
As she strode down the great hallway, the floors covered with fine Nevarran carpet and the walls lined with classical paintings and curls of swirling stucco, Briala thought.
The chatelaine had served Celene faithfully for more than a decade. She cared deeply about her job, and would never allow herself to be distracted on the day of a ball unless she were somehow compromised. The clasp and the stray hair suggested a new lover who had pressed his or her suit and taken a few moments of the chatelaine’s time.
It could have been nothing more than that, of course, but in Val Royeaux, everything was part of the Game, even the clandestine affairs of the more important servants. Briala had grown up watching the Game, and as one of Celene’s pieces, she was determined to win.
If Briala assumed the worst, the chatelaine would not knowingly be involved in the matter. An embarrassment to Celene would bring embarrassment to the chatelaine as well, and if, Maker forbid, Celene died or lost power, the chatelaine would doubtless be replaced. If this was something more than an overeager new lover, the chatelaine was a tool, not an active member of whatever plot was unfolding.
The question was whose tool.
The heat in the kitchens was stifling, as dishes from all across the known world were prepared. The cook, Rilene, was a heavy, ruddy-faced woman whose thick forearms were burn-scarred from an accident in her youth—if the result of the former chatelaine’s thinking that Rilene was becoming presumptuous could be called an “accident.” Briala liked her, and she did what she could to protect the woman, who was better at making pastries than she was at the intricacies of the Game.
“Miss Bria!” Rilene called out, beaming, as Briala came in. “Does Her Radiance need something to last her until the evening banquet? We’ve some lovely pastries from Lydes.”
“Thank you, Rilene, but no.” She looked at Rilene’s girls, some human but many of them elven, and none of them masked. They were not to be seen by the nobles. “The chatelaine had concerns about the duck. She was … very emphatic.”
Rilene gave her a grateful nod. “I will see to it personally.” She dusted flour off her scarred hands and moved over to a pot, where a roasted dish was simmering in sauce.
“And if you could send one of the girls to find out any last-minute schedule changes the chatelaine has made…?” Briala asked.
“Of course, Miss Bria.” Rilene smiled. “I’ll have her find you.”
“Thank you.”
Briala left the kitchens and made her way around the palace. In the great hall, the chatelaine had finished with the banners and was now yelling her way through the organization of the tables. The elaborate card rooms bordering the hall had each been decorated in the style of a different country, from the great bearskin rugs and golden mabari statuettes of Ferelden to the decadent silks and magical lamps of Tevinter. The balconies offered a view of the great hall, as well as an escape to fresh air outside, where verandas overlooked a hedge maze dotted with sparkling marble fountains.
“You, there! Knife-ear!”
Unlike “rabbit,” which was usually spoken with a friendly condescension that only made Briala grit her teeth a little, “knife-ear” could never be mistaken for anything but an insult. It was what a human might use to address gutter trash that was too lazy to work and too stupid to steal.
The captain of the palace guard did not wear a mask. None of the palace guards did. It would be too easy for an assassin to blend in and get close to the empress while armed and armored. His face displayed the long angles that spoke of noble blood, and beneath his surcoat, emblazoned with the golden lion of House Valmont, his ceremonial breastplate gleamed.
More important to Briala, one of the buckles on his breastplate was askew, and he had the welt from a love bite just below one ear.
“Trying to sneak around and dodge your duties, knife-ear?” he said with a sneer.
“The empress bade me examine the preparations for tonight’s banquet.” Briala did not bow. As the captain of the guard, he was important enough that she should, but Briala had enough power to skirt the rules when she truly wanted to—and at the moment she truly did.
“A pretty story.” He sniffed, and then examined her with new interest. “Though if you’re keen to find some distraction, you’ve a fair enough form that I might ignore those flaps of filth jutting out from your head.” He stepped closer, blocking her view of the garden. “Perhaps I might even hold them like reins.” He smelled of sweat as well as lavender, the chatelaine’s favorite scent.
She stepped back inside. “I doubt the empress would approve.” She turned and left without a backward look, still thinking.
The captain of the guard was carrying on with the chatelaine, and his attentions had clearly been meant to harass her until she left, to distract her from looking down at the hedge maze below … which was why he had moved to block her view. From what Briala remembered, the captain had been brought in recently after his predecessor had died. Before that, the man had served in the military. Briala didn’t know where, but given Grand Duke Gaspard’s popularity with the soldiers …
She knew who and where. All that was left was to find out what.
She hurried down a curving staircase whose marble steps were carpeted with red velvet, but a call from behind stopped her before she reached the doorway leading out to the hedge maze.
“Miss Bria!” Briala turned to see one of the elves who worked in the kitchen hurrying her way. “I was told to find you.”
“Thank you, Disirelle.” Briala smiled at the young woman. “What have you found?”
Disirelle lowered her voice and tugged at her sleeve nervously with thin fingers. “The chatelaine added a bard, Melcendre, to tonight’s guest list.”
Briala nodded. “Thank you. Now, if Rilene can spare you for another moment, may I ask you to find out what the captain of the guards has been doing today?”
“Of course, Miss Bria. Rilene said that I was at your disposal.”
“Good.” Briala turned to the hedge maze. “I will be in there, hunting.”
* * *
Celene had seen the Orlesian chevaliers train. One of their most famous tests, at least among those tests they showed in public, was a series of blades mounted on posts in a great wooden scaffolding. When servants worked at a massive hidden wheel, the blades would spin and slash, attacking anyone who passed with dizzying speed. Brave youths at summer festivals would try to rush through in heavy padded tunics, the blades blunted so that most contestants broke no more than their pride. In real tests, it was said, the blades were sharpened, and the soldier ran the gauntlet unarmored.
That gauntlet was always how Celene imagined the formal banquets.
Fortunately, she did not run this gauntlet alone. Her champion, Ser Michel, was a pace behind her, as always, unarmored so as not to cause a disturbance as Celene navigated the crowd, but carrying his blade nevertheless. His hose were rich golden silk and his doublet was violet suede made from beasts the dwarves raised like cattle. His scabbard was ornamented with an inlaid lion of gold with purple sapphires for the eyes and mane,
and while his hands were bare of the rings and bracelets other nobles favored—he would allow nothing to impede his ability to handle a blade—he wore atop his mask the tall yellow feather of the chevaliers.
“Orders, Majesty?” he asked in a voice low enough to carry only to her. Michel usually spoke little at these events, which Celene appreciated. As her champion, he was an extension of her public presence, drawing attention not to himself but to her. He cared little for the Game, but he had good eyes and followed orders. He had been with her for almost ten years, since her last champion had died stopping an assassin.
“Briala passed along what she found?”
“The sword in the bushes? Yes, Majesty.” He kept his voice low and calm, and by his body language, they might have been discussing the lovely wyvern ice sculptures at the refreshment tables.
“Watch the bard, Melcendre. It will begin with her.”
“Hopefully I will not be expected to pass any tests of religious iconography this evening.”
Celene checked a smile. “I will attempt to warn you this time should the need arise.”
As Gaspard’s bard, Melcendre, sang in a lovely voice about the end of summer and lost loves, Celene moved through a field of allies and enemies, well wishers and would-be rivals.
“Your Radiance.” Comte Chantral of Velun bowed at her eye contact, the motion making the string of black pearls attached to his nacre mask rattle. “Your light will keep the birds from departing this autumn, for they will think the summer lingers.” Chantral had been pressing for her hand in marriage for some time now. Given his apparent loyalty and clumsiness in the Game, Celene kept him at a comfortable and friendly distance without ever completely dashing his hopes.
Celene’s ivory gown was cut low, and against her pale skin a yellow diamond glittered in a rich golden setting. The gown complemented the great jewel, as teardrops of amber flowed from her bosom in ribbons of yellow that darkened to gold at the hem and wrists. Her mask was identical to the one she’d worn that morning, save that the feathers had been switched to gold filigree.
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire Page 2