Then Tamara was before me. “But we have strayed far enough from our purpose. Come, friends. I bid you to be silent. Countess Meliara did promise to entertain us by describing her adventures in the late war.”
I did? I tried to recall what she’d said—and what I’d promised. My thoughts were tangled, mixing present with memory, and finally I shook my head. Every face was turned expectantly toward me.
My vision seemed to be swimming gently. “Uh,” I said.
“Mouth dry?” Tamara’s voice was right behind me. “Something to wet it.” She pressed a chilled goblet into my hands.
I raised it and saw Savona directly across from me, a slight frown between his brows. He glanced from me to Tamara, then I blocked him from my view as I took a deep sip of iced—double-distilled bristic.
A cold burn numbed my mouth and throat, and my hand started to drop. Fingers nipped the goblet from mine before I could spill it. I realized I had been about to spill it and I wondered vaguely how I’d gotten so clumsy. My hand seemed detached from my body.
Even farther away was Tamara’s voice. “Did you really fight a duel to the death with our late king?”
“It was more of a duel to the—” I felt the room lurch as I stood up.
That was a mistake.
“A duel,” I repeated slowly, “to—” I wetted my lips again. “To—burn it! I actually had a witty saying. Fer onsh…once. What’s wrong with my mouth? A duel to the dust!” I giggled inanely, then noticed that no one else was laughing. I blinked, trying to see, to explain. “He knocked me outa the saddle…y’see…an’ I fell in the—in the—”
Words were no longer possible, but I hardly noticed. The room had begun to revolve with gathering speed. I lost my footing and started to pitch forward, but before I could land on my face, strong hands caught my shoulders and righted me.
I blinked up into a pair of very dark eyes. “You’re not well,” said Savona. “I will escort you to the Residence.”
I hiccupped, then made a profound discovery. “I’m drunk,” I said and, as if to prove it, was sick all over Lady Tamara’s exquisite carpet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I woke up feeling terrible, in body and in spirit.
I recalled Nee’s exhortations about drinking, and control, and how it was a sure way to social ruin. Our grandparents had apparently considered it fashionable to drink until one was insensate, but during Galdran’s threat, that had changed. Was I socially finished?
A light scent like fresh-cut summer grass reached me; I turned my head, wincing against the pounding inside my skull, and saw a teacup sitting on a plate beside my bed. Steam curled up from it. For a time I watched the steam with a strange, detached sort of pleasure. My eyes seemed to ache a little less; the scent made me feel incrementally better.
“Can you drink this, my lady?” Mora whispered.
I turned my head. “Mora,” I croaked. “I think I got drunk.”
“Yes, my lady.”
I sighed, closing my eyes.
“Please, my lady. Do drink my elixir. It’s a special one.”
Groaning and wincing, I sat up, took the cup, and sipped the liquid in it. The taste was bitter and made me shiver, but within the space of two breaths I felt a wondrous coolness spread all through me. When I gulped down the rest, the coolness banished most of the headache.
I looked up at Mora gratefully. She gave me a short nod of satisfaction, then said, “I have laid out your dressing gown.” And noiselessly she left.
So I was alone with my regret. I sighed, and for a long, pleasant moment envisioned myself sneaking out in my nightdress, grabbing a horse from the stables, and riding hard straight for home. Tlanth was safe. Tlanth was friendly and honest and respectful. Mother was right, I thought aggrievedly. Court was nothing but betrayal in fine clothing.
I certainly hadn’t meant to get drunk. And Tamara had certainly made it easy for me, keeping my cup filled; but of course she hadn’t forced me to drink it. Whether she meant it to happen or not, there is little purpose in blaming her, I thought morosely. That was the coward’s way out.
And so was sneaking to Tlanth, leaving Nee and Bran to face the inevitable gossip.
No, I’d have to brave it out; and if people really did snub me, well, a snub wasn’t permanent like a sword through one’s innards. I’d live. I’d spend my time in the library until the wedding, and then ride home.
This plan seemed eminently reasonable, but it left me feeling profoundly depressed. I rose at last, reaching for my dressing gown so I could go downstairs to the bath. My spirits were so glum I almost overlooked the two letters waiting on my writing table.
When I did see them, my heart gave one of those painful thumps, and I wondered if these were letters of rejection. The top one had my name written out in a bold, slanting hand, with flourishing letter-ends and underlining. I pulled it open.
My Dear Meliara:
You cannot deny me the pleasure of your company on a picnic this afternoon. I will arrange everything. All you need to do is appear and grace the day with your beautiful smile. To meet you will be some of our mutual friends…
Named were several people, all of whom I knew, and it ended with a promise of undying admiration. It was signed Russav.
Could it be an elaborate joke, with me as the butt, as a kind of revenge for my social lapse? I reread the note several times, overlooking the caressing tone—I knew it for more of his flirtatious style. Finally I noticed the lack of Tamara’s name among the guests, though just about all of the others had been at the party the night before.
A cold sensation washed through me. I had the feeling that if anyone was being made a butt, it was not Meliara Astiar, social lapse notwithstanding.
I turned to the next letter and was glad to see the plain script of my Unknown:
Meliara—
In keeping faith with your stated desire to have the truth of my observations, permit me to observe that you have a remarkable ability to win partisans. If you choose to dismiss this gift and believe yourself powerless, then of course you are powerless; but the potential is still there—you are merely pushing it away with both hands.
Ignorance, if you will honor me with permission to take issue with your words, is a matter of definition—or possibly of degree. To be aware of one’s lack of knowledge is to be merely untutored, a state that you seem to be aggressively attempting to change. A true ignorant is unaware of this lack.
To bring our discourse from the general to the specific, I offer my congratulation to you on your triumph in the Affair Tamara. She intended to do you ill. You apparently didn’t see it, or appeared not to see it. It was the most effective—perhaps the only effective—means of scouting her plans for your undoing. Now her reputation is in your hands.
This is not evidence of lack of influence.
And it ended there.
Two utterly unexpected communications. The only facts that seemed certain were that the Unknown had been at that party and like Savona (maybe it was he?) had sat up very late penning this letter. Or both letters.
I needed very much to think these things out.
Nee tapped outside my door and asked if I’d like to go down to the baths with her.
“How do you feel?” she asked, looking concerned, as we walked down the stairs.
My entire face burned. “I suppose it’s all over Remalna by now.”
She gave me a wry smile. “I think I received six notes this morning, most of which, I hasten to add, affirm their partisanship for you.”
Partisan. The term used by the Unknown.
“For me?” I said. “But I got drunk. Worse, I got sick all over Tamara’s carpet. Not exactly courtly finesse.” I ducked my head under the warm water.
When I came up, Nee said, “But she was the one who served an especially potent punch, one they all knew you probably hadn’t tasted before, as it’s a Court delicacy…” She hesitated, and I hazarded a guess at what she was leaving out.
“You mean, people might want to see Tamara in trouble?”
She nodded soberly.
“And apparently I can do something about that?”
“All you have to do is give her the cut,” Nee said quietly. “When you appear in public, you don’t notice her, and she’ll very shortly come down with a mysterious ailment that requires her to withdraw to the family estate until the next scandal supplants this one.”
“Why would she do it?” I asked. “I am very sure I never did anything to earn her enmity.”
Nee shrugged. “I can’t say I understand her, cousins though we be. She’s always been secretive and ambitious, and I expect she sees you as competition. After all, you appeared suddenly, and it seems effortless how you have managed to attract the attention of the most eligible of the men—”
I snorted. “Even I know that a fad can end as fast as it began. Savona could get bored with me tomorrow, and all the rest would follow him to the next fad, just as if they had ribbons tied round their necks and somebody yanked.”
Nee smiled as she wrung out her hair. “Well, it’s true, but I think you underestimate the value of Savona’s friendship.”
“But it isn’t a friendship,” I retorted without thinking—and I realized I was right. “It’s a flirtation. We’ve never talked about anything that really matters to either of us. I don’t know him any better now than I did the first day we met.” As I said the words I felt an unsettling sensation inside, as if I were on the verge of an important insight. Pausing, I waited; but further thoughts did not come.
Nee obviously thought that sufficed. “If more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, and how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect there’d be more happy people.”
“And a lot fewer poems and plays,” I said, laughing as I splashed about in the scented water.
Nee laughed as well.
oOo
We talked more about what had happened, and Nee maintained that Savona’s picking me up and walking out was the signal that had finished Tamara.
This made me wonder, as I dressed alone in my room, if there had been an unspoken struggle going on all along between the two of them. If so, he’d won. If she’d been the more influential person, his walking out with me would not have mattered; her followers would have stayed and dissected my manners, morals, and background with delicacy and finesse and oh-so-sad waves of their fans.
And another thing Nee maintained was that it was my forthright admission that I was drunk that had captivated Savona. Such honesty was considered risky, if not outright madness. This inspired some furious thinking while I dressed, which produced two resolutions.
Before I could lose my courage, I stopped while my hair was half done, and dashed off a note to my Unknown:
I’ll tell you what conclusion I’ve reached after a morning’s thought, and it’s this: that people are not diamonds and ought not to be imitating them.
I’ve been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don’t like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon.
Apparently some people thought it took amazing courage to admit that I was drunk, when it was mere unthinking truth. This is sad. But I’m not about to pride myself on telling the truth. Reacting without thinking—even if I spoke what I thought was true—has gotten me into some nasty situations during the recent year. This requires more thought. In the meantime, what think you?
I signed it and got it sent before I could change my mind, then hastily finished dressing. At least I wouldn’t have to see his face when he read it, if he deemed it excessively foolish.
Wrapping my cloak closely about me, I ran down the Residence steps, immediately left the flagged pathway, and faded into the garden.
One thing I still remembered from my war days was how to move in shrubbery. With my skirts bunched in either hand so the hems wouldn’t get muddy, I zigzagged across the grounds so that no one would see me. I emerged from behind a screen of ferns and tapped at the door at the wing of the Chamadis House where I knew that Tamara had her rooms.
The door was opened by a maid whose eyes widened slightly, but her voice was blank as she said, “Your ladyship?” She held the door close, as if to guard against my entry; I expect she would have denied me had not Tamara herself appeared in the background.
“Who is it, Kerael?” The drawl was completely gone, and her voice was sharp with suppressed emotion—I almost didn’t recognize it.
In silence the maid opened the door wider, and Tamara saw me. Her blue eyes were cold and angry, but her countenance betrayed the marks of exhaustion and strain. She curtsied, a gesture replete with the bitterest irony; it was the bow to a sovereign.
My face and neck burned. “Please. Just a bit of your time.”
She gestured obliquely. The maid stepped aside and vanished through the tapestry across the room. I walked in, and we stood facing one another alone in a lovely anteroom in shades of celestial blue and gold.
She took up a stance directly behind a chair, her spine straight, her hands laid atop the chair back, one over the other, the image of perfect control. She was even beautifully gowned, which made me wonder if she had been expecting someone else to call.
She stared at me coldly, her eyes unblinking; and as the silence grew protracted, I realized she would not speak first.
“Why did you get me drunk?” I asked. “I’m no rival of yours.”
She made a quick, sharp gesture of negation. A diamond on her finger sparkled like spilled tears, and I realized her fingers were trembling.
“It’s true,” I said, watching her bury her hands in the folds of her skirts. “What little you know of me ought to make one thing plain: I don’t lie. That is, I don’t do it very well. I don’t fault you for ambition. That would be mighty two-faced when my brother and I plotted half our lives to take the crown from Galdran. Our reasons might be different, but who’s to fault that? Not me. I gave that over last year. As for Savona—”
“Don’t,” she said.
“Why?” I demanded. “Can’t you see he’s only flirting with me? I don’t know much of romance—well, nothing, if you only count experience—but I have noticed certain things, and one is that in a real courtship, the two people endeavor to get to know one another.” Again I had that sensation of something important hovering right out of my awareness, but when I paused, frowning—trying to perceive it—my thoughts scattered.
“I think,” she said, “you are being a trifle too disingenuous.”
I sighed. “Humor me by pretending I am sincere. You know Savona. Can’t you see him making me popular just to…well, prove a point?” I faltered at the words pay you back for going after Shevraeth and a crown?
Not that the meaning escaped her, for I saw its impact in the sudden color ridging her lovely cheeks. Her lips were pressed in a thin line. “I could…almost…believe you had I not had your name dinned in my ear through a succession of seasons. Your gallantry in facing Galdran before the Court. The Astiar bravery in taking on Galdran’s army with nothing but a rabble of half-trained villagers, on behalf of the rest of the kingdom. Your running almost the length of the kingdom with a broken foot and successfully evading Debegri’s and Vidanric’s warriors. The duel-to-the-death with Galdran.”
I had to laugh, which I saw at once was a mistake. But I couldn’t stop, not until I saw the common omission in all of this: my disastrous encounters with Shevraeth. Had he spoken about my defeats, surely this angry young lady would
have nosed it all out—and it was apparent she’d have no compunction about flinging it in my teeth.
No. For some incomprehensible reason, he hadn’t talked about any of it.
This realization sobered me, and I gulped in a deep, shaky breath.
Tamara’s grimness had given way to an odd expression, part anger, part puzzlement. “You will tell me that your heroism is all lies?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “But it’s—well, different. Look, if you really want to hear my story, we can sit down and I’ll tell you everything, from how I ran about barefoot and illiterate in the mountains joyfully planning our easy takeover, right down to how Galdran knocked me clean out of my saddle after I warded a single blow and nearly lost my arm in doing it. I think he attacked me because I was the weakest—it’s the only reason that makes sense to me. As for the rest—” I shrugged. “Some of it was wrong decisions made for the right reasons, and a little of it was right decisions made for the wrong reasons; but most of what I did was wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. That’s the plain truth.”
She was still for a long, nasty space, and then some of the rigidity went out of her frame. “And so you are here to, what, grant mercy?”
I closed my eyes and groaned. “Tamara. No one knows I’m here, and if you don’t like my idea, then no one will know I was here unless you blab. I won’t. I wondered, if I invite you to come with me to Savona’s picnic this afternoon, think you things might go back to how they were?”
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