Neither Osane nor Koesta really thought the bene or Paglia’s spies would be fooled, but that was no reason to make their snooping easier. Tonight had been chosen for their caucus because the bene were occupied with the Shallan and Shallana’s reception for the consecratia. Thanks to Chancellor Paglia’s ill-considered spite earlier in the day, the bene had their hands full. Even Paglia’s hired eyes would be pressed into service over in the Great Hall.
That morning Paglia had swept into Varden’s chambers to find the dedre already there. Annoyed, he had requested that the cadia be excluded from the reception, since he, the bene and the other members of the High Council were always prohibited from the cadialana’s dinner for the consecratia. Osane had bitten back her laughter at the childishness of his request. And the fool actually thought Varden’s acquiescence was a victory in his favor! Who did he think would cook and serve his food and beverage, if not cadia-chatels? When he had arrived in the kitchen to supervise preparations that afternoon and found not a single chatel in sight, he’d thrown a tantrum of mythic proportions.
“Why, my Lord Chancellor,” Osane had exclaimed with mock surprise, “when you requested our absence I naturally assumed you meant all the cadia. Have you changed your mind?”
Osane’s study, nestled deep in the cadian wings, would be a hard place for any eavesdropper to reach unnoticed or lurk undetected. The room was inspected daily for signs of tampering; walls, ceilings and floors all received close scrutiny. Sisters well aware of their real purpose continually occupied the libraries on either side of Osane’s study.
“I do wish I could see what they’re doing over there,” Ofred said with a sly grin. “It would be right jolly sight, seeing those bene tripping over each other amongst all those pots and kettles.”
“I just hope they don’t burn the place down.” Laughter broke from Saluda of Shallanie’s pretty little mouth. A general merriment rippled around the room.
“Let’s get back to the matter at hand.” Osane fought a yawn. It was already well past moonrise and she’d been up since before dawn. “We have the votes from the secratarieas?”
Berene looked up and nodded. She motioned to a stack of small envelopes, their wax seals already broken and their contents tallied in her ledger.
“Yes.” The secretarie cleared her throat. “From the Techas, Apothecas and Luminas: Lillitha of Kirrisian. From the chatels: Iafrewn of Gezana. From the Philosophes and the Cadiasecratia: Oilival of Corellia.”
“And the Nicte?” Osane looked to Koesta for an answer. The cadia-nicte, or sisters of the shadows, was not organized along the same lines as the other branches, for good reason. Their existence was scarcely known outside the cadialana, their purpose a mystery to any but the Nicte themselves and the women now present.
“My sisters and I stand on opposite sides in this.” Koesta’s lips formed a tight line. “So it is under protest that I offer the Nicte’s choice of the Kirrisian girl.”
Osane ignored the murmurs though she was as surprised as the others. For Koesta to enter her sisters’ vote under protest meant she harbored strong feelings about Lillitha’s unsuitability. She had expected the Nicte—and Koesta in particular—to endorse the Kirrisian because of Yannamarie’s association. The Nicte had evinced an interest in the child ever since the House Kirrisian announced her dedication. They had specifically requested one of their own placed as Lillitha’s techa. The Nicte had given no reasons and Osane did not ask.
“Speak, sister,” Osane said. “We are listening.”
“Her aura, my lady. It disturbs me.”
“That’s all? Just her aura?” Osane’s brow wrinkled. It was unlike Koesta to be so vague, but then again the Nicte were a suspicious lot. The cadia paid great attention to the spiritual vibration humans gave off; Osane herself had been given pause by the darkness of the emanations coming from the girl, black and red touched with a hint of yellow.
“That’s ridiculous,” Ofred of Oneonata interjected. “The child has just lost her techa and that close on the heels of her brother’s death. I would be concerned if her aura did not contain a great deal of grief.”
Several of the women nodded their heads. It was obvious that the majority favored the Kirrisian.
“Tis not the grief that concerns me. It is the anger and the fear I see there, too.”
Ofred waved her hand dismissively. “Complex emotions are a sign of a highly developed mental capacity. Again, I find it very natural. To her credit, in fact.”
“Am I to take it that you are ready to cast your vote in favor of the Kirrisian?” Osane asked, craning her head to look at Ofred who was sitting behind her.
“Yes. I think she’s the obvious choice.”
“Do you take the responsibility of her sponsorship, then?”
Protocol required that each candidate having reached serious consideration should be championed by one cadia. The champion’s duty was to argue in that girl’s behalf, making a case for her selection as eloquently as possible while refuting any objections. Ofred, a large-boned woman of some sixty summers, nodded and rose to her feet.
“The House of Kirrisian traces it lineage back to Martel the Warrior, who fought with Belah throughout his campaigns from the very beginning; not, as I might add, as some of the other noble houses, who only came to Belah’s side after his second or third victory—”
This was a direct snipe at Oilival of Corellia, the second contender. Kittanning of Corellia stiffened in her chair, one sharp eyebrow raised as she glared at Ofred. The Corellians had been the last to join ranks with Belah. Osane sighed. Two hundred summers had passed and still provincial grudges flared, even among the cadia.
Ofred continued, ignoring the Corellian’s stare.
“Her family genealogy is impeccable—”
“Do you dismiss then her drunken grandfather and rogue of a brother?” Wrendala of Bann spoke. Her face was expressionless. Osane wondered if she truly objected or if she was simply playing opposites.
“Her grandfather served valiantly in the Legions for more than ten summers before a near-fatal wound returned him to his vidoran and the comfort of the bottle,” Ofred said. “The chief of the First Arm awarded him the Gilded Palm for bravery. As for the brother, he was not yet a fully bearded man. We can make no conjecture about how he might have turned out had he the chance to outgrow youth’s folly, now can we?”
“Your point is well taken,” Wrendala said, lifting her palm as a sign of her surrender.
“Thank you, sister. Next, Yannamarie’s record of her studies shows a keen curiosity and above-average intelligence. She is currently on her sixth language—”
“The others are barely out of their fourth,” Gevalini whispered with a proud smile.
“She scored the highest on the written examinations of scripture and not even Bene Geraud was able to stump her in the verbal. Any objections to her qualifications as a scholar?”
The cadia glanced at each other, some of them shrugging.
“Well, her scribing is less than perfect,” Berene, a lumina and prone to notice such things, pointed out. “And she’s very slow at it, too.”
Osane almost laughed at the petulance on Ofred’s face. Neska, the baby of the group, did laugh, then put her hand over her mouth guiltily.
“Well,” Neska exclaimed, gazing around the room, “it’s not as if the breda has to write, is it? Honestly.”
“Indeed,” snorted Belfoya of Gezana. “Why are we bothering with all this foolishness anyway? A hundred summers ago, it might have mattered whether the breda was a noble or a scholar. Here and now, we desperately need only one thing. Fertility. Will she bear a male child?”
Thick silence fell over the room. Several eyes darted warily to the dedre, who sat for a moment as if turned to stone.
“Yes,” Osane finally spoke. “Thank you, Belfoya, for pointing out the obvious with such tact. And as soon as you have another petal of wisdom for us, I’m sure you’ll speak up.”
Osane looked slow
ly around the room. “Do the rest of you feel the same? Should we dispense with tradition? Perhaps we should simply let Varden rut them all and see which one conceives before we make our choice?”
Belfoya’s eyes were bright in her flushed face as she blinked at the floor. The woman’s humiliation crept through the room, communicating itself to the rest of them until they all felt like rebuked children.
“I beg your pardon, sister-dedre.” Belfoya held out both her palms toward the heavens and spoke in the high tongue, using the ritual form of apology. “I spoke out of turn and without thought.”
“Oman grants your pardon, sister.” Osane rubbed her eyes. She despised herself for being so harsh but the last thing she needed was the eleven of them locked in a pointless debate. “We are all tired. Let’s get on with it.”
“Hum...uh, Lillitha’s family on both sides shows a long history of good health and fertility. No barrenness within ten generations. Her mother has borne five children. The two who did not survive still made it through the first summer...”
Ofred reeled off names and progeny for several minutes, concluding finally with the results of Lillitha’s physical examinations, which showed her to be in fine health.
“Lastly, I would make a plea on behalf of the House Kirrisian. I realize it’s completely beside the point, but we are all well aware of the dire circumstances of the family. Even is she is not selected breda, I move that Lillitha be accepted as a novice with full scholarly rights. It would be a shame to lose so fine a mind to the life that awaits her in Kirrisian.”
Kittanning stood and spoke on behalf of Oilival, though it seemed to Osane that the rest were merely being polite. It did not speak well for the Corellian girl that the only one who would champion her was of the same province. Such a breach in etiquette smelled of collusion in spite of Kittanning’s good reputation.
Pinday of Mannishulo stood up for Iafrewn. Her lack of enthusiasm was plain.
“I must confess I take her sponsorship out of duty to the memory of her great grand aunt, Shallana Silsbee,” Pinday said. “And the Gezanas are a fine house.”
Finally it was time for the dedre to speak her mind.
“Thank you, Kittanning, Ofred and Pinday. You have spoken and we have heard. Forgive me for not standing but my feet are killing me—”
There were smiles and soft laughter.
“I think we will all agree that Iafrewn is simply not cadian material. She is immature and a poor student, on both counts badly suited to life on the Isle. Also, she and Varden are third cousins. I know that is technically acceptable, but still a bit too close for my liking. The most favorable thing about her is the amazing procreative abilities of her mother—”
Again there was smiling and a few laughs. Good, Osane thought. No one was seriously considering the Gezana child anyway. The chatels had chosen her simply because of Silsbee or perhaps because Iafrewn looked like an easy mistress.
“Which leaves us with Oilival and Lillitha.” Osane motioned for Berene to bring her the tallies. The secretarie scurried over with the heavy ledger and laid it across the dedre’s lap, who studied the book for a moment and sighed heavily.
“As I suspected, the endorsement of the philosophes and cadiasecratia is weak at best. Oilival took the votes of both branches by a slight margin. I point this out to be fair; I do not want any bickering among the branches about favoritism.”
At this last, she looked pointedly at Cossit of Bethosa, a philosophe, and Kittanning, a lumina. The last time around, the cadialana had been mired for days in a contest of wills between these two branches, who had been violently opposed to each other’s choice purely out of some imagined slight during the championships.
“Oilival falls behind Lillitha in every category. She’s a fair student but not a well-rounded one. In every subject but philosophe she has little real interest. There is also an instance of barrenness in a cousin only once removed to consider and I cannot ignore a stubborn streak of independence in her nature which I suspect could prove troublesome.”
Osane held up her hand quickly as mouths opened. “I know—I know that sounds contrary to the order’s beliefs and my own, but no one can deny that patience must be a large part of the shallana’s nature. Oilival would be miserable once the gilding of her position has worn off.”
Even Kittanning was forced to nod in agreement. Oilival was obviously enamored of the title Shallana Breda; she had asked many questions about superficial things like clothes and private chambers, how many personal servants she would have, all ill-considered questions that caused the girl’s techa great embarrassment. But her responses to questions about how she might fill her day-to-day reality had shown a distinct vagueness.
On the other hand, Lillitha had smiled for the first time when asked the same question. The girl outlined a number of things she hoped to study, expressed a passionate interest in the palace libraries and asked if she might be allowed to weave with the luminas.
“What is your general opinion of the girl, sister-dedre?” Koesta asked. “You met with her in private, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I wanted to find out what she knew about Yannamarie. A beautiful child, doubtless, but more than that, profoundly intuitive and empathic. She seems unaware of this capacity or perhaps she believes everyone has the same talent. I say intuitive and empathic, not tadomani, though genealogy shows all three should run heavily in her family line. Her intuition is untrained, of course; Yannamarie’s notes spoke of it as well as her determination to keep the girl moving along the path slowly rather than risking too much knowledge, too fast.”
“You think the bene will accept her nomination?” This from Saluda of Shallanie. “They’ve already been arguing about her.”
“Yes and it’s stupid.” Osane frowned.
“What?” Neska asked, her childish face wrinkling. “Have I missed something?”
“Really, Neska,” Koesta sighed. “You are going to have to work on paying more attention. There is a faction among the bene who think that Lillitha is simply too beautiful. Leave it to them to find the most irrelevant issue and argue it to death.”
“Oh, dear,” Neska said. “You mean Bene Geraud has gotten off on Talibat’s Principle of Balance again? I thought they settled that nonsense summers ago.”
Bene Talibat, long dead, had postulated at length about the meaning of beauty. In the end, he concluded that too much of anything led to jealousy, envy, lust and covetousness. While he made some valid points about seeking balance in life, the cadia disregarded most of his teachings as simplistic.
“I think some of them are just afraid of her,” Gevalini interjected. “Beautiful women are always threatening to men who doubt their own self-control.”
“Yes. Rather than address the true issue in their own nature,” Saluda agreed, “they prefer to blame the women.”
That was the crux of the difference between the theology of the bene priests and that of the cadia. All too often, the bene seemed to be looking for perils and temptations that came from without, while the cadia were convinced that every truth lay within the human heart.
“Ridiculous,” spat Ofred. “They’d mow down a garden just to save themselves the temptation of picking a single flower. We all know women who waste time and energy with empty vanity, but I see none of that in Lillitha. I don’t think the girl even realizes just how lovely she is.”
“Then we are agreed?” Osane stood up, putting her hands to her aching back and stretching. “All in favor of Lillitha of Kirrisian, show your palms to Oman.”
For a moment, it looked as if Kittanning was going to fight, but finally she lifted her hand with all the others. Only Koesta’s hands remained by her side.
“Koesta, your protest has been recorded in the minutes,” Osane said. “Will you lift your hand for your sister-nictes?”
“As my sisters have voted,” the nicte said, raising her hand, “so I must give my consent.”
“Good. Then we have a unanimous choice. May Oman bl
ess Lillitha of Kirrisian. Now go to bed, my sisters.”
***
While Ofred was making her case on Lillitha’s behalf, the girl herself was pleading illness. She might have stomached the gray-coated men with their probing and questions, but the shallan’s glassy stare was more than she could stand. She would die if she had to stay a moment longer.
She’d stood patiently as the receiving line moved past the shallan’s couch at a snail’s pace, staring at the floor or the robes of Iafrewn in front of her, until suddenly she was standing before Varden himself. Propped up against his pillows, his balding head looked like a skull barely covered by papery skin, all sunken hollows and red-rimmed eyes that burned up at her out of a death’s head. She had been unable to tear her eyes away from the miraculously-breathing corpse before her until Chancellor Paglia grabbed her hand, trapping it between both of his slightly moist, cold palms. She scarcely heard his words, nodding automatically as she fought the rising tide of nausea. Death and despair hovered in the air and seemed to reach out for her, threatening to draw her into those dead eyes.
She stayed as far as possible from the shallan for the rest of the evening, only to find Chancellor Paglia dogging her every move with all the grace of a spoiled lap hound. When it looked as if the chancellor was not going to allow her to leave, Lillitha did something she never thought she’d do. She pretended to faint.
Paglia himself called for a litter and escort to see her back to the encampment, admonishing her with that merry grin of his to get some rest and be more careful of taxing her delicate nature.
She threw herself on her cot and sobbed into her pillow. The shallan was more horrible than anything she’d ever imagined. How could he look so dead and yet still live? The thought of those gnarled claws touching her, the sour sweat of the grave mixing with her own breath— oh, it was not to be borne!
She told herself it was wrong to judge him based on physical appearance; old age was a fact she herself would face one day. The mind and spirit inside that wasted skeleton might be beautiful, stunning in the depth and breadth of its knowledge. But try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself. If only he’d shown some spark of humanity, anything at all except that stony stare. The emotions she’d picked up from him were strange and overwhelming, so completely foreign that she could not even name them.
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