The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1: Embers

by Abigail Hilton

  Chapter 25. Shinies and Lord Holovar

  Zeds are zebra shelts, and evidence suggests that they are not long-time residents of Wefrivain at all, but were imported from the Lawless Lands for hunting on Maijha Minor. They have some traits in common with the hunti, including a female-dominated warrior culture. Of all the creatures living on Maijha Minor, the zeds seem to embrace their predicament most readily. They regard themselves as hunters of grishnards, rather than game animals.

  —Gwain, The Non-grishnards of Wefrivain

  Silveo reappeared half a watch later dressed in his zed-skin pants and frilly, white silk shirt. He wore a red felt hat with a monstrous canary yellow plume, a pegasus-skin cape of brilliant purple and gold feathers, and his bright yellow boots. He had three earrings in one ear and five in the other, in a variety of shapes and colors. He’d braided tiny golden bells on golden thread into his tail and re-kohled his eyes so that the pale blue irises flashed in the fading light.

  Gerard stared at him. Silveo grinned back. “Do I look like a more expensive version of something from the pleasure districts of Sern?”

  “I wouldn’t have said it that way.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t. You would have just grimaced and given me that look.”

  “What look?” asked Gerard, but Silveo only sniffed and flipped his tail.

  Thessalyn had come cautiously up on deck to stand in the late afternoon sunlight. “Let me see,” she said. Silveo let her fingers dance over his attire. Thessalyn giggled when she got to his earrings. “Silveo, this is a lot even for you.”

  “I know,” he said. “I jingle every time I turn my head.” He demonstrated. “And you didn’t ‘see’ my tail. Listen.” He waved it, and the bells rang merrily.

  “Are you trying to annoy Lord Holovar?” asked Thessalyn.

  “The lady is brilliant. I am trying to be completely shocking and offensive.”

  “I think you’ll succeed,” said Gerard.

  “Are you coming with us, Thess?” asked Silveo.

  Thessalyn hesitated. “I—I’d rather not. Unless you really want me to.”

  Silveo shook his head, earrings tinkling. “No, stay here. I will order something edible brought to your cabin and someone to read to you while you eat it. Or you can play and sing. Whatever suits. You don’t have to touch this island if you don’t want to.”

  Alsair wanted to come, but Gerard shook his head. “Father will regard you as a weapon. I might as well walk in there with a drawn sword.”

  “I am a weapon,” growled Alsair. “Weapons keep you safe.”

  “Not when they’re seen as a threat. You’ll only end up in a fight with some of the other house griffins. There are lots of them and only one of you. Please honor what I told you earlier.”

  A quarter watch later, a lantern-lit boat put out from the pier and glided towards them. Farell and his ten captains were all dressed in quieter clothes, ready for a formal dinner. “I’ll tell you something else about shinies,” said Silveo to Gerard while they waited. “I’m not just invisible when I’m not wearing them. I’m invisible even when I am.”

  Gerard thought about that.

  “I poisoned a shelt one time while he was looking right at me,” continued Silveo. “I was wearing these earrings, in fact, and he just couldn’t get his eyes off them. I reached over and dumped felbain in his glass, and he didn’t even notice.”

  “You’re not planning on poisoning my father?” asked Gerard in some alarm.

  “Probably not,” said Silveo. “What’s his name anyway?”

  “Mishael. But no one ever calls him—”

  He saw Silveo’s grin and shook his head. “He has a temper, Silveo. Be careful.”

  “Does he have a wife?”

  “Not unless a lot has changed. Mother died when we were young, and he never remarried.”

  Something in Gerard’s voice must have betrayed him, because Silveo turned to look at him. There was a long pause, and then Silveo thumped his bells against the side of the ship. “Very occasionally I am slow, but I do catch on in the end.”

  You’re never slow, thought Gerard. You are annoyingly not slow.

  “He wanted Thess, didn’t he?”

  Gerard said nothing.

  “Yes, yes,” Silveo continued. “No wonder he paid for her schooling—pretty, talented girl. He probably thought he’d bought her.”

  Gerard scowled. He drew a deep breath. “Most minstrels are sons or daughters of great houses, and they marry well. Females of humble birth are in a tough position and often end up as court mistresses to some great lord.”

  Silveo shrugged. “One could do worse than Lord Holovar.”

  Gerard looked up at the night sky. I loved her, and he didn’t. But you really don’t know what that means, do you? “One day, I remember we were walking on the beach—he and Jaleel and I and several of his councilors. Thess had come, and she was trailing behind, feeling with her paws for shells, the way she likes to do. She was wearing an expensive gown, and it would trail in the sand every time she bent over to pick one up. My father saw her, told her to stop; the gown was too expensive to be doing that. She protested, and he hit her—casually across the face, the way you might slap a dumb animal that was misbehaving.” She looked so surprised, so lost, so hurt.

  Silveo’s eyes had narrowed to slits. Gerard couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Finally, he said, “Did he ever hit you?”

  Gerard was taken a little off guard. “Sometimes—not often and never to wound. He would never have married Thess. That might have confused the succession. He would have cared for her children, of course, and for some girls that would have been enough. But Thess…symbols mean a lot to her, and being hit—”

  “I know all about being hit,” snapped Silveo. He said nothing else for the rest of the ride to the pier.