Banner of the Damned (18 page)

It didn’t matter who I danced with. Male or female, they all asked questions about the princess. I returned the most boring and conventional politeness instead of answers.

The queen had still never spoken to me. From a distance I saw her summon Lasva, and from Lasva’s stillness understood that a conversation of import was taking place.

The queen, I had learned, liked everything orderly and important information imparted on important days. So I was braced when Lasva told me as soon as we’d reached her suite: “Hatahra wishes me to organize the Dance of the Spring Leaves for her this coming season.”

“Organize it?” I asked.

Lasva’s smile reminded me unexpectedly of the queen, who otherwise
did not resemble her beautiful younger sister at all. “Yes. She is annoyed with the dukes and duchesses.”

I put my hands together in The Peace, surprised to hear this small bit of politics. Queen Hatahra seldom referred to state affairs—even those touching on court—at these events.

I forgot that, when Lasva bent toward me and whispered the following. “She said that this year Midsummer, she will try again for an heir. As always. But here is where things change: she will try again every day thereafter, for one year. With Davaud and without. She will even take the hand of certain others whose families might contribute to a good heir, for you know the magic of the Birth Spell somehow partakes of both families.”

“Yes.”

Any talk about magic stirred my mind, but it would settle again like a pond left to itself. Scribes had nothing to do with magic. Instead, I considered this sudden second-hand confidence from the queen.

“And so, if by next Midsummer there is still no baby, then she will proclaim me heir. And begin my training in state craft.”

I had no words, so I only bowed.

“She asked if I should keep you, and I said yes. If you agree, and I am named heir, you will have to hire a staff, and begin your own kind of training, for we shall be plunging into diplomacy and matters of state.”

Her pupils dilated, so black I could see my reflection in them, as she asked, “Does this news please you?”

My nerves chilled.

“She said that whomever I choose to dally with, I must keep that part of my life and statecraft separate.” Lasva turned around, facing the beautifully gilt and painted walls sightlessly. “She also said that Carola Definian has spoken to her about the possibility of a marriage alliance with the Lassiters. The baron is enthusiastic on his son’s behalf.”

Of course. The baron’s debts were legendary. A third surprise. Was this a royal warning?

Lasva turned my way, her forehead troubled. “My sister said she favors the idea of Definian order taming Lassiter recklessness.”

Oh yes, it was a warning.

E

It was distant music that drew them, that Restday afternoon. Lasva and I sat in her outer chamber, cats rubbing against us and walking across our laps as she talked over her ideas for the Dance of the Spring Leaves, and I stored them all in memory, to later be written out neatly. It was excellent practice.

She’d opened her windows, though the air was chilly. The vents blew warm air all around us.

Through the windows drifted a series of braided flourishes, cadenzas spiraling upward, played by at least two flutes, sometimes three or more.

Then more instruments joined in so compelling and joyous a song Lasva faltered in the middle of a question, head raised. “Open air music, while there is still snow in the shadows? Let’s take a walk,” she said. “We can still consider ideas. You always remember everything anyway.”

We set out in the direction of the music—which ended before we reached the Rose Walk. But we had a destination: the winter garden terrace
at the extreme western end of the palace, hard against the Gate of the Lily Path, where Alsais’s gardens meet the palace gardens and many weddings are held.

Kaidas had heard it, too.

The iron-hard ground had loosened, breathing the clean scent of moist soil ready for the gardeners to bring out the bulbs and shoots. Grace-thin trees, silver-barked and bare, framed the south end of the Rose Walk.

We mounted the shallow marble steps before the Gate, the stone frigid under our walking slippers. Later I’d find out that the music was to accompany a wedding of two musicians. As soon as the ceremony was done, off they went to warmer air to celebrate.

By the time we arrived, the only sounds were the whisper of wind amid the budding twigs, the rustle of wintry-pale silk—and then breathing.

There were the subtle signs: the speculative glance, the quickened breath, the arch of neck and stillness of hand, the snap of interest between these two when we found Kaidas standing below the carved gate, thumb to cheek, chin resting on curled fingers, elbow on his other palm.

“I wondered,” he said, as if he’d expected us—maybe he had— “if the sounds I heard were summer’s music unborn. And if the metaphor of scent as modifier for the subject of love might be better replaced by sound.”

Lasva said in her court voice, “And so your wish is father to court’s deed?”

He evaded the question with his hands opened wide. “I hoped that it would be your wish.” The slight tilt to his head gave his quick grin the air of a challenge. “And your deed.”

“What about your wish?” Lasva had stilled. “Is my deed to form a garland blue-inked on your mantle?”

I cast a fast glance at Lasva. To bring up that countess or duchess in Locan Jora who’d displayed his pillow gift on her mantel was rude, and I had never before heard her be rude.

He bowed, amusement not only in his face but in the line of his shoulders, the turn of his wrist. “I stopped giving those damned cups away as soon as I found out about the display on the mantel.”

His tone was so genuine, his amusement so open, that Lasva relented enough for me to discern a change in her breathing.

“And the rumors about your skills as a lover? I take it you are fashioned like other men?”

Now I did not hide my surprise.

Nor did he. “I believe so.” He patted his chest. “The skills? Ah, that secret is no secret at all, not if you are fond of any kinds of animals.”

Lasva’s head lifted. “Animals?”

“Dogs. Cats. Horses. Run your nails along their skin, press your thumb over this muscle and that, and watch a dog’s bones melt. Cats, too. And humans. It’s the art of giving, not of taking, or of tending
melende
so closely that the simple pleasures diminish before the demands of grace.” He chuckled. “You know that twistling isn’t graceful if you’re really having fun.”

That surprised a laugh from Lasva. She turned. And turned back. “My feet are cold. I must go.”

He bowed, gave me a slight smile and a salute—quite proper for a scribe to whom he had not been introduced. He could have ignored me—etiquette declared I was invisible unless presented—but the friendliness of his easy gesture warmed me.

“Is that his secret?” she asked, when we were halfway along the Rose Walk. “He’s blunt?”

“You were blunt first,” I ventured.

“I was, wasn’t I? I don’t want to find him attractive, but I do. I have. Here’s what I just discovered: I suspect he doesn’t want to find me attractive, either.” She tipped her head. “Maybe that’s why it works, this manner of his. Of course this seeming spontaneity could be scheming.”

“It could,” I agreed. “But he seemed to be as interested in what you would say as you were in his words.”

“I know not to believe the flattery of those city plays—as empty as the flattery of court. But my dresser Anhar told me something that was said in
The Rose Veil,
which she thought I’d like. And that is, ‘The secret of her charm is to make everyone feel as special as one actually is.’ Here’s my point: I wonder if that is his charm. That he makes me feel… singled out.”

“You’ve been singled out all your life,” I said. “Did that make you
rafalle
?”

“
Rafalle
!” She repeated, and I don’t think she was pleased. “Is that my manner, then?”

I amended the truth. “It was today.”

“
Rafalle
.” She breathed the sounds. Then smiled. “It takes two to make the
rafalle
, sun and water. You are accusing me of
zalend
.”

I bowed, hands in full Peace mode, and we finished the walk in silence. Before we reached the entrance to the royal wing, she said, “I
think I will meet him again. Just once. But Emras, I don’t want anyone to know. So I will ask if you are willing to wear one of my rose gowns, one well known, and walk about in a domino veil, as if you were me. If everyone assumes you are me, no one would dare to approach you. I do not ask you to misdirect by words, only by appearance. But if it seems wrong—”

“I will do it.”

She lifted her face upward. “I shall find out the name of that song. Whatever it is, I shall think of it as
rafalle
.”

Three times over the next few days I walked around the garden, dressed in layers of mothwing silk, a veil floating behind me. I enjoyed myself, pretending to be a princess. I enjoyed the deference, though I knew it was not for me. I contemplated the absurdity of human social hierarchies—some are deemed better than others by accident of birth.

Two weeks later, the Duchess of Alarcansa arrived to settled into the newly decorated ducal wing.

Carola walked the perimeter of her party. It was daring, to use winter as her theme but she had counted on the spring warmth for contrast with the expectation of the Dance of the Spring Leaves in a matter of days, to be hosted by the queen herself.

Carola’s magic-flashed ice sculptures glittered with blue highlights, like mighty diamonds. How she loved diamonds! So brilliant, so commanding of the eye. Their complicated facets so precise. Her gown of ice blue glimmered with diamonds, as did her fair hair. She could see herself from every angle in the glass and mirror insets she’d added to the walls, which in turn threw back the light.

Everyone in court was here—everyone, even the queen, sitting there next to her hum of a sister. Carola was thoroughly sick of hearing about Lasva’s beauty, Lasva’s taste, Lasva’s kindness, but she could ignore it all as long as
he
could.

Carola smiled and slipped her fan into half-furl. Its intricately carved blades, set with a complicated line of silver, glinted on the back of the silk mount: Hatahra might not bring
melende
to the discourse but she embodied
melende
. Carola was courted by dukes in a silent power struggle with the same queen they chatted with so suavely. Carola wanted to laugh. How they must despise one another! Yet here they were at her party, by her will and desire.

All of court was here. She’d forbidden herself to look
his
way; already Tatia had spied out whispers. Yes, there was that red-haired Isari on the watch. Near her that snake Ananda. Carola laughed inwardly at the whispers about Ananda’s failure to attach
him
, though she’d contrived earlier in winter to get herself snowed in at the estate where he visited. If she had managed to bed him, she had not gained a lover’s cup for her efforts. Carola wanted to laugh every time she saw Ananda watching him.

On the other side of the room that bone-thin Sharith talked with two others, her restless gaze moving about. A Definian must never be the object of the gossips’ mockery. Carola gripped herself, consciously laying aside rage. Kaidas Lassiter was here. That was enough. Last year she had, perhaps, been too precipitous, and he was known for his vagaries—an unpolished gem. She would cut order into his life and polish it with passion, and he would glitter the brighter for reflecting her love.

Just one look. In a mirror, so nothing was direct.

She knew where he was—always—even without the sound of his voice amid a group of men. She turned her shoulder. The pearls looped through her high-piled hair trembled against her temples. She loosed a glance.

There he was, lounging against the back of a white-on-white brocade chair, his ring hand near that bore Rontande, who’d turned his head up to listen to whatever Sentis and Kaidas were saying.

But then Kaidas lifted his chin, ever so slightly. His breath stilled—Carola could see the pulse in his throat between the lappings of his velvet overrobe—she cut her gaze fast to see what drew those dark eyes—and there was the princess equally still.

Then the princess turned toward the queen, but Vasalya-Kaidas pushed away from the group and walked across the room as if drawn by an invisible thread.

Carola’s heartbeat drummed in her ears as he passed within touching range of the princess. They did not touch, they did not speak.