Banner of the Damned (22 page)

“I dealt with the politics so that you could preside with grace and the ease of detachment from political machinations. You would have begun learning had you been declared heir. But now Alian is here to take that responsibility, so your responsibility is to bring me a strong alliance with another kingdom—one that permits me to get a harness on Gaszin and Altan at last.” Hatahra lifted her gaze to her sister’s stricken eyes. “Lasva, I speak only of treaties. I’m a tough negotiator. As I said, you shall have the choosing of your royal prince or king, I promise you that.”

Hatahra’s eyelids narrowed as she studied her beautiful sister in exasperation and tenderness. “You are not pleased?”

Lasva’s fan swept in the pretty arc of Harmonious Assent. “It is so soon to think of having to leave Alsais.” She despised the lie—she despised herself for lying—but she could not bring herself to believe that all her careful plans, talked through so lovingly the night before, might be smashed.

Hatahra touched her sister’s wrist. “I know you love life in Alsais. Of course you do. Our city is the fairest in the world. The pleasures of our court the finest, even surpassing Sartor, I do believe, though the Sartorans might say differently.”

Lasva said, with a little of her sister’s irony, “But?”

“But think. If you were to stay—if we did not need a good, strong treaty—the years would pass in an eyeblink, until one day you would come downstairs at the beginning of the season to find a sixteen-year-old Royal Princess there to take precedence of you, and thereafter you’d dwindle into an aunt, sought more and more by those who wish you to serve as conduit to either me or my daughter. I would give you a better life than that.”

Hatahra stopped there. She had her own secret thought. She had looked down into the little face born that day, and in spite of a mother’s enchantment with her infant, she had seen vestiges of her own plain features with perhaps her consort’s big ears and hawk nose.

Lasva had been beautiful from the moment of birth and would remain so until she died, and what kind of problems might arise from the future heir being overshadowed by her aunt? Humans, Hatahra thought,
of whatever degree, however refined their education, have a tendency to behave like humans. And jealousy is a distinctly human trait. Time to give Lasva—whose looks were the fault of their shared ancestors—some alternatives.

Lasva seemed startled at the idea, her sky-colored eyes round. Then she made a wry face, dimples winking in her cheeks. “The only two unwed kings I know of I would not court.”

“I know. We will certainly leave out the cursed Chwahir, though I think they would do better for a queen. Even if that braying Jurac comes riding through Lily Gate to offer you a crown, I will not have you any Lammog.”

Lasva winced, remembering the story of the Chwahir Queen Lammog who had been murdered by her brother the century before, some said for being too popular.

“Ah-ye,” Lasva whispered, thinking of awkward Jurac, who’d been so grateful to be taught to dance. She’d felt sorry for him, but pity was no reason to marry.

The carillon rang in the distance, signaling Hour of the Leaf.

“I had better dress,” Hatahra said.

Lasva began her curtsey, then paused. “My birth.” Her fan opened at a pretty angle, indicating Discreet Inquiry, but the unhappiness of her lifted gaze was revealing. “I always thought it was caprice that caused our mother to try the Spell. Marnda has said more than once it was her age, and a wish to see the sweetness of youth before she died.”

Hatahra’s brow was severe. “That’s because Marnda doesn’t know the truth. None of them do. Our mother was even more private than I am, and our battle of wills, harsh as it was, stayed between us. Very well, then, here is the truth, but do not imagine the telling any kind of allusion: I preface it by pointing out that all our lives I have avoided forcing you into choices.”

Lasva curtseyed. Her sister’s low tone warranted no less.

“I wanted to marry,” Hatahra said, speaking with care. “It doesn’t matter who. The fellow came from a family known for being dashing and attractive, both men and women. In short, I was in love with him, and I can see now—as our mother did then—that he was in love with the idea of acting the part of a king. A dashing king, of course.” She grinned. “I will say he had little desire for power, only for the fun of presiding artistically—making ‘dashing’ the royal mode, you might say.”

Lasva closed her fan, hiding her hands in the soft folds of her skirt.

“But being dashing is not the purpose of a king—not of a kingdom the
size of Colend, with its unending demands. Besotted, I did not see this, or pretended I didn’t see it. I insisted on marriage, not mere ribbons, or the private agreement of a consort: a ring-marriage with promises of fidelity, which I claimed were for love but, actually, I thought to bind him. Hum-bumbler that I was! You do not bind others, they bind themselves. My mother said that if I married him, I would not inherit the crown. Instead, she would try the Birth Spell. I did not believe she would—that she could have any success—but that very night she spoke the words, and there you were. I had to make my choice at that moment, or she would have declared you the heir the next day.”

Lasva’s chill spread to her limbs. “How—did your favorite—?”

“Oh, he didn’t dust off the moment he realized he would never rule Colend. He had far too much style for that. But each day I could feel his attention wandering farther afield, and by summer I knew that he was courting someone else. He professed eternal love for me, but by then I had faced the truth: he was in love with what I could give. He did not ever know me. Within five more years, my own eternal love had dwindled to indifference, and I thought I was in love forever with Mathias Altan. Which in turn didn’t last.”

She touched Lasva’s wrist again. “It’s the way of human nature, despite all the songs.”

“S

Ananda Gaszin glanced at the fine pearls Isari had threaded through her bright red hair and looked away again. Pearls! In the morning! The Icicle Duchess’s fashion. Court had become both expensive and… strange, since Carola Definian began hosting such expensive parties that few dared compete.

Ananda flicked her fan up in a graceful whirl, languidly fanning her face without disturbing a single corn-silk curl. Pearls… but Isari did not have a lover’s ribbon in her morning hair dress any more than the Icicle Duchess Carola did.

They were joined by tall, thin Sharith, recently betrothed. Sharith’s mouth twitched. “Let us enjoy the fragrances, shall we?” And her fan opened slowly

Time to talk over the astonishing news: the queen had an heir at last. What did it mean—besides Princess Lasva being changed from conjectural heir to marriageable princess? They stepped along the mosaic pathway leading to the conservatory, their draperies fluttering in the slow, aromatic breezes that flowed off the canals and over the palace gardens.

Low couches shrouded by planters made inviting circles throughout the space. There was no obvious center and certainly no dais or throne.
The focus of the room was inevitably toward the fern-shaded, grassy area near the waterfall, where the queen sat. Those who wanted her attention made it their business to place themselves as close to that miniature dell as their rank permitted—or as need required.

The three ladies were joined, at languid pace, by a fourth: Fiolas, whose lateness and tired eyes were noted by the others. Her abundant brown hair was done up in a charming disarray, scarcely curled, as though she had risen in haste—The Fresh Arising. Behind her back, Carola’s eyes semaphored to anyone watching about the vulgarity of a style at least three years out of fashion. Not that Carola cared anymore, with her heart’s desire so close to her grasp, but she did not have him yet, and it would not do to reveal anything until she did.

So she commented on life’s ironies in the language of the fan, as though nothing else were on her mind, as Sharith flicked her skirts with one hand, her ribbon-tied wrist arched. Ananda held out her arm and Fiolas took it, her touch lighter than a butterfly’s wing. Isari smiled. The four young ladies known as Lasva’s Roses, once secure in their ascendance, would stand together.

“It is time.” Isari turned a shoulder in the direction of the conservatory.

Queen Hatahra, like her foremothers, did not care for trumpets. A single, pure
ting!
from a silver bell brought all to their feet. The Roses joined others already at their station near the pale yellow orchids as, through the main doors, the queen and Princess Lasthavais arrived together, followed by Davaud, the royal favorite who, by sharing parenthood, now would be confirmed as Duke of Alsais, which in the eyes of court established him as the Royal Consort.

The traditional responsibility of the Duke or Duchess of Alsais was defense of the royal city, though none had ever had to perform that duty. But the monarchs held the honorific in reserve for consort-parents whom they did not marry. As Duke of Alsais, Lord Davaud would now take precedence of the other dukes in his own right, instead of being conducted there on the queen’s arm.

Soft, modulated voices had scarcely carried over the sound of plashing water. At the sight of the bundle in the queen’s arms, the court bowed low, hands together in full Peace mode, acknowledging the queen and the new queen-to-be as the royal party made their stately way.

“So small,” Fiolas breathed through slightly parted lips. “And so unwitting of how much change she has made in so short a time alive.”

“Ah-ye,” Isari sighed behind her fan. The others knew she’d staked a
fantastic sum on Princess Lasthavais succeeding where no one had for four years: ribboning Kaidas Lassiter. “The Icicle Duchess will ring-shackle Handsome now.”

“Why should she want him as anything but a pillow boy?” Ananda’s fan twirled.

Isari drawled, “They say the Lassiters are near to broken, their debts are so large.”

Sharith said, “It’s the baron’s debts. Not his.”

Fiolas said in the soft courtly whisper, lips nearly unmoving, “And the queen hates the baron.”

They glanced across the artfully scattered groupings of courtiers (all actually in strict order of status), easily picking out the petite, fair-haired Carola, Duchess of Alarcansa, and near her, Young Gaszin, wearing her colors in his nail lacquer and talking idly with a couple from Ranflar.

Carola, who paid no heed to Young Gaszin, shifted her gaze to the queen’s small bundle in its silken wrappings. A tiny fist was visible. Triumph made the edges of her vision glitter, but she banished it. She would not permit it until she had her heart’s desire.

Isari said, “The chase is no longer worth the garland.”

Sharith said, “You appear to think that she wants Kaidas solely because Lasva has him. Had him.”

“Lasva probably sent him a parting gift before breakfast,” Ananda said. “As for Carola, she’ll have my brother.” Ananda flicked her fan toward Young Gaszin. “The rest is persiflage.”

“Camouflage,” Isari said, fan hiding one eye.

Fiolas said to Sharith, “She chased Kaidas Lassiter simply because he didn’t chase her.”

Sharith expressed her disbelief with an artful twirl of her fan.

Fiolas flushed slightly, and slid her arm in Ananda’s. Neither of them had succeeded in catching Kaidas’s eye, and both had tried. As the two former rivals walked on, Sharith said, “Fiolas does not seek the simple motivation for simplistic comfort.”

“Nonsense. They all do,” Isari murmured. “All of them. Kaidas Lassiter is popular because he’s wayward. Ananda and Fiolas wanted him because they couldn’t have him. Carola wants him because Lasva has him.”

“I still cannot believe Kaidas and the princess are together. I have seen no sign of it.”

“That is why they are together. Or were.” Isari glanced at the queen. “To continue: Young Gaszin thinks he’s in love with Carola because she won’t have him.”

Sharith finished, “The princess collects hearts because she can—”

“
That
rumor is fog.”

Sharith sighed. “You see her the center of every group, courted by many, accepting none.”

“That much is true,” Isari said. “But she’s not heartless.”

“Then how did she get the reputation, in a court where hearts are hidden?” Isari marked.

Who hurt you?
Isari thought, but she said, “I wondered about that, after the whispers began before spring. Aunt Darva says that Tatia Tittermouse spread it about, and I believe her.”

“What do the old know? All I know is what seems most obvious: that everyone wants what they can’t have. It’s that simple. How absurd life is! I believe there is a poem in it.”

Already written a hundred times, if not more,
Isari thought as Sharith flicked her fan mockingly. “Everyone can see how
zalend
Ananda’s brother is for the Icicle. She and Young Gaszin will lead this court by next season.” She plucked a bud from deep down so the plant was not marred, and tucked it behind her ear.

Ananda and Fiolas had rejoined them. Ananda said, “I confess, court would be more fun if Young Gaszin reigned. His parties—always amusing. Remember when he invited those city guild hummers and convinced them the cook was his father? The way they bowed and scraped…”

Fiolas sighed. Few subjects were duller than past parties. “Wager.” She watched Ananda’s fan flick in Delicate Indifference, though Isari could see in the tightened grip that Ananda was not indifferent at all.
And isn’t that what makes court entertaining?

Ananda said, “I’ll wager The Icicle makes a move before we leave for Sartor tomorrow.”

“Young Gaszin,” Fiolas whispered.

“Altan,” Sharith drawled, just to annoy Ananda, who had been courting the heir to the Altan duchy. She did not want to see Ananda made a duchess.

“Never.” Isari surprised them all by saying, “Kaidas Lassiter.” Then, after another look at Carola, she surprised and intrigued them all by adding, “by tonight.”