Banner of the Damned (25 page)

I handed her my cloud blue linen, and she fled. I stepped into the hallway, feeling undressed in my white linen. I glimpsed her flitting to the maids’
entrance as she flung a neutral domino veil around over her head, transforming herself into a scribe sent on a private errand.

Then she vanished.

This was the customary resting time to recruit one’s energies for the night’s festivities. The hallways of the palace guest wing were mostly empty, doors closed, as Lasva traveled a circuitous route to the far end and then up the back stairs.

She crossed the landing in the upper level and saw the afternoon light glowing in a lengthening rectangle on the wall opposite his open door. Was he painting, then?

Lasva smiled. She did not begrudge anyone their lover’s cups. Her own was a precious secret, a gift of love—perhaps she was part of a secret bond of beloveds, a notion that partook of grace.

She stepped to his doorway, flinging the domino veil back so she could see, and he could see her. There he was, framed by the window. Painting, as she had surmised. She scratched at the door post, and he looked up swiftly, and there she was, robed simply in blue, the exact color of her eyes.

When he smiled, it was sudden, his own dear smile, but the warmth tightened to politesse, and that’s when Lasva saw the great blue gem gleaming on his breast: the famous Definian sapphire.

Her breath expelled. It was all the reaction she made, but color rose under the brown skin of his cheeks.

He set aside his paintbrush and bowed.

“Ah-ye, not that.” She flung up her palms.

He sat down again, more quickly than he’d meant to, his face blanching.

And for a painful stretch of time they stared at one another.

What could she say? She knew immediately what had happened: Hatahra had won. She had ridded herself of the Lassiters and broken the ducal alliance all in one blow. However it had come about, Kaidas had chosen duty over love.

She must leave but could not. Was there nothing left for her? She pointed at the cup, painted queensblossom in the royal blue and gold. “For the babe?”

He flicked his brush in Assent.

“A beautiful gift. My sister will be pleased.”

“I am nearly finished.” He saw her anguish, he heard it in her thready voice, and the pain made his chest hurt. He kept his hands steady by act of will, by not looking at her, though he could smell the clean wild-herb
scent she favored, and his heart labored, his knees trembled, and his hands faltered with the ache of wanting to hold her.

She stood there looking at that cup, and his hands painting the cup, because she couldn’t bear to turn away. The gem there on his breast forbade the direct speech that had been so brief and so precious a night ago. Honor required that much. It was for him to say what this token stood for. Some treaty marriages were in name only. But if he’d made such an agreement with Carola Definian, surely he would not be wearing her gemstone.

As the silence stretched she felt oddly dizzy. “Your plans,” she began, a catch in her voice.

“The Duchess of Alarcansa honored me with a request for my company,” he said. “We leave tomorrow, by her desire.”

Honor
. She could see the cost of those words. She heard that he took no pleasure in the words.

But he had spoken them.

So she forced a court smile. “I came to tell you. The Name Day celebration? At the sunrise room in the royal suite. Hatahra would be pleased to receive your gift from your hands.”

She was gone on the last word.

Behind her, Kaidas painstakingly set aside the cup and his brushes and paints. With equal care he set the remaining cups on the floor, each perfectly made, holding light within its circle.

Then he smashed them all to dust.

I whirled into action, dispatching the entire staff to put together a party suitable for a queen and a future queen; the kitchens had already begun the baking of the specialties appropriate to the day. The Grand Seneschal gave me the royal sunrise chamber, and loaned me a staff to set things up as Princess Lasva wanted them. I issued my orders as if they were hers, then dispatched an army of pages to inform the waiting court of time and place.

No sooner was the page gone than Carola sent her own page to Kaidas, to settle their arrival together. She could not wait for the pleasure of viewing Lasva’s face when they appeared, her future duke wearing her jewel.

And so the day closed with Lasva presiding with smiling grace over a charming Name Day party, the babe the center of talk, and Lasva serving
out the spun sugar queensblossom lily cakes and star-shaped berry tarts with her own hands.

Those on the watch for such things observed Carola and Kaidas arriving together. Attention arrowed straight to the gem he wore, and from thence to the princess, as he bowed before her.

She did not hold out her hand to be kissed.

The queen, observing over the babe’s lacy headdress, watched with approval as he laid the Alarcansa gem and Carola set the newly painted cup on the tray for gifts, then sat together on the opposite side of the room from Lasva.

Fiolas whispered to Ananda and Isari, “I shall expect my lengths of lace to match a traveling gown.”

T

She stared in resentment across the table at that hummer Nereith, without whose big mouth they never would have been living out this humiliation.

Nereith ate steadily, her lowered gaze never rising from her plate. The dinner was superb. The cooks were experimenting again, something light and delightful, tasting of wine and herbs and cheese, to serve Them if it was a success. But Torsu was too angry to enjoy it.

She was a dresser and good, too. She could unerringly cut a length of fabric by measuring with her eye. So why was she being treated like the stupidest shit-wander on the street, just for a comment about Princess Lasthavais that no one would have repeated anyway?

Here was the irony—the princess was far kinder than her noisome servants.

Several women laughed at the other end of the table, and Torsu grimaced, pushed aside her plate, and reached for the ice-drink. Even the
taste of lime and berry and a hint of apple, usually so refreshing, did nothing to cool the heat of her anger.

The Princess had gone to Sartor without any lovers. Her rooms had been thoroughly cleaned, all her remaining clothes taken out, mended, reordered against autumn. Dessaf should have said, “You’ve kept silence well, Torsu. You may speak again.”

Torsu turned toward the stable hands’ table and happened to catch the eye of the new bridle-man. He smiled and saluted her with a little lift of his cup.

Torsu didn’t smile back, of course. Just watch some poke-nose at her table see that and go chirping to that old toad Dessaf!

“And maybe a little more butter,” someone was saying.

Still talking about that humming cheese-pastry!

Torsu turned a little on her chair, so she could peek over at the stable hands’ table without being obvious. The bridle-man—what was his name? Kivic. He mostly sat alone, though sometimes the old coachman talked to him. Some said that he looked too much like a Chwahir, with his round, flat-cheeked face, but he wasn’t any Chwahir. Everyone knew they had black hair and pale skin, and he was normal brown with some darker freckles, his hair a rusty color.

“Nobody likes new people,” she thought, remembering how long it had taken to get anyone to speak to her after she’d been hired. Thinking back to her high hopes when she’d left her boring little town and her triumph at being hired at the palace after only four years’ drudgery in Alsais, made her lips curl sourly. She hid her face, pretending to drink. Dessaf had sharp eyes, the fat old claypot.

So why sit here? It wasn’t like she could speak. She left her dishes there for the kitchen maids. Let them do their jobs. She’d help them out if anyone ever showed the least sign of helping her out.

The air out in the vegetable garden was only marginally cooler, and the atmosphere felt thundery. Rain would be a relief. She breathed deeply, wishing she could shout to hear her own voice.

Only that would get her into trouble. She glared at the carrot tops. What made her furious, more than anything? That no one seemed to care that she couldn’t talk. After all those weeks of flattering the upper maids and pretending an interest in the other dressers, how far had she gotten? They knew her name, but none had spoken to her since Dessaf landed on her so unfairly.

“Hot night, eh?”

She whirled around, stared up into a round face. Kivic!

She nodded.

Kivic looked down into that mutinous face, the full lower lip, and laughed softly. He checked in both directions. “I know you cannot speak, though I don’t know why. But you can drink, yes? I have an ice-jug my cousin gave me, and it contains sweet wine. Surely you can spare enough time for a sweet cup of wine.”

She wavered. Dressers were forbidden to dally with other palace servants; that was the very first rule she had agreed to. For sex, they were to go, always incognito, to the pleasure houses where the crown-steward held an account.

But he wasn’t offering sex, only a cup of wine. And she was already laboring under the effects of one soul-sucking rule.

He leaned close. His breath stirred her hair. “I like silence. When it’s companionable.”

Her nerves tingled.

“Meet me on the north side of the winter-carriage barn. No one ever goes there in summer. I live right above.” His breath stirred her hair.

She whirled around and made her way through the extensive vegetable garden. When she glanced back, he was nowhere in sight.

She took her time, making certain every few steps that no one followed. When she reached the huge barn, the moon was now fully covered by clouds, and the heat was stifling. Thunder muttered in the distance.

“This way.” Kivic led her inside a narrow side door and up rickety steps. His room was at the top, tucked into a corner. Private, though it must be a longer walk to the stables.

The room was plain, clean, smelling faintly of oats and hay. He snapped his fingers and a small glowglobe lit. “Take my good seat,” he offered, shutting the door and pointing to a low chair near the narrow bed. “Few like being housed here, but I find it’s out of the way. The others are all gone into town to The Slipper,” he added. “So no one will see you leave.”

He didn’t say when that might be. Torsu watched him open a trunk and lift out a fine stone jug. It had moisture beads on the side, a sure sign of its being magic-made.

He pulled out a pair of plain cups, poured, and handed her one. “I salute us, the invisible newcomers,” he said, raising his cup.

She raised hers and drank. The wine was delicious. “How—” She remembered and stopped, blushing.

He shrugged. “Go ahead and speak. Who would I tell? I’m new,” he said ruefully. “No one ever talks to me.”

Who indeed? She sighed. “In truth, it feels good to speak,” she admitted. “How can you afford such a wine? It’s good.”

“Isn’t it? My cousin works at a vineyard to the north. He sends it to me.”

That was hardly sinister. Feeling relieved—she hadn’t even known she was uneasy—she sat back, sipping more.

“I probably shouldn’t say this,” Kivic admitted, laughing over the rim of his cup. “But you know what the stable hands call Dessaf?”

“I know the kitchen helpers call her Princess Pickle.” Oh, it did feel good to talk!

Kivic’s eyes quirked appreciatively. He had quite nice brown eyes. “That’s good. Her nose does have that shape, doesn’t it? Though I think the boys have it closer when they call her Gruska.” Gruska—the gray mushrooms found under trees after long rains.

Torsu groped for meaning, then the image came, superimposed over Dessaf’s sniffy face. “Ugly, and not even good to eat.” She burst out laughing, and Kivic leaned forward to refill her cup. “Oh, this is good,” she said, coughing, then wiping her eyes. Outside thunder rumbled closer, and fat droplets of rain tapped, pocketa-pock, on the roof directly overhead. “Just this, then I’d better go. I don’t want to get drenched. It would cause all kinds of questions.”

“That’s right, you girls are forbidden to consort with the likes of us, eh?” And on her nod, he sighed with disgust. “Is that because that old broomstick Marnda’s too dried up to ever look for a lover, and no lover with sight would look at Dessaf?”

Torsu snorted. “Ah-ye. They think that if we take lovers on staff we won’t be able to keep our mouths shut. As if we’re too witless to know not to blab—as if they wouldn’t find out! We can only go to the pleasure houses. You can’t even marry or have a child for ten years.”
Not that I want either
, she thought.
I have better plans than that.