Banner of the Damned (9 page)

“Scribe Emras,” old Senior Scribe Selvad said, her voice wavering. “You are come before us for your final evaluation.”

I stood facing them, my hands together in the formal gesture of peace, and bowed my head so that my chin touched my fingertips. “I am.”

Senior Scribe Halimas tapped his finger on his bony knee, ignoring a sidelong look of mild affront from short, newly appointed Senior Scribe Aulumbe. “And so?” he prompted.

It was then that I realized that they were not to provide the evaluation. It was my responsibility.

I had to breathe to control my nerves, for hard as it had been to brace for the prospect of hearing all my faults and shortcomings enumerated by my seniors, self-evaluation would be much harder.

I said, “My best skills are art script and history. My parroting is best in our languages, but I usually test with high reliability at five thousand words in unknown tongues.”

“Good enough for your present post,” Senior Scribe Louvian observed, his red brows lifting. “But Princess Lasthavais may well be proclaimed heir, or she might marry a king. If you wish to remain in her service, I counsel you to continue in expanding your limit. The heralds are not released into regular service until they have highest reliability at twenty thousand words. You should make that your goal.”

“With respect, my dear colleague,” Senior Scribe Noliske said, her thin old fingers gesturing with grace. She was at least as old as Selvad, but her voice was firm, if husky. “With respect. If the princess marries abroad, the custom in Sartor is now for the home scribes to be left behind and fresh scribes appointed in the new kingdom. In fact, it is sometimes a note in treaties.”

“Quite right, quite right,” several murmured.

Senior Scribe Louvian lifted a hand in acknowledgement.

Senior Scribe Selvad turned her black eyes on me. “I counsel you to exert yourself to build rapidity in script. You are not quite fast enough for thorough accuracy at the pace of conversation, and such a skill might be required as the princess gains experience. She will not have the leisure to keep up with correspondence. You must learn to be fast and accurate under all conditions—perched at the edge of her bath, in the dark if she wishes to dictate letters before falling asleep, on a shred of paper if you are summoned at a meal and have only a pocket scroll.”

“Agreed, agreed,” echoed the others.

Then Senior Scribe Halimas said, “Now for your evaluation of us as instructors.”

There’s no use in reproducing my speech. It was as earnest and as pompous as we can be at seventeen, when we’re so sure we have the world figured out much better than our elders. My inner self brimmed with gratitude as I informed them that they had done well in training me, and they accepted that with the grace of long experience. I did see subtle signs (no more than a lifted shoulder, a slightly canted head) that they waited to hear what I would say about my six months of exile to the kitchen.

It would be a number of years before I understood the risk they had taken in so drastic a correction, not just in sending me away but in requiring me to study on my own for half a year. When I told them that I had returned from the kitchens to the scribe world to see it anew and to appreciate what I had chosen rather than accepting my training as my due—this shoulder dropped, that canted head tipped back, and the rustle that soughed through them reflected back to me as relief.

My heart expanded with thankfulness that their training had brought me to what I wanted most, and they were thankful that their experiment had produced such a well-trained, observant young scribe.

On the tri-toned notes of the Hour of the Seal, which is the time when the most formal contracts are traditionally made, Senior Scribes Halimas and Noliske each took hold of the shoulder of a new cloud blue overrobe and brought it to me. I slid my hands into the tulip sleeves with their cunning inner pockets, the open front placket falling over my white linen robe.

I was a scribe.

We celebrated by sharing the gold-edged cups of the complex golden wine called honeyflower. A perfect blossom floated in each cup—the highest accolade. The very best dainties, such as paper-thin carrot slices folded into the center of breads formed in the shape of a lily, were so light and delicate they melted in your mouth.

Then we rose, and for the first time I exchanged The Peace greeting as equals with my new colleagues.

Then, with the complex flavor of honeyflower still on my tongue, and my blood feeling as if it had been replaced by water (especially in my
knees) I made my first scribe journey to the princess’s suite. I knew I must arrive at the Hour of Spice, but I was so familiar with the palace and how long it took to get anywhere, I was not particularly anxious.

The royal wing lay behind the main building, separated by Alian’s Garden. The lower floor comprised the chambers used by the royal family for personal entertainments. The main building was not only for state events; the outer rooms could be utilized by courtiers who wished to host a public entertainment—the definition of “public” varying, because all of these were by invitation.

The simplest way to explain is that there were generally understood degrees of privacy and exclusivity. Where you chose to hold an event was a communication equally important as its guest list.

The royal wing, the most exclusive part of the palace, was to be my home. The royal family lived on the second story, and Princess Lasthavais had the entire western suite of rooms as her own, overlooking the Rose Walk, down which I had run to my Fifteen test. Beyond that path flowed the Canal of Silver Reeds, a tributary of the River Ym. The princess’s quarters were the most private, their serene view unimpeded by stables, servants, or petitioners.

The back and east side belonged to the queen and her unofficial consort, Lord Davaud, cousin to the Baron of Estan. The queen was an early riser, and she liked looking out over the outlying portions of the palace complex before she went to work in the mornings.

I crossed Alian’s Garden for the first time and entered the rose marble foyer of the royal wing, slowing so that I might reach the stairs when the bells began to ring the Hour of Spice. As the first note rang, thrilling me, echoing rapidly from wall to vault, I raced up the stairs then turned to the left as the last echoes died away.

A twelve-year-old page popped up from her bench, laid aside her stitch-work, glanced at my new cloud blue overrobe, and clapped her hands together in salute. “Scribe Emras?”

Scribe Emras! Oh the glory of an earned title!

I signed assent.

“I am to bring you to Seneschal Marnda. Please come this way,” she said, her enunciation formal, her gesture correct but too new to be natural.

I had memorized the names and positions of the princess’s staff, of course. Seneschal Marnda had once been first handmaid to the old queen.

The little page carefully opened the door carved with trumped vines and butterflies, and we entered a cool hallway with open arches leading
to a circle of rooms. The air smelled deliciously of fresh caffeo, which I was to discover was the princess’s favorite drink. The biggest room lay directly across from the carved door; blond wood and pale gold silk hangings made the most of the indirect light.

Though the tall, slender seneschal was the same age as the queen, her hair was still dark, her large, sunken eyes
sunrise
, that is, paler than her skin—like the princess’s. Only where the princess had inherited her great-grandmother’s remarkable blue eyes, Marnda’s were a subtle hazel.

Second most important on her staff was Head Dresser Dessaf, compact and gray-haired, with a quick, ever-alert gaze and a small, prim mouth.

They were both waiting for me but afterward, I almost never saw them together, they were always so busy.

There were sixteen more women and girls crowded into the room, the pages and housemaids against the wall, and those with skills—seamstresses, dressers—stood forward. All wore variations in the soft blue-shaded gray robes, some with peach-colored aprons.

“Welcome, Scribe Emras,” Seneschal Marnda said.

The page had vanished into a small chamber. She reappeared, her posture self-important as she carefully bore a beautiful silver tray with a service of pale blue porcelain cups with silver reeds painted in the harmonious pattern of
spring breeze
. The air filled with the perfume of wine as Seneschal Marnda poured, observing the solemn and graceful ritual.

“Let us celebrate your joining us.”

I thanked her with the customary words, then took the proper three of the bite-sized ceremonial breads, each perfectly shaped, as Seneschal Marnda named the princess’s staff. I was glad I already knew their names. Now I could put faces to those names.

“Scribe Emras, you may summon any duty page on the princess’s behalf. If you summon anyone else, it is a courtesy among us to include, at least briefly, the reason. That can save time, if an item is to be brought, for example.”

In other words, I could summon no pages on my own behalf, but this I already knew. Some scribes had their own staff. I did not. The possibility for such lay not only in my future but also in the princess’s. In the meantime, I must be my own page until ordered differently.

The seneschal said to the others, “In turn, you may not summon the scribe. If she is seated doing nothing, you may not assign her tasks. Her duty time will be different from yours. If there is a question of procedure, you bring it to me.”

Then back to me: “Within the princess’s inner chambers, we remove our house slippers and wear chamber slippers. We all keep pairs by our doors.”

I made The Peace. I already knew about courtiers and their costly carpets.

“In recreation time, the two back rooms are open to you, as to us all, and of course, there are the servants’ halls. We always have fresh caffeo and steep available. There is a strict rule, from the queen herself, against fermented or distilled drinks on duty.”

“What is your custom for meals?” I asked.

She made the two-finger gesture of appreciation for my discreet wording. “We do not know yet how your meals will fit into our practice. You might have noticed that my staff does not dine with the rest of the palace staff.”

I signed assent.

She continued, “We always have hot breakfast cakes, morning steep, and fresh caffeo in the sun room at dawn. For supper, you may join the queen’s personal staff who, you probably know, are served separately.”

A privilege indeed. Impressed as well as intimidated, I placed my hands together, and Seneschal Marnda mirrored The Peace, then dismissed the staff. She then showed me to my room, on the same hall as the princess’s outer salon. It overlooked the Rose Walk. The summer bed lay under the window, the desk and trunk against the inside wall on the low platform—the sleeping platform in winter, when the vents under it would be opened to the warm air of the furnace. This platform, and the narrow door at the other side of the room, were signs of prestige indeed: I would not have to retreat to a dormitory in winter, and further, I had my own entrance to the bath.

“You may call upon the services of Anhar once a week,” she said, and I remembered the personal dresser whose pale, moon-round face made me wonder if she were half Chwahir. Her hair was a dull shade of light brown not unlike mine. “I understand scribes like to keep their nails pared, so you may make private arrangements with her when she is not on call. Here you will see that we have put in one of the new cleaning frames.”

Marnda indicated the door to the bath. “If you haven’t time to bathe. You’ve only to pick up the wand there and then step through. The wand passing through the bespelled doorway enables the magic to function. You and your clothing will be clean, but the magic does not remove water, or wrinkles.” Then she added, “For intimate recreation, our rule is
to take it to the pleasure house. No staff relationships. We have an account at—” She bent and peered at me, her brow perplexed. “Are you old enough for this conversation?”

“I am nearly seventeen,” I said, with the dignity of the young. (At least she did not laugh.) I neglected to add, however, that although I’d had to say the Waste Spell to bring on monthly flow for half a year now, I as yet had nothing more than a vague, academic interest in sex.

“If you have questions, please come to me,” she said, and the subject rested there as she indicated my trunk, which had already been sent over.

On it sat a row of little notes, almost all folded in the congratulatory shape called
crowned lilies
.

Seneschal Marnda smiled as I bent over them, touching the largest of the crowned lily shapes, which was tied with a heavy white silk ribbon. I suspected this one was from my parents. Three of the others were tied by silk threads, most likely from fellow journey scribes, and one with a gold ribbon—it had to be an extravagance from my brother Olnar.

I smiled, moving to the blossom made of shell pink paper—Tiflis’s favorite—with a full ribbon. I stared at it, overcome with surprise and joy.

“I’ll leave you to—” began the seneschal, then halted at the sound of Princess Lasthavais’s voice from beyond the open door.