Havemercy (36 page)

It was then that th’Esar himself summoned me.

I was waylaid in the bathrooms—that my whereabouts was so easily discovered unsettled and unnerved me almost as much as what had passed a few moments before on the balcony overlooking the gardens—by one of his servants.

“His Majesty wishes to confer with you,” the messenger said, bowing low and all but tugging his forelock. He was obviously at a loss for what title, if any, he should employ when addressing me. I had as little idea as he for, of the two of us, it was quite clear to me he’d had the better breeding. Then again, as Rook had made perfectly clear, it wasn’t hard to be a better-bred man than I was.

“Ah,” I said, trying to gather my wits about me. “Yes. I shall . . . follow?”

“There is a more private way,” the servant said, still bowing. “If you will mark my lead.”

I followed him out into the hall as he walked calmly and unhurriedly past a group of three women talking to one another behind their fans. It hardly helped my composure that they were talking about Rook. I caught the barest threads of their conversation and felt my cheeks grow warm with anger.

It seemed I couldn’t escape him, not in dreams of flying or on a balcony at the ball—which was in some part supposed to have been my own small triumph, the perfect way to showcase what I’d accomplished with the airmen. I hadn’t heard any gossiping about any major and embarrassing incidents thus far, which would have seemed like its own small miracle were it not for the fact that I knew Rook had been far more occupied with tearing me down on the balcony than starting any trouble.

“Has he gone early?” one asked her closest friend. “Or do you suppose he’s found someone?”

“He can’t have done,” her friend replied, looking as miserable as I felt. “He never decides so quickly!”

“Yes,” said a third, who stifled a yawn with her dainty, silk-gloved hand. “I did think we had more time.”

Only my purpose anchored me as the servant cleared his throat, waiting for me to quicken my step to follow him, when we turned a sudden corner into an unlit hallway which, if pressed, I would have sworn hadn’t been there before.

“Come quickly,” the servant said, most politely.

I doubled my pace.

Here, the palace was almost deathly silent; it seemed that even the air possessed the same stultifying reverence as one found in a mausoleum or tomb. It was quite the contrast to the ceaseless noises of the ballroom, where the rustle of silks and taffetas, lowered voices and whispered gossip built to almost the same crescendo as the music. Even the countless flickering magic-lights had their own certain noise—a relentless, ceaseless thrumming, a music all their own—but here in the shadowy darkness of the hidden hallway, the only sounds that disturbed the absolute silence were my footsteps.

The servant’s footsteps made no sound at all.

I began to feel as if I’d entered into some secret world, one gravely different from my own. The change may even have occurred before Rook cornered me on the balcony, and I was too distracted by my own reckless temper and his taunting words to notice it.

The servant led me through the twisting halls, taking sharp turn after sharp turn, until I realized that the majority of our path was a complicated ruse designed to confuse me so completely I’d never be able to find my way in this direction again, even on pain of death.

The walls loomed narrow and tight at either side, and at times I had the slight impression that I was being led in a downward direction—countered only at times by having the slight impression of being led upward again. Occasionally I could discern certain shapes around me: the frames of paintings or heavy tapestries, a doorway, or what might have been a very old mirror. Yet as soon as I could make out what they were meant to be I’d already moved on.

At last, when I was disoriented and weary, the footman halted, turned neatly on his eerily silent heel, and bowed with a flourish to his left.

Where no doorway had been before—and this time I was all but certain—a delicate door swung inward.

“We are on time, I believe,” the servant said.

Not wanting to know what sort of punishment lay in store for making th’Esar wait, I stepped into the hidden room.

It was larger inside than I’d expected, the walls surrounding a long meeting table. At the end of the table I recognized th’Esar, who was seated and drinking dark wine from an exquisitely delicate goblet. Next to him stood a woman I vaguely recognized—all I could know for certain was that she wasn’t th’Esarina—and she, too, was drinking from a similar goblet, or at least holding it in one hand, while with the other she traced the rim round and round in deep thought. She was naturally very dark, with a sharp nose, and the makeup around her eyes and on her mouth was darker still, looking almost as black as her hair in the strange light of the room. If called upon to do so, I would have guessed she was a member of the old Ramanthe nobility; the structure of her face was nearly unmistakable. It reminded me of a portrait I had seen in my textbooks, of the velikaia Antoinette, who had been the previous Esar’s choice of bride for his son before it had been discovered that she hid a quiet Talent. The text went on to say that a marriage between the Volstovic nobility and that of the lingering Ramanthines would have been enormously prosperous, but unfortunately the plans had fallen through.

She bent down to say something private to th’Esar, and a black curl of hair slipped free of its complicated twist, resting softly against her sharp, bare shoulder.

Then they both turned and looked directly at me.

“Ah,” th’Esar said, beckoning me closer. “We have the Dragon Corps to discuss.”

I’d seen th’Esar before, but in the company of so many of his entourage that he was barely recognizable on his own. It was a foolish remnant of my childhood in Molly, but I was surprised all the same to discover that he was no more than a man—and a weary one at that, if those were more than simple shadows marring his face. He had a strong chin, and salt streaks in his red hair, and his face was powerful, if not entirely handsome.

I bowed at once.

“No need for that,” he said, waving his hand. “It’s been a long night. Full of dancing, mm? Dismissed,” he added to the woman beside him, who set her goblet down on the table, curtsied once—more for my sake, I thought, than for formality—and disappeared through one of many little doors set all along the walls.

It was without a doubt the strangest room in which I’d ever found myself.

“We called you here to discuss your progress with the corps,” he said, and motioned for me to sit. By his leave, I did so; I was grateful for the permission, since my legs were shaking. “We find you’ve done an acceptable job, since there have been no diplomatic complaints yet this night, and we have had to placate no other men on the loss of their wives.”

This was because Rook had been too preoccupied with exacting whatever punishment he thought necessary on me to go after any married woman. Should I have been grateful for that, as well? I didn’t think so and, what’s more, I wasn’t about to point out that fact to th’Esar.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I deferred instead. “I am most pleased to have served you adequately.”

“Your services may be further needed in rehabilitating them,” th’Esar continued, “once the war is over, and they find themselves . . . at loose ends.”

I bowed my head lower and said nothing at all.

“You will of course be thanked amply and suitably for your work and service to the crown,” th’Esar concluded. “We will have a man gather your notes. Perhaps we will forward your theories for publication,

just as we were inspired to fund your participation in the matter.” He paused to let the full weight of this praise sink in; I murmured my commoner’s thanks without quite listening to a word I was saying, feeling riven by how little able I was to appreciate the promotion. I’d succeeded. I was to be funded in writing my own book. Whether it was the book I wished to write or something else entirely didn’t matter. After I was finished writing it, I would be a scholar of fame and repute, and could pursue my own studies in whatever direction caught my fancy. It wouldn’t matter then where I’d come from. I would have everything I’d ever striven toward. And that was surely more important.

And yet I was utterly incapable of feeling any kind of pride at this achievement. I knew why—I could chase the numbness right back to its source—and I kept my head very low indeed, so that th’Esar would not sense from me even a moment of ingratitude.

Rook was a poison.

I could not stop thinking of him and my defeat, even now, at the precise moment of my triumph. Additionally, I had the nagging notion at the back of my mind that if I were to follow proper channels, those notes should be going to Adamo, that the Chief Sergeant was the one who would then be reporting to th’Esar. Yet I could do no more than wonder why th’Esar would have asked me to breach this protocol.

“Yet let me ask you one more thing,” th’Esar added unexpectedly, and I found myself looking up before I could help myself. “Since you have, no doubt, grown very close to our Dragon Corps these past weeks.”

I nodded, swallowing dryly. “Indeed,” I murmured, though it was a dreadful lie. “Indeed, I have.”

“Have you noticed anything . . . odd, of late? About their behavior?”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the question,” I began.

Th’Esar waved his hand again, the simplest of motions striking me mute. “No,” he said. “Think carefully. This is a matter of utmost importance, and my query is one I must ask you to repeat to no one—on pain of execution, mind.” He let that sink in for a few moments. “Tell me, and consider thoroughly: Have the airmen said anything to intimate that there is something—no matter how small—amiss about the way that our war is being won?”

Even if there had been, I wouldn’t be the man to ask. I searched desperately for something to tell th’Esar, my supreme ruler and a man who balanced my life in his hand easily as he balanced his goblet, but all I could come up with was what it had been like to feel Have between my legs, or the way my stomach flew into my throat as we dove. I thought about the fierce, scuffling fights that had started up in the common room at all hours, some of them silent and over just as quickly as they’d begun, and some of them with Ghislain taking even odds and Magoughin jeering each party with equal delight. I had no idea if there was something amiss now that hadn’t been before. Their behavior was idiosyncratic at best, and even if they did have more serious concerns, I knew that they wouldn’t speak to me of all people about them.

“I see that you are uncertain,” th’Esar said, relieving me of any need to respond. “That is all right, of course. You are no airman yourself. But perhaps you might do us another service.”

I could do nothing but accept. “Your Majesty,” I said, and bowed yet another time in my chair. “I will do anything you ask of me. I am your servant in this as in all matters.”

At least I hadn’t forgotten my most basic etiquette.

Th’Esar smiled thinly. “If you would be our eyes and ears in the Airman,” he said, each word separate and distinct to give them full weight and bearing, “then I would find some way to reward you further.”

I understood his meaning all at once. I had no loyalty to the Dragon Corps; I was no member, no airman, no brother in arms. I’d suffered certain indescribable injustices at their hands, and surely each time I’d craved just such a revenge as this to be mine. Hadn’t I?

Above all, I was in no position to deny th’Esar what he wished. No one was—not even th’Esarina.

Yet neither was I in the position to be his spy among a group of men who barely even trusted me as it was, a group of men whose ringleader had pinned me into place like a collector might pin a butterfly. It was obvious which of us was fully in charge in this matter. I could no more spy on Rook than I could ignore him.

“You will do this task for us,” th’Esar said. “I will expect your reports among those on the progress of the corps’ new manners. Your service is invaluable; you are dismissed.”

I made my way out of the room in a daze, bowing obsequiously and disgusting even myself. The servant was waiting for me at the door, and I was led backward through the tangled maze of hallways and darkness until we arrived once again in the real world, where the party was still in full flush. When I turned to thank the servant for his guidance, I found he’d already disappeared behind me and I was left once more alone.

I saw Rook in the center of the dance floor, twirling a flushed young blonde, but though I watched him, I couldn’t get th’Esar or his impossible task out of my mind.

I set back for the Airman before the party was over and spent the remainder of the night on my couch, waiting for the sound of an air-raid siren—but, of course, everyone was at the palace, and the silence remained unbroken even until the first dawnlight.

HAL

Things were different in Royston’s home from the way they were at the palace—for which I thought I might be eternally grateful. When I was in his collection of magician’s rooms, overlooking the entire city and swaying with the tower on its precarious foundations, I felt as at home as I ever had in Nevers, if not more so. From time to time I was gripped by sudden fear that the city would swallow us up, tower and all, but this was only my lack of experience, and I felt certain I’d soon enough grow past it. Royston had apologized for the unpleasantness at the ball—and indeed, he seemed rather less distracted—and the “day of recovery,” as he called it, was a quiet one. We spent it alone, in private. I enjoyed it very much.

There were times when I still felt raw and thwarted over the rules that Royston had set into place for us, his infuriating stubbornness in doing what he thought was fitting, but he still allowed me to take his hand, and to rub at his temples whenever he got one of his now-frequent headaches. It wasn’t so bad as all that. I knew I could be patient enough to prove to him what I needed to prove—and then the waiting would not seem so interminable as all that.