Land of the Beautiful Dead (55 page)

Lan drank coffee and watched the door. Azrael’s steward made himself briefly obnoxious by blocking her view and prattling on about each and every bloody platter on the imperial table in an apparent effort to get her to eat, but Lan had been promised dinner with Azrael and until she had Azrael, she wasn’t having dinner. Eventually, the steward ran out of things to say about the duck breasts (crusted with crushed pecans and bacon and drizzled with raspberry sauce) versus the prime rib (roasted in rock salt and served with Yorkshire pudding and shallots) and retreated, leaving her to listen to her stomach growl in peace.

The dinner hour had long since given way to the after-dinner hour when Azrael finally entered, deep in talk with Deimos. His steward hurried over; Azrael sent him back with a short wave, never breaking stride. Table by table, his dead court rose to bow, their flashing jewels and rustling fabric forming the waves of a particularly gaudy ocean; he ignored them all. Lan drank off her coffee and poured herself another cup; Azrael saw her and halted mid-step, then took his captain of the Revenants back to the far end of the hall to finish their conversation. Lan waited, so patient, and did not try to guess at the dialogue that went with those sparks of eyeshine and curt hand gestures, because it couldn’t be good.

It ended with a last ominous gesture—Azrael pointing down the hall right at Lan—and then Deimos nodded and left, taking the pikemen that lined the walls with him. All of them. Lan didn’t guess at the reason for that, either. Azrael watched them all go, glanced at Lan, then heaved a visibly bracing sigh and headed for her.

“What’s up?” Lan asked when he finally reached her, not because she wanted to know, but because ignoring it would be as good as shining a light on it.

“Nothing that need concern you.”

“Sure looked like it concerned me.”

“What shall you believe, my Lan?” he countered, in what could be either the opening volley of a fresh battle or a joke. His tone suggested he was willing to go either way. “My word or your own eyes?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what the difference was, but if she did that, the battle really would be on, so instead, she said, “Appearances can be deceiving, I guess.”

Some of the tension left him. Not much, but some. “That, they can,” he muttered, rubbing up under his mask at his scars. His gaze came back to her, dimmed, then dropped to her empty plate. “Is the meal not to your liking?”

“I don’t come to dinner for the food.”

“So I see.” Azrael watched her load up for a long siege, but took nothing for himself. “Have you been waiting on me? Why?”

“I don’t come to dinner for the food,” she said again, although it may have been difficult to make her out with her mouth full. “Why aren’t you eating?”

His gaze dropped to an artful selection of prime rib, all bloody red and fork tender, fit to grace the table of any lord. But when he reached for it, it was to lift the entire platter and hold it out for a servant to rush over and carry away. “I’ve no appetite.”

“I guess I should feel fortunate you bothered to show up at all. You could have gone straight to some other woman’s bed and let me wait on you all night.”

He tipped his head and studied her, stone-faced beneath his stone mask. “Are you rebuking your lord, Lan?”

And there it was again, that tone that was not only an invitation to a fight, but almost a demand for one.

“You told me you weren’t my lord,” she reminded him. “You’d never been titled by Men, you said.”

“But you are rebuking me.”

“When a man’s late for dinner two nights in a row, I think that’s earned a rebuke, don’t you?”

“My sincerest apologies.” He waved a servant over for wine, but took the bottle from her when she brought it and dismissed her again.

“I’m teaching you bad habits,” Lan observed as he filled his own cup.

He grunted and kept pouring. “I know worse ones.”

“So what kept you this time?” she asked, doggedly attempting to keep the mood light. “Felicity want some peacocks to go with those swans?”

“I haven’t seen Felicity today, although it is ironic you should say that, even in jest. She did ask for peafowl once.”

“Of course she did.”

“She soon returned them. Peafowl may be pleasant to the eye, but are notoriously disagreeable in every other sense.”

Lan consulted her short list of exotic birds of the world and said, “Parrots, then. Do you have parrots?”

“I do, but I’ve given them to another already.”

“Penguins.”

He gave her a look that was meant to be feigned alarm, only half-feigned. “I forbid you ever to speak to Felicity.”

“I make no promises. However,” Lan announced, “you’ll be happy to hear I met Cassius.”

“Why would that make me happy?”

“Because you arranged it.”

“Did I,” said Azrael, which was not a confession.

“Serafina is too good at her job to take me to lessons that early and I sure as hell didn’t want to go. You wanted us to bump in the halls.”

“Sound reasoning.” He watched her cut into a dumpling, shaking his head when she offered half. “And your thoughts?”

“Shockingly, I don’t like her.”

“Why not?”

Lan shrugged and reached for another dumpling.

Azrael caught her wrist and pushed her hand flat to the table with a smacking sound. “What did she say to you?” he asked quietly. “Tell me all she said.”

Out on the floor, his musicians played and tumblers tumbled. His court faked admiration or boredom as appropriate. His servants filled cups and carried away empty platters. The noise helped, filling the distance between them as it grew invisibly wider.

“She called me your dog,” said Lan. “She said you kept me to sniff out your dollies for you.”

After a moment, he released his grip on her wrist and leaned back into his throne. He picked up his cup, his eyes fixed on his flute player. The tendons in his neck creaked as they tightened. He did not speak.

Lan waited and finally said, “Was she right?”

He shrugged, his stare never wavering from the musician’s stage. “I will not deny I have doubts where Chloe’s motives are concerned. Neither will I deny I sought an unbiased opinion of her.”

Lan snorted. “If that means what I think it means, I don’t think it applies to me.”

“Perhaps not, but your particular bias is not founded in whether or not your answer is apt to please me.” He paused, then took a drink, muttering, “Indeed, I would be surprised if that was ever a consideration,” when he thought the wine would muffle it. “Did she tell you why she came to Haven? Or what she wants of me?”

“No.”

“Hm.” His thumb tapped twice on the side of the cup. He did not look at her. “Would you tell me if she did?”

“Hell, if I knew what she wanted, I’d ask you to give it to her myself. Anything to get her out the door sooner. And if it’s Cassius you want to talk about,” she inserted irritably, “maybe you should have invited
her
to dinner.”

“Forgive me. We’ll speak no more of her. So.” Azrael set his cup down with an air of finality and turned to her. “Apart from your morning interview and this hour’s unconscionable neglect, how passed your day?”

‘Like a kidney stone,’ Lan thought, but she’d taken enough etiquette lessons to know better than to say it. She turned her attention back to her dinner, shrugging off Cassius, her chat, and her sly, winking tongue stud. “Fine.”

“Tell me all.”

“Nothing to tell.”

“I find that difficult to believe. With fair weather and the whole of my city before you, you went nowhere? Saw nothing?”

“A long walk in the bright sunlight?” She laughed around a mouthful of pie. “You really don’t know what a hangover is, do you?”

He conceded that with a grunt and looked away, pretending to watch his musicians, but the flickering of his eyes betrayed his continued distraction.

“What about you?” Lan asked dutifully. “How did your day pass?”

“It’s not yet ended.” He glanced at her, drank some wine, and suddenly said, “Do you truly enjoy architecture or is your apparent enthusiasm merely a ruse to avoid your other studies?”

Lan held up a flat hand and wobbled it to indicate a middling pull between those options. “Why?”

“I’m told there are repairs needed at several estates in north Haven. I confess my own enthusiasm for such projects has diminished greatly in recent years, so if it at all appeals to you, I might send you in my stead to oversee their restoration.”

“Eh. I’d rather not be in charge of anything where a cock-up on my end brings some crusty old building down on someone’s head, even if they are dead to begin with. And there’s going to be a coop-full of cock-ups,” she declared, “because I don’t half-listen at lessons and I’m not about to start. You should ask Master Wickham, though. He’d be all over a job like that.”

“And you would go with him?”

“Of course not,” she said, surprised that he should think so. “I’m your dolly, not his.”

“I trust to your fidelity,” he said with a faint smile. “And I think he would be glad of your company, particularly as you share so many interests. Apart from which, the very act of restoration can be devastating to the grounds. Wickham, for all his architectural passion, has no eye for gardens.”

Startled into a laugh, she said, “And I do?”

“You’ve more experience with growing things, certainly.”

“Only peaches.” Lan pushed food around her plate, frowning. “Is that what you want? Like…an orchard?”

“If you wish. I place it utterly in your hands. Do as you will. Grow fruits. Grow herbs. Grow flowers. Have you never secretly desired to see things growing for their beauty’s sake alone?”

At one time, and not too long ago at that, she’d have jumped at the chance to do something real and useful with her time, and that was back when she’d had a whole lot less of it. Now, Lan found herself strangely reluctant and she did not know why.

“Seems like a lot of work,” Lan said finally, since Azrael was waiting. “It would take a lot of time.”

“Only so much as the task required. I set no schedule before you. And you would not be so far,” he added, spreading his hands to display his full magnanimity. “I could visit nightly, if you desired so much of my company. We could yet take our evening meals together. Plainer fare, perhaps, but the taste can only be improved away from this—” He swept a dismissive stare over the lower tables of his dead court. “—stale farce.”

“I can’t help but feel you’re trying to get rid of me,” she said, trying to pretend she was joking.

“No.” His eyes flickered. “No, Lan. I’m trying to keep you.”

And with that, he picked up his wine and went back to fake-watching his musicians.

Since he obviously intended that to be his last word, it was up to Lan to say, “You said we were moving on this morning. Is this how you want to do it? By sending me away to grub in the dirt while you roll around with—”

He laughed once, loud and bitter, and drank more wine. “You would think that,” he muttered. “You
alone
would think that.”

“What, then?”

“Is it so impossible to imagine I may simply wish to fill your empty hours with some pleasant distraction?”

“Yeah, it kind of is!” she shot back. “Why do I need to be distracted?”

He drew back, first frowning, then scowling, and finally thoughtful.

“The city that Haven was,” he said at last, picking his words with obvious care, “was the jewel of this land. And it has become the jewel of this world. Perhaps the last jewel. Haven is a strongbox, confining what it safeguards. The dead are content to be held. I have made them so. I am content…” There must have been more to that thought, but in the end, he only shook his head and turned it back on her. “You are not. This, I accept. The living rarely thrive in captivity. But I would have you happy.”

“And this is your answer? Run me off to North Nowhere and tell me to plant a garden?” Lan rolled her eyes. “You’re just like my mom, giving me chores because she thinks I’m bored.”

He did not smile, but had a smile pulled from him, very much against his will. “Of all the comparisons you could have made…your
mother
?”

“I call it like I see it. But okay, fine. If you think I’ve got to do something, maybe I could help you.”

His expression, what she could see of it, never changed, but his thumbclaw scraped down the side of his cup, shaving away a soft curl of gold as proof of some kind of emotion. “You would not offer if you had the slightest notion what I do with my days.”

“You have affairs.”

He rocked back, then leaned forward and peered at her as from a great distance, saying, “I what?”

“Have affairs,” she repeated, thinking he must have misheard her.

His surprise did not diminish. If anything, it increased. “Why on Earth would you say so?”

She laughed, bewildered. “Because you told me?”

He stared at her at least a full minute before saying, “Elaborate.”

“The day after I first got here, when we were having breakfast. I asked what you did all day and you said you had affairs over all the muss and fuss of running a city, or whatever it was you said.”