The Laurentine Spy (10 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

S
ALIEL SAT TENSELY,
smiling, as the Spycatcher bowed over her hand. “May I have this dance, Lady Petra?”

“Certainly.” She stood and placed her hand on Lord Grigor’s arm. Her heart was beating too fast.
Calm. Breathe. Be Lady Petra.

They took their places on the dance floor. The musicians began to play.

“Are you a native of the Citadel, noble Petra?” the Spycatcher asked. He was a good dancer. His movements were neat and precise, light-footed.

Saliel shook her head shyly. “No.”

The man smiled at her, courteous and attentive. “Have you been here long?”

“Nearly two years, my lord.”

He glanced at the betrothal keys clinking faintly at her waist. “I see you’re soon to be married.”

“Yes.” Saliel nodded and tried to blush. She looked down at the floor, as if overcome by modesty.

They paced alongside each other in silence for several seconds, her hand resting lightly on the Spycatcher’s sleeve, then he asked, “Where are you from, noble Petra?” His tone was polite, conversational.

Saliel stared at the floor. Dull red squares. Black squares. “The colony of Gryff.”

Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought the Spycatcher stiffened slightly. “Ah,” he said. “A terrible catastrophe.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Your parents,” he said. “Tell me about them.”

Saliel raised her eyes from their scrutiny of the floor. She blinked as if forcing back tears. “It’s painful to discuss, my lord.”

“Of course,” he said smoothly. “I beg your pardon.”

Saliel managed a weak smile.

The Spycatcher smiled encouragingly back at her. “So you’re to be married.”

Saliel bit her lip and nodded. “Yes.”

“To Lord Ivo.”

“Yes,” she said again.

“You must be very happy.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I’m...” There was something unsettling about the man’s eyes. When he looked at her like that it was difficult to lie.

Suddenly Saliel understood.
He does have the Eye.

Her heart began to beat more rapidly.
This is a test. Pass it.
She hesitated and then whispered in a rush, “I don’t wish to marry him.”

The Spycatcher smiled, a quick and satisfied movement of his mouth.

Saliel tightened her fingers on his sleeve, clutching him. “Please don’t tell anyone, Lord Grigor! I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Don’t distress yourself, my dear.” The Spycatcher patted her hand. His fingers were cold. “I shan’t tell anyone.”

She smiled at him, tremulous, grateful. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Not at all,” he said smoothly. “It’s a great shame your mother isn’t here to support you. She would allay your fears.” He patted her hand again. “What did you say her name was?”

Saliel was aware of a compulsion to tell him the truth: that she had no idea what her mother’s name was. The tiny itch was easily ignored. “Lady Frida,” she said, looking into the Spycatcher’s eyes. “Of Gryff.”

The man nodded and smiled his quick, satisfied smile again. His gaze slid away to briefly examine the dancers in their vicinity and then came back to her.

Saliel forced herself not to stiffen and look away.

“When are you to be wed?” the Spycatcher asked, his manner polite and attentive.

Never.
“In eight days,” she said. “Will you still be here?”

She had the impression that the man almost smirked. His eyes gleamed. “I doubt it.”

Saliel shivered inside herself. Last night, in the dark hours of the night, she’d dreamed that the Spycatcher had stared at her with pale, terrible eyes and said:
I know who you are.
Her panic had been so great that she’d woken with a silent scream in her mouth.

Her throat tightened in memory. For a moment she was unable to breathe. She raised her fingers to her lips and coughed delicately.

“Are you all right?”

Again she felt the compulsion to speak the truth.
No, I’m not all right. I’m terrified.
And again the lie came easily. “Perfectly.” She smiled at him.

The dance ended and the musicians laid down their bows. Other sounds were suddenly loud in the absence of music: the rustling of stiff fabrics—silk and lace and satin—and the shuffle of shoes on the polished stone floor.

The Spycatcher escorted her back to her seat. He bowed over her hand. The soft touch of his mouth made her want to shiver.

“Thank you, my lord.”

“The pleasure was mine.”

Saliel watched as Lord Grigor walked away. He paused for a moment, his pale gaze sliding over faces, and then crossed to Lady Serpa and bowed.

I passed the test
. But her tension, the fast beating of her heart, didn’t ease.

“A pleasant man, is he not?”

Saliel smiled at Marta. “Very pleasant.” She rubbed where the Spycatcher’s mouth had touched her hand, trying to wipe the sensation away.

“I’ve never seen anyone with eyes quite that color. Have you, Petra?”

She shook her head in response to Marta’s half-heard words and stared across the dance floor. One was somewhere in the ballroom. Perhaps one of the noblemen standing talking, perhaps one of the dancers moving slowly across the polished stone floor.
I have no way of warning him.

Saliel tore her attention away from the dance floor and smiled at Marta. “A very unusual color,” she agreed.

She found she was twisting the cinnamon-brown fabric of her gown between her fingers, as Marta was wont to do. She smoothed a hand over the crumpled material and forced herself to relax. She’d see One and Two tomorrow night. Tonight there was nothing she could do except sit and converse quietly with Marta—and hide her anxiety from observers.

She let her hands lie loosely clasped in her lap, and smiled at Marta.
It’s only one day. Everything will be fine.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HE DAY PASSED
even more slowly than it usually did in the ladies’ court. Saliel embroidered, sitting on a sofa with Marta alongside her, she ate lunch, swallowing the food without tasting it, she embroidered again, stitching unfurling leaves in differing shades of green silk. Finally it was time to put away her needles. The evening stretched ahead—a bath, dinner with the unmarried ladies, the nightly ball. It was the rhythm of her days, as regular as the inhalation and exhalation of her breath.
And then the catacombs.

Saliel stood. Every part of her was tense with anxiety.

The bath did nothing to ease her tension. The water steamed gently, scented with lavender. It was the smell of the ladies’ court. No noblewoman would dream of wearing perfume or painting her face—only whores did those things—but lavender in one’s bathing water was acceptable.

“Shall I wash your back, noble Petra?” the maid asked.

“Yes.”

Saliel sat forward. The bath water swirled around her as she moved.
Yes, please
, she wanted to say. It was difficult to behave as Corhonase nobles did: with careless discourtesy, as if servants were of no worth.

She’d been a servant herself and knew the importance of
please
and
thank you.

The maid began to sponge her back. Saliel closed her eyes. The scent of lavender was forever on her skin, faint but distinct. The scent of virtue, of modesty and docility. In her mind it was a scent that forbade laughter, a scent that made it impossible to think of picking up one’s skirts and running for sheer joy.

When I return to Laurent I shall have no trace of lavender in my home.

“Shall I fetch more hot water?”

“Yes.”
Please
.

Saliel lay back in the bath. She tried to focus on her surroundings—the candles burning in the sconce behind her, the tall screens shielding her from the other women in the bathing suite, the murmur of voices, low and hushed—but the fear was there underneath, tight, squeezing in her stomach.

The maid returned with an urn of hot water, which she poured carefully into the far end of the copper bath.

“Do you require any further assistance?”

“No. You may go.”
Thank you.

The maid curtseyed and left.

Saliel stretched in the water. She rested her head against the rim of the bathtub. Metalwork screens glinted in the candlelight. Shadows clung to the high ceiling above her. The scent of lavender filled her nostrils—and her mind kept coming back to the Spycatcher and his eyes.

She blew out a breath.
Think of something else. Think about how glad I am not to have been born here
. Laurent wasn’t perfect; she knew that as well as any foundling from the Ninth Ward, but it was better than Corhona with its—

Saliel became aware of a change in the bathing suite. The sounds were different—shocked murmurs, exclamations. The air rustled, as if an eddy of hushed excitement swept through the chamber.

She reached for the bell to summon the maid. “What is it? What’s happened?”

The woman’s eyes were wide with excitement. “A spy has been captured, noble lady. Here, in the Citadel.”

For a moment, everything halted. Saliel sat motionless. She couldn’t inhale, couldn’t exhale. Her heart seemed not to beat.

She swallowed and tried to speak. Fear was tight in her throat. “Who?”

The maid shook her head. “I don’t know, noble lady.”

Saliel mimicked the sounds she heard around her—shock, excitement—while terror built inside her.
Get out of here. Run, now.
And beneath the terror was grief, bone-deep. She closed her eyes for a moment—
Please, not One
—and then stood. “I wish to get out.”

The maid brought a towel.

Saliel dried herself slowly.
Whatever happens, you must behave as normal
, the Guardian had said when they’d last met.
Don’t come to the catacombs until night-time
.

Saliel allowed the maid to dress her. She dined with the unmarried ladies of the court. Eating was impossible; the one mouthful she swallowed made her want to vomit. No one noticed. Excited chatter filled the room until the ceiling seemed to resonate with it.

Dressing for the ball was almost as impossible as eating. She stared across her bedchamber at the secret doorway, while the maid tightened the laces of her ball gown. Beyond those blocks of stone was safety.

What if whoever the Spycatcher had caught—One or Two—was telling the man about the catacombs even now?

But the Guardian had been firm.
Not until night-time.
So she sat beside Marta and smiled and nodded and moved her lips to utter polite phrases—and all the while she screamed inside.

The ballroom was a terrible place tonight. The shadows behind the tall pillars were alive. They sidled and crept and gathered darkly at the edge of her vision.

The Prince sat on his dais stroking his chin smugly and the Consort’s smile was vicious, triumphant. Wherever Saliel looked she saw faces that were bright with malice. Her ears were full of gleeful whispers.

The Spycatcher wasn’t present. He was occupied elsewhere—and that thought made the horror reverberate more loudly inside her. She knew nothing other than that the spy was male. No one knew anything else.

It was difficult to breathe. And with each breath that she failed to take, she shrank, became smaller, until the dancers began to tower over her, giant-like, with wide-stretched mouths and huge, gloating eyes. The shadows became bolder. They touched the hem of her dress and hung over her shoulder.

“Are you quite well, Petra?”

The shadows jerked back. The room became brighter and the dancers shrank until they were no larger than herself. Saliel took a quick, shallow breath. “I feel a trifle queasy.”

It was hard to look at Marta. Her brown eyes glittered with bright cruelty and her round cheeks were flushed. She had never looked prettier.

“Poor Petra,” Marta said, her expression sympathetic.

“To think there was a spy in our midst!” Her throat was tight, her voice hoarse. “It’s quite terrible. How shall I sleep tonight?”

“But he is caught, dear Petra. There’s no danger now.”

Saliel managed a weak smile. “I know, but I can’t help feeling slightly unwell.”

“Your nerves are overset,” said Marta soothingly. “You should retire. Come, I’ll take you to your chamber.” She stood and held out her hand.

“Thank you.” Her gratitude was real. She wanted nothing more than to leave the ball.

Marta smiled sweetly.

S
ALIEL’S STEP WAS
cautious, inching, the knife unsheathed and in her hand. She strained to hear above her heartbeat. The catacombs echoed with sounds tonight—the scuff of boots, a hushed whisper. But each time she halted the noises faded and she understood they were in her head.