Untalented (15 page)

Urdig stood and bid his guests to join him on the large balcony outside the Great Hall. The lantern procession was to begin in the castle gardens and wind its way throughout the city, followed by jugglers, dancers, stilt walkers and other entertainment. The winter rains had abated for a few days and the evening was fine, the air crisp—just in time for the solstice festivities. Frost would blanket the ground in the morning.

While the guests rose and made their way outdoors, servants draping warm cloaks across their backs, Loric insinuated himself behind Princess Martezha. They passed a doorway, and he pressed his hand into the small of her back, leaned across and redirected her into a small drawing room. A final glance down the hall confirmed that Isolte still distracted Urdig with small talk.

Martezha rounded on him, in a hurry to exit the room, but Loric stood firm against the door.

“What do you mean by this?”

“You would deny your uncle a quick chat with his favorite niece?”

“Make it quick—I was looking forward to the procession.”

Loric sidled away from the door, and took a languorous sip of wine, knowing this would annoy her more.

“My brother-in-law is a trusting man.” He smirked. “Too trusting, do you not agree?”

Martezha stiffened. “I don’t understand.”

“I think you do. My emissary returned from Tarash just before the passes closed for the winter. He brought some interesting news regarding a couple by the name of Baghore.” He savored another sip of wine. It tasted almost as good as the expression on Martezha’s face. “My dear, you look unwell. Why don’t you sit down?”

Martezha dropped into the chair next to her, not bothering to arrange her skirts. Loric sank onto a neighboring settee, crossed his legs and admired his leather boots. “Would you like me to tell you their story?”

Martezha shook her head slightly.

“You know it then, do you?” Her venomous stare only amused him more. “I think it’s worth repeating nonetheless.”

In the distance, he heard the processional drumbeats strike up. He tapped his foot idly in time. “An indentured Untalented couple, each springing from a long line of similar unfortunates, with no money to their name, find themselves expecting a child. With no means to support a family, the costs of feeding a child will keep them indentured even longer. They abandon the baby with the Adepts of Adram Vale, leaving nothing else but a note giving her name.” He swirled the dregs of his wine around the bottom of the goblet. “Lucky for me, they left their real surname, which my man tracked back to them. Less lucky for you.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing—for now. It suits me to leave you where you are.”

Martezha shrugged. “If you’ve found me out, it’s only a matter of time before someone else does. That Callor man seems suspicious.”

“He sent his own man back to Adram Vale when you arrived at the castle. Mine got there first. The Cloister’s records have been purged, appropriate people paid to forget, and I’ve personally assumed your parents’ bond and bundled them off to my estate south of the city, where they can speak to no one. Your position is secure for as long as I need it to be.”

“You must want something in return.”

“Most certainly, my sweet. You are uniquely placed to grant me certain favors. A word in Urdig’s ear … A well-timed suggestion. You need do nothing more difficult than that.”

Martezha marshaled the remains of her dignity. “Fine. We will not speak of this again.” She swept from the room, but Loric noticed the tremor in her fingers as she fumbled to open the door.

Saroya clung shivering to a piling, two buildings down and across from the square where she dove into the water. The magistrate had left the landlord in the square to prevent her from climbing out there. The lawman peered into the water from the bridge one hundred paces away. She didn’t think he could see her, but she was trapped between the two men.

Her feet had already gone numb, and her forehead tightened from the headache that blossomed as soon as she sliced through the water. Her heart skipped erratically at the shock of the cold. If she didn’t find a way out soon, she’d freeze.

The dark shape of a barge nosed out from underneath the bridge in the deepening evening gloom. It passed the pilings. There! A line trailed from the side closest to her, opposite from where the bargemaster stood. She pushed off the pilings and grabbed the rope. Unaware he’d hooked a stowaway, the bargemaster poled his craft along the canal. They floated past the square, Saroya hidden from the landlord’s view.

Three bridges further, Saroya’s fingers refused to grip the rope any longer. It slipped from her grasp, and she floundered to the edge of the canal and hauled herself out. She spat onto the cobbles, in a vain effort to clear the sour taste of the canal from her mouth.

She spent the night huddled in the corner of an empty stable, teeth chattering. She hung her sopping clothes to dry and wrapped herself in an old horse blanket. She snuck out before dawn in search of a washhouse, her skin shrinking away from her damp clothes. She waited until the laundry filled with women then with everyone occupied by their washing, she plucked a cloak and tunic from the drying lines. Reduced to stealing. She shrugged off the shame. She wouldn’t survive the winter without a cloak.

That afternoon, the temperature warmed as clouds shrouded the sky. The cold snap over, a light drizzle varnished the cobbles. Saroya squatted underneath a large willow, rain dripping from her hood as she stared at the gates of House Roshan. She might be homeless but she no longer had an excuse to put off the search for the mysterious Veshwa mentioned in the note. Did Veshwa still serve her mother’s maiden House? There was only one way to find out—sneak inside Manor Roshan.

Two riders trotted up the drive. Saroya overheard a snatch of conversation as they went by.

“… wine for the party tonight,” the man on the chestnut mare said.

“I won’t hear the end of it from Lady Kasturi if we come back empty-handed,” his companion answered.

Party? Maybe this was the opening she needed. Saroya stretched her cramped legs and slipped away into the drizzle.

Two hours later she knocked on the door of a nondescript building just off the Grand Plaza. Nothing marked it out as special except the castle sigil carved into the stone doorframe—this was the fitter’s, where she had come so long ago to have her castle livery tailored. The woman who answered took one look at Saroya’s threadbare clothing and tried to shut the door in her face.

“Wait!” Saroya said. “You know me—you fit me for stable livery. Mistress Weeda sent me?”

The woman peered at Saroya. Recognition dawned in her eyes. “What are you doing looking like a drowned rat? Weeda runs a tighter ship than this.”

Saroya tried to look sheepish. “I have a problem—all my tunics are with the laundress. I put on my only clean one this morning. Then I fell in the muck while cleaning out a stall. Mistress Weeda will kill me. I’m supposed to be footman for the coach taking the princess to the House Roshan party tonight. If I’m not presentable—”

“Enough, child. I know what it’s like being on Weeda’s bad side. Let me see what I have.”

Saroya marched out the door with a large bundle slung over her shoulder. She’d told the fitter she wanted to keep the new clothes clean until this evening. She told herself taking castle livery didn’t count as stealing. Not when everything in the castle belonged to her own father.

That evening, she again crouched beneath the shelter of the willow, studying the coaches as they entered the gates of House Roshan with passengers bound for the party. Each coach sported a full complement of drivers and footmen. Her stomach knotted. She had to get in!

A polished coach with a minor House sigil rolled up the street, curtains drawn. It passed the willow, Saroya noting the lone driver. No footman sat on the transom! While the gate guard conversed with the driver, Saroya darted out of her hiding place until she stood at the rear of the carriage, timing her leap into the transom seat with the lurch of the carriage starting forward. The coach rumbled past the gate guard, and Saroya gave him a friendly wave. Halfway up the drive, she jumped off the carriage and slipped into the trees.

Arriving coaches crowded the gravel driveway, while shiny black barques disgorged passengers onto the estate’s canal promenade. Guests arriving by water approached the house via a pathway sheltered by climbing vines. Saroya snuck up to the side of the stables then strolled up to the servants’ entrance as though she had every right to be there. A houseboy didn’t give her livery a second glance before leading her off to the back of the house.

As many servants as guests clustered in the back rooms of the mansion. The houseboy left Saroya in a small parlor. “Stay away from the kitchens,” he warned, pointing to the servants scurrying to and fro with heaping trays of food for the party. “Cook’s assistant just smashed into some numbskull page from House Tikla. What a disaster.” The wails of the cook—“Just look what you’ve done! The cherry tarts, the gingerbread, and oh! My candied flowers … All ruined!”—could be heard all the way into the parlor.

The gossip and tales of infidelity among the noble Houses soon bored Saroya. She wandered over to the sideboard and poured a cup of cider from a pitcher then grabbed a pastry. Her stomach growling, she stashed two buns in her belt pouch then picked her way across the now crowded room and set off to explore the mansion.

She prowled down corridors, avoiding areas where the party roared in full swing. She didn’t need to get commandeered by a noble into some irrelevant task. She climbed a dimly lit stairwell to the second floor. The landing provided the servants with access to the family’s bedrooms. She did not want to be accused of pilfering any valuables, so she continued up the now narrower and steeper stairs to the third floor and the servants’ quarters. A cramped hallway lined with doors spanned the whole wing. The ceiling of the room facing her sloped underneath the eaves. She tiptoed down the hall, peering into open doorways but coming across only empty rooms.

Despairing that she might not find anything, she heard a faint voice from behind a closed door. She eased the door open and peered inside.
 

Loric held forth to the men clustered in a secluded alcove of House Roshan’s reception hall. This was the most receptive group he’d addressed all evening.

“We let these people run loose. Who knows what mischief they’re causing? Uneducated, desperate for money. Just the other day, the prison warden told me they amounted to over half his inmates.”

“Surely you’re not suggesting a central registry of Untalents, Lord Dorn.”

And he hadn’t even had to say a thing. “I don’t know that I would have gone that far, Lord Tikla, but now that you mention it …”

Another nobleman broke in. “My groundsman caught two of them breaking into the smokehouse. With a registry, we could have tracked them down after they hared off.”

Tikla sputtered. “Enough with this registry business! I suggested no such thing. How do you even know they were Untalented?”

“They were layabouts. That sort usually is.”

Loric left the alcove in search of more refreshment, and fresh terrain to plant suspicions among the noble Houses. If only he could find a serious calamity for which Untalents could be blamed. Behind him, he heard the argument grow more heated.