Moth and Spark (7 page)

Daylight came, but not sun. The clouds were thick and low and dark, making the day grey and dreary. Tam breakfasted with Cina in the Sun Room, most inappositely named on such a morning. There were small tables set far enough apart for privacy, large leafy plants in huge pots, and tall windows open to the east. A door led out to a neat grassy square with a tall hedge of brightly flowering bushes on the opposite side. It was favored by the courtiers as a pleasant middle ground between eating alone in one’s rooms or dining in the noise and hubbub of the hall, but they were early enough that it was mostly empty. The room felt cold,
and Tam was glad of the warmth of her coffee through the thin delicate porcelain. The cup was gold rimmed, with a graceful pattern of a vine. Another of the little touches of beauty that signified wealth.

It was the first time she had been alone with her sister-in-law since they had arrived, and they chatted of what Tam had seen so far before Cina said, “I’ve shopping to do this morning, will you come?”

Tam gave it thought. Had the weather been good she would have assented; she had seen only a bit of the city on her way in and she wanted to see more. Dalrinia was considerably smaller than Caithenor. But puddle-dodging and wet dashes from store to store did not appeal to her, and she said, “Not today, thank you.”

“What will you do instead? It’s hardly a day for strolling the gardens.”

“Explore the palace, and then I expect I’ll read,” she said. The library was extraordinary, and even though she could not take books out—that was a privilege of nobility—she could easily spend hours there. It had books in it that were so old they were written by hand. The most valuable were locked up, but there was a displayed manuscript of the Treaty of Pell dating back seven hundred years that she was itching to get a longer look at.

“You’re not bored already, are you?”

“No, of course not. But on a dreary day like this people will be squabbling, and that’s no fun.”

“There’s something to that,” Cina agreed. “At least everything else is calm.”

“Really?” Tam asked, thinking that tension probably swirled around and under many of the conversations between jealous men and women.

“No full-blown scandals yet or serious rifts. Those will come later. Court is still young. Keep your eyes open, Tam, and not just for love affairs. It’s about preferment and power too, and you’re not experienced.”

“I’m not an innocent, Cina,” Tam said, grimacing.

“I know that. But it’s different here from your home. Just be careful.”

“Well, I haven’t anything to offer someone, so no doubt they’ll all lose interest in me soon.”

“You’ve beauty and money. That’s enough.” Cina drank some tea. “You can see through most scoundrels, but some of them are very good at it here. Charming, handsome, and without a scrap of conscience. Don’t form any attachments without talking to me first.”

“If it’s such a lair, why do you come?” she asked before she could help herself. “I’m sorry, that was a stupid question.” Cina came because she always had, because she was expected to, because there was nothing to do at home. Her friends came here. She had no children to care for yet.

Cina brushed a crumb off her dress. “I love your brother,” she said, “but in summer he has no time for me.” She said it quite calmly and spread butter on a piece of fresh white bread. She raised the bread to her mouth, then lowered it. “Tam, I would not have brought you if I thought you’d run into trouble. You’re clever and you aren’t full of romantic sensibilities. But you haven’t grown up with these people. All I’m saying is to watch your step. It will suck you in before you know it, and getting out isn’t all that easy.”

“Anyone in particular to warn me of?”

“No. That is, there are, but names will only make you feel that other men are safe.” Cina looked away from Tam. A page was approaching with a note.

“My lady.” He ignored Tam.

Cina said, “Excuse me,” and took the paper, read. “Please give her my assurances that we will be there,” she said. As soon as the boy was gone she said, “Dinner tonight with Lady Elwyn. There will be a mesmerist afterward, if you care for that sort of thing.” She passed Tam the note. “She has a son, I expect you’re being scouted.”

This was what she had contracted to by coming. “Will he be there?”

“Probably. He’s quite safe. You won’t be the only one, though; she picks six or seven of the likeliest every year.” She ate the last bit of fruit on her plate.

“Every year? How old is he?”

“He must be close to thirty now.” Cina stood up. “Are you sure you won’t go into town with me?”

“Quite.”

“Enjoy yourself. Don’t go poking into anything you shouldn’t.”

Tam finished her own meal after Cina left, decided against more coffee, and made her way slowly and somewhat thoughtfully back through the corridors. It was early enough that not very many people were about other than the occasional guard. They did not do anything in these public areas of the palace except stand unobtrusively in corners and watch, pretending not to be bored. She supposed that in other places they had more responsibility, but it could still not be much. There had
not been any sort of violence against the government for years. Tam wondered if her father would see the guards as a reassurance or as a reminder.

The palace was actually a collection of buildings spread out over acres of land, and she had not explored it yet at all, though she had pored over a plan of the grounds. Many areas she had no need to go to: the archives and the bureaucrats’ offices, the storehouses and barracks and guest residences. There were stables, a coach-house, a smithy, outdoor cook pits, a laundry, boiler-houses, and a large plaza for swordfighting or wrestling or ball. Between the buildings were green well-kept lawns or neat and colorful flower beds, vines covering arched entrances or hanging down from roofs, and slender elegant trees. Some buildings were joined to each other with enclosed pathways or graceful footbridges. Many lawns had a fountain in them. On the main building, there were balconies from which plants hung or water poured, caught in basins to be pumped up again, over and over. Trees in large tubs shaded terraces at many levels.

Much of the first two floors of the palace was open to palace guests. Silver moved and shimmered everywhere: water falling smoothly down a wall of reflective marble, ribbons of metal turning noiselessly in columns from floor to ceiling lining a corridor, light swirling on a ceiling with no apparent source or pattern. Tam could not tell what animated the movements. In the corners of a wide arched chamber, metal birds sang sweetly and clearly from glass trees that changed colors with the notes. It was artistry of a skill she had never seen before.

She passed rooms for small gatherings or large parties, for dining or for making music, for playing games or looking at art. In one room was a table with an inlaid chessboard of silver and reddish-gold, with intricate and polished pieces. Someone had moved a soldier forward two squares. Impulsively, Tam countered by bringing out a knight. She was a good player, but such an anonymous move was all she could expect to do here. Women played cards. The adjacent room was entirely empty except for the large pendulum swinging slowly over the mosaic circle in the floor with the degrees marked in gold. The center of the circle was a dragon, wings lifted, tail curved. The flames curling from its mouth had been worked in gems.

Next she came to a writing room, with several small tables, ink, pens, and paper. She lingered for a moment, thinking she ought to write her
parents. Then she went on. She stepped into the formal Great Hall, all pale marble and gold, huge, empty. A large balcony overhung the room at the end opposite the pair of immense and gilded doors that was the ceremonial entrance to the palace. She supposed the balcony was for speeches or pronouncements before a crowd. There was a lonesome feeling to the place. Stern-faced portraits of past kings and queens lined the walls. Near the front was one of the king that must have been painted for his coronation. He looked quite young and serious. She wondered how much it resembled him now.

She decided to leave the remaining official rooms and go back to the more ordinary spaces. The halls instilled quietness in her, solemnity even. Not so with other people, who appeared to care not a whit who else heard their conversations. She was not ignored, but looking at her did not stop people from talking. Everything was suddenly quite crowded. She took turns this way and that until she found herself alone except for guards in a narrow corridor. Feeling as though she could breathe again, she walked more slowly.

She had not walked very far when a guard called out. Startled, she turned. He was not paying any attention to her; his exclamation had been addressed to a man coming in from another door with a drawn knife. Tam froze. Her body went alert with fear. The guard was hurrying toward the man.

Then she saw that the courtier—he was dressed too finely to be a servant—was staggering. His face was so white she wondered how he could be standing. There was a glassiness in his eyes, and his pupils were dilated. He dropped the knife. The guard bent down to pick it up as the man stumbled toward Tam. She realized he was not just sick, he was dying.

“What did you do with it? You gave it to him. He hates you. You were supposed to give it to me. Where is it?” He was pleading. Their eyes met.

He stared imploringly at her as though she was the only thing he could see in the world. There was a roar like the ocean around her. He opened his mouth. A black moth came out, and another, and another. They gathered around her, dark, soft, fluttering, hundreds of them. Their wings stirred air against her skin. They clustered thickly on the wall and the ceiling and her dress. I am not seeing this, she thought. She batted furiously at them.

They dissipated like smoke. His face twisted with pain. It was so terrible that she reached for his hand. Hot, dry skin. She smelled stone and ice. A bruise on his arm was spreading like ink. He was shaking.

“Water,” he said, and then there was blood. Bright red blood pouring out of his mouth over his chest, onto the floor, splashing her dress. His hand went limp. She jerked hers away and jumped back. His eyes rolled up. This was real. He fell forward, face landing in the blood.

Her throat closed with franticness. She could not breathe. Fear, black and relentless, filled her entirely as she clutched her neck. If she could have screamed she would have. Her chest was tight and painful. Sweat chilled her body. Her vision was a narrowing tunnel, and she was dizzy.

Someone pulled her away. Hands brought her down onto a bench. She leaned forward, head down. Her skin tingled. There was a damp cloth on her face and a cup of water in her hand. Beautiful clear glass, beautiful clear water. She drank deeply. When she looked up she saw a group of guards standing around the body. The blood glistened and seemed to move like sunlight on a rippling lake.

There was blood on her skirt. Blood from a man who had died delirious and hemorrhaging.

“Cut it off, cut it off!” she cried out, tearing futilely at the hem.

A guard—where had they all come from?—slashed at the cloth with a knife. “Don’t touch the blood!” she said urgently. It seethed and shifted. “Burn it!”

He tossed away the cloth and said reassuringly, “It’s all right, miss.”

“It’s not,” she said, forcing herself to speak like an adult and not an eight-year-old. “It could carry poison or contagion. If you’ve touched it wash your hands now. Now. Send for the doctor.”

The guards all stared at her. “Please,” she said. “My father is a doctor. Blood infection is a horrible way to die.” It certainly was not what he had died of, but they wouldn’t know. She never should have said
poison
. It had slipped out before she had a chance to think.

There was another instance of silence that seemed to extend forever. Then the one closest to her said, “You wait here,” and began to give orders to the others.

Exhausted, Tam closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. If she was right about what it was she dared not tell them—they would panic. The royal doctor would know, he had to know. It was an instrument of war. She heard water splashing.

Blood. His skin had been so hot. Last night there had been rain, cool sweet-smelling rain, folding softly around everything. That was what to think about. Rain that made boots track mud on the palace floors, rain that drove the cats to prowl inside, rain that made the fires safe and pleasant. Not dark moths and blood.

The guard brought her a basin of fresh hot water and she plunged her hands in and held them as long as she could stand it. Her shoes were clean, and her stockings. She had been lucky. The poison could be taken in through the skin. She would burn the dress anyway.

Waiting, she watched the guards. With a great deal of efficiency they were keeping people out of the corridor. There might not be much to guard against, but they were well trained.

The doctor came fairly quickly. He had a kind face, with green eyes. He was younger than she expected, only forty or so. After a glance at the body he came to her side. She stood up. Her head had cleared entirely.

“The guards say you know what he died of,” he said, obviously doubtful.

“Possibly,” she said, mindful of listening ears. She looked down at her rent skirt. “Can we go somewhere else, please? I’d rather be away from him.” Calm, giving no hint of the terror that had roiled her. She knew how to do this. It was not the first death she had seen, the first death she had described.

“Of course,” said the doctor. He took her arm and led her into an adjacent room with a window looking out on the garden. It was papered in faint pink and gold and full of chairs and spindly-legged tables. It had a handsome tall clock and a still-life of peaches and pomegranates. The red seeds shone luminously on the canvas. No one would ever dare to die in this room; it was too decorous. He shut the door and looked hard at her.

“It might have been sickness,” she said. She was unsure of whether she should tell him exactly what she feared. But it seemed too important to lie, or trust that he would find it out himself. “But I think it was blood-dust.”