Our Lady of the Islands (25 page)
Read Our Lady of the Islands Online
Authors: Shannon Page,Jay Lake
“What would you have us do then, Arian?” Viktor asked quietly. “I cannot just write Escotte and offer him the Factorate. You know it’s not that simple. Especially if he’s made a deal with some other house. My own family would as likely have me assassinated, and go to war with him themselves, as allow it. Nothing would be fixed that way.”
Now it was her gaze that wavered. In the end, no matter how good one’s intentions, there was always that godsdamned insurmountable question. What to
do
. What
could
be done? She turned back to the chief of security. “I do understand the need for caution, Hivat. I too want this crisis defused without calamity. But if Sergeant Ennias is correct, it would take this cousin of ours no more than a touch to heal my son. A single moment of contact. Is there no way this could be arranged? In some manner that Escotte would never be aware of?”
“How, my lady? She is kept imprisoned in his house.”
“Perhaps … we could pay Escotte a visit of some kind. To discuss … my mishandling of the temple. I don’t care. And someone …” she turned hopefully to Ennias, “could smuggle Konrad very briefly in to see this woman while Viktor and I kept the Census Taker distracted. Do you think you might be able to do that, Sergeant?”
The sergeant cleared his throat, and looked nervously from Hivat to Viktor. “I would need to know more specifically what my lady has in mind …”
“My lady,” Hivat asked carefully, “are you suggesting that you and the Factor show up at the Census Taker’s home, for some hastily scheduled meeting, with your unconscious son in tow? That would seem quite strange, to anyone, I should think.”
“Well … of course we would not bring Konrad to the door with us,” she said, scrambling to articulate what she did mean, exactly. “He would be hidden in our litter, I suppose, and smuggled inside to the woman by this sergeant, perhaps, while we were in discussion with Escotte elsewhere?”
“An unconscious boy carried into the Census Hall from your litter in the building’s unobstructed forecourt,” said Hivat, “then through who knows how many corridors, and up any number of stairs, by one man, without being seen by an entire household of serving staff, into the presense of a woman who is, by the sergeant’s account, never unaccompanied?” He shook his head. “My lady, I am sorry, but we must come up with some more likely plan. Can we be sure your son would even survive such strenuous transport at this point?”
She did not know. And it was a fair question, she reminded herself sternly, determined neither to allow herself tears right now, nor to snap at him for asking it. “All right then. Might we smuggle her outside to him, somehow, while Viktor and I were with Escotte?”
“My lady,” Hivat said, “we’ve been told that she is always under guard, and I cannot imagine that Escotte would not have her more closely guarded than ever while you and the Factor were in his house. Indeed, he would likely find your very presence there, on such short notice, quite suspicious under these circumstances.”
The sergeant cleared his throat again, and said, “If I may, my lady, Domni Hivat?”
“Please,” Arian replied, leaning against her chair.
“I believe Domni Hivat may be correct about the Census Taker’s unease with your presence there, which means that
I
would likely be the guard assigned to Domina Kattë during your visit. For whatever that is worth.”
“Might that not make everything easier?” she asked.
“Some, perhaps,” said Ennias. “But there would almost certainly be others with her too. Her maid, at least. Unless you came after Domina Kattë had retired for the evening, and her maid had gone home — which would be a strange time to visit the Census Taker, I assume.”
“I see,” Arian said. “How much might it take to subvert this maid to our purpose as well, do you think?”
Hivat shook his head before the sergeant could answer. “Much too dangerous, my lady. Even if she could be persuaded somehow, she might lose her nerve at any moment during or after the task, and expose us. Sergeant Ennias is a military man, with all the nerve and discipline implied, I’m sure. But an untempered domestic trained to fear the authority of a man like Escotte Alkattha … I would never trust my back to such a creature.”
Hysterical women.
Again
. Arian turned to Ennias. “What is your opinion, Sergeant? You have actually met her, surely. And, as a commander, you must be a decent judge of character. I will trust your assessment. Is this maid a willing party to Escotte’s conspiracy? Does she like or dislike her employer? Might she be persuadable, do you think, and if so, trustworthy, or not?”
Ennias glanced uncomfortably at Hivat, then back to Arian, clearly understanding what an awkward position she had placed him in, which just affirmed her growing trust of his perception. “Cleone seems a decent sort, my lady. She’s clearly been instructed not to leave Domina Kattë unsupervised, and to keep her presence at the Hall a secret, but I doubt she has any idea why, or would ever think of asking. She is quite proper — or she would never have been trusted with this task to start with.” He fell silent for a moment, looking thoughtful. “In fact, she is so proper that, if she were to learn what her employer was involved in, and involving her in, she might well feel compelled, as I did, to do the right thing.”
Arian was careful not to smile in triumph. Not yet, at least. “And what about her nerve, Sergeant? Once persuaded, could she be trusted to keep her head and follow through?”
She saw Ennias suppress another of his little grins. “No one remains in Lord Alkattha’s service for very long unless they are equipped with ample nerve and ability to keep their heads and follow through, my lady.”
Arian turned back to Hivat and raised her brows.
Hivat sighed deeply, clearly struggling not to roll his eyes. “And what do you think it might take to persuade this woman that betraying her longtime, and frighteningly powerful, employer was the
right thing
, Sergeant? Would
you
be able to do it?”
Ennias thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “I doubt she would trust my word enough to risk the Census Taker’s wrath.”
“Whose word might she trust enough, then?” Hivat asked, seeming to suppress a triumphant smile of his own now.
“None I can think of,” Ennias conceded. “Except …” He looked uncertainly at Arian. “Cleone respects authority. Unquestioningly, from what I’ve seen. If she were to be told what’s happening by someone whose authority exceeded the Census Taker’s, I have little doubt she would comply with whatever they requested. She would see it as the
only
right thing to do.”
“Well then,” Arian said briskly. “Can we not smuggle her up here somehow? Tonight, after she’s gone home from work, perhaps.”
Hivat shook his head and sighed again. The game was not going his way after all, it seemed. Poor man. Arian was careful to look sympathetic.
“Do you have any idea, my lady, how difficult it was to bring the sergeant here without being seen by anyone? And now we are to do it twice? In a single day?”
“And yet, you succeeded, Hivat,” Arian parried. “In broad daylight, while we will have the cover of night and almost no one about, this time.”
“I believe I could get her here, sir,” Ennias informed Hivat. “I am given the afternoon and evening off once a week. This is the day. It’s why I came to see you now. I could intercept Cleone tonight and bring her here, if you wish.”
Hivat nodded, glaring daggers at the sergeant now, to Arian’s considerable amusement. “Very well, but I will be accompanying you. We must be certain that you are not seen — at any point along the way — a task I dare not leave to amateurs.”
Amateurs!
Arian thought. What had happened to all that seasoned ‘nerve and discipline’ Hivat had credited this military man with just minutes earlier? It was a struggle, suddenly, to keep herself from laughing. She was liking this young sergeant quite a lot by now. Perhaps when this was over, he might better serve in the Factorate house guard — if not some higher post. “Unfortunately, I am having dinner in my chambers with my brother tonight.” Viktor gave her a surprised look. “It seems he’s tired of being an outcast,” she told him. “He met me on the docks this afternoon, an utterly changed man, concerned about my visit to Duon, and offering to help if I was in any trouble — quite sincerely, if you can believe it.”
“Pardon me, my dear, if I trust sincerity in your brother even less than I trust his self-serving arrogance,” Viktor replied. “His help is the last thing I want, at any time, least of all right now.”
“I understand that, Viktor. But, as I’ve been telling you all along, it does seem he is not the snake in our fruit bowl. I hardly wish to risk discouraging this sudden change of heart, so I will have to see this maid after Aros and I have finished supper.” She turned back to Hivat. “Do you think that you could have her here by … three or four hours after dark?”
Hivat turned an inquisitive, if still quite disgruntled, look at Ennias, who nodded.
“Cleone leaves after Domina Kattë has retired for the evening. That should give us time.”
“Good,” said Arian. “I’ll send Maronne down my private stair to fetch you two and the maid as soon as my brother is gone, if that’s acceptable?”
“As you wish, my lady,” Hivat said. “But, if I am not mistaken, we have still devised no plan for bringing your son and this healer together. Should we not know what we’re asking this woman to do before smuggling her into your presence?”
“Yes, of course,” Arian said pleasantly. “By all means, let’s devise a plan, then. I have at least another hour or two before dinner. Sergeant, can we not offer you a seat? You too, Hivat. This will doubtless take a while.”
Sian followed Cleone up yet another stairway toward this evening’s cocktail hour with Escotte, being served tonight, it seemed, in a third-floor sitting room on the building’s northwest corner, as opposed to all the other sitting rooms she had been shown to on all the other evenings in who knew how many other wings. She sometimes felt as though she were being taken on an extremely slow tour of the Census Hall, one or two rooms per day.
“Will that be all, my lady?” Cleone asked, hesitating at the doorway when they had arrived.
“Thank you, yes. I can safely find my way inside from here, I think.”
The maid curtsied, seemingly oblivious of Sian’s attempt at wit. “I hope you pass a pleasant evening, then. I will see you before bed.”
Sian did, in fact, navigate the passage from plush hallway to elegant sitting room without incident, to find Escotte waiting for her, seated in a large, well-upholstered chair, clad in magenta and puce like a particularly ill-painted chessman. Gigi was nowhere in evidence tonight. Sian wondered if she should inquire after the monkey’s health. Perhaps she had retired to the continent as well.
“Please, refresh yourself,” Escotte said as she walked in, waving toward Quatama, his chief butler, who stood stiffly by a sideboard generously laden with bottles and a plate of pastries, ready to serve her. As usual, Sian was hungry. Everyone seemed used to that by now.
When she had accepted an arak-and-soda and a small sterling plate of pumpkin-and-goat-cheese tartelettes from Quatama, she went to settle herself in the large upholstered chair beside Escotte’s. The butler followed to refresh Escotte’s drink and offer him another tartelette, then bowed low to them, and withdrew.
Her cousin made his usual show of enjoying the snack, as though he’d never dined so sumptuously in all his life. “Have you had a pleasant day?” he asked around a mouthful of pastry.
“Lovely,” Sian said, savoring the bitterness of the anise against the sweet soda. “Cleone and I wrote hideous villanelles.”
Escotte tittered. “I am sure they were quite capably executed. I should like to see them.”
“I am certain you would not, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.”
“Oh, yes, do send them to me.” He watched her eat her second tartelette, making her self-conscious of the crumbs falling on her dress. “You look stunning tonight,” Escotte added.
“Why, thank you,” Sian said, trying not to laugh as she brushed the crumbs away. The dress she wore was one of Víolethe’s, and not much more attractive than Escotte’s own appalling robe tonight. She had quickly realized that, whatever Escotte might pretend, showing up for cocktails or dinner in anything other than the clothes he had procured for her caused him disappointment. She’d started working her way through the closet of horrors, wearing the least objectionable first. After more than a week, however, she was left with this tight-bodiced tangerine and scarlet gown with its extravagantly padded sleeves and ruffled peplum. It was almost a cruel parody of her own, more muted dusty rose dress with orange piping, ruined the night of her … rescue. If these clothes had not been on loan to her, she would have at least torn off the layers of frothy red lace at its neck, wrists, and hemline, but alas … “It was kind of you to find me all these lovely things to wear.”
Escotte waved his hand dismissively. “The pleasure is mine! Truly, cousin, you should wear warm colors more often. They quite suit you.”
They quite do not
, Sian thought, smiling pleasantly as she cast her eyes about the room in search of something else to talk about among the tapestries or sofa-cushions. The small round table between them caught her eye, its marbled top cunningly inlaid with brightly colored tiles. The pattern was abstract, yet pleasing in some mysterious way. What a fine bolt of cloth it would make, she thought, her business mind already trying to organize its preparation for Monde & Kattë’s looms. “Where did you find this lovely table, cousin?”
“I have my sources, dear.” Escotte gave her a mischievous smile. “It’s from the City Imperishable. An artifact from
before
,” he added to be sure she understood the table’s mind-bending antiquity. “I relish things of beauty from the past, don’t you?”
Sian tried not to gape. If what he said was true, the table alone was worth more than her entire … everything. She looked again at the exquisite jewel-box of a room, the gilded onyx wall lamps, the exquisitely carved teak and mahogany furniture, the crystal decanters and silver-furnished sideboard, the Hanchu silk rug at their feet. How much wealth did this one room contain? How much of Alizar’s treasury had it taken to furnish the entire building?
Escotte set his glass down on the priceless table, then ran his hand gently across the tiles before looking up at Sian. “I can guess what you are thinking, cousin.”
“Oh! You are a mind reader now?” she said, trying to cover her discomfort with humor. “Strange powers clearly run in our family.”
“You think me just a hoarder of wealth.”
“You are an utter failure at this skill you boast of, cousin,” she teased, unnerved by this evidence of her own transparency.
“Come now,” he replied. “Don’t deny it. I can see it very plainly in your eyes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What reason could you, of all people, have to care about more wealth, Escotte? But surely you do not suppose that anyone could look around here and be unimpressed.” She was careful to smile as she said it, thinking,
A hoarder of prestige, if anything.
“Can even you take so much treasure for granted?”
“I take nothing I possess for granted, dear. Nor, to be candid, am I as unconcerned about more wealth as you claim to suppose. In my experience there is no such thing as enough, let alone too much, especially in troubled times like these. But I fear you do misunderstand me.” He looked at her earnestly. “This table, beautiful and rare as it may be, is not just wealth to me. It is
history
. And history tends to be the first thing lost in times of upheaval.” He gave her a wistful smile, and stroked the table again. “Whole civilizations come and go, leaving us nothing more than these rare glimpses.”
Dear me. Escotte Alkattha, noted preserver of history? A shame your tastes don’t equal your ambition,
she thought, recalling the absurd contents of his library. Everything about this conversation was rubbing her the wrong way. “So you’re just collecting all these lovely things against some future rainy day?” she could not help asking with a teasing smile.
“I’ve no desire to be disingenuous, cousin.” Escotte leaned back into his chair again. “We both know what a crucial resource wealth is. It is my money, at least as much as my position, which enables me to keep you here in safety — not to mention comfort.”
“And I’m very grateful for that,” she answered automatically. Which she was, of course.
Escotte gave her a look, then said, “Shall we have another tartelette or two? Dinner is an hour off yet.”
“Yes, please.” She was almost not embarrassed by her hunger now. Almost.
Escotte picked up a tiny crystal bell from the ancient table between them. Its tinkling sound was sweet enough to please the gods. Such a bell, she thought, must surely have been imported from the very stars above, and presented to Escotte Alkattha by winged gremlins on a blanket sewn of albino nighthorse skins. Or some such. She kept this uncharitable thought to herself, of course, as Quatama entered to refresh their drinks and bring them more pastries from the sideboard mere feet away, before withdrawing once again.
“How go your arrangements for my meeting with the Factor’s son?” Sian tried, between sips of her refilled drink.
“Laboriously, as you might expect.” Escotte shifted in his chair and crossed his legs, revealing a magenta-and-puce-stockinged ankle and a bit of plump calf.
“Anything you can share with me?” she asked.
“Nothing useful or safe for you to know.” He sipped his drink without meeting her eyes, clearly wishing for another change of subject.
Sian fought back a sigh, and gazed around the room again, finding no safer topic even there this time.
“Truly, dear, you needn’t worry about it,” Escotte added, more gently. “Everything will be resolved quite soon, I’m sure. Just relax, and enjoy your holiday here.”
“I …” Sian started, then stopped.
“Yes?”
“I just wonder if there’s a way I could relax here in some … less supervised way?”
“What do you mean?” Escotte’s voice sharpened a bit. “Has Cleone’s service been less than satisfactory?”
“No, of course not — she is quite capable … and creative. But she is with me constantly, always trying to amuse me. I have not a moment to myself. If I leave my chambers, Ennias or Wurrit are there standing guard as well. Can I never be alone — even here inside the house?”
“I believe I have explained more than once the dangers involved for you — even here, regrettably.”
“Yes, I do understand that …”
“Is there some further diversion or amenity you desire? Perhaps a favored delicacy that our kitchens are not providing? Just say the word and I shall have it done.” His words were kind; his tone somewhat less so.
“No, no — your kitchens are quite astonishing. There is nothing more I want.”
Escotte frowned. “Then what
is
the problem, cousin?”
Fighting down frustration that she knew she must not show, she said, “I simply find it quite uncomfortable to be escorted even to the toilet, like a child. Surely you can understand that, Escotte. I cannot visit your innermost courtyards without an armed guard. Are your fish that dangerous? I am used to some amount of freedom.” She picked up her cocktail and took an unusually large swig.
Her normally foppish cousin fixed her with a glare more stern than any she had ever seen on his round, soft face. “My dear Sian,” he said, his voice cold, “I am sorry that you find my hospitality so offensive. I will happily return you to the Mishrah-Khote at any time; you need only ask.”
“I … no! I meant no offense, Escotte. Have I not told you how grateful I am?”
“Ah. Forgive me. I misunderstood then.”
“Yes. Of course. I’m sorry to have so poorly expressed my concerns, cousin.”
“Let’s just consider this unfortunate exchange forgotten, shall we?” He got up to get another pastry for himself — the little bell also forgotten.
After that, an uncomfortable silence fell across the room, settling like a veneer of oily dust on all its lovely furnishings. Sian concentrated on her cocktail, though it no longer tasted half so sweet. When it was finished, she sat wishing desperately for any of Cleone’s little bags of sewing or bead-stringing kits with which to fill the awkward vacuum, until, finally, Quatama came to announce their dinner. She leapt up and started for the door, tempted to embrace the man from sheer relief, though, for once, she had no appetite at all.
“Would you like a bit more cake, perhaps?” Arian asked, just a tad frantically, already beckoning Lucia with a glance.
“No, no. I am quite sated,” Aros said, setting his fork down and lifting his linen napkin to dab at the corners of his mouth. “Thank you for such a lovely meal, sister. I cannot tell you how relieved, and grateful, I am that we’re on speaking terms again. I’m so sorry that things ever came to such a pass between us. But … well, it’s been difficult, you know? I’ve been so … unsure of what to do with myself here. For so long now. One drifts. And becomes a dreadful idiot, it seems, without ever meaning to, or even noticing.” He looked down sadly. “Until he hits a wall.”
“Oh, dear brother, I understand you all too well,” said Arian. “I’ve felt quite adrift here for some time myself. And look where it has gotten me! I’ve made such a dreadful mess of things with the Mishrah-Khote, I fear. I’ve just been so worried for my son. And all the trouble on our streets these days, with this awful Butchered God cult. You would not believe the things I’m told they’re saying about Viktor now. And myself, of course.” She raised her own napkin to dab yet again at manufactured tears in the corners of her eyes.
Part of the plan hashed out that afternoon would rest on a broadcast fiction that the Factora-Consort had succumbed to pressure and gone into seclusion in her chambers. Hysterical women could be good for something after all, it seemed. That part had been her idea, if inspired by her male companions. She had taken full advantage of this supper to convince her brother she was on the very edge of nervous collapse, lest he become suspicious when her maids began turning away all callers tomorrow, including him. Viktor’s paranoia about her family had always been absurd, of course, but even she conceded that she could not trust Aros to keep his mouth shut until all of this was over. So, alas, he must be decieved as well, for the time being.