Dangerous Gifts (18 page)

“Certainly, since he is the one who appointed me. As he did you, I believe.”

I decided to ignore that.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to work.”

“Of course,” I said. “Setting wards and such.”

“Yes,” he said, “wards. And such.”

I
TOOK A
look around the grounds; or as much of them as I could in the time I had before the meal. It wasn’t a vast estate, compared with some I’d seen; if the family owned farmland, it was elsewhere. There was a park, a small wood (growing too close to the wall, that would need watching), outbuildings. A rear gate, wooden, banded with iron, and locked. No guards. I boosted myself onto the wall and looked down. A rutted driveway led down the hill. I could see the roofs of the city below.

I dropped back, and made my way to what proved to be the stables, where they kept the carriage-beasts. The stables were solidly built – stone, not wood – and warmer than the house. I poked around; a young Ikinchli boy in stained leather jerkin and loose trousers was dealing with one of the beasts, rubbing oil into its scales with a cloth, making a low hissing between his teeth. Either the beasts or the oil had a strange scent, like a mix of cream and metal.

“Hey,” I said.

The boy looked up, and said, “Heya.”

“Nice... er... What are they?”

He grinned, and started scratching just above the beast’s brow-ridges. It stretched its neck and made a low groaning hiss. “You don’t know? So what are you?”

“I’m a human. From Scalentine.”

“Foreigner. Huh. You going to stay here?”

“Only for a while.”

“These’re disti. Best ones in the Ten Families.”

“I’m sure.”

“He’s been sick. I’m looking after him.”

“They get sick often?”

“No. I look after them good.” He grinned, showing a couple of missing teeth. “My lord says I’m a natural. Also I pray to the ancestors.”

“I’m sure that helps,” I said, and left him to it.

There were a number of empty stables, and several old coaches that had been well kept up but didn’t look as though they’d been used in Enthemmerlee’s lifetime.

Not far from the stables was a long low building with a squat chimney, which gave out appealing smells of cooking. Near it was a neat but neglected-looking cottage. And further out in the grounds were a number of buildings of uncertain function and abandoned appearance. The Gudain habit of building in stone rather than wood meant most of them were still standing, but several had lost their roofs and held no more than a slew of wet leaves.

The little chapel was the best-kept of all the buildings; its pillars, a deep warm red, looked scrubbed, its pale stone walls gleamed, and not one of the small polished tiles was missing from the roof, so far as I could see. The little gravelled area around it, of green and cream-coloured stones that squeaked and chattered underfoot, was raked and weed-free. There was one door at the front, and a set of steps led down to another below ground level.

Both doors were locked; the one window closely shuttered. I tugged at the shutters, but they didn’t move.

Not a god you just turned up and chatted to, then, the Great Artificer. But at least if they kept the building locked, it meant one less place for an assassin to hide. Probably.

Most of the buildings weren’t worth a second look, and probably hadn’t been worth a first, but it gave me a better idea of the danger areas. The main one being the fact that I hadn’t seen a one of the so-called household guard apart from the scruffs on the gate. They certainly weren’t patrolling the grounds.

CHAPTER

TEN

S
ERVANTS CAME TO
call us to dinner a few minutes after I got back. By that time I could have eaten one of the disti, whole, raw, and with carriage and harness included. Unfortunately I’d not be eating yet.

The dining hall was a chilly low vault of a place. Enboryay, Selinecree, Fain and Chitherlee, seated around one end of a great long polished table that could have held thirty, looked like children playing at some grown-up game. Enthemmerlee took a seat partway down the table. Bergast hesitated, and Selinecree gestured him to the seat next to her.

There were at least three times more servants than masters, standing about like furniture. No guard, though. I stationed myself behind Enthemmerlee’s chair.

Everyone had dressed for dinner. Enthemmerlee had on another of her half-way robes, this one in dark blue with lighter blue embroidery. The colour was good, but the shape – well, you couldn’t exactly call it flattering.

The door opened. “Ah, Ambassador Dree, Lobik, Malleay,” Enthemmerlee said. “Please join us.”

Selinecree gasped. I heard indrawn hissing breaths from a few of the servants, too. Malleay went straight to the seat Enthemmerlee indicated. Both Lobik and Rikkinnet hesitated, then walked up to the table, as though afraid the floor might open beneath them.

Enboryay drew in a thick breath and said, “Enthemmerlee, do you think this... this is quite...”

Selinecree looked from her brother to her niece, a half-unfolded napkin in her fingers.

“Father,” Enthemmerlee said, “This is, of course, your home. But it is also mine. Ambassador Dree is a guest of our house, and Lobik and Malleay are my husbands. If you do not wish us to dine with you, then we will go elsewhere.”

“Now, my dears,” Selinecree said, as bright and brittle as the glass she picked up with shaking fingers, “we have fresh blackfish tonight, with a green sauce; don’t let us spoil it with serious talk! Enboryay, I ordered it especially for you.”

“Blackfish? At this time of year?” Enboryay said. “Never.”

“I have my sources, brother dear.”

“What wine?”

“Thressalian, from the low hills. And a little treat to follow.”

“Thressalian wine?” Fain said. “I must enquire into these sources of yours, madam.”

I slipped Enthemmerlee the blue jug; a flicker of feeling darkened her face as she looked down at it, in the family hall where a privileged little girl had once had nothing on her mind but her supper.

I once attended a meal where the warlord I was working for gave his defeated enemy the choice of serving him his wine or being the main course. The enemy chose to serve wine, at which point his own retinue slaughtered him as a dishonourable coward and flung him on the fire to roast. I left shortly after, having lost my taste – as it were – for the company.

That first meal in Enthemmerlee’s ancestral home, while less obviously lethal, was almost as uncomfortable.

The first course, some steaming savoury thing that arrived with six or seven different sauces, was carried in by a servant who was trembling so that the lid of the great dish chattered against the bowl, and it was a miracle any of the stuff ended up on the plates.

Thranishalak the seneschal entered with the wine, his bearing so rigid I wondered how he even managed to walk. He poured wine for everyone, until he got to Lobik, whereupon he looked at his master.

Enboryay, it seemed, was too busy adding a number of precisely measured amounts of different sauces to his portion to notice.

“Thranishalak,” Enthemmerlee said, her voice quiet but extremely clear. “Why do you not pour for our guests? Surely we have not run out of wine?”

“Ma’am.”

“How unfortunate,” she said, choosing to hear “yes,” even though it was perfectly obvious that that wasn’t what was meant. “Lobik, take mine.”

“There’s no need,” Lobik said.

Malleay opened his mouth, caught Enthemmerlee’s look, and closed it again; he pushed his glass over to Lobik instead.

Lobik nodded his thanks, tilted half the wine into his own glass, and returned the rest to Malleay.

“If he can have some, I should have some,” the child piped up.

“Chitherlee!” Selinecree said. “Hush.”

“Why is everyone so cross? And why is that person sitting in my aunt’s chair?”

“Now, now,
itni
,” Malleay said. “You know you can’t have wine, you’re too young. And I told you, that lady is your Aunt Enthemmerlee.”

The girl glowered. “Isn’t.”

“Yes, she is. It’s like a costume, you see? You know how you wear your costume for the festivals? Well, it’s like a costume you can’t take off again, that’s all.”

“Don’t like it.”

“But it’s a very pretty costume. And you’re going to hurt her feelings if you don’t like it.”

“S’a costume?”

“
Like
a costume.”

The girl got down from her chair, and came up and looked closely at Enthemmerlee. “All your hair’s gone,” she said.

“Yes, Chitherlee.”

“Why do you have to wear this costume? It’s
silly.
”

“Because it will let me help people, darling.”

“But you can’t ever take it off?”

“No.”

“Oh. Can I have some wine now?”

“No, you know you can’t.”

“Can I go play then?”

“You haven’t eaten your supper yet, have you? Now sit down, there’s a good girl.”

The child looked up at me. “Why are you standing there?”

“So I can watch,” I said.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

My stomach answered for me, loudly, and the child laughed. Even that bright sound seemed to fall flat in the room’s leaden atmosphere. Her Ikinchli nurse, stifling a grin, ushered her back to her chair.

“I hope our guests will excuse us in the morning. We must attend
privaiya
,” Selinecree said. “Oh...” She looked at Enthemmerlee. “I mean...”

“Yes, Aunt, I will be attending.”

“But you... I’m not sure... the priest...”

“It is written that only Gudain may attend
privaiya.
If I go, I go as the Itnunnacklish. And I will go to the public precinct.”

“The public precinct?” Selinecree wailed. “Oh, dear, Enthemmerlee, no.”

“Aunt, soon I will be seen everywhere in public.”

“Yes, I know, but
please
, dear, can we have the family ceremony first? You’re only just home.”

Chitherlee said, “I don’t want to go to
privaiya
. I don’t like the smoke. It smells funny.”

Enboryay leaned forward and winked at the child. “I don’t like it either,” he said. “Shall we go to the stables instead?”

“I said she wasn’t to be taken to
privaiya
,” Enthemmerlee said. “Selinecree?”

“But Enthemmerlee, it’s
privaiya.
We have to go! The priest...”

“The priest says if we don’t go we’ll turn into animals,” Chitherlee said. “I’d like to be an animal. I want to be a boom beetle.” She filled her small chest and bellowed, “
Boom!
”

“Chitherlee,” Enthemmerlee said. “Be good. Selinecree, I do not want Chitherlee to be taken to
privaiya
. The incense is not good for her. If he stops using it...”

“What animal would you like to be, Aunt Selinecree?”

“I don’t think that’s what the priest meant, dear,” Selinecree said. “Enthemmerlee, please. Fodle is very old, and set in the old ways. He would never accept so radical a change.”

“Then I will go, if it pleases you, but Chitherlee is not to. I do not wish to see her in the chapel again.”

“But must you go to the public precinct?”

Enthemmerlee sighed. “How bad has it been, since you got back?”

Selinecree looked at her plate, twisting her napkin.

“What have they been saying?” Malleay said. “Oh, don’t tell me, I can imagine.”

“No, I don’t think you can,” Selinecree said. “I really don’t.”

“I’ll go to the family chapel,” Enthemmerlee said. “Tomorrow. Then... Well, then I shall be out where I can be seen, and people will say whatever they must.”

I coughed behind my hand. Enthemmerlee looked around at me. “Oh, yes; Madam Steel and Scholar Bergast will also need to accompany me to the chapel, of course.”

“But... Will that be allowed?” Selinecree said.

“The restriction is on Ikinchli, not on other... non-Gudain,” Lobik said quietly.

“Besides, you really think poor old Fodle would notice?” Enboryay said. “Half the savages in the Perindi Empire could ride in on wild disti and he’d just mutter on.”

“Enboryay, please, a little respect,” Selinecree said.

“I shan’t be attending,” Malleay said. “And I can’t for the life of me imagine why you would want to either.”

“Malleay,” Enthemmerlee said.

“You know what I think.”

“Malleay, my love,
everyone
knows what you think when it comes to
privaiya
,” Enthemmerlee said. “Now,
I
think we should discuss something else before we embarrass our guests.”

Malleay blushed bright green and looked at his plate.

“But no, please,” Fain said. “It is good to attend a family dinner, you know. Working as I do I so seldom have the opportunity. And all close families have these little disagreements; it makes me feel quite at home!”

“Ha!” Enboryay said. “So, Mr Fain, ever seen disti racing? Now there’s a show worth betting on. Take you to look at my beasts tomorrow.”

“I hear you have something of a reputation as a breeder?” Fain said.

“Oh, I’ve had some good results. I breed ’em for speed, you know. Some breed for looks, but I reckon it weakens the line.”

Enboryay took up his glass, realised it was empty and waved to the seneschal. Thranishlak’s face froze briefly, then he gestured to a lesser servant to fetch more wine.

This time around, Lobik shook his head before the seneschal could get to him, though I wondered if he wanted a drink as much as I did by that point. Rikkinnet glared at the seneschal, who poured her drink without, apparently, noticing her existence; as though the glass just happened to be there, requiring filling.

Fain, listening with apparent fascination to Enboryay chatting about Ikinchli jockeys, breaking harness, and the best bloodline of disti to race on soft ground, shook his head to wine. I wondered if he really did have a family; I found it hard to imagine him surrounded by happily squabbling relatives, or indeed by anyone at all.

Selinecree recovered herself enough to chatter brightly of trivialities.

Bergast, either tactful or blissfully oblivious, continued talking to Lobik about local religious customs, use of magic, and, from what I caught, languages. The boy seemed to have a bit of an obsession with them. “So there are still Andretic words in use among the Ikinchli?”