Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) (13 page)

At twenty-eight,
she was sent as cadia-techa to a noble family in Modan. It had been the hardest
time for her, attempting to teach a dull and vapid young girl who could not
seem to master even the simplest of languages, her own.

In Modan,
Osane
had taken a lover, as much out of duty as boredom.
She did not dislike men, but intellectually they seemed so much less
interesting than women. She’d have been content to remain a virgin all her
life, but cadia were encouraged to take part in the sacred ritual of
procreation at least once, as an offering of their innocence to the spirit of Oman
that moved in His sons on earth.

Oman must have
been pleased with her offering. She bore a child, a son whom she brought back
to the palace in her thirty-first summer. She resumed her studies in the palace
college, teaching younger students and visiting little Sidren in the Revered
Mother’s Home, where all the children of the Isle resided. Now she wore the
scarlet burlang of motherhood.

As a lower
secretary of the cadialana, Osane gained a reputation for getting things done.
She was said to be a woman of little talk and much action; this was no small
praise coming from the cadia, who prized silence and service above all things.

The cadialana, the
gold-buttoned council of the order, consisted of twelve representatives, one
from each province. When Cadia Borchetta of Sealles, ninety-eight summers old,
suffered a stroke, Osane was unanimously voted to take her seat at the table.

Anointed at
thirty-eight, she was the youngest cadia-dedre in history. She suspected this
was part of the reason Shallan Varden took an instant dislike to her. He was
accustomed, he often complained, to dealing with a more mature woman. He never
hesitated to invoke the late cadia-dedre’s name with a sigh of pained regret.
The thought of Varden brought her mind abruptly back to the present.

“She began having
contractions around dawn,” Soccia said finally as they stepped into the bright
sunlight. The sisters often carried their most delicate conversations to the
herb gardens where eavesdropping was impossible. “We had hoped to stop them
with pohyrin, but then the bleeding started. Same as before.”

Pohyrin, a
derivative of wild flowers that grew only in the No-Lands of Modan far to the
north, had proved helpful in the past. Mostly, the cadia used it to lower
fevers, but the drug also seemed effective in relaxing muscle spasms.

“Does Shallan
Varden know yet?”

Soccia shook her
head.

Of course not,
Osane cursed.
Another distasteful duty that fell
to her as cadia-dedre.
She did not relish breaking this news to him.
Assuming, of course, that Paglia’s spies had not already told him.

“Her womb cannot
seem to hold the seed,” said the healer, rubbing her eyes wearily. “Not since
the last...”

Soccia shrugged
and her voice trailed off delicately. Osane knew she was referring to the last
pregnancy that had been carried full term, only to be stillborn.
Since then, nothing but early miscarriages.

“Last time, it was
six moonrises into her pregnancy, this time it was barely two. It’s getting
worse. It’s just same as with
Mofred
and Anya and
Dalyra
...”

The names chilled
Osane’s soul.
So many young and apparently healthy women.
All of them had survived, Oman be praised; some had even stayed after their
time as
breda
had passed, as cadia-techas. Some had
gone back to their families in honorable retirement, carrying the secret shame
of failure, some with more peace than others.
All except
Anya.

Osane tried and
failed to keep Anya’s enormous eyes from surfacing in her mind’s eye.
Sweet, frail Anya, who’d thrown herself off the roof of the palace
after the fifth miscarriage.
Anya had been a mistake, too unstable to
withstand the stress to mind, body and heart. After the girl’s death, her
mother had confessed to mental unbalance in the family genealogy. Osane
remembered Varden’s rage at the news and shuddered. She’d been unable to
determine whether his anger had been directed at Anya or Oman.

It was kept a
secret, of course
;
not the death, but the manner of
it. The cadia excelled at keeping secrets, while Varden’s priests excelled at
weaving the lies to cover the silence.

The last child
born to the shallan—a girl—had survived only four days.
Since then, nothing but miscarriages, all early into term, except
for two stillborn sons.
So many summers without even a
hope.

“It’s not Anthely,
then, is it?”

Soccia glanced at
her guardedly. What she was suggesting was blasphemy. But it could be nothing
else. Two of the former
shallanas
,
Dalyra
and
Ovidde
, had gone on to
marry in their own lands. Both had quickened with child almost immediately.
Dalyra
now had two sons;
Ovidde
had two daughters and three sons.

“It’s almost as if
Oman were taunting us.”

“No,” the healer
finally responded, whispering. “I don’t believe the problem lies with the
shallana. Oman has turned His face from Varden.”

“Perhaps He has
turned His face from all of us.”

“No! No, I cannot
believe that. We have been true to our faith and our god.”

“Yet we have
allowed things to come to this,” Osane whispered bitterly.

“The will of Oman
is a mystery—”

“Oh, come, sister!
We’ve known each other too long to waste breath with mindless dogma. Leave that
to the bene. Or better yet the council, if they have time between raids on the
temple coffers and wine cellars.”

“I don’t
understand why he allows it. Surely he knows—”

“Of course he
knows!
He has spies even among his
spies. He simply no longer cares. Even ten summers ago, Varden would have cut
off Paglia’s hands himself, but now?” Osane issued a brittle laugh. “Now I can
hardly rouse him to attend to the smallest of matters. He does nothing but
brood, night and day. An heir is all he can think of.”

“You speak of
despair, then?”

“Worse than
despair, Soccia. Year after year, he grows colder and more desperate. Oman has
never allowed a shallan to go on this long. Who knows the cost to Varden’s
heart and soul?”

Soccia bowed her
head and slowed her step.

“Cadia Terred has
asked to be sent to cloister for her
assiduarte.
”

“Cadia Terred?”
Osane frowned and tugged her larat, the long scarf that draped her shoulders.
Terred was a novice from a poor family, barely a year into her training. She
was a quiet, withdrawn young woman who tried so hard to please and as yet
showed no aptitude for anything except drawing the attentions of the shallan.
“She’s far too young. There will be gossip if we allow her to go.”

“Would you prefer
the gossip that’s likely if she stays?”

“And you wonder
why my faith staggers of late?” Osane’s eyes cut bitterly toward her friend,
who winced at her sarcasm. She lifted the heavy beaded prayer chain and the
tiny book attached to it. “When I accepted this as dedre, no one told me that
my first priority would be to keep the shallan’s robes closed—”

“Osane,
please....”

“Oh, Sweet Mother!
Why should I tiptoe around his lechery when even the minstrels in Tor sing of
it? In rhymed verse no less! Worse, I suspect that lust for Terred’s body is
the furthest thing from his mind. It’s his lust for a child, however he can get
it, that prods him to such blasphemy.”

“That’s for you
and the cadialana to sort out. As an apotheca my concerns are limited to the
physical realm—”

Both women turned
as a child scurried along the path towards them. The girl fell to her knees
before Osane.

“My Lady Dedre,
Chancellor Paglia sent me to fetch you to the Shallan,” she said, breathing
heavily with one hand pressed to her bodice as if to still a thudding heart.
“Right away, my lady.”

“Get up, child,”
Osane said, forcing gentleness she scarcely felt into her tone. From the panic
in the child’s eyes and the hurry of her approach, Paglia had probably scared
the poor thing half to death, snatching her from the middle of some necessary
duty to run his errands. “No need for such drama. I’ll to the Shallan at once.
Go and splash some water on your face, calla, and tell the cook I said for you
to have some hot tea before returning to your duties. It’s all right.”

She was rewarded
with a tremulous smile as the girl spun away. She turned to Soccia and sighed.

“Well, he’s
heard.”

“It would seem
so.”

“Wish me courage,
sister,” Osane called back over her shoulder.
And the fortitude to hold my weary, bitter
tongue.

***

Chancellor
Paglia y’Artrema, the chief minister of Varden’s council, looked down from the
third story window of his master’s sanctuary and smiled.
The jolly grin dimpled his cheeks and made
strangers think he was much kinder than he was. He wore no beard, unlike nearly
every man in the realm, because he liked the open, vulnerable appearance of his
bare skin. It frequently caused others to underestimate him, a failure that
worked in his favor on innumerable occasions.

“Something amuses
you?” Shallan Varden lay prone on a couch, exhausted, still furious, his mind
raging, but his body spent. He was past his
one hundredth
summer and the rages that once sent him pacing through his palace like a caged
lion now left him struggling for breath. His own helplessness only infuriated
him more.

“Nay, my lord
shallan,” Paglia said, turning and willing his features into a suitably somber
countenance. “What could I possibly find amusing in the face of your grief?”

“Do you think I’m
a fool, Paglia?” His master’s voice was weary. “Save your simpering sympathies
for Anthely. Weak, imperfect vessel that she is, she’ll lap them up. Where is
Osane?”

Ah, so that was to
be his mood today, Paglia thought. Some days Varden clasped his hand and called
him brother, spoke to him as an equal and laughed at the gossip Paglia brought
him for amusement. Other days, like today, Paglia found himself a whipping boy.
It was all the same to him, so long as knew which kind of day it was going to
be in time to alter his strategies. He much preferred the days—even
weeks—that Varden shut himself into his chambers and refused admittance
to even the servants. Paglia accomplished much while Varden fasted and prayed.

“I sent a chatel
to fetch her. That trifling girl must have dawdled along the way. Osane knows
better than to keep Your Excellency waiting.”

“Don’t you have
anything better to do than hover over me like a carrion-eater? I don’t require
your presence.”

“I thought my duty
lay with you, my lord.” The old man was all bluster and bark; Paglia was the
only bite he possessed. “You are upset and should not be alone.”

Nor,
he thought,
would I miss the coming
interview with the cadia-dedre for all the gold placas in the temple coffers.

There was a knock
upon the chamber door. Varden made a weak attempt at sitting up,
then
fell back against the cushions once more. He spared a
glance to his chancellor, who stood impassively and made no motion toward the
door, before closing his eyes.

When the old man
did not speak out, it was Paglia who commanded the visitor to enter.

Osane approached
with the small, decorous steps that the chancellor found so contemptible, as if
nothing to do with him or the Lord Shallan could ever be worthy of her haste.
Indeed, her skirts hardly moved around her ankles. Her tiny hands were clasped
against her stomach and her chin tilted impertinently as she regarded them.

“My lord Shallan
Varden.” Her curtsey, bending deeply with all semblance of respect, nonetheless
seemed scornful. And that voice, so resonant for such a paltry creature, was
far too confident. Osane had trained as a
tranquilara
or soother, those who honed the power and control of the voice. He had tried,
summers past, to obtain just a little of that training for himself, but the
cadia had refused his petition. Instead, he’d honed his powers on his own,
aided by a natural talent and sheer determination.

He would like to
hear that voice begging for mercy some day.

“I was informed
that you required my presence.”

“You kept his
Excellency waiting.” Paglia’s voice sliced the air. “Did you intend to inform
him of his loss before or after the entire court had the news?”

“While I am sure
that your master’s loss has been devastating,” the dedre said, her gentle voice
arching pointedly, “I felt it most urgent to tend to the health and well-being
of the shallana first, who perhaps finds the loss almost as distressing as you
do, Lord Chancellor.”