Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) (23 page)

Lillitha flushed
violently, remembering how she had faked a fainting spell to distract
Lendenican from further questions. But the small voice that had warned her to
remain silent then was itself silent now.

“Yes
...,
” Lilli trailed off awkwardly. “There is something I did
not want to tell Cadia Lendenican or anyone else. Though if anyone had asked me
directly I would have told
them
, for I know it is not
my place to lie. But….
Yannamarie
— she had a
dagger.”

Osane nodded,
unsurprised. Lillitha sensed that the dedre already knew what she had to say;
yet the woman was intensely focused on her responses.

“Did you see her
use this dagger?”

“Yes.” Lillitha
looked the cadia dedre directly in the eye. “She cut a man’s throat as cleanly
as our cook slaughters chickens for the table.”

Osane blinked just
once, as an owl might.

“Why did you keep
this from Lendenican?”

“I...I don’t know.
It just seemed to wisest course not to bring it up.”

“Wisest? Why?”

“My lady, I don’t
know what you want me to say.” Lillitha’s hands twisted in her lap. “It
surprised me that Yanna fought so like a man accustomed to battle. I thought it
would shock and upset others as well. So I did not mention it. Yanna always
said some things were nobody’s business... Did I do wrong?”

“No, my dear. I’m
just amazed at your intuition for one so young. You know why my burlang is red,
while yours is white?”

“Yes, my lady.
Yours is red because you are cadialana and have been blessed with motherhood.
Mine is white as any virgin initiate’s burlang should be.”

“Did Yanna ever
tell you why her robe was black?”

“No, my lady.”

“Did you ever ask
her?”

“Yes, my lady.
Once.”

“What was her
response?”

“She said she was
chosen to wear the robes of shadows for a reason and that I was not
sufficiently prepared to know that reason.”

Osane’s smile was
wry and touched by sadness. She sighed as if her thoughts were very far away,
then
seemed to come to herself again. “You did the right
thing in keeping this to yourself. On the behalf of the cadialana, I thank you
for your discretion.”

Lillitha was
confused and longed to ask the dedre if Yanna had done something wrong in
defending herself. But Osane was rising to her feet, indicating that their
audience was at an end.

Lillitha rose and
the dedre, hardly a hand’s width taller than she, escorted her to the chamber
door.

“You will continue
to remain discreet on the subject, I trust?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Good night,
Lillitha.” Osane kissed her gently on the forehead. “The mother’s blessings go
with you, little sister.”

The cadia-chatel
was waiting to show her the way out. Lillitha had barely taken two steps before
Osane called to her again.

“Yes, my lady?”

“What prompted you
to tell me?” she asked in a low voice.

Lillitha did not
even have to think about her answer.

“Yanna would have
wanted me to. You are the dedre. The keeper of secrets.”

Osane nodded and
bid her goodnight once more.

Lillitha followed
the chatel in silence, unaware that her fate had been sealed.

Chapter 13: The Golden Lock

Excerpt from
The Histories of the Realm
by Cadia
Kesava
:

Marta of Kirrisian
has long been an overlooked player in the story of
tey Mysirrati
. She has been hastily sketched either as a silly
child who assisted her sister and her lover in their escape out of romantic
notions, or as a petty schemer too intent upon her own resentments to
understand what she set in motion that fateful night. It is my contention that
Marta was both and yet much more. Unfortunately, Marta either could not write
or, more likely, was not inclined to, and so her side of the story has been
lost to history.

By the third day
of the festival, Marta was bored. She was sick of the high and mighty
Shallanie, sick of living in a damp tent, sick of watching people bow and
scrape to her sister and those other dismal-looking sheep in white robes.

When, she wondered,
would her own life ever begin? She’d been certain that Danaus was going to
approach her father to begin matrimonial negotiations, yet still the merchant
did not seek him out. Marta had followed Danaus and Tomack one night to the
rooms they had rented on the other side of the river. She was furious to
realize that the hostelry they’d chosen was only a street away from that
bellinta’s house. She’d begun to worry that Tomack, besotted with one of those
brazenly gilded women, had forgotten her. He was never without his father, so
she had no opportunity to remind him of her charms.

She had run into
Danaus and his son “accidentally” on three occasions. The merchant had seemed
pleased to have her company as he ambled through the markets and shops
comparing the wares of other merchants with his own. Tomack had been distant.
She could not tell if it was merely his father’s proximity, which always made
him awkward, or something more. She behaved with perfect decorum, turning down
the tasty tidbits from the food stalls that were offered to her, casting her
eyes at the ground demurely whenever Danaus fell into business talk with other
men whose eyes roamed her figure hungrily.

And instead of the
sly, sidelong smiling glances she normally aimed in Tomack’s direction, she
beamed with the open adoration of a new bride on her husband.

“Would you like to
visit the consecratia camp?” she asked of Danaus. “I could take you in, if you
would like.” She pointed to the purple armband around her sleeve.

He had laughed,
not altogether kindly, she thought. “I’m here for business, girl. Not for
gawking at cadia.”

“Oh, well, I guess
you know more about your trade than I,” she sighed, biting her bottom lip in
the most charmingly distressed manner. “Just this morning I overheard Vidoress
Liscocila complaining that her daughter’s presentation dress needed just the
right piece of jewelry. She’d noticed several of the other consecratia with the
loveliest medallions—”

Danaus eyed her
sharply, immediately catching the drift of her thoughts. “Is that so? You’d
think the vidoress of a province like Corellia would have already seen to such
details.”

“You know how
silly we women are. The mothers do nothing but spy on each other to see how
well their daughters are fitted out. They see someone else with something they
don’t have and they are suddenly desperate to acquire the same thing lest their
own daughter look shabby beside the others.”

She had no idea
how much coin changed hands by the time Danaus left the compound but she
thought it must have been a very profitable afternoon if one could judge by the
hard little smile on the merchant’s face. Tomack no longer needed both hands to
carry the sample cases, which were a good deal lighter than they’d been that
morning.

“Tomack, take
those back to the hostelry and wait for me there,” the older man ordered. “And
tell that lazy mistress of the house to have my supper waiting for me. Don’t
let her serve that swill she passes off as wine, take out a bottle of that
jurora
we bought this afternoon.”

Marta watched him
melt into the crowded street and sighed.

“Come now, my lady
of Kirrisian,” Danaus said. “You need not be so obvious. We both know you’re
much smarter than that.”

“Obvious?
In my admiration for your son?
Such emotions should be
obvious.”

“Clever women
generally make me nauseous, but you’ve a mind for business as well as intrigue,
as you demonstrated this afternoon.” The merchant threw back his head and
laughed. “Brilliantly done, my girl, brilliantly! There is nothing like vanity
and competition to make women part with their husband’s gold. They did not even
attempt to haggle over the price. Pity you’re a woman, you’d make a fine
trader.”

Marta smarted at
his double-edged flattery. Nothing was ever going to happen if she didn’t start
pushing. Were men really so dense or did they just pretend to be so to
infuriate women? Now was her chance, and by Oman, she was going to take it.

“Glad I am that
I’m a woman.” She tossed her head, causing the golden tresses to shimmer like
water in the sun. “I might make a good trader but I’d make an even finer wife
for Tomack.”

If he laughed
again she would kill him. But he did not laugh. Instead he stared at her.

“Marry my son?”
Danaus’ small eyes narrowed even more. “What makes you think you’re fit for my
son?”

Marta’s chin
tilted. “I am the daughter of the Vidor of Kirrisian. That makes me fit enough
for a noble. Certainly better than a son of a merchant could hope for.”

His face flushed
red and his lips tightened. She’d hit upon his envy as she had intended.

“The younger
daughter.”

“The only
marriageable daughter.”

Neither batted an
eye as their gazes locked.

“True.” Danaus
sighed mockingly. “But let me speak plainly, as you have spoken so bluntly of
my son’s untitled position. You are the
dowryless
daughter of a placaless vidor. Any of the rings on my fingers would fetch a
higher sum than everything your father possesses.”

“And everything
you possess can not buy my father’s title or rights.”

His eyebrows
arched as he smiled in what was not a completely pleasant expression. “Can it
not? Perhaps I misunderstood you? Were you not offering yourself and your
father’s title for sale?”

The color drained
from Marta’s face. The muscles in her stomach quivered with rage.

“You brazen
trollop,” Danaus laughed. “It’s all over the camps how you paraded yourself
through the market, bartering your sister’s name for scraps. Yet you have the
gall to stand there and insult me.”

To his surprise,
Marta laughed. It was a merry sound, the giggles of a small and innocent child.

“Dear Danaus, whom
I had hoped to call good-father,” she said gaily in a voice that belied the
rage she’d swallowed, the anger that now writhed in the pit of her stomach. “My
excursion through the market would quickly fall from people’s mind should I
tell them about your friend—what’s her name?
Obviously
a common girl, though a very pretty one.
Abshira, isn’t it? Yes, I
believe her name is Abshira.”

She had him now.
She could feel the confusion and disbelief in his mind. Till the day he died,
Danaus would wonder how on earth she had known about Abshira.

When he did not
speak, she continued. “Oh, I know that visiting a bellinta isn’t really a
crime. Still, it must be quite embarrassing to be found out or fine upstanding
men like you wouldn’t be so sneaky about it.”

“Oh, you are a
clever one, aren’t you?” His eyes took on the same steely glare they acquired
whenever he counted the coins in his safe or the placas in his drawstring
purse. “Perhaps I’d better wed you to my son. I don’t know that I’d sleep well
at night knowing you were bending those guiles of yours on behalf of some other
man, even at the far side of Omani.”

She gave him a
smile so dazzling he almost forgot how much he hated her. Hated her family, her
title, her poverty and that damning, tempting beauty that she wielded so
thoughtlessly.

“You’ll speak to
my father then?” She asked casually, as if it were a trifling matter already
settled.

“Yes.” His lips
were set in a thin, tight line and his eyes were calculating. “Yes, I will
speak to your father this very nightfall. Now go from me, I’m tired and I want
my dinner.”

He watched her go,
hips rolling languorously from side to side,
hair
flouncing over her shoulders. If he were free, he’d marry her himself. Then
she’d learn a thing or two about power.

As it was, Tomack
would have to teach her those lessons. Danaus would see to it.

***

“Good, there you
are.” Ersala’s arms were deep in a ball of dark brown dough. She kneaded it
briskly and violently; it hurt Marta just to watch. “Go and sit with your
sister awhile—”

“Oh, muma, I was
just about to go and see the jugglers—”

“You’ve been
roaming half the day already, it’s little enough that I ask you to do.”

She did not want
to go but her mother’s expression told her not to argue. This was no holiday
for Ersala; on the contrary, she had almost as much work to do here as at home
and no Tesla or Edlin to help. There was food to be shopped for, prepared,
cooked and cleaned up after; firewood to be gathered, fires to be built and
water to be fetched. Then there were the social obligations of a mother to a
consecratia and a vidoress to be attended to. No, her mother was tired and
short-tempered. Marta had no desire to put Ersala in a foul mood before Danaus’
visit that evening.