Starcrossed (18 page)

I had worked with dangerous people before. I’d helped sensitive information change hands, things that could get men killed. And maybe
had
. I didn’t know. Tegen had always said we weren’t spies. Spies had a political agenda. We worked for anybody. We were in it for the money, the thrill, the pure glory of Tiboran, god of thieves and liars. Messengers. Middlemen. Our hands were clean.

I had one skill, one thing I was
really
good at. It had kept me alive for the last few years; why was I balking now? Was this any different from working for Hron Taradyce or the Fealty Guild? I didn’t owe the Nemair anything — they weren’t my family. And did I really want to spend the next few months in dancing lessons, learning which cup to drink from first, and watching Lady Lyll embroider?

I curled up on the bed, hugging the pillow to my face. “Oh, Tegen,” I whispered. Scruples and squeamishness wouldn’t bring him back. I could smell Meri’s soft, sweet scent on the bed, and pressed my eyes closed. She was nobody to me. Just a warm body and a place to hide. I flexed my fingers and passed my hand an inch above the coverlet on her side of the bed. Faint misty flecks sprang up and swirled to my fingers like silver filings. I thought about the strange way Durrel and Meri had looked at me in the boat, Meri giving me her bracelet. What had they seen?

Tegen had died to keep my secret. He’d killed a guard to keep me from falling into Greenmen’s hands, where they’d take special plea sure in making my fingers light up. If I turned Meri over to Daul, he’d start asking all kinds of questions.
She has magic? How do you know?
I couldn’t risk him finding out about me. I closed my fist tight. Dying as a thief was better than dying as a heretic.

But if I did my job right, nobody had to die at all.

I was getting careless. That’s all there was to it. Life at Bryn Shaer was making me soft. Three weeks of soft rooms and soft food and soft living, and here I was, pressed against a freezing windowpane, my toes curled under, scarcely breathing lest I disturb the heavy fall of yellow tapestry curtains I was hiding behind.

Lady Cardom had come back earlier than expected, and I had not quite figured out how to extricate myself from her chambers without being seen. She was supposed to be at dinner, and I couldn’t fathom why she was taking so long getting ready. Was I going to have to stay here until she retired for bed?

I’d spent the last couple of days perusing Bryn Shaer’s domestic spaces, and the entertainment was wearing thin. The Cardoms’ suite in particular was utterly clean of
anything
suspicious, unless you counted Lord Cardom’s vast and inexplicably pink-embroidered smock. That was one mystifying discovery I would happily share with Daul, unable to accept the oddness of it all by myself.

Lady Cardom and her maid shuffled about the rooms, changing Lady Cardom’s day dress for — I listened for the rustle of heavy silk or — pox! Was that a loose gown; was she staying in? I didn’t fancy the thought of spending the whole night behind this curtain, although I’d fared worse. I imagined a sigh of exasperation and wiggled into a slightly more comfortable position.

My second search of Lord Antoch’s rooms had proved less profitable than my first. Not only was there no journal to be found among his lordship’s belongings, but when I had gone back to check the library, the magic book was gone. I’d swiped the map of the hunting grounds, though, just so Daul knew my intentions were pure. Daul had looked at it strangely, his fingers whitening on his tight grip of the paper, and offered to remind me, once again, of what I was supposed to be doing. I touched the bruise on my temple — only half hidden by my bulky headpiece — and shook my head.

Still, there was something about working for Daul that — I don’t know. I
understood
it. Ever since he’d sent me to fetch that seal, I’d felt something uncoiling inside me, a knot of tension and fear I’d been carrying around for weeks. My fingers itched; my legs wanted to bounce up and down, climb walls, kick somebody in the face. I’d never been good at sitting still, unless I was hiding behind a curtain or under a table or in a black pool of shadow at the edge of an alley. There was a thrill to tempting the risk of discovery, to hovering unnoticed, while people went about their business, no idea their belongings had been touched and examined by a stranger. Daul’s work suited me just fine.

A few minutes later, the chamber’s outer door finally swung open, and I heard the unmistakable heavy thump of Lord Cardom’s footsteps on the wooden floor. “Aren’t you ready yet, Mother? Wear the pearls; they make you look nicer.”

The footsteps didn’t stop. Was he headed for the windows?

“I
am
nicer,” Lady Cardom objected stoutly. “Nicer than I ought to be, that’s certain.”

Stubby fingertips curled around the hem of the drapes, and I pulled back, breath dead on my lips.

“Now, Mother, I know you wish happiness upon your only son.”

“She’s too young for you. I want your wife to bear me grandchildren, not
be
my grandchild. Don’t open those. It’s freezing out there.”

I could
kiss
Lady Cardom. I heard Lord Cardom lower his bulk onto a bench. “She’ll get older. In four or five years it won’t make so much difference. Think of every thing you could teach her, until then.”

She harrumphed. “You know the Nemair are only offering her because they want our help.”

“Help that you’re only too happy to provide.” I leaned a little closer; this sounded almost promising. What kind of help could the Nemair want? I willed them to say more, but Lady Cardom just grunted noncommittally.

“I don’t like her maid,” she said, and I stiffened. “I don’t want her in my house.”

“The little one?”

“No, that Phandre. She’s too . . . loose. And she’s a Séthe. Never did like them much. The other one is fine. She can bring her.”

“I don’t know, Mother. I think Eptin Cwalo has his eye on that one, for one of his sons.”

“Huh. Those Cwalo think they can buy every thing. Aren’t you ready yet? We want to be there before they serve the duck.”

At long last, the Cardom rose together and exited the room. I waited a good twenty seconds before I collapsed to the Corles rug underneath my cramping toes.

Lady Cardom’s inconvenient timing had thrown me off my own schedule, and Meri was already dressed and gone by the time I returned to her rooms. I scurried down to the dining room, slipped in the back way behind the tapestry, and threw myself into place beside Marlytt, hoping no one would notice how late I was.

“Where have you been?” Marlytt hissed. “Meri was looking for you all afternoon.”

“Hunting,” I said crossly, glancing up to see Daul prowling in across the room.

“Bag anything tasty?” she asked coolly.

“A marriage proposal from Eptin Cwalo, if you believe Lady Cardom.” I didn’t mention what else I’d found in Lady Cardom’s rooms. I wasn’t even sure myself what it meant. Probably nothing, but tucked inside her jewel chest I’d discovered a band of embroidered linen that looked a lot like the piece she’d given Lady Lyll. But now, inexplicably, someone had gone through and cut several of the stitches, undoing rows of flowers and curlicues. I’d brought it back to Meri’s rooms and studied it, trying to work out its significance. Daul had told me to let him decide what was important, but he’d also been quick to show his displea sure when I returned with trivialities. I was smart enough to figure out on my own which category included ripped-up scraps of embroidery.

Dinner that night was informal; we sat where we wanted and collected what food we pleased as the servants strolled by with platters. It had finally stopped snowing, but the cold was impossible, seeping through the floors and walls of the Lodge despite the modern fireplaces roaring in every room. About the only warmth to be had was from dancing in the Round Court. I snagged a passing meat pie and a cup of ale — good sturdy peasant food for a night like this, although I was getting used to the dainties served up on the Bryn Shaer menu too — and settled in beside Marlytt to watch.

Meri was a surprisingly good dancer, bounding along on the arm of Lord Cardom, who flushed red with delight as he swung Meri through a turn.

“They look happy,” Marlytt said. “He’d be good to her. I can tell.” There was a strange note in her voice.

“I hope she likes pink,” was all I said, popping a hunk of crust into my mouth. As the dance drew on, my eyes drifted across the Round Court. Lady Nemair was sharing a pie with the el derly gentleman beside her — a man called Wellyth, whose rooms had revealed only a fondness for tobacco, a couple of law books, and a handful of letters from a young granddaughter, completely free of hidden ink seals. Daul lounged beside Antoch, rolling his goblet between his hands and watching the assembled company with those dark, predatory eyes.

What was he looking for? These seemed like nice people, but maybe my weeks of luxury were coloring my own instinctive suspicions. But I knew someone who never let her sharp perceptions about society be dulled by rich food and soft beds.

I pulled myself closer to Marlytt. “Tell me about these people,” I said.

She eyed me sideways and sipped her wine. “I beg your pardon?”

“The guests here — who are they? What do you know about them?”

Marlytt hesitated. “Why do you want to know?”

“I just do.” When her eyebrows pulled together suspiciously, I changed tack. “Look, I’m stuck here with them for the gods only know how long. It might be nice if I didn’t trip up every time I opened my mouth. Help me out?”

“All right. What do you want to know first?”

“Everything. Anything.”

Marlytt turned her gaze across the room, to where Eptin Cwalo was being pulled onto the dance floor by Phandre. “Well, Cwalo you know already. Wealthy merchant from an old Yerin shipping family. And by ‘shipping,’ I of course mean
smuggling.
He’s made a name for himself outfitting every army in the known world, but his current passion is reportedly spices from Talanca. He’s the sort of fellow you find circling the waters every where nobs get together.”

I looked at her evenly. “I can’t imagine. Go on. I know Phandre too. What about Daul? What’s his story?”

Marlytt shook her head, and a delicate swag of crystals glittered in her hair like snowflakes. “Be careful of Phandre. She’s a loose nob — orphaned, unattached. Unpredictable. If the moons align in her favor, she’ll end up like me. If not . . .”

“I can handle Phandre.
Daul?
”

She tapped her fingers on the rim of her glass. “I don’t know much. Boyhood friend of Lord Antoch. Father was Senim Daul, commander of the Sarist forces in the war. He’s been away from the court scene for a while, since his familial lands were seized after the war — and of course he spent something like twelve years in traitors’ prison.”

Twelve years? I was almost impressed. Nobody lived that long in Bardolph’s gaols. “That seems . . . excessive.”

“I guess that’s what you get for being the son of Bardolph’s mortal enemy.” She pointed a discreet little finger at the Cardom, now sitting with Meri between them. “I’ve heard Lord Cardom —
that
Lord Cardom’s father — only got a year for his role in the conspiracy. Lord Sposa a few months. And Antoch was out —” Her voice slowed, stopped.

“What? What is it?”

“No, it’s nothing — it’s just —” She paused again and seemed to be making a tally in her head. The strains of the court musicians in the gallery above floated down, the flutes and recorders sounding distant and eerie.

“Marlytt, if you know something . . .”

She turned to me, her eyes gone very serious. “What do you remember about the Battle of Kalorjn?”

“Less than you, I expect.” Courtesans trained in history, music, mathematics — anything to make them more appealing companions to accomplished men. “A great defeat for the Sarist cause. That’s about it.”

“No,
the
great defeat. The end of the rebellion.” She nodded slowly. “I think this is them.”

“Who?”

“The defeated Sarists. No, look — Daul. Nemair. Sposa. Cardom. Wellyth. Except for Lougre Séthe, they’re all here. All the families that backed that last rebellion.”

My eyes swung down across the room, to where the dance was breaking up and Eptin Cwalo was leading a tawny-haired beauty from the floor. “No,” I said. “Séthe’s here too.”