Steelhands (2011) (17 page)

“I see,” I said, tugging my gloves on a little straighter. My fingers were stiff from the cold. “Well, thank you very much for your assistance.”

“And for yours,” the driver agreed.

The one unfortunate thing about Palace Walk was that it was largely empty: Servants used other entrances for their comings and goings, and unless there was a party—a favored family visiting from their country estates, or perhaps a ball—most of the people with business in the palace were already within. I couldn’t get lost in a crowd, and I couldn’t distract my mind by observing others. I had only myself to think about, and the large, white stone building looming before me was causing me to feel very small indeed.

There were guards bundled up in coats to open the doors for me, and they did so, nodding as though they knew me, which made me slightly uncomfortable—if only because I most certainly did not know them in return.

Someone
was
waiting for me in the inner chamber, but it wasn’t another servant, or even a guard as I’d half expected. She was sitting on a low, ornate couch beside one of the few, long windows that was still gathering the winter light, her voluminous skirts shimmering just slightly like an oyster pearl in shades of white and pale gold, with an overlay of blue. There were little pearl drops hanging from her ears, though her throat was bare, and she wore long gloves that extended nearly up to her shoulders against the cold. Her hair was the same gold as her dress, drawn back from her face and swept up off her neck—held there by what I could only assume was some little magic charm but was in all likelihood a hidden talent with pins that I’d never understand.

I had only ever seen the Esarina in passing and from a distance, but it was unmistakably she seated before me.

“I …” I managed, as my brain refused to follow where my mouth had already ventured forth. What was the proper depth of bowing for a woman of her station? I knew it, and yet the sight of her caused me to forget it almost immediately. “I am sorry … and humbled, Your Majesty. I must have gotten turned around somewhere. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“Not at all,” the Esarina said, standing with a hushed swish of her skirts. “You are Balfour Vallet, Adelaide Vallet’s son, are you not? I am acquainted with your mother. She speaks very highly of you.”

“You’re too kind,” I said, still not quite managing to convince myself that I hadn’t tripped and hit my head somewhere along the walk. This felt like an ambush, though too subtle to be planned by the Esar. If he
wanted to hit you on the back of the head, he did so, and was done with it. “Or perhaps she is.”

The Esarina laughed, covering her face with a fan that had suddenly appeared in her hand, and I slowly let out a breath, keeping my head bowed. Perhaps I’d been lucky enough to receive a stay of execution.

“You are here to visit my husband,” she said, composed once more. “I will take you to him.”

“
You
will?” I blurted out, before I could help myself. Evidently I was doing my best to see any pride my mother had once shown in me dashed against the rocks. Since they were acquaintances, my mother would hear about my behavior in a letter, and
I
would hear about it soon after, in a letter of my own.

“It is not among my usual duties,” she admitted, turning her face to the side for a moment, so that I caught a glimpse of the loose pearls threaded through her hair. “But servants talk, and guards
certainly
talk, since they’ve nothing but standing all day to occupy their time, and I’ve been led to believe that this is a delicate issue, one that my husband would like to keep among as few people as possible. Since he finds it difficult to keep things from
me
, I offered to perform this service for him.”

The way she said it made me think that the Esarina had a hand in making it difficult for the Esar to hide things from her. I thought of what Compagnon would say—he’d be jealous, and I couldn’t help but feel I was doing this for his sake—and I steeled myself in order to make the best of an utterly mystifying situation.

“I am honored to have such an escort,” I said, finally recovering what little remained of my manners.

Surely the Esar wouldn’t have coerced his wife into escorting me to my own execution. That was the thought I used to calm myself as I held out my arm, not to mention a litany of other reasons why my panic was unfounded.

The Esarina laid a gloved hand delicately against my own, and we made our way through the twisting labyrinth of corridors that somehow always managed to make me feel like a lost mouse in a ’Versity student’s experiment, despite my being lucky enough to have a guide who very clearly knew where she was heading. The piece of cheese at the end of this particular maze, however, was the Esar himself, seated on a dais and looking much the same as he had the last time I’d seen him, if a little
more gray about the beard and hair. There was barely any orange left in his mustache.

I supposed the war had taken its toll on all of us, one way or another.

At that moment, I realized that the Esarina must have had an intimate feel of the stiff, metal joints beneath my gloves against her arm, and I glanced over at her in horror, only to find her watching her husband instead of me.

“I’ll leave the two of you to your business,” the Esarina said, letting her hand fall from my arm. She gathered up her skirts and curtsied low, bowing her head deeply. “My lord.”

“Our thanks, as always, my lady,” the Esar said, waving his hand in dismissal.

I folded my hands behind my back and straightened my spine, doing my best to ignore the tickle in my throat that’d come on me unexpectedly.

“No doubt you are wondering why we called you here,” the Esar said, once the door had closed behind the Esarina and we were alone in the private audience chamber.

No witnesses
, my mind pointed out, and I stamped the thought out ruthlessly. I couldn’t afford to be irrational.

“I am curious, Your Highness,” I admitted, not seeing the harm in that. “Although, as I’m sure you already know, our talks with Arlemagne have been put on hold for the time being, so I … That is to say I wasn’t doing anything of importance, when the summons came. It is my honor to serve you,” I concluded. A little official flattery never hurt.

“You’ve no idea at all why you have been summoned?” the Esar repeated back to me, just to verify. He shifted in his chair, and I felt suddenly as though I was being watched. Perhaps my initial impression of our being alone in the room together, with no witnesses, had been too hasty. “By your knowledge, there’s no reason at all we might have to invite you here to speak with us?”

“Not anything I can think of,” I said slowly, racking my brains. I did hope this wasn’t a test. “Unless it’s about my hands.”

“Curious,” the Esar said, leaning forward suddenly in his charge, so that I almost felt he was about to lunge at me from the dais. “Why would it be to do with your hands?”

“It
is
the topic most people are interested in, once they learn about it,” I replied. “That, and my time as an airman of your Dragon Corps—though the latter they have more difficulty believing. With the former … I am simply able to show them the evidence.”

“And how much evidence have you given?” the Esar asked, rubbing at the side of his jaw, where his beard was freshly trimmed. “How many people have you shown?”

“I wear gloves, as you can see,” I replied, “since the sight often … troubles people. As a diplomat of Volstov, and a servant to Your Highness, I thought that distracting those diplomats with whom relationships are already so tenuous would be unwise. And … a little vanity, too, no doubt plays some factor in it.”

“How very prudent of you,” the Esar said. “Do you have trouble with them?”

“The hands?” I asked. He nodded, and waved for me to continue without waiting for him to speak. I swallowed, throat feeling dry, but carried on. “It took some time to master them. In the first month, I found myself able to operate only a few of the fingers. Now even more complicated tasks—replacing the oil in a lamp, managing a fork and a knife at the same time—pose less and less trouble.”

“So they are a part of you now, and do as you command?” the Esar asked.

The Esar would think of it that way, I realized, but I nodded once. “Indeed, Your Highness,” I replied. “Though they do not feel natural.”

“That doesn’t matter,” the Esar said. “It is of no consequence to us. I am told that you have had difficulty with the magician who treats you.”

“I cannot seem to find her,” I explained, forgoing any jokes about losing a Margrave. I didn’t think he would appreciate them. “No one knows of her whereabouts. She lived alone, and left no information, it seems.”

“No one can find her?” the Esar asked. “You are sure about that?”

“Your request for my presence came at a fortuitous time,” I said. “Since missing my most recent appointment, I’ve been … concerned about the state of the prosthetics.”

“Of course,” the Esar said, leaning back in his chair. There was something on his mind, but it was far beyond my capacity to know
what. “We’ll find someone else and send them to you before anything more discomfiting should happen to you. The way out is the same as the way in.”

I bowed very deeply, wishing more than ever that the Esar was a more approachable man. Or at least deigned to answer as many questions as he raised during any simple conversation. I wanted to know, of course, about Margrave Ginette, but to push my luck—even for her sake—would have been about as suicidal as my final mission with Anastasia.

It was so much easier to be a hero in wartime, I thought, ashamed of myself. But I left the room without furthering my case or hers.

If the Esar had an agenda, he didn’t want me to know it. And I, being his subject and therefore his servant, had to abide by that. It was law.

I saw no further sight of the Esarina on my way out, and the halls of the palace were eerily quiet, like a summer estate in wintertime. The carriage that had brought me was waiting outside, the driver and the horses alike stamping their feet with the cold and impatience, and they were even so kind as to deposit me not in front of the bastion but at my own home. I tipped the driver somewhat clumsily, my hands so stiff I could hardly move them.

He eyed me strangely, tugging at his cap. With a clatter, he and his equipage were gone.

It was quiet along the streets after that, and I fumbled with my key as I made it up the apartment steps into the long hall. No one was waiting for me when I opened the door, and I was able—after so much excitement—to convince myself that I preferred it that way.

Of all the things I hated—exams, mending clothing, being told I had to ride sidesaddle, talking to people I didn’t like—it was possible I hated appointments with a physician most of all. Especially when they were someone I didn’t know, like an old man with wrinkly, cold hands, attempting to be kind while I mostly wanted to grab my clothes and hightail it out of there, fast, before anyone could see me.

Back at home, the local doctor was just like that, and when he came
I usually hid in the pantry, then in the barn when my pantry deal was found out. I never got sick anyway. I didn’t have any need for him.

With this damn ’Versity appointment, I didn’t even know what to expect, or who. Even worse, Toverre had his in a few days, so we couldn’t even go together for support. For Toverre’s sake, I’d have to pretend like sitting in the foyer of some stranger’s house while an apprentice took my measurements wasn’t one of the least comfortable things I’d ever done in my life. Considering how many times I’d fallen off a wild horse, put my foot in my mouth at the dinner table, and gotten stuck on the shelves while trying to get myself out of the pantry, that was saying something.

Toverre was going to
hate
it.

If only Gaeth’d been around, I would’ve pressed him more for details on what it was like—whether they leeched any blood or
kept
any blood, that kind of thing. I had no idea how it worked in the big city, just heard rumors from the stableboys about what crazy shit they did to you in Thremedon. But I hadn’t seen Gaeth in a few days, even though I’d been keeping an eye peeled for him. For a lad that big, he didn’t have much trouble disappearing on you.

The apprentice checking up on me was a weedy little man, but up close I could see he was even younger than I was, with freckles and thin orange hair. He’d be bald by the time he was twenty.

I had to think mean thoughts about him because he was writing all kinds of things down about
me
—my height, my age, my weight despite me being a lady, and the day and year I was born—checking my tongue with a flat wooden stick, peering into my ears with some device that was sharp at the tip, which
really
made my skin crawl.

All this seemed much more complicated than it’d ever been at home and, in my opinion, couldn’t’ve been too necessary.

He just needed to get to the bloodletting and be done with it, I thought, because too much longer steeling myself and I was going to talk myself right back into wanting to run away again.

Not like I couldn’t take care of myself when it came to these little things, of course, and it wasn’t like I was
scared
or anything. I didn’t like being made to wait, while in the next room I could hear all kinds of things being prepared. It wasn’t going to hurt and even if it did, I didn’t mind. I just hated all the anticipation.

“Can we get on with this?” I said, sharp and exasperated. It made the apprentice jump, and he fiddled with his spectacles nervously.

“I’m sure she’ll be with you in a moment,” he replied, the nostrils of his otherwise thin nose flaring wide. “There’s a lot to prepare in advance.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Like what?”

That, of course, he didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he was as uncomfortable as me and was pretending not to hear so that he could escape as quickly as possible.

Stood to reason
one
of us got to escape, anyway, and he was probably in a better position for it than I was. I bet Chief Sergeant Adamo—Professor Adamo now; it must’ve been awkward for him, what with people slipping up all the time and calling him the wrong thing—would’ve come up with some brilliant getaway strategy, pants on fire or no.