The Hidden Icon (22 page)

“You needn’t pay him any mind, you know,” Morainn began, and I sensed that she worried over how bold the old man had been, though needlessly. He didn’t know. I took a drink before I spoke, wetting my lips and spirit both.

“I’m grateful for a little candor, now and then,” I admitted, tucking my feet underneath of me, shoes and all. Morainn smiled, sampling her own punch.

“I just hate being spoken of as though I am little more than my office, and thought perhaps it might be the same for you. Even if he didn’t realize what an egregious ass he was being.”

Morainn smirked and a laugh escaped me, as unwitting as Rhale’s words.

“I am still getting used to attention of any kind, I suppose,” I answered, grateful for the opportunity to voice what I felt, instead of wondering if it had been read already. “At home I was the youngest of five, and hardly the best subject for admirers or gossips. Among my sisters, especially, one would think there were three of us, and not four.”

Though I didn’t speak in contempt, I was not so guarded as to disguise completely what petty jealousies I felt where my sisters were concerned, even now, when it seemed we were to lead such different lives. Even under Ambarian martial law, they would have options, while I would have even less than what I’d imagined as a child. Their leisure and their pursuits in the arts, in diplomacy; they would be mothers, wives, scholars. What would I be, or should I rend the world so that they might be robbed of their futures, too?

My face must have darkened, for Morainn reached across, laid a hand upon the arm that didn’t steady my hot cup. My answering smile was weak. We had not much time now before she was properly home, and I didn’t think there would be casual drinks by the fireside then.

“Imagine how it must’ve been for my brother,” I exclaimed, stirring to the sentiment even as I feigned it. “Coddled and teased, with no one to coddle and tease himself but me, who was as mild as a nesting bird. No wonder he is the way he is.”

Morainn’s expression was thoughtful, even if a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. I was reminded of her treatment of my brother when he had come for me near the start of our journey, which seemed so long ago I was sure it was another life, another person’s life.

“What was his favorite of your stories, your brother?”

“He had many,” I said softly. “Though he always asked me for the story of Goshi, who deals in secrets. Do you know it?” Even as Morainn made to answer, our attentions were both diverted, for in that moment a sound traveled through the thick tapestry hung in folds over the room’s window. I rose and Morainn behind me, and I could feel her grin upon my back. Shivering slightly, I pulled the heavy weave aside and I could hear it better then, the rain.

“One of the last of the season. It will all turn to ice and snow after this,” Morainn observed quietly at my shoulder, our faces framed in the window for anyone on the ground below, any spirit watching from above. I could give little thought to ice and snow with the gentle shower to distract me, steady as a dream, with drops that splashed fat against the stone of the window’s frame. The rains I had known in Aleyn had never been like this, all urgency, quick and violent. I could see several grooms below dashing from the stable toward what I assumed was the servant’s entrance to the manor proper, their whoops and laughter born on a chill wind to our ears.

I could have gone on the rest of the night at the window, my fingers giving over to the pale cold, my eyes frozen open upon a scene that was more satisfying than strange. Morainn put her hand near mine, guiding the tapestry over the window once more to shut out the cold and the wet.

“No matter what happens, Eiren, you’ll have me. I will be sister and brother to you, for having my hand forced in separating you from them.”

Morainn left no room for a response and I didn’t think I could manage one, my surprise and sadness, my pleasure, blended to mute gratitude on my face. She smiled.

“You can tell me of Goshi another night.” Leaving her drained cup on the little table between the chairs, she departed.

Though compelled to pull the tapestry back again, or more daring still to go up to the prayer garden and feel the soft touch of the weather on my face, I didn’t. The first because it was not so tempting as the latter, and that because I didn’t want to see Gannet so soon. If there were ever a night fit for prayers, for seeking the guidance of whatever deity it was paid their penance upon his face, it was tonight.

I was sorely inclined to utter a few of my own, but retired instead, slipping fitfully into dreams bone dry.

We were expected next day to remain abed until his lordship did, which was too late even for travel weariness. I could only imagine the cost the delay would have for Antares, who was eager enough to be away that his want could stand in for each one of us. Despite the curtain heavy across the window, I woke with the sun, which, though later here than I was used, was the only thing familiar to me. I dressed in my traveling clothes, which Rhale’s servants had struggled to clean and repair the evening before, leaving them folded and showing little evidence of their efforts next to a basin for washing. Water in a pitcher was threatening to turn to ice, but I forced myself to wash before hurrying into my many layers. I only just refused myself the cloak as I descended the stairs, eager more for occupation than I was company as I scouted the corridors of the estate.

Only one door was thrown open on the second floor, and this to a room I thrilled to see: a library, shelves stuffed full of bright tomes and crumbling ones, tables and desks tumbled over by someone who had clearly studied at a length too great to clean up after themselves. Though there was no one in the library that I could see, I stepped hesitantly into the room, wondering if perhaps some of my secrets might be revealed here. I wouldn’t need to wheedle or play to such teachers as these books could be. After a moment I hastened to a shelf, tilting my head to better examine the spines of the bound tomes, the scroll cases and trailing ties. Many were in a script I didn’t recognize, but not the same as the one Gannet had given to me.

Crouched on the floor, I pried from the lowest shelf a particularly ancient looking text, folded between two graying covers of some animal hide. I was tricked by my eyes or the gray light – for in this room Rhale had windows set with glass, a luxury he had not invested in the whole of his home – into thinking that the characters etched upon it were kin to those in my book. I rose, thinking perhaps to retrieve it, when I noticed a painting above the door that my original vantage had not shown.

A young man waited in the shadows of a circle of standing stones, his features muted all but for his grin, which was at once charming as a babe’s and as sly as a sand dog’s might be if such a creature could smile. A few lines of glinting paint near his hand confirmed for me that he held a key.

“My great, great, great-grandfather,” a voice announced. I started, eyes sweeping down to the doorway beneath the painting, where Rhale stood, still in his dressing gown and heavy sleeping robe. His eyes were much sharper in the morning light than they had been last night. “Can’t you see the likeness?”

I looked back up at the painting, my color betraying my worry at having been caught here, wondering if I was not allowed. Rhale, however, didn’t seem to mind, hobbling over to one of the cluttered tables and taking a seat.

“He was a man who knew how to get what he wanted,” he sighed, making a half-hearted motion towards one of the texts, but joining me in looking at the painting. A rendering of Charrum on the wall was not the same as seeing sirens beneath the waves outside of Cascar, but I found it curious that Rhale claimed him as an ancestor. He was toying with me, perhaps, or delusional.

But I could read him well enough to know that he, at least, believed what he was saying.

“What did he want?”

At this, Rhale chuckled, as though that had not been the response he’d anticipated.

“What every man wants, girl. Glory, riches, the love of a good woman, or, well,” he finished abruptly, dropping a gnarled hand into his lap. “Charrum did as he pleased, followed his own course. I thought to do the same, but things haven’t happened for me quite as they did for him.”

My skin peppered with chill at his words, at the name he uttered. How had Charrum come to be in the home of an Ambarian lord claiming ancestry? I looked at the painting again, as though I might find some resemblance between the old man and the myth, as he’d asked. Rhale watched me, eyes narrowed, and I was glad he didn’t have my skills. But when next he spoke, I wasn’t so sure.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Your life hasn’t followed the course you thought it would, either, has it, icon?”

Perhaps Rhale had come into the knowledge in the night or was more adept even than Gannet at hiding his true thoughts. He didn’t name her, but he knew. What Gannet’s attentions had to do with the dread goddess I didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. But there were other things I did.

“I don’t suppose you have anything in here about me,” I said evenly, not wanting to give Rhale the satisfaction of having surprised me.

“Icons have never interested me as much as other things,” Rhale admitted, his creaky tenor betraying just how unpopular was the opinion he voiced. “But,” and here he rose, sturdier than his slight frame first seemed, and moved slowly towards a shelf in the corner, gesturing to the highest shelf. “I have an account of Shran’s histories you might be interested in.”

As I crossed to where he stood, nerves balled in my feet at every step, Rhale turned his sharp eyes on me once more. I smiled a little, thinking to set him at his ease, or me, but his expression didn’t change. While he clearly didn’t perceive me as a threat, I was no harmless child, either. He tapped a finger against a tome, but as I reached for it, his fingers moved as effortlessly to grasp my wrist. He was stronger than he seemed, though I had the feeling he would let me go if I struggled. I didn’t, at first, but leveled my gaze on him.

“Do you think you will find more in there than you can in here?” He spoke, moving the hand he clutched over my heart. I thought carefully about my words before I spoke, keenly aware of the pressure of his fingers against my skin. They felt like twisted paper, cool and frail.

“I am a stranger to myself,” I said softly. “So yes, I do.”

Rhale released my arm, and I dropped it to my side. I didn’t reach for the book, for he retrieved it for me, setting it on the table with all of the others.

“Most fear the icons, but some, like me, do not,” he paused, laying his stronger-than-it-seemed hand against the cover of the book, as though he were suppressing whatever lay within. “But everyone is afraid of you.”

He trembled, but it was not from the stresses of his age, or even fear, exactly. The dread goddess was terrible but awesome, too, in her power. For the Ambarians, anyway.

“Then why am I here?” I asked. Gannet had never said, but I had never doubted that there must be some proof for such trouble, such cost. I had been an unexpected boon of their war, but after what Rhale had said last night, I knew that the dread goddess had played a role in its waging well before I’d entered that chamber with Gannet and Morainn.

Rhale looked surprised, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, our attentions were diverted by footfalls at the door. Gannet stood there, his hair untidy at his collar, his masked brow.

“It was written.” His first words did not surprise me, predictable as bird song. Gannet’s next, though, was new. “When we are in Jhosch, we will go to the opera. Then you’ll know.”

The way he said opera made it seem as though we would pay a visit to a sage or witness a great battle. My skepticism warred with irritation that he should interrupt now when I didn’t want him, looking maddeningly well rested. I thought to take the book from the table just to spite him, but I knew I would only have to return it and seem more a pawn before Rhale than I did now. I liked the old man, and hoped this wouldn’t be our last encounter. A nod, however, was all I could give him to indicate as much, for I was sure he did not exactly seek my favor, whatever he imagined me to be. I crossed the library to Gannet’s side, my temper cooled as other fires were stirred by the heat I could feel radiating off of his body. He was dressed already for traveling.

“Strangers are more welcome some places than others,” Rhale offered, an unusual goodbye but framed as one nevertheless. He was looking at me and not at Gannet, and I smiled.

“I’ll remember that,” I replied, hoping that we would someday have cause to return, and not just for the book the old man fingered lightly, as though he could read something upon its surface with just a touch.

Gannet didn’t need to put a hand upon me to steer me out of the library and toward the landing where he would go down to see to our departure, and I up to ready myself for it. I would’ve shaken him off anyway. Without looking at him, I held his attention a moment, demanded it.

“You could’ve interrupted sooner,” I speculated, for I hadn’t guarded myself there. In fact, I was surprised he wasn’t more critical of my lack of control. “Why didn’t you?”

I could feel his eyes upon me, that he wanted me to meet them, but I looked away, focused upon a blank space over his shoulder. I had seen my mother often give this look to those who had displeased her, as though she listened but only out of obligation. It didn’t matter that I had asked the question. I was owed something, and Gannet had kept it from me.