Transformation (18 page)
Authors: Carol Berg
“Of course.” She smiled serenely. “Uneventful well describes my journey. The Lord Dmitri took great care to ensure it would be safely so. I’ve never been better guarded. Perhaps Derzhi women have guardian spirits as Derzhi warriors do? Is it heresy to say so? Being both priest and warrior you must surely know the answer.”
Aleksander ignored the jab and abandoned his defensive position when his uncle’s name was mentioned. He straightened and moved to the edge of his chair. “Did my uncle accompany you, then?”
“Alas, no. He said he had another commission that would delay his journey.”
The morose Prince settled back in his chair, tapping a half-closed fist on the chair arm. “But he was well when you last saw him?”
“Very well. I was honored by his attentions—and yours to send him. We rode out hawking only a few days before I left. He was most gallant and charming, though I’ll tell you in confidence, I don’t know that he believes making ladies’ travel arrangements is quite up to slitting throats and ripping bellies. I’m surprised you would use him so. You will have to explain it to me.”
I found myself trying to smother a smile, and even a murderous glare from Aleksander could not subdue my moment’s enjoyment. No wonder he railed at her. Even with no more evidence than this, I knew he had never gotten her to his bed. He had not found any way to conquer her, and it was driving him wild.
“My uncle is happy to serve the Empire in whatever way he is asked.”
The Lady Lydia did not deign to counter such a paltry feint. Instead she followed Aleksander’s glance and discovered me.
“Who is this pleasant fellow, my lord? Have you got someone to write for you? I remember your dissatisfaction with the scribes in Capharna. You always used it as an excuse not to correspond with me. Shall I find that you have acquired the means, but not the taste for it?” Her attention did what Aleksander’s could not. My skin grew hot, and I dropped my eyes.
“The slave is just leaving,” said Aleksander. “He can finish his work later.”
I slipped off my stool, genuflected to the Prince, and rose to leave.
“Hold one moment,” said the lady, jumping up from her chair. I paused and crossed my hands on my breast to await her pleasure. “No. Please turn around again.”
I turned my back to her, wishing I could do almost anything else. Fifty lashes, no matter how they are dealt, leave an untidy mess. I don’t know that I had ever felt so embarrassed about my circumstances. At least I wore a tunic so she could not see it all.
“You are an exacting taskmaster, my lord. Did he blot a paper or stumble over a word?” Her playful edge had grown hard.
“My slave is not your concern, my Lady.” The Prince was very polite, but had regained his self-assurance for the moment. “You may go, Seyonne.” I had come to believe that Aleksander, in some indefinable way, had some sense of the difference between his true authority and his fretful temper. It would explain why, though disgraced and mutilated, Vanye was living as a free man, while his brother-in-law Sierge was dead. I believed it was why I yet lived and why he had not let me suffer beyond necessity from his mistake with the demon’s knife. I had no other explanation for it. “Come, my lady,” he said. “I see Rakhan telling us that dinner is served, and I’ve friends enlisted to play ulyat tonight. Perhaps you’ll win a wyr-falcon to replace the one you lost to Kiril last year. Do you still maintain the fantasy that women can compete at games of strategy?”
The lady flushed to a color that matched her hair, but her voice held nothing of defeat. “Perhaps this year our game will not be interrupted by state business just when I’m starting to win.”
I bowed and retired, for once wishing I could remain behind so I could witness the next skirmish between the Prince and the lady. It could be a most interesting war.
Chapter 12
At midday on the first day of the fourth month of the year, the month of Athos, Ivan zha Denischkar, Emperor of the Derzhi, arrived at Capharna. Trumpet fanfares, parades of traditional Derzhi dancers and drummers, and showers of colored ribbons greeted the tall, powerfully built monarch as he entered the gates and progressed through the city. Eight Derzhi warriors held a red canopy over his head to keep off the heavy, wet snow. From the moment he dismounted his white warhorse at the palace gates, he trod on soft white carpet sprinkled with alyphia petals, the walkway unrolled in front of his feet and rolled up quickly behind him lest some unworthy foot touch his path. Accompanying Ivan was the Empress Jenya, Aleksander’s handsome, cold-eyed mother, and Kastavan, the Lord High Ambassador of Khelidar.
Prince Aleksander met the Emperor under the towering portico of the Summer Palace, making complete obeisance to his sovereign father. Ivan raised him up and embraced him to the cheers of the onlookers. The two then proceeded to the Great Hall, where Ivan formally proclaimed the opening of the twelve days’ celebration that would culminate in the anointing of his son as Emperor-in-waiting. Then, with two thousand close friends and allies, Ivan and Aleksander reclined at table and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting deliriously drunk.
I saw none of this. I had been up since well before dawn, carrying hot water to the guest rooms and carrying away slops jars, climbing up ladders to scrub soot from lamp glass and replace burned-down candles, hauling baskets of clean linen from the washhouse to the far-flung linen rooms, carrying in back-breaking loads of firewood, carrying out endless buckets of hot ashes, and washing away thousands of muddy boot prints from the tile floors. Every slave and servant in the palace, and many of the women, girls, and boys from Capharna, had been pressed into service. None of us were going to get much sleep in the next twelve days. My only participation in the opening night’s feasting came well after midnight, when I was on my hands and knees wiping up pools of vomit from the floor of the Great Hall. I was too tired even to be disgusted.
Because I was attached to the Prince’s household, I was not required to work in the slaughterhouses or the cesspits or any other outside labor, and my work, even my late night scribing for Fendular, had always been at Aleksander’s discretion. But because the Prince was too busy to need my services and the staff was so pressed, I had been put at the disposal of the Lord High Chamberlain for the duration of the dakrah. As I suspected he might, Fendular saw to it that I had no such leisurely tasks as reading or writing, and certainly no business that would put me anywhere near the Prince or the festivities.
On the fourth night of the dakrah, in the midnight hours after the guests had reeled their way to bed, I was told to haul out the remains of the night’s feasting from the Great Hall. I was staggering toward the door, bearing four large, heavy buckets on a pole across my shoulders, when I lost my footing on the wet tiles and fell. It was bad enough that I splattered the foul mess over one end of the hall and would have to cut short my few hours sleeping to clean it up, but I had the misfortune to splash the filth on Boresh, one of Fendular’s assistants.
“Incompetent beast!” he shrilled, smashing his boot into my face. He wasn’t as fast or as strong as Aleksander, but he made his point. I groveled and apologized, then spent two hours cleaning up the nasty mess, scarcely able to see for the swelling in my face. On most nights I would haul a jar of water to the attic and clean myself before sleeping, knowing I would rest better for it. But on that night I fell onto my straw pallet filthy and exhausted, promising myself that I would jump right up when the guard yelled at us in the morning and be first in line at our single washing bowl.
There was no jumping up the next morning. I was fortunate that one of the other slaves saw me sleeping through the morning call and gave me a shove on his way out. I had time only to hurry outside to relieve myself, then report to Boresh the under-chamberlain to begin it all over again. Of course it was on that particular morning that Aleksander sent for me.
I was standing on the top rung of a somewhat rickety ladder in the Great Hall, reaching high to pry the candle wax out of a brass sconce. My right eye was swollen shut, making it impossible to judge distances properly, so the job was taking me far too long. I had already earned a lash for dawdling, but that was a small matter. It was far more important that I not overbalance the ladder. I had no wish to end up an untidy smear on the distant, blurry floor.
“Is the slave named Seyonne in here?” called the under-chamberlain.
It always left me uncomfortable to hear my name echoing about so publicly. “Up here.”
“You are to report to His Highness in the gift room.”
I climbed down and caught Boresh before he left. “Have I leave to clean myself first?” I asked, when his face puckered in disgust at the sight and smell of me.
“You are commanded to the Prince immediately. What do you care if he sees you as you truly are? I’ve heard you barbarians paint yourselves with muck.”
It was not that I had any sensibility left. I had been in far worse shape, and Aleksander was welcome to see what he had made of me. It was the prospect of unpleasantness that I despised. The Prince would be offended at my appearance and yell at me about disrespect and barbarian filth, and he would demand to know what insolence I had displayed to deserve the beating. And to prepare for it, I had to walk through the crowded halls and galleries of the residential wing and feel everyone shrink away in disgust. To be noticed by so many felt like having a thousand spiders crawling over me.
The gift room was a large reception hall that had been converted to a repository for the statuary and silver, plate, jewelry, pottery, rugs, perfumes, and artworks people thought would buy their future Emperor’s favor. Fifty long tables had been arranged to display the smaller gifts, and the larger offerings were set about the perimeter of the room. The room was guarded by heavily armed Derzhi warriors, and I spent twenty minutes waiting before they received word from inside that I was indeed supposed to be there. To my distress, Aleksander was not alone. With him were three finely dressed young Derzhi warriors, a dusky Suzaini woman in red satin ... and the Lady Lydia.
I knelt as close to the door as possible and put my head to the tiles, wishing fruitlessly that the Prince needed nothing that would take me closer to him.
“Ah, Seyonne, come here.” No luck at all on this day.
I stood up and stepped closer, keeping my eyes to the floor. “My lord,” I said.
“Aldicar told me that these gifts have not ...” There was an ominous pause. “Look at me, Seyonne.”
I did as he told me, resigned to a hand about my throat as on the first time I had come to him with a damaged face. Instead, I saw a furrowed brow and heard a soft question. “What have they done to you?”
I spoke softly also, returning my gaze to the floor. From across the room I heard his guests laughing at a most explicit Veshtari fertility fetish. “It’s nothing, my lord. I’m sorry I had no time to clean—”
“Answer my question, Seyonne.”
“I was clumsy in my duties. I deserved—”
“And what duties are those?”
“Whatever is needed to serve you, my lord.”
“You have spoken frankly with me in the past, and I require the same of you now. I just found out that many of these gifts have not been catalogued because Fendular has no scribes to spare, yet you have been given ‘other duties’?”
“I am given the same duties as the other household slaves, Your Highness. Nothing else.” Whatever it was he was offering with his quiet anger, I wanted no part of it.
His boot of golden leather was tapping on the floor like a flicker’s beak. “Can you even see properly?”
“No, my lord.” No use in lying about it. He was going to find it out if he wanted me to read or write anything. “A day or two will mend it.”
“And lashes, too. Have you eaten today?” What was his point?
“No, my Lord.”
“I’ll have their heads for this.”
“Your Highness, please don’t.” I could not believe the words from my mouth. “It is no matter.”
“Aleksander, isn’t it time to be off?” called one of the young men from across the room. “The dancing begins at midday.”
“Yes, yes, I’m coming.” The boot stopped tapping. “Tomorrow I want the rest of these gifts examined and catalogued. I’ve been feeling ... odd ... these last two days.”
“As you command, my lord.” I bowed, and because I had no certainty that I would see him before his birthday, I added something else. “May your gods shower you with glory and wisdom on the occasion of your dakrah.” The wish I gave him was a strange melding. The prayer for glory was Derzhi, of course; the prayer for wisdom, Ezzarian.
“You may go, Seyonne.”
On my way to the door I saw the Lady Lydia standing only a few paces away, beside a suit of ruby-studded gold armor where Aleksander could not have seen her. Our gaze met square on before I could pretend I hadn’t noticed. Her great green eyes were full of unabashed curiosity.
I spent the rest of that day and night in the same laborious fashion as the previous ones, but on the next morning, Boresh gritted his teeth in annoyance and dispatched me to the gift room.
It was a pleasant interlude to sit in the quiet room. Except for the regular rounds by the guards and an occasional visit by Boresh to check on my progress and complain of my laziness, I was left alone with my ledger and my writing case. The windows were covered by heavy draperies to keep out the cold, so the place was lit by candlelight gleaming on burnished metal. I found myself getting drowsy as the afternoon passed, until voices outside the door startled me alert. Women’s voices.
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