The Element of Fire, Martha Wells [books for new readers .txt] 📗

rough stonework. A reminder from the Host.

As it passed out of sight and the clouds crept back over the moon, the Albon knight he had suspected was following him stepped quietly out into the court from the door of the tower.

Thomas waited until the man gave up and disappeared back inside, then started back to the Guard House.

Denzil was in league with Grandier, and regardless of the consequences, he was going to have to die.

*

In the Guard House, Kade was sitting on the floor near the stairs. She turned over another card from the deck she had found, winced, swept the scattered cards together, and reshuffled them. Something was happening in the Albon Tower, something interesting, and no one would tell her about it. Who can I pry it out of, she wondered, looking speculatively around the quiet hall and laying out the cards again.

No one seemed to find her presence objectionable. The refugees had brought her everything from amulets to prayer books to bless for luck, and she had collected several apples, an egg, a few ribbons, and a battered daisy as propitiatory gifts. The guards were all nobles and so less superstitious, but treated her as a sort of mascot, which was better behavior than she had had from anyone connected with the crown in a long time. They knew who had been on the wrong side of the bastion’s siege doors with them, and were acting accordingly.

Falaise had sent her a pair of boots. The woman who had brought them had said they were a boy-page’s boots, made for a masque last month and brought along accidentally in the trunk the Queen’s ladies had hastily packed before leaving the King’s Bastion, but the Queen had “thought they would suit best.” She meant they looked big enough, Kade thought. Falaise and her ladies had small perfect feet, not ugly long-toed things better suited for walking on tree branches. But the boots were soft, blue-stamped leather with gold stitching, and she liked them immensely.

She rubbed the bruised lump on her head thoughtfully. That is, no one objected to her presence openly. She still didn’t know what she had been hit with in the retreat to the King’s Bastion. An object that small of wood or stone would have certainly startled her, but not knocked her reeling and half-conscious against the banister. No, the object had been cold iron, and no fay had cast it at her.

And Thomas Boniface had carried her up the stairs.

That had triggered a memory, a tactile child’s memory. She had been six or seven, playing on the warm dusty stones of a palace court with servants’ children, and suddenly found herself among a forest of sharp hooves and tall equine legs, horses snorting and dancing around her. For a moment she had found it wonderful. But just as fear had time to set in, a strong arm had caught her around the waist and lifted her out of danger with a muttered “And what do you think you’re doing.” She had been deposited on the side of the court out of harm’s way, and left with a memory of a deep voice and a masculine scent combined with the musky sweat of horses.

Her father had heard about it somehow. He heard about everything somehow. He had called her a whore. When she had told Galen about it, he had slammed things around his small study and muttered to himself for an hour, but he was not quite worldly enough to realize what was bothering her and explain it away. It wasn’t until weeks later when a scrubwoman had explained to her what a whore was that she understood she couldn’t possibly be one. A whore, she thought, old stale anger rising again. At that age and about as alluring as an awkward puppy. It’s a wonder that I’m not mad as a wool-dyer. It was a wonder she wasn’t as helplessly at sea in the world as Roland was.

“Excuse me, my lady?”

She looked up to see a nervous dark-haired gentlewoman on the stairs above, looking down at her hesitantly. Kade thought her one of Falaise’s ladies, but she wasn’t the one who had come before. Then the woman said, “My lady, the lady Ravenna would like to speak to you in her chamber.”

“Oh,” Kade said. She collected the cards and stood up.

She followed the woman up the lamplit stairs to the third floor. The rooms Ravenna and Falaise had taken were in a single suite. There was a group of Queen’s guards and two Cisternans standing in the anteroom having a low-voiced, intense, and agitated conversation Kade was sure would have been quite interesting, but the gentlewoman opened the inner door to Ravenna’s chamber for her, curtseyed, and fled.

Ravenna sat alone near the shuttered window, head turned to look down at the empty hearth. A few carved chests stood open, and richly embroidered robes and rugs were tumbled about and piled in the chairs. Kade fought a surge of anxiety that suddenly welled up in her gut; she was not a child anymore.

“I wanted to know your intentions.” Ravenna turned to look at her, finally. “Why you are still here.”

Kade looked down and noticed her feet again. She said, “Why shouldn’t I be here?”

“‘Why shouldn’t I be,’” Ravenna mocked. “Your wit astonishes me. Of course, everything I’ve built with my life and my blood is tumbling down around my ears; why shouldn’t you stay and watch?”

“If you already know then why are you asking?” Kade said it quietly, and looked up to deliberately meet Ravenna’s eyes. That was good. I did that well.

“Oh, never mind.” It was Ravenna who looked away. “I suppose if you actually had some sort of motive, you would give me an answer.”

Kade sighed, then realized the old Queen’s sharp eyes were on her again and felt a chill that didn’t come from the air. Ravenna had set a trap for that telltale expression of relief. “Well,” Ravenna said slowly. “Do you still want the throne?”

“No! I just said that; I didn’t mean it.” I should have known that would come back to haunt me. “Can’t you just leave me out of your idiot power struggles?” But it was easy to talk about the throne. Ravenna couldn’t understand how little it meant to her.

Ravenna’s mouth hardened. “No, I cannot. I’m old, and frightened. I get angry when I’m frightened and your brother does not know when to stop pressing me. Or rather, he lets Denzil tell him that it is all some sort of game, and that his mother will forgive him anything, because she wants him on the throne. Well, I’m having second thoughts about that.”

“Don’t bother having first thoughts about me, because I won’t do it.”

Ravenna’s hard eyes came back to her again, cynical and doubting. Kade said, “I’m serious. It’s hard enough being a queen in Fayre, but this is…real.”

“I wish Roland knew that. I tried to teach him to rule, but he doesn’t understand. Our people aren’t serf-slaves, like Bisran peasants. They’ll riot in the cities and rebel over the vine-growers’ excise in the country. The balances of power that must be maintained among the nobles of this city alone…” She tapped her fingers on the chair arm and shook her head. “I push Roland, to test him, to make him strong, but he backs away. Then he lets Denzil goad him into pushing me too far.”

Kade looked at her curiously. Even in the soft candlelight Ravenna was all glinting sharp edges, her sharp profile, her jewels, her eyes. She wondered if her brother understood that someday his mother would be gone, and there would be nothing to cushion him from the battleground of the court. “If not Roland, and not me, then who?”

Ravenna seemed to ignore the question. She said, “I planned it so carefully. I let the Ministry gain power. The nobles,” she invested the word with considerable contempt, “clung to each other in salons all over the city, alternately whining and shouting about it, but they couldn’t stop me. I reduced the walls of their private strongholds, took away their private armies, so if the flower of nobility wanted to rebel against Roland they’d have a damned hard time doing it. And Aviler has some concept of how a state should function; he would have been able to keep Roland from making too bloody a fool of himself. I made an enemy of Aviler, even though his father was one of my closest friends, because if I had ever shown him favor Roland would never have listened to him. Of course, Roland never listened to him anyway. And now we don’t know where Aviler is, or if he’s alive.” She stopped and looked away. “If not you, then no one.”

Kade anchored her eyes on the floor. She is already speaking of Roland in the past tense.

After a long moment of silence Ravenna said, “I’m rather an all-or-nothing sort of person when it comes to violence. Roland doesn’t understand that.”

There was a returning quality of strength and calculation in her tone that made Kade look up at her.

The old Queen was watching her carefully again. “Thomas is rather an all-or-nothing sort of person when it comes to loyalty. I don’t think anyone at court understands that, excepting myself and the Guardsmen. You could come to understand it.”

Kade stared at her, feeling completely transparent under that gaze. A slow flush of heat reddened her cheeks.

Ravenna said, “Are you sure you won’t reconsider my offer? The benefits are considerable.”

She said, “Listen, you dried-up old bitch—”

Ravenna smiled.

Kade took a deep breath to give herself enough air to get the words out. “If you want my help in pulling your fat out of the fire, then you can damn well keep your offers and your speculations to yourself, because I don’t want to hear them and I won’t, do you understand?”

“Quite well, thank you, dear.” Ravenna nodded pleasantly.

Kade stalked out the door and slammed it behind her.

The anteroom was empty. Why do I stay here? Kade raged at herself. I meant to cut off all these old ties, say what I wanted to say, and forget about all of it. To get some peace at last. But I’ve done nothing but get into stupid arguments with Roland and make Ravenna think she can put me under her thumb again. How dare she even imply… Imply what?

She paced a tight circle in the anteroom, remembering Ravenna’s smile at her angry response. Did I just make a mistake?

The door to the hall opened and Thomas walked in. Kade jumped guiltily.

“Did you put blood on the lintels and the cornerposts of this house?” he asked her, keeping his voice low.

She held her hand out, to show him the fresh cut across the white skin of her palm, and thought, He has such dark eyes, like velvet. She was starting to blush again, for no accountable reason. To distract herself, she asked, “What happened while you were gone?”

He regarded her for a moment. “What is it for?”

God, can no one answer a direct question? She folded her arms and looked at the floor. “To keep fay out. To let them know I’m in here, and that I’m not receiving visitors.”

“Will it work?”

She shook her head. “Not that well. The ones it will keep out wouldn’t be that difficult to deal with anyway. But it’s something.”

“Why did you choose here, and not one of the other buildings?”

Not wanting to answer, she began to tap one foot in growing irritation. He waited. Finally she looked up and said, “I