If a chirp might be harmful to Lasva, I’d sit unmoved, for I’d discovered that Tif would then denounce it as mere rumor. If the chirp did not relate to Lasva, or couldn’t harm her, I’d press my lips against a smile—or smooth my robe over my wrist—if I had heard it was true. And off it would go, chirping its way into Alsais and beyond.
Was I breaking the First Rule? Was that influence? I wondered as I walked back to the royal wing one warm, rainy evening, as Lasva danced at a ball given on the marble terrace of the new ducal wing—watched by Kaidas Lassiter, as Carola in turn watched him.
No, I decided, for I never whispered, and this was only my cousin, not some powerful court figure. And I was not a spy, for I did not chirp, nor was there any material gain.
Shuras’s rooms overlooked the Grand Skya, off which breezes flowed. She had aromatic flowers to sweeten those breezes and wine mulled with her own hands over a tiny brazier. Her touch was like silk, but when it became ardent, again, my interest froze, and I found her too close.
She smiled the more, read me passionate poetry, offered to brush my hair, and when I was relaxed, she murmured, “Do you share any tastes with the princess?”
“I do not know,” I said, and said so again and again when the drifting talk circled lazily back to Lasva.
I got up, thanked her for the lovely evening, but as soon as I reached the hall I wept, for I had not been courted. It was Lasva’s scribe who had been courted by one of Tif’s chirping birds.
“What did you see at my party, Emras?”
“I saw The Garden Arch,” I said, referring to the gaze named for the arc a flower makes in following the sun.
Lasva sighed. “I felt it, though when I spoke each smiled and deferred, and I believe those new cakes with the tiny sugared bluebells were lauded by all. They certainly ate them. But yes, I was aware of all eyes following not me. They followed…”
“Lord Vasalya-Kaidas Lassiter,” I said.
“Yet he did nothing to draw their attention,” she responded. “Not that I could detect. He’s not even all that handsome. Rontande is far prettier, especially with his hair dyed that shade of lemon, though I prefer his hair black. Young Gaszin catches the eye as well, if you like them chiseled. There are a dozen men who have better clothes, or finer features, or more grace in their movements. Martande of Ranflar makes us all laugh, and he know the latest music from Sartor. Yet when this Kaidas gets up to fetch the fan that he so carelessly dropped on the window sill, they all watch him, man and woman. What does he do to draw the eye?”
I had not said—yet—that her own gaze had become The Garden Arch. Maybe I would not say it. “He moved,” I said instead, groping my way, as if in an unlit room. “But the way he moves causes the eye to linger.”
She clasped her hands. “Yes. The way he moves. He laughs inside his own body, as it was said about my famous forebear. Any man may pick up a fan, but the way he does it makes my skin curious for the warmth of his touch.” She tipped her head. “Here is what I ponder: whether he does it consciously. Is he collecting lovers like others collect garland trophies or gems? Ananda talks on about those lovers’ cups he paints.”
Tiflis had reported:
There was a court play at The Slipper called ‘The Hart’s Hearts,’ about racing deer and wagering on them. The yellow-haired doe, who everyone said depicts Lady Ananda Gaszin, was desperate to get a garland of heart-blossoms from the buck dressed as Handsome. The garlands were shaped like lovers’ cups.
Lasva said, “Is there a competition to gain them? Who is collecting whom?”
They sold out all the seats, and Nali says that the word about Handsome Lassiter and his lovers’ cups is, the only one he’s given out since Lady Talian of Deshlen got hers was to Lord Adamas Dei in Sartor. Or Sarendan, or somewhere.
“You would think,” Lasva said, her brows lifted, “a parting gift from a lover would be kept secret, like a pillow gift. Unless you parted with him. In which situation, why would anything he gave you keep value? Or why would you part?”
In the play, the deer with the coronets were wagering up to two thousand apples, the highest contenders being the yellow one and the crimson one, crimson being the chief color of Alarcansa.
“Here’s what I do know: I will stay far away from him,” Lasva vowed. “Even if my sister didn’t despise his father, I don’t intend to become his latest trophy.”
I was glad I’d said nothing more specific about The Garden Arch.
“What did you see, Emras? Was there something amiss in my manner? In my words? The play was one Carola said she liked. The musicians promised they knew all the songs popular in Alarcansa.”
Queen Hatahra preferred what we call the formal plays—all old, usually set during important times, most often in verse. The words are poetry, the movements stylized—everything expressing melende… and often quite dull.
I have since realized that many were not dull when first written, but in fact were much like today’s city plays, which comment obliquely on current events that are eventually forgotten, leaving only the pretty words and the high-minded version of incidents the writer wishes remembered.
Most courtiers had to memorize pages of the old plays during their early training, so they all knew them. Courtiers might arrange extemporaneous versions of famous scenes, in honor of one another.
Lasva had gone to great trouble to hire the best players and pay for new costumes, and she had made a request for regional music from Alarcansa. All this as an offering of friendship to Carola, who returned Lasva’s friendly overtures with diamond-precise politeness—and as much warmth.
I had watched Carola instead of the play. When Lasva asked what I’d seen, I replied: “I saw politeness.”
Lasva sat down on a hassock, the strong morning light catching in the blue of her eyes—a pretty contrast to the shades of pale apricot in her overrobe, slit up the sides to the waist sash in the new mode, the underrobe of deep forest green. Forest green ribbons tied the filmy moth-gauze above her elbows and at her wrists, making graceful drapes of the sleeves. “Is that all?”
“I saw…”
I remembered Carola’s straight back, her small hands so perfectly placed and as empty of expression as her face below its high-piled corn silk hair threaded through with rubies and diamonds. Her gown was moon-gauze and silver over so deep a crimson it was almost black. She wore many diamonds all about her person, so she glittered even when she breathed.
“I saw…”
When Kaidas rose, beckoned by Young Gaszin, Carola turned her head. And when he strolled back, he’d passed by Lasva’s chair, smiling at her, though she was talking to someone else. Light flashed along the diamonds on Carola’s gown as her muscles tightened.
My instinct insisted that she was angry, but after the play she used none of the hasty movements, the brittle words of anger. Reason said courtiers did not get angry—melende did not permit the distortion and discourtesy of anger. Anger was destructive, and angry nobles before the days of civilization had caused wars.
“I saw how she watched, when Kaidas greeted you.”
“All he did was walk by.”
Lasva let out a long breath, then got to her feet and moved to the window to look out over the Rose Walk. There was no use in saying what we both knew, that she had been aware that he was there.
That next morning, at the Hour of Reeds, several men crossed through the fountain room bearing fans with poppies sketched on them in compliment to the crimson of the lovely new Duchess Carola of Alarcansa. Young Gaszin’s fan was scarlet.
Kaidas Lassiter’s alone was neutrally plain.
Lasva and Kaidas turned and turned again, sun and moon in opposition, just as the court, like the brilliant stars in the summer sky, turned about them both. The sun is oblivious to the flowers that arch their faces in its path: the Garden Arch no longer captured the mode any more than the word “flirtation” expresses the breathless intensity of those brief interchanges—never more than a single quest
ion, a word or two in response in the time it took to walk past one another. Theirs were the fast, slanting glances across the entire width of a ballroom.
Neither ever danced with the other at court parties or balls.
The Colendi have the word rafalle—as always, our three syllables come from a pairing of Sartoran words, “re” for “sun,” “va” for “water” with the added pun of “al” meaning “bright.” Light and water are always beautiful together, but sometimes, if the sun and the water and the viewer are all in the right place at the right time, the water coruscates into “white fire.” The term was understood by us Colendi to mean that nearly palpable attraction between lovers whose passion so matches the other’s that they always know—whether their gazes meet or not—when the other is nigh. And when their gazes meet: rafalle. They feel it. Others see it.
So it was with those two, all the remainder of the year.
And every time their gazes met, even briefly, Carola was watching.
The New Year’s ball was usually a small gathering, given for the queen’s particular friends and others she wished to honor, without distinction of rank. I was invited, at Lasva’s wish, so I postponed by one day my yearly visit to my parents.
The elderly Grand Seneschal was there, as was the Chief of the Kitchen, and a couple of musicians with whom the queen was pleased, as well as a number of us scribes. Since I was not there on duty, I exchanged my beloved scribe’s cloud blue and white for a gown of heavy brocade in layers of green, yellow, and amber.
It didn’t matter who I danced with. Male or female, they all asked questions about the princess. I returned the most boring and conventional politeness instead of answers.
The queen had still never spoken to me. From a distance I saw her summon Lasva, and from Lasva’s stillness understood that a conversation of import was taking place.
The queen, I had learned, liked everything orderly and important information imparted on important days. So I was braced when Lasva told me as soon as we’d reached her suite: “Hatahra wishes me to organize the Dance of the Spring Leaves for her this coming season.”
“Organize it?” I asked.
Lasva’s smile reminded me unexpectedly of the queen, who otherwise did not resemble her beautiful younger sister at all. “Yes. She is annoyed with the dukes and duchesses.”
I put my hands together in The Peace, surprised to hear this small bit of politics. Queen Hatahra seldom referred to state affairs—even those touching on court—at these events.
I forgot that, when Lasva bent toward me and whispered the following. “She said that this year Midsummer, she will try again for an heir. As always. But here is where things change: she will try again every day thereafter, for one year. With Davaud and without. She will even take the hand of certain others whose families might contribute to a good heir, for you know the magic of the Birth Spell somehow partakes of both families.”
“Yes.”
Any talk about magic stirred my mind, but it would settle again like a pond left to itself. Scribes had nothing to do with magic. Instead, I considered this sudden second-hand confidence from the queen.
“And so, if by next Midsummer there is still no baby, then she will proclaim me heir. And begin my training in state craft.”
I had no words, so I only bowed.
“She asked if I should keep you, and I said yes. If you agree, and I am named heir, you will have to hire a staff, and begin your own kind of training, for we shall be plunging into diplomacy and matters of state.”
Her pupils dilated, so black I could see my reflection in them, as she asked, “Does this news please you?”
My nerves chilled.
“She said that whomever I choose to dally with, I must keep that part of my life and statecraft separate.” Lasva turned around, facing the beautifully gilt and painted walls sightlessly. “She also said that Carola Definian has spoken to her about the possibility of a marriage alliance with the Lassiters. The baron is enthusiastic on his son’s behalf.”
Of course. The baron’s debts were legendary. A third surprise. Was this a royal warning?
Lasva turned my way, her forehead troubled. “My sister said she favors the idea of Definian order taming Lassiter recklessness.”
Oh yes, it was a warning.
TWELVE
OF THE RAFALLE
E
very so often the moon and the sun meet in the sky, creating a coronal ring of fire. So was my perception of their emotions when Kaidas arrived unexpectedly, the week before most of the courtiers began their return to court, and met Lasva for the first time with no courtly witnesses. It was distant music that drew them, that Restday afternoon. Lasva and I sat in her outer chamber, cats rubbing against us and walking across our laps as she talked over her ideas for the Dance of the Spring Leaves, and I stored them all in memory, to later be written out neatly. It was excellent practice.
She’d opened her windows, though the air was chilly. The vents blew warm air all around us.
Through the windows drifted a series of braided flourishes, cadenzas spiraling upward, played by at least two flutes, sometimes three or more.
Then more instruments joined in so compelling and joyous a song Lasva faltered in the middle of a question, head raised. “Open air music, while there is still snow in the shadows? Let’s take a walk,” she said. “We can still consider ideas. You always remember everything anyway.”
We set out in the direction of the music—which ended before we reached the Rose Walk. But we had a destination: the winter garden terrace at the extreme western end of the palace, hard against the Gate of the Lily Path, where Alsais’s gardens meet the palace gardens and many weddings are held.
Kaidas had heard it, too.
The iron-hard ground had loosened, breathing the clean scent of moist soil ready for the gardeners to bring out the bulbs and shoots. Grace-thin trees, silver-barked and bare, framed the south end of the Rose Walk.
We mounted the shallow marble steps before the Gate, the stone frigid under our walking slippers. Later I’d find out that the music was to accompany a wedding of two musicians. As soon as the ceremony was done, off they went to warmer air to celebrate.
By the time we arrived, the only sounds were the whisper of wind amid the budding twigs, the rustle of wintry-pale silk—and then breathing.
There were the subtle signs: the speculative glance, the quickened breath, the arch of neck and stillness of hand, the snap of interest between these two when we found Kaidas standing below the carved gate, thumb to cheek, chin resting on curled fingers, elbow on his other palm.
“I wondered,” he said, as if he’d expected us—maybe he had— “if the sounds I heard were summer’s music unborn. And if the metaphor of scent as modifier for the subject of love might be better replaced by sound.”
Lasva said in her court voice, “And so your wish is father to court’s deed?”
He evaded the question with his hands opened wide. “I hoped that it would be your wish.” The slight tilt to his head gave his quick grin the air of a challenge. “And your deed.”
“What about your wish?” Lasva had stilled. “Is my deed to form a garland blue-inked on your mantle?”
I cast a fast glance at Lasva. To bring up that countess or duchess in Locan Jora who’d displayed his pillow gift on her mantel was rude, and I had never before heard her be rude.
He bowed, amusement not only in his face but in the line of his shoulders, the turn of his wrist. “I stopped giving those damned cups away as soon as I found out about the display on the mantel.”
His tone was so genuine, his amusement so open, that Lasva relented enough for me to discern a change in her breathing.
“And the rumors about your skills as a lover? I take it you are fashioned like other men?”
Now I did not hide my surprise.
Nor did he. “I believe so.” He patted his chest. “The skills? Ah, that secret is no secret at all, not if you are fond of any kinds of anim
als.”
Lasva’s head lifted. “Animals?”
“Dogs. Cats. Horses. Run your nails along their skin, press your thumb over this muscle and that, and watch a dog’s bones melt. Cats, too. And humans. It’s the art of giving, not of taking, or of tending melende so closely that the simple pleasures diminish before the demands of grace.” He chuckled. “You know that twistling isn’t graceful if you’re really having fun.”
That surprised a laugh from Lasva. She turned. And turned back. “My feet are cold. I must go.”
He bowed, gave me a slight smile and a salute—quite proper for a scribe to whom he had not been introduced. He could have ignored me—etiquette declared I was invisible unless presented—but the friendliness of his easy gesture warmed me.
“Is that his secret?” she asked, when we were halfway along the Rose Walk. “He’s blunt?”
“You were blunt first,” I ventured.
“I was, wasn’t I? I don’t want to find him attractive, but I do. I have. Here’s what I just discovered: I suspect he doesn’t want to find me attractive, either.” She tipped her head. “Maybe that’s why it works, this manner of his. Of course this seeming spontaneity could be scheming.”
“It could,” I agreed. “But he seemed to be as interested in what you would say as you were in his words.”
“I know not to believe the flattery of those city plays—as empty as the flattery of court. But my dresser Anhar told me something that was said in The Rose Veil, which she thought I’d like. And that is, ‘The secret of her charm is to make everyone feel as special as one actually is.’ Here’s my point: I wonder if that is his charm. That he makes me feel… singled out.”
“You’ve been singled out all your life,” I said. “Did that make you rafalle?”