And tucked into a hollow between the herb-scented mattress and the wall, three gold crowns, a dozen silver marks, and a jet ring somebody wasn’t using anymore. I was going to have to find a better hiding place for those. Another time. I turned over in the bed, breathing deeply the scent of crisp white linen sheets nobody had ever slept in before.
I heard the sound of the curtain rings being shoved apart, and more sunlight flooded the rooms. Meri stood before me, fully dressed, her hands on her hips and cheeks pink from her early morning ride with her parents.
“Get up!” she cried gaily. “I am to inform you that my lady mother says it’s deplorable how lazy you and Phandre have gotten. We have guests arriving today, and you are both to report immediately to the courtyard to greet them.” She flung my kirtle at my head.
“Lazy!” Phandre stepped out of the little maid’s room adjacent to Meri’s bedroom. “You have no idea how much work it is, trying to make a good impression on the household staff.” She yawned elaborately. “I was up all hours last night explaining the problem with my door latch to Ludo.”
“We heard you,” I said, although it was untrue, and Meri shrieked with laughter and turned scarlet.
Phandre just looked haughtily at me, then marched over and carried away the entire tray of food.
“Beast,” I said.
“Guttersnipe,” she called back as she kicked her door shut. Meri’s chambers had a bedroom with an adjacent dressing room, a sitting room, and a small, spare bedroom for her ladies-in-waiting, which Phandre had appropriated on sight. I couldn’t mind that much; there were only two beds, and if I had to share with somebody, at least Meri gave off some body heat.
The thing was, I had gotten lazy, and it was deplorable. Lady Nemair’s workload notwithstanding, after two weeks at Bryn Shaer, all my instincts were dulling. Having every thing provided for me was making me soft, and I loved it. I added to my little squirrel hoard out of habit, without the thrill it should have brought me. I refused to think about what I was going to do when winter was over. That was an entire lifetime from now, and I was determined to enjoy this one as long as I could.
I unrolled the blue dress Meri had thrown at me and climbed out of bed. Even the floors at Bryn Shaer were warm; you could pad around barefoot, but why? The leather slippers they’d given me had pearls sewn around the collar. Tucked alongside my shoes in my very own clothes chest was the Decath dagger Durrel had given me. I’d been wearing it strapped to my leg, a curiosity Meri had noticed but never commented upon, but this morning I just held it up to the sunlight and looked at the bowing dog on the pommel.
“I miss him,” Meri said quietly. She’d sat on the edge of the bed; her feet almost reached the floor.
“I know,” I said, but I was thinking not of her cousin, but of another man with a knife.
“You must miss your — young man too.” When I looked sharply at her, she smiled. “I hear you dreaming, sometimes.”
Marau’s balls. I didn’t remember those dreams, I just woke sweating and disoriented and sick with fear.
“It must have been very romantic,” Meri pressed. “I gather your brother didn’t approve.”
For a moment I was confused, then had to choke back my laugh, imagining what my brother — Celyn’s invented brother — would have made of Tegen. I put the dagger back in the trunk and dropped the lid. “That was a different lifetime,” I said.
Out in the courtyard, we clustered together among the bustle of wagons and bodies pouring in. It was probably one of the last warm afternoons we would see for a while. Golden trees I had seen in the distance just days earlier had given up their leaves, and the black hills seemed to loom even closer. Lord Antoch had warned us that weather in the Carskadons can change suddenly, and although he still took hunting parties out daily to catch the last of the hillside game, we girls were cautioned never to go beyond the outer bailey alone, lest we run afoul of bandits or fall off the mountain. For now, the plea sures inside Bryn Shaer were enough for that warning not to chafe. With nothing but thin air above and endless black rolling forest below, Gerse felt as far away as the moons.
Meri stood flanked by Phandre and me, in a bronze damask coat, her black hair caught up in a gold caul. Her curtsies had become less rigid, the hand she offered to her arriving suitors trembled less. Mountain air was good for her, I thought.
And then wondered why, by the Nameless One, I even cared.
The arrivals of the hour included a merchant and his wares, and the press and swirl of people and goods made it like a nob’s market day. I half expected somebody to break out pipes or start hawking roasted meat on skewers. I stood behind Meri and curtsied and nodded and freed a few coins and rings here and there.
The merchant, a small, bald man in an expensive doublet, seemed well-acquainted with Lady Lyll, walking her through the heaped-up wagons he had dragged up the mountain from Breijardarl. Their laughter carried across the courtyard as Meri hung back shyly.
“That’s Eptin Cwalo,” she said. “He’s only a merchant, but he’s very rich, and he has six sons.”
“Six?” Phandre broke away, swishing her green silk skirts like the tail of a peacock. I shrugged and followed, curious to see what was in all the crates. Probably cheese and beer and wool — but they might have some of the candied Breijard fruit I was coming to love, which I would be more than happy to help unpack. Nobody would see me in this crowd. I was certain of that. I was peeking beneath the canvas cover on one of the wagons when I heard Meri squeal with delight.
“Uncle Remy!” Meri craned her neck to see over the crowd. “That’s my uncle, Remy Daul — my father’s foster brother. I didn’t know he was coming!”
The man in question strode into the courtyard rather on the heels of everyone else, leading a tense silver horse. He was tall and lean, dressed to accentuate that fact, in a close-cut gray doublet and tight breeches. His hair was impeccably cut, fashionably short, and he wore a thin beard that did not quite conceal the scar twisting the side of his lip. He reminded me of a wolfhound.
“His foster brother?”
“Father lived with him as a boy, and they fought together in the war.”
I could believe it. There was a kind of coiled strength in him that reminded me of Tegen, always wound up and ready. He strode across the courtyard as if he owned it, straight to Lady Lyll, who dropped what she was doing to throw her arms around him.
“Remy! Such a surprise! Wherever have you been? We can’t keep track of you.”
As a groom scurried in to remove the horse, Lord Daul cracked a slight smile. “Here and there. Olin, recently. Very good hunting there.”
Meri was still chattering on. “. . . in a grand house on the Briddjan coast, but he isn’t there much. He’s very much in demand at court as a lunarist, and —”
“Well, go see him.” I gave her a little shove, but she froze, rooted to the spot. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ve never met him.”
“How do you know it’s him, then?”
“Father has a miniature.”
Well, if she was shy, I wasn’t. I grabbed her arm and tugged her in Lord Daul’s direction, over her protests. And then I saw someone I knew, and stopped so suddenly I nearly yanked Meri’s arm right out of its socket.
A delicate beauty had stepped down from one of the wagons, and was lowering the hood on her sable coat to expose a crown of pale hair dressed a little too elegantly, fair cheeks tinged mountain-air pink, light eyes glittering like opals. Even among all the colorful band, I saw her. Everyone saw her. That was her whole point.
Marlytt Villatiere, notorious Gersin courtesan. It wasn’t as if we mixed in the same circles, if we could help it, but we’d bumped into each other now and again. She was no better bred than I was, but her beauty had propelled her to the top of Gerse society as a concubine to anyone who would keep her, and her list of patrons was reputed to be as long as King Bardolph’s list of enemies. I knew her, rather crudely, as Marlytt Doskin — ?
??Everybody’s Marlytt.”
Marlytt hung on the arm of a rotund young nob in a studded black doublet straining at its laces. The obvious delight and surprise on his face eliminated him as Marlytt’s “companion” here; I wondered if she’d recently become unattached, and some natural instinct had drawn her to a house bursting full of noblemen, like a bee to a flowerpot. Behind them, an older woman, narrow and pinched-faced and elegant, gave no effort to hide her disdain.
Marlytt stopped directly in front of us, and her gloved fingers flew to her mouth as she looked at me. “By the gods, I don’t believe it!” We stared each other down for the briefest of moments. “Oh, it’s been so long,” she fumbled, stalling. She clearly didn’t know what to call me, since she only knew me by my street name. Fortunately Phandre came to our rescue.
“Oh, don’t tell me you know our Celyn,” she said, a note of irritation in her voice. “You’ll be forgiven for not recognizing her; the local climate has done wonders for her.”
Marlytt smiled thinly, but I read curiosity and puzzlement in her eyes. “Oh, no, our girl is unmistakable.”
“How — how do you know Celyn?” Meri asked, and I was impressed. Most people are hard pressed to manage two words together when meeting Marlytt, let alone a whole sentence.
“I do believe that’s a story for her to tell,” she said. “But we have much to catch up on . . . Celyn and I.” She curled her fingers over mine; they were cold even through the leather of her gloves. “Come see me later, won’t you? I’m staying upstairs.” With a wink, she moved on.
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” Phandre snapped at me.
She had no idea.
“How do you know her?”
I shrugged. “From the city. I used to see her . . . sometimes.” And she had a history with Tegen, which I was not about to mention.
There was no immediate opportunity to work out what Marlytt’s presence at Bryn Shaer might mean for me, for at just that moment, Lady Lyll swept over with the lean Lord Daul.
“Lyllace, beloved, don’t tell me this perfect jewel is Antoch’s own!” Lord Daul gave Meri an appraising look. “Lady Merista,” he said gravely as if speaking to a child, “you won’t know me, but I am your uncle, of sorts. Your father and I were boyhood friends.”
Meri blushed and mumbled something into her bodice. Daul quirked an eyebrow at Lady Lyll. “Retiring? Where does she come by that trait, I wonder?”
I wasn’t sure what he was implying, but I decided I didn’t like it. I stepped forward. “Lord Daul, Lady Merista tells us you’re a lunarist.”
Daul looked at me with as much surprise as if the very floor had started speaking to him. Lady Lyll hooked her arm into his. “Oh, yes — Remy, we’re counting on you to entertain us all with your soothsaying.”
“Indeed,” he said. “I believe I’ll be able to tell all your fortunes tonight.” He slipped his arm through Meri’s. “Lady Merista, I do look forward to getting to know my brother’s family once again. Will you do me the honor of showing me around this splendid home?” Lord Daul and Lady Lyll swept Meri away. I looked around; Phandre was still latched on to the unsuspecting wine merchant.
Fair enough; I wanted some candied plums anyway.
Meri’s maids were not required in attendance at dinner that night, since the family was having a private meal with Lord Daul, so I ducked away to find Marlytt. Upstairs. It was a euphemism, meant for anybody within hearing to know Marlytt wasn’t ashamed of her position. Her presence at Bryn Shaer could complicate things for me, but the least little side of me was glad to see her — we hadn’t been friends, precisely, but at least we could understand each other.
I took the servant’s stair, but Marlytt had apparently had the same idea, for I met her on the stairs.
“Digger! You startled me!” She clapped a slender hand to her chest. She was dressed in a loose robe of berry-red velvet, touched at the neckline with Vareni lace that must have cost a fortune. A gift, no doubt, from some besotted client. “What are you doing here? Is Tegen here?”
A dark feeling pierced my breast, but I didn’t linger to see whether it was grief, or jealousy, or something of both. “He’s dead. Greenmen.” It was the first time I’d said those words, and they tasted bitter on my tongue. I sketched out the job at Chavel’s, briefly, sparing the details only to spare myself the need to relive them. It certainly wasn’t for Marlytt’s benefit.
A shadow crossed her pale face. “I’m sorry, I know you cared for him. Still, I hadn’t figured you for a runner. I thought you’d be the type to stay and fight.”
And I had nothing at all to say to that.
“So what are you planning? Are you here on a job?”
I shook my head and explained how Durrel Decath had whisked me to safety. The story seemed to delight her. “You should have stayed with him,” she said. “He sounds like quite the prize.”
“Too young for you, I think.”
She ignored that. “And now what? Be Merista Nemair’s lady-in-waiting for the rest of your life?”
“Until spring, at least. Until it’s safe to go back to Gerse.” If that ever happened. Marlytt leaned back against the curving stairwell wall, and I thought of something. “Listen — you speak Corles, don’t you?”
“Of course. Why?”
“I need you to read something for me.” I pulled a crumpled packet of papers from my bodice and handed them to her. Chavel’s letters had been rubbing a sore spot in my side for long enough. It was time to finally suss them out.
“I’m sure your Lady Merista reads Corles,” she said, flipping through them. “Why didn’t you — oh. Oh. Digger! Where did these come from? Is that blood?”
I pulled in closer. “What do they say?”
Her brows knitted together. “Well, this one is a letter from Secretary Chavel to someone called Vichet, asking if their interests in Corlesanne are being well tended. Do you know what that means?” When I shook my head, she continued. “He wants to know if Vichet has heard from their friends in Varenzia. I don’t know. It’s just a letter.” She slipped the next page forward. “I have no idea what this is.” She showed it to me, two meaningless columns of numbers and letters. “A betting book? Some kind of inventory? I can’t tell.
“But this one —” Marlytt held out the last letter, and her hand was shaking. “Digger, this looks like a translation of some kind of warrant.”
“Warrant? For what?”
She looked at me, and her pale eyes were as wide as the moons. “A price on Prince Wierolf’s head. Five thousand sovereigns. And it’s signed by the king.”
CHAPTER TEN
Late the next afternoon, I was changing Meri out of her plain kirtle into her evening dress. It had been gray and dull all day, thunder rumbling in the distance. Phandre had heard from her servant friend Ludo that it was snowing down the Gerse road, the storm on its way toward Bryn Shaer. Meri opened her clothes chest and drew out an armful of frothy, ale-gold silk. “Here,” she said, smiling broadly, and thrust it into my arms.
“What is it?” I said crossly. “Do you want to wear something different?” We had spent the afternoon doing needlework in the solar, and I had stuck my fingers so many times with my needle I was going to lose all credibility as a nimble-fingered thief.
“Better,” Meri said. “You’re coming to the feast tonight, and you should look pretty.”
“Fat chance there.”
Meri’s face fell. “I wish you wouldn’t,” she said, tugging at her hair. In a few weeks’ time, that waist-length fall of black would be bound up as she was paraded past the marriage market, and nobody would see it again until after her wedding. Poor Meri; she couldn’t stand to see anybody unhappy. I sighed and shook out the fabric.
Which revealed itself as a court gown — not one of Meri’s little-girl dresses, made over for my size, but a heavy, stately confection of silk brocade that changed from silver to gold in the light, the sleeves and bodice trimmed in strands of pearls, amber, and tiny
glittering silver beads. This was a delicious thing, far nicer than anything I’d ever worn, even when Tegen and I would raid his theater friends’ wardrobes for clothes to sneak into Nob Circle houses. This was a real gown, meant for wear on public display, laced so tight I would never be able to breathe or sit properly, let alone spend the evening scampering over rooftops or sparring in the street.
“It’s beautiful,” I said quietly. “Where did you find it?”
“We made it,” Meri said. “Mother and I.”
“You made this? When?”
“Mostly at night, after you’d gone to sleep. You sleep so soundly, you never notice. Mother did the beadwork. It wasn’t that hard,” she added modestly.
“I’m sure,” I said — at a loss for what I really wanted to say.
She smiled. “I’ll teach you. It’s something you should know, anyway, if you’re going to become ‘an accomplished chatelaine.’ ” Her voice deepened into a fair imitation of her mother, and in a moment we were both smiling.
I traced my finger along one beaded vine. My nails were starting to grow out, but the chill air of the castle was making my skin dry. Thieves keep their hands in good condition, so they can slip in and out of silk purses without snagging. I’d been passing for merchant-class pretty well in Meri’s castoffs. Maybe in this thing I’d look like I really belonged in this castle.
And did I want that?
The banquet that evening was the first formal event that gathered all of Bryn Shaer’s guests together, a chance to welcome Lord Daul as an honored member of the family and to formally present Meri to the assemblage. We gathered in the Round Court, the tables arranged in a ring along the curving golden walls, the domed ceiling lit by dozens of flickering candles.
Meri sat at the high table, stiff in red velvet and gold, between Daul and her father. Her silver necklaces caught the candlelight from the high iron chandeliers and flashed winking lights against her pale face.