by C. L. Clark
Luca perked up. “You study the theorists?”
That blank expression. Again. Luca was beginning to recognize the topics that sent her new assistant into stony obedience.
“I don’t know if study is the right word for it, Your Highness.”
And yet—here was a change. A hint of wryness in the other woman’s voice this time.
“If not study, what would you call it?”
“Only living, Your Highness.” Touraine grunted as she was pricked by a pin.
For almost an hour, Madame Abdelnour and her daughter molded Touraine up and down like one of the miniature wooden figurines that stood posed around the shop. They held bolts of cloth up to her body, discarding some and draping others across her shoulders. For almost an hour, they all looked to Luca for approval.
Make those you would lead want you.
As Touraine stood there, it grew easier for Luca to understand why Touraine admired Cantic so. Touraine was a soldier. It was written in the straight lines of her, the breadth of her shoulders, the steady strength of her legs at attention. The same steel that held up Cantic and Gil—and Guérin and Lanquette, for that matter. Rigid as a rifle.
Luca, on the other hand, had a leg with a tendency to give out at inopportune moments and a cane to keep it from showing.
But Luca wasn’t weak. She also had a rapier inside the cane, thin and flexible but strong.
She would pull Touraine to her, her own way. Something else from Yverte: know a person’s desires, and you have leverage—give a person their desires, and you have an extension of your own will.
Touraine wanted a place. She wanted respect from Balladaire’s powerful—why else chase after Cantic’s approval?
Luca could give her both and much more.
CHAPTER 12
THE BALL
On the day of the ball, Luca woke up swearing, her bad leg cramped and burning.
Auspicious beginnings.
Luckily, she had spent the last two days ironing out every detail of her welcome ball so that she wouldn’t have to rely on the auspices of fate. She wasn’t nervous at all. She had prepared for everything.
A knock on the door.
“Come in,” she said, gritting her teeth against the pain.
Touraine opened the main door, not the door connecting Luca’s room to the guards’ room. She bowed, eyes averted. She’d taken to the formalities of interacting with Luca easily enough. Her manners irritated Luca this morning. She’d seen the way the soldier’s eyes had flicked immediately to Luca’s legs and now looked studiously everywhere else.
“Your Highness, Guard Captain Gillett wants to talk about final preparations for tonight.” She sounded as if she’d been a butler all her life.
Luca tossed the covers off and inched her legs off the bed. She must have slept on them wrong. Not that she knew of a right way to sleep on them after almost twenty years.
“Give me a moment.” Luca went behind her dressing screen and traded her nightgown for the shirt she’d worn the day before. Sitting on her dressing stool, she tried to pull on the trousers she had discarded, too, but they tangled and twisted around her knees. She swore. The painted birds on the screen mocked her with their open beaks. The ball had flustered her. Touraine had flustered her. She took a deep breath. Yanked again, achieving an excruciating inch. She turned a near whimper into a grunt.
“Princess?” It was Gillett at the door now, concerned.
And Touraine silent. Luca could imagine the contempt. But Luca Ancier was the sky-falling princess. No one would sit in contempt of her from afar.
“Touraine?”
“Yes, Highness.”
“Come here.” The chill of her court voice frosted Luca’s words.
There was no hesitation before obedient footsteps.
Behind the screen with Luca, Touraine bowed slightly, not looking at the princess’s scarred, naked legs and the mess of trousers around her calves.
“Look at me,” she said with soft menace.
Touraine raised her eyes. Luca expected the usual blank obedience. Instead, Touraine’s dark eyes were steady, poring over her, seeing everything, unflinching. There may even have been anger in the cant of her eyebrows—but there was no pity.
“May I help you?” she asked, soft enough for Luca’s ears alone.
Luca’s heart stuttered like a flame in a storm. She swallowed and nodded.
The soldier’s hands surprised her. They weren’t gentle, not truly. They were efficient, however, without being rough. They didn’t hesitate with disgust or uncertainty as Touraine slid the trousers up Luca’s legs. She helped Luca stand, placed her arms around her neck.
“Put your weight on me.”
Luca did. She clung to the woman’s neck like a drowning sailor. The woman smelled heavily of sweat, and her collar was damp. She must have come from her exercises. Her breath was warm against Luca’s ear.
In one final, deft movement, Touraine pulled Luca’s trousers over her hips. Then she knelt until Luca was seated on her stool again.
“Will that be all?”
Luca nodded. She didn’t trust her voice.
Touraine nodded and left. The door closed.
“Luca?” Gil said.
She limped back to her bed and picked up her cane. “I’m fine. A rough sleep is all.”
He looked suspiciously at the door Touraine had shut rather harder than necessary.
“We’ve done none of that,” she said, reading his look. Her face burned.
He grunted, frowning.
“Of course, it’s an option,” Luca said in a low voice. “She’s attractive, for a Qazāli.” Touraine was attractive, period. More handsome than any of her previous lovers, men or women. That wasn’t something Balladaire’s queen regnant came out and admitted. “However, as an ambassador in my employ, it’s hardly professional.”
Gil snorted. “Really? I recall a seamstress, a coachman, a chambermaid—”
“Fine! All right. That’s not the reason, but for the stars’ sake, it’s none of your business, Gil. I’m too busy trying to quell a rebellion started by her people.”
“A rebellion started by her people to protest the fact that we came and invaded in the first place. Your Highness.”
Luca blinked, stunned. He bowed his head slightly but kept his eyes locked to hers.
“Do not mistake me, Luca. I’m loyal to you and the crown. As loyal to you as to your father.” The old man ran his thumb absently along his own grief ring for the king. He spoke gruffly, but there was a wry tilt of an eyebrow as he said, “Maybe we should change the way we relate to them.” A hint of mischief in the faint smile as he glanced back toward the door. “Just pick a less prickly one.”
She met his mischief with the truth she hadn’t told General Cantic when she negotiated for the soldier’s life. “I really do want her to succeed with negotiations first. Spying is a last resort. We’re more likely to learn the truth about the healing magic as allies than as assholes.” That’s where her approach differed from everyone else’s.
He took a deep breath and regarded her silently. Finally, he said, “Finding the magic won’t bring them back.”
Luca stiffened. “I know that,” she snapped. “It’s not because of my parents.” Probably a lie. “If I have something to offer my people, Uncle Nicolas can’t say I’m not ready.” Unfortunately true. “I don’t want this to come to civil war, but Nicolas has the advantage. He does, doesn’t he?”
She opened her hands, as if she had her papers with all the figures in front of her.
Gil nodded slowly before meeting her eyes. “Nicolas and Roland never had the wide view Étienne did. She balanced your father well.” He paused a moment. “What is your soldier’s role tonight?”
A flush crept up her neck. The tailor had sent a handsome suit fit for a formal occasion. Since it was Touraine’s first public function as Luca’s rebel “envoy,” the other Balladairans would need to know how much of Luca’s favor Touraine
had. Luca hoped the clothes and their associated rank would put Touraine at ease, as well.
“Touraine?” she called through the door. “Come back.”
The ex-soldier returned, stiff and striking, head tilted deferentially.
“Has Adile given you your outfit for the evening?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“You’ve tried it on?”
“Not yet, Your Highness.”
“Do it soon, in case we need to send to Madame Abdelnour for alterations. You remember where you’re to stand?”
“I’ll mingle as necessary, Your Highness, and I’ll follow you when you wish. I’ll have no more than one glass of wine and no spirits. Dancing isn’t required, but if asked, I may do so. I’m to say nothing of the rebels or my time in captivity. Is there anything else, Your Highness?”
The recitation left Luca breathless. She’d meant to press Touraine back on her heels, to take back the power she’d lost in her naked vulnerability.
“Just one more thing. Stars’ sake, lift your chin. You’re my assistant, not a slave.”
Touraine’s chin jerked up, her expression fierce and overall a bit too angry, but—
“Perfect. That’s how you should look tonight.”
This time the soldier’s bow was a deep, tilted nod. She didn’t break eye contact. “As you wish, Your Highness.”
From her false dais, Luca surveyed the improvised ballroom with pride as the music played and her guests mingled with their hors d’oeuvres and aperitifs.
So far, no civil war.
She had wrought this.
The large sitting room, the main room of the house, had become a ballroom overnight. Luca’s upstairs study was locked off, but the bedrooms became new sitting rooms, quiet places for guests to retire or smoke, away from the dancing and music.
The company was mixed: Balladairans from the Quartier—almost all of them nobles or their offshoots—and influential Qazāli, like the magistrates and the more powerful merchants. They mingled only fitfully, and rarely one to one.
And yet the tightness of the ballroom made the modest gathering feel festive, and the musicians played to that mood, though no one was dancing yet. In one corner, the pile of host gifts grew—a stack of books tended to by one of the servants. Lanquette or Guérin hovered near her at all times, and Gil had brought other guards in for the occasion. They stood at the corners of the room, scaring everyone into good behavior. Touraine stood to the right, just behind Luca’s seat, the most ornate chair she had. Stiff and haughty, just as Luca had commanded.
Everyone was waiting for her word, and that thought alone filled her with a secret thrill that straightened her back and eased her grip on her cane. They were here for her.
She raised her hand and the music stopped. She took the champagne a servant offered, while other servants offered glasses to the guests.
“Citizens of Balladaire.” She smiled. “Welcome to my home.” A polite smattering of applause and smiles.
“My new home, I should say. Before I arrived, I’d heard Qazāl was a land where kindness flowed as wide as the Hadd, and the only thing the Qazāli value more than compassion is intellectual curiosity. I have not been disappointed. Qazāl is a gracious land full of gracious people.
“First, let us remember the late Lord Governor Cheminade, who welcomed me into her home on my first day and lived as an example of peace between Balladaire and Qazāl. It is with a heavy heart that I step into her role as acting governor. I thank you all for your patience in the meantime.”
Around the room, heads nodded solemnly.
“I offer my thanks to my latest acquaintances—especially to Madame Abdelnour, by way of her daughter, Mademoiselle Malika Abdelnour, for costuming my household so elegantly.”
Luca held her arms out for a flourish. She wore a Qazāli formal black tunic that stopped below her hips, stiff enough to hold the sharp lines but supple enough for comfort. The buttons were pure gold. She stepped aside and gestured toward Touraine, who took the hint and stepped forward with a bow. The soldier wore a pale cotton blouse and a black vest with a standing collar and ornate gold trim, modeled after the Qazāli’s hooded vests. A gold sash streaked with black swirls and dangling with small, flat gold circles and black beads wrapped halfway around her hips like a skirt to hang down behind loose black trousers. Madame Abdelnour said the sashes were common accoutrements among the Qazāli dancers and throughout the old Shālan Empire, and Luca had to admit that Touraine looked striking in it.
Another shimmer of raised glasses while the mademoiselle curtsied. The guests clapped on cue. She scanned for the less enthusiastic. The real test was coming.
“Thank you. I confess myself a stranger here, in a conflicted land, but I hope to change that—both my strangeness and the conflict. My strangeness is my own burden, which only study and friendship can cure. The conflict, however, will require us to work together, Qazāli and Balladairan alike. Let the boundaries between us fall. Allies must be open and honest with each other, about their fears, their hopes, and their needs. They must hear when the other speaks. May every citizen here know that my ears are open.
“As proof of that, I offer the Qazāli a token of Balladaire’s goodwill, a hope for our unified future: at my invitation and under my own purse, fifty Qazāli children will attend the Citadel, the finest Balladairan school in Qazāl.”
Across the room, Gil’s mouth opened in surprise before he sealed his lips. It was the first gesture she would offer the Qazāli, an incentive to work with her instead of against her.
This time, Luca raised her glass high. “Enjoy yourselves together. To your health.” She drained the last of her glass and lowered herself into her chair, heart racing.
The music started again, and people claimed their partners for the first dance. Instead of joining them, Luca sat while guests paid their respects, bowing over her hand and commenting on which book they’d brought for her host gift.
One of the first to approach her was LeRoche de Beau-Sang, practically pushing the previous person out of the way. He was surrounded by youths: two women she recognized and a young man she’d never seen. Beau-Sang bowed elegantly before eyeing Touraine and smiling as if he had won a bet. Luca fought the urge to look behind her.
“May I present to you my daughter, Aliez?” Beau-Sang guided the blond woman forward. “And her friend, Mademoiselle Bel-Jadot?”
Luca smiled tightly, acknowledging the young women as they curtsied. “We’ve met before. At the bookshop in the New Medina. Welcome.”
She had recognized the Bel-Jadot girl, but she hadn’t realized at the time that the other girl making fun of her that day was Beau-Sang’s daughter. She might leverage that better in the future, as well. Not now, however. Tonight was about peace. And the pieces on the board. Luca turned to the young man in the group.
“And this is my son, Paul-Sebastien.” Beau-Sang touched Paul-Sebastien’s shoulder with a tender hand.
The young man wasn’t as broad as his father, but he wasn’t frail, either. He wore his blond hair pulled back in a queue and had to tuck loose strands behind his ears. He wore spectacles, too. His entire mien was awkward and nervous, and Luca couldn’t tell if it was endearing or off-putting.
Beau-Sang’s smile widened. “I also see that you’ve taken my advice. They’re a fine investment, aren’t they?” He nodded behind her.
This time, Luca allowed herself to look. Those thick dark brows. The cold glare into the middle distance. That square, clenched jaw.
“That’s one of Cantic’s, is that right? The lieutenant.”
As if Touraine were a prize hound she’d purchased to race against his Richard.
(Had Luca not purchased Touraine? Was Touraine not useful?)
Touraine couldn’t keep her mask on in the face of Beau-Sang’s needling. Her nose flared in a flash of anger as she scoffed.
Beau-Sang’s smile at Touraine showed teeth. “Unfortunately, it seems like her manners are not so refined as
I remember.”
Sky above and earth below. Luca wanted to hide her face with her palm.
Instead, she cleared her throat sharply and nodded in dismissal. “Monsieur le comte. Mesdemoiselles. Thank you.”
As the others left, Paul-Sebastien hung back, nervously watching Aliez and Bel-Jadot as each sorted herself with a dancing partner. When his father gestured sharply for him to follow, Paul-Sebastien held him off with a sharp shake of the head.
“Yes?” Luca raised an eyebrow.
Paul-Sebastien came closer and bowed deeply, but he also looked past her shoulder, where Touraine stood at attention, his head cocked. To his credit, he looked slightly embarrassed for his father.
“I only wanted to ask, Your Highness—did you enjoy the book I left for you?” Paul-Sebastien’s face flushed.
Both of Luca’s eyebrows rose in surprise this time. The unmarked history book that had sent her chasing Yeshuf bn Zahel at the bookshop. “That was you? My thanks for the gift. It led me to interesting questions about… oh.” Paul-Sebastien LeRoche. PSLR. “You wrote it.”
He brightened and stood a little straighter, but he still managed to look apologetic. “I did, Your Highness. However, my father doesn’t approve of the subject matter.”
Of course he didn’t. Luca remembered his dismissal of her own curiosity at Cheminade’s dinner. To be quite honest, Luca imagined Beau-Sang was the kind of man who disdained all books, which was a black enough mark on his record.
“Then we do have a lot to talk about. You know much about this city for a Balladairan.”
“I should hope so. I’ve lived here my whole life.” He chuckled, growing a little easier with her. “By some standards, that would make me Qazāli, wouldn’t it?”
It was laughable, given the contrast of his golden hair and pale, pale skin compared to the native Qazāli. There were fair Shālans in the city, from other countries in the old empire, but not very many. It made Luca wonder what new boundaries people would have to make in the future—how they would call themselves, what else they would find to separate themselves from each other. Humans tended to do that.
