Eli’s eyes narrowed, but then he closed them as if he were visualizing his schedule in his head. “Dinner hour on Seventh?”
On Seventh Day, people preferred to relax, so the sparring floors were less busy. “I’ll check. I’ll let you know if not.”
Mikael made a hurried retreat. The last thing he needed was to accidentally reveal his tie to Shironne to her yeargroup’s leader.
Chapter 20
* * *
AFTER HIS SIMPLE morning meeting with Jason, Mikael returned to the office of the Daujom to an unwelcome sight. Sera sat at Kai’s desk, a sour expression on her narrow face that matched the annoyance she was displaying for every sensitive on this level of the palace to feel. She wore a burgundy Anvarrid jacket as tightly laced as the one the day before, but this time without the overrobe, making it ever so slightly less formal. Mikael assumed she wore skirts and trousers to match but couldn’t see them behind the desk.
There was an old saying about not being truly Anvarrid if you weren’t wearing a year’s worth of embroidery work on your back. Evidently Lady Sera had taken that one to heart. Today’s jacket was embroidered with a hawk motif, stylized birds in gold and black swooping all over the burgundy fabric.
Since she couldn’t have entered this room without a key or permission, and didn’t look pleased to be here, Mikael suspected this was going to be a long morning. So much for his immediate plans. “May I ask what you’re doing in the offices of the Daujom, Amserian?”
Her eyes fixed on him, and he could tell she was considering answering in the negative. Then her chin lifted. “I have been informed that I will be taking my brother’s place here.”
Oh Hel. This had to be Kai’s idea.
The lofty tone of Sera’s voice didn’t match the hurt she wore like a shield, though. As much as he didn’t want to get involved with the Valaren dramas, Mikael had made a resolution the previous night to try to be a better friend to those around him, so he asked, “Are you all right, Sera?”
“I can’t imagine that you care,” she said with a resentful sniff.
He wished calm at her, imagining peacefulness settling in the room like a blanket of snow. “What happened?”
His calming worked. Her eyes lost their focus, and the angry scowl left her face. He would pay for that later. Most sensitives resented manipulation, and he doubted Sera was an exception.
Tears fell unheeded down her face instead. “He hates me.”
He didn’t have to ask for clarification. Not Kai. She surely meant Dahar. Mikael dragged over one of the spare chairs and sat across from her. “I’ve never known your father to hate anyone.”
She shook her head quickly. “He said he would send me away to the estate in Faradein,” she said, naming a city to the far north. “He said he wished I hadn’t come back.”
Unfortunately, he could imagine Dahar saying that when his temper got the better of him. “Your father has a quick temper, Sera. After his anger passes, everything is forgiven.”
“Maybe for you. He likes you.” She wiped at her eyes. “He wishes I wasn’t ever born.”
He knew better than to think that Dahar, even in his foulest mood, would say such a thing to one of his children. “He didn’t say that.”
Her blood-shot eyes met his. “It’s true, though.”
“It isn’t.”
“You don’t remember what it was like before,” she said, her scowl returning.
“You mean before you went to Halvdan Province?” Mikael recalled a lot of arguments, but Sera had only been a child then—Perrin’s age. He hadn’t had much to do with her.
“You say it like I just decided to visit there one day,” she snapped, waving one hand wildly. “I was sent away.”
Mikael stared at the girl’s face, her green eyes full of pain. Now that he’d gotten her talking, he would have to listen to her whole story. Try to be a better friend, he said to himself. “Why?”
“I remind him of my mother. He hated her.”
“I’ve never heard him say anything bad about her.” That was stretching the truth a bit.
“Did you ever hear him say anything good about her?” Sera asked in turn.
He pressed his lips together as he searched through his memories. “He has said she was very beautiful.”
“Kai told me that he wasn’t Father’s son, that Mother was unfaithful to him,” Sera said, eyes lowering. “That can’t be true, can it?”
“Does that matter?” he asked. “I know Dahar thinks of Kai as his son.”
Sera sniffled again, prompting him to dig out his clean handkerchief and hand it to her. Her sleeves were so tightly laced that he wasn’t sure she could reach across to take it, but she managed to do so and dabbed her cheeks. Sera did not cry well, her eyes red and cheeks blotchy now. “That’s why he hated her, though. So he hates me.”
Mikael sighed. He couldn’t fix their problem. “That isn’t about you, though, Sera. Just like my own father’s lack of faithfulness to my mother had nothing to do with me.”
She clenched the handkerchief in one fist. “Did he love you?”
“Yes.” He knew that without doubt.
“But he didn’t love your mother?”
What an odd conclusion. “No, he loved her too. I never really understood why he wasn’t faithful.”
She sniffled. “Did she forgive him?”
He hadn’t talked about his father so much in one week before in . . . well, years. “Yes. Every time. I never understood that either. It was almost like . . . she didn’t mind sharing him with other women. Perhaps she didn’t. I was a child. I couldn’t see them like an adult would.”
“Oh.” Sera stared at him oddly, as if seeing him for the first time. “That’s what Aunt Deborah said. That everyone saw Mother differently than I did.”
He wasn’t sure what Talia Lucas had done that triggered her execution a decade past. Usually that followed acts of treason. Even so, Sera would have been a child when that happened, unable to comprehend what her mother had done.
Did they even tell her what her mother did? What her crime was? Because he didn’t know, and he’d worked with Dahar and Kai for four years.
He finally settled on vagueness. “Deborah is a pretty good judge of character.”
Sera nodded, set the crumpled handkerchief aside, and resolutely gazed at him. “Well, she says I can do this job, so . . . what do I do?”
Mikael suspected Dahar had planned for her to sit here all day, stewing. Or perhaps Dahar had forgotten he’d ordered her to show up here. Or, even more likely, Dahar had walked her in here, left, and locked the door behind him. He could see Dahar doing that if in a foul mood.
“The primary purpose of the Daujom is to monitor Family adherence to the treaty,” he began, “but through the years the mandate of the office has . . . widened. We not only handle all crimes that occur between Family and the various Anvarrid Houses, we also monitor the activities of those Houses where it touches on their relation to the king and the House of Valaren.” He had memorized those primary mandates long ago. The last one allowed the Daujom to spy on all the other Anvarrid Houses, like the Hedraya.
“But what am I supposed to do?” Sera asked, already sounding impatient.
It had taken him a while to understand that much of what happened in this office was redundant. They were the public face of the Daujom, not the true works of the organization. He wasn’t going to explain that to her. Not yet, at least. “We often check the work on important documents being deciphered.”
“Deciphered?” she asked.
“Kai was always particularly good at that. Better than me,” he admitted. Nothing but the truth.
“What kind of documents?” she asked suspiciously.
“Letters being sent between the Houses, or out of the country, for example.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Aren’t there servants to do that?”
“Do you want servants reading that manner of document?”
Sera’s mouth dre
w into a knot, not her most attractive look. “Well, I suppose if you had servants you trusted . . .” Her eyes lifted. “So basically, we’re the servants here.”
Mikael allowed a slight smile. “Not actually. My primary job here has always been to interact with outsiders, mostly Larossans but sometimes members of the Families. I go and talk to the military, to the writers at the newspapers, to the police. I went to Janssen Province last year to mediate between the Janssen Family and the House of Montaris on a treaty issue. But between those missions, if I don’t have something to do, I decipher. Or read files. Or collate material to hand to Dahar to hand to Jason, in turn. I do whatever needs to be done. So we’ll start with the small chores, and you can work up to going to speak before to the senate.”
The idea of appearing before the senate earned a raised eyebrow from her, as if that caught her fancy. And he could see her enjoying that . . . in her fine Anvarrid attire, hooked nose held high in the air.
* * *
Shironne wasn’t entirely sure that everything she did in the infirmary would be useful. Deborah had been called away to yet another elders’ meeting, leaving Shironne to learn where everything was stored on her own. Since she didn’t have any pregnant women coming to visit her, thus far she’d learned the contents of the three sets of lockers on the far wall, mostly basic medical implements and bandages. All of which can be retrieved faster by someone with sight.
The other two infirmarians on duty helped her when they had a chance. When two sentries came in from the sparring floor on Six Down, though, one with a badly broken arm, the infirmarians forgot about her. The ambient in the infirmary turned in a flash from camaraderie to terse efficiency tinged with fear. Shironne was left sitting on a bed on the far side of the infirmary, listening to the hubbub while the infirmarians—Jakob and a trainee, Liam—straightened the woman’s damaged bones.
Shironne concentrated on listening, the thing she could do without walking into a bed that her mind didn’t have correctly placed in her mental map. There were several groans, followed by a subdued cry, with a lot of shuffling and low assurances and instructions to be still.
Compound fracture, she decided. That was what happened to Melanna.
She got up and began walking carefully toward the beds where the stricken sentry lay. Her gloved hand swept over the footboard of a bed, and she used that cue to guide her down the aisle toward the voices. “Jakob?”
“Not now, Shironne,” he said.
“I can feel the bone, Jakob,” she returned. Two more beds. “I can tell if the bone is set properly. Like with Melanna’s.”
That idea ran through the ambient, earning a split-second’s silence. The sentry wanted the pain to end, a mental air like clenched teeth and tight-held frustration staining the ambient this close to her.
“Come here, then,” Jakob said.
Shironne hadn’t worked with Jakob before, but she’d done this for Deborah. She held out one hand, seeking direction. Liam grabbed her gloved fingers and drew her toward the patient. “Here, between the beds.”
Shironne felt one of her shins hit the bed frame, not too painfully. She reached down and found the shifting sheets and a hard limb clothed in fabric, a leg. She kept shuffling her feet as another body—a woman—moved out of her way, and then Liam drew her toward what must be the head of the patient’s bed. He grasped her sleeve to steer her hand toward the injured arm. “Where do you want me to put your hand?”
She wasn’t sure what to tell him. “Um . . . above the break. Not above like higher on the arm, but above like . . . on top of. The break, not the tear.”
He seemed to understand that and tugged her hand back toward the foot of the bed.
“Wait. Let me take off my glove.” As Shironne was doing so, she told the patient to please count in her head so as not to distract. The woman agreed, a distrustful feeling accompanying that request. Then Liam directed her hand to the woman’s arm. Shironne forced away the perception of the woman’s counting, loud and tense. And there, beneath her fingers was angry skin, blood pumping hot through it. She pushed her senses farther and located the break in the bone. Although it was properly aligned, there were a few jagged edges. Those would resolve themselves in time, Deborah had told her. Even so, she told Jakob everything she found. “. . . but the bone is lined up perfectly otherwise.”
His relief—and a touch of pride—filled the ambient before he briskly instructed Liam to fetch a splint.
Shironne edged herself out of the way, hoping she wasn’t making the crowding around the bed worse in the process.
“Jannika, can you help her get out of the way?” Jakob’s voice asked. “She’s blind.”
Two hands descended on her shoulders, the other sentry steering Shironne away from the bed. She kept her feet under her and thanked the woman dutifully when the sentry evidently decided she was far enough away to be out of trouble. Or not to cause trouble. Shironne located another bed frame—with her shin again, this time more painfully—and sat down, determined to stay out of the way.
The woman Jannika moved away, probably toward the bed where the two infirmarians worked to splint the other sentry’s arm. Shironne sat on the bed that had bitten her, just trying to shut out the ambient now that she had done what she could. She sought out that spot in her mind where she could borrow Mikael’s calmness. It wasn’t as safe as normal, since he was spending time with Sera for some reason—ah, she’d been forced to work in the office with him—but he was torn between amusement at Sera’s expense, wanting to toss the girl out into the hallway, and a determination to help her. That was distraction enough for Shironne.
* * *
Mikael finally escaped the Office of the Daujom when Kai came to check on his sister’s progress. Kai expressed vexation that his father had simply dumped her in the office without any further instruction but seemed aware that Dahar was currently running himself ragged trying to handle the legal end of making the Anjir family part of the House of Valaren. Fortunately, Kai was willing to take charge of his sister while Mikael ran an errand in town.
Even though Dimani hadn’t turned up any information about Faralis and whoever wanted Shironne, Mikael had recalled someone else who might help.
The Anjir house on Antrija Street was bustling as removers were boxing up various items from the household to be placed into storage for Madam Anjir, others to go to the palace, and still others to be donated to the poor or sold. The family’s cook, who had been with Madam Anjir since childhood, was overseeing that effort with the ruthlessness and efficiency of a general. It was there that Mikael found Filip Messine keeping a watchful eye on a handful of workers in the hallway where the girls had their rooms.
As Mikael understood it, this house was being turned over to one of Madam Anjir’s uncles, as it was property of her father’s family.
Lieutenant Filip Messine stood in the hallway, gazing sternly into what had been Shironne’s room, his arms folded across his chest. He still wore the garb of a Larossan stable man, but his demeanor was every bit officer. Messine was good at hiding his emotions, but Mikael had known him long enough to have a feel for his reactions. He was annoyed with this entire process.
“Be careful,” Messine snapped. “Don’t drag the lady’s things on the ground.”
The lady in this case was Shironne, who indeed would dislike having her old dresses dragged through the dust or dirt brought in by the workers’ shoes. Chastened, the woman packing Shironne’s old clothes lifted the armful of old petticoats higher.
Mikael hadn’t give much thought to this part of the change in Shironne’s life. All her old possessions had been torn away from her. He wondered if she even still had that crystal she’d used as a focus when he met her. Now that he thought about it, he was certain she wasn’t using it any longer. How odd that he could know that, yet not other things.
“Mr. Lee?” Messine’s tone hinted that wasn’t the first time he’d said Mikael’s name.
“Sorry, Lieutenant. I wante
d to ask you about something. I’m not sure this is the right place.”
Messine cast a dry look at him. “Fine, let’s go out to the back courtyard. I figured you would come bother me sooner or later.”
He told the two women working in the bedroom he would be back in a few minutes, and then directed Mikael toward the house’s back stairwell, the same one Mikael had come charging up on Seventh night.
Has it been less than a week? That seemed almost unbelievable.
Shaking his head, Mikael followed Messine through the kitchen and out into the back courtyard.
Once there, the young officer wheeled to face him. “I reported the incident to the man I usually meet,” Messine said, “and gave him more information than I should have. I was upset. I had no idea that anyone would take that information and use it to kill the man.” Messine took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Don’t misunderstand . . . I’m not upset those two men are dead. They snuck back into the house to rape Perrin Anjir. If they hadn’t already been fleeing when I broke through her window, I would have shot both of them without a moment’s hesitation. But I never intended my words to lead to a murder, justified or not.”
Mikael licked his lips, not sure where to go with that excessive statement. “Who is this man you report to?”
Messine sighed. “I don’t know his name. Not long after I took the posting here, I was approached by a man who said his employer wanted only to know how the girl was doing. A monthly report. I was never expected to do anything. Only say whether she was in good health, and if her father laid a hand on her. Anjir never touched the girl. In fact, he seemed a little intimidated by her, even though she’s only nine.”
Melanna, this is all about Melanna. “Did Cerradine know about this?”
“Yes,” Messine said with a mild roll of his eyes. “I ran it by him that first night—actually went to his house past midnight and rousted him out of bed to ask, Mr. Lee. The colonel told me he had a good idea who the employer was, to keep him apprised of any additional demands. I was never asked to do any more, though, just report to the middleman.”
In Dreaming Bound Page 18
