by John Tristan
Yana looked me over, smiling faintly. There was something hollow about her eyes, I thought. “To tell the truth,” she said, “we’d not expected you home so soon. Isadel said she’d seen storms on her tail.”
“Isadel? She is back?” I knew the Count and his retinue would have made better time than we had, but I had not thought she’d be comfortably ensconced before I’d even arrived.
“The Count has good drivers. And good horses, I suppose.” Yana sighed. “You haven’t the best home to return to, Etan. No supper’s made, since Doiran’s taken time to be with family, and I’m the best you have for a cook ’til he returns. Not to mention Tallisk’s in a right mood.”
“Should I go see him?”
“I’d not, but it’s on your back.” Yana took my luggage. I followed behind with a sense of unease. If she could not make a joke of Tallisk’s mood, it was cause to worry. The house was still, and it felt like clouds before a storm.
Yana took the bulk of my clothes to be washed and folded the remainder into my wardrobe. I changed into my house clothes, glad to slip into more comfortable wear.
“Do you want some supper?” Yana asked me.
My stomach lurched, and I shook my head. I did not even wish to think about eating; my innards were still churning with the rhythm of the road.
“Well, just let me know, before I head to bed.” She smiled wanly at me and left.
I sat on my bed for a few moments, breathing in the familiar scent of my room. The window was open only a little; the summer air of the city trickled its way in. I closed my eyes a moment and heard crickets somewhere in the garden. Though I should have been dog-tired from the journey, I could not sleep. The moon was barely risen.
I stood and went to Isadel’s room, mere paces from mine. For a moment, I remembered her eyes, flaring with something like fury...but she was my sister-Adorned, and the nearest I had to a friend.
I knocked on the door, soft, a little hesitant. There was a shuffling within, and a curse. Unmistakably Isadel’s, that voice, and her choice of oaths. She opened the door a crack, peering out at me. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you, then.”
“You returned quickly,” I said.
She shrugged. “The Count travels fast. What do you want?”
I blinked. “Just your company. We barely spoke, all our time in Fevrewood.”
“Come in, then.”
She moved away from the door, leaving it half open, and I followed her inside. The curtains were shut, and her room smelled of lamp oil and unwashed sheets.
I frowned. “What happened while I was gone?”
“Nothing happened.” Her tone was mincing, a vicious imitation of my voice. “I’m tired, Tallisk’s in a black mood, and Yana cannot cook worth a damn.”
“What’s wrong with Master Tallisk?”
“A sore head and a thwarted hand. He does not like his Adorned on overlong displays.” She sighed, and something in her softened a little. “You would have been better served spending the night at Lord Loren’s apartments.”
I almost laughed. “I’m not so sure of that.”
Isadel’s brows furrowed; she saw something behind my words, but chose to say nothing. I was grateful. I did not want to answer her too-clever questions.
“Well,” she said, “he chose to keep you for a plenty-long feast. That’s not something to mourn.”
I stood there a moment, swaying from foot to foot. Finally she sighed and patted her bed; I sat down beside her. “Is Tallisk angry with us? With me?”
She shrugged. “Who can tell? He’s not prone to sharing his thoughts with me. Or with anyone.” She leaned forward. “You’ll take my advice and not try to tease them out of him, yes?”
I laughed, uneasy. “Why would I?”
“Oh, Etan.” She laughed too, then. “Sometimes, it seems you know very little of yourself.”
I twisted my lips in a grimace. “Perhaps some of us don’t study ourselves in great detail.” I had meant it as a weak jest, but she took it in stride, nodding.
“You should try it sometime,” she said. “It may prove enlightening.”
Not feeling much reassured by her words, I went back to my room. Yana had lit the lamps. I smiled a little to myself; it was strange, how much I’d missed those small things, like the familiar light of the lamps in my room.
I took out the gifts from Lord Loren and the Count. Among them was a white vest, sewn with silver thread, which I lingered over longest. I held it to my face and caught the merest ghost of a scent, of warm, clean skin. I thought of the night air, and a stolen kiss.
It had been mine to give, that foolish kiss. No one had paid for it or considered it theirs to claim. That, I thought, made it sweet and worth treasuring, regardless of how useless, how impertinent a gesture it had been—regardless of how it had been more spurred by dreams and shadows than by the man I had given it to.
I sat alone in my room for a while, but I could not think of sleep. Nor did I want to bother Isadel again; she did not seem in the mood for company. I felt too restless to stay sitting quietly on my bed. I stood and decided to go to the library.
Opening my door, I glanced about the hallways. They were dark and silent, as if the hour was much later. I took a carry-lamp and shuffled my way out into the gloom. All I could see was a line of light from under Isadel’s door.
I turned, then, and collided with something hard. I thought for a mad moment the walls had moved, but then I knew this was no wall. This was warm and alive: a man, with a beating heart. I stepped back, startled, and raised the carry-lamp.
Tallisk stood before me in the darkness. His eyes slid over me, through me, as if he did not see me at all.
“Sir?”
He fixed his eyes on mine then, and it was as if winter had come in a second. My mouth went dry. I pressed myself against the wall, and he walked by me, fixing his cold gaze on some distant point. When he wished it, his footsteps were silent as a cat’s, nothing at all like his usual clumping gallop. He moved without a sound, cutting through the darkness like a ship through black waters, and turned down the stairs to the cellar.
I had little heart now for reading, my blood beating in my ears still. I slunk back to my room and sat there in the quiet. A single lamp cast shadows on the walls. After a while I undressed, doused my lamps and lay down on my bed atop the covers. It was a close, clammy night. The storms had not yet reached the city, or else they had passed, but failed to clear the air. It was still too thick, treacle-warm, making me aware of every breath.
The whistling-plague had taken many children of Lun. My father had bought the best medicine, kept me cool with shade and water, and I had lived—but every summer, I remembered. Did Madame Death feel cheated of me, I wondered, even after all these years? Would she pursue me, watching, waiting for me to fall?
With these thoughts weighing on me, I tried my best to sleep, but soon enough I saw the sky lightening through the window. I’d not slept a wink, and now I felt tired—tired and worn, though still not inclined to sleeping. My head was full of churning visions: the black stars of my heat-faint, the silver thread of my new clothes. And somewhere behind them all, a shadow: the shadow of Roberd Tallisk.
It was the sudden dark fact of him in the hallway I recalled, and something else, something I’d not noticed in the briefness of the moment when we’d collided. My hand had skimmed his chest, touched its hard warmth. His heart had been beating so fast under that hand. What kind of man, I thought, would stay so still, so cold, when his heart was drumming out a fury?
Chapter Thirty-Three
I had been home for two weeks now, and still I was a ghost to Tallisk.
I would rise and breakfast in the kitchen, then read, play games of solitaire, or drift about the house, useless. If I had a bit of luck, I could go to the market with Yana, or help the returned Doiran with a few simple chores. Isadel was kept busy under the needle, but had not been summoned to display.
The Count had not called for either of us. But then, the nobles of
Blood and Sword were busy in Council, apportioning the spoils of peace.
When supper came, we’d be gathered for it, well-dressed and polite. Then we saw Tallisk. He was cool and civil, speaking to Yana of household matters and asking Isadel to pass him the salt.
To me, he said nothing. When we met in the halls, I would nod to him and say “sir,” or “Master Tallisk,” even, and he would brush past me without even a nod in return. I felt like an unwelcome guest in his house.
What had gone on here, while I was away? I asked Yana at last, shying up to it.
“Well, nothing, as far as I know,” she said. “I barely saw Tallisk while Doiran had his holiday. We didn’t even eat together. Then Isadel came back a little while before you did, and here we are now.”
“I’ve not done anything,” I said. “I don’t understand.”
Yana gave me a long, searching look. “Best not to probe too deep in this, Etan,” she said. “Tallisk can be changeable in his moods. In a few days, he’ll forget about whatever quarrel he’s imagined with you.”
It was not so simple, and Yana knew it. I don’t think that I imagined the lie of omission writ on her face. Neither were Doiran or Isadel much help to me. I made up my mind to have the tale directly from the source.
I chose my time that night, after supper. Tallisk had wiped his mouth and risen from the table without a word. I watched him for a moment. My food lay on my plate, unappetizing, and I pushed it away. “Excuse me,” I said, and stood.
“Etan.” There was a warning tone in Isadel’s voice.
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?”
“Don’t.”
I feigned a smile. “Don’t what?” Without waiting for an answer, I walked out.
She followed me and put her hand on my wrist. “Etan, if you’re going after him...” She shook her head. “You’ll only make it worse.”
“Oh? How could I do that?”
“It will get better.”
“You said that before, and Yana as well. It hasn’t.” I shook her off.
“Etan!”
I wheeled around. “What?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Suit yourself, then. You dig your own grave.”
With that, she turned back into the dining room. My hands curled; my heart was pounding. I went upstairs.
The door to the atelier was closed. I stood before it a moment, silent. Maybe Isadel was right, I thought, maybe I would just make things worse. But I could not do nothing. If I had offended him, I would try to make it right.
I knocked on the door, softly first, then louder, to make sure I was heard. There was no answer.
I stood there for a moment. Then I took a deep breath, and I opened the door.
Tallisk was bent over his desk. In the summer heat, he’d shed his shirt. His hair clung to the back of his neck. I saw his tattoos. Some had faded with age—waning moons, curling lines of script, a curved sword—and some were still dark and vivid. Unlike mine, all of them were unmoving, inked without the benefit of Blood. They seemed to shift nonetheless, with the twist of his muscles. It caught at something in me, seeing them like this; I remembered when he had come to me on the eve of my first display. But I swallowed it; I had business here.
“Sir?”
He went very still when I spoke. “I did not give you permission to enter.”
I licked my lips. “Sir, I know, I am sorry. Please, may I speak with you?”
He turned around then. A blue star was inked on his collarbone, coiling snakes on his stomach, and other marks—they were the faded and scratched record of his apprenticeship. He spread his arms, as if he were an Adorned, showing himself for a patron. “Well?”
I stepped closer, forcing my eyes to the floor in a suitably demure posture. “Sir, have I done something to offend you?”
He laughed, a short bark. “Is that what you want to know?”
I bit my lip, saying nothing.
“Get out.”
I remained there, standing as if chained down.
“Get. Out.”
“Sir, please.” I breathed deep, looking up at him. His eyes were flat and cold. “I just wish to know what I’ve done. And how to set it right.”
He walked to me with wide strides and grabbed the back of my neck. His grip was hard, almost painful. He turned me around and marched forward, forcing me out. “I have no patience for sordid little schemes. Play them in my house, and you’ll soon find yourself out of it. Understand?”
Bewildered, I twisted in his grip. “No! I—I don’t understand—”
He saw something in my eyes, then, that got through his anger. He peered down at me, frowning. “What do you call your game with the Count, then?”
“What game?” Did he mean what Lord Loren had asked me to do—had I gone wrong, trespassed some code? How could he know? A sour panic rose in my throat. “I—I thought I had done well with him. He requested me—”
“So you think to jump at the chance to have more of him?”
I blinked at him; I was lost. “More of him?”
He released his grip on me and looked away, as if he were ashamed. “If you wish to leave me,” he said, and there was a strange catch in his voice, “tell me to my face.”
“Leave you? Sir—what have I done, to make you think so?” I laughed, almost despairing. “I depend on you entirely. What’s an Adorned without an artist?”
“It is not my art that seems in demand.”
“It is to me,” I said, then bit my tongue. That meant nothing, in the greater scheme.
“Etan.” He was still avoiding my gaze.
“Yes, sir?”
“Did you ask Count Karan to purchase your bond from me? To make you his consort?”
I could only gape at him. “What?”
“Did you, or did you not?” He looked up, and I almost stepped back at the sight of his eyes. “Answer me, and gods curse you if you lie.”
“No, of course not.” I nearly laughed again. “Why would I? Why would he?”
“He might do, if you offer him more than mere art.”
I shook my head. “Sir, it is not true.”
“Swear it,” he said, his voice low. I was suddenly aware of how close he still stood to me—not touching, but very near to it. “Swear it, Etan.”
“I swear it,” I whispered.
He let out a long breath and lifted his hand. He did not quite touch me, but I felt his knuckle brush an errant lock of hair away. “If you swear it...then I believe you.”
A shiver went through me, half relief and half something else entirely. For a long moment I stood quite still.
Then, with a sudden jerk, he pulled away. He cleared his throat and went to put his shirt on. He tied it at the throat, obscuring his starburst tattoo. “I am sorry, Etan.” It cost him, to say this; I could tell, and I almost smiled. “This was a mistake. She must have been mistaken.”
“She—?”
But suddenly I knew who she was. No wonder she had not wished me to say anything. My teeth clenched, and I felt a thrill of coldness, an unfamiliar anger.
“Never mind,” Tallisk said. He cocked his head, looking at me curiously. It was amazing, I thought, how quick his anger had gone—it was as if it had flowed into me. “It is late, Etan, and I have work to do.”
“Yes, sir.” Another time, I would have tried to linger, but my anger demanded satisfaction. I descended the staircase in a kind of haze and turned into the library. Isadel was sitting there, legs crossed, a book resting on her knee. She looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. She saw everything—she knew. “Well,” she said, “I suppose it’s out now.”
“Why?” It was all I could say. My knuckles were white as bone.
“Why?” She laughed. “Come on, Etan, you aren’t stupid. I can see how things are turning to your advantage. Did you know the Count told me that I was his second choice? In so many things lately, it seems.”
I went still. It was like him, I thought. He would not mean it callously, but neither would he
think to spare her feelings.
“He is growing bored,” Isadel went on, “and if I do not do what I can to retain his interest—”
“So you thought you’d get rid of me.”
She threw back her head and scoffed. “Get rid of you? As if Tallisk would. I thought I’d buy some time, some more Adornment for me.” She stood, slamming the book shut, and gestured at me with it. “Though likely enough it would do you a favor if he did, in the end.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Her smile was lethal. “Ask him about Arderi Finn sometime,” she said. “Ask Yana or Doiran, if you don’t dare ask him.”
My brow wrinkled. “Who is Arderi Finn?”
“He’s you,” she said, touching the book to my chest. “In a year’s time. If you’re not careful.” She breathed out loudly and laid the book down. Her shoulders sagged. “Are you going to tell him?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not like that.”
“Not like me, you mean.”
“I suppose so.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” she said, and turned away from me.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was the tail of summer now, trailing into autumn, and I had once again started to enjoy the baths Tallisk mandated. I stepped out of the steaming tub and dried myself, sighing with languid satisfaction. A few droplets of water clung to my skin. I admired my newest Adornment, turning this way and that to see it: a thin vine, festooned with minute bright flowers.
I put on my robe, went upstairs and dressed. New clothes had been purchased for Isadel and me—light summer clothes in the current fashionable colors. Tallisk had presented them without comment, though Isadel’s eyebrows had risen at the gift. He was usually not prone to unthrifty generosity.
A heavy knock rang through the house; I started for a second, then peered out the door. Yana answered, then came back holding an envelope. “Only a courier,” she said, seeing my curious face and grinning.
Isadel emerged from her room, still bleary-eyed. She had been at a display the night before for a Southern merchant’s birthday. “What is it?”
Yana grinned up at her. “I’ll let Tallisk answer that, shall I? After all, it’s addressed to him.”
