The Adorned

by John Tristan

  I looked away. I thought of Tallisk’s rage, when he’d thought I was making to catch the Count’s attentions as a consort.

  “He was not as cruel as he could have been.” He leaned over, looking at the gardens below. “He deprived me of his mark, which cost me, but he sold my bond to a woman who knew my value. I served out my three years with her; now I am free to set my own price, and there are those for whom a lack of writ-name does not detract from the art.”

  “But you’re unfinished.” It was out of my mouth before I could help it.

  To my surprise, he laughed. “You see it? Not many do. You’ve an eye for it.” He gave me a searching look. “Has he other Adorned, at the moment?”

  “One; her name is Isadel.”

  He nodded. “I’ve heard of her. She’ll do well enough.” His eyes half closed there, looking inward. “Take a care with him. Don’t make my mistake, if it’s not too late.”

  “Your mistake?” I winced at my own voice; I sounded hoarse and strangled.

  “He can make you feel the loveliest creature in the world, but he’ll crush you given half a chance. Like a boy catching butterflies.”

  I did not know what to say in response. After a moment, Arderi left me, again raising his skirt and moving with a dancer’s elegance back into the ballroom.

  I had not even noticed the puddle on the floor, and the hem of my dress was sodden.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Count had me stay the night. I was not too surprised; I had felt his eyes on me through the feast, most keenly when Lord Loren took the liberty of a dance.

  A few of the other Adorned discreetly disappeared with the Count’s guests. The manor had many rooms, hidden from view. I did not see Arderi Finn again, though, either in company or alone.

  The Count was slow and deliberate with me, prolonging his pleasure; there was no recklessness in him, not now. He worked on me with a surgeon’s precision. At the end of it I was wrung out and panting, dark patterns pulsing behind my eyes, and the Count called in a body servant to bathe him. His firefly-bright eyes gleamed grey-green in the gloom of his bedroom; they passed over me and looked pleased.

  They didn’t linger long in my mind’s eye. I had other things occupying me. I turned away from him and closed my eyes.

  I must have slept. One of his servants woke me, just before sunrise. The Count had gone already, or else had never stayed. The last, I thought, was more likely. His servants eased me out of my rumpled dress and bathed me with brisk care. New clothes, soft and comfortable, had been laid out for me, and a light breakfast of bread and honey. I was being dismissed, though gently so.

  The city was bathed in rose-golden light as I was ferried home. I rode in the same carriage, I thought, with the same driver, gone bleary overnight. Artor Lukan, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. I supposed he’d been given a more important duty than my chaperoning.

  Doiran let me into the house at Nightwell Street. Without preamble, I crawled into bed. The Count had kept me up deep into the night, and I’d not had long to rest. Before I bedded down, though, I opened the curtains, and the window—I wanted to feel the sunlight on my skin.

  A few hours later, with the sun noon-high, I woke. There was a bustle in the house—footsteps and raised voices. Isadel had arrived home at last; it seemed the women had outlasted the men in their feasting.

  I rose and dressed, going to look for Isadel. I found her in the library. She wore a new black dress, the same color as her hair. There was a languor in her movements, her smile quick and secret. She looked at me with wide unblinking eyes.

  “Well,” she said.

  I smiled. “Well.”

  She giggled, suddenly: a sweet, untutored sound. I was startled enough to gape at her. I had barely heard her laugh before, let alone giggle.

  “How was the women’s feast, then?”

  Her expression closed a little; she was back to a more familiar smile, thin and ironic. “It went well, I suppose.”

  “And Lady Vasan? How is she?”

  Her hand went to her hair, half conscious, drawing it back from her face. There was the mark of a kiss on her neck, under the curve of her earlobe. It looked almost like one of her tattooed rose petals, a single scale shed from a writhing snake.

  “Isadel?”

  “Hmm?” She released her hair. “She is...not what I expected.” Her voice went bright now, closing the topic. “So, how was the men’s feast?”

  I tilted my head. “Well enough.” After a moment, I coughed. “I met Arderi Finn.”

  “Oh?” This caught her attention.

  “We spoke. A little.”

  “And what did you think of him?”

  I shrugged. “What is there to think? I know his side of the story now.”

  “Which I don’t suppose you’ll tell me.”

  “Why not? You had it right enough.” I sat down, looking past her. “But there is one thing you were wrong about.”

  “Was I?”

  “Tallisk was in love with him. With Finn.”

  “Did he tell you this?”

  I laughed; I tried to keep my voice steady. “He did not have to. It was plain enough in his story. So there is a difference.”

  “Is there?”

  A sudden ache bloomed in me like a poison flower. I felt tears starting to crowd my eyes, and I turned away. I didn’t want her to see either the tears or what lurked behind them: all the useless shadows that added up to a knowledge I could no longer deny. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t, Isadel.”

  She crouched beside me. “He isn’t worth your heartache, in my opinion.” She laid a hand on my knee. “But then who can command a heart, hmm? Not me. Just know that you’re a fool, Etan, in more ways than one.”

  “I know that,” I said, savagely.

  “Do you?” She rose and smiled. “I wonder.”

  “Maybe I should try for consortship, with one lord or other. Then at least I’ll know where I stand.”

  “I don’t think that you would, somehow.”

  No. Of course I would not. The Count’s attentions, Lord Loren’s dances, the eyes of the Blooded on me, bright and greedy...that was all secondary. What mattered to me was the art on my skin...the art, and the artist who put it there.

  Would I give up all display, the whole glittering future of it, in trade for Tallisk’s mark and name—an opposite bargain to Arderi Finn’s—no matter what it cost me? No matter, even, that I might never have what he had once had from Tallisk, before he’d turned his back on it? Given the choice baldly, I thought that I might; I wondered what sort of fool that made me.

  * * *

  Banned, for now, from touching needle to flesh, Tallisk still found ways to work. He’d completed his record of me, and of Isadel as well, and he spent long afternoons in his atelier, the scritch of his pencil sketching across paper and parchment.

  He called me up one afternoon. I had not spoken to him, not truly, since we’d been sent to the engagement feast, and I felt a strange apprehension in climbing the stairs to him. I took deep breaths, stilling myself. There was nothing I had done wrong, I told myself, nothing I needed to worry about.

  “There you are,” he said when I’d arrived. “Come here.”

  There was no censure in his tone, only a kind of anticipation. I licked my lips and went to him. He stood beside his desk; it was papered top to bottom with sketches.

  They were all of me.

  “I know you cannot be tattooed,” he said, sounding none too pleased about it. “But that is no reason you cannot be...” His voice tapered to silence.

  I looked up, unwillingly, from the tangle of sketches and found he was watching me. “Sir?”

  “You know, sometimes I think—” he shook his head. “Ah, never mind.” Again, he went quiet. It was not much like him.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said suddenly. “Call me by my name.”

  It took me aback, that request. “I’m sorry?�
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  “Etiquette is a poor substitute for respect.”

  I straightened. “A poor substitute, perhaps. But in my mind, sir, they complement each other well.”

  He looked at me with a curious expression. I could not quite tell if he was disappointed. “Very well. As long as you know I don’t require it of you.” With that, he seemed satisfied, and he turned back to his sketches. “These are designs I have in mind for you. Before I commit to any, I wish to try them on, with paints.”

  “Shall I undress?”

  He paused a moment, frowning. “Yes. Yes, you had better.”

  As I did, he bustled around, rummaging for his brushes and paints, adjusting his sleeves, coughing and murmuring under his breath. He was discomfited by something; I could see it in his every motion.

  I waited for his instruction.

  He nodded to me. “On the chair.”

  I took my place on the tattooing chair, settling into it with a sigh. He pulled his chair close to me and set out his brushes. He licked his lips, dipped the brush in green. Then he paused.

  “Sit up.”

  I did, frowning.

  “Here.” He pushed the brush into my grip. “You try it.”

  I stared at the brush in my hand for a moment, my heartbeat hot in my fingertips, half wondering if this was some sort of test. Was he actually allowing me to try my hand at his art? I swallowed, unsure of my voice. “You mean—”

  “Try it. On yourself.”

  “Shall I follow your design?”

  He shook his head and grabbed the papers away, turning them over. “No. Show me how you would do it, were you the artist.”

  My heart was still beating palpably fast, but behind that nervous drumbeat there was a new stir of eagerness. I wanted to wield that brush he had shoved into my fingers—to show Tallisk not only how I might do it, but that I could.

  There was not much of me accessible to my own hand—my chest, my legs, my other arm. I could not reach my back or shoulders, certainly, and I’d have to twist a little to reach my hips. Lips pursed in concentration, I bent over my leg. There was a bare patch, between two curls of vine, where I thought a flower would fit nicely. I paused. “I—I would not use this color, there.”

  He nodded. “What color, then?”

  “Blue. Light blue, sir.”

  His eyebrows raised. “Very well.” A new brush was selected, and he allowed me to use his paints. I chose a blue like a morning sky, bright and clear. I painted the rough outlines of the flower. It was not one found in nature, but a fanciful bloom, with spade-shaped leaves. Tallisk watched me; I felt his regard, a prickle on the back of my neck. I was not adept with the brush, but thought the doodle brought the idea across. I liked the luminous blue between the green, like the iris of a garden’s eye.

  I paused and leaned back. Tallisk took the brush from me and looked at the flower. “It’s not bad,” he said at last.

  From Tallisk, those words seemed a high accolade indeed. I could have shouted for the joy of it; instead, I swallowed a lump in my throat, and my voice came out in a whisper. “Thank you.”

  “It doesn’t fit in the whole, I think. But it’s not bad.” He took up a cloth and wiped the flower from my skin, leaving only a faint trace of blue behind. Now it was his turn with the brush, more skilled and subtle, trying out his various designs, then wiping them away. He kept me for hours, until the light failed. At last, he told me to put my clothes back on.

  “Etan.” He stopped me before I could leave.

  “Sir?”

  He rummaged through his papers for a moment, then thrust a rough handful of them at me. “Here.”

  I took them, uncomprehending. “What are these for?”

  “For you. If you want to practice on that flower of yours. Take this, too.” He topped the stack of papers with some stubs of pencils and worn charcoal.

  My heart was suddenly full to the brim. He might as well have poured diamonds into my lap—from him, there could be no greater gift than this. It was more than paper and charcoal; it was his trust, his regard, that he was giving me, from one artist to another.

  My eyes clouded. I blinked the fog away. I wanted to embrace him. Even if I had dared, though, my hands were too full of paper, dry and warm. I bowed to him instead and left, before I blundered deeper into dangerous ground.

  Chapter Forty

  One moment, I was in dreamless sleep—the next, I was startled awake by the creaking of the door. I sat up in bed, shielding my eyes against the sudden intrusion of lamplight.

  It was late, and I’d gone to bed hours before. Isadel was away at a private feast for Lady Vasan, and the shape outlined by the wavery light was neither Doiran nor Yana.

  “Get up,” Tallisk said, hoisting the lamp so it cast its flickering light on the bed.

  I blinked at him. “Sir?”

  “I’ve somewhere I want to take you. Get up.”

  He closed the door behind him and put his lamp on the table. Still blurred around the edges by sleep, I rose and reached for my house clothes to dress myself.

  “No,” he said, and he closed his hand on my wrist. Blood rushed in my ears. “Not those.” He opened up my wardrobe and reached inside, tossing clothes left and right on my unmade bed. At last, he found what he was looking for: a low-backed shirt, tied at the front with silk ribbons, and short trousers with gauzy panels. Display-clothes, I realized.

  “Where are we going, sir?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Somewhere important.”

  Whatever his destination, he would not say more. So, without questioning further, I dressed myself with practiced ease. It was strange, how it had become second nature to me.

  When I was done, Tallisk took out the fine cloak that had been his first gift to me and draped it over my shoulders. He took a step back and looked at me, considering. With a brisk gesture, he brushed away a lock of hair from my forehead. “You’ll do,” he said.

  I ran a hand through my hair, flattening the lock he’d caused to stand near straight-up. It would require a trim soon, unless he wanted me to grow it.

  In the entranceway he paused a moment and looked toward me. In the gloom, the dark of his eyes had swallowed the blue. Then he nodded—to me or to himself, I could not tell—and opened the door.

  I shivered against the night air, despite the cloak. No surprise; underneath it, I was wearing barely anything at all. A hired horse—a black mare, in old but well-kept tack—was tied to a hitching post that usually stood empty. Tallisk would have to have left the house in silence to rent it, or else sent Yana. In either case, I hadn’t noticed.

  “Come here, Etan.” He beckoned me closer, and I went. Without preamble, he lifted me up into the saddle. I made some sort of muffled protest, but he took no notice, and a moment later had found his seat behind me. “Comfortable?”

  I was awkwardly put in the saddle, and all too conscious of Tallisk’s bulk pressed against my back, but I nodded. He took the reins and the horse broke into a bouncing trot.

  A soft, cool drizzle was falling. Tallisk pressed closer against me, and I realized with a kind of start that he was trying to keep me warm. We made our way through the streets, silent save for the ordered drumbeats of hooves against stone.

  After some time, we slowed, then came to a halt in front of a low red-brick building. The windows shone with firelight, and a sign above the door proclaimed it the Rose and Crescent. Four other horses were hitched outside the inn, and a trough of water had been supplied for them. I heard the low clamor of laughter from within.

  We dismounted, and Tallisk hitched his horse with a perfunctory pat to its flank; the mare snorted. Tallisk nodded to me. “Right then. We’re here.”

  I frowned at him. “Where is here, sir?”

  “There are...some people, here, who want to see you.” He seemed suddenly nervous. “Treat them with all the respect you vouchsafe me, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” The same stray lock of hair had fallen into my eyes; I bru
shed it away. “I won’t let you down.”

  “I know,” he said, and he opened the door.

  The sudden blaze of lamplight blinded me for a moment, after the moonlit dim of the city streets. A hubbub of friendly shouts arose; I shielded my eyes.

  There were perhaps fifteen people there, men and women both, and twice as many glasses scattered on the table they all shared. A woman with wild black hair rose and clapped a hand on Tallisk’s shoulder; she had the bright eyes and red nose of a prodigious drinker. “Roberd Tallisk,” she said. “You made it.”

  “Amere,” he said, and a grin quirked the corners of his mouth.

  “Who’s this, then?” She smiled at me, and I bowed to her. I noticed at her collar the faded remnants of tattoos, more color than shape. They had to be decades old, I thought; if she had once been Adorned, whatever Blood-magic had animated her ink had long since fled.

  “This is Etan writ-Tallisk,” he said. “My latest.”

  A murmur of interest rose from the rest of the table.

  “Well!” Amere circled me. “I look forward to seeing him without his cloak.”

  I met her gaze, chin raised, and she laughed, taking her seat at the table and clearing some space for Tallisk and myself.

  “Come on,” Tallisk murmured, and bade me follow.

  I shook the raindrops from my cloak and looked around, my eyes now fully adjusted to the light. A fire roared in the massive hearth, and the smells of tobacco and beer were heavy in the air, with a dark top note of bitter coffee. Tallisk’s gathered friends were the only ones in the inn. The bar was near to empty, the other chairs turned upside-down on their tables. On a side-table beside the gathering were trays of bread, cheese and fruit; bowls of massive purple olives; steaming pots of thick black coffee; half-drunk bottles of liquor.

  At the head of the table, a fat man with a thick black beard held a girl on his lap. Her bare feet dandled over the armrests, peeking beneath diaphanous skirts. She was about my age, with long ash-blond hair, and she was naked to the waist, showing her Adornment. I glanced toward Tallisk, nervous for a moment—by the letter of the law, she should not have been bared in company without the sanction of a Blooded patron—but he gave no sign that this was unusual.