Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  “But I need—”

  He raised a hand. “Jewel. Jay. I am not what I was. We each have our responsibilities in our respective homes for at least a little while longer.”

  She knew that had never stopped him before. She even opened her mouth to say as much, but it was pointless; Haval could be impenetrable when it suited him. She glanced once at her silent, stiff domicis, and once at Teller and Finch, both of whom had let her do what little talking there was.

  “If we could wake Hannerle, what would it be worth to you?”

  His silence was profound because it encompassed everything about him for just a few seconds: all motion, all breath, all expression. He didn’t answer.

  Because he didn’t, she continued. “We can’t keep her awake. Whatever this sickness is, we don’t have that in us.”

  “How can you wake her at all?”

  “Answer the first question first.” Her voice was colder and harder than it should have been; that much, she’d learned from Avandar in her time.

  “There is very little in my possession with which I would not part. If I thought it would satisfy, I would offer the robes in exchange. I will not insult you by doing so,” he added. “But I will not, in turn, be insulted; I will not take on faith that you have the power to do so.”

  “Fair enough. Pretend that we can, for the moment.”

  “If you cannot keep her awake, there is less value in the waking.”

  Jewel nodded. Avandar drew breath, and she raised her hand in curt den-sign before he could use it. “I believe that we can continue to wake her, if she falls asleep and can’t wake on her own. It’s not a cure. It’s as close as anyone can come, at the moment.”

  “And you would continue to wake her?”

  “It depends on you.”

  “What do you want, ATerafn?”

  “I want your ears. I want your eyes. I want your gossip and your ability to penetrate other people’s gossip.”

  “And that is all?”

  “…no.”

  His smile was chilly; it contained no hint of surprise. “It’s been decades, ATerafin, since I have worked in any official capacity.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about official.”

  “You should,” he told her softly, his voice as cool as his smile had been before it deserted his face. “You intend to take the House Seat, do you not?”

  Silence.

  I told you this was unwise, Jewel. Avandar spoke in the distinctly uncomfortable internal voice. Jewel, still silent, did the same. Haval is not a fool. Almost as if he grudged it, the domicis added, he is, and has always been, dangerously perceptive. He is, and has always been, dangerously deceptive. He must be handled with care.

  I think we need him. Her reply was not much different than a spoken reply would have been. It wasn’t, in fact, different than the spoken reply had been on the carriage ride to Haval’s shop.

  I did not press this point, Avandar replied. But I will press it now. What do you mean “I think?”

  I need him.

  You have come this far without anything but the clothing he crafts. I wish you to be clear on your reasons for this unwise approach.

  Not a single member of her den would have continued to argue with her after she’d made such a definitive statement.

  No, they would not. But I am not your den; I am not looking to you for either leadership or guidance.

  The worst thing about this type of speech—a gift from the mark he had left on her arm—was these arguments. Avandar of old—Avandar before the sojourn in the South—would have stifled all urge to argue when in the presence of witnesses; now that the witnesses couldn’t hear him, he didn’t stop.

  You know as well as I that this is different. I’m at a disadvantage from the beginning—

  A disadvantage that you wouldn’t have if you had accepted The Terafin’s desire early enough to plan.

  She didn’t argue that point because she couldn’t. Instead she said, I need him. I need him at my side until this is over.

  I do not materially disagree with this statement; I wish you to understand what the cost of his indenture may be. Do you think he will surive in your service?

  I…don’t know.

  Jewel, your friends are your weakness. The fewer you involve, the less difficult this will be in the end.

  My friends are my weakness?

  Yes. You fear to lose them.

  It was true. But the other truth was as undeniable: Her friends were also her strength. She’d missed that, in the South.

  She looked directly up at Haval. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I intend to take the House Seat.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “I promised The Terafin.”

  “There are some promises it is unwise to make.”

  “I wasn’t her first choice. But all of her other choices died before she did. I’m what’s left, Haval. I’m all that’s left.”

  “And your claim?”

  “I have the writ designating me heir.”

  “Which isn’t worth the paper it was written on.”

  Jewel winced, but nodded; it was true.

  “I think you fail to understand what—and who—you are up against. This will not be a minor scuffle; in my opinion, fully half of those who are standing now will be buried before this is over. The casualties will not be limited to the House, although it is the House that will suffer the brunt of them.”

  “If they kill outside of the House—”

  “Who will go crying to the Kings? If you think the laws of exception governing The Ten will keep outsiders—such as myself—safe, you are hopelessly naive.”

  “Is that your answer?”

  Haval turned to Finch. “You were made House Council members because she intended you to support Jewel’s claim?”

  Finch glanced at Jewel, but nodded.

  “And she made this explicit?”

  “She threatened to revoke the House Name if we didn’t accept the promotion.”

  “I see.” He turned back to Jewel, but Finch hadn’t finished.

  “We have the sword,” she said quietly.

  “Pardon?”

  “We have The Terafin Sword. She gave it to—to one of us. As proof of Jay’s claim.”

  “Who else is aware of this?”

  “No one.”

  “And you can swear that?”

  Finch nodded.

  “Then let me ask you a different question, Finch. Teller, you may also answer if you desire. You understand that your chances, as House Council members, of surviving this war are less than fifty percent in my opinion?”

  Finch paled.

  Teller, however, said, “If they’re that high, I’ll be surprised.”

  “And you are willing to take that risk?”

  “We have no choice. It’s not about the promise Jay made. That promise was the only thing that kept The Terafin going at the end, but she’s dead; she won’t care now. And we’re not dead yet; we don’t want to die.”

  “There is no guarantee whatsoever that Jewel can save you—”

  “It doesn’t matter. She can save the House. She can save what the House is, and what it means. If Marrick or Elonne succeed, the House will be different, and I think we could live with it. But if Haerrad or Rymark succeed—” Teller shook his head. “We can’t just stand back and allow it.”

  “Why not throw your support behind either Marrick or Elonne, in that case? Either of the two have resources that are greater than yours.”

  Jewel cleared her throat. “We’re not convinced that Marrick and Elonne will survive.”

  Haval was still watching Finch and Teller. “And you are convinced that Jewel will?”

  Finch said, “Jay will survive.” There was no doubt at all in her words. Before Haval could speak again, she said, “We know that it’s likely most of us won’t. But even if they kill us all, Jay will survive. She’s hard to kill. They destroyed half of the Common, and they couldn’t kill her.” She bit
her lip; she was pale. Jewel saw that, and it hurt. “You don’t understand, Haval.”

  “I understand Jewel ATerafin.”

  “Yes. But you don’t understand us. The Terafin took all of us, not just Jay. For years now, we’ve survived—and prospered—because of her. We were afraid, when we came to the House, that there’d never be a place for us; we were all orphans, we came from the poor holdings, we had no acceptable clothing, and very poor manners. We knew that Jay was important, that Jay was valuable. We knew that we were suffered because of that.

  “But she saw something in us as well. She gave us positions in the House. We learned. She taught us. We love the House in our own way. Maybe it’s not the same way Jay does—maybe we can’t do that because we’re not Jay. It doesn’t matter. We love what the House was, under her command. We don’t want to see it turn into something else. Yes, she’s dead. Yes, betraying the dead isn’t a crime—not on the streets, not where we grew up. But it’s not the dead we’ll betray if we just give up and do nothing.

  “It’s the living. It’s everyone else in the House. It’s Lucille and Jarven and the servants and the cooks and the gardeners and the merchants. We’re not children anymore. But some of them are. We don’t plan to walk to our deaths; we don’t plan to sit still in the dark, cowering. But we have a choice that some of them don’t have.

  “And we want—we need—your help.”

  “A heartfelt speech, ATerafin,” Haval said, in cool, exact tones. “Heartfelt speeches, however, are best visited upon the young and inexperienced or the old and sentimental. In the event that your exposure to Jarven has led you to the mistaken assumption that I am part of the latter category, I must offer correction. I am not.

  “You have been a valued and valuable customer of my establishment for well over a decade. Jewel, I am aware that your…offer…was meant to display some stiffening of spine on your part, and some tendency toward tougher negotiation than has been your wont.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You pay a premium to come here, and you always have. The only exceptions to that general rule have been on those occasions when you are not personally negotiating. You have a sentimental attachment to my establishment, and to me personally, that weakens any negotiation you undertake. I am a fair man, and I attempt not to take advantage of this fact.” Haval sat, gracefully and silently, on the chair closest to the center of his desk. He slid a drawer open, retrieved a blotter and paper, and slid it shut again. The room was silent. It was overly crowded as well; he greatly desired to send them all on their way. Measurements lay on the desktop as well, and if he intended to make suitable funereal attire, he needed all of the time remaining.

  But he did not take it, not yet.

  “Because I have not agreed to your terms, I am still endeavoring to be a fair man. Jewel, your opening gambit in this case does, I admit, make it less of an issue. Since I am aware that you are frequently less observant than you should be—a failing shared by a majority of this city’s inhabitants—I am attempting not to respond in anger.”

  He knew what she would look like, which is why he didn’t bother to turn; she could see the stiff but perfect lines of his back and shoulders as he folded his hands for a moment in front of him.

  “Hannerle,” he said, after a long pause, “would, if offered the same…deal…that you have offered me, refuse it with prejudice. She only barely tolerates the gathering of harmless gossip; she guards against anything more active on my part as if her life depends on it. And,” he said, choosing this moment to shift his chair so that he might face her, “she is not wrong.”

  He waited. There was a reason for it; he was not angry, although he had implied the opposite; he was annoyed, but his annoyance was procedural, not emotional. He was also curious. But he believed that Jewel did indeed possess some method of waking his wife; that the waking would not be permanent.

  “Do you understand what the base weakness of your opening offer was?” He now steepled his hands in front of his chest.

  The girl who had once walked into his shop had been eclipsed by the woman, but they were connected by some of the same essential qualities, although this woman was infinitely better dressed. He saw the familiar tightening of jaw, the slight furling of hands—but they went no farther. Her hands did, however, move up to the hair in front of her eyes. She would no doubt push hair from her eyes at least a dozen times before this conversation was over.

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “Please,” he said, loosing his hands to gesture briefly with open palms. “Elucidate for me so that I may be certain.”

  “Hannerle isn’t half the devious bastard you are,” was the slowly worded reply. “She doesn’t lie. She doesn’t pander. She cooks, she cleans, and she keeps this whole place running just so you can make dresses.”

  “I will point out that I frequently went to the wells; I am not entirely—”

  “Did you want the explanation?”

  “I wanted something less personal and more concise; I should perhaps make allowances for personal style. My apologies.”

  “I’ve known her just as long as I’ve known you. She makes me help in the kitchen. She complains about you while we’re working. She even loves you.”

  “And the significance of these?”

  “I care about her. I consider her a friend. I can’t threaten to withhold something that’ll help her.”

  “Ah, no, you can.”

  “I can’t do it in a way that makes it believable.”

  “I believe that you believed you could, because you are under a great deal of pressure, and the demands of those you have chosen—as Finch made clear—to protect cannot be tossed away for the sake of one person. However, in my own arsenal, Jewel, I have Hannerle herself. Come.” He rose. “Why don’t you say hello to my wife?”

  Haval wasn’t certain how she would respond. Oh, he knew that she would follow him into the most light-filled room in their dwelling, but he didn’t know whether she would do it bowed by the weight of a guilty conscience. It was troubling, that she still possessed that. He himself felt no twinge of it at all. But she moved to the door almost before he reached it, as if she were eager to enter, eager to see the sleeper who wouldn’t wake. As if, in spite of her intentions, this one old, round woman with a querulous temper and a tendency to turn breath into nagging, was momentarily more important than a House.

  He hadn’t lied—implying anger which he was entitled to feel, even if he didn’t, could hardly be counted as a lie; Hannerle would choose death before she saw him pressed into the type of service that he had once performed. He glanced once at the domicis, a man who had weathered the passage of years very, very well. He was certain that a few delicately worded sentences would make clear to the man the scope of Haval’s previous profession.

  But he was himself uncertain if Jewel actually knew what she was asking of him.

  He entered the room where his wife lay abed. The sun was not yet high, and light came through open curtains in spokes; the room was perhaps dustier than was ideal. He did not approach the bed; he might have, but Jewel was there before he could and Finch and Teller shadowed her. Only the domicis kept his distance.

  Jewel, therefore, took the single seat by the bedside, and Jewel, not Haval, picked up the limp, cool hand of his wife. Jewel spoke to her, voice low, words even. She wasn’t a patient girl; she was up before five minutes had passed—but she didn’t seek escape. Instead, she touched Hannerle’s forehead with the back of her hand, and gently brushed strands of hair to one side or the other.

  “Does she drink?”

  “I have given her water already.”

  “I could—”

  “No.” He waited, counting seconds until Jewel hugged her.

  “ATerafin,” he said stiffly. “Jewel.”

  She ignored him. “Avandar.”

  The domicis did not look pleased. “I think it unwise.”

  “We don’t have another way of doing this. We can’t take
her by carriage—she’s not small enough that we can manage to sneak her into the House. Not now. Probably not even a decade ago, when there wasn’t a hint of a succession war.”

  “And then she will be in the House. It would be better if—”

  “We can’t. We can’t ask him to come here. He’s already going to attract attention because he’s traveling with Levec almost every damn day to Avantari. His destination affords him some protection; it’s also going to raise eyebrows. I don’t want him to become the next Alowan. What he does for her, no one else can know. No one can attribute it to him.”