House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  Angel listened for Jewel. He waited up, just as Finch and Teller did, although he didn’t join them in their inexplicable nocturnal pilgrimage to Jewel’s room. If the rest of the den grumbled or worried about Jewel’s long daily absence, only Angel chafed under it. He wanted to be with her.

  To Ellerson’s eye, Angel was not ignorant. The very real possibility of danger—or death—did not undermine that desire. Angel had been the most resistant to the change in the den’s clothing, and while he ate well—and often—the week had done nothing for either his color or his demeanor. He was not at home in the wing.

  Finch and Teller, however, were. Through them, the rest of the den found ways of making themselves comfortable. Were it not for the quiet way in which they claimed space and remade what they could of it, Angel might not have stayed.

  Into this, the last of the den had now been introduced.

  “Arann?”

  Arann glanced down at Finch.

  “Sorry, I forgot—this is Ellerson. He’s our domicis. I told you about him the other day.”

  “He’s like a servant, but scarier?”

  “Exactly.” She glanced at Ellerson, her lips curving in a slight smile. “But he’s scary the way Jay is. Well, sort of—he’s on our side.”

  “Do we need sides here?”

  Finch hesitated. “We probably need sides everywhere. The Terafin didn’t become The Terafin without a lot of fighting and bloodshed—all of it inside the House.”

  “The servants aren’t scary,” Teller added, changing the somewhat delicate political subject. “I think Burton might come by later, before Jay gets back. You’ll like him.”

  Arann nodded.

  “Come into the kitchen,” Finch added, grabbing Arann’s sleeve. “You have to see it.”

  He followed, and Ellerson retreated to his room to find the tape measure and the ruler. The clothing that had been the subject of discussion in the healerie was in far worse condition than the clothing the rest of the den had worn on the first day he’d met them; it would definitely have to go.

  9th of Mistral, 410 A.A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  Jewel had often heard silence described as stony, but she had rarely seen a better example of why. Meralonne, who had started to stuff leaves into the bowl of his pipe, a sure sign of his irritation, sat opposite The Terafin. Behind her were four of her Chosen, including Torvan ATerafin.

  It had taken some time to get used to the fact that he looked right through her whenever he was on duty. She’d seen a lot of guards on duty by this point—admittedly mostly in the streets of the holdings, both lower and middle—and none of them were as stiff and unfriendly as The Terafin’s personal guard.

  But because Torvan had taken the time to find her when he was off duty, and to carefully explain what his duty was and why she suddenly appeared to be invisible while he was in the presence of his Lord, she understood that it wasn’t personal. She also understood that it wasn’t because she’d been born in the poor holdings.

  Even had she not been so informed, she wouldn’t have taken it personally this time. Meralonne’s knuckles were white. The Terafin’s lips were compressed in the type of line that also whitened them. This, Jewel thought, was why white was one of the colors of mourning in the Empire.

  The silence stretched.

  It was, not surprisingly, Meralonne who broke it. “We cannot proceed with caution at this point,” he said, curtly. It was a variant on what had begun this morning’s grim silence, which had been broken by equally clipped and short phrases on the other side of the table. Jewel looked at the floor and wished it would swallow her and spit her out anywhere else.

  The day had not gone well. Like any of the previous fourteen or fifteen days, they had crawled through chutes and basements, searching without luck for any of the entrances that Jewel knew had been there a few weeks—or months—ago. The mage, give him this, did not question her knowledge; he didn’t appear to doubt her word.

  And in his position, she knew damn well she would have. Either that or doubt her sanity. When he wasn’t actively castigating her for some imagined wrong or, worse, ordering her about as if she were a barely competent flunky, she remembered to feel grateful for it.

  “You’ve not yet finished your search,” The Terafin said, after another long moment.

  “No, but I doubt at this point that the search will turn up what we need. We must go to the Kings with the information we have in hand.”

  “Oh?” Her voice was cool. “May I remind you—again—that you are employed by House Terafin?”

  “Please do.”

  Two minutes, this time. Meralonne blew concentric rings of smoke into the air above the table. They narrowly missed drifting toward the austere and stony face of the House ruler.

  “Very well. You are employed by my House. Matters political—”

  “Demons cannot be considered merely political—”

  “Matters political, such as assassination attempts, are internal affairs.”

  “Demons care little for the politics of the merely mortal. If they attempted to assassinate you, it was certainly in keeping with larger goals—goals that I won’t hesitate to point out threaten the whole of the Empire and not merely a single House.”

  “If I doubted that, I would not—at my own expense—continue with a search that has proved fruitless up to this point. Suspicion, however, is not fact. I cannot call the Council of The Ten with something as tenuous as the suspicions of the magi. It would be too costly for my House.”

  “Terafin, while you play your political games with the other Ten Houses, our time shortens.”

  “You have not yet said what you suspect the demons’ goal is, Member APhaniel.”

  “I am not, regardless of what is said about me, a demon. How should I know?”

  Kalliaris, Jewel thought, edging toward the wall as quietly as possible. Please, Lady, smile. Smile.

  Not today.

  The Terafin turned to look at her. If she noted that Jewel was now about ten feet farther away from the table than she had been when the discussion had started, she overlooked the display of raw cowardice. Jewel struggled not to add to it.

  Her den was eating, and eating well. They had a safe, warm place to sleep. They had clothing that Helen would never have been able to produce at a price they could afford; they even had new shoes and new boots. An indoor pair and an outdoor pair, the latter of which saw no use.

  And they had all this until the moment The Terafin decided Jewel Markess was no longer of use. Jewel’s hands were shaking, and she clasped them behind her back. No one liked a coward.

  “Jewel.”

  Jewel, mindful of Ellerson’s brief but ferocious lessons, fell instantly to one knee, bending the whole of her spine as she lowered her head. If The Terafin noticed, she said nothing. Instead, she waited until Jewel rose.

  “Terafin,” Jewel said, as she lifted her head. “How may I be of service?”

  The Terafin’s eyes were dark. But her lips lost the thin ring of white as she met, and held, Jewel’s gaze.

  “The Member of the Order says you’ve had little success in your search to date.”

  Jewel nodded.

  “Will you have success if you continue?”

  “I—I don’t know, Terafin.”

  The Terafin nodded. She turned her attention once more to the mage, who sat idly smoking. “I am certain, Member APhaniel, that you are conducting your own—private—inquiries within the Order of Knowledge. Demons imply rogue mages, and rogue mages are considered a threat.”

  “We are hampered,” he replied coldly. His glance at Jewel was less friendly than The Terafin’s, but it didn’t sting; she was used to it.

  “Will you fail?” The Terafin said, into the silence that followed Meralonne’s words.

  “No.” Jewel’s jaw snapped shut.

  But The Terafin seemed to relax. “You are certain, Jewel?”

  This time, she was. She let her
hands slide to her lap; her knee against the floor was beginning to go numb. “Yes, Terafin.”

  “Very well. Member APhaniel, your request is provisionally denied.”

  “Provisionally?”

  “We will revisit it at a later point in time. Until that point, I require your services, as offered, to continue to search the holdings.” She rose. “I regret that I have other appointments; please don’t let me detain you.”

  When Meralonne APhaniel and Jewel Markess had been escorted from the room, The Terafin turned. Morretz came to her, from a side chamber.

  “You were listening?” she asked him quietly.

  He nodded, and added, “Member APhaniel was well aware of my presence.”

  “As expected. And?”

  “His concern is genuine, and it is in keeping with the current leader of the Order of Knowledge.”

  “Sigurne Mellifas.”

  Morretz nodded gravely. “There is no way you could halt a private inquiry from that quarter, and if it is of any consolation, the pressure being brought to bear by Member APhaniel almost certainly originates with the guildmaster.”

  Amarais nodded. She sat in the chair she had abandoned.

  “Your concern, Terafin?”

  “I know Sigurne, and I have some passing familiarity with Member APhaniel.”

  “He is the House Mage.”

  She ignored this. “If he—or Sigurne—is worried enough to continue to press this case, it is likely that his suspicions are not unfounded.” She looked up, her eyes dark and ringed with circles. She had not, he knew, slept well. “How much can we risk without risking the lives of people who have no say and no political power?”

  Morretz understood that this was rhetorical. He made no reply.

  “It sits ill with me.”

  “The governance of a powerful House seldom sits easily.”

  “I must decide,” she said softly. “How much do I trust the instincts of a girl who was born to old-stock Voyani in the streets of the holdings?”

  No one answered; the answer was evident in the decision she had handed down. She rose again, straightening her shoulders as she did. The moment of obvious doubt, shared only by her domicis and the utterly silent Chosen, passed.

  But she had not quite finished, and the question she asked surprised her domicis. It was not asked of him, and she seldom conversed with the Chosen when they were on duty.

  “Torvan,” she said quietly, “how does Jewel’s den fare in the House?”

  Torvan ATerafin didn’t blink or in any way betray surprise. And perhaps, Morretz thought, just perhaps, he was not.

  “They fare as well as can be expected. Perhaps better. The domicis,” he added, inclining his head briefly in Morretz’s direction, “has taken the task of their instruction in House behavior very seriously.”

  “And they listen to him?”

  “As much,” Torvan replied, with just the trace of hesitation, “as one could expect, given their circumstances.”

  The Terafin nodded. “Very well. Please keep an eye on them, and alert me to any difficulty they either cause or suffer.”

  He saluted.

  16th of Mistral, 410 A.A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  Ellerson would never have said a kitchen was a suitable place for work that did not involve meal preparation. It was, however, the only place in which the den habitually gathered, if one didn’t include the end of meal sloth that kept them glued to their seats in the various meal rooms. They still ate like starving children, and that sloth was not feigned; after a meal was not the time to grab or hold their attention.

  Carver was often absent after the first week had passed. He would slip into the wing and then out again after a brief pause to speak with either Finch or Angel. Teller and Finch seldom strayed far from the wing.

  Jester sometimes went with Carver and sometimes left on his own.

  Arann, however, to Finch’s surprise, would also leave, often for hours.

  She worried.

  It was during a period of extended worry that she explained the den’s past to Ellerson, who listened with the brisk efficiency that marked his training. He had heard similar stories from students in the Hall of the Domicis in the past, and it was therefore a simple matter to both contain reaction, and choose what he let show.

  But Finch spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that it was difficult to offer sympathy; she wanted none. She described the facts of her life with the delicate hesitation of one who is uncertain whether or not the audience will be bored, and if she felt any sense of the injustice of the universe in those spare facts, she was far better at hiding it than most.

  Given the den’s leader, however, he doubted it was an act.

  “But it was when we lost Lefty,” she finally said, “that things unraveled for Arann.” She glanced past him, to the uncluttered wooden surface of the table, with its now-matching chairs. “You didn’t know him, before. Actually,” she added, thinking through the words, her expression still distant, which was oddly disconcerting in her otherwise friendly face, “he’s a bit more like he was. But . . . he’s not the same, not quite.”

  “The healing often has a striking effect, when the healed are otherwise dead.”

  Finch nodded, more to indicate she’d heard him than that his words had any resonant meaning. Perhaps, in time. “He was always big. It’s the first thing you notice about him. That he’s big. But he’s always been quiet, and he’s never been one of the fighters. He didn’t like to fight. But after Lefty disappeared, he would. He’d just—he would.”

  “He didn’t seem to care, anymore?”

  “No, it was worse than that. He was so angry. He didn’t think. He didn’t seem to feel pain—to feel anything that wasn’t anger. Jay stopped letting him leave the apartment. We were afraid he’d kill someone. Or die.”

  The latter, Ellerson thought, was the more pressing concern to the den leader.

  “But he didn’t mind. Being at home.” She glanced at the kitchen door. “I wonder what he’s doing.”

  “So,” Arann said quietly. “Your job is protecting people.”

  “Strictly speaking, my job is to obey The Terafin,” Torvan replied.

  They cast middling shadows against the cropped grass of the grounds. Torvan had led Arann into the gardens; they were almost empty at this time of year. The pavilion, which saw so much use in the summer months, was closed, its decorative boards latched down, its flags and banners in the safety of the groundskeepers’ many sheds.

  Arann didn’t seem to notice. “But she orders you to protect people?”

  “To protect The Terafin, yes.” Torvan hesitated. “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” he said at last, coming to rest by the pavilion’s stairs.

  Arann shrugged. He wasn’t moody; there was no irritation or youthful boredom in his expression. Torvan was painfully familiar with both, although the years had dulled them enough that he could wince when he thought of his life at Arann’s age.

  He’d never had the boy’s size, on the other hand; not so young.

  “I never cared much for fighting,” Arann said. “Can I sit here?”

  Torvan chuckled. “You can sit anywhere you like. At this time of year, no one’s likely to come and chase you off the grass.” Wincing slightly, he added, “In the summer months, when The Terafin and the House Council are expected to entertain dignitaries of note, it’s different. Not even the Chosen are exempt from the groundskeepers’ rules.”

  Arann sat, predictably, on the steps below Torvan. The steps ran the circumference of the pavilion.

  “Some of the people I used to know figured they’d find a den, and they’d live with the den until they could join the Kings’ armies.”

  Torvan nodded. Intended or not, it was often the fate of the young men who lived by some mixture of wit and brawn in the holdings. “It’s not a bad life,” he said quietly. “And you’ve a chance to learn what you’re capable of.”

  Arann’
s silences were extended punctuation, and it had taken Torvan some little while to accustom himself to them.

  “Do you have brothers?” Arann asked now.

  “Two.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “Well enough. They’re younger,” he added. “One of them by several years.”

  “They’re both still alive?”

  Ah.

  “They’re both still alive. No thanks to me, according to our mother,” he added wryly.

  “I don’t. Have brothers.” Arann looked down at his hands. “I had Lefty. He was like a brother to me. A younger brother,” he added. “He was hurt bad one time. Everything spooked him but me. And Jay, eventually. But he was afraid of Jay at the beginning.”

  Lefty, thought Torvan, was dead. He didn’t ask; instead, he waited through another of Arann’s silences, knowing that this particular conversation was not yet at an end. It was Torvan’s way to let the den lead discussion, both in the beginning, and at the end, however abrupt that end might be.

  “We lost him,” Arann said quietly. “In the maze. The one Jay’s searching for with that mage.” He paused and then added, “I don’t think she likes him much.”

  This didn’t surprise Torvan. “Most people don’t like mages.”

  “But she’s not afraid of him. They shout a lot.”

  “If she has no success, her position within the House is insecure. And if the mage has no success, he feels the Empire is in danger. They’ll shout.”

  “She doesn’t care about her position.”

  “No?”

  “Well, she does, but not because it’s a position. We—things were bad. For us. They’re not bad, here. She wants here for us. And we’re letting her do it on her own.”

  “One of the hardest things to learn—possibly the hardest thing—is that. When to let others do the work they can do, while you sit on your hands and wait.”

  Arann looked up at Torvan. “I didn’t care about being able to fight. I didn’t need it. I looked after Lefty.” He swallowed, and looked away. “But we lost him.” Looking back, Torvan saw his expression had shifted, or perhaps cracked. What was there now was painful to look at. “I failed him.”