House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  It was a tired smile, but it had no harsh edges, and Teller found himself liking the man.

  “Again, my apologies. The situation is somewhat unusual; Jewel Markess is not ATerafin and does not have the traditional right to sponsor. However, in this case, The Terafin has chosen to overlook the lack of House Name, and she has suggested that you might find the House less confusing if you were involved in some of its daily business.”

  Far from easing confusion, the words deepened it enough that Teller couldn’t quite keep it off his face. “She wants me to work? But I have no—”

  “Training?”

  Teller nodded.

  “Yes, we’re aware of that,” was the quiet reply. “It is felt that you would receive some training here. I am told that you can both read and write.”

  Teller’s opinion of his own skills at either was not high. But as he wasn’t certain who’d told Gabriel this, he simply nodded.

  “Good. We will, of course, test this. No, Teller,” Gabriel added, as Teller froze, “it is not a simple pass or fail test; you will not be asked to leave the House, and you will not in any way influence the opinion in which Jewel Markess is held.” He glanced at the letter that lay between his hands on the desk’s surface.

  “The test is meant merely to gauge your abilities. No more, no less. What you will be asked to do during your stay will depend on those abilities. As you can see,” he added, lifting the letter, “much of our communication is written. It is not simply a matter of formality, although that exists; we are very busy, and it is not always convenient to meet or to speak with the various Council members.

  “I meet twice a week with The Terafin, but there are numerous concerns that are raised in each meeting; not all of the communication she sends to my office will be discussed in those meetings; we therefore require both the ability to write and the ability to read in order to prioritize.”

  Teller nodded.

  “Of your reading skills, and possibly your writing—which would you consider stronger?”

  “Reading,” he replied, hesitantly.

  “Very well. Should your reading skill be sufficient, you would work with Barston. Many of the external communications sent to House Terafin come to my office; Barston deals with them and passes on those which require my personal attention. Personal correspondence is generally marked as such, although most of my personal correspondence does not come to this office.”

  Teller opened his mouth and closed it again.

  “Barston has been asking for an aide for the past several months,” Gabriel told him. He rose, leaving the desk behind, and moved to the large, half-empty glass case that rested against one wall. From this, he took out a sheaf of papers, and, returning to his desk, he offered them to Teller.

  They were—all of them—letters. Some were old, if you went by the dates in the corners.

  “Pretend, for the moment, that you are Barston. No, that you are in his position. I am a very busy man,” he added, with just the hint of a grimace, “and my time is not my own. Read that pile and sort it for me.”

  “Sort it how?”

  “Place those letters that you feel are of immediate concern in one pile; in a second pile, place those that you feel require my attention. In the third, place those letters that you feel can be answered without my intervention. I will ask that you take them outside to do so; I do not want to pressure you or to limit the time you take, since I’m aware that this will all be new to you.

  “Should you require assistance at all, I will instruct Barston to make himself available.”

  Taking the letters as if they weighed more than he did, Teller nodded. He reached the doors, and then remembering himself, turned and tendered the right-kin what he hoped was a perfect bow.

  Gabriel smiled. “I should not say this,” he told Teller, “but perhaps you will take some comfort from it. The House is indebted to your young leader. At the moment, there are very few in it who harbor any ill-will toward you.”

  Burton had said the same thing, what felt like years ago.

  “The Terafin is, in my experienced opinion, a very worthy leader. We are lucky to have her, and if you work well and work hard, it is just possible that you will one day serve the House in her name.”

  Finch, like Teller, had been awakened early. Like Teller, she’d allowed Ellerson to choose her clothing. It was, unlike Teller’s, a dress, and it chafed at her neck. He hadn’t chosen House colors for her, although his choice in Teller’s clothing had been more restricted; she wore a sunflower yellow with strands of black along both sleeves, which were long and cuffed at the wrist. The neck was high, the fabric thick, but it was the cool season, and in the early morning, it could be pretty damn chilly.

  She had eaten breakfast in the nook with a bleary-eyed and silent Teller as a companion. They had done their best to consume what was put in front of them, but they were both nervous. It wasn’t often that they were woken, alone, and sent to unknown corners of the manse, although if she were of a mind to be fair, they often did wake up early and go exploring if the servants didn’t shoo them off.

  This was different, and they both knew it.

  Jay had said that it was time for them to act, to work. They’d been prepared for that. But this wasn’t what they’d imagined.

  When Teller had left at the side of Burton ATerafin, Ellerson had smiled down at her. “Neither of you have done anything wrong,” he told her quietly. “The Terafin requested your presence, in two meetings. Teller has his; you have yours. You are expected,” he added, handing her an overcoat that was tailored and fitted, and frowning slightly as she shrugged her sleeves into it, “to represent yourself as befits important guests of the most notable House on the Isle.”

  Four House Guards came to the wing, and Ellerson, straightening the back of her jacket and fussing at the collar, pushed her gently toward them. “ATerafin,” he said, to one of the guards.

  Finch breathed what might have been a sigh of relief, had it been audible. She recognized Torvan ATerafin.

  Ellerson probably had as well, but he seldom lectured the den in front of anyone else, not even the servants. He saved his criticism for private use.

  “Torvan!”

  He did not, however, save all of his expressions. She grimaced, lowered her arm—which had been midwave—and tendered a more correct bow. This also produced a severe frown in the domicis.

  She was never going to understand the patriciate. Ever.

  Torvan, however, smiled. He didn’t seem to be bothered by whatever she’d done that had disappointed the domicis. “Finch,” he said. He bowed, but it was a shallow dip of motion, not stiff enough to be formal. “I’ve been given the privilege of escorting you to the mainland.”

  She fell in step beside him, and they began to walk down the hall, taking a corner. “Where are we going?”

  “The Merchant Authority,” he replied.

  She frowned. “Oh, wait. The big, stone building that squats at the eastern end of the Common? Fancy stairs, fancy guards, lots of people with money and guards of their own?”

  “The very same.” he replied gravely.

  If the other guards thought this out of place, they didn’t appear to notice.

  “Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “The House Guard doesn’t question the orders given them,” he replied as they approached the guardhouse that broke the line of gate. “Nor does it involve itself in the affairs of the House Council.”

  “This has to do with the House Council?” She almost missed a step.

  “The orders were relayed by the Captain of the Chosen.”

  “I’m not—I’m not in trouble?”

  He smiled. “No, Finch. You are not—yet—in trouble.”

  She didn’t particularly like the sound of that yet. “What am I supposed to do at the Merchant Authority?”

  This did produce a very rare grimace in response. “You have an appointment,” he told her, �
�with one of the senior officials in the Merchant Authority. Ah, no,” he added, lifting a hand before she could speak. “The woman works for House Terafin; she is, in fact, ATerafin. All of The Ten—and some of the other significant Merchant Houses—have permanent offices of varying sizes within the Authority complex.

  “House Terafin employs perhaps a dozen people who work from, and through, those offices. The various merchants allied with the House, or of it, will do most of their business and request most of their paperwork through the Authority; only in the case of trade route grants do they approach the offices of the Trade Commission in Avantari.”

  Avantari. The Palace of the Twin Kings.

  “You might meet members of other Houses at the Authority,” he added.

  “What do I say?”

  “I have no doubt at all that you’ll know.”

  She puzzled over his response as she walked.

  Finch arrived for her meeting fifteen minutes early; Torvan took no detours, but then again, he didn’t have to. He didn’t need to dodge the magisterial guards, he didn’t get out of the way of any obvious dens that roamed the streets with thuggish pride, and because he didn’t, Finch’s instinctive reactions were dampened. She followed in his shadow.

  His shadow took her as far as the offices in the Merchant Authority. The fancy dress guards on the steps didn’t stop him; they did nod, however, as he passed. The crowds—loud, often composed of angry, impatient people—didn’t stop him, either; they didn’t rush to get out of his way, but he didn’t have to shove them to make room. Moving evenly and slowly, as if he owned any space his feet happened to land, he led her through the crowds on the open floor and into a hall; this he took, until he reached stairs.

  Even these, he navigated with ease, but when he reached the closed doors that bore the Terafin House crest, he stopped. “We will wait for you here,” he told her.

  Finch had, like all of the street poor, daydreamed about living life in a grand palace on the Isle. As so often happened, daydreams—in which you could control every single thing that happened—had a way of being entirely unlike reality.

  And reality greeted her bullishly in the form of the senior official she had been sent to meet. The woman wasn’t as old as The Terafin, but she didn’t really look like she’d ever been young; her hair was pulled back in a graying brown bun. It made her look very severe.

  She was tall, but she was also wide, and her hands were square and blocky; her mouth had permanent lines in the corners of her lips that suggested a frown that didn’t budge much. Her eyes were a shade of blue green that was almost shocking given the lack of much color in the rest of her face.

  She sat behind a desk as if it were a battleship. It was cluttered with stacks of paper, but nothing about those stacks suggested a mess.

  “Yes?” she said curtly, looking up.

  Finch’s throat dried instantly.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, because those words came easily, “to bother you. I’m here to speak with someone in the office.”

  “ ‘Someone?’ ”

  Finch swallowed and looked around. Torvan was on the wrong side of the doors, and she had to get out of the way when a man in a hurry nearly shoved her to one side.

  The woman slapped both of her palms across the desk and pushed herself out of her chair. “You!” she shouted.

  Finch jumped.

  It was not, however, at Finch that the single word was aimed.

  The man in a hurry froze, then turned. He didn’t look particularly happy, but then again, people in a hurry seldom did. “ATerafin?” he said.

  “Watch where you’re going if you want to set foot in this office again. You hear me? You almost ran that young girl over!”

  He frowned, looked, and then reddened slightly. “Apologies,” he told Finch quickly.

  The woman behind the desk folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. Finch thought she was about to say more, but she pursed her lips. “I’ve an appointment in ten minutes,” she told him, “or I’d have more to say. Don’t just stand there, get out.” She turned her glare on Finch.

  Finch did her best not to cringe. “I’m sorry. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hit me, I’m just in the way,” she told that glare.

  The woman clucked. Literally. Shaking her head, she said, “You’ll need to do something about that, dear.” The glare receded, but the frown that had accompanied it didn’t. “I bet you apologize when you accidentally walk into a wall or a door. Well, come around the desk and let me look at you.”

  Finch, no fool, did as bid.

  “Do you eat at all? Are they even remembering to feed you?”

  “Yes, we eat well.”

  The woman snorted. “Not, clearly, well enough.” She shook her head, and ran one blocky hand through her hair—none of which was in her eyes, it was pulled so tightly back. The gesture was comforting to Finch, who saw it so often. “You must be Finch, then.”

  Finch’s eyes widened slightly.

  “Yes,” the woman told her, nodding toward a closed door. “I’m Lucille ATerafin. You have an appointment to see me.”

  They adjourned to a smaller—a much smaller—room. Like the doors to the large, outer office, the door to this room bore the Terafin House crest, but it was a single door, and it was a normal door. The window—such as it was—was closed, but it wouldn’t have opened to sunlight in any case; it overlooked the crowded wickets and floor three stories down.

  There were shelves on both of the walls that didn’t boast door or window, but they were practical shelves, of a sturdy, dark wood that had clearly seen better—and less dusty—days. Papers lined those shelves, intermixed with lidded boxes and the occasional standing book.

  Behind the desk was a chair; in front of the desk were two.

  Lucille walked over to the desk and sat. On it. “You can sit if you’d like,” she told Finch, waving a large hand. “We’ve got, what, two hours?”

  Finch, who had not actually been told the name of the woman she was to meet, had no idea. She hesitated and then said, “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Oh, stop it. I assure you, I don’t bite.” She paused, and then added, “Well, not much. And not polite, self-effacing children.”

  Finch nodded and carefully took a chair. Since Lucille was sitting on the desk, the chair wasn’t that far from her.

  “What, exactly, did they—whoever they are—tell you?”

  “I was told I had a meeting at the Merchant Authority.”

  “That’s it?”

  Finch nodded.

  “Did they happen to tell you what it was about?”

  Finch shook her head.

  “What a surprise. I swear, sometimes those people have their heads so far up their—” she stopped. “Never mind. Says here,” she added, although what “here” referred to was entirely unclear, “that you can read. And write.”

  Finch cringed. “I can do a little of both,” she told Lucille, “but I’m not very good at either one.”

  “How well do you handle numbers?”

  Finch glanced at the window as if she might be able to run and jump out of it before she had to come up with an answer.

  “I see. Is there anything else you think I should know?”

  Something about the sentence felt wrong, but it wasn’t until Finch answered that she realized what it was: Lucille was speaking Torra. Not Weston, not the language of the patriciate, but Torra.

  “No,” Finch told her, answering in the same language, although she didn’t say as much.

  “Well, that’s a puzzle. You can’t read or write much by your own admission, and you can’t do math at all, but they taught you to speak Torra?”

  Finch swallowed. The window looked more and more inviting. “No,” she told Lucille, taking a breath and unconsciously squaring her shoulders. “No one taught me to speak Torra. I learned it, growing up. Where I grew up,” she added, struggling to
keep her voice even, because the subject was not one she talked about, ever, “we weren’t taught to read or write—that came later.”

  “Later?”

  “Later.” Finch spoke quietly.

  But Lucille, who was not, by any definition Finch knew, a quiet woman, understood what that particular hush meant. She nodded. “Where did you grow up?” When Finch didn’t answer, she said, “I’d hazard somewhere in the inner holdings.”

  Finch nodded.

  “And you made your way to House Terafin on the Isle?”

  She nodded again, but this nod was clearly not enough of an answer. “I followed a—a friend.” She knew better than to call Jay her den leader; that much at least Ellerson had drilled into all of their heads.

  “A friend.” Lucille’s expression, which could not by any standard be considered friendly, darkened.

  Finch nodded.

  “This ‘friend’ took you to live with him in the manse? I’d like to know his name—his first name. I’ll assume if he had the gall to promise you accommodations in the manse that he’s ATerafin.”

  “Oh! No, no, it’s not like that.”

  Lucille folded her arms across her chest, waiting. She’d lost her glare, but what was left in its place was almost worse; she was obviously suspicious.

  “My friend—her name is Jewel, but everyone who likes their teeth calls her Jay. She found me,” Finch said, the words coming out much faster than any of the others she’d spoken so far. “She saved my life, and she took me in. She’s older than me, but only by a year and a bit.”

  “I . . . see. Saved your life?”

  Finch nodded.

  “And where was your family?”

  And froze. But this question she would not answer, not coming from a stranger.

  Lucille was big and loud, but she was also observant. “So the two of you lived together.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. There were a lot of us crammed into a small space. I wasn’t the only one she helped.”

  “And she was rich?”