House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  Torvan lifted his face and met the gaze of the woman to whom he had pledged his allegiance. He looked—at peace. He looked—and this enraged Jewel—grateful. Grateful. And he—he unsheathed his sword, still seated. It was awkward, not graceful.

  She almost couldn’t understand what it meant. Almost. She was stunned with the shock of it.

  But The Terafin? Damn The Terafin. She bowed—to him—and her bow was low and perfect. “You have not failed me,” she told him, as his sword caught torchlight from the shrine at his back. “And I will remember it well when this is over. I will send Arrendas to you for the aid that you require.” She walked to where he sat, his gaze still upon her, and she touched his forehead with the tips of her fingers, pulling away as he raised his face.

  And it was too damn much. It was too much, here, now. Jewel was on her feet, and moving. “No!”

  “What-are-you-doing-here?” The words were sharp as stilettos and just as furious as Jewel’s.

  “I’m here to save him,” Jewel spat back, pointing one shaking hand at Torvan, who stared at both of them with an expression of slowly growing horror.

  “He doesn’t need saving,” he managed to say. He steadied the flat of his sword; he had grabbed it by the hilt when she had shouted. To protect The Terafin. To protect the woman who was throwing his life away. “Jewel—Jay—”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” Jewel replied, voice low and shaking with fury. “Don’t look at me like that. How can you do this?”

  “I serve Terafin.”

  “No, goddess curse you, you serve The Terafin.” She spun on her feet, then, and she turned to face The Terafin, her hands clenched so tightly her nails were cutting her palms. “You’re his leader. He follows you. He would die for you.”

  “Jewel, leave,” The Terafin said, mastering a rage that Jewel realized was not that much weaker than her own. “This does not concern you.”

  “The hells it doesn’t.”

  The Terafin paled; she now looked like the alabaster out of which so many statues were carved. But less friendly.

  Jewel drew breath, closed her eyes, lowered her face a moment, struggling to control her words, her tone. “I’m not ATerafin, Terafin. I am not under your command.”

  “No, you are not.” Spoken as if it were a doom or a threat.

  But it wasn’t. It was freedom. Jewel wasn’t ATerafin. She was—as she had always been—Jewel Markess. She had wanted the House Name for herself and her den, and she had wanted it so badly she’d been working under fear’s shadow for months.

  She slid out from under it now. “I lost my den-kin to the demons,” she told The Terafin, the words the beginning of an accusation. “But I never gave any of them up.” It struck home; color returned to the cheeks of the near-flawless woman who had made all of Terafin her den.

  “Terafin is not a small den in the middle of a poor holding.”

  “No. Terafin is a great House,” was Jewel’s equally bitter reply. “In the middle of Averalaan Aramarelas. Much too good for the likes of me, of us.”

  “Jay,” Torvan tried again.

  The word was unwelcome. Unwanted. But it was a reminder. She looked away from The Terafin. “I’m sorry,” she finally managed. “You don’t deserve that last part.” She would be damned, however, if she recanted anything else. “You can’t let him do this.”

  “I can’t see the Chosen weakened.”

  “It’s not her choice,” Torvan said.

  “You will see the Chosen weakened,” Jewel snarled, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Sure, maybe most of them think that Torvan should’ve been able to stop the demon somehow—but Arrendas, at least, knows the truth. Maybe Alayra knows it now, too. You think those two won’t be hurt by this? You think they won’t know that you’ve just given up on him?”

  “I think,” was the cool response, “that they will not question me.”

  “They won’t. But I will. I understand that you don’t want your den to look weak. I know that you can’t afford to let the outsiders know what you’ve lost. You call it wise. Sure.

  “But I also know that this isn’t about a stolen loaf of bread—it’s a life, and it’s his life, and he’ll throw it away because you don’t want to take the risk.” She turned then, unable to contain the rising fury, the sense of bitter betrayal. Years of arguing with Duster about Lefty had left its mark. Yes, she understood the cost of looking weak.

  But the cost of not looking weak in this case was too damn high. She walked over to where Torvan kneeled and before he could move, she kicked the sword off his lap and sent it skidding across the stones that comprised the path here.

  “I’m tired to death of being polite and deferential and political. You don’t want him? I’ll take him.”

  “It seems that you have a champion, Torvan.” The Terafin’s lips curved in a smile. It would have killed a meeker person than Jewel had anyone seen it.

  Torvan, at last, said nothing. His eyes were round with shock. Jewel wondered, briefly, if anyone had ever been this rude—this deliberately, furiously rude—to his lord. She doubted it. And she didn’t care. Maybe later. Maybe when they were sent packing in the middle of the night, the wealth and comfort of the manse denied them, she would hate herself for it.

  But The Terafin’s next words were not the ones that would strand her den in the holdings again. “Why this one, Jewel? Why Torvan?”

  “Because I owe him.”

  “Oh?”

  “When we first came here, he could’ve thrown us out. He didn’t. We’d’ve lost Arann without him—because we’d have had to play games with time that Arann didn’t have.”

  “Is that all?”

  All? Jewel thought, for just that moment, that she would never understand this woman. And that she would be happier in her ignorance. “Yes.” And then, after a moment. “No. Because he made me understand, at my very first visit to the shrine of Terafin, that I had something to offer the House—and that I did understand power. Your power.

  “And it’s because I understand it that I can’t let Torvan die—even if he wants to, even if you think it’s best for the House.”

  Torvan cleared his throat. Jewel, who had spent so much of the discussion ignoring everything he’d said in favor of actually preserving the life he didn’t seem to value enough, glanced at him.

  “You must be mistaken,” he said quietly. He looked as if he regretted having to say it. “My rounds do not bring me to the shrine of Terafin; The Terafin does not come here with any of her guards except, on rare occasions, Morretz.”

  It was the first time Jewel had heard Morretz granted the title of guard, and it should have said something significant about the domicis’ role in House Terafin. It didn’t. She knew Torvan. She couldn’t forget the face—or the voice—of the man who had saved Arann’s life. Who had, in the end, saved all of them, simply by taking a risk.

  “W-what?”

  “I’ve never spoken with you at the shrine of Terafin.”

  Jewel could think of nothing to say. Her mouth was still open, but in want of words—any words. He wasn’t accusing her of lying—that much, she could see on his face. It stopped her from accusing him of the same, but only barely. She felt her hands curve into fists, and she struggled to find any words, even the wrong ones, to break the silence left in the wake of his denial.

  But The Terafin suddenly turned, as Jewel stared. She walked past them both, moving slowly and more hesitantly than Jewel had ever seen her move as she made her way up the concentric circular stairs toward the altar. She lifted the cloak she wore as she walked, and she walked without looking at either Jewel or Torvan.

  Jewel turned to watch The Terafin as she knelt, pressing her forehead gently against the stone as if somehow confirming that it was real by touch alone.

  Neither Jewel nor Torvan spoke; this much, they granted her. But neither did they leave. They waited. After a long, long pause, she rewarded their wait. She rose, and turned to face them.

  “Jew
el, you were right to come. It has been a long time since things were as clear for me as they are for you; a long time since risk was the only way of life, for me. I want safety; I want certainty—I had almost forgotten that in ruling there is neither.

  “Torvan, I chose you, and I chose well; you have never disappointed me. If I have—almost—disappointed you, then you are free to leave. Any dishonor or disgrace will be mine alone to bear.”

  He was utterly still. So, too, was Jewel. Maybe even for the same reason.

  “But if you would, I would have you remain as one of the Chosen of Terafin. You know how difficult it will be; you know the mistrust that you will suffer, probably better than I.”

  No question at all in Jewel’s mind what his answer would be. None. But she was suddenly fine with that. The anger that had driven her, jumping from injustice to injustice in a growing frenzy, now drained out of her as if she were a cracked vessel.

  Torvan stood, walking unsteadily, as if he’d spent all day sitting with his legs folded beneath him. He bent, retrieved the sword that Jewel had kicked from his lap and his hands. As he rose, sword in hands, he stood closest to Jewel, and he spoke, softly, to her.

  “You owe me nothing, Jewel. I told you that the day you took us to confront the demon. But I—I am in your debt. Your interference here has saved my life,” he continued, still speaking quietly, “but it has done more: It has saved her the pain of ending it.”

  She nodded, half embarrassed by the weight of his solid, fixed gaze. But he shifted it, and he walked past her, bearing the sword. He had not sheathed it. It was shining by the time he approached the shrine.

  The Terafin waited, and then, aware that this was the whole of the answer he would offer, she bent slightly, extending the flats of both palms.

  But he stumbled just as the sword was placed in those palms, and his breath cut the air in much the same way the edge cut her hands.

  Jewel couldn’t see his expression, but she could imagine what it was. The Terafin’s, though, was strange. She smiled. It was a pained smile.

  “Pride is such a necessary thing in power, and such a dangerous one,” she told him. “What you have offered, I accept.”

  “Your hand.”

  “I know.” She looked down at that hand and then returned his sword to him; she did not tend it. “It is . . . Terafin. Reminding me. I bleed. I don’t need to be more than I am; I only need to be all that I can.

  “Now go back to your post, but attire yourself appropriately first. I would speak with Jewel a moment in private; tell the Chosen.”

  He tendered her a perfect bow, which, given he was carrying his sword very awkwardly, said a lot about him. Then he wiped it clean of her blood, and he sheathed it. He offered her a sharp salute, and he turned and left the House shrine, following the only orders he cared to follow: The Terafin’s.

  “His name was Jonnas,” The Terafin said softly, gazing at the lamps above them before she turned to face Jewel. “He was, of all things, a cook, and at that not the cook to The Terafin himself, but rather a cook to those who tended the affairs of the House in this manor. Common wisdom dictates that cooks are either too large or too thin, but he defied common wisdom in many ways; he had lived his early years in the free townships, and he retained many of their mannerisms. I’m not sure why he elected to serve at a big House.

  “He kept the kitchen staff together as if it were a family and he an uncle distant enough to be allowed to dispense wisdom without the resentment that it usually brings. Dispensing wisdom was one of the things that he did.

  “I met him on my eighth day in Terafin, and I liked him. We had little in common—I, noble-born and bred, and he a commoner with no ties, until Terafin, to the nobility, and little enough respect for it. I asked him once why he served a noble House—one of The Ten, no less. His answer was this:

  “It’s The Ten that’re most uppity; they don’t know how to get anything practical done. They need me. And a man’s got to be needed, he’s got to be useful.”

  Jewel wasn’t completely certain where this story was going, but The Terafin’s face had softened into a smile at the memory. It made her look younger. Less harsh.

  “I wasn’t The Terafin then. And not destined to become The Terafin in his life, either.”

  There was a pause as she turned from Jewel toward the altar.

  “I discovered the shrine on my own, when difficulties in Handernesse—the family of my birth—arose. And Jonnas would come to me here, to speak with me and offer me advice on the responsibilities of both the House and its leader. On what is owed to the family one is born to and to the family one chooses. On the ties to both. He was known for his common wisdom, and it comforted me to hear it, because I respected the old man, even if I had never told him so in so many words.

  “When he died, I was already struggling with the three other possible heirs to the title; there had been some savage politics and, in one case, a very messy death. Assassination was not the way that I wished to take Terafin, and I would not use it; I was not involved in it, yet it still left me one less rival.

  “But the divisions in the House caused by the death of the man in question—and his young son—were terrible; the manner of death could not be kept from the crowns should it occur again, and the other Houses were beginning to crowd like vultures at our step.

  “And I came to the shrine, as I did when troubled, for it seemed to me that I was going to lose my bid for the House—and possibly my life—to the man who was most ruthless in his quest for power.” She lifted her head, and light touched the contours of her face, as if she were part of the altar, not separate from it.

  “And as I prayed, Jonnas came to me as he always had, and he sat, just there, cross-legged and at ease, waiting for what I had to say.” Her lips turned up then, in a rare self-deprecating smile. “And I said, ‘But you’re dead.’ ”

  Jewel grimaced to stop herself from smiling, but The Terafin knew. She beckoned Jewel forward, and Jewel took the stairs and came to stand beside her, in front of the altar. Her own hand, the cut one, she placed against the stone, spreading her fingers there, unmindful of stain.

  “He said, very gravely, ‘No, but I will be if Hellas becomes The Terafin.’ Ah, I’m sorry. Hellas ATerafin was the man considered most likely to draw victory out of bloodshed. And most likely to cause bloodshed. We do not speak these names to outsiders.

  “I realized then that he wasn’t Jonnas, that he had never been Jonnas, and I understood at last what Jonnas—what this one—had said about Terafin, about the Spirit of Terafin. I was his Chosen, and I was to rule Terafin—with honor.” She bent and bowed her head softly to stone, and then raised it, turning to catch Jewel’s gaze. It wasn’t hard; it hadn’t strayed from her face at all as she’d spoken.

  “Do you understand?” The Terafin asked her softly.

  Jewel nodded. The Torvan that had taken the time to speak to her and to ease her out of her fears of insignificance hadn’t been Torvan either; no wonder he’d looked so confused. “Do you still speak to him?”

  “No. I have not seen him in many years. But if Terafin needs his guidance, and no one else can fulfill this role, he comes. Tonight, he called you.”

  Damn silent call, Jewel thought, but she didn’t say it. Instead, she glanced at the shrine, and thought about The Terafin, and about the families you choose and build, rather than the ones that you’re born into. When she spoke at last, she said, “I’m already ATerafin, aren’t I?”

  “Not yet,” The Terafin replied, surprising her. Her words were not unkind, however. “For I am The Terafin; the living rule here, not the dead. Come. It is dark, and we have missed the early dinner hour. Dine with me, if you will.”

  Late dinner hour.

  Morretz raised a brow when The Terafin returned to her chambers with Jewel Markess. But that was all he did; when The Terafin told him that they would take late dinner together in her quarters, he nodded smoothly and held out his arms for her cloak. Jewel watched
him take it and then glanced at The Terafin; the cloak, while fine—and Jewel was not, admittedly, a good judge of cloth—was far too large for her. It seemed to be a man’s cloak, and one that had seen better years; it was faded, and even in the light of The Terafin’s chambers, the original color was not entirely clear to Jewel.

  They adjourned to the small dining room where The Terafin took most of her meals during the week. On the Mothersday, the large dining hall was open, and she ate there, flanked by Gabriel ATerafin and any of the House Council who happened to be resident in the manse at the time. Jewel, who was not ATerafin, had heard of the meal, but she had never attended one. Guests did, on occasion, but never uninvited guests, at least not those who did not wish to immediately overstay their welcome.

  Jewel looked around the room before she took her seat. It wasn’t that much different from the room in which her den ate most of its meals. Even the chairs were similar, although admittedly less scuffed.

  “I will not tell you not to mention the House Spirit or the shrine,” The Terafin told her, as Morretz moved her chair.

  “Did you?”

  “No. But I had the advantage of desiring stability.”

  When Jewel was silent for that little too long, The Terafin added, in a much drier tone of voice, “I value the appearance of sanity.”

  Morretz disappeared and reappeared with a bottle of dark wine. The Terafin nodded, and he poured for both of them. Jewel, whose experience with wine was limited, hid a grimace.

  “But you are the only other person I know of who has spoken with the Spirit of Terafin. Or rather, with whom the Spirit has chosen to speak.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “That, in some measure, you have already earned his respect. Not more, but not less—and, perhaps for reasons of vanity, I feel that it is an important measure of character.” Again she smiled. The smile dimmed slowly as she drank, and after a pause, she said, “I want you to tell me about my brother.” It wasn’t a command. It was spoken almost like one, but Jewel knew that was just how The Terafin spoke.