“Trassan!” Ilona said delightedly. “How ingenious. But did not Rassanaminul have wooden ships? That is the Ocerzerkiyan preference.”
Trassan tapped at his plate. “He did. And he lost three of the four. A wooden vessel caught in the ice is crushed into matchsticks by the pressure of it. The ice moves, you see, with tides and storms. It is water after all.”
“I have a passing familiarity with hydrodynamics,” she said.
Trassan raised an eyebrow.
“Unlike you, cousin, I have little to do other than read. I grow sick of novels.”
“Sick! Sick she says! Well, always got her nose in a book this one! She should be out, out! Looking for a husband! Waste of time. Books. Yes.” Cassonaepia bit noisily into her food. During the space of Trassan and Ilona’s exchange, she had eaten half the lobster. Her husband nibbled timidly on his own food. His wife became preoccupied with complaining loudly about the quality of her ham to her footman, so Arvell made an attempt at conversation.
“There is money in this expedition of yours?” he said quietly. Cassonaepia’s eyes rose from her food at his temerity to speak without permission, but the footman drew her attention back to the meat. Arvell gave a grateful look to the servant.
“Oh yes!” said Trassan, enormously relieved that Arvell had brought the subject of money up first. “This is a marvellous opportunity. There have been no intact Morfaan cities found anywhere else in the world.”
“Oh ho! Oh ho! Here we go, my lad. Who’s to know the place isn’t a gutted ruin? What then?” hooted Aunt Cassonaepia.
“The others are as they are because they have been looted and pillaged for materials greatly over thousands of years,” continued Trassan. He spoke hurriedly, fixing his attention on Arvell in case he retreated back into his shell. “Vand has made a fortune from the items he has found, although Persin has stolen much from him by violating my master’s patents. That is Vand’s great talent, the rediscovery of the Morfaan’s mastery of the physical arts, and reintroducing them, improved naturally, into our modern world. Imagine what he could do with undamaged devices. We will advance the causes of who knows what sciences. The knowledge of the ancients is ours to take!”
“Vand has no money himself?” said Arvell.
“Ridiculous!” huffed Cassonaepia. “The man is richer than King Brannon. King Brannon!”
“Of course,” lied Trassan, “and he has invested heavily in it. You are too shrewd for me uncle. You have seen through the purpose of my visit.”
“Which is?” asked Cassonaepia.
“Until we have the licence secured to cross the great ocean we are restricted to offering opportunities to a select few. I already have notes of intention from the Westerhalls and the Canderbridges.”
“You want to borrow money from me?” said Arvell.
Trassan laughed. “Not borrow, uncle. I thought that you, as family, and knowing of your nose for a good earner, might appreciate the opportunity to share in the wealth my expedition will generate.”
A calculating gleam entered Arvell’s eyes, a flicker of the man he had once been. “You had an accident, as I recall.”
“A small incident. A teething problem, you understand. New technology.”
“Quite,” said Arvell.
Trassan lowered his voice. “Between you and I, I fear it was sabotage. What does that tell you of our chances, if our rivals in Maceriya, naming no names, attempt to disrupt our efforts by subterfuge?”
“You cannot have my money!” shrieked Cassonaepia. “How dare you!”
“It is not your money,” said Arvell quietly. He grew brave. “It is mine. You forget yourself.”
“Oh! Oh! And I have done nothing! Nothing at all. That’s right, that’s right!” Cassonaepia drained her glass. A footman hurried forward to refill it. “You have done all the work, never mind that I sweated and struggled, struggled, I tell you, struggled to bring up our ungrateful daughter here while you were off gallivanting with your friends.”
Trassan doubted that Arvell had ever been allowed out to do anything so interesting as gallivant.
“Now dear...”
“Stupid man!” The measure of wine, so recently poured, disappeared down Cassonaepia’s throat.
Arvell clutched the tablecloth, rucking it. “You embarrass yourself.”
“Come, Trassan!” said Ilona, standing with a sudden scrape of wood on marble. “I am sure you would like to see the garden. It has established itself very prettily since you were here last.”
“Yes,” said Trassan. “That would be lovely.”
“Mother, father,” said Ilona.
“Aunt, uncle,” said he. They got hurriedly down from the table.
Cassonaepia’s hooming and hawing boomed around the house as she put Arvell back into his place. Another footman let the door open for them into the night. Someone appeared with furs for them both.
Trassan shuddered as they went out into the garden.
“You’ll have to do better than that, cousin, if you are to travel to the frozen wastes of the Sotherwinter.”
“It’s not the cold that is making me shiver,” he said. “It’s that beast of a mother of yours.”
“She’s getting worse. Once upon a time, she could keep a certain appearance of charm, now she acts as she pleases. She has isolated herself, and grows more strident for lack of company to correct her.”
“I am sorry for you.”
“You have no idea at all, Trassan, so don’t you dare feel sorry for me.” Her eyes flashed with anger.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for feeling sorry. You always were the worst at dealing with other people.”
“I don’t have Guis or Rel’s knack, I suppose. I always felt happier with machines. They don’t answer back, and when they make as much racket as your mother, you can turn them off.”
She slipped her arm into his. “Come nearer me, I am cold.”
They walked around the edge of the garden, keeping to the colonnade that enclosed it. Not true grounds, but a courtyard at the centre of Arvell’s townhouse, it was nevertheless artfully laid out. A square of night overhead blazed with stars. The roses were leafless. Frost rimed the grass.
“Come and see the garden. Gods, Ils, couldn’t you have come up with something more convincing?”
“Mother won’t notice. She is blind as to how others really see her, or what they think. She lacks the ability to judge the feelings of others, that commonality of spirit. Ironic really, as she is immensely paranoid about the way others see her. I think if she had the tiniest bit of empathy, she’d be horrified. Fear is what makes her the way she is. She lacks the insight to see it.”
“She will sulk at our absence.”
“She will, but she never does for the right reason. She’ll assume that I am trying to seduce you, not that we are up to something, or that we are trying to exclude her from our fun.” She sighed heavily, her lightness vanished. “She’ll sulk anyway, so what is the point in trying to stop it?”
“Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked. She did not answer. He continued in a different vein. “You are at least not like her. It is no wonder that your father is as crushed as he is. I often wonder why he has not left her.”
“Love, I suppose.”
“How can he love that?”
She pulled his arm so he came closer. “Love is blind, so they say.”
“Apparently it is also an idiot.”
She smiled. They had made their way around three sides of the cloistered way. They passed wide glass doors; a summer room, lights out, furniture covered in sheets for the winter.
“I find it hard to believe that Arvell is of the same stock as my own father.”
“Do you find the same difficult to see in me?”
“Ah, definitely not. You are a Kressind through and through.”
She stopped and pushed him against the wall, sliding a knee between his legs to pin him in place. She was no longer taller than him, nor stronger
as she once had been. He had a man’s strength now, his muscles hardened by his trade. But he could not escape easily.
“You have me at a disadvantage.”
“You could just push me away.” Her sweet breath washed over him.
“We’re not brats any more. Wrestling would be a serious breach of decorum.”
“More’s the pity.” She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and bit her lip. “Perhaps a kiss for your cousin?”
“You are trying to seduce me!” Trassan looked pained. He stared off to the side. “Ilona, I’m engaged.”
“And not to me. Do you know how upset I was when I heard that? What’s wrong with me?” She shoved at his chest.
“We’re cousins.”
“A bad excuse. You never used to say that when we were little. You said we would be married when we were older.”
“Ilona! You can’t take a few stolen kisses as a promise of marriage. We were children. They were fancies, experiments. Nothing more than that.”
“It was a little more than a kiss, if I recall. And they meant more to me. I’ve been waiting for you. You made me a promise.”
He had, that he could not deny. “I... look, I just fell for someone else. I’m sorry.”
She retied the lacings of his collar as she spoke. “Sorry, sorry, always sorry. What is it with you and women, Trassan? Do you even try?”
He shrugged.
“What if I said I can get you that money?”
Trassan was too ashamed to tell Ilona he was hoping that she would open the way for him, and doubly ashamed that it was happening. “Your mother...”
“My mother is an outrageous old witch. I’ve had it with her. My father is not so stupid as he looks, he’s got plenty of money hidden away. He tells her about it from time to time, and she takes it off him, and wastes it on some extravagance or another. Do you know, she has had this house redecorated eighteen times in the last five years? She is destroying his fortune. But he always has one more pot of money hidden somewhere. My father has the spine of a mollusc when it comes to my mother, but if there is one person he will indulge more than her it is me.” She stepped back. “There, now you look like a respectable engineer, and not a rake.”
He looked down at his collar.
“It does look better,” he said.
“I can do it. And I promise to stop teasing you. Really. You know how I am. I’ve always enjoyed making you squirm a little.”
“Like that time at Midfrozmer when you kept dropping hints into the conversation about what exactly we had been doing?”
She made a face of innocence, much like the one she had worn at the occasion Trassan mentioned. “Your father is deaf to innuendo, or I would not have done it.”
“A bloody good job too, Ils, or I would have been doing a lot more than squirming when we got home. He would have beaten the crap out of me.”
She poked him above his heart. “He would have got the servants to do it.”
“It would still have hurt.”
“I suppose so. But I can get you the money. And I want to.”
“Ils, I can’t marry you. I am sorry, but...”
“Shut up. It’s not about that. We’re still family, even if you bound yourself to some engineer’s floozy daughter.”
“She’s not a floozy.”
“Poor you.”
“Ilona!”
She smirked at his discomfort. “There is a condition.”
“That is?”
She rested both her hands on his chest.
“You have to take me with you.”
“Are you mad?”
“I am not mad.” She sighed and turned away. “I should be. You’ve no idea.”
“What are you talking about?”
“And you with a sister like Katriona.”
“You are losing me here.”
“I will make it simple for you cousin. Remember when we played at dragoons and dragons as children?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Tell me. What is the principal difference in the game for girls and boys?”
Trassan frowned. “None. You and Katriona wouldn’t let there be. We were all dragoons. I remember the one time we tried to get you to be the damsel.”
“When we played those games, you did so with the certainty that you could, if you really wanted to, become a dragoon or a knight or a magister. Katriona and I cannot.”
“But the world has changed Ilona. You could become a magisterial aide, or a nurse. Or you could—”
“Have you noticed, they are all the roles of assistant, and never the leader?”
“There are women who are not assistants.”
“Oh really? Like who?”
“Well,” he said, “there’s Lucinia of Mogawn. And Katriona. I did meet a very eminent family of lens makers last year, who were led by the most formidable matriarch.”
“Exceptions. What do they say about the Hag of Mogawn? I’ll give you a hint, it’s in the name they’ve given her. How long do you think it will be before dear cousin Katriona ends up with a similar label, onerous as a millstone to carry, and one that she will never be able to set down? I don’t want that, Trassan. Why don’t I get to be a dragoon?”
“The world just isn’t like that.”
“And there you have my point. Well done,” she said bitterly. “My mother talks to you about your career, and your prospects. She talks to me about marriage, because that is all there is for me.”
“I never became a dragoon either,” he said weakly.
“Rel did. Who knows what adventures he is having?”
“Knowing Rel, I am sure he is having a perfectly miserable time.”
“But he gets to go! And you, so you are not a dragoon. Did you want to be one?”
“No...”
“So you had a choice?”
“Some...”
“There you are. You instead are the great engineer, building a technological wonder that will fetch back the secrets of the ancients to better the lot of all Karsans! If that is not a hero’s role, then what is? Nobody rides dragons any more, Trassan. But heroes remain. The steeds change, that is all. What choice is there for me? To become a wife or a whore.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I? So, I pursue my own ambitions, and get called, why, a whore, whether I am or not. I bed a man I want to and get found out. What am I? I am a whore! I’d be better off becoming an actual whore, because at least then I’d be paid for the insult. I want to be a wife, Trassan,” she looked pointedly at him, “but on my own terms. I don’t want to be a whore.” She smiled. “Well, not all of the time. What I do want is to ride dragons, like the old knights. Fuck what people say I should be. Yes. Fuck. I’ve heard you say lots worse, cousin. And are you censured for it? Of course not, because you’ve got a fucking cock. So you can say what you like.” She grabbed for his crotch. She was quick and he fended her off only at the last moment, losing much dignity in the process. “To add injury to the vast insult of my sex, I am forced to remain cooped up in this hellhole with that mad old tyrant until some droopy jawed halfwit with a title pays my mother enough to marry me.”
“It’s not like that anymore.”
“No. ‘It’s not like that all the time, any more.’” She mimicked his voice, ridiculing his mannerisms. “It still is like that quite a lot of the time. You know nothing about it. For you, I will exercise power in one of the few areas open to me, mainly, squeezing a small fortune out of my father. It’ll be hard work, but I’ll put on a performance that would make one of Guis’s actresses look like the rankest amateur.”
Trassan paused. “You’re sure you can do it?”
“He was half-convinced anyway. There’s something sharp lurking underneath the gutless weasel he’s become. All I have to do is make him more worried about upsetting me than he is frightened of my mother. You’ll see. His desire to earn a good return on his money will do the rest. He has to support my mother somehow. All you h
ave to do is get me away from all this.”
“Can’t I do something else for you? There are schools... You could go to the Queendom.”
“I want to be free where I choose, thank you very much. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
Trassan mulled it over a while. He held out his hand. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“We are all Kressinds.”
They shook.
“Now come on. Mother always kicks up such a stink when she thinks people are having fun without her.”
“Have you thought about not indulging her?”
“Oh yes. And I have decided it’s not worth the trouble not to. Not with my dear old daddy soothing her wounded self-importance and supporting her every lie. She’ll be shaking me awake to drunkenly berate me in the small hours already. But that won’t happen many more times, because you’ll get me out of here. If I do this, and I will, and you even dare to consider leaving without me, I will kick you very hard, right in the balls. So hard, in fact, that you won’t be much use to little miss spanner pants at all.” She smiled dangerously. “I am sure even you can understand that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Vardeuche Persin
VARDEUCHE PERSIN SAT at his desk eating messily. A jowly man, thick about the waist, his form and his manner of eating suggested that he enjoyed his food. He gobbled impatiently, spilling morsels from his spoon onto the napkin tucked into his collar.
The napkin was richly made, as was his suit of clothes, his furniture, and every other thing. He was not as he first appeared, this gourmand in his rich man’s rooms. If someone were to examine him closely, as many courtesans of Perus had had the opportunity, they would find thick muscle beneath the fat, they would feel that his hands were horny with hard work, and that there was always a trace of oil under his fingernails.
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