by Dave Oliver
He couldn’t blame Asra for keeping her estate this way, though. All of the Conclave did, and so did some standard patrons who had enough money and the desire to look like they also ruled the place. It was a constant game of one-upping in which nobody could ever possibly win. In fact, they were losers, all of them. At least Asra had always been a relatable human being—to him anyway. The rest of the patronage were insufferable shit-birds, always preening their identical feathers at anyone who would pay them mind. As though family money was a reason to be proud. If he could solve that puzzle at home, he’d show them what impressive meant, but best not to think about that now.
He shuffled across the no doubt priceless Tegrisian rug and made his way into the parlor.
“Ah, Merrik,” Asra exclaimed. “You’ve arrived.” She was wearing a bright orange dress with a matching band in her raven-black hair. Orange had been the opposite of high fashion in Ryten for the last few years, but he wasn’t surprised to see her wearing it. It was her favorite color, and she never failed to be herself around him.
She walked over to him and greeted him with a warm hug. Merrik gently patted her on the back until she saw fit to release him.
“Do come have a sit,” she said as she made her way over to a ludicrously large and overpadded couch.
Merrik followed but chose to stand. He cleared his throat and said, “Sorry, but if I sit on those, I very well may not be able to get up again.”
“Oh, well let me get a chair brought out for you.”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I can just stand for now.” He glanced over at the small sunroom to his right with cushions strewn about the floor to give it a relaxed loft appearance. “If I kick off here in your parlor, I’ll aim that way.”
Asra frowned. “Are you okay, Merrik? You used to be so much livelier. I still see the old you in your eyes, but now you seem so jaded and…”
“Unhealthy?” He walked over to the flickering hearth and leaned against the bricks. They felt nice and warm. “You know I was sickly as a child.”
“Well, yes, but it wasn’t that often,” she said. “I was always disappointed when you couldn’t come play because you were ill. Have things gotten worse?”
“You could say that. Each day is a fight against my own body. Some days I can laugh and enjoy myself like a boy again, but even on those days my body seems to remind me just how incapable it is.” He lifted his cane. “I can’t even travel short distances without this, lest I cripple myself just from walking around. I have to eat the blandest foods or my insides become a tumultuous maelstrom of rage and pain. I can’t even sleep through most nights.” He smacked his cane against the floor in impotent fury. He raised his hand to rub at his eyes, trying to calm his frustration. He’d never let it go like that to anyone. It was a bit cathartic, but it also reminded him just how much he hated his life.
Asra looked up at him. The pout in her lips, the upturn of her brow, the look in her deep brown eyes: pure, unbridled pity. The same as he’d seen on other faces every time he’d fallen, coughed so badly he couldn’t stand, or shat himself in public. He could take it from the rabble of strangers that wandered aimlessly through the city like flowing refuse, but not from her.
“Enough of that,” Merrik said. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about the goings-on in the Conclave. It’s been some years since my resignation. What pointless bickering have they been up to in there lately?”
Asra grinned. “It’s been a bit dramatic. Bafio wants to relieve the sanctions on Sotur just to be edgy and rebellious. Fallic wants to make trade agreements with those pirates in Midden, which has Qelmiok talking about slapping him with an official censure.”
Merrik started in surprise. “Censure? That’s pretty serious. Do you think it’ll hold?”
“Probably. He hasn’t done much for the city since he took over for his father, and he knows he can’t stay in the patronage without contribution. You know how some inheritors are.”
“Qelmiok is pretty desperate to prove her family name too. I don’t see her stopping until he’s gone.” He prodded at a priceless antique plate above the hearth. “It does surprise me that we didn’t move to retake Mizzen after it was sacked. Why let pirates come settle and rename it a word for a pile of shit?”
“If we retook it, we’d have to keep it too. It was completely wrecked structurally. Hardly any of the old buildings stand, and even those left are missing roofs and walls. It’s a mess.”
“I see. What do you think about Bafio’s plan? Sotur has always seemed like the most reasonable city in Provenance.”
Asra shrugged and shook her head. “Provenance is Provenance. I think Sotur is a cultured place with plenty to offer as an ally, but old hatreds die hard. Few of us are willing to look beyond ancient history to make a new friend.”
“A pity.” Merrik turned his gaze to see the servant bringing in a tray with a pot of hot water and various tea leaves. “What’s Kalka been up to? She always struck me as the impromptu leader of the whole group and a little more level-headed than the rest.”
Asra gave a light nod. “She is. Her spies are talking about the Amalgam researching new combustibles for reliable amberarms, and she still has people working to uncover this Clippers Union.” She sat forward and fixed herself a cup of tea. “But her biggest concern is this war between Ildia and the Holy City. If the worst should happen and Ildia loses, the Commonwealth would be in bad shape against an attack from Provenance. We have reserves in Eralda, but we could lose Safe Harbor or Paradisio long before they arrived. The news of King Talis and his army going missing last summer only has her more worried.”
“Sounds like her—always something on her plate.” He reached down to fill a cup with water and placed a few of the Ceflin tea leaves into the cup. It was supposed to help with digestion, so it should come in handy with the forthcoming dinner. He let them steep and turned his attention back to Asra. “And how are you? We’ve talked about how I’ve been doing, but what have you been up to?”
“Well,” she said, “you may not have heard, but my mother passed away last year.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
She dismissed his sympathy with a wave of her hand. “I’ve been handling it. So with that and my father constantly traveling to Halcyon Bay for his businesses, I’ve been stuck around the manor by myself. It made me realize I don’t really have any friends. The patronage here is unfulfilling, the people around town refuse to break the class barrier and just spend time with me, and my servants don’t relax enough to be pals with me.”
Merrik nodded in understanding. “Sounds perfect.”
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Pardon?”
“I said it sounds perfect.” He slid the tea leaves out from the tea now that the drink was a full, rich brown color. “Nobody to bother you. Nobody to make demands on your time. You’re entirely free to pursue what you want without the distraction of others.” He took a sip of his tea and widened his eyes at the pleasant taste. He blew on it to cool it down a bit.
“Merrik, that’s…sad. Is that really how you see other people?”
Merrik took another sip of tea. “Look, you said it yourself. The patronage sucks, and everyone in it is a witless fop with little worthwhile to do or say. The plebs judge and envy us to the point where they refuse to relate or to engage with us at all. Neither side offers anything valuable in the way of friendship, so why not just get a dog or a ment? At least they’re soft.”
Asra laughed. “You do have a point, but don’t you get lonely?”
“Not really,” he replied. “I keep busy, so I don’t have time to think about it. Besides, Al is always around, much to my dismay. I swear he decided to take up the mantle of doting father that my own parents never showed an interest in.”
“Oh, Alregon’s a great man.” She leaned forward to grab an extra tea leaf.
Merrik took another sip, casually staring down his cup at her cleavage as she bent over.
Asra grin
ned as she steeped the extra leaf. He wasn’t as sneaky as he thought.
“Shall we take this to the dining room?” Asra asked. “Dinner should be nearly ready, and I’m starved.”
Merrik nodded. “After you.”
“Need to get a good look at the rest of me, do you? All right, then. Follow me.”
Merrik choked on his tea and followed her sheepishly.
They strolled to the back of the foyer, past the overdesigned staircases and chandeliers. More of those family portraits lined the walls, more recklessly expensive rugs covered the floors. His gaze swung from priceless, tacky item to priceless, tacky item, resting lazily on Asra’s swaying hips in between. What caught his eye and refused to let go, however, was a door under the right staircase that had been left ajar, with a pool of red on the floor inside.
“Ah, you have a torture room,” he said.
She turned around and followed his gaze to the open room. “Oh,” she said, and her face flushed. She rushed over and closed the door quickly.
“Oh no you don’t.” Merrik walked over and gently nudged her to one side.
She covered her face with both hands.
Merrik opened the door to an absolute cornucopia of color. “Oh…oh my.” There were canvases everywhere. Some were glorious landscapes, resplendent with detail. Others were pictures of people from town—merchants selling and people laughing. Others still were caricatures of the patronage, complete with overexaggerated details and ridiculous expressions.
“Are you done yet? Can we go eat?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. He walked into the small room and turned slowly to get a good look at all the pieces. “These are incredible.”
She took her hands down from her face and looked at him. “You really think so?”
“So, I’m not much for art,” he said as he hobbled over to a smaller painting of the sunset over the summer festival. “But these are absolutely gripping. I don’t think I’ve ever seen better paintings, and my family spent a fortune on artwork.” He reached out and ran his finger along the side of the blank canvas. “How long have you been doing this?”
“All my life to some degree,” she said. “I’ve been doing it more recently since I’ve been so bored, but I’ve always loved to paint. The hardest part is doing it in this closed-off room. I have to paint from memory, but it’d be so much easier to paint it as I see it.”
Merrik turned to her, blinking, while he pursed his lips, clearly about to say something entirely obvious.
“I know, I know. I could bring my supplies outside and paint, but people would talk. I’d be the weird one in the Conclave, and my opinion might become less valuable.” She gazed off at her own paintings, settling on one that seemed to be her favorite or most recent. It was a drawing of a pleb family in the markets. “Besides, it’s a real hassle carting all this stuff around, even if I have my staff help.”
“Why don’t you paint from the roof?”
“The roof? But people could still see me,” she said. “What are they going to say about the patron in an orange sundress painting on her roof? I’ll be the town crazy!”
Merrik shrugged. “So?”
Asra looked upward in thought.
“Why care about what people think of you? Remember when we were kids? We always shirked our duties as patron children.” Merrik laughed. “Remember the time we bought those haggard clothes just so we could bum around with the pleb children at the public school? We told them we were from a family of adventurers from Finibus.”
Asra smiled. “I remember that. We were the most popular kids that whole week until our parents found out and put a stop to it.”
“And what happened? How did it ruin our lives or reputation to do something so unorthodox? Does anyone even remember or care?” He brushed a finger on a partially finished painting as he walked closer to her. “Nobody cares that I lock myself away doing who knows what. Who’s going to care if someone decides to sit on their roof and paint?”
Asra shook her head. “I know you’re right. It’s easy to lose perspective when the only people I have to talk to are servants and other patrons. We need to see each other more often, if only to keep my head straight.”
“Well, you clearly need my help.” He turned to look at the paintings again. “Except when it comes to the art. Just imagine what you could do if you weren’t working from memory. What’s this one?”
She stepped into the room and stood beside him to see which work he was looking at. “Oh, that was supposed to be the sun setting over the First Rain festival. I didn’t have the colors I wanted, but I didn’t want the inspiration to pass.”
“Honestly,” Merrik said, “I like it better this way. The deep red of the sky evokes a sense of foreboding, and the green you used for the fire makes it look quite sinister.”
“It’s a festival! It’s supposed to be fun.”
“True, true. But sometimes a little portent among lighthearted scenery is more impactful.” He shrugged. “But what do I know about art? I just think it’s really interesting.”
“I see.” Asra looked at her other pieces and furrowed her brow. She cocked her head and gazed at the half-finished piece on the easel for a moment before straightening back up.
“Well, I’ve detoured us long enough. Shall we dine before the food becomes as cold and unappetizing as our sense of propriety?”
“Ha! Let’s.”
They exited the room and Asra closed the door behind them. Merrik continued on ahead. He’d eaten quite a few meals in the dining room when he was a child, so he led the way. He couldn’t remember the last time he was in this good a mood. His body still ached and threatened to misbehave, but he was genuinely having a good time. He playfully swayed his hips a bit to give his host a show, but a disconcerting crack made him stop. He heard a chuckle behind him, so it was worth it.
He stopped in the doorway to the dining room. The table was set for two, candles lit the table in a dim haze, and one of the cook’s aides was setting out hors d’oeuvres. The table setting and general ambiance of the room stunk of an intimacy that Merrik had not been expecting. He turned to see Asra standing behind him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to broach the subject with you in the parlor, but we had so much to catch up on.” She walked a bit closer to him. “My family is pressuring me into unity, and I don’t care for the flamboyant little men strutting about cotillion. You were always far more down-to-earth than anyone else in the patronage. You were also my best friend. And you could always make me laugh.”
Merrik looked aside. He hadn’t expected this, nor was he anywhere near prepared. He hadn’t been pursued romantically since…well, ever. He’d also never made it a priority to pursue anyone else either. It was a full-time job just keeping his own body working, much less worrying about someone else’s. Though that thought wasn’t entirely unpleasant when it came to Asra.
“This was all a setup to propose courtship?” Merrik asked. “Even after you saw how frail and weak I’ve become this afternoon?”
Asra set a hand on his shoulder. “Of course. I’ve never been closer to anyone than you, and your ailments don’t make me think less of you. If anything, it seems you could use a partner to help you through the tough times.”
It seemed a little too good to be true. Out of the blue, after years of near-total isolation, a beautiful acquaintance suddenly reappearing for courtship.
She continued, “Plus, my father likes the match. Even though you resigned from the Conclave, House Severil is still very prestigious and well loved. He thinks joining with your legacy would be a good move for our house.”
Well, there it was. It wasn’t as sneaky or underhanded as he was used to from patrons, particularly from members of the Conclave. But this was Asra. Her transparency made sense, and it put him at ease. He knew better than to think she was like any of those overdressed clowns.
“Very well,” he said as he headed over toward the table. “Let us dine and catch up prope
r.” He took a seat facing the entrance and flailed his napkin ludicrously before placing it on his lap. “I am prepared.”
She smiled at that ridiculous air he’d been so fond of overdoing as a child. She walked over and joined him in the other seat.
“Let’s see,” he said, his fingers wriggling as he looked about the table. “What do we have to nibble on?” He noted various crackers and cheeses, as well as a carafe of very thin soup. He smelled some sort of roasted poultry cooking from the kitchen. He glanced up at Asra. “No escargot and pickled gelvin eggs? No rillettes? Has your house become a public eatery for plebs?” He winked.
She gave a chuckle. “I didn’t figure you’d like spending the evening in pain, so I kept things simple. I know you never had a taste for that fancy, unsatisfying fare anyway.”
“I sure don’t,” he said as he grabbed some cheese and crackers. “Even if I weren’t sickly, I’d probably still avoid things that look the same going in as they do coming out. This is definitely much more my speed.” And so, apparently, was she.
***
When Merrik arrived home later that evening, he wasn’t alone. Asra rushed over to his study doors, while Merrik locked the entrance.
“It’s in here?”
He grunted. “Head on in. It’s in the hole in the back.”
She pushed the doors open and heard a squawk of surprise. “Oh, hello, Pod.” She wandered over to the birdcage and gave Pod a few strokes. “He remembers me! It looks like he’s doing well.”
“Oh… Yes, I suppose he is.” He couldn’t honestly remember the last time he’d paid Pod any mind at all. Poor thing was probably desperate for attention. Though presumably whatever staff member was feeding him would give him attention as well. “Anyway, it’s back this way.”
