Treason

by Althea Claire Duffy

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Details

  Dedication

  Treason

  About the Author

  Treason

  ALTHEA CLAIRE DUFFY

  In the port city of Auragos, seven merchant Houses vie for control of the trade that has made the city wealthy. Raised as a spy for House Corellis, Elunet has played so many roles that she's sometimes unsure of who she really is.

  Sent to uncover proof of possible treason by their greatest rival, House Mellas, Elunet will be more than happy to see such a despicable family brought down. But then she meets Tavia—heir to House Mellas, student mage, and nothing that Elunet expected. And the treason she hoped to unmask instead proves to be an entirely different, but equally dangerous secret...

  Book Details

  Treason

  By Althea Claire Duffy

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Michelle Kelley

  Cover designed by Natasha Snow

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition March 2015

  Copyright © 2015 by Althea Claire Duffy

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620044971

  For Maggie and Dave, who inadvertently set me on this path, with thanks for years of friendship, shared storytelling, and dice.

  I'd also like to thank my mother, for encouragement and listening to me freak out about my plotting problems and other writerly woes, and Paul and Heather, for many bookish conversations and the trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum that inspired this story.

  Treason

  Elunet had never quit an assignment, and she wasn't about to quit now. Not over raw hands that cracked and bled when she curled them too quickly, not over the steward giving her the switch in front of all the other servants when she broke a vase, and certainly not over Lord Kenar and Dowager Lady Isendre's utter lack of consideration for their social inferiors. She had played her role of innocent housemaid perfectly—she'd been meek and apologetic and frightened rather than coolly defiant, cried a little but not too much over the punishment, and no one had ever caught her snooping or noticed the four knives she kept secreted about her person in case of real trouble. She would continue to play the role until she found something incriminating House Mellas that she could turn over to Chal.

  She'd be even happier to see House Mellas go down than Chal's masters at House Corellis and their allies at House Valen would be—and Corellis and Mellas had been rivals since the coffee trade with Nurana in the south began over a hundred years ago, a rivalry that had expanded to numerous other trade goods and resulted in public humiliations, bitter love triangles, business deals arranged largely to spite the other party, piracy, and at least two assassinations. The satisfaction would be almost as good as the payment she'd be adding to the lockbox under the floorboards of her hideaway. She'd been a spy for fifteen years, and Corellis and Chal paid her well for her expertise.

  Elunet was dusting Lady Isendre's marriage chest and examining it yet again for anything that might suggest the family had a closer connection with Isendre's home city-state of Telar than fond memories and an heir attending the Collegium Arcanum there. Among the city-states of the Lirrisaran peninsula, a married woman owned in her own name only her marriage chest and everything she could fit into it; appropriately, Isendre had brought from Telar to her new home in Auragos a gilded and bejeweled behemoth, painted inside and out with scenes of wifely virtue and familial bliss by the renowned Delon Avelos, which had increased considerably in value upon the artist's death in a notorious duel. It was to be cleaned very carefully every day, along with the model ship, the curious angular statue from somewhere in the far south, and everything else in the room, but there was nothing suspicious or informative about it. Elunet was no closer to evidence of treason than she had been the day she'd arrived, and nothing in any of the rooms she cleaned was any more helpful.

  "Nel." She jumped a little at hearing her assumed name from the doorway, but it was not spoken as a reprimand. Almara, head of the female servants, had a worried line between her eyebrows, not an angry one.

  "Yes, ma'am?" Elunet turned around and bobbed politely--not the curtsy proper for the lords and ladies of the House, but a sign of deference to her superior.

  "Lady Tavia's due home later, and you'll be helping her get settled. We had a letter from her yesterday saying that her maid quit—ran off with some young man who worked in the Collegium stables."

  If Tavia was anything like her father and grandmother, Elunet didn't blame the maid in the least. "Yes, ma'am."

  Almara smiled. "Since you've been a maid to a young lady before, I was thinking you'd fill her spot, at least for now."

  She'd forgotten that little detail of her invented history. On the positive side of the balance, she'd have less cleaning to do, and perhaps her hands would have a chance to recover. On the negative side, she'd spend day and night catering personally to the whims of the spoiled heir to House Mellas. Elunet had never met Tavia, but the examples of her father and grandmother did not bode well—and Tavia was a student mage, too. The arrogance of nobility plus the arrogance of arcane knowledge couldn't add up to anything good. "Me? Um. Of course, ma'am."

  "Don't be giving yourself any airs, now. We'll see how you do, and if her ladyship doesn't care for your service, you'll be back to dusting and scrubbing the floor."

  "Certainly, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am, and I'll do my very best for Lady Tavia, I promise."

  Almara frowned again. "Tuck that hair under your kerchief and clean your shoes before she arrives." She tsked. "I wish we could do something about how short your hair is. It's bad enough having the heir coming home to a strange maid without her looking like a ragamuffin."

  "Yes, ma'am." Elunet pushed a thick dark lock under the cloth where it belonged and fluffed the ends of her hair around her chin, then moved on with her dust cloth from the marriage chest to the table with the pierce-work oil lamp. A ragamuffin was just what she'd been, years ago, until Chal had plucked her from the street and taught her to spy, to act roles, to fight, to read and write, and to observe and remember. Unfortunately, none of her training seemed to be leading her to anything useful just yet.

  *~*~*

  "She's here! She's here!" Evet the page raced down the hallway, his steps echoing on the marble floor, until Almara caught him and cuffed his ear.

  "Well, don't just stand there. Go out and get her things." Almara made a shooing motion at Elunet with her free hand. Evet gave one perfunctory squirm and resigned himself to obedience.

  Elunet hurried just enough to be quick and not enough to be undignified, past tempera portraits of Mellases past hung between grooved pilasters and out to the formal gardens bright with late spring blooms. At the end of the paved path, between two pines pruned to narrow spearheads and two armored bodyguards just as stiff on matched gray geldings, rode a young woman.

  She was a little younger than Elunet, with only a circle of lace pinned to her hair and pale gold curls soft around her face. She was short, shorter than Elunet, but round and lush whereas Elunet was almost boyish. She rode sidesaddle, like a proper lady, but looked a bit unbalanced in the position. With one foot, she slipped out of the stirrup, and began to shift her weight sideways and down the side of the horse, before realizing the horse was still walking. "Oh," she said, and tugged gently at the reins. Dennel, one of the guards who had been sent
to escort her home from the Collegium, helped her dismount, and she brushed dust from the spring-green linen of her skirt. By now, Elunet was close enough to notice that both the gown and her peridot drop earrings underlined the vivid green of her eyes.

  Elunet was there to serve, not to stare, and dropped into a deep curtsy, hoping she had not paused too long for propriety. "I'll get your saddlebags and see to your things, my lady. I'll be your new lady's maid for now. My name is Nel."

  "Oh. I... haven't seen you before. You must be new."

  "I was hired while you were at the Collegium, my lady."

  "Of course." Tavia's horse attempted to sniff her, and Dennel distracted him by stroking his neck. "Where did you work before?"

  "For Lady Periet Kintaliar, my lady." Kintaliar was a minor House, not on the Council, whose members spent most of their time at their rural estate in the hills growing grapes and seldom visited Auragos more than once a year. She and Chal had chosen Kintaliar as her supposed former employer because no one was likely to know them well—particularly not young Lady Periet, their second daughter, who according to Chal's sources was a shy plain girl who had only been to Auragos twice in her life and spent most of her time on horseback.

  "I... think I may have met her once. I can't remember; I'm not good with faces." Tavia started unfastening the straps of one saddlebag, and Elunet remembered what she was there for.

  "No need for you to do that, my lady. Please, rest and enjoy the gardens or go inside, as you wish. You must be exhausted from your journey."

  "Sorry. I've... gotten used to not having a maid." Tavia dropped her hands to her sides and smiled, looking a bit embarrassed.

  "No matter, my lady." The saddlebags were brick-heavy―Elunet could feel the corners of several books and wooden boxes poking through the fabric―but she balanced them across the back of her shoulders like a yoke. Having more muscle than most maids could be useful.

  As soon as they crossed the garden and loggia and reached the antechamber, Dowager Lady Isendre rounded a corner into the marble hallway beyond. In her late sixties, she was still tall, slim, and painfully fashionable in a red silk gown, gray hair gathered in a smooth chignon behind a matching red silk band. Daring jewelry, with Nuranan cowrie shells between the emerald cabochons, completed the picture—and picture it was: Isendre always looked as if she were having her portrait painted. "Oh, my darling, it's so delightful to see you home! They must be feeding you ever so well at the Collegium, my dear; you look like a prize sow."

  "Thank you, Grandmama. I'm pleased to see you well." Tavia's smile was so obviously forced it looked painful to maintain.

  "The Telarians don't give you a hard time about being from Auragos, do they? There have been such unpleasant feelings since the war."

  "Not often, Grandmama."

  "Oh, good. It's simply outrageous that your maid ran off with that stable boy. I'd have had her flogged if I'd known what she was about. Sometimes I do wish we lived in Halanor, where they aren't allowed to quit." She tsked. "No loyalty at all these days."

  "No, I suppose not." Tavia fidgeted.

  Isendre sighed. "Your father is out trying to wring at least a little profit out of selling coffee to the overland merchants. The captain of our last vessel in from Tanafel said the Tanafelan factors claim the coffee roasters are raising their prices—some sort of drought in Nurana damaging the supply of coffee and firewood—but I suspect all the extra gold is going straight into the Tanafelans' coffers. Or our captain's. If there were really a drought in Nurana, House Corellis would be raising their prices too, and they've been undercutting us for months. I suspect they might be colluding; Corellis has always wanted a monopoly." She shook her head. "And the price of silk is simply criminal this season, with that mulberry blight in Kazkir—which is real. At least wool prices are down."

  Isendre kept up a long stream of news and speculation along these lines, and the saddlebags slung across Elunet's shoulders seemed to grow heavier and more full of sharp corners pressing against her back by the moment. Nevertheless, she memorized all the important points about House Mellas's ships, trade network, rivalries with other Houses, dealings with foreign merchants and lords, and future plans. For a woman so obviously astute in business matters, Isendre was remarkably indiscreet about discussing them in front of servants. There were advantages to people considering Elunet part of the furniture—as well as disadvantages, she thought, as her back cramped and the ache in her arms grew worse.

  "Grandmama," Tavia finally said, "I've had a long ride home, and I wish to sit down." She looked at Elunet, and Elunet returned the most grateful expression she could manage.

  "Of course you do. My apologies, dear. We must get you some wine and savories, or perhaps some fruit? Or perhaps both. We do need you at your best tomorrow; your father and I are hosting a soiree. Galatan is coming, and I'm sure we'll have plenty of guests even if only to hear him play." She motioned to Keres the footman, who nodded and set off for the kitchen.

  "Nel, you may set that down if you wish." Tavia indicated her saddlebags. Elunet straightened and barely managed to avoid dropping them to the floor. Tavia raised a hand as if to offer assistance, then visibly remembered herself. "Go with Keres to the kitchen and have a rest if you like. I won't need anything for a while."

  Relieved as she was to have a chance to sit down and work the ache out of her back, Elunet was a little disappointed not to be around to glean more information from Isendre's chatter. After a few minutes kneading at her shoulders by the cramped table where the servants ate between the spit and the ovens, Elunet went to put away Tavia's things in her chamber upstairs.

  Tavia's large chamber overlooked the courtyard on one side and the gardens on the other, with balconies on both vistas, a polished wood floor, and walls of pale yellow stucco. Elunet had helped the other maids prepare the room for Tavia's arrival, washing and airing the bedclothes, beating the rug, and dusting or scrubbing every surface. She'd been disappointed to discover little in the way of magical accoutrements. Tavia had taken most of those with her, of course, in those damned saddlebags.

  Elunet unpacked gingerly; she'd never touched a mage's belongings before. She hung two gowns in the armoire, one cream-colored lambswool and the other the deep blue student's gown of the Collegium with an eight-pointed star embroidered in white on the left breast. Stockings, three linen shifts, and smallclothes were next; an image of Tavia in shift and stocking feet teased at her mind, and she shooed it away. The boxes held some things Elunet expected (vials of metallic powders and dried herbs, chalk, ink, candles) and some she did not (a compass and drafting square, a bag of marbles).

  Tavia's books were more likely to be useful to Elunet. A History of Lirrisaran Magic. Symbols: a Primer. Glyphs and Geometric Tracings. Mineral and Herbal Properties. A Treatise upon Magical Research and Experimental Thaumatology. She looked over her shoulder to be sure she was unobserved and flipped through each one, pausing occasionally to pick up a sense of the contents. Woodcuts of geometric diagrams, colored by hand and marked with symbols where the lines met, crisscrossed the pages like lace. Symbols, minerals, and herbs were paired with what they represented and invoked: a drawn knot for binding, iron for protection, rosemary for remembrance.

  Three volumes bound in brown leather proved to be notebooks in Tavia's own hand. One was full of lecture notes, punctuated with doodled flowers and faces in the margins. The second held notes on Tavia's books, as well as other books Elunet did not recognize. The third, fattest one was a journal with dated entries detailing what Elunet guessed were magical experiments. Tried attuning first circle to second circle with broken halves of maple seed. Placing marble in first circle caused sympathetic glow in second. Promising sign in right direction. Tavia had drawn meticulous diagrams, undoubtedly with the compass and drafting square, and noted the results of spell after spell. Elunet understood little of it; she turned back to the first page and tried to piece together a sense of what it meant.

  She had not g
one far—four pages of cryptic wardings—when footsteps on the stairs interrupted her snooping. By the time Anata the housemaid reached the second floor, before she entered the room, Elunet was putting Tavia's ransacked possessions on shelves with casual ease, the rapid beat of her heart the only sign of furtiveness. In her line of work, she needed sharp ears.

  *~*~*

  Elunet held the lamp with one hand and opened the chamber door with the other. Tavia entered, crossed to the curtained bed, and sat down heavily. She unfastened her shoes, rolled off her stockings, and had just started to take down the pinned section of her hair when she paused, eyes on Elunet, and said, "I forgot. I'm supposed to let you do this." She stood up and padded barefoot to the dressing table, where she sat with her back to Elunet and fiddled with a blue glass scent bottle and a tin of powdery rouge.

  Elunet felt awkwardly superfluous. She felt a different kind of awkward standing behind Tavia. She hesitated for a moment, hands hovering over Tavia's golden hair swept up in the middle with loose curls down the sides, heart pounding at the realization that she was about to touch her. A stern reminder to herself broke the hesitation, and she reached into Tavia's hair to feel for pins. Tavia's hair was silky and thick, warm with the heat of her skin, and the warmth spread in a wave through Elunet's whole body. Duty, she reminded herself again, and gently pulled the pins free. Soft curls tumbled down Tavia's back. Elunet reached for the hairbrush on the table and worked the tangles out gently, starting from the bottom as she had been taught.

  "Did your first day back home go well, my lady?" she said, to distract herself as much as to keep up the demeanor of a maidservant.

  "Well enough, I suppose." Tavia put down the scent bottle and picked up a tin of salve. "Here. You can use this, if you like."

  Elunet paused. "I'm sorry, my lady; did my rough hands bother you?"

  "Not at all; they just look like they hurt." She held it out to Elunet, who took it and removed the lid. The white cream inside smelled faintly of almond and rose—a scent that clung to Tavia herself. Elunet dabbed some on the backs of her hands and rubbed.