The threads of Galatan's fugue converged in a triumphant final series of chords, and the remaining listeners, including Elunet, applauded. He stretched his fingers and bowed his head in acknowledgment. "My final piece of the evening," he said, "will be an air of my own composition, which I call To a Moonflower."
It was exquisite. The few remaining conversations faded to a hush, and Elunet heard only a faint breeze in the ivy and laurel and the slow haunting melody. It spoke of beauty and mystery, of longing across a gulf one could never cross. She watched Galatan, his hands moving on strings and fretboard with fluid grace, and she watched Tavia, green eyes wide and cheeks flushed with wine and lips slightly parted. Tavia withdrew her gaze from Galatan long enough to glance around the courtyard—and meet Elunet's eyes fixed on her.
Elunet should have looked away, but the power of the music held her still. Tavia seemed held as well, and Elunet felt Tavia's eyes on her own like physical contact. Stop, she told herself, but she kept looking for a moment longer, a moment longer, and Tavia seemed just as caught as she was.
The last chord faded, and the courtyard held its breath for a space. Then Tavia began to applaud, and one by one the servants and the last of the guests joined her. Galatan bowed low, then set his broad feathered hat upon his head and packed up his lute.
Tavia bade the guests good night, still looking dazed, and went up to her chamber. Elunet followed.
Alone behind the closed door, they did not look at each other. Tavia went to her dressing table and sat down. Elunet picked up the hairbrush, the mahogany handle cool in her palm, but did not begin taking down Tavia's hair.
"The music was lovely," Tavia said, at last.
"It was, my lady."
Another long silence.
"Do you—have you ever had a sweetheart, Nel?"
"I suppose, my lady, but not anything that lasted." She'd feigned flirtations for a few of her assignments, and dallied with several women without ulterior motive. There had been plainspoken Teriga the fisherwoman, handsome with her hair cropped short and broad-shouldered as a man; Aundrel the northern merchant, with hair paler than Tavia's and a vast supply of traveler's tales; voluptuous black-haired Riva the tavern singer, whose voice alone had made Elunet shiver. A few others she'd kissed in corners but never saw again. "I don't have much chance to, in my position."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
"Don't be sorry, my lady. Grand ladies don't usually ask me questions like that, and it's... well, it's good to have nice conversation with the lady I work for."
"Grand ladies?" Tavia giggled nervously. "Grandmama is a grand lady, not me. I was so bored tonight, and probably so boring to everyone else, and so frustrated, until Galatan started playing, and then—then I felt like his music was expressing some part of me that no one knows about. Like I was wearing a mask, but that he could see under it, and... and you looked like you felt the same way."
Tavia's eyes met Elunet's in the mirror.
"I did, my lady," Elunet said softly. "Sometimes... sometimes I feel like I'm always wearing a mask. Sometimes I wonder if there's a real face behind it, or just empty space." She cursed the words as soon as they were out of her mouth.
Tavia rose, slowly, and turned to face Elunet. One hand went to Elunet's cheek, but only the tip of the thumb touched skin. Elunet felt that touch throughout her whole body. "Your eyes look like they did when you were listening to the music. Big dark pools. Mysterious. The sort of thing I'd draw a glyph around and dust with silver." She shook her head, and caught herself on her chair with her other hand. "I've had too much to drink."
"I... liked to hear you say that, my lady." Elunet could hear her heartbeat in her ears. "I wouldn't mind if you—if you said more things like that."
Tavia looked at her again, green eyes wide, a pink glow in her cheeks. "So—you understand. Again." She raised her hand again, to the fringe of Elunet's hair at the line of her chin, and touched it. A single blonde curl of Tavia's own hair spiraled across her face, free of its lacy coiffure; Elunet leaned forward and felt it between her thumb and forefinger. Her hand brushed against Tavia's smooth skin, and she could hear Tavia's breath come soft and rapid. They froze there, caught between caution and desire—and then Tavia kissed her.
Heat tingled through Elunet. Tavia's lips were soft and full and slightly wet. She tasted of red wine and coriander-spiced almonds, the after-dinner treats of the soiree. Tavia's lips moved as they kissed, sliding deliciously against her own, and Elunet, free to kiss back, made it as clear as she could that she invited this, wanted it. Tavia's hands found her shoulders and slid across her back, pulling her closer, and Elunet dropped the hairbrush and wrapped her own arms around Tavia's back, feeling silk and warmth and the quick rise and fall of Tavia's breathing. The hot tip of Tavia's tongue flicked against Elunet's lips, making her shiver, and Elunet's own tongue followed. Tavia's hand trailed over her shoulder, brushed against her collarbone beneath the wool of her dress, and continued lower toward the small firm swell of her breast—then stopped. For a moment they did not move at all, then Tavia pulled away and backed up, her bottom hitting the dressing table and jarring the mirror against the wall.
"I'm so sorry," Tavia panted. "I'm taking advantage. You aren't really in a position to refuse me, so it—it—this would be wrong." She ran a hand over her flushed face, her loose curl of hair, and knocked her lace veil askew. It made her kiss-swollen lips and sweat-sheened cheeks look even more alluring.
"Believe me, my lady, I want it—I wanted that—as much as you." Elunet's own voice sounded as breathless as Tavia's.
Tavia picked up the forgotten hairbrush, pulled off her veil, and began picking pins out of her hair. Gold curls tumbled down, and she dragged the brush through them, too quickly. It tangled. She worked it free and began again at the ends. Elunet stood still and watched, unable to look away. Tavia finished brushing her hair and began undoing her buttons just as briskly, until she was struggling with the lower ones.
"Let me help," Elunet said, and Tavia went rigid as Elunet unfastened the rest of her gown and peeled green silk away from her like a husk away from grain. Tavia was holding her breath, but Elunet imagined she could feel the racing of her pulse. She certainly felt her own. The sight of Tavia out of the dress, thin shift clinging to her, low neck revealing the rounded expanse of her breasts cupped high and tempting by her exposed corset and quivering slightly with every breath, nearly made her moan. Elunet's shaking fingers went to the corset laces, pulled out the bow, and worked the binding slowly loose. Tavia exhaled deeply, eyes closed, as Elunet removed the opened corset and put it away in the armoire. When Elunet turned back to her, she had stepped out of her gown and draped it across the back of the chair. Elunet took it up, the silk still warm in her hands, and hung it up to air as well.
"Thank you, Nel," Tavia said, and slipped into bed.
"I truly don't mind at all, my lady. And I won't speak a word of anything to..." A pang of guilt wormed through her stomach at the lie. "To Lord Kenar and Lady Isendre." That much, at least, was true.
"Neither will I," Tavia murmured and drew the bed curtains closed.
Elunet gazed at the bed curtains for a moment, eyes tracing the curling patterns of the moonflower vines and white blossoms embroidered on dark blue linen. Then she turned and extinguished the lamp. She carried a candle down to the kitchen, where she found a little vial of the cook's trusted herbal tincture for hangovers, which Tavia might need in the morning. Back upstairs, she tidied a little by candlelight and turned again to the books on Tavia's shelf which she had brought home from the Collegium. When she had not heard a sound from Tavia's bed for some time, she pulled the volume of research notes and opened it slowly, being sure to turn the pages in silence. Tavia's soft fair hands had inked every one of these letters, and the handwriting reminded her of Tavia herself, rounded and making up in charm what it lacked in grace. She shook her head and focused on what the words said.
Thumbing through, she fo
und the last page with writing in it, and started several pages back. Elmarathan's experiments in causing an illusion he made in the first circle to reproduce itself in the second circle have been helpful. I modified his methods, and I think I'm close to discovering a means of recreating his experiments with physical objects. Using rosemary and silver and Hallendan's thorny pattern, I managed to produce an illusory marble in the second circle with a real marble in the first. The illusory marble mirrored the real one perfectly except that my hand passed through air when I tried to pick it up. I think I'm on the right path.
The further entries detailed how Tavia had modified this spell. The rosemary and silver remained, but she had changed the other elements. She had added and discarded iron, myrrh, pine, and then finally added an oak branch—causing the marble to roll gently from one circle to the next. Then she had changed the glyph, after several false starts (one shattering a marble to sand), to an intricate spray of angles radiating outward in the first circle and inward in the second. The final lines of this entry, dated eight days ago, were Marble disappeared from first circle and reappeared in second a heartbeat later. Next time I will place an identity marker on the marble to be sure, but it appeared to be the same blue glass marble in both locations, intact and real. I have found it!! The last line was underlined twice, so hard it made a hole in the paper.
Elunet closed the book slowly. She was not certain, but her guess was that Tavia had rediscovered the ancient secret of the doors of Sujal: the means to transport an object from one location to another instantly without travel through the intervening space. This meant something big. She set the book back on the shelf, extinguished the candle, and went to her pallet with her mind furiously running through the possibilities.
*~*~*
For three days they scarcely spoke. The morning after the soiree, Tavia rose late, drank the tincture Elunet had procured, and let Elunet dress her in brown linen edged in white without words beyond "thank you." Elunet said little more. She dressed and coiffed Tavia for other social engagements—a banquet at House Amarin and the blessing of a new ship belonging to House Peria—and attended her at home, where Lord Kenar and Dowager Lady Isendre received an endless round of visitors in business dealings or entertainments. Tavia was usually expected to participate, or at least observe, and the perpetual activity kept Tavia and Elunet from having much opportunity to be alone together, which Elunet found to be a relief.
The wealth of information spilled casually before her was another benefit. She discovered that: House Peria and House Mellas were making their new and tenuous alliance less tenuous through a jointly funded caravan expedition to Bezalshan; that Lianta Amarin had plighted her troth to Benas Chiandre in the city-state of Delesant to the south after House Chiandre had made House Amarin their supplier of hazelnuts and plums; and that the unexpected death of Tenian, Lord Daliar, was rumored to be from poison administered by agents of another House, possibly even one of the seven Council houses (though of course not one with members currently present). All juicy tidbits for Chal, particularly the poison one, but nothing hinted in the slightest at treasonous dealings with Telar.
On the evening of the third day, after dinner, Lord Kenar was entertaining a ship's captain from Janagir, northeast of the cities of the Lirrisaran peninsula, and Tavia was present as an apprentice or perhaps an ornament. They sat in red calfskin chairs, drinking wine and nibbling little pastries filled with roasted lark and strawberries frosted in marzipan from a Tanafelan dish painted blue and white in patterns that reminded Elunet of Tavia's glyphs. On the opposite side of the room, the entrance hall stretched out to the front door where Dennel stood guard, haunted by its portraits of Mellases long gone. Elunet sat in a vestibule window seat off to the side, mending a tear at the seam of one of Tavia's stockings and wishing she sewed like an experienced lady's maid instead of a spy with a few sewing lessons and some hasty practice. She often looked up from her work, checking to see if her mistress required anything and watching the proceedings from beneath her lashes.
Kenar was in his mid-forties, with his mother's fondness for fashionable attire and less restraint in his taste. His coloring was dark, but his nose with the little upturned quirk at the end and his high rounded cheeks were Tavia's; like her, he was somewhat heavy, but the extra weight that looked lush and inviting on her had mostly settled into a paunch on him. He tapped a square ruby ring against the stem of his goblet. "I hope the wine is to your taste, Captain."
The captain, Lajaras, had two missing fingers on his right hand and an immense mustache shaped into two pointed wedges. "It is, my lord, even if is not like the wine I know."
"I'd be willing to trade a few casks for some of those mink pelts you import from Tevarat or some Kazkiri silk."
Lajaras laughed. "It is not so good to my taste as that! And few of my countrymen like it as sour, as… not quite bitter but something like." Elunet mentally supplied the word tannic or astringent. "It is good, but they may not appreciate."
"Well, if the Janagiri would rather drink syrup, that's their loss. I could offer figs, if they prefer something sweet. We have a country estate in the Faralai Hills, home to the world's finest figs. If you've heard the story of Clever Belen stealing the Harvest Goddess's heavenly figs—well, some versions of the story say they were the Figs of Faralai." When Elunet had spied on House Amarin five years ago, Lord Amarin had claimed the same of the figs on his estate in the Rimantar Valley, though she had to admit "Figs of Faralai" sounded better.
"Ah, but I doubt they could possibly be as sweet as your daughter." Lajaras gestured at Tavia. "She is exquisite: plump and golden as an apricot." He grinned widely, and his whole left hand traced a curve in the air, inches from the real curves of Tavia sitting on his left side. She flinched away a little, and Kenar gave her a look which no doubt meant something; she straightened, brushed at imaginary dust on her skirt, and swallowed some wine.
"My Tavia is as accomplished as she is lovely," Kenar said, "and as polite and gracious." The last three words had an edge, and he frowned at Tavia as he spoke them.
"Thank you, Father. Thank you, Captain Lajaras." Tavia spoke quietly, as if she were not using as much breath as was normal.
"And so demure and soft-spoken! A flower of womanhood. She must have many suitors, yes? Many men of quality who seek her bed?" Lajaras's thick dark brows went up.
"'A lady's chastity is her finest jewel and ornament,'" Tavia quoted stiffly. Elunet recognized the source: The Book of Courtly Virtues, which Chal had lent her to read long ago as research for her roles.
"Pardons, my dear; I meant your marriage bed." Lajaras smiled again. "And to my lord, pardons also. I am too friendly a man, you see?" His tone was anything but apologetic.
"Tavia and I understand. You have been at sea a long time, and I doubt there were any women aboard your ship." Kenar smiled, and took another pastry from the dish. "I am willing to offer you a bushel of figs for each three Tevarati mink pelts you carry. Or three bushels for a bolt of Kazkiri silk. Possibly more if the silk is well-dyed, but my factor would have to examine it. Of course, the final details of any deal would depend on inspection of the goods involved, but we can work it all out with my factor later."
"Three pelts for a bushel is too much, my lord. These are fine Tevarati mink, not rabbits any Lirrisaran peasant could poach."
"Surely mink are plentiful enough where they come from."
"And I think you have heard of the mulberry blight." Lajaras clucked his tongue.
"No doubt exaggerated to raise the prices." Kenar looked over at Tavia, and arched one brow. "What do you think, my dear?"
"Perhaps we could offer a little more for the pelts? They seem likelier than the silk. And maybe import more than one sort of goods, in case the pelts don't make us a good profit." Tavia spoke to her father, not looking at Lajaras. She crossed her legs and sipped at her wine. "Is there Arangari lambswool available?"
"Good; one must invest broadly and avoid depending on only one ve
nture." Kenar smiled.
"I would ask for your daughter's hand as that 'little more', but I am too lowly for the daughter of such a great lord." Lajaras smiled at Kenar, then winked at Tavia, who pretended not to notice. "Arangari lambswool is good. I can buy there, no doubt, if you offer something I like."
"Perhaps Tavia knows of such a thing," Kenar said.
"Commissioned work from some of the artists we're patrons to? Lindes or Marsal? If there are collectors in Janagir who'd be interested." Tavia set down her goblet on a small round table, and pressed one hand to her stomach. "Forgive me, I—I need to lie down. I feel quite ill, and I... don't wish to disgrace myself." She stood and hurried toward the door leading to her chamber.
Elunet followed, folding her sewing into a neat little package as she went. She put one hand to Tavia's back, ready to help her if she needed it. When they reached Tavia's chamber, Tavia shut the door, latched it, and began to pace the rug in circles.
"My lady, are you unwell? Do you need anything?" Elunet was ready to get out some cold water, or the chamber pot, or run down to the kitchen to ask for one of the cook's simples, or whatever Tavia needed.
Tavia stopped, clenched her fists, unclenched them, and blew out her breath in a long stream. "I'm fine. I just couldn't bear to be dangled in front of that man like... like a piece of meat for a dog. He's older than my father, and he smells bad, and he's a crude lecher."
Elunet was relieved that Tavia was well, and pleased that she'd found a way to extricate herself. "Lord Kenar wouldn't truly offer you in marriage to him, would he?"
"Of course not! Even if he actually wanted to marry me, which I rather doubt. Father isn't going to... to sell me to a mere sea captain, especially not one so vulgar. He expects even me to find a better match than that. But he is going to expect me to nod and smile and be charming and remember every detail of the deals he's made and how best to negotiate with him in the future, no matter what he says."
"Forgive me for saying so, my lady, but that's unkind to you."
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