Oracle: The House War: Book Six

by Michelle West

  Jester, who had opened one eye at the sound of the door, closed it again. “You’re early. Get yourself a drink; you’re going to want it.”

  “I’ve been working with an agitated, excited Jarven for the past week. If Jarven hasn’t driven me to drink anything stronger than tea, I can’t imagine your news will. I have news of my own,” she added. At her tone, Jester opened both of his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows.

  Finch was dressed for the Merchant Authority, which never looked comfortable. She had not paused to remove the netting and the pins that kept her hair out of her eyes. “What happened?” she asked, looking pointedly at Jester’s feet until he moved them. She sat on the end of the couch and leaned into the armrest. In this light, she looked fragile and exhausted.

  Jester searched for words. One glance at Haval told him that if he didn’t find them, no one else in the room would. “We have a problem.”

  “We?”

  He nodded. “I spent over an hour in the company of the Master of the Household Staff while you were safe at work.”

  Given the events of the week, safe was a very dubious description—but Finch cringed on his behalf anyway. Finch worked with Lucille, who was terrifying in an entirely different way, but Lucille didn’t bring out the big weapons until someone had actually managed to offend her—not that that took much effort.

  “What did she want?” Finch asked, as if spending an hour in the company of that ancient dragon was a casual event.

  “She wanted to let us know that a twelve-year-old junior servant who was almost murdered should have died.”

  Finch blanched. Jester loved her for it, inasmuch as he loved any member of the den. “She didn’t say that.”

  “She did. In slightly more condescending, vastly more chilly language.”

  “When you say almost—”

  “She was found before she died. She was taken to the healerie—to Daine.”

  “He saved her.”

  “Yes.”

  Finch did not evince any particular relief. Instead, she turned to Haval, who had listened without comment—or movement. When Haval failed to interrupt or offer his usual dry sarcasm, she massaged her forehead. “You said she was twelve.”

  “Yes.”

  “She hasn’t been given the House Name, then.”

  “No.”

  “Let me talk with Teller.”

  Jester blinked. “Jay’s not here.”

  “Jay doesn’t handle most of the paperwork involved with adoption into the House. The biggest difficulty we might have is the Master of the Household Staff; the usual route to adoption for servants comes entirely through her recommendations. If she felt the girl deserved to die, she’s not likely to make that recommendation. I think she can be talked into accepting it.”

  Jester was still blinking.

  “I assume you’re concerned because she falls outside of the Laws of Exemption. She could refuse the House Name if she wished to invite magisterians into the Terafin manse on her own behalf—or her parents, if they’re clever and want money. But if she does that, she will never work for The Ten again in any capacity, and she probably knows it; the Master of the Household Staff doesn’t hire fools.”

  Haval nodded, his expression neutral. “Admirable, Finch. You are missing one key piece of information, but your solution is sound.”

  Finch inclined her head, brow furrowed.

  “It is our working belief that the junior servant in question was—is—a member of the Astari.”

  Silence. Jester counted three long beats before Finch said, “and she was taken to Daine.”

  “Yes.”

  Finch rose. “I’m going to get changed if I can pry myself out of this clothing. Grab Teller and Arann when they get in. I need to pen one quick message before we call kitchen. And,” she added, “I need to eat something.” She stopped in the doorway and then said, “Two messages.”

  • • •

  Arann was excused from his duties, as he still worked the later shift. He had, as Finch requested, brought Torvan and Arrendas with him. None of the three wore the armor of the Chosen; all of them carried the swords. Arann was about as relaxed as he could be, given Jay’s absence and the events surrounding her decision; Torvan and Arrendas, however, were not. Finch seldom asked to speak with them informally, and when she didn’t use the normal channels, it was never good news.

  Daine was not in the West Wing. He had taken to sleeping in Alowan’s old rooms. Finch approved of the decision in principle; she understood that he needed to make the healerie his own in the eyes of the House. She was now feeling far less sanguine.

  Teller, not surprisingly, arrived last. He and Barston had taken late dinner together, and Teller arrived with an armful of documents which were, no doubt, pressing emergencies. He had not been expecting a kitchen call tonight.

  Only when Teller had entered the wing did Torvan and Arrendas leave to fetch Daine.

  • • •

  Although magelights were no longer prohibitively expensive for the den, they seldom used them in kitchen meetings. These meetings had been at the heart of the den in the most cramped of quarters, and in the most dire of situations—sometimes the meetings had been held in the dark because there had been no money left over for cheap candles, and daylight hours had been necessary for scavenging.

  They used lamps, now. There were three.

  Daine was drawn and almost jaundiced when he arrived with his escorts. He took the seat nearest to Finch. He set his hands flat on the surface of the table and slumped in the chair, and Finch slid her chair closer so she could wrap an arm around him. He leaned into her shoulder.

  So, she thought, giving up the scant hope that the events of the day had been misunderstood by Jester. Daine had, in fact, used his healer-born gift to save the life of a person on the outer edge of death. Given his pallor, he had not yet recovered. He was not, however, in the grip of the mage fevers that plagued any of the talent-born who pushed their powers past their natural limits.

  No, she thought; he was in the grip of the compulsion to remain joined with the patient, from whom he must be separate if they were both to recover. She said nothing; she simply strengthened her arm.

  No one around the table spoke; they were waiting for Finch. Finch had not taken Jay’s seat, but she had taken—for the evening—the responsibility and the weight of the kitchen. “Torvan, Arrendas, be seated. You are not the guards on duty.”

  They did as she asked in silence. She then turned to Jester and said, “Can you separate Haval from his nefarious clothing and bring him here?”

  “I’m not sure we want him.” He signed don’t trust.

  “I’m not sure we do, either,” she replied; she felt no need to lie to her den, and no need to manage them. “But if anyone has information about what we’re likely to face, it’s Haval.”

  “Daine will have that information,” Jester countered, bringing up the point of the meeting in an oblique way.

  “I don’t believe he will.” She signed trust me. She thought, watching him, that he would refuse. She would have gone herself, if she weren’t holding Daine upright, and her glance told Jester as much.

  He exhaled, pushed his chair back—loudly—and left.

  “Do we want Meralonne?” Teller surprised her by asking.

  “I don’t believe so. If we need him, we can find him. He won’t sit in the kitchen without smoking his pipe, and I don’t have the sentimental attachment to pipes that Jay does.” She hesitated and glanced at Daine, whose eyes were closed. “And I’m not entirely certain his expertise is relevant.”

  “Are you certain it’s not?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  • • •

  Haval entered a relatively quiet kitchen, which served as something of a warning. His glance swept the room and came to rest, briefly
, on Daine. The boy was pale and his pallor was appalling, which lent credence to Jester’s claims. Haval, however, had wasted very little time doubting Jester, and only a small amount of hope.

  He took the chair that Finch indicated and sat in it; Jester had turned the back of his to face the table, and leaned across it, arms folded beneath his chin. He looked extravagantly bored. He wasn’t, of course; he didn’t generally take as much trouble to appear that way when he wasn’t expecting conflict.

  Given the way Finch glanced at him, Haval understood that this posture was for the benefit of the interloper—Haval himself. He accepted it, as he accepted all else: with observation and no obvious reaction.

  He returned attention to Daine, the healer-born boy. At age twenty, he had the bearing of a patrician—and Haval understood why. He had been forced to heal a man decades his senior. He had not been prepared for the experience—if one ever could be—and he had come away from the experience with rather more of that man’s thoughts and outlooks than was good for anyone. Even the man himself, who had shortly thereafter died of unrelated injuries.

  But he had also brought Jewel back from the edge of death. In so doing, he had burdened himself with another person’s outlook and experience. The two could not be more different. Haval had heard—although it had taken effort to be in a position to hear it—that Daine had been sent at Alowan’s request for just this reason: he hoped to set Jewel’s view against the view of the unnamed Terafin patrician, and thus give Daine the balance necessary to navigate the scars left by the act of healing the dying.

  And Jewel, of course, was not content to leave it at that. She kept the boy. She kept him here, in the West Wing, with the remnants of the den she had doggedly gathered. Had Levec forbidden it, Daine might have chosen to return to the Houses of Healing—but Haval thought it unlikely.

  After the death of Alowan, Daine had stepped into the healerie, taking the duties of the older man and making them his own. What Alowan might have refused to do, Daine could not; he carried too much of Jewel in him. A dying child had been given into his keeping, and he had wrapped his power around her, pulling her out of death’s hands.

  And to do so, he had to see her clearly; to do so, he had to open himself to her inspection. For as long as it took, they had to be one. Vareena, the junior servant, was Astari.

  Daine knew. He knew what she knew, and he knew what the cost might be—both to himself, and to the girl who had failed.

  Finch gestured. Arann’s reply was slower to come; even in the secret language of the den—a deplorably open secret if one had eyes and half a thought to spare—his use of words was sparse.

  “We’re here tonight for a number of reasons.”

  Daine shifted, pulling himself to an upright position when in Haval’s opinion he should have been abed—and sleeping—hours ago. He stared at his reflection, his gaze so focused it seemed to exclude anything else in the room.

  Daine knew. He had not, to Haval’s eye, decided how he would handle himself—or Vareena. Vareena could, with little effort, leave the healerie unless she were heavily restrained—and Haval very much doubted that Daine had ordered such restraints.

  But given Jester’s impromptu meeting with the Master of the Household Staff, Haval thought escape or disappearance would offer more difficulties for Vareena than she might otherwise expect. He had not yet decided how best to handle the situation, himself.

  “Do not look for mercy or protection from the Astari,” he said, speaking to the young healer.

  Daine’s chin lifted fractionally, his eyes sharpening.

  “Duvari does not choose randomly when he chooses those who enter his service.”

  “They do not serve Duvari, but the Kings,” was the young man’s stiff reply.

  “That, sadly, is not true. The Kings, if pressed, could not name Vareena—if that is, indeed, her name. Not even were she presented to them now. She was chosen by Duvari; she was tested by Duvari, and she survived. She was not placed in this House as an agent of the Kings; she was placed as Astari.”

  Slowly, slowly, Finch gestured.

  Haval shook his head. It had not escaped his notice that the den themselves were not comfortable when he chose to speak in their particular tongue, and he did it only at need.

  “She serves the Kings,” Daine said, in a lower—but far more intense—voice.

  “And the Kings command her to kill?” Haval replied. “Do the Kings now accept and witness the oath of allegiance all Astari must swear?” He pressed, allowing his focus to develop an edge; allowing knowledge and certainty to show.

  It was, of course, a lie; all of it.

  “The Astari swear their oaths to the Kings, and the Kings accept them; the Kings themselves make clear what that oath must mean. It is the Kings’ honor that is upheld or debased—and the Astari are aware of this. They must act in the best interests of the Empire, even when they are far away from the heart of its power; they must make choices that reflect those vows.”

  “And the Kings then command them to kill? To assassinate those who might prove a theoretical danger in some dim future? Is that what you claim?”

  “The Astari are not commanded to kill. And only a select few—a very few—expect to survive such assassinations, should they be deemed necessary at all. It is the Kings—the god-born—who decide.”

  Haval closed his eyes. “Ah, yes,” he said, his voice once again the voice of the tailor. “So they do. But it is Duvari who decides which crimes are to be brought to the Kings for judgment, and it is Duvari who decides when the security of the Kings’ protectors has been compromised.

  “It is often the case that those compromises also break inconvenient laws—but Duvari is, among the Astari, a law unto himself. He has the Kings’ trust.”

  A rigid silence had fallen over every other occupant of this table; Jester’s pallor was unfortunate, given the color of his hair. Only Finch seemed unmoved; Teller was too still.

  He met, and held, Finch’s gaze.

  “We cannot afford to surrender the only healer we have.” She surprised him; she was a constant surprise. “And if I understand what you have implied, Haval, and what Daine has all but given away, we may be looking at exactly that.”

  Daine’s gaze returned to Finch as if she were an anchor.

  “Vareena will not be content to remain here. She may not consider Daine a threat.”

  Daine said, softly, “She does.”

  “She would have to,” Haval said. “If you know what she knows, you are.”

  “I don’t know everything she knows.” Daine’s voice was lower and fuller; more his own. “But I know enough.”

  Haval nodded. “There is no way to hide it; if Vareena leaves, she will leave with that information, and it will travel to Duvari, as all things eventually must.”

  “How do we preserve Daine’s life?” Finch asked.

  “There are two obvious and immediate possibilities if your goal is to preserve Daine. The safest and most obvious, you will not countenance.”

  Silence. He did not elaborate; there was no one in the room who did not understand. Not even Daine. Perhaps, at this moment, especially not Daine.

  No one asked Haval how he could speak with such certainty. No one argued against it. He had considered a less direct approach and discarded it. He did not understand what had happened with Vareena, but knew that the den was not involved—or had not been, until she had been brought, dying, across the healerie’s threshold. He knew Duvari as well as anyone present could claim to know him.

  But he knew Jewel at least as well, and he knew that the den had been informed by her views and her beliefs. Not until they began to perish would they shift ground easily—if at all. He glanced, briefly, at Jester, and then returned to Finch.

  “The second is far less reliable; it requires a great deal of finesse and information which would othe
rwise be difficult to uncover.”

  “Are we agreed,” Jester asked, “that the first option is not an option?” He placed a hand on the table. This, Haval had not observed before, but it was clear in context that he was calling for a vote. And no one voted against him; Daine’s hand hit the table in a fist, and spread. Haval did not presume to vote; neither, he noted, did the Captains of the Chosen. If they were expected to do so, no one informed them.

  Jester turned, somewhat belligerently Haval felt, to Haval. “What’s your second option?”

  “You will want to consult with the House Mage to execute the second option. The House Mage is not the most reliable of allies.”

  No one disagreed. No one spoke. Haval did not find this frustrating, although he did exhale heavily and pinch the bridge of his nose. “I do not know how many questions you are willing to answer, Daine. But you must answer at least one.”

  Daine said nothing; Finch’s arm tightened, briefly, as the young man shuddered. He looked up at Haval, composing his expression so perfectly Haval could almost see the Astari training take hold. “What question?”

  “I believe you are already aware of what I will ask.”

  Daine’s nod was measured, controlled. His expression was almost as neutral as Haval’s; he had not chosen to dissemble or hide behind his obvious distress, his obvious discomfort. He was assessing Haval as if Haval was the largest threat the room contained. He did not spare a glance to the captains. Haval, observing him, considered the chances of success to be far lower than he had at the start of the evening.

  The tailor set his hands upon the table and gestured; the gesture was fast, brief, and aimed in its entirety at Jester. Watch. Do not speak.

  “Understand that, for Vareena, the worst has already happened. She was discovered. You understand what that means to—and for—her. I do not think she will be thankful that you saved her life; it was her dying that exposed—to one who has not sworn the oaths she has—her knowledge and her identity. She is too young to be fully apprised of the composition of the Astari, but what she does know, you will know. I expect her to attempt to kill you.”