Battle: The House War: Book Five

by Michelle West

  “Finch is here as well.”

  He glanced at his sleeping wife. “Very well. Shall we retire to the great room?”

  * * *

  The fireplace in the great room was no longer cold and black; wood burned there. It was a decent hardwood. Clearly, Ellerson had anticipated that the space would once again be needed. Haval did not understand the domicis, but he admired them in his fashion. Had a guild of such men desired power, they would have it; they would be a very, very dangerous entity. Ellerson did not want that power. Avandar Gallais? Haval found him almost mystifying. He did not trust the man—only a fool would. But he did not understand Avandar’s ambitions, either. They were not akin to Ellerson’s, and they were in no way comparable to Morretz’s.

  Haval entered the room carefully and slowly, affecting a weariness that was not entirely assumed for his own purposes.

  Finch sat gingerly in one of the armchairs nearest the fire, thereby unconsciously choosing where the discussion would take place. Jewel sat heavily, the fingers of her right hand drumming the gleaming wood of armrests. Haval, of course, sat last as etiquette demanded.

  “Terafin,” he said gravely.

  “When you were conducting your investigation into the personal affairs of Gabriel ATerafin, was Jarven ATerafin one of your sources?”

  His brows rose; his surprise at the question was not entirely feigned. “I would sooner ask Duvari for aid.”

  Finch uttered a delicate, deliberate cough.

  “I realize that he is in every possible way an admirable employer in his own rather impressive fief. His concerns are not, however, my concerns.”

  “His concerns may be my concerns,” Jewel said, before Haval could draw another breath. He studied her, considering his reply. He was indeed surprised that she had asked the question, and wondered idly whether or not he had underestimated her. It did happen, although not nearly as often as he would like.

  “Beyond the obvious—he is the titular head of the Merchant Authority offices—I fail to see how. I also fail to see how the inquiry is an emergency, given the events of the day.”

  “Gabriel will, as you know, retire.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “He has chosen to take his retirement today.”

  Haval folded his hands in his lap. He nodded, all expression dropping away from his face. Her frown was reward for the effort.

  “He had one piece of advice—one last request.”

  “Please do not tell me it involved Jarven ATerafin.”

  “You’re surprised? I don’t believe it.”

  He smiled then. “No,” he said quietly. “You don’t. Very well. I will not answer your question; it was clumsy and irrelevant. What does Jarven want?”

  “That’s what I want you to tell me. You, or Finch,” she added. “I don’t care which. I’m expecting at least a letter from the Exalted, and some missive from Duvari—if I’m lucky. Haerrad and Rymark will no doubt descend on my vacated office; I expect to see both Elonne and Marrick as well. I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “What makes you believe that Jarven wants anything?”

  “Gabriel asked me to install Jarven on the House Council, in the seat Gabriel will vacate. I thought at the time it was an unusual request; I’m unaware of any similar request that Jarven has made in the past. As he is not a member of Council now, I assume he has never made one.”

  “The Terafin would not have agreed to it.”

  “I’m not sure I will, either.” She frowned. “Why do you think the former Terafin would have rejected such a request?”

  Haval pinched the bridge of his nose. “While I understand it has been a very trying day for you, Jewel, I feel that the answer to that question is beyond obvious.”

  Finch very carefully studied her hands.

  “Finch,” Haval said. She looked up. She seemed very shy and retiring, but her expression was steady. Given time, Haval thought he could make something of the girl; given Jewel, it was a pipe dream. “Please answer the question.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment, and then glanced at Jewel. Jewel nodded. “Jarven does as he pleases. In the past, that has always worked well for the House—with one or two exceptions. He is observant, and he is adept. He gets what he needs, and he gets what he wants—usually by obfuscating what he wants. But he doesn’t, as Lucille is wont to say, play well with others.

  “He has power. If Jarven decides that he wishes to hamper any member of the House Council, the Merchant Authority is his weapon. He has done it in the past, at least once. Putting him within reach of the governing body of the House would not gain The Terafin anything.”

  “You see?” Haval said to Jewel. The implication was clear in his tone.

  Jewel, however, refused to play. “Gabriel asked that the Council seat be given to Jarven. I had hopes for it, otherwise, but to be fair, Jarven is unlikely to occupy it for long. What did you ask of Jarven?”

  Haval raised a brow. “I believe the delicate machinations of investigation were to be left in my hands.”

  “And I believe that reports were to be tendered to me upon request. Gabriel’s acquisitions do not flow freely through the Merchant Authority—that I’m aware of. Those that do are a matter of House Business and House records.”

  Haval cast a baleful glance toward the door, and Ellerson approached with tea. Haval considered adding brandy to the liquid and decided against it. “They are.”

  “His personal affairs are not.”

  “No. But the banking is done through similar channels. Jarven has access to most of the merchant banks, and it is a friendly—and in some cases obsequious—access. Before you lose the temper that is rapidly fraying, Terafin, I will trouble myself to point out that it was not I who approached Jarven.”

  “Jarven approached you.”

  Haval nodded.

  Jewel’s gaze swiveled to Finch. Finch was silent. “Why,” Jewel asked her, “did Jarven approach Haval, and not you? You’re the most certain conduit to me, and Jarven is well aware of this.”

  Finch said, clearly and distinctly, “I don’t know.” The question did not please her, in Haval’s opinion. When she lifted her chin, she looked straight at Haval. “But I believe Haval does. As it is not the information one would normally hand a clothier, we must assume that Jarven knows something we don’t.”

  “Perhaps he is aware of the role I now play as Jewel’s adviser.” It pained Haval to say this.

  Finch met his gaze and held it for a long moment. “That makes sense, given Jarven.”

  Haval nodded.

  “But, given Jarven, it makes too much sense.”

  “My dear,” Haval told her, “it is a small marvel to me that you are trapped in the Merchant Authority. You are, of course, correct. There is some history between Jarven and me, and it is complex, and better left entirely unspoken. I understand why he approached me with information about Gabriel’s personal accounts—and no, Jewel, Jarven does not consider Gabriel the hand behind the assassin. He is, however, a cautious man; he allows for the possibility.”

  “I don’t,” Jewel rather predictably said, tightening her grip on the armrests.

  “Understood. I would have more to say about this, but if you have accepted Gabriel’s hasty retirement, you understand the political cost, regardless.”

  She said nothing. He judged the whole of the day in her pinched expression. She was not—yet—at her limit, but she now trod the edge of it. Exhausted, she lacked rudimentary caution, and the subtlety that the political arena required quickly passed beyond her. “If you wish it,” he said quietly, “I will speak with Jarven.”

  But Finch rose. “No, Haval.”

  He raised a brow.

  “I will speak with Jarven.” She paused, her expression shifting into almost open anxiety. “Jay? That’s all right?”

  Jewel hesitated again, and then nodded. “I’d rather he speak to Haval, but I don’t think he’ll give Haval much.”

  “I am not incap
able of—”

  “You’ll notice things. He’ll notice things. I think there’s a better chance that he’ll actually talk to Finch.”

  Haval raised a brow, considered it, and nodded. “I concur. If we are done, I must return to Hannerle, and I believe you must return to your office.” He rose, lost for a moment in thought as he considered Jarven clearly. The situation troubled him. Jarven delighted in being an annoyance—especially to Haval; he always had. But the House Council? That was more than just a stage for annoyance.

  What game, he thought, as he left both tea and the great room. What game are you playing, Jarven? He sensed a web, a net, something that Jarven was spinning in his deplorably gleeful way, and he could not tell if it was the acceptance or the refusal that would trigger its fall. Jewel saw the House, of course, and she did not trust Jarven—showing an unusually canny perception, for Jewel. But Haval was not certain that Jarven now aimed for the House.

  He did not desire to play a game of chess with Jarven when he himself had the lesser familiarity with the board and its pieces.

  And that, he thought, his hand on the door that led to Hannerle’s room, was a half-truth. Or half a lie, and only a fool lied to himself. Some part of his mind was waking after decades of forced sleep, and the prospect of facing Jarven, and emerging triumphant, was compelling.

  Chapter Five

  WHEN JEWEL EMERGED from the great room, she ran into Angel, and staggered backward. Angel, arms folded, didn’t move. He looked down at her for a long moment, his spire of hair tilted in the direction of her face.

  Finch sidestepped them both, which took dexterity given they were almost standing in the door’s frame. She signed both hello and good-bye to Angel; he dipped chin in acknowledgment as she brushed past and headed out of the Wing.

  “I’m alive,” Jewel told Angel.

  He nodded. “The demon?”

  “Come with me. I have to go back to the office, or Teller will be lynched.”

  He looked at her, his brows creasing. “Teller?”

  “Long story. Well, short story, long explanation.”

  He fell in to her right, stopped as he realized that nothing large, winged, and spiteful was attempting to trip him, shoulder him into a lesser position, or crush his toes, and asked, “Where’s Snow?”

  “Gods alone know. I’ll fill you in on that part, too.”

  * * *

  The first thing they saw as they drew close to the office was Rymark ATerafin.

  He was waiting outside of the office doors, which was unusual. Members of the House who lived in the manse—and all of the House Council had that right—generally retreated to their own quarters when required to wait to speak with The Terafin. There were no chairs in the hall; there were chairs in the waiting room, and Rymark clearly hadn’t chosen to avail himself of any of them. This simple fact made clear to Jewel that the waiting room itself would be heavily occupied.

  She did not want to speak with Rymark in the open acoustics of the hall. If she were honest, she didn’t want to speak to him at all. Avandar, to her left, tensed slightly; the Chosen moved to stand between Rymark and their Lord. They were not required to be subtle, and today, they were not.

  “Rymark,” she said, offering him a stiff nod. She was certain—they were all certain—that Rymark ATerafin was responsible for at least one of the assassins; Jewel privately thought he was responsible for the fake House Guards as well. She was also certain that he had cost her the guidance and the company of Gabriel—and as that loss was immediate and fresh, her anger—at Rymark, at the games she was forced to play to preserve the House, was visceral. It was not a good time to be ambushed in the halls; not by Rymark.

  “Terafin,” he replied. His usual arrogance was, for the moment, hidden; he was pale, his expression tight.

  She lifted her chin, schooling her expression, and remembering—of all things—some of Haval’s earliest advice. She was angry at losing—at having to lose—Gabriel. And it hurt her. She drew on that, allowing it to fill her expression. She wasn’t certain what Rymark saw, but she didn’t care. “You’ve spoken with Gabriel,” she said quietly.

  “I spoke only briefly with the former right-kin.” Not his father, of course. The former right-kin. “I had hoped, of course, to speak with you in some privacy; the events of today seem to have destroyed that possibility.”

  “Given the events that occurred in the Common, I see little hope of that in the next few days. Please accept my apologies in advance. The Ten meet in Avantari on the morrow, and the office of the right-kin is in transition. If I were not certain to receive both messages and visitors that the House cannot safely dismiss, I would retreat from the office and call upon the House Council. That luxury at the moment is not given to any member of this House.”

  Rymark bowed. Before Jewel could pass him—and it would have been hard, as the Chosen hadn’t budged an inch—he rose. “I wish to speak with you at your earliest convenience, Terafin. I have much to say.”

  If he offered to turn evidence against his father in the House Council, Jewel would kill him herself. Or, worse—far worse in some ways—she would allow him to be killed. She would allow it to be arranged. She’d even ask that it be done. The grief at losing Gabriel faltered at the sudden incandescence of her rage; her hands, hanging loosely by her sides, stiffened. For a full three breaths, she found no reply to tender, because speaking—at all—would have alerted any occupants of the waiting room behind the closed doors of her utter loss of control.

  “Make an appointment,” she finally managed to say.

  He stepped back. “The information,” he said, his voice still soft, his posture still shorn of the edge of arrogance, “involves the Shining Court.”

  Before she could reply, he turned and left, and she let him go because the enormity of his statement left no room for thought. When thought returned, she was once again in a hall that was empty of anyone save herself, her domicis, and the Chosen. And Angel, who had watched Rymark’s back until a corner carried it completely out of sight.

  Avandar, he said the Shining Court, didn’t he?

  He did.

  Her hands curled in fists, she approached the office doors. Avandar opened them for her, and she entered.

  * * *

  The waiting room was not as crowded as she had expected, given Rymark’s appearance in the hall. It was not, however, empty. Three Priests, in the robes worn by the most senior members of the Cathedral of the Triumvirate on the Isle, were seated. They had no attendants, and given the colors of their robes, this was unusual. Two men and one woman rose as she entered. She offered them a deep bow. They had eyes of brown—brown and blue. They were not god-born. But they served the Exalted directly.

  Torvan had said that among the casualties inflicted by the Kialli before his sudden flight, there had been Priests. She therefore approached the Priests seated in waiting with quiet, but obvious respect. She didn’t really love the Priests, and she didn’t understand the varied layers of the hierarchies of the Cathedrals on the Isle—or off the Isle, if it came to that—but in this case, that understanding wasn’t necessary. If Priests had been injured—if Priests had, as Torvan reported, died at the hands of the demon lord—they suffered the loss of a colleague, and quite likely a friend.

  It was a loss she understood, but could not directly address, not yet. She bowed, instead. A bow was not a strict necessity, but she made it serve in the place of the words she could not, without a formal report, utter. The Priests rose as she did. They did not wear robes of uniform color; nor did they wear the usual dress robes seen on the customary official visits. One wore robes of earthen brown, one wore robes of neutral gray, and one wore robes the color of rust.

  It was the man in earthen brown who spoke. “Terafin.” He bowed, just as she had done. He was not a young man; she thought him perhaps Gabriel’s age. The symbol of the Mother hung from a thick chain around his neck, falling across the robes just beneath his collarbones. There, in gold, wheat
lay across two open palms. They were the same open palms that, empty, designated the bearer a member of the Houses of Healing, a reminder of the Mother’s mercy. “I have been sent at the behest of the Exalted of the Mother.”

  Jewel nodded. “Will you join me in my office?”

  “It is not necessary, Terafin. I am to convey a message, and I am to wait for your reply.”

  She glanced at the silent Priests who stood behind him now, like points of a triangle. “Do you also carry messages from the Exalted?” They nodded. “The same message?”

  “Yes, Terafin. Your presence is requested in the Hall of Wise Counsel on the morrow.”

  “After the meeting with The Ten in the Hall of The Ten?”

  “Yes.”

  She felt the tension ease from her shoulders. “I am not certain how long the Council meeting will last. There is much indeed to be discussed there, and I imagine many questions to at least be asked. Perhaps the day after?”

  Silence, which she’d expected. She had no objections at all to the request, and none to the day; if the meeting of the Council proved too fractious—and at this point, she couldn’t see how it wouldn’t—the Exalted provided a respectable excuse to vacate the premises if she felt a need to retreat. But she chose to be careful about conveying any gratitude to what was, in essence, a demand.

  “Very well. I cannot vouchsafe the hour of my arrival, but if that is acceptable to the Exalted, I will meet with them at their request on their chosen day. Will the Kings also be in attendance?”

  “They will.”

  She bowed again, and the three weary Priests immediately retreated.

  Which left only a handful of people in the waiting room. One of them was Haerrad. She wondered, idly, what he had said to Teller to be granted the audience Teller had so clearly denied Rymark. The thought set her teeth on edge, but Haerrad was not a proponent of friendly or accessible rulers, and hostility—if it was veiled—was unlikely to cause him any difficulty at all.

  “Haerrad,” she said, inclining her head. She turned toward her office, and he rose to follow her. Avandar interposed himself between Haerrad and Jewel’s back, an action which was unlikely to be lost on the House Councillor Jewel most wanted to see as a corpse. It was, however, unlikely to be resented. Haerrad appeared to like the fact that most people thought he was a murderous bastard. Their fear—expressed as caution—made him feel secure in his position.