by Kyra Halland
She sat down at the fancy little writing desk in the room, which held a stack of thick paper with the name of the hotel printed on it in raised blue letters, along with a wooden pen carved to look like a real quill and a pot of ink. She took a sheet of the paper, inked the pen, and thought about what to say to make a good impression.
Carefully, in her very best hand, she wrote, Respectful greetings to the Venedias family. She had seen the name “Venedias” on those paintings at the Mardavian Islands Historical and Cultural Institute, so she knew she had the spelling right. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lainie Banfrey Vendine. I am the wife of Siyavas Venedias, who is also known as Silas Vendine. He is in a very difficult situation at this time, and I need your help. Please reply to this message, care of the Bayview Hotel, if there is a convenient time for me to come see you. Respectfully Yrs, Lainie Banfrey Vendine.
She folded the letter, wrote Venedias Family on the front, and sealed it with the wax and seal on the desk. She had no idea of the address, but maybe whoever delivered mail in the city would know where a letter to such an important family should go. From the little Silas had told her about his family, she knew they had several homes all over Granadaia; they might not even be in the city right now. But she didn’t have any other ideas. She took the letter downstairs, where, in answer to her question, the clerk assured her that the messenger service the hotel used would know where the letter should be delivered.
She left the letter and money for the delivery, and tried to resign herself to waiting, once again, for an answer. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait too long; she was pretty sure the Hidden Council wouldn’t kill Silas, but her grandmother had shown herself to be extremely dangerous and ruthless. And even if they didn’t kill Silas, every moment that went by was another moment that he was suffering.
To pass the time and make good use of it, Lainie returned to the reading lounge. This time, she positioned herself facing the door so no one could sneak up on her. She spent the rest of the afternoon combing through the several days’ worth of newspapers lying on the tables, looking for any mention of Elspetya Lorentius. Finally, she found a short item: Madam Lorentius had been a guest at a recent dinner party – the night before Lainie had met her, in fact – at the home of a famous singer. The names of the other guests and of the hostess didn’t mean anything to Lainie. The only thing she could tell was that they didn’t look like Island names.
Some blank notepaper lay on one of the tables, and a couple of pencils; Lainie copied down the names of the guests and the hostess from the article. The newspaper, the Monitor, also had a notice in it saying that previous issues going back two years could be viewed at its offices. She wrote down the address, but, for now, she didn’t want to leave the hotel and risk missing a reply from the Venedias family, should one come.
Finally, her eyes couldn’t focus on the small print in the newspapers any more, and she felt cramped and smothered from being stuck indoors for too long. She exercised Abenar and Mala again, then went back up to the rooftop garden, where she looked out over the city, pacing restlessly. Through the afternoon, she returned to the front desk about a dozen times to ask if a reply to her message had come yet, and fretted over whether the Venedias family would be willing to meet with her, a young woman they had never heard of before. Would they reply to her message at all? Were they even in the city?
And anyway, what did she think they could do? Use their money and status to force her grandmother to let Silas go? From what she knew, the Venediases were at the top of Granadaian mage society, with maybe only one or two families equal to or a little higher than them in wealth and influence. But Elspetya Lorentius had money and power on her side, too. Her clothes and jewels screamed of wealth, and then there was her connection on the Mage Council, and the people who had helped provide Carden with huge sums of money to collect the Sh’kimech ore, and the powerful people behind the breeding project, all on her side.
In any case, Madam Lorentius didn’t strike Lainie as being the kind of person who would back down from anyone, no matter how rich and important they were. In fact, coming from a poor, Plain background like she did, she was probably determined to prove that she was just as good as, or even better than, any high-born mage. She certainly thought highly enough of herself to challenge the Mage Council’s authority and think she could rule the Wildings.
That night, Lainie had to force herself to stay in bed and not keep going down to the front desk to ask yet again if there was a message for her. Nothing would come in the middle of the night, she told herself firmly. She would wait three days for a reply from the Venediases; in the meantime, she would continue her investigation into her grandmother’s connections and history. To distract herself from her jumbled thoughts, she read one of her penny-thriller novels out loud to Silas’s hat the way she used to read to Silas, until finally the book and her eyelids grew too heavy and she fell asleep.
In the morning, as soon as she awoke, she threw on her clothes and hurried downstairs. The first mail delivery of the day had not yet come, the desk clerk informed her with an air of exaggerated patience. Dreading the long day of waiting that loomed ahead, she turned away to go eat breakfast.
At that moment, a young man in a red uniform trimmed with white came into the lobby. “Morning delivery,” he said as he set a packet of folded letters on the desk.
Lainie spun around. “Is there something for Mrs. Lainie Vendine?”
“I’m afraid not, madam,” the clerk said, sorting through the letters. “Ah – but here’s something for Miss Lainie Banfrey.”
Lainie’s heart jumped in her chest. “That’s me.” She snatched the folded piece of thick, cream-colored paper from the clerk’s hand and ran upstairs.
In her room, she looked at the sender’s address on the note. It read, Lady Terezina Venedias, No. Four, Cavarzia Square. The “Miss” and “Banfrey” on it didn’t look promising; it looked like Silas’s family was refusing to acknowledge her marriage to him. But at least they had sent her a reply. Hands shaking and heart pounding, she cracked the wax seal and unfolded the note. It was a single sentence, written in an elegant hand.
Miss Lainie Banfrey will present herself at the Venedias residence in Cavarzia Square tomorrow, Provider’s Day, halfway through the second quarter.
Well. That didn’t sound too friendly, but at least they were willing to see her. Maybe something would come of this, after all. She set the note aside and went back down to the reading lounge to see what she could learn from the newspapers about the people her grandmother had dined with at the famous singer’s house.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, a knock on the door pulled Lainie out of dreams of Silas being shot and captured. “It’s the first quarter, madam!” a maid’s voice called out from behind the door.
Lainie sat up, her head foggy from poor sleep and the bad dreams. Although she hadn’t been in the habit of sleeping late, or sleeping much at all, for that matter, since she arrived in Sandostra, she had left instructions for someone to wake her right at sunrise, the start of the first quarter of the day. “Thank you!” she called back in response.
She had about four and a half hours, give or take a little, before she was supposed to be at the Venedias house, sufficient time to get ready but also an endless time to spend worrying about what they would say to her and whether or not they would be willing to help her. She got up and pulled her clothes on, then went downstairs and forced as much breakfast as she could into her nervously dancing stomach.
Back in her room, she poured a hot bath, washed her hair, and scrubbed herself pink, fit to go meet her in-laws. She put on the clothes she’d worn for the dance, figuring those would make a better impression on Silas’s family than her usual cowhand’s shirt and pants. The laces on the stays were easy enough to manage by herself, but she couldn’t get all the buttons done up the back of the dress, so she pulled the bell pull that would summon a maid. The maid who answered the bell, a kindly midd
le-aged woman, did up the buttons and also pinned Lainie’s braid in a coil on the back of her head.
The maid left with a gilding tip, then Lainie looked at the blue shoes that went with the dress, trying to decide whether or not to wear them. Boots just wouldn’t look right with the dress, and the heels on the shoes were only a little higher than her boot heels. The shoes shouldn’t be too hard to run in, she decided. If she had to, she could always kick them off.
Next, she picked up her gunbelt. She didn’t like the idea of going out without her gun, but the gunbelt wouldn’t go with the dress, either. After some thought, she put her gun and plenty of extra ammunition in the pocket of her rose-dyed duster, along with a good amount of money. The day was chilly, with low gray clouds coming in off the bay, which gave her a good excuse to wear a coat. Her hat she left on the bed next to Silas’s.
She didn’t know how long it would take her to get to the Venedias house, so at the beginning of the second quarter, allowing a good hour and more for the trip, she waved down a carriage in front of the hotel. “Number Four, Cavarzia Square, please,” she said, and showed the driver the note.
“Yes, madam,” he said with a touch of awe in his voice.
The carriage followed a winding route through the stone-paved streets, heading west and south. Beyond the packed and bustling central part of the city, the streets got cleaner and less crowded, and the houses got bigger and fancier. Then they were in a wooded area that hardly even seemed to be part of the city. Big plots of land, thick with trees, were enclosed by stone walls topped with fancy wrought iron, which itself was topped with sharp spikes. The houses that must sit on those plots of land weren’t visible from the street.
The carriage went further back along a street that wound higher up into the hills, then stopped at a closed gate with an elaborate wrought-iron sign that said Cavarzia Square. The street continued beyond the gate and ended in a wide circle with a garden in the center. Large, elegant houses three and four stories tall stood around the paved circle. A man in a blue uniform came out from the gatehouse and walked over to the carriage. “Your business, madam?” he asked in a snooty voice, just like all the other Plains Lainie had come across who were employed in important positions by mages.
“I’m calling on the Venedias family,” she said, putting every shred of mage-like arrogance she could muster up into her words. She showed him the note from Lady Terezina Venedias, making sure he also saw her mage ring.
The guard looked at the note, lips pursed like he’d just eaten a handful of unripe berries, as if he didn’t approve of this Miss Lainie Banfrey person being invited into his Square. But he stepped back without comment and opened the gate.
The carriage drove up the street and part way around the circle at the end, and stopped at Number Four, the largest and grandest house on the Square. It looked too big to be a house; it should be a fancy hotel or a music hall or something. Lainie realized that her mouth was hanging open as she stared. Firmly, she closed it. She had known Silas’s family was rich, but she hadn’t really understood how rich until now, seeing this house, which was just one of many that they owned – and not even their main house, if she remembered right. And Silas had walked away from all this for a life of roughing it outdoors, hunting outlaws, and scrounging along from bounty to bounty. His beliefs and his freedom must have really meant a lot to him – and still did; she had to believe that. She had to believe that when she refused to join forces with Elspetya Lorentius, she had made the choice he would have wanted her to make.
The driver got out and helped Lainie down from the carriage. They never did that when she was wearing her usual clothes, but with the long skirt of her dress in the way she appreciated the help. “Would you like me to wait, madam?” he asked.
“Yes, please.” She fished in the pocket of her duster coat for a ten-gilding piece, and handed it to the driver. She knew she was throwing gildings around like dirt, but whatever she had to do to get through this, she’d do it. There was no chance of running out any time soon, and they didn’t need the money for anything else. Besides, she enjoyed the feeling of having enough money that she could be generous with it.
The driver touched the coin to the front of his cap and bowed. “Thank you, madam.”
Lainie took off her coat and folded it over her arm, smoothed out some wrinkles from her skirt, and straightened her shoulders. Whatever the Venediases thought of her, she was Silas’s wife, properly married to him before the gods and three witnesses, and a powerful mage in her own right. She had every right to be here, and to ask them to help their own kin. With her resolve somewhat strengthened, she took a deep breath and walked up the front steps to the grand double doors.
She knocked, and waited. Just when she was starting to wonder if she should knock again, a man opened the door. He was wearing a dark green suit with long tails on the jacket and knee breeches instead of trousers. “Yes?” he said in a voice just as snooty as the guard’s. If the servants greeted a mage this way, Lainie wondered how they treated their fellow Plains who came here. Most likely, the only Plains who ever came to this house, besides an occasional member of the old Plain nobility, were other servants and deliverymen, and they probably didn’t even come to the front door.
“I’m here to see Mr. and Mrs. Venedias.” Lainie handed him the note.
He read it, looking just as disapproving as the guard had. “Lord Venedias is not in residence at the moment, but Lady Venedias is expecting you.” He turned, and Lainie followed him into the house.
The large front room had white walls that were trimmed with gold and lined with mirrors in gilt-gold frames, and a shiny floor of different colors of smooth stone pieced together in patterns. Doors on the walls showed where other rooms were located, and a hallway opposite the front door led deeper into the house. A graceful, curving staircase rose to the next floor up. There wasn’t any furniture in this front room; apparently it was just for walking through on your way to somewhere else. It was all more grand and elegant than Lainie could take in, and it made her feel very small and shabby in comparison.
She was Silas’s wife, she reminded herself again; she was a Venedias, too, and the daughter of Burrett and Vera Banfrey, which itself was no small thing. She came from proud, strong stock who had just as much reason to hold their heads up high as any wealthy, highborn mage family. Keeping her shoulders straight and her chin up, she followed the servant to one of the doors off the front hall, that was standing part way open. “Miss Lainie Banfrey, my Lady,” the servant announced at the door.
“Thank you,” a woman’s voice said in a clipped Granadaian accent. It might have been a pleasant voice except that the tone was about as warm and friendly as ice. “Show her in, then leave us.”
The servant stepped aside and Lainie went into the room. This was a pretty room, done up in blue and white and gold, about the size of the front parlor, kitchen, and dining room in her Pa’s house. To her right stood a group of three chairs of white and gilt-gold wood cushioned in light blue, placed to form three sides of a square. On the center chair, facing Lainie, sat a woman dressed in a traditional Island gown made of a shimmering dark blue fabric lavishly decorated with black beads, embroidery, and lace. Jewels glittered at her ears, throat, and fingers, including an enormous dark blue gem on her left forefinger. Her rusty-black hair, the same color as Silas’s, cascaded in thick, shining waves down one shoulder nearly to her waist. Above her other ear, she wore a large white flower tucked into her hair. Her eyes and skin were also dark like Silas’s, and she was wearing cosmetics, not as much as the house ladies wore, that made their faces look painted on, but enough to make her natural beauty stand out. Her figure was matronly but firm and trim. She hardly looked old enough to be Silas’s mother, Lainie thought. Maybe she was an aunt or older sister.
“Come closer, girl,” Lady Venedias said in a cool, commanding tone.
Lainie walked towards her. Though the chairs on either side of Lady Venedias were empty, she did not i
nvite Lainie to sit. Closer in, Lainie could now see fine lines on the woman’s face, a few strands of white in her hair, and a bit of slack skin beneath her chin. Maybe she was in her early fifties; old enough to be Silas’s mother but not old enough to have another child several years older, the sister Silas had mentioned once, unless she had started very young.
“I wanted to see this person who claims to be married to that son of mine,” Lady Venedias said. She gave Lainie a slow, cool, assessing look up and down. Lainie’s cheeks burned; she felt even shabbier under that look, her pretty dress poor and plain compared to Lady Venedias’s elegance, but she forced herself to not look down or away.
“I find myself skeptical that Siyavas married you of his own free will,” Lady Venedias finally said. “You don’t look like the sort of girl for whom he would throw everything away.”
As when the boss mage in the Gap had said the same thing, Lainie assumed this was supposed to be an insult. But she didn’t have the time or the patience to stand there and be insulted. She sensed that showing weakness before this woman would get her chewed up and spit out; it was time to take the upper hand. “Whether you want to believe it or not, ma’am, Silas and I are legally and properly married, of his free will and mine, before the gods and three witnesses, though since we’re both of age, neither of us has to answer to you for it. Now, do you want to know why I wanted to see you, or not?” She held her breath, hoping that her guess was right and her forthright speech would pique Lady Venedias’s curiosity and win a small measure of respect instead of offending her.
“He’s in trouble, I know that much,” Lady Venedias said. “Well-deserved trouble, too. Failure to make proper disposition of an untrained person of talent, taking on a private student, and entering into an unauthorized marriage. Those are all very serious infractions. There was something, as well, about killing another mage hunter, but the men who undertake such a dangerous job should know that’s the risk they’re taking. We had hoped that when he went out there to the wilderness, he would finally purge himself of his rebelliousness. Instead, he has set himself entirely against the authority of the Mage Council. We will offer you no help with his troubles. He has brought them on himself, and we have no desire to taint our family name any further with his disgraceful behavior or to place ourselves in opposition to the Mage Council. You may tell him that for us, and add that I am further disgusted and disappointed that he would send a girl to speak on his behalf rather than having the stones to face me himself.”
