Her laughter interrupted him. “I have all the freedom I require, Gregory, I assure you. As for happiness, why, only a fool expects that from marriage. I have something a good deal better, as do you.”
“And that is?”
“Position,” she said, and began grating the chocolate: superb stuff, a gift from Ahchuleb Balam. “But to answer your question, no, I do not prepare chocolate for the duke.” Or much of anything else these days, she thought with a bitterness that surprised her.
“Then I am fortunate, indeed,” he said, flushing with pleasure, “to receive such a mark of favor from your hands.”
She did not bother to inform him that it was for her own sake, not his, that she was teaching herself to become adept in the preparation of chocolate in the traditional way of the Kinwiinik. Months ago, when she had been a guest in the Balams’ house, she had taken particular care to observe the preparation of the chocolate that had been served to her. Such knowledge, she’d reasoned, might be turned to her advantage. In that meeting, she had been briefly wrong-footed by the fiery effects of the brew; that was a negotiating tactic she meant to adopt, even as she habituated herself to the potent mix of chili, corn, and allspice that the Kinwiinik themselves preferred, or so Ahchuleb had assured her. She would not be taken unawares again. She insisted upon preparing the drink herself, scorning the assistance of a maid, first because she found the ritual soothing, a means of focusing her thoughts, and second because she did not wish anyone else in her household to learn it.
“Are you certain you will not give the chili another try?” she asked, glancing up at him.
“My dear,” he said, the flush on his clean-shaven cheeks taking on a rather different hue, “that is one experience you have given me that I do not care to repeat. I will stick with my usual sugar and cream.”
“I thought you might,” she said as she added these final ingredients and handed the porcelain cup to Lord Davenant, who took it gingerly, as though the thorns painted upon its sides with such realistic flair might actually draw blood.
“You always ask me nevertheless,” he said, and sipped. “Why is that?”
“Because one day you may surprise me.”
“You like surprises, don’t you?” he said with a grin.
“That depends,” she answered, and sipped from her own cup. In truth, she had come to enjoy the flavorful heat of the spices . . . and even more the chilly exercise of willpower that kept all evidence of that heat from her voice and expression, though as yet she’d been unable entirely to banish a faint sheen of sweat from her brow.
“Depends on what?”
“On who is doing the surprising.”
“Perhaps I will surprise you now,” he said coyly. “Throw you down and ravish you. Would you like that?”
“Try it and find out,” she said, with no more expression to her voice or features than had been evident after her first sip of chocolate.
Lord Davenant assayed a smile; one side of his mouth complied. He raised the cup to his lips, drained it, and licked away the thin band of chocolate. “Another time,” he said, setting the cup down upon the table. “As you said, it is late.”
“Indeed.”
As quickly as that, something shifted between them. She saw him out of the room as warmly as ever, but now she was not at all certain that she cared to serve him chocolate again. Or anything else, for that matter. The man was so predictable. He was already starting to bore her. He had none of William’s imagination. None of his quickness of mind, his variety of interests. But she still needed the Dragon Chancellor. It was too soon to break things off. She must wait until the new tax situation had become established, so that the chancellor, spurned in love, could not revenge himself on her by reneging on his support for the deal. She must wait until she had the money in hand.
Diane sat at her desk and began drafting her letter to Ahchuleb of the Balams. Most of it she had already composed during her time with Lord Davenant. She had only to decide whether to introduce some allusion to the liaison between the girl Ixkaab and the Riverside forger known as Tess the Hand. The information had come to her from her swordsman Reynald—who, she reflected, was also in need of a reminder that theirs was not a partnership of equals.
That was the problem with employing such men. Swordsman, chancellor, or duke, sooner or later they always forgot their place.
The Balam girl was an interesting person. She had first come to Diane’s notice acting the part of a servant in the Balam household; honestly, it was only because the girl had prepared chocolate for her that Diane had noticed her at all. But then Diane had learned that the girl was Ixsaabim’s niece, recently arrived from across the sea. Whispers of a scandal had reached her ears, enough to convince her that Ixkaab Balam was not the innocent, enthusiastic young woman she appeared to be.
First, Kaab had cultivated the friendship of Rafe Fenton, the ambitious son of a powerful merchant family who had wormed his way into her husband’s employ . . . and into his bed. Further, Kaab had sought out the friendship—and, if Reynald was to be believed, the embraces—of the Riverside forger, while taking lessons in swordplay from Vincent Applethorpe, a man whose skills with a blade Reynald had described as “formidable”—high praise indeed coming from a man whose opinion of himself brooked no rivals.
Taken together, these actions struck Diane as purposeful, threads in a web whose overall shape was not yet clear. What was clear, though, was that the Trader girl was playing a part, or rather a succession of parts. This was something Diane understood very well and respected. Here was a worthwhile adversary, not to be underestimated.
Ixkaab’s ultimate purpose might be hidden, but her actions touched too closely upon the affairs of Tremontaine to be coincidence. The question was, how much did the girl know? One heard she was also asking at the back doors of certain noble houses about their masters’ relations with a certain Riverside pretty-boy, lately deceased. And that was where things got tricky, because while the agreement with the Balams had solved Diane’s money problems, it hadn’t eliminated the other danger, the one to her position. On the contrary. There were worse things than bankruptcy in the world.
What made information valuable was not what one knew but rather how one used what one knew. This was a truth that Diane had lived and thrived by. But it could also bring her down. The knowledge she possessed about Ixkaab and Tess was a minor scandal at best. Still, properly prepared for and skillfully placed, a hint that it was Tess’s forger’s skills, and not mere carnal pleasures, that had brought Tess to the attention of the Balam girl might be a useful card to play should the Balams forget their place.
But not, she decided, just yet. Better to leave the matter in Reynald’s hands for now. He had instructions to do nothing but report. She would watch and wait. And then, when the time was ripe, strike.
Diane smiled, flexing her slender fingers with their sleek nails against the creamy white paper on which she had been writing. The duke called this room her bower, her gentle falcon’s nest. Poor William. He mistook her in that as in so many things. He was a man given to deep thoughts, and too easily satisfied with what he saw on the surface, so in love with his own depths that it did not normally occur to him to look below the surface of others.
Indeed, what were others to him, really, but mirrors that reflected his own fascinating depths? How else, she thought, to explain his dalliance with the Fenton creature? What was it William embraced with such fervent passion that his groans pierced the thickest walls of the house, causing the servants to look at her—her!—with shame and pity in their eyes, but his own distorted reflection?
But of course Rafe was no mere reflection. He was, loath as she was to admit it, an intelligent, oh-so-ambitious young man. His influence over her husband was strong and growing stronger. It was not William’s body that Diane begrudged the boy; it was not even his heart.
It was his will, which had always been hers to command. She would not give that up without a fight. Not now, when sh
e had come so far, accomplished so much. Indeed, she would not.
She sealed the letter and rang the bell to summon Lucinda, instructing her to have it delivered to the Balam residence by the usual means. Then she dressed and went down to dinner.
She waited for some time for William to join her but finally began without him.
Episode Ten:
Shadowroot
Joel Derfner
From the manuscript of the Almanack of Poisones, by Eamon Malfois
Umbraradix: Alſo yclept ye Shadowroot. He who falleth under the Spell of this Elixir ſeeth not what Others ſee, heareth not what Others hear, butt liueth in a Lande of his owne ſhaping, compaſs’d rounde by wicked Men and terrible Beaſtes, nor can he diſtinguiſh Time longe paſs’d from Time that paſſeth from Time yet to come. I haue witneſs’d a Man in ye Thrall of ye Shadowroot come to belieue his Wyfe & Sons meant to do him a Miſchief, & thereafter did ſhun them as ye Southren Lande ſhunneth ye Northren, leſt they deſtroy him utterlie. Ye ſingle Grace offer’d by Fate and ye Gods is that ye Madneſs endureth onlie when ye Poiſone bee drunk conſtantly, for within a Spanne of ſome Weekes ye Man who ceaſeth to conſume it beginneth a Return unto Health. Ye fouleſt & moſt rare Poiſon, Thanks bee unto ye good Gods, elſe ye Lande w’d ſurely haue periſh’d long before this daye.
Tess was never more beautiful than when she slept, nor her sunset-colored hair brighter in its thick braid, running sinuously over her right shoulder before entangling itself in the bedsheet that lay bunched and casual over her and left one beautiful, pale breast exposed to the dawning light.
The morning sun left half of Kaab’s face in shadow as she sat in a chair west of the bed, and she smiled. Not so many hours earlier, after all, she had found reason to concern herself particularly with that breast, along with its twin, and the results of her attention had been quite satisfactory, or even—well, perhaps best to leave it at “quite satisfactory.” If tended, the warmth in her belly would tempt her to wake her lover from her slumber.
Not that that slumber was particularly restful at the moment. Tess twitched on the bed, muttering incomprehensibly. Her sleep had been troubled for some time, her head-spirit wandering farther and farther through realms invisible to the waking, but for the last three days that trouble had been growing worse; she seemed to spend more time shivering and squirming as she lay unconscious than she spent still, as if she could wriggle her way out of the grasp of whatever danger lurked in her dreams.
Tess’s breath came more quickly now, shallower, her muttering louder, with an undertone of frustrated protest. Impatient. She rolled onto her side, one rounded arm dangling from the bed, the other wrapping itself in the bunched bedclothes, her hand clutching and releasing, clutching and releasing, unable to catch hold of its elusive prey.
Kaab moved back in the chair, drew her legs to her chest, put her arms around them, and squeezed to keep herself from intervening. The one time she had been unable to bear it and woken her, Tess had opened her eyes with a gasp, and it had taken many terrifying breaths for her head-spirit to return from the house of dreams. But when Kaab finally asked her what monsters, human or otherwise, had pursued her in that house, Tess remembered nothing—or so she claimed.
Kaab’s lips pressed together, and her head turned of its own volition toward the west, and her homeland, and Tultenco—toward the havoc her inability to control her liver had wreaked there, and the lives lost. Ixchel, she begged, do not let me bring Tess to the same end as Citlali. Allow this story to conclude more happily.
A low moan drew her attention back east. Her lover was thrashing now, dampening the bedclothes with sweat. Kaab’s teeth pressed hard into her lower lip. She was a woman of action, and she could do nothing here but wait until—
Tess screamed and her eyes flew open. “No surprise she had it in her!” she gasped.
Kaab knelt beside the bed as her lover lifted herself onto her elbows, panting, her full breasts rising and falling in sharp spasms with her breath. As the fear slowly drained from her face, her breathing steadied.
“No surprise who had what in her?” Kaab asked, as gently as she could. Tess lifted the corner of her upper lip; her eyes shone with perplexity. “What do the words mean, my maize flower? Of what did you dream?”
Tess pressed her hands together. “Buggered if I know.”
Words too easily spoken, too quickly. Kaab harrumphed. “Buggery is out of the question,” she said, “if you continue to keep from me what is frightening you.”
Tess grunted and turned a look toward the ceiling in a gesture equal parts frustration and pleading. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything.”
“That is not true.”
“Can we just say it’s true and forget about it? It was frightening enough to see without having to talk about it.” She turned her glorious neck until she was staring into Kaab’s eyes. A plea, and an invitation.
Kaab stepped to the bed and sat down, finally able to embrace Tess fiercely, to enfold her lover in the warmth of what protection she could offer, and nosed the crook of Tess’s neck. She spoke in her own tongue.
“Eyes by day, dreams by night.”
Tess raised an eyebrow in challenge.
“Try, my maize flower. You know at least some of the words.”
“Fine,” Tess snapped. She identified, petulantly, the words for “day” and “night.” Her eyes narrowed. “The rest of it is gibberish.”
A sharp retort rose to Kaab’s lips, and she held her breath for a moment to keep from releasing it. Her language was a part of her, and she hated it when Tess deliberately provoked her by refusing even to try to understand. Finally, softly, she said, “It is a saying of my people. Just because the gods do not tell us in words how to live our lives in their honor does not mean that they do not instruct us at all. They gave us eyes with which to guide ourselves during the day, upright and strong. At night, however, when our eyes are of no use to us, the gods do not abandon us. They send us dreams by which we can find the proper path forward. To disregard the messages in dreams is to dishonor the gods and our ancestors.”
Tess hunched her shoulder. “Screw the gods and screw your ancestors! I’m not talking about this.”
This was enough to drive Kaab out of bed. “Say that again, and I will—” But here she broke off, for she found she could not imagine harming the beautiful woman in front of her, the woman in whose ample flesh she had found such comfort in this cold, cold land so far from her home.
“I’m sorry,” said Tess in a small voice. “I didn’t mean that. Your ancestors are in you, and your gods are in them.” The rich lips curved. “But there’s only one of you I’m interested in screwing.” It was enough. Kaab returned to her lover’s side. “It’s just—”
Tess gave a sigh of frustration. “By the Seven Hells, Kaab, if you understood how frightened I am when I see him . . .”
Kaab took Tess’s hands, squeezed tight. “Tell me,” she said, “and I vow by Xamanek’s light that I will allow you to come to no harm.”
A deep breath. “It’s Ben,” Tess said. Kaab squeezed harder, nodded encouragement. “He’s leaning against that wall there, drunk, dangling that damn locket from his hand. He’s wearing the jacket he died in, the green-and-red-striped one, but there’s blood spreading over the front of it, and every second that passes there’s less green and more red. He says, ‘We’re going to be rich, Tessie.’ And I ask him how. And he says, ‘No surprise she had it in her.’ And I ask him what he means, and then he grins, this awful rictus, and by now his jacket is completely soaked in blood, and then I look down and there’s blood beginning to spread on my nightgown, and I start screaming.” Tess finally opened her eyes, brown as a rich field awaiting seed. “And that’s when I wake up.”
Kaab considered this for a moment in silence. “What does it mean?”
“I really don’t know, sweetheart. He said both those things the night before he died. He told me we were going to be rich, and I asked how, and at fi
rst he wouldn’t answer, but then, just before he went out, he said it was ‘no surprise she had it in her.’ I didn’t know what he meant then, and I don’t know now.” She turned to Kaab, her eyes bright with fear. “And I don’t want to!”
Kaab held her close. “You have no need to.” Her hand moved slowly over Tess’s hair, crown to neck, crown to neck, soothing, calming, just as Ixmoe had done when Kaab had awoken from nightmares as a child. Her voice gained a grim edge. “But I do. For the sake of my family.” She felt Tess shudder in her arms. “Fear not, my flower. My investigation will not touch you.”
“I can live with that.” Tess nestled close. “As long as other things touch me.”
A pause. “What other things might you be referring to?”
Longer. “I think you already know the answer to that.” A hand on Kaab’s back. Kaab’s own hands, moving across an expanse of smoothest skin. She bent her lips to Tess’s neck and received for her trouble a low hum.
Kaab sat up, offering herself. A reach, a sigh, fingers on arms, on bellies, on breasts. Earlobes nipped, tendons taut, eyes fluttering, and now they’re lying down, their legs entangled, arms searching, toes pointing, a tongue, the taste of salt, of saliva, of salt again, of paint, ink. Fingernails digging into a wide back, soft groans, the smell of sweat and yesterday’s perfume, oh gods, the air is sweet, pale skin the color of the finest, most delicious festival ant eggs, her own brown flesh, inhale, a gasp, a breath held.
“I believe,” said Kaab breathlessly, “that you are correct.”
And then she found a use for her tongue far more interesting than speech.
Silk.
The chocolate trickling down her throat, the blue porcelain cup that had contained it until moments before, the counterpane: all smooth as silk. Diane replaced the cup on her breakfast tray precisely. She had come to prefer the blend of spices with which the Traders turned the drink to fire, but it would not do to lose entirely her taste for the gentler flavor consumed by those on the Hill.
Tremontaine Season 1 Saga Omnibus Page 41
